Light Speed, real time strategy card game

determining the angle of the shot

Tonight a few friends and I got together at Mission Creek Cafe for our semi-weekly Game Theory night. GT is when where we get together to think/talk/review/create/and play games of all types. Tonight’s most interesting topic was a card game called Light Speed by CheapAss Games, that emulates real time strategy space games (like StarCraft). I won’t try to explain it too much (see the review on OgreCave.com for that) because you really have to play it to get it, but the general idea is that there are two phases to the game. In the first phase, everybody tries to put down all of their ships on the table, then the next phase is the scoring phase where you determine who’s lasers shoot who. I thought the game was a blast, it helps to have one person who has played it before, but I think it could be easy to figure out on your own. I’ve never played a game like this before, it’s very unusual, but not in an abstract strategy game.

We also bumped around a ton of ideas including some Twitter based games. I have two ideas that I think would make for cool Twitter games, one that would be a twitter based MUD game (like a text based role playing game). The other idea I had was a manners game, which would be more of just a simple API I guess. The idea is that you can enter in your Twitter name, then the programs follows reads your tweets and gives you a score to determine how polite you are. You’d get points for saying things like “thank you” or “please” but would lose points for words like “fuck” or “gimme”. The idea of the game is a reaction to most twitter games, which might encourage players to type tons of tweets or irrelavant posts that annoy their followers. Instead, the game rewards (what it sees as) good behavior, without affecting the tweet to noise ratio of a persons posts.

We also played a new iPhone game app called iPac3d. iPac3D is a 3D homebrew version of the classic pac-man game. Think Castle Wolfenstien with pellets. It’s great to see the iPhone rendering 3D worlds, but the real fun/challenge comes from using the iPhones built in accelerometer to control the game.

If you are interested in attending the next Game Theory get together, next monday, you can read the details on this upcoming page. We might move the meeting space though, so feel free to contact me if you are coming and I’ll keep you in the loop.


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8 responses to “Light Speed, real time strategy card game

  1. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    this game looks so rad. i really am interested in getting in on the next game theory get-together, but i’m sadly several hundred miles removed from it. i’ve never actually played a full campaign of D&D or painted miniatures, but damned if i haven’t tried to talk my friends into playing shift chess, solider, justine, mario kart cribbage, or any number of other silly made-up games.

    man, doc, why you gotta make me wish for a more solid group of nerd friends?

  2. Francis Avatar
    Francis

    Sounds fun. I haven’t jailbroken my iPhone yet… I’m having a hard time figuring it out, plus I don’t really have much of a need to jailbreak it.

    Anyway, please tell us more about some strange games… I’d like to try them!

  3. doc Avatar

    Don’t have any need? Don’t have any need?!
    I’ll give you 3!
    SendPics, lets you email full size images from your iPhone (as opposed to the normally compressed images). Perfect for uploading to flickr on the go.
    Ciassa Chess, everybody needs a chess app, right? I mean, what else are you gonna do on the BART?
    iAmp boosts your phones speakers. Making it so much easier to hear phone ringing.
    There are a bunch of small useful things too, like SMB prefs and WeDict.
    The easiest way to hack an iPhone is with Ziphone. Just download it, open it, plugin y’r phone, jailbreak it.
    BTW, I’m really really hoping my new album will come out tomorrow. I actually intended it to be used on the iPhone and it even comes with ringtones.

  4. Francis Avatar
    Francis

    Okay then, I’ll try Ziphone. 🙂

    Have you seen WiFi Army? That’s shaping up to be an awesome game! http://www.wifiarmy.com

  5. doc Avatar

    oh my god. You just blew my mind.

    Social. Tech. Interactive. Innovative. That shit has crazy potential. I hope they ccan score some big funds for that.

  6.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks for sharing . Nice blog 🙂

    Best regards
    Nols

    http://xtonlinegame.com

  7. Karen Walter Avatar
    Karen Walter

    Hi!!! I am a chartered accountant and I love playing cards and I would love to join the next game.
    ——————————–
    Karen Walter

    Accounting Firm Toronto

    CA4IT (Chartered Accountants for Information Technologists) is the largest network of Chartered Accounting firms in Canada that focus on providing bookkeeping, accounting, tax, paralegal and financial planning services to independent contractors (small business) in the IT industry.

  8. karen786 Avatar
    karen786

    Hi!!! I am a chartered accountant and I love playing cards and I would love to join the next game.
    ——————————–
    Karen Walter

    Accounting Firm Toronto

    CA4IT (Chartered Accountants for Information Technologists) is the largest network of Chartered Accounting firms in Canada that focus on providing bookkeeping, accounting, tax, paralegal and financial planning services to independent contractors (small business) in the IT industry.

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