The Gone-Over Board

The board game podcast universe is big and expanding all the time, but unfortunately our ear holes are not. Boardcasting is a series all about unique and notable podcast episodes I’ve listened to lately. If something catches your ear you can let me know on Twitter.

Five Games For Doomsday - Geoff Englestein

Ben Maddox has a good thing going. He’s doing a lot of fascinating things with this podcast, some of which consists of in-depth interviews with prominent members of the board game community. On the surface it seems like the entire show revolves around “What Are Your Favorite Games?” but it goes deeper than that. The Geoff Englestein episode was great for diving into why formal education centering on game design is worthwhile, how Geoff got into designing games, and many more interesting answers in a format that is substantially more than just two people talking about what they’ve been playing recently.

Board Game Blitz - Best of 2018

In 2019 I decided to make an effort to widen the net of opinions I take in, and that included not just listening to the usual suspects when it came to things like best of the year lists. I dipped into the Board Game Blitz podcast, one I hadn’t checked in on since near the beginning, and I really enjoyed Crystal and Ambie’s episode on the Blitzies awards. They include games that sometimes weren’t in the conversation from other well-known personalities. I also appreciated the admission that they hadn’t played everything, not even close, which puts them much closer to my experience than many other Top 10 listmakers. I’m definitely going to make a point to listen more often.

Going Analog #16 - Theresa Duringer

Going Analog has become one of my favorites. It’s a low-key discussion among four people with different tastes on whatever topics they happen come with that week. Having Dan Hsu and Nick Suttner on takes me back to the glory days of 1UP video game podcasts so there’s probably a nostalgia factor, but they also bring a nice mix of viewpoints and guests that I haven’t heard from before. This episode had some thought-provoking conversations on what board games are worth playing in app form and how board games might be the new golf. As a side benefit it also got me excited about the app version of Shards of Infinity that Theresa’s company is working for.

Our Turn! - Episode 100

Checking in on a podcast after it’s been going for awhile can be both daunting and rewarding. Episode 100 of Our Turn!, a podcast focused on board games through the lens of many diverse perspectives, marks the milestone by getting a big group of contributors together and talking through how they got involved, their favorite episodes, and a few other topics. It was a nice way of learning about the key moments of the podcast and what it’s all about, and I’m looking forward to diving into the archives and find some of the prior episodes they mentioned. I do get straight white male fatigue after listening to a lot of board gaming podcasts and it’s great to listen in on what feels like a group of friends exploring a shared passion through their varied experiences.

Header photo by Matthieu A on Unsplash