Play Saves the World - Episodes Tagged with “Religion”

Episode 5: Board Games and Islam

Daniel Hilty & Kevin Taylor — Sun, 15 May 2022 14:00:00 -0400

Our very first guest! Ali Karar (@karar2k) joins us to discuss hobby board gaming as a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. We discuss board games as a catalyst for socializing, religious limits to board games, and the role of board games in families. Ali discusses his transition from video games to board gaming, board gaming cafes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Islam's traditional prohibition aginst dice because of its association with gambling. We cap it all off by listing our most beloved games and praising Clap On technology.

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Episode 3: Is Play Essential to the Human Experience?

Daniel Hilty & Kevin Taylor — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0400

After naming some recently revisited games, Daniel discusses some lessons learned at a recent conference on play. Is play essential to the human experience? How can we games be more inclusive? How does play shape our early childhood in important ways, and can this include Minecraft? The discussion moves into play as a means of grace, and that play according to rules might be an analogy of grace and law. Pop culture jokes include the clap-on lamp from the 80s, and dad jokes include a can of diced tomatoes that secretly contains bookoo dice. Next episode: the book The Grasshopper by Bernard Suits. And a happy Easter, Passover, and Ramadan!

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The Clapper
Roll for the Galaxy | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
Circadians: First Light | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
Hadrian's Wall | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
Pandemic | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
Garphill Games
179: Special Guest: Bobby Hill. Plus Bitoku, Meeples & Monsters, So Clover, Jabba’s Palace | Board Game BBQ
Home - US Play Coalition
The Grasshopper - Third Edition - Broadview Press — [NOTE: This book does contain adult images.] In the mid twentieth century the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein famously asserted that games are indefinable; there are no common threads that link them all. “Nonsense,” said the sensible Bernard Suits: “playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” The short book Suits wrote demonstrating precisely that is as playful as it is insightful, as stimulating as it is delightful. Through the jocular voice of Aesop’s Grasshopper, a “shiftless but thoughtful practitioner of applied entomology,” Suits not only argues that games can be meaningfully defined; he also suggests that playing games is a central part of the ideal of human existence, and so games belong at the heart of any vision of Utopia. This new edition of The Grasshopper includes illustrations from Frank Newfeld created for the book’s original publication, as well as an introduction by Thomas Hurka and a new appendix on the meaning of ‘play.’

Episode 2: Six reasons board games are spiritual

Daniel Hilty & Kevin Taylor — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 14:00:00 -0400

Daniel & Kevin have … a list show! We trade our top 3 ways that board games can be spiritual and authentically human. Our lists are different, but not completely, and then there's a bonus round for a bit of hilarity. Let's hear it for new board game burps. (Also, the game Kevin cannot think of during the podcast is This War of Mine.) Many thanks to Eljiah Hilty for our theme music.

Episode 1: Initial Thoughts

Daniel Hilty & Kevin Taylor — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 20:00:00 -0500

To what extent does entering the magic circle of a game, where humans play games and temporarily care about bits and bobs, define our humanity? How do games impact people of religious faith?