chess
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First 4 Figures to sell Mario-themed Chess
While not as classy as some of the other First 4 Figures offerings, the Super Mario Collector's Edition Chess Set is still kind of neat and, unlike the company's previous works, actually affordable for most human beings. Manufactured by USAopoly, this chess set will set you back $45 when it releases near the end of this year and is, uh, pretty much just chess with characters from the Mushroom Kingdom. Kind of odd choice making Luigi the Queen, right? That might explain why he never found himself a nice lady like his brother did.[Via Go Nintendo]
Consider the turn-based MMO with Atlantica Online
There are turn-based games, and then there are MMOs. The idea of mixing the two doesn't seem like the greatest of ideas, does it? Turn-based combat would take away from the high-action immersive fighting that we've become accustomed to through our favorite online games. This is most evident in the recent popularity of FPS-style MMOs. Yet, despite this, the RPG side of MMOs began with turn-based strategy.Over at MMORPG.com, Atlantica Online's Producer, Kim Tae Gon, explains the reasoning behind the decision to make this highly-popular game turn-based. Going back to the fundamentals of games like chess, Kim Tae Gon believes that this type of game mechanic is more approachable for a larger audience, especially considering the popularity of games like chess across the world. "With casual games and FPS games well established, it's time for something new, like turn-based games. I honestly hope Atlantica will be the starting point."
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 2
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Last week, 15 Minutes of Fame visited with multiboxer Nixi of team Absolute Power-H of Archimonde to bring WoW Insider readers his 10-boxing strategy for Karazhan. This week, we'll step back for a look at Nixi's hardware setup, his top five tips for new multiboxers and a broader look at why he's a 'boxer.Catch up with 10-boxing Karazhan Part 1, then join us after the break for an inside look at Nixi's 10-boxing team.
Wii Chess is WiiWare Chess in Japan
Next week, Wii Chess finally arrives somewhere outside of Europe, not that many people were holding their breath. The Japanese release as World Chess, however, is interesting for a couple of reasons: first, it'll cost only 1,000 yen. Second, that price will be payable in Wii Points, because World Chess is a WiiWare game in Japan. That means it's the first disc-to-WiiWare game. Eternity's Child is planned for a similar multiformat release across regions, but it has yet to be dated.Surprisingly, the Japanese WiiWare version and the retail European game will be compatible online. If you still have your copy of Wii Chess, hang on to it, because next week you'll have dozens of new players eager for a game.[Via Siliconera]
Big Bang Board Games come to iPhone/iPod touch
If you're looking for a collection of classic timewaster games for your iPhone or iPod touch, look no further than Freeverse's Big Bang Board Games, which includes Chess, Backgammon, Checkers, Mancala, Reversi, 4-In-A-Row, and Tic-Tac-Toe. The artwork and gameplay is taken directly from the Mac version of the game, and Chess has a portrait (3D) and landscape (2D) mode. Unfortunately, each game only has a one-player mode. It would be nice to have a two-player option, for those situations where you're waiting with your significant other for a table, or in line for a movie. Other than that, they're great games for my (sigh) favorite activity: sitting quietly through endless telephone meetings. Note to self: my clients don't read TUAW, do they? Just kidding, everyone! Big Bang Board Games is available in the App Store for $7.99.
CSI Mac: How did that file get so big?
I don't know much about real-world forensics, except for what I see on television, but one thing I do know is that when you're faced with a troubleshooting mystery, you have a couple of choices: shrug your shoulders and fix the problem, or figure out what went wrong in the first place to try and prevent it from coming back again. While I don't always have the time or the smarts to suss out the root cause of every Mac issue, sometimes the issue is so curious and the cause so interesting that I feel compelled to investigate until I get to the bottom of it.Recently, when one of my colleagues came in with a slightly-full hard drive, I went to my go-to disk space checker (the capable OmniDiskSweeper) to see where we could save a gigabyte or two. In addition to the usual suspects of iTunes podcasts long gone stale and legacy backups of Entourage databases, I came across the file you see above; it lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Chess. Why on earth would a support file for Chess.app be 1.5 gigabytes? That's crazy talk. I would love to delete it, but a file that large... might be useful or important.Where did this bulky bucket of bits come from? Read on for the answer.
VC Tuesday: Too Many Games Tuesday
We aren't sure if Nintendo of Japan operates like Nintendo of America, but if their website can actually be trusted to predict the VC and WiiWare releases for a given week, this week's crop of games is embarrassingly huge. Five Virtual Console games, only two of which are shooters (and one of which, Twinbee, is genuinely worth five hundred points, even if it is a not-so-great port of an arcade game), and three WiiWare games. Of course, one of the WiiWare games is the second Go game on the service, but it's Nintendo's version, and is thus pretty nice, with online play and instruction and such.The less familiar VC games include Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi, a horror visual novel about a school; Eikan no Kimi ni, a baseball management simulation from A-Train developers Artdink; and Dragon Saber, the sequel to Dragon Spirit.Virtual Console: Twinbee (Famicom, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi (Super Famicom, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) Sonic the Hedgehog (Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Eikan no Kimi Ni: Koukou Yakyuu Zenkoku Taikai (PC Engine, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points) Dragon Saber (PC Engine, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points) WiiWare: Tsuushin Taikyoku: Igo Dojo 2700-mon (1-2 players, 1,000 Wii Points) Silver Star Chess (1-2 players, 500 Wii Points) Wild West Guns (1-2 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
Chess Crusade campaigns its cuteness
Since free versions of digital chess are easy to come by, it's hard for gamers to justify purchasing titles that feature the classic board game -- we're sure this is one of the many reasons that Nintendo's Wii Chess bombed. In order to compel buyers, chess needs to bring something different to its virtual table.The developers behind Chess Crusade seem to have gotten the message, as the game looks positively adorable. The cutesy medieval chess pieces serve to soften our embittered hearts, and add an interesting, colorful take to an often bland-looking game. What's even better is that the chess pieces actually attack each other on the board, à la Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The title does fall a little short when it comes to multiplayer, though. While you can either play against the computer or against a friend locally, Chess Crusade has no WFC options. In chess, your opponent is such a vital aspect to your enjoyment of the game, so we're not sure if this is a sound decision. Perhaps it would have been better off as a cheaper, WiiWare release.Yet, if online play isn't an issue for you, Chess Crusade is coming to North America in two weeks for the budget price of $19.99. There will also be a DS version available for $5 less.
"It wasn't me": Account sharing and excuses
Technically, account sharing is a bannable offense, no ifs, ands, or buts. If your brother, best friend, coworker, or Fred from the soccer league who sometimes drops by your house after practice for a couple cold ones want to play some WoW, they have to get their own account. If they play on your account, and Blizzard finds out, they can shut you down for it.
Mytopia reinvents Yahoo! Games for the MySpace generation
Are casual, social games the wave of the future? In years to come, will we lovers of the swinging sword, the flashing fireball and the gigantic gun be left reminiscing about the "good old days" as we sign on for another evening of massively multiplayer bingo? The makers of Mytopia took a look into their crystal ball, saw the success of MySpace and Facebook and casual-game havens like Popcap, Yahoo! and Neopets and said, "These great tastes... would taste great together!"Thus was born Mytopia, a Flash-based virtual world where you can create your own super-deformed avatar (like Wii's Miis) and play popular board and card games with people from around the world, build friends lists, send email, and gamble away virtual money challenging other players to backgammon, chess, Sudoku and several other similar games. It works not only as a standalone web site, but also as an application you can install in Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. No matter how you arrive in Mytopia, though, you'll be able to play with everyone else -- there's only one game world shared by all.Mytopia has a cheerful art style, bouncy music, and well-rendered board games. What it does not have, though, is bloody avatar fights in the Battledome. Come on. Even Neopets has that.[Via Techcrunch]
ChessNET does what Nintendon't
Though homebrew competitions are always a great opportunity to see the latest games and applications coders have been working on, they also provide us a refreshing look at creative ideas and approaches that commercial developers have no interest in.ChessNET, one of 25 other entries in the NDS/GBA division of Neoflash's Spring Coding Contest, is an online chess game with an interesting feature that we've yet to see in any other online-enabled DS games -- play-by-mail-style matches. Every action is saved onto an online server, so you don't have to stay glued to your handheld all night. After your opponent moves a piece, you can wait hours or even days to deliberate over your response. Likewise, your opponent can play other games or turn their DS off while waiting for your next move. A play-by-mail option like this would have been perfect for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and many other turn-based titles with plenty of inactive stretches. Sony Online Entertainment certainly agreed, as the developer implemented it in its Advance Wars knock-off for the PSP, Field Commander. Nintendo even neglected to provide the feature in Wii Chess, a seemingly obvious oversight.CYBER_Aeon, the programmer behind ChessNET, has plans for more features that should come standard with almost every online-enabled commercial game -- messaging, buddy lists, and account handles. [Via DCEmu]
Rez HD and Chessmaster Live land on XBLA
If you've been waiting impatiently ever since Rez HD was first announced for Xbox Live Arcade, then today is your lucky day because it's finally here. If, on the other hand, you haven't been waiting for the game with bated breath, then we'd say it's still probably your lucky day because Rez just so happens to be a good game. We suggest you crank up the synesthetic, vibratory goodness as soon as possible. If, however, all that sounds like too much stimulation, perhaps you'd rather play a leisurely game of chess. It's still your lucky day then because Chessmaster Live is also available today. Both games can be yours if the price is right. The right price, incidentally, is 800 MS Points each.%Gallery-13037%%Gallery-14900%
Hudson has Wii Chess in check
Nintendo just got schooled at their own quickly-made-board-game game. Hudson's Wi-Fi Taiou Genzen Table Games (Wi-Fi Correspondence Table Game Selections) contains ten classic board games (to Nintendo's one). Each game in the collection can be played against computer opponents of varying skills, or human opponents, or in a series of short, increasingly difficult, challenges.Backgammon, contract bridge, go, hana-awase, shogi, daifugo, mah-jongg, renju, reversi, and, yes, chess are available for play on- and offline in this collection. We hope that, despite the preponderance of Japanese games, Hudson sees fit to undertake the minimal localization required for a U.S. release (even if they chose not to do so with the DS version). More games is better than fewer games, after all. And we've learned from experience that table game collections with nice online features can be revelatory experiences.
Jumpgate Evolution producer sets vision for accessibility
Accessibility is a big buzz word in the MMO industry right now. After some hardcore titles failed to gain traction, a lot of people are thinking that spending millions of extra dollars to make cutting edge games that only 5% of gamers can or will pay doesn't make a lot of sense.Among those people is NetDevil's Hermann Peterscheck, Producer of Jumpgate Evolution. He recently wrote up a dev journal post at MMORPG about accessibility. First he talks about making games that are, to quote Einstein, "as simple as possible, but not any simpler." Then he talks about hardware requirements as a barrier to entry.Looks like NetDevil plans to be conservative on both counts so as to reach a broad market. But that doesn't necessarily mean Jumpgate Evolution will be shallow. Peterscheck uses Chess as an example of a game that takes 20 minutes to learn but potentially a lifetime to master.
Tasuke prepares another round of 1500 DS Spirits games
Just three months after the last round of 1500 DS Spirits games, Japanese publisher Tasuke is getting ready to launch another barrage of cheapo games at the Japanese public. It's all the kind of stuff you'd expect from a budget game line, too: Vol. 6 Trump, Vol. 7 Chess, Vol. 8 Darts, and Vol. 9 Futari Uchi Mahjongg (Two-player Mahjongg) are the newest offerings in the line. While we supported Tasuke last time in the battle with D3 over cheap games, we find ourselves feeling that D3's weirder offerings, like driving education and, on the PS2, The Daibijin, make their Simple series line much more interesting overall than Tasuke's vanilla lineup. D3's got that kind of stuff too, but they also have the hilarious games. To Tasuke's credit, the character art (which is shared in all four games) is nice, with shading reminiscent of Falcoon's work on recent King of Fighters games.We'd like to see this kind of thing in the U.S. regardless of our lack of interest in these specific games. We have cheap games, but we don't really have games that self-identify as cheap.
Never just a game
MMOs (and some virtual worlds) are games we play together. Games are generally fun, educational, diversionary and sometimes escapist pastimes. Humans are natural gamers. Our tastes and inclinations about games and gaming may differ, but we all play games. If there's no game we like, we make a game - out of anything and everything. It doesn't matter if it involves traffic lights, paperclips in your office drawer, or trying to outshine the neighbor's garden - we make up our own rules, and play our games, even if nobody else knows. There's no such thing as "just a game", however, and there's a good reason why.
Breakfast Topic: What if WoW were more interactively social and lifelike?
Yesterday we talked about all those things we that strike us as unrealistic or odd in World of Warcraft. Your discussion of these different things got me thinking: what if Blizzard decided to make the game more interactively social? After all, players have often said that they want guild and player housing -- why stop there? Why have a house if you couldn't have more interactivity with your friends' characters, such as cooking various meals together, talking, hugging, playing music, or even playing a Warcraft version of chess or something -- all with new animations that looked right? Honestly, the way things look in WoW now, social interaction mostly involves standing there, repeating the same "talk" animation over and over as you chat. Imagine if there were a great deal more variety in what your characters could do together, just like -- and bear with me on this -- certain elements of The Sims. Some of you hate The Sims with a passion, and I respect that. And to be clear, I'm not really talking about making WoW into a "people simulator" like The Sims is. You and I both would play The Sims if we wanted to simulate people -- we play WoW for adventure! No, I'm talking about adding some optional elements to WoW, similar to roleplaying, which would add a sense of life and actual living to the game and don't get the way of your killing things at the same time, so that it doesn't feel like killing computer-generated mobs is all there is.If you do support adding more non-combative, socializing elements to the game, what sort of elements do you think would work? Mini-games such as WoW Chess, perhaps? Additional interactive animations, such as hugging, handshaking or even kissing? Perhaps even the ability to pick up objects and move them to a different location, such as moving chairs about or kicking a ball around? Would you even go to the extreme of including things like toilets, basic hunger and thirst needs, or other elements that we have in real life? Where would you draw the line where the similarity to real life should stop?
Blizzard puts Hall of Fame in the Armory
Well it's not quite a row of statues, but, as Elizabeth mentioned the other day, Blizzard has created an Arena Hall of Fame over at the Armory. They've compiled, from season one, a list of all the teams that finished in the top .5% of their team bracket, and they're all browseable by battlegroup or realm.Unfortunately, they don't show many overall stats-- I'd like to see, for example, the numbers of teams from each battlegroup or realm (checking my own realm shows me that no teams made it, but you'd have to check every single realm to see numbers across the board). Do you think PvP realms turn out more successful Arena teams? I'd also like to see the average rating of the teams that made it-- just a random browse across realms shows that you'd have needed at least a 2200 rating in 5v5 to get in. The highest teams hit around 2500, it looks like, and here's an interesting point: The arena rating is based off of chess' ELO system, and in that system Gary Kasparov, the best player in the world, was the first to break the 2700 rating. So my guess is that we'll see generally higher ratings than these in season two, and so on.Anyway, a nice little tribute to players who were successful in season one. Hopefully, we'll see better insights coming out of these numbers than Blizzard has provided here, but in the meantime if you want to see who on your realm is a heavy hitter, the HoF is the place.
How to calculate Arena Ratings and Points
If you've been playing arena PvP every week and wondering just how your rating translates into points, wonder no more. Our friend Boubouille has created a nifty and easy little Arena Rating calculator-- just punch in your ratings (or your points, if you want to know what rating you'll need to get a certain number of points, and hit calculate and you're set.The mathematical relationship is a little complicated (hence the reason for the calculator), but the rules of earning Arena Points aren't real hard to figure out-- every week, you earn points according to the highest team rating you've got. And a higher rating on 5v5 is worth more than 2v2, because 5v5 teams are harder to both fight and keep up with. This leads to a little bit of system gaming (and a lot of team jumping), but so far Blizzard has been fine with all of that-- they want 5v5 to become the most rewarding type of arena match, and they're willing to accept that you can often earn more playing 5v5 than 2v2, even if you lose.Unfortunately, the actual Arena Rating system is a little more complicated-- it's based off of a chess rating system called ELO (named after the guy who made it, Arpad Elo), and the rating of your opponent actually determines how your rating changes as you play. Unfortunately, with no way to tell who your opponent is before you play a match, it's extremely hard to figure out your rating depending on how many matches you play (players are generally saying that the fewer matches you play, the better, as the higher your rating gets, the more difficult opponents you face). But of course the best way to come out with both a great rating and lots of points is to, y'know, actually be good.
The roll-up USB chess set
Many a USB-powered gadget hath crossed the Engadget editing desk, yet we simply cannot rest until we're convinced that every single manufactured object has its obverse USB-powered version. Luckily, Tech Digest managed to uncover the D-isomer of ye olde chess set in this roll-up portable set with sensors on each of the squares so your computer can track the moves you make. You can get your Kasparov on and play against the computer (and get hints if you can't take the heat), or go head-to-head with another human via online multiplayer mode. Despite the fact that we're hard-pressed to come up with a compelling reason to allow this unit to waste precious luggage space when there's no shortage of options for simply playing chess online on via a desktop app, we'll still give you +3 to nerd cred for owning one.
