Welcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the how’s and why’s of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, and discusses game history, game design and game players. Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.
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Ludology 245 - Play It Again Games
Emma and Gil welcome Emerson Matsuuchi back to the show to discuss his experience designing the Century game series, and what it's like designing 3 "mixable" games.
SHOW NOTES
0m37s: We last heard Emerson as a guest on Ludology 106 - Hide and Seek.
1m01s: In addition to the Century series, Emerson has designed Reef and Foundations of Rome.
1m45s: When there's no pandemic raging around the world, Gil runs a playtest group in New York City. Emma and Emerson were both members before they moved away.
4m31s: Ah, the classic sitcom misunderstanding.
8m12s: A list of cards currently banned in Magic: The Gathering tournament play.
11m17s: Bruges
13m03s: Dominion: Second Edition
14m11s: You can watch Emma appear on Table Takes on Gen Con's Twitch channel.
26m56s: The Betrayal family of games.
29m14s: An API (application programming interface) is a software interface that allows programmers to allow various computer programs and other devices to talk to each other.
31m27s: In writing, "pantsing" means writing by the seat of your pants - in other words, not "plotting," or planning out your story in advance.
40m58s: Wingspan
46m24s: More information about Jones Theory, which suggests that gamers can optimize their collection by only collecting the "best" game of each genre or type.
47m40s: ZineQuest, a Kickstarter initiative for creators to launch small RPGs in zines, ran for the month of February. We discussed it with Jeeyon Shim in Ludology 244 - Games Brought to Life.
48m32s: Source code control, or version control, is a way for computer programmers to store all iterations of their code, so they can easily switch between older and newer versions of their programs, and integrate revisions to code with other people on their team. As Emma mentions, some code-savvy board game designers use version control systems like Git to track different versions of their games.
49m47s: We mention legendary board game designers Reiner Knizia and Uwe Rosenberg, and their games Medici, Medici: The Card Game, Caverna, Agricola
52m39s: Emerson mentions Runewars, Star Wars: Legion, Wings of War, and Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game. For a detailed history of these games, check out Biography of a Board Game 210.5 - Wings of War.
56m26s: Tom Lehman is dividing his expansions for Race for the Galaxy into several different arcs, which are not meant to be mixed.
57m54s: Eric Lang's tweet that Emerson mentions.
1h00m48s: Emerson's website, Twitter, and Facebook.