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GeekNights 20110208 - The PAX Boston 2011 Pregame Show
Tonight on GeekNights we pregame PAX Boston 2011. We'll be there with three panels and a few tricks up our sleeves! Also, Rym is conflicted about Europa Universalis III, and Scott has harsh words for Stephen Totilo after his recent article Why I Let Nintendo Beat A Video Game For Me.
- Scott's Thing - Graph War
- Rym's Thing - Ferris Bueller’s Board Game
Comments
I will make a couple of points in response to the podcast.
1) The clipboard isn't really much use except when you want to re-use the same path for multiple men during the same game
2) If you learn the shape of the function and which constants to adjust in order to get it to do what you want, you've learnt some maths - the function is its shape. Rym's point that some people don't know what their functions "mean" is silly.
Basically, Rym has the right idea on how people win at Graphwar. You need to gather a repertoire of functions with constants that are easy adjust, preferably ones that directly correspond to x or y distances in the plane, and preferably ones that are "modular" in nature - basically, functions where almost all the change occurs over a small region, so that you can easily piece it together with other such functions.
Polynomials, although highly versatile, are difficult to adjust, because they are relatively non-local - the change in the function occurs over the entire plane. I choose not to use them because of this.
My preferred tools are the logistic function, Gaussian function, the high-frequency sinewave "shotgun", and piecewise linear functions such as x+abs(x) (this can be used in composition with a sine to make a "shotgun at the last second"). I worked these out myself, although I will grant that I have taken inspiration and learnt from my foes.
I don't think you can really get around a repertoire of this sort being the best way to play the game, but I think testing the skill of estimating co-ordinates and adjusting constants still makes for a good game.
So, anyone up for a schooling?
Credit to Lackofcheese on the first two. The rest were independently discovered by each of us.
I just want to say that I'm by no means a math genius, and yet I fully understand every function on that list. Lackofcheese didn't tell me how to use those first two, he crushed me in 24/25 games one night, and told me to figure it out if I wanted to stop losing. So I looked at his functions and learned. In fact, I've probably spent a total of a few hours figuring out math so that I could play better in this game.
I agree that using the clipboard isn't really cheating, it just saves time. The game could have been constructed such that you couldn't paste into the box, but since you are allowed to, it seems like we are just using a feature of the game to our advantage. That having been said, I rarely paste into the box because I know the functions so well that I can type them about as fast as I can alt-tab, select, copy, alt tab, select, and paste.
I could rant for hours about why math eduction in the US and why it sucks, but the reason that there aren't more geniuses in math is that no one cares because no one knows why to care. I (also with two other forum people) we to CTY, where I learned math during the summers. Not school math, but fun math like cryptography and game theory. The TL;DR is that people don't see that math is more that just an arcane set of rules, so they don't learn it.
Also, I think the real fun of this game was the act of solving it, and playing it was just a way to test our proposed solutions. In my school, we transitioned from polynomial, to sinusoidal, to using 1/x to make accurate kills, to using .5^x to change height to (eventually when I stumbled upon the idea) using abs() functions to create linear piecewise, then using the stuff that Lackofcheese wrote. Having written up that .pdf, my desire to play has gone way down. I don't really want to play for the same reason that I don't want to play Nim, except now the victor is determined by turn order, estimation, and luck of spawn points.
That having been said, I'd be up for some 2v2.
Also, your pdf needs a couple more changes, such as correctly analyzing the width of the Gaussian. Plus, above all, it needs graphs.
Something like Graphwar could be an extremely good educational tool. A friend of mine (don't remember who) put it this way - every time the students learn a new function, they learn a new potential "weapon".
You could even design singleplayer campaigns to teach or examine knowledge; you'd just need a constrained random level generator so there is no single function that is the answer, but the strategy is always the same for a specific level.
Needless to say, once I'm finished with this game, an FRC game could be epic. That is, if people are willing to put the time into it. Also, voice chat is a must.
Waiting in line for that keynote has led to some of the most fun I've had at PAX. Meeting great people and playing games with them on the floor for four hours. It's why you go to PAX. Like Scott said in the podcast, there's nothing else to do Friday morning, so just pack up your games and join the line.
Make a Strip has always been an absolute joy to watch. You basically get to watch Mike draw incredible art live, while Jerry hosts the Penny Arcade Q&A 1.5. There's also some great humor elements of Mike drawing ridiculous or funny shit into the strip that shouldn't be there to test whether people are paying attention, etc., and he will occassionally entertain requests to do some side sketches for the crowd when asked. Go to keynote then Q&A #1, but definitly place this higher in your priority list than Q&A #2, regardless of whether you go to Q&A #1 or not.
The second hotel you guys were thinking about is the Renaissance. It's directly across the street from the con and I got a room there instead because I take baths in Marriott reward points every night. I do believe it's totally sold out though now as well.
PAX Forums are an interesting animal. They're better than the rest of the PA forums, but I find them to be thorny in the "crazy moderation" aspect. You really can't have a simple disagreement over there without getting an infraction. I was very active on the before my first two PAXes, and I HIGHLY recommend following them if you are new to PAX, but now they just seem to be rehashing the same stuff. I'll be hitting them up occassionally to see if someone discovers food in the BCEC area, as I do not look forward to missing chunks of PAX to travel far for a good dinner with friends.
1) Expo hall
2) Pannels
3) Play games I don't get to play elsewhere (demos, games I haven't bought yet, games I'm iffy on, retro novelty games I can say I've played like ET.)
4) Play board games/RPGs
As a local Bostonian, my recommendations for transportation is to walk. We call it the T. It stands for stupid. The public transportation infrastructure is fucked up. If it's 15 degrees outside (Fahrenheit) and you need lunch, go to the WTC station, take the Silver Line to South Station, and get the fuck out of there. Admittedly, I'm not very familiar with the area, but I can't think of anywhere to eat around the BCEC. Get on the red line and go to Gov't Center, or transfer take the Red to Park street where you can transfer to the green to go to Kenmore, but that's a little farther than I would go. Lastly, stay off the Purple rail, it's not part of the subway, its a fancy word for commuter rail. Like I said, its called the T, which stands for stupid.
Also the extra copies of Dominion that the PAX Table Top has to offer will more than likely be used up for the various Dominion tournaments they will probably be having. So unless you bring your own copy of Dominion, I don't think you'll see as much as you predict.
The new D&D; game will be out or is out soon before PAX East, iirc, so that may be the new hotness to PAX. I can say that Banagrams will be very prevalent there. Possibly Dixit.
I miss Boston.
FOOD:
The area around the convention center isn't that bad. There are some good places (Legal Test Kitchen, Barking Crab) for sit-down dinner. There are some excellent bars as well, such as Lucky's (though it's hidden) and Drink (you should go here at least once for the experience). If you want the classiest of restaurants, go to Anthony's Pier 4.
If you want an extremely quick and relatively inexpensive lunch, the Westin usually has a small setup where you can get a sandwich, hotdog, or chicken fingers for less than $7. Might be a bit less expensive than whatever the convention center holds.
Honestly, your best bet for food is to walk 15-20 minutes and jump into Chinatown: there's everything there. Chinese, some Japanese, some Korean, some Vietnamese. Great Shabu Shabu. On Sunday, dim sum gets EXTREMELY crowded, so not recommended for PAX. There's also a McDonald's on the farthest end (closest to the Theater District).
An extra 10 minutes beyond that will get you to Tremont St./Back Bay area, where there are classy, chic (and some not-that-expensive) restaurants.
If you want your run-of-the-mill fast food, there's a food court at South Station (again, ~15 min. walk). Alternatively, you can get yourself over to Downtown Crossing for various cheaper options (a bit farther walk), and there are some not-so-fast-food restaurants that might be worth the travel away from the crowds, like UFood Grill.
If you are planning on going drinking, bring more than one form of ID. Massachusetts law allows bartenders to reject every form of ID if it's not strictly a MA ID (even a passport!).
TRANSPORTATION (also related to food):
It takes about 10-15 minutes to walk from South Station to the convention center. If you want to use public transportation, the Silver Line is your only option (and keep in mind it's a very different schedule, since it's a bus line). The only problem is transferring to other lines: it'll be a hassle if you want to save the half-hour walk to the North End to grab some excellent food, because you'll need to change to the Red Line at South Station, then to the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing (or, likewise, to get to the Hynes area after transferring to the Green Line). There's also a possibility of walking to Haymarket/Fanueil Hall (otherwise accessible by the Green and Orange lines), but it'll probably take you 25 minutes (great high-end food court options, though).
The late-night taxi situation is going to be the worst part of the convention.
But... The actual puzzle rooms themselves are pretty good. I can understand youtubing the ending, but with text skip you can quickly get to a new point in the game, even if you do have to repeat 1 or 2 old puzzles.
That's all I did. Skipped through until I had played each room at least once, then completed the final story path.
I personally think the 20-ish minutes spent skipping text were worth it to get to a new room and have a brand new puzzle to solve.
Edit: Damn, ninja'd again