Route building. Colony building. Future building. Restaurant building.

We turned a lot of resources into a lot of structures these past few weeks. We also bought and sold shares of stock and grilled some burgers. A little of everything, really, resulting in a lot of game talk.

STATIONS:

00:17:52 -- On Joe's Table: Xenon Profiteer & The Arrival
00:22:42 -- On Jim's Table: Food Chain Magnate: Ketchup and Other Mechanisms Expansion
00:41:35 -- Stephenson's Rocket (first take)
00:57:10 -- Pax Transhumanity (first take)
01:15:26 -- High West Campfire
01:27:22 -- On Mars (first take, in-depth)
02:11:14 -- Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry

Missiles are raining down in Iraq, but ain't we got smiles.

Yeah, I guess. With 2020 already looking doomed already, we steady ourselves and take a look at some of the good things we encountered over the Winter break.

We have hope. We will forge ahead. There are games to be played.

Another Year gone by and it's time for the lists to come out. These are the things that moved us in 2019. How do your experiences compare?

Grab a holiday cocktail, relax, and enjoy.

LISTS:

00:09:41 -- TV & Visual Entertainment (Spoilers and Rants)
00:25:36 -- Video / Computer Games
00:30:56 -- Board Games
01:32:23 -- Music
02:52:50 -- Whiskey & Whisky
02:57:50 -- Books

We go heavy on the games in this year's penultimate episode. Almost two hours taken to cover three games. We expect you'll have a good Idea on whether these are for you.

Enjoy.

PROCEEDINGS:

00:00:00 --  Straight Into Some Music (Delines, Clutch, Joe Henry, Perpetual Grace, Ltd.)
00:32:18 -- Symphony (first take)
00:57:44 -- Bios: Origins 2 (in-depth)
01:38:30 -- Circadians: First Light (in-depth)

This episode marks six years on the air. We take some time, at Joe's behest, to consider this and where the show might go from here. Also, we revisit a a game that was featured on the second episode, and preview a new release.

Have fun.

THE YEARS:

00:05:15 -- Tournamentville
00:09:35 -- Apologies and Better Angels
00:16:33 -- What I Appreciates
00:22:32 -- Making Bad Better and Good Worse
00:30:19 -- 6 Years Down the Road
01:00:10 -- Tank Duel (first take)
01:25:23 -- Yedo (revisited in-depth)

Fighting a cold and the off-season blues, we power though this episode to bring you some pretty heavy game discussion on entries old and new.

Whisky, music and a book round out the proceedings.

CARGO:

00:14:26 -- Panamax (revisited, in-depth)
00:58:36 -- Paladins of the West Kingdom (in depth)
01:45:27 -- Tearraforming Mars: No Need to Draft
01:58:04 -- Kavalan ex-Bourbon Cask Whisky
02:04:15 -- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Ghosteen
02:10:58 -- Lanny, by Max Porter

Often postponed, but never defeated, this new episode transforms from a pile of scraps into a glorious quilt of gaming discourse.

Other stuff as well.

Enjoy

PATTERNS:

00:10:24 -- High Frontier
00:19:44 -- Living Rules, Collections, Rules Again, and So Forth . . . .
00:41:57 -- To Play or Not to Play?
00:54:24 -- Hannibal and Hamilcar (1st Take)
01:03:28 -- Polis
01:05:37 -- More Hannibal
01:08:18 -- Back to Polis
01:15:06 -- New Games??
01:18:42 -- Ardbeg AN OA Single Malt
01:33:10 -- Music (Sturgill Simpson, Mikal Cronin, Mark Lanegan, Anna Meridith, Guided by Voices)
02:03:32 -- War Room (1st Take)

Consider a concert set list. The band comes out and opens with a couple of deep cuts, a bit slow-tempo, really a nod to the fans. But then they kick it in, building tension, generating release, mixing cuts from all their albums, back and forth across the years. For the encore, a few more deep cuts for the die-hards who haven't rushed out to beat the traffic.

We'll just say that this episode is like that show.

CUTS:

00:16:08 -- Player Usage and the Art of Making Out
00:21:46 -- Guild Usage and the Art of Restaurant Patronage
00:23:59 -- T-Shirt usage and the Art of Support
00:27:52 -- City of the Big Shoulders and the Art of Declaration
00:31:18 -- Creating Music and the Art of Distribution
00:35:21 -- High Frontier 4 All and the Art of Paying What's Due
00:39:10 -- The Long and Winding Road (A Games Journey)
01:36:25 -- Right Here, Right Now: Top 5 Euro Games
01:53:04 -- Undaunted: Normandy (in-depth)
02:27:21 -- Snap, by Belinda Bauer

We start slow, as cool ambient music on a rainy Autumn evening, but by the halfway point we warm to the task and heat the discussion up to a boil.

Some games just get you that way.

TEMPS:

00:06:01 -- Tournament Losses (Wir Sind das Volk)
00:17:11 -- Innovation & Shogun (sessions)
00:28:25 -- Five-Player Games, now!
00:40:57 -- Spiderman on PS4
00:52:35 -- Endless Legend
01:00:45 -- City of the Big Shoulders (in-depth)
01:43:50 -- Vindication (preview)
01:54:57 -- Oban Little Bay
01:58:32 -- Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan

Games, Games, Game. Now that Summer is ended, or at least Summer vacation has, we're getting back into a routine that promises to result in the playing of more games.

As a result, despite a brief interlude where we express a bit of weariness with the state of the world, we're diving deep into a few games currently hitting our table. Get your wet suit on and join us.

ROUTINES:

00:09:18 -- Wir Sind das Volk (tournament sessions)
00:33:49 -- Sekigahara (Session)
00:45:20 -- Weary and Filled with Despair
00:55:45 -- The City of the Big Shoulders (preview session)
01:19:27 -- Lords of Hellas (in-depth)