The Mysterious Case of the Lost Laptop

Person A was walking in Kiryat Yovel (a neighborhood of Jerusalem) when she saw what she thought was a DVD player on top of a car. She remembered that her cousin, Person B, was looking to buy a DVD player. Woman A took the DVD player off of the car, and brought it to her cousin. [1]

Person B said, "That's not a DVD player, that's a laptop computer". She opened it and saw a login name: Howard Adelman. She Googled the name and found no Howard Adelman's that could have sensibly left or lost a laptop in Kiryat Yovel.

She then handed the laptop over to a tech guy friend, Person C. Person C uncoupled the hard disk and brought up the contents on another computer. Person C discovered my wife's resume on the disk and gave the telephone number to Person B. Person B called the number.

Yes, my friends: Person B called us to tell us that my wife's laptop, stolen out of our apt two weeks ago, was found in relatively working condition (the DVD player button is broken) and still juiced on top of a car in Kiryat Yovel.

But the mysteries only deepen from there.

Howard Adelman is the login name my wife uses, having acquired the laptop from her father. But the old password didn't work. None of the few passwords Rachel uses worked. A little scratching of our heads and I decided to try some common default passwords used in Israel. 1234? Nope. 12345? Yes.

I was in. But, Rachel's account had been changed from an Administrator account to a limited account. And we had no password for the Administrator account (a few obvious choices - 1234, abcd1234, admin - didn't work). I Googled admin password recovery on XP and found a few solutions. And my blogger friend Mischa pointed out another one that looked like the simplest.

We created what was essentially a stripped down Linux boot disk with a registry editor and user fixer program on a CD and rebooted onto the CD. We ran the program. When we saw the list of user names, there was a new Administrator user: "shir". A new admin user with no password. Shir is a common Hebrew first name, by the way.

Rather than reset the password, we rebooted and tried logging in as "shir". Voila. After some housekeeping, Rachel was ready to work.

Who's Shir? The thief? I'm guessing Shir is Person C. I don't know what he was trying to do, though.

But there's more.

At the beginning of this week, I tried to buy a new laptop for Rachel, but the company (Tiger Direct) charges an extra fee for credit cards or Paypal accounts with out of US addresses. To avoid this charge, I asked Mischa for a big favor: take my money and buy the laptop for me. He waited until the money cleared Paypal and went into his account; that took about four days.

Just as he was about to buy the laptop, we realized that we needed the receipt in Rachel's name, so that she could claim the complete insurance payout on the loss (strange, but true). So there was another delay as Mischa tried to discover if it was possible for him to buy the laptop but have the bill made out to Rachel. Turns out he couldn't. So he returned the money to me. I got it a few hours after receiving the call from Person B.

So the week's delay saved us from buying another laptop.

I already received partial payment for the laptop from insurance. Now we have to call the insurance and tell them we got back one of our laptops, slightly damaged. I wonder what their policy is for this?

And what happened to my laptop? I wonder.

Jon

[1] At least, that's the story as it was relayed to me; I may be missing or confusing some details.

Abbagav Broke His Shoulder (Antike)

Plans sure have a way of changing.

Rachel was invited by the Beit Shemesh women's tefilah group to give a speech after Friday night services and a shiur at shalosh seudot (Sat evening meal). Services on Friday night were supposed to be at Abbagav's house, and Abbagav and family invited us for dinner afterward.

I invited my brother to come to Beit Shemesh this shabbat so that we could see them as well, and they could see Rachel before she leaves for OH. And their kids and my kids could see each other, as they haven't seen each other in a long time. Since my brother's family takes up a lot of space at my parent's house, Rachel and I needed to sleep at a neighbors. One of my first thoughts was family X.

That's the setup.

Sunday, we heard that Mr X's mother passed away. No problem as far as finding a place to sleep; we asked family Y.

Wednesday, My daughter Tal decided not to come for the weekend because 20 of her friends from around the country were getting together elsewhere this weekend.

At 2:00 on Friday, we got a call that Abbagav broke his shoulder in a bicycle accident (he'll get better, I'm sure, but right now he's in pain). No problem. Services and dinner invitation switched to family Z's house.

At 3:00 on Friday we got a call that my brother's son had a fever and the entire kit and kaboodle were staying home for shabbat after all. No problem. Called family Y and told them we're sleeping at my parent's house after all.

My parents had an empty house and lots of food. We would be finished too late to eat with them or for them to join us on Friday night dinner, but we convinced Abbagav's family to join us at my parents for lunch (they live two doors down from each other).

Gaming

I left my parents a copy of It's Alive; they hadn't received a copy yet. Maybe they'll take it out and play it, sometime.

I went back with Abbagav to his house after lunch to help take his mind off of his shoulder. Naturally I had a bag of games with me. I took out Antike. First play for him. It was a success.

As two players, we toyed with the right way to play, and ended up simply playing one nation each, with the pieces from two colors, until 14 points. Abbagav played Greece and built his temples close to his front, which proved to be a mistake. He built many more units and cities than I did, but I kept throwing units in his direction to threaten his temples, and that kept many more of his units pinned down for defense.

Meanwhile, as the Germanic tribes, I concentrated on Know-Hows, taking 6 of them first (6 points). By the end of the game, we both had complete sets of all Know-Hows (1 point). Add 10 cities (2 points), 14 seas (2 points), and 3 temples (1 point), and I was 1 point away from winning. Abbagav meanwhile had 2 Know-How points and 1 point for the complete set (3 points), 20 cities (4 points), 6 temples (2 points), and 14 seas (2 points). He was able to churn out three more temples, but I was able to built my 15th city and end the game.

He liked the game, but it's important to keep track of where your points are coming from and move toward that. And to remember that you don't lose points if you lose items (ships, temples, cities); you only lose the income and strength they bring to you.

Or, maybe I just won because his brain was fuzzed out from the painkillers.

Simple Framework, Special Abilities

Many of my favorite games follow this pattern: simple framework, special abilities. After the first few rounds, each player has a few simple unique choices from unequal forces on each turn. This format readily adapts to game expandability.

RPG

Framework: Essentially, one action per round. The number of different actions is large, but only a handful are typically appropriate each round.

Special: Each character has a set of special abilities based on stats, class, race, or equipment. This structure directly leads to an infinite amount of classes and class abilities, races, spells, weapons, feats, and skills. And you can pick or choose which to play with, without breaking the core structure of the framework.

Magic: the Gathering

Framework: Untap, Upkeep, Pick, Play, Attack, Play, End (plus Respond)

Special: Special abilities are written on the cards. You can choose to play with or without any of these abilities by including or excluding cards with these abilities. The number of cards continues to grow, of course.

Puerto Rico

Framework: Settle, Build, Mayor, Craft, Trade, Ship, Prospect

Special: The buildings, each of which grants special abilities during a particular role. Change the game by changing the buildings.

Cosmic Encounter

Framework: Flip, Point, Place, Invite, Play, Reveal, Settle

Special: Special cards (edicts, flares, etc) and special powers allow you to break the rules. It's easy to add more powers or special cards to the game.

Dominion

Framework: Action, Buy

Special: Each card grants special abilities or additional actions or buys. Expansions are already coming out fast and furious.

War Games

Framework: A series of steps each round

Special: Each piece usually has unique abilities, such as range, movement, damage, etc. Actually, I don't like playing war games very much, because I'm terrible at them. But I really do admire them.


So naturally, I'm looking to design something that fits this format.

Session Report, in which I review Bridge Troll

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Traders of Carthage, Antike, Bridge Troll.

I love Antike, and I'm happy we ended up choosing it as the game the least amount of people disliked the least.

First play and review for Bridge Troll, a new game by Alf Seegert.

Too Many Options: The Game Designer's Curse

How do you carve an elephant? Get a block of marble and carve away everything that isn't an elephant.

The failed process of game design goes as follows:

*Flash* Brilliant game mechanic, looks like fun. This will be huge. It's perfect.

How should the turns play out? Could be one at a time or simultaneous. I'll decide later. Should I add a board or just use cards/dice? A board's superfluous. Then again, it's more substantial than a card game.

How should the game end? A set number of round. No, until someone reaches a certain number of points. No, when the deck runs out. No, ... So many options! OK, I'll decide later.

How should the scoring go? 1 point per card. No, per set. No, more points are earned in later rounds. No, collect point tokens. No, print the points on the cards. No, ... ok, I'll decide later.

Wait a minute. Let's combine this mechanic with this other game prototype which has been sitting around. It makes a great fit. Now my simple mechanic is combined into a game that looks like a six hour, fifteen step civilization game from the 1980s with route planning, area control, auctions, set collection, special powers, mission cards, and the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure. (I've done this before.)

What was the mechanic again? Yeah, that, but it favors the first player. No, it allows a kingmaker. No, it makes for no way to catch up. No, your decisions don't matter enough. No, there's no way to stop people from ganging up. No, there's not enough interaction.

There's too much luck. I can eliminate the cards/dice in favor of selecting or an auction. No, then it's too dry and mechanical.

Why did I think this was fun again? I think I'll shelve it and get back to it.

(Repeat every day)

Lack of ideas isn't the problem.

Knizia is a successful game designer not because his ideas are better than anyone else's. He just knows how to avoid all this nonsense.

Got a New Laptop

Replaced the stolen laptop, and downloaded the only two computer games I play: Nethack and Igowin. Well, I also play Bridge online at BridgeBase, but I don't know if their Java client counts as a download. Oops: I also play Lexulous.

Scrabble: 460 to 371

Rachel and I played Scrabble: 460 to 371. Each of us had two bingoes. Rachel did really well, but unfortunately for her I did even better.

--

There may be a Poker tournament starting tomorrow in Israel, but no one has any idea if it is legal as of yet.

Session Report, in which we play Pentago and Amyitis for the first time

The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up. Games played: Magic: the Gathering, Stone Age, Amyitis, Pentago x 7 or 8, Dominion, Bridge.

A Pentago-fanatic arrives and we play the game and analyze it. We also try Amytis for the first time and rather like it.