The Tabletop Takeaway: A Board Game Design Podcast

How can you frame new challenges to make players excited about them? Why do people enjoy performing mundane tasks in video games? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie run a restaurant in Plate Up.

Why are breaks important in a real-time game? Do players need an inventory? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor go off the rails in Unrailed!

Can players distinguish themselves when all are adding to the same challenge? How do you incentivize players to make a challenge the right difficulty? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda build an obstacle course in Ultimate Chicken Horse.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of roll-and-writes for designers and publishers? How do you ensure dice rolls are exciting? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor discuss Roll-and-Write games.

What are the advantages of scoring an objective twice over the course of a game? How can you represent combat in a roll and write? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda map the territories of Cartographers Heroes.

How can you create tension between waiting for bonuses and actively pursuing them? What are the benefits and drawbacks of action bonuses? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie reap their rewards in Three Sisters.

Can you incorporate player interaction into a roll-and-write? How do you encourage players to engage with all scoring categories? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor serve up some insights in That's Pretty Clever.

Why should the active player gain a special bonus? What sorts of choices can you give players after rolling dice? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor talk about Probability Farming games.

What are some ways to manipulate probability space? How can players benefit from complicated triggered effects during other players' turns? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie deploy their thoughts about Space Base.

How can take-that mechanics benefit from randomness? What other dimensions can you add to a simple number line? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda roll dice and take coins in Machi Koro.

What makes progress cards feel better than development cards? How do you get opponents to work together for the good of all? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor settle the score in Catan: Cities and Knights.

What should happen when a hider is found? Should hiders have a goal besides avoiding capture? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie talk about Hidden Movement.

How can you use attacks to reveal information? Do players need complex roles on a team? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda listen for the enemy in Captain Sonar.

What does hidden movement look like when the hider is also the seeker? How can light be used as terrain? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie shine a light on The Stifling Dark.

How much information do players need to find a player that is hiding? What should you reveal? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor search for Mister X in Scotland Yard.

Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor hold their first-ever live episode as a panel at Protospiel Twin Cities, discussing three prototypes.

What makes storytelling games different from role-playing games? Why are stories so memorable? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda talk about Storytelling games.

Can games be creative tools? Do games always need a winner? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie craft realities that never were in "In This World".

Do goals need to be unambiguous? How do card combinations encourage creativity? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor ad-lib silly solutions to ridiculous problems in Wing It.

How do interrupts keep players engaged? What do goals look like in a game about telling a story? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda struggle to control the narrative in Once Upon a Time.

What skills are transferable across pattern recognition games? What makes a competitive puzzle different than a solo puzzle? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor review pattern recognition games in this bonus episode.

Do hex-based tile placement games actually need hexagonal tiles? Should players be penalized for recognizing patterns the fastest? How do you make players care about other players' boards? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor talk about Factory Funner.

How much room is there for special rules cases in real-time games? How do you create complex interactions from simple rules? Join Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda for Ricochet Robots.

What sorts of puzzles work well for pattern recognition games? How do you introduce perception-based catchup mechanics? Do skill-based games need progression? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie draw lessons from Set.

Do deckbuilders need any choices besides which cards to add? What are the differences between drawing from a deck and drawing from a bag? In this bonus episode, Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie talk about deckbuilding games.

Do victory point cards need to be useless? How can you reward players for helping each other to spell words? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor take a look at Paperback.

What are the benefits of having a card market? How does forcing players to play all their cards change the dynamics of a deckbuilding game? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie discuss Clank!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of untargeted attacks? How do you teach new players lessons that might be counterintuitive? Is it more fun to gain something good or eliminate something bad? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda talk about Dominion.

What can you do to make games less stressful for the evil team? How do you structure interesting puzzles when information is not trustworthy? Learn about social deduction with Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor on this bonus episode!

What happens when the traitor is left in the dark? Can you have a social deduction game without conversation? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss A Fake Artist Goes to New York.

Why should you balance information and doubt in social deduction games? How do you encourage people to talk to each other? Is dying actually good for the good team? Join Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor for Blood on the Clocktower.

Do players need to know what team they are on? What is the purpose of minion roles? What are the benefits of super-short games? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie talk about One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

How do you encourage interactions when it is the players versus the game? What makes an AI opponent compelling? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda wrap up the cooperative game genre.

How do you represent the duality between a superhero and their alter ego? Can you have different types of resources that can still be used interchangeably? What should you do when a player is eliminated? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie give their thoughts on Marvel Champions.

Why should you foreshadow random events? How do you encourage players to stay on-theme for their characters? Do games need strict turns and timing? Join Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor as they talk about Spirit Island.

How much communication do players need in a coop game? What happens when somebody loses the game for everybody? What makes for a good twist on a familiar mechanic? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss The Crew: Mission Deep Sea.

In this special episode, Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor discuss the tactical combat genre.

How do you make progression fun when players are getting weaker over time? Does AI for tactical combat need to be complicated? Can you have too much content? Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie analyze Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion.

How granular does a representation of space actually need to be? Can you really give players access to their entire deck without overwhelming them? Where does simultaneous gameplay best fit into a game? Ananda, Charlie, Trevor talk Mage Wars.

What are the advantages of only allowing players to move one piece per turn? Are one-hit kills broken? Should you design a variant? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss the classic game of strategy: Chess.

In this extra-fun episode, Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie discuss logical induction games and their design.

How do you avoid unintentional information leaks due to player choices? How can you avoid making people feel dumb in games about being clever? What should happen when a player makes the wrong guess? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss Turing Machine, the Punch-Card Computer.

Do induction games always need unambiguous secret rules, or can fuzzy rules work? Can asymmetric roles work with induction? Check out the Visitor in Blackwood Grove with Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie.

What is the difference between induction and deduction? How do you make logic-heavy games friendly and approachable? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor get started on the logical induction genre with Zendo, the classic game of scientific inquiry.

Bonus Episode! Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie talk about tile placement games in general. How will they use this mechanic in future games they're designing?

Can a game be more fun to lose than to win? How do you make a game accessible to new players when there are so many different tiles to remember? Is real-time play compatible with turn-based mechanics? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda talk about Galaxy Trucker, where you build a spaceship out of sewer pipes and see how far you can fly before it explodes.

When are rivals willing to cooperate? Should players draw their next tile at the start or end of their turn? What is the purpose of the abbot? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor discuss the classic tile placement game, Carcassonne.

How do you make terrain types feel different from each other? Why do players need to know the distribution of tiles? Should you use multiplication for scoring? Join Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie for the pilot episode in which they talk about Kingdomino, a light tile drafting game.