What's your favorite movie genre? And which board games can you play to relive those feels? We ask performer and board game writer Mx. Tiffany Leigh to chat about this. As someone who worked in movie production and a real-deal old-school video store, she has fantastic movie and game recs! (We got so into the movie topic that we ran out of time for …

We were sitting on a new stack of word games, so we asked our editor Mike Zipkin (he of fancy game upgrades and beige game tastes) to join us in covering Word Traveler, Illilterati, Mind Map, and ContraBanter. Plus, upgrading your board games is old news -- how do you upgrade your entire game room? Timeline: 2:00 - Christina/Shoe's game pick: Capta…

Who doesn't love a beautiful nature game? Shoe doesn't, the grump. He just hates nature. But did he like the upcoming Everbloom, designed by our guest Ian Moss (Bunkers & Badasses, Dinosaur Island, Wonderland's War), from publisher Nerdvana Games? (Check out the Kickstarter!) We also discuss what makes a new deluxe or big box edition of a game wort…

We've got so many new board games to talk about this week that we decided to skip having a guest on, so we can just blab and blab and blab about what we've been playing lately. So yup, you're just getting all Christina, all Shoe this episode. And they're ready to dish on what they liked and what they didn't about each of these. Timeline: 1:16 - The…

Legacy games can often light a classic franchise back on fire, as demonstrated by Flash Point: Legacy of Flame's successful Kickstarter. We asked Legacy of Flame codesigner Ken Franklin (The Mansky Caper, Back to the Future: Dice Through Time, Tsuro: Phoenix Rising) to share some insight into how they turned the long-running co-op series into an ev…

The 2024 American Tabletop Awards winners were just announced, so we invited ATTA founder, fellow judging member, and content creator Eric Yurko of What's Eric Playing? to hash them all out. How did Eric, Christina, and Shoe vote? Timeline: 3:30 - Early Gamers category. 19:45 - Casual Games category. 35:51 - Strategy Games category. 53:52 - Complex…

We knew Connie Vogelmann, designer of Apiary, was holding something back the last time we talked to her. So we brought her and Elizabeth Hargrave back to interrogate them about Wyrmspan, the new dragon-themed sequel to Elizabeth's now-classic and award-winning Wingspan! What was it like designing a new game under the Wingspan name? How much did Con…

We spend a lot of time with our friends playing board games, so we're bound to bond. But how well do we really know these people we've invited to our table? We teamed up with our pals Raina and Phil from 1 Minute Board Games to take the next step in our gaming relationship: not just play "normal" board games (which we still do plenty of with them) …

When we read that Eric Slauson (designer MonsDRAWsity, the upcoming Chucky game, and many more) likes to deal cards in a...very unique way, we knew we wanted to invite him on to discuss just how weird his board gaming habits are. Are we weirder? And how do YOU compare? Plus, gamers always talk about how some games aren't "worth" the price -- how do…

Though we fancy ourselves "omnigamers" -- gamers who enjoy all genres -- we're kind of fooling ourselves. There are certainly specific categories of board games we try to stay away from. But! With every "rule" (if you can call it that), there's gotta be exceptions, right? So we explore ours with Peter C. Hayward. The game designer (That Time You Ki…

I know we just finished our 2023 Games of the Year episode, but we're so over last year. It's cult-of-the-new time -- what are the badass games we're looking forward to in 2024? We invited gaming sommelier Alex Hart of Might I Suggest a Game to help us out since he also just put out his list! And while we're frequent boardgame recommenders, sometim…

The end of 2023 means only thing: time to talk about the best board games of the year. And for this awards season, we invited board game content creator and standup comedian Grant Lyon to discuss our favorite party, light, medium, and heavy games that released over those 365 days. Do you agree with our picks? Did we miss any that would have changed…

New year, new(-ish) games! Christina and Shoe pit some newer board games against their predecessors or competitors: the new co-op King of Monster Island vs. the original free-for-all King of Tokyo, two-player Tokaido Duo vs. the original Tokaido, and head-to-head dice-chuckers Kapow! vs. Dice Throne. Timeline: 1:39 - Shoe's game pick: The Fox Exper…

What's better than a bunch of adorable, flower-pollinating honeybees? Putting those honeybees in space! New worker-placement game Apiary is the buzzworthy debut design of Connie Vogelmann. We invited her on the podcast to see how she went from playtester to a proud creator of a high-production game by a big-time publisher. We also chat about what r…

We are back and ready to cover more great Euro games with Daniel Wahlen of The Game Table! This time, we focus on the new hotness that 2023 has generously brought us, but if you're more into modern-day remakes or sequels to legendary classics, make sure to check out Part 1. In this episode, we give our impressions on... Timeline: 2:30 - Nucleum. 21…

Euros, Euros, and gyros! We love a good Euro-style strategy game, but we couldn't cover all the great releases this year in just one podcast. Especially when we're chatting with fellow enthusiast Daniel Wahlen of The Game Table -- we just have so much to talk about! So in part one, we cover some fantastic remakes and sequels to some legendary class…

Ten years ago, your Going Analog hosts Christina and Shoe were obsessed with the digital collectible card game SolForge. Sadly, the daily (and nightly) sessions of lane-based combat mixed with a revolutionary upgradable-card system went away when the game eventually sunsetted (solsetted?). But, Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering, Android Netrun…

Let's be honest: We'll make any excuse to talk with Elizabeth Hargrave, the Kennerspiel-winning designer of Wingspan, Mariposas, and Tussie Mussie. So our current excuse? We wanted to talk to her about her soon-to-be-released The Fox Experiment (published by Pandasaurus) and Undergrove (by AEG). So now we can nerd out about how Elizabeth marries a …

We've had so much fun with Friendly Skeleton's upcoming party game Trash Talk that we wanted to dedicate a whole episode to other light-hearted fare that's great for gaming groups. Are you more of a co-op party gamer...or do you prefer to go at it in teams? We asked Jacob Way, Head Skeleton at Friendly Skeleton (formerly Deep Water Games), to join …

Prolific content creator/streamer Banzainator joins Christina and Shoe to talk what we love best: video and board games! What do we like better...and when? Also why do we keep going back to co-op games when...we think we don't really like them all that much? What types of games break through that barrier for us? Listen for fun times! Timeline: 3:38…

We haven't played anything quite like The Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City. This super premium, augmented-reality, multimedia experience is a pricey box at $149 for a one-time (maybe? -- listen to learn more) playthrough. Is it worth it? To dig into how The Arkham Asylum Files is pushing the boundaries of tabletop gaming, we invited Animal…

Hosting this podcast isn't all just fun and games...no, wait, it actually is! Check out this episode for our impressions of a hilarious adventure game where monsters thrive in a human-less world, a deckbuilding game with cute robots smashing each other, the sequel to our favorite logic-deduction game, a roll-and-write version of Tetris, and two par…

The 2023 edition of Gen Con, North America's largest board game convention, was the biggest yet -- breaking attendance records and our wallets so we could get the hottest games...to tell you about, of course! We asked American Tabletop Awards committee member, content creator, and general awesome gamer Ruel Gaviola to join us to discuss the show an…

We hosted a huge party recently and got a ton of new board games to the table -- so we wanted to dedicate an episode to six of them! You've wondered about the hot new sequel to Scythe, Expeditions, and we played it! Plus Marrakesh from Stefan Feld and Queen Games' City Collection, Vaalbara and Rauha from Hachette Games, Overboss Duel from Brotherwi…

Forget Terminators. The thing about artificial intelligence that you should be worrying about is how it's creeping into the creative aspects of board-game-making. Plaid Hat Games Marketing Manager Niki Shults and Multimedia Director (and newly minted game designer of Freelancers: A Crossroads Game) Donald Shults join our podcast this week to tell u…

Women and people of color are barely getting proper representation in the board game industry. And how about the LGBTQ+ community? Even worse. Joining us with no shortage of opinions on this matter is Theo, aka GeekyGamerGuy. Theo's a board game content creator on the frontlines, fighting for equality and representation in this hobby he loves so mu…

Maybe you've heard of that hefty game called Gloomhaven, the #1 game on BoardGameGeek for over 5 years. Or its heftier sequel, Frosthaven, the highest-funded gaming project on Kickstarter ever. We're not sure how their designer, Isaac Childres, had time to chat with Going Analog, but we weren't going to pass up the opportunity. We pick his brain on…

We just returned from a whirlwind two-week visit to Japan, and visions of fantastic food and strange (to us) board games still swirl around in our head. What is the board game scene there like? What was it like shopping for games whose titles and descriptions we couldn't read, but whose art was so, so pretty? We teamed up with Monique and Naveen of…

We're publishing this episode on May the Fourth, and we somehow wrangled superstar designer Corey Konieczka (Star Wars: Rebellion, Imperial Assault, Destiny, and Outer Rim...phew!) for our Star Wars special show. Now at his own studio Unexpected Games (The Initiative, Voices in my Head, 3000 Scoundrels), Corey humors our geeky Star Wars board game …

The 2023 American Tabletop Awards were just announced, and as brand-spanking-new committee members, we at Going Analog of course wanted to chat about these elite games -- with two of the judges themselves, Nicole Brady of SAHM Reviews and Eric Yurko of What's Eric Playing? Listen to hear our thoughts! Timeline: 2:45 - ATTA nomination process. 10:15…

We have prolific content creator and Twitch streamer Beneeta Kaur on the show to trade opinions on our favorite expansions and underrated card games. And if you want to become our board game BFF, we discuss what qualities we value in a good gaming partner. Timeline: 3.46 - Shoe's game pick: Earth. 8:47 - Beneeta's game pick: Mille Fiori. 12:51 - Ch…

Indie games publisher Resonym does things differently. Just take a look at its recent Glitch Squad (a party game about faulty forensic science), Surrealist Dinner Party (you can guess what that's about), and Buffalo (a party game that makes you less prejudiced). We love the company's socially conscious design philosophy, and Mary Flanagan (founder,…

Sometimes substantive board game discussion topics are tiring. And pretty much all the time, we play a lot of new games. So this episode, Shoe and Christina just talk about some new, sexy games in a variety of sizes. HOT! Timeline: 3:19 - Christina's big game: Mosaic: A Story of Civilization. 13:05 - Shoe's big game: Marvel: Age of Heroes. 26:58 - …

Plaid Hat CEO Colby Dauch and Marketing Manager Niki Shults team up to discuss some hot (spiteful content creation, life with mega publisher Asmodee, etc.) and not-so-hot (Candy Land??) on the Going Analog Podcast this week. They've put out some incredible and memorable board games over the years, so give them a listen! Timeline: 4:00 - Christina's…

This episode guest stars prolific and punny content creator Eric Yurko from What's Eric Playing?, a site full of fantastic board game photography and 1000+ (!) reviews. And as a founding committee member of the American Tabletop Awards (and a big fan of cocktails) Eric is THE go-to guy to talk games...especially which ones to play at which drinking…

We're a podcast! Therefore, we're contractually obligated to tell you our Games of the Year. But who wants to hear just Christina and Shoe squabble about their faves of 2022? Everyone would rather hear us and Mik and Starla from Our Family Plays Games squabble, so far be it for us to withhold this top-notch content from our listeners! So get ready …

For our 100th episode, we had to make sure everyone's topics were epic. So we rounded up some of the Going Analog crew, including OG contributor Nick Suttner and writer Henry Stenhouse, to discuss... Timeline: 7:19 - Henry's topic: Board games that stand up to 100 plays...or more. 26:56 - Christina's topic: Your favorite board gaming moment ever. 3…

We're back from chilly Philly where the PAX Unplugged board game convention just wrapped up. It's our fourth con of the year -- you'd think we've seen it all by now but nope! There were still plenty of new board games to discover and try out. With us to discuss the show are Kasey Girven (better known as Brain in a Jar) and Miguel Plylar-Moore (aka …

We're back from BoardGameGeek's big show, BGG.CON 2022! Your hosts Christina and Shoe sit down to talk about their Top 10 games panel with Our Family Plays Games, stand-up comedy with Grant Lyon, our own live Board Game Quiz Show events, and of course, all the great games they got a chance to check out. Timeline: 1:47 - BGG.Con highlights, includin…

We recently spent six solid days playing board games. Seriously. It was exhausting -- but amazingly fun. We blame Going Analog contributor Jess Yi, who visited and forced us to play one board game after another. At the end, with bloodshot eyes and brains working at half speed, Shoe and Jess picked three games each to discuss. Hear their thoughts on…

Can a board game kill ya? Nah...but Black Mold may try. This "co-op till it's not" survival-horror game has players taking as many actions as they can until they can no longer...hold their breath. You read that right. So we have questions -- lots of questions -- for our guest John de Campos, CEO of Terrible games and co-designer of Black Mold. Time…

Logic-deduction board game Turing Machine challenges players to figure out a secret code using innovative punch-card verifiers that layer atop each other to "magically" reveal clues. How does it work?! We had to know, so we asked our guests from publisher Scorpion Masqué and Hachette Games to sit there and explain it to us. Oh, we also talk artwork…

Game designer Ryan Courtney loves making connections (if you've played Pipeline or Curious Cargo, then you know what we're talking about). His newest creation, Trailblazers from Bitewing Games has you -- you guessed it -- making and blazing connecting trails in nature. We invited Ryan as well as Bitewing co-founder Nick Murray to join our podcast t…

Gen Con 2022 saw the return of over 50,000 attendees (and four days of non-stop gaming) to Indianapolis -- and, most importantly, the return of Christina and Shoe to the big show! We invited Twitch streamer and content creator Amanda Panda to join us to discuss our experiences and the hot new games. Topics this episode: Christina (host): Hot games …

Since you can download the fantastic and completely free Sunshine City from Coffee Bean Games, we invited designer Peter C. Hayward to talk some of our favorite lighter and heavier games in the roll & write genre. Shoe tries to articulate the idea of "hybrid" games of multiple ideas coming together to form one new product, and we discover Peter's c…

Johnny O'Neal, one of the brother cofounders of Brotherwise Games (publisher of Unearth, Call to Adventure, and the recently successfully funded Castles by the Sea), drops by Going Analog to discuss his design philosophy and asserts that every game needs to be shorter. We're pretty sure that's the takeaway. We also figured the co-designer of Boss M…

Tim Fowers, indie designer and publisher at Fowers Games, intrigues Christina and Shoe with the concept of "anticipation" and how it plays into dopamine-filled play. And because Tim is such a marketing mastermind, he drops a Fugitive 2 tease about...46 minutes into this episode. Christina talks to Tim about Paperback and Hardback, Fowers Games's tw…

Matt from YouTube's Board Game Bollocks drops by to (somehow successfully!) not swear while chatting about his gaming lifestyle, nihilism, and how Americans are so "happy and bouncy." Our topics this week: Christina (host): Our favorite animal-themed games (10:36) Mike (editor): Board gaming as a lifestyle (19:59) Matt (guest): The rising prices of…

It's rematch time! Amanda Panda, board game Twitch streamer and content creator, returns to argue over three fresh new matchups -- and we're throwing hands! Our matchups for this sequel: Christina (host): Namiji vs. Tokaido (12:27) Shoe (producer): G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game vs. Transformers Deck-Building Game (23:31) Amanda (guest): Kingdom Build…

Mik and Starla of Our Family Plays Games join Going Analog to talk about the state of diversity and inclusion in the board gaming community, why they felt the need to start their new OFPG Voices channel, and which crowdfunding games we're most excited to get delivered soon! Topics this week: Starla (guest): The current state of diversity and inclus…