Best of Board Games

Yehuda celebrates the six-month anniversary of Gone Gaming by providing an index. Lots of good stuff in there…

Mike Doyle has a great post about whether “unoriginal mechanics” are a good or bad thing. First the New World is discovered, then it’s explored, then new discoveries are made. Might we be reaching a point where games can develop what we have, rather than create more newness? Perhaps, and I agree that that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

A Fistful of Games is a new blog from Paul Tevis, who also makes the podcast Have Games, Will Travel.

The Gone Gaming Board Game Internet Awards winners are now published. Congratulations to all the winners. I know I can agree with most of their choices, and I hope they’ll organise the awards again next year - it has been fun!

I have listened to all the podcasts from Boardgame Babylon and they are pretty good.

The style is very similar to Boardgames To Go, with thoughtful session reports and commentary.

Chris Farrell has begun rendering his posts (and, it sounds like, eventually all-new material) as a podcast. My only comment thus far is that it could stand to be just a little louder. Definitely one to add to the burgeoning list of game podcasts, though.

A 360-dgree view (as it were) of playtesting, courtesy of KC at Gathering of Engineers. I’ve been thinking about one of my many vaporware game designs lately; I may have to get something tangible together so I know just how crummy it is…

A quick roundup of some popular, useful and entertaining BGG Threads: BSW for beginners is several months old, but it’s still useful and the thread’s had some recent traffic. Coldfoot’s Internet Boardgame Resources has been updated. Here’s a couple of recent entertaining session reports: Carcassonne and Blokus. Finally, a bit of humor deconstructing How Many Geeks Does It Take to Change A Lightbulb.

Is there a licensing tie-in concept that would get me to bite, no matter what? No matter who designed the game, no matter who produced it, indeed–no matter what kind of reviews it got?

Yes. Yes there is.

(Discovery inspired by BGN.)

What manner of heresy have you committed?