Boardgames To Go

BGTG 99 - Ten Years of Essens

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:16:29 PST

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 from that same Essen. In addition to BGG, the original German boardgame database Luding was very useful, since it allows searches for a particular Essen year.

My favorites from all these years are mostly "superfillers," but there are some heavier games as long as they aren't particularly long. A few kids' games and card games, too.

What are your favorites from these years?

-Mark

BGTG 97 - All About Brass (with Stephanie Kelleher)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:20:28 PDT

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 really enjoy this game. Stephanie has played more face-to-face games, while I've got a lot more online plays. I tend to prefer lighter/shorter games, but Wallace's games always have a strong appeal for their historical themes. Stephanie is more of a fan of heavy games. The interesting part is how much we both like this one.

-Mark

BGTG 98 - Essen Anticipation 2009

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:56:11 PDT

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 firsthand gamer experience, first at Essen itself, and especially after a month or so at BGG.con. (Unfortunately, I won't be there, either.)

If you want to follow along to the titles I run down that I find interesting, you could look through this private geeklist. It's not a polished thing ready for others to comment on. In fact, I disabled the comments, preferring instead to include a link back to this blog entry. Please write your comments here, or else send email/audio feedback to the usual destinations. Thanks.

-Mark

Last & next month's games

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:03:59 PDT

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 can see them over to the right in the sidebar. The biggie I played was Le Havre, semi-sequel to Agricola, and just recently the winner of the International Gamers Award.. Now, I missed almost all the excitement about Agricola, but when I finally played it almost a year after the buzz started I kind of liked it. By that I mean I liked it well enough, about the same as many new titles--happy to play now & then, but it didn't displace one of my favorite (say top 20) games. No shame in that--these are my top games after more than a decade of boardgaming, so it's pretty unusual for a new game to be that much better than some proven favorites. Besides, I play more new games in that general category than old favorites anyway. Agricola was in good company, even if it wasn't one of my new favorites.

I figured the same would happen with Le Havre. Like Agricola, I didn't play it when it first came out--I only just played it for the first time last month. I was in no hurry to play it, but I wasn't avoiding it, either. I just knew I'd play it eventually. Now that I have, wow!, I'm not sure why people like this game so much! That's not true--I do understand it . . . kind of. I felt about Le Havre like I felt about Sid Meier's Civilization, Sim-City, or the Realtime Strategy computer games that came shortly thereafter: fun to see how everything works, fun to fiddle with it for a while, but before I finished a single game I was turned off by the micromanagement. Am I the only one who feels this way?

That's why I say I do and I don't understand the appeal. I understood the initial appeal of those computer games, but not their broad success and staying power. To me, Le Havre is a micromanagement boardgame, and that's not a good thing.

To me, of course--to each his own. However, I remember when wargames got too complicated for their own good in the 1980s. I was a borderline wargamer (esp. for the historic stuff), but interested enough to watch it all take place. It's not like gamers & designers suddenly decided complexity and length were good qualities. They just ended up on a slippery slope, where it seemed better to add more "stuff" to a game in order to make it more realistic, more involving, or offer a more rewarding experience. In retrospect it looks like the whole hobby just about went off the rails then, but not everyone thought so at the time. I'm not saying Le Havre is a dramatic lurch in the "wrong direction" for boardgames, but I'm pretty sure it will be a game looked back on in ten years and gamers will wonder why it was so highly regarded.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong. Some complex games like 18XX, Advanced Civ, and maybe Republic of Rome have had staying power. Closer to home, Die Macher and Roads & Boats have their diehards. Through The Ages is perhaps the most recent heavy eurogame with a large(?) group of fans and critical success.

It didn't help that Le Havre was the first eurogame I can recall where I had trouble reading "the fine print" on the game components (resource counters). I could see the ones right in front of me or my nearby opponent, but the stacks across the table I had more trouble with. Some of the resources have distinctly different icons on either side of the counter, but others don't. Mostly that's a problem with the physical design/production of the game (well, that and my 43 year old eyes!), but I think it's also fair to say it's a limitation of the game itself. Ours was the part of the hobby that used to get by (and look classy, by the way) with wooden cubes in a few colors that had no text on them at all! I'm getting old, I guess! :-)

Besides that one game of Le Havre, I've played a fair bit of Race for the Galaxy. Between the online server and the amazing standalone AI download, this has been my go-to game when doing all of this traveling. My record at the game is pretty horrible, but that's what you want in a program with AI opponents--a real challenge and chance to learn. I've always liked RftG, even though I like San Juan (and Dominion) more. Most of all, I think Race is not an easy game for newbies, or to relearn after you've been away from it for a while. Neither of those limitations even shows up when I play it on the computer, though, whether against those sharky AI opponents offline or the sharky human opponents online. It was clear this is a game that rewards experience, strategic thinking, and good tactical decisionmaking. How amazing that both of these implementations are free! My own copy of Race sits comparatively unused at home, but I'm getting its money's worth out of the computer implementations. :-)

Plus I can also go back and read Brian Bankler's strategy articles, now that I can understand them.

-Mark

P.S. Next month? Oh, I'm not sure what I'll be playing next month, but it should be some face-to-face games with my buddies. Maybe we'll even try Le Havre again!

Go "vote" on the � La Carte card game award

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:14:40 PDT

I've always enjoyed reading through the results of the best card game award given in Germany, the � 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 game, compared to that editorial board thinks.

http://fairplay-online.blogspot.com/2009/09/la-carte-2009.html

Gamewright euros (and testing Twitterfeed)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:56:56 PDT

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 the games. That's how we got Turn the Tide (aka Zum Kuckuck by Stefan Dorra/FX Schmid), Loot (aka Pirat by Reiner Knizia/Amigo), and Ka-Ching (aka Combit by Palesch & R�sner/Winning Moves). That's fantastic! Our only quibble might be that they keep the designers of these games almost a secret, putting their credit in small print at the end of the rules, and on the back of the box.

I just received a batch of new & old Gamewright games, many of which I hope to try soon and discuss along with previously played Gamewright titles in an upcoming podcast. While reading the rules to one, I thought how the mechanics sounded similar to Circus Flohcati or Cheeky Monkey. Sure enough, I looked hard and found it was designed by Knizia. Another one is an American version of the newest game in the Schmidt Spiele EasyPlay line.

Has someone made a Geeklist of these clandestine eurogames brought over by Gamewright? I didn't find one.

(With this post I'm also testing my new Twitterfeed linkage. Could be the best of both worlds if I can do a "full" blog post here and have it picked up on twitter.)

-Mark

BGTG 96 - Translations, Editions, and Revisions (with David Gullett)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:43:52 PDT

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 don't do much editing at all, truthfully. (Feedback welcome on that, by the way.) After I gave up the idea of editing out so much content, I figured I'd just post the show in two parts, spaced about a week apart. Now that it's taken me another few weeks to even do that much, I'm giving up, deciding to post the whole thing. I don't think hardly anybody burns these onto CDs in 2009 anyway, and some gaming podcasts are even longer. So this is part procrastination/laziness, part experiment. Let me know what you think. Whew!

This is a topic of interest to the truly geeky, the ones that care a little too much about their games. That's me, and it's probably you, too. (After all, you're reading a boardgame blog, listening to a boardgame podcast! You've got it bad . . . ) You won't be in this hobby very long before you encounter some opinions, including your own, about which version of a game is best. The original? The one where they changed the artwork & components? Or the one where they redeveloped the game into something just a little different? Small World is the game that triggered me to record this episode. I'm a huge fan of Vinci, which was Small World's differently-themed predecessor.

Do I like Small World? Yes.

Do I prefer it to Vinci? No way.

Why not? Because of the theme. Vinci has a historic theme and map, while Small World has a fantasy theme and map. You know my preferences. I've heard some say that Vinci has no theme, but I don't understand that at all. Clearly we have very different ideas of what constitutes a game theme. (That's another podcast I'd like to tackle some day.) Of the several design modifications in the latter game, I prefer the original, but they're not a big deal. It's the theme that is driving my opinion, more than anything.

Which do I recommend? Well, it depends on the gamer, but I have to admit that most will probably prefer Small World. Certainly you can easily buy Small World, while Vinci is now, sadly, Out-Of-Print (OOP).

We talk about a lot more than Small World as I tried to generalize what's going on here. All those versions of Settlers, Cosmic Encounter, Medici, and even Careers make it in to the discussion.

-Mark

BGTG 95 - SR & Feedback (Container & Chicago Express)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:35:10 PDT

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 . . . that I don't! Two plays of one game, four plays of the other, and I'm still struggling. What I really need is for someone to make a play-by-web version of either of these games, then I could really practice. (I've gotten pretty good at Brass that way.)

The previous few episodes generated a ton of great feedback, and that's what I really wanted to share on the podcast. Keep 'em coming--all of your podcasters love feedback.

BGTG 94 - Are any of our games Classics? (with Greg Pettit)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 04 May 2009 07:33:29 PDT

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 complexity or availability have to do with it? And is the world just so different today that games have a different path to achieve that status?

The conversation is long, but a particularly good one. I think so, anyway. I told my guest, Greg Pettit, afterward that this is just the sort of subject I enjoy tackling in the podcast. Because I always enjoyed reading about it from the likes of Peter Sarrett, Mike Siggins, or Greg Aleknevicus. That's good company to be in!

We go back & forth between philosophical descriptions of classics, and considerations of individual titles. Partway through the show, Greg poses a wonderful question about what games we might put in a 50 or 100-year time capsule, wanting to show future generations how wonderful, entertaining, and creative these games are . . . even if those future people are used to playing virtual reality, holographic, full-sensory "videogames" and zipping around in their flying cars. :-)

-Mark

Follow BGTG on Twitter

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:31:15 PDT

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 Twitter, but the one for logging game plays wasn't too meaningful yet. Perhaps it will be improved, or perhaps I'll just write my own tweets to note game sessions of interest. I look upon this is an expansion of the cool widget Aldie made that lets me show the covers of the last several games I played. I don't know if anyone takes notice of those (the RSS feed doesn't update when the games played scroll changes), but with Twitter I can send out a one-liner about some interesting game played. If I hear back about some interest, perhaps that indicates an interesting podcast discussion? It's worth experimenting with. If you're at all interested, go check out http://twitter.com/BoardgamesToGo .

And don't worry--this isn't about to replace the podcast itself!

-Mark

BGTG archives going ALL the way back...

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:36:49 PDT

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 problem, since I can manually download each file, but they show up as regular music files on iTunes and not as Podcasts (alongside the most recent shows). I've looked all over on how to make these downloaded files be grouped together with those available via subscription but there's apparently no way (short of buying a Mac to run a AppleScript hack or creating a fake Feedburner feed with a modified hosts file).

Soooo, I was wondering if you could please make all files available via iTunes (update the XML?). This way, after searching for the show on iTunes Store, I could manually select the podcasts I'd like to download before hitting the "Subscribe" button. It seems all files are already available via Libsyn, so there wouldn't be new costs involved. As an extra benefit, new listeners (as well as old a****-retentive users like myself) could be able to select what to hear, like a special all-about show or a particular theme. How about that?

I know how to do this. A setting in my blog hosting software will allow up to 500 blog entries to be listed on the front page. As I recall, that will reset iTunes into listing them all again. The only trouble is that it might start automated downloading of all those old episodes for ALL of my listeners, not just the ones who are actively seeking them. Some people may be unhappy about the inconvenience of it all.

I'd like to see if anyone knows how to solve this request another way. The listener who wrote me is willing to dig back through the BGTG archives--he just needs a way for them to show up as podcasts on his MP3 player, not just as generic music files.

-Mark

BGTG 93 - All About Big City (with Eric Burgess)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:16:23 PDT

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, though still both in Southern California. Better still, we commute our opposite directions to both coverge on our workplaces only a few miles apart.

Big City is a game notable for its wonderful plastic pieces--not normally something I'm swayed by--but it's also an outstanding and unique tile-laying game with strong theme. Though out of print by Goldseiber and Rio Grande Games, it is due to be reprinted by Valley Games pretty soon. And there's always the used game market.

-Mark

P.S. Be sure to check out Eric's "Power Grid: In Depth" podcast, as well as the rest of Boardgame Babylon.

BGTG 92 - Game Awards (with Dave Arnott)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:41:10 PDT

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)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:22:30 PDT

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?

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:46:17 PDT

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)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:46:20 PDT

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

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:42:04 PST

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.

More play-by-web

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:08:00 PST

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 go by the straightforward username MarkJohnson.

-Mark

Did you leave me a voicemail?

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:51:11 PST

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!

BGTG 89 - SR & Feedback (Viva Topo!, Slamwich, Tief auf Tier)

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:42:14 PST

Before I can post any new shows, I wanted to clear the decks for some accumulated feedback, as well as follow-through on my previous blog entry about family gaming over the holidays. Again I brought I bag full of specially chosen games, and again we played some of them. Just a few, really, but I knew to expect that. This year my gaming was mostly confined to playing with my young nephews, which I enjoyed even now . . . and expect to enjoy in the future as I turn at least one of them into a gamer. :-)

A lot of the feedback focuses on Dominion, since it's still the hot game right now, and I shared my thoughts about it on the previous podcast. Plus there's one golden feedback about a dad playing HGSB with his kid.

-Mark

Thanksgiving Weekend gaming

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:13:18 PST

This Thanksgiving we packed up the car to drive 300 miles to my folks' house. My brother did the same with his family, coming from the other direction. (California is a long state!) As usual, I packed up a bunch of games, knowing full well we wouldn't play all or even most of them. But we've got room in the minivan, and so why not pack different games so we have options. :-)

As it turned out, I did manage to play quite a few games this weekend, but not the ones you might expect. Although I got in a few games with just my brother, and one game with just my son, most of the games were with one or both of my young nephews. These are little guys, ages 5 and 3, so we're talking little kid games. Both of them, especially the older one, had a good time with them. In fact, I think that 5yo will be playing games with me for years to come, so I'm more than happy to spend the time on kid games now.

I think this would make a decent subject for a podcast, so maybe that's what I'll do next. I know there are gamer dads out there with kids this small that are chomping at the bit to play games with them. Perhaps this show will give you some ideas of good games to try.

Quickly, then, the games I played this holiday were Viva Topo!, Slamwich, Tier auf Tier, Rattlesnake, Cribbage, Poker, Zertz, and Dvonn.
-Mark

BGTG 88 - Dominion, Arkham Horror, Marrakech, and En Garde

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:53:56 PST

This is a session report & feedback show . . . but without the feedback. The reason for that is that I had to record this podcast in the car. I say had to because I spent too much of my at-home podcasting time playing Dominion instead! I started playing this game on brettspielwelt, and then got my own set to play face-to-face games. Hype is a turnoff for me, even buzz makes me suspicious, but in this case I'm enjoying the game just as much as everyone promised. I can't help but experience the game as a former Magic:the Gathering player, and I'm not sure what gamers without a CCG background will make of this. I think it's fantastic, and I try to explain why in this podcast. I think it's an incredible application of German boardgame style & elegance to CCGs.

This episode was originally planned to feature me gushing about games I really enjoyed, but I threw in Arkham Horror because it goes against that grain. Really, this isn't my kind of game, but that doesn't mean I'll never try it (or turn down my friends who want to play it). The last two, Marrakech (aka Suleika) and En Garde are new & old favorites.

-Mark

A fresh call for online games

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:06:51 PST

As usual, your best bet to find me is on a play-by-web game. I've recently started the following, all of which can take more players as I write this. The password is the same as ever, BGTG.

On Mabiweb: In the Year of the Dragon, Samuari, Kreta, In the Shadow of the Emperor

On Spielbyweb: Amun-Re, Hoity-Toity, Reef Encounter, Santiago

On michaelshacht.net: Hansa (two of these)

On Boardgamegeek: Tigris & Euphrates (two of these)

All of these are in English, very easy to understand.

Also, don't forget that the offer still stands to play Vinci with me. Only Ed Rozmiarek took me up on that earlier offer, and we need a couple more players to start. This website is all in German, but we'll help a newbie learn the ropes. Once you get the hang of it it's a great interface.

-Mark

P.S. On BSW, look for MarkJohnson. I'll probably be losing at Dominion again, enjoying myself. :-)

Vicarious Essen

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:08:13 PDT

Essen is behind us now, and the Fairplay scouts & other reports are settling in on the better titles. Remember two years ago when I insisted I'd buy Die Saulen von Venedig? Then the mediocre reports came in, and I got to play it once. It wasn't a bad game, but it didn't shine for me. I didn't buy it. (Though I'll probably play it again some day.)

This year the game that fits that description this year is Sutter's Mill. I haven't ruled it out entirely, but I hope I'll get a chance to try someone else's copy first. Hmm, come to think of it, Oregon may have been the equivalent game in 2007. Both western-themed, which is what interested me originally.

My group has placed an overseas post-Essen order. This used to be an annual tradition, both to grab exciting new titles and to pounce on special sales for older games (usually a game you loved more than everyone else). The way the hobby's been going, those orders have been slowing down. I don't think we even placed one last year. This time, though, it was decent-sized again. The somewhat better exchange rate helps, as well as some other factors (like Martin Wallace's Treefrog games being no more expensive this way). Too bad we won't get the games before the Thanksgiving holidays in late November, but at least they should arrive before Christmas. (When's Hannukah this year?) So we'll get our Essen excitement while it's still 2008.

One new game I have gotten to play a bunch lately is Dominion, thanks to the online implementation at Brettspielwelt. I haven't been a BSW regular for years (play-by-web works better for me than realtime), but once in a while I check it out again, especially when there are new titles. In my podcast I mentioned how the hype for Dominion is kind of a turn-off, but now that I've played it I can happily report I like it. In fact, I really like it. Deckbuilding was a fun part of my Magic:The Gathering days, and it's very cool to see that built right into a euro card game. My only concern is that the BSW interface makes everything so fast & easy, when I eventually play with the real game I'll be bothered by the effort to collect & shuffle cards constantly, track extra actions & buys, and so on. But that's a nit. The game is great fun and I can't wait to get my hands on a real copy.

-Mark

Essen photos

BoardgamesToGo@gmail.com (Mark Johnson) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:10:49 PDT

I mentioned it in the last podcast, and more than ever I recognize how influenced I am by the look of these games. I like reading the Essen first-impression reports, but I like seeing the photos even more. These days, you'd think you could do a search on "Essen spiel" in Flickr and find tons of photos, both from BGGers and average Germans who took photos & uploaded them. I've found a few that way, but not many.

Now the other reports and photo-pages are starting to trickle in, and so far the best I've found is at Milan Spiele. Looking through the Thursday (Donnerstag) photos, I see one game that jumps out at me: Windriver, by Argentum Verlag. It appears to be the designer's first game, and the publisher doesn't have a big track record, either. The rules are online, so I may have to actually read them. Heck, there's a good chance the game isn't so special. But it sure looks great to me. (I guess I'm a sucker for western themes, too. Doesn't that map look like the Little Big Horn area, with feeder streams into a larger river with mountains around?)

-Mark