I leave for one episode and these idiots are talking about eating board games. Hard hitting questions for hard hitting board game journalists, Mark & Kellen are on the scene reporting in. Before we claw our way back from this, we talk about Power & Weakness, Haggis, and Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game.
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.
There’s a phenomenon called twin films, where competing studios release very similar movies at the same time. We imagine the same idea in board game land, and highlight some of the biggest board game grudge matches – and judge which game we think came out on top. Before there can be only one, we talk about Viking See-Saw, Dandelions, Codex Naturalis, and Luna.
Ambie Valdés, from the excellent podcast Board Game Blitz, joins us to talk about family games, and possibly also the Fast and the Furious franchise. Ambie actually has kids, so might know a little more about this than the rest of us. Kids love Vin Diesel. Before we edutain, we talk about Savannah Park, Cryptid, and Stroganov.
It’s easy to get lost in mechanical discussions of games, and forget to appreciate them as physical creations. There can be beauty in games, and we’re here to get to the heart of it the only way we know, the one on one fight to the death that we call BGBBOB. Before we get skin deep, we talk about First Empires, Mille Fiori, and Foundations of Rome.
There are many ways that we can accidentally contribute to gatekeeping in the hobby – pushing those who want to embrace it away. Whether it’s to those outside, or even, bizarrely, to those already in, we break down the subtle (and unsubtle) ways we do it, whether or not we mean to. Before we find the keymaster, we talk about San Marco, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Ghosts of Christmas.
Does the perfect game exist? Probably not, but is that even the point? This week we discuss the elusive 10/10 rating, whether it makes sense to apply it, and what that means for rating games in general. Before we realize pobody’s nerfect, we talk about Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game.”, Manila, and Picture Perfect.
Mark’s trying to get us all into something he calls “sports”, so as a compromise, we’re doing a fantasy board game draft! We’re going to pick games from the BoardGameGeek Top 100, until we each have five. Then YOU get to vote on whose draft is best, for a chance to win $50! Before we play to the crowds, we talk about Azul: Summer Pavilion, Roads & Boats, Ruthless, and Cthulhu: Death May Die.
It’s award season when we say it is, so we’re looking back at the Golden Geek Awards, The Dice Tower Awards, and the Spiel des Jahres nominees. We offer our thoughts on their picks, and how wrong they are. I mean, Wingspan winning “Best Four-Wheel Drive SUV” just seems a bit much. We also talk about Battlestar Galactica, Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, Paladins of the West Kingdom, and The Boss.
Gimmicks are elements of a game that are the fundamental selling point, the core attention grabbing mechanic or experience that the game is built around. This episode, we’re breaking down gimmicks in board games, figuring out if they’re good or bad for the hobby, and talking about some of the most notable. Before we cave to flashy marketing, we also talk about Are You A Robot?, Jaws, and FUSE.