The Ascent of Board Games

Okay kids, it's time for a good clean fight as we talk about our favorite skirmish games! This is the last episode we recorded before we all went into lockdown, so next month may be a little different...but we'll see how it goes. In the interim, stay safe, wash your hands, and try to get some games in ( Tabletop Simulator is a lifesaver in times like these). We discover that the "father of science...

Hi folks! We were originally planning to do some April Fools silliness for this episode, but given everything that's going on right now, it didn't really seem like a good time. So relax, stay at home, and listen to us talk about Hidden Traitor games. Oh, and wash your dang hands. Yes, again. We start the episode with a weird television tie-in game, and end it with...well, a weird television tie-in...

Happy March! It's time to discuss drafts, and not the ones that may be sending winter chills through a not-quite-sealed door. Nope, this is about picking the best options for you from a hand of cards, and then passing your unwanted dross to your neighbor. Richard Garfield  shows up at the beginning and the end of the episode We talk about the  early history  of drafting in card games, as well as a...

It's February, and we're releasing a new episode, just as we planned to do several months ago. Speaking of planning things in advance, this month we're talking about programmed action games! Join us as... We discuss a smartphone app for a very old game  (with a very old-school website ) A discussion of Yaquinto's Album Games  requires Frank and Brian to explain to the younglings what an "album" is...

Bonus episode time! The amazing Rob Daviau ( @robdaviau on Twitter ) returns to tell us about Return to Dark Tower , which will be live on Kickstarter on January 14 (less than a week away)! This promises to be an amazing, high-tech game combining two great design talents (Rob and  Isaac Childress  of  Gloomhaven  fame) with a substantial chunk of technological wizardry and a healthy dollop of nost...

Happy New Year! As we start 2020, we take some time to look back at our favorite games and gaming-related events, moments, trends, and other stuff. Frank calls an item on Brian's list "the best game ever made"? (At least today.) Jayson shares a story of gamers being excellent to each other (or at least to him). Brian talks about a bunch of stuff, including  Dicebreaker  and  Malifaux Third Edition...

As the holidays draw near, it's time for a smaller and more intimate podcast crew (also because Mike and Jayson were both traveling). Sandi returns to help us discuss solitaire games, for those times when you are just sick of dealing with people. We discover two   engravings  from the late 17th century that show the first evidence of a formal solitaire game. It's even older than Cracker Barrel ! T...

Surprise! We're back with another random bonus episode, this one in honor of Black Friday (which, at least in the United States, is the day on which shoppers go out of their minds, retailers take out massive ads promoting tiny discounts, and the Christmas shopping season officially begins). In case you're doing any shopping, we wanted to suggest some games for the non-gamers in your life, to help...

Boo! Episode 16 is here a day early, because Halloween! To celebrate our favorite holiday, we play The Gothic Game , an extremely random game of murder and mayhem set in the Otranto Castle and Spa (try the deep-exfoliating moat!). It's a wild ride featuring dangerous snakes, bad prunes, Frank's wife Sandi, and a last-minute twist that determines the ultimate winner! Because the game was relatively...

It's Episode 15, Adventure Games, now complete in one file. It turns out that there wasn't quite as much material left for Part 2 as I thought, and also that I accidentally uploaded Part 1 as an unnecessarily large stereo file, so it seemed best to just replace the whole thing. Apologies to those of you who have already downloaded and listened to Part 1; you can skip to 1:03:39 to pick up with the...

We're continuing our second year of podcasting - can we keep this up, or are we just pushing (or is it pressing?) our luck? Either way, we don't plan on stopping, so here's an episode of us discussing games in which you have to press and/or push your luck. In this episode: We learn that the podcast feeds off of Brian's pain. We introduce you to  Feats and Fables , the D&D actual-play podcast that...

It's our anniversary - we've been doing this podcast thing for a whole year! To celebrate, we're doing an episode on legacy games, and as a special treat for you (and for us!), we are joined by a very special guest - Rob Daviau , the man behind the legacy game craze (and a lot of other great games besides)! In this episode: Rob tells us about the original inspirations behind Risk Legacy , the pers...

Hello again, listeners! In Episode 12, we're talking about Hidden Teams games, sometimes referred to as Social Deduction games. Are you a werewolf, a cylon, a terrorist, a bad cop, The Thing From Another World, and/or Hitler? Doesn't matter to us, we're just glad you're listening. (Except for Hitler. That guy was really a jerk.) Join us as: We learn about the Tibetan Memory Trick Frank makes a gra...

Okay, now I'm awake enough to write some proper show notes. Episode 11 is all about "4X" games - games in which you Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate on your way to victory. The term originated in the world of computer games, but there are enough similarities - and enough interest on our poll (which you should totally go fill out if you haven't already) that we decided to do an episode on...

It's time for Episode 10 of The Ascent of Board Games! But what could our latest topic be? Well, here are a few clue s so you can deduce what the episode is about... Steve Allen discussing his years on What's My Line?... ...and a clip from the show in which he encounters his long-time nemesis A great overview (with puzzles!) of the legendary Martin Gardner's column in Scientific American A board g...

Phew - we finally made it! Many apologies for the delay in this month's episode, which was primarily due to two factors: 1. It was (and is) our longest episode to date. 2. Brian and Mike were both suffering from colds, and every time they inhaled, it sounded like Darth Vader had joined the show. (We did our best to edit all of that out - sorry if any of our death-rattles slipped through.) We promi...

Welcome back! This month's episode isn't about a game mechanic as such; it's about the weird and wonderful gadgets and one-of-a-kind crazy ideas that make some of our most memorable games...well, memorable. (We promise we'll be back to a more evolutionary topic next month.) You'll definitely want to visit our Instagram and/or Facebook pages to check out the photos and videos for this episode, sinc...

Happy Valentine's Day! This (bonus) episode is pretty much the opposite of the last one, as we go on an old-fashioned, romantic, and very silly playthrough of  Barbara Cartland: A Romance Boardgame . This is a paragraph game based, as you might guess, on a few of Barbara Cartland's 700+ (!) romance novels. Since it's a paragraph game, there's a lot of reading and, well, none of us are actors or ev...

I'm not gonna lie...this episode gets a little "inside baseball," as we delve (greedily and too deep) into the topic of what, exactly, constitutes an asymmetrical game. Hopefully we're at least able to keep it amusing along the way! If this one's not to your liking, stay tuned, as our Valentine's Day bonus episode should be a lot more light-hearted (not to say silly). Meanwhile, in this episode: J...

Happy New Year! In Episode 6, we talk about paragraph games, a topic near and dear to several of our hearts. Learn about the game that Frank thinks is better than Star Saga (gasp!), the game that might be Joe's favorite of all time, and the game that Mike calls "the Dark Souls of paragraph games." If you're interested in playing (British) Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series on your PC or phone, turn t...

Merry Christmas (or other seasonal holiday(s) as appropriate to your personal preferences and/or belief system)! Our regularly-scheduled episode will be posted as usual on January 1, but we wanted to talk about our thoughts on The Year That Was, so you get a special bonus episode. (You're welcome.) We discuss our Top 5 game-related things of the year (which may be games, game-related events, game...

It's us again! This month, we're working together on some cooperative games, including some obscure oldies, some new surprises, and some hall-of-fame classics (which we TOTALLY didn't forget any of until we were in the middle of recording the episode). As usual, we start with a bit of a ramble about what we've been playing (or at least buying) lately; if you want to skip that, the main topic of th...

Welcome back! This month, we're rolling out some dice games - specifically, games that do interesting or unusual things with dice (rather than just another Yahtzee clone). It's less of an evolutionary timeline and more of a random walk, but we hope you'll like it anyway. Some of us were a little tired during the recording of this episode, so if we sound a little punchy or slurred towards the end o...

Welcome back! This month's topic is "Batteries Included" - board games with electronic elements (or, in some early cases, electrical elements) that are an essential part of the game. We had a few audio issues this time around, so I apologize for the sometimes uneven sound quality; I promise we'll have it back under control next time! Here are a few links to some "extras" you'll hear us mention alo...

Just in time for Dragon*Con, or PAX West, or the NOVA Open, or just a long holiday weekend of board games, it's The Ascent of Board Games - Episode 2! (And they said it would never happen again...) This month we're talking about one-versus-many games, wherein one player smashes a bottle against the bar and says, "C'mon, I'll take on all of you at once!" (Metaphorically, in most cases.) I think we...