It's a board game bonanza this week as Chase and Thomas are joined by BoardGameWire's Mike Didymus-True to discuss a news week heavily skewed towards the meeple-side of the tabletop industry. The crew talks about Spiel Essen, the largest trade show-convention hybrid in the world, and some of the most interesting games Mike saw while in Germany. They also discuss the state of content creators and criticism as it pertains to board games but manage to wrap back around to a conversation on actual play's future.

Later, the trio dig into two different troubling crowdfunding stories: Altered TCG's publishers profess a mea culpa after telling backers their massively successful campaign may not be enough to secure the game's future; and Steamforged's deluxe version of Terra Mystica fails to garner enough, er... steam at launch, so they're dramatically whacking down the price. What can we extrapolate from these case studies? And how much is Chase just grinding his ol' battleax?

Finally we answer your questions about old trading card games that should come back from the dead, along with a long tangent into Catan's weird recent licensing. What does a basketball team, Netflix, and the phrase "interactive concourse activations" have in common? Why, it's everyone's favorite board game about sheep, wood, and walls.

Games we discuss:

• Gibberers

• Collect

• Castles of Burgundy

• Altered TCG

• Terra Mystica

• Summoner Wars

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Hosted by Chase Taylor- Carter (@chasecarter.bsky.social).

Featuring Thomas Manuel (@newmadras.bsky.social) and special guest Mike Didymus-True (@boardgamewire.bsky.social).

Find Mike's work at BoardGameWire.

Theme song by People Need Goals.

Cover art logo by Johan Nohr (@johannohr.bsky.social).