The Board Game Secret Show

shhhh....don't tell anyone but we talk to interesting people in the board game hobby.

The Board Game Secret Show is a leisure podcast hosted by neongorillasgames, with 28 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

neongorillasgames hosts The Board Game Secret Show, a leisure show with 28 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #1

  Wroth, Wreck & A Little Dice Throne | Manny Trembley | BGSS ep_027

  Aug 5, 20262h 37m

  Manny Trembly had never designed a board game when he made DICE THRONE — he was a comic artist who'd just been laid off. Ten years, 40+ heroes and a Marvel licence later, he still draws it, designs it, and now runs his own studio inside Chip Theory building ⚔️ WROTH. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ️ IN THIS EPISODE: Laid off ten years ago this week — a prototype in Nate's kitchen two days later ✏️ Comic artist first — an Eisner nod for PX, 3D models for MYST "Too asymmetrical, too many dice" — everyone told him it wouldn't work ⚔️ Gavin Brown, Roxley, and the absurd EXCALIBUR box WROTH — built in 24 hours with his kids NEXUS and DICE THRONE DIGITAL are coming ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LINKS Dice Throne ▶ https://dicethrone.com/ ⚔️ Wroth & Neon Knight Games ▶ https://chiptheorygames.com/ ⚔️ Wreck ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/chip-theory-games/wroth-reprint--wreck-expansion ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:32 - Who is Manny Trembly? 01:27 - Fresh off Gen Con 10:20 - Why the small booths are where the magic is 11:53 - Winning a Dice Tower Award for Tanglewood 16:38 - A Jim Lee comic and the two-page spread that started it 21:32 - PX, the Eisner nomination, and dropping the E 23:00 - Myst, Cyan Worlds, and 'grandpa who fought in WWII' 26:05 - Meeting Nate — and getting laid off the same week 30:34 - 'What if we just translate this sucker into a board game?' 34:00 - Roxley, Gavin Brown, and the Excalibur box 40:25 - 'What you're doing is cool, but it's not going to work' 46:32 - The art: what Manny draws vs what Nick Malara draws 57:00 - Why dice make better stories 1:10:44 - Neon Reign — art that predates Dice Throne 1:15:40 - Joining Chip Theory and starting Neon Knight 1:28:13 - Wroth: fixing what keeps people off Root 1:47:20 - Wreck: boats, cannon dice, and the Exodus 2:04:30 - What WROTH actually stands for 2:26:11 - Manny's favourite hero of all time 2:30:40 - Nexus, Dice Throne Digital, and what's next #cardboard #bgss #dicethrone #wroth

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  The Board Game Secret Show

  From Teacher To KTBG Founder | Helaina Cappel’s Story | BGSS ep_026

  Jul 25, 20261h 58m

  Helaina Cappel turned down more games than she published — and that's why KTBG and Burnt Island look the way they do. Teacher, publisher, and the one who rescued ⚓ ENDEAVOR off Z-Man's shelf and steered it into DEEP SEA. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ️ IN THIS EPISODE: Teacher to publisher — FOODFIGHTERS at the kitchen table ⚓ A year convincing Jarratt & Carl to hand her ENDEAVOR Leaving the colonization theme behind for DEEP SEA Zero plastic — "but it's flammable" ️ LAIRS: $33, three print runs, all sold out Ten more years of Endeavor ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LINKS Kids Table Board Gaming & Burnt Island Games ▶ https://www.kidstablebg.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Cold open 00:33 - Intro — who is Helaina Cappel 01:45 - Before we started rolling 02:24 - The teacher, Josh, and Foodfighters 08:53 - Funding on day 31 — Kickstarter in 2015 13:23 - "When did KTBG become a business?" 20:08 - Catan, Carcassonne, Caylus — becoming a gamer 22:53 - The KTBG DNA: fun, and scalable 26:13 - The "family weight" problem 32:23 - Cystic fibrosis — an unexpected connection 37:03 - Why Burnt Island exists 39:38 - Endeavor: from Z-Man's shelf to a year of convincing 44:43 - Decolonising Endeavor into Deep Sea 53:53 - Zero plastic: the bagasse insert fight 59:23 - Age of Sail is out of print for good 1:02:53 - Fall of the Mountain King — the one that should have hit 1:08:23 - Killing the print ads 1:13:23 - "New is better" — the treadmill 1:17:23 - Tariffs, Play the North, looking past the US 1:25:43 - Lairs — the $33 game she can't print fast enough 1:42:23 - How Lairs found her — an Eric Lang post 1:47:43 - Gen Con and Essen slate 1:49:33 - The future of Endeavor — ten games in ten years 1:56:48 - Advice: ask every single question #cardboard #bgss #endeavor #kidstableboardgaming #burntisland

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  The Board Game Secret Show

  Justin Gary is a Pioneer | Magic, Ascension & LOTR | BGSS ep_025

  Jul 14, 20261h 42m

  He won a Magic: The Gathering national championship at 17 — the youngest ever — and got the cards he won with banned. Then he built Ascension in 18 months, bet his life savings on 10,000 copies, and sold out at Gen Con. Justin Gary of Stone Blade Entertainment opens up 15 years of design secrets: why balance is a misnomer, how the One Ring broke his game (and the story moment that fixed it), and what's coming in Ascension: The Lord of the Rings. Guest: Justin Gary — https://x.com/Justin_Gary Stone Blade Entertainment: https://stoneblade.com Justin's podcast & book: Think Like a Game Designer Lord of the Rings Ascension Campaign: https://gamefound.com/en/projects/stoneblade/the-lord-of-the-rings-ascension#/section/project-story TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold open & guest intro 1:07 Welcome + the Tim Ferriss DM story 13:53 The Magic pro years & the hacker mentality 14:54 $30,000 and two banned cards 25:59 Dominion & the deckbuilding boom 29:25 Building Ascension: 18 months, 10,000 copies 46:35 "Balance is a misnomer" 1:07:07 Lord of the Rings Ascension 1:24:03 Taming the One Ring 1:28:33 Favorite set + what's next 1:38:37 The crowdfund + where to find Justin GAMES IN THIS EPISODE Magic: The Gathering — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/4dd82420-e5a0-4cc4-afaa-3b7d2b60ce97 Ascension: Deckbuilding Game — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/077eee6c-9a23-4f10-b72b-776c45514d2a Dominion — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/0b300d7c-f019-4594-8d4b-ef94c0e26585 SolForge Fusion — https://crdbrd.app/hub/game/874e3f7f-413f-47df-bc57-8b603d33937b Discover every game mentioned on the show: https://crdbrd.app #cardboard #bgss #ascension

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  The Board Game Secret Show

  John D. Claire is UNSTOPPABLE | BGSS ep_024

  Jul 7, 20262h 23m

  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. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ IN THIS EPISODE, WE GO DEEP: 🧒 Designing his first game at 9 (thanks, Mom) 💰 Quitting the day job — royalties, risk & the AEG deal 🃏 Dominion, Ascension & why deck building is a design "cheat code" ✂️ Card crafting — why it never spawned a genre ⚡ Momentum deck building & the 2009 prototype that waited a decade 🎲 Luck vs. agency — why new players blame the dice 🌶️ The BGG comments he SAVES & the review that stung 🗞️ BREAKING: Floors 5 & 6 in the works for Dungeon Crawler Carl 🔮 What's next — Stormlight Archive, Mystic Lands & Electrify 👉 If you want to get inside the mind of the most inventive card game designer working today, this one's a masterclass. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS ⚔️ Unstoppable — Renegade Game Studios ▶ https://renegadegamestudios.com/unstoppable/ 👑 Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable + RPG ▶ https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/renegade-game-studios/dungeon-crawler-carl-rpg-unstoppable ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro — who is John D. Clair 00:52 - Designing his first game at 9 (Monster Cards) 05:19 - Maze books & gamifying mazes as a kid 13:24 - Going full-time in 2018 & the AEG deal 16:52 - Why Unstoppable went to Renegade — the IP bet 18:52 - The games he loves (and the two kinds he doesn't) 22:59 - Inspiration & giving credit to other designers 27:12 - Playing Dominion for the first time 30:46 - Why deck building is so addicting 34:38 - Ascension's influence & Dead Reckoning's 2D market 38:52 - Card crafting — a lateral evolution, not a genre 42:16 - The deck building problem card crafting solves 46:05 - Deck-driven board games — Dune: Imperium & Arnak 47:35 - Unstoppable & momentum deck building 50:45 - The 2009 prototype behind Unstoppable 58:04 - The magic moment — two dead cards into a combo 1:00:27 - Difficulty & learning to pump the brakes 1:08:08 - Luck, agency & why new players blame the dice 1:17:48 - How many plays before Unstoppable clicks? 1:18:46 - What do reviewers owe designers? 1:22:03 - BGG comments, Space Base's two bad cards & the review that stung 1:31:36 - Fixing the card market — six levels, straight to hand 1:41:44 - Has momentum transcended deck building? 1:46:01 - The bosses & designing variety 1:52:26 - My gripes — sleeving and that theme 1:55:06 - The IP vision & the future of the Unstoppable line 1:56:36 - Patching a physical game & the new co-op rule 2:00:35 - Dungeon Crawler Carl's campaign mode 2:04:47 - BREAKING — Floors 5 & 6 expansion in the works 2:05:54 - What's new in DCC — looming bosses, races & mana 2:13:39 - The "Unbeatable" difficulty & how John playtests 2:15:17 - Stormlight Archive: War of Roshar (September) 2:17:14 - Mystic Lands & the art problem of card crafting 2:21:03 - Mistborn expansion, Electrify & a 2027 auto-battler 2:23:01 - Wrap-up ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #boardgames #boardgamedesign #unstoppable #dungeoncrawlercarl #deckbuilding #tabletop #renegadegamestudios #boardgamepodcast

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  The Board Game Secret Show

  From Z-Man to Play-to-Z | 30 Years of Board Game Publishing | BGSS ep_023

  Jun 30, 20262h 5m

  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 DEEP: 💰 The real economics of conventions 🏆 Why Origins beats GenCon for a premiere 🃏 The CCG days & Shadow Fist 🤝 Betting on co-op when NOBODY wanted it 📦 Under-printing Pandemic 🌶️ His (spicy) take on expansions 📜 IP licensing headaches & the Middle-earth project 🚀 Crowdfunding, paid previews vs. review copies 🔮 What's next for Play to Z 👉 If you care at all about how the board game industry ACTUALLY works, this one's a masterclass. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS ⚔️ Siege Perilous — LIVE on Gamefound now (through July 14) ▶ https://gamefound.com/en/projects/play-to-z/siege-perilous ✨ Everything Play to Z has going ▶ https://www.playtozgames.com/ ❤️ Support My Work — Join Cardboard ▶ https://crdbrd.app/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 TOO LONG TO WATCH? THIS IS NOW A PODCAST! 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-board-game-secret-show/id6785378165 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033GRnTDINaxqcoJksaCl4 🔵 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01414914-23bd-4f4c-a29f-50daa231f364 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 ▸ Intro — who is Zev Schlasinger 00:39 ▸ Origins & how the con has changed 03:04 ▸ Why publisher attendance is dropping 04:15 ▸ Conventions are marketing — money is gravy 05:03 ▸ The ROI secret: premiere something new 06:56 ▸ Why release at Origins instead of GenCon 🃏 THE CCG YEARS 09:07 ▸ From CCGs to board games — the Z-Man origin 09:53 ▸ Always a gamer: wargames, Magic & judging 11:31 ▸ Grave Robbers From Outer Space changes everything 13:16 ▸ Breaking into board games & the "Rio Grande wall" 16:40 ▸ How you found games to sign back then 18:33 ▸ Selling off Shadow Fist / leaving CCGs 23:38 ▸ Would he ever do a CCG again? 📈 BUILDING Z-MAN 24:49 ▸ When did Z-Man feel like a success? ("one disaster from bankruptcy") 28:21 ▸ Under-printing Pandemic & Agricola / print runs 33:04 ▸ Lead times then vs. now / the Soothsayers reprint 🦠 THE BIG HITS 36:01 ▸ Meeting Matt Leacock & signing Pandemic 38:03 ▸ Betting on co-op when nobody wanted it 42:22 ▸ Play to Z's philosophy: engaging & different 43:31 ▸ Signing Agricola, the $70 euro risk & animeeples 48:48 ▸ Publishing the very first Endeavor 52:40 ▸ Zev's honest take on expansions 🏢 Z-MAN, WIZKIDS & IP 1:05:00 ▸ Why he sold Z-Man (and kept working there) 1:07:28 ▸ The WizKids years — 100 games in 7 1:11:47 ▸ The reality of working with IP & licensing 1:20:54 ▸ The Middle-earth game & Asmodee's curation ✨ PLAY TO Z & THE INDUSTRY TODAY 1:27:08 ▸ Why start Play to Z — hitting the ground running 1:29:40 ▸ Crowdfunding — why he resisted it for so long 1:33:02 ▸ Crowdfunding vs. bank loans & publisher risk 1:39:37 ▸ Paid previews, review copies & marketing ROI 1:47:27 ▸ Social media & staying transparent with the community 1:52:29 ▸ Board games vs. digital / BGA & the tactile future 🎯 WHAT TO PLAY NOW 1:54:40 ▸ Play to Z's lineup — Siege Perilous, 23 Knives & more 1:56:52 ▸ The most slept-on Play to Z game 2:00:45 ▸ Late-year releases — Dogs of War, Soul Journey 2:03:21 ▸ Where to find Siege Perilous & wrap-up ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #boardgames #boardgamedesign #zmangames #pandemic #agricola #tabletop #playtoz #boardgamepodcast

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