Solitaire is old as time itself. Okay well maybe as old as playing cards. Actually in British English it’s known as “Patience”. In any case, Tri Towers, also known as Tri Peaks, Three Peaks, or Triple Peaks is a solitaire variation, and was actually created in 1989 by Robert Hogue. So it’s actually a fairly new game. In any case 18 cards are placed face down in three, three-tiered pyramids. (In other words 6 in each pyramid with 3 levels). Over these are ten face up cards placed along the bottom “row”. The rest are used as a “stock” pile. Then there’s the waste pile, one card is turned over for that. The point of the game is to get the next higher or lower in rank as the card in the waste pile, into which it also goes in the waste pile. For instance a 5, can either have a 6 or a 4 laid on it. It doesn’t matter what suit it is or color it is. Once you can’t find anymore cards to put into the waste pile, you can start going through the stock pile until you do. You keep playing it until you’ve either cleared all the cards in the pyramid or wasted all you stock pile cards. If you clear it, you win.
Archive for April, 2009
Tri-Tower Solitaire – As if there aren’t enough solitaire games out there.
Thursday, April 16th, 2009Droid Assault – All your droid belong to us!
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
What could be more awesome than fighting off alien invaders with your puny ship? Or fighting off robots with your one robot? You know the movie we’ve all been waiting for Star Wars: Salvation, where we finally get to see the Droid Wars. If that movie was going to be made, and it had a movie tie-in game then Droid Assault would be it! Wait a sec, cooler than fighting robots off with your one robot, isn’t that what this is? Well no, the only thing that could be cooler than that would be fighting off waves or robots with your own robot army! That’s right, instead of Robotron-style arena-based droid combat against impossible odds, you get Robotron-style arena-based multi-droid combat against incredible odds! That’s just what this is too! Unfortunately we don’t get to see C3P0 take on a Cyberdyne Systems model 101, but we can at least pretend.
(xblig) Cubage – Like, totally Rubik’s!
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Remember The Empire Strikes Back? The boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, protesting Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Airplane? Defender, Battlezone and Pac-Man? Zork? John Lennon’s murder? Iron Maiden’s debut? AC/DC’s “Back in Black” ? “Disco Sucks?” (granted that was on a sign in 79’s Disco Demolition Night but the sentiment still rings true) Mount St. Helens eruption? The US ice hockey team beating the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics? Who shot J.R.? Well all of these were in 1980, not just the 80’s but the turn of the decade. There was another thing that debuted in 1980 and that was the Rubik’s Cube. Invented in ‘74 by a Hungarian sculptor, it was sold to Ideal Toys in 1980. As Wikipedia describes it – In a classic Rubik’s Cube, each of the six faces is covered by 9 stickers, among six solid colors (traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colors. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be a solid color.