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Featured Episodes
Episode 351: Combined Top 50 Games of All-Time 2025 Draft: 30-11
Happy new year! We're back to continue the very peaceful, collaborative, kind endeavour that is coming together to harmoniously assemble our top 50 games. It's been nothing but chill, friendly vibes, and we expect that to continue into 2026. It's the next twenty games on our definitive top 50 board games... of all-time! |
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Episode 331: One Thing I Hate About You
We've spent a lot of time over the years singing the praises of the games we love, but they can't be perfect right? Surely there's something, one little thing, that bugs us - a small blemish in our otherwise most beloved games? Before we come clean, we talk about Classified Information, Starline Hill, Panda Spin, and SHASN: AZADI. |
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Episode 327: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2024: 10-1
It's finally time to cap it all off with the cream of the cream, Mark and Neilan's final set of ten games each! These are the games that we think are the pinnacle of our respective tastes, that we'd never turn down, that any person ought to try at least once. It's the Top 10 Games of All-Time! |
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Episode 314: Bringing Out the Best in People
It's about people, right? Below all the mechanics, after all the rules explanations, beyond every crushing loss and glorious win, what really matters is people we're playing with. Some games make that more apparent than others, and we're here to celebrate that. Before we realize it's about the friends we made along the way, we talk about Arcs, and Luthier. |
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Episode 299: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2023: 10-1
We made it! We've arrived at last at the final ten(-ish) games, in fact, our TOP TEN (or so?) favourite games of all time. Thanks for joining us again on this yearly pilgrimage, as always it's the journey that's the important thing - but that's not to say that there isn't some exciting moving and shaking to happen at the destination. That said, it's time to pass out on the couch. |
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Episode 268: We Played a Slew of Games!
We (well some of us) made it back from Vegas, and what happened there didn't stay there - we're reporting in from Dice Tower West 2023, a fun week of friends, casinos, and all you can eat sushi. To everyone we met, thank you for saying hey! We also played a lot of hot games, including Heat: Pedal to the Metal, and Stationfall. |
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Episode 265: Fantasy Draft: BoardGameGeek 701-800
The draft is back, and while the lists are getting really thin at this point, that's not going to stop us doing our damndest to pick out a killer selection of five games each. Whose is the best? That's up to you - and if you vote, you stand a chance to win a gift voucher for $50! Before we put our fate in your hands, we talk about Shake That City, Clank!: Catacombs, and Galactic Renaissance. |
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Episode 260: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2022: 10-1
Here it is, the one we've all been waiting for, the Board Game Barrage top ten games of all time! It's been a long road and we'll wrap it up by seeing some old favourites ... and maybe a few new faces? Old or new, these are the thirty games we enjoy the most (at least, right now.) We loved sharing these lists with you and hope you've enjoyed listening to them! |
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Episode 241: Fantasy Draft: BoardGameGeek 601-700
Okay, this end of the BGG top list starts to get weird. Regardless, we must draft. Who's going to end up with the best selection of five games from this chunk of one hundred? That's up to you - vote and you could win a $50 gift voucher! Before we pick a peck of paper products, we talk about Town 66, Akropolis, and Pampero. |
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Episode 208: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2021: 10-1 (ft. Tom Brewster)
It's the grand finale of the event of events that is the BGB Top 50 Games of All-time! These are our ten absolute favourite games, and, fittingly, it's a bumper episode with more than one surprise. Joining us in the peanut gallery this week, it's none other than the manic imp of Shut Up & Sit Down himself, the absolute mad genius that is Tom Brewster. Buckle in, it's going to get weird. |
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Episode 185: The Most Important Meal of the Day
It's board games for dinner, but we're not just throwing whatever we could find on your plate. No, we've got menus. We lay out our ideas for a four course board game meal, complete with appetizer, amuse-bouche, entrée and dessert, in a fun little exercise suggested by a listener. Before we meal plan, we talk about Sequoia, The Mind Extreme, and MicroMacro: Crime City. |
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Episode 171: A Complimentary Compilation
We had so many fun ideas for this week that we couldn't settle on just one! It's always great getting topic suggestions from our listeners, but not all of them can make a full episode, so we figured we'd work through some of them here. Keep sending them in! Before we spice our lives with variety, we talk about Jekyll vs. Hyde, Seikatsu, and Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road. |
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Episode 165: Thriving or Barely Surviving?
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. |
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Episode 158: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2020: 10-1
It's the big one! We've come at last to the grand finale of the Board Game Barrage Top 50 Games of All Time ... Top. Ten. Baby. These are our absolute favourite games, forty (thirty?) all together, that we'd just about never turn down a game of. Thanks for joining us on this ride, it's been wild. |
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Episode 145: Zero to One Hundred: $100 Collection Triple Triumph
We weren't going to let Kellen have the last word on what makes the perfect $100 collection, so the 139 squad is here to finish it out. Forgot the premise? You've lost all your board games, and only have $100 to rebuild it; what do you buy first? Before we make every penny count, we talk about Cosmic Encounter Duel, Hundreds of Horses, Billionaire Banshee, and Floor Plan. |
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Episode 143: Pace Yourself
Slow and steady might win the race, but it doesn’t make for an exciting board game. Pacing is a vital component of most entertainment mediums that doesn’t often get applied to board games, so we’re going to climb and climb and climb and climb … and then rapidly descend down the roller-coaster of emotion that makes for some of our favourite games. Before we set the pace, we talk about Bus, The Game: Quick & Easy, and Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun. |
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Episode 140: All About Auctions
We return to our much loved feature from 2018, all about our favourite mechanics. This week, a mere two years later: auctions! We look at the good and bad sides of auction mechanics, and discuss our favourite games that feature them. Before we inflate the bid, we talk about Fleet: The Dice Game, Iwari, and Modern Art. |
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Episode 124: Constraints You Can See
While all games have some restrictions, some games are more willing than others to let you go off the rails. For instance, some leave the economy entirely in the hands of the players, free to tank it if they please. We look at how games do (or don't) use player constraints to deliver unique experiences. Before we rein ourselves in, we talk about Tournay, Bullet♥︎, Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons, and Container. |
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Episode 109: Harshing My Buzz
We're gluttons for punishment this week, because we're talking about harshness in board games. These are the sort of games where big moves or bad mistakes can be hard to recover from. Harsh games aren't for everyone, so when and why do we find them appealing? Before we grit our teeth, we talk about Wavelength, Genoa, Krass Kariert, and Oceans. |
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Episode 104: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2019: 10-1
Here it is, the episode you've all been waiting for, the grand finale, the culmination of five weeks of episodes. These are our top ten favourite board games of all-time, games that we absolutely adore, and would happily play at a moment's notice. Heck, we'd even play the games on each others' lists ... on, you know, birthdays and special occasions. That's how good they are. |
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Episode 101: Top 50 Games of All-Time 2019: 40-31
We're shifting up a gear, the stakes are higher, it's all to play for, and a whole host of other cliches, in the second of our five part series on the top fifty games of all time. Thirty(ish) more incredible board games coming at you, and we're not even halfway done yet. |
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Episode 28: Dance Like Nobody’s Watching
In the wake of Gen Con, we return home invigorated about just how grand and diverse the hobby is. We celebrate the games that we might not otherwise have thought to play, and encourage you to do the same! We also talk about Lift it!, The Estates, and Cat Lady. |
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