2025 is "The Year of the 2-Player Game" -- at least according to our guest, professional comedian and board game content creator Grant Lyon of Grant's Game Recs. There have been so many good ones that came out over the past yeart that it's hard to refute that statement. So hard that, rather than refute, we'll just create a two-part podcast special covering all the great 2P games we've been playing. This is part one!

Timeline:

• 2:00 - Going Analog's game pick: Origin Story.
• 9:38 - Grant's game pick: Pinched!. Great 2-player games, part one:
• 16:50 - The White Castle Duel.
• 19:59 - Madcala.
• 25:35 - Enthrone.
• 29:19 - Compile: Main 2.
• 35:33 - Scales of Fate.
• 39:17 - Bombastic.

Our favorite "just playing games" convention is behind us now, and...we did spend a lot of time just playing games. A LOT. BGG.CON features BoardGameGeek's legendary library plus the latest hotness from the king of board game shows, Essen Spiel, so we had no shortage of options. Listen in to see what our highlights were and to get a tease of what we have in store for Season 6 of The Board Game Quiz Show.

A lot of drafting games have been hitting our table lately, and they're all putting their own twists on the genre. We've been enjoying them so much that we're dedicating this whole episode to our top picks.

Plus, the sequel to Yomi, is here. Shoe's played a lot of fighting (video) games, so what does he think about probably the most pure card-game interpretation around?

Timeline

• 0:53 - Going Analog's game pick: Yomi 2.
• 7:54 - 6 new drafting games worth checking out.

All this business (or loss of) around tariffs has repeated raised a question from the gaming community: Why not just manufacture games in the U.S. instead of, say, China?

James Hudson, game designer and owner of Druid City Games, took time out of promoting his Wonderland's War Duel Kickstarter (check out our preview!) to explain why it's so difficult. We've heard the facts from the board game industry before, but James has additional insight worth hearing out.

Timeline

• 1:30 - Going Analog's game pick: Everbloom.
• 4:58 - James' game pick: Galileo Galilei.
• 11:35 - Wonderland's War Duel, a new Wonderland's War expansion, Madcala, Off With Their Heads!, and an expansion to Tidal Blades 2.
• 22:03 - James' topic: Why making board games in America is so difficult.

The OG card-crafting game Mystic Vale is getting a major makeover. Or is it a sequel? Whatever you want to call it, Mystic Lands is taking Vale's original concept of layering clear cards to create powerful combinations and streamling gameplay while beautifying the art. The result is a much better game (from our one play), and now we have to suffer the wait for the November Kickstarter campaign to run and fulfill.

Designer John D Clair and CEO of publisher Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) John Zinser stopped by our home to play a full game of Mystic Lands with us (Shoe would rather we don't discuss the final scores). Before we would let them out of the house, however, we made both sit down to record this podcast. Clair is working on some autobattler game designs, so that was his topic for us this week.

Timeline

• 1:15 - Going Analog's game pick: Fight 5.
• 3:05 - John D Clair's game pick: Living Forest.
• 5:13 - John Zinser's game pick: Love Letter.
• 7:37 - Mystic Lands and card-crafting.
• 21:38 - John D Clair's topic: The new trend of autobattler board and card games.

Let's try something new! For some reason (spoiler: the reason is laziness), we don't have a guest this week, so Shoe and Christina decided to feature the seasonally appropriate (for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival) Moon Bunny and then discuss some exciting new push-your-luck dice games that we've been enjoying.

Timeline

• 1:30 - Game pick: Moon Bunny
• 7:12 - Topic: push-your-luck dice games

We've been keeping an eye on the Kinfire series (which includes the cooperative campaign Kinfire Chronicles and tactical card game Kinfire Delve), and we walked away very impressed with our plays of the latest one in the franchise, Kinfire Council, a competitive worker-placement game set in the same world. Publisher Incredible Dream Studios is approaching gaming differently, so we asked CEO and co-founder Jane Hoffacker to discuss the massive amount of work that goes into designing a shared-universe space. And we continued the chat with Jane posing some thoughtful questions about cultural appropriation in gaming.

Timeline:

• 4:08 - Going Analog's game pick: Tea Witches.
• 8:25 - Jane's game pick: Dungeon Mayhem.
• 10:38 - Going Analog's topic: board game universes, the Kinfire series.
• 31:46 - Jane's topic: cultural appropriation in gaming.

Cozy is the new zombie. Or Cthulhu. Seriously -- just keep your eye on those store shelves (especially over the next few months), and you'll likely see so many new board games themed around the art of non-conflict. Maybe you'll be cuddling up with kitties. Or you'll be sitting around, peacefully matching tiles at your own pace. Or you'll be arranging books around your home in ways that please only you, as in our guest's co-designed A Place for All My Books.

Alex Cutler joins the podcast this week to talk about what exactly makes a game "cozy." Plus we lean into his experience as a developer (not just designer) to learn what makes for a good product. Sure, great gameplay is a must -- but what else will make gamers want to make that purchase?

Timeline:

• 3:15 - Going Analog's game pick: Black Forest.
• 6:59 - Alex's game pick: Fishing.
• 10:33 - Going Analog's topic: cozy games.
• 22:12 - Alex's topic: what makes a game a good product.

We love Gen Con so much, we couldn't fit everything into our Games of the Show episode. And Corey Thompson loves Gen Con so much that he became a part-owner of the giant North American gaming convention.

Corey leads Above Board TV, cohosts the Board Games Insider podcast, co-owns Play to Z Games, and...lots more that will just take up way too much space to write all out. So he was the perfect guest to invite on our show to chat about about more Gen Con highlights -- and some of our recent and classic two-player favorites.

Timeline:

• 3:48 - Going Analog's game pick: Panda Spin.
• 7:30 - Corey's game pick: Giberrers.
• 10:57 - Going Analog's topic: final Gen Con thoughts and highlights.
• 29:36 - Corey's topic: great two-player games (classic and new).

We're back from North America's giant gaming convention: Gen Con 2025! Did you miss us? Don't answer and don't worry -- we've got the coverage for ya.

We sit down and talk about SO MANY GAMES -- over 20 of 'em in this episode alone. Which did we like? Which were the best in show for us? Listen to find out!

Timeline:

• 4:21 - 2025 Party Games of Gen Con.
• 13:00 - 2025 Light Games of Gen Con.
• 35:42 - 2025 Medium Games of Gen Con.
• 53:10 - 2025 Heavy Games of Gen Con.

We love unique gaming experiences, especially from those tough-to-find games in Asia. Why are they so different from Western-made games? And what are the differences between games that originated from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, or other parts of the East?

Jay Bernardo, marketing manager at Bezier Games and content creator at Cardboard East (which specializes in covering board games from Asia), was kind enough to join Going Analog to teach us the ways. We also recommend some new games that play best at 5 or 6 players!

Timeline:

• 3:29 - Going Analog's game pick: Finca.
• 8:35 - Jay's game pick: Dune (1979 version).
• 18:01 - Jay's topic: East vs. West board games.
• 41:51 - Going Analog's topic: 5- to 6-player games.