The Geekiest Game Ever Made? 87
KentuckyFC writes "Spin glasses may be esoteric but they are also one of the more fascinating phenomena in physics. They are disordered magnets in which the atoms interact with each other to create conflicting configurations that compete for stability. That makes spin glasses metastable. They can seem firm and constant but a small change to the configuration in one part of the lattice can ripple through the magnet like wildfire. Now a German physicist has created 'Spin Glasses: The Game,' a two person board game that reproduces all the complexity and excitement of...err... spin glasses. The players compete to configure their atoms in a way that dominates the lattice when the game ends. The board game is available in German or as a free downloadable cut out version in English. Is this the geekiest game ever made?"
Nethack? (Score:4, Funny)
No mention of Nethack. I am disappoint.
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Does anyone still play nethack? I still play TOME [te4.org], does that make me a geek?
Zork (Score:2)
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you hear loud noises coming from the drain ...
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I still like nethack, but at some point I switched to 'dungeon crawl stone soup' instead.
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I quit once I ascended. Well, I started another game and got my ascension kit together, and decided I had had enough.
Does TOME have an ASCII interface for those inclined? Can you play it entirely without moving your hands from home row?
If a tree falls in the forest ... (Score:2)
If you count games actually played, Carcassonne is awfully geeky. At least if you are not German, major geek points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_(game) [wikipedia.org]
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Huh, that is fairly mainstream and simple.
Heck, I've played it with semi-drunk non-nerdy people.
Re:If a tree falls in the forest ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't seem geeky to me. How about programming games:
e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_(video_game) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War [wikipedia.org]
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programming_games [wikipedia.org]
How much geekier can it get than writing programs as a game?
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Well, this one was published on Arxiv. That's got to be something.
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I agree, Core War all the way. We had one in my CS courses, one of the geekiest weekends ever!!!
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I'm currently drafting a tabletop game based on the exciting life of a cubicle-dwelling software developer... does that count?
No, really! Caffeine gives +1 to rolls, managers are unpredictable, and calls from customers are a thing to be dreaded!
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Have you ever played the Dilbert board game?
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I'm curious, how exactly did you come to the conclusion that carcassonne is awfully geeky? it's the frigging family game of the year award winner in some countries and probably the best known, most popular, new boardgame in 20 years.
how about mechwarrior? or just some binary games? go?
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I've played Carcassonne with my grandma and 6 year olds. If that's your definition of geeky then you
haven't been exposed to very many games. As far as board games go, risk, settlers of catan, magic,
and even chess are all both more geeky and more popular. But judging geek games on popularity is
kindof an oxymoron so if you exclude popularity there are a ton of games alot more complex and geeky
than carcassonne.
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What makes it geeky? It's not particularly niche. It doesn't have a geek theme. It's doesn't require much in the way of making calculations while playing. It doesn't consume large amounts of time. It doesn't involve building and painting huge numbers of miniatures. In fact I struggle to think of anything geeky about it.
Compare with:
Android: Netrunner - very geeky theme.
Dungeons and Dragons - this was once the definition of geeky...
RoboRally - geek theme plus "programming" of sorts.
1817 - 6 hours of pretendi
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What makes it geeky?
Well, 1) its in a foreign language, and 2) its a board game. For adults.
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1) My copy is in English. You can get Monopoly in German does that make it geeky too? I guess I've never associated foreign languages* with geekiness - does having an English game make a non-English speaker geeky?
2) There are huge numbers of board games for adults. Many far more than the the simple and short Carcassonne which is clearly a game made with children in mind.
* Well OK collecting Japanese cartoons and insisting on subtitles does have some connection with geekiness...
No. (Score:1)
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
-Ian Betteridge
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Never trust a programer who can spel.
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That sentence is so self-referential it nearly made my head explode.
This (Score:3)
High geekyness http://glassplategame.com/ [glassplategame.com]
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Ok and (Score:1)
Nethack (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nethack (Score:4, Insightful)
But I think Dwarf Fortress sandbox beats it / will eventualy beat it, on gameplay... It's crazy the unexpected things that surge from that physics model.
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If esoteric references and deep gameplay are the criteria, Sandcastle Builder [chirpingmustard.com] may be in the running. It has even been referred to as "the Dwarf Fortress of idle games"
And for extra geek credit, it's based off of a xkcd comic [xkcd.com]
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May i ask your bay12 forum name?
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Look at the crowd of people on that lawn over there! -- More -- [github.io]
This obviously needs to be a computer game (Score:2)
In terms of non-mainstream PC games: (Score:1)
A Slower Speed of Light http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
Settlers? (Score:3)
I don't know about you, but I've never seen Settlers of Catan at any party also featuring beer pong. (I have seen D&D played, in fact enhanced by beer pong...before you ask.)
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hahaha
Catan is so mainstream, turn in your geek card please
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What's not geeky about Beer Pong? Beer Pong, Beer Pac-Man, Beer Q-Bert, Beer Asteroids... admittedly Beer Spacewar gets a bit dicey due to the spill risk.
Light bot? (Score:2)
I always thought that light bot was one of the geekier, and at the same time more educational games I played about programming.
http://light-bot.com/ [light-bot.com]
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I don't think anyone has ever made a convincing case for that taxonomy. The best I can say for it is that if you bring it up or argue about it, you're probably under one of its categories.
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Geek at the intersection of Intelligence and Obsession, so this rules out the vast majority of slashdotters (including me).
Well, that seems rather uncharitable.
If you have any social ineptitude, you're a Nerd
I think the only people who don't have *any* social ineptitude aren't the kind of people you want to hang around with (sociopaths).
spin glass (Score:5, Funny)
Polarity (Score:2)
In Polarity you're not just simulating magnetic materials you are actually balancing magnets against each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(game) [wikipedia.org]
3 words (Score:4, Informative)
CGoL is much geekier. But this is pretty cool. :) (Score:2)
Doom (Score:1)
The geekiest game is Doom. Every geek I know of who is in the fitting age class has played it. (For older ones it must be D&D board games.)
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"Does anyone know what happens if you drop the
One Ring down a sink?"
OK, I'll bite. The One Ring (go from the print version here...) seems to follow the same rules detailed in Zalazny's "chronicles of amber" series so it would resize itself (definitely among its powers) and shift its surroundings until it can traverse the sewer lines and be found by its next victim on the path back to Sauron (also within its powers). Or it might just be caught in the u-pipe under the sink if it likes its owner.
Dwarf Fortress (Score:2)
That is all
Core War (Score:2)
World of Warcraft? Seriously? (Score:2)
FTFA: And any game hoping to top this list would have to beat off strong competition from World of Warcraft, perhaps the best online role playing game.
Yep, you lost me right there.
ThePowderToy (Score:2)
One of my faves (physics simulator), where you can create all sorts of machines.
The only game I know of where you can simulate nuclear reactions, and build different types of nuclear reactors/rockets with it.
Wasted hours of my life on it.
GPL game at: http://powdertoy.co.uk/ [powdertoy.co.uk]
spacechem (Score:2)
Kerbal Space Program..... (Score:1)
Anyone making an HTML4 version of this game ? (Score:2)
Just asking.
Uplink (Score:1)
Way geekier, cooler, and prettier. [introversion.co.uk]
Spin Glasses is just nerdly. [wikihow.com]
Darwinia? (Score:2)
Yes, Darwinia [introversion.co.uk], from the same guys who gave us Uplink and DEFCON.
Ewwwww (Score:1)
From TFWA:
So...spin glasses are Slashdot nerds?
Not even close (Score:2)
Quantum Quidditch.
High Frontier (Score:2)
Try High Frontier by Phil Eklund (http://sierra-madre-games.eu/index_high_frontier_2nd_edition.html) A game about industrializing space made by an actual rocket scientist.
The board is beautiful with spaces representing stable orbits and movements represented by delta-v needed to change orbits.
Rocket stacks are built by reasonably realistic technologies and fueling and mass adhere to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation (Placed in an elegant table array for simple use)
Nah, (Score:1)
Geekiest Video Game (Score:1)
No, Quantum Tic Tac Toe wins (Score:2)
You can play a version online here [qtpy.mobi]