The Staying In Podcast - four pals talk video games, board games, and movies

A Staying In exclusive? Yep! We’re among the first people in the UK to play Red Notice - Le Million ou la Prison, which is a game about risking what you can on what you think you can get away with, themed on the game of cat and mouse found in works like Catch Me If You Can. It’s a stonker; you heard it here first.

Of course there’s loads of other things to talk about coming out of AireCon 2026. We start getting very close to each other (and strangers) with Yubibo’s novel Twister-with-fingers from Jelly Jelly, and building (pleasingly broken) engines in Thief's Market, PickPocket’s fresh lick of paint on a previously released title. There’s also Jason Tremblay’s Tacta, which is a light and delightful little treat of a game, and Ellie Dix, Maria Surducan, and Osprey’s Threaded: A Game of Needles and Points, which is so completely charming we can’t stop thinking about it, even when it’s gone midnight and security is about to throw you out the convention.

With that many board games, we change things up and round things out with a movie: the sci-fi book adaptation with Ryan Gosling that’s currently doing the business at the box office.

All that, and putting down a towel, on Ep244.

00:00 - AireCon 2026

13:21 - Yubibo

18:20 - Thief's Market

25:22 - Tacta

29:25 - Threaded: A Game of Needles and Points

32:23 - Red Notice - Le Million ou la Prison

47:06 - Project Hail Mary

On this episode were Dan (@ThisDanFrost), Kris (@DigitalStrider), and Sam (@MrSamTurner).

Our Spotify Playlist brings together lots of great thematic music inspired by the stuff we talk about, our Steam Curator page collects every video game we’ve ever reviewed available on the platform, and our BoardGameGeek page does the same for every boardgame. And if you’d like to see what we’re up to between podcasts, your best bet is our Instagram page.

Links to where you can find us - StayingInPodcast.com

Note: sometimes we'll have been sent a review copy of the thing we're talking about on the podcast. It doesn't skew how we think about that thing, and we don't receive compensation for anything we discuss, but we thought you might like to know this is the case.

We’re getting old, so the only kind of exciting rave we’re interested in on a weekday is Arcade Archives Rave Racer from Bandai Namco, by way of Hamster Corp - a game previously trapped in the arcades of the 90s, re-released for home consoles. Then we talk about another throwback, this time to a kind of genre that was massively popular a few years ago, that is getting a new spin: the flip and draw Flip Pick Towers from Osprey, Rob Fisher, Adam Porter, and Beatrix Papp. We round out the show with an unbelievably hot new boardgame called Eternal Decks from Hiroken and Mujunsha, which is a co-op experience with limited (but not zero) communication.

All that, and revisiting the tuna bus, on Ep243.

00:00 - Things on lamp posts

07:57 - Arcade Archives Rave Racer

29:27 - Eternal Decks

45:50 - Flip Pick Towers

On this episode were Peter (@XeroXeroXero) and Sam (@MrSamTurner).

Our Spotify Playlist brings together lots of great thematic music inspired by the stuff we talk about, our Steam Curator page collects every video game we’ve ever reviewed available on the platform, and our BoardGameGeek page does the same for every boardgame. And if you’d like to see what we’re up to between podcasts, your best bet is our Instagram page.

Links to where you can find us - StayingInPodcast.com

Note: sometimes we'll have been sent a review copy of the thing we're talking about on the podcast. It doesn't skew how we think about that thing, and we don't receive compensation for anything we discuss, but we thought you might like to know this is the case.

It’s time to dredge up some painful memories of mid-tier Tom Clancy games with Predator: Badlands, then it’s onto cheerier topics, like a discussion on Marvel’s latest short run TV series Wonder Man and whether it might be the start of a new era for the MCU. Having already properly dated the show with a recent “holiday” we turn to Game Dev Story from Kairosoft, a fairly casual but very revealing management game, then it’s off to the Jazz Age with Gatsby from Catch Up Games via Hachette.

All that, and an incorrect use of butter, on Ep242.

00:00 - A Triple Whammy

06:42 - Game Dev Story

17:17 - Predator: Badlands

30:16 - Gatsby

41:56 - Wonder Man

On this episode were Dan (@ThisDanFrost), Kris (@DigitalStrider), Peter (@XeroXeroXero), and Sam (@MrSamTurner).

Our Spotify Playlist brings together lots of great thematic music inspired by the stuff we talk about, our Steam Curator page collects every video game we’ve ever reviewed available on the platform, and our BoardGameGeek page does the same for every boardgame. And if you’d like to see what we’re up to between podcasts, your best bet is our Instagram page.

Links to where you can find us - StayingInPodcast.com

Note: sometimes we'll have been sent a review copy of the thing we're talking about on the podcast. It doesn't skew how we think about that thing, and we don't receive compensation for anything we discuss, but we thought you might like to know this is the case.

It’s time to get a grip on mobile gaming, so we go hands-on with MCON from Ohsnap, a dedicated MagSafe controller attachment for your phone that’s perfect for Android and iPhone gaming, as well as emulation and game streaming. We also throw down with the latest from Big Potato Games, the old-timey-charity-donation-by-way-of-marbles-em-up, Whirly Derby. And then there’s Duel for Cardia from Hans im Glück, a lovely and super affordable simultaneous action card game that takes up no room at all - except for in our hearts.

All that, and the many forms of baths, on Ep241.

00:00 - To be fair, he does eat lasagna

06:47 - Whirly Derby

21:08 - MCON

44:53 - Duel for Cardia

On this episode were Kris (@DigitalStrider), Peter (@XeroXeroXero), and Sam (@MrSamTurner).

Our Spotify Playlist brings together lots of great thematic music inspired by the stuff we talk about, our Steam Curator page collects every video game we’ve ever reviewed available on the platform, and our BoardGameGeek page does the same for every boardgame. And if you’d like to see what we’re up to between podcasts, your best bet is our Instagram page.

Links to where you can find us - StayingInPodcast.com

Note: sometimes we'll have been sent a review copy of the thing we're talking about on the podcast. It doesn't skew how we think about that thing, and we don't receive compensation for anything we discuss, but we thought you might like to know this is the case.

We take a (one-eyed?) look at two weird (outsider art?) horror-adjacent video games from Critical Reflex on this episode, Mouthwashing from Wrong Organ and Arctic Eggs from The Water Museum, cockydoody, abmarnie, and Cameron Ginex. Then on the AAA side of the scale is the ridiculously slick open world assassin adventure Ghost of Yōtei from Sucker Punch. Meanwhile, on a more family-friendly board game theme, we think about how best to introduce board game mechanics to much younger minds while reviewing Minecraft Builder & Biomes Junior from Ravensburger.

All that, and confessing to a terrible lie, on Ep240.

00:00 - Elevenerife

04:57 - Minecraft Builder & Biomes Junior

23:02 - Arctic Eggs

32:05 - Mouthwashing

43:17 - Ghost of Yōtei

On this episode were Dan (@ThisDanFrost), Kris (@DigitalStrider), Peter (@XeroXeroXero), and Sam (@MrSamTurner).

Our Spotify Playlist brings together lots of great thematic music inspired by the stuff we talk about, our Steam Curator page collects every video game we’ve ever reviewed available on the platform, and our BoardGameGeek page does the same for every boardgame. And if you’d like to see what we’re up to between podcasts, your best bet is our Instagram page.

Links to where you can find us - StayingInPodcast.com

Note: sometimes we'll have been sent a review copy of the thing we're talking about on the podcast. It doesn't skew how we think about that thing, and we don't receive compensation for anything we discuss, but we thought you might like to know this is the case.