Kurt Pankau
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About Kurt Pankau
Kurt Pankau is a software developer from St. Louis. He enjoys dad-jokes, board games, and stories about time travel. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, Escape Pod, and Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. He tweets at @kurtpankau and blogs at kurtpankau.com
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Blog post⚒️ There Is No Dana, Only... 2017, 2-4 players Complexity: light/moderate Azul is the first in a series of tile-drafting and placement games (the others are also called Azul, which is only slightly confusing--they're Azul: Stained Glass Of Sintra and Azul: Summer Pavilion). It's set in Portugal during the reign of King Manuel I. On a visit to Southern Spain, he saw an alhambra that6 hours ago Read more
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Blog post⚒️ If You Build It, They Will Come To Arrest You 2018, 1-5 players Complexity: moderate/high Architects Of The West Kingdom is a worker-placement game from New Zealand studio Garphill Games, creators of the North Sea trilogy of worker-placement games. Architects is the first in the "West Kingdom" trilogy, set at the end of the Carolingian Empire (circa 850 CE), and it adds a couple of1 week ago Read more
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Blog post♟️ It's Fine, If You Understand How Games Work Monopoly has attracted a lot of haters over the years, people who grew up playing it and remember the excitement of the first thirty minutes and the profound boredom of the subsequent twelve hours of gameplay. Now that we're in the middle of a board game renaissance, it's easy to come out and say that you think it's the worst game in the world.1 week ago Read more
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Blog post👹 Hold On To Your Breaches! 2016, 1-4 players Complexity: HEAVY Long ago The Nameless invaded through magical breaches in reality and pushed humanity almost to the brink of extinction. The survivors rallied at a secret underground city called Gravehold and began training mages to fight back, harnessing the power of the breaches to perform powerful magic spells. Every so often, one of2 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postI have a new story out! "Ah-Nee-May-Tron-Ick" is out today in Nature: Futures this morning. Alas, Futures stories are no longer included in the print edition, only online. Regardless! It's free to read on the interwebs, and if you enjoy silliness, dinosaurs, aliens, or various combinations thereof, then take five minutes to read it. ]{p2 weeks ago Read more
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Blog post💰 The First Eurogame 1964, 3-6 players Complexity: light/moderate Okay, maybe it's not the first eurogame, but Acquire was an early success and remains one of the most influential. Designed by Sid Sackson, it became wildly popular in Germany in the 60s and then throughout Europe. In the post-war era, it turns out, Germans weren't too interested in games like Risk and Monopoly that focused3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postI spent 2019 writing about some of my favorite albums, and now it's time for the next project! For 2020, I'm going to talk about a different pastime I enjoy. Board games. Every Thursday in 2020 I'm going to post about a board game that you may or may not have heard of, and here's the gimmick: we're doing them alphabetically. So, as should be a surprise to no one who has read the title of this3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: The Shelters Title: The Shelters Released: 2016 Genre: indie garage rock Closing out the year with a very cut-and-dry straightforward indie rock album. The Shelters are a throwback to 60s rock with a slight skew towards British Invasion--they even cover The Kinks' Nothin' In The World Can Stop Me3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Lerner and Loewe, various Title: Paint Your Wagon Released: 1969 Genre: Lerner and Loewe, who are a genre unto themselves Why does this even exist? The 1951 Broadway musical by Lerner and Loewe was not a success. So why would anyone try to adapt it for film nearly two decades later? Why cast Clint3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Doctor Octoroc Title: 8-Bit Jesus Released: 2008 Genre: holiday chiptunes Merry Christmas, those of you who partake! Because I miscounted, you get an extra post this week, and since today is Christmas, we're going to look at my favorite holiday album, Doctor Octoroc's chiptune holiday opus, 8-Bit4 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Korn Title: Issues Released: 1999 Genre: nu-metal If you ever wondered why so much of the early aughts rock scene was dominated by bass-y guitar crunch while dudes whined about their childhoods, blame Korn. Not that they should be held completely accountable for spearheading a movement that was1 month ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Curtis Harding Title: Soul Power Released: 2014 Genre: soul power One of the sources I go to for new music is the Next Music podcast hosted by Chris Bro, and a lot of what he features are new artists whose sound is a deliberate lo-fi throwback to older styles. Curtis Harding is squarely in that1 month ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: The Presidents Of The United States Of America Title: Love Everybody Released: 2004 Genre: power pop The Presidents Of The United States Of America burst onto the 90s rock scene with Lump, an up-tempo number that was just weird enough to sit neatly in second-wave grunge. They were goofy punk with a1 month ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Collective Soul Title: Hints, Allegations, & Things Left Unsaid Released: 1993 Genre: singer-songwriter alt-metal kind of By 1992, Ed Roland had all but given up on being a musician. He'd studied composition at Berklee College Of Music and been active in the Atlanta club scene for the better part1 month ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: deadmau5 Title: Random Album Title Released: 2008 Genre: progressive house/trance Random Album Title is the third album from Canadian house/trance maestro Joel Zimmerman under his stage name deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse" and not in any way related to Danger Mouse). He performs in a stylized1 month ago Read more
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Blog postHey y'all, My story Autoimmune is in the new issue of DreamForge Magazine, which you can read with your very own eyeballs! The online version is paywalled, but if you're already a subscriber, click here. And if you're not a subscriber, now through January 15th you can save $5 on a subscription. ]{p2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Wednesday Campanella Title: Watashi Wo Onigashima Ni Tsuretette Released: 2014 Genre: J-pop rap Suiyōbi no Campanera, anglicized as Wednesday Campanella, formed in Tokyo in 2012 as a side project for label manger Dir.F. He met musician Kenmochi Hidefumi in 2011 and they named the band after the2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Electric Six Title: Fire Released: 2003 Genre: sophomoric disco-punk Electric Six is only one or two steps removed from being a novelty act. The man who sings and does the bulk of the songwriting goes by the stage name Dick Valentine, and that should give you a good feeling for the band's2 months ago Read more
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Blog postSo here we are... closing out November with the final 100 album supplemental. A few posts ago I mentioned that my dad used to put his vinyl albums on cassette. Well, today I want to talk about me putting CDs on tape. I was obsessed with CDs from the time I was in middle school, and began collecting music aggressively through record clubs--I was a member of both Columbia House and BMG at2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Jethro Tull Title: M.U. - The Best Of Jethro Tull Released: 1976 Genre: classic prog What do you do when you're a working band in England in the 60s and are so bad that you can't get booked at a club more than once? Obviously, you keep changing your name, and that's exactly what Ian Anderson's2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Wild Beasts Title: Boy King Released: 2016 Genre: dreamwave art pop We're following up The History Of Apple Pie with Wild Beasts, so welcome to English Synthwave week. Boy King by Wild Beasts is one of those albums where I can never remember which is the band name and which is the album name.2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: The History Of Apple Pie Title: Feel Something Released: 2014 Genre: indie dreamwave alt-rock The History Of Apple Pie are an English rock duet who started throwing songs together and posting them on the internet. They got major label attention from this, came up with a band name by Googling2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Afroman Title: The Good Times Released: 2001 Genre: alt hip-hop dirty rap It's easy to disregard Afroman as a one-hit wonder for his gimmicky slow jam Because I Got High. It might surprise you, then, to know that he's put out thirty-two albums since 1998. These are a mix of live, compilation, and2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: The New Christy Minstrels Title: Today Released: 1964 Genre: ensemble folk This was an album I listened to over and over again on car trips growing up. It was fifteen hours in the van from our house to my grandparents', so we had a lot of time to burn. This was one of a number of records that2 months ago Read more
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Blog postKurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list. Artist: Failure Title: Fantastic Planet Released: 1996 Genre: space rock In the late 90s rock was being eclipsed by the bubblegum pop explosion. Grunge was fading from radio to make room for nu-metal and power pop acts like Blink-182. But there were a handful of weirder songs that slipped through into2 months ago Read more
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