East Coast Meeple: Recent Episodes
Mitch Morris
East Coast Meeple is a show we decided to start (my 5 year old and I) to discuss the games we like to play together and anything else that might come up. It's a good time for us.
Welcome back. Or maybe just welcome. On this episode, Steve and Mitch talk about rulebooks. Really they just scratch the surface because that is a really huge topic. Too big to ramble about the whole of it in an hour.On a side note, the Kathryn that Steve and I mention on the show is @ kathrynedowell on Instagram. Besides being an avid gamer and an up and coming designer she is also an all-around positive force in the hobby and out. She is a regular contributor to https://dayton.momcollective.com where she often writes articles that highlight inclusion and understanding. She writes about small gestures that while often overlooked can really add up to a better world.[Mitch: I went on about a problem with Oracle of Delphi but it was really not accurate at all. Terrible. Reading comprehension is not a problem of the rulebook. I went back and it really is spelled out quite well as it should be. The problem was really me just skimming the rules to get things set up quickly. As far as examples go it was not just a bad example but not an actual example of what I was talking about. Yikes. Maybe the most embarrassing error I have had to admit to yet.]
We are back with another conversation about board game things. This time we talk a bit about Yahtzee and Yahtzee related things. Mitch does a horrible job explaining how to play Elder Sign and Las Vegas and Steve goes down a rabbit hole about Dead Heads and Cosmic Whimps.
In this episode, the conversation is about video games and how they intersect with board games. Mostly we focus on how the video game industry often creates a board game from successful game IPs and, well, what we think about that. Some games that come up are Undermining and Super Motherload, Mechs vs Minions, Doom, Descent, Dark Souls, Slay the Spire, God of War among others, nothing overly in-depth just a fun conversation.Mistakes: Oops. There are probably plenty as always but one big stand out was not knowing the name for the Game Artisans of Canada group. I got it confused and called it the League of Canadian Designers - not the same.
Last week we were talking about the game Pictures that recently won the Spiel des Jahres award and Mitch just wanted to say a few more things. We also talk about some new games announced just recently at Gen Con including 2 new Animal Upon Animal versions coming from Haba, Dragomino from Blue Orange Games, a new Descent coming from Fantasy Flight Games as well as a new version of L.L.A.M.A the Party Edition that puts a few new twists in what is already a quick family gem. Mitch also says something weird about dinosaurs and asks Steve about dexterity games from his childhood. There's some more going on too but that's the broad strokes of things anyway.There are some errors in there too but I didn't write them down and now I can't remember. If you spot one let us know at : feedback@everydaymeeple.com
Steve's back! And we catch up talking briefly about the Kennerspiele winner the Crew and trick-taking games, I keep giving the outdoor game list a hard time - during which we call K2, K-9 (sorry about that). I talk about Archaeology by Phil Walker-Harding and Broom Service the Card Game by Andreas Pelikan, Alexander Pfister. It's a good time.I mention the Steven Universe : Beach-a-Palooza Kickstarter in the episode but unfortunately it ended on July 31, 2 days before this episode actually aired. Dang.
Dave is back and we ramble on about Wingspan and Survive! Escape from Atlantis among other nonsense.
This weeks episode marks the return of Dave, one of the original hosts of Everyday Meeple. In Dave's first CHMA hosted episode, we talk about Tides of Time / Madness, Biblios, and a bit about Magic the Gathering. We also talk a bit about Thomas Lehmans Race for the Galaxy universe that includes RftG as well as Jump Drive, Roll for the Galaxy and the newest addition New Frontiers.
With Steve taking a break for a while Ryan Delnick of Spider Dog Crafting sits in and we discuss the shared DNA of Risk and D&D and we talk about what lead Ryan to his current work crafting D&D terrain and painting minis.CORRECTIONS: At one point I refer to a game called Lord of the Rings: Journey of the Ring - OOPS - That is called LOTR: Journeys in Middle Earth. I should have just glanced at my shelf before talking there. I mentioned the D&D board games being $140 retail and that just isn't true. I have seen them pretty steep but they almost all seem to sell at $70 (CDN) and there is not apparently a new Waterdeep one that I can find any trace of - not sure where that came from. ** Also the idea of shrinking the scale for D&D minis was just a bunch of words I happened to say in a string together. I don't think it is worth exploring at all. :| LOL
Everyday Meeple made a switch to a weekly radio show on our local college station CHMA 106.9 FM. We still record as a podcast as well but most of our shows are light and conversational.
Everyday Meeple made a switch to a weekly radio show on our local college station CHMA 106.9 FM. We still record as a podcast as well but most of our shows are light and conversational.
Everyday Meeple made a switch to a weekly radio show on our local college station CHMA 106.9 FM. We still record as a podcast as well but most of our shows are light and conversational.
Everyday Meeple made a switch to a weekly radio show on our local college station CHMA 106.9 FM. We still record as a podcast as well but most of our shows are light and conversational.
This week we celebrate the triple-threat designer, artist and publisher, Ryan Laukat of Red Raven games. Ryan is responsible for hit games like Near and Far and Above and Below. He has a fascinating story of how he started in the board game industry as an artist, then a designer. We dig into all of that goodness and go on to gush over our favourite Red Raven games. While we’ve only played a small sampling of his games, the art, mechanics, narrative and world-building at play has left us craving more. Ryan’s character and setting art bring to mind Disney animation or the whimsical worlds brought to life by Studio Ghibli. His wide range of characters varies from human to robots to anthropomorphic birds and reptiles. His worlds are full of bizarre architecture and buildings that you just want to visit. His written narrative sections are thoughtful and not filled with fantasy tropes. It’s obvious that Laukat has a deep love for board games as an art form and he seems to give his all in his game designs. His games feature hundreds of unique card illustrations, pages upon pages of storytelling and character art that never seems to get reused. I’ve gushed on enough. Listen on to hear more praise for the man of our hour and hear about us exploring the underground caves of Above and Below and swashbuckling our way through Islebound. We also eagerly anticipate the time when we can enter the other worlds that Ryan Laukat has so lovingly created and speculate on other games of his like Empires of the Void 2 and the upcoming Sleeping Gods. Long live Red Raven!
With a quick nod to Elisabeth Hargrave and the Wingspan team for winning 8 Golden Geek awards we move into a discussion of Champions of Midgard and how much fun it is losing.
In this episode we try and tackle deck-building but it is such a vast topic that we really just scratch a small itch on the surface. A brief time-line from the explosive force that was Magic: The Gathering to the emergence of a new mechanic through Donald X Vaccarino's Dominion. There is so much to love with deck-building and so little time in our show to give it the attention it deserves.Some of the games we bring up: MTG, Dominion, Clank!, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, Ascension, Dale of Merchants, Quest for El Dorado, Vikings Gone Wild, Thunderstone, Baseball Highlights 2045, Abandon all Artichokes, Slay the Spire
Our second show from isolation has us talking with some technical improvements as we settle into the new system. It also finds us talking about how some publishers are trying to help out during this awkward moment.
As we all tuck ourselves neatly away into our homes during this peculiar time I reach out to Steve in his underground board game bunker so we can catch up and try and find some things to keep us all sane.We talk a bit about what we've been playing with our families and come up with a few ways that people who may not have a board game collection to fall back on may find something fun to play without leaving their homes.
We joked we would call it the co-op episode but that's really a bit of a misnomer. While we do focus on the Ravensburger game Horrified, which is a beautiful family weight, gateway co-op. And we do spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of playing co-op games with kids, and what some favourites are. I would say we spend the bulk of the time talking about the game design enigma that is Prospero Hall.Prospero Hall is a design studio that has slowly been making a "name" for itself since about 2016. They have come into their own with some really solid games and a business plan that shakes up conventions and has landed them some really big IPs including Disney. There is a good chance you have been playing a Prospero Hall game without even knowing it.
In Episode 10 we spend a lot of time chatting about some of our favourites games. I’m looking at you Raiders of the North Sea. I introduce Steve to geekgroup.app a web app that links to your BGG (Board Game Geek) account and visualizes your collection data in so many fun ways. This leads us to discover what is considered the worst games in our collections based on the BGG ranking system. Of course, being the lowest-ranked may not actually make them the worst. What’s your lowest ranked game? ______Corrections:Shem Phillips is the sole designer of Raiders of the North Sea. Steve may have said that he designed the game with S J Macdonald but that is not the case. The two are co-designers of the “ West Kingdom” trilogy of games including Architects, Paladins and Viscounts of the West Kingdom. The two are not brothers although it would appear that Sam Phillips, the artist behind Circadians: First Light and Raiders of Scythia is the brother of Shem. They all live in New Zealand. Inka and Markus Brand are indeed a dream team design team and a married couple. And, while we mentioned a couple of their games that we’re interested in playing, we failed to mention that they are the designers of Rise of Queensdale, a game that we’ve been interested in playing since having first heard about it.______We talk a bit about: Clank! | Clank! In space | Ticket to Ride | TTR First Journey | TTR Europe | Orleans | Raiders of the North Sea | Raiders of Scythia | Cat Lady | Parcheesi | UNO | In a Pickle | Quelf | Slamwhich | RISKAnd a bit about these fantastic sites: BoardGameGeek.com | GeekGroup.app
For episode 9 I get a bit excited and try and explain to Steve what I find fascinating about the world before Catan.I had something in my head about the game Acquire having been mentioned as the seed of modern Eurogames. Which really interested me. I started looking into and did not find too much at first then came across the book "Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games" by Stewart Woods and it is crammed full of history. Which I do a shaky job trying to relay to Steve. It's a great book though if you are looking for a good book on some game history.We also talk about our recent experience tackling Clank! Legacy, the most fun I have had with a Legacy game to date. We made a few mistakes though. One, I said "Social Game" when I meant to say "Society Game" from the German: "Gesellschaftpiele" Steve mentioned, "Leaving Earth" when he meant to say "Excavation Earth" when talking about Dávid Turczi games.
When people gather around the table, unfold their cardboard and break out their wooden bits, they do so for many different reasons. Some want to strategize like military generals in an effort to trounce their opponents. Others want a reason to unhinge themselves and laugh out loud playing party games. There are also those that want to immerse themselves in the setting, characters, and events of a board game and experience the story that on offer. In this episode, we chat about how board games tell stories. Designers have a lot of tools to work with when attempting to weave a story into their game. The components, the artwork, the mechanics and of course, the actual written narrative are all ways to convey a story to players. Some do it better than others and throughout our conversation, we amble our way and talk about A LOT of games like Near and Far, Fresco, Scythe, Legacy of Dragonholt and many, many more. We also briefly mention the different types of stories that board games tell borrowing from Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots (which we wrongfully credit to Joseph Campbell) to see whether board games possess the same storytelling capabilities as film and literature. While we stray from the topic at hand from time to time, this episode, at the very least, makes for a pretty extensive list of immersive games. So, gather ‘round, get cozy and let us spin you a yarn about board games and the stories that they tell.https://everydaymeeple.com/story-telling/
Steve and I got together again to talk about board games. Surprised? This time we decided to get in on the house-rules conversation. Naturally, you can't talk about house-rules without the nod to the mess that is Monopoly.Eventually, we get around to the games we play today.https://everydaymeeple.com/ep7-house-rules/
After a bit of a hiatus, we return with a rambling conversation about Theme and the language we use to describe board games. We talk about how the word "theme" is often used as a catch-all term for board games and how, as board games evolve with more complex stories and gameplay, the term doesn't quite work as well anymore. We talk about how it may be beneficial to discuss board games with a broader vocabulary the way movies and literature are discussed. This makes it sound dense, but we ramble through things constantly stumbling on the fact that the point can be argued in either direction. It's just a conversation to start a conversation in the end.We mention our love of Lords of Waterdeep, the idea that themes within a game might change in the literary sense with games like Dominion, how Spirit Island touches upon important themes as a counterbalance to the recurring theme of colonialism in games like Catan. We wonder if "space" is really a theme or more of a setting or a genre and so much more. Give a listen and let us know what you think. Is there a better way to discuss board games than trying to blanket things into a "theme" based on the subject or setting of the game?
It's been a while but we are back. Macy has been really excited to record another episode so here it is. For this episode Macy chose one of her new favorites, Cat Lady. A cute as a button set collection game published by AEG designed by Josh Wood who also did the art.
In Cat Lady you are collecting cats and cat things. Every cat you pick up needs to be fed so you have to make sure you get enough food, but cats are finicky so make sure you get the right kinds of food. Cats also need costumes and toys, and maybe a little catnip. You can also adopt strays. This is a great light family game and a great intro game for drafting, set collecting, and resource management mechanics.
Macy gives it a 10. It's a good time.
Macy and I were probably both a little to sleepy to try this again but she really wanted to. So we did. We probably shouldn't have though, but again, why not. This time around she wanted to talk about Sleeping Queens again and Mystery Garden.
In this very first episode, my 5 year old daughter and I talk about some of her favorite games, and get distracted. It actually went pretty well for a first try. We try and stay focused on the game Incan Gold, her very favorite right now, plus we kind of talk about a few other things, like D&D (Pathfinder) and Sleeping Queens. Plus she mentions a few aspirations and has fun with the delay effect. I had a great time. That's what counts right.