Coffeetable Blog

The chick has grown up, and it's a hen now! And it already laid a bunch of eggs. Might be I am doing the right thing giving it care and feeding it well. I still have to wait for sometime before I find out what will happen next, which I expect to be a bunch of more chicks.

While waiting for that, now is a good time as ever to talk about Friendship Points. As I posted earlier here in my intro post about Country Story, having friends play a role in the game. Aside from the 3 random gifts that you get for the first time you visit your friend, additional interaction with friends are also done through Friendship Points (FP).

You start off with 75 FPs to each of your friends (you can click on the pic to enlarge and see better). How do you use those points? Well, for one you can automatically ask friends to help protect your crops from being stolen (by other friends or by themselves, ironically). You either go to your friend's farm, and click on the Friendship Icon (the one with the heart on the upper left of the pic; it would be on the lower panel of your screen if you are on your friend's farm). You can also do that right in your farm by calling up the screen on the left and clicking "Get Help". You can then proceed to assign a plot of unharvested crop to your friend. It will protect the crop from being stolen, and it will also automate the harvesting. Of course, this is not without a price. Each time you assign a friend to give you help, the FP goes down. Sounds like a typical relationship where you can't get too cozy long enough.

Now, your FP with your friend won't get up if he also asked you to do something for him. He will only end up losing FP on you as well. The only way you or him can get it up is to send gifts to your friends. Each item you send as a gift from the shop that is worth 1,000 coins, it will increase your FP with that friend by 10. Any item sent for less than 1,000 won't have any effect. Also, you can only increase your FP to your friend by a maximum of 10 per day. Take note that if you received an item worth 1,000 from the shop and you "re-gift" it, it won't be counted as gifting something worth 1,000 since the resale price (which becomes the reference price of the gift) is much much lower.

By the way, "asking" help from a friend does not require that they accept it too. Just like in Restaurant City, it's only a concept in the game and the accepting is done automatically.

If that is the only use of FP, you may think you would want to maximize your friends' help and ensure that you get your full harvest early on in the game. It turns out being friendly (and generous) can have long-term benefits. If you have at least 15 friends playing CS, you can get yourself a dog if you can get your FP with each of them up to 100. That's basically spending 3,000 coins to each of them (30 FP total, since an amount less than 1,000 gets you nowhere), for a total of 45,000 coins. If you think that's a steep price for getting a pet, you can view that dog as an investment, since it can prevent others from stealing from you. Saves you a lot of FPs and harvest in the long run, not to mention time spent on assigning plots to friends.

That's quite a lot for a post already. Back to the farm and remember what it's all about: having fun!

I was watching a movie a while back where one of the characters commented that one of the reasons he doesn't like bowling is because the game puts a limit on your potential. At any given game, you can only get as much as a score of 300 for a perfect game. Now, anyone who has bowled for a time already know that even getting to a 200 once in a while is already a mean feat. But there is indeed some merit to that comment. After all, when you bowled a perfect game, what else is there to aim for? More perfect games? Doesn't sound too appealing to me. Will it make a difference if we compare the number of perfect games bowled? Maybe. But still it doesn't answer the question: what's the highest score you can get?

That is why I find it nice to see that GEICO sponsors a team bowling tournament that introduces a feature into the game: the endless tenth frame. The feature works as follows:

1. To activate the endless tenth frame, you must either strike or spare the 3rd ball on the tenth frame. Which means you must have a strike in the tenth frame. The downside of this is if you got two strikes in your first two throws. You have to make it a punch out! (well, that's unconfirmed, but that's how I am getting it)

2. Once activated, a player can bowl indefinitely for as long as he keeps on getting a strike.

3. Each strike earns 10 points, but has no bonus points added to the previous strikes, since it is still considered part of the tenth frame. So, two strikes count as 20, ten for each throw only.

4. The pinfalls for a non-strike throw is not added to the score. It also signals the end of the endless tenth frame.

I am just wondering when, if ever, the endless tenth frame will be a norm in bowling. It could provide some needed excitement into the game. Although it will mean there will be no "perfect" game anymore, but each game carries the potential of being the highest bowled game. It will also mean more competitiveness, since a match's final outcome can no longer be determined in as early as the eight frame. Of course, it's popularity would also be influenced by the willingness of bowling outfits to adopt to the change. I am one fan of the endless tenth frame! Hope you are too!

This game may not reach the top of a gamer's Richter scale, but hey, it's a game! I think this is a promotional or teaser for a game of the same title that you can purchase. It's a simple turn-based challenge game. The first time you login (after the customary registration process and email verification, the relevance of which nowadays I am beginning to question - but I digress), you are asked to choose your faction and become either an Autobot or a Decepticon. After that, you will be asked to choose and name one of the standard robots (there's an unlock feature for a special robot, I don't know how you get one, maybe when you buy the game). Then, you are taken to a screen where you can distribute an initial set of points on key battle attributes of your robot such as strength in use of weapon, agility, dodge, armor strength, etc. Reminds me of the way you distribute stat points on your MMORPG character.

Now, begins the fun part. You click on a button that takes you to a War Room. Once there, you can search for (or filter) a list of online players that you can challenge (if they are on the opposing faction). A challenge can either be accepted (an Advance) or ignored/declined (a Retreat). If accepted, a five-round match is set, wherein you need to budget the strength of your offenses (Primary Weapon, Secondary Weapon, and Hand-to-Hand Combat) throughout the entire match, as well as your form of defense (Dodge, Block, etc.). The challenging player will set up his offense/defense and this is communicated to the opponet, who will then set up his own offense/defense. Like in turn-based games, an outcome is determined by the system algorithm and a winner emerges. Each win counts as a point, and a loss is a deduction. But I don't know if this has anything to do with leveling up and acquiring additional stat points.

The idea is quite fun, and can be engaging for a while, especially if you are doing something else in your computer that does not require too much attention. Some players have so many wins or total battles in their profile that I wonder how much time they clocked on this simple game. However, I find the time controls a bit long, especially the initial challenge, wherein your opponent is allowed a full minute to accept or decline. That is an eternity considering you can only engage in one battle at a time. The FAQs are helpful in terms of the battle itself, but is quite silent on other aspects such as the all-important leveling (I don't even know if there is such a feature). I think it would also help if there is some sort of modifications that you can do to your bot as it progresses. Maybe there is, but I haven't been around that long.

Just click on the pic at the top to get you to the site.

I tried Restaurant City out of curiosity and simply because I haven't been playing any other game at the moment. It's a SIMs-type game that you can access through Facebook. The concept of the game is to manage a restaurant by hiring employees, learning menus, and improving the overall look and feel of your restaurant by buying new equipment such as tables, chairs, etc. The game is still in beta, but I have to say I am loving it. For the totally new to the game, here's a quick rundown of the main features of the game:

Lately I have been noticing ads for a bunch of browser-based games in some of the sites that I usually go to. I had never played online browser-based games before, but I have a first impression that they won't be any good. But for some reason, maybe I just have some real free time today, I decided to give Travian a try. Well, it's been a couple of hours since I registered, and I am still on it!

Travian has a simple plot: as the head of a village of the race you have chosen among the three available races, you build structures and populate it with various types of villagers and soldiers. The tutorial pretty much gives you an idea of how the game progresses, and offer tips along the way. After the "protective" period of 13 days since registration, wherein your village cannot be attacked, you enter the normal mode where you are susceptible to attacks from others. Of course, at this time, you can also start making alliances to ensure the survival and progress of your village.

The game is a simple, yet fun way to gather your friends who are at least reasonably interested in playing online games. It doesn't have the complexity of a full-blown MMORPG, yet vibrant enough to make you think what your next action would be. At least, that's how it appears to me so far this early in the game.

Give it a try! Just click on the pic above that will take you to a registration page.

Have fun!

Internet chess has expanded the horizons for chess players in many ways. They are no longer limited to their long-term pals, important as they may be. They can now play at their convenient time, with a player across the globe who probably has his feet in the air as well at that time. And with the development of correspondence chess in the net from the simple emails to server-based sites, this manner of playing chess has become as prominent as its real-time game counterpart.

If you are not familiar with correspondence chess, it is a way of playing chess that usually takes a considerable amount of time, usually days or weeks, since the players are not usually present at the same time. Usual time controls involves making a number of moves within a number of days or weeks. The earliest versions of correspondence chess involves mailing the moves to the other player via the post, or snail mail. With the increased usage of e-mails, moves are now transmitted to the other player as email messages. Now, there are dedicated websites that would store a player's move to their servers, waiting for the other player to make a reply when he logs in. In each case, the basic characteristic that the other player need not be present for the game to progress is retained. Many players who play correspondence chess do so because the extended amount of time per move allow for more analysis and reflection, which can then be utilized in on-the-board games.

Schemingmind is a site dedicated to correspondence chess. In addition to hosting standard chess games, it also features chess variants, all using correspondence chess time controls. It has become a sort of hub for enthusiasts of chess variants. Some of the features of the site include:

• Free lifetime membership, with restrictions
• A significant number of chess variants, with a considerable number of player-enthusiasts
• Use of the "Fischer clock", wherein time increments are added to a player's time everytime he makes a move, replenishing his clock and ensuring a more even time consumption and prevents the "mindless rushing" in the last few minutes in normal game controls
• Variable time control lengths, as short as less than a week to as long as a month of time bank, with variable increments as well
• Access to game database and annotated games
• Option to join teams organized by country or genre
• Active, educational forum

Surely this article will not be able to cover the dynamics of correspondence chess as well as expound on all the features of Schemingmind. But I hope it sparked your interest to find out more about correspondence chess. Do check out Schemingmind as well (click the pic at the top).