Categories
games physics psychology technology

Subliminal Sound to “Cure” Video Game Addiction

A Korean venture start-up claims to have developed an audio sequence that can communicate with addicted game players below the conscious level. The company wants game manufacturers to play the embedded subliminal messages when a young user has kept playing after a preset period of time.
From The Korea Times article:

“We incorporated messages into an acoustic sound wave telling gamers to stop playing. The messages are told 10,000 to 20,000 times per second,” Xtive President Yun Yun-hae said.
“Game users can’t recognize the sounds. But their subconscious is aware of them and the chances are high they will quit playing,” the 35-year-old Yun said. “Tests tell us the sounds work.”

Any scholarly evidence I’ve ever read up on has indicated that subliminal messages don’t work, but apparently marketing such messages is big business.

Xtive applied for a domestic patent for the phonogram and is looking to take advantage of the technology in other sectors.
“We can easily change the messages. In this sense, the potential for this technology is exponential,” Yun said.

Categories
games

3 Way Tie on Jeopardy

I’ve been interested in learning more about Game Theory (wikipedia) lately and in particular The Prisoner’s Dilemma. One very interesting example happened on the Jeopardy show last Friday (March 16th 2007)—for the first time in 23 years, Jeopardy had a three way tie.

The tie was an anomaly in large part because one player didn’t play the game to win. Going into Final Jeopardy!, here’s how the totals stood…

  • Scott: $13,400
  • James: $8,000
  • Anders: $8,000

So if you were playing the game, how much would you have bet? If you’re James or Anders, you can’t win by betting nothing and hoping for Scott to wager more than $5,400 and then get the question wrong because he won’t risk that much. In order for either James or Anders to win, you would have to bet everything, get the answer right and have Scott answer incorrectly.

If you’re Scott you have to wager at least $2,601 to win. It’s unlikely that you would get the question wrong and the other two get it right, so even with a really difficult question, chances are you’d still be left with between $10,799 or $8,001 depending on how aggressive you were—either way enough to beat either of your opponents who didn’t bet anything.

Scott probably assumed that one or both of his opponents would wind up with $16,000. What Scott did next is kind of like The Prisoner’s Dilemma (wikipedia) except that Scott was safe from either James or Anders “defecting”.

Scott decided to wager exactly $2,600 creating a three-way tie. He didn’t really lose anything because now he will return on Monday with the same two opponents that he’s already beaten and by not taking the extra $1 (or extra $2399 the most additional money he could have won with a “safe” wager) he allowed both James and Anders to also collect $1600 in winnings.

Scott has a Livejournal entry about the game:

Oh, you want to know about the Final Jeopardy! wager? It was an intentional bet. I counted on Anders and Jamey betting rationally and wagering everything. I thought it would be really cool to be a part of Jeopardy history. I knew that meant I’d be playing seasoned opponents, but it didn’t matter to me. I had already won a couple of games myself, and I thought it would be neat to share the money. (See my post about Jennifer from a couple of days; that’s what the literary people call foreshadowing. :-)). Now there’ll be a notation next to one of my games in the J! Archive. How cool is that?

(via Kottke)

Categories
games

Sprout

More than just a simple puzzle game, Sprout features beautiful charcoal drawings as the basis for its graphics and style—a flash game that thinks it’s a children’s storybook.

Categories
games

You Don’t Know Jack

You Don't Know Jack

I was first introduced to the game “You Don’t Know Jack” by my high school physics teacher almost ten years ago. On the last day of classes he let us chill out and play the addictive flash based game where high culture and pop culture collide; I’ve been a fan ever since.

Now you can play a single player version of You Don’t Know Jack online. You can also browse their older “Dis or Dat” games via their blog or after you finish the 7 question game.

Categories
games

Name Games

I’ve come up with a few more versions of the “name the provinces/states/countries” game. I’ll list them all here (new additions marked):

Have fun, and don’t be shy, let us know what you think and how well you did.

Categories
documentary games

Nintendo Entertainment System Documentary

It’s hard to believe that the Nintendo Entertainment System was released 21 years ago. Last year, GameSpot sponsored a documentary celebrating the early years of Nintendo.

I particularly enjoyed the demonstrations of how to make your Nintendo cartridges run. I recall that for the first few years of Nintendo playing at our house we never had to blow on the games, I guess it was only in the later years (early 90’s) when games weren’t babied so much that dust was allowed to collect on the exposed circuit boards, and the ritual of blowing on games before you loaded them began.

Here it is, Flashback NES:

Hit play or watch fullscreen at Google Video.

Categories
games

Name 50 States in 10 Minutes or 13 Provinces and Territories in 2

Can you name 50 US states in 10 Minutes? Here’s a hint, if you get stuck think about the property names in Monopoly. I got 32 out of 50 on my first try.

I hope no one minds, but I converted the 50 States in 10 minutes game into a Canadian version: 13 Provinces and Territories in 2 minutes.

Update: See my list of other versions of the game.

Categories
games

Missing Link and Pictaps

clip from toy1.swf

Check out The Missing Link flash creation by interactive media artist Masayuki Kido. This is really cool. I don’t really have the words to summarize other than to say, it’s a series of silhouettes that appear and with the click of the mouse you can interact with them to see a near narrative unfold itself dynamically. I found it extremely compelling.

You might also want to check out Pictaps, another flash based diversion, on the same site, that allows you to draw a character, and then watch him dance to a silly song.

Categories
games

Backseat Playground

Backseat Playground Logo

The Interactive Institute in Sweden has created an in-car, virtual reality gaming system called Backseat Playground that uses GPS to integrate the actual location of your vehicle into a game. It’s currently a prototype designed for kids stuck in the car on long rides. Players can, for example, solve murder mysteries and search for clues in meatspace as they drive around. It has some great interactive features such as characters in the game will actually call the player’s cell phone (hand held receiver) to give him or her clues.

Details from New Scientist:

The Backseat Playground consists of a GPS receiver, a handheld computer and headphones, all connected to a laptop in the trunk of the car.

The laptop uses the GPS data to maintain a three-dimensional model that keeps the car correctly positioned within the virtual world. A database of geographical information is used to match events in the game to suitable locations. Players interact using the handheld computer.

The game begins with a radio newsflash, relayed by the handheld computer, which places a passenger at the start of a murder mystery or a werewolf thriller. As the car travels along its route, the player receives further phone calls and walkie-talkie messages from characters in the game.

For now, the game only works over an area of 35 square kilometres in Stockholm, but you can check out the video of a couple of kids giving it a test run.

Categories
games

Monopoly

I occasionally get into a streak where I love playing board games and my absolute favorite game to play on a cold autumn afternoon is Parker-Brother’s classic real estate trading game, Monopoly. I played yesterday with my family and though at some points it was give or take whether I would pull through, in the end, I won it all!

Disappointed by the lack of good strategy guides in a cursory search for “monopoly strategy”, I’m convinced there is a definite need for someone to get the good information out there, so I’ll do what I can in my limited knowledge.

Old Fashioned Monopoly Box Cover

Some interesting facts and lesser known rules about Monopoly:

  • It usually takes five turns (but 6 rolls – you’ll probably roll doubles once) to go around the board. You’ll probably land on four of the 28 property spaces.
  • If one or both dice roll off the board, or land on or lean against a card deck, the roll is invalid. Roll them again.
  • The most landed on spaces are: Jail, Illinois Avenue, GO and the B.&O. Railroad.
  • Free parking does not entitle a player to any kind of monetary reward. Free parking is a free space with no other penalty or reward.
  • As a general rule, when you land on “Income Tax” pay 10% if you haven’t yet been around the board three times. You will average a net gain of $170 every time you pass Go (at least early in the game) and you start with $1500. Therefore it’s in your best interest to do the math and figure out if you have less than $2000 worth of assets.
  • Pay $50 and get out off Jail early in the game while many properties remain unowned and undeveloped. You need to be in circulation so that you can buy up those properties. Later in the game it may be better to rest in jail free from expensive rent payments but still able to collect.
  • If a player does not wish to buy an unowned property he or she has landed on it is sold at auction by the Banker to the highest bidder. Any player, including the one who declined the option of buying it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start at any price.

Get out of Jail Free Card

To finish off this post, I’ve got a question that doesn’t appear to be answered in the rule book. Perhaps some of the more clever readers here will enlighten us with their opinions in the comments. It’s a fact that, if the owner of a property fails to ask for his/her rent before the second player following the one who landed on the property throws the dice, the debt is uncollectible.

My question is:

What if the player who landed on the property had rolled doubles and the owner fails to ask for his/her rent? Can the same player quickly pick up the dice and roll again? or does that only work when a second player picks up the dice and rolls?