The Ascent of Board Games

Hello everyone! We've spent lo these many months talking about real games - now it's time for us to talk about games that DON'T exist. Although some of them actually do exist now, but didn't originally. Come on along with us - maybe it will make more sense if you give this a listen! Among the games we discuss:

Jetan, or Martian Chess - an entirely playable game

Rithmomachia (which Frank refers to as "Rithomancy")

Star Trek games. So many Star Trek games:

3-D Chess

Strategema

Tongo (with unofficial rules here)

Kadis-Kot

Also at least one Star Wars game, which is fine because apparently none of us can tell Star Trek and Star Wars apart any more.

Plus a drive-by James Bond appearance.

Also, an excellent actual play of Mornington Crescent (and the tangentially related Numberwang!)

What's your favorite imaginary game? Which classics did we forget? And what happened to Joe? 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!

Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com

Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social

Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

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

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

Thanks to JellyfishSorbet at Pixabay for additional audio this episode!

Thank you for listening!

Hi folks! If you listened to last month's episode (or have been following the board game industry for the last decade or so), you probably have a pretty good idea about what's going to happen in this month's episode - the Fall of Fantasy Flight Games.

We're not saying that Fantasy Flight's 2014 merger with Asmodee is responsible for the collapse of one of the world's biggest and most respected board game publishers...but we're not not saying that, either.

Are you - or were you - a Fantasy Flight Fan? Are there other game companies you'd like us to give this kind of treatment to? Was this a terrible idea? 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!

Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com

Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social

Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

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

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

Thank you for listening!

Hi folks! We're back (yes, even including Jayson!) with an episode that's a little different than our usual - do let us know what you think!

This month and next month, we're doing a different kind of deep dive. Rather than specifically looking at a single game mechanic or designer, we're looking at a game company - in this case, Fantasy Flight Games. Not to give anything away, but the fact that this episode is subtitled "The Rise" might give you a moment's pause about next month's episode...

Have you ever wanted to read a novel set in one of FFG's game universes? Well, they released some anyway.

Diskwars: The Mess

FFG made a movie! Rotten Tomatoes has it at 8%, so you know we need to set up a watch party on Discord...

The War of the Ring Collector's Edition is mighty hard to find these days, but you can still get the only slightly less cool Two Decades Limited Edition.

Frank says the first edition of this FFG product had "one fatal flaw - it's a terrible game."

Are you - or were you - a Fantasy Flight Fan? Are there other game companies you'd like us to give this kind of treatment to? Was this a terrible idea? 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!

Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com

Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social

Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

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

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

Thank you for listening!

Episode 80 - who'da thunk it? Thank you so much for sticking with us over (gulp) almost eight years of our nonsense. (Don't do the math - lots of two-part episodes have ruined that.) 

This month, we take a deep dive into the game designs of Antoine Bauza, a talented designer with an eclectic repertoire that ranges from a few all-time classics (including one that's currently in the BGG top 20) to some lighter games to some that the Ascent crew are...let's say "divided on the merits of." (By which we mean "Brian likes this game and no one else does.")

How many game designers have released two Spiel des Jahres-winning games in one year? (Hint: this episode is about one of them.)

Joe says "I love the bejeezus out of this game."

We have to talk about Conan without Jayson.

Brian still woefully misunderstands Attack on Titan.

What's your favorite Bauza title? What other game developers do we need to dive deep on? 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!

Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com

Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social

Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

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

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

Thank you for listening!

We're back to wrap up our discussion on "sandbox games," and this part stretches the definition a bit; there's at least one game here where it's not the map that's bigger than you can explore in one game, but the rule set itself. (Yes, it's a Frank special.)

What game does Joe describe as "a beautiful mess"?

Frank is doing things in his new obsession and all he can say is "...and apparently, this matters."

What are your favorite sandbox games? What have we left off our list? 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!

Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com

Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social

Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/

And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames

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

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

Thank you for listening!