Episode 48: Worker Bees

First, no apologies needed for lagging behind! Life is crazy, so the shows are here for you whenever you have the time.

On to your point about Philip

Admittedly, I have only played the game a few times and I have never had this situation come up early on. My only strategy thought is couldn't you and your fellow players make an effort to keep the person with Philip from getting this bonus every round? Sure, it may mean you have to expend a master builder token when you have other plans for it, but seems like this strategy might help balance the card's effect on the game.

Hey Snooze, your gamelog is very cool! Thanks for sharing.

There were a bunch of players at MittenCon with their own forms of game logs, recording lots of stuff after every game played. I must admit it was a new experience to me, since I've never had the impulse to record anything more than the fact that each game we own will (we hope) eventually hit the table. Now that being said, I can see how it would be fun to track more specific information over time and you've done a great job of putting that information out ina way that is easy to decipher. I'm not sure I am wired to be dilligent enough to make my playing information interesting or useful, but I am lucky enough to have Mr. OCD as a partner-in-crime! Heh. Especially if he already has something like your form, I can totally see him geeking out on it. :)

I have double checked our feeds (both enhanced and mp3) and I think everything is working as it should.

Perhaps your podcast settings in Itunes are configured in such a way that it has not checked for any new shows? I have my itunes set up to check once a day for new episodes of the shows I subscribe to. That said, it has been my experience that iTunes gets "tired" sometimes and if there is a longer gap between episodes, it will sometimes forget to check for new content. Since we had such a gap with our Winter Break, perhaps your iTunes has decided not to check for new stuff any more. Right click on The Spiel's listing in your iTunes and select Update Podcast and see if that shakes the program out of its slumber.

Let me know what you find out and by all means if anyone else is having problems, let me know, too!

It's definitely good to be back. Dave and I are already hunkered down planning some great stuff for the rest of the year and we can hardly wait. Woo!

Thanks for reporting in on the feed issue as well. Chime in, the rest of you, especially if you're having issues.

The Spiel played really loud would NOT be a good idea. Unless it's Dave playing the trumpet!

I'd encourage you to play both games in their physical face-to-face iterations as well. Not to overplay the impact of goober on a game, but with both these titles there's really an added level of pleasure and fun derived from the great chunky pieces in Hive and the masterful board design with its cube and builder management in Pillars.

I don't see any problem with playing games online, especially ones about which you might be on the fence. Doesn't seem like a cop out to me. If anything I think the number of games I would want to purchase would most likely go up from having had good experiences online. For every one I might reject, there's probably three or four waiting to add to The List. Dang!

My big problem (if you can call it that) is I have the luxury to play games so often with friends face to face and it leaves scarce time for online play. And before someone reminds me, I know, I know one of my resolutions is to get into at least a few online games over the course of the year. I am certain that I would take full advantage of more online play if I wasn't so lucky. In the meantime, I'll try to troll around BSW and some of the other sites as my schedul permits.

Thanks J Moody! We love doing the show but the break was a welcome respite, too, especially after the crazy marathon. Nothing half measure with us, by jove!

I think one of Hive's strongest points is how much it can appeal to a wide range of players both in terms of age and experience. Since it shares mechanics with chess (piece X moves this way), and there are less types of pieces and the game plays so quickly, I can imagine a lot of kids would really respond to the game. You'll have to let us know how it goes.

Yeah, apologies if the 14 steps of Phase 3 in Pillars were clear as mud on the show! Until I sat down and tried to describe it, I didn't realize how integral the board is to understanding the flow of the game. At least with the enhanced version, you can see the areas of the board as I mention them. One of the motives behind tackling some video content is to be able to pick and choose which games suit which media type for what we do.

It's surely not a gateway game but it's only one rung up the ladder because the rules and board mesh together so well. It deserves high marks and any awards it can gather.

Welcome aboard, Greg! And thanks for the kudos.

You're getting into our territory with your collection of 600. Cool! How long is your unplayed list? Be honest! :) Dave has had a few things come up at work which are real time-sucks for the next week or so, but after that I'm sure he'll finish putting the final coat of polish on the database. I'll certainly post a note in the fourms when it is available.

If all goes well, we may have our hands on several Mosquitos very soon. John Yianni, the deisgner of Hive, sent me an email and wants to send us some tiles are prizes. How cool is that? You'll have to listen close to Name That Game contests in the coming months. :)

Odd, I tell you, very odd! I have downloaded the enhanced version twice now and both versions have the pictures. I have had a couple other reports from listeners this week that back catalog episodes are downloading but with no sound. Huh? So far I have yet to replicate either of these problems, so the only advice I can give at this point is to try downloading the episode again. Perhaps the server was bottlenecked and something crazy happeed. Please let me know if anyone else is having similar problems! Within the next month, I will probably be moving the Spiel media files to a different service and I hope these quasi-random problems go away.

You'll probably have to add some tables or fields for a detailed play log but Dave's database would definitely give you a hug head start on keeping track of your collection.