Tag: Board Game

Meet Victoria Fraser, the Woman behind the Board Game B*tch Podcast
Victoria Fraser (she/her) is a freelance writer and podcaster. She has worked on several podcasts, most notably Boardgame B*tch where she reviews board games and has all sorts of fun board game badassery.

I recently had the privilege to be a guest on Boardgame B*tch to discuss one of my favorite table top games: Wingspan! Check out the episode now on the Podcast delivery site of your choice: Apple | Spotify | Google Podcast. I wanted to get to know Victoria a little more, and she kindly agreed to chat with me about her history playing games and some recommendations of board games that I’m eager to try out!

Victoria, you host the podcast Boardgame B*tch where you discuss the rules and playability of table top board games. What prompted you to create Boardgame B*tch?

I got into podcasting during university through the UBC Creative Writing program. We had to focus on three different genres; although I mostly took classes in children’s writing, comics, and poetry, during the last semester I took a podcasting class. Honestly, I hadn’t really listened to a podcast before that class! I knew about radio plays and radio dramas, though, so I thought it would be fun.

That class made me fall in love with podcasts! My classmates recommended some of their favorites, like “Spirits,” “Serial,” and “The Adventure Zone.” We had to make practice podcasts for school, which made me want to start a podcast of my own. From the very beginning, I wanted to host a podcast about board games because they’re one of my favorite things to talk about. But it wasn’t the right timing at that point. Instead, two years ago, my friend Allie and I started I Like Your Dress where we reviewed Vancouver-based restaurants, festivals, and other things. That’s how I became connected to the Cave Goblin Network.

A year ago I started freelancing and focusing on my business, and that left less time for our podcast. I stepped away, but couldn’t stop dreaming about that original idea of a board game podcast. When my life felt a little more balanced, I decided to give it a try. Boardgame B*tch was on Patreon for a few months before going fully live in April 2021, and I’ve just started my second season!

It sounds like board games have been important to you for a long time. What is your history with board games?

I like to say I’m a third generation gamer! My grandmother played bridge, and my mom loves playing games. In fact, she bought a bunch of D&D books in the 80s but couldn’t find anyone to play with. I taught her how to play a couple years ago as a Mother’s Day present! I grew up playing cards, poker, board games, and Euro games with my family all the time. I have a picture of myself when I’m 2 or 3, and I’m rolling dice, looking super fucking pumped; I still play “Dice” (a simplified version of Yahtzee) with my family. Every Christmas we all get board games as gifts and then we spend Boxing Day playing them.

That’s amazing! And what would you say is your favorite board game currently?

I’m glad you said “currently”! It changes all the time, but right now I would say Tokaido. It’s this great game set in Japan where players are tourists traveling the Tokaido road taking pictures and buying souvenirs. It’s a very peaceful board game that is artistically very lovely and has cool mechanics and movements.

I also love party games! Even if they’re mechanically simple, they’re so much fun socially. Rules are great, and I love a complicated game, but sometime you just want some quick fun with your friends. I especially love Superfight, a game where you create fighters in a ring with weird traits and Cult Following, where you’re all cult leaders trying to start a cult. You have to create a story and recruit more players to join your cult than someone else’s.

I have not heard of any of those, but I’m definitely going to check them out! If someone wants to get into the world of board games and table top games, what are 2-3 options you would suggest as starter games?

I think it’s important to introduce people to games with something simple and fun. You want a little bit of complexity, but not too much!
1. Citadels. It’s an easily transportable card game that only takes about an hour to finish, and it doesn’t take up much space. It’s a game with a lot of player interaction, and it’s set in a Medieval setting, so people can easily latch on to that. It’s not new, but it holds up!
2. Betrayal at the House on the Hill. This is a game that is good for storytelling. It’s one of the best co-op games, so it’s great for people who are learning and want to work together. It’s a good middle game – not so complex that it’s impossible, but it’s not so easy that it’s boring.
3. King of Tokyo. This is a dice game that is pretty simple but gets more complicated with expansions, which makes it great to slowly build up for people.
I love all of your recommendations! If someone wants to hear more of your thoughts on board games, which podcast episode would you suggest people start with if they want to start listening to Boardgame B*tch (other than my episode on Wingspan, obviously)?

I really love the “Hive” episode. It’s a two player game, and my guest and I had a really fun conversation goofing off and talking about bugs. Otherwise, scroll through the options and choose the one that resonates with you!

What can we expect to see from Boardgame B*tch in the future?

When I first launched my podcast, it was a solo show. Now I am focusing on board game interviews and board game conversations with guests. I’m branching out a beyond just reviews to have episode about things like board game design and D&D etiquette. I would also like to someday do episodes about conventions outside of Vancouver!

One last question: Roar Cat Reads is a blog for queer, nerdy content. What’s your favorite nerdy book of the moment?

Welcome to Mina’s: A Diner Comic Anthology by Cloudscape Comics. It’s a Kickstarter project that I backed because I know Haley Boros, one of the creators, and the premise sounds really cool. It takes place over time but always centered on the same diner in Vancouver. A couple of the chapters focus on queer couples!

I also really like Sidequesting, a fantasy podcast about avoiding the main plot. It’s not queer, I don’t think, but it is very nerdy and fun.

Thank you so much for talking board games with me, Victoria!

If you would like to see more of what Victoria is up to, check out her Bio and her Podcast. Listen, subscribe, and share it with a friend!
July 2, 2021
My 8 Favorite Board Games

I did not always love board games (the one that I did love was Life – that spinner! the tiny people pegs!), but I have consistently become friends with people who love them. I first warmed to card games when my Midwestern friends hosted euchre tournaments during weekend getaways. Over the years, I slowly got into table top games with Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Cataan. Now, I have become full-fledged board game geek, a title that is bestowed when one voluntarily plays a game for 13 hours (see Twilight Imperium below).

I pride myself on having a diverse board game palate. I want to have games that appeal to different kinds of people, from the silly to the serious and the short to the long. If you are looking for a new game to play, these table top games are ones that I can personally vouch for!

I want to acknowledge that board games can be expensive. If you don’t think you’re ready to invest in a board game, you can still enjoy them! You can borrow a game from a friend, check out a board game from the library, or head out to a cafe or pub that allows you to play a huge variety of games while eating and drinking. (If you’re in the Vancouver area, I recommend Storm Crow Alehouse or Pizzeria Ludica during non-COVID times.)

5-Minute Dungeon (2-5 players, 25 minute gameplay)
5-Minute Dungeon is an excellent game to start the evening. Each round literally lasts five minutes, so it’s a quick and chaotic cooperative way to get in the gaming mood with your friends. Using D&D archetypes such as rogue, wizard, or barbarian, you have the option of choosing from five character cards (male or female on either side, equaling ten option in total) to team up and defeat five increasingly difficult boss battles. The gameplay is simple, as you and your teammates match icons from your hand to defeat a series of monsters and obstacles, and the five minute time limit guarantees that you will be laughing and screaming in an attempt to be victorious in time.

Unstable Unicorns (2-8 players, 30-45 minute gameplay)
Unstable Unicorns is an adorably designed game of killer unicorns with hilarious names and powers (Americorn! Stabby the Unicorn!) that combines strategy and ruthlessness with seriously, just the cutest illustrations ever. Build up your stable of unicorns (as well as narwhals, the unicorns of the sea) and try to destroy the unicorns of other players. It is a simple system with the potential for a lot of clever gameplay.

Quelf (3-8 players, 1-2 hour gameplay)
Quelf is my favorite party game, and I have historically described it as “if you are willing to look ridiculous for 30 seconds, you get to watch your friends look ridiculous too.” It is out and out bonkers, as you move along the track by miming falling down an elevator or scouring your kitchen for materials to make a scuba mask that must be worn for the remainder of the game. Sometimes you lose points if you forget to bark at someone entering the room. It’s the silliest thing I’ve ever voluntarily done on repeat, and it never gets old.

Munchkin (3-6 players, 1-2 hour gameplay)
Munchkin is a card-based strategy game wherein you strengthen your character with loot like the Kneepads of Sexiness and fight monsters, racing to level 10 before any of your competitors. It’s a lot of fun that never gets old, because holy cow, there are so many expansions. You can work your way through Adventure Time scenarios or Cthulhu horrors or dinosaurs. This game has a fairly simple conceit, but it’s heightened with creative twists like giving monsters additional hit points for every drink that’s on the table.

Eldritch Horror (1-8 players, 2-4 hour gameplay)
Eldritch Horror is one of the most complicated, most difficult games I’ve ever played. In fact, in the three times I’ve played this with groups of experienced gamers, I have never once won. Yet this only makes me want to try again! A cooperative game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s novels, you and your friends race to find clues and defeat horrors appearing through rifts all over the world before your health and sanity disappear. It requires strategy, flexibility, and the willingness to mourn the takeover of planet earth after hours of attempting to prevent the apocalypse. Defeat was never so fun.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game (1-4 players, 1-2 hour gameplay)
If you’re not a fan of board games that require hundreds of game pieces, switch over to Arkham Horror: the Card Game, which adds role-play to the original concept of partners uniting to defeat otherworldly horrors before you lose all health and sanity. The card setup is unique, and the scenarios allow you to fail but continue moving forward so long as you note your “two mental traumas” in the gameplay notebook. Again, this is a game designed to be almost impossible, which should be obvious by the rule that states, “If you are unsure how to apply a rule, choose the option that causes the most pain to your characters.” So hard! So fun!

Terraforming Mars (1-5 players, 1-2 hour gameplay)
Terraforming Mars a perfect game for one or two people who want to strategize and create a long term plan, stacking resources and implementing opportunities at just the right moment. This game wins extra points for feeling like you’re really terraforming Mars. Points are earned as you raise the temperature and oxygen levels, and you have access to developing microbes and searching for life before opportunities to plan grass ever come along. An incredibly nerdy and delightful game.

Twilight Imperium (3-6 players, 4-8 hour playtime)
The game of all games. I first played Twilight Imperium in a group of six, and we played for thirteen hours. It is a testament to this game that we played again within a month, and the second time breezed by in a quick seven hours. This complex game somehow manages to never feel QUITE too complicated, though I cannot imagine trying to play without at least one player who has experience. In this race to conquer the galaxy (which you create with tiles, guaranteeing a new game every time), you can lean into technology, war, trade, or diplomacy to earn victory points and become undisputed champion of table top gaming. (Check out my review here.)

April 23, 2021
Terraforming Mars
A Tabletop Game Review

(1-5 players, 1-2 hour gameplay)

Terraforming Mars is a literal world-building game that creates a pace and domino effect of changes that feels accurate. Fun for one player or a group, this game rewards strategy at increasing levels of difficulty depending upon how many of the rewards you count toward final scores.

I first played Terraforming Mars with a low level of interest. There were so many pieces and the tracking system for my organization’s money, iron, plants, heat, etc. looked overwhelming. But when I played a couple rounds, I was hooked. The thing that got me most was the fact that the gameplay felt real. When you draw cards, some are immediately playable. Others require that the planet’s oxygen and heat be at a certain level. After all, mining can begin immediately when developing a dead planet, but animals are not going to be able to survive until the basics are taken care of.

Because there are limitations on what you can do when, the beginning of the game is slow. Each player can likely only perform one or two actions before passing to the next. But as heat rises and terraformed plant tiles increase the planet’s oxygen (not to mention as your money intake grows), you can perform more and more actions. These in turn speed up the rate at which the planet is developing, until by the end, all players are scrambling to accomplish all their goals before Mars is fully terraformed. At that point, scores are totaled based upon the number of cities you founded and whether they touch greenery, which feels like a realistic goal for a game about making a planet habitable.

The fact that the system feels real and is, I assume, well-researched, continues when you move beyond the beginner corporations and try the game with specific organizations targeted to certain goals. For instance, my pick was a mining corporation, which made the costs of mining actions lower. This led to faster expansion and more money, which ultimately won out over my partner’s attempts to push plants. But in another round with different cards being drawn, the outcome could be totally different.

Together with the fact that there are expansions to Terraforming Mars, the number of corporations you can play as and the amount of action cards available make this game incredibly replayable.

Pros:
1. Chill and Competitive. There are rarely opportunities to directly attack your fellow gamers, and you indirectly help each other by raising temperature and oxygen levels. The competition primarily comes from building your own successful system, which is only fully realized when score counting. As a person who values non-aggressive competition, this game was perfect for me.
2. Realistic. I mean, I haven’t terraformed Mars. Nor has anyone else, so who knows if this actually is realistic. But it’s very well thought out, and this makes the game feel immersive.
3. Play Alone or With People. My girlfriend played Terraforming Mars solo, and she said it was just as enjoyable as playing with others. Alone, you are racing against the clock, and she said it felt impossible right up until the last couple rounds, which was just the kind of drama you feel when competing against others.
Cons:
1. There are a lot of tiny game pieces needed to track all of your resources. This isn’t a huge deal, but I could see people with children or pets getting into some trouble here.
2. We haven’t played with all of the corporations, but some do feel more easily winnable than the others. More playtime will reveal if this is true!
I recommend Terraforming Mars to game players who love strategy, science, and the satisfaction of a series of decisions paying off in big rewards.

Have you played Terraforming Mars?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
April 2, 2021
Game Review: Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition
(3-6 players, 4-8 hour* playtime)

*Actual time may be much longer!

Twilight Imperium is a fabulous marathon of a table top game, one that requires an entire day, a fridge full of snacks, and friends who can endure the ups and downs of galactic interspecies negotiations.

I played Twilight Imperium for the first time on Boxing Day 2019. We had six players, five of whom had never played the game before. Full of greasy breakfast and eager to learn, we chose our races (I took the Emirates of Hacan, aka Space Cats) and set up our galaxy, defending our home planets with miniature spaceship Destroyers and Cruisers. At that point we checked the time; two hours had flown by, and we hadn’t even started the game.

The game itself feels like it moves quickly. There is a lot of strategy involved, so even when it is not your turn, you’re likely gaming out moves, checking your technology tree, and calculating how many Dreadnoughts you can afford. It’s complex, and I would recommend playing with at least one person who is familiar with the game. But the endless options draw you in, and it feels amazing when the game settles into your bones and you start intuiting what the best play is.

We wound up playing for thirteen hours. Yes, you read that right. We started at 10:00 a.m. and ended at 11:00 p.m. Some players lagged. Others pretended to do so, waiting until the last minute to run a carefully thought out play, only to be defeated in the end by a lone planet bound Infantry. I won, though admittedly it was in large part because of my alliance with my girlfriend, who played as the Mentak Coalition (aka Space Pirates). It’s likely that I’m biased by my glorious victory, but the thirteen hours was definitely worth it. Others must have agreed, because we played again less than a month later.

Pros:
1. Enormous Replay Ability. Especially because you create a new galaxy every game by laying out space tiles as advantageously as possible.
2. Multiple Ways to Win. There are public and private goals that earn players victory points, meaning you can lean heavily into technology, war, trade, or expansion in your bid to accumulate points.
3. Allies. You can play the game as cutthroat as you like, but at some point, it’s likely that you’re going to want to ally with another player. Often this is the person who shares a trade agreement with you, but the benefits don’t have to stop there. Guard borders, vote together, and when the time is right…stab them in the back to claim Mecatol Rex for yourself!
Cons:
1. It is really, really long. If that doesn’t make you salivate, you should probably give this game a pass.
2. When it isn’t really, really long, it’s because of a sudden death card that can feel unsatisfying when played. This happened the second time I played Twilight Imperium. We finished in “only” seven hours, but it was because a card was drawn that said whoever had the most victory points at that moment automatically won. Some people might put this in the pro section, but when I’m seven hours into a game, I want to claw my way to the finish line.
I recommend Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition to Uber Nerds who love strategy, intricate game pieces, and a deep emotional investment that can withstand hours of play.

Have you played Twilight Imperium?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
March 12, 2021