The following content is provided under a Creative
Commons license.
Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare
continue to offer high quality educational resources for free.
To make a donation, or view additional materials
from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare
at ocw.mit.edu.
PROFESSOR: --have your attention.
I'm just going to go into the lecture part.
I was hoping to start with the pitches,
but since so many people are missing,
we'll wait and do the pitches after the lecture
part of class.
And then we'll end class with a chance for you
to play games based on the lecture.
So it's gonna be kind of a weird lecture, talk about your game,
play games with it, or lecture, and then time
for you to talk in your teams about your game again
and to continue working on your projects.
We'll bring in the prototype kits for that last bit,
so you can start building stuff.
So today's reading was [INAUDIBLE]--
where's my copy of [INAUDIBLE]?
Hey folks.
So today's reading was I think chapter 11 and 12, was
that right?
Space control and [INAUDIBLE] And the reason why
I wanted you to take a look at these,
is because it's got two sort of historical investigations--
well, it's got a whole bunch of historical investigations,
a bunch of different games.
But it kind of goes in depth into two particular games,
one in each chapter.
So people, remember which game is covered in the reading?
AUDIENCE: No.
PROFESSOR: No.
Really close to that, but you're one letter off.
AUDIENCE: Go?
PROFESSOR: Yes, Go.
And the other one was--
AUDIENCE: A chase game--
PROFESSOR: Chase game called--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Tafl.
The second chapter that I had you read today
starts with like fox and geese and a bunch of things,
but it really goes in depth into tafl.
And this is probably the most in-depth sort
of historical research that you find in this entire book.
Most of this book is like the stuff in between Go and tafl.
Where it's like, four paragraphs at most on any particular game,
and it's just talking about variants, right?
He talks about reversi, which is, what, 200 years old?
Something like that.
I can't remember the exact number,
but he only gives like maybe two or three paragraphs
on this history.
Everything else, is just this is how the game is played.
These are the mechanics.
And so that if you wanted to figure out how this game--
all the things that could come up from the game,
you could recreate it, just based on the illustrations
and the mechanics.
But when it comes to Go, and when it comes to tafl,
it's a little bit more about the culture surrounding
these particular games.
And that's a very different take, and an interesting take.
So if you are interested in doing sort of academic research
in games, that's one way.
Kind of like game archeology, game historian work.
One of our grad students, who's now
doing his PhD, Jason [? Bakey, ?]
he's kind of doing that for train games,
and evolutional train games.
Even though, obviously those couldn't have been
invented before trains existed.
So they're not that old, but there are tons of them.
And he's again, tracking is the evolution,
but also of the culture, the people who play these games.
So let's see, how many of you play Go?
OK, about five people.
How many of you have played a version of tafl,
enough to hitch [INAUDIBLE] tafl.
I have no idea how to [INAUDIBLE].
You've played it?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
PROFESSOR: On paper, on iPad?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I have a board, [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Oh, cool.
OK.
You can actually find craftsmen making
these things, tafl boards.
Even though the rules, as if you read the book,
the rules aren't really well-understood.
There's no canonical explanation of here are the pieces,
and here are the rules, here's what you do with them.
Because if you find a little bit about one,
you find a little bit about the others.
So there are some archaeological evidence for here
are the different pieces for a full set of tafl,
and they don't tell you what to do with it.
And then there's another set that's
just like, just what you do with all the pieces,
but it seems to be describing a different set of pieces.
Or a different number of pieces, and you're not quite sure.
But you get a lot of stuff like poetic records
of the significance of the pieces.
That gives you a clue about what people thought of these pieces,
and gives a clue of what these pieces can do.
And again, there are some descriptions
of particular plays of this game, which
gives you an idea of how these pieces can be made.
But viewed within sort of larger context of his asymmetric board
game, that is largely involving one group
of pieces trying to capture either
all or a particular group of the other players.
That's basically the whole genre of the chase game,
of the fox and geese type game.
And viewed from that context of here
are all these other games that have survived a little bit
better Like the English fox and geese,
this is what we can intuit.
It is kind of a siege game, where both sides have soldiers,
but one of them is explicitly trying to kill the king.
But one side doesn't have a king,
and is trying to kill the king.
And the other side has a king, and a bunch of bodyguards,
and they're trying to defend the king.
The whole idea is sometimes it's to get the king to an escape
route, sometimes it's just survive
a certain number of moves, or to get to a particular point
on the board.
And one thing that I would like you
to think about, if you haven't read it, do
read through these two chapters just
to get a slightly better idea of what you can do with space.
It's one thing that we've been noticing,
that in some of the games that have been prototyped
in this class, space isn't always used very creatively.
We see games that are being played out on grids,
we've been seeing games where you can move freely
throughout the whole grid.
But then, what does each individual square actually
mean in relation to other pieces on the same board?
It's something that these games actually do really well,
both the games of territorial capture, which
the goal was all about.
And the chase games, which are these asymmetric games where
you try to surround your opponent.
Go and tafl are not the only two games that describe in here.
There's a huge amount of variation and thought
about what you can particularly do
when it comes to manipulating space, being surrounded.
What does it mean to have two of your opposing
pieces on either side of you, or at the l-shape of you.
What does it mean to be on a square grid?
Especially in a game like in Go, it's
a game that's played on squares.
On the corners of all squares, in particular.
And it's very, very important that what's to the top,
and what's to the bottom.
And what's towards the left, and to the right of every piece
is really, really important.
But what's to the diagonals isn't really so important,
until you consider meta strategy.
What's the effect of a clump of pieces,
rather than a single piece.
The other thing about the section on Go,
in particular, is that you get this huge amount of vocabulary.
Words like liberties, the way how scores are being added up.
Words from different languages.
Korean, and Chinese, and Japanese.
But most of the research in this particular book
refer specifically to the Japanese tradition.
So most of the terms are used in Japanese.
How many of you heard of Atari?
Come on.
AUDIENCE: You said Atari?
PROFESSOR: OK, all right.
That's actually supposed to be a derivation of atari,
which is a Go term.
Don't ask me what it means, I don't actually play Go.
But these words have kind of worked its way
into even cultures that don't play Go that much, like in much
of the Western world.
In the same way [INAUDIBLE] has made its way
into talking about games of chance,
because that means dice in Latin.
Die, specifically, in Latin.
It's in the same way that sometimes we
talk about being checkmated, even
when you're not playing a chess game.
I'm trying to think of other chess terminology that
tends to make its way into common English parlance.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: The least worst move.
That's a new tone.
I don't know if they're specifically from chess.
I'm thinking more about like in--
It's a concept that applies to chess in particular, a lot.
But not--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] it's probably
a term that derives elsewhere that's [INAUDIBLE] in chess.
But do you think about tempo in games?
PROFESSOR: Well, I think about tempo in games.
I don't really think about it in chess
so much, because I don't play chess.
But I've heard chess commentators
talk about that a lot.
AUDIENCE: This isn't really specifically chess necessarily,
but a lot of [INAUDIBLE] can say your move, after you're
doing something, anything.
Usually moving.
[INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: There's still a general cheating the world
as a game.
Very Sherlock Holmes-y kind of, I have such a high intellect
that the world is a game to me, and this crime is a game to me.
Something like that.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I'm just thinking [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: I'm just trying to think of all the chess--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] material.
[INAUDIBLE] the word material, as a concept of [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] position where
you're kind of engaging, but you probably [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, I think that was
a terminology that came from outside chess
and that applied into chess.
But I've definitely heard checkmate being used
outside of chess specifically.
AUDIENCE: Oh, what about stalemate?
PROFESSOR: Oh yeah, stalemate.
Stalemate is a situation I generally
do associate with chess more than any other game.
But a stalemate that happens in a business situation,
or in a negotiation, both of us have no way
to be able to gain an advantage upon each other.
So that's a good way that terminology from something
that's been as old as chess, has been as old as Go,
we haven't preserved much from tafl unfortunately.
But it can work its way into sort of common parlance,
and that's something that he does in the analysis of Go
that I don't see in any other analysis inside this one
particular book.
But you do find it in other people's writing.
There's also a lot of talk about who play Go.
Right now, what is the difference
between the Japanese culture of masters.
Are like few, almost more scholarly than scholars,
kind of rarefied elite, who are assumed to be the absolute best
players of all, of Go.
At least in Japan.
Although, that [INAUDIBLE] the best player of Go in Japan,
you're kind of the best player of Go in general.
But then, in Korea, you have exactly a 100 person
professional association.
Professional, as in you are going to make money
playing this thing.
There's like a broadcast culture around it,
kind of like e-sports before the e.
[INAUDIBLE] game on TV, right?
And there's a lot of hype, there's money involved in it.
And becomes this rarefied, grand master class
that you're trying to get into.
Because once you're into that class,
then you get to make the big bucks, a TV personality.
In Chinese culture, it's a little bit more
of a very historic thing.
It's this thing that you could play,
but you're playing it for historical reasons.
It's not a concept at quite as contemporary a game as mahjong,
for instance.
Which is very much a social game,
this is a game that you play with friends.
It's like a game of poker when you're
playing a game of mahjong.
[INAUDIBLE] doesn't have that kind of cultural resonance.
Even though, it's the same physical-- more or less,
the same physical game as Go.
I think there's some minor scoring changes,
but otherwise the play of the game is the same.
So the evolution of how this game started off
as almost a spiritual activity.
It was something that was promoted by monks, as something
that helped meditation.
And then moved its way from that into royal courts,
and then eventually, the rest of the population.
For people who aspire to those kinds of high, lofty, social
positions.
It was seen to be a sort of activity
that really smart people will do.
And then, if you can demonstrate that you're really smart,
then you can get jobs for really smart people.
Which apparently pay pretty well in Asia.
Then if you've got the actual description
of how the game is played.
But even in this particular write up,
the way how they describe the play of the game
goes beyond the mechanics very, very quickly.
Because the nice thing about Go, is that the actual rules of Go
are pretty darn simple.
The idea of Go is pretty darn simple.
There are black and white stones,
each player plays all black or all white stones.
You play on the grid.
I'm not going to draw the exact number of lines, but--
it's that sort of thing.
You play on the intersections.
And if you've got a situation like this, where you've
got one colored completely surrounded
by the other color on all four sides,
this piece is eliminated.
It's captured, it's taken off the board.
And you can't repeat the same board [INAUDIBLE] immediately.
Like if I have a weird situation where
I've got a black piece here, I've got a black piece here,
I've got a black piece here.
I think that's right.
And then I immediately place a black piece here,
so I captured this piece.
Your opponent can't then put a white piece here,
and capture that piece.
Because that returns the board back to the state
that it was just a couple of seconds ago.
That's basically the rules.
There's a whole chunk of rules on how you figure out who won,
by basically scoring things.
And I've seen students show me many different ways of scoring
that, some of them pretty elegant, some of them
pretty clumsy, but they all add up to the same numbers.
So it's basically a lot of different algorithms
to get the same result. But in the end,
the basic idea is just surround your opponent.
But once you get from that into all of the higher level
strategies of the--
OK, out of this game mechanic, what are all of the things
that you have to do to be able to play out this game
to your own advantage.
You start going into things like,
how important is it to be able to capture
the corners of the board, for instance.
What are the typical opening moves
that you see in this game?
Where in his same analysis, in the same chapter of reversi
in Othello, it just largely comes down to,
are you playing your pieces like this.
Or are you playing your pieces like this.
Or do you not have the choice at all,
because you're playing Othello, and that's
what you started with.
That's basically the entire analysis of your opening moves
of Othello that he gives.
But then when you're go into Go, there's
a whole section on why the opening moves have
such a long term impact.
And like chess, there is an opening game,
there's a mid-game, there's an endgame.
The end game is kind of like, no real surprises at that point.
You're just kind of rounding up what
was developed in the mid game.
The mid game is where all the really
sort of strike from behind, caught you
by surprise stuff happens.
And the beginning of the game is just
setting up those situations so that that kind of thing
can happen.
I think it is nice to be able to try to imagine what a game that
has been around that long, that can develop all that richness.
This cultural richness, its game mechanic and strategy richness.
That sort of linguistic richness--
how nice it will be to be like the person who
designs the game like that.
Except no one will ever remember you, which is kind of sad.
But also, what would that kind of game have to have?
And I like also indulge in a little brainstorming.
It's like, if you wanted to-- if it's explicitly your goal
to work with a team, to try to develop a game that people
will be playing 1,000 years from now.
What would a game have to have?
What do they need to be?
AUDIENCE: It really has to be just like chess
or go, in the sense that it has to be simple to learn,
and infinite strategy.
It has to be entirely unbreakable.
PROFESSOR: Unbreakable?
As in--
AUDIENCE: As in no computer could ever solve Go.
In the history of humanity, it'll
just probably never happen.
PROFESSOR: Well, no computer's solved it, yet.
I'm not sure if anyone's proven that it can't be solved.
AUDIENCE: No, [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Probably can.
The numbers are astronomical.
The chess numbers are astronomical.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: The test numbers are huge.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] no way to simplify the problem.
If you're saying [INAUDIBLE] can't be solved, [INAUDIBLE].
Rubik's cube can be solved [INAUDIBLE]--
any Rubik's cube can be solved in 20 or fewer intervals.
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: They actually sort of just figured out [INAUDIBLE]
and then solved all those pieces.
[INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: So again, that's hard to reduce into a simple form,
which then can be solved.
It gives you an idea that there's always
going to be at least a minimum a level of complexity.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, I can imagine that.
But there are sports that have been around
for a real long time, and you know,
I try to think of one that's been around for 1,000 years.
I'm thinking javelin probably has been around at least that
long?
Those are dexterous games.
But [INAUDIBLE] make a board game,
you're gonna make a board game to last the length of time,
it can't be something like a flicking game.
I've played flicking games that have been around, but maybe not
1,000 years.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: How long has chess been around?
Someone with Wikipedia should answer that question.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: It has gone through several different versions.
Like there's a time where the queen was a vizier.
We're talking about versions of the game that
existed in India, and in the Middle East.
AUDIENCE: Sixth century.
PROFESSOR: Sixth century, yeah.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: I think the most recent version--
the most recent change I think, would
be the power of the queen.
And that was Queen Isabella?
AUDIENCE: Kind of, it's like mid 1400s, early 1500s in Spain.
[INAUDIBLE] but that's about when she gets the--
PROFESSOR: The zoom right across the board thing.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
And I'm not so sure.
There are a lot of iterations over how
a tournament needs to be played out, the long details.
But then things like--
basic things, like how does a piece move.
I think the biggest change was probably the queen's.
So I was talking about like 1400s or 1600s,
but then that's a 200 period.
When you have a bunch of really powerful European queens,
right?
That inspires this.
AUDIENCE: The game has to be very, very, very balanced.
PROFESSOR: Very balanced?
As in, both sides has a good chance of succeeding?
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] but it's not like--
PROFESSOR: I don't think [INAUDIBLE] is saying that it
has to be exactly balanced.
Just pretty darn close.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: The 55-45 is not close at all.
I [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Play a [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: So consider the concept of grand master play
[INAUDIBLE] in tournaments where they're
playing [INAUDIBLE] they're not going to play
to win every single game.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] something along the lines
of like, right now, a vast majority of games are
[INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: So think of the people behind chess games,
why would that be [INAUDIBLE] against [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Go being black is supposed
to be a six point advantage.
AUDIENCE: I wondered, does this game have
to be competitive in nature?
PROFESSOR: Does it has to be competitive?
Can you make a cooperative game that--
AUDIENCE: Think are competitive.
We still don't know the rules for [INAUDIBLE] Ur
is before senet.
PROFESSOR: All we have is the board.
AUDIENCE: Senet, I think, was solitaire,
in one version of it.
PROFESSOR: No rules exist.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I was wondering if the game happened
to be two players [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Again, let's think, not necessarily Go
and chess, but also things like athletics, sports, right?
All these things that we associate with games,
rather than just a pure test of strength.
AUDIENCE: Sorry, but I thought each course
it tends to be [INAUDIBLE] so that's sort of an abstraction.
But not necessarily [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: I'm thinking, what's the oldest team
game that we can think of.
Hurling?
AUDIENCE: The one [INAUDIBLE] balls, [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Is that what people associate that with basketball?
AUDIENCE: I don't know, [INAUDIBLE] basketball,
I just [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, I think rolling on the ground--
balls rolling on the ground are a little bit more common.
So I'm gonna get [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: So I was gonna say, sort of based off [INAUDIBLE],
it seems like it's helpful if it's
the sort of game where you can build up
a culture of competition around it.
It seems that seems to help keep things rolling.
PROFESSOR: So it implies that there's some type of skill
that you can develop, and then you
can compete against other people.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Let me get Laura first.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] look at any evaluation
six and a half points.
LAURA: So for--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
LAURA: According to what [INAUDIBLE] percent for white.
But it said that, and this kind of makes sense,
if you're like novice players, it's pretty much [INAUDIBLE].
It's much closer.
Which makes a lot of sense.
And it also means it does affect people
in some way to like try to learn strategy, because [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: The more you know, the better it
is for you when you start off as white, as opposed
to it being just like a completely [INAUDIBLE] thing.
AUDIENCE: For a lot of these, I think a cultural incentive
can help a lot.
So for both these games, you were basically
considered intelligent if you could play it well.
And then for a lot of the sports, you were--
if you won the Olympics in ancient Greece, or something.
That was a huge deal.
[INAUDIBLE] cultural significance could really help
you develop more of a--
an entire population might try as opposed
to a game that doesn't really matter.
PROFESSOR: So what I'm hearing is either
you'll end a war by playing a game, that's
one way to get somewhere, like real cultural significance.
And a lot of athletic events, the Olympics
are kind of about that sort of thing right.
Or you get a king to play that game.
[INAUDIBLE] Which could work, definitely chess
has had intellectual leaders.
You know, artists for instance.
I try to remember which authors were really, really into chess.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
I wouldn't be surprised if military leadership
were into that.
I'm actually thinking that maybe instead
of balance, what we're going to say
is that each side has a fighting chance.
It's not so off balance that games often
end in foregone conclusions.
Even when black has a disadvantage in chess,
black can do something.
Like force a stalemate.
And that gets that both player's agency
over the outcome of the game, even
if what they're trying to accomplish is different.
White is trying to accomplish victory,
black is just trying to prevent it.
AUDIENCE: In chess, actually, the most recent rules
changed [INAUDIBLE] 2001.
PROFESSOR: 2001?
That's a while ago.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's pretty stable.
I will say that once you've been around that long,
you've had enough tweaks to your rules that things can work out.
People are still changing the rules of things
like American football.
That's--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Sometimes those rules changes are for things like,
well, we need to make it easier for us
to insert ads into this game.
And in football and such, it was just like that.
So whether that makes it have longevity, I don't know.
But it certainly [INAUDIBLE] the current health of it,
it works with the current economics of times.
I don't know if Go and chess ever did that,
but but maybe that's why the intellectual-- if you
can go into the actual cultural value,
you can go for commercial value.
That works too, right?
And you know the idea is, if you want
to make a game that is really, really
going to stand the test of time.
Either as a full game, or a sport, or a board game,
card game.
AUDIENCE: I guess now, it doesn't
have to be simple learned, but it should also
help make it simple to teach.
Pass on the game really easily.
PROFESSOR: You've got to get generations to pick it up
over time.
AUDIENCE: Especially where it's a board, then
two different colored rocks.
So even if you don't have manufactured board,
you could teach someone.
PROFESSOR: Like a [INAUDIBLE] or on the whiteboard.
AUDIENCE: Or like, pennies and quarters.
PROFESSOR: Yeah, exactly.
AUDIENCE: And I was going to say basically it also helps
a lot where it's simple.
Because obviously that means that
you [INAUDIBLE], and that it adds extreme amounts of value,
the ability to pass it on.
PROFESSOR: In sports, you are sort of like it's--
you are sort of constrained to essentially having
a large enough space, flat space,
that you can play a game.
But assuming that's something that's
fairly easy to find around the world,
maybe increasingly hard as time goes on.
Something like soccer is very easy, right?
You know, it's like you don't really need a goal,
you just need things to mark goalposts, and corners.
And then you can play.
It's probably a little bit harder
to do something like baseball, where not only
do you need to be able to mark out the playing space,
but you've also got to have all the right--
a stick and thing that you can throw without hurting anybody.
And theoretically, you could play baseball
with a rock and a stick, but you know,
that game's probably not going to catch on.
Maybe it does.
AUDIENCE: Building off of [INAUDIBLE] old objects
and simple the game [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: It is amazing how that's
worked with chess, because chess has so many different pieces.
But you know, you've seen boards being
made by people who were basically hermits,
handcrafted stuff.
And pieces that just like made out of like--
people who were like survivors of a plane crash [INAUDIBLE]
waiting to be rescued, and things like that.
You can actually reproduce the border pretty easily.
So it can just use pieces to be able to reproduce that.
I wonder at what point complex becomes too complex.
Because if chess is just on the right side of just
easy enough to reproduce, I can't imagine
it gets much harder, much more complex than chess,
to get to the point where we just can't reproduce anymore.
AUDIENCE: Mahjong or shogi.
PROFESSOR: Oh, mahjong pieces.
Oh, good Lord.
AUDIENCE: There's something about them that's going on.
Chess piece doesn't quite--
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Chess is kind of nice [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: This is sort of like--
AUDIENCE: There's like an accepted aesthetic for it,
but you could play it with cut out pieces of paper
into different shapes.
PROFESSOR: Right.
Or you just draw the icons on it.
Or you can do the Lord of the Rings
chess set for instance, where instead of a king,
you've got Gandalf, or something like that.
AUDIENCE: Another game as an example is mancala.
[INAUDIBLE] century.
Another one that you can play with rocks.
AUDIENCE: Mancala's a great one.
I think I [INAUDIBLE] lot about mechanics,
but I wonder if it's a cultural or symbolic ritualistic that
is also required?
So like mancala, you've got cultural [INAUDIBLE],
or so it seems.
I learned how to play it in Bible study school as a kid.
I forget exactly what the message was, but it was
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
PROFESSOR: Something seems to [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: It's that [INAUDIBLE] cultural stuff that
is built into religion there.
I mean, chess kind of has war.
We really saw that in the '70s.
But what is go got-- what does this say?
[INAUDIBLE] Taoism?
PROFESSOR: Yeah it's this sort of Taoist monk's kind of thing.
So there's a certain amount of spirituality
that's associated with Go.
There's a lot more spiritual writing
that I've seen on Go than on say, military strategy writing.
Whereas chess, is very much a military strategy thing.
AUDIENCE: The Egyptian game of senet.
You put the board into the Pharaoh's tomb for the Pharaoh
to play after going into the afterlife.
It's not played anymore.
PROFESSOR: How do you know?
Maybe they are still playing it.
AUDIENCE: But there's no current cultural significance.
At one point, it stopped having cultural significance,
so it stopped being played.
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
I mean, that's a game that people
have theorized is actually about a journey into the afterlife.
So it has cultural resonance for a society
that thinks very heavily about what happens after I die,
right.
And chess makes sense for a society
that's either constantly in battle, or offered in battle.
And there was a resurgence in the '60's and '70's
here in the US.
AUDIENCE: Probably had to do with Bobby Fischer.
PROFESSOR: Also that.
Also that.
Celebrities, again-- it's nice to have
a king play your game game.
All right.
So a couple of things just to think about,
we've been talking in class a lot about [INAUDIBLE] games.
And you know, especially the discussion
about the Parker Brothers.
And what it will take to be able to make
a game that's going to sell.
The last time, we had a guest in here
to talk about Kickstarter, or Patreon, and Crowdfunding.
How to put a game in a box and ship it to people.
But then also, the other direction
of what if you just try to make a bigger
set of rules that anybody can--
with a ball and a field, or a chunk of wood
that had a good curve.
A bunch of different colored stones, or holes in the ground
could reproduce.
And what's the design process around designing
those kind of games?
It might be that's a perfectly legitimate application of game
design.
And so you might want to think about that.
And now that everybody's here, let's hear about your games.
Who needs to use the projector today for the pictures?
You don't have to, we can turn it off.
No?
OK.
All right.
[INAUDIBLE] shut the projector off.
And can the ship racing team come up here?
And we're going to give you feedback on your pitch.
We're also going to give you feedback
on ideas about tips on the game that you're pitching.
So imagine that Rick and I are the decision
makers of the publisher that you're
trying to get money from.
You're trying to get seed money to be
able to finish designing this game
that you're currently designing.
Maybe even employees in our company.
We're the heads of Hasbro.
You're all designers in Hasbro.
And you're going to say, this is the game
we all want to work on next.
All right?
Everybody else is kind of like your competition
in the company.
Yes, but we're not really doing that.
They all want something too.
So give us that pitch.
AUDIENCE: Let's do it.
So as you know--
well first of all, thanks for having us.
[INAUDIBLE] run through the team real quick. [? Fro, ?] Jory,
Matt and Joan.
And we are team ship racing.
And so we're here to tell you why
ship racing is going to be the number one game for Phil Rick
Studios.
And as you know, games like Agricola and Tsuro
are some of the top grossing games in recent history.
So since we're passionate about Euro style games,
and we love path building games, why
not do a mash-up of the two kinds of games?
So that's for-- enter ship racing.
A mash-up of Tsuro and Agricola.
So let me walk you through our vision for this game.
There's gonna be a common board that looks something like this.
We're experimenting with [INAUDIBLE] size,
but right now, five by five is pretty fun in early prototypes.
And this is the common.
And then you have tiles that go on the spaces.
And each tile-- here, I'll blow it up for you--
has two nodes on each side.
And there will be multiple permutations
of paths like this one.
You've got you guys that played Tsuro?
Tsuro [INAUDIBLE]?
A So these tiles will go together
and will help navigate your ship.
Your ship starts here, and you play this tile,
and it ends up here.
So the idea of the game is to start here.
It's a race to the finish.
First person that can go from the left side of the board
to the right side of the board is the winner.
The cool part is that each player is gonna have--
this is gonna be a zoomed in view of the ship.
So this is where the worker placement Euro-style turn
based game comes into play.
So on your ship, it will be a simulation.
You're going to get a really good understanding of what
it's like to be a ship captain.
You're going to be able to steer the ship, man the sails,
act as a navigation using the sun sky horizon as tools.
You can populate the crow's nest,
you can be the cook, swab the deck,
you could retreat to the captain's quarters
to sit with [INAUDIBLE], fish off the side of the boat
to get food for your crew.
And we're not quite sure how, but these are the two elements
of game-play that we want to mash together to really crush
it for you guys next year.
Is there anything I'm missing?
AUDIENCE: Focus groups loved in tests.
AUDIENCE: We have 100 pre-orders already.
We'd love to hear your feedback.
Let's see.
PROFESSOR: I'm just going to give you feedback not playing
the character that I [INAUDIBLE] I think that being ship captain
is actually the center point of this.
That's the whole [INAUDIBLE] trying
to get people excited about.
The actual game mechanic of everything,
like putting the tiles together, intellectually and designerly
very interesting.
But it's not the same [INAUDIBLE] to get [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: So there's like a hole in the market,
you can't be a ship captain in any other game,
but we're going to give you a chance to.
PROFESSOR: I think you don't even have to do that.
I think to sell the fantasy, to sell the fantasy of this
is the age of sails, or something like that.
You are a ship captain for the East India Company.
Sort of create the fantasy that [INAUDIBLE].
Like Ticket to Ride, you are the globe, continent trotting,
aristocrat, basically.
Even though really the game is nothing about that.
But that is the fantasy that they're trying to sell
would be try to sell you the box.
And of course, that is a focus you will need to better flesh
out--
what the decision that you're doing
on the road, how that influences your progress on the map.
Because it was unclear.
It looked like the tile assembling thing,
it's already game all by itself, like Tsuro.
You didn't make it very clear what drives what.
Is it the map-building that drives the ship [INAUDIBLE]
directions, or do the ship [INAUDIBLE]
give you the ability to use on the map of [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: I hear you.
AUDIENCE: I'm curious, what are the primary and secondary
sources you're using for how ship captaining works.
Why is it that this is--
how do you know that you're actually
showing the experience that this is
from the perspecive of this person?
What's the date?
What's the range of dates?
What's material you're using, the background material you're
using to [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: These are questions that we're
asking ourselves, too.
[INAUDIBLE] making it explicit, because we really
need to dive into the research.
We had a lot of game ideas and now we're just choosing this
and we're gonna run with it.
So I think that's a good next step, thanks for helping us
with that.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I think so.
[INAUDIBLE] I think [INAUDIBLE] would
be [INAUDIBLE] You could do a lot worse than just saying,
that sounds awesome.
[INAUDIBLE] British navy, you are
one of the boats that has carried cargo
at the same time [INAUDIBLE] It helps
that every one of those boats has a map,
has a cross section of the ship, [INAUDIBLE]
explains [INAUDIBLE] rest of the book is just use of terms.
[INAUDIBLE] which symbol [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: We're going to have to beef up our research.
Never been on a sailboat, personally.
The fantasy is something that people can relate--
[INAUDIBLE] guys.
AUDIENCE: Great competitions.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
AUDIENCE: Thank you, thanks for your feedback.
[APPLAUSE]
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
AUDIENCE: I want you to close your eyes for a second.
Rick.
May 28, 1953.
Your name is Sir Edmund Hillary and you are
300 feet on top of the world.
Philip.
Same date.
Your name is [INAUDIBLE].
You have walked-- looked at this mountain your entire life,
and wondered what was at the top.
For the first time in the history of your people,
you're going to actually [INAUDIBLE] by your face.
You spent the last week climbing this thing.
You're finally at the top.
You can open your eyes now.
This is the experience that we're going
to create with Tenzing Norgay.
We want to show people what it was like for these two men that
had no idea what was going on.
There was a second attempt to climb,
the first two died in the attempt.
And after 12 days of climbing, they
set up base camp in each spot, and reached the top.
We're going to make a three-dimensional board
with 12 different base camps.
I'm not gonna draw 12 base camps right now, that'll
take a little bit.
But each level essentially is a base camp.
If you've ever played the game Deception--
Descent, there is one kind of dungeon master type player.
Who, it's not like Dungeons and Dragons
dungeon master, who creates an entire game.
But he controls the monsters, controls tracks, how
they track, stuff like that.
We're gonna have a similar element with the environment.
The environment challenge that you face various equipment
failures, and just the unplanned for things
that happen during the climb, will be laid out
by this environment master.
It will be him against the two climbers
on their way to the top.
There will be different boundaries
placed on you, based on the stuff
that they had to fight for.
The last two base camps, you have to ascend in 24 hours.
If you don't, you will die of oxygen asphyxiation.
By the same logic, when these players
pass the [INAUDIBLE] base camp, they
will have called three turns.
We'll have to work on the details to reach the top.
Things like this can make the experience realistic,
make them feel like they're actually on the climb,
on the mountain, trying to reach the top.
Become the first person in the world to make it.
Simple enough, if you make it to the top and get down alive,
you win.
You go down this street, you get knighted.
Sounds good?
That, my friends, that is [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Source material that you're looking at right now?
AUDIENCE: I found a couple websites on just the climb.
I also read a book two years ago,
not necessarily about this climb,
but on the 1996 Everest disaster.
Which goes into a lot of detail on what it takes
for a pair to climb Everest.
The challenges that people face, how they
feel while they're climbing.
And then, obviously, the worst case scenario
of what can happen, when you get caught on base camp four
in the middle of a blizzard and 15 people die.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I planned on doing that the entire time,
and then you said [INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: If you have a strategy going in,
always volunteer to go first.
[INAUDIBLE], about your style of pitch, and more
about the things that you said in the pitch.
3-D board-- Really, really think about how
you're going to be handing that in on [INAUDIBLE].
Come in with a box that can actually fit this,
give us instruction about how we're supposed
to assemble this thing.
Make sure that it will hold up to repeated assembly
and disassembly.
Possibly something that may not be essential for your game,
something that [INAUDIBLE] which is a really interesting--
AUDIENCE: We met yesterday to talk about it,
and I said I was thinking about a 3-D board,
if that would look cool.
And both Matt and Eddy both said they
had the exact same thought.
So I was like, OK.
Then we have to do it.
PROFESSOR: You might actually want
to incorporate the board in your box
somehow, so that the box becomes something that can actually
be used to support the board.
[INAUDIBLE] it's up to you, really.
But do consider things like cost and time, [INAUDIBLE]
There is actually a genre of mountain climbing games that
looks like two [INAUDIBLE] with ropes [INAUDIBLE] straight from
[INAUDIBLE] attached to the--
and they both attach to one weight.
The board itself, [INAUDIBLE] quarter
of the board are slightly inclined and are [INAUDIBLE]
there [INAUDIBLE].
So the whole idea is get from point A to the top,
to the other side, without falling into the hole.
And each player holds onto to a different rope.
[INAUDIBLE]
A couple of ideas [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I think for me, if it is Tenzing Norgay,
I would've wanted--
hinted a little bit towards this character [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Mainly, just put that out there
because it was the first name that came to mind.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: So be very clear if that's
what you're going to go for.
There's actually some really interesting stuff
going on there, [INAUDIBLE] He's Tibetan, [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: He's a local Sherpa, I have I have his Wikipedia page.
AUDIENCE: He's a local Sherpa, he's supporting a European--
AUDIENCE: Nepalese.
AUDIENCE: To support European climber.
Europeans coming in with money, he's
coming in with knowledge of the area, how to survive,
and things like that.
A really rich amount of material to dive into,
that may or may not be useful to the game you want to make.
So just choose which-- if you're going to do that,
choose why you're doing that.
So an alternative would be [INAUDIBLE] for the North
Pole, South Pole, [INAUDIBLE]
Basically, two European guys are going
to find the North Pole, or South Pole [INAUDIBLE].
They are competitors trying to get there first.
Is your game to competitors trying to get there first?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Two situations and the one
we decided we liked was two people working together
against one environment person.
AUDIENCE: Great, OK.
Cool.
I just wasn't quite sure about that, so that's really great.
That's really interesting.
PROFESSOR: I like the idea of playing up exactly
who these two people were.
Rather than two [INAUDIBLE] this is offset.
[INAUDIBLE] can buy things.
Maybe not in the middle the mountain.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Actually, that's a really good thing.
How much of this [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: You can start the game off
at the base camp, or something.
And you'd start out with a certain amount of money.
And have to buy the various materials or something
like that.
AUDIENCE: There's a lot of stuff you can go in there.
The 24 hour limit for oxygen asphyxiation, really
interesting little detail.
So really think about the levels of abstraction you're using,
and how much you're abstracting away, how much [INAUDIBLE] Some
of this, if you're going to do this 24 hour limit, then that
might mean that you're focusing on the climb itself.
You're not worried about how you got there.
You're just setting the player up with all the materials
they need to do it.
Just be consistent throughout the game.
What level of abstraction are you looking at?
PROFESSOR: It's interesting that you brought up
[INAUDIBLE] because that implies not only
do you have to get to the top, you have to [INAUDIBLE] down.
And possibly getting up to the top isn't the end of the game.
And that again, comes back to [INAUDIBLE].
One of the things that he does, is make sure
that this thing gets published.
[INAUDIBLE] The environment does not necessarily need to be
[INAUDIBLE] it could be another player.
You could make it a two player versus one player game.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: So when you said when you're positioning as a GM,
the way we understand it, is that the GM's
really disinterested.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: I compared it to the set where you're playing--
you're actually playing against the other person.
PROFESSOR: There's more than rules enforcement then.
Then you're actually working against--
AUDIENCE: There's a set of rules that everyone has to learn.
Specified not like Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master,
but where you're actually competitive
against the other player.
And there's a set of rules that you both have to work with.
PROFESSOR: You might as well call that Dungeons
and Mountains.
Thank you, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] of which [INAUDIBLE]
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
AUDIENCE: I'm Liz.
AUDIENCE: I'm Laura.
AUDIENCE: Michael
AUDIENCE: And we're pitching [INAUDIBLE] game [INAUDIBLE].
So a very relevant problem in modern day,
is the lack of women in the tech industries.
And how they're being generally harassed,
and gaming culture, and things that
are heavy tech-wise in general.
And we're trying to address that by exploring that boss employee
dynamic that women in the tech industry
currently have to deal with.
And very much the reason why women
are averting the tech industry every day,
'cause it's just easier to do other things.
So we're planning to do a live action role
play to explore this relationship, where
one player plays as the boss.
And he has the ability to create a new rule every minute,
or something like that.
And one player plays as the employee,
and she has to follow all the rules that the boss says.
And maybe her ability to be productive
is affected by certain phrases that the boss says.
Which he's required to say, but he isn't sure--
he doesn't know that they might affect the person in this way.
They are just on the character sheet.
It would probably be a minimally re-playable game,
unless we introduce new characters and new scenarios.
And they'd be modular conditions on rules, introductions,
and the way they respond.
And both players will have goals that require the other player
to cooperate in order to succeed.
So they're going to have to learn to work together in order
to accomplish their goals.
So they have to learn to communicate,
despite the rules making it hard for them to do so.
AUDIENCE: In terms of search source material,
there's currently a wealth of information
on the internet about people bringing up
this issue in the tech community.
It's also something that's particularly
relevant on MIT'S campus, just because so many people here
will go into tech.
And so for source material, we're looking at a lot of--
there have been a lot of recent articles written
on the subject.
AUDIENCE: Also, I have a survey that I sent out
for another project that I did, that's basically
asking for women and the problems they
encounter every day at work.
And a lot of these are in the tech industry.
And even if they're not in the tech industry,
there's still boss-employee dynamics
that we can use to further explore that topic.
AUDIENCE: So if we have the time,
there's an alternative idea that we haven't had as much
of a chance to discuss.
It's a little less on the side of something
that's an educational tool that's minimally re-playable,
and you just play it once to try--
end up cooperating.
And more for like, maybe toning down the message a little bit
for the sake of making it more of a game.
And the idea is similar, where the boss
is in charge of the rules, as far as the employee goes.
So that all of the rules that are
in play for a particular section,
are going to be given to the boss at the beginning,
or over the course of the game.
And the employee would be told only
whatever the boss tells them, and penalized
for whatever the boss decides to penalize them for.
And there would be some sort of inadequate system
for the employee to disagree.
And overall, goals might be less cooperative, and more directly
opposing.
Where, for example, the employee's goal
might be to get the boss fired without getting
fired themselves first.
And that's something that they might
do that would let them do that.
Like finding out things about the rules,
might take their focus off of being productive,
which would generally lead them to get fired.
Whereas the boss's job, boss's goal,
could be to end up with a golden parachute.
End up being profitable, end up exploiting the employee,
enough to live happily ever after on their own,
and quit themselves.
At a time where they have enough to just like,
coast by for the rest--
If they get enough out of the employee
before having to either fire them,
or ending up in trouble themselves,
that would be the other side that would
be the success for the boss.
PROFESSOR: OK.
So is there anything else you want
to get in [INAUDIBLE] Couple of things.
It's [INAUDIBLE] nice to have the clarity of this is--
if you can specify your audience [INAUDIBLE].
You mention minimally re-playable.
I'm wondering whether there's some value in playing it twice
with inverted roles.
AUDIENCE: That was considered.
We meant that it's just--
if you keep playing as the employee,
and you already know that you're being lied to.
And even worse, if the rules stay the same,
and you already know the rules, then that's
completely defeating the purpose.
AUDIENCE: I mean, you could still
play it to explore the relationship further, and maybe
see what else you could have done.
But fundamentally,
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] because it's live action,
because you're two people working together,
talking about this stuff.
Even if the rules are the same every time you play it,
that other person is going to be different.
I don't worry minimal replayability.
It's very replayable.
PROFESSOR: And definitely reusable, among--
in a training setting, absolutely.
[INAUDIBLE] reusable.
If you don't play it again, at least no matter what you do,
[INAUDIBLE] how do you talk with each other
after the game is over?
And [INAUDIBLE] because that sort of helps people
reflect on what they should have picked up
while they're playing the game.
[INAUDIBLE] thinking about how [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Great thing for that, if you
can do that without requiring a facilitator,
you're already doing much better than a lot
of the games in this sector.
It gets your game a little bit more useful, a little more
used, if your players can debrief each other.
PROFESSOR: You describe specifically the relationship
between a boss and an employee.
And it seems like that--
I guess you should be clear whether all of the tension
specifically between these two people,
or whether also there's any abstraction of the college
of [INAUDIBLE] Say in a stereotypical, male boss,
female employee situation, there's
a lot of culture supporting the male boss.
That's not there [INAUDIBLE] so how do you put them together?
The sort of touchy phrases thing reminds me a bit of Taboo.
Which may not necessarily be a [INAUDIBLE]
For research, micro-aggressions, I
think is one thing that comes up a lot.
[INAUDIBLE] you just [INAUDIBLE] get a lot of stuff.
Not just gender, but also ethnic discrimination, disability,
[INAUDIBLE] You can find a lot of material [INAUDIBLE]
actually.
Because--
AUDIENCE: Just to make clear, those
were the kind of very two, very separate--
AUDIENCE: For future-- for pitch-- don't pitch two ideas.
I had a hard time following the second one.
If you're going to pitch the second idea, a very simple two
line--
and if we did this other way, this is how it would be.
Enough to get it [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I mean, it obviously came up here
because we're not at the stage where we have one idea.
AUDIENCE: So we heard a great, clear idea
that's still not specific, but pretty general.
And then with this extra route, this alternate route,
it's really just a matter of knowing a two line
version of how is this different from the other,
without having to go into detail on it.
PROFESSOR: Describing it, I think, as a variant,
this is a very [INAUDIBLE] right now,
rather than here's a second idea.
This is just a general pitch.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Talked about it, if you haven't talked about it
enough, we don't need hear it.
If you were trying to get money, [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: But since you did bring it up,
I do want to give my perspective from a design point of view.
I think that actual competitive game might--
different goals is fine.
But it's sort of like, opposed goals [INAUDIBLE]
I think takes the game out of a situation that a lot of people
can see [INAUDIBLE] in.
But a lot of people don't actively
want to get [INAUDIBLE] or at least don't
see themselves that way.
So just to be able to make a game where people can easily
make connections to their real life,
the goal should be a little bit closer to non-competitive
even though it may not be a completely aligned goal.
Any questions for us?
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I had just another quick [INAUDIBLE] for research.
We did an equal pay game [INAUDIBLE] two years ago,
I think.
And there were some interesting things
that came up with like, talking about specific scenarios.
So how does the fact that women don't necessarily--
at the time, it was thought people didn't have
the data to get a pay raise.
So maybe it was just a matter of, well,
they don't have the data.
So if we just give them the data, maybe it would help them.
It's not much more complex than that.
[INAUDIBLE] see what kind of scenarios are you going to do.
Are they going to be very specific,
like going to your employee to try and get something
that you need?
Or is it going to be what I think I heard,
and correct me if I'm wrong, an employee going to a boss
to try and just do the job they need to do.
And the boss [INAUDIBLE] can get difficult for them to do it.
PROFESSOR: There's a lot of stuff
about how the same adjective, feelings, you
use to describe a female professional
or a male professional, it can be positive in one sense
and negative in the other.
It's the same word, literally.
[INAUDIBLE] definitely [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: And really good seeing you already
did a survey of getting actual phrases that you can use,
and actual perspective [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: So I guess I have a question.
Which is, how would you recommend dealing with the fact
that the players might not be the genders that they're
playing?
PROFESSOR: That could be a very valuable learning experience.
AUDIENCE: No, I understand.
I mean, the fact that if it even-- if you just
said about the phrases.
If you're having a conversation, and that word comes up,
it just won't mean anything necessarily to someone.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Game mechanic for that.
If it's known that that word is going
to have a positive or negative affect
to that particular gender, then you
make a mechanic around that.
Your mechanics should support these things.
There's times when you don't need a mechanic because players
will all understand.
But any game where you're talking
about these kinds of cultural things, the mechanics
kind of just help buttress the message.
The things you're trying to get across.
PROFESSOR: Yeah, all the research
implies [INAUDIBLE] game mechanics are just
making the system obvious.
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: That stuff should just come out in debrief.
Especially if you have two people
with different genders and different experiences
[INAUDIBLE]
[APPLAUSE]
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
AUDIENCE: We have a third group member, Damon,
who's not here today.
So our game mostly explores the dynamics
of the sort of the balance of power
that can occur when there's a bunch of-- when there's
three people who are sort of all fearful of the others there.
And how there's an unstable equilibrium there,
where they're trying to keep up with the other two
to make sure that no one gets far ahead of them.
But the game's dynamics will be such
that this is guaranteed to fail in the long run.
In such, one of the things that players will have to do
is try to realize when they have a large enough advantage
to strike, and it's really about finding
the moment of opportunity when they can make an attack that
will work out well.
They mostly explore some of the--
it's intended to be sort of a strategy game.
But sort of lighter than some of the versions
that cover similar topics that can take several hours.
It's going to cover a lot of the historical trends
around the time.
So the conflict between populist reformers
and the conservatives, and the rise of the equestrian class,
and their importance as a power base to some of the leaders
there.
And also how the legions, the loyalties of legions
was shifting from the Senate to individuals.
Who are actually paying them, and giving them
the lands that they would retire to.
That's what this game covers.
PROFESSOR: Source material?
AUDIENCE: Source material is I took a class in Roman history,
and it's mostly just stuff that I remember from that.
I've looked at [INAUDIBLE] sources of lines
for detailed stuff online, like the number of details
of numbers of legions, and where they were stationed,
and that's about it.
AUDIENCE: So we remember the games about the Tribunal.
I don't remember what personal perspective it's from,
so the pitch should have that in there.
AUDIENCE: I'm sorry.
AUDIENCE: So you want to reiterate that [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I just completely
forgot to like describe exactly what the game was.
It's the [INAUDIBLE] members the First Triumvirate
and they're all sort of--
Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, and they're
sort of jockeying for influence.
And eventual plan to sort of of usurp the other team
and to become the sole leader of Rome.
PROFESSOR: For a pitch, you have to assume that the audience
doesn't know that.
The audience may have heard of Caesar,
and not realize that at the time that your game is [INAUDIBLE],
he's not in charge.
Because everyone assumes--
Caesar means king, right?
[INAUDIBLE] who is Pompey, who is Crassus--
especially Crassus.
A lot of people haven't heard of him.
[INAUDIBLE]
You talk a little about light strategy,
and I wonder if that means it's still working?
Or is it a little bit more of a political points type game?
Do you expect it is going to be like a victory point base
system?
Or is it going to be more about military [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
It's not going to have a victory points system.
It's going to be sort of--
the way you win, is by crushing the other two players there.
There are multiple paths that this can happen.
You can get enough legions to become personally loyal to you,
that you can just beat the other two people in the [INAUDIBLE].
Or you can gain enough support from various groups
in the realm and that you really can just start to snowball.
And you can have a tremendously large force
that the other players can't deal with there.
And it's going to be a war game, but with sort of more--
mostly what it is is action selection.
And that the players will have a choice [INAUDIBLE]
on their [INAUDIBLE] choice of actions that they can take.
The game will probably be such that the players will
go in order over about a 10 year period,
or maybe a 15 year period.
They'll have about four actions per year
[INAUDIBLE] That's the sense that, for instance,
if the players build new buildings,
or conquer new problems, it makes more options available
there.
Also the struggle, if you--
depending on whether the optimize
the conservative to the popular are the populous
are sort of in power.
Have more power, or different actions are available also.
PROFESSOR: So I just had maybe three different envisions,
just from that last [INAUDIBLE] of what this game could be.
On one hand, you describe it as a Roman war game.
And I'm thinking units and pieces on a hex grid.
AUDIENCE: It's very much you go and--
it's in what you take, sort of.
It's very much [INAUDIBLE] where the players are just
choosing if you want to go [INAUDIBLE] you just say, OK.
I'm going to go launch an invasion of Gaul here.
I'm going to take this [INAUDIBLE].
You have to prepare for it.
You have to make sure that you have the position
that you would go to do this, that you
have the resources to raise the legions necessary there.
You also might want to [INAUDIBLE]
to call your veterans if you're successful.
And then, once you launch [INAUDIBLE],
there'd be a factor of luck to determine
how successful you are there.
And you would probably continue repeating the same few actions
to continue your invasion for several years.
PROFESSOR: And that gives me a completely different image
of what your game is.
Which is more of a collecting resources [INAUDIBLE] tokens.
That's the second image [INAUDIBLE]
And then you said action selection.
And I'm thinking that [INAUDIBLE] like a card game.
Almost like a game where these that I
could be doing right now.
Maybe [INAUDIBLE] if you get say, if you [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: The actions will be normal in [INAUDIBLE] global
there.
So in the sense that if the populous are in power there,
there is a set of actions that you can take
is sort of different.
Because the political possibilities are different.
Because the political [INAUDIBLE] So like,
if the populous are in power, it's
much easier to get land for your veterans, for instance.
PROFESSOR: So you still have the same actions,
but how hard it is [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: Some of them might get grayed out or something.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: Specifically, what happens
is as the [INAUDIBLE] has mentioned, that the actions
will sort of flip over there.
Like instead of the populace being able to do this,
instead, you're able to get conservatives
to do this [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: So I think [INAUDIBLE] of what
your game's gonna look like.
But that's something you want to get across in the pitch.
[INAUDIBLE] board, you could use hand gestures,
like you just did.
Referencing other games.
Just so that when you're talking about the game,
you're trying to help me see it in my head.
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: One of the last things.
So we're going to have three players.
Each be one member of the Triumvirate.
I imagine each of those historical people
had different perspectives of how they saw things.
Were they equal?
They had different backgrounds?
AUDIENCE: The game is going to be portraying them
as having equal views, the same goals, the same views,
the same perspectives, and everything.
But it treats them different.
They will have different starting resources,
and different advantages and disadvantages as the game
goes through.
So like Crassus will have more money,
and [INAUDIBLE] money, for instance.
I imagined that Pompey will start with a lot more influence
than the others.
AUDIENCE: Is there a historical or realistic basis
for any of that?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Crassus is often called the richest man in history there.
He is known for just acquiring such just massive--
he had more money than basically the Roman government.
AUDIENCE: So that's going to at least help him
with the players starting position.
Did that wealth-- is that wealth then
carried over to the kind of actions
that he's able to do historically?
Or was it really just setting up?
AUDIENCE: It's going to offer--
I haven't said whether or not that will offer him
bonuses towards acquiring wealth, or whether or not he
will just have more wealth at the start of the game there.
AUDIENCE: From our point of view, for the assignment,
we're really interested in seeing
the personal perspectives.
So you could do the generic, they're each an equal person.
It'd be more interesting for us to see
be a reflection of the actual personage.
AUDIENCE: The differences, I think,
are really going to shape their strategy,
and how they start the play.
So is for instance, in Caesar will have sort of have a bonus
towards campaigning, or not necessarily
bonus towards military invasions,
but making his legions loyal to him.
His legions become loyal to him quicker.
I'm not sure which of these is sort of--
and Pompey will sort of start out
with more powerful and prestigious than the others.
But during the first several years of the alliance
there, he was obsessed with his wife, Julia,
who was Caesar's daughter that he had married there.
And he was neglecting lots of his responsibilities because
of his wife there.
So he will probably have penalties,
he would miss every forth action, or something.
He starts off in a much more powerful position,
and he sort of has to use limited actions
to try to not fall behind in the earlier part of the game.
So [INAUDIBLE] these players sort of have the same goals,
but these small differences are going
to cause them to take very different strategies
oftentimes.
PROFESSOR: So I'm actually going to suggest
that the differences are what the game should be built on,
not the bedrock of similar [INAUDIBLE].
It seems to me that you are describing
that there is an objective reality which all three of them
agree on and are just playing on this field
with their individual advantages.
But I'm going to suggest that you start from the differences.
Start from the fact that one of them's richer than everybody
else, one of them's more loved than everybody else,
and one of them just [INAUDIBLE] And then you can just--
what if the game is all about those differences,
rather than everything else that was involved [INAUDIBLE].
Because then we get a little bit closer
for how these three particular people see the world, rather
than [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: The thing is, I really like a lot of the differences,
the sort of [INAUDIBLE] and to have these differences,
[INAUDIBLE] I intend to have these bonuses that are really
not going to be--
they're just going to be one [INAUDIBLE],
something fairly simple.
But will cause the players to be playing almost completely
different games.
Where Crassus is basically trying
to take actions that are just [INAUDIBLE]
is basically going to try to acquire lots of money,
and then use it to brute force his way through money.
Try to brute force his way to get the most efficient ways
to use this, or try to--
PROFESSOR: Set it up to be [INAUDIBLE] it's
not just [INAUDIBLE] project.
It really should be all three players end up playing very
different games, [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: That's definitely [INAUDIBLE].
Like Caesar's going to be--
he has the potential, but he needs
to be able to get the resources so that he can start--
that he can really [INAUDIBLE].
Whereas like Pompey has this power
and is basically going to be trying to consolidate it.
And try to threaten the other team's growth,
and threatening the growth of the other two.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PROFESSOR: So that was probably as good a time
as any to take a short break.
We'll have about-- these games generally don't
take more than 45 minutes.
So these are related to the reading that of space control.
Not so many chase games, mostly control games.
And although, Ticket to Ride I guess
has some sort of set building in there as well.
Play through the game.
It seems like a lot of people didn't do the reading,
so I'm not so sure how much context they give you.
But I do still want you to.
End up having played a wide range of games
before the end of the semester.
And then at about 3:30 I guess, a little before 3:30, we'll
bring in the prototyping boxes, and you
can spend the rest of the class working in your teams.
AUDIENCE: Go over this again really quick?
AUDIENCE: So Panic Station is a little bit
of a-- it's got a lot of trader mechanic.
You are trying to survive in a space station,
but there's aliens.
And they're infecting you, and you're
going to infect the others too.
[INAUDIBLE] is another one of those path building
games that has area control, and other things like that.
French, medieval towns, [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Through the Desert, it's
kind of like mapping paths.
AUDIENCE: Path building, mapping,
you're creating basically a supply chain line of camels
through the desert.
It's a [INAUDIBLE] game.
I've not played [? Purple. ?]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: And every one of these games
that we put up so far, these three games
are all about putting tiles down.
This one is more about putting--
I was going to say putting dues down,
but really you're putting down camels.
They're really cute camels.
AUDIENCE: This is putting down trains,
but you're putting them down creating sets.
To create matching sets of train.
PROFESSOR: Cool.
All right.