The life and times of a fallen hacker
Archive for the ‘board games’ Category.
Puerto Rico’s long reign on top of the boardgamegeek’s ranking is now a thing of the past.
Agricola has taken the pole position. And while the game seems to be sold out from the local dealer, it definitely looks like something to check out.
Had my first ever bingo (using all the seven letters off the rack) in Wordscraper on facebook. As the game doesn’t yet offer blanks, this was all done using the lettered tiles. Sadly the word was “GASOLINE”, using only low-scoring tiles, which meant that the resulting score was not obscenely high.
The image is off icanhascheezburger.com, the premier provider of lolcats.
As the wikipedia page reads:
As of 22 August 2008, the application has been blocked to the rest of the world.
That is, the facebook version has now been effectively torn down.
There’s always wordscraper. It has a couple of shortcomings (lack of blank tiles for example), but it’s pretty much the only real replacement available.
Scrabble by allyrose18 (CC)
I’m now a scarred veteran of about two dozen games of Scrabulous on facebook.
And I’ve got to say that I’m still impressed by the service, right now running somewhere around 37 million games hosted.
The shortcomings I’ve found are mainly on the game itself, and not its electronic implementation.
Scrabble lends itself to many kinds of abuse. Perhaps the worst of which is the incoherent dictionary used to qualify words - why is a quality word like “SAXON” not valid, but extremely obscure words from foreign languages (like “TALOOKA”) pass with flying colors. Another abuse is the constant reliance (according to statistics provided in Word Freak, these account for 75% of words used) on two-letter words alongside the actuals, most of which have no real meaning beyond the dictionary (yeah, I’m looking at you “ZA” - no way anybody uses that for an abbreviation of a pizza).
So most of all the game should include a method to customize the dictionary - in a game without any AI this would consist of just limiting the lookups, nothing more.
But to traditionalists this might be enough to justify calling it a different game altogether. The team behind Scrabulous has been quite receptive on ideas for improvment (including a rewind-tool for checking out game progress), so the worst that can happen to the idea is a firm “NO”.
Wildwords takes several steps to combat these cons in the game, and it does sound like an interesting alternative. Now if only there was a decent electronic implementation available… The current offering seems to be somewhat Web 0.97, but that could be easily rectified by some enterprising developer. The game itself looks self-published, but that’s definitely not a deterrent, and neither is the price, especially considering the cheap dollar.
No bingoes thus far in the games, and the highest score per word is still somewhere around 70 points.
Anybody looking for a challenge is welcome to kick off a game.
Kill Doctor Lucky was the first Cheapass game that I ever bought.
And was very happy with it. After all, it cost next to nothing, and dispensed with expensive components completely. The company philosophy was that houses are packed with tokens and dice, there’s no need to supply extra in every single game.
The game itself was on the simple side, and concentrates on what happened just before the start of a Cluedo game. The aim is to just off the Doctor without any of the other players witnessing the act. It’s a perfect beer & pretzels game - the inherent randomness of the game (success and failure in precision-level murder depends on cards dealt to players) ensures that no two rounds are alike.
The game was a big hit for the company, and they brought out a director’s cut of it in 2002. And yes, the director’s cut does include a commentary track in addition to a second board and rules variants.
Spotted an even newer version of the game the other week - and it has now evolved into a proper boardgame, courtesy of Titanic Games. The irony of having a mounted board and nifty pawns at a much greater expense is probably not lost on the fans of the original.
Click. Click. Click.
Some recent gaming-related links and products that look worthy of a click or even a purchase.
Days of Wonder’s Ticket to Ride has turned into a decent franchise - having spawned both expansions and spinoffs in the two years following its victory in the annual Spiel des Jahres contest.
In addition to the official expansions, lots of enterprising folks have taken up the challenge to design additional boards for the game.
The newest entry is a map of Finland, done using the pre-WW2 borders (so there is actually something to do in the eastern parts of the country).
The second christmas party of the weekend. This one with a czech theme. Meaning that the food was sausage-y, and the beers either hopsy or caramel-sweet.
The Keskiviikon Keisarit tradition of rookies beating veterans in board games continued - got trounced in Munchkin.
Dunwich Horror, the second expansion to Arkham Horror, is out and available in shops.
Seems that my living room table is too small to accommodate the two towns, as the expansion adds a two-panel board to the already big need for space.
Thus far the Wednesday Emperors have beaten the Great Old Ones 3-0, but the expansions supposedly turn up the difficulty of the game.
Visited Ropecon, the annual finnish gaming convention, for the first time in four or so years. I’m guessing at the interval, it sure has been a while - and previous few years’ cons have been missed due to being abroad or lazy.
First impression upon arrival in Dipoli was of disbelief: “what am I actually doing among these kids”. Kids that have either dressed up, dressed down, ingested far too much sugar or are lethargic to the point of catatonia. A brief trip on the very shallow sales floor didn’t really much improve matters (though the first sighting of Ptolus confirmed that it is indeed a humongous tome). Figured that following the official program would be a better bet than roaming the halls.
The first of the guests of honor to speak was Bruno Faidutti, a french boardgame designer. The topic was the distinction of theme and mechanics in the games. A good talk, peppered with references to well-known games as well as to Faidutti’s own output (which is pretty much a blank slate for me, have played only Warrior Knights). The boardgame industry seems to be in decent shape, and the publishers have slightly retreated from the “all games must be easy”-stance - and true gamers’ games (such as Twilight Imperium) occasionally show up. The american (theme first) and german (mechanics optimized) schools are mixing up - and the market is bristling with interesting offerings. Mr. Faidutti didn’t much like online (”for me gaming is a social event”) or co-operative games (”they are so hard to balance, since the players do not play each other”). A long interactive session followed the presentation, and I think I have to take a serious look at his Mystery of the Abbey, a dedcuction game in the style of Name of the Rose.
Kenneth Hite was the guest of honor I chose the friday to show up in the con. A prolific author who has written more ideas about alternate history and conspiracies than pretty much anyone. He first gave a “state of the industry”-style speech (like his annual Out of the Box-post about the topic). And the state is bleak, very bleak - substandard books and a needlessly complex three (or even four) tier system are sapping the profits. And most companies are clueless to see the writing on the wall, and especially to react to it. Massmarket sales in bookstores are one way to increase the volumes - but only very few companies attempt to gain a foothold in, say, Borders. The future lies in two directions: PDF and small press. PDF because the sales can be controlled, without any inventory out in the field, and because the middlemen are eliminated from the equation. Small presses fill niches, and fill them in a way in which they know their customers and play to them as the customers want, and do not attempt to court the wider market.
Favorite games were discussed at length. Call of Cthulhu’s position at the very pinnacle is not threatened by anyone - and an appropriate comparison to old western movies was spot on. The #2 spot is held by Unknown Armies and Over the Edge, both games that have simple rules and a complex milieu in which to act. Lots of other games (and individual supplements) were named to be of rabidly good quality - both from massmarket publishers as well as some of the independents. My poor AMEX is going to scream soon, the tips will be put to good use.
Mr. Hite was quite simply one of the best speakers I’ve had the pleasure to listen to in ages. Precision-aimed sentences at the hobby were a good beginning, but when the delivery was drily witty and completely deadpan, I was sold. And the skill of deprecating himself and the audience was impressive. After all, in most circumstances repeated statements to the fact that the people on the other side of the stage were “basement-dwelling bozos” wouldn’t have gone down so well. But Hite, having been one of them just made himself more available to the audience. And availability was indeed made good use of, in another lengthy Q&A-session. The two statements (heavily paraphrased) that crystallize the event: “the industry may be dying commercially, but the hobby itself if flourishing” - to cap the state of the union-part, “do not be disturbing weirdos” - on how to attract more players (especially women).
Hite’s questions-n’-answers was curtailed by the arrival of the next speakers. The session turned out to be a game, not a description of the jeepform. A massivish LARP-ish game whose topic was a dating show on stage. Watched for fifteen minutes and decided that I wasn’t really into it (being a card-carrying member of reality-tv haters club) and sneaked out.
Noted that the new school boardgames have indeed been assimilated into Finland. The local publishers, led by eponymous Lautapelit have pumped a lot of these games into the market, and the flow shows no indication of slowing down. Of course, it’s not just German games that are showing up, but boardgames in general - they seem to be undergoing a renaissance even in the states.
The classic Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan led the assault, naturally published locally years after the original editions, but lately the pace has been turned up by several notches. The extremely well-recived Caylus arrives almost instantly when it starts picking up positive reviews. And the publication schedule of lautapelit has a bunch of interesting entries slotted for spring: Oltre Mare, the reigning king of games: Puerto Rico, and a few more expansions for Carcassonne.
The games have been well-received, with positive reviews for both Carcassonne and Through the Desert in hesari, and the games have been sighted in bars - supplementing the usual Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly being offered for customers.
Things that have impressed or stupefied this week. Entirely Sony Rootkit-free, that subject has been discussed and dissed to the death already.
Ok, so it’s NOT rootkit free, but this image is way too clever to miss out on. Sue me.
A random selection of things that have tickled my fancy one way or the other.
While the age of micropayments has not yet arrived, interesting payment models continue to surface.
A recent concept is the use of ransom model. In it a sum is named by the author (around the expected costs to generate the product), and contributions are calculated (with money kept in escrow) until the sum is reached. At that point the product is released for free (under an appropriate license, of course). If the target is not reached within a specified period, the funds contributed thus far are returned.
So what this really means is that the model is actually patronage in a distributed form. Where the distributed part effectively removes “you’ve got to be this wealthy to take this ride”-requirement, now anyone can contribute.
Meatbot Massacre by Greg Stolze was the first ransomed product that I know of. Was aware, wasn’t interested (it’s a “tactical miniatures game”), haven’t even looked at the final product.
However, with the arrival of Greg’s second ransomed game: …in spaaace!, the model saw a lot of discussion in the rpg.net fora, and Dennis Detwiller jumped into the game. Indeed, Dennis Detwiller, apparently the sole remaining Pagan Publishing guy. And he promptly kicked off not one, but two projects - both related to Delta Green, still one of my favorite shared halluc^W^W game universes. So from my perspective this looks to be a very interesting development indeed.
fundable.org seems to be the biggest player of the game, but by no means very big at all yet.
And for added value, NPR interviewed Greg Stolze (though there’s not much more exposure in the interview).
And gaming isn’t the only niche for ransom-model, as it’s used by at least one novelist as well. And there’s been funds and drives in the software industry. Probably the most famous was held for blender in 2002 to raise no less than 100000 euros.
There’s no wikipedia article on the topic yet. And in my quite sleep-deprived current state, I’m definitely not going to start one now.
Travel fair was OK. Picked up a bunch of brochures. And bought a quarter of a pound of reindeer salami from the domestic travel department.
Finally purchased Ministry’s Psalm 69, which has been conspicuously absent from collection. Too bad it contains the shorter version of the classic Jesus Built My Hotrod-song, but fortunately I’ve
got it in its full eight minute glory on a cd-single. Maybe should get House of the Mole ASAP as well, since Jourgensen & company seem to produce their angriest work when working within the confines of a
Bush-administration. Also bought the new Apocalyptica, based on the strength of their gig on monday. At least two versions out of the latter - got the one with “three” extra songs.
And the third book (actually split into two volumes) of George Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice: a Storm of Swords. This is an excellent (and mature) fantasy series, whose quality just runs circles around the by-the-numbers efforts by the likes of Eddings and Jordan. Got the first two books in finnish translation (by Kirjava, a tiny publishing company), and figured that it’ll be a while before this 1000+ page monster sees the light of day translated. So far the finnish editions have been excellent (some inconsistency in names, but that’s a minor gripe), and I sure hope the company flourishes - thus far the critical reception’s been good, but you never know how that correlates with sales.
Couldn’t hold off picking up the remaining two add-ons to Carcassonne. The Inns & Cathedrals seems to be a simple addition, but the other, Traders & Builders significantly adds to the complexity of the game. The small expansion King has already been rolled in, and won me a game handily. The newest, the Count also seems to be a significant addition, and thus far has been held off from inclusion. Grapevine reports that the basic game gets boring after a while, these additions should stem the tide of boredom for a long time.
Noticed that SchizoBlog, too, has opened a side-blog, on games. Decent links, go and have a peep.
Noted that I really like Altoids, which do not seem to be on sale in Finland. Have to look for a bunch of tins (real metal, no wussy cardboard boxes, please) the next stateside trip. Perhaps there’s an unofficial, grey-import, supply (like with Vanilla Coke and other thus far unintroduced sodas), but haven’t run into the distinctive boxes yet.
EDIT 18.8.2008: More non-functional links.
Spent three days in snowed-in Vapaala (the term is used very loosely, but at least the ground was white).
Ate a lot. Ham, turkey, buns, gingerbread, smoked salmon, pickled herring, mustard, dried cranberries. The usual. And some of the unusual as well.
Took a long sauna. Chilled out with my sister’s cats. Took some pictures, but wind and long exposures in the dark no not bode well for the pictures of lanterns. Picked up magazines left unread for too
long. Noted that we have at least one extra Corydoras gossei (goldhead cory) in the aquarium - a chance spawning seems to be the most credible explanation.
Read the new book by Ilkka Remes. Gate to Hiroshima gets off on a tangent a couple of times during the story (a very sudden X-files turn is jarring, but explained decently), but manages to remain readable and entertaining most of the while. So, a decent techno-thriller, and of such zeitgeisty-topics that a movie-deal or a tv mini-series would not be out of the question - the tale twists and turns in a fashion that would suit 24 pretty well. Apart from the let’s
remain in L.A. for the duration part. The third season of 24 begins in a week, supposedly on tuesdays.
Read Harri Nykänen’s new book as well. Ariel mixes the laconic Helsinki underworld so familiar from the six-book Raid-continuum with international politics and specifically the touchy israel/arabs-question. And keeps the mixture fresh enough to hook readers from page one. Good show, good enough that a sequel might not be out of the question.
Played a couple of games of Carcassonne (a review in finnish), the first game translated by the enterprising lautapelit.fi
folks. And jolly good fun it was, too. Played with my parents, who’ve never been exposed to modern board games, and the game was indeed a success. More games to follow, more small towns in southern France to found.
