Arcade Castle: A Gaming Podcast

Surviving the Cold War of Episode 10, Arcade Castle takes a break from serious topics and takes a trip to the amusement park thanks to Parker Brothers and their 2002 board game adaptation of the Roller Coaster Tycoon PC video game from 1999!

As Arcade Castle starts acquiring properties through auction, they cast a dubious eye towards the "Parker Brothers" publisher and the similarities to one of their other titular board game titles. However, as the game progresses and patrons ride rides, events occur in the park, and victory points pile up, Arcade Castle starts to see that there is more here than a "opoly" derivative.

However, as the play progresses to the games end, Arcade Castle starts to see the scales tip in favor of luck and random events vs. player strategy. Undeterred, Arcade Castle develops a few key rule modifications and component upgrades that push the excitement factor of the Roller Coaster Tycoon Board Game to the MAX!

In this 2002 adaptation of the 1999 video game, Arcade Castle uncovers a game that, despite the potential it would a bland 'gentle ride', turns out to be an exciting, fun, and memorable ride! Besides, everyone needs more vomit tokens in their board games!!!

Episode Outline:

00:00 - 25:00 - Arcade Castle talks about roller coasters, amusement parks, management simulators, projectile vomiting, carnies, post-apocalyptic wave pools, and Top Gun.

25:00 - 45:00 - Arcade Castle takes an in-depth look at the Roller Coaster Tycoon Board Game, the components, the rules, the gameplay, as well as some of the games shortcomings such as balancing issues, luck vs. strategy, and unstructured game progression.

45:00 - 65:00 - Seeing potential, Arcade Castle takes some time to take some of the problems the board game has and creates some easily implemented rule modifications and minor component additions that add a great deal of gameplay while removing randomness and luck.

Amid rising tensions, Arcade Castle chills with a Cold War Simulator on the Odyssey II from 1981. Utilizing a mathematical formula from the C.I.A. and real world scenarios torn fresh from the headlines (well, fresh in 1981 anyway), Magnavox created Conquest of the World. The third (and final) entry in the Master Strategy Series by Magnavox, Conquest of the World takes advantage of the expanded memory on the video game cartridge to create a 1v1 games that implies additional strategy on the screen and, when coupled with the board game portion of Conquest of the World, provides a in-depth gaming session for players picking up the joystick and board game. Or so Magnavox claims...

In this episode of the Arcade Castle Podcast, John and Patrick play another weird blending of video game and board game courteously of Magnavox. Pulled from the annals of time, Arcade Castle finds an interesting time capsule. A video game board game that blends elements of RISK and AXIS & ALLIES yet requires players to engage in battle through the Odyssey II to determine the outcome of global conflicts between nations, all of which is filtered through Cold War tensions. Can this game with overtones from the Cold War prove to be a hot ticket to fun? Or is it consigned to the No-Man's-Land between Board Games and Video Games?

Conquest of the World Gameplay!!!

Episode Outline:

00:00 - 25:00: Arcade Castle discusses an overview of the Master Strategy Series from Magnavox as well as the Conquest of the World. The discussion then turns to the Cold War nature of the Conquest of the World and Arcade Castle discusses their own recollections, memories from that time as well as games they have played that also focus on the Cold War.

25:00 - 50:00: Arcade Castle turns their discussion to the specifics of the Conquest of the World, including its contents and how the Conquest of the World is played, both as a board game and as a video game.

50:00 - 70:00 - After their examination of the game and how it plays, Arcade Castle turns their attention to some of the issues Conquest of the World has in terms of gameplay and balancing power between players as well as taking the game to task for its claims that it is based on the 'real-world' calculations of power between counties. They offer solutions to these problems.

In this episode of the Arcade Castle Podcast, we take the first word of our podcast quite literally by playing two arcade themed board games released by Milton Bradley in 1983: Pitfall! and Jungle Hunt. As Arcade Castle plays two jungle themed board games intended for players far younger than they, can they survive the hazards of the trail? Or succumb to the pitfalls and traps?

In Pitfall!, players move forward or backward along the surface, jungle trail, or the underground, cavern trail in their attempts to collect enough treasure to prove themselves as an adventurer brave enough to climb the mountain at the end of the game to collect the diamond. However, as players brave the jungles and caves of Pitfall! they must overcome a variety of hazards that include voracious crocodile, rolling logs, fires, cobras, and the eponymous pitfalls. If players are brave enough to enter the underground caverns, they may find themselves face to face with the vicious scorpion and may find themselves staying in the caves as a permanent resident...

In Jungle Hunt, players traverse the wild jungle interior to try and save the jungle girl from a tribe of hungry cannibals. But players need to navigate a forest of vines to swing their way to victory. Clever use of movement points can move one's adventurer closer to the goal, while moving other players further away. Additionally, players must beware the jungle gorilla or find themselves knocked from the vines to the jungle floor and forced to work their way back into the vines and into the game. Can you save the jungle girl? Or find yourself facing an angry gorilla instead?

Episode Outline:

00:00 - 22:00: Arcade Castle discusses at length their memories of hometown arcades, their favorite arcade cabinets, and why birthday cake, exercise, and jungle gyms are a bad combination.

22:00 - 38:00: Arcade Castle turns their attention to the first game they played in their Arcade Double Feature: Pitfall! They discuss their relationship with the game, Saturday morning cartoons, and how a board game can provide strategy and choice while still being aimed at younger children.

38:00 - 54:00: Arcade Castle looks at the second game of their Arcade Double Feature: Jungle Hunt. They discuss how NOT to make a board game for children, adults, or anyone in between. Can an arcade game with little content be successfully crafted into a board game?

Arcade Castle's attempt to sacrifice The Oregon Trail Card Game during the solar eclipse was, in a word, unsuccessful. At the height of the astronomical event, Arcade Castle thrust a dagger into the very heart of the card game and set it aflame in the hopes of removing its presence from this planet and send it into the unfathomable void of space.

But Arcade Castle was wrong.

As the embers died down and the solar bodies unaligned, something arose from the ashes, the proverbial phoenix: The Oregon Trail: Hunt For Food Card Game. This event left Arcade Castle defeated for some time...until now.

In Episode 08, Arcade Castle looks at the pseudo-expansion for the original game that no one asked for and no one expected. Nevertheless, setting themselves to the task, Arcade Castle opened up the Hunt For Food Card Game and played the second game in the series of card game adaptations of the legendary computer game that was released by MECC in the early 1970s.

The Hunt For Food Card Game, as the title suggests, is a card game adaptation of the hunting mini-game found in the Oregon Trail Computer Game. As the hunter, players navigate a grid of cards, flipping them over to explore the terrain. As they explore, obstacles, wild game, and hazards present themselves to the players. As a team, players must attempt to overcome these hazards as well as attempt to hunt, kill, and bring 600 pounds of meat back to the wagon to continue on the trail and win the game. But will this card game's aim be true? Or will it prove to far off the mark?

Episode Outline

00:00 - 07:00: Arcade Castle reintroduces the Oregon Trail card game series published by pressman, as well as recapping their opinions about the base game as discussed in Episode 04 of the podcast.

07:00 - 27:00: Arcade Castle explores, in length, The Oregon Trail: Hunt For Food Card Game. They describe the contents of the game, the rules of the game, and examine the strategies present in the game as well as the numerous problems with the game.

27:00 - 53:00: After playing the game as a standalone game, Arcade Castle integrates The Hunt For Food Card Game with the original Oregon Trail Card Game to see whether or not this integration helps either game become more playable and determine if it causes more problems then solutions. They then explore how changing some rules and adjusting gameplay may make both games function better. Do they recommend this game? Or recommend sacrificing it to the astral powers that be?

In Episode 07, Arcade Castle plumbs the depths of early text-based adventure gaming as they play a modern adaptation of one of the earliest video games ever made: Adventure/ADVENT/The Colossal Cave Adventure. While Adventure has seen many adaptations and modifications since its creation by Will Crowther in 1975, does this board game adaptation from 2013 deserve a place in the Well House, or cast into the Bottomless Pit?

In The Colossal Cave Adventure, players traverse the rooms and passages of The Colossal Cave and face the hazards and dangers therein in a quest for treasure. As players uncover mysterious items during their trek in The Colossal Cave, they will find these strange items are key to surviving the trials and tribulations they will face as well as finding the treasures housed within the cavernous passages and rooms of The Colossal Cave. As players acquire treasures, a race begins as players attempt to protect their treasures and deposit them in the Well House. The first player to deposit three treasures in the Well House can rightly call themselves the master of The Colossal Cave, and winner of the game!

In this (somewhat delayed) episode, Arcade Castle looks at a board game adaptation of an oft overlooked genre: text-based adventure games. Can you take a game that solely relies upon text as a user interface and successfully create a three dimensional board game that relies, in part, upon a GUI? Further, how can a developer take a solo experience and adapt it into a multi-player experience?

Episode Outline

00:00 - 10:00: Arcade Castle gives a general overview of text-based adventure games and The Colossal Cave Adventure. Additionally, they discuss text-based adventure games and their progeny, old and new, and their experiences playing them.

10:00 - 20:00: [Once Upon A Powerup] Arcade Castle gives a more detailed history of the circumstances behind the creation of Adventure and The Colossal Cave Adventure as well as its impact upon the industry.

20:00 - 35:00: Arcade Castle takes an in-depth look at The Colossal Cave Board Game. Detailing the contents, rules, and gameplay, they examine the challenges faced when codefabing a text-game into a board game.

35:00-50:00: Arcade Castle gives their final thoughts on The Colossal Cave Board Game. They look at where it succeeds and where it fails in codefabing The Colossal Cave from digital text into cardboard and plastic. They also compare it's success rate in this process with games looked at in prior podcast episodes.

In Episode 06 (or Episode 01, Volume 02 if we are going by comic book rules), Arcade Castle tackle the high risk, high reward world of high finance and stock speculation in The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt. Buying stock in Mcdonald's, WoW, and more, Arcade Castle struggles to avoid bankruptcy and boredom in this financial tool...game...for the Odyssey II from 1982!

In The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt, each player, or team of players start with $100,000 dollars and attempt, over the course of five years, to go big, go home, or go broke. Throughout the Level 1 version of the game, players buy and sell stock, and try to understand the cause and effect between stocks and world events that occur periodically throughout gameplay. Will Arcade Castle see $_$ ? or -_-?

In this first episode of Season 2 of the Arcade Castle Podcast, CasualJohn and Patrick examine another entry in the Master Strategy Series that were released in the early 1980s on the Magnavox Odyssey II. After The Quest For the Rings proving a surprise hit for Arcade Castle, will this entry in the series prove as enjoyable? Or will Arcade Castle's stock in this series tank with The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt?

Episode Outline:

00:00-17:00: Arcade Castle discusses the video games they are currently playing, discuss their favorite finance-based video games on a variety of consoles, and give an overview of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt and the Master Strategy Series.

17:00-27:00: Arcade Castle discusses the components of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt and include a new segment: Insert Coin to Play, with recorded audio of their gameplay of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt.

27:00-42:00: Arcade Castle discusses the base gameplay of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt in length, who they think the audience was for this game, some of the technical issues they have with the game, their recommendations, and final thoughts on the second game in the Master Strategy Series that has been placed before Arcade Castle.

"The game has been in production for a long time, because we've been working really hard to make sure that it is something that Portal fans will enjoy. But it's not Portal. You're not playing the video game in a board game, because why would you want to do that? It's a separate experience, but it's still very much Portal." - Sara Miguel (Cryptozoic Games)

Ah...well...I guess we don't need this episode of the podcast then...

Grape Cake

Ingredients

1 9 inch pan

Butter and flour for preparing cake pan

2 eggs

2/3 Cup of sugar

4 Tablespoons (2 oz) unsalted butter, melted

1/4 Cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/3 Cup milk

1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

3/4 Teaspoon of baking powder

Pinch of Salt

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Grated zest of 1 orange

10 ounces of fresh, purple grapes

Confectioner's sugar

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Generously butter and flour the pan, tapping out any excess. Set aside.

3. Beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon-colored, about 3 minutes. Add the butter, oil, milk, and vanilla extract. Mix until blended.

4. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt into large bowl. Add lemon and orange zest to bowl. After dry goods are throughly mixed, add to wet ingredients. Mix until thoroughly blended. Let mixture rest for 10 minutes.

5. Stir about 3/4 of the grapes into the batter. Spoon prepared batter into cake pan.

6. Place pan into center of oven. Bake for 15 minutes, then sprinkle the top with remaining grapes. Bake until golden brown and cake is firm (about 40 minutes, with a total baking time of around 55 minutes).

7. Let cake cool. Dust with confectioner's sugar. Serve at room temperature.

Episode Outline:

00:00-15:00 - Arcade Castle discusses the Portal video game series.

15:00-35:00 - Arcade Castle Turns it's attention to the Portal board game. They look at the components, rules, and gameplay.

35:00-50:00 - Examining the strategy behind Portal (the board game) they determine how well it succeeds at capturing the video game in a board game format. They discuss improvements and modifications to the board game (from components to rules) that would make the board game more closely align with the video game.

50:00-65:00 - In today's breakdown discussion, Arcade Castle talks about what developers should put more emphasis upon when creating a video game licensed board game: theme, or, mechanics.

Ignoring the advice of our guides, Arcade Castle sets out on the Oregon Trail in the middle of winter. Will this poor decision cause their journey to end before it even starts? The Oregon Trail: Card Game sets out to capture the early computing phenomenon that is The Oregon Trail. Created by Pressman and distributed exclusively by Target, The Oregon Trail: Card Game became a mini-phenomenon in its own right as nostalgia fueled gamers clamored for the card game based on the game they spent many an' hour playing in libraries and school computer labs. But does this card game deliver it's players safely to Willamette Valley, or does this game die of dysentery right outside the town gate?

In The Oregon Trail: Card Game, players attempt to traverse 50 sections of trail on their way to Oregon. However, players will face a variety of calamities such as disease, broken wagons, and privation. In addition, players will attempt for ford a number of rivers, with failure causing the loss of life and life-saving supplies. With forts and towns few and far between, will players see success on the Oregon Trail? Or will they simply find themselves another casualty along the trail, an epitaph their only reward?

In Episode IV, the Arcade Castle examines this 2016 card game based on the 1974 edutainment hit, The Oregon Trail. Fighting the crowds to locate a copy, Arcade Castle get the game to the table to see what all the hubbub is about. Did Pressman capture the collective nostalgia-fueled memories of many a' gamer and distill them into an exciting card game? Or is this yet another video game casualty in a long line of terrible licensed game adaptations that are more cash-grab than card-game?

Episode Outline:

00:00-12:00: Arcade Castle discusses the phenomenon that was The Oregon Trail in the 1980s and 1990s, the gameplay, as well as touching upon the history of MECC and some of the other games they published beyond The Oregon Trail.

12:00-32:00: An in-depth examination of The Oregon Trail: Card Game, the contents, and it's gameplay. In addition, Arcade Castle compares and discusses how this card game captures (or fails to capture) the strategy and gameplay of The Oregon Trail.

32:00-49:00: Continuing their discussion, Arcade Castle looks at how the card game and video game dictate how the player interacts with, their assumed roles, and expectations placed upon the gamer when playing each game in turn. Can a middle ground be found between the two? Can the mechanics of the card game be tweaked to better represent The Oregon Trail?

Patrick's first experience with the game:

During the sweltering summer days of July, Arcade Castle tried to escape the heat and humidity by escaping to the...identical climes of the Mediterranean. Failing to escape the weather, they decided to find out which ancient civilization of the old world was the dominant superpower and, since Arcade Castle has as of yet to finish their time machine, tried to determine the answer with a board game. Age of Mythology: The Board Game is an adaptation of the Real Time Strategy video game of the same name. Players choose between the Egyptians, Norse, and Greek civilizations to do exciting things like Explore! Trade! And Gather!

As players amass resources they can choose to militarize their civilization or become an economic powerhouse. Does this game reward players for turning their civilization into a trade hub? Or, does it reward them for become a military force to be reckoned with?

In Episode 3, Arcade Castle examines the first of many attempts by developers to capture a Real Time Strategy video game in a board game. With computers handing many of the multi-tasking details of a typical Real Time Strategy skirmish between players, can this board game handle translating these fine details into game rules and mechanics? How does Age of Mythology solve the problem that faces all Real Time Strategy board games: How can you create a board game to imitate the 'real time' nature of the video game genre?

Episode Outline:

00:00-05:00: Podcast Updates and Show News.

05:00-17:00: Discussing Real Time Strategy Video Games, the history of the genre, as well as some of the foundational mechanics that typify the genre.

17:00-30:00: Examining the components, rules, and gameplay of the Age of Mythology: The Board Game.

30:00-50:00: Comparing Age of Mythology to the Real Time Strategy genre at large. How does it compare? Discussing our final thoughts on the board game as well as potential fixes for some of the issues we encountered during gameplay.

50:00-66:00: Breakdown Discussion: Is it possible to accurately create a 'Real Time Strategy' board game? What would one have to do to capture the frenzy and multitasking the genre embodies?

On this rainy day in April, The Arcade Castle decided to distract themselves from the boredom and woes

that only come from being stuck inside during rainy weather. Searching through the archives they come across a game that reminds them of their youth; halcyon days filled with designing cities, relaxing music, and bulldozing schools and libraries to get a higher population count.

However, as they open the game and begin reading the extensive tome that acts as the rulebook to playing this game, will Arcade Castle be overjoyed, or underwhelmed, by this mid-90s card game by Mayfair Games and Maxis Games? Can the budding city of ArcadeCastleopolis survive disaster?!

In this (slightly delayed) episode, Arcade Castle examines SimCity The Card Game. In stores from 1994 to 1995, this CCG saw several starter sets and trading card packs. But can this game live up to players' expectations? Does this card game successfully capture the strategy and gameplay from the video game series?

Episode Outline:

00:00-15:00: Discussion about the SIM franchise and how SimCity as a videogame works. Once Upon a Powerup: The Story of Will Wright and the Simulated City.

15:00-35:00: Examination of the rules and gameplay of SimCity: The Card Game.

35:00-52:00: Comparing SimCity: The Card Game to the SimCity franchise. How do both games function? What core gameplay mechanics and strategies drive each in turn? What expectations do videogamers bring to the table when playing SimCity: The Card Game? Does this card game meet those expectations?

52:00-64:00: Breakdown Discussion: How faithful should a licensee be when they are adapting a videogame into a board game or card game? Can you truly adapt a video game from digital into analog?