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
Emma and Gil welcome game designer, developer, solo mode designer, and self-described "grump" Dávid Turczi to the show. We discuss the design of complex games with many interlocking systems, how to play with time in games, and the six (plus one) things Dávid looks for in a strategy board game.
SHOW NOTES
1m18s - Battlestar Galactica 2m03s - Dávid's game [redacted] (yes, that's the name of the game) 2m34s - Trickerion, published by Mindclash Games 3m01s - Dávid's game Anachrony 4m36s - Dávid's games Kitchen Rush and Dice Settlers 8m32s - Splendor, Century: Spice Road, Gizmos 9m05s - Azul 11m40s - Dice Settlers' expansion is Dice Settlers: Western Sea 14m17s - For some outstanding Martin Wallace loan mechanisms, check out Age of Steam, Brass, and London. 15m24s - Agricola 15m43s - The "Taschini method" refers to Daniele Tascini, co-designer of Tzolk'in, Teotihuacan, and The Voyages of Marco Polo. 20m22s - The Gallerist, Cloudspire 21m15s - Vital Lacerda is the designer of The Gallerist, Vinhos, and Kanban 21m43s - Mac Gerts is the designer of Concordia, Navegador, and other clever rondel games. 22m00s - Dávid's new game Perseverance 22m48s - Arkwright 24m00s - Dávid's new game Tekhenu 27m39s - Dávid's new games Tawantinsuyu and Rome & Roll 32m05s - Viticulture 35m13s - Dávid is referring to scoring using a triangular sequence, which many board games adopt as a gentler alternative to the harsh slope of exponential scoring. 37m13s - Black Angel 38m05s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 1/6: Narrative integration, or the fiction/action rule. 38m39s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 2/6: Elegance, or depth/rules ratio. 39m07s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 3/6: Strategic curve. 39m19s - Orléans 39m52s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 4/6: Replayability. 40m30s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 5/6: Achievement. 43m00s - Dávid's criteria for games he likes, 6/6: Interaction. 44m27s - Terra Mystica 48m12s - David's criteria for games he likes, 7/6: Uniqueness 55m38s - Tapestry 55m48s - David's solo modes - Teotihuacan, Keyper, Cerebria. If you want to hear more about designing solo modes for games, check out our episode with Morten Monrad Pedersen, Ludology 154 - Leave Me Alone! 1h01m49s - Trismegistus 1h03m36s - A Feast for Odin 1h05m32s - Petrichor 1h06m16s - John Brieger is an excellent developer. Heiko Günther is the best graphic designer (Gil may be a bit biased here, though) 1h09m11s - High Rise (Gil is blushing right now!) 1h09m30s - Glen More, Kraftwagen (Dávid named a seminal German electronic band instead), Tokaido, Tzolk'in 1h10m08s - Tutenkhamen 1h15m33s - Budapest: Days of Ire 1h17m43s - Excavation Earth 1h18m35s - Pocket Dragon 1h19m34s - Steal This Game! 1h20m40s - David Mortimer - Cousins' War, Ming Voyages 1h23m49s - Dávid's BGG profile 1h24m16s - Imperium: Classics and Imperium: Legends
Scott covers the "beautiful game" of Subbuteo, the tabletop association football flicking game, as well as its predecessor Newfooty.
Bibliography of a Boardgame
http://www.peter-upton.co.uk/ https://fistf.com/history-of-the-game/ http://www.gamingcorner.nl/subbuteo-timeline.htm
http://www.sporttischfussball.at/index-Dateien/Page2918.htm https://www.newstalk.com/news/6-things-you-probably-never-knew-about-subbuteo-724933 http://www.mumimuseum.com/english/focus06.html https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/subbuteo-alive-and-flicking-with-the-single-greatest-game-ever-invented-1.3217077 https://qprreport.proboards.com/thread/5203 https://100objectskent.co.uk/object/subuteo-prototype/#&gid=1&pid=1 http://subbuteo.online/subbuteo-streakers-are-a-real-thing-as-a-limited-edition-accessoryEmma and Gil welcome game designer and publisher Omari Akil to the show to discuss the plight of the sports-themed board game. What kinds of unique challenges do we face when designing one of these games?
Omari's game Hoop Godz will be on Kickstarter soon.
SHOW NOTES
1m21s: Board Game Brothas, Tabletop Backer Party, Pathways Fellowship 4m55s: Gil was 5 years off - Mike's game is Baseball Highlights: 2045. 12m09s: Football Strategy 12m47s: Gil would like to shout out Arthur Franz IV's self-published game Breakaway Football as a game with a really nice mix of play deciding versus output randomness. 15m32s: Gil will defend the term "soccer," seriously. It's a perfectly good way to refer to association football! 16m06s: Strat-O-Matic Baseball, released in 1962. 17m41s: Dino Dunk 18m07s: Crokinole 18m25s: Nok Hockey, Air Hockey, Electric Football. We also neglected to mention the flicking game family Subbuteo, which represents all sorts of sports. 22m43s: Gil eventually gets to his curling thoughts at 39m22s. 25m48s: Madden is EA's long-running NFL gridiron football video game sim (named for legendary player, coach, and broadcaster John Madden). 28m58s: Ultimate is a competitive sport using a throwable disc (like a Frisbee) instead of a ball. 29m50s: In 2017, Geek and Sundry launched a "T-Sports" league for competitive tabletop games (strangely, announcing it on April 1, and then having to explain that it was real). Sadly, it did not go far. 30m57s: Bennett Foddy's talk "Making it Matter: Lessons from Real Sports". Foddy is known for making punishingly-hard digital games like QWOP and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. 38m36s: Omari is referring to the common sports term GOAT, an acronym of Greatest Of All Time. 41m28s: Hystericoach 43m16s: Bottom of the Ninth 45m09s: Blaseball. RPG designer Meguey Baker's thread on it. 46m56s: Omari wrote more about how his lived experience affected the design of Rap Godz. 48m24s: More info about how Omari and YouTuber (and all-around excellent person) Danny Plays Gamez raised $80,000 for BLM: 56m25s: Paula Deming's channel, Things Get Dicey, is absolutely amazing to behold. Top-notch writing, performing, and filming. 57m11s: For those of you who don't have the honor of consuming Capri Sun in the part of the world where you live, it's a (vaguely) fruit-flavored beverage. 1h01m16s: The GIF Omari is referring to, featuring young Brazilian skater Rayssa Leal. The GIF Gil is referring to, linked to from famous skater Tony Hawk.
Geoff ponders a tricky question: how come we get iconic characters from video games, like Mario or Pac-Man, but none from board games?
In the past few years, Ludology has recorded a live episode at Gen Con. We weren't going to let a global pandemic stop us this year!
Recorded as part of Gen Con Online 2020, Emma, Gil, and Scott streamed this recording live on Twitch. We had an excellent turnout in the chat, and everyone seemed to really enjoy this new twist on Ludology Live!
You can watch unedited video of this chat here.
It's possible we may return to this format in the future! Stay tuned…
SHOW NOTES
1m54s: We mention Gil's Twitch channel several times in this episode. 2m13s: Of course, this note to turn it tickets doesn't apply to people listening to the podcast. Don't let that note trigger any vague feelings of guilt! Also, for reference, we began recording at 5 pm EDT. 3m29s: "This much on the timeline" - at this point, Gil is holding up his finger and thumb with a few centimeters of space in between. 4m46s: Scott is holding up a Gamemaster DVD at this point. 5m40s: You can watch the Gen Con Gamemaster panel here. 6m01s: The shot in question (no Gil to be found, sadly). 7m16s: Alas, neither the Instagram Live nor Table Takes interviews are archived anywhere. :( 8m36s: Remote Playtesting (#rpt) is the playtest group that Gil helps to run. You can see and buy the t-shirt with Aaron Wilson's logo here. 8m54s: Aaron's new publishing company with Ian Zang, Gravitation Games. 9m55s: Here's Scott's quarantine playlist. 10m10s: Abandon All Artichokes 11m43s: High Rise is almost sold out! And Rival Networks pre-orders are still going strong. 12m02s: Check-In Cards. 12m37s: Here's the video for Animal Crossing Fiasco. More info for one of Gil's favorite games, De Vulgari Eloquentia. 14m38s: draw.io, a collaboration tool that Emma really likes. 14m56s: Here's a tweet that sums up Emma's game Unravel quite well. Emma also mentions the Our Innermost Thoughts Kickstarter project by Travis Hill. 18m27s: More info on the Tabletop Mentorship Program. 18m42s: Glenn Cotter's Fickle. 22m01s: Gil presented a lot of these thoughts in this blog post. 25m47s: The "G" Gil is trying to point to would be a fraction of a millimeter large in most screens. 26m21s: There will be another Virtual Gaming Con in November. 32m59s: GenCan't has been an online alternative to Gen Con for several years now. 36m21s: Here is an example of BuonoCardboard making the rounds. 39m27s: Scott's 50th episode of Biography of a Board Game just dropped, and it's wonderful! He covers the history of his own game, Rayguns and Rocketships. 40m24s: We at Ludology were all touched by Marcel Claxton's thoughtful analysis of Ludology's recent direction and its significance in the current age. 43m21s: Jason Morningstar appeared in Ludology 161 - What's The Story Morning Glory? 50m32s: There aren't many board games about falling in love, but quite a few digital and RPGs! (Gil would also like to suggest wargames and games coming out of that historical/political sphere as the board game parallel to documentaries.) 59m34s: For those who may not have heard of it, the MacArthur Fellows Program is awarded to 20-30 Americans every year who show "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction." Between the high criteria for being named and the generous amount of money received ($625,000), it's nicknamed the "Genius Grant." 1h03m49s: Emma mentions a few tools here: Tabletop Simulator, Tabletopia, Trello, and Slack. 1h06m25s: At this point, Scott holds up a Playstation controller. 1h14m57s: This Discord Has Ghosts In It. 1h17m57s: Scott's links: his blog, his Patreon, his Twitter, and his Instagram. 1h18m54s: Emma's links: her website, her Twitter, and her Instagram. 1h19m28s: Gil's links: his company website, his personal website, his Twitter, and his Twitch.
This is the 50th Biography of a Board Game episode! To celebrate, Scott takes us through the history of his first board game, Rayguns and Rocketships.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME
0m36s: Video game publisher THQ 0m51s: God of War, Pac Man World, Soul Blade 1m37s: The Star Wars Album 1m43s: The legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, and Republic Pictures, responsible for many well-remembered serials 5m17s: More info on Hodgkin's lymphoma 8m22s: More info on the new Gamemaster film
Emma and Gil welcome game designer, educator, and birder Chidi Paige to discuss how games and play benefit education, how she designed her bird-themed game Birdwiser, and how competitive birdwatching has affected her as a person.
SHOW NOTES
0m22s: From educationcloset.com: "STEAM Education is an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking." It is an evolution of the older STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) approach in that it adds the arts. 1m29s: The Newark Museum in Newark, NJ. Fun fact: back when Chidi was working at the museum, Gil was a block away working at audible.com. Small world! 1m36s: Columbia University in New York, NY. 2m45s: Wonderstar Foundation has no web presence yet. Hopefully soon! 7m11s: ClassCraft 7m36s: Labster 8m01s: Chidi is referring to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for DNA replication, and to CRISPR for genome editing. 13m43s: Explorer's Program at the Newark Museum 23m06s: Our episode with Dr. Mary Flanagan was Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo 23m43s: You can hear more from Elizabeth Hargrave on Ludology 203 - Winging It. 25m31s: The Big Year on IMDB. 27m29s: Sadly, we could not find the video that Emma mentioned! 30m40s: Chidi's web site for Birdwiser. 32m00s: Whot and Uno are variations on the public domain game Crazy Eights. 33m18s: Birdwiser's illustrations are by Emily Willoughby, with graphics by Kristine Mathieson of Tropikality Designs 36m26s: Sibley and Peterson are two of the best-known bird guides out there. 38m43s: We discussed Emma's Infinite Potato Problem in Ludology 225 - A Study in Emma-rald. 41m09s: The site Chidi is referring to is Upwork, originally called oDesk. 42m29s: Gil is talking about his word game Wordsy. 42m45s: "Complexity Budget," an idea Richard Garfield popularized. 47m09s: More info about certifying your garden for wildlife. 50m01s: More info about the World Series of Birding. 1h00m05s: The scientists Chidi mentions are Eric Kandel and Richard Axel.
Geoff muses on the difference between explicitly calling out the way a game system works, versus letting players implicitly discover how the players discover how the system works. Is one clearly better than the other?
Tell us how you feel in the Ludology forums!
Here's more information about Geoff's game Versailles 1919.
Emma and Gil invite award-winning game designer, teacher, and not-scholar Sharang Biswas to the show to discuss verbs in games. What actions do we actually perform when we play a game, what actions do they represent, and how does that impact the game experience?
You can find Sharang on Twitter or on the web. Here is his itch.io store.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains references to sex and sexuality.
Show Notes
2h31m: Sharang teaches at The International Center of Photography (Bard College), and at Fordham University. 3m05s: We had Dr. Mary Flanagan on the show for Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo 3m26s: Playcrafting is an organization that holds game design events, mainly for digital games, in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. 5m04s: Anna Anthropy is an influential game designer, and current designer-in-residence at DePaul College in Chicago. 5m15s: Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games. 10m08s: Android: Netrunner 11m33s: We discussed ludonarrative dissonance, especially in board games, in Ludology 190 - Diabolus in Ludica. 12m05s: The uselessness of 1:1 scale maps came up in our conversation with Volko Ruhnke for Ludology 178 - COIN-Operated. 12m29s: If you haven't heard us discuss at length what a "game" is, check out Ludology 151 - High Definition. 12m35s: More information about the word autotelic, which is extremely useful when discussing games and play. 13m35s: Frank Lanz is a game designer and director of the NYU Game Center. 16m35s: Great Western Trail, Food Chain Magnate 17m10s: Ryan and Geoff discussed the magic circle with game designer and professor Eric Zimmerman in Ludology 79 - The Magic Circle. 17m29s: You can find more about Honey & Hot Wax, edited by Sharang and Lucian Kahn, here. 18m25s: The phrase "turtles all the way down" is one of Gil's favorites. 20m54s: Hungry Hungry Hippos, Mouse Trap, Pretty Pretty Princess, Electronic Dream Phone 21m30s: MegaCity Oceania 21m54s: Mountains of Madness 23m10s: Pandemic Legacy: Season One 24m11s: Sharang's game with Max Seidman, Mad Science Foundation 26m35s: The RPG Sign. 28m10s: More information about the larp Sarabande. 29m42s: Geoff and Gil discussed "soft incentives" in Ludology 185 - Soft Boiled. 30m38s: Jiangshi, an RPG about Chinese immigrants juggling running a haunted restaurant, by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim. We had Banana on the show a few weeks ago, for Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play. 31m10s: Some of the discussion about "Press F To Pay Respects" in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. 31m31s: Untitled Goose Game 35m53s: Sharang compares Chaos in the Old World to Assault of the Giants. Chaos was designed by the incomparable Eric Lang, who we had on the show for Ludology 175 - Auld Lang Design. 37m13s: Sagrada 38m19s: DC Comics Deck-Building Game 40m00s: John Cage's 4'33", which instructs the performer to play no notes for the duration of the piece. 40m27s: Positive examples of ludonarrative dissonance: Typing of the Dead, Unspeakable Words 40m58s: Brenda Romero's well-known art game Train. 41m16s: Sharang's game Feast, inspired by Felix Gonzalez-Torres' original art piece Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). 41m45s: The RPG With Great Power… 42m31s: Team Fun's interview with Sharang, featuring the phrase "Jump, Decapitate, Kill." 43m44s: Journalist, larp designer, and game writer Lizzie Stark. 45m00s: The 2001 video game Black & White. 45m17s: French literary critic Roland Barthes proposed the idea of the Death of the Author in a 1967 essay, suggesting that critics don't need to understand an author to contextualize their work. 45m24s: The Effing Foundation for Sex Positivity. 47m16s: Thumb Wars (or thumb wrestling) 51m45s: The games A Guide to Casting Phantoms In The Revolution, and Can You Hear Me? 52m34s: Sharang's game Several Miles from Heaven. 53m36s: The Jenga-implementing RPGs Dread and Star Crossed, and the apocalyptic RPG Ten Candles. 54m45s: Metatopia is a game designer convention based in the northeastern US that specializes in tests of board games, TTRPG, and larp. 56m41s: Sharang's solo food-based RPG Verdure. 57m52s: We had Jenn Sandercock on in Ludology 210 - The Way to a Gamer's Heart to discuss her edible games. 58m41s: The 200-word RPG Stardust. 1h00m00s: The bizarre Hellcouch (taking the idea of the "couch co-op to the next level), amd Mattie Brice's empathy machine. 1h00m45s: Marina Abramović's seminal performance art piece Rhythm 0, in which she allowed visitors to do whatever they wanted to her body for 6 hours. Visitors were gentle at first, but became more cruel as the piece went on, several times aiming a loaded gun in her head. The most powerful part of the performance emerged at the end; once the 6 hours ended, Abramović stood up and approached the audience, who promptly left, unable to face her as a person who had regained her bodily autonomy. 1h06m08s: Alex Roberts' Pop! is part of Sharang's project Honey and Hot Wax, co-edited by Lucian Kahn. 1h06m37s: Emma's degree is in Product Design. 1h08m45s: Sharang has written a couple of articles for Killscreen. 1h10m38s: Wingspan. We had the pleasure of chatting with designer Elizabeth Hargrave for Ludology 203 - Winging It. 1h12m15s: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a horrifying tragedy in which 146 sweatshop workers in New York City were killed by a fire. The workers were locked into their working space, so they could not exit on foot; many leapt to their deaths. The fire resulted in legislation that improved factory safety standards and strengthened union powers. 1h14m42s: Clio Yun-Su Davis' RPG Pass the Sugar Please was run by theater company Intramersive. 1h16m44s: Sharang is referencing Kat Jones' game Glitzy Nails. 1h17m43s: The RPG Flatpack 1h19m34s: The productivity games Habitica, SuperBetter, Chore Wars, and Zombies Run. 1h20m58s: Sharang's game A Shroud for the Seneschal.
Scott takes us through the rise, fall, and rise again of the game Vinci, which designer Philippe Keyaerts and publisher Days of Wonder re-implemented as Small World.
Bibliography of a board game
Text: Meepletown interviews designer Keyaerts. Text: Boardtime interviews designer Keyaerts (the site is Polish, but the interview is in English). Text: Related Small World products from publisher Days of Wonder. Text: Tabletop Gaming magazine September 2019 - How We Made Small World (paywall) Text: Tabletop Gaming magazine #10 Jun/Jul 2017 - First Turn: Phillipe Keyaerts
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