Opener: Wayfarers of the South Tigris

If you're like me, you've been supplementing your in-person boardgaming with the ability to play online. I've been doing that for over 20 years, way before the covid pandemic struck. However, that worldwide event opened up the joys of online boardgaming to many more gamers, especially as they worked to keep connections going with friends they couldn't see across the table for many months. Add in the explosion of titles and popularity of BoardgameArena, coupled with the widespread use of Discord, Zoom, or other voice/video communication tools, and gamers today have more ability to stay in touch than ever before.

My two guests have taken that, stuck with it, and done more than I've ever managed to do with all of my online play: make a regular game group out of it. Three years on, no longer with the pandemic as the reason, Dave and Mike continue to get together almost every week to play games together. One's in California, the other in Virginia, but they meet more regularly than most in-person game groups. Sometimes they widen the circle to include some other friends like me, but primarily this is a 2-person game group, another interesting aspect.

Like me, these guys have been around a long time, have favorites going back decades, yet in this online group they're really espousing the Cult of the New. Why is that? Why are they always learning new games, why do they enjoy online roll & writes so much, and what the heck is Tulpenfieber?! Listen and find out.

Closer: The sort of old school games I don't like


-Mark

Openers:

Mark: First in Flight
Tim: Arcs

Closers:
Tim: Changing enjoyment (and ratings) of games
Mark: Is it possible to go to too many game events?

If you've followed me for any time, especially on our Discord server, you've heard me talk about a couple things: my appreciation for the "new" podcast Board Game Hot Takes, and my observations of how the energy of our hobby has shifted from when I joined it. I get to combine both of those topics into one episode by inviting one of the three BGHT hosts, Tim, to join me on the mic and use him as a representative of the "next generation" of boardgame hobbyists. He chuckles at that characterization, pointing out he's not that much younger than me, and has been playing boardgames for a few years. But that still makes him the New Kid on the Block compared to an old fart like me, and I think it shows in the types of games he & I both love.

That's what we talk about, how the bulk of the hobby may be broadening and unchanging (think about Ticket To Ride, Catan, and Azul at Target stores and on Amazon), but the energetic, active hobbyist part of the hobby appears to be compelled by crowdfunding, plastic figures, and the BGG Top/Hot games lists. I'm not trying to say that's a problem, but I am certain that's it's a difference. At the same time, there are some nice advantages for old-timers like me, whether it's improved game distribution, production enhancements (e.g. double-layer boards), and the most robust online multiplayer options we've ever seen.

-Mark

Get your Sweet Sixteen votes in now! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12074798#comment12074798

Just a test recording, really, to see if I can make a passable podcast with just the mobile devices (not a laptop) I'll have with me at BGG.con this week. Today (Tuesday) I'm still at home, but tomorrow I'm on the early flight out of LAX to go to Dallas. I've got a full schedule of events, people, and games to take in during my time there, and I'm very excited about it all. I was at the first BGG.con, but that was 10 years ago, and now the show has grown tenfold.

-Mark

At long last, here are the Top Ten! As we count them down in reverse order, we stay true to form--having a few personal grumbles about these amazing titles. At the same time, we're honestly respectful and enthusiastic for all of these games. Several of them are in our personal top ten lists, too. 

Though this is the end of the list of 100 Great Games, it's not quite the end of this podcast series. We promise to come back one more time for an epilogue episode, one that shares some analysis of the overall list, considers what games only missed the list because they were released post-2012, and what our own votes were. Remember, this list is a compilation of many experienced gamers' input. By now it's pretty obvious that we each have our own personal tastes that differ somewhat. If you have topics you'd like us to cover in the epilogue, let us know.

In my poll associated with the last installment of 100 Great Games, I asked for your favorite Knizia auction game. Of the many options available Ra came out as the clear favorite. As you may have heard last time, Stephen preferred Ra, I went with Medici, and Jackson picked Traumfabrik.

Now that we've reached the top of the list of 100 Great Games, are there ones you thought we missed? Of course that will be true--everyone has different tastes. However, any game released after 2012 didn't even get a chance to be on this list because that's when the project started. Below I've put together a poll of notable titles less than two years old that might have made it onto the 100 Great Games list. It's a tough choice, but which one do you think would've made it on the list? As always, if you've got a good suggestion that's not included in the poll, write it in the comments below. Thanks.

I don't even know how long I've been doing this. My window-shopping the Essen lists predates this podcast of nine years. Who else fondly remembers Mik Svellov's Brett'n'Board], Ken Tidwell's Game Cabinet, or all the other places we learned about Essen before, during, and after the fair? Now, of course Eric Martin does an amazing job here at BGG with the annual Essen Preview. It has nearly six hundred items when I finally stopped looking on Friday. Wow!

It took me two passes to get through these lists. For some reason, I found a LOT more games that interest me this year. Is that because there are more of the shorter, family strategy games that I like? That might be true. Not that there were a lot of the 45-minute "superfillers," but I think there were more filler/microgames at the low end--under 20 euros, under 30 minutes. The ones that are still Love Letter derivatives about bluffing & hidden identity don't interest me, but there several others. As before, we see more and more offerings from other countries, especially Japan, Korea, and Poland.

My first pass through that megalist came up with 30 I was really excited/curious about, and another 50 that had something that sparked my interest. Though that's 80 games (waaaay too many to discuss on the podcast), that's culling out more than 80% of the titles in the full preview. Then I squeezed it down to ten I put in my companion geeklist, and discuss on this episode, plus several other titles that work their way into the discussion. Wow!

Also, I can't resist some meta-analysis of the entire list, and how well my previous years' anticipation lists matched what became my keepers from those years.

Finally, this episode anticipates something else, too--my return to BGG.con! I'm so excited about this. I went to the first BGG.con a decade ago, but it's grown & changed quite a bit since that time. I'm coming up to speed with what to expect, doing some planning, but not TOO much. Hopefully I'll meet some listeners and play some games with them when I'm there next month.

-Mark

"Mark hates games."

Is that true? No, but it's a comment I've heard secondhand more than once! Brian Murray is a great gamer I've met at SoCal Games Days, and through our shared friend Davebo. He's the one who hears me critique a game, or just be completely lukewarm on it, or pick it apart, and thinks that I just don't know how to relax and have a good time with boardgames. Or something like that. I'm probably putting words (the wrong words) in his mouth, but that quote above is 100% from Brian.

So it was time to have him on the podcast. Then his words can come out of his own mouth, and you all can decide what you think about it!

(We recorded this at Dave's house, sitting in his living room during a Sunday in July. Partway through the recording a raven squawks outside, and keeps going for a while. But he eventually stops. Nevermore! Perhaps a more serious concern about the audio is that all three of our voices sound pretty similar. Good luck with that.)

I've never been a Cult of the New guy, but Brian clearly is. Or, as he clarifies, he's a Cult of the New-to-Me guy. Lots of boardgamers are that way. Maybe that's you, too. Not me. I'd much rather play an old favorite. Despite that, I still play a lot of new games. And no matter what Brian says, I love some of them. Lots more are perfectly fine, just ok, but nothing more. I'd probably rate them a 6 on BGG and have no need to play them again. Brian is more likely to enjoy the experience of playing a new game just for its own sake. The excitement of seeing something new, how it's produced, the way it plays, new rules, and all the rest.

The conversation inevitably crosses over into Kickstarter. You can imagine why. If you're excited by the newness of a game, then Kickstarter is heaven. There are so many new games there! But if you're like me, and prefer to wait until a consensus emerges through the community (& marketplace) about the tiny subset of "keeper" games, then Kickstarter doesn't really offer much. Honestly, I'm looking forward to the first "modern classic" that comes out of Kickstarter that even I need to own. It just hasn't happened yet. Call me up in 2016.

:)

-Mark

Here are #11-20 on the list, counted down in reverse order as we discuss them on the podcast. I thought we'd have nothing but praise for all of these highly-ranked games...but perhaps I should've known that that the three of us would take turns expressing reservations about even these amazing games. (It's going to make my upcoming "Mark Hates Games" episode all the more relevant.) ;)

In my poll associated with the last installment of 100 Great Games, I asked about the theming--or lack thereof--in Knizia's landmark cooperative game, [thing=823][/thing]. The smallest portion felt this was a mechanical, pasted-on theme kind of game. Instead, most felt that the theme does come through from the cooperative gameplay (mechanisms), while several more credited the amazing artwork for evoking the theme.

This time I'm returning to Knizia for the poll. It just worked out that way. We discussed Medici in a previous episode (and I recently played the unfortunately-ugly latest edition), and now Ra has come up. We used to ask ourselves which of Knizia's "auction trilogy" was our favorite (these plus Modern Art). That's what I'm asking here, only Mark Jackson suggested I widen it to include several more of Knizia's excellent auction-based games (including Mark's favorite, as you can hear in the episode). Did I forget to include your favorite? Tell me so in a comment, below.

Microgames are hot right now. It all "started" with Love Letter, when it burst onto the scene at Essen two years ago. Here was an game that was so inexpensive as to be an impulse-buy, so small it could fit in your pocket, so simple it was easy to teach anyone, and so quick it invited games whenever you had some spare time & friends onhand, like at a restaurant. Suddenly the game was everywhere, re-themes were ubiquitous, and other small games inevitably followed.

The problem with that explanation, of course, is that Love Letter wasn't the first incarnation of a microgame. Far from it. In the days before euros (almost before RPGs), the term "microgame" appeared to describe small format wargames. In fact, I have an early BGTG episode all about those! For some diehards, that term still starts in the late 1970s with pocket-sized hex & counter wargames. Even if that was way before your time, you probably know one example from that era, because Steve Jackson recently republished his landmark title, Ogre. Besides the Kickstarter behemoth, he proudly re-issued the original microgame version of the game, and at the same price! $2.95!

But putting aside the history lesson (and soapbox), it's still true that Love Letter got a lot of attention, and has sparked interest in gamers, designers, and publishers, for new boardgames in a small format. Jeff Myers, of the excellent GameGuyThinks blog, joins me to discuss this topic. This time, I try my best to avoid the trap I usually make for myself: definitions. Though we try to define what microgame means in 2014 a little bit, we don't get bogged down or philosophical on that point. It's more fun to talk about some examples we've played, as well as reconsider some earlier games that might now appear to be microgames. Or are they? To be honest, I don't see a big difference between what we've long called Filler Games and this new crop of Microgames. Not unless there's something magical about having only sixteen cards. Also, the ever-increasing field of Print-n-Play games crosses over to this topic, too. (If you really want to discuss/argue about the definition of microgames, go see manchuwok's geeklist.)

We talk about the new line of modern micros from Chris Handy (his Pack O Game series) and Rob Bartel (his Famous/World's Smallest Sports Games series). There are some good ones in there (I particularly recommend Famous 500, the car-racing game).

Here are #21-30 on the list, counted down in reverse order as we discuss them on the podcast.

After the previous episode of 100 Great Games, we received some (ahem) feedback regarding the games we didn’t like (I’m looking at you, Taj Majal), or didn’t know much about (such as War of the Ring). I’m pleased to say we don’t have that issue this time. I get to look over the still-secret list going all the way to Number One, and I can safely say that we’re familiar with all of the remaining games. Which is as you’d expect, right? As we get near the top we’re getting into even more of the modern classics that every self-respecting gamer should seek out & play. But, since you’re only hearing three voices from a survey of many more people, we may not all LOVE the remaining games. But we certainly respect them. (And as you’ll hear, in many cases we do love them!)

We’re nearing the end, only two shows left after this one to finish the countdown! We’ve already had suggestion for a supplemental episode, and it’s under consideration. Other ideas are welcome. 

Finally, taking a page from Geek Weekly, I’m going to try adding a poll to each of my podcast episodes. I’d like folks to check out the blog (perhaps comment below), and there’s always a good question to pose after a podcast. Be sure to listen to the episode first, to get the context for the question. In this case, it’s about the theming (or not) in Knizia’s Lord of the Rings.

It's a little crazy to finally publish this long-delayed episode, but I'm doing it nonetheless. A look back at 2013 is kind of ridiculous in July of 2014, but I think it's interesting nonetheless because we also talk about broader topics like gaming statistics (personal & community), gaming trends, and looks forward into the "new" year (that's now half-over!).

Year-end stats often start with number of plays, and number of games. In my case, those numbers include online plays--which aggravates Dave!--but we're both beyond actually arguing about that. My numbers have remained remarkably consistent for many years: right around 300 plays, 150 titles. The actual numbers were 342 plays, 155 titles, 60 new-to-me. Dave's are somewhat higher (325 plays, 126 titles), but NOTABLY higher when you realize he's a purist that only includes face-to-face plays. However, I prove my point with a story about a game of Timeline: Music & Cinema that the two of us played online just prior to recording the podcast. 

Another well-worn statistic within our hobby are the "Fives & Dimes," which even predate BGG and Mark Jackson's tally of this data. Sure, it always skews toward the shorter games, but even I get a good feeling when I see a beefier title like Brass show up.

Remember when I used to do "Session Report & Feedback" episodes? Me neither. These are when I'd just talk about some games I've played recently (not part of a meta topic, just a session report), and tack a segment on the end where I read & respond to some listener feedback. In theory these should be a show that's easy for me bang out every once in a while. They also have the [i]potential[/i] of being shorter episodes.

At any rate, this time I stitched together some accounts of recent card games I've had on the table. The coincidence of a couple euro card games on the table recently sparked an idea for a future game group session that focuses on traditional card games. We haven't done that yet, but we're excited to try some titles like Euchre, Spades, 1000 (the marriage game), Cribbage, Pinochle, and so on. (I've also just joined an Up & Down the River card game group at lunch.)

But that's for later. In this episode I'm still talking about modern, euro card games with their unique decks, rules, and mechanisms...

Stephen Glenn and Mark Jackson rejoin me (Mark JOHNson) to continue this series. In 2012, these two guys polled a number of experienced gamers (a few designers, many reviewers, all enthusiasts) for their top games, consolidated their answers, and asked to come on my podcast to count down the results. I was pleased to be part of the poll, and doubly pleased to have them on Boardgames To Go. I really like how Stephen describes this: 

"a fun list to discuss over coffee & pie."

The poll was for our favorite games, not necessarily the best games. We even got to submit a top fifteen, which took the usual tough request for a top ten and gave us more breathing room for five more titles. I know in my case, it made it easier to add some very recent games to my longstanding favorites.  On each podcast we're counting down a bunch of titles  until we get to a final show with the Top Ten. I'll be interspersing 100 Great Games countdown episodes with my other podcast episodes.

Here are #31-40 on the list, counted down in reverse order as we discuss them on the podcast.

This show was especially fun because BGG had gone down for maintenance when we did our recording! That meant that we had to go on our own knowledge and memories of the games' designers, publishers, and years, in addition to usual opinions about how they play. Fortunately, we're getting so high up in the list now that the games are very notable. I think we did pretty well without our normal reference material...but you tell me!

Note: we had a little audio problem with Mark Jackson halfway through the podcast, but stick with us! I edited around it as best I could, and it gets better after the Ave Caesar/Ausgebremst/Q-Jet discussion.

Micro-episode for the next round of voting. 

Vote here! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12070025#comment12070025

Have you ever played Bunco? I'm now in a couples Bunco group, a new thing for me. It goes without saying that this is not the kind of gaming group I normally have, and talk about on the show. These are not hobby gamers. They aren't even party gamers. They're just regular folks, all empty nest-ers (or close to it, like me), who get together to talk, have dinner & drinks. That we play a game or two at the end of the night for a few bucks' stakes is purely a social activity, absolutely not intended to be competitive. After Bunco kind of wore off, the group switched to LCR. Yikes!

Here's my Catch-22: I want a game that's more fun for me because it has a little bit of strategy, but everyone else wants a game that is so easy & automatic that it doesn't pressure anyone or limit conversation. Almost by definition, this is a no-man's land since it's looking for a game that has decision-making yet requires no thought.

Well, gamers often make suggestions about titles they think are light enough, but really aren't. Or we consider party games. In this podcast I cover that very topic with Dave Gullett, who is the rare gamer who understands my dilemma! In the show we go through a lot of ideas, and I proceed to basically shoot them all down for one reason or another. Am I the problem? Or is it basically un-solvable with the constraints I've given myself?

Look at all the types of games we consider, and please give me your own ideas. Particularly if you've had some success in similar situations, tell me about the games you played as well as describing that situation and its other players.

Who really believed me when I said I'd get Part 2 of the podcast out this week? I realize my credibility for prompt podcast publication isn't great. :) And yet--here it is! 

As I said in the first part, this is my now-traditional interview with my friend & BGG.con regular, Greg Pettit. He goes to the convention every year and plays a ton of new Essen releases. I'm quite jealous, and hope to finally make it back there myself in 2014.

We pick up the podcast halfway through our discussion about these games. Towards the end I get to offer my opinions about some new ones Greg didn't get to. The conversation also meanders a bit sometimes about keeping versus selling/trading games that don't make it to the table anymore, etc.

Although I've only made it to one BGG.con so far (the first one, I think), my buddy and frequent BGTG guest Greg Pettit is a regular attendee. For the past several years he's joined me on the podcast after the event to tell us all about it, especially the new Essen games he was able to play. I love hearing about them.

Something else that fascinates me is the slippery topic of figuring out which new games are the best ones. Not to get too highfalutin, but this is really the timeless matter of judging art. Why are some artistic works better than others, and do those opinions hold over time? In our little way, I like to explore this topic by prompting Greg for a "star rating" for these games (adding my own where I can)...and then revisiting those ratings a year later. It's only one year, but that's enough for the bloom to be off the rose for some new titles. Even some that we honestly love struggle to make it back to the table. Most interesting of all, a select few appear to be new classics--or at least personal keepers. Gosh, I love this topic, as subjective as it is.

Want to follow along, and even add your own star ratings? You can do it on the companion geeklist I've posted for this show. You can also go back to the lists we did in 2012 & 2011 to do the same, or measure our prognostication skills.

Greg played so many games this year (and I added some of my own), that the podcast got to be quite long. For that reason I've split it into two halves. I'll post the first half now, and the second half at the end of the week.

-Mark

Stephen Glenn and Mark Jackson rejoin me (Mark JOHNson) to continue this series. In 2012, these two guys polled a number of experienced gamers (a few designers, many reviewers, all enthusiasts) for their top games, consolidated their answers, and asked to come on my podcast to count down the results. I was pleased to be part of the poll, and doubly pleased to have them on Boardgames To Go. I really like how Stephen describes this: 

The poll was for our favorite games, not necessarily the best games. We even got to submit a top fifteen, which took the usual tough request for a top ten and gave us more breathing room for five more titles. I know in my case, it made it easier to add some very recent games to my longstanding favorites. On each podcast we're counting down 15 titles until we get to a final show with the Top Ten. I'll be interspersing 100 Great Games countdown episodes with my other podcast episodes.

Here are #41-55 on the list, counted down in reverse order as we discuss them on the podcast.

Now we're really getting into some notable titles with firm reputations of being great games. And yet, one or more of us keep finding games that we take issue with. There's nothing wrong with that, of course--these are the compiled results of many gamers, not just us. You should understand that we can respect a game, and its place on this list, even if we don't like it personally. In fact, I hope that sort of different opinion makes for a good listen, and will spark some feedback in the blog comments, below.

Session Report and Feedback episode with games I've played recently, as well as my experiences attending out-of-town Meetups.

Last year I failed to do my annual "Essen Anticipation" podcast. It was just too much. This year, however, I got an earlier jump on it...and I enlisted the help of a friend.

Do you know the term, Experience Game? I thought everyone did, but in prepping for this episode I found that it's used a lot less often than I thought. Not only that, but I learned it's a term that was used more often in the early days of hobby boardgames, by which I mean the 1990s. Well, let's bring it up to 2013. (Actually, it IS still used sometimes.)

I've been doing this podcast now for more than eight years! I can't quite believe it myself. In the beginning, more than a handful of shows were audio session reports, which I then combined with feedback that I read "on-air." These are simple episodes, inevitably solo shows, and I often used them to go between episodes with a guest about a particular subject. Especially as those shows are getting more and more meta about the hobby itself, a simple "session report & feedback" episode is kind of a relief. I hope you like them, also. I particularly like reading feedback on the podcast, as it reminds me of the Letters section in Sumo, Counter, or other boardgame zines. Those were always the best part.

Stephen Glenn and Mark Jackson join me for part 3 of our 100 game countdown series.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/19524

Have you ever gone a boardgaming road trip? I expect quite a few people might drive a few hundred miles to go to a game convention, but I've never done that. Games Days on Saturdays are local for me, about the same hour's drive I do on my daily commute. Recently, though, my buddy Dave Arnott drove the two of us halfway up California to spend a weekend of games, food, and conversation with other gamer friends. That was different, and a complete blast!

This is sort of like a session report show--remember when I did those? The podcast goes a little long, but that's because we were having fun talking about games on the drive back. That's right, we recorded the podcast about the road trip while we were still on the road trip. Vroom!

We got to play a whole lot of great games: a few new ones and several more old favorites. Jeff Myers is working his way through Spiel des Jahres winners on his blog, [url=http://gameguythinks.com/mississippi-queen/]Gameguythinks[/url], so we made sure to play a couple more of those classic titles, [thing=256][/thing] and [thing=54][/thing]. Other old faves we played were [thing=1315][/thing], [thing=73][/thing], [thing=261][/thing] (1994!), and [thing=5306][/thing] (1962!). The newer ones were [thing=123260][/thing] and [thing=103185][/thing]. I'll cheat a little and include [thing=357][/thing], too, since there was a recent reprint. In between is [thing=40769][/thing], which seems to have slipped past people but is really pretty great. Has EnderWiggin does one of his awesome photo-reviews of Valdora? Seems right up his alley.

Besides the boardgames, we get to tell a couple side stories. We stopped at a thrift store where I grabbed a few bargains (or not--you tell me). Another of Dave's hobbies is [url=http://www.letterboxing.org/]Letterboxing[/url], which is described as "an intriguing pastime combining navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a charming 'treasure hunt' style outdoor quest." Perfect for a road trip! We did that, and we also got to stop at the warehouse for wargame publisher Decision Games. I picked up a couple items in-person, but also had the fun of seeing what goes on at the publisher of Strategy & Tactics, as well as many good wargames.

Opener: Daybreak

Last year was a great year of boardgaming for me. Apparently I played more games than ever, whether you include online plays or not. In this episode I go over the ones I played the most, the ones I liked the most, and some topics other than titles themselves. Like...gaming events I attended, others I'm aiming for in 2024, my excitement for the growing library of "history games," and how I'm still unsatisfied that boardgames haven't built as much connection to travel or place as they could.

Closer: Mark Madness is coming back for 2024, and last year's champion Patrick Pence is helping me! We want your suggestions for divisions & games to go up against each other.

-Mark

Every year I like to look back over the previous one in boardgaming, and reflect on what happened. At the most basic level, this means reviewing my statistics, the number of distinct titles played, as well as the overall total of games played. For me that's typically about 100 titles, 300 total plays, but you'll hear how 2012 was a bit higher than normal. I'm not entirely sure why that was, though I have some ideas. I also talk through my "nickels & dimes" list of games played at least five or ten times.

However, those sort of stats aren't as meaningful for self-reflection as it is to remember some particularly notable games or individual plays. Some games just stand out, regardless of the number of times they were played. My games of Olympia 2000 (v. Chr.) and Reiner Knizia's Decathlon, played during this summer's real Olympics in London are an example. So is my partnership game of Mr. President, played during the last US Presidential campaign season is another.

I often play games online, though Play-By-Web sites like Yucata.de, Michael Schacht's Boardgames Online, or Brass Online. Not everyone agrees that these plays "count," but I do. More important, they let me keep playing games with friends I don't see during the week, or even friends that are in distant places like Houston or Afghanistan. :-) (For what it's worth, I don't log iOS plays, even if they're against a friend. As the games on that platform get better & better, that could change in the future.)

Around the discussions about specific games are other observations about the recovery of my local gaming group, my rekindled interest in wargames, the undeniable impact of Kickstarter (not necessarily on me), solo boardgaming, and why I'm sometimes reverting to the term German Games instead of euros. It has to do with my preference for a style of shorter, elegant game that's more at home in 2000 among Carcassonne, Africa, or Bohnanza rather than 2012's overburdened euros with their resource economies and player status boards. The criticism of my favorite style of boardgame is that they're "superfillers" that are just chasing the Spiel des Jahres for wide, family appeal. Even with a group of gamers over on Friday night, those are the sort of games I like.

The guys join me for part 2 of our 100 game countdown series.

Have you seen the latest video project on BGG? It's called GameNight!, literally hosted (i.e. in their home) by Lincoln Damerst & Nikki Pontius, as well digitally hosted by Scott Alden on BoardgameGeek's YouTube channel. On this podcast I got to talk with both Scott and Lincoln about GameNight!. At the time of recording they'd put out one show, but by now there are three episodes up.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/15465/bgtg-132-gamenight-with-scott-alden-and-lincoln

Several years ago, Stephen Glenn and Mark Jackson polled a number of experienced gamers (a few designers, many reviewers, all enthusiasts) for their top games. I was pleased to be part of it. They consolidated the results, and published them with commentary in a blog called "The One Hundred." It carried the tongue-in-cheek subtitle "The Official & Completely Authoritative 100 Best Games of All Time Ever Without Question...So There!" Not everyone got the irony of that title, but if you knew these guys you'd know they never take themselves too seriously. 

Now in 2012 they felt it was time to do the survey again, adding some new people to the mix to get a broader range of input. I was happy to be asked for my input again, and then pleasantly surprised that they asked for my help with Boardgames To Go to get the survey results out via podcast. Hurray! This time around, I really like how Stephen describes it: "a fun list to discuss over coffee & pie." We were asked for our favorite games, not necessarily the best games. We even got to submit a top fifteen, which took the usual tough request for a top ten and gave us more breathing room for five more titles. I know in my case, it made it easier to add some very recent games to my longstanding faves.  

As he's done for the past few years, Greg Pettit joins me on the podcast to talk about the annual Boardgamegeek convention, BGG.con (do they still call it "dot con"? I always thought that was clever.) I didn't go to the convention. In fact, I've only made it to the first one, and I hear it's only gotten bigger & better since then. Greg, on the other hand, goes every year. I really need to make it back sometime. 

Occurring the week/weekend before Thanksgiving here in America, the convention is timed to include a lot of brand new Essen titles in its famous game library. Even I might succumb to the "cult of the new" a little bit when presented with the opportunity to try so many brand new, exciting titles that have barely made it to this country yet. Greg is like that, too, and it's great to talk with him afterward about so many of these brand new games. With that in mind, I can chime in on a few new titles I've managed to play somehow, even though I didn't make it to the convention.

For this show, Greg and I prepared a Geeklist to go along with it. This was for our own notes & preparation, but we found in prior years that it's fun to share with everyone. I always like comments here on the blog, but you may want to comment about individual games over on that listt. Towards the very end of the show, we also take a brief look back at our similar list from the previous year, too. Though we don't spend too much time on them, you know that I'm always fascinated with analyzing or merely reflecting upon what makes some games longterm keepers, and which ones we're finished with in less than twelve months. In some cases that's completely ok to have "short-term games" like that, but mostly I'm interested in those permanent keepers. 

Do you read boardgame blogs? I mean, besides this one? :)

My friend Jeff Myers is a boardgame blogger, and he joins me on this episode to talk about the subject, both as a reader and an author. 

In some ways, I think blogging is a lost art...and the literary form has only been around since the late 1990s. Perhaps that's because they've developed along with the Internet during that same time period. Though they started out as humble web-logs by quirky, individual authors who wanted to write about something, they exploded into the commercial and professional media world who displaced those private authors.

Except that they didn't.

While the New York Times, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Wall Street Journal, and even consumer products such as Coca-Cola and Volkswagen have things they call blogs (and I guess they are), the blogs boardgamers care about are still around. I'm talking about individual authors with their personal point-of-view, writing style, and a talent for giving us good stuff to read. It's about the boardgames, yes, but it's as much about the author. You find a few you like, you subscribe to the blogs, and (hopefully) give the blogger some feedback.

Greg Pettit must enjoy talking about meta topics on my podcast as much as I do. After helping me on my shows about game themes (for grown-ups or otherwise!), he told me he'd been thinking about the value of a boardgame. Not boardgaming, the entire hobby, but an individual title. And not in a strictly dollars & cents way, but more of a holistic, personal value of an individual game. Ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? It might be good background for Greg's thoughts in this episode.

http://www.BoardgamesToGo.com

Every year I look forward to Essen, both for the games that are being released, and at the analysis of the hits & misses from current & previous years. This time I tried to do the same thing, but was simply overwhelmed by the volume of information. It doesn't eliminate my interest & excitement for Essen, but it takes on a different character. Which is what's it's done a time or two already due to changes in the hobby (both "press coverage" and games published).

http://www.BoardgamesToGo.com

After the last episode where I complained about geeky games, I felt a little compelled to describe a few of those games I DO happen to enjoy. It's a bonus that I got to work in a reference to Curiosity, the Mars rover that just landed.

http://www.BoardgamesToGo.com

Greg Pettit returns to the topic of narrative themes in boardgames, except that it's mostly Mark that needs to unload his true feelings about geeky versus historical themes.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/12349/

Opener: Welcome to Season 20(!!!) of this little podcast

I didn't make it to BGGcon last November, but several of my buddies did. Two of them, Greg Pettit and Dave O'Connor, join me on the podcast to talk about their experience there. For almost half the time we talk about about everything BUT the games (the venue, the crowd, the bazaar, the puzzle hunt, etc)...and then we get into a lot of games. We talk about Heat, Anunnaki, Wandering Towers, Bristol 1350, 1902 Melies, Blood on the Clocktower, Oak, Tricky Badger, Match of the Century, That’s Not A Hat, Rebel Princess, Rollet, Armadillo, At The Office, Voodoo Prince, Gang of Dice, Babylonia, Havalandi, Pax Pamir, Turncoats, Cosmoctopus, Nemesis, Cosmic Frog, and The Thing! Whew!

Closer: Playing games with family (especially party games) using whatever "rules" and "scoring" are most fun

-Mark

Opener: Sea Salt & Paper

I'm a pretty positive guy, and I hope that normally comes through on my podcast. While I have distinct preferences for the kinds of games I play, I try to be willing to play most things. Or at least, when I turn something down I try to be kind about it. It helps to have been around long enough, wearing those preferences on my sleeve. My friends know the kind of big, plastic-filled, multi-hour fantasy fighting games that aren't for me.

However, it IS true that I have an inner monologue, and it can be frustrated with the aspects of our hobby that I don't like. Even worse, I think those aspects are detrimental to its wide enjoyment and acceptance with many people. You know how I open every episode by saying my podcast is about "family strategy boardgames"? Because that's what I like best, and it's what's most important. They're most important to me, and I'd say the wider success through mass market channels (Target, Amazon), plus increased role of our hobby on the culture...well, those things emphasize that family strategy games are generating the most joy for players and the most success for the industry.

Especially on the Discord server, sometimes I'd be more open with those frustrations. Sometimes I just needed to vent a bit. At one point we made a separate discussion channel within that server just for #curmudgeon grumblings. Guess what? It has ended up being some of those most active discussions! Along the way it was suggested that one podcast episode be devoted to the same venting, and here we have it: The Curmudgeon Show. Two volunteers from Discord agreed to help me on this project, and the result is the final episode for this year, season 19.

Take it in the spirit it was intended, and I always look forward to comments.


Closer: I worked at making 2023 a better year for my hobby, and am so pleased that it worked!  [That's not very curmudgeonly! -ed]


-Mark