Ludology

Emma, Gil, and Scott have a roundtable discussion in which they discuss the three sales channels, or markets, your board game can be available in: hobby, specialty, and mass. What are the differences between them, and how can a game move from one to another? SHOW NOTES 0m48s: Erica and Sen are joining the show! You can watch them in the Meeple Syrup Show. Some of Sen's games: Junk Art, Akotiri, and Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall. Some of Erica's games: Bosk, Roar: King of the Pride, Kodama 3D, Scott Pilgrim Miniatures The World, Steven Universe: Beach-A-Palooza, and the forthcoming Rat Queens. Here's Sen's appearance on Ludology 236 - Role With It. 2m11s: The hobby "classics": Catan, Carcassonne. The new hotness as of this recording: Bonfire, Carnegie (which is so hot, it's not even out yet...).  2m55s: More info about PSI, the sales agent Gil (and many other publishers) use to sell their games to publishers. 4m11s: Yep. 4m36s: Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, Codenames 11m15s: Phoenix Games and Mox Boarding House in Seattle. Emma also mentions Century: Spice Road, Exploding Kittens, Just One, and her game Abandon All Artichokes. 16m49s: Gloomhaven: JOTL, Pan Am 17m46s: Yes, Gil's told this anecdote before. He's talking about Avowel, the mobile version of his game Wordsy. 27m00s: Wingspan was written up in both the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine, among others. 33m17s: We had Kim Vandenbrouke on in Ludology 212 - Inventing Play. 40m03s: Yes, Gil made the same point in the last episode. Still relevant! 41m37s: Not sure why Gil brought up Root but completely forgot about Fort, from the same publisher! It's a better example. 44m24s: The idea of affordances and signifiers from a design standpoint was popularized by Donald Norman in his book The Design of Everyday Things. This subject came up when we chatted with game designer and graphic designer Daniel Solis in Ludology 204 - The Eyes Have It. 45m11s: Kingdom Builder 47m39s: Seven Wonders 50m01s: The story of Lizzie Magie, Charles Darrow, and the way The Landlord's Game eventually became Monopoly is worth knowing about. You can read about it here. 55m51s: Verrater and Muerter.  59m12s: Emma and Gil gushed about their Quivers a bit more than they expected to!  1h01m27s: Red Raven made their game Megaland exclusive to Target when it was released in 2018. The Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game also had components exclusive to Target. 1h04m23s: Scott is referring to the mechanism in each game in the Betrayal family of games, in which the game assigns one player to turn against the other players in one of dozens of wildly different scenarios. 1h08m31s: We discussed complexity in Ludology 238 - Unraveling Complexity. 1h11m33s: Gil likes to occasionally return to this lukewarm review of Catan from 1998, complaining about game length, runaway leader, and balance issues. The more things change... 1h12m13s: Here's Emma's talk for the Tabletop Mentorship Program about playtesting! 1h13m48s: More info about the AEG Pitch Project. Also, more info about Scott's forthcoming game Alien: Fate of the Nostromo.

Geoff looks at a recent study that attempted to find a correlation between participants' actions in a game and how they would score in a survey of leadership skills. How can a game tell us whether a person is more or less likely to prefer to lead a group?

Emma and Gil welcome Emerson Matsuuchi back to the show to discuss his experience designing the Century game series, and what it's like designing 3 "mixable" games. SHOW NOTES 0m37s: We last heard Emerson as a guest on Ludology 106 - Hide and Seek. 1m01s: In addition to the Century series, Emerson has designed Reef and Foundations of Rome. 1m45s: When there's no pandemic raging around the world, Gil runs a playtest group in New York City. Emma and Emerson were both members before they moved away.  4m31s: Ah, the classic sitcom misunderstanding.  8m12s: A list of cards currently banned in Magic: The Gathering tournament play. 11m17s: Bruges 13m03s: Dominion: Second Edition 14m11s: You can watch Emma appear on Table Takes on Gen Con's Twitch channel. 26m56s: The Betrayal family of games. 29m14s: An API (application programming interface) is a software interface that allows programmers to allow various computer programs and other devices to talk to each other.  31m27s: In writing, "pantsing" means writing by the seat of your pants - in other words, not "plotting," or planning out your story in advance. 40m58s: Wingspan 46m24s: More information about Jones Theory, which suggests that gamers can optimize their collection by only collecting the "best" game of each genre or type. 47m40s: ZineQuest, a Kickstarter initiative for creators to launch small RPGs in zines, ran for the month of February. We discussed it with Jeeyon Shim in Ludology 244 - Games Brought to Life. 48m32s: Source code control, or version control, is a way for computer programmers to store all iterations of their code, so they can easily switch between older and newer versions of their programs, and integrate revisions to code with other people on their team. As Emma mentions, some code-savvy board game designers use version control systems like Git to track different versions of their games. 49m47s: We mention legendary board game designers Reiner Knizia and Uwe Rosenberg, and their games Medici, Medici: The Card Game, Caverna, Agricola 52m39s: Emerson mentions Runewars, Star Wars: Legion, Wings of War, and Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. For a detailed history of these games, check out Biography of a Board Game 210.5 - Wings of War. 56m26s: Tom Lehman is dividing his expansions for Race for the Galaxy into several different arcs, which are not meant to be mixed. 57m54s: Eric Lang's tweet that Emerson mentions. 1h00m48s: Emerson's website, Twitter, and Facebook.

Scott delves into the history of the first big board game success on Kickstarter: Tory Niemann's Alien Frontiers. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME TEXT: https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/features/11916-How-One-Project-Shaped-Gaming-s-Use-of-Crowdfunding https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/5209/interview-tory-niemann http://dicehateme.com/2010/08/alien-frontiers-a-new-world-for-game-publishing/ https://blog.tabletopia.com/tory-niemann-dont-underestimate-the-glossy-vibrant-dice/ https://thegaminggang.com/thoughts-on-gaming/the-final-frontier-10-questions-with-tory-niemann-designer-of-alien-frontiers/ AUDIO: https://therewillbe.games/podcasts/8102-planet-of-dice

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.

Geoff considers a classic problem: how do two parties in two different locations agree on a random number result, like a die roll? We cover the clever solution wargamers worked out, as well as an ultra-modern approach.

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?

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, 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.