The Global Game Jam 2018 @ KSU will be held from Friday, January 26th through Sunday, January 28th.
This is a great opportunity to come and make a game over a weekend. Anyone can join in regardless of skill or experience. Come and have fun, learn, and meet some new people.
You will also need to register https://epay.kennesaw.edu/C20923_ustores/web/classic/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=2015 The registration desk will be on Level 2 of J-Block at 2:00 pm. The opening ceremonies will take place in Q-202 and will start at 4:30 pm. The jam will take place in J-Block and will start at 6:00 pm on Friday January 26, 2019. This is an 18 Plus event. If you are not 18 or older, you will not be able to participate.
Steve Jobs had an enormous appreciation for the computer, believing it was the greatest human invention, and he commonly likened it to a bicycle for our minds. Here he is in one such explanation of this analogy:
He refined his delivery over the years, but the underlying analogy was always the same. The bicycle dramatically increases the efficiency of human locomotion, and likewise the computer dramatically increases the efficiency of human thought. While that is still the case when computers, the Internet, and increasingly Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are used as tools to leverage our innate abilities to solve huge, complex problems, they can also become other things for the mind that are not so useful. We are seeing it happen more and more that as computers proliferate, shrink in size, and become more convenient and ubiquitous, they stop being treated as a tool and start being treated as a toy or simply as a distraction. Maybe computers are becoming less like a bicycle for the mind and more like something else.
For decades the computer has been an essential tool for transforming and advancing our civilization. We use computers for nearly everything we build and do now: manufacturing, design, construction, finance, banking, communication, supply chain management, retail, medicine, research, exploration, and on and on. We use computers to design and develop newer and faster computers—a profound use for a tool—and we've been using them in this way since they were first capable of doing the job. It's the ultimate tool that can be used to make anything more advanced, even itself. The computer is the driving force behind its own exponential improvement. That characteristic makes it unique among all of the technological tools we've invented.
As computers have gotten more powerful, we have also designed them to be smaller and more capable to the point where now we can carry around a supercomputer in our pocket that is always connected to even more powerful supercomputers in the cloud. This supercomputer can run for hours on a small battery and connect us to nearly the entirety of human knowledge with a touch of the screen. Having such an incredibly powerful tool at our fingertips should enable us to do amazingly advanced things, and in most cases it does.
However, the smartphone in particular was not designed to create amazing new things, at least in the physical world. Sure, it can definitely be used to create in the virtual world: YouTube videos, Instagram pictures, or stories that can go viral and spread through the Internet in a millisecond, but it isn't normally used to design and build real new things like the next interplanetary rocket engine or distributed renewable energy system. These tasks are left to its more powerful and capable predecessor—the computer workstation. The smartphone was simply not designed for complex design tasks because it lacks the complex inputs that such tasks require. It was designed for something else.
The smartphone was designed to hold our attention. Maybe not at first. The first smartphones needed to serve a useful purpose to justify their existence and sale to a willing consumer. Being able to take a quick picture, check your email, or look up the nearest restaurant while away from your desktop computer was a reasonable value proposition for a lot of people (or holding your entire music collection, that was a major selling point for the original iPhone). Those first entries in useful, need-fulfilling apps quickly expanded into a sea of attention grabbing apps and features that are constantly vying for our attention with notifications, badge app icons, and never-ending feeds.
Holding as many people's attention for as long and as often as possible is definitely the name of the game for smartphones now. The companies that have figured out how to do this best have grown the largest with Apple, Google, and Facebook at the top of the list. Amazon is right up there, too, but they deal as much in selling physical goods and providing the computing infrastructure that most other companies use to build their businesses as they do in providing entertainment. Twitter would be up there as well, if they could only figure out how to monetize their users' attention as effectively as the other companies do.
Where does all of this attention seeking get us? We're not using this feat of human ingenuity to create even more useful things. We're using it to burn our time playing simple repetitive games with in-app purchases, trolling other people on Twitter, and reading all about the latest scandals and horrible fear-inducing news on our Facebook news feeds. We've even reached the point where journalists routinely write entire news articles about what people said and how other people responded on Twitter. Who had the best burn? Who made the best meme? How is this news?! This civilization advancing technology, this bicycle for the mind is no longer being used to take us to new places. We're now using it to go in circles, just wasting time, without making any progress. We've created a technology carousel.
We haven't just created and unleashed this time-wasting carousel, we can't get off of it. We keep going round and round, checking notifications, scrolling feeds, and searching and searching and searching. We're searching for approval if friends and acquaintances liked our post. We're searching for responses to DMs. We're searching for that next inspiring post or cute pet pic. Studies are showing that the average person now spends two hours a day on social media (careful, it seems like a spammy website, and of course I couldn't find the actual source). A report from Morgan Stanley in The Atlantic says that "depending on which study you choose to look at, adults on average check their smartphones as many as 80 or even 200 times each day." According to a report on a study in The Washington Post, teens are on different forms of media for nearly nine hours a day, including online music and videos.
The number of hours taken from our lives and handed over to social media companies for advertising dollars is simply astonishing. We trade our precious time for the next dopamine hit again and again because we're addicted to the artificial sense of connection we feel when we send and receive these virtual messages out over the ether. We're not making real connections with other human beings, though. We're making stronger connections with our phones, which is exactly what was intended to happen by design. We may try to convince ourselves that all of this checking and searching is accomplishing something important or filling a need, but most of the time what we're accomplishing for ourselves is further isolation and distraction.
We are succeeding in reducing our attention span and destroying our ability to focus. If we're obsessively needing to check our phone every few minutes, that doesn't leave much mental capacity for deep, creative thought. As Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains describes, our mental functions end up fragmented and shallow, and we're unable to follow complex lines of thought to more innovative solutions to our problems. When we can no longer function without our phones, they may not be just a technology carousel, but a technology crutch that we depend on to hold us up.
One would think that with all of the talk about how quickly technology is advancing, and how we're all walking around with supercomputers in our pockets, we would be having a cultural renaissance. One would expect that with that kind of technical leverage, productivity would be accelerating through the roof, but that's not what we're seeing. The following plot shows total factor productivity in the US up to 2014.
Productivity clearly stalled out in the 70s and picked up again in the 80s and 90s, but it is definitely decelerating again in the 2000s. Unfortunately, we can't see what has happened in the last four years in this graph, but what we do see is still disconcerting. The 2000s and beyond should have seen accelerating productivity, according to the technology evangelists, because that's when computers really came into their own and smartphones and apps started penetrating the market and eating the world.
I'm not claiming that smartphones and social media are the cause of this productivity slowdown. I'm not an economist, and even the experts don't seem to have a great handle on why this is happening. But these newest technology entrants certainly aren't helping productivity, and there are a number of reasons why that may be, beyond distracting us with the technology carousel.
First, digital recording technologies—embodied in many ways by a smartphone—seem to be replacing our memories. In another report in The Atlantic going by the provocative title Is Technology Making Us Dumb?, studies show that if you record something, whether by audio, images, or video, you remember it less. Beyond recording our memories instead of remembering them, we have become better at finding information, but worse at retaining it because Google is just a click away. We don't have to remember how to do things anymore. We can just look it up whenever we need to, so as soon as we've accomplished whatever goal we had, the information is jettisoned and we get back on the carousel.
That behavior of always looking things up also has another side effect. We practice skills less. Without sufficient practice, we can't develop fundamental skills into more complex problem-solving abilities. So many useful skills are of the use-it-or-lose-it variety, and always looking things up instead of practicing has the nasty side effect of losing it. Google Maps is a great example. Before Google Maps we needed to do route-planning and navigation with an actual map. Even folding up the map after using it was its own problem solving exercise. Now we just follow the directions fed to us from the Google Assistant in the phone stuck to the dashboard. That Atlantic article had some great words on this subject specifically:
Using your GPS for all navigation is also damaging to your brain. A series of studies showed that people who rely on GPS to get around have less activity in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in both memory and navigation, than those who use maps and learn to navigate based on landscape indicators. Your spatial memory develops far less when you are on GPS autopilot than when you need to observe what is around you to determine where you are going and how to get back.
GPS is certainly easy and convenient, but it's not doing us any favors in the mental health department. After using navigation for a few months, most people will be lost without it. It quickly becomes a technological crutch.
Google Assistant is gaining new abilities every year, too. Now it can be your personal secretary, making appointments and ordering food for you, as seen at Google I/O:
This AI performance is incredibly cool, no denying it, but what is it taking away from us? Will we start losing the skill of human interaction as these AIs do more and more of these types of things for us? People are already horrible to each other on Twitter and Facebook because they've stopped appreciating that there's another human being on the other end of the conversation instead of boxes of black and white text. How is Google Assistant going to change our culture as we interact with less and less different people on a daily basis?
Driving is another skill that we probably won't be commonly doing in the near future. Of course, I, as much as anyone, look forward to the day my car can drive itself because it's so boring and tedious and humans have consistently shown how bad they are at it, but we should still acknowledge what we're giving up. Even though traffic deaths would be significantly reduced, driving is a reasonably complex task, and if we're not doing that, what are we replacing it with? Another spin on the carousel?
The problem here is that a small fraction of people are permanently solving the problems that we used to routinely solve for ourselves everyday. Then they package it up in an AI and distribute it to everyone, so we no longer have to solve that problem on a daily basis. Each individual problem may seem trivial, but they all add up. As Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa gain more skills, we stop using those same skills, and we lose them. We become dependent on the AI crutch.
We're making such progress on solving all of these tedious day-to-day problems that people have started making solutions for problems that don't even exist. Case in point: Bitcoin. Digital currencies and the blockchain are solutions looking for a problem and coming up short. They don't seem to solve any pressing problem that isn't already solved with the existing monetary system, unless you're a drug dealer or financial speculator. They do, however, consume an inordinate amount of electricity.
Instead of putting more energy and effort into solved problems or finding more ways to distract and entertain everyone, we should look at some of the most pressing problems and exploratory frontiers staring us in the face. We could be developing renewable energy systems much more rapidly than we are. We could be pouring resources into educating the world's population and elevating it out of poverty. We could be building advanced space probes, spaceships, and telescopes to explore the universe and learn more about how it all works. There are incredibly challenging and fascinating problems all around us. Just take a look at drawdown.org for a list of problems that need solving to combat the existential threat of global warming.
New, advanced technologies can play an essential role in solving all of these problems and more. Using the vast computer power at our disposal to make progress towards solutions in these spaces would truly be using the computer as a bicycle. With all of the time we're freeing up by offloading those tedious tasks to our digital assistants, we should have plenty of time and creative energy to tackle the real, complex problems ahead of us. If we could only redirect all of the energy and attention we're spending on using computers as a carousel or a crutch, we could get back on that bike and go somewhere.
Set in our ever expanding Roll Player universe, Cartographers is a stand alone game in which players compete to earn the highest reputation at the end of four seasons. Each season, players draw on their map sheet and score against unique conditions. The player with the most reputation wins the game!
Design: Jordy Adan Illustration: Lucas Ribeiro Graphic Design: Luis Francisco Developer: Keith Matejka & John Brieger
Did we mention we'll include the mini expansion FOR FREE? (Note that this mini expansion will eventually be sold separately in the BGG store.)
Where Will You Receive Your Game?
Mailed to Your Home We will ship your game to the address you provide via USPS as soon as we have it in stock.
Gen Con Pickup Save on shipping and pick up Cartographers at the Thunderworks Games Booth at Gen Con 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Captivating Illustrations by Lucas Ribeiro
Featuring beautiful artwork and quality components, Cartographers has all the elements you've come to expect from Thunderworks Games. LEARN MORE
The Story Behind Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale
Queen Galinox has ordered the reclamation of the northern lands, a contested region between the Queen's territory and the Dragul. As a cartographer in her service, you are sent to map this territory, claiming it for the Kingdom of Nalos. Galinox's edicts announce which lands she prizes most. Increase your reputation as a royal cartographer by documenting regions that most closely align with her preferences.
But you are not alone in this wilderness. The Dragul contest your claims with their outposts, and so you must draw your lines carefully to reduce their influence.
New game from Ply Games launching on Kickstarter on February 12
Pl.y Games is proud to introduce an exciting space exploration that utilizes familiar mechanics of deckbuilding and area control. Explorationis not another 4X or Mars Terraforming game.
Exploration has been blind playtested by over 50 people across the world in more than 250 play sessions. It will launch on Kickstarter with the full art and design complete. The Kickstarter campaign will feature the game at $80 and include a money-back guarantee to all Kickstarter backers.
About the game:
In Exploration, touring near-Earth space is just one facet of achieving victory. Players must build fleets, collect resources, and of course, exert their dominance over the competition. Exploration boasts an array of ships—from transports to destroyers, and everything in between—letting you decide how to explore wild space. Some ships rely on speed and maneuverability, while others boast impressive shields and armaments. Build your fleet to your faction's strengths to gain dominance of near-Earth space. Exploration will provide plenty of deep strategy that's attainable to both new and seasoned gamers.
With a playtime of 60-120 minutes, Exploration is a 4X game that doesn't require the dedication of a host of hours, as do other 4X games. With flexible strategies, Exploration looks to bring countless hours of new possibilities to the table for fresh gameplay every time it comes out. Complete with miniature models of the ships, Exploration's quality and production value aims to be high-end.
Number of players: 1-5
Time required: 60-120 min
Recommended ages: 14+
About Pl.y Games:
Exploration is the brainchild of Damian Korus, an aerospace engineer. Taking his love of space and science to the board game realm, Korus is excited to share his creation with the world. Korus loves the atmosphere board gaming brings, and hopes to bring both new and experienced gamers together through his game Exploration. Korus started Pl.y Games to make his game a reality.
Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks is essentially a re-themed Elder Sign, but I think I'm okay with that. Thematically, Elder Sign is a game about tweedy academics solving problems intellectually rather than with brute force, and that is absolutely what a Doctor Who game should be about.
Like Elder Sign, the core gameplay in Time of the Daleks involves rolling dice and matching their symbols in order to complete tasks. Each player plays as a particular Doctor, with assistants and gadgets that allow him to manipulate the roll of the dice in order to get the right combination of symbols. Each successfully completed task moves that player closer to winning the game.
Also like Elder Sign, there is a villain at work, essentially trying to outrace the players and prevent them from winning. In this case it's the Daleks, and their presence is felt in the game in several ways. Failing at a task will generally move the Dalek saucer forward on the scoring track, and of course they win if they beat all the players to the end. Additionally, any failure will also result in a Dalek figure being placed on the board, where they reduce the number of dice the players get to roll. Too many Daleks on the board will also lose the game for the players.
There are a few ways in which Time of the Daleks differs from Elder Sign (enough to keep Reiner Knizia's lawyers at bay, anyway). The dice-rolling tasks that players must accomplish are determined by a combination of two different tiles on the board: a location and a dilemma (usually a villain from the TV series' long history). This makes for a great deal of mix-and-match variety, as Silurians may threaten the planet Karn in one game, and the Time Meddler in another.
Combine that with a randomly shuffled deck of companions, and the game can tell a multitude of what if stories as Leela teams up with Sarah Jane Smith and the 11th Doctor to stop the Cybermen from invading Clara's apartment, or the First Doctor and Nardole foil the Master's Trap at the Bank of Karabraxos.
Another way in which it differs from Elder Sign is that it is only partially co-operative. Players are in competition with each other to get to the end of the score track first, but they all lose if the Daleks get there first. If a player is having a tough time solving a dilemma, he can ask one of the other players for help, which they may be inclined to do if it will slow down the Daleks. Additionally, the assisting player shares in the reward for completing the dilemma. It reminds me a lot of the multi-Doctor stories where they fight and bicker but end up cooperating for the greater good.
If you read the online chatter about this game, the main complaint about it seems to be that the announced expansions for the game have not yet materialized, a year after the game's release. Part of this frustration no doubt comes from the fact that the game was originally intended to feature six Doctors rather than four, and was scaled back in order to get the asking price down. The game's coverage of the world of Doctor Who does feel a little thin here and there -- clearly there is room for a lot more content.
Nevertheless, it's a solidly designed game with some beautifully designed components (The Expanse Board Game could learn a lesson here). Most importantly, it feels like Doctor Who, which is something no other board game in the show's 55 year history has quite managed to do.
Rating: 4 (out of 5) A good game that could be a great one. It captures the feel of Doctor Who, but not quite the depth.
Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere. You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
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The payout for 1000 views-$10
Minimum payout-$1
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The payout for 1000 views-$14
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Referral commission-25%
Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
