A review-heavy episode this time around with discussions of Strasbourg, Divinare and The Hunger Games: District 12. It’s been a long time since we started our competition for another Stefan Feld game – The Speicherstadt – but we finally have a winner. There’s also a new competition to win Antoine Bauza’s excellent card game Hanabi.

You can download the episode here, subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it below:

The Royal Society has descended upon Essen and we’ve been spending money and playing games just so we can bring you this special update. (And maybe a bit because it’s fun…).

This episode’s even more shambolic than usual as it was recorded in a hotel room sat on two beds and huddled around the microphone balanced on a chair and we discuss so many games only a fool would try and list them here. So it includes P.I., Courtier, Escape, Lady Alice, P.I., Coup, Love Letter, Suburbia, Snowdonia, and a few dozen more first impressions.

Also, since recording the episode I’ve been able to play Tzolk’in and so far it stands out as the big “gamer’s game” of the show, especially of those that had the usual pre-show hype. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a review together in the near future.

You can download the episode here, subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it below:

Show notes will be posted later, but for now there’s the last day of gaming about to get underway!

As the Royal Society prepares to land in Essen (or Dusseldorf, and then get the train to Essen), here’s a podcast all about Essen. Lloyd and Paul along with new host Adam go through their Essen preview lists ranging from short and snappy games such as Hanabi, Rumble in the Dungeon and Love Letter through to meatier games like Archipelago and Article 27.

The theme of British people going abroad is continued through to the full review of D-Day Dice, the game that was a recent Kickstarter mega-success.

Just in time to listen to before the show (what better in-flight entertainment can be had?), you can download the episode here, subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

In a small change to the usual format, we have no news this episode but as well as reviews of Panic Station and the Kennerspiel winner Village we do have a report on Game Camp and the UK Games Expo. Plus there’s a new interview segment with Tony Boydell of Surprised Stare Games where we discuss the history of the company as well as some of his games including Paperclip Railways and the upcoming Snowdonia.

There’s also another chance to enter our competition to win a copy of Stefan Feld’s The Speicherstadt sponsored by Board Game Guru.

You can download the episode here, subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

K2 was one of those games that I bought and reviewed as soon as I’d played it. I also snapped up the expansion Broad Peak at Essen in 2011 and reviewed the base game and expansion on our podcast. So in short, I’m a big fan of the game.

Broad Peak: wot no weather tiles?

With the Broad Peak expansion, however, there was a hint of disappointment: surely new weather tiles were one of the obvious things to put in the box? If there’s one question that’s always asked about the game it’s replayability and, with a fixed set of weather tiles in the game, it’s easy to memorise them and know what’s coming up on the final three days before the tile’s been uncovered.

Avalanche!!!

Enter “The Avalanche” which consists of nothing other than four weather tiles, two for winter and two for summer. (Pictured below, courtesy of Rafal Szczepkowski aka cnidius.)

Notice the different symbol on one of the weather spaces on each tile. It looks like a cloud on a slope, and it represents the avalanche. The rules for how the avalanche works are simple: if a climber ends their turn on a weather space affected by the avalanche and they’re not in a tent, then they’re swept one space down the mountain.

Ride that snow wave

Thematically, the climbers seem to be getting off lightly. Getting hit by an avalanche does nothing more than sends you down the mountain a bit? Bring it on, I say. And it’s nice to have up to six days warning that it’s going to happen too.

In practice I’ve tried using it as a way to quickly descend, and on one occasion it’s helped me get down from the mountain quicker and save a movement point. (And also in practice, I’ve died later through lack of acclimatisation points…) As the title says: I believe this is thematically dubious, but it does prevent the avalanche having disastrous effects.

How it plays

So, putting aside the viability of avalanche surfing in the real world for one moment, how does it change the game? Put simply, it makes the timing of ascent, descent and tent-building even more critical than it already was in the game.

Dodging the bad weather has always been the key to scoring well in K2 and this adds another variable: plan things badly and get caught in the avalance and you could end up being swept down a space and have to spend 2 or 3 movement points to get back up. Ouch (in game terms). It also makes tents more important, even in the summer weather game where they weren’t often necessary before.

Finally, the rules for putting the avalanche tiles in are: shuffle the six original weather tiles, remove two, add the new ones, and re-shuffle. This adds to the unpredictability of the game no-end since you can less often know what the last tile is. Play a variant where you shuffle all eight tiles and pick six and you really have no idea what’s going to come up last, or whether you’re going to get any avalanches at all.

You should get it

If you’re a regularly K2 player then you really should get these tiles. Even if you ignore the avalanche rules entirely and just treat it as two new weather tiles to choose from then it adds to the game. Personally, I like the extra variety the new rules add (and I also love planning my avalanche surfing), but for now this is the best way to extend the life of your K2 game.

We have the usual news and updates including a look at some of the Origins award winners, plus reviews of Martin Wallace’s Ankh-Morpork and Reiner Knizia’s Pinguïn Party.

Following the nominations for the Spiel des Jahres awards we go into a bit of a discussion about the games and make semi-random (or maybe completely random) predictions for the winners for the main prize and the Kennerspiel – expert game – category, paying more attention to K2 (which we reviewed in episode 9) and Village (which we’ll be reviewing soon).

Finally we have a new competition to win a copy of Stefan Feld’s The Speicherstadt sponsored by Board Game Guru.

You can download the episode here, subscribe on iTunes, or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

A short news section this episode, including a semi-regular Hobbit update, and a couple of reviews including the “I am Spartacus” card game Pax and the rondel-in-disguise game Walnut Grove. We discuss the Voice of Experience review contest and we also have the winner of our Hab & Gut competition sponsored by Board Game Guru

You can download the episode here or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

We have a small crop of games that we either had a glimpse of or just completed missed from Essen 2011 including Hawaii, Power Grid: First Sparks and Hasbro’s innovative Risk Legacy. There also a ton of news featuring both Hasbro and Hobbit movie tie-ins and a second chance to win a copy of Hab und Gut sponsored by Board Game Guru.

You can download the episode here or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

If you’re interested in what they’re really doing you can Read the full story on Nato’s cardboard boats here.

1) If we post about a Kickstarter project, we’re essentially implying our readers should donate to it. Everyone makes their own spending decision based on their own feelings and research of course – but it can still be the case that for many of our revered readership, the deal wasn’t even on the table until it appeared here.

The article makes some good points, and in case anyone’s interested #2 is one of the main reasons I don’t look into Kickstarter that much and don’t have an urge to talk about it. Read the rest of the article anyway and let it feed into your own reading of Kickstarter coverage anyway. And if anyone has any opinions, I’m also interested in the answer to RPS’s question:

Again, our decisions will be ultimately our own and, as with the Kickstarter stuff itself, mob rule won’t force our hand, but I am very interested in what those outside the gaming press feel are the essential factors and best practices in this brave new world of paying for a game before it exists.

The production values are excellent, and anything to grow board gaming has got to be good, but what do people think of the format of playing through an entire game? I have to admit that even though I know Small World well, I didn’t really get a feeling as to what was going on on the board.

It’s been a while, but Episode 10 has made it out of captivity. We have many many new voices this time around, including Martin Griffiths, Paul Arneil, John Bandettini and Jeff Clark, plus a second episode for Lloyd Boman. And I hang around to press record and stop when appropriate, of course.

It may take us a while to get the new format flowing please so bear with us. And unfortunately there’s a bit more background noise and a few more clunks and thumps than usual, especially in the reviews section, which should be easy to iron out once I get used to everyone’s speaking volumes.

There’s still the usual news, reviews and chats, though, plus the results of our competition for Mord im Arosa and a new contest to win a copy of Hab und Gut sponsored by Board Game Guru.

You can download the episode here or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

Speed is another boast of the printer, although unfortunately it’s not something you can buy off-the-shelf quite yet.

Time for that pocket Twilight Imperium perhaps?

Hot(ish) on the heels of episode 8 comes episode 9 of the Royal Society of Gamers podcast. We have news of a couple of expansions, expansions and more expansions, some bad puns about Goa, and an update on the latest target for Games Workshop’s lawyers. We also have a change of personnel with one new host and one going so far as leaving the country to get away from us all.

We review the mountain climbing game of K2 with it’s new expansion K2: Broad Peak, Z-man’s take-that trick-taking game Lords of Scotland, and a classic euro Princes of Florence.

Treasure hunters features Crokinole – a pieces of treasure if ever there was one – and in New Gaming Worlds we have news of a few heavyweight releases on the horizon, plus the dodgy version of Dominion

And finally there’s an extension of our competition to win another overlooked gem: Mord im Arosa.

You can download the episode here or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

We’ve finally done it… Episode 8 of the Royal Society of Gamers podcast is up and ready to download and listen to. We have news of a couple of reprints, a sequel, and a retired household name.

We review the sneaky Nefarious, the mighty Eclipse, and the dicey classic Can’t Stop.

Plus in our Treasure Hunter section we cover a game you may not of thought of giving a second glance: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All that and our biggest surprises (of the gaming kind), biggest disappointments (of the gaming kind), and favourite games (of the, erm, gaming kind) of 2011.

And finally there’s a competition to win another overlooked gem: Mord im Arosa.

You can download the episode here or listen to it below:

Full show notes are available on the episode’s page.

You can listen to episode 7 below or or download it here.

You can listen to the second of our Essen special episodes below or download it here.

Note that we recorded the episode whilst travelling on the cross-channel ferry from Calais to Dover so the sound quality is not up to our usual regal standards. The content is as top-notch as ever, of course.

You can listen to the episode below or download it here.

On a rather different note, somebody pointed out to me – in response to my complaint about the lack of Steampunk games out there – that there are indeed a handful of Steampunk games on the market worth our attention, so without further ado, here is an interesting link to a list of Steampunk games for all you fans of Zeppelins and Jules Verne . .  Steampunk Board Games

So long, The Royals

We also have the winner of our competition for a A Castle For All Seasons and a new contest to win a game that we’ll pick up at Essen.

You can play the podcast from here:

Or download episode 6 here.

Update 31/08/11: Apparerently the final time was 51 hours 7 minutes. Thanks to Chad Thriftington III for letting us know on our BGG blog!