As promised, here's my annual episode running through the new Essen games that have caught my eye. There are games I'm pretty sure I want, others I'm pretty sure I don't, and a whole bunch I need to know more about first (hopefully by playing).Essen opens its doors to everyone tomorrow, and the press-only day has already started. Folks like me will be checking internet sites repeatedly through

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Shorter than normal, this epsiode contains two twin interviews, one by Mark Zielinski, the other by Mary Prasad.

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Essen is now right around the corner, but I'm going to try to squeeze in an "Essen Anticipation" show, as I've done in previous years. I got a few requests for this episode, and that's the best inspiration for doing it.-Mark

If the apocalypse comes, beep me. First we take a trip to Colonial America to battle classic horror movie villains in A Touch of Evil. Then we enroll at Sunnydale High and try to dust The Master playing Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

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In this episode, Geoff discusses "solved" games, Charley talks about the top ten Fantasy Flight games that you need to buy NOW, and Mark discusses Warhammer 40K. Giles gets nostalgic, we start a new contest, and Sam reviews Fury of Dracula. We preview several games, and end the show with our top ten abstract strategy games.

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The voice of the people is the voice of games. Populism rules the day. We pander to the Roman public for seats on the council in Municipium and follow up with Gridstones and Gubs, two titles by new and independent game designers.

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In this episode, we add a new contributor - Charley Eastman, who manages to play Shogun with a three year old. Geoff talks about triangular numbers, Mark compares Gencon to Origins, and Stephen finds a couple more good old games. Sam and Tom review Thebes, answer some questions, and discuss some recently played games. Finally, we end the show with our top ten ways to upgrade games.

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Volcanos and snake-haired gods. We build towers and temples on a fiery island in Taluva and guide ancient Etruscan oracles to a sacred altar in Tuchulcha, a wacky Parcheesi variant.

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This blog recently received a great comment from Tristan who re-listened to the 2.5-year old All About Vinci episode after finally getting to try the game in-person. Vinci is still a great favorite of mine, and now I'd like to see if any other listeners would like to join me in a play-by-web version. Now, I'll warn you that the website is all in German, so if you've never played pbw (or Vinci),

In this episode, Tom and Sam review 12 games, including Merlin's Company - an expansion to Shadows over Camelot. Moritz talks about popular culture and gaming, and Eric reviews Split! We discuss current news, and give a top ten list on "turkeys", games we like much less than when we first played them.

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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

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Hurray! I've wanted to do another "All About" show for some time, and last night I recorded one. It wasn't about Big City, though, as I'd hinted in my last podcast (that's another I still want to do). No, for this one I got my buddy Dave Gullett (BGG's davebo, aka the Big Red Rock Eater) to share the mic with me and talk all about Harry's Grand Slam Baseball. That might seem a little game for a

In this episode, Mark discusses his experiences at Gen Con, and Tom talks about how exactly the Dice Tower podcast is put together. More random musings may be found throughout.

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Dirigibles by gaslight. We race to build the Hindenburg wiith dice playing Airships and take turns tracking down Jack the Ripper or plotting his escape in Mr. Jack.

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You're in luck. The carcast I recorded earlier about some games played at a recent Games Day was also destroyed accidentally, so I just had to re-record it at home. This way it ends up with better audio quality, and I got to tack on some recent email feedback, too.These are all games I played at a recent Games Day put on by LA's famous Stephanie. You've heard about her on other podcasts, and

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Oops. I thought I'd finally get around to posting a carcast recorded more than a year ago after I'd played some business-themed games, comparing & contrasting all three of them. They were Shark, Buy Low Sell High (aka Palmyra), and one more I've forgotten. Well, it doesn't matter now because this apparently I deleted this recording I discarded when I was at a low ebb in my satisfaction with

In this episode, Tom and Sam talk about their top ten favorite games. We discuss award voting with Geoff, and end our contest for Say Anything.

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In this episode, originally aired October 15, 2005, we review David and Goliath and Pizza Box Football, and discuss Puerto Rico, Hellas, Pacru, and Barbarossa. Our top ten list this time is our top ten least favorite games. Or in other words, the ten games we hate the most.

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Please, sir, may I have some more? The second half of our convention coverage features nine interviews about new games from the blasphemous to the sublime. We wander from ancient Rome and Troy to the gritty tech-noir streets of Murder City.

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One thing this blog is good for is correcting mistakes & omissions in my podcasts. After recording the recent one about Martin Wallace games, I forgot to mention the interesting and authentic-feeling arms races that happened in our complete 3-player game. Though Ryan & I both agreed that Mike was out to a big lead, we ran into trouble going after him during the middle & end of the game. Because