(no subject)

[zotmeister]

You'd think that, when testsolving for a competition where most puzzles don't have given rules, people would read the rules for those puzzles that do have them very carefully. I know I thought that. I was apparently very wrong. [facepalm] - ZM

UPDATE: More importantly, you'd think that the testsolvers would be given the complete instructions to begin with. [headdesk] But even more importantly than that, you'd think that the constructor would provide an error-free puzzle so that the previous two would even make a difference! [bodyfloor]

Comments

[zotmeister]

<Groucho Marx>
I don't think he'd be interested in doing a book of them, but I hope he'd be interesting in having ME do a book of them and him publishing them.
</Groucho Marx>

But seriously, I'd be all for that, and I'd owe you big time if I walked into a Barnes and Noble and saw my book on their shelf!

I'm really glad you like my two-sets-of-rules presentation. I've found it really helps people get to the heart of matters, and when an interpretation issue between them crops up, it lets me know exactly how I can tweak one or the other to make them better match. I said it in my very first post in this journal, and I'll say it again: disambiguity is one of the noblest purposes one can pursue - it is justice for logic.

I actually didn't see The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters until it came out on DVD, and I only saw Wordplay for the first time a few months ago! There is a lot to compare between the two; perhaps the most striking is the producers' influence on the events. Wordplay gets Merle Reagle to make a crossword for the film; KoK invents an underdog story to make Michael Moore proud. (On a side note, the IMDB "STARmeter" says my popularity is up 81% this week, and my teammate Tyler Hinman's is down 5%. Somehow, though thoroughly unintentional, this pleases me.)

Wes took over for me once I was physically incapable of doing The Cash Corridor anymore (I had been awake over 24 hours and walking all over the place before I started hosting). Actually, Todd Radford, creator and host of Normalville's "Runaround", was one of my contestants! He told me about that past event, and said that his participation in "The Cash Corridor" was poetic justice. It is now an absolute given that ANY Hunt I'm on the constructing team for WILL have a gameshow-style puzzle, and I'll be hosting every episode of it if at all possible. Wes supposedly has a short video of me hosting, and if memory serves, it's of Todd's second (and successful) attempt; I'm hoping he still has it and can get it to me. - ZM

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

So I know nothing of the competitive Arcade-gaming world other than what I saw in King of Kong. So I'd be very interested in learning how it distorted the facts. I've been to the ACPT, and know a lot of people who are featured in the Wordplay, and I found it to be quite accurate and undistorted.

[zotmeister]

Let me say this right off the bat before I mention anything else: Steve is the real deal, and he's a great guy. My telling him that ape is very cunning wasn't the only interaction we had that weekend, and there was certainly a sense of people mistrusting him about. I didn't buy into it, and let the man play, and he proved them all wrong, and I'm glad I was there to see it. In that sense, there really was an underdog story come true.

With that said, the editors definitely took liberties. There was no faked footage in KoK, as you might imagine (and yes, I really am that much of a dork), but certain things were presented out of order or out of context to paint the picture of a conspiracy. (It's not like they needed to - there was plenty of stupidity going around without them needing to make up a villanous appearance. Suffice it to say that TG is now under new management.) Perhaps the greatest fact-bending is that Steve Wiebe was depicted as wresting a 20-year-old record from Billy Mitchell; he didn't. The editors of the film practically bent over backwards to erase Tim Sczerby from existence, the man that in 2000 did beat Billy's score from 1982. Steve beat Tim's score in 2003, and held the record until January 2006; when his million-plus score was rejected, his earlier score was still the record, and Billy's old score was still third place. The Twin Galaxies forum has a section devoted to the film's inaccuracies.

My personal experience is... well, what I put in the letter. Nothing I wrote in "A Letter to the Prince of Kong" is fictional. There really is a great sense of camaraderie - at least, among most of the players. - ZM