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It's a really big show....really...BIG. It's also our First Anniversary Show. And Mark and Jeff cover a lot of ground here -from introducing a new recurring segment --to closing-out the First Gameopolis Challenge --to addressing errata from previous shows --to 2 really fun games (one old and meaty; one new and light).

We start you off by opening up a Dusty Old Box...a Dusty, Deteriorating, Deciduous Box with an awesome game inside.

Then, we announce the five winners of our First Gameopolis Challenge. If you are one of the winners, be sure to email us at info@gameopolis.org to give us your physical address so we can send you your fantastic Gameopolis Coffee Mug!

In the show's main segment, Mark covers the Avalon Hill game History of the World. Mark covers the nuts and bolts of the game as well as some basic strategic considerations.

After Mark's coverage of HOTW, Jeff talks about a relatively new release from the On The Line Game Company: Pizza Box Football. Jeff tries to give you a basic feel for the game, its mechanics and some of the main gameplay options.

• 00:00:00 Prelude
• 00:01:20 Dusty Old Box
• 00:07:32 The Winners of the First Gameopolis Challenge
• 00:15:36 Erratum: error in Forbidden Island session report
• 00:23:10 As Far As Possible Game Goes Kaupankaynti
• 00:31:38 Avalon Hill's History of the World
• 00:52:16 On The Line's Pizza Box Football
• 01:05:30 Sign-off

Related links:

• 1 Awful Green Things from Outer Space on Boardgamegeek
• 2 PVP Online Comic
• 3 Tyler's Held Action Gaming Blogpage
• 4 Numbskullz Inc Game Store in Queensbury NY
• 5 History of the World on Boardgamegeek
• 6 Pizza Box Football on Boardgamegeek

Stay tuned for Show 9.5 -our session Report- coming real soon!

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Mark and Jeff go for an extended session report of Gamewright's Forbidden Island. Unlike most podcasts, we spend a bit of time filling in the basics of the game mechanics that we left out of show 8.0. We'll get a couple pictures from our play sessions up onto the Gameopolis Flickr Page very soon.

Also, we give our final notice for our Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge! We play samples of eight different sounds from the beeping, buzzing, whirring 1980s boardgame Dark Tower. Write into info@gameopolis.org with your guesses on the identities of the eight Dark Tower sounds. Writing in will get your name/email address into our raffle; getting all eight answers correct will get your name entered three times!!! Five lucky listeners will be drawn and will receive an awesome Gameopolis Coffee Mug!!!

Stay tuned for Show 9.0 -coming real soon!

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

You've heard about it since January...You've wondered when it would become a reality...Epic in scale...and now it's HERE!  It's the Podcast of Love. Since this is a "whole-number episode", we start off by investigating a Dusty Old Box.

In the show's main segment, it's the Podcast of Love. We talk about what some of you --our beloved listeners, our Podcast Nation-- truly LOVE about the hobby of gaming. We read out several blog postings and emails that we've received on this topic, and comment on each of them.

In a second segment (actually a mini-segment), Mark talks about a brand-new release from Gamewright: Forbidden Island, which we'll talk about again in the upcoming session report, Show 8.5.

Lastly, we put out another invitation to you all to participate in our Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge, which we first rolled-out in Show 7.5. We play samples of eight (not nine) different sounds from the beeping, buzzing, whirring 1980s boardgame Dark Tower. Write into info@gameopolis.org with your guesses on the identities of the eight Dark Tower sounds. Writing in will get your name/email address into our raffle; getting all eight answers correct will get your name entered three times!!! Five lucky listeners will be drawn during Show 9.0, each of whom will receive an awesome Gameopolis Coffee Mug!!!

• 00:00:00 Prelude
• 00:02:00 Dusty Old Box
• 00:08:11 The Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge
• 00:12:23 The Podcast of Love
• 00:40:45 Gamewright's Forbidden Island
--AND Mark and Jeff 'verb' a term
• 00:45:36 Reprise of The Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge and sign-off

Related links:

• 1 Panzer Blitz on Boardgamegeek
• 2 Dark Tower on Boardgamegeek
• 3 Jimmy Anderson's Car Wars Podcast
• 4 Gamewright  -warning --Loud sounds on page load!!!
• 5 Forbidden Island on Boardgamegeek
• 6 Eureka Games Puzzles and More -one of our favorite Friendly Local Game Stores

Stay tuned for Show 8.5 -our session Report on Forbidden Island- coming real soon!

NOTE: To download, right-click on the "POD" icon above, and choose "Save Target As..." Select a download location on your computer, and save. After saving, play the file from your downloaded copy.

Mark and Jeff cut the shenanigans and record the "Real Show 7.5". We start off with a plug for The Print and Play Podcast --a podcast about (mostly) free-to-download games that you can find at BoardgamePodcasts-dot-com. Then, it's onto our Listener Feedback segment, in which we discuss hearing from a couple new game designers --and more.

In the show's main segment, we talk about a play session of Jeff's home-brewed expansion to Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars Card Game. We decided to hazard the use of the Way-Back Machine one more time to allow you-the-listener to go back to the setup session and hear each of our car design strategies before we discuss the game and the results.

In a short final segment, we unveil our Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge! We play samples of eight different sounds from the beeping, buzzing, whirring 1980s boardgame Dark Tower. Write into info@gameopolis.org with your guesses on the identities of the eight Dark Tower sounds. Writing in will get your name/email address into our raffle; getting all eight answers correct will get your name entered three times!!! Five lucky listeners will be drawn and will each receive an awesome Gameopolis Coffee Mug!!!

• 00:00:00 Prelude
• 00:01:10 Plug for the Print and Play Podcast
• 00:03:28 Listener Feedback
• 00:14:31 Session Report of Jeff's Expansion for the Car Wars Card Game
• 00:24:03 The Gameopolis Coffee Mug Challenge

Related links:

• 1 The Print and Play Podcast,
• 2 The Dark Yew game developer blog,
• 3 BoardgamePodcasts-dot-com,
• 4 The Car Wars Card Game on BoardGameGeek,

Stay tuned for Show 8.0 -The Podcast of Love- coming real soon!

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Your voice has been heard; your vote counted!!!!

All hail Gameopolis as a paragon of Democracy!!!!

Okay, so we're probably overstating this a bit, but rest-assured your voice WAS HEARD. Our Surveymonkey survey on monaural vs stereo sound was tallied, and due to overwhelming vote, we are switching back to monaural sound (both of your ears will hear the exact same thing). For now, here is a re-release of show 6.5 re-mixed for monaural sound. If you already downloaded 6.5 and are okay with it in its original format, then you need not download this file. But if you downloaded 6.5 and were disappointed by the stereo effect, then this file will fix the problem.

Thanks again for your feedback. We'll be talking to you again very soon!

This evening, I (Jeff) had the joy that all parent/gamers look forward to: I played my first entire, complete, start-to-finish game with my older (4-year-old) son.  This event was remarkable --and holds Gamer interest that goes beyond the mere "doting dad story"-- for a few reasons, detailed below.

Now, in full disclosure, this was not the first time I had played a game with my older boy.  We have many partial games of Chutes and Ladders and Candyland under our collective belts.  Tonight was different.  My FIRST surprise of the evening was that tonight, the game was my son's idea!  In the past, it was always I that was trying to encourage my son into a game-of-something.  In contrast, my son told ME that he want to play a game! So we went into the family play room and started scanning the shelves of assorted toddler games, but as I ran my pointing hand past the Candyland, the Chutes and Ladders, and the Hi Ho Cherry-O, my son said, "No! Daddy Games!" --and this was my SECOND surprise of the night-- My son pushed my pointing hand up to the highest shelf that is home to all of my boardgames from when I was a kid: my original Battleship set, my original Monopoly and Clue games are on this shelf.  Tonight it was NOT going to be Candyland or Chutes and Ladders; it was going to be Dungeon Dice.  While this game is not a deep well of strategy, it is not a toddler game by any means.  The box reads "Ages 8 and up".  "Okay", I said, "we can play Dungeon Dice."  My son followed me proudly as we carried the game to the dining room to set it up, all the while saying "Boardgame Night! Boardgame Night!"  (As an aside, one night  a month, I host my gaming group for boardgame night --which I hold in the dining room-- so my son was apparently very excited about having his own Boardgame Night with daddy.)

Now before I tell you about my third and final surprise of the evening, a quick word about Dungeon Dice as a game.  This is basically a dice rolling game as you'd guess from the title.  Each player represents a prisoner in a dungeon trying to dig their way to freedom.  You extend your escape tunnel by rolling matching sets of symbols on the game dice --which are 6-sided dice whose 6 sides depict symbols of five different types of escape tools (shovels, lanterns, daggers, etc) or the Guard!  The Guard is bad; more on the Guard later.  You collect tunnel cards by rolling 3-of-a-kind or higher: 1 tunnel card for 3-of-a-kind; 2 tunnel cards for 4-of-a-kind; 3 tunnel cards for 5-of-a-kind, etc.  Build a tunnel of 8 tunnel cards and you win.  Very simple.  There are a few additional rules that force a bit a light strategy into the dice rolling, but you get the picture.  This is basically Yatzee-Lite-with-fantasy-chrome.

Now, this sets the stage for my THIRD revelation of the evening: this kid can SERIOUSLY roll dice!!!  The first game (we played twice, and my son won both games) my son took his first turn rolling the six dice and right-off-the-bat rolled four daggers!  As per the game rules, those four dagger dice are set aside and he gets the option to re-roll the remaining dice to try to better his score.  He took the remaining two dice and rerolled them producing a fifth dagger!  One turn; three cards!  This kept up, and I think in four or five turns, he won the game.  The top picture shows the game board at the end of play.

My son then told me he wanted to play again! Maybe he really enjoyed it, or maybe he thought he was forestalling bedtime.  Anyway, the second game was much closer.  In fact, on two consecute turns, my son rolled 3 Guards and ended his turn without collecting any tunnel cards, which allowed me to take the lead. Then, my son took the dice and rolled...yep, you guessed it... Five-of-a-kind, and won the game (bottom picture).

So, as I reflect on this evening, I am very glad that my son has finally taken to gaming (before bedtime, he asked for assurance that we can play again tomorrow, which as many of you can appreciate, will be one of the things that I will dream of tonight).  I am also glad that my son apparently does not share his dad's misfortune with the dice (I have got to have the worst dice rolling abilities of anyone I know, and I am glad that my son is not stricken by the same affliction). 

Now, I need to check the regs of any tournaments that I consider entering to see if they make provisions for "Designated Rollers".  If it is at all possible, I want my son to do my dice rolling for me!

YES!!! It's our first official "Give-Away".  Sometime in a near-future show, we will announce the details of our first give-away.  We can't tell you the detail now because... well... honestly, we don't know the details yet.  But we can tell you that five lucky-and-skillful listeners will receive a Gameopolis coffee mug (I guess to be totally neutral I should say "hot beverage mug" --we receive no money from the Coffee Growers' Association).  We can also tell you that entry will involve some sort of gaming-related, Gameopolis-related quiz.

As always, we want to say "thank you" for listening, and also thanks for writing-in to our email (info@gameopolis.org) or comments sections!!!

Mark and I are away from the microphones for a couple weeks for "real life" issues (family stuff...travel stuff...all kind-o-stuff), so I thought I would take this opportunity to update our Gameopolis Flickr account which has fallen sadly out-of-date.  Click Here to see recent photos related to Shows 5.5, 6.5, and 7.

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Mark and Jeff cover a lot of ground in this special Session Report.  Unlike past Session Reports, the games discussed in this show are NOT those that were described in Show 7.0.  Mark and Jeff cover everything ranging from nostalgic children's games, to licensed boardgames, to games based on episodes of the original Star Trek series.  You will also hear exciting news about the possibility of gameopolis gaining its first official sponsor.  So pull-up your favorite comfy-chair and settle-in with Mark and Jeff for some more Gameopolis.  Thanks for listening!

Stay tuned for Show 8, coming real soon!

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Mark and Jeff get back to the topic of the Dusty Old Box...this time with Jeff's super-double-secret extra-special dusty old box --which for a change is actually dusty! Afterward, Mark tells us about Rio Grande's Stone Age, a light and colorful game of community-building set in the dawn of human civilization. Next, Jeff's talks about Home-Brewed Boardgame Expansions: home rules sets complete with additional game components added. The point is to add some functionality to an already-great game.  To illustrate, Jeff talks about his home brewed expansions to Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars Card Game, and Avalon Hill's Monsters Menace America. We'll add some pictures of these games to the Gameopolis Flickr Account.

• 00:00:00 Prelude
• 00:05:27 Dusty Old Box
• 00:13:17 Stone Age
• 00:34:45 Home Expansion for Car Wars Card Game
• 00:45:00 Home Expansion for Monsters Menace America

Related links:

• 1 Stone Age on boardgamegeek,
• 2 Car Wars Card Game on boardgamegeek,
• 3 Monsters Menace America on boardgamegeek,
• 4 Hyperlinked list of Kaiju movie monsters on Wikipedia,
• 5 Table Tactics: expansions and extra pieces for A&A and Risk

Stay tuned for Show 7.5, coming real soon!

We are calling out to all our listeners because we'd like your feedback.  In Show 6.5, we experimented with Stereo sound --Mark's in your left ear, while Jeff is in your right ear.

We are interested in knowing how all of you like the change from mono to stereo.  We realize that while stereo sound is nice and can give you that realistic, "actually-in-Gameopolis" feeling, it is not always practical.  Maybe you normally listen to podcasts with a single earpiece and are only hearing one side of the conversation...maybe you listen in busy, noisy places and like having the steady, unchanging sound of a mono recording.  Or, maybe you are embracing the change to stereo, and are anxiously awaiting the day when we will switch to surround 5.1 and will offer 3D holographic video so Mark and Jeff will appear right there in your own living room!!!

Please take a moment (trust us --it really is one moment...it is only one question) to visit our survey and let us know what you prefer for future Gameopolis episodes. 

Clicking on the survey link will take you away from www.gameopolis.org to the SurveyMonkey web site.

Click HERE to take the survey.

Thanks in advance.  We look forward to hearing your responses!

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Mark and Jeff talk about a play session of Games Workshop's Dungeon Quest. Afterwards, they recall their recent daytrip down to the TempleCon gaming convention down in Providence Rhode Island. Each game is reviewed, and the high points of each play experience are discussed...

Stay tuned for Show #7, coming to YOUR part of town real soon!

Related links:
1,Small World,
2,Kill Dr. Lucky,
3,Fast Flowing Forest Fellers,
4,Puerto Rico,
5,The Haunting House,
6,Pandemic,
7,The Good, The Bad, and The Munchkin,
8,Shadows Over Camelot,

Stay tuned for Show #7, coming to YOUR part of town real soon!

This is the "suggestion box" for our upcoming ‘Podcast of Love’ episode, as discussed in show 5.5 and in show 6.0.  

Here’s what we are thinking: you –our listeners, our Podcast Nation— already know what Mark and Jeff love about gaming.  You already know about Mark's love of a really well-designed and well-rendered game board with plenty of room for all of the pieces, cards, etc.  You already know about Jeff’s love of Zombie games.  Now we want to know what YOU all love about gaming.  This is REALLY open-ended, and can be about ANYTHING you love about gaming.  It can be about anything that makes you recall some instance of games or gaming with fondness.  Your old gaming group…your favorite color of dice…your favorite brand of beef jerky.  Post a comment here to add your thoughts to ours, and we will discuss all of these submissions in a future show  --that would be the "Podcast of Love" episode!!!

Click on "comments" below to let us know what YOU love about gaming.  Thanks.

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Mark and Jeff talk about a totally indispensable part of any game collection: the humble "Filler Game". Filler games --which Mark and Jeff loosely define as games that can be played in less than an hour-- are great for keeping us entertained and/or occupied when we are waiting for the day's main event to start or for when the main event ends a little too soon for everyone's taste. Mark and Jeff cover four filler games in this episode. We will return to this topic in the future, so we are calling this 'Fillers part 1'.

Before our discussion of filler games, we ask for Listener ideas for our Podcast of Love, making its premier soon!

00:00 prelude

06:37 Listener Feedback

17:03 Call for ideas for Podcast of Love

18:26 Fillers Part 1

20:04 Dungeon Quest

25:27 Letter of Marque

32:03 Mag Blast

39:37 Car Wars Card Game

47:18 Battle Cattle Card Game

49:05 Closing comments

Additional links related to this podcast: The original Battle Cattle by Wingnut Games

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We start this show off with a rather atypical opening of a dusty old box. Mark has several different approaches that keep everyone --including himself-- on their toes. We prove that Gameopolis is a better buy than a trip to the movies, and we even supply a picture of an explosion in the show notes so Gameopolis is every bit as exciting! We may add more explosions to the Gameopolis Flickr account for added excitement.

After that, Mark covers Days of Wonder's Mystery of the Abbey, a cloistered Who-Done-It.  He covers all of the main game mechanics and strategies.

Then, we shift over to Jeff for his segment on Mayfair Games' Domaine --a game of Land, Wealth, Power, and Prestige. Jeff gives the basics of play, and some starter strategy and insights.

Time...Topic
0:00:00 Dusty Old Box-o-Somethin'
0:11:33 Listener Feedback
0:15:32 Mystery of the Abbey
0:39:41 Domaine
1:03:50 Closing comments

Related Links:
The Mystery of the Abbey page on Boardgame Geek
The Domaine page on Boardgame Geek

We hope you enjoy Show 5.0 of Gameopolis! We will be hopefully doing some gaming over the holidays, and so we'll be back shortly with Show 5.5, our Session Report of one of these excellent games. Please post comments on the gameopolis-dot-org blog, or email us your thoughts. Thanks for listening!

Just givin' yee all notice, that Mark and me be preparin ta send y'all a tall tale o' the sea, 'specially fer Talk Like a Pirate Day, arghhhhhh.  We be sendin' y'all down ta Davie Jones' locker if yee be not careful!

September 19th be-a International Talk-Like-a Pirate Day, and this be thee one day o' the year that we all kin let go and talk like the pirate that be in all of us.

So ahoy, maitees!!!! Keep yer eyes on Gameopolis.org fer ahr Talk Like a Pirate Day Podcast.

...okay, I can't do that any more.  Mark and I will be recording a special Talk-Like-a-Pirate-Day Podcast soon, which will feature me and Mark talking a bit (not throughout the whole show --so don't worry) like pirates.  All the while we will be dressed --as always-- like cowboys.   We may touch a bit upon a pirate-themed game or two, so stay tuned...more Gameopolis is coming!!!!  Thanks for listening.

And thanks to Freakygaming.com for the borrowed pirate ship image!!!!

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We start this show off opening up a dusty old game box...we're not going to tell you what it is...listen to the show.

After that, in Mark's segment, Mark covers the original (1985) release of Warrior Knights, a medieval combat/political.  He covers all of the main game mechanics and strategies.

Then we zip forward in time to the distant ( or not-so-distant) future, for Jeff's segment on Legions of Steel, an out-of-print Sci-Fi tactical combat game.  We've put up a few pictures on the Gameopolis Flickr Page, so check them out!

Time...Topic
0:00 Intro
1:54 Dusty Old Box-o-Somethin'
5:51 Warrior Knights
32:16 Legions of Steel

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to write in or post comments.  We hope you enjoy this show.

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We start off with a quick description of what we envision for Gameopolis.  Then we take you on a tour of our gaming pasts.

Since this is our first attempt, the audio quality isn't quite what we were hoping for.  As we go along, we'll definitely be tweaking our setup and software settings to make improvements.  We'll also try to remember to keep our Blackberrys a few feet further from our computer!

Time  Topic 

00:25 Welcome and what we are about
05:49 Warhammer 40,000 (Games Workshop)
07:50 Axis & Allies (Milton Bradley)
11:35 The Bermuda Triangle (Milton Bradley)
17:01 Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder)
21:32 Top Secret (TSR)
23:42 Talisman (Games Workshop)
25:32 Villains & Vigilantes (Fantasy Games Unlimited)
27:52 Battletech (FASA)
30:19 Car Wars (SJG)
33:06 Dragonstar (Fantasy Flight Games)
35:41 Dark Tower (MB)
41:50 Blackbeard (Avalon Hill)
45:45 Battledroids (FASA)
47:37 Aweful Green Things from Outer Space (TSR/SJG)
50:05 Star Frontiers (TSR)
54:10 D&D (TSR)
1:00:36 Merchant of Venus (Avalon Hill)
1:02:52 Gamma World (TSR)

Erratum: We discuss two of our favorite podcasts, www.roll2d6.com and www.boardgamestogo.com. Apologies to Mark Johnson for butchering the name of the latter (called it "Board Game To Go").

Other link mentioned in Show 1:

Flash Dark Tower game

We hope you enjoyed our stroll through Gaming Memory Lane.  This show ran longer than we envision for our future shows, but with 18 games to talk about we were bound to run overtime!  Stay tuned for Show 1.5 --a Session Report on one of these 18 fine games.  Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Gameopolis -The Gaming Podcast with Mark and Jeff!  This project is in its infancy.  Mark and I are putting together our show notes, our intro and outtro audio, and figuring out some final details.  As soon as we get our first show together, we'll have it up here, and we will get the word out among the gaming podcast community. 

For now, if you have found this site, please check back often.

If you are interested in what this podcast will be about, we are planning a podcast focusing on boardgames, strategy games, role-playing games, and maybe some card-based games as well.  We will likely touch occasionally on some computer games, but this will not be the focus of this podcast, and since Mark and I tend to lean toward fantasy and strategy computer games, the occasional computer game topic will likely be within these genera.

Mark and I are both family guys, and we strongly support gaming as a family activity.  Therefore, we'll make sure our MP3 files are suitable for a general audience.  I am NOT implying that we are planning any shows on the topic of "Candyland" or "Chutes and Ladders", just that Mark and I want this podcast to be one that you could listen to with children present if you wanted to.

In Show #1, Mark and I will visit a topic that is commonly discussed in gaming podcasts: the formative games in both of our gaming-lives.  Stay tuned, Gameopolis is coming!!!