A sometimes daft podcast about tabletop and video games, old and new! Casual and unscripted chat and reviews, brought to you by Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave from Edinburgh, Scotland. Some strong language and even stronger accents throughout.
Check out our new website: firstplayertoken.com
Email us: firstplayertoken@gmail.com
Logo by Rebecca Horner
Music by the hosts, with Jokin Etxeberria
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
This week's episode stuffs a long chat about Euan's playthrough of Final Fantasy XV down your throat, during which he admits he has a favourite boyband member, while Chris talks about Flying/Racing simulator Eagle Flight on PSVR, and also briefly chats about his return to Overwatch. The lads also have a lengthy chat about their epic game of Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game from the weekend, the 4x game based heavily on the video games of the same name.
Also, look out for an important announcement about the future of the podcast at the end of the show!
Enjoy!
The first episode of 2017 brings reviews of another of Chris's Kickstarters, the fantasy drink-serving dice-placement game Cavern Tavern, and Rio Grande's Power Grid: The Card Game, which manages to give you that Power Grid feeling without the need for a map. Pawel kicks off with Tyranny in the video games section, an RPG in which you're forced to play an evil character. The lads also talk about Eve Valkyrie, the online space dogfighting VR game set in the Eve Online universe, and Chris's current favourite game Planet Coaster, the theme park simulator the world has been waiting for. Oh, and Chris has a cold. Enjoy!
In the last episode of the year Pawel will tell you ALL ABOUT the real-time strategy PC game Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Euan chats about an old classic RPG from Sierra called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, and Chris talks about My Summer Car, the bizarre mixture of car-building and survival game. Chris and Euan then give a summary of their night of tabletop party games, specifically Ultimate Werewolf and Two Rooms and a Boom, two similar and yet also very different hidden role/social deduction games. The episode rounds off with an interview with the designer of the party game Rebels Unite, Leandro Tokarevski, who tells us about the game and his thoughts when designing it. Enjoy!
Chris, Euan and Pawel are back once again (for the renegade master) with more gaming chat! This week's tabletop section involves a long chat about their day playing Fantasy Flight's epic World of Warcraft: The Board Game, the game of grinding, experience, loot, dungeons, and lots of lovely different coloured dice. In the video games section, Chris talks about DinoSystem, the bloody difficult survival game set in a world of dinosaurs which is currently in early access, Euan talks about PSVR platform game Windlands, and the lads finish up with VR horror/shooter game The Brookhaven Experiment. Enjoy!
In this week's episode, fantasy dungeon-crawling game Exanima with its "realistic" combat takes centre stage in the video games section, followed by a return to video/board game Armello and an update on Chris and Euan's journey through the Shenmue series. In the tabletop section, Chris and Pawel have an in-depth chat about the new Arkham Horror Card Game by Fantasy Flight, Chris quickly talks about another play of Star Wars: Rebellion, and Pawel tells us about Swedish tabletop RPG Symbaroum! Enjoy!
Chris, Euan and Pawel are here in this bonus episode to talk about Playstation VR! Includes a good chat about VR itself as an experience, and also specific games, such as VR Worlds, Job Simulator, Sports Bar VR, Windlands, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and Harmonix Music VR. Enjoy!
In this week's episode Chris and Euan begin with a shorter tabletop section, talking about Terraforming Mars, the most hyped board game from Essen this year. The video games section sees the podcast return to Don't Starve, with Euan deciding to give this mad survival game a go. Chris then chats about the surprisingly good Transformers Devastation, and gives a quick overview of the quirky fantasy farming simulator Slime Rancher. Next week: Bonus Playstation VR episode!