The Ascent of Board Games (The Ascent of Board Games)
Explore every episode of The Ascent of Board Games
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02 Apr 2023 | Episode 53- Paragraph Games Revisited, Part 1 | 00:58:24 | |
To listen to our new episode, read paragraph 234. To listen to our original paragraph games episode, read paragraph 191. 234: You listen to a podcast in which:
As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Nov 2022 | Episode 49.2 - Batteries Still Included, Part 2 | 00:44:15 | |
Happy day-after-Halloween! First off, next month will be EPISODE 50, and we'd love to hear about anything you'd like us to cover in that momentous episode. Whether it's a game or a topic you've always wanted us to cover, or something we're all terribly wrong about, email us and let us know! Or, if you like, record a question or comment, send it to us, and we may include it in the episode! This month, we conclude our update to Episode 3 with a look at some more recent app-enabled board games. In this episode:
More to come next month! As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 02 May 2020 | Episode 22 - Skirmish Games | 01:11:49 | |
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).
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Sep 2023 | Episode 56 - Vagrantsong Interview with Kyle Rowan | 00:47:36 | |
It's time for another game designer interview! Kyle Rowan is the lead game designer at Wyrd Games and the main brain behind last year's smash hit Vagrantsong. In addition to talking about how Vagrantsong came to be and the exciting pair of expansions coming up on Kickstarter, we discuss:
If you want to hear our original take on Vagrantsong, it's in Episode 44, Part 2. And if you want to follow Kyle on "the socials," he's @rowanoake on Bluesky and The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. As for us, we appreciate your listening as always, and would love to get an iTunes review if you have a few minutes to leave one. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Oct 2022 | Episode 49 - Batteries Included Redux, Part 1 | 00:51:45 | |
It's a blast from the past with an eye towards the future, as we look back at the new developments in computer-assisted and app-enabled board games since way back in Episode 3. In this episode:
More to come next month! Also, we're coming up on EPISODE 50, and we'd love to hear about anything you'd like us to cover in that momentous episode. Whether it's a game or a topic you've always wanted us to cover, or something we're all terribly wrong about, write in to let us know! Or, if you like, record a question or comment, send it to us, and we may include it in the episode! In the meantime, if you'd be kind enough to write us an iTunes review it'd help us out a great deal. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Mar 2022 | Episode 43 - Pick-Up and Deliver Games | 01:09:11 | |
Hi folks! We're here again to deliver unto you a podcast episode about pick-up-and-deliver games! In addition to the insightful (?) game information you've come to expect from us, this episode includes:
If you liked this episode, maybe you could pick up our spirits by delivering us an iTunes review. (See what we did there?) 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - however you prefer to share your opinions with us. As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments. Stay safe out there!
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! | |||
| 03 Aug 2020 | Episode 25 - Racing Games | 00:56:47 | |
Well, we came in last this month, but this episode has finally arrived - time to discuss racing games! (Although, as we mention at the end, almost all games can be defined as racing games in one way or another.) Sadly, we are still limited by lockdown audio quality, but hopefully you still find it listenable. Thanks for bearing with us!
In this episode:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Mar 2025 | Episode 70 - Auction Games | 01:01:44 | |
That's right, folks, it's episode 70! Do I hear 75? No? Episode 70, going once, going twice...sold to the discerning podcast listener!
Are we wrong in our opinions on auction games? Are there some that we overlooked that you want to tell us about? Come visit our newly-revived Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! 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 Discord, 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Nov 2023 | Episode 58 - 2023 Year-End Wrap-Up, Part 1 | 00:56:00 | |
Welcome, everybody! It's time once again for our year-end wrap-up episode, during which we each count down our top 5 games or game-related things from the year that was, from #5 to #1. ...or rather, from #5 to #4 this episode, with the rest coming next month, because BOY, do we like to talk about games. Highlights (and/or lowlights) include:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review. Please leave one if you can - it helps us a lot! 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 (new!) or @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jul 2020 | Episode 24 - Real-Time Games | 00:52:38 | |
No more taking turns - this month we discuss real-time games! Unfortunately, we are still limited by lockdown audio quality, but hopefully you still find it listenable. Thanks for bearing with us! In this episode:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 May 2022 | Episode 44B - Boss Battlers, Part 2 | 01:03:27 | |
And now, the thrilling conclusion of our Boss Battlers episode. Featuring:
Disagreements aside, we'll be back again next month to talk about even more games - and I promise there won't be nearly as many repeat visitors! In the meantime, maybe you could leave us an iTunes review? 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Jul 2023 | Episode 55 - Science Games, Part 1 | 00:57:04 | |
SCIENCE! It's certainly closer to our areas of expertise than sports. In fact, Mike (a science teacher) says a lot of impressive-sounding science words when discussing various games, which some of you may understand. In addition:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes and are willing to help us with our scientific research, we're trying to study the effects of an iTunes review on our number of listeners. Please leave one if you can! 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Feb 2025 | Episode 69 - Sex Games | 01:20:46 | |
This is episode 69. We're discussing sex games. We're sorry. (Except Joe...Joe isn't sorry at all.) Sandi has joined us to try to provide a little bit of maturity to the topic; we'll let you decide if she succeeded. This is an adults-only episode (and we mean it this time), but we won't be offended if you decide to give this one a miss. Just come back next month, please? I promise we won't do it again.
Come visit our newly-revived Discord server to chat with us and some other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! 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 Discord, 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!
Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. Additional music this episode by HYPERTUNES. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening! | |||
| 02 Jan 2024 | Episode 59 - Looking Ahead to 2024 | 01:07:20 | |
Happy New Year, everybody! To kick things off right, here's an episode looking at all the cool games we're hoping to play in 2024. It's full of plenty of laughter, largely because of the maniacal giggling of Curtis, our newest cohost! Among the things we're laughing at:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review. Please leave one if you can - it helps us a lot! 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 holidays!
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! | |||
| 10 Jan 2020 | Rob Daviau talks RETURN TO DARK TOWER! | 00:34:29 | |
Bonus episode time! The amazing Rob Daviau (@robdaviau on Twitter) returns to tell us about Return to Dark Tower, which will be live on Kickstarter on January 14 (less than a week away)! This promises to be an amazing, high-tech game combining two great design talents (Rob and Isaac Childress of Gloomhaven fame) with a substantial chunk of technological wizardry and a healthy dollop of nostalgia. Rob also drops a few tidbits about Pandemic Legacy: Season 3 (!) and Cthulhu: Death May Die as a bonus on top of your bonus, because we like you that much. We apologize for the lousy sound quality here; we had a lot of technical issues getting the interview to record at all, and wound up going with about our fourth-choice solution. You can still hear all the good stuff, though. Make sure to swing by Restoration Games' website so you don't miss the Kickstarter when it goes live next week - this one is going to be a doozy! And, as always, comments, questions, suggestions, and iTunes reviews are always appreciated! | |||
| 02 Dec 2021 | Episode 40 - Spatial Arrangement Games | 01:19:34 | |
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:
And here are some pictures that might help supplement our audio-only descriptions of these games:
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Sep 2020 | Episode 26 - Heartbreakers, Part 1 | 00:54:54 | |
Hi, folks. This month, we...we... I'm sorry. I'll get it together. Give me a minute. (Blows nose noisily.) This month we're talking about the games that broke our hearts...the ones we really, really wanted to love, but that ended up just making us miserable. (Almost as miserable as our continued COVID-caused audio deficiencies, for which we continue to apologize.) Among our melancholy memories:
What games do you think Part 2 will hold? What are the games that broke your heart? Please let us know! 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Sep 2022 | Episode 48 - Roll and Move Games, Part 2 | 00:43:42 | |
More rolling! More moving! More Sandi! Less Careers! It's part two of Roll-and-Move Games, wherein you can hear about:
Next month, we'll be revisiting another older episode and talking about new developments in the genre. In the meantime, if you'd be kind enough to write us an iTunes review it'd help us out a great deal. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Mar 2020 | Episode 20 - Drafting Games | 01:02:47 | |
Happy March! It's time to discuss drafts, and not the ones that may be sending winter chills through a not-quite-sealed door. Nope, this is about picking the best options for you from a hand of cards, and then passing your unwanted dross to your neighbor.
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Apr 2025 | Episode 71- Role-Playing Games, Part 1 | 01:10:46 | |
I know, I know, we said we weren't going to do the Ascent of Role-Playing Games thing. And we're not! But there ARE a bunch of role-playing games that have some interesting mechanics, and we're going to be talking about those this month and next. (If you don't like it, join our Discord server so you can vote against it the next time we run a poll!)
What great TTRPG mechanics (before the mid-2000s) did we overlook that you want to tell us about? What must we not overlook in Part 2? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! 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 Discord, 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Sep 2024 | Episode 65 - 2-Player Fighting and War Games | 01:14:49 | |
Remember way back in Episode 33, when we talked about two-player games but excluded fighting and war games because there were too many? Now is when we finally talk about the fighty ones! Join us as:
As always, thank you for listening. If you have the time to give us an iTunes review, please do - it really helps us grow! 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Nov 2024 | Episode 66,2 - Party Games, Part 2 | 00:50:29 | |
Happy post-Halloween! Now that everyone's hopped up on sugar (and/or in a sugar crash coma), let's finish our discussion of party games! Come along as we discuss:
And a few video/picture links we mention along the way:
As always, thank you for listening. We return you now to our monthly begging for an iTunes review. 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Oct 2023 | Episode 57 - Hotel Lovecraft | 01:10:46 | |
Happy spooky season, everybody! It's October, which means it's time for a horror game playthrough. This time, Frank brings us Hotel Lovecraft, an audio-powered paragraph-style game from Story Master's Tales. We've trimmed the game down to make for a reasonable episode length - and we got a few rules wrong along the way, to be honest - but hopefully you'll find it entertaining!
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review. Please leave one if you can - it helps us a lot! 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 22 Jan 2022 | Episode 41A - The Addendum | 00:16:08 | |
As promised, here's a little bit of bonus content from our 2021 wrap-up episode, with a little commentary on the games we DIDN'T discuss in that episode, as well as a look ahead games we're especially looking forward to in 2022. Included in this mini-sode:
Blah blah blah website blah blah Facebook blah blah Twitter blah blah blah iTunes review. 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! | |||
| 02 Oct 2021 | Episode 38 - Time Travel Games | 01:14:09 | |
For a lot of us, the past year and a half has been kind of a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey blur. To celebrate (?) that, here's an episode on some games that use time travel as a mechanic, not just a theme. Sadly, Jayson was not able to join us for recording in this particular timeline, but we talk about him anyway. Learn what game Frank thought was so bad, he destroyed it "for the good of the world." Some visuals we mention in our audio show include:
And given that we're enormous nerds, we talk about a lot of time travel stuff other than board games, including:
Whether in the past or the future - or even RIGHT NOW - we'd love to have you visit our website and let us know what episodes we should record 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 - time, get it? - 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!
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! | |||
| 04 Dec 2020 | Episode 29 - 2020 Year-End Wrap-Up | 01:11:18 | |
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).
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Oct 2020 | Episode 27 - Heartbreakers, Part 2 | 00:52:00 | |
We're back, having survived another month of the heartbreak that is 2020, to talk about more of the games that also broke our hearts. The audio continues to be noisy, for which we continue to apologize, but we have a cunning plan in place to improve things for next month. Thank you for your patience, and stay tuned! Some elements of interest from this month:
What are the games that broke your heart? And why are we all (but especially Frank) wrong about the ones on our list? Please let us know. And please fill out the Future Episodes poll on our homepage if you haven't already! 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Nov 2021 | Episode 39 - Simultaneous Selection Games | 01:19:18 | |
Hi folks! We're back to talk about the cumbersomely-named "simultaneous selection games," which covers everything from Rock-Paper-Scissors (and its ancient antecedents) to Gloomhaven. Your Humble Editor had a pretty rough month, so the audio on this one may likewise be a bit rougher than usual, but hopefully it's not too bad. Thanks for understanding! Featured in this episode:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jul 2024 | Episode 63 - Turn Order | 01:07:20 | |
Hello all! We have a lot of games to get through this month, so everybody please take your turn promptly. But how do we know whose turn it is? Listen and find out!
As always, thank you for listening. Not to rush you, but it is your turn to give us an iTunes review, so please do so! 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Feb 2022 | Episode 42 - Word Games | 00:55:07 | |
Welcome to February! In honor of the shortest month, we've created a "lightning round" on the topic of our favorite word games. We hope you find some new favorites, and/or tell us about some of your current ones! Referenced in this episode:
As usual, we'd love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next, or maybe give us an iTunes review. 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. As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments. Happy new year, and stay safe out there!
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! | |||
| 02 Mar 2021 | Episode 31B - Good Tie-In Games, Part2 | 00:46:26 | |
We're back to talk some more about some of our favorite tie-in games (and slightly less about Jodorowsky's Dune). We continue our tradition of not knowing what the heck we're talking about, as an off-mic Sandi corrects Frank's gross misunderstanding of the Witcher's fundamental nature. This episode also encompasses virtually all of Jayson's childhood (and, indeed, adulthood), plus some commentary from the rest of us, including some discussions on some franchises that we wish WOULD have a good board game, but don't. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Aug 2024 | Episode 64 - Deep Dive: Vlaada Chvátil | 01:09:39 | |
It's time for another deep dive - this time into the collected works of Czech game guru Vlaada Chvátil (whose name we hope we pronounced mostly right most of the time, but no promises). Join us as:
As always, thank you for listening. If you have the time to give us an iTunes review, please do - it really helps us grow! 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Jan 2025 | Episode 68 - Looking Ahead to 2025 | 00:56:35 | |
Well, we made it to 2025, technically. What new board games are coming out to give us hope for the future?
Are we wrong in some way? (Almost certainly.) Do you want to tell us what the correct choices would have been? Come visit our newly-revived Discord server to chat with us and some other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! 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 Discord, 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Jun 2024 | Episode 62.2 - Kingdom Death: Monster Deep Dive, Part 2 | 00:53:53 | |
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.
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jun 2023 | Episode 54 - Sports Games | 01:13:40 | |
WARNING: This episode is cursed. We had to record it (or parts of it) no less than three times, and we still had Frank drop out unexpectedly for a few minutes. (Don't worry, he didn't say anything important.) But it's here now, and it's full of sports games! Rotisserie Baseball! Electric Football!! SO MUCH GOLF!!!
Thanks as always for listning! If you have a few extra minutes and a generous heart, why not leave us an iTunes review? It really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Feb 2023 | Episode 52 - Expansions, Part 1 | 00:54:42 | |
Hi folks! Are you enjoying our podcast? Do you want even MORE of our podcast? Good, because here's the first part of our Expansion episode, wherein we talk about the first, worst, and best game expansions in our experience. Discussions include:
As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jan 2020 | Episode 18 - 2019 Year-End Wrap-Up | 01:17:01 | |
Happy New Year! As we start 2020, we take some time to look back at our favorite games and gaming-related events, moments, trends, and other stuff.
Keep an eye out for some additional content over the next week or two - we each have some honorable mentions for 2019, and we'll also have another interview with Rob Daviau to talk about a very exciting new Kickstarter that will be launching shortly! 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Mar 2024 | Episode 60.2 - Wildlife Games, Part 2 | 00:56:24 | |
We're back with more adorable animals (and some that you may not think of as adorable, but that's just, like, your opinion, man). This month's selection includes:
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Dec 2023 | Episode 58.2 - 2023 Year-End Wrap-Up, Part 2 | 01:07:37 | |
Happy December, everybody! It's time to conclude our year-end wrap-up episode, during which we each count down our top 5 games or game-related things from the year that was, from #5 to #1. We covered our #4 and #5 entries last month, so here are our top 3 from 2023, including several unexpected entries. You'll also hear:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review. Please leave one if you can - it helps us a lot! 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. (We've decided to leave Twitter, or rather X.) 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 holidays!
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! | |||
| 01 Dec 2024 | Episode 67 - Year-End Countdown 2024 | 01:35:08 | |
The end of the year draws nigh, so of course we have to do a year-end countdown. All five of us - even the near-mythical Jayson - have prepared a list of our five favorite games from The Year That Was - enjoy!
Also, we're bringing our Discord server back, and there's been more activity in the last week that we've seen in a long time! Come along and chat with us and some other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! 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 Discord, 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Feb 2024 | Episode 60 - Wildlife Games, Part 1 | 00:53:06 | |
Wildlife games! They're full of adorable meeples, heartwarming themes, and...interesting mechanics (which lead to some differences of opinion between us and the mainstream). Come join us as we talk about:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes, we'd love it if you could give us an iTunes review. Please leave one if you can - it helps us a lot! 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 holidays!
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! | |||
| 02 Jun 2022 | Episode 45 - Deck Builders Revisited, Part 1 | 00:47:12 | |
Hi folks! It's time to jump in the Wayback Machine, revisit our very first episode, and see what's changed in the world of deckbuilders since 2018! Don't worry, we still have plenty of ideas for new episodes, but we're going to look back at older episodes occasionally to see what we missed the first time around and what new hotness has been released in the interim. And, as seems to be usual lately, we've cut this episode in two because we don't know how to shut up. As a consolation prize, here's a picture of the adorable Altiplano llama, which SOME people just don't know how to appreciate. Stay tuned for the back half of this episode next month! If you miss us before then, writing an iTunes review will help keep us fresh in your memory. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 02 May 2024 | Episode 62 - Kingdom Death: Monster Deep Dive, part 1 | 00:54:57 | |
Buckle in - we decided to try something a little different this month (and next month, because as usual we can't shut up once we get started). We're doing a deep dive on a single game, and we're starting with the legendary Kingdom Death: Monster. If you're interested in the game, you can look forward to two episodes full of discussion and commentary! If not...well, it's a great time to catch up on some older episodes, amirite? Either way, please let us know what you think - do you want to hear more of these deep dives or not? If so, what games 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Mar 2023 | Episode 52.2 - Expansions, Part 2 | 00:44:05 | |
If this is the expansion to our first expansions episode, does that make it an Expansionception?
As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Aug 2021 | Episode 36 - Tech Trees and Skill Trees | 01:08:56 | |
Hi! It's us again! (Well, "us" minus Mike but plus Sandi.) This month we're talking about tech trees and skill trees, two similar sets of mechanics that Frank has been a little obsessed with lately. There are lots of 4X games and lots of dungeon-crawling campaign games, plus a few others we snuck in here and there. Plus more opinions, sass, and stories about Sandi's crossbow! We've added a bunch of new options to our Upcoming Episodes poll at our website, so please swing by and place your votes! Of, of course, you could comment on the episode page, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofgames on Twitter - whatever your little social media heart desires. And if it desires to leave us a review on iTunes, our little social media hearts would be very grateful indeed! By the way, this is the Sidereal Confluence card Joe is describing at around 25:05, and this is the original (and obviously much clearer) version. As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments!
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! | |||
| 02 Apr 2024 | Episode 61 - Non-Verbal Communication Games | 00:58:27 | |
Let's talk about not talking! This month, we discuss games in which you have to use things other than words to communicate with your teammates. Highlights include:
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Jul 2022 | Episode 46 - Deck Builders Revisited, Part 2 | 00:47:23 | |
Hello again! A lot of what's going on in the world right now is Not Fun, but we're going to soldier on and return to our our look at deck-building games and what's happened in the genre since our first episode ever. This one may, at times, sound like the Renegade Games episode, but we promise we're not sponsored by them. (Not that we'd turn down some money from them, mind you...) In this episode, we discuss:
Stay tuned for a brand new topic next month! Will it be the long-dreaded Roll and Move episode? Tune in to find out! In the meantime, if you'd be kind enough to write us an iTunes review it'd help us out a great deal. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 29 Nov 2019 | Black Friday Bonus Episode | 00:56:19 | |
Surprise! We're back with another random bonus episode, this one in honor of Black Friday (which, at least in the United States, is the day on which shoppers go out of their minds, retailers take out massive ads promoting tiny discounts, and the Christmas shopping season officially begins). In case you're doing any shopping, we wanted to suggest some games for the non-gamers in your life, to help you bring them into the fold. So in this episode we take a brief run through all of our previous episodes, and talk about what games in each category might be good choices for exposing new gamers to that kind of game. Then we round the whole thing out with some suggestions that don't quite fit into any of the episodes we've recorded so far. Along the way:
As always, we'd love it if you'd give us a review on iTunes - it's one of the very best ways for us to find new listeners. If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, THANK YOU ALL for listening! | |||
| 02 Jan 2022 | Episode 41 - The 2021 Year-End Wrap-Up | 01:05:32 | |
Happy New Year! We mean it this time...no, really...please? This month we're taking a look back at the good times in 2021 - yes, there were some - as we discuss our favorite games from the past year. We also have some additional material on the games we DIDN'T discuss, as well as a look ahead to 2022, but Your Humble Editor is tired enough that that's going to be released as a special bonus episode in a week or so in order to keep THIS episode from being any later than it already is. Included in this episode:
Plus a few links to things that are mentioned in this episode, but exist outside it:
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. As always, we appreciate your listening and would love to hear your comments. Happy new year, and stay safe out there!
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! | |||
| 01 Dec 2022 | Episode 50 - Year-End Wrap-Up 2022 | 01:07:54 | |
50 episodes? Who'da thunk it??? Regardless, thank you for your support, whether you've been with us since the beginning or are just joining us for the first time. We wouldn't keep doing this without you! This month, we take a look back at our favorite gaming things from 2022 - mostly, but not exclusively, board games. Among them:
Join us next month for the start of our next 50-episode run! As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Apr 2020 | Episode 21 - Hidden Traitor Games | 00:56:08 | |
Hi folks! We were originally planning to do some April Fools silliness for this episode, but given everything that's going on right now, it didn't really seem like a good time. So relax, stay at home, and listen to us talk about Hidden Traitor games. Oh, and wash your dang hands. Yes, again.
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Oct 2024 | Episode 66 - Party Games, Part 1 | 00:54:53 | |
Hi folks! We're back this month to talk about party games, though the last week or so hasn't been as much fun as we'd like. Between scheduling issues and hurricane-induced power outages, this episode was a bit rushed; as a result, it's ended up a bit on the short side, so we hope you'll forgive us. Also, instead of begging for an iTunes review this month, we'd like to ask that you donate what you can to the American Red Cross or another reputable charity providing relief to those battered by Hurricane Helene. All of us are doing fine, but there are a lot of people out there that need help. Meanwhile, in brighter news:
As always, thank you for listening. 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 @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!
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! | |||
| 02 Apr 2021 | Episode 32 - Roll and Write Games | 01:12:30 | |
Roll and Write games! Yet another surprisingly contentious topic, but we went ahead anyway. This definitely wasn't planned as an April Fool's episode, but I have to admit we get a little foolish at a couple points here. (Also, apologies for Mike's audio, as he was fighting with an uncooperative dishwasher.)
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jun 2020 | Episode 23 - Games in the Time of Coronavirus | 01:02:21 | |
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:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jan 2023 | Episode 51 - Looking Forward to 2023 | 01:26:49 | |
Happy New Year! Last month, we took a look back at our favorite gaming things from 2022; this month, we're talking about some of the games we're looking forward to in 2023. Contents include, but are not limited to:
As always, we'd love it if you took the time to write us an iTunes review, as it really helps us find new listeners We'd also love to have you visit our website (although Podbean has made some recent changes to it that mean some stuff isn't in the right place at the moment) 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 as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jul 2021 | Episode 35 - Worker Placement Games | 01:25:53 | |
It's been a long time, but this episode was recorded with us all live in the same room! In other words, we were all WORKING in the same PLACE, which may give you a hint as to the topic of this episode (if you haven't, you know, read the title already). We learned fun things like what game Sandi would rather bleed from the eyes than play, what game makes Joe feel like "a giant, raging jerk the entire game," and that Brian still can't get his co-hosts' names right. Also, have some non-audio content:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Feb 2021 | Episode 31 - Good Tie-In Games, Part 1 | 00:58:00 | |
It turns out we REALLY like talking about the universes and stories that we love. So much so that this episode on book/TV/movie tie-in games has grown to expand into two episodes, mostly because we won't shut up. Hopefully this experiment doesn't drive you too crazy. It also turns out that, while we like these things, we don't know as much about them as we should. For example:
Other items of interest in this episode include:
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Aug 2023 | Episode 55.2 - Science Games, Part 2 | 00:56:39 | |
We're back with even more SCIENCE! The nerdery continues as we discuss more recent science-themed board games, and offer such tidbits as:
Thanks as always for listening! If you have a few extra minutes and are willing to help us with our scientific research, we're trying to study the effects of an iTunes review on our number of listeners. Please leave one if you can! 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter (for as long as Twitter still exists). 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Aug 2022 | Episode 47 - Roll and Move Games, Part 1 | 00:54:26 | |
We've threatened it long enough, so we hope you're prepared for this - it's the Roll-and-Move episode! (Well, the first half of it, anyway...we have a lot to say.) Sandi fills in for the absent Joe as we discuss:
We'll be back next month with more roll-and-move games, but (probably) less Careers. In the meantime, if you'd be kind enough to write us an iTunes review it'd help us out a great deal. 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. For example, are these two-part episodes working for you, or would you prefer a single longer episode on a single topic? As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there!
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! | |||
| 01 Apr 2022 | Episode 44 - Boss Battlers, Part 1 | 01:02:37 | |
Happy April! No fooling from us, just the first half of a loooong episode about Boss Battlers. Featuring:
You might also enjoy these links:
Come back next month to hear the rest! In the meantime, maybe you could leave us an iTunes review? 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter - 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jun 2021 | Episode 34 - Out of the Lockdown | 01:06:16 | |
We're playing board games again! In the same physical space as each other! Vaccinations - another win for science! In this episode, we discuss the games that we're most looking forward to playing - on a real physical table in someone's house! Also, we ask timeless questions like:
In addition:
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!
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! | |||
| 01 Aug 2018 | Episode 1 - Deckbuilders | 01:18:18 | |
Welcome to our podcast! We're a bunch of Atlanta-area nerds that like talking about board games almost as much as we like playing them. Our stated mission is to talk about how board game mechanics and concepts have evolved over the years...but really, we just like talking about games. (And picking on each other.) This first episode may sound a bit stiff - it's actually our second time recording it, since audio errors ate the first one - but please don't hold that against us! We're starting out on a monthly release schedule, and may try to step that up to every two weeks if we get a groove going and people like us. We'd love to hear what you think - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 02 May 2019 | Episode 10 - Deduction Games | 01:21:18 | |
It's time for Episode 10 of The Ascent of Board Games! But what could our latest topic be? Well, here are a few clues so you can deduce what the episode is about...
As always, thank you for listening. If you enjoy what we're doing, we'd also really appreciate a review on iTunes - they are a great way for the show to grow! If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we suspect you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 02 Jun 2019 | Episode 11 - 4x Games | 01:18:35 | |
Okay, now I'm awake enough to write some proper show notes. Episode 11 is all about "4X" games - games in which you Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate on your way to victory. The term originated in the world of computer games, but there are enough similarities - and enough interest on our poll (which you should totally go fill out if you haven't already) that we decided to do an episode on the subject. Join us as Mike experiences a temporal crisis, Brian totally fails to make the podcast more family-friendly, and Joe recaps the biggest rule-reading failure ever. A few relevant pictures:
Thank you for listening! As always, reviews on iTunes are a huge help for us, especially if there's a text review along with the rating. And if you'd like to interact with us, you can do so at any or all of the following:
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! | |||
| 02 Jul 2019 | Episode 12 - Hidden Teams | 01:16:34 | |
Hello again, listeners! In Episode 12, we're talking about Hidden Teams games, sometimes referred to as Social Deduction games. Are you a werewolf, a cylon, a terrorist, a bad cop, The Thing From Another World, and/or Hitler? Doesn't matter to us, we're just glad you're listening. (Except for Hitler. That guy was really a jerk.) Join us as:
Thank you for listening! As always, reviews on iTunes are a huge help for us, especially if there's a text review along with the rating. And if you'd like to interact with us, you can do so at any or all of the following:
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! | |||
| 02 Aug 2019 | Episode 13 - Legacy Games | 01:30:54 | |
It's our anniversary - we've been doing this podcast thing for a whole year! To celebrate, we're doing an episode on legacy games, and as a special treat for you (and for us!), we are joined by a very special guest - Rob Daviau, the man behind the legacy game craze (and a lot of other great games besides)! In this episode:
Legacy games are susceptible to spoilers, but this is a spoiler-free episode. You can find some additional short files with spoiler content for various games here, but the main episode is safe for all (except for the occasional grownup word). Also, there are some new options on the future episodes poll - please let us know what you'd like to hear us talk about! Thank you for listening! As always, reviews on iTunes are a huge help for us, especially if there's a text review along with the rating. And if you'd like to interact with us, you can do so at any or all of the following:
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! | |||
| 01 Sep 2019 | Episode 14 - Press and/or Push Your Luck | 00:51:05 | |
We're continuing our second year of podcasting - can we keep this up, or are we just pushing (or is it pressing?) our luck? Either way, we don't plan on stopping, so here's an episode of us discussing games in which you have to press and/or push your luck. In this episode:
Thank you for listening! As always, reviews on iTunes are a huge help for us, especially if there's a text review along with the rating. We'd love to get your opinions on our future episodes poll. And if you'd like to interact with us, you can do so at any or all of the following:
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! | |||
| 02 Oct 2019 | Episode 15 - Adventure Games (complete episode) | 01:03:47 | |
It's Episode 15, Adventure Games, now complete in one file. It turns out that there wasn't quite as much material left for Part 2 as I thought, and also that I accidentally uploaded Part 1 as an unnecessarily large stereo file, so it seemed best to just replace the whole thing. Apologies to those of you who have already downloaded and listened to Part 1; you can skip to 1:03:39 to pick up with the new material. This month:
NOTE: This episode is somewhat more NSFW than usual, because...well, because we talk about Kingdom Death: Monster a lot. And Dungeon Degenerates. And, er, Wikipedia.
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! | |||
| 31 Oct 2019 | Episode 16 - Halloween Special | 00:51:46 | |
Boo! Episode 16 is here a day early, because Halloween! To celebrate our favorite holiday, we play The Gothic Game, an extremely random game of murder and mayhem set in the Otranto Castle and Spa (try the deep-exfoliating moat!). It's a wild ride featuring dangerous snakes, bad prunes, Frank's wife Sandi, and a last-minute twist that determines the ultimate winner! Because the game was relatively short (and also, let's be honest, maybe not the most exciting thing to listen to), we also included a discussion of some of our favorite creepy, crawly Halloweeny games, including several from Sandi's amazing collection of 1970s occult kids' games. Things mentioned this episode that you might want to check out on the interwebs:
As always, we appreciate your listening and wold love to hear your comments on any or all of these sources, and especially a review on iTunes if you have the time and inclination!
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! | |||
| 02 Dec 2019 | Episode 17 - Solitaire Games | 00:48:22 | |
As the holidays draw near, it's time for a smaller and more intimate podcast crew (also because Mike and Jayson were both traveling). Sandi returns to help us discuss solitaire games, for those times when you are just sick of dealing with people.
As always, we appreciate your listening and wold love to hear your comments on any or all of these sources, and especially a review on iTunes if you have the time and inclination!
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! | |||
| 01 Sep 2018 | Episode 2 - One vs. Many Games | 00:53:35 | |
Just in time for Dragon*Con, or PAX West, or the NOVA Open, or just a long holiday weekend of board games, it's The Ascent of Board Games - Episode 2! (And they said it would never happen again...) This month we're talking about one-versus-many games, wherein one player smashes a bottle against the bar and says, "C'mon, I'll take on all of you at once!" (Metaphorically, in most cases.) I think we were all a bit surprised at how far back this type of game goes; hopefully you'll enjoy listening to what we learned. As usual, we'd love to hear what you think - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
And if you have the time to give us a review on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ascent-of-board-games/id1420342842), it would really help us in our efforts to reach more listeners. 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! | |||
| 01 Oct 2018 | Episode 3 - Batteries Included | 01:36:32 | |
Welcome back! This month's topic is "Batteries Included" - board games with electronic elements (or, in some early cases, electrical elements) that are an essential part of the game. We had a few audio issues this time around, so I apologize for the sometimes uneven sound quality; I promise we'll have it back under control next time! Here are a few links to some "extras" you'll hear us mention along the way: The epic Egyptian imagery of Electra, 1910: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/598808/electra A great Dark Tower fan site, with pictures of Bob Pepper's fantastic artwork for Dark Tower (and Dragonmaster): http://well-of-souls.com/tower/ Orson Welles assaults the Dark Tower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrY7MWEkwE The Nightmare 2 music video - don't say you weren't warned! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ad5JXTnFE A sample of how Dropmix can work, since we utterly failed to record any of our own experiments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQs1FJuJ1U We also include a brief digression on which miniatures game has the most difficult miniatures to assemble. However, we did edit out our 18-minute digression on the relative merits of Community and Rick & Morty. Maybe we'll put that on our Patreon site someday. You know, if we ever actually have a Patreon site. The other thing we cut is a 10-minute discussion of the Weave role-playing game. It's certainly in keeping with the theme of the episode, but since Weave is an RPG rather than a board game, we thought it was something we could safely leave out of the main episode (especially since this one was already a bit longer than usual). That said, if you're interested in hearing it, let us know; we'd be glad to release it as a supplemental "expansion pack" mini-episode. As usual, we'd love to hear what you think - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods: Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com/ Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ascentofgames Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And if you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it would really help us in our efforts to reach more listeners. 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! | |||
| 01 Nov 2018 | Episode 4 - Dice Games | 01:21:56 | |
Welcome back! This month, we're rolling out some dice games - specifically, games that do interesting or unusual things with dice (rather than just another Yahtzee clone). It's less of an evolutionary timeline and more of a random walk, but we hope you'll like it anyway. Some of us were a little tired during the recording of this episode, so if we sound a little punchy or slurred towards the end of the episode, it's not because we were drinking. Promise. We start with a recap of games played at a recent game convention we all attended. (Note that "recent" is a relative term - this episode was actually recorded in early July. That said, we're more or less done with our initial backlog of recordings, so future episodes should be a lot more current.) If you want to skip all that nonsense, the episode proper starts at 18:01. The interesting board/base of Das Spiel, which is hard to describe in audio: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/93615/spiel As always, we'd love to hear what you think - is there too much random chatter when we talk about what we've been playing? Have we forgotten your favorite games in a particular genre? Why does Mike hate gnomes, and why is he wrong? If you have an opinion - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
And if you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it really helps us in our efforts to reach more listeners. The other thing that really helps is word of mouth, so if you know any other game nerds that might enjoy the show, please tell them about it! 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!
| |||
| 02 Dec 2018 | Episode 5 - Cooperative Games | 01:43:29 | |
It's us again! This month, we're working together on some cooperative games, including some obscure oldies, some new surprises, and some hall-of-fame classics (which we TOTALLY didn't forget any of until we were in the middle of recording the episode). As usual, we start with a bit of a ramble about what we've been playing (or at least buying) lately; if you want to skip that, the main topic of the show starts at 18:24. A few of the fascinating things we learned this episode:
In the spirit of cooperation, please feel free to share our podcast with people who you think might enjoy it. If you have the time to give us a review on iTunes, it really helps us in our efforts to reach more listeners. And if there's stuff you'd like us to do more of, or less of, or differently, please let us know! We're still a small enough operation that we can adapt easily to what our listeners want to hear. If you have an opinion - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 01 Jan 2019 | Episode 6 - Paragraph Games | 01:29:09 | |
Happy New Year! In Episode 6, we talk about paragraph games, a topic near and dear to several of our hearts. Learn about the game that Frank thinks is better than Star Saga (gasp!), the game that might be Joe's favorite of all time, and the game that Mike calls "the Dark Souls of paragraph games."
If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 02 Feb 2019 | Episode 7 - Asymmetrical Games | 01:17:17 | |
I'm not gonna lie...this episode gets a little "inside baseball," as we delve (greedily and too deep) into the topic of what, exactly, constitutes an asymmetrical game. Hopefully we're at least able to keep it amusing along the way! If this one's not to your liking, stay tuned, as our Valentine's Day bonus episode should be a lot more light-hearted (not to say silly). Meanwhile, in this episode:
If you would be kind enough to give us a review on iTunes, we'd really appreciate the support. If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 01 Mar 2019 | Episode 8 - Great Gimmicks | 00:59:01 | |
Welcome back! This month's episode isn't about a game mechanic as such; it's about the weird and wonderful gadgets and one-of-a-kind crazy ideas that make some of our most memorable games...well, memorable. (We promise we'll be back to a more evolutionary topic next month.) You'll definitely want to visit our Instagram and/or Facebook pages to check out the photos and videos for this episode, since there are a number of gadgets that are really tough to explain in an audio-only medium. Listen on as we:
A few related items you might want to check out:
If you would be kind enough to give us a review on iTunes, we'd really appreciate the support! If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we suspect you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 05 Apr 2019 | Episode 9 - Dungeon Crawls | 01:40:32 | |
Phew - we finally made it! Many apologies for the delay in this month's episode, which was primarily due to two factors: 1. It was (and is) our longest episode to date. 2. Brian and Mike were both suffering from colds, and every time they inhaled, it sounded like Darth Vader had joined the show. (We did our best to edit all of that out - sorry if any of our death-rattles slipped through.) We promise to be back on schedule next month! This episode, we strap on our broadswords and delve into the torchlit world of dungeon crawl games. Among other things, we learn that the podcast's Joe quotient is rather higher than previously believed... Some relevant links that might be of interest to you:
As always, we really appreciate your support (and patience). If you enjoy what we're doing, we'd also really appreciate a review on iTunes - they are a great way for the show to grow! If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we suspect you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
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! | |||
| 02 May 2021 | Episode 33 - Two-Player Games | 01:09:23 | |
We recorded this back on Valentine's Day, but it's taken us this long to release it, so...well, enjoy some two-player games for Cinco de Mayo, maybe? In this episode:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Sep 2021 | Episode 37 - Games You Shouldn‘t Play | 01:01:23 | |
Hey, you know how we mostly talk about games we like on this show? Well, here's a change of pace for you! That's right, here's an entire episode on games we think you shouldn't play - either because they're unplayable as written, wracked by production errors, or just really, really bad. Don't give up hope, though - we do have recommendations for better games that we think you should play instead. Listen along as:
And, of course, we have plenty of other random links and stuff!
We'd love to have you visit our website and let us know what episodes we should record 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!
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! | |||
| 01 Feb 2020 | Episode 19 - Programmed Action | 00:59:46 | |
It's February, and we're releasing a new episode, just as we planned to do several months ago. Speaking of planning things in advance, this month we're talking about programmed action games! Join us as...
Apologies for Frank's audio - it sounds a bit like he's caught in a matter transference beam, but we promise he's fine. A few other links to things we mention that you might find interesting:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 May 2023 | Episode 53.2 - Paragraph Games Revisited, Part 2 | 00:55:33 | |
More paragraphs! More stories! More smart-assery! More great quotes like:
Welcome to all of our new listeners, and welcome back to our returning friends! If you have a few extra minutes and a generous heart, why not leave us an iTunes review? It really helps 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 @ascentofgames on Twitter as long as Twitter still exists. 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!
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! | |||
| 02 Jan 2021 | Episode 30 - Games with Changing Boards | 01:17:09 | |
Happy New Year! Congratulations on surviving 2020 with enough mental fortitude to listen to a podcast about board games! To celebrate the (hopefully positive) change in the calendar, we're talking about games where the board changes as you play. You'll hear us say things like:
Other items of interest in this episode include:
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!
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! | |||
| 02 Nov 2020 | Episode 28 - Negotiation Games | 01:16:48 | |
We'll make you a deal - you download and listen to this episode, and we'll tell you about some of our favorite (and least favorite) negotiation games. As an added bonus, we've gotten our sound quality back to something that should be close to our pre-COVID levels, and we'll throw that in for free. (Thanks to Craig Shipman at the Third Floor Wars podcast for the suggestion that got us there - if you're at all interested in miniature skirmish gaming, that is a show you will definitely want to check out!) We also answer some age-old questions:
A few other items of interest from this month:
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!
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! | |||
| 24 Dec 2018 | Holiday Bonus Episode! | 01:32:59 | |
Merry Christmas (or other seasonal holiday(s) as appropriate to your personal preferences and/or belief system)! Our regularly-scheduled episode will be posted as usual on January 1, but we wanted to talk about our thoughts on The Year That Was, so you get a special bonus episode. (You're welcome.) We discuss our Top 5 game-related things of the year (which may be games, game-related events, game trends, or anything else that we can somehow tangentially connect to board games), our biggest disappointments of the year, and what we're looking forward to in 2019. For some more details about some of the stuff we discuss in this episode:
It's been a great year for us - thank you for listening! (Also, if Frank has talked YOU into buying something during this podcast, please let us know so we can update his score appropriately.) If you have anything you'd like to ask, share, or tell us about, please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. We'll talk to you again next year! | |||
| 14 Feb 2019 | Valentine's Day Bonus Episode! | 01:19:58 | |
Happy Valentine's Day! This (bonus) episode is pretty much the opposite of the last one, as we go on an old-fashioned, romantic, and very silly playthrough of Barbara Cartland: A Romance Boardgame. This is a paragraph game based, as you might guess, on a few of Barbara Cartland's 700+ (!) romance novels. Since it's a paragraph game, there's a lot of reading and, well, none of us are actors or even audiobook narrators, so be prepared for a few rough patches. In our defense, the paragraphs in the game had a...lot...of ellipses in weird...places. Note: This game was published almost 35 years years ago, based on novels that were published 40+ years ago and set 100-200 years ago. The text contains some cultural insensitivity, a LOT of gender stereotyping, and at least one scene that today would be classified as sexual assault. The books and the game are products of their respective times, and while we can laugh about the old-fashioned ideas now, that certainly doesn't mean we approve or support that kind of behavior when there are any real people involved. We hope you understand. In case you're interested in checking out the source material (but beware spoilers!), the three stories we played through are based on:
Also, here's the iTunes link for Barbara Cartland's album of love songs, and a recipe for Harira. (It'll make sense - well, maybe a tiny bit more sense - once you've heard the episode.) We'd love it if you'd give us a review on iTunes - it's one of the very best ways for us to find new listeners. If you have an opinion you'd like to share with us - and we know you do - please drop us a line via any (or all!) of the following methods:
The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening! | |||
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