Boardgames To Go

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.

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

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 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 o

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 cla

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-We

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

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

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 abo

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/