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Arcade Castle: A Gaming Podcast

Welcome! You've reached the home of the Arcade Castle Podcast, a podcast that looks a little at video games, a little at board games, and those things that got a little bit of both. While most podcasts tend to look at the latest and greatest, we have opted for a far darker path through the sprawling realms of digital and analog games. For lying between the two genres is a pile of games few dare to play, games that often defy categorization. Bizarre chimeric creations and licensed games abound here. Found in thrift stores and online, studying these games will be a global effort a countries across the planet send these objects to the Arcade Castle for examination. Why do we do this? To determine how well these board games capture the essence of their parent franchise. To see how the strategies, gameplay, game mechanics, player challenges, and player roles are translated from the digital realm of video games to the analog base of the board game. Can we learn anything about design and gameplay by comparing how a single franchise is represented in two different mediums? Can one inform the other? That, and who doesn't love board games and video games?
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Jan 10, 2017

Ignoring the advice of our guides, Arcade Castle sets out on the Oregon Trail in the middle of winter. Will this poor decision cause their journey to end before it even starts? The Oregon Trail: Card Game sets out to capture the early computing phenomenon that is The Oregon Trail. Created by Pressman and distributed exclusively by Target, The Oregon Trail: Card Game became a mini-phenomenon in its own right as nostalgia fueled gamers clamored for the card game based on the game they spent many an' hour playing in libraries and school computer labs. But does this card game deliver it's players safely to Willamette Valley, or does this game die of dysentery right outside the town gate?

 

In The Oregon Trail: Card Game, players attempt to traverse 50 sections of trail on their way to Oregon. However, players will face a variety of calamities such as disease, broken wagons, and privation. In addition, players will attempt for ford a number of rivers, with failure causing the loss of life and life-saving supplies. With forts and towns few and far between, will players see success on the Oregon Trail? Or will they simply find themselves another casualty along the trail, an epitaph their only reward?

 

In Episode IV, the Arcade Castle examines this 2016 card game based on the 1974 edutainment hit, The Oregon Trail. Fighting the crowds to locate a copy, Arcade Castle get the game to the table to see what all the hubbub is about. Did Pressman capture the collective nostalgia-fueled memories of many a' gamer and distill them into an exciting card game? Or is this yet another video game casualty in a long line of terrible licensed game adaptations that are more cash-grab than card-game?

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Webpage: www.arcadecastle.com
 
Additionally, you can find us on Itunes (and a number of podcast services), TwitterFacebookBoardGameGeek, and Instagram!

Check out our videos on Youtube!
  
You can contact us at: contactarcadecastle@gmail.com

Also, if you like the new theme song, check out Tony Robot at: www.facebook.com/louisvilletonyrobot/


 
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Episode Outline:

 

00:00-12:00: Arcade Castle discusses the phenomenon that was The Oregon Trail in the 1980s and 1990s, the gameplay, as well as touching upon the history of MECC and some of the other games they published beyond The Oregon Trail.

 

12:00-32:00: An in-depth examination of The Oregon Trail: Card Game, the contents, and it's gameplay. In addition, Arcade Castle compares and discusses how this card game captures (or fails to capture) the strategy and gameplay of The Oregon Trail.

 

32:00-49:00: Continuing their discussion, Arcade Castle looks at how the card game and video game dictate how the player interacts with, their assumed roles, and expectations placed upon the gamer when playing each game in turn. Can a middle ground be found between the two? Can the mechanics of the card game be tweaked to better represent The Oregon Trail?

Patrick's first experience with the game:

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