Ludology

Erica and Sen talk with Spenser Starke about his game, Alice is Missing, and it's jump to the big screen. They discuss how to design cinematic narrative structure into tabletop games, calibration tools, and more! Timestamp Note Link 00:01:05 Alice Is Missing https://www.huntersentertainment.com/alice-is-missing 00:01:17 Kids on Broom https://renegadegamestudios.com/kids-on-brooms/ 00:01:20 Icarus https://renegadegamestudios.com/icarus-a-storytelling-game-about-how-great-civilizations-fall/ 00:02:51 Dread https://dreadthegame.wordpress.com/about-dread-the-game/ 00:02:53 The Quiet Year  https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year 00:06:47 Life Is Strange https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/319630/ 00:06:49 Oxenfree https://store.steampowered.com/app/388880/Oxenfree/ 00:06:50 Firewatch https://store.steampowered.com/app/383870/Firewatch/ 00:08:25 Vox article https://www.vox.com/culture/21656220/alice-is-missing-rpg-text-message 00:10:19 Hollywood Reporter article https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alice-is-missing-movie-1235173092/ 00:11:10 Papergirls Cancelled https://deadline.com/2022/09/paper-girls-canceled-prime-video-one-season-shopped-season-2legendary-television-1235113183/ 00:20:14 RPG Safety Toolkit https://t.co/gA6hV6VKqm 00:28:39 Chapman Film School https://www.chapman.edu/dodge/index.aspx 00:30:14 Three Act Structure https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/three-act-structure-in-screenwriting 00:35:51 Joseph Campell’s Hero's Journey https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/the-heros-journey 00:35:59 Dan Harmon’s Story Circle https://www.arcstudiopro.com/blog/dan-harmons-story-circle-screenplay 00:36:15 Save The Cat https://savethecat.com/ 00:36:44 Hamlet’s Hit Points https://gameplaywright.net/books/hamlets-hit-points/ 00:40:25 L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-about-a-train-really-cause-audiences-to-stampede 00:50:59 Ten Candles https://cavalrygames.com/ten-candles 00:53:09 Battleship https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/battleship 00:53:10 Clue rottentomatoes.com/m/clue 00:54:16 Image Comics https://imagecomics.com/ 00:56:01 Blades in the Dark TV Show Announced https://www.polygon.com/22652023/blades-in-the-dark-tv-show-announced 00:59:24 Game Night https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/game_night_2018 00:59:43 Dune Imperium https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/316554/dune-imperium 01:02:30 Cash Cab https://www.bravotv.com/cash-cab 01:03:30 Powered By The Apocalypse is the best way to get started with tabletop roleplaying games https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22787981/powered-by-the-apocalypse-tabletop-rpg-explainer 01:04:26 Wingspan https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan 01:04:30 Succulent https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/299372/succulent 01:04:33 Stardew Valley  https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/332290/stardew-valley-board-game 01:04:59 Scythe https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169786/scythe 01:05:18 Tales From The Loop https://www.loop-rpg.com/ 01:06:34 Cameron Cuffe https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1949036/ 01:06:50 Rupert Grint https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0342488/

Geoff takes us through the history of the color blue, namely how difficult it is to make as a dye, and considers if we should value it above all other player colors.

Erica, Gil, and Sen discuss some of the tools and processes they use at the various phases of designing a game from their varying perspectives of an in-house designer, a publisher, and freelance designer/developer.  SHOW NOTES: 00:08:31 DDS is an acronym for Detailed Design Specification 00:11:38 LucidChart browser-based flowcharting and more www.lucidchart.com 00:18:43 Canva free online graphic design tool www.canva.com 00:19:13 Tabletop Simulator is a virtual tabletop (VTT) run on Steam www.tabletopsimulator.com  00:19:14 Tabletopia is a browser-based VTT www.tabletopia.com 00:21:26 Also known as an MVP - a “Minimum Viable Prototype” 00:21:45 Filemaker Pro is a relational database www.claris.com  00:21:57 Nandeck is cardmaking software www.nandeck.com  00:22:05 Component Studio is a full game design suite that is hooked up to the Game Crafter https://component.studio/ 00:26:06 Adobe Creative Suite is the industry standard for the industry in terms of graphic design www.adobe.com  00:27:54 Photopea is an online Photoshop equivalent for raster images www.photopea.com 00:28:29 GIMP is an open source Photoshop equivalent www.gimp.org 00:29:15 Inkscape is a free equivalent of Illustrator for vector images www.inkscape.org 00:29:57 The Affinity Suite is a one-time payment suite of graphic design and illustrative tools https://affinity.serif.com 00:36:46 Fiskars Rotary Cutter is Sen’s weapon of choice www.fiskars.com/en-us/crafting-and-sewing/products/rotary-cutters-mats-and-rulers  00:37:13 Arc punches, square punches and corner punches, oh my! This is an example of a 1” arch punch: www.amazon.ca/General-Tools-Instruments-1271M-1-Inch/dp/B00004T7WH 00:41:36 Midjourney and Dall-e are prompt-based AI Art generators www.midjourney.com / https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/ 00:44:58 Some great sources for icons etc. www.flaticon.com https://thenounproject.com https://game-icons.net 00:45:32 Face generating software ThisPersonDoesNotExist https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ 00:48:46 Functional Fixedness is the psychological phenomena when a person cannot see any other use for an item because their initial understanding of how it’s used is the only way they think it can be used 00:49:10 Sunk Cost Fallacy occurs when a person will not make a change, even one that is likely to be highly beneficial, due to the perceived amount of time, money, effort, etc.they have already invested in the current strategy 00:55:58 You can record your screen right from Windows https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/record-the-screen-d70508e8-25a3-4b97-b78a-a467b5372e21 and MacOS https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT208721

In this classic Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the history of the game Cluedo, better known to Americans as Clue.

Erica and Sen chat with game designer Mondo Davis about how to market yourself in the game industry.

Continuing the previous GameTek Classic, Geoff returns to the subject of AI in first-person shooters. Last time, we learned that researchers had engineered an FPS AI that could beat the best humans. This time, Geoff dives into the different strategies the AI tried, how it shifted over time to prefer distinct strategies, and what we can learn from this.

Gil and Sen meet up with James Hudson of Druid City Games to discuss the pleasure of games that are big, sprawling productions.

Scott takes us through the history of Kill Dr. Lucky, a game where, instead of trying to deduce the murder of a wealthy old man, you're trying to actually do the deed.

Erica and Sen talk with Dr. Tanya Pobuda about her groundbreaking research of representation in board games, the purpose of journalism, and her work in academia. SHOW NOTES 2m01s: Emma and Gil chatted with Dr. Mary Flanagan on Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo. 7m37s: Two seminal works in the theory behind fun and play are Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens and Roger Caillois' Man, Play, and Games. 27m05s: Analog Game Studies provides an academic, analytic look at non-digital games. 39m12s: Leonard Anetta's research paper The "I's" Have It: A Framework for Serious Educational Game Design. 43m34s: Elizabeth Sampat's book Empathy Engines: Design Games that are Personal, Political, and Profound.

In GameTek Classic 275.5 - MENACE, Geoff discussed a simple machine that anyone can build that can learn how to play tic-tac-toe competitively. Here, Geoff continues the conversation, this time with modern researchers using a neural network to teach a machine to play a first-person shooter video game, and the tweak they needed to make to see their AI become competitive with human players.