Boardgames To Go

Go vote for the championship! (And the 3rd/4th place consolation match) https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-to-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12087718#comment12087718

It's the Final Four. Go vote now at https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12083072#comment12083072

It's the Elite Eight! Get your votes in before March 24 at https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12079786#comment12079786

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.

Play along and predict the winners at https://challonge.com/3abpsej6 Predictions must be submitted by March 12 to be in the contest

Mark Johnson

@MarkEJohnson

Patrick Pence

@Farsol

Last year I ran my first "March Madness" style, 64-game, single-elimination vote, with a contest to submit predictions for the entire bracket. If you've got a pool for the famous college basketball tournament in your office, or with your friends, then you know what this is. Actually, these days many other copycat tournament prediction contests exists--there's a big one on BoardGameGeek, my favorite movie podcast (Filmspotting) does one for films, and so on. My version is similar, but it lists a bunch of games to be voted on against each other. Listeners suggested I call it Mark Madness, and that's what we did. Last year I picked all 64 games that we voted on, pulling from recent award winners in different categories. Listener Patrick Pence ended up the winner of the contest, and for that reason he's my co-host this month for the 2024 Mark Madness. Not only that, more listeners on our Discord channel suggested that the contest be more specific to me, asking me to populate the bracket with games that mean something to me. I did about half of those, and asked Patrick to do the same. Then I combined our lists, added a few "people's choice" titles to round it out, and then set up the bracket. Play along! I hope we get a good number of folks who submit their own official predictions at challonge.com, which is free. Some have already done it. You've until March 12 to submit your brackets, so you need to move quickly. Then the voting rounds will start via Geeklist polling. As you can see from the chart above, the successive rounds of this voting will start happening every three days: On March 15 we'll have the results of the first round, when 64 teams are winnowed down to 32 survivors. Then it proceeds to the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4, and Championship. Who will be the winner? We expect to do "micro-episode" podcasts throughout the month to talk about each round. They'll show up in your regular feed, and I can link them here, too. -Mark

Get your Sweet Sixteen votes in now! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12074798#comment12074798

Micro-episode for the next round of voting.

Vote here! https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/328714/boardgames-go-season-20-2024?itemid=10561730&commentid=12070025#comment12070025

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.

Opener: Daybreak

Last year was a great year of boardgaming for me. Apparently I played more games than ever, whether you include online plays or not. In this episode I go over the ones I played the most, the ones I liked the most, and some topics other than titles themselves. Like...gaming events I attended, others I'm aiming for in 2024, my excitement for the growing library of "history games," and how I'm still unsatisfied that boardgames haven't built as much connection to travel or place as they could. Closer: Mark Madness is coming back for 2024, and last year's champion Patrick Pence is helping me! We want your suggestions for divisions & games to go up against each other. -Mark

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.

Opener: Welcome to Season 20(!!!) of this little podcast

I didn't make it to BGGcon last November, but several of my buddies did. Two of them, Greg Pettit and Dave O'Connor, join me on the podcast to talk about their experience there. For almost half the time we talk about about everything BUT the games (the venue, the crowd, the bazaar, the puzzle hunt, etc)...and then we get into a lot of games. We talk about Heat, Anunnaki, Wandering Towers, Bristol 1350, 1902 Melies, Blood on the Clocktower, Oak, Tricky Badger, Match of the Century, That's Not A Hat, Rebel Princess, Rollet, Armadillo, At The Office, Voodoo Prince, Gang of Dice, Babylonia, Havalandi, Pax Pamir, Turncoats, Cosmoctopus, Nemesis, Cosmic Frog, and The Thing! Whew! Closer: Playing games with family (especially party games) using whatever "rules" and "scoring" are most fun -Mark

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.

Opener: Sea Salt & Paper

eryn roston

@baditude

Darryl Boone

@booned

I'm a pretty positive guy, and I hope that normally comes through on my podcast. While I have distinct preferences for the kinds of games I play, I try to be willing to play most things. Or at least, when I turn something down I try to be kind about it. It helps to have been around long enough, wearing those preferences on my sleeve. My friends know the kind of big, plastic-filled, multi-hour fantasy fighting games that aren't for me.

However, it IS true that I have an inner monologue, and it can be frustrated with the aspects of our hobby that I don't like. Even worse, I think those aspects are detrimental to its wide enjoyment and acceptance with many people. You know how I open every episode by saying my podcast is about "family strategy boardgames"? Because that's what I like best, and it's what's most important. They're most important to me, and I'd say the wider success through mass market channels (Target, Amazon), plus increased role of our hobby on the culture...well, those things emphasize that family strategy games are generating the most joy for players and the most success for the industry. Especially on the Discord server, sometimes I'd be more open with those frustrations. Sometimes I just needed to vent a bit. At one point we made a separate discussion channel within that server just for #curmudgeon grumblings. Guess what? It has ended up being some of those most active discussions! Along the way it was suggested that one podcast episode be devoted to the same venting, and here we have it: The Curmudgeon Show. Two volunteers from Discord agreed to help me on this project, and the result is the final episode for this year, season 19. Take it in the spirit it was intended, and I always look forward to comments. Closer: I worked at making 2023 a better year for my hobby, and am so pleased that it worked! [That's not very curmudgeonly! -ed] -Mark

Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners.

Openers: • Mark: Basketboss • Dave: Istanbul

David Arnott

@Arnott

After hearing Ken Tidwell in last month's podcast, both Dave Arnott and I were impressed with his enthusiastic, optimistic, and forward-looking perspective on the boardgame hobby…despite being an old timer like us. Even older, I think! While neither of us can fully match that, it was inspiring and I asked Dave to consider the topic with me in an open discussion for THIS episode. We recorded it on an iPhone in a church choir room at our SoCal Games Day venue. The audio is ok, but you can tell it's not my normal setup. Also unusual was the lack of a show outline. It means that I struggle a bit to stay focused on the goal. Too often I flip it around and revert to talking about how new hobbyists can/should appreciate the old classics. While that's true, I tried to remember that I want to focus on how the OLD hobbyists can appreciate the new aspects of boardgaming. What are those new aspects? They can be the newest titles, designers, and publishers themselves. They could be Kickstarter and other new ways of marketing & funding. Perhaps it's the prevalence of online play, or solo options. The rise of YouTube videos for rules explanations. Lots of things. What am I missing?

The games I brought to my work event, full of hope. Partially fulfilled!

Closers: • Dave: Is there a best way to lose a game? • Mark: Gaming success with nongamer coworkers -Mark