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Finding the Perfect Family Game
kowalski1971 writes "Some poor soul with far too much time on his hands has decided - in an attempt to increase sales at his toyshop - to calculate the formula for the perfect family game. Apparently it is, 0.22a + 0.17f + 0.153n + (0.12c - 0.1g) + 0.1s + 0.09e + 0.06d + 0.054l + 0.05m + 0.011c = pfg ...and which game came out top? Cards. So much for the increased sales then."
This is interesting to me because there are a bazillion board games out there, and most of them are overpriced and have limited playability. Card games and their variants are countless.
Go cards!
Homestarrunner.net -- It's Dot Com!
Some poor soul with far too much time on his hands has posted this article?
Is it a boat?
I notice that most of those factors are vaguely defined at best... "Fun factor?" Get real! As long as we're pulling qualitative numbers out of the air, why not design a simpler system? Perfect Family Game = 1.0g, where "g" is the "goodness level." Practical, huh?
"Cards" is not a game
a game is poker, bridge, blackjack etc.
which card game are they talking about?
Thankfully, his calculations are much LESS complicated than the formulae used to compute the bowl championship series rankings.
Oddly enough, they are also more accurate, and I would be willing to bet that his formula could easily be converted over verbatim, applied to college football, and STILL come out with a better ranking system for college teams than the BCS.
Given that his factors include:
N = number of people
S = stimulation
E = engagement
D = duration
L = longevity
I think we may at last have found the source of all those dastardly penis enlargement spams and viagra...
Best selling game != best game. Admittedly, the point of this exercise was probably to increase sales, so on that front, it's failed... Also note that his formula reuses symbols ("C" is both competitive factor, and complexity), and he parenthesizes items for no apparently good reason when the operators are commutative. Is he just trying to come up with an impressive looking formula to get a newsworthy story and bring his store some publicity? On that front, he's succeeded...
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
which card game are they talking about?
Clearly, strip poker.
Marge: Why don't you kids play one of your old board games? When was the last time you played "Citizenship"?
Bart: [looking through games] "Energy Shortage"?
Lisa: "Hippo in the House"?
Marge: Ooh, "The Game of Lent"!
Bart: Ohh, can't we just go to bed?
Marge: It's only five-thirty.
Lisa: Fine, we'll play "Hippo in the House".
Marge: Oh, the hippo's missing.
Ep: Wild Barts Can't Be Broken
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Good for everybody and therefore probably good for nobody. And if anybody hopes complicated equations will help him pick the best Christmas gift for his nephew he's mistaken. It will be easier to ask.
0.22a + 0.17f + 0.153n + (0.12c - 0.1g) + 0.1s + 0.09e + 0.06d + 0.054l + 0.05m + 0.011c = Daikatana
Yes, I am stressed and I can't let it go.
While I was growing up, my parents thought playing cards were poisonous. We were forbidden to play (or even learn) any card games because they thought it was the first step towards becoming a gambling addict. This was extremely embarassing for me later on in school because in math class, concepts in probability and combinatorics were very often taught using ordinary playing cards. Of course, I had no idea what was going on at first, which bewildered my classmates who had gotten the idea that I was pretty sharp in math. Not a big deal, but it is a minor iritation I hold my parents responsible for.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/sbo0313l.jpg
Human factors cannot be reduced to mathematical equations.
(Sit down Hari Seldon)
Attempting to do so only results in making you look stupid (like this guy)
Silly bugger's gone and used 'C' twice - first for competitiveness, the second for complexity. And what's with the superfluous brackets anyway? Load of cobblers.
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
a good game of "Twister" will enable you to start your *own* family!
C|N>K
with all my respect to the grandpa picture on the right column of the article, what kind of crap is this ?
Two questions :
- No explanation of the mathematical formula : I assume that the 0.22 coefficient for the age accessibility comes from the fact that the average life expectancy multiplied by 0.22 results in a relevant Human Development Indicator, explained somewhere else on the net.
- I'd like the scientific staff out there to explain me how they link the Monopoly Simpson Edition to their *elusive* mathematical formula. Really I'd like to know, in other words than the political scheme "family like to have some fun", what ties Homer with decimal multiplicators.
Is this really 'News for nerds' ? I'm not a nerd, but this doesn't sound even like news....Regards,
Jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
... is because they forgot the ever popular "Cardboard and plastic pieces" game.
My family always played a lot of games while we were growing up, and they were almost exclusively card games. The rules tend to be simple, which is a big plus if you're trying to hold the interest of people covering a big age range (60 year old granny along with 8 year old younger bro'). We burned a lot of hours with Uno, Spades, Pit!, and others.
Board games had a narrower appeal. If it was just "us kids" we'd play those, since it seemed the adults weren't interested in the same ones we were. Once we'd grown into teenagers we did find a few everyone enjoyed - Pictionary immediately comes to mind.
Ah, memories...
#DeleteChrome
"Cards" is not a game
But it is game equipment. Toy stores do not deal in "games" as such but rather game equipment. A pair of decks of 52 cards can be used for 100 plus well-known games, which may figure into the decision that cards are nearly optimal game equipment.
Actually, the correct formula for the perfect game is:
1 Swedish Bikini Team, sans bikinis + Me = The Perfect Game.
EQ is the obvious winner. With:
A = age range
F = fun factor
N = number of people
C = competitive factor
G - argumentative factor
S = stimulation
E = engagement
D = duration
L = longevity
M = mobility
C = complexity
While age range is fairly narrow and stimulation, engagement, and mobility are, well, zero, I think N and D make up for it.
N = several thousand
D = in hours? - sigh - several thousand
sig
Cards and monopoly are great. The have no noise making annoyances, involve lots of manipulative that occupy the child, and rounds proceed quickly while occupying all players attention. More importantly, these games do minimum damage when the playing pieces enter the inevitable tantrum driven projectile phase.
But Bop It? It is noisy, and hurts like hell when used as a club. Jenga? The point is to frustrate your opponents. This game is great at developing necessary skills, but when the pieces fall, the loser has a great desire to test the aerodynamics of the blocks.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Clue has to be the best game, since it teaches you the best household objects you can use to kill people, as well as helping young children to realize that you should never ask the police for help when solving a murder.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
"For best results, do not begin game with original family"
**Posted as AC to cleanse myself of that 'icky' feeling**
This is just a puff of smoke intended to stimulate Christmas toy sales. The formula is ridiculously over-complex and loaded with unexplained constants. How on earth did this make Slashdot when perfectly good stories (like the one about SCO violations being found on the Moon) get refused?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Sure beats the old-time family classic... "come sit on grandpa's lap"!
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
"Quality means user satisfaction, and in a multicomponent system it is not the average of the quality of the individual components. The overall quality is pretty much associated with the quality of the worst component."
Linear formulas tend not to capture that. A geometric mean could, and it is also simple.
The writer gives a nifty little formula and all, with the constants included. But, what values did he plug in to said formula to get .98 for cards? What are the acceptable ranges of the coefficients? How do you decide which coeffients have more weight than others?
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Although I love Whist and Hearts, one of my favoriate card games is Mu, a trick-taking game (like Whist or Bridge) which uses a modified deck:
It looks like a kitchen sink game, but in reality every aspect of it is wonderfully balanced and there's room for devious bidding and strategy.
Howard M. Lewis Ship -- Independent J2EE / Open-Source Java Consultant -- Creator, Apache Tapestry and HiveMind
Actually, we bought Carcassonne around April this year, and this is a great board game. It is challenging enough for adults, but a 7-year old can play and have fun. Give it a try, and you'll understand.
[Pruneau
That certainly doesn't look like the Drake Equation to me...
My favorite along these lines is Kill Doctor Lucky from CheapAss Games. The goal is to, um, kill Doctor Lucky (and all the other players) on a clue-like board where there are various implements lying about.
FWIW, my wife teaches college math and uses playing card explanations for a number of concepts. I was surprised and she was astonished (her family is obsessed with games) at how many students were unfamiliar with playing cards. It's a heavily international group of students, but still...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Man - where do you start with such a bogus thing as this?
Take a large number of vaguely defined terms - with no units or ranges associated with them - and which are "measured" by the scientific method of asking some guy to rate them.
Then multiply each by a suspiciously exact number - accurate to one part in a hundred - and just add them up! What are the odds that none of these terms need to be squared or something?
Even if you ignore the actual equation - and take this as some kind of list of the things you should think about when buying a game - it doesn't make sense.
Just look at the first term:
"Age range"
The importance of the age range of the game depends crucially on the range of ages of the people playing. If everyone is aged 12 years - then a game that's rated "Ages 12 to 14" is likely to be more fun than something rated "Ages 2 to adult" because it's targetted at the precise ages of the people playing it. Then, if the people playing include a 2 year old and an adult - then a wide age range is indeed important. But if this equation is to be believed, then a game with a 12 to 14 year age range is doomed compared to a game that's simple enough for a 2 year old to play. That's ridiculous.
But in any case, this is a circular argument - age ranges are set such that the people within that range will have fun playing the game - so using that number to calculate how much fun the game is to play is just silly.
Argh!
This is the kind of thing that dramatically reduces the public's perception of the value of the scientific method.
www.sjbaker.org
As for me, I love board games. I love the different aspects of the games, the way they keep things interesting yet simple, how much damn fun they are. Board games get a lot more favor around the holidays in my family get-together's than cards do.
I found the Top 100 Board Games of the year. Awesome stuff here.
I'm The Boss! looks the most promising. Freeloader is cool, and Light Speed looks like something me and a friend might wittle away time with. However, I keep drifitn back to Mystery of the Abbey, a "thinking man's Clue."
If you folks want a list of some good board games out there, I'd suggest funagain.com. Some of the ones I'd figure would warrant a look-see would include Carcassone, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, or Pitchcar. Go look them up!
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
governmental bailout Lloyd's of London, the LARGEST insurer on the planet would have indeed gone BANKRUPT following the NY tradecenter disaster. They insured indirectly all but 1 of the planes, and the one tower that was insured.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
this guy has NO clue. if you are REALLY looking for great family games... check out a great community game review site and purchase some really great family games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne which are both "German" games.
I disagree.
;)
Stott-family Ballistic Uno is the best game ever.
There are 11 siblings in the Stott family, the 2 parents, and most of the 11 siblings have children old enough to play as well. So we usually end up with around 20-25 people playing at once in a very tight circle. Because there are so many players we use 2, sometimes even 3 decks.
And as I suspect any regular player of Uno does, we have custom rules. Like for instance if a 0 is played, you pass your hand to the left. You can "match" at any time... i.e. if you play a red 8 anyone in the circle can match the red 0 and instantly the turn moves to that person. But it has to be matched before the next card is played. This makes the game go VERY quickly. Oh yea, you can match reverses, draw fours, draw twos, whatever. If the person before you plays a draw card (i.e. you have to draw cards) if you have a draw card in your hand that matches (wild or just color) then you can play it, and the next person has to draw the total amount of the draws, unless of course they have a draw card as well.
The game goes moves VERY quickly, but rounds are actually longer then what a round under normal rules would be.
Enjoy my suggestions
It might be the perfect game if you have to pick ONE game to give to a million families. It is not the perfect game for a specific familiy, just the perfect game when the familiy is not known.
By the same logic, you can find out that the perfect food is a Big mac, since nobody really hates it (You can't hate something which tastes nothing).
Whenever you create something with the ultimate all-encompassing demographic, you end up with something which is infinitely bland and infinitely inoffensive.
In beauty contests, you typically have several rounds with different jurys, a mechanism which is sure to filter out someones ideals and move towards the average, which is why you'll find that Miss Universe can be less attractive than the girl next door.
Of course, there are objective parameters you can measure, but if you get all or most of them right, you just end up with something that doesn't totally suck. To create something brilliant you have to narrow your appeal, to match the individual preferences of a spesific group.
A witty
I guess you didnt RTFA did you. Go look at the f***ing equation he came up with *******. It accounts for famliy size and age range.
Actually, I did RTFA and read it more closely than the AC did. The article clearly states that the variable "Age range" refers to the accessibility of the game, not the ages of the members of a potential customer family. There is no "Family size" variable, only a "number of people" variable that refers to the number of players the game supports.
The most telling statements that prove that the formula is family-independent is the fact that they come up with a single simple score for cards of exactly 0.98 and assert a specific ranking for a set of games. Because these statements are unconditionalized, we know that the scores are independent of family composition. If they had said, cards get a score of X if the family is of this size and age composition or cards have a score range of X to Y depending on family, then we would know that the formula was a function of properties of individual families.
It's too bad that their formula didn't make use of family-specific variables because then Mr. Eldridge would give people a reason to come to his shops. If he had a little calculator/self-test/application that let a family answer a few questions and then provide a personalized set of game recommendations, he would encourage people to come to his shop. Instead, he is looking for the "perfect family game" This quixotic quest assumes that all families are alike so that one game can be #1 for everyone.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.