From 1700 to 1850, Barcelona grew from a small town of 34,000 residents to a bustling city of 160,000. Steam powered textile mills and chintz printers pulled thousands of new citizens into the increasingly tight quarters of Barcelona’s medieval city walls. Living conditions were appalling for all.

Ildefons Cerdá, a civil engineer, measured life expectancy for Barcelona’s poor at under 20 years and only 38 for the wealthy. This led to an outcry to take down the old battlements and expand the city.

When the walls finished falling in 1859, Cerdá had a plan - a modern city grid divided into blocks. Each neighborhood would have wide streets for carriages and new electric trams, common areas for all to gather, limits on building sizes and heights, and essential services in each area allowing easy and equal access for all. Sadly, Cerdá died before his full dream for Barcelona could be implemented.

BUT that is where you come in. You and your fellow players are builders of this new Barcelona. Each new intersection in the city grid adds many layers of possibilities and actions. How will you attract new citizens to the area? New streets? New tram lines? New city services? How and where will you build each new block? And with Cerdá gone, will you stay true to his vision? Avante garde modernist architecture like the incredible La Sagrada Familia cathedral might have a place in this new Barcelona with your help. Your decisions will shape the future of Europe’s first truly urbanized city.

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Paco Garcia from GMS Magazine and So Play We All provides two delectable recipes popular in Barcelona for our cooking segment, The Meal.

Bruce Voge stops by to tell us about one of his favorite games: Unmatched!

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Mojo in the African American practice of Hoodoo is a prayer in a bag - a spell or charm that can provide protection and good luck… or sometimes the opposite. In this game, Mojo is a card that carries the same kind of mixed blessing. Everyone starts with eight cards and wants to shed as many as they can. If you end the round, you grab the Mojo and hope you’ve created the lowest score. If so, that Mojo is good luck. If not, your score will pay the price.

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Our GenCon recap featuring Doug Richardson and Gubbins

And Francie Broadie tells us about one of her favorite games: Witch of Salem

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Its bright walls and curved rooftops rise up - a majestic heron made from stone and plaster and wood, poised to take flight from the rolling green fields of Hyogo in Harima Province. Himeji Castle, Shirasagi-jo, the white heron castle, is the center of power and culture for the region.

Your clan has a plan to gain favor and influence with the Daimyo but many rivals vie for attention across all levels of life at the castle. Gardeners cultivate the grounds, soldiers train at the nearby school, and courtiers forge alliances and swap favors within the halls of the ruling class. Each family member you place has an important role to play. Develop your domain by selecting dice from bridges and using card actions from the castle and surrounding lands to help your clan rise to prominence.

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Fun begins at the ends in Butts on Things. Collect as many cards with keisters by pairing posteriors on the tails of any row or column on the table. It might be a juicy set of peaches, a burger with a nice set of buns, or a cactus with a caboose that cant stop. You’ll be over the moon when you find a way to cap off any line with a nice set of cans.  You should also be on the lookout for the dumptruck. When it shows, get off your duff and snag a buttload of cards.

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Waves of folded paper are calling… come play! In Sea, Salt & Paper players create an origami seascape by assembling a tableau of ocean themed cards, some with special abilities, each with its own way to score. When you reach the limit, bet on yourself for a chance to grab a big lead or play it safe and bank your points. Be warned, though. Four mermaids could undo your best beachside plans.

ALSO featured in this episode

Paco Garcia from GMS Magazine and So Play We All joins us for a Meal segment, providing a delicious recipe and game recommendation for a night of delicious fun.

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Thistleville is a small place, but there’s something newsworthy happening around every corner.

Authorities Suspect Fowl Play in Missing Hen Case

Foxes Trot at Local Dance

Rats Ruin Restaurant Rep

Local newspapers are scrambling to scoop the up the latest stories and bring daily editions to critter citizens from all across the town.

You are an editor of one such paper, working hard to layout your edition and get it onto newsstands with the best combination of stories, photos, and ads. No layout will be perfect but you have three days and three editions to publish, grabbing the best tiles from a sea of stories on the table hoping to fill each front page with all the news that is Fit to Print.

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE...

Listener Matt Kelly powers up the Wayback Machine to  tell us about his favorite game, a timeless classic from Avalon Hill, Advanced Civilization.

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The tower has cleared your aircraft and it is time for the final approach.

You and your co-pilot have walked through each step on this checklist a thousand times: adjust speed and altitude, level the plane, deploy the flaps and landing gear and be ready with the breaks when wheels hit the runway. But there’s no such thing as a routine landing. Every airport and every day presents a new set of variables and challenges to overcome. Each of you must do your part to bring this bird home.

Sky Team is a co-operative game for two players who must plan and then alternate placing dice in order to land a commercial airliner at airports around the world.

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Sides is a hilarious cooperative party game. In many ways it is the love child of Name That Tune and Password.

Playing as a team, how many magic words can you all score before you run out of letters? You do this together… but you do it by picking sides.

A line of seven letters sits before you. One side is a team of two, the Investigators. They must guess a magic word based on clues the Witnesses give. Only only clue is allowed at a time and the clue must begin with the letter at the end of either side of the line.

Investigators who listen closely each round have access to way more information than that one single clue, though, because the witnesses must openly discuss and debate whose clue works best.

Two groups, one team. Two letters, one magic word. Do your best to see things from many different sides.

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE...

Bruce Voge joins us for another installment of Flickin' Around. We learn all about Biñho, a game where players score goals through a gauntlet of pegs, across a pitch covered with artificial turf.

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We live on a planet whose average temperature is rising. Climate change is happening all around us and the rate of that change is sure to bring far reaching and often catastrophic consequences on a scale humanity hasn’t seen or dealt with before.

But all hope is not lost.

If the collective will, intelligence, and resources of societies around the globe can be marshaled to confront the overlapping challenges posed by climate change, we can create a path to brighter days ahead.

Daybreak is a cooperative board game about stopping climate change. It is an unapologetically hopeful vision of the near future, where you and your friends create the technologies, policies, and resilient societies we need to sequester more carbon than we collectively produce.

ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE...

Daybreak designers Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace join us for a Meal segment. We discuss the development of the game and then Matt and Matteo give us a recipe and game recommendation for a great night of food and fun.

and

We chat with T Caires (Hachette Board Games US) about the Green Games Guide, a best practices document looking at environmental impact and sustainability in the board game industry, whether you are a publisher, retailer, or player. Then we learn about a couple of T's favorite games.

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Japan is home to at least fifteen different cat islands called Nekojima. On each island, there are hundreds of frisky felines for each handful of people.

In this game, our Nekojima is very small and the people there need power. Can you install power lines across four districts? One by one poles with colorful power lines go up and up, over and through.

The crowds of curious cats, though, can’t resist strolling along the wires, threatening to short circuit your plans. It will take excellent balance and teamwork to light up the island. Try your best to not bring the whole network crashing down.

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ALSO FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE...

Lucio Rodriguez joins us to explore fun facts related to Japan's many cat islands and several other cat islands around the world.

My Favorite Game features a visit from Gubbins. He tells us about My Farm Shop from noted designer Rudiger Dorn.