200 – It’s Two Hundred! – The Family Gamers Podcast

We are excited for episode 200! We start with well-wishes from Jeff Johnston (Pair of Jacks Games), who has become a friend since we interviewed him for episode 43.

Andrew has 200 facts about 200?! No, only two.

Thanks to First Move Financial for sponsoring the podcast!

We sent out an e-mail to all of our friends that we’ve had on the show before, inviting them to join in on the fun. We’ll be sharing those throughout the show.

How about that adorable picture of Seb Funkhouser above? The Funkhousers‘ son is finally old enough to play some family games!

Thanks to Ryan & Erin from One Board Family for their well-wishes!

Giveaway

We had a top secret giveaway on the Family Gamers Newsletter. If you aren’t getting our newsletter you should be – sign up now!

Thanks for the kind wishes, Andy Geremia. We think you rock, too!

What We’ve Been Playing

Andrew’s brother and sister came to visit and they played three-headed Magic: The Gathering. Now Asher wants to play! It became an important learning experience for how to work through frustration.

Unmatched (still good… and we figured out how to play it over video-chat, like we mentioned in episode 196.)

Cartographers (from Thunderworks Games) – apparently Andrew is the artistic one, at least when it comes to games like this?

Cities: Skylines (from KOSMOS) which is still incredibly frustrating and hard.

Megacity: Oceania (from HUB Games) was a nice palate-cleanser and feels a lot more productive. We made a lovely city!

Bees: The Secret Kingdom (from Awaken Realms Lite / Van Ryder Games) – check our SNAP review.

Clip Cut Parks (from Renegade)

Koi (from Smirk & Laughter Games) – we published our review today.

IceCOOL (from Brain Games)

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Nick and Izzy share a fact about 200 and what they love about listening to (and contributing to!) The Family Gamers.

Back Talk

First, Peter Ellis tells us that we were BOTH right in our argument about when summer starts. (The solstice on June 20 began Astronomical Summer, but Meterological Summer started June 1.)

Also: we asked on Facebook what people’s favorite memory was of the show and we wanted to share some of those with you:

Derek Scott “As a history teacher I liked your episode around 100 episodes ago on games with history in mind… you mentioned a lot that if you don’t learn from history you are bound to repeat it, which is one of my favorite hooks into getting kids interested in history… I didn’t comment at the time, but I use parts of the system of “freedom the Underground Railroad” game to teach My civil war unit. I obviously don’t play the “game” although I wouldn’t call it that. I use the map to point out key locations and talk about some abolitionists highlighted in the game. Another great game to teach history that is easy to teach is 1812… easy combat game I have taught to my 6 year old… keep up the good work with the podcast.”

Dwayna Paplow “The latest episode I LOOOved was 197 – Back the Comeback. I forwarded it to the owners of my FLGS to let them know that I loved them. Their mission statement is ‘building community around the table.’ “

Wayne Kruger “Not a specific memory but i have enjoyed the recommendations and have picked up a number of games for my now 6 year old from the games you review and talk about. Finally got a copy of Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters and he loves it.”

Chris Goodlet “The fun facts are enjoyable. My favorite piece is the genuine interactions you have with your guests. I loved coming on and felt welcomed into your home.” (We had Chris on for episode 185.)

Giveaway!

We’re going to send a copy of Endangered (Grand Gamer’s Guild) to Wayne Kruger! And we’re keeping the nature themed prizes going, so for Derek, Dwayna, and Chris, we have digital codes for Evolution that were generously provided by Scott from North Star Games (episode 193)!

Speaking of Grand Gamers Guild, our friend Marc Specter (heard last on episode 111) sends us some well-wishes. Thanks, Marc!

For Science!

Andrew tries two odd foods “for science” that Anitra found at the Dollar Tree.

A&W drink mix packet – tastes just like flat A&W root beer. Verdict: kind of gross, but that’s because we don’t much like root beer. Not terrible. Want to try it? Send andrew an email (andrew@thefamilygamers.com) and he’ll send you a packet in the mail for free!

Late July Bacon Habenero tortilla chips – Andrew likes them. A lot. More “natural” tasting than Doritos, but very tasty.

Speaking of crickets… How about Steven Buonocore (from episode 163 – but also eating crickets with Andrew in this video). We are a fan of his Board Games Insider podcast as well as the games he publishes!

Board Game in the Middle!

Since we were talking about some city-building games, let’s do those.

Anitra looked up the average user rating for each of these games on Board Game Geek. Which one is in the middle by rating?

• Cities: Skylines
• MegaCity: Oceania
• Sprawlopolis (our favorite city-building game!)

Let us know what you think! Tell us at facebook.com/groups/familygamersaa or send us an email!

Giveaway

We’re giving away Smash Up to a member of the Facebook community. Congratulations, Todd Prouty!

Trivia question: What is the BGG complexity rating of the most complicated game in the The Family Gamers collection? You’re allowed to take a stab in the dark! (Hint: complexity ratings run from 1-5. We guarantee our most complex game is not at either end of this scale.) Take a guess and you might win a prize too!

Ken Franklin (now a dear friend, who we first met on episode 81) wishes us well too. Thanks Ken!

Looking Back at 199 Episodes

So for this show, we thought we’d look back at episode 100 and see what has changed. We got a lot of amazing feedback of ways we could make The Family Gamers better, and we tried to do some of those things.

Dennis from Bellwether Games (who was on episode 34) wrote in with this question: “If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?”

Probably would have waited until we were done remodeling our kitchen, chasing a mobile baby, selling our house, and moving… (we did all those during the first year of the podcast!)

It’s been a great five years and we don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Something we’ve tried to change is to be more clear on the names of games we talk about.

We’ve been doing our SNAP reviews for almost two years now. We’re really glad to be doing them, pull the kids in more often, and it seems like other people like them too.

You probably notice that we do podcasts & written reviews on Mondays and SNAP reviews on Fridays. You might not have noticed that “special features” usually come out on Wednesdays. Setting up a schedule like this has helped us a lot – deadlines encourage productivity! (We should have done that sooner.)

Have we gotten better about talking over each other? Maybe.

We hope you like the music we’ve been using for a while – it’s by You Bred Raptors? – and Andrew tells the story of why we use that music for the podcast bumps and SNAP reviews.

Another Giveaway

Let’s pick a second winner from our newsletter subscribers; this time it’s Drop It from KOSMOS…. and a short break with Tom Wetzel, also from KOSMOS (who we interviewed for episode 165).

Looking Forward

Conventions aren’t happening in 2020. So all the things we talked about in episode 176… most of those won’t happen this year.

But we can still play games with our kids!

And we can still get games off our shelf of shame.

Asher is expressing some interest in video editing. Maybe we can go that direction? What is missing from video content about family-weight games?

With all of our kids likely to be in and out of school in the coming year, we’re going to do more to get them involved in creating content. Whether that’s video, SNAP reviews, editing, or photography. It probably won’t be writing, although Claire has done that once (look up our Incubation review).

Find Us Online:

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or join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord! thefamilygamers.com/discord

Or, for the most direct method, email us! andrew@thefamilygamers.com and anitra@thefamilygamers.com.

Check out our new Family Gamers and Play Games with Your Kids merchandise – T-shirts, hoodies, and mugs – at thefamilygamers.com/merch.

PLEASE don’t forget to subscribe to the show, tell your friends about the show, and leave us a review at Apple Podcast or whatever your podcast subscription source is. We’re also on Amazon Music, TuneIn, and Spotify.

Send weird foods “For Science”! to:
The Family Gamers
60 Auburn St. # 528
Auburn, MA 01501

The Family Gamers is sponsored by First Move Financial. Go to FirstMoveFinancial.com/familygamers to learn how the team at First Move Financial can help you pile up the victory points.

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