MSG: A free (temporarily) Cyberpunk Corporation Game.

Note: this game is free to download, up through November 25th.  that is, today and tomorrow. 

As if you didn't have enough of being at work 40+ hours a week.  MSG is an indie, resource-based narrative rpg of working for a ruthless conglomerate a hundred years from now, where coming up with a marketing plan and backstabbing your boss is even more important than gunplay. 

Like many indie games, MSG pushes he boundaries of what "RPG means.  It has some interesting indie ideas, such as one player taking the role of the corporation in each  turn, non-traditional stats (Self,  Compassion, a person you love, someone you hate, a dark secret, etc..) and a limited game play where the goal is to actually win over the corporation and the other players.   Self and Compassion are the main stats that give you a dice pool that you risk to succeed on the various unethical tasks the corporation gives you, your additional traits give you more points you can risk, and the player to end the game with the most of his dice pool left, wins the game.  Beyond that, there are a number of mechanics to give the feel of a company, such as resources, brand name and values, and if the company does badly enough, buyouts.

In tone and feel, it's like a very cynical, cyberpunk soap opera, in that the personal elements the players choose are built upon to make a story.  In fact, the additional points one can gain through bringing up say, one's dark secret are called soap.  Like other narrative RPGs , the actual role-playing appears to be subsumed into making a story and the personality mechanics; in fact, the situations are supposed to be narrated, not acted out..  As a result, the game itself is as slick, attractive, and cold as the companies it satirizes, a feeling enhanced by the graphics and between-chapter vignettes.

But what the hell, in the best of free-market principals, the game is free for a limited time only.  So one might as well download the PDF.

Evolve or Die: U.S. Civics Quiz.

In honor of Darwin's Birthday and Thanksgiving, test your knowledge of basic civics, with The U.S. Civics Quiz.



the good news is:

I did pretty well: I got an A.

You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.1%
Average score: 78.1%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org.

The bad news is the random sampling of American's knowledge of civics, as revealed in this report card:

Grade	Number Surveyed	Percent Surveyed
(90 to 100%)	21	0.8%
(80 to 89.9%)	66	2.6
(70 to 79.9%)	185	7.4
(60 to 69.9%)	445	17.8
(59.9% and below)	1,791	71.4
Total	2,508	100.0

I should not be in the top .8% of people surveyed.  More importantly, the failure rate is absolutely distressing.  Having 71.4% of the American public ignorant of basic civics is in my view, a dangerous trend, and one explanation for the disenfranchisement of so much of the American people with the political process.

Musical Mindworms and why I keep asking "What?"

The party last night brought to the fore an odd little element of my learning disability that fairly few people know about; while I have good hearing in general, my perception for speech is aweful, especially when there's competing noises. Too many competing noises andconversation becomes noise to me.

This actually came up a in a discussion about earworms at the party, when I was asked what earworm I currently had going through my head. This became a problematic question, because the way my hearing perception works, when I first hear a song, I normally hear singing as another instrument, without getting actually understanding most of the words. Normally it takes several repeated listenings for me to get most of the lyrics of a song. So last night, I couldn't remember any of the lyrics to the mindworm buzzing through my head, and responded with a vague approximation of the melody...which nobody could understand because I included both the instrumentals and the vocals into one tune.

This is, incidentally why I prefer smaller parties to large nois ones; it takes effort in a large party for me to hear anything someone is saying. It's also why when i'm concentrating on something, I won't understand a thing someone says to me.

Anyway, the song turned out to be the chorus from Katy Perry's "Hot n Cold:

"Cause you're hot then you're cold
You're yes then you're no
You're in then you're out
You're up then you're down
You're wrong when it's right
It's black and it's white
We fight, we break up
We kiss, we make up"

Repeat ad infinitum, because I can't remember enough of the lyrics to do what I usuallly do with earworms, which is change the lyrics so they're a song about my cats.

Also, here's the music video for the song. I think it's pretty funny. It's good decade for music videos it seems...even if I can't remember the words.

Wonder Woman and Kitties

Courtesy of misteranderson and scans_daily :

Best Wonder Woman poster. EVAR.