April has been both a quiet month for gaming and a busy one. Not a lot of big events but I've managed to slip in some game events among the busy work and family life schedule. BGB v52 - a session review show about some recent games and a very cool gaming book - should be out shortly but at the moment, I'd like to fill you in on a couple of cool things (and delay getting around to working on my screenplay tonight - hmm...is that the only motivation for this post?)

1. Z-MAN is coming to Gamex 2008 - The Z-man himself, Zev Shlasinger is the Guest of Honor for the upcoming Strategicon convention over the Memorial Day Weekend, Gamex 2008. This means Gamex 2008 will host the US debut of Uwe Rosenberg's instant classic, Agricola (with a tournament to boot), as well as a Z-man Marathon Tournament, and a unique tournament experience for Matt Leacock's awesome new Pandemic (which I'll talk about on BGB v52). You can expect a great time over the weekend and to hear the Q&A session with Zev on Boardgame Babylon sometime later (and, hopefully, at least one more podcast recorded there...)
2. Demos at Gamex 2008 - We have an awesome lineup of demos at Gamex planned for attendees. My crack team of Boardgame Babylon co-hosts and I will show con attendees some of the latest and hottest games around from Z-Man (of course - Zev will be showing them, too), Rio Grande, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight, Twilight Creations, On the Line Games, Smirk and Dagger, and many more.
3. Buy from Thoughthammer tomorrow! - In celebration of Earth Day, the wonderful folks at Thoughthammer.com are donating a portion of proceeds to the Rocky Mountain Institute. How cool is that? Alfredo and gang are already one of the best places online to get the latest games (and they've added Haba to their line recently) and if you order tomorrow, you also get to celebrate Earth Day in style. Need ideas for $125 order? How about: Galaxy Trucker, Stone Age, Tribune, Pandemic and Agricola? Can't go wrong there!
4. Exciting new stuff from Days of Wonder - I'll chat more on the next show but I'm very excited about the new stuff coming out of those DoW folks recently. The best news is that the story that broke earlier this year about a Shadows Over Camelot expansion (how did that get out of the Cone of Silence?) is true: Merlin's Company is on the way to liven up a game some say they solved. More can be found at the place where you are supposed to go for your news. But they also are releasing the long awaited Memoir '44 carrying case! Now, if they can just repackage it for BattleLore, I'll be cheering, too.

Okay, enough procrastination. Back to the Script Frenzy.

Sorry for the delays in getting this show out but at least it is finally here. Orccon 2007 (held over the President's Day Weekend) featured legendary game designer Steve Jackson as the Guest of Honor. Steve is, of course, famous for so many games that it's pointless to list them. Okay, I will list the best and most famous but this is just a drop in the bucket.

Car Wars   Illuminati   Ogre   Munchkin   GURPS (best RPG ever)

Steve was kind enough to answer questions from the audience as well as those from my co-moderator Paul Tevis (who handled the RPG side of things) and me.

The show starts out with Steve giving an overview of upcoming Steve Jackson Games products before taking questions. Although there is some discussion of RPGs (which we don't normally cover on Boardgame Babylon), there is also a lot of good material from the very witty Mr. Jackson who is certainly well-aware that we are recording for the podcast and he does what he can to give listeners extra audio cues about the proceedings - to amusing effect.

Thanks again for listening to Boardgame Babylon. A new session review show is coming soon.

Show Notes:

Steve Jackson Games  Have Games Will Travel   David Brin   Tribes

Charlie the Unicorn   Unspeakable Vault   Print On Demand  

Boardgame Babylon's special 50th show is a Rectangular Table Discussion with a huge list of special guests:

Reiner Knizia   Martin Wallace   Friedemann Friese   Alan Moon

Uwe Rosenberg   Jay Tummelson   Wolfgang Kramer   Michael Schacht

They each bring their unique perspective to this subject of the current state and the future of the hobby.

Show Notes:

Contest Details   Transcript of the Discussion   Today's Date

Thanks for downloading and listening to Boardgame Babylon.