My roommate is a scientologist. He left this packet full of "donation" rates. check out the price of clear...

ScienKnology · 2012-05-23T14:42:34.457855+00:00

This infofgraphic is a crime against pie charts.

doctormaxvonsydow · 2 days

That seems like a reasonable assertion, but without the outbreak mechanic I feel FI will forever lag slightly behind Pandemic in terms of strategy and difficulty. The problem I have with FI is that the sinking island is so slow -- even if you're sinking 4 regions at a time -- that the game feels dull. Plus, there's not much players can do other than "shore up" tiles and move close to the idols. I think Pandemic allows for much greater depth of play by including more options for players: more varied roles, many more Special Events, additional player actions (research station, flying to cities), and even added variety in the diseases themselves. Although the 4 illnesses are mechanically identical, their placement on the board gives each a unique feel (yellow is harder to get to, red tends to outbreak violently, etc).

So while Forbidden Island can certainly be much harder to win, I don't find it an interesting challenge. I inevitably feel like I'm just waiting around to get cards. Sometimes there come a few turns where player order and actions really need to be tight, but in general I find myself saying, "yeah, that's a fine move, whatever" -- where in Pandemic every action from the very first matters immensely.

I suppose FI isn't "easier", but it's unarguably less intricate and involved. Most plays of FI seem very same-y to me, while Pandemic never ceases to surprise.

Also, not to be a dick, but the word you seek is "taxing".

doctormaxvonsydow · 2 days

I'm tempted to buy the newer version. It also says they carefully re-worked the instructions, which was in dire need. Took me about 5 plays with the old rules before I had any fucking idea what was going on.

doctormaxvonsydow · 3 days

I own both, and have played each many times.

If you already own FI, I still recommend Pandemic. Mechanically, the two are nearly identical. Players race against the clock to assemble 5 cards of a color, then turn them in to achieve 1 of 4 required victory conditions. Get all 4, you win! Like FI, Pandemic includes role cards, and many additional special events have been added (like airlift/sandbag) to give you an edge. Players take 4 actions, then draw cards first from one deck for themselves, and then from another for the board. The games flow very similarly.

The primary difference is difficulty. Pandemic is much harder than FI, and it's to its credit. I find FI to be somewhat slow and lackluster, and mainly play it with children. It's not too taxing to win, and the strategy seems to be mull around until you get the cards you need. Winning is frequent, and losses tend to be gradual run-out-of-time-before-you-get-the-cards affairs, rather than anyone being concerned about the island sinking.

Pandemic requires much tighter play, and as a result can sometimes cause serious bossiness/analysis paralysis. On the flip side, I find it much more enjoyable because the game can (and frequently does) turn on a dime and dump unspeakable horrors upon you. Losses are sudden and intense, but avoidable for keen players. Pandemic includes a spiraling-out-of-control mechanic with outbreaks -- events where your diseases can rapidly and devastatingly multiply -- that FI is distinctly lacking. IMHO, the challenge, added strategic depth, and thrill of victory or defeat makes Pandemic a must-buy, where I only suggest FI to friends who already enjoy Pandemic.

As a caveat, I'm the bossy player in my group. There's a chance I like the game a bit extra since I usually run the show to some (regrettable) extent. That said, it can also be painful to watch newer players make perfectly reasonable but strategically sub-optimal choices, because the margins for victory are much slimmer. I would say we win FI 90-95% of the time (on normal), but Pandemic is more like 75% (also on normal -- 5 Epidemic cards)

I suggest, fairly strongly, that you buy Pandemic. Especially if you like Forbidden Island.

BONUS: I also quite like Red November, a Fantasy Flight co-op that sells cheap. Plus it comes in a tiny box, making it super portable!

take_me_home_tonight · 5 days

It's still meaningless. Depending on compression, you could make one human fit into a sugar cube, or you could fit the entire universe into a sugar cube (before you laugh, see also: Big Bang). Saying, "All the humans could be compressed into an object the size of a sugar cube" implies that at some point someone did some math and figured that the volume of humanity could take up about a cubic inch. But no math happened here. You could compress humanity more, or fit more into a sugar cube's dimensions. That's what's annoying.

Albuyeh · 14 days

I haven't been in Davis in a few years. Did they take the dd's out of circulation, and they're back now? I've never known Uni (-trans, not -versity) NOT to run the buses...

Headchopperz · 14 days

Pantheon's Grand Skyfall has a range of 5500 (since July 26 2011), which is most assuredly not the entire map. GP's ult is indeed global. Thought that had been nerfed since, but apparently just the size of the barrage was shrunk.

Headchopperz · 14 days

I think that's been dropped, but I'm not much of a forum lurker.

Headchopperz · 15 days

Like TF and GP? Oh, nope, their global ults got range nerfed also...

Shen and Soraka still have global ults because they're defensive (although Shen's ult seems to be in danger of a range nerf). I'm not sure of the logic that nerf's GP's ult but leaves Karthus' intact.

stoned_kenobi · 1 month

Diver here. Regardless of how long you remain underwater, the bends can be avoided as long as your ascent is slow enough for you to off-gas without causing air bubbles to form in your bloodstream (and in all your other bodily fluids, cytoplasm etc). No matter how deep you've been or how long, decompression stops will prevent you from getting the bends.

The limiting factor on a dive is the size of your tank. If you are hooked to an oxygen hose, your limiting factor is fatigue.

Incidentally, you can find this info on DS in the link you provided.

JoshuaKyle · 1 month

Oh. He should watch Star Wars. In my experience, people named Cade like Star Wars.

JoshuaKyle · 1 month

Hey, uh, what the fuck is going on over here? All I see is a deleted post and a bunch of people talking about "Cade", which happens to be my name. There are not a lot of us. Was he looking for a relevant "Cade" reference? There's "Cade Skywalker" from the Star Wars expanded universe garbage, Quasi-ethnic author Toni Cade Bambara, and that's about all I've ever discovered. Only been at this 25 years, though. Maybe there's more.

Also, I've only ever met, in person, one other Cade. One.

inflexiblemadness · 1 month

I don't mean to be rude, but humor doesn't really have a place in this subforum. See the sidebar.

stomach-question · 1 month

*tracts.

JustALittleNerdy · 1 month

Fuck yeah: solid, caring relationships between teacher, student and parent. High fives all around.

rwanger · 1 month

Several people have pointed out that developing and producing custom inserts for every different game would be quite time-consuming, expensive, and difficult. It would be awesome, but I don't think you could economically offer high-quality boardgame-specific inserts considering how niche your market is.

I poked through my boardgame collection and noticed that many boxes are approximately equally sized, and that internal components all basically break down into boards, cards, bits, and paper. An insert designed to fit my Catan box would probably keep my Ticket To Ride pieces together, etc.

I propose instead you design and produce a single high-quality line of semi-customizable inserts for the various basic game-box sizes. They would be partitioned, with room for the board, and with the ability to remove some individual wall sections in the event of large pieces/decks of cards/whatever. If you threw in some clever spacers to compensate for the differently-sized boxes, you'd be golden.

Just a thought. :)

edits: drunk

spongecake12 · 1 month

It's explicitly mentioned in the first book that the tributes from 11 are "dark skinned with brown eyes".

Again, in the second book, both tributes from 11 are dark skinned. Seeder is described as having dark olive skin, black hair, and brown eyes.

Sorry, but Collins made it pretty clear in the text that 11 is at the very least predominantly dark-skinned, if not precisely spelling out the words "African Panemerican" or "black". You are left to guess at which race of people is mainly dark-skinned, brown-eyed, and black-haired.

mistergnome · 1 month

I legitimately enjoyed Clue, although primarily due to a massive influx of Tim Curry.

mistergnome · 1 month

...There's a book? Based on a boardgame's flavor text? Wow, I'll have to read that right after I get through seeing Battleship on the big screen!

bogeyman1969 · 1 month

I spend some time in a (private) school where every middle schooler has an iPad.

I was initially skeptical, but it turns out to be entirely excellent. Here's the secret: the iPads stay at school. every night they go in a locked charging cart in the homerooms, and every morning they grab 'em and boot right back up.

Pros: no textbooks to lug around (other than at-home copies), students always have their materials, you can give tests and watch them happen in real time, you can make homework digital and the students can still access it at their seats (and everyone has dropbox set up so files are stored on a remote server), you can even have students demonstrate things on a smartboard (in the front of the class) without them having to leave their desks.

I came to the school thinking, Now what in the hell are the students supposed to do with these? They showed me, and I'm here to admit that I was wrong and that a digital school could, in fact, be awesome.

farewelltokings2 · 2 months

As a grammar nerd, I'm offended. These people aren't grammarians (because there's nothing grammatically incorrect about saying "I've invented a microscope"), they're literalists arguing semantics. Better known as idiots.

Cepia · 2 months

These clips would be greatly improved if they had a little sidebar filled with links to sources and corroboration. I believe the MSNBC news team, and I'm certain they did quite thorough research. Why not spend the extra 20 minutes to share it with us?

It's frustrating when I hear, (paraphrase) "Mitt Romney has repeatedly argued that his Massachusetts Health Care Law should be used as a model nationwide, including -- especially -- the mandate!" But no video or document to back the statement. It's not that they're untrustworthy, but we all get real mad at conservatives who do the same thing.

Hitch_42 · 2 months

I bet the students fucking loved these problems, but I have to say even I was taken aback at some of them. Wouldn't be the first (or thousandth) time parents freak out over things kids don't bat an eye at.

That said, these are a bit much.

JimKB · 2 months

FUCK YEAH INSPIRATIONAL TEACHER STORIES. I tell stories about Mr. Weiss, Mr. Koley, Reichert, Mr. Schain, Ms. Chew, Mrs. George...

Because of them, and the miraculous effort they put into my education, I too spend my days trying to pass on civilization as best I can.

JimKB · 2 months

Sorry, but good luck teaching math in anything less than a century without stuffing it into kids ears. I love instructables, manipulatives, videos and activities as much as anyone, but that takes a lot of time and there is a LOT of math to teach.

Beardhenge

TROPHY CASE

Beardhenge

TROPHY CASE

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