Going Analog Podcast Dan "Shoe" Hsu and friends

The 2024 American Tabletop Awards winners were just announced, so we invited ATTA founder, fellow judging member, and content creator Eric Yurko of What's Eric Playing? to hash them all out. How did Eric, Christina, and Shoe vote?
Timeline:
3:30 - Early Gamers category. 19:45 - Casual Games category. 35:51 - Strategy Games category. 53:52 - Complex Games category.

We knew Connie Vogelmann, designer of Apiary, was holding something back the last time we talked to her. So we brought her and Elizabeth Hargrave back to interrogate them about Wyrmspan, the new dragon-themed sequel to Elizabeth's now-classic and award-winning Wingspan!
What was it like designing a new game under the Wingspan name? How much did Connie and Elizabeth work together? And what counts as a dragon anyway?
Plus, the two have been busy on the convention circuit, so we discuss various board gaming shows and which ones we enjoy the most.
Timeline:
4:19 - Going Analog's game pick: Wroth. 9:11 - Connie and Elizabeth's game pick: Knarr. 16:10 - Going Analog's topic: Wyrmspan's development. 33:35 - Elizabeth and Connie's topic: Our favorite gaming events each year.

We spend a lot of time with our friends playing board games, so we're bound to bond. But how well do we really know these people we've invited to our table?
We teamed up with our pals Raina and Phil from 1 Minute Board Games to take the next step in our gaming relationship: not just play "normal" board games (which we still do plenty of with them) but play ones designed to really dig down deep and get us talking about things that would normally not come up during sessions of Sea Salt & Paper. Listen in to see what we've learned about these experiences...and each other.
And on a very related note: social deduction! What's new and what are our faves in this class of games that have us lying to and manipulating each other?
Timeline:
4:41 - Going Analog's game pick: Great Western Trail: New Zealand. 11:52 - 1 Minute Board Game's pick: Dune: Imperium - Uprising. 18:33 - Going Analog's topic: "Getting to know you" games. 39:32 - 1 Minute Board Game's topic: Social-deduction games.

When we read that Eric Slauson (designer MonsDRAWsity, the upcoming Chucky game, and many more) likes to deal cards in a...very unique way, we knew we wanted to invite him on to discuss just how weird his board gaming habits are. Are we weirder? And how do YOU compare?
Plus, gamers always talk about how some games aren't "worth" the price -- how do we value each game's worth?
Timeline:
3:41 - Going Analog's game pick: Wyrmspan. 12:03 - Eric's game pick: Kinfire Chronicles. 19:25 - Going Analog's topic: Bizarre board gaming habits. 34:27 - Eric's topic: How do you value board games?

Though we fancy ourselves "omnigamers" -- gamers who enjoy all genres -- we're kind of fooling ourselves. There are certainly specific categories of board games we try to stay away from. But! With every "rule" (if you can call it that), there's gotta be exceptions, right? So we explore ours with Peter C. Hayward. The game designer (That Time You Killed Me, French Toast, Fiction) is very...discerning, so we couldn't wait to hear his thoughts on these matters.
Separately, we recently played a game of Istanbul with Peter, and he couldn't stop raving about how it got "quick turns" down just right. So that got us thinking...what other specific things do specific games get "just right"?
Plus: Play along with us on a round of Peter's new game, Apropos of Board Games!
Timeline:
3:31 - Going Analog's game pick: Apropos of. 12:06 - Peter's game pick: boop. 14:56 - Going Analog's topic: Specific things that specific games get right. 38:29 - Peter's topic: Games you like in genres you don't.

I know we just finished our 2023 Games of the Year episode, but we're so over last year. It's cult-of-the-new time -- what are the badass games we're looking forward to in 2024? We invited gaming sommelier Alex Hart of Might I Suggest a Game to help us out since he also just put out his list!
And while we're frequent boardgame recommenders, sometimes we run into a few that are super difficult to endorse for some reason. Which ones? Listen to find out!
Timeline:
3:15 - Going Analog's game pick: Last Light. 8:44 - Alex's game pick: Daybreak. 15:07 - Going Analog's topic: Our most anticipated games of 2024. 35:35 - Alex's topic: Games that we love that we have a hard time suggesting.