Going Analog Podcast

We might need to make this an annual tradition: We get new heavy games in. We take forever to learn them. We then spend hours playing them (with our good friend Daniel from The Game Table, who even spent the night at our place this time to get in more gaming the next day). Then we record a podcast episode giving our thoughts on them.
We have a bunch of new, newish, and future releases to cover, so listen in to see what we liked and didn't like about our plays.
Timeline:
1:34 - Brass: Pittsburg.
12:59 - Speakeasy.
17:40 - The Great Library.
20:50 - Nippon: Zaibatsu.
27:05 - Thebai.

33:25 - Tianxia.
40:09 - Covenant.
45:14 - Barrage: Duel.
51:57 - Darwin's Journey: Oceania.

Fort Circle Games takes history very seriously...but not overly so. Titles like Votes for Women and The Halls of Montezuma treat their subject matters with respect (the women's suffrage movement and the Mexican-American War, respectively) with research, consultants, and even facsimiles of documents.
It might sound a little dry, but Fort Circle is on a mission: to bring this knowledge to gamers while adhering to modern game-design sensibilities. They want you to learn a thing or three...while having fun.
We invited Fort Circle founder and owner Kevin Bertram to talk more about his company's interesting philosophy and how games can be educational, without necessarily being educational games.
Timeline:
2:38 - Going Analog's game pick: Behind the Lens: Photographing Earth.
6:50 - Kevin's game pick: Fortress America.

8:52 - More about Fort Circle Games.
17:52 - Kevin's topic: The educational value of board games.

We're back from Dice Tower West, horribly dehydrated and almost 200 games lighter. While we offloaded a lot of our collection at the convention's flea market, we did get to play a bunch of new games (super shoutout to Grant's Game Recs for showing us the majority of them). So it's only a matter of time before we start buying more games to fill in those sad gaps on our shelves.
Listen or watch to see what's got us excited after five days of conventioning!
Timeline: 
3:02 - Shoe's game pick: Pantheauction.
5:56 - Christina's game pick: Bullseye.

11:30 - Going Analog's topic: The best games we played from Dice Tower West 2026.

Our guest this week is crazy enough to include his personal phone number in every game he sells. Brent Beck (aka "Grandpa Beck" of Grandpa Beck's Games) wants no barriers when it comes to learning his games, so he includes his digits in every copy in case you want to text him for rules clarifications.
That's why his chosen topic -- bringing people together through gameplay -- makes so much sense. Brent wants nothing more but to draw people to him and each other to enjoy the hobby he loves so much.
Listen/watch as we discuss his work and play philosophies, how many texts from customers he gets per day, and more.
Timeline: 
3:03 - Going Analog's game pick: Pandora's Legacy.
5:48 - Grandpa Beck's game pick: Mille Bornes.

11:03 - Grandpa's Beck's topic: Bringing people together through gameplay.

We had to bring in this episode's guest to settle something. In our 2025 Games of the Year show, Christina called Wine Cellar a runner-up for her Party Game of the Year. Shoe took issue with her calling the wine-making card game a "party game," so whom better to bring in than its designer, Andrew Stiles, to settle this hugely important argument?
He has a great topic for us, too. Since he gets to playtest so many games for his colleagues, he goes over several he's particularly excited to see finally released this year. And since we get to preview many titles ourselves, we get in on the conversation. Listen to see what we think are the most exciting games to watch for in 2026.
Timeline:
7:55 - Going Analog's game pick: Snow Colony.
11:12 - Andrew's game pick: Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

15:41 - Andrew's topic: 2026 games we've played and are excited about.