At The Table with The Dice Tower - Prepping for Gen Con 2026

12:41Tom Vasel:If you could get your little phone light to light up with the bat signal somehow, that would be great. I do have it light up already because I'm really bad at noticing when my phone goes off. So it was like a thing for, I think, auditory disabled people where this bright light shines in your eyes.

12:57Eric Summerer:And everyone's like, Tom, your phone is going off. I'm like, man, I'm really bad.

13:00Tom Vasel:I've been near it. Yeah.

13:02Eric Summerer:It's fair. Okay. We're going to go through the board game list here at Board Game Geek. Now, Board Game Geek has a preview list that used to be curated by Eric Martin. But he does his own website now. And I think this is one of the things he was probably glad to give up curating this list. I can assure you, yes. What that means is the list is now self-curated, which is not the best way to curate any list in the world. We've sorted it by thumbs, which means companies who promote their games to get them on there will be higher on the list, which I think is kind of self-serving. And I don't think you should do it.

13:42Eric Summerer:Please go there and thumb up Dwarves of Aquilon.

13:48Eric Summerer:we need to move up the list

13:53okay anyhow so let's just get started we'll start at the very top with entropy from board and dice games this is the most thumbed up by a mile because yeah yeah uh board and dice does a good

14:06Eric Summerer:job of getting the word out so that's how this works um but entropy is a very highly looked forward to game. It's another game in the quote unquote T series, although it doesn't start with a T.

14:17Tom Vasel:Entropy.

14:18Eric Summerer:Yeah. Just keep trying. No. I won't. I can't. You can watch a live play of this on the Dice Tower. I was not involved in that, but the people who played it did say they enjoyed it. Create stars, form planets, and guide life from microbes to animals. That sounds like that Sid Meier's game. What was that called?

14:37Tom Vasel:Civilization?

14:38Eric Summerer:No, no, no, no, no. He made one where you start it from like microbes and what too, civilizations amongst the stars.

14:45Tom Vasel:Sim Earth. No.

14:47Eric Summerer:Goodness, if you don't know, just say I don't know. All right.

14:51Tom Vasel:I don't know.

14:53Eric Summerer:Number, next one. Jason and the Argonauts. This is a solo game from Envy Horn Games. This is a follow-up to Hercules and the Twelve Labors.

15:06Tom Vasel:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:09Eric Summerer:I like the concept of Hercules and the 12 labors a lot. I felt it had some issues in it in that you're basically rolling dice and allocating dice and going through the 12 labors of Hercules, and it's just kind of lucky. There's a lot of luck involved. They have told me they've toned that down a bit in this one. This one might be better. I know it's a beautiful-looking game. It has silver embossing on all the cards except one card, which has gold embossing. And what card is that, Eric?

15:40Tom Vasel:It's the fleece. It's the fleece. That is correct. It is the golden fleece, which is cool. And that's available for demo only. Yes, you can't buy that one. Thank you.

15:50Eric Summerer:Now that you've said that, I did not filter this by to buy. I will do that right now. How do I do that? For sale.

15:59Tom Vasel:Under availability, you need to say for sale.

16:01Eric Summerer:Okay. Okay, so ignore everything I just said. Let's go to the next one.

16:04Tom Vasel:Yeah.

16:05Eric Summerer:Container. This was easily one of the most played games at Dice Tower East. I saw it everywhere there. Yes. I hated Container when it first came out. I might like the new one. I don't know. It's beautiful. I'm not rushing to play it, but it's not my style. That's all. Lots of people like it.

16:26Tom Vasel:I did play it. I'm going to talk about it a little bit later because it's on my list to discuss.

16:31Eric Summerer:Okay. All right. Then we have two new releases from AllPlay, Enchanted Ivy and Mountain Goat's Legacy. Enchanted Ivy is a solo game, which you basically are building this little enchanted tower, and you're putting guests in. They're coming to a hotel, and you have to score a certain amount of points. It's sort of legacy style. It doesn't need to be, but you do unlock things in it. and it's a cozy game I disagree on that immensely I want to throw the cards across the room I don't know what Julie's talking about it's cozy in theme but it's you're like oh I better draw this character that's going to score me a lot of points if I can put it here

17:16Tom Vasel:okay

17:18Eric Summerer:Mountain Goat's Legacy is the other one and despite the narration and all and I like this game a lot if you like Mountain Goat's this is more Mountain Goat's I would argue very strongly that the word legacy is incorrect here. It's really a campaign game that you can then play with a bunch of modules, but it's fully resettable. There's no permanent changes at all. I played through the game and then reset it and gave it to Chris. So there's that. But if you like Mountain Goats, this is like a no-brainer for you. Which is Mountain Goats being one of – the reason I did the – I was asked to the writing is because Mountain Goats is one of my all time favorite games.

18:00It is the game that I bring around to every convention and I've gone through, I've purchased so many copies because somebody will be like, I love this. I'm like, then it is for you. Please take it and spread the love. Yes. So Joe was kind of like, would you like to do the writing for this? I was like, yes, absolutely.

18:20Eric Summerer:Well, on that note, if you're going to go around and hand out free games to people, They do make a mini Mountain Goals Legacy. They do. So that would be cheaper to do that with. All right, next game is Hercules and the 12 Labors. Hey, I already just mentioned that one. You should probably wait for the next one. I know, it's fine. It's a solo game. A lot of people liked it. I didn't dislike the experience. I just thought I was very lucky. Then we have Jibber Jabble. I will be playing this at 10 a.m. at the All Play booth on Saturday. So if you want to come by, I'll teach this game to you and play it.

18:54Eric Summerer:This is one of those games that's just as fun to watch as it is to play as people spell out the clues, except you don't know what the word the other person started. We're trying to get someone to guess salmon. So Eric says F, and I go A, and Eric's like, how on earth? The word's fish, obviously. Why did you say A? And I was like, I had no idea what word you were thinking of.

19:13Tom Vasel:Yeah. Hilarity ensues. Yes, it's a lot of fun.

19:19Eric Summerer:I don't all play games here on this list. This is crazy. I'm just going to go through it pretty quickly then. High Society, a remake of the classic Reiner Knizia, Three Witches, which I believe is a trick-taking game, two versus one.

19:31Tom Vasel:Yeah, it's a three-player trick-taker. It's interesting. It's a three-player. It is a very interesting game. It's literally for if you're going to play games and you have two partners playing and somebody has to leave for a while, this is your game. A very odd assortment of cards, too. It's the distribution of cards in the different suits. It's hard to get your head around.

19:51Eric Summerer:Also, it's a new game from Corey Young. Yay, I haven't seen one from him in a while.

19:54Tom Vasel:All right. Designer of Gravwell.

19:57Eric Summerer:Then Grunts, which is a two-player abstract style game. Think like chess a little bit, but with little troops fighting each other. I like it. Oh, there's the tiny mountain goats.

20:09Tom Vasel:There it is. Ten bucks.

20:11Eric Summerer:Enchanted Ivy expansion. Torchlet, which is a very weird dungeon crawl trick taker. I don't particularly care for it, but I know some people really enjoy this one. You're trying to guess how many tricks you take sort of as you go through a dungeon. I enjoy it. Then French Toast. This is a game I think you will love or hate because you are guessing a word by comparing it to French Toast. And then you compare it to other things. And, you know, is it like French Toast? Is it not like French Toast? Is it like a tennis racket or not like a tennis racket? And you're like, what? And if you're sitting right there saying, I don't get it, you may never.

20:50Tom Vasel:It is a little tricky to get your head around the concept. Yes. It's literally, I remember I have not played it now that it is published. I absolutely played it with Peter when he was in the very beginning stages of writing it down, getting it down. and it was, I laughed, you know, until I cried kind of a thing. So I enjoy, again, in theory, I would enjoy it now that it's published.

21:17Eric Summerer:I would assume so. But Playtime's like, it was great. I struggle with this one. I'm like, huh? Vagueness sometimes doesn't work for me. I like specificity. And expansion for containers, man, we're just like an all play kicker. La Chacoment.

21:32Tom Vasel:They're good with the thumbs, let's say. I would not say it that way. The Kenyatta's is a reprint of many, I think this game's come out in several versions from Reiner Knizia. There's the, I think it's called the Marshmallow Test was one of them. It was Voodoo Prince. Okay.

21:53Eric Summerer:Marshmallow Test, Voodoo Prince. Oh, yeah. It's a fun little trick-taking game. It's very light. If you want a trick-taking that's not so complicated and everything, and you want to play with like, you can play with up to five players, I think this one works really well. All right, we're finally off all play for a second. For a second, yeah. Kokeshi Grand Gamers Guild. I've not played this one. I have it in the studio. It just hasn't got to the table yet. It looks neat.

22:22Tom Vasel:I have played it. I have. Oh, you have? It's combo-rific. It's one of those where you take an action to move one of these dolls up a track, and that often will trigger something else. And at first, it's only small triggers, but eventually you're triggering one, and then firing another, and then another, and another. So if you like those combo-rific epic turns, this is the sort of game for you. But it's a pusher luck because there's a cap, and when somebody stops a particular character, you can do it for one, what is it, one, two, or three, depending on where you land. Oh, yeah. And that stops the combo for that particular character.

22:59So you could do lower points to stop somebody else from comboing, but then you're getting lower points. or you can push your luck and have these epic turns potentially. Yep. Hey, we're back to all play. Book Club. Look at that. I don't believe I played this one. I have. You play. So you're you have to give a example. So you have a here's the rule set. I need a fact. You know, I need a fiction book or a nonfiction book. Great. And somebody lists it and then they give another. So then you go to the next one. It's a nonfiction book that has a talking rat. Great. yes or no. And then the more you do, the more specific it gets, and you still have to come up with an answer that's different than your previous answers.

23:40And that, you know, however many exceptions you can get tells you how many points you can score. So it's a cooperative thing where anybody can shout out an example, but it has to fit the pattern.

23:52Tom Vasel:But you need to have a good amount of book knowledge in order to play, right? Yeah. You can also do, like they have one that's also movies. okay so but yes and so if you're an uncultured swine you can do movies no i'm just saying you need to be fairly well read to to be able to participate yes there was i played it with a group where they just kept looking at me for the answer and i was like this is just i can play this solo this is just for moral support oh speaking of books oh god no no just keep going we're good we have well just i want to warn you folks we're never going to make it through this list All right.

24:29Fiction banned books. This is if you like Wordle a lot and you want to play – it's a team. It's one versus many style game. And it's a lot of fun because the person is lying, but you know they're lying. This is a sequel to the original fiction. Yes. But now it has quote-unquote – well, I shouldn't say quote-unquote banned books.

24:46Eric Summerer:But what it means by banned books are famously banned books for whatever reason, like Huckleberry Finn, et cetera. Yep. The Networks. Primetime. This is a remake of The Networks from Gilhova that Allplay has done, and it's a very nice—they streamlined it a bit. I think—I like Networks fine. I like this one much more.

25:06Tom Vasel:Okay. Golden Goal. I would skip this game if I were you, but if you like soccer, you might like this two-player game. It is a remake of an old game called Street Soccer. Yes, which I would play. I don't like Street Soccer. Chris didn't like this one either, but hey, what do we know? Sure. If you really want soccer. Hey, we're back off All Play for a second. Good grief, these notes. Good job, All Play, I guess. Under the leaves, this is a Grand Gamers Guild. I like the theming of this one a lot. I'm assuming, Julie, you also like the theming of this. What? I'm looking at your avatar. Yes. The mushroom lady.

25:44Yeah. This one looks pretty. If you like autumn foliage, I think it looks like the theme of this will attract you. Foliage. Foliage, huh?

25:56Tom Vasel:Yes. I'll say it the way I say it. Okay. Just noting it. Thank you. Hang a lantern on it. That was like early Simpsons humor. All right. Movie night from Peter Hayward, who apparently just designed games, party games for the last year. Isn't that basically the movie version of Book Club? Uh-huh. Sure is. Yeah, we just talked about. Okay. But we're not there yet. Stonk Market. that's not spelled incorrectly. This is a Reiner-Kanizia game called Stonk Market. Small game from All Play. Then there's Triangulation, another Peter Hayward party game from All Play. This one I like a lot. There's three clues, but you write down three clues for someone to guess something.

26:38But your opponent, your opposing team gets to look at two of those clues and if they can guess it first. So you're trying to make three clues that the only way you can guess the word is if you have all three.

26:49Tom Vasel:Oh, interesting. A little like Decrypto or the other one where your extra information for your team is what makes the difference and you have to think outside the box.

27:01Eric Summerer:Yes. Then there's a network's expansion, Phantom Inc., which is a reprint of the classic team versus team word game. Wordsy, another Gilhova party game.

27:12Tom Vasel:And a reprint that was an older edition that's now being brought back. Okay.

27:16Eric Summerer:I think we've gotten through the all plays. And I don't mean that as a negative, but there's just a lot of them. Let's go. And Grand Gamers Guild apparently was doing the same thing because they got endangered Australia. And while I'm very think koalas are cool and that's really neat, I really doubt it is like the eighth most anticipated thing at Gen Con. But. They're adorable. They are adorable. Let's get to something I know people will be running to, and that is the game makers. I'll talk about this a little bit later in our review section but this is a giant game so don't get this one if you're flying

27:49Tom Vasel:oh okay

27:50Eric Summerer:but it's about making board games from Ben Rossett if you've played Fromage you know a bit about how this game works cool and of course the big hook for it was they used they reached out to a bunch of different publishers so the games are games from other companies as well

28:07Tom Vasel:they're modern games that you would know Foundations of Rome is one of the games in there. Well, come on.

28:13Eric Summerer:You've got to be more self-serving here. Gloomhaven is one of the games. Gloomhaven is actually in there twice. Oh, cool. The first edition and the second edition. Really? Honestly, I think almost the entirety of the top 100 rated games on Board Game Geek is in there, or at least most of them are. If you can think of a popular game, it's likely in there.

28:35Tom Vasel:That was probably the goal. They started with the top 100. and they're like, all right, let's try and get as many of these as we can.

28:40Eric Summerer:Yep. But we were talking about this the other day and how it's an interesting industry that we're in because Hollywood would never be able to pull something like this off.

28:49Tom Vasel:No.

28:50Eric Summerer:If Paramount made a movie about movies, it would only include Paramount movies. Correct. So that's one of the cool things about the board game world. Then we have a win for the creepiest cover, Night at the Zoo. My first really excited about, yes. Oh, I'm not saying it's – I'm sure it's a good game, but if I saw – I would be running. There's like a bunch of animals and they like – Towards it? You see the light. Towards it? No. No, you would not run towards a wolf at night. I don't – I would. No, I will not accept this. You would run. I would. You would not. You would get chewed up. It's amazing I'm still alive, Tom.

29:27Eric Summerer:I'm not disagreeing with that part, but –

29:30Tom Vasel:All right. The cover shows a wolf when the light is shining in their eyes, so their eyes are glowing. That's the creepiness of it. They're not the only ones. It's also a sloth and a boa constrictor. And they've all escaped from the zoo. And I don't know how the sloth gets back into the zoo.

29:46Eric Summerer:Well, that's your job. You are, as players, getting animals back into the zoo. See? I'd be running towards it. Then we have Layers. This is a two-player game from KTBG. This game is very popular. You're both building a dungeon and then walking through the other person's dungeon. I will say if you buy this there, buy a little upgrade pack or some expansions because it really – this is one of those games that really shines with a little bit more.

30:15Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:16Eric Summerer:Gotcha. Drillers. This is one of the new things from CGE. And since we're on the subject of CGE, I should mention just yesterday – I know we're not going to get to it in thumbs.

30:27Tom Vasel:It hasn't been enough time.

30:28Eric Summerer:Stealth announced that they're dropping a new

30:33Tom Vasel:Arnak expansion

30:34Eric Summerer:that Gen Con that no one knew about until yesterday.

30:37Tom Vasel:Ooh. Yeah.

30:39Eric Summerer:So if you like Arnak, yay. I think it's called, it's something about surprises, like an unexpected, it's like an unexpected surprise, something like that. I forget the name of it. Yes. And then they made an unexpected surprise release?

30:50Tom Vasel:Yes. Yeah. Pretty, that's pretty slick. Massive credit to them. Is CGE in a separate room again this year? I think they are. They are. Yes, they have been for almost a decade now, I believe. Although I think last year they still had an area where they were selling games in the main hall. Interesting, because they haven't. How do you spell Arnak? A-R-N-A-K. There it is. I was spelling it incorrectly. Yes, the expansion is called Surprise Shipment. Yes. No way. They do say it's the final expansion for Ruins of Arnak as well. I believe that, Dominion, when I see it, Dominion. Anyway, they're also releasing Drillers.

31:27here. This is their new big game. Not the biggest game this year. That's coming out later in Essen. But this is a big style game about mining for minerals and getting resources. It looks

31:39Tom Vasel:pretty cool. Deck building. Yeah, looks neat. The guys in the studio said it was good. I have not played it yet, but it is on my list. Then if you like the little tiny games, which I know Eric and Julie do, I think. Julie's played a couple of these already. I've played all of them. Oh, well, that's cool. Two new holiday hijinks coming out. The Friday Fright, which I feel like was made for Julie. Which you talked about here, I believe. It was my Hula Hoop. Yes. Hula Hoop only because I was good at this one because I'm usually not.

32:12Orlage will be there from Devere. This is the English edition. So if you missed it, that would make sense because it came out at Essen and sold out almost instantly there.

32:21Tom Vasel:Orloy. Yeah. That's what you said. Yes. I've heard it both ways. L-O-J. I'm here to help the people. And there's a new Cascadia game, Cascadia Alpine Lakes. This is a standalone game. My only worry about this one is when this came in and I see it on the shelves, I look and I'm like, oh, I played Cascadia before. It's a completely different game. But if you just saw that, you might think you already own it. Okay. Got it. But is it another Holiday High Jays? Oh, there's two more. There's four total. Yeah. I have them right here on my desk. The Dridal Dilemma and The Pride Pursuit. There's so many.

33:01There's a bunch. Yeah. Oh, Nippon Zaibatsu. This is a remake of Nippon from Crowed.

33:08Tom Vasel:Crowed. Yeah, but the word is, their logo is a crow, Eric. Oh, it is Crowed. That's weird. Anyhow, this has been getting a lot of buzz. It's one of the most, I think it's the highest rated game on Board Game Geek from 2026 right now. But it already had a built-in crowd. And if you played the original and you were a little tired, the fact that they only had one color, beige, this one looks a lot nicer. It's a pricey one, though. $95, I think. Yeah, but it's a big game. It's kind of like the Eagle Griffin type games. Yeah, okay. It's that Vital Lacerda style weight. And it looks like one of those games.

33:49Wingspan Pocket. This is a new quick version of Wingspan. Did either of you play this at Dice Tower East? No, didn't get a chance.

33:58Tom Vasel:I got to look over the shoulder of a few people playing it, but I didn't get to play it myself. I like it a bit. I gave it a 6.5. It's really close for me, but I liked it the least at the Dice Tower Studios. But it's very, very fast. My only concern is if you get an engine built, then great.

34:15Eric Summerer:And if not, well, you're just not going to win. But since it's only 30 minutes, that may not bother a lot of people.

34:21Tom Vasel:It feels like the jump drive of the Wingspan universe.

34:25Eric Summerer:Yes, in fact, we actually used that exact comparison in our review.

34:28Tom Vasel:There you go.

34:30Eric Summerer:All right, Old King's Crown. This has been out for almost a year, but first time at Gen Con.

34:36Tom Vasel:At Gen Con.

34:37Eric Summerer:Railway Boom. This is another game from Crude Games. This game is fantastic. It's from Hisashi Hayashi with some development from Simone Luciani. It doesn't look like a lot. I mean, it's odd because it's an, you know, tool design. But if you look at the board, you're like, eh, it's another train game. But it is so good. It has a great bidding system and auction system that I really like this game.

35:02Tom Vasel:Nice. You just made me up my ranking. Thank you. That turned me right. I literally, I was going to say, because I looked at it and said, oh, another train game. So if you're saying it's, but it is a great train game, I'm fine with that.

35:14Eric Summerer:I'm not a huge train. And this actually doesn't have as much to do with trains as it does with these fun auctions. You're bidding, but you have all these different resources that you're collecting. And each auction uses a different resource, which I find to be very interesting. You'll be like, well, OK, I can't win this auction. But the next auction, you all might as well just quit right now. And it has that thing where whoever bids the least goes last in a particular thing. But they also pay nothing. and everyone else pays half and then the person who bids the most pays the full amount and then every auction is for the same thing and everyone gets to do it but if you just are the lowest bidder you go last, that's all.

35:57Eric Summerer:But hey, you didn't pay anything. Glasgow train robbery from Salt and Pepper Games. I don't know a lot about this. I know it's based on a famous robbery but it's a cooperative train heist for two players.

36:12Tom Vasel:Cool art design. I like the cover.

36:14Eric Summerer:Yeah, that is a good cover. Tag Team, Arthur's Legacy. This is a follow up to Tag Team. It is a standalone game, though, so you can play it on its own or mix it in. Do realize that it is half the size of the original game. because so any of the games you're taking two of the decks and your opponent's taking two decks and you're have and mash and doing a mashup uh for combat so i'm assuming it's just it's new characters so i agree but i would be disappointed i think if i bought this and only this because there aren't as many characters and there's 12 the combinations if you're buying it as an expansion Amazing.

37:04Eric Summerer:And also, the fun thing about the original one was you have a guy who turns into a bear fighting a knight, fighting someone from the future. This is all King Arthur and his knights. As an expansion, I think it looks fantastic. And the people, they played it last night in game group, and they said it was very good. I didn't get a chance. But I love tag teams, so I'm assuming. Yep. Three Sisters Harvest Edition is a remake of Three Sisters. With a farm. Yeah. I don't actually know all the differences. I like Three Sisters a lot. It's a it's a chunky roll and write.

37:35Tom Vasel:It's a pinchback riddle conglomeration with Adam Hill as well. That team has done a lot of those.

37:41Eric Summerer:Oh, by the way, the three sisters are corn, beans and pumpkins. If you didn't know that. So obvious. I didn't say it, but, you know, of course.

37:47Tom Vasel:Yeah, we all knew that. I did know that. Well, it's a culinary term, I think. Yeah.

37:52Eric Summerer:Yeah. Forage is another roll and write. This is from Flat Out Games from the trio designer of Johnson, Melvin and Stankiewicz. best known for Cascadia and things like that not Cascadia why am I saying Cascadia points out in games like that

38:08Tom Vasel:ah there we go

38:10Eric Summerer:yes so anyway I've played this one it is a game it's have you guys played silver and gold yes yeah so think silver and gold but the gamer version of it because there are lots of different cards in this game and you roll dice and then you roll dice for everyone there's a bunch of different dice you divide them in groups and then you decide what you're going to cross off on what card you have three different types of cards you're crossing things off on yeah this is the second in my super interested yeah i think you'd like it it's definitely a game i played it solo first and like the i scored like 18 points and then the example the book was 55 and i was like what a piece of trash and then i played it with some other people having figured it out and then i scored 55 points and i was like oh so um i i I enjoy it.

38:59Eric Summerer:I think it's very interesting. But it's not one I would play with people who haven't played many games. That's okay because it has a solo gameplay mode, which is really where a lot of my role and rights end up being. All right. Three quick expansions. SETI Space Agencies. That was released at Essen. It is essential. You should always play with it in SETI. Forest Shuffle Smoky Mountains. Hey, Forest Shuffle keeps on going, and the Smoky Mountains are a great place to find animals. Also, there's an otter on the cover. rock hard 1977 ear candy you know i still have an openness it came in and i haven't looked at it but what i'm excited about this one preparing for gen con and so many things showed up kingdom crossing is the seven bridge problem um it looks this is a game don't be fooled by this game from panasars it is a very cute looking game it is a heavy strategy game it's very thinky yeah

39:55Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm excited about this one.

39:57Eric Summerer:So I'm not saying that in a bad way. I'm just saying. No, I'm excited about it. Yeah.

40:01Tom Vasel:Know what you're getting into. Yeah, it's a thingy one. The art does not match the way it looks. It does. It is kind of a cutesy after-school television for kids. The look is, yes. The game is a little more stabby and cutthroat. Yeah. I'm into it. And thinky.

40:19Eric Summerer:More expansions. Shackleton Base, Below, Within, Above. that adds a few more corporations that you can throw in. Nice. Fliptoons Season 2. I don't know if this one's standalone or not.

40:31Tom Vasel:I believe it is. It does play on its own, or you can mix it with the original set. I'm mixing it instantly. I like Fliptoons, and my only complaint was, you know, you're starting to see the same cards over and over again. Having a second one, bam, fantastic. I've pre-ordered this one already. I'm just going to go pick up my copy when I show up. Oh, just, it'll land. Oh, you pre-ordered for the show. I did. Moitor, a two-player game from Bitewing in their line of games from Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson. Tenby, a fantastic game that's finally getting love. It was at Dice Tower East and was constantly checked out.

41:09It was a hot game there, and I didn't realize it was a hot game. I should have put it in a hot games room. I didn't know how many people were going to like this one. This, this, this is a cozy game.

41:18Tom Vasel:There you go. Agreed. Jisogi, anime studio tycoon. Have you ever wanted – this is not cozy. Not a cozy game. You are – you have employees who are dead inside. No, that's what they say on the cards. Literally.

41:32Eric Summerer:You are better employees. That's right. But if you like anime and a heavy euro economic game around that theme, but if you like the theming of anime and the sense of the cartoon and the drawings, this game, the theming is like top tier.

41:48Tom Vasel:It's very solid. The theming is fantastic. The art is tremendous. Oh, yeah. The gameplay is brutal in the best way possible. Another very crunchy one. Yeah. More expansions. Under Starry Skies for Far Away, which is great. More cards for that. Out of the Oubliette for Castle Combo. Oubliette. A new game, Gold Country from Bytewing. That's not. Oh, no, that is new. That's from Reiner Canizia. you might like this not everyone does is what i heard okay oh okay but anyhow sorry gotta be honest i'm moving it down to undecided thank you we should find an exit ramp soon i know eric i'm trying okay um i'm just gonna slide through here and find ones i want to talk about there's so many games we haven't got to we're gonna do a video of this folks um we already have done a video of this and we'll probably hit more games until our voices run out well my next one that i'm very interested in is mythologies the cachette oh good that was the next one on the list drafting legendary entities from ancient mythologies to your ever evolving pantheon it's open drafting and it's the theme that obviously is near and dear to my heart so that one i'm very excited about So, cool.

43:11Eric Summerer:Anything you're excited about, Eric?

43:12Tom Vasel:I know on my radar is the Duel of Melok, which is the expansion for both Scythe and Expeditions. It's a very weird box that can be used in both games. From what I understand, Eric, it's technically, first and foremost, it is an expansion for Scythe. Okay. Then secondly, it is an expansion for Expeditions slash a two-player Expeditions game. slash you can play Expeditions versus Scythe as a two-player game. Yeah, I don't know if you've cleared that up much, but okay. Well, you don't need the other ones to play it, but I would imagine that would be what most people will get it for. I know Mike likes it.

43:55I'm going to try to get it played at some point. I'm curious about it. Expeditions is a very fun game that does not scale well at all, unfortunately. It plays best at three and not pretty well at any other number. And so a two-player version sounds good. Okay. Cool, cool. A game I want to talk about I just played last night is Friendly Fishing. This is from Gamehead from Alex Randolph. So it's an older game because Alex Randolph has passed away like decades ago. And Bruno Fiduti. And this is a game in which you're moving a boat around and collecting fish. and your score at the end of the game is your score plus the person's to your left score.

44:35Oh, boy. So if you're after me, Eric, I am constantly setting you up to make the best move possible. On the other hand, you want me to lose.

44:44Eric Summerer:Right. It's such a weird game. It's such a weird game. And I like it. Also, so my gaming group is super competitive, And I explained this concept multiple times, knowing full well that their competitive nature would still get the better of them of getting the scores for themselves and being able to. So the first time. When you help yourself, you're helping the person to your rights. You have to be cautious on that. Correct. Correct. You would prefer the person in front of you to do better than you, I think. It's such a weird game. I think it's one of the first semi-co-op games I've seen that works.

45:21It's, yes. Cool. very deceptively simple and yet really hard because you're trying to unthink a versus gamer strategy while still playing a versus gamer strategy. There's a new version of Diantine coming out.

45:39Tom Vasel:Weird. What was the title of the fishing game, Tom? Isn't it Friendly Fishing?

45:43Eric Summerer:Friendly Fishing? It's not friendly. It's not. Well, you're being super friendly to the person to your left. I also mentioned the Codenames Critical Role Adventures is by far the best version of Codenames I've ever played. Oh. And one of my favorite party games I've ever played. It is a cooperative campaign game, sort of, but it's like, I think it's six games. That's a campaign type thing with special powers. And I'm telling you, we played it, played it, played it, and I was ready to play again. I liked it that much. Interesting. I like Codenames a lot. Okay. But Codenames Critical Role Ventures is amazing.

46:23Good to know. Good to know.

46:25Tom Vasel:Speaking of wacky trick takers, Tom, Trick to the Future looks interesting from Gamehead. Mike and Chris are reviewing it this week, I think. And I believe they're probably – I'm going to guess Mike's going to give it a 10 out of 10. It's his favorite trick-taking game. Oh, all right. It's a time-traveling trick-taking game. so we we got through a lot of specific publishers at the top but i will say chris couch games is the company that i've at origins i got to see a lot of what they've been doing that i've been really excited to see come out because they had stuff that was going to be a gen con release that you could preview and garden clubs is on here but really just any of the chris couch games that are coming out i would strongly recommend going and stopping by their booth and and seeing the games that they have.

47:10They're fantastic. But Garden Clubs was Christian Mott and Andrew Stiles. So it's a pattern building, abstract game but with a very pretty theme.

47:22Tom Vasel:Cool, cool. There's a strong bad game out there. Yeah, no one cares. Called Crime Scene Temperer which I don't know anything else about other than it's a strong bad game.

47:34Eric Summerer:Now, I'll say this. I think overall there is a lot of lighter, medium-weight games, and I am all on board with this. Yeah. There's a lot of great, I mean, if this is a game where you're like, I want to just buy some fun games to play with the family, there is many of those here. I do want to mention that we're going to be playing a lot of games at the booth. I'm going to make a video that has a full schedule of that. Eric is in three of them. He's playing Guess the Mess on Thursday at our booth.

48:02Tom Vasel:I know nothing about that one.

48:04Eric Summerer:And then on Friday, Eric is playing Star Wars Deck Builder at the Asmodee booth.

48:09Tom Vasel:Excited about that one.

48:10Eric Summerer:But my favorite is on Sunday, and this is by special request. Eric is playing Citadel's Duel. Citadel!

48:19Tom Vasel:Actually, I don't know if I'm going to like it or not.

48:21Eric Summerer:You can't say that. It's Citadel's Duel. It might be good. You were specifically requested to play this, and I'm actually... What? I'm shocked. Shocked, I say. It wasn't us. It was the company. But here's the thing, Eric. your problems with Citadels seem like they would be solved just by the fact that it's two players. Maybe.

48:38Tom Vasel:We will see.

48:40Eric Summerer:10 a.m. Sunday at our booth to come and see him do that. And I'll be there. I'll be playing Invincible at our booth with the new expansion at 3 p.m. And I am also playing the new what am I doing? I think I'm doing the new Mechs vs. Minions one day. And yeah there's all kinds of games being played our booth and I'm going to put the schedule up online so you can see that. And I'll sneak by the heckle. Nice. I approve of heckling. And frankly folks, if you're a publisher who didn't have enough thumbs to get higher on the list like Dwarves of Aquilon, go thumb it now. There's just a ton of games. You're just going to have to go look at this list yourself.

49:18Eric Summerer:I believe there's 600 games or something.

49:21Tom Vasel:You'll never be able

49:22Eric Summerer:to get them all. We have reviewed a lot of them and even though there is not much time left in our show. Let's review a couple of them fairly quickly.

49:36Tom Vasel:They say that every rose has its thorn. But not every rose has a hula hoop. Alright, do you want me to go first? Because I mentioned that I was going to talk about the game that we're going to talk about. Alright. Alright, so Container is a was a classic. This is a reworking from AllPlay. It actually comes in two editions. You can get a a pretty reasonably priced plastic edition with plastic ships or some super deluxe, quite heavy, it's like eight pounds, metal edition with metal boats and metal containers. This is a pickup and deliver game, economic game with a bit of a twist. Usually in pickup and deliver games, you, you know, make something and you pick it up and you take it somewhere and drop it off.

50:18Tom Vasel:That's not how container works. Container is much more of an economic simulation. You have boats. You have a warehouse. You have a factory. So you can produce crates, different colored crates. But then they go in your, like, storage area, and you can't do anything with those crates. You get to say how much they cost. Somebody else has to take an action to buy those crates from you and take them to their port. And they get to price them however they want. So they could buy them really cheap from you, and then they could make them really expensive. It's up to them. And then someone has to, again, they can't just deliver that to the ultimate destination.

50:58Tom Vasel:No, someone else has to come and buy it from them, from their port, put it on their ship, and then deliver it to the main island. And then they score points, you say, right? No. Then all that stuff is auctioned. And everybody then gets to possibly buy that stuff. And that's the player that gets to put it into their scoring zone at the final destination. It is a, you know, get this from point A to point C. But the person who's doing the carrying at any given moment is sort of up in the air. And that is brain twisty. I did certainly enjoy it. It is it's hard to wrap your head around, though, because you can buy stuff, produce stuff, price it really, really cheaply.

51:41Tom Vasel:And then people are going to want to buy your stuff and you get money. In most cases, money stays in this system. So it's not like you're paying the bank a whole lot. There's only a couple of things like building your infrastructure where you actually remove money from the system. Most of the time, money just changes hands amongst the players. Even when things get delivered, they go into sort of a bank area. and you can then purchase that stuff through an auction system and get that on your boat and deliver it to the main island. It's tricky. I enjoyed the struggle, however. There are those expansions.

52:21Tom Vasel:We mentioned those on the list that add some extra twists to this special crates. You can actually own the trucking company that takes stuff from one place to the other. I have not tried those yet, but they look intriguing. I'm very excited to give this a whirl. Container's always been on my radar in the earlier edition. It seems like one that I would have liked, and I have so far really enjoyed it. This is a rose for me. I'm looking forward to playing more. But it is not one that you want to go in too lightly. You want to know, we're playing an economic game here. This isn't just take this thing and drop it off over here.

52:56Tom Vasel:Container. Indeed. I want everybody to play this game so they have a better understanding of what publishers go through to get the game to you. But I personally find it too triggering of a theme to actually play. Yeah, yeah.

53:12Eric Summerer:Man, I played this back in 2007, you know, when it came out. So I gave it a four. So it's been almost 20 years. So I might, you know, you change over time. Maybe I'll like it more.

53:25Tom Vasel:Yeah, I don't think they've changed much as far as the rules go. in the base game. I mean, but maybe your perspective has changed. Oh, okay. I'm back in. There you go. All right, Julie, what about you? All right. Well, as is my apparently now tradition for Gen Con, I picked an older game. And all this holds of the new. I like to remind myself of games that I spent a lot of money on already and make sure that I'm still enjoying those. so uh i but also had the opportunity at dice tower east to play cthulhu death may die uh somebody's copy who they've painted all the miniatures and had all these extras and it was delightful and looked up but having getting getting to replay it recently to talk about it briefly you are you know in the in the lovecraft world and you are going to go up against an elder one in different maps, different situations, but you're going to be one of the investigators.

54:27You are using your spending, your health, stress, and sanity. So you have tracks for all of those to try to push back the elder one back to the whence it came. We played three different scenarios and of varying degrees of difficulty. First degree of difficulty was I lost on the first round. The team lost on the first round because you're out if everybody dies, which goes very quickly once the first person dies. To actually be to the easiest version, managing to win by saving ourselves, killing off all the or sending back all the elder gods in the very last turn where it could have gone either way one of us was going to lose in that round so that's the degrees of difficulty of it in this cooperative game but um on your turn you're going to do one of you're going to do three actions they are moving attacking where you're going to roll dice uh and do any checks and use any bonuses that you have rest will gain you back your stress and health but not your sanity uh trade where you can swap items with companions in your space and then you do and the episode action which is the specific action needed to disrupt the ritual that's happening to bring the gods through uh so that depends on the scenario uh then you have mythos cards which are new monsters all of the game sending things to attack you and you can investigate or fight and again that's based on the scenario so it's sandboxy rolling dice moving around your miniatures fighting we had epic battles again it was our the copy that i got to play on was beautifully done and i had an amazing time i had forgotten for a lot of big sandboxy games there's a lot of setup and breakdown and uh fiddly pieces but for cthulhu death may die one of the things that i actually forgot about that I really enjoy is the setup for each individual scenario is pretty quick.

56:48You are, you know, you're picking your monster, you're picking their deck, and you're handing those out to the players pretty quickly. It is not nearly the beast it is to set up and take down that many other of miniatures combat games are. And for me, I had forgotten about the ease of that, which was great, since again, we died in the first round of the first game we played we we ended up playing three uh i you know so it is a tough game to to beat and of course once you're out you're out so that can be frustrating if it's a long game and you're out and then there's another hour of gameplay but that rarely happens because usually when one person is out everybody dies pretty quickly thereafter so um It's still a rose for me and I still enjoy playing it and I really appreciate the opportunity to get to play it at Dice Star East, taking a break from the hot games for a while.

57:50Tom Vasel:So, Cthulhu. Smelling the roses. Smelling the roses for a moment. Yes.

57:55Eric Summerer:Moment's over. Back to hot games. No. Well, you wanted to talk about one. I already mentioned game makers. If you want to learn about making games, it's like Formage. Okay, great. But I want to mention Falling, and Julie also wanted to talk about Falling briefly. Falling is a game where there's this giant tower falling, and you're climbing up the tower as fast as you can, or you're using a little flying machine to go up the side of it, and you're looting it like mad because why not? this is a game if you like midway euro style games that offer you lots of fun actions with an overabundance of resources which I do I think you'll enjoy this because on your turn the first thing you do every round of the game is you draft two cards and one card you pick either side of it and it gives you a pile of resources yay!

58:43Then you use these resources to fly your machine up which gives you bonuses for flying your machine up building these little structures on top of the tower, which will fall off and explode and you have to build them again. But who cares? Because when they fall off, you get resources because you're looting your own stuff. When you build them, you get income and resources and points. That's actually the whole game I just mentioned. But there's special abilities and there's a little bit more to it than that. Obviously, the higher up the tower you fly, you can build things that will last longer, scoring you more points as the game goes by.

59:14There's a really great passing mechanism in this game. when you pass you're like i'm done with actions you get a reward for passing right and then it comes back to your turn you're like i already passed or like have another reward and pretty soon everyone's like we should probably stop taking turns because tom keeps getting rewards for passing that's right it's such a fun mechanism yep we're on the same page on this i had such a delightful time playing it uh because you're constantly getting stuff and you're you're trying to math out well i could do this action or i could do this action so it's there's a little bit of ap but but but it's great because you already know a lot of the things even if somebody takes the space that you wanted on the level you want there's four other levels at least depending on the game you know that you can go to there's other actions you can see on the board so So there's not, it's not that I have to think through slim margins.

1:00:13It's I have to decide of all the cool stuff I have, what are, how can I optimize it? Which to me was a, is a much, it feels more like a joy. And I did not win that game because I, you know, there's a lot of, like you said, delayed gratification to get up to one of the higher levels so that it takes longer to fall down. that I kept wanting to grab all the things at the level that was about to crash. So not the best strategy. But still, it didn't matter. It was so much fun to play and very satisfying. Every turn was super satisfying to play.

1:00:49Eric Summerer:And good quality components, easy to set up and teach. Yeah, and also there's a lot of... It's not simultaneous play, but there are things that are done simultaneously at the beginning and end of rounds, which I think speeds it up. It's not a very long game, particularly. I'd say 90 minutes, maybe. This is one that I think will be actually one of the hottest games of the year, I think. Oh, cool. Falling. As a caveat, watch a How to Play. Oh, that's true. Yes, I should mention the rulebook is not the best. And in the translation, they translated some things differently in the rulebook than they did on the cards.

1:01:29Tom Vasel:Oh.

1:01:30Eric Summerer:Which does not help. They're like, take these four roles to start with. I'm like, two of those roles don't exist. I know you meant these roles. Okay. Watch a how to play and you'll be fine. Cool.

1:01:43Tom Vasel:Well, that's a positive end to the episode. We had a bunch of thorns last time. This is all good.

1:01:49Eric Summerer:I actually, I don't know if people have ever noticed this, but I actually go out of my way the week before a convention to be almost all positive. Because what's the point of? Sure. like I'm going to review this game right before the convention so nobody buys it there what kind of nonsense is that? Don't worry we'll tell you if games we don't like I'd rather promote the really good ones and yeah so there's so much going on come by and see us if you're there and if you're not there don't worry we're putting up blogs every day about things that are going on there Eric's top 100 games of all time are airing while we're there you can watch the Dice Tower

1:02:28Tom Vasel:While we speak.

1:02:30Eric Summerer:Oh, that's true. While we speak, they've already gone up. You're right.

1:02:32Tom Vasel:The first couple episodes are up already.

1:02:34Eric Summerer:If you go to the Gen Con channel, you can watch the Dice Hour Awards live. And if you miss it, it will be on our channel. There's stuff coming. And then we'll be back. Maybe we'll even put the Dice Hour Awards on the audio channel at some point. We probably should. Interesting. Perhaps. I'm trying to save Eric's effort of putting a show together. All righty. Thank you all. Until next. Am I supposed to say anything else? No. Okay. Until next time, I'm Tom Vassell.

1:02:58Tom Vasel:I'm Julie Ahern. And I'm Eric Sommerer.

1:03:02Eric Summerer:Thanks for listening to At the Table.

1:03:04Tom Vasel:Thanks for listening. At the Table is produced by Tom, Julie, and Eric with assistance from the team at Dice Tower Studios. You can find us online on Facebook or on BoardGameGeek in the Dice Tower Guild. Promotional consideration has been provided by publishers in the form of review copies of games. Dave Culling arranged our theme based on themes by Timothy Pinkham and our spa treatments at a Zeppelin commune brought to you by Balloon Colony Mudbath. Until next time, from all of us at the table, have fun gaming.

1:03:37Eric Summerer:I would 100 % play Balloon Colony Mudbath. I would as well.

1:03:42Tom Vasel:It's a re-theme.

1:03:43Eric Summerer:That's the hottest game at Gen Con for sure.

1:03:46Tom Vasel:Everybody run for Balloon Colony Mudbath.