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: 1-Year Anniversary Honorable Mentions and Memories
The one-year anniversary episode of Operation Game Night serves up a delightful mix of reflection, gaming enthusiasm, and genuine appreciation as Travis, Clay, and Jared look back on their podcasting journey. The trio dives into the games that almost made their coveted top 10 lists but fell just short—revealing as much about their gaming habits as their preferences.
Clay opens with a candid reflection about Root, once his favorite game that slipped from his top 10 not because it lost quality, but because life changed. "If it was that good, I'd be finding time to play it," he admits, highlighting how our gaming collections evolve with our circumstances. His near-miss Arcs scratches the same political intrigue itch while being more approachable for newcomers. Meanwhile, Jared's honorable mentions include Wingspan, Ahoy, and Gizmos—the latter earning special praise for its tactile marble dispenser that digital play can't replicate.
Perhaps most telling is Travis's emphasis on small box games that dominated his year. With a young child and frequent travel, games like Scout, Sea Salt and Paper, Cat in the Box, and Splendor became his go-to choices. This practical approach to gaming resonates with anyone who's had to adapt their hobby to life's changing demands.
Beyond the games themselves, the hosts share their favorite memories from their first year of podcasting. Having game designer Paul Solomon as a guest topped multiple lists, while Clay particularly enjoyed their bracket-style episodes. All three expressed appreciation for how guests expanded their gaming horizons by introducing them to unfamiliar titles and mechanics.
The episode concludes with heartfelt thanks to those who made their podcast journey possible—from supportive community members like Amanda from EmptyNestBoardMama to their patient spouses who accommodate the weekly recording schedule. It's a reminder that while games may come and go from our tables, the connections they help us build are what truly matter.
Listen in to discover which games nearly made the cut, and perhaps find your next favorite just outside the spotlight of their official top 10s.
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!
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welcome to the operation game night podcast. Back and better than ever. Joining me, as always, are my co-hosts, co-captains of the ship jared and clay. How you doing, boys?
Speaker 2:jared, I'm good wasn't that?
Speaker 3:uh, top 10, just tippy toppy, that was. That was probably the best top 10 I've ever done the best top 10 nobody can, nobody can compete with this top 10. It is the finest top 10. Nobody can have a better top 10. Nobody can compete with this top 10. It is the finest top 10. Everybody thinks so these guys were just giving me crap that I get Donald Trump vibes when I start talking about board games. Donnie T takes over me, apparently.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Commander-in-Chief is with us. I guess that is true. True, and for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, go back and listen to jared describe quacks of quedlinburg in our top 10 episode last tuesday the number 10 through 6 of our top 10 and listen to him explain quacks of quedlinburg and just listen to the meter with which he speaks.
Speaker 3:And yeah, he gets excited sometimes Saturday Night Live. Better watch out. If they need a backup, I'm in there, that's right. I'm in it, that's right.
Speaker 1:So today we have a good episode for you. We are going to cap off our top 10 list, our one year in review, with some honorable mention games that did not make our top 10 lists. Then we're going to share our favorite memory from the last year of ogn and then we're going to do just a couple of shout outs to people that made all of this possible and made ogn come to life over the past year. So who wants to start? Somebody hit me with your, uh, honorable mentions.
Speaker 2:Clayton, I'd like to start um this isn't necessarily an honorable mention, it's just more of a reflection slash review of my top 10. Okay, so sorry for not sticking to the prompt as written, but I was quiet when you guys both brought up a very particular game last week, and it was Root. Root, I think, since I played it for the first time, I don't know four or five years ago with Jared. We played a two-player game of Root. I got it when I was just getting into it. I was like, please come over, play this game with me. Everybody says it's awesome. We played cats versus birds, and ever since then it had been captured by imagination.
Speaker 2:I loved the political intrigue, the factions, the way the game varied between plays and what mix of factions you had out there, and I just haven't played it in like two years. And so, though it was my number one game for a long time, I had to get real with myself and take it off of its pedestal, because if it was that good, I'd be finding time to play it I think, at least in the last two years, and it made me sad and you guys talked about it, and it just made me want to play it again. But it's just one of those situations where a lot changed in a year, you know, and my game group's changed and what I'm able to get to the table changed, and I hope there's a time when Root can start coming back to the table regularly like we used to have it. I mean, we were playing probably like quarterly at least.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, at least. Oh yeah. Well, on the 25th anniversary of operating on 20 operation game night's 25th anniversary, we can look back on how many times root came and went in your top 10. How about that?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, let's, we'll put, we'll bookmark that. I'll send out the calendar invite for silver anniversary.
Speaker 3:Uh, you know, maybe, maybe we do it big. You know, well, we didn't have, we didn't even have balloons for our, uh, one year anniversary yeah, I did consider at least getting a party hat, but that did not come to fruition.
Speaker 2:So yeah next time, hey. So back kind of back to my why I went off that tangent a little bit about being sad about root leaving my top 10, because my first honorable mention is a game from later games that was at number 11 and almost creeped in, and that's arcs. Arcs was all the hotness last year and it gave me a lot of the same root itchy scratchies as uh as I like from that game, but in a way that was a lot easier to bring to people for the first time. Not an easy game, not an easy game to teach. It still has a lot to it, but there's, you know, just not having to learn five different factions every time you want to play. It makes it a much more approachable game and I had a fair amount of success introducing it to people over the course of the last like year and a half since I had it, and so that very well could see its ascendancy into the top 10 next year. So that's my first shout out on top 10.
Speaker 1:Have you ever played arcs 2 player? I yes, yes is that any good at two, it is yeah, is there a auto, automobots or? Whatever that just shrinks down and it's just in your face, it's tighter start to finish yeah, I definitely want to get that played before my brother-in-law leaves Alabama. Yeah, do it Excellent.
Speaker 2:Keep going, Clay. That's all I want to say for now. I'll see what you guys have to say.
Speaker 3:He's got so many rounds chambered, he's going to be popping off.
Speaker 2:I could sit here for an hour, so I'll hand it off.
Speaker 3:Our fearless leader gave us direct instructions to just start spouting off honorable mentions. And here clay goes on a diatribe about root. So that's just a spear for him to throw. I just threw him right, right into his ribs.
Speaker 3:But a wingspan, ahoy and gizmos were like my top honorable mentions, I think when wingspan was my um top 10 beginning of the year, but I just haven't really been playing it. Great engine builder, but you know, it's, it's not there. And maybe I want to get into the worm span and the fisher span, um, so maybe if I can make a connection happen with Clayton over there, maybe he can, you know, get get the spans up into my top 10. I don't know. And then Ahoy is just like mini dead reckoning. So that's definitely getting in there. And there is the beta version of board game marina coming out and I did play it. It seemed pretty, pretty square, squared away, so excited that one to keep getting developed out. And then gizmos is such a good engine builder, just so beautiful. I want to play it in person. I want to stick my hands down to the top of the, the trough, and just grab, you know, a red marble. And oh, it's so satisfying but it is. It is those. Those are my, my top honorable mentions for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that little dispenser for gizmos gives me serious like uh, gumball machine vibes and it's yeah, it's pretty satisfying well, what if you could do gizmos with gumballs that you can just eat, or something like that, board gaming with food. Is there a move? There Could be the move. I'll make that move. What do you got?
Speaker 1:I'm going to shout out a couple of small boxes a couple of small boxes clay you had for sale. Uh, make the list this has been gold and ink and gold, yeah, that's right uh, this has been a year for small games for us, because it's we don't pull out big heavy games with a little baby running around and play the whole travel you're doing.
Speaker 1:Lots of travel, lots of trying to get quick games in before we get ready for bed. So what did I have? I had Scout. I had Sea Salt and Paper Cat in the Box and it's not really a small box but Splendor, splendor. You know, those are the games that we played. The most this year was these small box games. While we traveled played tons of my mint tin games, but those were mainly solo. So, yeah, it's kind of been a small box year for us. I really enjoyed talking about our small box matchup during our tournament bracket. That we did that was pretty fun. But I don't think any of them are going to knock off one of these big boys, those big big boy games. So yeah, small boxes.
Speaker 3:That was my first shout out I was also gonna give some love to the small boxes like, like spots, and that's so cl, some of the more party game small boxers. I just couldn't bring them into my top 10. It's so sad. Yeah, I was going to say, travis, you knocked a little brain cell loose. There's not too many up there. But Splendor Duel.
Speaker 3:I had a good conversation with a roommate, a co-worker. I had a good conversation with a roommate, a co-worker, who I was like I'm just trying to casually talk about board games more in my daily life. He's like oh, you play board games Because you know, engineers are nerds and of course they play board games. He's like oh, I got this one that I really, really like. I'm like oh, what is it? Oh, you might not know. I'm like hit me with it. He's like oh, it's Splendor. I'm like oh, of course, dude, it's awesome. Have you ever played Splendor Duel? He's like yeah, I do Splendor Duel every day because it's just with my wife. I'm like wait, wait, do you play one-on-one in Splendor or have you played the actual box like the other game? He's like I don't know what you're talking about, so splendor. I told him I'm like dude, you got to go look up splendor duel and he I don't know, maybe I got to follow up with him see if he.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if he got it, man jerry.
Speaker 3:That's a heavy flex there, oh man I don't know man, I look at me go. It only took me a year to get revved up, but I'm finally on some kind of level. Ogn did something for me this year.
Speaker 1:You're part of the board game media now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're going to give me a media pass at World Series of Board Gaming. That's not true.
Speaker 1:All right, clay what else you got for honorable mentions.
Speaker 2:More in the chamber. So here's a couple that I probably would have put in my top 10, but I was. I was being realistic about the amount of times I've played them. So they're games I've played a few times. They got a lot of potential. I could see them coming up in the next year. One is Hot Streak. You guys heard me carrying on about that.
Speaker 2:I think it is a glaring hole in my top 10 that I don't have any betting games, because I generally love a good racing betting game. You know our camel ups are freaking hot streaks. What else Down forces? So hot streak could see itself keep moving up If I keep having as much fun as I've had with it. Winner's circle, another betting game by Dr Reiner Canizia, is dead simple. I like it more than most people I play it with. I think everybody has a good time, but I think I am more charmed by the simplicity of it than other people. So I don't know I'll. I'll keep playing it and seeing where it lands. Um, the other one that just haven't played enough, but I want it to be a top 10 game is Battlestar Galactica, because that was such an epic, amazing experience getting to play that game with all my besties minus you two, and you know get accused of being silence yeah, I mean I said besides you two, god, whatever.
Speaker 2:that's all I have for this. Yeah, I mean I said besides you two, god, whatever. That's all I have for this round of the chamber. Just some that I would like to see keep climbing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was kind of surprised by Arx and Battlestar Galactica falling out of your top 10. When you sent the list you know, yours kind of included 11 through, I don't know. Yeah, or whatever you could see, I was really surprised that those two dropped so far not that they were like far, but you know they were not in the top 10, especially after how hot you were on battlestar galactica. You said that was like one of your favorite board gaming experiences. Period dot. Like yeah, I stand by it.
Speaker 2:I just just don't. I don't know if it makes me credible to throw a game up. I've only played one time. Uh, you know that's. It doesn't feel like journalistic integrity to put that in my top 10. So I'm going to go.
Speaker 1:That's part of the board game media. Now you have journalistic integrity. That's right, yeah, yeah, oh man, uh, jared, what else you got for honorable mentions?
Speaker 3:um, I was gonna hit up azul, uh, because I I've been whacking that one on a. Stop it, donnie t. Is it all over me, man?
Speaker 1:no, it was just it was just a choice of phrasing continue azul.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'll cut that cut that, cut that, cut that, cut that um oh man, what a day. All right yeah I'm glad you've been whacking it on repeat, jared oh my, hey, hey, after you know, after the second vasectomy you always have to you have to get a couple more rounds in there. Oh, okay, I, okay, I just need edited.
Speaker 1:All right, Azul Sounds great.
Speaker 3:Good choice hey let's try that one again. I have been trying to get Azul higher in my list, but only been able to do 1v1s, though Is that more PC?
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect Love. It Sounds great Sweet.
Speaker 3:And I'd like to get more, because how many people can you get around, azul? You can get quite a few. Four, or just four. Yeah, I think it's four. That's it. Yeah, is there any cool wingspan expansions where you can bust it up to six? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:I think they're all four. Every iteration of Azul is four.
Speaker 3:With the.
Speaker 2:Chocolatiers yeah, I think they're all four. You could just make you, could, you know, hodgepodge your own wingspan expansion and just buy two copies of azul and just have two separate areas of tile grabbing, which is essentially what they do in wingspan asia okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, uh, data um in Asia. Okay, yeah. So, uh, data um, call sign from my last year, my last job. I've been playing Azul with her and she's finally like, dude, I'm done, let's try something new. So we we tried, uh um, the the dice game where you press in your luck's that one um can't stop and then she just like well, it was another. We played three player and the other third guy he just won on the first round, just like you, travis, yeah. So I can't find a good you know a good game like that. So I need to. I need to find a good game to play that gets into my top 10, that's light, has some luck that you don't have to think too much strategy. I'm going to work on that.
Speaker 1:Have you tried Candyland?
Speaker 3:No Chutes and Ladders, maybe there you go. Perfect, give me some Chutes and Ladders, that's right.
Speaker 1:That is true, good call. But okay, I'm gonna just go rapid fire. We're kind of running out of time. But uh, I had a bunch of card games on my list that I had to cut to include a boss monster. I've played that tons of times. It's like a layer building where you're trying to attract heroes to your monster layer. You play as the big bad boss in like a 16, 18 bit, 16 or 8 bit video game. You're trying to attract the heroes but kill them before they reach you, kind of multiple layering card effects that you're trying to manage. Probably one of like my earliest board games I was exposed to. It's produced by Brotherwise wise games. It's really fun. If you have not played boss monster, highly recommend it.
Speaker 1:Um, I also had the war of the ring, the card game, and I had not played this a whole lot. But within the last year they had the solo expansion come out and I can't shout out what it's called. I can't remember what it's called, but they have a solo expansion. And then they had the uh, the war and flames, axe and flames. That came out and that stuff is so good. It's such a cool trick-taking game where you're battling over these different lanes. You have cards that have multiple effects. Um, what a good like distillation of that war, war of the ring board game into cards. Love that. Uh also. One more that really uh spiked for me this year was fromage. I man, what a clean worker placement game. So fast, so like. Such a good idea to have simultaneous worker placement with a rotating board on a lazy susan. So dynamic, so dynamic. I love it.
Speaker 1:Uh, what a what a cool concept and then um yeah, I had a couple other ones that I haven't played enough to warrant putting into top 10, like nemesis. I really love nemesis. Vick always gets me fired up about nemesisrise cool auction bidding game where you're building out a big city skyline. Foundations of Rome Clay, you called that one out. That one has really stuck with me and it's so cool. I will never own that box but I really enjoy that game. And then Agricola I had never played Agricola before this year and I really enjoy it. I'm terrible at it. I don't know exactly how to win that game, but I think it's cool and I love the depth of it and I love, uh, you know, that worker placement aspect of it. So yeah, lots of good games this year, just none that really crack the top 10 or ones that you are saying the top 10 games of all time. So any other honorable mentions?
Speaker 2:I'm good, I'm going to cut myself off. I'm going to cut myself off.
Speaker 3:You are cut off, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, let's go around real quick and just share what was your favorite memory from our first year at OGN. Oh, jerry.
Speaker 3:Okay, I had too many to count, but having paul solomon on the podcast was probably. Did I steal someone's?
Speaker 2:yeah, you stole mine, but I think there's lots of, there's lots. We can have a co our co-favorite moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean because dude's a math teacher. Yeah, like totally in the math, just incredibly down to earth, and like I had the most fun time just listening to the man talk. Like I could I could do a podcast, listen to him every day if I could, but that was just really neat. Love what he's putting down out there.
Speaker 2:So that was that was the first thing that came to my mind, but yeah, that also came to my mind, but I will table that, since you discussed it. But yeah, paul, thanks, that was awesome. We all had a great time talking with you and have. I have been loving the game head games lineup, so check that out if you haven't yet. Uh, I think my favorite episode that we did I'm sorry, jared, you weren't a part of this, but the small box bracket was the one I had the most fun doing. It was a lot of work making the bracket, but it was just a lot of fun working our way through that bracket and seeing what came out on top. I'd like to do more brackets in the future. Yeah, some more throwdowns on operation game night absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think I was like I was in the beginning of that podcast and then I left halfway in yeah, yeah, we definitely need more brackets in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, uh, my favorite was learning about all these board games. I have like such blind spots in my board gaming habits and I feel like every time we have a guest on, they're like oh, have you played this game, have you tried this one? It like opening up that aperture just by talking to people in the community. We get so like pigeonholed into our gaming groups. A lot of our top 10 is like very similar or at least tangential to one another because we've played all those games together. Now, as we introduce more people into the group, we're expanding our aperture of gaming. We're expanding our aperture of board gaming, friends, and they all have such unique takes. Paul Solomon introduced us to a whole bunch of games that we either had not heard of or had never played before. We to tara from you know tara's bad luck club she had talked about like train games and we're like you mean, take it to ride. She's like no train games.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know, uh, you know, amanda, amanda from emptiness board, mama knows all sorts of games that we've never played before. So just like talking to people and hearing where they gravitate to and how they differ from our tastes, it has been super interesting to me. But I think my favorite type of episodes that we've done have been the head-to-head board game sell-off to Jared. I really enjoy those. We get a little spicy about it sometimes, but it's healthy competition and we're talking about those that. We got a little spicy about it sometimes, but like it's healthy competition and we're talking about stuff, stuff that we love. So I I had a lot of fun with those episodes.
Speaker 3:Those have been some of my favorites I mean, you two come prepared with just like some, some of the strongest like justifications. You're coming here. It's a knife fight for my attention and I'm just a little little school girl getting courted over here, uh, and I love it. So anytime you guys want to do a little, uh, head-to-head, what do we call those? Sorry, co-selection, yeah, co -selection, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We need to do more of those Military roots yeah, clay, you also had a good idea for like a kind of twist on that in the future that I think that we're going to do. Yeah, you're giving me confused looks.
Speaker 3:We've talked about it, but it's coming in the future. We're going to do it. We'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about it Planting some seeds, yeah, seeds, yeah, building anticipation seeds have been planted. Is that is? Was this a good segue into like shouting out the the people that, yes, let's do it. We've met. I mean, we can't. You've already mentioned her, but we can't go on without talking about empty nest board. Mama amanda, she's been awesome, she's been a great friend to us, uh, constantly giving us words of support.
Speaker 2:She let us come on her podcast yeah, I mean, what a great person for the board game community. Thanks, amanda, for making us feel at home out here and that we actually had somebody that cared about what we had to say, and honestly like probably our very first, you know, fan.
Speaker 1:I don't super fan I'm putting words in her mouth but I'm gonna say that she's a fan because at least she's still interacting with us. She hasn't like completely ghosted us, but like, yeah, like reaching out since episode one, maybe two, and like reaching out to us on instagram, you know, shouting us out and allowing us to come on her podcast. That's a huge honor. So thank you, amanda, for being our very first fan.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of shout outs, I mean Vic is always shouting this out and I've always loved kind of going back to the last segment of the favorite episodes. But also a shout out to our boy, Vic, for giving us great ideas. He is not only like a friend but kind of a mentor at the same time oh yeah, but also a great board gamer and connector and just a great all-around dude. So I'm excited because we're going to see him in Vegas.
Speaker 1:Yes, we are. I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had the most fun talking to vick.
Speaker 3:like vick, like he just fits right in, you know, oh yeah and then I was just like I'm still just blown away by some of his podcasts, his um jurassic park series he's putting out. And then, uh, he had a whole super superman episode too, with the guy that did the commercial for one of the insurance companies. I was listening to that whole thing while I was mowing my lawn, just cracking up. I was like, okay, I got to start edging now, because I need to edge the lawn so I can just keep listening. He's awesome.
Speaker 1:Shout out to vick. We've had some killer guests on here, like mike from baron plays board games. I also how dare he change his instagram handle the day after we publish our episodes like? I know he doesn't want to be found. It's okay, mike. Yeah, sorry, I just blew you up.
Speaker 2:Also our best performing episode to date. Yes, thank you, mike, so knowledgeable, so knowledgeable.
Speaker 1:That dude plays more board games than probably anybody. We've had Tay on. We've had Sam on. We've had so many good guests.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I hope he's doing good with his new baby. Yeah, man, we've had so many good guests. We've been honored to have so many people agreed to come on and just BS about board games with us, and I appreciate every single one of them. Um this, they have always like contributed something to the culture of OGN that is going to like stick around for a long time. So thank you. If you've come on the podcast, if you are interacting with us on the internet, uh, you have contributed in a way that we cannot explain in words. So thank you so much for your contribution and your support to OGN. We love you, all we do. Uh, should we talk about spouses for a minute?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was about to say, none of this could be possible without my wife, who is currently trying to put my daughter down for a nap, and the scheduling that has to go on between our wives and us to make this thing possible, to do it for a whole year. I think we owe them a huge shout out and a lot more than just words of affirmation, maybe whatever their love language is, so maybe I'll go go take care of that. Yeah, give, give Mary some, yeah, some physical touch. Give her some love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank her for deciding our small, our small box bracket. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was the deciding factor. I think I'd be a little more, you know, gushy about my spouse if she had listened to any of our last like 30 episodes. It doesn't matter, she can. I know she's still there for us, but it does hurt me a little bit and who knows, maybe these are, these are in the internet.
Speaker 1:They're timeless, they're never true, it's our time capsule.
Speaker 3:That's right, yeah yeah, every time that I talked about my vasectomy. It's gonna be out there forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah uh, she did, she did chime in with her favorite og and memory and that was her. That was her favorite memory was, uh, your vasectomy. So thank you for chiming in, adri, you were literally the only one and that was her favorite ogm moment. No way, jeez, no, but uh, yeah, thank you. Thank you to all the spouses. Personally, I got, uh, you know, my, my wife, uh, an ogm like uh italian bracelet. Has the? No, it doesn't, no, but yeah, thank you to all the spouses for supporting this and watching uh little rugrats as we sit here and talk about board games into the internet once a week, every week yep okay, did we do it?
Speaker 1:let's call it a wrap. Let's call it a wrap. Thank you for supporting us this last year. Thank you you for contributing to OGN. If you're listening to this now, until 25 years from now, when we're recording our look back at 25 years of OGN, thank you for listening to the podcast and thank you for your support. So I have been Travis, he has been Jared, he has been Clay. We're out.
