BGB Podcast #165 – Thriving or Barely Surviving?

At first I was afraid, I was petrified.

There are two good ways to create engagement in a board game: One is to let the player feel like they’re achieving something constantly, the other is to keep them feeling like any wrong move could tank their game. We’re dubbing this the “thriving to barely surviving” spectrum, but first, we need to figure out where some of our favourite games fit on it. Before we surthrive, we talk about Carnegie, Divvy Dice, and Underwater Cities.

If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on iTunes/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.

If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!

Timecodes:

03:56 – Carnegie
13:11 – Divvy Dice
20:56 – Underwater Cities
24:26 – Terraforming Mars
32:23 – The “Thriving to Barely Surviving” Spectrum
33:10 – Agricola
33:43 – A Feast for Odin
37:34 – Troyes
42:12 – Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization
43:03 – Scythe
43:55 – Tapestry
45:20 – In the Year of the Dragon
45:52 – Macao
46:43 – The Castles of Burgundy
47:41 – Bruges
48:02 – The Oracle of Delphi
49:00 – Splendor
49:55 – Root
51:36 – Food Chain Magnate
55:12 – The Estates
56:00 – Biblios

Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.