Andrew Smith is the executive editor of The Family Gamers, and co-host of The Family Gamers Podcast.
Explore the reviews and podcasts he has contributed to.
We’re here to talk about games and conflict this week. What can conflict in games teach us? Do your kids handle it well?
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We have a great time this week, talking to Brandt from The Portal Gaming Podcast… and our old friend from college. Math, games, and friends. What could be better?
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We visited TWO awesome game stores in Rochester NY, and we’re thinking about games that our kids could bring to school to play with their friends.
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Did you know that cuckoos don’t build their own nests? Kiki Cuckoo never learned to build one, and now she needs your help! Elliot helps Andrew and Anitra explain this cute all-ages dexterity game from HABA.
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More GenCon! Nick interviews Mattel, Good Games, IELLO, Green Couch Games, Grail Games, North Star Games, Grand Gamers Guild, and Kids Table Board Gaming.
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Guide magical creatures to their homes in the sky, and use magic to push away the oncoming storm. Roll the dice and move any character in Sky Magic, a simple cooperative game with lots of imagination.
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Hex Roller stands out from a lot of other roll-and-write games because it dispenses with theme, to focus on making this puzzle the best it can be.
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Build your own Jurassic Park and fill it with the best dinosaurs in this short game for 2-5 players.
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We love Slide Quest, a cooperative dexterity puzzle game. Work together to slide the rolling knight through 5 levels, knocking enemies over on the way.
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Dice Throne is an easy game to pick up and learn. The core of the game is manipulating your dice to get the best result, leading some people to call it “battle Yahtzee”. However, the wide variety present in the cards and characters keeps games feeling fresh and allows for many different overall strategies.
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Our special guest for this episode is Ann Losito. She runs the TWIST Gaming channel with her c0-hosts Matt and Josh. TWIST was the first ever Twitch partnered channel that is focused on board games. Andrew met Ann at last year’s PAX Unplugged. They played Deep Sea Adventure together, with Claire, and had a great time. TWIST is best known
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We are finally back into the normal routine (more or less) after a month of con-related craziness. We’ll talk about highlights from Anitra’s trip to Origins and Andrew’s trip to Dice Tower Con.
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Constellations is a tile-laying, pattern matching game for 2-4 players, lasting from 30-60 minutes. The game was designed by Ian Zang and Dante Lauretta and beautifully illustrated by Ashley Kenawell. Lay hexagons to grow the night sky and score points as you match patterns on your tiles!
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In Gunkimono, you are a daimyo warlord, building armies and gaining honor to establish your strongholds. Gunkimono is an area control, tile drafting and placement game for 2-5 players and takes about an hour to play. Is Gunkimono a Feudal Masterpiece, or a Futile Mess?
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Have you always wanted to be an architect? Try your hand at creating towers to fit in tight spaces in Tokyo Jutaku, a speed building game from Jordan Draper Games.
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We have a great conversation with Ellen and Randy Kirby, of We Game Together, about all things gaming and kids… and what we’re looking forward to at Origins this year.
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When the teacher’s away, the penguins will play! Each player will take a turn being the hall monitor (or Catcher) while the other penguins (Runners) try to collect fish hanging over the doors. IceCOOL 2 is a sequel and/or expansion that we prefer slightly over the original IceCOOL.
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We all have experiences in life we don’t want to miss. FOMO, or fear of missing out, seems to hit particularly hard when it comes to hot new boardgames. Between Kickstarter and conventions constantly hyped on social media, how can we deal with this irrational response?
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This week we’re happy to welcome Isaac Villa. He runs a site similar to ours, called Gaming with Sidekicks. We first met at PAX Unplugged, and we’re always happy to talk with other family-focused gamers. Gaming with Sidekicks branched off from a different website; the founders met while playing Dice Masters competitively. At one point, they had four different podcasts!
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