Nick Sagan Online

Shrapnel-palooza!

Not one but two  Shrapnel-related videos...

First, the trailer for the new Shrapnel iPhone game, now available for download from the Apple App Store:

Second, this interview of me talking Shrapnel at a recent Barnes & Noble signing:

 

Ultraviolent Adaptations

Violent videogames make me happy. I can't explain why exactly, but I remember spending vast amounts of time playing Mortal Kombat II back in the day, making one set of pixels do horribly unpleasant things to another set of pixels. Combine this love with my love of movies, and I'm quite the happy camper...

I'm not at E3 this year, but I've been following a little of IGN's coverage, and three games have captured my curiosity. This is largely due to how notoriously bloody the movies they're based on are--I'm very interested to see how the developers adapt the source material. And these are three films that happen to be on many critics' best lists. We've got Tarantino, De Palma and Spielberg in play...

Reservoir Dogs is touted as a counterpart to the movie--we've seen the planning of the heist and the aftermath, but not the heist itself. Here's a chance to do the crime as the character of your choice (Mr. Blonde, Mr. Brown, Mr. Pink, etc.) Mostly a shooter with some driving gameplay thrown in, which only makes sense for a heist.

The hostage taking strikes me as an interesting game dynamic:

If you want, you can make it through the entire game without killing a soul - very professional for a thief. This will require you to use some other game mechanics such as intimidation and hostages. You can take a hostage and hold them for when the cops come in. If the cops don't immediately put their guns down, slamming your hostage's face into a table or through a window might do the trick.

Next up is Scarface, which will doubtless cause thousands of gamers to yell, "Say hello to my little friend" at their TVs in terrible Cuban accents. It's another shooter augmented with driving, but this one apparently allows you to "gain balls."

Starting out with Tony blasting away at baddies in his mansion like at the end of the movie, the demo went on to detail the balls and blind rage modes, front management features, and some brief driving sequences. As you shoot foes and drive dangerously in Scarface, you'll gain balls, which fills up a meter in the bottom right of your screen. When maxed out, you can initiate blind rage mode, which switches you from third to first person perspective, regenerates your health, and gives you unlimited ammunition to wipe out anyone around.

Finally, there's Jaws, which is neither a shooter nor a driver. It's a snacker. You play the shark.

Though Jaws can blindly bite whoever's in his path, he's also capable of more precise feasting. Not only is Jaws capable of targeting specific enemies, but also specific parts of enemies. Chomping down on a hand, foot, or leg will result in a severely maimed but still living enemy. You'll need to be aware of what state of disrepair enemies are in after you've feasted, lest you get hit with an unexpected harpoon.

Now I don't know if I'll purchase these games, but I'll definitely check them out. If only someone would adapt Stanley Kubrick's movies. A Clockwork Orange game, anyone? Full Metal Jacket? Dr. Strangelove? I'd buy those in a heartbeat.

Ping Pong

So if Pong is "the grandfather of video games," does that make ping pong the great grandfather?

My parents kept a table in the basement, and I spent who knows how many hours rallying back in the day. Good hand-eye coordination builder. Also, a lot of fun. I'd play against friends or family. My dad was often busy working, but he really enjoyed the game, and would make time for it when he could.

Now as you might expect for an astronomer's household (or perhaps not--though true, this sounds suspiciously like a Hollywood set designer's idea of what Carl Sagan's living space might look like), our basement featured a "moon wall." A long wall painted with black and white lunar imagery from the Apollo missions: crust, craters, crevasses, etc. We often played with a house rule where you could "bank your shot off the moon." Ping pong purists would surely object to this, but we felt it made the game more dynamic. And ceiling shots were still out.

When I hit my teens, we took our show on the road--er, water, actually. Cruise ships would offer my father deals where, in exchange for giving a few lectures, he and his family could travel free. My parents were split up by then, but I'd spend summers with dad, along with Christmas and spring breaks. I was ridiculously fortunate to be able to visit exotic countries and do the whole Johnny Quest world traveller thing, but beyond all that, every ship sported a ping pong table for singles or doubles competition.

Dad and I would team up and pwn every other team. Total annihilation. In a twenty-one point game, it was rare for our opponents to reach double digits. Now, to be fair, I don't imagine the level of competition aboard cruise ships is very good. Anyone who really knew the game could have wiped the floor with us. No doubt about that. And these casual players could have been rattled by the novelty of playing against Carl Sagan. In any case, they got rocked.

Our strategy: I set it up, and he knocked it down. He had a very good smash shot, great trajectory, awfully difficult for anyone to return. But you can't pull a smash out of thin air--first, you have to get your opponent to make a mistake. That's where I would come in, chopping and slicing my shots with enough spin to force opponents out of position, making their returns desperate, high and weak, perfect for a winning smash. We had killer teamwork. Defensively too. None of that garbage where both players bump into each other going for the same shot, or (even worse) where both players stand around waiting for the other guy to make the hit.

Doubles ping pong is the only sport my father and I ever teamed up together to play. Yes, we played frisbee and basketball, but frisbee is essentially just catch, and the basketball was always against each other (one-on-one or H-O-R-S-E.) I miss all those games, but especially the ping pong. Haven't played in years.

In my writing, I homage my dad from time to time. Everfree is dedicated to him. The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager I wrote featured a character named "Valerie Archer," who was an homage to the heroine of Contact, "Ellie Arroway." Archers and arrows, you see. (Incidentally, "Ellie Arroway" was herself an homage, my dad giving props to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 character, "Dave Bowman.") Anyway, as a fairly oblique homage, I managed to work the game of ping pong into a Voyager episode. That would be the fan favorite, "Relativity," which I co-wrote with Bryan Fuller and Michael Taylor. Surfing online today, I see that the Arizona Table Tennis Online organization has a page dedicated to the episode. Color me amused.

I really enjoy the ripples spread via writing. I like ping pong, so I write about it; a fellow ping pong fan sees my work and sparks to it, etc. It's a moment of connection with someone I don't know and probably will never meet.

You can never be 100% sure what the cast and crew are going to do with what you've put on the page. This scene has Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) keeping the ball in the air throughout his dialogue. I vaguely remember someone arguing with me that the actor would never be able to pull it off. I insisted that it's really not that hard. In the end, Robert made it look easy.

Star Trek being Star Trek, a friendly game of ping pong results in the discovery of an anomaly. In this case, the ball gets frozen in time.

Naturally, for ruining a close game, someone has to eat a phaser.

(Want to see the episode? You can order it here.)

Alter Ego

Does anyone remember Alter Ego?

Twenty years ago. Life simulator. Played it on the Apple II or Commodore 64. Those computer systems are long gone, but I was excited to learn that it's been ported to an online Java format.

You start out as an infant, making choices that raise or lower the skills (familial, intellectual, physical, social, vocational) and statistics (calmness, confidence, expressiveness, gentleness, happiness, thoughtfulness, trustworthiness) that define you. From infancy you advance to childhood, adolescence, etc. Go to school, get a job, date, marry, buy a house, have kids, etc. You win by having a good life, though intentionally making poor choices has a certain appeal of its own.

It's easy to play. You have a tree full of experiences, represented by icons like these:

The heart represents an emotional event, the picture of a family a familial event, the chest x-ray a physical event, and so on. Explore the ones you want by clicking on the icons. Make choices. Live with the results.

Comparisons to The Sims are inevitable, but I find Alter Ego more thought-provoking. Certainly more psychological.

Click this link if you'd like to play it. Here's an excerpt to give you a taste:

There is an elderly woman who lives in a house up the street. Everyone calls her "the witch." Some people say she's really paranoid, calling the cops on kids all the time, and screaming out the window, even when there is nobody there. At night she keeps her light on all the time, and sits looking out the window.

For the past few days the light has been off. Some of the kids think she's just dead in there or something. They jump in front of her house and sing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead, the witch is dead," and laugh.

Select a mood :
x SAD
HAPPY

Select an action :
SING WITH EVERYONE ELSE
x TRY TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS WRONG

One afternoon after school you look from outside the gate to see if there is anything going on inside the house. There is nothing. You can:

Select an action :
x GO THROUGH THE GATE AND KNOCK ON THE DOOR
ASK A FRIEND TO GO WITH YOU

You hear a voice call out from the back of the house, "Go away and leave me alone!" You can:

Select an action :
x SAY "I'D LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU'RE O.K. IN THERE."
QUIT TRYING AND LEAVE

You hear nothing for about thirty seconds. Finally, the door opens. The woman looks pale and dazed. She seems smaller than you imagined, and very delicate. In the corner of her almost-bare living room there is a television set, and beside it is a large box of old rubber balls and toys that were left, or had accidentally fallen, on her lawn.

She asks you why you have come. You mention that you noticed that the light has gone out and you thought she might be needing some help. She explains that she has no way to replace it. She is too old to climb up and do it. You can:

Select an action :
x ASK HER IF SHE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO IT
EXCUSE YOURSELF NOW THAT YOU KNOW IT'S JUST A PROBLEM WITH A LIGHT BULB

She thanks you. Her face softens. While you are fixing the light, she tells you a very sad story: A long time ago, she had a son, very much like you, so polite and so kind. She says he was a beautiful boy, and repeats it over and over -- "as beautiful as a picture."

She and her husband lived with their son not too far from the train yard. She used to tell her son, "James Robert, stay away from the tracks, you'll get hurt." One day, her son and her husband went out to play catch with an old football. The ball got away from James and rolled across the tracks.

While he was chasing it, his foot got wedged between two rails. His father and he struggled to release it, but before they could, they were both struck by a freight train and killed. She's been alone ever since.

When you are finished fixing the light, the lady gives you some milk and freshly-baked cookies. It almost seems as though she doesn't want you to go. Before you leave, you:

Select an action :
x THANK HER FOR THE COOKIES AND ASK IF SHE WOULD LIKE SOMEONE AROUND TO DO ODD JOBS
THANK HER AND EXCUSE YOURSELF

Her face brightens. "You must be paid," she says. "I can't afford much, and you'll have to do a fine job, but you can have all the cookies and brownies you can eat. I promise you that." You have done a much kinder thing than you can probably imagine at your age. You've given this woman a reason to live.

Falling

Flying across the Atlantic makes me think about the prospect of falling from a great height. Not a pleasant prospect. Nervewracking, actually. That said, this "falling forever" demonstration of ragdoll physics is surprisingly watchable, and I find it oddly soothing. Your mileage may vary; Clinnette finds it disturbing. ("But he never hits the ground," says I. "Yeah, but he's still falling," says she.)

Note 1: You'll need Flash for it to work.

Note 2: It's not really "forever" as the character model will hit various bubbles that change the trajectory of the fall and eventually cause him to come to rest. Simply reload the page to start again.

Note 3: The fellow falling is a recognizable political figure. If watching him plummet isn't to your taste, you might prefer this alternative instead.

Now then, off to board my plane.