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It's a celebration! To mark the 300th episode of Ludology, Erica and Sen invite some of the past hosts (including co-founders Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm, Scott Rogers, and Emma Larkins) to share some of their most impactful memories about the games they loved to play, create, and share with those around them. Please keep an eye out for the giveaways mentioned in this episode by following us on www.patreon.com/Ludology. Thanks for sticking with us for 300 episodes and here's to 300 more!
Kruser talks to a man who wrote a prayer for his Air Conditioner to make it through this summer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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.
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
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 Blaseballs 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 clock that is being built within a Texas mountain of Texas (funded by Jeff Bezos) 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?
After 200 episodes, Geoff has decided to step back from Ludology to focus on game design and book writing. So we've gathered previous co-hosts Ryan Sturm and Mike Fitzgerald, as well as future co-host Emma Larkins and future contributor Professor Scott Rogers, for a big slam-bang going away party! You'll continue to hear Geoff with his GameTek segment every 4 weeks. And if you'd like to stay in touch, follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gengelstein
Gil and Geoff once again welcome Ryan Sturm to recap the development of Trade on the Tigris. Duration: 1:17:14
Gil and Geoff broadcast live from Gencon with super-special guest Ryan Sturm! Duration: 51:31
What changes are usually made between a first and second edition of a game? And what does that teach us about the design process? Mike and Geoff are joined by guest Paul Grogan, who was heavily involved in the new edition of Through The Ages with CGE, to examine these questions. And since we're talking about Through The Ages, we had to invite Ryan Sturm to come back for an encore visit to the program. Duration 01:21:00
In this special episode of The Long View, I'm thrilled to be joined by none other than Ryan Sturm as we discuss the classic game, Age of Steam. Why does Ryan love this game so much? Is the best of the Steam, Age of Steam, and Railroad Tycoon family? What separates it from the pack, and why has it inspired so many expansions and spin offs? Find out the answer to these questions and more in this episode of The Long View. As a bonus, Tom Vasel stops by to tell us his thoughts about Age of Steam in a musical tribute, and I review the new Stronghold Games title of Core Worlds: Revolution. What does this expansion have to offer for fans of the Core Worlds universe? Is is a vital addition, or just bloat? Find out in the review which can be found at the 1:35:00 mark of the episode. I also review the new title from NSKN games, Progress: Evolution of Technology. Is this a civ light game for everyone, or a near miss? Find out in the review which can be found at the 1:57:00 mark of the episode. Thanks, as always, to The Dice Tower! The Long View is a proud member of The Dice Tower Network. Thanks to them for their support! The Long View is also generously sponsored by www.gamesurplus.com, home of great games, at great prices. Thanks to them for their continued support of the show. Thanks also, as always, to YOU for listening!
The Long View On this episode of The Long View, I am pleased to be joined once again by Joel Eddy and Jesse Dean as we sit down to discuss the classic game of Caylus (Shhhhh……somewhere, if you listen closely, Ryan Sturm just cheered and clapped his hands like an excited schoolgirl!). Joel, Jesse and I take a closer look at this classic worker placement game, and discuss such things as the theme, the optimal number of players, and why this game has been so popular for so long. Thanks to 2d6.org ...
Geoff Engelstein joins the D6G crew as our third chair. Geoff has contributed the GameTek segment to The Dice Tower podcast for five years, and co-hosts the new podcast Ludology, with Ryan Sturm. Along with his son Brian he designed The Ares Project, released in 2011 by Z-Man Games. Geoff has been involved in the gaming hobby for close to 40 years, and considers himself an 'omni-gamer', enjoying wargames, euros, RPGs, miniatures, and everything game-related. This episode we check out the new 4x space conquest game Eclipse. What does it bring new to the genre? But up first: We ask Geoff to round up his son Brian and we discuss all the trials, challenges and rewards of designinga game. What did it take to get their game "The Ares Project" to store shelves? All that and our other not-too-horrible segments including: - The Hollywood Minute - Total Fan Girl - Do You Ever Notice - & More If you'd like to discuss the show with us and others in our forum thread: . The following fine organizations help make this show possible: , on behalf of friendly, professional gaming stores everywhere. , latest gaming news, great stores, & more! ==Quick Reference== The News: 1 hr 4 min Ares Project Interview: 1 hr 10 min Hollywood Minute: 2 hr 2 min Total Fan Girl: 2 hr 11 min Eclipse Review: 2 hr 16 min Links Discussed in the show: Raef's Blog: Craig's Blog: Russ's Blog: Total Fan Girl Blog: Pulp Gamer Network:
First of all, welcome to anyone who discovered (or re-discovered?) my show after hearing my guest appearance on boardgame podcast, Ludology. I joined Ryan Sturm over Skype (when Geoff Engelstein was snowed in) to discuss the difference between 2-player and multiplayer games. There's also been some good follow-up discussion on Ludology's guild over at Boardgamegeek.But back here, on my own show,
In this episode, we have Ryan Sturm and Geoff Englestein from the Ludology podcast and answer several questions. Tom talks about his local game store, and we give our top ten list of things necessary for a friendly local gaming store.
In this episode, we have Ryan Sturm and Geoff Englestein from the Ludology podcast and answer several questions. Tom talks about his local game store, and we give our top ten list of things necessary for a friendly local gaming store.