Games Magazine Goes Digital

Sorry for the radio silence this last week, but we had back-to-back medical crises, and I'm still getting caught up.

In the meantime, there's news from the world of Games Magazine. We've gone digital! You can buy a subscription or a sample issue at Zinio. If you click on the image, you can preview a few pages. It works on computers and most mobile devices.

The Diablo is in the Details

New column at Maximum PC. Excerpt:

Online communities need an outrageous outrage every once in a while to give the forum jockeys some opportunity to vent. The latest tempest in an A-cup is Blizzard's decision to give Diablo III an "always online" DRM system, meaning you need a live Internet connection to play the game. People were reacting to this with the kind of disbelief, betrayal, and fury usually reserved for something like Neville Chamberlain signing away Czechoslovakia.

You cannot fathom my indifference to this issue. I play everything on Steam, and my connection is always on. Yes, I know I am fortunate and that some people have bad (or no) internet connections. They're already missing out on all kinds of great things like cute puppy videos and an uninterrupted Twitter streams, so they must be used to the poignant sting of disappointment by now. I don't know why "always on" DRM for Diablo III should really wreck their day. It's not like there's really a shortage of ways to waste your time in the modern world.

Complaints against the column seem to come down to 1) the industry totally exaggerates piracy losses, and it's really no big deal (which explains why they spend millions on loss prevention), or 2) I totally don't mention mods (which I totally don't mention not because I forgot or was covering up for Blizzard, but because I really, truly don't care), or 3) I've been bought off by Blizzard (in which case my check is way overdue).

I've got the Diablo III beta all loaded up and ready go, but I haven't been able to spend any time on it thanks to a) the flu (in case I haven't told you, immunosuppressants really suck), and b) Space Marine, which I need to write up this week. (Advance tip: DO NOT play Space Marine on PC. It's a mess.)

So, if you want kvetch, go on over to the Max PC forums. They love that stuff.

Mad Science Fold-ins

This is a draft of a story I'm working on for Games.

There are things artificial intelligence just can’t do, and protein folding is one of them. That’s why Fold.it and other resources are drawing on the puzzle-solving skills of a network of gamers to solve complex problems in protein folding. It’s an approach that is finally yielding its first concrete results.

To understand the nature of this challenge you need to understand a bit of biology. Proteins perform the vital tasks necessary for any living object, be it a human being or a plant. They carry oxygen, transport nutrients, power muscles, and speed up chemical reactions. They do all the work that keep organisms alive and functioning.

Each protein is a chain of linked amino acids. There are twenty different kinds of amino acid, with each defined by its particular combination and arrangement of carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms. These atoms come together in an unbranching chain to create a protein. Each main chain functions like a backbone, while each amino acid also has some dangling atoms, which form side chains.

These chains don’t like to just hang about in a single line. They tend to compress into a blob through a process of “folding.” The aminos for each different type of protein fold into the exact same configuration every time. Some amino acids are kept on the inside of the folded protein, while others remain on the outside. Some amino acids need to be near a particular type of amino, while others need to be kept apart. Each protein assumes the most efficient folded shape possible. When proteins fail to form correctly they can’t do their job, resulting in diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, and HIV/AIDS.

Proteins can assume incredibly complex structures. A simple one may have a chain of a hundred amino acids, while a complex one may have a thousand. Each amino has to find its place in a correctly-folded chain in order to work. Untangling this knot has proven difficult for computers. Folded proteins are three-dimensional objects, and the number of potential variables is so high that computers are simply inefficient or ineffective.

Humans, however, have an innate, almost mysterious, intuition for pattern recognition and puzzle solving. A computer can only run through every variable, evaluate them all, and try to choose the best one. Puzzle-solving humans don’t do this. We don’t run through every possible version of a puzzle to solve it. We use observation, deduction, intuition, and spatial reasoning skills to evaluate the puzzle, then attempt to find the solution. It’s a vastly more efficient method of problem solving.

The University of Washington’s Center for Game Science decided to tap that power by creating Fold.it, a free game that challenges people to fold protein chains into the most efficient possible shapes. The game begins as a serious of tutorials to introduce the tools and the concepts for protein folding. Each puzzle consists of a 3D representation of a known protein.

The goal is threefold. First, you need pack the protein folds as tightly as possible to eliminate any gaps. Some aminos need to be touching water (hydrophilic) and some need to be protected from water by other aminos (hydrophobic). Thus, the second goal is to place the hydrophilic/hydrophobic aminos in their proper place. Finally, you need to eliminate the “clashes,” which are the places where aminos occupy the same space, or are merely too close together.

The first goal of Fold.it was to see if humans could properly solve protein folding problems. The proof-of-concept trials went well, so Fold.it presented puzzles that were challenging the current automated folding software. People could compete, alone or in teams, for “high scores” by folding proteins in the most efficient manner.

Fold.it had its genesis as an experiment in distributed computing, with people volunteering their computers to aid in the complex calculations needed for protein modeling. The participants would see a screen saver that showed the progress of the automated models, but those watching the screen quickly noticed that the automated modeling was not efficient. That’s when the team created Fold.it to allow people to modify the protein models themselves.

The breakthrough came when the gamers were presented with the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) retroviral protein, which cause a form of simian AIDS. In an article in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the Fold.it team observed that “retroviral proteases (PRs) have critical roles in viral maturation and proliferation and are the focus of intensive antiretroviral drug development work.” Various software models were unable to resolve the structure of the M-PMV retroviral protease. Gamers were provided with a variety of unsatisfactory M-PMV PR models, and then challenged to create a better one. Scientists had been struggling with the structure of this protein for over ten years. When the models were made available on Fold.it, a group of gamers on three continents were able to collaborate and solve the problem in a matter of days.

With the input of human problem-solving, the software modeling suddenly improved. After 600 gamers on 41 teams submitted 1.25 million solutions, the team was able to narrow the field down to 5000 by comparing the models against x-ray data. One team, “The Contendors,” submitted a model that aligned perfectly with this data, and the Fold.it team knew they’d cracked the code.

As the authors write in their Nature article, “The critical role of Foldit players in the solution of the M-PMV PR structure shows the power of online games to channel human intuition and three-dimensional pattern-matching skills to solve challenging scientific problems. Although much attention has recently been given to the potential of crowdsourcing and game playing, this is the first instance that we are aware of in which online gamers solved a longstanding scientific problem. These results indi­cate the potential for integrating video games into the real-world scientific process: the ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.”

And thus the Fold.it experiment continues. You can join the process as http://fold.it.

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). 

Your Turn: The Games Magazine Electronic Games 100

It's that time of year again. For the next two months, I will be working with my crack staff to compile and write the Electronic Games 100: a buyer's guide to the best 100 video, computer, and handheld games published since last November. (We also do a small section of previews for titles we do not yet have in completed form.)

So let me know what you think. What have you been playing? What did you love? What did you hate? Do you know something small that deserves more attention? Something big that deserves less attention?

On Twitter, use hashtag #games100 to make your suggestions. I'm also on Google+ and Facebook, or you can use the comboxes. This is the first time I'm doing this "live," so let me know what you think. You can check out the Awards tag on this site for some examples from last year, which saw Super Mario Galaxy II winning as game of the year, just because that's the way we roll.

I can tell you this much: it's going to take a concerted effort to keep mobile games to only 1/4th of the list (25 titles), as I did last year. Given the sorry state of originality in PC and videogaming, and the startling originality and fun found on mobile platforms, that may not be easy. Four words, people: Axe in the Face.

Please note: this is for electronic games only. I don't edit the Traditional Games 100.

Games Magazine: May Cover Maze

Robert Abbott, master of the logic maze, created the cover puzzle for the upcoming May 2011 issue of Games. In the original maze, there are four types of animal that can come in four different colors. You have to travel from the blue fox at the bottom to the blue chipmunk at the top by moving between pairs of animals. You can move any distance horizontally or vertically, but you can only end your move on an animal of the same type or color as the animal on which you started your move.

Bob has programmed a Java version of this maze which you can try at his site, logicmazes.com.

After Bob finished the design, he decided that he could make it more challenging by adding diagonal moves and increasing the size. Check out his site for an interactive version of this harder maze.

GAMES Magazine: April 2011

The latest issue of GAMES should be in the mail and on the shelves by now. For this one, I did a feature on the card game Ecarte, and its unusual ubiquity among 19th century writers from Poe to Doyle. There's a good sized review section this issue (both conventional and electronic), as well as the usual collection of games and pencil puzzles.

The cover is a twist--literally--on our regular Eyeball Benders puzzles. Can you tell what these items are?

Buy it wherever better magazines are sold.

GAMES Magazine: March 2011

The March issue of Games Magazine should be available on newsstands by now. You've been reading about Colonial Gaming on this site for the past 5 months. Now you can see the finished article, which takes up the entire front of the issue. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

There are a lot of reviews in this issue: game books, board games, apps, and video games, as well as the usual assortment of pencil puzzles.

Buy it wherever better magazines are sold.

Cover Puzzle
The cover art in this post is a bit small, but here are the instructions for this month's cover puzzle:

Can you pair up these microbes in such a way that (1) if you draw straight lines connecting each pair, no lines will cross one another; and (2) each pair is a unique combination of microbe types?

Cover Puzzle: Eric Harshbarger
Cover Illustration: Kevin Boone

GAMES Magazine: February 2011

This is going to be a light blogging week for me, since I have columns and pages due all week long.

I did want to mention that the new issue of GAMES is available, and it's a good one. The lead feature by Wayne Schmittberger is on chess variants, and includes photos of exotic boards from his incredible collection. It's a really good piece, and shows the amazing diversity of the chess family of games.

The cover puzzle (shown at right) depicts vanity plates for certain real and fictional people. For example, the one reading 39 STPS could be for John Buchan (who wrote the thriller novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps) or Alfred Hitchcock (who directed the movie).

It also has the usual assortment of news, reviews, and pencil puzzles. Buy it wherever better magazines are sold.

GAMES Magazine Electronic Game of the Year: Super Mario Galaxy 2

So you clicked on this post today and thought, "Are you on crack, McDonald? A sequel to a Mario game as the best game for the entire year? You really need to lay off the pipe and get yourself professional help."

Actually, that was what one of my writers said, but I managed to bring them around with commonsense arguments and minimal use of force.

The answer is actually pretty logical. The original Super Mario Galaxy was a victim of poor timing here at Games Magazine. First, it shipped at an awkward point in the year (November) which means we didn’t get it in time for the 2007 awards. Second, a little masterpiece called BioShock (one of the best games of all time), shipped a couple of weeks later, and shut out all contenders for the 2008 Game of the Year Award.

So when 2010 rolled around with a sequel to a game-of-the-year caliber game which improved upon the original in every way, it seemed like a natural choice for the top spot. This isn’t just a consolation prize because we couldn’t give the original the award three years ago. Super Mario Galaxy 2 has earned its place at the top of the heap by the sheer mastery of its design.

Red Dead Redemption, StarCraft II, Mass Effect II, and Battlefield: Bad Company II were all considered, while late shippers like Fallout: New Vegas, Halo: Reach, and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood would have certainly been contenders had they arrived in time. In a depressing sign of the times, only one of the contenders was an original game, while the rest were all sequels.

All of the best elements of the original have been carried forward in this sequel. This is the same engine, visual style, control scheme, and design elements that made Super Mario Gallery such a breakthrough pleasure. The first game took Mario’s familiar platforming gameplay—the jumping, bouncing, spinning, and soaring traversal of puzzle-like levels—through a dazzling array of inventive landscapes in, on, and around planets and other celestial bodies

The sequel smooths over the rough spots, eliminates what didn’t work, and expands upon what did. Galaxy 2 begins in a the 2D world familiar to players of Super Mario Bros. for Wii, then gradually introduces more complex controls and environments until the player finds himself traversing lavish 3D worlds with shifting gravity, or soaring through space from one planet to another.

To accomplish this, Mario has some new abilities in Galaxy 2, such as a Cloud Suit that allows him to create fluffy, temporary platforms, or a Rock Suit that allows you to use him like a bowling ball. Yoshi is also drafted into the space program, where he can use his tongue to grab objects or his glowing power to illuminate hidden platforms. Players can even have a friend help out, with a more fully developed co-op mode that allows another player to hop in and help grab stars.

This is just a pure delight, with nary a single element out of place. Thanks to the more gradual learning curve, an in-game helper, and co-op play, this is a good pick for the whole family, even younger gamers. There is joy in here, and families with a Wii shouldn’t pass this one up.

APP OF THE YEAR: Carcassonne

This was the first year we added mobile games to the Games Magazine Games 100 awards We chose to focus on Apps, rather than on other mobile devices, because only Apps can make a legitimate claim to being a new gaming format, with unique mechanics and design elements. Certain games are Wii games and can only ever effectively be Wii games. And certain games are Apps, and can only ever effectively be Apps.

To become a new format, a device must offer a unique language, a core vocabulary that it shares with every other item in that genre. There are distinct qualities to PC, Wii, DS, and Xbox/PS games, primarily based upon control, ergonomics, and aesthetics. Apple mobile software can make a similar claim, due to its unique blend of portability, size, multi-touch controls, and a 3-axis accelerometer (enhanced by a gyroscopic sensor for the iPhone 4).

Apps are of particular interest to Games readers because they are a natural format for all manner of puzzle, board, and card games. There are a huge variety of classic games, Eurogames, card games, and abstract strategy titles for the format, often with multiple versions of each. Many of these have multiplayer elements built-in, and also include teaching tools, variant versions, other features to give them added appeal. And all if this rarely costs more than a few dollars. It’s creating a mini-renaissance of classic gaming and puzzle play.

Our normal criteria for inclusion in the Games 100 is a title released within the current year (roughly October to September). For the inaugural edition of the App section of the Games 100, we choose the 25 best Apps in the App Store. The focus was heavily tilted towards the kinds of games our readers would prefer: heavy on board games and puzzles, light on action games and fart apps. If we'd done the list now, after having several more months of serious app gaming under my belt, there may have been some add/drops, but I'm pretty comfortable with the way the list turned out.

Had the awards come three months later, however, I might have considered Cut the Rope for the top spot of App of the Year, but it's hard to say. The winner, Carcassonne, is a time-tested favorite among Eurogamers in general and our readers in particular. The feature-set for the conversion of Carcassonne reads like a wish-list of everything you’d want in this kind of App. There are 8 different AI players, a new solitaire mode, local network play over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, Internet multiplayer via live-gaming sessions or email, a matchmaking service, an Elo ratings system, and in-game chat.

The implementation of the game itself is also quite strong. Carcassonne was always going to be a tough fit for the small screen of a mobile device. Its tendency to spread across the table makes it though to fit in a small space. The App version does a fair job of managing this by zooming in and out, and clearly marking any block where tile placement is legal.

The result is a pitch-perfect implementation of a complex boardgame design. This no small achievement, and clearly marks out Carcassonne as the App of the Year. Runner's up were Helsing's Fire and Catan.

RPG/ADVENTURE GAME OF THE YEAR: Mass Effect 2

Role-playing and adventure games each used to have their own category in the Games 100, back in those crazy days when Roberta Williams roamed the plains and gold boxes stuffed with floppy treasures and code wheels were stacked on every shelf. 

I'm pretty sure I remember my predecessor/boss, Burt Hochberg, even having separate categories for different kinds of adventure games, such as "humorous" and "science-fiction," but the again Burt was always pretty specific about his game categories. This may merely be a gin-induced false memory, but I swear I remember him asking me once, "Tommy my boy, do you think we should give an award for Best Puzzle Game Played With Marbles"? (In my memory, Burt always sounds like Jackie Mason for some reason.)

Well, "RPG" has become a remarkably fluid category. It's almost de rigueur for action games nowadays to have some element of role-playing (achievements, skills, leveling), thus blurring the lines. Meanwhile, the graphical adventure genre cratered about a decade ago and never really recovered, no matter how hard Telltale Games keeps trying to bring it back. I have so few in each category that they wound up being combined. 

Meanwhile, "Action" games have grown like the giant fungal mats of Oregon. RPGs are becoming more actiony and action games are becoming more RPGish. What is Red Dead Redemption? Clearly there is a role-playing game at the heart of it, but the part of me that finished every Gold Box, Baldur's Gate, Ultima, Might & Magic, and Wizardy game balks at calling RDR a real RPG. It's just ... not. 

My dividing line is usually stats. If a game is has character building, races, classes, stats, skills, experience points, leveling, narrative, and questing, then it's an RPG. If it's missing any of those features, then it's probably not an RPG. Unless I think it is. It's pretty confusing. 

Well, this year was kind of a no-brainer for the RPG award. BioWare is one of the finest purveyors of RPGishness around, and Mass Effect 2 is a wonderworld of riches. The second outing sharpens the gameplay, expands the universe, and delivers a new, even more compelling storyline. Although the original had the look and control of a third-person action game, it was an RPG in its particulars. The sequel streamlines the combat and pushes it a little more to the forefront, but does so without sacrificing any of the character and narrative depth that made the original such a hit.

2010 was also the year I got serious about digging deeper into DragonAge, and I have not yet reached the bottom. It's a truly beautiful piece of work.

SPORTS/DRIVING GAME OF THE YEAR: Split/Second

The flu interrupted my ongoing series about the Games 100 issue, which is an annual supplement in Games Magazine dedicated to the best games in any given year.  The first two entries were on Action Game of the Year and Strategy Game of the Year.

Sports and Driving are two genres that leave me cold, so I usually rely on my crack team of advisors, led by Lawyer to the Stars Eric Neigher, to steer me right. You can tell I really respect sports and racing games, because I shoved them into a single category and limited them to 10 or fewer titles per year. 

The reason for this is simple: they are almost always repetitious iterations of previous games with annual changes that are of interest only to people who follow this sort of thing religiously. I've worked on this guide for years, and I have run out of interesting ways to say that Madden Umpteen-Umpty-Ump has new rosters, slightly improved graphics, and a fresh control system that allows the midline field rule to be applied to the puck while in motion, or whatever it is these people do in between grunting and sweating.

As is now probably obvious, I know nothing about sports. I cannot think of an area of popular passion that is of less interest to me, other than Lady Gaga's wardrobe, or perhaps that new band you like, the one with that video. The only exception, oddly enough, is golf, which I know pretty well and covered from a gaming perspective for many years. Heck, I even wrote a museum exhibit about golf sims for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Since I understand that golf is considered the most unwatchable game on broadcast television, I'm sure this says something awful about my peculiar psyche. I just don't know what. 

On the positive side, it means I've had tea in the private dining room at Royal St. Andrews--the one overlooking the first hole--and actually touched Sean Connery's locker. (His golf locker. Man, you people have filthy minds.)

But I digress.

This year we rolled out the usual allotment of notices for NFL, MLB, UCF, MILF, and whatever other annual $60 patches made the cut. We considered the professional sports field quite seriously ... and then gave award to Split/Second, a driving game in which an airplane lands on your car while your incredible drifting skillz make you so powerful you can literally make the track explode.  

Top that, Madden.

Summa Contra Sims

Sims 3 just made a nicely symmetrical leap to PlayStation 3, so now PS owners can relish in the tedium in HD. Me? I'd still rather play Prototype, which is now available as one of 360's Platinum Hits for only $30, and it's still worth a look. Here's a spot I wrote last year about both games, and my remarkable indifference related to all things Sims. 

Long ago, I came to the conclusion that The Sims was designed for Someone Else. I don’t know who. Hottentots, perhaps.

I played through The Sims 3 with awe, respect … and profound boredom. It’s a brilliant piece of work, and if God is kind I’ll never have to play it again this side of Purgatory.

Meanwhile, I’ve been returning to Prototype. I like Prototype. I also liked it when it was called Spider-Man 2 and Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. If a game is worth playing once, it’s worth playing two more times with different character models.

Games are all about wish-fulfillment and power fantasies. Some people are content to wield their mighty power to get three gems in a row. Others would prefer to jump ten stories in their air and punch a helicopter out of the sky. If you have the opportunity to do the former, I have no idea why you’d choose to do the latter, but people are strange.

Adult male gamers tend to follow the groove of their childhood fantasies into adulthood. As a kid, my daydreams ranged toward Conan, Professor Challenger, the Six Million Dollar Man, and G.I. Joe. (Also: I wanted a pet werewolf.) If someone makes a game in which a muscular Cimmerian gets fitted for a cybernetic arm with kung-fu grip and leads his Adventure Team into a jungle swarming with dinosaurs that time forgot!, I’d never leave the house. Until then, Prototype will do fine.

My childhood fantasies never ran toward being, say, an interior decorator, or a guy who humps his way to a crummy job and home to a barely furnished tract house every day. That’s actually the polar opposite of “fantasy.” Some people call it “reality,” or perhaps just “life.” Others call it The Sims 3.

I’m baffled when people deride a certain piece of art or entertainment as “mere escapism.” What the hell else is it supposed to be? You may escape into high-minded flights of the intellect or emotional insight, or into a place where a man in a loincloth chokes a T-Rex with his mighty pneumatic hand, but you are escaping. I’d rather not spend those precious moments of escape redecorating someone else’s make-believe house.

GAMES Magazine: December Issue

This is the big one. Our December issue every year includes a 30-page supplement called the Games 100. I've been contributing to it for about 15 years, and in charge of one half of it for about 12. There are 100 games listed in the Traditional and Electronic categories, for a total of 200 games spanning roughly the last year in gaming.The issue was put to bed in late August, which means some late arrivals are only represented by short preview entries.

I'm going to run through some of my picks for the Electronic Games 100 throughout the week, and talk a bit about how we came to some of these conclusions. I'll also talk a bit about some of the winners on the board game side of the list. I personally wrote about 11,000 words for this year's edition, which is just absurd.

The rest of the issue has the usual assortment of puzzles and news, as well as a really long article on gender and competitive gaming.

The cover puzzle is pretty easy, but it looks nice. Each block is a detail from a different letter, upper- or lower-case. You have to identify the letters.

GAMES Magazine: November Issue

The new issue goes on sale this week. I did my usual selection of reviews (including Snoopy Flying Ace: best Xbox flight game evah!), as well as a preview of Microsoft Kinect.

The issue has the usual array of news, features, puzzles, and pencil puzzles. Buy it wherever better magazines are sold!

I think this image of the cover puzzle is large enough, so here are the rules:

Bubble Trouble
The automated security system in this undersea lab is malfunctioning, trapping two scientists in opposite corners. To escape, they must meet in any “room” to use their security cards together; but the security system will only allow them to move from room to room if they both move at the same time—and each time they move, they must pass through rings of matching colors. Can you bring them together?

The Electronic Games 100: Done

The annual Games 100, our guide to the best games of the year, is finally locked down. The awards are picked for Electronic Game of the Year and Runners Up, and category winners for Action, RPG/Adventure, Sports/Driving, Strategy, and Apps are selected.

This is my biggest job of the year. The final text comes in at 11,000 words, which is about 15 pages in the December issue. The Traditional Games 100 list will fill the same amount of space. I believe this is the 30th Games 100. I've done the last 10 or so, and worked on it with the late Burt Hochberg for 5 years before that.

As we get closer to street date (late October), I'll talk a little bit more about what's in it and why we made the decisions we made. Last year was a bit of an upset, with the top electronic award going to Batman: Arkham Asylum, while the traditional game award went to Small World. If you haven't checked them out yet, you really should: both are excellent games.

Games Magazine: Online Puzzle (Contest)

A new puzzle is up at the website. This is a tough one. I didn't create it, and I doubt very much that I can solve it.

If you can solve it, you might be among the five lucky winners who get a free one-year subscription to Games Magazine.

Please follow the instructions on the website when submitting entries. I'm turning off the comments on this one, since my sharp puzzle-solvers usually slice through challenges like this in mere minutes, and publicly posted answers would invalidate the contest.

Games Magazine for October 2010

The new issue of Games should be arriving within the week. Since it's the October issue (yes, in August: it's absurd) the cover puzzle has a Halloween theme.

There's a feature about the 2010 U.S. Memory Championship, a classic puzzle from the late, great Martin Gardner, and the usual selection of reviews, features, news, and puzzles. I contributed a story about the mysterious success of Zynga and their awful games (Farmville, Mafia, etc), and added an extra page of electronic game reviews this month.

Buy it wherever better magazines are sold.

Games Magazine: September Issue

Here's the cover for the new issue.  I have the usual assortment of reviews and news pieces in there, including 8 more App reviews.

The cover puzzle is a maze by Bob Abbott: "Travel along the paths from Start to Goal. At each junction, you may not reverse direction, and you may only continue on a path that has either the same color or the same design element (diamond, squiggle, or neither) as the one you were just on." (There's a larger version of the image at Abbott's site.)


Buy it wherever better publications are sold. (Barnes & Noble and Borders usually have it in their puzzle or hobby section.)