In this episode of Pros and Cons, Sen talks to Steph, Gordon, and Liam at Origins 2023 as they were getting ready for their biggest Kickstarter to date: Mistwind designed by Daryl Andrews and Adrian Adamescu which is currently making a splash!

In this interview, Sen talks to Jessica Geyer, President of the Indie Game Developers Network (https://www.igdnonline.com/) at Origins 2023 to find out what the IGDN can do for indie game devs and how that differs from the Tabletop Game Designers Association (TTGDN) would like to offer members.

To start off their second year with Ludology, Steph Campbell of TTRPGKids sets the stage for the next 12 episodes that will deal with using TTRPGs for educational purposes. They start the discussion off by talking about the various ways that TTRPGs can help students connect more with learning materials versus more traditional routes.

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, Stop Thief, and Sen's game with longtime friend and collaborator Jay Cormier, Mind MGMT, based on the comic book.

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 in games in Ludology 190 - Diabolus in Ludica.
11m22s: The sequence in question from the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse.
12m33s: Sorry, spoiler alert! Hitchcock's Psycho had a legendary twist.
18m32s: Brenna mentions the productivity apps Toggl and ClickUp.
35m35s: A good sample Colvini brainburner is Carolus Magnus. Also Samurai, Sharang's episode Ludology 230 - Design Re-Verb, High Society
36m47s: The New Complexity school of music, Brian Ferneyhough, Conlon Nancarrow and his wild player piano music. (We should also mention the more recent phenomenon of Black MIDI music, like this MIDI version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody with 2.06 million notes.)
41m06s: Coherence, recommended by Banana Chan in Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play.
44m04s: Brenna's 3 composers she'd have over for dinner: Kaija Saariaho, Giacinto Scelsi, and Frederic Rzewski
45m13s: Gil was close! It was Charles Ives, at a performance of his music. The exact quote: "You goddamn sissy... when you hear strong masculine music like this, get up and use your ears like a man!"

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.

43m01s: If you're not familiar with the story of the rock band Van Halen and brown M&Ms, here it is.

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, Narrative, Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression, and Submission.

9m31s: Wildermyth

11m28s: Nicole Lazzaro's 4 Keys to Fun, Self-Determination Theory, Quantric Foundry's Gamer Motivation Model, Jason VendenBerghe's Engines of Play

12m46s: Tim Fowers was on Ludology 165 - Fowerian Slip. Gil also mentions philosipher Roger Caillois and his book Man, Play, and Games.

23m52s: Reiner Knizia's classic auction game Ra.

31m34s: Spy Party

33m39s: Geoff discussed the Incan Gold experiment in GameTek 213.5.

36m46s: Gil's talk at Tabletop Network has been lost to tech gremlins. Fortunately, he gave the same talk online during the pandemic.

38m01s: Any mention of Caylus would make Ludology co-founder Ryan Sturm happy.

39m34s: Sharang Biswas was on Ludology 230 - Design Re-Verb. Geoff discussed his most recent game, Super Skill Pinball, on Ludology 268 - Pinball Wizard.

47m21s: 7 Wonders

51m08s: Slay the Spire

54m38s: Alan Moon's Oasis vs. Reiner Knizia's Through the Desert

56m05s: Return to Dark Tower, the Through the Ages digital adaptation, Pokemon Unite, Titan, Zach Gage's really bad chess.

1h00m02s: The Lynx web browser.

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!

Sen and Erica welcome Nat Delaney-John and Cam Jasson, creators and publishers of That Sound Game - a noisy game for weird people to Ludology to talk about how they connected with their audience in order to take a different road to publication than what it typically done these days.

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 arcade game Crazy Climber
35m00s: MIND MGMT

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 recording session.

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 of holidays, and here's to a productive 2022!

SHOW NOTES

5m12s - Alien: Fate of the Nostromo

12m27s - "Spin" is Spin Master, where Erica works as an on-staff game designer.

25m54s - Route 66

28m14s - Gil should have said "at the start of the pandemic," as we're still in the pandemic! If you'd like to join his remote playtesting group (which he will hopefully be attending again soon), click here.

33m51s - Unity, a platform mainly used to develop video games.

38m57s - The Affinity suite.

51m38s - Here's more info about Amber Seger, Weird Stories' awesome graphic designer.

54m40s - Scott's flat cap, Gil's HUGE hat

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 games Parcheesi, Sorry, Aggravation, Headache, and Trouble were based on Ludo or Pachisi; British people may know it as Uckers, while Canadians may know it as Tock.

22m07s: NGOs are Non-Governmental Organizations. In the US, most of them tend to be non-profits. 

25m58s: See the Smart People Play Chess TV trope 

34m08s: Bastard Café in Denmark, one of NIBCARD Cafe's supporters 

44m20s: Designer Eric Lang will be at AB Con, the convention that KC organizes in Nigeria.

45m36s: InstantSync

46m08s: Legendary designer Reiner Knizia

46m52s: Village War

54m12s: Kuli kuli, Okpa, Akara

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 welcome Mandi Hutchinson from Salt & Sass to talk about trends in videogames using tabletop gaming mechanisms as well as ports from the console to the tabletop.

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 Jeeyon on Ludology 244 - Games Brought to Life.

10m04s: The Oraclebird

12m17s: Gnomes, a Dutch book written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet.

16m21s: In games, diegesis refers to anything that fits within the narrative world. If a video game wants characters to move right on the screen, they can do it diegetically by showing objects being blown to the right, or non-diegetically by flashing an arrow on the screen pointing to the right. Examples of board games that use diegesis well are Inhuman Conditions and Ca$h 'n Guns.

17m05s: Space Gnome Space

19m05s: Paul Bunyan

25m17s: We discussed audience agency with Haley E.R. Cooper and Cameron Cooper of Strange Bird Immersive in Ludology 214 - Escape from Reality. Shing Yin mentions Sleep No More as an example of immersive theater.

26m49s: Geoff and Gil wrestled with the definition of "game" in Ludology 151 - High Definition.

30m34s: The RPGs For the Queen and The Quiet Year

34m55s: We chatted with the tireless Banana Chan in Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play. The game they made with Sen is Exquisite Crime.

39m39s: A helpful visual: 41m37s: Car Wars

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-with-jamey-stegmaier/

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

21m16s: The Vote

28m22s: Nicea

31m38s: Irish Gauge, Northern Pacific, Iberian Gauge

32m29s: Winsome, Rio Grande

34m23s: Chicago Express

34m55s: Meltwater, An Infamous Traffic

36m11s: RIBBIT: The Jump, Move, and Block Game, Table Battles

38m51s: New Mill

43m45s: Westphalia

48m18s: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

49m52s: Cheapass Games

53m46s: Tobacco misinformation campaign

54m37s: Gil was thinking of Brandolini's Law, aka the BS Asymmetry Principle.

57m55s: Horse & Musket

59m03s: Deinocheirus, Pterodactyl, Therizinosaurus

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 Emerald.

Technical note: Martin's recording has some dropouts in it; unfortunately, those seemed to come straight from his microphone, so there wasn't much we could do about them. We hope you enjoy the episode anyway!

SHOW NOTES

1m25s: Lords of Creation

4m31s: Gloomhaven, the North Sea Trilogy from Garphill Games, Jamey Stegmaier.

8m06s: The Exit games, and the Unlock! games

11m53s: Games Workshop, Ian Livingstone, the British Steve Jackson, the American Steve Jackson, and the Fighting Fantasy books.

16m18s: Anno 1800

20m08s: Catan, Dune Imperium

23m55s: Age of Industry

25m18s: "Canal holidays"

27m28s: The World Transplant Games

32m46s: A Study in Emerald

34m18s: Gil regrets not pushing back on this point a bit harder; he doesn't think turning indigenous people into monsters is as effective a technique as Martin does. For a good perspective, check out Dan Thurot's post about this on his excellent blog Space-Biff.

35m53s: Terry Pratchett and Discworld

38m41s: Martin is referring to the events of May 68 in France. 

43m53s: Imperium Legends, De Vulgari Eloquentia

45m28s: Ankh: Gods of Egypt, Medina, and "zugzwang" 

48m40s: Our favorite Star Wars clones: Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars, and a special shout-out to Fugitive Alien.

49m10s: Carcassonne

53m03s: Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, Doctor Who: The Card Game

55m13s: Disclaimer: Many of us on Ludology are pretty down on the HP series these days, due to the bigoted views of its author. 

56m59s: The video game Stellaris, the fantasy series His Dark Materials, and the fantasy collection The Silmarillion.

1h00m05s: Rocketmen

1h00m57s: The humble pasty

1h03m32s: Hobo code

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.

Scott and Gil welcome Nikki Valens, designer of Mansions of Madness: Second Edition, Eldritch Horror, Legacy of Dragonholt, Quirky Circuits, and the upcoming Artisans of Splendent Vale. We talk about making programming games like Quirky Circuits, app-driven games like Mansions of Madness, and campaign games like Legacy of Dragonholt.

SHOW NOTES

1m27s: Brown College

3m22s: Robo Rally

3m50s: Colt Express

5m53s: Magic Maze

8m18s: The Mind

12m26s: Ra, Medici

35m49s: Betrayal Legacy

42m00s: "FFG" refers to Fantasy Flight Games, where Nikki worked for several years.

43m07s: XCOM: The Board Game

52m24s: Here's a compilation video of cats riding Roombas...

Geoff continues his dive into the probability of Pop-O-Matic dice, this time discussing how experiment results can be misrepresented through P-Hacking. 

Gil and Sen are delighted to welcome Sara Thompson to discuss depictions of disability in tabletop games. Sara is the creator of the Combat Wheelchair for D&D, and of the Medicine on the Path supplement for The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG.

SHOW NOTES

0m49s: Critical Role, with GM Matt Mercer. 

3m35s: The D&D campaign Storm King's Thunder.

15m075s: The Greek god Hephaestus.

17m23s: Jennifer Kretchmer's Twitter.

21m35s: The thread in question, in which Sara describes Geralt as disabled and how that significantly affects his story.

25m08s: The Witcher: Baptism of Fire.

32m44s: Lauren Hissrich, showrunner of The Witcher TV show.

33m45s: A sample clip of the very silly Steve Martin film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

46m46s: Amanda Leduk's book Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space.

52m19s: The Witcher: A Tome of Chaos supplement for The Witcher RPG.

53m22s: The Combat Wheelchair was featured on Critical Role episode C2E113 A Heart Grown Cold (at least, we're pretty sure it was!). It was used by NPC Dagen Underthorn. Also, Critter Hug is a show with Critical Role participants Matthew Mercer and Mica Burton interviewing people in the tabletop community. Here's the episode with Sara; you might recognize a couple other friendly faces in the same episode!

Scott takes us through the history of Quirkle, the smash hit game from Susan McKinley Ross. 

Special Guest Host Steph Campbell gives several suggestions on how to keep a good pace for younger players through using story and shifting focus from player to player while playing TTRPGs at home or in the classroom.

Scott sits down with Erica, Gil, and Sen to discuss the design and making of his newest game, Alien: Fate of the Nostromo. We also discuss designing to an IP, and how to make a horror game.

SHOW NOTES

0m58s: The original Alien film

1m31s: The other board game based on the film Alien. Scott is not counting board games influenced by the film without the official license, like Nemesis or The Awful Green Things From Outer Space. He's also only counting games based specifically on the original film, so board games based on any of the sequels, like Aliens, or Alien vs. Predator, do not count.

1m38s: The "Optimus Prime Conundrum" is a term coined by the legendary and wonderful podcast Flip the Table. It describes a situation where a game breaks the IP it's based on by allowing multiple copies of one character. This was coined in their very first episode, in which they reviewed the Transformers Adventure Game, where each player gets to play a separate version of Optimus Prime. 

2m00s: The publisher Ravensburger. Note that Scott pronounces it "Ray-vensburger", while the other hosts pronounce it "Rah-vensburger".

3m34s: The films Elf, Home Alone, and Gremlins, and the animated series Gargoyles.

8h25m: The Topps Alien trading card set.

11m15s: The Betrayal games.

14m11s: Back to the Future: Dice through Time.

16m06s: The film Ten Little Indians, also known as And Then There Were None. There have been several versions of this film, all based on an Agatha Christie novel.

28m59s: Scott is correct in that Alien is the first film to provide a genuine "cat scare" - that is, a jump scare that turns out to just be a harmless cat. The so-called "cat scare," in which the source of a jump scare turns out to be something ordinary, appeared 35 years before Alien. TV Tropes credits it to producer Val Lewton, in his 1942 film Cat People.  However, despite the film's name, the source of the scare was a bus, not a cat. Note that one month after Alien's wide release in the US, The Amityville Horror came out; it also featured a cat-powered "cat scare." Perhaps between these two films, the cliche was solidified. 

34m15s: The Horrified games: Horrified and Horrified: American Monsters. A short checklists of cryptids: Bigfoot, Mothman, Windigo, and the Jersey Devil. 

36m39s: Camp Grizzly

37m17s: Clue/Cluedo, 1313 Dead End Drive

39m19s: Dread

39m51s: Kingdom: Death Monster

41m03s: Peter Jackson's "splatstick" film Braindead (released in North America as Dead Alive)

42m49s: Dixit, Weird Stories, Unspeakable Words

44m03s: Final Girl

45m05s: Mansions of Madness

47m47s: Geoff's book Achievement Relocked, Ico, Death Stranding, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Aerith from Final Fantasy VII

49m15s: Nyctophobia, Ten Candles, Vampire Hunter, Waldschattenspiel/Shadows in the Forest

51m39s: Apocrypha, the World of Darkness series of games (including Vampire: The Masquerade)

53m33s: Erica's news: Disney Sidekicks, Rat Queens: To the Slaughter

54m29s: Sen's news: Avatar Legends RPG

55m16s: Gil's news: GameTek on the global shipping snarl, Weird Stories

Geoff harnesses all his mathematical techniques to answer a burning question: are Pop-O-Matic dice truly random?

Geoff (making a one-off Ludology return) and Gil chat with Al Leonardi, designer of the legendary picture-book game Ace of Aces, and a legion of spinoffs using the same brilliant first-person system.

SHOW NOTES

4m19s: Richthofen's War 

8m18s: If you're interested about Ace of Ace's mathematical underpinnings, and its true nature as a hex-grid game, here's Geoff's article.

9m52s: There were two Star Wars games Al worked on: Star Wars: Starfighter Battle Book, and Star Wars Lightsaber Dueling (which was based on Lost Worlds, which we discuss later in the episode). Also: Dragonriders of Pern: The Book Game, Bounty Hunter: Shootout at the Saloon, and Ace of Aces: Wingleader.

11m11s: The Immelman turn, in World War I, was a difficult maneuver that allowed a skilled pilot to turn their aircraft around quickly. In modern aerobatics, it now refers to a type of half-loop.

16m58s: "Ditto sheets," known in the UK as a "Banda machine," refers to a method of print duplication used for much of the 20th century, and very popular in American schools at the time. People of a certain age will recall paper quizzes with a distinctive blue ink on the paper.

22m16s: Two more aerial maneuvers: the wingover, and the snap roll.

25m32s: Lost Worlds

27m48s: The Society for Creative Anachronism.

39m15s: TransAmerica, Ticket To Ride

Scott takes us through the history of Afrikan tähti ("Star of Africa"), a legendary Finnish game first released in 1949. 

• Foreigners in Finland article
• One version of the game
• Another version of the game
• An interview with the publisher

Related Ludology episodes:

• Ludology 197 - Empires Up in Arms (discussing colonialism in board games with Mikael Jakobsson and Rick Eberhardt of the MIT Game Lab)
• Ludology 247 - Orc-Kay Computer (discussing cultural appropriation in games with cultural consultant James Mendez Hodes)

Erica and Scott welcome game design legend Mike Elliott, creator of innumerable Magic: the Gathering and Pokémon cards, designer of Thunderstone, and co-designer of Quarriors and the Dice Masters series. And of course, of DuelMaster and Charm Angel, which were both huge hits in Japan. Mike also runs the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design Hall of Fame, commemorating the work of legendary tabletop game designers.

SHOW NOTES

1m22s: NeoPets, Hecatomb, The Harry Potter Trading Card Game.

1m41s: Game designer and friend of the show Eric Lang. Gil and Geoff chatted with Eric in Ludology 175 - Auld Lang Design. , Also, Wiz Kids is a publisher that should not be confused with Hasbro-owned D&D and Magic: the Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast (aka WOTC, often referred to as "WHAT-see"). Wiz Kids and WOTC are two unrelated companies, although Wiz Kids publishes some D&D-related products under license from WOTC.

3m24s: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are the credited designers behind the first version of D&D. Richard Garfield designed Magic: The Gathering, King of Tokyo, and Robo Rally. Jordan Weisman founded legendary RPG publisher FASA before starting WizKids. Reiner Knizia has designed hundreds of games, including Tigris & Euphrates, Medici, Ra, and Lost Cities. Vlaada Chvatl designed Through the Ages and Galaxy Trucker.

3m58s: Uwe Rosenberg designed Agricola, Le Havre, A Feast for Odin, and Bohnanza. Bruno Cathala designed 5 Tribes, Kingdomino, and 7 Wonders Duel. Maureen Hiron has been in the industry for decades, with games like 7 Ate 9, Cosmic Cows, and Qwitch.

4m31s: The Strong Museum of Play, in Rochester, New York, is a museum dedicated to play, toys, and games. If you're ever in Rochester, make an appointment with their archivist to look at Sid Sackson's meticulously-kept diaries; they are amazing. GAMA is the Game Manufacturer's Association, a trade organization of tabletop game publishers and retailers. GAMA runs the industry convention GAMA Expo (formerly the GAMA Trade Show), and the public convention Origins.

5m26s: Little Wars, by novelist H.G. Wells (author of War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Island of Doctor Moreau), was a rulebook for playing with toy soldiers. That sort of formalized ruleset for a wargame was rather novel in 1913. Note the cringeworthy full title: Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books.

7m39s: Here's the website Mike mentions. Note that Mike is in the middle of the photograph on the front page, in the black short-sleeved shirt.

8m31s: Here's the Biography of a Board Game for Pass-out.

9m43s: And here's the Biography of a Board Game for Quarriors.

10m22s: Del Mar, California.

15m44s: Hearthstone

21m34s: If you want to know more about the intersection of gaming and improv, check out our episode of Improv for Gamers author Karen Twelves, Ludology 237 - Improv-ing Games.

28m22s: Halo ActionClix, Star Wars PocketModel TCG, DC HeroClix: Batman (Alpha)

34m00s: The Dice Masters family of games.

35m04s: Duel Masters Trading Card Game, from WOTC and Takara Tomy (both of which are part of Hasbro), part of the Duel Masters franchise.

38m44s: Battle Spirits: Trading Card Game

45m27s: More information about Target halting sales of trading cards, including Pokémon.

46m01s: Thunderstone, published by Alderac Entertainment Group. Alderac is usually abbreviated as AEG, but is unrelated to the massive sports/music promoter Anschutz Entertainment Group, which is also abbreviated as AEG. Alderac is run by John Zinzer.

47m25s: Kingdom of Loathing  

50m45s: Card Jitsu was originally part of Disney's MMO Club Penguin, which has since been replaced by Club Penguin Island.

54m08s: Quarriors

58m25s: Yahtzee: Doctor Who edition, and its TARDIS dice cup.

1h00m26s: The Quacks of Quedlinburg, The Mind

1h05m17s: AR games, or Augmented Reality games, utilize technology like phones or tablets to augment real-world locations with computer-generated enhancements. The most successful AR game at the moment is Pokémon Go.

1h07m53s: Mark Rosewater is the head designer for Magic: The Gathering.

1h15m15s: The film American Pie.

In this special GameTek, Geoff and Gil sit down with Justin Bergeron of ARC Global Logistics to discuss the global shipping snarl that's delaying so many board games (among other goods). How is it affecting the industry, what's behind it, and how long could it possibly last?

You can reach Justin via email.

Here's the web site for ARC Global's parent company, Logimark Group.

Gil and Sen are delighted to have RPG/story game designer Avery Alder on the show to talk about her games that show how communities deal with upheaval and change. We also discuss the change that RPGs saw in the past 20 years, going from the expectation of custom, bespoke systems for each game to the consensual adoption of systems like Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark.

SHOW NOTES

02m39s: The Forge is no longer active, but you can read its archives here. Also, My Life With Master.

04m24s: The RPG Top Secret.

07m52s: Jiangshi.

10m36s: Here's Avery's talk at NYU's practice convention. Also, Dream Askew, and Apocalypse World.

14m09s: Dungeon World (note that its designer Adam Koebel has behaved problematically in the past, showing issues with consent in games - content warning for mention of sexual assault in link), Monster of the Week (and the Adventure Zone podcast), Avery's game Monsterhearts (now implemented as Monsterhearts 2), and the Powered by the Apocalypse system.

15m17s: Blades in the Dark, the Forged in the Dark system, and Scum & Villainy

16m36s: Dream Apart, Sleepaway, and the Belonging Outside Belonging system.

29m34s: Volley Boys, based on the anime Haikyu!!

39m19s: The Quiet Year

44m34s: Bohnanza

50m09s: Dramatic structures, including the 3-Act Structure, and the Hero's Journey

57m13s: The minis game Hordes, and its Legion of Everblight expansion.

1h07m13s: Geoff and Gil discussed hard vs. soft incentives in Ludology 185 - Soft Boiled. Also, Snow Tails.

Scott shambles through the history of the beer-and-pretzels game Zombies!!! He runs us through its various iterations, tells us what made it stand out from other games at the time, and discloses the personal impact the game and its designers had on him.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME

• (Audio) An interview with Todd Breitenstein 
• The Zombies!!! 20th anniversary Kickstarter
• (Text) Another interview with Todd Breitenstein on the digital version of the game

Todd passed away in 2013 from cancer. 

Erica, Gil, Scott, and Sen have a roundtable discussion about player counts. We go through each of the common player counts, as well as a few uncommon counts, and discuss what's special about designing for them.

SHOW NOTES

0m39s: Our thoughts about and general strategies for designing games at different player counts.

5m42s: 2-player games

9m20s: We chatted with Matt Wolfe about decision scales on Ludology 157 - Come Scale Away.

13m08s: Inhuman Conditions

13m59s: Belfort

16m24s: Alien: Fate of the Nostromo

19m41s: Pandemic

22m06s: Tokaido, High Rise

24m20s: Scott Pilgrim Miniatures the World

24m38s: 3p games

26m44s: The three-body problem.

27m38s: Here's Cole Wehrle's talk on kingmaking in games, and how it can be a good thing.

28m16s: Churchill

28m37s: Basari, which was adapted into Edel, Stein, and Reich in 2003 and modified to try to better handle a higher player count. Also, a note on ties with 3-players: it's impossible to tie on a vote with 3 voters (or any number of odd voters), as long as you are limited to two choices to vote for. Once you have at least 3 choices to vote for, the possibility space gets far more complicated (see the three-body problem above).

30m52s: Rayguns & Rocketships

32m25s: 9-5-2 is known by various names. Here are the rules to Sergeant Major, which is a very similar game; rule changes for 9-5-2 are further down the page.

Also: Carolus Magnus, Bargain Hunter, End of the Triumvirate (Gil was wrong, it can play 2 players), Three Kingdoms Redux

32m58s: 4p games

38m24s: Stuffed Fables, Between Two Cities

39m14s: Tichu

40m03s: 5p games.

Also, a note: Eagle-eared listeners will notice that you don't hear much from Scott from now until the end of the episode. He had to leave our recording session early, so we quickly recorded his bits for the end of the episode. And that's how the sausage gets made!

41m10s: 7 Wonders

44m16s: Alhambra, Alhambra: The Vizier's Favor, Catan: 5-6 Player Extension

47m36s: 6p games

50m44s: Godfather: A New Don. The "other Godfather game" Sen is hinting at is The Godfather: Corleone's Empire by friend of the show Eric Lang.

54m43s: Floor Plan, Welcome To..., Take It Easy, Time's Up, Karuba

56m11s: Werewolf, Two Rooms and a Boom

57m11s: The Unlock! series of games, Cranium

1h00m59s: Terra Mystica

1h01m23s: Arkham Horror

1h02m02s: 1p games. If you want to know more about designing solo versions of games, check out Ludology 154 - Leave Me Alone! (with Morten Monrad Pedersen), Ludology 234 - Playing With Time (with Dávid Turczi), and Ludology 248 - Solo-liloquy (with Carla Kopp).

1h05m12s: Onirim

1h06m38s: Chainsaw Warrior. Sen also mentions Ian Livingstone, who created the Fighting Fantasy series of interactive books with Steve Jackson (that is, the British Steve Jackson who co-founded Games Workshop, not the American Steve Jackson who designed Ogre, GURPS, Illuminati, and Munchkin. To muddy the picture further, the latter Steve Jackson authored three Fighting Fantasy books himself!).

1h07m33s: Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time

1h10m03s: 0p games, starting with So, You've Been Eaten. (Note that the BGG header only shows it as a 1-2 player game; technical limitations prevent it from properly showing as a 0-2 player game.)

1h11m34s: Strat-o-matic Baseball

1h13m30s: In Ludology 142 - Slots of Fun, Geoff and Mike chatted with slot machine designer Jeremy Hornik.

1h15m19s: Another link to Alien: Fate of the Nostromo.

1h15m43s: Sen's project: Avatar: Last Airbender RPG, Tiny Frontiers: Mecha and Monsters (referred to as "Mechs vs. Kaiju"), Coded Chronicles (Jay and Sen have already designed games with the Scooby Doo and The Shining licenses for this series), Dungeon & Dragons: Rock Paper Wizard

1h16m34s: Erica's projects: Rat Queens: To the Slaughter, Disney Sidekicks

1h17m37s: Gil's projects: Networks Broken Token insert, shipping issues, con season coming up

Geoff discusses the knitting community, how some knitters make the leap from hobby into entrepreneurship, and how research has shown the one thing that many of these self-employed knitters have in common. What can board gamers learn from this?

Sen and Erica interview Rita Orlov, the mind behind the enchanting and challenging Postcurious line of puzzle games, or puzzletales as she calls them. Find out more about how Rita conceptualizes, designs, and tests her games and what's so intriguing about them.

Erica and Scott welcome graphic designer, production superhero, and prototype craft wizard Lindsay Daviau to the show. We talk about her experience at Hasbro making (among many other things) fake games for fake stores. We also bring up her favorite games that she worked on, and her job at Restoration Games (with her husband Rob, who you may have heard of), where she works on games like Unmatched, Fireball Island, Stop Thief, and the soon-to-come Return to Dark Tower.

SHOW NOTES

04m10s: This is Don Norman's legendary book, Design of Everyday Things. It frequently comes up in this show, although despite what Scott says, we have never done a dedicated episode on it. We did discuss it a lot with game designer and graphic designer Daniel Solis on Ludology 204 - The Eyes Have It.

05m09s: The prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, pronounced "RIHS-dee"). 

12m57s: For those of you outside the US, the functional metric equivalent to 11"x17" paper is A3.

16m12s: The most recent Pandemic Legacy game is Pandemic Legacy: Season 0.

16m56s: Laser cutters emit toxic fumes; please only ever use them with proper ventilation! 

17m48s: The Brother ScanNCut.

18m34s: Gil's tip for making quick tokens: get a bunch of circle labels, and a bunch of poker chips! 1" diameter labels work well for standard poker chips, 0.5" diameter labels work well for mini poker chips. Once you set up to print to the circle template, you can make a bunch of tokens very quickly. And to replace them, simply print new labels and stick them above the old labels. It's great for early prototypes where the shape of the token is not hugely important!

21m08s: Heroscape

42m09s: The web suggestion form Lindsay mentions is right on Restoration's front page!

45m24s: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

46m41s: Pillars of the Earth is both a well-known book by Ken Follett and a solid worker-placement board game with a polarizing turn order mechanism.

49m00s: This cake discussion actually came relatively early in the interview. It was a bit too much of a tangent to include in the main episode, but we've put it here as a bonus. Enjoy!

53m24s: For more on edible board games, check out Ludology 210 - The Way to a Gamer's Heart, in which we chat with Jenn Sandercock about her cookbook/rulebook where she gives recipes and instructions for several edible games.

Scott rampages through the history of Richard Garfield's hit game King of Tokyo. How was this game made, and what did its standalone sequel King of New York add to it?

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF A BOARD GAME

• https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepodcastepisode/76209/podcast-20-king-tokyo
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afu516A828k
• https://www.iello.com/co.uk/news/monster-of-the-week-game-is-over-all-about-king-of-verse
• https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/116703/interview-richard-garfield-designer-magic-gatherin
• https://meepletown.com/2012/09/game-designer-interview-richard-garfield/

Gil and Sen welcome Calvin Wong Tze Loon 黃子倫 to the show to discuss narrative in games. How can we improve a game's narrative through its mechanisms, its components, and even its box size?

SHOW NOTES

0m46s: Calvin played P.T. Goh in the film Crazy Rich Asians. Also, info on Twilight Imperium's expansion Prophecy of Kings that Calvin did some writing for, and forthcoming RPG Embers of the Imperium.

3m16s: "Mayfair" in UK-based editions of Monopoly is equivalent to "Boardwalk" in US-based editions of the game. 

7m39s: Android: Netrunner

10m18s: The fan organization NISEI, currently supporting organized Netrunner play, releasing new cards, and keeping the game alive.

11m28s: Here's what Gil wrote about flavor text on Twitter.

14m44s: Pasaraya Supermarket Manager. Gil also regrets not bringing up diegesis in games (making the components, graphic design, and form of a game match its narrative) like in Inhuman Conditions.

19m22s: The Tiny Epic series of games.

23m31s: Gil accidentally gave out the name of the game series with this puzzle, so we bleeped it out!

26m04s: Crisis

28m13s: Ryan and Geoff discussed the magic circle in Ludology 79.

28m22s: The story game Fiasco, and the strategy game Barrage.

32m47s: Memoir '44

35m26s: Millennium Blades, Falsche FuFFziger, Descent: Legends of the Dark

41m17s: Here's the essay Crimes Against Mimesis. Also, here's Gil's talk on merging theme and mechanism.

49m45s: The Rick Riordan Presents line of books. The book Gil mentioned is Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, by Carlos Hernandez. 

53m40s: More info about the Prison Architect: Cardboard County Penitentiary board game.

55m32s: An Infamous Traffic

1h00m51s: Hollandspiele, This Guilty Land

1h02m07s: Hub Games

1h04m12s: The Typing of the Dead, Unspeakable Words

1h07m51s: Half-Life Alyx

1h09m51s: The wonderful Crystal Dax!

1h11m31s: Calvin's Twitter.