Tag: games

Should you play money poker with friends?

I say no. I think there’s too many things which can go wrong in a game especially when money in involved.

Victoria Coren seems to disagree but considers that social rules should be considered up front.

First, you have to decide whether you and your friend are happy to play fully against each other: trap-checking, check-raising, punchy value bets, the lot. If so, don’t be surprised if your friendship turns a little tense for a while. But there is no need to tell everyone your life story. Plenty of casino cohorts know each other and, if you’re playing straight, there’s nothing to announce.

If you are not prepared to treat your friend as any other opponent, you shouldn’t play on the same table. I am still stuck in an ancient tradition with my old mucker The Sweep: if we are heads-up in a casino pot, we check it down. That kind of thing must be announced, but should be avoided. Luckily, The Sweep is a total rock. If he so much as breathes on a pot, I fold everything but aces anyway.

Its getting a little like this when playing Werewolf with friends too.

Alternative Reality Gaming Whitepaper

Jane McGonigal on ARGs

The ARG SIG has written a whitepaper for Alternative Reality Games – ARGs.

This is the first paper from the ARG SIG, and provides a full introduction to the genre as well as a wealth of practical and analytical information on design methodologies, business models, and current and recent games.

The ARG industry is consistently producing multi-million-dollar games for tens of thousands of players at a time, and generating interest across the entertainment, broadcast, and advertising industries. In the last few years, successful games have received widespread recognition, winning awards from the gaming, media and broadcasting industries. As well as these critical success, there are already several businesses with long-term sustainable revenue streams.

Although new to many people, Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are still far short of achieving their full potential, each new wave of games bringing major new innovations and increased understanding of what works and what doesn't. We hope you find both inspiration and real practical help in this paper, and look forwards to playing the next wave of ARGs you come up with.

The word in the communities around ARGs is that it royally sucks. As Christy points out in a note BBCi did Jamie Kane not Crossmedia entertainment and there's meant to be lots more errors and mistakes. For the full low down listen to the ARGN podcast 25mins from the end.

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The game: Lost

Riven screenshot

I was listening to the excellent Pop!Tech live stream over the weekend and one of the things I heard which I need to blog at least was the thought by (i'm sure) Edward Castronova that Lost takes most of its queues and ideas from games? The example he gave was the trend setting Myst and Riven games. And honestly when he said that I instantly started thinking about screenshots like this type of thing. But Edward was more getting at the depth and interactivity (yes you heard me right) than anything else. One of the points included the numbers which keep appearing throughout the series, something which encorages extra thought and people to do things like this and this. This type of behavour tends to be more common with games. When IT Conversations puts the audio online I'll put a link to it and it will all make a hell lot more sense, than me trying to do it from memory.

Without indulging my Lost thoughts, I find this all pretty interesting when you read Lost Boy's blog post about Lost: the game. The linkage between games and lost is all there and when you think about it more it makes more and more sense.

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