full

Re-issue of the Chaim Gingold (Earth Primer, Spore) segment from Ep1

In celebration of the release of a Mac version of the award-winning app Earth Primer — a science book for playful people — I thought it'd be nice to dig out the segment I did with its creator, Chaim Gingold, back in episode 1, and clean it up for re-release (with a brief update on Chaim's current situation and a note about Earth Primer's Mac release thrown in there as well).

Chaim was at the time a PhD student at the University of California Santa Cruz and researcher at the Communications Design Group. He was writing his thesis on play design, which he's now finished (and is looking for a job). He's best-known for developing the Creature Creator for Maxis' SimEverything game Spore, and more recently for his Earth Primer iPad (and now also Mac) app.

Earth Primer purchase links:

For more info, you can also head to earthprimer.com.

Support Ludiphilia

About the Podcast

Show artwork for Ludiphilia
Ludiphilia
A narrative podcast about how and why people play

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for Richard Moss

Richard Moss

Besides being the creator of Ludiphilia and its award-nominated sister show The Life & Times of Video Games, I'm an award-winning writer, historian, and journalist who has covered technology, games, and science for over a decade. My work has been published in Ars Technica, Polygon, Game Developer, PC Gamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, New Atlas, EGM, Mac|Life, and many other publications.

I am also the author of two books (with more to come!) — The Secret History of Mac Gaming and Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet — and a producer on the upcoming CREATORVC documentary First Person Shooter.