Here we are at another season already. The podcast has now reached it's 22nd season, which is a small miracle. We just keep chugging along. If anything, I think it now has a solid core of listeners and participants that feel like they're going to stick with me. :-)

With BGStats, it's now even easier for me to see my final tallies for the games I played last year. Plus, I can separate out the digital ones from the in-person plays. Though as you'll hear in the podcast, a bunch of those digital plays are as real as anything, thanks to live play and voice/video connections. I expect that trend will continue to be an important part of my hobby. After talking about those statistics and some more meta thoughts at the end of the year, I jump into some questions & comments from listeners. I used to do this regularly. Now, perhaps the Discord server itself serves some of that function. But it's still nice to respond on the podcast to questions. I'll probably do that again sometime. -Mark

@Gregarius

I know I said this episode would be my Feedback (or "mail bag") focused epsiode. And some may remember that previously I'd used the December 1st episode for my grinch-like Curmudgeon Show. In the end, I decided to push the Feedback episode back one month, to start the year with it on January 1st, 2026. You've got some more time to submit any questions or topics for me. While I'm not bringing back the Curmudgeon Show (just enjoy the grumbling on our special Discord channel!), I did bring back another old-timer who always joins me this time of year to talk about BGGcon. Greg Pettit is an "every-timer" to this wonderful event, and I've always had him back on the podcast to talk about his experiences & games played there. I wasn't able to join this year, but that's because I went to a different game convention the same month: San Diego History Con, or SDHistCon. So...I decided to blend our experiences and discussions into a combined episode about both conventions. Greg & I both intended to be more concise in this episode...but that didn't really happen. :-) Even after trimming our lists of some games, only talking about an interesting subset of them, we managed to have as much to say as ever. It's another big episode that will keep you going the entire holiday season. Is it a gift buying guide? Not really! We don't approach things that way, a little curmudgeon-ness leaks through sometimes, but we do gush about a few games. So perhaps it inspires some gift-giving, who knows? When you listen to this episode, you may find it helpful to follow along with our geeklist. That way you can track what games we've talked about, which are coming next, and what are 5-star ratings are. I've also inserted the game boxes here in the order discussed, which will also appear in the shownotes.

We both had good experiences at our respective cons, and I look forward to next year when I expect we'll get to sit across the same game table together in Dallas. As much as I'd like to go to all the good conventions, I can't. As it is, I'm at a point in my life (empty nester, nearing retirement) when I can go to more than ever before. In a month I'll return to the regional EsCon event, and in the spring I think I'll be back in Las Vegas for Dice Tower West.

-Mark

Opener: Please send in your comments, questions, or suggestions for next month's Feedback-focused episode Closer: When do you opt out of game night? Every year I pay special attention to Fairplay magazine's booth at Essen. In recent years, they've been great about sharing their Scoutaktion results on social media, too. Fairplay is primarily a German language print magazine for our hobby, but every year at Essen they do an additional service for our global hobby: they collect ratings for the first impressions of these new titles, and share them for all to see.

Here's what they reported last year. Notice anything? The top rated game in the expert category went on to win the Kennerspiel a year later, and the same thing happened with the top-rated family category game winning the Spiel des Jahres! The predictions for later success & staying power aren't always that accurate, but they're always pretty good. They are definitely worth watching. For this episode I go through the 10 top titles in each of this year's Expert and Family categories for Fairplay booth voting. They call these their Scoutaktion reports. I've been following these avidly for a quarter-century. Amazing!

-Mark

Opener: The games we played at the second BGTG Online Mini-Con

Closer: Essen is almost here, and I'll still follow it (but not anticipate it) For a long time I've wanted to have a boardgamer's discussion about different sports...as games. I don't mean sports boardgames, or season/league play. Nor do I mean franchise management. I mean the physical game itself, on the field, with its rules. Sure, a sport is a physical activity. An enormous part of the resulting play comes from the athletic prowess and physical skill of the players. However, there's a lot of strategy in the best sports games. It's part of what makes them fun to watch, to discuss, to second-guess, and so on. Whether it's football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, or tennis, these games have rules, they have scoring systems, they have strategic texture. Right? If you don't see that, then it might explain why you don't care for sports.

Maybe all sports have strategic texture. It's much harder for me to see in something like the dash races on the track or in a pool. Those seem to be much more measures of sheer physical athleticism. Though even in races, I've heard runners talk about the strategy for a race, especially with the energy management and psychological contest against other runners. However, I'm really focusing on sports that have more rules, more scoring. I think these provide greater opportunity for players and teams to differentiate from each other by their strategy. Sometimes it comes from the coach or manager, such as when managing the clock. Part of the reason this is a solo episode is that I've always had difficulty getting others to understand what I'm talking about. Or perhaps no one is interested! Whatever--I decided to record this episode by myself and find out what kind of response it generates. If you are a sports fan--and a boardgamer--does any of this make sense to you? Did I forget something? Especially with the sports I don't follow so much (soccer, basketball, hockey), I'm sure that I did. Boardgamers seem to gravitate toward baseball, a game that offers the opportunity for deep study and second-guessing. I'm anticipating some reaction there. -Mark

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 Boardgames To Go discord server 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: Vantage Greg: Rock Hard 1977

Closers: Greg: "I don't know" ❤️ Mark: Finding my city on a game map

@Gregarius

Over two decades I've enjoyed having a lot of people join me on the podcast, most of them my friends from local game groups. Greg Pettit has been there from the beginning, and quite a few times. Especially in some earlier years of the podcast, Greg was one who was willing to tackle some deep topics, meta-topics around the hobby. Instead of talking about a specific game, we'd talk about the possible longevity of our hobby, artistic merit of some designs, the different types of thematic resonance in games, or how to be contemplative with our boardgames. He initiated several of those topics. (To be fair, some of my other friends do that, too. That's why they're my friends...they like dissecting our hobby with me.) With more & more years behind us, Greg suggested we revisit some of those subjects, at least at a high level. The hobby has grown & grown. Distribution is much wider and boardgames now come up conversations at work or your neighborhood. Game mechanisms and styles of play have changed. And...we've all gotten older. Greg has questions relating to all of these, and it's fun to talk about. -Mark

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: Qwinto Closer: The SdJ awards ceremony, 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. Usually that's recounting the games I played, and my enthusiasm for them in a 5-star rating. This time, I'm taking more of a meta approach to the topic. Yes, I'm still talking about a convention I went to recently, and some games played there, but half of the episode is about the idea of game conventions in the first place. The different types, which ones I prefer, and so on. Then the second half was recorded at a recent convention, meant to highlight the sort of fun, deep, not-so-serious discussions about the hobby and our shared experience in it. That's a lot of what I enjoy about game conventions--getting to hang out for continuous time with others who are just as geeky as I am about boardgames. I'm among my people!

In this particular case, DaveO, Jonathan, Jeff, and SteveV join me to talk about games of designer Rüdiger Dorn. We concentrated on those for an entire day. This prolific designer has titles from 1992 to the present day. He's won the Kennerspiel des Jahres and been nominated for the Spiel des Jahres multiple times. Some of his most famous titles include Istanbul, Goa, Jambo, Traders of Genoa, and Louis XIV...none of which we played! Instead we tabled Dragonheart, Las Vegas Royale, Emerald, Montana, Rune Stones, My Farm Shop, Karuba, Arkadia, Danger 13, Mercado, Karuba the Card Game, and Diamonds Club. That was primarily with two groups playing all day long on two tables. It was the Dornücopia!

At the last minute I thought a funny hat would be a great addition to our little event. While I couldn't find a cornucopia hat on short notice, I did find a corn hat. That was great! The winner of a game was crowned with it, and soon enough we were calling that person The Great Dornholio. Now I think all of our future mini-events will benefit from a special hat!

-Mark

Opener: Skara Brae, 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 my predictions for what will win are particularly interesting or insightful--I just like talking about the games and sharing what I think of them. For the SdJ, this year the nominees are Bomb Busters, Flip 7, and Krakel Orakel. (Plus the recommended titles are Agent Avenue, Castle Combo, Cities, Foxy, Perfect Words, and The Animals of Baker Street.)

Then for the Kennerspiel (a category that's only gotten more interesting to me as it has drifted into my preferred game "weight") the nominees are Endeavor: Deep Sea, Faraway, and Looot. (The additional recommended titles are The Gang, Kauri, Medical Mysteries: NYC Emergency Room, and Zenith.)

-Mark

Openers: Mark: Space Empires 4X Jonathan: 2005 Flashback & Quiz Closers: Jonathan: My top games of 2005 Mark: Hosting my own (small) event instead of traveling to a con?

Mark Johnson

@MarkEJohnson

Jonathan Takagi

@jtakagi

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 changed over the years. This time it's my longtime friend & listener from San Diego, Jonathan Takagi. In fact, he's from a bit north, in Escondido, and Jonathan is another one of the people behind my favorite regional con, EsCon. I'll be going back there in a month! Jonathan decided to pick 2005 because it's twenty years ago...which also happens to be when I started the podcast. Niagara was the game that won the SdJ (one of my earliest disappointments with the jury's selection!), and I replayed it just recently to re-examine my opinion about the game. In fact, it can be played online at BGA, which seems odd for a game that relies on its physicality and "toy factor" as much as it does. Still, the actual strategy in the game remains intact in the format, since the unpredictability of the fork in the river may not be so unpredictable after all. What do you think of Niagara?

We don't just talk about the winner, though. Back in those days, the SdJ jury announced four other "nominated" games that could've won the award, and several more "recommended" games. For me, I think the game I'd want as the winner resides in the nominated list, while Jonathan singles out some standouts from the recommended list. Other titles nominated for the SdJ: Verflixxt! (That's Life), Around the World in 80 Days, Jambo, and Himalaya (Lords of Xidit)

Other titles recommended by the SdJ jury: Boomtown, Tanz der Hornochsen (Dance of Ibexes), The Gardens of the Alhambra, Diamant (Incan Gold), Geschenkt! (No Thanks), Piranha Pedro, Typo, and Wie ich die Welt sehe…

We also talk about two other major German game awards, the Deutscher Spielpreis, and the A La Carte. They are both ranked list. The former is (sort of) for heavier, gamer-games, while the latter is for card games (or "board"games done with cards). The timing of these awards is slightly off from the SdJ, so depending on publication dates a game might show up in one year's list for one award, and the following year for another award. But they're all close, and with some notable overlap for widely-respected games. DSP 1. Louis XIV 2. Niagara 3. Manila 4. Ubongo 5. Himalaya 6. Around the World in 80 Days 7. Shadows Over Camelot 8. Jambo 9. The Scepter of Zavandor 10. Verflixxt! A La Carte 1. Jambo 2. Geschenkt! 3. Wie ich die Welt sehe… 4. Diamant 5. Boomtown 6. Razzia! 7. Team Work 8. Gelb Gewinnt! Near the end of the episode, Jonathan considers what we can now observe in the hobby when we look back on 2005. Was it the start of a transition from "German Games" to the broader notion of "Euros"? Of course we had some French, Italian, British, and even American titles back then, but they're hobby still showed its tremendous roots in German culture and its game publishing. At some point, that changed. Was this around the start of that change? -Mark

Opener: Join us to play games online together on May 3. We're meeting on the Discord server, as well as the Boardgames To Go Listeners group on BGA

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 fun & easy to do--I won't do them all the time, but every once in a while should be ok. Closer: Message me with any of your questions, and I may use them on a future Session Report & Feedback episode. -Mark

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 Vegas every March, that's a destination I can reach by car. I join a bunch of friends there and we play most games together. Besides a number of fresh & new ones, the buddies I got to this con with enjoy focusing one entire day on old games. We define that as games more than 25 years old. Last year that went to 1999, and now we included other titles published in 2000.

-Mark