The Grinder

Assorted bits of internet, selected from a stratified sample, sorted in ascending sequence, collated, assembled in logical order, then just sort of thrown in a pot and given a good hard shake. Completely by accident, I seem to have a fine selection of game design articles for this edition. How did that happen?

--- The Grinder - August 2011 ---

PAXsims - The latest Game Design blog I am following. Some good stuff here I need to check out.








IO9: Robot Art Wallpapers

A Fafnir crashes the party

Wargamer's Notebook: The Moment  -- "I wish this was something I experienced more often. The point during a wargame after several plays or turns when things magically click. The moment when the scaffolding of the the rules and latticework of the bits fall away and the narrative zooms into the foreground and you - as the player - are completely absorbed by the game. Events occur that could not have been imagined, but that are totally plausible. Victory hangs in the balance. And you are not moving counters or playing cards, but making choices that give you hope of victory."

Space Disaster!

original

Genius Sir!

original

More irreverent humor to be found at Perry Bible Fellowship.

Desert Scibes brings us a bit bit of gaming history at Supergalactic Dreadnaught:

The Making of Starfleet Wars

NOTE: Scott R. Spicer (credited as "S.R. Spicer, Lt., TFSF"), along with his father, Ron Spicer (R.E. Spicer, Lt. Commander, TFSF), developed the Starfleet Warsminiatures line for Superior Models. As you probably know if you've read this blog before, the SfW universe contains five starfaring factions, each with a distinctive design style. Curious about the origin of this game and its minis, I emailed Scott Spicer about his work on these spaceship models. He was gracious enough to reply to my inquiry, and his response follows in its entirety ...

Make your own custom dice (with a bit of work).

From SMBC: (If only it were this easy!) 

Gamasutra: Game Design Essentials: 20 Real-World Games

Chess, Go, and Life. Which one is the Best. Game. Ever. A nice bit of gamey mathiness from Patterns in the Void.

Finally, this is just cool.

The Grinder - July 4th Edition

A collection of red-glaring rockets and bombs bursting in air, without the rockets and bombs.

The Grinder for 7/4/2011:

 Paint-It-Pink : Ashley has some Battletech math going on --> How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Medium Laser. A good discussion of how to evaluate the relative strength of weapons in Battletech, or any game.

"Can I haz tactix?" 

Found on Operation Odyssey Dawn: If the animation doesn't work, go see it here.

Linkback! --> 程阳：Probability versus Odds


MathOverflow: Which popular games are the most mathematical?

Proof: The 120 cell is a 4 dimensional figure that can be considered the 4 dimensional analog of the dodecahedron. It has 720 five sided faces, 1200 edges, and 600 vertices. This animation shows 3 dimensional cross sections of the 120 cell in a way that is similar to taking 2 dimensional cross sections of a 3 dimensional figure. Translation --> Very Cool animation!

The Number Warior: Q*Bert Teaches the Binomial Theorem (an award winner too). Sort of a long (2-part) video.

Proof-of-False: Do games offer a solution for US Tax Reform?

From doctormatt: A Collection of Dice Problems with solutions and useful appendices

The Math Less Traveled: The Wonderful World of Mike Reilly.

Mike Reilly is a Toy/Puzzle designer and screenwriter, see what he has done at Reilly4Puzzles.

Reinwood's CBT Workbench gives us an AAR for Fourth Succession War: Skondia The Final Battle Kublacon. AND it's got no math in it. Honest!

A small update to my Graph Paper Race post (added link to a relevant article). This continues to be one of my more popular posts.


I didn't plan this, but somehow this has ended up being the most math-heavy edition of The Grinder to date. Oh well, it's all sausage now.

The Grinder

[A dazzling display of delightful de ... um ... I need a D-word ... deviations ... detritus ... de-links?

The Grinder -  6/4/2011 edition

And speaking of dazzle, could Dazzle-camouflage make a comeback? This recent research supports says Dazzle Camouflage Affects Speed Perception. [Hat-Tip IO9]

Image: WWIaviation.blogspot.com

This just in! Check out some dazzling WWI aviation paint schemes.

Terrain table pictures ... Shiny!








This could be interesting ...

Invasion3042 is a massive multiplayer online game that is based off the game Battletech. It is a free game and is not for profit.

Has anybody tried it?

Discoblog brings us Tiny Toss-able Robots.

World Peace Games, with teacher John Hunter. Video from TED. It's a bit slow to get started, but gets interesting about 8 minutes in. Never cross a 9-year-old girl with tanks!

[Hat-Tip Greg Laden]


[The Endeavour] There are exactly five platonic solids*, and you can prove it!
* Perhaps more familiar to my readers as dice - the d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20.

Another video, this one with singing and dancing! Roll A D6.

[Hat-Tip: Operation Odyssey Dawn]


[IO9] MTG as an RPG?
The was an MTG computer game, long ago, with very nearly this premise. With a bit of creativity it could be good for multiplayer too. Before that was a great game called Master of Magic. Also, there could be a new Star-Trek animated series!

Play JAM! Can you beat the computer? Can you beat it every time?? Can you figure out the secret??? (without peaking!) Here is a hint - You have almost certainly played this game before, and many times. [Hat-Tip Terrace Tao]

Non-Transitive Dice

Starcraft Humor from Abstruse Goose. I didn't get it until I saw the caption.

Green Cube: The Physics Boardgame

Enough bedazzlement for two sittings, but that's happens when I don;t post for a whole month. Writers-block sucks. Want to preview the next Grinder, before I post it? Check out my Google Reader Shared Links page for GRB.

The Grinder

\                                                                                                                                                             This edition of The Grinder is brought to you with the assistance of Darwin the cockatiel, who inserted the backslash at the beginning of this post, and bit at my fingers as I type this. I haven't been posting much lately, but I have been writing, and hopefully some of that will find its way back here soon.
Now on with the Grind.

Some fun with Game Theory on the British show QI (short for "Quite Interesting").

[Via Terrence Tao's Buzz]


Airships for the 21st Century
Which has nothing to do with games or math; I just think it's cool.
[Hat Tip David Brin on Twitter]

Some cool new art for Magic-The-Gathering at IO9. 

Mo Rocca visits Gen-Con and plays boardgames: Video at CBS News.


Is it just me, or does everybody have friends that ask them questions about counting problems and combinatorics? (I'm looking at YOU, RR!)
Somehow, I think it's just me.

Ian Schreiber writes about education and games at Teaching Game Design: My Problem With Gamification.

 The Last Cause is a movie in pre-pre-production, but it has mechs and clones, so Battletech players are likely to take notice.
Edit (2016): This early Kickstater success is now considered on of it's biggest early failures. Oh well.



Game Designer, Graphic Designer, Wargamer Extrodinaire, and a bit of gaming history I should probably already know, but somehow didn't: Redmond Simonsen. Go read about him. [Hat Tip 2 Grog News]

The Grinder - Valentine's Day Edition

Links for the one you love, ground up and arranged in a nice bouquet.

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

From Norton Juster, and the Immortal Chuck Jones



[IO9] - Mathematicians figure out how to fend off gold-diggers – with game theory  ---  This should be probably be re-titled: Two male Mathematician's figure out yet another way not to get girls.

Spiked Math

Spiked Math has an experimental simplified viewing page, and a new Spiked Math app for the iPhone/iPad.


[The Fallacy Files] - The Puzzle of the Absent-Minded Professors

Because no one can ever have enough logic puzzles.

That's a Terrible Idea: Actually has some pretty good idea's, and I have added them to my blogroll under Game Design Blogs (somewhere down there, but hey, a link is a link). Here are two good samples:

1. Games from the Ground Up
2. The Role of Chance

Dancing Robots! The party really gets going about 3 minutes in.
[Found on Engadget, via Pharyngula]

Proof

More goodness from Proof: Snowhedron

[Dark Roasted Blend] If you like the artwork for Catalyst Games Labs new game Leviathans, check out The Great Eastern, a leviathan steamship on the Victorian era.

[Discoblog] Can video games make smarter spies? Oh come on guys, get Sirius!


That's all for this edition. Be sure to set aside the games you love for a little time with the one you love. Or better yet, get them to play a game with you!

The Grinder

Fresh ground links*, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats, soy lectithin, sugar, soybean oil, garlic powder, yeast extract, citric acid and cocoa powder.

* If the total link content is less than 40%, can I still call them links?

First a bit of administrivia: Though I have previously refused any sort of ads or commercial links, I recently received and accepted a polite offer to link to an online Games Software Development degree program from Westwood college (that's it over in the sidebar). This makes my ORIGINS trip this year a bit more affordable, especially when tuition costs are up.

Now back to our the grind ...

Spiked Math brings us a Magic the Gathering card for the Banach-Tarski paradox.

[IO9] Giant Teen Robot Angst ... no ... Teen Robot Giant Angst? ... still no ... Giant Robot Teen Angst. That's it! (Evangelon)

[more IO9] Chevy Chase to play D&D. Hilarity ensues.

A Gentleman's Duel (Bugs Bunny homage at 5:00)

[Found on SFSFW (Society of Fantasy and Science Fiction Wargamers)]

[22 Words, via John Cook's shared items] Racist Robot Joke

Found on Web 2.0 RC1

Speaking of sharing, any Reader or Buzz users out there?


[Pat's Blog] Q: Which type of polyhedral die most closely resembles sphere? Think about it carefully, then go see it you were right.

[Cinerati] This looks like fun: Adventure Gamebooks as RPGs Part 1 -- Fighting Fantasy's Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Image: Geeks are Sexy

[Geeks Are Sexy] Sexy D&D Pics.

Hint: It's not the D20.

[IO9] 55 Science Fiction/Fantasy Movies to Watch Out for in 2011, but I probably won't see most of them.

[Schlock Mercenary] Howard does a Happy Dance! Don't read Schlock? Try this.

Image: Ottawa Gamer

The Ottawa Gamer launchers his Avalon Cruiser.


All ground up. Keep rolling those dice!

The Grinder

Carefully selected links, ground into a Truely Gritty substance (watching The Duke right now).

from Doghouse Diaries

Battlestar Galactica versus Lanchester's Squared Law ... from the The Dog House Diaries webcomic.

Blogs of War - a list of Wargaming blogs with 951 993 entries so far. You might find something you like. You might have a hard time not finding something you like.

From Pulsipher Boardgame Design, some comments on the value of playtesting: "Most players are not like us"

IO9: You might think something like this could only exist in a game ...

The manufacturer will not stand behind it.

From Vi Hart: Sick Number Games


Generating random numbers is a deep subject. Check out this free book to see how deep.

Game in the Brain: Nikolas comments on the Purpose of Realism in Games.

XKCD: Explorers

I put in my two-bits on Dice and Information (1,2,3), here's a great article about the information in a coin toss, from Tom Moertel's Blog:

More on the evidence of a single coin toss

That's all for this session. (I'm almost out of movie too, just the final shootout left.)

The Grinder - Christmas Edition

A selection of items ground into mincemeat, just in time for the holidays!

Like spaceship art? Check out Concept Ships.




And as that isn't cool enough, there is also Concept Robots. I think I already ground this up a while back, but it's worth a second pass.


A while back I wrote about a Wired article How the Allies used math against German Tanks. John Cook has a follow on post about how America tried to do the same thing with Soviet bombers in 1958, but the Soviets were wise to the trick:  Military Intelligence from Serial Numbers. [From The Endeavorer]

Mathematics in Movies - with short video clips for most.





[from IO9] A problem that every parent faces - you know what I mean - sooner or later you have to have talk to them about that difficult subject ... you know the one ...

... Star Wars

[From Web 2.0 RC1] Sparkley Dice!


A calculus joke from Proof: Calculus and Transformers

Also from Proof:

Q: what do you get when you cross a mosquito and a mountain climber?

A: nothing. you can’t cross a vector and a scalar.

{Drum-riff-cymbal-crash}

Merry Christmas!

The Grinder

Why did I ever think it was a good idea to put the date in the title of these things?

The Daily Weekly Occasional Whenever I Get Around To It Grinder

Just in time for Halloween: The Battlemech costume!

Found in this Gizmodo article

The LOL in MADCAT

MadCat

It's hard enough to face one of these when playing Battletech, but now my allergies can also suffer!

DeviantART MURO a very cool little drawing application (Java?)
Hat-tip --> John Schutte

I started a Tumblr, but I'm not sure quite what I'll do with it. I don't seem to have any time for more bloggish stuff, but I could divert the cartoons I post on Google Buzz here.

Top 10: Los mejores robots gigantes
This appears to be a childs' playset.
These kids have a very cool Dad.

That is all. Keep those dice rolling.

Actually, no. That's not all. I've got a bunch of good stuff half written and no time to fix/finish to publish here. It's very frustrating.