Jonathan Stark's Social Experiment

This isn't about games, but it's a good story that's certainly going viral. App developer and author Jonathan Stark has made his Starbuck's card publicly available. Here it is:

Just save the picture to your phone, run it under the barcode scanner, and if there's any money in the account, then someone else has just bought you a cup of really bad coffee. (I detest the flavor of Starbucks.)

You can check the card's current account balance via Twitter.

Stark also posts directions on how to place money back on the card, for people who want to buy someone else a cup of coffee. 

As social experiments go, it's kind of fascinating. A glance at the Twitter feed shows the card running out and then filling up again. In the midst of complete economic collapse, it's heartening to know that someone is willing to buy a stranger a cup of coffee.

Historically, America has always been an absurdly generous nation. I like to imagine that this quality will save us when our governing and financial systems finally break down; that we will band together in charity and support rather than turning on each other in fear and anger.

"When the chips are down," the Joker says in The Dark Knight, "these 'civilized' people will eat each other." That certainly seems to be what's happening in England right now. Are we any better? I like to think so. Maybe Stark's small experiment is a little glimmer of light.

1979: A Game About the Iranian Revolution

Before leaving to found his own company, Navid Khonsari was one of the people who gave Rockstar's games, such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Revolver, their cinematic feel. After producing critically acclaimed titles like Alan Wake and Homefront, the Iranian-born director and producer is turning his attention to the Islamic revolution that drove his family from their homeland.

In 1979, Khonsari is tackling the events surrounding he deposing of the Shah, the rise of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and the hostage crisis. He's well aware of the controversial nature of the project:

Iranians are going to criticize me because I'm making a game that 'promotes American imperialists going in and shooting Iranians'. Americans are going to criticize me because I'm making a game that 'glorifies Islamic fundamentalism,' or something. I'm not going to please everyone, and the point of the game isn't to do that. 

I think that being able to base a game in contemporary historical truths is significant, besides being educational. It opens people's eyes to look beyond what they're reading in the paper and realize that there's a definite relationship between history and the headlines.

Read the whole thing.

A Psychiatrist Tries to Understand Angry Birds

Okay, this is my absolutely last Angry Birds post for this week. Dr. Dinah Miller is trying to figure out why people are hooked on this game. Help her out. While you're at it, maybe you could give me a clue. I liked Angry Birds fine when it was called Crush the Castle, and I like the art, but I've just never spent all that much time with it.

London Riots Blamed On...

... Grand Theft Auto?

Kotaku spotted this quote from a constable, buried in a story in the London Evening Standard:

These are bad people who did this. Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.

Ah ... no. Look, I detest the content of Grand Theft Auto, but this is just absurd. Generations of class warfare rhetoric, a culture of entitlement and dependency, and the erosion of a distinct British character in favor of the vague promises of "multiculturalism" is at the root of these problems, not some game. When you listen to these two stupid girls brag about their crimes, you have all the explanation you need for the nightmare engulfing England. The British made it through the Blitz because they believed in their nation and the importance of sacrifice and honor, and then raised a generation that derided these things.

On the other hand: yay, boardgames and Pac-Man! You both get the English Police Constable Vote.

These Birds Aren't Angry, Just Mad

Sorry for the light posting, folks, but my publisher moved up the print date for the Games 100, and there hasn't been much time left over for the blog.

In the meantime, I leave you with the surest sign that Angry Birds have entered the pop culture pantheon: a MAD magazine cover.

The full cover is here (mild language warning). 

App O' The Mornin': Cut the Rope: Experiments

Grade: A

Price: $1

Cut the Rope is one of the few games to challenge the dominance of Angry Birds in the hearts and devices of app gamers. Cute, clever, and insanely addictive, it combines a wonderful puzzle mechanic with an appealing visual style to make a knock-out game.

Cut the Rope is one of those rare games where the title is also the instruction manual. In a series of single-screen puzzles, hanging objects function like pendulums. You need to cut the ropes at precisely the right time and in exactly the right sequence to get the object where it needs to go.

In this case, the problem is how to get a piece of candy into the mouth of a voracious (yet adorable) little monster named Om Nom. Each puzzle has three stars and a piece of candy.  Cut the rope with a finger swipe, and the candy collects the stars as it drops into Om Nom's mouth. It's fairly easy to get the candy into the monster's mouth, but to get it there while collecting all three stars can be incredibly challenging.

The original game came with 4 sets of 25 puzzles each, and more sets were released with updates and holiday packs. In the first full-blown sequel--Cut the Rope: Experiments--the initial set of puzzles functions as a recap of the entire first game.  All of the many puzzle elements are re-introduced: balloons, whoopee cushions, spiders, rubber bands, ropes, and so on. 

There are only two other puzzle sets: "Shooting the Candy" and "Sticky Steps"--for a total of 75 puzzles. This is fewer than the original, but updates are promised.

The new gameplay elements are certain to appeal to CtR Fans. The targeting button shoots a rope to the candy as it swings. This rope can be of various lengths depending upon how far away the candy is when you fire. If the candy is swinging close to the rope shooter, the rope is short; if it's further away, the rope is longer. 

The other new element is the suction cup. Tap this cup, and it comes loose from the "wall" of the puzzle and begins to drop. This allows you to reposition ropes, creating far more variables on each screen.

These new features are run through their paces in two sets of twenty-five puzzles each, creating complex variations of the familiar CtR gameplay. Lvels are of consistently high quality. The basic solution usually isn't all that hard, but earning 1, 2, and 3 stars can be brain-bendingly difficult. There are some I simply couldn't solve at the 3-star level no matter how many times I tried. That's a good thing: it means the game is still challenging, which keeps it interesting.

It is a bit disappointing to have only 75 puzzles and 2 new elements, but there's more than enough here to keep things fun and fresh, and the updates give you something to look forward to. Cut the Rope is one of the best puzzlers in mobile gaming, and Experiments only further cements its reputation.

Math Clocks

I just spotted these on Amazon. I particularly like the one on top.

Malfoy v. Potter in Scrabble Throwdown

Harry Potter actors Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) and Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) ended their decade-long on-screen rivalry with a cut-throat game of Scrabble. As Felton tells it, after the big wrap party for the final film,

There was an after, after party, if you will, and we had a few of the cast members there. Everyone was expecting us to be popping Cristal and all the rest of it but we actually played Scrabble until about two in the morning; Daniel [Radcliffe] and I got very heated at a game of Scrabble!

H/T Kim Vandenboucke at The Game Aisle 

The New Cut the Rope is Due ...

... tonight! It's called Cut the Rope: Experiments. TechCruch was able to squeeze a few meager facts out of the developers:

What on earth is Om Nom?! That’s what millions of fans of the widely acclaimed game, Cut the Rope, have been asking about the cute little monster who eats candy like its his job! That same question has a mad (but not bad) scientist studying the little creature that mysteriously arrived outside his house.

There's a teaser trailer up at TechCrunch, but it doesn't have any in-game footage. I think Cut the Rope's gameplay kicks Angry Birds in its feathery butt, so you better believe I'll be checking the app store around midnight. 

A Few Words About Cards and Cribbage

Jordan Wiklund did an interview with me at his site, Cribbageland. Don't forget to check out his event, Cribbage in the Field, if you're in the Minneapolis area. 

Deepak Chopra Makes Boring Game

Actually, I've only seen the trailer, but I believe it is metaphysically certain that a forthcoming game from contemptible New Age quack Deepak Chopra will be blindingly boring and spiritually nugatory. THQ spent a bundle last year to nail down the rights to the Chopra ouvre, and the first fruit of that deal is named Leela. (I thought she was still working for Planet Express.)

The game includes things like "Chakra-based meditations." These "task players with moving their bodies to control graphics onscreen set to a soothing soundtrack ... the root chakra exercise, for example, directs players to tilt their hips to seed a virtual planet." It seems to be a motion control thing aimed at the Wii and Xbox Kinect markets. I shall be waiting by my mailbox every day until it arrives.



Here's my favorite D-Pak moment:


Exit quote from Deepak: "Hope is a sign of despair." And people have made this fool a multi-millionaire for peddling this tripe.

Diablo 3 To Include In-Game Auctions With Real Money

Blizzard's upcoming Diablo 3 will include many of the social and economic feature that are already found in World of Warcraft, including trades with in-game gold. However, Joystick is reporting that the current beta also includes a kind of in-game eBay that will allow players to purchase items from other players for real money. Blizzard will take a commission on each sale, and the money will go into the seller's Blizzard account. It can be used to buy other items from Blizzard, or cashed out for actual money (for another fee, of course).

This is a whole new concept in monetizing gaming that could have fascinating ramifications. There have always been gold farmers in online games. Some estimates claim there are already 100,000 to 200,000 people who do this for a living, most of them living in China. By integrating this process, Blizzard a) increases the reliability of the exchanges, and b) increases their own profits. Win-win! With the real-world economy in a shambles, will it be possible for even more people to supplement their income by collecting and trading items within games?

App O' The Mornin': Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Grade: B

Price: $5

Although burdened with a cumbersome title, Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer scratches an itch many gamers didn’t even know they had, at least prior to the release of Dominion.

Ascension is a deck-building game created by a team of Magic: The Gathering tournament players. Originally publishes as a conventional tabletop game, it feels a bit like a mashup of Magic and Dominion. Players take turns building a deck by buying various cards. Most cards either generate Runes or Power. Runes allow you to buy more cards to add to your growing deck, while Power allows you to defeat monsters. Players earn honor points by defeating monsters, and the player with the most honor, wins.

Each turn, a player can draw five cards. At the center of the table is a line of cards which can either be purchased for your deck, or “banished” in order to keep another player from purchasing them. As your deck grows, you begin to search for cards in specific classes—Enlightened, Lifebound, Mechanic, or Void—since these work well together. By careful deck building and management, you can create a hand that allows you to buy and fight effectively, thus earning more honor and winning the game. There is a modest strategic element to the deck building, and the game has a quirky, appealing feel.

There is a load of data on the screen, which makes the layout a bit cramped on an iPhone/Touch screen. It functions well, however, and there are no accidental moves that can ruin a game. Gameplay is addictive, with clever card design and a diverse range of powers to draw upon. The AI didn’t impress me much, but fortunately the game has a multiplayer component with a matching service. The result is quite entertaining.

Struggle for Catan: Tutorial

There's a new interactive tutorial available to give you a taste of Struggle for Catan. Check it out.

Kenken: Sudoku With Math

Kenken is a Sudoku variant invented by Tetsuya Miyamoto as a way to teach math. Frankly, Sudoku bores me senseless, but I found the addition of math makes the puzzles much more interesting.

The game is played on grids ranging from 4x4 to 9x9, and the rules are as follows:

• Do not repeat a number in any row or column.
• The numbers in each heavily outlined set of squares, called cages, must combine (in any order) to produce the target number in the top corner of the cage using the mathematical operation indicated.
• Cages with just one box should be filled in with the target number in the top corner.
• A number can be repeated within a cage as long as it is not in the same row or column.

Short version: the numbers you place in the bold boxes need to yield the number in the corner by multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction. 

Here's a video with Will Shortz (former editor of Games Magazine) explaining how to play.You can find playable puzzles at Kenken.com.

Cribbage in the Field (Minneapolis Event)

I had an email from Jordan Wiklund, who writes about cribbage at Cribbageland, and is currently at work on a book of the same name. In collaboration with the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, Jordan is running Cribbage in the Field, a "free, family-friendly, all ages cribbage extravaganza."

The event will feature local artisans and their custom cribbage boards, plenty of boards and cards, open play, and even a 5-foot-tall peg from the man who "carved the world's largest board through the ice of a Minnesota Lake." There will also be prizes and raffles, including a one-of-kind custom cribbage board (shown at the right) that currently resides at the Walker.

Location: Walker Art Center, Open Field / 1750 Hennepin Avenue / Minneapolis, MN

Time: 10am - 2pm

Find more information at Facebook or Cribbageland 

Battleship: The Trailer of The Movie of The Game

Otherwise known as "What Transformers Hath Wrought". I thought Battleship might have made a decent period war movie, but that approach would have killed any chances for a toy line.

By my count Ridley Scott is ripping off three different Michael Bay movies (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, and Transformers) in this trailer. Let me say that again: Ridley Scott (the man responsible for Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, etc.) is ripping off Michael Bay (the man responsible for the Worst Use of an Animal Cracker in Cinematic History, among other offenses).

There are no battleships left in any Navy in the world, so this movie makes about as much sense as fat-free half-and-half.

Consoles Now Only 40% Of the Videogame Market Says ...

... the CEO of Electronic Arts, John Riccitiello. It used to be 80%. In an interview with Industry Gamers, the big boss of the biggest game company on the planet says that iPad is their fastest growing market, the Wii U is just fine, and people need to basically get a grip on the seismic changes in the electronic entertainment industry:

We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago. So the idea that we’re categorizing the industry as being [cyclical]... Nintendo is off cycle with what? I mean, the point of reference is gone. And so Nintendo is bringing out a new platform that brings together some of what we’re learning from new media and new platforms like the iPad and then integrating that with a console. It’s the perfect time for that in the industry."

As I've been saying. Somehow videogame analysts got locked into this idea of cyclical hardware updates (PSX, PS2, PS3, etc..., every 6 years) driven by a demand for more processing power. Nintendo blew the second half of that equation out of the water with the under-powered Wii, and they're about to blow the first half out of the water with the "off-cycle" Wii U.

I'll say it again: the old patterns are dying. The next dinosaur to get a comet upside the head is the militaristic FPS genre. If Activision thinks they can spin Call of Duty sequels out to infinity, they're in for a rude awakening. I'm in the process of surveying the entire electronic industry for the Games 100, and I can tell you without hesitation that the only consistently creative and innovative platform is mobile gaming.

Rory’s Story Cubes

Rory’s Story Cubes (GameWright, $8) is not so much a game is it is a “creative story generator.” Designed by Irishman Rory O'Connor as a tool for tapping creativity, this compact package delivers a lot of fun in either solo or group play.

There are nine dice in a box a little larger than a deck of cards. These 9 dice offer a total of 54 faces, and each face displays a different icon: apple, fish, lock, rainbow, house, lightening bolt, and so on. Players roll all the dice at once, and then choose a starting image. They begin with “Once upon a time” or some similar opening, and then use that image to begin a story that will weave together all of the face-up images.

Here’s one example from a 10-year-old I found living in my house. She rolled sad face, magic wand, tree, fire, cane, arrow, flashlight, compass points, and magnifying glass, and came up with this (with apologies to JK Rowling). 

There once was a wizard who was very unhappy. His name was Harry Potter. Harry’s magic wand made of pine tree bark had burned in a wizard duel with Draco Malfoy! He was forced to use a cane and when it broke he had to use an arrow! When he went home it was dark and since he couldn’t cast Lumos, he used a flashlight. (This is very unusual for a wizard.) When he got home he found all of his belongings spread in all directions! He used a magnifying glass and found Draco’s fingerprints! Draco was sent to Azkaban and was never seen again.

The genius of the design is its simplicity and flexibility. People can collaborate on stories, select themes, or just play alone. Both kids and adults—solo, or with a family or even in a party setting—can all enjoy it. Home-schoolers in particular might find it a useful tool for jump-starting the brain before a day of a work.

App O' The Mornin': Candy Train

Rating: A

Price: Free

Sometimes, the quality of a game is measured by the degree of frustration it can create while still drawing you back to play. During my first half hour with Candy Train (PopCap, free), I could punched my finger straight through my Touch at least once per minute. It has that maddening frustration that can only come with cute and colorful games, as though their childlike qualities mock your inability to play them successfully.

Candy Train is a remake of an old Java title that was still floating around on the internet until recently. (I can't find a current version, so it's probably been removed to keep attention on the mobile port.) It is insanely addictive, perhaps because you always seem so close to getting it juuuust right, moments before you fail completely. This is really just a train pathing game with a tile-switching mechanic, but it’s one of the most appealing free puzzlers to appear on the iOS format this year.

The game is played on an 8x8 grid comprised of tiles representing different track configurations. There are curves, double curves, straightaways, and crossings. Tiles are turned by tapping, thus reorienting the track configuration. In this way, you create a path for the train to follow as it collects points and gathers new cars filled with candy and other treats. If your tracks don’t connect, the train crashes and the game ends.

After all the cars on a map are collected, you attach a caboose and steer the train to the switching point for the next level, where you begin again with more cars. Aside from changing the train speed from slow to fast, there are no other controls.

The normal mode is tough enough, but the expert mode is maddening (in a good way). This is a tricky game to get into, but great fun once you start to master it.