Category: Games

Dice Dice Baby

June 11, 2020

Around 1983, I got my first Dungeons & Dragons set. Inside, along with the rule books, were these six dice:

They have 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 sides, and all are used when playing D&D. Yes these are my exact dice: although the rule books are long gone I kept the dice and they eventually made their way to me here in the US (thanks B!). The dice weren’t inked and came with a crayon used to fill the depressions and make the numbers more visible. You can still see nearly 40-year-old crayon in my dice:

Interestingly the particular D&D set I got (the famous ‘Red Box’) was packaged with dice of many different colors so it’s not unusual that my 6-sided is a different color from the others. Some sets even came with pre-inked dice or (as a result of shortages) a coupon to send away for dice. I feel sorry for the kids that bought the box set and had to wait weeks for dice so they could play!

I recently learned that these original dice are somewhat collectible now, and although inferior to modern equivalents could fetch $50 or more online. I’ll never sell mine of course; they’re one of the oldest of my original possessions I still own.

Speaking of modern dice, here’s a set:

These are solid metal, precision made and (apparently) balanced to be truly random. I also suspect they could damage a hard surface (look at the sharp corners) so you’ll want a dice mat if you’re going to use ones like these. I bought these after buying AW a set for Xmas and thinking they were quite nifty. Since he actually plays D&D I assume he’ll use his more than I will mine 🙂

The last die in I’ll share today is this weird example:

It’s a 100-sided die! This is designed for rolling percentage values but is very impractical since it’s so spherical it takes forever to stop. I did some distribution tests a few months back and found the results to be comparable to the Excel random number generator and random numbers as given to me by about 50 of my students, so I assume this is a mostly random tool.

In the mid 1980s an inventor patented a unique type of 100-sided die with an internal braking mechanism he called the Zocchihedron. You can still buy them today but they’re quite expensive so I went with this cheaper, solid example. My guess is if you really have a use for a 100-sided die go for the patented one and save yourself time on every roll 🙂

Do you need any dice rolled? Leave a comment and tell me which one and I’ll tell you what you got…

My Collection: GameCube

May 27, 2020

Nintendo released the GameCube in late 2001, and I was out on the US release day (Nov 18) to buy mine. There was a lot of anticipation for the console after the somewhat clumsy Nintendo 64, and we were all eager to see what Nintendo could do with games in 480p (what was then) high definition.

The GameCube (GC) featured a fantastic controller (the basic design of which continues today in the Switch Pro controllers), four inbuilt ports for multiplay, progressive scan graphics, removable cards for save files and optical disc media. During its lifespan it would add the first wireless controllers, GBA connectivity and even a device that would allow it to play Gameboy and GBA games (this is the black object connected under my GameCube in the above photo).

As with all consoles the hardware was nothing without the games, and while the Mario game (Super Mario Sunshine) has developed a bit of a bad reputation (I love it!), the system brought us the amazing trilogy of Star Wars games from Factor 5, an incredibly playable Mario Kart, the Viewtiful Joe series, two installments in the Phantasy Star Online series and two new Zelda games.

It was also the console on which the Pikmin, Metroid Prime and Animal Crossing series began (yes I’m ignoring Animal Forest here…). Animal Crossing in particular evolved from just being a game to became a way of life for a couple of years: I literally played it every day! I fired up my save file to check in on my town this past weekend and found my neighbors were a bit mad I hadn’t talked to them in quite a while:

Those graphics are primitive, but that’s the game not the system (since AC was originally developed for N64). It hardly mattered; Animal Crossing was another example of Nintendo showing us that graphics were far less important than gameplay 🙂

The GC used proprietary 1.5 GB mini DVD discs (for anti piracy reasons) which were initially sufficient but after a few years some games came on more than one disc. Nintendo was also generous with demo and promotional discs, and I’ve got several in my collection:

During the life of the console I bought just under 50 games, only 2 of which I ever traded in. By about 2005 new game releases had slowed, and by late 2006 the system was in its final days and many games were budget releases. I bought my last game in mid 2007, and Nintendo discontinued the system later that year.

As with most of my collection my games are complete in box and in pristine condition. The GameCube is not yet as collectible as some of its predecessors, but some games sold poorly despite being excellent and have become quite valuable these days.

The game on the left is known as the ‘big box version’ of Pokémon Box and is the rarer of two versions of a game that was rare even upon release. I bought it direct from Nintendo in 2004 for only $20 but could probably sell it for fifty times that price today. The other three in the picture are collectively worth about $500. The Pokémon Collosseum game and bonus disc (see above photo) are also worth considerably more than I paid. In fact quite a lot of my games have appreciated in the years since I bought them.

It makes me wonder if I should sell my GameCube games next!

The GameCube was followed up by the Wii, which was successful beyond even the wildest dreams of Nintendo and has since overshadowed the GC for most. I still remember the GameCube as the superior console, and taking it out and giving the games a spin for the first time in a decade made me remember just how much fun the little boxy console is 🙂

2019 in Games

December 7, 2019

Another year, another ‘Year in Games’ blog post. It’s still my #1 hobby, and in some ways I’m more invested in it than ever. But it’s interesting to see how my spending (and playing) has changed over the years, moving ever-so-slowly more toward replaying old stuff than buying new.

In 2019 the numbers dipped upwards slightly this year, with 57 games bought for 10 systems at an average cost of about $25. The PS4 led in terms of games purchased and total dollars spent, but much like last year a decent amount of my spending was for retired (and in some cases distinctly retro) systems. Here are the charts, in another new format to please my critics:

The above is a proportional plot of games purchased by system. Yes your eyes don’t deceive you: I bought one game each for the Commodore 64 and PC-Engine in 2019. I can’t play either since I don’t own either system, but both were Wizardry games and I collect them so how could I pass them up? In fact more than a third of all my game purchases this year were for retired systems, and even more if you include the 3DS which is very much on the borderline these days.

And that is the breakdown of dollars spent. The 3DS has a large block since I bought an actual new 3DS system this year (which was my sixth…), and you’ll note that even though I bought more GBA games I spent more on the C64 and PCE games. This is because one of the GBA games was a mere ¥65, which is about US$0.60! The average game price remains low since I very rarely buy any new releases these days, instead waiting 6+ months until they inevitably drop in price. On Black Friday I bought nine PS4 games – all released within the last year – at an average cost of $18!

Despite the retro gaming (I’m not mentioning here the hours spent with the NES, SNES, C64 and Genesis Mini) I sunk a massive amount of hours into some extremely high quality new games as well. The following three were amongst my favorites of the year:

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (PS4)

What can I say? Will there ever be a year a new Monster Hunter game doesn’t make this list? Iceborne – the expansion to world – added a higher difficulty, oodles of new monsters and lots and lots of fun. It was even better than World, and given they’re still adding content I doubt I’m done with it yet!

Nioh (PS4)

Imagine a hybrid of Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and this is what you get. An absolutely fantastic mission-based fuedal Japanese monster hunt, that has incredible amounts of content and oozes flavour. A wonderful, wonderful game and I look very much forward to the upcoming sequel.

Hollow Knight (PS4)

A ‘metroidvania’ set in a world of bugs. At times very difficult, but with a gigantic map and lots to see and do. I got lost in this one for weeks, which wasn’t bad for a digital game that cost me only $5!

I can’t end the year without a final farewell to the 150+ games and consoles that I parted with back in June. I ‘ve not regretted it and don’t miss them, and I very much hope they’ve gone on to new owners and are now featured on someone else’s “2019 in Games” list :

Robot Claw