So, I was reading this and I got to the first bubble in the second pane. I read it again and I laughed out loud. This is probably something that Evan would say.
"I don't need the commentary track. Just ring it up."
that is precisely something that Evan would say, probably to some guy at the bar trying to talk his ear off when the next round of trivia is queing up. Sadly, that person probably wouldn't get it.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
from Girard's Desk
So I'm packing for the trip to Arizona and I'm cleaning out one of the boxes that I took home and I came across these three little trinkets that were on my desk. Each has a story associated with it that have great memories for me.
Robin - This is a Robin Heroclix figure. I don't know which one it is, but that doesn't matter. I certain designer loves Batman and had many Batman heroclix on his desk. The more I worked with him and the more I learned from him, I started to think of myself as the Robin to his Batman, especially in my early trek design.
Army Man - This guy always showed up when you least expected it. I would be leaning back in my chair, thinking about game mechanics and different gaming theory and I would notice something on the shelf of my desk that wasn't quite right. It was this guy!!! He was spying on me. Well, I relocated him to one of my fellow colleagues' desks. And the circle continued...
Sprinkes - This is an interesting one, first some background. On the third floor of Decipher, in the same area as the main conference room and the designers desks, there was a projector room. We would go in there, plug a laptop into it and stare at files upon files of cards. We would formulate theories and hypothesis, game design and game theory. Many of the sessions were very long, especially due to the amount of knowledge and experience in the room. The more people, the longer it would take. So, back to the sprinkles. During one of the many design meetings, me, Hollywood and Rkik were in the "tank". It was a long night and it might have been during one of the flyin playtests. We were getting weary and someone called someone else Jimmy Sprinkles. I believe it was a discussion of whether removal of an opponent's unit during a battle before destiny was drawn was either a tier 8 or tier 10 ability. This was based on limited repeatability so it would have to be 150% of the normal value assigned.
Yea...sometimes it was like that. Those were good memories.
Robin - This is a Robin Heroclix figure. I don't know which one it is, but that doesn't matter. I certain designer loves Batman and had many Batman heroclix on his desk. The more I worked with him and the more I learned from him, I started to think of myself as the Robin to his Batman, especially in my early trek design.
Army Man - This guy always showed up when you least expected it. I would be leaning back in my chair, thinking about game mechanics and different gaming theory and I would notice something on the shelf of my desk that wasn't quite right. It was this guy!!! He was spying on me. Well, I relocated him to one of my fellow colleagues' desks. And the circle continued...
Sprinkes - This is an interesting one, first some background. On the third floor of Decipher, in the same area as the main conference room and the designers desks, there was a projector room. We would go in there, plug a laptop into it and stare at files upon files of cards. We would formulate theories and hypothesis, game design and game theory. Many of the sessions were very long, especially due to the amount of knowledge and experience in the room. The more people, the longer it would take. So, back to the sprinkles. During one of the many design meetings, me, Hollywood and Rkik were in the "tank". It was a long night and it might have been during one of the flyin playtests. We were getting weary and someone called someone else Jimmy Sprinkles. I believe it was a discussion of whether removal of an opponent's unit during a battle before destiny was drawn was either a tier 8 or tier 10 ability. This was based on limited repeatability so it would have to be 150% of the normal value assigned.
Yea...sometimes it was like that. Those were good memories.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
How Rare?
So I have been swamped these past two weeks trying to get Hunters out to approvals, Captains Log juicy, and Project G on course.
I find myself doing rarity for the Hunters set. Here is the breakdown.
194 cards
- 14 Starter cards
- 60 Rares
- 60 Uncommons
- 60 Commons
The starter cards will appear only in the two starter decks that are coming with the set. There are 5 unique cards in each and each deck share two cards between them. So now that this is all out of the way, where to put the cards? To some of my game designing colleagues out there, what do you think about when assigning rarity?
One of my former colleagues here at D used to have rarity set out when design began on a set for this product. I don't agree with this because you find yourself actually saying things like "well since this is a rare, it can break the scale." That is one thing that I don't believe in.
However, even with that belief in place, I was conversing with a former British player (not that we should hold it against him) and he says that Rings has had a bad time with most of the playable cards being rare and thus viewed as an "expensive game". We conversed about how Vs. does a good job about putting a fair number of the playable cards at the common/uncommon level to help facilitate a healthy sealed product environment. I know that I/we go through great lengths to ensure that there are enough playable non-unique nouns at the common/uncommon level to do the same thing. I think that rings sealed product suffers from setup of the game and some of those restrictions (not draftable out of the pack).
In other rarity talks, it's tough to label a card as specifically rare/uncommon/common. You don't want a kid to crack a pack be like "well that's a crap rare"(not that we make crap rares mind you) but on the flip side, you also don't want a game to be completely rare dependant and those with the most money/cards wins. I made a couple decisions to kick some functional reprints and potentially confusing cards down from rare to uncommon and hopefully those will help create some complex decks and not rare heavy decks like ... ugh ... Dunland.
What do you think about when deciding rarity? Are the foils enough of a chase to warrant putting the stronger cards at a less than rare status? These are some of the issues that I deal with on a regular basis that don't necessarily make my job easier.
I find myself doing rarity for the Hunters set. Here is the breakdown.
194 cards
- 14 Starter cards
- 60 Rares
- 60 Uncommons
- 60 Commons
The starter cards will appear only in the two starter decks that are coming with the set. There are 5 unique cards in each and each deck share two cards between them. So now that this is all out of the way, where to put the cards? To some of my game designing colleagues out there, what do you think about when assigning rarity?
One of my former colleagues here at D used to have rarity set out when design began on a set for this product. I don't agree with this because you find yourself actually saying things like "well since this is a rare, it can break the scale." That is one thing that I don't believe in.
However, even with that belief in place, I was conversing with a former British player (not that we should hold it against him) and he says that Rings has had a bad time with most of the playable cards being rare and thus viewed as an "expensive game". We conversed about how Vs. does a good job about putting a fair number of the playable cards at the common/uncommon level to help facilitate a healthy sealed product environment. I know that I/we go through great lengths to ensure that there are enough playable non-unique nouns at the common/uncommon level to do the same thing. I think that rings sealed product suffers from setup of the game and some of those restrictions (not draftable out of the pack).
In other rarity talks, it's tough to label a card as specifically rare/uncommon/common. You don't want a kid to crack a pack be like "well that's a crap rare"(not that we make crap rares mind you) but on the flip side, you also don't want a game to be completely rare dependant and those with the most money/cards wins. I made a couple decisions to kick some functional reprints and potentially confusing cards down from rare to uncommon and hopefully those will help create some complex decks and not rare heavy decks like ... ugh ... Dunland.
What do you think about when deciding rarity? Are the foils enough of a chase to warrant putting the stronger cards at a less than rare status? These are some of the issues that I deal with on a regular basis that don't necessarily make my job easier.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Threshold - Pretty Freaking Cool
So this show came on and I wanted to check it out. The wife and I watched it (mostly me) and I thought it was pretty damn good. I think this will become my second weekly show (after Survivor). Spoilers to follow.
- As I watched them assemble the team, I could only think to myself..hey, this is the A-Team meets Ghostbusters.
- I think they did a damn good job on casting. They had some character development and that guy they chose to be possessed plays a good crazy guy.
- It's good to see Brett Spiner in a show. I think he's pretty talented.
- I liked the sequences and some of the ultra zoom landscape shots. I've always liked those types of camera angles.
- I noticed that during her dream, she is wearing the nighty that if you pay attention, she wears not 5 minutes later when the crazy guy is chasing her. After he disappears, she is dirty just like in her dream.
- I really hope they don't do little mini episodes where they try and progress each character per episode (like Lost). I didn't care for this kind of story telling and that's probably why I stopped watching Lost.
And just in case Evan needs it for his Trivia ---- The numbers that appeared in Lost, just happened to be the same as some of the ones retired by the New York Yankees (They are all retired, but there are more than just those numbers retired by NY).
- As I watched them assemble the team, I could only think to myself..hey, this is the A-Team meets Ghostbusters.
- I think they did a damn good job on casting. They had some character development and that guy they chose to be possessed plays a good crazy guy.
- It's good to see Brett Spiner in a show. I think he's pretty talented.
- I liked the sequences and some of the ultra zoom landscape shots. I've always liked those types of camera angles.
- I noticed that during her dream, she is wearing the nighty that if you pay attention, she wears not 5 minutes later when the crazy guy is chasing her. After he disappears, she is dirty just like in her dream.
- I really hope they don't do little mini episodes where they try and progress each character per episode (like Lost). I didn't care for this kind of story telling and that's probably why I stopped watching Lost.
And just in case Evan needs it for his Trivia ---- The numbers that appeared in Lost, just happened to be the same as some of the ones retired by the New York Yankees (They are all retired, but there are more than just those numbers retired by NY).
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Do you know this man?
I do
I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman for a drink last night. We conversed about some very exciting things that are happening in his life, thank goodness, because they are way more exciting than the things happening in my life.
I think this guy is going to be one of the persons that I miss the most when I move back to AZ. This guy has taught me a lot about design theory, organization of mechanics, just because you could...doesn't mean you should, and the joy of having a co-worker on the same page.
When the unfortunate occurance of him leaving as a co-worker happened, I moved into his cubicle and kept little notes like "What not to do with the Black Hole" and why Hologram Ruse is to be made an example of. No, I'm not a stalker.
I don't know what more I could say about this guy. I hope the stuff works out and I hope he turns out happy because of it.
This is no ordinary man.
I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman for a drink last night. We conversed about some very exciting things that are happening in his life, thank goodness, because they are way more exciting than the things happening in my life.
I think this guy is going to be one of the persons that I miss the most when I move back to AZ. This guy has taught me a lot about design theory, organization of mechanics, just because you could...doesn't mean you should, and the joy of having a co-worker on the same page.
When the unfortunate occurance of him leaving as a co-worker happened, I moved into his cubicle and kept little notes like "What not to do with the Black Hole" and why Hologram Ruse is to be made an example of. No, I'm not a stalker.
I don't know what more I could say about this guy. I hope the stuff works out and I hope he turns out happy because of it.
This is no ordinary man.
New Ride
So we went and got a new car today. Well, new to us. It's a 03 Mitsubishi Gallant. A pretty nice ride with only 37k miles on it. It's a four door.
I feel so middle aged in it. :/
I feel so middle aged in it. :/
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Things in Motion
I have some good news. I'm relocating back to the cradle of civilization, that's right, Marnie and I are going back to AZ.
Wait, before you start panicing, I'm still going to be working for the Company. I have worked out a deal where I can work remotely. None of my job responsibilities change, and no this isn't a sure sign of the downfall. Stop with the doom and gloom.
Anyway, we are set to go back sometime between the 15th and Oct 1st and we couldn't be more excited. She gets to see her family again on a regular basis, I get to see all my friends again, and we GTFO of the eastern time zone.
In other news, my work phone finally got turned on. The stupid old phone company had issues about us moving to cell phones (because they aren't the ones providing them) so they wouldn't communicate with Verizon properly and get our old numbers switched over (this was a big part of actually switching). So it's done, my work phone is up and running. If you know what the number is and want to give me a call, feel free.
Wait, before you start panicing, I'm still going to be working for the Company. I have worked out a deal where I can work remotely. None of my job responsibilities change, and no this isn't a sure sign of the downfall. Stop with the doom and gloom.
Anyway, we are set to go back sometime between the 15th and Oct 1st and we couldn't be more excited. She gets to see her family again on a regular basis, I get to see all my friends again, and we GTFO of the eastern time zone.
In other news, my work phone finally got turned on. The stupid old phone company had issues about us moving to cell phones (because they aren't the ones providing them) so they wouldn't communicate with Verizon properly and get our old numbers switched over (this was a big part of actually switching). So it's done, my work phone is up and running. If you know what the number is and want to give me a call, feel free.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Crap
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Very High |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | High |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Extreme |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Extreme |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | High |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
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