Solo Gamer Dad Podcast

Review and discussion of the game "Great Western Trail, 2nd Edition," designed by Alexander Pfister, and published by Eggertspiele. This is a deckbuilding and worker placement-movement game where you take the role of a 19th century cattle wrangler in the western United States, working to drive cattle to Kansas City for sale to cities in the east, and ultimately become the most prosperous and successful cattle rancher.The music at the beginning and ending of this episode is called "Western Ride", by the user Sonican on Pixabay, and is used under the site's free Content License. The song can be found at this URL:https://pixabay.com/music/modern-country-western-ride-221576/

Eight mini-reviews for various games picked at "random" by my daughter. Some of these may develop into fuller reviews sometime, but we'll have to see.

Review and discussion of the game "Return to Dark Tower," designed by Rob Daviau, Isaac Childres, Noah Cohen, Justin D. Jacobsen, and Brian Neff, and published by Restoration Games. This is an app-driven adventure game where you control one or more heroes to build up the power necessary to draw out and defeat an evil adversary, all while interacting with the effects of the Dark Tower sitting in the middle of the game board, and trying to stave off the adversary's corruption across the land and within yourself.

Review and discussion of the game "Cities of Venus: Lost Contact", designed by James and Adam Staley and published by Tin Robot Games. This is a resource management and engine building game where you are trying to improve your city, floating high in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, ultimately trying to accomplish the requirements of various missions in order to keep your city alive as contact with Earth has ceased.

Review and discussion of the game "Tabletop, Inc", designed by Joseph and Madeleine Adams, and published by Cotswold Games. This game is a worker placement and resource management game, where you take on the role of a board game publisher, trying to develop award-winning games in order to beat the score set by an automated opponent.

Review and discussion of the 2nd and 3rd Editions of Runebound, published by Fantasy Flight Games. 2nd Edition was designed by Martin Wallace and Darrell Hardy; 3rd Edition was designed by Lukas Litzinger. Both editions are adventure games where you take the role of a hero trying to build up strength to ultimately complete a final challenge to save the land of Terrinoth from ruin and conquest. This podcast will discuss the similarities and differences between the two editions, as well as give my thoughts on whether either of them (which are both out of print) are worth tracking down to add to your collection.

Review and discussion of the game "Lost Ruins of Arnak," designed by Min and Elwin and published by Czech Games Edition. This game is a combination of worker placement, deckbuilder, and resource management, as you lead an expedition to find the lost civilization of Arnak and beat your automated Rival in earning the most points to become the most successful explorer!

Review and discussion of the game "Slay the Spire: The Board Game", designed by Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, Casey Yano, and published by Contention Games. Slay the Spire: The Board Game is a board game adaptation of the video game by the same name published by Metacrit. In this game, you select a character and build a deck of cards during play to allow you to defeat enemies and bosses through various "Acts" of play, ultimately trying to Ascend to higher difficulty levels and vanquish the evil within the Spire itself.

Review and discussion of the game "The Mandalorian: Adventures," designed by Corey Konieczka and published by Unexpected Games. The Mandalorian: Adventures is a card-driven tactical skirmish game, where you play as two characters from the iconic Star Wars show to accomplish various missions based on episodes from the first season.

Discussion about the game "Tapestry", designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games. Tapestry is an abstract civilization-style game where you manage resources to build your civilization and try to score more victory points than an automated pair of opponents.