| A Few Days Ago, Moving In... |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|06:36 pm] |
Me: So the board games go in this room here, and the electronics go in that room down the hall.
Moving Guy: And that's all you have! |
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| Today at work |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
Me: Wait, what are we arguing about?
Co-worker: We're not arguing.
Me: We're not?
Co-worker: No, we're just having a discussion
Me: Oh, I assumed we were arguing because we were talking. |
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| Domestic Ontology |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|08:32 pm] |
So, my new house will have an entire room devoted to game storage. I had intended to call this room the "ludary," but ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) treiza complains that this sounds too much like "lewd area." So we were coming up other ideas, such as "jeuthèque" and "jeudrome." Anyone have any suggestions? |
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| Adventures in Packing |
[Oct. 1st, 2009|11:46 pm] |
On the left, a bunch of empty game boxes. On the right, all of the games that go into those boxes, packed into a 32L storage container. |
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| Random GMing tip |
[Aug. 17th, 2009|10:59 am] |
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Spam is a good source of modern-day character names. I particularly like the Spam Quarantine messages MIT sends me on a regular basis. |
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| World of AgilityCraft |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|12:41 am] |
A couple weekends ago I observed a dog agility trial for the first time, at the Topsfield fairgrounds. Mom and Charlie (her welsh terrier) had three "Q's," (qualifying scores) out of six runs, including a blue ribbon in his first ever Excellent "A" Jumpers run.
It was an amusing scene to watch. Everyone had their requisite gear: sun-shade tents, folding camping chairs, exercise pens. They spoke a common jargon dialect and work T-shirts with pithy, dog-loving slogans. In other words, it was just like a gaming convention in an alternate dimension.
The strangest sight to outsider eyes was the part where the dog owners "walk the course"—sans dog—to get a feel for the flow and tactics of the course. When all these people walk around the ring in roughly the same pattern but different speeds, gesturing and signaling their invisible dogs, the scene comes to resemble a kind of demented folk dance.
Of particular interest was the Organized Play structure. Owner and dog start at the novice level, and "levels up" over the course of many events. And while ribbons for first and second place are always desirable, any run that "Q's" (i.e. avoids disqualification) accrues progress towards the next level; advancing in level is largely a "PvE" experience. The disqualification rate is quite high, even at the highest skill levels. In Charlie's first "Excellent A" run, he was the only dog of any size to qualify.
Given the sport's popularity with, well, old ladies, I find the high failure rate to be somewhat surprising. Conventional game developer wisdom would suggest such a casual audience wouldn't like losing. Of course, this audience, with its tents and T-shirts, is hardly casual. It seems likely that the failure rate is linked to the level progression. The high failure rate not only makes successes precious, but also rewards player skill by allowing the more skillful players to progress more quickly. |
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| Fun Game For Two |
[May. 27th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
The game state is a string of bits, which starts empty.
Two players alternate turns.
On your turn you may add either a zero or a one to the end of the string.
After your turn, if the string represents a universal turing machine program that does not halt, you lose. |
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| More Notes from Kubla Con |
[May. 25th, 2009|12:58 am] |
Not as much Kublaconning today, what with all the time spent eating yummy chinese buffet in honor countertorque's little one's 100/365th birthday.
Played in another Magic draft (Shards of Alara block). <jargon>
First pick Tezzeret, second pick Sanctum Gargoyle. Got passed many juicy artifacts including a fourth-pick Tower Gargoyle. Cracked a Martial Coup in the second pack. As per usual, I ended up going 2-1, with my one loss being to a guy who finished in the money. The guy I lost to was the other Esper guy in my pod. </jargon>
Played Titan with a random stranger. Took a stupid risk early and sent myself on a 3-hour death spiral.
Spent my 20 Kubla Bucks on the Ticket to Ride card game
Played the ritual midnight game of Carabande.
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| Notes from Kubla Con |
[May. 24th, 2009|02:13 am] |
- I got drafted into playing some Death-Race-2000-esque miniatures game, where one's weapon-enhanced car hurtles down the road scoring points for mowing down pedestrians, and other racers. My vehicle, the Rambulance, was victorious.
- I played Galaxy Trucker for the first time, and quite enjoyed it. In many ways it is both the game that Starfarers of Catan should have been and the game that Space Dealer should have been. Although upon reflection I wonder if it would be better as a video game. I'll probably buy it.
- I played Agricola using "booster draft" rules for picking your starting hand of occupations and improvements, and was pretty solidly trounced, although I did manage to squeak out second-to-last place. The winning player had a tableau that looked like he was already done playing Agricola and was on to the sequel. I don't think I've ever seen a six-room stone house before.
- Played in a Lorwyn/Morningtide/Shadowmoor draft (that's Magic: the Gathering for those who don't know) and finished middle of the road. I'm pretty sure I would have placed if my one match loss had gone to three games.
I did get to run Power of Fire with Leech Bonder and Pila-Pala. It was combolicious.
- The dealer's room has a company showing off heirloom-quality gaming tables for your home. You can see them at www.geekchichq.com. Kind of the wrong year to be trying to sell that stuff to people.
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| New Family Business. |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|04:20 pm] |
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treiza and I were at the game store, and noticed that there's a new version of Family Business, where the cards actually say what they do. |
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| I don't get it: Is waterfall back? |
[Mar. 11th, 2009|12:09 pm] |
I've been seeing a rash of resumes from software developers bragging about their extensive experience with the waterfall model. Wasn't waterfall deemed to be backward and antiquated 20 years ago? I'm pretty sure I saw one resume from a kid who did a student project using waterfall. What school would teach that garbage?
Is waterfall back? Is the segment of the industry that uses it bigger than I think? What's the deal? |
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