Game Brain: A Board Game Podcast About Our Gaming Group

Out of desperate boredom and panic I purchased a board game called Carcassone in April of 2020. Within months I was on the prowl for more games, dreaming of a future when I could be in a room with people, moving cardboard, plastic and wood around and engaging in mental and social exercise. I searched for content all over, often cringing at the lack of thought and care in the presentation of content creators in the board game world. Then I found Game Brain. The first thing I noticed was the elegant theme song. A board game pod cast that doesn’t start with a horribly corny rock song, a big band tv intro style theme or some 90s third wave ska nonsense? My ears perked up. I was taken into the world of gamers who focus on what is to be learned and experienced from gaming, from the philosophical to the social, the creative to the political. This was my first game group before I could actually game with others. I love these long episodes that let me listen over the course of a few evening walks. I love the scope of this podcast, and how many things we can learn and discuss through these gaming interactions. Check it out!

Enjoying a board game is not just determined by the quality of the games themselves, but the players you play with. By rotating the hosts, the show adds a Rashomon-like quality to game reviews, player perspectives and the stories told about what happened behind the scenes (even if they are filthy self-serving lies.) Highly Recommended!

Removing a star for each new episode with horrible accents. Seriously it’s so cringey and needs to stop. (We started at 4 stars). Have to say up front I love this podcast for the variety of opinions, backgrounds, and interesting discussion topics among all the various participants. Dmitri and Jennifer provide some of my favorite episodes but all of the members of the group bring something unique to the table. I also appreciate how they address and discuss important issues in gaming and topics that many other podcasts simply won’t touch. Where it can really fall flat for me sometimes is with the hosts. Both are very enthusiastic which can result in talking over the other members, cutting them off before they were done speaking or finishing thoughts for them, or in general monopolizing the conversation rather than guiding it and letting the other members have their moment. So many times I find myself screaming something along the lines of “LET THEM TALK!!!” or “Let THEM answer the question!!” because I am truly interested and invested in what they are saying and want to hear more from THEIR perspective on the topic. Especially because most (all?) of the special topics are selected by the participants not the host. There was a particularly painful episode of this behavior (which was addressed and apologized for) and I will say that it has gotten a little better since then. It still could use some work though and I truly feel this podcast can be even better than it is now with a little bit more restraint and patience on the part of the hosts. Hope that wasn’t too harsh and I’ll gladly revisit my review in the future, hopefully to report an upgrade from 4 to 5 stars :) update: nope. The accents just keep coming and it really drags the show down.

A great boardgames-and-more type of podcast. So many contributors with differing backgrounds, this is the first podcast I’ve really enjoyed for going beyond the topic of games. Whether it’s politics, social issues, literature, history, scriptwriting(!!), family dynamics, etc—this has become a must listen. Great job everyone!

Podcast often veers into left-leaning political commentary that is openly hostile toward more moderate or conservative listeners. Board game commentary is good, but the political commentary is entirely unnecessary and alienating.