Operation Game Night

We go from cooperative poker boss fights to instant-teach party games, then zoom out to the real work of keeping a friendly local game store alive. CJ joins to tell the story behind Let’s Play Games and Hobbies in Hanover, Pennsylvania - and he has managed taking over a game store with his full time job. • Hell Of A Deal as a cooperative poker-style boss battler with action-based betting chips  •...

Twenty people show up for game night, dinner ends, and everyone looks at the game shelf like it’s a bomb that might go off. We’ve lived that nightmare, so we lay out a real, tested blueprint for running a big board game night with multiple tables without letting it turn into chaos. We start with quick debriefs on two small-box wins: Collect! by CMON, a light card game with slick powers and shiftin...

How do you turn a goofy argument like “Is a stop sign taller than an emu?” into a party game people can learn in seconds and replay for years? We sit down with Kerry and Ryan from Barn Boy Games out of Lancaster, PA to talk about their first Kickstarter board game, Height Fight, and the long, messy, surprisingly thoughtful road from homemade prototypes to a retail-ready product. We start with quic...

A board game weekend can go one of two ways: the table clicks and everyone rides the momentum, or you bog down in rules, downtime, and “maybe next time.” We just got back from a Colorado Springs hang, and we’re sharing the exact mix that worked, plus the honest reactions when a game is clever but your brain still bounces off it. We start with Reforest, a small box tableau builder that packs a surp...

A Golden Geek Award winner joins us, and we do what any responsible board game podcast would do: we immediately test whether he can actually host a great game night. Tim from Board Game Hot Takes stops by for a full debrief plus a rapid-fire hosting quiz built around real life situations that every board gamer runs into sooner or later. We start at the table with Misfit Heroes and its card craftin...

We had a question stuck in our heads: can you make a board game betting episode that actually feels like a bet? So we built a weird little experiment where we “bet on betting games” by turning five racing betting games into one meta race, powered by our own head-to-head choices. Think pub meeple-style matchups, but the results move games forward on a track while we sweat our $100 bet slips. We put...

Your board game shelf can either fuel game night or quietly smother it. We sit down to talk about the messy, satisfying work of board game culling: how we decide what stays, what gets sold, and what gets donated when our collections start feeling heavier than our actual playtime. We start with a bright spot: Wingspan Pocket, a streamlined card version that delivers the engine-building fun in a qui...

A single game store run turns into the most relatable tabletop gaming story possible: we drive out for one small box, get hit by the shopping bug, and walk out with expensive choices we absolutely did not need. Then we put one of them on the table and it completely redeems itself. We break down why Ready Set Bet High Roller Edition feels like the “real” version of the experience, how the oversized...

We celebrate two years of Operation Game Night by ranking our current top 10 board games and owning the messy reality behind how those lists actually get made. We also debrief what hit the table this week, then zoom out on why table time, audience, and life constraints shape our tastes more than hype ever will.  • remembering impossible face-down tiles in Wilmot’s Warehouse by building a shared st...

Two years, 130+ episodes, and more games than we can count — and we're celebrating with a full roundtable. Amanda Lee (emptynestboardmama) and Mike (TheMeepleThatLoses) join us to look back at the episodes that defined Operation Game Night's first two years and dig into everything hitting our tables right now. We run through a stacked "what we've been playing" segment: Pyr...

We trade stories about the small games that save a night, from bluffing chaos at a wrestling convention to real-time trading frenzies that only work with the right group. Peter C. Hayward joins us to get honest about what makes a design worth releasing, how Baba Is You becomes a competitive board game, and why he built a board game career as a long-term plan to move to LA and write scripts.  • Coc...

You know that moment when you look at your shelf and realize you’re collecting faster than you’re playing? We start there with Vic from the Games Y Mas podcast, breaking down the “pile of shame” pact that forces real table time and sparks honest mini-reviews of what’s been worth it and what hasn’t. From cozy roll-and-write vibes in Tend to the frustration of vague rulebooks, we talk about what mak...

We catch up with Paul Solomon from GameHead Games, trade notes on recent plays, then dig deep into what Wave 1 taught him about selling small box board games that actually last. We break down the biggest hooks in GameHead Wave 2, from time-travel trick taking to semi-co-op scoring, plus Gen Con plans and a few spicy prototypes. • Paul’s family play of Ribbidi Flibbity as a Candyland alternative •...

Trick-taking games are everywhere right now, but not all of them earn a permanent spot on the shelf. We put Clay’s full taste on the record with a ranked list of 35 trick-taking games, from “still happy to play” to the titles that absolutely nail what we love about the genre: clean decisions, readable hands, and one great twist that changes everything without adding a rulebook’s worth of exception...

A lot of games feel fun for one night and then vanish into the shelf. We wanted to figure out the opposite: the board games that keep tugging at your brain weeks later, the ones you actually want to play again instead of just admiring the box. We start by debriefing what we played recently, including Harvest and why its planting and harvesting rhythm feels so satisfying even when you get absolutel...

They're back. Travis survived the move. Clay survived a month without his leader. The long form format is officially back by popular demand — and to celebrate, Clay drops a full military-tier deployment report on 38 games across 69 plays in June. Plus: Travis debriefs on Lairs and Deep Regrets (Lovecraftian push-your-luck fishing game — yes it's as good as it sounds), a shoutout to Jared...

New Zealand has no wild bears, which is exactly why we end up talking about building the best bear zoo we can. Clay and Sam dig into Baron Park, the Phil Walker-Harding tile-laying board game that turns Tetris-style polyomino pieces into a fast, satisfying puzzle you can teach to almost anyone. If you love games that reward smart placement without burying you in rules, this one keeps delivering th...

Catan has a weird superpower: it’s one of the most loved gateway board games and one of the most mocked “I’m too serious for this” targets. We lean into that tension and ask the honest question: is Settlers of Catan actually good, or are we just remembering 1995 with rose-colored glasses? Clay brings the frustration many hobby gamers feel, like three-hour runtimes, dead turns, and trading that dra...

We trade the usual birthday expectations for a weeklong board game celebration as Mike turns 40 and brings a list of 20 games he wants on the table. We break down what makes the list work, which titles he’s most hyped to play, and why having a partner who truly loves the hobby changes everything.  •building a 20-game birthday week list that’s realistic to play  •who’s joining the sessions and how...

A five-hour learning game sounds like a warning label, but Speakeasy has the rare kind of weight that makes us lean in instead of bounce. I’m Clay, and I’m joined by Mike from Meeple That Loses on Instagram to talk through Vital Lacerda’s Speakeasy board game and why it’s hitting so hard for fans of heavy eurogames, worker placement, and deep “efficiency puzzle” planning. We dig into what makes th...

Pirates who serve tea instead of plundering feel like a joke until you see how well the idea works on the table. Clay sits down with Mike from Meeple That Loses to review Pirates of the High Teas, the 2026 release from designer Emily Vincent and Pink Hawk Games, and we dig into why this light board game is such an easy sell for a relaxed game night. You draft tea cards that act like scoring object...

A board game about growing up sounds like pure theme, until you see Coming of Age’s head-shaped player board packed with mood tracks, goals, and friendships. We’re joined by Tiffany from tiffs.board.games, and she walks us through why this Dani Garcia design surprised her: it looks like a lot, but after one play the whole system snaps into focus and starts flying. We break down the core mechanism...

A two-player board game that feels like Battleship grew up, learned dungeon design, and decided to mess with your head. Clay Gable is joined by Tiff from @tiffs.board.games on intstagram to unpack Lairs from Kids Table Board Games, a build-then-explore dungeon crawl where you create a maze behind a screen, hide treasure, plant a trap and a monster, then race through your opponent’s creation while...

A move will humble any gamer, especially when you’re staring at a wall of boxes that all say “games.” While I’m packing up and Clay’s dialing in a newly upgraded office setup, we take a break from the usual board game grind and go over the fence into the stuff we’ve been watching and playing lately and why it’s scratching the same strategy itch. Clay brings a wild movie recommendation: Sheep Detec...

Seth Ewing lost his brother to suicide in 2017. The guilt nearly broke him. What pulled him back? A Dungeons & Dragons group that refused to let him isolate. Now he's turned that experience into Operation Tabletop — a nonprofit using board games to fight veteran isolation, substance abuse, and the identity crisis that hits after military service. In this episode, Seth shares his raw perso...