First Player Token, a short board game review show

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we spend a weekend in a cabin in the woods and play a whole lot of board games! A few friends and I recently spent a weekend playing board games at a cabin we rented in Cedars of Lebanon State Park. We played the board games that don’t fit into normal game nights! Most ran about three hours long, some longer. These are the crunchy, brain-burning games that some of us love to play, and in this episode of the podcast, I report out on the games we played, all of which were fantastic.Music:"Open Road" by Purple Planet. "Old Tom Bombadil, A Hobbit Folk Song" by Heimburger Music.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. Usually when I review and recommend a board game here on the podcast, I’ve played that game at least ten times. That way I know the game well and I know it has some staying power. That means I usually review older games, but I like to play new games, too. So here’s a FIRST PLAY review of a new game that I think you might like!Today we’ll take a look at Club Spooky, a 2-to-4-player game designed and illustrated by Connor Wake and published by Always Awake Games.Episode Links:Pre-order Club Spooky from Always Awake Games.Music:"Open Road" and "Spooked" by Purple PlanetPodcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we put the spotlight on the preschooler with twelve games that are fun to play with a three-year-old! I’ve been on a quest to find board games that the three-year-old can play and enjoy and that don’t drive the rest of us crazy. On this episode, I’m going to share an update about that quest and point listeners to a few games that we’ve found work well for our family of five—including the three-year-old.Episode ResourcesBuy Hoot Owl Hoot on Amazon.Buy Go Go Little Penguin on Amazon.Buy Cascadia Junior on Amazon.Buy Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters on Amazon.Episode 57 - KaribaEpisode 32 - OutfoxedEpisode 24 - Incan GoldEpisode 20 - Sleeping QueensEpisode 5 - Deep Sea AdventureEpisode 4 - Sushi Go!Episode 3 - Love Letter<Politics>For context on my statement in the episode about Dane Chapin, the CEO of Op Games, see this thread on Bluesky and also this press release.</Politics>Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we complete our quest to find out which fictional character is the ultimate fighter in our 2025 Unmatched tournament! To run the tournament, I identified our 16 most-played Unmatched heroes, then set up some brackets to pit them against each other. A few episodes ago, I reported on the first half of the tournament: the first-round games that whittled our list of heroes to the Elite 8. Today, I’m excited to share the second half of the tournament!As a reminder, the hero who wins each battle isn’t necessarily the hero who moves on in the tournament. The teenager and I play a game with each pair of heroes, then discuss the game and the heroes and decide which of the two heroes we like playing the most. That’s the hero that moves on to the next round.Achilles, Little Red, Houdini, Invisible Man, Beowulf, Jekyll & Hyde, Shakespeare, and T-Rex! Who will be the champion?Episode Resources:Buy Unmatched sets on Amazon.Listen to our 2023 review of Unmatched.Listen to Part 1 of our 2025 Unmatched tournament.Music:"Open Road," Purple Planet Music"Field of Heroes," Tabletop AudioPodcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we travel back to ancient Egypt, build some pyramids, and compete to be the pharaoh’s favorite architect in Imhotep. Imhotep was said to be the architect of the step pyramid in Djoser, rising 200 feet tall, the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt. Imhotep is also a 2016 game for two to four players designed by Phil Walker-Harding and published by KOSMOS, in which players step into the sandals of the original Imhotep to build pyramids and obelisks and other great monuments. Episode Links:See if you can find a secondhand copy of Imhotep on the BGG GeekMarket.Read designer Phil Walker-Harding's introduction to Imhotep.Music:"Open Road" by Purple Planet.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we review Incan Gold, a game that will have you pressing your luck to recover lost treasure!Incan Gold is a 2005 game designed by Alan R. Moon (Ticket to Ride) and Burno Faidutti. In the game, between 3 and 8 players take on the role of treasure hunters exploring the ruins of an ancient Incan temple looking for turquoise, obsidian, and gold. This adventuring is dangerous work since the temple is full of hazards: giant spiders, poisonous snakes, creepy mummies, rock slides, and fire traps. Over five rounds, players send their adventurers into the temple to see how much treasure they can pick up before they fall prey to one of these hazards.There’s a stack of 30 quest cards, half of which are hazards cards and half of which are treasure cards. The game consists of flipping over those quest cards, one at a time, for treasure or a hazard. Between revealing each card from the quest deck, all the players secretly decide if they want to press on into the temple or head back out to their campsite. Players who choose to leave keep any treasure they’ve collected this round, stashing it under their tent for final scoring. Players who choose to press on then anxiously await the next card in the quest deck. Is it more treasure, now split among a smaller crew of adventurers? Or is it a second copy of a hazard that’s already been played, in which case, like I said, the players are doomed.This episode features our cultural heritage correspondents, ages 10 and 11, who have some thoughts about why Incan Gold is such a great family game.Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app!Buy Incan Gold on Amazon.“The Incan Gold Experiment” on the GameTek podcast by Geoff Engelstein.Music: “Open Road” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we take a look at one of the best two-player games around, Patchwork, a game about quilting!Patchwork is a colorful 2014 game designed by Uwe Rosenberg with art by Klemens Franz that takes the notion of patches on a quilt and turns it into an elegantly designed game for exactly two players. In Patchwork, players take on the role of quilters, selecting and adding Tetris-style patches from a common pool onto their quilts. Each patch has a cost in time and in buttons, the currency of the game. When players take a patch, they pay the required number of buttons and move along a time tracker the required number of spaces. At the end of the game, you get one point for each button you have and lose two points for each empty square on your quilt, so you need to generate buttons while covering your quilt.Patchwork is easy to teach and easy to learn. I played recently with my 8-year-old niece. She picked up the game in no time, lost her first game, and immediately said, “Let’s play again!” Patchwork is also a fantastic date night game for couples because it’s low conflict and it’s easy to talk while playing it.See my photos of Patchwork.Buy Patchwork on Amazon.Visit the First Player Token website.Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we learn about an upcoming game about building mountains and seeking knowledge in Oros!Oros is a 2-to-4-player game which takes its name from the geological term orogenesis, the process of mountain building when two tectonic plates collide. In the game, players take turns shifting and colliding tiles on a shared map, representing the movement of tectonic plates in the ocean moving over hot spots and erupting volcanoes. Each player shepherds the development of a group of people inhabiting these new and evolving islands, with the goal of creating mountains for their people to climb and seek knowledge. There are several different ways to attain knowledge in the game, and the player with the most knowledge points at the end of the game, wins.Oros was designed by Brandt Brinkerhoff, the one-man-show behind Aesc Games. Oros raised almost $300,000 on Kickstarter in 2021, and I spoke with Brandt about the game and its design at the board game convention Gen Con in September 2021.Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app!Pre-order Oros from the Aesc Games website.Learn how to play Oros.Visit the First Player Token website.Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road” and “Summer in Paradise,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Images used with permission from Brandt Brinkerhoff / Aesc Games.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we take a look at a game of queens and kings and dragons and knights and basic arithmetic in… Sleeping Queens!Sleeping Queens is a 2005 game designed by Miranda Evarts with art by Jimmy Pickering and Red Hansen. In the game, players compete to collect some rather whimsical queens, like the Pancake Queen, the Cat Queen, and the Book Queen. You collect a queen by playing equally whimsical kings, like Puzzle King, the Pasta King, and the Tie-Dye King. Don’t have a king card in your hand? If you can find a simple equation out of the numbered cards in your hand, like 3 + 5 = 8, then you can discard those cards and draw more cards, hoping to get a king. Sleeping Queens has been a family favorite for years. It’s simple, easy to teach, fast to play, and offers great practice at basic addition facts.This episode features another interview recorded at Gen Con, the big board game convention I attended in Indianapolis in September. I talked with Jason Schneider, vice president for product development at Gamewright, publisher of Sleeping Queens and past podcast recommendations Sushi Go!, Abandon All Artichokes, and Forbidden Island. We are big Gamewright fans in our family! All my interview questions were supplied by the seven-year-old!Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app–and subscribe!See my photo of Sleeping Queens.Buy Sleeping Queens on Amazon.Read about our “Fishing Queens’ variant.Visit the First Player Token website.Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” “Summer in Paradise,” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we time-travel to the 1960s to compete in the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union in… Space Explorers!Space Explorers is a 2017 board game that conjures up the excitement of the 1960s space race. Players take on the roles of heads of space research centers, recruiting a variety of experts to build and launch satellites and spaceships, hoping to have the most impressive set of projects and specialists by the end of the game. You’ll need to recruit scientists and engineers, test pilots and astronauts, all illustrated in a style right out of a 1960s Life magazine. And those projects you’re working on? They are all actual missions, split evenly between the US and the USSR. Sputnik and Voyager, Voskhod and Skylab, Lunokhod and Apollo.Listen for our review of Space Explorers and an interview with Chad Elkins, founder of 25th Century Games, which publishes Space Explorers in the US. I had the chance to talk with Chad at Gen Con, one of the largest board game conventions in the world! And Chad shares a little scoop on the future of Space Explorers…Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app–and subscribe!Buy Space Explorers on Amazon.See my photos of Space Explorers.Read about Space Explorers on Board Game Geek.Visit the First Player Token website.Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” “Summer in Paradise,”  https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. In this episode, we travel to a beautiful island off the coast of Greece famous for its white and blue buildings in the board game Santorini!Santorini is a charming and puzzly game designed by Gordon Hamilton and published in 2016 by Roxley Games. In Santorini, players take on the role of builders in ancient Greece. Each player has two workers, which they move around a five-by-five grid of squares, creating taller and taller buildings. The building pieces look like the buildings in the real Santorini, each one square at the base and completely white, just like the whitewashed homes on the Greek island. The goal is to move one of your workers to the top of a three-story tower. Each player has their own unique abilities, as determined by the cards that come with the game, each representing some helping friendly character from Greek mythology.Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app–and subscribe!Buy Santorini on Amazon.See my photos of Santorini.Read about Santorini on Board Game Geek.Visit the First Player Token website.Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,”  https://www.purple-planet.com/. “Quiet Cove,” https://tabletopaudio.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode.  In this episode, we travel to 17th century Japan for some competitive vacationing in the board game Tokaido!Tokaido is a 2012 game designed by Antoine Bauza with art by Xavier Durin and published by Funforge. Players take on the roles of travelers in 17th century Japan making their way along the Tokaido, which means “eastern sea road.” The Tokaido was an important route during the Edo period in Japan, connecting the cities of Kyoto and Edo, which is modern-day Tokyo. In the game, you travel that route, stopping along the way to do relaxing or interesting things, like painting landscapes, visiting hot springs, shopping for souvenirs, and enjoying good meals. Each of these spaces earns points in different ways. Whoever scores the most points is thus the traveler who has the most relaxing and interesting vacation.Featured on this episode is our international travel correspondent, age 7. Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app–and subscribe!Buy Tokaido on Amazon. (This is the 10th anniversary edition.)Here’s that “Japanese Garden” playlist from Spotify.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,”  https://www.purple-planet.com/. “Wuxia Tea House,” https://tabletopaudio.com/. Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. We’re back with another family game recommendation, one that will have you taking tricks and exploring space: The Crew!“The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine” is a 2019 game from Kosmos Games designed by Thomas Sing with art by Marco Armbruster. In the game, players take on the role of astronauts working together to find a mysterious ninth planet at the edge of the solar system. The Crew is a trick-taking game, like Hearts or Spades. But The Crew is not just a trick-taking game, it’s a cooperative trick-taking game. Instead of trying to outscore your opponents, you’re all working together to make sure certain players win certain tricks. Each time you play, you pick one of the 50 missions detailed in the game’s logbook and try to meet its conditions for success.In this episode, Emily returns for some color commentary on the game, and we talk with our space science correspondents about what makes The Crew a fun family game. Listen here or search for “First Player Token” on your favorite podcast app–and subscribe!Buy The Crew on Amazon.See my photos of The Crew.Read about The Crew on Board Game Geek.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” “Soda Pop,” and “Sunbeam” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Sound Collage:“Deep Space EVA,” Tabletop Audio, https://tabletopaudio.com/“Address at Rice University in Houston, Texas on the Nation’s Space Effort, 12 September 1962,” John F. Kennedy, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHA/1962/JFKWHA-127-002/JFKWHA-127-002“Spaceship,” Lesion X, https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats/spaceship“The Eerie Sounds of Saturn’s Radio Emissions,” University of Iowa, https://space-audio.org/cassini/SKR1/Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. This is a short podcast for people who enjoy playing games with family and friends, but this time, I’m recommending a game to play without family and friends: the city-building, solo game Sprawlopolis.Sprawlopolis is a 2018 release from Button Shy Games, designed by Steven Aramani, Danny Devine, and Paul Kluka, with art by Danny Devine. Like all Button Shy games, it consists of just 18 cards. Three of those cards will be randomly selected to provide scoring conditions for the city you build out of the other 15 cards. You’ll lay one card at a time, adding to or overlapping the cards you’ve already played, to build out your parks and residential zones and commercial districts, as well connect up your roads and meet the demands of those scoring conditions.Sprawlopolis is cleverly designed, immensely replayable, looks good the table, and super portable. It comes in a plastic wallet that you can easily throw in a pocket or backpack, so you can play Sprawlopolis on the go, anytime you have a little table space and 20 spare minutes.Buy Sprawlopolis from Button Shy Games. Or ask about Sprawlopolis at your friendly local game store!See my photos of Sprawlopolis.Read more about Sprawlopolis on Board Game Geek.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” https://www.purple-planet.com/. “Dome City Center,” https://tabletopaudio.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. We’re back with another family board game recommendation, one that will have you eating your vegetables: Abandon All Artichokes!Abandon All Artichokes is a 2020 game from Gamewright designed by Emma Larkins with illustrations by Bonnie Pang. No one likes to eat artichokes, right? That’s the premise behind this game, which has players composting artichokes in favor of more tasty veggies like carrots and peas and broccoli. Abandon All Artichokes is a “deck wrecking” game in which each player starts with a person draw deck of ten artichokes. As they play, they add other vegetables to their deck and try to get rid of their artichokes. At the end of your turn, if you draw five cards from your deck and don’t see any artichokes, you win!Abandon All Artichokes is full of adorable anthropomorphic vegetables. It’s easy to learn, fun to play, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. And did I mention it’s adorable? Seriously, that exuberant beet? So adorable.Buy Abandon All Artichokes on Amazon.Read more about Abandon All Artichokes on Board Game Geek.Learn more about illustrator Bonnie Pang.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the First Player Token Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. This episode features another family game recommendation: Love Letter, designed by Seiji Kanai, and now published in the US by Z-Man Games with art by the amazing Andrew Bosley.In Love Letter, players try to get their love letter to the princess. The original game featured just 16 cards, with colorful characters from the royal court: a prince, a king, a handmaid, a baron, and, oh yes, the princess herself. How much fun can you have with a game consisting of just 16 cards? As it turns out, a lot! Love Letter is one of our family’s favorite games.But you don’t have to take my word for it. This episode features the podcast’s royal postage reporter, my 11-year-old niece!Buy Love Letter on Amazon.See my photos of Love Letter.Read about Love Letter on BGG.Visit the First Player Token website.Follow @firstplayertoken on Instagram.Follow @firstplayrtoken on Twitter.Music: “Open Road,” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Text us your thoughts about this episode. Welcome to the First Player Token podcast, a short podcast for people who enjoy playing board games with family and friends. If you’d like to try a few new board games, but don’t know where to start, this podcast is for you.In each episode of the First Player Token podcast I review and recommend a game that’s been a hit with my family or friends. I’ll share a little about how the game plays, why it’s fun, and why you might want to try it. Most episodes focus on a game that’s kid-friendly, since those are the games I play the most with my family, but occasionally, I’ll recommend a game that’s more for adults. Episodes are geared for folks who aren’t already into board gaming as a hobby; I don’t assume you’ve played a lot of games or know the lingo. And episodes are short, usually around ten minutes, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time getting a recommendation.Listen to this “zero” episode for an introduction to the podcast, and hear from a few of the friends and family who join me as guests!Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.Music:Music: “Open Road,” “Sunbeam,” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.Podcast Links:Order a First Player Token coffee mug.Visit the First Player Token website.Join the FPT Facebook group.Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.