The Tabletop Takeaway: A Board Game Design Podcast

Nov 19 2024 55 ep. 23 mins 15
The Tabletop Takeaway: A Board Game Design Podcast artwork

Join game designers Ananda Guneratne, Charlie McCarron, and Trevor Muller-Hegel as they analyze published games from a game developer's perspective. Each month, they pick a new game mechanic and three games to play in that genre. Each episode is 20 minutes of pure game design nerdiness!

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1. Kingdomino

Nov 28 2023 19 mins  
How do you make terrain types feel different from each other? Why do players need to know the distribution of tiles? Should you use multiplication for scoring? Join Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie for the pilot episode in which they talk about Kingdomino, a light tile drafting game.

2. Carcassonne

Nov 28 2023 18 mins  
When are rivals willing to cooperate? Should players draw their next tile at the start or end of their turn? What is the purpose of the abbot? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor discuss the classic tile placement game, Carcassonne.

3. Galaxy Trucker

Nov 28 2023 20 mins  
Can a game be more fun to lose than to win? How do you make a game accessible to new players when there are so many different tiles to remember? Is real-time play compatible with turn-based mechanics? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda talk about Galaxy Trucker, where you build a spaceship out of sewer pipes and see how far you can fly before it explodes.

4. Tile Placement

Nov 28 2023 14 mins  
Bonus Episode! Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie talk about tile placement games in general. How will they use this mechanic in future games they're designing?

5. Zendo

Dec 05 2023 12 mins  
What is the difference between induction and deduction? How do you make logic-heavy games friendly and approachable? Ananda, Charlie, and Trevor get started on the logical induction genre with Zendo, the classic game of scientific inquiry.

6. Visitor in Blackwood Grove

Dec 12 2023 18 mins  
Do induction games always need unambiguous secret rules, or can fuzzy rules work? Can asymmetric roles work with induction? Check out the Visitor in Blackwood Grove with Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie.

7. Turing Machine

Dec 19 2023 19 mins  
How do you avoid unintentional information leaks due to player choices? How can you avoid making people feel dumb in games about being clever? What should happen when a player makes the wrong guess? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss Turing Machine, the Punch-Card Computer.

8. Logical Induction

Dec 26 2023 21 mins  
In this extra-fun episode, Trevor, Ananda, and Charlie discuss logical induction games and their design.

9. Chess

Jan 02 2024 21 mins  
What are the advantages of only allowing players to move one piece per turn? Are one-hit kills broken? Should you design a variant? Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda discuss the classic game of strategy: Chess.

10. Mage Wars

Jan 09 2024 24 mins  
How granular does a representation of space actually need to be? Can you really give players access to their entire deck without overwhelming them? Where does simultaneous gameplay best fit into a game? Ananda, Charlie, Trevor talk Mage Wars.