The Spiel - MP3 Version

Break out your nine iron and flibberty-gibbets. The Spiel turns two! We take on Coppertwaddle a medieval card game with a rich (fake) history and we roll our way through Box of Golf in all its wooden splendour.

Play ball! But forget the steroids; we've got Divine Intervention. Just in time for Spring Training, we play Pizza Box Baseball, a light card-driven simulation. Then we ascend to the heavens to protect four mythical races in Age of Gods.

Much better than a pig in a poke. We reach into our bag of tricks and find two light but surprising little games: the abstract award-winning Qwirkle and the latest from German designer Freidemann Freise, Felix the Cat in the Sack.

Barbarians at the gates? Get rolling! We build a small but great wall in Chang Cheng and use dice to hire advisors to protect His Majesty's realm in Kingsburg.

Roll up your sleeves. Time to get your hands dirty. We chop wood and cut stone to build Kingsbridge Catehdral in Pillars of the Earth and send our swarms out to surround Queen bees in the strategy classic Hive.

Not miles... hours! 24 of them. We set out to play games for 24 consecutive hours in order to get our unplayed list of games below 200. This episode was recorded as we played and documents the events of our day including session reports on a truckload of games both large and small.

Woah! Five games, five designers... all in one box. The stars align for us to play Stonehenge: The Anthology Board Game. We review all five games, each by a different renowned designer.

Holiday hodge-podge. Reports and interviews from CHITAG (Chicago Toy and Game Fair) plus a review of Piratenbillard, a game where players use duck headed mallets to pop cannon balls across a wooden grid.

Crack your knuckles and loosen up. We knock heads and little plastic men in our first Subbuteo Table Soccer match and then twist our fingers into pretzels balancing little foam balls playing Handy. Arthritis here we come!

Say no to lame gifts. Give a game instead. We recommend over 50 games in twelve different categories to fit almost any person or budget. With this great list, you might even make a wish list of your own!

Baby needs a new pair of shoes. We build a casino empire in Vegas Showdown and climb the long ladder from Hemp Chicken to Dragon in the modern card classic Tichu.

Everything's better with Zombies. From a shooting gallery with garlic grenades to our very own zombie baseball team, we shamble our way through Vampire and Zombie Fluxx, two games that include a festival of undeadly delights.

Don't Panic. But get comfortable. Grab a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster from the bar settle in for our take on Twilight Imperium, a game of galactic conquest whose play time could be measured in light years.

Wonder Twin powers, activate! We play Blue Moon City, a board game based on a card game and Caylus Magna Carta, a card game based on a board game, plus we discuss the risks and rewards of changing classic games in reprints.

Y is for Yggdrasil. We load our longboats and set sail in search of adventure on the stormy North seas, playing Fire & Axe and Vikings. Surely, an episode worthy of the sagas!

Cue the Indiana Jones music. We build routes for a very lazy London Passenger in On the Underground and globe trot from Cypress to Taiwan in 10 Days in Asia.

This time it's personal! You've heard the interviews (well most of them!), now hear from us. We give our report on our event, the Spiel-a-thon, panel discussions, Dealer's room hits and misses, and a game book that is not to be missed!

Global geeks, global games. From Israeli brainteasers and Italian game publishers to carved dice from little Polish elves, part one of our convention coverage includes over a dozen interviews. Part Two will be released a week from today.

Click, Click, Boom! Our nerves of steel are put to the test playing Russian Roulette in Kablamo! and bidding for a coal powered empire in Industria.

Wood burning, Richard Borg, and dismembered robots. We take an inside look at Origins International Game Expo.

And the winner is... We play all five games nominated for the Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) and then we try to predict the winner!

Sayonara, squatters. We play Shogun and Landlord, proving that the best evictions often come at the end of a katana (or a tower full of little wooden cubes).

Skullduggery! Sometimes sneaky is better than strong. We fight over carcasses in Scavenger Hunt and pilfer treasure from lost tombs in Incan Gold.

Fire up those branding irons! There's livestock to round up and words to bluff or spell when we play Hacienda and Letterhead.

Turn the tables! We let you call the shots. From The List to The Game Sommelier, every segment in the show comes from listener suggestions and submissions.