Pingus

Lately I feel as if I have been becoming dumb. When I talk to people I just don't say interesting things anymore. This is surprising to me because when I was in high school and during my early days of university I was considered quite smart, and I also felt very smart as well. I suspect something has happened to me since then. My guess is that my life has gotten comfortable and I have been watching a lot of television and reading a lot of junk on the internet. As such I haven't really challenged my mind much, which means my brain does not get vital exercise it needs.

The solution to this problem is to do what I used to do a lot when I was young, which is to play lots of games, especially puzzle, strategy, or tactical games. I could always go out to the computer game store and buy some of the latest games, but why would I do that when there are so many free games for download over the internet.

One free game I recommend to people is called Pingus. This is a game I highly approve. It is very addictive. I managed to win the training quite easily and then finished all the levels. Some of them were challenging. The problem is that after I won all the levels and completed everything, I wanted to play more levels but didn't know how to. I read that you can download more levels to play but the problem is that I don't know how to install these levels.

Gore: Ultimate Soldier

I am so glad it is Easter! This means I get a four-day weekend. Today I downloaded the game Gore: Ultimate Soldier. The ISP iiNet allows me to download this game through their freezone, which meant I didn't pay for bandwidth costs. The game is free.

Gore is a first-person shooter. It has a single player mode as well as multiplaying capabilities online. I tried the single player mode and thought it was enjoyable. The graphics were good, the control was good, and the weapons were good. I am currently stuck at a level at the moment, so it is quite frustrating. I find that the game is quite difficult. At this level at which I am stuck, I don't seem to have enough ammo or health.

The Gamespot review for this game claims that Gore is a plain and ordinary FPS.

Connect6

I'd like to talk about a game that I have been playing recently. It's called Connect6. The rules of this game are so simple it will take the average person literally less than a minute to learn. A Connect6 paper from the 2006 Computer Olympiad explains the rules as follows:

Players and stones: There are two players. The first player, called Black here, holds a set of black stones, like Go or Go-Moku games. The second player, called White here, holds a set of white stones.

Game boards: In theory, the size of game board can be infinite. However, practically, it is hard to support such a game board. Therefore, our proposal is as follows.
- For casual players, simply use 19×19 Go boards.
- For professional players, use 59×59 boards.

Game moves: Black plays first and places only one black stone on one unoccupied intersection, also called square in the rest of this document. Subsequently, Black and White alternately place two of their own stones on two unoccupied squares.

Game winning: The one who first gets six consecutive stones (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) of her/his own wins.

What I love about Connect 6 is that is such a simple game to learn yet has very complex gameplay. The simplicity allows you to teach new players quickly, whereas games like chess require more time to teach. Another benefit is that because the game involves trying to connect lines and involves no capture, Connect6 can easily be played on pen and paper like tic-tac-toe, meaning that you don't need any special equipment. This makes Connect6 an excellent game for moments when you're bored with friends and don't have chess sets nearby.

Another good point about Connect6 is its fairness. In most turn-based games like chess and Go, the player who moves first gets an advantage. For the game Gomoku (Connect5), mathematicians have proven that the first player can always win with perfect play. It is a solved game. Checkers too is a solved game. Connect6 is fair because the first player can only put down one stone at the beginning and subsequently each player puts two stones at a time on the board. Because there is no official limit on how large the board is, Connect6 as a game can be infinitely complex.

There are two sites where I play Connect6: Vying Games and Little Golem.

Vying Games has very good graphics and it also has bots (computer opponents) if you cannot find human opponents. At first I found it difficult to beat the bots at Vying Games, but over time I improved dramatically and now I can beat every single bot without raising a sweat. I've taken on all human challengers at the site. I have beaten many, including the website's designer Eki, but many of the human players there are tough and my results among the high-rated players have been mixed. Looking at Vying Games's Connect6 League Table, you will see my name near the top. Unfortunately many of the top players there are reluctant to challenge newcomers, perhaps to preserve their high ranking, and I suspect many of the top-rating players there won against easy bots very many times to gradually increase their rank. This is the problem with Vying Games. There are too few people and the bots are too easy.

The website Little Golem is different. There are very many players here, and many of them are very good. Unfortunately there are no bots, so you have to play correspondence games against humans. The graphics at Little Golem are also not good.

For beginners, I recommend you start at Vying Games and play against the bots. Once you are good enough to beat all the bots at Vying Games, start playing against humans both at Vying Games and Little Golem.

Also very fun are Connect6 puzzles at Connect6.org.

The image at the top is from a game I played with black stones against Piau with white stones. The whole game can be seen here.

Conflict During Chess Game

There is a popular video on Youtube showing Nigel Short, the chess grandmaster, trying to shake hands with Ivan Cheparinov before a game of chess. However, Cheparinov refused to shake hands with Short. Short spoke to the arbiter and claimed that refusal to shake hands with your opponent results in automatic forfeiture according to FIDE rules. FIDE is the highest authority in chess, the Vatican of the chess world. Short turned out to be correct and Cheparinov lost the game. In the next game the two played, Cheparinov offered to shake hands and Short accepted. He also formally apologized.

It is believed that Short and Cheparinov were not getting along because Short said derogatory things about Topalov and Bulgarian chess players in general. He was speaking about the controversial Kramnik versus Topalov World Championship game. I don't know what Short said exactly. Cheparinov, who is Bulgarian, must have taken offense.

The Kramnik-Topalov game was mired in controversy because Topalov believed Kramnik went to the bathroom too frequently. Allegations later surfaced that Kramnik was using a computer to aid his play when he took bathroom breaks. This childish bickering reminds me of the Fischer versus Spassky match.

I admire Nigel Short because, when I was a little boy, I read just about every single chess book available at the public library and schools libraries. One of my favorite books was his. I think—but I'm not sure—that the title of this book was Chess Basics. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the book. It was interesting to see some of Nigel's games. He often played the French Defense and he is known for his aggressive pawn storms. He is one of the best chess players in Britain.

Scorched Earth 3D

Link: Scorched Earth 3D

Ever since I was young I was a fan of Scorched Earth. When I replay the game now that I am a young adult, it brings a sense of nostalgia to me. I remember playing this game with my brother and whenever my little cousin came over she played with us as well.

The aim of the game is for players to control tanks and take it in turns changing the direction, elevation, and power behind a missile shot. You can even change weapons, so instead of using a missile you can use weapons like the MIRV or strange weapons like the Funky Bomb. There is a great deal of suspense in this game as you opponents slowly figure out the right settings needed to hit you and you must kill them before they have a chance to kill you. It is a very exciting game and usually when we played as children we would make so much noise that the parents would be distracted.

Today I played Scorched Earth 3D, a remake of the old game that, as the name suggests, is in 3D now instead of being in 2D. I played against two other easy bots and I won easily. My favorite weapons were the MIRVs and the Funky Bombs, just like with the original Scorched Earth. Scorched Earth 3D looks better than the original, which is to be expected. However, I found that because the locations were much larger and because you have an extra dimension, the game was a lot less action-packed. It was more passive and slow. In the original, a Funky Bomb explosion would fill up the whole screen. In Scorched Earth 3D, a Funky Bomb would only fill up a small portion of the overall location. Navigating around the 3D environment can also be difficult. I found it easier to correct my previous shots by always using smoke tracers. I recommend players use smoke tracers because they are very cheap.

Scorched Earth 3D is a free game. Anyone can download it right now and play it.

Survivor China: Jean-Robert Evicted

I have just watched the episode of Survivor China in which Jean-Robert was voted out. Another very exciting episode. What I love about Survivor is that it leaves you guessing until the end. I had no idea who was going to be voted out this time. I was worried that it might be James but it turned out that Todd and Amanda pulled a fast one on Jean-Robert and voted him out. Frosty seems to be part of the Todd-Amanda alliance because he voted for Jean-Robert as well.

During the start of the game, it is better to vote out the weaker players because they lose challenges and force the tribe to vote off members, thereby decreasing the tribe's size. If your tribe has fewer numbers pre-merge, you go into the merged team with a minority and in a democratic system you are picked off one by one.

But in this game at the moment the tribes have merged but the tribal lines have broken. Frosty is all over the place. The same can be said about that lunch lady and Courtney. With a merged tribe it is best to vote out the stronger players first because they have a better chance of winning immunity and are thus stronger. This is why I think James is very vulnerable, even if he has two hidden immunities. My guess is that the tribe will do what they can to get James out.

I have been watching Jean-Robert's talk just after eviction and it is really clear that this guy has no idea what he's doing. His plan was to act stupid and crazy at the beginning of the game and then improve as he went along. The only thing that did is (1) annoy people, thereby making them vote for you (e.g. Courtney), (2) make you stand out so that those from the smaller tribe will vote for you with the hope that fellow tribe members of Jean-Robert will go against him (e.g. P.G. and Erik), and (3) signal to other that you are duplicitous and untrustworthy. I think the last reason is why Todd and Amanda voted for Jean-Robert. In the video Jean-Robert seems very confident in himself.

Free Rice Vocab Game

Anyone who is literate should go to Free Rice and use your vocab skills to get free rice for poor people.

Image: Kayray

Review of Scribble

I've been playing this game for a few weeks now and I have finally won the whole game!

Scribble is a game in which you have to construct walking paths for little black creatures called blots to walk on. You have to direct them to the ending and stop them from being killed by dangerous things.

Scribble Help the Ink Blots get to the finish flags.

Play this free game now!!

Review of Silversphere

Link: Silversphere

Silversphere is a puzzle game. You control a silver sphere and you must find ways to reach a blue pool-like vortex to win the level. I have managed to get to level 16 so far, but it took me 75 minutes to do it. Below are the password I have managed to get so far:

2. Metallic
3. Linear
4. Fortress
5. Active
6. Islander
7. Gauntlet
8. Lateral
9. Obstacle
10. Guidance
11. Pathway
12. Sandbar
13. Patrol
14. Capture
15. Confusion
16. Consequence