Here's a solo show focusing on a particular publisher, Adlung Spiele. These are the guys (or maybe just one guy with some freelance authors & illustrators) that produce one of my favorites, Verräter, and other small card games. Most of them are only small in format, though--a single deck of cards in a tuckbox. Many of their games play much larger than they appear, feeling like more of a boardgame

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Wow, when I said my family gaming was starting to work, I wasn't kidding! Last night my wife & I played our new copy of On The Underground.Not only that, but this was a game she requested, or at least she agreed that it sounded interesting after I described it to her the week before. That was after I'd played it for the first time at my local game group, and thought the mechanics and--especially-

A quick show with my thoughts on boardgaming over the past year, and what I anticipate for 2007. These retrospectives are a little harder to do without stats . . . but then what would stats tell me, anyway? For me, the real point is to talk about games that have become new favorites, especially ones I think will be keepers for the long haul. To be honest, I'm not sure how many of even the "hits"

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As of this writing, I've actually recorded two podcasts. One of them had to be scrapped for audio quality reasons, and I'm in the process of redoing it. That one is with a special guest, so I really hope I can get it redone sooner rather than later. The other is a more routine solo show, no technical problems, just needs a little more work (editing, test-listen). It's my retrospective on 2006,

I've surprised myself by becoming more and more interested in abstract games over the years. However, as I discuss in this show, that's due to discovering a wide range of abstracts that don't make my head hurt. You see, I've never been a fan of chess, go, logic puzzles, or anything else that requires such hard thinking. It's just not fun for me. Even then, it's not the analysis that I find as

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Whew! The show is now posted. You know that getting a podcast out during this part of the year is tricky for me (aren't we all busy with the holidays?), and with the backlog of material it has turned out to be a biggie. Good news, I hope. The last time I had a show larger than one audio CD, almost no one downloaded the split file--everyone downloaded the big sucker like usual. So either you've

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In addition to the games I've played with gamers to round out the year, I've continued to have more success with friends & family, too. Those are much lighter games, but that never bothered me in the first place, and of course those are much more approachable (and more fun) for people who don't enjoy learning new rules all the time. I had another chance to break out a few light games during some

Like I said, no chance to do another podcast this year, but I can fill you in on some recent gaming via the blog. Last night I attended my last Santa Clarita game group session of the year, and we were joined by Greg Parker. He's a long way from home up in Redding, but has family down here so we see him once in a while during holidays. Podcast listeners should be familiar with Greg from his

Remember how I said I planned on taking a planned hiatus from mid-November until after New Year's? Well, that was a good idea, because this is just a very busy time for me to work in some podcasting. Just the same, I wanted to catch up on some audio feedback, and my plan is still to put together kind of a "mash-up" show. Somewhere I've still got a recording made last August that was never

My best chance for playing games with Molly is when she's bored, having exhausted all other options. That sounds bad, but when that happens she's not reduced to playing a boardgame with dad--she looks forward to it. She just looks forward to it after everything else falls through. :-) Hey, I'll take it. Recently her friends have been busy doing other things, so we've had several days over the

Nope, I didn't make it back to BGG.con this year. I never manage to be a regular attendee of conventions--even though I've been to many of them once. Last year it was BGG.con, the year before was the Gathering, before that was Essen, and before that was Kublacon when Knizia was there. A few years prior I was lucky enough to go to Gulf Games. All of these have been great fun, and hopefully someday

Whew! Finally a new show. Like the last time I (unintentionally) took a little time off from the podcast, it was a little hard to get back into the swing of things. Last time I thought a simpler Session Report and Feedback show was the way to get back into the podcasting groove, but this time I wanted to try a theme show. That's because I'd been hearing the excellent series hosted by Eric Burgess

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Okay.That was a long break, wasn't it? Too long? I think so. In other words, I haven't quit the podcast. I want to do more... I will do more. But in this episode I explain how a combination of internal choices & external pressures has led to this major slowdown of Boardgames To Go.To be honest, I think I sound a little rusty in this one. But it'll come back to me. I'm looking forward to talking

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Just like last year, I can't help sharing some of my excitement about the Essen game fair happening this week . . . even though I won't be going. I was lucky enough to be there in 2003, something that may never happen again. But you don't have to GO to Essen to be excited about all of the new game releases. Some of them have already been available for purchase from vendors, but most are making

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I'm starting to catch up with some older feedback as I begin to do more Session Report shows again. I had a bit of a cold while recording this one, but I hope it still sounds ok. And I sure hope I edited out all the times I coughed!Something I forgot to mention was the information Gene Pool's designer posted about self-publishing his game. It's on the Board Game Designers Forum.-Mark

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As promised, here's the post-Essen followup show. A few weeks ago I talked about the games I was interested in hearing more about at Essen. Now here's Mike Siggins, coming on the podcast to give BGTG listeners some firsthand accounts of his time at the fair, and impressions of some games. Be sure to also read Mike's column (the "Gamer's Notebook") at Funagain on the same subject. -Mark

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I was getting set up to record another podcast tonight. Took the notes, did the research, printed out some feedback. Yep, I was all set. And then my kids asked to play a game before bed, suggesting Time's Up. Obviously, the podcast was backburnered and we had fun with the game instead!(Later I'll have to talk about how to play Time's Up with kids . . . and with only three players.)

See? I told you I'd get a show out this week. Just had to ignore my family to get it done. (I'm kidding.) Don't know if I will, but I think I should try to knock out a couple more semi-smaller shows featuring session reports and some feedback. We'll see. This one starts with a smattering of news items and whatnot before I get into the discussion of specific games. Stuff like mentioning some new

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Once again, I hope people are reading the blog as well as listening to the podcast. Because I often think of things I missed after the podcast is finished. (It's not just me--the host for the highly recommended BBC Radio 4 program In Our Time does the same thing via post-show emails.)I really want to talk about the family gaming (and other non-gamer gaming) I've been doing lately, but that show

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During the All About Vinci show, my guest Dave Arnott thought to bring up something we'd failed to cover during our previous All About show, covering Medici almost a year ago. Rather than include that in the Vinci show, I clipped that part out to be used later. Something similar happened when Dave turned the tables on me for the "Dark Johnson" interview, when we got into some discussion about

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