Every Night Is Game Night

After 74 whole episodes, we are happy to receive a visit from the Podfather himself - Stephen Buonocore of Stronghold Games. For this episode, we experimented a bit with our usual podcast format so we could have some fun. For the first half, we talk about some recent expansions for Stronghold Games we really enjoy - Not Alone: Exploration (5:00) and The Pursuit of Happiness: Community (9:11). Then we preview some upcoming games from Stronghold - Indian Summer (13:41) and Noria (17:00). I recorded a short note about this part of the pod right at the jump, so please check that out. Afterwards, we really let our hair down and geek out about one of our favorite games of all time - War of the Ring (26:51). We talk about its theme, its length and balancing, and also note a very impressive, fan-made solo mode for it: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/141333/queller-bot-war-ring-solo-play. We then carry about all sorts of topics from there, including a chunky digression into the Game of Thrones TV show that we put b

We've wanted to have a pod conversation with these two gentlemen for a long time, and it's finally here! It was out pleasure to speak with Morten Monrad Pederson and David Studley from the Automa Factory. For those who don't know, an Automa is a small deck of cards that acts as a "bot," simulating another player at the table. You can use it to fill in for another gamer at the table who can't make it for the evening, or as an opponent for solo play. After telling us a little about themselves, they talk about fan reception to Automas and how they've changed over the last few years (4:49). Then we talk about the Automas for Charterstone (14:25 - no spoilers, of course), and for Gaia Project (28:00). Listener Mike shared this Geeklist with us as well - featuring automa variants: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/209213/games-automa-opponents-solo-play

Welcome to part two of our year end ENGN Solo Awards for 2017! We hope you enjoyed part one last episode. This time, we feature all of the core titles that made the biggest impact in the solo and cooperative communities throughout the year. And, just like last time, we have some illustrious guests from other channels to help us out. Best Short Game - presented by Travis from Low Player Count (2:00) - https://www.lowplayercount.com/ Best Family/ Casual Strategy Game - presented by Liz Davidson from Beyond Solitaire (5:52) - http://www.beyondsolitaire.net/index.html Best Advanced Card Game - presented by a mystery guest presenter (11:32) Best Adventure Game - presented by Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules (13:49) - http://gaming-rules.com/ Best Complex Strategy Game - presented by Anthony and Frances from Ant Lab Games (20:55) - http://antlabgames.com/ We also give our thoughts on the year as a whole right at the very end of the episode. Phew, we finally put a bow on 2017. Time to embrace 2018!

You may have seen the voting polls on Facebook and the 1 Player Guild. Now it's time to hand out our ENGN Solo Awards for 2017! Anthony and Jason both chose their own winners, and the fans helped up break any ties between us with their own votes! Not only do we present each award with analysis for each category, we asked a number of friends in the solo and cooperative community to help present (one of whom gets eaten by a Shoggoth monster... you'll have to listen to find out who). Best Board Game App - presented by Crystal Pisano of Board Game Blitz (6:14) - http://www.boardgameblitz.com/ Best App Integration in a Board Game - presented by Peter Gousis and Michael Kelly of Co-Op Cast (11:06) - https://soundcloud.com/user-318456537 Best Unofficial Fan Variant of a Game - presented by Hans Gruberstein from Hans Solo channel (17:48) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEqba1Xh4vQGm2beVcVxOdQ Best Reprint - presented by Colin Degnan from One Stop Coop Shop - (22:00) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrOtGhui_jdL

Welcome back to our special Preview Series, the show where Kickstarter designers and project managers answer all of your questions about their projects. We hope you get everything you need to know so that you can make an informed decision about whether a KS project is worth your hard earned cash. Today, we are happy to chat the publisher and designer of one of the most popular, family friendly projects currently on Kickstarter, which is Tiny Epic Zombies. Scott Almes and Michael Coe share their stories about the origin of TEZ, design goals, ITEMeeples, use (or perhaps overuse) of the zombie theme, and much more. Also, as of this episode, Every Night is Game Night is now a part of the Dice Tower Network. We are very happy to share this episode with a new audience as an introduction to our content. Please check out our regular series of episodes as well, including our big Year End Award Show that will release this coming Friday, 2/2.

For this week's episode, we are extremely happy to bring you our interview with Rory O'Connor, lead designer for Rory's Story Cubes. We could only barely contain the story telling flair that Rory brought to the pod! Albert from the 1 Player Podcast has returned to ENGN to help us out with the interview, as well. After a brief intro where we learn a bit about Rory as a gamer, we get into the history of the Cubes (6:50), particularly focusing on how he used them as a self-help tool and how they grew into a game and story telling engine that has sold 7 million copies worldwide. We then talk about other projects from Creativity Hub (35:50), including Untold: Adventures Await and Blank.

This week, we return to our tried and true Deep Dive format to analyze one of the hottest releases of 2016 - Stonemaier Games' Charterstone. The first part of our show is spoiler free. We give our impressions of the very first game, as well as non-spoiler (as much as possible) reactions after finishing all 12 games. Afterwards, we get into our full spoiler review (16:07). Finally, we brought in a few friends of the pod for their reactions - Martin from our Slack channel, and Jenn Bartlett, the Board Game Librarian, and her husband Matt. They had very, very, VERY different reactions to the game (39:11) that you will want to hear. If you want to be a guest on the pod, please check out www.boardgamersanonymous.com and consider backing us on Patreon. We have a Slack channel where we hang out. When the need arises, I will invite you on the show to talk about a game! And if you back at a high enough level, you will be able to choose the subject matter yourself. So, if you find that appealing, please mosey on over a

Time to blast off into space! We have three games for you this week which all take place in the so-called final frontier. First up will be Kepler 3042 (1:41), a Euro-style game which emulates space exploration, but with a heavy Euro twist. Next, we talk about Alien Artifacts (14:15), a new empire building card game from Portal Games. Finally, for all you Star Trek fans, we give you our opinions on the Borg expansion for Star Trek Ascendency (26:35). Finally, we canvassed some people online to see what they thought about space themes in games (42:48). What's appealing? What turns people off? We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the threads for some very insightful answers.

As a special treat to our listeners, we packaged all the extra random stuff we talked about with Ignacy Trzewiczek into its own short episode. We talk about PayPal, Russian hackers, Jumanji, failing at podcasts, and more. If you haven’t already, please check out Episode 68 for the official interview with Ignacy.

We are very excited to be joined once again by Ignacy Trzewiczek, president of Portal Games. Ignacy joined us last year to talk about the pre-order campaign for First Martians. This time, he’s back to talk about the launch, future content, and yes... the rulebook. We think you will be very interested to hear Ignacy give his honest opinions. We also talk about lots more releases coming from Portal in 2018, including new expansions for Robinson Crusoe, Alien Artifacts, and Imperial Settlers. We hope you enjoy the episode. Also, stay tuned Monday for some extra conversation we had about all sorts of random stuff.

We had so much fun talking with Colin about some new FFG games that we invited him to stick around and talk about... some more stuff! We discuss two more adventure board games with large amounts of content and the promise of more to come. First, we talk the Dungeons and Dragons themed card game Dragonfire (0:58), comparing it to its predecessor Shadowrun: Crossfire as well as other similar, very popular games in the genre. Then we tackle the latest festival of miniatures and dungeon adventures that is Massive Darkness (13:05). We close out with a discussion of miniatures in board games (24:40). Are they essential to an adventure and/ or tactical gaming experience? Or do they represent lures for unsuspecting gamers to buy substandard products? We try to cover the topic from as many different perspectives as possible.

'Tis the season for... lots of new releases from Fantasy Flight! There's so much stuff, Jason and Anthony had to call in Colin from the YouTube channel One Stop Co-Op Shop in order to talk about it all. You will hear our usual in-depth coverage of three new, very different releases from FFG. First up, we break down the new Imperial Assault: Legends of the Alliance app (1:30) and let you know our opinion about how it opens up cooperative and solo play for people who already love (or might love) Imperial Assault. Then we cover Fallout (11:40), a more traditional adventure board game set in the video game universe of its namesake. Finally. Colin tackles Legacy of Dragonholt (29:20), an RPG-style adventure. Also, if you want to hear about Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, check out Co-Op Cast. The fellows over there invited Jason along for a chat about the campaign, legacy systems in general, and lots more. https://soundcloud.com/user-318456537/coop-cast-episode-15-pandemic-legacy-season-2

It's here! The full Top 100 People's Choice Solo Games - 2017 edition! The creator of the list, Kevin Erskine of the 1 Player Guild, was good enough to join us again to talk about the top half of the list. First, we chat about games that dropped off the list entirely. Then we get into some surprises, trends, and a few "best in show" categories among soloists, such as card games, dice games, worker placement, deckbuilding, and others. We also wax poetic about the acclaimed number one game among solo gamers, which is... you'll have to listen to find out. Or you can go over to the BGG 1 Player Guild and see the list for yourself! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/233582/2017-peoples-choice-top-100-solo-games-100-11

It is time! Just like we did last year, and just like we will probably do every year going forward, Anthony and Jason sat with Kevin Erskine of the 1 Player Guild on BGG to talk about the People's Choice Top 100 Solo Games for 2017! Today, we present Part One where we discuss some of the broader trends and themes of the Top 100. Then we get into some commentary about numbers 100 to 51, which you could see live on Kevin's GeekList: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/233582/2017-peoples-choice-top-100-solo-games-100-71. We were sensitive to spoilers in this episode, so it may seem a bit short. We hope you enjoy some of our banter for this week, and also hope you stay tuned when we discuss the full list, including the number one game, next week!

Hey everyone. Sorry for the late episode! We had a technical snafu which set us back a few days, but we are back and ready to serve up some more reviews.    This time, Anthony and Jason dive back into the universe of card games and talk about some releases that have hit the shelves over the past few months.    Superhot: The Card Game (2:00) Hardback (10:02) Finished! (16:44) London (27:20) Aventuria Adventure Card Game (35:19)   We hope that you enjoy the episode and also find an option that might make a good, relatively inexpensive gift option for yourself or a fellow gamer. In addition, please visit our list of solo and cooperative games on the Board Gamers Anonymous blog for more gift ideas: http://boardgamersanonymous.com/2017-engn-co-op-solo-awards-nominations-list/. And don't forget, next week we will start running down the Top 100 Solo Games People's Choice, 2017 edition!         

This past week, Anthony and Jason met up at PAX Unplugged 2017 in Philadelphia, PA! Anthony talks about some of the games he played there, then Jason interviews a slew of different attendees in short, 2-4 minute clips. They will give you a nice cross-section of everything that went on at PAX this year. As a special treat, we also get to hear from all three fellows from the Dice Tower. They talk about their adventures in solo gaming, negative comments that may or may not have been said in the past, and a promise to always, always, give Zee Garcia grief for whatever he does.

We are zigging and zagging here on Every Night is Game Night! This time, we had the pleasure to be joined by Philipp Neitzel of Ulisses Spiele to talk about... RPGs! If you didn't think that RPGs and solo players don't mix, then this is the episode for you. Philipp and I discuss the Aventuria Adventure Card Game, a living card game set in the Dark Eye universe. It has already gotten consistent support (three expansions in English, with more on the way), so it might appeal to those who were fans of the discontinued Warhammer Quest  ACG. We also talk about some of their choose-your-own-adventure solo RPG products.    Also, be sure to check out the new Dark Eye Kickstarter for a look at further RPG-related products: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1216685848/aventuria-compendium-the-dark-eye-rpg

We've saved the grand daddy of guest cohosts for last! We had the great fortune to be joined by Albert Hernandez, aka fractaloon, guildmaster of the popular 1 Player Guild on BGG as well as the cohost of the 1 Player Podcast. Albert and Jason are joined by two fine fellows involved with BGG's annual Solitaire Print and Play contest - Chris Hansen, who runs the contest, and John Kean, who designed the winning game, Black Sonata We chat about the basics of printing and playing games (2:04), particularly how it appeals to those who love crafting in general, as well as anyone who wants to play a wide diversity of games very cheaply. Then we talk about the Print and Play Contest itself (11:30), as well as the innovative solitaire hidden movement game that took home the grand prize (22:16). Finally, we give some suggestions for print and play games to get you started (30:40). Enjoy!

Time for something different! Today, we are happy to present a much shorter episode about a game whose genre - roll and write - we don't talk about a lot. Alexander Shen visited the show to talk about his current, self-published Kickstarter project, Honeycomb Caverns. Please check out the episode to hear about the game itself, as well as some of the interesting decisions that led to this project landing on Kickstarter. 

Yes, this is a Preview Series episode in the regular ENGN time slot. Due to a scheduling error, we posted the regular episode with Ant Lab Games one week early! We hope you enjoyed hearing from them. This week, Jason chats with Timo and Tinsku Multamaki, two of the minds behind Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift, a 1-6 player dungeon crawler whose second print run is currently on Kickstarter. We get into some of the unique mechanisms that mitigate a lot of the luck in the game, as well as whether it makes sense for a hero to get smarter by killing rats. Timo and Tinsku were also very excited to share how they've thrown open their doors to backer and other contributors who want to create content for the game. Also, stay tuned after the outro music to hear from a very special guest designer.