Archive for June, 2008

Countdown numbers game

June 28, 2008

I’ve just finished adding a new feature to my implementation of the Countdown numbers game. You can now invite other people to play, sharing your current game, so your friends can try out games that you are stuck on, or ones that you are particularly proud of beating.

Super-mega-ultra Rare

June 5, 2008

Wizards of the Coast have just announced a new rarity level for their main CCG, Magic the Gathering. These Mythic rares will occur about once in every eight packs you open.

There’s been a lot of reaction, much of it negative, centring mostly on the possible values that some of these cards will command on the secondary market, and the difficulty of collecting a set.

Along with this announcement, they have also committed to printing fewer cards. This means that any given Mythic rare will actually be as hard to acquire as a given rare from the last big core set.

Instead of printing super rares, they have renamed rare to mythic rare, and are printing a new rarity level between uncommon and the old rare level, and calling it rare.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out, if the costs of Mythic rares stay in line with old style rares, if the majority of the players understand the underlying maths and don’t get caught up on the 1 in eight packs number, and if the joy of chasing ultra rares causes more packs to get opened.