Links: Nominees for the 2012 IGA, Why Top Ten Lists Are Terrible & How Salmon Swim in Game Terms

[W]ill you excuse me if I refrain from joining debates about what does and doesn't belong in the 2012 cinematic pantheon, and take a moment instead to ask: What is the source of the authority we confer on this, or any, list of the "greatest films of all time"?

I'm not saying canonical lists don't have their purposes, and their pleasures.... But there's something in me – and in many cinephiles, I suspect – that chafes at the debates about what titles should go where on the list, who's been shafted and who's been overrecognized. The pomp surrounding the list's release brings out the otherwise extremely latent punk rocker in me: Even though I may agree every film on it is an innovative, significant, and beautiful work – perhaps even among the best in the history of the medium – a part of me can't resist the urge to mock and defile the list itself. I suppose this drive to defile is only the reverse side of an excessive deference to the list – either stance is an affirmation of its ultimate authority. If the unveiling of The List is Moses bringing down the tablets from the Mount, resistance to that unveiling is a dance around the golden calf of anarchic cinematic pleasure. But that dialectical tension between authority and anarchy isn't only played out at the moment of the list's reception – it's present in the construction of the list itself, as each critic's subjective passions do battle with his or her fealty to the notion of establishing and upholding a film canon....

The reason that's most commonly adduced in defense of top 10 lists – that they serve to spark conversations about film – has always struck me as somewhat bogus, because the movie conversations that lists often inspire (Who's up? Who's down? What movies would you put on the list instead, and where?) seem like the least interesting sort to have. Such is the power of the "greatest of all time" list: In order to engage with it in any mode other than dismissal, you must implicitly accept the notion of its validity. It's that feedback loop of respectability that brings out my aforementioned inner punk rocker, juvenilely anti-authoritarian as she may be.

A good game is a game which you play very often. The more often you play it, the better it is. This is valid for simple and complex games. Family games are games in which the children have the same chance to win as the adults. A good gamer's game is a complex game, which you can play with different strategies. The different strategies should have the same chances to win – the odds are even.

It was obvious to me from the theme that the game should be a race. I didn't want it to be just quick sprint to the finish like most race games. I needed a way for the game to emulate the struggle and the fatigue of swimming upstream for hundreds of miles. I wanted to reward pacing and timing while punishing recklessness. I needed the game to give players feedback on how they were playing the game and have that affect their future progress in the race. My solution was deck-building. Each player would have their own deck of movement cards. I gave them a choice in how many movement cards they could play from their hand. If they exerted themselves by playing too many movement cards they would gain a Fatigue card which would act to slow them down towards the end of the race. Knowing when to pace oneself and when to exert oneself became vital. This worked remarkably well and provides a nice decision point for gamers and perhaps a lesson in delayed gratification for the young ones.