Take a trip into the deep, multi-sensory experience of the Best Play Podcast. Smell that? That's the stench of Glenn's unemployment, seeping into every porous surface as he hunts down board game creators to breathe their life-essence into his shabbily crafted voice-recording device. This week, he finds the mind behind Last One Standing, a well-finished take on Fortnite and other battle royale games. Check that one out on Kickstarter now. Do you feel that? That's Joel, cloaking you in velvet as you slip into character for one of his intimate - and always racially insensitive - murder mystery parties. What makes a good murder mystery arc? How does do board game mechanics translate? Find out in our final discussion. Hear that? That's Marcus Googling things he doesn't know during the podcast. It's very off-putting.  Best Play’s Podcast is available on all good podcast platforms, including iTunes!

Best Play's Board Game Royale

May 2018: Fox in the Forest / Last One Standing / Murder Mystery

In this episode, we recount a wonderful day of board gaming we spent together earlier this month. We talk Small Word, a genocidal conquest of giants, rat-men and wizards. We go in-depth on Vast, a Best Play favourite. We give a blow-by-blow analysis on a tense game of Clank, where not everyone survived... ...and then later, we ask if the hundreds of neural-network generated board games could be viable in the modern marketplace.   Best Play’s Podcast is available on all good podcast platforms, including iTunes!

35: Vast / Small World / Clank / Neural Networks

Sometimes it's easy to feel like you don't fit in. Like you take up too much space, or you're the wrong size for everyone else around you. Later on in this episode of the Best Play Podcast, we discuss how that doesn't matter. If you want to fit in, all you need to do if throw aside your box, then maybe fill it with beetles and give it to charity? If that sounds too abstract, you may enjoy our review of Home of the Brave - a game filled with political intrigue and backstabbing. Whatever floats your boat.   Best Play's Podcast is available on all good podcast platforms, including iTunes!

34: Home of the Brave / Advice / Tesselation

Out with the old, in with the new. At Best Play, we never like to keep things the same for too long. We're always moving to new cities, firing staff at random and ritualistically setting fire to piles well-played games. Today, we're swapping out the 1 vs 1 game argument format for something a little longer, a little more considered. Best Play's podcast will now come at you monthly and have much more varied content. What do you think of the new format? Do you love the new mailbag section? Send us your thoughts at games@bestplay.co! We're still available on all your favourite podcast destinations, including iTunes!

33: Junk Art / A Tale of Pirates / Toy Fair

In honour of the blockbuster release of Murder on the Orient Express, we've crammed our podcast with gripping stories and haunting mysteries. Tales of Arabian Nights and Pandemic Legacy provide the colourful narratives for your story-telling fix. The mystery? Well, you'll just have to listen and find out.... Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on iTunes!

32: Pandemic Legacy / Tales of Arabian Nights

Warning: it's now officially chilly season, which means our twenty-minute banter-fest is about to get icy. Only joking, we're as warm as cuddly as ever. Like a poorly ventilated computer nestled inside a dying relative. This week on Board Game Royale, we're once again joined by someone from the North - which means they're used to all this chilly business. They also know a thing or two about construction which is why we delve into Suburbia and Machi Koro.   Be sure to subscribe to us and rate us on iTunes!

31: Machi Koro / Suburbia

Somebody pour out a cup of KY for all your fallen homies - it's the spookiest, sexiest episode yet. Usually Best Play's Board Game Royale is a total sausagefest. There's more sticky sticks than you can schtick a stick at. Woah there, barkeep - tonight we're holding back exactly one third of the balls and introducing a little more flavour into the aural mix. With Liz taking Joel's place for the week, we discuss two cantankerous and energetic games: Rhino Hero and Flick 'em Up.  Please help us justify our explicit rating on iTunes  

30: Rhino Hero / Flick 'em Up!

Walt Disney didn't make a damn dime until 1937 - seventeen years into his career as a cartoonist. Sometimes, my heating doesn't work. These two facts prove that you don't need be financially or practically successful to serve millions of people in gigantic industries. The entertainment and energy engines of the 21st century are big money-eating machines that swallow up talented starlets and poop out bricks of hard, shiny coal. This is all elegant preamble to the complementary stars of our show this week: The Networks and Power Grid.  What's more a more valuable output of production? Energy, or smiles? Please leave us a review on iTunes

29: The Networks / Power Grid

Hey - you heard we got that hot new thing? That's right, we've got a switch on our hands. New hosts, new types of games, a whole new spooky season of podcasting. Burstin' into your eardrums is a next-level, all-night board-gaming party. Obama Llama reveals an energetic twist on a Christmastime classic, while Monopoly: Gamer Edition forces your forgot eveything you thought you know about board games. Review us on iTunes if you're enjoying Board Game Royale or any of Will Smith's varied discography.

28: Monopoly: Gamer Edition / Obama Llama

We're sorry we've been gone. We were busy playing games, for you. It's all for you listener. Or is it? This week, we're getting a little deceptive. Some of us are undercover. Maybe we're all the doing it for someone else? The Chameleon, a brand new game from industry darling Big Potato, goes head-to-head with a new twist on a Best Play favourite: Codenames Duet. Board Game Royale is available on iTunes and any good podcast app. Leave us a nice review!

27: Codenames Duet / The Chameleon

These fields have an lot in their time. See, back in the glory days we'd grow fields and fields of hemp - the miracle fibre. But then dirty old Harry Anslinger and William Randolf Hearst started meddling in our ways. All of sudden we became crooks. Now, I'm not an advocate of the mexican devil-weed - but I do know that hemp makes fine, fine card for creating all manner of board games. I know that some folks even spend their time make-pretend-beleiving that they're farming all by themselves in games like Agricola or King Domino.  That's none of my business though. I'm just a vehicle for telling you what to expect in this week's podcast.

26: Kingdomino / Agricola

Neeeaaawwwww!!!!! That's the sound of Garth whistling back into your ears, through your body and directly to your heart. After a week of Board Game Royale: duo edition, we're happy to welcome back Garth to mix. After finally regrouping enough of our hard-earned corruption cash, we've decided to explore what a Ponzi Scheme is really like. Then, Garth takes us on a treasure-hunting journey to find Incan Gold. What? You don't remember Garth? You must have been on the wrong side of his pizzas! Board Game Royale features Joel, Marcus and Garth with two new board games every Wednesday. Rate and review us on iTunes.

25: Incan Gold / Ponzi Scheme

There's only two of us about this week. To honour the dramatic change in form, we've decided to totally mix up the format of Board Game Royale. Instead of talking about games we love and know lots about, we're going to talk about games we've barely even played. We know so little about them that we even get some key facts wrong. For instance, did you know that Metagame - the Card Against Humanity-like debate machine featured this week - was initially only about videogames. Did you know it went to inspire the iconic black-and-white apples-to-apples game in the first place. I didn't - and I just talked about it for 35 minutes. We'll be back to normal next week - whatever that means.

24: The Metagame / Diplomacy [Ignorance Edition]

No, I think you're watching too many smooth jazz covers of pop songs by emo kid bands. Besides, jazz is cool now, remember? Ryan Gosling sneered thoughtfully at a double bass once and now everyone wants a bite of the ol' syncopation pie. Well, I guess that means our episode of the podcast this week is right on trend. These two board games are challenging formats - it's jazz, baby. Dead of Winter combines a whole heap of mechanics in something that's surpisingly easy to follow and satisying to play - like an old school zombie movie. Vast, a Best Play favourite, is unlike anything we've seen. If you enjoyed our longest podcast ever (clocking in a 35 minutes), you love hearing it every Wednesday on iTunes.

23: Vast / Dead of Winter

It's time to negotiate. Thanks to our extensive R&D budget at Best Play, we don't have to do the leg work ourselves. No lies, no half-truths, no subtle misdirection. Both games this week require a logical brain and a duplicitous soul. We've removed humans from the equation and left it to AIs - it couldn't have gone better.

22: Emergence / Broom Service

For the board game curious. Two games go head-to-head each week in a bite-sized discussion. Great for dipping your toe into varied world of board games. (Produced by Best Play)