Sunday, March 13, 2011

two brief items

1) Ladies and gentlemen, photographic evidence that LARPing is more than a century old!

'traditionally inaccurate' is my new favorite phrase

(Discovered in David Horspool's King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends, Harvard UP, 2006.)

2) My wife needs a computer game recommendation.  She likes the SimCity-esque qualities of the Facebook game Cityville, but she's not digging on the social aspects of it.  Can anyone suggest something similar with more single-player oriented action that can be played on a Mac?  I haven't played anything along those lines since the original SimCity.

15 comments:

  1. All I can think of since I've got islands on the brain is Tropico.

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  2. Check out all the videos about "Minecraft" on You Tube.

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  3. Mac game recommendations:

    1) FreeCiv
    2) Battle of Wesnoth
    3) Gratuitous Space Battles

    And when searching for Mac software, go to these two sites:

    http://www.macupdate.com

    http://www.thriftmac.com

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  4. I swear that looks like a Monty Python skit.

    - Ark

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  5. If she likes SimCity, I would suggest Tropico like Ze Bulette.

    2nd choice would be a tycoon game like Sid Meier's Railroads to provide a different riff on the same theme; small-scale building.

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  6. On the prehistory of LARPing, you're familiar with Bashford Dean, of course.

    richardthinks

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  7. That picture is sweet beyond words.

    I don't have a specific recommendation, but I can say that Battle of Wesnoth frustrated me, at least 3 years ago. It's a free, open-source game and in the past in my experience, it needed a lot of work.

    Has she tried "City of Wonder" on Facebook?

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  8. There's one called TrainCity on Facebook; it seems to be soloable, at least at low levels.

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  9. I don't have any gaming suggestions but dam that Pic is so awesome.

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  10. i have recently begun playing Diablo II for the first time in my life and i recommend it to everyone. It's great. i realize i'm very late on this scene but it had to be said.

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  11. http://www.ea.com/the-sims-medieval/1/medieval-times-promo

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  12. Anonymous2:44 AM

    FreeCiv can be very difficult. The AI is just -perfect- which means it's actually not very cleverly written. Last I checked anyway, which was sometime in 2009 or so.

    She could look into other browser games. Travian is a solid one, but I didn't care for the fact that other players regularly killed me off D:

    She should be able to play Haven and Hearth, which is more like playing a single Sim character or an RPG. You join other players in making villages and hunting / gathering / mining / farming / etc. I'd say it's more of an RPG though.

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  13. Portal. Alternately my daughters love Mall Tycoon and Sim Safari both older pc games which we picked up from a department store bargain bin.

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  14. King of Dragon Pass, by A-Sharp Games
    http://www.a-sharp.com/kodp/

    It's 10 years old, but it's a game about building a tribe from the clan level up. It;s set in the most famous section of Glorantha, where RuneQuest and HeroQuest are set.

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  15. Anonymous10:56 AM

    Dominions 3. Demo can be found on the Shrapnel game page.

    http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/DOM3/DOM3_page.html

    George

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