In our most EPIC board game episode EVER, Joe is joined by board game aficionados Katie, Sean, and Daniel. The four of them dive into the world of board games—just in time for holiday gatherings! Whether you’re hosting family, looking for a budget-friendly gift idea, or just want to create memorable moments, this panel has you covered.
The create two lists on today’s show. The first includes their top 5 games with a money or economic component. From games about running economies, to running businesses, to buying real estate and more, the team comes through with some great recommendations, just in time for the holidays (check out our show notes for links to purchase any of the listed games!).
The second list helps ensure you don’t waste money this holiday season on games that stink! If you’re playing games this holiday season with friends and family, our panel lists off their top 5 games that you can find reliably in the Target or Walmart game aisle, your friendly local game store, or online. You’re sure to find something you love on these lists. (Again, you can help the show AND enjoy your holiday season by purchasing from our show notes page!).
Overall, they share their top picks, including timeless classics and modern favorites, guaranteed to spark fun and foster connections. Along the way, the crew chats about the lessons these games can teach—strategy, teamwork, and maybe even a little patience when Uncle Doug gets competitive. Speaking of Doug, he’s back with a trivia segment on the popular game Carcassonne and its iconic wooden game pieces, the ‘Meeples.’
If you’re looking to level up your family game nights or find the perfect holiday game, this episode is a jackpot!
Episode Highlights
- Introduction and Black Friday Buzz – How board games fit into your budget-friendly shopping plans.
- Meet the Panel – Katie, Sean, and Daniel share their board game obsessions and how they got started.
- Top Picks from the Experts – From Katie’s family-friendly favorites to Sean’s fast-paced picks and Daniel’s strategic challenges.
- Spotlight on Unique Games – Explore gems like The Zen of Takeo, Mr. President, and Juicy Fruits.
- Holiday Recommendations – Perfect games for all ages, from casual party players to strategy enthusiasts.
- Deep Dive on Popular Games – Learn about strategies for Catan, the charm of Ticket to Ride, and the quick thrills of Five Minute Marvel.
- Trivia Fun with Doug – A game within the episode! Can you guess the answer to Doug’s Carcassonne trivia?
A Few of Our Panelists’ Top Picks
- Katie’s Favorites: Phase 10, Ticket to Ride, and more.
- Sean’s Must-Haves: Azul and Five Minute Marvel.
- Daniel’s Top Choices: Fishbowl, The Crew, and Cinco Lingo.
Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or a newbie looking to try something fun, this episode is packed with tips, laughs, and plenty of game ideas to keep your holidays entertaining and affordable.
Got a favorite board game? Share it with us on social or call in—we’d love to hear your recommendations!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic: Our favorite board games
BoardGameGeek | Gaming Unplugged Since 2000
Katie’s Top 5
5. World Order
4. Life
2. Catan
1. Bohnanza
Sean’s Top 5
5. Eclipse
1. Le Havre
Daniel’s Top 5
5. Splendor
3. For Sale
2. Tokiado: Duo
1. Juicy Fruits
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What are wooden people called in board games because of this Carcassone-inspired player?
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’re joined by the co-host of the Catching Up To FI podcast, Jackie Cummings Koskie who’s here to share the basics of the financial independence retire early train.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Quirky, Fun, and Jaw-Dropping Tech Deals this Holiday Season (Bridget Carey from CNET is BACK!).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Bob. Bob, are you okay? [00:00:02] Sean: Mouse trap, huh? I wanted to play mouse trap. You roll your dice, you move your mice. Nobody gets hurt. [00:00:16] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:30] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and it’s Black Friday. You know what that means? While everyone else is out spending money, we are playing board games. And if you’re shopping for great holiday deals to either help your friends learn about economics and money, or you’re hoping not to waste money on horrible games to play with the family today we’ve got you covered stackers, Katie. [00:00:53] Sean and Daniel join Joe to dive into two top five lists on today’s mammoth show. Plus we’ll take a break halfway through the episode for some holiday board game trivia. It’s all board games all the time. I think Joe just wet himself and now a guy who’s gonna try to make this not awkward at all. It’s Joe Saul Sea High, [00:01:21] Joe: and happy Friday everybody. [00:01:22] Welcome to my favorite Friday episode of the year. I’m Joe Saul-Sehy, average Joe Money on Twitter. Like Doug. You just so, so eloquently said. This is everybody. My favorite episode of the year. For one reason, it used to be that everybody was out shopping on Black Friday, so I decided this episode was for me. [00:01:41] For those of you that are new to this community, I love board games and every year we have our board game episode today, and what’s funny is what went from. An episode that nobody listened to. Now, this is often one of our most listened to episodes every year. ’cause I think there’s a lot of our board game geeks out there. [00:01:59] In fact, every year until now, I have had luminaries from the board game community on people that a lot of our board game friends know Well this year, you know what I realized? Since I’ve gone around the country, we’ve got a lot of geeks and I say that affectionately because the number one website for board gamers is called board Game geek.com. [00:02:21] I think we’re very, we were a geek flag very proudly, but a lot of our board game geeks are right here in our stacker community. And three people stepped up and said, I’d love to talk board games with you. So let’s meet our board game luminaries today. First of all, we’ve got stacker Katie Pearson with us. [00:02:39] How are you, Katie? [00:02:40] Katie: Hi Joe. I’m doing well. I’m very honored to be labeled a board Game Geek. This is [00:02:44] Joe: a highlight. It is. It’s like, it’s like a badge. I mean, I am, I’m such a geek. How long have you been playing board games? [00:02:50] Katie: I have been playing board games for as long as I can remember. My mom was a single mom, and that was a fun thing that we could do together. [00:02:55] That was, you know, in the budget, A fun Saturday activity. [00:02:58] Joe: That is the cool thing, isn’t it? Is that games don’t cost a lot. I mean, a good board game, you can get down at Target for $25. You could even get a nice, uh, card game. We might talk about a few card games today for maybe five or 10 bucks. Heck, sometimes at a thrift store you’ll find them for a dollar or two. [00:03:16] Katie: Yeah, it’s awesome. A lot of these games we swap, like with our family, so we play a game and then can give it to a family member and kind of swap them. So we’re always getting new games cycling through the house. [00:03:26] Joe: Now, for me, Katie, I have too many games in my collection because I refuse to swap. I, I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. [00:03:31] That’s mine. How many, how many games are in the Katie collection? [00:03:35] Katie: We just recently moved to Philadelphia from Maine and we actually had to downsize some of our games ’cause it was getting obscene. We downsized from about a hundred to 70 when we moved. [00:03:44] Joe: And were you shaking? [00:03:45] Katie: Yeah. It was hard. [00:03:46] Joe: Yeah. It’s funny, when we were nomads, I gave away all my games except for just a few that would go in the back of our car. [00:03:53] And I told all my friends, I said, you can have these now, but I want them back if you’re not gonna play them. And still the ones that my friends play and they love, I still want, I still want back. And I, I have too many to play. Sean Baker joins us, our friend in, uh, grand Rapids, Michigan. How are you, Sean? [00:04:10] Sean: Yeah, I’m great Joe. It’s great to see you. And uh, I’ll be honest, the board game podcast that you’ve had the last couple years has been bad for my financial health. ’cause I’ve got Cona Hora sitting on the shelf of Shame and I’ve got, uh, a couple others like stockpile that get played all the time, so I appreciate it. [00:04:25] Joe: Oh, I hope Stockpile is on somebody’s list so we can talk about it again. Ben, how long have [00:04:29] Sean: you been a [00:04:29] Joe: geek [00:04:30] Sean: John? I have not actually been a geek for that long. It took me a, a while to reconcile this fact. I probably have been in my entire life. But yeah, we actually got in really deep in the pandemic, you know, when you’re not able to go out and do anything. [00:04:42] When we quit traveling, this was a good hobby to get into. [00:04:44] Joe: What do you think the game was that kind of put you over the top that made you go, you know what I, I think I wanna play more games. [00:04:50] Sean: Yeah. So, uh, a pandemic was coming around March of 2020. My wife’s a, uh, biochemistry professor and we’re like, let’s get pandemic. [00:04:58] We got it. We’re, this is amazing. What else has this guy done? And sure enough, we found a number of other games right afterwards. There he is. I love that. Yep. That’s a good one. [00:05:06] Joe: People not watching the video. Katie’s, Katie’s a proud owner of Pandemic. I have a friend, by the way, that can’t stand pandemic. [00:05:12] He’s a physician, but he’s like, the game starts off depressing and just gets more depressing, which isn’t, isn’t not true. Like, that’s a hundred percent true. A lot of the time. That game gets really depressing. Too [00:05:22] Katie: soon is, is it too soon to plan it, right? Like we’re almost at 2025. [00:05:25] Joe: That’s true. You know, it’s funny, Katie, there’s some people I know, they’re like, I felt bad playing pandemic during the pandemic. [00:05:29] Like, this isn’t a game. But, but that’s a great game to start with. And definitely one that’s addicting. We can’t play it at our house because Cheryl plays for everybody. She’s like, okay, you’re gonna do this, then you’re gonna do this, then I’ll do that. And we had to stop playing with, with her. Daniel Mitchell joins us. [00:05:44] Daniel, where are you located? [00:05:45] Daniel: I’m in San Antonio, Texas actually. Yeah, we are [00:05:48] Joe: all over the nation today. That’s cool. [00:05:51] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about my, uh, my geekdom. So I started playing cards with my family, like my grandma, and loved playing cards, but didn’t enjoy Monopoly. I. Or life or all those kind of classic old board games. [00:06:06] And then a friend, I think I was in college, showed me settlers. And of course that was like the gateway drug to board games. Right. And uh, yes, Katie [00:06:14] Joe: Katie’s showing us that one too. You’re hitting all the spots, Daniel. [00:06:17] Daniel: It’s been really fun. ’cause I have shown that game to so many people as like, and I tell them like, this is the gateway drug to board games. [00:06:25] They’re like, okay, sure. Whatever. And then they just, they fall in love with it. And then, uh, pandemic was my first cooperative board game ever. So it holds a special place in my heart, and I just showed it to my seven and 9-year-old the other day and they really got into it. So it [00:06:38] Joe: was fun. Oh, that’s cool. [00:06:40] Uh, you know what’s funny about s and by the way, we call it settlers. If you’re not a board game nerd like we are, you’ll find it at the store called the second half of that, called Kaan. And if you just see a TAN, and if you look at Kaan, if you figure out how to play it, it will definitely change your way of looking at games. [00:06:56] Daniel, if you’ve never played a game before like this. [00:06:59] Daniel: Oh, a hundred percent. What I love about that game, when I first fell in love, I was like, oh, I can do something when it’s not my turn. I can trade and be a part of the game. It just revolutionized the way I thought about board games in general. It’s such a great game. [00:07:11] Joe: It’s a trading game. And it also has the oldest joke in board game history, which is, I’ve got wood for your sheep. That’s right. That is the most horrible joke. One of my [00:07:21] Katie: friends in college that introduced me to Katon has a bumper sticker and I will make this, uh, good for podcasting, but it says, I don’t want your bleeping sheep. [00:07:32] Joe: That’s fabulous. I forgot to ask Sean, how many games are in your collection? [00:07:36] Sean: Uh, it’s an addiction. So we are at 200 and I just called that down from two 50, but we love games and we cannot get rid of ’em. [00:07:44] Joe: I’m with you, man. It should be a frugal hobby and I’m, I see the new greatness and I absolutely love it. [00:07:49] Daniel, how about you? [00:07:50] Daniel: You know, I, I’m the, the weakling of the group. I think I only have like 50 probably, but I also have a lot of friends that have games, so it helps. I don’t have to buy every single game. [00:08:00] Joe: We’ve got sponsors we need to hear from before we start to make sure this is free and we can keep on podcasting. [00:08:05] So we’ll hear from them and we’re gonna get this party started. Katie’s here. Sean’s here. Daniel’s here. Let’s talk board games. [00:08:16] All right. In the first half of the show, guys, the thing I asked you to do was to give us a list of your top five kind of, uh, old, uh, late night TV style. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 5 games that are not games that teach you anything about money. I want to be clear about my love of board games. Whenever anybody tells me they have an educational board game that’s gonna teach me something, I’m out. [00:08:43] I do not wanna play that. But board games have actually taught me a lot, but it’s kind of the side thing. De Sean, you talked earlier about stockpile. Stockpile doesn’t teach you, I don’t think anything about trading, but there are cards that suggest that you might pay. Too much money in fees. It teaches you what happens when a company goes bankrupt. [00:09:02] Like there are some lessons there, but I don’t play it ’cause it teaches me anything. So five games, they don’t just have to be about money. They could be games that are about something else, running a business, there’s some kind of an economic engine, maybe a market involved. So something with a money component. [00:09:18] So we are gonna dive into the list and Katie, we’ll start with you. We’ll go ladies first. What’s your number five game on the Katie list? [00:09:27] Katie: Yeah, so my number five game, this was listed at number five ’cause I feel like I’m cheating slightly ’cause I haven’t actually played this game, but it’s my number one game that I wanna play. [00:09:36] It’s in the same vein as hegemony. So it’s actually the same creators of hegemony. It’s called World Order and some have been pre-released. Uh, I have not gotten mine yet. Uh, but it’s supposed to be released like fall of this year or spring of 25. It is more a macroeconomic version of hegemony. Uh, for those who haven’t played hegemony, you’re divided into classes and you’re trying to elevate your class. [00:09:58] This is more, you play one of four world powers in the decade of like 2010, and you’re either like, you know, the EU or the United States or Russia, and you are basically trading and building infrastructure both abroad and at home. Um, you can trade. Uh, so it’s a very long kind of complex game. That’s why I listed it at number five. [00:10:18] But it is my number one like want to play game right now. I discovered it on, um, board game geeks. They have been posting all about it. So very excited. [00:10:25] Joe: And you said that game’s like coming out right now? [00:10:27] Katie: Yes. Fall of 24, [00:10:30] Joe: uh, I’m not gonna be able to pronounce it. Hegemony. [00:10:33] Katie: Hegemony. Have you ever played that? [00:10:35] Joe: No, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen that game. And you are, to your point, you said you’re, you’re a different class of person. You’re trying to make, make your class do really well. So it sounds like everybody has kind of a different set of rules they play by. [00:10:48] Katie: Yeah. Correct. And then in world order, you’re basically given kind of like a trajectory. [00:10:52] Like if you are, you know, Russia, then you need to have like a military presence in, you know, the United States, but you also need to ally with Australia. And so you have not only like macroeconomic skill, but also you’re trying to expand your countries kind of hold over the world. So it’s really cool. I’m very excited. [00:11:11] Joe: You don’t sound excited at all? Oh, uh, Sean [00:11:14] Sean: or Daniel, have either one of you guys played Hany? I have not played hegemony, but I am really excited. Katie, I saw world order, so, uh, I’ll have to hit you up afterwards to, to see how that goes. That looks excellent. Sean’s [00:11:24] Joe: gonna throw his credit card at the screen. [00:11:26] I can see this is gonna happen already. [00:11:28] Sean: Get those points. [00:11:30] Joe: Daniel, [00:11:31] Daniel: I’m fascinated. I haven’t played it, but I mean, I wanna try it out. I’ve looked at it before, so I’m, I’m really intrigued. [00:11:36] Joe: You know what’s funny is a lot of people that like those classic games, Daniel, that you were talking about, some of those people are people that are fans of risk. [00:11:44] ’cause I think they don’t know other games where you are maybe different factions or different, uh, different nations fighting against each other. And I really like. A lot of games that are like that, that aren’t risk. I was surprised how much I hated risk when I went back and played it again after playing some of these other games. [00:12:02] There’s a modern game. A couple years ago we had Jamie Meyer on talking about his game, sth and uh, STH is another game that is very much your world power on this stage. New world order sounds. Sounds really cool. How much is it gonna sell for? Do you know? Katie? [00:12:17] Katie: What I found was about $50. I had pre-ordered it, so uh, it was different, but yeah, it’s one of the more expensive ones. [00:12:24] Joe: Awesome. Well expensive in the I be holder. I just got That’s right. I just got a couple of games that were 80. Uh, Sean, why don’t you go next, my man. [00:12:32] Sean: Alright, well, uh, apologies for this ’cause my next game is over a hundred dollars. However, uh, I’m gonna go in descending order of more accessibility and uh, this one is a family favorite. [00:12:43] For those of you that have ever played, there’s this big game called Twilight Imperium. That’s just like it takes all day. You see a bunch of folks around the table, like, you know, it’s, this is kinda like Star Wars the game. Star Wars the game. Yep. Basically. Well, there’s a, there’s a more accessible version of this game called Eclipse, and the new version is called Second Dawn for the Galaxy. [00:13:01] And I’ve got an 8-year-old, or I’ve had, when we first played it, he was eight, now he’s older and I have a junior hire now, and then my wife and we’ve had friends over love this game. So basically what it is, is you’re exploring, you’re expanding, you’re ruling an empire and you’re actually fighting. [00:13:19] Eventually you’re working up to fight the other factions that are in the game. Everybody’s got a little bit of different power. And then each of these groups have to manage all the planets that you own and the amount of resources you do. So let’s say you go and take a planet, then you have a great footing in, and it doesn’t have enough steel resources or science resources. [00:13:38] You’re not gonna be able to build your economy or your program from there. But this is one that we’ve enjoyed. It’s, it’s actually one we can play in about an hour and a half. It’s a much longer game. It’s a quick one to set up, surprisingly, uh, if you haven’t played it before. But, um, this game’s got these boxes that you just set out. [00:13:54] You need a huge table space to be able to do it. But, uh, yeah, we love being able to run a, like a galactic economy. It’s a part of this program. [00:14:01] Joe: I do, I have played this one, Sean and I second this one A. It’s a great game. It’s kind of a heavy game for, especially for people who haven’t played games before. [00:14:10] But man, if you’ve got the fortitude to make it through the rules, once you play one time around, it’s not hard. It truly doesn’t feel hard. It feels kind of intuitive to play your part. And I do feel like the whole time I’m playing, I have to manage my budget. And budget is, to your point, the resources that I need to be able to do the next thing. [00:14:30] Like, I’m, I’m, I’m often hamstrung by my own inability to budget correctly. [00:14:35] Sean: Yeah, I need to buy that spaceship. Gotta have the spaceship. [00:14:39] Katie: Daniel, have you played this game? Katie, you played this one. I have not, I’ve never even heard of it. I’m taking notes as you guys are all talking too. Yeah, and we’ll [00:14:47] Joe: also share all these, by the way, in our show notes at Stacking. [00:14:50] Benjamins, again, one of our most visited pages is always the show notes from this page so people can look into all these games. Sean, one more thing about this game. We played an epic version with all the expansions at the board Game Geek Convention, and there were, so I think there were 12 people around the table, and it was so many people that they had two people would play at the same time, so that it went around the table more quickly. [00:15:16] And we got through, we got through the game with that many people, still in about three and a half hours. Four hours. Yeah. Wasnt long. That’s great. Yeah. Daniel, what’s your number five? [00:15:25] bit: My [00:15:26] Daniel: whole thought process on this is what do I play with my family, like my kids and my wife? Um, because we play a lot of games at our dinner table. [00:15:33] It’s actually a little odd when we eat dinner and don’t play a game at this point. And so my first game, it’s pretty simple, but we love it. It’s splendor, which is only like $22 or something on Amazon and it’s great ’cause you don’t have to hold a bunch of cards or anything, but there’s something really enjoyable. [00:15:51] So you get different gyms and then you’re trying to essentially buy cards that help you get more gyms to buy more points. And it’s just a very simple game, but that my seven and 9-year-old can play. And uh, it’s really satisfying the poker chips that are, the gyms just feel so good in. But you can eat pizza or spaghetti and it’s not gonna ruin the game. [00:16:14] ’cause you know how a complicated game you’re gonna get food all over everything. Yeah. Yeah. This is one of those simple ones that you can just enjoy at dinnertime. And, uh, I, I, the economic part that I enjoy is that there’s never enough gyms to go around. So someone took the, the sapphires when you needed them and there’s this frustration of like, ah, there’s just not quite enough to get around. [00:16:35] So I enjoy that every time. Every time [00:16:37] Joe: I feel like I’m one move behind all the time, which is, I think, the hallmark of a good game when I feel like I’m behind by one move. Every time Katie or Sean, you guys play splendor [00:16:45] Katie: and I’ve never heard of it again. Adding it to my list. [00:16:47] Sean: Oh. So Sean, how about you? This is one of the few I’ve not played and that’s, this is a big popular game, so I’ve gotta get it out at one point. [00:16:55] I’m kind of shocked. [00:16:56] Joe: Yeah, me too. ’cause of the three games that we talked about already, this one is far more popular. It might have won the German game of the year. I’m not sure, but I think so. I [00:17:04] Daniel: think so too. It’s been a while since I like looked it up, I guess. But yeah, I think it did. [00:17:08] Joe: And if you’re looking for just a very simple game Mm-Hmm. [00:17:11] This game, Daniel, I would think you could teach the rules to this and maybe five to 10 minutes. [00:17:17] Daniel: Yeah. So my wife loves board games, hates rules and is not interested in rules at all. So I love a game where I can teach her in about five minutes ’cause then she’s happy and we’re happy and having a good time. [00:17:29] So [00:17:30] Joe: I remember going over, I, I was at a function in our neighborhood. There’s a hall where they were having some nonprofit thing and a bunch of us went and we were overserved, which makes it sound like it wasn’t my fault that I was drunk. Right. And so as we walked by my friend’s house, we stop at his house. [00:17:47] His, uh, sister-in-law’s there. And I’ll even vouch for this, this game’s great to play drunk. It was so fun to play after a few too many adult beverages because Daniel, to your point, it’s so simple. Uh, let’s go reverse order for round four. We’ll kind of snake this like it’s a draft. Daniel, you’re gonna go twice in a row. [00:18:05] Then what’s your number four? [00:18:06] Daniel: Sounds good. So my number four game is acquire, it’s the hotel building game. It’s about $40. Uh, something that’s kind of, I mentioned a monopoly earlier as if it was this horrible thing, but a choir has this similar feeling to monopoly where you have cash in your hand. What I really enjoy about this game is this feeling of like, Ooh, I’m gonna make this. [00:18:28] ’cause you take, you build hotels and eventually they merge. And if you have the larger hotel, you acquire that other one and you get lots of money for your stocks. And, uh, so it’s about buying stocks in the different hotels. And I thought I was so smart, you know, making all these moves. And then my wife in like a few moves just obliterated me and got thousands and thousands of dollars and I had like 4,000. [00:18:50] I thought, oh my gosh, I’m supposed to be the financial one. I, I’m the one who’s supposed to know what to do. And it was just really enjoyable. But it’s another game that’s like, it looks a little complicated maybe in the beginning about how, how much money do I get when I sell a stock or this or that. But once you start to play it, it’s not hard at all. [00:19:07] It might feel a little bit, but there’s something satisfying about getting like $50,000 in cash in your hand chain. Yeah. It just feels so good. [00:19:15] Joe: Yeah. Sean or Kate, do you guys play a choir? I’ve not played a choir. I have not, no, [00:19:19] Katie: I am, you know, questioning myself here. I now have things to add to my list for my birthday and Christmas of four games that I want, so I’m just gonna have to hide them from my husband. [00:19:27] Sean: Yeah, and I think the choir had a, they had a nice new reprint, didn’t they? There’s like a new version that’s out. [00:19:32] Daniel: There’s a 60th anniversary out. I don’t have that one. It’s about a hundred dollars, but it looks beautiful. And instead of the cash, I think it’s all, um, really nice weighted poker chips and things like that. [00:19:44] I mean, not poker chips, but, uh, they look really nice. [00:19:47] Joe: I’ve got the one from 2007 I think that is known as the most beautiful one ever. And it is, it’s, it’s just this gorgeous version of the game. Really chunky, big tiles. This is one of my favorite games of all time. Uh, I have four games I call my favorite game. [00:20:02] Choir’s one of my favorites. It’s easy to teach. To your point, Daniel, after the first turn, it’s simple. It looks a little abstract. Mm-Hmm. Because it’s just this board with these numbers and you play it kinda like you play Scrabble. You put down a piece, you very quickly buy three shares. So you’re buying shares of these companies, kind of betting on which companies you think is gonna swallow the other one. [00:20:22] The thing I love about the game though, and this is the mind bender, the only way you get more money is to be acquired. You’re our natural predator. Predator, you know, whatever in all of us is to be the acquirer. That’s the way every other game works in this game. Yes, I wanna be the person with the most money later on, but the only way to get more money is to get swallowed. [00:20:45] So I will try to buy stocks that I think are about to be swallowed up by other companies. It’s fascinating. It’s easy every time I’ve started a board game group. I will teach this game to the group first because it’s a core game that you can play in 75 to 90 minutes. Mm-Hmm. Which is a great board game, night game. [00:21:04] And if we end up with two tables of people, I can send the other group off to play a choir while I teach something else. Because I wanted one core game that everybody knows how to play. So Yeah. I don’t like that picket all Daniel. It’s a horrible pick. I’m like, why number four? Sorry, I was getting offended. [00:21:20] I’m like, dude, that’s number one. Come on. Yeah. Sean, what’s your number [00:21:24] Sean: Four? Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna switch up my order ’cause I’ve got a game that’s similar to a choir and it’s new, it’s called Foundations of Metropolis and Oh, for anybody that’s been around the board gaming community and has seen this big square box that’s called Foundations of Rome with these big chunky like Roman cathedrals and like the college and stuff. [00:21:44] That’s an expensive game. I isn’t it? That is an expensive game. Metropolis is the accessible version of that same game. So by the same designer. We actually gotta meet Emerson Massi, who, who designed this at a local board game convention, uh, called Grand Con here in Grand Rapids. Foundations of Metropolis really looks like a choir from like a similar board state, but the focus is you’re trying to buy deeds for certain lands. [00:22:06] And if you get enough of a plot of land, you can put a big development there. You could put a coffee shop there if you only have a little spot. Basically, you gotta be able to do like a lot of different real estate transactions and points at the end of the game. But ultimately, it’s been a really accessible, quick teach, uh, really easy for, uh, kids to play and actually a pretty accessible to find these days since it’s brand new [00:22:27] Joe: perfect game for our real estate nerds. [00:22:29] You know, I don’t know of a ton of great real estate buying games. That’s always been a little bit difficult, and there is one that people brought up in the past called For Sale, maybe for sale’s. Gonna be on one of your lists. But, um, for sale is such a light card game where this, this just looks, I don’t know. [00:22:47] It, it looks really pretty. The game looks really pretty. [00:22:50] Sean: Yeah, it’s really nice. And you get your own player boards, you get your own tiles. It’s got the nice chunky tiles too. And uh, yeah, everybody kind of just likes it when you get that hotel or the city hall or something and you get a bunch of points last minute. [00:23:02] My son, my junior hire has beaten me a number of times, you know, putting a monument right in the right place, right at the end. I’m like, I had this whole strategy, whereas buy in cheap. I had great properties. Nope, he got me. [00:23:14] Joe: Is that when dad teaches his son how to flip the table? Flip the board. [00:23:17] Sean: Yeah. I, I love teaching my kids things. [00:23:19] So he had this, this is how I won speech, which I used to do when we played a lot of board games. I was like, Hey, I just wanted you to know the strategy and how this happens. My junior hire comes back and he’s like, this is how I won. And it’s like every single time now I’m losing and he’s got the speech. [00:23:32] What have I created? [00:23:33] Joe: My son is 29 and is staying with us right now for a couple weeks, which has been really fun, but. He’s kicked my ass every night at board game, Sean, so yeah, it’s not gonna get better. Katie, what’s your number four? [00:23:45] Katie: Yeah, so my number four, I wanted to kick it back to like a very mainstream one that really got me into board games. [00:23:49] So, uh, the game of life, I had to put it somewhere on here. I think that was the first game that I remember thinking about money. And I love how you start off the game. Are you gonna go to college? Are you gonna enter the workforce? I love, you know, are you gonna buy a house you can afford? Are you gonna buy one that’s over budget? [00:24:06] How different careers have different incomes? And then the, obviously the goal of the game is to end life with the most amount of money, which Bill Perkins from Die With Zero would, you know, hate that. Right, exactly. But I love how it has like, real world things like, you know, you get a windfall of money, what are you gonna do with it? [00:24:21] Or oh, you, you know, your house caught on fire and or flooded and did you have insurance? You can have stocks, like you can buy one of the, the numbers of the on the dial and if it hits that then you get a dividend. So I feel like it teaches very basic financial literacy topics in a fun way that even kids can understand. [00:24:40] So I’m, I feel like it’s a game that’s kind of withstood the test of time. [00:24:44] Joe: It’s funny, I haven’t played life in in a long time, but a couple of the lessons that I remember a lot, Katie, number one is that decision you had to make right at the start of the game, whether you buy insurance or not, you know, you decide there it is, [00:24:58] Katie: Uhhuh. [00:24:59] And as a kid I was like, I don’t need insurance. And now as an adult I’m like, oh my gosh, I need insurance. Give all of it. Right? [00:25:04] Sean: I learned that I didn’t need to go to college. I did. But that’s right. That was always the thing. [00:25:08] Joe: Well in college it was interesting, Sean, to your point though, I mean college is, you know, the more I played the game life, the more I was like, it was about ROI, like, I didn’t understand it that way at 12, but I was like, do I go to college? [00:25:20] ’cause I’m spending this money, is it gonna be worth it? Like that was a big aha. [00:25:24] Katie: And I think one of my ahas was, oh, there are careers that I have to go to college. If I want to be a doctor in this game, I have to go to college. So I think it kind of opened my eyes to. Career paths right at the beginning of the game. [00:25:36] Joe: Well, and while it was always fun to load up that car with so many kids that you ran outta seats, also the lesson that kids are expensive was, you know, in that game a a ton too. That’s funny. I haven’t played life in a long time. It’d be fun to just go back and spin that wheel. Hear that sound alright, Katie, you’re going twice in a row. [00:25:55] What about, uh, you’re number three? [00:25:57] Katie: Yeah, so my number three, I work with kids for a living. I don’t have kids of my own yet, but this one can easily be played for kids, you know, all the way down to age six or seven. It’s called Cover Your Assets, which I just think is a clever name for, for a game. But it’s, it’s cards. [00:26:09] It’s a very small, cheap card game. It’s like $15 at Target. You basically are trying to collect assets. There are like different types of assets like JUULs and a piggy bank for savings and your automobile is an asset and stocks and collectibles and you have a hand and you’re trying to stack on top of each other, all of your assets by pairing two assets together. [00:26:30] And everybody plays their stacks kind of hands up. So you can kind of barter people for assets. Like I’ll trade you this Juul for your, you know, stock so that we can complete our own assets. You can try and steal other people’s assets, but the first person to stack their assets up to a million dollars wins, uh, very quick, like less than 10 minute card game and very easy to kind of pick up on. [00:26:53] Joe: That’s fantastic. I’ve seen it at the store. I’ve never played it. Have, uh, Daniel or Sean, you guys ever played this game? [00:26:58] Daniel: No, I’ve never tried it out. I’m really intrigued. It sounds kind of sounds fun. [00:27:02] Joe: Yeah. That’s super cool. I think that’s a game that my niece would really enjoy. You know what? I like the way that you described it, Katie. [00:27:09] I really like, I. You mentioned this, Daniel with Kaan. I like games where bartering is a part of the game because you realize there’s this other currency besides money. Like I can, Sean, I don’t know how you got rid of 50 of your games, but what a lot of people do is when they, and Katie, you talked about this earlier, you know, you get done with a game, you maybe trade it for a different one that you haven’t played. [00:27:31] I know people do that all the time. I know there’s buy nothing groups across the country where people will spend no money. Um, trading stuff that they don’t need anymore. Like the ability I feel like to be frugal and do this trading and then also the aha that, you know, a lot of the older board games to win, I had to beat you. [00:27:51] But in Kaan and it sounds like in cover, your assets to win, I kind of gotta help you if I’m going to help myself get ahead. Is that true? [00:27:59] Katie: Yeah. It’s kinda like a means to an end. Yeah. [00:28:01] Joe: Yeah. That’s super cool. I like that. Sean, what’s your number three? [00:28:05] Sean: Yeah. So, uh, my number three is gonna go in a slightly different direction. [00:28:09] One that we’ve gotten really into lately is because we’ve gotten really into history. So we’ve been looking into some of the family experience and um, I had a grandpa, grandfather, uh, baker, who’s in World War ii, and basically he was in the Army Air Force before it was the Air Force. And he was stationed in England and had a short tour of duty before he was shot down over Germany. [00:28:28] And so we’ve done a number of different stories of his life and experience, but we got really into access and allies. Access and allies. There’s a wartime economy where you basically have to determine, you know, what you’re gonna do to defend your country or what you might need to do to, you know, fight the forces of evil. [00:28:43] Uh, so it’s been a really interesting experience to, to basically figure out what type of units you might do. So for me, if I’m ever the US and you know, love my grandpa’s story. Buy a lot of bombers, see if we can go and help support Europe during the invasion, the potential invasion from the Germans at the time. [00:29:00] We’ve had a wonderful time because it’s helped us be able to dive into like, some stories from history. It’s brought up a lot of different conversations about different things that have happened in the world at different times. It’s also been a great connection point for my kids to dive into other things and it’s a pretty light game. [00:29:15] You can sit there, you’re rolling dice quite a bit. It’s, it’s kind of like advanced risk. So it still has some of those same, you know, they’re, they’re pieces that aren’t as exciting as a game. But I would say for an experience as a family and being able to just step into something and, you know, tell stories kind of throughout, it’s been a great experience for us. [00:29:31] And there’s actually three different versions of this. There’s a version that’s really simple and accessible. There’s a version that’s just a little bit more complex and takes a couple hours to play, and then there’s a really big version that takes the whole table and it’ll take a whole day. And we like the big version that takes the whole table and takes the whole day. [00:29:50] Joe: Uh, that’s wild. The next is an allies, I think, still available in a lot of just regular stores. Like a Walmart or a Target, isn’t it? [00:29:57] Sean: Yeah. The one that’s common right now is the second edition, so that’s the one that’s like brand new rule sets. And yeah, we have the, uh, 1940. It’s the very big, the big version. [00:30:07] There’s a 1941 version that I think is just a lot more accessible. You could pick it up and play it, you know, in an hour and a half and typically, you know, 20, 30 bucks. [00:30:15] Joe: And those will be more at your local hobby shop though, I would think. [00:30:17] Sean: Yes. Yeah. [00:30:18] Joe: But widely available. Yeah, widely available. I would think that’s pretty widely available. [00:30:22] I’ve never played Ax as an allies. Have either of you guys? Katie? Daniel played it. I’d never played. [00:30:26] Daniel: This is one of those blind spots where I feel like I should have played this by now, but I just haven’t. Me too. So [00:30:31] Joe: me [00:30:31] Daniel: too. [00:30:32] Katie: Adding it to the list. Adding it to the list, [00:30:33] Daniel: right? [00:30:34] Joe: Yeah, I’ve seen it a thousand times and, and I’ve never played Daniel, you’re number three. [00:30:39] Daniel: Well, Joe, you already stole my thunder. So my number three game, oh, is for sale. And again, this goes back to, we just played it last night at the dinner table and had a great time. So for sale’s, a very simple card game, you have different properties. Ranking one through 31 is a cardboard box in the rain and 30 is a, you know, international space station. [00:31:03] What’s really fun about it to me and like I can kind of teach my kids along the way is, you know, my son got some bad cards. The number one, the number three, the number seven. ’cause he blew his money early when he bid on the properties. ’cause he wanted the 30 and he didn’t even get the 30, he got a 29. [00:31:19] So he was all bummed, right? Like, oh, this isn’t gonna work out. And in the second phase of the game, um, that’s where your properties, you know, you get paid for them with checks as as the other deck of cards. And somehow my son is just raking in money with these tiny little cards. What I enjoy about though, and I was trying to tell him too, is like, yeah, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand. [00:31:42] But then you just make the most of it. And he won, of course. ’cause ugh, can’t believe my 9-year-old beat me. But it’s a really simple game that’s a ton of fun. And um, again, it’s a 30 minute game, maybe, [00:31:53] Joe: maybe 30. Yeah, it’s [00:31:55] Daniel: like 30 if you play it for the first time. But again, it’s a good dinner game. It’s like, it’s really great for my, my 7-year-old enjoyed it. [00:32:00] It was just a, it’s a fun game that also teaches you not to, you know, blow all your money in the first two cards, you know? [00:32:08] Sean: Yeah. Sean. Yeah. And Daniel, I was gonna say this was on my list as well too. So you have good taste. Oh, very good taste. Oh, okay. And there’s a good to know, there’s an auto version that just came out too. [00:32:16] So we love the, the cars. Uh, so you can buy different cars. So like, one’s a fancy limousine. The other is whatever that homer car from The Simpsons was way back when, you know? Looks like that. Love it. [00:32:28] Joe: This is one of the few games that’s appeared on list in multiple years. Oh, game’s been around forever. A lot of people like it. [00:32:34] Also, the price point Daniel is right. Uh, to your point, it’s, it’s not expensive. [00:32:38] Daniel: Yeah. It’s like 20, 20 bucks. I think it’s really accessible and easy and you can teach it to anybody. [00:32:43] Joe: Yeah. I learned this game super fast, uh, for sale number. Well then we’re, we’re rolling around. You’re, you’re back with your number two. [00:32:54] Daniel: So I, I put this game at number two because we play the two player version. So we play Tedo Duo. There is a, I think it’s four six player, but there’s a regular Tedo, but Tedo Duo, this is like my wife and i’s date game. So it’s a very small box and you’re this small, I you’re on this small island of Japan and you have three little characters. [00:33:16] So you have a or three maples, right? So you have a, a merchant, a pilgrim, and an artist. And so each maple move in a different way. And what’s really enjoyable is you roll three dice. And so maybe I move my merchant and then my wife then gets to choose between the last two dice so she can move her artist. [00:33:35] And that forces me in my third turn. To move the pilgrim. And so there’s this fun thing of like, I don’t want you to move your merchant, so I’m gonna move my merchant. It’s about like the risk reward, the cost benefit, where I think I’m gonna focus on these two maples to get me all of my points. I’m not gonna worry about that third one. [00:33:54] Um, and you can get a little power up and things, but it’s a really pretty game. The board is really beautiful and, uh, it’s pretty short. I think you can do it in 45 minutes. But yeah, I really enjoy that game quite a bit. It’s our coffee date game. [00:34:07] Joe: My sister owns this game and absolutely loves it. We have the main Chito game. [00:34:13] Daniel: Oh, okay. Which I [00:34:13] Joe: would talk similarly about if you’ve got a family. It’s a great, it’s a great family game. It’s very zen. Uh, Katie, Sean, have you guys played. [00:34:21] Katie: I’ve heard of it. A family member has it, so we’re kind of itching to borrow it. But um, no, we have not purchased it ourselves yet. [00:34:27] Joe: What I love about the base game to Kado is that it, it looks like a race. [00:34:33] It looks like you’re racing down this trail, but then when you learn the rules, the rules are so Japanese, it isn’t to race. It’s to have the most varied experiences. Mm-Hmm. And so the game feels very zen. You gotta stop at the shop. You have to eat different foods, you gotta meet different people along the trail. [00:34:49] You gotta visit the rice patties, give money at the temple and you’re gonna have to stop and work ’cause you don’t have enough money to go around. It’s a game that is very zen when you first learn it. If everybody’s played it a hundred times, like we have, the game becomes a lot more cutthroat. Like we, we can play Takeo nasty, which I don’t think is the point of the game, but we do anyway. [00:35:09] Uh, Sean, what’s your number two? [00:35:12] Sean: So I, I probably get my Zen in very different ways. So this one is gonna be, uh, Mr. President by GMT Games. And I think the name is not fully appropriate, uh, ’cause it probably should be Mr. Or Madam President, but the game itself is a beast. It’s probably, you know, the most complex of any of the games I have. [00:35:30] But if you don’t love the state of affairs now, or in the future or whatever it is, you actually get to be the person that that does and makes the decisions. And this one’s been a really good one. It’s a, it’s a big table presence. There’s a lot of little chits because GMT, that’s just the way they do it. [00:35:45] They have a lot of little pieces you gotta put on the board. Basically, wait a minute. [00:35:49] Joe: You, you are, you’re not running to be president. You are, because I used to have an old game called Mr. President where Yes, there’s an older version where you were running to be. [00:35:57] Sean: Yeah. And there’s also like campaign trail is is one that came out on Kickstarter a little bit ago. [00:36:01] There used to be a campaign manager, but yeah, this is, you are the president, you’ve been elected and you want to get reelected, but basically, and you don’t wanna get impeached. You absolutely can get impeached. Your chief of staff can get, uh, kicked out of office. Uh, but basically you just have to make all these decisions about, you know, hey, do we wanna invest in, in certain places? [00:36:20] Do I wanna take this specific policy towards the Middle East? Do I wanna prop up the economy in Latin America? And as you make those different choices, you have only so many actions you can do. Then it actually, things start to react. So if things are stable in Latin America, there might be an adjustment that happens or some significant event that doesn’t happen because you’ve propped up things or because of your stance in the Middle East, it may, you know, you may create a rogue state that then you might have to address or terrorism or, it’s just so interesting to be able to influence and it’s, it’s a long slog. [00:36:50] It, it could take you days or weeks to go through this game. But I wanted to put it on there ’cause it’s, if you wanna run the economy, that really is there, there it is. Yep. [00:36:59] Joe: You can say, what if I was in charge? And then you’re like, no, thank you. At the end. Yeah, no, thank you. [00:37:04] Sean: Yeah. You don’t have to run for reelection. [00:37:05] So that’s not a criteria. [00:37:07] Daniel: I, I feel like I would have to retire early to be able to play that game. Oh man. I’m jealous that you have the time. I wanna, the game is [00:37:13] Sean: a hobby in itself and No, I don’t, I usually make it a year through and then I’m like, oh, you know what, I’m, I’m gonna get impeached. I gotta step out here. [00:37:20] Joe: Is this a solo game? You play it by yourself. [00:37:22] Sean: This is, this is a solo game. So if, if you’re somebody who just like, hey, I like, you know, quiet and my space and you got a table off to the side. This is a good game. You can do it collaboratively. Me and a friend, uh, we were co-presidents, uh, and made the decisions together one time, so you can always get your best buddy and, and work on it together. [00:37:38] Katie: I’m too competitive. I don’t think I can play solo games. I need to try and win. Not only win, but be someone well beat someone. Yes. Mostly my husband. [00:37:49] Joe: Yes. Oh, be the real person, not the economy. Perfect. You know, the old, uh, Mr. President game, you’re running for election. And what I liked about that game was, was that you can play it with either two people or four. [00:38:01] I liked playing it with four because one person is your vp and you and your VP go in another room and you decide which states you’re gonna campaign on and what you’re going to say. And then, uh, uh, the VP square off for the, for the vice presidential debate, the presidential candidates square off. And it’s just really fun when you got this partner and you’re going in the other room and you’re trying to talk strategy against the other two people. [00:38:25] That game is long out of print to your point, Sean, but if you can find it at a garage sale or a thrift store, it is a fun game. We’ve played that game at game nights before too, and we end up laughing a ton. Not that the game’s funny, but it’s much more funny. Just that, you know, me and my buddy Rick beat Cheryl and her friend in the state of New York or whatever it might be. [00:38:47] That brings us Katie to your number two. [00:38:49] Katie: Yeah, so my number two is one of my all time favorite board games is Kaan, which we talked about, huh. And yeah, multiplayer board game. You are trying to expand your civilization, get to 10 points before everybody else. You have to, you know, diversify your resources. [00:39:03] You can’t just have all of your stock in, you know, or, or, uh, trees or wood. My favorite is when I can like, embargo a resource and I have all the sheep and I’m the shepherd and nobody gets sheep unless I say so. We get very violent with this game. We, we love Catan. I like that there are a lot of expansion packs. [00:39:22] So our favorite right now is the Game of Thrones version. Oh, man. Because Uhhuh, ’cause there’s a little bit of like, cooperative piece to it of like, you know, you’re trying to expand your settlements, but also like, you don’t want the beast in the wild wings over the wall to come and kill everyone. So you have to like, prevent that from happening while you’re also trying to expand so you can, you know, screw people over by putting the robber on them. [00:39:42] It is very vindictive, very fun. And you, yeah, barter and trade. It’s, it’s, we love it. [00:39:49] Daniel: That’s wild. I feel like Kaan Daniel, I feel like I have to jump in here ’cause Yeah, that sounds amazing. I haven’t played that expansion. Um, but way back in 2011, I worked at SeaWorld San Antonio running shows every summer we’d have this big break between shows. [00:40:05] And so I like snuck in Kaan and I played with all my coworkers every day for an entire summer. And, um, our games became insanely cutthroat where Mm-Hmm. Some people didn’t even wanna win, they just wanted to dominate a resource. Like, no, all brick is mine. So I feel that, uh, deep in my soul, Katie, I feel it. [00:40:27] I’m not [00:40:27] Joe: gonna win, but you’re gonna [00:40:28] Daniel: lose. That’s right. [00:40:30] Sean: We, uh, we love Kaan Jr. The junior version of this really quick play. It’s got all the same themes of regular kaan. It’s maybe a little less cutthroat. And then on the flip side, I would also add, I. We play Spirit Island, which is like the anti Catan, which is collaborative and you’re the spirits trying to drive the settlers out of Catan. [00:40:52] Joe: That’s funny. A game that’s become so big that there’s the anti game, let’s get rid of those people. [00:40:57] Katie: Yeah. We have like even the expansion packs we’ve played so often that we’ve made our own rules. So it’s when we’re like, we’re setting up the board. Sometimes we’ll like flip the resources over, so you only have to like put your settlements based on numbers and then like once everybody has placed their settlements to start the game, then you flip over the resources to like see what you’ve gotten and then you have to scramble if there’s one you’re missing or two you’re missing. [00:41:18] Joe: Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Does that shorten the game a little bit? [00:41:21] Katie: It actually makes it more difficult because you can’t strategically like, oh, I’m gonna put my spots so I have all five resources. Oh. When you flip sometimes you’re like, oh, I only have two. [00:41:30] Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that randomness for somebody plays it a lot, adds a little spice to it. [00:41:36] Katie, if I had a drum roll, I’d play it right now. What is your number one? Game with an economic engine. [00:41:44] Katie: My number one economic game is called Bonanza. And if you would’ve told me, Hey, this is a card game about beans, I would’ve said, I’m out. You, nope, not interested. I am out of the bean game. It is so fun and it’s super cheap. [00:41:57] It’s only, you know, 15 to $20 and it’s pretty quick play. So it’s supply and demand with like a little bit of an agricultural twist. And basically you are trying to plant your beans in your bean field and there are beans that are rare and there are beans that are kind of plentiful. The rare beans obviously are hard to come by, but when you harvest them you get more points and the, you know, more accessible beans with more plentiful beans. [00:42:20] Uh, yeah, there’s more of them easier to plant. But they are worth less coins. So you can barter, you can trade your beans. The beans have fun names like coffee bean, hot bean, you know, stink bean, green bean, stink bean, stink bean. You can’t forget. Stink bean. [00:42:32] Daniel: No cat poop beans. [00:42:34] Katie: No. Think, oh yeah. What was the, the coffee bean of the Yeah, Paula was talking about that. [00:42:39] But then, yeah, at the end, whoever has like harvested the most beans from their field for points wins. Really fun. I really enjoy bonanza. [00:42:46] Joe: Yeah, it should be. That was weasel poop, by the way. I just got what you’re talking about weel. Yes. Weasel poop. Weasel poop. Sorry. Yeah. Uh, that’s all right. People that didn’t hear that episode, Paula Pant and I were talking about, uh, my love of weasel poop coffee, which sounds gross. [00:42:59] And his like, heaven. Daniel and Sean, you guys both nodding your head. Have you guys played bonanza? [00:43:04] Daniel: I have a friend who loves it, so I am, I just haven’t played it. And so it’s just affirmation. I gotta get it. [00:43:09] Sean: Yeah. Sean, I, I played it once and I’ve been itching to play it again. ’cause it, it seems like a great game. [00:43:14] Joe: This is one of our family’s favorite games, my extended family, so my nephews, my nieces love this game. Uh, my nephew Logan, it’s his, I think it’s his favorite game. Whenever he comes to a family event, he’s like, we gotta play Bonanza. So make sure I had to make, I had to make sure I bring this game. To the event. [00:43:30] The, um, my dad died, uh, earlier this year, but when one of my favorite memories of my dad is my dad just going, who wants my stink? Anybody want my stink? Somebody wants my stink. Like, dad, we don’t want your stink. Nobody wants your stink bonanza. It’s, it is so easy to p Katie. I mean, I a hundred percent agree with everything you said. [00:43:50] The fun thing for me is not being able to change your cards around. Yes, you gotta leave your cards in a set order. You can’t change ’em, [00:43:56] Katie: which is very hard for me because I like to fidget when I’m playing card games. So I have to like, keep my hands away from my cards ’cause I can’t shuffle them. So that’s the hardest part for me, is just keeping my hands from shuffling my cards. [00:44:08] Sean: Alright, [00:44:08] Joe: Sean, you’re number [00:44:09] Sean: one. All right. So, uh, this one is unfortunately and woefully out of print, but this is an amazing game. It’s called LA. So it’s the French port city in, uh, not far from Normandy, but on the northern side of France. It happens to be the, uh, port city that my grandfather left Germany, uh, and left France, uh, from in, in World War ii. [00:44:30] But Lahav is incredible. I think at one time it was like Tom Bassal who runs the Dice Tower, his favorite game. We found a copy and we’re never letting this go. This game is, is, is a blast for all the family. Uh, I’ve got a 10-year-old that loves it. And basically what it is, is you are starting with a very like basic economy. [00:44:49] You’ve got wooden ships, you’ve got maybe some basic resources, and then throughout the game, new buildings, and it industrializes the whole economy as things go along and you get access to slightly different things. Like you might have started with coal and now you have access to be able to turn it into coke, which, uh, not the bad Coke, but the Coke that is really energy efficient. [00:45:09] Yeah, there’s other things like you can create steel, but you start with iron because it’s just, it’s just kind of wild. But there’s different buildings that come up during the game and you only have so many actions you can do the entire time. But you start with basically either choosing to go to a building where you might have a powerful action or you might go and collect some resources. [00:45:28] What’s great about this is you, you just keep getting more. You turn a little bit into more and then into more and into a lot. And every time you make a choice, it’s just like the happy choice. ’cause it’s like, oh, I could do this and it’s good. I could do that and it’s really good. I could do that. And that’s really, really good. [00:45:44] And it’s like the whole game is just like, just really positive. At the end of the game, you have point scores of like 400 or 300 or whatever, and you don’t care if you won or lost because the entire time you made the decision that you wanted to make every single time. [00:45:56] Joe: Have either of you guys played Lahav? [00:45:58] No. So this game came out, it was, um, the designer, by the way, it’s the same designer as Bonanza, which is funny. Ooh, yeah. Bonanza is I Rosenberg, this is also I Rosenberg. But he designed a game called, uh, aula, and then Lahav was his follow up to Aula. What was interesting to me when Lahav came out, at first it was huge. [00:46:18] Everybody said how good it was. I remember Tom Vassal, who, by the way, Tom’s done one of these episodes. I’ll link to it in the show notes so people can hear Tom’s list when he was on a few years ago. But Lahav. So my buddy picks it up, Sean, he buys it. We proceed to get so intimidated by the rules. We don’t play it for like four years. [00:46:37] When we finally played it, we’re like, what the hell took us so long? ’cause it, it, everything you said is true. It’s so fun. The game is just, yeah, it is. It’s a very clean economic engine. I get a little nervous but in a really good way. Like I get this feeling, I wanna do 20 things and I can only do one. [00:46:58] And so I gotta decide of those 20 things, which one, and to your point, I also don’t care if I win. I’m like, I really just enjoyed the experience of this crunchy goodness of trying to keep up. You know? It is, yeah. Lahav is, is a wonderful game. That is wild though, that two, both of our number one games are by the same designer. [00:47:18] That’s pretty neat. So Daniel, no pressure, but if it’s not by Rosenberg, you’re kicked off the second list. [00:47:23] Daniel: Well, I got some bad news for you guys. [00:47:26] Katie: Sorry about that. Darn it, Daniel. [00:47:29] Daniel: So my number one game is probably the prettiest game of all of mine, and that’s, uh, juicy Fruits. Have you guys played Juicy Fruits? [00:47:37] Sean: No. John, you’re nodding your head. Have you played it? I, I’ve been taught it. I have not gotten to play it. I saw it demoed and it’s, it looks like a lot of fun. [00:47:44] Daniel: So when I thought about this list, it was the first game that came to mind because the economic engine is fruit. You have this island and your island is very small and you have to move around on the island to get more fruit so you can ship off fruit and the boats kind of leave your island and it makes your your board larger. [00:48:01] So everyone has their own island. And so as you ship off, uh, fruit, your island gets a little bigger and then you get to decide. Okay, how am I gonna make my business better? So do I buy an ice cream shop so I can keep making ice cream to get points or am I going to build like a, a spa and a pool on my island? [00:48:21] But that takes up space so now I can’t get as much fruit. So there’s lots of great decision making in the game ’cause there’s so many ways to win. And I love a game that has multiple methods and it’s just, it’s really pretty. There’s little wooden bananas and pomegranates and limes and like all great games. [00:48:37] When it’s not your turn, you can build a tower with all of your wooden pieces ’cause that’s, you know, incredibly important to my 7-year-old daughter, uh, or my son who makes faces out of the fruit. So it’s just a really, what I love about it too is my kids love it, but my wife and I can play together in a much deeper game and it’s still just as great. [00:48:57] And it even has some different rules to make the game more complicated. And you can play it solo as well. So it’s just a really. It’s like a jack of all trades game. It, it can be played, won multiple ways and used different ways. So it’s a great game. [00:49:10] Joe: I love those games. This scale where you can play it with your kids and then when they get older, we have a few of those, uh, card game called Frank Sue comes to mind. [00:49:17] That seems really fun. When my kids were six and seven, it seem really fun and now they play it as adults. That game’s brutal. It is ugly, ugly, ugly, brutal but juicy for, I’ve never even considered buying this game. I see it at the store and I’m like, uh, I dunno. [00:49:31] Daniel: I didn’t think it was gonna be that great. [00:49:33] But we, we really enjoy it. It’s fun and it’s not stressful ’cause you’re doing your own thing, but at the same time someone might take your ice cream shop piece and now you can’t make ice cream and that’s a little frustrating. So stuff like that. [00:49:45] Joe: Alright guys, we’re gonna take a break here. And you know what, Doug has our halftime trivia. [00:49:50] Doug what’s on tap here on Black Friday and we’ll be back after Doug’s trivia with another top five list from each of our contributors. Top five games that you can play with your friends and family around the holiday that aren’t a waste of money. So many families go to Target, they go to Walmart and they buy these absolutely crappy games ’cause they don’t know what they’re doing. [00:50:11] So we’re gonna save you money by making sure the games rock that’s in the second half of the show. [00:50:20] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and I know if you’ve made it this far, you’re in board game heaven. So let’s stick with that theme, shall we? One game is iconic among board game players, not just because it’s won awards, bringing the designer and the company lots of Benjamins, but also because the pieces are pretty fun. [00:50:42] The game is called Carcassone and represents a walled city in France where civilizations of people have built walls upon walls to create a meandering walled city. The game features little wooden people in each player’s color. Turns are simple. You place a tile on the table to connect a road, a city, or a church, or a field to another tile as it fits, and then decide whether to place a wooden person on the tile to score points. [00:51:09] Super easy game and part of the reason why so many people like it so much, but this question is specifically about those wooden people. One early player created a name for the people, which now is ubiquitous among most board games with wooden people. What are these little pieces in most board games now called after being named this in the early two thousands? [00:51:34] I’ll be back with the answer right after I see if my people want to go down to the Sizzler. As soon as we’re done recording it’s holiday in trk baby. [00:51:58] Hey there, stackers. I’m hotel collector and the guy who just sunk your Battleship Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Lots of games that have come out in the marketplace over the last 25 years have featured little wooden people that players add to a board. They now have a name because of the game of the year winning Carcassone. [00:52:19] Today’s trivia question. One Carcassone player famously named her pieces, and now in nearly every other game to hit shelves, the people still share this name. So what are wooden people called in board games because of this carcassone inspired player? The answer. A woman once referred to her pieces as my people, and maybe after a few adult beverages shortened my people to Mele Wooden. [00:52:46] People in games are now called Mele. There you have it whether you wanna be or not. You are now a board game nerd who can speak their strange language. A little maples. It’s just so fun to say. Maples. Maples, meles. And now let’s head back to Joe, Katie, Daniel, and Sean. [00:53:10] Joe: And we’re back. And I’m super happy with this list. As much as I like the money list because I love turning people into money nerds as much as we possibly can as a community. I also get so frustrated when I go to the family event and somebody brings out a game that I know sucks really bad and they’re like, uncle Joe, I know you like games. [00:53:29] You wanna play this one? I’m like, oh God, no. I don’t wanna play that. Garbage. But then I realized I can’t be snooty. I have to be nice. I can’t be like Joe game snob. Sure, I’ll play. And I sit there and I wanna poke my eyes out. And then I realized we can be a force of good together guys and help people create some good games. [00:53:48] Last time we had Daniel on one end and Katie on the other. So we’re gonna put Sean as the one to go first this time. So Sean, what’s your number five game to play with family and friends around the holidays That doesn’t suck and is worth the money. [00:54:00] Sean: Yeah, so I will say flip seven. This is brand new and this absolutely does not suck. [00:54:06] So, uh, if you like blackjack, this is like better blackjack. So the, the way that this works is basically you just have every number of card is higher value, but there’s more of them. And if at any point among all the people at the table, if the same card comes out. You’re done, you’re outta the game. And so this is when we played with like groups at like community centers. [00:54:28] So I’ve had a, like a 15 person game. We talked to the people that designed the game. They’re like, oh yeah, you could play this with as many people as you want. But it also plays at like three or four. We played it, you know, in, in small numbers, but it’s so easy to play. You just put cards out in front of people. [00:54:42] And if grandma’s like, oh, I don’t like games, they’re like, no, no, no. Grandma, sit down. Here’s a card. She’s gonna get into blackjack real quick. [00:54:47] Joe: Perfect. For that big holiday gathering where the whole family’s there. [00:54:51] Sean: Absolutely. [00:54:52] Joe: Show the box again. I mean, a lot of people are gonna be hearing the audio of this, but it doesn’t look expensive. [00:54:56] It’s small. [00:54:57] Sean: Yeah. So, uh, it’s 13 bucks. You can get it on Amazon. It’s gonna be widely available. And I think they’re even gonna come out with a smaller version that’s like a stocking stuffer in the future. That was something they had talked about. [00:55:07] Joe: That’s fantastic. Flip seven, I’ve, I’ve seen that at the store and, okay. [00:55:12] Katie, you keep talking about making your list. Flip seven’s going on my list. ’cause that sounds like the thing that my family will love. Katie, let’s go with you second. What’s your number five? [00:55:20] Katie: So my number five is quite literally called toss the Pig. And it is exactly how it sounds is you literally toss a pig and they are two pigs. [00:55:28] Uh, there are dice size pigs. And then there we prefer the giant size pigs that are like the size of like, you know, ’cause why not? If I’m gonna throw a pig, [00:55:36] Joe: I’m gonna throw the big pig. [00:55:37] Katie: Exactly. It’s chaos. So you basically toss the pigs and whatever position your pig lays in each position has a name and you know the names are Trotter, Soutter, leaning jowl or Razorback. [00:55:48] Basically you get your points. And similar to blackjack, there is a position that the pigs are in that you, it’s called a pig out and you basically like lose all the points that you lost that round. So you like can roll, roll, roll, roll, you know, get all your points and then you’re like, you know, I don’t wanna pig out. [00:56:03] I’m gonna toss, or I’m gonna like pass the pigs. And the first person to get to a hundred pig points wins. But literally it’s so fun if you’re sitting at a table and a pig falls on the ground, like you dive under that table to like figure out what position your pig is in. You see like my little cousins like are just launching. [00:56:17] These pigs across the room. So a lot of fun to, to toss the pig. [00:56:21] Joe: Is that the same game as I’ve seen it called Pass the Pigs before? Maybe an earlier edition of the same game? [00:56:27] Katie: Maybe. Maybe We are just more violent. We just like to toss the pigs rather than like nicely pass them. But yeah, pretty cheap. Like the, the dice ones. [00:56:34] The little small rubber pigs are like, you know, 10 bucks and the bigger pigs can be like 20 to 30 real fun. What’s the optimal number of people to play this with? We played with like 10 and we had like my husband’s grandpa who’s in his nineties all the way down to like kids that are just having so much fun throwing pigs on the floor [00:56:50] Joe: because this sounds like almost like the craps table of Vegas where everybody’s gonna be screaming and yelling and clapping and [00:56:55] Katie: yes, it is pure chaos and it is worth every minute. [00:56:58] Joe: See, this list is the one that’s costing me money. Daniel, you are number five. [00:57:03] Daniel: Yeah, so this is a classic card game, in my opinion. It’s pit. Pit is. A crazy wild game that you can play with family. I think you can play with up to eight players where you have different commodities and you’re just trying to get all of the same commodity, but you trade with other people and you can’t tell them what you’re trading. [00:57:19] So you just gather three of a kind and you’re just saying 3, 3, 3, 3, 3. And then people won’t trade with you. So then you start going 3, [00:57:25] bit: 3, 3, [00:57:26] Daniel: and you’re just trying to get someone to trade with you. And, uh, we actually play it at my, kind of my wife’s family gatherings and we’ll, we’ll play it standing up, so not at a table. [00:57:36] So people are just like getting in people’s faces, like, here’s my cards, take my two. It’s a silly game. It’s not that. Complicated, but man, people, people get into it [00:57:45] Joe: this game. Daniel could have been on your money list because I know ’cause they’re simulating the commodities market. [00:57:51] Daniel: Yeah. And I didn’t even say there’s a bear and a bull. [00:57:53] Yeah. And so the bear means you get, you know, negative 50 points. And so you, you sneak that in all slide when you trade with somebody. And then of course the bull raises the market up and gives you double points. And so, uh, yeah. I couldn’t decide which list to put it on, but we have so much fun with it at family gatherings that it, we had to put there. [00:58:10] Joe: Sean or Katie? Have you guys played Pit? [00:58:12] Katie: We have like a similar version that, uh, my husband’s Canadian family plays, but no, I, I’ve never heard it called Pit. [00:58:19] Sean: Yeah. Sean, how about you? I have not, but now I gotta know what the Canadian version of pit is. I know. [00:58:24] Katie: I’m gonna have to find it. Yeah, it’s, it’s like an old, old, old board game that I think his grandma has had for like decades. [00:58:30] So, yeah, [00:58:31] Joe: I’m unsure. It’s called Old Pit Day or don’t you know [00:58:33] Katie: Eggs? Don’t, you know, eh, [00:58:35] Joe: I’m gonna get, I get emails every time. They’re like, we don’t talk like that, Joe. I’m like, I know. And it’s just fun. It’s just fun. The funny thing about Pit, so Pit is one of the oldest surviving board games I think that is out, it’s, it’s like early 19 hundreds. [00:58:49] This is a game that my parents played with my aunts and uncles when I was, God, I remember them playing pit when I was like five and six years old. Like we’d be out in the other room and I’m hearing my aunts and uncles and my parents screaming, yell and playing pit. And that game can get violent. By the way, if two people, if there’s a trade, if two people, they’re going 2, 2, 2. [00:59:08] And Sean and I trade the two and we both get the full set at the same time, it’s whoever can hit the button or take the spoon if you’ve got a cheaper version. [00:59:17] Katie: The spoons? Yes. Yes. Spoons. That’s, that must be spoons. [00:59:21] Joe: Yeah, you either take the spoon or you hit the button and I’ve hit the button and had my wife’s hand hit my hand so hard as she’s trying to hit the button, but she ends up clobbering my hand on top of the button. [00:59:31] That ca that game is fun. Don’t play it in a place, don’t play it in the library. Yeah, you can’t play that game in the library. [00:59:36] Daniel: If you wanna spice it up, you can always put the little bell or the button like in the other room and see people just sprint run for. That’s cruel. So yeah, we get a little wind tits. [00:59:47] Joe: Alright, Daniel, back to you. Uh, number four. [00:59:49] Daniel: So my number four game is for all the word game lovers. So it’s bananagrams, but the party edition. Um, there’s a couple different versions, but Bananagrams, um, it’s almost like you’re building your own little scrabble table and everyone’s doing in that. [01:00:02] Simultaneously you’re spelling out words with your tiles and you’re trying to get rid of all of the, the letter tiles. Uh, whoever finishes first wins, but the party edition just adds a. Lots of silliness. So there’s these tiles that you can, you know, if you flip it over, it’s like a punishment. And so one was like, you can’t play with your thumbs, so no thumbs. [01:00:23] And then you have to stand on one leg and then you have to yell out every word that you spell. And somehow my brother got every single bad tile, so he’s like standing on one leg, no thumbs, you know, just yelling out these words and dropping tiles and it just gets ridiculous. But, you know, but like a grandma, you know, my grandma can play it, you know? [01:00:45] And so it’s just one of those, it’s really fun and it gets, uh, it’s a good word, game ’cause some people are afraid of board games. But this is, this is a great one. [01:00:52] Joe: That’s super, uh, Bananagrams. I’ve never seen the party edition. I’ve just seen, I’ve got bananagrams sitting in the closet over here. Mm-Hmm. [01:00:59] Katie, what’s your number four? [01:01:00] Katie: Yeah, my number four. Along that same vein of like word games is called code names. So yeah, this is one that my husband’s family, we love to play this. So you’re basically divided into two teams. One person from each team is the spy master, and you basically have to get your team to guess words on a secret like kind of map that only the spy masters know. [01:01:18] So you wanna get your teammates to guess your words, not guess the other team’s words and really not guess the assassin card, which basically loses you the game. You have to like look at all the cards, think of one word as a spy master that you’re gonna give as a clue to your team to try and let, make them kind of flip the cards or tap the cards that they think you’re trying to get them to guess. [01:01:38] This game is hilarious because somehow like you say a word and you’re like, they’re for sure gonna get this one, and they totally don’t. So yeah, we, we love code names. [01:01:48] Joe: This game’s a perennial at our high Every year. Every year we end up playing code names as a family. Daniel, Sean, you guys as well. [01:01:55] Sean: Classic. [01:01:57] Yeah. [01:01:57] Joe: Play it in your family, Sean. [01:01:58] Sean: Yeah. We love this one too. Uh, we’ve got a little tiny version we take with us. [01:02:03] Joe: It’s [01:02:03] Sean: so easy to [01:02:03] Joe: teach. That game was an Insta Classic when it came. It was one of those games that when it came out. How many years ago did this come out? Maybe seven or eight years ago-ish. I just remember when it came out thinking, how come somebody didn’t design this earlier? [01:02:15] It just seems like a game that’s so obvious and so fun. I find I get better the more I play and maybe it’s the more I drink, I dunno. Probably get worse and I think I’m better. Like the second round, my brain starts to put these, these word connections together. Like as an example, if you’ve got dog and fire, my brain, the first round won’t think to put the word hot. [01:02:37] You know what I mean? So fire, hot and hot dog to put those two together. But in the second round, I don’t know. As I play it more, my brain starts to find these ways to say one word that connects all the dots and, and that makes it fun too. When you actually think of that stuff, you know, for 40 seconds, Joe gets to feel like a genius. [01:02:54] I. [01:02:55] Katie: Yeah, my favorite was, was playing with my husband’s family. And three of the cards that I had to get them to pick were wait, uh, W-E-I-G-H-T large, and then whole HOLE. So I said mass because you know, weight is mass, large things tend to have mass. And then we were playing with my husband’s family who live in Boston, uh, and they are nicknamed for, their drivers are assholes. [01:03:15] So, um, they somehow got all three and we ended up winning the game. And to this day we still talk about that. [01:03:24] Joe: That’s fantastic. Sean, you’re number four. [01:03:28] Sean: All right, we are headed to New Zealand as our big next trip. So Joe, you’ve gotta do a Stacking Adventures podcast on this, but, uh, don’t we have to? Yes. So Lord of the Rings dual. [01:03:38] So this is actually, I think, the same designer as Tedo, uh, or at least one of them. And then it’s a reprint of, basically a Rebadging redo or whatever of, uh, seven Wonders Dual. And it’s fabulous. Uh, it’s brand new. Uh, there’s a ton of copies. It’s like 35 bucks. You can find it, maybe 30. You might be able to get a used copy at some point, but basically you have to be, it’s the, you know, Frodo and Sam trying to make it to dump the ring and mortar door. [01:04:04] And then you got Rohan and all that trying to fight off the forces of Saron. And you have to basically. Do this card drafting, but it’s like in four different realms. You have to watch the Battle State, you can get allyship with all these different groups and you gotta go, you know, either catch the ring bearers or dump the ring in Mount Doom and it’s just really fun. [01:04:22] It’s a two player game only and it takes about 30 minutes to play. But we’ll play it and then we’ll play it again and then we’ll play it again. [01:04:29] Joe: There’s another date night game for you, Daniel. [01:04:31] Daniel: I am all about the date night games and lore, the rings, so sign me up. [01:04:35] Katie: Absolutely. I know. Same here. I’m like date night game. [01:04:38] Got it. [01:04:38] Daniel: Yeah. [01:04:39] Joe: This sounds like Sean, like the late night at the family gathering, there’s only a couple of you left awake. You know w we often get my brother-in-law end up being those two people and that’d be perfect for that. End of the night thing. I, I don’t love Seven Wonders. I love Seven Wonders Dual. [01:04:54] I love, I don’t know why I love Seven Wonders Duel with two players. Seven Wonders. The, the main game. I can’t stand and I can’t tell you why. Yeah. I just trade cards and put ’em down. I might as well be, I, I might as well pick ’em blind ’cause I suck at that. [01:05:06] Daniel: That’s how I feel. If that original game, I still have it, it’s just in my closet. [01:05:10] I don’t, I don’t think I’ve played it in 10 years. [01:05:13] Joe: Yeah. It’s so many people love Seven Wonders and I can’t do it. Sean number three. [01:05:18] Sean: All right. Number three for me is parks. And this is a, uh, wonderful game. We love this one. We are big travelers, so get into the national parks. The artwork on this one is incredible. [01:05:29] And honestly, I think that’s like the game, that’s the part that we love about it. ’cause we start talking about, it’s so [01:05:34] Joe: beautiful. Yeah. [01:05:35] Sean: You start, it’s so beautiful. And it’s, I think it’s like the 59 Park series. You can find these pictures out there. We love anything that’s like old travel pictures or, or, or things like this where they’ve drawn up, you know, a different interpretation of a place. [01:05:47] So like Zion, we just went to Zion National Park and there’s a beautiful shot of Angels Landing. But for this one specifically. It’s really accessible. We’ve taught it to a ton of family members. Everybody wants to talk about their park stories while you’re going along the trail. And the pieces are just really, really nice. [01:06:03] So every piece you touch, you’re looking at it, it’s like, oh, this looks great. And then you know, you continue to play. And for folks that like strategy, there’s a lot of strategy and you can wipe the floor with everybody that’s playing, but for everybody else you just have this nice leisurely stroll through the parks and you enjoy it. [01:06:17] Joe: That’s what I was thinking, Sean, you’re, you’re a hundred percent right. The people that love strategy, they can really get into it. ’cause it can have this deepness if you wanted to, but so often our friends, you just don’t care. You’re like, this is just a pretty game and I’m collecting, going to all these wonderful, beautiful places. [01:06:33] It’s funny because the game, because of the mechanism, the way you move your hikers along a trail. It feels a lot like todo. So in that way it’s like todo. It’s got a little bit more going on, I think, than Tedo has going on. It’s a little bit deeper, but Parks is one of our favorite game. In fact, we love parks so much. [01:06:50] I picked up both of the expansions for it, and a lot of times the expansions to me make a game worse. Like they just, they don’t, um, you know, Katie, you, you showed an expansion for QAN earlier. The QAN expansion that I made, the mistake of buying was the one that brings it up to six players. Whoever made that expansion needs to be taken out, back and shot. [01:07:11] Like it’s just, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry. I, I didn’t mean violent. Maybe shot in a very nice way with a, with a pel with something that maybe sprays water in their head. But that game for six pl No, just absolutely not. [01:07:24] Katie: It’s too much. Yeah, we, we kind of try and cap at four and then Yeah, there are definitely some expansion packs that we use more than others, that’s for sure. [01:07:32] Joe: Yeah, the sea fares is fun. I think that’s great. Some of the mini expansions have been fun, but parks all the expansions. I, I don’t know if Sean, if you’ve tried the expansions yet for parks. [01:07:41] Sean: Yes. We like the, is it nightfall Night Night something? Yeah, but that one with the bear and the tents is, or sorry, maybe I’m mixing ’em up, but there’s tents that you go to and you get additional actions. [01:07:51] It’s kind of like Lahav. You have all these good choices where you can pick the resources and you go for the one that gets you just a little bit more. [01:07:57] Joe: So great. So it just parks, it’s just this warm fuzzy every time we play it. Number three for Katie. [01:08:04] Katie: Yeah. So I don’t know if it’s too soon. We’re almost five years removed from Covid. [01:08:09] Um, but yes, we talked about it earlier. Pandemic, here it is. Uhhuh. Yeah. Had to bring it out. So my husband and I are both in the medical field, so we are like very into, you know, eradicating diseases. So it’s a cooperative world saving game where there are, you know, four diseases. Um, each person gets their own kind of role or job. [01:08:27] And then, um, as the game goes on, you can, you know, adjust your strategy to try and put out fires of each outbreak. And, uh, you can adjust how hard the game is and how easy the game is. So we always put, play it on the hardest level and honestly, we like lose the world to these diseases like 50% of the time. [01:08:45] Which makes it fun and we all disagree on which way we should go. But yeah, we have a, we have a blast playing this game. [01:08:51] Joe: I mentioned earlier we had to stop playing it in our family ’cause Cheryl plays the game for everybody. Mm-Hmm. You don’t disagree because she knows the smartest move. Like everybody agrees. [01:08:59] Yes, that’s the smartest move. But then halfway through the game, the last time we played, we were playing with these friends and this one friend of ours, Diana, was just like, Cheryl, what do I do next? She, she was just sitting sipping her wine. But I will tell you this, there’s a version of this game. I don’t know if you guys have played, but a legacy versions of this game. [01:09:18] Mm-Hmm. Have you guys played the legacy versions? No. Sean, Dan, you guys are nodding your head. Have either of you played the legacies? [01:09:23] Daniel: I have a friend who has it and I’m jealous. I really wanna try it out. [01:09:27] Joe: So there’s season one, season two, and Season Zero. Season zero’s like a prequel that takes you back to the 1950s in the Cold War. [01:09:36] I played season one and I played Season Zero. Season Zero is my favorite. I like the Cold War theme. What’s great about it is that not only are you playing pandemic, but the choices that you make, then you put stickers on the board and it changes the game for next time. And so the next time you play with slightly different rules and different things. [01:09:55] Change you. We had secret agents in the game that some of the times we’re playing it, we’re trying to catch the secret agent while we’re still trying to eradicate the disease. Other times we were trying to break into this medical facility in the middle of the game. Like you’re, you’re trying to do these wild special things and every time I played the legacy game, the designers of the legacy game make it so that there’s plot twists as well. [01:10:19] So you play it a few times and the plot twist is, makes it really fun. So if you can get the same people together and you really like pandemic, try out the legacy game for game night over and over. Katie, [01:10:29] Katie: is it, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t your wife in the medical field, Cheryl? She is. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this game like really hits home for us that are in the medical field, and I feel like if I was playing with non-medical people, I would take over too. [01:10:40] I’m like, listen, [01:10:42] Joe: this is the [01:10:42] Katie: plan. This is the way we do it. Uhhuh. [01:10:43] Joe: Yeah. Maybe that’s why we don’t let her play it anymore. Uh, number three for Daniel. [01:10:49] Daniel: All right, so I am reasonably certain that this was on last year’s. List on that podcast, but it’s with the [01:10:57] Joe: Thinker theme or ladies, [01:10:59] Daniel: uh, well now I can’t remember, but the game is the crew. [01:11:04] And I kind of foreshadowed this. I love card games. That’s what I grew up playing, uh, with my parents and my, my grandma. It’s a trick taking game, like spades hearts or pitch, but it’s cooperative. So you’re trying to accomplish these different missions. I have the, the Deep Sea version. There’s two different versions. [01:11:20] One in space and one underwater. It’s a great game for someone who, again, is comfortable with cards, but board games kind of freak them out. Oh. It’s just, it’s marvelous. You can play it over and over again. [01:11:32] Joe: Sean or Katie, have you guys played the crew? [01:11:33] Katie: No. But it sounds similar to Euchre, like the trick taking game Midwesterners. [01:11:37] Very much. Yeah. Yes. Daniel, you’re in Texas, right? [01:11:41] Daniel: Yes. Yeah. But yeah, you know [01:11:42] Katie: Ure, I’m impressed. [01:11:43] Daniel: Well, my grandma was from Kansas. Got it. So my parents are from Kansas, so I feel the, the ties got it. [01:11:49] Sean: To the Midwest. Yeah. Crew’s an easy one to get any group of Michiganders or Ohioans together to start playing because it’s very much Ohio. [01:11:55] Yeah. Love it. Oh, there, [01:11:56] Joe: there it is. Uhhuh. I will tell you, it was Corey and Jess, the pioneers for people that know this space, came and visited and they brought the crew with them and taught Cheryl and I how to play. And ever since then, Daniel, to your point, we’ve been teaching all our friends how to play and, and they’re all addicted to this game. [01:12:15] This game is so fun. If you have four people, I think you could play three or five as well. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Um, we generally play it with four, and we play the missions in order. Corey and Jess didn’t like to play ’em in order. They just like to pick random missions. I like playing it to see how, and we have this little piece of paper and saying, when we play with Mike and Dina, we’re on Mission 25. [01:12:34] We play with these people. We’re on Mission 21. We play at game night. We’re mission 23. Yeah. We’re, we’re generally about halfway done with all the different people that we play with. But the crew, to your point is, is really, there was one time that it didn’t go over well and the woman just had never really played many trick taking card games and her significant other’s family played them, played them really fast, you know what I mean? [01:12:59] Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. People that know Yuker, they’ll go, oh yeah, so you got that one, you got that one, and we’re done. And somebody new to the game be like, what the hell just happened? Mm-Hmm. Yeah. And everybody else at the table’s like, oh, it’s easy. Just forget about it. And the poor woman, Stacy, uh, was just like, I’m lost. [01:13:13] I have, I’ve, and we took our time and we’re getting into it, but she was already so intimidated by the time we started it with stuff. [01:13:20] Daniel: Yeah. I could see that happening for sure. I played with someone who had never played cards before and he would do things. I’m like, what are you doing? You know, eventually he got it. [01:13:29] We had to lose about five times in a row, but we got it eventually. [01:13:32] Joe: Well, and I have a friend, I talked about Cheryl running the table at Pandemic. I have a friend, Mike, who is such a hardcore card person that if you play what he deems to be the wrong card, he gets angry. He gets. He gets really, he’s like, it’s the same thing. [01:13:47] Daniel’s like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t know. I’m just playing the game. [01:13:50] Katie: I don’t know if it’s the same way with you guys with Eker, but I swear after every trick that’s taken everybody at the table like discusses how like my family, like as we’re dealing the next hand, we’ll like talk about the hand before and what went right and what went wrong. [01:14:03] We have to like nitpick everybody’s decisions. [01:14:05] Daniel: That’s right. Gotta debrief the whole thing. Yeah. [01:14:08] Joe: We have friends from Texarkana, their daughter was marrying somebody who’s from Toledo, and so they invited us over to teach them how to play URE so they could play with the Ohioans. And we were very proud. [01:14:18] Yeah. To teach ’em Ure. It was super fun. That brings us, let’s see, Daniel. Oh, it’s your turn again. Daniel. What’s your number two? [01:14:24] Daniel: So this is a very simple game that is tons of fun and it’s called Cinco Lingo. We bought this so that our kids could play something when we go to a restaurant and we needed to like, you know, have them not lose their mind and we all kind of fell in love with it. [01:14:39] So all it is, it’s five in a row and you have four different colors of tiles and you’re just putting ’em on the table and trying to get five in a row. But you have three other people to worry about blocking. And uh, what I love about this game is last Thanksgiving we played with my kids’ cousins who are like teenagers and they’re all worried about me ’cause they’re like, oh, Daniel’s gonna win somehow. [01:15:01] And my 6-year-old daughter is just like setting up her five in a row and nobody stopped her. It’s like an observation game. ’cause you start talking and doing other things and next thing you know, someone trapped you and they have five in a row. It’s so simple and it’s tons of fun actually. [01:15:16] Joe: Cinco lingo. [01:15:17] Sean, you’re nodding your head. Have you [01:15:19] Sean: heard of it? I actually have not heard of this one, so I’ll have to look it up. [01:15:22] Joe: Yeah. Katie, you’re looking like me, like during the headlights. You have no idea what this game is. [01:15:26] bit: M. [01:15:27] Joe: Yeah, but you’re up next. So I’m sure you’ve played the number two game on your list. [01:15:32] Yes, I’d hope so. [01:15:32] Katie: I would hope so. Number two game on my list is $7 at Target. It’s called Phase 10. [01:15:39] Joe: I thought it was called $7 at Target. I’m like, I’ve never played that. Yeah, [01:15:42] Katie: exactly. You can, yeah. And, and you go to Target with $7 and then you get lost in Target and you just buy a bunch of things and that’s the game. [01:15:48] But no phase 10, it’s similar to Rummy, uh, if you guys have ever played rummy, but this is like our brewery card game. Like we’ll take it when we’re at a brewery and we will play with anywhere from like two to six people. And it’s a card game where you are trying to meet objectives or phases and each phase from one to 10 increases in difficulty. [01:16:07] And at any given round, people can be on different phases. So, you know, phase one is you have to get two sets of three of the same number all the way up to like, you know, one run of nine. Any given hand. People are on different phases, have different goals. You can skip players. You can be behind by so far and catch up. [01:16:25] It is. It is. And just [01:16:26] Joe: reel ’em in. Mm-Hmm. [01:16:28] Katie: It’s really fun. [01:16:28] Joe: The only problem I ever have with phase 10, Katie, ’cause we used to play this game quite a bit. I wish it was called phase six. Yep. Because by the end I’m like, let’s just end, please God. Let’s just, and I know some people that play it that way. [01:16:41] They’re like, we’re just gonna play to six or seven. [01:16:42] Katie: Exactly. We’ll even do five. Yeah. We’re like, we’ll, whoever gets it to phase five. [01:16:46] Joe: Yeah, don’t feel like you gotta be a completionist with this one. ’cause it is super fun. [01:16:49] Katie: Mm-Hmm. [01:16:50] Joe: Super, super fun. I’m not gonna say the game that we replay, we used to play Face 10 all the time, but now whenever we get an itch for Face 10, we play a different game. [01:16:59] But I’m afraid it might be on one of your lists, so I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna say it. Sean, maybe it’s your number two. What’s your number two? [01:17:05] Sean: Yeah, so my number two is Five Minute Marvel. There’s a sister version of this called Five Minute Dungeon, and it’s a great game to play with eager children who are excited, or even like a big group, you can actually play it with a bunch of different folks and you can play it pretty simple. [01:17:21] But basically there’s all these villains. So you’ve got like the Goblin, green Goblin, if that, whatever the guy’s name is from Spider-Man, you’ve got. Thanos, you gotta defeat Thanos. You’ve gotta defeat, uh, Loki and each of the different times you’re trying to defeat them. And then a bunch of minions throughout the entire game, you have a resource. [01:17:38] So you have cards and they’re very clearly labeled. There’s like a lightning bolt, there’s a text symbol, there’s a fist that’s nice and red, and you’re throwing these cards on the table and everybody’s like trying to do it all at the same time. And you’re trying to get through a list of like 30 minions and then fight Thanos in five minutes. [01:17:56] And so the way that this works is it’s chaos for five minutes and sometimes you lose and everybody’s like, let’s do it again. And sometimes you win and it is like the biggest sense of relief. And sometimes you run outta cards because you know you were a little bit too domineering and the rest of the team needs to go and finish the match. [01:18:13] Uh, but yeah, that’s a really fun one. Super easy to pick up and play. And it’s like 20 bucks. You can find it at any friendly local game store or, uh, I’ve seen, uh, Dungeons on Amazon, I think is well right now too. [01:18:26] Joe: I have never seen this. That sounds like a blast. Yeah, it sounds cool. [01:18:29] Katie: Yeah, I’ve never seen it. [01:18:30] Joe: This, it sounds like a game. Another game. My nieces and nephews will like at the holiday party. All right, I’m circling that one. Uh, Sean, then that means you’re going first. We’re at number one. Number one already. I say already, and we’re 90 minutes in to this at number [01:18:47] bit: one. [01:18:48] Joe: Sean, what’s your number one game that doesn’t suck for the holidays to play with? [01:18:52] Yeah. Yeah. So [01:18:53] Sean: Azu absolutely does not suck. Oh, love Azu. And I hope I took that from everybody else’s number one. Um, but there are many versions of Azu, if we all wanna pick a different one. But, uh, A is one that. Every single family member we played this with has gone and bought their own version. And we’ve gifted versions and everybody talks about it and they play it and it’s fabulous. [01:19:15] It’s by a company outta Canada, so I think it’s Quebec, uh, Quebec where, where it’s from. Yep. But, um, the group is these tiles that you basically, there’s theses these sections. You pick tiles, uh, that are all of the same color. There might be four, and they might be a bunch of different colors, and maybe there’s two that are yellow, and then like one that’s blue and one that’s red. [01:19:33] You’ll pick the two that are, are yellow. You’ll take ’em into your, your tableau that you have in front of you, and then everything else goes into the middle. And you take negative points if you’re the first person taking from the middle. So you wanna wait until the middle’s nice and good, but everybody’s taking all the good stuff from all these little other spaces. [01:19:50] The great part about the game is you have all this strategy as to, ooh. How do I take these two yellow tiles? I have an option for 1, 2, 3, 4, and five. If I put it in the five, I’ve gotta find three more yellow tiles by the end of this game, or I’m outta luck. Or I could put it into one and I’ve gotta take one of those tiles and dump it down to the bottom and take negative points. [01:20:10] I can put it into two, but maybe I don’t wanna take it into two right now. So there’s just like a number of different options that are really good here. And we love playing azo. It’s probably the one that we fight over playing constantly, and there’s a lot of different versions. There’s a mini version that we like that’s really great, that’s got like an inset player board. [01:20:26] So it’s one of those games that if you accidentally knock it, everything goes flying. Uh, and you’re like, what did I do? Oh, the mini board has like nice little spaces. You can put everything in. [01:20:36] Joe: Katie or Daniel, have you guys played a dual? [01:20:38] Katie: Yes. For my family Christmas, it was maybe in recent past, but we got it on Christmas Eve and we opened it and we ended up playing well past midnight. [01:20:45] Joe: Over and over and over and over. Yeah. Daniel, you’re nodding your head [01:20:48] Daniel: Well, this is a funny game because I heard such amazing things about it that I bought it for our dear friends that are in Hawaii when they moved and I had never played it with them when they moved. We didn’t get to play before they moved away. [01:20:59] So they love it. And one of these days I’ll actually play it. [01:21:02] Joe: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, for people that like splendor, which Daniel was on your list, it very much is the same weight of a game as splendor. Mm-Hmm. It’s kind of the same. It’s very easy, like Sean said, to figure out what to do. It’s fairly easy to teach. [01:21:15] I resisted this game, Sean, ’cause I thought it looks so damn boring. This game looks to me just so boring. I was visiting my daughter when she was living in Kansas City and we went down to a board game cafe, really cool board game cafe downtown. You paid $5. It’s a huge wall of games and then microbrew beers and what could be wrong with that, right? [01:21:33] So we sit down and um, we played some other game first and finally we said, well, let’s try, let’s try this thing. People are talking about it and I immediately went and bought it. Immediately went and bought it and it’s so good. And the expansions, Sean, are pretty good too. A friend of ours loves the Zul so much that they’ve bought like three different expansion types of this [01:21:52] Sean: game. [01:21:53] Yeah, yeah. And it’s actually standalone games. So there’s a summer pavilion, right? There’s a chocolate version. So maybe that wouldn’t have been as boring until I get into There’s a queen garden. You got me now. Yeah. We’ve tried a bunch of different ones. It’s a, it’s a great one. [01:22:04] Joe: If they had a donut version. [01:22:05] Yes. Mm-Hmm. It’s wonderful. That’s a great, uh, Zul is a great game. I, I think a Zul might have also won. We talked about Game of the Year before. I think that’s one game of the year as well. Uh, if it wasn’t the German Game of the Year, which geeks consider the big game of the year? I’m sure one of the other publications Diced Tower. [01:22:21] Somebody called that Game of the Year. ’cause that’s, that’s been, uh, just a fabulous game. Uh, code Names also was a game of the year. Looking at this list at one point. Ooh, Katie, your Nuero Uno. [01:22:34] Katie: So my number one is Ticket to Ride. So this was our pandemic game. TTR. We would play a lot with my husband’s family on Zoom, like you, there’s online versions. [01:22:46] We love a good map. So it’s very, uh, you know, geographic, there are so many different expansions, like, or different games. So there’s, you know, Nordic countries, there’s India, there’s European, there’s the United States. I just got the new one. [01:22:58] Joe: I got the brand new one. One. Poland. [01:23:00] Katie: Poland. I haven’t even seen that one yet. [01:23:03] So, yeah, brand new. Oh, it’s so fun. So basically the game is you get tickets city to city, and you have to get there via trains. And some of them have, uh, ships, which is our favorite, um, rails and sails. My favorite part about this is my brother and sister-in-Law, both unbeknownst to each other, put ticket ride in their wedding vows. [01:23:21] We love this game so much. They play so much that they like vowed it to each other at their wedding ceremony. So I love how each game, uh, has like its own unique rules. Like, uh, the India board, you have to kind of, you get extra points if your cities connect in two different ways. So, you know, city A to city B, if you can get there, like, you know, via this route, that’s just, you get the ticket, but then there’s also points if you get it via a different route. [01:23:45] Yeah, [01:23:45] Joe: you make a big circle. [01:23:46] Katie: Yeah. So I love how there’s like, you know, so many different maps and we get very mean. You can cut people off, you can intentionally sabotage people. It is, uh, it is a game that we love. It’s my number one. [01:24:00] Daniel: I love this image of Joe rolling away on his chair, trying to get more games, but contain his headphone cable. [01:24:08] You know, Uhhuh, that’s great. Image [01:24:10] Katie: Stacked mine all up right here. [01:24:12] Joe: So two things that are cool if you’ve got this game is so ubiquitous. If you’ve never played Ticket to Ride, what the hell are you waiting for? It’s I Kaan. Yeah. You know, Kaan and Ticket Tory are two games that are just, uh, so many people how to play. [01:24:24] But, um, our friend, uh, Vincent Psi, who has been on the show a couple times as a thank you when he came through town and we just took him out to dinner, it was no big deal. He was like, thank you for your hospitality. He, he got us these off Etsy. These are handmade little things to hold your cards. Love it. [01:24:43] So we, we set these out now and they’re really sweet. So on Etsy, I’ll see if I can link to some on the show notes page for people that are just listening to the audio, but there’s little things to make sure they don’t scuff the table and little feet it’s, yeah, these are really sweet. And we talked about Pandemic Legacy. [01:25:02] I asked Cheryl for the holidays last year for the Big Daddy O, which is stupid expensive. And it’s this one Ticket to Ride Legacy. [01:25:14] Sean: Yeah, that’s the legacy. Okay. Yeah, the legacy takes, that’s so cool. [01:25:18] Joe: Yeah. Legends of the West and we’ve played it almost completely. We have, uh, one more year to play. And I have to tell you, it is so much more complicated than regular ticket to ride. [01:25:29] But it also is so incredibly fun. Every area of the nation has its own, has its own characteristics. I’ll tell you if you like Ticket to Ride and you don’t mind it being a little crunchier, a little, a little more going on. It’s a really fun version. I know. It’s a, it’s a beast. And when you see the amount of money it costs, it’s crazy how much that cost. [01:25:51] I think it was, I’m gonna guess 140 to $160, uh, for the game. It was not cheap, but Katie, yeah. Ticket to Ride is one of our favorites. Katie, what is your favorite map? [01:26:04] Katie: Yeah, I think my favorite is Nordic countries. [01:26:06] Joe: Love it. Beautiful. So, so good. I think some of, [01:26:08] Katie: yeah, some of the tickets are just such, they’re so long. [01:26:11] Um, like some of them are like 26 points and the, you know, from one city to another is sometimes like eight trains. And so you are building up, building up. And if you need blue and you see somebody else picking up blue and you’re like, you better not be doing the same one as me. I know I love Nordic countries. [01:26:24] Joe: It’s is, you can tell Katie likes her games mean because Nordic country’s a little meaner because all the tickets seem to go the same way. And it’s easy to get choked out in Nordic countries. [01:26:33] Daniel: This is another one that I have yet to beat my wife, I’ve never beat my wife in Nordic countries ever. [01:26:39] Joe: And I also think Nordic countries, you can’t play it with more than three people. [01:26:42] You might be able to, but I wouldn’t. [01:26:44] Katie: Yeah. [01:26:44] Joe: Three people or two or three people. That one’s great. My favorite is Japan. I really like the Japan map. You can decide whether you’re gonna work on your own or are you gonna build the bullet train. Mm-Hmm. And everybody gets the bullet train and whoever builds the bullet train the most is gonna get a bunch of extra points. [01:27:00] So you decide, do I build the bullet train? Do I not build the bullet train? And if I’m not building the bullet train. Or if I depend on the bullet train, is the bullet train actually gonna make it to my destination? Mm-Hmm. Because you don’t know that either. So you’re gambling a little bit. Super fun. And, and the, the map on the back is really good too. [01:27:16] It’s Italy, so Yes. [01:27:17] Katie: Switzerland is a really good one too. ’cause like your ticket will be, oh, I want you to go from like a city to just Germany. There are like five different ways you can get to Germany. Um, so yeah. Yeah. Ticket to ride. We love it. I even have the app on my phone and I’ll play online with random strangers across the world. [01:27:33] Joe: Yeah. Uh, uh, Cheryl plays whenever we’re on a plane. Mm-Hmm. Whenever we’re on a plane, grabs her iPad. Uh, Sean or Daniel, you guys, uh, have any favorite, uh, ticket to ride moments or not a game for you? [01:27:42] Sean: We play San Francisco, which is like the, it’s like a really quick version and my kids love the trolleys when we were there. [01:27:48] So, uh, that is very nostalgic for us. [01:27:50] Joe: I saw they have New York and London also, maybe Amsterdam as well is short, shorter versions. I played the New York one, which was also really fun, Sean. So yeah, if you’ve got younger people or people that have a DD like those, those quicker versions might be good. [01:28:04] Daniel, how about you guys? [01:28:05] Daniel: I believe it’s ticket ride Pennsylvania, where you get the stocks for those stocks for the railroads, I think I just have a thing for stocks and games. It just makes me feel so powerful when they all pay off at the end. Uh, but that’s a really fun one. Just adds that extra little layer of complexity. [01:28:19] Uh, that’s a good one for sure. That’s a true [01:28:21] Joe: stacker answer right there. Yeah, I like the one with the stock market in it. Good man. Absolutely. Well, speaking of you Daniel, we got one pick left to go. These lists have been phenomenal guys. Thank you so much. These have been just, just great. And are you gonna say a card game or are you gonna say a board game? [01:28:38] Daniel: I have a weird one for my last one. Are you ready? Okay, [01:28:41] Joe: well then I’m gonna just say, because you’re not gonna say it, Katie, you were mentioning phase 10 earlier. Mm-Hmm. The game we replaced it with, which we also like that I can recommend. It is called Five Crowns. We now play five crowns a lot, and it’s a little bit shorter. [01:28:55] It’s similar. You got a little bit different mission every time you play. And, um, we’ve beat the hell outta some five Crown decks. Uh, very, very phase 10 ish. Uh, awesome game. So cool. All right, Daniel, the last one. You’re number one. [01:29:09] Daniel: All right, guys. Here’s the thing about this one. You can’t buy it anywhere because it is free. [01:29:14] 99. This is, this is my favorite party game. This [01:29:18] Joe: is, by the way, for a money show. This is the perfect thing to end on. Hey, I got you Joe. Kind of game. [01:29:22] Daniel: This is a wonderful game. I call it fishbowl. It might have different names. So this is my favorite party game, like bar none. There’s no nothing greater. And all it is is every single person writes down on a piece of paper, a person, then another. [01:29:38] Paper, uh, place and then a thing. So Joe might, you know, write Benjamin Franklin on one Texarkana for his place, and his thing might be, you know, dollar bills or something like that. Right? Then what we do is we put all those things in a hat, and the first round is just playing, uh, like taboo. So I’m just trying to get my team, you split into two teams to guess the word. [01:30:00] So I open the paper up and I’m like, okay, the word’s Benjamin Franklin. And so I’m gonna say, you know, he’s on the, you know, I’m gonna get all nervous. I’m like, oh, the $20 bill, no, no, he’s on the a hundred dollars bill. And someone’s fine. And says, oh, it’s Benjamin Franklin, right? And so we gather our points. [01:30:14] That’s the first round, but then you put all the papers back in the hat, and then the second round is charades. Everyone’s familiar with the answers, but if you’re playing with like 20 people, I mean that’s 60 items if you think about to to guess. So you’re doing charades and your time a lot. Make it shorter. [01:30:32] So you have 30 seconds for the taboo in the first phase. The second phase, uh, for charades, we usually do 30 as well. And then the third round is where it gets absolutely wild and crazy. So the third round is, um, you only can give a one word clue. It’s great ’cause everyone knows the answers, but you’re stressed out and you’re freaking out and you only have 15 seconds. [01:30:53] So you look at this paper and you know you need a clue for Benjamin Franklin. And then sometimes you mess up and you say president and no one. Quite knows what to do and you, you’ve given the clue it’s over. So your turn might end and then you pass it on. And then we play with the, um, rule. So for the third round, if you say, um, um, is a word and that is now your clue. [01:31:14] Joe: No. Oh, you guys are hardcore. That’s vicious. [01:31:16] Daniel: So it, it forces you to really like hold your tongue. ’cause everyone does it. It’s just, we all say, um, and so you just sit there and you’re like. What do I say for Texarkana? You know, and it is just, it is, you say, um, that’s what we say. Yeah. You say, um, and it’s a, it’s a ton of fun. [01:31:32] You know, I always use strange words that no one understands, but by the end of the game, you just start yelling out all the weird words. You’re like, I remember there was this one weird word. It’s just a ton of fun. So I call it fishbowl. I’m pretty sure you can Google it. Um, but yeah, the first round is taboo. [01:31:47] The second round is just like charades, and the last round is a one word clue. And, uh, you get as many as you can in your time slot. [01:31:53] Katie: Yeah. You, you’ve [01:31:54] Daniel: played [01:31:54] Joe: this Katie? [01:31:55] Katie: Yes. We call it salad bowl. Okay. Yeah. And this is a. Family favorite. And we one year played a prank on one of our loved ones. He’s a big Cincinnati Bengals fan. [01:32:03] I’m from Ohio, and so everybody like met beforehand and we just wrote every player on the Cincinnati Bengals roster, and he was just getting so confused. He’s like, wait a second. Like how is every, we all just came up with this. It was hilarious. We love this game. [01:32:18] Sean: Uh, have you played a Sean? I have played it, yes. [01:32:21] And I also like Joe Burrow, so that’s great. I love it. [01:32:24] Joe: Super. I’ve played not the free version, believe it or not, I played the version that you pay for, uh, it’s, it’s called Time’s Up. There’s actually even a newer version that my daughter bought and I can’t remember the name of it. It starts with an M uh, had I known you were gonna do it, I would’ve looked it up, but Time’s Up, it has a ton of cards that are pre-made. [01:32:43] You deal out all the different cards and then you pass back cards that you don’t think people are gonna get, and so you end up with a big fat stack of cards. What I’ve loved about even our games of this. I do like the randomness of some of the names. Like sometimes I’ve been dealt cards. I don’t know who the hell this is, but I can only give back five and there’s seven names, I don’t know. [01:33:05] And so there’s two where people are sounding it out during that first round to kind of figure out who it is and then the stuff that happens. Uh, during a game, we had Isaac Asimov. Anne Frank in the same game and the person’s clue was pointing up and, and, and the person’s first guess was Anne. Frank. [01:33:28] Frank, Frank. And the person goes, Frank, no, no, no, no, no. And still goes up like higher up. Yeah. Yeah. Isaac Asimov. Yes, it’s great. So we, we laughed a ton about just up and then the kind of a little bit sacrilegious one for Han Christian Anderson. We just did on the cross. We just, just make a cross, which was a little bit wild. [01:33:48] And then we had Tennessee Williams, who was a, you know, is a famous playwright, but my brother-in-law thought it was Boxcar Willie, the kind of old sixties and seventies, like twangy singer. So whenever we had Tennessee Williams, he’s playing on a banjo and we’re like, yeah, he doesn’t play a banjo, but it’s Tennessee Williams, [01:34:05] Katie: Tennessee. [01:34:06] Joe: It was so good. Anyway, lots of, as you can tell, lots of memories around this game. I like the free 99 though. [01:34:12] Katie: Yeah. Daniel Bravo. That was a great number one. Yeah. Aw, [01:34:14] Joe: thanks guys. Perfect way to end. Katie. Sean, Daniel, thank you for helping people save some money and also make some good choices, you know? And also hopefully teach another group of gamers, young gamers, to be great gamers. [01:34:29] If we can help people, more people play board games. ’cause I think for most of us that don’t collect a ton of games, this can be a super frugal hobby for 20 bucks. You get hours and hours and hours of fun if somebody is afraid of board games. Let’s end this way. I’d like you to either say something about games that really is the attractive part to you. [01:34:49] Like, what is it that you really like? Either inspiring or if, you know, some people get intimidated by games. Like, you know, my big thing is trying to make sure people don’t feel intimidated when they start. Uh, how do you either help people get into a game or, or how do you help people get inspired to wanna play games? [01:35:06] Katie, what do you do at your house? [01:35:08] Katie: So if it’s a game they’ve never played before, sometimes I’ll pull up like a quick YouTube video that will describe it so it’s not me kind of impressing on them. It’s, it’s, you know, a random expert. I also tend to play the first round, like if it’s a card game, like Face Up or you know, we’re just gonna play like a couple hands or a couple rounds, you can ask your questions and then we’ll dive in. [01:35:25] So yeah, I think it’s a great way to connect with family and friends and, and if they’re intimidated, those are kind of the tricks I use. [01:35:31] Sean: Sean, how about you? Since we have the benefit of a collection and, and I just love theme, I, I love, you know, something that immerses me in a different world. I, I think about that person that we’re gonna get connected with and I find the theme to get excited to do that with. [01:35:43] So I’ve actually bought games where I’m just like, Hey, my dad doesn’t love games, but this game I think he’d get into. So one we just bought was vinyl. He loved collecting records and, and it was like, you know what? I love this game. What? We’re gonna try it. And that’s kind of where we’ve gone in is, is anything that we could do that was a theme that we thought somebody would like, [01:36:00] Joe: I will play it. [01:36:01] I will take a game to somebody’s house. If they made dinner and it’s not overly expensive, I’ll take the game to their house. I’ll teach ’em how to play it. And then I will give them the game at the end of the night, which is a fun, fun gift when somebody invites you over for dinner. Obviously if we’re being really frugal, we know the money to do that, don’t do that. [01:36:16] But for me it’s a great way to spread the love. That’s great. Sean, Daniel, how about you? You got the last word. [01:36:21] Daniel: Yeah. Uh, board games can be such an amazing thing because they can stimulate your mind and your creativity. Um, but you get to do it while talking and hanging out with people, with your friends and your family. [01:36:33] And I think that’s what I love the most about board games is that you can, you can put the screens away and you can just hang out with people you care about and laugh and get a little irritated and then laugh again. ’cause you gotta irritated and just have a great time. And, uh, it’s just a way to build friendships and bonds with people in a different way than you would, you know, going to see a movie, for instance, where you sit in silence beside one another. [01:36:55] But I can play a board game and sit across from you and laugh and, and learn more about you and how you think. So, um, if you’re afraid of a board game, don’t think of it as a board game. It’s just a, a time to hang out with friends and family and get to know each other on a deeper level. [01:37:08] Joe: Man, I wanna second that emotion on the other side. [01:37:11] I have one friend that was super competitive before he started coming to our board game nights, and I would just admonish him when he would get really upset. I’d say, dude, nobody’s gonna remember this in 24 hours. Like, it’s not the Olympics. Yeah, we’re we’re not really competing here. Like, it doesn’t matter. [01:37:26] And his wife actually told my wife. About six months later said we hated playing games with my husband before he started playing games with Joe. And now he’s like, who cares? It’s fine. Well, you know, don’t get me wrong, he see he’s playing to win when he is there, but if he doesn’t win, he shrugs his shoulders and we go on. [01:37:41] Which is Daniel, to your point, it’s far more about the shared experience. So we will link to Katie’s list, Daniel’s list, Sean’s list on our show notes at Stacking. Benjamins, everything we’ve, this could be a monster, monster show notes page. Thank you guys for your time. This took us way longer. I promise everybody to pull back the curtain. [01:38:00] I promise them this is gonna take an hour and we’re at two hours, we recording. So thank you for taking the time to make our fellow stackers, uh, holidays better. I appreciate all three of you very much. Thank you. [01:38:10] Daniel: Yeah, thank you Joe. This was great. Yeah, thanks for having us. It was so much fun. So much fun. [01:38:13] Sean: Yeah. And you all were so great. It was so great working with y’all. And I was like Daniel, I’ve got connections. My wife’s actually in San Antonio and my sister, my parents are there now too. Uh, just like all at the same time right now. So for various things going on. Yeah. They’re on like the north side of San Antonio, but Katie, I’m from Ohio. [01:38:29] And Joe, I gotta tell you, I’m gonna the Ohio State game this weekend, so I’m so excited about that. Wow. And, yep. Yep. Yeah, there we go. I, [01:38:39] Katie: I’m an Ohio, I’m an Ohio State grad. I know. With Joe and OG and all their Michigan talk. It’s really hard. Yeah. [01:38:44] Sean: You all gotta stop. Okay. All gotta stop. Who, who Like Katie in. [01:38:48] You did Joe. You did [01:38:49] Daniel: before. You did before this ends. I just need to say Go Chiefs and Bengals. Nah. So just wanna [01:38:56] Katie: say that. Hey, it’s a sad life ’cause I’m a Brown fan, so at least I have the Buckeyes. Pretty sad [01:39:00] Sean: life as a Browns fan. I hear you. I know, [01:39:03] Katie: but, but I have the Buckeyes, so they’re my professional sports team. [01:39:06] Yes. [01:39:06] Sean: There you go. [01:39:06] Joe: Yeah. Well, we’re headed to Cleveland for Christmas. So Katie, if you’re in the area, I, I think we’re gonna do a Stacking Benjamins meetup. Actually, again, I’ve been doing them lately when we go, when we come to that area. So I don’t know if you’ve got family, they’re nice if you’ve got family there or. [01:39:18] Katie: I’m more central Ohio, but yeah, it’s a quick, it’s a quick drive. [01:39:21] Joe: Yeah, I was gonna say it’s not that far. Yeah, that. That’ll be fun. Doug. I think you got it from here man. What should be on our to-do list today? [01:39:30] Doug: So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? First, take some advice from our panel board. [01:39:37] Games can be a great activity for the family and a way to save money at the same time. Try one out from this list and tell us what you thought. Second board games don’t have to be educational to still teach some lessons about money, about sharing or about spending time chatting with each other instead of staring at a screen. [01:39:57] But the big lesson, don’t play Carcassone with Joe’s mom. She doesn’t call the people Maples. There’s that word again. It’s so fun. Meles Meles. Once she heard today’s trivia segment, she started calling them My bitches. No, mom, your bitches ain’t taking over. Carcassone. I’m not even sure we should be using that language. [01:40:20] This show is the property of SB podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [01:40:40] Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Moms Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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