Ludology

This podcast has incredible breadth and depth. The hosts cover an amazing spectrum of topics related to board games: game genres and mechanisms, games and psychology/cognition/emotion, game design, the game industry, different game experiences around a table, games and technology.. The interviews with designers and publishers are really well done: excellent questions and meaningful discussions. Nearly every episode is different than the last and continues to explore what games are and why we play them. I play, design and teach using games, and this podcast has helped me understand games so much better. It's the best Games 101 audio course you can find. From time to time the hosts do series of podcasts: one series looked at different mechanisms in games, another traced the most important games of the 20th century, another was a public design project in which the hosts worked to design their own Euro-style board game. These series should be new listeners' first stops if they go back to listen to the massive back catalog of episodes. It's very well produced and the conversations flow at a great pace. This podcast is unlike any other board game podcast out there. If you want something different than the stream of new game review hype and really learn more about the ever-growing field of game studies, this podcast is for you.