Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
Special Ops: Gen Con 25 Preview
We excitedly explore Gen Con 2025's most anticipated tabletop releases despite not attending the convention in Indianapolis this year. Our distance from the board gaming event of the year doesn't diminish our enthusiasm for the impressive lineup of new titles making their debut on the convention floor.
• Lightning Train by Direwolf combines train game mechanics with bag building for a unique delivery-focused experience
• Habeas Papam offers hidden role gameplay where players are cardinals trying to elect a pope with specific traits
• Ace of Spades delivers a dungeon crawler with poker hand mechanics fighting zombie demons
• Wroth by Chip Theory Games features vibrant area control and dice-based combat with their signature premium components
• Distilled's new Cocktails expansion brings mixed drinks to the popular spirits-making game
• Big Sur from 25th Century Games showcases the natural beauty of California's coastline
• Sanibel by Wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave lets players collect shells along a beach
• Slam Throne revives 90s pog nostalgia with a modern Dice Throne twist
Share the show with friends and family! If you attend Gen Con and play these games, let us know if they're as awesome as they sound.
As always, come interact with us online, let us know if you have any feedback, and leave us a review/comment anywhere you get your favorite podcasts!
https://www.instagram.com/operation_game_night_podcast/
Show your support for the OGN Crew by contributing to the OGN War Chest:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2396881/support
welcome to the operation game night podcast. We are back and better than ever. And boy, it is hotter than ever. Here in alabama. It was 87% humidity and about 85 degrees. By 8 o'clock this morning I was dripping. It was gross. Speaking of drip, he's got his drip on. He's the bad boy of board games media. He's got his 5 million on. He's Jared Erickson. How you doing Jared Whatty?
Speaker 2:whatty whatty. Thank you for that just elegant intro. I appreciate it. I will say we are missing our third leg of this rusty stool and he would be so mad. We're starting a little bit late. It's eight 40 on a Tuesday night. You know that old man. He's in bed by I don't know seven, 20. I don't know. Um, he doesn't do much after the sun. I mean, the sun stays up late in the summer. I don't know. What do they do in Pennsylvania these days? I don't know.
Speaker 1:The only thing he does after dark is play board games. That's it. That's the only permissible activity. Everything else is off the table, yeah. But you're right, he's probably. He's probably in bed. I, the way I picture Clay going to bed, is like Ebenezer Scrooge and he's like in his long night night, gown with like the long cap and he carries a candle around his house. He carries a candle around his house. Is that true? Exactly, yeah, he probably had a sleepover or two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, he's actually gotten even more scroogier as he's grown in age. So, yes, we had a sleepover or two, that's true, but I mean, let's get down to business. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:There is a large convention going on this weekend, little thing called gen con. Are you familiar with what gen con is? So?
Speaker 2:um, to be completely transparent to the board game community here, I found out about gen con about 18 hours ago when, all of a sudden, all the influencers that I follow on social media were talking about gen con and, lo and behold, travis messages and like yo, we're going to talk about gen con. And I'm like whoa interesting because all the people I follow on social media started chirping about gen con. And then I found out it's in indianapolis. Is it always in indianapolis?
Speaker 1:it's probably the largest board game convention in America. Right, you've got like spiel SN that goes on in Germany. That's like a good one. Gen con is the American SN spiel. Okay and so, uh, yeah, it's huge convention. The Indianapolis convention center is packed to the gills with publishers and developers and interviews and panels and fans of board games galore. Uh, but that's going on this weekend in indianapolis.
Speaker 2:Sadly, we will not be in attendance yeah, where, where is operation game night fit into gen con? Gen con did not reach out to us, did gen con not want us there? I okay if the gen con, uh, the con people is that what you call them, the con men? The con men could reach out for uh gen con 26 just to get uh the ogn boys there. Uh, I might even throw in a five milli for him and a little spritz of the bad boy. So, yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed digging in these last, honestly, like 18 hours. Looking at what all Gen Con entails, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is exciting. I'd be interested. I mean, indianapolis is a, it's a fun little city. We lived in dayton, which is not that far away, and, um, you can probably find some pretty cheap tickets into, uh, indianapolis, I'm sure. Well, probably not for this, the biggest board game convention in north america. Uh, I mean, I'd drive over maybe, I don't know, heck yeah it's a cool event.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm always super jealous when we miss out. But next year, have you been? I have not, no, but if I, I've seen videos, I've watched the interviews, uh, and if essen is any sort of, uh, comparison, it is crazy, like I know that, like the indianapolis convention center is gigantic, yeah, um, you know you, you see the, the pictures of, like, san diego comic-con and it's just packed the gills, right, it's kind of like that. But with board games and board game publishers, and these publishers bring the heat, right, like, some of them bring stuff that is newly released. Some of them bring their greatest hits and some of them bring games that have not been released yet or are still in development, right, um, so we're going to talk about some games that we're excited about with our limited knowledge of gen con. Right, we're talking about games that are, you know, being tout being touted, as being shown at Gen Con. So we're going to run down a couple of highlights for us. So, jared, tell me about Lightning Train, published by Direwolf.
Speaker 2:Okay, I mean, obviously you hit me with the Direwolf. I'm ponying up for anything that dire wolf is spitting out, uh, because obviously dune imperium is right up my alley lightning train, um, it's. It's giving train but it's also giving bag building. So you know, uh, the wonderllust warrior Travis, you should be tip top shape here. I don't know fully how to play the game, okay, and I know that it's still, you know it's still coming out, but you should be able to pick this one up at Gen Con for sure. I like the idea of people buying the routes throughout this. It's kind of like a blobby kind of America, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was going to say it's kind of like it looks a little North, south and you know, maybe this was before the seas started to rise, maybe the tectonic plates are still moving a little bit, but you can see michigan, um, so what you're trying to do here, you will own each. You know each player can own a certain part of the rail. Uh, which does you know? You? You kind of tax the goods that are being delivered? You're essentially delivering goods. There was like a. There was a.
Speaker 2:There's like a little app game that I used to play, like back in the day. I can't remember what that one was called, do you remember? It was like you need to get some pigs from here to here. It was a game that I used to play when I was like. It used to be on my iphone when I was like I don't know like 22, but that that's what I was feeling like. This was giving me a little bit of those vibes. But the big points are one, when you're able to deliver a certain good from a certain location to another location and you can, you know, essentially pay homage to whoever, whosever rails you ride on, you ride on. But throughout the game, um, you can essentially grow your bag and, uh, you know, invest in better little chits to put into your bag and, uh, and maybe you you invest in certain chits that let you put down, uh, those rails and and own kind of be like a your own little railroad tycoon type guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah I'm not familiar with this one, but I designer is paul denon. He's got some bangers, oh yeah, and it's basically like train game meets bag building, and I am all for bag building you and I love to draw some chips out of bags. Oh yeah, um yeah, I don't know a whole lot about this, but just looking through it I'm I'm excited to learn more. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and train games train games are like a weird blind spot for me, game wise, right like we have had some people on the podcast that are big into train games, big into the 4x games, and that's just like something that I have never really been into, like I've barely played ticket to ride, and that's like baby's first train game.
Speaker 2:So so I the youtube that I watched today about it was like it's not, it's not ticket to ride and it's not the 18x boys, it's like kind of in the middle smashed up with Quacks here with your bag builder. But I mean you're competing against your other players, trying to make sure you're taking care of these other resources and being cognizant of who's trying to deliver what where From the video that you watched.
Speaker 1:Where does the lightning come in? Cause I'm seeing this smushy map of America and I'm seeing these cards and I'm not seeing any sort of weather, or do you know, like, how the lightning comes into this?
Speaker 2:From what I remember, there is a certain portion on your tableau and a certain type of train that you can pull, um that essentially lets you grow more lightning trains. Like, uh, if you pull this certain train, you can put it down on your tableau and all of a sudden now you have more of these trains. Essentially, then you can, if you have the correct um contract train now you can lay those trains down to um own a certain portion of the rail. So, oh, yeah it. It essentially is like you you gain a bunch of trains at the exact same time that you need them. So it's like the luck of the draw that you need that one little chit and you're able to pull it. Boom, you're able to get the, the lightning train, to set off your chain reaction so you can deliver the specific good that you really want. Nice, um.
Speaker 2:Now the ins and outs of how you actually do that not 100, sure, so I want to know more. I wish I was at gen con, wish I could get this one to the table. Yeah, it's all right soon enough.
Speaker 1:Uh, I've released date, so it's coming up quick very soon. I want to talk about habeas.
Speaker 2:Pop them, let me, oh is this, this one's for you, huh?
Speaker 1:yeah, let me figure out how to switch these quickly. Man Clay is always so fast at this.
Speaker 2:We need Clay back in here. He might be Ebenezer Scrooge, but he's Johnny on the spot with his little tickly fingers.
Speaker 1:Listen don't be turned away by the 5.7 rating. This game is freshly out. It's hitting tables right now. It's by Salt and Pepper Games, a publisher that I trust, and this sort of hidden role type game where you are the cardinals that are trying to elect a new pope into power and in your different little factions you have certain traits that you want the new pope to have and so all these cardinals that are potential pope candidates are laid out and you have these different action cards and basically what you're doing is you're betting on people that have the traits that you need to elect them into power. Again, not a hundred percent on all the ins and outs of the game. Haven't really experienced it, haven't watched a whole lot of playthroughs, but I love hidden role games where you're trying to like get one past people right. Like the secret Hitler is where you're maneuvering in the background and bidding and bluffing and playing these shady games to try and get your. I don't even know what they call them in Secret Hitler, but like your.
Speaker 2:Oh, get the candidate across.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you're trying to outmaneuver people and out out with them. This type of game is right up my alley and I think it's timely. Like, am I going to play this game forever? I don't know, maybe not, but it's at least timely. Right, got a chicago pope, oh, and maybe the chicago pope is in this game. I don't know, maybe these are real people. I, I don't think so, but uh, yeah, I, I, I enjoy games like this. I think they're cool. Um so, yeah, habeas, pop them, tape them what so?
Speaker 2:what is what is that? Even? Uh, what does that mean? What is that? Is that? Is that, uh, italian for?
Speaker 1:something that is latin habeas. I somebody chime in in the comments and tell us what that means in latin. Uh, but yeah, I don't know but salt and pepper games. I trust them. They make great games they're. They're always really cool and fun, unique. So, uh, I'm gonna check this one out for sure. All right, talk to me about ace of spades all right.
Speaker 2:So I mean, even before I realized this one was at gen con, I saw this one on someone's stories, um, probably promoting it for gen con, without me even realizing it, and I actually sent it to the the group. And I sent it because I was like dude Travis, this is right up your alley. It was giving me dungeon crawler meets someone on the western front fighting zombie demons and you're playing poker hands. So it keeps it very simplistic. And, if you can, I don't know, right there in that bottom right-hand corner there's a great little tracker for your hit points and, um, you know you're battling these demons and it's getting progressive. You know you're starting off with these baby demons all the way up to a big baddie. Um, you know we like baddies here. A big baddie, um, you know we like baddies here. Um, yeah, so definitely, uh, one that we're interested in here. Uh, it it gives, gives me something to look at. It's very. It looks like it's easy to teach, easy to get to the table and keep keep running. I also like that.
Speaker 1:It's single player, yeah, co-op and head-to-head, so love that, uh, and published by devere, and devere has some awesome banger games uh, you know, not always my cup of tea. You know, devere has some weird ones that I maybe have for a little while and they hang on. They get a couple plays and then they move, but you know, they're always interesting and worth a play. So yeah, ace of spades, definitely. I checked that one out. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, I need a timeout. I'm having my headphones, my headphones are going out and my wifi is up. One second. You still got me, yep, okay. Yeah, in the middle of that, it started playing the sound from the speaker, which then that probably comes back out on your. It does not? That doesn't bode well, okay. Yeah, it's not like my headphones went dead. They just decided to stop doing it and and then the wifi switched to something like the some dumb, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to talk to you. I've been kind of a chip chip theory boy lately.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, design.
Speaker 1:Roth. Okay, oh, roth is a area control game by chip theory that is so vibrant and cool. The artwork, the art design is amazing. This neoprene mat. You're fighting for area control over these different sectors and you're doing that by moving around, doing combat. You play as these different factions that have different abilities. I'm into all of this. Right, this is right up my alley. Here's the sad thing. This game came to game found, I believe, and I backed it. This is going out to backers right now. My copy went to germany, oh yeah, so it is floating out there in the ether. If you have my copy of r, I'm going to find you because I'm really itching to play this one Was it delivered.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming so, but it goes to those weird distribution centers like for overseas mail. Yeah, so it's out there in the ether somewhere. And I've been working with Chip Theory to help get my copy of Roth because I'm really wanting to play this. I think it's really cool. Yeah, on chip theory lately and I'm really sad that it went. It went elsewhere. So, yeah, working on that one now. But yeah, it's, you're chucking dice to do combat. You are moving around this tight little map trying to control areas and combat the other players. So, yeah, definitely into this one. There are also solo and co-op modes this one as well. So chip 30 knows how to do this well, where you can get a lot of bang for your buck out of these boxes, and roth is no different. So I'm excited to get this one played roth I.
Speaker 2:It's that going to get a sustainability medal from the OGN boys here.
Speaker 1:Well, it's sustainable in that you probably will play it for a long time, but sustainability in terms of production. Like they use so much plastic in those chips and their neoprene mats are like rubber. This game is going to live a long time and get a lot of plays out of it, whether I hand it off to others or keep it around forever. But yeah, they certainly are not the most environmentally friendly publisher out there. Okay, I want to talk about some other ones. You got any other ones that you want to shout out? I mean?
Speaker 2:unfortunately, those are the only ones I'm prepared to speak on, but I'm ready to receive as many as you'll send my way. You heard about a little game called Distilled.
Speaker 1:No way Distilled has an expansion for cocktails. Yes, excited about that one. Any mojitos in the house? I'm sure that there is. There looks like a Tom, a tom collins and a moscow mule daiquiri on the side. Okay, um, yeah, love me some distilled. Super eager to see how this changes the play. And I had completely forgotten that this was a thing until I was talking with amanda from empty nest sport mama and she had just gotten distilled played in preparation for one of her friends going to Gen Con and she brought this up and I was like, oh my God, I completely forgot this is a thing. I'm excited for the cocktails expansion and I love distilled. I hope that they put the cocktails expansion into BG a eventually. So yeah, I'm, I'm excited to see this one.
Speaker 2:Do you know how it modifies or changes the base game?
Speaker 1:I honestly I'm not sure, but I love the base game enough where I think I'm going to at least try it out, right, oh man?
Speaker 2:I don't even know how big this is. We need to get a good. Get another game of distilled going.
Speaker 1:I don't think I don't think I've played it in like a year the last time I played was with you guys, when we all hopped on bga and did it. So yeah, definitely, wow, definitely need to uh get this running again.
Speaker 2:We could potentially put that on a, put a pin in it, maybe for a late night BGA live with the Discord team. I don't know. I would love that, or however we're going to do that, I don't know. Restructuring on OGN we are chaotic and we love it here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is par for the course. Over here at OGN, we are flying by the seat of our pants. That's okay. All right, let me talk to you about some other games that I'm excited about. I'm ready. I want to talk to you about Big Sur. Big Sur, published by 25th Century Games.
Speaker 1:You're a big California boy. Yeah, this is like my area of California too. Big Sur is just north of Monterey. It's that stretch between Monterey Bay and San Francisco and you are cruising the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, exploring all the hot spots, and I love this. It's the same reason I love parks, love the outdoors, love nature, love to be reminded of these great places that I go to. And big sir is like kind of right in my backyard and they have some of the like monterey bay is right there in the middle and some of the places that I grew up going to, so excited for. Big sir don't know a whole lot about mechanics or anything, but if it involves california like this, I'm going to probably check it out, and I love the 25th century. They've been putting out some good games lately.
Speaker 1:I was wearing my UC Santa Cruz banana slugs tank top today when I was working out at the local YMCA Heck yeah, I should wear my banana slug sweatshirt and you should wear your tank top, and we should not tell Clay, and he can feel like a big idiot.
Speaker 2:Hey, I mean, the last time we did a duo we got some pretty big movement right. Oh yeah, the AI podcast we did, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:Our AI generated games. That was right. Yeah, our AI-generated games.
Speaker 2:That was great. Yeah, expect big waves here for Gen Con and Big Sur here Heck yeah, alright, let me go through a couple other ones.
Speaker 1:Let me talk to you about Sanibel. Sanibel is by Elizabeth Hargrave, published by Avalon Hill. Elizabeth Hargrave has been on a board game design tear lately and I don't think this is going to be any different. This is a game about walking on the beach with loved ones and collecting shells. Okay, your little footprints, super cute.
Speaker 1:You are walking down the beach and the shells are kind of lined up towards the surf, towards the break, and in these different sections you can decide to peel off at any point and go dive down towards the shore and grab shells. Right, you're trying to collect sets, you're trying to make these different patterns. Um, there's like little shark teeth and small shells and big shells and you can choose however far you want to move down the beach to get first priority to grab the shells. But you can't go backwards and people that go deeper down to collect shells fall behind those that are moving forward. And this is like.
Speaker 1:This is great, because I, you know, grew up in california. Go walk into the beach to go collect shells at dusk or whatever, and, you know, snag a bunch of like leftover sweatshirts and stuff on the beach, like hobos, uh, and you know, as kids we would like just be sprinting around trying to check everywhere for these different treasures that are left on the beach. Uh, collecting shells is a fun little twist on that, and elizabeth hargrave, so can't go wrong with santa bell. I'm I'm really excited about this one what?
Speaker 2:what is a recent one that Elizabeth Hargrave? We were just talking about one, or I swear there was another one that we were just talking about. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean she did Undergrove. Undergrove is like the mushroom spreading one. She's got the Fox experiment, she has designs credits and is the designer of Wingspan. Tussie Mussie, I shouted that one out.
Speaker 2:I think it was Tussie Mussie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the button shy game about trading flowers with loved ones, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's got some cool ones, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think I have one more. Do you have any nostalgia for Ps? Do you remember pogs back in the day?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh, I used to have the best slammers okay, let me talk to you about slam throne.
Speaker 1:From the creators of dice throne comes slam throne, which is essentially just the rebirth of pogs. I'm stoked for this. Okay, I remember collecting pogs and keeping them in my little like quarters sleeve. Okay, yes, heck, yeah, it's basically dice thrown version of pogs and I am here for it. I don't know how they're like the. The image shows them in like a bag. I think I've seen like images of them being sold in bags. I don't know if they're going to be like kind of grab bags, like pokemon cards or whatever. Um, but man, dice thrown is so clean of a design and it's so easy to like, just pick up and play. They have like their own little self-contained dividers that you just divvy out to the different players. The rules and the, the iconography are all super simple and if you can tag on like powers and stuff to pogs, I'm in for it.
Speaker 2:So, slam thrown, I'm I'm here for it, so you can you use your slammer to to flip them and if it lands on a certain side, then they can do one or the other thing. Or like is that what the vibe is here?
Speaker 1:I, I guess. So I honestly I don't know anything about this, uh, but you know, it's kind of a dexterity game. It's a dexterity version of of dice throne and they're gonna put their little spin on it with different powers and such. But yeah, basically, like you, you know this looks like the same character, but maybe powers on two different sides and, if it works, the same as pogs. You know, you were like slam them down and trying to flip the other one over and then stacking them up, and I have not.
Speaker 1:I have this like memory of playing pogs back when I was like I don't know eight. I had not thought about a pog since I remember the little troll character that was like the mascot, um, but yeah, I'm definitely gonna check this one out and it seems like I mean, unless these are like super heavy, thick plastic pieces, I feel like they're gonna be relatively inexpensive. Question mark yeah, because it looks like you've got a whole bunch of cardboard ones here. That's a better image. Yeah, a whole bunch of cardboard ones that are like your different characters. Then you got your slammer. That's the last one slammer yeah okay.
Speaker 1:So definitely gonna check this one out because, uh, love me some pogs, love me some dice their own and yeah, go check that one out. I'm all about it. I'm sad that we're not going to be a dice at.
Speaker 2:Uh, gen con, dice throne there's always next year, but next year we'll get them, that's right all right, I mean we're doing, we're gonna try and do, uh you know, a little bit of world series of board gaming. You can't do too many conventions or events in one year. You'll just get tired, you'll get worn out.
Speaker 1:How many times do you want to see?
Speaker 2:your friends per year.
Speaker 1:Thousands Millions of times per year. Okay, all right, that has been our Gen Con preview some of the things that we're excited about, but again there, gen con has something for everybody. So, uh, tune into all those uh press releases and and hot things coming out of gen con, because it's an exciting time for board gaming every year. Every year, there's something like brand new and something bright and shiny. It looks cool at gen con and, yeah, maybe next year we'll have to check it out, maybe.
Speaker 2:Did we do it? I think so. Can I do a quick shout out to the team at OGN for grinding hard, putting in those late night hours for the listeners out there. For any feedback for the restructuring, please send it our way. Oh yeah, it's a little sad. We don't just always do a little over the fence. Maybe you can sneak in a little over the fence or a little debrief if you need to every now and then. But please send in feedback. We love to hear from our listeners.
Speaker 1:Anyways, it's always a pleasure trev and, as always, share the show. Share the show with friends and family. Spread the love. We want to talk, board games and those people that support us and love interacting with us. We love interacting back.
Speaker 2:We love hearing from people, so, just like, and if you go to gen con and play these games, let us know if they really were as slamming awesome as they sounded so heck yeah awesome, great conversation.
Speaker 1:I have been travis, he has been jared and we are out.
