Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Teaching About Boardgames, part 2

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Teaching About Boardgames, part 2 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorders to step out for a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: walk and deliver an episode to you while I strolled around.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Welcome back.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: This episode is part two of a conversation about my
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: course Tabletop.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Games and Community that I teach at.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Least once a year, sometimes twice a year at Columbia
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: College Chicago, where I am a professor. In the previous episode,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I talked a little bit about what games I have
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the students play. The first half of the semester is
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: about playing games and learning how games work. In the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: second half of the semester, we talk about and experience
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the game design process. So what I'm going to talk
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: about to you with you today is how I lead
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: them through that process, what I teach them, what we discuss,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and a little bit about their feedback about that has
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: been and what I'd like to think about next semester.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: This episode, along with the previous one, is sort of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a brainstorming session which I review would have done before
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and think about what I might like to do coming up.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So the design process, broadly speaking, I'm gonna use the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: singular the design process phrase, but that is.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: That is not reasonable.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: The best way to think of board game design, I think,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is as a set of possible design processes. Lots of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: people use lots of different approaches. There are best practice
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: advice that you can almost always find somebody who made
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: a go of it and did really well not following
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: that advice. But for the most part, what I'm leaving
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: students down is the tried and true understanding.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Of how to make a board game and do it well.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: There is a house rent in here making a lot
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of fun noise, and a northern Cardinal.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: There's the house rent.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the goal of the second half of the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: term is for students to sieve of, produce play tests,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: right rules for, imagine marketing for, and produce a viable
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: prototype that's developed to the level where if you wanted
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to pitch it to a publisher you could it. Probably
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be ready for crowdfunding because crowdfunding requires a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: lot more it you'd be a lot closer to publication
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: than pitching to a publisher would be. But generally pitching
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to a publisher or publishers don't mind a prototype. They
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: don't need something with tons of art they're going to
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: do their own art, even though sometimes having art there
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: is a good way to get the theme across. So
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that's kind of broadly speaking, the goals. So we always
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: start with, like I said, seven or eight weeks of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: playing games. Around about week five, I start telling them
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you gotta start thinking about what game you might like
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to make. You have two things to figure out between
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: now and week eight, which is broadly speaking, what kind
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of game would you like to make and who would
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you like to work with? Now I make this a
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: optional group project. The project is not optional the group.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: It is a.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Project where you may optionally work in groups. I encourage
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: students to work in groups of two or three for
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a number of reasons. One, it's a ton of work,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and dividing up to work makes it makes you make
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: a better product. Two, games require a lot of play testing,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: so if you're working with other people, you are able
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to play test with them and that will be more functional. Three,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you have someone to bounce ideas off of. That part
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is really useful as well. Developing by yourself can be
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: really rewarding. But I encourage them to not do that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: That said, roughly a third of my students if not
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: more to choose to develop their own games.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a headache for me, but whatever that is,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: that is the way of it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I don't like to force people to be in groups.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I think that there are certainly there are certainly valuable
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: times to do that. If you're teaching a professional process,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: like if you're a video game developer and you're teaching
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: people to work on games together, yeah, they have to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: work in groups because you have to develop your game
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: with other people. I think or game design is not
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: necessarily work that way, and so this isn't going to
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: be the class where I.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Make people do that. They also don't all have the
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: same investment in this. In a game design class.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Video game design class, you are with other video game
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: design majors, so you all presumably are invested in the
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: process this class.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: You could have a.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Video game design person, an illustration major, a theater major,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: and a fashion major sitting at a table playing game together.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: They're all going to have different levels of investment in
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the process, and so I think giving them room to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: find the people they want to work with or work
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: on their own works just fine. Okay, so broadly speaking,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I take them through several steps we start with ideation
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and initial development. We talk a lot about the notion
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of failing faster the idea that game design involves iterating
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: with ideas, figuring out what doesn't work, tossing it out,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: trying a new idea, revising, revising, revising, and play testing,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: play testing, play testing. So that initial ideation, the idea
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is to think of an idea and as quickly as
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: you can make it a thing that you can mess
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: with on the table. Doing that is a really useful process,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I think for thinking through how the games work. Then
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the goal is to have a playable prototype that they
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: can bring to class to try with other people. I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: push them really hard to on. So they get each
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: student or group of students who's each design team, whether
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: they're by themselves or with the group, gets two play
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: tests in class, or the opportunity for two. Sometimes they
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: aren't ready when it's their turn, and they don't get
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: an opportunity, and I can't always go back and give
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: them another if they miss their chance. But they get
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for two playtests in class. Playtest one is
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: meant to be a early playtest where the game is
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in some level of development. They are showing it to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: other people, they're teaching it to them, they're playing, they're
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: getting good feedback about how to develop the game. The
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: second round is a blind playtest, and this is using
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: blind in the classic scientific sense of the experiment is
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: blinded from the experimenter, or in other words, you're giving
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: people the game and the rules and having them play
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the game with the rules without having experience ahead of time,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: without having the designer there to teach them the game.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So part of what you're testing is are my rules
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: good enough for people to learn the game. That's a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: really fun process and interesting and relatively late in the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: arc of getting the game ready for submission. They also
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: need to prepare a robust rule set, prepare what I
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: call a marketing plan, and do some of the art
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and graphic design ideation for the game. There's a lot
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of room in there for putting emphasis emphasis on different pieces.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Some students will put a lot of work into the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: graphic design and art of the game and not as
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: much work into some of the other pieces. That's okay,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: as long as they're all there and they've sort of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: taken some thought about them. So the arc that we
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: do we start with ideation. Then we do a couple
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: weeks where they're doing in class play testing, so they
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: start conceiving of what the game could be somewhere around
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: week five. By week seven I think I have them
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: or week eight I have them put in a proposal
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: of what they'd like their game to be in. Weeks
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: ten and eleven are play testing, Weeks thirteen and fourteen
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: are play testing, and the end of week fifteen is
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: when their game is due. So weeks ten and eleven
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: are the playtesting in class with your group. Weeks thirteen
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: and fourteen are blind play testing in class. It's really
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: interesting watching students develop these game ideas. You know, I'm
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: giving them feedback on their design in a couple different places.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: When they do their initial proposal, I give them feedback
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and start talk about places I see potential hurdles in
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: this design. And one of the big things that I
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: do is I really challenge them to move beyond designs
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they were familiar with before the class started. Most many
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: students have not played very many games over the course
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of the semester, and sometimes students will even though they've
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: played all these interesting games, they will not take lessons
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: from them necessarily and they'll turn in essentially candy Land
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: as their game or something kind of similar in terms
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of like roll, move, do what the board says. So
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I really push them away from that. But I also
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: don't like to I don't like to say you can't
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: do that, you can't make a children's game, or you
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: can't make a game that's very simple. But I really
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: push them to examine what is it about this that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they think is fun and how can they make it fun?
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And if they do sort of go down that road,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I really push them to add things into the game
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: that give them that give it a little bit more
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: weight in terms of something interesting to do. Right, if
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you could play the game without ever making a choice,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's a terrible game. I don't even know
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: if that. If that's a game, then I guess you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: could call it a game. I think it is reasonable
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: to call Candyland a game, but I don't think it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a good game, at least from the context of being
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: an adult.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's great for teaching children how to roll, dice and
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: move things.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: As far as I recall, the only choice in Candyland
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is do you take this side path or do you
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: go straight?
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: That's literally the entirety of the choices.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So the idea of the original prototype phase is having
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: them think about, try to understand, conceive the game, put
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: pieces on the table, move them around, get to the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: point where they think there's something fun here to play.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Then they bring that in for people to see. So
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I think students.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Often underestimate how much work that first phase should be.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So one of the things I want to do better
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: this semester is really pushing them to be doing that.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I have them turning in a game development log each week,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: so that part is useful. Then we get to playtesting.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: When I'm having them do playtesting, I have them bring
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the game in. We talk about what is good kind
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of playtesting feedback, what's bad playtesting feedback, We talk about
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the process of actually doing a playtest. They get seventy
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: five minutes to run their playtest and talk to their
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: game folks. So if they're making more complex game, they
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: don't get a full play testing class. If they're making
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: something that takes longer than an hour to play, most
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: students aren't doing that. Some students do, but you know,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it is what it is, So that works pretty well.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And then I have the students give verbal feedback. In
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the past, I've tried to use written feedback, but often
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: what happens is they give fertile feedback and discussion verbal
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: feedback and discussion, and then the written feedback is really
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: hollow because they've already said everything they have to say,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: so they're repeating what they had to say. I don't
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: generally try to capture that. The hardest part of that
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: part of running class is that it feels like there's
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of downtime for students, especially where if you're
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: in a group and the person doing the designing has
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: brought a game that takes fifteen minutes to play, do
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you can play it three or even four times and
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: still have a bunch of downtime, whereas other groups will
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: be using that time right up to the seventy five minutes,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: and then I give them a ten minute break in
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: they're still doing stuff during the ten minute break. So
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: that part is not ideal, but I don't really have
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a way around it because most students don't know enough
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: about their game to be able to tell me how
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: much time they actually need. When I'm planning, and the
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: planning is already an incredible amount of effort so then
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: also having to think about the idea of arranging play
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: tests around how long the game takes to play is
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: just one step too far.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't work. So we do two weeks of playtesting.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: We do a week back where we're working on stuff
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: in class and they get development time with their partners,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but we're not playing a new published game or anything.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Then we do two more weeks of playtesting and then
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the class is over. It goes really fast, which is
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: both fun and frustrating. One of the things that we
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: do during that extra time is we talk about marketing,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: about how the board game industry works, how it gets marketed,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and that works really well.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: That's fun.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I could spend more time on it, and they often
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: ask me to do that. So that's one of the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: things this semester that I want you to spend a
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: bit more time on how do board game how does
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: board game marketing work. I also think it'd be interesting
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to have them do pitches of games, practice their elevator
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: pitch of their game because they ran into someone who
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: was interested in their game or wanted to publish it
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: or whatever. They have them talk about what the game
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: is about and sort of you know, pitch it. That
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: would be an interesting exercise to do, would be another
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: way to kind of capture some points or performance there
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: in the second half of the semester.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I think that would work really well. Maybe something I'll
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: do this semester is practice that pitch.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: The other thing that I think that I could do
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: better would be learned to help them use play testing
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: time better. I think some of the students don't really
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: know what to do with it. They don't know what
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: questions to ask, They get done, and the feedback is hollow.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: It was fun.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Sometimes students are really engaged, and this is I mean, honestly,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: this is true with anything you do in any class. Ever,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: some students are really engage in it and they are
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: very productive and helpful, and other students are not that
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: engaged and not that into it, and the help they
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: provide is less productive. So from that perspective, maybe it
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: doesn't do all that much. One of the things I
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: really like about the course is that we do we
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: have a community day where they we don't have class
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: and the students go out in the community and play
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: games somewhere outside. It was interesting. A number of students
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: said we should do that more than once, and I'm like,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I can't give you two weeks worth of Like I
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: could give us one week off and say you have
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to go twice, but I don't think that's what they mean.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting to ask students to go play games
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: somewhere outside of a place they normally go. A lot
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of them will go to a board game cafe. There's
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: a number of them in Chicago. Some of them will
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: go to an open game night. Some of them will
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: go to like one student went to a public library
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and play games at the public library game Some students
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: will come to the board game club that I run
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: play games there. And the whole idea is to talk
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: about the experience of going out and engaging with a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: community and sort of seeing how the games structure the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: way that community works. It's fun, it works really well,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. The hardest part about teasing classes we just
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: don't have enough time. We don't have enough time to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: play games, we don't have enough time to play tests,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: we don't have enough time to develop.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: It would be really.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Fun to teach this as a two semester arc, where
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: we spend the first semester just playing games and the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: second semester we're developing those games for a whole fifteen weeks.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That would be a really interesting process. I've also been
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: thinking about starting a like a game design incubator where
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I invite students from the previous classes to take their
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: prototype and work in smaller groups on a volunteer basis.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a class, it would be a thing
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: they participate on on their own to develop the game. Further,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I would imagine it be relatively small group, but it
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: would be really interesting to see, with another semester's worth
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of guidance and feedback, whether they could get their games
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to a place where they could then pitch them or
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: publish them. That'd be fascinating. So all in all, a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: really it's been a really interesting process discovering this class
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: and figuring out how to make it work. This coming semester,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I'm sort of summarizing here this coming semester, I am
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: going to try to do three three new things. One
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I am going to add in an abstract day where
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: we talk about different abstracts from around the world, talk
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: about games in that context a little bit, and play those.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: The problem is that means I have to cut something
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and I don't know exactly what I'm going to cut yet.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The second thing is I want to spend a little
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: bit more time on the marketing production side of how
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: board games are made. I think having students get to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: experience that would be really useful. And the third thing
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is I think it would be fun to invite a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: couple different game designers or game publishers to come speak
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to the class. I don't really have much money to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: do that with. I do have a class budget, but
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I usually use that to buy supplies so that the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: students can make their prototypes, cause most students have access
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to none, no interesting supplies, and I find that if
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I don't give them any, what I get is stuff
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that is really underdeveloped, which isn't a problem generally. You know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: if you have a game you can use index cards,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that's fine, but it's more fun for them and for
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: me if the game has a little bit more refined materials.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm always on the lookout for how could
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I do that, And one of the ways is to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: uh buy these different pieces that we can then use.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So that's what I've been using the budget for the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: last couple of years. Now that I have full class sets.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Of the games we want to play.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: And last thing is I wish I had more time,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Like I just would like to have more time with
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the students, more time to work on stuff, be.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Able to give them more time.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: The challenge, of course, is always that many of these
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: students are also taking I mean they're all taking three
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: or four other classes. Most are taking four others, some
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: are taking five other classes, and those classes all have
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: significant work to do as well. My class is never
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the major class for the students, so it's never the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: top priority. And so it's interesting to think about the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: challenge of how to use the fifteen hours each year,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: or the three hours each week that I get so
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: forty five hours for the semester that I get with
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: them face to face, and how do I combine that
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: with the elements they're missing, that is tabletop games and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: community as I've played it and as I'm thinking about
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: it for next semester. This leads me to ask some
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: questions of you. What did you hear that you think
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I'm missing? Which piece do you think I should try
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to do? Do you have ideas about what I should
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: cut in order to add the abstract games?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Day? That is a tricky, tricky one to me what.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I should cut to add the abstract games day, Like,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I feel like I could put part of it on
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the light game day, but I kind of want to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: spend the whole time on that. I really don't want
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: to get rid of the light games entirely, so this
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: is tricky as well.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: I just I don't have enough time.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I don't have enough time, so thinking about how and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: when I want to do those things is a crucial
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle. Well that's about it for me today.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on this two part meditation on
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: teaching board games to students. Looking forward to talking about
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: this with you over the semester as it continues, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I will let you know how it goes as I
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity to do so. In the meantime, if
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you want to get a hold of me, you can
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: post on on board game Geek and our guild boardgame
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: geek dot com slash guild Slash three two six nine,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: or if you go to the show notes for this episode,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: there should be a link to the guild.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: You could post a question there. That's the easiest way
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: to reach me.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I'm consistently on board game Geek and I will see it,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: you can email me Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com. I'm
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not as careful about checking that email as I should be,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: so I might not see your email. If you emailed
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: me before June first and I did not get back
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to you, please email me again. I lost a bunch
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of those emails and so if I had not gotten
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: back to you yet, I probably won't unless you re
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: email me my apologies on that.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: And you can also reach out.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: To me on board Game Arina or Ucapa dot de,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: two places where I like to play games and I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: would love to play games with you.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Well that's about it for me today.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I want to say thanks for joining me and my walk,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and I hope your next block is as cleasant as
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: mine was.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box