Session: Vanished Planet

Vanished Planet: Session report (#2) - BGG listing

• A sci-fi themed cooperative game for 1-6.
• Continuuing my experiment of recording on my Palm T3.
• This is a report of a 1-player game I played to explore the mechanics, playing with the correct rules this time around (played a 3-player game recently with the wrong rules).
• Challenging, but not exactly fun playing a solo game! But it was close, and at least I now know the rules!

Rules: Capitol

Capitol: Rules summary (#6) - BGG listing

• An old game, the predecessor to Clocktowers - this is much better!
• A nice blending of building, area control, and auction mechanisms. Good dual use of cards, too.
  
• This rules summary was an experiment - I used my Palm Tungsten|T3 (it's getting old and beat up but I'm trying to hold out just a little bit longer for the next model Treo to come out!) to record this "show". Nothing fancy, either (as you can likely tell from the quality of the recording) - I used the built-in Voice Memo program. Then, I hooked up the headphone jack to my laptop's microphone connection, and used Audacity to record the show. A few minor edits and ... voila! The quality isn't great, but good enough for recording some quick session reports after playing a game somewhere.
  

Rules: Shadows Over Camelot

Shadows Over Camelot: Rules summary (#5) - BGG listing

• A great cooperative game with a twist - the addition of the traitor is very very nice!
• I don't understand how some people have been finding it so easy! I guess I have to play some more!

Rules: Crocodile Pool Party

Crocodile Pool Party: Rules summary (#4) - BGG listing

• An abstract game with a pasted-on theme.
• Pretty good, but not great. Similar to but much simpler than Dungeon Twister.

Rules: San Juan

San Juan - Rules summary - BGG Listing

• A very good card game - easy to learn, fun to play.
• 2-player games on BSW take, on average, only 6-12 minutes each!

Rules: Euphrat & Tigris

Euphrat & Tigris - Rules summary - BGG Listing

• A modern classic; many think it's Reiner Knizia's best design.
• Simple rules, although the rulebook makes it difficult for some. I think it actually is pretty well-themed, about wars the civil wars and wars between kingdoms of the ancient world.
  

Session: San Juan

San Juan: Session report - BGG listing

• A very good card game - easy to learn, fun to play. Once you get familiar with all the buildings, you can play VERY quickly (especially on Brettspielwelt).
  
• This is a report of a BSW game. Actually, it's kind of a play-by-play: I dictated it as we were playing the game.
  

Rules: Struggle of Empires

Rules summary, 1st recording (bad quality; removed) - Rules summary, edited May 2006 - BGG Listing

• A new game from Martin Wallace. Like Age of Steam (the only other game of his I'd played previously), the economy is very tight. Well worth playing, although runs too long with the full complement of 7 newbies.
  
• This was the first audio file I created; it may be a bit too long

My First Post...

{Added 19 May 2006: a brief audio introduction}

...and a test, really. How the heck do these things work?

I don't plan to post a huge amount of content here on the web site. Rather, this is meant to be a vehicle for delivering the occasional podcast - rule summaries, and maybe occasional session reports and reviews, for some of my boardgames.

The big question is: Why? Why would anyone want to listen to rules explanations? Well, I don't know :). Actually, I wouldn't expect this to be a "show" like most podcasts - this is not something ot regularly listen to. Rather, it's a way to (automatically) build a library of rules explanations that people can listen to as needed. I have over 300 games now, and despite my best intentions that number keeps growing (I blame the wife!). So sometimes it takes a long time - even years - before I make it back to a game (even the good ones)! I hope that when our group plans to play something I haven't played in a while, I can just listen to the rules on the drive over. Of course, if they take the time they could listen to it, too, and we wouldn't have to waste valuable time going over the rules!

Edit: my first post actually linked to several mp3s. I'm guessing that podcasts only work on the first file. So, I'm splitting the entry into 4 different ones.