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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. 1h30m00s: Jeeyon's Twitter and Patreon.

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?

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 13m52s: Coup, Werewolf/Mafia 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

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 Miniatures Game. Check out Scott's Biography of a Board Game on the Flight Path family of games, including X-Wing and Wings of War. 8m25s: The Warhammer family of games is absolutely massive. The flagship game, Warhammer 40,000, is in its 9th edition.  10m18s: The Funkoverse Strategy Game. We chatted with Chris Rowlands, one of its designers, in Ludology 224: Putting the Fun in Funko. 11m01s: Heroclix, Heroscape 13m23s: Set 15m17s: Power Grid, Russian Railroads, and Gil's own The Networks 16m26s: The term "Goumbaud's Law" was coined by Jesse Schell in his book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. 21m12s: Sticheln (the pronunciation of which Gil has completely butchered) was recently re-released by Capstone Games as Stick 'Em. Smartphone Inc. 22m46s: Sushi Go, Disney: The Haunted Mansion – Call of the Spirits Game 25m38s: Search for Planet X, Zendo (Kory Heath's design diary for Zendo remains a fantastic look at how hard it is to design a seemingly simple game.) 26m40s: Mastermind 28m12s: Here's a description of the XYZ Wing solve technique for Sudoku. 28m33s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg21M2zwG9Q (explicit language warning) 28m59s: Hey, That's My Fish, graph theory, and the Traveling Salesman problem. 29m33s: Scott first proposed the 6 Zones of Play in Ludology 209 - The 6 Zones of Play. 32m28s: Formula D 33m27s: Seafall, the Betrayal family of games. 41m21s: Ra 43m53s: A Feast for Odin 44m22s: A Few Acres of Snow 46m45s: Nielsen Media Research is best known for its Nielsen TV ratings, that offer the TV industry in the United States metrics into the number of viewers a TV show enjoys. 48m06s: Advanced Squad Leader, The Campaign for North Africa 50m13s: We discussed the futility of 1:1 models with Volko Ruhnke in Ludology 178 - COIN Operated. Gil also brings up the "Map-territory relation" problem. 50m29s: Food Chain Magnate, Feudum, Cloudspire, Kanban 54m48s: Two designers who work in complex games: Vital Lacerda and Dávid Turczi. You can hear our chat with Dávid about complex games in Ludology 234 - Playing with Time. 55m34s: Brass: Lancashire 57m27s: Fresco 1h00m20s: Gil discussed his doomed auction mechanism most recently in Ludology 235 - Rise to the Challenge. 1h01m45s: Samurai, Steel Driver, For Sale. Here's Samurai's scoring system: If one player has the most figures of 2 or 3 of the types of figures, they win. If no one has won in the previous step, only players who have the most of a single type of figure can win. All other players are eliminated. The remaining players set aside the figures they have of which they have the most of a certain type. The player with the most remaining figures wins. In case of a tie, the tied players re-collect all their figures and count their total number of figures. Highest total wins, all remaining ties are shared. 1h02m30s: Nomic, Fluxx 1h09m23s: Descent: Journeys in the Dark 1h10m45s: Geoff and Gil discussed "tight coupling" in Ludology 172 - Odd Coupling. 1h12m04s: Carcassonne (the type Gil was thinking of is Monk) 1h13m25s: The Betrayal family of games (again) 1h14m46s: GameTrayz 1h16m20s: Mike Selinker uttered this now-legendary quote in Ludology 189 - The Missing Selinker. 1h17m47s: Gil's announcements: BGG@Home, Weird Stories pregen settings, High Rise pre-orders opening soon, Rival Networks 1h20m02s: Battling Tops, and the legendary BGG Battling Tops tournament. 1h20m22s: Tabletopia 1h20m44s: Emma, Gil, and Scott recorded Ludology 215 - Table Topics live at BGG.CON 2019. 1h21m06s: Scott's announcements: Treats, Xeno Command, Comic Book Crisis, The Pitch Project. 1h24m06s: Emma's announcements: Game Maker's Guild panel, Dutch and Hungarian versions of Abandon All Artichokes. 1h25m26s: Our contact info: Emma (Twitter, Instagram, Web), Gil (Twitter, Facebook, Web), Scott (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook)

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 name of the Harold to Close. While Close helped develop and publicize the technique, improv actor and musician Bill Mathleu is credited with naming it. 12m33s: Kingmaker is an Adventure Path for the RPG Pathfinder. 12m48s: Most recently, we discussed failure in games with Sen-Foong Lim in our previous episode, Ludology 236 - Roll With It. 15m32s: LEEROY JENKINS (note explicit language in link) 31m00s: The story RPG Fiasco. We had designer Jason Morningstar on Ludology 161 - What's the Story, Morning Glory? 40m55s: The board games Karen mentions are Splendor, Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, and Pandemic. 50m58s: Alex Roberts, designer of Star Crossed and For the Queen. 52m50s: The TV show Taskmaster. Wouldn’t Alex Horne be a great Ludology guest? 58m30s: “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful/Everyone dies twisted inside and that is beautiful” 1h01m03s: Burning Wheel, Pathfinder, Fiasco, Monsterhearts 1h02m22s: Archipelago 1h12m03s: Then She Fell, Sleep No More 1h12m57s: Gil is referring to Ludology 214 - Escape From Reality, with Hayley E.R. Cooper and Cameron Cooper. 1h13m32s: Palace Games in San Francisco. Their in-person experience is temporarily closed for the pandemic, but like many escape rooms, they are currently running virtual games. 1h15m11s: Here's Karen's current ongoing Thing & Thing Twitter thread. 1h18m18s: Karen’s Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. Here are her websites: improvforgamers.com, karentwelves.com, and dtwelves.com.

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.

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 mention co-designers Geoffrey Suthers, Misha Favorov, and Sig Gunnarsson). 8m51s - The legendary video game M.U.L.E. - not a commercial success, but since regarded as seminal and influential. For a while, "M.U.L.E. as a board game" was a game designer's grail, but that's since been handled by board games Wealth of Nations, Planet Steam, and of course, M.U.L.E. The Board Game. 14m41s - Gil is talking about Roger Caillois, and his book Man, Play, and Games. Play is usually associated with having no real-world implications, but Caillois knew to draw in gambling as a counter-example. 19m04s - High Rise's look would not have nearly been so amazing without the graphic design of Heiko Günther and the illustrations of Kwanchai Moriya. 20m36s - Rocco is also designer of the game Ninja Dice. 23m04s - You can follow the High Rise Kickstarter here; it goes live on October 6. 24m54s - Bryn Smith runs Doomsday Robots, a board game publishing company. 27m02s - Expancity, Manhattan. The Manhattan kaiju "expansion" Gil was thinking of turned out to be a variant designed by Brian Bankler and Eric Moore. 27m56s - The amazing Daniel Newman, who is quite an excellent game designer himself (he made Dead Man's Cabal), and who is designing the High Rise plastic buildings. 28m11s - Not to mention, Elastoplast is a brand of bandages. 28m59s - The High Rise design diary. 30m28s - Gil's online playtest group, Remote Playtesting. 32m24s - Two rondel games, both by Mac Gerdts: Navegador, and Imperial. 33m57s - Time track games similar to High Rise: Tokaido, Glen More, Francis Drake, and Kraftwagen. 34m28s - Ryan Courtney, designer of Pipeline 36m29s - Eric Lang's tweet about turn angst. You can hear more directly from Eric in Ludology 175 - Auld Lang Design. 38m33s - Food Chain Magnate. 45m33s - Geoff and Gil discussed ludonarrative dissonance in Ludology 190 - Diabolus in Ludica. A positive example of ludonarrative dissonance: Unspeakable Words. 46m55s - Cloudspire. 50m28s - Emma is referring to Ludology 209 - The 6 Zones of Play. 51m51s - Bohnanza 51m58s - Here's an example of Magic Card flicking. It's even worse when the cards are sleeved. 55m36s - Uno, The Mystery Rummy series of games. 59m33s - The Sears Tower in Chicago is now called the Willis Tower. 1h02m57s - The preview page for the High Rise Kickstarter campaign.

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. 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.