This time around I cover Uwe Rosenberg's other game, Le Havre.  This is quickly becoming one of my favorite games.  The mechanics of the game are simple but navigating the strategy can be quite challenging, hopefully listening to this show can give you a leg up on your first few plays of this great game or on how to teach this game.  In the musings for this game I muse on Honesty and compare Le Havre to some similar games.

It's time for another lettered episode How to Play fans.  The lettered episodes are episodes that don't follow our typical How to Play format and do something just a bit different.  In this very special How to Play I give you a rundown of the current top 50 strategy games as ranked at BGG.  I give you a short summary of the games' themes and mechanics and my rating and personal opinion of each game.  I start the episode by musing a bit about the pros and cons of the categorization of games and the differences between thematic, strategy and abstract games.  I hope you enjoy it.

-Ryan

Today I cover Reiner Knizia's excellent auction game, Medici.  How to Play is also graced with our first actual real life Guest Stars, Scott Nicholson and Donald Dennis from "On Board Games" oh and the ubiquitous "Derek from Canada" I'm not quite sure what ubiquitous means but I like the way it sounds.   In the musings segment we muse together on the Auction Game Genre. Enjoy!

After an editing battle Episode #15: Caylus is finally finished.

My love for this game caused the length for this to get out of hand because I had a lot I wanted to talk about!

I start the episode with a segment trying to restore Caylus’ damaged reputation and explain why I think it is such a great game.

I include a lot of beginning strategy throughout the explanation and provide some strategic path guides in the hamster.  In the vegetables I give you some seed ideas on basic strategy for favors.

In the musings I talk about a variety of Caylus-related topics, including a beginners guide to get started playing online at the great real time board game site BSW, at which Caylus is one of the many fantastic games.

But the big announcement in this episode is the launching of the “Caylubration:” International Caylus Celebration Day.  June 6^th 2010.  A holiday that I just made up.  The idea of the Caylubration is to spread the gaming goodness that is Caylus. 

It is also a challenge to see how many people we can get to play Caylus at the same time.  Sign the online pledge to pledge to play at least one game of Caylus online or in person, that day, or at least that week.  I will be giving away a geekgold prize of 20 Geekgold! to one random lucky participant.

Let see how many we can get, can we get, 10? 100? Catch Caylus fever, join the Caylubration.  Sign the pledge from the link on the How to Play guild at Board Game Geek or from the forums of the Caylus game page.

Enjoy!

-Ryan

Ryan grew up in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota.  There he received a Masters of Education and started his teaching career of now over ten years.  He has taught upper elementary children of grades three through six in Minnesota, New Hampshire and now Western New York.

Games have always been a part of Ryan’s life from the first board games he played as a child, to role-playing games in high school, to collectible card games in college, and now euro games as an adult. 

Ryan has combined his passion for games and education.  Throughout his teaching career Ryan has worked on developing curriculum for the classroom that incorporates games and game like structures.  He is also very interested in the use of games to support social skills and character education.  Ryan is currently hard at work developing some of this curriculum work for self-publication.

In wanting to make a contribution to the hobby of board games, in early 2008, Ryan used his education background to write a lengthy detailed article on the basics of teaching board games.  This article was very well received and was even translated into Spanish and Portuguese and published in the Spanish gaming magazine, “Ludo.”

In the fall of 2009 he took the method developed in this article to go on and record a series of game explanations in his podcast, “How to Play.”  This podcast is created with the focus for gamers to learn games as well as to learn to teach games.  He also occasionally contributes segments to the highly popular podcast, “The Dice Tower.”

Ryan currently resides in Western New York with his wife and baby girl. Through his continuing efforts, both professionally and as a hobby, he looks forward to sharing his passion for games and showing what they can be capable of.

Ryan can be contacted directly at howtoplaypodcast@msn.com, at the guild or through BGG.

Citadels the game of outguessing your opponents, its ten years old this year and still going strong.  This was one of very first requests and I am finally fufilling that request.  Sorry about more Princess Bride references but it just kind of fit, no more Vizzini and Inigo I promise.

In this episode's musings I talk about the included expansion to the game, the games wide polarity of opinion and wide range of players, with a focus on playing Citadels with just two.

I hope you enjoy it!

-Ryan

Here it is.  The 18xx episode.  18xx; The granddaddy of train games, a legendary game design, and an unforgettable experience.  This episode will teach you how to play the great game 1830, which rumours say is due to be reprinted this year.  If you cant find 1830, there are plenty of other great variations of this system out there which are discussed in the show. 

Though the length of the show may be intimidating, dont be afraid, the major rules explanation is just about 1 hour.  And for ease of digestion, I have cut the meat into six easily comprehensible chunks.  Including not only the rules but some basic strategy to get you started.

I hope you will give this episode a chance and think about giving 18xx a try.  This episode was an immense chore but it was a labor of love and a testament to a beautiful game design.

Enjoy!

-Ryan

Were back with a very special episode, a game quiz. 60 questions about the 12 games discussed so far on the How to Play podcast.  How well do you really know these games?  Find out by taking this quiz.  Haven't listened to a few episodes, you may want to check those out before taking these quiz.  Quiz questions range from basic to the most devilishly difficult.  Before you play print out the scoresheet available from www.howtoplaypodcast.com.  Have fun!

-Ryan

Today by listener request our show is on Reef Encounter.  A tough to explain game but I do my best.  In today's musings I discuss the concept of schemas and talk a bit about online gaming.

In this show you get a 5 for 1 deal.  I take a break from the big heavy games and take a look at some great abstract games.  I will explain how to play; Take it Easy, Uptown, Blokus, Hive and YINSH, in that order.  I finish the episode with some thoughts on abstract vs. thematic games.