HZ: People assume to my face that a podcast about language won't be fun, and they're like, “Why would you do something that sounds so boring and dry and like a punishment?” What kind of reactions do you get when people learn that you make games about language?
KATHRYN HYMES: It's so interesting - for some people there's a similar reaction, but for a set of people, it's like you have given them the thing that they have most wanted in the world and maybe didn't realise or articulate or hope that such a thing could be made. And it's somewhat shocking that there's enough of those people and that the internet is able to connect it, you know, connect us to them that we end up finding each other.
Allusionist 84. Trammels - transcript
ROSS SUTHERLAND: We're taught from a young age to be good sports at losing games. Sportsmanship as a concept is all about being a good loser. And yet we're terrified of the concept of losing art. It's a horrible thing to try and to put yourself out there and for it to fail. So if you can reframe it as a game then all the better.
HZ: Because if you fail again you've just failed at the game and not at art entirely.
ROSS SUTHERLAND: Yeah, exactly. You fail at the game, but then you can play again. it's less of a referendum on your own self-worth if you just lose a game, because we play games all the time and so we're very comfortable with our odds. Whereas I feel when it when it comes to art the odds feel a little bit more important, and they shouldn't.
Read moreAllusionist 16: Word Play - transcript
LESLIE SCOTT: Not many people realise the success of Scrabble is based on a statistician figuring out the scoring system - it's the first time someone had a word game where the score of the word game was based on him researching very thoroughly the number of times a particular letter was used. He scoured the New York Times for years counting how many times an E comes up, a Z, etc. Hence the numbers of those letters in the stack to start with was based on this, as is the scoring. And it works, whether or not you like the game. We have a mathematician to thank.
HZ: Probably why it’s not fun.
HZ: Sorry, Scrabble. But a game where you can triumph just by memorizing every two letter word will never have my affection.
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