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

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

On to the timestamps:

8:57 Wir Sind Das Volk! 

30:17 Whale Riders

40:38 Audience Correspondence: Fueling Consumerism

1:01:12 Carnegie

Carnegie, Whaler Riders, Wir Sind Das Volk!

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

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

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

On to the timestamps:

4:14 Audience Correspondence – Past Games

23:13 Res Arcana

42:25 Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate

1:03:05 Distilled

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

Distilled, Worldbreakers, Res Arcana

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

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

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

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Review Copies and NPI

6:13 Earth

25:20 Audience Correspondence - Game Wear and Tear

31:01  Lacuna

45:21 Audience Correspondence - Aeon’s End

52:16 Voidfall First Impressions

Earth, Lacuna, Voidfall

More and more board games are adopting eco themes! Whether it’s Daybreak and it’s simulation of climate change or Dune: War for Arrakis and Dune’s enviromental themes and… uh… one or two plastic miniatures or Ticket to Ride Legacy and… um… all the railroad constru…. You know what nevermind, welcome to board games! It’s board games everyone, aren’t they good? So good those board games. Are they good? It depends on which one it is. And thus enters the board game reviews. They’re here. Enjoy it.

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

On to the timestamps:

00:00 Cold Open

1:27 Intro

2:30 Audience Correspondence: Green Appreciation

6:08 Dune: War for Arrakis

38:26 Daybreak

59:07 Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West

Dune: War for Arrakis, Daybreak, Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West

A remake, a new take and an expansion walk into a bar. The barman says, “what’ll it be?” They all reply “something fresh.”

Was that too mean? I think that was too mean, especially since at least (and also at most) two of the games discussed in this episode are pretty great. And one of them is okay. We revisit the classic Terra Mystica in it’s new more thematically demure incarnation, we explore how Raising Robots riffs on Wingspan and Efka finally gets to play the expansion to his favourite game of all time - Sidereal Confluence. Let me tell you folks - it’s been bifurcated.

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

0:00 Cold Open

2:48 Intro

3:43 Age of Innovation: A Terra Mystica Game

33:22 Raising Robots

53:23 Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation

Age of Innovation, Raising Robots, Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation

This episode we only cover two games, but we had so much to say it ended up being a full length episode anyway. Which isn’t a surprise really when you end up with two follow ups for two massively succesful games. It’s the follow-up episode! And if you strain your thinking really hard, you could even argue that this very episode is a follow up to previous episodes, and thus thematically represents the games themselves. It’s nice when things like that line up perfectly. Please enjoy our chatter on 7th Citadel (sequel to 7th Continent) and Wyrmspan (sequel to Wingspan).

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

0:00 Cold Open

0:38 Intro

2:44 7th Citadel

34:15 Wyrmspan

7th Citadel, Wyrmspan

I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something special about the momentum of two player games. The tension, the back and forth. The sensation of making a clever move is so much more palpable than in any other player count. Today we’ll take a look at three two player games, each interesting in its own way, and also two more on our bonus episode.

Our friend Jon from JonGetsGames has designed a game called Spring Cleaning, which we mention in the episode, you can pre-order it here: https://www.newmillindustries.com/store/p/spring-cleaning-preorder or you can play it online on boardgamearena.

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

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Cold Open

2:04 Intro

4:08 Run

24:31 Haggis

37:07 Harrow County

Two Player Special: Run, Haggis, Harrow County

Cute, but deadly! We used to dance under that name but you could also use those three words to describe today’s selection of games.

Harvest is a farming worker placement game so cloyingly sweet you could squeeze condensed milk out of it. Is it good? Jury’s still out.

War Stories: Occupied France is the unlikely combination of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and Undaunted - how does that even work? We’ve got the scoop.

And finally… Dorfromantik: The Duel. Last year’s adaptation of Dorfromantik to board game form was low key our favourite light tile layer. But now naturally come the spin-offs and we’ve got some takes.

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

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Go Listen to So Very Wrong About Games

1:34 Cold Open

3:35 Intro

4:30 Audience Correspondence - Horror Games

12:25 Harvest

28:30 Audience Correspondence - Haggis

30:44 War Story: Occupied France

48:40 Audience Correspondence - More Haggis

51:26 Dorfromantik: The Duel

1:00:24 Outro

Harvest, War Story: Occupied France, Dorfromantik: The Duel

Vroom vroom it’s time to kaboom! Or something along those lines because today’s feature game is all about smashing cars into other cars. It feels like we’ve seen this type of game over and over through time, from Rock’n’Roll Racing to Mario Kart to Twisted Metal to Carmaggedon - the world is full of games that let you cause car accidents on purpose. But let me tell you, it’s never been done like that in cardboard. Joyride is a delight!

And there’s other games too! We take a look at the somewhat bland and reliable Invincible: The Hero-Building Game and the charming Wilmot’s Warehouse in its new board game incarnation.

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

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Cold Open

0:39 Intro

1:44 Audience Correspondence: Qualia

5:29 Joyride: Survival of the Fastest

30:58 Audience Correspondence: Standardized Size

34:29 Invincible: The Hero-Building Game

53:19 Audience Correspondence: More Haggis Letters

55:29 Wilmot's Warehouse

Joyride, Invincible, Wilmot's Warehouse

Folks, folks and folks, please come join us for a marvelous carboard celebration through time, energy and cities. Gaze your eyes to Paris in 1920 and marvel at the deductive action of Kronologic. Now turn those eyeballs further east towards Germany and amaze yourself with the fantabulous power of Nucleum and finally, fly up and up and up and then look down for a birds eye view of cities in Cities. It’s a show like no other and that show is called Talk Cardboard.

For more NPI please visit https://nopunincluded.com

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

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Cold Open

2:48 Intro

3:42 Audience Correspondence: Convention Demo Learning

8:45 Kronologic: Paris 1920

19:52 Audience Correspondence: Board games in libraries

25:29 Nucleum + Nucleum: Australia

1:09:31 Audience Correspondence: Wilmot's Warehouse

1:13:26 Cities

1:25:40 Outro

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