Ludology

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,

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 surv

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:

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

Emma and Gil welcome Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalıoğlu to the show to discuss the impact of language on play, and how to design games that revolve around the building, modification, and demise of a language. SHOW NOTES 2m52s: Here's the Kickstarter for Thorny's new game Xenolanguage. 6m45s: Among Us is a social deduction digital game that, after a quiet two years on the market, suddenly blew up on Twitch and is now extremely popular. US congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines when she played the game live on Twitch with several popular streamers (and fellow representative Ilhan Omar, who turned out to be very good at the game).  9m09s: Myst 9m36s: Here's our episode on the Incan Gold experiment, run by Dr. Stephen Blessing of the University of Tampa. 15m43s: Dialect (Watch a playthrough with Hakan here) 20m33s: The earliest instance that the OED has found of the singular "they" is from 1375. 38m47s: Gil, Geoff, and Scott dug deep into party game design in Ludology 190 - The L

Geoff discusses the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, and its impact in board games and beyond. In this episode, Geoff discusses the games Clue/Cluedo, Mastermind, and Zendo. He also discusses dark matter, WIMPs, and Einstein's theory of relativity.

Emma, Gil, and Scott discuss the idea of complexity in a board game. We explore 6 types of complexity, and discuss their effects on the games we play and design. SHOW NOTES 0m51s: Pete Seeger was an American folk singer, known for songs like "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" 2m04s: Our list of complexities: Spatial complexity Arithmetical complexity Zone complexity Planning complexity Rules/mechanism complexity Component complexity 2m45s: Barenpark, New York Zoo 3m44s: The SAT is a standardized test in the United States that is a major factor in a college's admission of a prospective student. 4m16s: Number 9 4m32s: Bosk 5m31s: Photosynthesis 6m30s: Treasure Island, Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, Specter Ops, Tigris & Euphrates 7m14s: Checking the rules, an Internal Conflict in Tigris & Euphrates happens when a Leader is moved to a Kingdom where there is already a Leader of the same color belonging to another player. 8m00s: Star Wars: X-Wing Min

Scott goes over the history of Which Witch, a game that's been adapted into many other games, including The Real Ghostbusters Game and the Scooby-doo! Haunted House 3D Board Game. If you're interested in learning more about Marvin Glass and Associates, Scott recommends that you read A World Without Reality: Inside Marvin Glass's Toy Vault. We also discussed him in Ludology 212 - Inventing Play with Kim Vandenbrouke.  

Emma and Gil welcome Karen Twelves, whose straddling of the worlds of gaming and improv led her to write the book Improv for Gamers. What can gaming and improv learn from each other? Content warning: this episode contains brief references to non-consensual touching and racism. SHOW NOTES 01m16s: AD&D is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the form of D&D most prominent in the 80s and 90s. 02m43s: A kinesthetic learner is one who learns through physical activity. We discussed kinesthetic learning and games (among other things) with Chidi Paige in Ludology 231 - STEAM Engine. 03m35s: Whose Line Is It Anyway? was a British radio show that became a British television show that became an American television show. In the show, four improvisers run through several short-form improv games. 08m25s: The Harold is a structure used in long-form improv.  09m31s: Del Close was a fundamental figure in the world of improv, creating many techniques and co-writing the book Truth in Comedy. Note that Gil misattributed the n

Geoff compares the design process of the video game Diabolo to… the invention of calculus? Yes, there are surprising similarities, and seeing how the two dovetail leads to a stronger appreciation of both game design and mathematics.

Emma and Gil welcome Sen-Foong Lim back to the show to discuss the differences—and similarities—between board games and roleplaying games. We go through the perspectives of playing them, designing them, and examining the culture of play between both. Sen originally appeared on Ludology 134: There's No "I" in Team with frequent co-designer Jay Cormier. SHOW NOTES 0m41s: Board games Sen has designed or co-designed: Junk Art, Belfort, D&D: Rock Paper Wizard. RPGs Sen has designed, co-designed, or written for: Jiang-Shi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, Kids on Bikes, The Curse of the House of Rookwood, North Sea Epilogues 3m39s: If the comparison between RPG and improv intrigues you, wait till you hear Ludology 237... 4m47s: An example of a crunchy old-school RPG: Traveller 5m10s: Chainmail was the game that D&D evolved from. 5m20s: While Gil agrees with Sen that encumbrance as implemented by a game like D&D tends to bog down gameplay, a nice counter-example is Torchbearer, a dungeon-crawling TTRPG in

In the spirit of Halloween, Scott takes us through the spooky history of the Ouija board: its origins, the legal battles behind the curtain, and how a scientific phenomenon makes it all work.  Bibliography of a Board Game https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-and-mysterious-history-of-the-ouija-board-5860627/ https://www.vox.com/2016/10/29/13301590/how-ouija-boards-work-debunked-ideomotor-effect https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/the-dark-and-fascinating-history-of-the-ouija-board-baltimore-origins https://www.williamfuld.com/ouija_articles_03281886.html http://www.mtv.com/news/2940671/horror-movies-ouija-boards/ https://robertmurch.com/ https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2017/1/haunted-hotel-is-now-home-to-the-worlds-largest-ouija-board-459555

Today, we are continuing our series of exploring the design decisions behind our own games! Emma and Scott sit down with Gil to talk about his game High Rise; about how it started life as an auction game, and the twisty route it took to publication. SHOW NOTES 1m23s - Gil discussed the Wag auction in his Networks design diary on BGG. 2m45s - Gil's game Battle Merchants. 3m31s - A "MacGuffin" is an object in a film that the characters all want, but the actual nature of the object is irrelevant (like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction). All that matters from the perspective of the film is that the characters want it. Looney Labs has since published an actual game with this term, Get the MacGuffin. 4m03s - Gil's game The Networks. 6m24s - Games with auctions as an element in the game: Princes of Florence, Goa 6m54s - Knizia games that are built entirely around their auctions: Ra, Modern Art, Medici, High Society 8m18s - The digital board game Sumer (Gil credited Josh Raab with the game design, but neglected to menti

Having previously discussed relatively new advances in AI that allows computers to beat humans at games like Chess and Go, Geoff moves on to games in which AI will have a much harder time being competitive. What is it about these games that makes it so difficult to make a good automated opponent? 1m00s: Geoff introduced AlphaZero and AlphaGo in GameTek Classic 218.5. 1m34s: Codenames 3m18s: IBM's Watson 4m09s: Mysterium

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 Kan

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-accessory  

Emma 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. 25

Geoff ponders a tricky question: how come we get iconic characters from video games, like Mario or Pac-Man, but none from board games?