Games

JBOF Watch: NZ Racism Undermined By Photo Research

Those of you following the current cricket controversy in Australia will be aware of the basic facts. During the recent test Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh allegedly called black Australian player Andrew Symonds a “monkey”. Now this may seem like a simple case of kneejerk racism and unacceptable, but it is amazing how both sides have spun the story until it is now out of all context and control. For example, as Marina Hyde reports, Raj Natarajan the President of Australia’s United Indian Association offered this opinion to calm things down. “Considering that the monkey god is one of the revered idols of Hindu mythology and worshipped by millions it is surprising that it was considered a racist term.”

Well I love the PG Tips monkeys but you don’t see me throwing bananas on the pitch at my favourite tea loving footballers. As Marina’s piece goes on to say, the big problem is not just the racism (or lack of) that lies in these comments, it is that within cricket the concept of sledging is not just allowed, it is in some instances celebrated. … read on …

Mario Bandwagon — Keep On Loving You

The Physics of Super Mario Galaxy.

I’m loving this game (about half way through I reckon), but if I have a complaint, it is that the visual resolution of where you are in all the magnificent 3D-ness is a little underdetermined by the graphics you see. Hence the shadow under your feet “as if light in Mario’s universe always falls directly toward the nearest source of gravity” is not only essential, but I find i spend more time fixing on the shadow than on Mario!

To be fair, the game designer recognises this as mentioned in this Gamasutra interview.

If you place a bag of holding in another bag of holding…

10 Awesome Things About D&D from someone who’s started playing the original game has attracted a lengthy nostalgia-list comment thread. Although I am boggling some at ‘Calzone Golems’

A Trigger Almanac: 2007

Here’s a selection of some of the most entertaining/interesting posts on the site this year - thoroughly incomplete, as it doesn’t include much of the frothing ephemera that makes FT so good (in my partisan view). As usual when I look at the FT archives I’m enormously amused, amazed that there’s so much of it, and frustrated that loads of good ideas don’t get followed up, but such is the way of the blog.  Huge thanks to all contributors and a Happy New Year to all readers. … read on …

“… and an emo musician’s look about him”

I’m spending my Sunday replaying the wonderful NIntendo DS law-em-up Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations and have a chance to make a note of something I couldn’t record on my first run through this case! Whilst interviewing my client in the detention centre, I ask her to describe the victim and assailant and her justification as to her comments why she thought they could be in the music industry….

GUILTY AS CHARGED! The prosecution indicts GABE SAPORTA!

The Sponge Fear Of Fearne Cotton

Its true you know, Fearne Cotton is afraid of sponges.

But that is nothing compared to the complexity of the Cluedo characters fictional history. Material gathered for last nights Lollards, but unused, uncovered the following salient facts: which may be useful in your future sleuthing in the house with no toilet:

The murder of Dr Black (Mr Boddy / Snr Caddaver) took place on Saturday June 5th, 1926.
Miss Scarlett studied at Madame Puce’s School For Girls (like a badly painted Chalet School one assumes)
Mrs White’s real name is Blanche Chaulkley. … read on …

I WAS A GOBLIN: Herd mentalities

One of the great corny running jokes in the early days of gaming was the idea of a game in which people would play white-collar workers. The standard format of the gag would involve a bunch of dwarves or elves sitting round a gaming table making “saving throws against income tax” and suchlike.

The gag is a neat summary of assumptions about the gaming hobby. Firstly, it’s escapist, and enjoyable because of its escapism. But also, the people who play it are – or are going to become – accountants, computer programmers, admen, etc. There was very, very little counter-cultural about the early RPG hobby. It shared visual style and iconography with 70s head shops and underground comix but was a lot squarer, nervous (to say the least!) about the chemical and sexual pursuits the underground embraced, and it’s one of the few areas of late 70s/early 80s cultural activity where it’s extremely difficult to detect any kind of punk blowback. … read on …

I WAS A GOBLIN: I Was A Gothling

The World Of Darkness series of RPGs, beginning with Vampire: The Masquerade, were nineties gaming’s great success story. They appealed to an older audience than D&D and its imitators; they brought new gamers, including a lot of women, into the hobby; they drew on and seemed relevant to wider popular culture. 

They also built into their systems a lot of modifications designed to make gaming more story- and character-oriented, correctly recognising that this was the one real point of difference the tabletop hobby now had in a world where videogames could handle the dice-rolling and levelling-up more efficiently and enjoyably. Characters in Vampire and its successors were created with personality traits and flaws to the fore, things that would make a real difference to how a game might progress – and there were game mechanics to allow decisive player interventions in the story flow that might override the throw of the dice.

I ought to have loved Vampire – it aligned with everything I wanted from a RPG and represented a major break from the wargaming tradition. But, though I played a handful of games, I never liked it, and its success marked the end of my involvement in structured, rule-led gaming. … read on …

I WAS A GOBLIN: Small Worlds

As the eighties progressed, one-size-fits-all patchwork “campaign worlds” fell from fashion in the RPG world. They didn’t initially lose their market dominance – most Dungeons and Dragons products, for instance, were set in its smorgasbord Forgotten Realms setting – but a minimalist approach to world-building, concentrating on helping a gamesmaster evoke particular moods or playing styles, became more common. … read on …

since when has this bit been “angel”?

ok so i went into islington this morning to begin changing banks, and was in the co-op where pentonville road meets islington high st — as i wz waiting to be seen i wz lookin round and there on the wall, complete with old-skool monopoly logo, was the boardgames equivalent of a blue plaque, claiming that HERE ON THIS SPOT stood the building which in 1957 inspired the inventor of monopoly to name one of the playing-squares in the london version “THE ANGEL, ISLINGTON”: it was “angel corner house teashop”, a lyons teahouse i believe, and is therefore the only space on the board named after — said the plaque (and wikipedia currently) — a BUILDING

ok so this is sort of true — except eg angel tube was thus named in 1901, bcz there on the corner since time immemorial (or anyway the 17th century) was a PUB called “the angel”… and “angel’ really IS the name of a DISTRICT as much as a teashop. You can’t build houses and hotels in a teashop! (Well you can but they would surely earn less rent even than those you built in the old kent road)