The Family Gamers Podcast

As promised last week, we have some interviews from Boston FIG. We’ve also got another giveaway – this one’s only a week long, so don’t miss out! Giveaway We picked up a copy of Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters and played it this week. We liked it so much that we picked up a second copy to give away to one lucky listener. We want to get this game in your hands before Halloween, so act fast! The giveaway will only be open for one week. (US mailing addresses only please.) Dinosaur Tea Party Check out Nick’s review of Dinosaur Tea Party. It’s our first ever review to score 10 out of 10 points – we can’t say enough good things about this wonderfully fun family game. Interviews Brackets! – a free mobile game from Acsibi Studios. A low-stress puzzle to cover the largest area given a certain set of corners. Hear Anitra discover that the developers are a father/son team! Penguin SLAP! – a card game from Low Sodium Studios. Last man standing, take-that competitive game. No physical slapping in the game! “Slap” cards make another player discard fish, but can be countered/reflected, making the attacker drop even more fish. The cards feel light-hearted and goofy, keeping the game from getting too serious. Penguin SLAP! is on Kickstarter right now, through October 28. You can also find their fantastic artwork in coloring pages for your kids! Find them on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. Squatbot – with James – a simple 2D platformer available for iOS and Android right now, for free. Very natural feeling and polished. Loose Nozzles – Chris and Ian Foster (Foster Family Games) have been working on this hand-illustrated game for five years, starting when Ian was five years old. Chris is a professional game developer but wanted to do an indie game where he was in control of all aspects. Ian drew a picture for him to animate, and then started describing aspects of how the game should work. Ian did all the art and most of the sound effects. The demo we played was fun, but really hard. Chris and Ian are hoping to finish the game soon. Find us Online: Facebook: @familygamersaa Community: thefamilygamers.com/community Twitter: @familygamersaa Instagram: @familygamersaa PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re now on TuneIn.com! The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by Wild East Games. Find Wild East Games online at WildEastGames.com, or @WildEastGames on Facebook, Twitter,

Last week was Boston FIG, our favorite indie game festival. We talk favorite games and impressions, with special guest co-host and staff writer Corey Lagunowich. As in past years (2017, 2016 digital, 2016 tabletop, 2015), we couldn’t see everything. Instead, we’ll tell you about our favorite games of the festival. Digital Showcase We noticed a lot of derivative games. What held our interest were games that did something unique or games that did something very well. And, it goes almost without saying, we stuck to games that were family-friendly. 39 Days to Mars – 2D, Myst like in that it doesn’t hold your hand. Very few visual clues. Victorian steampunk theme, cooperate with another player to build a rocket to get to Mars. Most puzzles absolutely required both players’ cooperation with simultaneous action. Squatbot – 2D platformer, already available free for mobile devices. Simple but not easy; feels smooth and natural, nicely polished. Play either in infinite mode or level-by-level. FUR – First-person game. Free the furballs, then throw them at various kinds of obstacles. Designed by a student team. First showed at PAX East, with linear level design (too easy); re-did the level design for Boston FIG to include lots of backtracking, making it much more compelling. Flock of Dogs – local cooperative for up to 8 players, still in early development. Odd theme (flying dogs, flying whale, etc) but very family-friendly. (16:00) We noticed a lot more local multiplayer than previous years, and more player counts higher than four. We noticed this last year in King of the Hat, and we’re glad to see even more now. Chibisu’s Costume Combat – top down 2D multiplayer battle. Pick a costume at the beginning of the round, and that determines your attack style and special powers. Save Your Nuts – another top down battle, but in teams. Basically a capture-the-flag. Less chaotic than I thought but also harder than I thought. Reminds me of Rocket League, in that the action went just a little bit too fast. Winner of “Figgie” for Multiplayer and Connected Games. Swimsanity – polished dual-stick shooter. Choose a role. You’re a team of scuba divers… with lasers! Charge up a certain number of “kills” and become an aquatic animal with a super attack. Play free for all, 2-on-2, or all players together against environment. (Coming out early 2019) Exposure, which we saw last year and liked a lot, won the “Figgie” for Experimental Game Design. Tabletop Showcase Where we spent most of our time (as usual). The tabletop showcase had a lot of games with great staying power. Born to Serve – from Shoot Again Games. Players are a bunch of second-rate super heroes, competing for the last job in town – a waiter. Don’t use your superpowers… when people are looking! slated for Kickstarter 2019. Luke Warm (Figgie for Most Innovative) – 4 player asymmetric game,

Is episode 113 the episode of Funk? No, it’s the episode of Funkhouser! Derek & Lizzy Funkhouser run a social media community called “Board Game Spotlight”. They have been called the “Carebears”, because their rule is to be nice, even in disagreement. They want to make a friendly, inclusive place on the internet for all board gamers. It’s ok not to like a game, but we won’t allow that to divide us. Derek and Lizzy run The Board Game Spotlight full-time, so they have lots of scheduled events. They livestream 3x/week evenings (Monday, Tuesday Wednesday), and usually 1 or 2 daytime (Thursday morning with an interview, Friday mid-day). They also just launched a podcast! As of this airing, they have done two episodes. Find the links at the bottom of this post. Unlike The Family Gamers, where we try to talk mostly about games that are currently available, Derek and Lizzy get really excited by Kickstarter. So The Board Game Spotlight does a lot coverage of Kickstarter games in their videos. Playing games with kids Derek & Lizzy also have a one-year-old son (“Sebzilla”). What’s their advice for how to play games when you have young children? The short answer? Naptime and bedtime. (The best time to play games with your spouse.) It’s a balancing act, because that alone time is precious. But if you have slightly older children, there are a ton of great games you can play with them: Splendor, King of Tokyo, HABA games, Azul, etc. Your kids will surprise you with the games they are interested in playing – as Derek found out first-hand when his five-year-old nephew beat him at Azul. MegaLand from Red Raven Games is a great family game (our review). Derek thinks that Villainous is simple enough for a 8 or 9 year old to pick up the rules. We say: pay less attention to the recommended age range on the box. Look for the amount of reading required and the playtime (since younger kids don’t have “stayability” for long games). Andrew recommends Scarabya, a new release from Blue Orange Games, as a great game for kids. Not a lot of sitting around and waiting for people to do things. (Review coming soon!) Kingdomino is another great game for kids (as we’ve already said in our review). Above and Below We discuss our recent plays of Above and Below (as mentioned last week). Derek enjoys a lot of Red Raven Games, but prefers Near and Far. We enjoyed the game a lot, but Andrew was annoyed by the reputation track. It seemed random; you make a decision in the caves and hope it’s a good choic. Above and Below is a great resource management game (we know because at the end of the game you just want to play one or two more turns), and the randomness was a little frustrating, as it took us out of the narrative theme. We discuss the possibility of adding a little flavor text after an encounter to explain the after-effects (why you just received resources or gained/lost reputation). We all enjoyed the above and below aspects. Derek tells us they made the system better in Near and Far. Because we had played MegaLand first, Anitra understood right away the “unique items” for better income and a higher score. Andrew is a little concerned about replayability, since in just two plays we ran into the same narrative sections once or twice. However, with modern games, many give you the “full value” after only playing 4 or 5 times. We compare Pandemic Legacy and Charterstone, which both guarantee at least 12 plays if you play all the way to the end. Derek explains that in Near and Far,

Is resource management more than a business term? Do you take that? Or would you rather use worker placement to gain area control? We dissect some common terms from the board game world, and give examples of games that use these mechanics. What we’ve been playing Senshi by Arcane Wonders – recommended to us by Ryan and Erin Gutowski of One Board Family, Andrew received this abstract game for his birthday. It’s simple to play; the depth of strategy is driven by the way the scoring works. A great game to travel with, you could easily play it on an airplane tray table. Poetry Slam by Mayday Games – we were pleasantly surprised at the depth to this party word game. Come up with a word that follows the randomly-generated restriction. Then come up with a rhyming couplet (2-line rhyme) that is a clue to allow other players to guess your word. Also award “snaps” (beatnik style) to fellow poets for well-crafted rhymes. Not great for younger kids, due to time pressure and vocabulary requirements. The Mansky Caper by Calliope Games – Andrew was robbed! Anitra appreciates the catch-up mechanic that robbed Andrew. And it adds veracity to the role-playing ;) 10 Essentials by Trailside Games & Education Outdoors – learn about the hazards and beauties of the wilderness. A simple take-that game reminiscent of Mille Bornes. However, it is possible to continue to advance even with an active hazard, at a slower pace. Above and Below by Red Raven Games – by popular demand! Andrew could see the same DNA as other Red Raven games. Build your town, recruit townspeople, and explore the caves. The highlight is the encounters in the caves, using an encounter book to create meaningful choices. We will talk more about Above and Below as part of next week’s interview show.   We’ll have a ton of games to talk about for episode 114, because Boston FIG is this weekend! If you’re in central New England, you should go to MIT on Saturday (September 29) for the festival. If you see us, ask us for a button! SNAP Review: Super Kitty Bug Slap Read the transcript for Anitra and Claire’s review of Super Kitty Bug Slap. Board Game Terms Take that: Most of the player interaction is through directly attacking each other, either reducing points/level/etc. or impeding their progress. Obviously, take-that games have a heavy emphasis on conflict. Some kids love them and some hate them, these games tend to feel very unbalanced when you are the only adult playing against children. Most rely heavily on luck (but not all! Andrew suggests Illuminati as an example that has very little luck). Take-that provides player interaction in games that would otherwise feel pretty solitary. Examples: Mille Bornes (impeding progress), Munchkin, and included in smaller doses in games like The Mansky Caper or The Grimm Forest. Area control: Any game where points are awarded to the player with the majority of units/influence in a given area. Examples: Risk, Twilight Struggle, Smallworld, Carcassone, New York 1901, World’s Fair 1893 (not a literal map area, instead areas of influence). Worker placement: Andrew’s favorite mechanic. Place a worker, get to do a specific action. Usually means that no one else can do that action until workers are “returned”. Often combined with resource management. Examples: Lords of Waterdeep, Tzolk’in, Dice Forge (for heroic feats), Imhotep, also Agricola, Caverna, Stone Age. Tokaido is an interesting twist on worker placement with a different set of restrictions...

We’re turning this episode up to 11! We’re joined by Marc Specter, the Grand Poobah of the Grand Gamers Guild. We’ve had Marc on the show before to talk about Pocket Ops, but this time we’re talking about a brand new Kickstarter, The Artemis Project. The Artemis Project The Artemis Project is a bit different from the games we normally feature. Intended for 13+, it’s more of a game for your family to grow into. The premise of The Artemis Project is the colonization of Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, which has an icy crust with an ocean underneath. The game combines dice “displacement”, set collection, worker placement, and engine building. Because of the dice displacement, there is lots of player interactivity. In normal worker placement games, once you’ve placed your meeple, that spot is taken and no one else can do that action. But with the dice, a lower number can bump a higher number down the queue. So multiple people can get resources in a location, but the smaller “more nimble” teams are more likely to get the resources they want. Gain points in several ways: Build buildings by spending minerals. Staff those buildings to help build your engine or score points. As you are staffing your buildings, collect sets of 4 different kinds of colonists for bonus points. For our listeners who are familiar with some other resource management games, Marc compares The Artemis Project to a mix between Alien Frontiers and Homesteaders. Kickstarter Details The Artemis Project is already fully funded. Hooray! The player boards will have recessed wells to collect the items. Not like a dice track that holds everything snugly, but giving all items a place to go. The regular edition costs $55, but for an additional $10, you can upgrade to metal expedition tokens. (We’ve found the metal point coins in Century: Golem Edition to be tremendously satisfying.) The stretch goals already unlocked include support for a fifth player! This has become an important aspect of games added to our collection as well. More News Although Kickstarter has been tremendously helpful, Marc shares his goal to eventually get away from it. With the success of The Artemis Project, the Grand Gamers Guild may be able to release their next small-box game direct to retailers. We mentioned Pocket Ops and Unreal Estate… and we’re also giving them away! Enter the giveaway here. Where did The Artemis Project come from? First found at Protospiel Chelsea, the game was originally called “Colonies of Venus”. Marc and his team wanted to give it a different setting, since Venus has been a popular destination in science fiction and space-themed games. They started looking around the solar system for somewhere that could hypothetically support life. Europa was the eventual winner; the name “The Artemis Project” is in honor of a private project that aimed to put a permanent base on the moon (and also produced a plan to colonize Europa). NASA is even working on a Clipper probe that will be doing flybys of Europa in less than a decade! It’s an exciting place to research. Where can you find us? Find Grand Gamers Guild online: Facebook: @GrandGamersGuild Twitter: @grndgmrsgld Instagram: @grndgmrsgld Find The Family Gamers online: Facebook:

We love games that tell a story. Whether the stories are driving the game, or encourage players to get into character and make their own story, these games are fun. Enhance your game-playing experience with some of these. What We’ve Been Playing: Scarabya (coming in October from Blue Orange). A multi-player-solitaire polyomino game. Fun, even though we can’t figure out how to say the name. We are playing a lot of Century: Golem Edition. The kids even pulled it out before school one morning – they were so motivated to play that they were dressed and (mostly) prepared an hour before we need to leave for school! Also, the golems are so wonderfully illustrated. We’ve started playing The Mansky Caper! Hear our interview with Ken Franklin & Chris Leder and check out our unboxing video. Ad Astra – a space-themed game that feels like Catan with deck-programming and exploration. Kids were playing Dragonwood, more Century: Golem, Sushi Go Party, Mall Madness… everyone had fun! We’ve gotten our first look at Spy Club – very Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew/Boxcar Children/Encyclopedia Brown. You are kids working together to try solve a crime. Mechanics are easy enough for a 7-year-old to understand, but this is a hard game. It seems to be designed to make you play cleverly. The mosaic aspect of it makes for interesting stories (we almost solved one where the crime was bullying, location was museum, object was a hat, and motivation was fame. Someone making Youtube videos making fun of other people’s hats, maybe?) We also finally pulled out Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. We wanted to wait until we were a few books into the series, but we’re there now. The first deck was fine. We’re looking forward to later decks to see the game get more interesting. This is a deck-builder with classic deck-building rules. It was frustrating that there was no way to cull cards, at least in the first game. We’ll see what happens later! Solo gaming: Anitra is still enjoying Tempus Imperium (rules and print-and-play at BlueCubeBoardGames.com), but recently started playing Twin Stars from Button Shy. With six scenarios and twelve characters, there is a lot of replayability value. She’s rigged it to play in the car when waiting for school pickup, so expect to hear more. Even more games! Dice Forge Mastermind Simon’s Cat card game Bob Ross: Happy Little Accidents party game Shelf of Shame: What Should We Play Next? Which one should we play this week? Ethnos (by CMON), Adventure Land (by HABA), or Above and Below (by Red Raven Games)? Let us know in the show notes or on social media. SNAP Review This week’s SNAP is Shaky Manor. Storytelling Games Games that tell the story for you: Robit Riddle (our review) Choose your Own Adventure game T.I.M.E. Stories Cardventures (a set of solo games we reviewed) Above & Below Many tabletop RPGs: Mice & Mystics, Tail Feathers, Stuffed Fables, Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG; pre-built campaigns for systems like Hero Kids, D&D, Pathfinder and others (for busy parents, we highly recommend the campaigns for Hero Kids) Escape Room Boxes

Today we interview two special guests: Hannah Schauer and Karen Cleveland from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Why are we interviewing employees of the Department of Natural Resources? Because they made a game! What in the Wild? is a game system with 120 cards and instructions to play five different games, using common wildlife and plant species across the eastern United States. How did you come up with the game? Karen started as a bird biologist and wanted to make games as an outreach tool. Hannah was already doing classroom curriculum for outreach in the Department of Natural Resources. A game seemed like a great way to engage the students differently than they had in the past while also tying in to the curriculum the DNR already offers to local teachers. “How can we make a single product that works across ages (K-5th grade)?” How did you come up with the design? The iconography, in particular, is both clear and clever. How did you come up with it? It wasn’t just Hannah and Karen. There’s a great team involved. The look of the game is mostly due to their graphic designer, Shenelle Anthony. Karen had a prototype with basic design elements, but Shenelle redrew all the icons. The space icon, in particular, was a team effort – the web developer came up with the “pie slices” idea, which is beautifully simple to understand. We love that each game has a bit of a hook in the rulebook, a story to get kids invested in the game. Where did “Connect It” come from? Originally “Connect It” was based on dominoes. Fifth-graders were playtesting it, but no one was playing competitively! Since everyone was sharing their cards, Karen started thinking that maybe it needed to be a cooperative game instead. It had to be completely re-written when the other four games were all done! A few weeks of intense design and playtesting later, it was in its final form. What are your goals for the game? We really want kids to understand habitat components (food, water, shelter, space); what animals/plants need to survive. Hopefully kids can start to see how it’s all interconnected. They also wanted to make sure that What in the Wild? is fun! Not your typical “educational” game that focuses so much on teaching that it’s like a pill you have to swallow to get to the fun. The “shelter” cards, in particular, all have a human footprint to them, because it’s too easy to think of nature as something that exists far away, rather than all around us. Karen tells a story of walking onto the Michigan State University campus – and suddenly realizing she could take ALL her shelter photos on campus! Their wildest dream would be for families across North America to play the games and reconnect with nature. If we can get adults to recognize more of what’s around them, and help kids to be able to name the plants and animals around them and understand that nature isn’t scary. Where is this available? How much does it cost? What in the Wild? is available right now on The Game Crafter. All proceeds go to providing more copies to teachers! https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/what-in-the-wild (standard game: $27.99) https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/what-in-the-wild-classroom-pack-1 (classroom pack: 5 decks for $...

Sometimes, you just want to play with your kids instead of playing against them. We discuss our favorite cooperative board games to play with children. What We’ve Been Playing: Dicey Peaks Fight for Olympus (see our review) Katamino Tempus Imperium (find it here) My First Stone Age Sports Dice: Football (from FoxMind / FunWiz) – Andrew likes this even more than Sports Dice: Baseball! MegaLand (see our review) H.I.D.E. (Hidden Identity Dice Espionage) Bob Ross: Happy Little Accidents Fanzy (MLB version) Sports Dice: Baseball Nut So Fast Dice Forge Blank (see our review) – the new expansion “Blankdemic”, designed by Matt Leacock and his daughter Colleen, looks like an interesting addition! Monsters in the Elevator (see our review) SNAP Review See a transcript for the Card Caddy SNAP review.   Top 6 Cooperative Games to Play with Children Sometimes you just want to share the joy of winning or pain of losing. Cooperative games can help teach graceful losing, and provide an exciting opportunity to coach our children in strategic thinking. Mmm! (by Reiner Knizia, published by Pegasus Spiele) – plays great solo, easy to understand but with variable difficulty to suit any skill level. Purrrlock Holmes (We’ve reviewed this) Monsters in the Elevator (review linked above) Castle Panic Forbidden Desert – and we are excited for Forbidden Sky! Flashpoint: Fire Rescue Find these games on Amazon (except Monsters in the Elevator). Honorable mentions: Mice & Mystics Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Thanks for listening! Find us online: Facebook: @familygamersaa Community: thefamilygamers.com/community Twitter: @familygamersaa Instagram: @familygamersaa PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re now on TuneIn.com! The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by Wild East Games. Find Wild East Games online at WildEastGames.com, or @WildEastGames on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  

Let’s talk to Nick and Izzy about their Gen Con experience! 107 is a prime number: A great way to introduce Optimus Prime super-fan, Nick Martinelli! Nick writes for TFG and most recently wrote a review for Let Them Eat Shrimp! Nick has been gaming for about 10 years. Carcasonne & Catan were his gateway into boardgaming; he actually started playing them on Xbox 360. He likes gaming with his kids Izzy and Jace. Prefers light- to medium-weight and filler games. Current favorites: Above & Below, Valeria Card Kingdoms. As you may have noticed from episode 105, Nick was our man-on-the-street for Gen Con. We brought him back to ask about his personal experience there. How large is Gen Con? Very large convention center + LucasOil Stadium (NFL stadium). Vendors, open gaming, each with its own massive hall. Several connected hotels run minor events out of their ballrooms, and it seems like every conference room in every hotel has a boardgame publisher running demos morning until night. Nick stayed in Crowne Plaza connected to Union Station (a converted train station). Getting a hotel room is challenging and times to book a room are arranged by lottery. Nick lucked into an early booking time and had a lot of selection: he picked one that was a train car, still on rails! What is it like being a Gen Con attendee? Crowded and busy, of course. Huge mega-booths for the large publishers. Nick finds himself with “Squirrel!” syndrome. It’s so easy to get sidetracked, and you won’t make it to everything. Lots of games available to buy before retail, along with promotional extras that you can’t get anywhere else. Nick likes to walk the aisles, and stop whenever he sees something new or cool. What is Gen Con like with a kid? Nick’s daughter Izzy is 9 years old, and came for the first time. She’s been gaming since she was 3 or 4, and preparing most of the past year for her Gen Con experience. Lots of walking, and long days, but she did really well! Parent tip: Every time you walk near a bathroom, ask your kid if they need to go. ;) Kids 10 and under get into Gen Con for free – as long as they aren’t attending any events that need tickets. If you can take time away from the show floor, there are lots of local things to do in Indianapolis. Gen Con also hosts some kid activities, and even has a (paid) babysitting service! What kinds of vendors are there? So much more than just games! There are lots of publishers, but that’s not all that’s in the vendor halls. Game stores, game accessories, geeky non-gamer accessories (t-shirts, leather armor, glassware, stuffed animals, anime, etc.) The same kind of vendors you’d see at a comic con. Nick’s eyes were caught by some dice made out of precious stones. HABA’s booth was run by a local game store. Can’t Miss Activites at Gen Con? Block party – beer tent & food trucks out in front of the convention center (Rio also provides food for free in their demo room!) Cardhalla – CCG cards (Magic the Gathering, etc) – people build huge towers of cards. On Saturday night, they destroy the whole thing for charity (throw money at the towers to knock them over). LucasOil stadium was unreal. Huge, and full end-to-end with gaming. There’s a local restaurant that changes all the food names to be gaming themed. More Highlights from Nick: Dice Tower live show Meeting BG superstars (Rob Daviau, etc.) Friday night, picked up My Little Scythe and started playing it. Marcus (designer of Beees!) walked by and struck up conversation. Then brought over a copy of his game and they all...

We all experience burn out sometimes. Netflix and chill turning into “stare into space”?  Wish you were playing a game, but can’t wrap your head around your usual fare? Sometimes we still want the social experience of games, even when our brains are fried. We discuss some of our favorite light strategy games that are good for relaxing. Parents, is this normal for you? “Netflix and let the children sit around you while you pass out.” Speaking of burnout, we’ve been really busy and only got in a few games this week. Andrew only got one, but it was a good one! What We’ve Been Playing: Dinomals Bearly Asleep, a prototype cooperative game from Jeff Johnston. We “bearly” won! MegaLand – expect a review soon Isle of Skye – the Carcasonne killer? SNAP Review See the transcript here. What Makes a Relaxing Game: First, types of games that aren’t relaxing, at least for us. No dexterity games, and nothing that would get your group up and screaming, even in happiness. We’re trying to avoid tension, conflict, and drama. No “escape room in a box”. We absolutely love Deep Sea Adventure, but that would be a terrible choice. For us, high-conflict games result in an emotional commitment which can leave us exhausted. Most cooperative games also build their fun on the tension of trying to beat an implacable enemy. No take-that games, or complex decisions: if it gives players “analysis paralysis”, it’s not a great choice to relax. Press-your-luck is another genre to avoid. As Andrew says, it’s “statistical modeling of how stressed out you want to let yourself get” before you decide to stop. For relaxing, we are looking for light strategy games with relaxing themes and light decisions. Our Top Games for Relaxing: Bob Ross: The Art of Chill (check out this review from One Board Family) * It’s Bob Ross! * You’re not penalized for making sub-optimal decisions. * There’s very little player interaction. Pigment * a simple worker placement game * collect beautiful paintings * no take-that or direct conflict Tokaido – quintessential “enjoy the journey” game * There’s more options for points here, but you’re not penalized for only getting partway to a goal. * travel the Japanese countryside and have the best vacation * Everyone finishes their journey Seikatsu – Check out our review of this beautiful game. With only 2 tiles in your hand, You have just enough to make meaningful decisions. Lanterns (One Board Family reviewed this, too) – We are able to play this competitively or just making a beautiful pattern, and it’s fun either way. Kingdomino (see our review) – more fast-paced than many of our other suggestions, though not rushed. We’re big fans of the 7×7 grid variant for two players. Jaipur (One Board Family did a video review) – the only 2-player exclusive on our list. A bit heavier in strategy, since you have to decide when to “cash in” to maximize your profit.   Do you play games when you’re stressed out? What kinds of games feel relaxing to you? Let us know in the comments.

It’s that time again – Gen Con is the largest gaming convention in the USA. If it seems like we’ve done this before, it’s because we have! We covered Gen Con (and Gen Can’t) last year (episode 60). Warning: this episode includes 2 hours of interviews from Gen Con, recorded by our man on the ground, Nick Martinelli. Our Gen Can’t Games: Unlock! House on the Hill – we compare and contrast with the EXIT series. The app is useful, and the re-usable factor is nice. We feel Unlock! may be more approachable for a wider audience. (We did it with our kids!) We played lots of games while camping. Kid games, party games, and light-to-medium “gamer” games. Kid games: Family Fluxx OK Play (our review) Anomia Kids (our review) Party games: Crosstalk (we have talked about Crosstalk before) Anomia Kids belongs in this category too! Spaceteam More serious/involved games: The Grizzled (with maximum number of players) Deep Sea Adventure Century: Golem Edition (which Asher is now obsessed with) – a variation on Century: Spice Road which Nick reviewed for us. Expedition Altiplano (from Matagot, published in the USA by Asmodee) Zooscape After we returned from camping: Dice Forge Knot Dice (our review) Mastermind Shaky Manor (w/kids) – the fine motor skills required make it frustrating for younger children. Kintsugi – a great, brain-bending puzzle from Button Shy. About Gen Can’t: Gen Can’t design contest: 2 wallet games, available to print in partnership with Button Shy. We couldn’t play because our printer is currently broken :( Also, a MEGA play (via livestream) of the new hit roll-n-write Welcome To… on Thursday night. Many publishers supported Gen Can’t through donations to the Gen Can’t raffle. Gigamic hosted twice-daily contests on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) based on their games, along with their own giveaway. James Hudson at Druid City Games even held back a few of the special Gen Con promos for The Grimm Forest for a Gen Can’t giveaway. SNAP Review Who Did It? from Blue Orange Games Gen Con Interviews If you like these interviews, let Nick know! (0:31:10) Ryan Laukat – Red Raven Games Near and Far – Amber Mines expansion MegaLand – Target Exclusive Haven – Out in October RedRavenGames.com (0:35:08) Allen Chang – Rule & Make Robots and Rockets Robots and Rockets: Light Speed Skyward (we’ve reviewed this) Entropy Smiths of Winterforge Hand of Fate Hand of Fate: Ordeals ruleandmake.com facebook.com/ruleandmake

Why play games with your kids? No, really – why should you play games? We asked our community and a few other friends. What We’ve Been Playing Tokaido (in preparation for Super Saturday Board Game Serial episode 33) Jetpack Joyride (on Kickstarter now – stay tuned for our snap review!) Andrew “accidentally” bought Dice Forge on sale at Gamestop. We’ve played it as a family at least 3 times in the last few days. In Dice Forge, you draft die faces, which snap on and off your dice. 10 Days in the USA (currently out of print) Takenoko is a classic for our family; we introduced it to a friend who beat us in his first game. We tried Shaky Manor, a dexterity (box-shaking) game from Blue Orange. (It was one of the nominees for the Kinderspiel des Jahres – “children’s game prize” this year.) Watch us shake the table in our live play video. Maki Stack – teams compete to stack wooden sushi. Either one member is blindfolded and other member(s) tell them how to stack, or the team works together in “chopsticks” mode, each player using just one finger. (Teams is better than the 2-player variant.) Fruit Ninja: Combo Party (coming very soon from Lucky Duck Games) – a push-your-luck set collection game, with card drafting and an element of speed matching that adds some tension. Asher finished A Kingdom for Keflings and has started branching out to try some other games. Don’t forget to check out Dave’s review of Trash Pandas. Backtalk! Peter Ellis had several comments on what we said in Episode 102, regarding Incan Gold, Machi Koro, Space Base, and Ethnos. He recommended the game Daddy Cool. Unfortunately, it looks like it is hard to get in the US – but our Canadian friends can get it from FoxMind). Snap Review Oh snap! We review Jetpack Joyride the board game, from Halfbrick Studios and Lucky Duck Games. Why Play Games? Because it’s fun! We love to watch our kids start to put all the pieces together and start to truly understand strategy. Since we already like games, we want our kids to like good board games. Why not do something else together, like sports? It’s difficult to do most organized activities with a large age range of kids. We also live in an area where most outdoor activities are difficult for 6 months out of the year. Many organized sports also get expensive. There’s a game that can fit any mood or situation you’re in! We’ve talked about variety before. You can play games for larger groups, two players, or games that only take a few minutes (like most of our recommended restaurant games). Different themes will appeal to different people, of course.

We’re joined this week by Stephen Duetzmann, who tells us about his favorite moments from E3 (which we previewed in episode 99) and CTFIG. Contest But first, contest winners! Congratulations to: Laura Prickett Donald Highley Will Griesmer And thanks to all of the people who donated towards our prizes. What we’ve been playing: Stephen is (finally) trying Fortnite. Although it’s free to play, the upgrade is well worth it, and less expensive than most other subscription-based games. If your kids want to play this massively popular game, check out this beginner’s guide, and check Engaged Family Gaming for more information over the coming weeks. Stephen also praises OctoPath Traveler: “If you are a JRPG person and own a Switch… this is required reading.” Pixel sprites on a 3D plane; 8 heroes, but their backgrounds / quests don’t intersect in a meaningful way. Cuphead – Andrew beat it! Rayman Legends – it’s neat to see our daughter blossoming into a determined, precise gamer :) It has also introduced our children to some interesting music. Unravel Two – we really enjoyed the demo of this platformer/co-op on XBOX ONE. The rare sort of co-op where the weaker player doesn’t feel left behind. Andrew played and beat Halo 5. Story was … better. Andrew also tried out ReCore, and he liked it a lot. The kids tried some Super Lucky’s Tale, but fell in love with A Kingdom for Keflings (at least it’s only $10.) Anitra rants about how hard it was to set up both “big” kids with Xbox ONE accounts, because no offline account option is available. But once you get past the difficulty of setup, the defaults are pretty intelligent… and the default screennames can be hilarious. Top moments from E3 The theme seemed to be “stand and deliver” – nothing shocking, but everything that was expected was great. * Frozen characters will be in Kingdom Hearts III (“I was right all along”) * MegaMan 11 – very good, cheap, and will be available on everything. * Starlink: Battle for Atlas (“the best StarFox game ever made”). Toys-to-life with spaceships/pilots/weapons that are all customizable – and NEED to be customized to beat elemental weaknesses of enemies. Our kids saw the video (the ship attaches to the controller) and it blew their minds. * Anthem – “Destiny but everyone is Iron Man” Andrew asks about the new Spiderman : apparently not quite as much like the Arkham Batman games as it appears. Coming in September! CT FIG CT FIG is much like Boston FIG, but is hosted with Connecticon (a fan convention: comics, cosplay, video games,

As the Family Gamers, we have a wide variety of games on our shelves. We feel that having variety in your collection is very important. But first, what we’ve been playing! What We’ve Been Playing: Let Them Eat Shrimp – by the fantastic Dr. Finn (of Herbaceous and The Little Flower Shop). Deep Sea Adventure – we’ve found that the mechanics are as solid at 6 players as they are at 2 players. Definitely a favorite. Tea Dragon Society – it’s available now! Expect a review within the next two weeks. Bananagrams for the first time ever! (As we mentioned on Instagram) It’s a great word-building game that’s much more approachable than Scrabble. Tzolk’in – Andrew loves this engine-building game Kingdomino as a palate-cleanser after Tzolk’in. Love how speedy it is! (We reviewed Kingdomino about a year ago.) Chupacabra: Survive the Night (from Steve Jackson Games and Haywire Group) – roll your dice for livestock and monsters. Use your chupacabra to eat your neighbor’s animals. Collect all the dice to win. Monster Match (see our review) – the more we play this, the more we like it for mixed-age groups. Machi Koro (with the Harbor expansion) – we used to like this a lot. Played a game on a whim and it went really long; almost 90 minutes. Unreal Estate (from Grand Gamers Guild) – glad we’ve finally tried it! Flash Point: Fire Rescue (Urban Structures) – we lost on the very last die roll. Downforce – Anitra won for the first time ever. It’s such a fun game – see the review that Corey wrote. Secrets – a hidden identity game. Not bad, but we had fun in spite of the game, not because of it. Spaceteam – played this twice with some new friends. It’s so fast-paced that they seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the first play, but ready to try again. The whole game is over in 5 minutes. “like Pit, but co-op.” Ancestree (see our review) – still love it. Super Kitty Bug Slap – Claire’s favorite speed-matching game. Sushi Go Party – we tried new combinations we hadn’t tried before. The “spoon” card lets you steal a specific card from someone else’s hand, a little bit like Go Fish. Century: Golem Edition (check out Nick’s Century: Spice Road review) – it’s easy to understand, with very straightforward mechanics.

We get Ryan Gutowski, Erin Gutowski, and Ric White from One Board Family on the show this week; they went to Origins Game Fair and they’re going to tell us about it. We compare GenCon, Origins, and PAX Unplugged, based on what we know. Highlight of the show? Their favorite game was Pioneer Days – “it does what Oregon Trail could not do” – the newest offering from Tasty Minstrel Games. The suggested age range is 14+, and there are a lot of things going on. The youngest appropriate age is probably around 10. There’s a take-that mechanic that they avoided using much when playing with their kids, but found it very enjoyable when playing with other adults. They also tried Chimera Station (which we saw at PAX Unplugged), which is probably a bit more complicated than Pioneer Days. What is Origins like? Ric says: Origins looks like any trade show… except demonstrating the product involves sitting down to play the game. Could take an hour or more! He only saw 60% of what he wanted to get to. It was really crowded, especially at the beginning of the day: “Black Friday shopping, but nicer.” Erin just barely made it to the Deepwater Games booth, who only had 25 copies of  Welcome To available each day. She got the last ticket and had to hold a sign stating “End of the line”. At the Plan B booth, they had limited copies of their new games Reef, and Century: Eastern Wonders – those games were super-hot and the line was SO LONG that security had to come and re-work the line so it wouldn’t block the aisles. They had a fun run-in with Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower. Fear of missing out is a real thing! It is hard to focus/prioritize where to show your attention. Surprises: Senshi (Arcane Wonders) – a short, compact card game. They had bought a “Board Room” Ribbon – $20 for unlimited access to the board game library of a Columbus-based game society. It was fun, but not really worth the money unless you can’t go to local game conventions. Some publishers had games out/available in the free play area as well. Things to remember: For anyone else attending Origins: Rio Grande gives out food! It’s a great place to meet other gamers. Be careful where you stay. The One Board Family tells us an anecdote about the Air BnB where they stayed. Be prepared and know what you want to see. Divide & conquer if you’re part of a group. Mom advice: Pace yourself! Take breaks. What were your top 2 games from Origins? Ryan: Reef and Welcome To (Your Perfect Home) Erin: Senshi and Pioneer Days (and Dragon Castle) Ric: Spy Club and Subatomic (coming soon to Kickstarter)… (and Caper)   How to find us: Check out the website for One Board Family and more of their coverage of Origins and lots of family games. And find The Family Gamers on our website and on social media: Facebook: @familygamersaa Twitter: @familygamersaa Instagram: @familygamersaa