Boardgames To Go 238 - Podcast 20th Anniversay (with Dave Arnott)
Release Date: 03/01/2025
Boardgames To Go 245 - Revisiting Deep Thoughts (with Greg Pettit)
Boardgames To Go
Please join us on the where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Reminder! Please join other podcast listeners for the next online BGTG Mini-Con, scheduled for September 6. I plan to be online from 9am-9pm Pacific time, including the for voice & video. The games will mostly be played on BoardgameArena, but adventurous gamers can also use Yucata, Brettspielwelt, Boardgames.io, Steam, apps, or whatever. It's free, and no RSVP or signup is necessary. Openers: Mark: Greg: Closers: Greg: "I don't know" ❤️ Mark:...
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Boardgames To Go 244 - Summer Game Convention Season
Boardgames To Go
Announcement! Please join other podcast listeners for the next online BGTG Mini-Con, scheduled for September 6. I plan to be online from 9am-9pm Pacific time, including Discord for voice & video. The games will mostly be played on BoardgameArena, but adventurous gamers can also use Yucata, Brettspielwelt, Boardgames.io, Steam, apps, or whatever. It's free, and no RSVP or signup is necessary. Opener: Closer: , which we watched/listened to live on the drive back from a convention Over the years you've heard me talk about a number of game conventions....
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Boardgames To Go 243 - SdJ & Kennerspiel 2025 Opinions & Predictions
Boardgames To Go
Opener: , and again I'm talking about vacation-linked boardgames Closer: The Dornücopia we've got planned for EsCon in a couple weeks. I'm always happy to talk about the Spiel des Jahres. The winners, the nominees, the recommended titles, the jury process, and the award's immense, positive impact on our hobby. That goes for the Kennerspiel and Kinderspiel, too...though I'm woefully ignorant about the children's category. This time it's just me talking about the games, severall of which I've played, but some I've missed. I don't think...
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Boardgames To Go 242 - Spiel des Jahres Wayback Machine for 2005 (with Jonathan Takagi)
Boardgames To Go
Please join us on the where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Openers: Mark: Jonathan: 2005 Flashback & Quiz Closers: Jonathan: My top games of 2005 Mark: Hosting my own (small) event instead of traveling to a con? The Wayback Machine is back. One more time, a friend joins me to go back in time to an earlier Spiel des Jahres, looking at the winner but also the other nominees and recommended games. In addition, my guest helps me think about the earlier time itself, and how the games, the hobby, and the community may have...
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Boardgames To Go 241 - Session Report & Feedback
Boardgames To Go
Please join us on the where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. Opener: Join us to play games online together on May 3. We're meeting on the , as well as the I set out to give myself a break this month, just talking about some recent games and fielding a few questions sent to me. In fact, I've been doing so much gaming lately that I had to whittle my list down to just these six games to share my impressions about. Then the feedback questions ended up being more fun to dive into than I expected. These kinds of shows are...
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Boardgames To Go 240 - Dice Tower West and the Mark Madness 2025 Champions
Boardgames To Go
The annual voting/predicting competition called Mark Madness is now finished. The results are posted with the rest of the updates for episode 239, and here co-host Eryn Roston returns one last time to share the winners. Unconscious Mind was our collective favorite for game cover art, and Adam Brocker is this year's winner. The plan now is for Adam to help me run next year's Mark Madness, in 2026. Next, I share my time at Dice Tower West. This is the second year in a row that I've gone to this national boardgame convention. Is it national? I think so. It's certainly big. Held in Las...
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Boardgames To Go 239E - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston)
Boardgames To Go
The Championship is now set! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/354557/mark-madness-2025-game-cover-art-with-eryn-roston
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Boardgames To Go 239D - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Elite Eight
Boardgames To Go
Be sure to go vote at https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/354557/mark-madness-2025-game-cover-art-with-eryn-roston?itemid=11634552#11634552
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Boardgames To Go 239C - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Sweet 16
Boardgames To Go
The round of 32 is finished, leaving us now voting on the Sweet 16 of game cover artworks. The choices are getting more difficult. And we have a new leader in our prediction contest. #Davecember celebrity loofish is representing his namesakes with a currently-in-first-place position for his guess...but with others on his tail.
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Boardgames To Go 239B - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Round of 32
Boardgames To Go
Eryn is back to talk with me about the results of the first round voting. Half of our original 64 game cover art entries have now been knocked out of the contest. Now successive voting rounds keep halving the remaining contestants every three days. What have we seen so far? No ties, though a couple matchups were close. A few more were blowouts. Are there common threads? Surprises? Plus...Eryn teaches me how to look at art more critically...by SQUINTING. Achievement unlocked. -Mark
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When did you start listening to podcasts? Do you remember your first ones? For me it was the first one ever about boardgames and the first about movies. That was Geekspeak and Reel Reviews. Even though I'm not so into wine, Grape Radio was another super early one for me. The medium was new, the tech was unfamiliar, and I loved the chance to listen to interesting audio on my commute, about unique subjects. Although those earliest shows seemed to use a lot of fancy, expensive equipment, I wondered if a more basic podcast could be produced with simple gear. On March 3, 2005, I threw my hat in the ring with Boardgames To Go, a new audio version of my blog of the same name. The response was quick & positive, so I kept at it. Two decades later, I'm still here.
Twenty years is an important milestone for me. I never really saw myself doing the podcast this long. I've averaged about 18 episodes per year over that time, including some early bursts of productivity and a few longer gaps. After the pandemic I renewed my commitment to the podcast and have stuck with a first-of-the-month schedule ever since, plus some bonus episodes along the way. My audience grew, then plateaued, then settled into a longstanding core of listeners. It's no exaggeration to say that you folks are the reason I've kept at it. I appreciate [your appreciation & encouragement, and I've enjoyed meeting some of you in-person.
This month you'll have to indulge me talking podcast history, motivation, and a little future planning. I can't help it. Longtime friend Dave Arnott talks through it with me, and we may not refer to a single game title! Don't worry--there will be more game titles than you can shake a stick at soon (hint: Mark Madness).
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One of the only photos I have of me recording the podcast. This was from way back in 2006, when Dave & I recorded an episode about Vinci. We were at SoCal Games Day at the time, upstairs at the Burbank Moose Lodge. You may be able to see that I just have my laptop nearby, with a "Y-cable" audio splitter allowing us both to have headset mics piped into it. That's as fancy as I ever was for this podcast.