Advertise on podcast: The Board Game Secret Show

Molly Johnson and Shawn Stankewich are two of the three founders of FLATOUT GAMES, the studio behind 🎲 CASCADIA and 🐱 CALICO. They tell the story of an AEG exec brushing off POINT SALAD, why a small publisher stays on Kickstarter, and what a store owner said about their next game. Check out Perennial: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flatoutgames/perennial-0 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🥗 The AEG exec who said "thanks" and walked away from POINT SALAD 🐱 A two-hour debate over one tile bag, a "53 versus 3 thing" 🎨 Why there is no 100% black anywhere in Flatout's art direction 📦 The $20-plus it costs to ship a CASCADIA to a home in the US 🌿 A store owner's advice: "don't make another nature-themed roll-and-write" 🦁 Molly's role-play lion in a damp, horrible forest ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Flatout Games ▶ https://www.flatout.games/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 01:16 - Who are Molly and Shawn? 02:09 - Weather chat and Canadian prairie roots 03:47 - Gen Con week spent meeting partners 06:02 - Getting bit by game design in 2016 09:47 - The convention feedback that made it real 12:02 - AEG walks away, then an email lands 16:32 - The Cardboard Edison finals email arrives 18:47 - Propolis turns out to be a really old design 21:47 - Picking palettes with no pure black 27:47 - How the Flatout collab publishes games 33:02 - Two-hour debate over one tile bag 37:32 - Why small-box games stay at $25 39:47 - Why simple family games are a dying breed on Kickstarter 42:47 - Design is only 20 percent of the week 48:02 - No growth for growth's sake 54:47 - Why a small publisher stays on Kickstarter 1:06:47 - Calico's goal: sit on the shelf next to Azul 1:11:17 - Store owners say no more nature roll-and-writes 1:19:32 - Why the casual gamer crowd keeps growing 1:30:47 - Why Beth Sobel's art gets people excited 1:35:17 - Whisperstone, the puzzle-piece RPG, explained 1:48:47 - Three and a half years building an RPG 1:59:17 - How Perennial's polyomino tiles work 2:08:07 - What success looks like in five years #cardboard #bgss

Kylie Prymus took a dusty 1,000-square-foot shop doing $350,000 a year and turned it into a million-dollar store that sells no Magic, no Pokemon and no miniatures — on purpose. 🏪 GAMES UNLIMITED has been in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill since 1979, and the owner who bought it used to teach philosophy for a living. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🧪 The ALCHEMY talk behind the whole store: "a flower is just a weed with a marketing budget" 🎁 Dead stock wrapped in butcher paper sold out in a week — the clearance table never did 🟢 A counter above the demo bar with a big green button: the metric is games played, not dollars 🛏️ Six weeks of opening a coffee shop at 5:30am, napping in a sleeping bag out back, then working the store till 7 📠 "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?" — "Because it's 2015." 📈 $350,000 in 2019 to over a million last year, out of 3,600 square feet with no event space at all 🎲 Why the heavyweight "greatest game ever" titles sell under a dozen copies a year while HOT STREAK sells 500 🚫 Why free demo copies are a trap: "you need skin in the game" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🏪 Games Unlimited — Pittsburgh ▶ https://gamesunl.com/ ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDWlkcNGxW4CFnRkpnuAPA ▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gamesunlimitedpgh/ ▶ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gamesunl ▶ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GamesUnl 🎙️ Unbox Some Funcast — Kylie's podcast ▶ https://rss.com/podcasts/unbox-some-funcast ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:48 - Who is Kylie Prymus? 02:19 - The first game store owner on the show 06:30 - Alchemy, and the flower that's just a weed with a marketing budget 09:08 - Wrapping the dead stock in butcher paper 20:49 - Creating new gamers instead of acquiring customers 22:57 - No Magic, no Pokemon, no miniatures - on purpose 32:38 - The green button above the demo bar 35:55 - No free demo copies, because you need skin in the game 38:10 - Philosophy professor, coffee shop, game store 39:54 - Bob gets sick nine months into the apprenticeship 40:27 - The sleeping bag in the back of the coffee shop 46:08 - What you actually buy when you buy a game store 48:11 - "You're opening a business and you don't have a fax machine?" 51:34 - The pandemic move to Forbes Avenue 58:29 - "Are you guys new?" after 35 years down the hill 1:02:32 - $350,000 to over a million 1:08:34 - Third space is not a room full of tables 1:20:54 - Bare shelves, a fixed budget, and what to buy first 1:27:18 - The prestige heavyweights sell a dozen; Hot Streak sells 500 1:34:21 - Nobody needs anything we sell 1:45:10 - The Q4 stock-up, and buying 200 copies of one game 1:49:53 - Ordering 300 copies of a game you don't like 2:05:24 - Salaries, structure, and the staff who said "duh" 2:11:36 - Who else should I talk to? #cardboard #bgss

Zero Strategy Games put a perfectly normal sheep on the cover of a horror game — and people did a double take all the way to a hit campaign. Jeremy Stark co-designed 🐑 THE SHEEP, 🗝️ SHUFFLE DUNGEONS and 🐉 UNHEIST. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🌪️ Surviving the Gen Con tornado in a 10×10 booth 🍻 A board game company founded over "one drink after another" 🏥 From project-managing Pennsylvania Medicaid to shipping board games 💸 Where THE SHEEP's campaign money went — "I didn't go home with half a million dollars" 🚫 Gamefound passed on UNHEIST: "not the type of game for us" 🏮 His claim to fame — the lantern economy, and why it split their community 🐉 UNHEIST — kobolds putting a sleeping dragon's stuff back before it wakes 🎲 A secret dragon dice-builder with minis on the way ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🐑 Zero Strategy Games ▶ https://zerostratgames.com/ 🐉 The Unheist of Hearthburn House: Mansion Decorating Madness — live on BackerKit through October 10 ▶ https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/zero-strategy-games/the-unheist-of-hearthburn-house-mansion-decorating-madness ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:43 - Who is Jeremy Stark? 01:46 - The sheep cover that stopped David at Origins 03:26 - Gen Con: surviving the tornado in a 10x10 booth 05:51 - Should conventions actually make money? 11:00 - From Pennsylvania Medicaid to board games 15:15 - Why editors can tell he's a Magic player 18:25 - Cutthroat Cove, 750 backers, and one drink after another 29:06 - What made Shuffle Dungeons break out 32:35 - One campaign away from cutting hours 35:43 - Where The Sheep's campaign money actually went 40:37 - Paid ads, AI noise, and falling returns 44:18 - Why Unheist left Kickstarter for BackerKit 45:47 - Gamefound: "not the type of game for us" 49:07 - Shuffle Dungeons: double-sided cards, one-hour crawl 54:57 - It was never supposed to be co-op 1:00:25 - Why there's no day-one expansion 1:04:00 - What the hell is The Sheep? (and a plushie run) 1:09:15 - The rule they rewrote 10 times 1:16:10 - Jeremy's claim to fame: the lantern economy 1:22:26 - Killer sheep, The Black Sheep, and internal controversy 1:35:25 - Unheist: returning a dragon's stuff before it wakes 1:42:29 - Why it's literally called "stuff" 1:46:04 - A three-player minimum and no solo mode, on purpose 1:55:18 - What he tells new players to buy first 1:56:11 - Dragon minis and what's next for Zero Strategy #cardboard #bgss #unheist #zerostrategygames

Tend began as a Stardew-flavored side project Toby Sarnelle built just for his friends — then IV Studio co-founder Zac Dixon helped turn it into one of the most-requested flip-and-writes out there. 🌱 TEND's designers open up the legacy version that almost shipped, and the two expansions coming next — 🐝 HIVE and 🍷 CELLAR. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🧪 The legacy "mega sheet" — a tech tree of colored stars they spun on for six months, then cut 🧱 Walls in the mines, doomed rondels, and IV's standing policy on Austin's ideas 🎮 What years designing TWO DOTS taught Toby about hooking a player fast 🐄 The one-cow problem Toby would patch in TEND tomorrow 🐝 HIVE: four apiaries, bee dice, and a true roll-and-write inside a flip-and-write 🍷 CELLAR: a three-game mini campaign where your first farm sets up your last 📦 "Bring me three expansions and a standalone" — and what comes after HIVE and CELLAR ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🌱 Tend by IV Studio ▶ https://shop.iv.studio/products/tend-board-game 🐝 Tend: Hive & Cellar Expansions on Gamefound ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/iv-studio/tend-expansions ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:42 - Who are Toby Sarnelle and Zac Dixon? 01:59 - How Toby ended up on the same box as Zac 02:58 - From Two Dots lead designer to board games 06:48 - "I didn't even know scratch-offs were possible" 09:14 - It was never supposed to be a Stardew game 12:42 - The legacy mega-sheet that almost happened 18:14 - Walls in the mines, and why they died 19:01 - IV's no-rondel policy 20:30 - A redesigned Monopoly was Toby's first prototype 21:59 - What board games can do that video games can't 34:55 - What Toby would patch in Tend today 37:16 - The one-cow problem 38:57 - The fishing feedback they get most 51:10 - Tend was a deck builder a week before prototype 54:59 - Hive and Cellar come out of the legacy version 56:50 - How Hive's apiaries work 1:08:39 - Awards, without the Kickstarter records 1:16:37 - Cellar: a three-game campaign 1:27:08 - "If you play an expansion, engage with it" 1:36:57 - "Bring me three expansions and a standalone" 1:38:56 - Why ship expansions as a set 1:43:35 - The big box 1:49:37 - A new direction for the scratcher 1:50:18 - Wrap #cardboard #bgss #tend

Jeff Kornberg has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to play board games, and not one of those rules has ever been true. 📺 THE DRAGON'S TOMB is eight years of completely straight-faced tutorials with entirely invented rules — and the man making them spent his day job building 🎬 CONDÉ NAST's biggest YouTube series, with over 800 million views on videos he personally produced. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🚌 A Greyhound bus review so uneventful it killed the opening question 🏙️ He gave away TINY TOWNS — all 375 pieces, one winner per piece, mailed in flat envelopes 🎲 ROCK PAPER SCISSORS DELUXE: Beth Sobel art, Chip Theory lore, and a real Rodney Smith how-to-play 🤖 The $2,000 AI sex doll review — 357,000 views, his biggest video in eight years 🪑 He reviewed a board game table nobody ever sent him. Then the "scam" table turned up. 📧 He invented a fake game, asked 300+ creators what they'd charge for a good review, and kept every answer 📱 "Hey, this is Mr B" — the text that flew him to Greenville ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 📺 The Dragon's Tomb ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@TheDragonsTomb 💜 The Dragon's Tomb on Patreon ▶ https://www.patreon.com/TheDragonsTomb ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:50 - Who is Jeff Kornberg? 02:35 - Gen Con: Whisperwood, and a suitcase that stayed small 06:58 - What Dragon's Tomb actually is — fake rules, played straight 08:48 - The Tiny Towns giveaway: 375 winners, one piece each 10:21 - 'You ran a Kickstarter' 12:38 - Rock Paper Scissors Deluxe — Beth Sobel art, Chip Theory lore 16:27 - Reverse pranking: the companies who never check the channel 18:18 - Do publishers mind? The PAX Unplugged fake-rules event 19:49 - Never breaking — the deadpan, and four takes a line 20:57 - The $2,000 AI sex doll 23:53 - Did YouTube demonetize it? 26:32 - The tutorial he refunded 31:51 - Kinson Key sweeps the Dice Tower Awards 34:56 - They want the footage — and they won't pay for it 42:03 - Reviewing a board game table that didn't exist 44:31 - The 'scam' table nobody else got sent 45:45 - The fake game, and 300 creators asked to sell out 51:34 - A $3 campaign for the experience of crowdfunding 56:49 - The day job: Condé Nast, and 800 million views 1:00:57 - Fuse, Google's $2M, and learning what makes people click 1:06:28 - The AI lemonade stand: ChatGPT vs Claude 1:08:14 - 'Hey, this is Mr B' — the text out of nowhere 1:11:12 - Greenville: D&D, Catan and poker night 1:16:29 - 'I could save you so much time and money.' He didn't care. 1:19:21 - The best celebrity he ever worked with: Weird Al 1:23:10 - The Pandasaurus wrestling match, and the pizza guy 1:25:03 - Filming Jackie Chan 1:27:23 - Thanks, and a PAX Unplugged plan #cardboard #bgss

Support my work and join my community: https://crdbrd.app/ Koltin Thompson took a sick day from teaching fourth grade to launch his Kickstarter. It did $300,000 in the first 24 hours. He went back to work the next morning anyway — state testing was coming — and his co-workers wanted to know what on earth he was doing there. That game was 🚀 GALACTIC CRUISE, and it just won Dice Tower Game of the Year. T.K. King, Dennis Northcott and Koltin of Kinson Key Games came on to tell the whole story. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🏆 Three Dice Tower awards in one night — and why Game of the Year was the one T.K. was watching for 😭 Turning in a resignation, tears in the school bathroom, and going full-time into board games 🤒 The sick day that launched a $300,000 Kickstarter — and the co-workers who asked why he came in 🚀 "I'm calling it Galactic Cruise for now" — the placeholder name that never went away 🧟 The Frankenstein prototype, and a first version that was wider and shallower than the game you know 📋 Who actually made that player aid — the one people call the best they've ever seen 🎨 Getting to Ian O'Toole: "you have to meet 20 people before you meet Ian" 🛸 EXCURSIONS — why it's a whole new game and not an expansion ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🛸 Excursions — a Galactic Cruise Game (launching soon on Kickstarter) ▶ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kinsonkeygames/excursions-a-galactic-cruise-game 🚀 Galactic Cruise ▶ https://kinsonkeygames.com/galactic-cruise 🎮 Kinson Key Games ▶ https://www.kinsonkeygames.com/ 💬 Kinson Key Games on Discord ▶ https://discord.gg/ZSCRGYJfUC 📺 Kinson Key Games on YouTube ▶ https://www.youtube.com/@kinsonkeygames3478 ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:43 - Who are Kinson Key Games? 04:39 - Three Dice Tower awards in one night 07:10 - How two friends started making games 14:32 - Dennis finds them at Proto ATL 22:30 - Going all in on the first day of 2023 27:22 - Doing the math on quitting a salary 28:51 - The resignation, and a $300,000 launch 32:42 - "I am calling it Galactic Cruise for now" 34:38 - The first version was wider and shallower 35:18 - The Frankenstein prototype 45:09 - Why T.K. loves worker placement 48:32 - Where Developments came from 56:37 - Building the Progress Track 58:25 - Teaching people how it scores 1:01:40 - Achievements and Advancements 1:08:59 - The top-ranked player in the world 1:14:25 - The player aid everyone remembers 1:22:43 - Landing the art on a debut game 1:34:10 - Pitching the Achievements expansion 1:40:18 - Excursions - and why it is not an expansion 1:56:45 - Publishing other designers 2:01:59 - Weight, box size and delivery dates #cardboard #bgss #galacticcruise

Does Cola Wars match your taste? :https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/682109fe-a66d-402c-a141-f4f9cf13c2d6 Matthew Meeple took his first game to Gen Con, put six people on it at once, and found out mid-demo that it literally could not be won. He raised $476,000 on it anyway. He's the founder of One More Turn Games — publisher of ⚔️ ASCENDANCY and the upcoming 🥤 COLA WARS — and he quit his job to do all of it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🎲 A working cardboard vending machine that rolls your dice — no batteries, just a wooden dowel 📦 The box fight: hundreds of backers arguing over a retro 1985 box nobody can fit in a Kallax 😰 The delay email he was "terrified" to send — and why the replies changed how he runs campaigns 🕹️ "We actually can't win the game" — the Gen Con demo that sent ASCENDANCY back to the drawing board 🥤 How he saw an 80s nostalgia game in Cameron Fleming's prototype from the title alone 🧠 Two battlefields — "mind share" in the consumer's head, "shelf share" in the aisles of Thirst City 💼 Hire executives, fire them for the salary savings, and send interns to file TPS reports ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🥤 Cola Wars on Gamefound ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/onemoreturngames/cola-wars 🎮 One More Turn Games ▶ https://onemoreturngames.com/pages/cola-wars 📺 One More Turn Games on YouTube ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMpadGN6IfX_gt5WhTFdytg ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:40 - Who is Matthew Meeple? 01:59 - He quit his job to go all-in on One More Turn Games 03:41 - ASCENDANCY funded fast - would he do it again? 07:15 - Why his FIRST game was a huge asymmetric 4X 08:33 - What the first campaign actually taught him 12:00 - Never missing an update - ethics or compulsion? 13:48 - The box fight: retro and unstorable, or shelf-friendly? 18:33 - Will COLA WARS go retail? 20:35 - The update he was terrified to send 22:51 - Is crowdfunding oversaturated? 31:35 - The crazy vending machine dice tower 34:23 - Publisher trust, and the CMON problem 39:15 - Why he switched from Kickstarter to Gamefound 41:09 - The Gen Con demo where nobody could win the game 50:42 - Cutting the scope to actually ship 1:00:23 - ASCENDANCY is going digital 1:01:33 - The crafting game he still wants to make 1:03:45 - Finding Cameron Fleming at Gen Con 1:07:33 - What 20 years in advertising brought to the mechanics 1:09:53 - Shelf space: fast food to fine dining 1:12:48 - How a cardboard vending machine rolls dice 1:14:30 - Market research: buying your way out of bad luck 1:20:59 - Why your mind share halves every year 1:23:20 - Vice presidents, and the Ari Gold problem 1:25:31 - Hiring executives - and interns who ruin everything 1:32:11 - What is in store for the campaign #cardboard #bgss #colawars

Chad DeShon ran a million-dollar Kickstarter, added another half million in add-ons, and made basically nothing — then turned that wreckage into one of the busiest publishers in board games. He's the founder of 🎲 ALLPLAY, formerly 🪑 BOARDGAMETABLES.COM, and he runs the whole thing out of a limestone mine. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🕳️ The Allplay warehouse is inside a decommissioned limestone mine — down the road from 750,000 square feet of federal documents 🪑 2014: he emails a stranger about a furniture order and ends up selling board game tables with zero woodworking experience 📦 THE DUCHESS lands at $499 against a $4,000 market and funds in minutes — then 25 containers arrive damaged 💸 "Everybody had to get their table, or the whole business just went away" 🎲 He played QE, emailed the designer to ask if he could publish it, and accidentally became a publisher 🏷️ Every review started "this is QE by BoardGameTables.com" — the naming problem that forced the ALLPLAY rebrand 🧲 His pitch advice for designers: whatever is unique about your game has to be in the first two sentences ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Allplay ▶ https://www.allplay.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:57 - Who is Chad DeShon? 01:04 - His office is inside a limestone mine 03:42 - The founder story starts with a furniture order 07:40 - The first table sells the day after the website goes live 09:59 - The Duchess: gamers touch the table and walk away 12:18 - Cold-emailing furniture factories in China 13:18 - $499 against a $4,000 market — funded in minutes 18:00 - 25 containers of tables arrive damaged 20:20 - A $1M campaign that made basically no money 24:37 - Redesigning the table around the UPS weight limit 27:24 - Dropping table parts in his basement to test the boxes 32:11 - What he learned watching Geek Chic go under 36:19 - Moving production out of China 42:37 - Why BoardGameTables.com became Allplay 46:38 - On Tour, then QE — how he became a publisher 50:27 - Rescuing Container and Through the Desert 56:01 - The nine-game Kickstarter, and what went wrong 1:00:14 - About 20 games a year, and why that number stops here 1:05:21 - Things in Rings, and still waiting on their Wingspan 1:12:27 - COVID, containers, and forecasting the impossible 1:18:59 - Why QE was never re-themed with animals 1:23:51 - Enchanted Ivy, their first solo game 1:30:58 - The convention booth as a marketing machine 1:34:59 - Jibber Jabble at Gen Con 1:42:04 - Mountain Goats Legacy and Sail Legacy 1:48:20 - Rapid fire: one table, one game forever #cardboard #bgss #allplay #cardboard #bgss #dicethrone #wroth

Manny Trembly had never designed a board game when he made 🎲 DICE THRONE — he was a comic artist who'd just been laid off. Ten years, 40+ heroes and a Marvel licence later, he still draws it, designs it, and now runs his own studio inside Chip Theory building ⚔️ WROTH. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 💼 Laid off ten years ago this week — a prototype in Nate's kitchen two days later ✏️ Comic artist first — an Eisner nod for PX, 3D models for MYST 🎲 "Too asymmetrical, too many dice" — everyone told him it wouldn't work ⚔️ Gavin Brown, Roxley, and the absurd EXCALIBUR box 🌈 WROTH — built in 24 hours with his kids 🔮 NEXUS and DICE THRONE DIGITAL are coming ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Dice Throne ▶ https://dicethrone.com/ ⚔️ Wroth & Neon Knight Games ▶ https://chiptheorygames.com/ ⚔️ Wreck ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/chip-theory-games/wroth-reprint--wreck-expansion ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:32 - Who is Manny Trembly? 01:27 - Fresh off Gen Con 10:20 - Why the small booths are where the magic is 11:53 - Winning a Dice Tower Award for Tanglewood 16:38 - A Jim Lee comic and the two-page spread that started it 21:32 - PX, the Eisner nomination, and dropping the E 23:00 - Myst, Cyan Worlds, and 'grandpa who fought in WWII' 26:05 - Meeting Nate — and getting laid off the same week 30:34 - 'What if we just translate this sucker into a board game?' 34:00 - Roxley, Gavin Brown, and the Excalibur box 40:25 - 'What you're doing is cool, but it's not going to work' 46:32 - The art: what Manny draws vs what Nick Malara draws 57:00 - Why dice make better stories 1:10:44 - Neon Reign — art that predates Dice Throne 1:15:40 - Joining Chip Theory and starting Neon Knight 1:28:13 - Wroth: fixing what keeps people off Root 1:47:20 - Wreck: boats, cannon dice, and the Exodus 2:04:30 - What WROTH actually stands for 2:26:11 - Manny's favourite hero of all time 2:30:40 - Nexus, Dice Throne Digital, and what's next #cardboard #bgss #dicethrone #wroth

Helaina Cappel turned down more games than she published — and that's why KTBG and Burnt Island look the way they do. Teacher, publisher, and the one who rescued ⚓ ENDEAVOR off Z-Man's shelf and steered it into 🌊 DEEP SEA. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE: 🎓 Teacher to publisher — FOODFIGHTERS at the kitchen table ⚓ A year convincing Jarratt & Carl to hand her ENDEAVOR 🌊 Leaving the colonization theme behind for DEEP SEA 🌱 Zero plastic — "but it's flammable" 🗝️ LAIRS: $33, three print runs, all sold out 🔮 Ten more years of Endeavor ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS 🎲 Kids Table Board Gaming & Burnt Island Games ▶ https://www.kidstablebg.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:33 - Intro — who is Helaina Cappel 01:45 - Before we started rolling 02:24 - The teacher, Josh, and Foodfighters 08:53 - Funding on day 31 — Kickstarter in 2015 13:23 - "When did KTBG become a business?" 20:08 - Catan, Carcassonne, Caylus — becoming a gamer 22:53 - The KTBG DNA: fun, and scalable 26:13 - The "family weight" problem 32:23 - Cystic fibrosis — an unexpected connection 37:03 - Why Burnt Island exists 39:38 - Endeavor: from Z-Man's shelf to a year of convincing 44:43 - Decolonising Endeavor into Deep Sea 53:53 - Zero plastic: the bagasse insert fight 59:23 - Age of Sail is out of print for good 1:02:53 - Fall of the Mountain King — the one that should have hit 1:08:23 - Killing the print ads 1:13:23 - "New is better" — the treadmill 1:17:23 - Tariffs, Play the North, looking past the US 1:25:43 - Lairs — the $33 game she can't print fast enough 1:42:23 - How Lairs found her — an Eric Lang post 1:47:43 - Gen Con and Essen slate 1:49:33 - The future of Endeavor — ten games in ten years 1:56:48 - Advice: ask every single question #cardboard #bgss #endeavor #kidstableboardgaming #burntisland

He won a Magic: The Gathering national championship at 17 — the youngest ever — and got the cards he won with banned. Then he built Ascension in 18 months, bet his life savings on 10,000 copies, and sold out at Gen Con. Justin Gary of Stone Blade Entertainment opens up 15 years of design secrets: why balance is a misnomer, how the One Ring broke his game (and the story moment that fixed it), and what's coming in Ascension: The Lord of the Rings. Guest: Justin Gary — https://x.com/Justin_Gary Stone Blade Entertainment: https://stoneblade.com Justin's podcast & book: Think Like a Game Designer Lord of the Rings Ascension Campaign: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/stoneblade/the-lord-of-the-rings-ascension#/section/project-story TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open & guest intro 1:07 Welcome + the Tim Ferriss DM story 13:53 The Magic pro years & the hacker mentality 14:54 $30,000 and two banned cards 25:59 Dominion & the deckbuilding boom 29:25 Building Ascension: 18 months, 10,000 copies 46:35 "Balance is a misnomer" 1:07:07 Lord of the Rings Ascension 1:24:03 Taming the One Ring 1:28:33 Favorite set + what's next 1:38:37 The crowdfund + where to find Justin GAMES IN THIS EPISODE Magic: The Gathering — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/4dd82420-e5a0-4cc4-afaa-3b7d2b60ce97 Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/077eee6c-9a23-4f10-b72b-776c45514d2a Dominion — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/0b300d7c-f019-4594-8d4b-ef94c0e26585 SolForge Fusion — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/874e3f7f-413f-47df-bc57-8b603d33937b Discover every game mentioned on the show: https://crdbrd.app #cardboard #bgss #ascension

He invented card crafting — and he may have just reinvented deck building. John D. Clair designed 🚀 SPACE BASE, 🏴‍☠️ DEAD RECKONING, 🎲 CUBITOS, 🐎 READY SET BET, and 🔮 MYSTIC VALE — and his new "momentum" system in ⚔️ UNSTOPPABLE is the engine behind the smash-hit 👑 DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL board game. In this one, I review Unstoppable to the designer's face for the very first time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE, WE GO DEEP: 🧒 Designing his first game at 9 (thanks, Mom) 💰 Quitting the day job — royalties, risk & the AEG deal 🃏 Dominion, Ascension & why deck building is a design "cheat code" ✂️ Card crafting — why it never spawned a genre ⚡ Momentum deck building & the 2009 prototype that waited a decade 🎲 Luck vs. agency — why new players blame the dice 🌶️ The BGG comments he SAVES & the review that stung 🗞️ BREAKING: Floors 5 & 6 in the works for Dungeon Crawler Carl 🔮 What's next — Stormlight Archive, Mystic Lands & Electrify 👉 If you want to get inside the mind of the most inventive card game designer working today, this one's a masterclass. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS ⚔️ Unstoppable — Renegade Game Studios ▶ https://renegadegamestudios.com/unstoppable/ 👑 Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable + RPG ▶ https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/renegade-game-studios/dungeon-crawler-carl-rpg-unstoppable ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro — who is John D. Clair 00:52 - Designing his first game at 9 (Monster Cards) 05:19 - Maze books & gamifying mazes as a kid 13:24 - Going full-time in 2018 & the AEG deal 16:52 - Why Unstoppable went to Renegade — the IP bet 18:52 - The games he loves (and the two kinds he doesn't) 22:59 - Inspiration & giving credit to other designers 27:12 - Playing Dominion for the first time 30:46 - Why deck building is so addicting 34:38 - Ascension's influence & Dead Reckoning's 2D market 38:52 - Card crafting — a lateral evolution, not a genre 42:16 - The deck building problem card crafting solves 46:05 - Deck-driven board games — Dune: Imperium & Arnak 47:35 - Unstoppable & momentum deck building 50:45 - The 2009 prototype behind Unstoppable 58:04 - The magic moment — two dead cards into a combo 1:00:27 - Difficulty & learning to pump the brakes 1:08:08 - Luck, agency & why new players blame the dice 1:17:48 - How many plays before Unstoppable clicks? 1:18:46 - What do reviewers owe designers? 1:22:03 - BGG comments, Space Base's two bad cards & the review that stung 1:31:36 - Fixing the card market — six levels, straight to hand 1:41:44 - Has momentum transcended deck building? 1:46:01 - The bosses & designing variety 1:52:26 - My gripes — sleeving and that theme 1:55:06 - The IP vision & the future of the Unstoppable line 1:56:36 - Patching a physical game & the new co-op rule 2:00:35 - Dungeon Crawler Carl's campaign mode 2:04:47 - BREAKING — Floors 5 & 6 expansion in the works 2:05:54 - What's new in DCC — looming bosses, races & mana 2:13:39 - The "Unbeatable" difficulty & how John playtests 2:15:17 - Stormlight Archive: War of Roshar (September) 2:17:14 - Mystic Lands & the art problem of card crafting 2:21:03 - Mistborn expansion, Electrify & a 2027 auto-battler 2:23:01 - Wrap-up ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #boardgames #boardgamedesign #unstoppable #dungeoncrawlercarl #deckbuilding #tabletop #renegadegamestudios #boardgamepodcast

One of the most storied résumés in the entire board game industry. Zev founded Z-Man Games, published 🦠 PANDEMIC and the first English 🌾 AGRICOLA (and basically invented the "animeeple" by deluxing it), signed the original ENDEAVOR, spent seven years exploding the WizKids catalog with ~100 games, and now runs his own publisher — ✨ PLAY TO Z. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE, WE GO DEEP: 💰 The real economics of conventions 🏆 Why Origins beats GenCon for a premiere 🃏 The CCG days & Shadow Fist 🤝 Betting on co-op when NOBODY wanted it 📦 Under-printing Pandemic 🌶️ His (spicy) take on expansions 📜 IP licensing headaches & the Middle-earth project 🚀 Crowdfunding, paid previews vs. review copies 🔮 What's next for Play to Z 👉 If you care at all about how the board game industry ACTUALLY works, this one's a masterclass. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS ⚔️ Siege Perilous — LIVE on Gamefound now (through July 14) ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/play-to-z/siege-perilous ✨ Everything Play to Z has going ▶ https://www.playtozgames.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 ▸ Intro — who is Zev Schlasinger 00:39 ▸ Origins & how the con has changed 03:04 ▸ Why publisher attendance is dropping 04:15 ▸ Conventions are marketing — money is gravy 05:03 ▸ The ROI secret: premiere something new 06:56 ▸ Why release at Origins instead of GenCon 🃏 THE CCG YEARS 09:07 ▸ From CCGs to board games — the Z-Man origin 09:53 ▸ Always a gamer: wargames, Magic & judging 11:31 ▸ Grave Robbers From Outer Space changes everything 13:16 ▸ Breaking into board games & the "Rio Grande wall" 16:40 ▸ How you found games to sign back then 18:33 ▸ Selling off Shadow Fist / leaving CCGs 23:38 ▸ Would he ever do a CCG again? 📈 BUILDING Z-MAN 24:49 ▸ When did Z-Man feel like a success? ("one disaster from bankruptcy") 28:21 ▸ Under-printing Pandemic & Agricola / print runs 33:04 ▸ Lead times then vs. now / the Soothsayers reprint 🦠 THE BIG HITS 36:01 ▸ Meeting Matt Leacock & signing Pandemic 38:03 ▸ Betting on co-op when nobody wanted it 42:22 ▸ Play to Z's philosophy: engaging & different 43:31 ▸ Signing Agricola, the $70 euro risk & animeeples 48:48 ▸ Publishing the very first Endeavor 52:40 ▸ Zev's honest take on expansions 🏢 Z-MAN, WIZKIDS & IP 1:05:00 ▸ Why he sold Z-Man (and kept working there) 1:07:28 ▸ The WizKids years — 100 games in 7 1:11:47 ▸ The reality of working with IP & licensing 1:20:54 ▸ The Middle-earth game & Asmodee's curation ✨ PLAY TO Z & THE INDUSTRY TODAY 1:27:08 ▸ Why start Play to Z — hitting the ground running 1:29:40 ▸ Crowdfunding — why he resisted it for so long 1:33:02 ▸ Crowdfunding vs. bank loans & publisher risk 1:39:37 ▸ Paid previews, review copies & marketing ROI 1:47:27 ▸ Social media & staying transparent with the community 1:52:29 ▸ Board games vs. digital / BGA & the tactile future 🎯 WHAT TO PLAY NOW 1:54:40 ▸ Play to Z's lineup — Siege Perilous, 23 Knives & more 1:56:52 ▸ The most slept-on Play to Z game 2:00:45 ▸ Late-year releases — Dogs of War, Soul Journey 2:03:21 ▸ Where to find Siege Perilous & wrap-up ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #boardgames #boardgamedesign #zmangames #pandemic #agricola #tabletop #playtoz #boardgamepodcast

Board game designer Peter Hayward (Rolling Deep, Things & Rings, That Time You Killed Me) sits down for a wide-ranging, 3-hour conversation about what actually makes a game fun, why he's stepping back from designing to chase screenwriting, and how he reverse-engineered the feeling of Balatro into a tabletop roguelike. We get into the apex of game design, the difference between fun, satisfaction, and winning, why Flip Seven sparked a friendly fight, the $120k debt that nearly ended it all, the "offer he couldn't refuse," and the absurd timeline that took Rolling Deep from first prototype to Kickstarter in under six months. 🎲 Rolling Deep hits Kickstarter June 23rd: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitewinggamesnick/rolling-deep-and-eureka-dice-adventure-roguelike-and-campaign ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open 0:42 Designer vs. salesman: the dream nobody warns you about 1:37 The real daily grind of a working designer 3:02 Willow, his sisters & "external processing" 5:27 23 Slack channels with his sister 8:44 How does Peter have fun? 9:07 Fun vs. satisfaction vs. winning 11:02 The apex of game design 11:48 Making "dumb apes feel clever" 12:32 Puzzles, Sudoku & writing sitcoms 15:47 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic joy 22:20 Breaking So Clover (and co-op games) 23:59 Is Flip Seven even a game? 25:29 The threshold of agency 26:03 Why Flip Seven might be a top design of 20 years 30:34 Being a board game "sommelier" 32:30 The Candyland question 33:40 Why he's ending the Fun Problems podcast 34:50 The screenwriting dream & getting into the US 39:02 A "typical" day & external obligations 43:12 $120k of debt to a net worth of zero 44:32 The offer he couldn't refuse 50:14 The ridiculous Rolling Deep timeline 51:36 The Cuphead artist & the cover 53:42 Why Peter designs mechanics-first 55:05 The three hooks: mechanical, component, thematic 1:08:42 Falling in love with Balatro 1:09:31 What Balatro actually is 1:24:08 So what is Rolling Deep? 1:30:39 Translating planet cards into mushrooms 1:33:08 Turning interest into a real decision 1:38:13 Bosses & engine destroyers 1:43:41 Jokers become tableau rows 1:48:13 Broken combos: feature or bug? 1:55:21 "Use the paints already on the tray" 2:04:48 Custom dice faces & the rules budget 2:19:11 Discovery cards 2:28:35 Achievements & roguelike unlocks 3:02:00 Going full-time: f**k around and find out 3:07:45 Peter's other income streams 3:09:40 Building an "engine" on YouTube 3:11:17 Wrap up #boardgames #gamedesign #rollingdeep #kickstarter #tabletop #balatro

I need your help to keep this going. The #1 way you can support me is join my community here: https://crdbrd.app/ Zeshawn from Board and Shield has played over 500 board games — and he's just as deep in the book world as the board game one. In this episode of the Board Game Secret Show we go all the way down the rabbit hole: how a Game of Thrones version of Risk pulled him into the hobby, why he merged books and board games onto one account, the narrative campaign games worth your table (Dragon Eclipse, Oathsworn, Spire's End), a hot take that might get him canceled (Castles of Burgundy is overrated), and his complete all-time Top 10 — including why Black Rose Wars will NEVER leave the #1 spot. We also cover the board-game-to-book pipeline: what to read if you love Blood Rage, the cozy parallel to CozyStickerville, and the standalone novels every gamer should pick up. 🎲 Follow Zeshawn here: @ZeBoardandShield https://www.instagram.com/boardandshield/ https://www.tiktok.com/@boardandshield The #1 way you can support me is join my community here: https://crdbrd.app/ ————————————————— ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ————————————————— 0:00 — Cold open / teaser 0:30 — Who is Zeeshan & Board and Shield 1:03 — How we connected on TikTok 2:34 — Cross-posting TikTok / IG / YouTube + why he hates editing 5:08 — Being authentic beats high production 6:07 — His first videos: nerves, photos → talking to camera 7:53 — Will we ever get long-form? The monthly-recap idea 9:29 — The origin story: Game of Thrones Risk changed everything 13:08 — Champions of Midgard & his first worker placement 14:31 — Getting people into the hobby (the gateway-game problem) 16:13 — Top 10 lists & the YouTubers that hooked him 18:26 — Books or board games — which came first? 18:53 — Between Two Fires: a horror book deep dive 21:57 — His reading journey & the deluxe-edition parallel to board games 25:01 — Why he merged books + board games onto one account 27:21 — Niching down vs. being yourself (and dealing with haters) 29:13 — Booktok creators worth following — and how huge that world is 31:39 — The golden age of Lord of the Rings board games 33:35 — There and Back Again & the "cozy" debate 34:22 — Cozy Stickerville obsession 37:15 — Corey Konieczka (Twilight Imperium → Cozy Stickerville) & Vantage 41:33 — Narrative campaign games: Dragon Eclipse & Oathsworn 44:04 — Dragon Eclipse as an arena battler ("I wish it were Pokémon") 47:03 — Can board game writing ever match a real novel? 48:32 — Tainted Grail & the Spire's End games 53:08 — Sponsor break: Cardboard 54:01 — Getting board gamers INTO books 56:08 — Legends & Lattes: the cozy book pick 57:06 — Can a book capture the *feeling* of a board game? 59:36 — Standalone book recs (The Sword of Kaigen, Blood Over Bright Haven) 1:00:21 — The paid-content & publisher journey 1:03:36 — Staying selective + the one publisher he hasn't worked with (Awaken Realms) 1:04:40 — Auto-buy publishers & designers: Board & Dice + Stefan Feld 1:05:41 — HOT TAKE: Castles of Burgundy is overrated 1:08:38 — Favorite Board & Dice game (Teotihuacan) 1:09:46 — Windmill Valley & Danny Garcia 1:11:20 — More hot takes: Ark Nova & Viticulture 1:14:07 — THE ALL-TIME TOP 10 — #10 Marvel Champions 1:17:36 — #9 Avalon 1:19:09 — #8 Nusfjord 1:21:13 — #7 Blood Rage 1:22:23 — #6 Primal: The Awakening 1:23:31 — #5 Dominion 1:26:36 — #4 Santorini 1:29:30 — #3 Inis 1:30:57 — #2 Spirit Island (is it really cozy?) 1:33:01 — #1 Black Rose Wars (the forever #1) 1:38:09 — Breaking into the list: Grimm Coven 1:44:15 — The future of Board and Shield & where to follow him 1:45:20 — How he finds time for all of it 1:46:37 — Closing thoughts: the stories behind the hobby #boardgames #boardgamecommunity #tabletopgames #booktok #blackrosewars