Games

That’s it. Pull back, aim, let go. Repeat a billion times.

The game’s objective is to guide a bird with anger management issues, projectile style, into a structure in the aim of killing the pigs within.

It mightn’t be much of a premise, but mobile game developers Rovio thought it sounded like a good idea. Myself and millions of fellow birdflingers around the world have been unproductive ever since it was released on the iPhone. Through careful use of trajectory, timing, and a slingshot, feathered vengeance can be mine.

Every day, a possible 50 million people worldwide spend a collective 200 million minutes trying to rain down avian justice.

Continue reading "They’re red. They’re angry. They’re birds." »

Herald Sun golf reporter, Mark Hayes, opened his Monday piece on Scott Laycock’s win in the inaugural Surf Coast Knockout, with the statement that it occurred “on a day that stands to change the face of Australian Golf”.

He was referring to the world first knockout golf format. The championship was decided by three rounds of stroke play. On the fourth and final day the top 32 players competed in a series of six hole matches in a knockout draw to determine the winner.

Continue reading "Twenty20 Golf: Long games need short versions" »

When I got 618 in a game of online Scrabble on the weekend, I immediately bleated the fact to the world via Facebook. As you do. Then I got this cheap, dirty feeling deep inside.

I’m not the worst Scrabbler going around. I know how to play the game. But I’m no 618 man, and it’s fair to say I had a little cyber-assistance in compiling such a big score.

The problem with online Scrabble, circa 2010, is that even mug players have access to dictionaries of several hundred thousand words. You might not know what the words mean, but if the computer approves them, hey presto! You’re on your way to 618. Or more.

Continue reading "I got 618 in Scrabble and I feel like a dirty, cheating rat" »

People often assume that because you have to write for a living that you’re good at Scrabble. It’s first necessary to point out to these people what it is I write for a living, and then point out that I’m atrocious at Scrabble.

At the risk of sounding like Steve Fielding my spelling has never been particularly good, but what I found really hard to do as a child and adolescent was to complete tasks that required prolonged periods of patience and concentration. The two things no doubt related.

If I had parents inclined towards such things, they would’ve taken me to a doctor and had me diagnosed with ADHD. As it turned out, they found periodically being wacked with a thong, combined with the threat of being sent to a more militaristic Christian Brothers school than the one I was already attending, was a perfectly satisfactory cure.

Continue reading "Scrabble just got easier for the stupiderer" »