Errata:

• The travel piecepack sets are valued at $40. I included shipping and rounded up.
• The stackable plastic Icehouse pieces were originally sold in a boxed set of four stashes with the rules to four games (Icehouse was not one of them), not as single stashes. I didn’t go back far enough in time when I was thinking about how they “were originally” sold.

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback. Here are some of the links from the show:

• Super Duper Games
• piecepack.org
• piecepack Wiki
• Icehouse Wiki
• Official Treehouse page (how you buy the Icehouse game system)
• Blue Panther LLC

I finally listened to this after I uploaded and I need to apologize for the sound quality. I think the level control s/w that I ran on it really distorted things. The music between the sections got reduced to virtually nothing and the outro got very distorted. I may try to regenerate the MP3 w/o the level control or the noise cancellation.

Some clarifications: There are currently over 160 of both Icehouse games and piecepack games listed on their respective wikis. I don’t think I said anything that was incorrect, but I was implying that there were more Icehouse games. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I was only looking at the games on piecepack.org and stuck with a preconceived notion.

The prize:

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Here is episode 4. Just in time to keep it at every 14 days. My dog managed to get ANOTHER skunk, so I now own a large bottle of concentrated skunk odor remover. I’ve also been trying to de-skunkify my dog– again.

Errata:

• At 12:30, I say: “if you form a row of five colors of your own color” but that doesn’t make any sense… it should say: “if you form a row of five markers of your own color”
• Wow! Speed talking. Sorry for the high speaking rate in the Online gaming section. I cut that up a little aggressively and got things too close together and I was already speaking fast. I’ll be more conscientious about this in future shows.

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback. Here are some of the links I promised:

• Richard’s Play by eMail Server
• Super Duper Games
• Mafiascum.net
• BrettspielWelt
• BrettspielWelt English help server
• Boardspace
• Yinsh.biskai.de- this was not mentioned in the show, but is a good Yinsh resource.

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Pshew, here is episode 3.  It’s a day late because the week has been crazy!  I’ve been fighting Audacity and I lost.  No buzzing, but you do get to hear my parrot a couple times.  I’ve also been trying to de-skunkify my dog.  Unfortunately, she caught a skunk.  The house is a little stinky now.  

Errata:

• Apparently I misplayed the TAMSK potential and therefore gave the rule for it incorrectly.  Instead of making another move by using your reserve, instead, you get to use the TAMSK potential in your extra move.  This is a big difference, since it doesn’t affect the number of pieces in the reserve.  I guess I was playing with the jeep-TAMSK potential.  ;) 

Notes:

As always, I’m very interested in feedback.  Here are some of the notes I promised:

• Shogi Handicaps
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi#Handicaps
• I thought I was going crazy, but I finally found the handicap scheme that I mentioned in the podcast: Shogi for Beginners by John Fairbain
• Even: Determine first move randomly
• 1 Grade: Stronger player takes white and removes left Lance
• 2 Grades: Stronger player takes white in a two game match.  In the first game White removes the left lance only; in the second game, white removes the Bishop only.
• 3 Grades: Stronger player takes white and removes the Bishop
• 4 Grades: Stronger player takes white and removes the Rook
• 5 Grades: Stronger player takes white and removes the Rook and left Lance
• 6 Grades: Stronger player takes white in a two game match and removes the Rook and Lance in the first game; in the secong game White removes the Rook and Bishop.
• 7 Grades: Stronger player takes white and removes the Rook and Bishop (called two pieces)
• http://www.gipf.com is the website for the Gipf project.

Also, I was going to try to put together an enhanced podcast, but it doesn’t look like there are good tools for Windows.  I found an article on using scripts to simulate the Mac format.  Does anyone have any experience putting these together, preferably using free tools.

Credits:

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

-JEEP

This is still a little rough.  I haven’t found my voice quite yet.  I hope you get some good information out of it.  I also hope that my love and passion for this family of games comes across.  Here are some references for the games I discussed:

• http://www.shogi.net/rjhare gives a good explanation of Shogi.
• http://www.shogivariants.com is a wiki for all forms of Shogi.  It’s still being formed.

It looks like the section on the Chu Shogi pieces didn’t get added to the end.  All that information can be found in the Chu Shogi section of the Shogivariants site.

Also, some Errata and explanation:

1. I can’t believe I said it, but when I said that you couldn’t drop a piece to cause checkmate, I was specifically thinking about a Pawn.  You can drop to cause checkmate, with any piece other than a pawn.
2. Also, to clarify, the lion can step back into it’s starting square.  This allows for a passing move to be possible with a lion.  You can also capture a piece and step back.  This is called capturing by igui.

The music was found at: http://www.incompetech.com/

• Funky Rap Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
• Whimsy Groove Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 2.0″ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Welcome to the Abstract Gamer podcast and blog.  In this forum I am going to try to give coverage to the wonderful world of Abstract Games.  I’ll focus on Abstract Strategy Games primarily, but will cover any themeless game that I feel like talking about.  It’s also possible that I’ll talk about Designer Games, Party Games, Card Games, and who knows, perhaps even the occasional RPG or computer game.

I’ve recorded a first episode for the podcast, but I’m not happy with the quality, so I am going to re-record.  Here is the first episode, but I will not be putting this into the feed.  The new recording will cover the same information, but in a more satisfying way.

 -JEEP