Talk Cardboard

If you've been very good boys, girls and non-binary kids this month, then and only then will you get a visit from the Die Jester who will tell you spooky stories about the board games they played. Sometimes his name is Efka and sometimes her name is Elaine. This halloween, the Die Jester is here, and they brought timestamps with them.

1:22 Lodge

7:37 Oath: New Foundations

17:42 Grabble

22:53 Upland and Prairie

26:55 Undaunted: 2200 - Revolution

32:05 Dead Reckoning

39:24 Arthieves

45:37 Vroom

51:08 Planet Pioneer Meteora

56:28 Dune: Imperium - Uprising

56:57 Here Lies

Hot hogs! Hot Hogs! HOT HOGS!

I have to come clean with you - this die jest features hot hogs. Admittedly, I am writing this description just to see how many times I can get away with HOT HOGS! So far it's five times, but I think I can maybe cram in a sixth. Hot hogs.

On to the timestamps:

0:57 Sidereal Confluence

2:40 Here Lies

7:45 Personal Demons

14:25 Final Titan

21:02 Annulets

28:41 Boast or Nothing

31:45 Daytime Minutes

36:20 Dino Racer

38:26 Hot Streak

38:34 Container

41:07 Wondrous Creatures: Winterfall

46:02 Oath: New Foundations

56:32 Accidental fake out ending, still Oath: New Foundations

58:31 Neon Hope

1:01:21 Glasgow Train Robbery

1:11:28 Kingdom Crossing

1:17:43 Revenant

Hark! The stars align, the constellations merge, the celestial bodies shake as the time is nigh for the die to be jest. Your only chance at salvation - roundup some board games. KARATE CHOP!

On to the timestamps:

1:02 ICE: Unlimited (unfortunate title)

7:25 Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor

12:15 Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor - Exmoor

15:18 Forest Shuffle Smoky Mountain

19:23 Neon Hope

32:39 Sausage Sizzle

33:51 Sidereal Confluence

37:12 My Favorite Things

37:47 Yotei

41:07 The Queen's Dilemma

The month is coming to an end - thus the die is jest. Join us for the monthly roundup of board games poked and proded by the ones at NPI. And what a roundup it is! On to the timestamps:

0:48 Moytura

6:05 Morty Sorty Magic Shop

10:40 Container

15:26 World Order

24:53 Boss Fighters QR

28:25 Yonder

32:29 dnup

35:43 Line of Fire: Burnt Moon

38:22 Slay the Spire: The Board Game

39:22 Here Lies

44:22 Cozy Stickerville

48:41 Wingspan Pocket

Yes, this is the very last episode of Talk Cardboard. It's also the first episode of The Die Jest. Which is how Talk Cardboard will live on. Right here, on patreon.

On to the timestamps!

5:33 The Queen's Dilemma
14:32 Oath
16:03 Torchlit
19:40 Hanami
24:30 Sovereign: Fall of Wormwood
29:37 Strange Slot Simulator
34:26 Container
39:15 Foxglove Farm
42:46 The Old King's Crown
44:46 Typeset

On this bonus episode of Talk Cardboard, seven more games we've played at Spiel Essen.

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Intro

0:58 Skiwi

4:12 Petal Plotters

6:48 Milch mit Abführmittel

10:29 GODŌ: The Five Paths

12:54 Carnival of Sins

18:40 Whirly Derby

25:14 Winning Ticket

32:43 Tornado Splash

Just for reference, the population of Klaipėda, the third largest city in Lithuania is approximately 161 000 people. The number of attendees in this year's Spiel Essen was 220 000 people, meaning they managed to cram the entirey of Klaipėda and much more into just eight convention halls and every one of those people were buying board games.

I appreciate that that is maybe not everybody's jam, and aspects of it are not our jam either. But getting our mitts into a jar of Bonne Maman filled with gooey new board game releases - put a bib on me and fire up the toaster!

In this special joint episode of No Pun Included and Talk Cardboard we cover 16 new releases from Spiel Essen 2025, which you can either listen to here or partake in the video version https://youtu.be/NHVLn-ZxVWs

SHIRTS! Find them on https://no-pun-included-shop.fourthwall.com/

On to the timestamps:

0:00 Cold Open
2:46 Intro
5:42 Night Soil (Unranked)
9:11 Bouba Kiki
14:14 Nocturnis
17:56 Formidable Farm/Formidabel!
22:00 Tax the Rich
27:44 Echoes of Time
36:30 Fearless
41:30 National Economy
48:23 Thesauros
1:00:34 biD Coin
1:07:20 Kikai/Bricolage Heads
1:16:46 Tag Team
1:26:59 Recall
1:36:14 ???
1:56:10 ??
2:03:33 ?
2:14:53 Outro

Spinning pandas, evolving primates, and... Capitalism! We have all three for you in this episode - thankfully not all in the same game.

We could have had three games about mammals, but we didn't think this through.

Onto the time stamps:

00:00 Cold open
02:09 Intro
03:45 Panda Spin
18:34 Primates
32:51 Tycoon India 1981
48:25 Correspondence

Only three games this episode? What gives? Well, in the tried and true brand tradition, we decided to go back to our original formula. But no sad trombone noises please - we're really, definitely, honestly going to make it work this time...

On this episode, we have Identity - a trick taking game that promises personality, Out of Sorts - a game of inventing a cataloguing system for books in an alien library, and Magical Athlete - a game of racing a banana, a giant baby, and various other quirky things round a track.

On to the time stamps:

00:00 Cold open & intro
05:50 Identity
14:16 Out of Sorts
28:57 Magical Athlete
42:03 Correspondence

There are episodes where we bring as much knowledge as we can about whatever board game we are talking about. And then there are episodes where we just want to share why something didn't click so much that we didn't want to go beyond game one. Apropos of nothing, today we'll be chatting about Brink, a "trading cubes in space" game that conceptually riffs on Catan but in execution whiffs on us.

SHIRTS! Find them on https://no-pun-included-shop.fourthwall.com/

On to the time stamps:

00:00 Cold Open & Intro

Work in Progress:

2:08 Tenby

7:26 Railroad Tiles

10:42 Rumble Nation

18:53 Winter Rabbit

Audience Correspondence:

25:05 Vantage, Neurodivergence in Board Games

Main Feature:

31:23 Brink

Hey hey hey, how about that Fram and Sodo? How about the Legoloin and the Aragroin? Do you like Grampalf? Are you a fan of Perry and Mippin? I love those guys! They're very fun. Almost as fun as deliberately mistyping the names of famous fantasy franchise characters to pretend like you're cool and above it.

Well, we are not above it. We are suckers for Saruman, we sip from the founts of Rivendel, we lick the moss that hobbit feet have trod on, we wish we were half as cool as Farmer Maggot. It's just gonna be full on Lord of the Rings fananza and when the game is as good as Fate of the Fellowship, I mean, why not? Right? Why not indeed.

Well, Hot Dog! Do we have an episode for you! We peruse the lofty promises of Vantage, try to keep ourselves on track in Railroad Tiles, discuss whether selling doughnuts at night is really worth your time in Taiwan Night Market, and Efka tells us about angry dice you can chuck about in the bath, in Wroth.

But wait! That's not all! The main game on our podium is Hot Streak - which not only has a hot dog, but also a fish, a bear, and HM the Queen herself in a game of racing, falling down, getting back up again, and trying all over again. Phew.

On to the time stamps:

00:00 Cold Open & Intro

Work in Progress:

00:54 Vantage
19:14 Railroad Tiles
25:01 Taiwan Night Market
28:26 Wroth

Audience Correspondence:

36:19 Gaming Tables

Main Feature:

41:23 Hot Streak

We're back from our holiday and we brought you a souvenir!... of pictures and words. The words you can find in the audio file above. The pictures you can find below, which will hopefully provide some context for the words.

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Statue of Triton - Düsseldorf. Our first stop was Düsseldorf, where we were immediately greeted by a gang of parakeets. They flew over this moat right in the center of the city. Sadly, I only had my phone camera on me so didn't manage to actually catch a picture of them, but here's a pretty shot of the river!

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Rhine Promenade - Düsseldorf. A few hundred meters away from there was the Rhine itself and the atmosphere there was very chill and very alcohol. The row of "pub" seemed endless and even when it did end, people were hanging out on steps, chatting and enjoying a beverage or seven. Some parts of the endless pub where less busy than others, like in the picture below, but there were enough busy spots if you were looking for them.

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East Berlin - Friedrichshain. I was so grateful that Spiel des Jahres was held in this borough of Berlin because it was vibrant and beautiful. Plus, someone managed to climb all the way onto that roof just to spray paint ACAB, and you gotta give them points for dedication.

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Elaine on drums - Berlin nHow Sadly, I didn't take many pictures of the utterly bizarre hotel we were staying at, but here's a picture of Elaine pretending to drum, just before we were told off by hotel staff. So much for being treated like a rock star.

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Tom Brewster - Board Game Criticism Day 2025, Berlin Looky here, it's Tom, giving a talk about Adam Sandler of all things. His talk was great, and just below the picture there's a link to that talk as well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuxxkAzN7LI

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The Pizza Vending Machine, Kiel Yes, this machine vends pizza, and what's more bizarre, there's a video on the display that suggests that these pizzas are cooked in an actual wood oven. How did they fit the oven inside? Who's operating it? Why is there no chimney and no smoke coming out? First, true AI and now this? Undeniably, we are living in the future.

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DFDS Victoria Seaways, Kiel. This ship looks so cool on the outside, but if you haven't listened to the audio portion yet - I won't spoil it - I'll just say - yeah, this was the worst part of the trip, including them playing Titanic in the common room just before the ferry departed.

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DFDS Victoria Seaways, The Baltic Sea. I gotta say though, as bad as this ferry was, the view at the top of the deck was absolutely stunning. Sea as far as you can sea. And the water was so calm, we didn't sway one bit.

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Nida. I will group a few pictures together below, because they are all of Nida. Nida is not my hometown, but it is the place I think of when I feel homesick, and returning after nine whole years was a treat like no other. I hope these pictures of the Curonian Lagoon capture why. If they look a tad familiar, that might be because you also saw them in our review of Scythe, all the way back in 2016.

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Parnidžio Dune - Nida. I'm sorry, I know that was a lot of pictures of just one thing, but it's a thing that I love and is close to my heart. I tried to take the best pictures I could. But here's one more. This Dune is fantastic and I got to climb onto it one more time, and also got to show it to Elaine. More on what makes this Dune so cool, unsurprisingly, in our upcoming video of Dune (Imperium).

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Smoked Eel - Nida. I know it doesn't look it, but this is maybe one of the fanciest meals you can order in Lithuania. Rich in flavour, but not at all fishy, and incredibly pleasant mouthfeel - just melts as soon as you bite into it.

And wouldn't you know it? I didn't take a single picture in Klaipėda. Sorry! I think by that point we went into full holiday mode and were just enjoying ourselves. Which is a shame because Klaipėda is a beautiful city and I wish I took at least a few to show it off. Maybe next time? Who knows. Hope you enjoyed the travelogue. See you soon!

Pew pew kaboom! That's the sound of every child's living nightmare - their toys coming to life and unleashing an arsenal of deadly weaponry in their bedroom. Many a sleepless night I've had in my youth with this vivid imagery - blood, guts, plastic viscera strewn across my chewbacca rug - which might I add, also comes alive and eats the other toys... anyway, turns out they made my nightmare into a board game and you can now play it.

On to the time stamps:

0:00 Cold Open

Work In Progress

0:56 The Old King's Crown
6:24 Ensemble
12:19 Haggis

Audience Correspondence

16:14 Trick Taking

Main Feature

27:51 Toy Battle

Good news, we're still on holiday. Better news - we're still doing the holiday cast, which means more free podcast more delivered to more yo

Good news, we're still on holiday. Better news - we're still doing the holiday cast, which means more free podcast more delivered to more you. Moorish! You know what else is moorish? Trees! Just can't get enough of those suckers. And you know where trees live? That's right, in Germany. And you know what Germany has? Autobahns. But also forests.

Apropos of nothing, let's talk about a board game called Black Forest which is about a forest in Germany.

Once again, no timestamps because we're still on holiday and it's still just one game in the episode. You'll be fine.

Good news, we're on holiday. Better news, we're not leaving you without podcast. It's a smaller episode, yes, but it is Talk Cardboard deliv

Good news, we're on holiday. Better news, we're not leaving you without podcast. It's a smaller episode, yes, but it is Talk Cardboard delivered right to your door, for free! Mmmmm, free podcast, what could be more delicious? Oh, I know, human suffering! If you feel like what you need more in your life is a cardboard simulation of robots slaughtering endless amounts of flesh bags on the moon, Moon Colony Bloodbath has got you sorted.

Not doing timestamps cause we're on holiday. Also, it's just one game. You'll be fine.

Sharpen your papercuts because it's time to put cards face down in front of you and simultaneously flip them face up! The Old King's Crown is maybe the year's most exciting game and we've got an exciting early scoop!

SHIRTS! Find them on https://no-pun-included-shop.fourthwall.com/

On to the time stamps:

0:00 Cold Open
1:40 Intro

Work In Progress

2:08 Emberleaf
11:19 Hot Streak
22:00 Project L
26:24 Survive the Island

Main Feature

31:06 The Old King's Crown

If you've heard of Air, Land and Sea, Compile is more of that but different. If you've not heard of Air Land and Sea, have we got some cool games for you to recommend in this episode.

Efka opens our review of Eternal Decks with "This is the main candidate for Game of the Year 2025" and if you need a better endorsement to l

Efka opens our review of Eternal Decks with "This is the main candidate for Game of the Year 2025" and if you need a better endorsement to learn about a cool new board game, I can't think of one. And I'm Efka. This and more in this week's Talk Cardboard.

SHIRTS! Find them on https://no-pun-included-shop.fourthwall.com/

On to the time stamps:

0:00 Cold Open
1:30 Intro

Work In Progress

1:59 Barony: Royal Edition
6:25 In the Shadows: Resistance in France 1943 - 1944 (DNF)
10:08 Emberleaf
14:32 The Old King's Crown

Audience Correspondence:

21:34 Blue Prince

Main Feature

28:46 Eternal Decks

You want me to do what now? Play a board game on the TV? Using my phone? Never! shakes fist at cloud shakes more fist at cloud picks up phon

You want me to do what now? Play a board game on the TV? Using my phone? Never!

shakes fist at cloud

shakes more fist at cloud

picks up phone and starts playing

Wait this thing is good! Like, real good. Okay, I guess today we're talking about a board game that's also a video game that's also a phone game. And you're going to listen and you're going to enjoy it.

On to the timestamps:

00:00 Cold open

01:24 Intro

02:03 'Work In Progress"; Fruit Fight

03:50 Tenby

08:10 Deep Regrets

15:57 Correspondence

20:01 Sunderfolk