Well, all games anyhow.

That's this week's Game Design assignment: Make a list of all the games you've played. Then go through and determine, as best you're able, what year you first played each (and how old you were). Then come up with a sentence or two describing what was notable about that game to you.

That's right. Every single one. From the past 25 years.

The exercise is intended to provide us with a toolbox of ideas. Looking through the list of games we have experience with should prove useful when trying to deal with design problems or coming up with new game designs. In this I have no doubt it will succeed.

When Prof. Schell handed out the assignment I was a little panicked. He's looking for at least 150 games on our list, due Monday. Specifically, he also wants at least five games for every year since age 5. 150 games? It sounnded like an awful lot.

Then I started thinking...

...and writing...

...and thinking and writing.

Quickly I realized that 150 is a cakewalk. A really low number.

Christ I've played a lot of games. Board games, video games, card games, sports, made-up games...

I'm still scared of this assignment, but I'm not scared of 150. It's clear that by Monday I could easily have a list of 400 or more, and the only part that scares me is knowing that for weeks after I turn in the assignment I'll keep thinking of games from my past that didn't make it on to the list.

Truly this will be a living document.

As such, I'm putting it up here during its fetal stages. Each of these games reminds me of several more, but since I have to start somewhere:

Cat's Cradle, Jumprope, Doubledutch, Chinese hopscotch, dodgeball, "operator" math games, hopscotch, fitaly jumpboard hopscotch, bouncy-ball (Ali), D'n'D, HitchHikers Memory game (Josh), M.A.S.H. (fortune-telling), Hitchhikers Guide (Infocom), Enchantment (Infocom), Tee-ball, Baseball, Basketball, Stunt-kite flying, Boggle, Bridge, Sorry, Handball, Tetherball, Tag, Freeze Tag, Keep away, Chasing, Unsnapping bras (AP Calculus (Thank's Jeff!)), Apache, Airborne, Gato, Dark Castle, Crtstal Quest, Crystal Castles, Crystal Crazy, Glider Pro, World Builder, Minotaur (World Builder), Spacequest (World Builder), 3 in three, Fools Errand, Cosmic Ozmo, Orbiter, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Falcon, Rummykub, Rummy, Cribbage, Wizardry, Knights of Diamonds, Ultima IV, Final Fantasy VII, Galaxian, Galaga, Defender, Stargate, Space Invaders, Robotron, Daleks, Snood, Tempest, Solarian, Pipedream, Lode Runner, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, Super Aqua Blooper, Dig-dug, Centipede, Millipede, Tapper, Track and Field (video game), Frogger, Zork, Bejeweled, Dopewars, Tetris, Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmix, Quake, Doom, Quake II, Quake III, Half-life, Myth, Myth II, Myst, Riven, Dark Forces, "I know you are, but what am I?", Air Hockey, Pong, Ping Pong, Foosball, Volleyball, Charades, Movie Game (Karen), Movie Game (Ammy and Rick), Croquet, Marco Polo, Scavenger Hunts, Geocaching, Easter Egg Hunt, Phase 10, Gimmie the Brain, Lord of the Fries, Deadwood, Bitin' Off Heads, Kill Dr. Lucky, Clue, Masterpiece, Life, Hungry-hungry Hippos, Malibu Gran Prix, Kings in the Corner, Blackjack, Keno, Poker, Spades, Hearts, Roulette, Craps, Slots, Minesweeper, Hangman, Jeopardy, Battleship, Chess, Checkers, Othello, Tennis, Racquetball, Wallyball, Speed Cribbage (Dad), Scrabble, Speed Scrabble (x-mas 2002), Nurtz, Speed, Spit, Pictionary, Cranium, Kickball, Relay Race, Obstacle Courses, Footraces, Touch Football, Tossing Football (Karen), Aerobee (Dad and Karen), Frisbee Golf, Ultimate Frisbee, *Drama games, *SCA games, *Faire games, *Card games, *Fezziwigs games, Chrononauts, Fluxx, Nanofictionary, Icetowers, Zendo, Liars Dice, Tiajuana, Yahtzee, *Dart games, Matchbox car racing, Firetruck playtime, Grapes-in-mouth, RC car racing, Guillotine, *other computer games, *console games, **odyssey 300, **colecovision, Red Baron (snoopy), **Intellivision, **gameboy games, **single-game handhelds, **current (gamecube/playstation/etc), **GBA, VirtualBoy Tennis, **pinball games, Parchesi, Poor Pussy, General Post, Blind Man's Bluff, Telephone, Picnic on Mars, Alphabet in the Round, Bondage, "Honey if you love me, why won't you smile?", Horseshoes, Wheel of Fortune, Name That Tune, BlindDateBlog, SurvivorBlog, Tic-Tac-Toe, Nine Mans Morris.

*The one with aserisks are genres that I've only barely dipped in to, lest I forget old favorites like Venture for the ColecoVision or Super Monkey Ball for the Gamecube. With those last two I have exactly 201, and if the recall of games follows the same decay curve as most large recall tasks, I'd estimate I have another 300-600 games left in me. Time will probably be the limiting factor for Monday.

So did I forget anything obvious? Err, obvious to you, that is. I mean, I probably didn't play all the games you did, but I bet your thoughts will trigger more of my own memories.

This should be one of the funner and more nostalgic discussions...

Thank you Zhaneel and Ammy for your help. Ammy, sadly I accidentally deleted our IM convo. You don't happen to have it, do you?

Oh, a few more I shouldn't forget: Milles Bornes, Uno, Lord of the Rings Board Game, Chez Geek, Magic: The Gathering (just twice, but still), Diplomacy, Risk, Illuminati, Shinobi, SimCity, The Sims, Sim Tower, Battlezone, Robotron, Dragons Lair, Billiards, Bowling, Tron, Tron Discs, Street Fighter, Gran Turismo 2, Need for Speed II, Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, Virtua Fighter, Sands of Egypt (CoCo), Guess My Number (Mickey), Merlin (handheld), Red Rover, Trivial Pursuit, Kinesis, Speed Sliding Puzzle, Snake, A-Maze-Ing (Mac 128K), Pyramid Solitaire, Clock Solitaire, Klondike, Dark Castle, Diablo, War, Bullshit, CivNet, 10 women (Mr. Bad), Warcraft, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Starcraft, Pole Position, Lunar Lander, Maelstrom, Gother Than Thou, Aquarius. Okay! I'm stopping now! I could keep going on and on but I have to sleep now. This paragraph adds another 51 games to the total.