Ludology 238 - Unraveling Complexity - a podcast by Gil Hova and Emma Larkins
from 2020-11-15T17:00
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)
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Website of Gil Hova and Emma Larkins