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 sit down with Chris Rowlands of Funko Games to discuss the design of IP-based games, and what it's like to design as part of a group collective.
SHOW NOTES
0m00s: Playtest safely online with Gil and Emma! 4m11s: Mox Boarding House is one of the premier board game stores in Seattle. (Here's hoping they can stick around until everything is able to reopen!) 12m21s: The Frosthaven Kickstarter project. 16m45s: Personal plug: Abandon All Artichokes is Emma's newest game. 19m47s: Power Grid is the #36th ranked game on BGG. (Rankings are not absolute, objective measures of quality, of course, but still. It's a big game.) 24m01s: Beth Hawley was responsible for the amazing art in Chris' game Under My Bed. 27m18s: Disney Villainous, in which each player is a Disney villain with unique special powers, is one of their more well-known titles. 29m05s: The party game Yeah Nope. 30m52s: Funkoverse, the tactical minis game using modified Funko figurines. 32m33s: All of "Prospero Hall's" credited games on BGG. 34m04s: The games Horrified and Jaws. 38m17s: Prospero Hall's website. 43m28s: The "tracer" scene from Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy. (Explicit language warning) 50m31s: Personal plug: Avowel is currently available on Android, and coming to iOS soon! 54m10s: The game Jurassic Park: Danger. 1h02m35s: Paper Girls and Manifest Destiny 1h03m26s: Sea of Thieves 1h03m48s: Infocom's original help guide entry to the horrible and notorious Babel Fish puzzle in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy video game, written by Douglas Adams himself, is an absolute wonder to read. Keep clicking "Next Answer." Favorite quote on step 19 of the hint: "At this point, brave men have been known to break down and cry." 1h05m11s: Building the Game, a podcast on game design. 1h06m34s: Some articles about wrestling's current audience-less format. 1h12m04s: Our episode on ludonarrative dissonance was Ludology 192 - Diabolus in Ludica. 1h14m04s: Back to the Future: Back in Time and Last Defense!
Scott goes into the checkered history of The Game of Life, which has had many inspirations and incarnations, and is still going strong.
(Content warning: this episode contains quick, passing references to sex and suicide.)
0m00s: Join Gil's and Emma's remote playtesting groups! 1m44s: A Little Pretty Pocket Book. Fun fact: this book contains the first appearance of the term "base-ball," although that term at the time was an alternative regional name for the sport now known as Rounders. 2m37s: The New Game of Human Life. Here's the original French game that inspired it, which BGG has under the name La Vie Humaine un Nouveau Jeu. 3m19s: More information about the teetotum, which was often used to avoid the impression of gambling. 5m48s: The Reward of Merit, The Mirror of Truth: Exhibiting a variety of Biographical Anecdotes and Moral Essays calculated to Inspire a Love of Virtue and Abhorrence of Vice, and The Mansion of Happiness. 7m45s: The Checkered Game of Life. 9m17s: The Game of the Telegraph Boy, Game of To the North Pole By Airship, and The Game of Playing Department Store. 9m32s: More information about toy and game designer Reuben Klamer. 10m48s: The famous blue and pink pegs are, of course, the inspiration for the name of the excellent board game podcast Blue Peg, Pink Peg. 11m44s: Here's a page with a photo of the 1960 edition of The Game of Life. 12m28s: More information about the resolution of the lawsuit between Klamer and Markham. 13m32s: The Game of Life: Twists and Turns 14m08s: The Game of Life Express 16m33s: This would also be a good time to mention some modern board games that handle the same subject matter, and were no doubt somehow inspired by The Game of Life. The Pursuit of Happiness, Funny Friends, CV, and My Story.
Emma and Gil welcome Anya Combs and Luke Crane from Kickstarter to discuss how crowdfunding is changing, especially in light of recent events.
Anya: anya@kickstarter.com, games@kickstarter.com, @anyayna Luke: @burning_luke, burningwheel.com
Note that this episode was recorded on March 25, 2020, so if we talk about things happening "a few weeks ago," we're referring to late February/early March. This wouldn't normally be an important detail, but things are changing a lot quickly these days.
SHOW NOTES
0m00s: Playtest safely online with Gil and Emma!
1m28s: For those who have never heard it, the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" set a template for punk rock's sound well before its time. (Explicit language warning)
3m52s: More info about the Burning Wheel roleplaying system.
8m32s: The original Alien Frontiers and Cards Against Humanity projects. Both were modest successes. Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, and Shenmue were much larger successes.
9m48s: The original Kingdom Death: Monster was a wild success, but the second edition was one of the largest Kickstarter Games campaigns ever run.
9m56s: We recorded this episode before Frosthaven launched. As of the time of this episode's release, it has raised over $7 million USD.
10m31s: Gil's Kickstarter projects are all visible here.
12m39s: The Dispel Dice Kickstarter project.
17m23s: The F*** Yeah Dice Kickstarter project (Explicit language warning, of course).
16m56s: Itten made the unique game Stonehenge and the Sun. Oink and Bouken don't have any Kickstarter projects, but their games are worth your attention for their distinctive look and style. Luke also brings up Bouken's game Diet & Friends.
17m17s: W.M. Akers has a series of baseball simulators called Deadball.
18m23s: You can find Emma's weekly news show on Twitch every Friday at 2 pm Pacific.
20m00s: Here's the Fantastic Factories Kickstarter project. Here's the Kickstarter for Coloma, designed by Jonny Pac, who was on Ludology 221: The Pac Less Traveled.
20m36s: Here's the Gladius Kickstarter project.
21m51s: More info about the Skylanders video game, which discontinued support in 2017.
24m42s: Here's the Multiverse Kickstarter project. (Incidentally, if you're interested in a platform similar to Multiverse, check out Roll20).
27m34s: More info about the Jackbox party games.
28m20s: The Spaceteam Kickstarter project (Note that this is for the original video game, not the card game inspired by it).
30m10s: More info about Twine. We go more into detail about this platform in Ludology 217: What IF?
30m43s: More info about AVOWEL, the mobile version of Wordsy.
31m05s: The latest Chronicles of Crime Kickstarter.
32m46s: Commands & Colors by Richard Borg is a family of outstanding light wargames that includes BattleLore and Memoir '44.
34m33s: More information about Kickstarter's Make100 and ZineQuest initiatives.
43m16s: More information about the newest God of War game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_(2018_video_game).
43m36s: Animal Crossing! Hoo hoo! That's a link to more info about New Horizons, the newest game in the series. There's a lot of interesting discussion going on about the game and how timely it is, how its soothing imagery is perfect for the current times, and how it offers an escapist fantasy (literally escaping to a desert island) to people who are stuck at home.
47m13s: Ankh, the newest CMON game, is at over $1 million USD from about 14,000 backers at the time of this episode release. Tapeworm has not yet launched at the time of this episode release.
46m45s: Pax Pamir's most recent Kickstarter. It's from Cole Wehrle (and his brother Drew), whom you heard two weeks ago on Ludology 222: Johnny Fairplay.
47m06s: The Sea of Stars Kickstarter project, and the Swords 'n Magic and Stuff project.
52m34s: Anya performs in the Hungry March Band, the Funkrust Brass Band, and the Brooklyn Wind Symphony.
55m26s: Of course, Team Ludology does not subscribe to Luke's spicy hot take here, and we're pretty sure Rob Daviau has played D&D more than once. :) Rob was guest on Ludology 70: Risky Business. If you want to hear him GM, check out the actual play podcast Story Roost and its first story arc, The Unmarked. (Explicit language warning)
59m17s: DRUGGIES AND BULLIES BEWARE BULLYPROOF Kickstarter project.
1h00m30s: OLDIE BINGO Kickstarter project.
Geoff continues the discussion about Alpha Zero, this time pointing out the impact a self-learning AI can have on an established tournament meta, like Magic or Hearthstone.
Show Notes:
0m47s: More info about Agent57, the DeepMind AI that can beat humans at 57 different Atari 2600 games. 1m52s: The Ares Project, Geoff's first published board game (designed with his son Brian) 2m15s: More info about the Halifax Hammer strategy from A Few Acres of Snow. 2m29s: The current list of banned cards in Magic: The Gathering. And, the current list of changed Hearthstone cards.
Emma and Gil welcome accomplished designer Cole Wehrle, designer of Root, Oath, and Pax Pamir (Second Edition), back to the show (Cole previously appeared on Ludology 163 - A Pain in the Asymmetry). We discuss fairness in games. Has it been around for as long as we think it has? What can an "unfair" game do that other games can't?
Cole is a staff designer at Leder Games, and co-founded Wehrlegig Games with his brother Drew.
SHOW NOTES
2m18s: You can watch Cole's GDC talk here.
12m02s: Learn more about Twilight Imperium (this is the most recent version, but there were previous versions with slightly different rulesets)
13m52s: Learn more about Memoir '44.
14m25s: Learn more about Scythe.
16m04s: Learn more about Blood Rage and Sushi Go!
19m30s: Gil remembers a bunch of Viking games in the mid-aughts. One of the biggest was Michael Kiesling's Vikings, whose gameplay, while clever, did little to evoke actual Vikings.
22m41s: The book Strike Four was recommended to me by Dennis Goodman, who is himself a baseball historian and rules expert, and has written a streamlined rulebook for the sport.
24m16s: The book Cole refers to is The Games Ethic and Imperialism (Sport in the Global Society) by J. A. Mangan.
25m14s: I'm referring to the book The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer/Football, by David Goldblatt. The exact title depends on if you buy the US or UK version; this link is to the US version.
27m07s: Cole refers to the book Making England Western, by Saree Makdisi.
27m33s: Thomas Arnold was headmaster of Rugby School from 1828, and was influential in reforming the British public school system. Tom Brown's School Days was written by Thomas Hughes and published in 1857, and popularized British public schools as a literary setting.
28m11s: If you're curious, here is the official 2019 NFL rulebook. If your eyes aren't crossed yet, here is the official 2019 MLB rulebook (though note Dennis Goodman's streamlined take on the rules of baseball, mentioned above). And to finish you off, here is the official ICC web page on all the Playing Conditions of every form of cricket (although to be fair, they have to handle all three major forms of the game - imagine if the NFL rulebook had to account for Canadian and Arena Football as well!)
Side note: I also checked out the official Laws of World Rugby Union, and I was stunned to see how clearly-written they were! They are made to be read by a layperson, not a lawyer, and come with many video examples of rule violations.
30m42s: This is a good time to remind you to check out Scott Rogers' Biography of a Board Game last week for The Game of the Goose. It's not technically a Victorian board game - no one knows how old it is - but it's the template for many Victorian parlor games. (I wish we could say we planned these episodes to run consecutively, but it was just a happy coincidence!)
32m08s: We're discussing The Landlord's Game, by Elizabeth Magie (interestingly, Hasbro still does not officially acknowledge Magie's role in the creation of Monopoly, perhaps for legal reasons)
32m56s: More like 150-175 years old, really. Most sports rules began getting formally codified in the mid-19th century (though cricket had already started getting codified in the 18th century).
33m14s: The Eton Wall Game is still played today. And yes, there's video of it! Note that Eton has a second code of football, the Eton Field Game, which is closer to soccer, but still contains many elements found in rugby. There's a video of the Eton Field Game here.
36m34s: Cole is referring to Bernie De Koven and his book The Well-Played Game. He also refers to the games Acquire and Caylus.
37m23s: To Emma's point, Prussian college professor Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig invented the first wargame in 1780, but it was Kriegsspiel, designed by Prussian nobleman George Leopold von Reisswitz in 1812 and refined by his soldier son Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz in 1824, that introduced realism and verisimilitude into the form. Note that these wargames were designed more for military training than recreation.
37m43s: H.G. Wells, who wrote many seminal science-fiction novels like The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds, was also a game designer. In his books Floor Games and Little Wars, he establishes rules for the first recreational wargames. (Also, the idea of games solving world problems is still alive, most notably by Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken.)
38m53s: Alexander Pope's classic (albeit somewhat overly-dramatically-named) poem The Rape of the Lock. Read it here.
39m58s: Roger Caillois' Man, Play and Games, written in 1961, probably deserves its own episode.
42m00s: Hare and Tortoise is, of course, the first Spiel des Jahres winner. (On a related note, Scott's Biography of a Board Game about Eurogames is a really good listen on this subject.) Cole then mentions Die Macher and Catan.
46m20s: I did not come up with this "roll a die at the end of a game of Chess to see who wins" thought experiment, but I can't remember where I read it! Maybe Characteristics of Games?
47m29s: Relevant quote from Mike Selinker from Ludology 189 - Missing Selinker: "Frustration is a valuable, positive thing up to a point. You've just got to know where the table flip is."
48m08s: Cole is kind enough to mention Gil's forthcoming game High Rise after playing it at GDC 2019. Cole gave his talk on defending kingmaking; Gil gave his talk on how indirect interaction in games can be good.
52m21s: More info about Descent, Dark Venture, and Tomb.
59m30s: More info about Byzantine themes.
1h04m44s: More info about Liberté.
1h06m36s: More info about The History of Rome podcast.
1h08m58s: The political compass of Root, as suggested by Reddit user u/orionsbelt05.
In today's Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the long history of The Game of the Goose, which became a template for almost every roll-and-move game into Victorian times and beyond.
Show notes:
1m49s: The ancient Egyptian game of Mehen
2m04s: History of the labyrinth
2m24s: The Discus of Phaistos, also known as the Phaistos Disc
2m50s: Games mentioned
3m33s: Bibliothèque curieuse et instructive de divers ouvrages anciens et modernes, a book by Claude-François Ménestrier, is available to read online in French.
4m33s: Works mentioned:
5m07s: Works mentioned:
Emma and Gil welcome Jonny Pac, designer of Coloma and other games set in the Gold Rush West. Our main topic of discussion is multiple paths to victory: what it brings to a game, what kinds of games need it, what kinds of games don't, and how to avoid the dreaded "point salad" effect.
Jonny's published games:
Show notes:
06m28s: Jonny likens Scythe to a race game. Check out Chapter 2 of Characteristics of Games (George Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield, K. Robert Gutschera) for more information about the distinction between a "race" and a "brawl."
07m35s: Games mentioned: Lords of Waterdeep Caylus Caylus 1303
08m32s: Games mentioned: Catan
09m48s: Games mentioned: 7 Wonders Duel 12m56s: Ah, the "Victory Points Suck" argument! Here is the original talk, and here is the rebuttal blog post that Gil wrote. (Scott Westerfeld is actually a really cool person; he was just being a bit hyperbolic.)
13m32s: Games mentioned: Get Bit Red Dragon Inn 15m02s: Games mentioned: Agricola 18m06s: Games mentioned: Azul El Grande 6 Nimmt! 22m27s: Games mentioned: Point Salad
32m01s: Games mentioned: Century: Spice Road 34m09s: Games mentioned: Dominion 35m58s: Games mentioned: Tzolk'in Terra Mystica 42m12s: Games mentioned: Carcassonne 46m47s: Games mentioned: Ticket to Ride Amazonas 49m28s: Zero-level heuristics - the strategies and tactics players embrace when first learning the game. Go back to Characteristics of Games, Chapter 4, for an excellent introduction to this topic.
51m11s: Games mentioned: Stone Age 53m14s: Games mentioned: Concordia 56m38s: Tragedy of the Commons is a well-known game theory problem that pits collective good versus self-interest.
1h01m55s: Games mentioned: Santa Maria Raja of the Ganges Castles of Burgundy 1h04m58s: For those who may not know, ASCAP and BMI are the two largest music performance rights organizations in America. They monitor radio play and live performances, and make sure that every time a song is played publicly, its rightsholder gets paid.
1h06m27s: Eat Poop You Cat is the activity that Telestrations was based on.
1h09m42s: More info on Placerville, CA.
1h13m42s: Games mentioned: Five Tribes Trajan Istanbul Spacewalk 1h14m34s: Jonny is referring to Ludology 176 - Taxonomy Driver.
Geoff welcomes Dr. James Wootton, quantum computing expert and one of the people behind the digital game Hello Quantum, which is made to teach its player about the fundamentals of quantum computing.
Here is the Quantum Information Science Kit (QISKIT) blog Dr. Wootton mentioned.
If you're technically inclined, here is Dr. Wootton's GitHub repository. And if you want to take a quantum computer out for a spin, here is the cloud-based service Dr. Wootton mentioned.
Emma and Gil welcome Jennifer Ellis and Keith Baker of Twogether Studios. We discuss their approach for integrating stories into their game, whether directly embedded in their game, letting them emerge from the players, or evoked from the look of the product.
Show notes:
05m03s: Check out Keith and Jenn's games: Gloom Illimat Action Cats Phoenix: Dawn Command
17m04s: Keith and Jenn's forthcoming Adventure Zone game is based on the Adventure Zone D&D actual play series.
36m46: More info about Descent.
38m36s: Illimat is a card game conceived by and designed with the band The Decemberists.
40m00s: More info about Cthulhu Fluxx.
49m19s: More info about Keith's award-winning D&D setting Eberron.
Scott leads us through the history of Trivial Pursuit, from its conception from two Canadian journalists after trying to play a game of Scrabble with missing pieces, to a full-fledged global 80s fad, to a billion-dollar empire.
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