First Player Token, a short board game review show

71. Gaming with a Three-Year-Old

In this episode, we put the spotlight on the preschooler with twelve games that are fun to play with a three-year-old! I’ve been on a quest to find board games that the three-year-old can play and enjoy and that don’t drive the rest of us crazy. On this episode, I’m going to share an update about that quest and point listeners to a few games that we’ve found work well for our family of five—including the three-year-old.Episode ResourcesBuy Hoot Owl Hoot on Amazon.Buy Go Go Little Penguin on Amazon.Buy Cascadia Junior on Amazon.Buy Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters on Amazon.Episode 57 - KaribaEpisode 32 - OutfoxedEpisode 24 - Incan GoldEpisode 20 - Sleeping QueensEpisode 5 - Deep Sea AdventureEpisode 4 - Sushi Go!Episode 3 - Love LetterSend a textPodcast Links: Order a First Player Token coffee mug. Visit the First Player Token website. Join the FPT Facebook group. Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky. Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

70. Unmatched 2025 Tournament (Part 2)

In this episode, we complete our quest to find out which fictional character is the ultimate fighter in our 2025 Unmatched tournament! To run the tournament, I identified our 16 most-played Unmatched heroes, then set up some brackets to pit them against each other. A few episodes ago, I reported on the first half of the tournament: the first-round games that whittled our list of heroes to the Elite 8. Today, I’m excited to share the second half of the tournament!As a reminder, the hero who wins each battle isn’t necessarily the hero who moves on in the tournament. The teenager and I play a game with each pair of heroes, then discuss the game and the heroes and decide which of the two heroes we like playing the most. That’s the hero that moves on to the next round.Achilles, Little Red, Houdini, Invisible Man, Beowulf, Jekyll & Hyde, Shakespeare, and T-Rex! Who will be the champion?Episode Resources:Buy Unmatched sets on Amazon.Listen to our 2023 review of Unmatched.Listen to Part 1 of our 2025 Unmatched tournament.Music:"Open Road," Purple Planet Music"Field of Heroes," Tabletop AudioSend a textPodcast Links: Order a First Player Token coffee mug. Visit the First Player Token website. Join the FPT Facebook group. Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky. Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

69. Imhotep

In this episode, we travel back to ancient Egypt, build some pyramids, and compete to be the pharaoh’s favorite architect in Imhotep. Imhotep was said to be the architect of the step pyramid in Djoser, rising 200 feet tall, the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt. Imhotep is also a 2016 game for two to four players designed by Phil Walker-Harding and published by KOSMOS, in which players step into the sandals of the original Imhotep to build pyramids and obelisks and other great monuments. Episode Links:See if you can find a secondhand copy of Imhotep on the BGG GeekMarket.Read designer Phil Walker-Harding's introduction to Imhotep.Music:"Open Road" by Purple Planet.Send a textPodcast Links: Order a First Player Token coffee mug. Visit the First Player Token website. Join the FPT Facebook group. Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky. Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

68. Hollywood 1947

In this episode, we make some movies while accusing our friends and coworkers of being communists in Hollywood 1947.Hollywood 1947 is the latest entry in the Dark Cities line from Façade Games publisher and designer Travis Hancock and artist Sarah Keele. It takes the Red Scare’s Hollywood blacklist and turns it into a lively and thematic game that’s hit our gaming table many times. The game is a particular favorite of our twelve-year-old, which might surprise you unless you know she’s planning to be a lawyer when she grows up! We will hear from her in the episode for her thoughts on the game. Episode Links:Buy Hollywood 1947 on Amazon.Listen to my interview with Travis Hancock about Bristol 1350.Music:"Open Road," "Summer in Paradise" by Purple Planet.Send a textPodcast Links: Order a First Player Token coffee mug. Visit the First Player Token website. Join the FPT Facebook group. Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky. Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

67. Unmatched 2025 Tournament (Part 1)

It just was over two years ago when we covered the game system called Unmatched here on the podcast. In Unmatched by Restoration Games, two players battle, each with a different hero that has their own unique deck of 30 cards for attack and defense.When we covered Unmatched here on the podcast in 2023, we only had six heroes in our collection for our battles. But now, two years later, we have a lot more than six Unmatched heroes! I think we’re up to 25 characters, drawn from eight different sets. I thought it was time for us to cover the game on the podcast again, and I wanted to have some fun doing so. Today’s episode is the first of two detailing our 2025 Unmatched tournament! The teenager and I set out to determine which of our 25 Unmatched heroes was our absolute favorite. That meant, naturally, making some brackets and playing a lot of games of Unmatched! In this episode, we’ll go through all eight first-round matches, and in a future episode, we’ll whittle those eight winners down to our overall Unmatched champ. Episode Resources:Buy Unmatched sets on Amazon.Listen to our 2023 review of Unmatched.Music:"Open Road," Purple Planet Music"Field of Heroes," Tabletop AudioSend a textPodcast Links: Order a First Player Token coffee mug. Visit the First Player Token website. Join the FPT Facebook group. Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky. Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.