Jordan and Steve play Bee Lives with Heather Mattila, a biologist who studies the social behavior of honeybees. Together they race to dominate limited resources within a changing environment to see who will become the true Queen Bee! bzz bzz.

Jordan and Steve play Bee Lives with Heather Mattila, a biologist who studies the social behavior of honeybees. Together they race to dominate limited resources within a changing environment to see who will become the true Queen Bee! bzz bzz.

Bee Lives with Heather Mattila

From the dungeons of Gloomhaven and the battlefields of Root, to the shores of Catan and the rails of Ticket to Ride, popular board games couch complex subjects within richly thematic gameplay. Millions of people find joy in the experiences that these games create, but what else do we get from playing them? 

In this podcast, Steve Gotzler and Jordan Tynes explore the world of tabletop games with people who possess a deep understanding of the various themes, settings, systems, or content that we encounter in them. What does an economist think about while playing Monopoly? What about a quilter sitting down for a round of Patchwork? A planetary geologist and Terraforming Mars? Or a farmer and Agricola? 

Steve, Jordan, and their guests consider how games communicate information about the variety of subjects they take up. They also ask how games can influence players’ feelings about each other, and the world that they inhabit. From the physical components strewn about the table, to the rules we share while playing, sit down for a round of playful discussion about the cultural relevance of tabletop gaming.

Leisure

Games

From the dungeons of Gloomhaven and the battlefields of Root, to the shores of Catan and the rails of Ticket to Ride, popular board games couch complex subjects within richly thematic gameplay. Millions of people find joy in the experiences that these games create, but what else do we get from playing them? In this podcast, Steve Gotzler and Jordan Tynes explore the world of tabletop games with people who possess a deep understanding of the various themes, settings, systems, or content that we encounter in them. What does an economist think about while playing Monopoly? What about a quilter sitting down for a round of Patchwork? A planetary geologist and Terraforming Mars? Or a farmer and Agricola? Steve, Jordan, and their guests consider how games communicate information about the variety of subjects they take up. They also ask how games can influence players’ feelings about each other, and the world that they inhabit. From the physical components strewn about the table, to the rules we share while playing, sit down for a round of playful discussion about the cultural relevance of tabletop gaming.

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Bee Lives with Heather Mattila

Bee Lives with Heather Mattila