RSS

Category Archives: games

A plea to game companies, designers, and gamers in general.

02 May

One of the highlights of our gaming year is BorderCon in Albury. It’s a small and intimate con, with around 100-120 people, that runs over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend in June in what must be one of the COLDEST lowland areas of the country, right in the depths of Winter. Seriously, it’s bitterly cold – which makes it the perfect time to play games.

I haven’t written much about this lately, mostly because there isn’t much to say about it except weep weep it’s awful, but our 14 year old Bigster is still extremely unwell with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At the end of Term 1, she dropped all but her five core subjects (her peers are taking nine subjects) of English, Maths, Science, Latin and German. Her Latin teacher isn’t sure that she can pass with her current attendance – even with the timetable affordances, she is still only getting to about 30% of her classes – so it’s on the critical list at the moment. She even dropped the history of warfare subject that she has been looking forward to since before she started high school. She’s dropped out of Saturday German as well, because she just can’t get there. The German name for this condition is Chronisches Erschöpfungssyndrom which translates literally as “chronic exhaustion syndrome” which seems a much better name to me – when you can’t get out of bed AT ALL some days, when you are a bookworm who is too exhausted to read, when you can’t wash your hair because you can’t actually stand up for the time it would take – that’s more than just fatigue.

The specialist tells us that she still has hope that Biggie may start to recover towards the end of the year. This is critical for us and we cling to that hope. Sadly, she’s not gaming much – the days when she played all (then) 12 Power Grid maps over one epic BorderCon weekend are behind us, at least for now.

The ME/CFS society of Australia offers support for people with this severely life-limiting condition (the 80% recovery rate for young people is much higher than that for adults) and funds research into it. There is no cure and no known cause.

Every year, BorderCon runs a raffle to aid a charity group, often raising over $1000. Donations are received from game companies within Australia as well as from attendees. This year, Neil has kindly agreed that the profits from the raffle will be donated to the ME/CFS Society of Australia.

I have a personal interest in making this the Biggest BorderCon Raffle Yet. So I am going out to game companies and to game designers to ask for your support. Can you donate a game? Can you donate a signed sticker that someone could paste inside their game box (or just put in there if they are a bit fussy about their boxes)? Maybe you have a piece of game artwork that could be included in the raffle? BorderCon is a small con with a big heart and any donation is always appreciated, even more so this year.

 
12 Comments

Posted by on May 2, 2013 in children, games, health

 

Getting Over Myself

28 Apr

That conference that I posted about a couple of weeks ago opens on Monday. Sunday even, if you are in the US.

The background for those who don’t like clicking links: Some of you will know that I have gone back to uni part-time to do a postgrad degree in Internet Studies. This semester, I am doing a unit on social networks and internet communities. The main activity for the unit is a three-week online conference at which each student “presents” a paper (posts the text on the conference site). Various academics are formally invited by the course co-ordinator, and students invite everyone they know other interested people. That means you, dear readers of my very sporadic blog.

One of the conference streams is on online gaming. I’ve written a paper on BrettspielWelt, looking at whether the Meta-Game is actually a game at all. (Spoiler: Answer rhymes with Dope). You can read it online or download it as a PDF.

Others have written about World of Warcraft, about Starcraft vidding communities, about representations of women in videogames, … – and that’s just the papers that I know about. I haven’t read any of them yet.

Here’s a wonderful video , though, from my fellow students at Charles Telfair Institute. Watch carefully.

Anyone can read the papers but if you want to comment then you need to register. It’s a university-operated site so they are quite respectful of collected email addresses.

Link to conference: http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2013/
Link to gaming stream: http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2013/category/games/
Link to my paper: http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2013/gaming-squared-brettspielwelt-game-world-or-great-good-place/

Because it is just you and me reading this, dear reader, I will tell you that this is a horrendously confronting and anxiety-ridden exercise for me. It turns out that I am happy telling the world about all sorts of ridiculous personal stuff, and even reasonably comfortable submitting stuff for assessment, but when I have to combine the two and tell my beloved readers to go and read something that I have written and submitted for assessment that is not kind of self-mocking, I have a minor crisis of confidence. I find this odd and strange.

Also because it is just you and me, I should tell you that 30% of my mark for this unit is for interaction and participation. I can neither interact nor participate without comments over on the conference site.

So please consider yourself invited.

 
7 Comments

Posted by on April 28, 2013 in bsw, games, not your earth logic, study

 

Getting conferency

12 Apr

One of the units I’m doing this semester has a really unusual method of assessment: a student-run online conference.

The idea is that each student writes a conference paper that fits one of four streams, then submits it for assessment. It is returned with comments and a notional mark, then we have a week to revise it and publish it on the conference site. The notional mark is adjusted (hopefully upwards, because downwards would just be embarrassing), and that is worth a whopping 50% of our mark for the unit. There is also a 30% “participation” mark which is about commenting on other people’s papers, responding to comments on your own paper, talking about the conference on your blog promoting the conference etc. With over 100 students enrolled in the course through three different institutions, some as undergrads and the rest of us as postgrads, there are plenty of opportunities to find something interesting.

It’s a really interesting idea. I have a few qualms, but they’re mostly of the “what if my paper is crap and/or naïve?” paranoid anxiety type (I get terrible Post-Submission Anxiety, as soon as a piece of work is out of my hands), with a side of “what if some of the other people’s papers are crap?”. But as with anything of this nature, the good papers will bubble up to the top – and they’re the ones I will be tweeting about and inviting you all to look at.

Because I think many of you WILL be interested in the conference and in its streams:

  • Communities and Web 2.0
  • Gaming and Online Communitites
  • Identity in Communities and Networks
  • Social Networks

No prizes for guessing which stream I wrote for!

I really enjoyed working on this, because, as I have said before, the topic was malleable enough to let me write about things I am interested in while still being relevant to the topic and learning a lot. I’ve read a lot about games, but hadn’t read so much about the theory of games before – not the stats and probability, but the big picture concepts and ideas. There was a great discussion on my Facebook recently but, as all good discussions do, it degenerated to the point where all that we could agree on was that “Gamification is bollocks”. Only now, I have a big pile of references to quote when I want to say that. (And I *do* want to say that, so often and in so many different ways that I give myself points for doing).

The Big Find for me, in this semester, has been Ray Oldenburg’s book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. There’s been quite a lot of work done on how our online spaces fulfil many of the same needs as the physical places that Oldenburg writes about. I feel like I’ve barely touched the sides there, let alone reached the surface.

The other Big Find has been, well, academics completely shitbagging each other. That is, it turns out, always funny. Except, it would not be if it were me. Please note and remember.

Anyway. That thing I said about participation. I’ll post here when my paper goes up (April 29, but the conference lasts 3 weeks). My rather wordy topic, whose origins the careful reader will notice, is Gaming Squared? Brettspielwelt: World, Game, or Great Good Place? – If you are interested in the topic, or even if you just like me a little bit, please consider reading and commenting.

 
7 Comments

Posted by on April 12, 2013 in bsw, games, study

 

Packing time again

19 Sep

With school holidays looming, we’re headed off once more. The cat-sitter (and house-sitter) is booked, the rooms have been paid for. All that is left is to finish work, clean the car and pack. Oh, and write a 1500 word essay.

I have blogged before about trying to pack for game conventions. It’s fair to say, though, that that is the easiest of these tasks. Because when it comes down to it, we throw lots of clothes into a bag and then put games into the car until no more fit. And then trade them out until we have a decent set.

But to do that requires us to pack the car. And the car is still full of stuff I bought at IKEA a couple of months back, when I was going to clean out the Bigster’s bedroom. I got 60% of the work done, then stopped, and now it is around 20% more messy than it was, with 100% more floorspace covered. And I don’t want to move the new stuff in while the floor is still kinda incognito. So that’s a challenge, especially as the Bigster’s response to anyone going into her room while she is there is to go kind of Chuck Norris on them … and she’s there pretty close to 24/7 at the moment.

No-one cleans Chuck Norris's room

Courtesy memegenerator.com

And before that can be done, there are several days’ worth of work to do (because going away just brings all of that week’s deadlines forward by a week) as well as a 1500 word essay on internet censorship to be written.

And I don’t think the meme generator can do either of those things for me, more’s the pity.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on September 19, 2012 in decluttering, games, study, to-do, travel

 

For those who are interested in my course

20 Aug

I have just published my final assessment piece for this semester on YouTube.

It is a video called Playing with Absent Friends, about the history of gaming with known people in another location – and how that has been affected by digitisation and convergence.

I suspect that some of you will find it interesting, although I of course see only the things I wish I could have done better – it’s the first time I have tried to produce a video and if I were to do it again I would do a LOT of learning.

See http://melissainau.com/playing-with-absent-friends/ for the embedded video or watch it directly at YouTube.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on August 20, 2012 in games, study

 

Convergence in action

06 Jul

Writing Slashing and burning Editing my essay on convergence – or the way that our interests and hobbies flow across different types of media and formats – and I woke up to a great example.

This morning, a friend (who I know through a website about boardgames and through his podcast about boardgames) posted a Facebook post about a DVD about a boardgame. Under the Boardwalk: The MONOPOLY Story is an interesting (albeit at times over-long) documentary about the Monopoly (US) National championships and World championships. Actually, it’s more about the players, but that’s where the interest lies. Fraser and I watched it late last year.

Then one of the guys who is featured on the documentary replied to the Facebook post to promote his new book about Monopoly strategy. (Apparently, it features “secret game strategies and tactics previously known and practiced by only a handful of top competitive Monopoly tournament players and coaches“).

Whilst I am sceptical about how interesting the book would be to me personally, you have to love someone who bills himself as “the noted attorney, author, professional Monopoly player and movie star.” – I will have to invent my own awesome tagline, I think. And maybe print it on business cards which I could give to unsuspecting people.

ANYWAY. I digress, as usual. In this most excellent example, we have boardgames, a podcast, a documentary, a DVD (with extras), books and discussion. Of the docco, the DVD and the books. And ecommerce. And a quote from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which you may or may not have noticed me subtly sneak in there.

Shame my essay is still 700 words over the limit, really. I’m guessing you can see why.

Meanwhile, two family members have already said, “Oh, you should quote ME.” – because (WHO KNEW?) it turns out that academic writing is all about quoting the people with whom you share a bathroom. I nearly quoted my dad, because that would actually have been RELEVANT. My kid, not so much. (Although she is in my good books because she said Wow mum, your essay is really good, and then quoted some of it back to me. Wish it was being marked by a 13 yr old game fan!)
 
6 Comments

Posted by on July 6, 2012 in games, study

 

Not blogging, WRITING

03 Jul

I have not been blogging much this week, because I have been focusing all of my creative efforts on my essay.

OK, I lie. I have been juggling school holidays and parent stuff and work stuff AND my essay.

The essay is amusing me a lot. I do not, however, think that that is the primary purpose of an essay, or that my tutor would think that the essay as it currently stands is acceptable.

This is mostly because of that 1500 word thing. Because I think I probably TWEET about 1500 words in a week. Or possibly in a day, when I am writing an essay and being distracted by the AWESOME THINGS I COULD PUT INTO IT.

Things like:

  • a picture of me with Aldie and Reiner.
  • stuff about pervasive games
  • stuff about different content types on BGG
  • an analysis of why session reports, reviews and geeklists are really kinda sorta fanfiction
  • a study of the metagame in online Werewolf and how it transcends the individual games
  • that video of Otto doing the Order Up dance in Essen (actually I think this was lost)
  • stuff about how gamers are fans and analysis of the Superfan concept. I want to cast Derk as Harry Knowles in a movie.
  • a picture of a cat in a box.

Sadly, I suspect I am missing the point.

More than sadly, I think I have now written WELL OVER 1500 words ABOUT the essay. Which, for those who are counting, is currently sitting at around 3700 words, with more to add.

But lots of you have offered to proofread. So when I finish it, I might post some of the lost parts here. Because there is an audience for everything, and you guys are it.

 
3 Comments

Posted by on July 3, 2012 in be happy, games, not your earth logic, study

 

Decisions Decisions

19 Jun

So, let’s say someone – for the sake of argument, let’s call her Melissa – had three options. And a ticket to the most hotly-anticipated gaming event in Texas.

1. Be financially responsible and a good parent and stay in Melbourne with my her family.

2. Go to a conference in Boston. Which is directly relevant to my her work. And fly home with a stop in Dallas. Cost: About $5000. Some tax-deductible.

3. Stop mucking around and book the flights and hotel for BGGcon. Cost: About $2500. Plus shopping.

Hypothetically speaking, is there an optimal choice here?

 
11 Comments

Posted by on June 19, 2012 in games, travel

 

Drunken clowns? What F***ers!

13 Jun

Sitting around at Bordercon on Saturday afternoon, Iain asked me whether I wanted to try a new game he’d picked up. “It’ll only take about an hour,” he said, basing his estimate on the playing time of 45 minutes.

[As it turns out, this was the first of several mistakes we would make with this game.]

The game was Circus Train. It’s about running a circus out of Canada during the Prohibition era, and is based on Sara Gruen’s novel Water for Elephants (or think of the TV series Carnivale). Potentially an interesting theme.

1:42pm “This may well be the first time this game has been played in Australia” / “You start with one clown. ” ‪#ClownTrain‬ ‪#Bordercon‬ ‪#qbgames

The version we played was produced by Victory Point Games. They’re a small, volunteer-based publishing company. As I understand it, the games they publish are often created by students of game design.

That makes a lot of sense in the context of the game. It had familiar mechanics drawn from a variety of games:

  • “Best Work” scoring, similar to Princes of Florence or Colosseum
  • Card-based actions (hand management), where you choose which card to play from your hand each turn, from a limited pool
  • Rounds and Uber-rounds (phases/stages/eras). And Uber Uber Rounds.
  • A modified pick-up-and-deliver component, that sort of lost half of the deliver part in that you kept the items you had collected
  • Multipliers for having multiple copies of a single item (more Princes of Florence here)
  • Random event cards that cannot be mitigated against (think Agricola X-Deck but even worse) (I can say that, I was one of the X-Deck designers)
  • End-of-round (end of week / end of month / end of 2 months / end of game) administration
  • Limited number of turns

1:46pm Early theory: ‪#CircusTrain‬ is the bastard child of ‪#PrincesOfFlorence‬ and ‪#18xx‬ – will see what @jryderau & @eclectics think ‪#Bordercon

So far, that probably doesn’t sound so bad. And in fact I see that this game has some positive reviews on BGG. I am, however, at a loss to see why.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
8 Comments

Posted by on June 13, 2012 in games, rant

 

Bordercon 2012: wrapup

12 Jun

We’ve been going to Albury over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend every year since 2006. At first, it was for the Australian Games Expo, which later moved to be held in Canberra over the Australia Day weekend in January. Since 2009, though, it’s been for Bordercon – an annual get-together of gamers from all around the country – at least from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

It gets better every year.

Highlights – as those who follow my Twitter feed will know – were, as always, catching up with friends. From a games perspective, the highlights for me were:

  • Mare Balticum – a 30 minute filler game with stunning artwork created first as a 3D model and then photographed. This will be a great family game for our family. There’s an advanced version which I’ve not yet tried – but after learning the basic game on Saturday morning I taught (and played) it five or six times over the rest of the con. Bought a copy.
  • Lords of Waterdeep – it’s sort of D&D-themed Caylus. Which already sounds awesome. I only played this on Sunday night because some friends like it and really wanted to play it, and I didn’t expect much. But then I taught it (and played it again) on Monday, and then I bought a copy after we came home. Again, a nice family game, although I don’t think Otto is quite up to the nasty bits. Bigster should like it, though.
  • Big Points – this is one that we’ve been playing a lot. We had a rule wrong, and it is SO MUCH TOUGHER when you play it properly. A game that works well with kids as well as with adults.
  • Tiaras! We dressed for dinner on Saturday night, and then played BurgenBurgenBurgenBurgenBurgen Burgen^5 Castles of Burgundy in appropriately dressy clothing. With tiaras and glitter hats that made Terry’s face sparkle. And a lace table runner.
  • Time’s Up on Saturday night. After Burgen^5. Note to friends: Queen – of which Freddy Mercury was the lead singer – sang a song called “Fat Bottomed Girls”. You all have filthy minds.

Other things that were awesome: The record raffle takings. Over $2000 raised to support Border Cystic Fibrosis – an organisation that supports families caring for a child or children with CF. (Albury has regional Victoria’s highest rates of CF).

The lowlight, by a country mile, was the Sunday night dinner at Hog’s Breath (a steak/ribs chain restaurant) in Albury. We’ve eaten at Hog’s Breath every year and the service has got worse each time. This year, they have done their dash. The rest of my family arrived at 6:20; I followed to arrive at 6:30 (booked time). Our orders weren’t taken until about 7 and at 7:30 we still had no drinks. A beer arrived for Fraser at 7:45 (after we had TWICE asked to speak to the manager and been told he would be there soon) but we don’t think it was really his, as all our drinks appeared at 8. By now, Otto was in tears, having waited over 90 minutes for her dinner already. (It didn’t help that we’d refused a 5pm snack as we were headed out for Big Dinner). Our meals finally arrived after 8:30. We had been ready to leave, but were concerned that the rest of the group would be charged for them even though we hadn’t eaten them. The couple with the baby left though. We didn’t bother to stay for dessert, and went to Cold Rock for ice creams instead. And didn’t leave a tip either. They really cost themselves a lot of money over that night.

The other low point was playing a truly dreadful game. About alcoholic clowns in a circus. Of which more tomorrow. Because others should share my pain.

 
5 Comments

Posted by on June 12, 2012 in games

 
← Older posts
 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 664 other followers