Category: Between the Episodes

Cracking the Emoticode

Last week was the culmination of mountains of research and development as my team and I launched the Emoticode, a three-day livestream on Twitch promoting the release of Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII. Over the course of those three days and eight hundred-thousand views, thousands of players competed to crack a series of forty-five ciphers, with solvers gaining a beta… Read more »

Robo Rally: Rebooted

Yesterday was a serious reminder that all the games I played back in college are getting a revamp. First, the announcement from Fantasy Flight Games about the impending Fourth Edition of Twilight Imperium. Second, and much more fun for me, was the opportunity to play the recently updated Robo Rally. Where to even start? Robo Rally is… Read more »

An Overwatch Game Changer

Folks, I was so good for so long. I didn’t buy Overwatch because I know myself. As soon as I picked it up, I knew I’d dive in and battle my way up into the competitive levels. I can’t help it—I don’t want to help it! I love playing FPS games, and once I get… Read more »

The Puzzle Keyring

Back in January, I started designing a set of puzzle reference cards that I could take with me to events like Puzzled Pint or DASH. Strangely, I received an email at the same time from the folks at Kickstarter telling me about an initiative called Make100. They figured that since I’d spent so much time… Read more »

Playing with Probabilities

I posted a picture on Twitter last week about my curriculum for my last Games and Game Theory class. I guess folks were surprised that it was really just a big stack of games? I’m sure that I have a syllabus somewhere but, like my students, I probably recycled it as soon as the first… Read more »

AGT 2017 Convention Schedule

I am so excited to finally announce that I will be presenting at GenCon 50 in Indianapolis on Friday, August 18th! Growing up as a little RPG kid, I always thought GenCon was this mythical place where nerdery blossomed. People from around the world gathered to celebrate their hobby and make it better and better…. Read more »

Reputation and Reliability

Last episode, I talked a lot about Reputation and the problems that show up when it suddenly changes. Reputation is a huge concept in game theory and the development of strategies, and while we can intuitively understand it in social situations, it’s sometimes difficult to describe the implications. So I want to take a moment and… Read more »