Pretty Much Pop #108: Board Game Ideology

As board games are becoming increasingly popular with adults, we ask: What’s the relationship between a board game’s mechanics and its narrative? Does the “message” of a board game matter?

Mark is joined by game designer Tommy Maranges, educator Michelle Parrinello-Cason, and ex-philosopher Al Baker to talk about re-skinning games, designing player experiences, play styles, game complexity, and more. 

Some of the games we mention include Puerto Rico, Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, Sorry, Munchkin, Sushi Go, Welcome To…, Codenames, Pandemic, Occam Horror, Terra Mystica, chess, Ticket to Ride, Splendor, Photosynthesis, Spirit Island, Escape from the Dark Castle, and Wingspan.

Sponsors:

Some articles that fed our discussion included:

The two games Tommy created that we bring up are Secret Hitler and Inhuman Conditions.

This episode includes bonus discussion you can access by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop, or now you can sign up directly via Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark’s podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.

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