Fibonacci, meet Sony

If you’ve heard anything about E3 this year, it’s how Sony obliterated Microsoft.  Therefore, I won’t say anything more about missteps like needing to connect to the internet every 24 hours, or having a restrictive used games policy, or forcing indie developers to go through a major publisher to get their games on your service. 

That’s all old hat. 

What has me most excited about the PlayStation 4?  The console design! 

Here’s a 3D model of the PS4:

http://sketchfab.com/show/b7LzIm8JrnPw4GBDOMBNGYc39qM

*shudders*

It’s beautiful.  Astoundingly beautiful. 

I’m a sucker for geometric design.  I know it’s just a rhombus, but it’s a gorgeous rhombus.  And that trench running along it?  It’s a subtractive bow on a gift from the future.  The blue glow along the side is sleek and elegant, and even the vents on the back for Pete’s sake—everything’s perfect. 

You want to know how perfect?  The top and bottom of the console follows the golden ratio. 

WTF is that?  It gets a little mathy here, but stay with me.  The golden ratio appears whenever the proportions between two things (say, a small window above a larger window) are the same as the proportions between the whole (small window + big window) to the big window alone. 

Here’s the math:

A + B divided by A = X, and A divided by B also = X. 

A = 5 

B = 3

(5 + 3) / 5 = 1.6

5/3 = 1.667

The golden ratio follows the Fibonacci sequence (0 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 5 + 8…), which is where I pulled my numbers from.  As the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence get larger and you divide them like I did, they come closer to 1.618, which just so happens to be the golden ratio.  

Back to the PS4: count up the vents on the top right side (it’s easier than the left), including the “non vent” section just above the crevice.  There’s 8.  The bottom (counting the power cord as 2 segments) comes to 13. 

13/8 = 1.625. 

13 + 8 / 13 = 1.615ohmygodit’sbeautiful! 

There aren’t any obtrusive buttons, nothing juts out awkwardly, the disc drive is practically hidden in the crevice out front.  It’s just marvelous. 

Since I’m unemployed, maybe I can’t buy one when it comes out—but with all this free time, I’m damn sure going to print one out and put it in a glass case.   

Professional!

Ah, man.  I missed Smatterings Thursday because of this job application I'm working on!  

Let's smash those things together (on Friday) by posting a cover letter I wrote for my play, Mary Dolly Kyrie the Punished, when I recently submitted it to a theatre company in Chicago (thanks, Cathlyn!)  

When you're a writer, cover letters are a lot of fun.  There's no point in hiding who you are with a bunch of stodgy dreck.  In fact, grab them right at the start so their eyes aren't glazed over when they get to your submission.  You're introducing yourself, dammit--so make sure it's you you're introducing and not someone who looks just like everyone else.  

Cover letters, man.  They're becoming the reason I write.  

All You Lovely Readers, 

My play, Mary Dolly Kyrie the Punished, follows this brief cover letter.  

For a play about child torture, it's not nearly as depressing as you might expect.  Mary Dolly Kyrie is forced to hold the barbed wire fence that separates her over-shamed small town from What's Out There, because she alone can peer into the void and report what she sees.  According to Ricky, the town elder, there's nothing worse than keeping secrets—even if telling the truth sometimes earns Mary Dolly graver punishments.  

But it's about more than hurting little girls—it's got jokes, too!  

It's McDonagh, with barbed wire instead of guns, Southern dialects instead of Irish, and fucks instead of fecks.  

It's a coming-of-age story spun around the identities others thrust upon us, and how we find both safety and stigma in those titles.  

It's metatheatre that aspires to be much more than gimmickry, and the jokes way outweigh the frequent displays of corporal punishment (upon a 12-year-old girl).  

Did I mention she's an orphan? 

Mary Dolly Kyrie the Punished was commissioned by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside for their FreshINK staged reading series this spring.  The Spores of Eden, a one-act play, was produced as part of RhinoFest 2011.  Between writing those plays, I've written and designed board games for Probably Entertainment, the gaming company I co-founded.  

Feel free to call my cell at DIGITS or email me at fakeemailaddress@don'temailme.com

Enjoy the punishment jokes, 

Peter Axel Komistra

Ah, friends

Here are some pieces I wrote a while back.  I miss you all, but goddamn am I glad I don't drive with some of you anymore.  

Bill Holmdohl 

“What the fuck is a compound word?” 

What?  Bill, how don’t you know what compound words are? 

“I know baseball is not a compound word.” 

Base + ball = Baseball. 

“Nuh-uh!  Then isn’t penis a compound word?  Pen + is = Penis.” 

Bill is now one of the Milwaukee Brewers racing sausages.  

Unsent

Dear Karl,

I thought about you today while I was trying to pee.  I didn’t think about you because of urine—I was peeing in front of a mirror and thought about that conversation we had about my hair color and my male pattern baldness. 

Anyway. 

Peter

The Death Box

The glove compartment of the Death Box bruised my shins every time I rode with Carlos until it hit me so hard it fell off and could not be fixed. 

Carlos is driving his knock-off Geo Metra.  As per usual, he is not paying attention. 

Bill is from the backseat. 

“Carlos!  Carlos Carlos Carlos Carlos!” 

Carlos swerves.  As per usual, I scream in a high pitched voice. 

Bill laughs and laughs. 

Still, I’m glad for the shin room. 

Concave Mirrors

I eat ice cream from a bowl.  I lick the spoon clean and stretch my spoon-arm as far from me as possible.  Not far enough; I am still upside-down.  Ben understands. 

This one could have also been entitled Either You’ll Get It or You Won’t. 

I’ll warn you next time. 

Hindsight

Swanson is driving.  As per usual, I am gesturing emphatically. 

Windows are open. 

I make a point, which resonates with the rearview. 

It bounces in Swanson’s lap, leaps for the window. 

As per usual, I scream in a high-pitched voice, Swanson in a low. 

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god! ” 

In the back, Bill laughs and laughs.  

Bradford Chapin

In Drama Lit we read Waiting For Godot.  Dean asks if anyone would like to read. 

Brad says, “I’ll read Godot.”

While teaching surrealism, Dean says that it’s filled with sexual imagery, is erratic and violent, and is dreamlike in its presentation. 

Brad:   So it’s a wet… nightmare? 

Brad:   Dean, I totally got this one wrong and you didn’t mark off for it. 

Dean:  Thank you, Brad—bring it to the front and I’ll correct your score. 

Brad:   (BRAD tears up his quiz.  Screams.)  NOOOOOOOOOOOO!! 

UW-Parkside has geese.  Every spring they claim territory and hiss at students along paths.  Brad works for the theatre, and is outside painting flats white. 

A goose approaches. 

                                                            BRAD

Hey, goose—don’t walk on the scenery.  It’s still wet.  (The GOOSE gets near a flat. BRAD waves his arms.)  Stay away from the scenery, goose! 

(The GOOSE exits SR.) 

(GOOSE returns.) 

                                                            BRAD

I told you before, goose—don’t walk on the flat.  (GOOSE starts to walk on a flat.) Hey goose—get off the flat!

(BRAD waves his arms and runs at GOOSE.  GOOSE does not respond.  BRAD picks up a piece of unpainted scenery.  He makes threatening swipes at GOOSE, which can fly and begins dive-bombing BRAD.  After a mighty battle in which neither combatant lands a blow, GOOSE exits SR.)  

                                                            Scene Three

(GOOSE enters SR.)

(After a beat, GOOSE 2, GOOSE 3, GOOSE 4, and GOOSE 5 also enter SR.) 

                                                            GOOSE

Hnnnk!  Huuuuuuurnk!  Rrr-hhreeeehnnnnnkk!  Rrrahnk! (These are goose noises.) 

                                                            GOOSE 2

Hhhrraaahrnk!  Hrrreeehahnk, etc. 

                                                            (GOOSE 3 also sounds like a squeaking bed.) 

                                                            (GOOSE 4 also sounds like it is dry-heaving.) 

                                                            (GOOSE 5 is also Canadian.) 

It was quite terrifying, I assure you.  

It's Drafty In Here

It’s preferable that two players of the same skill level in any game will win about the same number of games against each other in a set. It means that fewer things are left up to chance – you win more often through your good decisions (or your opponent’s bad ones) than through something like the luck of a die roll. Asymmetry messes with this, though. It’s relatively common for two different characters to have an uneven matchup in a game – two even players playing against each other in an uneven matchup will likely not have an even number of wins because for whatever reason, one character has an advantage over the other.

Imbalance caused by asymmetry isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a game. Dominant strategies may crop up more often than they do in symmetrical games by virtue of having more variables, more things that can go wrong. Asymmetric games also have a better chance of answering dominant strategies, due to more options being more likely to counter a given strategy – or, should a natural counter not be found, more tweakable knobs to bring the dominant strategy in line (both by nerfing the dominant strategy, or buffing other strategies.)

Perfect balance in an asymmetric system is never going to happen, but that can actually be leveraged to your advantage as a designer. How? Draft! Draft doesn’t fit with everything – draft requires multiple moving pieces to fight over. Draft would not make a lot of sense in, say, a fighting game where you only pick one character, but it does work in some games where you build a team of multiple characters. I have seen drafting happen in single-character games, though – it usually involves picking a number of characters and playing with them all in an order.

So, why is drafting good? Well, drafting works differently for different games, but it is essentially taking character/team/deck/whatever choice, usually something that happens before players start interacting with one another, and turns it into an interactive process. Players or teams, before the game begins, try to secure strong options to make use of during the game. When this process is not interactive, players are free to do things which are batshit crazy or seemingly impossible – win so fast that defense is nearly impossible, ignore entire aspects of the game if they can get away with allocating those resources elsewhere, devise fluid toolboxes that have answers to literally anything, you name it!

Insane strategies are fun but they often lead to imbalanced matchups, where two players are functioning on completely different wavelengths and might not be able to interact meaningfully due to their choice in options. When players can’t meaningfully interact, the game feels flat and unsatisfying. If I show up with a sword and a slingshot, then of course I’m at a disadvantage if you somehow bring an airplane! If we didn’t draft, then I’m just terrible and there’s no way I’m going to win. Your starting options clearly outclass mine, and there was nothing I could do about it besides predict you would bring the airplane and plan accordingly. If we were drafting instead, I could pick the airplane – but you would see that, and pick the anti-air gun, or the fuel for the airplane.

Drafting forces a system of checks and balances into the option set you decide on. You can’t simply pick all the huge, expensive, unstoppable options, because the opponent could simply pick some hyper-aggressive options and win before you get anything going. You can’t simply pick all the hyper-aggressive options because the opponent could simply pick efficient defensive options and a few powerful game-ending options, staving off your attack until their options (which are simply better due to requiring more time to come out – balance!) come online and destroy you. You can’t just pick defensive options because you’ll lack an offense, meaning the opponent can just pick giant unstoppable options and have all the time in the world to utilize them. Without drafting, any of those strategies (or other all-in strategies) might be viable choices, but when drafting they’re incredibly risky because being a one-trick pony is so easy to defend against. Drafting forces you to diversify, so that while the opponent might counter individual startup choices you make, you are countering some of theirs.

Join me next time, when I dig into how some specific games handle their draft modes, and how that changes the way the game functions.

-Jacob

Choose Your Own Death in a restaurant!

This is an especially lively addition to the ongoing CYOD.  I still get a kick out of reading it, and expect you will, too! Go ahead and jump back into the drama with Luigi and Tony at their "Italian" restaurant Pastaciolli's, 

Welcome to the fauxmily! (click on the first choice at the bottom of the page for new content)

...or start at the beginning and stumble through a slew of bad endings!

Wake up on the wrong side of life.