Homeless Sims make for gripping tale

 Posted by on 17 June 2009  Modern Life
Jun 172009
 

homelesssims

I used to love playing The Sims — I would play it for hours and hours. But I never got into a storyline like I got into the created storyline over at “Alice and Kev“. Blogger Robin Burkinshaw has created Sims who have no home, no money, and awful character traits. He’s monitoring their life, and writing touching little vignettes about what happens to his Sims and how they deal with the cards he’s dealt them:

As her father dislikes children, he hates sleeping next to her. In the morning, he’s always the first to wake, and he immediately throws a tantrum and wakes up Alice to tell her to leave the room. Alice understandably responds that they’re not in a room, and she doesn’t have anywhere to go. Then they argue, and Kev seems to blame Alice for every possible thing.

I read the whole thing, so far, straight through in one sitting, although I didn’t intend to. It doesn’t take long. And it’s really quite good.

(via BB)

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Board games that misled us all (and caused the financial meltdown)

 Posted by on 17 June 2009  Modern Life, Vintage/Retro
Jun 172009
 

monopoly

Slate’s “The Big Money” section has a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) slideshow on board games that we played as kids, and how they are fundamentally flawed. The thesis of the slideshow is how these fundamental flaws can lead to illogical behaviour in the real market.

Take Monopoly, for example (I took the image above from Flickr user DaylandS’ photostream, which is the same place The Big Money got theirs, but I chose a different picture):

Monopoly has taught us that financial institutions are invincible. The game’s banker cannot go bankrupt, according to the rules: “The Bank never ‘goes broke.’ If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on any ordinary paper.”

Whoops?

They also take a look at The Game of Life, PayDay, Risk, and Mall Madness — as well as a game I’d never heard of called Acquire. Two games they didn’t examine, but which I played lots, were Pit and Stock Ticker.

One thing all these games do have in common — and which I think we’ve seen in the economy as well — is the concept of one winner, many losers.

Like a drinking game on, well, drugs

 Posted by on 29 May 2009  NSFW, Vintage/Retro
May 292009
 

It’s “Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas — The Board Game”

fullsuitcase

On a board that mimics a peyote button, you roll dice, land on a coloured space, then do what the cards tell you to do. Sometimes they tell you take a specific drug, sometimes they direct you on an adventure, and sometimes they give you challenges that would be difficult if you were on drugs. I’m not paraphrasing, those are basically the categories laid out in the rules.

I’m not sure if this is a concept, a one-off art piece, or a limited edition deal, but I want!

UPDATE: It’s a one-off, but he’s selling it for $3,500. Check the site, though, it’s really well thought-out.

Dice rolling machine can make over a million throws a day

 Posted by on 27 May 2009  Modern Life
May 272009
 

I introduce to you, the Dice-O-Matic:

It was built because the guy who runs GamesByEmail.com had complaints from players that his “random” dice rolling computer program wasn’t truly random:

So, he says, he got the idea to build a real dice-rolling machine. And then went overboard. I like him:

The Dice-O-Matic is 7 feet tall, 18 inches wide and 18 inches deep. It has an aluminum frame covered with Plexiglas panels. A 6×4 inch square Plexiglas tube runs vertically up the middle almost the entire height. Inside this tube a bucket elevator carries dice from a hopper at the bottom, past a camera, and tosses them onto a ramp at the top. The ramp spirals down between the tube and the outer walls. The camera and synchronizing disk are near the top, the computer, relay board, elevator motor and power supplies are at the bottom.

The dice start the cycle at the top of the ramp, toward the rear of the machine. The ramp is comprised of ten steps, each at about a 20 degree incline, with a right hand thread through two and a half spirals. Two layers of cloth covered foam (car headliner) keep the noise down. Felt covered foam quarter-obelisks are at each corner, sewn to the side padding. It took a few tries to get the pitch just right. Too shallow and the dice stopped tumbling, too steep and they would start banging against the Plexiglas. Now they roll very well, sometimes stopping and then getting knocked back into the stream. Perfect.

The hopper at the bottom of the ramp is pure seething violence.

(Via Slashdot, where following this post, a Quantum Mechanics discussion on the nature of “random” has erupted)

Interactive online choose-your-own-adventure weirder than you could imagine

 Posted by on 19 April 2009  Modern Life, Vintage/Retro
Apr 192009
 

00048_2

The accursed odor of fresh baking wafts into your newfound nostrils.
Something is brewing in the KITCHEN. It must be the connivings of your
arch nemesis, BETTY CROCKER, and the rich, buttery aroma of her plot
stinks to high heaven.

This mission is going to be more difficult than you imagined.

>

… … … …

I don’t quite know what to make of the webcomic “MSPaint Adventures,” except that it’s odd and oddly hilarious. Artist Andrew Hussie creates MSPaint-style RPG-like games that unfold based on reader votes. It’s organic and open-ended, and strangely compelling.

It’s difficult to describe. He presents a situation, and then readers suggest what the characters’ next action should be. This is presented like an early computer game — you have to type in something like “Descend Stairs.” But there are always as many possible options as there are readers.

Imagine Zork, with MSPaint-style graphics.

(thanks to my friend Dallas for pointing this my way)

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Mom was wrong: Video games can improve vision

 Posted by on 30 March 2009  Modern Life
Mar 302009
 
Oh good, maybe all those hours playing Doom were actually good for me.

Oh good, maybe all those hours playing Doom were actually good for me.

Remember when your mom told you that you shouldn’t sit so close to the TV, or you’d ruin your eyes? Did you ever think to tell her that correlation does not imply causation? Did you ever point out that maybe you sat close to the TV because your vision was already bad?

No? Well, now you can throw this study in her face. According to researchers at Rochester University in New York and Goldschleger Eye Research Institute and Tel Aviv University, playing the right video games can actually make your eyesight better. At least by one narrow measure.

According to an article on the website LiveScience:

Video games with lots of action, such as the shoot-’em-up variety, can improve your vision…. Players became up to 58 percent better at perceiving fine contrast differences in the tests.

“If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it,” study leader Daphne Bavelier [said].

That’s important because most people didn’t think perception of contrast even could be improved.

(via Slashdot)

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