All About shows Geeklist

Listener Christopher Boothe took the initiative to create a geeklist of his favorite BGTG episodes, the All About shows. Thanks, Chris!

BGTG 52 - Feb.26, 2006 - SR: Vinci, Wallenstein, Hansa, and Tikal (all play-by-web) and Feedback

Back to another Session Report & Feedback show, and back to my usual recording setup. This show focuses almost exclusively on play-by-web games, sharing some news about them, and talking about a few of the titles I played recently. Plus the feedback, of course.

As I hoped, this proved to be a notably shorter show. Anything less than an hour is notable for me, now! :) Gives you more time to listen to all of those other boardgame podcasts.

I always forget something in every show, and in this one I forgot to recommend the mailing list (i.e. Yahoo Group) for play-by-web boardgamers. It's called spiel-by-web, but isn't directly associated with Mikael Sheikh's site of the same name. It hasn't been a very active mailing list for some time, but I think would still be probably the best place for a community of players to congregate.

-Mark

Links
Vassal
Skype
ekted's rundown of play-by-web sites on his Gamer's Mind blog
spiel-by-web mailing list (Yahoo Group)
BGG Geeklist of play-by-web games
YouPlay.it - Blue Max, King Me!, Cartagena
Ludagora - Through the Desert, Vinci, Medina, Hare & Tortoise, others
MabiWeb - Hansa, Richelieu (In development: Samurai, Shadow of the Emperor)
Spiel by Web - Amun-Re, Bus, Hoity Toity, Reef Enc,Tikal, Wally (In test: La Citta, Santiago) (In development: Caylus, El Grande, Hacienda)
Boîte à Jeux - Alhambra, Fearsome Floors, Torres, Gipf, Dvonn, Droles des Zebres, Shazamm, others (In development: Medici, Dungeon Twister, Zertz, Yinsh, others)
Yucata.de - Hazienda, Rosenkonig, Kahuna, Yucata, Chinagold, others
BGG - Euphrat & Tigris, Kingdoms
Koplow Dice Tray (part of an interesting BGG entry for Misc Game Accessory)
Plano 3705 tackle boxes

BGTG 51 - Feb.13, 2006 - SR: Jenseits von Theben, Vegas Showdown, Bolide, Zahltag, and Feedback

This episode became my white whale. It was a struggle to get it recorded, edited, partially scrapped & re-recorded, and finally posted. Towards the end, I have to admit that I just gave up a little bit, posting it even though I'm still not happy with the audio quality. Also, I think I ramble on just a bit too much, though at least the second take was better than the first! The audio issues come from using a slightly different setup, one I'd hoped would give me a little more flexibility in where & when I record the shows (i.e., it's more portable). It worked ok, and could probably be improved further, though I'm not sure it solves my fundamental problem of not enough time to spend on the podcast!

Ah well, at least it's posted now. Maybe I can turn around a (shorter) 52nd show quicker, getting in some more audio feedback that I couldn't squeeze into this episode.

In the news section I mention how you need to read this blog/website to learn how to join me for games of Torres, Alhambra, Fearsome Floors, and perhaps Droles des Zebres on the play-by-web site Boîte à Jeux. That site doesn't use passwords, but I can still restrict a game to BGTGers by inviting specific users to join my games. To do that, I need your BAJ usernames. Email them to me, or--better yet--post them in comments to this message.

Towards the end of the feedback section I ask the audience for some idea for game accessories that make good gifts for the gamer who has everything. Got some ideas?

-Mark

P.S. Samarit, I later figured out that Togo is in west Africa, not the South Pacific. Sorry about that! At least I know where Bavaria is . . . :)

Links
Bloglines (free web-based blog reader/subscriber)
Comment feed (or use chicklet icon, above)
New podcasts! The Vintage Gamer, Garrett's Games & Geekiness, Point 2 Point, Coldfoot's 5-Minute Audio Reviews
My Interview by an Optimist (that's Tom Vasel, of course!)
Play-by-web sites: SpielByWeb, Ludagora, Boîte à Jeux, BGG
Jenseits von Theben
Vegas Showdown
Bolide (and the old skool graph paper racing game that might even be better [and another])
Zahltag
Joe Huber's German Game Author article about Franz-Benno Delonge
Game accessories: Plasti-bands, Shocking Roulette, ziplock bags, spare pawns & chips

Sorry for the delay!

I'm disappointed, too. I actually recorded a podcast three days ago. I was experimenting with a different recording setup, and after listening to it I decided the sound quality in the first half of the show was unacceptable. So I need to redo it, *sigh*. The better news is that I think the recording rig CAN work ok, and it gives me a little more flexibility in where & when I record a show. I'd love to say that will me do even more shows with even more people, but the reality is that I'm just trying to keep up with the pace I set in 2005!

A couple advance tidbits from the soon-to-be-rerecorded-show...

Want to join me in a play-by-web game of Torres, Alhambra, and/or Fearsome Floors? Then make sure you're a registered player on the pbw site Boîte à Jeux and send me an email with your username. Better yet, post it in a comment here. It's not possible to create a password-protected game just for BGTGers on that site, but I can invite specific users to join me in a game.

It's a session report and feedback show featuring Jenseits von Theben, Vegas Showdown, Bolide, and Zahltag. In case you want to study-up or something. :)

-Mark

Long shows no problem?

In my 50th podcast I went over the single-CD show duration (about 78 minutes). Actually I've done that several times, but in all the other instances I split the show into two parts. This time I didn't . . . other than to make available a less elegantly hacked-into-two download. I just took a look at the download stats, and they seem to indicate the hacked-up show isn't necessary. They might even indicate that shows longer than 78 minutes aren't a problem. That's because I've got about a thousand folks listening to podcast, including show #50, but not much more than a couple dozen downloads for the part 1/part 2 show.

Don't get me wrong--I don't want the shows to be that long. If there's a ton of good material to discuss, then I might properly split into two A & B shows, as I've done before. Ordinarily, I want to squeeze the show down to less than 80 minutes. But if it goes a little over that limit in the future, maybe I won't bother with splitting the show into parts.

-Mark

Another good boardgame podcast

This has already been reported on Boardgamenews.com, but I also want to call your attention to Garrett's Games & Geekiness, a new boardgame podcast by Doug Garrett. Doug is probably best known as the boardgame organizer for the well-regarded Kublacon game convention. It's held in the San Francisco Bay Area over Memorial Day Weekend. A few years ago I got to go when Reiner Knizia made an appearance, and last year he returned . . . which we all got to hear on Derk & Aldie's BoardgameSpeak.

Anyway, give Doug's podcast a listen. If you play podcasts on your desktop or iPod, it's ready to go right now. If you use a CD burner or some other player (like my Treo), you can't use the feed just yet--click on the MP3 links instead. It's worth it!

-Mark

More voicemail fixes

Sheesh, around the same time I recorded an outgoing message for the Boardgames To go dial-in number (206-222-BGTG), the voicemail capability on my Skype account (username: boardgamestogo) went kablooie! But that's fixed now, too. Whew!