The Board Game Secret Show

He invented card crafting — and he may have just reinvented deck building. John D. Clair designed 🚀 SPACE BASE, 🏴‍☠️ DEAD RECKONING, 🎲 CUBITOS, 🐎 READY SET BET, and 🔮 MYSTIC VALE — and his new "momentum" system in ⚔️ UNSTOPPABLE is the engine behind the smash-hit 👑 DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL board game. In this one, I review Unstoppable to the designer's face for the very first time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━...

One of the most storied résumés in the entire board game industry. Zev founded Z-Man Games, published 🦠 PANDEMIC and the first English 🌾 AGRICOLA (and basically invented the "animeeple" by deluxing it), signed the original ENDEAVOR, spent seven years exploding the WizKids catalog with ~100 games, and now runs his own publisher — ✨ PLAY TO Z. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE, WE GO DE...

Board game designer Peter Hayward (Rolling Deep, Things & Rings, That Time You Killed Me) sits down for a wide-ranging, 3-hour conversation about what actually makes a game fun, why he's stepping back from designing to chase screenwriting, and how he reverse-engineered the feeling of Balatro into a tabletop roguelike. We get into the apex of game design, the difference between fun, satisfactio...

I need your help to keep this going. The #1 way you can support me is join my community here: https://crdbrd.app/ Zeshawn from Board and Shield has played over 500 board games — and he's just as deep in the book world as the board game one. In this episode of the Board Game Secret Show we go all the way down the rabbit hole: how a Game of Thrones version of Risk pulled him into the hobby, why he m...

BigPasti makes $1,000 a month on YouTube, refuses every free game publishers send him, and is building his own game designed to make you miserable. So we sat him down and ran through 20 of the spiciest board game takes on the internet — Earth, Secret Hitler, Zombicide, FOMO, sleeving, AI art, and whether the designer even matters. Agree? Disagree? Drop your own hot take in the comments. 👇 🎲 Back...

Daniel from@thinkgaming fled his country in 2022 with no job, no money, and no plan. Three years later he's running one of YouTube's most dedicated nerdy strategy channels — 500+ hours into Elder Scrolls, the official How-to-Play creator for Too Many Bones, and somehow he's never missed an upload week. We talked about losing everything in a single day, sleeping on a friend's couch in London, why h...

@iv-studio-games started making commercials for Nike, Amazon, and Bad Robot. Then one Christmas, Zac invited Austin over to "just make a board game" — for fun, for nostalgia, no plan. That became Moonraker. Six years later, IV Studios is one of the most design-forward indie publishers in the hobby — shipping on 9-to-12-month timelines, running 800-person community tours, and somehow maintaining a...

Two Latvian guys, one YouTube channel, zero plans to stop — I sat down with Jānis G and Jānis T from Board Game Hangover to talk about building one of the most creatively ambitious channels in the hobby from Riga, Latvia, going viral with Eternals, refusing publisher money on principle, and what it actually costs to do this full time. We get into the messy reality of running a board game channel y...

Danny Garcia has quietly become one of the most thoughtful designers in board games — and in this episode, we go deep on exactly why. We talk about his unconventional design process (he builds entire games in his head before writing a single note), his obsession with action selection, why theme always comes first, and what it means to share your culture through cardboard. We also get an extended l...

Jay runs @CardboardEast one of the most unique channels in the hobby. He spent nearly 20 years living in Taipei, learned Chinese and Japanese, and became one of the best windows into Asian board game design the English-speaking world has. Now he's back in the US as Marketing Manager at Bézier Games. We talked about what drew him to Taiwan, the Tokyo Game Market experience, what Western publishers...

Mike Kelley of One Stop Co-op Shop sits down to talk the real side of board game content creation — review ethics, publisher horror stories, and much more. Then we break down his framework for what actually makes a great solo or co-op game, using his recent reviews as the lens. Plus: an unannounced mech game reveal you won't want to miss. Subscribe to @OneStopCoopShop Join the Secret Club Here: ht...

The NSFW Episode Beware ;) My @BoardGameBollocks conversation. He is human, hilarious and incredibly thoughtful. Whether you agree with his takes or not I can assure you this conversation shows a side you almost surely have never seen before. If you don't know Bollocks then even more reason to sit down with us and hang out for a while. Join the Secret Club Here: https://www.crdbrd.app/hub/clubs?cl...

Eleven friends from college in central Arkansas turned game night into a YouTube channel — and they're in debt doing it. In this episode I sit down with Matt, Eli, and Robert from The Grove Games to talk Twilight Imperium betrayals, why they refuse to trash a game even when it's bad, and what it actually takes to build something real in the niche of all niches. 🔔 Subscribe to @TheGroveGames : htt...

Tom Vassel has been the face of board game media for over two decades — hundreds of written reviews, 21 years of top ten lists, a YouTube channel (@thedicetower ) a podcast and conventions. In this conversation we go beyond the games. Tom talks about what it actually cost him to go full time, what it costs him to stay honest, and what shaped him long before any of it started. Support the Jack Vase...

Derek from Canje Plays joins the show for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with board games and goes deep into life, loss, and community. We talk about how Derek found his way into the hobby after losing his father, how content creation gave him a new sense of purpose, and what keeps him going despite YouTube's brutal algorithm. Plus: his top game picks, thoughts on solo vs. co-op, and why...

Alex Radcliffe is the CMO of GameFound — the platform quietly eating Kickstarter's lunch in tabletop crowdfunding. He's also one of the most watched board game reviewers on YouTube. That's one person. One very uncomfortable conflict of interest. We get into all of it: how GameFound actually handles bad actors behind closed doors, whether crowdfunding is thriving or dying, the ethics of reviewing g...

I sit down with Ryan and Salem from Chip Theory Games to talk about the three new Awakened Realms 20 Strong decks — Tainted Grail, Ether Fields, and Nemesis — plus a massive announcement about what's coming next from Chip Theory. We get into the design philosophy behind each deck, how Salem went from customer support to lead designer, and why these three decks are the most different from anything...

Chris Porter isn't just a board game designer. He's also a publisher, a graphic artist, a branding expert, a YouTuber, and a soccer player — and somehow he's doing all of it at the same time. In this episode, Chris walks us through the origin of Chris Couch Games — from a hand-illustrated Marvel game made for a bachelor party to a growing catalog of beautifully designed, sneakily strategic titles....

Cole Wehrle — designer of Root, Oath, Pax Pamir, and Arcs — joins the Board Game Secret Show for a wide-ranging conversation on storytelling, frustration as a design tool, and why he walked away from Leder Games to found Buried Giant. Plus: the new Arcs expansion, Lost Vaults & Faded Leaders, is live on crowdfunding now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/colewehrle/arcs-beyond-the-reach Joi...

Welcome to the Board Game Secret Show! Ryan Guerra from How I Roll had never made a single video — then he cold emailed Dice Tower and Game Boy Geek, and everything changed. In this episode, we talk about his unlikely start in board game content creation, his top 10 games (which I roast), building publisher relationships, the magic of board game community, and my dream to bring games to children's...

Board Game Apprentice joins the Board Game Secret Show! We get into his origin story, the state of crowdfunding, solo gaming, horror movies, I roast his top 10, and we share our favorite mechanic combinations. @boardgameapprentice https://www.youtube.com/@boardgameapprentice Join the Secret Club Here: https://www.crdbrd.app/hub/clubs?club=the-board-game-secret-show Want to work together?: https://...

Mike from One Mike One Game joins the Board Game Secret Show to defend his top 10 games against roasts from the Cardboard community. We dig into some unconventional picks, talk about the realities of being a small board game content creator, and then dive deep into Endeavor Deep Sea — a game we've both been obsessed with. Mike gives his first-ever rating live on the show. Join the Secret Club Here...

Eric and Leo are back fresh off Dice Tower West — and they brought Vlad along to keep things honest. Eric's entire top 10 gets put through the Wear or Tear machine, Vlad pulls no punches. Then all three share their top plays from the convention, Leo drops his top 5 picks for kids, and the crew makes plans to get Lost Ruins of Arnak to the table online. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS ━━━━━━━━...

Welcome to the Board Game Secret Show Reggie from the Board States podcast and Rolling Reggie sits down for an episode unlike anything else. First he has to DEFEND his entire top 10 against real criticism from users on the Cardboard platform. Then we run a board game draft, picking only games from 2015 and older, and the stakes are real: YOU vote on whose list wins: David's List: https://www.crdbr...

Welcome to the Board Game Secret Show [reboot] Dice Tower West 2026 Recap | Top 5 Plays, Convention Tips & Would You Rather Vlad and I sat down (for the second time — RIP first recording) to break down our Dice Tower West 2026 experience at the Westgate in Las Vegas. We talk about how we met, what it's like overcoming social anxiety at your first board game convention, the games that blew us a...