We three, we happy three, we band of bearded brothers

It is over. The beards have been grown, the money has been collected, another HoNoToGroABeMo is over. And now, time for some congratulations and some thank yous and some final business.

First, congratulations to Cmar (Cmaaaaarrrr!) for pulling out a traditional last-minute win. And also to Pete, for raising a ridiculous amount of money. And to all of us, really, for meeting and surpassing our goal. It didn't look like it would happen, but we pulled it off.

Secondly, a big thank you to all who donated to my cause. I think this year I might have raised the most in the three years I've been doing this, and it's all because of you.

And the final business: yesterday's game was of course Ratchet & Clank. The original was developed by Insomniac Games, led by design director Brian Allgeier, and first released for the PlayStation 2 in 2002. Ratchet & Clank led to numerous sequels, the latest of which, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, I had the honor of working on.

Hey, the month is over, so I can be a little self-serving, right?

As you can see, the camera is focused on me, not my furry sidekick

Well, it's the last day. Time for one last game. One more trip saving the galaxy. One more day being heroic, because that, my friend, is how I roll. I will be back one last time tomorrow to count the lucre, thank the contributors, and sum up this (as always) great experience.

It was a bit surprising to realize that yesterday's game is more than ten years old. It seems like only yesterday (metaphorically speaking) that Mighty Mur Lafferty won the Origins Button Men tournament and got the honor of playing the great James Ernest himself. But in truth, that was nine and half years ago. Still, Button Men is a great game and should not be forgotten. The idea is that you have buttons, with numbers and symbols on them that represent various sizes of dice and their abilities. You use them to capture your opponent's dice until neither of you can make any moves. You then count up the dice captured (full points) and the dice you still have (half points) and see who wins. Games are usually best two out of three.

If that sounds fun, you can play Button Men online, or if you are iOS-enabled, you can download it for your iPhone or iPad. Android people are out of luck, alas.

Look at my shirt, my shirt is amazing.

First up, thanks so much to those who donated today. I've added an additional $95 to my total, and the anti-cancer forces greatly appreciate it. To celebrate, I've decided that my shirt needed a little more panache. Unfortunately, I'm out of white plumes, so I made a different sort of alteration.

Yesterday's clue should have been obvious to the hard liquor connoisseur, but in case you didn't get it, it was Gin Rummy. Gin Rummy appears to be one of the few commonly played card games that actually has a designer associated with it, namely Elwood T. Baker. Though Wikipedia names the date of design as 1909, other sites are more vague -- and in fact it's not entirely clear that he was the designer -- but true or not his name is the one associated with it. Gin Rummy appears to be a derivative of a game called Whiskey Poker, and at one point may have been called Gin Poker, before Baker's son gave it the name Gin Rummy. It, like many another card game, was certainly created in a gambling hall, and eventually became the backstage game to play among the Hollywood elite.

But games with making melds have been around much longer than 1909. The oldest is probably Mahjong, which is not a solitaire game that bored officeworkers play, but a tile/card game that bored Jewish ladies play (though I'm fairly certain bored Chinese men and ladies played it first). Fans of Drunken Master II will appreciate the enthusiasm that some people have for the game of Mahjong.

Two steps to a Long Island iced tea...

I also had to get back to work today and I wasn't quite ready. Time for a drink, I think. Or perhaps a mixture?

Game Two for yesterday is the arcade game Zaxxon, released by Sega in 1982. Zaxxon is notable for two reasons: 1) it was the first isometric game (also known as axonometric projection, hence the name) and 2) it was one of the first games with shadows. The overall effect is nicely 3D, and it stood out greatly against the 2D games of the time (Battlezone excepted). My main memories of the game was that it was so different it was difficult to line up your ship to take shots and avoid things, even with the shadow, so I didn't play it that much. Now that isometric is more common it might be easier.

One fact I was not aware of is that there was a Zaxxon board game as well, published by Milton Bradley. It does not receive good reviews on BoardGameGeek.

Not a lot of orthographic camera lenses out there

So here's Game Two for today. The camera angle here is the only clue. But my beard looks nice, don't you think? Makes you want to donate, perhaps?

Part One's game is Dig Dug, released as an arcade game in 1982 by Namco, and ported to countless console and mobile versions. The Pookas are supposedly based on tomatoes; given the theme (digging into the ground) I'd say potatoes would have been a better bet myself. Both Donkey Kong and Dig Dug came out around the same time, and were big competitors of the day, but as I've eluded to, Donkey Kong faded in popularity and was replaced by the Mario series, and Dig Dug, despite a long line of sequels, well, just faded.

That said, Wikipedia lists Dig Dug as the 6th most popular coin-op, based on The Killer List of Videogames site. Which, like Dig Dug, is sadly defunct.

Less angel and devil than foe and foe

So I took a day off a week or so ago, and promised that I'd add an extra game to make up. As this is the last weekend in the month, this is probably the last day I can do this. So here you are, two games and two pictures for today. This also makes up for missing Day 0 (Jeff, please take note).

For this picture, I should really be wearing white and carrying a jackhammer, but hopefully my friends -- or should I say enemies? -- should help give you a clue. The guy on my shoulder should really be wearing yellow goggles as well, but I didn't have any in his size.

Day Twenty-Six's game is BattleLore, one of the games in Richard Borg's Commands and Colors series. The series covers time periods from the Classical (Commands and Colors: Ancients) to the Civil War (Battle Cry) to World War II (Memoir: 44). The general idea of the series is that the battlefield is broken into three parts, and you play cards to control the left wing, right wing, or center. If you don't have a card in your hand to control that area of the battlefield, too bad. In an abstract way, this represents occasional breakdowns of the chain of command.

BattleLore is an odd duck, being both a game of medieval warfare and a fantasy warfare game. So the Scots are represented by Dwarves, and the Saracens (sort of) by Goblins. Creatures, presumably, represent war machines. Or do they? It's not very clear. There's also magic (or Lore) -- or you can play without it. For this reason, it's been hard to sell it, both for Days of Wonder, the original publisher, and Fantasy Flight, who bought the license in 2008.

The game also has a large number of figures, making it expensive to produce. So when FFG put all the expansions up for sale, it really does send a message that they're done with this game. Thus making it vintage before its time.

dJim/dt = 3

I've divided myself into three parts to mourn what I believe is the end of a great game. Fantasy Flight is having a huge sale, and all the expansions for this game are on that list. Doesn't bode well for the future of the title, that's for sure.

Yesterday's game was Craps. Craps is a descendant of a much old game called Hazard, possibly named after the Arabic Al Zar, meaning "the dice". The game was first noted during the Crusades, and played by the troops while besieging Saracen fortresses. Similar to Craps, in Hazard you make an initial roll (called the main point), and then need to make another roll (called the chance point), and then if you haven't won or lost at that point, need to match the chance point. Winning or losing during the chance point is rather complicated, depending on the main roll and the chance point (and perhaps the phase of the moon as well). It's unclear whether Hazard was brought to America by the British or the French (via New Orleans), but there it was simplified and became the game we know today.

Luck is always a lady, by the way. It's just that as a lady, she's very discerning of good character.

Somebody fade me

Some days you can produce easily, some days it takes a little more effort. Today is in the latter category.

Day Twenty-Three's game was Bridge, or more specifically Contract Bridge. Bridge is one of many trick-taking games played with the standard 52-card deck, and is specifically descended from the game Whist. Whist has the basic concepts of partnership play, trump suit (determined by the last card dealt), and exceeding 6 tricks to score points. Biritch or Russian Whist was a variant of this where the dealer would declare ("biritch" is Russian for herald or caller) trump or no-trump, plus added some new scoring rules. Auction Bridge appears in the early 20th Century, and introduces the notion of bidding on the ability to name the trump suit. Finally Harold Stanley Vanderbilt, around 1925, added further scoring rules that made meeting contracts more competitive, and modern contract bridge was created.

This is opposed to full-contact bridge, which is only played in the northern reaches of Canada and Siberia. No pads, either.

Zzzzzz

Ssshhh... Jim spent the day cooking and eating and then football came on... he'll be back tomorrow with more gaming beards. Until then, enjoy this article on the origin of pie.

Where's that confounded... er, what's that word again?

First a big thank you to Daniel and Megan, who have contributed greatly to the cause. Perhaps that's enough to carry me through to the end, but perhaps I could use a little more financial encouragement, if you know what I mean.

Saw The Muppets today, and it was most excellent. A highly recommended movie for those who wish to entertain either kids or the nostalgic. The "Lithium" reference was also inspiration enough for me to pick up the guitar again (of which, only part is related to today's game).

The earliest reported instance of Poker (yesterday's game) is from 1829. It was most likely invented in the saloons around New Orleans in the early 19th Century, based on similar games and possibly considered a variant of a French game called Poque. In this early version, the deck had 20 cards (face cards plus the ace and 10), flushes and straights were not used, and it was limited to four players. By 1835, 52-card decks were being used, most likely to allow more players, and the flush was introduced. Later came the straight -- although there was some contention with allowing the straight flush to beat four-of-a-kind, with traditionalists desiring to keep the top hand of four aces plus king.

The original poker dealt out 5 cards facedown with no wildcards or draw. The draw was introduced somewhere in the 1830s, with 5- and 7-card stud appearing sometime during the Civil War, and the wild card in the 1870s. Community cards showed up sometime in the early 20th Century, but of course reached their greatest popularity with Texas Hold-em.

Personally, I prefer 7-card Stud, but perhaps that's because I don't like to share.