Free Daily Podcast Summary
The Ascent of Board Games: Daily Summaries Delivered
by The Ascent of Board Games
A monthly podcast dedicated to the history, evolution, present state, and future potential of our favorite board games.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 weeks ago51 min
Episode 82.2 - Imaginary Games, Part 2
Hi folks! This month we conclude our review of our favorite games that don't exist. Or at least didn't used to. Look, it makes more sense if you just listen to the episode. And don't worry - whatever you thought you heard at the end of last episode, Joe is fine and has definitely not been implanted with a government mind-control chip. Contents include but are not limited to: The soundtrack to The Last Starfighter: The Musical! One possible rule set for George R.R. Martin's fantasy chess-alike, Cyvasse. A quick look at the board games of Widow's Bay. Are there any books, movies, or TV shows that made up a board game you'd like to play for real? What classics did we miss? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thanks to JellyfishSorbet at Pixabay for additional audio this episode! Thank you for listening!
- Aug 2, 202652 min
Episode 82, Part 1 - Imaginary Games, Part 1
Hello everyone! We've spent lo these many months talking about real games - now it's time for us to talk about games that DON'T exist. Although some of them actually do exist now, but didn't originally. Come on along with us - maybe it will make more sense if you give this a listen! Among the games we discuss: Jetan, or Martian Chess - an entirely playable game Rithmomachia (which Frank refers to as "Rithomancy") Star Trek games. So many Star Trek games: 3-D Chess Strategema Tongo (with unofficial rules here) Kadis-Kot Also at least one Star Wars game, which is fine because apparently none of us can tell Star Trek and Star Wars apart any more. Plus a drive-by James Bond appearance. Also, an excellent actual play of Mornington Crescent (and the tangentially related Numberwang!) What's your favorite imaginary game? Which classics did we forget? And what happened to Joe? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thanks to JellyfishSorbet at Pixabay for additional audio this episode! Thank you for listening!
- Jul 1, 202642 min
Episode 81, Part 2 - Fantasy Flight Games: The Fall
Hi folks! If you listened to last month's episode (or have been following the board game industry for the last decade or so), you probably have a pretty good idea about what's going to happen in this month's episode - the Fall of Fantasy Flight Games. We're not saying that Fantasy Flight's 2014 merger with Asmodee is responsible for the collapse of one of the world's biggest and most respected board game publishers...but we're not not saying that, either. Are you - or were you - a Fantasy Flight Fan? Are there other game companies you'd like us to give this kind of treatment to? Was this a terrible idea? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
- Jun 1, 202645 min
Episode 81, Part 1 - Fantasy Flight Games: The Rise
Hi folks! We're back (yes, even including Jayson!) with an episode that's a little different than our usual - do let us know what you think! This month and next month, we're doing a different kind of deep dive. Rather than specifically looking at a single game mechanic or designer, we're looking at a game company - in this case, Fantasy Flight Games. Not to give anything away, but the fact that this episode is subtitled "The Rise" might give you a moment's pause about next month's episode... Have you ever wanted to read a novel set in one of FFG's game universes? Well, they released some anyway. Diskwars: The Mess FFG made a movie! Rotten Tomatoes has it at 8%, so you know we need to set up a watch party on Discord... The War of the Ring Collector's Edition is mighty hard to find these days, but you can still get the only slightly less cool Two Decades Limited Edition. Frank says the first edition of this FFG product had "one fatal flaw - it's a terrible game." Are you - or were you - a Fantasy Flight Fan? Are there other game companies you'd like us to give this kind of treatment to? Was this a terrible idea? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
- May 1, 202659 min
Episode 80 - Antoine Bauza Deep Dive
Episode 80 - who'da thunk it? Thank you so much for sticking with us over (gulp) almost eight years of our nonsense. (Don't do the math - lots of two-part episodes have ruined that.) This month, we take a deep dive into the game designs of Antoine Bauza, a talented designer with an eclectic repertoire that ranges from a few all-time classics (including one that's currently in the BGG top 20) to some lighter games to some that the Ascent crew are...let's say "divided on the merits of." (By which we mean "Brian likes this game and no one else does.") How many game designers have released two Spiel des Jahres-winning games in one year? (Hint: this episode is about one of them.) Joe says "I love the bejeezus out of this game." We have to talk about Conan without Jayson. Brian still woefully misunderstands Attack on Titan. What's your favorite Bauza title? What other game developers do we need to dive deep on? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
- Apr 1, 202652 min
Episode 79.2 - Sandbox Games, Part 2
We're back to wrap up our discussion on "sandbox games," and this part stretches the definition a bit; there's at least one game here where it's not the map that's bigger than you can explore in one game, but the rule set itself. (Yes, it's a Frank special.) What game does Joe describe as "a beautiful mess"? Frank is doing things in his new obsession and all he can say is "...and apparently, this matters." What are your favorite sandbox games? What have we left off our list? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
- Mar 2, 202649 min
Episode 79 - Sandbox Games, Part 1
This month, we're here to talk about what we're calling "sandbox games" - games that have bigger maps and/or more content than you can possibly explore in a single game, but which aren't built as long campaign or legacy games. Thus, you need to take some notes and carry information - and, in some cases, rules - from one game to the next. Also, one brief apology: Your Humble Editor has been quite sick these last few weeks, and thus this episode is, let us say, more "lightly edited" than usual. I think I've gotten most of the myriad sniffles, cat noises, drink slurping, and other background noise, but it's still not up to my usual standards. Mea culpa. We definitely remembered the first game on our list before we started. Yup. A couple of games with shaky debuts but stellar sequels. CORRECTION: Around 25:50, Frank refers to Lands of Galzyr as a "very Swedish game," but the game and its publisher are in fact Finnish. Our apologies! Thanks to eagle-eyed listener @raaf on Discord for straightening us out! Glowy LED buildings! What do they do? We don't know! You can hear just how shot my voice currently is at the very end of the episode, so...yay? What are your favorite sandbox games? Which ones do you think we'll discuss next month? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
- Feb 1, 20261h 10m
Episode 78 - Alternate Victory Conditions
HOO boy, this one has been an odyssey. Between computer hardware failures, file corruption, ice storms, and assorted other real-world chaos, it's a bit of a surprise that this episode made it out at all, much less on time. But it's here! Join us as we talk about games where one or more players are looking to win the game in a completely different way from everyone else. Is Joe the first person ever to compare the Bene Gesserit to Babe Ruth? We think so. High praise: This game is "A fun expenditure of human time." We digress briefly into discussing Jubensha, the Chinese LARPy RPG craze that's making its way to the U.S. We learn of yet another massive gap in Mike's geek culture experience. Frank tells us about "Nemesis - the party game!" Do you have any favorite examples of games with weird alternate victory conditions? Come visit our Discord server to chat with us and other like-minded game nerds! As always, thank you for listening. Please consider writing us an iTunes review if you like what you hear! We'd also love to have you visit our website and let us know what kinds of games we should discuss next. You're also more than welcome to comment on the episode page, or our Discord, or our Facebook page, or tag @ascentofboardgames on Bluesky. Whatever way you prefer to share your opinions with us, we'd love to hear them. As always, we appreciate your listening - stay safe out there, and happy gaming! Website: https://www.ascentofboardgames.com Email: ascentofboardgames@gmail.com Discord: https://discord.gg/tdH3QAn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ascentboardgames/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ascentofboardgames.bsky.social Discord: http://discord.ascentofboardgames.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ascentofboardgames/ And, very occasionally, Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ascentofboardgames Intro and outro music is "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under a Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. The Ascent of Board Games is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Some rights reserved. Thank you for listening!
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from The Ascent of Board Games in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's The Ascent of Board Games daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of The Ascent of Board Games as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the The Ascent of Board Games podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official The Ascent of Board Games product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by The Ascent of Board Games.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does The Ascent of Board Games release new episodes?
The Ascent of Board Games publishes monthly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does The Ascent of Board Games cover?
The Ascent of Board Games covers topics including Leisure, Games. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting The Ascent of Board Games summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.