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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2h

Yeah several of our games talk about takebacks, do-overs, corrections, retcons, etc, but only in purely practical terms, not structural.

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Reposted by lumpley

MegueyB @megueyb.bsky.social · 2h

Tis the season! The spooky season. Murderous Ghosts is a great one-shot for 2 to 20 players. You're a resourceful urban explorer, lost in a haunted building. Can you find your way out before the ghosts find you? Outlook uncertain!
lumpley.itch.io/murderous-gh...

Murderous Ghosts by Meguey & Vincent Baker, et al

A roleplaying party game for Hallowe'en or horror fans.

lumpley.itch.io

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 1d

It seems like the going name is hidden rule or concealed rule games, as a subset of inductive reasoning games. Works for me!

Reposted by lumpley

dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 2d

the portland chicken guy 🥰

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

(Four days later I'm like) yeah, family name.

Reposted by lumpley

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 3d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

D:<

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2d

Do not, my friends, become addicted to water.

‘Mad Max’ Director George Miller Says ‘AI Is Here to Stay and Change Things’: ‘It’s Way More Egalitarian’ and Will Make Filmmaking ‘Available to Anyone Who Has a Calling to It’

'Mad Max' director George Miller says that "AI is here to stay and change things" and praises the potential to make filmmaking "more egalitarian."

variety.com

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

A VERY interesting question.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

I've played them in basically only two contexts: in college as icebreakers, and at my big sprawling Mormon family's reunions and 4th of July parties and picnics and stuff. I've never (or maybe only once or twice) played them as an adult.

lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Oh yes! Exactly the ones.

I think the going name is "hidden rule" or "concealed rule" games, as a subcategory of inductive reasoning games.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Hm! I think I see!

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Right on! I think I've played that one once, but I'd never have remembered it. Thanks!

lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Reading about Mao, I don't think I've yet worked out which way it works. Maybe it varies? I've never played it.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

I'm seeing an interesting split in the broader set of these games, between games where there's a set rule that not everybody knows, like Scissors or Triangulation, and games where somebody explicitly makes up rules for everybody else to figure out, like Eleusis or Penultima. Neat.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Exactly the ones!

That's a solid pun, too.

There's one where you draw a symbol that "represents someone," but really you mirror their pose and body language. My dad used to goof on it by patting his head and rubbing his belly, or hopping from foot to foot, just making it impossible to be subtle.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Hidden rule or concealed rule games, I'm satisfied to learn. Very cool, thank you!

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Right on, thank you!

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Oh look, there they are! I know Scissors as Crossed Uncrossed, and Whose Triangle Is It? as Triangulation. Those are the ones!

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Anybody else know these games?

They have a very characteristic experience, which is that you're frustrated and you can't figure it out, and one of your friends suddenly gets it and bursts out laughing, and now they're in on the fun, but you're still frustrated...

What's this genre of games called?

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

You say "I'm receiving this [crossed or uncrossed]." You manipulate them and pass the along: "I'm passing this [crossed or uncrossed]."

I, in the know, tell you whether you're right or wrong. You're trying to figure out what the rule is, by trial and error and, as it turns out, by lateral thinking.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

So for instance, here's how Crossed Uncrossed works. We sit in a circle with an object we can pass around. Scissors are perfect, but any object we can kind of manipulate in various ways.

I manipulate the object — open the scissors, say — and pass them. "I'm passing this •uncrossed•," I say.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

— But when you do, you don't announce it, you demonstrate that you know it and join in.

Are We In the Game?
Crossed Uncrossed
Triangulation

Are the three I can think of off-hand. I'm positive I've played others.

They're kind of hazing games, but not too bad ones.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 2d

Hey, there's this genre of games that should have a name but I don't know what to call it. Do you have a name for it?

They're casual social/party games. You can play them easily in a dorm room or on a train.

At the start, one or two people know the trick. The object is to figure it out —

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 3d

"None of the rules are all that important by themselves. Agreeing together to a minor rule change or exception is well within the flexibility that these rules afford."

I want to lay out truthfully and explicitly how this one game needs you to approach its rules, and I'm pretty satisfied with this.

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lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 3d

"Want to toss a card you don’t like and draw a new one to replace it? Want to change up the turn order? Want to add a reserve in the middle of your turn, unprompted? Just ask.

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