Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming
2017 marks the ten-year anniversary of the GameTek segment on the Dice Tower podcast. Connecting games to math, science, and psychology, GameTek has grown to be one of the most popular parts of the show. This volume commemorates the anniversary with a collection of over seventy of the best segments, many with annotations and illustrations. With chapters on everything from Rock, Paper, Scissors to the Prisoner’s Dilemma to Player Engagement to Quasicrystals to Buddha’s Forbidden Games, GameTek is sure to delight not just game designers and players, but anyone who wants to learn about the world from a new perspective. Sections: • Game Theory • Math • Psychology • Science • Game Mechanics • Psychology Games • History From the first time I heard it, the GameTek segment in The Dice Tower podcast became my favorite part of the show. Listening to Geoff is like going to your favorite lesson with your favorite teacher. He teaches about games (yay!) and does it in a very interesting way with lots of examples. He does amazing stuff. He knows about the construction of games, he knows the theory, he knows all that stuff behind the scenes that we gamers do not see when just playing a game and having fun. Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal Games There are many hobby game 'experts' out there, dying to give you their opinion on how the industry works, how games work, what types of games are best, and so on. Geoff Engelstein is the expert that requires your attention. He is a scholar of games, and his research on games and other principles that apply to gaming is matched by none. Stephen Buonocore, Stronghold Games Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about board games, yet the short snippets that Geoff puts out are the ones that I find myself thinking about in the quiet of the night. His are the segments that you laugh at and say, “I have NO idea what you are talking about” — but later on use to show people just how intellectual you are. Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower
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Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming
2017 marks the ten-year anniversary of the GameTek segment on the Dice Tower podcast. Connecting games to math, science, and psychology, GameTek has grown to be one of the most popular parts of the show. This volume commemorates the anniversary with a collection of over seventy of the best segments, many with annotations and illustrations. With chapters on everything from Rock, Paper, Scissors to the Prisoner’s Dilemma to Player Engagement to Quasicrystals to Buddha’s Forbidden Games, GameTek is sure to delight not just game designers and players, but anyone who wants to learn about the world from a new perspective. Sections: • Game Theory • Math • Psychology • Science • Game Mechanics • Psychology Games • History From the first time I heard it, the GameTek segment in The Dice Tower podcast became my favorite part of the show. Listening to Geoff is like going to your favorite lesson with your favorite teacher. He teaches about games (yay!) and does it in a very interesting way with lots of examples. He does amazing stuff. He knows about the construction of games, he knows the theory, he knows all that stuff behind the scenes that we gamers do not see when just playing a game and having fun. Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal Games There are many hobby game 'experts' out there, dying to give you their opinion on how the industry works, how games work, what types of games are best, and so on. Geoff Engelstein is the expert that requires your attention. He is a scholar of games, and his research on games and other principles that apply to gaming is matched by none. Stephen Buonocore, Stronghold Games Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about board games, yet the short snippets that Geoff puts out are the ones that I find myself thinking about in the quiet of the night. His are the segments that you laugh at and say, “I have NO idea what you are talking about” — but later on use to show people just how intellectual you are. Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower
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Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming

Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming

by Bianca Basso
Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming

Gametek: The Math and Science of Gaming

by Bianca Basso

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Overview

2017 marks the ten-year anniversary of the GameTek segment on the Dice Tower podcast. Connecting games to math, science, and psychology, GameTek has grown to be one of the most popular parts of the show. This volume commemorates the anniversary with a collection of over seventy of the best segments, many with annotations and illustrations. With chapters on everything from Rock, Paper, Scissors to the Prisoner’s Dilemma to Player Engagement to Quasicrystals to Buddha’s Forbidden Games, GameTek is sure to delight not just game designers and players, but anyone who wants to learn about the world from a new perspective. Sections: • Game Theory • Math • Psychology • Science • Game Mechanics • Psychology Games • History From the first time I heard it, the GameTek segment in The Dice Tower podcast became my favorite part of the show. Listening to Geoff is like going to your favorite lesson with your favorite teacher. He teaches about games (yay!) and does it in a very interesting way with lots of examples. He does amazing stuff. He knows about the construction of games, he knows the theory, he knows all that stuff behind the scenes that we gamers do not see when just playing a game and having fun. Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal Games There are many hobby game 'experts' out there, dying to give you their opinion on how the industry works, how games work, what types of games are best, and so on. Geoff Engelstein is the expert that requires your attention. He is a scholar of games, and his research on games and other principles that apply to gaming is matched by none. Stephen Buonocore, Stronghold Games Over the years, I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about board games, yet the short snippets that Geoff puts out are the ones that I find myself thinking about in the quiet of the night. His are the segments that you laugh at and say, “I have NO idea what you are talking about” — but later on use to show people just how intellectual you are. Tom Vasel, The Dice Tower

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781543911855
Publisher: BookBaby
Publication date: 02/01/2018
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 330
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Geoff Engelstein is an award-winning table-top game designer, whose titles include The Ares Project, Space Cadets, The Fog of War, and Survive: Space Attack, many of which are co-designed with his children Brian and Sydney. He is also a noted podcaster. Since 2007 he has been a contributor to the Dice Tower, the leading table-top game podcast, with GameTek, a series on the math, science, and psychology of games. Since 2011 he has hosted Ludology, a weekly podcast. Geoff is an adjunct professor of Board Game Design at the NYU Game Center. He has spoken at a variety of venues, including Pax, GDC, Gencon, Rutgers, and USC. He has degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is currently the president of Mars International, a design engineering firm.

Table of Contents

Foreword 11

Introduction 13

Game Theory

Rock, Paper, Scissors 17

How to Win at Rock, Paper, Scissors 21

Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Choice 25

The Prisoner's Dilemma 27

Tit for Tat 31

Memory 35

Hidden but Trackable 39

The Innovation Limit 43

Monty Hall 47

Regret 51

Emergence 55

Incompleteness 59

Math

Dice and Luck 65

Past, Present, and Future 69

Regression Toward the Mean 73

Rating Systems 77

Triangular Numbers 81

Pseudorandom 85

Shuffling 89

Big Numbers 93

Graph Theory 97

Deduction 101

NP Complete 105

Expectation Value 109

Expectation Value Revisited 113

Flipping Probability 117

Intransitive Relationships 121

Fuzzy Logic 125

Psychology

Reviews 131

Group Think 133

Power 137

Analogies 141

Colonoscopies and Board Gaines 145

Hindsight Bias 149

Prospect Theory 153

Endowment 157

Endowed Progress 161

Choice 165

Competence 169

Sunk Costs 173

Science

Quasicrystals 179

Microbes, Communities, and You 183

Noise 187

Noise, Part 2 191

Platonic Solids 195

Chaos 199

Evolution Games 203

Entanglement 207

Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe 211

Entropy 215

Statistical Mechanics 217

Game States 221

Game Mechanics

Trading Games 227

Push Your Luck 231

Dice Decks 235

Werewolf 239

Power Creep 243

Gamification 247

Player Engagement 251

Wild West Showdown 255

Psychology Games

The Ultimatum Game 263

Size and Fairness 267

Beauty Contests 271

Cheating 275

Reputation 279

Fiddling 283

History

Games of the Buddha 289

Badminton 293

Liturgy 295

Voting 299

Criticism 303

Epilogue

Phase Transitions 309

References

Episode Guide 315

Recommended Reading 321

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