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  Heroes Mafia, Pt. 4 07:26 PM -- Sat February 9, 2008  

These are the leftovers - minor characters and season 2 characters. There are still very powerful roles here, but there are a couple fairly dull repeats (not my fault - Heroes season 2 had some new Heroes with the same powers!), and honestly from this point on, I just haven't put as much thought into them.

MOLLY WALKER
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your special power is the ability to know where any person is, just by thinking about them. Each night, you may PM me the name of a player you want to locate.
NOTE: This is a tracking ability - it will tell you if they stayed home, or if they were in someone else's house for whatever reason - but there are a lot of possible reasons!
SYLAR: unchanged.

MEREDITH GORDON
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your special power is pyrokinesis. Every other night, you can PM the name of a player whose house you wish to burn down. Anyone in that house that night gets crispy.
SYLAR: unchanged.

SANJOG IYER
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is the ability to appear in other peoples' dreams. Each night, PM me someone you wish to say something to, and you will appear in their dreams telling them that. They don't know which player it came from.
SYLAR: unchanged... which means the recipient sees the message as coming from Sanjog! It is a dream after all, you don't have to look like yourself.

ELLE BISHOP
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is electricity. Each night, you can PM me to electrocute any player in the morning, disabling any day ability they may have, and preventing them from voting that day. They may still talk, and they know they've been electrocuted, but not by whom. This has no effect on night powers.
SYLAR: unchanged

HANA GITELMAN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is to intercept and generate wireless electronic signals... somehow. PM me each day with someone whose vote you wish to intercept. Their vote will be counted as a vote for whoever you vote for, though nobody will know this.
SYLAR: unchanged.

MAURY PARKMAN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is telepathy, just like your son Matt Parkman. But you have twisted it to evil ends! Twice during the game at night, you may PM me with the name of someone you would like to put into a living nightmare for the evening. They will be unable to do anything that night.
SYLAR: unchanged, still grants two uses.

WEST ROSEN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have the power of flight! You may choose to fly away any time during the day by PMing me. Doing this makes you too tired to do it again the next day, and everybody sees you do it, so they know you have the power. But it prevents you from being lynched that day, or affected by any night powers that night. You can only choose to do this during the day, before the last vote is cast, so be prepared!
SYLAR: unchanged.

ALEJANDRO HERRERA (Only in the game if Maya is)
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is simply to stop the deadly virus your sister Maya creates when she gets upset. You can also PM with Maya any time you wish during the game.
SYLAR: no effect.

MAYA HERRERA (Only in the game if Alejandro is)
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is a deadly virus that you emit when you get upset. There's only one thing that will make you so upset - your brother Alejandro's death! Coincidentally, his only power is to cure your virus. If Alejandro is killed or sent to Primatech Paper, you must choose 2 players to accidently fatally infect. Both of them will sadly die after a day and night pass. Their disease will be publicly announced.
You can PM anytime with Alejandro during the game.
If you are killed or sent away, no harm is done.
SYLAR: a one-time use, immediately upon killing Maya, to infect any one other player (and not take their power).

ADAM MONROE (Only in the game if either Lindermann or Maury is)
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You have a unique goal - you want to dispose of Lindermann or Maury Parkman. You win only if either is sent to Primatech Paper.
Your power is regeneration. If you are killed by Sylar or sent away to Primatech, you will return to the game after another day and night have passed.
SYLAR: Since he can't permanently kill him, he can't take his power.

And that's the end! Now you know Heroes Mafia. Maya may seem excessively unfortunate for the Heroes, but it's not likely to have a hugely big impact actually, just because of how short the game is anyway. Still, it is pretty scary! Meredith also seems pretty scary, but since the odds are that she will hurt rather than help the goodguys, I'm not sure it's too bad. And limiting it to every other night is probably more limiting than saying you can do it twice, since any given person isn't all that likely to be around more than the first two nights. As for Adam, I pretty much just don't like him, and besides, I don't want to have 2 regeneratorizers. I might even strike him from the potential list before playing.

I don't know, it's all down to playtesting, but I sure get really excited thinking about how it would go. Anybody hosting Mafia is very welcome to use this game. It is what I'm going to try when my turn finally comes around, anyway.

Oh, I also have a list of 8 more roles, but none of their powers made for good gameplay (or any gameplay at all, usually), so they'd effectively be vanilla townies. There's no reason to include vanilla townies in a game like this, so it'd be silly to use them. It also would water down the benefit of knowing the list of possible roles if there were another 8 roles to consider. Like there aren't enough already!

I considered the idea of a scoring system too. Isaac obviously has his set up already. The Heroes in general would score 1 point for each one of them Still Alive when Sylar was defeated (regardless of whether they are personally alive - it's a team effort, people!). Sylar would be 1 point for each person he kills, plus maybe 3 points if he actually wins (because 4 kills is likely the maximum, and actually winning it is really hard for him!). This system would allow the 'half-credit' concept of Nathan and Lindermann to actually mean something, too (and some bunch of points for those two if they actually reach their special goal). Then a character with the power to make gold (one of the rejected roles) could be fun - he could PM the host to offer gold (points) to other players if they do what he wants. An interesting twist!

That's it! Good to get it off my chest at last. We now return to your normal journal, already in progress.
5 commentsBack to top!
  Heroes Mafia, Pt. 3 10:53 AM -- Fri February 8, 2008  

Still more roles! This isn't the last batch either, but some of the more interesting ones are here, so read on.

EDEN MCCAIN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is the ability to "push" people. This lets you command them to do things. Once each day, you may control one player's vote. Just PM me anytime during the day (or the night before if you wish), and I will contact that player, telling them they are required to vote that way. If they've already voted differently, they have to change their vote. They may say anything they want, including "I didn't want to vote this way!", but they must place the vote as told. You can't change your choice for the day, so choose wisely the first time.
SYLAR POWER: unchanged.

PETER PETRELLI
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have a very unique power - you are an Empath. This means that if you come into contact with another Hero, you copy their power, permanently. Each day, you may choose one person to hang out with. At nightfall, you will gain that person's power. You can only use one of your borrowed powers each night, if you have multiple night powers. Be warned that hanging out with Sylar is fatal.
If you obtain day powers from someone, you can also use one of your acquired day powers each day.
The person you hang out with doesn't know that you hung out with them. I don't know how that's possible, but it is.
NOTE: Peter can't take the Haitian's power, of course, since he nullifies powers.
SYLAR: Sylar just takes all the powers Peter took. He does not get the Empath ability.

NATHAN PETRELLI
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You have a different goal than the other players. You must survive the game to win, and either Peter or Sylar must explode (not be defeated by other means). This is not an easy goal at all, so you get half-credit if the Heroes win.
You are in communication with Lindermann, and may PM him all you like during the game to discuss achieving your mutual goal. He is the only other player who shares your goal.
You have the power of flight! You may choose to fly away any time during the day by PMing me. Doing this makes you too tired to do it again the next day, and everybody sees you do it, so they know you have the power. But it prevents you from being lynched that day, or affected by any night powers that night. You can only choose to do this during the day, before the last vote is cast, so be prepared!
NOTE: If Ted is not in the game, Nathan has the normal Hero goal.
SYLAR: unchanged.

LINDERMANN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You have a different goal than the other players. You must survive the game to win, and either Peter or Sylar must explode (not be defeated by any other means). This is not an easy goal at all, so you get half-credit if the Heroes win.
You are in communication with Nathan Petrelli, and may PM him all you like during the game to discuss achieving your mutual goal. He is the only other player who shares your goal.
You have the power of healing. You may PM me each night with a player you wish to protect (other than yourself). If they are killed during the night or the following day (being sent to Primatech Paper is not being killed), you will prevent it. Sylar will still get their power if he attacks them, though!
NOTE: If Ted is not in the game, Lindermann has the normal Hero goal.
SYLAR: If something would kill Sylar (not turning him over to Primatech Paper), it fails as he heals himself. This is handled invisibly, so if he places the last vote on Ted for example, nobody ever knows that Ted was explosive, since nobody dies. Sylar is PMed to be told of this when it happens.

INVISIBLE BRITISH GUY ("Claude Rains")
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have the ability to become invisible! To do so, simply do not post anything for the entire day. As long as you do this, you will be invisible and no powers may target you (that day or the following night). When invisible, you can still be voted out, but it takes 75% of the players voting against you to detect you, 50% is not enough (rounded down, so you can never be 100% safe).
SYLAR: unchanged.

MOHINDER SURESH
You are a geneticist, studying the Hero phenomenon. You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Each night, you may study one player's DNA. PM me the player's name you wish to investigate. This will tell you what power they have. If they have more than one power for some reason, you will only learn of one. This is not some strange power you have, it's simple scientific ability. Sylar cannot take it from you.
NOTE: Studying Sylar makes me PM Sylar to ask him which of his powers he wishes to demonstrate. That's the only power that Mohinder will see.
SYLAR: Sylar can't take this power - it's not a power!

ISAAC MENDEZ
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You have your own unique goal.
Your power is to paint images of the future. PM me each night telling me who you think Sylar will attack that night (he need not succeed), and who you think will be lynched the next day. For each one you get right, you gain a point.
You win the game if you get 5 points or more. You do not have to survive to win, but the longer you survive, the more painting you get to do, so the more chances to get your points!
SYLAR POWER: This is not of any use to Sylar.

I think Isaac is my favorite role. Playing as him would be almost as fun as being Sylar.
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  Heroes Mafia, Pt. 2 02:32 PM -- Thu February 7, 2008  

More roles...

NIKI/JESSICA SANDERS
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have a split personality, which is unfortunate, since your evil side (Jessica) has superhuman strength. Initially, you are Niki. Each night, if you wish to change, you may PM me. You can change every night, but you remain in the chosen personality until the next night.
When you are Niki, you are a normal Hero.
When you are Jessica, your vote counts as 3 votes, but your posts may not contain anything except a screaming rant against the person you are voting for (which also means you can't post without voting). You will be modkilled if you post anything that doesn't fit!
Whichever form you are in, if you are voted out, you will flip out and become Jessica, murdering the person who placed the last vote against you! Primatech Paper still manages to subdue you in the end, though.
SYLAR: Sylar does not have split personality, just super strength. So his vote ups to count as 2 once he steals her power, permanently.

MICAH SANDERS
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your special power is command over technology. Once in the game, you can PM me during the day to rig the election. This lets you decide who will be sent to Primatech Paper all by yourself!
SYLAR: unchanged. Even if Micah has used the power, Sylar may still use it once.

D.L. HAWKINS
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is to walk through walls. This means that any attempt to turn you over Primatech Paper will fail miserably, as you walk right back out. It does not help you against Sylar, however.
SYLAR: With this power, Sylar can dodge one lynch, but the next attempt will succeed.

CANDICE WILMER
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is shapeshifting. Each night, you may choose someone to assume the form of. PM me with your choice. If any action is performed on the person you choose, it affects you both. If an action is performed on you, it misses, since you can't be found. You don't have to shapeshift if you wish to remain yourself.
NOTE: Inspecting a shifted Candice or her duplicate gives the result of just the duplicate's power, since Candice's is hidden.
SYLAR: unchanged.

THE HAITIAN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is immunity. No powers work against you at all.
NOTE: Sylar can't kill the Haitian, since without his powers, he's a dork. Sylar wins when he and the Haitian are the only remaining players. The Haitian can be disposed of by Primatech Paper.

TED SPRAGUE
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have radioactive powers, but they are highly unstable and hard to control. If you are voted to be sent to Primatech Paper, you will get so upset that you lose control and explode, destroying yourself and the last person who voted for you.
While you have very little control over your power, other people who obtain your power would have NO control, due to the lack of experience with it. This means that if someone gets your power, a countdown will begin. The game will continue for 2 more days and 2 more nights. After that, the person with your power will explode, killing all the players at once. Sylar wins if this happens. This can only be prevented by defeating Sylar before the explosion.
NOTE/SYLAR: If Peter is the one ticking, sending him to Primatech will also defuse the problem. If he is killed by Sylar, the countdown continues as Sylar takes the power from him. The Ted effect of blowing up the last voter remains for Peter and Sylar.

Sorry the formatting isn't so nice - all the lovely tabs from my paragraphs are lost to HTML and replicating them is a pain.
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  Heroes Mafia, Pt. 1 08:19 PM -- Wed February 6, 2008  

Blah, I am sick. Somehow I find it more restful to play WoW than to work, even though the two are identical physically. Well, mental strain or something, how about? Today is level 28 day on WoW! All 10 characters are level 28 at last.

So, I am going to share with you, for your critique and interest, Heroes Mafia. I'm really excited about it, so this is fun for me! I think it should work as written now, but it's never been played, and the balance will really have to be seen through playtesting. I consider it a different game than Mafia, though it's obviously very much based on Mafia. Unlike most Mafia games, all the roles are clearly stated and people can see exactly what they do, so presenting them here won't be ruining anything. There are a TON of roles in it, so I am going to roll them out a few at a time. Since this is the first day, let's introduce the basic rules and the most important role as well as a couple others:

THE RULES

Each day, the Heroes vote a person to turn over to Primatech Paper, where they will be dealt with in some unknown way, definitely putting them out of commission. Each night, Sylar kills one of them. The Heroes win by turning Sylar over to Primatech, Sylar wins by killing them all (except The Haitian, if he is playing). There are NO LAST GASPS. There are a variety of powers that affect how many votes it takes to send someone away, so while players will be notified how many players are alive and thus how many votes would be 50%, they are advised to realize that 50% might not be the required vote count, it may be more or less for various reasons. The host doesn't reveal how many actual votes there are, to protect the anonymity of people with multi-vote powers.

The game begins with a full night, kill included. There are 8-10 players, with roles that are randomly chosen from the list below (the host may decide which roles will be used in the game). Players know what the possible roles are, but not which ones are in the game. Choosing a good set of roles is very important. Sylar needs to get very powerful very quickly, and the players need to not have good defenses against him. He is all alone, after all. No Lynch is an allowed vote.

Anyone sent to Primatech Paper or killed by Sylar will NOT have their role stated publicly. If you want people to know what you can do, you need to tell them when you are alive.

THE ROLES

SYLAR
You are a serial killer with the power to steal the powers of anyone you kill. For some reason, you are restraining yourself to a single kill each night. PM me with your choice of victim each night. When you kill someone, the next morning when the kill is posted, you'll be PMed about your new power. Your ability to use it may differ slightly from the original owner's ability, but usually it will be the same. You may always use all of your powers (subject to their particular limitations).
You are the only killer in this game, and it is your goal to wipe out all of the Heroes. This will be very hard, since they vastly outnumber you and have powers they can rely on. Because of this, you will need to plan extremely carefully and always keep all of your abilities in mind. They will help you enormously to overcome the odds, but only if you remember to use them, and use them well.
Your one other ability is not a magical one - it is sociopathic criminal intellect. With this ability, you can evade being captured the first day. If you are voted out, it will simply fail. This will of course still leave you looking pretty suspicious, but there is one other role that has this ability, and it still beats losing right away.

CLAIRE BENNET
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is regeneration. If you are killed by Sylar or sent away to Primatech, you will return to the game after another day and night have passed.
SYLAR: Since he can't permanently kill her, he can't take her power. (ed. note: the "SYLAR:" section under each character describes how his version of their power differs from the original)

MATT PARKMAN
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have the power to read minds. PM me during the night with someone's mind you want to read. You will hopefully learn something useful from this!
NOTE: Host makes up thoughts for him to hear, something that gives a clue regarding the victim's power. The Haitian of course is not readable, and if Peter has Parkman's power, they just get feedback. Reading Sylar's mind is not very helpful, but gives some vague clue.
SYLAR: unchanged

HIRO NAKAMURA
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
Your power is control over the space-time continuum. This means that once in the game, you may go back in time to prevent one of Sylar's killings. This will bring that player back and take their power away from Sylar. Due to the limitations of reality, we can't actually undo everything that happened as a result of the killing, so that's all that it does. PM me at any time when you wish to use this power, night or day. Remember it only works once!
Besides traveling back in time, you can also stop time. You can also only do this once. When you stop time, you end day with the current most-voted being disposed of. You can't do this if the votes are currently a tie, but you can of course place your own vote right before doing it. To do this, just PM me during the day when you want to do it. I will check the time on your PM and lynch according to what the votes were at that moment, even if they have changed since then.
In addition to all that, you can also communicate privately with Ando, your best friend. PM him anytime.
SYLAR: He can use the stop time power once (whether or not Hiro has done so). He can use the time travel power as well, but instead of preventing a killing, he can change one of his previous kills to a new victim of his choice (losing the first power and resurrecting the victim).

ANDO
You can place a vote each day to choose someone to turn over to Primatech Paper, ensuring their doom. You win if Sylar is defeated.
You have no special powers, except that you are Hiro's closest friend! You can PM with him all you like during the game to communicate privately.
If you are killed, Hiro will be so upset that he will make a reckless attempt to kill Sylar, resulting in his own death, and Sylar gaining his powers. Don't get killed. This does not happen if you are turned over to Primatech Paper.
*SYLAR POWER: Doesn't have one.

That's the first few roles. As you can see, everybody (except Ando) is quite powerful, though some much more than others. But most of all, they insidiously tend to be more helpful to Sylar (once taken) than to themselves. Except for Claire - she is one of a couple of really dangerous roles for Sylar to face (The Haitian is worse). Then there's Ando, a huge liability to the team (and if he tries to do the "hey, we're masons so we're good" thing, Sylar knows exactly who to target, and is guaranteed to claim Hiro's extremely strong power, and maybe get 2 kills in one).

There's a large element of randomness to this game, despite the absence of actual randomness. The people Sylar chooses to kill and the targets people choose for their various powers all mix it up to a great degree. It's not meant to be the highly structured, totally fair, game that Mafia is (supposed to be...). It's a quick bit of fun that may totally blow up in your face at times! In fact, when you see some of the later roles, you'll learn that it can do that literally. Even if it lasts the maximum time, it's still a shorter game than most Mafia. The best thing is that it creates 'stories'. You'll remember the time you happened to get that great power and fooled them all (okay, so mainly it's fun for Sylar). More to come tomorrow...
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  Ich Bin Ein Voter 10:00 AM -- Tue February 5, 2008  

As I write this, my cat is eating my "I Voted" sticker. Now that's democracy. And now he's eating the stub of my vote that I got to keep. Truly, it is a super tuesday.

Today: newsletter at long last, Sleepless Hollow patch at longer last (nothing exciting in it, unless you like bugs to be fixed!), and a new add-on pack of 3 worlds that actually came out yesterday, but I'm going to announce them today. So let this be a reminder that if you aren't signed up for the newsletter, you need to be!
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  No Shadows Here 01:30 PM -- Mon February 4, 2008  

This past Saturday (conveniently, February 2nd), my wife threw a Groundhog's Day party. It's a yearly tradition, which is mostly about chatting (chatting about teaching... zzzzz), but the purported focus is a hunt for groundhog shadows. That's little groundhogs cut out of black paper that we hide around the yard. The kids are supposed to find as many as they can, much like Easter Eggs. This year, though, only one set of kids showed up, and they had actually made the groundhogs themselves. Then they hid them. Then they found them. I guess that's not that exciting. I'm not sure why adults didn't do the hiding.

I know of at least one Hamumian that collects My Coke Rewards codes, so I am going to boldly post right here all the codes I got from the 12-packs we bought for the party. First-come, first-served. If you try a code and it doesn't work, someone else got it first (or I mistyped it, but we'll try to minimize that). So, enjoy los codigos:

PHRHBB 0H6PJ5
T5M59R PP6VWT
A7LKXR NKV965
BHH74 MVVNT HWWNB
(why is this one a different size? Same product as one of the other codes!)
5M4TVM XVL5TA
6MNH5X T0HHR5


Post in the comments if you're the one who grabbed these!
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  5 Questions? For moi? 05:11 PM -- Thu January 31, 2008  

Some indie guy named Shamus posted his "5 Questions For Indie Game Developers", so I figured I'd answer them! He didn't ask me to, and he probably knows I exist as little as I do him, but the questions are there, so I answer them.

1) RPGs seem really over-represented in indie games. (Or, you could say they are under-represented in mainstream games.) Why do you think indie developers favor RPGs so much?

I think there's a false premise here. There are lots of indie RPGs in the realm of "indie games that indies are talking about", but as a percentage of all indie games being released, I'm sure they are well below 5% (with 95% being match-3). However, given that the RPGs are getting talked about a lot, it's fair to say indies seem to have an interest in RPGs, so I will say something on that.
I love RPGs myself. I'm an indie. So I guess based on those statistics, indies love RPGs, and thus make them. Also, indies are geeky. Great demographic for RPGs. That's about all I've got for you on this one, though there's more to consider like technical issues, storytelling interest, and so on. Whatevz.

2) Naturally indie games have to use older technology, which is less labor intensive and doesn’t require (as much) expensive software. But I don’t think that’s the only reason to do so. Certainly the older graphics - done right - can have a certain stylistic appeal as well. The other reason to aim low on the tech tree is so that you can hit the widest possible base of users instead of just the fanboys with $3,000 computers. If you could use any graphics technology you wanted - from Infocom to Crysis - where would you choose to go?

I don't know what game uses this tech, but I know exactly what I want. It's something that would look just like WoW, but rather than building the world in a 3D modeler, you put it together out of prefab blocks and items (like you do in a 2D tile-based game, just in 3D - and of course, you can make new block types too). And needless to say, the tools for creating it would be dead simple. Click & drag & make up formulas and skills as you wish. Ah, easyness is nice.

3) If you got a million bucks in no-strings-attached funding, how would you use it to make your game more successful?

I wouldn't have even the first piece of the fragmented shards scattered across the land and guarded by big bosses of A Clue. I guess with that kind of money, I could just hire people to do the work for me, and all I'd need to do is come up with ideas! That would sure make for better art! Then I could spend the rest of it on advertising, but again, not a clue how that is done. Hire a PR firm - there, problem solved on that end too! So I guess the answer to this question is "make someone else do it."

4) Amanda Fitch and Jay Barnson have both said in the past something along the lines of, “Making the game is one-third of the job.” Or words to that effect. The idea being that once you finish the game, you’re one-third of the way to having it where someone can buy and play the thing. What is the other 66% of effort required after you finish the game, and is this a challenge unique to indie developers?

I don't agree with that, only because I do so very very little of the remaining 66%. It's a little thing called marketing, and since I spend about half an hour per game doing it, it doesn't come near 66% of the work. But for success, yes you should. And yes, it is unique to indies for the self-evident reason that dependies don't have to market their work at all. They make it, and then the publisher does the rest. I think they only call it 2/3 of the work because it's not something indie-types enjoy or are good at. It definitely doesn't take nearly the time, even for those who actually do it. I know this is true, because games can take a year or more to make. If they also took a year to market, we'd all be playing year-old games rather than super buggy ones that got released before they were done. Of course, marketing's an ongoing thing that never ends. And never fails to bore and confuse me. Go away, question!

5) At the end of the XFire interview the mod asked everyone what their favorite game was. I’ll ask this: What game (any game, new, old, mainstream, whatever) do you wish you could have worked on and taken part in?

I think I would have learned a lot and had some fun workin on the Ratchet & Clank or Sly Cooper series (serieses?). But in the end, I of course don't want to work on some game, however cool. I want to make my games, and my games only, and definitely not under some boss, however nice the boss may be. Indie forever!
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  Vacation! 11:04 AM -- Tue January 29, 2008  

Or not. I'm taking a week off from development, but I'm spending it (well, mostly playing WoW, but when I'm not playing...) working on website stuff and other issues. The things I totally neglect 90% of the time. Got to keep up with all the things that need work! Look for My Downloads to finally come to life this week, along with a Sleepless Hollow patch, new avatar bits, and other little things. I also added some new categories to T.A.G. this morning, so hopefully it will stop repeating the same ones (there are actually several that it's just refused to ever pick). I need to add DumbWords questions too, sadly. That's hard. Anyway, lots of stuff to do.

Oh, and I got called for jury duty next month. Augh! HATE! The worst part of all is that the court is 2 hours away. I'm going to ask them if there is a closer court I can use. In the past, we've both had jury duty, and got through it doing nothing other than calling into an automated system each night for a week. The system tells you if you need to show up tomorrow, and if you don't get called in for the whole week, you are free. That's how it went in the past. But I have a bad feeling this time...
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  A Previously Unrecorded Phenomenon 07:11 PM -- Sun January 27, 2008  

As you may have previously heard, my wife runs a tutoring business. She was doing the books for business and peering over her shoulder, I discovered something interesting. If you are looking for a topic for a sociology or education dissertation, give this one a thought: Almost all the last names of her clients are very uncommon. In fact, except for 3 of them, they're ones I've never even heard before.

That's the data. My hypothesis based on this data, and a very scientific one at that, is that people with rare or strange last names tend to need more schooling. Why? It's simple! Think of the first day of school. The teacher comes around and takes roll, saying each name in turn. She gets them wrong, some more than others. This happens to you year after year, and eventually you stop thinking teachers know so much. You stop paying attention, you lose all interest in school, and bam, you need tutoring! This is science, people. Look it up.
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  Happyponygate London (Ontario) 06:39 PM -- Sat January 26, 2008  

Well, now you know.

The plot is that Happyponygates have opened around London, Ontario (why this happened is in the game, and you will find out when you play!). In case it's somewhat unclear, Happyponygates are rainbow colored happy portals that lead to the dreaded Happy Pony Land With Strawberry Waterfalls And Gumdrop Trees. Happy Ponies and their minions are flooding out and taking over the city, forcing everyone to be happy all the time. The RCMP has set up a perimeter around the city, but nobody can go inside. They are evacuating everyone who was trapped inside, of course.

Conventional weapons are completely useless against the ponies - yes, red hammers included! So what options remain? Does Canada simply lose its finest metropolis?! No, as a last resort, they call up Bouapha. He is of course world-renowned for "handling situations." So, he shows up, and sees what he can do.

The city is completely devoid of humans. They've all been evacuated. So you aren't so much stealing cars as commandeering them. I have an enormous list of different kinds of goals and challenges to do, and I hope lots of them can go in. It's more a wish list than a design plan at this point.
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