That cover is from Mo Starkey, The Spiel of a New Machine: built into the mechanics, or it has who is a wonderful addition ot the Computer to be a very limited system, like for Drink Tank family. That kid is all by Chris Garcia end game problems. El Ajedrecista sorts of creepy. was a vs. King and Castle end The games issue has been in the Let’s face it: computers were game player. It still exists, having works for a while. I’ve been a big game built by white guys in the 1950s. Yes, been built in 1912, but it hasn’t been player for ages, especially when we eat there were women who played very played in several years. The builder, lunch together at work. This issue is all significant roles, and a few Hispan- Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, did a lot about gaming, video, board, et cetera. ics and a couple of Japanese, Chi- of things with automata. I’ve got an article about Computers and nese, Black and Hispanics, but for This wasn’t the first attempt, Games and why the attempts to mix the the most part, they were white dudes though the first not to be a cheat. two have been so strange. There’s also in skinny ties. And when it came The first was The Turk, a mechani- another article from me that explains time to figure out when computers cal device that had a midget chess how I had to compact the idea of com- were smarter than us, they did what master inside it. It was all a piece of puter games into a small and digestible all white dudes do: they tried to trickery, but it was also very impres- exhibit area. There’s also great stuff from figure out which was a better chess sive for the time. Daniel Spector, Barbara Haddad-John- player. The first time people started son, Howeird, and more! I’m totally into That’s the measure of a com- to think about the idea of the basic this issue and I can’t wait for y’all to get puter in theory. If a computer could techniques that would become cen- into it. play chess as well as a Grand Master tral to was in 1950 then computers were smarter than when a wicked smart dude named people. Not Shogi, which is as com- Claude Shannon published a paper plex a game as chess, nor Go, which about the two basic forms of comput- is actually more complex, and a er chess. One, called Type A would computer has never managed to rise go on to become known as Brute anywhere close to a Grand Master Force, where a computer would look status in serious competition. Chess at every possible move and evalu- was the Gold Standard, and even be- ate each of them to a certain depth fore computers were programmed to and then make a single move. This play chess, people we thinking about requires serious computer power. ways for machines to play chess. The second version was called Type There were mechanical at- B. That would only look at certain tempts to create a chess playing better positions to a greater depth. machine. The problem is, to make That would allow for faster examina- it possible you basically had two tion and that would make the power choices: a huge machine that has needed far lower. basic responses to certain moves Dozens of different pro- ristics is the system that computer tournies. most smart folks were bank- In 1970, the Association of ing on in the old days and it Computing Machinists, or the ACM, proved to be a sub-optimal sponsored the first North American program. Computer Chess Championship. Not It was Brute Force too long after, the World Computer that won. In the early days, Chess Championship started and working with various sys- Kaissa was the winner. That was tems allowed them to make one of the follow-on programmes to some great strides, but that the one that beat Bernstein’s pro- turned out to be a dead-end gramme. A lot of tournaments were after power increased. The started for computers to play com- one area where it did work puters. Sometimes, a computer pro- out was in the area of End gram would play a newer version of Game investigation. In the itself. Sometimes, the older version grammes were built using both tech- 1950s, a dude named Dietrich Prinz would win, though that was rare. niques. It wasn’t until computers developed a system to play out chess The World Microcomputer Chess got really fast that one thing became problems. It was a specific set and Championship started in 1980, and obvious: Type B doesn’t work. Why? had a set of rules that it could use. was a big deal until it was cancelled Because there’s no such thing as a It wasn’t good for full games, but because it was replaced by the World universal evaluation that allows a for End Game theory, it was perfect. Computer Chess Championship computer to find the best moves at Now, almost every computer system since almost all of the computers in all times. In one of the early versions uses an End Game database that the World Computer Chess CHam- of Chess X.X, they used some of the ends up coming into play once it pionship were micros. Since almost better chess books of the time to recognises a series of positions. all the ones based on mainframes or find guidelines, and the problem be- There were two paths: Man vs. other specialized hardware were be- came that a talented player had not Machine and Machine vs. Machine. ing used with the people who were only all of the rules that the books The Machine on Machine action was taking on the problem against hu- showed, but knew when to fold the where a lot of the real funky work man players. books away and make moves that happened. In 1966 there was one of The Machine vs. Human idea didn’t seem to make sense. There the first big machine vs. machine was super-special when you think were many points in competition matches when Alex Bernstein took about it. Humans invented comput- that making a move of no conse- on a Russian system that ran on a ers and were the ones who devel- quence can turn a match from being BESM Computer. That was played oped the systems they were play- an agressive battle to a slow brawl over telegraph, so it wasn’t a huge ing. And in a weird way, they were across the squares. That’s how some thing, but that started the idea of hoping that they could beat us. It’s of the best games are played. Heu- playing large-scale computer vs. a weird thing, building something that you hope is better than you. At honor of our entire species. Take thousands of them and gang worst, it’s disloyalty to your species. The next big thing was Deep them to process millions of positions The first computer system to win Thought. It was one of the systems a second and you’ve got the right a major title against humans was that would eventually morph into formula. In 1997, Deep Blue vs. Gary Cray Blitz which won the Mississippi Deep Blue. The Deep Thought pro- Kasparov took place, leading to Gary Chess Championships without los- gram was very powerful, and was losing after drawing the first couple ing a game. That’s incredible if you even more successful at proving that and then just blowing it when the think about it. There were many US the real way to success was Brute Computer seemed like it was playing Grandmasters in the tourney and Force. The first superhuge deal was like a person. He folded like a enve- that’s significant because the vari- the Software Toolworks Champion- lope and that led to the defeat. He ous GMs that were beaten saw this as ship which featured a number of probably could have pulled a the future. That was 1981, and things World Grandmasters, one of which if he hadn’t messed himself when it started to get stickier from there. was defeated by Deep Thought. That started seeming to play intelligently. The system Belle designed by was a really big deal because it was That led to a classic , where Ken Thompson was awarded the the first time that a computer chess- he offered a and the computer Master title in 1982 and that was a playing system beat a passed it up, put itself in a better po- big deal. That was the first computer in a tourney setting. Bent Larsen sition for an attack. That blew his to win that title. On the other hand, was the one who dropped the ball. mind. He lost 3.5 to 2.5. That’s a huge the first program to beat a World The stage was set for Deep Thought deal. Grandmaster was HiTech, designed vs. the Greatest Chess Player of All- The brilliant thing that the by Hans Berliner and Carl Ebeling. Time: Gary Kasparov. IBM boys did was retiring Deep They beat him 3.5-to-.5. Not only a Both times, the Russian beat Blue. That way, no rematch. There beating, but a big time beating. The the machine. had been a promised rematch, and Grandmaster was Arnold Denker. That led to IBM taking up the since there wasn’t going to be one, Way to go, Denker. Way to lose the torch and putting together the team that meant that computers would that built Deep Blue. They forever be the World Champion. took to building some spe- They gave Deep Blue to us at the cialized hardware and cre- Computer History Museum and that ated a brilliant chip spe- was that. cifically to play chess. The Of course, many other com- main chip designer was puter systems have played against Feng-hsiung Hsu, a really Humans. Kasparov drew two very nice guy who I’ve talked significant systems, X3D Fritz and with a few times, and he Deep Junior, both of which had won was the one who managed the World Computer Chess Champi- to come up with the right onship. That was the last significant format for a chess engine. loss by a major player. Hydra, anoth- er powerful system that is affordable game of gin, but really, nothing of note, to the average person these days, of regularity and certainly nothing that beat Michael Adams, who I think was could be considered spiel suchen behav- the biggest US Tournament name at ior. the time. A team of Grandmasters Then the corruption entered my (all within the top 50 players in the life. world) lost to a team of computers. Fluxx. lost to Deep Fritz. While I have not been a gamer to He was the Undisputed World Cham- speak of lo these past two decades, I have pion at the time. About the only play- been an artist. OK, OK, I have been a er who is considered better than the business geek and a vintage car geek and best Chess programs is Anand, one of a lot of other things whish were inter- the few Grandmasters who can take esting and engaging and really kept me on most of the machines. busy enough that games were not missed, Of course, every high level not desired and perfectly welcome to stay player uses computers to train. in my past. The way I love to play against Fluxx. machines, I choose one of those nifty Fluxx by Daniel Spector We were on our “victory lap” of the chess-playing boards. Fidelity, a US in our pimped out Buick, staying for a litigous company if there ever was I’m not actually a gamer. couple of nights in the comfortable guest- one, put out the first called the Fi- Oh, sure, I played D&D in the dark room of a dear friend’s house in Harvard delity Chess Challenger. The boards ages of the mid-1970’s and that was after (The town, not the University) Massachu- got smarter than the average player having learned the weird, extended world setts. While living in a pop-up trailer go- within 5 years, when the good peo- of Avalon Hill games like Kriegspiel and ing from campsite-to-campsite around the ple at Milton-Bradley released the right in the middle of my backgammon US is- in fact- a blast and a great time, Grandmaster, easily the best-selling phase- I have only ever lost two games there is a certain joy in getting to sleep in electronic of all-time. It with money on the line- but- really since a real house, see beloved friends, socialize was an excellent game and when we the early 1980’s- I have been a game free until all hours and, of course, not having opened the Chess Exhibit, we had a zone. to get dressed and walk a few hundred working Grandmaster that people Unless you count video games. feet to the nearest public restroom. could play. One time, I walked up Those engaged me for years longer. I It was while staying at this friend’s and found that someone had actually didn’t get bored and wander off from house that, as we lounged in the evening managed to beat the Grandmaster, those until I mastered Tempest – no, after some fabulous-though-forgotten US Chess Federation rating of 2300. Crystal Castles- in, uh…. 1986. repast, that she suggested we play a card I didn’t see who beat ‘em, but that So, really, call it twenty years that game. means that we’d had a World Class I was on the sidelines of gaming. Maybe “A card game? What sort of card player at the exhibit. the rare, occasional dungeon foray or game?” “Fluxx. It is hard to explain. The and the dadas. Thus, the idea, the very First, I recommend playing at a rules are determined by playing the concept of a game with dynamic, evolv- single deck table. They’re around and game. They change during the game. So ing, conflicting and dischordant rules there are a couple of different types. One does the goal of the game.” where the point of the game changed plays 2-to-1 for Blackjack. That kind is So we played. randomly, changed because of the game hard to find, but it’s out there. 6-to-5 is I was hooked. play- even at times made the game im- the typical for a single deck table. It’s As advertised, Fluxx is a card possible to win, much less ever end- these sad, but it’s not that bad. game. Further, the rules really are de- were game qualities the appealed- per- Now, at a single deck table, you termined by the game play. haps dangerously- to my artistic side. can count into a deck and that’ll help you Upon starting the game, players I now own a Fluxx deck. I keep it know when to hit on 16, when to split draw with seven cards. The first person in the car. You know… just in case. because there are a bunch of tens left, to play is whoever calls “First”. The only or aces, and when to increase your bet. rule upon the start of play is that during I don’t like doing that. I like keeping my a turn, a player draws one card and then bets even and just keep on going until plays one card and there is no goal, no I’ve made a lot of money. Somehow, it end point to the game. works. Any or all of these things might Of course, let’s say you sit at a change as soon as that first card is 6-deck shoe table. These are much dif- played. ferent. Most of the books give you differ- The number of cards drawn might ent versions, saying that all blackjack increase to three. Or five. Or the num- is really the same, but they’re wrong. or ber of cards to be played in a hand might at least they don’t work as well as mine change, too. It might wind up being the does. case that players are to draw seven cards First, never try to count. It’s a fool and play one, harvesting too many cards errand. A six deck shoe leaves too much to track. Gameplay might reverse. A in the backfield for you to make good use goal might be set of the person who gets of a count anyhow. Second, play conser- ten cards wins the game, with a prevail- vatively. Never hit a fifteen, no matter ing rule that no one can have more than what a dealer is showing as his up-card. three cards in their hand. Blackjack as Played by Chris Split every chance you get, including Chaos! Beloved chaos! Garcia 10s and Faces. It’s a powerful technique. You see, if I had to hang my pro- At Westercon, I put a few Black- Dealers hate it when you split 20, but verbial hat on a so-called “school” which jack tips in the daily newszine. Linda it’s an excellent way to eat up cards in a most influenced my artistic thinking, I Bushyeager was none too happy because shoe. Also, double-down on 11 if you’re am flying over/under/ cheese danish the they didn’t mesh with the ideas that are up, no matter what the dealer has. undulating, electric-neon-fish coloured put into the various books on the theory And always play with what you ground that lives between the surrealists of blackjack. But they work for me and can afford to lose. now I’m giving them to you. POlitics 2008 in Gamer Speak - Death-match in the Arena from Barbara Johnson-Haddad

[Obama] Newb player is leet [McCain] Pro player is old Newb player uses gem dice and Pro player uses loaded dice arranges his skills for maximum bonuses. ... and cheats.

Newb player has dreams and ideals. Pro player has bribed the judges and Dungeon Master.

Newb player maxes out CHAR and Pro player maxes out DEX & INT & STR arranges stats so they all give bonuses. by tanking CHAR & CON.

Newb player chooses a 3rd edition D&D Pro player chooses a Rifts glitter boy with psionics elf ranger-bard-sorcerer triple class. using the Rifts Fantasy Conversion optional rules.

Newb player equips with chain shirt Pro player equips with glitter boy armor, so he can dual weild, takes shortswords, can do 2,000-12,000 damage per attack and bow and spear and can do, roughly, gets 4 attacks per melee round. 4-16 damage per melee round.

Both players face each other in the arena & newb plaYer is a carbon smear halfway through melee round 1. Our Nintendo by M Lloyd front of the tv and play with pixels. I digging stopped-up stigmata into my wanted to play with minds and bodies. hands. SaBean would snake around me, A woman with cancer and two breast- Bodies more than minds. Chris sent me kiss my neck and whisper slut into my feeding children is forced to discover new a Nintendo when I moved back to Santa ears and I would only think of Starman’s forms of entertainment. In the old days, Barbara. dive out of the ring until I beat King Ti- downtime meant drink, smokes, long con- The man knows more than he lets on. ger. Then I’d be pushed to bed, to SaBean versation following deep thrust telescopic There were five games; Super Mario and Jay, to create my old games with probes. With young children and bad Brothers, Adventure Island, The Legend my old players at my mouth, my lap, my flesh, you’re forced to find new sources of of Zelda, Pro Wrestling, Kung Fu. I was breasts. fighting back Oh.My.Fuck.I’m.Bored. not aware of any of them, none of those And I hear the 8-bit announcement of And Chris gave us his Nintendo. icons were in my cultural vocabulary. the Dungeon levels of Mario Brothers as As a teenager, growing up screwed and Now, I’ve played them all to the finish, SaBean pushes her mouth to mine, the stoned, I never had the desire to sit in staying up at night with a pair of chil- leaping sound of a Kung Fu kick when dren in my lap, the rectangle of plasticplastice Jay puts it to me. In the Footsteps of Winky Dink indicated points, although I liked to add Things began to move faster then. By Eric Mayer some railings, just in case. Not as fast as a blip kicked off the end of Sometimes I wished the show had Pong paddle maybe, but fast. Only a few It feels perfectly natural now for called for more complicated drawings. years passed before I had an Atari 2600 me to see the letters I’m typing appear Not just lines or loops. Winky Dink’s hooked up to my own television. And just on my computer monitor but I remember living room based sidekicks were never as Arnie Katz had replaced Winky Dink, when a television screen was something asked to sketch a nuclear-tipped missile so now Arnie’s place was assumed by a you watched passively. What happened to obliterate the baddies or to draw Lass- chicken. behind the glass was beyond the viewer’s ie so she could go for help. It was badly pixilated chicken, but control. I couldn’t toss a vine to Johnny And in the end, the interactivity a chicken, nevertheless. More than a blip. Weismuller during the latest episode was only an illusion. A deceit really. A conglomeration of pixels. Obviously a of Jungle Theater. To actually affect Sad to say, Winky would race across an chicken because it was yellow, and ac- what was happening on a television set empty space to escape the island even if cording to the game it was chicken and if -- beyond changing the channel or the the crayon bridge wasn’t there. I admit you looked hard enough in fact the shape contrast -- was so unimaginable I never it, I once pulled the plastic down and was vaguely poultry-like. even dreamed about it, though I dreamed peeked. The chicken, naturally, lived to often enough that my parents’ old black Still, he was the first to intro- cross the road. Or more precisely, to & white suddenly showed colors. duce me to the possibilities of electronic name the game -- the Freeway. At the I first interacted with television games. And more than twenty years touch of the controller the bird darted during the Winky Dink & You cartoons. later, Winky Dink stepped aside for Arnie into the racing rectangles that repre- I remember sitting on the floor, my six- Katz. It was during the late seventies, sented cars and tractor-trailers. Misjudge year-old nose practically against the in the Brooklyn living room of Joyce and an opening in the traffic and the plucky screen. You had to sit close during the Arnie who had, in the best Winky Dink pedestrian would be knocked clear back show because you needed to whip out tradition, drawn me a line to run across to the side of the freeway while filling the your crayon at the critical moment to from Manhattan to Brooklyn when I air with electronic clucks of pure fury. draw Winky Dink a rope, a ladder, or landed in New York and found myself Judge correctly and the chicken would whatever it was he needed right then to in the Chelsea Hotel where I probably reach the other side safely and get to try get out of a jam. Preferably, you drew on would not have survived the night. all over again. the special plastic sheet that covered the It was at the Katzes that I first screen and not straight onto the screen took hold of a control stick and wonder itself. of wonder, made something move on the I was amazed to watch the sim- other side of the screen. ply drawn cartoon character scamper to It was Pong! I had never seen the game safety across a crude bridge of my own before. True, the actual visual effects making, to see my own world intersect -- the blips and “paddle” dashes -- were with the heretofore separate world within less spectacular than those you could get the box. The miraculous bridge was noth- by turning the vertical hold, but they ing more than a line drawn between two showed /something happening/. And why did the electronic chicken program. An “If-Else-Then” statement? cross the freeway? Again and again and Never heard of it. A semi-colon at the end again? Why, to win me a jacket patch of this but a period after that -- how pecu- from Activision, of course.. liar. And curly brackets....? I never knew Unlike the ungrateful Winky Dink, they existed on my keyboard. Cool! the fine folks at the Activision game com- What was even better -- sheer pany sent an award to players who pro- magic -- was that by simply typing out vided them with a photograph of a tele- everyday letters, words and punctua- vision screen proving, in this case, that tion in an arcane code, I could not only they had helped the chicken to achieve its interact with what I saw on my computer goal of crossing the freeway twenty-one monitor, but instruct the computer how times within the game’s time limit. Earn- to respond to someone else. ing that patch -- not to mention patches Anyone who played “The HeBGB for Barnstorming and Dragster -- is still but the basic actions possible didn’t seem Horror!” could go north from Bleecker something I can’t help boasting about much different. Street into the Land of 10,000 Disks and even to this day, pathetically enough. So it was 1999 before I ran across buy a record album, or sneak one out But my journey across the freeway text adventures like Zork in the vast attic under his T-shirt. He could try talking to was not the end of my journey into elec- of the Internet and found that not only the cadaverous stranger in black linger- tronic gaming. That had to wait another had many old games been preserved but ing outside the shop, or head off to the decade and a half. If I had owned a com- devotees were busily writing new ones. HeBGB club, in search of the mysterious puter during the mid-eighties I might In fact, there were even special program- lost chord for Cthullu Rocks. have discovered electronic text adven- ming languages designed for writing such It wasn’t a great game, or even tures during the Golden Age of compa- games. -- to be honest -- an average game. It was nies like Infocom and Magnetic Scrolls. How could I resist? Of course there badly structured and full of bugs, obvi- Rather than just yanking my stick this was the niggling little detail that I had ously the work of an author unfamiliar way and that I could have typed in sen- never so much as seen a computer pro- with games and inept at programming. sible commands -- north -- get wand gram, let alone written one. (And my games since then have gone -- attack -- to explore caverns, collect The most popular languages were steadily downhill as I have failed to treasures and fight off grues, with all the Inform, which produced z-Code games improve my rudimentary programming action presented not in crude pixel pic- of the Infocom variety, Tads, and Hugo. skills even while my available time has tures but in words, as interactive stories. However, there was a less powerful but dwindled) But I was just thrilled that it By the time I got my first Apple, supposedly easier to learn language worked at all, like the dog proud to be text adventures were already being re- called Alan. I immediately downloaded walking, however poorly, on its hind legs. placed by graphical games which, after the Alan manual and compiler, whatever I guess, we’ve all come a long I had spent a few years playing Atari, the heck a compiler was. way from sitting passively in the face of never interested me much. The pictures My struggles with Alan consumed technology, helplessly shouting at the of the new computer games were far su- most of the my evenings for a full sum- television screen. “Look out, Tarzan! The perior to the old Atari-type I was used to mer. Let’s just say I am not born to tiger’s behind you!” Early RPGs jargon. When a character suffered major damage, he was “burned”. A roll by howeird which failed to achieve its full potential was “flat” or “half-baked”. A soon-to- Back before there were dungeons, be-dead character was referred to as and before there were dragons, in fact “toast”. A series of successes was known before there were dungeons and drag- as “being on a roll”. ons, games were played using bread- Traces of an offshoot of roll-play- stuff. Bialystok, cinnamon, crescent, ing games have been found in the Mid- sourdough, brown-and-serve, hard, dle East and Eastern Europe, where in- sweet, wheat and more - these were the stead of hard-to-find rolls, bagels were warm heart of roll-playing games. Some used instead. This trend did not last aficionados would have you believe very long, as GMs easily saw through that RPGs were named because players it. Ancient Japan also had their unique would roll the dice, but I submit to you take on these games, using maki-sushi, that polyhedral dice don’t really roll, a practice which continues to be popu- they kind of jump around. So much for lar to this day among hard-core play- that theory, may it rest in peace beside ers, especially those on this side of the cold fusion, weapons of mass destruc- The Hands I Love to Play Pacific who play with the ever-popular by tion and Babbage engines. California Roll. Christopher J. Garcia Roll-playing games were intro- One perk of roll-playing is in- duced early in human history, evidence stant bread crumbs, helping characters When I’m not working on fan- of them has been found in the cave find their way during the game. But zines or watching wrestling, or play- drawings of southern France, deep in the main advantage of roll-playing is ing old video games or cuddling with the jungles of Kenya (see L. Leakey’s also its downfall. During a long day of my The Lovely and Talented Linda, I seminal paper Gorillas in the Myth) active roll-playing, most players will think about poker. I’m pretty good. I’ve and in the wardrobe leading to Narnia. be unable to resist the temptation to won a small tourney, came in second in The latter being in the form of a trail of consume their rolls, thus ending their a couple of more, a third and over the crumbs. play prematurely. It is widely believed years, my house game winnings are sig- The rise in popularity of these among RPG scholars that this attri- nificant. I’m a stud man. Texas Hold- games paralleled the discovery of bute of roll-playing is what drove it to ’Em, the game of the last decade, is fun, yeast and the invention of baking extinction, while fostering such gamer but Stud rewards the mavericks, pun- powder. Northern Europe saw a huge activities as eating at Denny’s and ishes the timid, forces the Brave and surge with the invention of the Dutch snacking at Starbucks. the Bold to make themselves known. Oven. As with modern RPGs, these Hold-’Em rewards the steady. I have a ancient games gave rise to their own way of playing that really annoys most hard core players. It spits in the face of Doyle Brunson and his SuperSys- tem. My most impressive play was actually at 7- Card Stud against TJ Cloutier in the card room in Downey. I held my own, and that’s impressive for a guy who is an amateur play- ing against a guy with a few brace- lets (but who will never win the Main Event). Here now are my favourite 10 hands to get in but Europeans underplay connecting I’ve taken so many pots against guys Texas Hold-’Em and what I do with cards. That’s why Devilfish Ulliott has with K-K or A-K underneath with a flop them. never won the Big One. of 7-8-* or 9-6-5. You wouldn’t believe how often that pairing has made me 10) A-2 off-suit 9) 7-8 Unsuited money. There is seldom a flop I won’t OK, so here’s the thing: I don’t pay to see, but if you give me A-2, believe in math. There’s no inherent 8) 4-4 there’s little question that I’ll raise into mathematical advantage to hoping OK, there’s a maxim: littles can it. Connecting cards are very useful, for the pair of Face cards instead of a hurt ya, if you’re dumb enough to play though you don’t have as many options pair of Unders. That’s why 7-8 are so them. There’s some truth to that, but when it comes to A-2, but it does man- powerful. No one bothers to think that I’ve scooped many pots playing a pair of age to also give you a shot at top pair. a player will call with less than faces 4s like they were Bullets. You can ride Europeans seem to think that Amer- underneath. Connectors are powerful, a pair of littles to the bank if you get ican’s over-play Aces. I tend to agree, esecially those in the middle of the run. the right flop, but I love pulling people out of the pot by playing a decent hand 4) A-K Suited. like it were meteoric. Well, this is the only hand that smart players play that I go along with. 7) 5-10, Suited Big Slick is a tough hand to beat. If you This is a creepy hand because Flop a pair, it’s likely Top Pair, you’re I’ve played it against everything from up for a straight, and the top straight. A-A to 2-7 and I tend to split pots. It’s You’ve got top Flush if they come up on a fun one because every straight has the board. I am a big fan. either a 5 or a 10 in it. Suited is a key to this one. If you have hearts, you’ll 3) 5-6, Suited end up with a decent, though not per- Again, you’ve either got a 5 or a fect flush if it shows on the board. This 10 in your straight, suited littles are is really a hand for the patient. fun, and this one has the benefit of being low enough that no one would 6) K-10, suited expect you to play it. I won the tourney Play this one and you’re a fool with 5-6 Suited by representing that I for love. K-10 sets you up for only 2 was ready to throw A-K with a board straights (9-K, 10-A) and that’s plenty. that was A-4-7-8 with the River com- You’re up for the #2 Flush (and if the ing and the other player sitting on A-8. Ace pulls itself ot the board, you’re She went all-in and I just pushed in Johnny Ace. I can’t stop playing this everything and shewed my straight. one, even more than Q-10. The River came up with another 4 and I totally won. I’m awesome, I know. A Card Game For Everyone 5) 10-10 The playing of 10s is a matter 2) 2-7, Off-suit Not too long ago, I was intro- of concentration. Most will play it, but True story. Mike was holding A-A duced to a new game that was similar the first sign of a face on the board will and I was on the small blind. He put to any number of other games, such as send them running. I tend to take it in a big bet, something like 1/4 of my Egyptian Rat-Screw or the like, but it to the Turn and then see what folks stack, but less than 10% of his. I called was slightly different, with a series of are pushing at me. If they seem timid, and he was smiling. The Flop came up rules that added strategy to every play. I typically play along. If they’re timid 2-2-7 and I simply called him. Mike I then thought of a couple of switches, after the River, I play them like a low pushed in about 50% of what I had. I largely inspired by Uno and a dice pair. If there are faces on the board, I called. Turn and river were both 7s. game whose name I’ve forgotten. And kick it into gear, hard. I’ve scared some That was a fun one. here it is...a game without a name! very strong card players by throwing First off there is one rule: get rid heavy clay with 10s in my pocket. 1) 2-7, Only suited this time. of all your cards before anyone else. supposed to play the nine, instead you here’s a fun little switch you can make. That’s a classic with card games as play the Queen and call “Alana” and Joker’s can cancel any other play. If different as The Great Dalmuti to Uno, Alana has to play the nine. A very fun someone plays a Queen on you, you but there’s a slight difference. card. King’s reset and start things over play a joker and it goes back to them The game is played best with at one again with the person next to to fulfill the original number. If some- three, four of five players. With 3 or 5 them. one resets, a joker makes them have to players, deal out 45 of the cards and set There’s another variation where play. If they fulfill the number, play the the other ones aside. Everytime some- you can play the Jack, Queen or King Joker, even out of turn, and they have one can’t play an Ace, give them a card at any time, not only when it’s your to do it again! That’s a good way to from the seven you’ve set aside, plus turn. That’s a fun one because you can screw with a friend who thinks they’re any in the pile if you’ve been in a reset. reset it right before someone who you gonna win. With four players, deal out all the cards know doesn’t have an Ace and that can Nothing better than being able and just treat Ace passes as passes be fun. to screw a friend when they’re on the when there are no cards. If you wanna play with Jokers, verge of victory! You have to play the number of the round. If you’re the first person to play, you have to play an ace, which is always one. The next person is two and must play two, either as the card two or as two Aces. Third plays three, an ace and and a two or three aces. It goes on until it’s 21. At 21, it stays there and everyone has to play 21 until someone can’t or there’s a reset. If you can’t play, you have to pick up the pile of played cards and then you start the next set with an Ace. Ace is equal to one, two is two, three is three and so on until Jack. A Jack skips your turn and the next play- er in the order has to play that number. If you’re supposed to play 11, play a Jack and the next player plays eleven. The Queen is Reassign. You play the queen and you call a name and that person has to play the number. You’re The Inherent Problem in the amount of the appropriate know-how to If you’re lucky, you might also find online World of Video and Computer find online the emulators you would need a source file that you can download and Games to download, install and configure to run use with the emulator – assuming that by Matthew Appleton the software. Of course, this assumes that the company that still owns the copyright the installation software is still readable on the game hasn’t issued a cease-and- on that 15-year-old HD diskette – hardly desist order and demanded the removal Since the dawning of the age of home the epitome of stable archiving materials. of the file. video game system and home computers, something interesting has happened in regards to games: a large percentage of the games we play are no longer necessarily permanent in your ability to play them. For the past 30+ years it has been possible to purchase a game but literally be unable to play it less than 10 years later. Think about it... the Stratomatic Baseball set you or a family member purchased back in 1958 is still playable (assuming you still have all the pieces). But that copy of Battle Chess you bought for your PC back in 1988... well, it’s still possible to run it. However, you either need the system it was originally programmed for (along with a version of the operating system that it actually conforms to), and have a certain Most of us lack the wherewithal to find However, for a significant percentage of and movies (you should have seen how the ways (or create them) to make our these games, it is impossible. excited I was when I first discovered that favorite old video and computer games This issue has been on my mind a lot complete seasons of The Muppet Show run. Even if you manage to find the right lately as my son, Brandon, as gotten older. were finally being released on DVD), and, emulator, you still might have difficulty There are aspects of my childhood that yes, games with the explicit purpose of (in the case of console games) finding a I’ve enjoyed so much that I have gone out sharing them with them in the hopes he way to faithfully recreate the experience of my way to introduce to my son in the will enjoy them as much as I did. Now, of using the original controllers and by hopes he will enjoy them as much. Over it just so happens that I didn’t have my necessity resort to programming a newer the years, I’ve purchased various toys, first video game system (an Atari) until controller to work the game, or (worse still) books, DVDs of favorite television shows I was about nine, so this sort of thing use your computer keyboard in place of the original controller. As a result, an important link between familial generations has been greatly degraded when it comes to playing certain types of games. True, plenty of games are updated to be played on newer operating systems and game consoles, and in some cases (such as the wonderful plug- and-play Atari joysticks – in particular the Atari Flashback 2 – that came out a few years ago) it is still possible to perfectly recreate the experience of playing these older games. isn’t truly an issue yet. Besides, I own will come a day when, for a before-mentioned Atari Flashback 2, whatever reason, we will which has received relatively light wear lose the ability to play these thus far, mostly because I am saving it games in the manner they for when Brandon gets a little older and were originally designed starts demanding one of whatever console to be played. Almost as systems are available at that time. disconcerting is the idea Of course, it isn’t just about the that you just can’t store generational issue. This is an issue that a computer games in the like many in my generation, I’ve been back of the attic or a closet, aware of for many, many years. Heck, leave it to gather dust for it’s the very reason why plug-and-plays, decades until some lucky websites dedicated to emulation and sole uncovers it when porting of old computer and console games cleaning out the area, and and a market for working vintage consoles this particular laptop up and running have that lucky recipient just open the and game cartridges exists. In fact, I still It’s a shame that large numbers box and give the game a try. Even if you own a nearly seven-year-old Apple iBook of games fall into obscurity thanks leave the needed hardware with the game, that runs on OS 9 because it’s the only to the relentless march of improving there’s no guarantee it will work properly way I can play a few particular games hardware and software and the need when you plug it in and start it up. that I cannot play on my MacBook because to jettison backward compatibility at There is some consolation to be found, once Apple transitioned to the Intel some point during the endless cycles of however. If maintaining/procuring the microprocessors backwards compatibility improvements. Many of these games, original hardware and/or doing the all the ceased for anything designed to run a despite comparatively clunky graphics necessary legwork to install an emulator pre-OS X variant of the Apple operating and simplistic game play (at least in on your PC isn’t for you, at least some system. Mind you, it comes out maybe comparison to current games), maintain classic computer games continue to live once or twice a year for this purpose, but their ability to mesmerize for hours at on in spirit. One of my favorite examples the fact is that if I want to play either of a time. However, for most of us – those of this is Heroes of Might & Magic V these games (specifically, Heroes of Might without the means to procure or maintain (HoMM V). As I previously mentioned, & Magic III and Master of Orion – more on older hardware – who wish to return I loved Heroes of Might & Magic III so these two games anon) then I need to keep to these older pieces of software, there much that I’m maintaining an iBook specific for the game. However, the series franchise in 2003 when, unlike HoMM, plenty of wonderful games that haven’t actually predates its current name. It can the developers changed the game play so received the same treatment as King’s be traced back to a game called King’s throughly (and poorly) that it bore little Bounty or MoO. It makes me wonder just Bounty – a game I played originally resemblance to its predecessors. However, how many computer and video games will played on a Mac SE/30 back in the a Stardock Systems has managed to create become classics in the same vein as Snakes summer of 1991 – and the amazing thing Galactic Civilizations II (GC II), a game I and Ladders, Backgammon, Chess and is underneath the massive upgrades in would call a spiritual heir to the MoO Checkers – or even, if you don’t mind my graphics and complexity of play, the basic series. The game play is similar enough becoming more modern, Risk, Monopoly, way you play the game remains the same. to MoO (I suspect that if it was anymore Scrabble and Stratego. In many ways, In fact, I would argue that someone who similar that Stardock would be facing the computer age is a wonderful thing played King’s Bounty back when it came a potential lawsuit from those who still in the way it has expanded the way we out could skip the first four installments own the rights to MoO) that it feels like it play games, but the very nature of the in the Heroes of Might & Magic series, belongs in the MoO series, and playing GC beast makes it seem unlikely that the load HoMM V onto their PC and be able II provides much of the same enjoyment medium will create few, if any, games that to figure out how to play the game in that MoO originally did for me. In fact, generations will enjoy. less than 10 minutes (learning all the much like when I first played MoO back added nuances might take a bit longer). in the summer of 1995, I’ve found myself In fact, take a look at the screenshots of on many occasions this year playing GC II the two games in battle mode – get past and its expansion packs when the advances in the graphics, and it’s But as wonderfully as HoMM V and GC essentially the same basic setup. II recreate and maintain the experience of Unfortunately, game developers playing their digital predecessors, part haven’t been as kind to Master of Orion of the reason they exist is that those (if you will recall, the other game for ancestors were wildly successful games. which I continue maintaining that iBook). While I’ve never been much of a gamer According to Wikipedia, Master of Orion (most of the games I play are turn-based (MoO) is a member of GameSpy’s Hall of strategy games, which in of themselves Fame and GameSpot’s Greatest Games of are a slowly disappearing bread, being All Time. Sadly, the third installment in replaced by real-time strategy games), I’m the series, Master of Orion 3, killed the sure that over the past 30 years there are Letter Graded Mail how I absolutely *must* play sent to [email protected] France in Diplomacy, or I get sulky, and how I always write by my loyal readers my orders in French, and how in my youth I would withhold Of course, no special issue would be my favors from my beau (and complete without the magnificent frequent English player) when he would make the grave error Leigh Ann Hildebrand! of moving into the English Channel after convincing Dear Mr. Garcia, me that I absolutely could I’m terribly sorry I haven’t been trust him and did not need able to provide anything for the Game to support Brest (har, har) issue of your little thing. As you know, but could devote my energies I’ve been very busy knitting my fingers to that age-old struggle to the bone on behalf of of TAFF. against the Germans. These Thankfully, this evening’s work means I retaliatory periods without will definitely be ready for Denvention. the benefit of my affections Alas, as you’ve mentioned elsewhere, could last as long as two there won’t be a TAFF auction there, but weeks, if the game had been we’ll have the lovely replica Season 12 particularly critical. Doctor Who scarf in the Fanzine Lounge, I have to admit, I prefer so folks can try it on for size. playing France if I can. Perhaps we can get people of note to pose Without your affections over for photos wearing it, to further build a game of Diplomacy is a excitement? harsh penalty. Now if it That was one of the many evil was Acquire... schemes I had for fetching huge sums I’d also be writing about those play D&D with the small books, but did for that scarf. Another is I wanna White Wolf boys, who started a ‘zine so with the red and blue covers, long recreate that shot that every research that they sold in the mall bookstore we before second edition was with us -- the team that’s ever got a huge snake all worked at, and gamed around the small books being very like the light of does where they have a team of people marble coffee table in my parlor when we the two trees, Tolkien-style, if you know holding it up. And, let it be known were, again, all quite young. They grew what I mean. (And knowing you and the that you are TAFF’s number one up and founded a multi-million dollar unpopularity of the Silmarillion, you supporter this year, without question! gaming company, but that whole thing probabably *don’t* know what I mean. If I were writing about gaming, it started with a stapled photocopied ‘zine Sigh.) would be the usual things. Among other we sold for $1 an issue. Or how I did not Never read a word of Tolkien. I do things, I’d probably be going on about love his cookies though. I also had can think of to win -- which is why I But of course, I don’t have time no idea that White Wolf started almost never play competitive games in to write about those things, because I’m around a zine. polite company any more. While I am still very busy with the last minute knitting And finally, I’d probably write about one received by polite society, I am banned and preparations for Denvention. I hope of my greatest vices: being as competitive from many a card table, and only a fool to see you there, along with the other as I am, I cheat. I have been cheating would leave me alone during a board Lounge regulars. Until then, since oh, probably the first game of game. Leigh Ann Hildebrand Candyland I ever played. As a child, I Oh, the battles we could have! As a and as always, I can’t wait to take was one of those Monopoly bankers who master of all cheating techniques our seats in Match Game! was curiously always wealthier than the known to man, which of us could other players. I also count cards, and I conjure up the best victory technique use just about every impolite trick you in, oh let’s say, Poker?

That’s the games issue of The Drink Tank. I want to thank Eric, Matt, Leigh Ann, Daniel, Ho- weird and Barbara for all their writing, as well as AnnTensity, Mo, Dann, Carla Lowen, Steve Pregitz, Samantha Byers, ColorForm, and Breakneck for the art. Next issue? Well, it’ll be after WorldCon, that’s for sure!