Did anyone else notice that the scattered missing letters in the chapter of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode 3 which was put up today (Chapter Four: The Scholar) spell out the message “Et tu, Brahe?” I don’t see anything about it online…

This post over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun points out the trick StarCraft 2 pulls on players with the way it handles their decisions. I noticed it also, and thought it was interesting. But it isn’t hard to figure out this is what’s going on while you’re playing, especially if you compare your experience with that of a friend who made a different choice. And to me it sort of feels like it cheapens the story.

In a way you could say it takes the player’s choice away from them, in that the things the designers decided would be true (that Jim Raynor is right) are always true. It becomes obvious that the story has no meaning, that it’s just a rationalization of what’s going on, and at that point one may start to wonder why it’s even there between the gameplay at all.

Just finished reading Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony deMello, and I found it incredibly enjoyable. It’s written in such a way that reading it feels like attending a seminar by a master speaker. Full of analogies and little stories which are fun and funny, I would recommend it to anyone interested in waking up from their illusions. This was my first time reading it, but I’m sure it won’t be my last.

But this time no one is laughing. Hardcore game developers/publishers who aren’t the usual suspects for Nintendo handhelds are falling all over themselves to make games for it, if the list of games lined up for it so far is any indicator. It’s a disruptive masterpiece, and has had Nintendo getting all the attention at E3 this year, even before the show floor opened.

I’m eager to see it in action. It seems like a day one purchase to me, and now that I think of it, I won’t be surprised if it is sold out for an extended period of time, as the Wii was. My current guess is an MSRP of around $180 (hopefully less, but nothing’s been announced about price yet), and hopefully a release around November 2010, though it could be sometime in 2011. If it does sell out (if it’s a holiday 2010 release I think it will definitely sell out until sometime in 2011 at least), I won’t be surprised to see people pay $300 for it on ebay.

Nintendo’s domination will continue…

Update: it begins…

Derren Brown is investigating supernatural phenomena in a miniseries of documentaries called Derren Brown Investigates. He wrote a great blog post to introduce the show, which delves into his approach and the nature and necessity of skepticism, which he defines as “reserving judgement until the evidence is weighed.” Predetermined disbelief he calls cynicism. It’s a fair point: I don’t think “cynicism” is the right word for it, but I don’t think there is a separate word for it. Both “doubt” and “disbelief” are widely called “skepticism.”

Many self-labeled skeptics follow more closely with Derren’s definition of cynicism than skepticism: they come with closed minds and attempt to tear down what in their view is impossible, improbable, or simply impermissible. Confirmation bias is present here every bit as much as in the paranormal enthusiast who collects only evidence which supports his beliefs. Both sides can benefit from a more open mind.

What is an open mind? It is not adopting a new viewpoint merely because it is new, or because it is held by someone who is admired. It is the willingness to reserve judgment, to weigh all the evidence before forming a conclusion. And then, importantly, when new evidence is presented, to let go of that conclusion and weigh all the evidence again.

Each person should decide for him- or herself what to believe. This may be a more difficult endeavor than many people are willing to tackle; in many cases we are given a package of beliefs ready-made to hold as our own, and are even abraded if we question them. It takes courage to form our own conclusions, and to hold them in the face of the sometimes violent response which may come from those who disagree. And it takes courage not to attempt to force those conclusions on others.

In choosing what to believe, it is useful to find a comfortable balance between faith and science, since empirical evidence cannot account for every phenomenon. When faced with a generalized theory the accepted testing method is to attempt to find a counter-example. This is reasonable for philosophies which purport to explain all that is. But disproving the generalization that all spiritual practitioners are honest and truly capable of what they claim, or the one that all paranormal phenomena are real, only disproves that generalization. It does not prove the counter-generalization, that none of it is real. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Authentic, truly talented psychics do exist. I am married to one. But I wouldn’t assert that the percentage of professional psychics who are completely honest and capable of all they claim is very high. From my experience I would guess it to be rather low indeed. Nor would I claim that the true ones could give you all the answers; we must still decide for ourselves.

That said, there are reasons why paranormal experts and practitioners may be defensive about being questioned, aside from the obvious possibility that they are charlatans. Derren pointed out that it can feel like being endlessly asked pedantic questions, but there’s more to it than that. Most of the questioners do not come with the honest doubt, curiosity, and open mind he is describing, but with torches and pitchforks. My wife welcomes and enjoys honestly curious probing questions, but they are rare.

Another consideration, though, is that these things are influenced by our thoughts. First of all, the true psychic has to train herself to switch off for the duration of a reading most of the mental censorship which goes on constantly in her own mind in order to allow messages to come through. If the practitioner is not confident or practiced enough it can be difficult to do this in the face of aggressive disbelief. Often skeptics actively (if not always consciously) attempt to “psych out” the person being questioned.

In addition, the energy of “cynicism” can have an effect on the energies the practitioner is employing or observing: the attitude of the questioner can influence the results, even before confirmation bias is accounted for. In well-run scientific experiments an effort is made to control the variables in order to limit the possible reasons for variation in the results to a manageable number of factors. When studying the metaphysical, however, the character of the observation can be a significant factor which is generally overlooked.

Ultimately, for capable paranormal experts or practitioners, convincing everyone is not even a goal. They do what they do for their own reasons, and others will decide for themselves whether they believe. The world would benefit if metaphysical practitioners and all skeptics would adopt the same philosophy:

This fixes the suboptimal example plan in the 0.2.0 release. The issue was not with the planner but with how the problem was set up. Get it here.

Over the weekend I released Game Toolbox 0.2.0. You can get it here.

New:

On “What Not to Watch,” each week a new, regular person who was volunteered by a friend or relative is made fun of for the TV shows and movies they have scheduled to record on their DVR and own on DVD. Then the hosts throw out their DVD collections and their recording schedules, to be replaced with what the hosts consider to be better viewing. The new selection usually includes “What Not to Watch.” But not “What Not to Wear.”

A lot of spam comments get blocked here. I can see them, and it’s kind of amusing how many lately attempt to use flattery to get approved. Things like “your writing is great” on a page with just a list of games I’m playing and have played. Not very believable in many cases, but I think it would be funny if someone specifically let these comments through on their blog, but edited out the spam homepage links and email addresses they come with.

My throat chakra is closed.

I am working on opening it up. That is, I suppose, the purpose of this post.

Psychologically, the cause/effect is that I am often afraid to speak, and hold back my opinions, thoughts, and desires; at least those which I imagine will cause some offense or upset. Perhaps this originated in my childhood, when I grew accustomed to the futility of voicing opinions to closed minds. Some of that was definitely real, and some of that expectation for rejection and conflict over any stated independent thought may have been only imagined. In any case, I withdrew.

I’m probably pretty terrible at communicating, now. Worse than I think, I think. There are probably many thoughts I have which others might benefit from knowing about. I don’t imagine myself to know the Ultimate Question,¹ but when reading my own writing I find that there are often many thoughts between the words written, which are not conveyed. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle suggests withholding opinions as an exercise to let ego diminish, and that is good. I think, though, that I have been out of balance for a long time, in the opposite direction. He also says that awakening doesn’t mean letting everyone walk on you, and I think it may be time for me to work on that.

When I’m not afraid my words will upset someone I often feel like voicing an opinion or even relaying news would be superfluous, since the same sentiments or information can be found elsewhere. That is why posts here are so infrequent. Other times I don’t say or post something for fear of ridicule. My pain-body has no qualms about even the most irrational opinions, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I don’t feel like publishing this post to the blog. I feel sure that in its current form it will upset some people, that it doesn’t convey what I intend perfectly and that some will take it as an accusation. I’m posting it anyway.

Here is an example of a comment I didn’t make because I expected it to elicit scorn: on Monday, this article appeared on The Escapist. To save you a click, it says that the Pentagon is interested in trying to use video games as training tools in order to reduce infantry battlefield casualties, which account for 80% of war casualties since World War II.

My comment would have been that it seems a better way to reduce battlefield casualties would be to reduce the number of battlefields. And along with it, the number armies. I was thinking of going so far as to say they should consider investing in a video game for elected officials which encourages them to find alternatives to war.

Read the comments on that article and you may be able to understand why I felt my comment would get a negative response. Then again, theultimateend posted a similar comment:

If you really want to cut back on casualties in war. Stop going to war with everyone that so much as sneezes.

What’s the point of having a complex political body if we are just going to kill everyone.

So perhaps it would merely have been ignored, as that was.

Anyway it wouldn’t have made a difference, since no one from the Pentagon will read that comment thread and even if they did, such a comment would change nothing. The military-industrial-congressional complex isn’t actually interested in reducing war or even war casualties. Rather their vested interest is to make war more attractive, and “safer” is one way to do that. Also, “fun,” as they attempt to add video games to the industrial part of the equation as a recruitment tool.

That is one example of an opinion I have withheld. There are many more. For instance, my dad may not have known (until reading this post) that the reason I never even considered working at Lockheed is because I don’t want to work for a defense contractor, even on projects which are not related to war. Of course, I ended up working for a large technology conglomerate which does provide solutions to the defense industry (though I don’t work directly on them), so I guess the joke is on me there.

But I digress. Regardless of whether it would make a difference, it seems balancing my throat chakra requires that I voice personal truths. Letting go of ego means ceasing to cherish opinions, including my own. But it is not a vow of silence.

So: I will endeavor to withhold less, though I may be afraid to do so. And I will also endeavor to listen to others with an open mind.

This may mean I post here more frequently. We’ll see. This post is a start.

This post contains spoilers.

Alan Tew wrote up his thoughts about Assassin’s Creed 2 on his Little Bot Studios blog in four parts. I was going to reply with my own rambling thoughts, but Blogger keeps telling me it can’t process my request, so I decided to edit them up all fancy-like and post them here. Probably for the best; this blog is too neglected.

First, I loved Assassin’s Creed. The genetic memory thing was a little wonky but I didn’t mind it as much as most of the ridiculous crap in movies and TV shows, and I really enjoyed its originality and most of the design decisions they made. I realize this may put me in a minority but that’s why I’m saying it up front. Dying instantly if Altair got a foot wet was extremely annoying, but I loved the counter-based combat, did all the optional missions (though I didn’t bother trying to find Assassin Flags I didn’t notice as I was going through the game), enjoyed getting all the viewpoints and assassinating the Templars, and enjoyed the story of Altair as well as that of Desmond. It wasn’t flawless, but to me it was great. Assassin’s Creed 2 is in almost every way exactly what I wanted in the sequel.

My wife, Keisha, has been enjoying watching me play all the way through Assassin’s Creed 2 (she didn’t watch the first one much, but she got into watching the story of this one). Because of that and how much I like the game, I picked up both extra downloadable story sequences, which it should be noted is quite extraordinary for me.

The Battle of Forli one is crap, by the way. It had several lines of spoken dialogue that just didn’t play (seemed like they were missing). One instance was a couple lines from one character and another was an entire conversation. If I hadn’t had the subtitles turned on (they default to off) I wouldn’t have known what was being said. I was quite disappointed with the story parts of it also. The Bonfire of the Vanities one is much better so far (haven’t finished it yet), but I’ll gripe more about the DLC later in this post. And I’ll provide a theory on the events that led up to its release.

Alan’s thoughts are more focused on looking at the game’s design and plot decisions, though, so for a proper response I should be a bit more critical.

Core Gameplay

At least half of a game is what the player brings to it. Many of the things Alan mentioned didn’t really affect or bother me, because of the way I enjoy playing the game. For instance, I noticed the cost difference and extra effort involved in hiring a faction to distract guards so Ezio can walk in and steal Codex pages or loot high-value treasure chests versus just killing the guards, but it didn’t really affect me because I enjoy being able to do it without killing them. In the first game as well I avoided killing guards unless my mission was to do so.¹ In this one, now that I’ve discovered it as an option I usually prefer to disarm and beat up the archers, leaving them writhing in pain but still alive (with the added benefit that they don’t slide off the slanted roofs, making them easier to loot and preventing commotion in the street).

As a designer, though, I would agree that the disincentive to taking advantage of the distraction mechanisms is a problem. Perhaps making notoriety more difficult to remove would be sufficient. I tried throwing coins, which is cheaper, but found that tactic too unreliable.

There were many times in this game when I was able to assassinate a target and escape undetected, though mostly only in the side missions. I really enjoy the assassin as the master of combat, who can take on all comers, but when possible I prefer to sneak in and do it quietly. It is a bit disappointing that in this game as in the last, that is in many cases not possible for the main story missions, but I don’t mind that much.

Story

I enjoy the Desmond/Altair and Desmond/Ezio setup. I was actually a little disappointed that I couldn’t get out of the Animus and talk to the characters around Desmond whenever I wanted to and progress Desmond’s story in this game (though in the previous game it was annoying that you had to go through two menus to quit).

Alan sees a lot of problems with the story, some of which I don’t really agree with but that’s probably again because of what I bring to the game rather than what it explicitly brings to the audience. About the characters being revealed as Assassins, I didn’t have as big of a problem with it because I didn’t assume they were as good as Ezio at the stuff he does. Mario is implied to be amazing when he is introduced in a very cartoonish intro for a game like this.² But for all the rest (including Ezio’s father) I assumed the Assassins as a group to be more like a spy network/secret society, in that different Assassins have different specialties, and they are positioned in society to influence without going on Altair/Ezio-style assassination missions. This assumption is reinforced by the Codex pages in which Altair talks about adapting the organization to operate in secret, and by the Assassins around Desmond who are obviously not field agents. Sure they can perform a Leap of Faith, but that doesn’t mean they are as fit for the kind of work Ezio does as Ezio himself. I also assumed that Ezio is a prodigy, as Altair was explicitly made out to be, since he is the playable character.

The story does have flaws, of course. (What story doesn’t?) Given the secret-society model of the Assassins, a few things still nag: why would the late-game reveal be the first time Ezio was introduced to the knowledge that these characters were Assassins? Shouldn’t he have learned about and maybe met a few of them in his 4- or 5- year (I forget which) training montage? And why do they wait until then to actually initiate him as an Assassin? I thought he was part of the group once the training montage was over (when he outclassed the abilities of most of the other members); the obvious (and I’m sure correct) answer is that the writers wanted to set Ezio up as “the prophet” by having him show up on his own while the others don’t expect him to be there.

Altair was a deeper character than Ezio; he at least had qualms about killing innocent people and doubts about whether he was doing what was right, which each successive enemy compounded with his final words. Ezio has no such feelings, just the standard vengeance motivation. He’s much more bloodthirsty than Altair, often considering killing as the first and best solution to his problems. He does seem to become a little less cavalier about killing when he assassinates people (after the first few), and has a moment of introspection about his ten years hunting down the conspirators behind his father and brothers’ deaths, but only a moment. Ironically Altair is one of the most interesting characters in this game (based on reading what he wrote in the Codex, which does a great job of bridging many elements from the first game into this one), and he’s not really even in this game.

As Alan pointed out, Ezio doesn’t grow much. Here we have more story about the characters surrounding Ezio than about Ezio himself, and I agree with Alan that too many characters are introduced and then ignored. None of them seemed to be on the same trajectory as Ezio through any of the story, and we get hints of relationships that are just forgotten. It seems like different writers took care of different sections of the game, and each created and used his or her own characters, leaving a disconnect from one section to the next with no character arcs crossing these boundaries.

In the next one it would be great to get a better sense that the rest of the Assassins are out there doing something, through indirect news coming back of their actions (similar to the emails Desmond could look at on the computers in the first game), and through evidence of their actions in the world. And it would be nice if Ezio and Desmond crossed paths repeatedly with other Assassins or teams of Assassins so that relationships could be built.

Desmond, also, was deeper in the first game. Then he was a “Mr. Anderson,” an everyman yanked from his normal life and caught between two warring secret societies, neither of which seemed completely black or white. In this game all doubts and quandaries³ are banished in the first few minutes as Desmond falls over himself to sign up to help the Assassins. The story around him is also not quite as interesting; it turns out there are messages for the Assassins in the memory Desmond visits, but that isn’t why he’s doing it. It’s just for training, which isn’t as engaging as the way it was handled in the first game. Some of the abilities he is gaining are relevant to his near-future world: Eagle Vision which, ok, really only exists as an aid to gameplay, as well as the parkour, throwing daggers and the ability to blend with crowds and hide. So I will buy that the training is useful to him.

I did enjoy the bits where we returned to Desmond in this game. The parts where he is gaining abilities from the Animus, the moments where his brain can’t separate Altair and Ezio’s lives from his own, the spontaneous jump back to when Altair’s child was conceived. Of course it was silly for none of the Abstergo guards to carry guns. I assume the developers were saving the effort of putting in new animations and the differences in playstyle that will be required for Assassin’s-Creed-with-guns until the next installment, and I mostly let it slide because those segments were short, but it will be disappointing if the next one doesn’t have more Desmond, with guns. I’m sure Desmond will turn out to be the uber-prodigy Assassin, the first who will be able to go into genetic memories without an Animus, and control it, without losing his sanity. I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much any other way.

I was surprised that given how conscious they were about ancestry in this game (the aforementioned conception of Altair’s child, starting with Ezio as a baby, and the little bits of sex Ezio gets⁴), Ezio didn’t have a romantic arc. They left room for him to have descendants unbeknownst to him without ever having an actual heir, but I kept expecting the romantic subplot, considering the tryst in the first few moments of the game as well as his flirting with other female characters.

Collecting and Economy

As for the collecting, I have somewhat mixed feelings. The financial aspect of the game has the same problem as many which have similar mechanisms (such as Fable 2), in that money becomes irrelevant by the end of the game because you have so much of it. Treasure chests become worthless, and I only get them for completeness and to get them off my map. There’s only so much to buy, and once you have all of it, the money just keeps piling up (the chest at the villa in my game has been full for a while now and I haven’t bothered to go empty it).

I like the idea of treasure chests except for how little sense they make in the world, and they were fun in the beginning: they show up on the map (if you buy the treasure map for the district from an art dealer) but you still have to do some searching to find them because the map doesn’t show you their elevation. By the end they are somewhat of an annoyance. I also enjoyed collecting the Codex pages and the treasures which were guarded; it would be nice if in the next game there were fewer treasures with more money in each, and they were all guarded. It would make more sense and the treasures would potentially be more useful later in the game, and provide a fun and interesting experience in obtaining each one.

Feathers (the new Assassin Flags) I don’t really care much about because scouring the game for them doesn’t seem worth my time.⁵ I tend to just pick them up if I notice them while doing other things. The glyphs were more fun to find for me, because the search was limited to a smaller area. And I enjoyed the crazy sci-fi Adam & Eve conspiracy stuff.

Downloadable Content

The downloadable content doesn’t feel finished like the rest of the game does. They probably did plan to release downloadable content from the beginning. But when reaching the end of the project it seems Ubisoft said it they wanted the DLC on day one, like EA was doing, and so they scrambled to get something ready, skipping many of the quality passes the rest of the game’s content received. They may have split the DLC into two separate packs so that they would have more time to work on the second one, or because Ubisoft wanted to be able to charge for two. Regardless, the result is probably not worth the price of entry. If you really want to get some DLC, go for the Bonfire of the Vanities one.

The Battle of Forli provides maybe 30 minutes to an hour’s worth of story missions at the most, and while Caterina Sforza (the noblewoman who somehow managed to get stuck on a little island so that Ezio could learn to row a gondola) is given some more screen time, which is one of the only redeeming qualities of this pack, it’s basically the bad first half of an arc which Bonfire of the Vanities concludes. I don’t really feel like going into all the problems with its story and execution. It does let you use the hang-glider over Forli, though, which let me get the achievement for kicking a guard off a roof. Bonfire of the Vanities is so far much better than Battle of Forli, but still not quite up to the standard of the rest of the game.⁶

Overall I think they did a great job on this game, though, and I’m looking forward to the next one every bit as much as I was at the end of the first.

Update: finished Bonfire of the Vanities. It had some of the same problems with dialogue (and crowd noises) not playing… this could be a bug throughout the game caused by a DLC pack, and/or could be related to the fact that I don’t have surround sound…?

Also, I have to mention: to perform an extra-hilarious Leap of Faith, climb down so that Ezio is hanging from the side of a building right under an indicator that you can do a Leap of Faith (one of the wooden projections from a Viewpoint, or some doves and the stuff they leave on the edges of rooftops). Press B to let go, and hilarity ensues. : )

Everything we do has consequences. Some are more noticeable than others, and many are expected: cleaning off the table usually results in a clean table. Inaction is an action with consequences as well, which can often be predicted without any extraordinary psychic talent. Certainly not all consequences are predictable, and many go unnoticed.

We generally choose our actions (or inactions) based on expected outcomes. Our chosen perspective determines what we consider to be valuable; these are the criteria we use to make decisions.

From the perspective of the investor, the growth of companies is valuable. So it is encouraged, and companies expected to grow are supported.

From the perspective of the employee, the favor of the employer is valuable. So risk is avoided and a great deal of effort is made to set in place processes which are predictable and repeatable, to consistently meet the employer’s goals.

From the perspective of the CEO, keeping investors’ support is valuable, as is reducing company expenses and increasing revenues. So resources are secured for the lowest price possible and goods and services are sold at the highest price the market will allow, and goals and standards are set to attempt to create perpetual growth for the company.

From the perspective of the marketer, convincing customers to buy is valuable. So psychology is used to convince customers to make purchases.

From the perspective of the elected official, voter awareness is valuable. So large amounts of money are spent on advertising campaigns.

From the perspective of the parent, the child’s health and well-being is valuable. So restrictions are set in place to keep the child from, for instance, playing in the street.

From the perspective of the child, learning and growth are valuable. So boundaries and limits of the child’s capabilities are constantly expanded and tested.

None of these perspectives or these choices are wrong. ”Right” and “wrong” are products of perspective anyway. From the perspective of the voter, it could be called “wrong” when the elected official considers the interests of those with the money to fund an election campaign to be the most important. And other examples can be made for other situations. Suffering arises when the motivations of these perspectives are in conflict.

But the values of the perspectives above are ultimately the same: they all value survival. What differs is their definition of self, that which is to be preserved. “Survival of the fittest” has been adopted by many as a guiding principle, a mantra and a rubric for making decisions. Interpreted this way, it has some interesting implications: that there is not enough for all to survive, and that competition is “right.” That is to say, the best (required) course of action is to become more fit, perhaps even while causing others to become less fit, in order to survive.

The next step in human evolution¹ is the death of perspectives. It is the epiphany that there is something more important than survival. Or, from a different point of view, that the Self is much bigger than previously thought, that we are all One.

It is the death of perspectives, and the birth of Perspective.

In practical terms this means making decisions based on some other criteria than the survival and benefit of the “self.” This does not imply self-neglect; since we are all One, denial of self is detrimental to all. “Survival of the fittest” is in this way understood to be something that happens anyway, merely a description of a process, and counterproductive if used to guide decisions. We are all creating, every day. Every choice is creative. Consider the decision of what to buy at a grocery store: more of what is chosen will be created, because it was chosen. And what remains unchosen soon disappears from the shelves.

Survival is an illusion,² and we don’t take money with us when we leave.

So rather than merely choosing an audience or a business model, or deciding what to create based solely on what is expected to reach the most people, we should always consider the question of what is worth creating. Setting aside survival and financial gain, what is the desired impact on the world (all of us)? What should the world and our lives be like, and what can we choose which will lead us closer to that? There is nothing else worth creating. There is nothing else worth choosing.

While reading this Malstrom blog post this morning, I realized something interesting: Achievements/Trophies/whatever can reduce the desire to keep a game, increasing motivation to resell it. Sure, they can create some sales from people playing the gamer score metagame (who will just turn around and resell it once they’ve got the points), but consider a game you like.

If you feel your progress in that game is an achievement you’d like to be able to show off and prove to your friends, then Achievement systems make it so that you don’t actually have to own the game anymore to do that. Just something to think about…

Almost everyone seems to have an opinion about the recently-announced Apple iPad.¹ If you don’t, I may surmise that you either a) live under a rock, or have been distanced from the internet and tangential media and people enough that you have not yet heard about it, or b) you do not have any opinions at all. Or, potentially c) you just don’t have an opinion about it. But c) seems rather unlikely, because it’s been a very polarizing announcement. People seem to either love it or hate it.

As you may have guessed, I have some thoughts (i.e. an opinion) about it, which I will note here. If that sort of thing doesn’t interest you, and you continue reading the rest of this post, well, you were warned. Also, I’ve had some fun with footnotes on this post, so you’ve been warned about that, too.

It’s not what I expected.

What I expected was a video phone with some nice extra features, for a couple hundred bucks more than an iPhone. Video camera in front (and maybe in back?), phone, etc. 3G probably would make for a crappy video phone, but a little bird told me we’d all have something like that last year. The bird was wrong, of course. And HD YouTube is nice, but for the price of the iPad I’d like it to have Flash.²³

As an e-book reader, it could work well. But iBook prices are higher than those in the Kindle store, and the screen is a normal LCD screen with the inherent drawbacks and advantages that entails for reading books (harder on the eyes, can’t be read in sunlight, faster page turning, full color). Hopefully Apple won’t pull the Kindle app from the app store because of iBooks, since buying Kindle books to read on iPad seems like a better option than buying iBooks.

It’s got some features of the iPhone/iPod Touch missing (camera, phone–although I suspect voice chat/VoIP will be available for it rather quickly), and some features of MacBooks missing (open developer environment, multitasking).

So those things are not what it is. But what is it?

It is something new. Is it a disruptive product?⁴ There are a number of competing devices on the horizon, so it may not be a Blue Ocean product.⁵ Is there an untapped market for it?

Steve Streeting pointed out some situations in which it would be useful to have around. I agree with those; just last night I was looking up recipes online in the kitchen on my iPhone, wishing it had a bigger screen. And I can see it being cool for digital versions of board games with no hidden information like chess, checkers, and Carcassonne, as well as a DM tool for a tabletop RPG, or a game where each player has an iPad so they can hide their cards or whatever from the others. For me the price is too steep for that, but I think Ultimi Barbarorum is on to something with the idea that it will be well-received by baby boomers. In fact, it seems positioned to be loved by anyone who thinks computers these days aren’t worth the hassle.

I definitely think there is an untapped market for it. How big is that market? That remains to be seen, of course, and I get the sense that Apple is playing it safe with this initial model. It’s not clear yet what people will really want and use it for. Sure, we know what it can do, but that’s not the same thing. The next iteration of the iPad should be a lot more focused on improving what people end up actually using it for.

Pseudo-predictions:⁶

• The iPad will have an iPhone-style price drop of $100 to $200 within 6 months of its release.
• Disgruntled early adopters will report that the battery life with 3G on (for models which have it) is basically the same as that of an iPhone 3G.
• Kindle 3 will have a Pixel Qi touchscreen, and maybe even be based on Android. This is the only way I can imagine games (other than Interactive Fiction–text adventures) working on it. And with the recent opening up of the Kindle API for developers, it seems they want to go in that direction. And, if the one above about the price drop turns out to be accurate, Kindle will likely need something like this to keep from becoming completely obsolete.

Here are my thoughts on the rest of the games I got through the Appvent Calendar promotion. Thoughts on the first few are here.

Crazy Snowboard
Ezone.com – $0.99

This is a snowboarding game for the iPhone. It’s made with Unity if that interests you (I only know this because I noticed it in a showcase thread on the Unity forums). It’s pretty simple and honestly I don’t like the physics; you can steer in the air just as well as you can on the ground, which makes no sense at all.

iPharaoh – Episode 2. Desperate Pharaoh!
Justine Co. Ltd – $0.99

This is sort of an action puzzle game where you control mummies and such, directing them through an Egyptian tomb to attack treasure hunters and keep them from getting to the treasure. The graphics and overall production values are nice. It gets more involved in later levels, but for some reason the game didn’t hold my interest.

iBlast Moki
Godzilab – $2.99

This one is somewhat interesting; a physics-based game where the goal is to use bombs and other such tools to get the “mokis” to reach the goal. It attempts to adopt the aesthetic of World of Goo, even using the same sort of signposts seen in that game. Production values are fairly good; most of the tools and various blocks have no visual appeal whatsoever, as they’re just black or brown rectangles and circles. Some of the puzzles don’t seem all that well thought out: in a few, it was a pain to find the exact single pixel on which to center a bomb so that it would push the obstacles out of the way, and nothing else I tried worked. In another, it took me several tries before I realized there were obstacles; I believe it was the first stage with round ones and their bland appearance caused them to blend with the background for me. Still, this is a better game than many of the others which were offered through this promotion.

Elf
Matmi – $0.99

This is a quite simple game where you launch an elf into the sky, directing him to grab various star-like objects which will boost him higher. The art is decent and the game is fun. It took me a few minutes to figure out you need to tilt the device to move the elf; I don’t believe this is ever explained in the game.

Balcassa
Open Planet Software – $0.99

Billed as a cross between a slider puzzle and a Rubik’s Cube, Balcassa has you rolling around dice to achieve a desired pattern. The dice are arranged like tiles in a slider puzzle but generally have different faces on each side, and each “slide” rotates the die to the next side. It’s an interesting idea, but in practice I feel it falls short. For me, slider puzzles don’t involve planning the solution ahead, but at that level of complexity the strategies involved are somewhat intuitive. With the added element of rotating dice, however, the number of combinations goes through the roof and in my opinion the puzzle feels pointless because of it. I feel like I am just randomly moving things around hoping it will eventually fall into place, rather than that I am actively involved in deducing the solution. The same goes for when I mess with a Rubik’s Cube, though (I haven’t memorized a solution), so maybe this is just for people with a higher IQ than me? That seems like a narrow market, though…

Cheese Collect
Koh Jing Yu – $0.99

This is a puzzle game where you have a limited number of moves in which to get the mouse to collect the cheese, which moves away from it with each move, while avoiding traps. I didn’t find the art to be any good or the game to be any fun. The control buttons don’t feel well-thought out, and there is little to no contrast between backgrounds and game elements. This game uses OpenFeint.

Cabby
Hidden Games – $0.99

“Blimp – The Flying Adventures” but less forgiving and with 3D graphics and worse controls. You control a flying cab and are tasked with transporting people and packages from one platform to another in the small levels. The graphics are decent and the UI seems fairly nice for the most part. There seem to be a number of cars that can be unlocked, and both “career” and “arcade” modes. I never got far enough to unlock anything, however, because the controls are terrible and the game is very unforgiving. The control buttons are very small at the bottom of the screen, and the “down” and “landing gear” buttons seem useless; I tried the landing gear several times but it only screwed me up by taking my thumb off the “up” button, and the landing gear itself had no noticeable effect. If the cab slightly taps any part of the level which is not a landing platform, or if it hits a landing platform just a little too hard, it explodes, ejecting you and your passenger, if you had one. Run out of lives and you have to start your career all over again. I never bothered to get past the first level of “career” mode.

I also dislike the way the game forces players to rotate the device constantly; main menus are oriented vertically, while the gameplay screen is oriented horizontally.

AlphaBattle
Redwind Software – $0.99

A word game where vowels descend from the top of the screen and consonants rise from the bottom; if they all hit the line in the middle before you make them disappear by forming a word from the ones at the front of their lines, you lose. I didn’t find this game very fun. The graphics are ok, but it has bigger problems. It feels like it moves way too fast. The player is attempting to search the board and his internal dictionary at the same time for a match, which takes time (moreso because the vowels and consonants are on opposite sides of the screen, at least until they can’t be used anymore). The few words I formed felt like they barely helped since the columns their letters didn’t come from were only closer to being lost. It is possible that some big changes could be made to make this game feel rewarding/winnable/fun, but it isn’t anywhere near that state and I doubt it ever will be. I would change it so that only the usable letters are even visible; the rest only make the screen confusing. Also, every word scored should push back all of the letters, and they should all move slower in general. Currently the color scheme (blue for vowels, red for consonants) does nothing for the player. Perhaps something could be done to make it more useful, like awarding extra points for certain letter tiles (colored to indicate this), or having certain ones push all the letters back more.

Imp or Oaf?
Gilded Skull Games – $0.99

While dripping with style, this isn’t much of a game. It shows a zoomed in view of the center of a drawing of either an “imp” or an “oaf”. Guess with just that and you get 100 points, or you can zoom out to try to see if there’s anything which gives it away before you guess, but you will get less points than if you hadn’t zoomed out. It is aimed at kids, and they may find it amusing (I haven’t actually had one of mine play it). The only way to tell an “imp” from an “oaf” seems to be that “imps” have pointy ears. So unless the drawing you’re looking at just happens to feature the subject’s ear right in the center, you will be either getting less than full points or flipping a coin. Worth a look for the art style, though.

MiniSquadron
MrFungFung – $2.99

This is, in my opinion, the best game I got through the Appvent Calendar promotion. The art style and production values are great, the gameplay is fun, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Players take control of a plane in a side-on, 2D dogfight with waves of enemies in single player, or against another person in multiplayer (I haven’t tried multiplayer). Unfortunately there are not many levels; I had only unlocked 13 of the 56 planes when I completed the game. Now I suppose I have to revisit levels I’ve completed, or maybe play in multiplayer or Survival mode to unlock more.

The game is excellent, but I do have a few quibbles. I generally don’t play with the sound on, but the “laser” sound effect is incredibly annoying. Also, the controls can be frustrating at times; the game uses a circle in the bottom left to control the direction the plane is flying and a “fire” button in the bottom right to fire weapons. The problem is the way these inputs work; if your thumb slowly slides off the “fire” button because you are focused on the action, your weapons will stop shooting, forcing you to reposition your thumb (possibly having to look in that direction to do so). It would be preferable if it kept firing until you stopped touching the screen, whether your thumb is on the actual picture of a button or not. The problem with the direction control is similar; without looking at it, it is quite difficult to get it to go in where you want it to; I would have made it so that wherever you first touch on the left side of the screen is considered for control purposes to be the “center,” and you then drag a little in whatever direction you want to get the direction to change. Any further movement of the left thumb would consider the previous position to be “center,” so that if you want your plane to go down you just move your thumb down from wherever it is rather than trying to find what’s considered “down” on the arbitrary control wheel. This would make it much easier to focus on the action without having to look to adjust controls.

These foibles aside, the game works well and is fun. It now uses OpenFeint for leaderboards, as well.

Doodle Golf
Polished Play, LLC – $0.99

This game is well-made and aesthetically pleasing. Players attempt to move a golf ball to the hole by drawing a line which doesn’t intersect any lines in the drawing. This is made more difficult by the fact that the drawing fades out and disappears once the player has started drawing a line. After a while I lost interest, but I think it would be fun to share with kids.

SpongeDude
Handplant Studios – $0.99

First, a huge complaint: this game ignores the “silent mode” switch on the device.

SpongeDude is like iBlast Moki with the graphics of Cheese Collect. Well, ok, the art is slightly better than Cheese Collect. Anyway, you have items like bombs and balloons to use to get SpongeDude to a goal. Its puzzles are not as good as those in iBlast Moki. It ignores “silent mode!”

The last two games for the Appvent Calendar were not given away, apparently because Apple closed iTunes Connect for the holidays, so the creators of the games could not change their prices. So… when is World of Goo coming out for the iPhone, again?

No, no I didn't.

I found this blog, subscribed, and read this article a couple days ago. It’s really interesting stuff about how business really works. If you’ve been reading Malstrom’s Articles about Blue Ocean Strategy and Disruption, this should interest you.

But I’m posting now because of a revelation I’ve had just now while reading The Innovator’s Dilemma, relating to the article linked above:

Android will be used in at least one game console.

You read it here first.

Edit: and now after a Google search yielded Odroid, I guess I wasn’t the only one to realize this. I was thinking a home living room console rather than a portable, however (though I realize Odroid can hook up to a TV). I suspect such a home console may come from a new entrant in the console industry and attempt to disrupt Nintendo. Does it have a shot? Perhaps. Anyway, technically, you may not have read it here first. Sorry about the mix-up. ; )

It’s been almost a month since my last post here. Nice. Ah, and it was about the first few games for the Appvent Calendar. Guess I’d better write the second half, with thoughts on the rest of them, soon.

For now I’m gonna link to this fascinating blog which I just found thanks to a tip at Raph’s website. It’s called The Psychology of Video Games. Go subscribe to the RSS now if you have any interest at all in the topic.

I’d also like to point out a new board game (supplies will be available for the US in February) which I just came across, read the rules, and added to my wish list: Dungeon Lords. It sounds fun and I look forward to playing it, but even if it turns out to be less-than-great in play, there’s something to be said for how well the rulebook is done. First, I love the humor and theme in the rulebook, and the layout of the rules is incredibly well-thought out. It also has pointers throughout on how to explain the rules to friends which is an excellent touch every game should have. You can tell this is a game where the player experience, from reading the rules to teaching or learning from others to actually paying the game, was at the forefront of the designer’s mind from beginning to end. For that alone, I feel this game deserves a look.

If you have an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and haven’t heard of the “Appvent Calendar,” go check it out. Blacksmith Games has organized an advent calendar where an iPhone game is given away for free each day in December leading up to Christmas. These are games which are not normally free, and are only free for the one day they represent on the “appvent calendar.” I’ve been picking up each of them so far, except I unfortunately missed yesterday’s (it was over 10mb and I forgot when I was in range of wi-fi), but I thought I’d post some thoughts on each of them.

These posts may be in batches or may be more regular after this first one, but this will focus on the first nine games I’ve gotten through the appvent calendar. So far none of these have been games I would’ve come across otherwise, and since they won’t be free for long, it seemed like it might be useful for others to read something about them before buying. So without further ado…

33rd Division
Craneballs Studios – $0.99, free version available

In this game, the player draws lines in order to direct soldiers to sneak past enemy scouts and reach specific target locations. There are three different types of soldiers to direct, power-ups to pick up along the way, and tapping on a soldier will make him lay prone so he’s not visible but also can’t move. The production values are good and the game seems well-made, but the levels feel way too long. I think in each level you just keep playing and playing until you lose? And at some score threshold the next level is unlocked? But it gets monotonous after a while guiding the same guys past the same patrol over and over and over again (you have to guide quite a lot of guys past the enemies to get to the next level). It seems like it would be more fun if you only had to get 10 guys or so past enemy lines to get to the next level, and playing until you drop was made into an alternate game mode. The game uses OpenFeint for leaderboards/high scores if that interests you, and overall it seems pretty well-made.

TriDefense
Kalio Ltda. – $2.99, free version available

This tower defense game’s gimmicks are that you are protecting a single building which can be attacked from multiple directions on land, air, or sea, and that the player can modify the terrain by turning land tiles into sea tiles. This is another game that seems fairly well-made, with nice-looking graphics, but sometimes the framerate can be a slight problem (I played on an iPhone 3G). There are three basic types of towers to build, but each has two upgrade paths that slightly changes how they work. In the last level I played a new, very specific-purpose tower was introduced, so perhaps there are more available later. It would be nice if the player could change water tiles back into land tiles without building towers on top of them. This one uses OpenFeint also.

Snorkeling
Alfonso Bozzelli – $0.99

This seems to be a very extremely simple game where you guide a swimming bear-thing around to catch “good fish” while avoiding “bad fish” and picking up bubbles for oxygen. There isn’t much to it, and since touching one “bad fish” ends the game I didn’t play it for very long. It keeps your high scores but doesn’t have any leaderboard type functionality.

Totemo
Hexage.net – $0.99

This one I have been coming back to. It is a puzzle game where you match up a certain number of “spirits” to make them disappear (“cross over”), starting with matching up two, then three, and finally four. Any of them can match with any others but must form a line vertically or horizontally, and the goal is to clear all of them from each level. The art is decent, and the overall aesthetic is quite pleasant and feels very polished. The puzzles seem somewhat uneven in difficulty; I will blow through four or five of them before hitting one that takes me a while to complete, then blow through another few on the first try. And I get the sense that the solutions are not unique, and with later ones the arrangement of the board is complex enough that I wouldn’t be able to plan out how to eliminate all the pieces, so it sometimes feels like just trial and error. It is enjoyable enough, though, that I still go back to play it, and it has plenty of puzzles (so far I’ve completed 49 in story mode). It seems to have an online high scores system (for survival mode, I assume), but it keeps crashing when I try to access it.

Samurai: Way of the Warrior
Mad Finger Games – $1.99, free version available

This is a 3D, top-down action game where the player controls a samurai fighting through hordes of other, evil samurai. The graphical style and music are nice and remind me of Okami, but with blood (people get decapitated and sliced in half at regular intervals). The controls are somewhat confusing to me; swipe a finger to swing the sword, but I haven’t really figured out if you always swipe the same way or if the direction you have to swipe is based on the direction the character is facing. The game is also very linear; there is a set path you have to take and you can’t really stray from it. Where it tries to give multiple paths to take it is just frustrating, because it forces you to go back and kill every enemy in the area before you can progress. The story is presented in comic book fashion and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. It’s an interesting little action game that looks pretty and can be fun if you figure out the controls. The game was built with Unity, if that is important to you.

smackBOTS
LeftRight Studios – currently still free

Rock’em Sock’em Robots: The Video Game. Has some upgrade and customization options, and multiplayer, I think, but this one didn’t hold my interest at all.

polyhedra
Binary Hammer – $0.99, free version available

This is another game I’ve been coming back to. The aesthetics are nice, and the game design is good. The player must hold a finger on the screen to create shapes which will grow until the finger is released, while avoiding the small “enemy” shapes which bounce around and will destroy the ones the player is trying to create. Tilting the iPhone changes the direction of gravity, and can be used so that the shapes the player has created trap the “enemies,” allowing more freedom to create shapes. The goal for each level is to fill 66% or more of the screen with as few shapes as possible, as fast as possible. If the player uses up the available number of shapes without filling at least 66% of the screen, the game is over. This game reminds me of JezzBall, an old game (which might have been based on something else) I played on Windows 3.1 when I was younger, but I think this game is better, as it can teach about physics and geometry. I have a decent number of nitpicks with it, though.

First, it uses “AGON Online” for its high scores and leaderboards, a system I hadn’t seen before. I don’t like it at all. Rather than keeping your high scores automatically, you have to actively “submit” them, even if you don’t care about leaderboards and only want local scores. The “Submit High Score” option takes you out of the game (still within the same app) so you have to go back through menus to play again. That’s the biggest frustration, but there are a few others: the game seems to have trouble with the phone sitting on a flat surface… it always seems to choose an orientation I don’t want. The default orientation should be that of a normal app, bottom of the screen towards the home button. Also, it would be nice if setting it level would be sort of zero-gravity while playing the game, rather than it seemingly choosing an arbitrary direction. The menus in the game are somewhat annoying to navigate because you have to swipe the screen to move to the next menu item, but you can’t swipe on the menu items or it will select one. And when you want to choose a menu item it is often difficult to get it to recognize the choice. Occasionally the game also has trouble detecting touches and releases during play as well, though I think most of the times it fails to detect a release are because my finger went off the edge of the screen. It would be nice if it would consider it a release when a finger does that, though. It’s also often difficult to see around my finger to tell how close the enemies are to the shape I’m making, but I’m not sure how to resolve that one.

Anyway, despite all that, the game is very fun and well-made.

Ickle Count
Tootle – $0.99

This is a very simple game; tap as many divers in numbered order as you can before time runs out. Each one adds a miniscule amount of time to the clock. The graphics are stylized and well-done and the game is very minimalistic–not even one menu or option–but it does keep your high score. I think this is an interesting design choice and when viewed in the context of a mobile phone game, especially one that can really be played by anyone, I think it has its place.

Wheeler’s Treasure: Tasty Voodoo Entrée
Two Lives Left – $1.99

As I mentioned earlier, I missed this one. The screenshots look pretty.

Blimp – The Flying Adventures
Craneballs Studios – $0.99

In this game, you control a blimp in 2D levels with airborne obstacles, picking up and dropping off passengers, as well as bombing things on the ground. The visuals are nice and the game seems well-made. I have only played the first level, and my only nitpick is that the physics for the blimp are not really blimp physics; they’re more what I would expect for a jetpack. Anyway, if you’re reading this today (and you have an iPhone or iPod Touch) there’s no reason not to pick it up, since it’s free for today only.

Part 2 can be found here.

This is just too hilarious not to share:

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas  decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Chrome is finally available for Mac! It’s beta, and so far it runs a bit slower than the Windows version (opening and closing tabs is noticeably a little slower), but it will improve. Already set as my default browser… Safari 4 is really nice, but the “omnibox” is the one thing I missed when using it rather than Chrome. It wasn’t worth booting into Windows for web browsing just to get the omnibox, but now I don’t have to! : )