A Board Game Whose Rules Will Never be Known -- Amabel Holland

Board game designer Amabel Holland joins me to discuss her recent board game The City of Six Moons. City of Six Moons isn't an ordinary game - the game is presented as an alien object, and the rules are in an unknown language. Amabel joins me to talk about what this means for games, rules, systems, communication, and knowledge itself. Along the way we also discuss one of her key design influences: the filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Checkout Amabel's video essay on rules as play: https://youtu.be/VDjK1jX93yM?si=RAWLAFzETNJpw7cM

You can see Amabel's games at her company's website, Hollandspiele: https://hollandspiele.com/

You can read the New Yorker profile of her here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-personal-political-art-of-board-game-design

And you can browse the Criterion Channel's collection of Fassbinder films here: https://www.criterionchannel.com/directed-by-rainer-werner-fassbinder