Mischievous Ramblings II

Alea Iacta Est, finale

Sorry for the delay in reporting...

On 2 September, I received an email containing the following:

We've reviewed Hero Roller and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store at this time because of inappropriate 'Keywords' used to identify your application.  We will not post applications that reference other applications in their search criteria. It would be appropriate to remove Dice Roller

But I cannot submit a new version because of an error.  Fortunately, on 16 September, Hero Roller was approved for sale!

So both the Lite and full versions of Hero Roller are now available on the App Store!  They are very specialized programs and I don't expect tremendous response, but I'll get around to posting some details to Hero forums wherever I can find them.

Hero Roller Lite

Hero Roller Full

Hero Roller FAQ

Alea Iacta Est

I have submitted my first app to the app store.  It's called Hero Roller, and it does basic combat rolling for Hero System games.

I'll update as this goes along.  There's no telling how long it may take or what changes may be necessary.

Gary Gygax Dies

It's all over the net now.  E. Gary Gygax is dead.

Puns abound.  "Beyond the reach of healing spells", "failed his saving roll against death", "quick! get the cleric!" and undoubtedly others.

I worked at TSR for about a year in 1980-1981.  I'm sure I have a different idea about TSR's management (Gygax and the Blumes) of that time than most paper gamers do.  I'm sure I have a different idea about Gary's level of genius as well.

The business conflicts of TSR's early management are pretty well recounted various places on the 'Net.  I was having lunch with Paul Reiche, an old friend and fellow TSR alum, last week, and I mentioned that I thought TSR had a long-term negative effect on me.  It blurred the lines between business and personal (see both The Godfather and You've Got Mail for further discussion) in a big way.  It took years for me to properly separate the two again -- probably not an unusual event for someone who works at something they love deeply.  I know now that part of the reason that happened was the inexperience of the company's upper management, who found themselves riding a big money wave they were completely untrained and unprepared for.

Regardless of his legend versus his actual achievements, the controversy of authorship of D&D, his missteps and mistakes, his humanity cannot be denied.  His effect upon the world was great, and I believe largely for the good.  Chainmail and its descendants D&D, AD&D, and almost every other paper RPG sprang from Gary and his friends and partners, and every creative spark from RPG players owes him something.  It's entirely possible that we wouldn't have the computer games we have today if it hadn't been for Gygax and friends.

R.I.P.

Art and Politics Intersecting or, Ur-Quan akbar!

From gridskipper.com:

In a gallery of anti-American/anti-Israeli murals decorating the "U.S. Den of Espionage" in Tehran (i.e. the former American embassy), I noted the clawed hand crushing the Earth appeared similar to the cover art from a sci-fi novel by Scientologist overlord L. Ron Hubbard. But an astute reader points out that the weird, bifurcated fingernail/claws actually point to the cover art for classic 1990 video game Star Control as the mural's real inspiration. Ur-Quan akbar!

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

I run into the lack of historical awareness all the time, even in contexts where you would expect better.

In the Game Design class I taught for a local art school there was, and at work (where I'm roughly twice the age of all the people on my team) there is an amazing (at least to me) lack of any sense of gaming history.  I can't count the number of times that someone comes up with a "new" concept and I go "yeah, there was a variant of that done in X and it worked out pretty well except for..." or "it tanked badly because..." or even "I don't remember much about it but you should look it up and play it with an emulator..."

Even some of the senior people I meet in the business have only 6-10 years of experience and don't remember much, if anything, before the current "a niche for everything and everything in its niche" period of console gaming.  M.U.L.E., Ultima 4 and Robot Rascals are as far away for them as Chainmail and Little Wars.

Emulators are apparently not enough.

“Globbo” Lives!

The Escapist - READ GAME

But seriously, The Escapist looks like a worthwhile gaming read.

Notes on Fritz 8

GameDevBlog: Notes on Fritz 8 was posted awhile ago, but it's interesting if you're mildly into chess, and there's some insight into game balancing issues as well.

Too Much Fun!

Deanimator

The Game Manager

The Game Manager is live!

I've started a new blog dedicated to the subjects of software development and managing software development. Many of my posts on those subjects have been copied from this blog to there, and I'm officially declaring it live as of today.

I expect to do most of my posting on those subjects over there from now on, and I hope to create at least one substantial post weekly.

Hope you'll come by and visit.

Illusion of Control

Illusion of control relative to chance outcomes tells us:

Participants were engaged in a computer game in which outcomes occurred independently of responses. Depending upon group assignment, positive outcomes occurred randomly on either 33% or 66% of trials. Outcome relative to chance was manipulated by varying the number of response alternatives from which participants could choose (two, three, or six). After 50 and 100 trials, participants rated the control they had over accruing points and were asked to suggest specific rules as to how points were obtained. Illusion of control was related to percentage of trials producing favorable outcomes but was insensitive to performance relative to chance. Thus, participants ignored basic statistical probabilities in assessing their control, relying solely on the likelihood of positive outcomes. Furthermore, illusion of control was not related to participants' scores on Burger and Cooper's 1979 Desirability of Control scale.

I recall watching EA people (including Trip Hawkins) testing World Tour Golf during development. I'd added the Wind Direction and Force indicator, but hadn't hooked the wind into the ball flight code yet. At the end of an evening's testing, Trip told me that the wind was too strong and it needed to be reduced.

I didn't bother to tell him it wasn't hooked up, I just said something like I was sure he'd be happier with it in a later version. :-) And he was.