BGTG 92 - Game Awards (with Dave Arnott)

Part 2 of my discussion with Dave Arnott was about game awards. There are a bunch of them, from the Spiel des Jahres to the Golden Geeks. We talk about a whole range of them, and also consider how game awards are similar or different from other artistic awards, such as the Oscars. (By the way, I did go see Slumdog Millionaire that night, and though I liked it I wouldn't have called it the Best Picture of the year.)

-Mark

P.S. Let me know if you think the audio levels sound better on this recording. Like most of my guests, Dave has lower lows and (especially) higher highs than my own voice, which makes leveling the audio tricky with my low budget rig. Aldie suggested I pipe it through some software called Levelator, so I'm trying that for this second half of our show.

BGTG 91 - 2008 Year in Review (with Dave Arnott)

What started as one show with two topics ended up being two shows. This is the first part, where Dave Arnott and I reflect on 2008. That means talking about our games played, totals as well as "fives & dimes." We also consider which were are favorite releases or discoveries in 2008. Along the way are some inevitable discussions about online plays, whether realtime (e.g. brettspielwelt, Game Table Online) or play-by-web (e.g. Mabiweb, Spielbyweb).

-Mark

Join me for PBW Brass?

Lately I've really been enjoying Brass in its play-by-web implementation. The presentation isn't pretty, but is perfectly functional, and it enables more play of this deep game. Anyone care to join me? The password is bgtg, as always.

http://wargamessoc.union.shef.ac.uk/brass/index.php

http://wargamessoc.union.shef.ac.uk/brass/lobby.php?GameID=1406

BGTG 90 - Veto-Proof Game Night (with Ryan Wheeler)

My buddy Ryan Wheeler is part of our local game group, the Santa Clarita Boardgamers. In fact, he's the driving force of the group, hosting most of the game nights, always adding to his collection, and infecting the rest of us with his enthusiasm and sense of humor. When schedules conflicts led to only two of us showing up for games one night, I pressured him into recording another podcast with me. (Later that night we played Risiko Express and Ice Flow, which we don't talk about on the podcast.)

The topic I chose was a recent, successful experiment in the group: veto-proof game night. It was the idea of Ryan's wife, Erin, who occasionally plays games with us. That label (and the title of this BGTG episode) isn't what Ryan & Erin called it, and doesn't quite describe what she had in mind. But it was the only name I had for it. Basically, she suggested that each of us gets one week's game group session in the month of December to pick a game from our collection that we really wanted to play, probably one we haven't gotten to the table yet, and as a "gift" everyone would happily play it--no questions asked.

It was great. Three of us picked games on successive weeks--games that probably wouldn't have seen play otherwise--and everyone was onboard with just jumping right in. What was interesting for the podcast was the different nature of the three games. I think it made for some interesting discussion, together with side points about session reports and game group dynamics, in general.

-Mark

Games for auction

I've posted another auction on Boardgamegeek. Help me get rid of some games so I can trick myself into buying more, immediately overwhelming the storage space I'm trying to recover! :)

Auction ends on Friday, March 6. See the instructions at the top of the page.