BGTG 27 - SR: Gygés, Geschenkt, M, Raceway 57, Tower of Babel, Exxtra, Medici

A little bit longer podcast this time, as we played lots of games and had some interesting discussion to boot! Plus, I responded to feedback at the beginning of the show, something I hadn't done for a while.

By the way, one of the reasons we played Tower of Babel at this session was to counteract the botched rules at an earlier outing. I wasn't at that previous session, so those forgotten/misunderstood rules aren't always MY fault. :-)

-Mark

Links
Froogle search for Attacktix
Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight, and Rio Grande games on Amazon.com
Gygés
Geschenkt
M
Raceway 57
Tower of Babel
Exxtra
Medici

The Jim Lehrer of Podcasts

Chris Brooks runs a boardgame blog where he recently offered his assessment of "the three" boardgame podcasts, Geek Speak, Boardgames To Go, and The Dice Tower. I'm happy with his assessment of my podcast, which closes with...

Think of Mark and Boardgames To Go as the the Jim Lehrer of Podcasts. A bit dry at times, but solid content worth tuning into.

In my own comment to this entry, I mentioned two more podcasts I'm aware of that have at least some boardgame content. More are coming!

-Jim

BGTG 26 - Microgames

Finally! I've wanted to get back to a theme show for a while, and one on microgames has been on my to-do list. As I say in the show, this is really sort of training me for doing some shows about wargames. I'm not ready to do that yet, but it will come someday.

This was another recording using the mobile device, a Treo 650, rather than my normal laptop & headset mic rig. There's a drop in audio quality, but I think it's 'listenable.' This is the recorder I'll be taking with me to BGG.con, so I'm motivated to learn how to make the most of it. A special Treo mic might help (if there is such a thing), though I think just backing away from the device and speaking naturally would also help reduce a little clipping.

-Mark

P.S. Haven't included any feedback on the show for a while, but it's still coming in. I need to catch up. And it was Matthew that sent me the audio comment from Australia. Definitely working that in soon.

Links
Microgame HQ
Classic Microgames Museum
Ogre
Microgame Design Group (RIP...)
Fat Messiah Games
Counter Strike Games
Simulations Workshop
ebay search for microgame :-)

Even more for iTunes

I finally figured out how to make my older podcasts show up in iTunes. Now the bulk of my listeners should have access to the earlier material. A grand experiment in my podcast host and bandwidth limitations is about to start... :-/

What kicked me into gear to finally "fix" this was the discovery that my pre-iTunes shows showed downloads/audience of only half what the more recent shows are getting.

-Mark

BGTG 25 - July 18, 2005 - SoCal Games Day 22 (with Sam)

Over a week between podcasts, rats! Well, sometimes our lives get busy, right? Between a crunch at work . . . and a literal crunch at home (car crash--everyone's ok), there wasn't a chance to record anything recently. Hopefully I'll catch up soon.

First up is another in-between show. I guess it's mostly an audio session report, but since it talks about SoCal Games Day, and especially dads playing games with their sons, I think it has a theme, too.

Here on the website you can see that the logo has been decided--it's the pawn-on-wheels design. Thanks to everyone who voted in my web poll. And thanks most of all to Greg Wilzbach who designed them both!

-Mark

Games
Mechwarrior: Dark Age
Heroscape
Attacktix
Pirate's Cove

BGTG 24 - July 9, 2005 - Two-player games SR: Jambo, Starship Catan, Richelieu, Flowerpower

This show was something of a hybrid, an audio session report that had an overall theme: 2-player games. That's because the most recent Santa Clarita Boardgamer session just had two players! Myself and BGTG logo designer Greg Wilzbach. We got in some good ones, and once again it made me think that we ought to play these more even on nights when we've got more turnout.

Speaking of those logos, the polling is going to wind down soon. The iPod/Meeple-blasting-off logo is going to have to make up a lot of ground to overtake the pawn-on-wheels logo. Voting results are now approaching 65%-35% . . . but only a modest subset of my listeners have actually voted so far.

-Mark

Games
Jambo
Starship Catan
Richelieu
Lost Cities
Flowerpower

BGTG - July 5, 2005 - SR: Smarty Party Jr., Attacktix, Geschenkt, Oceania

Once again I included my son Sam on the podcast. This show is an audio session report for some games played with family over the 4th of July holiday weekend. So it's got some angst about getting family to play the sort of games I like, trying to pick things they like, and then worrying about how well they went over. :)

Be sure to vote on the new logos using the webpoll in my right sidebar. Thanks!

Mark

Games
Smarty Party Jr.
Geschenkt
Oceania
Attacktix

The logos are here!

Greg Wilzbach's logos are now displayed at the top of this page. I had one idea, helped by some other friends, and Greg also came up with his own concept. The result is two nice logos. While I could use the both, probably one should be the main one--maybe the only one. And why not make it a new web poll!

Take a look at those two logos, and then use the voting buttons in the right sidebar. I won't take nearly so long to wind up the voting as I did on the previous polls. This one will go just about a week or so.

Speaking of polls, check out the results from my old one about the purpose of the International Gamers Awards. While my own opinions about overall game production or growing the hobby weren't completely shut out in the poll, the overwhelming response was that the award should concentrate on game design alone. Which is pretty much what the IGAs do, so I guess it's meeting expectations.

-Mark