One Board Family: 'Our goal is to help you find the game that’s the right fit for you'
The Georgia podcasters and reviewers on starting a games channel over dinner, pitching terrible ideas to designers and starting their own Biñho club
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Get yourself some pals who big up your ideas.
That’s what husband and wife team Ryan and Erin Gutowski did. After sharing their love of board gaming online, their friends sat them round a table and dared them to dream. Their website One Board Family was born.
Soon, not only were the pair doling out their suggestions for good family-friendly games, but they were enlisting their own tabletop family, with more friends joining the team.
One Board Family now operates on a multi-media level – as well as the website there are YouTube videos and the Will It Game? podcast, where the team pitch terrible board game ideas to gamers, content creators and designers from across the hobby, while offline they run a Biñho club in their home city of Columbus.
To find out more, we spoke to Ryan Gutowski and Ric White of One Board Family.
Who is One Board Family and what are your roles in the team? Where are you based, and what are its origins?
RG: One Board Family started with my wife, Erin, and I sharing our love of games with friends on Instagram.
Our friends were cool enough to encourage us to take it to the next level and start a website. We literally did this after dinner one night, staying up until about 2am, dreaming about what this could be.
Early on after launching, our good friend Ric White approached us about writing some articles. That blossomed into the two of us starting two podcasts and doing some video content.
Ric is in Atlanta, GA, while the rest of us live in Columbus, GA. After connecting with my coworker Bob Crowell, he jumped on board due to our mutual love of gaming. Just last year, Phil Moore, a friend we frequently game with started contributing to some of our video content with the channel.
We approach our content really casually. It's easy to burnout when being a content creator so we've taken breaks with the podcast over the years, we create video content as we have time and we don't take every review opportunity that presents itself. We love this hobby and don't want it to become overwhelming.
Are there any particular features, podcasts, videos or reviews you’d suggest newbies check out as an introduction to what you do?
RG: In 2023, Phil and myself did a comparison video on the two Texas Chainsaw Massacre games that were released. We've literally had people approach us at conventions telling us how much they liked that piece.
I think it's a good example of how we approach games. We have a critical eye but also talk about who would enjoy the game the most.
Not everyone will love every game. Our goal is to help you find the game that’s the right fit for you.
RW: Also, our Will It Game? podcast is fun. Lots of podcasts about board games have to do with reviews, and you’re just talking about the experience of the game… we did that before, and it can be interesting and informative, but also can get old quick.
Ryan came up with the idea of this podcast a while back, saying we should pitch board game ideas and have people vote on which they think is best.
Our third episode, we added a guest judge, and that’s where it really started to take off. The board game ideas are bad, but we have a lot of silly fun and get to talk with a lot of people in the industry that we might not have connected with otherwise.
I mean, you’ve really lived until Steve Jackson has told you that your board game idea is bad.
You’re big Biñho fans. How did that interest evolve?
RG: So we found out about this game during an episode of our board game talk show The Game Chat. We had a discussion about dexterity games and a viewer mentioned this tabletop soccer game.
Fast forward to June 2024 at Origins where we met the team at Biñho. The game is incredibly impressive and so easy to jump into.
Since last June, our family has amassed three boards, created a Biñho club in Columbus, GA, ran five tournaments, and introduced so many to this game.
At this point, lots of our friends have purchased boards and we play multiple times a week at the house and around town. It's easily our most played game in the past 12 months.
With Biñho in mind, if you could construct a Tabletop Olympic Games featuring games based on pre-existing sports, what would you include?
RG: This one is so tough because there are not a ton of good tabletop sports games. I think my line up would absolutely include Flamme Rouge, Tabletop Golf Association, Basketball Highlights: Crunch Time, Pitchcar, and of course Biñho.
I've still never played games like Blood Bowl or any of the baseball games in our hobby. I love the idea of a weekend of sports games where players are knocked out of the competition. This is something we've done with Crokinole and Hamster Roll at our house.
Will it Game? has hit almost 100 episodes. Are any more due to come out?
RW: I certainly hope so. Like Ryan said, we’ve taken several breaks, usually because my schedule gets a bit hectic. But as a teacher about to hit summer break, I’m hoping that we are able to get to at least 100 episodes.
That would feel like a much better episode number to end on than 94, right?
Why do you game? What makes it your kind of fun?
RG: People. I'm a very social person and tabletop games are where you can experience so much fun and diversity.
Memories are made around the game table and it's not always about the game. It's about sitting across from someone, competing, laughing, strategising. It's all about sharing the table with others.
RW: I’m a fan of the experience of figuring out how a game works, then trying to maximise your chances for success. That’s what drew me into board games.
Now, I really like helping other people have the experience. I’m not competitive with other people all that much, just with myself. I’m always wondering if I could’ve done this better, or made that choice and had a better outcome. I love that challenge.
What kind of games did you play growing up?
RG: I played a lot of Clue, Ker-Plunk, Risk, the classics pretty much.
My parents introduced me to their 1978 copy of Stop Thief early on as a kid and that's where my love of hobby gaming started. My teenage years were filled with Taboo, Scattegories, and HeroQuest.
RW: My brother and I played Memory a lot when I was a kid. Not sure why… maybe it was easier on the grown-ups.
We had the standard Clue, Monopoly, all that. When I was around 10, we had a copy of Pokémon Master Trainer, and we played that a lot. Wish we still had our hands on that one, but I believe it made its way to that big Goodwill in the sky at some point.
Monopoly: yes or no? Explain yourselves
RG: Will it bring someone to the table to have fun? Then yes! I'm not a Monopoly hater and it absolutely has a place in the hobby. There are literally thousands of games that are better, but some people have good family memories with that game.
Last spring, our family was on a cruise and the game room on the ship was rough. A couple copies of Scrabble, Sorry, Monopoly, Uno and Clue. That's it.
We obviously had a bag full of games with us that we played in the game room. But the families sitting at the tables around us were having a blast with these games that we often look down on. They were making memories, just like our family. We just had cooler games. Ha ha!
RW: I think Monopoly gets a bad rap just from being older and from people playing it wrong for so many years. Certainly there’s some luck involved, but if it’s played the right way, it’s not a bad engine building / negotiation game.
What's the best board game component?
RW: A fantastic insert that sorts and helps you keep components separated during the game play. Publishers like Keymaster Games and Eagle-Gryphon have really leaned into functional inserts that keep components sorted during the game. I love this!
Also, acrylic tiles. So satisfying!
What are your favourite games to play with family members? Any recommendations for games that bridge the generation gap?
RW: Card games seem to do the trick. There are lots of card games that are accessible, play in under 30 minutes, and can be less intimidating than a big board game that fills the table. Last year, we were able to get my mom into Skull King, a trick-taking game from Grandpa Beck Games. That opened up a ton of card games that she ended up enjoying.
I often say that if someone is slightly interested in board games, starting with Quest for El Dorado, My City, Quacks of Quedlinburg, Kohaku or Azul is a great intro to the hobby. Our go-to card games for people who don't play games are often Fuji Flush, Mojo, Point Salad, Skull King, Coloretto and a couple others.
RW: I teach high school, and it’s been fun to figure out what type of games they’ll enjoy. This past school year, they had a lot of fun with Doodle Rush and No Mercy – simple rules, easy to play, some nice “Ah ha!” moments.
Werewords is my most played game and it’s one I feel comfortable breaking out anywhere. I’ve played it at school, with my church small group, at family gatherings, with small groups of friends… it’s a hit all the time.
Do you have any plans for One Board Family you can tell us about?
RG: Our channel has grown every year and we're thankful for that. Our video content and photography received a significant upgrade a couple years back with some new equipment. One thing I do miss is our livestreams and Let's Play videos, which have been sparse the past 12 months.
We have started working with a couple publishers on making How To Play videos, which has been really good. We're heading into summer, which means conventions for us. We'll split the crew to attend Origins this year along with Southern-Fried Gaming Expo in Atlanta the same weekend.
On September 13, we're hosting One Board Day, an all-day gaming event for families. We keep the cost low and the library full so that people can bring the whole family to make memories. This was a huge success last year, so we are pumped to do it again.
For more information, visit oneboardfamily.com
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