Outside of SUASD (and No Pun Included, because I feel that’s almost a given these days) what other content creators are worth a subscribe or listen? Especially the smaller ones?
Being somewhat inclined to the local I’m going to bat for the following (disclaimer: whilst writing this I realised I wrote they’re all incredibly nice, so I’m just going to put that here regarding all of them) :
Unlucky Frog https://www.unluckyfrog.com/ The first of two scottish podcasts, a wargaming slant on a lot of things, but thoughtful discussions about whatever’s happening in recent games.
We’re Not Wizards https://werenotwizards.podbean.com/ The second of the scottish podcasts. Richard interviews people in the boardgaming industry, some massive, others not, and it’s always interesting.
Board Game Barrage is good, sometimes excellent
So Very Wrong About Games is ok, sometimes good.
Both are podcasts, which I find fit my work/ life balance best because I listen in the car.
I’ve given a few others a listen (Blue Peg, Pink Peg, NPI and a few others I can’t remember), but they didn’t gel for one reason or another. BGB and SVWAG are both good for regular content, which is handy because I need to fill my commute.
In a particular niche I’ve really enjoyed Wheel Tapping and Train Shuffling.
I used to like Ludology, but have got less interested since Gil took over. However I still dip back in occasionally.
So Very Wrong About Games would be the main one I listen to now. Maybe more for the feel of conversation than the games. Although they were largely responsible for me preordering Cosmic Frogs. I particularly enjoy when Bigney goes off on one about ethics given his experience in the area.
I was listening to (and sometimes contributing to) Our Turn but that seems to have stopped. Also listening to Board Games in Bed but they had a kid.
Inside the Box is more humour than anything else, but has some excellent moments.
I’m very out of date with Boardgame Inquisition but Antoinette is always good fun. (She does do kickstarter promos, but she labels them as such.) Companion podcast Tabletop Inquisition is also good.
Otherwise, yes, SVWAG and NPI and SU&SD and Things Get Dicey, and that’s about it.
Space Biff and SVWAG. I like SVWAG because they get to talk about games that dont get the spotlight and their serious love for Knizia. Seriously, I dont need another podcast talking about Maracaibo.
If theres other podcast that doesnt just talk about the latest Euros, that’ll be very beneficial to me.
@EnterTheWyvern subscribed to both of those now, as Im really getting into the 18xx genre. Thanks for the shout!
Derailed – is great (so far; I’m behind on my podcasts).
The Train Rush – had been on some sort of hiatus and recently came out with a off-format episode talking about 18xx asthetics.
General
In general, I’m massively behind on my podcasts and I’ve been forced to replace a phone that I had taken with me, mistakenly, into a swimming pool, thus losing my spot in the podcasts I subscribe to.
With a bit of near-neurotic memory-jogging, I’ve been able to rebuild my subscriptions list and mark episodes as played accordingly:
The Dice Tower – I listen to this less than I used to. The ads on the Mandy and Suzanne episodes really irk me. Additionally, it seems like Tom is gradually losing touch with what it’s like to buy your own games – I think he used to be very good at keeping “value proposition” at the core of his perspectives.
So Very Wrong About Games – This has been covered extensively by many others. I think Bigney and Walker have some strange soft-spots, but once you learn those, their discourse is just fantastic.
This Game is Broken – Hilarious. It makes me feel good about knowing a lot of about boardgames.
Flip Florey’s Super Saturday Board Game Cereal – Also hilarious, but not without its flaws. I’m actually years behind listening to this one due to being a late comer (and only listening to podcasts in chronological order)
The podcasts I didn’t put back after replacing my phone:
Heavy Cardboard - Because I only listen to podcasts in chronological order, these were hard listens. If I catch up on the rest of my podcasts, I may fast-forward this one to 2019 and start listening from there.
The Tuesday Knight Podcast - The group dynamic on this podcast is amazing and each of the regulars (and B-team) are entertaining. But they spend just a bit too much time talking about games I have no interest in. Also, there’s a huge backlog of episodes that felt like a slog to get through.
The Long View - Lost interest in this as soon as Geof Gambill stepped down. I will give it another go with the new hosts if I catch up on my current subscriptions
Non-Boardgame Related
I actually don’t currently have non-boardgame related podcasts in my feed. But I have before and I may again. The ones that may eventually make a return:
Dave Ramsey Show – My partner and I follow many of the teachings of Dave Ramsey to manage our personal finances; listening to his show early on was a big inspiration for getting through some of the harder times
99% Invisible – If I was to describe my perfect podcast, it may end up sounding like 99% Invisible; deep diving into an obscure subject that may seem uninteresting to the casual observer.
Stuff You Should Know – On a similar front, SYSK is very much the same and the hosts are hilarious.
Hoping that I won’t derail this… I listen to podcasts on my android phone… is there any software that will let me get everything under one roof? Because it feels like podcasts are all over the place or I am missing something obvious?
I note a disturbing trend among many recently-established podcasts that they don’t actually give you a download link any more. Because obviously you will only want to listen to it on whatever device you were using to find out about it.
Since I tend to download a podcast file, break it into ~5 minute chunks, put it on my audio server and/or in-car player, and listen to it in various different places, this isn’t ideal for me. (For most podcasts one can get the hidden link from the embedding code, but not all, and it’s more work for me that I can’t automate away the way I can with a simple RSS feed.)
I have read a few articles/papers on the site about a variety of gaming related topics. I found their take on war games highly fascinating… but overall this is academic writing and as such extremely dry while convoluted and stuffed full with referenced rabbit holes.
I didn’t particularly like Derailed or Train Rush do I didn’t list them. Glad someone else here liked them enough for a mention in some ways.
Totally agree about The Long View. I could not stand what Joe Sallen bought to it. Which is a shame as Geoff was so good at getting out the way of the guest while still contributing and steering the episode. Sallen’s sheer aversion to dice I didn’t find funny but also felt it coloured too many aspects for me to get any value after wading past a pathology I found somewhat pitiable. It makes me wonder if it’s still going and has evened out at all. It’s a massive shame as I disliked what he did to a classic so much it even put me off The Good, The Board and The Ugly. That was quite good for putting people together who played games in the same group but had some differing tastes for a broader view on things whole maintaining enough incite to be valuable often.
Of the smaller channels, my fav by far is Dicey Exploits: https://youtu.be/0WEeUrE8a98
His writing style reminds me a lot of Jeremy Clarkson’s for some reason (his car reviews, not his terrible columns). Slightly sardonic, but charming with it, and writes creatively without a tonne of contrived similes, and all his jokes are relevant to the point he’s making (rather than stopping the review to make a funny).
It’s like he’s taken all the interesting things of early SUSD, and ignored the tired old “describe how a game makes you feel, but don’t forget to stop the review once in a while for a comedy skit” material that everyone else has aped. Unfortunately, he’s a very small channel, so reviews are quite sporadic.
I’m kinda “between game podcasts” at the moment. The ones I did love, I’ve fallen out of love with, and I’ve struggled to find one I enjoy. Doesn’t help that the lockdown has slowly leached the life out of so many podcasts.
Space Biff is obviously an endless delight. His Plaid Hat and Cole Werhle podcasts were incredible. I could listen to a whole series of Dan and Cole chatting about history and games. Polyhedron Collider has really grown on me. Quite ramshackle to begin with, but they’re slowly developing into quite good hosts. A lot of D&D stuff, but I just skip over that. Andy can be a bit tiresome with his sarcasm sometimes, but it’s sweet how the others handle it The State of Games is great. Nice to hear designers talk about games. Boardgamers Anonymous is my new possible, but they do have lots of tenuous “Top X” list episodes.
I’d been meaning to give this a listen for years, and finally got inspired when I saw they had a Hansa Teutonica episode, and it was really weird and disappointing – I was expecting a discussion from people who had all played the game dozens of times at least and had some real insight; and instead there was one person who had played it quite a lot, one who hadn’t played it very much (and who appeared fixated on precisely the sorts of surface-level niggles which an experienced player would find irrelevant), and incomprehensibly a third person who had played the game exactly once and therefore had nothing to contribute to such a discussion (but was nevertheless there and talking).
This is their own description:
The Long View is a podcast that is dedicated to providing a unique perspective of the board game hobby. Games are discussed in depth after many, many plays so that reviews provided are more than just impressions.
The impression I was left with was that they’d started the podcast because there were some games they’d played a lot of; but after they’d exhausted those they just carried on with it, except now they were talking about games they hadn’t played very much?