Someone needs to rewrite Johnny Got His Gun for the modern era. In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness” researchers used fMRI machines to attempt to determine the level of awareness in persistent vegetative patients.

The researchers put people in brain scanners and, in one condition, asked them to imagine standing still on a tennis court while swinging an arm to “hit the ball” back and forth to an imagined instructor, and in the other, to imagine navigating the streets of a familiar city or to imagine walking from room to room in their home. These were chosen because they show distinct patterns of brain activity on a scan. (via Mind Hacks).

Out of 54 patients only 5 showed patterns of distinct brain activity. This sort of research has been done before but in this study they took it a step further.

One patient, who had been in a vegetative state since a traffic accident seven years ago, was asked a series of six yes or no questions about simple personal details such as: “Do you have any sisters? Is your father’s name Thomas? Is your father’s name Alexander?“ The researchers instructed the patient to imagine tennis for yes and walking for no.

To blind against the effect of bias, the researchers who asked the questions did not know the answers and they each ended question with neutral word “answer.” Also, the results of the fMRI was read by researchers who were not aware of the questions asked.

The patient’s brain activity indicated the correct answer for 5 out of 6 questions—the last question resulted in no measurable activity to correlate with a response. Now statistically anyone can get 3 out of 6 yes/no questions right, but given the fact that the patient was seemingly able to follow instructions something was going on. This doesn’t mean that the patient is fully conscious and trapped in his body. Something is going on up there but given the state of the patient his level of awareness is likely fleeting and limited at best.

All this sets up an odd legal quandary as vegetative patients already exist in a legal grey area. Most legal statutes rule that it must be ruled by a medical authority that no recovery is possible before—to be crude—the plug is pulled. This sort of evidence casts more light on the state of the individual but it also makes the situation even more unclear: What if the other 49 patients never played tennis before? What if they didn’t quite understand the question? What if they are deaf?

And what if… what if they had asked the patient if he wanted to continue living like this… and what if he said “No.”

Would this classify him as minimally conscious rather than permanently vegetative? If so they would no longer be allowed to abide by his wishes. Maybe this isn’t a modern telling of Johnny Got His Gun, maybe it’s actually Catch 22.

Review I posted on Board Game Geek.

I recently picked up the board game Small World. It caught my eye while I was window shopping at Games of Berkeley; upon getting home I immediately began reading reviews here. It seemed to be right up my alley, and it fit a niche in my game cabinet that wasn’t being filled: that of a fun simple war game—or as they say on BGG an “Area Control Game.”

A Bit About Your Reviewer

I always find reviews more helpful when I have an idea who the person is, so let me first tell you what kind of gamer I am: besides classic games like scrabble and backgammon, I own Ticket to Ride, Dominion, Settlers of Catan and a number of various simple fun card games like Chrononauts and Give Me the Brain. I’ve also played a number of other board games, CCGs and RPGs.

When it comes to modern board/card games, I tend to like fun fast games with rules that can be explained easily, but strategy that takes a bit to unveil. I also prefer games with good themes and a nice visual design: I have a hard time playing ugly looking games–sue me I’m an artist. As such, I do lean towards euro games but I’m not stuck on them.

Anyway now that you get an idea of what kind of gamer I am, I’ll get onto the review…

Style & Theme (A)

I love the theme and the style of the illustrations. I mean sure it ain’t fine art, but it’s got that goofy fantasy thing down perfect. It’s the sort of game that you lay out and everyone leans in to look at the pieces, which is great for enticing new people to play. I mean what other game can you play something that is both hilarious and deadly? “Attack Heroic Ghouls! Attack! Oh noz! Commando Halflings have sprung up like gophers in our backyard!”

Certainly the layers of illustration can sometimes get so dense that it’s hard to grok the state of the board at a glance—even the die gets lost—but personally I’m fine with that tradeoff.

Components – (A)

Fantastic! The multiple boards is brilliant. The pieces are built of the most thick durable cardboard I’ve ever encountered in a game—I wish the Settlers of Catan pieces were this thick. The box organizer has it’s flaws but it does a decent job, except for the coins which always fall about.

My main gripe is the player reference cards: I mean really did they need to make it the size of a record album? Who has that sort of room on their gaming table? 4×6 would have been perfect, but even letter size would have been an improvement.

Gameplay (C)

What I like

I love how well the game manages to feel vibrant and dynamic without resorting to cards or rolling dice every 5 seconds. The only random elements being the combination of races/powers and reinforcement die that is only rolled on your final conquest. With the exception of a few races (I’m looking at you Dwarves) the game is pretty balanced too. As a result, you feel that you are matching wits with other players rather than battling the game itself.

It scales well too with the multiple boards, and even plays well as a two player game. Not as well mind you as it becomes a bit of a tennis match, but still it’s fun.

The random combination of races/powers also makes for great replayablity. Though to be honest this is a gimmick since once you run through it a few times the races get a tad stale. Of course, there are the expansions which add more races/combos; however, the best games are replayable without expansions because they reveal new depths of strategy every time you play and/or they have a timeless quality to them which makes them fun every time.

The decline mechanic is great. It’s the lynchpin of the game: going into decline on the wrong round can make or break you, and it also really gives life to the game. As players place their races into decline and send new active races to stomp across the board, you really feel that there is a story being played out.

What I don’t like

If there is a history to the world of Small World it is in the Lost Tribes, yet sadly they serve as nothing more than lifeless road bumps at the start of the game. Their very presence almost demands that they be used for something in the game.

Others have obviously felt the desire to pump life into the Lost Tribes and have suggested variants that use them (see Let’s Pimp the Lost Tribes), and I’ve crafted a game variant myself I call Savage Tribes. These ideas also serve add a little spice to the beginning of the game—especially to the 2 player game.

What I really don’t like

Where the story (and game) of Small World really falls flat is the end. After a set number of turns the game is over. That’s it. Done. Count your chips. Ok Player A won. Meh.

It’s like you’re deep in a grips of a rich lively book and find some idiot tore out almost the entire last chapter—all except for the very last page. There’s no climatic victory, no feel of triumph, it just ends and someone is the winner. Not to mention the fact that there is nothing fun about counting coins. Hell, most players never even bothered to count their coins until the end.

Half of this problem lies in the hidden Victory Points (which really should have been called Conquest Coins or something more fitting with the theme). Sure hiding the totals reduces “bash the leader” and kill’em all griefers, but I’m not so certain that’s an issue really since bashing and kill’em actually fits the theme of the game. As I mentioned above, the game is fairly well balanced. You get a sense that there is a lot of back and forth with one player in the lead and then another; however, with the points hidden that fun horse race tension is absent.

Some of the best games also give the players some control over the end game: In Dominion, players can choose to take drain a third card stack to hasten the end of the game. In Ticket to Ride, a player can play lots of easy routes to get rid of cars or save up to use their last cars on a long route for more points. However, there is no such mechanic in Small World—it just ends.

Conclusion (B- with the possibility of extra credit to bring it up to an B+)

There is so much I love about this game, but the end game really kills it for me. During the game, I’m excited and deeply engulfed, and then the last turn hits like a wall constructed of Magical Drywall of Boring (make a saving throw against ennui).

The next time we play, I’m planning on writing scores down on paper for all to see, scrapping the turns, and playing to 100 points: once a player reaches 100 points there is one last round of the game with the player who got 100 points getting the final turn. That last turn will surely be a massive leader bash festival, but that’s loads more interesting than “Ok everyone last turn.”

If that (or another variant) savages the end game then I’ll be overjoyed and I’ll likely rush out and pick up the expansions. If, however, I can’t find a way to make the end anything better than a dull exercise of remedial addition, than Small World will likely end up in the BGG Marketplace.

I often shop at Lucky Supermarket. Not because I like to but because it’s only 2 blocks from my house. My housemates and I have our own slogan for them: “Lucky Supermarket, your lucky if they have it in stock”. The thing that most gets me though is their “sale” pricing. There is often no rhyme or reason behind it—with items often priced with $0.00 off or oddities.

Anyways, I set up a Tumbler blog just to post the inanities I often find there: Unlucky at Lucky Supermarket

Clued in by Daring Fireball about a recent NYTimes article on the Game changing nature of the iPhone App Store. There are a number of good quotes in the article, but the one Gruber pulled was the one that made me think:

“Our goal is very simple: We want to have the best platform for applications that there has ever been on any product,” notes Mr. Schiller, the marketing executive. “We know we’re not perfect, but we know we’re better than anything else that has been and we want to keep improving it.”

He’s right too. Of course the app store has issues—often of the highly annoying and stupid kind. However, it has succeeded to do something remarkable. In the article, Craig Moffett says “The iPhone will be remembered as the first true handheld computer.” However, he’s missing half the story:

The iPhone app store is amazing not because of all the things it allows a phone to do—just ask any iPhone hater and they’ll name a number of features that it’s missing. What is truly remarkable about the app store is how it’s normalized the process of searching for, finding, purchasing, installing, and even upgrading applications.

In the world of computers, it’s only the geek and the early adopter who even thinks about new software. Whereas, the average user seldom installs any new software. Your normal user will often use what’s already installed or what IT (or their son/daughter) installs for them, and they are also often terrified of upgrading anything. The iPhone app store has changed the all this. This is why the app store is a game changer. Suddenly the audience for shiny new applications isn’t just the computer know-it-all, it’s anyone.

While it’s more rectangular then square, I must say I highly enjoy this most excellent birdhouse:

the CatBox, the nesting place for fearless birds, by the creative folks at Lapland Industries

CatBox - the nesting place for fearless birds

Gruber posted today on Daring Fireball. That the The New York Times Skimmer prototype is still available. It’s rare fascinating look at the the process that likely went through to in development of this new site:

• The New York Times Skimmer (launch version)
• The New York Times Skimmer (prototype version)

Who knows how long the prototype will remain up so go now. I’ve also added screenshots below in case the prototype goes away.

Prototype - home page

Final Version - home page

Prototype - article

Final Version - article

First of all i gotta say that this is an excellent use of modern javascript techniques. They are using the awesome jquery framework to pull in their RSS feeds and populate the skimmer ad for the animation effects.

The two versions seem to be mostly different aesthetically. There are differences between the two javascript functions but I haven’t dug into them. The most obvious UI changes with the final version are:

• Moved the nav to the right
• Removed the dark top bar and lightened the palette as a whole
• Added raised dropshadow effect around main content area
• Use of the nyt font for headlines (using Typekit.com service)
• Altered the typography (all caps for nav, removed blue from headlines, increased line-height slightly for excerpt text)
• Addition of a byline with the journalist’s name
• Articles now load in a overlay popup with the skimmer remaining visible behind it, rather than a slidedown which covers everything except the nav.
• Home Page name changed to Top Stories

All in all it’s a excellent improvement between the prototype and the final version. They went from what was essentially a mock iTunes app to a more readable approach that focuses more on the content than the navigation.

The final design recalls more the feeling of a paper, while still maintaining the clean webified rss reader approach. I especially love the use of their typeface for the headlines and the removal of the blue link color which makes it feel less like a list of links to be clicked though immediately and more like a something that deserves to be read throughly.

Still however I do have two main critiques from a UI perspective…

First a small critique: The only way to close the popup are to use the “Back to Section” button or to hit the Esc key. Instead of this approach, they should have used a simple close button on the upper right. Also clicking on the background should close the popup as well (this is how most overlay popups work).

The biggest issue however is that clicking on an article loads iframe to load the entire page. It’s a shame really. They’ve gone through all this effort to create a clean ajax approach which makes the online version of their paper fun to use and then they ruin it by dragging the user back to their cluttered site. It would have been simple to use ajax to show only the article content in a clean easy to read manner. Maybe they did this because of advertising or maybe it was because they thought iframes would be easier to code—whatever their reason, it turns the Skimmer into nothing more than a gimmick.