Sunday Spotlight: Mario Party 2

As anyone who's seen my Backloggery knows, I am a collector of video games. As a retro game enthusiast, most of my acquisitions nowadays are done in bulk and on the cheap at conventions; the games I'm looking for are no longer carried by most brick-and-mortar retailers, and the shipping costs for ordering online are often as much as the games I'm ordering. At this point, I'm filling out my collection with lower-profile and lesser-known games (such as Solar Jetman and Star Wars: Yoda Stories), along with occasional high-profile games that are common enough to have dropped in price over the years--such as Mario Party 2.

I played the original Mario Party when it first came out, and I've enjoyed several years of dice rolling and minigames with friends and family alike, even after picking up Mario Party 4-8 (out of sequence, mind you). I have yet to see a single Mario Party game that is so superior to any of its predecessors that it renders them obsolete. Some games are better than others, to be sure, but it all comes down to which combination of characters, game boards, minigames, gimmicks, and game modes you have a hankering for.

Mario Party 2 and 3 had been missing from my collection for some time, and it wasn't until New York Comic-Con 2011 that I found both games at a reasonable price--for the cost these games go for online, I could throw my own party where the participants win real gold coins. However, it wasn't until this weekend that I got to try either of them out, with my wife and my Best Man along for the ride.

The first thing that struck me about the game was the title screen--every incarnation of Mario Party I've played so far has found a way to proudly integrate the game's number into the title, the 2 looked like a sad, tacked-on attempt to make the game seem different from the first one. Maybe it's just me.

The music was quite similar to the music of the original, but I daresay I prefer the newer soundtrack--and I'm rather partial to the first game's tunes. Mario Party 2's soundtrack--what we heard of it, at least--was upbeat and catchy, and we joked about having a Mario dance party instead.

After destroying all the hard-earned saved data of the previous owner (gotta love used games), we hopped a train to Western Land. Whereas in the first Mario Party--as well as in 4-8--the characters run around the game board as themselves, in this edition, the characters dressed up in Wild West outfits and played sheriff.

Nearly all the minigames we played in our 20-turn game were adapted or directly ripped from the first Mario Party. Variations on the "dive for the sunken treasure," "drag someone's facial features around to match the picture," and "hop on the platform whose color matches the flag I'm holding up" minigames were in abundance, with changes ranging no further than from different graphics to a slight change in goal or mechanics.

Not that I'm complaining--I always lament when my favorite minigames don't make it into the next installment--but I've never seen a Mario Party game re-use so many of the same ideas with so little to mask how much they've recycled. I've also never seen a Mario Party game with so many baffling minigame explanations--even after reading and rereading each set of directions, we still had several occasions where one or more of us managed to win without understanding the rules, or lose before figuring out what was going on.

The game board itself was also a slight bit confusing--later games mark the paths you can take through a level a bit better, but you catch on quickly after the first time you choose a road that leads you away from the star you're trying to obtain. It's also worth noting that we were playing this game on a projector screen with a fair amount of sunlight peeking through the curtains and blinds, so it's possible we may have missed some of the finer details pointing us in the right direction (though the larger viewing area of playing on a projector was totally worth it).

Overall, our first outing with Mario Party 2 was a blast. Despite one or two obtuse minigames, the in-game rewards were plentiful, the competition stayed friendly, and there were a good many laugh-out-loud moments thanks to some sight gags, amusing dialogue, a Chance Time event so horrible that it confused the announcer (you'd have to hear it to appreciate it), excessive hootenannying (seriously, hootenannying), and ridiculous minigame antics (such as Peach and Wario both bouncing around on Luigi and each other until they both ended up falling off the platform and into the drink). That's the kind of Mario Party I haven't played in a long time, and I'm looking forward to more.

The Game

We had run out of time to finish the wedding favors at home, and our chances of assembling everything onsite didn't seem so good: we had loads to do, and only a few hours before everything for the reception--including the favors--had to be handed over to the restaurant. This called for minions.

I call you a minion lovingly, Mom.

I rounded up a small posse comprised of family members, wedding party representatives, and my bride-to-be, and set them to work on putting together the favors. In the meantime, I sat at a desk and...sliced.

As much fun as it would be to say that we stuffed our wedding favors with deli-style turkey and ham (which would have delighted my vegetarian future-wife, no doubt), I found myself slicing up mass quantities of paper. After much deliberation over what, exactly, to put into a hundred little blue plastic containers as wedding favors, I decided a sort of board game would work quite well. After a fair amount of playing around with the concept and format, I had settled on a game (with some input and inspiration from my gal) that could easily be mass-produced, cut out, and rolled up to fit inside the containers.

The original plan was to have a board game with a title such as, "Race to the Wedding," in which players would progress along a set path toward the goal of their wedding, landing on spaces along the way that sent them forward for being good wedding planners and backwards for being total schluffoffs. Practicality put the kibosh on that plan, however, because what I had in mind would require a much larger playing area than we could reasonably mass-produce and fit into our fist-sized containers.

The final product ended up being an untitled game that fit onto two quarter-page strips of paper, with instructions on the back, and a game board on the front of one and a scorecard on the front of the other. Accompanying the two strips of paper in each favor container were a tiny 6-sided die and two rolls of Smarties candy, which make excellent edible game pieces (and were my favorite candy growing up).

That about covers the contents of the favor containers (plus whatever factory-sealed air remained), but my favorite part was and is, hands-down, the exterior:

This would not be my wedding if there weren't at least one reference to Mega Man. I was also ecstatic to throw in a subtle Crystalis reference on the reverse of the container:

Oh, yeah. We had a wicked-efficient assembly line going for these babies.

Now, back to the game. Here's it is in its entirety, with the directions reprinted below. Feel free to use or adapt all this for your own wedding:

INTRODUCTION: You’ve got ten months to plan your wedding! Can you make all the arrangements you want and keep up with your everyday responsibilities without losing your sanity? Probably not, but let’s try anyhow.

PLAYERS: One or more. Ideally, players (couples) will form teams of two and advance jointly on the same scorecard.

SETUP: Place one token (Smarties will do nicely) on the game board for each player—guys start on HIS; girls start on HERS. Place a score marker (again, Smarties) on the first circle of each category on the score card, for a total of nine score markers.

GAMEPLAY: Players take turns rolling a die and advancing that many spaces around the game board. Players may move up, down, left, or right to any adjacent space, but may not backtrack over any space they have moved through this turn. HIS and HERS spaces are off-limits after leaving them. If you enter the WEDDING! space, you must remain until death do you part.

When you land on an activity space (Road Trip, Play Stuff, etc.), advance the corresponding score marker (Road, Play, etc.) by one circle. If landing on an activity space would advance your score marker onto a “?” circle, instead leave your marker where it is and advance a different score marker in any other non-Wedding category. [See other sheet for further instructions.]

ENDGAME: Game ends after ten turns or when all players have entered the WEDDING! space.
SCORING: At the end of the game, add up the numbers in each of the circles on your scorecard that are currently occupied by a score marker. This number is your Grand Total. Cherish these points forever and always. Now, put them aside for a moment.

Compare your number of Wedding points against the total points from all other categories. If the difference between them is 3 or less, you’ve successfully kept your life in balance while planning your wedding, and may add 5 bonus points to your Grand Total.

Then, add the number of turns remaining when you entered the WEDDING! space (got married). If you did not enter the WEDDING! space before the end of the game, lose 10 points—you missed your own wedding, you goober! The person with the most points (biggest Grand Total) wins.

ADDENDUM: All players must then tell made-up stories about their wedding planning process and how their wedding turned out based on their points in each category. Note the wonky progression (and regression) of point values—I’m sure you can find a good non-gameplay-related explanation for everything. I’d love to tell you my rationale, but I’ve run out of space here, so…bye.

~-~

I playtested the game once and am relieved to report that it actually works, which is impressive considering I came up with the idea and cranked out a finished product in a single evening. Whether or not it's fun is a different question entirely, but I'm hopeful that somebody enjoyed or will eventually enjoy it.

Slicing up the game boards and scorecards took some time, but the next bit of slicing is where I completely miscalculated how much work would be required, and had to hand things off to someone else.

My wife-to-be and I had collaborated on a list of icebreaker questions that would appear on individual strips of paper (good, hearty card stock, specifically), and each table at the reception was to have a cup filled with these question strips. I figured there'd be a fair number of total strangers sitting together, and this would also be another fun thing for people to bring home with them if they didn't care for the favors or the centerpieces.

Ten tables. Four pages of questions per table. Twenty-one questions per page. Mr. Calculator tells me that's 840 strips to cut out, and I don't care to do any further math to estimate exactly how long it would have taken if we had gotten through the whole process. Eventually we had to give up on four pages of questions per cup, and just threw together handfuls of however much we were able to slice.

For the complete list of questions, come back tomorrow for Part 4.

Learning to Deal

Back when other children were spending recess playing kickball or standing on the sidelines wishing they had been picked to play kickball, I spent my time playing Magic: The Gathering.

Oh, sure, I had other ways to occupy myself on the playground--pretending I was the captain of my own starship or using the swings to travel back through time--but it was usually a safe bet that at some point I'd end up sitting against the side of the school building, amassing an army of fantasy creatures and waging war against my friends with all manner of fantastic sorcery.

Magic, at the time, was relatively new and still fairly straightforward: organize a deck of 60 cards, about a third of which were mountains, forests, and other types of terrain that you could "tap" to draw forth colored mana energy (black, white, red, blue, and green) to play other cards of a corresponding color, such as swarms of plague rats that got stronger with each rat you owned, and counterspells that obnoxiously returned the cards your opponent played to his or her hand. There were also precious artifacts that defied coloration and could be played using any combination of mana--these were my kinds of cards, and I felt like such a hotshot when I played with more than three or four artifacts in my deck.

The aim of the game was to drive your opponent's life point total into negative numbers with an onslaught of creatures and spells. The majority of the cards I played with involved dealing or preventing damage, destroying my opponent's cards, restoring my life points, gaining mana out of nowhere, and drawing more cards for myself. Anything card whose function required more than two sentences of explanation was "weird" and usually got traded away for another Lightning Bolt.

The game required some effort to learn, and at the time, I think we made up more house rules than we realized. Still, I enjoyed the friendly competition that was just as much battle strategy as it was advance preparation. You see, playing the game was only a third of the fun. The other two thirds were collecting new cards and creating the perfect deck.

My parents treated me to a booster pack of Magic cards at the local comics shop from time to time, long before I had any idea that comics shops sold anything other than Magic cards. I relished the joy and surprise that randomized packages of 15 cards could bring to a small child. I savored each and every one of the cards, never looking at the next one until I had finished taking in the eye-catching artwork of the one in my hand. In my head, I pieced together how these reinforcements would interact with the other cards in my deck, and what my hodgepodge fantasy army would look like in a movie, or on a real (imaginary) battlefield.

The limit of 60 cards per deck caused me to frequently switch out cards and construct brand-new "theme decks," consisting of nothing but instant-damage spells, or too many goblins for my own good. Everything that wasn't in one of my decks either got filed away in a binder filled with sheets of plastic card sheathes, or was used in negotiations with my friends to acquire new cards.

At some point I received a rather comprehensive handbook of rules clarifications and cards listed by rarity, which automatically made me the resident expert on Magic: The Gathering. I confess to abusing this newfound knowledge by occasionally conning my friends into parting with some impossibly rare cards (all of which, I might add, are now worth a buck fifty at best--the cards, not the friends). In retrospect, I must have been conned out of my fair share of rare cards that I didn't realize were rare, so we're probably even.

It didn't actually matter whether the cards were any good--if the book said they were rare, I would hide them away in a special, individual plastic sheath and bury them safely at the bottom of my big plastic deck protector, a funky black box with a monstrous look about it that transported my favorite deck around town.

At one time or another, I was the proud owner of a Shivan Dragon (which was cool because he was featured on the box of the starter set), a shiny card signed by someone who had used it in an official tournament, and a Force of Nature (think Swamp Thing on fantasy steroids), as well as several cards that were not all that exciting other than the fact that they were from a discontinued print run, or in German.

Rarity aside, the cards I favored were red (lots of instant damage--shoot first; think up strategy later), white (lots of fidgety little disposable creatures and excessive amounts of healing magic), and green (lots of big monsters with special abilities). I tended to avoided black (too many undead creepy crawlies with ugly pictures on the cards) and blue (which did all sorts of crazy things except deal damage, therefore requiring too much complex thinking for this elementary-schooler to cope with).

I'm sure my tastes and strategies would have evolved if I'd had the opportunity to continue playing, but when I moved and started sixth grade in a completely different town, I found that most people hadn't even heard of Magic: The Gathering. I managed to rope my sister and one or two of my friends to play a few games here and there, but there was no one to trade with, and no surprises in combat, because we almost always played with one of the decks I had created.

I did keep in touch with one friend from elementary school, and any time I got to see him, we'd bring our Magic cards and have ourselves a little duel. Typically, unless I lucked out and got four Lightning Bolts in my first hand, he would use some elaborate system of elves and forests to summon the most powerful monster conceivable from the depths of his deck, and have enough mana available to pull him out and decimate me before I could rally my goblins to glorious...defeat.

Eventually, it didn't matter how carefully I crafted my deck, or how lucky the draw--my cards and knowledge of the cards were outdated, and without having the luxury of testing my mettle against other people's carefully crafted decks, I had no idea how to face these sleek new cards that required more than two sentences to explain.

I had all but given up on Magic by the time I left the sixth grade. No new challengers, and only one old challenger with decks that were impossible to beat. Plus, schoolwork started to pick up, and I started pursuing other hobbies.

Still...I continued to collect booster packs--if only one or two a year--to keep a loose grip on the pulse of the game, and to keep the flame of hope alive that someday, I could rally my armies once more to trample an opponent who never quite developed a strategy to defend against a barrage of Lightning Bolts.

Store Spotlight: A Timeless Journey

Quite a while ago, on a blog very much like this one, I mentioned that it might be fun to do little spotlight post thingies on different comics, gaming, and all around cool, stores that Nathaniel and/or I have been to.

Of course, until this very moment, I forgot to follow through on that idea.

So, to rectify such an injustice, today I humbly (or as humbly as I can be, anyway) present the very first comics shop in our Store Spotlight Series.

And, before you ask, no, I'm not married to that name. So if you can come up with something better, please feel free to leave some names in the comments section, below. There'll be no prize if your idea gets chosen, other than the satisfaction that--

Actually, you know what?

There will be a prize. And, even though I have not at all talked this over with Nathaniel, if you leave a comment for a new name for this feature, and we decide to use it, we'll send you a prize.

It will probably be a pretty horrible prize, but hey. We don't exactly work on a Michael Bay budget here. Right. So. Back to the post...

Fittingly, this first store in the series is my own, personal LCS. So you know it's good. A Timeless Journey, in Stamford, CT, is the shop that I've haunted, off and on, for just about 15 years.

When I was a kid, and more into collecting baseball cards than anything else, I used to buy packs and boxes of cards at--as it's affectionately called by regulars--Timeless. (My brother still collects those sports cards, and Timeless remains his main venue for that.)

As I got older and...uh...progressed?...to comics, Timeless became my weekly store, and now, six-or-so years later, you can still find me there each and every Wednesday.

The store's owner is great and friendly and will actually help you if you have a question--something that many new customers fear will not be the case when venturing into a comics shop for the first time.

And the store's selection of comic books both old and new is certainly on the higher end of the spectrum. All mainstream books are ordered each week, and there is always a nice selection of independent titles. New books are located on their own wall, and are very easy to locate.

All back issue comics are discounted 30% when purchased in-store, and there are literally thousands to choose from. Timeless features a nice selection of "wall books"--the higher end comics that are kept...um...on the wall, and those are also 30% off, every day.

Additionally, I'm told that the store's gaming selection is quite impressive and expansive, with some hard to find items. What's more, every Friday night is tournament night at the store's new gaming tables.

All in all, it's my home away from home, and I look forward to stopping by every week. If you're ever in the area, drop in and say hello. And tell them Exfanding sent you. (Although no one will have any idea what you're talking about...)

PAX East Recap - Part 2

[Continued from Part 1]


Sleeping in was about the only thing that went according to plan on Friday.

Maybe I exaggerate a little, but it certainly felt that way for a while. For my part, getting ready for the convention was easy: get dressed in civilian clothes, pretend like I'm Guybrush Threepwood and cram as many useful items into my cargo pants as possible, eat a food, walk out the door, and shower. In that order.

My girlfriend, on the other hand, brought a costume. PAX East is a convention, you see, and any excuse for her to whip up a costume is a good one. Unlike Halloween costumes, convention costumes have a tendency to be unbearably hot, awkward to walk around in, and obviously out-of-place anywhere other than in the convention center or on the stage of a Boy George concert; furthermore, people will stop you every five feet if you're wearing a particularly-well designed costume and/or are cosplaying as someone or something well-loved, such as a Game Boy, a DDR pad, or the Weighted Companion Cube from Portal.

In short, wearing a costume is almost guaranteed to make a significant impact on your convention experience. In this case, my girlfriend's costume affected both her and me: the costume effectively rendered her mostly blind. Being the nice boyfriend and really cool guy that I am, I agreed to be her seeing eye dawg.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Luckily I didn't need to guide her the whole time, as the blindfoldy part of the costume was removable, but if you go to the trouble of making a costume by hand, you'd better darn well make the most of it and wear it for as long as possible. Thus, I found myself trying to sync up my plans with her plans a bit more than I might have otherwise done.

First lesson from PAX East: Go alone. Or, go with a group of people who really won't care if you ditch them. This wasn't even an issue at Otakon because, even though I went with friends, we all came and went as we pleased, crossed paths from time to time, and occasionally coordinated going to the same video or restaurant together, often at a moment's notice. PAX East, though... we had to structure absolutely everything for going as a couple to work. And when plans fell through, things got very ugly.

Leaving the apartment took longer than expected. We stopped briefly to grab something to eat. We had to wait a while for the first subway train to arrive. (There was no way I'd dare to drive to the convention center; I'd accidentally end up in Maine before finding my way back to the apartment.) We took a few wrong turns out of the subway station on the way to the convention center. The line to get in moved at a dead snail's pace for no apparent reason--they weren't even signing people in at the door; you could just walk in and start roaming about the convention. People were blocking the hallway, gawking at footage of some new video game, as we rushed to the main auditorium so we could hear Wil Wheaton's keynote speech, which started in 15 minutes.

So many little delays.

Wil Wheaton's keynote address was all about feeling at home amongst fellow gamers who don't need to explain their geeky tendencies to one another. At least, that's what I've gathered from other people; standing a mere six people away from the door to the auditorium, our hopes and dreams were cut to shreds when they closed the doors and turned people away, saying there was no more room.

Six people from the door. All because I stopped to buy that burrito. Or because we ambled to the train station when we should have sauntered. Or because we paused a moment to admire some guy's really neat woven hat that looked like Mega Man's helmet. So many little delays.

Six people from the door.


In another day or two, I would learn from someone who had been there for the keynote that there were at least ten completely open seats behind him.

I turned to one of the Enforcers--the red-shirted convention volunteers responsible for everything running smoothly--and asked him if there was an auxiliary room where we could at least watch the keynote on a television or projector screen.

What? No plan for overflow? The kickoff focal event of the entire convention, featuring a guest that virtually everyone would want to see, and you don't have an overflow room? And you knew a month ago that the convention was totally and utterly sold out, to the point where you stated on your website that people without passes shouldn't even bother because they WOULD NOT get in?

DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT OUR WEEKEND IS RUINED BECAUSE WE ARRIVED 45 SECONDS TOO LATE!?

I was disappointed about missing Wil Wheaton, but I was upset about the situation that caused us to miss him, especially the parts where it wasn't my fault. My girlfriend, on the other hand, necessitated the invention of a new word for the kind of emotions she was barely holding in.

We were in Boston because of Wil Wheaton. Today, there would be no Wil Wheaton.

The weekend was shot.

The one saving grace was that there was another panel she had really wanted to see which conflicted with the keynote. Holding her hand as much to guide her as to keep her from breaking down, I led us to one of the smaller theaters, all of which had gaming-themed names such as "Wyvern Theater" and "Manticore Theater." Nice touch. That, and the floor plans of the convention center displayed here and there, labeled as "WORLD MAP" and drawn partially in the style of old video game maps.

Of course, none of that mattered when we got to the other auditorium and found that there was no room there, either.

Clearly, there would be no joy in Mudville today.

Her costume hid her emotions well, but my girlfriend was on that razor-thin boundary between collapsing into an inconsolable, tearful heap in the corner, and going all Super Saiyan Giga Crush Black Mage and razing the convention center.

And on that note, we started to stroll around PAX East.

We walked past a lot of empty rooms and bean bag corners that would eventually be populated with gamers, but in the meantime, PAX East was just one lonely hallway after another. Things were set up so that certain kinds of games were all congregated in the same spot, but the problem was that getting from, say, the board games area to the video games area, required a great deal of walking through places that had absolutely nothing for you to do.

In other words, you didn't come to PAX East to browse. You found what you were looking for, and you stayed there.

Had I been alone, I might have dawdled in the video games section. Freeplay rooms for systems of every kind, including a huge room with rows upon rows of PCs with flatscreen monitors, and rooms with everything from the PlayStation 3 all the way back to the Atari 2600, and everything in-between. Perhaps best of all, there was a mini-arcade set up with pinball machines and classic games such as Pac-Man Jr., Dragon's Lair, and the original Pong, which had a functional screen but refused to let me play for some reason. Sad, but still cool.

The tabletop gaming section had perhaps the best setup of the entire convention. One long hallway with table after table of vendors selling fancy German board games, Steve Jackson games, Magic cards, D&D books and miniatures, and so on... and plenty of rooms to play in! Best of all, there was a board game library where you could borrow a game, playtest it with your friends, and then choose to buy it from one of the vendors, many of whom were demoing their games. I'd argue that tabletop gamers got the best end of the deal at PAX East, because there was no shortage of new games and no shortage of fresh blood for the games you've already played.

After a good long while of wandering around, we got in line for the next panel we wanted to see, "Design an RPG in an Hour." The full title for this panel should have been, "Stand in Line for Half an Hour, then Design an RPG in an Hour." At Otakon, at least in my experience, it was unheard of to stand in line for more than 20 minutes except for the absolute most popular panels, so it rubbed me the wrong way that we should stand in line for half an hour to get into something that was only of moderately high interest to me.

However, we would not have a repeat of the keynote speech. We would see all of the panels we wanted to see, because we would get in line early. Which, in so doing, made it impossible to attend all the panels we had planned for, because 30 minutes between the end of one panel and the start of another simply was not enough time to get from one auditorium to the other and trust that our waiting in line would pay off.

So we waited in line, and I had wisely brought along my Game Boy Advance SP in my Cargo Pants of Holding, knowing full well that we would be waiting in line at some point, and that I would most likely be wearing pants then.

We got into the panel with somewhat decent seats in the back of the room, but if we had waited another five or ten minutes to line up, we might not have gotten in. For a panel that was supposed to rely on audience participation for idea generation, there were a lot of people to call on.

The first half-hour was fun; we were called on to give different elements we'd like to see in a tabletop RPG, and we whittled those down to a manageable list, and then we moved on to generate more and more specific ideas about driving conflicts and character types and character attributes. Though I had no hand in any part of the design process, I can proudly say that I was there to watch the birth of Scoop!, a game about talking dinosaur investigative journalists who use their intelligence and moxie to dig up the hottest stories in a world where humans might soon be extinct. The best part was when we were asked for a subtitle for the game, at which point an audience member instantly won every Internet ever by suggesting, "Scoop!: Cold-Blooded Journalism."

I mentioned that the first half-hour of the panel was fun; after a while, once we got into the more technical aspects of a game we wouldn't actually be creating, it felt a little more like work than fun, especially when we had to work out fine details with an entire room full of people with differing opinions. Still, it was enjoyable.

This is where my memory starts to break down, as the times between panels were spent wandering, taking pictures of the surprisingly few people who came in costume, and trying to find anything to buy. Aside from Board Game Alley and the official PAX merch booth, there was no place to buy swag. This was a geek convention! I went to Otakon--I knew there should be a Dealers' Room with table after table of t-shirts and vintage merchandise and hard-to-find specialty items, and maybe even an Artists' Alley where you could finally get that Star Wars/EarthBound crossover poster you've always wanted.

Try the Expo Hall, they said. The Expo Hall was home to all sorts of soon-to-be-released video games that you could playtest, along with a handful of merchandise tables located wherever the heck there was room. All I wanted was a t-shirt relating to some video game I love and a bagful of retro games. Here! Look! I am waving money around! Someone, please take my money, I beg you!

How on Earth can a gaming convention not sell video games???

Deflated, I started to make my way out of the Expo Hall--I really had little interest in playing any of these newfangled games for systems I didn't own, especially the ones that looked like Flash games I could just as easily play online. The one that I wanted to play, but refused to stand in line for (once I recognized that the crowd of people against that nondescript wall was actually a queue for the game) was Red Dead Redemption, a game with beautiful cowboys.

Wait; let me rephrase that.

"A beautiful game with realistic-looking cowboys and awesome-looking Western-style action." There, that's mostly better. Anyhow, it's prettier than any of the pre-1998 games I play, and the promotional art is rather eye-catching, in a poke-your-eye-out-with-that-revolver sort of way.

Anyshowdown, shortly before I made my final approach to the exit of the Expo Hall, I passed a table that was not there before. Like Harry Potter's Room of Requirement, this was a video game table that appeared when I needed it most. NES, Game Boy/Color, N64... and three for $10. I started waving my money at the kindly vendor, who accused me of stealing a Game Boy game. I'd have to be in a pretty desperate situation to be caught stealing Yoda Stories, though--almost all of the games were truly bargain-bin quality, the kind of old games you always saw in the Game Genie cheat code booklet yet could never find in any store, probably because the store owners burned any shipment that accidentally came in.

I picked up the likes of Solar Jetman, Time Lord, and Rocket Ranger on a whim, basing my purchase solely on the cartridge art and the fact that I had heard of Solar Jetman once. The Game Boy and N64 games were slightly more reputable, including Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Gargoyle's Quest, but for the time being, these games will serve solely as padding for my Backloggery until I ever get caught up on side projects so I can once again spend my free time playing games that aren't in slow motion.

Satisfied enough by my purchases, I left the Expo Hall in a good mood, and met up with a rather large group to go out to dinner at one of the 7.5 million Irish Pubs (TM) peppering the Boston landscape. A few of my friends from high school and college were in attendance at PAX East with their friends, so making joint dinner plans was a great way to hang out with lots of people at once.

Dinner was very good, and by this point my girlfriend's mood had greatly improved, but we were both still cautious about showing up too late to get seated for a panel we wanted to see. The next mark on our agenda, a screening of the text adventure documentary Get Lamp (named for that one time in that one game where you type the command GET LAMP to get ye lamp), was high on my list.

Though I haven't played a lot of interactive fiction--in the common usage, text-only adventure games such as Zork and Thy Dungeonman--I have a deep respect for the medium. The nonexistent graphics are only as limited as one's imagination, and a text parser with a rich vocabulary can give you more options for interacting with a game than any amount of button combos ever could. Plus, I'm fairly certain that text adventures have influenced videogaming in more ways than anyone might initially suspect.

Get Lamp tells the tale of the rise, fall, and gradual return of interactive fiction through a series of interviews with folks who have been deeply involved in the medium, whether as designers, reporters, players, or even people with a PhD in Interactive Fiction. Seriously. The full documentary is several hours long, so we watched selected clips that still told a complete narrative, and the whole production was so fascinating to me that I might actually order a copy of Get Lamp, which I'll get around to watching as soon as I finish Solar Jetman.

The video alone was reason enough to attend the panel, but... well, there was a panel for this panel. Lemme throw a few names at you: Steve Meretzky, Nick Montfort, Andrew Plotkin, Brian Moriarty, Dave Lebling, and Don Woods. The vast majority of people will just look at that list of names and blink a few times, saying, "...So?" However, for the people who recognize any of those names, I expect the proper response to be something more like, "WHOA."

Steve Meretzky of Planetfall and the text-adventure adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Nick Montfort, author of Twisty Little Passages? Andrew Plotkin, highly influential in the homebrew interactive fiction scene? Brian Moriarty of Beyond Zork and the highly acclaimed Trinity? Dave Lebling of Zork I, II, and III? Don Woods, the co-developer of Colossal Cave Adventure? If any of these names is ringing a bell, you should be super-excited about this.

This was the kind of event I came to the convention to see. These were six guys who pioneered, popularized, and perpetuated an entire genre--an entire medium, even! How could I pass up an opportunity to be there?

...And how could I pass up an opportunity to interview them all with but a single question?

Q&A time. Get them to notice you. Good; now think of something profound. Make that one proton torpedo count, Luke.

"This is a question for everybody: Many of the video games I've played have had a wow moment, a moment where something totally surprises me, blows me away, or is so memorable that it's stuck with me ever since. For example, in Zork, my wow moment was discovering that I could YELL and SHOUT and EAT MYSELF and my entire inventory and do all sorts of things that have nothing whatsoever to do with solving the game, but are incredibly fun to play around with. Whether it was a particular puzzle solution or a specific location in a game or what have you, what was your biggest wow moment in playing interactive fiction?"

BLAM! The Death Star EXPLODES.

I'll recount this as best I can, because I am notoriously bad at paraphrasing, and I admit that I am unfamiliar with most of the games the panelists mentioned. My apologies for any errors or misrepresentations.

Jason Scott, the panel moderator and person responsible for Get Lamp, started off with a story about playing around with a teleportation spell in Sorcerer. The spell allows you to teleport to the location of any person you name, so naturally, Jason teleported to an underwater diver (where he promptly drowned) and to a person on the top of a mountain (from which he fell to his doom immediately after appearing there). Playing around with the spell a little more, he tried out something that makes perfect sense in a medium known for Easter eggs--he tried to teleport to the game's creator, Steve Meretzky.

He instantly appeared in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was promptly hit by a car.

Whoops! I mean, uh, wow.


[Story and con recap will conclude tomorrow!]

PAX East Recap - Part 1

I must be really bad at conventions.

I've attended two years of Baltimore's lovely Otakon anime convention, a bunch of events that sort of qualify as conventions, and a Star Trek convention from when I was barely tall enough to see through the crowd to notice that Patrick Stewart was, in fact, not actually calling on me to ask a question. Though my experience is limited, I was fairly certain I knew how to attend a con.

In my mind, I had a pretty good idea of what the convention scene should always be like: scope out all the nifty costumes, sit in on a few interesting panels, sample the local cuisine, only go back to sleep when your eyes are so blurry you can't tell the difference between a Moogle and an Andorian, take part in a couple of embarrassing special events, meet a handful of famous people, and leave your wallet with some nameless merchant in exchange for a bag of two things you could've gotten cheaper on eBay.

Bottom line: Conventions are exhausting and expensive, but overwhelmingly fun. Show up with money, and the convention will do the rest.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

When my girlfriend notified me that I would be driving the two of us to Boston to attend a gaming convention called PAX East, I made a face that visually expressed my simultaneous internal feelings of "How will I afford to pay for this without a full-time job?", "What if I have a full-time job then and can't afford to take off from work?", and "Buh?!"

I had never heard of PAX East because I really don't pay convention attention unless somebody drags me off to one, and also because PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo, hence the acronym) was founded by the two guys who write Penny Arcade, a webcomic that I've read in the past but don't enjoy nearly as much as other people do, and thus don't keep up with all the latest comics and news.

I filed the date away in the back of my mind and made arrangements to be free of all obligations for the last weekend of March, and that's about all the advance planning I did. My gal took care of arranging to stay with a friend who lived within commutable distance of the convention center, and it wasn't until I packed a bag and printed out directions the night before the con that I actually started giving it any thought.

PAX East, you see, is a gaming convention for gamers of all types--there's video games, tabletop roleplaying games, card games, board games, you name it. Though I am the everygeek and could easily fit in at a convention dedicated to any one of these kinds of games, the convention setting is not necessarily ideal for my style of gaming.

I'm not much of one for social gaming, so Rock Band and Smash Bros. are fun for temporarily vanquishing bouts of boredom with friends, but I get worn out playing them very quickly in most cases. Tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons are a blast when you know what's being organized, but I didn't want to blindly drag my books around when there was no guarantee that I'd find a group to play with, or a specific roleplaying game I could pick up and (want to) play, or that I'd want to potentially miss out on the rest of the con for a session that could easily run for several hours. Card and board games can be great fun with the right group of people, but learning the rules and playing through anything longer than Fluxx can be just as big a time investment as tabletop RPGs.

More importantly, most of the games I might be playing at the convention I could easily play at home. If I was going to the expense and effort of attending PAX East, I might as well do things that I couldn't do anywhere else.

Like get miserably lost in downtown Boston when the map failed to communicate--I'm not making this up--four consecutive steps that were essential in ensuring that we went the correct direction when arriving at a split in the road. Getting un-lost without a GPS is next to impossible there, as the Founding Fathers obviously didn't have motor vehicles in mind when they built the streets with their bare hands.

Fortunately, a policeman with a charmingly authentic Bostonian accent pointed us in the right direction. However, I almost drove off in an offended huff when I thought I heard him tell me to "Go check Google Maps," when he actually said, "I'll go check Google Maps." That's the worst advice you can give a lost driver with no technology at his disposal, by the way--"Go check Google Maps."

Well, we followed his directions to a T, and then to an S and a V and all the other funny letter-shaped streets and intersections scattered around Boston until we reached our destination. Huzzah! Fire up the cell phone and ask our gracious host where his house was... he'll go stand outside and wave at us... he's not standing outside because this is not his street.

Boston and its surroundings have approximately only five different street names. Federal law prohibits the addition of more street names, as it might confuse the locals with the sheer variety words one would need to remember to navigate the city with any kind of efficiency.

Wanna know how we figured out how to get to the right street? We went and checked Google Maps. Ha! That's irony for ya. Actually, my girlfriend got real-time directions over the phone, like tech support in your car, and we eventually ended up exactly where we were supposed to be.

Unload the car, meet and greet everybody in the apartment we were staying at, hang out a bit, and go to sleep at a half-decent hour, for the next day...

The next day, we would sleep in.

But in the afternoon! Oh, the glorious afternoon! That evening I looked over the schedule for the first time in any kind of active capacity, and my gal had already super-highlighted the main attraction, the primary reason she brought me to PAX in the first place: to see the keynote speaker, Wil Wheaton, who you may recall as Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, himself on Big Bang Theory, someone from that Stand By Me movie that I never saw, and that really creepy criminal from that crime show my dad was watching that one time.

Yes, that Wil Wheaton.

You know he's almost 40 years old now? Seems like just last week he was taking the Starfleet entrance exam. Yeah, I've been watching Next Generation on DVD.

From one perspective, he's just a geek with a hip blog and a passion for gaming, which is why he was the perfect choice for a keynote speaker. Naturally, we wanted to get to the convention in time to hear him speak, and better yet, to have enough time beforehand to case the joint and figure out how we wanted to spend our time there.

For me, I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to do. Because, though my experience was limited, I was fairly certain I knew how to attend a con. I quietly read through all the descriptions of the panels that would be there, and I worked out which panels I would be able to attend, and where I should break for something to eat. After all, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb probably wouldn't be coming over to my house any time soon to record their next episode of X-Play. If I was going to do this con right, I would attend all the once-in-a-lifetime panels I could, and then fill in the gaps with social gaming and the obligatory whimsical shopping spree through the Dealer's Room.

The plan was solid. The timing on the panels I wanted to attend worked out beautifully. The fact that the con didn't start until Friday afternoon gave us all morning to stock up on sleep for the last time that weekend. There was nothing good on TV. Conditions were perfect.

Until everything fell apart.


[Continued tomorrow.]

Apples to Apples: Ridiculous fun for everyone

If you're searching for a card game that's simple to learn, wildly replayable, good for groups both large and small, and hilarious fun for the whole family (sorry that all sounds like a generic advertisement on the back of the box), look no further than Apples to Apples.

The gameplay is about as basic as it gets. There are two types of cards: green and red. Green cards have adjectives on them, like "ancient" or "weird" or "fragrant." Red cards have nouns on them, including everything from famous people to just about anything else you can think of. As an added bonus are silly illustrations of anthropomorphic apples by John Kovalic (of Munchkin and Dork Tower fame), plus often-humorous "flavor text" that gives you a little more to read on each card.

One player puts a green card face-up on the table, and the other players all give that player a red card with a noun that most appropriately (or inappropriately) matches that adjective. The recipient selects which card is the best or most entertaining fit, and the player who gave that red card gets to keep the green card for their collection. When one player has acquired a set amount of green cards, the game ends, and everyone gets to see what kinds of absurd adjectives they have accumulated to describe themselves.

Apples to Apples can produce some pretty uproarious situations. Say, for example, the adjective on the table is "elegant," and the red cards in your hand include the likes of Adolf Hitler, Captain Kirk, Hellen Keller, Republicans, and Festering Wounds. Depending on who's judging your response, you may need to be careful about how you answer. Sometimes it doesn't matter, though; there's something inherently funny about elegant festering wounds, no matter how grossed out the recipient may be.

Apples to Apples comes in several different flavors, and all the cards are interchangeable so that you can mix and match to your heart's content. There's a Bible Edition, a Disney Edition, a version specifically for kids (now with 100% less Adolf Hitler!), and many more. Apples to Apples has all sorts of variant rules as well, so don't assume that the way I described is the only way to play. For all I know, my friends might have been making up the rules as they went, so I can't even guarantee we're talking about the same game right now.

Apples to Apples is great for parties, family get-togethers, and squelching those "I've run out of things to do with my friends" blues. It's a great way to subtly get to know people better by watching how they play, and it's a guaranteed laugh riot.

Saint Petersburg: Building a city on a shoestring budget

The year is 1703. Czar Peter the Great is working to make the newly founded Saint Petersburg a city on par with the greatest cultural hubs of Europe. Workers are needed to gather resources, construct buildings, and develop infrastructure. Gaining the support of the aristocrats will facilitate the completion of city projects and help to give the city a more unified direction. Improving existing facilities and training leaders and more efficient workers is the key to becoming equals with Europe's finest cities.

The task is not an easy one; money is scarce, and the people in charge of implementing Czar Peter's plan are rivals who are vying for workers, building rights, influence over the aristocrats, and materials for upgrading buildings and training leaders. The question of who will come out on top is decided by how you and your opponent(s) play Saint Petersburg.

Saint Petersburg is a card-driven board game for 2-4 people that puts you in control of the development of Saint Petersburg. Players take turns collecting the personnel, buildings, and upgrades that will lead them to victory.

Every card is brought into play for a price, and the cards have different effects--in general, worker cards bring in money, building cards give points, aristocrat cards provide money and sometimes points as well, and upgrade cards can replace workers, buildings, and aristocrats and grant the owner special abilities, such as reducing the cost to put new cards into play.

The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner, but careful investment and sound money management is essential to being able to afford the point-giving cards in the first place. It's a balancing act between gathering money and generating points, and your opponents can compound the matter by grabbing cards you need before it's your turn to pick them up. The limited money supply plays an important role as well: even when you do have all the cards you want, it's commonplace to discover that you don't have enough money to put them all into play, and players are penalized for having extra cards in their hands at the end of the game.

The odds may be against you, but they're also against your opponent(s); it's just as much to your advantage to go after cards that will help you as it is to take away cards to foil your opponent's plans. Even if that isn't true, it's always fun to see your best friend wriggle uncomfortably as you snag the one card he needed to turn his game around... especially when you don't need it and can't afford it.

A typical game of Saint Petersburg typically runs around 45-60 minutes... once you know what you're doing. Saint Petersburg is German in origin, and the English translation of the instructions is grammatically acceptable but often makes about as much sense as Shakespeare after a few rounds of mead and a blow to the head.

I exaggerate, of course, but the game is complex enough that you'll probably spend more time familiarizing yourself with the rules than a casual gamer would be comfortable with, so I suggest playing your first game of Saint Petersburg with someone who knows the rules or someone who is patient enough to work everything out with you. If that's not possible, just supply your fellow first-time players with enough mead and blows to the head to keep them at bay until you've figured out the rules.

Saint Petersburg has a high level of replayability thanks to the variety of cards, the relative diversity of possible victory strategies, and the difference in game dynamics depending on how many players are involved, but there are expansion packs that add some new cards to the mix, replace existing cards to switch things up a bit, and add the option of having a maximum of five players instead of four.

If you're in the market for a city-building game with an element of competition that favors good planning over good luck, Saint Petersburg just might be for you.


[Images from www.boardgamegeek.com]

Fluxx: Don't like the rules? Wait a minute; they'll change.

Fluxx, by Looney Labs, is a quirky little card game for 2-6 players that is rather difficult to describe because (a) no two games are ever the same; and (2) there are so many different versions.

The rules constantly change over the course of a game of Fluxx, which could last as long as 30 minutes or as few as 2--you're just as likely to win by strategy as you are by dumb luck, and the incredibly random nature of the game means that you could win the game at any moment and not even realize it.

Fluxx starts out with barely any rules at all: On your turn, you may draw one card and play one card. Simple. Boring. But not for long.

As soon as people start putting cards into play, the rules and victory conditions are subject to change at the drop of a hat (or, rather, the drop of a card). All of a sudden, you might be able to draw two cards on your turn, do a one-time hand swap with another player (exchanging cards, not appendages), or establish that all a player needs to do to win is make chocolate milk.

Huh? Chocolate... milk? I'm confused.

Allow me to explain: In addition to New Rule cards, Action cards (such as swapping hands with another player), and Goal cards that determine what you must do in order to win, there are Keeper cards that depict random objects and concepts such as Love, Bread, Time, Money, Dreams, Death, Cookies, Chocolate, and Milk.

See where I'm going with this? Keeper cards are essential to victory: the Chocolate Milk Goal card says that if you have both the Chocolate Keeper card and the Milk Keeper card in play, then you win!

Of course, that goal could change at any moment. Next turn, it could be decided that All You Need Is Love. Or, someone might steal your Chocolate from you and never give it back. Or, maybe the rules will suddenly change so that you can only have one card in your hand at a time, meaning you need to dump the Milk you just drew. Or, perhaps you'll pick up another type of card called a Creeper that prohibits you from winning while you hold it... Anything can happen!

Once you've gotten a feel for the basic game, there are many more versions of Fluxx you can try. Options include the colorful and super-kid-friendly Family Fluxx, the nature-themed EcoFluxx, the self-explanatory Zombie Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx, and the marajuana-themed Stoner Fluxx, which I am totally not making up.

Of course, that's to say nothing about the special-offer bonus cards, such as the Time Travel Goal card that was only available at Gen Con in 2001, and the expansion packs, such as Jewish Fluxx and Christian Fluxx. If English isn't your preferred tongue or if you're looking to add a new game to your foreign language class, Fluxx is also available in Spanish, German, Dutch, and Japanese. No word yet on an Esperanto release.

As if that isn't enough, Looney Labs continues to work on new and updated editions of Fluxx--version 4.0 of the original Fluxx debuted at the end of 2008 (D&D did it; why not Fluxx?), and the sci-fi-themed Martian Fluxx is rumored to have a Fall 2009 debut date.

If you're looking for a fairly inexpensive, totally random, and utterly outrageous card game that requires no skill whatsoever to play, check out Fluxx here.



Images from www.wunderland.com and www.boardgamegeek.com. From personal experience, you either love Fluxx or you hate it, so don't blame me if your best friend doesn't talk to you for a week after you play.

Terry Pratchett: The Colour of Fantastic

Quite a while ago, I reviewed the book Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Since then, we've (read: Alex) written a whole lot about Neil Gaiman and even included his blog in our blogroll, but Terry Pratchett fell off the map entirely.

Well, that's about to change.

It's been a long time since we've had a guest post, but neko-chan is back with a much-needed injection of literature, fantasy, and not Neil Gaiman. I mean... uh... and Terry Pratchett. *ahem* Enjoy!


Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (Onion Bagel Enthusiast) is easily the best English author to rock the world since Shakespeare. He is a master of his craft, bringing a stinging sense of wit and a dash of jovial spoof to the science-fiction and fantasy genres. In fact his writing is so brilliant that not only was he appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 for “services to literature,” but was also knighted at the start of this year.

Bottom line is: Why haven’t you read all of his books yet?

For those of you charlatans who are unknowing of his awesomeness, here is a good place to start:

Strata - One of his first books, Strata is a masterpiece of science-fiction. Set in a futuristic world where space has been conquered, aliens run amok, and planets and genetics are both custom-built, one woman will learn a secret that will change all of history. This book is both clever and psychologically intriguing, and it holds its own as a classic example of the science-fiction genre (i.e. humanoid beasties + space + broken technology).

Now in 1983, Terry Pratchett wrote what would become the first in an epic series of books about a little place called Discworld. This is where the majority of his stories take place, with recurring characters and settings that his fans have come to know and love. As of the end of last year, there have been 36 separate Discworld novels published.

The basic premise is that a flat world floats through space, resting upon the backs of four elephants, which in turn stand upon the back of a giant turtle. The characters and countries presented in this world are often satirical parodies of current events, historical happenings, or stock genre footage. It is a world full of magic and myth, where down-on-their-luck wizards can rub elbows with geriatric barbarians, and Death has a sense of humor and a love of kittens.

As he puts it [Pratchett, not Death --ed.]: "The world rides through space on the back of a turtle. This is one of the great ancient world myths, found wherever men and turtles are gathered together; the four elephants were an indo-European sophistication. The idea has been lying in the lumber room of legend for centuries. All I had to do was grab it and run away before the alarms went off."

Of the Discworld novels, the following are the key books every fan (that means you) should read. They contain an introduction to the main recurring plot arcs and characters, such as The Wizards, Death, The Watch, and The Witches.

The Colour of Magic – This book is the first novel in the series, and as such is the perfect introduction to Discworld. The story follows the exploits of Rincewind, a wizard of extraordinary luck who manages to get himself embroiled in the worst of situations and still survive to run away.

Mort – Death makes his first appearance, and he’s taking job applications.

The Light Fantastic – Continuing the saga of Rincewind, this book introduces Cohen the Barbarian. That’s really all I need to say. Cohen. The. Barbarian.

Men at Arms – Captain Vimes, an everyday copper and leader of the City Watch, is getting married. As if this isn’t bad enough, his new recruits include a werewolf and a boulder (read: troll), and on top of that he is confronted by a madman with new-fangled technologies who threatens political coup. How much drama can one man take?

Lords and Ladies – Tipping the hat to both classic and Shakespearian fantasy, this novel revolves around the epic battle between The Witches and Elves in an ultimate smack-down battle-for-control. Oh, and there’s another wedding.

Other choice novels include Small Gods, The Last Hero, Monstrous Regiment, and Going Postal. [Editor's note: The Last Hero was my first real exposure to Discworld, and I loved it. Hilarious and beautifully illustrated picture book (and as such was very easy to read--yay literacy!). Highly recommended.]

Now if books aren’t really your thing, there are countless other ways to commune with the genius of Terry Pratchett:

- Animated television specials of both Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters have been produced, as well as feature-length live action TV specials of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic. A TV version of Going Postal is currently in production.

- BBC Radio 4 has dramatized at least seven Discworld novels into radio serial programs.

- Several books have been adapted into plays or musicals. The National Theatre in London will be performing a version of Nation towards the end of this year.

- Four of his books have been prettified into graphic novels, and are available at your LCS.

- Four videogames have been released based on the Discworld novels, including 2 PC games, one PlayStation game, and an old-school gem for the Commodore 64. My favourite is the point-and-click adventure game where you play as Rincewind, and The Luggage is your inventory.

- An online multi-user-dungeon has been fan-created so you can play as a character inside a text-based Discworld universe.

- GURPS has created not one, but two sourcebooks for use in the Discworld universe.

- A board game was produced a few years back, but is a rare treasure to get a hold of.

- Finally, countless merchandise opportunities are available for everyone from the unhealthily obsessed to the culturally-accepted obsessed.

In conclusion, why are you still reading this when you should be reading a Terry Pratchett novel? If you want to laugh, if you love geek or cultural references, if you even mildly enjoy fantasy or science-fiction then you will be an instant fan of his work. So grab a novel, raise a glass, and celebrate this paragon of the writing community.



[Images from all over the place. My opinion of Neil Gaiman from preferring the parts of Good Omens that Pratchett was allegedly responsible for, and from not enjoying Neverwhere or MirrorMask. At all. However, I loved The Last Hero. The way I calculate it, that's Pratchett with 2 for 2, and Gaiman with 1/2 for 3. Not a critique against Gaiman's talent; just a statement of my own preference in entertainment. The end.]