Board game design with Joshua Gillingham

About Joshua Gillingham

Joshua Gillingham is an author, game designer, and editor from Vancouver Island, Canada. His fantasy trilogy ‘The Saga of Torin Ten-Trees’ is an adventure inspired by the Norse myths and the Icelandic Sagas. Joshua is also the co-author of ‘Old Norse for Modern Times’ alongside Ian Stuart Sharpe and Dr. Arngrimur Vidalin.

In partnership with Outland Entertainment, Joshua is the founding Worldsmith of the trans-media Outland 'Althingi' World set in Viking Age Iceland, featuring his original card game Althingi: One Will Rise and the groundbreaking anthology Althingi: The Crescent & the Northern Star.

Key takeaways:

• Give learners/ players agency: Learning is an internal process, so figure out how learners can take the information you’re providing, and make it a part of their lives. Learners need flexibility and relevant information so that what they learn can be applied for the long-term. To understand different perspectives within the company, consider conducting small group discussions. Prompts and reflective questions are a great way to give agency.
• The role of ‘randomness’ in games has the advantage of surprise and chance. It frustrates the stronger skilled player, whilst the less-skilled player can see an opening and a chance. In learning design, this could be done through suprise questions. Strategically, make sure you give learners a bounded space, e.g. a physical game, to keep them on task, but provide enough agency so they are engaged.
• Leveraging physical space on game boards: Learning Designers can build a physical space for people to learn from. For game designers, every piece on a board has a cost attached to it, so ask yourself “is this enhancing the experience?”. Be clever with using the most from as little as possible.

Chapters:

• (00:00:00) Introduction.
• (00:02:13) What do we mean by ‘space’ in game design?
• (00:04:39) How Learning Designers can give players first-level agency.
• (00:07:52) The notion of ‘roles’, and why Learning Designers need to consider this more in their strategy.
• (00:09:50) Strategies for building ‘randomness’ in game design.
• (00:13:07) Learning from the rule books of the most popular games.
• (00:16:10) On the space of physical boards.
• (00:20:29) Multiple pathway learning.

Links from the podcast:

• Visit Joshua’s Website
• Connect with Joshua on Twitter
• Listen to the Learning While Working Podcast interview with Warren Kennard
• Check out Magic: The Gathering
• Check out BoardGameGeek