How Would a Georgist Single Tax Work in Monopoly?
The history of Monopoly, the board game, is surprisingly political, as it was originally meant to illustrate Henry George’s half-socialist, half-capitalist idea that we should have a single tax on land...
View ArticleOn using dice with a military audience
A war-gaming consultant speaks on using dice with a military audience — an audience that doesn’t generally like games: I recently gave an ‘Introduction to Operational Analysis‘ presentation to the UK...
View ArticleFuture Games
Nyrath has compiled a list of futuristic games from science fiction, and Eleusis caught my interest: Eleusis is a card game that simulates the scientific method and teaches inductive logic. One player...
View ArticleJames Sterrett, Professional Wargamer
James Sterrett is a professional wargamer — his title is Deputy Chief, Simulations Division, Digital Leader Development Center, at the Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth — and he...
View ArticleSimulation, Training, and Reality
I recently cited professional war-gamer James Sterret, who noted that gamers are usually planning by themselves, but true military staffs must come up with a plan that everyone understands. This...
View ArticleGary Gygax explains why Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas
Gary Gygax, co-inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, published this note in the IFW Monthly of February 1969 explaining why Christians shouldn’t celebrate Christmas: Gygax was a practicing Jehovah’s...
View ArticleBehind the Hit iPhone Game “The Walking Dead”
Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead has been declared “game of the year” by a number of sites and has sold many “episodes“: Telltale sells the game in “episodes” — five in all — for three gaming...
View ArticleHow The Huang Brothers Bootstrapped Guitar Hero To A Billion Dollar Business
In 1999 Charles Huang and his brother Kai founded Red Octane, which went on to becomes a billion dollar business without any VC funding: Launching six months before Netflix, the goal was to be the...
View ArticleWhy do we have to take this class?
When Bill H. was asked by some Berkeley professors to develop simulations of democracy versus dictatorship in Latin America, he remembered his days teaching government in high school: Early on, a...
View ArticleClang
How did I just find out that Neal Stephenson is setting out to make a realistic sword-fighting game, called Clang?
View ArticleAllan Calhamer, Inventor Diplomacy Board Game, Dies at 81
Allan Calhamer, the inventor of Diplomacy, the game, recently passed away at the age of 81. He was an unusual fellow: Allan Brian Calhamer was born on Dec. 7, 1931, in Hinsdale, Ill., and reared in La...
View ArticleCognitive Training
Video games often try to be “realistic” by getting the details right in how everything looks and sounds, but this physical fidelity isn’t as important in a training simulation as cognitive fidelity,...
View ArticleSimCity’s Evil Twin
Dwarf Fortress is SimCity’s evil twin, Gabriel Winslow-Yost says: Dwarf Fortress puts the player in charge of a fledgling Dwarven colony, initially comprising seven dwarfs — a number that can, with the...
View ArticleLessons Learned in an Alternate Universe
Back in high school, Scott Alexander and some friends decided to make up a fantasy world, Bridge to Teribithia-style, and the game spread. He shares some lessons learned from spending 5,000 virtual...
View ArticleGames that let you do real-life science
I remember when Foldit was new: Foldit is the granddaddy of crowd-sourced research games and has proven that games are a viable way to get results. Players were able to discover the structure of a...
View ArticleJack Vance
Science-fiction grand master Jack Vance recently passed away at the age of 96. He lived a full life: John Holbrook Vance was born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco CA. He worked as a bellhop, in a...
View ArticleWorld Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements
John Hunter’s World Peace Game strikes me as a bit too “correct” — “all flowers and grassy fields and solar panel” — but I would have killed to play the game in 4th grade:
View ArticleMonopoly and Violence Prevention
Gun nut Caleb jokes that if the Democratic party were truly interested in preventing violence, they’d ban family games of Monopoly: Actually, they’ll probably try to ban Monopoly sooner than later,...
View ArticleTeach Kids to Code
There seem to be quite a few tools for teaching kids to code. Mitchel Resnick suggests that kids should learn to code so they can code to learn.
View ArticleReturn of the Option
The NFL has added rules to protect its precious quarterbacks, and so the option’s back. Long live the Peltzman effect!
View Article