popplers

Unspeakable Shadows and Four-Letter Words over Camelot

Good gaming this weekend: we tried a new game called Unspeakable Words (a Christmas present from Cheryl and Mike). It's a Call of Cthulhu-themed word game by James Ernest (of Cheapass Games fame) and Mike Selinker. It was fun for the two older kids and the four grown-ups. Fairly quick gameplay, silly Mythos artwork, and 30 plastic Cthulhu figurines! I'm sure that there's another game here somewhere if we combine it with the little plastic brains from Mmm… Brains! and the little plastic zombies from Zombies!!!

We also tried our hand (again) and Shadows over Camelot. Defective Yeti has a well-written review and explanation of the mechanics. We came close to winning, but were undone by a combination of factors. Anaïs played the Traitor expertly, and twisted the knife just when it looked like we might succeed. Chris and I thought that Rohan was the Traitor, and the false accusation cost us a turn. I fell on my sword too soon, thinking that Chris would be able to complete a particular quest. So close. Next time for sure.

Gaming quickies!

• Last week, we celebrated Mike's birthday and played Shadows Over Camelot for the first time. Afterward, I found a treasure trove of gameplay and strategy info from defective yeti, Wikipedia, and boardgamegeek.com (the downloadable PDF FAQ is especially useful).
• The Morning News brings us Matthew Baldwin's annual Good Gift Games (G3) Guide. (And, should you receive any of these games, they also offer this useful how-to guide: how to write a thank-you note.)
• And this is old, but I just found it today: The A.V. Club's list of 11 Of Video Gaming's Strangest Moments.

I boggle, you boggle…

Poz mentioned his WEBoggle addiction on Foam Totem some weeks ago. I've been playing a lot lately, and often place in the top 15. But I seem to do really well with the incredibly sucky boards. Like this one, for instance— my first time in the number one slot.

I usually play as rv. I have yet to see foamy on (but I have seen someone playing as Poz a few times).

Go play for a good cause

Some years ago, I went to a Scrabble fundraiser that was sponsored by the Literacy Volunteers of the Montachusett Area. It was a fun gig, and that's how I met my current pack of Scrabble friends. This year, we learned that the Literacy Volunteers weren't going to do the fundraiser anymore— too much work, and not enough money raised. I was bummed, because I liked the location (Monument Grill in Leominster) and they always had good door prizes and raffles.

Just today, I saw a poster for the Literacy Volunteers of Greater Worcester. Their 4th Annual Team Scrabble Tournament will be held on Wednesday April 26th, from 6-9 pm, at the Hagan Center at Assumption College. Registration fee is $25 per person or $100 per team (up to 8 players).
Deadline for entry is April 22, 2006.

Here's to old RPI

Tyler Hinman wins again! I'm really bummed that I was too sick to make it to Stamford for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, but it's great to see an Engineer take first place.

After the weekend-long tournament that draws puzzlers from around the world, Hinman, 21, started the final crossword in third place behind Kedlaya and Ripstein, who held a small lead. But only Hinman completed the 70-word puzzle in the 15 minutes allotted, making him the youngest champion to win the tournament for the second consecutive year.

"I wanted to prove last year wasn't a fluke," said Hinman, originally from Hebron. "I earned this victory. I'm wired."

Nutbunnies!

A few weeks ago, I was listening to NPR's Sunday Puzzle segment with Will Shortz. Will was talking about the upcoming American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT, and he said that this year's competition would feature a "Sudoku Smackdown", a special screening of Wordplay (the new feature documentary on the 2005 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament), and special guest host Ken Jennings. Finally, a chance to meet the man himself (without being labeled a stalker!)… There's a Friday night trivia challenge, where you can match wits with Ken; he's also going to present the awards on Sunday.

I've wanted to go to the tournament for a while now, and last year's win by RPI undergrad Tyler Hinman only made me more eager to compete. (After trying my hand at the sample puzzles, I am more than a little worried that I'm going to get my ass handed to me.)

Unfortunately, I just realized that the Tournament is the same weekend as I-CON 25, a very cool multi-genre convention in Stony Brook, NY: SF/F, horror, anime, science and technology, comic books, gaming, and more. My inner geek is torn, but I think I'd rather try my hand at the crossword puzzles.

Word Freaks

The Boston Globe has a nice feature on the Lexington Scrabble Club. I haven't gone in well over a year, but it's nice to see that "the regulars" are still there. I know that I've played against Trix before:

This is ''Competitive" Scrabble, where players are penalized for excessive pondering. Twenty-five minutes are allotted to make their moves for the entire game; for each additional minute used, they lose 10 points.

Trix Kout, an ''over 50" Scrabbler from Watertown, said she likes using the timers ''because the games don't drag on."

A flutist and teacher at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Kout has been playing at the Lexington club for three years. She likes the eclectic crowd -- from marketing executives to contractors to physicians -- and the good balance of males and females.

''During the tournaments, the guys are very intense," she says.

More useful stuff for Scrabble fans: Mike Wolfberg's Word Lists, including all the new two-letter words and threes (first half, second half).

Lord of the Rings: the smackdown of the fellowship of the ring

Went to Cheryl and Mike's last night for gaming/ nominal celebration of Chinese New Year (with Indian food and snacks of many nations)/ general merriment & beer. We played Settlers (I won!) and Lord of the Rings (we all lost!). It was our first time playing LotR, and I did a little searching after the fact to see what other players thought of the game mechanics, difficulty level, and recommended strategies.

(Along the way, I found Defective Yeti's rave for Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, a two-player game from Fantasy Flight Games that:

[…] has a third of the rules of the bigger game, plays in a fraction of the time and sells for half the price. But the two games do share one thing in common: they are both amongst the best in my collection. […]

So that sounds like a potential gift idea for next year.)

Due to link rot, it seems that the Yeti's review for the original LotR game is only available as a Google cache, but it's recommended reading nonetheless. He confirmed that the game is really hard (they had to play it five times before they won), but that it is possible to win. His obvious love of the game convinced me that I need to try it at least a few more times before writing it off completely.

Cardiff Championship, here I come!

Scrabble yn Gymraeg: On the plus side, you'll never get stuck with a Q, X, or Z in your rack. On the minus side, start memorizing your Welsh word list, which is filled with words like camddefnyddio, llyfrau, cymharu, and rhedeg. (ll, dd, rh, and ng are double letter combos that appear on a single tile.) Angenrheidiaeth ("necessity") could yield 164 points, if played across the triple-triple.

Maybe I'll stick with Amurrican words; a new Official Word List for competitive play is due out by the end of the year.

Shipping in October 2005 - pre-order now!

Some time ago, we were discussing a Franklin Mint-style deluxe set for Settlers of Catan. Some of the ideas that we had: hexes that represent their resources (e.g., slate, some exotic wood, clay, woven fiber for wheat, wool for sheep), fancy gold dice, a built-in lazy-susan, storage drawers… the whole nine yards. And we figured you could charge $500 bucks for it and some gamer geek would say, "Ooh! Limited edition! I must have it."

Well, it looks like Mayfair beat us to it: the 10th Anniversary Settlers of Catan™ 3-D Special Edition Treasure Chest Set. (And they're only charging $380.00.)

RaidenX

I love this game. (Requires Flash.)

Let the hype begin!

It looks like DC Comics wants to give City of Heroes a run for their money. Let's hope that DC's mouth isn't writing checks that its ass can't cash:

Smedley said he was unaware of the Marvel MMO status but wasn't concerned. "I will put Super-Man against the X-Men any day," he said. "And 'City of Heroes' was massively successful, but now we're bringing the world's No. 1 comic into the MMO space."

Hall was similarly unfazed by any potential competition. "DC is really where the classic archetype of the superhero lives, and there is nothing else like it," he said. "We're partnered with arguably the leader in this space for the longest period of time, and we're pairing them up with one of our largest properties. It's a great setup for success and for the experience DC fans want to have."

So, does this mean that they won't have annoying 13-year-olds running around with character names like B4tm4n and S00perm4|\|?

Third time's a charm

(Note: non-CoHers will probably want to skip this post.)

After two failed attempts, HP Wuvcraft finally completed the Terra Volta respec trial! General consensus was that the previous attempts failed due to insufficient damage-dealing and control. The winning combo (for us) was 2 blasters, 2 tankers (1 of which was a fire AoE tanker), and 1 defender. Congrats to Misspelt, Mister Snow, Crispy Fries, and Doctor Dude!

Freakazette did this trial some time ago, and is about to get the Atlas Medallion (just need to get the Pupil badge). On a side note, did a little bit of badge hunting last night with Doc and Snow. Easy pickings on Striga if you need Family, Warriors, or Wolves.

For great justice

Today's Paragon City News headline: Federal Judge Dismisses Claims and Strikes Allegations in Marvel Lawsuit Against NCsoft.

Makers of City of Heroes online computer game score favorable decision; judge labels Marvel allegations as “false and sham” and throws out trademark claims

LOS ANGELES, March 11, 2005—A U.S. district court judge in Los Angeles dismissed several key claims by comic book publisher Marvel Enterprises, Inc in the company’s trademark and copyright infringement case against online computer game publisher NCsoft® Corporation and game developer Cryptic Studios™. Marvel sued NCsoft and Cryptic Studios in November of last year, claiming that the City of Heroes® online computer game allows players to imitate comic book characters owned by Marvel. […]

Now let's get back to "defeating" villains!

Game geek/ theatre geek posting

Doing our part to keep Paragon City safe from the riff-raff: Mister Snow and I celebrated Winter-een-mas over the weekend. We played City of Heroes on Friday evening, and for most of Sunday, but didn't actually go to the in-game celebration (it was on Victory server, and all my characters are on Freedom).

Alas, Freakazette doesn't have a whole lot to show for it (unless you count the 100k worth of debt). At least she earned her Frozen Fury badge and a decent amount of XP. Between Founder's Falls and Crey's Folly, I don't think that the debt will significantly decrease any time soon… Just trying to talk with a contact in one of those areas often leads to a hospital visit (danged sharpshooters!).

Not much chance of playing this week: went to NH last night for dinner with friends, and most likely going out to dinner tonight with Mark Y. And Wednesday night is the first "dry run" for Tom Foolery over at Acme Theater. The show runs February 11 through March 5, 2005, and I'm helping out behind the scenes with costumes and props. Come see it, especially if you're a Tom Lehrer fan— tix are only $16. So the earliest that I'll be on again is Thursday night. (I'm sure that Doctor Dude and Valnar will pick up the slack. Obsidian Knight has been MIA for weeks.)

City of Litigators, cont'd

PvP on Marvel vs. NCsoft: start here.

More NCsoft-related news

A woman illegally used her boyfriend's username and password to access his Lineage account and delete his weapons and armor. "I did it as revenge for breaking up with me," police quoted her as saying.

Whee!

Penguins! Diving penguins. (Requires Flash.)

Haaar, matey.

Went to Legends Comix and Games yesterday in search of a birthday present for a friend. Picked up 4 packs of Pirates of the Spanish Main and something else that looked fun.

Went home, wrapped presents, and cooked up a big batch of Crash's vindaloo. Headed off to Framingham for yummy Indian food, gaming, and birthday celebrations. Puck came by for a few hours, but had to run off to work after dinner. So, he missed out on the Pirates.

First impressions of PotSM: The tiny little ships are terribly cute, and not as easy to put together as you might think. Alas, one mast perished during assembly (snapped off at the base); with a little luck and some superglue, it may be repairable. Gameplay: we tried a three-player game first (easy rules), with limited success. It seemed like it was just a race to get to the islands with treasure and get back home again. Also, the rules seem lacking. I don't know if this got play-tested a lot or not, but we seemed to be missing the point on a few key areas (notably, sinking a ship). For our second attempt, we tried a two-player, 30-point game with the more advanced rules. This was a bit more interesting, and we did have a few naval battles. By the end, two ships were derelict and one was limping toward its home island. Overall, I think it has potential, but I'd like to see how it's played in a tournament. That would help me get a feel for how all the rules come together.

Peasant's Quest

If you're already a Homestar Runner (or Strong Bad) fan, you've probably already seen the Peasant's Quest video game. It's wonderfully cheesy, and a lot of fun to play. If you're not a Homestar Runner (or Strong Bad) fan, watch this, then check out Peasant's Quest.

Fun little web games

Entertaining diversions from a number of sources:

• Q*Bert
  
• Lemmings™
  
• Gold Miner

More quickies!

• Another bizarre and interesting Flash diversion: The Phone
• Laurie Anderson is NASA's artist in residence— who knew?

For MYST fans…

Via daypop.com, Amanita Design's groovy little Flash games. I particularly liked Samorost and Pantry.

Samorost is intriguing and immersive (and addictive-- I had to play it all the way through!). I love the look and feel of it, and its rich simplicity. Pantry is whimsical fun.

Zyzzyvas!

Scrabble junkie that I am, I loved Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak (refer to the popplers entry from 2002-01-23). Imagine my geeky joy upon reading that Word Wars is playing at the Coolidge Corner Theatre this week!

Anyone else want to go see Scrabble masters strut their stuff?

p.s. I think these people should teach their dog how to play.

City of Heroes

Well, City of Heroes has officially consumed my life. The beta testing ended last night at midnight. Since we pre-ordered, we can sign in 3 days earlier than everyone else (the so-called "3 Day Head Start"), starting on Sunday, 4/25. I can't wait to start working on my new characters…

As The Tick (or someone like him) would say, "Villainy awaits!"

Addiction.

So, Jenn is addicted to Astraware's Text Twist. I downloaded it and installed it, and I like it a lot. But it bugs me that there are many real words that the dictionary doesn't recognize.

I'm addicted to JumbleTime.com: word games for Scrabble players. I had tried it out a while ago, but hadn't been playing it much lately. ESPN recently re-aired the 2003 Scrabble All-Star Competition, and one of the competitors said that she uses JumbleTime.com to study the word lists. So, I logged in again, and now I'm hooked. I'm trying to learn some new 4s and 5s before I head back to the Lexington Scrabble Club…

Are we having fun yet?

Played a new game this evening called Xactika. It's another bidding/ trick-taking game, similar to Oh Hell!, from the same people who brought you SET®, Quiddler, and Five Crowns. Xactika is ostensibly for 2-10 players (we were playing a 3-handed game), but our guess is that it would be more interesting (or less random) with 5+ players. The deck consists of 81 cards. Each card has a number value between 4 and 12, and each card has 4 "suits" on it (spheres, cubes, cones, and stars). Everyone is dealt 8 cards and must then bid the number of tricks that s/he expects to take. You must hit your bid exactly—if you go under or over you lose points (the difference between your bid and the number of tricks that you actually took). Repeat until you've played 8 hands, and whoever is in the lead after 8 hands, wins. None of us could seem to get the hang of it. At one point, Chris was winning with -1 points. I thought the game was fun but certainly don't feel like I have any clue of what strategy to use next time. But I'd play again.