With the recent release of Matt Caffrey’s book On Wargaming, Brant enlists Brian Train (Game Theorist Designer) and Dr James Sterrett (the Director of Simulation Education at the US Army’s Command & General Staff College) to talk about some of the seminal books about wargaming, including Perla’s The Art of Wargaming, Dunnigan’s Complete Wargames Handbook, Sabin’s Simulating War, Koster’s A Theory of Fun For Game Design, and the Zones of Control anthology, among others.
So we talk about the books – what we like and don’t like, and how Dr Sterrett incorporates them into his curriculum at CGSC. We also discuss a variety of other sources about wargaming, and game design in general, and somehow manage to never mention McGonigal (and thank goodness).
About 2/3 of the way through, Brian Train makes note of the fact that there are plenty of links we should be sharing, so here they are:
- Greg Cotikyan: I Have No Words & I Must Design
- UK MoD Defence Wargaming Handbook
- MIT Press’ Critical Play
- Complete Wargames Handbook (PDF)
- Why Wargaming Works (PDF)
- History of Wargaming Project website
As always, thanks for listening 🙂
For a consolidated list of the professional-focused podcasts, see this thread in our forums
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