Archive for July, 2007
Okay. The camera strategy worked. Both of yesterdays caught shots of Bourne.
But now for a complete spoiler of today’s challenge in the Ultimate Search for Bourne. Don’t keep reading if you don’t want the mission to be spoiled for you.
Our missions briefing tells us Simon Ross, our current contact, is a liar. We’re instructed to revisit the clue sites from the last two days to see if we can find a more accurate rendezvous location. Those locations are Google Group “Sightseeing in London” and a page at Priceless.com. Note that the Google Group is exactly the same, but the Priceless.com page linked to in the mission briefing is definitely different.
The Priceless.com page contains almost exactly the same text as the message thread in the Google Group that wasn’t relevant in yesterday’s challenge. “T.Gray” posted it on the Google Group, “T.Grey” did on Priceless.com.
The Priceless.com page includes a photo of what appear to be bus routes connecting to Waterloo Station, judging from the icons. This is an alternative to the image of the statue of Terrence Cuneo, an English painter whose statue features prominently in the station.
It’s easy to get distracted by red herrings today. Cuneo, the bus routes (or train routes), and all the Googling you could possibly do is a waste of time, as Agent Simon Ross has told us directly in the text—and with a big, bright-red circle on a map in the Google Group focusing on the Station—exactly where he is.
Just transmit Waterloo Station in the communication panel to solve today’s challenge.
As for camera placement, since my last two cameras both worked, I’m leaving them in place at the London Eye and Waterloo Station. For the third, I’m going with the camera at 62 South Audley Street, because searching for that in Google reveals that it’s the location of The Counter Spy Shop. This is a spy game, after all, so maybe Jason Bourne will stop by to pick up some surveillance gear.
The game won’t continue till Monday, so check back then if you need spoilers for day 11.
July 27th, 2007
I love Bollywood movies. It’s a lucky Sunday that I catch the four-hour Bollywood music video show on my local cable company’s “international” channel.
So I’m very excited that Bollywood3d is experimenting with game tie-ins to Bollywood movies. What they’re doing actually sounds a lot like what Google and Universal are doing with the Ultimate Search for Bourne. The games will come out before the movies they’re tied to, to build up hype and interest. But unlike the Search for Bourne, players will buy these games, and it sounds like real development may actually go into them.
Apparently, the Indian computer game market is slow, but Indian culture and history and its awesome movie industry make fertile ground for fascinating and fun video games. Will I be able to participate? I don’t know. I don’t speak one whit of any Indian language, and I probably wouldn’t qualify for the prizes even if I can participate.
But I’ll be watching in December, when the first game is scheduled to come out.
July 26th, 2007
Today, Tobold wrote about what may be the death of turn-based strategy games, pointing out that even though technical limitations don’t force game developers to opt for a turn-based model, in some cases a turn-based model can offer greater depth of play.
Attempts to move tabletop gaming online have mostly failed. For instance, I ran a campaign in Neverwinter Nights that didn’t work for two key reasons. First, it took an enormous amount of time for me to create the game world between sessions. Even if I’d had more and more time to practice developing the world with the provided toolset, I’m sure I would always be spending more time creating scenarios than running them.
Second, as soon as combat began, the players were hopelessly outgunned. I kept lowering and lowering the difficulty of the fights in the game, but the players couldn’t keep up. Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games are designed to simulate combat to some degree of accuracy, but the all depend on a turn-based model.
Sure, this means a few seconds of battle can take an hour to play out. Sure, in a real fight people don’t have time to make such decisions. But it allows people pretend they actually have combat skills. No one’s ever penalized for not remembering a keyboard shortcut and losing because her war-hardened combat veteran character forgot to raise her shield at the right moment.
(Neverwinter Nights actually was a turn-based game, though by default set to simulate real-time action. In a multi-playered, game-mastered game, though, allowing all players to pause was impractical. It simulated D&D reasonably well for the solo campaign, but failed for group play.)
Porting board games to computers has been more successful simply because no one’s trying to change the rules. No one wants to play speed-Monopoly, with button-mashing magnates making a Trump-like killing in the real-estate market simply because they can roll their dice the fastest. (Okay, maybe that’d be fun, but only in a weird way.)
But something breaks down with roleplaying games. Computer RPGs are an almost completely different genre than tabletop RPGs, even if they’re built around the same ruleset.
I asked before (in the context of voice chat) about non-MMO online roleplaying. But I’m thinking about it even more, now, ’cause I’ve got a friend from college who wants to start a campaign up again.
How can I get the tabletop roleplaying experience with remote players? Now that video conferencing is effectively free, we can at least talk to one another. And I’ve mentioned Gametable before, which provides a shared map and die rolling.
But are there any tools that really take advantage of web-connected computers to simulate the game itself while still giving the richness of turn-based play? Any tools that can handle the intricate interplay of a multi-character fight—with positioning, fancy moves, conditions that persist from turn to turn, all the number crunching—while still giving the players freedom to choose at (at least moderate) leisure their characters’ next actions? If so, I very much want to hear about them!
Has anyone successfully moved a tabletop campaign online? If so, what tools did you use? If it failed, what didn’t work?
July 26th, 2007
Yay! Caught a shot of Bourne with my Waterloo Station camera yesterday. Did anyone get a shot of him with a camera placed at a different location?
Now on the the complete spoiler for today’s puzzle in the Ultimate Search for Bourne.
We’re instructed to contact Simon Ross again using yesterday’s contact information. In the instant messenger, we use handle CRUYFF74 and passphrase don’t silence the truth.
Simon tells us: “Taking the day off to visit these places I found on a Google Groups. If you can’t reach me on my mobile, I’m most likely on the Bakerloo Line on the Tube.” The Google Groups phrase is a hot link to a specific “Sightseeing in London” group, obviously created for the game. You can find it here: http://groups.google.com/group/sightseeing-in-london?hl=en.
Poking around at the site reveals two discussions about sites in London—including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, and Saint Paul’s Cathedral—as well as a map that helpfully outlines the brown Bakerloo Line Ross referred to in his IM. Of the sites mentioned in the Sightseeing in London thread, only the London Eye stands out as a landmark anywhere near the Bakerloo Line.
So submit London Eye in the communications panel and the challenge is solved.
As for placing the cameras, I’ve decided to leave my first camera at Waterloo Station. Sure, it seems silly to put it in the same place, but other clues in the Google Group make detailed mention of it. For the second, well, why not go with the London Eye? If I get two shots of Bourne before tomorrow, I’ll be happy. If I get only one, I’ll be left wondering which nabbed him. And if I get none, well, then I really won’t know where to look for clues.
In the end, I found today’s challenge significantly more fun that the last few. Sure, it’s still easy, but there were other possible clues and red herrings at the web site. In the end, only the London Eye made sense, but you actually really do have to look to multiple resources to work this one out.
Go, Simon Ross! Now you’re acting like a spy!
(Incidentally, what happens if you put in the wrong answer? Would it be possible to sledgehammer your way through the puzzle by just entering site after site till you got a hit? Or are you penalized for mistakes?)
July 26th, 2007
In the spirit of my call for more innovative independent games, I’d like to second David Kushner’s suggestion in The Sandbox that students get access to cutting edge development tools.
Games that come packaged with level-building tools have fostered some real contributors to the gaming industry, and many of the great innovations in gaming have come from new outsiders who see things differently and are willing—and free—to take risks.
Kushner’s comparison of the future of video game design to YouTube is, I think, very insightful. Content development has shifted. Anyone can create a periodical, share a movie with the world, or publish a novel. And anyone can do these things cheaply. If it becomes easier for fancy games to be done inexpensively, we may well discover the next great type of game on some form of social network.
Sure, 99% will be crap, but the social networks already have tools in place to sift through silt to find the nuggets of gold.
July 25th, 2007
This post contains no spoilers (unlike my other posts on the game). Instead, as in my first post about the advertising vehicle that is The Ultimate Search for Bourne, I thought I’d put the big question out there.
Is the game fun?
I have to answer, “Yes.” I enjoy solving the puzzles, poking around the web sites, and writing up quick blog posts about each challenge.
But it’s not huge fun. I don’t need this advertisement. I’m already a big-time fan of most Google products, and I’ll probably see The Bourne Ultimatum eventually.
And as a game, the Ultimate Search for Bourne has a few little problems:
- It’s too easy. Once you “get” how a day is likely to go, you can resolve the challenge in a minute or two.
- Camera placement may be random. This is an ongoing question, and today’s game may have the most obvious clues to camera placement so far . . . or it may prove that there’s nothing but luck behind it.
- The interface is buggy. On my Macintosh with Firefox at home, bits of the interface keep reloading. For the last two days, my wife has been unable to place cameras on her Mac or on my work PC laptop
- The game feels less and less like a spy drama every day. This is party because it’s basically the same game every day. The fact that, with almost no practice, it gets very easy also removes a lot of the cloak-and-dagger feel. And finally because the willing suspension of disbelief is harder to maintain the more I realize how the places and mysteries are calculated to create another day of play and advertise another tool or service, rather than to help a story unfold.
But I did say the game was fun, right? It is! I still believe, passionately, this could be the seed for a very exciting and innovative form of massively multiplayer roleplaying game. It has moments that do still feel delightfully cyber-spyish. And I still like solving puzzles that at least pretend to be tied into adventure and story, rather than just arbitrary rules resolutions.
And any chance at a free iPhone is hard to resist.
So what do you think? Are you having fun? What do you like, and what do you hate?
July 25th, 2007
When I (finally!) cleaned out my garage this weekend, I unearthed a fairly cruddy croquet set. We last had it out at my daughters second birthday party, two months ago, as something for the adult guests to play with. She recognized it. “That’s from my birthday!” she squealed.
I’m not surprised it appeals to her. Brightly colored balls and, especially, colorful giant hammers are bound to delight a toddler. I offered to show her a game, and she eagerly agreed. I grabbed one wicket, one ball (orange, one of her favorite colors), and two mallets, and gave her a quick lesson in noncompetitive croquet.
Since she recognized the mallet as a hammer, she tried to deliver a vertical blow on the ball. The mallet—as tall as she is—struck on its side, knocking the ball toward her feet. She liked this quite a bit, taking a step back and hitting the ball toward herself over and over again.
When she realized the ball wasn’t heading toward the wicket, she tried to adopt my side swing. The mallet was really just too unwieldy for her, though, and she finally got frustrated enough that she demanded “a different game!”
I figured I could design something that would be more fun for a two year old, so I drew three concentric circles with sidewalk chalk on the driveway and my daughter, my wife, and I each took a pebble. The goal was simply to drop the pebble so it stayed within the outer circle. Each person had a different line to stand at.
Again, this game was a big hit. My daughter’s first drop (from all of twenty inches or so) landed pretty near the middle. My wife and I didn’t have as much luck, as our pebbles tended to bounce right out.
My daughter started gaming the system. She considered it fair to “drop” her pebble by squatting down and placing it in the middle, so we changed the rules: you have to keep your knees straight. She still managed to beat us, and finally she gave up hope that her parents would get the hang of the game. She collected up all the pebbles and, one at a time, played them. But she still wanted everyone to have a turn.
“Now it’s your turn, Mommy,” she said, dropping my wife’s pebble. “Now it’s your turn, Daddy,” and mine landed right near the middle.
As she closed her eyes to sleep, she told me, “I want to play a game with you tomorrow.” I promised her we would.
This kids version of Mumblety peg won’t win any awards, but it’s the very first time my daughter has engaged in an activity circumscribed by (admittedly loose) arbitrary rules with a mild competitive element.
In other words, I think it’s the first time she’s every really played a game!
July 25th, 2007
Arg! Not one of my cameras caught a shot of Jason Bourne. No matter, though. It’s time for a complete spoiler for Day 8 of the Ultimate Search for Bourne. Stop reading if you don’t want to be spoiled.
Looks like we may finally be through with Dater Notes. The contact today, Simon Ross (British, apparently, in keeping with yesterday’s clue), prefers to communicate through www.priceless.com, and our mission briefing tells us we need to go there to find Simon Ross’s handle and pass phrase.
Unfortunately, this is a MasterCard ad site with a very annoying and loud voice over when you first load it. If you click the link in the Communication panel (or click here) instead of typing in the URL, though, you can skip the message and go straight to Simon Ross’s profile.
Our mission briefing has told us to look for official identification. A thumbnail under the image of the train opens a shot of Simon’s passport. No need to use the Image Filter in the Decryption panel (unlike yesterday’s challenge). You can read the information right on the image.
Printed in red ink is Simon’s handle: CRUYFF74. Handwritten on the right is his passphrase: don’t silence the truth.
Entering these in the instant messenger, we get:
You are one of the agents looking for Bourne? I may have some information. Contact me again tomorrow.
Submit this text in response to the daily briefing, and you’re done!
I think I have a better idea of camera placement, today. Simon mentions the Imperial War Museum in his “Priceless Pick,” and a quick Google search reveals that this is right near Waterloo Station, a choice for camera placement today. I went with that, and we’ll see if I do better than I did yesterday.
July 25th, 2007
Just yesterday, I dashed off a quick post on games as art. A reader, Yehuda, pointed me to an article he wrote over a year ago on the topic, and it has some great thoughts. Not only does the article prove that the question has been discussed since long before I started this blog, but it also good job of defining “art” and “game” for the purposes of any discussion on the topic.
In contrast to that post, I deliberately tried to avoid getting into definitions—in part because such posts have done a grand job already, but also because I wanted to argue my point in such a way that the common, unspoken definitions of art and games would suffice to support my contention that games are art.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think that it’s the emergent, participatory, interactive element of games that makes them an exciting and distinct form of art. This is not to say that a beautifully designed board game might not be a piece of visual art. But when the game is played, the convergence of the rules, the pieces, and the players themselves becomes a fascinating expression of art.
There have been many attempts at “interactive” art, such as museum exhibits in which visitors are in some way incorporated into the art. Museums are pushing for more interactivity in their exhibits, with good reason. In fact, here is a simply terrific blog on the subject.
But not all such attempts are games. Letting visitors touch objects, move through interesting drawers, or get a feel for the perspective of some historical group may be very compelling, but a game is something different.
I remember visiting an exhibit of work by the remarkable sculptor Alexander Calder shortly after his death. I was only seven or eight years old at the time.
The museum was bursting with Calder’s glorious, kinetic mobiles and bright, abstract sculptures. But what I remembered best was a series of doors in a row. Visitors were invited to walk through the doors, only to discover that each door opened in a different way. Some had a simple knob. One was completely covered with knobs, only one of which worked. One, I recall, didn’t open at all, and the solution was to walk around it to the next door.
I use the word “solution” deliberately. See, the doors were definitely art, a sculpture, but they were also a puzzle or game. (No, I’m not going to get into the definition of “puzzle” and “game.” They’re different, but the line is decidedly fuzzy.)
That simple exhibit—both a game as art and art as a game—has stuck with me for thirty years. I remember what it felt like to turn the knobs that didn’t work and the thrill of finding the solution to a door. I remember laughing with my brother as we tried to solve the door that couldn’t open, then realized that the solution lay in looking at the problem from a different angle.
I’ll note here that Calder created a great many wonderful toys as part of his work. His charming Cirque Calder is as delightful today as it was when he first exhibited it.
I haven’t read much about the man, but I don’t think he drew a line between the toys and games he made and the art intended to dangle magnificently from a domed ceiling.
Calder we have someone who delighted in visual art, in toys, and in games. In his hands, all these things were more definitely art. And although I love the look of his sculptures, for me at least the one that has made the most enduring impression was a game he created.
(You know, after all this chatter about Alexander Calder and games, I think it’s time I start writing up a profile of the GURPS campaign I ran a few years ago that heavily featured the public sculptures created by Calder’s father for the City of Philadelphia. Voodoo, witchcraft, horror, and secret history on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love! I’ll get around to it eventually, but if you’re very interested, comment here and I’ll try to move it up in the queue.)
July 24th, 2007
Here’s a complete spoiler for today’s Ultimate Search for Bourne challenge. (So if you don’t want to be spoiled, please do skip this post.)
Today’s mission briefing tells us that Nicky’s left Tangier, and that Treadstone All Lies, the solution to yesterday’s puzzle, is all we have to go on to figure out where he is. If that were all we knew, this might be a challenging puzzle, but the mission briefing also tells us exactly what to do.
It suggests we use the passphrase to search for websistes, images, or videos. A plain Google search turns up nothing (though that won’t stay true as people post solutions), but a Google Image search pops up three copies (one in English, one in French, and one in German) of the Dater Notes Newsletter. This is an image file, so at last we have another reason to use the Decryption panel on the Search for Bourne web site.
I put the URL for the English version (http://www.daternotes.com/newsletter/newsletter.gif) in the Decryption panel, and Filter B revealed the word “London” hidden in the eyebrow of the laughing woman in the newsletter’s picture. (I tried the French and German images, too, but didn’t get any result. The application accepted the URL, but the three filter buttons weren’t hot. Either they only work for French and German versions of the game, or you only get to process one image.)
So if you want to be completely spoiled and have the immediate answer, just hit the Submit button in the communication panel and transmit London as you’re answer, and you’ve solved the challenge.
After submitting, I was rewarded with a video of the man from the very first video, offering a quick word of congratulations: “Well done in Tangier. Now see what you can dig up in London.” I’m not sure if this is meant to be a clue to camera placement. If so, I don’t see how, so my camera placements today were as random as they’ve ever been.
July 24th, 2007
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