BrettSpiel+

LEGO Games: Website Update

2009-11-22T14:06:00Z

Just a quick mention of the new content on the LEGO Games website. SInce the launch of the new range of 10 buildable ‘board games’ back in August the official website has been gaining content, and it now looks as if everything is in place. If you’re a LEGO fan, or a board game fan, or both, then it’s definitely worth a look.

Each game has a dedicated homepage for kids, linked by the ‘Dice Quest’ interactive treasure hunt. Children need to visit each page in turn to find the 10 missing dice panels. I haven’t found all 10 so can’t tell you what happens then!

There is also a Parents Portal with extra information for the grown-ups which, eagle-eyed BrettSpiel readers may notice, now contains an extract from my own interview with Cephas Howard, the lead game designer at LEGO. The webmasters at LEGO were kind enough to compliment me on my original article, and I was only too happy to see some my words given a new home.

And don’t miss the fantastic ‘How to Play’ sections which can be accessed from both the kids’ and the parents’ areas of the site. The way each game is built and played is explored and explained in a series of cute animations. Great fun!

Shepherd Spy and the Triangle of Experience

2009-11-18T17:50:00Z

In which I introduce the world to my new game ‘Shepherd Spy’ (see what I did there?) plus the conceivably more useful ‘Experience Triangle’. It’s a possible map of gaming experiences. And it’s a triangle.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the experience of playing games, and in a recent post Jackson Pope has reminded me of something that I failed to report in these pages. Having had a great time playing and discussing games with a gaggle of gregarious game designers I wondered aloud exactly what the mystical ‘secret sauce’ of game design might actually contain, but it was only in a separate email to that self-same gaggle of designers that I said this:

… when game players (hopefully) say “I want to play that game again!” what they mean is that they want to repeat the experience of playing the game, something that is more than simply the sum of the game’s mechanics.

The point is this: we may not know the ingredients of the sauce, but we certainly know what it tastes like! It is this rich, savoury flavour that can both help to create our experience of playing a particular game, and hopefully inspire us to want to repeat it.

However, it seems to me that to mount an effort to define the sauce’s ingredients without first properly defining the depth and nature of its flavour is more than a little doomed. Better to work on the foundations before building the walls. And so it is my intent in this article to propose nothing less than a formal taxonomy of gaming experiences, and also to propose a possible visualization of this possible taxonomy in the form of something I am going to call the ‘Experience Triangle’.

But let us begin at the beginning. Let us begin with sheep.

Introducing ‘Shepherd Spy’

To help me think about this problem and allow me to better explain it, I have designed a new game especially for the purpose. I have called it Shepherd Spy.*

Shepherd Spy is a two-player game in which each player takes the part of a shepherd charged with looking after a flock of seven sheep. Using cunning and tactics to position and move their sheep on the farmer’s field each player’s aim is to outwit his opponent and win the game, although the precise nature of the victory conditions and indeed the rules, remain, for now, shrouded in mystery. Fortunately, knowing the rules is not vital to my argument, although it must be understood that the two protagonists imagined in all later examples comprehend them perfectly.

One possible presentation and configuration of the game is shown here, complete with red and blue flocks of wooden sheep figures placed on an illustrated gameboard. The board and the sheep figures represent all of the game’s components.

* The uninitiated may not know that ‘shepherd’s pie’ is a classic British dish. A layer of stewed mince and onion is covered with a layer of mashed potato and then baked until the mash is golden brown. The dish is also known as ‘cottage pie’, although to be precise a shepherd’s pie is properly made with minced lamb, and cottage pie with beef.

Modes of play

The gameboard and sheep figures in the example above illustrate one possible ‘mode’ in which the game could be played. The experience provided by this mode will be familiar, and matches the sort of experience offered by very many well-known board games, especially many Eurogames.

However, the exact definition of this mode and the type of experience it offers is not important right now. What is important is to appreciate that this is just one of many possible modes, all of which allow exactly the same game to be played. My point is to highlight that although the intellectual model of the ‘game’ is completely defined by its rules and victory conditions, the ‘experience’ of the game, in contrast, is largely defined by its mode of play.

My argument probably needs some clarification, and the very first question to answer is: what other modes exist? My propostition is that there are three (and only three) principal modes, which I have labelled ‘Abstract’, ‘Empirical’ and ‘Imaginary’.

If we apply these three principal modes to Shepherd Spy what does it look like?

Let’s look at each mode in a little more detail. In each case I will explain a little more about the nature of the principal mode, and also define its opposite:

The Abstract mode (here defined as the opposite of Realistic) is one in which the game-world has been reduced to an entirely symbolic model, stripped of any resemblance to the real-world objects of the game’s narrative. The game is still played on a board, and the players still directly manipulate the components. The players are still ‘shepherds’, the game pieces still ‘sheep’ and the board still a ‘field’, but all in name only; nothing about the game’s presentation directly communicates these concepts.
The Empirical mode (here defined as the oppsite of Descriptive) is one in which the game-world can be directly and tangibly experienced by the players. The game’s ‘sheep’ are represented by actual sheep standing in an actual field. This mode may seem rather fanciful (and indeed, a truly empirical mode would require the players themselves to be real-life shepherds!) but it would certainly be a possible if somewhat impractical way to play Shepherd Spy.
The Imaginary mode (here defined as the opposite of Physical) is one in which the game is played without employing any real-world objects at all. Now our players hold the state of the game-world at any time completely in their own minds. The players must each have a clear mental ‘picture’ of the game, and a mental list of the choices each of them make. This mode certainly puts a significant intellectual burden on both players, but such a mode is possible.

But, you might be saying, what about our family-friendly ‘Eurogame’ mode with the little wooden sheep? Where does that fit in? Which mode of play does that represent? My argument is that it is a bit of all three, although not necessarily in equal measure.

Let’s make a map

I said my proposal involved making a ‘map’ of gaming experiences, and we now have most of the pieces to hand. I have illustrated four possible modes of play for Shepherd Spy (the ‘Eurogame’ mode plus the three principal modes) and the next question to answer is: what is the relationship between them?

The first thing to say is that it is not possible to simply place these four modes in a straight line. They do not represent points within a single continuum of experiences that shift from one extreme to its opposite. The three principal modes are qualitatively distinct and each represents a separate way in which we can talk about the characteristics of a particular game.

The second thing to say is that the three measures of gameplay represented by the principal modes cannot be arbitrarily varied. What does this mean? It means that, for example, a game mode that is wholly Empirical, can be neither Abstract nor Imaginary at all (the same statement holds if you switch the names of the principal modes around). This means that the three principal modes are quantitatively dependent. To put this more simply: if you want more of one, you have to have less of one, or both, of the others.

Almost all practical game modes are, just like our Eurogame version of Shepherd Spy, a bit of all three. Most modes lie in the space between our three principal extremes and share some characteristics with each.

Mathematicians already have a name for the visualization of just such a three-way split, where the variables are both qualitatively distinct and quantitatively dependent: it’s called a ternary plot and it is, you guessed it, a triangle. If we now put together everything we have so far, we can not only build a map of the Shepherd Spy modes, but also draw a generalized diagram of their relationship.

Every possible mode of play that we can imagine for Shepherd Spy can be found within the triangle defined by the three principal modes. Each point within it represents a different mix of the Abstract, the Empirical and the Imaginary. And because of the triangular relationship, the closer a particular mode of play is to one of the three corners, the further away it must be from the other two.

Making sense of a ‘ternary plot’ is not difficult, but we can make our job easier by adding the three other labels I have already defined — Realistic, Descriptive and Physical — which represent the opposite of each of the three principal modes.

I am, for example, defining Realistic as the opposite of Abstract. Hence a mode of play that may be said to be wholly Realistic cannot be described as being Abstract in any way. Such a mode, if positioned within the triangle, would lie somewhere on the edge opposite the Abstract corner, and would therefore represent a particular combination of only the Empirical and Imaginary.

These additional labels are not necessary, but they are helpful, since they allow us to use a more easily interpreted vocabulary when talking about or comparing possible game modes. Rather than describing a mode as, say, ‘less Empirical’ than another or perhaps, in itself, as ‘not very Empirical’ we can instead choose to say that it is ‘more Descriptive’ by comparison, or simply that it is ‘highly Descriptive’.

The Experience Triangle

Our map is now complete. We now have a clearly defined relationship between six complementary labels that can be combined to describe all possible modes of play, and hence all gaming experiences, not just for Shepherd Spy, but for all games.

This is my Experience Triangle, and now that we have our map the next question must be: where can it take us? The first thing to do is to leave, for now, the shepherds to their sheep, and take a look at how we can use the Experience Triangle to map out the familiar and, to some, unfamiliar territories of the existing gaming universe.

If we look first at the broadest range of gaming experiences that each of the three principal modes most naturally represents then we can easily define three principal game ‘realms’: board games, live action and role play. The smaller diagram below shows how these realms can be visualized, and where they naturally overlap to create hybrid game modes and experiences.

This high-level view is useful since it helps us to better understand how the lower-level game ‘genres’ fit together. Gamers have already developed a rich vocabulary to describe these and in the larger map I have indicated, in a highly schematic way, how we might begin to place some of the genres into the Experience Triangle.

Each orange bubble very roughly approximates where within the Triangle the common experiences offered by games of that genre may be positioned. Each genre may have within it a wide variety of game modes that in some cases will be common to one or more neighbouring genres, but I want to stress that there is nothing very scientific about exactly where I have positioned the bubbles or drawn their boundaries.

However, I have never seen game modes, genres or experiences visualized or explained in these terms so I hope that by proposing the Experience Triangle, and using it, however crudely, to interpret the relationship between some of the most common gaming genres, I have advanced the cause of game design, if only a little.

The Experience Triangle is, I hope, a tool that I will be able to revisit and refine in future, and one that others may find useful. However, for the game designer it can only ever be the beginning of a journey, not the end.

‘The map is not the territory.’

Alfred Korzybski

Games Are…?

2009-11-18T01:44:00Z

Game Design Secret Sauce

2009-11-11T18:19:00Z

Last weekend I had the very great pleasure of being able to play some of my and other people’s prototypes, not just with some keen gamers, but with a cheery band of actual game designers, courtesy of the good folks of Surprised Stare Games. This was, as perhaps might be expected, a whole lot of fun. It was also incredibly inspiring and educational.

One topic of good-natured debate was what exactly makes a good game (of which there many) into a great one (of which there are deservedly few). What precisely are the ingredients of this elusive, alchemical, magical elixir? What exactly goes into that game design secret sauce?

Sadly, I cannot tell you. Not because I am bound by some arcane code of ludological honour, but because, rather more prosaically, none of us actually knew. And my guess is that not even the designers of great games know for sure. It seems the game design universe has its own breed of dark matter, which I doubt even the Large Hadron Collider, busy sabotaging itself from its own doomed future, has much chance of discovering, assuming anyone ever turns it on, that is.

However, just as physicists can prescribe the properties of the Higg’s boson without ever having caught a glimpse of it, we can perhaps begin to piece together the likely nature of the secret sauce, element by element, if we are prepared to consider the ‘special something’ that makes a great game great.

I shall save a fuller discussion of this topic for some later date (when I have had a proper chance to think about it), but by way of example I can say that the experience of playing one particular prototype at the weekend has stuck with me more than all the others. Without revealing any intimate details, I can say that while it had many characteristics of a ‘classic’ Eurogame in terms of its historical theme and episodic, card-driven mechanics it played a very clever trick by only appearing (to the casual observer) to be about those things, while all the while actually being about something else. Its ‘special something’ was an entirely natural, unscripted and wholly emergent sense of story-telling, and it was that which made the game truly memorable and fun in a quite unexpected and delightful way.

And that’s the sort of thing, if you could bottle it, that could make you a fortune.

Quotables #010

2009-10-31T15:06:00Z

‘Every designer’s dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.’

Arron Russell

‘Every picture painted owes more to other pictures painted before than it does to nature.’

E.H. Gombrich

Both these quotes offer a slightly different take on that hoary old maxim ‘all art is theft’. And my point in repeating them is to highlight the difference between creativity and originality. It’s tough enough for the game designer to be creative. It’s far, far harder to be truly original.

Which, as an old boss use to say — and he said this sort of thing so frequently that most of us ended up hating him for it — is ‘an observation not a criticism’.

I recently opined that Colonia, the sparkling new release from Queen Games, seemed a little too familiar at first sight. Gorgeous, yes, but familiar. Lavishly creative, certainly, but essentially a roll-call of mechanisms, each of which would elicit a quiet nod of recognition from any self-respecting Eurogamer.

And with this year’s SPIEL now a fast-fading memory in the minds of many a gaming maven, there seems little concensus on what ‘the game of the show’ was, or indeed whether there even was one. And if that’s true, then it certainly wasn’t because there was some sort of collective failure of creativity — far from it! — but rather, I would suggest, that there was simply nothing genuinely original on show for the gamers to get their teeth into.

‘The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.’

Albert Einstein

And I guess I could take Albert’s advice and fail to mention my sources, but I’d much rather point you all at the excellent and inspirational Quotes on Design instead! All art is indeed theft, and so is most blogging.

Hippodice Update

2009-10-27T12:29:00Z

The Hippodice competition window remains open for a few more days (until November 1st) but I have, unusually, beaten the deadline by finally getting my act together over the past few days and submitting both of the games I mentioned earlier. To submit a game you need to provide two documents: a complete and workable set of rules, plus a short ‘primer’ that includes things like the number of players, the game duration, a list of components and an introduction to the gameplay itself.

On Saturday I sent off the documents for my first submission Archipelago. This is a true family strategy game for 2–4 players, aged 8 and up, that plays in around 30–45 minutes. I say ‘true’ since I think it geninely offers an experience that will keep both children and adults engaged, and a game concept that can be played and enjoyed on differing levels by young and old. The game has a nice mix of (admittedly light) strategy and tactics, but I think the appeal comes from the physicality of the game’s components and gameplay.

With a name like Archipelago, it is probably not completely surprising that it has a modular board made up of islands, but the game also uses a little boat, which you can see in the photograph, plus a nice big bag of 90 multi-coloured meeples! Yay! We love meeples!

I have been looking for a source of small wooden boats ever since I started designing the game back in February, but for now the prototype includes this cut-out origami version that I fashioned, quite successfully I have to say, from some thin card.

And yesterday evening — or rather very early this morning since it was past midnight when I was done! — I also mailed off the documents for my second submission. When I posted about Hippodice earlier this month I mentioned that I was still looking for a name for this second game. Well, I finally found one: the game is now called Jukers! (with an exclamation mark, if you please).

And what, you might ask with good reason, is a ‘Juker’? Well, the name is believed to be the original name of the Joker playing card, and a corruption of the German name for the game Euchre. Around 1860 a single highest trump card was introduced to games of that family, and by 1880 this card was already being represented as a clown or court jester. At least, that’s one theory. Carto-historians seem divided on the matter.

Anyway, my game is a small and quick bidding and card-collecting game for 3 or 4 players, aged 10 and up, that’s all over in just 30 minutes or so. The deck is mostly made up of low-value cards in the four classic suits, but also include a few unpredictable ~~Jokers~~ Jukers in the pack to mix things up.

And so now we wait. The Hippodice club will soon set about the not insubstantial task of reviewing all the submissions received by the November 1st deadline, and choose a certain number to go forward to the playtesting stage. Once notified the successful designers will have then until 1st December to get their prototype to Germany… by hook, crook or registered mail.

Last year I also submitted two games, Terraform and Mosaic Romanum, both of which were selected for playtesting. Who knows whether Archipelago and Jukers! will be received as kindly, but fingers crossed!

SPIEL ’09: Now On!

2009-10-20T23:10:00Z

The annual Internationalen Spieltage opens its doors on Thursday for four days of board game madness. Officially labelled ‘SPIEL’, but more commonly known by those in the know as ‘Essen’, the fair is the industry’s biggest get-together and is the cue for game publishers the world over to release a tidal wave of new games.

To get a taster of the gaming goodness on offer check out this GeekList over on BoardGameGeek, follow Frank Schulte-Kulkmann’s ongoing coverage on G@mebox, or check out the glitterati’s hashtag of choice #spiel09 on Twitter.

And, apropos of nothing imparticular, does anyone know the origin of SPIEL’s colourful tangram logo? For gamers it’s an instantly recognisable symbol that’s indivisible from its source, but if you give it a fresh look, it’s a rather funky and obscure device that on its own doesn’t instantly say ‘board games’ in any direct way. If anyone knows anything about its history do let me know!

ALERT: This feed isn't what it used to be!

2009-10-19T23:35:15Z

If you’re reading this, you are subscribed to either http://feeds.feedburner.com/bitepsiel (links feed) or http://feeds.feedburner.com/brettspiel (BrettSpiel blog posts + links feed). However, I’m switching to posting links on Twitter instead. Please follow me @55cards!

The main BrettSpiel blog will go on, of course, so please resubscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/brettspielcouk to continue to receive updates of new posts — apologies for the inconvenience!

All About Alvin

2009-10-15T19:44:51Z

All About Alvin:

Portfolio of classic, timeless, if retro design.

Quotables #009

2009-10-15T20:30:00Z

‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.’

Albert Einstein

I wish I’d found this nugget of wisdom a while ago since it would have slotted nicely into the discussion in my last Game Design 101 article The Price of Magic.

Writing game rules is hard, and Mr Einstein has hit the proverbial nail on the head by highlighting that the only qualification needed to write a simple explanation of anything is a genuinely deep and meaningful understanding of the topic by the writer. Without that, the writer is on a hiding to nothing.

And I guess that goes for blog writers too.

Game Preview: Colonia

2009-10-13T10:46:00Z

Colonia, designed by Dirk Henn and to be released by Queen Games at the Essen games fair, appears to be the apotheosis of the ‘big’ Eurogame in every regard. Lavishly designed and with, no doubt, equally lavish production values (something for which Queen Games has a well-deserved reputation), the game pulls in many popular Eurogame memes: an abstracted market economy, a stylized medieval setting, and a layered gameplay consisting of multiple resource collection, management and conversion mechanisms.

It also comes laden down with a mammoth collection of ‘bits’ guaranteed to pique the interest of the average Eurogamer: mulitlple decks of cards, stacks of cardboard components and over 200 multi-coloured wooden cubes. One can only speculate — with mild trepidation! — at the size and weight of the box that will contain all the game’s plunder.

The interested but otherwise uninformed reader can now read through the rules posted on BGG in English and German. Having done so, I can say that the flow of the game appears straightforward, with the board divided into seven numbered areas that represent the actions taken on each ‘day’ of the game’s six ‘weeks’. This is a nice conceit that helps to frame the cyclical nature of the gameplay.

Image: The innovative board is made up of eight die-cut cardboard panels, which lock together like a jigsaw to create a plan of the city of Colonia within which all the action takes place.

Merry-go-round

The fundamentals of the game are this: the players represent so-called patrician families in olde worlde Colonia and each has a stash of cubes representing their family members, and hence their available man-power (this is the players’ primary resource in the game, so let’s call it Resource A). These cubes are progressively commited to each area of the board by the players to take actions there and gain the available rewards. The ultimate goal is to earn victory points in the shape of ‘relic’ cards bought, appropriately enough, on the ‘Sunday’ of each week. However, the degree of abstraction between the player actions and eventual buying of the relics is alarming.

On ‘Monday’ the week is prepared: the flip of a card from a special deck determines the relative balance of the key resources available. This mechanism ensures that each week presents a slightly different challenge to the players.

On ‘Tuesday’ the players determine their relative influence on the week’s affairs (and hence the player order) at the city council by commiting differing numbers of men; this power is effectively a resource which players pay for in cubes/men, so let’s call this Resource B. The remainder of that week’s actions are taken in player order, so this is clearly an important factor.

On ‘Wednesday’ the players visit the market and place family members in exchange for differing quantities of the city’s five wares (leather, iron, wood, linen and fur) — let’s call these Resource C.

On ‘Thursday’ the game moves to the craftsmen’s quarter of the city, where specific combinations of wares can be exchanged, through the ‘payment’ of more men, for five different types of good (saddles, cartwheels, paintings, clothing and footwear); these then are Resource D.

On ‘Friday’ the players visit the docks where boats are waiting to take the city’s goods to far away lands. The players progressively fill up the boats’ cargo holds with the prerequisite goods before, on ‘Saturday’, the boats set sail and earn the players money — Resource E — although since the boats each sail to one of four different countries the money comes in four different flavours (Sterling, Grivna, Mark and Gulden).

And so we come to the end, and on ‘Sunday’ the players finally get their filthy mits on those precious religious relics — Resource F — although each one can only be bought using the correct currency. The players stash their relics behind their screens, a new week begins, and life in Colonia goes on.

Hoopla

After circling the board six times the game is over, and the players are awarded victory points for their remaining money and for the value of their relics. So, just to be clear, it is the relative values of Resources E and F owned by each player at the end of the game that determines the winner. I may be in the minority here, but to me the number of hoops through which players have to jump to generate any points at all seem to be two or three too many. This notion of the sequential conversion of resources into (eventually) victory points appears in many Eurogames — indeed is one of the genre’s defining characteristics — but Colonia seems to stretch the model to breaking point.

But, perhaps surprisingly, Colonia avoids one of the other core Eurogame mechanisms: that of so-called ‘engine building’. Each of Colonia’s weeks is, largely, a clean slate; little of what the player choose to do in one week influences what options they have in the next. Many Eurogames, by contrast, allow players to invest resources in game assets that enhance their individual ability to generate or convert resources in later rounds, and hence allow for some variation in genuine long-term strategy. Colonia, however, appears to be a ‘big’ Eurogame that is, for the most part, largely tactical, which is actually rather refreshing! But I do wonder if hardcore Eurogamers, always on the lookout for their next fix of strategic resource management and engine building will be disappointed, and similarly whether gamers who generally prefer lighter, more tactical fare will be put off by the game’s heavyweight looks.

Image: And just in case Queen’s lavish production values aren’t lavish enough, the game is also to be offered in a limited ‘Collector’s Edition’ with these jaunty-looking meeples in place of the cubes.

All the fun of the fair

There is much to like about Colonia. Its presentation appears faultless, the gameplay elegant and fun, and it’s worth pointing out that of the two groups of gamers I just mentioned, I am firmly in the latter (and hence prefer more tactical, less strategic games). In any case, I haven’t played it yet, so who am I to comment?

I wish Dirk Henn and Queen Games success — they have clearly invested a great deal in the game’s development and production — but the danger, in my opinion, is that the community’s familiarity with Colonia’s collection of mechanisms will indeed begin to breed a little contempt. The package may be elegant, attractive and compelling but there is no ‘shock of the new’ here to delight the gaming crowd; rather, it seems the emperor’s new clothes are getting yet another outing.

10/GUI's Con10uum UI

2009-10-13T11:33:43Z

10/GUI's Con10uum UI:

Cool video showing off a new concept touch UI.

Beau Lotto Speaks at TED

2009-10-08T19:43:00Z

Here’s a great talk from this year’s TEDGlobal 2009 conference, which took place in Oxford, England in July. The theme of the conference was The Substance of Things Not Seen and this talk, given by the somewhat implausibly named Beau Lotto, explores some of the science of perception that lies behind optical illusions.

The talk isn’t actually about games, but every single TED talk has something to offer the inquiring mind so if you’ve never seen or heard of TED before then be sure to check out the ever-growing catalogue of talks on their website.

And when I found a link to this talk on Digg I couldn’t help but follow it; after all, isn’t Beau Lotto just the perfect name for a game designer!?

Countdown to Hippodice

2009-10-05T23:02:00Z

The Hippodice Games Club in Germany has opened the application window for its annual game author competition, so if you are a game designer and fancy your chances, then you have until November 1st to email your application.

The club then reviews all applications, and any authors selected for the next stage will have until December 1st to send their gleaming, newly minted prototypes to Germany to allow the games to be playtested. The club members will then certainly have their work cut out for them before announcing the results around the beginning of March (at least, that’s when news broke in this year’s competition).

I entered two games — Terraform and Mosaic Romanum — into the 2009 competition, both of which were selected for the playtest stage; Mosaic Romanum even made it into to the next and final round, although just missed out on a place in the winners’ circle, garnering a 'Recommended' badge instead. Given that this was my first shot entering the competition I was jolly pleased with the result.

This year I plan to follow suit and enter two games (and hopefully have as much success). The first is a brand new board game design that I have developed this year called Archipelago, the second is an older, smaller card game design called… well, that’s actually a good question… I still haven’t found a good name for it.

I guess I have until November 1st to make up my mind!

Doctored Whose Logo?

2009-10-05T09:10:00Z

Doctored Whose Logo?:

All will be revealed Oct 6th.

The Mercury Men

2009-10-04T00:50:53Z

The Mercury Men:

Great looking trailer for some retro cliffhanger action.

Quotables #008

2009-10-01T23:12:00Z

‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.’

Aristotle

I don’t think I really need to explain this one, but if you need advice on either creating better habits or kicking bad ones, then one imagines that the Zen Habits website is quite probably a good place to start. [Zen Habits via Lifehacker]

Think ‘DGIQSXZ’ is a Terrible Scrabble Rack? Think Again!

2009-09-30T10:04:00Z

Now this is not, to be sure, a situation likely to come up in tournament play, but Scrabulizer reports this new theoretical highscoring Scrabble move (they actually reported this in May last year, so it’s hardly breaking news). [via MetaFilter]

Handwriting Game, 1955

2009-09-28T23:43:00Z

Image: A handwriting game being analysed by members of the Ideal Toy panel on Inventor’s Day at the Ideal Toy Company in Hollis, New York. Credit: Orlando/Getty Images, January 1st 1955.

This image, apparently showing a prototype of a ‘handwriting game’ (whatever one of those might be) being demonstrated to an eager playtesting panel, originally appeared in LIFE magazine in the 1950s. I just found it, after following some labyrinthine internet byway, in a slideshow of ‘30 Dumb Inventions’. Ouch!

One wonders what the story is. Perhaps the gentleman at the chalkboard is the inventor (and Marilyn Monroe fanatic) who, having put on his Sunday best and excitedly made his way to the Ideal Toy Company’s front door on ‘Inventor’s Day’, is captured in the photograph in the middle of a make-or-break presentation of his new-fangled prototype. As if in a scene from a 1950’s edition of Dragons’ Den.

A man in a white coat scribbles notes while a test panel consisting of two children chosen specificially for the neatness of their hair look on with ill-concealed indifference. A game about handwriting you say? In which players have to write lines on a chalkboard and then score points based on the clarity of their cursive script? I’m out!

Big Burj in the Big Apple

2009-09-28T01:57:00Z

Big Burj in the Big Apple:

The compare-and-contrast Google Earth shots are frightening.