New episode! The teenager and I start our 2025 Unmatched tournament to see which of our 16 most-played characters is our favorite Unmatched hero! It's Beowulf vs. the Winter Soldier! The Genie vs. Little Red! T-Rex vs. Dracula! And more! firstplayertoken.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

New episode! The teenager and I start our 2025 Unmatched tournament to see which of our 16 most-played characters is our favorite Unmatched hero! It's Beowulf vs. the Winter Soldier! The Genie vs. Little Red! T-Rex vs. Dracula! And more! firstplayertoken.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

How it started. How it’s going. #Unmatched

Teaching three friends to play Root tonight. Wish me luck!

Back at it tonight! Too much treasure hunting and not enough ghost fightin’. We lost. :/ But—bonus—this is great practice for the little guy in recognizing letters.

“I’m ready to fight some ghost-es!” We introduced the 3yo to Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters tonight and he loved it! He put the ghost figures on his fingers and everything. And we won!

Emily and I play a lot of Wingspan, so last night we mixed it up with the Duet mode from Wingspan Asia. I really like this two-player variant.

We had a very tense game of Clank in Space last night. At one point it looked like we were all doomed, but everyone at least made it to the cargo bay to score points. The two players who were knocked out there and didn’t get the 20 point escape pods ended up in 1st and 2nd! Score: 75-73-70-65.

Maybe the worst hand in Flip 7 last night?

This just in! I Made You a Mixtape! Time to relive some early 90s glory days. 📼

This month on the podcast, Emily and I review Sky Team. Come for the color commentary, stay for my theory why this pilot and co-pilot can’t talk to each other while landing an airplane. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis... #BoardGames

If you're still up, then check out the new First Player Token podcast episode. It's all about the two-player co-op game Sky Team. Emily and I talk about why we keep coming back to this game. And I have a little fun with the audio for this episode. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Of course Square would be a board gamer! Shape Island S1E4 features a tile-laying, area control game called Stellar Chronicles. Seriously, Square calls it “area control.” More pics here, from the prop designer: josephberryhill.com/stellar-chro...

If you're still up, then check out the new First Player Token podcast episode. It's all about the two-player co-op game Sky Team. Emily and I talk about why we keep coming back to this game. And I have a little fun with the audio for this episode. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Playing Parks (1e) tonight. We like to camp in our truck, so my friend Jeff made us custom tokens for use with the Nightfall expansion!

Also, I aim to get a new podcast episode out on the first of every month but that’s not gonna happen this month. 🫠

Well that was a light month! Hard to play a lot of games when moving to a new house.

The Game Changers hits the shelves in paperback today! Do YOU want to hear all about the intertwining histories & modern communities surrounding one of our greatest artforms, games? I flipping hope so, because I'm not good at reading social cues indicating a lack of interest & I like to monologue

The things you find while cleaning… Here’s a special edition Catan map of Kentucky and Tennessee that I picked up at Catan Con in Nashville, probably in 2015.

I wish I could vote for this guy!

This is a thing of beauty.

Played Onoda last night, a solo game from @saltandpeppergames.bsky.social about a Japanese soldier who kept fighting WW2 long after the war was over. A fascinating story and a fascinating game, one that I lost very badly on this, my first try.

Scythe on the table tonight and probably the first time it really made sense to me. And I came in second place!

“It feels like doing your taxes from the back seat of a snowmobile driven by a monkey.” - @timclare.bsky.social on Monopoly in his book Across the Board (aka The Game Changers)

Game night tonight. Flip 7, Cartographers, Living Forest and at the tables I wasn’t at, Knarr and Imhotep. Great games all around!

ICYMI, in our latest podcast episode, Emily and I take a look back at the last five years of Wingspan, our favorite game. This game is one big reason we are birdwatchers, and we share some of our favorite birding stories on the pod. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

July was the month we discovered Flip 7! Also, the teenager and I started our Unmatched tournament, the 3yo learned how to play Tsuro and Incan Gold, and we experienced the flipping fun of Corvids.

Today on the podcast, we check in on Wingspan, which we last covered in 2020. Emily and I talk about our favorite expansions and component upgrades, and how we've become birders because of Wingspan! Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Today on the podcast, we check in on Wingspan, which we last covered in 2020. Emily and I talk about our favorite expansions and component upgrades, and how we've become birders because of Wingspan! Listen here: www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Caw caw! We had a lot of fun pecking and picking through trash tonight. Corvids from @dvcgames.bsky.social!

We’re starting a thing.

This just in… Trickadee from @coinflip.games! In the background are our bird feeders that consistently attract chickadees. :-)

Holiday gaming commenced with family friends in Alabama. Hollywood 1947 (with a timely win for the patriots), Flip 7 (our new fave), Deep Sea Adventure (record high score!), and Knarr (with which I was able to tempt our friends’ teenager into playing something).

Here’s the mid-year report. Just 15 new-to-me games so far this year. Probably because I slashed my games budget. But lots of repeat plays of family games, including some with the 3yo. And thanks to multiple game nights and some family trips, 43 different players!

This week on the podcast, I review Mr. Cabbagehead’s Garden, a delightfully quirky solo game by Todd Sanders. You can try it yourself—the print and play files are up on Board Game Geek. My review is here: www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Took the fam to Game Point Cafe today and had a great time. We played Isle of Cats (in family mode, perfect for the occasion), Abducktion (hard pass, didn’t even finish, too thinly, too much down time), and Flip 7 (just as much fun as everyone says, bought a copy on the spot).

This month on the podcast, we plant a prize-winning garden while avoiding our tedious neighbors. It's Mr. Cabbagehead's Garden, a delightful solo game from Todd Sanders. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

This month on the podcast, we plant a prize-winning garden while avoiding our tedious neighbors. It's Mr. Cabbagehead's Garden, a delightful solo game from Todd Sanders. www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Thanks to our sibling tour of Texas (and lots of time with nieces and nephews), June was a very busy month of games!

The teenager and I got Root to the table for the first time since New Year’s. Lord of the Hundreds vs. Marquis de Cat, and our first game with the hirelings. So good! I love how the hirelings work as a subtle catch-up mechanism, while also adding extra drama.

The surprise hit of game night was Incan Gold, which I threw in the game bag on a whim. There were seven of us who wanted to end the night altogether with a game, and Incan Gold was so perfect we played it twice. Here’s my review of Incan Gold from 2022: www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

I finally played a hard copy of Quetzal last night! I had actually brought my new-to-me copy to last month’s game night, but other people played it without me. Last night I was the one rolling meeples! We also played a nine-hand game of Tortuga 1667 using the new rules. The Mermaid won!

Emily and I played Sky Team again last night and completed the last of the green (easiest) missions! It usually took us two tries to finish those missions, which was a perfect difficulty level for a casual after-the-kids-go-to-bed game.

I'm back on YouTube with another how-to-play video! This time I take on Knarr, a game about making your fortune as a Viking. Also this time, I have proper lighting for the video. =) www.youtube.com/watch?v=myBP...

Evergreen post

I was just looking through some old photos and found this shot of my board game shelf from 2018. The other photo is from last month. I’ve added a few!

I know I’m doing something right when Emily gets excited over new art for our favorite game! We loved exploring the variety of media and styles in the Wingspan Fan Art Pack. Watercolors! Embroidery! Even an Etch-a-Sketch by @jonathanhliu.bsky.social!

Board Game Bliss is having a summer clearance sale and The Blood of an Englishman is under $5 US! This is a fantastic thematic and asymmetric two-player game, and one of my favorites. www.boardgamebliss.com/collections/... My review of the game: www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...

Hey look @stonemaiergames.com was on CNN (illustrated by some boardgames you might recognize): "If we shipped all the games to the US that we started making in January, it would amount to around $1.5 million in tariffs."

Why did we lead off our monthly game night with Challengers! for seven months in a row? Listen to my review of this lively deck building, auto battling, capture the flag mashup to find out! www.buzzsprout.com/2292265/epis...