The Sims Then and Now

For me the Sim games started on a black and white Mac with the original SimCity. I’ve heard people joke that their phone now has more power than their old desktops. But SimCity is the first game that I saw had been ported to my iPhone with more features than the first version of the game I played. It’s SimCity 2000 and it has color, two things that I salivated over when they first came out.

The Sim franchise is right up there with brands like “Levi’s” and “Coke” to me. If the Sims comes out with something new, chances are I’ve heard about it and considered buying it. If we’re talking the Sims 1 or 2 I’ve bought every expansion back and stuff pack sometimes more than once.

The Sims recently lost me when they moved away from Stuff Packs into the pay per item model. For $20 I would buy the pack of items from my local Target, but I can’t justify buying individual items for a $1 or $2. When it comes down to that level of detail I’m thinking I should be shopping for my own new clothes instead of my sims and it starts to feel like real work. Pressing Play is fun to me, not pressing Buy.

So while the Sims in all it’s incarnations has been a constant backdrop in my gaming life it might now be at the point where the Sims have moved into the RMT world and I’m not ready to followt. Fortunately , the base game runs just great without the add-ons.  When the mood strikes I can play, even if it means looking at a few ads while I log in.

Growing Up Gaming: Arcade Games

I’ve been experiencing massive nostalgia for the arcade games I used to play on my GameBoy and NES. I’m the happy owner of a shiny pink Nintendo DS but I still miss that GameBoy despite its unfortunate name.

But enough of that train of though, the game that has probably stolen more hours from my waking moments than any other has to be Tetris. I knew it was a game developed in Russia, which was more than I knew about the development of any game at that period.

I used to try to play for as long as I could, giving up some of the big bonuses in exchange for playing longer and longer. I’d alternate between playing at high and low levels to see which would keep me going, but I’d often get bored with the easy levels. It wasn’t until recently that I found John Brzustowski’s thesis which states that you can’t play Tetris forever. I’m a little crushed, I was convinced that some day I’d get the perfect game and keep going till I just couldn’t move my thumbs anymore.

The other game I cut my teeth on was Galaga. The one thing these two games seem to have in common is the incredible number of versions and variations that have been made. They are also still widely available after 20+ years. I was at Best Buy this weekend and saw a hand held Tetris game. A quick google search found an online version of the Galaga which is eerily similar to what I remember. It has significantly delayed me writing anything for quite some time.

Most recently I’ve been playing Cooking Dash and Zuma. The difference between what I’m playing now and 15 to 20 years ago seems much smaller than what is the same about these games. They all have some obvious things in common:

• A numeric score
• Repetitive and simple actions
• The concept of putting something ‘right’ or organizing
• An endless play mode with light or non-existent goals

A score seems so tiny and yet is so important to me while playing these games. With a lack of social play and the lack of defined goals the score becomes the focal points for both. While you may never seen another person playing Galaga at the arcade, you can feel some competitiveness and camaraderie with the people on the high scores list. With no elaborate goals to track your progress the score is usually the only thing that signifies how you’re doing.

Zuma is something I drown into when I really don’t want to have to think about the game I’m playing. If you’re trying to pay attention to the storyline in a game like Zuma or Galaga, I think you’re missing the point of the game. Click, click, tap tap tap click click “Boing”.. it’s like music to my tired brain at the end of the day.

I’ve come across a few articles that seem to imply that Time Management games like Diner Dash might help people learn to organize their time. I’m having a hard time believing that. While I was playing Diner Dash I learned that it’s more efficient to feed everyone at the same time even if it means some people are blowing smoke out their ears, don’t tip or just plain walk out. While this might make for a better score, in real life if I was told by a waitress she couldn’t serve me right now cause Table A hadn’t paid yet and she didn’t want to break her combo bonus I’d be beyond pissed.

I don’t see any big leaps coming up in the future for this category of games. Almost any of the leaps I’ve seen in other games like graphics, great writing, voice acting, cut scenes, interactive stories and massive online communities would detract from the engaging simplicity of what makes me play and continue shelling out when a new one of these games launches.

Growing Up Gaming

Having recently hit the big 3-0 there has been a nagging desire to reflect on life and the one part I keep going over is games. This isn’t surprising since I spend my work hours making games and at home I spend a good chunk of my free time gaming or thinking about games. I’m sure that when I’m on a Sims 3 binge I spend more time planning out their day than I spend planning out my own. While in the shower, driving or doing dishes, sometimes it’s just more fun to think about what my sim will be doing tonight than what I’ll be up to.

I’ve been trying, but I can’t remember a time in my life where video games weren’t in the house in some form. Before I could read, I recall watching my Dad playing Adventure and Zork. I found the screenshot of Zork but it’s a bit fancier than I remember. We didn’t have a color screen then.

Soon, I became the player instead of the voyeur. Arcade games, MUDs, MMO’s and simulations are some of the high points. I think the lowest point was the time I saved up all my pennies and then wasn’t allowed to buy a Nintendo system because my parents were concerned about the epilepsy warning (I’m not epileptic but that warning was scary to young parents). We’re not talking a fancy Nintendo here, but the blow-on-cartridge-to-fix-every-problem kind.

They must have caved at some point, because not only did we have an NES for quite a while, but I remember my Mom really getting into shooting those ducks in Duck Hunt. By some quirk in the storage of memories the horror of being told ‘No’ to the NES stands out to my adult self but the time we actually got the NES is a long lost memory.

So I’ve grown up with games as a household fact. I’ve been influenced them for most of my 30 years and we know that in the computer world that’s a VERY LONG time. So my question to myself is, have my tastes changed in those years? Have games?

I’m thinking that this is more than a one post topic. So next time puzzle and arcade games get my attention.

Fishbowl Games

Have you ever sat staring at a fish tank watching the fish swim back and forth.  As the fish swish up and down and back and forth your mind goes blank, calm and into a hypnotic state.  The fish aren’t going to do anything very interesting but just maybe there will be some unexpected interaction between two fish or a fish might hide in a piece of coral and then dart out unexpectedly from a little opening you thought too small to hide its small frame.

The fish tank is, for the most part, self sustaining.  It requires some feeding, cleaning and general maintenance on an easy to follow schedule.  And it is a place to decorate with cute little fish structures like hidden treasure and underwater plants.

I’ve never been interested in the games that try to mimic a fish tank on my computer.   I haven’t been able to sit back and enjoy the fake fish swimming around because it seems like cheating.  Shouldn’t I just get a real fish tank?  And plus I don’t even like fish (while they are alive and not smothered in butter that is).

But recently I’ve been enthralled with a facebook game called Restaurant City.  In it, my little restaurant has chefs, waiters, and janitors all working at a plodding pace to keep the restaurant churning through customers.  I only need to occasionally feed them, decorate the restaurant, and clean up some garbage to keep the place running.

Other than that I can just sit back and watch the little people go about their day of cooking, cleaning and eatting.  Sometimes they’ll do something interesting but always within their limitations of the artificial world created for them.

And it was today that I realized I was falling into the exact same pattern with this game that I had with fish tanks previously.  I had to wonder is this really a fish tank in disguise? Based on the amount of time I’ve spent watching the little people lumber around and the time I’ve spent rearranging their chairs and decorations I’m leaning heavily towards fish tank.

That brings up one other question for.  If this is a re-skinned fish tank, is it a game at all?  I wouldn’t consider a fish tank to be a ‘game’ if I had one in real life.  I might call it a hobby or a diversion but not a game.

Restaurant City refers to itself as a game but the more time I spend watching the little creatures go back and forth and up and down between their stations I’m more and more convinced it’s pushing the label of game a little too far.

Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that the name of the company that makes Restaurant City is Playfish.

I didn’t read your article and here is my opinion on it…

Forums and comments on articles are usually full of people who don’t know the proper use of the caps lock key (there really isn’t one, just take it off already), don’t appear to be able to form a sentence, just write random words, use shortened forms of words that appear to be something other than English or just plain don’t seem to care if their post is comprehensible or not.  If it’s a popular thread, you’ll see all those plus the people who feel it’s their job to correct all of the above and call them out for their mistakes or ‘lazyness’.

If it’s a day I’m on the internet I can guarantee I’ll see most of those examples plainly laid out.  And I’m OK with that, it’s just a part of the internet I’ve come to expect and either ignore or try to puzzle out depending on my interest or commitment to the thread.  If it’s a post on the forums for the game I work on, I’ll try to figure out what that person was saying and even google abbreviations I’m not familiar with.  If it’s reading a blog post’s reactions from someone on foodnetwork.com I’ll probably get bored pretty quick and stop reading.

There is one thing I’m seeing more often that I can’t seem to just ignore and has become a pet peeve that gets me everytime I see it.  It’s the person who posts, either after an article or a in a long forum thread something to the effect of:

“I can’t be bothered to read this article/forum thread/blog because the title sucks/it’s too long/I don’t care about it and my opinion on this is [insert random opinion here]“.

Of anything I’ve seen since I got my first introduction to the net back in.. sometime a long time ago… this has to be the most ridiculous and it’s common!

After reading 150 pages of a forum thread on any topic why are people subjecting me to their opinion when they didn’t bother to read even the first two pages?  And if they only read the title of the article and not the full thing why do they feel they have an opinion other people would be interested in reading?  And why do they even want to take the time to post about it!

Maybe the only thing that gets me is the people who write a fairly long post and then somewhere near the end add in they didn’t read anything else about it.

My wish for all future posts is that people stop admitting they didn’t read the thread/article, just let me exist in peace pretending that they at least read some of what they’re critiquing.

Fan Faire Day 1

This is probably the longest first day of Fan Faire I’ve ever had and definitely the most hoarse I’ve been after the first day from talking and screaming.

We started the day with a nicely timed 9:55AM flight that was a little delayed.  But all in all we got to vegas in short order, hopped in a taxi and I was in my room lickedy split.

Then came the sore throat inducing hours.  Chatting with people in large or small but equally loud rooms followed up by one of Brenlo’s Welcome Speeches that mostly involves getting the crowds to cheer for their game while giving away some snazy prizes.  I was right along in there cheering for the EQII folks.

I’m not sure what the numbers are but it sure does seem like a great turn out this year.  I’m having a great time seeing some people that I haven’t had a chance to see since last Fan Faire but I do miss some of the familiar faces that couldn’t make it this year for various reasons.  Hopefully we’ll see them again at future events.

So my big goal for tomorrow is to remember to take some pictures!

New Habits

I’ve caught myself developing a new habit while reading lately.  I start reading a few pages of a book, then something looks odd to me.  I flip to the front of the book and look at the “first published date” and usually go “oh, ok that makes sense I guess”.

Most recently it was A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton.  Just into the second chapter I came across the sentence “After I dropped the film off to be developed…” and I immediately had to go see how old this book was, turns out it was a 1982 novel and of course digital camers weren’t popular then.  I was only in my toddler years, and I know I didn’t get my first digital camera until high school.

This has completely distracted me from reading and got me thinking about how much has changed recently and thoughts just came rushing back.  Thinking back to the tv show True Blood, they added cell phones as a normal part of day to day life, but the book sure doesn’t have them.  And yet, I think the car and the clothes are the same as what is described in the book but the don’t look out of date.

Snap to real life instead of books and I thought about the bank of payphones I saw at the airport a few weeks ago, or rather the lack of them.  Out of space for 8 phones, only one was still there.  The rest of the spaces for the payphones had been closed off.  And, I honestly couldnt tell you how much it costs to use a payphone nowadays.. maybe they all take credit cards.

At the end of it all I’m left wondering how long it will be before people reading the novels I do now won’t just intuitively know that there used to be 1 hour photo labs and payphones dotting the entire landscape.  And how long will it be before the idea of running out of gas is a foreign concept in a car?  What about looking up stuff in those 20 volumn encclopedias I spent so much time doing while in school… they were seriously heavy. 

In 25 years will people laugh when they find out how many homes still had landlines and fax machines back in 2009?  Part of me is anxious to see if it’s true and the other part kinda misses having to use a phone book before making a phone call with a real quarter.

The first week worked!

I actually managed to cook a couple times.  The first one was passable but nothing to write home about.  The second one was a shepherd’s pie that tasted really good and actually looked edible, to me!

The one small problem was that is created a ton of leftovers, more than I was expecting by far.  So I am now thoroughly sick of shepherd’s pie and hope that I never see any again for another year.

Holidays

So far this has been an extremely laid back holiday. Even the plane rides have been full but calm.

On my way back to San Diego from Houston today the flight was absolutely packed. But for some reason most everyone on the plane seemed extraordinarily calm, even the very small children.

Is it possibly the food coma as we all return from too much food and too many leftovers? Or is everyone too tired from dealing with family and gatherings to cause much ruckus in cramped quarters?

I’m betting against some communal holiday spirit that is made everyone so incredibly pacified as they entered the “very full” flight (I’m not sure how a flight can be “very full” instead of just “full” but they insist on calling it that in every one I’ve been on). Thinking back there weren’t many happy faces around. More along the lines of completely unaware of their surroundings, as if their minds were on a faraway place that had no bearing on the now very familiar terminal.

There was one notable exception to the quiet reverence of my fellow passengers today. One man that I saw stopped the fluid line of boarding passengers to insist that the flight crew keep him up to date on the major football game that was going on. I have a hard time believing anyone would do this for a serious event like the results of an election, a war or American Idol. But to this man, keeping absolutely in the know about the score of the game was more important than allowing people to keep boarding or to allow people to sleep through the evening flight without interruption.

The flight crew did their best to keep him happy, including scores in their regular announcements in the just over three hour flight. Each time the San Diego team was in the lead there were some claps from a few predictable seats. But most of the passengers had the same “why are they doing this?” look that I’m sure my face had.

Overall, I think it was an unwanted alteration from the normal routine of flying I’ve come to expect. It may be my own apathy as I enter the process each time but the whole experience of flying seems to be easier to deal with if it is totally unremarkable, ordinary and routine.

So instead of the clapping football fans I’m choosing to remember the bulk of the people who sat in silence as we headed home from the holiday. And I’m going to imagine that they were all thinking about mundane things like going back to work or chores that needed to be done back home. Because for some reason that’s easier to deal with anything more interesting. Maybe after my own holiday is over I’ll be able to better consider, or work up a fluster, about some single minded sports fans.

Writting about blogging

The Daily Show had a guest on who had written a book about blogging.  The whole concept seemed so redundant, of course I had to blog about it!

Apparently the book was about how to blog, but I really have to wonder who has time to read about blogging and wouldn’t do that reading on the internet?  I guess I’ll have to wait to see if the book sells or not.   She did after all get on a tv show that I think lots of people watch, I know I do.

One thing they brought up was blogging about your secret passion.  I’m not sure that I have a secret passion, but I do have passions that vary at any given time.  Lately it has migrated back to Neal Stephenson.

I’ve been reading the Baroque Cycle and I just finished up volume 2.  So far my only complaint is that the books are kinda heavy to be lugging around, which is how I do most of my reading… waiting in lobbies or at gates in airports.

These books make me feel smarter while I’m reading them.  I’m not embarassed that I have to look up words he uses in the dictionary.  Learning new words and being confused for a couple chapters makes it all that more enjoyable when I have those “A HA!” moments and I figure out what the characters were doing.

I thought that Snow Crash was one of my favorite books of all time, but this series is my current favorite.  I’m actually looking forward to finishing them so I can reread the books and see how much I missed on the first run through.

The only part of the whole equation that I do feel a little embarassed about is that he turns out books faster than I can read them.  So my new pre-new years resolutions is to finish his books before he publishes another!