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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

EM July 5 2020 by Everyday Meeple

This is the lost "Episode 16"

EM - June 21 2020 by Everyday Meeple

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.

EM June 28 2020 by Everyday Meeple

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

The Isolation Episodes #3 by Everyday Meeple