I always love this one. It’s the time of the year where we look at what your favourite games are, and discover whether there are any exciting movers and shakers in what you’ve been playing! It’s the BGB Listener Top 20! Before we check in with all of you, we talk about Tower of Babel, Great Western Trail: Argentina, and Jump Drive.
We’re spread across the world and time, so we do the thing we should never do; we put the questions to you. Yes, you! It’s a mailbag episode, we’re answering a trio, a trilogy, a trichopteran of your questions. Before we put in our hand and pull out a letter, we talk about Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!, Symphony No.9, and Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen.
Wow, hundreds of you sent in your lists, and it was absolute chaos. But we got all the data together, cleaned up the typos, crunched the numbers via a super secret algorithm, and here we are, your favourite games of all-time! For this year, at least. Before you take the stage, we talk about Schotten Totten 2, For Science!, and The Bridges of Shangri-La.
Looking back on the past made us all reflective. For instance, remember 166 episodes ago when we promised to play all those games on our shelves of shame? I thought you might. We’re revisiting our crimes of yesteryear, and checking in on how guilty we are. Before we audit our past selves, we talk about Warp’s Edge, Carolus Magnus, and Unfathomable.
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.
Wow! We asked for your top twenty lists, and boy did you deliver. We’ve crunched the numbers on the hundreds of submissions, and created what we think is the definitive list of BGB listeners’ favourite board games. Now let us tell you how we think you did. Before we outsource our work, we talk about Santa Monica, Steam Works, and Cthulhu: Death May Die.
Now we’re getting into the thick of it, in fact some are calling it the most ambitious Part II released in any medium. It’s the Board Game Barrage Top 50 Games of All Time! We’re in our thirties (even if we wish we weren’t) and it’s full speed ahead. That’s forty(ish) more games, and ten spots closer to the grand finale. Now that we’ve got this train going, there’s no stopping it.
It’s time for another “What we love, what we hate”, and this time we’re looking at deck builders! Its been twelve years since Dominion blew things up, and since then you don’t have to look very far to see a game that uses the mechanic. We look at the highs and lows of deck building as a mechanic, and discuss some of our favourite games that use it. We also talk about Bruxelles 1897, Elysium, and Can’t Stop.
It’s the season of giving, so our gift to you is more of our favourite board games of all-time! We’re only just halfway, so get comfortable in front of the fire, grab an eggnog, and join us for thirty more incredible games. Oh, you got us something too? Ah. Socks. Thanks.
Inspired by BoardGameGeek’s new system for classifying board game mechanisms, we give our thoughts on the changes, as well as talk about classification in general. Somehow it always leads to heated discussions, whether it’s arguing what a Civilization game even is, or why we need classification at all. I’m sure we’ll all agree in the end. Before we taxi into taxonomy, we talk about Piepmatz, Era: Medieval Age, and Cursed Court.