I never played Yahtzee. But our family to this day likes Scrabble. I basically have sucked at it my whole life, me, mr. 780 verbal SAT. Put me in front of a Scrabble board and I'm like "hmmm, DOG? THE?"

That's particularly odd considering you express yourself far better than 95% of people. But I think we're still talking about different skills here. Is the Rain Man potentially the best phone company employee simply because he could memorize the phone book? Probably not. I think there's using language and there's being good at thinking up words when given a random list of letters. Both skills are no doubt useful.

Video game junkies turn out to be valuable assets to the US military, it seems

Reading that history of Atari, I was unaware that, after the popularity of Battlezone, the military had approached them to create a simulator for them, which Atari did. This was all hush-hush, but word leaked out about the gist of it. And for a while there was apparently a conspiracy theory that all these video games were a training ground for the military to make use of. Basically that's the gist of the movie "The Last Starfighter."

Men, of course, dominate video games, and always will. It's not that these games are sexist. It's that these games very much access the male "fight or flight" part of the brain. We men are hunters, organizers, stat gatherers, and 3D-space manipulators and visualizer. Women are good at some things too, but video games are really plugging into areas of the male brain that are obviously superior. It's also interesting to note that Ms. Pac Man (a chick game, for sure) was one of the best sellers of all time (at least in America). They stuck a red ribbon on the top of Pac Man, made the color theme of the board a bit pink, and suddenly women loved it. Apparently these less blast-em-up games were more attractive to chicks. But the game, despite the overt feminizing, was still a very good version of Pac Man....which is still balls-to-the-wall reaction-time and 2D mind-map thinking.

Freedom from the Quarter

One thing I've found is that some versions of at-home video games were easier and a bit more fun to play. The arcade version of Pac Man, for example, is much harder, even when set at the easiest settings (which one can verify via MAME), than the Atari 800 version. And the Atari 800 version is, at least for me, more fun to play. There are at least two rounds in the at-home version that are challenging, but not insanely so. Lots and lots of video games, from Tron to Scramble, are terrific games, in theory, but in practice they are fun for about one minute and then all hell breaks loose, and it breaks loose far too soon. I think arcade video game designers were always designing against the above-average player who could hog a machine. Had video game operators not been so paranoid and greedy, I think the home video game market would still have boomed simply because people like playing games in the comfort of their own homes. But certainly the opportunity to really have at some of these games, unrestrained by greedy and paranoid video game makers and arcade operators, was too good to pass up. You could, for the first time, really have a go at some of these games and practice quite literally on your own quarter.

I went into a video arcade in the local mall and it's a dive. No longer are the cutting-edge games played here. In fact, I'm not sure how these places stay in business. Their selection of games is truly pathetic. You can do so much better at home. It doesn't cost you a quarter and no anal-retentive arcade game designer or arcade owner is trying to squeeze you too tightly for quarters. The at-home video game phenomenon has freed video games to be much more creative and fun to play.

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Women are good at some things too

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Is the Rain Man potentially the best phone company employee simply because he could memorize the phone book? Probably not. I think there's using language and there's being good at thinking up words when given a random list of letters. Both skills are no doubt useful.

One of the big problems I have in Scrabble is this: I can come up with all sorts of exotic words that use MOST of my letters, but it's always, jeez, if I only had this or that letter, plus this or that letter on the board, I could do this big crazy word... but when it comes to actually reading the board, and using only the letters at hand, where something like "DOG" or "THE" would score the most points, I suck ass.

Wishing for letters you don't have available, it seems, is not a valuable Scrabble skill. Sadly, Scrabble doesn't care if you have a good vocabulary. It's not the words you know, it's the words you can make.

A certain family member of mine is a Scrabble savant. She barely made it out of High School with a D-average. But she could be in a pro Scrabble tournament. I've asked her about her thought process, and she says she looks for proximity to the bonus squares, like double or triple word scores, and then simply scans her letters to see how she can use what's on the board to reach those hotspots.

With me, I'm always trying to use as many of my tiles as I can, trying to build the most impressive word I can. Terrible strategy.

I also completely suck at Sudoku. Something about it being numerals throws me off, because of my math anxiety. And yet it has nothing to do with math. You could use 9 symbols, Mac icons (there's an idea for your next hypercard software project, a game)... whatever.

A fun and frustrating word game for Mac OS Xis "Word Rage 2"
available here

Sadly, Scrabble doesn't care if you have a good vocabulary. It's not the words you know, it's the words you can make.

The bastards. FreeVerse has that great game X-Words Deluxe which allows you to play a Scrabble-like game against the computer. It's challenging and it's nice that it has various levels of difficulty. I've got the OS 9 version. But they have a OS X demo for download. You can also get on their GameSmith network and play other people.

A certain family member of mine is a Scrabble savant. She barely made it out of High School with a D-average. But she could be in a pro Scrabble tournament.

There's a documentary movie out there somewhere about the official Scrabble tournament. I've watched "King of Kong" and thought that was loads of fun. It's a movie about video game experts and the tournaments and records associated with video gaming. That proved to be surprisingly interesting. But I eventually turned off the Scrabble documentary. It was just too dull even for my Masterpiece Theatre tastes.

Never heard of Sudoku. That looks much to Rain Manny to me. Something tamer and dumber, such as CrossCards is more my style. It's like taking mixing poker and Scrabble. It's sort of like Homer feels about donuts. I don't think there's anything that poker can't enhance.

I'll have to check out Word Rage 2. (Mutha fahka.) That kind of word rage?

Oh, yeah. That's like that great word game with the original Wheel of Fortune guy, what's his name. Chuck Woolery.

Sudoku is all the rage now. It's definitely the game of the 20 aughts. Holy crap in the last two years I haven't seen somebody NOT playing it in the doctor's office waiting room. Personally, I don't see what's so exciting about it. I guess because there are two ways to deal with the game: like Mr. Spock, with logic, and to power through it with trial and error. Both work. Somebody with a mind like a steel trap will pride themselves on how elegantly they can solve it, and somebody with simple persistence feels the reward of being able to finish it at all.

Holy cripes, my favorite thing that happens in Maelstrom, and it's once in a blue moon, is when a jillion prize canisters float onto the screen, and you can scoop them up at will, and get all kinds of powers. Of course, if you DIE right after that, you lose them all. How great.

Sudoku is all the rage now.

I guess I'd have to try it but it sounds like one of those Pachinko-like crazes that you see in Japan. The games are different but the mindless devotion is that same. Except that it sounds like Sudoku requires more brains. Still, I have to admit that I was as big of a Rubik's Cube fad chaser as any. Had it down to under a minute and a half at one time.

My brothel has a small collection of marquees from the arcade machines. He's got about a dozen really nice ones from some of the most popular games. Here's one that is one of the more colorful ones and a damn good game as well.



There's a little bit of Yellow Submarine going on in that. I love it.

A couple more favorites form brothel's collection shot with my cheap, but trusty, Canon A570IS:

These are sweet, some quality designs. That Scramble-Design is looking very 70ish. Great!

Some of those marquees have their share of scratches and nicks, but they're in pretty good shape. And he got most of them for about $15.00 plus shipping. I guess I really do love seeing that kind of art that isn't meant to just sit looking pretty on some wall but is meant to draw you over to some game, and away from another. There are battle tactics even in all those wonderful colors. It's visual superabundance meant to show you must how damned exiting this game is, so go ahead and stick a quarter in and you'll see. Not to mention just all the wonderful feelings of nostalgia. Brothel's still trying to figure out what system to use to hang them on the wall that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

I'd build a lightbox frame for each, just strips of wood with a slot routed in it, painted black. And put some sort of cheap backlighting solution behind them. Stick-up lights, or mini fluorescents. T4 or T5. Or maybe those newfangled LED or Xenon light strips. The fluorescent fixtures are about 20 bucks. That would ROCK. You can buy backlit light boxes in a variety of sizes, but it'd be cheaper to make them yourself.

Here's a couple more. The Gorf one is a bit scratched up as you can see.





Yeah, backlighting would be a great way to display them.

This scan of an actual photographic printing isn't quite optimal. But when I was really into photography for a while back in the late 70's and early 80's, I was into trying to come up with all kinds of interesting shots from otherwise pretty normal situations. This one captures the Pong era.

OK, here's just about the coolest, most addicting Flash game on the net. It's a friggin' GREAT test of less-is-more vs. over-designing. Now, if you reach your goal with a bloated, overdesigned mess, you still win... but for thalo.netters, this game can also be about reaching the goal elegantly and simply. Though I must admit it is fun to just engineer a freakin' bulldozer and power through a couple of the puzzles.

You seriously have to try this one.

OK, did I mention you have to try that game?

I'm not kidding here. Instant classic.
Brad, drop what you're doing. You're going to see why this is currently my favorite game.

I tried that out a bit. Pretty cool. I may apply my Ass-burger brain to that a little more when I get a chance.

I can't get over it. So friggin' clever. I'm through the first page of obstacles. Stuck on one that's pretty tough.

The great thing about this game, is after you design some contraption, even if it doesn't work, it's often spectacular to watch... and you pick up skills that help you down the road.

But it really helps you think outside the box.

OK, I can get past the level of the game where all the balls come rolling down the hill at you. It's a real challenge. I've tried burrowing beneath them, damming them and trying to go over top.

Sweet fuck I love this game. Because even when you're losing, it's fun to watch how long it takes your idea to fail.

Finally beat it. In my frustration, I completely overdesigned, lol... but somehow it worked. It took a fucking year to push most of the balls up the slope, but it was so satisfying to watch over time. Brute force.

It's a little something I call... The Struggler

You don't have to watch the whole thing, lol, but trust me, it eventually wins the uphill battle. You're only allowed to save, I believe, if you have a successful design.

Some of my favorites are people who've done catapults. I guess you really need to be an engineer and understand physics. There's some really brilliant ones.

BRAD!
Get off your ass and learn/play this game. I am getting to the point where I'm not smart enough to solve the puzzles. Stalled at the level "Unpossible."

God, what a great game. It's perfect.

Somehow I got on this mailing list. But a Retro Expo is coming to Portland, Oregon Sept. 20, 2009. I'm gonna try to drag brothel to that.

Have yet to spend much time learning The Struggler. But that definitely looks cool.