Andrew Smith is the executive editor of The Family Gamers, and co-host of The Family Gamers Podcast.
Explore the reviews and podcasts he has contributed to.
We are finally back into the normal routine (more or less) after a month of con-related craziness. We’ll talk about highlights from Anitra’s trip to Origins and Andrew’s trip to Dice Tower Con.
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Constellations is a tile-laying, pattern matching game for 2-4 players, lasting from 30-60 minutes. The game was designed by Ian Zang and Dante Lauretta and beautifully illustrated by Ashley Kenawell. Lay hexagons to grow the night sky and score points as you match patterns on your tiles!
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In Gunkimono, you are a daimyo warlord, building armies and gaining honor to establish your strongholds. Gunkimono is an area control, tile drafting and placement game for 2-5 players and takes about an hour to play. Is Gunkimono a Feudal Masterpiece, or a Futile Mess?
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Have you always wanted to be an architect? Try your hand at creating towers to fit in tight spaces in Tokyo Jutaku, a speed building game from Jordan Draper Games.
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We have a great conversation with Ellen and Randy Kirby, of We Game Together, about all things gaming and kids… and what we’re looking forward to at Origins this year.
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When the teacher’s away, the penguins will play! Each player will take a turn being the hall monitor (or Catcher) while the other penguins (Runners) try to collect fish hanging over the doors. IceCOOL 2 is a sequel and/or expansion that we prefer slightly over the original IceCOOL.
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We all have experiences in life we don’t want to miss. FOMO, or fear of missing out, seems to hit particularly hard when it comes to hot new boardgames. Between Kickstarter and conventions constantly hyped on social media, how can we deal with this irrational response?
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This week we’re happy to welcome Isaac Villa. He runs a site similar to ours, called Gaming with Sidekicks. We first met at PAX Unplugged, and we’re always happy to talk with other family-focused gamers. Gaming with Sidekicks branched off from a different website; the founders met while playing Dice Masters competitively. At one point, they had four different podcasts!
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Who doesn’t like food? There are tons of great food games, and we can’t play them all. We rank our top 5, from preschooler-friendly to adults-only.
Play along as we try a food-themed round of Order of Invention. You’ll be surprised which food innovation came first!
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We’ve got a top 10 today – yes, actually 10! Inspired by some filler games we recently received in the mail, and looking forward to hanging out with One Board Family (because we talked filler games when we had them on the podcast), we decided we’d talk about our favorite filler games today. First we thank Breaking Games, whose game
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We have loved Tiny Towns since the moment we laid eyes on it. The simple mechanics of the game left us to wonder how it was possible a game like this hadn’t already existed. Place wooden cubes in configurations to collapse into a building – so simple, our 4-year-old can play, but a surprising amount of depth and strategy as well.
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It’s our friend Joe from ArtOfBoardGaming.com! How does he keep up with boardgames now that he’s on the road? Can we recommend a dice-heavy game that he’ll actually enjoy?
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Abstract strategy (or abstract puzzle) games are Anitra’s favorite! Let’s talk about what makes these games great for family game night.
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Let’s talk to Joe Hopkins, the designer of Endangered. Endangered is on Kickstarter right now. Published by Grand Gamers Guild, with art by Beth Sobel and Ben Flores, we think it looks great!
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Building games! We’re taking a lot of liberty with this idea, but centering around creating a “structure” you can see throughout the game. What’s your favorite?
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Playing Castle Panic (a fantastic game) with my 4-year-old felt more like giving instructions to an unwilling robot. He wasn’t enjoying himself, and I wasn’t enjoying him not enjoying himself. Would My First Castle Panic be different?
My First Castle Panic is a cooperative tower (castle) defense game for 1-4 players ages 4+ that plays in just 20 minutes. Team up and protect the castle from monsters coming to knock it down! Throw the monsters in jail and save the castle!
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We talk about the use of time in boardgames. Time and time travel can make for an interesting theme, and some games use interesting time mechanics to add tension to the gameplay.
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In Shikoku, you learn that coming in first isn’t always the best. We try to tackle this game with rules that are easy to learn, but hard to explain, in about 8 minutes of audio.
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This episode is special! It’s our combined show with Flip Florey at Granite Game Summit, with special guests Gil Hova, Jason Lees, and “Your Moderator” Chris Michaud. We’re calling it the Super Saturday Family Gamers Super Showdown.
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