The Ascent of Board Games

With everything that's going on right now, it hardly seems important to post up a podcast of five guys rambling about games, but as the late, great Freddie Mercury sang, the show must go on. So here's our first episode recorded since the coronavirus lockdown began. Sorry about the audio quality - between the lower-quality equipment we had to use and some problems with Zoom's recording process, I'm just glad that we have a more-or-less audible episode.

There's no particular theme to this show, other than "how we've been gaming when we can't get together with other gamers." We start with board games, of course, but also take side trips into computer games, role-playing games, and escape rooms, so hopefully you'll find something here that will help. We promise that next episode will be a little more traditional for us, assuming that the sun hasn't exploded by then. In the meantime, please stay safe. We're here if you want to talk. (Seriously.)

In this episode:

• • Boy, do we have opinions about things. (This should come as no surprise to frequent listeners.)
  • Joe has lost all sense of time. (We all have, but his case seems worse.)
  • Here are a bazillion links to sources of lockdown-friendly gaming and entertainment:
    • Tabletop Simulator
    • Tabletopia
    • Board Game Arena
    • Yucata.de
    • Forgotten Waters Remote Assistant
    • The Escape Game
    • SquonkLand
    • Breakout EDU

As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments on any or all of these items, and especially a review on iTunes if you have the time and inclination!

• • Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
  • Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.

Thank you for listening!

Okay kids, it's time for a good clean fight as we talk about our favorite skirmish games! This is the last episode we recorded before we all went into lockdown, so next month may be a little different...but we'll see how it goes. In the interim, stay safe, wash your hands, and try to get some games in (Tabletop Simulator is a lifesaver in times like these).

• • We discover that the "father of science fiction" may also have been the father of miniature wargaming. (Here's a link to a nice article on this book.)
  • We talk about a copyright controversy that wasn't really FASA's fault.
  • PSA: Please don't confuse these Crunchberries with these Crunchberries.
  • Mike just wants somebody to love the Tau, Brian just wants to talk about Malifaux, and Jayson just wants a giant, blue...

As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments on any or all of these items, and especially a review on iTunes if you have the time and inclination!

• • Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
  • Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.

Thank you for listening!

2020 - what a year, huh? After everything else it's thrown at us, it managed to give us a last-minute technical glitch that made this episode several days late. We're sorry - thanks for bearing with us!

Amazingly, we were still able to come up with an hour's worth of discussion about good things that happened in 2020, as well as a glimpse at what we're hoping will make 2021 a better year (not that it has a high bar to clear there).

• Mike convinces Frank to spend some money for a change.
• Jayson fails to find the origin of "Vril," which originated in an obscure novel by the man who brought you "It was a dark and stormy night" (not to mention "the pen is mightier than the sword").
• Frank abandons board games for computer games (although to be fair, they include some excellent computer games).
• We get a nice rant from Joe - we haven't had one of those in a while!
• And a potentially exciting surprise announcement that even WE weren't expecting!

As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments on any or all of these items, and especially a review on iTunes if you have the time and inclination!

• Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
• Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
• And more coming soon! (Ooh, foreshadowing!)

Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.

Thank you for listening!

Happy winter holiday(s) of your choice! If you're having trouble fitting everything you need to do this month into your calendar, listening to our discussion of spatial arrangement games...well, probably won't help, but hopefully it'll at least be entertaining, and might even provide some last-minute gift ideas.

We ask and answer many questions in this episode:

• How many times (and how many ways) can we say "tetrominos" in one episode? (With "cromulent" coming a close second.)
• What game does Joe describe as "like you're making a stained glass window of anger and rage"?
• "Mommy, where do meeples come from?"
• How do you build a city out of forced labor?
• Remember when the boxes of the Alea Big Box series of games were considered big?
• What's the board game equivalent of a Metroidvania? (Whatever it is, Frank threatened to knife us over it.)
• What does it take to get Frank to say something nice about Asmodee?

And here are some pictures that might help supplement our audio-only descriptions of these games:

• Schmidt Spiele's Acquire, which does NOT feature a corporation named "LIQUOR".
• The souped-up elevated version of Axiom, a/k/a "Escher Chess".
• Explosion! at the Chit Factory.
• The obligatory link to CollegeHumor's classic Tetris God video.
• One side of La Boca.
• Bärenpark, now with monorails!

All this, plus Mike's dog Samus crashing the ending...more or less literally. Enjoy!

As usual, we'd love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofgames on Twitter - however you prefer to share your opinions with us. And if you have the time to leave us a review on iTunes, we'd be very grateful indeed!

As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments!

• Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames
• Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
• And, occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.

Thank you for listening!

Welcome back! This month, we're concluding our deep dive into Kingdom Death: Monster. This episode focuses more on who should consider KD:M (and who shouldn't), the logistics of getting it to the table, and what impacts it's had on the board game industry.

• Start playing KD:M so you can look forward to building things like this!
• If you prefer miniatures like this, maybe consider Gatefall instead.
• Frank tells Joe that he's wrong about his own opinion.
• And we argue about glue.

What do you think about the deep dive format - does it work for you, or do you prefer the old style of talking about a bunch of different games in each episode? If you enjoy the deep dives, what game would you like us to dive into next?

As always, thank you for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review to help us find new listeners.

We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming!

• Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/
• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social
• Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/
• And, occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.

The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved.

Thank you for listening!