Crash Course Games

[krusader74]

PBS Digital Studios has a YouTube Channel called "Crash Course" where they provide instructional videos on subjects like Economics, Philosophy, Physics, etc.

This week they began rolling out a new series, called "Crash Course Games." The course description says:

Welcome to Crash Course Games! In this series our host Andre Meadows is going to discuss the history and science of games. We're going to talk about video games of course, but also board games, role playing games, card games, even sports! But before we get ahead of ourselves we are going to look at what a game actually is, who is playing these games, and what they are doing to us. It turns out these answers aren’t as obvious as they would seem, but one thing is definitely clear: games make up a huge portion of most peoples’ lives, and we think that can be a great thing!

Episode #1 is entitled "What is a Game?" and is currently available on YouTube:



There's a discussion about it on reddit.

I look forward to seeing what they say about RPGs.

[krusader74]

The second installment of Crash Course Games is up now on YouTube. It covers Ancient Games.



The games discussed are

1. Dice. The host, Andre Meadows, talks about how the earliest dice were made from sheeps' knuckles, and how they were used both for games and divination. I discussed early dice as well as early dice games and divination in detail in the thread on Palamedes, knucklebones and virtual dice rollers. He also talks about the oldest known d20--it's at least a couple thousand years old. This is something else I posted about in the thread on the Most expensive d20 in the world?
2. Senet, an ancient Egyptian table game. The worse you did at this game, the worse you would supposedly fare in the after life.
3. Go, the oldest continuously played game--4,000 years old. This year (2016) is the first time a computer program (AlphaGo) ever beat a human expert. Extremely complex game--much more so than Chess. Here's a quick comparison:
   
   

   Game	Avg moves per turn	Avg turns per game	Game tree complexity
   Chess	35	40.0	10123
   Go	250	75.0	10170
   Stratego	22	190.5	10535
   Tic-tac-toe	4	4.5	105

   
   
4. Patolli
5. Mancala
6. Snakes and Ladders
7. Royal Game of Ur
8. Liubo, an ancient Chinese board game notable for its early use of polyhedral dice

Next week's installment: The Dawn of Video Games.

[krusader74]

Crash Course Games Episode #3: The Dawn Of Video Games is now on YouTube. It covers the 1940s up through SpaceWar! in 1971.



Looks like Episode #4 will talk about Atari.

[krusader74]

Finally posted installment #18 on RPGs:



Next week's topic: Game Design.

And here is a YouTube playlist with all videos in this series so far:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRxrdlsv2GkEcsr_78mQrJC9xU5DGlSZJ