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Gaming with Science

Gaming with Science

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 Gaming with Science is a podcast that looks at science through the lens of tabletop board games. If you ever wondered how natural selection shows up in Evolution, whether Cytosis reflects actual cell metabolism, or what the socioeconomics of Monopoly are, this is the place for you. (And if not, we hope you’ll give us a try anyway.) So grab a drink, pull up a chair, and let’s have fun playing dice with the universe!Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) Science
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    • S3E02 - Finspan (Fish)

      S3E02 - Finspan (Fish)
      Feb 25 2026
      #Finspan #StonemaierGames #ElizabethHargrave #Wingspan #ScienceCommunication #Oceans #Fish #BoardGames #Science Summary In this episode we discuss the game "Finspan" by Stonemaier Games, and are joined by Emily Melvin, a PhD candidate in marine science at Duke University. In a game that's basically "Wingspan but with fish", we talk about the game differs from its predecessor, all whole bunch of different fish, what IS a fish, deep-sea nightmares, lovely bioluminescence, ecosystems, invasive species, and just how much we still don't know about our oceans. So take a dive with us into the undersea world of fish and Finspan, and let's have fun playing dice with the Universe. Timestamps 00:00 - Introductions01:41 - Fish bones and flatfish04:17 - Overview of Finspan10:02 - What is a fish?13:41 - Fish eating fish17:31 - Ocean dimensionality23:31 - Young and schools29:14 - Deep-ocean nightmares32:46 - Bioluminescence and venom36:35 - Threats to the ocean43:46 - Nitpicks and constructive criticism50:14 - Final grades55:05 - Sign-offs Links Finspan (Stonemaier Games) and on TabletopiaSingle origin of flat fish (Nature Genetics)Seas the Day (Marine podcast from Duke University)Emily Melvin's professional website and Bluesky profile Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net This episode of Gaming with Science™ was produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Full Transcript (Some platforms truncate the transcript due to length restrictions. If so, you can always find the full transcript on https://www.gamingwithscience.net/ ) Brian 0:06 hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about science behind some of your favorite games. Jason Wallace 0:11 Today we'll be talking about finspan by Stonemaier games. All right, everyone, welcome back to gaming with science. This is Jason. This is Brian, and today we are joined by a special guest, Emily Melvin from Duke University. Emily, will you please introduce yourself for our audience? Emily 0:27 Yeah, hi. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Emily Melvin, and I am a PhD candidate in the marine science and conservation program at Duke's Marine Lab, which is in Beaufort, North Carolina. And I study issues of policy and governance. So broadly speaking, my work focuses on the relationships between humans and the marine environment. And I also am an avid scuba diver. I'm a licensed open water scuba instructor, so a lot of my knowledge relating to this game comes from my experience as a diver as well. Brian 0:57 Oh, that's extra cool. Jason Wallace 0:59 Yes, you got hands on experience. Brian 1:01 That's right. You can talk to us about how when we use the divers to represent the actions. Emily 1:05 Oh, I have thoughts about that. Brian 1:06 I'll bet you do Jason Wallace 1:10 all right. And one thing we've started asking guests recently, do you have a favorite game you like to play? Speaker 1 1:15 It is really hard to pick a favorite game, because I There are so many different categories, but lately, I've been really into playing Ark Nova on Board Game Arena. So I don't have the physical game because I don't know that I have anyone who will play a game that long with me, but I like to play that one online Brian 1:32 Ark Nova is on our list for this season, so we've never played it. I'm looking forward to it. We don't have a copy of it yet, do we? Jason Wallace 1:37 No, so we'll probably be doing Board Game Arena too. Brian 1:40 Oh, okay, okay, Jason Wallace 1:41 all right. So we like to start off with a fun science fact. And Emily, we always give our guests first choice. Do you have some fun science fact that you know or that you picked up recently you'd like to share with our audience? Speaker 1 1:52 Sure, one thing that I came across as I was preparing for this podcast was thinking about the fact that actually fish, bony fish, like a salmon, for example, are more closely related to humans than they are to a shark. So we can talk a lot about that a little bit more later, if you'd like, Brian 2:06 Isn't it like, technically, phylogenetically, we are fish. If you there's no way to draw a grouping around fish that doesn't include us? Jason Wallace 2:13 The word fish is a pretty tough word to define, because of that phylogeny, they're not necessarily grouped together in a way that scientifically makes a lot of sense So Jason Wallace 2:22 yes, this is one of my questions for later. So we will get into that. Brian 2:25 Fantastic. So I found out a thing about flounders or flat fish. So these are in the order, you'll have to tell me how I said this wrong. It's Carangiformes. Unknown Speaker 2:35 I am not great with pronunciation, so it sounds right. Brian 2:37 Well, whatever, you can look at it on Wikipedia if I said ...
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      56 min
    • S3E01 - Primates (Primate Evolution)

      S3E01 - Primates (Primate Evolution)
      Jan 28 2026
      #Primates #Evolution #GreenButteryflyGames #Conservation #BoardGames #Science Summary Happy 2026, everyone! To celebrate Darwin Day (February 12th), we have a special 90-minute episode with Will and David from the Common Descent Podcast to talk all about Primates! We'll cover the new game by Green Butterfly Games, all six clades of primates it showcases, and tons of other fun facts about us an our arboreal cousins, like how monkeys rafted from Africa to South America and why Aye-ayes are the best nose-pickers. So grab a banana, build a nest, and settle in for a lively discussion of Primates. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intros00:02:07 - Dung Beetles and Human Endurance00:11:42 - Game Overview00:21:23 - Primate History00:33:00 - Different Primate Groups00:51:17 - Humans in the Game00:57:17 - Representation through Game Mechanics01:07:36 - Picking Nits01:13:09 - Final Grades01:21:55 - Wrap-up Links Primates (Green Butterfly Games)The Common Descent PodcastDung beetles evolving to eat meat (Science.org)Limits of human endurance (Nature.com)An aye-aye picking its nose (YouTube) When the Earth was Green, by Riley Black (Macmillan Publishers)Pitchstorm and Fate of the Nostromo (Board Game Geek) Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net This episode of Gaming with Science™ was produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Full Transcript (Some platforms truncate the transcript due to length restrictions. If so, you can always find the full transcript on https://www.gamingwithscience.net/ ) Jason Wallace 0:00 Brian, hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Brian 0:12 Today, we're going to discuss primates by green butterfly games. Hey, welcome back to gaming with science. This is Brian. This is Jason. And wait, we've got some other people here. Brian 0:26 Will and David, you're back! Will 0:27 We're back. David 0:28 Can't get rid of us, Brian 0:30 no. Well, not that we would want to actually, this whole reason that this entire episode happened is actually your fault, so please explain yourself. David 0:38 Oh, that's true. We this game was sent to us. We were sent it as a gift from one of our listeners, yeah, oh, we should have, we should have looked up who it was that sent it to us. That would have been really good to get the name. Jason Wallace 0:48 Thank you, anonymous. Listener of another podcast, Brian 0:54 common descent. Listener, whoever you are, thank you and make yourself known. You guys got a game, and you said, Well, we know some people who want to play, who like to play science games, and you approached us, which is totally different, because that's not how this works around here. We usually have to chase people down. David 1:08 We got the gift. I think it, I think we received it shortly after the last time we recorded with you guys. Brian 1:15 Oh, wow. David 1:16 And it was a really cool because it's the it's a perfect game for your podcast? Brian 1:22 Absolutely. David 1:24 We thought it would be super fun, and so, yeah, it was one of the first things we did is we said, hey, do you guys want to play this you want to come back and play this game with us? Brian 1:31 Yep, and we did, and it was fun. And we even did it the weekend of the museum meetup at Fernbank, which, again, is going to date this episode, but whatever, that's fine. We're releasing this episode that will also be our episode that's closest to Darwin Day. So it's also a good game for Darwin Day. So I'm excited to talk about this game. It has a huge amount of science content, and I'm excited about the conversation we're going to get to have about primates and how they're weird. But before we get into that, why don't we do a little bit of science banter? Anything you guys would like to talk about? Will 1:58 One that's on my mind because I literally just finished taking notes on it for one of our news sections, which will come out before this. So it won't be, I won't be spoiling our news. There was a study on dung beetles that have evolved to be necrophageous. So eating dead bodies, Brian 2:16 Did they roll them up into little balls? Will 2:18 Yeah. And this is a thing that I was aware of. We talked about this in the decomposing episode, there are beetles that basically roll up a bit of a meatball and roll it away, bury it and let their young feet off of it, Brian 2:30 okay, Will 2:30 instead of dung, yeah, meatballs. Brian 2:33 That's a different meaning of meatball. Yep. Will 2:37 And there was, there's a group of dung beetles that have evolved to do this, and they studied it by finding those underground Brian 2:48 meat? Will 2:48 open like like like burrows that they used to there are Ichnofossils...
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      1 h et 27 min
    • S2E10.1 - John Coveyou (Interview)

      S2E10.1 - John Coveyou (Interview)
      Dec 17 2025
      #GeniusGames #STEMEducation #SciComm #JohnCoveyou #BoardGames #Science We've done several episodes on games from Genius Games (Cytosis, Periodic, Genotype), and now we get to speak to the man behind it all: John Coveyou, founder and CEO of Genius Games. John graciously sat down with us to talk about the beginning of Genius Games, the stigma of "educational" games, the challenges and joys of STEM game design, and some of his favorite non-Genius games to play. So sit back and enjoy this conversation with the man who makes our job easy, John Coveyou. Timestamps 00:00 Introductions01:55 History of John and Genius Games07:50 Designing Educational Games13:19 Balancing Fun and Realism20:54 Most Challenging Games to Design29:55 Upcoming Offerings36:36 Favorite (Non-Genius) Games38:23 Wrap-Up Links Genius Games website Find our socials at https://www.gamingwithscience.net This episode of Gaming with Science™ was produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Splash images courtesy of Genius Games. Full Transcript (Some platforms truncate the transcript due to length restrictions. If so, you can always find the full transcript on https://www.gamingwithscience.net/ ) Jason 0:00 Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games. Jason 0:07 Today we're talking with John Coveyou, CEO and founder of genius games. Brian 0:16 Hey everybody. Welcome to a creator interview. I'm Brian. Jason 0:19 This is Jason, Brian 0:20 and joining us is John Coveyou from genius games, John, can you introduce yourself? John 0:26 Sure, yeah, I'm the owner of genius games. I've owned it since about 2011 and we make science accurate board games and jigsaw puzzles for the hobby market. Brian 0:38 Those are very cool and very popular. I think I like the the frog. One in particular is very good. John 0:44 You dissect a frog in a lot of public school science classes, so we want to make sure we threw that one in there. Brian 0:49 I don't think I did a frog. Did you ever do a frog? John 0:52 I did. I think it was 10th grade biology. Jason 0:55 I don't remember if I ever dissected a frog. I did do a fetal pig. Brian 0:59 I remember we did a heart one time and that actually, like, screwed me up for a long time. John 1:03 Yeah, I don't want to know what this stuff looks like inside of my body. Let me just move on. Brian 1:10 Fair enough. We're really excited to be able to get you on to talk to us today. Our whole reason for existence is to talk about board games and science and genius games. As you can imagine, we have done many of your games before. We've done cytosis and periodic. We did genotype. We have more games planned in the future. We're going to be doing cellulose and probably whatever else comes down the pipe. Eventually. I'm sure we'll, we'll touch on most, if not all, of the games in the genius library. John 1:37 Well, that's great, because those are two of my favorite things, science and board gaming and both have, I mean, honestly, had a dramatic impact on my life in many ways. I mean, I run a company that combines those two, but the impact goes much deeper than that. So I'm very excited to talk about both of those things and how they came together. Could you Jason 1:55 give us a bit of your background there? Because this is not necessarily a logical place to end up. At the intersection of science and board game. Your company basically lives in the space of making what I call hard science games, games where they're not just inspired by science, but they try to portray it accurately and faithfully. What brought you to that place? John 2:13 Yeah, and you know, it's a long, windy story, but I will try and summarize it as quick as possible. I think when you see a lot of games out there in the marketplace and you see, you know, a science-based game or a STEM-based game, what you're looking at is a product someone wanted to create, to just generate money. I did not arrive at the place of creating a product. I arrived. I mean, I fell in love with the sciences, and also loved board gaming, and those two things kind of randomly came together. So a little bit about my background in the sciences. After high school, I joined the military. I was in the military for eight years total, but only three of it was on active duty. I spent about a year and a half in Iraq in Mosul and Samara. And while I was there, I was enrolled in some university classes, and one was a chemistry class. And reading through I had, I got a lot of time to read through that chemistry textbook, and some other textbooks I had chemistry and some in physics, I think I was taking at the same time, because of the the stressful environment that I was in studying sciences actually became very therapeutic for me, like ...
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      40 min
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