The Hype and The Hope

Noted marine biologist George Costanza may have ruefully spoken of the sea's anger, but if water wasn't allowed to express its emotions, where would tumbled glass come from? Join us in this episode as we discuss beachcombing, whether to double-down on botanical bets, and the cuddly side of pestilence.

Let the record show that this is the episode where Mike comes into his psychic powers! Listen for it sometime after the frog discussion but before Shari repeatedly confesses to enjoying Farmville. This episode, our three board games are Mythwind, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Horror on the Orient Express, but absolutely not in that order.

In this episode we skip up the gangplank to the SS Ian O'Toole, sketch out a perfect castle for dairy enthusiasts, and contemplate when the catnip that is legacy gaming becomes litter box lining instead. As always, we discuss three board games: one we're buying, one we're vetoing, and one we've just played.

We return to the microphones for a fresh season of rabbit holes and roundabouts as we ostensibly discuss board games and the finite nature of Kallax shelving. This episode has jackelopes, sass, and rock tumbling, all in the usual context of three games: one that was added to the collection, one that wasn't, and one that was recently played.

Behold, our top ten games of 2023, plus our resolutions and anticipations for 2024. Despite several crossovers, we completely surprised each other with our Number Ones! Timestamps are below, but please forgive any wobbles due to the number of "Your X is my Y!" moments. Honourable Mentions - 5:12 Number Ten - 6:31 Number Nine - 11:56 Number Eight - 16:24 Number Seven - 20:31 Number Six - 23:25 Number Five - 25:36 Number Four - 29:16 Number Three - 32:59 Number Two - 38:37 Number One - 41:50 Aftermath - 44:37 The Hopes and Hypes of 2024 - 51:00

Now in its ninth-ish year and recorded for the first time ever in front of a live audience of two silent rabbits, welcome to part one of our annual "gala" of retrospection and introspection! Every January we look back at the previous year in personal gaming highlights, rustle up a top ten, and make a few predictions and resolutions about the year to come. In this episode, we discuss all kinds of favourites: replays, box covers, themes, components, plus acknowledge favourite light games and other games that might not be in our Top 10.

This episode has everything: time travel, hobby-changing epiphanies, and whiffs of tuberculosis. Also, we discuss the contentious Marrakesh (in the original box size, no less), the much-anticipated Critter Kitchen, and the legacy game that finally brings a classic to our table: Ticket to Ride: Legends of the West. Amidst the board game chatter, listeners may also develop an opinion on whether Shari and Mike were briefly abducted by aliens one time in the Yukon. (It would just explain so much.)

In this episode we discover that Devir's new game 3-Ring Circus may be setting up their big top at the end of Memory Lane. Listen as Shari holds back the sniffles on Leonard Nimoy and Tricia, Perth's beloved elephant. Sensibility is restored to discuss Knizia's The A.R.T. Project, but passion returns as we aim our telescopes towards Mindclash's smallest star: Astra.

In this episode we have petulant palaeontologists (Bone Wars!); ancient Romans exchanging gifts on the River Rhine (Discordia!); and archaeologists chilling in every sense of the word (Ice!). An honourable mention must be made, as well, to "Maracaibo Dice". Trigger warning: pterodactyls.

And so the Great Confrontation, our quest to make room for better games and see the old ones off to more appreciative owners or purposes, comes to an end. Is there a redemption arc for the once-beloved and forever mis-punctuated T.I.M.E Stories? Will U-BOOT finally rise to the surface of the gaming table? And can the former #1 game on Board Game Geek survive the revolution?

A ridiculous forty-four games kneel beside the chopping block in this episode, and with only two executioners - each easily bribed and both lazy with the axe - how many titles will actually fall? Pray for the mice; pray for the mystics; pray for the llamas, and pray for Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

We continue to stomp through Mike's proposed list of games to jettison, with this episode placing 25 more titles under the swinging bare bulb of interrogation. From sweet little bees hardly taking up any space to behemoths like Gloomhaven, we ask, "Do we actually want to play this game again... or, um, for the first time?"

In the paraphrased poetry of The Clash, "Should These Games Stay Or Should They Go?" Here begins our series of considering what is taking up too much shelf space and what needs a second chance on the table. We'll be traveling the list almost alphabetically, this time focusing mostly on the As with a few cheeky cameos from other letters as Mike's mind and mouth wander.

It may have been Milan Kundera who wrote the book of laughter and forgetting, but this episode grabs armfuls of each, and while there is no postmodern magical realism afoot, we do attempt to do an ASMR unboxing of the Barcelona board game that feels just as wonky. Also, Mike had to be bleeped three times; he could play Kurt in The Sound of Music at this rate. Somewhere on this crooked road of domestic byways and roadside stops offering rants against craft stores, we also discuss Alphabet Stoop and Chicken! Any listener who survives all the way to the final segment will find out if that's an actual punctuation mark of enthusiasm or just part of the game title. Good luck! (Note: We probably should've mentioned that this was recorded about a week after Shari's father passed away. At the time we wanted to lose ourselves in some game talk, but upon playback it's obvious that grief and exhaustion were still in the driver's seat. Apologies for the silliness.)

This episode is about dogs, drinking, and diving into mysterious envelopes: or Spots, Distilled, and The Emerald Flame, respectively. Any quibbling over whether Mike actually knows his own gaming preferences is strictly a bonus.

This episode contains 0% laser cats but does include a scattered teaspoon of dramatic irony as we slightly misremember game titles and never realise it. Luckily, those titles are not Emerge, Ex Libris, or Earth, our three games hitting the discussion table for what seems to be an "All-E Revue". No kickline or jazz hands, but we can offer two pop quizzes about islands!

Will Forbidden Jungle do what it says on the tin, or is it just the tin that matters? Will Mike go full fanboy and buy a third copy of Kinda Sorta Terra Mystica? And is that Shari riding a meteor of nostalgia into the Tunguskan taiga with a copy of Expeditions under her arm?

Oof! We've just tumbled out the other side of the sale portal and have much to discuss about our journey to the land of Cheap and Hopefully Cheerful. (Namely Rear Window, Hues and Cues, Pan Am, and Cat in the Box.) We also reflect on our recent play of Autobahn: were we right to leadfoot that Kickstarter button? (What if we were under attack from laser cats?)

Oh, it's an odd episode, this is. But if anyone is at all interested in the games Black Hole Rainbows or Oranienburger Kanal, we're hoping they'll forgive the rest.

Are we imposing too many Disney dreams onto the third edition of Wishland? Or too many skeptical hypotheticals onto Disney Dixit? Maybe in this episode we just need to find the lost code to reasonable expectations, but will that be, in fact, The Lost Code?

On this episode we open our arms wide for the winsome baa-lambs of Great Western Trail: New Zealand. We then leave our future woolly besties behind to ponder the merits of prowling like a latter-day Bast or squawking like a Tower raven, which is to say maybe, but not definitely, gaming like an RPGer in two related titles: Be Like a Cat and Be Like a Crow. And if moggies and magpies survive the apocalypse, can we count on them to help rebuild a new world powered by clean breezes? And can Tribes of the Wind count on us to smile while doing the same?

In this episode we get pensive about two pretty-pretty board games and their, ah, smart friend. Join us as we look at fresh-from-the-postie Ierusalem, at the current crowdsourcing darling that is Botany, and, finally, at a dark horse leaping across a night sky and possibly right past your game table - The Girl Who Made The Stars.

The hype is out and on parade for the immensely lovely Solani, a new game that makes our table look good and our hearts feel satisfied. But first we say "Why not?" to Bamboo and "No, but maybe, but no" to two attractive board games: the thinky Terminus and the stylish Curio Black, 1962. If you didn't hate this, we have a treat for next time: actually saying the game titles before parachuting into the pondersphere!

In this episode we successfully forage the current board game landscape for a worthy addition to the collection, just as we turn our backs on the temptations of an insanely good marketing campaign. Finally, we probe our sensibilities and our sunken costs to decide whether the Stefan Feld City Collection was worth it.

In this inaugural episode we forget to introduce ourselves, but we do remember to gush over a new board game with unusual trappings and wrappings, to wax apologetic about vetoing a smart and beautiful title, and to champion a recent dive into the doubtful space that can be word games.