New reviews and a dream come true

I'm 8 years old, opening my first pack of Magic cards. There is a veritable feast for the eyes with a wide range of artistic styles, but one card stands out in particular, Hurloon Minotaur. Drawn by fellow Alaskan, Anson Maddocks, Hurloon Minotaur changed my sense of what fantasy and pop-art could be. While I loved the works of a great many MTG artists, it was Anson's that had the biggest impact on me. Always exotic, even the normally "pure" fantasy archtypes like elves felt somewhat savage and sinister. Well, this week I am bringing you my interview with this hero of mine, who helped shape my understanding of what fantasy art is and could be; episode 41 is my interview with the great Anson Maddocks.

In other news, you may have noticed that our review tab has a fresh new look. It's a bit easier to navigate through our collection of reviews, including both the written and audio versions. While there, check out our brand new review of Tuscany: Essential Edition, the marvelously crafted expansion to Viticulture.

A whole mess of new stuff

Woo boy! It's been a busy week here at the Cardboard Herald! First off, we have a new interview posted with Gordon Hamilton, designer of the abstract hit Santorini. This interview concludes my coverage of Dice Tower Con 2017. I honestly cannot wait to get to another convention. What do you think I should do next year, BGG or GenCon? Wish I could do both, if only tickets from Alaska weren't so expensive...

Next up, we have a whopping 4 new written pieces on the site including our reviews of Champions of Midgard, La Granja: No Siesta, Cthulhu Wars, and the brand new article (remember when we did those?) Board Gaming on a Budget. Thanks to the incredible talent of Luke Muench and John Foster, we are really rounding out the content on the site. 

Atheris Games, New Collaborators, Reviews, and more!

Hey everyone, this week's episode features the great Andrew Birkett, founder/owner of Atheris Games. We talk about everything from upcoming games to the pressures of entrepreneurialship to burritos.

Also, we have a new review up for Champions of Midgard. This review was written by new collaborator, Luke Muench of Budget Board Gamer. Luke does freelance writing and has agreed to do some work for Ye Olde Heralde, so look forward to seeing his work around the site.

Milestones & Upcoming:
-We hit over 2000 unique listeners for the month of July! It's so nice to see the numbers continue to grow. I'm so glad you all are digging it and staying along for the ride. What would you like to see more of? What would you like to be done better?
-There are some really killer interviews coming up with representatives from Plaid Hat Games, Stone Circle Games, and a very special interview with my favorite Magic: The Gathering artist of all time. Longtime listeners should be able to remember who that is. Needless to say, I'm super excited.
-Next week's episode will be with the lovely Dr. Gordon Hamilton, designer of Santorini. I can't wait to share that with you.

Anyway, take care for now and keep on gaming!

Stronghold Games, Firelight, Reviewers, and some new reviews!

New episode day! New episode day! Wednesday is new episode day! Today we have our talk with Stronghold Games founder / owner / operator / podfather Stephen Buonocore. I'm a big fan of their work, especially Terraforming Mars, a game that just keeps getting better with each play. Stephen was also on our Dice Tower Con compilation episode.

Did you listen to last week's episode with Eric Woods of Hobby Horse Games? He designed Firelight which is on kickstarter right now. I'm so happy for them that the game got funded. Eric was very candid and open on the podcast, I have a ton of respect for the guy and honestly Firelight seems more up my alley as far as RPGs go.

Reviews
A couple exciting things going on in reviews-town. First, we have a couple of new reviews up. Continuing our 7 Years of 7 Wonders series, we have a review of the 7 Wonders expansion "Leaders". Also, since we are so Stronghold games focused this week, I wanted to remind you of our latest full game review, Terraforming Mars. Lastly, some  announcements!

-Occasional co-host and reviewer John LS Foster is working on a super-stylistic review that I can't wait to share. It plays to his strengths so well... Man. So good!   
-Luke Muench, founder and host of the Budget Board Gamer video series has started to write some pieces for the Cardboard Herald. His first review should be posting soon.
-My own review of La Granja: No Siesta is done, aside from a few pictures I need to take, so expect this and the above mentioned reviews by John and Luke all within the next 3 weeks.

Dice Tower Con, Reviews, Interviews, and more!

I'm back from Dice Tower Con! Oh boy did I have fun in Florida, but I'm glad to be out of the heat... I got a chance to talk to a ton of great folks, which you can check out on this week's interview-cast.

In other news, our Terraforming Mars review is up! What a cool game. Not perfect, mind you; but excellent none-the-less. I put a lot of heart and soul into this review, one which I'm particularly proud of. Check it out on the reviews tab, or right here.

Also, if you didn't get a chance to check out last week's episode, Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games came on for the second time. We spent much of that time talking about upcoming projects including Charterstone and Scythe: The Wind Gambit, but as always our conversation led in some surprising directions. As always, our podcasts can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and www.cardboardherald.com/podcasts

I'll have more pictures and stuff up about Dice Tower Con soon, for now, enjoy the mini-interviews.

Show Notes and Updates - March 28th Edition!

Episode 34 - Matt Leacock
This week we have Matt Leacock on the show! I've wanted to have Matt on for a long time, and I am so glad that we were able to make it work. Matt is of course best known for the Pandemic series of games, including the highest rated game on www.boardgamegeek.com Pandemic Legacy Season 1.

Unfortunately some weirdness happened where there is some staticky feedback during the interview, but you can hear Matt and I crystal clear. I really hope you enjoy the show. Speaking of, we have killer guests on during the next couple of weeks too. Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games and Steve Buonocore of Stronghold Games will be on the following two episodes, respectively. All of this is made possible by you, the supporters, who keep the show growing.

New Podcast Channel!
Yes, we have our new review channel up and running over on iTunes or here on the site, on the audio reviews tab. This is where we give you audio versions of our reviews, then a few minutes of behind the scenes stuff such as additional thoughts on the game, anecdotes, reflections on the writing, and challenging aspects of the review. It's a cool format that I think is useful and showcases our style well. Tentatively I'm planning on doing an every other Friday schedule for these; I really hope you check it out and enjoy it!

Also, big shout out to C.M. Perry (@bhfuturist on twitter) for the new look of our logo. What incredible work by a dedicated fan!

Reviewers Needed!
Yes! I need you. Are you interested in writing for the Cardboard Herald? We need reviewer submissions in order to keep up with the review podcast schedule. You would still get credit for your work, and if you are hosting your own review blog, I'm happy to link to it as the original source of publication; but if you don't mind some editorial input and you want to share your review with our ever-growing audience, and you think that your style and tone fits in with what we got going on here, get in contact with me at cardboardherald@gmail.com or on twitter @cardboardherald.

A Whole Mess of Stuff

Happy Wednesday everyone! And boy, is it a crazy Wednesday...

So for some reason, the itunes feed got messed up, and when you search for The Cardboard Herald on iTunes, you get our upcoming review channel and something called Matt and Andrew Vs Society. I honestly have never heard of M&AVS, and have no idea how their RSS got plugged into my feed on itunes connect, especially since I have accessed it since a few days ago, and the feed was working properly yesterday... I've notified iTunes and M&AVS, hopefully I'll have this all resolved soon.

In the meantime, you can still get all of your Cardboard Herald podcast goodness on our podcast tab or stitcher. Speaking of which...

This week are proud to have Squid and Whale on the show, you can find them on youtube and twitter by searching for Squid and Whale Games. They are wonderful new reviewers who have great chemistry, and are just trying to make their way through this weird board game reviewing business.

In other news, there's still time to hop over to @cardboardherald on twitter, follow us, and tweet #oldgamesnewhomes to enter to win my copy of Tokaido and the Crossroads expansion. Good luck!

As mentioned!

Hey all, a few updates as mentioned on the most recent podcast. 

Win my stuff!
Are you participating in the #oldgamesnewhomes contest? Go follow us on twitter then tweet to us with #oldgamesnewhomes, and you'll enter to win my copy of Tokaido and the Crossroads expansion.

Finally done with my 7 Wonders review
It took seemingly forever, but the 7 Wonders review is here. We'll have reviews of each expansion soon.

New Podcast Channel
I'm working on a new channel that will be in addition to our existing interview channel that should be fresh and exciting. Or at least I hope so. Maybe I'm just not good enough to make videos and I got this podcast thing halfway down... We'll see! I'm committed to the deadline of July 1st.

Dice Tower Con
Anyone going to be there? Want to game? Think you'd be a good interview for the show? Let's talk about it. Shoot me an email at cardboardherald@gmail.com.

Fictional Females! 
Cheyenne and Diana of the Fictional Females podcast are more than fellow podcasters, they are my childhood friends! Go check out their site, then listen to episode 32 where I kick back and enjoy some time with 2 of the fun people I know. 
 

Episode 31 - Jonathan Ying leaves FFG to design and fund Bargain Quest!

This was a fun episode to record, not only was the interview really fun, but the intro had a specific topic that I wanted to discuss. Seriously, check out some online galleries of the best album liner notes, they'll get you pumped to spin the vinyl and CONSUME the music. That's what good rulebooks do for me. Specifically, here is the snipit from Imperial Assault that got me thinking about the comparison:

What are your favorite board game "liner notes"? Send us an email or tweet to us @cardboardherald to let us know.

Anyway, you can find episode 1 with Jonathan Ying on our podcasts tab. We talked about a ton of great stuff, from Wookie Gender Identity to his time at FFG, we covered it. Jonathan recently funded his first independently designed game Bargain Quest! You can find out more about the game by clicking the image below. 

Episode 30 - The Return of Ted Alspach!

Ted Alspach, designer of the upcoming Palace of Mad King Ludwig (not to mention also the designer of one of my favorite games, Suburbia) returns to The Cardboard Herald podcast! Check it out on our podcast tab or on apple podcasts/stitcher/anyotherpodcatcher. While you are at it, check out Ted's first appearance on episode 9 of the podcast, and my reviews of Suburbia and Suburbia, Inc.