Gameopolis Podcast

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Mark and Jeff cover a lot of ground in this special Session Report. Unlike past Session Reports, the games discussed in this show are NOT those that were described in Show 7.0. Mark and Jeff cover everything ranging from nostalgic children's games, to licensed boardgames, to games based on episodes of the original Star Trek series. You will also hear exciting news about the possibility of gameopolis gaining its first official sponsor. So pull-up your favorite comfy-chair and settle-in with Mark and Jeff for some more Gameopolis. Thanks for listening!

Stay tuned for Show 8, coming real soon!

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Mark and Jeff get back to the topic of the Dusty Old Box...this time with Jeff's super-double-secret extra-special dusty old box --which for a change is actually dusty! Afterward, Mark tells us about Rio Grande's Stone Age, a light and colorful game of community-building set in the dawn of human civilization. Next, Jeff's talks about Home-Brewed Boardgame Expansions: home rules sets complete with additional game components added. The point is to add some functionality to an already-great game. To illustrate, Jeff talks about his home brewed expansions to Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars Card Game, and Avalon Hill's Monsters Menace America. We'll add some pictures of these games to the Gameopolis Flickr Account.

• 00:00:00 Prelude
• 00:05:27 Dusty Old Box
• 00:13:17 Stone Age
• 00:34:45 Home Expansion for Car Wars Card Game
• 00:45:00 Home Expansion for Monsters Menace America

Related links:

• 1 Stone Age on boardgamegeek,
• 2 Car Wars Card Game on boardgamegeek,
• 3 Monsters Menace America on boardgamegeek,
• 4 Hyperlinked list of Kaiju movie monsters on Wikipedia,
• 5 Table Tactics: expansions and extra pieces for A&A and Risk

Stay tuned for Show 7.5, coming real soon!

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Mark and Jeff talk about a play session of Games Workshop's Dungeon Quest. Afterwards, they recall their recent daytrip down to the TempleCon gaming convention down in Providence Rhode Island. Each game is reviewed, and the high points of each play experience are discussed...

00:00:00 Prelude 00:02:21 Session Report: GW's Dungeon Quest 00:17:35 After Action Report: TempleCon 2010 00:49:17 Closing comments

Stay tuned for Show #7, coming to YOUR part of town real soon!

Related links:1,Small World,2,Kill Dr. Lucky,3,Fast Flowing Forest Fellers,4,Puerto Rico,5,The Haunting House,6,Pandemic,7,The Good, The Bad, and The Munchkin,8,Shadows Over Camelot,

Stay tuned for Show #7, coming to YOUR part of town real soon!

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

Mark and Jeff talk about a totally indispensable part of any game collection: the humble "Filler Game". Filler games --which Mark and Jeff loosely define as games that can be played in less than an hour-- are great for keeping us entertained and/or occupied when we are waiting for the day's main event to start or for when the main event ends a little too soon for everyone's taste. Mark and Jeff cover four filler games in this episode. We will return to this topic in the future, so we are calling this 'Fillers part 1'.

Before our discussion of filler games, we ask for Listener ideas for our Podcast of Love, making its premier soon!

00:00 prelude

06:37 Listener Feedback

17:03 Call for ideas for Podcast of Love

18:26 Fillers Part 1

20:04 Dungeon Quest

25:27 Letter of Marque

32:03 Mag Blast

39:37 Car Wars Card Game

47:18 Battle Cattle Card Game

49:05 Closing comments

Stay tuned for our play session report of one of these games in Show 6.5, coming real soon! Heck, since these are filler games maybe we will play ALL of them for the session report! Thanks for listening.

Additional links related to this podcast: The original Battle Cattle by Wingnut Games

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

In this Session Report, we talk about a play session of Mayfair Games' Domaine. Using an experimental new approach to our session reports, we present our audience with a play session that can only be described with one word: reckless...reckless and avant garde --oh, that's two words...actually three if you know some French. By the end of this podcast, we guarantee that you will have more questions than answers, including:Will Mark recover from his time displacement sickness?Just how wiley IS a Boston Terrier?What is the 'Song and Dance number' and will we ever be forced to endure it?

Be sure to check out the related pictures of this play session on the Gameopolis Flickr Page. After our play session, we present our first solicitation for Listener ideas for our Podcast of Love, making its premier soon!

00:00 prelude01:16 Session Report22:27 Gaming against Spaz23:34 The Podcast of Love25:50 Closing comments

Stay tuned for Show 6.0, coming real soon! Thanks for listening.

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We start this show off with a rather atypical opening of a dusty old box. Mark has several different approaches that keep everyone --including himself-- on their toes. We prove that Gameopolis is a better buy than a trip to the movies, and we even supply a picture of an explosion in the show notes so Gameopolis is every bit as exciting! We may add more explosions to the Gameopolis Flickr account for added excitement.

After that, Mark covers Days of Wonder's Mystery of the Abbey, a cloistered Who-Done-It. He covers all of the main game mechanics and strategies.

Then, we shift over to Jeff for his segment on Mayfair Games' Domaine --a game of Land, Wealth, Power, and Prestige. Jeff gives the basics of play, and some starter strategy and insights.

Time...Topic0:00:00 Dusty Old Box-o-Somethin'0:11:33 Listener Feedback0:15:32 Mystery of the Abbey0:39:41 Domaine1:03:50 Closing comments

Related Links:The Mystery of the Abbey page on Boardgame GeekThe Domaine page on Boardgame Geek

We hope you enjoy Show 5.0 of Gameopolis! We will be hopefully doing some gaming over the holidays, and so we'll be back shortly with Show 5.5, our Session Report of one of these excellent games. Please post comments on the gameopolis-dot-org blog, or email us your thoughts. Thanks for listening!

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Mark and Jeff talk about the recent Carnage Gaming Convention in Fairlee, Vermont. Since Mark couldn't attend, we basically talk about all of the games that Jeff played and/or GMed. Each game is reviewed, and the high points of each play experience are discussed.

00:00:00 Prelude00:01:25 Start of After-Action Report00:04:00 Friday 1:00 PM slot: Last Night on Earth00:21:20 Friday 7:00 PM slot: Battle of Gembloux Gap00:27:05 Saturday 8:00 AM slot: Battle of Plum Point Bend00:31:15 Saturday 1:00 PM slot: The Great Space Race00:37:35 Saturday 7:00 PM slot: Autoduel in Akron00:40:36 Digression: SWAG!!!00:44:55 Sunday 10:00 AM slot: Romulan Revenge00:50:10 Closing comments

Related links:Last Night on Earth on Board Game GeekStorm of Steel rules on freewargamesrules.co.ukAmerican Civil War Ironclads info on Wide Open WestThe Great Space Race on Board Game GeekThe Official Car Wars site

Stay tuned for Show #5, coming just in time for the holidays!

This show starts off with Mark opening up a dusty old box. After that, we give you a preview of the upcoming Carnage gaming convention, to be held at the Lake Morey Resort in Fairly Vermont November 6-8. Jeff describes the Carnage convention based on past experience, and then we both walk through the pre-registration book and describe what we see as a few highlights.

NOTE: The mp3 file for this episode somehow disappeared from our download site. This posting is to make show 4.0 available once again!

00:00 Prelude2:22 Dusty Old Box13:00 Preview of Carnage 12...13:31 Carnage background...21:14 Highlights of the Carnage pre-reg booklet43:23 Closing comments

Related links:Enemy in Sight on Boardgamegeek.comCarnage Gaming ConventionLake Morey ResortDown in Flames on BoardgamegeekShadows Over Camelot on BoardgamegeekBoardgamegeek's Double-blind A&A rules

Stay tuned for Show #4, coming VERY soon!

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

In this Session Report. We talk about a play session of GMT's reimplementation of Avalon Hill's Blackbeard boardgame. We cover what (for us) were some of the most memorable --or high-impact-- parts of the game, and unavoidably end up drawing a lot of comparisons between this version and AH's original.

00:00 prelude00:38 listener feedback05:26 Session Report26:27 Closing comments

Related links:GMT's blackbeard on BoardgamegeekAvalon Hill's original Blackbeard on Boardgamegeek

Stay tuned for Show #4, coming VERY soon!

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

Yee be welcome to thee Talk-Like-a-Pirate Episode 'o Gameopolis!! Arrrr!!!! Don't worry --as promised, we do NOT talk like pirates throughout the whole show. This show starts off with our second visit to the topic of the Dusty Old Box. Mark then walks us through the old Avalon Hill boardgame Blackbeard, which inspires several spontaneous (but thankfully, brief) bursts of Pirattitude. Afterwards, we take a step back and wax philosophical about a general phenomenon of gaming: the rare and difficult to explain occurrance of a perfectly good game...suddenly going BAD. So ahoy, maitees, come set a spell with Jeff (a.k.a. Keelhaul Col) and Mark (a.k.a. Captain Stinky Tom) fer a right fine bout 'o Podcastin'

00:00:00 prelude00:00:18 start of show 3.000:02:11 Dusty Old Box00:09:08 listener feedback00:11:50 Avalon Hill's Blackbeard00:40:04 When Good Games Go Bad...00:41:26 Zombies!!!...00:46:51 Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century...00:50:26 Wings of War...00:55:40 Junta...01:00:17 Warhammer Quest01:09:41 Closing comments

Related links:Puzzle Pirates

Stay tuned for Show #3.5, coming soon!