254 – Honey, I Shrunk the Game – The Family Gamers Podcast

Episode 254
Honey, I Shrunk the Game
This week, we’re discussing games that have been sized down, either for portability or for a faster & simpler experience. Are these smaller games worth it?
Thanks to our sponsor, First Move Financial. Go to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers to set up a quick chat and start taking steps to dig out of debt.
What We’ve Been Playing
TRAILS (Keymaster Games) – more on this later…
Robots Ate Our Pizza (RobotsAteOurPizza.com)
Tumble Town (Weird Giraffe Games)
Tussie Mussie (Button Shy)
Enchanted Plumes (Calliope Games)
Gods Love Dinosaurs (Pandasaurus)
Welcome new members to our community! facebook.com/groups/familygamersaa/posts/2965406617082142/
Games Made Compact
Games that have reached some level of popularity come out with smaller versions for lots of reasons. Sometimes it’s to be more beginner friendly, sometimes it’s to make a better 2-player experience, and sometimes it’s to take what we love about a game and strip away ANYTHING extra to make it as tight and short as possible.
The first time we remember seeing this with Z-Man Games stripping down classics like Agricola to a compact 2-player version.
Let’s discuss a few of these that we’ve come across:
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
TRAILS (from PARKS)
Ticket to Ride New York
Monopoly Deal
Games that have been tightened for 2 players:
Kingdomino Duel (our review) – this is actually a more complicated game than Kingdomino!
7 Wonders Duel – a little simpler, a LOT faster.
Imhotep: The Duel (our review)
Find Us Online:
Facebook: @familygamersaa and thefamilygamers.com/community
Twitter (X): @familygamersaa
Instagram: @familygamersaa
TikTok: @familygamersaa
Bluesky: @familygamersaa
Threads: @familygamersaa
Youtube: TheFamilyGamers
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.
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.
You can also now find us on YouTube Music! So pull it up and give us a listen while you’re toiling away at work :)
If you’d like to support The Family Gamers, there’s two ways to do that. First, you can pick up some sweet sweet merch. Big thanks to Matt who just picked up a Play Games with Your Kids shirt, and to some other folks who nabbed some things after we announced it last week. If you want to check out our merch you can go to store.thefamilygamers.com
You can ALSO support us on Patreon, if that’s more your speed. We have a few different support tiers from just a couple of dollars to show your appreciation – which we appreciate – up to five, ten, or even $20/month. There are all sorts of different rewards you can get, which we tried to make unique. You can see those at thefamilygamers.com/patreon.
Music for The Family Gamers Podcast is provided with permission from You Bred Raptors?
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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:58 — 34.3MB)
Subscribe: Spotify | Podcast Index | Email | Youtube Music | RSS
Discover more from The Family Gamers
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

