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Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Eric Bonkowski & Kathleen Shaw
39 episodes
3 months ago
In April 2016, Kathleen and I played a game that crushed me in disappointment. Checking nearly every box of my gamer wishlist, Sentinels of the Multiverse came into our one bedroom apartment and left a trail of ardent thumbs down in its wake. Alas, it was not a good fit on nearly any level. It departed our collection scant weeks later in a box bound for the local Goodwill. Fast forward six years, and Greater Than Games has released what they've designated the "Definitive Edition," promising ...
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Games
Kids & Family
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In April 2016, Kathleen and I played a game that crushed me in disappointment. Checking nearly every box of my gamer wishlist, Sentinels of the Multiverse came into our one bedroom apartment and left a trail of ardent thumbs down in its wake. Alas, it was not a good fit on nearly any level. It departed our collection scant weeks later in a box bound for the local Goodwill. Fast forward six years, and Greater Than Games has released what they've designated the "Definitive Edition," promising ...
Show more...
Games
Kids & Family
Episodes (20/39)
Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 39: Don't Look Back in Anger
In April 2016, Kathleen and I played a game that crushed me in disappointment. Checking nearly every box of my gamer wishlist, Sentinels of the Multiverse came into our one bedroom apartment and left a trail of ardent thumbs down in its wake. Alas, it was not a good fit on nearly any level. It departed our collection scant weeks later in a box bound for the local Goodwill. Fast forward six years, and Greater Than Games has released what they've designated the "Definitive Edition," promising ...
Show more...
3 years ago
53 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 38: Badlands
If you've listened to our podcast before or know our gaming history, you probably know that Kathleen and I came to the hobby from Magic: The Gathering. That being said, once we left Magic behind, we didn't look back. Magic: The Gathering and other head-to-head dueling games just wasn't our bag any longer. But what about Daniel Piechnick's Radlands? Piechnick is a seasoned Magic: The Gathering player, and one read-through of the rules will prove he knows Magic's weak spots, because Radlands ...
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3 years ago
48 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 37: Blessed & Possessed
Thematically, it feels appropriate that we name this episode after a Powerwolf song, but that may just be because I've not played Bloodborne. Anyway, let's dive into this huge box of plastic Victorian-esque horrors as we look at the Eric Lang/Michael Shinall co-designed campaign dungeon crawler. I'm not huge on dungeon crawlers, and I'm even more not huge (huh?) on campaign games, so this sounds like a great fit! Let's find out! Bloodborne: The Board Game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame...
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3 years ago
58 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 36: Be Prepared
Deck building as a mechanic is a staple of the hobby, but one that we've both made clear isn't always enough to provide a satisfying gameplay experience. Add in a pretty niche theme and it seems like a recipe for disaster. Or is it? Well butter me up and call me a biscuit, because there's really something great here. Shame on my snobbery, but now I know. And knowing is half the battle! Yes, that was truly inevitable. G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/343526/...
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3 years ago
49 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 35: Time in a Bottle
We've gone dark since May 2021, and now we've entered 2022. I'm gettin' tired of reassessing where we are and our general mental and physical well-being, but here we are. Instead of getting mopey, let's talk about what games we're playing and what has made us happy over the past eight months. Christmas always brings games to gamers homes, but that's not all we're talking about. Player 1 and Player 2 give quick catchups on big boxes of plastic MARVEL: Crisis Protocol, BLOODBORNE, and CLOUDSPI...
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3 years ago
37 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 34: Heroes
On May 5, 2021, Marvel United: X-Men successfully funded on Kickstarter, raising nearly $6,000,000 of their $300,000 goal. I backed it, even though I've got some gripes with the 2020 release of Marvel United. Why did I back it? Because if I had even a passing interest in the game, I had to. Why, you ask? Because Kickstarter, baby. Let's take a look at 2020's Marvel United as an entity in and of itself, and then listen as we discuss how Kickstarter has left its mark on it, for better or for...
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4 years ago
57 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 33: Everybody Wants to Rule the World
The American Tabletop Awards have announced their winners for game of the year 2020, and we've just gotten the complex game of the year to the table... and we have thoughts! Now presenting, a deep and hungry pit of choice, waiting to swallow you and everything within kicking distance. Behold, Dominations: Road to Civilization! But hey, it has three-sided dominos! Dominations: Road to Civilization https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/250881/dominations-road-civilization American Tabletop Aw...
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4 years ago
1 hour 3 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 32: Still Havin' Fun (A Top 10 List!)
A little over 18 months after our last Top 10 Favorite Games countdown finds us in much more subdued spirits, turning to comfort gaming--not too surprising! Some shake ups and some old standbys make their obligatory appearances. Ya know what took a beating in the last 18 months? Gloomhaven. Woof, how the mighty have fallen! The Previous List! www.buzzsprout.com/199741/1768600-episode-16-still-the-one-a-top-10-list Pubmeeple Ranking Engine rankingengine.pubmeeple.com/ Them...
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4 years ago
1 hour 4 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 31: The Beautiful Briny
Uwe Rosenberg needs no introduction in regard to worker placement games. Agricola, Le Havre, Caverna, A Feast for Odin, Fields of Arle, At the Gates of Loyang, and a host of others have made him a legend in the community. Rather than make some more noise about one of his established "classics," we dive into Nusfjord, a slightly overlooked gem of his. So why play Nusfjord instead of one of his others? Well, it brings its own unique elements and challenges to your table, proving this is one fi...
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4 years ago
55 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 30: Fox on the Run
...and we're back. Six months is a long time, and it feels even longer in the dwindling days of a pandemic. Players One and Two have still been playing, still been talking, still been pushin' those cubes, but now they've turned the tape back on. It's easy to be dismissive of a gorgeous game about anthropomorphic animals building a delightfully adorable town, but is it a good game? Everdell didn't do much for us on the first few plays, finding itself relegated to the attic stock. Is a ...
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4 years ago
1 hour 1 minute

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 29: The Longest Year
We’ve been hiding, taking stock of our place in this wild, wild year, and taking care of each other. Hopefully you and your loved ones are doing all right. We may be holed up, but we’re still playing games and pushin’ those cubes. Again, hopefully you are, too. Rather than focus on one game, this episode is a bit of a mixed bag/State of the Board. We’ll touch on a few games we’ve been playing, like Lorenzo il Magnifico (2016), Unmatched (2019), and Rune Stones (2019), and come clean about how...
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5 years ago
39 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 28: In the Army Now!
Deep in the abyss of the quarantine, Kathleen and I recorded a searching and subdued episode about what is certainly considered a classic: Combat Commander. Yes, it's a war game, but essentially this is an Ameritrash skirmish game with a heavier euro points-scoring skeleton beneath those dice chuckin' trappings. Don't let a theme scare you, some classics are classics for a reason. That being said, we'll dovetail off of our last episode (Pax Porfiriana) and talk about why people may not want...
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5 years ago
58 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 27: Don't Know Much About History
Pax games are a sort of micro-genre of their own. Medium to heavy-ish opaque games that smash up euro mechanics with some borderline aggressive player interactive. Oh, and they are [nearly] all historically based. I can tell you where I fall, but Kathleen has more complicated feelings. You may have heard about last year's Pax Pamir 2nd edition. We'll discuss–probably not for the last time–the question that keeps coming up here on ye ol' podcast: Does playing a board game recreationally abou...
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5 years ago
1 hour 8 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 26: More Than a Feld[ing]
There are two kinds of gamers around here: those who like Stefan Feld and those who do not. I would say "and those who are wrong," but I'm furloughed and I'm trying to be nicer to people–hey, we all should do it! Anyway, if you're listening to this in realtime, we're in the middle of a global pandemic, and most of us are experiencing social distancing. Our lives as we know them are very shaken up. In times like this, it's important to take care of ourselves, and with that in mind, on E...
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5 years ago
49 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 25: Should I Stay or Should I Go
All right, so this may be the Player One | Player Two Podcast, but that doesn’t mean we’re happy being locked out of 3+ player games. With that in mind, we realize that some “Two Player Variants” are messier than others. Dummy players, AI decks, or even Bot Systems are all versions of variants that allow a 3+ player game to be played by two players. In addition to the main course game here, we’ll also spend a few minutes discussing two other games’ variants we’ve experienced recently that hav...
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5 years ago
55 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 24: 2019 in Review
We wrap up our inaugural year of the Player One | Player Two podcast a little late (hey, at least it's still January!), and talk about the 2019 games we played. Some hot hot heat, some IPs, and at least one game about trains. We also manage to squeeze in a pair of tangents on area control and Stefan Feld. What were our favorite games of 2019? Odds are we may have already spent some time talking about them. And what were yours? Maybe we've got some overlap. Well, perhaps... Theme & End C...
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5 years ago
54 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 23: PAX Unplugged 2019
Hobby gaming is, at its heart, a social hobby. We have lamented before that playing as two players makes it seem like you are living in a bubble–which is why we started this podcast, after all. That being said, we were very excited to get out of our little bubble by finally partaking in our first convention experience when we visited the locally hosted PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia. We demoed games, we learned the importance of reading schedules, we ate delicious Indian food, and we left wi...
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5 years ago
59 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 22: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Scaling is so important in regard to the two-player subset of board gaming. Excellent three or four player games are sometimes incomplete or unsatisfying two-player experiences. But what happens when a game does take scaling into account, but the scaling alters the fundamental nature of the game? Maybe a game becomes more cutthroat, or demands players be more aggressive to match the same feel carried by a true multi-player game. A well-scaled game is good, but what if the game you find on t...
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5 years ago
44 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 21: Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Kathleen and I are both very happy to go to bat for escape room games. The idea of one-off games rubs some people the wrong way. Is it a good value? Is it a good way to spend an evening? Is it a good analogue for the actual social experience? Well, we’re actually not going to discuss the merits of an escape room game on this episode–we already know it’s good for us. Instead we talk about what the eventizing of a game ultimately means. And even though we are ride or die fans of escape ro...
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5 years ago
42 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
Episode 20: Picture in a Frame
In this episode, we’ll dig into a big, heavy, and very well-regarded euro. As we go, we’ll discuss a designer known exclusively for his heavy, thematic, and puzzly games, and how his theming is able to instruct the mechanics of this design specifically. After that, we’ll be forced to come to terms with how we may have been doing ourselves, and by proxy the game, a bit of a disservice by catering to our own existing predilections of keeping to ourselves and not wandering into another pl...
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5 years ago
48 minutes

Player One | Player Two: The Board Gaming Duo
In April 2016, Kathleen and I played a game that crushed me in disappointment. Checking nearly every box of my gamer wishlist, Sentinels of the Multiverse came into our one bedroom apartment and left a trail of ardent thumbs down in its wake. Alas, it was not a good fit on nearly any level. It departed our collection scant weeks later in a box bound for the local Goodwill. Fast forward six years, and Greater Than Games has released what they've designated the "Definitive Edition," promising ...