Friend of the Gumbo, Stephen Buonocore, has been promoting an event in Vegas that has been on my radar. I have enjoyed hearing his recap of the trips to the World Series of Board Gaming (“WSBG”), and dug the play-by-play for the competitive games being an amateur PbP guy myself. But I wanted to find out more about the WSBG myself. The folks at the World Series reached out to us about getting the word out on this year’s event. So mark your calendars for September 22, 2024, which is the start of the 2024 World Series of Board Gaming in Las Vegas, Nevada. What is the WSBG? I’ve never been, so I h ..read more

I discovered the designing duo of Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer way back when Porto Nigra hit the stores around 2015. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to play so many more games. When they design together, that combo is easily in my top five game designers of all time, and Wandering Towers and Heaven & Ale are two of my favorites. But I went to a friend con a few weekends back up in Arkansas. I used to camp and play games with three of my scouting buddies, but since our boys are all grown up now, we do not see each other much anymore as a group. We decided to grab a cabin in ..read more

Life is a highway, and I want to ride it all game long. Or maybe I just want to Walk The Llama? I can never remember. More importantly, I got a chance to play a new Mondo Davis game that is hitting crowdfunding soon from 25th Century Games. It’s set in Big Sur, California, on the central coast of this very long state. I have only made one trip to California, way back in 2005 for the 50th Anniversary of the Happiest Place On Earth. We had a packed itinerary, trying to cram two visits to the parks and other touring into 72 hours, but it was a lovely trip. Despite the rush, there was no way I wou ..read more

LTWs. Little Time Wasters. I as guilty as anyone at trying to find the next good one. For a long while, it was Temple Run, something I could play while riding the elevator up to our floor early in the morning by myself at the old office. Lately, it’s been the NY Times online puzzles on my iPhone that have also been friendly to me, especially Wordsy and Connection. But board game versions of the LTWs have been few and far between. I think the last one I got hooked on was Numbsters, a game I would pull out right before dinner time each night for weeks. And then Paper App Dungeon arrived, and I h ..read more

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-49vuv-15f5355 Gumbo Live! is back with a new season! In our sixth show, we visit with the krewe from Tampa, The Beans And Dice Podcast! Carlos, Rob, and Wayne join us to chat about they got their start in gaming and content creation, dish on ways to grow your local gaming community, and then get right to some spicy hot games! No Thanks! Dune: Imperium: Uprising Flash Point Fire Rescue The Sixth Realm Finally, we played a long time favorite game with the Chat Krewe that we like to call “Just One Cardboard” with a special guest, Mitchell “The Red Bean” Pr ..read more

Sometimes the title of a review writes itself, right? I just got back from a cabin con with some friends. Full disclosure: I just drove up for one day, not the whole weekend, as I had some other plans on the Sunday. But no matter, the joys of getting gamers together away from the hustle and bustle of life for a weekend (or even for one day) are innumerable. Cabin cons are perfect places to play those big, meaty euros or thematic games that might not get played on a regular game night. So what if Too Many Bones takes three hours — time is of no moment at a friend con. The only downside is for t ..read more

If I have to explain the theme of Sherlock 13 to anyone in the United States or Britain, I’ll close this blog tomorrow. There are very few IPs as ubiquitous as the legend of Sherlock Holmes. In a separate blog, I need to list out my top five incarnations of Sherlock amidst the steady stream of television, movies, books, and games that have come out, for sure. The allure of Sherlock to me is the art of deduction, where Sherlock and his pals take what seems like ordinary facts that have no connection yet can eliminate those improbable elements that lead to only one conclusion. As a kid, we enjoy ..read more

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fvxmr-15c65e3 Gumbo Live! is back with a new season! In our fifth show, we visit with the krewe from Meeple Town, Dean and Deron, long-time friends and now long-time podcasters about board games! We chat about the transition to Deron as the new co-host, with a surprise visit(?), and then get right to the games, games, games! Floe The Magnificent Xylotar Exhibition: 20th Century Mind Space Finally, we played a long time favorite game from Steve “The Name Father” called Meeple Town Building Committee or something like that. BJ didn’t quite get the rules ..read more

Wingspan was one of our favorite games when it came out in 2019. In fact, if I ever re-visit the Fleur de Lis awards from 2019, I would probably move Wingspan up in place of Reavers of Midgard, because I have definitely played more of Wingspan since then. Throw in a great conversation with Elizabeth Hargrave on Gumbo Live! (back before we upgraded from pretty low res cameras!), a bunch of interesting expansions so far, and my wife and I were hooked for a while: As good as Wingspan has been, and as gorgeous as the artwork and production turned out to be, I was fairly ambivalent about the theme ..read more

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-r2dcv-15ab4b1 Gumbo Live! is back with a new season! In our fourth show, we visit with Ben Hammer about his brand new game coming soon to Kickstarter WE ALL TAKE FROM THE RIVER. It’s a resource management and social deduction game that also gives insight to keeping a river and its estuary clean from pollution. It’s Ben’s first design, and he not only designed the game but did all the artwork himself.  We also talked about a spicy hot game that Steve played recently called SKOVENTYR, a one to four person game designed by famed automa designer Morten M ..read more