Which Game First show

Which Game First

Summary: We all know that board games are the cornerstone of every great civilization. Now finally, as never before, there’s a podcast that can help you discover which games to play! Celeste DeAngelis hosts the panel of intrepid game explorers and designers Mike Grenier, Ed Povilaitis, Evan Bernstein and Joe Unfried. Each episode they explore the hilariously huge world of board gaming, unearthing the gems and the junk.

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 Death Wish | Fist of Dragonstones | Squadro | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 28:24

Death Wish Designed by: Jason Hibbert of Sketchy GamesPublished by: Zafty Games (2017)Players: 2 to 8Ages: 15 & upTime: 20-45 minutesUnearthed by: Ed Death Wish is a light-hearted party card game where the goal is to be the first player to die from fictional diseases.Players take turns collecting matching symptoms and “afflicters”, with the aim of contracting one of the diseases displayed on the table before they’re snapped up by another player. You strive to collect a set of the same colour for most diseases, or one of each color for the wild diseases. Contract a disease by showing the completed set to describe how you caught the disease, and gain “skulls” based on its severity. White strains are most common; less harmful types (one skull) contrast with the rare and deadly red strains (four skulls!)Some diseases trigger outbreaks, which have an array of random creative effects that change the dynamic of the game.The goal is to collect enough “Skull” points to die; the amount required is set by the number of players. First one to die . . . wins the game! Fist of Dragonstones: The Tavern Edition Designed by: Bruno Faidutti & Michael SchachtPublished by: Stronghold Games (2018)  Players: 3 to 6Ages: 8 & upTime: 45 – 60 minUnearthed by: Evan Fist of Dragonstones: Tavern Edition is a closed-fist, bidding game. Players try to outwit their opponents by bidding with different types of gold or silver coins to buy control of an ever-changing cast of enchanted character cards. The powers from those characters help collect valuable Dragonstones, lend their magical powers, help foil other players, and convert Dragonstones into victory.This new Tavern Edition has been updated greatly from the original to improve gameplay. The King’s Favor is introduced to the game, which speeds up play. The game includes more than 70 special character cards, compared to 25 in the original. But we are not comparing this version to the original; we intend to judge it on its own merits. Squadro Designed by: Adrián Jiménez PascualPublished by: Gigamic (2018)Players: 2Ages: 8 & upTime: 20 minUnearthed by: Mike Each player starts with five pieces on their side of the game board, with each player sitting perpendicular to the other. When you move a piece, you move a number of spaces based on the speed indicated in the row that you’re leaving. Once a piece has made its way across the board, you move it back based on the speed on the other side. If your piece passes over an opposing piece while moving, then that opposing piece must return to its last departing base — and your moving piece advances one cell further than where the opposing piece was. The first player to return 4 of their pieces home (facing the right direction!) wins.

 2018 Game Awards & 2019 Preview Show | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 28:12

First Annual Which Game First Awards Best Archeological Find: This award goes to the best game released more than 30 years ago. The version we played must be over 30 years old to be considered for this category.Nominations: 221B Baker Street, Rich Uncle, Dune, Three On a Match, Anti-MonopolyWINNER: Dune Best Ice-Breaker game: This award goes to the best casual game to play at parties. Nominations: Deep Sea Adventure, Dixit, Happy Salmon, Love LetterWINNER: Deep Sea Adventure Best Art: This award goes to the game that has the most engaging or compelling use of art.Nominations: Azul, Ex Libris, Lanterns, Muse, The NetworksWINNER: Muse Best Game Component:  This award goes to the game with the specific component that immediately brings you into the game.Nominations: Celestia, Sagrada, Nuclear War, Tower of MadnessWINNER: Celestia Best Shelfie: This award goes to the game that you are proud to show off, due to its overall production value and sleekness of the game’s box and components.Nominations: Azul, Carson City, Gloomhaven, Twilight ImperiumWINNER: Azul Best Educational Game (Science or History): This award goes to the game that teaches you something cool about the subject while having fun!Nominations: Automobile, Evolution: Climate, Suburbia, Anti-MonopolyWINNER: Evolution: Climate Best Strategy Game: This Award goes to the game that keeps you up late at night, wondering what strategy you’ll try next time…!Nominations: Power Grid, Terraforming Mars, Twilight ImperiumWINNER: Twilight Imperium Best Card Game: This Award goes the game that just about the cards, no board needed Nominations: Android: Netrunner, Dominion, San Juan, TichuWINNER: Android: Netrunner Best New Game:  This award goes to the best game published within the last 24 months, excluding reprints or new editions of older games.Nominations: British vs Pirates, Century: Spice Road, Gloomhaven, Mountain of MadnessWINNER: Gloomhaven Firstie Worstie: This award goes to the game where the best move is to bury it deep in the ground! Nominations: Battle of the Sexes, Mid-Life Crisis, Pickles to Penguins, Eddie Cantor’s: Tell it to the JudgeWINNER: Battle of the Sexes Games We Want to See in 2019 CloudspirePublisher: Chip Theory GamesEstimated Release Date: June 2019Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chiptheorygames/cloudspire Trogdor!! The Board Game Publisher: Homestar RunnerEstimated Release Date: June 2019Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1999933720/trogdor-the-board-game UBOOT: The Board GamePublisher: PHALANXEstimated Release Date: Q1 2019Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phalanxgames/uboot-the-board-game War RoomPublisher:  Nightingale GamesEstimated Release Date: Early 2019Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1957090458/war-room-a-larry-harris-game Tainted Grail: The Fall of AvalonPublisher: Awaken RealmsEstimated Release Date: August 2019Website:

 Scuttle! | San Juan | Hero Realms | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 33:56

Scuttle! Designed by: Peter C. Hayward Published by: Jellybean Games (2016)Players: 1 to 5Ages: 6 & upTime: 5 – 10 minUnearthed by: Joe In Scuttle! You play a swashbuckling pirate captain, racing other dastardly pirates to collect treasure. Each player is dealt a hand of four cards. On your turn, take one action: draw a card or play a card.  Cards may be played as a Treasure, or for its ability. As soon as one player has 21 doubloons worth of treasure or a team has 30 doubloons, they win!In the single-player game, so it’s a race to the get the treasure before the other side gets you San Juan Designed by: Andreas SeyfarthPublished by: Alea and Rio Grande Games (2004)Players: 2 – 4Ages: 10 & upTime: 45 – 60 minUnearthed by: Ed San Juan is a card game based on the well-known game Puerto Rico, designed by Andreas Seyfarth and produced by Rio Grande Games. The deck of 110 cards consists of production buildings (indigo, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and silver) and “violet” buildings that grant special powers or extra victory points. Cards from the hand can be either built or used as money to build something else; face-down cards from the deck may be used to represent goods produced by the production buildings.Every round, starting with the governor, each player selects one of the available roles, which causes that activity to be performed by all players, such as producing goods, constructing buildings, or trading. The person who picks the role gets a privilege that gives them an advantage in that activity. The game ends as soon as one player has put up twelve buildings.  The player with the most victory points, provided by buildings, wins the game! Hero Realms Designed by: Robert Dougherty, Darwin KastlePublished by: White Wizard Games (2016) Players: 2 – 4Ages: 12 & upTime: 20 – 30 minUnearthed by: Mike Hero Realms is a strategic deck building game that can be played head to head, in teams, or in a free-for-all mode. Each player starts with a basic personal deck of 10 cards. Each turn, you play all of the cards from your hand to gain Gold, Combat, Health, and other abilities.Gold is used to buy cards from the Market, which represent Actions, Items, and Champions you may add to your deck. Some cards will become more powerful as allies from the same faction are played.Combat is used to attack your opponent and their Champions.Each player begins the game with 50 Health. When a player has no Health remaining, they are out of the game. The last one standing, wins!

 Medieval Academy | British vs. Pirates | Survive: Space Attack! | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 36:32

Medieval Academy Designed by: Nicolas Poncin Published by: IELLO Games (2014)Players: 2 to 5Ages: 8 & upTime: 30 minUnearthed by: Joe Squires, welcome to Medieval Academy, where you’ll be trained as knights! Master the arts of Jousts and Tournaments, complete dangerous Quests and polish your Education. Show your Charity and Gallantry as you serve the King! Only one of you will be knighted by King Arthur himself, so don your armor and show your stuff! To win, you must accumulate the most Chivalry points. Squires are judged in seven different categories — some categories award only the best, while others penalize the worst; some are only scored once or twice a game, while others score on each and every turn! Players draft a hand of 5 cards each turn; each one can advance your position in one of the categories. After six turns, the squire with the most Chivalry points is knighted and wins the game. British vs. Pirates (Volume I) Designed by: Apollo RandallPublished by: WinGo Games (2017) Players: 2 to 4Ages: 14 & upTime: 45 – 60 minutesUnearthed by: Celeste This is a team game.  One team plays the British Navy; the other, Carribean pirates. Each player chooses a Captain and a Ship from their side to play. The strengths of each captain are combined with that of their ship, to make up their attacking, defending and maneuvering power. Players sail around the hex map, evading or engaging the enemy. The goal is to defeat enemy ships — either through boarding actions or cannon fire. Additional factors, such as wind and hands of cards, will provide additional factors to the battle. You can play specific mission scenarios, or try to be the last man standing! Survive: Space Attack! Designed by: Julian Courtland-Smith, Geoff Engelstein, Brian Engelstein, Sydney EngelsteinPublished by: Stronghold Games (2015)Players: 2 to 4Ages: 8 & upTime: 45 – 60 minUnearthed by: Ed Welcome to the height of technology and comfort aboard the Space Station Atlantis!  We regret to inform you the station is under attack by aliens, please remain calm and proceed to the nearest escape pod. In Survive: Space Attack, you try to get your crew to safety. You have 10 crew members with values ranging from 1 to 6.  Each turn you have three move actions to move crew or ships; then remove one station tile, and look at its back to see what events unfold. The tile may place a new creature, a new ship, or provide a special ability to save for later. Lastly, you roll the die to see which type of creature you must move. You may also capture creatures, using a Fighter or Turret, and place them on the board at a later time. When the “Core Breach” tile is revealed, the game ends! Sum up the value of the crew you rescued, with a bonus for each different jump point you reached.  The highest total wins.

 Celestia | Power Grid Deluxe | Mid-Life Crisis | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 38:01

Celestia Designed by: Aaron Weissblum Published by: BLAM! (2015) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 8 & up Time: 30 minutes Unearthed by: Evan In Celestia, you board an aircraft with a team of adventurers to perform many trips through the cities of Celestia and recover their wonderful treasures. At the beginning of a journey, all players place their pawns within the aircraft; the players start the game with six cards in hand (or eight depending on the number of players). At the beginning of each round, one player is chosen to be the captain of the trip and he rolls 2-4 dice to discover the challenges that they will face: fog, lightning bolts, killer birds, or pirates. He must then play the appropriate cards — a compass, a lightning arrester, a foghorn, or even cannons — to continue on the journey and reach the next city. But before the captain plays the appropriate cards, each player must decide whether to stay within the aircraft: If you exit, you’re guaranteed the victory points that come from exploring the current city. If you stay on board, you hope to make it to the next city in order to catch more precious treasures. If the captain can’t overcome the challenge, though, everyone comes crashing down empty-handed and you’ll need to begin a new trip with all passengers on board. The winner is the first player to accumulate 50 points worth of treasure. Power Grid Deluxe Designed by: Friedemann Friese Published by: Rio Grande Games (2014), originally published in (2004) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 12 & up Time: 120 minutes Unearthed by: Ed The goal of Power Grid Deluxe is to supply the most cities with power! Each round players will: Bid for power plants that they need to power cities. However, as power plants are purchased, newer, more efficient plants may become available, so by merely purchasing, you’re potentially allowing others access to superior equipment. Buy fuel (coal, oil, natural gas, or uranium) needed by your power plants. As resources are purchased, the supply dwindles rising the cost for the following buyers due to demand. Build generations in cities striving to expand your network to get the cheapest routes before your competitors. Get paid for powering cities, to use those funds next round to further improve their Power Grid. The game ends when the grid has reached a set threshold, and whoever powers the most cities, wins. Mid-Life Crisis Designed by: Michael Stern Published by: The Game Works (1982) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 18+ Time: 60 min Unearthed by: Mike In Mid Life Crisis, players wind their way through the treacherous bowels of their middle years (30-55 according to the designers). Your goal is to get to the end of the game without cracking up from stress, getting a divorce, or going broke. If any of those things happen, it will set you back several spaces and cost you a turn or two to recover. When someone reaches the end of the board, the game ends and the player with the most money wins.

 Left Center Right | Android: Netrunner | 221 B Baker Street | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 39:00

Left Center Right (LCR) Designed by: Uncredited Published by: Spin Master Players: 3 to 12 Ages: 5 + Time: 20 minutes Unearthed by: Celeste Each player is given 3 chips to start.  On their turn, they roll the dice (as many dice as they have chips at the time, up to three). For each ‘L’ rolled, they pass a chip to the player on their left; for each ‘R’, they pass to whoever’s on their right; and for every ‘C’ (or ‘Star’, in this version) they pass a chip to the center; and for each ‘Circle’ they roll, they do nothing. This continues until only one player is left with chips . . . and they are the winner. Android: Netrunner Originally Designed by: Richard Garfield Developed by: Lukas Litzsinger Published by: Fantasy Flight Games (2012) Players: 2 Ages: 14 + Time: 30 – 60 min Unearthed by: Ed Android: Netrunner is a two-player, asymmetrical Living Card Game® set in a dystopian, cyberpunk future where monolithic megacorps own and control the vast majority of human interests. They have to guard their intellectual properties from the elite and subversive hackers known as Netrunners. The corp player has 3 core servers — and may create more remote servers  — to advance agendas or exploit assets. Of course, they must protect all this information from nefarious hackers, by installing ICE other countermeasures.  Netrunners scramble to buy the latest hardware for their rig and install the most devious programs — to steal corporate agendas and trash corporate assets. The heart of the game’s conflict occurs when the Netrunner “runs” on a corp’s server. The corp may activate ICE installed to keep intruders out, while the runner uses programs called “icebreakers” to bypass defenses. Corporations advance their agendas, while Netrunners subvert those same agendas. First player to 7 Agenda points wins the game. 221b Baker Street: The Master Detective Game Designed by: Jay Moriarty Published by: Antler Productions (1975) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 10+ Time: 60 – 90 minutes Unearthed by: Evan Follow in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes. There is a case to be solved, and each player might be the detective to crack it wide open. All players are solving the same case. Everyone starts at 221B Baker Street on the map, from which the players visit each of the 14 locations on the board. Movement is decided by the throw of a single die. The Case card provides the background of the case as well as listing the location of each clue in the case booklet. A place may provide no clue, or only a part of one. Clues may also be entirely irrelevant, or throw a player off entirely. Clues often are in the form of a riddle, especially multi-part clues. Upon entering a location the player reads the back of the card containing the case. It consists of a list of locations and a number assigned to each one. The player may then secretly read the relevant paragraph in the back of the rulebook which is the clue. Each paragraph may contain evidence of note, or it may not! And the clue may be cryptic. A time limit to read the clue is recommended, after which the book must be closed. Play then passes to the next player. If the player believes that they know the solution to the case, they may return to the starting point at 221B Baker Street. Once there, the player must announce (publicly) the essentials of the crime: typically the culprit, the weapon used and the motive.

 Blokus | Bärenpark | Redneck Life | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 36:12

Blokus Designed by: Bernard Tavitian Published By: Mattel Games (2000) Players: 2 to 4 Ages: 7+ Time: 30 min Unearthed by: Joe Blokus is a game for 2-4, widely recommended for 2 or 4. You must place as many of your pieces on the board as you can, but you must follow the rule: on the first turn, the piece you place must fit over your corner space. You heard me right: just one rule is a bit of a stretch you can actually say this game has just that one rule. . . and get away with it! On every other turn, the piece you place MUST touch another of your pieces, corner-to-corner (never edge-to-edge); but there are no such limitations on how your pieces touch those of your opponents.  Blokus pieces may never be stacked, and the segmented indentations on the board have probably prevented thousands, if not millions, of disasters from the inadvertent jostling of snack bowls or mischievous cats. Bärenpark Designed by: Phil Walker-Harding Published By: Lookout Games and Mayfair Games (2017) Players: 2 to 4 Ages: 8+ Time: 30 – 45 min Unearthed by: Ed Bärenparks: it’s the next big thing! To be successful, you must skillfully fit together enclosures, animal houses, and green areas, and use every available inch of land. Animal houses and enclosures are worth points, and are more valuable if you build them quickly. Construction crews let you claim more land to build on. When one player fills their park, the game is over and it’s time to see who’s won! Redneck Life Designed by: Lisa Steenson and Lori Dieda Published By: Gut Bustin Games (2003) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 13+ Time: 1 – 2 hours Unearthed by: Celeste A roll of two dice determines how many years of grade school you’ve completed. You start the game at age 18, which sets you up for one of 11 fabulous careers, such as Monster Truck Announcer or Mullet Salon Operator! Roll the dice to move along the board. Blaze through Blue Collar Americana by taking payday loans to purchase rigs. Also get hitched and housed, divorced, remarried, and raise yourself  a passel of young’uns. Accidents and brawls do happen from time to time — so take care of your pearly whites! Buy some back at the Day of Reckonin’ if you can. Because at the end of the game, the winner is the player with the most teeth left!

 Deep Sea Adventure | Gloomhaven | Century: Eastern Wonders | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 37:31

Deep Sea Adventure Designed by: Jun Sasaki, Goro Sasaki Published By: Oink Games Inc. (2014) Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 8 + Time: 30 min Unearthed by: Evan A group of cash-strapped salvagers dreaming of quick wealth venture out to recover treasures from some undersea ruins. They’re all rivals, but budget constraints force them to share a single rented submarine, so they must all share a single tank of air, as well. If they don’t get back to the sub before they run out of air, they’ll drop all their treasure. Now it’s time to see who can bring home the greatest riches. The game takes place over 3 rounds, and the player to gain the most points over the 3 rounds is the winner. In order to gain points, you must bring treasure back to the submarine. You can only return to the submarine once per round, and you cannot progress any further after returning. Gloomhaven Designed by: Isaac Childres Published By: Cephalofair Games (2017) Players: 1 to 4 Ages: 12 + Time: 60 – 120 min Unearthed by: Joe Gloomhaven is a legacy game. That means every time it’s played, there are concrete changes made to the game’s setting, so it evolves in reaction to players’ short and long-term effects on the game world. Starting characters include characters like the Scoundrel, the Brute and the Tinkerer. Every character gets their own deck of action cards and starts at level 1. A character’s deck will change as the character accumulates levels of experience. The game plays out in a series of scenarios, each of which take up to 120 minutes. Before each scenario, the PCs are given battle goal cards to choose from. These give each character a specific goal, to be kept secret from other players. If achieved, this goal will give the character one or two check marks, similar to victory points, which can be used to improve that player’s character later on. In a typical scenario, the players move their character across the spaces on the map populated with traps and other features laid out and arranged as instructed by the scenario book. When characters engage in combat, they use two action cards each round. Each action card has an initiative number in the middle, top action, and a bottom action. Between scenarios, the players periodically return to Gloomhaven. When they arrive, they are given a choice to make in a city encounter. When they leave Gloomhaven, they may have a choice to make in a road encounter; both road and city encounters are resolved by group decision, just like a real group of adventurers, and both can have immediate or long-term effects on the game’s story. The game offers dozen of scenarios, new treasures and level-up surprises as you go for tons of adventure gameplay. Century: Eastern Wonders Designed by: Emerson Matsuuchi Published By: Plan B Games (2018) Players: 2 to 4 Ages: 8+ Time: 30-45 min Unearthed by: Ed Centuries ago, the lucrative spice trade led to the discovery of the famed Spice Islands where the most valuable spices in the world were found in the Age of Discovery. Your journey continues in the Far East. Century Eastern Wonders is played over a series of rounds. Each player will take one turn each round (starting with the first player and going clockwise). On a player’s turn, they may move their boat and then perform one of three possible actions: Harvest: Gain 2 yellow ginger spice cubes. Market: May place an Outpost; and if you have an outpost, you may make that exchange. Port: Trade in the listed spices for VP.

 Munchkin | Carson City | Planes | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 34:32

Munchkin Designed by: Steve Jackson Published By: Steve Jackson Games (2001) Players: 3 to 6 Ages: 10 + Time: 60 – 120 min Unearthed by: Evan Munchkin is a satirical card game about adventure, that pokes fun at the clichés and oddities of fantasy dungeon-crawling. Each player starts at level 1; and the winner is the first to reach level 10. Players acquire familiar D&D-style character classes during the game, which affect which cards they can play. Each turn the current player may ‘kick down a door’ – drawing an encounter card, which  usually involves battling a monster. Monsters have their own levels, though, so players must make use of their own levels, weapons and powers they’ve acquired. Or, they can just run away. Here’s the kicker: other players can chose to jump into another player’s fight on their behalf (usually for a price). OR . .  . they can always intervene to hinder other players by adding extra monsters for them to face! Defeating a monster will usually result in drawing treasure cards and acquiring levels. Being defeated by a monster results in “bad stuff” which usually involves losing levels and treasure.   Carson City (Big Box) Designed by: Xavier Georges Published By: Quined White Goblin Games & Eagle-Gryphon Games (2009) Edition Played: Big Box Edition by Quined Games (2018 Players: 2 to 6 Ages: 13 + Time: 90 min Unearthed by: Ed Carson City consists of four rounds; in each, you choose a character which gives certain advantages. You place your cowboys on the action track, or at locations that allow you to construct buildings, houses, or roads; claim ground; round up guns; earn money; or score victory points. When more than one player is on the same location, get ready, it is time for a duel! Roll the dice and see if you are the last one standing and lay claim to the goods! At the end of the game, the buildings, houses, mountains, and money you own contribute to your victory points, and the person with the most points wins.   Planes Designed by: David Short Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group (2014) Players: 2-4 Ages: 14+ Time: 30 minutes Unearthed by:  Joe Each turn you get 3 phases: action, move and goal. Your cards each have a goal and an action, but you may choose only one of those from any particular card. To move, pick any space with at least one of your cubes in it; pick up all the cubes in that space — whether they’re yours or not. From there, you may advance as many spaces as you can, dropping one cube at each space you move to.  As long as you have cubes left, you can stop anytime, leaving all the remaining cubes in that space. If you can arrive at a gate space with exactly one cube matching the color of the plane, that cube boards the plane. Getting your cube on the plane earns you 5 VP. Getting a neutral cube on a plane gets you two cards.

 Muse | Terraforming Mars | Fluxx | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 34:46

Muse Designed by: Jordan Sorenson Published By: Quick Simple Fun Games (2017) Players: 2-12 Ages: 10+ Time: 30 minutes Unearthed by: Mike In muse, players are divided into two teams that will take turns as artists or antagonists. At the start of each round, a muse is chosen from the artists team. Then the Antagonists draw 6 art cards and 2 inspiration cards, and secretly choose one of each with the goal of making it difficult for the artists to guess which of the masterpieces they chose. Then they secretly show their choices to the muse. To make it more challenging, they also chose one of the 2  inspiration cards which guides the muse to the type of clue they must use to help their team. As a muse, you need to be creative to give the right clue within the constraints of the inspiration card to help guide your team to the masterpiece. If the artists guess the correct masterpiece, they take it. If they guess wrong, the antagonists take it. The first team to seize 5 masterpieces wins! Terraforming Mars Designed by: Jacob Fryxelius Published By: Stronghold Games (2016) Players: 1 – 5 Ages: 12+ Time: 120 min Unearthed by: Ed In Terraforming Mars, you control a corporation competing to transform Mars into a habitable planet by spending vast resources, and using innovative technology to raise temperature, create a breathable atmosphere, and make oceans of water.  You’ll play project cards, build up production, place your cities and green areas on the map, and race for milestones and awards in order to have the best Terraforming Rating among the companies. You acquire unique project cards by buying them to their hand. The projects (cards) can represent anything from introducing plant life or animals, hurling asteroids at the surface, building cities, to mining the moons of Jupiter and establishing greenhouse gas industries to heat up the atmosphere. There are also Standard Projects that are always available. Each player keeps track of their production and resources on their player boards of six types of resources: MegaCredits, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, and Heat. On the game board, you compete for the best places to place city tiles, ocean tiles, and greenery tiles. You also compete for different Milestones and Awards worth many VPs. When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete. The highest Terraform Rating and VPs wins! Fluxx Designed by: Andrew Looney & Kristin Looney Published By: Looney Labs (1997) Players: 2-6 Ages: 8+ Time: 5 – 30 min Unearthed by: Evan Start by shuffling the deck of cards and dealing three to each player. Choose a person to start, and then: Draw One, Play One. That is until you play new rules cards that start to tell you to do other things, such as draw 2 cards, or play 3 cards, or discard your entire hand. The goal of the game?  Well that’s whatever the goal cards tell you. A goal might be to have some keeper cards in front of you. Or a goal might be to have 10 cards in your hand. Every player is shooting for the same goal. Just like the rules, the goals also change. If you don’t like the current goal card, go ahead and play a new goal card and supercede the last goal. The rules are ever changing, the goals are ever changing, the game moves fast, and it can be over in a heartbeat, or an hour later. It is impossible to predict, and that’s the fun.

 Formula Motor Racing | Tower of Madness | Funky Chicken | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 26:42

Formula Motor Racing Designed by: Reiner Knizia Published By: GMT Games (2007) Players: 3 to 6 Ages: 8 + Time: 20 min Unearthed by: Joe You move your cars up and down the 12 positions on the track. You could be hot on the heels on the car in front of you — or a mile behind; you constantly jockey for position, because all that matters is where you place. If you have the right cards  — and play them right — you can end up with a win for one of your cars, or even both of them, no matter how you started.   Tower of Madness Designed by: Curt Covert Published By: Smirk & Dagger Games (2018) Players: 3-5 Ages: 14+ Time: 30-45 min Unearthed by: Ed In Tower of Madness, a three-dimensional clock tower, standing a foot tall and filled with marbles of four distinct colors, stands ominously before you. Thirty unworldly tentacles push through the tower walls in every direction in this high-tension, push-your-luck dice game of Lovecraft-inspired horror. Players take turns rolling dice to investigate each Location (these number from 8 to 10, depending on the number of players). Each player can Discovery points for conducting the best investigation at a particular site. But If you fail — you draw a tentacle from the tower! Any marbles that fall as a result affect your character immediately: adding to your discovery total, gaining you spells and forbidden knowledge, or driving you ever closer to madness! Watch out — when the third and last DOOM marble drops, Cthulhu rises and ends the game! Saving the world can be . . . tricky. Players must complete all their investigations BEFORE the third green DOOM marble drops; the investigator who gets with the most Discovery points (while staying sane, of course!) is the winner. But If the third DOOM marble drops, the investigators lose all as the world is consumed. (Insane players may cheer briefly; after all, they are saved for dessert!)  If you are the insane player that caused the final DOOM marble to drop, you are declared the DOOMBRINGER and win the game.   Funky Chicken Designed by: Ken Gruhl, Satish Pillalamarri, Quentin Weir Published By: North Star Games (2018) Players: 3 to 6 Ages: 6 and up Time: Two Minutes Unearthed by: Celeste Funky Chicken is a simple, fast-paced card game that gets everyone moving and laughing in under two minutes. There are no turns. Players simultaneously call out the dance actions “Bump”, “Swing”, “Spin”, and “Funky Chicken”. When two players match, they perform the dance move together and discard their card. The first player to discard all their cards and say “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” wins.

 Roll Through the Ages | Beneath Nexus | The Last Spike | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 43:01

Special Guest panelist Rob Kalajian from A Pawn’s Perspective. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age Designed by: Matt Leacock Published By: Eagle-Gryphon Games (2008) Players: 1 – 4 Ages: 8 + Time: 30 – 45 min Unearthed by: Joe Your die rolls get you coins, labor, or food to help you build and prosper. You have multiple viable strategies: building monuments scores you points, while building cities gets you more dice to roll. Focusing on science gets you chances to re-roll, make your die rolls more productive, or maybe avoid disasters. The game ends when someone has five developments — or when all the wonders get built. Whoever has the most points wins.   Beneath Nexus Designed by: Tom Panico, Chris Visco Published By: Silverclutch Games (2016) Players: 3 – 6 Ages: 12 + Time: 60 – 90 min Unearthed by: Mike In Beneath Nexus, the players are heroes squaring off against the powerful Blight Lord. . . except for the one player controlling it!  Each hero has a passive ability, a default action, and a unique deck of spells, actions, and reactions. The Blight Lord player chooses from several boss villains, with a unique deck of cards and abilities. The Heroes must battle their way through two scenarios, randomly chosen. Finally they face the Blight Lord in a final battle! Each scenario starts with the Blight Lord summoning one monster per hero. Each round, the Blight Lord gets one action per hero to apply the cards or abilities of the monsters. Then, each of the Heroes takes one action each turn, in the order of their turns. If a hero dies, they return at the beginning of the next scenario with 6 health. The hero players lose if all heroes die in the same scenario. To win, they must destroy the Blight Lord!   The Last Spike Designed by: Tom Dalgliesh Published By: Columbia Games (2015) Players: 2 – 6 Ages: 10 + Time: 45 min Unearthed by: Ed Players cooperate to build a continuous railway from St. Louis to Sacramento, while racing to accumulate as much money as they can in the resulting frenzy of land speculation. But when the “last spike” is laid . . . the boom is over! Each player has a hand of four track tiles, each showing a particular location. Players each place a track tile each turn, paying the cost. After a player places a tile, they may purchase one deed for a city bordering that part of the track. If the player is the first to place adjacent to a city, they gain a deed to that city for free. Whenever two cities are connected, every deed for those two cities gets paid from the bank. When a player places a tile that creates a contiguous track from St. Louis to Sacramento, that player receives a $20,000 bonus, and the game ends. Whoever has the most cash wins!

 The Mind | The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 | Sagrada | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 47:01

Guest Panelist: Curt Covert from Smirk & Dagger Games We talk about Tower of Madness, Hex Hex, Nut So Fast, Before There Were Stars, and Koi. The Mind Designed by: Wolfgang Warsch Published By: Pandasaurus Games (2018) Players: 2 – 4 Ages: 8 + Time: 20 min Unearthed by: Celeste The Mind is a card game, where in each of the rounds (called levels), all players receive a hand of cards equal to the number of the level (one card at level 1, two cards at level 2, etc.). The players are cooperating, to try to lay the cards down in a single stack in ascending numerical order.   The players cannot communicate in any way about what cards they have, so there is a lot of focused, quiet concentration with many pregnant pauses. Whenever you feel the time is right, you play your lowest card. If no one holds a lower one, then the game continues, but if another player did have a lower card they must stop the game and discard a life! The group has a communal amount of lives equal to the number of players. Completing a level may earn you additional lives or power-ups. If the players lose all their lives, they lose. If the group completes all 12 levels, they win! The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 Designed by: Joe Van Wetering Published By: Project Raygun (2017), an imprint of USAopoly Players: 4 – 8 Ages: 17 + Time: 1 – 2 hrs Unearthed by: Ed Another bleak, desolate Antarctic winter is dawning when a group of NSF researchers manning the claustrophobic, isolated U.S. Outpost 31 comes into contact with a hostile extraterrestrial lifeform. Bent on assimilating Earth’s native species, this being infiltrates the facility — creating a perfect imitation of one of the Outpost 31 crew. The staff begins a frantic sweep of the base to purge this alien infection before escaping to warn McMurdo Station that somewhere, out there in the frigid darkness, something horrible awaits! In this hidden identity game, you will relive John Carpenter’s sci-fi cult classic, The Thing, in a race to discover which team member has been infected (and duplicated!) by this heinous lifeform. Play as one of twelve characters, leading a series of investigations through the facility, while using supplies and equipment to clear the building. The tension mounts and paranoia ensues as you question who you can trust in the ultimate race to save humanity! Sagrada Designed by: Adrian Adamescu & Daryl Andrews Published By: Floodgate Games (2017) Players: 1 to 4 Ages: 13 and up Time: 30 to 45 min Unearthed by: Joe You’re trying to score lotsa points, creating a beautiful stained glass cathedral window. If you’re stuck, the game allows you to go off the beaten track to sweeten your options. You get a template, with a score of very cute, very fun, very efficient little indented boxes to ensconce your dice into specific patterns. You get a little extra fun with hidden personal goals . . . I was surreptitiously scooping up lots of the red dice. Since my template only actually required me to end up with a total of 2 red dice out of the 20, I was gleeful about my prospects. And win or lose, that’s a big part of why I play games.

 Boston Festival of Indie Games 2018 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 42:19

The Boston Festival of Indie Games was held at the MIT Johnson Athletic Center in Cambridge, MA. The show featured 40 games in the Tabletop Showcase and 48 games in the Digital Showcase, along with many sponsors and exhibitors showing off their products. You can check out their website at: https://www.bostonfig.com Folks we met at the show: Cookie Brigade: https://www.cookiebrigade.org/wp/ Dead Man’s Doubloons: https://thundergryph.com/dead-mans-doubloons/ Everdell: https://www.starling.games/everdell/ Penguin Slap: http://lowsodiumgames.com/ The Genius Project: https://www.projectgeniusinc.com/ Deblockle: https://www.deblockle.com/ Cromacube: https://www.chromacubepuzzle.com/ That’s Wizard: https://www.facebook.com/thatswizard Dragoon: http://www.laywastegames.com/ Beneath Nexus: https://www.silverclutchgames.com/ D.I.Y. Auction House: http://kadunkgames.com/ Gladius: https://www.facebook.com/gladiuscardgame Renova Leaf Me Alone: http://pairofjacksgames.com/ Cheer Up: https://cheerupgames.com/ Schism: https://www.facebook.com/schismthegame Lost & Found: http://lostandfoundthegame.com Return to the Stars: https://festive.ninja/ Ten Candles: http://cavalrygames.com/ten-candles/ Boardgame Empire: www.playbgempire.com Ship Naked: https://www.shipnaked.com/ Questime Party Game: http://questime.com/boston/ Tabletop Showcase Winners: BEST GAME IN PROGRESS D.N.ABLED BEST FAMILY GAME HIBERNATION https://twitter.com/piedravengames BEST HOBBY GAME FAZA http://www.thefaza.com/ INNOVATIVE LUKEWARM AUDIENCE CHOICE AND MOST DYNAMIC SCHISM https://www.facebook.com/schismthegame BEST IN SHOW CRUMBS

 Ivanhoe | Azul | Battle of the Sexes | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 35:02

Ivanhoe Designed by: Reiner Knizia Published By: GMT Games (2000) Players: 2 – 5 Ages: 10+ Time: 20 – 60 min Unearthed by: Joe Each player is a knight, taking part in a series of tournaments . . . each one revolves around a specific skill like jousting, axe-fighting, fencing, or fisticuffs. Some cards are good for only one specific kind of tournament, while others are good all the time. Most cards have a color, indicating the kind of tournament (green for example indicates fisticuffs) — and a number, which adds to your total score for the current tournament. If you end any given tournament with the high score, you grab a victory token of the appropriate color to indicate that you’ve won that kind of tournament. The object of the game is to collect the required victory tokens to satisfy the win conditions (which vary depending on how many people are playing). White cards are “Supporters”, who can be used to support you in any sort of tournament. Supporters with a value of 6 are “Maidens” — unfortunately, you can have only one of these in play at a time.   Azul Designed by: Michael Kiesling Published By: Next Move & Plan B Games (2017) Players: 2 – 4 Ages: 8+ Time: 30 – 45 min Unearthed by: Ed In Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. At the end of each round, players score points based on how they’ve used their tiles to decorate their palaces. Wasted tiles cost points. At the end of the game, bonuses may be scored for certain patterns and completing sets. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.   Battle of the Sexes Designed by: Uncredited Published By: University Games (1997) Players: 2 – 8 Ages: Adults Time: ~ 45 min Unearthed by: Celeste This is essentially a simple trivia question game with the large set of question cards you’d expect. The twist on that basic theme is that this game separates the questions by male and female expertise.  Players are asked questions picked from the other gender’s “wheelhouse.” The board is laid out so the players teams start at opposite ends of the board; the first player (or team) to get to the other side and back again wins the game.

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