The Electronic Games 100: Done

Wheatley, by TRP-Chan

The Games Magazine Games 100 is the biggest project I do all year: a 15-page supplement on the 100 best games from the last 12 months. We picked category winners in Action, RPG/Adventure, Mobile/Handheld, Strategy, and Sports/Driving, as well as Game of the Year. These categories fluctuate sometimes: when classic adventure games roamed the land freely, there were enough of them to support their own category. Mobile games are a new category, and there were so few platform-exclusive handheld games of note that I just dropped them into Mobile.

You'll have to wait for the December issue to find out what we picked, but I can talk a bit about the general contours of the game industry as it stands in 2010-2011.

The game industry continues to grow, but in strange and unpredictable ways. Here are some quick observations:

• 72% of American households have a videogame machine. 
• Consumers spent $25.1 billion on games in 2010, with those numbers projected to hit $48 billion for 2011 and $70 billion by 2012. By comparison, worldwide motion picture ticket sales for 2010 were approximately $31 billion. 
• In studies of children 12 to 17 years old, 99% of boys (and 94% of girls) play video or computer games, with no variables for race or ethnicity.
• The average game player is 37 years old, with 29% of them over the age of 50. 
• Video games had skewed heavily male for most of their existence, but by 2010 48% of the gamer audience was female. 
• Approximately 13% of the gaming audience is made up of males under 17, while 37% are adult women.
• Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello revealed that since the year 2000, console games have dropped from 80% of EA’s total sales down to only 40%. What filled that vacuum? It was mobile devices, which are becoming the dominant platform in electronic entertainment. 
• The 3DS was a dramatic flop. A lack of quality 3DS games and the explosion of the mobile market lay at the root of Nintendo’s woes. The company made deep price cuts in the hardware, but it may not be enough. For the first time in gaming history, Nintendo may lose its complete dominance of the handheld market. 
• Mobile gaming has emerged the dominant force in interactive entertainment. This is not merely driven by technology, or convenience, or price point, although all of these are factors. It is driven by the wild creativity that is being unleashed in mobile gaming design. Apps are cheaper to develop, which means more people can make quirky and original games and get them directly to players without involving a publisher or retailers. As a result, a rich and previously inaccessible vein of innovation is tapped, radically changing the gaming landscape. The shocker in preparing for this year’s Games 100 was how many of these little games eclipsed an increasingly-derivative mainstream gaming market. While consoles are dominated by endless sequels, mobile gaming seems to offer a fresh new surprise every day. 

Couple Sells Children to Play Online Games

Sadly, this comes as no surprise in a society that values human life so little, but it's still disturbing:

A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.

According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents -- who are both under 21 -- welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online games at an Internet cafe 30 km away.

Read on ABC News Radio.


H/T Mark Shea

Life Imitates Bioshock

I'm still working on the big issue, but I had to share this eerie story about an Objectivist billionaire attempting to build floating libertarian utopias.

Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal "has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place."

What could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday's outrageous plot for Bioshock is tomorrow's reality. I wonder if they'll call it "Rapture."

H/T Sean Dailey (check out his awesome magazine, Gilbert)

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.

Apples to Oranges: Apples to Apples MOD

I played Apples to Apples MOD (a slim travel edition) during vacation, and the cards were awful: a lot of celebrities and pop culture references that were completely lost on our group. (Hence, "MOD".) So far, the kids edition is the best one we've played, with the most cards for the most people. Obviously, Mattel was aiming for people who'd want cards like "Megan Fox" and ""Neil Patrick Harris", but games like this need to be a bit more timeless, rather than trendy and easily dated.

It reminded me of a Trivia Pursuit 1980s Edition. It may just be the haze of memory, but it seemed like every other answer was either "Michael Dukakis" or "Condoms". It became a running joke. Need a wedge? Just answer "Michael Dukakis" or "Condoms".

There also simply aren't enough cards, so they repeat very quickly. Plus, the cards are a bit too small.

On the positive side, the new dice mechanic for Apples to Apples MOD is pretty decent, as long as people remember they can make up their own adjectives. The system uses a multi-sided die imprinted with 26 letters and an apple icon. There are two cards with an alphabetical selection of words on each side, offering 4 possible adjectives for each letter of the alphabet. The judge rolls the die to select a letter, and then chooses an adjective beginning with that letter. He can use the cards, or make up his own adjective beginning with that letter. This word becomes the "green card" for that game.

It doesn't seem like Amazon even carries it, so it may already be out of print. I picked mine up at Target for $10. It won't be coming out again.

DC/Marvel Teaming With Lego

This isn't gaming news, but it touches on two beloved subjects here at Casa McD: superheroes and Lego. Starting January 2012, Lego will begin a multi-year deal to produce sets based on DC and Marvel comics characters.

A line tied to The Avengers feature film will include minifigs of Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Loki and Black Widow, while the the X-Men collection includes Wolverine, Magneto, Nick Fury and Deadpool, and the Spider-Man sets offer Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. On the DC side, we'll be seeing Batman, Robin, Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bane, Bruce Wayne, Superman, Lex Luthor, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.

In the past, Lego has produced significant lines for both Spider-man and Batman, but this is the first universe-spanning deal to date. They're launching the new endeavor with a Lego Super Heroes Unite contest, which invites people to use their minifigs to create artwork and films highlighting the characters. Expect to start seeing sets in May 2012.

LostWinds Coming to Mobile Devices

Eurogamer is announcing that LostWinds, a really clever little puzzle/platforming game, is coming to mobile devices later this year. This charming fantasy from the creators of Kinectimals features the adventures of a young boy who conjures the wind with gestures. It was originally published in the WiiWare store, where it got buried in the service's notoriously crowded marketplace. It seems like a great fit for iOS and Android, and should help this great little item get the audience it deserves.

Days of Wonder: Memoir '44 Out of Beta & Small World Underground

When I loaded up Days of Wonder's new online version of Memoir '44, I could swear my copy said it was still in beta, and mentioned that in my announcement. It has, in fact, been out of beta since late June, and is humming along quite nicely.Thanks to Christine Goutaland for correcting me.

Also, we got a chance over the weekend to play a warm-up game of Small World Underground, and we're liking it a lot. The new races are clever, the powers are dastardly, and the integration of places and relics puts a nice spin on the play. One caveat, however: don't use this one to introduce new players to Small World. The new additions add a little the learning curve and might put off novices.

PUZZLE: Tabling the Question

I haven't done a math puzzle in a while, so here's an old one to strain the average brain. (And by that I mean my brain: in the past, my readers have solved these so fast it's almost embarrassing.)

Mr. Jenkins comes home to find his son Todd reading a comic book rather that working on his quadratic equations. He sets about berating the boy, when Todd interrupts him with a deal. "If I can pose a problem you can't solve, you have to finish my homework, and I can to finish my comic." Mr. Jenkins, considering himself something of a math whiz, takes this bet in a heartbeat.

Todd pushes a large, perfectly round table into a corner, with its edge touching both walls. He places a spot and then turns to his father. "That spot," says Todd, "is exactly 9 inches from one wall and 8 inches from the other. Without measuring the table, tell me its diameter."

My Jenkins puzzled and puzzled 'til his puzzler was sore, and then wound up finishing Todd's homework while the boy returned the adventures of Uncle Scrooge. Would you have done any better?

A Closer Look: French Tarot: Trumps 15 & 16

Many people are familiar with the standard Tarot suits (the "Major Arcana") used for "divination" purposes, but they're less aware that Tarot cards were created for playing trick-taking games and have a rich and diverse design history. These images are part of an ongoing series highlighting the art of a single deck used in France, which contains scenes of rural and domestic life in the 19th century.

Click to enlarge

Tarot Trump 15: Detail

Click to enlarge

Tarot Trump 16: Detail

App O' The Mornin': Tiny Tower

Grade: B
Price: freemium (extra in-game money can be purchased)

Compulsion loop games are not one of my favorite categories. Any title that requires someone to check in and do something at regular intervals feels less like a game and more like a poor lifestyle choice. Yet the genre remains insanely popular among people who forget just how irritating it was to keep a tamagotchi.

Tiny Tower (NimbleBit) is designed in such a way that it can be played by people who like to check on their game every 30 minutes or so, but it doesn’t have to be played that way. This rather clever balance between compulsion loop design and simple simulation gaming is what makes Tiny Tower work.

The game is like a stripped down, pixilated version of the much-missed SimTower. You build a high-rise, one floor at a time, and designate each floor as either residential or work. Tenants are rated for their work skills in food, service, recreation, retail, or creative businesses. After you build each floor and designate it as a business, you assign tenants to a job, preferably in some area of their ability.

Sometimes these are dream jobs for the tenants, while other jobs make them unhappy. Either way, they work where they’re told to and earn the money needed to continue construction and restock and the stores. The  Marxists at Popmatters try to read Deep Meaning into this, with lines like "I have become an exploiter of digital-human capital." (There is no more unintentionally hilarious read on the net than game coverage at Popmatters.) Because we all know that 16-bit dude with a frowny-face is dying inside as he quietly hums "The Internationale".

Tony Tower is free to play, but if you want to play faster you can buy more “bux” online. If you don’t get too obsessed with it, Tiny Tower is great fun and can provide a few minutes of daily play as you manage your little building. If you do get obsessed with it, it ceases to become a fun little game and transmorphs into a time sink.

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.

Shaun the Sheep: The Hedge Maze

Because I won't ever pass up an opportunity to put Shaun the Sheep on my blog, here's a picture of the giant new Shaun corn maze that's about to open in Staffordshire, England.

It appears to show Shaun striking a sassy pose while his brain shoots out the top of his head. It seem to be based on this (without the shooting-brain part):

Snapdragon: A Festive Children's Game Played With Flaming Food

Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon.

Wm. Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Alice is introduced to various fanciful insects by a gnat the size a chicken. To an American child, these creatures appeared to be little more than whimsical creations, but one insect had special connotations for the British:

A snap-dragon-fly

`Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, `and there you'll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy.'

`And what does it live on?'

`Frumenty and mince pie,' the Gnat replied; `and it makes is nest in a Christmas box.'

I'd never really paused over this reference to a "snapdragon fly", but the most recent episode of Masterpiece Mystery, an adaptation of the Inspector Poirot novel Hallowe'en Party, included an alarming scene of kids playing a party game during a Halloween celebration. Children kept reaching into a flaming bowl, grabbing something, and popping it in their mouths while chanting "snip snap dragon." You can find the scene (for as long as it stays up on Youtube), at the 7:00 mark here. I hadn't the faintest idea what they were doing until we looked it up and learned that it's an old game (no one knows just how old) called snapdragon or flapdragon.

from Poirot: Halowe'en Party (2010)

Here's how Martin Gardner describes it in The Annotated Alice:

Snapdragon (or flapdragon) is the name of a pastime that delighted Victorian children during the Christmas season. A shallow bowl was filled with brandy, raisins were tossed in, and the brandy set on fire. Players try to snatch the raisins from the flickering blue flames and pop them, still blazing, into their mouths. The burning raisins also were called snapdragons.

The chant that accompanies the game goes like this:

Here he comes with flaming bowl / Don't he mean to take his toll!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Take care you don't take too much / Be not greedy in your clutch!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
With his blue and lapping tongue / Many of you will be stung!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
For he snaps at all that comes / Snatching at his feast of plums!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
But Old Christmas makes him come / Though he looks so fee! fa! fum!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Don't 'ee fear him but be bold / Out he goes his flames are cold!
Snip! Snap! Dragon!

Snapdragon is normally a Christmas tradition, although it's played at Halloween as well. There's no clear indication of the game's origins, but some sources trace it to the ancient Greeks or Druids, which seems rather fanciful. It pops up several times in the works of Shakespeare, where he uses "flapdragon"  and "snapdragon" interchangeably to indicate something that's easy to swallow. You know: like flaming fruit. That pushes the game back to the 16th century at least. Like so many indoor amusements, it became traditional during the Victorian era, because nothing says "fun for kids" like sticking your hand in a burning bowl of liquor.

I'm annoyed that I even have to add this, but if you try this game at home, please remember that fire is hot and if you're injured it's totally your own fault, not mine.

D-Day Dice

Since we're talking about D-Day, let's linger a little longer and turn our attention to Emmanuel Aquin and his print-and-play game D-Day Dice. The game has thus far been available in a free trial version, as Aquin spread the word to generate interest. Now, it's being picked up for publication by Valley Games, and will be out by November of this year. A Kickstarter campaign should begin shortly, and I'll post a link when it goes live.

If you scroll to the bottom of the Valley Games page, you can download the trial version, print it out, and give it a test run. Based on a read-through of the rules, D-Day Dice appears to have an interesting mechanic, calling to mind a mashup of Roll Through the Ages and Memoir '44, with an added layer of depth. I'm going to print this one out and give it a spin, and I'm looking forward to trying the finished game.

H/T: W. Eric Martin

Memoir '44: Play Online

Days of Wonder has launched an online version of their best-selling casual war game, Memoir '44. Like many DOW games, Memoir '44 gets a heavy workout here at Casa McD, so this is welcome news. So far, I've just taken the solo mode for a spin, but it's a straight-up computer conversion of the tabletop game. It plays on a single screen, with your cards aligned at the bottom and the board dominating the center of the layout. Mouse click responses seem a little odd: if you double click too fast, it doesn't register the move. Other than that, it's looking good so far.

Right now it's in "open beta," and people who sign up get 50 free "gold ingots." The game uses a pay-to-play model in which you pay ingots to play solo and online games. Ingots can be purchased at a rate of 200 for $8. For $30, you get 1,000 ingots plus the Expert Mode, which allows you to create and upload custom scenarios. For $60, you 2,400 ingots, plus expert mode, plus $30 off any Memoir '44 product. Sessions cost 2-3 ingots each.

It's an interesting model, and I'm not sure how it will work out. It avoids the problems of a subscription-based system, but it's hard, at this point, to determine whether the value-versus-cost balance is quite right. If we calculate about 90 games for 200 ingots, with anywhere from 30-45 minutes for each game, you're looking at maybe 200 hours of gameplay for $8. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

EA Buys PopCap For ...

... $1.3 billion. (It sounds better if you use a Dr. Evil voice.) That can buy a lot of zombie-eating plants. Congrats to the PopCap folks. They're good guys, and I remember when they were just a few dudes making casual games. They went from nothing to $1.3 billion in ten years. It's as though all those jewels were real.

Via TechCrunch.

App O' The Mornin': Bumpy Road

Grade: A
Price: $3

This sophomore effort from the creators of Kosmo Spin has a delightful aesthetic, with a muted but eye-catching color palette and charming art. It’s a look that works perfectly for game about an older couple out for a Sunday drive on a corduroy road past windmills and impossibly narrow houses.

The gameplay is just as interesting as the visual element. Bumpy Road uses a novel mechanic to create a twist on the 2D platforming, move-to-the-right genre that has thrived on mobile touch devices. In this case, you don’t control the car, which moves at a steady pace, but the road itself, which is comprised of a series of little bumps. Touching the road raises it a little bit. Touch behind the car to create a hill that makes the car go faster. Touch in front of it to create a hill that slows the car down. Touch beneath it to make the car hop.

It’s as simple as that. The levels consist of multiple platforms and occasional water hazards, with minor variations for the two gameplay modes. In Evergreen Ride, you need to go as far as possible without falling into one of the water hazards. The trip is endless, with little powerups found along the way to close traps and allow you to focus on gathering items to improve your final time. There are no traps in Sunday Trip mode, so the goal is to get to a finish line as fast as possible by grabbing the accelerator powerups and avoiding the brake powerups. The result is a great little app, with a novel mechanic and engaging gameplay.

Site Update: Changes and Other News

I started State of Play a year ago this month for a few reasons. I wanted a place to write about games that I didn't always have a chance to write about in my print work, but also to just have a little corner of the internet that was all my own. It's been a place where I worked out ideas for print stories, most notably with the long series on gaming in Colonial America, which eventually appeared as a lead feature in Games Magazine. I wanted to create a personal blog from a the point of a view of a someone who does a lot of gaming for a living and thus has to think and write about this material on a daily basis.

I got off to a pretty serious start with an average of 20 posts a week in the beginning. That gradually tapered off, and then posts started getting a bit more irregular back in April. Part of this was because I had a lot of work to do in order to go on vacation, and part of this was the beginning of graduate school. I've been trying to find a good way to balance the blog with work and school, and might have finally found a pattern that works. So, here are the changes:

• Posts will be 3 times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This gives me a target to shoot for that shouldn't be too hard to hit, while also providing regular visitors with a better sense of when to expect new content. 
• The App O' the Mornin' will return in a reduced form. I wrote about 100 app reviews for the site, and another 50 or so for various print venues, and then my brain when pfffft. This was around the time that Axe in the Face was released, and I don't recall a lot of apps grabbing my attention after that. Maybe it was app burnout on my part, but there seemed to be a bit of a lull in quality appage. In the intervening time, the well of good apps has gradually refilled, giving me something to write about again. Thus, each Monday, starting today, I'll do an App Review.
• I also have a stack of board games to review, but I take these very slowly. I hate reviews that are done on one or two playthroughs. I tend to take a couple of months to test things and gradually build some kind of opinion. Yes, I can form a pretty fast snap judgment like any other experienced gamer, and it will usually turn out correct, but without a number of plays under my belt, I just don't feel like I have much to say. For instance, I've been testing Rivals for Catan, in its many different play modes, for over a month, and I still want to play a couple more times before I write about it. 

Also, I'd ask you to please remember to use the Amazon links from the sidebar when you shop at Amazon. The Amazon Affiliates program is the only way I make anything for my work here (Google Ads are a joke). Using my link anytime you access Amazon costs nothing, but gives me a 4-6% commission for anything you buy. The depression has ruined us here at Casa McD, so every little bit helps. 

Let me have some feedback. Is there something you like? Don't like? Something you want to see? Shoot me a Twitter at StateofPlayBlog and let me know.

Thanks for your continued support.

VIDEOGAME DECISION: Two Stories, One Meaning

Exactly a year ago, I wrote the following column for the July 2010 issue of Maximum PC. I'm reprinting it here in light of today's Supreme Court decision.

Look, I’ve been on the internet since the internet was on. In those weird early days, I saw enough of alt.binaries.ohmygodicantbelievetheyredoingthat to illumine the darker corners of humanity.

            Thus, I was not at all surprised that some ostensibly human-like creatures get their kicks watching videos of attractive women crushing small animals to death under stiletto heels. It’s a fallen world, and any cursory glance at history or headlines shows us that men are capable of unspeakable depravity.

            I was surprised, however, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these “crush” and dogfight videos were, in fact, protected speech. In their April decision on United States v. Stevens, the court voted 8-1 to overturn a ban on the sale and distribution of these videos. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that, although the acts depicted are in fact illegal, the ban on images of these creates a “criminal prohibition of alarming breadth,” and violated 1^st amendment protections.

            Why is any of this of any concern to gamers?

            Simple: the Roberts court is about to get their first swing at the gaming piñata. In a case bearing the sublime name of Schwarzenegger v. Video Software Dealers Association, California’s laws banning the sale of violent games to anyone under the age of 18 have already failed to pass muster with various courts. Most recently, the notoriously liberal 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law was in violation of the 1^st and 14^th amendments, clearing the path to a Supreme Court challenge.

The Stevens decision, although not an exact analog, is a pretty clear indication of where the Roberts court stands on freedom of speech, with obvious applications to video and computer games. After all, if 8 out of 9 justices can rule that video recordings of illegal acts of animal cruelty are protected speech, then the court is packed with more 1^st amendment absolutists than the staff of Reason magazine.

Of course, what the VSDA and the development community should be asking themselves is, “How did our content become so depraved that we’re relying upon animal torture videos as precedent?”

Breaking News: Supreme Court Strikes Down Videogame Law UPDATED

No surprises here. This court is seriously--almost radically--against perceived curbs on the First Amendment.

Excerpt:

On a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld a federal appeals court decision to throw out the state's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Sacramento had ruled that the law violated minors' rights under the First Amendment, and the high court agreed. 

"No doubt a state possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm," said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion. "But that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed."

UPDATE: Here's the complete decision, and it makes for an interesting read. As I warned it would last year, the court drew on their decision in United States vs. Stevens, which overturned a ban on animal torture videos. This is horrible company for the video game industry to find itself. We have reached a point where our entertainment is so grotesque that it winds up in the same legal category as animal snuff videos.

PopCap On Sale for $1 Billion?

That's what TechCrunch is reporting. The story is unsourced and PopCap isn't talking. $1 billion is about ten times their annual earning power, but PopCap (creators of Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies, and other mega-hits) is a proven entity. TechCrunch writer Jason Kincaid runs through the standard speculations about buyers: Zynga (boo, hiss), EA, and a Chinese company called TenCent. As long as we're just making up possibilities, it could be Apple, Walmart, or Papa John's Pizza. Nobody knows anything yet, so all we have right now is rumor and speculation. All of the stories out there--including the post you're reading right now!--are just reporting TechCrunch's initial story, so we'll have to wait and see. 

Guys? That's Not Cool [Chess]

A Canadian company is producing a War on Terror-themed chess set. The rook is shown to the right.

Since the company produces toy soldiers and other miniature militaria, they probably think this is a tribute or something. Memo from America: it's not.

And did I mention the Taliban Suicide Bomber Knight?

h/t Kathy Shaidle

Disney Forgets to Renew Club Penguin Domain

Oops!

Disney paid $700 million for Club Penguin, an online gaming site for kids, only 4 years ago. On June 13th, they lost their domain because they forgot to renew the registration for $10.

Yesterday, the site went offline, leaving 12 million angry little penguins who were unable to feed their puffles.

All the stories are saying that the problem was quickly corrected, but as I write this, ClubPenguin.com is nothing more than a dead domain screen. I snapped this picture on Tuesday afternoon.

REVIEW: Spot It!

Designer: n/a
Publisher: Blue Orange
Players: 2-8
Ages: 7+
Time: 1-2 minutes per round
Price: $14

This review is going to be short and sweet, just like the game. Spot It! is a remarkable little confection that works great as a warm-up game or just a quick bit of fun. It comes in a compact tin that contains a set of 55 circular cards. Each card has 8 symbols drawn from a set of 50. These are clear, clip-art-style images like scissors, bullseye, snowflake, pencil, dragon, etc. The images are scaled, so you may see a large zebra or a small zebra, but each tends to have a single dominant color. Between any two cards there is only one matching image. I'm not certain how they pulled that off, but they did, and it forms the heart of the gameplay.

The goal is to draw cards and spot the matching images. It's that simple. The size doesn't matter, so a large snowman can be matched to a small snowman. However, there will only ever be one match between two cards.

With this basic setup, Blue Orange offers 4 gameplay options. In The "Tower", players are each given one card face down, with the rest of the cards forming a face-up draw pile. Players flip their cards simultaneously, and the winner is the first person to announce a match with the top card of the draw pile. They place that card on the top of their own pile, and the matching continues until the draw pile is exhausted. The person with the most cards, wins.

"The Well" is like The Tower in reverse. One card is dealt to the center and the rest are dealt to the players. The goal is to shed your pile of cards by matching a symbol from your top card to an image on the center card. 

"Hot Potato" is also a shedding game, but this time players each hold a single card in their palms. The first person to call a match places all of his cards on top of the matching card, then draws another. Play continues until one person has all the cards, then a new round begins. The winner is the player who has the fewest cards once the draw pile is exhausted. This one plays better with larger groups.

The final variant is called "The Poisoned Gift." Each player has a single card, with a draw pile at the center of the table. The goal is to make a match between the top card of the draw pile and another player's card. That player then takes the matching card and play continues. The winner is the person with the fewest cards when the draw pile is exhausted.

If all this just sounds like a simple matching game ... well, it is. But it's also a whole lotta fun. It's much more entertaining than you might expect from a mere description. Play is lightening fast, with quick turns of fortunate and split-second decisions. You have to be observant and fast, and each player develops a technique of rapid observation in order to compare visual elements as quickly as possible.

If I just saw this game sitting on a shelf, I never would have bothered with it. It looks too rudimentary and seems to lack replay potential. In fact, repeated play only makes it better, as you become familiar with the images and the pacing. I must have played at least 100 games with just my daughter alone, and it still comes out as a 5 minute filler or a compact travel game. It's immensely clever and appealing, and scales quite well for different ages and group sizes.

You can try the online demo, but this really plays better with another person.

.

Legend of the Five Rings Gets Board

It's been years since I've played Legend of the Five Rings, but in all my many game purges, the original Wizards of the Coast collectible card game version of L5R is one I've kept. It's a great CCG with a lush setting and solid mechanics. It's good to see that AEG (the original developers of the game) are still publishing and expanding the game line.

Debuting in August at Gen Con is a new L5R board game by Fréderic Moyersoen (designer of Sabateur). Called NINJA, Legend of the Scorpion Clan, the game "features fast play, hidden movement, limited information, bluff and guile." The game is for 2-4 players, and comes with more than two dozen 28mm miniature figures, four pads of secret maps, 58 playing cards, and a full-color map. Here's the official line:

The game centers around one very dangerous night at a castle in the provinces of the Lion Clan. Honorable Lion samurai stand vigilant watch around the castle, protecting it from harm. The Scorpion Clan sends one well trained ninja to infiltrate the castle for nefarious purposes… it may be to assassinate an imperial guest under the Lion’s protection, or poison the well, or steal the daimyo’s war plans for the coming season. Whatever the goal, the ninja has vowed to accomplish it, or die trying. Worse yet for the Lion Clan, the ninja has an accomplice: a traitor among the ranks of the Lion samurai whose true loyalty lies with the Scorpion.