HeyJaredTabletop Games Blog - board game reviews and discussions with a personal touch
Tabletop Games Blog podcast explores board games, card games, dexterity games, and modern hobby games, delivering in-depth reviews, thought pieces, and audio articles for all types of players.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 26
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
Latest episodes
Reality Realisation - how board games represent reality (Topic Discussion) (opens the original)
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Board games that represent real historical events face a problem that fiction can largely avoid. The designer can't start with a blank page. Players are going to expect that the game somehow mirrors what actually happened in the past. Yet, a board game can't faithfully reproduce an entire historical period. The designer has to select and simplify, turning the subject into rules and mechanisms. A historical board game can't ever be completely accurate. The question really is how designers decide
Russian Railroads (Digital Eyes) (opens the original)
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The rails started in Moscow, carrying workers and materials towards St Petersburg on one line and to Kiev on the other. A third railway was the most ambitious project, pushing across the vastness of Siberia, with its countless obstacles before the track would eventually reach Vladivostok. Building these tracks was a monumental undertaking, demanding workers, materials, money and, above all, patience. Progress was slow at first, but then it gathered momentum. We were building the Russian Railroad
Political Correction - why we forgive problematic games (Topic Discussion) (opens the original)
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As we all know, there are a good number of board games that haven't aged well, if I may put it like that. In the past, games happily made colonialism their central setting and gameplay, gave women little or no place in their worlds, or treated cultures through the eyes of the oppressor. Yet, these games remain in people's collections and come back to the table. In this article, rather than asking whether we should still play these problematic games, I explore why we don't just choose different g
Go Big (Saturday Review) (opens the original)
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Three 7s have just landed on the table, worth a potential 21 points - if they survive, that is. Their owner already looks like the victory is in the bag. Yet, they're a bit too sure of themselves. Of course, somebody plays three 6s and wipes their 7s off the table and their smile off their face. Yet, the 6s are also short-lived and replaced by a triple 5. So it continues until someone lands a safe triple 1. Suddenly, everyone's supposedly enormous scores have vanished. Yet, three 1s are only 3 p
Downtime Chat - allowing for social interaction in board games (Topic Discussion) (opens the original)
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Waiting for your turn is very common in board games. One person has all the fun while everyone else just watches. Too much waiting is often described as a flaw in game design, particularly when players have nothing useful to do and gradually lose interest in what's happening. Modern board games tend to avoid downtime, yet waiting isn't necessarily wasted time. Sometimes it gives us something to think about, sometimes it leaves us with nothing to do, and sometimes it gives us something that a gam
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