Blink

Today's Major FUN Award goes to:



Blink is a card game for two, maybe three players. Since I especially games that tend to make people laugh, Blink is exactly the kind of game the Bernie Award is meant for.

The fun of it is similar to that of the double-solitaire game poetically referred to as "Spit." It's a game of speed and matching. But it's a special deck. And therein lies its, um, specialness.

There are three attributes to each card: color, number and shape. This is one more attribute than a standard deck of cards.

The deck is divided evenly between two players. Each player has a hand of three cards. Two starting cards are turned up. And the game begins. Players simultaneously place a matching card on either of the two starting cards and pick up a replacement from their deck. There's no turn-taking. So, while you're engaged in solemn deliberation as to which of your cards you should place on the card with three red triangles, I blithely slap down my one red star card.

The first player to have played all her cards wins.

The three different attributes are just enough to make potentially excessive demands on your mental powers. The simultaneous play is exactly what is needed to make the game engaging and o so delightfully tense. Which is why you so frequently find yourself laughing helplessly. Since any play can make it easier or more difficult for the other player, there's nothing to take personally. Except the fun.

Arteroids 2.02

Blow up words (not worlds). Hear funny, human-made sounds. Play the Major FUN Award-winning Arteroids - "A literary computer game for the Web — the battle of poetry against itself and the forces of dullness."

Note that this game is actually funny, and fun, and, well, puzzling in a poetic sort of way. Try the play mode. Increase the level. Note - this is very cool.

Then read the essay.

Part of the idea of Arteroids is to investigate the slide of game, play, and art into one another. When is a game art? When does a game impose a competitive emphasis that rules out certain types of play? If the text becomes unreadable, it rules out certain types of play that are simply a part of reading. But, also, when the text becomes unreadable, it makes for a better game, if you like playing the game.

Arteroids shifts the focus between game and play, between text as readable literary object that gets its primary meaning from the meaning of the words to text as meaning via sound, motion, and destructive intent. When does "poetry" mean poetry, and when does it mean arteroid? It is a question of velocity, density, and other such concerns of visual (even multimedia) rhetoric, of emphasis and intent. This slides around in Arteroids.

What are the possible roles of language in dynamic multimedia work for the Web? Can poetry go here and live? Well, judge for yourself.

My own feeling is that a synthesis of media and arts, including text, along with things like programming and its domain of art such as computer games, changes them all in certain ways, limits them and expands them in ways that are challenging and generative of new media language.

A bit more about Jim: "I've been a programmer since about 1990. Before that, I worked in radio/audio and did a literary magazine. My site has been up since 95. The Canada Council gave me a Senior grant to do Arteroids. Currently, I'm Artist in Residence at a college in Toronto.

Humor Fusion

I announced Major FUN Award to the DeepFUN group, and was delighted to hear that Roz Trieber has announced her candidacy:

At this time of my life I switched from bugs to people that means changing from a medical technologist to a health educator turned humorist. I have branded myself "silly" by wearing a "beanie" hat (like Cecil and Beanie) covered with silly buttons. I wear this hat everywhere including business and social functions.

I am involved in many business and civic organizations. People laugh, chortle, guffaw and point their finger. We laugh and I observe more people change a frown to a smile and say "you made my day."

I'm silly, funny, and include laughter and the unexpected in all of my presentations. Publicly, I'm the lady with the beanie hat on. I actually have several hats that go with different outfits. Talk about coordination!

He deserves paradise who makes his companions laugh. --The Koran

Roz calls herself "The Naturally Funny Lady who wears a "beanie hat" all of the time"

Here's an article from Roz: "When Things Get Tough, Take Yourself Lightly".