A sometimes daft podcast about tabletop and video games, old and new! Casual and unscripted chat and reviews, brought to you by Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave from Edinburgh, Scotland. Some strong language and even stronger accents throughout.
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Email us: firstplayertoken@gmail.com
Logo by Rebecca Horner
Music by the hosts, with Jokin Etxeberria
We're back with another tabletop games episode, this time talking about two board games with gorgeous artwork: Dice Forge, in which the players are constantly changing the physical faces of their dice to suit their needs and strategy, and Spirit Island, a fully co-operative game of angry gods and spirits (the players) who are repelling foreign invaders from colonising their lands. Enjoy!
Dice Forge: 02:30
Spirit Island: 25:45
This week's video games episode finds Chris in his happy place as he shows Divinity: Original Sin 2 a whole lot of love while arguing with Pawel about what a Fantasy RPG is. Meanwhile, Pawel has been playing Echo (not Ecco), a stealth game in which the AI learns how to beat you from observing your choices and behaviour. Also this week Chris and Dave have a bit to say about Starbound and its excellent balance of relaxing base building and exploration of alien planets. Enjoy!
Divinity: Original Sin 2: 03:34
Echo: 29:40
Starbound: 45:20
A full squad of Unnecessaries have a spot of early tomfoolery over which one of them is called Pawel, before they move on to a couple of good chats about some of the more fun and chaotic tabletop games they've played recently: Goblins, Inc, a tile-laying game in which four players split into two teams and build robots of death to batter each other with; and Escape: The Curse of the Temple (Big Box Edition), a co-operative, real-time, frantic, dice-rolling game, which involves the players attempting to, well, escape from an ancient temple before time runs out and they're locked in forever. Enjoy!
Goblins, Inc: 02:18
Escape: The Curse of the Temple: 23:50
Chris, Euan, Pawel, and Dave kick off by opening the mailbag for the first time, as an annoyed listener manages to sneak in a review of Uncharted 4. The proper gaming chat starts with Destiny 2, as Pawel skives work to play a video game again, and Chris attempts to tackle Fortnite, a game which is trying to be a lot of things at once (and basically succeeding). Also, Euan manages to squeeze in a quick talk about PS2 game Shadow of Memories (aka Shadow of Destiny), a weird time-travelling game of yesteryear. Enjoy!
Destiny 2: 07:14
Fortnite: 25:58
Shadow of Memories/Destiny: 52:05
Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are back for a healthy chat about two completely different board games! Strap yourselves in (and board your windows up) for a long chat about This War of Mine, a narrative-heavy game which sees the players controlling a small group of people trying desperately to survive in a war-torn city. We then lighten things up a bit with the hospital building/patient curing game Quarantine, a short and easy to learn board game which has a decent amount of screwing over your fellow players by filling their hospitals with disease. Enjoy!
This War of Mine: 1:43
Quarantine: 42:22
Chris, Euan, Pawel, and even Dave are back from an unintentionally extended holiday to talk video games! During the break, Euan finally finished Final Fantasy XV, and has a good rant about it, while Chris talks about The Sexy Brutale, a quirky time-travelling point-and-click murder mystery game for the modern gaming world. Dave has a bit to say about Alaskan survival/exploration game The Wild Eight, and specifically its multiplayer mode, and Pawel attempts to pour out some love for Uncharted 4, but the conversation is... ehh.. derailed. Enjoy!
Final Fantasy XV: 3:16
The Sexy Brutale: 10:24
The Wild Eight: 21:35
Uncharted 4/everything else: 38:16
Chris and Euan are on their lonesome for this week's board games episode, which covers a couple of games that they've enjoyed for a few years now, starting with Mage Wars, a deckbuilding mage-battling game with a huge difference in that all your cards and abilities are available to you from the off. They then go back to Xia: Legends of a Drift System, the sci-fi sandbox game of customisable ships battering around a dangerous galaxy, and have a look at the new expansion for it, Embers of a Forsaken Star, and all the delights that it adds. Enjoy!
Mage Wars: 2:33
Xia: Embers of a Forsaken Star: 29:47
This week's video games episode begins with looking up Pawel's name on Urban Dictionary for kicks, before the lads actually start talking about some video games, starting with a very brief return to Neon Chrome and then a much, much longer chat about another roguelike, Unexplored, which Chris has been enjoying immensely. Euan then goes back a good few years to talk about Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, in anticipation of a new Call of Cthulhu game being released later this year. Pawel brings us forward into the 2010s (or is it back to the 1940s?) as he chats about the RTS game Company of Heroes 2, set on the Eastern Front during World War 2, before Chris has some silly fun with one-vs-many horror survival game Friday the 13th: The Game. Enjoy!
Unexplored/Neon Chrome: 5:04
Call of Cthulhu: 23:40
Company of Heroes 2: 35:00
Friday the 13th: 47:03
Chris, Euan and Pawel have a 66% Japanese episode with two games from designers from the land of the rising sun, starting with Tragedy Looper, a "1 versus many" time-travel board game in which the good guys are trying to prevent tragedies from happening by, uhhh, letting them happen a couple of times. Next up is Fairy Tale, a light, fantasy-themed card game of set collection and with multiple ways of scoring points. Pawel then ruins the Japanese theme of the episode by talking some more about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and specifically about its standalone adventures and expansions such as Dunwich Legacy. Dave also gives a message from beyond the grave. (Note: Dave isn't actually dead) Enjoy!
Tragedy Looper: 3:18
Fairy Tale: 26:32
Arkham Horror Card Game: 40:30
Chris, Euan and Pawel bring you another video games episode! Chris kicks off with an update on two VR games, first asking Pawel about his experience with Star Trek Bridge Crew and then a short bit about his own playthrough of Farpoint. Euan then talks about the strange Egyptian sci-fi old-school style indie RPG Void Pyramid and how he's been stalking its mysterious designer known only as "A Hagen". Chris jacks himself into Neon Chrome, an addictive and well designed top-down cyberpunk shooter with roguelike elements, while Pawel returns to the Gabriel Knight series with the 20th Anniversary remake of Sins of the Father. Also, more vague politics. Enjoy!
Star Trek Bridge Crew/Farpoint: 3:20
Void Pyramid: 13:04
Neon Chrome: 26:10
Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father: 41:04
Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave bring you the missing board games episode from last week! This week we give most of the episode over to Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games, as we give our first impressions of the newly-arrived story-telling/adventuring game Near and Far. We also chat about one of Euan's favourite games, The Ancient World, where the players are attempting to unite groups of people under their banners to fight off the threat of attacking Titans. Although Pawel thinks the humans are the real monsters. Finally, we return to Captain Sonar, after Chris and Euan managed to get a full eight-player real-time game of this incredibly fun team-based submarine-commanding torpedo-firing stealth-running mine-dropping game of wits. New video games episode will be out later this week! Enjoy!
Near and Far: 2:30
The Ancient World: 25:30
Captain Sonar: 46:10
Video Games: This week, Chris and Euan return to Farpoint, the PSVR sci-fi shooter, getting a bit more into the story side of things and the new stuff they're encountering. Pawel interjects with a segment on the Battletech Closed Beta, an upcoming turn-based strategy game in which squads of giant mechs blow each other to bits, and based on the tabletop game of the same name. Finally, Chris and Euan get back to PSVR with a look at the latest big release, Star Trek Bridge Crew, the immensely fun, nerdy, co-op starship simulator set in the rebooted Star Trek universe. This episode also features some chat about the future of PSVR and what they think the platform needs, and also Euan getting angry about films. Enjoy!
Farpoint: 1:51
Battletech: 18:06
Star Trek Bridge Crew: 32:49
Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are here to talk about two very different tabletop games in this episode! Yokohama is first up, a Euro-style game in which the players are presidents of merchant companies during the Meiji era of Japan's history, trying to win the favour of foreign investors. We also take on Bloodborne, a barely-cooperative card game set in the video game world of Yharnam, in which there can be only one winner, but you'll have to work together to defeat your monstrous enemies. Enjoy!
Yokohama: 4:00
Bloodborne: 34:30
A veritable feast of video games is on offer in this week's episode, as we first go back a few years to talk about Borderlands 2 (as part of The Handsome Collection) and all its craziness. Next up is the latest PSVR release Farpoint, a sci-fi shooter using Sony's new Aim controller, and Euan launches into a SPOILER FILLED audio essay on his ongoing playthrough of Final Fantasy XV. Also on this week's show, Pawel talks about sci-fi city builder Anno 2205, while Chris gives a quick overview of his cowardly bathroom-hiding tactics in Battle Royale-esque PC shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Enjoy!
Borderlands 2 - 4:00
Farpoint - 19:30
Final Fantasy XV - 26:46 (Spoilers)
Anno 2205 - 39:38
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - 50:27
Chris, Euan, Pawel, and even Dave are talking board games this week, with Vlaada Chvatil's 2008 real-time panic-inducing game Space Alert taking up a decent chunk of the episode, as Pawel describes his love for pushing buttons that do nothing while Euan gives him a telling off for not listening to the Captain. Also in this episode, Chris and Euan go through their first game of The Colonists, a fairly new worker management Euro-style game which has a focus on efficiency and burning your brain. Enjoy!
In this week's Video Games episode, Pawel's bias finally breaks down as he admits that the bugs and weird things going on in Mass Effect: Andromeda are actually ruining his immersion, and instead retreats to the world of Expeditions: Viking, a tactical RPG which is the successor to Conquistador. Meanwhile, Chris travels through a war-torn country with a baseball bat in randomly generated side-scrolling survival game Home Behind.
Enjoy!
Chris and Euan are joined by guest host Dave for some chat about some of the board games we played on International Tabletop Day, beginning with some team-based submarine fun in Captain Sonar, a game of hidden movements, outwitting your opponents and panicking about your vessel's systems! We also finally got around to playing Waggle Dance, a worker placement game which uses dice to represent bees in the players' hives as they compete for nectar, hatch eggs, and make honey. Last up we revisit The Pursuit of Happiness, a strange Game of Life-esque game where you live through the entire life of a person, and the ultimate goal is to be happier than anyone else when the stress of old age finally kills you. Enjoy!
After a short hiatus, Chris, Euan and Pawel are back with another video games episode! Pawel sweats through an attempt at a TOTALLY UNBIASED review of Mass Effect Andromeda, which quickly turns into a long discussion about the Mass Effect series in general, while Chris and Euan talk about Disc Jam, the weirdly fun volleyball/frisbee hybrid sports game. Chris also manages to squeeze in The Wild Eight, a story-driven survival game with a twist which he is finding strangely addictive. Enjoy!
Chris, Euan and Pawel are joined in this episode by their gaming chum Dave to talk about tabletop games! Dead of Winter, the truly semi-cooperative zombie survival game, is first up this week, as the fingers of blame are pointed in all directions. Pawel then gets his names confused as he talks about Mage: The Ascension, which is set in the World of Darkness (not Warcraft), and is definitely not the entirely fictional board game Mage Quest. Lastly this week, the lads give another spoiler-free update on their Gloomhaven adventures, with Dave giving some input into what he describes as a bonkers game. Enjoy!
This week, Pawel gets defensive over comments made by Chris in the last video games episode about Horizon Zero Dawn and gives a lengthy retort (while stopping Euan from giving an opinion), Euan gets his revenge by resorting to talking about a mobile port of the original Dragon Quest (or is it Dragon Warrior?) from 1986, and Chris accidentally ruins the early-access naval battle game Blackwake for a bunch of roleplayers. Enjoy!