Ludology

Join Scott as he recounts the history of the game that blurred the line between a game and a toy: Mousetrap.  Bibliography of a Board Game for Mouse Trap It’s All a Game by Tristan Donovan A World Without Reality: Inside Marvin Glass’s Toy Vault by Bill Paxton Mental Floss – Mouse Trap Game Facts Chicago Tribune – Toying with Success Best Play – History of Mouse Trap: Murder, Playboys and Plagiarism Google Patents Rube Goldberg.com Smithsonian Mag – Teaching physics with a massive game of mouse trap

Today, we put Emma in the spotlight to find out what went into designing her newest game, Abandon All Artichokes, how many cards she actually designed for it, and how the game was almost derailed by an Infinite Potato Problem. SHOW NOTES 5m44s: Magic: The Gathering and the marvelous deckbuilding video game Slay the Spire. Also check out Ludology 198 - Inspired, featuring Slay the Spire's co-designer Anthony Giovannetti. 6m00s: Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, two video games where the player starts in a remote area with very little in the way of equipment, and ends up building a small town. 7m22s: If you want to check out more deck-wreckers, try Xenon Profiteer (one of Gil's personal favorite games), or Fine Sand. 8m39s: Don't let the bean theme throw you off. Bohnanza is one of the best trading games you'll find. 9m15s: Bonnie Pang did the wonderful art for Artichokes. 9m43s: Sushi Go, by Phil Walker-Harding and also published by Gamewright, is an excellent light drafting game. It was good enough to spawn a family of light, charming drafting games.  Phil has mentioned in passing that Sushi Go took many, many tries to get right. Another example of how hard it is to make a good, light game! 11m16s: Emma mentions some other Gamewright titles that fit a similar mold: Go Nuts for Donuts and Qwixx. 15m22s: Emma casually references Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey here. 26m29s: Seth Jaffee's article on balancing game elements and "finding the unit" is still immensely valuable to game designers everywhere. 31m59s: Cardboard Edison's publisher directory is an invaluable resource to game designers looking for a publisher for their prototypes. 48m44s: The incredibly adorable Abandon All Artichokes trailer  and its accompanying how-to-play video.  49m18s: We'll post a link to the design diary in the Ludology forums as soon as it goes online! 55m16s: Emma's first episode. 56m43s: Dominion, the game that popularized deckbuilding as an in-game mechanism.

Geoff ruminates on the limitations of using AI to balance games. Why can't we use machine learning to fully balance a game experience, and finally make a game that everyone on BGG will find perfectly fair on the first play? SHOW NOTES 1m17s: For more on this subject, check out our two GameTek episodes on AlphaGo : GameTek Classic 218.5 Alpha Zero, and GameTek Classic 222.5 Alpha Zero, Part 2. 2m00s: Geoff's game The Expanse. 5m29s: The fantastic trading game Sidereal Confluence (which will soon have a new edition!) 6m18s: League of Legends has grappled for a long time with how to balance their champions for players of all skill levels. Here's their latest approach on how they're trying to do it.

Emma and Gil sit down with Chris Rowlands of Funko Games to discuss the design of IP-based games, and what it's like to design as part of a group collective. SHOW NOTES 0m00s: Playtest safely online with Gil and Emma! 4m11s: Mox Boarding House is one of the premier board game stores in Seattle. (Here's hoping they can stick around until everything is able to reopen!) 12m21s: The Frosthaven Kickstarter project. 16m45s: Personal plug: Abandon All Artichokes is Emma's newest game. 19m47s: Power Grid is the #36th ranked game on BGG. (Rankings are not absolute, objective measures of quality, of course, but still. It's a big game.) 24m01s: Beth Hawley was responsible for the amazing art in Chris' game Under My Bed. 27m18s: Disney Villainous, in which each player is a Disney villain with unique special powers, is one of their more well-known titles. 29m05s: The party game Yeah Nope. 30m52s: Funkoverse, the tactical minis game using modified Funko figurines. 32m33s: All of "Prospero Hall's" credited games on BGG. 34m04s: The games Horrified and Jaws. 38m17s: Prospero Hall's website.  43m28s: The "tracer" scene from Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy.  (Explicit language warning) 50m31s: Personal plug: Avowel is currently available on Android, and coming to iOS soon! 54m10s: The game Jurassic Park: Danger. 1h02m35s: Paper Girls and Manifest Destiny  1h03m26s: Sea of Thieves  1h03m48s: Infocom's original help guide entry to the horrible and notorious Babel Fish puzzle in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy video game, written by Douglas Adams himself, is an absolute wonder to read. Keep clicking "Next Answer." Favorite quote on step 19 of the hint: "At this point, brave men have been known to break down and cry."  1h05m11s: Building the Game, a podcast on game design. 1h06m34s: Some articles about wrestling's current audience-less format.  1h12m04s: Our episode on ludonarrative dissonance was Ludology 192 - Diabolus in Ludica. 1h14m04s: Back to the Future: Back in Time and Last Defense!

Scott goes into the checkered history of The Game of Life, which has had many inspirations and incarnations, and is still going strong.  (Content warning: this episode contains quick, passing references to sex and suicide.) 0m00s: Join Gil's and Emma's remote playtesting groups! 1m44s: A Little Pretty Pocket Book. Fun fact: this book contains the first appearance of the term "base-ball," although that term at the time was an alternative regional name for the sport now known as Rounders. 2m37s: The New Game of Human Life. Here's the original French game that inspired it, which BGG has under the name La Vie Humaine un Nouveau Jeu. 3m19s: More information about the teetotum, which was often used to avoid the impression of gambling.  5m48s: The Reward of Merit, The Mirror of Truth: Exhibiting a variety of Biographical Anecdotes and Moral Essays calculated to Inspire a Love of Virtue and Abhorrence of Vice, and The Mansion of Happiness. 7m45s: The Checkered Game of Life. 9m17s: The Game of the Telegraph Boy, Game of To the North Pole By Airship, and The Game of Playing Department Store. 9m32s: More information about toy and game designer Reuben Klamer.  10m48s: The famous blue and pink pegs are, of course, the inspiration for the name of the excellent board game podcast Blue Peg, Pink Peg. 11m44s: Here's a page with a photo of the 1960 edition of The Game of Life. 12m28s: More information about the resolution of the lawsuit between Klamer and Markham.  13m32s: The Game of Life: Twists and Turns  14m08s: The Game of Life Express  16m33s: This would also be a good time to mention some modern board games that handle the same subject matter, and were no doubt somehow inspired by The Game of Life. The Pursuit of Happiness, Funny Friends, CV, and My Story.

Emma and Gil welcome Anya Combs and Luke Crane from Kickstarter to discuss how crowdfunding is changing, especially in light of recent events. Anya: anya@kickstarter.com, games@kickstarter.com, @anyayna Luke: @burning_luke, burningwheel.com Note that this episode was recorded on March 25, 2020, so if we talk about things happening "a few weeks ago," we're referring to late February/early March. This wouldn't normally be an important detail, but things are changing a lot quickly these days. SHOW NOTES 0m00s: Playtest safely online with Gil and Emma! 1m28s: For those who have never heard it, the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" set a template for punk rock's sound well before its time. (Explicit language warning)  3m52s: More info about the Burning Wheel roleplaying system.  8m32s: The original Alien Frontiers and Cards Against Humanity  projects. Both were modest successes. Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns, and Shenmue were much larger successes. 9m48s: The original Kingdom Death: Monster was a wild success, but the second edition was one of the largest Kickstarter Games campaigns ever run. 9m56s: We recorded this episode before Frosthaven launched. As of the time of this episode's release, it has raised over $7 million USD. 10m31s: Gil's Kickstarter projects are all visible here.  12m39s: The Dispel Dice Kickstarter project. 17m23s: The F*** Yeah Dice Kickstarter project (Explicit language warning, of course). 16m56s: Itten made the unique game Stonehenge and the Sun. Oink and Bouken don't have any Kickstarter projects, but their games are worth your attention for their distinctive look and style. Luke also brings up Bouken's game Diet & Friends. 17m17s: W.M. Akers has a series of baseball simulators called Deadball. 18m23s: You can find Emma's weekly news show on Twitch every Friday at 2 pm Pacific. 20m00s: Here's the Fantastic Factories Kickstarter project. Here's the Kickstarter for Coloma, designed by Jonny Pac, who was on Ludology 221: The Pac Less Traveled.  20m36s: Here's the Gladius Kickstarter project.  21m51s: More info about the Skylanders video game, which discontinued support in 2017.  24m42s: Here's the Multiverse Kickstarter project. (Incidentally, if you're interested in a platform similar to Multiverse, check out Roll20). 27m34s: More info about the Jackbox party games.  28m20s: The Spaceteam Kickstarter project (Note that this is for the original video game, not the card game inspired by it). 30m10s: More info about Twine. We go more into detail about this platform in Ludology 217: What IF?  30m43s: More info about AVOWEL, the mobile version of Wordsy.  31m05s: The latest Chronicles of Crime Kickstarter.  32m46s: Commands & Colors by Richard Borg is a family of outstanding light wargames that includes BattleLore and Memoir '44.  34m33s: More information about Kickstarter's Make100 and ZineQuest initiatives. 43m16s: More information about the newest God of War game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_War_(2018_video_game). 43m36s: Animal Crossing! Hoo hoo! That's a link to more info about New Horizons, the newest game in the series. There's a lot of interesting discussion going on about the game and how timely it is, how its soothing imagery is perfect for the current times, and how it offers an escapist fantasy (literally escaping to a desert island) to people who are stuck at home. 47m13s: Ankh, the newest CMON game, is at over $1 million USD from about 14,000 backers at the time of this episode release. Tapeworm has not yet launched at the time of this episode release. 46m45s: Pax Pamir's most recent Kickstarter. It's from Cole Wehrle (and his brother Drew), whom you heard two weeks ago on Ludology 222: Johnny Fairplay. 47m06s: The Sea of Stars Kickstarter project, and the Swords 'n Magic and Stuff project. 52m34s: Anya performs in the Hungry March Band, the Funkrust Brass Band, and the Brooklyn Wind Symphony. 55m26s: Of course, Team Ludology does not subscribe to Luke's spicy hot take here, and we're pretty sure Rob Daviau has played D&D more than once. :) Rob was guest on Ludology 70: Risky Business. If you want to hear him GM, check out the actual play podcast Story Roost and its first story arc, The Unmarked. (Explicit language warning) 59m17s: DRUGGIES AND BULLIES BEWARE BULLYPROOF Kickstarter project. 1h00m30s: OLDIE BINGO Kickstarter project.

Geoff continues the discussion about Alpha Zero, this time pointing out the impact a self-learning AI can have on an established tournament meta, like Magic or Hearthstone. Show Notes: 0m47s: More info about Agent57, the DeepMind AI that can beat humans at 57 different Atari 2600 games.  1m52s: The Ares Project, Geoff's first published board game (designed with his son Brian) 2m15s: More info about the Halifax Hammer strategy from A Few Acres of Snow.  2m29s: The current list of banned cards in Magic: The Gathering.  And, the current list of changed Hearthstone cards. 

Emma and Gil welcome accomplished designer Cole Wehrle, designer of Root, Oath, and Pax Pamir (Second Edition), back to the show (Cole previously appeared on Ludology 163 - A Pain in the Asymmetry). We discuss fairness in games. Has it been around for as long as we think it has? What can an "unfair" game do that other games can't? Cole is a staff designer at Leder Games, and co-founded  Wehrlegig Games with his brother Drew. SHOW NOTES 2m18s: You can watch Cole's GDC talk here. 12m02s: Learn more about Twilight Imperium (this is the most recent version, but there were previous versions with slightly different rulesets) 13m52s: Learn more about Memoir '44. 14m25s: Learn more about Scythe. 16m04s: Learn more about Blood Rage and Sushi Go! 19m30s: Gil remembers a bunch of Viking games in the mid-aughts. One of the biggest was Michael Kiesling's Vikings, whose gameplay, while clever, did little to evoke actual Vikings. 22m41s: The book Strike Four was recommended to me by Dennis Goodman, who is himself a baseball historian and rules expert, and has written a streamlined rulebook for the sport. 24m16s: The book Cole refers to is The Games Ethic and Imperialism (Sport in the Global Society) by J. A. Mangan. 25m14s: I'm referring to the book The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer/Football, by David Goldblatt. The exact title depends on if you buy the US or UK version; this link is to the US version. 27m07s: Cole refers to the book Making England Western, by Saree Makdisi. 27m33s: Thomas Arnold was headmaster of Rugby School from 1828, and was influential in reforming the British public school system. Tom Brown's School Days was written by Thomas Hughes and published in 1857, and popularized British public schools as a literary setting.  28m11s: If you're curious, here is the official 2019 NFL rulebook. If your eyes aren't crossed yet, here is the official 2019 MLB rulebook (though note Dennis Goodman's streamlined take on the rules of baseball, mentioned above). And to finish you off, here is the official ICC web page on all the Playing Conditions of every form of cricket (although to be fair, they have to handle all three major forms of the game - imagine if the NFL rulebook had to account for Canadian and Arena Football as well!) Side note: I also checked out the official Laws of World Rugby Union, and I was stunned to see how clearly-written they were! They are made to be read by a layperson, not a lawyer, and come with many video examples of rule violations. 30m42s: This is a good time to remind you to check out Scott Rogers' Biography of a Board Game last week for The Game of the Goose. It's not technically a Victorian board game - no one knows how old it is - but it's the template for many Victorian parlor games. (I wish we could say we planned these episodes to run consecutively, but it was just a happy coincidence!) 32m08s: We're discussing The Landlord's Game, by Elizabeth Magie  (interestingly, Hasbro still does not officially acknowledge Magie's role in the creation of Monopoly, perhaps for legal reasons) 32m56s: More like 150-175 years old, really. Most sports rules began getting formally codified in the mid-19th century (though cricket had already started getting codified in the 18th century). 33m14s: The Eton Wall Game is still played today. And yes, there's video of it! Note that Eton has a second code of football, the Eton Field Game, which is closer to soccer, but still contains many elements found in rugby. There's a video of the Eton Field Game  here. 36m34s: Cole is referring to Bernie De Koven and his book The Well-Played Game. He also refers to the games Acquire and Caylus. 37m23s: To Emma's point, Prussian college professor Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig invented the first wargame in 1780, but it was Kriegsspiel, designed by Prussian nobleman George Leopold von Reisswitz in 1812 and refined by his soldier son Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz in 1824, that introduced realism and verisimilitude into the form. Note that these wargames were designed more for military training than recreation. 37m43s: H.G. Wells, who wrote many seminal science-fiction novels like The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds, was also a game designer. In his books Floor Games and Little Wars, he establishes rules for the first recreational wargames. (Also, the idea of games solving world problems is still alive, most notably by Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken.) 38m53s: Alexander Pope's classic (albeit somewhat overly-dramatically-named) poem The Rape of the Lock. Read it here. 39m58s: Roger Caillois' Man, Play and Games, written in 1961, probably deserves its own episode. 42m00s: Hare and Tortoise is, of course, the first Spiel des Jahres winner. (On a related note, Scott's Biography of a Board Game about Eurogames is a really good listen on this subject.) Cole then mentions Die Macher and Catan. 46m20s: I did not come up with this "roll a die at the end of a game of Chess to see who wins" thought experiment, but I can't remember where I read it! Maybe Characteristics of Games? 47m29s: Relevant quote from Mike Selinker from Ludology 189 - Missing Selinker: "Frustration is a valuable, positive thing up to a point. You’ve just got to know where the table flip is." 48m08s: Cole is kind enough to mention Gil's forthcoming game High Rise after playing it at GDC 2019. Cole gave his talk on defending kingmaking; Gil gave his talk on how indirect interaction in games can be good. 52m21s: More info about Descent, Dark Venture, and Tomb. 59m30s: More info about Byzantine themes. 1h04m44s: More info about Liberté. 1h06m36s: More info about The History of Rome podcast. 1h08m58s: The political compass of Root, as suggested by Reddit user u/orionsbelt05.

In today's Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the long history of The Game of the Goose, which became a template for almost every roll-and-move game into Victorian times and beyond. Show notes: 1m49s: The ancient Egyptian game of Mehen  2m04s: History of the labyrinth 2m24s: The Discus of Phaistos, also known as the Phaistos Disc  2m50s: Games mentioned The Mansion of Happiness  The Checkered Game of Life 3m33s: Bibliothèque curieuse et instructive de divers ouvrages anciens et modernes, a book by Claude-François Ménestrier, is available to read online in French. 4m33s: Works mentioned: La belle Hélène, an opera by Jacques Offenbach  The Will of an Eccentric, a novel by Jules Verne   5m07s: Works mentioned: Le Pont du Nord, a film by Jacques Rivette  Il grande gioco dell'oca, an Italian game show based on the game (Wikipedia page in Italian) 

Emma and Gil welcome Jonny Pac, designer of Coloma and other games set in the Gold Rush West. Our main topic of discussion is multiple paths to victory: what it brings to a game, what kinds of games need it, what kinds of games don't, and how to avoid the dreaded "point salad" effect. Jonny's published games: Hangtown Coloma A Fistful of Meeples Sierra West Lions of Lydia (on Kickstarter as of the release of this episode!) Merchant's Cove Show notes: 06m28s: Jonny likens Scythe to a race game. Check out Chapter 2 of Characteristics of Games (George Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield, K. Robert Gutschera) for more information about the distinction between a "race" and a "brawl." 07m35s: Games mentioned: Lords of Waterdeep Caylus Caylus 1303 08m32s: Games mentioned: Catan 09m48s: Games mentioned: 7 Wonders Duel 12m56s: Ah, the "Victory Points Suck" argument! Here is the original talk, and here is the rebuttal blog post that Gil wrote. (Scott Westerfeld is actually a really cool person; he was just being a bit hyperbolic.) 13m32s: Games mentioned: Get Bit Red Dragon Inn 15m02s: Games mentioned: Agricola 18m06s: Games mentioned: Azul El Grande 6 Nimmt! 22m27s: Games mentioned: Point Salad 32m01s: Games mentioned: Century: Spice Road 34m09s: Games mentioned: Dominion 35m58s: Games mentioned: Tzolk'in Terra Mystica 42m12s: Games mentioned: Carcassonne 46m47s: Games mentioned: Ticket to Ride Amazonas 49m28s: Zero-level heuristics - the strategies and tactics players embrace when first learning the game. Go back to Characteristics of Games, Chapter 4, for an excellent introduction to this topic. 51m11s: Games mentioned: Stone Age 53m14s: Games mentioned: Concordia 56m38s: Tragedy of the Commons is a well-known game theory problem that pits collective good versus self-interest.  1h01m55s: Games mentioned: Santa Maria Raja of the Ganges Castles of Burgundy 1h04m58s: For those who may not know, ASCAP and BMI are the two largest music performance rights organizations in America. They monitor radio play and live performances, and make sure that every time a song is played publicly, its rightsholder gets paid. 1h06m27s: Eat Poop You Cat is the activity that Telestrations was based on. 1h09m42s: More info on Placerville, CA.  1h13m42s: Games mentioned: Five Tribes Trajan Istanbul Spacewalk 1h14m34s: Jonny is referring to Ludology 176 - Taxonomy Driver.