Heya! I went to Las Vegas last weekend with Mom and Susie. We had a great time, I saw 'O' for the second time in three months (it really is the best show ever) and after being down $260 and up $360 I ended up down $60. Not too bad, considering the amount of time I spent at the tables.

Mom taught Susie and I pinochle. This is important because it was the game that my Dad, Uncle, and Grandfather would play whenever they got together. 'The three beards' we called them (even after Dad shaved his off!) and nobody else ever played. Now that the threesome has been broken up, Steve has taken up playing, and Mom taught it to Susie and I so now we have another three-person game to bond with. Cribbage works with three players, but is really made for two, or to a lesser extent, four.

Working late tonight, and will be coming in early tomorrow, but I wanted to pop my head in and say hi. On the flight back from Vegas I remembered just how fast my mind works when I'm confined to a small chair, reading an intelligent book, listening to good music. I have tons of ideas on deck now, including one I want to work into an article for Salon or the New Yorker, and another that I'd like to turn into a book.

Where are all those hours that used to be in my days?

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Here's some school writing I worked on. I'm curious if it's interesting to anyone else. They're each a couple pages long:

The Role of Narrative at the Blackjack Table

On Models of Competition

Enjoy!

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Garry Kasparov, the world's top-ranked chess player, speaks out on why Deep Junior, the computer program he played to a 3-3 tie a few weeks ago, is a superior accomplishment to IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that beat him six years ago.

In his editorial piece, Kasparov puts forth a compelling vision on the juxtaposition of science and cognition, and touches on the 'why' of the Turing test, instead of just the 'what'.

I just wish the article was expanded to a book. Fascinating stuff.

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Did a lot of great work on my Game Design project. I now have a dice game that, packaging issues aside, I feel is actually ready to be pitched to small games distribution houses. All I know is that people with no vested interest enjoy playing the game enough that they really want their own sets.

In other news, it's snowing tons. It snowed about a foot in the last 24 hours, and another 6-8 inches in on the way tonight and tomorrow. Add this to the fact that the City of Pittsburgh ran out of salt. Last week they dusted the roads with cinder, and today snowploughs and bravery were the city's only salvation. With tonight's storm, the Pittsburgh weathermen are calling this the worst winter on the books. Last month's average high was around 20, compared with the 40-year average of 36.

Htet Htet, Dana, Rachel and I all went sledding down the hill at Homewood Cemetery, about 200 feet, stopping jst before the frozen pond. I have a little video I'll try to get up once I finish the considerable assignments due tomorrow and Tuesday.

I had a very nice Valentine's Day with Rachel. We stayed in, cooked, and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I also had a bad crick in my neck, and the doctor said it could take 10 days to get fully better, but backrubs were the best thing for it, so I should get out of the medical center and find myself a valentine. Thankfully I was prepared.

Also, for those of you who use the RSS feed, I did a little code work on the feed, so it shows the first two paragraphs of each article on Fury, with a link and a message showing what % of the post is currently displayed, if it's longer than two paragraphs.

and amazingly, I still like the snow. I've rediscovered the wonder of more-than-four-inches of snow, when the pillowey yet nonslippery powder means you can stop being so careful with your step. Heck, I even jogged to the bus stop.

Now it's time to go to sleep. My game prof is going to mail us by 9:30 to let us know if class is delayed or cancelled due to the snow. Officially, CMU never closes for weather. But then, I wouldn't expect any less from the only institution I've every worked for or attended that doesn't observe President's Day. Apparently that's more common in private East Coast institutions. In California, pretty much all offices close (Am I wrong?).

Well, maybe Mother Nature will enforce what CMU doesn't.

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It seems that I regualrly pull one all-nighter a week nowadays. Last night was that night for me, working on an assignment for Programming User Interfaces. Argh. I got to sleep for a couple hours between 9 and 11 this morning before my 11:30 class, yet I have class until 9:30 tonight, and then Rachel's picking me up from school and we're goin gto watch TiVoed Buffy (since we both have class at 8 on Tuesdays. Grr!)

Anyhow, my last project for Game Design was to write up a bit about my five favorite games. I shifted it around a little. Bango's gone, and Air Hockey, #5 until the last minute, didn't make the cut, when I remembered a game I had'nt played in years, but really want to again.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it, especially the picture of my cousin Sara and the monster Cirbbage board.

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So, after listing over three hundred games, our next task is to pick our five favorite games, with the condition that the games can be demonstrated in a classroom setting. There's more to the assignment, analyzing the nature of the game, what makes it distinctive, and all that, but I won't bore you with those details.

Sifting through the full list in my head, I think I've settled on Fluxx, Cribbage, Zendo, and Bango (yeah, so we might have to go outside to demonstrate (and I'd need to borrow a wicked knife)) as my first three games. I'm still looking for a fifth, and I'm not married to Bango.

Am I missing something obvious? Not that your favorite is necessarily mine...

Okay, ditching Bango in favor of Karen's and my movie game... Maybe Bango will stay as #5 if I don't think of a good alternative.

One thing that got me praise in the hopscotch assignment was my use of pictures. Now that I'm doing the movie game, I wish I had a photo of the paper tablecloth Emily and I made at Rio Grill in Carmel, covering the entire tabel with a couple hundred actors and movies, all latticed together in a huge Gordian neural net knot.

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So there are games missing, and of the 312 games on the list, only 175 currently have descriptions, and the whole thing is in a 13,000 word, 28 page PDF file, yadda-ya, but in all its state-of-fluxiness, this is My Game Toolbox version 1.0.

It will be added to and updated as time goes on, and may even be database driven, allowing others to add their own comments, memories, and rulesets for games. But that's for later.

Oh, and I got a coveted 'A' on Fitaly Jumpboard Hopscotch. Yay!

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Well, all games anyhow.

That's this week's Game Design assignment: Make a list of all the games you've played. Then go through and determine, as best you're able, what year you first played each (and how old you were). Then come up with a sentence or two describing what was notable about that game to you.

That's right. Every single one. From the past 25 years.

The exercise is intended to provide us with a toolbox of ideas. Looking through the list of games we have experience with should prove useful when trying to deal with design problems or coming up with new game designs. In this I have no doubt it will succeed.

When Prof. Schell handed out the assignment I was a little panicked. He's looking for at least 150 games on our list, due Monday. Specifically, he also wants at least five games for every year since age 5. 150 games? It sounnded like an awful lot.

Then I started thinking...

...and writing...

...and thinking and writing.

Quickly I realized that 150 is a cakewalk. A really low number.

Christ I've played a lot of games. Board games, video games, card games, sports, made-up games...

I'm still scared of this assignment, but I'm not scared of 150. It's clear that by Monday I could easily have a list of 400 or more, and the only part that scares me is knowing that for weeks after I turn in the assignment I'll keep thinking of games from my past that didn't make it on to the list.

Truly this will be a living document.

As such, I'm putting it up here during its fetal stages. Each of these games reminds me of several more, but since I have to start somewhere:

Cat's Cradle, Jumprope, Doubledutch, Chinese hopscotch, dodgeball, "operator" math games, hopscotch, fitaly jumpboard hopscotch, bouncy-ball (Ali), D'n'D, HitchHikers Memory game (Josh), M.A.S.H. (fortune-telling), Hitchhikers Guide (Infocom), Enchantment (Infocom), Tee-ball, Baseball, Basketball, Stunt-kite flying, Boggle, Bridge, Sorry, Handball, Tetherball, Tag, Freeze Tag, Keep away, Chasing, Unsnapping bras (AP Calculus (Thank's Jeff!)), Apache, Airborne, Gato, Dark Castle, Crtstal Quest, Crystal Castles, Crystal Crazy, Glider Pro, World Builder, Minotaur (World Builder), Spacequest (World Builder), 3 in three, Fools Errand, Cosmic Ozmo, Orbiter, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Falcon, Rummykub, Rummy, Cribbage, Wizardry, Knights of Diamonds, Ultima IV, Final Fantasy VII, Galaxian, Galaga, Defender, Stargate, Space Invaders, Robotron, Daleks, Snood, Tempest, Solarian, Pipedream, Lode Runner, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Super Aqua Blooper, Dig-dug, Centipede, Millipede, Tapper, Track and Field (video game), Frogger, Zork, Bejeweled, Dopewars, Tetris, Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmix, Quake, Doom, Quake II, Quake III, Half-life, Myth, Myth II, Myst, Riven, Dark Forces, "I know you are, but what am I?", Air Hockey, Pong, Ping Pong, Foosball, Volleyball, Charades, Movie Game (Karen), Movie Game (Ammy and Rick), Croquet, Marco Polo, Scavenger Hunts, Geocaching, Easter Egg Hunt, Phase 10, Gimmie the Brain, Lord of the Fries, Deadwood, Bitin' Off Heads, Kill Dr. Lucky, Clue, Masterpiece, Life, Hungry-hungry Hippos, Malibu Gran Prix, Kings in the Corner, Blackjack, Keno, Poker, Spades, Hearts, Roulette, Craps, Slots, Minesweeper, Hangman, Jeopardy, Battleship, Chess, Checkers, Othello, Tennis, Racquetball, Wallyball, Speed Cribbage (Dad), Scrabble, Speed Scrabble (x-mas 2002), Nurtz, Speed, Spit, Pictionary, Cranium, Kickball, Relay Race, Obstacle Courses, Footraces, Touch Football, Tossing Football (Karen), Aerobee (Dad and Karen), Frisbee Golf, Ultimate Frisbee, *Drama games, *SCA games, *Faire games, *Card games, *Fezziwigs games, Chrononauts, Fluxx, Nanofictionary, Icetowers, Zendo, Liars Dice, Tiajuana, Yahtzee, *Dart games, Matchbox car racing, Firetruck playtime, Grapes-in-mouth, RC car racing, Guillotine, *other computer games, *console games, **odyssey 300, **colecovision, Red Baron (snoopy), **Intellivision, **gameboy games, **single-game handhelds, **current (gamecube/playstation/etc), **GBA, VirtualBoy Tennis, **pinball games, Parchesi, Poor Pussy, General Post, Blind Man's Bluff, Telephone, Picnic on Mars, Alphabet in the Round, Bondage, "Honey if you love me, why won't you smile?", Horseshoes, Wheel of Fortune, Name That Tune, BlindDateBlog, SurvivorBlog, Tic-Tac-Toe, Nine Mans Morris.

*The one with aserisks are genres that I've only barely dipped in to, lest I forget old favorites like Venture for the ColecoVision or Super Monkey Ball for the Gamecube. With those last two I have exactly 201, and if the recall of games follows the same decay curve as most large recall tasks, I'd estimate I have another 300-600 games left in me. Time will probably be the limiting factor for Monday.

So did I forget anything obvious? Err, obvious to you, that is. I mean, I probably didn't play all the games you did, but I bet your thoughts will trigger more of my own memories.

This should be one of the funner and more nostalgic discussions...

Thank you Zhaneel and Ammy for your help. Ammy, sadly I accidentally deleted our IM convo. You don't happen to have it, do you?

Oh, a few more I shouldn't forget: Milles Bornes, Uno, Lord of the Rings Board Game, Chez Geek, Magic: The Gathering (just twice, but still), Diplomacy, Risk, Illuminati, Shinobi, SimCity, The Sims, Sim Tower, Battlezone, Robotron, Dragons Lair, Billiards, Bowling, Tron, Tron Discs, Street Fighter, Gran Turismo 2, Need for Speed II, Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, Virtua Fighter, Sands of Egypt (CoCo), Guess My Number (Mickey), Merlin (handheld), Red Rover, Trivial Pursuit, Kinesis, Speed Sliding Puzzle, Snake, A-Maze-Ing (Mac 128K), Pyramid Solitaire, Clock Solitaire, Klondike, Dark Castle, Diablo, War, Bullshit, CivNet, 10 women (Mr. Bad), Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Pole Position, Lunar Lander, Maelstrom, Gother Than Thou, Aquarius. Okay! I'm stopping now! I could keep going on and on but I have to sleep now. This paragraph adds another 51 games to the total.

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So it's week two and the semester's already at full tilt. I pulled my first all-nighter of the semester Sunday night, and have been packed with work all week, and all the week to come.

It feels SO GOOD.

I learned a new word yesterday: eustress. I haven't found it in an online dictionary yet, but I'm going to check out the Oxford. Eustress is an opposite of 'distress.' In effect, eustress is 'good stress.' To me it feels like 'frenzy' but then I'm a sicko who likes frenzy. Anyhow, that's what I've been swimming in, and I like it.

Every single one of my classes is awesome. My teachers are fantastic, in contrast to a mix of brilliance and disappointment last semester. I'll write up my course listing in the next couple days, and will dive into detail on each of my classes later on, with syllibi and possibly even photos and video.

Right now, I just finished a simple maze program, representing my first foray into visual basic. It's a simple maze game for my Programming Usable Interfaces class. We were told to code something, anything, in Visual Basic. Don't even try to map the maze; it randomizes each time you turn. It's nothing special, but it's great to have the freedom of sitting down in a computer lab for a few hours, letting my imagination being my guide. Oh, and I wouldn't have called it 'impress.exe' except that was the sole constraint of the assignment.

For a (very, very slightly) more down-to-Earth example of what I've been doing the last few days, our first project in Game Design was to create a new game based off of hopscotch. The assignment was in three parts:

1. Brainstorm at least 50 ideas for hopscotch.
2. Pick three or more ideas, and write a paragraph or two exploring them.
3. Pick one, create a rule set, playtest it, document your findings, iterate the ruleset, playtest again, and document your findings.

I love this place. Wait'll you hear about our project for this week. I'll write that as soon as I finish my reading for tonight's classes.

I'll need your help. Get ready for some great nostalgia.

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I'm watching a seminar being given by the head of Microsoft's game development, drawing similarities and differences between games and productivity software, and I gleaned teh following realization:

When people beat a game and it was enjoyable, they strive for the next version of that game. People don't sit waiting for the next version of Windows, either because it's not enjoyable, or because they haven't beaten the current version yet (if you view the struggle to create a usable, workable system as a game in and of iteslf).

People lust for OS X 10.2 because 10.1 was enjoyable, and people beat it. It's stable, it does what it's supposed to, and ironically enough, people aren't satisfied with that, because they like the twin challenges of new functionality and troubleshooting.

Well, the geeks, anyhow.

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Just in case the world is in want of more evidence of just how wacky Canadians can be, I present the World Rock-Paper-Scissors Society which, unlike some well-executed sites, is completely real.

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So most of the really cool games and gaming platforms (Xbox, PS2, Gamecube) rely far more on realtime rendering for their wow factor. Personally, my favorite games are racing games (why this is true is probably a subject for a whole other post).

The latest crop of racing games try to make the experience as real as possible, raytracing the surrounding terrain in the reflection of a car's windows or polished surface, using sophisticated physics models. Gran Turismo 3 even uses actual recorded engine sound for each of their cars, and will alter the tire's gripping power over the course of a race to reflect how tires behave differently when they get hot.

So what I don't understand is actually pretty simple: Most (all?) of these games have lens flare, that diagonal line of circles that appear across the screenn when the sun is in direct view. Lens flare is an artifact of the multiple lenses used in sophisticated still and video cameras. Each lens (your pocket 35mm has a few, a telephoto lens can have between 4 and 10, etc.) creates a ghost image of the sun, usually on the opposite side of the frame from the sun, connected by an imaginary line cutting through the center of the frame.

Okay, great, cool. By simulating lens flare, these games are replicating even the imperfections of the experience, to make for a more realistic experience. Fantastic.

But what experience are they trying to replicate? When I'm driving a racing simulation (or flight simulator, Sonic 3D, or whoever else is being lens-flare-clever) I'm trying to suspend my disbelief and pretend I'm in the car and driving it, but the simulator, giving me lens flare, is trying to pretend I'm looking through a camera lens in a car.

Lens flare got put into these games because it was a cheap and easy way to make them look prettyer, and give them a little 'wow'. ("Hey, look at that, they even programmed in the lens flare. Those programmers got every detail! This is so cool!")

Now that everyone has it, and the lens flare isn't a hundredth as impressive as seeing the car in front of you reflected in the puddle on the ground, or driving through 3D fog, can we just lose the lens flare, so I can believe I'm a transparent eyeball, and not an 8-element Nikkor 28-210 telephoto lens?

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When I was five (think 1978, just after Star Wars came out) my mom got Susie and me a video game console. State of the Art. Pong. Too cool.

What's even cooler is that a couple years ago I found the same model on eBay and got it for $30, and hooked it up to my 36" TV. Man that's some fun flashbacking.

Experience your own flashback, and take a peek at the zen of pong.

If pong's before your time, then check the Fury archives for something even funnier: Old School Video Games.

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."

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Finally, after 20 years, vindication.

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If you played video games in the early 80s, you'll love this quicktime music video. If not, you probably wouldn't understand the attraction.

God I love nostalgia. It's what made the world go 'round.

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Okay, so I try not to lift links straight from slashdot, but this is just too idly amusing.

Some people think Windows is going to take over the world. Taking a closer look at Microsoft's tech support site, it may already be taking over your kitchen...

Okay, taking a closer look at the product in question, I'm starting to wonder if it's really a good idea for children to play with blenders. From the site:

"Inspired by Steven Spielberg, Someone's in the Kitchen features animated kitchen appliances that come to life with narration, sound, video and animation!"

Wow. Just like real kitchen appliances! Only they come to life with sound, animation, blood, and lacerations! Then again, maybe that's why the product is discontinued...

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Got invited at the last minute to a Giants game this afternoon (thanks Evan!). It was great. The new stadium's beautiful, everyone is close to the action, and it just feels very vintage.

If you know any season-ticket holders, suck up to them and scam a few. It's a great time.

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(Beware... shameless plugs ahead...)

Saw High Fidelity with Nomes on Friday. This was my second time seeing it and I can't reccomend it highly enough. The movie is great, especially if you've seen and loved Say Anything. Not that the two are alike. In fact, the reason HF is so great is that it is no more like or unlike Say Anything than you are like or unlike the person you were when you first saw Say Anything. It's a tribute to evolution and constancy both, and has a great soundtrack. See it.

Saturday Em, Karen, Crystal and I went to see Gladiator. It was very long (2 hours, 24 minutes plus previews), and very good. The camera work during the action shots was interesting, with relatively high-speed photography (little motion-blur) combined with a slow frame rate (about 12/sec to 4/sec at times, dropping frames and stretching out those that remained) and a very first-person pov for almost a Blair Witchy experience, if BW was set in 2nd century Germania and Rome and had a huge budget. All in all it was very good, especially if you can ignore the Braveheart-ish overtones. Interestingly, the Portugese version is two minutes shorter than the American version. I wonder what they cut...

Sunday was Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation at the UC Theater in Berkeley. As (almost) always, the shorts were great, though my personal high point was when they finished with Billy's Balloon (sorry, no clip). This is the funniest thing I've ever seen on a movie screen. It's even funnier than this.

After the festival, we all went back to Crepe de'Vine and played two hours of Fluxx, a great game that everybody should own and play.

Wow. All this gushing is making me tired! Tomorrow's the last day of instruction for the semester, so prepare for only one more week of cynicism (building up around Thursday and Friday), then finals on Saturday, Monday, and next Tuesday. After that, it's pimping myself on Craig's List for a few months until I start back up in late August.

Tomorrow, I'm going to ask you about your breakfast habits, and tell you about the kind of corporate espionage I'll only do for my loyal readers. 'Till then, have a good night!

-Kevin

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