Tetris Effect

When I close my eyes to go to sleep, I see a grid of colored gems and they line up three or four in a row and combo after combo cascades. I'm not playing Puzzle Quest that much. Really.

Weird how the brain works. I experienced the same thing when Avril and I use to stay up and play Dr. Mario on the N64 together. I could see piles of pills lining up as I drifted off to sleep.

I used to have an old school Gameboy with Tetris when I was in high school. I played the crap out of that game. I can vividly remember the game, but not how the first girl I kissed looked. That sounds odd, but do you know what I mean? I'm rambling.

I just read about the "Tetris effect" on Wikipedia. Here is the article:

The Tetris effect is the ability of any activity to which people devote sufficient time and attention to begin to dominate their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the game of Tetris, which requires the player to rotate and move falling blocks of different shapes to create, and thereby eliminate, complete horizontal lines of blocks.

People who play Tetris for a long stretch of time may be subsequently involuntarily prompted to think about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or one's home furniture. This was parodied in The Simpsons episode Strong Arms of the Ma. They may also see images of falling tetrominos at the edges of their visual field or when they close their eyes. They may also dream about falling Tetris shapes when drifting off to sleep.

The Tetris effect can occur with other computer games involving prolonged exposure to sequential images, with any prolonged visual task (such as classifying cells on microscope slides, weeding, picking fruit, assembling burgers, or even playing chess) and can also occur in other sensory modalities. For example, in audition there is the tendency for a catchy tune to play out unbidden in one's mind (an earworm). In kinesthesis, a person newly on land after spending long periods at sea may move with an unbidden rocking motion, having become accustomed to the ship making such movements (known as sea legs or mal de debarquement).

Stickgold et al. (2000) have proposed that the Tetris effect is a separate form of memory, likely related to procedural memory. This is from their research in which they showed that people with anterograde amnesia, unable to form new declarative memories, reported dreaming of falling shapes after playing Tetris during the day, despite not being able to remember playing the game at all.

Maybe I'm not so weird after all.

P.S. Sorry to hear about Ryzom on the chopping block. The game scored high on innovation, but couldn't complete against the big MMOs.

Ryzom and Vista

Anyone surprised a video game has troubles with Vista?

I am annoyed. Very. I downloaded once and installed. Tried to run. No dice. Checked firewall. Ran as administrator. Uninstalled. Installed again. No luck.

Ryzom has support info on their boards here that I hope will get me back in the game. UAC is good (I think) but so incredibly freaking annoying.

One more try to get Ryzom running on my Vista box. I'd like to be playing games now, not troubleshooting tech issues.

Update: The tech support article in their forums fixed my problem. I could log in and play Mumbles again. Note to self, check the support web site before installing software on Vista. Gawd, I love this high speed internet connection. Avril is playing online and I downloaded the game (again) in a fraction of the time.

Random Junk Sept-14

The brand spankin' new fiber optic internet connection is yummy. Daddy likes. I was excited last night and bouncing around like a kid with a new toy (which is the truth, I suppose). I spent the night installing and updating and patching and configuring. The new computer is feeling more and more like home. Firefox was giving me a headache though. I could browse normal pages, but I couldn't log into my Google apps. Argh. After ten minutes of banging my head against the desk, I checked the firewall. D'oh.

I returned the Godfather to Gamefly earlier in the week, and I'm getting a kid game for my daughter next. Amazon says they'll deliver LotRO the week after next. This means a one to two week lull. What to do with myself in the meantime? I have a few options:

• Meditate nightly in preparation for my journeys in Middle Earth
• Play more of the Saga of Ryzom free trial, which I put on hold for the Godfather
• Check out my son's new Metroid Prime 3 game
• Hack and slash in Dungeon Runners (having some install issues on Vista... grr)
• Create an avatar in Second Life and go harass Avril

Action and Death in Ryzom

I played Ryzom again last night for a couple hours. Mumbles suffered his first death... actually his first few deaths. But more on that later.

Freedom to Build
Ryzom divides actions (skills and spells) into four categories: Fight, Magic, Harvest, and Craft. As you use actions from one of those categories, you gain experience and unlock more specialized areas. For example, if Mumbles gets enough experience in Magic, he will specialize in either Offensive Magic or Defensive Magic (or both). You have the freedom to build your character instead of being locked into a specific class.

Another attractive feature is creating custom actions. I loved playing Legos as a kid (still do with my kids) so building things out of blocks was an obvious turn on for me. You start with a blueprint, which is the basic type of action you are creating. For example, a damaging spell or an aura or a melee attack. Then you add different blocks (called stanzas) that define the action's effects in detail. To make the action balanced, you add "credits" to it such as longer casting time, usable only after dodging, or costs HP.

Unfortunately the game designers added unnecessary restrictions into the action building feature. I cannot mix and match stanzas from the Fight and Magic categories. Also, the action blueprints are too narrow. I want more freeform in how I build my spells. I want to combine healing and damaging stanzas. Perhaps at higher levels I will unlock those features. Maybe I'll do a bit of research on the intrawebs this evening.

Quick digression: My initial vision for Mumbles was a hybrid dps/healer caster. But after completing a few missions from the fighter trainer, I think going more of a melee dps/healer would be more fun and effective. I recommend anyone starting in Ryzom to go fighter first, then branch out into the other professions.

My First Death(s)
One of my newb missions (quests in Ryzom) was to find a group and hunt some big, dangerous creatures. I wandered around looking for the creatures to see if I could solo them, but could not find them. I sent a message to general chat asking where they were and someone whispered me that if I help her with some boss, she'd help me with my mission. Cool.

I join the team and see another team member is Ethic. Talk about weird coincidence. Ethic (from Kill Ten Rats) commented on one of my posts and suggested I check out Ryzom. Now here we are in a random PUG. Call me a freak, but I'm still tripping on that one.

So Ethic and me follow our team leader off into some ruins. She tells us to stop and wait while she pulls. Ummm... can we discuss tactics maybe? Nothing. Soon the leader comes running back with a pack of creeps following her. The leader runs around in circles. Ethic starts healing and I start casting some crowd control and DPS spells. No dice. I take two hits and I wake up in the camp hospital with a little XP penalty. Haha... good times.

The leader wants to try again. Why not? She found another newb to join us and off we go again. A little more luck this time. I actually completed four spells before getting pulverized. I don't think we even dropped one of the boss's minions. Ethic is wise and hit the road. I left shortly after because the leader kept ranting about all we need is more people. Sure. Good luck with that. Here's a dollar, now go buy a clue.

Ryzom First Impressions

Our family camping trip was fun but soggy in the end. The weather was partly cloudy mid-60s on Friday and Saturday. We hiked, ate smores, and splashed our feet in the lake. Saturday night the storm clouds rolled in and poured on us all night. We packed up early and wandered back down the mountain. Camping in Oregon.

Saga of Ryzom
Sunday night I created a character in Ryzom (Mumbles on Arispotle). The newbie experience is well done and easy to follow. My starting profession was mage but I'm free to dabble in other areas. In fact, I'm advancing steadily as a crafter too. Ryzom's crafting feature has more depth then Warcraft but is still simple to learn. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and I was crafting armor for Mumbles in no time.

Moment of truth... Ryzom is merely another "okay game" such as CoV, EQ2, etc. Ryzom has its faults (no z-axis is most annoying to me) but does enough stuff right to make up for it. I like its stylized graphics and more open character development. The community seems friendly to new players. The game's backstory unfolds in a series of well-crafted quests. The mix of sci-fi and fantasy is a refreshing bonus.

One aspect of Ryzom I find intriguing is the skill/spell editor. As Mumbles learns new spells, he gains the component blocks (called stanzas) of that spell. I can edit his current spells to change their affect, range, cost, cooldown time, etc. I can also create new spells from scratch in an easy to understand and use interface. For example, I have a few variations of the basic cold blast spell on my action bar ranging from my opening, long-range, high damage spell to my quick, cheap, almost-out-of-power spell.

I'd like to see spell editing in more games. Some people would be content using their default spells. Other people (such as me) could custom tailor spells to suit their individual play styles. I'm curious what kinds of stanzas the upper levels will bring. I'm tempted to subscribe for a month just to check it out.

Random Junk - Aug 17

Just a few game-related things to write about today. I'm taking off early for another camping trip. Unfortunately the weather turned sour here in the Pacific Northwest, which is unusual for late summer. Last August I took the family camping and the weather was perfect. We spent the days swimming in a mountain lake and catching crawdads. Oh well, I'll pack some balls and Frisbees instead of swim trunks and the raft.

The Godfather: Blackhand Edition
GameFly came through for me. I have the Godfather for the Wii now and I'm liking it. After a short intro, the game surprised with a large number of detailed customization options for my character. I was surprised again when my character "in game" actually looks like the one I spent an hour customizing. Compare that to EQ2 last week where my in game character had more or less the same color hair and wings but that's it.

The controls for the Wii are fun. When my character smacks around a store owner or throws some punk against the wall, I make those same movements with my controllers. Good stuff. I'm looking forward to when we plug our brains directly into the game... now that's immersion.

Saga of Ryzom
Ethic from Kill Ten Rats suggested I check out an MMO called Ryzom. The game sounds intriguing from a quick read of the official site and forums. A mix of sci-fi and fantasy genres. Skill-based character progression. Build skills and spells from scratch. User created content. Friendly, involved community. Sounds great. I downloaded the free trial of Ryzom and will check it out next week.

Lord of the Rings Online
My master plan has remained unchanged... I will play LotRO this October. No, not a free trial. I'll actually go to the store and buy the box and subscribe. The rainy season starts in October, so time to hunker down with a good MMO for nine months.

I'm a bit of a Tolkien fanboy, so I want my experience in the game to be pure and true and magical. I've stopped wearing shoes and started smoking a pipe. I tried engaging Avril in some hot elf-on-hobbit roleplay last night but she wasn't having it. Not true (but not a bad idea...hmm).

I finished rereading the Hobbit last week and started the Fellowship yesterday. I'll read a few chapters a week, finishing with (another) viewing of the movie in late September. I can't believe I just shared that info.