Decision Space - podcast cover

Decision Space

Jacob Frydman, Brendan Hansen, Pete Wissinger, Paul Salomondecisionspace.podbean.com
Decision Space is a board game podcast about the decisions in games.
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Episodes

Drawing Cards Is the Best Mechanism in Board Games (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 205 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Drawing Cards It's an OG host episode, with the twist that Jake made the notes for once (with a little help from our discordians). In this episode Jake and Brendan talk about drawing cards in board games in two parts. Part one is all the...

Mar 12, 20251 hr 9 minEp. 209

Expression in Board Games (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 204 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Expression in Board Games Brendan and Pete talk about expression in board games! The discussion takes us to the ways we can express ourselves through game play, the games that enable expression and the games that do not, and how this mig...

Mar 05, 20251 hr 4 minEp. 208

Types of Simultaneous Play and Fromage Deep Dive

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 203 - Fromage What the heck! The first episode ever with no Jake and no Brendan. It's up to Paul and Pete to lead the way, and they do an awesome job discussing the types of simultaneous play that you'll find in board game before deep diving Fromage. Timestamps Intro and Simultane...

Feb 26, 20251 hr 16 minEp. 207

Age of Innovation and Discussion on Sequels, Expansions, and Reimplementations

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 202 - Age of Innovation For the first time ever, it is Jake and Pete. We start with a discussion on Sequels, Expansions, Reimplementations and the muck that gets kicked up when certain publishers iterate. We then move into a notable example of game design iteration with the newest...

Feb 19, 20251 hr 10 minEp. 206

Action Points in Board Games (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 201 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Action Point Systems It's a throwback to the early days of Decision Space. Jake and Brendan have a wide-ranging, loosely planned conversation about a topic in board games. Today that topic is action point systems, which we've explored re...

Feb 12, 20251 hr 2 minEp. 205

Episode 200! Our Favorite Decisions in Board Games

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 200 - Our Favorite Board Game Decisions The big 200! We take the opportunity to share our favorite decisions in board games with all 4 hosts! Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 5:59 - Our Favorite Decisions Games Mentioned Briefly Race for the Galaxy, Avalon, The Resistance, Skull, Coup, Gam...

Feb 05, 20251 hr 16 minEp. 204

Shedding in Board Games (What We Talk About) and a Haggis Review

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 199 - Shedding Games and Haggis It's Pete, Paul, and Brendan this week discussing the shedding mechanism in board games before pivoting into a review of one of the most notable of these card games, Haggis! Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 3:38 - Shedding Games WWTA 34:45 - Scout 43:20 - Do...

Jan 29, 20251 hr 21 minEp. 203

The Best 2024 Board Game Decisions and Games We Look Forward to in 2025

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 198 - The Best 2024 Board Game Decisions and Games We Look Forward to in 2025 Award season isn't over, at least not yet on Decision Space. Today, we welcome the 'Naughts to a gala event, where Paul, Pete, and Jake will each award bronze, silver, and gold medals for best decisions ...

Jan 22, 20251 hr 8 minEp. 202

Our Top 5 Kramer & Kiesling Games and Mexica Deep Dive

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 197 - Our Top 5 Kramer & Kiesling Games and Mexica Deep Dive It's Jake and Brendan again this week. We start off be each sharing our top 5 Kramer and Kiesling games. Then we get into the long promised Mexica deep dive. We are trying out the new deep dive format with a short to...

Jan 15, 20251 hr 6 minEp. 201

The State of Decision Space - Big News, Reflections, and the 2024 Listener List

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 196 - The State of Decision Space We like to start the new year by reflecting on the show, what we are doing here, and where we want to go from here. In this episode, you will hear our honest thoughts about the last year of our show, some big news and ideas about the show moving f...

Jan 08, 202557 minEp. 200

RANKING ALL THE GAMES 2024: Year End Rank-A-Thon

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 195 - 2024 Year End Rank-a-thon It's the last episode of 2024, so that means it is time to rank all the games featured on Decision Space in 2024. This is a great opportunity both as a chance to pit the games against each other and see which ones really rose to the top and as a cha...

Dec 25, 20241 hr 18 minEp. 199

Quintessential Brendan Games

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 194 - Quintessential Brendan Games Back after a short baby-hiatus, Decision Space returns with the one about Quintessential Brendan Games. We get to pull out the entire Decision Space lexicon and see how Brendan's taste in games fit into what we do here. Enjoy! Timestamps Message ...

Dec 18, 20241 hr 13 minEp. 198

Quick Show Update

Jake's family welcomed a baby, which is why the show was on a brief hiatus for last week and this week. Next week you can look forward to an episode on quintessential Brendan games, and following that, our year end ranking all the games episode. -Jake

Dec 12, 20241 minEp. 197

Double Feature! Dracula vs Van Helsing / Castle Combo

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 193 - Dracula vs Van Helsing, Castle Combo Double Feature This double feature episode includes deep-dive reviews of Dracula vs Van Helsing and Castle Combo! We've never attempted to cram two full-on decision space explorations into a single episode, so we hope you enjoy this attem...

Nov 27, 202459 minEp. 196

The 5 Types of Rules (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 192 - What We Talk About When We Talk About the Five Types of Rules In this podcast, we've talked a lot about games, mechanisms, and the rules that call these things forth from the page and bring the game to life on our table. We haven't, however, talked a lot about rules themselv...

Nov 20, 20241 hr 19 minEp. 195

Quintessential Jake Games

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 191 - Quintessential Jake Games What is a game that is quintessential to a person's taste? With Jake as the guinea pig, we try to answer that question and determine what defines Jake's taste in this week's episode. Timestamps Intro and Updates - 0:00 Main Topic - 6:57 The Contende...

Nov 14, 20241 hr 2 minEp. 194

Burgle Bros - Is This Pac-Man the Board Game?

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 190 - Burgle Bros In this week's episode, we deep dive Burgle Bros, Tim Fower's self-published 2015 game that casts players as the cast of a heist movie! The theme rocks, but do the decisions and maze-game style play succeed? We'll talk about it. Timestamps Intro - 0:00 Ratings - ...

Nov 06, 20241 hr 1 minEp. 193

Play at Work (Business Casual Dress Code Strictly Enforced for all Listeners)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 189 - Play at Work In this unique episode, Jake makes the case to Brendan for play at work based on the slides from an upcoming presentation. Business casual dress will be strictly enforced for all Interdecisional Spaceship travellers listening in. Happy Halloween If you are looki...

Oct 31, 20241 hrEp. 192

TOP 10 Games of the '90s with Jared Ingersoll

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 188 - Top 10 Games of the '90s In this episode 3 copilots take on a tall task - rank the top 10 best euro-style board games of the '90s. We try out a wacky new format, it is kind of confusing, but don't worry because Brendan catches on eventually. This episode may be best enjoyed ...

Oct 23, 20241 hr 4 minEp. 191

EGO - Does this New Knizia Game Come in Peace?

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 187 - EGO On this historic day, the Decision Space co-pilots have finally been talked into accepting a review copy of EGO from Bitewing games. While we couldn't play as many times as we normally do for a game deep dive, we did our darndest to give this game the full Decision Space...

Oct 16, 20241 hr 10 minEp. 190

The Sweet Spot Mechanic (WWTA)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 186 - What We Talk About When We Talk About the Sweet Spot Mechanic In this game we talk about the sweet spot mechanic, which is kind of but not quite a jackpot mechanic and an efficiency puzzle! We try to define this term and discuss the games that fit, a conversation that takes ...

Oct 09, 20241 hrEp. 189

Five Tribes - Still Hanging Tough on the BGG Top 100?!

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 185 - Five Tribes We return to a classic deep dive, covering Bruno Cathala's Five Tribes, a 2014 hit by Days of Wonder that remains on the BGG top 100. Five Tribes features unique, mancala style worker "displacement" mechanic, so you know we can't wait to sink our teeth in. Enjoy ...

Oct 02, 20241 hr 3 minEp. 188

What We Think About When We Think About Playtesting with Paul Salomon

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 184 - What We Think About When We Think About Playtesting with Paul Salomon In this episode Jake and Paul reflect on Stonemaier Design Day 2024, recording just one day after the event. Using that frame, we give 5ish tips to think about when playtesting your game or someone else's....

Sep 25, 202453 minEp. 187

Oops, We Played the Hotness (Stamp Swap, Wilmot's Warehouse and other Recent Plays)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 183 - Oops, We Played the Hotness (Stamp Swap, Wilmot's Warehouse and other Recent Plays) In this interlude episode, Jake and Brendan quickly discuss some games that have hit our tables lately and never previously discussed on the pod. Oops, we played some hot games. (Shut up.) Ti...

Sep 18, 202448 minEp. 186

Playing on Hard Mode (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 182 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Playing on Hard Mode This week, we discuss Dr. Richard Garfield's (Magic: The Gathering, Bunny Kingdom) blog post about playing games on hard mode. Consider reading it here on Board Game Geek before you listen to the episode. In this epi...

Sep 11, 20241 hr 2 minEp. 185

Games We Love To Lose (What We Talk About)

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 181 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Games We Love To Lose It's our first WWTA episode since April! In this one, we discuss the games we love to lose but then go deeper as we think about what characteristics give these games this unique quality. It's a great discussion that...

Sep 04, 202458 minEp. 184

Azul Summer Pavilion - Does this Reimplementation Succeed?

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 180 - Azul Summer Pavillion We discuss Azul Summer Pavillion and make the obvious comparison to the original Azul. We also consider board game implementations and ask the question if this one succeeds. Enjoy, friends, and it is good to be back after a short break! Timestamps Intro...

Aug 29, 202457 minEp. 183

18: BOARD GAME SIGNPOSTS (Re-Listening Club)

Episode 18 of Decision Space, originally published May 26, 2021. Join us in the Discord community for the re-listening club discussion. "In this "What We Talk About Episode" Jake and Brendan discuss signposts in board games. We ask important questions like what are they even? And further, what do they do? To this end, Jake becomes increasingly more confused. Fortunately, we eventually come to some steady footing and draw conclusions about this board game terminology that we believe will lead to ...

Aug 21, 20241 hr 10 minEp. 182

22: Castles of Burgundy (Re-Listening Club)

Episode 22 of Decision Space, originally published June 23, 2021. Join us in the Discord community for the re-listening club discussion. "Today, friends, feast your ears on one of tastiest point-salad morsels ever served up by the master chef himself, Mr. Stefan Feld. The Castles of Burgundy is a great, great game. Quite possibly the best board game ever made by the tastes of one of our hosts. But why is it so good? What is it about the decision space that makes it an experience so many people w...

Aug 14, 20241 hr 11 minEp. 181

The Ultimate Stefan Feld Tier List with Tyler Hackmann

Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games. Join our active and welcoming Discord community, Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon), or Leave us a review wherever you find this podcast! Episode 179 - The Ultimate Stefan Feld Tier List with Tyler Hackmann This week we undertake a voyage that we have never dared to attempt before -- to create an ultimate, near-comprehensive tier list of Stefan Feld Games. We knew we couldn't do it alone, so we brought in friend and fellow ...

Aug 07, 20241 hr 26 minEp. 180
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