056 - JAPANESE MORNING

Chris, Euan and Pawel have a 66% Japanese episode with two games from designers from the land of the rising sun, starting with Tragedy Looper, a "1 versus many" time-travel board game in which the good guys are trying to prevent tragedies from happening by, uhhh, letting them happen a couple of times. Next up is Fairy Tale, a light, fantasy-themed card game of set collection and with multiple ways of scoring points. Pawel then ruins the Japanese theme of the episode by talking some more about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and specifically about its standalone adventures and expansions such as Dunwich Legacy. Dave also gives a message from beyond the grave. (Note: Dave isn't actually dead) Enjoy!

Tragedy Looper: 3:18

Fairy Tale: 26:32

Arkham Horror Card Game: 40:30

055 - EGYPTPUNK, CYBERPUNK, CLICKPUNK

Chris, Euan and Pawel bring you another video games episode! Chris kicks off with an update on two VR games, first asking Pawel about his experience with Star Trek Bridge Crew and then a short bit about his own playthrough of Farpoint. Euan then talks about the strange Egyptian sci-fi old-school style indie RPG Void Pyramid and how he's been stalking its mysterious designer known only as "A Hagen". Chris jacks himself into Neon Chrome, an addictive and well designed top-down cyberpunk shooter with roguelike elements, while Pawel returns to the Gabriel Knight series with the 20th Anniversary remake of Sins of the Father. Also, more vague politics. Enjoy!

Star Trek Bridge Crew/Farpoint: 3:20

Void Pyramid: 13:04

Neon Chrome: 26:10

Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father: 41:04

054 - THE RED RAVEN

Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave bring you the missing board games episode from last week! This week we give most of the episode over to Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games, as we give our first impressions of the newly-arrived story-telling/adventuring game Near and Far. We also chat about one of Euan's favourite games, The Ancient World, where the players are attempting to unite groups of people under their banners to fight off the threat of attacking Titans. Although Pawel thinks the humans are the real monsters. Finally, we return to Captain Sonar, after Chris and Euan managed to get a full eight-player real-time game of this incredibly fun team-based submarine-commanding torpedo-firing stealth-running mine-dropping game of wits. New video games episode will be out later this week! Enjoy!

Near and Far: 2:30

The Ancient World: 25:30

Captain Sonar: 46:10

053 - TEMPORAL JIGGERY-POKERY

Video Games: This week, Chris and Euan return to Farpoint, the PSVR sci-fi shooter, getting a bit more into the story side of things and the new stuff they're encountering. Pawel interjects with a segment on the Battletech Closed Beta, an upcoming turn-based strategy game in which squads of giant mechs blow each other to bits, and based on the tabletop game of the same name. Finally, Chris and Euan get back to PSVR with a look at the latest big release, Star Trek Bridge Crew, the immensely fun, nerdy, co-op starship simulator set in the rebooted Star Trek universe. This episode also features some chat about the future of PSVR and what they think the platform needs, and also Euan getting angry about films. Enjoy!

Farpoint: 1:51

Battletech: 18:06

Star Trek Bridge Crew: 32:49

052 - YOKOHAMA OR YHARNAM?

Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are here to talk about two very different tabletop games in this episode! Yokohama is first up, a Euro-style game in which the players are presidents of merchant companies during the Meiji era of Japan's history, trying to win the favour of foreign investors. We also take on Bloodborne, a barely-cooperative card game set in the video game world of Yharnam, in which there can be only one winner, but you'll have to work together to defeat your monstrous enemies. Enjoy!

Yokohama: 4:00

Bloodborne: 34:30

051 - GAMING BUFFET

A veritable feast of video games is on offer in this week's episode, as we first go back a few years to talk about Borderlands 2 (as part of The Handsome Collection) and all its craziness. Next up is the latest PSVR release Farpoint, a sci-fi shooter using Sony's new Aim controller, and Euan launches into a SPOILER FILLED audio essay on his ongoing playthrough of Final Fantasy XV. Also on this week's show, Pawel talks about sci-fi city builder Anno 2205, while Chris gives a quick overview of his cowardly bathroom-hiding tactics in Battle Royale-esque PC shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Enjoy!

Borderlands 2 - 4:00

Farpoint - 19:30

Final Fantasy XV - 26:46 (Spoilers)

Anno 2205 - 39:38

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds - 50:27

050 - PUSHING BUTTONS

Chris, Euan, Pawel, and even Dave are talking board games this week, with Vlaada Chvatil's 2008 real-time panic-inducing game Space Alert taking up a decent chunk of the episode, as Pawel describes his love for pushing buttons that do nothing while Euan gives him a telling off for not listening to the Captain. Also in this episode, Chris and Euan go through their first game of The Colonists, a fairly new worker management Euro-style game which has a focus on efficiency and burning your brain. Enjoy!

049 - SOLDIERING ON

In this week's Video Games episode, Pawel's bias finally breaks down as he admits that the bugs and weird things going on in Mass Effect: Andromeda are actually ruining his immersion, and instead retreats to the world of Expeditions: Viking, a tactical RPG which is the successor to Conquistador. Meanwhile, Chris travels through a war-torn country with a baseball bat in randomly generated side-scrolling survival game Home Behind.

Enjoy!

048 - TORPEDOES READY!

Chris and Euan are joined by guest host Dave for some chat about some of the board games we played on International Tabletop Day, beginning with some team-based submarine fun in Captain Sonar, a game of hidden movements, outwitting your opponents and panicking about your vessel's systems! We also finally got around to playing Waggle Dance, a worker placement game which uses dice to represent bees in the players' hives as they compete for nectar, hatch eggs, and make honey. Last up we revisit The Pursuit of Happiness, a strange Game of Life-esque game where you live through the entire life of a person, and the ultimate goal is to be happier than anyone else when the stress of old age finally kills you. Enjoy!

047 - MASSIVELY EFFECTIVE

After a short hiatus, Chris, Euan and Pawel are back with another video games episode! Pawel sweats through an attempt at a TOTALLY UNBIASED review of Mass Effect Andromeda, which quickly turns into a long discussion about the Mass Effect series in general, while Chris and Euan talk about Disc Jam, the weirdly fun volleyball/frisbee hybrid sports game. Chris also manages to squeeze in The Wild Eight, a story-driven survival game with a twist which he is finding strangely addictive. Enjoy!

046 - GANDALF, OR SOME SORT OF DUMBLEDORE

Chris, Euan and Pawel are joined in this episode by their gaming chum Dave to talk about tabletop games! Dead of Winter, the truly semi-cooperative zombie survival game, is first up this week, as the fingers of blame are pointed in all directions. Pawel then gets his names confused as he talks about Mage: The Ascension, which is set in the World of Darkness (not Warcraft), and is definitely not the entirely fictional board game Mage Quest. Lastly this week, the lads give another spoiler-free update on their Gloomhaven adventures, with Dave giving some input into what he describes as a bonkers game. Enjoy!

045 - RUINING THE IMMERSION

This week, Pawel gets defensive over comments made by Chris in the last video games episode about Horizon Zero Dawn and gives a lengthy retort (while stopping Euan from giving an opinion), Euan gets his revenge by resorting to talking about a mobile port of the original Dragon Quest (or is it Dragon Warrior?) from 1986, and Chris accidentally ruins the early-access naval battle game Blackwake for a bunch of roleplayers. Enjoy!

044 - A GAME OF BACKSTABBING

Board games chat with a full compliment of Unnecessaries! This week we talk about A Game of Thrones, the tense game of area control and political treachery set in Westeros which the lads and their pals played recently, during which Chris confused Pawel with an alliance and an unlikely winner came from nowhere. Also in this episode is the app-driven XCOM board game, which simulates the management and bureaucracy side of the XCOM video games (it's more fun than it sounds), and also Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, the lovingly-created light board game set in the world created by Terry Pratchett. Enjoy!

Chris (Martell), Euan (Greyjoy), Pawel (Tyrell), Dave (Lannister), John (Stark), and Neil (Baratheon) play the game of extended backstabbing set in Westeros.

043 - SHENMUE GAMBLING ADDICTS

In this video games episode, Chris and Euan follow up on the last one by talking some more about Horizon Zero Dawn and whether it's all it's cracked up to be, then have another look at the often ridiculous Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands. Next is an update on their journey through Shenmue II, which currently consists mainly of drunken gambling, and Chris finishes up by returning to Dwarf Fortress-esque survival/colony management game Rimworld, during which he gets totes emosh. Enjoy!

042 - ENDURE THE GLOOM!

In this board games episode, Euan and Chris have an argument about their party's dynamics in Gloomhaven as they give a glowing update on their campaign through this legacy dungeon-crawler. Meanwhile, Pawel talks about Endure the Stars, a co-operative survival game set on a planet-colonising starship, which he has, of course, been playing solo. Also on the schedule is Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar (plus the Tribes & Prophecies expansion), a dynamic worker placement game from 2012 which features big, moving cogs as part of the game board. Enjoy!

041 - TRIBALPUNK

In this video games episode, Chris and Pawel talk for a good bit about Horizon Zero Dawn, the action RPG set in the future in which humans have reverted to living in primitive tribes... and Pawel reveals it's also one of a handful of games he has taken time off work to play this year. Nerd that he is. Chris then gives a tongue-in-cheek review of new Tom Clancy game Ghost Recon Wildlands, an open world multiplayer squad shooter, which has everything you'd expect from a Tom Clancy game, such as guns, freedom, and offending an entire country. Last on the agenda is a brief chat about RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, the PSVR game of big mechs killing each other and occasionally playing American Football. Enjoy!

040 - GLOOMHAVEN INTERNATIONAL

New fantasy dungeon-crawling legacy game Gloomhaven is the (very) big thing everyone's talking about, and Chris, Euan and Pawel give a quick pre-review review of the game and its many millions of bits. The lads then go on a world tour, starting with Korean game Patchistory, the game of patching together tiles to create a civilization, and Chris talks about Hanamikoji, a Japanese two-player card-based game which has a small footprint but a surprising amount of depth. Finally, Pawel is given some time to talk about Coriolis, a sci-fi tabletop RPG with a Middle-Eastern twist. Think Arabian Nights in space, and you're pretty much there. This episode can be divided by ten. Enjoy!

039 - GAME TIPS HOTLINE

In this video games episode, Chris, Euan and Pawel manage to cram a whole load of stuff in, including chat about the recently-released For Honor, questionable government surveillance game Orwell, old school point-and-click adventure The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery, and updates on Resident Evil: Biohazard and Final Fantasy XV! Enjoy!

038 - MAKING MONEY

Chris and Euan are here to introduce a board games episode to your ears!

The episode starts off with a chat about New Angeles, Fantasy Flight's latest installment for their Android Universe, in which the players are corporations trying to make the most money while also working together to stop the city from descending into chaos. Damage Report is next up, a real-time sci-fi disaster game set on a spaceship on which everything is going wrong, and the lads finish up with a return to Food Chain Magnate, a game of trying to make profits by creating complex management structures for your chain of restaurants in what appears to be 1950s America.

Enjoy!

037 - THE EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER

Chris, Euan and Pawel are here in their new, more focussed, more frequent format, kicking things off with a video games episode! In this episode, Chris gets emotional over his playthrough of puzzle platformer The Last Guardian, Pawel talks about Torment: Tides of Numenera, a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, and Chris rounds things off with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in terrifying VR. Enjoy!