Space-Cast! #53. Scratch & Listen

Once, maybe even twice, Wee Aquinas must confess that he has scratched... and sniffed.

Most people know Zach Barth as the founder of Zachtronics, purveyor of digital playthings such as SpaceChem, Opus Magnum, and EXAPUNKS. But we are not most people. Instead, we’re here to speak with Zach about his analog games: The Lucky Seven (with the Depot expansion), Chemistry Set, and the scratch-off puzzle pack Zach Attack! That’s right. We’ve got the good stuff.

Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.

TIMESTAMPS

00:30 — Zach Barth, the greatest puzzle maker alive? and the terminology of puzzles vs. games
9:10 — actually introducing Zach Barth
23:25 — getting into tabletop games via The Lucky Seven
48:30 — Chemistry Set
1:01:45 — at last, Zach Attack!
1:58:25 — can Dan fix Zach? (No. He is perfect just the way he is.)

 

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Posted on February 4, 2026, in Board Game, Podcast and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.

  1. Haha, hi, it’s me, the person with the Chemistry Set house rule. I can’t speak to whether you “should” have made it my way, but I can (unfortunately?proudly?) inform you that I’ve now introduced it this way to lots of people, and all of them have loved the game. And these are the sorts of frequent board gamers who you say don’t tend to gel with Chemistry Set!

    (I dodged any rules-following instinct I might have for a competitive game, by “inventing” this house rule as a simple misunderstanding, reading the rules hastily while on vacation. I just declined to correct the error when I eventually discovered it. At this point, I don’t want to “mess with” what is among my favorite super-fast games for two players!)

  2. Omg, say “Monopoly” one more f—in’ time, I dare you. Go ahead. See what happens!

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