I talk the business of toys and pop culture, and what goes into making a documentary series about their history, with The Toys That Made Us producer/director Brian Volk-Weiss. Brian has lots to say about the hidden world behind toys and popular culture, the critical quality of a successful toy, why failure is interesting, the way your past dreams and passions have a way of shaping your future, and more.

Ludiphilia is made possible by the support of my Patreon backers. Thanks especially Anuar Lequerica, who's been a patron almost since the beginning, as well as Torbjørn Vik Lunde and Nick — all three have stuck with their $5+ monthly pledge through a very inconsistent spell in my episode output (which will hopefully give way to a steadier release schedule now that I've re-committed to the show!).

Related episodes:

Support Ludiphilia

An experimental piece on a travel experience of mine last year. I went to Singapore for a week with my fiancée in July and was surprised to find lots of playful touches, despite — or maybe because of — the reputation it has for law and order. And I thought it'd be nice to put together a sort of part travelogue, part essay thing about it.

You can find an accompanying photo essay/blog thing for this story at ludiphilia.net/singaporephotos.

Support Ludiphilia

I'm back! Well, partly. New episodes are on the way, and in the meantime I thought you might enjoy this excerpt from an interview I conducted a couple of years ago about professional Minecraft building (i.e., people getting paid to build elaborate maps and buildings). Most of what I discuss here with BlockWorks boss James Delaney (who at the time was an architecture student) didn't make the article, so I'm pleased to finally bring it out to the world.

You can learn more about BlockWorks and what they do at blockworks.uk, and read the old article that I conducted this interview for at Rolling Stone. I also have a great book James put together called Beautiful Minecraft [Amazon, Official], which I highly recommend — it has lots of incredible Minecraft-made art and virtual architecture, plus several interesting essays.

Support Ludiphilia

Links:

• Meet ‘Minecraft’ Builders Who Craft Impossibly Detailed Virtual Worlds — It’s enthralled an entire generation and sold more than 100 million copies, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that for some hyper-skilled players, the open-ended, Lego-like building game Minecraft has become an actual, money-earning occupation. Just as the most-talented Lego architects earn a living showing off their blocky creations, there’s good money to be made by anyone with the skills to craft Minecraft‘s cube-shaped digital blocks into beautiful sculptures and stunning worlds.
• [Amazon] Beautiful Minecraft - Hardcover by James Delaney — With a bit of imagination and a heavy dose of artistic talent, Minecraft blocks can be used to build almost anything. But as you’ll see, some artists are taking Minecraft building to a whole new level.

Geographer Chris Perkins, co-author of the book Playful Mapping in the Digital Age, shares his love of maps and helps me explore the deep connection between mapping and play.

Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers for covering my running costs and keeping the show alive. And special thanks to my $5+ supporters Anuar Lequerica, Nick, Torbjørn Vik Lunde, and Watchsmart.

Relevant links:

I make Ludiphilia entirely on my own — I even compose the music now. It's a labour of love, and I have no plans of quitting as long as I can afford to pay the hosting and domain fees, but I would very much like to spend more time on it than I currently do. That requires money, unfortunately.

So if you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation via Patreon or PayPal. (Or email me at richard at ludiphilia dot net if you have some other thing you like to use for donations.) For PayPal, use the payment form on paypal.me/mossrc. For Patreon, head to patreon.com/ludiphilia.

You can also support the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes and sharing it with other people. And by buying my first book, The Secret History of Mac Gaming, the profits from which are helping me make my podcasts better (through equipment upgrades, reduced freelance income pressures, and the...

In celebration of the release of a Mac version of the award-winning app Earth Primer — a science book for playful people — I thought it'd be nice to dig out the segment I did with its creator, Chaim Gingold, back in episode 1, and clean it up for re-release (with a brief update on Chaim's current situation and a note about Earth Primer's Mac release thrown in there as well).

Chaim was at the time a PhD student at the University of California Santa Cruz and researcher at the Communications Design Group. He was writing his thesis on play design, which he's now finished (and is looking for a job). He's best-known for developing the Creature Creator for Maxis' SimEverything game Spore, and more recently for his Earth Primer iPad (and now also Mac) app.

Earth Primer purchase links:

For more info, you can also head to earthprimer.com.

Support Ludiphilia

On the Nascondino World Championship, a yearly hide and seek tournament that attracts teams from all around the globe. I talked to Alan Jones, the co-captain of the Australian team, the Nascondingos, and Giorgio Moratti, one of the organisers of the competition, about how it works, what it's like, why it exists, and where it's headed next.

This episode also features an excerpt from my new podcast, The Life & Times of Video Games — a documentary-style show about video games and the video game industry, as they were in the past, and how they came to be the way they are today.

You can find The Life & Times of Video Games on most podcast platforms. For a direct link to it on iTunes, go to lifeandtimes.games/itunes.

Relevant links:

Music credits:

Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers for covering my running costs and keeping the show alive. And special thanks to my $5+ supporters Anuar Lequerica, Nick, and James Weiner.

If you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation via Patreon or PayPal. (Or email me at richard at ludiphilia dot net if you have some other thing you like to use for donations.) For PayPal, hit the orange Donate button at the bottom of the page at ludiphilia.net. For Patreon, head to patreon.com/ludiphilia.

You can also support the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes and sharing it with other people.

Support Ludiphilia

Life after If Monks Had Macs aka What Brian Thomas did next; ruminations on photography and the politics of art and play. (Based on an interview conducted in early January 2017.)

Relevant links:

Thanks to my Patreon backers for all their ongoing support, especially $5+ backers Anuar Lequerica, Nick, and James Weiner. You guys keep me going.

Music credits:

Support Ludiphilia

It all started with a Macintosh ad: 'You too can be a knowledge worker.' This is the story of Brian Thomas' 15-year odyssey at the helm of one of the strangest pieces of multimedia software ever created — If Monks Had Macs.

You can learn more about Brian, and about Monks, at his website: http://www.rivertext.com/monks.html

All music and sound effects from If Monks Had Macs, except:

Thank you, as always, to my Patreon backers — Anuar Lequerica, James Weiner, and Nick — whose amazing support has helped and encouraged me to improve the show episode after episode. You too can support me by making a recurring donation at http://patreon.com/ludiphilia or a one-time donation via PayPal.

Got feedback or suggestions about the show? Hit me up via the contact form at ludiphilia.net or tweet me @ludiphilia.

Support Ludiphilia

I know I said I'd have a new episode out in February, and now we're in the second half of March. There's a reason for that.

The short version is that I'm waiting to publish the new episode until after I sort out a problem with iTunes. Because I don't want to lock out new subscribers with Apple devices (which is most of them) who aren't willing or tech-savvy enough to subscribe manually with the RSS feed. The long version is in the audio.

Support Ludiphilia

We're back! So sorry it took so long. Regular service (new episodes every 4-6 weeks) will now resume.

On the eve of the Industrial Revolution and the morn of the English Civil War, one man reinvented educational thought.

Special thanks to my Patreon backers Anuar Lequerica, James Weiner, and Nick for sticking with me through this prolonged hiatus. I'm dedicated to making this show as good as possible for you guys, and to maintaining a more consistent stream of new content from here on out.

Song Credits:

I also sampled two seconds of audio from the Sesame Street Pinball Count song

Support Ludiphilia