Boardgames To Go

Whoops! I almost let two months go by since my last show. I've been playing plenty of games, so here's a session report & feedback show to describe my inability to play economic games with any skill! But as badly as I've been doing at them, I'm still interested. In fact, I'm even more interested in the games because it feels like there's something everyone else understands about their strategy

It comes up from time to time in discussions about our hobby--will any of the games we're playing now achieve "classic" status? There are commercial classics like Monopoly, Risk, and Scrabble, as well as cultural or timeless classics like Go, Chess, and Poker. That's an awfully high standard for any game to achieve, even ones we think so highly of on our game nights and gamesdays. What does

It must be just about time for a boring show with just me on the mic, but you're spared once again! This time I have fellow podcaster Eric "Boardgame Babylon" Burgess with me to talk about another of my favorites, Big City. Turns out it's one of his, too, and when I made a half-serious request for someone to do this episode with, Eric responded right away. We live somewhat far from each other,

Part 2 of my discussion with Dave Arnott was about game awards. There are a bunch of them, from the Spiel des Jahres to the Golden Geeks. We talk about a whole range of them, and also consider how game awards are similar or different from other artistic awards, such as the Oscars. (By the way, I did go see Slumdog Millionaire that night, and though I liked it I wouldn't have called it the Best

What started as one show with two topics ended up being two shows. This is the first part, where Dave Arnott and I reflect on 2008. That means talking about our games played, totals as well as "fives & dimes." We also consider which were are favorite releases or discoveries in 2008. Along the way are some inevitable discussions about online plays, whether realtime (e.g. brettspielwelt, Game

My buddy Ryan Wheeler is part of our local game group, the Santa Clarita Boardgamers. In fact, he's the driving force of the group, hosting most of the game nights, always adding to his collection, and infecting the rest of us with his enthusiasm and sense of humor. When schedules conflicts led to only two of us showing up for games one night, I pressured him into recording another podcast with

Before I can post any new shows, I wanted to clear the decks for some accumulated feedback, as well as follow-through on my previous blog entry about family gaming over the holidays. Again I brought I bag full of specially chosen games, and again we played some of them. Just a few, really, but I knew to expect that. This year my gaming was mostly confined to playing with my young nephews, which I

This is a session report & feedback show . . . but without the feedback. The reason for that is that I had to record this podcast in the car. I say had to because I spent too much of my at-home podcasting time playing Dominion instead! I started playing this game on brettspielwelt, and then got my own set to play face-to-face games. Hype is a turnoff for me, even buzz makes me suspicious, but in

As promised, here's my annual episode running through the new Essen games that have caught my eye. There are games I'm pretty sure I want, others I'm pretty sure I don't, and a whole bunch I need to know more about first (hopefully by playing).Essen opens its doors to everyone tomorrow, and the press-only day has already started. Folks like me will be checking internet sites repeatedly through

As promised, here's another All About show, my first in a long time. The way these shows work, I usually employ a guest, and the two of us talk about one game in great detail. This time, that guest is David Gullett, who you've heard on BGTG before, and the game we're talking about is Harry's Grand Slam Baseball.Now, HGSB is a rather small, light game to spend more than an hour talking about. That

You're in luck. The carcast I recorded earlier about some games played at a recent Games Day was also destroyed accidentally, so I just had to re-record it at home. This way it ends up with better audio quality, and I got to tack on some recent email feedback, too.These are all games I played at a recent Games Day put on by LA's famous Stephanie. You've heard about her on other podcasts, and

Two podcasts in less than a week?! Weird, I know. Not likely to be repeated soon, either. I just figured I might as well jump on the opportunity when I could.Also, I'd mentioned on this blog a couple weeks before that I was thinking of sharing my (changing) thoughts about Martin Wallace games, based on some recent plays of Brass, Tinner's Trail, and Byzantium. Martin's games are so popular on BGG

Though I'm too chicken to listen to it, anyone that wants to can go back into my archives to download BGTG #1. In that episode I tried to give an introduction to myself, describing my own likes & dislikes in games. It always helps to know those things about a game reviewer. You get to figure out how my opinions map to yours. Maybe you & I are on the same page, and the games I like are ones you'll

Uh...yeah. At the start of this show I say I recorded it back on May 29. Which I did. Then I labeled the file and blog entry June 17, because that's when I edited it. Except that I ran into a technical glitch, and I only just now resolved all of that to get it posted on July 13. Whew!Anyway, it's here now. Not long after my 2007 recap described some new games I hadn't had the chance to try yet, I

Memorial Day Weekend is pretty late for a 2007 recap show, but here it is anyway. I said I'd follow this show up sometime with another blog entry to have a written summary of my games played, too. I found that I enjoyed re-reading my reports from earlier years . . . and missed not having them for 2005 & 2006.In a nutshell, I'm still playing 400 games per year, about 180 different titles--the same