The Family Gamers Podcast

Welcome to episode 100! We are excited to have made it this far. We have a ton of stuff to share with you. Bear with us for this jam-packed episode which is longer than usual. What We’re Playing Gobblet Gobblers with the agent of chaos preschooler (other tic-tac-toe variants popular in our house: Pocket Ops, OK Play, Slideways) Where’s Mr. Wolf also from Blue Orange The Tea Dragon Society Card Game, as we mentioned in the last episode. Incan Gold Jetpack Joyride the board game (coming soon to Kickstarter, from Lucky Duck games) Deep Sea Adventure What Other People Have To Say Thanks for the positive thoughts, James from Little Meeples! We talk to Corey, Andrew’s best friend and one of the first writers for The Family Gamers. Check out his review of Downforce. Thanks, Ryan from One Board Family! We talk to Nick, one of our newer writers, about both board games and video games. We absolutely loved his review of Century: Spice Road. Thanks, Max Davie from Games 4 Families! We’re honored by your response. Anitra talks to Dave, our newest writer… and parent of teenagers. Thanks, Stephen from Engaged Family Gaming! We really appreciate your friendship. Thanks Gamer Leaf and Little Gamer Leaf! (music: Magellan by You Bred Raptors?) Why We Love Board Games Andrew’s early memories of board games: his favorite was Mille Bornes. Anitra played a lot of Monopoly, Rack-O, and Troke. She also loved “The Great Blizzard” game (it’s not good, folks). We both transitioned towards playing more video games, and got back into board games in a big way around the time our daughter was 4. Andrew has been in podcasting for a long time. He started with dabbling in video games journalism and especially loved Contrast (be aware, rated T). He eventually pivoted to board games (around the time our family became more interested in board games in general). Then he dragged Anitra in, and The Family Gamers was born. Backtalk! We are so excited when we get an email from our listeners. Joseph R. sent us an email with another reason why Chick-Fil-A is awesome. Their new kid’s meal toy: a Rory’s Story Cube! Giveaway We’re giving away a ton of games to 3 lucky winners. Enter here to win! (I can’t believe we forgot to mention Toasted or Roasted when we read off the games. So sorry!) Social Find us online: facebook.

Next week is going to be a big week in video games: The Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3. We brought in Stephen from Engaged Family Gaming to tell us what to expect. What We’ve Been Playing Viral (the two-player variation. A great area-control game, but in our opinion, it’s better with more players.) PDQ: the Pretty Darn Quick word game, from Gamewright. Here’s our review. The Tea Dragon Society Card Game – we debate whether or not this is the cutest game ever… and school Stephen on the inclusion of the Pichu pokémon in Super Smash Bros. Melee. My First Carcasonne – just fantastic. Since we’ll be talking a lot about video games this episode, we also discussed video games we’ve been playing: Mario Tennis Aces (demo) Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep (if you want the full Kingdom Hearts experience, you should buy these two PS4 packages with ridiculous names: Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. It’s something like 300 hours’ worth of gameplay.) We find out that “flossing” (known from Fortnite) started as “the Backpack Kid dance“. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – we discuss the storyline and the DLC, which could have been so much better. Predictions Nintendo is going to be the strongest with games that are fun for all ages. Not “family” games, not “hardcore” games. Microsoft: There will be something with Minecraft, and something with Forza. If you have an XBox, pay attention to the third-party developers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, etc.) All the usual sports games will be coming out, of course. Square Enix will be releasing a Kingdom Hearts for XBox. Star Wars fans: Possibly look for a new Battlefront (or just buy one of the old ones, they’re cheap and appropriate for most ages). Unfortunately, Star Wars is diverging into two camps: some which is kid-appropriate, and some which is definitely NOT. Follow EA for more. EA will also be announcing Anthem: “Basically Destiny, but everyone is Iron Man” We spend some time on the difference between games rated M versus games rated T. The newest Halo game(s) are T. Destiny is also a T-rated game. Andrew and Stephen are really hoping for a new Ori game (the first was Ori and the Blind Forest in 2015). Maybe this one will have “assists” to dial down the difficulty. Anitra is excited for Fable, which might be a T, but more likely an M. Ubisoft: Assassin’s Creed: Origins had a “discovery mode” which removes the NPCs (basically a museum / tour of ancient Egypt). The next one will be set in ancient Greece! We’re hoping “discovery mode” release date will be announced. Stephen wrote last year bemoaning how Assassin’s Creed could so easily be used to m...

About a year ago, we talked about games to play outside (episode 54) and camping-themed games (episode 58). We thought we’d revisit this topic, including a little bit of input from the kids… But first, let’s talk about… What We’ve Been Playing The Grimm Forest kid favorite Batman: The Animated Series Dice Game. Apparently, this game is the reason we don’t have an action shot of Nick’s “Nonnie” playing Roll For It! Santa’s Little Helpers and the Ice Cube Jam (see our review) Rhino Hero Monster Match (see our review) Go Nuts for Donuts (a huge hit for our whole family, and with Andy Geremia, a friend of the show) EXIT: The Forbidden Castle – the hardest one we’ve played yet. Memorial Day weekend brought even more gaming: Monsters in the Elevator (see our review) – it was a lot harder as a two-player game. Flow of History – like a lighter version of Through the Ages. Fun, but slightly disappointing since there was quite a bit of errata. We look forward to playing it again. Pigment from Copper Frog Games – a tight worker-placement game for 1-3 players. The Tea Dragon Society Card Game – super cute deck-builder coming soon from Renegade Studios In Vino Morte (our review) Kintsugi Good games to play outside We asked our kids what games they would bring to a picnic, and they came up with some interesting recommendations. (Take the Cake – out of print, Go Nuts for Donuts, CAMP, My First Stone Age, Toasted or Roasted, and Box of Rocks) What makes a good game for outdoor play? * quick to play or, if not so quick, easy to drop in or drop out. * heavy duty pieces (no cards, not much cardboard). Little to blow away or get jostled. Nothing too fragile. * light difficulty. Something most ages can play, won’t be so heavy you can’t talk to each other. Of course, it’s easy to play a traditional card game (one draw pile, one discard pile) outdoors if you have a Card Caddy. Card Caddy is now available in single & double capacity, plus accessory storage box with cribbage-style scorepad – triple decker going on Kickstarter soon. Hear our interview with creator Chris Nichols, back in episode 55. A few games that fit these requirements: Seikatsu (our review) Battle Sheep (our review) OK Play (our review) POW! (review coming soon) Toasted or Roasted (our review) Should we test out the waterproof bag FOR SCIENCE?

Claire joins us to interview our amazing special guest this week: none other than Flip Florey, host of Flip Florey’s Super Saturday Board Game Serial! Flip is also a former panelist from the Flip The Table podcast. Flip The Table (tableflipsyou.blogspot.com) was a long-running podcast all about playing the games that no one wants to play. Many of the games were awful, but they also discovered several gems. “It gave us a way to look at games that were total crap but had one or two cool elements…” Flip’s new show is all about showcasing the fun we have playing board games, while capturing the essence of classic Saturday morning cartoons. We share our family’s rule around Saturday morning cartoons (only broadcast, no Netflix), and Flip shares an anecdote from his own childhood involving a TV movie and a bargain with his mother. Our Top 3 UnFavorite Games We picked three games that pretty much everyone has, but which are terrible. We’re hoping we can find some redeeming quality in each one. Munchkin Good: We love the theme. the humor is fantastic. Bad: With most groups, the game becomes all about holding each other down and dragging the game out as long as possible. Candyland Everyone knows this is Anitra’s worst game of all time. Chutes & Ladders and other basic roll-and-move games also fit this category. Good: These games teach children turn-taking and the basics of counting and moving. Bad: They’re horribly random (except Candyland, in which you can stack the deck), with no meaningful decisions whatsoever. Flip once got a rules question about Candyland from a co-worker?! Trivial Pursuit Good: The backstory (a bunch of college kids started this as a class project, and then turned it into a money-making machine). Trivia is rewarding when you’ve got the answer. Bad: Trivial Pursuit definitively answers how a trivia game can become a slog and not-fun. You need to get questions right in every one of the six categories, which is almost impossible. No one is an expert on everything. We suggest house rules that could improve Trivial Pursuit… or just play Wits & Wagers! (Claire also suggests Box of Rocks as a better trivia game.) So what makes games fun? Telling a story. Having surprises or upsets. Blood Bowl is one of Flip’s favorites for this reason. Actual communication between players! “The unspoken contract” that we’re playing together. Working together, which means games can be more complex and still be fun.   Find Flip Florey’s Super Saturday Board Game Serial!: on Facebook on Board Game Geek as a Guild Twitter: @FFSSBGSerial Instagram: @FFSSBoardGameSerial and at boardgameserial.com   And of course, you can find us online too: thefamilygamers.com Facebook: @familygamersaa Community: thefamilygamers.com/community Twitter:

In honor of Mother’s Day, we talk about games to play with your mom. What do our own kids think Mom (Anitra) would like to play? Last week, we had Asher on the show. This week, Claire is our co-host as we talk about games for mom. Whether your mom is a gamer or not, we have a recommendation for you! What we’ve Been Playing: Sagrada from Floodgate Games Cosmic Encounter from Fantasy Flight Games Magic Maze from Dude Games & Sit Down! & Pegasus Spiele Troke (out of print – see Board Game Geek) Claire says “I like that you move the individual pieces to move all the pieces.” With the preschooler, some games that are good at equalizing skill levels: Maze Racers & Gobblet Gobblers Robo Diner (see our review) Claire tells us about what she does to celebrate victories when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Interviews We ask Elliot (3 1/2) and Asher (7) and ask them: “What games would mom really like to play with you?” Music for this segment is “Magellan” by You Bred Raptors? from Astoria, NY. Games to play with Mom We tried really hard to limit this to a top 5, but we can’t. Instead, we came up with five categories of games, with one or two suggestions in each category: For a large family gathering: Party Game Codenames or any of its variations. Claire recommends Codenames: Disney if your group includes kids. For the mom who wants something simple: Intro Game Roll For It! – a modern classic (see our review) For the mom of young children: Silly Street (see our review) For the mom who wants everyone to win: Cooperative Game Forbidden Island or Forbidden Desert – straightforward, everyone working towards a single goal, and no violence! Thematic Games For the mom who read you fairy tales: The Grimm Forest For the mom who loves sewing or quilting: Patchwork Calm and Beautiful Games For the Bob Ross fan: Bob Ross: The Art of Chill For the mom who loves birds and flowers: Seikatsu (see our review) For the mom who needs a vacation: Tokaido     As always, you can find us @FamilyGamersAA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or check out our Facebook community (www.thefamilygamers.com/community ). Please subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review

On this show, we have a special guest interviewer, our son Asher! We talk to Sam Bryant and Gwen Ruelle, also known as Runaway Parade Games, about their game Fire Tower, on Kickstarter now. As we’ve mentioned, Asher played Fire Tower at Granite Game Summit. He loved it, and not only because he took out all his opponents. Fire Tower is a 2-4 player competitive forest fire game. In most other fire-themed games,  players work together to beat back the blaze. But in Fire Tower, you try to defend your own tower and spread the fire towards your opponents. Each turn, the fire spreads in the direction of the wind. Players have a hand of five action cards, which allows them to change the wind direction, spread fire in specific patterns, extinguish flames, or build fire breaks (defenses). One of the cards is “Fire Storm”. Roll the die to determine wind direction, then every fire gem spreads in that direction. By the end of the game, the board is usually covered in fire gems (which are beautiful, by the way). We were surprised that Fire Tower is actually a pretty quick game (15-30 minutes). It’s designed to move faster as players get eliminated so that no one has to wait long for the game to be over. How did you come up with the idea for Fire Tower? Gwen and Sam love cooperative games, where all the players are playing against the game, but also enjoy competitive games with lots of player interaction. They wanted to create a game that joined both aspects. Fire seemed like a perfect theme to tie both ideas together. “Only YOU can re-direct forest fires!” Is this your first game? Yes. Gwen and Sam have been putting most of their effort into Fire Tower, but they do  have several other projects in development. Listen for a description of a future tile-laying game based on building the best (post-apocalyptic) survival bunker. What age(s) is Fire Tower good for? Because this is an independent release, it has to be marked 13+ to avoid regulatory impact in the USA. While there is still plenty of strategy for more experienced players, most 9-10 year-olds should be able to play. More details: Kickstarter runs through May 24 $39 including US shipping. It’s also “friendly” for shipping to EU, Australia, or Canadian customers. They are intending January 2019 fulfillment (just in time for Asher’s birthday…) Play modes: 1v1, 2v2 teams, or free-for-all (3 or 4 players)   Find Runaway Parade online: runawayparade.com runawayparade @ gmail.com Twitter: @RunawayParade Facebook: @RunawayParade Instagram: @runawayparadegames   As always, you can find The Family Gamers online: Facebook: facebook.com/familygamersaa Community: thefamilygamers.com/community Twitter: @familygamersaa Instagram: @familygamersaa Get the podcast at Apple Podcasts or www.thefamilygamers.com/feed/podcast/ . Sponsor: The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by Wild East Games. Find Wild East Games online at WildEastGames.com,

House rules! Love them or hate them, everybody has played some games not quite as written. When done well, house rules can help equalize skill levels or make a game more fun. We ask our listeners for some of their favorites. What We’ve Been Playing POW! from Gigamic. Build a stable of comic-book villains and heroes, primarily through dice rolls. Seikatsu – a great one to pull out for 2-3 players. See our review. Imhotep: Builder of Egypt from Kosmos. Quarry stones, put them on boats, and bring them to various building locations. It feels a bit like a worker placement game, but not exactly. Dimension, also from Kosmos – speaking of house rules, we do away with some of the bonus points in this game. Who Did It? from Blue Orange. Every player has pets, and someone’s has pooped in the living room. You accuse other’s pets, and they defend by playing a matching pet, becoming the new accuser. Your kids will love it. Spaceteam is a cooperative, real time game. Play tools from your hand to defeat “problems” and avoid “anomalies” and pass tool cards to your fellow players. Organ ATTACK! by Awkward Yeti – a take-that game to play diseases onto other bodily organs and own the last surviving organ. You won’t learn much about the human body, but you’ll learn fancy medical terminology. 10 Days in the USA from Out of the Box – an educational geography-based game. Fairly light but definitely fun and you will definitely learn the geographical relationship between states in the US. Funky Chicken (with teenagers! not great.) But here’s a great video from Engaged Family Gaming showing a mashup of Funky Chicken and Happy Salmon.   House Rules We asked you, our community, what you think about using house rules. Much thanks to Ryan Gutowski, Ric White, James Correia, Josh Cade, and everyone else who responded. We talk about rule-shifting frequently. In our family, we tend to use house rules to equalize difficulty among adults, older children, and younger children. As parents, we need to remember that board games are fundamentally toys, and that means there’s really no wrong way to play with them. As long as everyone is having fun, make whatever kind of rules you’d like! (Just don’t turn Candyland into Calvinball.)   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. Sponsor 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.

On this week’s podcast, we interview Darryl Jones about his game Dobbers: Quest for the Key. Dobbers: Quest for the Key is an encounter-building adventure game, based on a comic book Darryl drew over 15 years ago. The world of the Dobbers is the “Alwaysgreen Forest”. The “Quest for the Key” is an adventure based on the original story: save the world from an evil dark sprite by getting to the magical key. Since you are picking the monsters and locations, it will feel different each time. Darryl created the game with his son. They both enjoy going to GenCon (see our GenCon episode from last summer), but he wanted to be involved with something more. Q: If the goal of the game is to save the Alwaysgreen Forest, why are you stopping everybody else from trying to get the key too? A: “Because I love competitive games and it was super-fun.” On each turn, you may spend “bottle caps” to invest in your deck, or to place locations or monsters onto the board. Since monsters and locations can be placed by other players unpredictably, “travel points” are the major mechanic that increase the difficulty as you approach the end of the game. We think Dobbers: Quest for the Key is a great intro to deck-building. Building your deck here has a purpose – to beat the monsters and move forward, not just to amass points. It rewards you for paying attention to what other players are doing. Dobbers is obviously a richly detailed world and playing the game leaves us wanting to know more about these creatures. We can’t wait to see what Darryl comes up with next!   Find the Kickstarter by going to dobbersquest.com Get the game for $39 plus shipping, or get the game, the comic book, and an art print for $64! If you’re really interested, you can pledge $290 to collaborate with Darryl to create a new hero for the game. The campaign ends Friday May 18.   Find Darryl @splatteredink on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch. More information on Dobbers: Quest for the Key at dobbersquest.com or splatteredink.com Find us online at thefamilygamers.com or @familygamersAA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram Don’t forget to tell your friends about the show and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is.   SPONSOR: 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.   We apologize for the poor sound quality of this episode.

Spring is here, but that doesn’t always mean great weather. We look at some tabletop games that can get your family moving, even if you’re stuck inside. What We’ve Been Playing We didn’t go to PAX East, but Andrew did try out Fireball Island at a special event at The Castle in Beverly Massachusetts. You might also want to check out the funding campaign for Levels, the boardgame/videogame cafe they are planning for the Northshore Mall. He also tried out Morels. The Grizzled – We’ve now played this 3 times in the last week. Fantastic, simple but difficult cooperative game. Isle of Skye – “the Carcassonne killer”. Build your individual kingdom, using bidding, secret decisions, and variable objectives. Andrew calls it “the big brother to Kingdomino“. Dobbers: Quest for the Key – a great intro to deck-building from Spattered Ink, coming soon to Kickstarter. Stay tuned for an interview with the creator in episode 93! Fairy Tile (our review) – plus Backtalk! Thanks to listener Erik for some suggestions on rule variants. Does your family use house rules and variants? We’ll be addressing this topic more in episode 94, so let us know what you think! Deep Sea Adventure Onitama (our review) Mice & Mystics Games to Get Moving It’s spring break here, but the weather’s not great for spending much time outside. What to play to get up and moving? Funky Chicken (see our video) and Happy Salmon Flicking games: Most of our recommendations are dexterity games and flicking games. Remember a lot of flicking games require moving around the table to get the right angle, like pool. (Mars Open Tabletop Golf for example, which should be shipping out to Kickstarter backers within the next few months.) Back during the Kickstarter, Tantrum House evaluated FlipShips vs. Mars Tabletop Open Ice Cool – we’ve talked about this before, but it’s really clever and a lot of fun to play. Flick ‘em Up – Western-themed meeples shooting meeples Building and Destruction Terror in Meeple City (AKA Rampage) – as recommended by Max Davie in our last episode. Rhino Hero Super Battle – more moving around than the first Rhino Hero, since you’re building out as well as up. For the Youngest Gamers Zitternix

Today we’re speaking with Max Davie, a paediatrician in the UK who treats a lot of kids with ADHD or autism. He sees a lot of kids who use screens A LOT and wants to share some common-sense advice on screen time. Max’s video we keep referring to: Should parents reduce screen time, and are board games a good alternative? Why are screens a problem? ARE screens a problem? Cases have been made that limiting screen time improves well-being; but you can actually spend 3+ hours playing video games before there is a noticeable decrease in well-being! What is “screen time”, really? There are so many ways we interact with computers these days, some of which focus on the screen, and some of which are incidental to other experiences. Let’s start with being clear: It is hard to tell the difference between beneficial vs. non-beneficial screen time. Don’t believe the hype. Some skills trained by educational games may transfer to other electronic environments, but most do not transfer to the real world. (Executive function / planning being a major example!) Video games / etc. are VERY compelling activities for children (and adults, too). They begin to crave it and they don’t have the maturity to realize they are being pulled in – and even to take breaks for bodily functions! Video games in particular are great at inducing a flow state – the psychological state of being “in the zone”, fully immersed and at peak performance. It’s very hard to pull out of that. If we as parents are going to put restrictions in place, we need to give our kids some help with replacing video games. Don’t be scared of kids being bored. It is important for kids to have “nothing” time – but don’t pull them right out of a video game without a replacement. Since a big problem with video games is the solitary nature, we ask Max for his thoughts on playing video games together. His take: better than playing alone, but still not great at building relationships. Board game replacements smashing things: Terror in Meeple City (formerly “Rampage”). Drop monsters onto cardboard buildings and beat up the other players’ meeples! racing: Downforce (see our review). Scales well from 2-6 players. city building: Hard to do in a board game without getting too complex, but Carcassonne or Quadropolis are relatively simple takes. Andrew waxes poetic about Through the Ages: A New story of Civilization as an empire-building game that feels like the video game Civilization. Keys to evaluate screen time usage in your family 1) Are you in control of your children’s screen time? 2) Are you able to do the things your family finds important? 3) Is everyone getting enough sleep? If you can answer “yes” to all of these, your family is in great shape with your screen time use.   Find Max @Games4Families online: Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.   Thanks again to our sponsor, Wild East Games. Find Wild East Games online at WildEastGames.com, or @WildEastGames on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Happy Easter! Did you come up short looking for games that would work for your whole family this holiday weekend? Andrew and Anitra suggest 8 games (or types of games) that can work well across several generations. What we’ve been playing: Funky Chicken (see our video) Sundae Split Fairy Tile Justice League: Road Trip (we won’t link to it. You don’t want it.) OK Play Pandemic Legacy – for the first time in over a year. It’s good to get back! EXIT: The Secret Lab Trash Pandas (soon to be published by GameWright) Games that Cross Generational Boundaries We touched on this topic before, back in episode 14 – things to look for in games to be approachable by non-gamer family: Shorter Simple rules – But not necessarily simple strategy Theme! Party games can be good Cooperative games can be good Former suggestions included: Tokaido, Takenoko, Zombie Dice, Krosmaster Arena, Forbidden Island, Pandemic, Castle Panic With the same ideas in mind, we present our top picks now: Top Eight Games for Multi-Generational Play 1. Deep Sea Adventure (Anitra suggests easier press your luck games – Zombie Dice, Batman Dice, or Can’t Stop) 2. Qwingo or a similar easy-to-approach roll-and-write game. This allows everyone to talk and interact while working on their own individual scoresheet. 3. Stop Thief! – easy to approach by non-gamers. Fun to race and catch the thieves. 4. Concept – or other party guessing games. But Concept feels very unique while still being quick to pick up. Partly because there aren’t teams! (other options: CrossTalk, Taboo, Charades, Codenames, etc.) 5. Anomia or Duple – how about Anomia Kids? 6. Go Nuts for Donuts – this has been a huge hit with our kids, and the adults they’ve dragooned into it all seem to enjoy it too. 7. Maze Racers (two-player but speedy rounds) 8. Funky Chicken (coming soon from Happy Planet / North Star Games) or Happy Salmon – fun to watch even if you don’t want to play.   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. Sponsor 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.     Cover stock courtesy of morguefile user

Today, we interview Jay Peak, host of 15 Pieces of Flair and Peak Your Interest. Let’s pique YOUR interest with our picks for prettiest games! Jay does a segment called 15 Pieces of Flair on Throat Punch Lunch (a biweekly Dice Tower video). In 15 Pieces of Flair, Jay shows how to make decorations for your game room. Some easy, some challenging. Mostly large scale decor items, not ways to “bling out” your games. We ask how he gets the boxes under his shelf. (Short answer: 1 inch elastic bands stapled to the shelf.) We’re in luck, he has a video! He also does videos with his son Owen about games, called Under There Gaming. Favorite family games in the Peak household? DropMix Animal upon Animal Ice Cool Labyrinth Loopin’ Chewie Push a Monster Of all of them, Jay says that Ice Cool has the most staying power. How to find Jay: Youtube channel Peak Your Interest Facebook: @JayPeakYourInterest Etsy site: etsy.com/shop/jaypeakyourinterest Instagram: @halfhandicapped Twitter: @halfhandicapped Since we’re talking about artwork and making your game room look great, we also talk about beautiful games. In no particular order: Dixit (and we happen to have a review!) The Grimm Forest Blood Rage Bob Ross: The Art of Chill – Bob Ross’s art is what makes this game. Codenames: Pictures – the pictures are multi-faceted and weird, but really cool. Sagrada Grimslingers – Jay has never played it, but the art is amazing.   Jay recommends some flair project for families! (videos: Wonder Woman collage, Health Potion from One Deck Dungeon) He’s also thinking about re-creating the dinosaur-creature shown on the box for Evolution.)   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. Thanks to our sponsor, Wild East Games. Find them at WildEastGames.com, or @WildEastGames on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks also to the Dice Tower Network and all the crew there. Until next week, PLAY GAMES WITH YOUR KIDS!

Did you know that you can have a fundraiser centered around GameWright games? We just ran a GameWright GameNight for the third time, and we’ll tell you all about it. What we’ve been playing: Terraforming Mars Funky Chicken (from Happy Planet / North Star Games) See our Facebook live video of our family playing Funky Chicken. It is ridiculous, but fun. Monster Match (also from Happy Planet) Go Nuts for Donuts Mice & Mystics Roll Player Ancestree (see our review) Anomia Kids Quoridor Toasted or Roasted (see our review) At the fundraiser: Go Away Monster (different than our copy, but not too different.) Slamwich GameWright Game Night Fundraiser We absolutely love this as a fundraiser. You contact GameWright and schedule a day for your event. They send demo games as well as copies for sale. You set up demo games for interested folks to come play. If they love them, they can buy a copy at regular retail price; the volunteer organization gets 50% of all sales. If you run out of sale copies, you can submit an order when you return the demo games, and you’ll receive your orders within a week or so. We also ran a raffle – whenever someone brought a played game back to the demo table, they got a free raffle ticket. We picked winners at the end of the night to win a few GameWright games. We love that GameWright has games for all ages (3+ for Go Away Monster and Feed the Kitty all the way up to 12+ for some party games), and they keep their prices affordable. Both of these aspects make them perfect for an all-ages event like this fundraiser. We briefly mentioned this about a year ago (episode 44, “Hosting a Game Night”, around 30:50-34:30.) The biggest takeaway from that episode: remember that you the “host” will not be playing games through and having fun with a dedicated group. You need Game Gurus to “float” and help anyone who needs it. If this is something interesting to you, try to schedule in July/August for an event in the Christmas season. Hey publishers! If your game catalog could support it, you should consider setting up a similar program. It doesn’t cost you any more than getting your games to a retailer, it is a great goodwill generator, and it will get your name out to families who might never hear of you otherwise. For more information: Go directly to the GameWright GameNight page: https://gamewright.com/gamenight/ If you have questions or would like to share your experience, you can do that here on the website, or on our Facebook page, Twitter, or our Facebook community. Or contact us directly and we’ll answer your questions as best we can.   Lots of thanks to

This past weekend, The Family Gamers attended Granite Game Summit in Nashua, NH. We give you an overview of what we played, plus three interviews with designers and publishers! Giveaway But first, congratulations to the winners of our survey giveaway! The Ecret Family (CA) The Nelson Family (OR) Elena in Southern California The Mercer Family (GA) The DeVries Family (central MA) Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. Your feedback has been enormously helpful. Granite Game Summit Nashua NH is about a 1.5 hour drive for us. We left right after the kids got out of school on Friday and stayed through Saturday evening. We played a ton of games. Some of the best games at G2S were not part of the “official library”, but brought by other attendees for anyone to borrow. Asher wanted to play familiar games and sought out strangers to play with him. Claire wanted to try new games but with familiar people. Both of them did leave their comfort zones on a few occasions. Games that were new to us: * Indulgence – a trick-taking game with variable goals (Restoration Games) * King of Tokyo – we liked how big this game felt and the fierce competition without a direct take-that mechanic. Great for families, since it’s approachable by kids without feeling like a “kid” game. (IELLO) * Lazer Ryders – fun, but better for teenagers or detail-oriented kids (Greater Than Games) * Ice Cool – super fun dexterity game. We discuss whether trick shots give it more replayability. (Brain Games) * Card-chitecture / Deck Construction – a prototype from Mark Corsey * Stir Fry Eighteen – only 18 cards, cook the best stir-fry while deceiving your opponents (Yanaguana Games) * Pirates’ Blast – dexterity game that uses air puffers to move pirate ships and fire cannons (HABA) * Sparkle*Kitty (Breaking Games) * Pallina – like the classic game Kerplunk, but with a bit more strategy (HaPe) * Super Mario Level Up (USAopoly) * Bonk – chaotic game of rolling marbles to knock a larger ball into the goal (not Gigamic, sorry – actually Buffalo Games) * Sundae Split (Renegade Games) * Anomia Kids – we played right after G2S. Same mechanics as Anomia, but totally accessible for kids. Loved it! (Anomia Press / Everest Games) Shout out to The Castle (in Beverly, Massachusetts), who ran the Geeky Trivia competition. Shout out also to Jeff Johnston! He showed the kids both his prototype games (Asher had previously seen them at TotalCon), as well as Deep Sea Adventure. They taught him Sundae Split. Andrew mentions our experience with damage to our copy of Ancestree. It could have been unpleasant, but the staff at Granite Game Summit and at Calliope Games went out of their way to make it right. Thanks! Sponsor The Family Gamers Podcast is sponsored by Wild East Games.

Special guests join us this week – our children Claire and Asher! We talk about some of the games they’ve been playing, and a little bit about self-control in losing. What We’ve Been Playing: Sushi Go Party! Lanterns: The Harvest Festival Rolling America Welcome to DinoWorld – a print and play game available here. What’s Up – still delightful. Pocket Sub – from Geek Fever Games, on Kickstarter right now Awesome Bots – also from Geek Fever Games Mission to Planet Hexx – with the designer. Retro styled space game where players build the map but also try to keep back cards to fill their “mission briefing” hexagon. Downforce – Asher beat us all. Ice Cool – a fun flicking game. Balloon Pop! – roll-n-write. In Vino Morte – from Button Shy. Previously mentioned on episode 42 and episode 59. Andrew wasn’t really impressed. Kintsugi – also from Button Shy. Repair broken pottery, while trying to keep your color of pottery as contiguous as possible. Deep Sea Adventure – just like Ryan told us last week, this game is so much harder than it appears! Rising Sun – fictional Japanese clans go to war in this area control game. Bluff your opponent(s) to gain the most honor. Andrew is super excited to finally get Roll Player. Expect to hear more next week, or look for us at Granite Game Summit to play. Stacking – video game of story & puzzles with Russian stacking dolls. The kids love to watch. Backtalk! Go to thefamilygamers.com/community to see more in our Facebook group. Kirsten & her family posted pictures of games played when they were without power. Potion Explosion, Colt Express, etc. Max Davie (aka @games4families) playing Celestia with his kids. Animo finished its Kickstarter and we’re excited to see the cards! Adam Noel (@MrNoelJMIS): “LOVED your “fillers” podcast. Got some great ideas to add to my amazon list!” You’re welcome, Adam! Sales Cool Stuff Inc. is having a big sale through Sunday 3/11. FunAgain Games is going out of business. Bad news, except it means they are also clearing out their games at rock bottom prices.