Valentines for Board Gamers
While we’re not big on manufactured holidays, something about Valentine’s Day just cries out for puns. Once we started making board game related puns in 2018, we couldn’t stop!
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Ancestree: Fiddling with Families for Family Fun
“My family is better than yours!” That’s the premise behind Ancestree, created by Eric Lang and published by Calliope Games. Draft tiles and build a dynasty worth commemorating! Or will your lineage be merely mediocre?
» Read more83 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Animo The Card Game
We interview Josh Patton, Josh Wegner, and Theresa Wegner. The three friends created Animo, a card game currently on Kickstarter.
» Read more82 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Role Playing Games For the Family
Welcome to the Family Gamers Podcast! This week, we talk about a few of our favorite role-playing games, as well as what we’ve been playing, backtalk, and Andrew’s most recent “for science!” adventure.
» Read moreMatch Madness: Parallel Puzzling for All Ages
Playing puzzle games with children can be frustrating. If it’s mildly challenging for me, it may be impossible for my 7-year-old; but if it’s the right level for him, it’s far too easy for me. I don’t want to hold back: I want to beat my children fair and square. What to do? Match Madness gives us a possible solution.
» Read moreOK Play (Cinco Linko): Play Anywhere with Anyone
The rules are so simple and intuitive, even a toddler can understand them. In fact, since the game is easy enough for toddlers to understand, this makes it a great game to play with them. You can slowly introduce them to strategy, and the materials are resilient enough to handle whatever it is that makes their hands sticky all the time.
» Read more81 – The Family Gamers Podcast – The Mansky Caper
This week, we are talking to Chris Leder (Director of Fun at Calliope Games) and Ken Franklin (designer of The Mansky Caper). Listen in on our discussion of their new game The Mansky Caper as well as what both of their families do for fun.
» Read more80 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Fun and Games
What makes a game fun? Andrew and Anitra explore this topic. Although many games are enjoyable, we are trying to call out games that are fun in the moment.
» Read moreRobots Love Ice Cream: The Card Game – Lactose Intolerant
What comes to mind when you read the phrase “video game adaptation”? Jean Claude Van Damme as Belgian Guile? XCOM: The Board Game: The Companion App? Endless Resident Evil sequels? An absolutely epic pile of cardboard tokens for Civilization? Turning a video game into a movie or a tabletop game is a difficult challenge. Robots Love Ice Cream: The Card Game,
» Read more79 – The Family Gamers Podcast – David Wilkinson
David Wilkinson is the designer of Castles of Caladale, a unique tile-laying game, designed with family play in mind.
» Read moreFlip City: Urban Planning Upside Down
As a city planner, you naturally want to make the most beautiful and crowd-pleasing city. But watch out! Other players may offload their problems to your beautiful city, even as you upgrade your buildings to become more useful. Will you flip for Flip City, or is it more of a flop?
» Read moreYou Like Us! You Really Like Us!
We are thrilled that we have surpassed 500 likes on our Facebook page. In honor of that, we want to know what you like about The Family Gamers (so we can do more of that) and what you don’t (so we can change it). Would you take 5 minutes and fill out our survey? We’d really appreciate your feedback. Let’s
» Read more78.5 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Announcements!
No interview this week, but we have some announcements we wanted to get out, so this is a very short episode.
» Read moreLoot: Piratical Plundering Cards
Arr, mateys! We be pirates, sailing the high seas in search of Loot. We play cards to capture or defend merchant ships. Loot is one of the earliest games from designer Reiner Knizia. It’s been available in the United States since 2005 from publisher GameWright, but the newest version has updated artwork and comes in a metal tin.
» Read more78 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Top 10 (or so) Games of 2017
We’re back! As the first show of 2018, we wanted to share our top games from 2017. Return of special guests Claire and Asher, who share their favorites as well. Note: These games are our favorites of the year, not necessarily the most critically-acclaimed.
» Read moreSuper Beat Sports: We’ve Got the Beat
A rare video-game review! Harmonix is known for rhythm-and-music video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. We love every game they have made (we regularly rave about Amplitude), so when they announced their new game for Switch, Super Beat Sports, we were intrigued. Sports in a music game? How could that work?
» Read moreOnitama: An Elegant Exploration of Strategy
Onitama replaces complexity with elegance and layers with simplicity. With a ruleset that could literally fit on an index card, Onitama delivers a quick, compact strategy game experience that allows its players plenty of room to breathe and ruminate on their next moves.
» Read more77 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Isaac Shalev, Seikatsu designer
This week, we talk to Isaac Shalev, co-designer of one of our new favorite games: Seikatsu.
» Read moreBLANK: A Game That Teaches Game Design
BLANK is basically a starter pack for the interested designer; it provides a template to create rules and effects to make the game your own.
» Read more76 – The Family Gamers Podcast – Screen Time, Travel Edition
On the road again… just can’t wait to get on the road again… We’ve talked before about screen time and setting limits. (All the way back in episodes 3 and 4!) But we’ve been doing a lot of traveling over the past month, and wanted to acknowledge that the rules change when we are away from home. Stay tuned for
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