Ludology

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 Ludol...

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:...

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...

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 Ludol...

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...

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...

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-...

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...

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 i...

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: Co...

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 Kretch...

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

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...

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...