Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has co-designed a solitaire app. Churchill Solitaire is based on a variant of the popular solo card game that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill played and passed on to his wartime acquaintances. As the Wall Street Journal explains, Donald Rumsfeld learned of Churchill’s hobby while serving as the U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1973. During his NATO tenure, Rumsfeld was taught the game by Andre de Staercke, the Belgian NATO representative, who had been taught by Churchill himself. Keith Urbahn, the CEO of political consulting firm Javelin DC, created the Churchill Solitaire app with design help from his former boss Donald Rumsfeld who had input on everything from the rules of the game to the presentation of the play board.
Why is Churchill Solitaire a favorite of deep thinkers and political strategists? It’s played with two decks of cards, a “Devil’s Row” of six cards that must be cleared, and a timer making it one of the most difficult variants of solitaire. An early mistake can result in a hopelessly futile game.
“There is no question,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, “it is a game that requires you to be strategic, to look around corners, to think ahead, and to never give in – which is the phrase Churchill would have used.”
Churchill Solitaire is free to download from Apple iTunes for iOS devices.
98% of critics can’t be wrong. So why don’t we love Brooklyn? What’s our problem? Sheesh. At the 58-minute mark, we walk you through a discussion of movie footware for this week’s 3×3.
Amplitude Studios is celebrating their company anniversary with free stuff for players. Owners of Endless Legend, Endless Space or Dungeon of the Endless who play those games until the 25th (Monday) will unlock bonus content if they accomplish certain in-game tasks. Dubbed Endless Day, the free unlocks can be snagged by doing the following activities:
Endless Space – How to unlock the Emlek Tarosh hero: you need to start a new game of Endless Space (make sure you have disabled your mods if you are playing with any), before January 25th (end of the event). If you manage to do so, the hero will be unlocked for your future games once the event is over.
Endless Space – To unlock the “Endless Day” achievement: win a game in “Endless” difficulty, started between January 21st and January 25th, but completed at any time.
Dungeon of the Endless – How to unlock the archivist, Esseb Tarosh: you need to start a new game of Dungeon of the Endless. The hero will be available in your pool right away, for the duration of the event. Like any other heroes in DotE, you need to survive at least three floors with the hero or finish the game with it. If you manage to do so, once the event ends, you will be able to keep the Esseb Tarosh in your pool of heroes.
Dungeon of the Endless – How to unlock the “Endless Day” achievement: you need to start a new game in any difficulty, hire the archivist hero and keep it alive, and complete the game. Make sure you start and complete a game between January 21st and January 25th in order to get the achievement.
Endless Legend – How to unlock the Eslek Tarosh hero and the “Endless Day” achievement: you need to start a new game of Endless Legend (make sure you have disabled your mods if you are playing with any), before January 25th (end of the event!). Once you have built your first city, a new quest will appear: Day of the Awakening. Complete it and you will unlock the new hero and the Steam achievement.
If there was one thing better than Firaxis smartly streamling X-Com with XCOM, it was John Lumpkin and Rachel Norma smartly deepening and expanding that streamlining with their ambitious Long War mod. One of my reservations about the impending release of XCOM 2 in a few weeks is that it will take a while for cool mods like Long War to catch up with the sequel.
Except that — surprise! — it won’t. Firaxis announced today that designer Lumpkin, programmer Norma, and their artist James Karlson have already been working on XCOM 2. Furthermore, they’re far enough along that “multiple mods” will be available when the game launches. Firaxis will release more details about these mods on January 30th at a PAX South panel in Texas.
XCOM 2 will be out on February 5th for PCs. There are currently no plans for a console version. Ha ha.
So this is something that happened. Tom Chick and Jason McMaster faithfully recreate the greatest hits of videogaming in 2015. After the show, stick around for a bit of Starcraft II, Grim Dawn, Homeworld: Some Stuff in the Desert, and Darkest Dungeon.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End will feature conversation trees. Speaking to Eurogamer, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann revealed that the fourth installment of the treasure-hunting action games will include dialogue with optional responses. This would be a first for the series, as previous Uncharted games have kept dialogue scripted with no player interaction. Druckmann pointed out the scale of the feature will be limited and will not be a primary gameplay addition.
“The thing I want to make sure we’re clear about is that we’re not making Mass Effect,” Druckmann elaborates with a wry smile. “Uncharted has a very specific story, it has a very specific ending that’s very definitive to the franchise. But every once in a while we felt a dialogue tree would really bring you more into the scene.”
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is coming to PlayStation 4 on April 26th.
Cities: Skylines is getting a snow-themed expansion. The Snowfall DLC will add weather conditions like rain, fog, and snow to the plucky city builder. Cosmetic rain and fog effects will be added as a free update for everyone that owns the game, while snow will come exclusively with the DLC. Snow not only adds a wintery white blanket to everything, it will have an effect on your virtual citizens. New challenges like demands for heated water, more electricity, and traffic snarls caused by the snow will complicate things. To deal with the new issues, the DLC will give players tools like snowplows, (insert Mr. Plow joke here) trams, and road maintenance.
Unfortunately, all the nifty snow stuff will be isolated to specially themed maps. It will not be something that comes with the passage of time in regular Skylines maps. Your citizens can look forward to living in a snowy Hell for the remainder of their days if you choose to play in the new areas. Pricing and launch date has not yet been announced for the new expansion. Cities: Skylines is available for PC on Steam.
This week we see the movie that tried to give the latest Star Wars a run for its money. After 58 minutes, we slap into the podcast a discussion about our favorite reloading scenes in movies.
Also, our Sort of Annual Fund Drive is in effect! For each dollar you donate between now and 9pm PST February 21, you get a vote for whatever movie you want us to watch for the February 28th podcast. Donate here or use the button to the right and be sure to specify the movie you’re voting for. We’ll draw the winner randomly on the February 21 podcast.
Tom Clancy’s The Division does not include anything outside of central Manhattan. In the most recent batch of information coming out of Ubisoft for their open-world cover shooter, it’s been revealed that the playable map area includes popular tourist destinations like Times Square, the Empire State building, and Rockefeller Center, but stops short of Central Park and the Flatiron District. Eagle-eyed fans noted that the E3 2013 reveal video and similar gameplay snippets included bits of Brooklyn that are no longer present in the game. Ubisoft could add more New York City boroughs to their game in updates and DLC, so it remains to be seen if the playable area will grow beyond the launch map.
The Division launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC on March 8th.
The family of Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi has filed suit in France against Activation Blizzard for the warlord’s likeness being used in Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Savimbi is the character in the opening level of the game exhorting rebel troops to kill the enemy while transporting the player character through a battlefield. The family’s suit alleges that the game defames Savimbi by portraying him as a “big halfwit who wants to kill everybody” instead of a dedicated rebel that fought oppression. Savimbi is a controversial figure who waged a decade-long guerilla war against Angola’s government before his death in 2002.
This marks the second time Black Ops II has come under fire from a political figure. Manuel Noriega tried to sue Activision in 2014 for his likeness being used in the game without his permission, but the suit was dismissed by the court.
John Romero, of the flowing locks and winsome smile, has released a new level for Doom. “Oh,” you say excitedly. “John Romero has created a level in id Software’s upcoming Doom reboot game, like a guest director filming a pickup scene in a buddy’s movie?” Nope. John Romero posted this message on Facebook letting everyone know that he’d created a new level for the original 1993 sprite-based Doom.
It’s been 21 years since I made a DOOM level. Here’s my version of E1M8 using DOOM1.WAD. I limited myself to only the shareware assets.
While the new Doom won’t be out on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC until later this year, you can enjoy a true new John Romero-designed level now in the old-school classic.
You’ve come such a long way ESPN! Just a few months ago, you were right there with the network news folks making fun of gaming and going goggle-eyed while debating just how this nerdy hobby could dare to call itself a sport. When Amazon purchased Twitch, you proudly declared that gaming wasn’t sports at all! The tables have turned. ESPN now has an esports presence. You’re just as nerdy as the rest of us. Instead of pointing an incredulously at League of Legends and Dota tournaments, you’re talking about how gaming is – gasp – going mainstream! Did you know that there’s actually money being made in this stuff? Amazing! Bravo on having the courage to shuffle tentatively into territory already mapped by others.
After the recent skirmish in the Payday 2 player community over the paid DLC and weapon drops, developer Overkill is kicking off the new year with a DLC based on Goat Simulator. In the Goat Simulator Heist DLC, the crew of robbers has to gather cocaine-filled goats and… The whole thing is dumb. Just dumb. At this point, there’s no good explanation for the staying power of the Goat Simulation phenomenon.
It’s $6.99 on Steam and will go live tomorrow. Yes, that makes it about $3 less than the actual Goat Simulator game.
File this under “Things You Now Know About Gaming and The Federal Government.” Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney apologized to Dr. Muhammad Zakir Khan for the unintentional block he encountered when he tried to register for the beta of Paragon, the upcoming shooter. Dr. Khan was trying to create an Epic Games account when his name popped up on a list of Specially Designated Nationals maintained by the U.S. government. Fortunately for Mom and apple pie, Dr. Khan is not actually a terrorist. Unfortunately for him, his name ran afoul of the “overly broad filter” that the registration site was using.
Your account creation has been blocked as a result of a match against the Specially Designated Nationals list maintained by the United States of America’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Why does the Epic Games registration process filter for possible terrorists on the U.S. watch list? Gamasutra notes that the company was trying to comply with federal trade restrictions that impact licensing of the Unreal Engine outside of the United States.
Join Tom Chick for a chat with the director of Tharsis, a strategy game about flying a disastrously unreliable ship to Mars that isn’t even called the Tharsis.
