Ludology

Emma and Gil welcome Dr. Mary Flanagan, designer of Monarch, Visitor in Blackwood Grove, Buffalo, Awkward Moment, and plethora of other games in a myriad of styles and platforms, from party to strategy on digital in tabletop. Dr. Flanagan is also an artist, having exhibited works (many game-related) all around the world, and teaches game design at Dartmouth, who also hosts her game design and research lab, Tiltfactor. We discuss designing games from the perspectives of fun and meaningful change. How does one make a transformative game that players actually enjoy, but that is still effective at building empathy and fighting prejudice? CONTENT WARNING: There is a brief mention of racial prejudice, and sexual assault in literary works towards the end of the episode. SHOW NOTES 0m21s: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. This video explains it, and other lexically ambiguous sentences. 1m21s: Tiltfactor, Dr. Flanagan's game design and research lab

Join Scott as he recounts the history of the game that blurred the line between a game and a toy: Mousetrap.  Bibliography of a Board Game for Mouse Trap It’s All a Game by Tristan Donovan A World Without Reality: Inside Marvin Glass’s Toy Vault by Bill Paxton Mental Floss – Mouse Trap Game Facts Chicago Tribune – Toying with Success Best Play – History of Mouse Trap: Murder, Playboys and Plagiarism Google Patents Rube Goldberg.com Smithsonian Mag – Teaching physics with a massive game of mouse trap

Today, we put Emma in the spotlight to find out what went into designing her newest game, Abandon All Artichokes, how many cards she actually designed for it, and how the game was almost derailed by an Infinite Potato Problem. SHOW NOTES 5m44s: Magic: The Gathering and the marvelous deckbuilding video game Slay the Spire. Also check out Ludology 198 - Inspired, featuring Slay the Spire's co-designer Anthony Giovannetti. 6m00s: Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, two video games where the player starts in a remote area with very little in the way of equipment, and ends up building a small town. 7m22s: If you want to check out more deck-wreckers, try Xenon Profiteer (one of Gil's personal favorite games), or Fine Sand. 8m39s: Don't let the bean theme throw you off. Bohnanza is one of the best trading games you'll find. 9m15s: Bonnie Pang did the wonderful art for Artichokes. 9m43s: Sushi Go, by Phil Walker-Harding and also published by Gamewright, is an excellent light drafting game. It was good enough to spaw

Geoff ruminates on the limitations of using AI to balance games. Why can't we use machine learning to fully balance a game experience, and finally make a game that everyone on BGG will find perfectly fair on the first play? SHOW NOTES 1m17s: For more on this subject, check out our two GameTek episodes on AlphaGo : GameTek Classic 218.5 Alpha Zero, and GameTek Classic 222.5 Alpha Zero, Part 2. 2m00s: Geoff's game The Expanse. 5m29s: The fantastic trading game Sidereal Confluence (which will soon have a new edition!) 6m18s: League of Legends has grappled for a long time with how to balance their champions for players of all skill levels. Here's their latest approach on how they're trying to do it.

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.

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, G

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

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 base

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 The Mansion of Happiness  The Checkered Game of Life 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: La belle Hélène, an opera by Jacques Offenbach  The Will of an Eccentric, a novel by Jules Verne   5m07s: Works mentioned: Le Pont du Nord, a film by Jacques Rivette  Il grande gioco dell'oca, an Italian game show based on the game (Wikipedia page in Italian) 

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: Hangtown Coloma A Fistful of Meeples Sierra West Lions of Lydia (on Kickstarter as of the release of this episode!) Merchant's Cove 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 hyp

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 Dr. Wootton's blog. 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.

Professor Scott Rogers joins Gil and Emma once again! This time, we're discussing Scott's time as an Imagineer designing games and experiences for Disneyland, and his subsequent work designing VR attractions. It's a fascinating topic, with a surprising amount of overlap into any kind of game design!  Show notes: 05m45s: More info about Disney Play here.  08m06s: Scott is right, sportscaster Al Michaels was indeed traded for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.  18m16s: Ludology 189 - Missing Selinker, wherein Mike Selinker shares a funny story testing Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom:  30m20s: The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman. Highly recommended to anyone who wants a better understanding of how people interact with objects.  40m53s: The history of how Tetris has chosen its pieces is really fascinating!  41m29s: Some more information about Legends of Frontierland: Gold Rush. 46m09s: We discussed dark rides and the challenge of choice in an immersive environment Ludology 214 - Escape from Reality with Strang

Geoff discusses Alpha Zero, a neural net that can play Go, Chess, and Shogi better than anyone in the world. It defeated the best AI in those respective games (each of whom had previously defeated the best humans in the world) with only a few hours of training. What does this spell for the future of AI, and the future of game design?

Emma and Gil welcome Geoff Engelstein and Isaac Shalev back to the show to discuss their new book Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design. This is a reference of board game mechanisms that any designer, new or experienced, can use to look up different tools they can use to solve problems in game design. Games and other things mentioned in this episode: 19m30s:  Kraftwagen Glen More Francis Drake Egezia High Rise 19m39s: Opinionated Gamers article on time track vs. one-way track  Patchwork Thebes Tokaido Tutankhamen 22m13s: Impulse 23m11s: Great Western Trail 33m55s: Empire Builder 35m22s: Monopoly Sushi Go Advanced Squad Leader 41m07s: BoardGameGeek official mechanism page  51m30s: Diplomacy 52m10s: Republic of Rome  Cutthroat Caverns 53m07s: Prisoner's Dilemma 54m27s: Catan 55m55s: Interview with Donald X. Vaccharino about theme, mechanism, and data  1h04m54s: Drop Geoff a BGG GeekMail Drop Isaac a BGG GeekMail Encyclopedia of Mechanisms Guild on BGG

Scott uncovers the history of the classic game Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, which has been delighting kids (and kids-at-heart) since 1964. He discusses the influences that converged in making the game, why the combatants are robots, and how it's influenced everything from video games to real-life combat robotics.

Legendary Interactive Fiction writer Andrew Plotkin joins Gil and Emma to talk about text-based stories that players can participate in. We explore the form's history and unique strengths, and discuss what good writing can bring to a game's experience. Interactive Fiction platforms mentioned in this episode: Inform Twine ChoiceScript Ink Check out some of Andrew's IF work: Shade Spider & Web Hadean Lands Other video games mentioned in this episode: Colossal Cave Adventure Zork Donut County 80 Days Heaven's Vault Galatea AI Dungeon No Man's Sky Board games and analog IF mentioned in this episode: Werewolf 7th Continent 1,001 Odysseys Choose Your Own Adventure™ books Meanwhile Fighting Fantasy books Leanna Fled the Cranberry Bog If you would like to explore the world of IF, a good place to start is the Interactive Fiction Database - it's like the BGG of IF! Some good games to start with (this is hardly an authoritative list): 9:05 - You can easily play this in one sitting, and in most cases, you w

In this GameTek Classic, Geoff describes the idea of "path dependence," and discusses how human game players allow their past to affect their present. Should players care about how they got to a certain point in their game?