232 – Most Anticipated 2021 – The Family Gamers Podcast

Our fact this week is about Section 232 investigations – how do imports effect national security?

Thanks as always to our sponsor, First Move Financial! Another listener question this week, is it always better to buy a house than rent. The short answer is “it depends”. Owning a home isn’t for everyone, but if you want help talking through whether it makes sense for you to buy or rent, set up a free phone call by going to firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers today.

It’s been a brutally long year since last February. And February is also the coldest, most miserable month. I’m so done with winter! But we will make it through. The pandemic is not done yet, but maybe we can suggest a few things we’re looking forward to for this year.

On the bright side, February is also the time for punny Valentines.

What We’ve Been Playing

Dream Runners (review). Check out the giveaway on The Board Game Spotlight!

Cloaked Cats (review here, on Youtube, and below)

Cloud Control (review on our site, and on Youtube)

My City – a legacy game without any enemies! Andrew and Anitra are really enjoying it. The kids like it, but not as much as the parents.

Pandemic Legacy Season 0 (set in Cold War. Not actually beating back a disease.)

Ctrl – a 3D area control game. You want to “control” as much as you can across all five faces of the cube.

Via Magica – a light bingo-style game with some cascading special powers. Similar to Ecos, but more family-friendly (faster, theme is magical).

Unmatched (mostly Buffy, but also with raptors from Jurassic Park and Bruce Lee). Beginning to think that Buffy is very powerful, but the other characters have strengths that come out in different settings.

Bloom – Anitra tried playing solo.

We’ve been playing more games on Board Game Arena – notably Res Arcana (an engine building game that has such a frustratingly slow build!) and lots of Welcome To (Your Perfect Home), which Anitra has really warmed to in this context.

SNAP Review – Cloaked Cats

Meow! The kids help us review this cute deduction game from HABA. See the transcript (and the video) on our website.

Most Anticipated

First, some news. Board Game Arena has been acquired by Asmodee. We are somewhat hopeful that this will give BGA more resources and even more games available. But we’re also concerned that other smaller publishers might be pushed out of BGA if it becomes “Asmodee games online”.

Our Kickstarters (that we’re hoping fulfill this year):

• Squire for Hire: Mystic Runes (our review of Squire for Hire – due to complications, it’s available at retail but hasn’t made it to KS backers yet)
• Gorinto – a neat tile-movement game from Grand Gamers Guild.
• Fire Tower: Rising Flames (we talked to Gwen & Sam about this at Boston FIG this year).
• Animal Kingdoms: Roar & Write – we really enjoyed Animal Kingdoms and are looking forward to seeing how that theme and basic idea works in roll-and-write format.
• Endangered: New Species – we’ve talked about this at length already.
• Creature Comforts – we love everything that Helaina and Josh are doing at Kids Table BoardGaming
• CoraQuest (for which the KS is still going! Check it out now!)

Renegade is putting out new, updated editions of Gravwell (more players! better art! more science!) and World’s Fair 1893 (new box art, more African-American characters).

Draftosaurus expansions – flying dinosaurs! swimming dinosaurs!

EXIT Boxes with Puzzles? Super cool

Kombo Klash from HUB Games. Described as “a more grown-up version of Flip-over Frog” and full of combos like Prisma Arena.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (again from KOSMOS). There’s a book that narrates the story while you play the game, and you’re not restricted to a set route.

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