October 10 2001 RussCon Report

ogre

News
Game Results
Meta Party Game Results
Evening's Soundtrack
Ratings
Links
17 of us played 18 games.
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News

At my job we moved the current release into production! This means I get to shift from full time to 3/4 time, which I've been wanting to do for a while. I shall devote my 10 extra free hours per week to making the RussCon Report even better! No, not really.

I saw Brotherhood of the Wolf, a film in the current film festival. I recommend this movie highly if it comes to theaters for real: it had dark spooky atmosphere, action, suspense, horror, sex, martial arts, political intrigue, mystery, and more... all set in 1700s France! I don't recommend the current film festival because we stood in line 45 minutes longer than necessary since the people running it are shitheads who decide to let previous movies run way long with Q&A sessions afterwards even though the next movie was supposed to start a half hour ago. I heard lots of folks in line complaining that this was a common occurence in the festival. Grr.

Lost and Found: PJ, I have a GEV counter from your Deluxe Ogre.


Game Results

CarWarsCardGame6PJ 5 Clay 3 RussW 1 Dan -1 Matt -3 JimG -5
Ogre2( RussW Clay ) 1 PJ -1
Globbo2RussW 1 RussD -1
Globbo2RussD 1 RussW -1
Tichu2( JimG Fred ) 1 ( Carly Ben ) -1
ShowManager6BobK 5 Matt 3 Fina 1 Dan -1 Brad -3 Clayton -5
Can'tStop3William 2 JP 0 Whindy -2
Carcassonne3Dan 2 Clayton 0 Brad -2
Tichu2( Carly William ) 1 ( JP Whindy ) -1
Entdecker3BobK 2 Matt 0 Fina -2
Melee4PJ 3 JimG -1 Dan -1 Ben -1
Melee4Dan 3 Fina -1 JP -1 BobK -1
Zero5PJ 4 Clay 2 Fred 0 Ben -2 JimG -4
BattleLine2PJ 1 JimG -1
UndTschuess5Fina 4 Ben 2 PJ 0 JP -2 JimG -4
Cartagena4Ben 3 Carly 0 William 0 Matt -3
Can'tStop2Ben 1 JP -1
Tichu2( BobK Carly ) 1 ( Dan Matt ) -1

carcassonneThe Meta Game captivated me so much that I didn't play Carcassonne! This shows just how much fondness I have for the Good Old Days of Metagaming and microgames.

The Car Wars card game was really only peripherally related to those Good Old Days, and it was a random kill everyone game in the tradition of Nuclear War et al. Ogre, on the other hand, is still a great classic (though PJ might disagree). I used to play Ogre with my friend Joe in high school every day after lunch. Those were the days. It is strange to realize that some RussCon folks were still in diapers while this was going on.

RussD and I played Globbo twice. The first game lasted 10 minutes. The second game lasted 2 hours. I liked it a lot. It's ironic that it finally got played, after existing at RussCon for well over a year, since it was designed by Allen Varney, who didn't happen to make it to RussCon this time, which is a shame, since I know he was certainly into the boardgaming scene in those Good Old Days. Anyway, Globbo has lots of subtle nonobvious tactics and strategy that arise. As the kids, I defeated Globbo early on in the first game due to exploitation of a crucial Globbo player mistake involving exploding Biters. We felt like we were continually discovering things as the game advanced, and the second game flipflopped back and forth as to who I thought was "obviously" winning. Cool beans. I'm currently thinking the game is balanced in favor of Globbo, but I'd be happy to play again to find out, perhaps even with Allen, who surely must be a master of his game, yes?

hall of shameA reminder: please write and spell clearly when recording game results, make the scores and ranks clear, and remember last initials for people with common names, thanks! Please be clear about Jonathans, Wendys, Bobs, and Tims. And remember to record each players' Devil Points; I gambled on an interpretation of this Entdecker game (did Bob & Matt tie, or did Bob win?)...


Meta Party Game Results

Dan was the Meta Devil. Here is the Meta Game he mailed out.
Does anyone here remember MetaGames? Did anyone play a MetaGame back in the 1970s? Do these questions sound strange to someone firmly entrenched in the RussCon Universe (TM)? Tonight's Meta Game is designed to bring back memories of one of the pioneers of cheap, simple, easy-to-play, table top board games, MetaGaming. Do these name ring a bell? Ogre. WarpWar. Melee. Rivets. Car Wars.

For Wednesday's Meta Game, you will score one point for each MetaGame that you play. The player with the most points win. You also score points for playing games from companies that are historically linked to MetaGaming Concepts Inc., so any games by Mayfair or Steve Jackson Games also qualify. Other games that have a designer or artist related to Metagaming also qualify. (You establish the link, I determine the Meta Game award amount in the range 0 to 1 points inclusive. Rulings by the Meta Game author are final. Sorry Tennessee.) For a list of some of the classic MetaGames, visit the Classic Microgames Museum at http://maverick.brainiac.com/cmm/index.html. These MetaGames all qualify for the Meta Game. Please reply with any questions or comments.

Russ asked:

As often happens, this reads ambiguously to me with respect to game title vs game session: do you get 2 points or 1 point for playing 2 games of Ogre?

Ummm, that would be 2 points for 2 games of Ogre.
We haven't played a lot of these old classics at RussCon partly because they tend to be 2 player and a little more complex than the German style games we're used to. But damn it was fun to play a few of them. I ended up earning 4 points and I am the Meta Devil!

Evening's Soundtrack

Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel
Genesis, Seconds Out
The Alan Parsons Project, I Robot
Pink Floyd, Animals
Supertramp, Even In The Quietest Moments...

These all came out in 1977 -- the same year as Ogre!


Ratings

Rank ratings:
 0.6667 PJ (6 games played)
 0.6364 BobK (4)
 0.6000 Clay (3)
 0.5000 William (3)
 0.2500 RussW (4)
 0.2000 Fred (2)
 0.1667 Carly (4)
 0.1429 Fina (4)
 0.1250 Ben (6)
 0.0526 Dan (6)
 0.0000 RussD (2)
-0.2500 Matt (5)
-0.4545 JP (5)
-0.7143 Brad (2)
-0.7143 Clayton (2)
-0.7778 JimG (6)
-1.0000 Whindy (2)
New Win ratings:
 0.6364 BobK (4)
 0.6111 PJ (6)
 0.3333 William (3)
 0.0714 Fina (4)
 0.0526 Dan (6)
 0.0000 RussW (4)
 0.0000 Fred (2)
 0.0000 Carly (4)
 0.0000 Ben (6)
 0.0000 RussD (2)
-0.1000 Clay (3)
-0.2222 JimG (6)
-0.2857 Brad (2)
-0.2857 Clayton (2)
-0.3125 Matt (5)
-0.4545 JP (5)
-0.6667 Whindy (2)
PJ is the Devil! I predict he will not play Ogre at the dining table. Bob is the Vice-Devil. Clay and William are Co-Vice-Vice-Devils. Whindy wins the Generous Angel Award. RussD wins the rare and coveted Extra Average Award!

Links

ASCII porn for when regular porn isn't geeky enough.

Mayo-cam.

Weeeeeeeeee!

Speaking of gonads and strife, it seems last week's severed penis in fruit punch was actually a penis-shaped fungus.

Here's a robotic slug killer.

David Madore's page of Quine programs is just one of several cool math geekery pages he has; his analysis of the US voting system is another.


Hey, do you hear a rumbling sound?

Russ