It's Essen time again, and that means it's time for another Metagamers episode (no, that's not the only time we put out episodes...)

In this episode we discuss some quick news items, Jim gives a review of Conflict of Heroes, and we discuss some recently played games.

Our main segment (starts 1 hour into the 2 hour podcast), is where we discuss the Essen games we are looking forward to.  Here is a semi-complete list of games we discuss in fair detail:

Time's Up - Title Recall
Conflict of Heroes
TtR: The Card Game
Conflict of Heroes
Glory to Rome
WoW: TCG
Agricola
Metropolys
Tinner's Trail
Dune
Prussian Rails
In the Year of the Dragon
Space Alert
Battlestar Galactica
Dominion
Great American Railroad Game
Le Havre
After the Flood
Duck Dealer
Endeavor
Ghost Stories
Ideology: War of Ideas
Steel Driver
The Name of the Rose
The Sorcerer of Salem
Wabash Cannonball
Cavum
Powerboats


Enjoy!

A later than planned look back at the year 2007. Jim and Mark talk about their top 5 games of the year, and what makes them so good. There is only one game on both of our lists, which we guess makes it The Metagamers' pick for game of the year 2007.

Games Mentioned

What fun would that be??? Listen and find out!

Vikings image by gamephotos

We're back!

Sorry for the poor sound quality.   I was recording on a new computer, and the mic was up too high at the beginning.  The crackling stops, but it still isn't great.

In this episode we talk about a bunch of games we've played recently, discuss some news items, and start a new contest for Arkadia!

Enjoy!

This episode is all about Auctions.  We get into some news and recently played games, and then jump right in to our main topic.  We discuss (among other things):

- brother story (EG, Taj, Ra, Goa, AoS, PoF....Maharaja!) it might be that they bring a game out of the casual realm you can't just choose something reasonable when it's your turn you have to fight for resources and be able to set values for them

- granularity/scale

- types: open/sequential/fixed price/dutch/blind, restrictions on bids

- unusual auctions: Taj (6 simultaneous rewards), Beowulf (changing currency, bidding for reward selection order), SoE (turn order and alliances)

- stretch: isn't area influence an auction?  EG: bidding cubes over many turns to win VP's

- evaluation: this is one skill that auction games stress, there are games where you compete for items or actions by simply selecting them in sequence (caylus, perikles) with auctions, there's the additional layer of having to evaluate the available item(s) compared to the resources you can afford to spend for example, something is "worth" 6 gold, and you have 6, but spending it all is going to kill you this turn not necessarily the same value per player you may need to bid on items just to make sure another player doesn't get it too cheaply, can be risky, fun?

- balance mechanism

- income: where does money go?

- close: auctions are not all the same, if you hate one game because of auctions don't automatically dismiss other auction games

Hosts
Mark Haberman (habermanm)
Jim Cote (ekted)

Index
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:48 News
00:01:51 On the Radar
00:04:13 Recently Played
00:15:44 Victory Points
00:19:00 Main Segment (Auctions)
01:13:06 Outro

Modern Art image by Moviebuffs

We're finally back!

We have a sad announcement, followed by happy retelling of our recent but separate con experiences.  Mark went to Great Lakes Games, and Jim went to Lobster Trap.  Once again, we talk about a ton of different games, most of them new.  We promise the next episode won't be as far away!  Enjoy!

Hosts
Mark Haberman (habermanm)
Jim Cote (ekted)

Index
00:00 Intro
00:57 News
03:12 Recently Played
19:34 Great Lakes Games / Lobster Trap
22:35 Convention Games Played
71:22 Outro

Games Mentioned
Main Segment: 1960: The Making of the President, Gheos, Pandemic, Twilight Struggle, Wallenstein, Mr. Jack, Die Kutschfahrt zur Teufelsburg, Bang, Aquaduct, Die Siedler von Catan - Das Würfelspiel, Tichu, Ubongo Extrem, Bug Bluff, Cuba, League of Six, Merchants of Amsterdam, Gyges, GIPF, Cold War, Vikings, King of Siam, Galaxy Trucker, Factory Fun, Through the Ages, Chang Cheng, Jantaris, Felix: The Cat in the Sack, In the Year of the Dragon, Giganten der Lüfte, To Court the King, Key Harvest, Deduce or Die, Brass

Links
Mr. Jack online
Cold War online

Galaxy Trucker image by garyjames