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
Scott delves into the history of the first big board game success on Kickstarter: Tory Niemann's Alien Frontiers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME
TEXT:
AUDIO:
Emma and Gil chat with Jeeyon Shim, game designer, nature fan, and mushroom enthusiast. Jeeyon's games are about connecting with one's environment, and we discuss what it's like to make games like this. We also discuss playtesting (or not playtesting) indie games, the conception of "nature" and its connection with humanity, and how cute our pets are.
SHOW NOTES
1m53s: The IGDN is the Indie Game Developer Network, an organization supporting indie tabletop designers. They offer mentorships and convention scholarships; one of these is to Metatopia, a tabletop game design convention in New Jersey.
4m25s: Jeeyon's games Dear Poppy, First Lesson, Your Dead Friend
8m30s: Daniel Kwan, half of the Asians Represent podcast.
12m09s: Avery Alder's Belonging Outside Belonging and D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker's Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) are both tabletop RPG "engines" that can be used to make other games. Belonging Outside Belonging first appeared in Dream Askew, and PbtA first appeared in Apocalypse World.
13m36s: Here, have some sample ecosystem maps.
31m56s: The genus Lactarius, aka Candy cap mushrooms.
34m32s: We had Kienna Shaw, Lauren Bryant-Monk, and John Stavropoulos on Ludology 227 - Respect the X discussing safety tools in games.
39m55s: Matthew Gravelyn is a tabletop game designer. Jeeyon mentions her game Pin Feathers (part of a diptych with its second half, Cloud Studies).
41m05s: Pontifuse was part of the Cheapass game collection Chief Herman's Next Big Thing.
41m31s: We've already mentioned Avery Alder's Belonging Outside Belonging. Variations On Your Body is a collection of 4 solo LARPs and one essay about learning to accept oneself.
43m50s: Jeeyon's game Crimson.
47m09s: Avery Alder's game from Variations that Emma is referring to is "Teen Witch."
57m27s: We chatted with toy inventor Kim Vandenbrouke in Ludology 212 - Inventing Play.
1h09m10s: "Itch" is itch.io, a popular sales platform for digital and tabletop indie games.
1h11m33s: Pseudohydnum gelatinosum, aka cat's tongue mushrooms.
1h19m12s: "Rubenesque" refers to the work of Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, who was known for painting plus-sized women.
1h21m51s: More info about Zine Quest, from Kickstarter.
1h25m57s: More info about Lucian Kahn's Zine Quest anthology Hibernation Games, which includes one of Jeeyon's games.
Geoff considers a classic problem: how do two parties in two different locations agree on a random number result, like a die roll? We cover the clever solution wargamers worked out, as well as an ultra-modern approach.
Emma and Gil chat with Sam Rosenthal and Stephen Bell of The Game Band, known for their bizarre cosmic horror sports sim Blaseball. We discuss the unique feedback loop between Blaseball's fans and its creators, the benefits of apophenia, and how baseball was uniquely suited for this treatment at this moment in history.
SHOW NOTES
7m00s: The score bug that Gil is referring to is the graphic that appears overlaid on most sports broadcast, showing the game's score and other vital stats. Gil also refers to external chest protectors that baseball umpires used to wear, an icon of baseball from decades past.
7m59s: The Blaseball wiki.
10m00s: The music that Stephen refers to is literal fan-made music. Fan canon says that the team the Seattle Garages are actually a rock band forced to play Blaseball. Fans have actually recorded and released these albums.
19m05s: Here's Cat Manning's excellent Blaseball primer. It's a good way to get a sense of the lore of the game.
22m11s: We chatted with game designer and wide receiver Adrienne Smith in Ludology 240 - Are You Receiving Me?
26m15s: Apophenia is the tendency to make connections between disconnected things. Game designers can use it to make meaningful experiences and memorable stories, but other people can use it for very bad things.
27m42s: Kayfabe is a wrestling term that denotes the acceptance of the fictionalization of staged events. In other words, a wrestling announcer working in kayfabe will treat a match as if it is a genuinely-contested sporting event with an uncertain outcome, not a scripted match in which all participants know the winner ahead of time.
Kayfabe is very much another example of a magic circle. You can hear Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm discuss the magic circle with game designer Eric Zimmerman in Ludology 79 - The Magic Circle.
29m34s: SIBR is the Society for Internet Blaseball Research. Their name is a reference to SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. (In real-world Major League Baseball, SABR is the organization that devised "sabermetrics," the advanced statistics that powered the Moneyball movement.)
SIBR has written several academic papers analyzing the effects various aspects of Blaseball.
32m54s: Taskmaster continues to be one of Gil's favorite shows.
35m44s: Uncharted is a series of video games about uncovering historical mysteries around the world, and killing a lot of bad guys in the process.
44m02s: More info on Twitch Plays Pokémon. Also, Our Place, a MUD.
48m17s: More info on the John Cage composition As Slow As Possible (Gil misstated the title as "As Long As Possible"). You can watch a video of one of the note changes here.
Also, Gil should have mentioned the 10,000 Year Clock, a Jeff Bezos-funded clock that is being built within a Texas mountain that will be designed to run 10,000 years without any human intervention. This is not the kind of scale humans are used to thinking in, which is what makes these projects so strange and intriguing.
53m04s: Welcome to Night Vale is highly recommended for anyone intrigued by the idea of comic cosmic horror. For example...
"The City Council announces the opening of a new dog park at the corner of Earl and Sommerset near the Ralph's.
They would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. It is possible you will see hooded figures in the dog park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the dog park. The fence is electrified and highly dangerous. Try not to look at the dog park, and especially do not look for any period of time at the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you."
55m51s: Baseball has several "unwritten rules" of decorum. One of them is that bunting to break up a no-hitter tends to be frowned upon. It happens every few years; in 2019, a minor-league team broke up a combined no-hitter in the 9th inning with a bunt, which resulted in a benches-clearing altercation.
1h00m42s: Here is the Blaseball Discord server.
1h05m40s: Gil is referring to Marcel Duchamp's readymade sculpture Fountain (although there are rumblings that the piece was actually made by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven). Afterwards, Gil refers to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Chain of Command, in which a Cardassian tortures Jean-Luc Picard by inflicting pain if Picard does not claim he sees five lights when in fact there are only four in front of him (which itself is a reference from a scene in 1984).
1h06m57s: "The Commissioner Is Doing A Great Job" is a common Blaseball meme. The Coffee Cup was the most recent season of Blaseball before this recording, which was a knockout tournament of nontraditional Blaseball teams instead of a "traditional" season (whatever that means).
1h08m03s: Twitter links: The Game Band, Blaseball, Sam Rosenthal, and Stephen Bell. Here is Blaseball's Patreon.
1h10m16s: Guess which blaseball team Gil follows?
Scott delves into the history of two games released by entrepreneur Edwin Lowe: Bingo and Yahtzee. Both became enormous successes, and are now a part of our cultural fabric. How did they get there?
Emma, Gil, and Scott discuss winning in games. What defines winning in a game, and what are the different ways games can handle it?
Also, Emma shares a Big Announcement with us.
SHOW NOTES
2m44s: Type 1 - One winner, everyone else loses: Catan, Terra Mystica, Terraforming Mars
3m47s: Type 1a - Conditional win: Dune, Red November, Mission Catastrophe, Glory to Rome
6m48s: Vast, COIN (Counter-Insurgency) games
6m56s: Type 2 - One loser, everyone else wins: Jenga, Cockroach Poker, Kackel Dackel (which Gil mispronounced, and which was published in the US as Doggie Doo), Don't Wake Daddy, Bimbado/Packesel/The Last Straw (the game mentioned about loading a donkey), Pie Face, Perfection. The balloon game Scott describes is likely Bumm Bumm Ballon, known in the US as Boom Boom Balloon.
8m40s: Gil is using the term "atom" here as defined in the book Characteristics of Games, defined as "satisfying chunks of play shorter than a full game."
9m09s: Type 3 - Co-op games: Pandemic, Lord of the Rings, the Forbidden games, Quirky Circuits
10m15s: CO2
12m05s: We discuss meaning in games, beyond simple "fun," in Ludology 201 - Are We Having Fun Yet?
12m30s: This War of Mine
12m43s: Type 4 - Semi-coop games: Hellapagos, We're Doomed
14m41s: The Resistance, Werewolf, Codenames
15m17s: Type 4a - "Variable Coopability" (thanks Emma!) - Dead of Winter, Who Goes There
15m42s: Geoff discussed this in GameTek Classic 129 - Semi Coop Tournaments.
17m06s: Type 5 - Individual wins/losses
18m38s: Fog of Love. You can hear more from Fog of Love designer Jacob Jaskov in Ludology 194 - Lifting the Fog.
19m52s: The Crossroads mechanism forces players to make choices related to the narrative of the game, and delivers consequences based on those choices. Note that Gil is using "Crossroads" casually here, as only Plaid Hat Games can officially release Crossroads games.
20m46s: Emma's storytelling game ...and then we died.
21m08s: Type 6 - Improvement/Personal Best: Scrabble, Bupkis
23m14s: The Board Game Stats app, Fantasy Realms
24m02s: Cribbage
24m42s: More info about the Donkey Kong high score competition. The board game Take it Easy.
29m00s: Bennett Foddy's GDC talk Making It Matter, where he discusses how eSports can emulate real sports. Also, Gil's communication tool for board games, Check-In Cards.
32m13s: Geoff and Mike discussed legacy games with Matt Leacock in Ludology 121 - Pandemonium.
33m16s: Type 7 - Personal Experience. The chess-themed TV drama The Queen's Gambit.
43m55s: King Me, Cole Wehrle's GDC talk on kingmaking. Also, Cole's game Root. Cole is a friend of the show and has been on a couple of times, most recently on Ludology 222 - Johnny Fairplay.
48m06s: T.I.M.E Stories
54m28s: Another shout-out for Characteristics of Games. Here's Gil's Game Design 101 talk.
57m56s: The board games Dungeonquest and Kingdom Death: Monster. The video games Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls.
59m37s: The video game Hades.
1h03m52s: Check out Errol Elumir's 13 Rules for Escape Room Puzzle Design.
1h05m44s: Scott's book Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design.
1h06m54s: Betrayal: Legacy
1h07m54s: The video game Among Us, and the board games Nemesis and Zombicide.
1h10m23s: You can hear more about player psychographic profiles in Ludology 165 - Fowerian Slip.
Geoff takes us through what he (and many other people) feel is a flaw in the rules of basketball, and a possible solution that was first implemented by a new league in 2018. The Elam Ending is designed to eliminate the incentive for teams trailing on the scoreboard to constantly, intentionally foul the leading team, making for a more consistent and fun game to watch.
This GameTek Classic was recorded in 2018; since then, the NBA used the Elam Ending for the 2020 All-Star Game, although they added 24 points (in honor of Kobe Bryant) and played the entire fourth quarter without a clock. The trailing team won.
Read an interview with Nick Elam.
Watch a couple of examples of the Elam Ending in action: the end of the 2019 Basketball Tournament semifinals, and the end of the aforementioned 2020 NBA All-Star Game.
We continue our annual tradition of bringing board game industry veteran Stephen Buonocore, now retired from Stronghold Games/Indie Game Studios and focusing on media and podcasting. We explore the bizarre, catastrophic year of 2020, and consider what's in store for us in 2021.
Note that this episode was recorded on Monday, November 30, 2020; we occasionally say "this year" to mean 2020 instead of 2021.
SHOW NOTES
6m24s: "Travis" is Travis Worthington, CEO of Indie Game Studios.
9m00s: Back the Comeback is a movement to keep comic and game stores alive during the pandemic.
13m26s: Gravitation Games (who did not release their first game on Kickstarter), Chris Solis' Solis Game Studio, and NewMill Industries.
18m58s: More info about the idea of flight-to-quality.
22m04s: You can hear more from Luke Crane and Anya Combs on Ludology 223 - Kick Out the Jams.
27m41s: You can play Codenames online here.
29m13s: Tim Hutchings' 1000 Year Old Vampire, Travis Hill's zine games, Jeeyon Shim's games about nature and survival.
32m47s: Our socially-distanced Gen Con 2020 live show, Gil's blog post about online conventions.
33m46s: Gil's thoughts here were really driven by Jeff Tidball's blog post here.
40m13s: Castle Tricon
42m01s: Board Games Insider
43m06s: Some board game Twitch streamers: The Brothers Murph, Ruel Gaviola, Board Game Blitz
46m17s: Our Family Plays Games, Before You Play
1h04m59s: Stephen's Facebook, website, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Emma and Gil welcome Adrienne Smith, designer of the card game Blitz Champz and wide receiver for the Boston Renegades women's gridiron football team. We discuss the intersection of mass market, kids, and sports game design, the state of women's football in modern America, and serial entrepreneurship.
This episode was recorded on November 16, 2020. A couple of weeks later, Vanderbilt brought their varsity women's soccer goalie, Sarah Fuller, onto their men's football team as a kicker.
Note: This will be the last Ludology episode of 2020! We are taking our annual winter break, during which time there will be no episodes of Ludology, Biography of a Board Game, or GameTek. We will return on January 10, 2021 with our annual "State of the Industry" episode with the Podfather, Stephen Buonocore.
SHOW NOTES
2m05s: Wondering how you can throw a spiral?
3m18s: Adrienne played for the New York Sharks. Here's the web page for the IFAF.
3m56s: More information about Jen Welter, the first female coach in the NFL.
5m14s: Gil wrote a Twitter thread about the history of women in football after the news about Sarah Fuller broke.
5m46s: Women's old-school football pants, versus MC Hammer's pants.
8m03s: The Women's Football Alliance, and the Women's National Football Conference
10m17s: More info about Ultimate, originally called Ultimate Frisbee.
10m42s: More info about Ultimate Hall of Famer Molly Goodwin.
14m00s: Adrienne is correct! The periodic table of the elements was first envisioned by Dmitri Mendeleev. Said he, "I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary."
21m56s: You can hear more from our interview with graphic/game designer Daniel Solis on Ludology 204 - The Eyes Have It.
25m23s: Here's a closer look at Adrienne's "Passing TD" card.
27m26s: You can hear more from our interview with mass market toy/game designer Kim Vandenbrouke on Ludology 212 - Inventing Play.
29m47s: Here's a clip of the amazing Kyler Murray "Hail Mary" pass that somehow landed in D'Andre Hopkins' arms. This happened the day before we recorded. (I do not recommend Bills fans clicking on that link.)
34m28s: Adrienne is talking about New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, winner of 6 Super Bowls.
42m46s: More info about Gotham Girls' Roller Derby, the NYC-based roller derby organization. (There are other fantastic roller derby organizations around the world, like the world #1-ranked Rose City Rollers in Portland, OR, and the world #2-ranked Victorian Roller Derby League in Melbourne, Australia, all run by the Women's Flat Track Derby Association.)
44m17s: You can hear more about Omari Akhil's views on the intersection of sports and games in Ludology 233 - A Sporting Chance.
55m26s: The legendary arcade game Galaga.
58m37s: It may not have been a tornado that hit NYC on November 15, but it seems to have come very close to one.
1h07m49s: More info about Title IX, passed in the US in 1972, which prohibits discrimination in education based on sex. The upshot of this is that for most sports, if a school wanted to field a men's team in a given sport, they had to field a women's team as well.
1h09m03s: Pop Warner Football is a US organization for youth football, roughly equivalent to Little League baseball. It's named for legendary coach Pop Warner. Also, more information about Utah Girls Tackle Football.
1h10m51s: If you want to know more about minorities in the middle ages, a great place to start is People of Color in European Art History.
1h13m48s: Here's Adrienne's Instagram page.
Scott takes us through the history of Dark Tower, the legendary electronically-enhanced board game, and its modern spiritual successor, Return to Dark Tower. The story's twists and turns include every designer's worst nightmare: a huge company stealing a designer's idea and making it their own.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME
Wilderness Campaign, the Apple II game that helped inspire Dark Tower: https://www.mobygames.com/game/wilderness-campaign
Fan page with all sorts of info: https://well-of-souls.com/tower/index.html
Ruling on Burten v. Milton Bradley Co.: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/592/1021/1816724/
An article on the game's original release: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/23/business/new-bradley-game-tests-fickle-market.html
Dark Tower commercial with Orson Welles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3HVCwPp7j0
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