I'll do a show recapping this information later, but while I can't record a podcast right now with family visiting, I can squeeze in a blog post. Throughout the year I keep my games-played statistics on Boardgamegeek (the "cloud" of our hobby), which makes it so easy to pull that data out now. Here are the raw stats, and below I'll offer a little commentary. "Quarters" Dominion 47 Brass 44

Chris left a comment after the previous podcast (anticipating this year's Essen), asking what games were my favorites from past Essens. That was the idea behind this show--my favorites, BGG's favorites, and what seemed liked the favorites at the time (Fairplay ratings). I looked up the past decade of Fairplay rankings, compared it against current BGG rankings, and also figured out my favorites

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If you pay attention to the episode numbers, you'll see this one actually belongs before the previous show about Essen. I only needed to hurry that one out in time for the big game fair in Germany this week. I'd recorded this episode focusing on Martin Wallace's Brass with guest Stephanie Kelleher (songlian on BGG). Stephanie is at Essen right now helping with the BGG/Geekdo booth! We both

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As before, I've managed to squeeze in a show just before the Essen game fair Spiel that shares my anticipation for the event and a number of games. Nope, I'm not going there, just living vicariously through the preview information about the games about to debut at this enormous event in our hobby. All of this may will change after we start hearing (and seeing!) more about this games from

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I'm in the middle of more business travel than I've ever had to do before. I know a lot of people have to travel more than I, so I'm not complaining. I'm just experiencing the impact it has on your life, especially your time with family & friends. The family part is my deal, but the friends parts relates to games, which is why I'm writing about it on the blog.Last month I did play some games. You

I've always enjoyed reading through the results of the best card game award given in Germany, the À La Carte. Kind of like the Spiel des Jahres or International Gamers Awards, this award is given by an editorial board. However, this year they've opened up an online poll--not to decide or change the outcome of the award, just as a fun check between what the game-buying public thinks is the best

Gamewright is mostly known for mass market kids' games that are notably better than what you usually find on the shelf at Toys R Us or Target. They also do an amazing job at sneaking a little educational value into some of the titles (often math), while others are just silly fun. Another sneaky move they pull off is bring eurogames by award-winning designers to America by skillful retheming of

Let me clear about this--most of the explanation for the delay in this podcast (recorded almost two months ago) is simply that I never got around to finishing & posting it. Part of that is because the show is longer than usual--longer than fits on a CD--and I thought I wanted to edit it down considerably. But as you know if you're a longtime listener, I don't really do that kind of editing. I

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Whoops! I almost let two months go by since my last show. I've been playing plenty of games, so here's a session report & feedback show to describe my inability to play economic games with any skill! But as badly as I've been doing at them, I'm still interested. In fact, I'm even more interested in the games because it feels like there's something everyone else understands about their strategy

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It comes up from time to time in discussions about our hobby--will any of the games we're playing now achieve "classic" status? There are commercial classics like Monopoly, Risk, and Scrabble, as well as cultural or timeless classics like Go, Chess, and Poker. That's an awfully high standard for any game to achieve, even ones we think so highly of on our game nights and gamesdays. What does

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I'm not entirely sure what I want to do with it yet, but went as far as deciding to get a Twitter account for this podcast. My podcasts have tended to be longer and in more depth--Twitter is about the opposite form of communication. That's why it may prove useful--sometimes I have small, even tiny things to say or ask that are appropriate for Twitter. Boardgamegeek now has some hooks into

A podcast listener recently posed this question about easy access to the BGTG archives. I'm a long time listener but ever since my iPod was decommissioned I've been away. Now that I've got a new one, I'm trying to catch up with previous episodes but I've hit a small snag - iTunes (or rather BGTG's feed on iTunes store) only shows the 10 most recent files [. . .] Not that this is really a

It must be just about time for a boring show with just me on the mic, but you're spared once again! This time I have fellow podcaster Eric "Boardgame Babylon" Burgess with me to talk about another of my favorites, Big City. Turns out it's one of his, too, and when I made a half-serious request for someone to do this episode with, Eric responded right away. We live somewhat far from each other,

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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

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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

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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

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

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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.

I'm doing that again (never stopped, really). Go to the usual sites (SpielByWeb, Mabiweb, MichaelSchacht.net) to look for games I've started for BGTG podcast listeners, and the password for each is bgtg.Also, if you go to the realtime sites Brettspielwelt or GameTableOnline (or the hybrid pbw/realtime site Yucata.de--which just added Arkadia in beta test), be sure to see if I'm online. I always

Someone just did, and I'd like to respond on a future episode, but unfortunately he must've been calling on a cell phone with a poor signal. The audio drops out during all of the important words of his message, like his question why I don't do more shows about my ______ games. What was that? Or his name--that also dropped out.If you're out there, please try again!