The Family Gamers Podcast

After some technical difficulties, we’re back, and talking about more games for you to play with your family. Tired of UNO and Life? We’ve got suggestions for some substitutes. This episode is sponsored by First Move Financial. What We’ve Been Playing We’re looking forward to Quests of Yore from The OP – based on the role playing game featured in the movie Onward. Abandon All Artichokes (from Gamewright) – it calls itself a “deck-wrecking” game. Strategically, you could win by stuffing your deck with non-artichoke cards and hope for a good draw, or by cycling through your (lean) deck quickly, eliminating artichokes ASAP. Zoo Year’s Eve (from XYZ Games) – bluff your animal cards into the “party” (a face-down discard deck). Some animals are easy to get in (ie. monkeys) but others won’t be allowed in unless they’re in disguise (ie. elephants)! Squire for Hire (from Letiman Games) – an ingenious “bag-building” (inventory management / tile laying) game with 18 cards. It plays either solo or two players. A new favorite date game! Check out the Kickstarter for “core set 2” – a new game that can be played by itself, or expand the first set to play with up to four players! (It’s only $9 – we’re definitely backing it!) Dungeon Drop (from Gamewright) – Play on a surface with some give, or use some sort of walls around your play area. You literally drop cubes onto your play surface! Skulk Hollow (from Pencil First Games) – We are big fans. Review coming soon. The asymmetry and the art are just perfect. Foodstirs Looking for something else to do while you’re stuck at home? Foodstirs makes junk-free baking kits for kids. We really enjoyed the one we tried with our kids, and you can subscribe to get kits every few months. We’ll be putting up a video soon of baking with our five-year-old. (He’s nuts!) Go to foodstirs.com and enter CODE: FAMILYGAMERS for 20% off! Giveaway Congratulations, “bn100”! You’ll be getting a copy of Animal Upon Animal. Our next giveaway, sponsored by First Move Financial, is Brandon the Brave. Enter now! Play This, Not That – Again! We got great responses from our first Play This, Not That segment. Instead of UNO… Let’s keep the number matching and colors, but add more strategy and community-building. Blank from HUB Games feels like UNO mashed up with a legacy game, with a little bit of Fluxx mixed in. Every game has “rule cards” (chosen at random) to change up the play. Over time, you’ll make the game your own creation, customizing both rule cards and regular cards. Interested? Read our full review of Blank. The customized nature of the game also makes it a great gift! Customize a few cards then give it to your friends.

Episode 187Games and Finance with First Move Financial Our guest today is Donnie Carpenter, who also happens to run First Move Financial. First Move Financial is our sponsor for The Family Gamers Podcast. You don’t need a lot of investments to come get financial advice! This seemed like the right time to have Donnie on the show, since the COVID-19 crisis means not only that families are spending more time together, but also that finances may be tight, even with the promised stimulus checks. But first, let’s talk about what we’ve been playing! What We’ve Been Playing Wingspan (on Tabletopia) – “we picked a game we all knew… at the halfway point, we all paused it…” (A good choice for parents playing games remotely!) Both Andrew and Anitra have gone back to using BoardGameArena. Trouble logging on? You can always log on with a premium membership – $24 for the year, or $4/month ongoing. If you’ve been playing games, check out our Family Gamers group – open to any member of BoardGameArena (premium or free). Adventure Games: The Dungeon – our kids got the same ending we did. We also had to remind them that no team member “dies”; instead your teammates have to share their hearts with you. (Our review) Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – maybe we’re really bad at it, but we’ve lost book 2 several times now. Crazy Tower – from Synapse Games / Luma. A polyomino tower-building game. Try to sabotage your opponents so the tower will fall on someone else’s turn. Tussie Mussie – from Button Shy. Want a copy and don’t want to wait for shipping? Find it on PNP Arcade and get a copy you can print yourself for $3! Mini Rails – from MoaIdeas (now available from Tasty Minstrel Games!) Abandon All Artichokes – from Gamewright. Deck de-construction. MetroX – also from Gamewright. Flip-and-write to build a metro-rail system. Tight restrictions and an interesting map. (Our older kids played a ton of Dice Throne.) The Grimm Forest – Druid City Games – not a great game to play with a five-year-old, but we did play according to the rules and had fun. Piratatak – from DJECO Star Wars Armada – from Fantasy Flight Games (this is an “upgradeable” game where you can buy new ships) Paranormal Detectives – from Lucky Duck Games SNAP Review – Fairy Season Nick and Izzy tell us about this creative trick-taking game. Stash the most fairies for your goblin chief to make a wicked fairy-dust brew! Find the transcript and more pictures in the SNAP review. Talking to Donnie About Finances So, by now you’ve heard about the stimulus bill that passed. 2 TRILLION DOLLARS – that’s 2 million millions!

Like many families around the world, we’ve been suddenly pushed into some kind of homeschooling with our kids. It’s a scary time, and it’s not made any easier by trying to juggle kids’ needs with working from home. But there is hope! We’re going to talk this week about things we can do to support our kids learning at home (mostly through games, of course!) But first, let us take a moment and thank First Move Financial for sponsoring The Family Gamers podcast. If you’re in an industry that may be hit by the current downturn, you may want to beef up your emergency fund. Specific investment advice is more case by case, but generally, try not to panic. If you need to have a quick chat to assuage your fears of the market reach out to First Move through the meeting link: firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers What We’ve Been Playing Animal Kingdoms from Galactic Raptor Games – an area control game with gorgeous art and randomized requirements. We’re really pleased that the dynamics feel the same at 2 players and at 3 players. We’ll see how it goes with more people. Kingdomino Duel – reviewed above. My First Stone Age – a really enjoyable game at any age. Memory plus set collection works very nicely. We discuss how much overlap there is between “real” Stone Age and My First Stone Age (not much). 5 Minute Marvel – a cooperative game based on 5 Minute Dungeon – but with Marvel heroes and villians! It’s timed but cooperative, and you’re not always dependent on the other players to keep moving forward. The flavor text and the details in the artwork are both fantastic. Everyone Loves a Parade – best at 3-4 players to balance out the uncertainty with the strategy. Catacombs of Karak (or just Karak) from Outset Media. “My first dungeon crawl”. Explore and create the map from tiles. Room tiles get a randomly-drawn “encounter” which could be treasure, but is usually an enemy. Roll dice to fight the enemy and if you beat them, you get a reward. We love that there’s very little reading required! (And we discuss our newfound love of two-layer player boards that hold tokens in place.) Keys to the Castle – also by Outset Media LOTS – a competitive game to cooperatively (?) build a tower. Sounds weird but it’s great. Kids of Carcassonne – feels like Carcassonne while being very simple. HEIST – so gimmicky, but fun. Suspend Jr. from Melissa & Doug – in the interest of getting the kids to stop arguing Sushi Roll from Gamewright – review coming soon. Mountains from HABA – competitive but not bloodthirsty. You have to cooperate to get ahead. SNAP Review: Kingdomino Duel Kingdomino Duel is a two-player dice drafting game that leans heavily on the scoring and drafting mechanics from Kingdomino. Read the transcript and see the pictures at the full SNAP review. Homeschooling, Supported by Boardgames We’ve talked about using board games in an educational context befor...

Our guest this week is Chris Goodlet. Chris runs “The Charity Boardgamer”. Thanks to First Move Financial for sponsoring this episode! What We’ve Been Playing Stop Thief from Restoration Games (2nd edition). Unfortunately, the new cooperative mode proved frustrating. Quarriors from WizKids. – by request! (It’s a precursor to Dice Masters.) Super Powered Smash Masters – as we mentioned last week. Nice and quick. One Week Ultimate Werewolf Sorcerer City – Chris says it’s “in my top 20”. Cryptid – Gather clues to figure out where the cryptid (legendary animal) is! Andrew says it feels pretty abstract. Bank Heist – coming very soon. Social deduction while robbing a bank! Pass items (cards) to each other until someone triggers the alarm. Tell us how The Charity Boardgamer started. Chris played a lot of boardgames as a kid, but not many later. A few years ago, he was invited to a church boardgame night, and immediately fell in love. A friend invited him to try Extra Life – play games (video games or boardgames) and raise money for Children’s Miracle Network. Have fun, doing something you enjoy, and make something good come from it. He did Extra Life for the first time in 2018, with a very low goal – which he blew out of the water. Then last year, Chris got more excited about finding ways to interact with both boardgames and charities. Starting in March 2019, he did “The Selfie Game Challenge Thingy” – and with each picture, he’d talk about a charity that’s near and dear to his heart. In 2019, Chris got to meet one of the kids that his Extra Life fundraising had helped. That helped him to see what good this is doing, and encouraged him to look for even more ways to reach out. What does The Charity Boardgamer do now? “Loving on everyone”, like his mother did. Bringing awareness through: family-focused reviews, charity interviews, and industry interviews. In the industry interviews, Chris always asks them about their favorite charity to promote. Tell us about your logo and the T-shirts you’re selling. Design by Stephanie Skyles (local to them in Charleston). The logo does a great job expressing connectedness with two different color hands and a ton of boardgame accessories. 60% of profits from the T-shirts go to charities, 40% goes to “giveaways” to get more eyes on those charities. Each month features a different charity. Find them on TeeSpring.com/stores/the-charity-boardgamer What if I want to get involved? What should I do? Start by talking to the charity you’re interested in. Get to know their needs and what they do! (Hint, Chris does this with his interviews to help people like us.) Find a location. Local locations don’t work for you? Livestream, or try a GoFundMe or Facebook fundraiser. The most important thing is to come together. And find your passion with a charity that motivates YOU! Where can people find you? thecharityboardgamer.com

Our cool math fact for the week: 252 – 212 = 184. Thanks to First Move Financial for sponsoring the podcast. Go to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers to set up a time to talk and see if First Move is right for you. If you’ve ever seen an Eat This, Not That book, we decided to riff on that idea with popular children’s games. This may become a recurring segment on the show – what do you think? What We’ve Been Playing Skulk Hollow – a great two player asymmetric game from Pencil First Games. The Foxen have an advantage due to greater numbers, but if you learn an appropriate strategy for a guardian, you may be able to pull off a win. Detective Club – a party game similar to Spyfall or Dixit – from Blue Orange. Mountains – a competitive mountain-hiking game from HABA. Like “Go Fish”, you cannot refuse a request for an item you have – but you’ll get a favor token whether or not you can help with the request. Pay close attention to the items other people have, as you’ll need their help to complete mountain hikes. “You want everyone to do well, you just want to do the best.” Kingdomino Duel – Anitra didn’t like this at first, because the rules aren’t well-stated. There’s more to keep track of than the original Kingdomino, and this is an even tighter game between the two players. Nice and compact for date night :) Review coming soon. Everyone Loves a Parade – from Calliope Games and Mike Mulvihill. There’s a lot going on for a relatively simple game. Frustrating at a high player count (we tried it at 5 players), but you lose the thematic “parade” feeling at 2 players. Wavelength – our new favorite party game. Dog name vs. Cat name: where would you put “Rex”? Boom, Bang, Gold! – see the SNAP review below. Super Powered Smash Masters – a game that’s new to us. A very simple dueling game from Dark Unicorn Games (there’s a lot of reading, but otherwise simple). Basically, superheroes punching each other – what’s not to like? For Science! The whole family went to Wendy’s for breakfast. Note: you can get the drive thru at 6:30am, but the dining room doesn’t open until 9 (oops!) – so we ordered our food to try and brought it back home. Between the whole family, we tried some standard breakfast sandwiches, the honey butter chicken biscuit, and the breakfast Baconator. All were pretty good, but the winner of the morning was the seasoned potatoes – crispy and delicious! This segment was not in any way sponsored or affiliated with Wendy’s. SNAP Review – Boom, Bang, Gold! Andrew, Anitra, and Elliot talk about this silly, fast-moving game of mining with dynamite from HABA. See the full SNAP review for a transcript and more pictures. Play This, Not That! At its core, this is our goal here at The Family Gamers. Listeners will already know that Anitra

This week, we are with Stephen Duetzmann and Linda Wrobel from Engaged Family Gaming. They attended New York Toy Fair 2020 – and brought Andrew along. What really stood out to the three of them? What We’ve Been Playing Stephen has been playing Dreams on PS4 – “the most important video game that has released this year.” Create games, experiences, movies. Create assets that other people can use. See some of the community’s creations on Twitter: #madeindreams Linda played Tsuro – a great intro game with parents of a 7-month-old. and also Metal – (from Lay Waste Games) – it’s basically tabletop lawn games. We digress into our Fire Tower stories: we’re looking forward to the Kickstarter for the expansion! Anitra and Asher played Panic Island – the fastest game we have! We tried it with the third (blue) tribe, which is significantly harder. Andrew and friends played Champion of the Wild at game night. Hot dog eating, cake decorating, and speed skating? Battle Sheep – such an accessible favorite! We love this with kids. SNAP Review – Astro Trash Nick and Izzy tell us about this speedy game of “decluttering”, with a little help from Jace. See the full review for a transcript and more pictures. NY Toy Fair 2020 Stephen confesses that he failed at his goal of “not overbooking” – but they made it work. Gamewright Qwixx – a new card-based version Shifting Stones – we saw this as Boston FIG and we’re all super excited for it. Abandon all Artichokes – a deck deconstruction game. Dungeon Drop – with Phase Shift. Stephen is particularly happy for this one, having followed Dungeon Drop since its early days. “It plays great in a pizza box” or a lid for a plastic tote. Super Impulse Super Impulse makes very tiny things. Lured us in with “World’s Smallest Magic:The Gathering deck”, but they also have tiny arcade cabinets. HABA Miyabi is gorgeous (and we have a review up today!) – suitable both for children and for strategy-minded gamers. Christmas themed Animal upon Animal is very cute. Mountains is also very pretty. Doodlematic This is a “mobile game maker” from Tink Digital. Draw a picture,

Did you know that 2020 is the year of the rat (or the mouse) in the Chinese 12-year zodiac cycle? We decide on our top 5 games featuring these rodents. Play a few with your kids to celebrate! What We’ve Been Playing We “gamed our faces off”: Quacks of Quedlinburg – a reminder that there’s a lot of luck involved in drawing from the bag. We really want the expansion to allow for a fifth player. Filler – barely fits on an airplane tray table. Handsome – a word-building game from Button Shy that feels a little bit like Texas Hold ‘Em. Your goal: Build a word that holds the majority in 3 different “suits” (all represented by neckwear). No vowels provided! Kingdomino Duel – a two player roll-and-write. Draft dice to create your “domino” and then write it in on your player sheet, following the usual Kingdomino style. Draftosaurus – cute dinosaur meeples win over (nearly) everybody! Similo – a huge hit. On this trip, we played a lot of the History set. PARKS – beautiful and very enjoyable. Ecos – we’re really enjoying it. To get the most out of this game, accept that you’re not going to know everything that is going on and efficiently min/max. Focus on your own abilities and how to best use them. Also, the hippos might be overpowered. LOTS – it took a while to get to us, but we have it, and we’re really enjoying it. Both LOTS and Ecos have the players build a common structure while competing against each other for points. The Game of Wolf – a trivia game for 4-12 people. Get a topic, then decide if you want to be a “lone wolf” or team up with a “pack”, before getting the questions. The rest of the players also answer the questions: they don’t get points, but they want to get more answers correct than the Wolf/pack. Just One – we figured out how to play this with a kid who’s not quite reading yet. Made for a fun family time at a restaurant. Century: Golem edition – because it’s a “grown-up” game that our 5-year-old can play. Chicken Cha Cha Cha Circle the Wagons – a fun entry from Button Shy. The same terrain-laying style and variable scoring as Sprawlopolis (which came later), but in a competitive 2-player drafting game. Boom Bang Gold – throw “dynamite” into the box and watch the pieces bounce. Grab the gold! Skulk Hollow – a fun asymmetric game for 2 players. We recommend that the “weaker” player (usually the younger player) take on the role of the Foxen. The guardians are the more difficult role to play. Wavelength – a big hit at game nights. Play it on Twitter: @WavelengthDaily SNAP Review – Kenny G: Keepin’ It Saxy We review this cooperative game for 2-5 players. Get Kenny G to the end of his day without losing all of his groove. Read the transcript and see the pictures in

We have a guest this week, George Kaponay. George and his family have been traveling the world for many years, and using games as a way to understand each other better. We’ll talk to him about his own family, his business “At Home in the World”, and the game they’ve created. What We’ve Been Playing Secret Hitler – George’s extended family played over the holidays. An awkward theme, but can be a lot of fun and encourage discussion in the right group. We talk about how it is awkward to explain to kids when a game means it is OK to lie. Ecos: The First Continent – Anitra is really enjoying how accessible this game is, since it’s not an easy game. Focus on your own engine, with an eye to the central “continent” everyone is building. PARKS – A beautiful game that symbolizes traveling through the US National Parks. Ravine – A cooperative game. You’ve crash landed in a ravine, and must work together to survive the night. Wavelength – An immediate hit with Andrew & Anitra. A clue-giving, team game. Give a clue that fits in the “spectrum” hidden behind a shield. Try to give a clue that will cause your team to move the pointer to fit as close the middle of the “spectrum” as possible. Still confused? Take a look at @WavelengthDaily on Twitter to give it a try. Interview with George Kaponay George and his wife came to the realization that everyone in their family was going in different directions. They wanted to be more active as the parents of their children, and engage with them more fully. The first move was to homeschool, but then George was also “made redundant”. “What did we really love doing?… what brought us together? Travel.” The answer was to sell a lot of unnecessary “stuff” and get out in the world so they could learn together. They wanted to learn to listen to their intuition and open themselves up to new ideas. At Home in the World Family Retreat Eventually, the Kaponays decided they wanted to start a business to help other families. Not just traveling, homeschooling families, but any family that wants to have a “retreat” that’s about reconnecting. Not necessarily for families that want to travel, but for families who want to deepen their family connection, in a way … that can be done on a thriving, daily basis. This whole concept flips the “retreat” idea on its head. Instead of taking a retreat that’s about one person getting away, this is the whole family getting away to learn together (along with fun activities, too). The kids often lead the learning sessions. What a great opportunity for them to be the teachers! Create a family story, using all the strengths we possess as a family. Andrew and Anitra bond as a family by playing games (obviously). When we all sit around the table at a game, we’re all equal in that context, and we all contribute. Find out more at AtHomeInTheWorldRetreat.com. The Intuition Game All of the Kaponay family’s experience led to… a game! George tells us that intuition is a real superpower, and his family has created a game to help people explore that. George has a theory that people don’t ask big questions beca...

It’s the week of Valentine’s Day, and it got us thinking about games that work well for date night. What makes a good game for date night? What are a few of our favorites? Thanks to listener Kyle Nelson for asking a question that inspired this topic. What We’ve Been Playing We’re finally catching up from Andrew being sick, so not a lot of time for games. Bon Appetit! (see below) Kintsugi – one of Anitra’s favorites to carry around Filler – one of Claire & Anitra’s favorites to play together (our review). Pocket Ops – a tic-tac-toe game where you predict where the other player will go. Tussie Mussie – coincidentally, a great date game! Dungeon Academy – fast-paced roll and write game from the OP (our review). Andrew also taught Sagrada, Drop It, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Spaceteam at our hosted game night. For Science! We tried Mountain Dew Maui Burst (it’s pineapple flavored). If you enjoy Mountain Dew, you’d probably like it – we certainly enjoyed it but wouldn’t seek it out again. “That weird yellow flavor that Mountain Dew has… It tastes like yellow 5!”Anitra (Correction: we called it Maui Blast, but it’s actually Maui Burst.) SNAP Review – Bon Appetit! We review this short but fancy bidding game from Strawberry Studio. Can you accumulate the most exquisite meal by bidding at the right time with your hand of gems? See our SNAP review for a summary and more pictures. What makes a good date night game? Generally we’re thinking about games that are fairly portable and play very well at two players. But there’s more to date night than just portability and player count. A good game for date night: Fosters communication You have to be able to talk to each other while you’re playing. The whole point of a date is to interact with each other! Perfect information games (nothing hidden) can be really good for this. If you get caught up in conversation and later return to the game, it’s less of a struggle to remember your strategy and what information you knew before. Isn’t (too) combative On date night, we stay away from themes that are heavy or combative. Growing the best trees or feeding your “flock” has a different feel than a fighting game where you beat down your opponent. Especially stay away from games where you “bleed” your opponent slowly. For example: Onitama is a two-player game where you will take your opponent’s pieces, but that’s not the main goal. Doesn’t dominate the table We circle back to portability. “The box could be big, but the table presence can’t be.” Date night games are not just about the game, so you don’t want it to take over the table.

Our podcast guest this week is Dustin Staats, from the Board Gaming with Education podcast! Originally, the podcast was called “Board Gaming with English” – Dustin and a friend created the podcast when they were English teachers in Taiwan. Their goal was to teach how to play, while introducing grammar & vocabulary used in a game. In short, the podcast’s original goal was to help English learners through games. Many teachers are already using “game based learning” and “gamification” in their classes, without necessarily knowing those terms. What We’ve Been Playing Dustin just came back from the Game Level Learn conference (all about using games in education) and one of his favorite games played after the convention is Wavelength – it plays in the box and is very intuitive. Splendor – a newer classic game that is very accessible. Bon Appetit! – review coming soon. Drop It – always a favorite. (Our review) Get the MacGuffin – a great filler game for any number of players. (Our review) Visitor in Blackwood Grove – has been a big hit at Monday game nights. We discuss how to play and why it’s constantly compared to E.T. (Our review) Azul and Miyabi – both excellent puzzley games by Michael Kiesling. Photosynthesis Board Gaming with Education How did it start? Dustin was already using games and gamifying his classroom management, but then he discovered the modern board gaming hobby when he moved to Taiwan in 2016. He began bringing some of these games into the classroom, and modifying them to make them suitable for his classroom. Could other English teachers and English learners benefit from what he discovered? A podcast was born. Later on, Dustin began to realize that teachers in other disciplines could benefit from this work as well. At first, the podcast was a tool for English learners to use to improve their vocabulary while learning a fun game, while being a tool that English teachers could also use (ie. assign an episode as homework). Later they began to bring on experts and game designers to help other teachers learn how to use games in their teaching. Dustin’s favorite moments from guests on the podcast: Challenges of using games in education (what doesn’t work). How to incorporate games in more streamlined ways. Companies that do “games for education” in more focused ways. Activities that can be used along with games to target specific learning outcomes. Favorite games to use in an educational way Let’s reframe the question: Efficient vs. inefficient use of games to teach. In learning a language, literally anything with words will help teach language, but some games have more impact and less frustration. Taboo vs. Trapwords In Taboo, you need guess a word, avoiding words from a related list. In Trapwords, the other team creates the list of “illegal” words; this means both teams are thinki...

Episode 178 – Sick Games Andrew is sick. Let’s keep this short and talk about games with a sick theme… What We’ve Been Playing Azul – from Plan B Games. A rousing success with our children! Bon Appetit! – from Strawberry Studio Kingdomino Duel – from Blue Orange Games. The Grimm Masquerade – from Skybound and Druid City Games (our review) FUSE – from Renegade Game Studios. Concept – from Repos. Get the MacGuffin – from Looney Labs. A perfect one to squeeze in at the end of the night (our review). Crazy Tower – from Synapses Games (and Luma Imports). KOI – a beautiful game from Smirk & Laughter where goldfish (koi) are trying to get as much food as possible. Fluff – from Bananagrams (our review). We gained more practice in graceful winning and losing. “I’d rather deal with it than hear about it later from a third party…” SNAP Review – Dungeon Academy We highly enjoy this real-time pathfinding game. Our rating: 4.5/5 stars. See the images and transcript for this SNAP review. Down with the Sickness If you are very sick, you should not be playing board games. There’s too much concentration involved, and too much chance you’ll infect other people by spreading germs onto shared pieces or cards. So let’s talk about our top five games with a theme of disease or sickness instead! Viral from Arcane Wonders and MESAboardgames (our review) – a fantastic entry-level area-control game. You are a virus (or group of viruses) infecting a human body. Bad Doctor from Mayday Games (our review) – the art style would make you think that this is an “adult” game (almost like a political cartoon), but it’s appropriate for most older kids. You are a bad doctor, and you don’t actually care if a patient dies, as long as it doesn’t happen on your turn. Organ ATTACK! from Awkward Yeti – a casual game all about the personified body parts often featured on the Awkward Yeti comics. A sort of hand-management game where your goal is to attack other players’ organs, making them atrophy or die, while protecting your own. Although it’s silly, all the maladies and injuries you can play are represented faithfully. Pandemic (and its spinoffs) from Z-Man Games – Of course we need to include Pandemic on a list of games about sickness. Cure the world, or at least limit outbreaks. Because it’s an open-information cooperative game, you can play it with your kids even though it’s somewhat complex. Anatomy Fluxx from Looney Labs – Like all Fluxx games, this is easy to pick up and start playing.

Best Games of 2019 We have a fact about 177 – about pellet guns? But we’ve also got a guest – Nick Martinelli! The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to find out more. We’re going to talk about our favorite games from 2019 – but first, let’s talk about what we’ve been playing recently. What We’ve Been Playing Just One – easy to explain and get into, but coming up with good clues uses some serious brain power. Magic Maze – Nick tried this for the first time, and lost the first level four times in a row! Cockroach Poker – an older game all about passing away your cards. Fine Sand – a deck-destruction (reverse deck-builder) game from Stronghold Games with a sand castle theme. Spaceteam – we’ve mentioned this before; a fast-paced cooperative game with a lot of yelling. Monza – “Everything that I wanted Candy Land to be” – it’s SHORTER and with a little bit of decision making. Did we mention that it’s SHORTER? Very simple but with some player agency. It managed to pull in our middle-schooler while also being accessible for a preschooler! A few quick favorites: HUE, Kintsugi, Silly Street. ClipCut Parks – instead of a roll-and-write, it’s a roll-and-cut. Roll the die, which tells you how many cuts to make from your sheet and how big each cut should be. You’re trying to cut out specific shapes & combinations to cover polyomino shapes on the cards you draw. The solo mode is very hard. Andrew wonders about it including scissors – Anitra points out that not everyone is a parent with school-aged kids with a million pairs of child-size scissors wandering around in their house. A quick aside about games with destructible components. Nick really wants legacy games but can’t bring himself to do it because you’re permanently changing it. Recommendations that aren’t games: Nick highly recommends Lost in Space (on Netflix). Anitra just read Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. Best of 2019 We each have picked our personal favorite in these categories, inspired by our holiday gift guide. Best for Very Young Children Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! from Ultra PRO (Nick’s choice). Nick’s son fell in love with this game at GenCon, and even taught his great-grandmother. My First Castle Panic from Fireside Games (Andrew’s and Anitra’s choice). Our five-year-old taught his grandmother how to play. Best for Early Elementary Slide Quest from Blue Orange Games (Andrew’s choice). “Sir Rolley-butt” makes kids laugh and they get it right away. It also trains fine motor skills with immediate feedback. Panic Island from Blue Orange Games (Anitra’s choice). Plays well on memory skills that are still strong at this age, while giving goals to work towards. Also, very short.

We’re looking both forward and backward this week, examining last year’s resolutions and using what we’ve learned to come up with new goals for 2020. Thanks to our sponsor, First Move Financial, for helping support The Family Gamers Podcast. What We’ve Been Playing Koi – from Smirk & Dagger. Goldfish are mean. Dungeon Academy – from The OP. We have discovered wet erase markers! So much better for writing on a laminated sheet. Squire for Hire – a very compact card game from Letiman Games for 1-2 players. Complete “quests” and manage the inventory in your “backpack”. Animal Kingdoms – from Galactic Raptor. Play cards into 5 “kingdoms”, each with a different placement restriction. Miyabi – from HABA. Just as puzzley as we were promised it would be. Reminds us a bit of NMBR 9 but with a better theme. Ecos: The First Continent – from AEG (which we first saw at PAX Unplugged). Not a simple game, but everything fits together well. Engine-building that seems fairly intuitive. Not a lot of reading, but the game requires procedural understanding that comes with knowing how to read. The iconography and production quality are both fantastic. The Grimm Masquerade – from Skybound Games. We tried the special powers, which we’d never done before. They make for a good catch-up mechanism for the player(s) with the fewest points. Duple – from Anomia Press. It’s been a long time! Still a favorite though. Unlock! Secret Adventures: A Noside Story – both in difficulty and in content, this one is very approachable for kids. Destroy a secret lair full of silly robots. The app for this one started with a “phone call” to explain the mission! Boom, Bang, Gold – from HABA. Throw “dynamite” into the box to make tokens jump and flip over. Quickly grab all the tokens that show gold or special powers! Quick, silly fun for kids and adults alike. MegaCity Oceania – from Hub Games. We are still learning, so we haven’t explored all the subtleties of the rules yet, but we are loving the ability to build your buildings and gently push them into place. SNAP Review – Similo This is one of our favorite games in recent memory. Similo: Fables and Similo: History are compact, approachable cooperative card games. See the pictures and read the transcript over at the SNAP review. New Year, New Games! We review our resolutions from last year (episode 126). Did we accomplish our goals? Complete a 5×5 – FAILURE Andrew upgraded to a 10×10 challenge (10 specific games, played 10 times each)… but failed at this challenge. He got 31% done. Anitra also challenged herself to a 5×5, but did not manage to play each of the specified games 5 times. She got 67% done. (Although there were another 33 games that she played at least 5 times each.) We forgot that we spend a lot of time reviewing games,

We’re done with all our PAX Unplugged interviews, so the bad jokes and weird facts are back in force! But let’s talk to our guest this week, Chrissy Wissler. What We’ve Been Playing Passtally – simple but very challenging route-laying game. Wingspan – in the rare opportunity Chrissy gets to play with adults. We sidetrack to talk about Elizabeth Hargrave’s presentation about what appeals differently to women in games. Welcome To (Your Perfect Home) – more interesting decisions to be made when you use the advanced goal cards. Dungeon Academy – we talked about this last time, but it’s interesting to see how this worked with a wide age range. Works well with our family’s “agent of chaos”! Similo Pokemon TCG – when you can give your kid the opportunity to teach you how to play a game, you should take advantage of that! Our kids were “gifted” a large hand-me-down stash of Pokemon cards, and we’re not sure how we feel about that. Fantasy Ranch (as recommended by Nick) – a big hit with Chrissy’s oldest! Honga (also recommended by Nick) – a little overwhelming for a 7 year old, but the adults would happily play again! “As a teacher, I can see how this is one [to teach] fluid reasoning for kids” Games with Chrissy’s grandma: IceCOOL, Dinosaur Tea Party (one of our most recommended games for inter-generational play) New Years gaming for Andrew and Anitra and friends: Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa Stone Age Anniversary edition Stone Age (Anniversary edition) – our first time. A lot less complex than we thought. Quirky Circuits – the game we really wanted Robot Turtles to be. More approachable (setup mostly done for you) and also more game-y. And it’s cooperative in a way that discourages quarterbacking. (Age range: 7+) Unlock! Tombstone Express – some fun puzzles and a time-waster where you throw cardboard bullets at little standees. Kintsugi – because Anitra has it with her at all times. “One of my top 3 Button Shy games.” Oasis w/ Anitra’s green camel “train”. Oasis – area control with bidding. Choose from your neighbors’ offers to get tiles to lay on the board, camels, or multipliers. You need to be flexible with your strategy (and also be ok with hate-drafting). Anitra learned Chickapig from a 6-year-old. Both moms and a few kids played The Scrambled States of America – it’s nice to have a “slapping” game where you don’t touch each other, and it’s educational! Sponsor: First Move Financial Welcome to our new sponsor, First Move Financial – financial planning for all ages. Visit firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers to schedule a 15-minute call to see if they can help you.

Claire and Andrew demonstrating Slide Quest at our learn-and-play session. Episode 174? That means we’ve been doing this podcast for 3.5 years! This will be our final PAX Unplugged podcast episode for 2019. What We’ve Been Playing Monza – “everything we wish Candyland could be”. Up to 6 players, color-matching, and racing. Roll dice and see how many you can use to make a path, by matching the colors on the dice to the path in front of you. Dungeon Academy – A roll-and-write, but not like any you’ve ever seen. Isle of Monsters – watch for a SNAP review at the end of this week. Megacity Oceania – Anitra has been excited for this since seeing it at Origins. Build skyscrapers with plastic pieces (representing concrete, steel, glass) on hexagonal tiles. Slide completed buildings into the city. You can keep working on your building(s) even when it’s not your turn! Action Cats – a sort of Apples-to-Apples style game where you make up stories about cats (with real pictures of cats). Machi Koro (with the Harbor expansion) Sagrada Sushi Roll – we are really liking how this mixes up the Sushi Go! format. Similo – a big hit with the kids! Adventure Games: The Dungeon – Anitra “ran” this adventure for the kids. Chapter 1 ran a little long, but they enjoyed it enough that they want to find out what happens next. (Review coming soon.) What Did We Get for Christmas? Not a lot, boardgame-related. “A bag of baggies” and Dice Forge: Rebellion (the expansion to Dice Forge). PAX Unplugged Interviews (13:50) Genius Games with Justin Ecosystem – a card-drafting game in which you build a food web / ecosystem. Your ecosystem is a 4×5 grid, and every card has its own scoring mechanism – however, you’ll lose points if you don’t have enough diversity in your ecosystem! (17:50) Luma Imports with Colin Welkin – market manipulation game. Create blueprints for fantastical buildings, changing the values of resources used to build the buildings along the way. Treasures of Cibola – you’re trying to get artifacts out of the collapsing temple. But you don’t know how they’ll be valued until the game is over, since boulders will get dropped on the point board as you’re leaving! A quick family-friendly game. Similo – (which we’ve raved about over the last several podcasts.) Team 3 and Snowman Dice in partnership with Brain Games. (25:50) Elf Creek Games Honey Buzz – an economic game with bees! Unfortunately, bees are not good economists, and they’re flooding the market with honey. “It’s truly a bear market… because they’re selling to the bears.” (30:45) Pack-O-Games / Perplext with Chris Handy Roland Wright – a dice game about creating a game! Roland is trying to match patterns of dots, representing his inspirations for parts of the game he’s creating. You roll dice, mark colors down on your player board, but then you can also erase previously-written dots to take other actions. Pack-O-Games: These are incredibly small; every game uses 30 cards that are...