Engelstein, Geoffrey. GameTek. HarperCollins Canada, Limited, 2020. (266 pages)
I do not know Geoff Engelstein personally but I have loosely followed him since the days when he hosted the Ludology podcast. Although Ludology focused on gaming—especially boardgaming—there were a few episodes that related to wargaming.1 These days, Mr. Engelstein can be found at his own GameTek SubStack.
GameTek—the book—is based on materials drawn from Engelstein’s ‘GameTek’ podcast segments that predate even Ludology. For GameTek, Engelstein writes:
I have come to realise that games are, in many ways, an ideal way to tie together the disparate threads of math and science…Yet because we associate playing with fun, to use games—both familiar and new—as a way to introduce concepts helps get past the barrier that many people erect as soon as the see an equation…Rather than present the material as it was chronologically broadcast, I have combined it into chapters with related concepts.
Engelstein, pp. 2-3
GameTek is part game theory, part game design bootstrap, and part gaming advocacy. There is very little math in the book. The simple language certainly makes GameTek easy to read, but by that same measure, makes GameTek potentially difficult to use.
Perhaps that is a bit of an unfair characterization. My current viewpoint is that of a student in a graduate-level program on wargaming. For the casual hobby boardgame player or designer the simpler language and less-technical descriptions of game theory or elements of game design likely are “deep enough” for their understanding. For a more technically inclined reader, however, GameTek‘s broad-brush analysis very eaves elements out that are important to a deeper understanding.
[I will say, however, that I found Engelstein’s use of Diplomacy to illustrate the classic Prisoners’ Dilemma to be particularly inspired.]
Should GameTek be part of a hobby game designer’s library? Yes. Should it be required reading in a graduate-level class on gaming or game design? Maybe not…there are more than a few other books I would recommend to deliver that appropriate level of understanding.
- In particular, I draw your attention to Ludology 238 – Unraveling Complexity (with my commentary “@LudologyPod on #Wargame Complexity – Really?” and Ludology Episode 110 – The Battle Begins. ↩︎
Feature image courtesy RMN
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