U*Con report
On my way to U*Con, the gaming convention in Ann Arbor, called to ask if I'd fill in as the liaison to the Guest of Honor. He's Loren Wiseman, creator of the SF roleplaying game Traveler, which turns 30 this year. I said yes, provided the duties could fit around Clark Rodeffer's annual abstract strategy games tournament, which is the reason I never miss U*Con.
Loren's easy to liaison to. I just plied him with Diet Coke, took him to dinner on U*Con's bill, and drove him to his hotel. Unfortunately I don't know the Traveler game, but I probably should have been playing it all along if only I'd known. We had a lot of good discussion.
The tournament was fun. I won a cribbage set. Did you know cribbage was invented in the 1700s by Sir John Sucking? Neither did I.
Check this shit out. Did you ever play Laser Chess on the Commodore 64 or Amiga in the eighties? I sure did, we got it from the pages of COMPUTE! Magazine, and I loved it! There's now a physical board game that uses this concept, Deflexions, which has since been repackaged as "Khet". I played it twice in the tournament, and it's great fun. There's an expansion set for beam splitter pieces, I am not kidding you. Here's a photo of me losing a piece. I've enhanced it with a red laser line to make it easy to see what's going on.
They're selling it in the Dealer Room at U*Con on sale for $36, down from $45. I'm going to get it for Penguicon's gaming library. Everyone who saw it agreed that programmers will love this game. We're going to pour fog in there from our supply of liquid nitrogen so that the laser will be visible along the length of its beam!
Comments
crywolf on Nov. 11, 2007 7:20 PM
I remember that game! I probably have it around here somewhere.
Should we stick a C64 in the gaming room too? :)
atdt1991 on Nov. 11, 2007 7:32 PM
Too bad I didn't see this before now, you could have my virtually unused copy for 20.
tallizen on Nov. 12, 2007 2:15 PM
I still have a working I think c64 1541 floppy drive a bunch of games and utilitys, some cnet bbs software, and a fast load cartrage. I dont hace a c64 monitor tho but i thought you could hook those up to tv's???
loop-bell on Nov. 13, 2007 12:18 PM
I know my Dad's old c64 could be -- the monitor just has a "video in" plug like you use on a TV.
matt-arnold on Nov. 13, 2007 12:29 PM
Yes, that's the way the C64 worked.
Anonymous on Nov. 13, 2007 5:37 AM — cribbage
i sure hope that's "Suckling".
coico'o
m.
Anonymous on Nov. 13, 2007 9:54 PM — Sir John Suckling
It certainly IS Suckling. And, minor correction, but the game is more than 400 years old. Perhaps you meant it was invented in the 17th Century. Just ask anyone at Cribbaholics Unanimous - www.cribblog.blogspot.com.
:o)
Cheers
Joe
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