Sail, Trolls and Princesses, Evacuation

Winter months are here and a deep chill is setting over the world. A chill that can represent only one thing - Elaine and Efka’s disappointing week of board games. That’s right, it’s one of those episodes - where no one game is a standout and all of them feel like they’re missing just a little warmth. So grab a cup of hot cocoa and settle in for a grumpy cast of some grumpy cardboard talk.

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On to the timestamps:

2:08 Audience Correspondence - Contentification (for the last time)

8:16 Sail

32:23 Thank you to Mark from So Very Wrong About Games ( https://www.sowronggames.com/ )

37:46 Trolls and Princesses

55:45 Evacuation

Rob Daviau Talks Legacy, Empire's End, Ready Set Bet, Mind Space

It’s a new episode of the Talk Cardboard podcast and I feel great! Rejuvenated even because today’s games are light, breezy, quirky and fun. And what’s a breezier topic than the collapse of an empire? Just the thought of that warmed something inside of me, like a cozy blanket gently touching the fireplace and setting aflame. If you too would like to partake in some famine, pestilence, war, etc. you might want to give Empire’s End a spin. And if that wasn’t cozy enough, how about some real time horse gambling? Honestly, all that cozyness put my brain in a twist. Thankfully, we’re also covering Mind Space.

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On to the timestamps:

1:16 Audience Correspondence - Singapore 1819

3:33 Empire's End

13:17 Audience Recommendations

14:49 Ready Set Bet

26:06 Rob Daviau Talks Legacy Games

45:00 Mind Space

56:40 Audience Correspondence - All Time Favourites

Earthborne Rangers, Forest Shuffle, Planta Nubo, Sonny Liew and 1819: Singapore

Every year in board games there’s a new fad. Legacy, polyominoes, roll and writes and trick takers. This year’s fad seems to be less genre based and more societally concious. Here at NPI every week we encounter more and more board games that reduce their use of wasteful material such as plastics. On this episode alone two of the three games discussed are 100% recyclable (if you ignore the stickers that hold the lid on the box). And the third one is themed around enviromental issues. How amazing is that?

But on top of that, they’re really interesting games in their own right. Honestly, this feels like a celebration.

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On to the timestamps:

1:43 Audience Correspondence - Contentification Part One

3:51 Earthborne Rangers

27:52 Audience Correspondence - Contentification Part Two

36:32 Forest Shuffle

59:10 Sonny Liew and the Two Board Games Called 1819: Singapore

1:25:31 Planta Nubo

1:42:06 Audience Correspondence - Contentification Part Three

Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall, Fit to Print, Vindication

Tell me something, which other board game podcast episode can claim to contain the entire gamut of board games in one episode? Antropomorphic animals? Check. Weirdly themed euro? Check. Fantasy campaign game? Check. Real time? Check. Randomness? Check. Strategy, tactics, abstractification? Check check and check.

In this episode we’ll take a long overdue look at Vindication, a game where you gather cubes to kill monsters, Fit to Print, a cutesy real time newspaper assembly simulator and Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall, a fantasy campaign game that signals the arrival of everyone’s most dreaded season - Campaignmass.

Find the video we mention in the discussion on contentification right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMqtgN82fUY

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On to the timestamps:

2:48 Fit to Print

29:07 Audience Correspondence: Board Game Fan Fic Trivia

31:48 Vindication

46:51 A Discussion on Contentification

59:47 Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall

Kieron Gillen, Great Western Trail: New Zealand, Schadenfreude, Freelancers

Are games even real? According to Kieron Gillen, they certainly bleed into reality and reality bleeds into them. According to Great Western Trail, New Zealand isn’t even real. So who’s to say?

On this episode of Talk Cardboard we review Schadenfreude, the little trick taking game that could, chat about the absurd comedy that is Freelancers, take an early peak at Great Western Trail: New Zealand and chat to Kieron Gillen about his comic book and role-playing game DIE.

For more on DIE, here’s the links provided at the end of the interview in clickable form:

Kieron’s Newsletter - https://buttondown.email/KieronGillen

DIE RPG - https://diecomic.com/rpg/

Rowan, Rook and Decard - https://rowanrookanddecard.com/

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On to the timestamps:

00:59 Intro and Audience Correspondence - Review copies

6:32 Schadenfreude

19:31 Freelancers: A Crossroads Game

37:07 Audience Correspondence - Dinged up Cards

39:56 Interview: Kieron Gillen and DIE

1:07:53 Great Western Trail: New Zealand

Earth, Lacuna, Voidfall

From Earth to Space to the abstract void in between, this episode has a little bit of everything, including a game that made Efka feel like he had to give a rating. That’s right, a bona fide numerical value asigned to the perceived quality of a game. What will they think of next? Verdicts? Comparisons? In the future, anything will be possible.

On this episode of Talk Cardboard we review the many many card game Earth, the impossibly adorable abstract two player only game Lacuna and share our first impressions of the heaviest euro game of the year - Voidfall.

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On to the timestamps:

0:00 Review Copies and NPI

6:13 Earth

25:20 Audience Correspondence - Game Wear and Tear

31:01 Lacuna

45:21 Audience Correspondence - Aeon’s End

52:16 Voidfall First Impressions

Sustainable Board Games with Andrew Navaro, Dorfromantik: The Board Game, Ancient Realm, Aeon's End: Legacy of Gravehold

What if we don’t make games that last forever is the question Andrew Navaro, head of Earthborne Games is asking us. His answer is Earthborne Rangers, a game that will perish, but not before it lands on our doorsteps.

On this episode of Talk Cardboard we interview Andrew about Earthborne Rangers and his vision for a more eco-responsible board game scene.

We’ve also got reviews for Spiel des Jahres winner Dorfromantik: The Board game that’s all about a chill time laying tiles, Ancient Realms - a little game that fits in your pocket from the designer of Sprawlopolis and Aeon’s End: Legacy of Gravehold - big legacy campaign deckbuilder that’s more ambitious than it is impressive.

Become a patron!

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On to the timestamps:

5:16 Audience Correspondence: Obsession

13:59 Ancient Realm

28:02 Dorfromantik: The Board Game

39:53 Audience Correspondence: NPI Directed by

43:43 Sustainable Board Games with Andrew Navaro (Interview)

1:15:09 Aeon's End: Legacy of Gravehold

1:40:46 Audience Correspondence: Rulebook Assessment

Trailblazers, Isle of Trains: All Aboard, Beast

Everybody always says, “Talk Cardboard is paving the way in board game podcasting!” and this episode it’s certainly true. We have biking, hiking, kayaking, train-ing, and hunting (along routes), which is the most path in any board game podcast ever.

On today’s episode we’ll cover the cute but deadly Trailblazers, the old fashioned but sleek Isle of Trains and the gorgeous, voluptuous and strange Beast.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

If you’d like to check out our bonus episodes - become a patreon supporter on https://patreon.com/nopunincluded

On to the timestamps:

6:12 Audience Correspondence: Methods of Teaching Games

9:32 Trailblazers

29:53 Isle of Trains: All Aboard

47:11 Audience Correspondence: Imperial Onions

52:26 Beast

1:17:15 Elaine hates Hidden Movement games

Undaunted: Battle of Britain, Hamlet, Autobahn

Sometimes you sit down to play some board games for a future podcast episode and you find yourself not particularly digging any of them? It happens. It’s a thing. It could happen to you. This week it happened to us.

Whilst we weren’t especially jazzed about Hamlet, didn’t find Undaunted: Battle of Britain worth the trouble and at least one of us really didn’t get on with Autobahn, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t like them either. Or maybe you’ve already played them and disagree - dear listener, you should write in.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

If you’d like to check out our bonus episodes - become a patreon supporter on https://patreon.com/nopunincluded

On to the timestamps:

5:55 Audience Correspondence: Past Games

10:21 Undaunted: Battle of Britain

33:44 Hamlet

46:17 Audience Correspondence: How do you learn games?

51:07 Autobahn

Next Station: London, Skymines, Maquis

Welcome back, welcome back, it’s like we’ve never been gone. After a brief interruption Talk Cardboard returns to your ears and consequentially to your brains to deliver all the board game that it needs.

Today’s brain ticklers include drawing a map of the London Underground in Next Station: London, a dose of helium 3 in Skymines and some good ol’ fashioned resisting in Maquis

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

2:12 Audience Correspondence – Crispy Pancake Foods

10:37 Next Station: London

28:39 Skymines

58:36 Audience Correspondence - Board Game Canon

1:08:26 Maquis

Distilled, Worldbreakers, Res Arcana

Every Talk Cardboard episode is a journey, and in this episode that journey is competitive card games, competitive card games with engine building and destroying the engine with hard alcohol (not necessarily in that order).

Today we’re taking a look at Distilled, an aspirational game about being a small time distillerer in a world of big alcohol, Wordlbreakers: Advent of the Khanate, a magic the gatheringalike card battler that’s punching very far above its weight and Res Arcana, a distillation (no pun intended) of Race for the Galaxy style card engine building with the world’s smolest deck.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

4:14 Audience Correspondence – Past Games

23:13 Res Arcana

42:25 Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate

1:03:05 Distilled

You can find the study on game component rolling probabilities here https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/12119/components-dice-tossing-meeples-houses

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Horseless Carriage, Rolling Heights, Ginkgopolis

Building building building. If you like building (or buildings) you will enjoy at least one of the board games covered in this episode in which you build buildings, buildings and also cars. How's that for a build up? No? Let me construct some clarity.

Today we'll talk about Ginkgopolis, a tile laying city building classic hidden gem, Rolling Heights, a city building game where you roll meeples and Horseless Carriage, a car constructing game from famed board game publisher Splotter Spellen. And finally, a real treat, an interview with famed speculative fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky who reveals which modern board games he wrote into his novels.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

2:49 Audience Correspondence – Past Games

18:04 Ginkgopolis

34:48 Rolling Heights

52:40 Interview – Adrian Tchaikovsky

1:08:09 This is the timestamp to avoid the spoilery question (it will make sense when you listen)

1:15:53 Horseless Carriage

Carnegie, Whaler Riders, Wir Sind Das Volk!

Has it been two weeks already? Time flies when you’re reviewing board games. Or when you’re riding whales for that matter. In real life and also in the game! Does it fly when you’re under Soviet occupation or working for Mr. Carnegie? Who’s to say, but we can at least tell you whether the games based on these events and/or entities are any good and/or bad.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

8:57 Wir Sind Das Volk!

30:17 Whale Riders

40:38 Audience Correspondence: Fueling Consumerism

1:01:12 Carnegie

Paul Dean, Wind the Film!, That Time you Killed me, Koi Koi

There are many famous Paul Deans in the world, but today we’re only interviewing one of them. Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to talk to some of the others, but honestly, why bother, we already got the best one. We got a chance to talk to Paul about what it’s like having left the board game industry and how he feels about board games right now.

This is far from the end though. Brace yourselves because you are entering the land of numbers, voxels and vertices and you can only emerge by listening to us review three abstract board games (which may or may not be card games).

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

5:53 Audience correspondence - GWT: Argentina, Aeon Trespass Publisher Write-in, Colour Vision Difference

16:06 Wind the Film! (Photograph)

31:11 That Time You Killed Me

44:16 Intereview Guest: Paul Dean

1:19:56 Koi Koi

1:43:48 Audience correspondence - Torturing Efka

Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, GWT: Argentina, Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game, Yokai Septet

This episode is jam packed with exciting board games and has a reference to clotted cream - that's right - it's the scone episode! A tasty delicious dessert for your ears full of rich indulgent cardboard. What's especially exciting is that we've got a little bit of everything for everyone - from very light to very heavy, all pretty great in their own ways so if you're looking to enrich your collection - this week is definitely full of good recs. Enjoy!

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

4:00 Audience correspondence - Historical Wargames and MILDA MATILDA

13:02 Yokai Septet

23:23 Audience correspondence - Rulebooks

30:10 Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game

44:58 Great Western Trail: Argentina

1:04:12 Aeon Trespass: Odyssey (first impressions)

Jessie Gender, Heat, Votes for Women, Turncoats, Canvas

Every day people stop us on the street and say “But, Elaine and Efka, why did you rename the podcast?” What an excellent question real person on the street - we renamed it because Talk Cardboard is all about talking to other people about cardboard. All kinds of cardboard. Flat, corrugated and even board game. So we talk to you, dear listeners, especially when you write in. But we also talk to our guests! And today’s episode features our very first and so far very best guest. That’s right, it’s Jessie Gender, you can find more of her things on https://www.youtube.com/@JessieGender1

Also in today’s episode: Heat, Votes for Women, Turncoats and Canvas.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

4:53 Canvas

14:06 Heat: Pedal to the Metal

38:24 Jessie Gender a.k.a. Jessie Earl

1:03:35 Turncoats ( https://mildamatildagames.wordpress.com/turncoats-2/ )

1:20:17 Votes for Women

GOTY Runner ups, Resist!, Knight Fall and Lands of Galzyr

It’s so great to be behind the microphone again talking about something you love! Especially when the thing you love is pancakes. But we also spend a good amount of time talking about what’s fresh in board games, including a sleeper solo hit Resist! from the people that brought you Undaunted, the little asymmetric arena battler Knight Fall and the somewhat sprawling choose your own adventure on a map game Lands of Galzyr.

Today’s bonus feature is the three contenders for Efka’s game of the year title that didn’t quite make the cut.

If you have personal experiences to share about any games discussed in this episode or any topic that's dear to your heart - we’d love to hear from you. Please write to: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

9:00 Resist!

32:52 Knight Fall

48:30 Meaty Questions

1:04:18 Efka's Runners Up for GOTY 2022

1:12:22 Lands of Galzyr

1:27:26 More Write-ins

Most Anticipated Games 2023, Artisans of Splendent Vale, Scout, Evergreen, Ostia

Welcome back to the newly named board game podcast from the duo at No Pun Included! In this new iteration we're starting small and building up each episode, so if you've enjoyed this - there's more to come every second Friday. Today we're taking you through Efka's most anticipated board games of 2023, four board game reviews and lots of words from our listeners.

If you'd like to write in about any of the games discussed or any topic that's dear to your heart: elaine@nopunincluded.com

On to the timestamps:

2:13 Scout

19:14 Evergreen

29:03 Efka's Most Anticipated Games of 2023

45:13 Artisans of Splendent Vale

1:02:47 Write-ins

1:15:52 Ostia

Episode Thirty - Mindwright

Hey everybody - it’s a calculator party! Bring out your Casios and we’ll get down with spreadsheets like it’s 1799. On today’s podcast not only do we tackle the mini-beast that is Arkwright: The Card Game but give an early scoop on Mind MGMT and a brief glance at Murano: Light Masters.

Timestamps:

• Murano: Light Masters - ( 03:04 )

• Arkwright: The Card Game - ( 20:00 )

• Mind MGMT - ( 37:35 )

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment below.

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Episode Twenty Nine - Dinosaur Building Blocks

Three board games enter, one board game leaves. But only having endured the harsh nature of Elaine’s and Efka’s critique. That’s the No Pun Included podcast and it’s back once again for the twenty ninth time.

Timestamps:

• Dinosaur World - ( 06:50 )

• Exit Advent Calendar: Mystery of the Ice Cave (no spoilers) - ( 28:31 )

• Magnate: The First City - ( 41:16 )

If you enjoyed this episode, leave a comment below. Unlike our YouTube videos, there’s no other sensible way for you to have a nice chat with us, or maybe even some other listeners. Who knows? You might even find a friend.

You can also subscribe to the Podcast via:
RSS, iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and also searchable on Google Podcasts