Geoff tells us about MENACE; not Phantom or Dennis, but the Matchbox Educable Noughts and Crosses Engine , which Donald Michie designed in 1961 as a relatively simple AI that would allow anyone to see how a machine could be trained to get better at a task.
Erica and Gil chat with returning guest Banana Chan and our own Sen-Foong Lim about designing their game Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall. What's it like making a game about a specific demographic, and who is this game for? SHOW NOTES 0m54s: Banana was last on the show in Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play . 4m56s: More information about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. 18m31s: James Mendez Hodes discussed cultural consultation with us in Ludology 247 - Orc-kay Computer . 31m25s: Jason Mornin...
Scott takes us through the history of the classic word game Scrabble.
Gil and Sen chat with game designer, developer, and polyhedral dice addict Sydney Engelstein of Indie Game Studios about how to pitch your game to a publisher, the process of designing and developing Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition , coming up with new narrative for Aeon's End , and what kinds of theater would best be adapted into a board game. SHOW NOTES 8m28s: Obsession 19m07s: Race for the Galaxy 56m16s: Noises Off! 57m44s: Sen is making a reference to the game Thanos Rising: Avengers Infi...
Geoff chats with Mikael Le Bourhis of Asmodee Research and Game In Lab about the work they are doing studying the impact of tabletop gaming on society and life. You can find out more information from Game In Lab here .
Erica and Sen chat with localization expert, "gaming handyman," and occasional street busker Matthew Legault of Scorpion Masqué to discuss what it takes to move a game from one language to another. SHOW NOTES 25m03s - Here's the bonus episode we did about the production and translation of Agricola. Scott Rogers also did a Biography of a Board Game about it . 30m36s - Guy LaFleur was a legendary ice hockey player who won 5 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. 49m57s - Strike , Team Team , St...
In this classic Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the sweet history of the kids' game Candyland.
Gil and Erica sit with game developer and new music fan Brenna Noonan to talk about her experiences developing games with her development company Quillsilver Studios , her experiences working on the smash hit Everdell , and the intersection of music and games. SHOW NOTES 2m59s: Everdell , Roll Player: Adventures , Dog Park 6m14s: Erica and Scott chatted with the Laukats about making games as a family in Ludology 251 - All In the Family . 10m17s: Gil and Geoff discussed ludonarrative dissonance i...
Geoff runs us through the Hypergeometric and Binomial functions in a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel. Don't be intimidated by their names; they're actually pretty easy to use, and invaluable for game designers. You can find Geoff's GameTek newsletter on this subject here.
Erica, Gil, and Sen have a roundtable discussion about their experiences with contracts. What are things designers should look for when negotiating their contracts? Note that none of us are lawyers, and at no point in this episode do we give out actual legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult an actual lawyer! SHOW NOTES 25m46s: Here's the Meeple Syrup episode on localization , with Mike Raftopolous. 38m18s: "Spin" is SpinMaster, the game publishing company that Erica works for. 43...
In this classic Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the history of the classic deduction game Scotland Yard.
Gil sits down for a one-on-one with game designer, teacher, and lecturer Marc LeBlanc to discuss some of his game design ideas, especially his 8 Kinds of Fun and the Mechanics/Dynamics/Aesthetics (MDA) framework . NOTE: Towards the end of the episode, Gil's mic cable started to get unhappy. Apologies for the static! SHOW NOTES 0m50s: Looking Glass Studios , Ultima Underworld II , Thief , System Shock , Defense of the Oasis , Heroes Welcome 4m30s: Marc's 8 types of fun: Sensation, Fantasy, Narrat...
In this GameTek Classic, Geoff tells us about the strategies behind "Jeopardy" James Holzhauer's amazing run on the TV game show Jeopardy, in which he won 32 consecutive games between April and June 2019, earning $2,464,216. What does James do differently than everyone else?
Sen and Erica sit down with Matthew Dunstan and Dave Neale to discuss how they work as a team, working on a wide variety of games, working on a narrow group of games, and what it's like making a game based entirely in sound! In this episode, Matthew mentions Postmark Games , his PNP project with Rory Muldoon. At 37m31s, Sen mentions Piaget's Characteristics of Play . At 44m15s, Matt mentions Ludology 265 - Hold Onto Your Hats!...
In this classic Biography of a Board Game from 2017, Scott tells us the origins of the massively popular card game Uno.
Gil and Sen are delighted to welcome Geoff Engelstein back to the show to discuss the making of his hit roll-and-write game Super-Skill Pinball. What calls did he make when designing the game, and how much did it change from his original vision? SHOW NOTES 3m29s: Take It Easy 5m38s: Limes 6m12s: Matt Wolfe joined us for Ludology 157 - Come Scale Away . Welcome To... 9m09s: Versailles 1919 25m58s: Yes, Games Magazine is thankfully still with us. Merchant of Venus 28m00s: Ares Project , the 1980 a...
Geoff tells us about the curious effect of endowment, and describes how both the game show Deal or No Deal and the video game Portal use it to enormous effect.
It's an annual Ludology tradition to invite The Podfather of Gaming, Stephen Buonocore, to the show at the start of each year to discuss trends in the industry. As always, Stephen flashes his business acumen and deep insight into what he thinks the industry is in store for in 2022.
In this re-air of a Biography of a Board Game from September 2017, Scott slices open the history of the game Operation. Note: Even though Scott has stepped away from the show, we will still be publishing classic Biography of a Board Game episodes for the time being.
During our winter break, our co-host Scott Rogers pounced on a new job opportunity that he couldn't pass up. Sadly, this means he has to step down as Ludology co-host. In this episode, we'll chat with Scott about his time at Ludology, and ask him what awaits in the future. Because Scott's job commitments have already begun, we couldn't find a time when we could all meet. So Erica, Gil, and Sen all recorded their questions in one recording session, and Scott recorded his answers in another record...
Erica, Gil, Scott, and Sen wrap up 2021 with a roundtable discussion on the hats we wear as game industry professionals. What are all the skills we bring to bear to make games, and how do we feel about them? This is the final Ludology episode of 2021. We're taking our annual winter break. We will be back on January 23, 2022 with the next episode of Ludology. In the meantime, there will be no Ludology, GameTek, or Biography of a Board Game episodes. From all of us at Ludology, have the happiest o...
In this re-air of a Biography of a Board Game from July 2017, Scott takes us through the history of former Ludology co-host Mike Fitzgerald's Mystery Rummy series of games.
Gil and Sen welcome game designer, manufacturer, publisher, game cafe owner, and convention runner Kenechukwu Ogbuagu ("KC") of NIBCARD Games to the show. From his home city of Abuja, KC has built up the board gaming scene in Nigeria almost singlehandedly, recently winning the prestigious Diana Jones award for his efforts. SHOW NOTES 12m46s: Hobby World , Spyfall , Viceroy , Cosmodrome 14m58s: KC mentions the classic board game Ludo , which was based on the Indian game Pachisi. The American game...
Geoff discusses one of the most feared characteristics of early RPGs: the loss of a level. Why is this mechanism so hated and feared among players?
Erica and Sen chat with Shing Yin Khor, game designer, installation artist, illustrator, award-winning cartoonist, and Bunyan-ologist. Shing Yin is the designer of the game A Mending , in which players literally sew their actions into cloth, and co-designer (with Jeeyon Shim) of the game Field Guide to Memory . Shing Yin calls both games "keepsake games," as they both leave artifacts of play that tell the story of the game experience. SHOW NOTES 4m15s: Gasha/gacha machine 7m05s: We chatted with ...
Scott Rogers takes us to the inception of the legacy game, and the one that started it all: Rob Daviau's Risk Legacy. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-03-the-legacy-of-rob-daviau-the-man-who-helped-flip-boardgames-on-their-head https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024259/Legacy-Games-From-Risk-to https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22740263/risk-legacy-sequel-shadow-forces-announcement-release-date-price https://boardgamedesignlab.com/designing-legacy-games-w...
Erica and Gil are delighted to welcome designer Amabel Holland of Hollandspiele , known for making games with challenging themes using an unconventional publishing model. SHOW NOTES 0m58s: Supply Lines of the American Revolution , Table Battles , Irish Gauge , This Guilty Land , Nicea , The Vote . 7m08s: Amabel is talking about her forthcoming game Eyelet . 15m02s: This is Geoff's game Versailles 1919 , co-designed with Mark Herman. 17m28s: Benedict Arnold 18m34s: The Shackleton Expedition 21m16...
Geoff explains a mathematical algorithm that can help potential roommates figure out how to split the rent, if an even split would be unfair and the roommates do not value the rooms the same way. This mechanism is just dying to be used in a game!
Gil and Scott are delighted to welcome Martin Wallace back to the show. Martin was first on the show on Ludology 46 - Getting Down to Brass Tacks back in 2012 with Geoff Engelstein and a very enthusiastic Ryan Sturm. In this episode, we catch up with Martin to see what he's been up to in the last 9 years. Martin is the designer of many well-loved strategy games, like Brass, Age of Steam (and all its related games, like Railways of the World), London, A Study in Emerald, AuZtralia, and A Study in...
For this week, we're replaying the very first Biography of a Board Game that aired on Ludology. In it, Scott talks about the classic game that got so many fans and designers into the hobby: Risk .
