Stay ConnectedWelcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the how’s and why’s of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, and discusses game history, game design and game players.
Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.
Copyright: © Geoff Engelstein, Sen-Foong Lim, and Erica Bouyouris
In this re-air of a Biography of a Board Game from July 2017, Scott takes us through the history of former Ludology co-host Mike Fitzgerald's Mystery Rummy series of games.
Gil and Sen welcome game designer, manufacturer, publisher, game cafe owner, and convention runner Kenechukwu Ogbuagu ("KC") of NIBCARD Games to the show. From his home city of Abuja, KC has built up the board gaming scene in Nigeria almost singlehandedly, recently winning the prestigious Diana Jones award for his efforts.
SHOW NOTES
12m46s: Hobby World, Spyfall, Viceroy, Cosmodrome
14m58s: KC mentions the classic board game Ludo, which was based on the Indian game Pachisi. The American games Parcheesi, Sorry, Aggravation, Headache, and Trouble were based on Ludo or Pachisi; British people may know it as Uckers, while Canadians may know it as Tock.
22m07s: NGOs are Non-Governmental Organizations. In the US, most of them tend to be non-profits.
25m58s: See the Smart People Play Chess TV trope
34m08s: Bastard Café in Denmark, one of NIBCARD Cafe's supporters
44m20s: Designer Eric Lang will be at AB Con, the convention that KC organizes in Nigeria.
45m36s: InstantSync
46m08s: Legendary designer Reiner Knizia
46m52s: Village War
Geoff discusses one of the most feared characteristics of early RPGs: the loss of a level. Why is this mechanism so hated and feared among players?
Erica and Sen chat with Shing Yin Khor, game designer, installation artist, illustrator, award-winning cartoonist, and Bunyan-ologist.
Shing Yin is the designer of the game A Mending, in which players literally sew their actions into cloth, and co-designer (with Jeeyon Shim) of the game Field Guide to Memory.
Shing Yin calls both games "keepsake games," as they both leave artifacts of play that tell the story of the game experience.
SHOW NOTES
4m15s: Gasha/gacha machine
7m05s: We chatted with Jeeyon on Ludology 244 - Games Brought to Life.
10m04s: The Oraclebird
12m17s: Gnomes, a Dutch book written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet.
16m21s: In games, diegesis refers to anything that fits within the narrative world. If a video game wants characters to move right on the screen, they can do it diegetically by showing objects being blown to the right, or non-diegetically by flashing an arrow on the screen pointing to the right. Examples of board games that use diegesis well are Inhuman Conditions and Ca$h 'n Guns.
17m05s: Space Gnome Space
19m05s: Paul Bunyan
25m17s: We discussed audience agency with Haley E.R. Cooper and Cameron Cooper of Strange Bird Immersive in Ludology 214 - Escape from Reality. Shing Yin mentions Sleep No More as an example of immersive theater.
26m49s: Geoff and Gil wrestled with the definition of "game" in Ludology 151 - High Definition.
30m34s: The RPGs For the Queen and The Quiet Year
34m55s: We chatted with the tireless Banana Chan in Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play. The game they made with Sen is Exquisite Crime.
Scott Rogers takes us to the inception of the legacy game, and the one that started it all: Rob Daviau's Risk Legacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME:
Erica and Gil are delighted to welcome designer Amabel Holland of Hollandspiele, known for making games with challenging themes using an unconventional publishing model.
SHOW NOTES
0m58s: Supply Lines of the American Revolution, Table Battles, Irish Gauge, This Guilty Land, Nicea, The Vote.
7m08s: Amabel is talking about her forthcoming game Eyelet.
15m02s: This is Geoff's game Versailles 1919, co-designed with Mark Herman.
17m28s: Benedict Arnold
18m34s: The Shackleton Expedition
21m16s: The Vote
28m22s: Nicea
31m38s: Irish Gauge, Northern Pacific, Iberian Gauge
32m29s: Winsome, Rio Grande
34m23s: Chicago Express
34m55s: Meltwater, An Infamous Traffic
36m11s: RIBBIT: The Jump, Move, and Block Game, Table Battles
38m51s: New Mill
43m45s: Westphalia
48m18s: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
49m52s: Cheapass Games
53m46s: Tobacco misinformation campaign
54m37s: Gil was thinking of Brandolini's Law, aka the BS Asymmetry Principle.
57m55s: Horse & Musket
59m03s: Deinocheirus, Pterodactyl, Therizinosaurus
Geoff explains a mathematical algorithm that can help potential roommates figure out how to split the rent, if an even split would be unfair and the roommates do not value the rooms the same way. This mechanism is just dying to be used in a game!
Gil and Scott are delighted to welcome Martin Wallace back to the show. Martin was first on the show on Ludology 46 - Getting Down to Brass Tacks back in 2012 with Geoff Engelstein and a very enthusiastic Ryan Sturm. In this episode, we catch up with Martin to see what he's been up to in the last 9 years.
Martin is the designer of many well-loved strategy games, like Brass, Age of Steam (and all its related games, like Railways of the World), London, A Study in Emerald, AuZtralia, and A Study in Emerald.
Technical note: Martin's recording has some dropouts in it; unfortunately, those seemed to come straight from his microphone, so there wasn't much we could do about them. We hope you enjoy the episode anyway!
SHOW NOTES
1m25s: Lords of Creation
4m31s: Gloomhaven, the North Sea Trilogy from Garphill Games, Jamey Stegmaier.
8m06s: The Exit games, and the Unlock! games
11m53s: Games Workshop, Ian Livingstone, the British Steve Jackson, the American Steve Jackson, and the Fighting Fantasy books.
16m18s: Anno 1800
20m08s: Catan, Dune Imperium
23m55s: Age of Industry
25m18s: "Canal holidays"
27m28s: The World Transplant Games
32m46s: A Study in Emerald
34m18s: Gil regrets not pushing back on this point a bit harder; he doesn't think turning indigenous people into monsters is as effective a technique as Martin does. For a good perspective, check out Dan Thurot's post about this on his excellent blog Space-Biff.
35m53s: Terry Pratchett and Discworld
38m41s: Martin is referring to the events of May 68 in France.
43m53s: Imperium Legends, De Vulgari Eloquentia
45m28s: Ankh: Gods of Egypt, Medina, and "zugzwang"
48m40s: Our favorite Star Wars clones: Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars, and a special shout-out to Fugitive Alien.
49m10s: Carcassonne
53m03s: Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, Doctor Who: The Card Game
55m13s: Disclaimer: Many of us on Ludology are pretty down on the HP series these days, due to the bigoted views of its author.
56m59s: The video game Stellaris, the fantasy series His Dark Materials, and the fantasy collection The Silmarillion.
1h00m05s: Rocketmen
1h00m57s: The humble pasty
1h03m32s: Hobo code
For this week, we're replaying the very first Biography of a Board Game that aired on Ludology. In it, Scott talks about the classic game that got so many fans and designers into the hobby: Risk.
Scott and Gil welcome Nikki Valens, designer of Mansions of Madness: Second Edition, Eldritch Horror, Legacy of Dragonholt, Quirky Circuits, and the upcoming Artisans of Splendent Vale. We talk about making programming games like Quirky Circuits, app-driven games like Mansions of Madness, and campaign games like Legacy of Dragonholt.
SHOW NOTES
1m27s: Brown College
3m22s: Robo Rally
3m50s: Colt Express
5m53s: Magic Maze
8m18s: The Mind
35m49s: Betrayal Legacy
42m00s: "FFG" refers to Fantasy Flight Games, where Nikki worked for several years.
43m07s: XCOM: The Board Game
52m24s: Here's a compilation video of cats riding Roombas...
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
