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Puh-lease, if anyone knows where this is located, send me the address.  Better yet, meet me there with a lot of beer and asparagus.   

One does shudder to think what other fluids Ponch is capable of secreting out of his mammary glands....  He is truly a man of many exceptional talents.

Liquid paper, school paste, all sorts of things.

Now I have this unhealthy vision stuck in my head of you making a type-o, rubbing it on your nipple, and then carrying on as if nothing untoward had just transpired.  Great.

....and there will be trophies.

I've been promised trophies before....

Will put in trophies later. Gotta have trophies, right?

We're not being very perfectionist here: just a quick and dirty job will suffice, since it's all just for fun.

What a beautiful family!

It looks kinda like the game "Lemmings", only... there's something different....

One does shudder to think what other fluids Ponch is capable of secreting out of his mammary glands....  He is truly a man of many exceptional talents.

I want one more recount, just to be sure....

Congratulations Sinistrena (or whoever you are... )!  A well-deserved victory snatched from the jaws of fatigue.  Look forward to reading everyone again next round!

Recount!  Recount! 

[good]

I don't see urgency at all. For me, a game is about finding out the rules first, and a strategy second. I see playing a game as an experiment to learn about the rules or the strategy. If it fails, I can always try again.

I reread the argument in favour of urgency as a constant in game design, and it seems almost as if the author is arguing that a constant of good game design must be that it is attention-grabbing, or at least that it can demand enough "urgent" attention from the players' minds so that they prioritize the game over other demands on their attention.  I think a better term for this constant would be "compulsion": something that draws you in and makes you want to keep at it.  I think I see why he would have avoided the term "compulsion", however, in that it is a short leap from there to "addiction", a sensitive subject among hard-core gamers.  But I think, especially for adventure games, it is the intangible quality of "compellingness" that makes you fall in love with a game (be it story arc, character development, mind-worm puzzles, etc.).  "Urgency" just seems too fast-paced a term in the context of adventure games.

   Of course, saying that a good game must be "compelling" is like saying a good animation must have movement.  And extrapolating that line of logic, why not condense the  constants of game design into one universal golden constant: a good game must be good.   But then we might not gain hidden insight through the exercise of analysis, and we'd all be the poorer for it.  I'm interested in seeing the back 9 (er ...4) next week.

"Don't mess with us!"

Well, either "imperfection" is a constant in game design or it's not.  Consistently having inconsistent constants makes one's arguments seem somewhat less persuasive.   I play the card game "Old Maid" with my kids, and I can see plain as day what they have in their hands because they are about as good at concealing their cards as they are at picking their noses (if you're going to do it so often, at least clean that sucker out! ).  So, technically it's a perfect game, because I know exactly what's going to happen: the kids will tentatively touch each card in my hand, solemnly judging my facial expression until I wince visibly, which magically wins them a pair (most of the time, anyway), while Daddy has an uncanny ability to always pick the Old Maid out of their hands.  It's silly, and ever so predictable.  But surprisingly fun, once you get into it.  

So I guess we're down to "Six Constants of Game Design".  It's hard to argue with "fascination", but we could probably shoot a few holes through "urgency" if we really tried....  Does anyone remember leaving Space Quest III on for hours, just to see if you would eventually arrive at your destination without jumping to light speed? 

You read faster than I do.    Also, I liked the abstract perspective (game = fascination + imperfection + urgency +....): I thought it was insightful, although some of his logic falls apart on closer analysis (e.g. if Chess is "perfect" it can't be a good game, and yet lots of people enjoy playing it... ).  But still thought provoking.

Le Ponch, c'est vrai!  Vive le Ponch!

Blade Runner?

Aiden became seasoned detainee: easy effeminate jihad.

(if makes sense if you read it the right way.... )

But I did resist the urge to poo in it before taking the picture.

Let me be the first to commend you, sir, on your most admirable self-restraint.  Sometimes urges can be ...powerful.

Also, the Weird Foreign Toilet thread has exceeded 100 posts!  I thereby infer that there is hope for the future of humanity yet. 

Why can they think up an awesome idea like touchscreen technology over a urinal, but not wall mounted hand-sanitizer next to it?

Edit: more importantly, why is he sitting there with his trousers on?

Those "jeans" are actually ass-less chaps: PM Ponch for details. 

I would call the new counter "Ben".  It's a nice solid, reliable name.  Not like "Skybert," or "Mcensi".