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Talisman remix: Game derandomization
Occasionally, I attempt to fix the very broken game Talisman (2nd edition), the game that got me into fantasy in 3rd grade. I still find it fun because of the weird stories that come out of it, but it's a very random game and a very long game ... very random because you roll to see which two options you have on your turn each turn, and most of those options involve just drawing a card to see what happens; very long because players don't have much control over the pace of the game and it's easy to sort of have your attention drift after the first hour -- I think much of the time in the game is time spent waiting for someone to realize it's their turn.

So, here's my proposed modern remake of the game. If you don't know Talisman, consider how well this would work for your favorite die-rolling, card-drawing game.

( Game derandomization follows )

...And that's it. Theoretically, if everybody has more of a choice about what they're doing, they should both get to their goals faster and be able to mess with the table leader more (but not to the crazy extent of Munchkin, hopefully, since it's still hard to mess with people unless you're near them, and they can equally mess with you); the expenditure of cards mechanic lets you plan ahead and evaluate priorities more; and simultaneous play keeps everybody interested instead of waiting for their turns.

Any thoughts on these mechanics?

Two awesome and awesomely cheap games
The World Ends With You for DS is about $16 on Amazon right now, and Civ IV for PC is just about $12.

You probably know about Civ IV already, and if you don't, all I have to say is, you have no idea how far that $12 will get you. The $20 Beyond the Sword expansion is a nice addition but not actually necessary to get umpteen zillion hours of gameplay out of playing out different alternate history scenarios. Plus, the original theme music is catchier.

The World Ends With You is a Square Enix RPG that just oozes style -- the catchy J-Hip-hop music alone is worth the price of admission, and the graffiti-ish graphical style is like nothing I've seen in an RPG before. It's a modern-day setting in the trendy Shibuya district of Tokyo, and its twist on the talk-to-everybody-while-saying-nothing-yourself RPG cliche is that you can read everybody's mind, but are such a teenage misfit loner that you never talk back to them. The aesthetic effect of wandering through crowded streets reading people's innermost thoughts while completely avoiding contact with them is quite cool ... this game has an arty theme in a way that few other RPGs dare. Combat is this crazy frenetic action where on the bottom screen of the DS you're making different motions with the stylus to cast different spells, and at the same time you're using the D-Pad to do combos in real-time with your character on the other screen, who inhabits a sort of parallel version of the world but shares your HP. This game is completely unique, stylistically on par with Okami in how completely it realizes a particular artistic vision, and takes advantage of the DS's peculiarities like no other game I've seen, and is well worth checking out. For $16.

Truly this is a great and singular age we live in
... when I can listen to a song on the radio that I like, wait for an uncommon phrase like "God of Progress," then go home and Google '"God of Progress" lyrics' to get the name of the song ("Come on! Feel the Illinoise!" by Sufjan Stevens), and acquire it in seconds via iTunes.

It's a good song. Check it out. But also consider how alien this kind of thought process must be to our parents, who are neither trained to think about statistically improbable phrases as good search terms, nor to expect every variety of media they could possibly want to be on the Internet somewhere. And I'm sure at some point, when search algorithms and Internet interfaces improve and acquire some more rational process of asking you about what kind of information you're looking for, this process of being cognizant of uncommon phrases as potential leverage in Google searches will seem as antiquated as the ability to crank a Model T.

Space Hulk
Paging

eclectician...

Space Hulk is back in a limited 20th Anniversary edition. GW is selling it for $100 in a limited run, and when it's gone, it's gone...though it's already somehow jumped to #8 on the BoardGameGeek game rankings.

More info on the Games Workshop site.

I'm apparently turning into something of a game collector, seeing as how I now acquire games for little more reason than their incredibly obscure subject matter, so I'm reasonably tempted by this offer.

The game is a cool nonsymmetric 2-player game, where one person plays the hordes of ravening aliens running through a spaceship and the other plays the disciplined marines usually trying for nothing more than getting from one side to the other alive. Genestealers are mere blips on marine radar until they come into line-of-sight, and neither player knows whether a blip will turn out to be a false alarm, a mere squadron of 3, or 7-alien death. Marine strategy consists of putting marines into good defensive positions where they can go on "overwatch," ready to fire at anything that moves. It's fair to say there's never been a game quite like it, though it could be seen as a precursor to the Tower Defense games that came much later -- only better.

Original Song: Einherjar
More pretending I am a rock musician: Einherjar.

This song started out as an experiment with Phrygian chords ... the assignment for the composer group was to bring something half-finished, and since the others seemed often avant-garde-y, I wanted to kind of impress them with what I knew while still being firmly pop, hence Phrygian chords, which are the weirdest musical tool I know how to use effectively. They resolve into a major chord, but use a different mode, Phrygian, that is like a normal scale but starts on the 3rd note of a major scale. Hence in the song,

E Phryg Amaj7
Weight...less

with a C scale playable over the E Phryg and an A scale with three more sharps played over the A major. Pretty cool -- a weird sound that's nevertheless easy to implement when you're in the right key to start!

The other innovation (for me) here is, I have figured out what "ducking" is for in Garage Band. It is to keep low parts that might otherwise might interfere with my voice and make it sound staticky from doing so. I kept assuming that the problem was a crappy mike or something, but it was actually that when multiple instruments try to get along nicely with a voice, there's some additional mixing fu that has to take place. So you might notice my voice sounding clearer on this recording than on earlier endeavors.

Aside from that, I loved the "einherjar" idea developed in the game Valkyrie Profile, and so the lyrics play with the idea of the guy the Valkyries don't pick for Ragnarok. Or do they?

Next time something cheerier, honest.

QOTD
I love this epigraph to Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs, a collection of writings about how he learned to be a functional husband and father:

"Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly." -- G. K. Chesterton.

Best video game character result: moar facial hair plz
Gamespot ran a contest to see who the greatest video game character of all time is. Mostly I think this boiled down to a big ol' popularity contest, but there are a few surprises -- who would think Bub and Bob from Bubble Bobble would beat Master Chief in the first round? Also, manly seems to win against effeminate; Cloud from FFVII lost to Kratos from God of War, and Alucard from Castlevania SotN lost to Snake. Both finalists, Mario and Gordon Freeman, are some of the few video game characters with facial hair, sending an unambiguous if erroneous message to the video game industry!

Personally, I'd go for Samus Aran, Link, or Strider Hiryu if we're going for quintessential video gameyness, or Nameless One or Kyle Katarn for best character in some kind of objective if-they-were-a-novel sense.

Nobel
I like the choice of Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize. I can see four different takes on it:

1. Silver candlesticks for the President, as in Les Miserables, reminding him of his promise to be a good man. Pretty clever, I think.
2. 33 AD: "Why did Jesus get the Nobel? Israel still isn't free of Rome! He was just a good talker who's dead now! Where's the accomplishment?" People underestimate the power of words.
3. We Americans like to think that prizes should only achieved through accomplishments that anybody could achieve, but perhaps there is an argument in favor of awarding prizes based on who somebody happens to be, if the sheer fact of their existence is a force for peace. As the first man of color to achieve presidency of the United States, he really is a symbol of hope for minority populations the world over. Is the purpose of the prize to reward an individual, or to express a vision of an ideal world?
4. Who do you want to deliver the speech in Oslo laying out a vision for world peace, eh?

Yes yes, they cited the nuclear weapons efforts, but I read at least one article suggesting that #1 was a strong motivation of the selection committee, and I think the confluence of the others means that in 4 years, nobody will understand why everybody was so confused today.

Site visitors
It's been a while since I've done this...

Create your own visitor map!

Update: For some reason it took away all my dots, but you can still see the locations by clicking through. I wonder who the French and Australian people were?

Update #2: Ah, it rolls over by GMT, I think. I was confused as to how I had no hits by 8PM the same day!

Original Song: Downpour
I'm not sure why this one took most of a day when the others just took an evening. Maybe it was all the plosive p's that had to be re-recorded, or maybe I just take forever in coming up with lyrics and this one had 3 whole verses, a chorus, and a bridge. Actually, that's probably it.

Anyway, here's my latest Garage Band creation, Downpour. No caterpillars this time, but there are Transformers. And Yahweh. Kind of.

Original Song: Hey Caterpillar
If you asked me a week ago what my first song with original lyrics and chords would be, I would not have guessed "A song based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

Nevertheless, the faculty member who goes to the Wellesley composer's group with me was talking to me earlier today about his composition in progress, about a caterpillar. (He studies bugs.) "You should add lyrics," I said. "And be sure to use the phrase 'om-nom-nom-o-meter.'" As my suggestions piled on, I realized I wasn't helping him with his piece, but sort of writing my own -- and once I had the catchy chorus, I decided to see the thing through.

So here it is: Hey Caterpillar. I've also read a few mixing tips since last time, so it should sound okay out of normal speakers for once. Yay!

Worst Mistake
Since I'm going to lend away my copy of the PS2 Harmonix game Frequency, I thought I'd take the opportunity to try to cover my favorite song from the game, "Worst Mistake", originally by Curve. The old Harmonix games Frequency and Amplitude were a lot closer to laying tracks and mixing than the Rock Band games became -- you'd pass over parts one at a time and layer them to create the right sound, and you had to lay down not just the main instruments, but the backing synth and so forth as well. So if you want to do your own version of the song, it's great for picking out the tiny parts.

Trying to get all the parts (by playing the right parts of the Frequency level over and over and listening closely) was an education, because even a really simple song like this has a lot of stuff going into the background. You wouldn't think it to hear it, but there are ten different tracks on my recording, all doing different things. (Grind Bass, Bedrock Drumset, Moonbeam synth, Headbanger Kit, Mosh Pit Guitar, Star Sweeper synth, vocals, steel drums, Cavern drum kit, and Festival Guitar for my solos, which were the only part not in the original.) The actual Curve studio recording has even more weird sirens and effects. It's a lot of effort to put into a song that has only 3 chords, but it just goes to show that a lot of any work is in the presentation and polish, not whether it breaks new ground fundamentally.

Edit: PS, trying to listen to this song without headphones or good speakers is just not going to work, since everything builds off a bassline that will just vanish for something like Macbook speakers.

Edit #2, Wednesday: Okay, it's not the Macbook's fault entirely -- having read a few more mixing tips, I can at least not shoot myself in the foot by drawing power away from the parts I want to emphasize and amping things above their recorded level. Replaced recording with more balanced mix.

Scribblenauts!
Scribblenauts is amazing! I finally went out and bought a DS for the game, and wasn't disappointed. The game gives you an environment and a goal, like "Protect the sandwich from the ants", and the ability to summon anything you can think of, and the rest is up to you. It's the most open-ended puzzle game I've ever seen. You can make over 10,000 things, and the upshot is, if you can think of it, it's in the game. I've yet to encounter a disappointment; UFO, Venus Fly Trap, Monster Truck, Iris, Daffodil, Ferret -- all just worked. And something I didn't know from reviews is you can glue stuff together -- so one solution to a puzzle I came up with was to summon a mouse, glue a magnet to its back, summon some cheese where I wanted it to go, and watch as the mouse-magnet pulled my desired item along. Totally rad. I got a Castlevania game and a Zelda game along with the DS too, but I'm not sure when they're going to come out of their packaging.

Update: "Help him do his job!" is the instruction with a logger and a pine tree, and in expert mode, you need to solve the puzzle 3 different ways. My solution: ax, chainsaw, ... masamune. The legendary sword was even quicker to cut it down than the chainsaw. Totally badass!

Update #2: In one level there are 3 flowers to get -- one guarded by an angry bee, one guarded by a piranha, and one on a high ledge. 2 item solution that works (highlight to see spoiler): Cthulhu, Roflcopter. Holy crap.

Update #3: I thought this xkcd was kidding about being able to summon the Large Hadron Collider. "LHC" will do the trick, too.

Yep, more GarageBand
My cover of Mirah's While We Have the Sun. Hmm, I should try to make sure the next song isn't a downer. At least the steel drums sound peppy.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy is Good And You Should Read It
I tend to like my fantasy with a healthy dose of ripestry. That's a sea-murth word that means both "magic" and "language." What's a sea-murth? Why, it's a siren, only a little different, and it rolls off the tongue better: sea-murth.

( Red Wolf Conspiracy: We Got Your Ripestry )

Of Two Minds: A Mini-Review of "I Never," Geektastic anthology
The Book: Geektastic is an anthology of short stories about geeks. Oddly, they're also all high school student protagonists, which was also true of the last random short story anthology I read, Wizards, even though neither advertised this fact anywhere on the packaging. What, do only high school students read anymore?

The Story Setup: The Game is an online MUD-type thing where people pose as famous literary characters. Girl-as-Cathy-from-Wuthering-Heights exchanges passionate letters with Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. When they meet in person, there's the hunky guy that plays Heathcliff, walking in with his friend the random nerdy guy --

Your Immediate Reaction Should Be: "Fuck this shit! Nerdy guy totally wrote the letters! Fuck this trite shit!"
But Mine Was Also: "Aww, you go nerdy guy! Way to get the girl through sheer literary prowess and sincerity!"

The Moral of the Story: Being in love with geek culture means being genuinely moved by pretty trite shit for the rest of your days.

Neil Gaiman Facts
Via

swan_tower: 20 Neil Gaiman Facts, because he is the Chuck Norris of science fiction authors.

No One at the Bridge
Why does Tom Waits get so many covers? I bet it's because a lot of people say to themselves, "You know, I could do that cool song without the funny voice." Similarly, Rush is appealing to cover because at least you can do it without Geddy Lee's funny voice. Too bad they're such difficult musicians to emulate.

Anyhoo, here's my cover of the obscure Rush song No One At the Bridge, made tonight between midnight and 3am. Why I thought it was a good idea to start at midnight, I don't know. But I seem to be getting better ... the improvisation at the end was my very first take, and this time there are no canned loops, so even the drums are me.

(I don't actually feel my crew's deserted me -- I think I'm just in a nautical mindset because I'm reading The Red Wolf Conspiracy. --Which is great so far.)

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble
This weekend I picked up a delightful game called Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble off of the downloadable PC game service Steam for ten bucks. It's a neat, well-done indie game that tells a good story, has great dialogue, and includes several mechanics worth stealing if you're thinking of writing a LARP.

( More about the game )

In short, if you're feeling jaded about video games and are ready for something witty and completely different, it's a great ten dollar purchase.

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