The Ascent of Board Games

Episode 8 - Great Gimmicks

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, since there are a number of gadgets that are really tough to explain in an audio-only medium. Listen on as we:
...display a truly staggering ignorance of how copyright law works!
...finally talk about a Catan game, after only 8 months!
...giggle like twelve-year-olds at the names of some problematic Keyforge decks!
...refer vaguely to a really cool gimmick that we can't actually talk about now because spoilers!
A few related items you might want to check out:
 
An online Avalanche emulator
A truly epic promotional photo for Nessie Hunt
A brief time-lapse video that manages to make Tamsk look even more stressful than it is
 
If you would be kind enough to give us a review on iTunes, we'd really appreciate the support!
If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we suspect you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!

Valentine's Day Bonus Episode!

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 even audiobook narrators, so be prepared for a few rough patches. In our defense, the paragraphs in the game had a...lot...of ellipses in weird...places.
Note: This game was published almost 35 years years ago, based on novels that were published 40+ years ago and set 100-200 years ago. The text contains some cultural insensitivity, a LOT of gender stereotyping, and at least one scene that today would be classified as sexual assault. The books and the game are products of their respective times, and while we can laugh about the old-fashioned ideas now, that certainly doesn't mean we approve or support that kind of behavior when there are any real people involved. We hope you understand.
In case you're interested in checking out the source material (but beware spoilers!), the three stories we played through are based on:
The Dangerous Dandy - Frank and Mike's storyline
The Duchess Disappeared - Brian's storyline
The Punishment of a Vixen - Jayson and Joe's storyline
Also, here's the iTunes link for Barbara Cartland's album of love songs, and a recipe for Harira. (It'll make sense - well, maybe a tiny bit more sense - once you've heard the episode.)
We'd love it if you'd give us a review on iTunes - it's one of the very best ways for us to find new listeners.
If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!

Episode 7 - Asymmetrical Games

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:
Joe goes on an angry rant about a game he claims is good!
Brian misquotes Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart!
We finally talk about Gloomhaven!
And, most shockingly, people have their minds changed on a topic via rational discussion like civilized human beings!
If you would be kind enough to give us a review on iTunes, we'd really appreciate the support.
If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!

Episode 6 - Paragraph Games

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 to page 17.
If you want to play the classic Lone Wolf choose-your-own-adventure books online for free, turn to page 6.
If you want to hear Joe butcher several Polish game designers' names - we're all very, very sorry - fast-forward to 1:01:10.
If you'd like to see Frank's beautifully-painted Stuffed Fables miniatures, turn to page 12.
If you would be kind enough to give us a review on iTunes, turn to page 42.
If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!

Holiday Bonus Episode!

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 trends, or anything else that we can somehow tangentially connect to board games), our biggest disappointments of the year, and what we're looking forward to in 2019.
For some more details about some of the stuff we discuss in this episode:
Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of Dinesh Vatvani's interesting data analysis of BGG game ratings.
The epic Eldritch Horror case our friend Sean got from Lyris Laser.
You thought Jayson was kidding about his Transformers collection? Not even a little bit.
Mike's still streaming his video game adventures. Check him out on Twitch.
It's been a great year for us - thank you for listening! (Also, if Frank has talked YOU into buying something during this podcast, please let us know so we can update his score appropriately.) If you have anything you'd like to ask, share, or tell us about, please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
We'll talk to you again next year!

Episode 5 - Cooperative Games

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 the show starts at 18:24.
A few of the fascinating things we learned this episode:
We clearly need to record an episode on asymmetrical games soon
At least 40% of the podcast team gets "asymmetrical" confused with "asynchronous"
Frank uses Gamepedia to organize his ludicrous boardgame collection (though most of us still suspect the mysterious hooded monks)
Buddy the Frog was really excited to visit the Family Pastimes HQ
Japanese schoolgirls were really excited to play Zombie Tower 3D (there's no sound for the first ~30 seconds of the video, so don't worry)
In the spirit of cooperation, please feel free to share our podcast with people who you think might enjoy it. If you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it really helps us in our efforts to reach more listeners. And if there's stuff you'd like us to do more of, or less of, or differently, please let us know! We're still a small enough operation that we can adapt easily to what our listeners want to hear.
If you have an opinion - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!

Episode 4 - Dice Games

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 of the episode, it's not because we were drinking. Promise.
We start with a recap of games played at a recent game convention we all attended. (Note that "recent" is a relative term - this episode was actually recorded in early July. That said, we're more or less done with our initial backlog of recordings, so future episodes should be a lot more current.) If you want to skip all that nonsense, the episode proper starts at 18:01.
The interesting board/base of Das Spiel, which is hard to describe in audio: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/93615/spiel
As always, we'd love to hear what you think - is there too much random chatter when we talk about what we've been playing? Have we forgotten your favorite games in a particular genre? Why does Mike hate gnomes, and why is he wrong? If you have an opinion - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
And if you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it really helps us in our efforts to reach more listeners. The other thing that really helps is word of mouth, so if you know any other game nerds that might enjoy the show, please tell them about it!
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!
 

Episode 3 - Batteries Included

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 along the way:
The epic Egyptian imagery of Electra, 1910: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/598808/electra
A great Dark Tower fan site, with pictures of Bob Pepper's fantastic artwork for Dark Tower (and Dragonmaster): http://well-of-souls.com/tower/
Orson Welles assaults the Dark Tower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrY7MWEkwE
The Nightmare 2 music video - don't say you weren't warned! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ad5JXTnFE
A sample of how Dropmix can work, since we utterly failed to record any of our own experiments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQs1FJuJ1U
We also include a brief digression on which miniatures game has the most difficult miniatures to assemble. However, we did edit out our 18-minute digression on the relative merits of Community and Rick & Morty. Maybe we'll put that on our Patreon site someday. You know, if we ever actually have a Patreon site.
The other thing we cut is a 10-minute discussion of the Weave role-playing game. It's certainly in keeping with the theme of the episode, but since Weave is an RPG rather than a board game, we thought it was something we could safely leave out of the main episode (especially since this one was already a bit longer than usual). That said, if you're interested in hearing it, let us know; we'd be glad to release it as a supplemental "expansion pack" mini-episode.
As usual, we'd love to hear what you think - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/
Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
And if you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it would really help us in our efforts to reach more listeners.
Intro and outro music is Evening Melodrama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.
Thank you for listening!