| Title | Qt3 Boardgames Podcast: Cartographers, Monster Slaughter, Clank |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Games podcasts |
| When | September 19, 2019 |
A bit of unexpected creative expression, the unluckiest cabin ever, and the latest (and greatest?) in deck-building.
Cartographers at 1:45, Monster Slaughter at 21:35, and Clank at 34:33…
All the discussion of deck-builders in this podcast reminded me that I’ve been meaning to mention Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates that my group picked up at GenCon. It’s a race game across the Caribbean in pirate ships, where you move your ships along three different paths. You move by playing cards, and get new cards by doing pirate things like sinking merchant ships, which is where the deckbuilding comes in.
I’d be interested to hear what you guys think of this one. We’ve been having fun with it, though there’s definitely some room for improvement.
This looks really cool - I’d never heard of it, so thanks for pointing it out. I’m looking at pics and vids of it now, and I’m already tempted!
I don’t think that “why are we talking about this old game??” should be the default reaction to any mention of a game that wasn’t released within the past 12 months. There is a lot to be gained from discussion of old games without the compulsion to “make them relevant” as though they’re not, somehow.
I, of course, 100% agree with you, Bruce. Although it speaks to the issue of why people listen to games podcasts, or read gaming sites in the first place. I think a primary motivation is to keep up with what’s new and buzzworthy. I suppose my hesitation in discussing Clank is that people have already had a chance to determine for themselves whether they like it or not. So why do they need to hear us pontificate about it?
On the other hand, there’s a lot to be gained by discussing games that continue to pay off for you - that get better each time you play them, or that continue to return to the table for some reason - versus games that we get excited about, play once or twice, and then ignore (e.g., Scythe, for me).
I personally get much more out of hearing people talk about games I have played than ones I haven’t. It can be nice to hear people’s thoughts about stuff I have been eyeing for purchase, or alert me to something that wasn’t on my radar, but it is not my primary interest (and the latter is difficult to achieve).
Does this mean I shouldn’t cover the original Risk next time?
Also, there are listeners who aren’t able to play games every week, or are able to keep up with new releases. Boardgames don’t age as fast as video games, in my opinion, and I would rather hear about a great game from 2016 than about a middling game from this year. But the most important thing is of course talking about the game you want to talk about, instead of catering to what you would guess the listeners would like to hear.