Ludology 238 - Unraveling Complexity

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. 11m01s: Heroclix, Heroscape 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. 1h02m30s: Nomic, Fluxx 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)