How Games Acquire Mana
Like many people, I have a long commute. The university where I teach is located almost an hour’s drive west from the city in which I live. Since I got into boardgaming, I have filled this temporal void by listening to podcasts. One of the most popular podcasts in the boardgaming hobby is The Dice Tower , hosted by boardgame reviewer Tom Vasel and voice actor Eric Summerer. It consists mainly of boardgame reviews, along with the ever-popular “Top 10” countdowns and occasional interviews. A recurring feature are the “GameTek” segments hosted by game designer and author Geoff Engelstein , which analyze different aspects of game design and gameplay from a theoretical perspective, incorporating insights from psychology, economics and statistics as well as computing and artifical intelligence. On my drive home from work last Thursday I was listening to Dice Tower episode #574, Top 10 Relaxing Games , which featured a GameTek segment on the use of specialized terminology i...