Every Night Is Game Night

One chapter closes, another opens. Jason has started a new channel on YouTube called Shelf Stories. Please go hit those Like and Subscribe buttons, and please spread the word! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnaZ7055IWOdm8XCJfFRDcw With the beginning of the new channel, Every Night is Game Night will come to a permanent close. Before describing Shelf Stories and all of the new content over there, Jason takes a minute to thank and to express his love for all of the solo gamers who made ENGN possible. Without your enthusiasm and interaction, ENGN doesn't make it to 190 episodes. Thanks to everyone, once again, and we'll see you on the new channel. (edited) 

Let’s get right to it - this is the last episode of ENGN for the time being. Jason does this episode solo to talk to the ENGN listeners directly about why this pod will go into a bit of a hibernation period. First up, though, are some final game reviews. Jason shares about a party game (gasp!) called What Do You Meme?, an Apples to Apples variant with a visual element. Next up is The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine, a cooperative trick-taking game that has gotten a lot of great attention. Finally, Jason is happy to end on a great, fitting note with a review of Shadows of Kilforth. Please do not unsubscribe to the show! It will be going away for now, but it will return at some point when the time is right. Thank you so much for listening.

Liz Davidson has been churning out designer interviews for her YouTube channel, Beyond Solitaire. Here is another one, a chat with Morgane Gouyon-Rety, ancient history expert and designer of Pendragon and Hubris. One of Liz's main interests is the intersection of design and history, which she explores with her guest here. Original discussion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQUqP9cAgYg&t=2530s

Jason hearkens back to a happier time in this episode when folks were allowed to have game demos in-game stores! This episode hails from the Brooklyn Strategist, a terrific game store in Brooklyn, where Rory O'Connor of Hub Games visited and demoed a few games. First up is Adventure Mart, a light deck builder depicting store owners in a fantasy convenience store, selling weapons to adventurers, and building your empire. Instead of simply buying cards, you bid for them against other players, which creates opportunities for interaction and light, friendly screwage. This one will go directly to retail very soon. We also played Prisma Arena, an arena combat game reminiscent of HeroClix with a low barrier of entry and lots of card-based tactical movement and combo play. The Kickstarter for this one will be live on Tuesday, May 19th.

If you are not a regular listener of the Board Gamers Anonymous podcast, you might not know that Jason hopped over there on episode 267 to chat about why Pandemic is his favorite game. For this episode, we are presenting that entire conversation here. Following that, Jason also did a video for the One Stop Coop Shop, ranking his favorite, Top Ten Pandemic games. The audio for that follows the conversation with the BGA fellas. It's a Pandemic cornucopia this week! If you've already listened to both pieces of audio in their respective original venues, then thanks for being a superfan, and we'll see you next week :) One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga

Jordan Shoenberger joins us again this week to discuss being stuck at home...with the kids. Specifically, how it feels to be a parent juggling work, childcare, and school for kids in the midst of a global pandemic.  Anthony joins Jason and Jordan as the three discuss what it's like to be dads in all of this, plus how gaming fits into the equation. If you're a parent at home with your kids right now, this episode is for you. 

Anthony's back this week and we have a special guest on in Jordan Shoenberger (Pittsburgh taking over!) to share their top ten beyond the hotness games at low player counts.  The guys share 20 games, plus Jason adds a few more that he missed last time to the list.  One Stop Coop Shop Slack – bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/bga

This week, Jason is happy to pass the host chair to Liz from Beyond Solitaire for two terrific interviews. The first is with David Thompson, designer of various war games including Pavlov's House, Undaunted, and others. They get into design and other gaming topics, and dip into a bit of Animal Crossing as well. Then, Liz interviews Brady Sadler about good novels to read while sheltering in place. Both of these interviews were originally posted on the Beyond Solitaire YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbSYmhAlOW1RorV_jXmo2w One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga In Liz We Trust - Veilwraith - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tristanhall/veilwraith-a-solo-fantasy-quest-game?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=veilwraith

We’re back with lots and lots of suggestions of solo games to enjoy. These aren’t the same old suggestions, either - we go beyond the familiar recommendations and offer some games that you might never have heard of, but which we absolutely love.

Jason is back in the saddle with new weekly content. We were intending to take a longer break, but current circumstances in the world demand differently. Time to come back and reconnect with everyone. Jason is joined by Liz from Beyond Solitaire and Jeremy from Jambalaya Plays Games to check in on what we've been up to. Not too much gaming chat in this one, mostly catching up with one another and with you guys. Also, a big part of the episode is dedicated to a MASSIVE game giveaway that Jeremy is doing for folks who need some entertainment in these trying times. It is a GIVEAWAY, games for free! Head over to Jeremy's Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/119149332052973/, for more details. The giveaway begins on the day this episode goes live - Friday, March 27th. One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga

Liz and Jason rank the Oniverse Games! No more needs to be said. This episode originally aired as a video on the Beyond Solitaire YouTube channel on 3/14/20. Beyond Solitaire video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01H84yGn_4w One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga

First up, Jason wishes that everyone is safe with their families and in their communities in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak. For a bit of entertainment, we're posting a few board game parody songs from a few years ago. Here are the original videos on YouTube: We Didn't Start the Fire (7:31) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8yzHMauBE&t=30s You'll Be Back (from the Hamilton soundtrack - 12:17) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG4Pg2SKjSw Dear Little Gamer (from the Hamilton soundtrack - 15:51) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALHRVtXhRmI Wood and Fur (from the Moana soundtrack - 19:05) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9GyWxz-BI&t=5s

Jason had the amazing privilege of being a guest on the Play is the Thing podcast with Max Davie. This episode originally aired on July 3rd, 2019. In this episode. Max and Jason discuss trauma, treatment, board games, and some other random silliness along the way. Max's blog - https://playisthething.home.blog/One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga

This is an appearance that Jason did on the Room 51 podcast on Feb 4th, 2020. This one is about IPs in games - when they're bad and when they're good. The back half of the episode also has our Top Three IP games. Room 51 - @MelissaMakak on twitter One-Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bga

Jason is joined by Liz Davidson from Beyond Solitaire this week. We have some game reviews for you, and also make an announcement. Listen to find out! First up, Jason reviews the 18 card, tile laying mini-game from Leitman Games, Squire for Hire (10:40), comparing it to some very well known contemporaries like Sprawlopolis and Circle the Wagons. Does Squire for Hire stand with these other beloved games? We then follow up with three games from Weird Giraffe Games. First up is Fire in the Library (17:41), a quick, push your luck filler game. Then we have Stellar Leap (24:18), a family friendly euro game with a space theme and 4x flavor. Finally from Weird Giraffe, we have Dreams of Tomorrow (32:11), a tactical, small box worker placement game with gorgeous art. Rounding out the episode, we have two games from Starling Games, the cerebral head-to-head deduction game Anomaly (37:46), as well as Ascendant (44:09), the expansion to Archmage from last year. One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon

Jason is joined this week by thebrandt, his good buddy from the Portal Gaming Podcast, to chat about some solo games hitting the table recently. But before we get into all of the fun, we give a heartfelt, final shout out to a podcast that came directly before this one - Low Player Count. They recently released the final episode in their run, so we'd like to thank Travis, Donny, and Shawn for blazing the trail and for being generally awesome to listen to. Kudos. For our first game, Brandt and Jason chat about Sorcerer City (5:51), a mashup of a tile-laying game and a deckbuilding game that manages to recreate the feel of both genres in interesting ways. Our second feature is Isle of Cats (21:50), the most recent tile/ puzzle game from good friend of the podcast, Frank West. Next up, we get into the re-implementation of the classic game Ghost Stories called Last Bastion (34:15), seeing whether it offers enough to differentiate itself from its predecessor. Finally, Brandt updates us on some of the latest expansi

Jason is back in the chair solo this week, and can't believe it's taken 176 episodes to get to this topic!   Jason is a licensed, practicing psychotherapist in Connecticut who has used board games in his therapy for almost a decade. Along with way, Jason has accrued some go-to board games for different situations, dealing with mental health and wellness. Some of these include: Promoting cognitive sharpness (4:53, including a review of Brain Waves: The Astute Goose, a memory game from Dr. Reiner Knizia). Connecting with teenagers (25:25) Managing Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (36:29) Coping with Anxiety (42:32) Coping with Depression (57:04) One Stop Coop Shop Slack - bit.ly/onestopslack BGA Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/bgaIn Liz We Trust - Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geniusgames/genotype-a-mendelian-genetics-game?ref=discovery&term=genotype

For our 175th episode (nice round number!), Jason welcomes Dice Tower veteran and current outreach manager for Mythic Games, Sam Healey. He is famous in the gaming community for his love of miniatures in board games, so we could think of no on better to chat about the subject. We answer the critical question - what is the point of them? Jason gets to play some fun Devil’s advocate in this one! We then get into Sam’s Top Ten Board Games with miniatures (38:00), which hopefully will give you some ideas about what to get if you want to explore the world of minis a bit further. Finally, we briefly mention the Best in Class for solo gamer miniature games, by popular acclaim - Kingdom Death: Monster. This is a long one, but worthy. Hope you all agree!

Liz from Beyond Solitaire is back to chat about two of our favorite things - games and history! We have two games for review this week. The first is Days of Ire (2:52), a classic cooperative game (or 1 vs. many game) depicting the struggle of revolutionaries during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The game was released in 2016, yet much of the gameplay still holds up today. The follow-up to Days of Ire, entitled Nights of Fire (12:52), delivered to Kickstarter backers this past year. Nights of Fire is much more of a traditional wargame with Euro elements. It depicts the Soviets striking back against the Hungarian revolutionaries, and the players job (in the solo and coop) is to save civilians and delay the oncoming Soviets as much as possible. After all of that gaming goodness, Liz and Jason geek out and chat about the historical background of both games. We are NOT scholars of the time period by any means. We may have misstated a few of the elements (or more than a few). However, we are both very interested

We roll on with our Best in Class series with one of the most popular genres out there. Thanks so much to everyone who has given positive feedback on the "Best in Class" format so far - we like it, and we'd love to keep bringing it to you! This week, Jason and friends tackle deckbuilding games. When Jason put out the call on twitter to explore deckbuilding games, lots of folks responded who wanted to share their favorites. We take all of those clips and organize them into a Top Ten! We also reach into the wayback machine for some previous content to round out the episode, including when a game designer stopped by the show to share why his deckbuilding game is the Best in Class. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the episode! Board Game Crockpot - https://boardgamecrockpot.blog/author/crocko33/ Room 51 - https://anchor.fm/room51 Sarah Reed - at_eurogamergirl on Twitter Game All Night - https://www.gameallniteshow.com/ One Stop Coop Shop - bit.ly/onestopslack In Liz we Trust - Warp's Edge - https://www.ki