It's Snowing!

Light snow has been observed at Bellingham, Shelton, Olympia, Chehalis, Vancouver (WA), and Portland.   The most snow apparent on regional cams is around Vancouver, WA:

The culprit: a weak disturbance moving southward down the coast and relatively cool air over the interior.

The latest radar shows the precipitation pattern.  On the coast, the precipitation is rain, and the interior stuff is quite light.  Seattle should stay dry, as should eastern Washington.  We do not have super cold air over us, but evaporative cooling is allowing the snow level to drop to the surface in some locations.

 Here is forecast surface chart for 10 AM this morning.  You can see the low (solid lines are pressure) off the southern WA coast, and the temperatures (at around 2500 ft, shown by shading) indicated the cold air over eastern Washington and cool air over the western WA lowlands.

 This is NOT going to be big snow event.  Here is the model forecast from this morning, showing the 24-h total snowfall prediction over the region.  Not more than about 1-2 inches in the most favored zones.  Nothing over the Seattle Metro area (sorry, Jim Forman).  Portland gets some white stuff.

But one piece of good news...after this low moves south of us, expect a lot of sun on Tuesday.   New Year's will start on a bright foot...an excellent omen for the new year.

A summing-up

As one more year wanes, why not look back a little? A zillion other bloggers are running their top moments of 2012 in all sorts of subjects. I don't have a list but I do have a number. This will be my blog's 367th and last (barring huge news) entry of the year. That's down a bit from 2010-11, but the faux tweets explain the slight decrease. Stories that might have gotten a full entry in previous years now get a quick and dirty dust-off in the sidebar.

In fact, taking into account the tweets, I've probably spilled more phosphors on the blog in 2012 than in any other year. A surprising number of new game shows cropped up this year, each spawning a bunch of entries and tweets. If you care at all, my favorite new show was GSN's Pyramid. But I had a depressing idea (borne out by Nielsen events) that the show would suffer a been-there-done-that reaction from viewers. It was just too similar to the classic Dick Clark version.

Speaking of which, I'll probably close out the year with a few peeks at GSN's all-day marathon of old and new Pyramid. Despite continual prophecies of doom, traditional game shows somehow survive and even prosper. We'll see what 2013 brings for our little genre.

2012: A Year in the Game Design Lab

Over the past year, I've posted numerous game ideas in various stages, but all have been considered "in the lab" because they're really not ready for prime time. I just wanted to share my thoughts a bit. Next year I'm ready to actually see some of these ideas come to fruition. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of ideas posted to this blog in 2012.


Games to Prototype and Test
These are games which are to the point where I could make a prototype and actually test at some point.

• Dung and Dragons/Dragon Ranch has been a long-simmering theme: Hippie co-op farmers raising dragons for their valuable poop. I finally cracked a cool mechanic for this idea, it just needs to get tested and refined. I'm really excited about how these simultaneous actions could interact with each other in unpredictable ways.
• Wine Collector: This was an experiment in deduction game design. Not sure how well it's actually going to work in practice, but I definitely like the notion of averages being on one side of a card with a single number on the face.
• Haunted House continued that notion, replacing numbers with shapes. This was inspired by a particular sequence in the latest Mario Party games in which you must repeatedly decide between three doors, only one of which leads to safety.
• Exodus: Earth wants to be a "worker removal" game, where effects are triggered by removing a meeple off of a space. The eventual goal is to remove all of your meeples from the board before a meteor hits Earth. I just need to figure out the basic mechanics of the thing first.
• Sidekick Quests: The Card Game came into being when my wife and I visited Lyndsay Peters in Canada. We hacked together elements of Waterdeep, No Thanks and some other stuff to make this hodgepodge of different mechanics. This was eventually streamlined to a much simpler push-your-luck card game that you should see available for beta soon.
• Pop n' Locke's Last Heist was released as a playtest PDF to Writer's Dice backers early this year, but never saw much testing or discussion. Thankfully Tom Cadorette had a good playtest of it in August. I need to hit the document again to see where things should be tweaked and finally release things thing to the wider public.
• Proxima-3/3io was ostensibly a board game adaptation of Triple Town. I need to test this set and see how the game feels to play as a multiplayer experience rather than a single-player puzzle.
• Picker began with some exploration of Libertalia's blind auction mechanics. I still need to figure out how to solve the inherent negative spiral of choices that players have available to them. As it stands, there is still a "correct" choice in every turn. That's not bad, it's just a problem when there is one optimal choice rather than several.
• Step Right Up is a game about snake oil salesmen hawking their wares on a crowded boardwalk. They sell goods to hire different kinds of goons to do their dirty business. The mechanics feel sound, they just need testing. The theme is unfortunately getting kind of crowded lately, though.
• Seven Minutes of Terror was inspired by the Mars Curiosity landing and its absurdly complicated landing sequence. I think with some thematic cards and stronger endgame goals, this could be a nice light 10min game.
• Dead Weight: Parkour vs. Zombies finally got a board game execution this year. It needs testing, but I'm glad I finally put that baby out in the world.
• The following Thanksgiving, I posted Black Friday, a racing game that was also an auction game. Your position on the race track gave you best pick of items in your space, but you also had to bring back your items to the finish line in order to have the best score without penalties.

Themes in Search of Mechanics
These are game ideas that have a strong theme, but still need mechanical refinement.

• Swap Clops the Tile Game and Swap Clops the Card Game: I'm really itching to use this fun art that Kari Fry made for me in January. Who doesn't love floating, surly one-eyed monsters? I still think the Clops have potential as a long-term IP.
• Rulers: This Hunger-Games-meets-Mage idea was one of the rare story games from me over the past few months. This neverseemed to hook folks much, but then again I was lax in my development efforts, too. I'm going to see what I can do to put these out in a more digestible form soon.
• Towers of Battle was a weird letter tile and area control game idea I posted on February. In hindsight, I must have read about apps like Letterpress and Puzzlejuice when I came up with this thing.
• Vulture Capitalist/Bird Brands was inspired by No Thanks, Amun-Re, and Empryean, Inc.  I still occasionally get some mechanical ideas that could fit in this silly theme.
• Dr. Remedy Grove: I had thoughts about this as a game franchise, each entry focusing on ecological themes and components made from sustainable materials. Kind of a Carmen San Diego for ecology.
• Monks of St. Honorat honor their vow of charity in an interesting way: They earn lots and lots of money from their world-famous wine, then donate it all to their various charities. "Earn more to give more" is an interesting take on Brewster's Millions.
• Where is the Poison? is inspired by the poison scene in Princess Bride. These mechanics seem good enough, but they could be much more streamlined. I imagine that this could be even as minimal as Seiji Kenai's Love Letter, but it just needs some more attention.
• The Everywheres was a dimension-hopping game based on the CC-licensed superhero Jenny Everywhere. I really want to explore this game further with a mashup of Split Decision, Talk Find Make, and Thanks and Complaints (below).
• Thanks and Complaints as a replacement for the typical success/failure binary in role-playing games. It brought to mind much different reactions to typical adventure game violence.
• This City-Building Tile game is has a reasonable theme already, but I think some more thematic tiles would do wonders to make the game more strategic, too.
• Asteroid Mining is a pretty cool idea to me and I think I'm close to a good mechanic here. I need to decide what it is you do with the materials you're mining, though. May also need a smaller asteroid belt/card deck.

Mechanics in Search of a Theme
This is by far the biggest category in the lab. These are mechanics that as yet haven't found a good theme with which to be paired.

• Dice Pool Action-Selection Mechanic: This was posted right after I played Yspahan and saw its very clever dice mechanic in action. I wanted to capture something similar as an action selection device.
• Dice-matching resource management: I must have been on a dice kick last spring, because here's another dice pool based resource acquisition mechanic. No idea where this one will go, but at the time I imagined it as a game based on Maslow's Hierarchy.
• Dice Puzzle was eventually cracked by my mathematically inclined friends, but it was a cute diversion. I may revisit the basic interaction again at some point. 
• 3-2-1 had you roll three dice, keep two results, then give one result to the next player. It brought to mind a lot of co-op potential. Will tinker with this eventually.
• Legacying was a popular subject last year. I even wrote three best practices for how to do it well, which got noticed by designer Rob Daviau. I look forward to seeing how others use the Risk: Legacy mechanics to design brand new games.
• Secret Action Selection + Public Negotiation was one of the many mechanics I explored for Dung & Dragons last year. It turned out to have a critical hurdle: If you're co-operating, why keep action selection secret? I never revisited this idea long enough to answer that question, but I should.
• Player-Controlled Resource Values struck my fancy as I explored stock market themes. In this case, buying and selling a commodity raised or lowered its value on an abstract tracker. The price you pay now influenced the price you'd pay later.
• Memory + Action Selection was another one of those mashup ideas that never got explored too deeply. It may still have something worthwhile as a kids' game with some additional strategy for adults. Basically, if you found two matching tiles, you could do the action noted on those tiles. Thus, you're not just memorizing placement, but pursuing specific tactics.
• Multi-Memory: I also explored multi-dimensional memory mechanics in this abstract card game, but it might be too dry a brain burner for the MENSA Select judges.
• Vases, Crates and Barrels broke down the rarity and distribution of the Yspahan game board into a single deck of cards. I still need to suss out how best to use this information, but it's powerful mojo.
• Then there was this Yspahan+Knizia+Cosmic Encounter mashup where you negotiated trades for certain goods with the other players. Ultra minimal, but with emergent behavior. (At least, that's the hope.)
• Chibi Sweeper was a tabletop mashup of Minesweeper and Chibi Robo. Not sure where this one is really going, but once again, I like the idea of knowing half-information, then deciding whether to commit to the second half.
• Recycling Decks is basically a typical deckbuilder, except your discarded cards go to your opponent. It really needed a strong theme to make that make sense, though.
• Make Me an Offer was the first in a series of little ideas where I tried to take the basic interaction of games like Apples 2 Apples and Cards Against Humanity into the realm of a Euro board games. Not sure how successful it is without a better theme though. In hindsight, this might be a strong game with a deck of Sushi Go cards. Which led to...
• A Co-Op/Competitive trading game that could theoretically work as a system for For The Fleet. It just needs more redshirts.
• I had a handful of trick-taking mechanics this year, but this was the most polished. It just needs a good theme to justify and explain the mechanics.
• And finally, this worker-placement spillover mechanic was an interesting idea that sparked a lot of discussion for themes. Scientific progress perhaps?

Phew! 2012 was a prolific year for half-assed ideas. That's being generous, most of these are quarter-assed at best. Goal for next year? Add the rest of the ass. Yes.

The futility of fat acceptance

A fat man losing weight explains why there is no point in attempting to make the unacceptable acceptable or the undesirable desirable through propaganda:

[T]he upshot is that I realized that in my day-to-day life, when I’m interacting in person with other people, I’ve always — always — had a subconscious awareness that I was fat, and that being fat was disgusting, so therefore I was disgusting. I suspect this may have had some impact on my confidence in social situations.

Of course, I always resented that, and always resented the efforts to shame me into losing weight, which is one reason why I hate calling this change in my eating habits a “diet”.

What this reveals is that all the "fat acceptance" talk is a lie.  It is pure propaganda.  The fat people know, much better than the slender people, that fat is disgusting.  They feel it.  They live it.  To talk around it and pretend otherwise is a lie and it really doesn't fool anyone.

Now, does this mean getting in a fatty's face and telling her to stop being such a disgusting pig?  I don't know, maybe.  I don't know the best way to help a food addict kick the habit.  The only thing that is certain is that whatever approach is currently being utilized in the USA really isn't working.

Drawing the line

I've been posting items and ratings for Killer Karaoke. Most media stories, though, call it (dreaded term) "reality TV" and not a game show.

But most everybody calls Beat the Clock and Minute To Win It game shows. So I think Killer Karaoke qualifies for the beloved title. It's just another studio stunt show, though the stunts are really gross.

The line between reality TV and traditional game shows can be notoriously hard to draw. Even hardcore reality like Survivor often looks like a protracted game show dragged out of the studio and into some godforsaken corner of the planet. And some wild-eyed fanatic might think Jeopardy isn't a game show because Alex's contestant interviews get too reality-ish.

But what the hey, I reluctantly covered Fear Factor on this blog. Killer Karaoke is more of a traditional game show than the Joe Rogan things-go-boom epic. I've also covered chess and poker shows, though the purists would flay me for calling them game shows. So Killer Karaoke is here to stay, even if I'm not overly fond of the grubby stunts.

Dry, Sun, and Fog

After one of the most dismal periods of incessant clouds and rain in a long time, we are finally getting a break.

Here is the precipitation forecast for the next 72h.  Although the NW coast will get some precipitation on Monday afternoon, most of western WA and Oregon will be dry.

The Climate Prediction Center prediction for the next 6-10 days is drier than normal for most of the west:

The origin of this boon is a major switch in circulation, with persistent ridging along the West Coast.  Here are some sample upper level charts for Sunday and Tuesday:

What a wonderful opportunity to clean leaves out of your gutters and rake up leaves in your sodden yards....or to enjoy an outdoor walk or bike ride.

But with a wet surface and high pressure over the region (with attendant weak winds and clearing skies at night), expect a lot of fog, particularly in the morning.  And if the temperatures drop below freezing, then roadway icing could be a threat.

The hosts with the mosts

My son, whose hands are visible in this blog's picture of our dog, gave me a nice Christmas present. As you can probably guess from the image, the present was David Baber's compendium of factoids and comments on 32 game show hosts.

Although written in 2008 the book leans heavily toward the past. Don't bother looking for Meredith Vieira or Howie Mandel, for instance, even though both had established themselves as successful hosts by 2008. In fact, the book would make a nice present for the older-is-better crowd on the GSN Internet board. (I'm currently having one of my periodic spats with the crowd, by the way.)

I've only begun browsing through the book's gazillions of facts about the 32 hosts. There's no way I can vouch for the authenticity of every item because I just don't know enough about these gentlemen's careers. (And they are all men, it should be noted.) But Baber does a nice job of squeezing a ton of information into a few pages for each host.

There are plenty of photos in the book, albeit in black-and-white. I'll read through some of my favorite hosts first, like Bill Cullen and Garry Moore. Eventually I'll try to hit them all, right down to Dennis James and Jim Peck.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Hello, all!

I don't usually share personal news on this channel, but I think this will be relevant to your interests.

Effective December 31, 2012, I am resigning from my position as Associate Creative Director and Digital Director at Third Degree. I started as an intern in 2004 and I've learned so much about being a creative in the fast-paced ad business, especially serving credit unions. It's been an enriching experience with more talented people than I can count.

During those years, I was "art director by day, game designer by night," without either job interfering with the other. On the contrary, working for an agency gave me the security to pursue a game design hobby, while the hobby's community gave me experience in social media that I could bring back to the agency. There was synergy, as ad people on TV like to say.

Unfortunately, that dual-career lifestyle eventually started wearing on my mind and body. Signs of burnout were evident to all... except to me until recently. If I was going to be the person I really wanted to be in the next nine years, I had to make some big changes.

My wife and I discussed whether we could afford me spending a year trying to make this game design thing actually happen. If I cut down expenses, keep up freelance work, and budget well, we actually could afford to spend a year on me trying to go pro. So that's what I'm doing in 2013.

To my freelance clients, I thank you for your putting up with me as I made this transition over the past month. You'll be seeing faster turnaround from me starting next week.

To fans of my design stuff, you'll be able to see a lot more of my handiwork next year as I take on more freelance jobs in the general geek industry. Look for more RPG layout, logo design, card design, and iconography.

To fans of my game stuff, I hope I can get your support as I refine the numerous ideas I've posted on this blog. The actual business of selling games to publishers, gamers and backers is an adventure all its own. Thanks for coming along with me. You won't be disappointed!

Follow my #DS13 hashtag on Twitter to as I discuss this new experiment further. I'll return you to your regularly scheduled programming next week! Thanks for your time!

-- Daniel

P.S. The portrait above is by Hannah Lee Stockdale. You should hire her a lot.

A big win?

Browsing through the Google news cache today, I ran across this item from a local news site. I used it for a faux tweet but it may deserve an entry of its own. Seems that something big might happen on Wheel of Fortune tonight. Like the second biggest win ever on the show.

The news story is about one of the contestants on the show, an administrative assistant named Robyn Martini (see the photo), who's throwing a viewing party tonight. I have no idea if the story is accurate. I haven't gotten any tips from anybody about a big WoF win. But such things usually leak, so the story might be true.

I won't be able to watch the show tonight because of a family dinner. But for the record, the current second biggest win is reportedly $142,550 from a 2006 episode. The biggest Wheel of Fortune win, as most game show fans know, is Michelle Loewenstein's million-dollar victory in 2008.

I'll check back later to see if the show tonight lives up to the (maybe) billing.

UPDATE: Cindy Kling of Washington does take down the second biggest haul ever, $147,000. You can read all about it on the episode thread at Buy a Vowel. Or you can watch on YouTube.

Alpha Mail: too hot for New York

JG informs us that Alpha Game is too hot and spicy for the tender, innocent, and easily influenced minds of the employees of the State of New York.

Alpha Game blog is trash according to the web filter utilized on State of New York computers. I attempted to go AG only to find it has been blocked under the same category as pornography even though there isn't much explicit discussion on "sex" to be found there:

Content blocked by your organization
Reason: This Websense category is filtered: Sex.
URL: http://alphagameplan.blogspot.com/

I am definitely citing this the next time I am informed that I need to loosen up and get a little more with it by some urban hipster.  Fortunately, the employees of the SEC will still be able to visit here, assuming they can tear themselves away from their regular porn.

Why are so many trees falling?

During the past few weeks the stories have been incessant.  

 One major highway after another has been closed for extended periods recently as hundreds of snow-encased trees have fallen over the roadways, including  SR-2 across the central Cascades, the Mount Baker Highway, RT 6 and 101, on the Olympics Peninsula.  Large deposits of snow weighted the trees down until they toppled over.

Mount Baker Highway: WSDOT Photo

A number of cars have been hit, nine people injured and tragically two were killed on December 21, just east of Leavenworth.   The Mt. Baker ski area was inaccessible for days and folks had to go the long way around (I90, 97) to get to Leavenworth and vicinity.

Mount Baker Highway:  WSDOT Photo

SR-101 Closed

SR-2 Trees Leaning Over:  WSDOT Photo

Long-time Washington Department of Transportation maintenance personnel say they have never seen a situation like this, with snow causing such extensive and long-lasting tree fall periods over state roadways.  I have been around for a while and can't remember an analogous situation.  The threat was so large that WSDOT began flying over the road with helicopters, in the hope of blowing off snow.

So were the trees falling?  We have had periods of more snow, of more wind, of more rain.  Periods that were colder. What is different this time?

Let's play detective!

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth....S. Holmes

The last month has been a wet one over the region and the mountains have gotten large amounts of snow.   But other years have had as much or more snow in the mountains (e.g., 98-99) without so many trees coming down.  So snowfall alone is not the answer.

What about the locations and altitudes?  The SR-2 tree falls occurred about 10 miles west of Leavenworth at an altitude of roughly 2400 ft (see mapP

The Mount Baker Highway tree falls occurred east of Maple Falls (see map, east of red A).  Elevation about 1400 ft.

 U.S. 101 on the Olympic Peninsula was closed between Shelton and Brinnon with trees downed not far from sea level.   So the elevations varied.

I think there is an answer.   There is something that all these elevations had in common during the period, something that I believe caused massive tree falls.  So let me give you my hypothesis.  Let's consider the facts, my dear Watson.

Fact 1:  We know that the trees fell when they were weighted down with snow.
Fact 2:  Snow is most "sticky" near and just below freezing (say mid-20s to freezing)
Fact 3:  During really cold periods (our Arctic outbreaks) snow tends to be lighter, less sticky, and more easily blown off trees.
Fact 4:  Major warm up periods (e.g., pineapple express atmospheric river periods) have very high freezing levels and rain at most elevations, resulting in  melting and washing off snow from trees.

There WERE some unusual aspects of the past few weeks that allowed large amounts of snow to stick on trees until they fell over.

Thinks about it.  This month we did not have any major Arctic, cold-air, outbreaks.  So no really cold, light snow that doesn't stick well.  We have NOT had any pineapple expresses or warm up periods that would melt the snow at a wide range of elevations.  In fact, recent temperatures in the mountains have been AMAZINGLY steady.   Let me demonstrate this.

Take a look at the temperatures (red daily high, blue daily low) at the Winton weather station run by the WA DOT.  Winton (MTWINT, roughly at 2000 ft MSL)  is several miles north of Leavenworth on RT 2...not far from the tree falls.  Or Nason Creek (a bit farther north at 2000 MSL as well).

Only minor temperature variations.  Temps never got above 40F and only below 20F on the 18th and 19th.  Most of the two weeks (Dec 7-21st) before the major tree falls on RT 2  had highs in the low 30s and lows in the mid 20s.  Perfect temperatures to deposit snow on trees.   And winds were generally light...and thus not blowing snow off the branches.  This is a very unusual situation.

What about the Mt. Baker Highway tree falls?  Lets consider the Maple Falls station (a bit lower--670ft--than the section with the tree falls).  AGAIN, amazingly constant temperatures in mid-December, with highs in the mid to upper 30s and lows around 30F.  Go a little higher, to where the trees were falling, and temperatures were surely cooler..right in the range of maximum stickiness and deposition.

But you ask, what about the trees (less numbers) falling near the Hood Canal?  Surely, it was much warmer there?  The answer is no....that area can be unusually cool for the lowlands, as southeasterly flow banks cool air over that area. Consider Lake Cushman, which is close to sea level, and on the SE side of the Olympics, not far from 101.  A number of day had highs in the lower to mid thirties, starting December 19th. And yes, temperatures were relatively constant.

So my hypothesis is that we had a wet, snowy period with consistently cool, but not super cold, temperatures in a range that promoted sticky snow.  No major wind events to blow off snow.  No pineapple express warming.   It all game together in a very unusual way, causing massive snow loading on trees.    Another contributor might be the mild temperatures that have left the ground unfrozen and thus less able to hold the trees in place.  Perhaps one of you have an alternative theory...if so, I would like to hear it!

Certainly, not "elementary."

My Year In PC Gaming

It has been a while since I blogged, but I thought this would be something interesting to talk about. I've played a lot of games this year on PC and I've had some enjoyable experiences, and I thought it would be worth sharing my thoughts about the things I've had the opportunity to play over the past 12 months. 

Now, I am not really going to talk about Dungeon Defenders or Football Manager 2011 since those are both games which I had started playing before the start of this year, so I don't think it is necessary to spend more time on them in this post, especially since this is going to be a long, long post anyway. I am giving you fair warning about that.

So without further ado, here's my year in PC gaming.


 Starcraft II: I got this free because of a promotion at a Canadian site called Tsilon, which is affiliated with one of the major electronics stores up here. Anyway, as you well know, this is one of the most popular games in the world and it is one of the foundations of the modern eSports movement. However, I just couldn't get into this game. I wanted to like it, and in the single player mode, I was enjoying the story, but playing multiplayer soured me on the experience. I was terrible and in a way that was just demoralizing, since even though I was playing with other beginners, I was fundamentally not good enough to be competitive. Even from my relatively brief time with the game, I could tell it was very well designed, but I think that RTS's like this aren't my thing anymore.

Diablo II: After I got Starcraft II, I thought I would try Diablo II as well. This one is going to be important later in the list, but basically I liked the mechanics, but there were just some little design issues which detracted from my enjoyment of the game, like having to go back to town to sell loot and the way the quests were handed out. I have a feeling that if I had played this when it first came out, I would have been obsessed with it, but I think too much time had passed for me to experience this game at its best (especially since I didn't really get to see it played as a multiplayer game).

Mass Effect 1 + 2: Now these were some great games. I had decided to finally play them right before the final installment of the series came out because I had a feeling that if I didn't, the major plot points of them would likely be spoiled. I was not disappointed, as they were very well made and had a rather compelling storyline. Unusually for me, I also made the decision to play the game as a female version of the protagonist Shepard, a decision which I was glad I made because I liked Jennifer Hale's take on the character better than her male voice actor counterpart. I don't really have any complaints aside from the fact that I think I liked the combat system from the first game better than the one they used for the second, and I have a feeling I am in the minority with that opinion. I liked the characters, the story, the setting and the sense of continuity because of the decisions you made carrying over between games. In fact, I liked the first game so much that when it came time to play the second, I paid quite a bit of money for the DLC for the second game just so I could see everything it had to offer. I had set out to play the character in a certain way, as someone damaged and emotionally scarred, someone with an edge of bitterness, but she defied my intentions and became someone else when confronted with the hard choices, someone better and more noble than I had imagined at the beginning, and my time with my version of Shepard was amazing and it was something which may have changed how I view games in subtle ways. Unfortunately, the third part of the trilogy is on Origin, and because of some of the continuing technical problems with that platform, I am giving the conclusion of the series a pass for now.

Realm of the Mad God: This was a game I kept telling myself I would never play because it is a free MMO. And then Stumbleupon brought up the web client version of it and I tried it. It isn't bad, and because the lives of your characters are relatively short, it is easy to start and stop games, so it isn't as addictive as I feared. It falls right into that sweet spot between being really casual and being hardcore, so it is a game I can visit every couple of months for a night or two and then go on to something else. All and all, it is a lot of fun for very little time investment.

Dragon Age: Origins: I started this after I finished Mass Effect 2, and I had certain expectations because it was also a Bioware game. The first thing that I noticed, aside from the fact that the player character didn't really speak aside from some random things said during battles, was that the moral system was different that Mass Effect in that you couldn't always accurately assess whether a statement was going to be good or evil, nor could you judge if one of your companions would like or dislike your decisions, since there were party members who were more aligned to evil. I think I liked this ambiguity a little better. However, I found the battles a lot harder than the encounters in the Mass Effect series, so this game took me much longer to finish than either of those other games, which could be good or bad. By the end of it, I think I was ready for it to be over. I also liked the fact that the game had multiple endings which were based on some of the key decisions you made during the game, and some of those choices were difficult to make. While I enjoyed it, the Mass Effect games were far better in my mind, and while I liked the characters, especially Alistair and Leliana, they were not in the same league as their Mass Effect counterparts.

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad: I bought this game when it was on sale one weekend and I played it for about a week. It was a good first person shooter but (and there is always a but), it just wasn't great. The maps were interesting, the weapons were nice and supposedly period accurate, but something didn't click for me, though I understand why there is a committed community for it. There is also a decent amount of strategy in playing it in MP, and I respect what the developers tried to do with this game. I certainly liked it better than Tripwire's previous game, Killing Floor, as it seems much more polished.

Shoot Many Robots: A decent side scrolling shooter. Not great, but entertaining in its way. There was discussion about there being some DLC, but the developer scrapped those plans and it is a shame since I think I would have liked to have seen what they had in mind for it.

Crusader Kings II: Oh my god. I loved this game. I was a fan of Paradox's previous games, and I had had the first installment of this series on my old computer, but I was never able to really get into a game of it because my processor was a little too slow. When the sequel was released on Valentine's Day this year, I had a much better computer. And it was certainly worth the wait. The game allows players to take on the role of any one of a number of counts, dukes, kings or even emperors from medieval Europe and basically try to have your dynastic line survive through the period. And the most interesting thing is that unlike other games in the genre, war isn't even your primary option for expanding your empire. My first game, I didn't get into a war for almost a century, and I was able to keep increasing the size of my family's lands through marriage and a few well-timed assassinations. I also have to say, for a game with no dialogue and a series of characters who crop up randomly after the initial setup (which can be any day in history from September 1066 through 1337), it develops into some serious character drama.Since every character in the game has their own ambitions, some of which benefit you (such as a vassal taking land from another ruler without involving you in their own war) and some that are very bad for you (like your brother plotting to take your throne), you as the player develop strong feelings towards these people. I can think of people who I liked very much and people who I hated so much, both sets of which were merely characters born of dynastic marriage and trying to fulfill their own destinies with or without me. The game is very moddable as well, and there are quite a few people who bought it this year simply to play the Game of Thrones mod, which the mechanisms of the game are well equipped to simulate. I just want to keep gushing, but I feel I should move on.

Dungeons of Dredmor: A rogue-like dungeon crawler with a wicked sense of humor and character permadeath, featuring so many different skill combinations that it seems infinitely replayable. However, the difficulty of the title is what sort of put me off after a couple of days. I liked the art style, the humor and figuring out the systems, but knowing that the developer didn't expect most people to be able to finish the game is disheartening. But it was relatively inexpensive, and I did have fun, but I just don't think I really saw the best this title had to offer, and that is on me. But I can see the value of the experience and I look forward to seeing Gaslight Games next project too.

Torchlight 1 and 2: You remember in the Diablo II entry that it was going to be important. These games are the reason why. These games, designed by people who were instrumental in developing the first two Diablo games basically fixed all the issues I had with those games and made something that to me was awesome to play. I like to play games in single player, so the absence of multiplayer in the first game wasn't really a problem for me. The times I did play online with my character in Torchlight II, I found the experience to be enjoyable and lag free. The fact that both of these games helped mitigate the loot problems by allowing you to send your pet to sell unwanted items for you, allowing you to continue your quest was a breakthrough and really helped the flow of these titles. The gameplay was so compelling that even after I beat both of these games, I continued playing, not just to see what loot I could find (which let's be honest, is a huge motivating factor in playing one of these games) but because I just enjoyed the world it presented me and the combat system. My only real issue with these games is the fact that you can't change the difficulty of your game on the fly, because I chose a difficulty level in the second one which was a little too intense for me and it made beating it a little more frustrating than I had hoped, and really, that is a minor quibble. Torchlight II was the only game I've ever preordered from Steam, and I don't regret doing so.

Fallout 3: I had played Morrowind last year, so I was pretty familiar with how Bethesda's open world games worked, and while I had some initial worries that I may have problems with it since it wasn't fully compatible with Windows 7, it ended up running fine for me. And what an experience it was. From the beginning, I was engaged with the story the game was telling me, and with the characters I met throughout my travels as the Lone Wanderer. Because the characters were so interesting, I wanted to help them, especially those people who I could tell we good and honest, the kind of characters who through their existence made a horrifying post-apocalyptic wasteland a better place for everyone. I liked the world Bethesda created as well, filled with hidden wonders and historical depths to explore. I also respected the fact that the morality system allowed the player to do some truly despicable things if they made those choices. I didn't of course, but knowing that those options were there made the choices more interesting. In retrospect, it made the renegade responses in Mass Effect seem really tame, because the worst your could be in ME was an anti-hero, while FO3 allowed you to be a villain protagonist. I surprised myself by actually finishing the game and the major pieces of DLC too since my experience with Morrowind led me to believe I would become bored before I reached the end because there is always so many sidequests to do in these kinds of games, but it was such a great experience that I had to see it through to the end, and all my small gripes seem immaterial when compared with the enjoyment I received playing it. 

Galactic Civilizations II: This one is going to be really short. I wanted to like this, but I don't like the Civilizations series, and this game is just like those games. 

Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise: A really, really hard stage based beat em up/fighting game based in early modern China. I was warned it was hard, and that made me want to play it even more, and you know what? It kicked my ass. Repeatedly. But I have to say it was fair, which I respect, since it kicking my ass was my fault, not the game. It rewards precision and timing, and I wasn't doing the things I needed to do to survive. I may go back in the new year to see if I can finally beat this game, but I have a feeling it will best me again.

Castle Crashers: I've wanted to play this game for so long, but it was a console exclusive for years, but it was finally released this fall. It was worth the wait. There was this game that I loved on the Saturn called Guardian Heroes, and it reminds me so much of that. I like the fact that there are just so many characters to play the game through as, and the art style is cartoonish and loveable, and the fighting mechanics are solid, and since I love side scrolling beat em ups, this was something that I was going to love just based on that. It will be a game I will definitely be revisiting over the coming year as well.

--

All in all, a pretty good year for games, because even the few I didn't really like were still pretty good otherwise, so I can't complain. 

Ratings: good news (sort of) for Jerry!

TVNewsCheck reports that there wasn't much movement for syndicated game shows in the week of December 10-16. But poor Jerry, perennial bottom-feeder among the syndies, did get a smidgen of good cheer. Otherwise, it was mostly flat or blah. The household ratings...

Wheel of Fortune 7.4 - up a couple ticks
Jeopardy 6.6 - up a solitary tick, not to be left behind by the soulmate
Family Feud 4.6 - flat but Steve won't mind this number
Millionaire 2.3 - down a tick, poor Meredith is just hanging on
Baggage 1.2 - up a tick, let's hear it for Jerry!

TV by the Numbers brings the viewership averages for the top three: Wheel of Fortune 11.5 million (weekend repeat 4.0 million), Jeopardy 10.0 million, Family Feud 6.7 million. Said it before, but these numbers make a lot of broadcast prime time shows look pale. Yes, game shows skew old. But all of TV, like all of the world, is skewing older nowadays. Birth rates are falling everywhere, he noted demographically.

Meanwhile, Steve Harvey's Family Feud continues to dominate GSN's ratings to a ridiculous extent. The bald media conglomerate took 18 of the top 20 slots in the week of December 17-23. The viewership averages were an okay if not spectacular 308K/239K prime time/total day.

The accidental imperative

Dalrock has an excellent post on the female imperative and the passive-aggressive manner in which women who won't admit to it will nevertheless ferociously defend it:

The seeming passivity of women in the process of rewriting social norms to the exclusive benefit of women is what is throwing Sunshine Mary off.  She can easily test this by coaching one of the boys to suggest that the girls show some reciprocal form of deference to the boys during a future celebration.  Perhaps the girls should serve the boys refreshments during their next celebration, as Anonymous Reader suggested:  

One way to damp down the entitlement princess training just received by the boys / young men deferring to the girls / young women would be to cause the girls and young women to defer in a different way to the boys and young men. For example, at some future time you might consider having the AH girls serve the Boy Scout boys, perhaps by seating the boys at table and having the girls bring trays to the tables.

If this is suggested the lie of the girls’ passivity will come out in force.  It won’t come out in the form of a logical reaction, even if on the surface it appears to start that way.  For example, they are likely to bristle at the idea of having their moxie damaged by deferring to the boys, and make a feminist argument for equality.  However, if this is simply about equality one could then propose that instead of serving the boys the girls have the boys go first through the treat line, and agree to take turns at this from here on.

At this point the reality of the feminine imperative will become evident, because while the girls were seemingly passive when everything was going their way, any deviance from this will be met with emotional outbursts.  Whoever proposes either true equality or simple reciprocity will become the object of great irrational anger, and at this point the passivity turns to aggression.  While the girls (and their mothers) won’t know why they are so angry, they will know that whoever proposed such a thing is a terrible person.

The artificial and non-accidental nature of the female imperative is inadvertently revealed by female attempts to police it, quite often with the help of their usual white knights.  What I want to point out in particular is the way that emotion, particularly anger, is the most reliable weapon in the male arsenal; an angry woman can almost always be provoked into volunteering unsolicited the sort of secrets she would otherwise endure torture to avoid revealing.  This isn't a new revelation; Agatha Christie even mentioned it in one of her Poirot novels.

Encouraging the passive-aggressive to reveal their underlying desire to control and dictate the actions of others can be tremendously revelatory.  Just keep in mind that you may be in for the same sort of shock that men who are forced to recognize the nonexistence of the pedestal upon which they'd been placing women for all these years must endure.  Seeing the black heart and long red fangs of what you'd always assumed was a gentle sheep can be more than a little startling, but any time you see irrational anger arise on the part of a perfectly reasonable request or suggestion, you can be relatively sure there is a font of aggressiveness hidden beneath the apparent passivity.

Getting back to the imperative, Dalrock's post was particularly insightful in observing how the female imperative is transformational; this effect can be seen in everything from medieval chivalry to the current NFL.

"The feminine imperative took the original idea of chivalry – a code of honor amongst men – and attached to it a code of acceptable conduct for men in relating to women. In doing so it effectively remodeled chivalry to benefit the feminine and limiting the power men held over them by enlisting other men to participate in regulating it."

Relatively Dry Weather Ahead

We have been through a very wet period during the last month, with lots of precipitation in the lowlands and heavy snow in the mountains, but it looks like a break is coming up that should allows us to dry off a bit, and yes, see a glimpse of the sun.

Seattle has had around 48.5 inches of rain so far this year, about 12 inches above normal.  To get a view of how we got so wet, here is a plot of the normal cumulative rain (blue) versus what has actually hit the airport (red).  Two wet periods stand out:  late winter/early spring and this fall (after roughly 20 October).  And, of course there was our dry spell during the late summer/early fall.

 

Do we have a chance of any records?   The greatest annual rainfall at Sea-Tac was 55.14 inches in 1950.  There is little chance we can reach that in a few days.  Only three years (including 1950) got above fifty inches...there is a good chance we will get close to that level.  In any case, we will "enjoy" living in one of the top 10 wettest years since 1948.  

But the pattern is a changing....  the latest NWS Climate Prediction Center 6-10 day forecasts show drier than normal conditions over the Pacific Northwest.   The origin?   Persistent ridging (high pressure) over the region with a few glancing blows, mainly to our north.

 The European Center Model has very little precipitation over the lowlands during the next week, and even the U.S. GFS model takes most of it to the north and south of us.  This weekend looks fine, with only a few showers around.  No serious weather.

The snowpack is not only bountiful, but it is unusually good condition, since we have not had many warm rain periods to turn it into Cascade concrete.   Very few wet/warm atmospheric rivers this year. As shown below, much of the region has 150% or more of normal snow water equivalent (amount of water in the snow).

So the skiing is very good.

Talking about skiing, today was the last mountain/avalanche forecast of a mainstay of the local mountain weather community, Mark Moore.  Mark has been the leader of the NW Weather and Avalanche Center for years, and his work has not only immeasurably strengthened this crucial local resource, but has undoubtedly saved many lives.  We owe him a real debt and wish him the best.  By the way, the NW Avalanche Center deserves your support, particularly if you depend on their mountain weather and avalanche forecasts.  The latest Seattle Times/NY Times articles on the Tunnel Creek avalanche deaths shows how important the NWAC is and why you should listen to their warnings!

Mark Moore, Director of the NWAC

An excursion into the rhetorical

This Twitter exchange sheds further light on the difference between the dialectically and the rhetorically minded, particularly with regards to the dialectically challenged among the latter.  Below is an excerpt, the whole exchange is posted on Vox Popoli.  For the purposes of this discussion, ignore the subject matter and focus solely on the various dialectical and rhetorical devices utilized by the two primary parties in the discussion.

voxday: Don't be stupid. You can't compare absolute numbers between nations of vastly different sizes. Look at per capita....

mushadamama: The numbers I've given ARE per 100k population. Perhaps the stupid one is one who doesn't read fine print....

voxday: No, you stupid, stupid woman, they are not. The USA is #4 in absolute terms, #27 per capita....

mushadamama: Yes, my chart is total gun murders @ 9369. Does not count accidents or suicides. US ranks 4th! My crime rate chart was per 100k.

mushadamama: Your chart, however, uses some kind of fuzzy math to come up with that ridiculous #. I can only assume it is more of a probability.

For the record, the mysterious "fuzzy math" used to produce "more of a probability" was the following equation: 9,369 divided by 311,591,917, multiplied by 100,000.  Now, if you're a woman, think about how often you dig yourself into similar positions and how many women of your acquaintance you can confirm to be capable of producing a similarly remarkable argument.  Then perhaps you might understand why men tend to regard many, if not most, women as being fundamentally irrational creatures, incapable of logic and ineducable by reason, math, or even the most basic facts.  It should also underline the supreme importance of not behaving in this manner on those occasions when you feels tempted to do so.

Keep in mind that saying "well, I was really upset" justifies these occasional lapses into complete unreason about as effectively as a man saying "well, I was really horny" would mitigate his occasional rapes of the babysitter.  It may explain them, to a certain extent, but it is unlikely to change his fundamental opinion of your character and capabilities.

Men, keep this exchange in mind when you are attempting to convince a woman of something.  Once you have successfully established that she is not, for whatever reason, capable of rationally discussing a specific matter in the circumstances, understand that there is literally nothing within the realm of the dialectic that you can do to convince her to change her position.  However, this does not mean she cannot be convinced, only that she will have to be convinced in a rhetorical manner, using a rhetorical device.

What are the rhetorical devices?  As always, the instruments that can be used most successfully on another individual are those preferred by the individual himself.  We all give away our weaknesses by our attempts to exploit the weaknesses of others.  The scientist who goes right to academic credentials can be easily trumped by an appeal to superior credentials.  The woman who quickly resorts to name-calling is susceptible to being called names.  The statistician can be won over with statistics.  It is the Bill Belichick strategy: attack the strength of the defense.

The discussion begins with a feint, a false statistical appeal.  But the seeds of its rhetorical nature are already there in the first woman's use of sarcasm, which in this particular example is a passive-aggressive device.  By the second post by the second woman, it is already clear that this is going to be a rhetorical discourse due to the  irrelevant questions aimed to discredit the other side.  Note especially her attempt to shut down the debate by the use of declarative statements; she shows her sensitivity to the suggestion of her stupidity by referring to it and ineptly attempting to turn the suggestion around.

Notice too that after being repeatedly hammered on that point, both overtly and implicitly, she begins her retreat into her tortoise shell, but not before revealing that she is entirely impervious to the very facts to which she falsely appealed in the first place.  Now, some less sophisticated observers will argue that it is a mistake to come down hard on the rhetorical, that if the reasoned argument is disguised in a sweet manner it will be more likely to prove persuasive.  But this is simply not the case, the whole problem is that the dialectically challenged are fundamentally incapable of following reason, either because their cognitive capacities are insufficient or because their emotional attachment to their position is too strong.

As I've pointed out in the past, dialectic is always preferable to rhetoric because it is more objective and tends to be more honest.  But unless the dialectically capable are going to treat those limited to rhetoric as mindless animals and place no more significance on the noises they make than we do upon the barking of dogs, we have no ethical option except to speak to them in their rhetorical language.  This may at times appear cruel, it may even be cruel.  But it is necessary, if we are to grant them any intellectual value as human beings.

Those limited to the rhetorical level of discourse are the Rabbit People.  They cannot be reasoned with any more successfully than one can cure a rabid dog of rabies through discussion.  All one can reasonably do is mitigate the damage they do to those around them by putting them down as soon as they show themselves to be a carrier.

GTOG Christmas Podcast: On the Steelers, Roethlisberger, and Why Everything Has Been Terrible Since We Started This Site

On this special Christmas Podtacular, we talk about the Steelers' loss to the Bengals and how we evaluate Ben Roethlisberger. We also look back on how horrible things have been since we started the blog and ask for reader/listener advice going forward. Plus a special appearance from Mrs. Artistry.

Click here to subscribe on iTunes

iPhone/iPad

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Flash

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Marathon reactions

Spent a lot of time with GSN's Match Game marathon today. Naturally, I had to share some of my profound musings with the GSN Internet board, especially about two rarities, the Bert Convy pilot episode for Match Game 90 and the first ever episode of Match Game 98 on the network...

Other poster: Convy was a perfect host for this show as I expected, Match-Up was not missed, and even with Brett not there, they had an all-around hilarious panel with good chemistry.

Yeah, I liked the Convy MG90 pilot better than the matched-up version that finally made it to air. More humor, less gameplay. That's the best idea for Match Game.

And somewhere there should be a Match Game circle of hell for Judy Tenuta [on MG98]. I don't know how the rest of the panel didn't strangle her. Anyway, a very enjoyable marathon. Got to watching and couldn't stop.

Other poster: Michael Burger [on MG98] is a pretty good host (better than Ross Shafer IMO), and Vicki Lawrence and George Hamilton are good panelists, but Judy just casts a huge wave of annoyance on the whole show.

I've already consigned Judy to a circle of hell, so I can't disagree with this. I don't understand how the producers could have picked her, even if she worked for free. With a Tenuta-less panel, Berger would have had more control of the show and better interaction with far more tolerable panelists like Vicki and George. As it was, the show seemed out of Berger's (or anybody else's) control because Judy just would not shut up.

One bad choice really can kill a show. By the way, it didn't take long...somebody has already posted the Convy MG90 pilot from the marathon on YouTube.

Why?

It's Christmas morning and nothing's stirring in our house except my Dell mouse. So it's as good a time as any to speculate on why I write this blog.

It's not for the money. There isn't any. The only profit I've ever made from this blog was a bottle of champagne from GSN last year. Considering how I've ripped some of the network's shows, that may not have been a brilliant investment.

It's not for the fame. There is hardly any. Oh, my name is sometimes used in vain around the game show Internet boards. But to the world at large, I'm just one of the 888 gazillion bloggers in the cybernetic junkosphere.

It's not for the art of writing. There isn't much. Yes, I've mastered the knack of spilling a few paragraphs a day on game shows, but this is not a great leap forward for literature. Some would consider it a giant step backwards, in fact.

Basically, I just want to have a tiny corner of the Internet to myself. That's a pretty pitiful reason for this blog's existence, I know. In this topsy-turvy world, this blog doesn't amount to a hill of beans. But this is my hill...and these are my beans. (R.I.P. Leslie Nielsen.)

Strong Foothills Winds and Localized Snow

It's all about mountain slopes.   

So much of our interesting weather is associated with air moving up and down our substantial terrain and tomorrow will be a stellar example.  Huge weather contrasts will occur tomorrow over the lowlands.  In some locations, wind will gust to 60-80 mph--as strong as Hurricane Sandy--while 20-30 miles away you will barely feel a breeze.   In some lowland locations there will be not a single flake, while 20-30 miles away nearly a foot could snarl traffic.

December 25, 2012 Weather

 We are lucky to live in such a place.  Imagine being in IOWA or KANSAS where you could drive for hours and barely notice a chance in the weather.  If you live in Seattle, you can CHOOSE whether you want to experience boring rain, hurricane force winds, or a major snowstorm...all within an hour's drive or ferry ride! 

Boring Weather Comes With No Terrain

 Christmas Storm 2012 will strike tomorrow.  I know the TV stations will have something better:  The Santa Storm, Holiday Express, etc.  And the Weather Channel will give it some scary name:  Storm Boris or something.  At 10 AM tomorrow a low center will be parked off our coast, precipitation will be moving in over the region, and a very large pressure difference will develop over the Cascades.

With strong southeasterly winds over the Cascade crest and a big east-west pressure difference over the mountains, we have a very good set up for very strong easterly  downslope winds on the western Cascade slopes and adjacent lowlands of western Washington.  Enumclaw, Black Diamond, North Bend and many eastside communities will get hit hard, with wind gusts reaching 50-70 mph in a few places.  Trees will fall.  Power will fail.  And strong winds will occur in the Strait and over the offshore waters.  Forget your sailing lessons unless you want to end up in the mid-Pacific. 

Here are the predicted maximum gusts (in knots) at 1 PM tomorrow from the super-high resolution WRF 1.3km resolution model.  Wow.  Gusts reaching 60 knots over parts of the Strait and offshore of the central WA coast.  45 knot  (52 mph) gusts along the western Cascade foothills at that time (with some higher values).

What about snow?   The National Weather Service and I are generally on the same page (SE of the Olympics is the focus), but they are going for the possibility of a few inches over Seattle and vicinity.

Looking at the latest runs, I believe it will be too warm for snow in Seattle and that the powerful easterlies will dry things out enough to lessen the snow chances near sea level around the Seattle Metro area.  Here is the latest WRF model forecast.  First, the 24h ending 4 PM Christmas Day. Same story as yesterday: Kitsap and Mason counties get the brunt of the lowland snow. 

The next 24-h (ending 4 PM on Wednesday).  Eastern Washington's turn!

But although I think the above is the most probably scenario, the snow level could descend toward the high hills of the lowlands if the precipitation is heavier and the easterly flow weakens more than forecast.  This is a classic Seattle snow forecasting problem:  temperatures are marginal and everything depends on precipitation rate and the temperature/humidity structure of the air above us.  By the end of the afternoon it will be too warm for snow that is clear.  But I have learned not to be too confident about Seattle snow and freezing rain forecasts.

Roads are relatively warm right now.  Here is the latest air and road (boxes) temperatures from Seattle SNOWWATCH.  Elevated and non-elevated roadways are in the 40s.  That is good place to start.  If clouds come in soon enough tonight, temperatures will not fall too much and even if few flakes hit the road, they will melt quickly.