Episodes
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Hello everyone! We've spent lo these many months talking about real games - now it's time for us to talk about games that DON'T exist. Although some of them actually do exist now, but didn't originally. Come on along with us - maybe it will make more sense if you give this a listen! Among the games we discuss: Jetan, or Martian Chess - an entirely playable game Rithmomachia (which Frank refers to as "Rithomancy") Star Trek games. So many Star Trek games: 3-D Chess Strategema Tongo (with unofficial rules here) Kadis-Kot Also at least one Star Wars game, which is fine because apparently none of
Hi folks! If you listened to last month's episode (or have been following the board game industry for the last decade or so), you probably have a pretty good idea about what's going to happen in this month's episode - the Fall of Fantasy Flight Games. We're not saying that Fantasy Flight's 2014 merger with Asmodee is responsible for the collapse of one of the world's biggest and most respected board game publishers...but we're not not saying that, either. Are you - or were you - a Fantasy Flight Fan? Are there other game companies you'd like us to give this kind of treatment to? Was this a ter
Hi folks! We're back (yes, even including Jayson!) with an episode that's a little different than our usual - do let us know what you think! This month and next month, we're doing a different kind of deep dive. Rather than specifically looking at a single game mechanic or designer, we're looking at a game company - in this case, Fantasy Flight Games. Not to give anything away, but the fact that this episode is subtitled "The Rise" might give you a moment's pause about next month's episode... Have you ever wanted to read a novel set in one of FFG's game universes? Well, they released some anywa
Episode 80 - who'da thunk it? Thank you so much for sticking with us over (gulp) almost eight years of our nonsense. (Don't do the math - lots of two-part episodes have ruined that.) This month, we take a deep dive into the game designs of Antoine Bauza, a talented designer with an eclectic repertoire that ranges from a few all-time classics (including one that's currently in the BGG top 20) to some lighter games to some that the Ascent crew are...let's say "divided on the merits of." (By which we mean "Brian likes this game and no one else does.") How many game designers have released two Spi
We're back to wrap up our discussion on "sandbox games," and this part stretches the definition a bit; there's at least one game here where it's not the map that's bigger than you can explore in one game, but the rule set itself. (Yes, it's a Frank special.) What game does Joe describe as "a beautiful mess"? Frank is doing things in his new obsession and all he can say is "...and apparently, this matters." What are your favorite sandbox games? What have we left off our list? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Plea
This month, we're here to talk about what we're calling "sandbox games" - games that have bigger maps and/or more content than you can possibly explore in a single game, but which aren't built as long campaign or legacy games. Thus, you need to take some notes and carry information - and, in some cases, rules - from one game to the next. Also, one brief apology: Your Humble Editor has been quite sick these last few weeks, and thus this episode is, let us say, more "lightly edited" than usual. I think I've gotten most of the myriad sniffles, cat noises, drink slurping, and other background nois
HOO boy, this one has been an odyssey. Between computer hardware failures, file corruption, ice storms, and assorted other real-world chaos, it's a bit of a surprise that this episode made it out at all, much less on time. But it's here! Join us as we talk about games where one or more players are looking to win the game in a completely different way from everyone else. Is Joe the first person ever to compare the Bene Gesserit to Babe Ruth? We think so. High praise: This game is "A fun expenditure of human time." We digress briefly into discussing Jubensha, the Chinese LARPy RPG craze that's m
Well, now that THAT's over with (THAT being the year 2025), it's time to see what we're looking forward to in 2026. A list made of our hopes and dreams for the new year, shared with all of our beloved listeners. We've discovered Frank's weakness. (It's Mothra.) Brian really loves early-stage concept art. Frank reveals Mike's perfect game - a Legacy game comprised entirely of stickers. "When in doubt, kill a Nazi." Not a board game, but a fun set of puzzles for people who like word searches that quickly get out of hand. What are you looking forward to playing in 2026? What are we overlooking? C
As we head into the last days of 2025, it's time for our traditional look back at our favorite games and game-related events of the last 12 months. Discussions include: The best game shipping wrapper we've ever seen. A really impressive deck-builder that you can't get for love or money... ...or CAN you? A game box even bigger than last month's! Blood on the Clocktower, but solitaire...and on a PC? Frank cheats and adds a computer game to his list, as usual...but so does Mike?!? What have we missed? What was your favorite board game of 2025? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and oth
More opinions on computer games that have been converted into board games! Among our conversations: Which of us played a demo of Civilization: A New Dawn and didn't like it? The answer may shock you! We disagree on many things, but we all agree on...post-apocalyptic child labor? What's up with This Room? A game box that Jayson's doctor won't allow him to lift. What have we missed? What's your favorite board game version of a video game? How are we wrong? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing u
Yes, we're back again, this time to talk about board games that were converted from computer games. Some of them are excellent...some are just cash grabs. Listen on to find out which is which! Also, if you want to make this episode a drinking game, take a drink every time we say "...but the minis are gorgeous!" (Not responsible for liver damage.) We discuss: What kind of board game could be based on the world's first "cathode ray tube amusement device"? (Hint: none.) 60% of us remember Zaxxon - do you? There are so many games named Civilization that Mike doesn't remember which one he likes. He
An episode without Frank? But what about all the history? Well, thankfully, history in this case starts in around 1993, with the publication of Magic: The Gathering, because we're reviewing the career of its designer, Richard Garfield. We discuss: Not one, but two of Garfield's notable ancestors. An interview where he talks about how MtG has drifted away from what he wanted it to be, along with some rather salacious stories from the early days of Wizards of the Coast. A Usenet post from WotC founder Peter Adkison, dating to shortly before MtG was released, with a surprisingly candid overview o
We're back to finish our discussion of trick-taking games, covering the end of the creative surge around 2000 and then the new resurgence of clever designs that we've seen since 2019. Like last month's episode, this one is a bit on the shorter side, but we promise to make up for it next month! We discuss: A game so complicated that Frank can't keep track of what cards have been played - and he (and Sandi) designed it! Why does Mike think that this game is "peak trick-taking"? The answer may surprise you...but it probably won't. How many Easter eggs can you find in this card panorama? Delicious
Why hello there! This month is the first part of our discussion about the wonderful world of trick-taking games, starting with the old classics and covering the first part of their resurgence in the 1990s. The rest of the topic, including the second (current) surge of clever new designs, will come next month. This could realistically have been a single episode, but for various uninteresting logistical reasons, we're splitting it into two, each of which is slightly shorter than usual. (Think of them as Fun-Size episodes.) We discuss: The origin of modern playing cards as fortune-telling devices
Welcome back, everyone! This month we're talking about games with a social or political message. It's not JUST because it's Pride Month in the USA, and it's not JUST because tariffs are currently wreaking havoc on the entire board game industry...but it's not NOT because of those things, either. Many links follow: Amabel Holland's great video about, among other things, the REAL origins of Monopoly The games that made Jayson say, "It's awful. I hate this company. I hate it so much." KamSandwich agrees that both of these games are pretty awful. This game (and the rest of the games in its series)
We're back, and so is Brian's voice! And we simply have to tell you about a bunch MORE role-playing games that have interesting mechanics. We talk about games where characters don't trust each other, or perhaps do but shouldn't. We give a lot of love to Bully Pulpit Games and Rowan, Rook, & Decard, because they do consistently great work. We talk about a bunch of great GMless, no-prep games, and you can see several of them being played by our friends at Third Floor Wars: Zhenya's Wonder Tales Desperation (Brian's in this one!) The Zone We talk about an extraordinarily important and influential
I know, I know, we said we weren't going to do the Ascent of Role-Playing Games thing. And we're not! But there ARE a bunch of role-playing games that have some interesting mechanics, and we're going to be talking about those this month and next. (If you don't like it, join our Discord server so you can vote against it the next time we run a poll!) Brian's voice is absolutely shot to hell after weeks of coughing - apologies for making you hear it. "I don't know how we played this game before spreadsheets." Frank insists on telling us about a staggeringly bad TTRPG. We talk about games with wei
That's right, folks, it's episode 70! Do I hear 75? No? Episode 70, going once, going twice...sold to the discerning podcast listener! IS Jayson actually Agent 47? Probably not. Forget we said anything. Frank calling out Reiner Knizia within 4 minutes of the episode start "What is fish?" Help us, Jane Austen! Is this the first Eurogame? What happens when you take the auctions out of a game that's all about auctions? What is a Dutch Auction, and should anyone be offended by the term? Frank continues to be our resident board game hipster Are we wrong in our opinions on auction games? Are there s
This is episode 69. We're discussing sex games. We're sorry. (Except Joe...Joe isn't sorry at all.) Sandi has joined us to try to provide a little bit of maturity to the topic; we'll let you decide if she succeeded. This is an adults-only episode (and we mean it this time), but we won't be offended if you decide to give this one a miss. Just come back next month, please? I promise we won't do it again. We find a series of weird connections between sex games and big wargaming companies - Columbia Games, Avalon Hill, and Victory Games - not to mention well-known designers like Sid Sackson and Wo
Well, we made it to 2025, technically. What new board games are coming out to give us hope for the future? Frank describes one of his choices as "big...sprawling...French..." Joe is unhappy with Mike's love/hate relationship with Tales of the Arabian Nights Has Joe made The Ultimate Crowdfunding Mistake? Will Frank go 3-for-3 on Fantasy Name: Dramatic Subtitle? The delightful Deep Regrets teaser trailer that sold Jayson on the game Are we wrong in some way? (Almost certainly.) Do you want to tell us what the correct choices would have been? Come visit our newly-revived Discord server to chat w
The end of the year draws nigh, so of course we have to do a year-end countdown. All five of us - even the near-mythical Jayson - have prepared a list of our five favorite games from The Year That Was - enjoy! We argue about what a game's name means because of a (missing?) apostrophe Frank teaches Jayson the lore of the Mothman All of Frank's choices are, for once, board games! The same cannot be said for Joe. We are definitely NOT starting The Ascent of Role-Playing Games, but here are some TTRPGs that we like and you might want to check out: Nimble Daggerheart HEDGE (Kickstarter ends Tuesday
Happy post-Halloween! Now that everyone's hopped up on sugar (and/or in a sugar crash coma), let's finish our discussion of party games! Come along as we discuss: Mike's greatest weakness - a limited knowledge of Campbell's Soup varieties! What game company was founded because of a flooded salmon boat? "They're Belgian, but that's French enough." (We're sorry.) A mercifully brief digression into Marcel Proust's 7-volume À la recherche du temps perdu. And a few video/picture links we mention along the way: A well-shot, well-edited game of Skull: https://www.youtu be.com/watch?v=rK2locyo-Pc A lo
Hi folks! We're back this month to talk about party games, though the last week or so hasn't been as much fun as we'd like. Between scheduling issues and hurricane-induced power outages, this episode was a bit rushed; as a result, it's ended up a bit on the short side, so we hope you'll forgive us. Also, instead of begging for an iTunes review this month, we'd like to ask that you donate what you can to the American Red Cross or another reputable charity providing relief to those battered by Hurricane Helene. All of us are doing fine, but there are a lot of people out there that need help. Mea
Remember way back in Episode 33, when we talked about two-player games but excluded fighting and war games because there were too many? Now is when we finally talk about the fighty ones! Join us as: Brian's tongue stops working. We talk about chess - good chess channels on YouTube, weird chess games on forums, and absolutely bonkers chess games on the computer. We look back at an early first-person shooter - in book form. We haggle about the intricacies of the Avalon Hill game complexity scale. And we generally correct each other, talk smack, and otherwise have fun. As always, thank you for li
It's time for another deep dive - this time into the collected works of Czech game guru Vlaada Chvátil (whose name we hope we pronounced mostly right most of the time, but no promises). Join us as: We examine some of the...questionable design choices of Vlaada's first board game. We talk about the metallic composition of these famously flimsy early miniatures. We learn that Frank likes Talisman, and Mike dislikes that. Brian gratuitously quotes Walt Whitman. We talk about excellent digital versions of two of Vlaada's early classics. We fail to adequately convey the sheer madness of Bunny Bunny
