Welcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the hows and whys of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, as well as discuss game history, game design and game players.
We post a new Ludology episode every other week. In these episodes, hosts Erica Bouyouris, Gil Hova, Scott Rogers, and Sen-Foong Lim deep-dive into a single topic within game design, often with a well-regarded guest from the game industry. We generally focus on tabletop game design (mainly board games and RPGs), but we often pull in experts from all forms of games, from video games to escape rooms to slot machines.
On weeks where there is no flagship Ludology episode, we will alternate between two smaller mini-sodes.
GameTek is a long-running feature from the Dice Tower podcast by Ludology co-founder Geoff Engelstein that explores the math and science behind games. GameTek Classic episodes were once broadcast on The Dice Tower podcast, while other GameTek episodes were recorded specially for Ludology.
Biography of a Board Game is a series hosted by Scott Rogers that explores the history behind classic and modern board games. It was once on The Dice Tower, but has since moved full-time to Ludology.
We aim for most Ludology episodes to be timeless, so you are welcome to explore our entire catalog. Most of it should age quite well. The podcast was started in 2011 by Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm, with Mike Fitzgerald taking over for Ryan in 2015. Gil joined the show in 2017 when Mike stepped aside, and Emma joined in 2019 when Geoff ended his tenure as host. Emma left in 2021, and Erica and Sen joined us.
Have your own thoughts about our topics? We encourage you to visit us at our guild on Boardgamegeek to get involved in a continuing discussion.
You can also email us at hello@ludology.net.
Ludology is made possible through the support and donations of listeners like you.
Become a Patron of Ludology:
Make a one-time donation here. The donation will take you to "Bedbug Comics" - that's Scott's account.
Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.
Sep 25, 2022
Geoff takes us through the history of the color blue, namely how difficult it is to make as a dye, and considers if we should value it above all other player colors.
Sep 18, 2022
Erica, Gil, and Sen discuss some of the tools and processes they
use at the various phases of designing a game from their varying
perspectives of an in-house designer, a publisher, and freelance
designer/developer.
SHOW NOTES:
00:08:31 DDS is an acronym for Detailed Design Specification
00:11:38 LucidChart...
Sep 11, 2022
In this classic Biography of a Board Game, Scott takes us through the history of the game Cluedo, better known to Americans as Clue.
Sep 4, 2022
Erica and Sen chat with game designer Mondo Davis about how to market yourself in the game industry.
Aug 28, 2022
Continuing the previous GameTek Classic, Geoff returns to the subject of AI in first-person shooters. Last time, we learned that researchers had engineered an FPS AI that could beat the best humans. This time, Geoff dives into the different strategies the AI tried, how it shifted over time to prefer distinct strategies,...