It’s part five of our venerable draft series, a series so loved that it’s now in syndication! We’re moving on to the tail end of the BGB Top 500, but the format stays the same: draft five games to build a standalone collection that’s better than the others. Vote for your favourite, and you can win $50! Before we collect royalties, we talk about PARKS, Fairy Trails, Abandon All Artichokes, and So Clover!
We love all of the emails we get from you, our lovely listeners, but without a regular mail segment, we can’t often give them the attention they deserve. Well that ends right now, as we delve into the long neglected pile of mail, and answer some choice questions that have been waiting patiently for answers. Before we rustle in the mailbag, we talk about Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
We’re always excited for a new Eric Lang game, which makes him an obvious candidate for the absolutely-not-called BGB DOG – our series where we deep dive into a designer’s …. designography. He’s made a lot of our favourite area control games, and had his hand in some games we might not have even realized. Before we bang on about this Lang mang, we talk about What’s Missing?, Polynesia, and TEN.
Convention season in the new world continues, and this time it’s Germany’s turn, with Essen SPIEL just days away from kicking off. But tanks, you say, I don’t sprechen Deutsch. We’ve got you. We’re going to highlight all the games that we think you ought to be paying attention to, no German necessary. Before we spend our Euros, we talk about Praga Caput Regni, Skulk Hollow, and Beez.
There is one unenviable truth of board game ownership that we’re forced to contend with – they occupy space. We’ve each had to wrestle with this reality in different ways recently, so we offer our thoughts on the awkwardness of sharing a physical world with our board games. Before we merely exist, we talk about Riftforce, Kabuto Sumo, and Whirling Witchcraft.
A new list of a hundred games to draft, and it only gets harder and harder. We’re each picking a standalone collection of five games in a snake draft format. And the best part is you could win $50 just by voting on your favourite collection! Before we get to clubbing, we talk about Regicide, Dice Miner, and Let’s Make a Bus Route, and SCOUT!
While one of the appeals of following a specific game designer is the comforting familiarity of what they do best, it’s also really fun to see them go off the garden path. We’re looking at games and mechanics where one of our beloved designers zigged, when they easily could’ve zagged. Before we go our own way, we talk about Biosphere, The Ratcatcher: The Solo Adventure Game, and Stephenson’s Rocket.
One of the things we love to do, especially if we’re playing a game for the first time, is analyse it while we’re playing. We’re sure this totally isn’t annoying for those around us. In particular, we love picking apart little mechanical choices, imagining what the designer’s thought process was, and wondering “why is that like that?” Before we get to speculating, we talk about Divinity Derby, Mexica, and Strasbourg.
We love Uwe Rosenberg around these parts, whether it’s because of our infatuation with polyominoes, the need to keep workers fed, or the strange mechanisms of animal breeding. Join us down the (cottage) garden path of his designography, and make sure to plant some vegetables along the way. Before we get agricultural, we talk about Bosk, Spies & Lies: A Stratego Story, and Glen More II: Chronicles.
Sometimes, if you want a game bad enough, you’re willing to go to absurd lengths to acquire it. Whether it’s because it’s out of print, or just hard to come by, we’ve all put more effort than we should’ve into finding or playing specific games. We tell our stories of just how far we’ve gone. Before we secure the bag, we talk about Tinner’s Trail, and The Night Cage.