BGTG 86 - All About Harry's Grand Slam Baseball (with David Gullett)
As promised, here's another All About show, my first in a long time. The way these shows work, I usually employ a guest, and the two of us talk about one game in great detail. This time, that guest is David Gullett, who you've heard on BGTG before, and the game we're talking about is Harry's Grand Slam Baseball.
Now, HGSB is a rather small, light game to spend more than an hour talking about. That is, until you consider that it's a game we both consider favorites, both rate a 10. How can a game that's so simple & small--its detractors say it's all luck, with no real decisions--interest us so much? That's the sort of stuff we talk about. In the process, many more games are brought up for discussion, such as other light card games (e.g. Mille Bornes) and sports board/card games (e.g. Pizza Box Football).
Actually, I did my best to cover light board & cardgame treatments of all kinds of sports, since those are a particular interest of mine. We cover Pizza Box Football, Pizza Box Baseball, Dirk Nowitzki's Crunchtime Basketball, Gridiron Fantasy Football, Pocket Football, Card Football, En Garde, Scoozie, and Streetsoccer. I should've included Strand-Cup and You Can't Check Me.
Towards the end Dave asks me some questions about why I sound so unethusiastic about games most times on BGTG. That's not my intent, and the conversation may lead me to making some changes in how I talk about games in future episodes, especially how I wrap up a segment.
This is a longer episode, just past 90 minutes. I think you'll like it.
-Mark
posted by Mark Johnson at 12:38 PM
4 Comments:
I had a lot of fun doing this episode, I hope us chatting about a game that's rated 1837 on BGG, with an average rating of 6.2, is of interest to those out there.
If the theme COMPLETELY bores you, do skip ahead to the end where we do my version of 'viewer mail', where I put Mark to task for being such a curmudgeon. :)
Hey Mark,
Love the show. I also have really liked the eps with David. In the ep you briefly mentioned an 'ace of aces' style football game. I've been googling it and have not had any luck.
Do you remember the name?
Also, while I have your attention(if I do...) what are your thoughts on those style book games?
Keep up the great show.
The flipbook game I referred to is called Pocket Football. There's a BGG database entry for it. Fun until you realize it's really a small matrix (a few runs, few passes, and few defenses) that are coded into the book, so a limited number of situations & outcomes.
I like this mechanic in general, and I think it would make a great focus of a future episode. Thanks for the idea!
I loved the episode. The game sounded really interesting, so much so. I went to the Out Of The Box website and ordered. It should be arriving this week
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