Gaming - Bactroid.net

Without Going Over

The "highest-bid-without-going-over" mechanic in The Price Is Right is ultimately a way to turn a lower variance game of skill into a higher variance game of chance. FIGHT ME.

Gaming

Of Witchers and Child Soldiers

Throughout the Witcher series, especially in the earlier anthologies and the video games, Geralt makes the claim that he no longer has proper emotional responses because of the mutagens and potions the witchers fed him as a child. As readers, I think we’re supposed to be skeptical of this

Programming

Flappy Bird in Super Mario World

When you understand how processors work and how to write assembly code, you can do some truly extraordinary things.

Gaming

Bath Salts + Iron Man + Illegal Weaponry

In Fallout 4, power armor, a heavily modded combat shotgun, and a dose of psycho jet makes for one hell of a problem solver.

Gaming

#swag

> It sounds to me like you're interested in becoming more than just friends.

Gaming

Hail Mary

Tonight, I played Arkham Horror for the first time. I got to play a nun with a two-handed sword.

Gaming

"I'm A Gamer"

Gaming

Me IRL

> Fuck, man. Everything. I push buttons. I turn dials. I read numbers. Sometimes I make up little stories in my head about what the numbers mean. This screenshot from Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best descriptions I can offer of what it feels like to be a data

Gaming

What Sex Feels Like

There's no feeling in Magic quite like casting Rite of Replication (with the kicker) targeting Master of Waves. (Total of 96 elementals in play that were 6/5s.)

Gaming

Representation Matters

It may seem dumb to some of you, but the ability to play as one of my female soldiers in MGS5 really improves the experience for me. I like being able to see myself in my digital avatar, and it feels very empowering to see a woman being treated as

Gaming

An Important Update

Somewhere along the way, the Mass Effect universe has become one of my most favorite sci-fi properties. For a while now, I've told anyone who will listen to my fevered nerd gushings that I consider it second only to Star Trek, and honestly, I feel like the two might actually

Gaming

Prediction

One of my favorite time-killing past-times is hitting the middle prediction in SwiftKey on my phone to see what it comes up with. For many months, it was "I think I'm going to pass on this." Now, it has shifted to "I just got the card sleeves and Garrus." I'm

Gaming

Teenage Girls Are Playing Video Games. You Just Might Not Hear Them.

> About a quarter of the girls who play video games do play online at least once a month. Unlike boys who play video games online, however, teenage girls tend to turn off their mics. Only 28 percent of the girls who play video games online use voice chat to talk

Gaming

Shared Digital Experiences

So I'm sitting here at work, and suddenly found myself thinking about this point that Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade made a few years back. > I think that what happens is that, when you get, you know, enough people together who have a huge bank of shared experiences—now those

Gaming

Bioware Trash

I have been playing Bioware games since Baldur's Gate, and Mass Effect is one of my top two favorite sci-fi universes. If "Bioware trash" is a thing, I most definitely belong in that particular garbage can. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why BioWare’s games inspire a unique kind of fandom [http://www.pcgamer.

Gaming

Racism

Racism is an ugly thing.

Gaming

Shots Fired

Yesterday, I got tired of sitting in front of my computer. Conveniently, I've got my computer set up so that it can easily display to my TV. I got out my Xbox 360 controller, sat down on the couch, and fired up Fallout 3, a game I had previously only

Gaming

Whoresons Don't Use Turn Signals

I've been reading the Witcher books and playing the first Witcher game, and I feel like it's really only a matter of time until someone cuts me off in traffic and I lash out verbally, declaring him to be a "whoreson".

Gaming

Parenting Done Right

Now this is parenting done right. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I spoke at our PTA about games [https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2015/04/08/i-spoke-at-our-pta-about-games]

Gaming

Every Day I'm Shuffling

Since I only have one and half thumbs, I find it impossible to do a standard riffle shuffle of cards. In most games requiring card shuffling, I usually just give my cards to Allyson to shuffle on my behalf. When I started playing Magic, I needed to find a better

Gaming

Intersections

When GamerGate comes up in parts of the Internet that I enjoy and people start saying angry and hateful things about feminism and "social justice warriors," it makes me feel uneasy about even calling myself a gamer, even though I've been actively playing video games since I was four. I'm

Gaming

Banned and/or Restricted

The latest Magic: The Gathering bans for modern lead me to believe that Wizards of the Coast would like modern to have more variance. That's a valid design choice. Both Birthing Pod and Dig Through Time provided card selection for very low costs, rewarding skilled players disproportionately. As an avowed