This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas set out on a gentle journey with Creature Caravan by Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games. It’s a relaxed, mid-weight adventure where clever planning and quiet efficiency guide your caravan across a beautifully illustrated world brought to life by Laukat’s signature artwork.

They chat about why this one feels so comfortable at the table: a smooth multiplayer solitaire experience, thoughtful decisions without pressure, and gameplay that feels fresh while still easy to settle into. Creature Caravan is the kind of game that invites you to slow down, enjoy the journey, and appreciate the charm along the way—and that made it a delight to explore together.

This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas touch down on the red planet with On Mars by Vital Lacerda—a monumental design where every system, resource, and decision is shared, intertwined, and fiercely consequential. From the moment boots hit Martian soil, the game demands careful timing, long-term vision, and a deep awareness of what everyone else at the table is building toward.

The hosts dive into how On Mars weaves its many systems into a single, living ecosystem: incentives shift, priorities evolve, and no action exists in isolation. Progress on Mars is communal, but success is personal, creating a competitive landscape that feels both collaborative and relentlessly strategic. It’s a game of planning, adaptation, and precision, and one that rewards patience, foresight, and mastery.

For Jordan and Thomas, this wasn’t just a great play, it was a discovery of why On Mars stands among the very best in modern board game design.

This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas step into the opening mission of War Story: Occupied France, a story-driven experience set in a world of uncertainty, difficult choices, and scarce resources. From the very first decisions, the game asks players to act with incomplete information, weighing risk and consequence in ways that feel both tense and meaningful.

They discuss how the branching decision system drives the narrative forward, why every resource feels precious, and how even the combat leans into that same choice-driven design. Encounters unfold through smart decision trees that keep the action engaging and surprisingly exciting. It’s a thoughtful, immersive take on storytelling games—one that left a strong first impression after just a single mission.

This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas revisit Architects of the West Kingdom, returning to one of Garphill Games’ most approachable takes on worker placement. With a mitt-full of workers in hand right from the start, the game flips the usual scarcity on its head, encouraging bold plays, clever timing, and plenty of interaction at the table.

Revisiting it several years later, the hosts reflect on how the game now feels lighter than they remember—still strategic and satisfying, but firmly in the realm of classic worker placement. That said, the familiar Garphill charm shines through, delivering a design that’s clean, engaging, and consistently fun. Sometimes it’s nice to return to the foundations and appreciate just how well they were built.

This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas set the games aside and look back at the year that was in Past Plays: 2025 In-Review. From plays and player counts to favourites, surprises, and patterns they didn’t expect, the hosts dig into the stats behind a year at the table.

It’s a reflective, numbers-forward episode with the same honest takes and good-natured banter—celebrating what they played, what stuck, and what shaped their year in board gaming.

Pray, compose yourselves and adjust your waistcoats; this week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas ascend the grand staircase of society with Obsession, a most refined contest of reputation, refinement, and relentless social manoeuvring in Victorian England. Estates are improved, guests are entertained, and every polite invitation carries quiet ambition beneath its lace-trimmed sleeve.

The hosts delight in the careful orchestration of servants, the art of curating just the right social circles, and the satisfying puzzle of planning the perfect evening at precisely the proper hour. Behind the formal bows and courteous smiles lies a deeply rewarding strategic experience where efficiency and elegance go hand in hand.

It is all civility, calculation, and controlled chaos where fortunes rise over tea, and one poorly timed soirée may cause quite the awkward gossip. One must, of course, keep one’s composure.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to the Grand Stage of Strategic Sorcery!
This week, Jordan and Thomas don their sparkling capes and perfectly waxed moustaches as we dive into Trickerion: Legends of Illusion, Mindclash’s masterwork of misdirection, meticulous planning, and marvellously crunchy decision-making.

Prepare for an evening of elaborate illusions, last-minute pivots, and more brain-twisting calculations than a magician has pigeons up his sleeves. Trickerion asks you not only to plan five steps ahead, but also to gracefully recover when your rival illusionist steals your spotlight (and possibly your assistants).

Join us behind the velvet curtain as we scheme, rehearse, conjure, and catastrophically overthink our way through one of the most delightfully thinky games in the hobby. The Prestige awaits… if we can remember where we put our Trickerion shards.

This week on Current Plays, Jordan and Thomas take the throne in It’s a Wonderful Kingdom, a clever blend of kingdom-building, resource planning, and fantastic use of the “I cut, you pick” card selection. The duo digs into the game’s standout systems—from its escalating resource production to the tricky mind games of offering cards your opponent might want… or might regret.

While not every mechanism reaches legendary heights, there’s still plenty here to enjoy: smooth turns, satisfying engine-building, and just enough bluffing to keep both players second-guessing every choice. It’s a kingdom that may not be perfect, but it’s certainly a wonderful place to spend an evening plotting, planning, and politely sabotaging your fellow ruler.