Board All The Time

This or That: Wingspan vs Wyrmspan vs Finspan

Hey hey BATT Family! This week's episode is another episode of our This or That (or (in this case) the Other Thing) as we run down the three games of Stonemaier's Span series. We've been deliberating on two of the games for quite some time and now that we have Finspan in hand and have gotten to play it quite a bit, we felt it was finally time to break this down. We hope you enjoy this specific deep dive (pun unintended) into the three games!
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:45 - Game Overviews
00:03:36 - Theme
00:08:41 - Production
00:18:39 - Gameplay
00:26:54 - Teachability
00:29:22 - Replayability
00:29:55 - Expansions
00:35:33 - Solo Modes
00:38:00 - Final Thoughts / Pick
00:44:39 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) Our conversation is making the assumption you know the basic system of Wingspan as we don't go into specific detail of how to play any of the three in particular. We discuss their various differences but not how the games fully function.
2) All copies of the games we discussed were purchased by Mark and are his personal copies. This is not a sponsored set of reviews/comparisons in any way.
3) When choosing which game Mark would pick of the three during the Final Thoughts section, almost a minute of deliberation was cut as he couldn't choose. That's how close two of the games are for him. 
---
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 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
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 16

We're back! Episode 16 is a really fun conversation with Mark and Scott getting to talk about a surprising amount of ways to end games, geeking out entirely over a game that hasn't even hit crowdfunding yet, and starting in on series of games and the way they get out of hand sometimes. We hope you have a great time with this one - they were both focused in enough that there's really only one note of correction below. Who knew they could do such a thing?
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This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:01 - What's Been on the Table
00:08:13 - Topic of the Week: Game End Conditions
00:24:23 - Why Did I Play That: Azul Queen's Garden
00:34:27 - Table / Shelf / Trade
00:56:28 - Rotating Segment: Visions of the Future
01:03:05 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:04:28 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) In Mark's Vision of the Future, he said the game was from Nova Aetas Games and that's wrong (that's how ridiculously excited he was about it that he didn't even get that right). It is coming from Ludus Magnus Studios who developed the Nova Aetas world that Black Rose Wars and some of their other products are in. 
---
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 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
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. 

Reviews: Eila and Something Shiny

Welcome to another review from the BATT team. Eila and Something Shiny is a  narrative adventure scenario/campaign game designed by Jeffery CCH and published by NorthStar Games (though it's original printing was from ICE Makes). It was acquired as a Christmas gift and so this is not sponsored by the publisher. It should be noted that the entirety of the Final Thoughts section is going to heavily spoil the game, so please keep that in mind if you want to listen to the first half of the review. We do timestamp and call out when that spoiler territory will be crossed and give ample time to stop listening. 
---
This review's segments:
00:00:00 - Intro 
00:02:30 - Gameplay
00:04:50 - Learning Curve
00:05:31 - Art and Theme
00:06:03 - Components
00:08:28 - Iconography and Font
00:10:02 - Ease of Teach
00:10:16 - Replayability
00:11:11 - Final Thoughts (00:11:37 for getting past the spoiler buffer)
00:22:16 - Outro
---
Links!
As stated, here are safe links to go read RubyQuest and NanQuest at. Please keep in mind that these become very adult and dark relatively quickly and I wouldn't recommend reading them around children or at work or on work devices. 
Ruby did come out first and I think is a better first read to get acquainted with the style but push comes to shove I actually think NanQuest is the superior of the two. 
RubyQuest: https://mozai.com/quests/RubyQuest/
NanQuest: https://mozai.com/quests/NanQuest/---
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 15

So there was a flood. Things were lost and that's never any fun. We ended up losing the original episode 15 and so what should have been Episode 16 has now taken it's place. We recorded as Jason's place to test through all of our equipment and just to make sure we had some extra content recorded since we went through our backlog during the holiday season. Every once in a while you may hear an odd echo or Stark (Jason's dog) running around but I did my best to clean all that out in the expedited editing process to get this episode out. I cut over 90 minutes out of this and it still ended up being our longest episode yet. This week we talk the flood, Scott is finally forced to play Tech Tree: the Game, and Mark is overly concerned that he talked an enormous amount. Thanks to Jason for the space and just being on the pod again. It's great to have his voice to start out the year with us. 
---
This episode's segments:
00:00:00 - The Flood Notes 
00:02:21 - Intro
00:03:51 - What's Been on the Table
00:15:39 - Topic of the Week: Games Replacing Other Games
00:33:27 - Why Did I Play That: Beyond the Sun
00:56:34 - Table / Shelf / Trade
01:34:40 - Rotating Segment: The Archives
01:42:40 - Contact Info / Sponsors 
01:44:02 - Outro
--- Notes!
1) There are a lot more ums and uhs in the audio this time around. Blame that on the excessively abbreviated editing period and wanting to get this out even remotely on time. If/when I need to come back in and remove the preamble about the flood and episode numbering, I'll probably end up cleaning those up too. (And frankly while those filler words don't make for the cleanest audio ever, it's the inhales that drive me up a wall much, much more.)
2) When talking about Weirdwood Manor I realized just how much Scott and I talk with our hands and that is just a terrible thing to translate to an audio medium.
3) We know its Sagitarius A*, we just didn't say the * part.
4) Scott would have been talking about the new 2023 version of Castles of Burgundy from Awaken Realms, not the 2019 reprint from Alea. 
5) If anybody has a spare box for Kingsburg (2nd ed preferably, but I don't really care at this point), please reach out! That was one of the games that was lost. 
 
---
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 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
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 - 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!)
---
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
---
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.
---
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. 
---
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. 
---
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. 
---
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. 
---
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. 
---
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.