BGTG 76 - Summertime Games

A quick, little podcast this time, one from my "archives." By that I mean this was one of those shows I recorded last summer, when I wasn't uploading any podcasts. At least one of those recordings was unceremoniously dumped, but this is one I still had lying around. It's another recording made in my car, but I learned from episode 74 that mostly leaving the audio alone is better than trying to get too fancy with the filtering and noise reduction.

I called this episode "Summertime Games" as a catch-all term for the rundown of several games I was playing, mostly with my own family, during this time. No real theme other than that--a pleasant reflection that I really am playing more games with them, and that they're games I enjoy, too. This is a show I could bang out quickly before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US.

Speaking of Thanksgiving and family gaming, once again I've packed way too many games to bring to grandma's house for the holiday. Only this time I know my own kids may want to play a couple with me, and we're hoping to involve some of the other relatives, too. Plus, I think my selection of games is getting better suited for a family weekend than I used to bring. We'll see. Maybe that can be a future podcast episode, along with some overdue feedback.

-Mark

BGTG 75 - Decade+1 Retrospective (with Dave Arnott)

Last year, my buddy Dave Arnott and I talked on the phone about how we'd now been in the hobby for a decade. In that time the hobby was in many ways the same, but the interesting parts were the differences. Now we have Boardgamegeek, do a lot less overseas ordering, and I can't recall the last time I played a game with a separate page of card translations we all had to hand back & forth while playing. Seemed like a good idea for a podcast.

Then my podcast sort of went on hiatus, and so the decade has now become eleven years, or "decade+1." In our retrospective, we talked about a number of changes over the years, trying to talk about the hobby in general, but understandably drifting back to our own local experiences much of the time. We also tried to describe what we know about the hobby before we got into it. The earlier generation (of which my previous guest Mike Siggins was an important part).

This is one of my longest shows ever, but I decided to post the whole thing rather than two parts because some of you may need some boardgame material to listen to while on a long trip to BGG.con next week. Sadly, I won't be there, but Dave Arnott will! Be sure to tell him if you see him what you thought of the podcast.

-Mark

BGTG 74 - Post-Essen 2007 (with Mike Siggins)

Once again I'm pleased to bring Mike Siggins' boardgame commentary to podcasting with our annual show recapping his observations about Essen. Mike writes some of these in his column on Funagain.com, called The Gamer's Notebook, and that piece is a good companion to this BGTG episode.

At the end, I also have a brief review on the one Essen title I've managed to play so far, Wolfgang Kramer's Origo. I got to play this one even though I've never seen it in-person, thanks to the wonder of Brettspielwelt's online boardgame portal.

-Mark