Download the MP3 for our Scythe review, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below.

We dominate steampunk Europe with giant mechs and the power of the proletariat in 2016’s Scythe from designer Jamey Stegmaier and Stonemaier Games. We’ll also be at the Southern-Fried Gaming Expo this weekend!

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a rating over on iTunes? We really appreciate it!

Download the MP3 for our Ex Libris review, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below.

We put together fantasy libraries in 2017’s Ex Libris from designer Adam McIver and Renegade Game Studios. And we return to the very first game we ever played for the podcast, Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, and realize that we never really gave it the proper Dice Section treatment. Also: Arkham Horror: The Card Game and the Dunwich Legacy expansion has us firmly back in its slimy tentacled grasp! Oh no! (Oh yesssss.)

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a rating over on iTunes? We really appreciate it!

Download the MP3 for our Roll for the Galaxy review, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below.

We chucked a bunch of dice and quantified Michael’s analysis paralysis down to the minute with 2014’s Roll for the Galaxy. We also pour one out for our homie Mayfair Games (and speculate a bit about their financials).

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a rating over on iTunes? We really appreciate it!

Download the MP3 for our Terraforming Mars review, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below.

Who doesn’t love games about building things? And what’s better than building a planet hospitable to human habitation? In Terraforming Mars, you play as corporations vying to make the red planet a hot travel destination for mankind. Literally hot. The dumb rock is freezing, so go ahead and throw some asteroids at it, and pump it full of greenhouse gases, because nobody’s coming until that thermometer says it’s ready.

The game was designed by Jacob Fryxelius with art by Isaac Fryxelius, and is published in the United States by Stronghold Games.

We also got a chance to check out Greater Than Games’ Legends of Sleepy Hollow, so we talk a little about the wild and crazy pastime of backing games on Kickstarter. I also posted a full write-up on the game, which you should check out if you’re interested in a cooperative campaign-style adventure game set in Washington Irving’s Ichabod-a-verse. I made that up just now.

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a rating over on iTunes? We really appreciate it!

Download the MP3 for our Fate of the Elder Gods review, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

It’s no secret that we dig games set in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, but usually we’re trying to save the world from the evil schemes of otherworldly deities. In Fate of the Elder Gods, though, we get to play as the cultists, and we’re trying to summon our eldritch masters, or die trying. The game was designed by Richard Launius, Darrell Louder, and Chris Kirkman, funded on Kickstarter in 2016, and published by Greater Than Games’ Fabled Nexus imprint this year.

Did the game drive us mad with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, or did we complete the task at hand, summon Azathoth into being, and get home in time for dinner? You’ll have to listen to the podcast to see if the stars are right.

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a rating over on iTunes? We really appreciate it!

If you like tabletop games and you’re looking for an in-depth review of the latest and greatest offerings, you’ll love the Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison, Dave Kirby, and Geoff Morochnick spend a whole month playing a single game over and over again, probably more than is healthy, and then record their thoughts on how it held up. It’s not a shallow overview… it’s a deep and gory Dice Section.

This month, we give the ol’ Consulting Detective biz a try and find out that it’s not elementary, really. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases is the game, and the game… is afoot. Designed by Raymond Edwards, Suzanne Goldberg, and Gary Grady back in 1981, this hobby gaming classic won the Spiel des Jahres in ’85, had an awesome FMV digital release on CD-ROM systems like the FM Towns and Sega CD, and is currently published by (who else) Asmodee through their Space Cowboys imprint.

So, how did we stack up against the world’s greatest detective? It’s a mystery! And the clues can be found… in the podcast.

Timestamps:

• 1:26 – All three of us have been playing Failbetter Games’ Sunless Sea.
• 20:26 – Our attempt at a Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective publishing history.
• 32:07 – What even is Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective? In spoiler-free fashion, talk about the game and how it’s played.
• 57:23 – We raise some concerns about the game, and give our verdict.
• 1:14:22 – SPOILER WARNING! We dig into specifics for cases 1-5.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

If you like tabletop games and you’re looking for an in-depth review of the latest and greatest offerings, you’ll love the Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison, Dave Kirby, and Geoff Morochnick spend a whole month playing a single game over and over again, probably more than is healthy, and then record their thoughts on how it held up. It’s not a shallow overview… it’s a deep and gory Dice Section.

In this episode, the guys head back to prehistoric times with Stone Age from Hans Im Glück and Rio Grande Games. Theme aside (cavemen, huts, etc.), this game isn’t exactly bleeding edge. Published nearly a decade ago when the hobby board game market was a very different place, somehow it escaped both Dave’s and Michael’s attentions. Advantage: Geoff.

Stone Age was designed by Bernd Brunnhofer (a.k.a., Michael Tummelhofer) with art by Michael Menzel.

Lesson of the week? If this hut’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

Also, big thanks to Minion Games and their worker placement game Manhattan Project: Energy Empire for sponsoring this week’s show. Hit up their site to check out what Rahdo Runs Through calls the “number one engine builder of all time”.

If you like tabletop games and you’re looking for an in-depth review of the latest and greatest offerings, you’ll love the Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison, Dave Kirby, and Geoff Morochnick spend a whole month playing a single game over and over again, and then record their thoughts on how it held up. It’s not a shallow overview… it’s a deep and gory Dice Section.

For this episode, the guys played Keith Matejka’s Roll Player into the double digits. This game, published by Thunderworks Games in the United States, with art by John Ariosa and Luis Francisco, is a dice-based game all about creating the perfect tabletop RPG character. GeekDad Jonathan Liu reviewed it in detail for the site back in March and has a really great write-up of the Monsters and Minions expansion, but we fell into it pretty hard and wanted to record our thoughts. Enjoy!

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section is a podcast about games—tabletop, video, whatever—and what makes them great. My co-hosts, Dave Kirby and Geoff Morochnick, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We explore the games we love and talk about why they’re special, how they play a part in our lives, and what makes us come back and play, day after day.

In this episode, we revisit cooperative card games, which, as a rule, we’ve despised, and give Sentinels of the Multiverse and the Arkham Horror LCG a chance.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section answers the age-old question: is this a board game that we can’t live without, or should we excise it from our gaming closet to make room for better options? My co-hosts, Dave Kirby and Geoff Morochnick, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and whether the games will stand the tests of time.

In this episode, we hitch a ride on the Colt Express, the 3D movement programming game that took the world by storm back 2014, won the Spiel des Jahres in 2015, and finally made its way into Michael’s stocking for Christmas 2016. We also go back to Mansions of Madness, The Castles of Mad King Ludwig, and Splendor.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section answers the age-old question: is this a board game that we can’t live without, or should we excise it from our gaming closet to make room for better options? My co-hosts, Dave Kirby and Geoff Morochnick, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and whether the games will stand the tests of time.

For this episode, we ask: would you rather visit a mansion haunted by eldritch monsters, or a castle commissioned by an insane Bavarian monarch? It’s a tough choice. We’ll help you decide, as we talk about Mansions of Madness, 2nd Edition and The Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

If you like playing games, then you’ll love the Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison, Dave Kirby, and Geoff Morochnick get together and talk about what they’ve been playing and why, and explore their favorite games and what makes them awesome.

In this episode, we revisit New Bedford, because it’s our new favorite worker-placin’, city-buildin’, whale-huntin’ game. We can’t stop thinking about it, we want to play it every time we hang out, and we’re basically in love with it and want to marry it.

We also played Bad Detectives, the winner of 2015’s Tabletop Deathmatch competition. It’s a tile placement game all about terrible cops solving a murder in the worst possible way. We discuss why it really didn’t work for us, how a reality show may not be the best way to develop a good board game, and chasing that mysterious and elusive game component called “fun.”

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section is a podcast about board games, video games, and roleplaying games. All of the games that we play when we want to have fun and escape the rigors of the real world for a bit. We usually play a game and then record a few days later, but this episode? This one is a little different.

Sometimes I run into interesting people in the games community and I have questions for them. Mainly for my own edification. I’m a dad, I work a nine-to-five job, and I often feel like I barely have time to play games much less make them, so my first question is usually about how they’ve managed to turn their passion for games into something approaching a career. When I saw the Kickstarter for Grand Gamers Guild’s Unreal Estate, I wanted to know a bit more about how the game came to life. When the founder of the company, Marc Specter, reached out to me on Twitter and suggested joining me on the show, I thought it was a good chance to try something new.

Unreal Estate was designed by Jason Slingerland, with art by Corinne Roberts, and graphic design by Chris Kirkman. For more info on Grand Gamers Guild, check out their website and the Unreal Estate Kickstarter campaign. It ends on Friday, October 21st, so plan accordingly.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section is a podcast about games—tabletop, video, whatever—and what makes them great. My co-hosts, Dave Kirby and Geoff Morochnick, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We explore the games we love and talk about why they’re special, how they play a part in our lives, and what makes us come back and play, day after day.

What happened to all those episodes between now and last October!? Well, either way, we’re back, joined by our old buddy, Geoff, and we’re talking about New Bedford, Sheriff of Nottingham, and Shadowrun: Crossfire.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

The Dice Section is a podcast about games–tabletop, video, whatever–and what makes them great. Together with my co-hosts, Dave Kirby, Natania Barron, and Jonathan Wood, we hang out and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We go in-depth with the games we love and explain what’s so special about them, how they fit in with our own personal day-to-day stories, and why we keep coming back to the table to play.

In this episode, our first after a long summer vacation, we discuss those moments in role-playing games–video and tabletop–that made us stop and think. As young players, the idea of character dilemmas and a satisfying story were the stuff of gaming legend. Now that we’re all growed up, we realize that it can happen, but it takes a special group and a GM willing to let go of a little control.

We also joke a lot about how many dice you roll in Shadowrun. As you do.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license flickr photo shared by Nicolás Sanguinetti

The Dice Section is a podcast about games–tabletop, video, whatever–and what makes them great. My co-host, Dave Kirby, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We explore the games we love and talk about why they’re special, how they play a part in our lives, and what makes us come back and play, day after day.

Haircuts. Boxing. Sword and sorcery and dungeon crawls. We had a blast chatting about 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (again!) and the new Temple of Elemental Evil board game from Wizards of the Coast and WizKids. We took a trip in the wayback machine and reminisced about childhood games like Hero Quest and Dragon Strike, and (spoiler alert) decide that we could all do a lot worse than Temple of Elemental Evil as an introduction to the dungeon crawl genre.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

If you enjoy our show, maybe leave us a review over on iTunes? Or think about supporting the GeekDad Patreon. We really appreciate it!

If you like playing games, then you’ll love GeekDad’s Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison and Dave Kirby get together and talk about what they’ve been playing and why, and explore their favorite games and what’s makes them awesome.

In this episode, we’re talking about social games: what makes a game social, why do they appeal to certain players, and why are some people totally turned off by the idea? Stuff like Mafia and Werewolf, Apples to Apples, The Resistance, and Coup. We gush about last year’s Dead of Winter, which combines social engineering at the table with worker placement and strong narrative.

Michael also had a chance to check out the Unpub Mini event held at Atomic Empire in Durham, NC. Hosted by the Game Designers of Carolina, it was well-attended and included games from Daniel Solis, Graham Russell (of Snackbar Games), and James Meyers.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

Like what we’re rolling at the Dice Section? Consider donating some money to the GeekDad Patreon or hop over to iTunes and leave us a review. And consider sharing the show with your friends who love games. We really appreciate it!

Creative Commons ( BY-SA ) license flickr photo shared by samsaundersleeds and modified by Michael Harrison

The Dice Section is a podcast about games–tabletop, video, whatever–and what makes them great. My co-host, Dave Kirby, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We try to go in-depth with the games we love and explain what’s so special about them, how they fit in with our own personal day-to-day stories, and why we keep coming back to the table to play more.

In this episode, we check out the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. It was a first for us: a game that made us step away from the table after playing for a day so we could arrange our thoughts. GeekDad Jonathan Liu reviewed it extensively when it came out in 2013, and it made his game of the year, so it has a reputation around these parts. Listen in to see whether we agree with that reputation.

Meanwhile, Dave and I talk about race cars, spring break for parents, and having a sense of humor about Kickstarter.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

Like what we’re doing on The Dice Section? Toss some loot at us through the GeekDad Patreon or hop over to iTunes and leave us a review. And consider sharing the show with the game fans in your life. The more folks at the table, the better!

If you like playing games, then you’ll love GeekDad’s Dice Section podcast. Hosts Michael Harrison and Dave Kirby get together and talk about what they’ve been playing and why, and expore their favorite games and what’s makes them awesome.

This week, we talk about the perennial geek favorite: the dungeon crawl. Why does the lure of loot always get us back down into those dark, dank catacombs? What makes the perfect dungeon crawl experience, and why do so many games fall just short of what we’re hoping for? We play Wrath of Ashardalon, one of the Dungeons & Dragons Adventure System games, and talk about everything from Descent: Journeys in The Dark to Diablo III.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

Like what we’re rolling at the Dice Section? Follow us on Twitter, toss some loot at us through the GeekDad Patreon, or hop over to iTunes and leave us a review. And consider sharing the show with other folks who love games. It makes all the difference in the world!

creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by global.quiz and modified by Michael Harrison

The Dice Section is a podcast about games–tabletop, video, whatever–and what makes them great. My co-host, Dave Kirby, and I get together and talk about what we’ve been playing and why. We explore the games we love and talk about why they’re special, how they play a part in our lives, and what makes us come back and play, day after day.

This week, game designer and friend of the show Daniel Solis joins us to demo his latest game, A La Kart. We chat about Nintendo nostalgia, Dave’s Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate addiction, and why games made in Japan are so much fun.

Daniel, who developed the storytelling RPG Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple (which we wrote about back in 2011) and, most recently, the Belle of the Ball card game, is back with A La Kart, a quick and easy “light CCG” inspired by kart racing video games.

Download the MP3 here, subscribe via iTunes or RSS, or just listen with the player below:

Like what we’re doing at the Dice Section? Throw some cash into the GeekDad Patreon or hop over to iTunes and leave us a review. And share the podcast with other folks who love games. It’d mean a whole lot to us.