In this episode:
Second podcast of the year and we delve into some meaty topics. I interview Australian board game designers Allen Chang and Simon Robertson about their upcoming projects and working together to publish board games in Australia. We talk about game design philosophy, quintessential games and a whole host of issues related to representation and diversity in board game themes. It’s a longer runtime than usual, but I really think the discussion in the back end of the episode is very interesting and worthwhile. I also opted not to chop out the first half of the episode, because I wanted people to get to know Sye and Allen and give some context to our later discussion. If you’re only interested in hearing us discuss some heavier topics, you can start from the middle of the episode, but if you’re at all interested in hearing about board game design and publishing in Australia, the first half has that too. I sincerely hope you enjoy our discussion and welcome any feedback on them.
Download link below or on iTunes, and feel free to send us any feedback at theactionpointspodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter as @action_points, and on Facebook and Google+
Episode 71 – Making Games with Sye and Allen
Music: Theme for Harold (var. 2) by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a CC Attribution 3.0.
Links for the things we talked about:
Check out Rise to Power from Rule & Make, which we previously spoke about with Allen on the podcast here.
Check out Robots & Rockets from Sye (Syelon Art & Design), who was also on the PAX 2014 board game episode here.
Cardboard Embassy gets a shout out! Check them out if you want a board games focused podcast to listen to.
If you’re an Australian aspiring to board game design (or even if you’re not), you can check out Tabletop Game Designers Australia on Facebook
Dungeon of Mandom (Rocke of Cardboard Embassy made these awesome re-themes)
We also previously chatted with Jason (referenced in Allen’s playtesting of Entropy) on this episode of the podcast.
You might be interested in learning how Reiner Knizia makes games.
You can find the rules to Viking Funeral on the Ironwall Games page
The League of Gamemakers had a series of articles about Top 10 Games every designer should play (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3)
Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia
Freedom: The Underground Railroad
This article about playing Sleeping Dogs as an Asian American was one I found incredibly interesting
Ludology had a really nice interview with Bruno Faidutti, who authored this great piece on “Post-Colonial Catan” on his blog (scroll down for the English translation)
If you’re interested in the topic of representation and diversity in tabletop games, you can also check out these two articles from Across the Board Games
Mark Rosewater writes some really good articles and also does a podcast on the design of Magic, but is also widely applicable
Rampage (or Terror in Meeple City)
I am not 100% sure this was the article I read about boobplate as it relates to character design, but it covers (heh) similar points.
Rome (TV Series)
Train, a part of a series of analog games by Brenda Romero
Hey Jordan/Allen, which Barbie card game were we talking about?
Action Points! 
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Thanks for mentioning my interview with Reiner Knizia, and for the link! I really enjoy your show, keep up the good work.
Same to you, thanks for conducting the interview with Reiner Knizia! :) It was very interesting reading, and I’m loving the other interviews too.
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