Space-Cast! #34. Bees & Dragons
Which is more unexpected, science-fiction bees or realistic dragons? For today’s episode, we’re joined by Connie Vogelmann to discuss that very issue. In addition to discussing Apiary and Wyrmspan, we also dig into how these games came to be, the benefits of grounding a setting, and the behavioral biology of leaving negative ratings on a game one hasn’t played.
Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.
TIMESTAMPS
1:29 — Connie Vogelmann on failing to not read the comments
4:07 — Apiary: building a better worker placement game
10:00 — Connie as an apiarist
20:20 — the origins of Wyrmspan
30:18 — grounding the fiction of dragons
50:15 — the behavioral biology of rating a game you haven’t played
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Posted on January 23, 2024, in Board Game and tagged Apiary, Board Games, Stonemaier Games, The Space-Biff! Space-Cast!, Wyrmspan. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
SPACE-BIFF! 
Behavioural biology indeed: I have had some of my games rated “1” by people who did not play them, because they could not have played them… game wasn’t even out yet!
I asked one or two of them why and got no reply, except one guy who said he had forgotten why… perhaps he was drunk.
Anyway, this all depends on what weight you accord to a “1” rating anyway… certainly it’s worthless if there are no words attached to it.
A while back there was a mysterious user on BGG called “smjj” who figured out a way to automate ratings somehow and rated about 13,000 games, many of them wargames, a “1” and the BGG authorities would not do anything about it.
I wonder if this act of robo-vandalism would have aroused as much ire if he had given everything a “10”, or any other number in between: it would have been just as easy.
But there’s your behavioural biology again.
I remember that!