This time, Maris and I were in the park next to the track, celebrating Dni Petrzalky - the Petrzalka Days - with a few stars of the Slovak scene. The last group we saw was Hex, who reminded us that today is Fathers Day by singing a song about their dads (as far as I could follow).
Not 'reminded' in the sense that I didn't know, but it made me think to write this, since I know he will read it. I'm super proud of and impressed by my father at the moment. Having retired a few months ago from a job he did for longer than I can think, he's now letting his love of games and invention fill his time, designing, making prototypes and testing them on people, reading up on patents and chasing machinists for quotes about bulk orders, getting business advice from my mum and finding inspiration from the man who invented the wind-up radio.
The current project is a game superficially resembling Rubik's cube, in that it is based around colours and patterns, mathsey underneath but not on top and hand-held with a satisfying feel to it. (The call for anyone who enjoyed the Rubik cube to come froward still satnds.) I've seen it in a couple of incarnations, although I'm told it has come a long way even since April. An early picture, not really doing it justice, is here:
We've disagreed about parts of it, espacilly the gameplay aspects - me thinking it didn't have enough, Dad recently assuring me he's worked on that - and I'm pleased to hear it is still developing well. It willbe nice to have a new toy to play with, but especially pleasing is the excitement in my dad's voice when he talks about it and in his eyes when he hands it around. He's been making things in his spare time for years and it's heartwarming to see him go so enthusiastically about it now he has the time. Although it's a secondary or tertiary concern, I look forward to the result.
So yes: good example of taking your chances, Dad. This is the card that got lost in the post.
Love from Chris
x
6 comments:
Indisputably Best Son! although Joe may be bringing something back from Blackheath...
Thank you for the kind words and encouragement. With this exposure I'm going to have to make it work now.
Yes - the opposite of starving you of (electro-shocking you with?) the oxygen of publicity (such publicity! at least five unique readers a day!).
I'd say Save me some of whatever Joe brings back, but that would be silly. I'll have a Horalky.
That already looks pretty neat - I'd love to see the finished product.
Speaking of games, something that popped into my head completely without provocation about 10 minutes ago is 3D backgammon.
There is already 3D chess - which seems overly complicated, not least because 2D chess is already incredibly complex.
And there is 3D noughts and crosses which is fine as far as it goes, but ruined by the fact that noughts and crosses is a bit pants.
Backgammon is a good game, and far, far simpler than chess (only one type of piece, one type of move, and your options are restricted by what the dice say).
Do you think there would be any way of adding an extra dimension to the play, perhaps along the lines of getting your pieces from the top of the array to the bottom, as well as from the far side to the near side?
Or maybe create some meaning for the stacks of checkers you build up on the points, beyond the 1=vulnerable, 2+=invulnerable rule?
Just a thought.
i know mr t is interested in testing it with people, possibly once he has perfected a prototype (or maybe it's ready?). he knows you're interested, anyway.
three dimensional backgammon sounds like it has mileage (you weren't drinking negroni at the time, i presume). perhaps there would be gameplay in having alternately shorter and taller stacks, or only ascending/descending stacks on a given side of the board. one to study... i sense complex house rules coming on.
tomorrow i will play die siedler von catan again :) and a couple of days ago we discovered that lemmings is available in all its glory for free. (finishes comment guiltyat the thought of how much productivity will suffer with thisrevelation...)
No, no. Negroni drinking induces racially integrated backgammon, as I'm sure you know.
PS - the word verification thingy (yes, I know they're called CAPTCHAs, but the point of acronyms is that theyre supposed to be elegant and easy to remember, therefore I disapprove of this one, even if the T does stand for "Turing test") says "Hlogre" just now, which sounds vaguely Slovak to me.
lqtm
i didn't know i had word verification thingy...
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