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Button Men
''Button Men'' is a dice game for two players invented by James Ernest of Cheapass Games and first released in 1999. The length of games are short, typically taking less than ten minutes to play. Each player is represented by a pin-back button or playing card of their choice. The buttons are metal or plastic discs, about 2–2.5 inches (5–6.5 cm) in diameter, with a pin on back that can be used to fasten them to clothing. A button bears the name and illustration of the combatant ("Button Man" or "fighter") assumed by the player. Each button indicates the quantity and maximum value (and abilities if any) of the player's dice. Background and history ''Button Men'' is a game designed for fan conventions and other public venues. It can be played almost anywhere on short notice (provided the dice are at hand), and games are quick to complete. Buttons are meant to be worn on clothing, bags, or other accessories, advertising that the wearer has a button to play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheapass Games
Cheapass Games is a game company founded and run by game designer James Ernest, based in Seattle, Washington. Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, and other common board game accessories, so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that requires them. Cheapass games thus come packaged in white envelopes, small boxes, or plastic resealable bags containing only those components unique to the game - typically a rules sheet, a playing board printed on card stock, and game cards banded by magazine-cutout "sleeves". This allows the company to produce games for prices well below the market average. Later, Cheapass started offering some higher-quality, full color games under the "James Ernest Games" brand. History Ernest originally developed the idea for selling basic games without all the common components while freelancing at Wizards of the Coast during the 1990s. However, Wizards rejected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brawl (game)
''Brawl'' is a real-time card game designed by James Ernest and released in 1999 by Cheapass Games. Gameplay Like Spit or '' Icehouse'', players in ''Brawl'' do not take turns, instead either making a move or staying inactive as best suits their strategy at that moment. The game is fast-paced (games typically last a minute or two) but still has a fairly high level of strategy. Each player has a different deck of cards. The object of the game is to win the most ''Base''-cards by playing the most ''Hit''-cards onto each ''Base'' before a ''Freeze''-card is played on it. The game ends when a ''Freeze'' has been played on every ''Base'' in play. A player wins a ''Base''-card if she has more ''Hits'' on her side of the ''Base'' than her opponent has on his side. If both players have the same number of ''Hits'' on the ''Base'', the owner of the ''Base''-card wins the ''Base''. Cards This is a full list of all ''Brawl'' card-types published 2006, with applicable rules and other de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyramid (magazine)
''Pyramid'' was a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March 1998. Print issues were bimonthly; the first online version published new articles each week; the second online version is monthly. ''Pyramid'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It replaced Steve Jackson Games' previous magazine '' Roleplayer''. ''Pyramid'' features general gaming articles by freelance authors, as well as Designer's Notes by Steve Jackson Games product developers, industry news, cartoons, and gaming product reviews. Although articles tend to concentrate on Steve Jackson Games products such as ''GURPS'', it has published articles on other games such as '' d20 System'', ''Talisman'', ''Nobilis'', ''Hero System'', and has featured various comic strips and single-pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scott Haring
Scott D. Haring is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games. Career Scott Haring began working in the adventure gaming industry in 1982. Haring had a long career with Steve Jackson Games, having worked at the company five different times over a period of 15 years. Haring has worked as the ''Car Wars'' line editor, and became editor on the new magazine '' Autoduel Quarterly'' when it debuted in 1983. He also wrote and edited for ''Ghostbusters'' and ''GURPS'' and served as the editor for ''Pyramid'' magazine. He has been a columnist for '' Comics & Games Retailer'' since 1987. TSR's newly hired Scott Haring added four pages of purely game material to a series of "comic modules" published by TSR West, since TSR had an exclusive license for comic books with DC. Haring identifies ''Empires of the Sands'' (1988) as his first big project at TSR. He has also written and edited for the '' Top Secret/S.I.'' and '' Marvel Super Heroes'' role-playing games. His other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistic
A statistic (singular) or sample statistic is any quantity computed from values in a sample which is considered for a statistical purpose. Statistical purposes include estimating a population parameter, describing a sample, or evaluating a hypothesis. The average (or mean) of sample values is a statistic. The term statistic is used both for the function and for the value of the function on a given sample. When a statistic is being used for a specific purpose, it may be referred to by a name indicating its purpose. When a statistic is used for estimating a population parameter, the statistic is called an ''estimator''. A population parameter is any characteristic of a population under study, but when it is not feasible to directly measure the value of a population parameter, statistical methods are used to infer the likely value of the parameter on the basis of a statistic computed from a sample taken from the population. For example, the sample mean is an unbiased estimator of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free-to-play
Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which requires a payment before using the game or service. It is also separate from freeware games, which are entirely costless. Free-to-play's model is sometimes derisively referred to as free-to-start due to not being entirely free. Free to play games have also been widely criticized as “pay-to-win”— that is, that players can generally pay to obtain competitive or power advantages over other players. There are several kinds of free-to-play business models. The most common is based on the freemium software model, in which users are granted access to a fully functional game but are incentivised to pay microtransactions to access additional content. Sometimes the content is entirely blocked without payment; other times it requires immens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freemium
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software. This business model has been used in the software industry since the 1980s. A subset of this model used by the video game industry is called free-to-play. Origin The business model has been in use for software since the 1980s. The term ''freemium'' to describe this model appears to have been created only much later, in response to a 2006 blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson summarizing the model:Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium-priced value-added services or an enhanced version o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thrust Interactive
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that system. The force applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular or normal to the surface is also called thrust. Force, and thus thrust, is measured using the International System of Units (SI) in newtons (symbol: N), and represents the amount needed to accelerate 1 kilogram of mass at the rate of 1 meter per second per second. In mechanical engineering, force orthogonal to the main load (such as in parallel helical gears) is referred to as static thrust. Examples A fixed-wing aircraft propulsion system generates forward thrust when air is pushed in the direction opposite to flight. This can be done by different means such as the spinning blades of a propeller, the propelling jet of a jet engine, or by ejecting hot gases from a rock ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so (for example) the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins. The Origins Award is commonly referred to as a Calliope, as the statuette is in the likeness of the muse of the same name. Academy members frequently shorten this name to "Callie". History Originally, the ''Charles S. Roberts Awards'' and the Origins Awards were one and the same. Starting with the 1987 awards, the Charles S. Roberts were given separately, and they moved away from Origins entirely in 2000, leaving the Origins Awards as a completely separate system. In 1978, the awards also hosted the 1977 ''H. G. Wells awards'' for role-playing games and miniature wargaming. Categories The Origins Awards were originally presented at the Origins Game Fair in five categories: ''Best Professional Gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sluggy Freelance
''Sluggy Freelance'' is a long-running webcomic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. Starting in 1997, it is one of the oldest successful webcomics, and as of 2012 had hundreds of thousands of readers. Abrams was one of the first comic artists successful enough to make a living from a webcomic. While the strip began as a gag-a-day based series in which the three main protagonists (Torg, Riff and Zoë) would stumble from one brief, bizarre, parody-centric adventure to the next, the characters and plotlines gradually became longer and more serious. Some critics have praised the humor of the strip and its use of subject matter not available in newspaper comics, while others have criticized the long and complex stories and continuity. Creation ''Sluggy Freelance'' started on August 25, 1997. In an interview, creator Pete Abrams said that he had always hoped the strip could become his full-time job, and treated it like a job from the start. According to Abrams, he promoted the comic to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strategy
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art of the general", which included several subsets of skills including military tactics, siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in Eastern Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy" came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact. Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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