May 29, 2024 • 43 mins
#Chemistry #Bonds #Scientists #LabWork #ScienceGames
It's time to grab some atoms and make some bonds! In this episode we cover Compounded: The Peer-Reviewed Edition by Greater Than Games. We'll cover chemistry basics, how bonds work, a bit of what it's like in an actual research lab, and why sabotaging others is fun in games but not so much in real life.
Timestamps00:53 - Corn diversity for humans 05:05 - Basics of the game 11:30 - Basics of atoms & electrons 17:00 - Making bonds 22:17 - What makes things explode? 27:59 - Depiction of scientists 37:48 - Final grades
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Game Results[Not recorded, but apparently Jason won by a lot]
LinksGaming 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 TranscriptJason 0:06 Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of the favorite games.
Brian 0:13 In today's episode we're going to discuss compounded by Greater than Games. Hey, I'm Brian, this is Jason. And welcome back to the fifth episode of Gaming with Science. Today we're going to talk about Compounded: the Peer-Reviewed Edition, which is an interesting chemistry game created by Darrell Louder. But before we get into that, Jason, do you have any science topics for us to talk about today?
Jason 0:39 So I do have one and this one is close to my heart. It has nothing to do with chemistry. Sorry. So I was again at a conference recently, actually, we're gonna have a bonus episode out probably next month, the maize genetics meeting. So the big meeting for all the corn geneticists, a lot of us based in the US, also some outside. But I was talking to one of the USDA researchers there, Sherry Flint-Garcia, who I've known for a few years. And I love her work, because she's got these projects that are looking at corn from a human consumption point of view. So basically, corn that people eat. This is one thing that comes up a lot, we grow a lot of corn here in the US, and almost none of it goes to humans. Most of it goes to animal feed, and a small amount goes to ethanol. And then some of it, a little tiny bit, gets made into like tortillas and chips and sweet corn and stuff. But she has all these projects that are looking at corn from the human perspective. So she's been working with local groups to do tortilla-making quality on corn for a while. I believe she's working with one group now on whiskey, and how to make that. And then the one that I'm really cool that she's doing a big evaluation of like 1000 traditional varieties of corn from the US just to evaluate, like how they perform, because people haven't looked at this information in decades. But there's things they're like, they have different flavor profiles, they have different use profiles. You know, for being one of the largest producers of corn in the world, the US, just, we don't appreciate it at all. I mean, you go down to Mexico, they appreciate their corn, I mean, corn is a big deal in Mexico, you don't mess with their corn, but here in the US, it's like we don't care. And that's kind of sad. So I'm glad that there's someone doing that now. And I hope they come up with some really cool stuff out of there. I hope they get some good evaluations, they can find some varieties that work well and that people can use for actual eating varieties.
Brian 2:22 I really was hoping you were gonna say she was doing a big study of popcorn varieties.
Jason 2:26 No, s
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jason (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of the favorite
games.
Brian (00:10):
In today's episode we're going to discuss compounded by
Greater than Games. Hey, I'mBrian, this is Jason. And
welcome back to the fifthepisode of Gaming with Science.
Today we're going to talk aboutCompounded: the Peer-Reviewed
(00:30):
Edition, which is an interestingchemistry game created by
Darrell Louder. But before weget into that, Jason, do you
have any science topics for usto talk about today?
Jason (00:39):
So I do have one and this one is close to my heart. It has
nothing to do with chemistry.Sorry. So I was again at a
conference recently, actually,we're gonna have a bonus episode
out probably next month, themaize genetics meeting. So the
big meeting for all the corngeneticists, a lot of us based
in the US, also some outside.But I was talking to one of the
USDA researchers there, SherryFlint-Garcia, who I've known for
(01:01):
a few years. And I love herwork, because she's got these
projects that are looking atcorn from a human consumption
point of view. So basically,corn that people eat. This is
one thing that comes up a lot,we grow a lot of corn here in
the US, and almost none of itgoes to humans. Most of it goes
to animal feed, and a smallamount goes to ethanol. And then
(01:21):
some of it, a little tiny bit,gets made into like tortillas
and chips and sweet corn andstuff. But she has all these
projects that are looking atcorn from the human perspective.
So she's been working with localgroups to do tortilla-making
quality on corn for a while. Ibelieve she's working with one
group now on whiskey, and how tomake that. And then the one that
I'm really cool that she's doinga big evaluation of like 1000
(01:44):
traditional varieties of cornfrom the US just to evaluate,
like how they perform, becausepeople haven't looked at this
information in decades. Butthere's things they're like,
they have different flavorprofiles, they have different
use profiles. You know, forbeing one of the largest
producers of corn in the world,the US, just, we don't
appreciate it at all. I mean,you go down to Mexico, they
appreciate their corn, I mean,corn is a big deal in Mexico,
(02:06):
you don't mess with their corn,but here in the US, it's like we
don't care. And that's kind ofsad. So I'm glad that there's
someone doing that now. And Ihope they come up with some
really cool stuff out of there.I hope they get some good
evaluations, they can find somevarieties that work well and
that people can use for actualeating varieties.
Brian (02:22):
I really was hoping you were gonna say she was doing a
big study of popcorn varieties.
Jason (02:26):
No, she doesn't do popcorn, although I think she
has a collaborator who'sactually specifically looking at
all the popcorn varieties inthere. Yeah, we, we're both
plant people. We could go off onthis for a full hour in terms of
all the varieties and theiradaptations and stuff. And I
mean, I love genetic diversityamong plants. And we could talk
about that all day long. Andthat's not what this podcast is
(02:47):
about.
Brian (02:48):
No, well, not this particular podcast, maybe we'll
find a game that will give us abetter excuse to talk about
that. But for now, I think.Yeah, let's get back to talking
about board games.
Jason (02:56):
Yeah, let's see. Is there any science in Agricolae? I
actually haven't played it.
Brian (03:00):
I don't know. I know you put it on the list. I guess we
could find out. Probably not.But we'll find out someday. So
you want to talk about thisgame?
Jason (03:08):
Sure.
Brian (03:09):
Okay, so we're going to talk about Compounded,
specifically Compounded (03:12):
The Peer-Reviewed Edition. And this
was released last year in 2023.Designer is Darrell Louder, at
Greater Than Games, the originalversion of compounded was
released 2013. So it was a 10year span, there were a couple
expansions in there, includinglike a radioactivity expansion,
I didn't get a chance to look atthose. Now, one of the things
that I was trying to figure outthat I have tried to figure out
(03:34):
in the past, is what inspires aboard game designer to want to
make a science based game? Sofor instance, the creator of
Wingspan was an avid birder. Andthe creator of stellar Horizons
was an MIT...what was his, whatwas his major?
Jason (03:48):
He was, his graduate degree was in like human space
exploration. And then he wentoff to work at SpaceX. So yeah.
Brian (03:56):
So the connection is obvious, right? Well, I actually
had to do some digging onDarrell Louder, who
unfortunately didn't have aWikipedia page. So it made it a
little challenging. I listenedto an interview that he gave and
like, eventually, I was able tofind in a blog on the Greater
than Games website, that he hasa theatre, a theatre degree.
And, like, went back to get ingraphic design and do that. So
(04:16):
like to be honest, after all mydigging, I don't know what
inspired Darrell Louder todesign a chemistry game. It's
really unclear to me. Maybe thatcomes through a little bit in
the design of the game a littlebit. I don't like being critical
of games, but there's got to besome criticism of this one, I
think.
Jason (04:30):
Yeah, we'll see. You talked a little bit about it. I
may have some pushback on that.But we'll see. But if there's
enough in here that either hetalked a lot with people who
actually do chemistry, or he hadsome background, even if it was
just an undergrad, undergraduatelaboratory. Actually, that would
explain why fire plays such abig role in this game.
Brian (04:48):
I absolutely agree. And I do want to talk about that. I, I
can tell that a lot of carefulchoice went into balancing and
selection and how this game wasdesigned. But almost
unfortunately, almost none ofthat is in the metaphor of the
game. So that's where we're kindof got to talk about things
later. But okay, so what is thisgame? What does it look like? If
you want to play compounded,what are you going to do? It is
(05:10):
a game for two to five players,plays in 45 to 70 minutes. That
sounds about right to me. Thesuggested ages 14 and up. Now,
this is not an overlycomplicated game. So that age
seems high. But I think thatmaybe the sabotage/traitor
mechanics might just besomething that maybe a child
maturity level could be thesuggestion for 14 and up, as
(05:30):
opposed to the complexity of thegame, there's a lot of ways to
mess with other players.
Jason (05:34):
I gotta say that, as someone who likes messing with
other players, there's not thatmany ways of messing with other
players, there's a few.
Brian (05:41):
We just didn't do as much of it. That's all, like, I think
that there's a whole, you couldplay this game as a, as a pure
troll if you wanted to, and justplay it to be disruptive and
just destructive. You wouldn'twin the game. But maybe, I don't
know, maybe there's a balancingissue there, potentially. So
what does this game look like?So you, you'll open this up, you
(06:01):
have a full copy of the periodictable. So the periodic table is
basically just your scoretracker. It also has some places
where you could do some actionslike activate various sciency
tools like Bunsen burners or labnotebooks and stuff like this.
There's a lot of like sciencetheming in this game, the
players are going to have theselittle player mats, they've got
four little tracks on them. Andthen you're going to have a grid
(06:23):
of chemical cards, compoundcards. And each of these cards
has between two and sixdifferent atoms on it, two to
four different types of atom.You lay these out in a grid of
four by four if you're in athree player game, or more. And
then you've got this little bagof these beautiful little
crystalline little plasticthings that are supposed to
represent different types ofelements like hydrogen, and
(06:45):
oxygen, carbon, nitrogen,calcium, which we'll come back
and talk about that, and sulfur.And your little track, you've
got four of them, and it gets todecide like, Okay, how many of
the little elements do you getto pull out of the bag? How many
can you keep? How many can youplace out onto the cards, and
then your last track is how manyactions you get a turn. And this
(07:06):
is a victory point game, youjust collect points from the
face value on the cards, you getsome points for advancing your
track. I think that was it. Seemright to you?
Jason (07:14):
Yeah, that's it there. Yeah, if there's other ways of
getting points, we didn't playwith them, but I don't think
there are.
Brian (07:19):
Okay, so the other mechanic is after you complete a
compound, that you get to scorethe points, you take a new card
out of the deck and you place itdown and it's either going to be
a different compound, or it'sgoing to be a fire. And if you
have a fire, it can catch fireto the surrounding cards. If
they run out of places for fireto be, they will explode and
(07:40):
scatter the elements to thesurrounding card. All of the
players have a fireextinguisher, it's everybody's
responsibility to put out thefires when they happen. Because
you know, if you don't, thenyou're gonna have things blow
up.
Jason (07:51):
I got to say this is one of my favorite little mechanics
of the game. It doesn't have tobe there. But it's a fun bit
that sometimes you're doingorganic chemistry, things just
blow up. Yep, that happens,which is why everyone has a fire
extinguisher and why half thecompounds catch on fire. I do
like that when they catch onfire their point values go down,
because there's a real reasonwhy you want to put out the
(08:13):
fire. And then of course, youcan use this a little
maliciously, because there aresome tools that let you set fire
to other people's compounds thatare in the middle of building
and possibly blow them up.
Brian (08:21):
There are some compounds where when you score them, they
just catch fire no matter what,because they're just that
flammable. And like it says "asif a fire had occurred". There
is one of the tools, the Bunsenburner, where you can literally
set fire to any compound youwant of somebody else. You can
set fire to water.
Jason (08:37):
Which I think mechanically is just you're
boiling it off.
Brian (08:39):
I think they said the mechanic is that you've
contaminated their sample insome way. Okay, to you know what
you've put something into itthat allows it to catch on fire,
just like the rivers inCleveland, right? Those are the
basics of the game. Anotherinteresting element to this is
that this is the only game we'veplayed so far, where as the
players you are supposed to betaking on the role of a
(09:00):
scientist, of a researcher. Andthe original conceit was you are
all scientists in the same labcompeting to be the lead
scientist, which Jason and I arein labs. That's not how that
works. But okay.
Jason (09:13):
Competing to be the lead postdoc, let's call it that,
like the lead scientist doesn'tactually do research anymore.
They're up managing and writinggrants and supervising people.
All the people doing the funstuff in the lab. They're the
postdocs and the grad studentsand the research scientists.
Yeah.
Brian (09:27):
I think it's somebody who does research. In my head, I was
like, Oh, I'm the leadresearcher and I'm collaborating
with other labs, not individualsin one lab. But anyway,
Jason (09:36):
I think one thing in there, so the, one thing to
point out is the tracks, thefour tracks that the player
board has. So as you go up inthe tracks, they not only get
you points, but they get youresources you need. So there's a
limited number of little atoms,you can draw turn, how many you
can keep, how many you can play,that sort of thing. And as you
move up in the tracks, you'reget access to more. So there's a
(09:58):
little bit this tension becauseif you go out after high value
compounds, then you get a lot ofpoints, but you don't move your
tracks very much. And so youhave limited ability to do more.
Whereas if you go after a bunchof cheap compounds, you're not
getting many points, but you'reimproving your ability to do
other things later. And there'sa little bit where the compounds
are like solids or liquids orgases, and that determines which
track you can move up. And it'sa nice little touch. I like
(10:19):
that.
Brian (10:19):
Yeah, the game really did have a lot of care and design
that was put into it. There's alot of strategy, there's a lot
of different ways to play. Youcan work together, you can work
against each other. I mean, it'sa good game.
Jason (10:29):
Yeah, you even have the expansion or the component where
there's the mega compounds thatare designed for two players to
work together on them.
Brian (10:35):
Oh, yes, very good point. Thank you. That is the key
mechanic of the peer reviewededition, that you have these
double sized cards that twopeople could work on together.
Those can range up to 20 atomsand be worth up to 38 points
Jason (10:48):
Which is like half a victory condition right there.
Brian (10:50):
Yeah, pretty much. Now one thing about those large
cards, the little cards allhave, they're real chemicals,
real chemical names, they havelittle facts about each of the
chemicals. The giant size cardshave some really interesting
compounds on them. But they'remissing the little facts. I
don't know if the assumption isoh, that people will just Google
it or something. But, like,nitroglycerin is a very
charismatic compound. I thinkeverybody knows what
nitroglycerin is, it's extremelyexplosive, dimethyl trisulfide,
(11:14):
which I know personally, becauseit's the stinky compound that's
made when garlic breaks down,which is something I study.
Trimethylamine, which is theodor that we would associate
with fish, these are interestingchemicals. But there's there's
no little like kind of factabout what these do. Anyway.
Jason (11:29):
Well, that's a missed opportunity.
Brian (11:30):
Yeah, I think so a little bit. That's the basics of the
game. Let's, let's try to talkabout the science here. And
this, I am going to considerthis a little challenging
because basically what I'm goingto try to do right now is
speed-run chemistry. Okay. As Isee the things to talk about
here, this sort of science, thecore science concepts that are
in compounded at leasttangentially are atoms, elements
(11:54):
in the periodic table,compounds, what is a compound,
and what is a chemical bond. Andthen I also spent a little bit
of time like, what makessomething flammable? Or more
specifically combustible, sinceit is such an important part of
the game, and maybe a little biton phase of matter, I don't know
how much we want to get intothat. I also thought it would be
worth talking a little bit aboutthe depiction of research and
(12:18):
scientists in this game, becauseagain, this is one of the only
games we've had where scientistsare part of the game. So we can
talk a little bit about, likesome of the depictions, what we
think they got right, and whatmaybe we think, maybe not so
much. Let's get started withthis. Again, this is my crazy,
"here's chemistry in anutshell". So what is an atom?
(12:41):
An atom is made up of threedifferent particles, you've got
a proton with a positive charge,a neutron, that pretty much is
just there to kind of help theprotons stick together, and an
electron. So the protons and theneutrons are in the nucleus.
They don't really do very much.They're not really that
interesting. All of the actionis happening with the electrons
that kind of orbit around that.Not really an orbit more of like
(13:02):
a shell. It's all quantum IIstuff. And I don't really want
to get into it.
Jason (13:06):
the nucleus, the protons, and the neutrons are extremely
interesting for nuclearchemistry, which is where
radiation and nuclear bombs andall that stuff happens. Stellar
fusion, that's what powers thesun. But ordinary everyday
(13:27):
chemistry like we do inCompounded. That's all with the
electrons.
Brian (13:29):
Yeah, for sure. Like all of the interesting stuff that
happens with chemistry in ourday to day lives. So that's all
it's all about the electrons,right?
Jason (13:36):
So with atoms and trying to build an atom, there's kind
of two forces at play that wereally want to care about, at
least for today's episode. Oneis charge. So protons are
positively charged, electronsare negatively charged. So the
first thing you want is you needbasically the same number of
protons and electrons, so theatom itself is not charged. That
makes things happy, the atomdoesn't want to be charged.
Usually. There's a second thingthat modifies that though, it
(13:59):
has to do with just theelectrons. This is quantum
stuff, it has to do with howthey form groups and the
electron shells and stuff. Andwe're not going to go into that
because that's like, that's verycomplicated. But basically, if
you have certain numbers ofelectrons, and they fill these
little shells they're in, a fullshell is more stable than a
partially full shell. And sosometimes that will overcome it.
(14:21):
So there are some atoms wherethey actually want to gain an
additional electron or lose anelectron because that leaves
them with completely full shellsinstead of partially full
shells. And that sort of tradingof electrons is actually what
forms all sorts of chemicals andbonds as the, essentially the
nuclei are either sharing ordonating or stealing electrons
from each other, to make surethey're all happy and have the
(14:43):
right number of electrons intheir shells.
Brian (14:45):
Yeah, for sure. So the analogy that I liked for this is
the I think it's usually calledthe bus seat analogy, but I
actually kind of like the traincar analogy. If you imagine when
people are sitting on the bus,the electrons don't want to sit
with each other. They'll sit inthe open seats first until there
are no are more open seats, andthen they start pairing up and
sitting in twos. As the atomsget bigger, you kind of hitch
(15:06):
new train cars onto the back ofthe train that have more seats,
but they're still kind of goingto fill up in that basic way. An
atom is an element based onhaving the number of protons, so
like hydrogen is got one, heliumhas got two, and you just keep
going up this list. As you makethe bigger atoms, you're adding
more places for electrons to go,and how many unpaired electrons
(15:26):
are sitting in those outermostseats, that's kind of
determining what kind ofchemistry this is going to be
able to do. And that's actuallythe basis of the periodic table,
is as you're filling up theseelectrons, you kind of come back
around and you do the circleagain. And now you're repeating
the same pattern of unpairedelectrons. So everything in a
column of a periodic table sortof has similar chemical
(15:46):
properties to it. In fact, likeit's a table, but really, it
should be like a ring, wherethey kind of like connect back
around together as like aspiral. I was watching a video
by Hank Green, that was one ofthe original proposals, they
didn't publish it because thepublisher couldn't figure out
how to publish a spiral periodictable. So Mendeleev's became
more popular. So actually, thisis the thing, like the periodic
(16:07):
table is based on every time yougo up one proton, that's a new
element, and you just keep goingall the way. So unfortunately,
for science fiction authors,like, if you want to discover a
new element, there's nowhere forit to go but at the end. Like we
know all of the elements, youknow, ever, it's just adding
protons until eventually you getto the end. And the ones at the
end are so big and so heavy thatthey can't hold together.
(16:28):
They're all radioactive, andthey just decay. So we're, we
may find new compounds, butwe're probably not going to find
any new elements at this point.
Jason (16:35):
Yeah, I like the way Mass Effects got out of that they
found Element Zero. I don't knowhow that works. But that's what
they found. And that's whatmakes all the science magic in
that, in that video game serieswork
Brian (16:47):
Something less than hydrogen. Okay. That's funny, as
you pointed out, though, so thatis the basics of an atom, an
element, the elements are justgonna have a set number of
protons. And how many electronsthey have that want to have
partners is based on how we'regoing to get our bonds. So let's
talk about bonds. So what doesthat go? So you said it's about
(17:08):
sharing or trading electrons,right? Electrons want to be in
pairs. An ionic bond issomething like sodium chloride.
In that case, there's no sharinghappening.
Jason (17:17):
Table salt.
Brian (17:17):
Yes, table salt, sorry, the electrons get stolen by one
atom from the other. And that'sthe preference and those ends up
when, you get charged. That'swhere you get like ions, and
stuff like that.
Jason (17:28):
Yeah. And that usually only happens with the ones that
are on the far left and the farright of the periodic table,
because they're the ones thatare closest to that stability
point. So it's easier for themto just get rid of one or gain
one. And suddenly, they'reperfectly happy.
Brian (17:42):
And those are the, so in a board game context, that's
the, that's the competitiveelements. They don't then then
we've got our organic compoundsare ones that will form covalent
bonds they'd like to share,those are our collaborative
board gamers. In that case,instead of, they actually don't
trade, they kind of will use thesame ones together. And that's
where a lot of the reallyinteresting chemistry happens
(18:04):
because they're, they're verystable, they're very happy to
just kind of sit right next toeach other and share those
electrons. It kind of keeps theminto a tight connection with
each other. So this is, sothings like carbon have four
unpaired electrons, so they canbind to four different things.
So actually, a lot of ouractually, let's talk about this.
What is organic, what is anorganic compound?
Jason (18:25):
From a chemistry perspective it's something that
involves carbon. This iscompletely different from
organic produce, which issomething that irked me for many
years. It's like all producesorganic it's all carbon-based
stop using that. And that's apersonal pet peeve. I have
gotten over it and accepted thefact that the label means two
different things in twodifferent contexts.
Brian (18:46):
So for instance, water is not an organic compound, water
does not have carbon in it. Socarbon can bind with four
things, nitrogen can bind withthree things, oxygen can bind
with two, hydrogen can bind withone, sulfur can also bind with
one, and then we've got ourweirdo in this game, which is
calcium, right? So I was lookingat these and the way that
(19:06):
they're colored and the balanceand everything. And I'm pretty
sure I know part of theinspiration for why Compounded
uses these. I did ask, I thinkthis might only be something at
the college level. But Jason,you've I assume played with a
ball and stick chemistry modelin college.
Jason (19:20):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can get them at bookstores or get
them online or whatever.
Brian (19:23):
So these are the little balls, they've got little
sticks, they've got the rightnumber of holes, like carbon,
you can shove four things intoit, hydrogen you can only do
one. The distribution ofelements that you have in
Compounded is very, very closeto the distribution that you
would have in one of thosechemistry kits. And actually,
the colors are the same too forthe most part. There's sort of
this mnemonic thing where likehydrogen is a clear gas, so it's
(19:45):
always white, and oxygen's inour blood, so it's red. And
nitrogen is in the atmosphere soit's blue. Carbon is coal, so
it's black. And sulfur. Why issulfur yellow? I mean, sulfur
makes various yellow compounds.
Jason (19:57):
I mean, elemental sulfur is yellow. Why is calcium green?
Brian (20:02):
Well, that's a good question. Because actually, in
your typical chemistry kit, itwouldn't be calcium, it would be
chlorine, or something likethat, or fluorine or something
like that. I did check this aswell, there are versions of this
sort of scheme of sort of colormnemonics where calcium would be
green. So organic compounds,like you said, is carbon,
anything with carbon in it. Theorigin of the term comes from,
(20:26):
Oh, these are the compounds thatwe find in living things, right?
I mean, that's kind of where itoriginally came from.
Jason (20:35):
Back when they thought that only living things could
make it, there's some speciallife force that that allowed it.
And then people figured outorganic chemistry and was like
Oh, no, we can make these too.Yeah, one can be really annoying
to make sometimes, but yes, wecan make them.
Brian (20:47):
Yeah, living things are really good chemists. It's
really hard to do in a test tubewhat can be done easily in a
body. Well, maybe "easy" isn'tgiving them enough credit.
Jason (20:55):
I mean, given the Rube-Goldberg like contraction
that is a living cell, I'm notsure "easy" applies here.
They're very good at it, becausethey've had 4 billion years to
get good at it. If you actuallyfigure out everything that's
involved in making even simplecompounds, it's like, oh, no,
no, no, this is just a, this isa highly tuned system. But easy
(21:15):
is not it.
Brian (21:16):
Okay, that's fair, that's fair. So calcium is the oddball.
Calcium is not something thatcan make, it's not one of the
ones that shares, calcium isactually a metal. It's like way
off to the side, and it doesn'tparticipate in covalent bonds.
Now I was thinking about this.And I'm, what you would
typically see in a chemistry kitwould have been phosphorus, not
(21:37):
calcium. Or chlorine orsomething like that. A lot of
the compounds in compounded arethese sort of nice organic
chemicals with carbon in them,phosphorus would have been
typical, but phosphorustypically doesn't hang out by
itself, it usually has a bunchof extra oxygens in there.
Because usually a phosphate,it's like a phosphorus and a
couple of oxygens, usuallythree, and then that's what gets
(21:58):
stuck on to other compounds. SoI imagine it was literally a
game balancing choice. If youdon't want to use phosphorus,
because, well, you're nevergoing to have it on its own, the
compounds are going to be toobig. And there was this clear
choice of making it between twoand six atoms on each compound
card. So phosphorus just didn'tmake sense. So okay, so here's
(22:19):
where I actually spent a littlebit of time trying to figure
out, now what makes somethingflammable? Because this was a
big part of Compounded. And thatas I don't know, that's more
complicated than you wouldthink. In a sense, it's not. So
"combustible" is a much moreeasy thing to understand.
Something is combustible when itcan react with oxygen, and
(22:40):
release energy in the form ofheat or light. So anything that
can react with oxygen would beconsidered combustible. Now what
makes something combustible inthat sense, is so for instance,
wood is combustible. Once youget the reaction going, it
produces more heat and light andthen creates a more heat and
creates a chain reaction, sortof reacting with more compounds.
(23:01):
And that's what causes things toburn.
Jason (23:03):
And going back to the reason behind this is because
oxygen is very good at takingelectrons from other things, it
wants to share electrons, butit's very good at grabbing onto
them and holding them tightly,arguably one of the best atoms
at doing that, which is why it'sessentially the chemical dead
end of so many things. Once youreact with oxygen you have to
(23:24):
pour energy into it to get itback out.
Brian (23:27):
So okay, that's what makes something combustible,
something that can react withoxygen release energy, which if
you're releasing energy, itmeans it's like a preferable
state for the chemical to be in.It's like, things are always
wanting to go towards the lowestenergy state. Flammable is a
little weird, flammable, is justlike how volatile something is.
And that's very dependent uponpressure and temperature and
(23:47):
everything else. Something'sflammable, where you put an
ignition source in it, and itjust goes "fwooph", like that's
flammable. So you can becombustible and not flammable.
It gets really complicated, likevapor pressure and all this
stuff that we don't really needto get into, I think. And then
there's also like "explosive",which is about producing gas,
it's, it's too much, it's toomuch to get into.
Jason (24:07):
Okay, but basically for flammable, it has to be able to
evaporate yes to get into theair and then essentially be pre
mixed with oxygen. So all youneed is a spark or a heat source
to do it. Whereas wood is notgoing to evaporate. It's just
going to sit there.
Brian (24:20):
But interestingly, to get wood to catch fire, you do have
to go through a process ofcalled pyrolysis where basically
you are releasing flammablegases from the solid, like it
has to be able to mix with theoxygen, so it has to be able to
vaporize in some way to be ableto be flammable. That is the
basics of the science. Hopefullywe did a good job of that. I
think we did the best we canconsidering we did it in, what
(24:41):
15 minutes? 20 minutes?
Jason (24:43):
There are plenty of YouTube videos about basic
chemistry, but there's a lot ofground to cover here because
this is how chemicals, how atomsform bonds. Yeah. Which is
chemistry. Yeah, basically.That's the entire field of
chemistry, right there, atomsforming bonds.
Brian (24:58):
There is legitimately a great short crash course on
chemistry. It's a series by HankGreen. If you're curious, I
would say just watching it, it'sgot really good production
values. It's a lot of fun. It'sHank Green, he's a great science
communicator. Yes, let's talkabout how that science is
represented and compounded. Um,it's, it's not really.
Jason (25:20):
But I'm going to push back. I'm gonna say it's subtle.
Like, and that's the point, youtalk about the science and game,
this game is not meant to be ascience communication game. It
has the science skin painted onit, but there are little nods,
like the one I noticed the firsttime we played, when you get the
little plastic bits of theatoms, so half of them are
(25:41):
clear, and half of them areopaque. And it turns out the
clear ones are all the gases,and the opaque ones are all the
solids, at least at normal roomtemperature. There are the fact
that like, things are flammable.Well, only some of them are
flammable. And they arepresumably the ones that are
actually flammable. You havethis solid-liquid-gas phase,
which determines which of yourtracks you're able to move up.
(26:01):
It's like, they're there. Butthey're subtle. This is, this is
not wingspan, this is not tryingto teach you all sorts of
chemistry facts. They're thereif you go digging, but they're
not there if you don't careabout them.
Brian (26:12):
Which I guess is kind of, I don't know, maybe that's kind
of my point. You don'taccidentally learn things
playing Compounded. Maybe you doMaybe I'm being too harsh.
Again, I think that there,there's a way to do it. Where
okay, like, again, I hate toconstantly be comparing to
Wingspan, it's going to be hardnot to I apologize if this is
already going to get old. forpeople who are listening to
this. You can't play Wingspanand not learn something, you
(26:35):
just can't. It's impossible. Butno, you're right. There was a
lot of nods here. So forinstance, the color array,
right, that consistent elementalcoloring, now that is something
where you could start tointuitively, if you had played
compound is like, oh, it'scarbon, right? Because it's
consistent. You've gotten usedto it, it's always depicted.
They are real chemicals, right?But nothing about like how you
(26:55):
play the chemicals onto thecards.... In the terms of
designing this game, I, I amcertain a lot of care went into
this selection of theappropriate chemicals, with the
right balance of elements, thecorrect structures, balancing
the point values, theflammability, the phases of
matter, all of that. I'm surethere was a ton of effort. The
(27:17):
specific choice of calcium overphosphorus or chlorine or
something like that, so that youcould have smaller ionic
compounds, instead of just theselarge organic compounds. All of
that was behind the scenes. Theproblem is I don't know how much
of it is in the in the front forthe player to kind of absorb. So
(27:38):
that's that's really where mycriticism lies.
Jason (27:41):
Yeah, and that's probably a design choice. I mean, that's
one of the knobs you get to tuneas a designer is you choose how
upfront am I going to make this?How behind the scenes? Like what
do I want to focus on to be. Andthe game designer here just
chose to have there be sciencein there, but have it be a
subtle, it's a background thing,it's not in the foreground?
Brian (27:59):
So another aspect of this that I think we should talk
about is the depiction ofscientists in a game, which we
haven't really had a chance todo yet. I mean, Stellar Horizons
arguably had more to do aboutpoliticians. This you actually
have like, scientist, you areplaying a scientist trying to
discover chemistry, chemicals,compounds, and competing with
one another or cooperating withone another in the process of
(28:20):
doing that. So a lot of theseare just like, the way that the
terms are applied, don't alwaysmake a ton of sense. Your four
little tracks on your board arecalled your "experiments." But
then they're labeleddiscover-study-research-lab,
which I'm not really sure. Like,there is sort of that standard
process of the scientific methodof like Hypothesis Testing
(28:40):
research, and then I guess wewould consider "publish" to be
an important part of theprocess. You got to tell people
what you found. So you know,that's fine. I mean, the player
markers are just random piecesof glassware. I mean, that's
fine. It's fun to play as alittle beaker. This is your
monopoly dog for, for playingcompounded is getting to play a
little Bunsen burner. There aresome other weird stuff, I
(29:01):
suppose. One thing that thatcaught my attention was one of
the tools is, one of the thingsyou can get as a research grant.
In this game, the research grantjust benefits the person who's
doing the worst. I can tell youfrom experience, that's not how
research grants work. They donot go to the lab and most need.
Jason (29:19):
Yes, and there are specific funding mechanisms for
that. But by and large, like thesuccessful labs get most of the
big successful grants, whichlets them be successful and get
most of the big successfulgrants. I mean, as in many other
things, the rich tend to getricher.
Brian (29:32):
So another big mechanic, a fundamental mechanic of the
game is this ability to claim acompound. You said I am working
on this one. And that's it. Yousay you're working on this one
Jason (29:39):
That said, I prefer...much as I joke about
and your other people then, theycould work on it if they want
to, but they won't derive thebenefit. It's still is your
compound. Now, it kind of workslike that. A little bit like,
but that's really casual. Like,there are definitely people who
will... okay So, in science, wehave this process called
(30:00):
"getting scooped", which Iimagine that also happens in
like news and anytime whereyou're in a truth-based field, I
am studying something, I amworking on this really hard. And
then I find out just as we'reabout to finish up our work that
someone else has published theexact same observations. Oh, no,
now they get all the credit andnone of our stuff counts. So I
(30:22):
can tell you that from a careerperspective, getting scooped
does suck, because of the way wesort of apply credit. And it's
like, oh, now that's theirdiscovery, it doesn't matter
that we were working on it. Butreally scooping is the sign that
science is working the way thatit's supposed to. It means that
you can have people on differentsides of the planet not talking
(30:43):
to each other. Unaware of whatthe other one is doing, making
observations about the world andfinding the exact same thing.
Scooping is a good thing. Itmeans that the process is
how much I like messing withother people in games, in real
working. Okay.
life, I like cooperation. And soif I realize I'm working on
(31:04):
something similar to someoneelse, I'll usually try to
cooperate with them, or at leastsee how we can carve out our own
niches. Now part of that isbecause the fields I work in
tend to be relatively small,there's not enough space for us
to compete with each other. Ifwe compete against each other,
everyone loses. There's just notenough grant money flowing
around. I've gathered that's notthe case with the big money
areas, like human cancerresearch I've gathered is pretty
(31:25):
cutthroat because there's somuch money going around, you can
have five or six labs allstudying the same thing, all
racing to get the same newresearch, the same new discovery
Brian (31:34):
Yeah, that's and you're right. I mean, obviously,
out there.
cooperation people will worktogether, you reinforce each
other's work. That is the thatis the path. It is not the path
that has always taken though,there are definitely people who
want the credit.
Jason (31:49):
Yeah, now I was gonna say, the whole way where that
you can claim one and then otherpeople can work on it, that
seems to be sort of like firstauthorship. So the, the way we
scientists boosts our reputationis we publish papers. And
although there's differentstandards in different fields
for exactly what the order ofwho goes on that paper matters,
generally speaking, whoever isthe first author gets the most
(32:10):
credit, they did the most work,it was their idea, whatever. And
so there's actually the thingthat when we go to publish, you
have kind of negotiate whatorder people go in, in order to
make sure everyone gets theright amount of credit. And so
that claiming seems to me like,Oh, this is the first author on
this. Other people can help ifthey want, but they're the one
that's going to get the mostcredit, I think, it'd be nice if
(32:32):
there were some mechanics torepresent that where like, Oh,
if you assist on this, you getsome small amount of points,
like, oh, you get one point ortwo points for everything you
put on there, while the mainperson gets most of it, but that
would require other things totrack it. And so it's not really
an easy fix to add to add to it.But that's how I see that
particular aspect of the game.
Brian (32:51):
We need, like, Compounded the Collaborative Edition.
Jason (32:56):
Yes, or unfortunately, the competition part does
happen. It's like, although it'snot good, I have actually heard
of scientists sabotaging others'research. This is thankfully
very rare. And when it's foundout, it is like, that is your
way of getting blacklisted inscience, like you do not
sabotage other people. You cancollaborate, you can compete,
(33:18):
you can try to scoop them, butyou do not undermine other
people's work. And I have heardof some people where, this was
years ago, I read like there wassome postdoc where he was just
feeling very stressed andpressured. And for reasons I
still don't understand, hepoured ethanol on his labmate's
cell cultures. So this isbasically, this is how to kill
cells. And he like added it tosome of her growing media, so it
(33:42):
would kill them. Like I stilldon't understand the reasoning
why, because as far as I cantell, he was not competing with
her. It happens. Now, he gotfound out pretty quickly,
because ethanol smells verydifferent from normal cell
growth media. And they put acamera and they saw it
happening, he got confronted,fired, et cetera, et cetera. So
like, action was taken, likejustice was served, but still up
that wasted weeks at the veryleast of one person's work,
(34:05):
sometimes months. And so this iswhy...we scientists don't have
very much when you get down toit. We don't have much money, we
don't have that much prestige.Most of us pretty much all we've
got is our reputation and ourresults. And so we protect those
pretty fiercely. And basically,number one way of getting
blacklisted as a scientist is todo something to actively harm
someone else's research
Brian (34:24):
Well I think that sort of covers the basics of the science
that is behind compounded, howcompounded addresses it, and
kind of like a little bit aboutbeing a scientist in a board
game like setting and how that'srepresented. But let's talk
about the game itself. Did you,did you enjoy the game? What did
you, how did you like playingthe game? Or what were things
you liked? Or didn't like?
Jason (34:44):
I did. I found it enjoyable. I think it's a fairly
straightforward game. At least,maybe if we played it more I'd
realized there were like deeperdepths in terms of how you can
interact with others. Butmostly, it seems pretty
straightforward. Like okay, Ineed to move my research tracks
up so I get more resources. Ineed to acquire compounds as
fast as I can so that I getvictory points. And I need to do
(35:05):
that faster and better thaneveryone else. It seems pretty
straightforward to me. Butthat's my impression so far
like, there's not an obvious wayfor there being a bunch of depth
to it. It's prettystraightforward. It's a nice
light game.
Brian (35:16):
I'm sure there's an optimal way to play it. Well,
clearly there is because, Ithink again, as has become
tradition, I think youcompletely annihilated everybody
on points. So clearly, there isan optimal way to play. And one
of the things that I noticed isnot a single time in all the
times that we play did weactually have a fire get out of
control, which is a huge part ofthe game that just doesn't seem
(35:36):
to come up very much.
Jason (35:39):
Yeah, I noticed that when we were playing together as
families, we just, someonealways had a fire extinguisher
ready. In part, I think we wereso paranoid about a fire
happening that if we all ranout, someone would refresh their
fire extinguisher to make surewe could handle a fire. And then
when you and I playedindividually, they just, by the
way the deck was shuffled, theyjust never came up.
Brian (35:58):
Yeah it's a fun game. You know, there's sort of the Catan
style trading mechanic, which wedidn't get into. It's like, hey,
I'll trade you two hydrogen foran oxygen or something like
that, to try to get on whatyou're working on. There's
plenty of opportunities tosabotage, but I don't know, I
guess it just didn't come upthat much. Were you sabotaging
anybody? Or were you focused onjust scoring your own points?
Jason (36:19):
I wasn't outright sabotaging. I mean, most of the
outright sabotage seems to beyou like someone else's compound
on fire. Mostly, I was poaching.There were definitely times
where someone had partiallybuilt a compound and left it
open. It's like, oh, I can fillit out. I'm gonna grab that
compound now. Thank you fordoing the preliminary work.
Brian (36:35):
No, it's it was a fun game. I'm trying to decide like
on my personal scale. Well,okay. Is there anything else you
want to talk about the game? Imean, the game is very pretty.
For sure. I love the design. Theelements are fun. They're in a
nice little cloth bag. DarrylLouder is a graphic designer.
And I think that that shows,it's all looks very nice. I do
think that the use of theperiodic table as just a score
tracker. It makes sense. I don'tknow what else you would do. But
(36:59):
it seems like having a wholeperiodic table and have that not
really matter, except is justtracking your scores. Maybe a
little unfortunate.
Jason (37:06):
Yeah, it is a nice touch that it's a very easy way to
know when victory hits. Becauseif you remember the periodic
table, there's those two linesthat are always put down at the
bottom. Technically, they belongin the middle, but then the
periodic table would be stupidlywide. And so they're always
translated down. When you godown there, that's when you
trigger the victory condition.It's like the top row's for a
two player game. And I think thebottom row's are like a three or
(37:27):
four player game. So that's aneasy, easy way of tying that
table to knowing when to stop.
Brian (37:33):
I just realized the actinides and the lanthanides
are basically Hawaii and Alaskaon a map of the United States.
You pull them off in their ownlittle separate section, because
to try to show the whole thingwould make it too big. All
right. So should we do somescores?
Jason (37:49):
Yeah, and this is an important thing, I realized,
we've never really defined howwe set these scores, we get
these letter grades, but wenever like calibrated it. So I
wanted to put that out here. Atleast this is how I do it in my
head, that everything starts ata B. And I want to say that
because eBay and Amazon, andeverything have all trained us
that anything less than fivestars is failure. And that's not
(38:12):
the case here. Things start at aB. And then if you do things
well, you go up and if you thinkpoorly, you go down. So that's
kind of the, the, at least in myhead, that's how I'm assigning
these grades. So getting a B isnot a bad thing. It's like okay,
you did something, you did itwell, that's fine.
Brian (38:28):
It sounds like there's a B in there.
Jason (38:31):
Well, there will be a B in here. Okay, but
Brian (38:36):
How do I do it? I mean, at this point, I think we're
sort of establishing the scaleswe go. Wingspan's an A. Right?
Yeah, the definition of an A.But I think it's, I think what
I'm thinking about it is, Iguess I don't have as much of
that, I don't have a setstarting point. But it's this
idea of like, are you going tolearn science while playing this
(38:56):
game? And how much? Right? Ithink that, again, I agree with
you, a C is not bad. If we'regoing less than a C, that means
you're teaching somebodysomething wrong. But a C is
okay. Okay, so what is yourscore, then?
Jason (39:08):
Well, so we do this in two parts. So let's start with
the science part. So I would saythe science part of this, I
would give a B. Like it, itdidn't set out to do a bunch of
science. So there's sciencethere, if you look for it, if
you dig, it's there, and there'slittle subtle nods to it. So
it's like, okay, it's fine. It'sa B. It's like, you're not gonna
learn a ton of science by this,but the things that are there
are correct, and they actuallyfit together pretty well.
Brian (39:30):
I don't like to be critical, but I'm gonna give
this one a slightly lower grade,I'm gonna say a C+, I think that
the, the idea that you're goingto come away from this with
chemistry knowledge, I justdon't know if that's going to
happen. So, from thatperspective, I think that the
because this in an educationalgame category, which is a game
where you're eitherintrinsically supposed to be
(39:50):
learning something, or willlearn some things like by proxy
by playing the game. I justdon't know if that's true. And I
think maybe for the depiction ofscientists kind of being like,
obviously not informed bytalking to people who do
science, that kind of bugs me alittle bit too. So I'm gonna
give it a C+. it's okay.
Jason (40:07):
It's not doing as much as you want it.
Brian (40:09):
It's not.
Jason (40:11):
Okay. And we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
And again, to everyone, we havea Discord, you can come on and
tell us all sorts of ways we gotit wrong. Okay, so let's move on
the gameplay. So, your turn.What do you think of the
gameplay? How do you score that?
Brian (40:24):
So in terms of gameplay and fun, I think, well, since
we're talking about this idea ofwhat are we basing our scores
on? For me, it's how likely am Ito want to grab this off the
shelf and play when we gettogether to play? How likely am
I to stick it in my car when wego to board game night? And for
this, it's like, it's a fungame. Is this the one that I'm
going to go to and grab?Probably not. So for me, that's
(40:47):
a B. Right? I enjoyed playingit, I'm probably not going to
grab it off the shelf all thatoften. So that's that B score.
Jason (40:55):
Yeah, I'd probably give about the same. I may go into B+
range. I thought it was a bitfun. As you point out, I did
tend to get a lot more pointsthan everyone else. So I think I
hadn't solved the game, but Ithink it was closer to solving
it than most of the otherplayers. And like I liked that
bit of strategy was like, Okay,how can I find the optimal move?
What is the best thing here, butagain, it's not gonna be one, I
grab off the shelf, like, Oh, Ijust really want to play this
(41:16):
one. So it's like, if someonebrings this in, I play with it,
I'll be perfectly happy withthat, I'm probably not going to
seek it out a ton.
Brian (41:22):
So that's Compounded. Solid chemistry in the
background, probably not goingto take that much away from it
by playing it. But a fun game. Idid enjoy it.
Jason (41:32):
And I liked it. I mean, and if I were a chemist, I would
have a copy of this in the lab.I like the little touches, the
little subtle nods, like the theclarity versus opacity of the
little pieces. I mean, I'd likethat there are little science
facts, I like that the phases ofmatter, matter, for what you're
going to do that sort of thing.So like, they're, they're
subtle, but they're there. And Ireally liked that. So one quick
(41:52):
announcement before we close.Looking forward a few months,
this episode is going to dropnear the end of May. So if
you're going to be going toDragon Con in Atlanta on Labor
Day weekend, I will be therehelping out with the science
track. Brian may or may not bethere. We're still trying to
figure that out. But we will bethere. Again, check our Discord,
we'll be coordinating stuff, wemay be doing something for the
(42:13):
podcast there. And even if not,then you could just contact us
we can find some place to meetup. We could play some games or
anything like that. So justheads up.
Brian (42:23):
Oh, and one more announcement, while we're on
that, this is the "we're goingto take our end of semester
break after this" episode. Butwe're still going to have
something in the feed for you.So we'll be back in two months
with another regular episode.All right. And with that, I
think we're going to wrap it upand I hope you guys all have a
great month and enjoy the breakand the bonus content.
Jason (42:44):
Take care, happy gaming.
Brian (42:46):
Have fun playing dice with the universe. This has been
the Gaming with Science Podcastcopyright 2024. listeners are
free to reuse this recording forany non commercial purpose as
long as credit is given to getnew science. This podcast is
produced with support from theUniversity of Georgia. All
opinions are those of the hostsand do not imply endorsement by
the sponsors. If you wish topurchase any of the games that
we talked about, we encourageyou to do so through your
(43:07):
friendly local game store. Thankyou and have fun playing dice
with the universe. I have somany notes for this Jason. You
would not believe
Jason (43:17):
you know for a game you keep saying doesn't have all
that much science in it. Youhave a lot of research on it.
Hello, and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of the favorite
games.
Brian (00:10):
In today's episode we're going to discuss compounded by
Greater than Games. Hey, I'mBrian, this is Jason. And
welcome back to the fifthepisode of Gaming with Science.
Today we're going to talk aboutCompounded: the Peer-Reviewed
(00:30):
Edition, which is an interestingchemistry game created by
Darrell Louder. But before weget into that, Jason, do you
have any science topics for usto talk about today?
Jason (00:39):
So I do have one and this one is close to my heart. It has
nothing to do with chemistry.Sorry. So I was again at a
conference recently, actually,we're gonna have a bonus episode
out probably next month, themaize genetics meeting. So the
big meeting for all the corngeneticists, a lot of us based
in the US, also some outside.But I was talking to one of the
USDA researchers there, SherryFlint-Garcia, who I've known for
(01:01):
a few years. And I love herwork, because she's got these
projects that are looking atcorn from a human consumption
point of view. So basically,corn that people eat. This is
one thing that comes up a lot,we grow a lot of corn here in
the US, and almost none of itgoes to humans. Most of it goes
to animal feed, and a smallamount goes to ethanol. And then
(01:21):
some of it, a little tiny bit,gets made into like tortillas
and chips and sweet corn andstuff. But she has all these
projects that are looking atcorn from the human perspective.
So she's been working with localgroups to do tortilla-making
quality on corn for a while. Ibelieve she's working with one
group now on whiskey, and how tomake that. And then the one that
I'm really cool that she's doinga big evaluation of like 1000
(01:44):
traditional varieties of cornfrom the US just to evaluate,
like how they perform, becausepeople haven't looked at this
information in decades. Butthere's things they're like,
they have different flavorprofiles, they have different
use profiles. You know, forbeing one of the largest
producers of corn in the world,the US, just, we don't
appreciate it at all. I mean,you go down to Mexico, they
appreciate their corn, I mean,corn is a big deal in Mexico,
(02:06):
you don't mess with their corn,but here in the US, it's like we
don't care. And that's kind ofsad. So I'm glad that there's
someone doing that now. And Ihope they come up with some
really cool stuff out of there.I hope they get some good
evaluations, they can find somevarieties that work well and
that people can use for actualeating varieties.
Brian (02:22):
I really was hoping you were gonna say she was doing a
big study of popcorn varieties.
Jason (02:26):
No, she doesn't do popcorn, although I think she
has a collaborator who'sactually specifically looking at
all the popcorn varieties inthere. Yeah, we, we're both
plant people. We could go off onthis for a full hour in terms of
all the varieties and theiradaptations and stuff. And I
mean, I love genetic diversityamong plants. And we could talk
about that all day long. Andthat's not what this podcast is
(02:47):
about.
Brian (02:48):
No, well, not this particular podcast, maybe we'll
find a game that will give us abetter excuse to talk about
that. But for now, I think.Yeah, let's get back to talking
about board games.
Jason (02:56):
Yeah, let's see. Is there any science in Agricolae? I
actually haven't played it.
Brian (03:00):
I don't know. I know you put it on the list. I guess we
could find out. Probably not.But we'll find out someday. So
you want to talk about thisgame?
Jason (03:08):
Sure.
Brian (03:09):
Okay, so we're going to talk about Compounded,
specifically Compounded (03:12):
The Peer-Reviewed Edition. And this
was released last year in 2023.Designer is Darrell Louder, at
Greater Than Games, the originalversion of compounded was
released 2013. So it was a 10year span, there were a couple
expansions in there, includinglike a radioactivity expansion,
I didn't get a chance to look atthose. Now, one of the things
that I was trying to figure outthat I have tried to figure out
(03:34):
in the past, is what inspires aboard game designer to want to
make a science based game? Sofor instance, the creator of
Wingspan was an avid birder. Andthe creator of stellar Horizons
was an MIT...what was his, whatwas his major?
Jason (03:48):
He was, his graduate degree was in like human space
exploration. And then he wentoff to work at SpaceX. So yeah.
Brian (03:56):
So the connection is obvious, right? Well, I actually
had to do some digging onDarrell Louder, who
unfortunately didn't have aWikipedia page. So it made it a
little challenging. I listenedto an interview that he gave and
like, eventually, I was able tofind in a blog on the Greater
than Games website, that he hasa theatre, a theatre degree.
And, like, went back to get ingraphic design and do that. So
(04:16):
like to be honest, after all mydigging, I don't know what
inspired Darrell Louder todesign a chemistry game. It's
really unclear to me. Maybe thatcomes through a little bit in
the design of the game a littlebit. I don't like being critical
of games, but there's got to besome criticism of this one, I
think.
Jason (04:30):
Yeah, we'll see. You talked a little bit about it. I
may have some pushback on that.But we'll see. But if there's
enough in here that either hetalked a lot with people who
actually do chemistry, or he hadsome background, even if it was
just an undergrad, undergraduatelaboratory. Actually, that would
explain why fire plays such abig role in this game.
Brian (04:48):
I absolutely agree. And I do want to talk about that. I, I
can tell that a lot of carefulchoice went into balancing and
selection and how this game wasdesigned. But almost
unfortunately, almost none ofthat is in the metaphor of the
game. So that's where we're kindof got to talk about things
later. But okay, so what is thisgame? What does it look like? If
you want to play compounded,what are you going to do? It is
(05:10):
a game for two to five players,plays in 45 to 70 minutes. That
sounds about right to me. Thesuggested ages 14 and up. Now,
this is not an overlycomplicated game. So that age
seems high. But I think thatmaybe the sabotage/traitor
mechanics might just besomething that maybe a child
maturity level could be thesuggestion for 14 and up, as
(05:30):
opposed to the complexity of thegame, there's a lot of ways to
mess with other players.
Jason (05:34):
I gotta say that, as someone who likes messing with
other players, there's not thatmany ways of messing with other
players, there's a few.
Brian (05:41):
We just didn't do as much of it. That's all, like, I think
that there's a whole, you couldplay this game as a, as a pure
troll if you wanted to, and justplay it to be disruptive and
just destructive. You wouldn'twin the game. But maybe, I don't
know, maybe there's a balancingissue there, potentially. So
what does this game look like?So you, you'll open this up, you
(06:01):
have a full copy of the periodictable. So the periodic table is
basically just your scoretracker. It also has some places
where you could do some actionslike activate various sciency
tools like Bunsen burners or labnotebooks and stuff like this.
There's a lot of like sciencetheming in this game, the
players are going to have theselittle player mats, they've got
four little tracks on them. Andthen you're going to have a grid
(06:23):
of chemical cards, compoundcards. And each of these cards
has between two and sixdifferent atoms on it, two to
four different types of atom.You lay these out in a grid of
four by four if you're in athree player game, or more. And
then you've got this little bagof these beautiful little
crystalline little plasticthings that are supposed to
represent different types ofelements like hydrogen, and
(06:45):
oxygen, carbon, nitrogen,calcium, which we'll come back
and talk about that, and sulfur.And your little track, you've
got four of them, and it gets todecide like, Okay, how many of
the little elements do you getto pull out of the bag? How many
can you keep? How many can youplace out onto the cards, and
then your last track is how manyactions you get a turn. And this
(07:06):
is a victory point game, youjust collect points from the
face value on the cards, you getsome points for advancing your
track. I think that was it. Seemright to you?
Jason (07:14):
Yeah, that's it there. Yeah, if there's other ways of
getting points, we didn't playwith them, but I don't think
there are.
Brian (07:19):
Okay, so the other mechanic is after you complete a
compound, that you get to scorethe points, you take a new card
out of the deck and you place itdown and it's either going to be
a different compound, or it'sgoing to be a fire. And if you
have a fire, it can catch fireto the surrounding cards. If
they run out of places for fireto be, they will explode and
(07:40):
scatter the elements to thesurrounding card. All of the
players have a fireextinguisher, it's everybody's
responsibility to put out thefires when they happen. Because
you know, if you don't, thenyou're gonna have things blow
up.
Jason (07:51):
I got to say this is one of my favorite little mechanics
of the game. It doesn't have tobe there. But it's a fun bit
that sometimes you're doingorganic chemistry, things just
blow up. Yep, that happens,which is why everyone has a fire
extinguisher and why half thecompounds catch on fire. I do
like that when they catch onfire their point values go down,
because there's a real reasonwhy you want to put out the
(08:13):
fire. And then of course, youcan use this a little
maliciously, because there aresome tools that let you set fire
to other people's compounds thatare in the middle of building
and possibly blow them up.
Brian (08:21):
There are some compounds where when you score them, they
just catch fire no matter what,because they're just that
flammable. And like it says "asif a fire had occurred". There
is one of the tools, the Bunsenburner, where you can literally
set fire to any compound youwant of somebody else. You can
set fire to water.
Jason (08:37):
Which I think mechanically is just you're
boiling it off.
Brian (08:39):
I think they said the mechanic is that you've
contaminated their sample insome way. Okay, to you know what
you've put something into itthat allows it to catch on fire,
just like the rivers inCleveland, right? Those are the
basics of the game. Anotherinteresting element to this is
that this is the only game we'veplayed so far, where as the
players you are supposed to betaking on the role of a
(09:00):
scientist, of a researcher. Andthe original conceit was you are
all scientists in the same labcompeting to be the lead
scientist, which Jason and I arein labs. That's not how that
works. But okay.
Jason (09:13):
Competing to be the lead postdoc, let's call it that,
like the lead scientist doesn'tactually do research anymore.
They're up managing and writinggrants and supervising people.
All the people doing the funstuff in the lab. They're the
postdocs and the grad studentsand the research scientists.
Yeah.
Brian (09:27):
I think it's somebody who does research. In my head, I was
like, Oh, I'm the leadresearcher and I'm collaborating
with other labs, not individualsin one lab. But anyway,
Jason (09:36):
I think one thing in there, so the, one thing to
point out is the tracks, thefour tracks that the player
board has. So as you go up inthe tracks, they not only get
you points, but they get youresources you need. So there's a
limited number of little atoms,you can draw turn, how many you
can keep, how many you can play,that sort of thing. And as you
move up in the tracks, you'reget access to more. So there's a
(09:58):
little bit this tension becauseif you go out after high value
compounds, then you get a lot ofpoints, but you don't move your
tracks very much. And so youhave limited ability to do more.
Whereas if you go after a bunchof cheap compounds, you're not
getting many points, but you'reimproving your ability to do
other things later. And there'sa little bit where the compounds
are like solids or liquids orgases, and that determines which
track you can move up. And it'sa nice little touch. I like
(10:19):
that.
Brian (10:19):
Yeah, the game really did have a lot of care and design
that was put into it. There's alot of strategy, there's a lot
of different ways to play. Youcan work together, you can work
against each other. I mean, it'sa good game.
Jason (10:29):
Yeah, you even have the expansion or the component where
there's the mega compounds thatare designed for two players to
work together on them.
Brian (10:35):
Oh, yes, very good point. Thank you. That is the key
mechanic of the peer reviewededition, that you have these
double sized cards that twopeople could work on together.
Those can range up to 20 atomsand be worth up to 38 points
Jason (10:48):
Which is like half a victory condition right there.
Brian (10:50):
Yeah, pretty much. Now one thing about those large
cards, the little cards allhave, they're real chemicals,
real chemical names, they havelittle facts about each of the
chemicals. The giant size cardshave some really interesting
compounds on them. But they'remissing the little facts. I
don't know if the assumption isoh, that people will just Google
it or something. But, like,nitroglycerin is a very
charismatic compound. I thinkeverybody knows what
nitroglycerin is, it's extremelyexplosive, dimethyl trisulfide,
(11:14):
which I know personally, becauseit's the stinky compound that's
made when garlic breaks down,which is something I study.
Trimethylamine, which is theodor that we would associate
with fish, these are interestingchemicals. But there's there's
no little like kind of factabout what these do. Anyway.
Jason (11:29):
Well, that's a missed opportunity.
Brian (11:30):
Yeah, I think so a little bit. That's the basics of the
game. Let's, let's try to talkabout the science here. And
this, I am going to considerthis a little challenging
because basically what I'm goingto try to do right now is
speed-run chemistry. Okay. As Isee the things to talk about
here, this sort of science, thecore science concepts that are
in compounded at leasttangentially are atoms, elements
(11:54):
in the periodic table,compounds, what is a compound,
and what is a chemical bond. Andthen I also spent a little bit
of time like, what makessomething flammable? Or more
specifically combustible, sinceit is such an important part of
the game, and maybe a little biton phase of matter, I don't know
how much we want to get intothat. I also thought it would be
worth talking a little bit aboutthe depiction of research and
(12:18):
scientists in this game, becauseagain, this is one of the only
games we've had where scientistsare part of the game. So we can
talk a little bit about, likesome of the depictions, what we
think they got right, and whatmaybe we think, maybe not so
much. Let's get started withthis. Again, this is my crazy,
"here's chemistry in anutshell". So what is an atom?
(12:41):
An atom is made up of threedifferent particles, you've got
a proton with a positive charge,a neutron, that pretty much is
just there to kind of help theprotons stick together, and an
electron. So the protons and theneutrons are in the nucleus.
They don't really do very much.They're not really that
interesting. All of the actionis happening with the electrons
that kind of orbit around that.Not really an orbit more of like
(13:02):
a shell. It's all quantum IIstuff. And I don't really want
to get into it.
Jason (13:06):
the nucleus, the protons, and the neutrons are extremely
interesting for nuclearchemistry, which is where
radiation and nuclear bombs andall that stuff happens. Stellar
fusion, that's what powers thesun. But ordinary everyday
(13:27):
chemistry like we do inCompounded. That's all with the
electrons.
Brian (13:29):
Yeah, for sure. Like all of the interesting stuff that
happens with chemistry in ourday to day lives. So that's all
it's all about the electrons,right?
Jason (13:36):
So with atoms and trying to build an atom, there's kind
of two forces at play that wereally want to care about, at
least for today's episode. Oneis charge. So protons are
positively charged, electronsare negatively charged. So the
first thing you want is you needbasically the same number of
protons and electrons, so theatom itself is not charged. That
makes things happy, the atomdoesn't want to be charged.
Usually. There's a second thingthat modifies that though, it
(13:59):
has to do with just theelectrons. This is quantum
stuff, it has to do with howthey form groups and the
electron shells and stuff. Andwe're not going to go into that
because that's like, that's verycomplicated. But basically, if
you have certain numbers ofelectrons, and they fill these
little shells they're in, a fullshell is more stable than a
partially full shell. And sosometimes that will overcome it.
(14:21):
So there are some atoms wherethey actually want to gain an
additional electron or lose anelectron because that leaves
them with completely full shellsinstead of partially full
shells. And that sort of tradingof electrons is actually what
forms all sorts of chemicals andbonds as the, essentially the
nuclei are either sharing ordonating or stealing electrons
from each other, to make surethey're all happy and have the
(14:43):
right number of electrons intheir shells.
Brian (14:45):
Yeah, for sure. So the analogy that I liked for this is
the I think it's usually calledthe bus seat analogy, but I
actually kind of like the traincar analogy. If you imagine when
people are sitting on the bus,the electrons don't want to sit
with each other. They'll sit inthe open seats first until there
are no are more open seats, andthen they start pairing up and
sitting in twos. As the atomsget bigger, you kind of hitch
(15:06):
new train cars onto the back ofthe train that have more seats,
but they're still kind of goingto fill up in that basic way. An
atom is an element based onhaving the number of protons, so
like hydrogen is got one, heliumhas got two, and you just keep
going up this list. As you makethe bigger atoms, you're adding
more places for electrons to go,and how many unpaired electrons
(15:26):
are sitting in those outermostseats, that's kind of
determining what kind ofchemistry this is going to be
able to do. And that's actuallythe basis of the periodic table,
is as you're filling up theseelectrons, you kind of come back
around and you do the circleagain. And now you're repeating
the same pattern of unpairedelectrons. So everything in a
column of a periodic table sortof has similar chemical
(15:46):
properties to it. In fact, likeit's a table, but really, it
should be like a ring, wherethey kind of like connect back
around together as like aspiral. I was watching a video
by Hank Green, that was one ofthe original proposals, they
didn't publish it because thepublisher couldn't figure out
how to publish a spiral periodictable. So Mendeleev's became
more popular. So actually, thisis the thing, like the periodic
(16:07):
table is based on every time yougo up one proton, that's a new
element, and you just keep goingall the way. So unfortunately,
for science fiction authors,like, if you want to discover a
new element, there's nowhere forit to go but at the end. Like we
know all of the elements, youknow, ever, it's just adding
protons until eventually you getto the end. And the ones at the
end are so big and so heavy thatthey can't hold together.
(16:28):
They're all radioactive, andthey just decay. So we're, we
may find new compounds, butwe're probably not going to find
any new elements at this point.
Jason (16:35):
Yeah, I like the way Mass Effects got out of that they
found Element Zero. I don't knowhow that works. But that's what
they found. And that's whatmakes all the science magic in
that, in that video game serieswork
Brian (16:47):
Something less than hydrogen. Okay. That's funny, as
you pointed out, though, so thatis the basics of an atom, an
element, the elements are justgonna have a set number of
protons. And how many electronsthey have that want to have
partners is based on how we'regoing to get our bonds. So let's
talk about bonds. So what doesthat go? So you said it's about
(17:08):
sharing or trading electrons,right? Electrons want to be in
pairs. An ionic bond issomething like sodium chloride.
In that case, there's no sharinghappening.
Jason (17:17):
Table salt.
Brian (17:17):
Yes, table salt, sorry, the electrons get stolen by one
atom from the other. And that'sthe preference and those ends up
when, you get charged. That'swhere you get like ions, and
stuff like that.
Jason (17:28):
Yeah. And that usually only happens with the ones that
are on the far left and the farright of the periodic table,
because they're the ones thatare closest to that stability
point. So it's easier for themto just get rid of one or gain
one. And suddenly, they'reperfectly happy.
Brian (17:42):
And those are the, so in a board game context, that's
the, that's the competitiveelements. They don't then then
we've got our organic compoundsare ones that will form covalent
bonds they'd like to share,those are our collaborative
board gamers. In that case,instead of, they actually don't
trade, they kind of will use thesame ones together. And that's
where a lot of the reallyinteresting chemistry happens
(18:04):
because they're, they're verystable, they're very happy to
just kind of sit right next toeach other and share those
electrons. It kind of keeps theminto a tight connection with
each other. So this is, sothings like carbon have four
unpaired electrons, so they canbind to four different things.
So actually, a lot of ouractually, let's talk about this.
What is organic, what is anorganic compound?
Jason (18:25):
From a chemistry perspective it's something that
involves carbon. This iscompletely different from
organic produce, which issomething that irked me for many
years. It's like all producesorganic it's all carbon-based
stop using that. And that's apersonal pet peeve. I have
gotten over it and accepted thefact that the label means two
different things in twodifferent contexts.
Brian (18:46):
So for instance, water is not an organic compound, water
does not have carbon in it. Socarbon can bind with four
things, nitrogen can bind withthree things, oxygen can bind
with two, hydrogen can bind withone, sulfur can also bind with
one, and then we've got ourweirdo in this game, which is
calcium, right? So I was lookingat these and the way that
(19:06):
they're colored and the balanceand everything. And I'm pretty
sure I know part of theinspiration for why Compounded
uses these. I did ask, I thinkthis might only be something at
the college level. But Jason,you've I assume played with a
ball and stick chemistry modelin college.
Jason (19:20):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you can get them at bookstores or get
them online or whatever.
Brian (19:23):
So these are the little balls, they've got little
sticks, they've got the rightnumber of holes, like carbon,
you can shove four things intoit, hydrogen you can only do
one. The distribution ofelements that you have in
Compounded is very, very closeto the distribution that you
would have in one of thosechemistry kits. And actually,
the colors are the same too forthe most part. There's sort of
this mnemonic thing where likehydrogen is a clear gas, so it's
(19:45):
always white, and oxygen's inour blood, so it's red. And
nitrogen is in the atmosphere soit's blue. Carbon is coal, so
it's black. And sulfur. Why issulfur yellow? I mean, sulfur
makes various yellow compounds.
Jason (19:57):
I mean, elemental sulfur is yellow. Why is calcium green?
Brian (20:02):
Well, that's a good question. Because actually, in
your typical chemistry kit, itwouldn't be calcium, it would be
chlorine, or something likethat, or fluorine or something
like that. I did check this aswell, there are versions of this
sort of scheme of sort of colormnemonics where calcium would be
green. So organic compounds,like you said, is carbon,
anything with carbon in it. Theorigin of the term comes from,
(20:26):
Oh, these are the compounds thatwe find in living things, right?
I mean, that's kind of where itoriginally came from.
Jason (20:35):
Back when they thought that only living things could
make it, there's some speciallife force that that allowed it.
And then people figured outorganic chemistry and was like
Oh, no, we can make these too.Yeah, one can be really annoying
to make sometimes, but yes, wecan make them.
Brian (20:47):
Yeah, living things are really good chemists. It's
really hard to do in a test tubewhat can be done easily in a
body. Well, maybe "easy" isn'tgiving them enough credit.
Jason (20:55):
I mean, given the Rube-Goldberg like contraction
that is a living cell, I'm notsure "easy" applies here.
They're very good at it, becausethey've had 4 billion years to
get good at it. If you actuallyfigure out everything that's
involved in making even simplecompounds, it's like, oh, no,
no, no, this is just a, this isa highly tuned system. But easy
(21:15):
is not it.
Brian (21:16):
Okay, that's fair, that's fair. So calcium is the oddball.
Calcium is not something thatcan make, it's not one of the
ones that shares, calcium isactually a metal. It's like way
off to the side, and it doesn'tparticipate in covalent bonds.
Now I was thinking about this.And I'm, what you would
typically see in a chemistry kitwould have been phosphorus, not
(21:37):
calcium. Or chlorine orsomething like that. A lot of
the compounds in compounded arethese sort of nice organic
chemicals with carbon in them,phosphorus would have been
typical, but phosphorustypically doesn't hang out by
itself, it usually has a bunchof extra oxygens in there.
Because usually a phosphate,it's like a phosphorus and a
couple of oxygens, usuallythree, and then that's what gets
(21:58):
stuck on to other compounds. SoI imagine it was literally a
game balancing choice. If youdon't want to use phosphorus,
because, well, you're nevergoing to have it on its own, the
compounds are going to be toobig. And there was this clear
choice of making it between twoand six atoms on each compound
card. So phosphorus just didn'tmake sense. So okay, so here's
(22:19):
where I actually spent a littlebit of time trying to figure
out, now what makes somethingflammable? Because this was a
big part of Compounded. And thatas I don't know, that's more
complicated than you wouldthink. In a sense, it's not. So
"combustible" is a much moreeasy thing to understand.
Something is combustible when itcan react with oxygen, and
(22:40):
release energy in the form ofheat or light. So anything that
can react with oxygen would beconsidered combustible. Now what
makes something combustible inthat sense, is so for instance,
wood is combustible. Once youget the reaction going, it
produces more heat and light andthen creates a more heat and
creates a chain reaction, sortof reacting with more compounds.
(23:01):
And that's what causes things toburn.
Jason (23:03):
And going back to the reason behind this is because
oxygen is very good at takingelectrons from other things, it
wants to share electrons, butit's very good at grabbing onto
them and holding them tightly,arguably one of the best atoms
at doing that, which is why it'sessentially the chemical dead
end of so many things. Once youreact with oxygen you have to
(23:24):
pour energy into it to get itback out.
Brian (23:27):
So okay, that's what makes something combustible,
something that can react withoxygen release energy, which if
you're releasing energy, itmeans it's like a preferable
state for the chemical to be in.It's like, things are always
wanting to go towards the lowestenergy state. Flammable is a
little weird, flammable, is justlike how volatile something is.
And that's very dependent uponpressure and temperature and
(23:47):
everything else. Something'sflammable, where you put an
ignition source in it, and itjust goes "fwooph", like that's
flammable. So you can becombustible and not flammable.
It gets really complicated, likevapor pressure and all this
stuff that we don't really needto get into, I think. And then
there's also like "explosive",which is about producing gas,
it's, it's too much, it's toomuch to get into.
Jason (24:07):
Okay, but basically for flammable, it has to be able to
evaporate yes to get into theair and then essentially be pre
mixed with oxygen. So all youneed is a spark or a heat source
to do it. Whereas wood is notgoing to evaporate. It's just
going to sit there.
Brian (24:20):
But interestingly, to get wood to catch fire, you do have
to go through a process ofcalled pyrolysis where basically
you are releasing flammablegases from the solid, like it
has to be able to mix with theoxygen, so it has to be able to
vaporize in some way to be ableto be flammable. That is the
basics of the science. Hopefullywe did a good job of that. I
think we did the best we canconsidering we did it in, what
(24:41):
15 minutes? 20 minutes?
Jason (24:43):
There are plenty of YouTube videos about basic
chemistry, but there's a lot ofground to cover here because
this is how chemicals, how atomsform bonds. Yeah. Which is
chemistry. Yeah, basically.That's the entire field of
chemistry, right there, atomsforming bonds.
Brian (24:58):
There is legitimately a great short crash course on
chemistry. It's a series by HankGreen. If you're curious, I
would say just watching it, it'sgot really good production
values. It's a lot of fun. It'sHank Green, he's a great science
communicator. Yes, let's talkabout how that science is
represented and compounded. Um,it's, it's not really.
Jason (25:20):
But I'm going to push back. I'm gonna say it's subtle.
Like, and that's the point, youtalk about the science and game,
this game is not meant to be ascience communication game. It
has the science skin painted onit, but there are little nods,
like the one I noticed the firsttime we played, when you get the
little plastic bits of theatoms, so half of them are
(25:41):
clear, and half of them areopaque. And it turns out the
clear ones are all the gases,and the opaque ones are all the
solids, at least at normal roomtemperature. There are the fact
that like, things are flammable.Well, only some of them are
flammable. And they arepresumably the ones that are
actually flammable. You havethis solid-liquid-gas phase,
which determines which of yourtracks you're able to move up.
(26:01):
It's like, they're there. Butthey're subtle. This is, this is
not wingspan, this is not tryingto teach you all sorts of
chemistry facts. They're thereif you go digging, but they're
not there if you don't careabout them.
Brian (26:12):
Which I guess is kind of, I don't know, maybe that's kind
of my point. You don'taccidentally learn things
playing Compounded. Maybe you doMaybe I'm being too harsh.
Again, I think that there,there's a way to do it. Where
okay, like, again, I hate toconstantly be comparing to
Wingspan, it's going to be hardnot to I apologize if this is
already going to get old. forpeople who are listening to
this. You can't play Wingspanand not learn something, you
(26:35):
just can't. It's impossible. Butno, you're right. There was a
lot of nods here. So forinstance, the color array,
right, that consistent elementalcoloring, now that is something
where you could start tointuitively, if you had played
compound is like, oh, it'scarbon, right? Because it's
consistent. You've gotten usedto it, it's always depicted.
They are real chemicals, right?But nothing about like how you
(26:55):
play the chemicals onto thecards.... In the terms of
designing this game, I, I amcertain a lot of care went into
this selection of theappropriate chemicals, with the
right balance of elements, thecorrect structures, balancing
the point values, theflammability, the phases of
matter, all of that. I'm surethere was a ton of effort. The
(27:17):
specific choice of calcium overphosphorus or chlorine or
something like that, so that youcould have smaller ionic
compounds, instead of just theselarge organic compounds. All of
that was behind the scenes. Theproblem is I don't know how much
of it is in the in the front forthe player to kind of absorb. So
(27:38):
that's that's really where mycriticism lies.
Jason (27:41):
Yeah, and that's probably a design choice. I mean, that's
one of the knobs you get to tuneas a designer is you choose how
upfront am I going to make this?How behind the scenes? Like what
do I want to focus on to be. Andthe game designer here just
chose to have there be sciencein there, but have it be a
subtle, it's a background thing,it's not in the foreground?
Brian (27:59):
So another aspect of this that I think we should talk
about is the depiction ofscientists in a game, which we
haven't really had a chance todo yet. I mean, Stellar Horizons
arguably had more to do aboutpoliticians. This you actually
have like, scientist, you areplaying a scientist trying to
discover chemistry, chemicals,compounds, and competing with
one another or cooperating withone another in the process of
(28:20):
doing that. So a lot of theseare just like, the way that the
terms are applied, don't alwaysmake a ton of sense. Your four
little tracks on your board arecalled your "experiments." But
then they're labeleddiscover-study-research-lab,
which I'm not really sure. Like,there is sort of that standard
process of the scientific methodof like Hypothesis Testing
(28:40):
research, and then I guess wewould consider "publish" to be
an important part of theprocess. You got to tell people
what you found. So you know,that's fine. I mean, the player
markers are just random piecesof glassware. I mean, that's
fine. It's fun to play as alittle beaker. This is your
monopoly dog for, for playingcompounded is getting to play a
little Bunsen burner. There aresome other weird stuff, I
(29:01):
suppose. One thing that thatcaught my attention was one of
the tools is, one of the thingsyou can get as a research grant.
In this game, the research grantjust benefits the person who's
doing the worst. I can tell youfrom experience, that's not how
research grants work. They donot go to the lab and most need.
Jason (29:19):
Yes, and there are specific funding mechanisms for
that. But by and large, like thesuccessful labs get most of the
big successful grants, whichlets them be successful and get
most of the big successfulgrants. I mean, as in many other
things, the rich tend to getricher.
Brian (29:32):
So another big mechanic, a fundamental mechanic of the
game is this ability to claim acompound. You said I am working
on this one. And that's it. Yousay you're working on this one
Jason (29:39):
That said, I prefer...much as I joke about
and your other people then, theycould work on it if they want
to, but they won't derive thebenefit. It's still is your
compound. Now, it kind of workslike that. A little bit like,
but that's really casual. Like,there are definitely people who
will... okay So, in science, wehave this process called
(30:00):
"getting scooped", which Iimagine that also happens in
like news and anytime whereyou're in a truth-based field, I
am studying something, I amworking on this really hard. And
then I find out just as we'reabout to finish up our work that
someone else has published theexact same observations. Oh, no,
now they get all the credit andnone of our stuff counts. So I
(30:22):
can tell you that from a careerperspective, getting scooped
does suck, because of the way wesort of apply credit. And it's
like, oh, now that's theirdiscovery, it doesn't matter
that we were working on it. Butreally scooping is the sign that
science is working the way thatit's supposed to. It means that
you can have people on differentsides of the planet not talking
(30:43):
to each other. Unaware of whatthe other one is doing, making
observations about the world andfinding the exact same thing.
Scooping is a good thing. Itmeans that the process is
how much I like messing withother people in games, in real
working. Okay.
life, I like cooperation. And soif I realize I'm working on
(31:04):
something similar to someoneelse, I'll usually try to
cooperate with them, or at leastsee how we can carve out our own
niches. Now part of that isbecause the fields I work in
tend to be relatively small,there's not enough space for us
to compete with each other. Ifwe compete against each other,
everyone loses. There's just notenough grant money flowing
around. I've gathered that's notthe case with the big money
areas, like human cancerresearch I've gathered is pretty
(31:25):
cutthroat because there's somuch money going around, you can
have five or six labs allstudying the same thing, all
racing to get the same newresearch, the same new discovery
Brian (31:34):
Yeah, that's and you're right. I mean, obviously,
out there.
cooperation people will worktogether, you reinforce each
other's work. That is the thatis the path. It is not the path
that has always taken though,there are definitely people who
want the credit.
Jason (31:49):
Yeah, now I was gonna say, the whole way where that
you can claim one and then otherpeople can work on it, that
seems to be sort of like firstauthorship. So the, the way we
scientists boosts our reputationis we publish papers. And
although there's differentstandards in different fields
for exactly what the order ofwho goes on that paper matters,
generally speaking, whoever isthe first author gets the most
(32:10):
credit, they did the most work,it was their idea, whatever. And
so there's actually the thingthat when we go to publish, you
have kind of negotiate whatorder people go in, in order to
make sure everyone gets theright amount of credit. And so
that claiming seems to me like,Oh, this is the first author on
this. Other people can help ifthey want, but they're the one
that's going to get the mostcredit, I think, it'd be nice if
(32:32):
there were some mechanics torepresent that where like, Oh,
if you assist on this, you getsome small amount of points,
like, oh, you get one point ortwo points for everything you
put on there, while the mainperson gets most of it, but that
would require other things totrack it. And so it's not really
an easy fix to add to add to it.But that's how I see that
particular aspect of the game.
Brian (32:51):
We need, like, Compounded the Collaborative Edition.
Jason (32:56):
Yes, or unfortunately, the competition part does
happen. It's like, although it'snot good, I have actually heard
of scientists sabotaging others'research. This is thankfully
very rare. And when it's foundout, it is like, that is your
way of getting blacklisted inscience, like you do not
sabotage other people. You cancollaborate, you can compete,
(33:18):
you can try to scoop them, butyou do not undermine other
people's work. And I have heardof some people where, this was
years ago, I read like there wassome postdoc where he was just
feeling very stressed andpressured. And for reasons I
still don't understand, hepoured ethanol on his labmate's
cell cultures. So this isbasically, this is how to kill
cells. And he like added it tosome of her growing media, so it
(33:42):
would kill them. Like I stilldon't understand the reasoning
why, because as far as I cantell, he was not competing with
her. It happens. Now, he gotfound out pretty quickly,
because ethanol smells verydifferent from normal cell
growth media. And they put acamera and they saw it
happening, he got confronted,fired, et cetera, et cetera. So
like, action was taken, likejustice was served, but still up
that wasted weeks at the veryleast of one person's work,
(34:05):
sometimes months. And so this iswhy...we scientists don't have
very much when you get down toit. We don't have much money, we
don't have that much prestige.Most of us pretty much all we've
got is our reputation and ourresults. And so we protect those
pretty fiercely. And basically,number one way of getting
blacklisted as a scientist is todo something to actively harm
someone else's research
Brian (34:24):
Well I think that sort of covers the basics of the science
that is behind compounded, howcompounded addresses it, and
kind of like a little bit aboutbeing a scientist in a board
game like setting and how that'srepresented. But let's talk
about the game itself. Did you,did you enjoy the game? What did
you, how did you like playingthe game? Or what were things
you liked? Or didn't like?
Jason (34:44):
I did. I found it enjoyable. I think it's a fairly
straightforward game. At least,maybe if we played it more I'd
realized there were like deeperdepths in terms of how you can
interact with others. Butmostly, it seems pretty
straightforward. Like okay, Ineed to move my research tracks
up so I get more resources. Ineed to acquire compounds as
fast as I can so that I getvictory points. And I need to do
(35:05):
that faster and better thaneveryone else. It seems pretty
straightforward to me. Butthat's my impression so far
like, there's not an obvious wayfor there being a bunch of depth
to it. It's prettystraightforward. It's a nice
light game.
Brian (35:16):
I'm sure there's an optimal way to play it. Well,
clearly there is because, Ithink again, as has become
tradition, I think youcompletely annihilated everybody
on points. So clearly, there isan optimal way to play. And one
of the things that I noticed isnot a single time in all the
times that we play did weactually have a fire get out of
control, which is a huge part ofthe game that just doesn't seem
(35:36):
to come up very much.
Jason (35:39):
Yeah, I noticed that when we were playing together as
families, we just, someonealways had a fire extinguisher
ready. In part, I think we wereso paranoid about a fire
happening that if we all ranout, someone would refresh their
fire extinguisher to make surewe could handle a fire. And then
when you and I playedindividually, they just, by the
way the deck was shuffled, theyjust never came up.
Brian (35:58):
Yeah it's a fun game. You know, there's sort of the Catan
style trading mechanic, which wedidn't get into. It's like, hey,
I'll trade you two hydrogen foran oxygen or something like
that, to try to get on whatyou're working on. There's
plenty of opportunities tosabotage, but I don't know, I
guess it just didn't come upthat much. Were you sabotaging
anybody? Or were you focused onjust scoring your own points?
Jason (36:19):
I wasn't outright sabotaging. I mean, most of the
outright sabotage seems to beyou like someone else's compound
on fire. Mostly, I was poaching.There were definitely times
where someone had partiallybuilt a compound and left it
open. It's like, oh, I can fillit out. I'm gonna grab that
compound now. Thank you fordoing the preliminary work.
Brian (36:35):
No, it's it was a fun game. I'm trying to decide like
on my personal scale. Well,okay. Is there anything else you
want to talk about the game? Imean, the game is very pretty.
For sure. I love the design. Theelements are fun. They're in a
nice little cloth bag. DarrylLouder is a graphic designer.
And I think that that shows,it's all looks very nice. I do
think that the use of theperiodic table as just a score
tracker. It makes sense. I don'tknow what else you would do. But
(36:59):
it seems like having a wholeperiodic table and have that not
really matter, except is justtracking your scores. Maybe a
little unfortunate.
Jason (37:06):
Yeah, it is a nice touch that it's a very easy way to
know when victory hits. Becauseif you remember the periodic
table, there's those two linesthat are always put down at the
bottom. Technically, they belongin the middle, but then the
periodic table would be stupidlywide. And so they're always
translated down. When you godown there, that's when you
trigger the victory condition.It's like the top row's for a
two player game. And I think thebottom row's are like a three or
(37:27):
four player game. So that's aneasy, easy way of tying that
table to knowing when to stop.
Brian (37:33):
I just realized the actinides and the lanthanides
are basically Hawaii and Alaskaon a map of the United States.
You pull them off in their ownlittle separate section, because
to try to show the whole thingwould make it too big. All
right. So should we do somescores?
Jason (37:49):
Yeah, and this is an important thing, I realized,
we've never really defined howwe set these scores, we get
these letter grades, but wenever like calibrated it. So I
wanted to put that out here. Atleast this is how I do it in my
head, that everything starts ata B. And I want to say that
because eBay and Amazon, andeverything have all trained us
that anything less than fivestars is failure. And that's not
(38:12):
the case here. Things start at aB. And then if you do things
well, you go up and if you thinkpoorly, you go down. So that's
kind of the, the, at least in myhead, that's how I'm assigning
these grades. So getting a B isnot a bad thing. It's like okay,
you did something, you did itwell, that's fine.
Brian (38:28):
It sounds like there's a B in there.
Jason (38:31):
Well, there will be a B in here. Okay, but
Brian (38:36):
How do I do it? I mean, at this point, I think we're
sort of establishing the scaleswe go. Wingspan's an A. Right?
Yeah, the definition of an A.But I think it's, I think what
I'm thinking about it is, Iguess I don't have as much of
that, I don't have a setstarting point. But it's this
idea of like, are you going tolearn science while playing this
(38:56):
game? And how much? Right? Ithink that, again, I agree with
you, a C is not bad. If we'regoing less than a C, that means
you're teaching somebodysomething wrong. But a C is
okay. Okay, so what is yourscore, then?
Jason (39:08):
Well, so we do this in two parts. So let's start with
the science part. So I would saythe science part of this, I
would give a B. Like it, itdidn't set out to do a bunch of
science. So there's sciencethere, if you look for it, if
you dig, it's there, and there'slittle subtle nods to it. So
it's like, okay, it's fine. It'sa B. It's like, you're not gonna
learn a ton of science by this,but the things that are there
are correct, and they actuallyfit together pretty well.
Brian (39:30):
I don't like to be critical, but I'm gonna give
this one a slightly lower grade,I'm gonna say a C+, I think that
the, the idea that you're goingto come away from this with
chemistry knowledge, I justdon't know if that's going to
happen. So, from thatperspective, I think that the
because this in an educationalgame category, which is a game
where you're eitherintrinsically supposed to be
(39:50):
learning something, or willlearn some things like by proxy
by playing the game. I justdon't know if that's true. And I
think maybe for the depiction ofscientists kind of being like,
obviously not informed bytalking to people who do
science, that kind of bugs me alittle bit too. So I'm gonna
give it a C+. it's okay.
Jason (40:07):
It's not doing as much as you want it.
Brian (40:09):
It's not.
Jason (40:11):
Okay. And we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
And again, to everyone, we havea Discord, you can come on and
tell us all sorts of ways we gotit wrong. Okay, so let's move on
the gameplay. So, your turn.What do you think of the
gameplay? How do you score that?
Brian (40:24):
So in terms of gameplay and fun, I think, well, since
we're talking about this idea ofwhat are we basing our scores
on? For me, it's how likely am Ito want to grab this off the
shelf and play when we gettogether to play? How likely am
I to stick it in my car when wego to board game night? And for
this, it's like, it's a fungame. Is this the one that I'm
going to go to and grab?Probably not. So for me, that's
(40:47):
a B. Right? I enjoyed playingit, I'm probably not going to
grab it off the shelf all thatoften. So that's that B score.
Jason (40:55):
Yeah, I'd probably give about the same. I may go into B+
range. I thought it was a bitfun. As you point out, I did
tend to get a lot more pointsthan everyone else. So I think I
hadn't solved the game, but Ithink it was closer to solving
it than most of the otherplayers. And like I liked that
bit of strategy was like, Okay,how can I find the optimal move?
What is the best thing here, butagain, it's not gonna be one, I
grab off the shelf, like, Oh, Ijust really want to play this
(41:16):
one. So it's like, if someonebrings this in, I play with it,
I'll be perfectly happy withthat, I'm probably not going to
seek it out a ton.
Brian (41:22):
So that's Compounded. Solid chemistry in the
background, probably not goingto take that much away from it
by playing it. But a fun game. Idid enjoy it.
Jason (41:32):
And I liked it. I mean, and if I were a chemist, I would
have a copy of this in the lab.I like the little touches, the
little subtle nods, like the theclarity versus opacity of the
little pieces. I mean, I'd likethat there are little science
facts, I like that the phases ofmatter, matter, for what you're
going to do that sort of thing.So like, they're, they're
subtle, but they're there. And Ireally liked that. So one quick
(41:52):
announcement before we close.Looking forward a few months,
this episode is going to dropnear the end of May. So if
you're going to be going toDragon Con in Atlanta on Labor
Day weekend, I will be therehelping out with the science
track. Brian may or may not bethere. We're still trying to
figure that out. But we will bethere. Again, check our Discord,
we'll be coordinating stuff, wemay be doing something for the
(42:13):
podcast there. And even if not,then you could just contact us
we can find some place to meetup. We could play some games or
anything like that. So justheads up.
Brian (42:23):
Oh, and one more announcement, while we're on
that, this is the "we're goingto take our end of semester
break after this" episode. Butwe're still going to have
something in the feed for you.So we'll be back in two months
with another regular episode.All right. And with that, I
think we're going to wrap it upand I hope you guys all have a
great month and enjoy the breakand the bonus content.
Jason (42:44):
Take care, happy gaming.
Brian (42:46):
Have fun playing dice with the universe. This has been
the Gaming with Science Podcastcopyright 2024. listeners are
free to reuse this recording forany non commercial purpose as
long as credit is given to getnew science. This podcast is
produced with support from theUniversity of Georgia. All
opinions are those of the hostsand do not imply endorsement by
the sponsors. If you wish topurchase any of the games that
we talked about, we encourageyou to do so through your
(43:07):
friendly local game store. Thankyou and have fun playing dice
with the universe. I have somany notes for this Jason. You
would not believe
Jason (43:17):
you know for a game you keep saying doesn't have all
that much science in it. Youhave a lot of research on it.
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