Fri, 28 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239E - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) The Championship is now set!   https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/354557/mark-madness-2025-game-cover-art-with-eryn-roston Direct download: BGTG_239E_-_Mark_Madness_2025.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 11:32am PDT

Sat, 22 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239D - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Elite Eight Be sure to go vote at https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/354557/mark-madness-2025-game-cover-art-with-eryn-roston?itemid=11634552#11634552 Direct download: BGTG_239D_Mark_Madness_Elite_Eight.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 6:36pm PDT

Wed, 19 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239C - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Sweet 16 The round of 32 is finished, leaving us now voting on the Sweet 16 of game cover artworks. The choices are getting more difficult.   And we have a new leader in our prediction contest. #Davecember celebrity loofish is representing his namesakes with a currently-in-first-place position for his guess...but with others on his tail. Direct download: BGTG_239C_-_Mark_Madness_2025.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 8:46pm PDT

Sun, 16 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239B - Mark Madness 2025 (with Eryn Roston) Round of 32 Eryn is back to talk with me about the results of the first round voting. Half of our original 64 game cover art entries have now been knocked out of the contest. Now successive voting rounds keep halving the remaining contestants every three days. What have we seen so far? No ties, though a couple matchups were close. A few more were blowouts. Are there common threads? Surprises? Plus...Eryn teaches me how to look at art more critically...by SQUINTING. Achievement unlocked.   -Mark Direct download: BGTG_239B_-_Mark_Madness_2025.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 5:20pm PDT

Thu, 13 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239 - Reminder for Mark Madness If you're playing along with Mark Madness this year, the time for predictions is over and you'd better start voting. Whether you've done a prediction or not, the link below takes you to the place where you can choose your favorite game cover art as 64 titles square off against each other in one-on-one matchups.    https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/354557/mark-madness-2025-game-cover-art-with-eryn-roston Direct download: BGTG_239-Reminder.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 8:46pm PDT

Mon, 3 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 239A - Mark Madness 2025 Kickoff (with Eryn Roston) Play along and predict the winners at https://challonge.com/MarkMadness2025 Predictions must be submitted by March 12 to be in the contest Mark Johnson @MarkEJohnson eryn roston @baditude Once again, the month of March give me a chance to bring back "Mark Madness," my podcast-hosted voting contest. Like its namesake sports tournament, Mark Madness is where 64 games are pitted against each other in successive rounds of single-elimination votes. As before, I took the winner of llast year's contest, Eryn Roston, and asked him to co-host this year's contest. Furthermore, Eryn has helped define the special nature of the contest this year. It's still about boardgames, of course, but it's about boardgame art. Specifically, we're voting on the best boardgame cover art. Eryn picked four groupings, each with 16 titles apiece. Those groupings are called Divisions, and this year there are ones for Fantasy, Historical/Real-World, Nature-themed, and Science Fiction boardgame covers. You will see some you know, and some others you don't. Just by looking at the images alone you can decide which ones to vote for, but you'll have more fun if you also listen to Eryn describe why he picked these particular game covers for Mark Madness. You see, Eryn works professionally in the world of art, went to school for it, and knows more than your average bear about artwork. If you're like me, you'll learn something along the way and appreciate game art (& artists) even more. Follow Eryn's own art creator account on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chickenscratch.er/ Play along! I hope we get a good number of folks who submit their own official predictions at challonge.com, which is free. Some have already done it. You've until March 12 to submit your brackets, so you need to move quickly. Then the voting rounds will start via Geeklist polling. As you can see from the chart above, the successive rounds of this voting will start happening every three days: On March 15 we'll have the results of the first round, when 64 teams are winnowed down to 32 survivors. Then it proceeds to the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4, and Championship. Who will be the winner? We expect to do "micro-episode" podcasts throughout the month to talk about each round. They'll show up in your regular feed, and I can link them here, too. -Mark Fantasy Division geeklist Historical/Real-World Division geeklist Nature Division geeklist Sci Fi Division geeklist Direct download: BGTG_239A_-_Mark_Madness_2025_with_Eryn_Roston.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 9:10pm PDT

Sat, 1 March 2025 Boardgames To Go 238 - Podcast 20th Anniversay (with Dave Arnott) Please join us on the Boardgames To Go discord server where you can chat online with other podcast listeners. David Arnott @Arnott When did you start listening to podcasts? Do you remember your first ones? For me it was the first one ever about boardgames and the first about movies. That was Geekspeak and Reel Reviews. Even though I'm not so into wine, Grape Radio was another super early one for me. The medium was new, the tech was unfamiliar, and I loved the chance to listen to interesting audio on my commute, about unique subjects. Although those earliest shows seemed to use a lot of fancy, expensive equipment, I wondered if a more basic podcast could be produced with simple gear. On March 3, 2005, I threw my hat in the ring with Boardgames To Go, a new audio version of my blog of the same name. The response was quick & positive, so I kept at it. Two decades later, I'm still here. Twenty years is an important milestone for me. I never really saw myself doing the podcast this long. I've averaged about 18 episodes per year over that time, including some early bursts of productivity and a few longer gaps. After the pandemic I renewed my commitment to the podcast and have stuck with a first-of-the-month schedule ever since, plus some bonus episodes along the way. My audience grew, then plateaued, then settled into a longstanding core of listeners. It's no exaggeration to say that you folks are the reason I've kept at it. I appreciate [your appreciation & encouragement, and I've enjoyed meeting some of you in-person. This month you'll have to indulge me talking podcast history, motivation, and a little future planning. I can't help it. Longtime friend Dave Arnott talks through it with me, and we may not refer to a single game title! Don't worry--there will be more game titles than you can shake a stick at soon (hint: Mark Madness). One of the only photos I have of me recording the podcast. This was from way back in 2006, when Dave & I recorded an episode about Vinci. We were at SoCal Games Day at the time, upstairs at the Burbank Moose Lodge. You may be able to see that I just have my laptop nearby, with a "Y-cable" audio splitter allowing us both to have headset mics piped into it. That's as fancy as I ever was for this podcast. -Mark Direct download: BGTG_238_-_Podcast_20th_Anniversary.mp3 Category:general -- posted at: 5:00am PDT