Board All The Time

Board All The Time - Top Ten for 2025

Happy 2025 everybody! Sorry for lying to you with yesterday's Odds & Ends episode saying that we were done until Episode 15 released. Whoops. Guess we just had more content in the can for you. We really are going to be done until Episode 15 releases on January 14th though. 
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Scott and Mark discuss their revised Top Ten of All Time lists in this episode. When we did the recording of our original lists in June, Scott simply hadn't done anything like that before. Mark's list was based off of doing them for five years at that point and it was an interesting conversation. This time around they both took a lot more time to craft the lists and there are a lot of interesting surprises here. There is a section of discussion about what the qualifications for making the list and how each list was compiled before actually getting into the top tens themselves. Per normal, all parts of the discussion are appropriately chaptered out if you want to jump to any portion, but hopefully you'll find what that first discussion as interesting as we did. If you would like to skip ahead into the list, that timestamp is 19:19.
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:03:48 - How the List Was Made
00:19:17 - Scott's Ten
00:20:47 - Mark's Ten
00:22:19 - Scott's Nine
00:24:00 - Mark's Nine
00:27:08 - Scott's Eight
00:29:01 - Mark's Eight
00:31:46 - Scott's Seven
00:34:23 - Mark's Seven
00:37:33 - Scott's Six
00:41:13 - Mark's Six
00:44:38 - Scott's Five
00:47:33 - Mark's Five
00:50:02 - Scott's Four
00:52:34 - Mark's Four
00:55:40 - Scott's Three
00:57:18 - Mark's Three
01:00:09 - Scott's Two
01:03:34 - Mark's Two
01:07:50 - Scott's One
01:11:17 - Mark's One
01:19:47 - Our Final Thoughts / Reactions
01:21:32 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:22:54 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) If you would like to check out Mark's Top 100 list, it can be found at: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/347553/top-100-games-2024-edition
2) Mark loves that Scott goes full Midwest around the 20:19 mark in his number ten.
3) Scott makes mention of something that will end up in the next Odds & Ends episode during Mark's nine that references his number eleven. Eleven gets talked about further on in the episode, but Mark did say what his thirteen was and that's part of that conversation. That whole discussion got lifted from this episode for length.
4) Mark totally missed an opportunity to say that we already have Ticket to Ride Legacy: Europe and it's called Brass. What a doof.
5) Scott basically screamed at 1:03:00 and Mark had to soften it down because he almost went deaf when it hit at original volume. 
6) There was mention of a photoshoot near the end of the episode. Some of those photos have ended up on our website (or will be soon), some are used in our socials, and some of them are on our media kits. [If you'd like to work with us and would like our media kit, please let us know!)
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for board gaming, so definitely check us out on there at https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Off Week Odds and Ends 3 - The End of the Year Edition

It's the end of the year BATT Family! That means that we're going to be going dark until Episode 15 releases on January 14th to just give us a little bit of breathing room to catch up after the holidays. We always have all this extra content lying around for these Odds & Ends episodes and we hope that you enjoy this one. I also really hope that you enjoy the blooper reel, I certainly had a super fun time putting it together from all the stuff that got left behind. 
CONTENT WARNING: This episode is marked explicit because of the swearing in the blooper reel. If nothing else, you can see how tough it can be for us to maintain perfect professionalism while recording. 
CONTENT WARNING: The blooper reel ALSO has a lot of weird bodily noises - basically burps and weird mouth noises, but if you've got any kind of audio aversions maybe skip that part?
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:00:41 - Mark's Thanks
00:03:43 - Thematic Games Honorable Mentions Intro
00:04:32 - Thematic Games Honorable Mentions
00:16:28 - Big Box Rant Intro
00:17:08 - Big Box Rant 
00:18:35 - 5 Games to Take Home Outcasts Intro
00:19:01 - 5 Games to Take Home Outcasts
00:24:35 - Ladies and Gentlemen TST Intro
00:25:20 - Ladies and Gentlemen TST 
00:29:34 - Final Intro for the Outro
00:30:19 - Scott's Thanks
00:32:05 - Blooper Reel
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Notes!
1) Scott's Thanks segment was recorded remotely via his cell, so that's why the audio quality is rougher than normal. We're still working on improving our remote record situation.  
2) Speaking of Scott's Thanks segment, how many of his ridiculous little puns did you catch? We know the number. First person to hit us up on BlueSky with the correct number will get ... something ... from us.What is it? WHO KNOWS.
3) Also lots and lots of Scott Mouth Noises (TM) in the blooper reel. Feel my pain of what I must cut so much of.
---
You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for board gaming, so definitely check us out on there at https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

The Games That Made Us - HeroQuest

Merry Christmas Eve for those of you that celebrate and a happy Tuesday to everybody regardless. Scott is back doing some off week content with another installation of The Games That Made Us. HeroQuest was one of the most expensive games that Scott ever owned, constantly begging family members to purchase expansions for the game. And taking time out to create their own expansions for the game., it taught Scott how to be creative within a different medium. Scott still owns their second edition copy of HeroQuest which came out several years after the first and did not receive nearly the love and attention that the original did.
This episode is dedicated to Dave Klingerman who sadly passed earlier this year due to complications from cancer. Dave stepped in to be a male role model for Scott after he tragically lost his father.
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Board All The Time Episode 14

Welcome back BATT Family! This week we have a wide ranging conversation about games that we both unintentionally brought to the conversation that had us making a surprising amount of weird noises to. We talk publishers that we love, publishers that don't work us, and games from a publisher we love that didn't work for us. Thanks so much for waiting those extra few hours for this one, it wasn't the most pleasant thing to have to re-edit half of it, but the episode ultimately came out stronger for it. 
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:01:25 - What's Been on the Table
00:07:29 - Topic of the Week: Retail vs Crowdfunding
00:26:01 - Why Did I Play That: Star Tycoon
00:38:02 - Table / Shelf / Trade
01:05:20 - Rotating: Surprise Party
01:11:48 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:13:10 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) When Mark said Atlas: Sovereign Rising he meant Atlas Lost: Rise of the New Soverigns. He's still actively looking for it too if you've got a copy you're willing to part with.
2) In the intervening time since we recorded this, Moonrollers did shift down to a trade for Mark and has left his collection. 
3) Scott during the game he brought for his Table makes a comment that goes "We sat there and went" and then Mark responds with that's a bummer. As it turns out that was an entirely visual response that had no other commentary made about it in either of the recorded files. I guess we forgot we were an audio medium for a second. Sorry!
4) Mark went back and forth based on whether to leave the small post-modern commentary bit in near the end of the TST segment. It isn't intended to be a moment to cause contention in any way, but it was ultimately felt to be a way to discuss how we are allowed to respond and react to popular culture in a way we feel is most within our own control. There are very, very good reasons to disagree with that particular author and we can safely say that neither of us support their views and that it was more important to make it clear that we have our own opinions and feelings regarding them instead of censoring ourselves in a way that would have felt disingenuous. 
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

The Games That Made Us - The Omega Virus

Welcome back to the off-week BATT content! This week's episode is a return to our series of The Games That Made Us. This episode is about The Omega Virus and how it impacted Mark as a child, what influences it had on his love of themes and gaming, and just generally celebrating how far ahead of the rest of the industry it was at the time of it's release. Mark's copy of The Omega Virus is almost a sacred item in his hagiography because of how much it really did influence him as a person and how the effects of playing that game solo for so many years really did shape him to be the person he is now. If you've played it before, then have fun walking down memory lane. If you've not, then get hyped about it and the eventual new release that Restoration Games is working on. Thanks for listening to this episode and we'll catch you next week for Episode 13. \
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Board All The Time Episode 13

Man alive, this one we got weird with. Partially it's because we recorded so late, but we have a wide ranging and in depth set of conversations on neglected games, returning to older designs, and some real surprises had within. There are a number of moments that we caught each other by surprise and if you like hearing us disagree, then definitely tune into the Table/Shelf/Trade this time around. 
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:01:21 - What's Been on the Table
00:06:55 - Topic of the Week: Neglected Games
00:25:16 - Why Did I Play That: El Grande
00:33:54 - Table / Shelf / Trade
01:00:39 - Rotating: HVAC
01:12:09 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:13:33 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) When we use the word "clean" in reference to board games, we're talking about how the rulesets for whatever game don't have unneeded rules or mechanisms or other faff. It's very easy to grasp what they're doing, get right into the play, and not feel like you've missed something because a rule was forgotten or obtuse or similar.
2) Mark made an error! When talking about Azul, he said Starry Night Sky and he MEANT to say Penny Black. Whomp whomp.
3) Apologies for leaving in all of Scott's flabbergasted noises and such during the beginning of HVAC, but you should have seen the way he was physically reacting at the time too. It felt right to leave it all in. 
4) Since we got distracted with talking about the surrounding parts of Dungeon Roll, we failed to actually explain the game. It's a fairly straightfoward fantasy themed push your luck game. On your turn you'll roll a handful of D6 to represent your adventuring party and the enemies they're facing. You'll roll more enemies the further you progress into the dungeon and consequently earn more experience and loot as you go. You try and keep going as long as you possible can before either your party dice are exhausted and you lose everything or you choose to retire for the run and head back to the surface. You have three total runs per game, but you can choose to play as many runs as you really wish. 
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

5 Games to Bring Home for the Holiday

Happy Thanksgiving Week BATT Family! We hope that you'll be able to find a bit of relaxation this weekend (at least until Rivalry Week kicks off on Saturday). In the spirit of trying to bring people to the table and give you an alternate to playing Rummikub for the nine billionth time, we're giving you a variety of recommendations for games to bring home for the holidays that will get anybody to play!
 
One final note, we didn't present this list as any kind of ranked list, instead we talked about them in order of release date. 
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:01:43 - Game 1
00:03:07 - Game 2
00:04:36 - Game 3
00:06:33 - Game 4
00:08:29 - Game 5
00:10:06 - Outro
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Five more games to take home for the holidays:
1) Sushi Go! - Gamewright
Originally released in 2013 from designer Phil Walker-Harding and plays 2-5. A light drafting game with great art and a clean set of scoring varieties within the cards themselves. Essentially it's a set collection game where you're trying to score as many points as possible across three rounds based on the cards you've drafted. There was a larger version with more modularity, Sushi Go! Party that supports 2-8 players if you want to play with more people. The components for regular Sushi Go! are included should you want to play that way as well. There were some other implementations as well (Sushi Roll, Sushi Go!: Spin Some for Dim Sum) but I think that SG/SGP are the best ones out there. There is also a brand new 10th Anniversary edition available in very limited quantities, but I have seen it at Barnes and Noble so you might still be able to track that one down.
2) Antidote - Bellwether Games
Also released in 2013 from designer Dennis Hoyle, it supports 3-7 players. Antidote plays in the same way that Clue does - you're trying to find the solution before everybody is down to one card in hand. Antidote is a deduction game where on your turn you'll either have everybody pass one card to the left or right, make a direct trade with another player, or have everybody play a card from their hand to the table. There are other modules and variants with the box and the Lab Alliance expansion that honestly we never play with because the base game is strong enough on it's own. Lab Alliance is worth pick up just to expand the player count up to 9 but that's the only reason to own it I think. This game is also one that you can play as co-operatively or selfishly as you want. There technically is scoring but we never use the points and just play to see if we can survive. This has been a favourite for a very long time.
3) Deception: Murder in Hong Kong - Grey Fox Games
Released in 2014 from designer Tobey Ho, Deception plays 4-12 players and is a team based deduction game. A murder has been committed by one of the players around the table and only the murderer and the Forensic Expert know who did it. The Forensic player has to communicate what they know silently and only using 6 prompts that are randomly drawn. Each player will have an array of cards in front of them and the murderer needs to lead the other players astray as the Forensic player tries and gets the others to identify the correct items/player. Each non-Forensic player has exactly one guess before the end of the game to guess a pair of cards to identify the murderer. If you like social deduction and want to lean into that theme, then Deception is an excellent choice. There are a variety of small promo packs that you honestly don't need (a lot more gaming related nonsense). The Undercover Allies expansion is good but honestly unneeded.
4) Just One - Repos Productions
Just one was released in 2018 and was a reimplementation of a 2017 game that  Ludovic Roudy designed. Just one added Bruno Sautter to that design team and supports 3-7 players though honestly you can play more than 7 without much issue. Just One is a game that feels like such an obvious game that somehow took til the last ten years to be released. One player (the judge essentially) will blindly pick a numbered word off a card they can't see. The rest of the players will then try and come up with a single word that will allow the Judge to guess the word they picked. The trick is that if any player reveals they wrote the same clue then both (or all in some cases) have to erase their clue and the Judge has to guess with what's left over. There's a scoring system in this one too that we frankly never use beyond trying to get more words correct than not. This one also works incredibly well for remote play. The biggest baffling thing with Just One is that there isn't any kind of expansion deck available for it in English. A couple of very small promo packs exist, but that's about it. Still, it's arguably my all time favourite party game.
5) The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - Kosmos
Released in 2022 from Thomas Sing, Mission Deep Sea is the reimplementation of the 2020 game Search for Planet IX. The Crew plays 2-5 players and I really do pick the specific version of Mission Deep Sea. It's more interesting the way the tricks are determined, uses far less fiddly mechanisms by dropping the tokens, and has just as little theme as the original. The Crew is a co-operative trick taking game and that alone will stun most trick taking players in families. Because the mission book is as simple to use as it is, it's easy to define the path of how to play each night. Or you can simply peel off a few random mission cards and just play it that way. Easy to understand, easy to teach, and a great way to introduce new people to trick taking just as much as it's easy to get lost in for experience trick takers. 
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You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Board All The Time Episode 12

This week's episode feels like we were just focused on talking about production quality and storage (considering that Freedom Five delivered yesterday, that can only be kismet for how rough that game's storage is). But we had a lot of fun talking about games that we've come to love, how a great game can transcend a bad teach, and how not every game in a genre is going to work for you. 
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:00:47 - What's Been on the Table
00:08:34 - Topic of the Week: Do You Own Too Many Games?
00:14:13 - Why Did I Play That: Last Light
00:24:38 - Table / Shelf / Trade
00:49:08 - Rotating: Visions of the Future
00:57:47 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
00:58:55 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) From 31:32 - 32:56, the furnace in the studio kicked in and we didn't realize that it was going to be that noisy in the background. The joy of home studios I suppose, but I've done my best to reduce it. The game I'm discussing at the time I did end up calling a Table if you don't want to listen to that segment.
2) I realize that we talked about Millenium Blades in Episode 10 as well, but that episode was recorded something like 3 months before Episode 10 was (see that episode's notes as for why). If you want to skip that, the time stamp for it is 50:27 - 52:42.
3) We're on BlueSky now and loving it! At this point it really feels like BlueSky is for gaming, so definitely check us out on there! https://bsky.app/profile/boardallthetime.bsky.social---
You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Board All The Time Episode 11

Ahh, it's nice to be back to a regular episode again. We have an esoteric topic of the week, talk about all the games that we played recently, take a nostalgic dive back into some games that you may not have thought of in some time, and just gush over an area control game that Scott actually really likes. 
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:02:51 - What's Been on the Table
00:08:01 - Topic of the Week: What Is Your Obligation as the Host?
00:21:43 - Why Did I Play That: Wonderland's War
00:33:58 - Table / Shelf / Trade
00:48:13 - Rotating: The Archives
01:00:01 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:01:07 - Outro
--- Notes!
 
1) Due to guest availability, we actually recorded this one before we did Episode 9 with James Hudson. We didn't know that we'd have this much Druid City so close together, but seriously Wonderland's War is exceptionally good. 
2) Masque of the Red Death's track through Mark's Top 100 is pretty wild: 2019: #010 | 2020: #011 | 2021: #034 | 2022: #087 | 2023: #087It will most likely stay in the high 80s range until it (if ever) falls out at this point.
3) The third Doctor Lucky game was The Island of Doctor Lucky in 2018.
4) It's been mentioned a bunch of times, but the most recent Top 100 Mark did can be found at: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328088/top-100-games-2023-edition?itemid=10344720
You can expect the new one to be up at the start of January 2025 after we release our Top Ten for 2025.
5) Do you like all the weird little things after the outro sting now? Because we find them hysterical.
---
You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music. 

Tend (from IV Studio) Kickstarter Preview

BATT Family! It's been a busy month of super cool Kickstarters coming out and we ALSO got a pretty sick delivery from our friends at IV Studios. We give Tend the full preview/review treatment to help support their campaign that is currently running. Check out the episode and then go ahead and back the campaign! Links are below!
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:10 - Gameplay
00:11:25 - Learning Curve
00:17:44 - Artwork
00:20:19 - Components
00:23:08 - Iconography
00:24:48 - Ease of Recommendation
00:28:45 - Replayability
00:32:10 - Final Thoughts
00:35:00 - Outro
Thanks so much again to IV Studios for supplying us with the protoype copy of the Deluxe Edition of Tend. As one final note, we didn't mention it in this review episode but there is a standard edition that will come with coloured pencils instead of markers as well as a few other components to help lower the cost. We were not aware of the standard edition at time of recording but did want to mention it here. 
Please check out the Kickstarter and the rest of their games:
Kickstarter Campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ivstudios/tend-0
IV Studio Website: https://www.iv.studio/
IV Games Website: https://shop.iv.studio/
---
You can email us at boardallthetimegaming@gmail.com.
We can be found at www.boardallthetime.com and on Facebook at Board All The Time. 
If you'd like to help support the show and assist with the hosting costs, you can do so with our Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/boardallthetime
Our Discord server, which is still in Beta, can be joined at https://discord.gg/VbRWEpc6
We'd like to thank our sponsors as well:
Robin's Nerd Supply: www.robinsnerdsupply.com
Eco Owl Press: www.ecoowlpress.com 
We'd also like to thank SoulProdMusic for the intro/outro music.