OBG season 1 Episode 2: Expanding Game Play

On this episode of On Board Games

• Donald, Scott, and Erik discuss the benefits and purposes of expansions on the board game round table.
• In Red, Yellow, Green, Scott reviews War On Terror.
• In the Industry sideboard Erik and Donald discuss creating prototypes and pitching games to publishers.

Round Table

• Erik has a review copy of Formidable Foes to review for Knuckle Bones. (He and Scott like to be the dumbest player!)

Scott Played

• Bridge
• Enemy Chocolatier and tried to grab nuts.
• Quest for the Dragon Lords (Like Risk meets Talisman)

Donald Played

• Enemy Chocolatier
• Quest for the Dragon Lords

Erik had previously reviewed Dragon Lords for Undefeated. Dragon Lords has expansions.

The guys discuss expansions:

• Settlers of Catan, 5-6 players, Seafairers.
• 3 different experiences with Cosmic Encounters
• All night Double Talisman. Talisman, Timescape, Dungeon, City, Adventure,
• Heroscape dolls Castle, Ice,
• Squad Leader, ASL, Yanks, Beyond Valor, 30 plano boxes
• Carcassonne, the Big Box of Carcassone, selling empty boxes, Princess & Dragon,

Separating Expansions after integration for play

• Citadels Dark City
• Puerto Rico

Games with new play area expansions

• Robo Rally
• Formula Dé
• Power Grid
• Age of Steam

Expansions for every game

• Start Player
• Shocking Roulette

Expansions that were originally designed as part of the game

• Lord of the Rings
• Settlers, Entdecker and Lowenhertz

Why do companies do expansions?

• New units to sell
• Boost sales of existing game
• Cost effective to make

Why design new games?

• Expansions don't necessarily make better game even though they can fix broken game
• Can make games longer, more fiddley
• Change nature of game so it does not appeal to original fans

Games fixed by expansions

• Game of Thrones
• Twilight Imperium
• Starfarers of Catan

All expansions

• Stratego Legends

Collectible card games

• CCG expansions both fix and break the game.

Erik wants his own "Erik Wins" card, so Scott creates a new expansion product.

Red, Yellow, Green

• The War On Terror by Terrorbull Games Game review by Scott Nicholson
• Munchkin?

Industry Sideboard

Prototypes and pitching games to game companies (Erik & Donald)

• What to do, when do do it, and how prepaired do you need to be?
• Ex:Camelot Legends
• Pitching games to Companies like Days of Wonder or Cheapass Games

Once again I'd like to thank Scott Nicholson and Erik Dewey for joining me in this episode. Check onboardgames.net for links to the feed and show notes.

On Board Games Episode 1 Show Notes

Recently, Erik played Heroscape, Bootleggers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Nexus Ops

Scott and Don played, Hammer of the Scots, War on Terror, and Alles Fucht

Turns out, Scott isn't a complete jerk

The roundtable talks about quitting a game in progress

Erik is too nice to bail out

Scott proposes to the table if no one is having fun, one player is really doing well and no one else is having fun, if you screw up the rules so badly you just have to stop, or a game is just broken

Erik realized that when filling the ship in Puerto Rico you don't count the empty plantations

Scott played Marvel Superheroes by playing through a few turns by himself

Scott also played Iliad as a six player partnership game it has a similar mechanic as Beowolf

Buffy is nice because it was a group of players that bond together. It is a roll and move but has nice mechanics. Plays like a faster Doom or Descent.

There is an interview with Niagara Board Gaming Weekend, Mike Cardwell

He discusses when to plan an event, how to choose a hotel, the timeline of the event, marketing, etc.

Scott likes playing long games like Roads and Boats and 1861 at events

Erik likes playing with different people because they tend to use different strategies

Don and Erik went to Conestoga last year and had fun playing Wreckage

There are 4 basic types of events: Demos, tournaments, scheduled games, open gaming

Don had best results with scheduled time slots

Don reviews about Sante Anno

Scott and Don preview Tide of Iron - in Stereo!

Show notes for Episode 0

Scott enjoys:
The Dicetower podcast
The Boardgames to Go podcast
Scott and Erik used to hang out at the Imagination Network
Scott used to look forward to the Games 100 each year
Scott has been to Essen
He acts silly in his basement
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Louping Louie
Deflexion renamed to Khet which we think was not a positive change
We all have fond memories of Talisman
Chaos Marauders
Dungeon Quest
Curse of the Mummys Tomb
Rogue Trooper
HeroQuest
Cosmic Encounter
Hoity Toity
Saying Ra around Scott makes him yell like he has Tourette's.
He likes Wallenstein's end
He also likes El Grande's end options

Don enjoys:
Chess
Pente
Much to his chargrin, Dicemaster still came out
He and Erik are part of Second Rat Games
Arclight is a space miniatures game from Second Rat and will not be on Boardgames with Scott anytime soon.
He Blackbox played with his brother a lot
Medici
He likes the general timer found in Lowenherz

Erik enjoys:
Kingmaker
Civilization
ASL
Erik has reviews published in - rpg.net, BoardGameGeek, Undefeated, Knucklebones
Erik feels a little insecure about his game collection
Payday
Monopoly
Life
Dark Tower
Chopper Strike
Settlers of Catan
Erik liked Leisure Games in London, he found Pulp Adventures there
Lost Cities
Tikal
Java
Modern Art
Vegas Showdown
If he ever plays it, Erik is taking Die Macher seriously