Welcome!
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 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. Erica and Sen are happy to announce that Sarah Shipp of Shippboard Games and Stephanie Campbell of TTRPGKids will be joining us for the next year, providing additional content between our longer episodes.
Sarah's segment, Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, is a monthly feature that dives deeper into the other aspects of games beyond the dice and cards we're all familiar with.
Stephanie's segment, TTRPGKids, explores how parents and teachers can use role playing games with children in the home and in the classroom.
We hope you enjoy the additional content!
Our History
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 and Scott 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. Since then, Scott stepped down in 2022 and Gil will be hanging up his mic in 2023, leaving Erica and Sen to carry on this amazing legacy.
Erica and Sen are working to bring new voices to Ludology and have some great things to announce as gaming expands to include even more people!
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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.
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If you have questions that you'd like answered on Ludology, let us know by filling out this Google Form; you can also leave an audio question that we can use on the show, if you wish!
Burning Questions for Ludology
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Ludology is made possible through the support and donations of listeners like you.
We currently have 3 "First Listen" series that will go out to Patrons well in advance of the audio being released to the wider audience.
- The Memories that Made Us (monthly) - memories about gaming experiences that helped shape the people that bring modern games to life
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You can also make a one-time or monthly donation here. The link will take you to Erica's account. People who donate in this way will not have access to the Patreon page - sorry!
Nov 15, 2020
Emma, Gil, and Scott discuss the idea of complexity in a board game. We explore 6 types of complexity, and discuss their effects on the games we play and design.
SHOW NOTES
0m51s: Pete Seeger was an American folk singer, known for songs like "If I Had a Hammer," "Turn, Turn, Turn," and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
2m04s: Our list of complexities:
- Spatial complexity
- Arithmetical complexity
- Zone complexity
- Planning complexity
- Rules/mechanism complexity
- Component complexity
2m45s: Barenpark, New York Zoo
3m44s: The SAT is a standardized test in the United States that is a major factor in a college's admission of a prospective student.
4m16s: Number 9
4m32s: Bosk
5m31s: Photosynthesis
6m30s: Treasure Island, Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, Specter Ops, Tigris & Euphrates
7m14s: Checking the rules, an Internal Conflict in Tigris & Euphrates happens when a Leader is moved to a Kingdom where there is already a Leader of the same color belonging to another player.
8m00s: Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. Check out Scott's Biography of a Board Game on the Flight Path family of games, including X-Wing and Wings of War.
8m25s: The Warhammer family of games is absolutely massive. The flagship game, Warhammer 40,000, is in its 9th edition.
10m18s: The Funkoverse Strategy Game. We chatted with Chris Rowlands, one of its designers, in Ludology 224: Putting the Fun in Funko.
13m23s: Set
15m17s: Power Grid, Russian Railroads, and Gil's own The Networks
16m26s: The term "Goumbaud's Law" was coined by Jesse Schell in his book The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.
21m12s: Sticheln (the pronunciation of which Gil has completely butchered) was recently re-released by Capstone Games as Stick 'Em. Smartphone Inc.
22m46s: Sushi Go, Disney: The Haunted Mansion – Call of the Spirits Game
25m38s: Search for Planet X, Zendo (Kory Heath's design diary for Zendo remains a fantastic look at how hard it is to design a seemingly simple game.)
26m40s: Mastermind
28m12s: Here's a description of the XYZ Wing solve technique for Sudoku.
28m33s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg21M2zwG9Q (explicit language warning)
28m59s: Hey, That's My Fish, graph theory, and the Traveling Salesman problem.
29m33s: Scott first proposed the 6 Zones of Play in Ludology 209 - The 6 Zones of Play.
32m28s: Formula D
33m27s: Seafall, the Betrayal family of games.
41m21s: Ra
43m53s: A Feast for Odin
44m22s: A Few Acres of Snow
46m45s: Nielsen Media Research is best known for its Nielsen TV ratings, that offer the TV industry in the United States metrics into the number of viewers a TV show enjoys.
48m06s: Advanced Squad Leader, The Campaign for North Africa
50m13s: We discussed the futility of 1:1 models with Volko Ruhnke in Ludology 178 - COIN Operated. Gil also brings up the "Map-territory relation" problem.
50m29s: Food Chain Magnate, Feudum, Cloudspire, Kanban
54m48s: Two designers who work in complex games: Vital Lacerda and Dávid Turczi. You can hear our chat with Dávid about complex games in Ludology 234 - Playing with Time.
55m34s: Brass: Lancashire
57m27s: Fresco
1h00m20s: Gil discussed his doomed auction mechanism most recently in Ludology 235 - Rise to the Challenge.
1h01m45s: Samurai, Steel Driver, For Sale. Here's Samurai's scoring system:
- If one player has the most figures of 2 or 3 of the types of figures, they win.
- If no one has won in the previous step, only players who have the most of a single type of figure can win. All other players are eliminated.
- The remaining players set aside the figures they have of which they have the most of a certain type. The player with the most remaining figures wins.
- In case of a tie, the tied players re-collect all their figures and count their total number of figures. Highest total wins, all remaining ties are shared.
1h09m23s: Descent: Journeys in the Dark
1h10m45s: Geoff and Gil discussed "tight coupling" in Ludology 172 - Odd Coupling.
1h12m04s: Carcassonne (the type Gil was thinking of is Monk)
1h13m25s: The Betrayal family of games (again)
1h14m46s: GameTrayz
1h16m20s: Mike Selinker uttered this now-legendary quote in Ludology 189 - The Missing Selinker.
1h17m47s: Gil's announcements: BGG@Home, Weird Stories pregen settings, High Rise pre-orders opening soon, Rival Networks
1h20m02s: Battling Tops, and the legendary BGG Battling Tops tournament.
1h20m22s: Tabletopia
1h20m44s: Emma, Gil, and Scott recorded Ludology 215 - Table Topics live at BGG.CON 2019.
1h21m06s: Scott's announcements: Treats, Xeno Command, Comic Book Crisis, The Pitch Project.
1h24m06s: Emma's announcements: Game Maker's Guild panel, Dutch and Hungarian versions of Abandon All Artichokes.
1h25m26s: Our contact info: Emma (Twitter, Instagram, Web), Gil (Twitter, Facebook, Web), Scott (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook)