Ludology

Emma and Gil invite award-winning game designer, teacher, and not-scholar Sharang Biswas to the show to discuss verbs in games. What actions do we actually perform when we play a game, what actions do they represent, and how does that impact the game experience?

You can find Sharang on Twitter or on the web. Here is his itch.io store.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains references to sex and sexuality.

Show Notes

2h31m: Sharang teaches at The International Center of Photography (Bard College), and at Fordham University.
3m05s: We had Dr. Mary Flanagan on the show for Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo
3m26s: Playcrafting is an organization that holds game design events, mainly for digital games, in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston.
5m04s: Anna Anthropy is an influential game designer, and current designer-in-residence at DePaul College in Chicago.
5m15s: Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games.
10m08s: Android: Netrunner
11m33s: We discussed ludonarrative dissonance, especially in board games, in Ludology 190 - Diabolus in Ludica.
12m05s: The uselessness of 1:1 scale maps came up in our conversation with Volko Ruhnke for Ludology 178 - COIN-Operated.
12m29s: If you haven't heard us discuss at length what a "game" is, check out Ludology 151 - High Definition.
12m35s: More information about the word autotelic, which is extremely useful when discussing games and play.
13m35s: Frank Lanz is a game designer and director of the NYU Game Center.
16m35s: Great Western Trail, Food Chain Magnate
17m10s: Ryan and Geoff discussed the magic circle with game designer and professor Eric Zimmerman in Ludology 79 - The Magic Circle.
17m29s: You can find more about Honey & Hot Wax, edited by Sharang and Lucian Kahn, here.
18m25s: The phrase "turtles all the way down" is one of Gil's favorites.
20m54s: Hungry Hungry Hippos, Mouse Trap, Pretty Pretty Princess, Electronic Dream Phone
21m30s: MegaCity Oceania
21m54s: Mountains of Madness
23m10s: Pandemic Legacy: Season One
24m11s: Sharang's game with Max Seidman, Mad Science Foundation
26m35s: The RPG Sign.
28m10s: More information about the larp Sarabande.
29m42s: Geoff and Gil discussed "soft incentives" in Ludology 185 - Soft Boiled.
30m38s: Jiangshi, an RPG about Chinese immigrants juggling running a haunted restaurant, by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim. We had Banana on the show a few weeks ago, for Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play.
31m10s: Some of the discussion about "Press F To Pay Respects" in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
31m31s: Untitled Goose Game
35m53s: Sharang compares Chaos in the Old World to Assault of the Giants. Chaos was designed by the incomparable Eric Lang, who we had on the show for Ludology 175 - Auld Lang Design.
37m13s: Sagrada
38m19s: DC Comics Deck-Building Game
40m00s: John Cage's 4'33", which instructs the performer to play no notes for the duration of the piece.
40m27s: Positive examples of ludonarrative dissonance: Typing of the Dead, Unspeakable Words
40m58s: Brenda Romero's well-known art game Train.
41m16s: Sharang's game Feast, inspired by Felix Gonzalez-Torres' original art piece Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.).
41m45s: The RPG With Great Power… 
42m31s: Team Fun's interview with Sharang, featuring the phrase "Jump, Decapitate, Kill."
43m44s: Journalist, larp designer, and game writer Lizzie Stark.
45m00s: The 2001 video game Black & White.
45m17s: French literary critic Roland Barthes proposed the idea of the Death of the Author in a 1967 essay, suggesting that critics don't need to understand an author to contextualize their work.
45m24s: The Effing Foundation for Sex Positivity.
47m16s: Thumb Wars (or thumb wrestling)
51m45s: The games A Guide to Casting Phantoms In The Revolution, and Can You Hear Me? 
52m34s: Sharang's game Several Miles from Heaven.
53m36s: The Jenga-implementing RPGs Dread and Star Crossed, and the apocalyptic RPG Ten Candles.
54m45s: Metatopia is a game designer convention based in the northeastern US that specializes in tests of board games, TTRPG, and larp.
56m41s: Sharang's solo food-based RPG Verdure.
57m52s: We had Jenn Sandercock on in Ludology 210 - The Way to a Gamer's Heart to discuss her edible games. 
58m41s: The 200-word RPG Stardust.
1h00m00s: The bizarre Hellcouch (taking the idea of the "couch co-op to the next level), amd Mattie Brice's empathy machine.
1h00m45s: Marina Abramović's seminal performance art piece Rhythm 0, in which she allowed visitors to do whatever they wanted to her body for 6 hours. Visitors were gentle at first, but became more cruel as the piece went on, several times aiming a loaded gun in her head. The most powerful part of the performance emerged at the end; once the 6 hours ended, Abramović stood up and approached the audience, who promptly left, unable to face her as a person who had regained her bodily autonomy.
1h06m08s: Alex Roberts' Pop! is part of Sharang's project Honey and Hot Wax, co-edited by Lucian Kahn.
1h06m37s: Emma's degree is in Product Design.
1h08m45s: Sharang has written a couple of articles for Killscreen.
1h10m38s: Wingspan. We had the pleasure of chatting with designer Elizabeth Hargrave for Ludology 203 - Winging It.
1h12m15s: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a horrifying tragedy in which 146 sweatshop workers in New York City were killed by a fire. The workers were locked into their working space, so they could not exit on foot; many leapt to their deaths. The fire resulted in legislation that improved factory safety standards and strengthened union powers. 
1h14m42s: Clio Yun-Su Davis' RPG Pass the Sugar Please was run by theater company Intramersive.
1h16m44s: Sharang is referencing Kat Jones' game Glitzy Nails.
1h17m43s: The RPG Flatpack
1h19m34s: The productivity games Habitica, SuperBetter, Chore Wars, and Zombies Run.
1h20m58s: Sharang's game A Shroud for the Seneschal.