I was invited to speak at the European Planning Conference this year in Prague, I recorded my talk so this is a special episode of the podcast.

I'm adding the slides on my blog and Slideshare for reference, though as I also mention in the episode the slides are mostly a few images and not really necessary to understand the talk.

I get slightly lost in the section talking about chess and abstract strategy games, listening to the recording I realised I'd made the two points I had in mind and that define these types of games:

1. All the elements are visible to players, no hidden parts
2. They contain no random elements, nothing left to chance.

I hope you enjoy, and as I mention in the podcast please keep in touch if you might be interested in having me come and speak at your event or conference.

A few references mentioned in this episode:

• European Planning Conference
• Kristijan Petkoski
• Fiona Rosario
• Landmark Worldwide
• iris Worldwide
• Saatchi & Saatchi
• Possible
• Man, Play and Games (Les jeux et les hommes), Roger Caillois
• Senet
• Spiel Essen
• GenCon
• Board Game Geek
• Catan
• Ticket to Ride
• Crowdfunding is driving a $196M board game renaissance
• The Man who built Catan, New Yorker
• Monopoly Killer, Wired
• Collaborative Board Games
• Zombicide
• Dead of Winter
• Pandemic
• Knights of Badassdom
• Live action roleplaying games (LARP)
• Les Voix d'Altaride