Boardgames To Go

This micro-episode shares some overview of the Rounds 1 & 2 voting, such as blowout wins and close calls. I get to share the Sweet 16 and imagine which of the four games in each of the four divisions will emerge victorious to battle against the others. Hint: don't bet against The Crew (any version!) Please remember to keep voting. Each round of voting is open for a few days, and I keep adding to the same geeklist to do it. Scroll down to find it. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/312399/mark-madness-2023-bgtgs-battle-award-winners?itemid=9636466#9636466  

The third micro-episode of the podcast talks about the predictions that are now locked-in and the voting that we're all just starting. Follow the link below and subscribe to that geeklist where it happens. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/312399/boardgames-go-madness-2023-battle-award-winners Quick LinksGet Embed PlayerDownload Audio File  

The SECOND micro-episode of the podcast that spreads the news and encourages folks to enter predictions & make votes in a 64-title, single-elimination contest between award-winning boardgames.  https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/312399/boardgames-go-madness-2023-battle-award-winners

The first micro-episode of the podcast that spreads the news and encourages folks to enter predictions & make votes in a 64-title, single-elimination contest between award-winning boardgames.  https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/312399/boardgames-go-madness-2023-battle-award-winners  

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Openers: Mark - BGTG Madness! Greg - LLAMA on BGA @Gregarius Longtime friend of the podcast Greg Pettit returns to talk about thrifting boardgames. What is that? It's a hobby-within-a-hobby about finding used games at thrift shops, garage sales, and other sources of secondhand titles. To get good results you should be dedicated to doing this, checking locations regularly because on any given day there's likely to be nothing good. However, from time to time you may be fortunate enough to find a game you'd love to add to your own collection, or else one that you could use for parts. If you're like me when I used to do this, you're happy to sell the game on ebay, BGG Geekmarket, Facebook Marketplace, or some other venue...and then use the proceeds to buy other games. :-) Greg tells about the thrifters guild here on BGG, TheThriftyGamer.net website/utility, and the vicarious thrill and congratulations that go on regularly through the Thrift Finds of the Week. For some serious thrifters, they acquire more games than they can really utilize, so what they like to do is give them away to good homes. Isn't that cool? Related to that concept is the notion of the Thrifty Secret Santa annual gift exchange. Greg stepped in to run this over a decade ago, and has been doing it ever since with the assistance of some helper "elves." It's a wonderful tradition where games are exchanged for the holidays, but no one buys anything. In particular, no one send a gift just by clicking an order button online from a wishlist. Instead, used games are being exchanged from the heart, often accompanied with a lot of personal craftsmanship and care in the gift-giving. I have yet to participate myself, being content to watch from the sidelines as people enjoy the sending and receiving. But with some encouragement and demystification from Greg, perhaps podcast listeners and I may want to be a part of it next year. Closers: Greg - Tigris & Euphrates tournament for the Old-School German Style Games Guild Mark - Mandala and "upgrading" a game's components to play outside -Mark

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Openers: Ark Nova, Zoo Vadis Nonsense Junkie @elschmear In between big, national cons like GenCon or BGGcon and your local Games Days are regional conventions. Some folks think these can be the best of all, focused on just playing games in a group all weekend long. EsCon is one of those in my area, held twice a year in EsCondido, California (get it?). Kind of like my own Santa Clarita is north of Los Angeles, Escondido is north of San Diego. I've been a few times, including just last month, and I hope to keep going. The guy behind EsCon, Steve Paap, joins me on this podcast while I pepper him with questions about what it takes to put on events like these. Besides being a great host who runs a great event, Steve is a gamer-buddy of mine who nicely turns the table on me and asks me about my convention-going preferences and experiences. Closers: Steve talks about positivity and how to overcome your own curmudgeon-ness, then I share how I've managed to play some card games over lunch hours at work...and the big boss is cool about it. Because she knows that games are good for our enjoyment together, and for sparking our brains individually. -Mark

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.   Mike Siggins @sumo Welcome to 2023, which happens to be the 19th season of my little podcast, Boardgames To Go. I'm as surprised as anyone to still be around, still with listeners. I do enjoy this, and greatly appreciate my small & loyal following. I'm thrilled to start the new season with a wonderful guest, Mike Siggins talking about his Sumo picks. The Sumos 2022 Yokozuna Ark Nova Ozeki Akropolis | Brian Boru | Shinkansen | Vienna Connection Sekiwake 1923: Cotton Club | Magnate | Railroad Revolution | Rise | War of the Ring: Card Game Tainted Sumos Etherfields (Sekiwake) | ISS Vanguard (Yokozuna) Wargame Sumos Dawn's Early Light (Yokozuna) Bayonets & Tomahawks | Fire & Stone | Plains Indian Wars | The Shores of Tripoli | Two Minutes to Midnight Probably everyone who listens to my podcast already knows about Siggins. He was even on my show four times before, but the last was a full 15 years ago! As you'll hear us say, we suspected it was longer ago than we'd like to remember. However, my interest in Mike Siggins goes back further than that, way before this podcast. My entry into this hobby is closely tied to Siggins, thanks to his Sumo magazine that was transcribed onto the internet by Ken Tidwell (which reminds me...I've always wanted to interview Ken for the podcast. Perhaps in 2023?). Siggins wrote about games with a critic's analysis and writer's flair, whetting my appetite for games I'd never seen or heard of. And then there was this amazing thing called Essen that he wrote about. I was doing all of this reading in the late mid/late 90s, and Mike was writing in the early 90s. Possibly even 1989. Amazing! He's seen & played so many games. At one point he nearly burned out, and there's the story of his famous collection-purge from hundreds or thousands of games down to just 50. He's still playing lots of games, including lots of new ones. Every year he names ten or so of them as his own personal top picks of the year: the Sumos. For the year just passed, 2022, I get the honor to host him talking about them and sharing the list with you. Near the end of the program I also share my own list of notable games in 2022, though some were published earlier. Mark's noteworthy games of 2022 Boardgame: Cascadia Card game: Targi & Scout Party game: Just One Wargame: Cuba The Splendid Little War Online game: Memoir '44 / Azul / Wingspan It was a fun conversation and I hope you like it. I don't intend to let another 15 years pass before I get Siggins back on the podcast. A request has been made to discuss euro-wargame hybrids again, which I may just morph a little bit into a discussion of a new style of easier, introductory history games that are taking off on both sides of the Atlantic. -Mark

  Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. One more episode about BGGcon! Can you tell I was excited to return? During the con itself I recorded several daily mini-episodes with Greg Pettit (by the end they weren't so mini!). In those we talked about several of the games we played, though not all. If you want to see ALL of the games I played, they're posted on their own geeklist. Everyone knows I prefer lighter/shorter board & card games. Not exclusively, but that's my kind of game. It shows in my lists of games played. That's part of the reason I invited two other gamer-buddies onto this episode, since they are more willing to go after meatier euros. Though they, too, will play some older classics and/or lighter games. We played some of these together, but many were titles I didn't see...or actively avoided. You can sort of follow along with the discussion by flipping back & forth between their two geeklists with 5-star ratings for the games they played at BGGcon. Brian Murray's list | Rick Byrens' list | (and Mark's list) -Mark

Boardgames To Go 208d - BGGcon 2022 Day Four (with Greg Pettit)

Boardgames To Go 208c - BGGcon 2022 Day Three (with Greg Pettit)

Boardgames To Go 208b - BGGcon 2022 Day Two (with Greg Pettit)

Boardgames To Go 208a - BGGcon 2022 Day One (with Greg Pettit)

  Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Opener: 7Seas (Or Scopa, if you want to learn the original) Remember when I used to do "Essen Anticipation" episodes? I know I did several in the past, but it's been a while. This year, Essen sort of snuck up on me. I went through the preview tool on BGG, but never managed to completely make it through. The tool is easier to use than ever, and now includes all of the things I need in a preview (designer, publisher, photo, brief description, and link to more). And yet...it's just too much. Is it too much in an absolute sense? Too much for anybody? Too much for a healthy hobby and industry? I don't know about all of that. I just know that it's now too much for me. Which isn't too say I'm no longer enthusiastic about Essen--I merely let it kind of wash over me, not trying to keep up. I'll certainly hear about the consensus picks for the best new titles, and I may also find out about some more obscure ones for oddball reasons--perhaps my thematic interest, a friend stumbled across it, a weird speculative purchase on Amazon.de... whatever! This year my "Essen episode" starts with mentioning how close I was, on a business trip to Germany and the Netherlands just a few days before Essen. But I didn't make it to Spiel. I bought some games from Europe...but I "cheated" by ordering from Amazon.de instead of packing from local shops into my luggage to bring home. (The Essen coffee mug is my favorite and lasting purchase from Spiel when I last went in 2016. I may not even own any of the games I purchased then, but I always enjoy this mug!) At any rate, when I went through most of the enormous Essen preview list, only this handful of oddball titles were the ones most interesting to me. Several are demos, most are oddly personal thematic choices that may not prove to be good games (they rarely do!), but they're my personal choices. Not recommended for everyone! For a more universal, reliable recommendation list of new titles from Essen, you should look to the Fairplay Scoutaktion report. These are the annual feedback collections that Fairplay magazines collects at their Essen booth from any gamer who stops by to share their rating. On the one hand, lots of games are barely demonstrated at Essen, so the ratings may not be based on informed plays. On the other hand, they've been doing these Scoutaktion reports for decades, and they've proven to be reasonably good barometers for the hits of Essen. A long while back, I tried to do some analysis of their track record, and as I recall it just made some errors of omission sometimes. So take a look at the final list of top-rated games from this report. I also recommend Ben Bruckhart's article about this list at Opinionated Gamers. This remains one of the better websites/blogs about our hobby. Ben also takes a retrospective look back at the list from the previous year, something I appreciate. Finally, another great thing about Fairplay magazine is their annual ranking of the best card games. This is called their A La Carte prize, and I've repeatedly found nice surprises on these top ten lists. Especially since small card games may not be made in English language editions, and can go undiscovered even in 2022. Closer: At a management retreat for my job I brought a bunch of games. One person had requested them, but really this represented hope that I might get a group of coworkers to enjoy them with me. These days I'm a lot smarter about what to suggest in those settings, and after the recording I was successful! We played Just One and it was an enormous hit. -Mark

  Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Opener: Taverns of Tiefenthal. Plus someone finally got Wingspan online multiplayer right, and it was the BGA team. I've gone through a few waves of downsizing my game collection. The latest was just a month ago, inspired by a friend's visit to organize my collection. In the process, I felt the ability to let several games go. They haven't been sold off yet, but they're stacked up elsewhere in a for-sale pile, letting me consolidate the games I'm sticking with into fewer shelves. When I stepped back, I saw that several of the games on the shelf were ones that anyone might have in their collection, while others were more personal choices, oddballs for one reason or another. At least they are less popular, I think. I've collected ten of those titles to talk about in this episode. (That includes one of the games that comes from my spillover collection in a credenza at work.) I've been thinking about a new top ten of more recent games, but I'm not ready with that. Perhaps that will be in a future show, because there ARE plenty of modern titles that I really enjoy. It would be fun to talk about them, in part to contrast them against the "hotness" on BGG and Kickstarter that I often can't connect with. Again...that's a future show. In THIS episode I thought my original top ten was worth discussing all over. In some cases they are games I love just as much as ever. Others are more sentimental favorites, not really making it to the table any longer. In a few cases I think the games represented of a type of game that I still enjoy, and there are newer examples. Closer: The outcome of our Discord polling about “evergreen” games. In contrast, I almost completely forgot about the “Essen anticipation” shows I used to do! -Mark

Opener: Royals Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. For boardgame publishers, I believe there's such as thing as "convention season." Of course game conventions happen all over the world, all across the calendar, but for the industry there's a special significance to Gencon in the US, and Spiel in Europe. Add in Origins, UK Games Expo, the Nuremberg Int'l Toy Fair, events in France or Japan...the list goes on & on. Especially for the domestic North American market, however, the summer season of Gencon and Origins means something for sales & product launches. Both events are located in the middle of the US. Designer (and friend!) David Thompson is also located in the middle of the US. I had the great fortune to stay with him for a weekend recently, and besides playing a bunch of games together, we also recorded a podcast. He'd recently been to Gencon & Origins, as well as Ohio's own Buckeye Game Fest. We sat on his back porch during a summer evening and recorded this podcast together. I hope you enjoy the discussion. https://discord.io/BoardgamesToGo Closers: I sat next to a guy on the plane who played a lot of Catan...but only on the app on his smartphone. He told me how the original game has too much luck, how certain Seafarers maps turn it into more of a game of "pure strategy." I showed him Azul on BGA, Iberian Gauge in a photo, and A Few Acres of Snow on Yucata. It's like we were speaking the same language, but different dialects that could barely understand each other! -Mark