I've mentioned Fred Langa's website at www.langa.com a few times before. It's an excellent all-things-Windows site that you should visit if you haven't already. He has both a free standard edition and a $12 per year Plus subscription. I pay the money to get the extras and recommend it if you like the standard version. Anyway, in a past newsletter, he mentioned a website that sells a program to let you create and solve computer-based jigsaw puzzles. The program is called Jigs@w Puzzle and you can find it at www.tibosoftware.com.
Now I have to tell you - I'm not big on conventional jigsaw puzzles, partly because I don't like the subject matter that is typically available, and partly because my color vision is a bit less than average. I did have some fun a few years ago with some national park topographic maps that were made into jigsaw puzzles, but I understand from Catherine that they were way too easy. I find that it's fun to create my own puzzles, because I can look at a picture in advance and decide whether it is something I like and can handle. I have a 15-inch monitor, and find I can handle image sizes up to 1000 x 700 without too much strain. I usually keep the number of pieces below 400 when I design a puzzle, although you can go much higher. You can randomly rotate the pieces, too, but I don't recommend this, since the puzzles are hard enough to do with the pieces in their proper positions. Many of the plane and blimp pictures I referred to in my last column wound up as jigsaw puzzles, as did a close-up of a squirrel, an owl, Monument Valley, a camel drinking from a 2-liter soda bottle, various weather scenes, and some photos from digital camera demonstration sites. This is a cheap program; just the software is under $10, if you download it. They sell puzzle collections, too, and also provide a free demo version of the software. I almost didn't buy the program based on the demo, since it is limited to a maximum of 25 piece puzzles. I didn't find them interesting enough, but knowing that Catherine likes jigsaw puzzles, I figured that $10 was not a big investment. The bigger puzzles proved much more interesting - Catherine and I have spent quite a bit of spare time with this program.
Those of you who follow the ECOM calendar may have noticed that we've added a floating games night to the monthly events. Catherine and I have been to several of these and at the last one, held at our house, I became addicted to a card game called "Fluxx." It is a product of a company called Looney Labs and of course, they have a web site at www.looneylabs.com.
Fluxx is a rather simple card game. The game comes with a card that describes the initial rules. There are 84 cards in the deck, of four types. These are "Keepers," "Goals," "Actions," and "New Rules." Goals define what you need to win; these almost always involve having the right keepers played from your hand. The game starts out with each player having three cards and "Draw 1, Play 1", the initial rule, is in effect. New rule cards, when played, change the basic rules, requiring a player to draw a different number of cards, play a different number of cards, set limits on held or played cards or provide bonuses for players who have played certain keepers. Action cards are one-shot modifications for the player, allowing one to do things like reset the rules, trade hands with another player, take an extra turn, draw and play additional cards, take cards from other players, etc. Fluxx turned out to be a lot of fun - it was one of the Mensa Mind Games top games for 1999 (behind Apples to Apples, another game that we've had fun with at previous games nights.) If you're a games fan, you can find Fluxx, Apples to Apples, and many other games at Funagain Games at www.funagain.com. Do a web search on "Fluxx" to find Fluxx fan sites, more detailed reviews, etc. There is a good pair of reviews at www.contagiousdreams.com/Reviews/Fluxx.html, for example.
I mentioned Cheapass Games in Brain Candy #21. A major theme of their board and card games are that they do not include any parts that you're likely to have lying around the house. This makes them cheaper - in some cases, very cheap. Their games usually have odd subjects and gameplay is also unusual. They've wanted to branch out to computer games for awhile, and have finally released one called "Strange Adventures in Infinite Space." It's a very good, very short and very cheap game. You can download a limited demo at www.cheapass.com. If your PC isn't running Windows 95/98, you'll want to do this, because the game has a history of crashing on other OS versions - you'll want to do some testing before you buy it. For the record, I haven't had too much of a problem running it on Windows XP - an occasional crash of the game, maybe once every thirty games or so, which doesn't affect the OS itself.
The basic concept is that you have, at the beginning, a slow, weak spaceship. You have ten years to accumulate all the loot, knowledge and contact with aliens that you can, before you return to get your acquisitions tallied. You find things around other planetary systems that can make you fly faster, attack or defend better, probe distant systems and contact traders. You also find useless but valuable baubles and quite often trouble. Some aliens are friendly and like to trade, some are hostile, and some, alas, are downright evil. It's a solitare game, and designed to last fifteen minutes or less. A healthy number of randomly appearing species and artifacts, as well as settings, keep it interesting, and did I say it was cheap? Under $20, including shipping, much less than most computer games.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #64 - Cheap Games and Puzzles / Brian Rock / Mar 03 2003