To be honest, it’s not official Scrabble that I’m playing, but Wordfeud; however, for all practical purposes it’s the same.

In particular I like to play simultaneously in several languages. I’m struggling a bit with Norwegian (because it doesn’t do Nynorsk, which is the variety I know), but I’ve played very enjoyable games in Swedish, Dutch and Spanish, apart from the obvious Danish and English.

PS: If you’ve got an HTC ChaCha, too, did you realise you can take a screenshot by holding down the red button and pressing Home?

One of the nights we decided to play a murder mystery game for eight players called Death by Chocolate that we had bought in the Agatha Christie shop in Torquay (Devon) last summer but never got round to playing.

The instructions for the game claimed it would last 2½–3 hours (including dinner), so I decided to start it at 5.30, so that there was plenty of time to finish it before the kids’ bedtime at 9 o’clock.

That plan didn’t work at all. The first half hour worked fine, but then the kids joined us, and it became impossible to role-play, and one or two of us had to keep leaving the room for various reasons.

In the end, we stopped playing and didn’t resume till all the kids were asleep (apart from Amaia, who decided to join us instead) and we then played until bedtime.

The game itself was quite good fun, but I thought it was too scripted at times – rather than being given dialogues to perform, I’d rather have been given the facts, told to memorise them and then been allowed to improvise for the rest of the game.

Sammen med min gode ven Simon diskuterede jeg for otte år siden sandsynlighederne for at lande på de forskellige grunde i Matador. Så vidt jeg husker, gjorde Simon mig opmærksom på, at hvis man kan beregne sandsynligheden for at lande på felt y, når man står på felt x, har man en Markov-kæde, og det er simpel lineær algebra at regne ud, hvor ofte hvert felt besøges.

Jeg skrev fluks et program til at gøre det for mig (det mest besværlige var at håndtere de forskellige Prøv Lykken-kort, såsom “Flyt tre felter tilbage”).

De rå sandsynligheder har jeg placeret i bunden af dette indlæg, da de ikke er synderligt ophisende.

Hvad man virkelig ønsker at vide, er naturligvis, hvilke grunde, man skal købe, hvis man får muligheden.

Dette er ret vanskeligt at regne ud, da det naturligvis er op til de enkelte spillere, hvor hurtigt de bygger huse og hoteller.

Jeg har derfor lavet en graf, der for hver grund viser de relevante udgifter (pris for hhv. skødet, første hus, og opgradering til hotel) og sandsynlige indtægter (først indtægter i begyndelsen, hvor man kun ejer enkelte grunde, dernæst indtægter i mellemfasen, hvor man typisk har et enkelt hus, og til sidst indtægter i slutfasen, hvor der er hoteller overalt). Klik på grafen for at se den i fuld størrelse:

Det er ikke uden grund, at Rådhuspladsen er berygtet blandt Matador-spillere!

Men man kan jo ikke bygge på enkelte grunde uafhængigt at de andre i farvegruppen, så denne analyse er måske ikke så interessant endda.

Jeg har derfor lagt værdierne i ovenstående graf sammen for hver gruppe, og resultatet kan ses til venstre.

Lidt overraskende er de grå grunde den bedste investering, fulgt af de berygtede lilla. Interessant nok kan det slet ikke betale sig at investere i de blå grunde – de er simpelthen for dyre at købe og bebygge i forhold til indtægtsmulighederne.

Til slut er her som lovet sandsynlighederne for at lande på de forskellige felter i Matador:

Nr.	Navn	Sandsynlighed
1	Start	2.6%
2	Rødovrevej	2.2%
3	Prøv Lykken	1.5%
4	Hvidovrevej	2.3%
5	Indkomstskat	2.3%
6	Helsingør-Helsingborg	3.0%
7	Roskildevej	2.3%
8	Prøv Lykken	1.6%
9	Valby Langgade	2.3%
10	Allégade	2.2%
11	Fængsel	6.0%
12	Fredriksberg Allé	2.7%
13	Tuborg	2.4%
14	Bülowsvej	2.4%
15	Gl Kongevej	2.6%
16	Mols-Linien	2.8%
17	Bernstorffsvej	2.8%
18	Prøv Lykken	2.0%
19	Hellerupvej	2.9%
20	Strandvejen	3.0%
21	Parkering	2.8%
22	Trianglen	2.8%
23	Prøv Lykken	1.9%
24	Østerbrogade	2.7%
25	Grønningen	3.1%
26	Gedser-Rostock	3.0%
27	Bredgade	2.7%
28	Kgs Nytorv	2.7%
29	Coca-Cola	2.7%
30	Østergade	2.7%
31	De Fængsles	0.0%
32	Amagertorv	2.7%
33	Vimmelskaftet	2.7%
34	Prøv Lykken	1.8%
35	Nygade	2.5%
36	Rødby-Puttgarden	2.6%
37	Prøv Lykken	1.6%
38	Frederiksberggade	2.2%
39	Statsskat	2.2%
40	Rådhuspladsen	2.7%

]]> http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2011/01/06/3148/feed/ 3 http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2010/12/06/3002/ http://blog.widmann.org.uk/2010/12/06/3002/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:00:59 +0000 thomas http://blog.widmann.org.uk/?p=3002

17/365: Trivial Pursuit
Originally uploaded by sparetomato

If you’re wanting to spend some enjoyable hours with a group of compatriots, Trivial Pursuit can be a good option.

However, if you are not from the same culture, many questions – especially in the pink and orange categories – can become almost impossible to answer for some of the players.

It would therefore be nice to have a box of international questions (either truly global, or perhaps European) to enable people with multinational families and friends to play the game.

I was searching a bit, and there seems to be a so-called “Globetrotter edition“, in which the six categories are replaced with six regions: North America,
Latin America, Oceania, Africa, Europe and Asia.

That sounds like it would be playable by people from different backgrounds, but it changes the nature of the game a lot, and I’d still rather have an international version of “proper” Trivial Pursuit.

However, most people think of it as a game for grown-ups.

Just for fun I made profiles for Léon and Anna, and somewhat to my surprise, they love it.

Of course I have to do most of the game controls, but they’re most definitely in charge of what they grow and where they put it. Anna is for instance insisting on only growing pink trees (see the picture).

So I’m starting to think it’s really a game for wee kids, which adults just happen often to love, too.

It probably seemed like a fun idea to Sony’s marketing department, but I do hope they will be prosecuted harshly, because it sets a very dangerous precedent if you can commit crimes without punishment if it’s for marketing purposes.

I mean, in the first instance it might only be the letters in Hollywood’s logo that get stolen, but what will the next step be?

Will you be allowed to hijack planes to promote a new plane game, or perhaps even blow up a building to promote a new version of Worms?

The kids got a shared Wii Fit Plus for Christmas, and I have been using it too, mostly once they’re finally in bed.

I’m OK at many things and quite bad at others, as could be expected.

In general, I seem to be better at yoga than at the supposedly fun games (perhaps harking back to all the yoga I did during PE at high school).

However, I’ve now found my true vocation in life!

Whereas all the others struggle to sit still for more than a minute in the “Zazen” exercise, I managed to get the maximum points (180 seconds without moving at all) after just a couple of attempts.

And it wasn’t just a fluke. Marcel asked how I had done it, so I showed him.

I really don’t understand why they haven’t added an expert setting – three minutes is far too short a time for true Zazen masters like me!

Men lige siden jeg fik pengene, har jeg desværre haft problemer med, at Wiien var udsolgt hele tiden (eller alt for dyr).

Men så i dag så jeg den endelig til salg på Amazon for £180! Jeg skyndte mig at bestille den, og det var godt, for ti minutter senere var den allerede udsolgt, og nu skal man igen lægge £270.

Selvom £180 lyder som en god pris, er det nu kun begyndelsen. Hvis jeg vil have ekstra controllere, et par spil og en oplader, løber det hurtigt op i lige så meget som konsollen.

Italy then tempted me with the offer of a bold alliance where I would let him move through my territory (Venice->Trieste->Serbia->Bulgaria), thus confusing the other players and placing us in a really strong position towards Turkey and Russia. I knew this was really dangerous, but I decided I’d rather be bold and either die soon or win than playing a mediocre game.

So far, so good, but Italy has been very quiet recently, so I wonder whether he’s about to stab me in the back. The next moves are due tomorrow, and I’ll know then whether he was really on Turkey’s side or mine.

On the map, I’ve marked the past moves in black, the moves that I’m hoping for in green, and the ones I fear in red.

It’s a game of standard gunboat (= anonymous) Diplomacy, so I won’t reveal the name of the game here, but a map can be found here.

I’m Austria, and so far Italy and Turkey have been very friendly, Germany OK, and Russia hasn’t uttered a single word yet. I would prefer an AIT (Austria-Italy-Turkey) alliance, becoming either AT or AI later, but we’ll see. As England very truthfully put it, “no rumor is worth anything until the
first set of moves are completed”. Basically, everybody will pretend to be my friend until the first moves (due around the weekend), but their actions will reveal who’s been lying and who hasn’t.

I’ll keep you posted.