Cat Weaver - Journal 2025

[catweaver]

Game Journal

[catweaver]

Trash/Garbage (Card Game)
Unknown (most likely American origination)
N/A

2 Playing Card Sets (classic 52 deck)
Hands and Cards
Randomized cards
It is not different


To play the game, one deck is mixed and shuffled. The other deck is used to pull from during the game. Each player gets ten cards, face down. Each player must set all the cards in front of them in two rows od five. The rest of the cards are placed in-between the players. The person left of the dealer picks a card from the top to start the game.
The rules of the game is to have all ten of the face-down cards be replaced by all the numbers in a deck in sequential order. Starting with an ace as 1, the cards can be counted up to ten. All number cards are viable, jacks are wild cards that can replace any number card, and any other face cards are trash. For each turn, a player can pick a card from the stack or the 'trash pile' to fill in each number. For example, if a player picks a card from the stack and pulls a 7, the 7 card would replace the 7th face-down card in front of the player. Once the card has been replaced, the player reveals the card and has the options of using the card to replace another slot or put it in the trash. The player can replace as many cards needed. If the card is one that had already been placed, it must go to the trash. Once the player places the card in the trash, its the next players turn.
The goal is to have all face down cards replaced with the number first.
For example:
Player One begins and pulls a 3 card. The player replaces the 3 card in the 3rd slot and reveals a jack card that was previously face down. The player again replaces the jack card in the 8th slot and reveals a king. Player One places it in the trash pile. It is Player Two’s turn. Player Two picks from the stack and pulls an ace and places it in the 1st slot and reveals another ace. Player Two puts the ace in the trash pile. Its Player Three’s turn. Etc.

The weaknesses of the game is not being able to interact with other players outside of watching them progress their own decks. It can disengage attention if the players are not familiar with each other without a cross-competitive goal. Another weakness can be how slow it can feel once the players are at a stand-still of cards not being turned over. This plateaus interest.

What made the game exciting for me was the race to have all the cards turned over first. The anticipation of the next card being the one I need kept my attention. Since all of our players knew each other, it was more fun to engage with each other while they also anticipated the next card.

Trash is a quick and fun card game to play. It's simple enough to engage younger players and older players. It is one in a long line of card games that evolve with different generations of players.

★★★★

[catweaver]

Backgammon
Ancient Mesopotamia
Persia, Samaria, and Egypt

Painted wood board
Painted wood chips and bone dice
Modern table with chips and dice
I think the experience would have differed in how the game was made. Using manufactured materials, the pieces have a different weight than using hand-made pieces. There are also diverse rules and betting systems that were not used in our playthrough.

The board is laid out where there are two places for chips, the inner table and the outer table. A player sits on opposite sides and play clockwise to themselves. The inner table is the players base while the outer table should be to the right/left of the players. There are two different colored sets of chips that each player has and two dice. The chips are laid in a specific order on the table.
The goal is to get all of the chips of one color to the specific players inner table. Once all the chips are in the inner table, the player can make moves to place all of the chips in the home slot. When all the chips are in the home slot, the player wins. The players can choose who goes first.
When the game starts, the player can move any of the chips (clockwise to themselves). The dice determines the amount of times one or two chips can be moved per turn. Since two dice are rolled, the player can chose to move one chip however many spaces the total of the dice is OR move one chip the amount on one dice and move another chip the amount on the other dice. Doubles means the player can roll again.
With the goal being to gather the specific color in the inner table, the players can move defensively or offensively. Chips of the same color can stack on each other in the slot, up to five. A chip cannot land on a slot of two or more chips already placed by the opposite player. If a player lands on a single chip from the other player, the other player's chip is sent to jail. It can only be retrieved back to the board by rolling to move it out, where it starts on the opposite end of the board (which is the first left slot of the opposite player).

The strengths of the game is it's simplicity on the base mechanics. It is simple to set up and to learn. Rather than chess and more akin to checkers, all chips move equally. The strategy comes from how the player plans out their next moves from the randomized dice. It is really fun to play offensively, sending the other player's chips to jail, and defensively, planning out how to get as many pieces to the inner table and covering single chips. The weakness can be found in the increasing complexity of the specific rules, increasing the time spent on the game. Having to wait to move pieces out of jail and being limited on how much the slots hold can make the game last much longer. This could affect the attention of the players.

I thought it was fun. I was intimidated by the visual complexity of the board and all the components, but I ended up enjoying it a lot. To me, it is extremely similar to both checkers and mancala. These are games that I can keep up with and strategize without too many rules to keep track of. It wasn't as complex as it seemed. I can see how the game can be too long for casual players to sit through. I would have been confused by any other added rule systems or betting.

I can definitely see the influence of backgammon on so many strategy-based and resource management games. Like most modern versions, it requires head-counting and risk management. These are all valuable skills people can learn from, making it a good blueprint for similar mechanics. Monopoly, Risk, Sorry, and Catan are all games I have personally played that all have similarities to backgammon and similar ancient games. A lot of resource, war, and socio-economic simulators have used components of backgammon for mechanics, especially when playing online.

★★★

[catweaver]

Pong
Allan Alcorn
Atari

Arcade game cabinet
2 Knobs
Laptop up and down keys
The cabinet has the players stand, using their hand to control the knob. The knob is more of a haptic experience than laptop keys. The audio/visual/social experience of being in a social setting like an arcade would change the enjoyment factor. It takes two players for the game on the original, where I was playing with an AI opponent.

The game's goal is to pass the digital ball through the other players defense, getting to eleven points first. Pong is digital ping-pong, using two digital panels as paddles to hit the ball. The player uses the knob to go up and down to meet where the ball is before it passes through the line. The player needs to turn the knob counter-clockwise to go down and clockwise to go up. Strategy in the game can come from where the ball hits the paddle. The player can control the angle of how the ball bounces on the sides of the screen by hitting it on the edge of the paddle.
The goal is to be the first player to eleven points.

The strength of Pong is how easy it is to pick up and how intuitive it is, especially compared to other popular games at the time. Aside from the comparison to table tennis, most people have passed a ball around and understand the base idea of trajectory. Pong utilizes the trajectory aspect and does not include any of the more complicated rules of tennis or table tennis. The hardware was also able to serve the ball to whoever won the last game, counts the points, and can tell when a player wins or loses. It is highly intuitive for beginner players to understand the win/lose state. The weakness is how slowly the game starts for players that understand the mechanics. Knowing how the game functions does little for a player that is waiting for the speed of the ball to become interesting.

I think what is fun about Pong is the predictability of the game. I know where the ball is going to be, especially at the beginning of the game, so its all about how fast I can get there. I only have one focus, which differs from the typical modern-day experience of games. I think playing in an arcade with other people, which was the original design, is much more fun. To be able to trash-talk and push my sister is more enjoyable for the real human experience that Pong lacks purposefully.

Pong was influential on two levels. One was the game itself. It influenced the idea of sport/physics games, creating the basis for public interest in a digital game of things they have played before in real life. The knob went on to be used in arcade cabinets for a while after. The second is the history of the game, being a copy of a game already made by Magnavox. This set the precedent of copyright infringement in the budding arena of video games. Settling out of court, Pong was proof that games could be iterated, if not copied, and the law would have to become more and more specific in copyrighting components of games.

★★★

[catweaver]

Pinball
Probably golf, pool, and croquet players, Montegue Redgrave (patent)
Multiple companies: Automatic Industries, the Bingo Novelty Company, and Gottlieb & Co. created versions

Wood table with pins and pockets
Cue sticks
Laptop left and right keys
Using cue sticks instead of the plunger and flippers to control the ball would require much more skill. It would be more like pool than the traditional pinball.

Pinball is traditionally played the same. The single player would shoot the ball into the enclosed board, either with a cue or plunger. This sends the ball into the board to be knocked around by pins, obstacles, and other flippers.
The goal depends on the era of the pinball machine, with the same idea being to get as many points as possible by keeping the ball in-play. The earlier eras where pockets that the player would hit the ball into. The later eras included flippers and obstacles that would earn the player points if they were hit. The modern era adds to the board with interactive elements like raceways and bonus areas to earn even more points.
The player wants to keep the ball on the board and in-play as long as possible. The number of balls available is often finite and some games will reward players with more points depending on how long the ball is kept in play. There is no win-state, so points determine success.

The design of the game is one of the biggest strengths, as it can be iterated so many times. Pinball has spanned franchises, play styles, and the shift from physical to digital platforms. The basic physics makes it easily understandable and controlled by players. The weakness is the over complication of modern boards and the gap between the flippers to make the player lose. Modern boards are so over-stuffed with obstacles and interactables, it complicates an easy game. Sometimes, the ball is impossible to follow. This is purposeful by the designers to get the player lost and/or distracted so that they lose their ball and have to pay to play again. The margin of losing is often determined by the gap the player has between the controllable flippers.

Pinball is my favorite arcade game to play, and I have played it ever since I went to my first arcade. I enjoy only controlling two flippers and watching the ball on the board. Its really fun to watch a little physical object interact with all the obstacles in real-time. Often, modern boards are themed and have fun interactable content. Earning points makes the experience even more competitive for myself. I did not like the moving camera in the specific link so that kids have an easier time following the ball. It was incredibly distracting, in my opinion. Part of the fun is losing your place with the ball and keeping it up.

I think Pinball is influential for its monetization in the gaming industry. Money exchange was not new for games, but using money to play a game that could not be accessed otherwise became the basis of arcades and arcade cabinets. Pinball's physics were also important for games like Pong to come into the limelight. Games have been using physics since the beginning, from launching space ships in trajectories to most sports games. Since physics can be computed and computers were build for exactly that, games were able to replicate physics. Pinball uses real life physics in physical cabinets and replicates that online. I don't think we would have had games like Angry Birds or Smash Hit without pinball, just to name a few mobile examples.

★★★★★