Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 59 - A Feast for Odin An extravagant menu, satisfying options, and playing out over 7 courses, A Feast for Odin by Uwe Rosenberg delivers on the promise of a decadent gaming experience and then some. In this week's episode of Decision Space, we take a bite out of this sprawling decision space and give you, as al...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 59
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 58 - What We Talk About When We Talk About A New Way To Talk About Objectives In Games Holy S***! It's a new way to talk about type episode after long last. In this one, Brendan presents his new framework for describing scoring/objective systems in games. These come in three types, solitary, juxtaposed, and over...
Mar 09, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 58
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 57 - Broom Service Imagine if to fold in poker you had to say, "I'm a cowardly hill witch." Well, that is basically Broom Service in a nutshell, and I don't need to say more than that to tell you that Broom Service is an incredible game. We won't bury the lead this week. In today's episode, we hop into the Inter...
Mar 02, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 57
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 56 - Our Board Game Biases and Affinities Today's show topic is arguably the first one we should have ever done. In this What We Talk About episode, we dive into our board gaming biases and affinities. It is our hope that this episode helps you get to know your interdecisional spaceship co-pilots just a bit bett...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 56
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 55 - Cartographers In this week's episode of Decision Space, we chart a course (heh) for the flip-n-write game Cartographers , designed by Jordy Aidan and published by Thunderworks Games, where players get to, get this, draw a map on their sheet of paper! If that sounds like fun, it is. But what does the game ha...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 55
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 54 - Cascadia Sorry to all previous guests on Decision Space, but it must be said that on today's episode of Decision Space we welcome our most special guest to date. For our deep-dive discussion of the decisions in Cascadia, we are joined by none other than Brendan's wife Maya Polan. Brendan and Maya have crank...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 54
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 53 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Tempo in Board Games and What It Isn't This game has a great tempo! That move just gained you so much tempo! I have tempo in this situation! All of these phrases can say a lot about a game, a game state, and a game's decision space. The challenge is that in each phrase,...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 53
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games! Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 52 - Evolution: Climate This week we begin with a brief "What's on Your Mind" discussion. Brendan has been playing Calico, and Jake recaps an epic birthday game day. After that, we hop right into our signature deep dive discussion of the Evolution system with a focus on Evolution: Climate, designed by Dominic Cr...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 52
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Join the crew today! (Decision Space Patreon) Episode 51 - Palaces of Carrara Jake and Brendan are back in the interdecisional spaceship and - look out! - we're heading straight for Kramer and Kiesling's 2012 game Palaces of Carrara -- a decision space some call ungrokable. Find out what we say as wee discuss this sleek design that's oddly hard to talk about in this week;s episode of Decision Space, the podcast about decision...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 51
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 50 - Mission Planning 10 Games We Want to Explore in 2022, Podcast Aspiration, Book Club, and a Big Announcement Our biggest milestone yet -- episode 50! In this episode, we do a little pre-planning of our own and discuss 10 we want to cover imminently in 2022. We also share our podcast aspirations for 2022. If that wasn't enough, we have two announcements. For one, we will be starting the first ever Decision Space bo...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 50
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 49 - Splendor The week we change things up. No, really! It's the return of the "What's on Your Mind" segment where Jake and Brendan each share one game that we've been playing lately. Then we take off for Splendor's decision space in our interdecisional spaceship. We ask if this mega-hit is truly an engine building game, and, returning to Splendor after some time away, we ask if these gems still shine as brightly as t...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 49
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 48 - End of Year Special where We Rank Every Game Featured on Decision Space in 2021 In the end of year special edition of Decision Space, we rank every game featured on the show this year from 30 to 1. Thank you for making this first year of Decision Space such a wonderful experience. Here's to even bigger things in 2022. Games Featured in this Episode Kanagawa, Carpe Diem, Res Arcana, Underwater Cities, The Fox in t...
Dec 29, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 48
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Click on this link to participate in our end of the year community top 10 poll . Episode 47 - Azul 2018 Spiel Des Jahres winner, the 58th best game of all time on Board Game Geek, and designed by the esteemed Michael Kiesling, you don't need our podcast to tell you that Azul is a good game. So today on Decision Space, we dive deep into the decision space that emerges from Azul's simple set of mechanisms as players tussle over...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 47
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 46 - Raiders of the North Sea If you've been playing hobby board games over the past six years, then you likely have at least a passing awareness of the output of Garphill games and designer Shem Phillips. (If you are new to hobby board games, then welcome!) In today's episode we cover the Garphill Game that first put Shem on ther radar for many of us, Raiders of the North Sea . Raiders is a worker placement game, wit...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 46
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 45 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Irrational Actors with Special Guest Tony Faber Is a new player pretty much the same thing as a drunk player? This is just one of the many hard-hitting questions we'll dig into (seriously) on this week's episode of Decision Space. The topic of irrational actors at the board game table, an unwieldy topic that spans social contracts, sobriety, siding with spies, and so much mor...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 45
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 44 - Kingdom Builder Back with yet another classic game and yet another Spiel De Jahres winner, this week on Decision Space it is Kingdom Builder . We bring out our magnifying glasses to explore the decisions in this game, and it is a good thing we did because is the smallest decision space we've come across yet. But perhaps a small decision space is all you need to have a great time and, after all, this game did win ...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 44
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 43 - Patchwork We may have topped ourselves and put out our giggliest episode ever! It's true, we laughed a lot and had a great time exploring the decisions in Uwe Rosenberg's classic Patchwork . This is a game that hides a lot (of negative points) under its adorable (or gruesome - hello Halloween edition) exterior. Don't get it twisted. The game's cute, but to become the Button Master, you'll hash it out in a strateg...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 43
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 42 - Objective Versus Subjective Decision Space (WWTA) For the first time, we revisit a topic discussed on our 3rd ever episode, decision space. (Yeah, like the name of the show.) Specifically, we try to add nuance to the original discussion with something that has been coming up a lot in our game discussions, the subjective nature of decision space. We look at what parts of a decision space are objective, what parts ...
Nov 17, 2021•58 min•Ep. 42
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 41 - 7 Wonders Duel Jake, Brendan, and Jamey Stegmaier hop in the Interdecisional Spaceship to talk 7 Wonders Duel on this week's episode. We talk about the way that three truly viable win conditions and the many simultaneous games of tug-of-war shape the decision space in this powerhouse Bauza and Cathala team-up design. You won't want to miss it. And if you can spare a moment to like and review this podcast, then th...
Nov 10, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 41
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 40 - Race for the Galaxy Race for the Galaxy , designed by Tom Lehman . Enough said. Get in here! Preplan Your Next Turn Next time on Decision Space we explore the decisions in Seven Wonders: Duel! Music Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&am...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 40
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 39 - 10 Decision Spaces We Want To Explore ASAP (Mission Planning #1) For the first time, we discuss games we haven't played. That's right. We are trying out a brand new type of episode that we are tentatively titling Mission Planning. In this episode, we discuss 10 games (5 each) that we can't wait to get to play. This includes new games, hotness, and it wouldn't be Decision Space if it didn't include some old games ...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 39
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 38 - Spirit Island This week is Spirit Island by designer R. Eric Reuss . A serious game for serious gamers that defies expectations in the best possible way. Here's an admission, we were a bit nervous to cover this game and its mammoth decision space. As we explored the game in preparation for this episode, t felt as if no amount of plays would be enough, but perhaps more than anything else that is a testament to the...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 38
Click on the link to join our active and welcoming Discord community ! Episode 37 - Praga Caput Regni We discuss designer Vladimir Suchý's follow-up to Underwater Cities, Praga Caput Regni , where instead of building underwater cities, players will build one on land city! This is a heavy euro game with tons of decisions centered around an innovative action selection mechanic that encourages players not to put all of their eggs in one basket. In our discussion, we won't walk on eggshells as we th...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 37
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 36 - What We Talk About When We Talk About A New Way To Talk About Theme In this week's episode, we go old-school Decision Space and hit you with a new framework for discussing themes in board games. There is an environmental theme, a mechanical theme, and, of course, a decision space theme! We explain the framework and then put it through its paces trying to fill out the entire gaming theme matrix from high, high, high (high le...
Oct 06, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 36
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 35 - Kingdomino Zany kingdoms, quirky art, and dominos make Kingdomino one of the warmest welcomes to the board game hobby we've ever come across, but could there be a demanding competitive experience hidden beneath this apparently simple game? You'll have to hop in to find out, the Interdecisional Space ship takes off in 3... 2... 1! Music Credits Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 35
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 34 - Imhotep This week on Decision Space, Imhotep ! Designed by Phil Walker-Harding and a 2016 Spiel Des Jahres Nominee is a game about placing rocks, sailing boats, and getting in each other's way all the while. There isn't much more to it than that in this incredibly simple poached egg. I mean game. Will Jake and Brendan find this poached egg of a game to be bland, or will a perfectly runny yolk, fluffy texture, and pinch of s...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 34
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 33 - What We Talk When We Talk About Our Top 10 Games After 32 episodes Jake and Brendan break down and give you the board game content that you want and deserve. In this very special episode, we each share our personal top 10 games as well as a few honorable mentions. What are your top 10 games? Who's list is better? Jump into the conversation in our Discord channel to let us know what you think! Music Credits Thank you to Hemb...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 33
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 32 - Jaipur Jaipur is a widely revered, frequently recommended two-player set collectin' card game designed by Sebastian Pauchon and published in 2009. We give Jaipur a bath in the Decision Spa and then take it out back and give it what for as we discuss its decision space and some of the design choices that we don't agree with! Join us in the Interdecisional Spaceship as we set course for a brutal new episode of Decision Space....
Sep 08, 2021•46 min•Ep. 32
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode 31 - Villagers Villagers is a 2019 game with art and design by Haakon Gaarder and published by Sinister Fish. To be frank, we go all over the place as we discuss this lightweight tableau-building card-drafting game. The free-flowing conversation takes us through rigidity in combos, satisfaction in decisions, frustration in limitations and much more. Whether you like Villagers, don't like Villagers, or have never even heard of th...
Sep 01, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 31
Click on the link to join our brand new Discord community ! Episode Thirty - Positive and Negative Feedback Types In this "What We Talk About Episode" Jake and Brendan reveal our new intro and outro music courtesy of Hembree . After that we discuss the various types of feedback in board games. This includes positive feedback, negative feedback, positive agency loops, incremental victory conditions, achievements, jackpots, losspots, and more. As always, it is our sincere hope that our discussion ...
Aug 25, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 30
