Arcade Castle: A Gaming Podcast - Arcade Castle - Episode 19 - Warcraft!

Arcade Castle - Episode 19 - Warcraft!

03/17/19 • 60 min

In Episode 19, Arcade Castle finds itself in the Warcraft Universe and, as luck would have it, they find a copy of the Warcraft Board Game, released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight and Blizzard Entertainment, based off of the landmark Real-Time Strategy (RTS) computer game Warcraft: Orcs and Humans from 1994.

In this episode, Arcade Castle looks at the historic Warcraft franchise that spans across the decades and spawned the global phenomenon that itself has last going on twenty years: World of Warcraft. They talk about the key components of the original Warcraft title and see how well it was adapted to the tabletop. Can a game that is 'real-time' with simultaneous actions and everyone playing at once be crafted into a board game where players take turns?

Additionally, this is not the first RTS board game adaptation Arcade Castle has encountered on the podcast, as they first played the Age of Mythology in 2016.

(Click this link to check out Episode 03 that covered the Age of Mythology)

Arcade Castle hopes that by comparing these two games side by side it will highlight what developers feel represents the genre, and what game mechanics, rules, and player interaction designers believe capture the digital code of the video games in the board game format.

********************************** Webpage: www.arcadecastle.com Additionally, you can find us on Itunes (and a number of podcast services), Twitter, Facebook, BoardGameGeek, and Instagram! Check out our videos on Youtube! You can contact us at: [email protected] Also, if you like the new theme song, check out Tony Robot at: www.facebook.com/louisvilletonyrobot/ ***********************************

Episode Outline:

00:00-20:00 - Arcade Castle touches upon the RTS genre, instead wanting to focus their attention on the Warcraft RTS franchise, and the Warcraft universe at large. They discuss the history and impact of not only Warcraft on the RTS genre, but the societal impact of the brand.

20:00-40:00 - Arcade Castle takes an in-depth look at the Warcraft Boardgame, how it plays, the rules, mechanics, and player interaction and try to determine how well it succeeds in adapting this classic RTS title

40:00-60:00 - Arcade Castle compare the strategies you bring to the RTS videogame genre and the strategies you bring to the Warcraft Boardgame and see if there are any commonalities between the two. Additionally, they compare the Warcraft Board Game and the Age of Mythology Board and see which game was a better adaptation of the Real-Time Strategy genre.

Additionally, this is not the first RTS board game adaptation Arcade Castle has encountered on the podcast, as they first played the Age of Mythology in 2016.

(Click this link to check out Episode 03 that covered the Age of Mythology)

Episode Outline:

Previous Episode

Arcade Castle - Episode 18 - Mario Party e Card Game!

As the seasons turn and weather phenomenon shake the very foundations of the Arcade Castle, another year passes and Arcade Castle finds itself once again in February, the month of its birth. Per tradition (and the bylaws of the land) Arcade Castle must find a game that is part board game and part video game to play to try and delve into the narrow, yet obfuscated, valley that resides in the twin realms of video game and board game, and glean its secrets.

However, no longer can Arcade Castle rely upon the Master Strategy Series from the Odyssey II, as all three games have been played and that odyssey is, alas, at an end. However, they turn their attention to a device that was released two decades after the Master Strategy Series: The Nintendo E-Reader. This device, scanning 'dot-codes' that are printed on trading cards, can turn the analog into digital, the playing card into a video game. But are the two mediums truly integrated?

In Episode 18, Arcade Castle played the Mario Party e Card Game, a card game that requires (under some game settings) the Nintendo E-Reader to resolve conflicts between players; instead of playing the card game to win or lose a battle, players will find themselves playing video games on a Gameboy Advance to seek victory. In Mario Party e, players will be collecting coins to purchase a Superstar Hat, Superstar Suit, and Superstar Shoes in order to obtain a Superstar and win the game. But how well does this card game capture the multiplayer phenomenon that is Mario Party? Further, does this item truly combine the digital and analog realms into a unified experience?

********************************** Additionally, you can find us on Itunes (and a number of podcast services), Twitter, Facebook, BoardGameGeek, and Instagram! Check out our videos on Youtube! You can contact us at: [email protected] Also, if you like the new theme song, check out Tony Robot at: www.facebook.com/louisvilletonyrobot/ ***********************************

Episode Outline:

00:-00 - 25:00: Arcade Castle discusses at length the Mario Party Series; talking about history, strategy, gameplay, and expectations, John and Patrick touch upon every aspect of the multiplayer smash hit. Additionally, they discuss the E-Reader and Barcode Reading technology.

25:00 - 40:00: Arcade Castle examines the components, strategy, and gameplay of the Mario Party e Card Game. They look at the initial set of rules that allow play without utilizing the Nintendo E-Reader

40:00-60:00: After playing the game without the Nintendo E-Reader, Arcade Castle played the game using the video game accessory and examines how its integration changes the rules, gameplay, and strategy of the Mario Party e Card Game.

Next Episode

Arcade Castle - Episode 20 - Dragon's Lair

In Episode 20 of the Arcade Castle Podcast, John and Patrick find themselves at the very doorstep of the DRAGON'S LAIR! (Due in large part to the autonavigation's inability to differentiate between ancient crumbling castles....must be a CAPTCHA thing...) Passing on traversing the treacherous rooms and levels of the Dragon's Lair, Arcade Castle instead peeks into the nearby DRAGON'S STORAGE SHED! Inside the storage shed, they find piles of Dragon's Lair merchandise that Singe has hoarded over the years, including the Dragon's Lair Board game from 1984!

In this episode of the podcast, Arcade Castle looks at the landmark arcade cabinet that is Dragon's Lair, talk about the history of the arcade game, its development, what made it so unique when compared to contemporaneous releases in 1983, and how it performed during the North American video game crash, and more!

Additionally, we look at the Dragon's Lair board game, and compare the rules and gameplay that govern it and compare it to how the Dragon's Lair arcade cabinet operates during play. Can you take a video game that utilized laserdisc technology, and operated primarily on puzzle/quick time elements to drive gameplay, and turn that into a board game? Are the videogame strategies mirrored in the board game? Are there strategies in the video game?

To find out this, and more, check out Episode 20 of the Arcade Castle Podcast!

Episode Outline:

00:00 - 25:00 - Arcade Castle talks about the history, and significance of Dragon's Lair, as well as its cultural impact. They talk about laserdiscs, the video game crash, Don Bluth, and more!

25:00 - 45:00 - Arcade Castle looks at the Dragon's Lair board game, how it operates, and the strategies you bring to the table when playing it. They compare it to the digital source material it sprung from and how well it adapts this revolutionary game to cardboard and plastic. They then talk about what, if any, improvements can be brought to the table, and how they envision a Dragon's Lair board game would operate if they created one.