I write what /----G-A-M-E-S---I-N---T-E-S-T-I-N-G----\ ...and I like I like... /| ESI GGAMESINT NGGAMESINTE |\ what I write /-------------/ | ESINT GAMESINTE GGAMESINTES | \-------------\ | Volume No.: 1 | ES ES SIN SIN |Chris M DICKSON| | Issue No.: 07 | ES INT INT |42 Arlington Rd| | Deadline date | SI STIN NTE including NTE | Middlesbrough | | for GIT no. 8 | IN IN TES train TES | T S 5 7 R E | | as for OMR 23 | TE NG EST EST | 01642 821929 | \-------------\ | STING ME TESTINGG ES STI GA | /-------------/ **COeA** \| ING ES ESTINGGA SI TIN AM |/ **COeA** **COeA** \- E-mail to chris@dickson.demon.co.uk -/ **COeA** ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Thanks for all your kind comments last time about my rather downcast editorial. At the moment I'm feeling a bit aimless and am probably not making the best use of my time, but am confident/hopeful something will eventually turn up. I've made two job applications to date: one with the BBC for a researcher's position on that bastion of top TV, "Noel's House Party", and one for a position on the editorial team of a puzzle magazine. Still, I've had lots of time to write up a good fat GIT, not that I haven't let it all slip to the Wednesday after the deadline and beyond. As usual! Bullet points which don't fit anywhere else: Now I'm no longer in Oxford, I'm not collecting Sainsbury's Reward Points any more. Together with my flatmate, we collected 7006 points before cashing 7000 of them in for 28 Reward Vouchers. I surrendered my half to my flatmate, who now lives in Kidlington, in return for cancelling debts accrued to him for my half of the shopping bills over the last couple of months. He intends to change them for 1,120 Air Miles. Speaking of Kidlington, I note that Stretchy is thinking of moving out and into a bigger, better house. Rumours that he's moving in the direction of Basildon and is going for a 3-bedroomed house with the intention of a certain Shil, er, someone moving in, are probably entirely true. Will the HouseCon excuse wash with the public? Remains to be seen... Speaking of houses, ours isn't very tidy, which is mostly my fault. A tape containing two episodes of Interceptor (my favourite game show ever - pushing Wanted into second place) had gone missing in our house since I last saw it back in 1993 when I had a cold. In tidying out the smallest of the three bedrooms we found a big bag of video tapes, which it was among. This was great, and would have been even better had I not got a copy of one of the two episodes on the tape from another friend some weeks previously. Speaking of game shows, don't you think Danny Duncan would be an excellent name for a game show host? It trips off the tongue with the greatest of ease, though Dan Duncan follows the Bob-Monk-house Bruce-For-syth Paul-Dan- iels Bob-Hol-ness syllable pattern rather better. For that matter, Jenny Duncan would work almost as well (though the DD alliteration did help). Speaking of names, Huddo (or Andrew Huddleston, former treasurer of the OxUniDipSoc) deserves congratulations on his much-better-than-mine class of mathematics degree. Comparing his lot in life with Stretchy's will give a good indication of what the difference between getting a 2:1 and a 2:2 is when you go into accountancy. Hopefully this will give Huddo the money to be able to afford to games cons. He missed ManorCon due to cycling/boozing in France. Speaking of former committee members of DipSoc, I have read with some concern that secretary-before-me Steve Massey is returning to do teacher training at Wheatley campus. I have a fear that the sort of training he gets may concern mastery of the pun and the gag, rather than of the board and the unruly pupil. Congratulations to Tony on having a campus named after him! Speaking of jokes of various sorts, I can't decide whether Harry Hill is funny or not. I wonder if he writes all his own material? "The English language. How contradictory! Dalziel and Pascoe, Baddiel and Skinner. Who says you can't have it both ways?" "It's a good job people don't name countries when they're thinking about lunch. A man, a flan, a canal - Fanama!" Speaking of being funny, I wonder why no-one's been topical enough to suggest a Dip variant based on the Mir space station situation? Mir would be a thirty-fifth supply centre connected to all the others (or, perhaps, only to one in London and one in Moscow), but it would take a full year for a unit to reach there from the Earth, and there's a chance that the space station goes flying off into the wide black yonder that is the spacial void, stranding any unit left there and losing its supply centre status... That's all. I hope you enjoy the rest of the subzine! --P A G E B R E A K--- But is it art? I write, with scant minutes of July left, having just come back from an event at the Stockton Riverside Festival. Now I'm not a great fan of art; the family went out on a whim not knowing a specific event was taking place (indeed, merely trying to find a programme of events, which I thought was not terribly likely to happen in a journey starting after 9pm). However the main Riverside road was blocked with traffic cones, so we parked in the adjacent multi-storey car park and wandered off to a bloke at the roadblock. He pointed Mum, Dad and me off to the Riverside path, where crowds were lining a half-kilometre stretch (no pun intended), two or three bodies deep at some places. By sheer good fortune we had arrived at maybe quarter to ten and the parade of floats was due to start at ten o'clock. So I really didn't know what to expect. The sky was overcast and threatening vaguely to rain, and a whole lotta nothing was happening until after five past ten. We could see some dinghies whirring about vaguely, and a confused heap of glass ship almost camouflaged on the other side, and some boats bobbing about slightly uncertainly, but that was about all. No-one really seemed to know what was going to happen on the fifty-yard-wide Tees. Then a buzzing noise came from over to the right, and lights started to shine down. A few seconds later, and we could see the first boat in the parade was decked out to be a large white swan. It was perhaps seven yards long and five yards tall, with powerful lights about its feathers. On board was the amplified blare of two soprano saxophones and an electronic keyboard. The tune wasn't famous and was no more than muzak. The swan bobbed around and floated upstream at about 1/2 knot. Not terribly impressive so far. Then about five minutes later another, blander still, type of music started from my right and another boat, which had popped out from nowhere, lit itself up. This featured, atop the mast, a set of wheels within wheels. In the middle of the wheels, a humanoid figure paced along as the wheels rotated. This wasn't as pretty as the previous float, but the humanoid figure walking along in slow motion was interesting. From a distance I couldn't tell whether this was a particularly pretentious human or a superb feat of animatronics; as the boat sped closer I was disappointed to see that it was a man who obviously really had a high estimation of his own worth, as he stopped keeping time with the spinning wheels and hauled himself upside-down onto a pole. So as the swan floated to the far end of the crowd, this second boat kept our end of the masses entertained, and I remembered the contempt in which I held performance artists. Thirdly, the camuouflaged boat-like object started to glow brightly, bathing itself in blue light and issuing forth a tune like someone learning to play the bagpipes, but less interesting. Then it turned from blue to red in an innovative, challenging and different statement of the fallibility of the British public's political opinion. After that it started spraying jets of water. Alas, it was rooted to the spot and didn't go anywhere - a fairly fundamental failure for a boat, I would have thought. It looked like a greenhouse that had been caught in a small tornado. Next up was a boat with the motif of a dragon and an extremely loud outboard motor. No, I tell a lie, a drum band. The drummers were playing with some venom and physical skill, for a tiring and repetitive set. To add to the fun, starting from the other direction, the swan floated back down, followed by another boat decked out in a Chinese theme playing loud bells. Actually, the music from this boat was actually fairly pleasant, being quick, melodic and tuneful (though you couldn't dance to it). Definitely my favourite boat, even if it did seem to get stuck half-way. More lights came on focusing on its load, an absurdly oversized egg which started heaving and hoing before hatching in a bizarre and exaggerated style. We ended as we began with the swan boat, with no saxes but instead a lady singing. She sang pure notes and tones, like a bird might in a slow motion mating ritual, as opposed to a song (in the sense that we know it). All five boats were out, alight and aloud, then, suddenly, darkness and silence for a moment, filled by uncertain but warm applause. The boats lit up once more, for an encore, I supoose. And, er, that was it. Rather lost on me, but then I'm a phil(l)istine who begrudges people public funding for that sort of thing. Nice to get out of the house for a free evening's "entertainment", and it didn't start raining until we were heading back to the car. Certainly worth what we paid for it. It wasn't a total waste of time. I got to try the new Salsa Deluxe burger from the drive-thru MacDonalds on the way home. Nice! --P A G E B R E A K--- Like many people about the UK, it's now late on the 21st and I'm writing my M A N O R C O N X V R E P O R T Manorcon XV was held in Lake Hall, Birmingham University from the 18th to the 21st of June this year. I was there and I had a whale of a time, and, yet, not very much happened. Thinking back I can't quite work out why it was so good, but that's not a problem. Travel there was not a problem (in fact, I got there 90 minutes ahead of schedule, having had my dole interview start early and finish very quickly, so I caught an earlier train) and I rode to Birmingham University station. The walk from that station to Lake Hall was not the pleasant canalside stroll I was hoping for; turn right out of the station, right at the roundabout, along down the hill, across the mini roundabout, up the hill and maybe half a mile along the road to the crossroads, turn right, go down the hill, first left after crossing the bridge, down the hill and left along the campus road. Advice provided at the station was helpful, but my famous seat-of-the-pants urban navigation skills and the skyscraper that is High Hall (Chamberlain Hall?) helped too. Erm. Got there, played games. Somehow I managed not to play anything longer than Settlers, Acquire or Modern Art all weekend, which somehow seems to indicate I was doing something wrong. I was particularly hoping for a game of McMulti; oh well, maybe next year. Tried some new games. The Settlers card game was quite nice - I can't think of anything off-hand I'd rather play for two, except perhaps Gin. The '97 Spiel Des Jahres Mississippi Queen was quite good fun, but nothing terribly dramatic. I tend to use a very conservative strategy in most racing games, hence seldom win. Take It Easy was intriguing and worth playing again. This was also my first exposure to Loopin' Louie, but more of that later. I think I also ended up playing Perudo on each of the four days, which is quite a lot. Enough of the overview, though - you want to know about the memories! 1) Last Manorcon I asked Nick Parish if anyone had ever pulled at a con, and he replied that he didn't think so, so I was keen on trying it this time. To this end I wore green jeans on day one, after Nick declared that his pair of such trousers were his pulling jeans with which he had wooed his significant other, Becky. Only luck they brought me was whilst I leaned on a pillar to read about "The Mark Stretch Event", Jim Hardy tickled me in the armpit. Hmm. 2) Teaming with Mahala Hodgson against the undisputed, undefeated doubles Loopin' Louie champions of the world, Marks Stretch and Sheiham, and winning handily, then defending the prestigious title against about half a dozen opponents. Yet somehow both Mahala and I, when paired with different partners, were little better than fair. Some teams just click. Maybe it was the jeans. 3) Ian Willey. 4) Two b-i-g balti trips in two days. Perhaps it was just the meals I chose and Chicken working much better than Lamb at being Tikka-ed, but I preferred (Balti International?) where we went the first night to the place we went the second time. Cabbage just does not work as part of a curry. 5) NMRing in the United more than once - and winning it. I used a tactic that could be said to have "all the winning flair of a sloth on valium". 6) A particularly preposterous (yet justifiable) call by Dave Horton of ten fours at the start of a six-player game of Perudo. I called, he was bluffing, there were four in all. A quick and inglorious exit. How we laughed. (Sorry!) 7) "Oh, _you're_ Chris Dickson!" several times. Being able to approach semi- famous people and engage them in casual conversation and games. 8) My room. It was noisy as fans were directly outside. The curtain was not opaque enough to block out the light and it kept falling off the rail. On top of that, on one side were the gentlemen's toilets, on the other, Neil Duncan. 9) Oxford Uni dip team doing extremely well (8th) considering all the players were current students. There were three particularly valiant survivals from dire-looking positions and two very strong draw participants. Good work! The running score is now Oxford University 2, One Man's Rubbish 0. Nice one, Mark. 10) Erm... everything. I really enjoyed meeting lots of people who I only knew as the most casual of acquaintances from the hobby at large and turning them into firm friends. The games I played at my first two Manorcons were probably better, yet this time I felt a lot more confident at being able to go up to people and get on with them. Being a subeditor and a "name", albeit a tiny one, really did make things a lot easier in this regard. So warmest regards to all those who I shared games, conversation and song with at this Manorcon; it'll be a hard one to forget, and for all the right reasons. --P A G E B R E A K--- But, again, is it art? We went back to the Stockton Riverside Festival on the Friday night. After all, we were only really after a programme the first time, to find out what was going on and to see if there was anything worth our while going to. The answer was to be found in our local library, which had full details of everything that was going on; rather than the functional but accurate description of what we had seen as being "five poxy boats pumping noise pollution up and down the river" it called the event we had seen - entitled "The Street Of The Moon" for no discernible reason - "an unforgettable spectacle of fire, water, light and sound". Here's what we had been seeing, according to the official blurb: "The Street Of The Moon is the adventure of a man with a mission. Setting sail in his little boat, he encounters a flaming volcano, pack ice and other dangers, as well as an earthly paradise. Finally he reaches his goal - a glimpse of the White Goddess who bewitched him. (...) We guarantee you will never have seen anything like it - huge floating stages, Japanese drummers, an Indonesian Gamelan orchestra, other musicians and some fabulous effects will leave you delighted. The source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall The White goddess The first and last freedom The beginning and end of the pilgrimage..." Erm, yes. It was rather wasted on me. Anyway, the reason we went back was because they promised some added pyrotechnic events at the grand finale, and Mum's a big fan of fireworks. Can't say I'm that big a fan of the massive ones myself. Back-garden-size ones are nice, but sound-weapon types leave me rather cold. Anyway, she hadn't seen good ones for rather a long time, the ones at Skinningrove last Bonfire Night being a washout. So off to Stockton we went again. I had had the cunning idea that the best vantage point to see the event again would be the top of the multi-storey car park where we had parked the first time, and was gratified to see that we could still get there free of charge and there had been only a couple of other people who had had the same thought. It gave us about fifty feet elevation and was only thirty yards or so from the Riverside, so it worked as well as I hoped. The blare started up again, the family groaned and decided to go and look at the view from the other side of the car park. This other side had a view overlooking a square adjacent to Stockton's wide High Street, down which Compagnie Malabar were performing "Voyage Des Aquareves", which makes even less sense in translation as "The Water Dream Travel". It featured "a huge white sailing ship, beautiful stilt creatures, dare devil circus skills and an evil Red'n'Black cgaracter on a giant motorbike. All that plus tons of foam!". Sounded like fun for all the family - especially the foam bit - so we had a look from atop the car park, for their noise was less doleful than that of the river, saw a big crowd watching the stilt things, and went down for a look. We parked our car near the entrance on the lowest level and walked up the High Street. Of course, the event had moved on while we were going down, so we decided to try and catch it up. We walked maybe 500m or so up the street (which is good going for our family, for reasons I could explain but won't) and had caught up with the crowds, if not the action. It had got to 10:30 by then, and we couldn't really see what was going on, so we decided to turn back; no time had been given for the fireworks but I guessed the boats would be all done by about 10:45, so we rushed back. Well, relatively rushed back for us, which isn't so quick any more, alas, as poor Mum just isn't used to walking distances even like that any more; annoyingly, we started to hear fireworks with about 100 yards to go and Mum was starting to despair. We made it back to the car and zoomed up all eight flights back to the top, so Mum got to see at least the second five minutes or so of what there was to see, which was fairly spectacular. So it didn't turn out too badly after all in the end. It all got me thinking, though, about how much I hate performance artists, probably because they're so pretentious. No, probably because they're so pretentious and can get away with it. Well, I can be a pretentious artist too - words are my artform, articles are my artworks, OMR is like a gallery and every issue of GIT is a new exhibition, a new performance. Just as they get to show off in front of the masses, I have my chance every issue to shock, to entertain and impress. You, reader (no, _dear_ reader, that should read), are my audience, and I do GIT to express my creativity and suffer for my art. Art. Bollocks, more like. --P A G E B R E A K--- Weren't computer game magazines so much better in the good old days? "The good old days" here refers to a period from about 1984 to perhaps 1988; the eight-bit machines were going strong, you could, quite literally, buy a top new game and still have change from a tenner, and for poor buggers like me there were a stream of 2.99 games coming out faster than you could say "those Darling brothers are on the box cover AGAIN". Ah, glorious days. Multiload-filled, colour-clashing, BEEP-command, cover-mounted tape halcyon days. Yes, I was a Spectrum man. Still am to this day. So, for me, instead of reading DolchstoB and Greatest Hits and Boojum and Bruce (yes, I am cribbing wildly from T2W3 here) my, in effect, zines of choice were Sinclair User and Crash. (Your Sinclair was for the gutless, tasteless and clueless who preferred early pre-postmodern wackiness to good hard content.) The computer magazines were thick with quality journalism whose standards I have to keep myself from applying to zines still today and all were fat with reviews; twenty, thirty, forty of them every issue. I wanted to be a computer magazine reviewer - life would be an unending stream of new games, and I would differentiate between 53% clunkers and 84% steamers. Little did I know how unusited I was for writing to deadlines. Now I have a game to review, before the rest of the country has got their greasy hands on it. Literally, you read it here first. Let me savour the moment, please (though half a page is probably a little too savoury, ahem). You Don't Know Jack, by Berkeley Systems, has been out in the States in three or four forms for at least thirty months now, and it has been a mildly critically acclaimed perennially steady, if unremarkable, seller. A version with UK content and accents at long last is due soon; I traded 11 hours of game show tapes with Ed Stash in Whitehall, PA for his beta-test CDs from this April of the new game. I think the Britishness was lost on him. YDKJ is a computer game designed for PCs running Windows 95 that is a fictional game show with a distinctly ballsy attitude. Like Channel 5's 100% the host is never seen on screen and he acts principally as narrator, though all the questions and answers appear as text on the screen also. Before and after the show the presentation has voices of fictional staff working on the show, with lots of "you'd-have-thought-they-were-in-"jokes at just the right level. The graphics of the outfit are no great shakes; the animation is acceptably smooth, but it's obvious that you buy the game for the soundtrack and the questions. There are apparently 800 questions each with perhaps 30 seconds of low-fi but perfectly clear and good quality sound track stored on the one CD for each one - the question and responses for each answer chosen. The basic format is that players alternately choose subjects (often designed to mislead, often full of innuendo, smut and Viz-esque single-and-a- bit entendres) and questions with four possible answers come up on screen. The first player to press their buzzer key then picks one of the four and gains "money" (points) if they're right, losing "money" if they're wrong. The subject matter is a mix of high culture and pop culture - really, all sorts of rubbish, varying throughout the entire spectrum of difficulty and obscurity, but laced with the same highly in-yer-face attitude throughout. The questions often feature unashamedly disgusting and/or bodily topics, and the narrator isn't above calling you all the names under the sun if you get questions wrong. I think one of my friends was convinced this game was a winner from the moment it called him a twat. His computer has never done that to him before. On top of that there are three or four different little types of question that pop up from time to time to add variety; "can you remember?" gives four clues of decreasing obscurity to a person or thing, the look and listen carefully questions are as you would expect, the "DIS OR DAT" round asks you to split seven items into two categories (painter or pasta? Disease or Bond movie title?) in thirty seconds; the infamous Gibberish Question often announces itself as a Flickerpiss Nosescum, and you have to perform the same rhyme-the-phrase-syllable-by-syllable operation as quickly as possible to decode the line of rubbish, and the Jack Attack that ends the game is a very high-adrenalin fast-reflexes test of your ability not to panic as much as anything else. And there's a lot more to it, too. All good "clean" fun. An excellent computer game even for those who don't normally play computer games or enjoy quizzes, but I'm not sure I'll be playing it more than occasionally in more than three months' time, and I really couldn't recommend it for those whose attitude to cursing and obscenity was more, ahem, cultured than that of, say, Jim Hardy. However, for, say, occasional tournaments at housecons, it's a perfect game; until the appeal runs out I can see lots of people wanting owners of this game to get it out for the lads. --P A G E B R E A K--- GAMES IN (erm...) THE-PUBLIC-EYE The Mind Sports Olympiad is virtually upon us now (should, perchance, you get this on Monday, August 11th, rush out and buy a copy of The Times for a detailed supplement about it - if this is a day or two too late, try your library) and it's time to actually start thinking about doing something about it. The pessimist in me who predicts doom, gloom and the death of all fun hobbies anticipates the event having even less effect than me getting up on stage, but, you never know, it might not be so bad. Foremost in my mind as a possible reason for optimism is the big-ass œ100,000 Skandia-inspired prize fund. That is a whole lot of money. They've announced the prize structure for the ten or so biggest games, and, not too surprisingly, about 10% of that is for chess, the same again for Scrabble, and some of the other more famous games get several œ,000s apiece. Still, that leaves well over œ30K (minus, I suspect, the cost of medals) for about 30 or so different games. Some of their games - sorry, mind sports - strike me as being obscure, and I like to think I know a bit about games... oh, how wrong I am. It seems to me, though, that they are trying to attract players from all around the world to come and take part in a global competition. This leaves me wondering if œ100,000 is actually enough. That said, as an event, it might actually be quite something. With luck there might well be opportunities to spectate obscure games played at high level, which appeals to me, and I doubt many people will turn down the chance to introduce an eager novice to their own favourite game. It's possible that we might get some of the great and the good - whether gaming-famous or general celebrity - turning up as well, which might be nice. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the events had extremely few participants in, with chances for punters-off-the-street to luck in to some dough. There's the First World Stratego Championship, too - ahem! It strikes me as the sort of game that lots of kids, young adults, bought-from-WHSmith-game fans and the like will enter the tournament for, which is a shame. I'd consider going in for it even though I've only played it a couple of times in ten or so years, just because it would be fun to take part in. Similarly, I have a lifetime record of Won 2 Lost 1 at Hare and Tortoise, so I might enter the tournament in that. Sounds like a very good excuse for a jaunt down to London, except that I have to sign on on the 20th, right in the middle of it. Bummer. This certainly should reach you by the 17th, though, so I'll recommend "Game of War" (Sunday, Channel 4, 8pm) to you. OK, if you're not in the UK, it won't reach you by the 17th - but you won't be able to get Channel 4! Of course it's a game show (would I be talking about it if it wasn't?) but only in the loosest sense of the term, being televised coverage of a war game recreation of a famous battle from history. As I write we have had the first show in the short (pilot?) series of three, which recreated the Battle of Balaklava and so featured a light brigade which might or might not charge. Two high-ranking military types take command of the two sets of opposing forces, decked out roughly in red and green, and are sent off to separate war rooms where they see the positions of their forces (and any of the opposing forces within their forces' sight) on big maps of the area. The two sides submit orders to two umpires in neutral blue, one of whom must surely be Malc Cornelius as he looks in 2010 under a psuedonym, the orders are adjudicated and Angela Rippon hosts, overseeing the proceedings, acting as summariser of the events and discussing what's going on with a resident expert. Her hosting is a very strong point of the show. She has tremendous enthusiasm for what's going on and really cares about what's happening. She acts almost like Peter Snow at times, and isn't afraid to let the players know what she thinks of their tactics. She establishes herself as the sort of person that you would like to meet at a con and play games with, thus making her a babe (TM). As they say, on a scale of nought to one... The bad points of the show: the players seem slightly clueless as to what's going on (the Russian general who had built up a commanding lead went and somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory), the combat resolution system is unexplained (because it's insultingly simple! A red d6 is rolled for the red side, and a green one for the green side. The higher the roll of the red die, the better it is for the red side, and the same for the greens) and the units on the map are abstract and plastic (a big flaw according to my figure gaming friends). For me, though, the first show was a triumph of style over substance, yet very gripping television. I hope to see more in the future and think Game of War is the best new TV show since Wanted. --P A G E B R E A K--- /-------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | TRAIN issue C. Fat Controller: Simon Hornby, 77 Rowan Road, Merton SW16 | \-------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Well, Chris is putting out GIT again, so it's that time again, time for another Train! Lots of news this issue. First up, we have two gamestarts. Monopoly starts this issue, and unless anyone can prove differently, Chris is the only person to suggest a name for the game, and he has indicated his desired p[iece and power. The game is officially dubbed Flobalopolopoly (Is that right Chris? If not, tough luck for suggesting a hard name to spell, it's called that now anyway). Chris's piece is a little weed (There must be a joke there somewhere. Never mind, too easy.) The rest of you need to send Chris or me piece names, and suggested special powers before the next deadline. The second gamestart is a game of Sea of Despair, but since I have so much work to do running one game already, I've drafted a celebrity outside GM. Also, I want to play. So - in the spirit of GIT, 'Dan Lester, come on down'. Orders to Chris, me or Dan for this. You're all playing, so send in some orders. The other major piece of news - I came 8th at Manorcon in the dip, and got Best Italy, with 12 centers. My other performances included a 1 center Germany in the team round and a 9 centre Top as England on a board containing Vick Hall, Cyrille Frenchy (You know, that foreign chap who's world champion), and Dave Horton. I've already been approached by several headhunters for next year, but I'm holding out for the best offer of my services in the team round. Well, work is getting piled up, so that's it for now, see you all next time. /-------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | TRAIN issue C. Fat Controller: Simon Hornby, 77 Rowan Road, Merton SW16 | \-------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Slight administrative cock-ups have occurred en route - you know, we'll blame them on leaves on the line, the wrong sort of snow or somesuch - and Simon has managed to completely lose details of his Monopoly game. Insignificant things such as who was playing. Trying to reconstruct the list from memory I think these people had signed up to play: Mark Stretch, Andrew Huddleston, yours truly, the OMR waiting list - James Pinnion, Jonathan Gooding, Iain Lovejoy - and Tom Lancaster. However, as you'll no doubt remember from GIT 5 back in OMR issue 12 or so this isn't just boring plain 57-fundamental-design errors Monopoly, oh no, it's wacky GIT Monopoly. All players get to design their own playing pieces and assign them special powers, which Simon will then publish (at least I hope he will - because I'm stuffed if I can remember what my special power was, for one). Get in touch with Simon before the next issue, the rest of you six, and anyone who's shot their load in in time can probably play. Simon's address is above and that's a COA from the last Train address. I've got a neat wee business card of Simon's, too, which gives his business phone number as 0181 875 9500, his mobile phone number as 0976 739314, his fax number which probably won't interest you and a new e-mail address of simon.hornby@micromuse.co.uk for you. Dan Lester's address I don't know off-hand, except to say that it's somewhere in Hertfordshire. (Digs out last issue of The Mag With No Name) - oh yes, 12 Cedars Avenue, Rickmansworth, Herts WD3 2AN. Off the top of my head, though this is a guess, his e-mail address might be sjoh0362@sable.ox.ac.uk - I can't remember the four digits exactly, off-hand. Speaking of The Mag With No Name, Ian never did get round to running postal Loopin' Louie, did he? If he sends me the rules then I'll run a game. Go on, Ian, be a sport, dig the rules out and send them on. Or perhaps you'd like to restart TMWNN as another sub-sub-zine in GIT...? --P A G E B R E A K--- P O S T A L P E R U D O -- R U L E S 1. This is a postal game for probably five to seven players (possibly four or eight) who, I assume, know the rules of Perudo (aka Liar's Dice). Players should submit pseudonyms before play and not attempt to make contact with any other players in the game, though the identity of every player will be revealed at the end of the game. Any player not submitting a pseudonym will be allocated one, which will be the name of a game show host. 2. An order of play involving all the players in a random sequence is set for all the rounds within each game and strictly adhered to each turn. 3. The game consists of five rounds for each player involved in the game. One fifth of these rounds will see each player rolling one die, one fifth have each player with two dice, one fifth with three, likewise four and five. 4. Each round with the same number of dice is started by a different player. All the (5*number-of-players) rounds happen simultaneously, with one call in each every turn of the game; thus every turn each player is next to make a call in one of the games with one die each, in one of the games with two dice each and so on, though the rounds may end at different points. 5. Each player will be sent their own set of dice rolls for each round at the start of the game, which will be fixed for the rest of the game and cannot be changed. (Variant: players may elect to show that they have a certain number of dice of the type called and reroll all the others, though this may make the game rather longer and less suitable for postal play?) 6. In turn each player may either make a valid bid higher than all other bids made or challenge the last bid, for each round. 7. The dice are marked with 2,3,4,5,6,A. The Ace (or one) ranks highest, as in cards. The Aces are wild and can represent any number from 2 to 6, as in normal Perudo. Bids of Aces count double in value, as usual. Thus a bid of 12 "5"s is outranked by one of 12 "6"s, which is outranked by one of 6 Aces, which is outranked by a bid of 13 "2"s, and so on. 8. A player who NMRs on turn one will be ejected from the game; a player who NMRs on a later turn will make a bid of a number selected at random. The number bid will be more than the minimum necessary. If the last bid was 9 "6"s, a NMRing player would bid one of 11 "2"s, 11 "3"s and so on up to 11 "6"s or 6 Aces - chosen at random with equal probability. If the last bid was 9 "4"s, possible bids are 11 "2"s, "3"s or "4"s, 10 "5"s or "6"s or 6 Aces. If the last bid was 5 Aces, the next bid for a NMRer would be one of 7 Aces or 12 of one of "2"s to "6"s. Be warned, any strange-looking bid may have come from an NMRing player, who will bid at random - or it could have come from a non-NMRing player trying to be particularly tricky. NMRing players will be awarded one red N per offence, but their NMR will not be shown explicitly at the time in the results. 9. If it is your turn to bid on a round and you believe the last player's call was too high, you may challenge it; then all the dice held by all the players in that round are revealed, and the number of the type bid including wild Aces are counted up. The round ends at once and is scored as follows: If the bid was good and the challenge was bad (if there are at least as many of the type bid as the value of the bid) then the bidder earns a gold star and the challenger earns a black mark for that round. If the bid was bad and the challenge was good (if there were fewer of the type bid as the value of the bid) then the bidder earns a black mark and the challenger earns a gold star for that round. NMRing players will never challenge, but an obviously wild bid may have come from an NMRing player, which may give the following player a very easy chance to earn gold stars and give the NMRer black marks. 10 After all the rounds have been completed (I would expect some rounds of the game to be completed in two or three turns, the majority to take more like six to eight turns, and the last few tail-enders to take twelve or more) the number of black marks, gold stars and red Ns accrued by each player will be totalled up. The winner is the player who has earned fewest black marks. Ties will be split in the favour of the player with the most gold stars. Ties there will be split in the favour of the player with the fewest red Ns. If all three categories are tied, no further split occurs. 11 The decision of the GM is final. All rules are subject to the normal GIT house rules. Or would be, at least, if I had some. Use yer common sense! --P A G E B R E A K--- H A N G - G I T : turn 3 results and game end comments You've probably seen the answer already on the first page. Correct answers to this have been like buses: we've all been waiting for one to turn up, and then two come along at the same time! I'm more than happy to declare that the winner of the first and last game of HANG-GIT in Games In Testing - for that is the phrase that you were seeking - is Mr. Steve Massey of Oakley in Buckinghamshire, who got his correct answer to me fully two or three days before the deadline. He wins the advertised mystery star prize, which turned out to be a copy of a tape of mine which turned up in the spare bedroom the other week after being missing for over four years, featuring two episodes of his (and my) favourite game show ever. Oh, and a copy of the world-infamous, highly coveted Oxford University Diplomacy Society On Tour "Singing in the car on the way to the Balti" songbook. First-and-a-bit'th place equal is awarded to Mr. Martin Bates of Wherever He Darn Well Pleases, who jotted the correct answer on a note to Stretchy, and Mark phoned it through to me on deadline day. I have decided to award Martin slightly less credit than Steve because he didn't bother to e-mail me personally, let alone write, and because his answer arrived second hand and only just in time. He will receive a mystery not-quite-so-star prize at some point; I haven't worked out what yet as I wasn't banking on two people requiring prizes. Steve, Martin, I shall buy you both a drink at the next con I see you at. Vague commiserations (sp?) and thanks for participation are awarded to all the other players this time: Simon Hornby, who guessed M, James Hardy, who guessed T, Mark Stretch, who guessed N (and then tried to change his guess to "Games in Testing" after passing on Martin's guess to me - very much not allowed) and Andrew Huddleston who rather non-specifically guessed "whatever I guessed last time". Game end statements are not solicited. THE CHRIS M. DICKSON TOP TEN LIST OF THINGS THAT GIT MIGHT, AND PROBABLY SHOULD, HAVE STOOD FOR, BUT IN THE END DIDN'T... 10 Were GIT a hobby history zine dedicated to celebrating a former Zine Poll winner with a remarkable name, it might be called... GLONT IS RETURND 9 Were GIT a painting and decoration zine for discussion of different colours particularly badly-spelt blue ones, it would have been... GREEN IE TURQOIS 8 Were GIT a logistics zine containing commentary on ways of carrying 10,000 copies of "Midnight Party" to Manorcon, it'd stand for... GHOST IN TRAILER 7 Were GIT a whinge zine used to describe in detail all the problems I was having with Internet connectivity, surely it would be... GRAVE IP TURMOIL 6 Were GIT a nostalgia zine bringing together fans of old BBC radio comedy, rather badly written, the acronym would be short for... GOONS IS TERIFIC 5 Were GIT a religion zine featuring details of a surprisingly quick conversion to monastic life, the full name would be... GRIEF IM TRAPIST 4 Were GIT an instructional zine in which I told you how to treat me were I to behave excessively rowdily at a con, I'd call it... GLASS IF TOODAFT 3 Were GIT a gossip zine with all the latest reports of the misbehaviour of prominent hobby personalities, it would abbreviate... GIHAN IS TROLIED 2 Were GIT a fashion zine featuring tips for what's in and out to do with your scalp and facial hair, it couldn't not be named... GROWS IT TONYISH 1 Were GIT a pulling zine in which I advertised my particular suitability as a life partner and significant other, we'd know it as... Wait a minute! GIT _is_ a pulling zine, and I _am_ particularly suitable to be a partner for some lucky person! Hm. Were GIT a pulling zine, and not called GAMES IN TESTING, it would be... ...GREAT IN THESACK. --P A G E B R E A K--- ZINE BABYLON I missed Babylon 5 last night, d'oh! Completely forgot to set the video, though I knew I'd be out playing games at Chris Jones' house. We played Siedler with the "pick a card" rule applying to picking a progress card out of the deck and picking a card out of someone's hand with a 7 or a Ritter being interpreted to mean "take a look at all the cards available and pick one of your choice". Monopoly, Streetbuilding and Progress cards whenever you want them (and played very early in the game) and you get to know what people have and when. I won because everyone else seemed not to value the VP cards highly enough, so I helped myself to four of them. An interesting variant, but not an improvement. That said, it was an episode I had seen before - and, no, Channel 4 aren't showing repeats. For those not in the know, Babylon Five is a sci-fi drama set to run over five series, and Channel 4 are now showing the fourth series on Wednesday nights after the repeat of Space Cadets. I hadn't watched any of the show before about March this year, and wasn't tempted to start, but I lived next to the president of the society dedicated to celebrating that show at Uni and he convinced me to watch the crucial bits of the first three series - 32 episodes in a row in 24 hours, sponsored for charity. For two weeks after that I thought "very nice but so what?" and then woke up one day absolutely gagging to know what happened next. He kindly then showed me his converted imported tapes of the first episodes of series four. Not that I can remember all that much about what happened now... I'm not a sci-fi fan, normally, and you probably ought to know just what sort of shows I do prefer by now (if you don't then you haven't been paying attention!), but there was something very simple that really attracted me to the show. The high standard of writing. (And the extremely high production values, but that's two very simple things.) They used the simple literary device of putting juicy lines in the dialogue and showing those lines to later have some completely unexpected yet portentous and cunning meaning several episodes down the line. Conversely, it's entertaining to ponder over possible double meanings in lines that look like they might be referred to again further on. Here comes the link. Wouldn't it be nice if GIT were that well written? Some discongruous phrase or article here or there, a casual mention or a hint of something to come later down the line. I'm trying. (We know, you're very trying...) That's what I've particularly been trying to do with the Panda Name Sweepstakes, but I hadn't announced this in advance. I'm ever so pleased with your response to this; I was fully expecting and anticipating people to deem this far too embarrassingly twee even for a subzine as silly as this one, but, no, people have been kind and gratifying enough to enter in the spirit in which the game was intended to be played. Unfortunately no-one has got the right answer yet, but when you do (and it's just a matter of time) you'll understand... well, you'll understand another piece of the fundamental underlying lunacy of the publication. Dan Lester suggested the panda might be called VON PANDA. Jim Hardy opined a possible name for the panda of NICK PARISH. Steve Massey tried PANDAMONIUM, but hedged his bets with STARE BEAR. Geoff Brown sent a lovely fancy letter on a colour inkjet with an attempt to name the panda which was also PANDAMONIUM. Dave Percik picked up on the "p" theme and ventured PUGH. Mark Stretch rather immodestly volunteered STRETCHY SPICE. Lastly, Toby Harris kindly praised Games In Testing in the latest TFF (not that I've seen it; this comes from Mark by phone) and went for STRETCHY. Sorry, none of these are correct. I do like some of those guesses, though. I may not have communicated the age of the beast; I've had the furry fella for about nine or ten years now, having been given him by an uncle who saw him at a car boot sale and thought I might like him. (The owner was a boy of 17 who loved cuddly pandas too, but had so many that he had to get rid of one of his larger ones to make room. I like to feel that I have improved the panda's lot in life - he doesn't get used as a cushion any more.) Remember, he's about 80cm tall, has eyes permanently closed by white eyelids on a white face and a fluffy, irregularly-shaped, roundish black hooter. There's still a prize for whoever gets it right, but should there be multiple correct answers I'll use Bingo, National lottery or something else similar to determine which correct entrant gets the one prize. --P A G E B R E A K--- T h e P a n d a P a n d a R o u n d This is a one-off (probably) title for the letter column. It takes a lot for me to drop a gratuitous game show reference but all the letters have had things to do with the Panda Name Sweepstakes this time, hence the change. This is from GEOFF BROWN in MANCHESTER, and I wish you could see how much effort he had put into it with neatly positioned, carefully selected clipart: > [GRAVE LOGO] You would think that, given all the other Hollywood > personalities that have given up the ghost in the last couple of weeks, > Frank Sinatra would have launched himself into oblivion without a moment's > hesitation. However it looks more like he's going to do a comeback tour! This refers to the ongoing game of The Dead Pool that I'm running and that doesn't look like being close to completion yet. Eyes on the obit pages... > [PANDA LOGO] I can't believe I'm discussing names of sodding stuffed toys! And I can't believe it's not butter. Can you? All this and more (oh yes, much, much more!) to come in future issues of GIT. DAVE PERCIK handed me this at Manorcon, saving him the postage from BOLTON: > How can anything as good as a Panda Name Sweepstake be reduced to > Spacefiller level? On top of that, you have besmirched the good name of > the panda. As far as I am aware, pandas in the wild do little more than > look for bamboo shoots and then eat them, with most of them staying in > areas well-populated with bamboo so that the looking part isn't too hard. > This might be considered a vice by fitness fanatics, but I have it on > good authority that real pandas are big and look cuddly. I admit that they > wouldn't be pleased about people trying to cuddle them, however. Sounds like the typical reaction of big cuddly-looking women to me, but... > You started me looking through my family's cuddly toy collection. I could > only find one duck, but there are seven pandas in our house and there used > to be nine. To match your number I do have to count an old TSB piggy- > (panda- ?) bank and my sister, but the fact that her childhood nickname > was Panda suggests how important the animals were to us. That's a lot nicer than my childhood nickname (no, not telling - and no childhood nickname sweepstakes are forthcoming). I'm glad to hear that your sister was not nicknamed Panda for permanently having two black eyes. B E F F Y N O S E - turn 6 results *GM ERROR* 256 contains exactly one odd digit, a 5. Thus John Colledge should have been credited with +256 points in game L. B/F scores corrected. Last time the random number was 9. Numbers chosen by at least 2 players score. GAME H GAME L Mark Stretch 691 0 points 4 0 points James Hardy 189 0 points 189 0 points Andrew Huddleston 699 0 points 258 0 points 846 -846 points John Colledge 988 0 points 989 0 points EVERYBODY ELSE NMR! 0 points NMR! +1000 points Running totals: Huddleston 3203 points Huddleston -3027 points Stretch 2484 points Stretch 0 points Colledge 1229 points Colledge 1721 points Hardy 99 points Hardy 2099 points Everyone Else 0 points Everyone Else 6000 points Exciting, dynamic turn, eh? That rule was invented with the hope of having more than four players in the game... Andrew Huddleston looks like winning and so is sentenced to life imprisonment in accountancy for his sins. HA! These are the ten rules for turn 7. Pick a number based on these ten rules, one of which will apply to the numbers that you all pick. 1: Must be a prime number. 2: All digits must be 4 or less. 3: Digits must sum to at least 16. 4: Must be divisible by three. 5: Must be strictly between 600 and 777. 6: Second digit must equal last. 7: Digits must sum to a multiple of 4. 8: Must be no higher than 350. 9: Must be chosen by at least 2 players. 10: Must be exactly 1000. --P A G E B R E A K--- F A N T A S Y C H E F - turn 4 results IDEAL MENU SERVING UP JOHN COLLEDGE Lemon and lime sorbet Roast pheasant with laced with madras all the trimmings PETE BIRKS Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs DENNY COLLEDGE Chicken, mustard cream & wine Roast lamb with mangetout & new potatoes JAMES HARDY Braised chicken Peking style Roast beef in "arty farty (chicken in egg & garlic sauce) crap French sauce" + chips GEOFF BROWN Lamb and spinach curry with Fillet steak with mustard chickpeas, cauliflower, potato sauce, salad and crisp veg ANDY MANSELL Roast haunch of wild boar, apples, (N/A) red cabbage, calvados, potato After looking up whether pheasant was game or fowl, and applying the usual even-handed stinginess, I am inclined to award points like so: JOHN COLLEDGE: 3 + 3 (two people want meat plus trimmings) + 2 + 2 (two people want meat in sauce) = 10 + 15 (previous) = 25 JAMES HARDY: 3 + 3 (two people want meat plus potatoes) + 2 (Geoff wants meat in a curry plus potatoes) = 8 + 10 (previous) = 18 DENNY COLLEDGE: 6 (Geoff wants lamb) + 3 (Andy wants roast meat) + 2 (Jim wants meat) = 11 + 10 (previous) = 21 PETE BIRKS: 0 + 9 (previous) = 9 ANDY MANSELL: 4 (previous) GEOFF BROWN: 3 + 3 (two people want meat and vegetables) + 2 (Jim wants meat in sauce) = 8 + 1 (previous) = 9 You can appeal against these, giving reasons, if you feel REALLY strongly about my point distribution, if you think it really necessary, but we're on the home straight now! Three people still want meat of various sorts and three people want sweets for their fifth course. Take your pick! (Be warned: suggestions like "beef trifle" are unlikely to earn many points at all.) A R I T H M E T A C T I C - *GAMESTART!* Huzzah! Two self-confessed mathematical hardnuts did sign up for this new game and so we can get going straight away. As they might say at the start of a round of Mortal Kombat or somesuch, "STRETCH. VERSUS. LANCASTER. FIGHT." The first two up are Mark Stretch and Tom Lancaster, so I'm happy to get a game going straight away. Actually, I'd rather get two games going at once; I'm fairly sure the first player is at an advantage, so I'll start one game with Mark going first and one with Tom going first, and the result of the game that finishes first shall be the result of the match. GAME "ARCHIMEDES": Mark Stretch to start. \ Please send in your starting GAME "BOLYAI": Tom Lancaster to start. / numbers for turn 1 next time. Arithmetactic games could only be named after mathematicians, but I shall specialise in choosing mad ones. Janos Bolyai investigated non-Euclidean geometry and published his research as an appendix to his father's book. Problem is, his father's book hadn't come out yet. I've got a lovely anecdote about Archimedes to show he's bleeding bonkers (though the one you know about him leaping out of the bath shouting Eureka puts him at a good way there...) "Oftimes Archimedes' servants got him against his will to the baths, to wash and anoint him, and yet being there, he would ever be drawing out of the geometrical figures. [...] And while they were anointing of him with oils and sweet savours, with his fingers he drew lines upon his naked body, so far was he taken from himself, and brought into ecstasy or trance, with the delight he had taken in the study of geometry." T H E D E A D P O O L - Reminder GEOFF BROWN 1) Mother Theresa 2) Frank Sinatra 3) Sly Stallone's baby ANDY MANSELL 1) Queen Mother 2) Boris Yeltsin 3) Michael Barrymore JAMES HARDY 1) Burgess Meredith 2) Catherine Hepburn 3) Mary Tyler Moore I'm keeping watch, but yell at once if any of these nine kick the bucket... --P A G E B R E A K--- King Of The Hill BLANKETYBLANK Turn Four HORNBY INTO ENEMY TERRITORY N O R T H BUT EVERYONE ELSE ON THE HILL A/\1 /XX\ B/\XX/\2 XX IMPASSABLE Creak creak... progress again /XX\/XX\ XX SQUARE in BLANKETYBLANK after far too C/\XX/\XX/\3 long, and, yes, that was my own /nw\/XX\/ne\ ~~ ROCKY POOL silly fault. For now I'm a full D/\06/\XX/\01/\4 ~~ SQUARE time GM and at your service. /nw\/nw\/ \/ne\ E/\05/\12%V /\02/\5 HH TARGET north / \/ \% V/ \/ne\ north HH SQUARE west F/\ /\ %\ /V /\03/\6 east / \/ \%nw\/neV/ \/ne\ Do you know how depressing G/\ /\ %\11/\07/V /\04/\7 it is to be dealing with / \/nw\% \/ \/ V/ne\/ne\ orders dated almost three H/\ /\01%\ /\ :: /V08/\05/\8 months ago? Probably as / \/nw\%nw\/nw\:ne:/ V/ \/ \ depressing as it must be I/\ /\02%\03::04/:09:\ /V /\ /\9 for you, I know...! /XX\/nw\% \:nw:/HH::se\/neV/ne\/XX\ J/\XX/\07%\ /:09:\HH/\05/\11/V06/\XX/\10 W E S T /XX\/XX\% \/ ::nw\/ne\/ \/neV/XX\/XX\ E A S T \XX/\XX/V /\ /\10/\10:: /\12%\XX/\XX/ On top of that there 1\/XX\/ V/sw\/sw\/se\:se:/ \%se\/XX\/A weren't any conflicts \XX/\ /V07/\08::03/:04:\ %\06/\XX/ at all this turn, but 2\/ \/ V/sw\:~~:/se:: \% \/se\/B fourteen pieces moved \ /\ /V01/:~~:\09/\ %\ /\12/ and the middle of the map 3\/ \/swV/sw::se\/se\% \/se\/C is starting to look a lot \ /\03/V05/\02/\08%\ /\11/ more congested than it did 4\/sw\/swV/ \/ \% \/se\/D before. \09/\04/V /\ %\ /\10/ south 5\/sw\/swV/ \%sw\/ \/E south west \10/\12/V %\06/\ / east 6\/ \/ V%se\/ \/F I've fully treble-checked this \ /\ /\01/\ / Phone numbers adjudication and hope that we 7\/ \/XX\/se\/G NE: 01322 348905 can get up to speed once again. \ /\XX/\07/ NW: 0171 723 2395 Congratulations to the players for 8\/XX\/XX\/H sticking to the game despite all \XX/\XX/ E-mail address the COAs that have been taking place; 9\/XX\/I SW: simon.hornby@ only Des hasn't moved house yet while \XX/ micromuse.co.uk the game has been taking place...? 10\/J SE: wouldn't be working S O U T H any more, would it? NE: Des Langford, 8 Hornbeam Lane, Barnehurst, Kent DA7 6HH NW: Mark Sheiham, Flat 1, Balcombe House, Taunton Place, London NW1 6HA SW: Simon Hornby, *COA* 77 Rowan Road, Merton, London SW16 Do you only have half a postcode, Simon? Second COA in as many turns...! SE: Martin Bates, *COA* 11 Old Meadow Drive, Denton, Manchester M34 3TF (These COAs have been taken from the COA section at the back of OMR 21, and so might be wrong. Neither Simon nor Martin informed me personally, boo hoo.) And so, as the sun sinks slowly down the plughole, issue seven of GIT comes to an end. I was only intending to do a normal sized one as well, but it sort of swelled (and I almost completely forgot to include the results of Hang-Git that I had written up; it would have been nicer to submit a 12 page subzine than a 13 page one). Just time to mention one family trip out. We went sixty miles up the coast to Morpeth, where my parents used to take me as a baby. One of the things we visited was a bollard at the bottom of a hill in a park. As a baby too young to walk, Mum pushed a buggy I was sitting in rather too hard and it started to roll down the hill, out of control... and I hit my head on the bollard. After that I started to bleed rather a lot and had to be taken to hospital. The bump on the head explains a lot, doesn't it? Have a good month! I hope you've enjoyed reading this issue of Games In Testing, and look forward to being with you all again next time round... Take care, Chris.