Other games people play
Comment readers will know that Katherine kept trying to post in response to the games entry and WordPress kept eating it, which is WordPress’ little game.* So she emailed it to me, at approximately the same moment as I was writing an answer to her comment saying ‘email it to me and I’ll post it.’ That was, as I say, a while ago. Better late than never.** I’ve added a few links: her email apologises for not containing live links, for fear that my computer will run mad and start biting people.
I am not a fan of games of strategy–my mind doesn’t work that way and during slow times (most of the game, really) I find myself thinking, “You know, I could be READING right now.”
Yup. Took the words right out of my mouth.
Settlers of Cattan, for example, swept through my friends with the force of a thousand tornados. When made to participate, I tended to do things like trade everything for sheep cards and create in my mind a town entirely populated by an all-sheep dance troupe. I was usually overrun and never won. I am no longer forced to participate.
Yes, I understand this. I like twiddling with the pieces*** and admiring the board as opposed to playing the game. I loathe learning the rules. It occurs to me this is very like my attitude toward facts as described in the FAQ on my web site: there are two kinds of facts. Boring ones which I want to escape as fast as possible, and interesting ones which I want to make up stories around, and never mind the context.† Better games sets rouse in me the sense that I could really do something with this. . . .
This is in stark contrast to the standard Dickinson clan response to a new game. They jostle each other to read the rules, and get to grips instantly with the crucial question of how to change them.
I prefer games that require random knowledge of trivia (reading thousands of books is very good for this skill set)
Only if you have the memory to back it up. Not one of the features that came with this model.
or understanding of the psyche and personality of my fellow players. I kick butt at those games and they move much more quickly. Games like Trivial Pursuit, Balderdash, Taboo, etc. I like interaction. (I also REALLY like to win, but that’s neither here nor there…mostly).
I merely dislike winning somewhat less than I dislike losing. I’d much rather not be forced to do either one.
Here are a couple of my all-time faves:
–Cranium: combines trivia and charades (for you!) and word play and the loosest artistic ability. It’s brilliant and because there’s a wild option, I can win by breezing through the wordplay category. And because one plays with teams (two or more), I can foist the bits I’m not as good at on other people who are. Everybody wins!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranium_(game)
–Loaded Questions: Fascinating game. Often falls under the category “ice breaker” but I prefer playing it with people I know fairly well. One person asks one of the six questions on each card (“If you had to kill one person in the world, who would it be?” “What do you not eat enough of?” “Name the best quality of the person on your right?”) and then has to guess who answered what. And the idea is not so much for you to guess right (although you get points for that), but for the person to guess your answer correctly. If they pick your answer as yours, you get to move up. You can win without ever guessing correctly yourself. (This is a very confusing explanation, but I swear it’s a good time).
http://www.loadedquestions.com/loadedquestions-how-play.html
I rather like the idea of winning merely by being more emphatically yourself than anybody else is themselves. Being forcefully Robin is something that comes pretty naturally to me.†† It’s still a game.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=stlyJl93bTIC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=Loaded+Questions+game&source=web&ots=s_oI955AnK&sig=QI–4nu8fMReUgTtLrsPyB3xkRc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA91,M1
This takes forever to load, and then you may need to scroll around to find the relevant bit. And it’s nothing about playing the game!! But I thought it was pretty interesting about the mindset of the fellow who invented it.†††
Two other games I find weirdly addicting are dominoes (which I only learned to play two years ago) and Pass the Pigs. Which you can find on Wikipedia (I’d link to it, but I’m not sure if your email will accept links without deletion).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_the_Pigs
http://www.fontface.com/games/pigs/
And here you can play it on line. Brrrr. Just looking at the rules makes me feel twitchy and claustrophobic. . . . Sorry, can’t play, have to walk hellhounds, make cookies, plant something, iron the car.
And then Kyndigen says:
Our favorite non-digital game thus far has got to be Fluxx
<<http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/>>. It’s the only card
game I’ve ever played where the rules change continually throughout the
game. Even when it gets crazy it’s still relatively approachable since
the rules are all printed out on the cards. To figure out what the
current rule set is, you just read everything that’s on the table.
http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/Rules3.0.html
Here’s a nice user friendly schematic. Okay, okay . . . it’s still a game.‡
Meanwhile, speaking of unusual takes on games and playing, two of you with my best interests at heart have emailed me this:
Er . . . thanks.‡‡ I can’t get the Whedon clip to play, and Peter says ‘seriose’ is not a Latin construction. So I’m just cranky. I concur that Whedon walks on water‡‡‡ so obviously I’m missing the point: But professionals inviting amateurs to give it their best shot make me nervous. What’s in it for the amateur? If they’re that good, they should be producing their own we-try-harder-because-we-have-no-money DVD, not being patronised by the best in the business. I’m suffering concept failure and sense of humour drop-out, right?
And last but definitely, definitely definitely not least, jmeadows sent me this link:
Which is unspeakably wonderful in every way§ and just in case I’m not the last person on the planet to have discovered it, but only the second to last, and the last person reads this blog. . . . Check it out. You’ll be happy all day. Probably tomorrow too. I’ll let you know.
* * *
* Ha ha, very funny, now cut it the (*&^%$£”!!! out.
** If I were organised, I’d be dangerous.
*** And I always hate it when they’re cheezy plastic with ridges all round where they’ve come off the mould or the stamp or whatever, and I especially hate them when you have to break them off an even cheezier plastic frame, so they have a horrible little rough plastic tag forever.
I am not, as I keep saying, a games person, but my old Scrabble board is one of my prize possessions: it’s so old it still has wooden tiles.
† I write fantasy. Unusually dimensioned angles on things is what I do.
†† Other people have also remarked on this fact.
††† Typical. I don’t want to play the game. I’ve just effectively distracted myself.
‡ Is there an echo in here?
‡‡ All those little icons at the bottom are LIVE! And I haven’t heard of ANY of them!^
^ Well. Google. Facebook. But why does a bookmark thingummy name itself Delicious?
‡‡‡ Even if his stupid video won’t play. Mmmph.
§ And I want most of the stuff in the shop
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
** If I were organised, I’d be dangerous.
Yup. That’s me. It’s on my wall to remind me that I can achieve things. LOL
Currently I am procrastinating about icing 3 cakes. I’m partway through making some ‘Dainty Bess’ as well as assorted Australian wildflowers. But my head wants to explode.
Oh look! Pretty book! ::pets Chalice::
Delicious is a lovely online bookmarking site! It’s particularly useful if you regularly use more than one computer. Once signed up, you save all your bookmarks there and they are then available from everywhere with an internet connection! (You can also import your existing bookmarks from Internet Explorer and Firefox)
But why DELICIOUS?
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It was originally a play on the .us domain name: del.icio.us. I noticed that they’ve recently changed to delicious.com, probably because of people like me who had to sit there and count letters to make sure the last bit ended up with just .us in it. :)
(That’s where I bookmark all of our ‘problem’ posts for LibraryThing. See?)
(That’s where I bookmark all of our ‘problem’ posts for LibraryThing. See?)
********** Oh, cool! **Sigh.** There’s so much stuff out there to learn and find out about. . . . And I’m already short of sleep ALL the time. . . .
um……..because it’s memorable? …because bookmarks and the information they link to is lovely food for your eyes/mind? delicious pieces of information?
Because they can– they did it when .us became a domain…
And besides there wasn’t any other kind of social bookmarking site around at the time. It’s one thing to store your bookmarks there, but what makes it delicious is that you also share them with others. For example, mine:
http://delicious.com/ebullient
Also, the URL used to be http://del.icio.us .. it came about when the .us domains first came online, and so had that much more coolness associated with it. delicious.com just isn’t as fun (though it is easier to type).
And you found xkcd!! oh you can lose DAYS looking through those comics.. days and days…
http://xkcd.com/63/
http://xkcd.com/459/
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So it’s a kind of annotated ‘favourites’ list?
http://xkcd.com/63/
http://xkcd.com/459/
SNORK.
Very useful, isn’t it, Delicious. We use it a lot for sharing resource bookmarks among people in different organisations. Makes life just that bit simpler.
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isn’t the internet addictive? Such (time devouring) fun and how did I exist happily without it all? I’m currently addicted to this
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=17 which I Love love love… and by one of those strange coincidences the writer is from my city…Wierd =0
Why is an 11-12 year old girl wearing purple eye shadow????
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****** Why is an 11-12 year old girl wearing purple eye shadow????
I know. Currently wrestling with my daughter about her love of teen manga which do my head in (translates as make me alternately a RABID feminist & despairing about the future of young girls devouring such sugared misogyny…
Even eyeshadow comes as light relief – and these girls are intelligent, they kick bottoms (lol) and have fun…
——-Only if you have the memory to back it up. Not one of the features that came with this model.
Exactly my problem. And I seem to lack the short-term memory to remember those facts I have just learned from such games as well….For some reason I seem to love playing Trivial Pursuit anyways…I don’t really understand it…
And OH MY GOD I LOVE XKCD!!!
Er…sorry. But xkcd IS unspeakably wonderful, as you said, and every Monday/Wednesday/Friday it is pretty much the highlight of my day. ^____^ The ‘random’ button is an excellent cure for boredom.
“If I were organised, I’d be dangerous.”
Grin. Laughed, actually. But quietly, so as not to disturb my roommate. [who, as it happens, is in the middle of reading the Twilight books... so as soon as my copy of Sunshine comes, guess what she'll get to read NEXT... she doesn't know it yet, it is inevitable, living with me. She already now recognizes your name, Robin, as, and I quote, "you know, that author who Julia is obsessed with". I'm not obsessed. I promise. Just because I made "I'm Sorry, I Had One For Tea and I Don't Have Room For Dinner" bars, with her help, and I read Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown twice each within the first week back here... and I am here just about every night reading and, often-times, commenting, that doesn't constitute an obsession. There are too many negative[/creepy/scary/bad/unflattering] connotations that are inherent in saying that I am obsessed. Just… enthusiastic. Admiring. Something like that. Heehee.
:)
Where was I? Ohyes. “If I were organised, I’d be dangerous.” I think I need to write that on a piece of paper in big letters and tape it over my desk. Right next to the far too fitting fortune cookie fortune, “A schedule defends from chaos and whim”. This is true. And what I need to hear/adhere to.
Oh well. I am resigned to forever being the kind of person who makes piles of papers and generally is at the mercy of chaos and whim, no matter how she attempts to create a schedule, because she never sticks to it.
And not at all an unhappy resignation, either.
Hugs.
–Julia
Better late than never…
but better never late
(At least that is what I’m told is the whole quote)
Glad you like XKCD! If you haven’t, hold your cursor over the comics, and you get little popup captions that are usually pretty funny. Some days they have have impossible-to-understand computer comics, but those days, you can click the random button and find something you’ll get. That’s what I do, anyway. :D
There’s a series on about a ferret flying. I’m not sure what numbers they are – and they’re not all grouped together, there are other comics between – or I’d find them for you. They’re so sweet and kind of sad. Maybe if you’re ever really bored and have lots of time (HAH!) you’ll start at the beginning and watch the comic grow.
I used to kind of read another webcomic – http://www.sluggy.com I think is the address – because it has an ex-lab ferret (Kiki!) and a switchblade-wielding rabbit, but I got out of the habit of going to look at the new comics and lost track of what was going on. Sluggy has much more *story* than XKCD (and one of the early Kiki stories made me cry – poor ferret!), and there’s a lot already out. It’s hard to keep up.
sluggy.com not only isn’t the address it CRASHED me off the internet . . . and I’ve been off for the LAST HOUR, which I imagine isn’t **entirely** sluggy’s fault (!). I fail to understand how your little white box can be green-light and your computer connection can claim to be 100% and you NOT BE ABLE TO GET ON THE INTERNET. Now I have to GO TO BED. And meanwhile a lot of comments I approved have unapproved themselves, and I think the last handful of my responses got eaten so I AM NOT A HAPPY CAMPER.
GRRRRRRR.
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Yipes! I broke Robin’s computer! *weeps*
I just checked the address, and it *is* http://www.sluggy.com! I have no idea why it crashed on you. The site is pretty cluttered-looking, but that shouldn’t crash you. Soooo sorry!
:(
No, I’ve got gremlins tonight! But I think I’ll pass on retrying sluggy just now. . . .
ALL RIGHT, WORDPRESS HAS JUST EATEN MY LAST THREE COMMENTS. NOW I **AM** GOING TO BED.
OH! So THAT’S what happened.
I had assumed you had actually gone to sleep.
Silly me.
Hah.
–Julia
: )
But I think I’ll pass on retrying sluggy just now . . .
Understandable!
Sleep well!
And gremlins begone.
Boo. *scares away computer gremlins.*
:)
–Julia
I fail to understand how your little white box can be green-light and your computer connection can claim to be 100% and you NOT BE ABLE TO GET ON THE INTERNET.
Mysterious things happen in the world of computers …
My standard response to these trials and tribulations is to turn it ALL off and then restart everything. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn’t. LOL Sometimes it is actually the Internet Providers fault not your own. Case in point – when you go to check email and it comes up with an error with your username/password. If you have everything set to auto (like a lot of people) then it will NOT be the username/password that is the problem but the IP. grrrr. I walk away from the computer then and comne back later… doesn’t always resolve in 5 minutes though. :( I’ve made the mistake in the past of re-entering all the details and the fact is it doesn’t need it and *I could put the wrong details in and stuff it all up*! aarrrgh!
Arrrgh indeed. The turning everything off and starting it again is about the only thing I KNOW to do and when THAT doesn’t work. . . .
Wait…wait…there are RULES in Pass the Pigs?! All I do is fling bouncy rubber piggies until someone else tells me I have some points. And giggle when they jostle into each other–that’s called “Makin’ Bacon.” For the 11-year-old in all of us.
Hey, thanks for posting my post, Robin!
(WordPress just told me I’m posting too quickly. Which is odd as I let this sit here for the last five minutes while I yelled at the boy cat for being a bully).
A card game I love is Graverobbers From Outer Space and all the other sets that came after it. Basically you have all the usual parts to make a b-movie (locations, characters etc.) and your movie attacks the other movies until the credits roll. Not the clearest description but hopefully you get the idea. Each set combines two genres like alien and zombie movies or kung fu and robots.
I too get bored very quickly. Most of my friends are gamers and I’m not allowed to RPG anymore because I’d wander away mid-game, get dragged back and do something awful that blew up the whole group or made the table (full of boys) cringe.
Settlers of Cattan, for example, swept through my friends with the force of a thousand tornados.
Maybe because the text was red, I eyeskipped this to read “the force of a thousand tomatoes.” Which is a force to be reckoned with, make no mistake! But not really the one Katherine was thinking of, I suspect…
Being forcefully Robin is something that comes pretty naturally to me.††
LOL! :) And you’re really very good at it, too.
Here’s another XKCD you might enjoy: http://xkcd.com/239/
Being forcefully Robin is something that comes pretty naturally to me.††
********* YOu WOULD pick that line to comment on. :)
http://xkcd.com/239/
********** *snork*
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i have never been much of a board game lover ,i always loved active sports like soft ball, curling and swimming.i starting playing a game called upwards ,kind of like junior scrabble with my youngest daughter because she has a moderate reading and audio disorder and it was interesting. she just turned 11 years old on friday. i love playing the chuzzles deluxe game on the internet. it is hilarious as well as entertaining. still waiting for chalice to come in[sob, tear,no fair]
CURLING? Oh heavens, another curling person . . . :)
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“Settlers of Cattan, for example, swept through my friends with the force of a thousand tornados. When made to participate, I tended to do things like trade everything for sheep cards and create in my mind a town entirely populated by an all-sheep dance troupe. I was usually overrun and never won. I am no longer forced to participate.”
This was wonderful. I’ve had several negative experiences with this game and now only play it when I’m with people who really enjoy it and with whom I want to hang out while they’re playing. Every now and then we joke about trading things in (for example, for those of you who don’t play this game, you can create part of a road with a brick and a wood card. You can also trade in any four cards that are the same for another card; for example, 4 sheep cards for a wood card or four wheat cards for a brick), wondering how exactly one builds a road with lots of wood and wheat, or get grossed out by a road made with 1 wood card and 4 sheep. But I never thought of this.
In order to understand the Evil League of Evil, one must track it to its source! The Evil League of Evil (run by Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin) is the nefarious cabal of crime whose select ranks (should that be “flanks”?) Dr. Horrible aspires to join. Check out Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (and be sure to read the Master Plan, it’s a hoot). The main attraction is the three-part video. I pray it won’t make your computer do evil ick-nasty things (…although it just occurred to me that this may be the bit you couldn’t get to play. :( Poo.)
Anyway, Dr. Horrible is something Joss Whedon dreamed up when Hollywood was in the middle of the writer’s strike and he had nothing better to do. He wrote it with mostly family members (one of his brothers wrote the webcomic), and he called in a bunch of his friends to act in it. He released it as a “web event” in mid-July, and it became a runaway hit on iTunes (but is still available for free on the site, it seems).
As for Delicious, it was originally called del.icio.us (you can still get to it by typing http://del.icio.us , although it autoforwards to the new address now), and was simply a clever, memorable way to build on the .us country code domain. I don’t think it ever had intrinsic meaning beyond that. (It is a cool site, though.)
good grief, Dr Horrible is still there on the original site? I haven’t been back to check, since I just accepted this weird business of it closing down after a week although it was going to go on being available by iTunes. Yes, I saw it in July.
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Well, talking social games, one of the favorites amongst my friends (since we’ve played Fluxx to death and beyond) is Apples to Apples. There’s two types of cards in it, ones with ‘big’ somewhat vague words, usually descriptions (like Gorgeous or Intense), and ones with nouns of various sorts on them (including notable personages). Everyone draws a hand of the noun cards and then one person turns over a descriptive card. Everyone else tosses in (face down) the one of their noun cards that they think matches it best. Then the person who turned the card over gets to pick the winner. It counts as a point for the person who tossed it in, everything else gets discarded, and the next person along the circle turns one over.
In theory, it keeps going to a specified point total, and then someone wins. Then again, the theory is that the card that’s the best example of the descriptive card. When my friends and I play, we tend to go til we’re done, and pick the card we like best for the description. So, it ends up being a game about knowing the people you’re playing with and what they’ll like for answer – plus that gets really funny!
That almost sounds like it might be my sort of game. :) I wonder who I know that has it. . . .
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I was about to post a comment telling you about Apples to Apples – my sister-in-law and I got it for each other the first Christmas she was included in our family(then as my brother’s fiancee). It tends to be really fun, especially because you have to get to know the sort of card the person would choose. You can also play it with any number of people, I’ve played with as few as 4 and as many as 20 – that first Christmas with Liza we convinced everyone to play.
I also tend to chose the card that amuses me the most. If the card is Beautiful and people throw out girl’s names, and then Cary Grant and Penguins – it’ll be a toss up between the last two, but I’d probably go with Penguins.
LOL!
User name please!
Mori-neko said:
>When my friends and I play, we tend to go til we’re done, and pick the card >we like best for the description. So, it ends up being a game about knowing >the people you’re playing with and what they’ll like for answer – plus that gets >really funny!
Oh, yes, yes, Apples to Apples! I love that game. It’s another one I don’t necessarily win, though. I tend to pick the options that amuse me the most rather than the most accurate option. The weird options. That says a lot about me and the importance I place on my own amusement, I’d bet.
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But why does a bookmark thingummy name itself Delicious?
Had to do something to get the cook to come check it out. :)
I’m not a games person especially, although I would play Scrabble–and my set has wooden tiles too, I LOVE those wooden tiles!–but unfortunately for me I clicked on the xkcd link and then wasted time when I should have been asleep going through it. BAD. (But thanks, jmeadows–now it’s bookmarked.) And I have to get up early tomorrow for puppy class, aargh.
Barnes and Noble informed me that they are shipping CHALICE this week. Yay hurray!
Don’t feel bad about the recent discovery of XKCD. I swear it’s a stealth comic.
As for Whedon’s ELE taking applications, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a pro welcome talented amateurs into the fold. Eric Flint did the same with his 1632 series published by Baen Books. He was lurking among the fan fiction writers on line and realized that some of the stories were publishable. Since Flint likes co-writing books, he started an e-magazine The Grantville Gazette (www.grantvillegazette.com) so he could publish the talented amateurs at semi-pro rates. (This includes non-fiction and fiction artciles both.) Baen Books, after a short wait, published the e-magazine in paper format (it looks like an anthology) and has continued to do so. As a result, the talented amateurs got paid twice, once from the magazine and once from the publisher.
The Grantville Gazette made enough from subscriptions that the magazine went pro a couple of years ago. Plus Flint made a few of the magazine writers his co-authors. ( He liked their idea so much he changed his series plan to include it. The result of that is the book “Ram’s Rebellion”)
For all we know, winning a spot in the Evil League of Evil could mean cash money or screen credit or both. Whedon seems to be starting his own production studio with direct distribution to the audience via the internet.
‘Talented amateurs’ are where ‘pros’ come from, or should. The internet has changed so much it may have or be changing this too, but it’s way too easy for a pro to take advantage of a talented amateur that admires him/her. I’ve seen it happen. But Whedon could just be using the new medium of the internet to cut to the chase finding new colleagues. Which would be great.
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I’m hoping that’s the case. Dr. Horrible and the Evil League of Evil seems to be a social experiment in web distribution and low budget, but still quality, production.
So far, I’ve been getting an “of the people, by the people for the people” vibe off the Dr. Horrible franchise. The original “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog” is still up on his web site — but with a short commercial between each act, stitching into a 45 minute episode. The “complete episode” went up about a month after he took the separate acts down. I guess he wanted it available to those who can’t or won’t get it off iTunes.
Oh, good for him. The iTunes loophole always did seem kind of bizarre. I’ll have to go visit it again. But not tonight. . . .
what have you got against curling. i have played for about 20 years .
It’s not *against*. It’s just when I was first told about it, including the person skating backward with the broom, I said YOU ARE PULLING MY LEG. And I’ve never quite got over this. . . . :)
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i love the strategy of the game and playing withe three other people makes an interesting mesh of personalities.with having fibromyalgia ,i haven’t been able to play it or my beloved softball in seven years.it puts to much stress on the tendons although i was sorely tempted this summer watching my daughter play.but you do what you have to do to get from one day to the next.
Yes you do. I’m lucky: my ME only *hurts* when it’s really bad.
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yea i am happy for you, i know that that is bad enough. my doctor said that things that normally wouldn’t bother me untill i’m in my fifties will start probably in my early forties. to which i replied oh joys ,something to look forward to.i was 33 a the time and as of yesterday i am now forty.