Decision Space

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast! Episode 147 - 2023 Holiday Board Game Gift Guide This week Decision Space veers towards consumerism at the seasonally appropriate time. We bring you our best insights on what games will make good gifts to the people in your life (we hope) by answering prompts shared in our discord. Interdecisional Spaceship passengers, prepare your wallets!   Pre-Planners Heat, Ticket To Ride, and Planet Unknown   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Main Discussion - 3:11 Heat - 4:16 Ticket to Ride: Legacy - 5:01 Apiary - 5:47 Azul - 6:52 Frosthaven - 7:22 Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition - 11:59 Warhammer Underworlds - 12:45 Marvel United - 13:33 The Resistance - 16:15 Modern Art - 16:46 Raiders of the North Sea - 17:49 Spicy - 21:10 Sushi Go - 23:41 Cascadia - 27:34 My City - 28:19 The Fox in the Forest - 29:15 A Feast for Odin - 30:12 Riftforce - 30:35 Planet Unknow - 30:40 Can't Stop - 34:30 Just One - 35:49 Challengers! - 39:29 Set - 41:43 Claim it! - 44:21 Draftasaurus - 45:56 Coconuts - 47:19 Mysterium/Mysterium Park - 49:16 Celebrity - 49:22 Renature/Babylonia/Zoo Vadis - 50:50 Findorff - 52:08 Paperback - 53:58 The Isle of Cats - 55:30 Calico - 56:18 Potion Explosion - 57:08 Forgotten Waters - 59:05 Crokinole - 1:00:58 QE - 1:02:01 Wingspan - 1:03:07 Sea Salt & Paper - 1:03:38 Air, Land, & Sea - 1:04:19 Blue Lagoon - 1:04:53   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast! Episode 146 - Five Knizia Hidden Gems with Jared Ingersoll Oops, Jake forgot his microphone! No worries though, Jared Ingersoll President of the Reiner Knizia Fan Club was willing to jump in and share his top 5 hidden Knizia gems. These picks come straight out of his personal collection of *checks notes* over 100 Knizia games. Enjoy!   Pre-Planners Heat and Ticket to Ride   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Knizia Histories - 3:15 5 Hidden Gems - 9:45 Tower of Babel - 10:34 Rhinelander - 17:00 Orongo - 23:46 Beowulf: the Legend - 34:44 Municipium - 42:13 Indigo - 50:35 Reif für die Insel - 57:15   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast! Episode 145 - Something Old, Something New, & Something Never Getting Reprinted This week, Jake and Brendan talk about some recent plays in a mini-review format. Our gift to you, dear listener is covering something new (2024 release!), something Old (1997), and something out of print and (probably) never getting reprinted (???). Brendan also reveals a new segment that you are probably really going to like. And hey wait, what's that music in the background?    Pre-Planners Heat and Ticket to Ride   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Main Discussion - 3:15 Nokosu Dice - 4:18 Glory To Rome - 15:50 Zoo Vadis - 26:58 Hansa Teutonica (The East Expansion Board) - 37:23 Tigris and Euphrates - 42:20 Abluxxen/Linko/Scout - 46:39 MLEM: Space Agency - 51:05   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

The podcast discusses factors that make a game replayable and debates if replayability even matters. They explore the role of decision-making, variability, randomness, and depth in creating replayable experiences. The hosts share examples from board games like Villagers, Can't Stop, Spirit Island, and Chess. They also touch on the relationship between replayability and self-governance in video games. Ultimately, they delve into the subjective nature of replayability and the influence of external factors on its importance.

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast!  Episode 143 - Santa Monica   This week, the Interdecisional Spaceship takes a much-needed detour to the beach. That's right, we are catching some waves in sunny Santa Monica. In the episode, Brendan and Jake will deep dive into the game and get into some pretty deep waters about the implementation and nature of variability in this game. Enjoy!   Pre-Planners Santa Monica coming up next week!   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Ratings and Review - 2:09 Game Background - 5:29 Rules Overview - 6:17 Santa Monica Deep Dive - 8:15 Takes from Preplanners - 16:34   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast!  Episode 142 - Our Most Played Physical and Digital Games   Brendan and Jake share their top 5 most played games digitally and physically and think about what these lists mean through a lens focused on replayability. We hope you decisionaughts enjoy this discussion as much as we enjoyed having it!   Pre-Planners Santa Monica coming up next week!   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Main Topic - 2:46 Most Played Games Digitally - 10:47 My City - 11:09 Bruges - 12:54 Star Realms - 14:13 Hey, That's My Fish - 17:34 Lost Ruins of Arnak - 19:12 Claim It! - 24:!8 Tigris and Euphrates - 26:56 The Castles of Burgundy - 29:52 Challengers - 32:44 7 Wonders - 35:48 Most Played Games Physically - 39:23 Kingdomino - 39:42 The Fox in the Forest - 41:21 Monikers - 44:54 Dominion - 47:06 Arkham Horror: The Living Card Game - 50:29 The Resitance - 53:56 Keyforge/Magic: the Gathering - 55:55 Cascadia - 57:58   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast!  Episode 141 - Catching Up   We didn't prepare for this episode at all! Without time to create a full fat episode of Decision Space, Jake and Brendan hop on the mic to catch up with eachother on what has been going on over the past few weeks. We invite you to listen in. Topics include Jake's vacation, the games we've squeezed in, TV shows, and Stonemaier Design Day. Enjoy and we will see you next week for an episode we've actually prepared for.    Pre-Planners New to the list Taverns of Tiefenthal! Santa Monica, Food Chain Magnate, and social deduction games et. al remain in our backlog. Santa Monica will likely be the next deep dive we do!   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Can Games Be Scary - 3:50  Can't Stop - 11:35 Zombie Dice - 12:36 Jenga - 13:00 Dread (RPG) - 15:33 Pandemic/Pandemic Legacy - 16:59 The Princes of Florence - 18:10 Incan Gold/Diamont - 20:37 Clockwork Wars - 21:42 Hidden Movement (Fury of Dracula, Letters from Whitechappel, Beast) - 23:46 Star Wars Rebellion - 25:11 Codenames - 25:32 The Resistance - 27:01 Spooktacular - 33:25 Broom Service - 33:47 Mysterium/Mysterium Park - 35:35 The Mind - 37:45 Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition - 41:45 Return to Dark Tower - 43:55 The Hunger - 48:04 Social Deduction (Werewolf, Blood on the Clocktower, Deception: Murder in Hongkong, etc.) - 50:20 Arkham Horror: The Living Card Game - 51:10 Alice is Missing - 53:33   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

In this spooky episode, the hosts explore the possibility of fear in games and share recommendations for spooky games to play. They discuss the appeal of being scared in games, the fear and uncertainty that comes from betrayal in board games, and the eerie atmosphere created by certain games. They also discuss Richard Garfield's vampire-themed game and recommend spooky board games for a game night.

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast!  Episode 139 - Torres So we may be a little obsessed with Kramer and Kiesling games, but we felt compelled to share our thoughts on Torres -- a spiel winner and honorary 4th game in "the mask trilogy." In this episode, we return to our classic deep dive format where we share ratings and reviews and then get down to business breaking down the decision space. We try to think about what separates this game from some of the other K&K action selection/territory control offerings, the action economy, and a very cool card system that drives the whole thing forward. And with that, the Interdecisional Spaceship is off!   Pre-Planners New to the list Taverns of Tiefenthal! Santa Monica, Food Chain Magnate, and social deduction games et. al remain in our backlog. Santa Monica will likely be the next deep dive we do!   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Ratings and Reviews - 3:20 Game Background - 5:47 Rules Overview - 11:00 Torres Deep Dive - 12:47   Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you found this podcast!  Episode 138 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Balance, Part Two ...And we're back with part two of the balance what we talk about episode. This time we dive into questions of perceived balance vs. objective balance, and do we really want an objectively balanced game? If so, who is that really serving? We talk about the ways designers might choose to balance the game, and *gasp* how they even use players to do this dirty work for them. Of course we give examples, and wrap up with a discussion of so what, why is it that we even care about balance, and what are the consequences of an under- or over-balanced game. Sheesh! That's a lot, we hope you enjoy it as today's in flight entertainment aboard the Interdecisional Spaceship!   Pre-Planners Santa Monica, Torres, Food Chain Magnate, and social deduction games et. al are coming up in the relatively near future!   Timestamps    Intro - 0:00 Discussion Start - 2:53 A Few Acres of Snow - 8:45 Citadels - 12:24 BattleCON - 13:39 Findorff - 15:16 Player Balance vs. Designier Balance - 17:30 Root - 18:00 Cosmic Encounter - 20:43 El Grande - 23:49 Zoo Vadis - 25:44 The Castles of Mad King Ludwig - 28:50 Isle of Skye - 30:33 Keyflower - 31:14 Bruges - 34:16 Magic: the Gathering - 35:10 Why do we care about balance - 36:10 Innovation - 44:10 Imhotep - 47:47 Diplomacy - 51:51 Freedom: The Underground Railroad - 52:58     Music and Sound Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.  Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA Rules Overview Music:  Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060​ Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way...​ Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI Contact We can be reached individually on Twitter at @jakefryd and @burnsidebh. You can also follow Decision Space on Instagram @DecisionSpacePod and talk to us there! If you prefer email, then hit us up at decisionspa@gmail.com. This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com. Byeee!