The Secret Lair

Confession time: I play a lot of so-called “casual” games. I’m talking about the video games that make hardcore gamers cringe: gem matching, time-management, hidden object games. Games like Diner Dash, Big Kahuna Reef and Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove. For over a year, I had a membership to Big Fish Games and plunked down $6.99 every month to buy titles like Airport Mania: First Flight, Heroes of Kalevala, Mall-a-Palooza and Life Quest.¹

It’s not quite as bad as playing FarmVille on Facebook,² but it’s close.

The truth is, I enjoy casual games. A lot. And I’ve played a nigh-embarrassing number of them in the past eighteen months, both on my Windows desktop and on my MacBook. The full list contains over two dozen titles, but here are just a few:

Windows

That's one cute plane.

• Airport Mania: First Flight. This is the one that started it all; the gateway game I started with when I first joined Big Fish Games. You manage inbound and outbound flights at a series of airports, shuffling planes from runway to gate, to baggage handling, refueling, repair, and even repainting. And the planes are all ridiculously cute,³ smiling and cheering when they arrive at the gate early; frowning when there’s a delay.
• Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips. More cute planes! I’m pretty sure there are new aspects to the gameplay in the sequel, but I’m hard-pressed to recall what they are, on account of those planes are just so darn cute.
• Build-a-Lot. This real-estate mogul game has thus far spawned four sequels, including Build-a-Lot: The Elizabethan Era. Build, buy, upgrade and sell houses, improve neighborhoods with essential businesses, and create a real estate empire.
• Mr. Jones’ Graveyard Shift. Quite possibly the only sexton simulator in existence.⁴ Mr. Jones is trying to earn enough to retire with his septuagenerian sweetheart and it just happens that he works in a cemetery. As with most time-management games, you begin with only the basics and work your way up to high-end accoutrements; it’s class warfare in the afterlife!
• Mystery Case Files: Huntsville. Time-management and gem-matching games are one thing, but hidden object games take geek shame to a whole new level; nothing to build, nothing to move, nothing to shoot, nothing to do. You’re playing Where’s Waldo? on your computer; even solitaire is more active! Despite this, I’ve played Mystery Files: Huntsville—which has the player searching for clues in various crime scenes and adds some puzzle-solving elements to the hidden-object genre (as most recent titles do)—through to completion…twice.

Mac

No tricked-out nametag?

• Diner Dash. If there is a patient zero in the time-management game genre, this is probably it. The basic concept is fairly straightforward—seat customers, serve them food, take their money, and bus their tables—but Diner Dash and its simple mechanic have spawned not only a number of sequels but dozens of knockoffs involving coffee shops (Coffee Rush), hotels (Hotel Dash: Suite Success), hospitals (Hospital Hustle) and beauty parlors (Belle’s Beauty Boutique).⁵
• HappyVille: Quest for Utopia. This game, which is essentially Sim City-lite, pushes the boundaries of my definition of a casual game. Most importantly, it is not divided into a series of bite-sized chunks, (e.g., gem-matching boards, time-management levels) each of which takes 5-20 minutes to play. Instead, HappyVille is a single city that the player must build from start to (ideally) utopian finish over the course of the game. Build farms, homes, hospitals, schools, stores, and other buildings, always with an eye toward what will keep your citizens happy: nearby shopping, schools and safety facilities, but nothing downwind from the farm, please.
• Heroes of Kalevala. The story behind this gem-matching game is based on the epic poem of Finnish folklore. Unfortunately, it is presented without any trace of a Finnish accent, so words like “kantele” and names like “Wainamoinen” lose their character. As with most recent gem-matching games, the goal in Heroes of Kalevala is to clear a board by changing all of the tiles beneath the gems to a single color. In most cases, tiles can be cleared by simply completing a match over them, but some tiles are locked and require specific (and often multiple) matches to clear. Some levels feature ice that must be cleared or spreading pools of tar that must be eliminated before they spread across the entire board. Each hero has an ability that can be used to clear otherwise-inaccessible tiles, stop the flow of tar, or otherwise assist in the clearing of the board.
• Mall-a-Palooza. I caught some guff from Madame Overlord Johnson for playing this game, and deservedly so. There’s a certain amount of hypocrisy in mocking her for playing My Cafe World on Facebook while I’m trying to balance the distribution of Old Navy-like clothing stores and not-really-Radio Shacks in my virtual shopping mall.
• My Kingdom for the Princess. A time-management game with a medieval fantasy twist. The kingdom is in ruins and you must direct your minions to repair roads and bridges, gather gold, build farms and ferry the princess to safety before time runs out. As with most time-management games, the trick for me is not simply completing each level, but managing to do so before the first timer expires in order to achieve a “gold” ranking. This leads to me playing some levels multiple times, trying to find the most efficient way to use my minions’ time to accomplish all the required tasks.

These are the types of games that my hardcore gaming buddies simply don’t talk about, much less admit to playing and enjoying. None of the Olde Fartz—a group that convenes online every Thursday to play first-person shooters, racers, and real-time strategy—has ever copped to playing Diner Dash, must less a game with “Princess” in the title. Am I alone in my enjoyment of both “casual” and “hardcore” (or, as Amazon calls them, “core”) games? What are you playing when no one is watching?⁶

1. I’d still have that membership if I hadn’t reached the point where I simply have so many games that I don’t have time to play them all. [↩]
2. Zyngaaaaaaaa! [↩]
3. Yes, cute! Don’t you judge me! [↩]
4. It’s a niche market. [↩]
5. Not to mention inspiring games like My Cafe World on Facebook. [↩]
6. Be very, very careful how you answer this question. [↩]

Gæt en smartphone - Del 2, CC BY 2.0 image by @boetter via Flickr

I’m taking a pause from my mini-tour through deck-building games as I scramble about to get things done before Balticon begins. As with several trips of late, the prospect of heading away for a few days raises a perennial question – do I pack up my glorious but cumbersome laptop to go with me, or can I go solo with my smartphone only?

This query is the start of a more interesting broader discussion, one that balances the natural affection many of us have to acquire shiny tech with the desire to be as streamlined as possible in lives that are packed full of Things That Need Doing. It’s no surprise that this is a conversation many people are having. In recent weeks here in The Lair, xinpheld touched on the impact that a smartphone acquisition has had on his life, we’ve discussed why exactly one of these newfangled tablet things might be worth buying to someone who already has a lot of machinery, and Overlord Miller has examined his experience trying a tablet to completely replace his laptop. Offsite, one of many examples is Mur Lafferty’s reasoning on actively reducing her number of gadgets.

As to myself, I currently have a 17″ Macbook Pro¹ and an iPhone 4². Despite gazing a bit too long at a passing iPad or drooling at Mr. Miller’s description of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I have no serious inclination to buy a tablet as I have no particular role for it to fill. I’ll use my laptop instead of the phone when both are available, but I’m finding more and more that my smartphone isn’t just a stopgap for when I’m away from a computer, but can actually replicate the desktop experience in many ways. But is it enough right now to ditch a computer altogether? Let’s break down what I actually need a compu-tronic device for³:

• Interwebs access: The iPhone is hampered by Apple’s asinine business-driven lack of support for Flash, but otherwise does a fair job accessing the web. For ease and compatibility, I’m currently wedded to Google for email and other services, and their latest iteration of the mobile sites for Gmail, Calendar, and Reader nearly duplicate the ease and functionality of using them in a full computer-based browser. One of the biggest issues with the lack of Flash support is being unable to display video encoded by most non-Youtube services, although both Netflix and Hulu are supported through apps. Also, apps allow Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and other flavors of instant messaging to work just as well as on my laptop.
• Physicianly work: Via an app, I can access the full remote version of my hospital’s electronic medical record from my phone. Although the interface is a bit touchy, the program is otherwise identical to what I would pull up on any hospital computer, allowing me to do the usual doctorly things – write notes, prescribe medications, and confirm orders, just to name a few. My hospital also uses Groupwise⁴ for internal email and scheduling, which I normally access via web interface when offsite on my laptop, however the phone app version actually has a swifter, smoother interface than the desktop iteration, and so astounds me by working better.
• Gaming, baby: I’m not currently using a computer as a gaming platform; that dubious honor goes to the Xbox 360 and PS3⁵. There are several mobile-specific games that do make my phone a destination device for brief spurts of gaming, however, including the previously praised Drop 7, Canabalt, and DodgeDot, among others.⁶
• Other programs: This is where the phone dies in comparison to my laptop. Document management is a big part of my personal workflow, and on the phone, any sort of document editing is remedial at best. Creation of slide presentations, which I frequently do for various talks, is right out. Additionally, recording and editing of audio for podcasting or other work is totally off the table.

Of course, aside from the above, there are other issues that hold any smartphone back from being a true computer replacement, the biggest of which are processing power, screen size, and ease of interface. To some degree, all three of these are addressed by current and upcoming tablets, as well as portable keyboard solutions⁷. That said, tablets are still stuck in a limbo state – they can do the same things smartphones do, only faster and better, except they don’t let you talk to people like a phone; they can do most of what full computers can do with a better form factor, but they aren’t to the point yet of handling robust programs or graphically intensive games.

What I would love to see in the near future would be a single device that is a smartphone/tablet combination. The tablet would have a built-in lightweight keyboard interface, and enough power to handle fully functional programs for document creation and audio editing. The smartphone component could be easily undocked from the tablet for ease of use, but otherwise the two pieces of hardware would share the same core data, and benefit from the tablet’s better processing power and storage when docked together. That’s my ideal device⁸, at least for the moment.

As to Balticon, the phone will not be going solo, and the computer will be coming with me. Perhaps if I was flying instead of driving, and not giving a slide presentation, I’d go that route – after all, the phone does the basic computerish things well, and allows me to access everything from the hospital at least as well as I could from the hospital itself⁹.

Have you ever gone smartphone only, without a computer of any kind? If you have, were there any surprising successes or abject failures in doing so? Do you even think it’s possible to consolidate all of your tech needs comfortably to a smartphone in 2011?

1. Purchased while under the compulsion of lust for a large monitor, which overwhelmed the more sensible brain regions that were trying to point out that a smaller device would cause considerably less back strain to carry around. [↩]
2. I’m not an Apple fanatic, but at this stage in my life I’m interested in gadgets that are slick, reliable, and don’t require much troubleshooting. Apart from seeming to discover a new error every time I sync my phone with iTunes, Apple’s iStuff suits this busy consumer nicely. [↩]
3. This is entirely separate from all the other neat things smartphones can do that desktop or laptop computers typically do not, such as GPS functionality and other mobile app specific awesomeness. [↩]
4. Which I loathe. Because it deserves loathing. [↩]
5. As a former PC gaming snob, this is pretty much heresy. I try not to think about it too much, and do self-flagellate on occasion. [↩]
6. Angry Birds is not one of these. Please. I have a standard or two. [↩]
7. I was excited to get the Thinkgeek Bluetooth keyboard case for my iPhone for Christmas. I was dismayed to discover that it tripled the bulk of my phone and was awkward to use, so gave up on it after a couple of days. [↩]
8. Well, that and it being open source and DRM-free, of course. Fie on you, Apple! [↩]
9. It strikes me that this may be more of a damning statement against the current hardware status of my clinical practice than a compliment to my phone. [↩]

Overlord Chris  Miller, Commandant David Moore, and Dr. John Cmar will be attendting Balticon 45 this coming weekend. When not distributing the spiffy buttons (designed by Natalie Metzger (our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda) or chapbooks (created by Natalie and David), they will be wandering about the convention looking suspicious.

Dr. Cmar will be speaking on the following topics at the following times¹:

• Alien Sex: What Could Go Wrong? – 5/27/11 9:00 PM – No matter what kind of life we find out there, you know someone is going to want to #$%* it. What could go wrong?
• Extending Human Lifespan – 5/28/11 10:00 AM – Panelists discuss scientific advances in expanding human lifespan as well as the ramifications of humans living longer lives.
• Unlikely Disasters to Plan For – 5/28/11 10:00 PM – So much attention is paid to how one might survive the zombie apocalypse or robot uprising. But aren’t there a whole lot of other things we should be planning for? How about mole men? Insect sentience? Or grey goo? Join our panel of possible-apocalypses scholars enumerate the conceivable threats. We might even have time to figure out how to survive one or two! Audience participation encouraged!
• The TRUTH About Adult Content - 5/29/11 3:00 PM – We’ve all seen the signs. “Warning: Adult Content.” “Not Safe For Work.” “Men’s Restroom.” But how many of us know the TRUTH behind these slightly ajar doors of forbidden knowledge? What, if anything, is contained inside an adult? How sexy is danger in the workplace? Does anyone really rest in those rooms? These answers and more will plunged, examined and ultimately ignored as Doctor John Cmar (a real doctor!), Professor Jared Axelrod (not a real professor!) and Commodore Christiana Ellis (up for debate!) bring you the TRUTH about Adult Content.*
• Medical Studies for the Non-medically Trained – 5/29/11 8:00 PM – Looking at the many pitfalls that go into medical research, why doctors can get it wrong, and why most media gets it worse.
• Zombie Survival Plan: Have You Got Yours? – 5/30/11 12:00 PM – “They” are coming. Regardless of when the outbreak occurs, “They” will swiftly take over the planet and destroy civilization as we know it. As any movie or video gaming buff knows, “They” are the zombies, and they want to eat your brains. Will you be prepared when the apocalypse happens? Bring your plan so you can compare it with those of the master zombie survivalists on our panel.

Overlord Miller will be on the following panel:

• Into the Blender Live: Take My Geek Card (I Dare You!) – 5/29/11 9:00 PM – This time Chooch and Viv (hosts of the Into the Blender podcast) take on a touchy subject: There are countless arenas of geek affection, but some seem near universal: movies, television, and books. Whether it be Star Wars or Firefly; Lord of the Rings, or Buffy; Gaiman or Pratchet – there are things you are SUPPOSED to love as a geek. Well, we don’t love them all and I bet you don’t either! Come compare your likes and dislikes with an assorted panel of lovers and haters of every genre.

If you are at Balticon, stop us, say hello, and submit to our will.

1. Dr. Cmar says, “If you want to catch the one thing that I’m most enthusiastic for, then please stop by my solo talk Sunday evening on Medical Studies for the Non-medically Trained. It will be far more interesting than the title might lead you to believe, and I expect that RANTING~! will occur. As to the others, I… really don’t know what to make of the alien sex panel, but it should, at least, be entertaining. As to The TRUTH About Adult Content, well, all I will say is that it is the sequel to the Truth About The Universe panel from last year.” [↩]

Not too terribly long ago, we invited some Friends of the Lair to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets under the shroud of anonymity; we promised to keep their identities a closely guarded secret and offered them the opportunity to bare their souls—to share with us their hidden shame without fear that they would be exposed for the damaged, dysfunctional individuals they really are.

No one was more surprised than we were that they actually fell for it.

Presented here, for the first time, are shocking revelations from people who have the audacity to call themselves geeks. Here is Geek Shame at its finest:

• Chris M. “deeply enjoyed” the second and third Matrix films.¹
• Derek S. has never watched Doctor Who. In his own words, he “couldn’t even point out Dr. Who in a lineup.”²
• Mick B. has never seen an episode of Babylon 5 beyond the pilot.³
• David M. liked Highlander II: The Quickening.⁴
• Kris J. has never watched all of 2001: A Space Odyssey.⁵
• Greg H. “couldn’t get into Firefly.”⁶
• Doctor John C. has never seen Blade Runner.⁷
• Chris M. has “never read Lord of the Rings straight through.”⁸
• Jay L. doesn’t “get” Transformers.⁹
• Natalie M. has never seen an entire episode of Star Trek, the original series.¹⁰
• Derek S. has not seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.¹¹
• Mick B. has never read any of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.¹²
• Greg H. never finished Grim Fandango.¹³
• Kris J. found Ben Affleck as Daredevil “pretty watchable.”¹⁴
• Natalie M. has never seen a single episode of LOST.¹⁵
• Jay L. doesn’t see what all the fuss is about Princess Leia in a metal bikini.¹⁶

There you have it. True¹⁷ confessions of people who profess to be geeks. Do you have some hidden geek shame? Go ahead: let it out. Your secret is safe with us.

1. Just like some people “deeply enjoy” cavity searches. [↩]
2. Hint: Look for the guy with celery fastened to his lapel. [↩]
3. I’d make a clever comment here, but I haven’t even seen the pilot. [↩]
4. I hope he enjoys Highlander XIX: The Shunnening. [↩]
5. The only HAL he’s familiar with is the guy from Barney Miller. [↩]
6. This is actually grounds for execution in some sectors if the Internets. [↩]
7. Or Logan’s Run or TRON. On the other hand, he has known the touch of a woman. [↩]
8. “You shall not pass…page 328!” [↩]
9. Here’s a hint: The Transformers! More than meets the eye. Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. The Transformers! Robots in disguise! [↩]
10. In her defense, she was minus thirty-three years old when they originally aired. [↩]
11. “From Hell’s heart, I stab at th—are you even listening to me?” [↩]
12. I got nothin’. [↩]
13. I know, right? What the hell is Grim Fandango? [↩]
14. You want me to make a “Matt Murdock is blind” joke here, keying on the word “watchable”; I know you do. [↩]
15. It’s almost as though she’s got better things to do than sit around watching television. [↩]
16. Okay, now I’m just making stuff up. [↩]
17. Mostly true. [↩]

My laptop died about three weeks ago. It was a Macbook Pro, and was a real workhorse. I’m not surprised it died; I’ve configured it all manner of ways, including a Mac/Win/Unbuntu triple-boot at one point. Unsurprised, but disappointed — it was a nice piece of hardware, and I’m sorry to see it go.

This put me an a tough position. The Money Fairy hadn’t dropped off the bundle of bills that would enable me to buy a new one, and in reality, I wanted to reconsider my computing strategy. Things have changed considerably since I bought my MBP; I do not spend as much gaming, I do not spend as much time writing code, and in truth, I do not spend as much time on the computer as I used to. Even as my MBP was marching toward oblivion I had switched completely over to Linux save for a few activities (Netflix, for instance), and so the idea of running right out to buy a new Mac or Windows machine really did not appeal to me.

I made a decision that surprised my wife and myself; I decided not to go buy a new computer. I have a small Asus Eee netbook which, while tiny, could be hooked up to a monitor and keyboard, and as I would in text this days, all I need to do was check email, browse the web, and use Vim, my writing environment of choice.  I could do all of that from the netbook, and while it was a little slow, it was preferable to hunting for a new lappy.

And so, I adjusted to not carrying a computer with me everyplace I went. It was an interesting, freeing feeling. As much as I appreciate the wonder of the Internet, I like being disconnected from it.  I prefer it to be what it is rapidly becoming; a background process for syncing my data, instead of a destination in and of itself. It was in this mindset that I went to Google I/O.

Anyone who follow tech news can fill in what happened next: at Google I/O everyone received a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. I was shocked, surprised, and a little bewildered when I unboxed the new tech; I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.  Earlier in the month I purchased a used iPad (first gen) for my wife. I played with the device and it annoyed the little hell out of me. So, now I had a new one all to myself, running Android.  What to do with it?

I decided to see if I could use it to replace my laptop. When I returned from my trip, I set the tablet on stand and hooked up a bluetooth keyboard. Viola; I had an ultraportable writing device.

Here is what I’ve learned about using the tablet as a replacement for a laptop:

• The whole setup is less weighty than a laptop, which I adore. I hate lugging tech. I prefer to travel light, and this works extremely well for me.
• The form-factor is excellent for writing: I prefer to work on a paper-shaped space (8.5 x 11) and the fact that I cannot have difference windows up on the screen means less distractions.
• The pairing between bluetooth keyboard and device is a little flaky. Sometimes the keyboard doesn’t like syncing, sometime a glitch of some sort causes keys to “stick” leading to unintended repeaaaaaaaaaating letter s. I’ve had one situation where the only fix was to shut down keyboard completely and then re-pair it with the device.
• Thus far, I cannot use Vim on Android other than by using SSH to travel to a Linux server. I am taking steps to remedy this.
• I have not tried to hook up a bluetooth mouse, and I’m curious to see how that would work, if at all. I will say that tapping the screen to move the cursor around (due to a lack of arrow keys on the software keyboard) makes it extremely difficult to edit text with any sort of speed. The external keyboard helps with this, but because of this limitation, I’ve come to refer to my tablet as a first-draft device, meaning that I have to edit on my netbook if I want to make significant progress. This might change as I get used to working on the tablet; we shall see.
• Gaming is out, natch.
• Skype is tenuous.
• Audio recording and editing for podcast is not possible.
• It is a fantastic media-consumption device; I use an excellent RSS reader called Pulse that links into my Google Reader account and makes reading the news truly enjoyable; it has become my morning newspaper. For reading books I still prefer my Kindle (backlit screens are hard on the eyes), but for short stints, the tablet does the job admirably.

As part of the Google I/O experience we will all be receiving a Chromebook, and I’ll report how that device enhances my laptopless existence. The Chrome operating system should be interesting to play with, but as a command-line guy at heart, I remain somewhat dubious.

Do you have a tablet?  How do you use it? How have other devices replaced a desktop or laptop in your life?

The Transcutaneous Bacon Gun was voted the most delicious way to die by Overlords Weekly for twenty three weeks in a row.

Thus far in our tour through some of the deck-building card games, we’ve taken a look the two most popular of these – Dominion and Thunderstone. Dominion succeeds by virtue of being the first of its kind and having elegant, simple mechanics, while Thunderstone takes a dungeon crawl theme and runs with it, adding new things on top of Dominion‘s basics to make a more intriguing game.

That noted, there are a shuffle¹ of deck-building card games that have emerged in me-too fashion since 2008, which some have coined the Sons of Dominion. While visiting our Friendly Local Game Store² recently, a couple of game night patrons highly recommended one of these Dominion progeny for us to check out – Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer.

Vital Statistics: Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a non-collectible deck-building strategy card game designed by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champion Justin Gary with illustrations by Eric Sabee, published by Gary Games in 2010 with a retail price of $39.99. It handles 2-4 players, and claims to have a playing time of 30 minutes, which is fairly accurate once one is familiar with the game. It is rated as suitable for ages 13 and up, which seems rather conservative – the mechanics and theme could work with younger ages, perhaps even down to 8 years-old.

Theme and production: The plot goes something like this – you are in a fantastic world, barriers between dimensions are breaking, there’s something about a fallen god coming to wreck reality, and the players take the roles of warriors defending their realm. You do this by assembling an army of Heroes and Constructs to fight the fallen god’s minions³, which gain you Honor points for defeating them. Predictably, the person with the most Honor wins the game. While the setting is suitably epic and interesting, Ascension takes a bad page from Dominion‘s book in that it doesn’t fully embrace it’s theme, in that the story of the game implies that winning should have something to do with taking out the fallen god directly… which, in the end, it doesn’t.

The game comes with a durably constructed board that serves to map out where the card stacks go, as well as provide a crib sheet for the rules. While pretty to look at, the board is completely unnecessary, as there are relatively few stacks of cards compared to a game like Dominion, and the rules are very straightforward. That said, as a play aid it allows less experienced and younger players to easily jump into the game, making it highly accessible. Also in the OOOH SHINY category, it includes plastic gem-like tokens to represent Honor points that provide a visual and tactile anchor to the world. The tray in the gamebox is slotted for easy separation and storage of the different card decks involved.

The cards are printed on thick, glossy stock that enhance their look but, oddly, makes them a bit awkward to shuffle. They also are susceptible to some chipping along the edges with frequent shuffling, due to their stiffness. Sabee’s illustrations are very stylized and distinctly done in colored pencil, capturing both a sense of whimsy and the fantastical. The card layout is outstanding: while the art is showcased over much of the face of each card, plenty of room remains for flavor text and specific game mechanics. The three numerical resources in the game – Runes, Power, and Honor – are each clearly associated with a symbol and area on the card face, making them very easy to keep track of⁴.

Gameplay: Ascension deals with three resources: Runes, which allow you to purchase new cards; Power, which allows you defeat monsters; and Honor, which functions as victory points. Each player starts with a deck of 10 basic cards⁵ and draws 5 cards into her hand. The central play area contains a supply of resources that are always available – an infinite number of easily-defeated Cultists that give Honor, and a hefty supply of inexpensive Heavy Infantry and Mystics, which give Power and Runes respectively.

The remainder of the cards in the game are shuffled into a single Center Deck, and the top 6 of these are laid out and available for purchase (or fighting, in the case of monsters) at any time. These cards consist of Heroes, which are played and cycled through your personal deck to give Power and Runes when they are used; Constructs, which function similarly to Heroes except that when played they are not shuffled back into your deck, but instead stay active in your play area and give you continuous bonuses; and Monsters, which are obviously for stabbing in the face. Additionally, Heroes and Constructs all belong to one of four thematic Factions in the game world, each of which has their own particular abilities and strategy. For example, the cards of the Mechana Faction are all expensive to buy, have special abilities that usually work only with other Mechana cards, but are worth lots of Honor. One downside is that the Central Deck contains 100 cards total that are used in every game, which results in less card variety during repeat sessions compared to other games in this genre.

On a player’s turn, she plays any number of cards from her hand of five, and uses the Runes and Power to make any purchases or fights that she can. Any Constructs she plays stay in her play area, while played Heroes, purchased cards, and defeated monsters are placed into her discard pile, and new hand of 5 cards is drawn. Play continues until one player gets a set number of Honor gems, which causes the game to end and the person with the most Honor between their personal deck cards and tokens to win.

Gray’s experience with Magic: The Gathering clearly shines through in Ascension‘s gameplay. As opposed to Dominion or Thunderstone, Ascension has both a greater luck component and more of a sense of direct turn-by-turn competition with your opponents. Having a randomized central deck that you can only make limited purchases from, as opposed to having all the card choices available for purchase at any time, emphasizes short-term tactics based on what’s available as opposed to long-term strategy. Also, being able to see what Constructs your opponents have in play and what purchases they’ve made from the Central Deck gives you the opportunity to guess their strategy⁶ and counter it.

What works well: The game design is very accessible, quick to set up, and easy to play. The art style is unique and well-done. The dynamics of card purchasing and playing Constructs allows for a lot of direct player interaction, and rewards flexible, tactical thinking. The overall package is slick, and simply a lot of fun.

Not so much: The game board, while quite nice, is superfluous and unneeded. The relative lack of card depth makes the game less “fresh” with multiple plays. The theme could have been made more relevant to the finish of the game.

Endgame: Ascension is fun, swift, and has easy-to-grok mechanics. Compared with Dominion, it’s less about deep strategy and more focused on tactical luck-management with more player interaction, giving it a different flavor. With exceptionally straightforward rules and priced $5 less than either the basic sets of Dominon or Thunderstone, Ascension makes for a nigh-perfect “entry level” deck-building game. I forsee this getting a lot of use at my table, and I especially look forward to acquiring the recently released Return of the Fallen expansion to add more card variety.

Next column, I’ll quench my ranting about games not embracing their theme by looking at one that was designed from the theme-up…

[This review is based on personal play with a copy of the game I bought with my own cashy money. John Cmar has no financial or personal interests in Gary Games or anyone involved with the design or production of Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer.]

1. A group of card games, or so I contend. “Bunch” is boring. “Gaggle” doesn’t quite work. As most of these aren’t violent enough, “murder” doesn’t fit. [↩]
2. The Family Game Store in Savage, MD. Game store owners are an excellent breed as a rule, but Steve Sinex and family are among the best. If you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to check them out. [↩]
3. Did I mention that we loves us some minions here at The Secret Lair? Because, really, we do. [↩]
4. As opposed to Thunderstone, which has several numerical resources – XP, light, gold provided, strength, cost to purchase, et cetera – on the face of many card that aren’t as well differentiated from each other, making things confusing until you’ve played it enough to get used to the layout. [↩]
5. 8 of which are Apprentices worth 1 Rune each, and 2 are Militia cards worth 1 Power each. [↩]
6. There are many groups of cards, both inside of and among factions, that work very well together in terms of generating Power or acquiring new cards quickly, for instance. [↩]

Living in the future has turned me fickle where watching television is concerned. Thanks to my DVR, I almost never watch episodes of series I enjoy when they originally air; I’ll often go several weeks without watching a particular series, then sit down one evening and have a multi-episode marathon—Madame Overlord Johnson and I have a three-episode backlog of Game of Thrones, and we’re planning such a marathon later this week, when my young apprentice stays at his grandmother’s house.

Add online streaming video services to the mix, and I may not watch a series until there are one or more full seasons available online. I recently spent much of a Wednesday evening watching six episodes of Season One of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix Instant. Just this past weekend, I watched multiple episodes of The Invisible Man, a Sci Fi Channel series canceled in 2002, on Hulu Plus.

I currently use three services to stream television series to my television (via a Roku XD|S): Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus and Netflix Instant:

• Amazon Prime is not primarily a streaming video service; it is an annual subscription that offers free two-day shipping on most Amazon.com purchases and a discount on overnight shipping. Amazon added access to over 5,000 movies and television series via Amazon Instant Video in February 2011. An Amazon Prime membership runs about $80 per year, though students can currently get a year for free. Cost: $6.67/month.
• Hulu Plus is the premium subscription service offered by Hulu.com. The basic Hulu service features free movies, television shows and video clips, all of which can be viewed via a web browser. Hulu Plus features more content (over 1,000 seasons of classic and current television series, plus hundreds of movies), and many (though not all) shows can be streamed to a variety of devices, including smartphones, gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and Internet-enabled televisions. Cost: $7.99/month plus ads in most, if not all, streaming television shows.
• Netflix Instant is the on-demand service of the popular movie-rental-by-mail company. The last time I saw numbers was several months ago, but at that time, Netflix had well over 40,000 titles (including both movies and television series) available in their streaming catalog. Cost: $7.99/month.

To compare the three services, I selected a handful of television series—past and present—that I’m interested in watching and checked the availability from each provider.

1. Three episodes from Season Two, one of which expires on May 20.
2. Season One only (all episodes).
3. Hulu has 189 video clips related to Burn Notice, but no full episodes.
4. Three episodes.
5. I’ve yet to see an episode of Fringe, though many people have recommended it to me.
6. Five episodes.
7. Hulu has the first season of Knight Rider (1982), but is not licensed to stream it to televisions or mobile devices.
8. Netflix had most of the first four seasons of Knight Rider at one time, but the license has since expired and they are no longer available on Netflix Instant.
9. Hulu has all 17 episodes of Knight Rider (2008), but is not licensed to stream them to televisions or mobile devices.
10. Six episodes.
11. Seasons One and Two.
12. Seasons One and Two.

In terms of availability of television series that interest me, Hulu Plus appears to be the front-runner…until all of their licensing restrictions are taken into account. Most current series have three to five episodes of the most recent season available, provided that series has not been on hiatus for more than a few weeks. The only exception to this rule I’ve found thus far is Castle, which just wrapped its third season; every episode of that third season is available except for the finale, which aired on Monday and will be available sometime Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the guy who wants to start watching Castle from Season One, there doesn’t appear to be a subscription-based on-demand option. Out of curiosity, I checked Blockbuster On-Demand and found that they don’t offer a streaming option for Castle, either. If you’re willing to pony up an extra $9.90, you can buy Season One of Castle from Amazon Instant Video, and if you’ve got one of the Netflix plans that includes DVD delivery, you can get it that way, too.

For my money, Netflix is still at the head of the game. The Instant Video offerings for Amazon Prime subscribers are just sort of tacked on; there’s plenty of old Doctor Who and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but the catalog lacks any real depth. That’s not a big deal, really; I signed up for the free two-day shipping, which should save me a pretty penny come Christmas.

Meanwhile, the wacky license restrictions on Hulu Plus content plus the presence of advertisements in a premium subscription model add up to a one-two punch that knocks the wind out of the service. I’ll stick with it long enough to get a dose of Green Wing (a bizarre British version of Scrubs, from what I can tell so far) and maybe a trip down nostalgia lane with a few episodes of Remington Steele, but unless Hulu pulls a serious rabbit out of its hat in the next month or so, they’re not going to keep me as a customer.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last six months, you know that Thor, the latest in Marvel’s Avenger lineup, was released last Friday. I took a change, paid the 3D surcharge and watched the movie in brilliant 3D glory.   I had high hoped for the film, as I’ve been a fan of Kenneth Branagh for years, and the high drama of the Norse mythology seemed well suited to his skilled hand.  The casting looked interesting, and let’s face it, Chris Hemsworth looks so much like the Thor of The Ultimates line that it’s creepy.

I wanted to like this film. I truly did.  Yet…

(There be spoilers ahead. Thou hast been warned.)

It’s flat. Totally and completely flat. I’m not sure how you manage to completely emasculate the Norse pantheon, but by the gods, they managed it. Even Anthony Hopkins as Odin fails. Odin, the cleverest of the Norse gods, the the magic-forger, is shown to be a tired old man, and while he does portray the wisdom of a father to his overly rambunctious son (yes, that’d be Thor), he is weak and ineffectual. Yes, I understand why, and that the plot demands is, but Hopkins spends a lot of time looking mournful and sighing, then he “dies” then he comes back to help set things right again. Meh.

Thor himself is a cardboard cutout. I agree with what Roger Ebert said in his review, that the flaw of trying to make a movie about mythological gods is that they are defined by their attribute and powers, not by their personalities. Thor has two settings: overly-dramatic arrogent LARPer and cow-eyed insta-wisdom loverboy. That’s it. Period.

The Three Scientists On Earth are barely there. Even Natalie Portman could not add dimension to her character. They are incidental at best. Thor’s “changing” due to his “love” of Portman’s character is so forced that it is painful.

The best part of the movie?  Well, the effects are excellent, of course. That goes without saying, really. If you like effect, this movie should make you happy. From a story and character standpoint, the best parts of the film are Loki’s transition from dutiful son to subversive trickster and Heimdall. Heimdall being Heimdall was awesome.

I could keep venting at this point, but what would be the point?  This movie is a Saturday afternoon movie special, and doesn’t even come close the epic feel of Superman, Iron Man, Batman Begins, or even Spiderman. It’s one to watch on DVD while you are folding your laundry on a Sunday afternoon. Have a beer, kick back, and just let the simple “plot” wash over you. If you’re not expecting any more than that, you’ll be just fine.