Experience Points

James Mendez on Playing With Chemistry This episode of Experience Points features James Mendez, a professor of chemistry at Indiana University Columbus who designs 3D-printed models, role-playing games, and board games to make chemistry approachable for students who are not chemistry majors. James explains how boredom in his classes led him to 3D printing, and why he embraced colleagues' criticism that his models were just toys. In his interview he discusses how holding a physical model makes...

Suzanne Lyons on Cooperative Games This episode of Experience Points features Suzanne Lyons, an educator, author, game designer, and founder of CooperativeGames.com who has championed cooperative games in education since 2009. Suzanne recounts discovering cooperative games at a nature education conference, taking over Animal Town, one of the earliest makers of cooperative board games in America, and learning from pioneers such as Terry Orlick and Jim Deacove of Family Pastimes. Drawing on Alf...

Thomas Biedermann on CyberNations This episode of Experience Points features Thomas Biedermann, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University School of Cybernetics and designer of CyberNations, a semi-cooperative board game about leading responsibly in a complex, adaptive world. Thomas traces the threads running through his practice - homemade board games in a French basement, tabletop and live-action role-playing at summer camp, systems engineering, and organizational design - and ...

Withered Technology and Lateral Thinking Some ideas arrive before their time. But the best ideas arrive at exactly the right moment. And often that is not because the idea was flashy, or spectacular, or brand new. It's because someone found a different way to see, to use, or to apply something that was already sitting right in front of them… Today we're talking about withered technology and lateral thinking. We'll define both, meet the designer who built a philosophy around them, and look at ...

Sebastian Bae on Littoral Commander This episode of Experience Points features Sebastian Bae, a senior game designer at the Center for Naval Analyses and designer of Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific, an educational wargame exploring future tactical conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Sebastian shares his meandering path from the Marine Corps infantry to professional wargame design, and how his enlisted background shaped his drive to push games down to the lowest tactical level. He explains the core...