A second minute

Casting calls don't lie.

Well, sometimes they do. Like when they say that game show contestants have big personalities. I've seen a few small personalities in our little genre now and then. But this casting call is for real. Minute To Win It is returning...to GSN. And why not? The NBC reruns have performed pretty well for the network, after all.

BuzzerBlog confirms the casting call, and I had heard rumblings about the possibility, too. It's doubtful that Guy Fieri will return as host. He's probably a bit on the expensive side for our frugal game show network.

Remakes on GSN have enjoyed spotty success at best. The network's Newlywed Game has endured through 88 seasons by now (slight exaggeration) but the 1 vs. 100 and Pyramid remakes went nowhere fast. And GSN may have touched its lowest point ever with the remake that shall not be named, of a certain Chuck Barris project with a gong.

It's hard to see how they could screw up Minute To Win It, as long as the stunts stay goofy enough. BuzzerBlog says the order is for 40 hour-long episodes. I always liked stupid human tricks, so good luck.

Steelers' Brett Keisel goes to Super Bowl to promote Brett Keisel and rewrite history

By Finesse

No one panders like Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel.

He showed up at the media center in New Orleans for Super Bowl week (shocker, right?) as part of some Head and Shoulders campaign.  No word on whether he arrived in a tractor.  His purpose there appears to be an attempt at rewriting history.  Actually, that's his secondary objective.  His primary objective is to get attention.  That's always his primary objective.  As we wrote in September about his tendency for shameless and transparent pandering:

We're sure Keisel is a nice guy, that much of his humility is genuine, and that he's undoubtedly been a key part of the Steelers' defense over the past several years. But as his physical skills have eroded with age, he's played Yinzer-nation like a drum. By growing a monstrous beard and wearing hunting shirts to training camp, Keisel has made an indelible mark on the Yinzer-psyche (especially women, says me, based on nothing) and this is not by accident. He's become such a world-class panderer to the people of Pittsburgh that he's going to come out of the tunnel in week 5 actually wearing a hard hat and carrying a lunch pail.

But now? We're not even sure that any of his humility is genuine.  After the jump, we analyze the interview he gave to Ed Bouchette of the Post-Gazette.

Real Quote: "We do have some really good young talent that needs to step up and start making more plays in order for us to win."

• Our interpretation: "How bad must these guys be that they can't get on the field over me?  I'm begging to have someone take my job because if I get less playing time, then I can spend more time focusing on my real passion: drawing attention to myself at training camp."

Real Quote: "I'm talking about all the guys -- our young group of wideouts, our young offensive line, some young guys we have playing in the secondary. We need those guys to play 'A' ball, and, when they're out on the field, we need them to make plays in order to win."

• Our interpretation: "What I'd really like to do right now is string together a bunch of cliches that make me sound like I'm a team guy, when in reality I'm trying to deflect attention away from the fact that I lost the Oakland game for us and cost the team at least 50 seconds in the last 2 minutes of the first Baltimore game by jumping offsides."

Real Quote: "It can't just be the old dogs, if you will; we need some splash plays by those young guys."

• Our interpretation: "If I can get away with saying something this dumb and counter-factual, if you will, then I really do have the entire Pittsburgh media in the side pocket of my cargo shorts."

Real Quote: "You have a year like we did, with expectations like we did, there has to be changes, it's the way the business is. ... We'll see what happens. Obviously, I love being a Steeler, I love those guys in the locker room, but every year you lose some guys that you're brothers with. I'm sure this year will be no different."

• Our interpretation: "I will not pass up an opportunity to call my teammates my brothers. This, of course, is apropos of nothing, but you people eat this shit up."

Real Quote: "They have a tough job. Obviously, everyone knows we need to get some guys in to help us. That's a tough thing to do. You have a draft to do it in -- they pride themselves on building the team through the draft."

• Our interpretation:"This is the only thing I will say all day that actually makes sense."

Real Quote: "I feel like I can still get the job done. I feel like I have the front office's trust, I feel like I have my teammates' trust, I feel like I can lead this team out of this mediocre season."

• Our interpretation: "I led this team to a mediocre season.  Who better to lead us out?"

Real Quote: "I said it earlier in the year, I feel like we have as many weapons on the team as we ever have. We just have to come together. Hopefully, this year humbled some people and, really, maybe we can get re-focused and come back better."

• Our interpretation: "I have not been humbled in any way whatsoever.  Hard hats and lunch pails everyone!!!"

Alpha Mail: the collective is the personal

MM finds it hard to grasp why women take offense on behalf of others:

Why the hell do women get offended on BEHALF of other women? I seriously just DO NOT "get it".  If you can possibly explain this nonsense to me, I would very much appreciate it.  But I'm drawing a serious blank on my end.  It is so non-nonsensical.  I want to be enraged, but I know females typically make no sense whatsoever.  So I'm not THAT mad... just confused.

This is precisely what is meant by female solipsism.  Perhaps you've heard the song "I'm Every Woman".  To a certain extent, it genuinely represents the way women think.  It's mostly subconscious, insofar as I can tell, but most men have observed that a comment made about women in general is usually interpreted by a woman who hears it as applying to her.

For example, I once commented about the mistake that had been made in hiring a young woman who was leaving the company because she was getting married and intended to have children as soon as possible.  My comment enraged a middle-aged woman who happened to be an HR director.  The woman was furious at the thought that the single young woman should not have been hired for that job even though it was her own personal policy to not hire single young women for that very reason.  In fact, the only reason I made the comment was to observe that what had happened tended to justify her policy.

The HR director's solipsism led her to react to my comment from the perspective of being the hypothetical young woman being rejected for a job herself, not the middle-aged HR director who would be held responsible by the executives for multiple failed hires.

Basically, you have to understand that any time you make a comment about any woman, you are believed to have made a comment about the specific women in the conversation.  If you wish to avoid provoking solipsistic reactions, it is very easy, all you need to do is make sure that all of your comments which can be related to women in any way are made in precisely the same way you would talk about a child in front of its mother.

Remember that women are seldom any more interested in knowing what men actually think about anything than men are in keeping up on the latest celebrity gossip and Hollywood fashions.  They mostly just want to hear that you think all women are smart, pretty, and wonderful.  So, if your objective is to avoid triggering solipsistic responses, just tell them what they want to hear and keep your thoughts to yourself.

Django Unchained review

Saw this in the theater this weekend, and loved it. This is easily Quentin Tarantino's best movie in at least 10 years. Tarantino's movies have gradually been degenerating into scenes of "cool talk" that was fun back in the Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction days but since then have become tedious and pointless.

Django on the other hand is not only Tarantino's best work since Pulp Fiction, this is also a really damn good and well made movie. And most important it feels like real movie and not just like some "homage" or cool idea stretched into 2 hours of nonsense.
The story is quite simple but feels better thought out and makes a lot more sense than any of his recent movies. The villains are great in this one with Leo DiCaprio's "Calvin Candie" - an insane southern gentleman slave owner fascinated with France but knowing neither the French language or anything about its culture (lol) and Samuel L Jackson as an old slave who runs things at the Candie household. Both give a superb performance.
 
Then we have the two heroes, with Jamie Foxx's "Django" as the slave rescued by Christoph Waltz's "dr. King Schultz" bounty hunter - they have good character chemistry. Schultz talks funny, is polite in a dangerous way and shows Django what a bounty hunter does for a living. The interactions between these two and the reactions from people who see this unusual pairing - not least with the many hilarious scenes when Django is riding a horse which for some reason is the most shocking and amazing thing to a lot of people they meet.

There isn't a single scene with gimmicky "cool" dialogue just for the sake of talking, on the few occasions when characters talk in a clever fashion it is always leading up to something and thus feels like a natural part of the plot. What I feel to be different in this movie compared to the other recent Tarantino movies is that for one; the approach is less "B movie with a big budget" and it takes itself more seriously. The violence has been made a lot more realistic and gritty (even if it still is a bit OOT in some places). But the movie doesn't feel the need to be forcefully cool, it is in fact laugh out loud funny especially during the first 1/4th of the movie with a lot of humor being tied to situations with Waltz's wonderful acting performance as dr King Schultz.

I was actually worried that the movie would collapse under its own weight and not be able to maintain the same high quality to the end. It does grow more serious when the main plot kicks in and keeps a more somber tone from that point and until the end.


The only bad things that come to mind are that it starts to feel a bit long towards the end, I think it missed its own natural ending 15-20 minutes prior to the real ending. It could have been edited down a bit to make a better final product. There was also a scene that felt kinda lame at the very end, most likely because everything else had been so damn good. Still, this movie is really good - Christoph Waltz is fantastic as always, Leo DiCaprio is great and Jamie Foxx gives a solid performance and Samuel L Jackson gives a very different acting performance. I highly recommend it.

8.5/10

A Strange Warm Rain

3 PM View In Seattle

 Today was a day of warm, light drizzle from sunrise to sunset.  Visibility was minimal and air was permeated by an ethereal mist.  Biking home in the drizzle tonight on the dark Burke Gilman trail, I could not remember when I had less visibility.

View from the KIRO Tower Cam...you could barely see the ground!

But although it was drizzling lightly all day, the Camano National Weather Service radar showed nothing for most of the day (see example):

Radar at 3:17 PM

How could that be?

And consider that the origin of the light rain was very different from nearly all of the rain we get here during the winter.

Most rain in the Northwest starts in clouds as ice crystals aloft, often in an environment that also contains supercooled water (water below freezing, but still liquid).   Precipitation develops through the cold-cloud process in which ice crystals collide and grow (aggregation) into snowflakes or ice assemblages, or collect supercooled water that freezes on to the crystal.  As the ice crystals get larger and heavier they fall faster and collect more supercooled droplets and ice crystals.  If the temperatures at low levels are cold we get snow, if warm, the ice crystals melt and we get rain.

Since the precipitation falls from high up and the precipitation particles are fairly large, they show up well on radar.

But today we got some precipitation, the drizzle, from an entirely different process:  the warm cloud process.  In this process, clouds that are entirely above freezing can produce rain.  Shallow warm clouds produce very light rain with small droplets:  drizzle.

Imagine a shallow warm cloud made up of many, many small cloud droplets.  Some droplets are bigger than others and fall a bit faster.  They collect some of the droplets below them and get bigger and thus fall even faster.  Thus, they get bigger and fall faster still, eventually leaving the cloud and falling as drizzle.

Today, the atmosphere was above freezing and saturated at low levels; here are the observations of temperature and dewpoint at Salem, Oregon up to about 7000 ft this morning at 4 AM.  The X axis is temperature (degrees C) and the Y axis is height in pressure.  The rest of the lines you don't want to know about! When temperature (right most line) and dew point (the other line) are the same, the air is saturated (relative humidity of 100%).  You can see that the air was saturated and above freezing up to about 850 hPa (that is a pressure)---about 1500 meters or 5000 ft.

So why did the radar have trouble seeing the drizzle?   Two reasons.  One is that very small droplets don't show up well on radar.  Another is that the radar beam was already quite high when it got to Seattle (about 2000 ft), so it was above the largest drizzle drops, which are found lower in the shallow cloud.

Although warm rain is not rare in the Northwest it produces only a few percent of the precipitation.  So enjoy it...I am sure a dermatologist would tell you it is good for your skin.  And it tends to keep pesky Californians away.

Culture Kills Pans For Gold With The Razzies

A few weeks ago, Semaj posted about this year's Golden Raspberry Awards, and it got me to thinking. I decided that it might be interesting to take a look back through the worst picture nominations at the Razzies from the beginning and see if there were any movies listed in that I liked or at least found tolerable.

I thought maybe 1 or 2 movies might pop out for me, but boy, was I wrong. So come on a journey through the years with me.

Friday the 13th: OK, I am the first one to admit that this wasn't the best movie of 1981, but it wasn't horrible either. Along with Halloween this movie established many of the major tropes of the modern slasher genre, and it helped introduce Kevin Bacon to the world, and really, can that be so bad. This is one of those movies I wouldn't want to own, but I will watch it if it is on TV. I understand this selection though based on the critical reviews of the time, and while I don't agree with it, I can see how it was made. (I looked it up and it is currently 1% from being fresh at Rotten Tomatoes)

Rambo: First Blood Part II: Now this was a selection which I thought was really weird. I really don't understand how this movie was picked amongst the worst of its year, though I am assuming that I do have the blinders of seeing it as a kid affecting my judgment of it, but I don't think I do. I am willing to admit there are movies from my youth that just didn't hold up, but I've seen it recently and I didn't feel that sense of "Wait, what?" that I've felt with other movies from that time period like, I don't know, Red Dawn. I mean, maybe I am approaching this movie from the perspective that it didn't take itself too seriously... that on some level it was a little ludicrous, and that it would never be as bad as Rambo III.

Rocky IV: This one I admit is a bad movie. Like bad, and yet I can't look away. It is just so over the top and silly that somehow it won me over. I don't really subscribe to the theory of so bad it's good, but this is probably as close as I would get to that line. And I have to say, Rocky movies always tend to have these really specific sound effects for the punches that just make every blow sound like it should be the last hit in the fight, and the training montage will likely still be embedded in my brain when I am going senile in many years. Again, not a good movie, but if it is on, yeah, I am watching it. ESPN Classic has my number on that.

Howard the Duck: When I was a kid, I had a crush on Lea Thompson, and I wanted to see this movie because she was in it. I didn't get to see the movie at the theater however, and I ended up buying the novelization at my local Corner Store. I did not read it to the end, so I had some idea of what I was about to watch, and yet, I can't hate it. Maybe it is the casting outside of Thompson, but I can sort of dig it. It isn't great, I have to admit that, but I find it very watchable.I think it is Tim Robbins' geekish turn in the movie that won me over in the end.

Bonfire of the Vanities: I think Morgan Freeman really got to the heart of the nature of this bomb in a documentary, and yet, knowing that it just didn't work still doesn't make it less enjoyable for me. After I knew some of the stuff about the filming and how it just didn't come together right, I took another look at it and while I can see its flaws, I find the movie enjoyable. On some level, watching a few of the actors play against type is also interesting, and come on, it is a movie with Morgan Freeman as a judge, how bad can it really be.

Last Action Hero: Look, I like media that winks at itself and plays with the tropes associated with it, so my liking Last Action Hero was sort of a given. I think it is well written and definitely knows exactly which ridiculous premises to really hammer throughout the proceedings, and the cast is good too, especially Charles Dance's turn as the antagonist.The fact that Ian McKellen shows up as Death from The Seventh Seal is an added bonus. I have absolutely no hesitation telling people I like this movie, no shame... I like it unabashedly.

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn: Yep, it is crappy, 5 razzie bad. No denying it. But somehow, there is something about this movie that just appealed to me when I first saw it. Maybe it is the "hey, it's that guy/girl" thing with all the small parts, or the fact that it is a mockumentary, or the fact that in 1998 someone thought that Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg and Jackie Chan would be the ultimate combination of acting talent to open a fictional blockbuster. I get a bit of the vibe that Pootie Tang was putting down with this movie, but this one just isn't as fun.

Armageddon: It is disaster porn with Bruce Willis, how could I not enjoy it on some level. Granted, I would rather watch The Core any day of the week, but it is a big budget movie with a somewhat laughable plot that still manages to entertain me, and really, isn't that enough. I wonder if this is the only movie nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award that ended up in the Criterion Collection.

The Dukes of Hazzard: Why do I like this movie? The Escape from Atlanta. Really, it is as simple as that. All I was looking for from this was a pair of cousins foiling the schemes of Boss Hog with stunt-filled driving, and the movie delivered on that. And Willie Nelson is the only person I could see playing Uncle Jesse that isn't Denver Pyle. They just showed this movie this weekend followed by Starsky and Hutch and I knew which one was the one that better expressed the general feeling that the TV show they were based on had.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra: It is big and dumb and while it changed some of the fundamental story elements of the original cartoon, I am more than okay with this movie. Van Helsing rubs me the wrong way, but somehow G.I. Joe doesn't because to me it taps into some of the same energy the first The Mummy had. I like it in a junk food kind of way and I won't apologize for it. It is the kind of movie like the new Star Trek that is on two or three times a month across the various channels of a particular cable network and I will always watch it when it is on.

If you asked me which one of these movies I wanted to watch right now, it would probably be G.I. Joe.

Dan Bylsma's goatee - and maybe his job - is in jeopardy

By Artistry

Google "Dan Bylsma fired" and you get some entertaining results. Lots of articles from April 2012, when the Penguins were fresh off that disastrous playoff showing against the Flyers. Some horrifically bad Bleacher Report "piece" from October 2010, which somehow the "correspondent" got 1,000 people to read.  And if you dig deep, you can unearth this little gem from November 2010, wherein a brave and resolute blogger, so much younger then, made his case for everyone to just relax and stop talking about firing Dan Bylsma.  As we said at the time, this is just the way things go in the NHL.  It's the one league where emotion can trump everything when it comes to hiring and firing coaches.  The more it feels like somebody should be canned, the more likely it is he will be canned.

Exhibit A

And here we are again. We told you before the season that Bylsma would be under the microscope this season to a much greater extent than he has been in years past.  With the Penguins coming off an inexplicable loss to the Islanders, people are FREAKING OUT. They want answers, and the easiest answer when nothing makes sense is a simple one: "Blame the coach."

Nothing is as bad as it seems after a loss like that.  This is the same team that smoked the Rangers a few games back.  But as Finesse wrote earlier on Wednesday, it's pretty bad. So is the easy answer the right one? Do we blame the coach? Read on for answers, both simple and complex...

First, if you're Bylsma, the first thing you do is shave the goatee. Could this be any more obvious? This is central to the culture right? Facial hair is crucial. You keep it when you win, you shave it when you lose. Duh.

But it's an apparent refusal to acknowledge the obvious that makes me think now, for the very first time, Bylsma's job is in real danger. To wit:

- He's banging his head against the wall with the power play. Bylsma spent 10 months analyzing the team's deficiencies, and this is what he came up with? Granted, James Neal on the point looked like a great idea for about 7 periods before everyone seemed to figure out how to neutralize it. What was Dan Bylsma's Plan B on Tuesday?  He put Malkin on the point, to no avail.  If there is one thing we know for sure, it's that Geno doesn't want to be on the point and Geno is not at his best on the point. If you as a coach can't figure out how to put your most dangerous power play weapon in the best position to succeed, what are you doing exactly?  The fact is, the Penguins don't have 2 minute power plays. They have 1 minute, 15 second power plays where Geno and Sid try to force the puck either to each other or across the ice through someone's legs.  Then Tyler Kennedy comes over the boards and stickhandles for 45 seconds. Bylsma seems strangely OK with this. I would split up Sid and Geno immediately.

- He's quick to change up line combinations, except when they involve Eric Tangradi. Can anyone explain why it took Bylsma 6 games to give Dustin Jeffrey a shot on the second line? Too much of a history of scoring goals in the NHL? Too savvy? Too unintimidated by playing with good players? Eric Tangradi not ineffective enough? Why am I asking so many rhetorical questions?

- The "system" does not seem to be working. At all. Bylsma's system revolves around mobile defenseman who quickly collect the puck in the defensive zone and get the play moving rapidly north/south in the other direction. The Penguins have 1 goal in the last 6 periods. When a coach's "system" breaks down like this, there are three, and only three, possible explanations: 1) other teams have figured out how to neutralize the system; 2) you don't have the right personnel for the system; or 3) the players are no longer buying into the system.  It doesn't really matter which of these three explanations - or what combination thereof - applies here.  The Penguins look stale, stationary, and scared. The obvious move is to tweak the system.

Maybe the Pens wake up and roll the Rangers and Devils this week. Maybe everything is different by Sunday. But whatever happens, make no mistake, this is the most important week of Dan Bylsma's coaching career.

Ratings: Wheel hits another season high

TVNewsCheck reveals that Wheel of Fortune hit another season high for the week of January 14-20. Otherwise the news was blah for syndicated game shows, though hardly terrible. Family Feud backed off a little from its series high the week before, but the other shows kept on keeping on...

Wheel of Fortune 7.7 - up a tick to the aforementioned season high...and the NBA arrives soon

Jeopardy 6.8 - flat but Alex can live off this number

Family Feud 5.1 - down three ticks but doing fine

Millionaire 2.4 - flat, is Cedric coming?

Baggage 1.2 - flat, is Jerry going?

Only the big three made TV by the Numbers' top 25 syndie list. The viewership averages: Wheel of Fortune 12.2 million (weekend repeat 5.3 million), Jeopardy 10.4 million, Family Feud 7.6 million. Pat and Vanna cracked the twelve million barrier for the first time this season. It is an eye-catching number.

TVNewser says that GSN averaged 345K/270K viewers prime time/total day for the full month (in Nielsen terms) of January. That's certainly a solid performance from our little game show network. In the week of January 21-27 Steve Harvey's Family Feud lorded over GSN's ratings, of course, as Douglas Pucci confirms.

Just a reminder: you can check the latest broadcast and non-GSN cable game show ratings in the sidebar. Right now some recent numbers are available for The Price is Right, Let's Make a Deal, Total Blackout and Killer Karaoke. Long story short: TPiR draws about five million viewers, LMAD about three million, Total Blackout a little more than a million, Killer Karoke a little less than a million.

It's worth...Cedric?

First Regis, now Cedric.

The latest rumor about Meredith's replacement on Millionaire settles on Cedric Kyles, a.k.a. "the Entertainer." Just how entertaining Mr. Kyles can be on a game show is an open issue. I thought he was competent at best on the short-lived It's Worth What. Though I'll admit the show had other problems, most notably a slow pace.

This looks like a possible replay of the Steve Harvey gambit on Family Feud. Of course, there's no guarantee and no confirmation from Millionaire's producers. But they have to be looking at Feud's resurgence in the ratings and wondering if Cedric could do the same for the somewhat worn money-tree epic.

Frankly, Jeff Foxworthy looks like a better Millionaire fit to me. He's hosted two successful quizzers - 5th Grader and American Bible Challenge - and done a very good job on both. But we'll probably hear other names as time goes on. It won't be quite like the Search For The Next Bob Barker, but that's okay. I'm not in the mood for another long national talent hunt.

UPDATE: The New York Post reports that the deal for Cedric is almost done. He'll get about $1.5 million a year, which is low pay by TV host standards. Sure enough, the story quotes one source on the Harvey connection: "They said they were looking for 'a Steve Harvey type' for the job." No kidding.

Belle of the Ball Playtest Feedback from UnPub3!

Yay! I just got the feedback form results from the Belle of the Ball playtests at UnPub3. The data below is split between quantitative responses about the game's length, ease of learning, and so on. The qualitative responses get a sense of context for the player's preferences in gaming and what they liked about this game in particular. At the end are some findings and possible courses of action I could take in response to this data.

Many thanks to Car Trunk Entertainment for scanning 35 handwritten feedback forms from the show!

QUANTITATIVE DATA
Overall the data was positive. Most said the game was easy or very easy to learn, which for some was possibly a negative aspect. Also many found the game length to be appropriate, though several comments in the qualitative section wished it was a little longer in a four-player game. A surprisingly small minority didn't care for the theme. I say "surprising" because I expected a core gamer audience to be a little put off by the frou-frou premise. Perhaps my presence at the table made players feel more generous? I've already talked about the effect of designer presence can have at a playtest.

Learning the game was
Very Easy   ***************
Easy        ***************
Appropriate ******

Length was
Short       ****
Appropriate ********************************

Luck was
A lot       ***
Appropriate ************************
a little    *********

Interactivity was
Complete    **
Frequent    *********
Consistent  **************
Occasional  ***********

Game was
Hilarious   ****
Humorous    ***********
Fun         *************************** ("Whimsical")
OK/Boring   **

Was the game predictable?
Yes         ***
Maybe       *****
No          *****************************

Was the game balanced?
Don't know  ****
Maybe       *
Yes         ******************************** ("Yes, very")

Did you enjoy the theme?
Maybe       *
No          ****
Yes         ******************************* ("Hell yes!")

Would you play again?
No          *
Maybe       **
Yes         ******************************* ("Absolutely!")

Did the game feel original?
Yes         ******************************
Maybe       ********

Would you buy this game?
Yes         ********************* ("Def!")
Maybe       *******
Don't know  *
No          ******

QUALITATIVE DATA

Ah! Now this is the good stuff. I've compiled all the responses into a single dataset, so you're going to see a mix of negative and positive responses all mixed up together. Most of the positive responses liked how easy the game was to learn and the short play time (usually hovering around 20 minutes for 4-players). The hardest responses to pin down were the favorite and least favorite types of games. I expected players who liked Belle to prefer set collection games with light themes and easy gameplay, but there was a really wide variance in these two responses.

Did you like this game? Why/Why Not?

• Easy to learn, quick game
• Fun, moves quickly
• Great theme. Light and quick.
• I enjoyed this game. I always am up for some quick moving, lighter games to play between my deeper game experiences.
• I felt like it was alright. I didn't feel like there were enough strategic decisions. Also, I'm not sure of the balance of Belle cards.
• I liked it. Simple and strategic with a lot of choices. It's also very short.
• I liked the fast pace. I think once I got more practice, you could have a lot of fun with character names.
• I really liked the theme as well as grouping for the scoring component.
• It was okay.
• It would appeal to people who like lighter, more random games.
• Proper luck/skill balance for length of game with not-so-serious theme
• Sure maybe still good with more than four players?
• The presentation (cards) were great, the mechanics are few and it is well-paced.
• The theming and art are consistent and add to the enjoyment of the game. Cards are fun to read. Game has a good mix of luck and strategy.
• Very easy to understand and play.
• Yes, creative, easy to play, appeals to a wide amount of people
• Yes, easy, fun and casual
• Yes, interesting mechanics
• Yes, it felt unique even though it used familiar mechanics
• Yes, it made you think, but not to the point that it was tedious.
• Yes, it was fun and kind of like a puzzle, and personally I like puzzle games
• Yes, it was quick enough to keep interest and always kept you guessing.
• Yes, it was something that made me think
• Yes, moved quickly, good theme
• Yes, quick and easy to learn.
• Yes, silly names, fast-paced.
• Yes, there is good interplay and chances to interact with others
• Yes, to a degree. Set collection is my least favorite type of game, but I enjoyed it.
• Yes. Easy rules. Interesting concept. Fun theme. Short duration.
• Yes. Original theme. Fun play.
• Yes. Should announce the guest as they arrive.
• Yes. Simple mechanic plus creative flavor (names and art) is a very fun combination.
• Yes/No. Loss of bribes sets game into crash course. Need mechanism to pull bribes.
• Yes, theme fit the game well, solid art, balanced play

Favorite part?

• Interesting Belle cards
• Theme
• Scoring/theme
• Belle cards.
• The cards, both appearance and their mechanics are fun. Some of the card actions were brilliant!
• Drafting.
• Light. Good player interaction.
• Matching interests
• The Belle powers were very well thought out and varied
• Names and symbols
• Makes you think with an element of luck
• Being able to affect other player's scores
• Light amount of strategy required
• Card based, so no board or crazy setups
• Interaction with other players
• The theme drew me in but the gameplay is solid and highly repayable. I enjoyed trying to find a good winning strategy when I played a second time.
• The theme
• The bribe and belle cards.
• Collection line of the cards in the middle
• It played quickly and was easy to learn.
• The ease of gameplay. The ability to see it and pick up and go.
• Design and creative cards
• Winning!
• Every part was fun
• The ability to score fast.
• Matching cards
• The Belle cards are fun to play with
• Cards were elegantly designed. Play was easy. Great for kids.
• It moves quickly. Decisions are meaningful, but not complex enough to bog down.
• It was all good, really.
• Winning, silliness
• Speed

Least favorite part?

• If you ran out of bribes, your choices were limited.
• Could over analyze, but we played quickly.
• Having to slide the row of available cards after each draw.
• Bribes/Not enough defense cards
• Sometimes choices felt pretty automatic.
• I felt like the decision of what to select was a bit proscribed.
• Theme. It's fine, but it doesn't seem organic.
• Really need to learn the Belle ability to master
• Not much interactivity, but we had a very bad shuffle. Five out of the last six cards were Belles
• Cards with words (Belles)
• Would have liked the guest deck to be bigger
• Wish it was longer
• Needs a better way to keep track of score.
• Potential for conflicts with Belle cards (could be fixed with a first or last played Belle card rule)
• Some wording tweaks need to be made to clarify how the Belle cards are used.
• I had no least favorite part.
• Bribes
• Set collection
• N/A, I very much enjoyed the whole game.
• Losing…
• Nothing, I liked it.
• I felt bad for the other guy
• The end-scoring system requires strategy to change when within a certain number of turns from the end. This is something the newbie must realize or be at a disadvantage.
• Can't think of anything. My main suggestion would be to have the game last 10minutes longer. Perhaps have a specific quantity of cards per people playing. This might have had enough cards for 2 players.
• Can't think of anything, but placing line of cards on a spinner so they face players may be handy.

Favorite type of game?

• Worker placement
• Tichu, card games.
• Euro
• Fun ones (not particular)
• TTRPG
• Aw man, I don't know.
• Family
• Medium weight euros
• Adventurous endeavors
• Strategy
• Party games
• Casual strategy / Resource mgmt
• Abstract strategy
• Abstract
• Thematic games
• Video games
• All
• Board games/puzzle games
• Cards, visual perception games.
• Co-op
• Strategy
• Board games
• Games that involve trading/auctioning
• Games that have a lot of social interaction, humor.
• Word, card, strategy
• RPG-themed
• Strategy, RPG

Least favorite type of game?

• Fluxx
• Agricola
• CCG
• Politics
• MMORPG
• Bluffing, diplomacy
• RPG
• Auction
• Abstract war games like chess. Games that overstay their welcome.
• Chance games
• Crazy strategy where your brain hurts!
• CCG
• PVP
• Set collection
• Puzzles
• Video games
• Boring games
• War, strategy, make-believe components (power, magic, etc)
• Luck fests
• MMO
• Games where enemies are auto controlled
• Word games
• Worker placement
• Fluffy, non-strategic party games
• War

Additional notes:

• Let me know when it comes out!
• Please email me when I can buy this!

FINDINGS
You know I'm excited about those last two notes! But still, there are some good actionable data to take into consideration from the negative responses. Here are a few takeaways:

• A more convenient way of moving the line. One suggestion from the show was to deal six cards in a line, then six more parallel to that. Only one line is "active" at a time. When the active line runs out, the neighboring line becomes active and you deal six more cards to replace the former active line. In this manner, you're not moving cards down every turn, but it may get confusing which line is active at any particular turn. Maybe a "front door" card to indicate this?
• Players hoarding bribes can really flatten everyone's choices. There ought to be some risk to hoarding bribes, like Belle cards that explicitly target the player with the most bribes. Belle cards in particular seem to be a popular element, but they do take a little bit of learning to understand how they can be used to their fullest effect. This may be something I include in the rulebook under a "tips" section.
• Some outside feedback has said the game is too simple, but dang near all the positive responses have shown that this simplicity a good thing. If I add any more elements to the game, I'm going to keep them through a few channels: New Belle cards, maybe some unique Guest cards, but that's it for now. Adding "event cards" whose effects are immediate and continuous as long as they are in the line could also easily be added, but it creates just one extra level of complexity that I hesitate to add to a light filler game. This is where expansions would probably be best.

Once again, many thanks to Car Trunk Entertainment for hosting the UnPub program and doing us game designers such an excellent service. 

Stale, disinterested and mediocre: Your 2013 Pittsburgh Penguins?

By Finesse 

We're hesitant to call last night's 4-1 loss to the Islanders a train-wreck because it takes energy to start a train.  But what the Pens proved last night is that you can be part of a horrific train-wreck while exerting no energy at all.  Let's start counting the bodies.

- Crosby and Malkin

The first six games have revealed the Pens as arguably the most top-heavy team in the league.  We hope that resolves itself with the bottom getting heavier, but if that's not going to happen, then Crosby and Malkin have to be heavier.

These guys deserve more slack on their leash than anyone.  Currently, they are still our only hope of generating offense.  But they may want to entertain the idea of not trying to pass through 11 pairs of skates every shift.  It's not working.

- Marc-Andre Fleury  

He needs to be benched.  The Pens are a team in need of an infusion of some sort of energy, whether that infusion be positive (like a new or young player scoring a goal, haha) or negative (benching an important player).  The NBC Sports crew last night said Bylsma had planned on splitting Fleury and Vokoun 60-40 this season.  Bylsma (more on him later tonight) should flip it and announce that, at least temporarily, he's going with Vokoun as the presumed 60% guy.  If it's hard for Flower to handle being sent to the bench, perhaps the team can make it a more familiar procedure for him by having him start in the net and then skate over to the bench.

He has two good games this year and two awful ones, which is reflective of our confidence in him right now: it feels like the other team is going to score on half of their shots. He can still win games for the Penguins, but when he plays shitty, it's so bad that the Pens are non-competitive.

More after the jump...

- Consol Energy Center

This seems like a minor problem, but it's really not.  You have to have a home-ice advantage to be successful.  The only home ice advantage the Pens have now is that opposing teams can't feed off of quieting the crowd because they're already silent.  Great fan base, terrible crowd. (On the positive side, the booing last night was totally justified and may have even been too timid in light of what the team put those poor people through last night).

The extreme volume of the goal horn when the Pens cut it to 4-1 late in the 3rd period last night was reminiscent of when Ovechkin scored to cut the Pens lead to 5-1 in Game 7 of the 2009 playoffs and the Verizon Center speakers exploded like the space shuttle was taking off.  It's horrifyingly embarrassing and makes us feel ashamed.  Whatever in-game entertainment company has convinced teams that fans across the country want to hear a goal horn like that when the team is vomiting all over itself should face a class-action lawsuit.  Instead of focus group studies about how to entertain a crowd, how about turning over control of the scoreboard and sound system to a person with knowledge of hockey, who can read the game and the crowd and adjust accordingly?  It's entirely possible that the Consol crowd would be a good crowd if they weren't forced to listen to Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha after every icing call.  

Dear Jumbotron Operators, you're ruining our lives.

- Matt Cooke, LW, Healthy scratch candidate

If the season ended today, we're not even sure Matt Cooke would get a participation trophy.  Can he please get in someone's face at some point and return to being disruptive to play against?  There is some virtue in his reformation from a gritty-but-felonious grinder to tactful-and-dainty 19-goal scorer, but not much.  After all of his travails the Pens needed him to dial back the nastiness from 100mph to 90mph.  Instead, he turned the car around and drove home.  Does this team have a single player who other teams hate to play against?  Matt Cooke acting like a dick on the ice is good for the Penguins.  Matt Cooke getting consideration for the Masterton Trophy is good for Matt Cooke's chances of not getting kicked out of the league.  There's a balance.  He hasn't found it.

- Brandon Sutter

Who?

Artistry will have some thoughts on Dan Bylsma later tonight.  We're also planning a post showing Ray Shero's worst moves as Pens GM (it's only fair, given how much he's adored by us and many others).  We're taking suggestions.

Empire of the Dead: Artifact hunt 27/1 AAR

Thomas became so interested in Empire of the Dead that we ended up dedicating another weekend at the club to playing this game.

This time around we tried something different, instead of using the 150 shilling starting point we bumped our initial gangs to 200 shillings and allowed ourselves to roll for attribute and skills prior to the first game to have the characters be a little less ordinary.

Thomas wanted to run a "Deep one cult" based upon the "Lyacon" faction but since I had not brought along any miniatures for that he had to run a more regular looking Lyacon faction. My lack of proper werewolf miniatures had Thomas use my two feral looking "vampire spawns" from Reaper as his Beastlord and Packmaster. I also didn't have any wolves, so he had to use stand in miniatures from my collection of regular dogs. The Wolfskins were based upon the "brotherhood" miniatures and worked well since they had the right low tech weapons and look.

I ran the Gentlemen's Club, President (with flower coat) armed with a light pistol and brass knuckles, a Secretary with Steam powered exo skeleton+heavy armor+ man portable gatling gun, and three regular Membership characters (ligh pistol, heavy pistol, hunting rifle and knives.



On the pre-game attribute and skill rolls the following characters leveled up with:

Beastlord: Fighting beast
Packmaster: Zealot

President: Hip shot, It's all in the reflexes
Secratary: Apothecary, Marksmanship +1

The scenario was Artefact hunt, both gangs started on the opposite table corners from each other and we had 4 objectives on the table that had to be checked for their true value.

As it turned out the very first box my Gentlemen found and checked was indeed the artifact they had been tasked with retrieving - it looked as if the game would be over in no time. I still had to drag it off my table edge. The knowledge of imminent defeat had the Lyacons rush across the table at breakneck speed.

In order to slow down the feral enemy the Gentlemen invoked an Angry mob and sent it off in the direction of two wolfskin's who were notching their crossbows in panicked hurry. Crazed dogs appeared and attacked one of the gentlemen Membership's, while the Secretary started blasting everything that moved with his Gatling gun - fortunately  for him not a single full auto burst made the gun jam!

Shots flew wide, pistol, rifle and crossbow missiles were exchanged. Dogs started ripping apart one of the membership while another membership shot dead a charging canine. The Beastlord and Packmaster both ran with the intent of flanking the membership who was hauling the valuable box - but both were caught in the open and received a hail of gatling gun shots. The Beastlord was hit with 3 bullets and cut down, while not dead yet he was crawling around in his own blood. The Packmaster however ran off into safety.

The angry mom made contact with the two wolfskins firing their crossbows and brought down one of them in angry fury but not before themselves suffering a casualty. The remaining wolfskin was fending off the angry villagers for another two turns before the mob was scattered by a failed morale roll!

Dogs had chewed up two membership from the Gentlemen's club and the Packmaster(or Packmistress) had slain the remaining one - leaving the President and Secretary alone. At the same time the Lyacons had taken enough casualties  to drop below 50% of their starting numbers. Both factions would have to take bravado tests for all their characters at the start of each new turn!

It started badly for the Lyacons, the beastlord bled to death all that remained left was the Packmaster and one wolfskin. The Gentlemen's club president also ran away. This didn't stop the Secretary from walking over to the Packmaster, blast her with a burst from the Gatling gun and killing her. At this point both factions had 1 member left on the table, of course the Secratary failed his bravado test despite being within reach of the valuable box - and ran off. The Lyacons won the game and we decided it would be fair to count that as if they had taken the box as well.

The box contained night vision goggles. Perhaps not the most useful item for the Lyacon faction.

Post game injury results:

Membership with Light pistol suffered an arm injury (-1Str and can only use 1-handed weapons)
Membership with heavy pistol suffered a chest injury

Wolfskin lost an eye

All other casualties managed to survive without lasting effects.

Post game attribute and skill advancement:


Beast Lord: Heroic leap
Packmaster: Regeneration, Hammer Blow

President: Sharpshooter
Secretary: Combat +1, Marksman

The nice thing with this game is that you can decide yourself whether or not to make "advancement rolls" for your characters. There are no experience points but rather you pay 10 shilling for each advancement roll, and you are free to choose from Attributes (Stats), Generic and Faction skills tables. So you have relatively good control over how your faction is developing over the course of a campaign.