Ludology 319 How to Earn Your Badge

·1 hr 6 min·5 clips

David Mullich, a 45-year video game veteran, explains how he adapted Harlan Ellison's 'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream' into a game.

The episode begins with hosts Sanfong Lim and Erika Bojuras introducing guest David Mullich, who summarizes his 45-year career in video games, including titles like The Prisoner, DuckTales, and Heroes of Might and Magic. Mullich explains that the Boy Scouts Game Design Merit Badge was initiated by Tom Miller and David Radu, who approached the Boy Scouts with the idea. The approval process took four years, involving committees and ensuring the badge differed from existing ones. Mullich joined a team of experts to develop the badge's requirements, focusing on teaching scouts game design fundamentals. The badge requires scouts to analyze four games from different mediums, define game design terms, and understand intellectual property like copyright and trademarks. Scouts must also modify an existing game's rules, predict outcomes, and observe player reactions. The core project involves designing a new game, creating a prototype, and conducting multiple playtests, including a blind test. Mullich discusses his teaching roles at institutions like ArtCenter College of Design and Otis College of Art and Design. He shares anecdotes about the lasting impact of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, including its popularity in Eastern Europe and how it helped a Ukrainian journalist during war. The episode includes a lightning round where Mullich talks about his love for Tolkien's works, his varied drink preferences, and his early game design pitch that resembled Civilization. He also reveals his online persona, Ankelegon the Black, related to his Tolkien fandom. The conversation concludes with Mullich's contact information and thanks to patrons.

As heard by us

A veteran designer uses a scout badge project to show how rules, testing, and observation shape play.

Ludology 319 uses a scout badge project to make game design feel unusually concrete. David Mullich's career gives the episode its range, from The Prisoner adventure game in 1979 to DuckTales for the Nintendo Entertainment System at Disney, Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I…

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Press play when you want to see a game-design badge assignment turn rule changes into evidence about player experience.

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