Draft Mechanic

That was Gen Con - and this is the Gen Con recap! Look, I’m sorry, I’m not getting more specific with the timestamps below because then I’d have 100,000 entries. Wait - you actually look at those? Well. I guess. But you asked for it - we talk about a lot of games. Also, there’s two special guests on this episode! Hooray!

IT’S TIME, DEAR LISTENER. TIME TO EMBRACE THE HYPE. LET IT WASH OVER YOU. GEN CON IS HERE.

Ahh, hear that? The relaxing waves, the ocean crashing, yes, you’ve found yourself at a review of Blue Lagoon. It’ll be nice to relax a minute before we fall into the rapids of Gen Con! We’ve got Blue Lagoon on tap and in the review zone. We’ve got solo games with Proving Grounds and Aerion. We’ve got a massive flood of news and Kickstarters. And Jake went on the road for work a whole ton and gives mini-beer-traveler reviews of three cities. All that and more! Right now! Right here!

There’s no better time to look back on a year than halfway through the next one! In our mid-year tradition, we take a second look at our Top Games lists of the previous year and discuss how they’ve changed since January. There’s new games, moved games and all sorts of movement on the list! We’ve got a kickstarter preview of The Alwaysgreen Garden, plus a fresh batch of recent plays as well. Enjoy and we’ll see you back in two weeks for another round!

Today’s episode comes right from the source! Jake went to Origins, we talk up our favorite brewery taprooms, and there’s a selection of fresh new games! We pair beers with Board & Dice’s new butterfly-fluttering abstract Dust in the Wings, and review the fifteen minutes of pure absurdity called We’re Doomed from Breaking Games. Enjoy!

Today we’re taking a look at not one, not two but three polyomino-based games from Uwe Rosenberg as we compare his Puzzle Trilogy: Cottage Garden, Indian Summer and Spring Meadow! Plus, we’ve got a few recent plays from years past - Reef stacks big chunky coral, Lotus grows beautiful flowers, and Scoville has the hottest pepper meeples this side of the Carolina Reaper. Enjoy all that plus more in today’s episode!

I! Hope! You! Are! Ready! To! Hear! About! Some! Games! We’re back from Geekway and fully recovered and comin’atcha with over two hours of Geekway recap. It was a whirlwind of cardboard and wooden bits with a stop or two for a brew. Ok, maybe more than two. We talk up the games we played, what rocked and what flopped, the Geekway bottle share, Southern’s amazing fried chicken, hanging out with pals old and new, and more.

Now we’re really old! In this centennial episode of Draft Mechanic, we’re looking at our Top 10s, we have a Listener Q&A segment, Danielle tackles the biggest Beer Primer to date, Jake talks about going to Chicago for the Gaming Hoopla, and Danielle talks about more games played at our local game nights! Plus - new Draft Mechanic merch?!? Thanks so much for making Episode 100 possible!

It’s the last two-digit episode of Draft Mechanic, and we’re sizing up a pair of deck builders in our Variants feature of Hero Realms and Star Realms! We talk about Bosk, the latest from Floodgate Games, go 15 years back to St. Petersburg, and dive into the Gold Rush in the CarcaZone. Danielle talks about uses for spent grain from the brewing process in the beer segment, and today’s Kickstarters are 70% Mars. Enjoy!

Sometimes, you’re able to dig up a gem - and we’ve gone sea-floor salvaging to pull up today’s review of Otys. The Kickstarter wave continues to crest and we’ve got a preview of Freshwater Fly; and in recent plays it’s Pikoko, plus an odd detour into the CarcaZone with The Ark of the Covenant. Jake also recaps his trip through Augusta, GA in this episode’s Beer Traveler segment, and we’ve got a special report on Unpub from friend of the show Will!

Today on Draft Mechanic, Jake gets to play his most-wanted game from 2018, Coimbra! Does it live up to the hype, or will it fall short of expectations? We also look at the new rondel-icious Winterborne from Brian Suhre and Talon Strikes Studios, plus a pair of Button Shy wallet games and the solo space adventure Deep Space D-6! Danielle wraps it up with a timely Beer Primer on the Dry Irish Stout.

They said an Expandapalooza couldn’t be done, but we proved them all wrong. Now Draft Mechanic is back for round 2, Expandapalooza 2 that is and we are ready to look at expansions to a new crop of games. Euphoria? We got it. Altiplano? No problem. 5 Minute Dungeon, Imhotep, and not one, but two Terraforming Mars expansions? Check, check, and double check. Plus we talk about some new expansions that were just announced and about variants, which might just be the expansions of the craft beer world.

Join us for this mini-episode as we look at the new “Ignorance is Bliss” expansion for Euphoria, from Stonemaier Games! Join us on Monday for the full episode #96, Expandapalooza 2!

Each episode of Draft Mechanic is just like a deck of Keyforge - they’re all unique and have their own special content! This one, thankfully, is reviewing Keyforge, so that metaphor was applicable and totally called for. We’re also going on a weird unique detour in the CarcaZone… the Card game? Plus Herbaceous gets dice, your tour band gets… other dice, and lots more. Such interesting combinations!

I don’t mean to preen but you’d be crazy to pass up this episode in the hand. We have a Six Pack Review of Stonemaier Games’s new title Wingspan and we’ve put it On Tap as well! We’ve also got a nest full of games news, kickstarters, Twin It!, Doppler So Clever, and we fly into the CarcaZone to check out Carcassonne: Star Wars. This episode of Draft Mechanic is nothing short of eggcellent!