January 31, 2024 • 36 mins
Our very first episode. We start with bio-inspired (or just plain biological) sensors, and move on to the game Photosynthesis, which is about growing trees until you harvest them for victory points.
Timestamps:1:09 - Artificial maple seed sensors 3:30 - Plants as land mine sensors 5:45 - Introduction to Photosynthesis 8:50 - Ecological Succession (or maybe Forestry) 14:19 - How seeds move around 16:24 - Not that much photosynthesis in Photosynthesis 18:12 - Soil fertility 24:14 - Gameplay experience 31:42 - Grading the game
Game results- - Game 1: Jason 77, Brian 62 - Game 2: Jason 92, Brian 64
- Photosynthesis official website - 3D-printed maple seed sensors - Plants as land mine sensors
Gaming with Science™ is produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.
Full Transcript:
Jason 0:06 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games.
Brian 0:12 In today's episode, we're going to talk about photosynthesis from Blue Orange Games.
Hey, I'm Brian.
Jason 0:23 This is Jason.
Brian 0:25 So we're both plant scientists, biologists, and general all-around nerds. And welcome to gaming with science. This is our first episode.
Jason 0:32 So, I have been feeling that, for those of you who are just coming to this because you want to try it out, thank you. For those of you who are coming from the future and are watching this after we've become rich and famous and have millions of followers, I apologize because this is our first episode, we're still figuring things out. So things will probably be a little rough relative to the later ones. We hope.
Brian 0:51 Yeah, we'll come back and fix it. We'll just replace it with a better recording in the future. And you'll never know.
Speaker 1 0:56 You know, we won't do that. We don't have time. We're university professors, we don't have time to do that.
Brian 1:03 Fair enough. Okay. All right. So what are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker 1 1:09 Well, I was thinking we'd start off with a fun science fact. And this one's actually related to the game today. So our game today is photosynthesis. And just last week, I saw that someone been doing some bio-inspired engineering. And so a group...I forgot to see where they were from, we'll post it in the show notes. But there's this whole drive to send out environmentally friendly sensors to use to take remote sensing data, temperature, pH, other things that are useful to monitor the environment and see how it's doing. And a lot of people are modeling these off of various seeds. And so this new group has done 3d printing of biocompatible polymers. So they're biodegradable, they're eco friendly, in the shape of maple seeds. And the idea is that the biopolymer, is impregnated with a whole bunch of metal nanoparticles. So very, very tiny bits of metal, they're attached to certain chemical compounds, and they fluoresce. So you shine a light on them, and they shine a different, a different frequency of light comes back out. But the thing is the type of fluorescence the wavelength, I'm not an engineer, I don't know the details, but it changes based on the temperature of the sensor. So the idea is you can take a bunch of these artificial maple seeds that they just print off a 3d printer with the right stuff, you go in, I guess, you distribute them by helicopter or something, they whirligig down and spread out, just like natural maple seeds. And then you can just fly a drone over at some later point and read in the
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Episode Transcript
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Jason (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of your favorite
games.
Brian (00:12):
In today's episode, we're going to talk about
photosynthesis from Blue OrangeGames.
Hey, I'm Brian.
Jason (00:23):
This is Jason.
Brian (00:24):
So we're both plant scientists, biologists, and
general all-around nerds. Andwelcome to gaming with science.
This is our first episode.
Jason (00:32):
So, I have been feeling that, for those of you who are
just coming to this because youwant to try it out, thank you.
For those of you who are comingfrom the future and are watching
this after we've become rich andfamous and have millions of
followers, I apologize becausethis is our first episode, we're
still figuring things out. Sothings will probably be a little
rough relative to the laterones. We hope.
Brian (00:51):
Yeah, we'll come back and fix it. We'll just replace it
with a better recording in thefuture. And you'll never know.
Unknown (00:56):
You know, we won't do that. We don't have time. We're
university professors, we don'thave time to do that.
Brian (01:03):
Fair enough. Okay. All right. So what are we going to
be talking about today?
Unknown (01:09):
Well, I was thinking we'd start off with a fun
science fact. And this one'sactually related to the game
today. So our game today isphotosynthesis. And just last
week, I saw that someone beendoing some bio-inspired
engineering. And so a group...Iforgot to see where they were
from, we'll post it in the shownotes. But there's this whole
drive to send outenvironmentally friendly sensors
(01:30):
to use to take remote sensingdata, temperature, pH, other
things that are useful tomonitor the environment and see
how it's doing. And a lot ofpeople are modeling these off of
various seeds. And so this newgroup has done 3d printing of
biocompatible polymers. Sothey're biodegradable, they're
eco friendly, in the shape ofmaple seeds. And the idea is
(01:53):
that the biopolymer, isimpregnated with a whole bunch
of metal nanoparticles. So very,very tiny bits of metal, they're
attached to certain chemicalcompounds, and they fluoresce.
So you shine a light on them,and they shine a different, a
different frequency of lightcomes back out. But the thing is
the type of fluorescence thewavelength, I'm not an engineer,
(02:17):
I don't know the details, but itchanges based on the temperature
of the sensor. So the idea isyou can take a bunch of these
artificial maple seeds that theyjust print off a 3d printer with
the right stuff, you go in, Iguess, you distribute them by
helicopter or something, theywhirligig down and spread out,
just like natural maple seeds.And then you can just fly a
drone over at some later pointand read in the correct
(02:41):
wavelengths of light and be ableto say, Okay, what's the
temperature on the ground righthere, and they have data showing
that, Oh, as the temperaturegoes up by five or 10 degrees,
then this is how the qualitiesof it change. And if I was
reading it, right--again, not myarea--but if I was reading the
paper, right, it sounds like outin the wild, these things are
expected to last a few years,like probably one to three years
(03:05):
before they break down anddecompose entirely. Obviously,
not permanent. But that's kindof the point is they don't want
be spreading out plastic andelectronic waste everywhere to
monitor it, they want somethingthat you can throw out, and then
it breaks back down.
I can see the connection, andpart of this game is going to be
about seed dissemination andliterally, maple is is in this
game. So that's pretty cool.This is not the topic I thought
(03:26):
you were going to talk about,though. I had seen something,
again, with the idea of, ofbiological sensors, where they
had engineered plants to respondto certain compounds in the soil
and change color, and in such away that you could easily
monitor the presence ofparticular toxins. Of course, at
that point, you're spreadinggenetically engineered plants
out into the environment, whichis something people aren't super
(03:49):
enthused about. But the idea isreally interesting. But again,
that idea of a system, this iskind of the opposite. This is
using biology to mimic a sensor,instead of using a sensor that
mimics biology.
Yeah, what would they be? Whatare the point of that be? I
guess, where would be the mostuse for that sort of thing?
Would it be like contaminatedsites like Superfund sites, so
(04:10):
you could get a very fine grainwithout having to take like a
bajillion soil tests to figureout where the contamination is?
The specific use case that Iremember seeing, I'll go back
and find this for the show notesas well was detection of
explosives to detect landminesthat were buried.
Jason (04:25):
Okay, that's cool. That's very cool.
Brian (04:27):
Because again, you wouldn't want to take 1000 soil
samples, you just would say,hey, those red plants over
there, don't go over there.
Jason (04:33):
I was gonna say if there's landmines I don't want
to take any soil samples.
Unknown (04:38):
So that was the one I remember. I'll find that for the
show notes.
Yeah, that would definitely becool. I can definitely see. I
mean, there's there's widespreadissues to genetic engineering. I
mean, there's no fitness benefitto being able to sense an
explosive so I, like, we'regonna need to have a GMO
discussion at some pointprobably. This is not the time
(04:58):
to open that particular can ofworms. But yes, let's say
there's probably some prettyhigh regulatory burdens to get
that particular product out. Andin, in the field. I got, I have
to wonder how many of theseideas started as someone just
thinking, hey, that would becool. Like, what if we could
plant plants that would changecolor in the presence of
landmines? What if we madesensors that flew down like
(05:20):
maple seeds? I mean, you gottaadmit, when I was a kid, I would
just grab gather at maple seedsand just toss them in the air
because they look super cool.And I wonder how much of that
design is not like the wholething. I mean, it has to
withstand rounds of engineeringand funding and all sorts of
stuff. But that first initialgerm of an idea is like, hey,
this would be really cool.
Yeah, you wonder if that'sright. Was it the use case that
(05:41):
came first? And then you figureout how to do it? Or was it the
other way around?
Don't know.
Brian (05:45):
Yeah.
Jason (05:46):
So anyway, bring it I think, bring this out into this
game. So photosynthesis, whichthis is only the second time
I've ever played this, but youown this game.
Unknown (05:55):
We do. So photosynthesis is produced by
Blue Orange Games. It wasreleased in 2017. With game
designer, Hjalmar Hach and artdesigner Sabrina Miramon. It's
for two to four players. We onlyplayed two player, I think we've
played four player before.
Jason (06:10):
Yeah
Brian (06:10):
Age is...ages are eight and up, which you can usually
subtract a couple years fromthat based on your child, I
suppose. I think eight'sprobably pretty accurate,
though, based on you know, mylook at this.
Unknown (06:22):
I think so. I think you could probably play a simplified
game with like a six or sevenyear old, but keeping track of
them and playing optimally, isdefinitely going to require a
higher age level. So like, ifyou just want a kid, the kid
just wants to grow some trees,then you can play easy mode
photosynthesis, But to play itreal? Yeah, probably eight and
up.
It's probably one of those wherea group of kids could play. And
(06:45):
a group of adults could play.But if you're going to be mixed
mixing skills and ages, youmight have some different
experiences there. 45 To 60minutes to play, which seems
about accurate to me, I thinkyou could play a little faster
if you're trying to play faster.I think we did.
Jason (07:00):
Yeah, there are only two of us that made it easy. And
yes, we, we had a hard deadline.So we were definitely playing
the speed chess version ofphotosynthesis.
Unknown (07:08):
So the setup of the board, you have a circular hex
board. And two dimensional treestands of different sizes.
There's four different trees,each of them...they don't really
play any different, but they alllook a little different,
slightly different colors. Goodfor colorblind, you know,
they're all very distinct andeasy to pick out and represent
from each other. The conceit ofthe board is that you have a sun
(07:31):
tracker that will rotateclockwise around the board at
each corner of the hex sort ofshows what direction the light
is coming from. So the objectiveof the game is when you start,
this board represents an emptyfield with no trees on it at
all. You'll start by placingyour small trees around the
outside, and you'll collectlight points that are the
economy of the game that we'lluse to plant seeds, grow up your
(07:54):
trees to maturity, and then oncethey are mature, you'll, you'll
collect you'll kill those treesto score your points. So when
that tree is fully grown, you'reable to remove it from the board
and collect points that arebased on the soil richness is
how it's described in the game.With more points being awarded,
the closer you are to the middleof the board, and sort of a rank
(08:16):
scoring system. That's kindalike priority scoring, the first
person to score in that areawill get more points than the
last person to collect in thatarea. Which actually is
something I hadn't reallythought about. There's, maybe
there's a little bit of ametaphor there, too, that we
should touch on
a note we can reach for thatlater. Honestly, the difference
in priority is not huge. We'retalking like one or two points
(08:36):
difference. So it's like, ifit's a really tight game, then
that matters. But in our ourexperience looking at some
people on lines, like mosttimes, it's a difference of a
hole, you scored five timesversus six times. So
I can't...you're kind of right.I wonder what the game would
Jason (08:53):
It was basically clear cut.
have to look like to have thatmatter? Because it seemed like
for the most part anyway, we cantalk about design choices later,
I suppose. So when I wasresearching this game, the major
scientific concepts that I saw,that we're going to talk about
in more detail are ecologicalsuccession, seed dissemination,
(09:14):
photosynthesis, which the gamespends not that much time
talking about, really, and alittle bit on soil fertility. So
I think let's, let's talk aboutthat aspect, sort of what those
are, how the game isrepresenting them. So ecological
Brian (09:26):
That is probably what happens, there was no other
succession in the first place.So what is that? There are two
types of ecological succession: primary ecological succession is (09:33):
undefined
like what happens after you'vehad lava completely like
obliterate terrain, there isnothing ther. Life is
biodiversity is at zero. And atthat point, things like lichens
and bacteria and eventuallyhardy plants come and they
rebuild the soil. Primarysuccession is about rebuilding
(09:56):
the soil reestablishingbiodiversity in terrain that's
been completely stripped of alllife. Then you've got secondary
succession. This is a differentprocess, the soil is still
there. But the plants are not.And that is what we're
representing in photosynthesis.We have an area of land with no
trees on it.
(10:20):
indication of any other sort ofecological disturbance, there
was just nothing there.Succession is this process where
plants will come back and recallas an area. And one thing that
this game represents well is howthe plants are competing with
each other for space, for light,for other aspects. We don't
really think about plantscompeting with one another. But
(10:41):
that is what drives ecologicalsuccession is availability of
light, availability of space.It's why we see a sort of
regular pattern of succession ofplants, starting with things
that require a more open lightenvironment until the trees come
in, and they will shade outeverything else. And then you'll
see a transition in speciesduring that. The secondary
(11:02):
succession is driven bydisturbances. Those disturbances
can be as small as a treefalling over creating new space
for something else to come in,or a forest fire or something
like that. So this is really thekey metaphor that this game is
trying to represent is secondaryecological succession plants
competing with one another forlight for space.
Unknown (11:22):
Yeah, we've got, presumably, we have some forest
around this clearing that isstill intact, and that's where
all the initial plants comefrom. And then this clearing is
slowly being recolonized over, Idon't know, you figured we're
looking at the lifetime of atree. So this could take several
decades of time that are passingfor, for the game.
Yeah, I'm not sure what they'retrying to represent. The sun
moves around the grove, that'san important thing. So
(11:44):
obviously, there's some cyclegoing on. But it doesn't really
seem like it's a year, it seemslike it must be a longer period
of time of some kind.
Yeah, well, this is the pointwhere when you have to make a
choice of making a fun game, andbeing completely accurate to the
science, people choose to make afun game. And I agree with that
choice. The point like if youmake a very accurate scientific
game, that is also boring, noone's gonna play it. I'd rather
(12:06):
have a very fun game that hassome minor deviations from
accuracy, or even major ones, aslong as it's fun to play.
Yeah, I think I think you'reright, I think as long as the
sort of the key concept is stillthere, and it's still being
represented, I think that that'sfine. And you can present it in
different...I mean, obviously,there are board games that go up
and down the scale in terms ofhow much they're trying to
(12:26):
simulate things based on sort ofthe objectives. But as long as
the key mechanics sort of stillrepresent, I think that this
does a pretty good job of sortof getting this key concept of
plants competing for space inlight, for sure.
Definitely, the one odd thingthere, one of these acceptable
breaks is the fact that all theplants of the same species are
working together. So onestrategy is you have a bunch of
(12:49):
tiny plants around the edges ofthe board, which isn't worth
very many points. And then youuse all those light points that
you've gathered from the edgesto grow your trees in the middle
to get them really big and makea lot of points when you harvest
them. And so that's because it'strees of a species are also
competing against each other byand large. I mean, we, we talked
about this while plays likeokay, maybe this represents the
(13:11):
mycorhizae, which are theseunderground fungal networks that
connects trees and have beenshown to be able to kind of help
trees out from one tree toanother, but there's still a lot
not known about it. And I mean,by and large competition is the
way things work in reality. Sothat's a again, acceptable
break. You're trying to get yourentire species of tree to do the
best, not just individual trees.
Brian (13:33):
Yeah, it's go Team Oak.
Unknown (13:35):
Which is an odd thing. They don't actually tell you
what the four trees are. I hadto look this up. But they are
oak, spruce, sycamore, which iswhat we thought was a maple
tree, and linden, which is thetiny little berry ones.
Brian (13:50):
Oh, that's interesting. So even though they have four
species of tree in terms of thegameplay, they all function
exactly the same, they all growthe same, they all need the same
amount of light, they all likethe same amount of soil, which
is another sort of break fromreality a little bit. Obviously,
the economy of the game would bemuch more complicated if the
light had to stay with theindividual tree that collected
(14:11):
it. More accurate, but way morefiddly.
Jason (14:14):
Yeah, that's what we need a computer to handle that. I'm
not going to do that myself.
Brian (14:19):
But one thing that we did talk about there that actually
leads us into the next topic isthis idea of, Yes, plants will
usually they're not onlycompeting with members of other
species, but with themselves.That is why seed dissemination
is an important idea. This ideathat a plant needs to spread its
seeds to new territories. Andseed dissemination can come in a
variety of ways and in thiscase, all four of our trees
(14:40):
disseminate similarly, it'spurely based on size. But
dissemination can be based on awind you know, we have our
dandelion fluffs or our Samarra,like maple seeds that will
flutter down. We can havedissemination by water, which we
didn't really get too much ofthat in this game, or
dissemination by animals, whichagain, there's no animals in
this game. There is an expansionwith animals that also play
(15:02):
roles with the moon tracker. Wedidn't play that, but it's an
interesting idea.
Jason (15:06):
We may revisit that in a future season.
Unknown (15:08):
Potentially. But of course, oaks and squirrels have
a well established symbioticinteraction. Oak seeds are kind
of dependent upon animals. Soacorns are largely dependent on
animals to get planted, whichwe're not going to deal with
here.
Yeah, actually, let's take alook at so oaks. They're acorns.
They depend on squirrels andother things that grab them,
bury them. The spruce, how dospruce... they're, they've got
(15:31):
cones.
Some cones are dependent upondisturbance and fire to open but
I don't know if that's spruce.
Jason (15:37):
I don't know about spruce. Sycamores, which looking
up people...either there's twovery different trees that are
both called sycamores or peopleare very confused about what
Sycamore seeds look like,because sometimes they look like
maple seeds. And sometimes theylook like a ball of like tiny
little spiky things heldtogether. So the game has the
maple seed ones, those are wind,so they just drop and they
whirligig off somewhere. Andthen the Linden is berries, so
(16:00):
probably birds.
Unknown (16:02):
Probably. So that would be we've got two animal. I
really don't know how sprucecones spread. I mean, the ones
that are fire-based, it's areally interesting mechanism.
The cones will be held shut withthe pine resin that has a
melting temperature that willonly open when it's exposed to
extremely high temperatures andrelease the seeds.
(16:23):
Yeah, they're fire-dependent.
So the other concept of the gameis photosynthesis itself, which
I think that most people, it'srelatively common knowledge that
plants need light. What do theyneed light for? What are they
doing with it? They are able touse the energy of light to take
carbon dioxide from the air,combine it with water and create
(16:44):
glucose, sugar, right? And thenin the process, releasing
oxygen. So the light economy,the ability to to collect light
is a key thing that plants needto do. And it basically means
that as long as they can getwater, carbon dioxide is
everywhere. As long as they canget light, they can produce
energy. What do they do with theglucose? They actually burn that
(17:05):
glucose, reversing the process,to generate energy or they use
the carbon to make other partsof their body. Trees are made
from thin air.
Jason (17:13):
And water
Brian (17:13):
And water. Thin air and water? That's true. I was,
actually I meant to look up, dowe know what percentage of a
tree is carbon?
Unknown (17:20):
No, but I think the answer is a lot.
Brian (17:23):
Like all of the carbon that is in the tree, the bulk of
the tree itself, the carbonskeleton that makes up all of
the tissues is coming from theair.
Unknown (17:33):
Yeah, well, let's say you got carbon carbohydrates,
you got a carbon. I mean, yougot ones like glucose, you've
got like a hydroxyl. So anoxygen and hydrogen on one side
and a hydrogen on the other. Socarbon and oxygen are about the
same, hydrogen has a little bit.So if I were just to go off of
that ratio, like C-H2-O as yourtypical carbohydrate, we could
(17:56):
probably say, what like 40, 45%?
Brian (18:00):
Yeah, it seems reasonable to me.
Jason (18:02):
Another 45% is oxygen, and then the rest is hydrogen.
Unknown (18:05):
There's some nitrogen in there, too, which will lead
us into our next topic.
Jason (18:08):
True, true, yeah, I forgot about all the nitrogen
for, for the protein.
Unknown (18:12):
Yeah, well, actually, that can lead us into our next
topic, which is soil fertility.Which I had a little bit of a
harder time researching it. ButI think, for anybody who's been
to a garden center, andessentially looked at a bag of
fertilizer, you'll see threenumbers on there. That is the
nitrogen amount, the phosphorusamount, the potassium amount.
Nitrogen is one thing that is inthe air all the time, but it is
(18:36):
in a form that is functionallyunusable dinitrogen gas, the
bonds between the two nitrogenatoms are so strong, that even
though we're surrounded the airis 70% nitrogen, but it's not
usable.
Yet to put this in perspective,the formation of that nitrogen
bond is what makes mostexplosives work. So trying to
(18:57):
get it back apart so it can beused by a living thing is
basically trying to reverse anexplosion level of energy. Yeah,
reverse explosion. In order todo it is like, like, I work in
this a little bit. I studyplant-microbe symbioses. And the
microbes are the ones that areactually turning the nitrogen.
And it is it takes so muchenergy to split that stupid
(19:17):
bond. I mean, there's a reasonwhy plants pay microbes to do it
instead of doing themselves. Itis so hard.
And and it's it's a process.It's also poisoned by oxygen.
Jason (19:27):
Yes, there's that too.
Brian (19:28):
Yeah. So if you want to be able to do this, you also
need to create a environmentwhere oxygen is kept at a
minimum or very little oxygen,which is something microbes are
pretty good at doing. Certainmicrobes can live without oxygen
at all. This is something thereare specific bacteria that do
this. The plants will makespecific organs to facilitate
and allow them to themselves tobe colonized. There are some
(19:50):
trees that form theseassociations, but microbes in
soil can do it just on their ownand the amount of...I don't know
Is it fair to say that theamount of nitrogen in soil is
probably one of the mostlimiting things for soil
fertility?
Jason (20:03):
Oh, yeah.
Brian (20:03):
Okay. So, so that's the concept here, too, that we have
in the game that this this ideaof soil fertility, which the
soil richness, and I'm not surewhy...this is let's talk about
the metaphor of the game. Why iskilling the tree in the rich
soil the good thing to do?
Jason (20:22):
I mean, from just the game perspective, like, it's the
hardest spot to go for, you wantpeople to be vying for it. So
you want there to be a rewardfor competing for a limited
number of spaces. So if we wereto try to extend that to the
metaphor of, oh, this isecological succession, this is a
living biosphere, this issomething going on. Well, there,
there are better parts of soil,there's better parts of forests
(20:44):
where there's more nutrientsbecause of something maybe
accumulated something, maybethere's just a pocket of extra
rich earth there. I mean, someof my colleagues who work with
crops say that this cansometimes be a problem when they
are trying to figure out like doexperiments. Because if you had,
if the farmer 10 years ago, hada chicken coop on one part of
(21:07):
the field, all that chicken poopis now sitting on the field. And
there's just a much higher levelof nutrients there. Or I know
someone in Africa who hadcomplained about ants, because
ants, that ant colony isbasically a giant engine for
gathering nutrients over a largearea and then concentrating them
in a small area. And so the samethings work in forests and such,
(21:31):
so there are patches of bettersoil. And if you've got more
nutrients there, then presumablyyou'll be able to grow better,
you'll be able to make moreseeds, and have a better chance
of winning the evolutionary gameof having as many offspring as
possible. Which is somethingthis game does not talk about
very much like you're notrewarded for making a bunch of
seeds, you're rewarded forharvesting mature trees.
Brian (21:52):
Less about ecology at the end of the way scoring goes and
more about forestry or that thisis being maintained in some way.
Jason (21:59):
Yeah, well, yes. Now when I first saw this I was like, Oh,
it's a game about succession.It's about plants moving in and
colonizing a disturbed spot andthen we get this point, oh, you
score points by harvesting yourmature tree and clearing its
grounds. Like oh, no, this is agame about forestry. This entire
lot got clear-cut. And now thetrees are moving in from the
from the outside, and we're justcutting them down and harvesting
(22:20):
them when they get mature. Iguess I did think maybe you
could think about oh, maybewe're like capturing carbon in
the soil or something if youwant to do like a more
ecological one, but it's reallyit's a game about forestry.
Brian (22:32):
Yeah. old trees do die. They do create spaces of
disturbance for new trees tomove in to but it's not
a...trees aren't seeking deathupon maturity typically. I think
you talked about anothermetaphor there that might have
been a different way of doingscoring or a different way of
dealing with the soil richness,which was which could be
(22:52):
producing more seeds oraffecting seed dissemination. In
photosynthesis, seeddissemination is purely based on
how tall the tree is, a one-talltree can spread the seed one
away two-tall tree can spreadtwo away, a mature tree can
spread up to three spaces away.Maybe the game would be more
accurate to the metaphor of thescience, if dissemination was
(23:14):
affected by soil richness,rather than the size of the
Jason (23:17):
I personally like the mental image of all of these
tree. I think we're meant toassume that in the game, because
it's based on size, maybe theseare all wind disseminated or
something. So being a tallertree gives you access to more area.
trees just kind of catapultingtheir seeds, like one or two,
two squares away.
Brian (23:35):
There are there are plants that do that there are
plants that use sort of a I'mtrying to think of the best way
they will launch seeds, the seedpods will grow under tension,
and when they dry, they may fireseeds away, catapult them
physically into another space.
Jason (23:50):
I've heard American witchhazel is one of those. I've
never seen it myself. But I'veheard that actually does that.
Brian (23:57):
I'm trying to remember there was one that grows in my a
weed in my yard that... hairybittercress does that. As you
walk by the seed pods, they willexplode percussively, and then
spread seeds all over the place,which is why they're very
thoroughly represented in myyard.
Jason (24:14):
So we played this game twice. And as you said, we
didn't do it quite right,because we had some of the light
gathering rules wrong. Turns outthat a short tree can't actually
completely shade a taller treenext to it. We thought that was
weird, but we were looking inthe wrong part of the rulebook.
So anyway, you'll find thislike, we're very human, we make
mistakes. So as we go this wemay not quite get the rules
right all the time. But that'sokay. We'll, we'll play it right
(24:36):
next time. But anyway, what wasyour experience of playing the
game? So there's a lot of movingpieces like the sun is moving
around, you're trying to growtrees, like a tree that is in a
great position now can be shadedin two turns. What What was it
like for you playing the game?
Brian (24:49):
Hmm, let's see. It was... Well, I think that we have
slightly different play styles.I typically just do the actions
and then see how things sort ofmature I'm usually not trying to
plan too far ahead, which I'mjust gonna say I'm playing like
a tree. Trees are also notplanning ahead, necessarily. But
the use of the turn tracker tokeep track handing that back and
(25:09):
forth sort of developing sort ofa good routine was good. Playing
the two player game, we kept apretty good pace. I would wonder
if you had more players, if itwould change the pace, if you'd
get overly concerned about whatI should do next, as you're
waiting for everybody else tomake their decisions. One thing
that about the game that sort ofthrew me off one is okay, yes,
(25:32):
it is a game you are planning,you are trying to achieve
victory by harvesting yourmature trees. The way that you
spend your light points thatyou're collecting is you will
prepare your tree is bring themto this sort of strange nether
zone. And then you pay again toput them out onto the board.
From a metaphor perspective, Idon't know maybe the trees are
(25:53):
saving up energy to do somethingthat they want to be able to do
next turn or that they will doat some point in the future. The
game was not hard to learn. Allright, Jason. So we played this
a couple of times. What did you,did you enjoy photosynthesis?
What was it like to play?
Jason (26:08):
Oh it was fun. It's one of those games where the
individual parts are relativelysimple. But when you put them
all together, it suddenlybecomes very complicated.
Especially because of thatmoving Sun tracker around, I
found myself very quickly tryingto plan out okay, where will
this tree be in two or threeturns? When I was about to
harvest trees, I would say Okay,wait, the sun tracker is going,
(26:30):
I've got two good turns ofsunlight left, I'm gonna leave
that tree to gather sunlight fornow. And then I'll harvest it
once it drops into anothertree's shadow.
Brian (26:37):
So one part from the metaphor was this idea of you
spend lights to prepare a treeor a seed, and then you spend
again, to place it on the board.So I screwed that up a couple of
times in a couple of differentways. When we would harvest I
would put things in the wrongplace, I'd put them in my ready
area, instead of back on theplayer board. Or in both of our
games, when we get near the endof the game, I would spend my
(26:58):
points poorly on things that Icouldn't actually do anything
with. So...but I'm a lesstactical player than you are.
Jason (27:04):
Yes, no, I'm very much a plan-in-out, try to find all the
pieces, see how they worktogether. Like I love games like
this that reward people for likethinking ahead and trying to
figure out the optimal placebecause that's what I enjoy
doing. And so I was definitelylooking at like those last few
terms like, okay, my goal is togrow big trees and chop them
down, grow big trees and chopthem down. So everything I did
(27:25):
was set towards gathering asmuch light as I could in order
to do those two things, newtrees, they don't matter.
There's only two turns left,they're not going to be able to
grow big enough. So sorry,little trees, you just get
ignored. You all you only existto serve the needs of the
greater growth.
Brian (27:42):
Just like real trees. No, not really so much. Actually, I
would say that that's one thingis trees don't do a lot of
planning typically, I wouldn'tthink so there's another sort of
place where the game is a littledifferent. One thing about this
game is it's just very pretty.It's very pretty game. It's it's
visually appealing to, to watchthis grove kind of fill in with
trees of different sizes ina...it's not quite natural. So
(28:06):
again, the sun is coming incompletely from the side. So
there is sort of this, I thinkyou noticed this when we played
too, that middle ring kind ofdidn't get filled up that much.
But that probably would bedifferent. If you had more
players.
Jason (28:19):
It would probably also be different if we were playing
with the correct light rules ifwe weren't completely shading
out each and every tree.
Brian (28:25):
Yes, that would probably also help. This is one of the
fun things about board games,though is that you can play them
wrong and still have fun andstill sort of get the game and
enjoy the game. Even if youscrewed something up.
Jason (28:36):
Yeah, going back to the looks though, like I want to
like that's a really importantthing to me, like I enjoy games
that really look good, that arevery aesthetically pleasing. I
have actually bought boardgames, simply because they were
very pretty. Thankfully, theyusually turned out to be very
fun to play as well. Ifsomeone's going to invest the
time and money to get goodartwork, they've usually also
invested the time for goodgameplay. And this is a very
(28:57):
pretty one. The trees arepretty, if...I need to double
check, but I'm pretty sure eachside has like eight tiny trees
and like four or five middlesized one and two big ones. And
I think they're different. Idon't think they look identical
all the pieces to each other. Ithink there's a few different
models for them.
Brian (29:15):
That's interesting. I didn't even notice that there
are there are slightly differentresources for the smalls,
they're little two dimensionalstandees. And they might be.
Jason (29:24):
I could be wrong. Maybe I just got that impression because
each of the four sides are verydifferent. There's a kind of a
bluish, greenish or pinkish agolden colored and so again, the
the grove ends up looking very,very pretty.
Brian (29:36):
It probably ends up happening because if you have
two standee pieces, if you justput them together a different
way you end up with a slightlydifferent looking tree without
even trying.
Jason (29:44):
True, that could be it.
Brian (29:45):
There are some advanced rules that we didn't play. One
is to add a third revolution ofthe sun.
Jason (29:51):
You mean a fourth revolution?
Brian (29:52):
Yeah, fourth revolution around I'm not sure why. How
that would change things otherthan just giving you more time
to plan and score and fill outthe board more. The more
interesting one, I think, isthat you cannot place a seed in
the shadow of another tree.
Jason (30:06):
Now that would change the game a lot, the way it is right
now is like you can place a seedanywhere where there's an open
space where there isn't alreadya seed or someone else's tree.
But the shadows in the game arevery important. I mean, they're
probably the most tactical partis figuring out where trees are
going to be in shadow wherethey're not, and how you can
avoid your opponent's shade, andliterally throw shade on your
(30:29):
opponent so that they can'tactually earn any light points.
And so adding another monkeywrench where you can't put a
seed down in a place that's inshadow, that will be hard. I
almost wonder if it'd be morerealistic if you can't sprout
the seed. When it's in shadow.
Brian (30:45):
I think that that does make more sense. Another thing
that they do is a seed can holda square, a seed can hold a hex
just having the seed there meanssomething else can be there
Jason (30:55):
Including another seed
Brian (30:56):
Including another seed, it's like, well, but really,
though, that's not how thatwould be just having a seed
there is not going to keepanother seed from landing in
that space. And then it shouldbe erased. I don't know. I, I
wonder how that would changethings too.
Jason (31:11):
Yep, I wonder how many people use seeds to just lock
down parts of the board so thattheir opponents can't get them?
Brian (31:17):
I mean, you 100% could do that. The downside is that you
have a limited number of seeds,and that they get more
expensive. So if you're going toput it out and you're not going
to grow it, then you are takinga cost to do that. You're not
even casting shade, you made thejoke about casting shade on your
opponents. You can cast shade onyourself. Like very easily.
Jason (31:35):
Yeah, you did that several times,
Brian (31:36):
many times. That is true. Okay, anything else that we
should talk about this game?
Jason (31:42):
Let's see. I think we've covered it. I mean, overall, I
thought it was a very fun game.You wanted to give... So we're
both university professors. Andso we are in the habit of
grading things. And so youwanted to try to give a letter
grade to these just to give ourimpressions. So you you did all
the research on the science. Sowhat would you grade the science
(32:02):
as?
Brian (32:03):
I'm trying to decide if I should be grading on a curve or
grading objectively, I think thecore science of ecological
succession is represented hererelatively well. The feeling is
good. Hmmm...I'm gonna say...howdo we feel about a B plus, for
(32:24):
the forestry end point forscoring and sort of being a
little off the biology rails?
Jason (32:30):
Yeah, I was gonna say about a B plus, like, it's
definitely there. They'redefinitely made some
compromises. And the thing is,compromises are okay. But for
grading, just like how accurateis the science? Yeah, B plus is
probably good.
Brian (32:42):
The, just the collecting phase. That's, that's, that's
where just things get thrown offjust a little bit. If it wasn't
for that, I'd say probably wouldhave scored a little higher. All
right. What do you think aboutthe fun the experience of
playing the game? Is it easy tolearn? Is it fun to play?
Jason (32:58):
I'd give that an A. I mean, I think that this was a
really fun game. I reallyenjoyed the tactical part of it.
I mean, it's not going to be foreveryone. I'm thinking of my own
father here every time we gettogether and play games, my
dad's refrain is, why can't wejust play Uno? It's like, that's
kind of his ceiling in terms ofgame complexity. So, but for
people who like board games,like I think it's good, I just
(33:20):
looked it up right now. So onBoard Game Geek, its overall
rank is 650...644. So which,okay, it's not in the top 20.
But given that there areliterally 1000s upon 1000s of
games, it's pretty good. Ireally enjoyed it. And again, I
really liked the aesthetics, andit's just very pretty growing
trees. I can imagine some peoplemay be turned off by the the
(33:45):
planning aspect, and how easy itis to get in a bit of a bad
position as your opponents arethrowing shade all over you. So
I'd probably give it an A maybean A minus because it maybe it's
too complex for some people, butI personally liked it. I give it
Brian (33:59):
I think, I think I'm comfortable with an A minus. I'm
an A.
actually excited to play itagain. I think we should put it
on the put it on the list forthe next time we get together.
I'd be curious to play againwith the proper shadow rules,
and also to play with more thantwo players. What is it like
with three or four? How does thegame feel different? Well, when
we were playing our secondround, it was a pretty quick
(34:19):
back and forth. It was it wasfun to sort of like play speed
photosynthesis, I would do thatagain.
Jason (34:26):
Yeah, that was...it was stressful and relieving at the
same time. It was stressfulbecause I still want to make
optimal plays. But kind ofrelaxing when I realized I
couldn't really so I just triedto do the best I could. I'm
actually quite surprised thatnot only did both of us do
better in the speed round, maybebecause we knew the game better.
But I trounced you, I had like30 more points than you did.
Brian (34:50):
Well, I think as we continue doing this experiment,
we're going to hear that trendcontinue. Okay, all right. Well,
this was photosynthesis. It's afun game. Science is pretty
good. Give it a try.
Jason (35:06):
And if you liked this, I mean, I know this is the cliche
thing, but give us a review.We're new at this. I don't know
if you can like, comment andsubscribe a podcast. But if you
can go ahead, we're trying thisout. I mean, really, if you'd
like this, share it with yourfriends. We're not like there's
no Patreon. We're not doing thisfor money. If you know anyone at
(35:27):
the National Science Foundation,that would be willing to give us
a grant. That's great, but we'renot going to ask for money.
We're just doing this for thefun of it. We're hoping you
enjoy it too. So until next time
Brian (35:35):
Have fun playing dice with the universe
Jason (35:38):
Later.
Brian (35:41):
This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright
2024. listeners are free toreuse this recording for any non
commercial purpose as long ascredit is given to gaming
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games thatwe talked about, we encourage
you to do so through yourfriendly local game store. Thank
(36:02):
you and have fun playing dicewith the universe
Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of your favorite
games.
Brian (00:12):
In today's episode, we're going to talk about
photosynthesis from Blue OrangeGames.
Hey, I'm Brian.
Jason (00:23):
This is Jason.
Brian (00:24):
So we're both plant scientists, biologists, and
general all-around nerds. Andwelcome to gaming with science.
This is our first episode.
Jason (00:32):
So, I have been feeling that, for those of you who are
just coming to this because youwant to try it out, thank you.
For those of you who are comingfrom the future and are watching
this after we've become rich andfamous and have millions of
followers, I apologize becausethis is our first episode, we're
still figuring things out. Sothings will probably be a little
rough relative to the laterones. We hope.
Brian (00:51):
Yeah, we'll come back and fix it. We'll just replace it
with a better recording in thefuture. And you'll never know.
Unknown (00:56):
You know, we won't do that. We don't have time. We're
university professors, we don'thave time to do that.
Brian (01:03):
Fair enough. Okay. All right. So what are we going to
be talking about today?
Unknown (01:09):
Well, I was thinking we'd start off with a fun
science fact. And this one'sactually related to the game
today. So our game today isphotosynthesis. And just last
week, I saw that someone beendoing some bio-inspired
engineering. And so a group...Iforgot to see where they were
from, we'll post it in the shownotes. But there's this whole
drive to send outenvironmentally friendly sensors
(01:30):
to use to take remote sensingdata, temperature, pH, other
things that are useful tomonitor the environment and see
how it's doing. And a lot ofpeople are modeling these off of
various seeds. And so this newgroup has done 3d printing of
biocompatible polymers. Sothey're biodegradable, they're
eco friendly, in the shape ofmaple seeds. And the idea is
(01:53):
that the biopolymer, isimpregnated with a whole bunch
of metal nanoparticles. So very,very tiny bits of metal, they're
attached to certain chemicalcompounds, and they fluoresce.
So you shine a light on them,and they shine a different, a
different frequency of lightcomes back out. But the thing is
the type of fluorescence thewavelength, I'm not an engineer,
(02:17):
I don't know the details, but itchanges based on the temperature
of the sensor. So the idea isyou can take a bunch of these
artificial maple seeds that theyjust print off a 3d printer with
the right stuff, you go in, Iguess, you distribute them by
helicopter or something, theywhirligig down and spread out,
just like natural maple seeds.And then you can just fly a
drone over at some later pointand read in the correct
(02:41):
wavelengths of light and be ableto say, Okay, what's the
temperature on the ground righthere, and they have data showing
that, Oh, as the temperaturegoes up by five or 10 degrees,
then this is how the qualitiesof it change. And if I was
reading it, right--again, not myarea--but if I was reading the
paper, right, it sounds like outin the wild, these things are
expected to last a few years,like probably one to three years
(03:05):
before they break down anddecompose entirely. Obviously,
not permanent. But that's kindof the point is they don't want
be spreading out plastic andelectronic waste everywhere to
monitor it, they want somethingthat you can throw out, and then
it breaks back down.
I can see the connection, andpart of this game is going to be
about seed dissemination andliterally, maple is is in this
game. So that's pretty cool.This is not the topic I thought
(03:26):
you were going to talk about,though. I had seen something,
again, with the idea of, ofbiological sensors, where they
had engineered plants to respondto certain compounds in the soil
and change color, and in such away that you could easily
monitor the presence ofparticular toxins. Of course, at
that point, you're spreadinggenetically engineered plants
out into the environment, whichis something people aren't super
(03:49):
enthused about. But the idea isreally interesting. But again,
that idea of a system, this iskind of the opposite. This is
using biology to mimic a sensor,instead of using a sensor that
mimics biology.
Yeah, what would they be? Whatare the point of that be? I
guess, where would be the mostuse for that sort of thing?
Would it be like contaminatedsites like Superfund sites, so
(04:10):
you could get a very fine grainwithout having to take like a
bajillion soil tests to figureout where the contamination is?
The specific use case that Iremember seeing, I'll go back
and find this for the show notesas well was detection of
explosives to detect landminesthat were buried.
Jason (04:25):
Okay, that's cool. That's very cool.
Brian (04:27):
Because again, you wouldn't want to take 1000 soil
samples, you just would say,hey, those red plants over
there, don't go over there.
Jason (04:33):
I was gonna say if there's landmines I don't want
to take any soil samples.
Unknown (04:38):
So that was the one I remember. I'll find that for the
show notes.
Yeah, that would definitely becool. I can definitely see. I
mean, there's there's widespreadissues to genetic engineering. I
mean, there's no fitness benefitto being able to sense an
explosive so I, like, we'regonna need to have a GMO
discussion at some pointprobably. This is not the time
(04:58):
to open that particular can ofworms. But yes, let's say
there's probably some prettyhigh regulatory burdens to get
that particular product out. Andin, in the field. I got, I have
to wonder how many of theseideas started as someone just
thinking, hey, that would becool. Like, what if we could
plant plants that would changecolor in the presence of
landmines? What if we madesensors that flew down like
(05:20):
maple seeds? I mean, you gottaadmit, when I was a kid, I would
just grab gather at maple seedsand just toss them in the air
because they look super cool.And I wonder how much of that
design is not like the wholething. I mean, it has to
withstand rounds of engineeringand funding and all sorts of
stuff. But that first initialgerm of an idea is like, hey,
this would be really cool.
Yeah, you wonder if that'sright. Was it the use case that
(05:41):
came first? And then you figureout how to do it? Or was it the
other way around?
Don't know.
Brian (05:45):
Yeah.
Jason (05:46):
So anyway, bring it I think, bring this out into this
game. So photosynthesis, whichthis is only the second time
I've ever played this, but youown this game.
Unknown (05:55):
We do. So photosynthesis is produced by
Blue Orange Games. It wasreleased in 2017. With game
designer, Hjalmar Hach and artdesigner Sabrina Miramon. It's
for two to four players. We onlyplayed two player, I think we've
played four player before.
Jason (06:10):
Yeah
Brian (06:10):
Age is...ages are eight and up, which you can usually
subtract a couple years fromthat based on your child, I
suppose. I think eight'sprobably pretty accurate,
though, based on you know, mylook at this.
Unknown (06:22):
I think so. I think you could probably play a simplified
game with like a six or sevenyear old, but keeping track of
them and playing optimally, isdefinitely going to require a
higher age level. So like, ifyou just want a kid, the kid
just wants to grow some trees,then you can play easy mode
photosynthesis, But to play itreal? Yeah, probably eight and
up.
It's probably one of those wherea group of kids could play. And
(06:45):
a group of adults could play.But if you're going to be mixed
mixing skills and ages, youmight have some different
experiences there. 45 To 60minutes to play, which seems
about accurate to me, I thinkyou could play a little faster
if you're trying to play faster.I think we did.
Jason (07:00):
Yeah, there are only two of us that made it easy. And
yes, we, we had a hard deadline.So we were definitely playing
the speed chess version ofphotosynthesis.
Unknown (07:08):
So the setup of the board, you have a circular hex
board. And two dimensional treestands of different sizes.
There's four different trees,each of them...they don't really
play any different, but they alllook a little different,
slightly different colors. Goodfor colorblind, you know,
they're all very distinct andeasy to pick out and represent
from each other. The conceit ofthe board is that you have a sun
(07:31):
tracker that will rotateclockwise around the board at
each corner of the hex sort ofshows what direction the light
is coming from. So the objectiveof the game is when you start,
this board represents an emptyfield with no trees on it at
all. You'll start by placingyour small trees around the
outside, and you'll collectlight points that are the
economy of the game that we'lluse to plant seeds, grow up your
(07:54):
trees to maturity, and then oncethey are mature, you'll, you'll
collect you'll kill those treesto score your points. So when
that tree is fully grown, you'reable to remove it from the board
and collect points that arebased on the soil richness is
how it's described in the game.With more points being awarded,
the closer you are to the middleof the board, and sort of a rank
(08:16):
scoring system. That's kindalike priority scoring, the first
person to score in that areawill get more points than the
last person to collect in thatarea. Which actually is
something I hadn't reallythought about. There's, maybe
there's a little bit of ametaphor there, too, that we
should touch on
a note we can reach for thatlater. Honestly, the difference
in priority is not huge. We'retalking like one or two points
(08:36):
difference. So it's like, ifit's a really tight game, then
that matters. But in our ourexperience looking at some
people on lines, like mosttimes, it's a difference of a
hole, you scored five timesversus six times. So
I can't...you're kind of right.I wonder what the game would
Jason (08:53):
It was basically clear cut.
have to look like to have thatmatter? Because it seemed like
for the most part anyway, we cantalk about design choices later,
I suppose. So when I wasresearching this game, the major
scientific concepts that I saw,that we're going to talk about
in more detail are ecologicalsuccession, seed dissemination,
(09:14):
photosynthesis, which the gamespends not that much time
talking about, really, and alittle bit on soil fertility. So
I think let's, let's talk aboutthat aspect, sort of what those
are, how the game isrepresenting them. So ecological
Brian (09:26):
That is probably what happens, there was no other
succession in the first place.So what is that? There are two
types of ecological succession: primary ecological succession is (09:33):
undefined
like what happens after you'vehad lava completely like
obliterate terrain, there isnothing ther. Life is
biodiversity is at zero. And atthat point, things like lichens
and bacteria and eventuallyhardy plants come and they
rebuild the soil. Primarysuccession is about rebuilding
(09:56):
the soil reestablishingbiodiversity in terrain that's
been completely stripped of alllife. Then you've got secondary
succession. This is a differentprocess, the soil is still
there. But the plants are not.And that is what we're
representing in photosynthesis.We have an area of land with no
trees on it.
(10:20):
indication of any other sort ofecological disturbance, there
was just nothing there.Succession is this process where
plants will come back and recallas an area. And one thing that
this game represents well is howthe plants are competing with
each other for space, for light,for other aspects. We don't
really think about plantscompeting with one another. But
(10:41):
that is what drives ecologicalsuccession is availability of
light, availability of space.It's why we see a sort of
regular pattern of succession ofplants, starting with things
that require a more open lightenvironment until the trees come
in, and they will shade outeverything else. And then you'll
see a transition in speciesduring that. The secondary
(11:02):
succession is driven bydisturbances. Those disturbances
can be as small as a treefalling over creating new space
for something else to come in,or a forest fire or something
like that. So this is really thekey metaphor that this game is
trying to represent is secondaryecological succession plants
competing with one another forlight for space.
Unknown (11:22):
Yeah, we've got, presumably, we have some forest
around this clearing that isstill intact, and that's where
all the initial plants comefrom. And then this clearing is
slowly being recolonized over, Idon't know, you figured we're
looking at the lifetime of atree. So this could take several
decades of time that are passingfor, for the game.
Yeah, I'm not sure what they'retrying to represent. The sun
moves around the grove, that'san important thing. So
(11:44):
obviously, there's some cyclegoing on. But it doesn't really
seem like it's a year, it seemslike it must be a longer period
of time of some kind.
Yeah, well, this is the pointwhere when you have to make a
choice of making a fun game, andbeing completely accurate to the
science, people choose to make afun game. And I agree with that
choice. The point like if youmake a very accurate scientific
game, that is also boring, noone's gonna play it. I'd rather
(12:06):
have a very fun game that hassome minor deviations from
accuracy, or even major ones, aslong as it's fun to play.
Yeah, I think I think you'reright, I think as long as the
sort of the key concept is stillthere, and it's still being
represented, I think that that'sfine. And you can present it in
different...I mean, obviously,there are board games that go up
and down the scale in terms ofhow much they're trying to
(12:26):
simulate things based on sort ofthe objectives. But as long as
the key mechanics sort of stillrepresent, I think that this
does a pretty good job of sortof getting this key concept of
plants competing for space inlight, for sure.
Definitely, the one odd thingthere, one of these acceptable
breaks is the fact that all theplants of the same species are
working together. So onestrategy is you have a bunch of
(12:49):
tiny plants around the edges ofthe board, which isn't worth
very many points. And then youuse all those light points that
you've gathered from the edgesto grow your trees in the middle
to get them really big and makea lot of points when you harvest
them. And so that's because it'strees of a species are also
competing against each other byand large. I mean, we, we talked
about this while plays likeokay, maybe this represents the
(13:11):
mycorhizae, which are theseunderground fungal networks that
connects trees and have beenshown to be able to kind of help
trees out from one tree toanother, but there's still a lot
not known about it. And I mean,by and large competition is the
way things work in reality. Sothat's a again, acceptable
break. You're trying to get yourentire species of tree to do the
best, not just individual trees.
Brian (13:33):
Yeah, it's go Team Oak.
Unknown (13:35):
Which is an odd thing. They don't actually tell you
what the four trees are. I hadto look this up. But they are
oak, spruce, sycamore, which iswhat we thought was a maple
tree, and linden, which is thetiny little berry ones.
Brian (13:50):
Oh, that's interesting. So even though they have four
species of tree in terms of thegameplay, they all function
exactly the same, they all growthe same, they all need the same
amount of light, they all likethe same amount of soil, which
is another sort of break fromreality a little bit. Obviously,
the economy of the game would bemuch more complicated if the
light had to stay with theindividual tree that collected
(14:11):
it. More accurate, but way morefiddly.
Jason (14:14):
Yeah, that's what we need a computer to handle that. I'm
not going to do that myself.
Brian (14:19):
But one thing that we did talk about there that actually
leads us into the next topic isthis idea of, Yes, plants will
usually they're not onlycompeting with members of other
species, but with themselves.That is why seed dissemination
is an important idea. This ideathat a plant needs to spread its
seeds to new territories. Andseed dissemination can come in a
variety of ways and in thiscase, all four of our trees
(14:40):
disseminate similarly, it'spurely based on size. But
dissemination can be based on awind you know, we have our
dandelion fluffs or our Samarra,like maple seeds that will
flutter down. We can havedissemination by water, which we
didn't really get too much ofthat in this game, or
dissemination by animals, whichagain, there's no animals in
this game. There is an expansionwith animals that also play
(15:02):
roles with the moon tracker. Wedidn't play that, but it's an
interesting idea.
Jason (15:06):
We may revisit that in a future season.
Unknown (15:08):
Potentially. But of course, oaks and squirrels have
a well established symbioticinteraction. Oak seeds are kind
of dependent upon animals. Soacorns are largely dependent on
animals to get planted, whichwe're not going to deal with
here.
Yeah, actually, let's take alook at so oaks. They're acorns.
They depend on squirrels andother things that grab them,
bury them. The spruce, how dospruce... they're, they've got
(15:31):
cones.
Some cones are dependent upondisturbance and fire to open but
I don't know if that's spruce.
Jason (15:37):
I don't know about spruce. Sycamores, which looking
up people...either there's twovery different trees that are
both called sycamores or peopleare very confused about what
Sycamore seeds look like,because sometimes they look like
maple seeds. And sometimes theylook like a ball of like tiny
little spiky things heldtogether. So the game has the
maple seed ones, those are wind,so they just drop and they
whirligig off somewhere. Andthen the Linden is berries, so
(16:00):
probably birds.
Unknown (16:02):
Probably. So that would be we've got two animal. I
really don't know how sprucecones spread. I mean, the ones
that are fire-based, it's areally interesting mechanism.
The cones will be held shut withthe pine resin that has a
melting temperature that willonly open when it's exposed to
extremely high temperatures andrelease the seeds.
(16:23):
Yeah, they're fire-dependent.
So the other concept of the gameis photosynthesis itself, which
I think that most people, it'srelatively common knowledge that
plants need light. What do theyneed light for? What are they
doing with it? They are able touse the energy of light to take
carbon dioxide from the air,combine it with water and create
(16:44):
glucose, sugar, right? And thenin the process, releasing
oxygen. So the light economy,the ability to to collect light
is a key thing that plants needto do. And it basically means
that as long as they can getwater, carbon dioxide is
everywhere. As long as they canget light, they can produce
energy. What do they do with theglucose? They actually burn that
(17:05):
glucose, reversing the process,to generate energy or they use
the carbon to make other partsof their body. Trees are made
from thin air.
Jason (17:13):
And water
Brian (17:13):
And water. Thin air and water? That's true. I was,
actually I meant to look up, dowe know what percentage of a
tree is carbon?
Unknown (17:20):
No, but I think the answer is a lot.
Brian (17:23):
Like all of the carbon that is in the tree, the bulk of
the tree itself, the carbonskeleton that makes up all of
the tissues is coming from theair.
Unknown (17:33):
Yeah, well, let's say you got carbon carbohydrates,
you got a carbon. I mean, yougot ones like glucose, you've
got like a hydroxyl. So anoxygen and hydrogen on one side
and a hydrogen on the other. Socarbon and oxygen are about the
same, hydrogen has a little bit.So if I were just to go off of
that ratio, like C-H2-O as yourtypical carbohydrate, we could
(17:56):
probably say, what like 40, 45%?
Brian (18:00):
Yeah, it seems reasonable to me.
Jason (18:02):
Another 45% is oxygen, and then the rest is hydrogen.
Unknown (18:05):
There's some nitrogen in there, too, which will lead
us into our next topic.
Jason (18:08):
True, true, yeah, I forgot about all the nitrogen
for, for the protein.
Unknown (18:12):
Yeah, well, actually, that can lead us into our next
topic, which is soil fertility.Which I had a little bit of a
harder time researching it. ButI think, for anybody who's been
to a garden center, andessentially looked at a bag of
fertilizer, you'll see threenumbers on there. That is the
nitrogen amount, the phosphorusamount, the potassium amount.
Nitrogen is one thing that is inthe air all the time, but it is
(18:36):
in a form that is functionallyunusable dinitrogen gas, the
bonds between the two nitrogenatoms are so strong, that even
though we're surrounded the airis 70% nitrogen, but it's not
usable.
Yet to put this in perspective,the formation of that nitrogen
bond is what makes mostexplosives work. So trying to
(18:57):
get it back apart so it can beused by a living thing is
basically trying to reverse anexplosion level of energy. Yeah,
reverse explosion. In order todo it is like, like, I work in
this a little bit. I studyplant-microbe symbioses. And the
microbes are the ones that areactually turning the nitrogen.
And it is it takes so muchenergy to split that stupid
(19:17):
bond. I mean, there's a reasonwhy plants pay microbes to do it
instead of doing themselves. Itis so hard.
And and it's it's a process.It's also poisoned by oxygen.
Jason (19:27):
Yes, there's that too.
Brian (19:28):
Yeah. So if you want to be able to do this, you also
need to create a environmentwhere oxygen is kept at a
minimum or very little oxygen,which is something microbes are
pretty good at doing. Certainmicrobes can live without oxygen
at all. This is something thereare specific bacteria that do
this. The plants will makespecific organs to facilitate
and allow them to themselves tobe colonized. There are some
(19:50):
trees that form theseassociations, but microbes in
soil can do it just on their ownand the amount of...I don't know
Is it fair to say that theamount of nitrogen in soil is
probably one of the mostlimiting things for soil
fertility?
Jason (20:03):
Oh, yeah.
Brian (20:03):
Okay. So, so that's the concept here, too, that we have
in the game that this this ideaof soil fertility, which the
soil richness, and I'm not surewhy...this is let's talk about
the metaphor of the game. Why iskilling the tree in the rich
soil the good thing to do?
Jason (20:22):
I mean, from just the game perspective, like, it's the
hardest spot to go for, you wantpeople to be vying for it. So
you want there to be a rewardfor competing for a limited
number of spaces. So if we wereto try to extend that to the
metaphor of, oh, this isecological succession, this is a
living biosphere, this issomething going on. Well, there,
there are better parts of soil,there's better parts of forests
(20:44):
where there's more nutrientsbecause of something maybe
accumulated something, maybethere's just a pocket of extra
rich earth there. I mean, someof my colleagues who work with
crops say that this cansometimes be a problem when they
are trying to figure out like doexperiments. Because if you had,
if the farmer 10 years ago, hada chicken coop on one part of
(21:07):
the field, all that chicken poopis now sitting on the field. And
there's just a much higher levelof nutrients there. Or I know
someone in Africa who hadcomplained about ants, because
ants, that ant colony isbasically a giant engine for
gathering nutrients over a largearea and then concentrating them
in a small area. And so the samethings work in forests and such,
(21:31):
so there are patches of bettersoil. And if you've got more
nutrients there, then presumablyyou'll be able to grow better,
you'll be able to make moreseeds, and have a better chance
of winning the evolutionary gameof having as many offspring as
possible. Which is somethingthis game does not talk about
very much like you're notrewarded for making a bunch of
seeds, you're rewarded forharvesting mature trees.
Brian (21:52):
Less about ecology at the end of the way scoring goes and
more about forestry or that thisis being maintained in some way.
Jason (21:59):
Yeah, well, yes. Now when I first saw this I was like, Oh,
it's a game about succession.It's about plants moving in and
colonizing a disturbed spot andthen we get this point, oh, you
score points by harvesting yourmature tree and clearing its
grounds. Like oh, no, this is agame about forestry. This entire
lot got clear-cut. And now thetrees are moving in from the
from the outside, and we're justcutting them down and harvesting
(22:20):
them when they get mature. Iguess I did think maybe you
could think about oh, maybewe're like capturing carbon in
the soil or something if youwant to do like a more
ecological one, but it's reallyit's a game about forestry.
Brian (22:32):
Yeah. old trees do die. They do create spaces of
disturbance for new trees tomove in to but it's not
a...trees aren't seeking deathupon maturity typically. I think
you talked about anothermetaphor there that might have
been a different way of doingscoring or a different way of
dealing with the soil richness,which was which could be
(22:52):
producing more seeds oraffecting seed dissemination. In
photosynthesis, seeddissemination is purely based on
how tall the tree is, a one-talltree can spread the seed one
away two-tall tree can spreadtwo away, a mature tree can
spread up to three spaces away.Maybe the game would be more
accurate to the metaphor of thescience, if dissemination was
(23:14):
affected by soil richness,rather than the size of the
Jason (23:17):
I personally like the mental image of all of these
tree. I think we're meant toassume that in the game, because
it's based on size, maybe theseare all wind disseminated or
something. So being a tallertree gives you access to more area.
trees just kind of catapultingtheir seeds, like one or two,
two squares away.
Brian (23:35):
There are there are plants that do that there are
plants that use sort of a I'mtrying to think of the best way
they will launch seeds, the seedpods will grow under tension,
and when they dry, they may fireseeds away, catapult them
physically into another space.
Jason (23:50):
I've heard American witchhazel is one of those. I've
never seen it myself. But I'veheard that actually does that.
Brian (23:57):
I'm trying to remember there was one that grows in my a
weed in my yard that... hairybittercress does that. As you
walk by the seed pods, they willexplode percussively, and then
spread seeds all over the place,which is why they're very
thoroughly represented in myyard.
Jason (24:14):
So we played this game twice. And as you said, we
didn't do it quite right,because we had some of the light
gathering rules wrong. Turns outthat a short tree can't actually
completely shade a taller treenext to it. We thought that was
weird, but we were looking inthe wrong part of the rulebook.
So anyway, you'll find thislike, we're very human, we make
mistakes. So as we go this wemay not quite get the rules
right all the time. But that'sokay. We'll, we'll play it right
(24:36):
next time. But anyway, what wasyour experience of playing the
game? So there's a lot of movingpieces like the sun is moving
around, you're trying to growtrees, like a tree that is in a
great position now can be shadedin two turns. What What was it
like for you playing the game?
Brian (24:49):
Hmm, let's see. It was... Well, I think that we have
slightly different play styles.I typically just do the actions
and then see how things sort ofmature I'm usually not trying to
plan too far ahead, which I'mjust gonna say I'm playing like
a tree. Trees are also notplanning ahead, necessarily. But
the use of the turn tracker tokeep track handing that back and
(25:09):
forth sort of developing sort ofa good routine was good. Playing
the two player game, we kept apretty good pace. I would wonder
if you had more players, if itwould change the pace, if you'd
get overly concerned about whatI should do next, as you're
waiting for everybody else tomake their decisions. One thing
that about the game that sort ofthrew me off one is okay, yes,
(25:32):
it is a game you are planning,you are trying to achieve
victory by harvesting yourmature trees. The way that you
spend your light points thatyou're collecting is you will
prepare your tree is bring themto this sort of strange nether
zone. And then you pay again toput them out onto the board.
From a metaphor perspective, Idon't know maybe the trees are
(25:53):
saving up energy to do somethingthat they want to be able to do
next turn or that they will doat some point in the future. The
game was not hard to learn. Allright, Jason. So we played this
a couple of times. What did you,did you enjoy photosynthesis?
What was it like to play?
Jason (26:08):
Oh it was fun. It's one of those games where the
individual parts are relativelysimple. But when you put them
all together, it suddenlybecomes very complicated.
Especially because of thatmoving Sun tracker around, I
found myself very quickly tryingto plan out okay, where will
this tree be in two or threeturns? When I was about to
harvest trees, I would say Okay,wait, the sun tracker is going,
(26:30):
I've got two good turns ofsunlight left, I'm gonna leave
that tree to gather sunlight fornow. And then I'll harvest it
once it drops into anothertree's shadow.
Brian (26:37):
So one part from the metaphor was this idea of you
spend lights to prepare a treeor a seed, and then you spend
again, to place it on the board.So I screwed that up a couple of
times in a couple of differentways. When we would harvest I
would put things in the wrongplace, I'd put them in my ready
area, instead of back on theplayer board. Or in both of our
games, when we get near the endof the game, I would spend my
(26:58):
points poorly on things that Icouldn't actually do anything
with. So...but I'm a lesstactical player than you are.
Jason (27:04):
Yes, no, I'm very much a plan-in-out, try to find all the
pieces, see how they worktogether. Like I love games like
this that reward people for likethinking ahead and trying to
figure out the optimal placebecause that's what I enjoy
doing. And so I was definitelylooking at like those last few
terms like, okay, my goal is togrow big trees and chop them
down, grow big trees and chopthem down. So everything I did
(27:25):
was set towards gathering asmuch light as I could in order
to do those two things, newtrees, they don't matter.
There's only two turns left,they're not going to be able to
grow big enough. So sorry,little trees, you just get
ignored. You all you only existto serve the needs of the
greater growth.
Brian (27:42):
Just like real trees. No, not really so much. Actually, I
would say that that's one thingis trees don't do a lot of
planning typically, I wouldn'tthink so there's another sort of
place where the game is a littledifferent. One thing about this
game is it's just very pretty.It's very pretty game. It's it's
visually appealing to, to watchthis grove kind of fill in with
trees of different sizes ina...it's not quite natural. So
(28:06):
again, the sun is coming incompletely from the side. So
there is sort of this, I thinkyou noticed this when we played
too, that middle ring kind ofdidn't get filled up that much.
But that probably would bedifferent. If you had more
players.
Jason (28:19):
It would probably also be different if we were playing
with the correct light rules ifwe weren't completely shading
out each and every tree.
Brian (28:25):
Yes, that would probably also help. This is one of the
fun things about board games,though is that you can play them
wrong and still have fun andstill sort of get the game and
enjoy the game. Even if youscrewed something up.
Jason (28:36):
Yeah, going back to the looks though, like I want to
like that's a really importantthing to me, like I enjoy games
that really look good, that arevery aesthetically pleasing. I
have actually bought boardgames, simply because they were
very pretty. Thankfully, theyusually turned out to be very
fun to play as well. Ifsomeone's going to invest the
time and money to get goodartwork, they've usually also
invested the time for goodgameplay. And this is a very
(28:57):
pretty one. The trees arepretty, if...I need to double
check, but I'm pretty sure eachside has like eight tiny trees
and like four or five middlesized one and two big ones. And
I think they're different. Idon't think they look identical
all the pieces to each other. Ithink there's a few different
models for them.
Brian (29:15):
That's interesting. I didn't even notice that there
are there are slightly differentresources for the smalls,
they're little two dimensionalstandees. And they might be.
Jason (29:24):
I could be wrong. Maybe I just got that impression because
each of the four sides are verydifferent. There's a kind of a
bluish, greenish or pinkish agolden colored and so again, the
the grove ends up looking very,very pretty.
Brian (29:36):
It probably ends up happening because if you have
two standee pieces, if you justput them together a different
way you end up with a slightlydifferent looking tree without
even trying.
Jason (29:44):
True, that could be it.
Brian (29:45):
There are some advanced rules that we didn't play. One
is to add a third revolution ofthe sun.
Jason (29:51):
You mean a fourth revolution?
Brian (29:52):
Yeah, fourth revolution around I'm not sure why. How
that would change things otherthan just giving you more time
to plan and score and fill outthe board more. The more
interesting one, I think, isthat you cannot place a seed in
the shadow of another tree.
Jason (30:06):
Now that would change the game a lot, the way it is right
now is like you can place a seedanywhere where there's an open
space where there isn't alreadya seed or someone else's tree.
But the shadows in the game arevery important. I mean, they're
probably the most tactical partis figuring out where trees are
going to be in shadow wherethey're not, and how you can
avoid your opponent's shade, andliterally throw shade on your
(30:29):
opponent so that they can'tactually earn any light points.
And so adding another monkeywrench where you can't put a
seed down in a place that's inshadow, that will be hard. I
almost wonder if it'd be morerealistic if you can't sprout
the seed. When it's in shadow.
Brian (30:45):
I think that that does make more sense. Another thing
that they do is a seed can holda square, a seed can hold a hex
just having the seed there meanssomething else can be there
Jason (30:55):
Including another seed
Brian (30:56):
Including another seed, it's like, well, but really,
though, that's not how thatwould be just having a seed
there is not going to keepanother seed from landing in
that space. And then it shouldbe erased. I don't know. I, I
wonder how that would changethings too.
Jason (31:11):
Yep, I wonder how many people use seeds to just lock
down parts of the board so thattheir opponents can't get them?
Brian (31:17):
I mean, you 100% could do that. The downside is that you
have a limited number of seeds,and that they get more
expensive. So if you're going toput it out and you're not going
to grow it, then you are takinga cost to do that. You're not
even casting shade, you made thejoke about casting shade on your
opponents. You can cast shade onyourself. Like very easily.
Jason (31:35):
Yeah, you did that several times,
Brian (31:36):
many times. That is true. Okay, anything else that we
should talk about this game?
Jason (31:42):
Let's see. I think we've covered it. I mean, overall, I
thought it was a very fun game.You wanted to give... So we're
both university professors. Andso we are in the habit of
grading things. And so youwanted to try to give a letter
grade to these just to give ourimpressions. So you you did all
the research on the science. Sowhat would you grade the science
(32:02):
as?
Brian (32:03):
I'm trying to decide if I should be grading on a curve or
grading objectively, I think thecore science of ecological
succession is represented hererelatively well. The feeling is
good. Hmmm...I'm gonna say...howdo we feel about a B plus, for
(32:24):
the forestry end point forscoring and sort of being a
little off the biology rails?
Jason (32:30):
Yeah, I was gonna say about a B plus, like, it's
definitely there. They'redefinitely made some
compromises. And the thing is,compromises are okay. But for
grading, just like how accurateis the science? Yeah, B plus is
probably good.
Brian (32:42):
The, just the collecting phase. That's, that's, that's
where just things get thrown offjust a little bit. If it wasn't
for that, I'd say probably wouldhave scored a little higher. All
right. What do you think aboutthe fun the experience of
playing the game? Is it easy tolearn? Is it fun to play?
Jason (32:58):
I'd give that an A. I mean, I think that this was a
really fun game. I reallyenjoyed the tactical part of it.
I mean, it's not going to be foreveryone. I'm thinking of my own
father here every time we gettogether and play games, my
dad's refrain is, why can't wejust play Uno? It's like, that's
kind of his ceiling in terms ofgame complexity. So, but for
people who like board games,like I think it's good, I just
(33:20):
looked it up right now. So onBoard Game Geek, its overall
rank is 650...644. So which,okay, it's not in the top 20.
But given that there areliterally 1000s upon 1000s of
games, it's pretty good. Ireally enjoyed it. And again, I
really liked the aesthetics, andit's just very pretty growing
trees. I can imagine some peoplemay be turned off by the the
(33:45):
planning aspect, and how easy itis to get in a bit of a bad
position as your opponents arethrowing shade all over you. So
I'd probably give it an A maybean A minus because it maybe it's
too complex for some people, butI personally liked it. I give it
Brian (33:59):
I think, I think I'm comfortable with an A minus. I'm
an A.
actually excited to play itagain. I think we should put it
on the put it on the list forthe next time we get together.
I'd be curious to play againwith the proper shadow rules,
and also to play with more thantwo players. What is it like
with three or four? How does thegame feel different? Well, when
we were playing our secondround, it was a pretty quick
(34:19):
back and forth. It was it wasfun to sort of like play speed
photosynthesis, I would do thatagain.
Jason (34:26):
Yeah, that was...it was stressful and relieving at the
same time. It was stressfulbecause I still want to make
optimal plays. But kind ofrelaxing when I realized I
couldn't really so I just triedto do the best I could. I'm
actually quite surprised thatnot only did both of us do
better in the speed round, maybebecause we knew the game better.
But I trounced you, I had like30 more points than you did.
Brian (34:50):
Well, I think as we continue doing this experiment,
we're going to hear that trendcontinue. Okay, all right. Well,
this was photosynthesis. It's afun game. Science is pretty
good. Give it a try.
Jason (35:06):
And if you liked this, I mean, I know this is the cliche
thing, but give us a review.We're new at this. I don't know
if you can like, comment andsubscribe a podcast. But if you
can go ahead, we're trying thisout. I mean, really, if you'd
like this, share it with yourfriends. We're not like there's
no Patreon. We're not doing thisfor money. If you know anyone at
(35:27):
the National Science Foundation,that would be willing to give us
a grant. That's great, but we'renot going to ask for money.
We're just doing this for thefun of it. We're hoping you
enjoy it too. So until next time
Brian (35:35):
Have fun playing dice with the universe
Jason (35:38):
Later.
Brian (35:41):
This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright
2024. listeners are free toreuse this recording for any non
commercial purpose as long ascredit is given to gaming
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games thatwe talked about, we encourage
you to do so through yourfriendly local game store. Thank
(36:02):
you and have fun playing dicewith the universe
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