Nerdverse Unshuffled

In the conclusion of this two-parter, Fayyaad and Jacques dive deeper into the functionality of BoardGameGeek, using Brass: Birmingham as an example. Bookmark this site now, because if you’re going to explore the hobby at any depth, you’re going to be coming back to this often, and with increasing frequency as you take the time to explore on your own. Thank you for listening! Join the Nerdverse Di...

In this episode, Jacques and Fayyaad introduce the encyclopedia of board games, the board gamer’s bible, the wiki of all things hobby related: BoardGameGeek. This amazing website holds many secrets and surprises – so many that it’s going to take your hosts two episodes to get through an overview of its best features. Bookmark this site now, because if you’re going to explore the hobby at any depth...

In this episode, Jacques and Fayyaad address the complex and controversial topic of board game weight — a tricksy term board gamers use to explain how difficult a game is to learn and to play. They go into the different kinds of complexity that are included, discuss various examples across the complexity spectrum, and introduce (very briefly) the great resource site for board gamers, BoardGameGeek...

Board games are competitive, right? Well, actually… they don’t need to be. You have a whole spectrum of options when it comes to the number of players and what “winning” looks like. To celebrate the diversity of board gamers and what they want out of a play experience, Jacques and Fayyaad look at the concept of play modes in board games. Because why stick to the expected when you can delve into ot...

Actions, reactions, phases, rounds, turns... Have you ever found yourself turned around by too many terms that sound like they all mean the same thing? Fear not! If time gets all wibbly-wobbly on you, you can always look up the rules in the game manual. But if you don't have a specific game on hand, it can help to have a general idea what each of these terms means. In the conclusion of this t...

Time flies when you're having fun; even if you're not enjoying the board game you're playing, board games do weird things to the passage of time. But have you ever wondered how to make sense of all the different words used to make sense of time in board games? In the first part of this two-part episode, Fayyaad and Jacques discuss three fundamental terms for tracking time in board g...

At Nerdverse, we love board games with  fun, well-designed themes, and themes that are well integrated into our board games. We also love board games that have no theme at all! Perhaps a board game's theme is one of your primary ways of picking a new game, or a completely unnecessary distraction. In this episode, Fayyaad and Jacques look at different degrees to which theme matters to a game,...

Board games don't magically appear just because you want to play a new game. (Trust us, we've tried.) In this episode, Fayyaad and Jacques look at game designers, artists, and publishers and how each contributes to taking a board game from a concept to a physical product you can play with friends. Your hosts discuss a few of their favourite board game creators, but as always, the episode...

Ever heard a bunch of board game fanatics express strong opinions about something called worker placement games and wished you knew what they were going on about? In this episode, Jacques and Fayyaad get all worked up about worker placement. This type of game has become very popular since it was introduced in 1998 and has resulted in a variety of examples and variations. Fortunately, once you have...

For our third episode, we take you on a whirlwind tour of as many components as we could think of. Partly because there are many interesting and fun components that exist, and partly because it's impossible to talk about board games without mentioning specific components. We don't go into too much detail about any individual component or type, but we introduce a number of terms you may n...

Do you ever watch a game review and wonder, "But what does any of this mean?" How do you decide whether a board game is for you? Board game mechanics, or mechanisms, are all the moving parts that make a board game a board game. They define what a board game is, how it plays around a table, and what you spend your time doing while you're playing that game. And in a lot of ways, the h...

Join your hosts, Jacques van Heerden and Fayyaad Hendricks, on this episode where we discuss why we love board games and how we believe this podcast can help bring new people into the hobby, how it can help you become part of the conversation, and even help you find the games you’ll fall in love with, too.  As a hobby, board gaming has exploded in the last couple of years — more so in the past fiv...