Playing God with Galactic Cellular Automata in Stars Reach - Raph Koster | grokludo 11

Raph Koster has helped forward our understanding of game design for decades.

He's the author of A Theory of Fun, a must-read for game designers. He was lead designer on the pioneering MMO Ultima Online, and led the creative team on Star Wars Galaxies.

Now he's back with a new MMO called Stars Reach, built on 3D cellular automata system that simulates everything in the galaxy. The game's not out yet, and already the stories emerging from this kind of simulation are hard to compare with anything else.

So strap in, we're going pretty deep into game design theory - that's what grokludo is for! - and in the second half, we cover what to expect from Stars Reach.

Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
01:05 - Most games are copies of others
02:58 - What videogame designers can learn from board games
06:18 - Separating mechanics from aesthetics in policymaking
13:00 - Different kinds of randomness
16:05 - Kriegsspiel, Ur, and other early games
25:50 - Do modern games satisfy modern compulsions?
31:20 - Games criticism focusing on aesthetics
34:55 - The art game movement of the early 2000s
39:15 - Using ludo-narrative dissonance as a tool
43:20 - The Pascal's Wager in A Theory of Fun
47:20 - Don't get Junglist started on Dark Souls
50:15 - Do game design lessons line up with cognitive psychology?
56:00 - Studying government styles for MMO design
59:40 - The "designer's dream game" trope
1:05:50 - Stars Reach's cellular automata system
1:13:13 - Sustainable planets despite player terraforming
1:18:30 - Solving the problems of biology
1:21:50 - Terraforming and PvP
1:24:20 - Scaling the galaxy with adaptable sectors
1:27:45 - The dangers of fire and water

Check out Raph's book A Theory of Fun, or learn more about Stars Reach at these links.

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