Episode 24 - Sic Transit Gloria

24: Sic Transit Gloria

Release Date: Mar. 5, 2007

Running Time: 88 min.

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ep 24

I didn't know Gloria was sick. Ancient Rome is crumbling as the Goths swarm down from the north. We play Senators racing to escape the Eternal City in Gloria Mundi, the first collaborative effort from James Ernest and Rio Grande Games.

News & Notes: Taluva, Phill Rogers' survey, Spiel classes in Zionsville
The List:
Gloria Mundi
Backshelf Spotlight:
Zauber Cocktail, Caesar & Cleopatra
Truckloads of Goober:
Tide of Iron
Game Sommelier:
Five games for a Star Wars party
Mail Bag:
To Court the King, correction of a correction, game podcasts & wives

Complete Show Notes continue after the break.

Game News & Notes

Taluva Link

Taluva is an island shrouded in secrecy where raw elemental powers prevail. In this tile laying game, players attempt to find the best place to build their huts, towers, and temples on a constantly changing landscape.

Phill Rogers' Board Game Thesis Survey

Phill is a student at Abertay Univeristy in Dundee Scotland. He's finishing his honor's thesis this semester, but he needs our help. His thesis deals with the overlap and convergence of traditional board games and computer games. He writes, "I am looking at the processes and considerations computer game designers have to look at when they decide to convert an existing boardgame into a computer/console based version." The main question his thesis poses is:

Is it possible to create a set of design heuristics that facilitates the “easy” translation of a tradition analogue table-based board game into a digital computer version?

Phill is gathering research to support his thesis in the form of an online survey. It is concise and well organized, so it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to lend a hand. If you'd like to participate, please use the link listed below. Let's help a fellow Spieler graduate and, perhaps, influence the future of games as we know them!

Survey Link

Spiel Classes: March 12, April 12

The fine folks at the Zionsville Library (a northern suburb of Indianapolis, map ) have asked us to teach two classes on games! The initial classes will be more lectures and demonstrations in format, but if all goes well, our hope is to offer future classes on a weekly or monthly basis to teach and play a new game with a group each session. These first classes are for the uninitiated, so they'll be a little basic for most game geeks. If anyone is local, feel free to come and heckle us!

Beyond Park Place : March 12, 7:00-8:30 PM link (map)

When you think of board games, you probably think landing on that Boardwalk hotel for the sixth time, your Aunt finding a word that uses her Q and her X, or that endless game of Candyland with your kid brother. When we think of board games, we think of building a kingdom with castle, road, and farm tiles, or trading wool cards for grain to keep your colonists from starving, or connecting wooden railways in a race across America. This is the new face of board gaming. We'll dip into our massive board game collection to show you the wide variety of fun and easy to learn games from around the world, including Carcassonne, The Settlers of Catan, TransAmerica, and more.

The Big Deal: Classic Card Games Revisited: April 12, 3:30 PM link (map)

A deck of cards is like a door that leads to a thousand different destinations. Flip any card and a game can twist in new and unexpected directions. David Coleson and Stephen Conway are here to keep you from getting lost! Whether you’re an old pro who just needs a refresher or you can’t tell your Left Bauer from your Right, David and Stephen will open the doors to some classic card games, including Cribbage, Canasta, Euchre and more. A rules packet will be available for every attendee.

The List

Gloria Mundi BGG entry

Escape to Carthage before the Goth arrives to sack Rome's riches in this first collaboration between James Ernest and Rio Grande Games.

Backshelf Spotlight

Mystery Connection Contest
Can you find a connection between these two games? We find a mystery connection each episode and challenge you, the listener, to hunt for it! Email us with your guess and you could win a pair of laser cut custom Spiel dice !

Congratulations to Paul Eastland for winning the connection contest for Pirateer and Pente from Episode 23!

Zaubercocktail BGG entry

Collect funky spell ingredients for recipes in this wild and wooly free-for-all trading game

Caesar & Cleopatra BGG Entry

Any game with an orgy card belongs in your collection! Influence Patricians in the Senate to determine which great leader will rule supreme.

 

Truckloads of Goober

Tide of Iron BGG Entry

This squad level World War Two gooberfest is due out in April. At a glance, it looks like a cross between Memoir '44 and BattleLore.

 

Game Sommelier

The Challenge: find five games for a Star Wars party

Thanks to listener Jeff Myers in NM for sending in the challenge!

Stephen's List

Dave's Vote

Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star Thumbs Up
Star Wars: Epic Duels Thumbs Up
Star Wars Miniatures Battles Thumbs Up
Star Wars: Battle at Sarlac's Pit Thumbs Up
Star Wars: Lightsaber Dueling Thumbs Up

Next week's challenge:

Postponed for a week. New segment debuts next time: Collector's Corner

 

Mail Bag

A BIG THANK YOU to Bay in CA for your donation! You help keep the show rolling.

Housekeeping: Poll wrap-up, Frappr map, iTunes reviews

Brad Keen give us a report on To Court the King.

Mosse in Finland encourages other listeners to check out our show notes.

Dwayne in OK corrects our correction of Cleopatra & the Society of Architects. The wall pieces score bonus points for mosaic tiles the touch, not vice versa.

T J Clark has a great story about game podcasts and his wife.

 

Errata

I'm sure there are some other goofs in there somewhere. Let us know if (when?) you find one!

Comments

I would just like to thank Stephen and David for their kind act of featuring my thesis research on their latest episode of The Spiel.

The survey respondents have been flooding in already and with the help of this wider coverage I can only hope the responses will continue so.

The survey will be closing in under week but once it has I will be collating the data ready for publication.
I will be making the raw data available for viewing by all by posting a link to the summary pages on BoardGameGeek and also posting a copy of the results to Stephen & David for possible discussion at a later date.

Thanks again for the mention lads,
Cheers
Phill Rogers
(Hallion)

Hey Phill.

We're more than glad to help out. Sorry the timing didn't work out better for your deadline or we might have even more listeners contribute.

We'll definitely post your data here on the forums and talk about the findings on the show in a future episode.

We get the easy work. Now you actually have to do something will all that data! Best of luck finishing the project.

Spiel on!

Stephen

 

Following your links to the Star Wars games, I remembered a game I had as a child and eventually tracked it down as:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/4845
(hopefully still in my parents loft)
Almost the same name as your first (no "the"), and looks like for the British market only.

Probably awful compared to todays offerings (especially with the spin (roll) and move mechanic), but I remember it being great at the time. Along with a Star Trek game that I'll have to search BGG for now...

Somewhere on a dusty shelf at my Dad's house sits a copy of this game. It's possible my copy was sold in one of my Mom's great purges, but I still hold out hope I'll find it one day. I remember playing the crap out of it as a kid with my Star Wars story book records going while we played. I guess admitting that we had records and not CDs when I was a kid officially makes me old. damn!

Initially, I thought the West End game was the one I had, but I remembered the spinner and no co-op rules.

Let us know if you find the Star Trek game on bgg. I love looking through the older games like that. Easy to waste many hours!

Stephen

 

 

It was this one:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11757

Boy did that take time to find, never knew there were so many Star Trek games (and many just called "Star Trek Game")

Don't remember much other than your red security guys keep dying (true to the original series) and the two rubber monsters (a spider and some blobby tenticle thing - that my younger brother tried to eat).

Next time I'm over at my parent's I might have a look around for them.

I've never seen that one. very cool! My cousin Gary grew up watching the original series as a kid and had a gigantic Star Trek collection, including many games but not that one. I remember looking through this one. The artwork makes all the characters looks like they came from the pages of a pulp sf magazine, which is great.

You'll have to give us a report if you manage to find it and play it.

Stephen

Thanks for doing that one, guys! My kids got a kick out of hearing my name on the air in the previous episode.

Good job on the picks. Lightsaber Dueling is based on the Lost Worlds system, which I love, so I've just picked this one up via the BGG marketplace.

An alternative to Lightsaber Dueling is Star Wars Episode 1 - Clash of the Lightsabers, which is also quite a good game.

Another possibility: Risk -- Star Wars: Original Trilogy Edition, now in stores. Gets pretty good reviews for a Risk game and supposedly plays quickly.

The BIG one that you missed is Attacktix Battle Figure Game (Star Wars). Fabulous goober and tactile fun factor. Getting harder to find because they are moving to Transformers and Marvel superheroes versions of the game.

Cheers, Jeff

Hey Jeff.

Thanks for your feedback on your Star Wars challenge! Sorry we forgot to give you credit for the challenge in this episode! We'll make sure we fix that in the next episode. I've updated the show notes already.

I love the old Lost Worlds game books, too. Long ago I had a nice little collection, but they've long since disappeared. Might be time to go hunting for some again.

I was a little worried about including too many long games since it was a party (and people at parties often dont want to sit down to play just one thing), so I decided to only do one meaty long(ish) game. Otherwise Risk would have made the cut. I've heard good things about several of the newer themed Risk variants but have yet to play any of them.

I was so torn between the Epic Duels and Attacktix! And you're right, I probably should have gone with Attacktix if only for the little guys with the shooting blasters. I mean, how cool is that?! Sounds like you have it or have played it. Beyond the goober, what's your opinion of the game play/mechanics?

Thanks again for a fun challenge. It was a blast looking through all the Star Wars stuff.

Stephen

 

 

 

 

Hey Stephen,

Strategy in Attacktix!, mainly choice of characters, is mildly interesting, but largely goes out the door in playing with kids, which is how I've played it mostly.

Epic Duels is on my "list", and you've encouraged me to move it up some....

Cheers, Jeff

I second Jeff's recommendation of Clash of the Lightsabers. Surprisingly (because it's from Hasbro) good two-player card game, with nice microgoober - two completely unnecessary but cool pewter figures, of Qui-Gon and Darth Maul. You can find it on Ebay.

Another second: the Risk Original Trilogy edition. Kind of hard to find but seemingly still in print; I just picked up a copy from Toys R Us on the web. Really cool goober of course (including two teeny weeny Death Stars :-), and adds a lot to the standard Risk gameplay. Plays 2-5 players across 3 factions, with differing victory conditions for the Rebellion, the Empire, and Jabba's crew. Really thematic.

Great podcast as usual!

You know, I haven't delved into any of the newer Risk variants, but I have heard from many people that they add a lot of fun theme based features to each version. Looks like I have to add the Star Wars one to The List (along with clash of the light sabers). Sounds like a good theme for an episode...