Ludemes, ‘game as language’, and other metaphors

In this episode we try to wrap our heads around the concept of 'ludemes'. Hosts Dr. Ibi and Dr. Joe discuss:

• The origins of the term 'ludeme'
• Different games scholars' and game designers' definitions of ludemes
• Comparisons between ludemes, memes, genes, and linguistic concepts such as phonemes and morphemes
• Underlying metaphors used to describe games as systems, such as ‘game as language’ and ‘game as organism’
• The ‘language as organism’ metaphor in historical linguistics
• The economy of metaphors in academia

Contains some strong (and other type types of) language.

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📚 Resources:

Bojin, Nis. 2010. ‘Ludemes and the Linguistic Turn’. Futureplay '10: Proceedings of the International Academic Conference on the Future of Game Design and

Technology, Vancouver, 25–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1920778.1920783

Browne, Cameron. 2021. ‘Everything’s a Ludeme. Well, Almost Everything’. Proceedings of the XIIIrd Board Game Studies Colloquium (BGS 2021), Paris.

Available at: https://sorbonne-paris-nord.hal.science/hal-03737317/document

Depaulis, Thierry. 2019. ‘On the Origins of the Word ‘Ludeme’ (French Ludème)’. In Browne et al.,

Foundations of Digital Archaeoludology. Report on Dagstuhl Research Meeting, Saarbrucken, 23–26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1905.13516

Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.13516

Koster, Raph. 2005. Conference notes for ‘A Grammar of Gameplay (Game Atoms: Can Games be Dia- grammed?)’. Game Developers Conference (GDC ’05), San Francisco. https://www.theoryoffun.com/grammar/gdc2005.htm

Koster, Raph. 2006. 'A bit on how I think games work' https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/05/a-bit-on-how-i-think-games-work/

Koster, Raph. 2006. Comment made March 7, 2006 at 2:44 pm

https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/05/a-bit-on-how-i-think-games-work/#comment-3827

Koster, Raph. 2006. Comment made March 7, 2006 at 4:26 pm

https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/03/05/a-bit-on-how-i-think-games-work/#comment-3836

Parlett, David. 2006. ‘What’s a ludeme?’ https://www.parlettgames.uk/gamester/whatsaludeme.html

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