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Episode 114 – Two Years of InnRoads

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Neither Jeff nor I had a lot of time to bust out new gaming experiences when we recorded this episode – but seeing as our dry-spell happened in conjunction with the 2 year anniversary of InnRoadsMinistries.com going live, we thought we’d talk about that.

We spend some time talking about what we’ve seen over the past 2 years, how we’ve grown, and what we hope to see in the near future.

One Game for All thumbI also come back at the end to talk about our two year anniversary contest both in honor of that momentous occasion and the creation of our Board Game Geek guild. Followed closely by a discussion about our end of year campaign to support InnRoads into the next year. I’d type more about that here, but you can listen to the end of this episode or watch the video on our youtube channel describing it.

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Episode 113 – Blame it on Future Mike!

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katie-all games-longWith my moving house and extra life right around the corner, this is going to be a short episode of the podcast. We talk about Jeff’s experience with The Resistance, and I share that I hadn’t played much of anything. This meant that we moved into talking about the hype around Scythe, the hope for a Warhammer adventure card game, and then we brought in Future Mike to talk about how this year’s Extra Life event went.

We also share that you can get the digital version of Kings of Israel over at Funhill Games’ site, and that the folks at Funhill gave Jeff and I a copy of the game to play around with and tell you guys about it. You’ll be hearing about that in the not-to-distant future. Remember, you can help get the game available on Steam if you go and vote them for the steam greenlight.

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Episode 112 – Beyond the Basics

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Have you watched our InnRoads Plays videos? We start out this episode of the podcast discussing our current series of videos featuring Cubicle 7’s Victoriana game. We also talk about playing Dead of Winter & Star Wars Armada, a brief discussion on “one and done” experiences like Pandemic Legacy and T.I.M.E. Stories, and talk about the learning curve that goes from settling into the basics and getting comfortable to moving into the deeper aspects that challenge, strengthen, and amaze us.

EL2015 shirt copyIf you’d like to help us with our Extra Life team’s efforts to provide a child with a full week of long-term care in our sponsor hospital’s (Children’s Specialty Hospital) facility, Go to our team roster and donate to any of our team members.

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Bonus Content – Katie Shotyk & Extra Life

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EL2015 shirt copyThis episode of Bonus Content give us a chance to take a call from Katie Shotyk, one of our InnRoads Regulars Team for this year’s Extra Life event. Katie got a chance to go and visit the folks at Children’s Specialized Hospital – which has been our sponsored hospital for the past three years.

This year’s event will be happening November 7th at 8am through November 8th at 8am. If you have any questions or would like more info, please email me at Mike@innroadsministries.com.

At the time of this recording, there are 10 members of the InnRoads Regulars team, and we have raised just about 55% of our total fund raising goal of $1500. If you would like to join the team, there is still plenty of time to sign up, but even if you can’t play along with us here in NJ or wherever you are, you can help us by going to our TEAM PAGE , click on the “Roster” tab, and donate to one or more of our team members as they attempt to reach both their individual fund raising goals as well as pushing on to that $1500. We want to give a family a week’s worth of care cost free, and you can help by donating to any member of our team.

 

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Episode 111 – Introspection

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In this episode we talk about some tabletop games that have gone digital – namely Shadowrun Returns and Blood Bowl 2. We also talk about games of Blood Rage and Spyfall being played for Extra Life Tabletop Appreciation Weekend and learning to play Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn over Tabletop Simulator.

As the discussion leads to determining top 10 favorites videos, the topic turns to thoughts of how our gaming tastes and our faith have grown – causing some things to become more prominent, while others retreat. It’s when we really think about where we’ve been and where we hope to go that we see God working in us.

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Episode 110 – Lance Hill from Funhill Games

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In this episode I got a chance to sit down with Lance Hill from Funhill games & the designer of Kings of Israel,photo-original a cooperative game set in biblical Israel where prophets try to tell the people they need to turn to God or face judgment.
We’ve mentioned the game before on the podcast and currently mark Kings of Israel as one of a select few biblically themed games that we recommend for quality and fun. That’s why we are happy to have Lance on to talk about Kings of Israel as a board game, as a soon to be on the Steam plantform digital game, and more from Funhill in the future.

If you would like to help KoI find its place in the Steam store, be sure to log in and vote for them on their greenlight page HERE

You can also find out more about the original board game – including tips on how to use it as a Bible study tool – at the Funhill Games website HERE

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Episode 109 – The Tenuous Balance of Cooperation

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1901516_695034160571985_2086804880_nInnRoads Ministries has added its first volunteers staff member. His name is Daniel Fisher, and we are very excited to have him team up with us and be about the business of playing games as ministry as we bring people together to build relationships. Daniel jumpst on this episode with us to talk about his time at Dragon*Con this year as one of the leaders at the GameChurch booth and share a bit of his dice obsession with us.

We also talk InnRoads Plays: Victoriana, Gloomhaven, and how easy it is to take some games and mechanisms designed to bring people together and turn them into divisive wedges between them.

 

EL2015 shirt copyRemember to sign up for this year’s Extra Life Team! We’re looking to raise $1500 for Children’s Specialized Hospital. We will only be able to do this if we have a bunch of people playing with us either at our local event here in New Jersey or with gamers near you. Check out our team page and sign up to join the team and start gathering donations as we support this great hospital for the 3rd year!

Whether you are going to be playing on the team or not – you can support us by ordering an InnRoads Regulars Extra Life 2015 Team shirt! 100% of the money we receive for this campaign goes to helps us meet our fund raising goal. The LAST DAY TO ORDER is September 14th. After that, you MIGHT be able to request a new print run of shirts to be made, but there’s no promise – so be sure to order yours today!

You also only have a couple days left from this episode going live to enter for our InnRoads Hates Zombies contest and win a copy of I Hate Zombies – a party game of survival. Details in the episode and on our site

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Episode 108 – Another Brick in the Temple

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We tried to cram a bunch of info and game discussion into this episode – so don’t mind me if I just break this down point-by-point

  • InnRoads Plays: Victoriana is coming! Having wrapped up our D&D 5e demonstration series, we’re moving on to show you Cubicle 7’s Victoriana. We just recorded session 0 where we talk about characters and start world building – so look forward to seeing those!
  • In “games we played” news – Jeff talks about Kingdom Builder and ALMOST getting into a game of Go, while I talk about my wife’s new favorite game – Viceroy.
  • Looking to the future, Jeff mentioned a game whose kickstarter only has HOURS remaining as I post this called Lobotomy ( as well as point out Christ & Pop Culture’s article about how a Christian can read the Cthulhu mythos here) and I talk about the news that Plaid Hat has opened pre-orders for their new miniatures combat game set int he Mice & Mystics universe called Tail Feathers.
  • HERE COMES THE NEWS!
    • InnRoads has officially been recognized as an “affiliated ministry” of my home church in Warren, NJ – Stonecrest Community Church! Looking forward to partnering with more churches and seeing this relationship grow!
    • Extra Life is coming NOVEMBER 7th! This will be InnRoads Ministries’ third year supporting Children’s Specialized Hospital. We are looking for team members and supporters to help us reach our $1500 team goal. For info about the event, as well as sign up information on our Extra Life team page and a link to get your very own InnRoads Regulars Team Shirt (campaign runs through September 15th, all proceeds from campaign go directly to support our Extra Life team), you can go to our news section
    • We have not one, but TWO contests running!
      • Listen to Gamerstable’s Shadowrun Actual Play when it goes live and email me at contact@innroadsministries.com – subject line should read “I heard you on Gamerstable” and the body should list the name of the character I played, as well as where the characters ran into him.
      • InnRoads Hates Zombies! Do any of the following to enter for your chance to win a copy of I Hate Zombies. Each of the following counts as 1 entry – we’ll select the winner after September 15th
        • Leave a comment on episode 1 of the MacGuffin Factory with a MacGuffin you’d love to see us talk about or how you plan to use one of our suggested ones in a game or story you’re creating
        • Leave a comment / review of Game Store Prophets on iTunes or Stitcher
        • Follow us on Twitter (@innroads) and tweet us with the hashtag #zombiehate
        • Email us with your favorite moment from our InnRoads Plays D&D 5e series
      • Please consider donating to InnRoads Ministries. Your donations mean I can dedicate my time to create content and training volunteers, help us create new events, and allow us to be at more conventions. Even just $1 a month will make a huge difference.

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Episode 107 – Persist and Survive the Great War

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_DSC0215When we talked about what we wanted to talk about this episode, the goal was to give more of a complete rundown of the games I brought back from Gen Con now that I’ve taken . What ended up happening was a discussion about 2 games I brought back (Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn and The Grizzled), Jeff talked about his experience with Marvel Legendary, and I talked about finding hope in the midst of pain in the story of a family that I got to meet at this year’s event.

If you want to to help the folks at Geekdom House reach their goal and put together a well-crafted, fully published experience (and be able to pay their artists/writers who put their hard work to make this happen whether they would be or not) called Area of Effect, check out their Kickstarter!

If you want to be part of our Extra Life team, you can find our team page HERE. There you can sign up to join the team and start raising funds, donate to any of our current team members, or just share the page to people you know who might want to help us help this hospital help kids.

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