Serious Play: Recent Episodes

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In this episode, we speak to C. Thi Nguyen, philosophy professor at University of Utah and author of Games: Agency As Art(OUP, 2020). We discuss point systems; agency in play; rules and constraints; and the problems of gamification.

https://objectionable.net/

Games mentioned in this episode:

• The Mind - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind
• Sign: A Game about Being Understood - https://thornygames.com/pages/sign
• Apocalypse World - http://apocalypse-world.com/
• Monster of the Week - https://evilhat.com/product/monster-of-the-week/
• Night Witches - https://bullypulpitgames.com/games/night-witches/
• The Quiet Year - https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year
• Microscope - https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/

Produced by Dominic O’Key, Asa Roast, Liz Stainforth, and Oliver Thurley.

Music by Dominic O’Key.

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In this episode, we speak to sociologist Gabriele de Seta about his ethnography of Magic: The Gathering players in Taiwan, and a Nordic LARP as part of an ERC-funded research project on Machine Vision.

http://paranom.asia/about/

Games mentioned in this episode

• Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)
• Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast)
• The Quiet Year (Buried Without Ceremony)
• Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies (Thorny Games)
• Inhuman Conditions (Tommy Maranges; Cory O'Brien; Mackenzie Schubert)
• Delve: A Solo Map Drawing Game (Anna Blackwell)
• Brave Sparrow (Buried Without Ceremony)
• Thousand Year Old Vampire (Tim Hutchings)
• Pax Pamir (Cole Wehrle)

Produced by Dominic O’Key, Asa Roast, Liz Stainforth, and Oliver Thurley.

Music by Dominic O’Key.

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In this episode, we speak to Natalia Stroika, existential game maker/destroyer and founder of Ludic Liberation. 

• http://www.ludicliberation.com/
• The Lab Report - https://ludicliberation.substack.com/

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Games mentioned in this episode

• Nomic (Peter Suber, 1982) - http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm

Produced by Dominic O’Key, Asa Roast, Liz Stainforth, and Oliver Thurley.

Music by Dominic O’Key.

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In this episode, we talk to Jo Lindsay Walton (@jowalton) about the Applied Hope games jam and Utopia on the Tabletop project.

• Applied Hope: The Solarpunk & Utopias Jam - https://itch.io/jam/applied-hope
• Sad Press Games - https://sadpress.itch.io/

Games mentioned in this episode:

• "Powered by the Apocalypse" games - http://apocalypse-world.com/
• Roots & Flowers - https://thegiftofdice.itch.io/roots-and-flowers
• Lasers & Feelings - https://johnharper.itch.io/lasers-feelings
• The Transition Year - https://affinity-games.itch.io/the-transition-year
• Monster of the Week - https://www.evilhat.com/home/monster-of-the-week/
• How to Ooze Charm in the Future - https://paulczege.itch.io/how-to-ooze-charm-in-the-future

Produced by Dominic O’Key, Asa Roast, Liz Stainforth, and Oliver Thurley. 

Music by Dominic O’Key.

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In this first episode, we lay out the project at hand: how might tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) inform the practice of doing academic research.

Games mentioned in this episode:

• Dungeons & Dragons - https://dnd.wizards.com/
• MOTHERSHIP - https://www.mothershiprpg.com/
• The Quiet Year - https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/the-quiet-year
• The Veil - https://samjokopublishing.com/products/the-veil-cyberpunk-ttrpg

Produced by Oliver Thurley, Asa Roast, Liz Stainforth, and Dominic O’Key. 

Music by Dominic O’Key.