I was interviewed for a podcast that has now been posted.

About a week ago, Rich Elswick (of Moya Entertainment) interviewed me for Detroit Creative Talent, which (as the name suggests) promotes creative talent in and around the Detroit area. Michigan boasts a strong pool of such talent in areas such as game development, multimedia production, film and broadcast media, and this site works to highlight some of the individuals creating product here.

The podcast of my interview is now available from the Detroit Creative Talent web site. [MP3 size: 55.4M, Running time: 1:00:30.]

Here is our solution to online statistics manipulation.

As mentioned in my previous post, Problem: Statistics Manipulation, we have some players who manipulate their online statistics for solitaire games using a variety of methods. Equally, we have players complaining in the Goodsol Solitaire Forum about this practice and asking for something to be done. Worse, some players have stopped participating and reporting statistics due to the unreliability.

In an attempt to address this issue, and generally make our games more fun for our customers, we designed a new mode of gameplay called (for now) Climb Mode.

In Climb Mode, a user plays the deals for a particular game in strictly numerical order, starting with deal #1. This eliminates the ability to cherry-pick or replay deals to inflate victory percentages. At the same time, it assures that all players are compared on results from exactly the same deals. (This mode actually removes several features, such as Select Game, Previous Game, and New [random] Game.) Further, the game options are always fixed, so easier (or harder) variants are not available.

To address the question of which types of gameplay is preferred, we created a cumulative scoring system, where the score on a certain game is the total of all scores for deals played. This allows players (like me) to play for the maximum number of victories, hence scoring the most points per deal, to compete fairly with other players who play as many games as possible, rather than replaying each trying for a victory. Once one moves on from a game (by either winning or using Next Game), one cannot go back.

All games are timed in Climb Mode, and average time per deal is reported along with the total score. Ties in score are decided in favor of the player with the lower average time. Unlike in standard mode, the timer does not reset when restarting a deal, so one can replay as often as desired, but the extra attempts are reflected in the overall game time. (I have several deals in Free Klondike where I eventually won, but only after the timer maxed out at 99:59.9.)

Of course, the implementation of Climb Mode does not completely remove the possibility of cheating, as somebody who is truly determined could still potentially manipulate the results. However, we operate from the philosophy that anybody who goes through that much trouble to cheat in a friendly competition has bigger issues. In practice, since only paying customers are allowed to submit online scores, this has never been a problem, and the situation is certainly better than before.

Note that we decided to first implement the above changes in Pretty Good MahJongg rather than Pretty Good Solitaire. Now that the system has proven itself over the last few years in Pretty Good MahJongg, will Climb Mode be implemented in the next version of PGS? As the Magic 8 Ball says, “Signs point to yes.“

One solitaire game problem can be online statistics manipulation.

[Editor’s note: This blog post was written more than a year ago, but only posted now.]

One of the common complaints on the Goodsol support forum is that the online statistics are skewed in some way. To be sure, there are some exploits that can be used in the flagship product, Pretty Good Solitaire, to manipulate the statistics in ones favor. In particular, one can select any deal (of 2147483647 available deals per game), so selecting known wins helps. Also, the starting position can be examined and, if no moves are made, abandoned without adversely affecting ones victory percentage. For the truly vain, unswayed by monotony, one can even play the same game repeatedly to boost their score.

Game secret: Due to the shuffling algorithm used, by design, the very last deal (i.e., game #2147483647) produces an unshuffled deck, which sometimes makes a victory easier. Veteran players who are really desperate to win a particular Solitaire game sometimes use this deal number in an attempt to get above 0%.

In addition to manipulating statistics via cherry-picking deals, there are a few other complaints. Some of the games have rules that make winning easier (or harder), so the statistics do not always compare like with like. Similarly, some players attempt to get high victory percentages, restarting a game repeatedly until it can be won (if possible), while others value the number of victories and play many more games to do that. Which is better: 100 straight victories in 100 games (100%), or 200 victories in 1000 games (20%)? That is a philosophical question.

We decided to seek a better approach for the online statistics to address some of the expressed concerns. My next blog post will discuss our solution to this issue.

A major computer retailer ceases operations.

Last Friday, it was announced that computer retailer CompUSA will close all of its 103 stores, which includes a store just down the road (about a mile) from here. This decision comes on the heels of our Director of Operations declaring that she will no longer purchase anything for our company from there due to systematic failure of customer service at these stores.

In analyzing the situation, I think that the only surprise in this announcement is that CompUSA managed to stay in business (here, anyway) as long as they did. There are three fundamental errors that this business made to lose our business:

1. First, the service to customers in the retail stores was reliably “last rate”. On our final visit there, we had four red shirts standing around debating nothing of substance, and not dealing with customers, while the one cashier on a lane went to the back of the store to find something, leaving a line of customers, credit cards in hand, waiting indefinitely. This was not merely a regular occurrence, but the usual situation.
2. Second, most of the advertised “deals” involved mail-in rebates, unnecessarily. Frankly, rebates are a scam, especially when instant savings offered elsewhere ostensibly give the same end result. We had a policy in place not to consider rebates when calculating costs, which resulted in far fewer purchases there.
3. Third, CompUSA is a spammer, using (fraudulent) third-party mailing lists. I know this because they regularly mail one of our honeypot email addresses that has never been added to any mailing list (and, in fact, never even existed until spammers started pummeling it with UCE). It was certainly not double opt-in.

After doing my basic analysis, the first web news article I found about this, CompUSA To Close Up Shop, has comments which show that others had similar experiences, tending to indicate that the failures were truly corporate, not merely bad management at our local store. Although it is generally better to have more choice, I say “Good riddance to CompUSA!“

For local purchase of hardware, we strongly recommend Digilink Computers. They are always helpful when we have to buy computer components, usually in an emergency situation. (Yes, this includes the new server on which this blog is hosted.) My only complaint is that they are no longer open on Sundays, which sometimes requires us to go elsewhere.

The second choice in this area is Best Buy, which is much larger, but is oriented toward general consumers, so individual components (e.g., processors, fans, or empty cases) are either not available at all or only in severely limited selection. (Digilink has a sales case with various motherboards on display; do not look for that at Best Buy.)

Let me end this post with an open invitation to Fry’s Electronics to open a store in this area. The closest Fry’s to our location is almost 250 miles down I-69 to Indianapolis, not exactly convenient. However, I know of a perfect computer retail location nearby that will be available and vacant within a month or so…

Our web server crashed… HARD.

Perhaps you have noticed that this blog, along with my main web site, SophSoft.com, has been down and non-functional for a couple of days. The web server hardware that was running these sites (and several others) got completely fried on Sunday.

When I say “fried”, I mean truly fried. The AMD processor in the box overheated and filled the area with a nauseating burning electronics smell. If anybody asks, the amount of time it takes for an improperly cooled CPU to self-destruct is about 5 seconds, and when that happens, it stinks (in more ways than one).

We were already contemplating a system upgrade anyway, and since finding a replacement for this aged processor would be considerably more hassle and cost than replacing the entire box (with one three times the speed), we acted upon the latter option. This also gave us the opportunity to dump Windows 2000 Server in favor of Ubuntu Server (Linux).

So, after building a new server box and installing a new (to me) operating system, the hardware and software now seem to be working properly. Note that “properly” is not quite “as desired“, and there is still much configuration to do in the coming days (including recovery of our secondary sites), but at least our two main sites are back together.

[Insert image of Phoenix rising from the ashes.]

I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving day (even outside the US).

Following tradition, here are the things for which I am thankful this year:

On the business side, I am thankful that we have been productive and successful this year, that business is definitely on an upward trend, and that we have a clear roadmap for the next several projects and updates. We managed to finish Vista-friendly versions of all of our products, including Pretty Good MahJongg, Action Solitaire, and Most Popular Solitaire, before the consumer release date, Pretty Good MahJongg won a Shareware Industry Award, and we released Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition, expanding onto a new platform.

On the personal side, I am very thankful that my immediate family is happy and healthy. My wife is actively volunteering in our community, my older son is enjoying his first year at Michigan State University, and my younger son started his high school career by being cast in their production(s) of Working that will travel to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Thanksgiving 2005
Thanksgiving 2006

An update to our Mac solitaire game is now available.

Goodsol Development has released a product update, Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 1.01. One can download or purchase the update, or find out more about the game, at the Pretty Goodsol Solitare Mac Edition web page.

Due to customer requests, this update adds two new variants to the solitaire game, Gaps, which can be found on the ‘Preferences->Rules’ menu. Some people really wanted the option of unlimited redeals, so that is now available. Since this makes the game impossible to lose (without quitting, that is), and hence no real challenge, we also added an option of only four (4) redeals, which is easier than the default two (2) redeals. This easier (but not unlosable) option provides some challenge but makes most (if not all) deals of Gaps winnable, with some effort.

Fortunately, the release version of the title contained no showstopper bugs, but we did fix a couple of aesthetic issues, along with one annoying problem that made the random deal selection when starting a ‘New’ game considerably less than random. Ironically, it had similar symptoms to a bug reported and fixed during beta testing, but the cause was completely unrelated. More on that in the future…

Start playing games as a family tradition this week.

The week of Thanksgiving, in the United States, has been declared National Games Week. This year, that means November 18-24, 2007. Although the original promoter, Games Quarterly magazine, has ceased publication, there is a MySpace page for National Games Week dedicated to its continuance.

Here, it is a short work week, leading up to our biggest holiday for traditional family gatherings, followed immediately by a day dedicated to just staying home. What better time could there be to enjoy the simple pleasures of playing games with friends and family. I encourage you to break out the board games, or maybe a deck of cards, and enjoy a timeless activity experienced around the world for centuries. Better still, use this opportunity to start a game night tradition in your household or neighborhood.

By the way, the crocodile at my door tells me that Nashanull Keel-a-Zeeba Day is this week, too.

ELHS Theater is performing Working through November 18.

This weekend, the East Lansing High School Theater program began a two-week run of the musical, Working, based on the book of the same name by Studs Terkel. The play opened last Friday and runs through next Sunday [November 18] afternoon. The next performance will be Wednesday at 7:00pm, with Friday and Saturday shows at 7:30pm, and then “closing night” (for this incarnation) at 2:00pm, all at the East Lansing High School Center for Performing Arts.

I attended the show last night, primarily to see my son, William, who was cast in the named role of Anthony Coelho, a stone mason. Although I had not heard about this musical previously, I certainly enjoyed myself. It is unusual in the fact that there is not a plot, per se, but rather individual vignettes examining different personal working situations, taken from interviews. There were some portions that were surprisingly moving, especially considering that the whole cast are teenagers. “Fathers and Sons” was particularly emotional.

What makes the ELHS version of Working special is that the cast has been invited to perform the show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland next August. This is reputed to be the largest art festival in the world, and only about 60 schools from the US are invited each year; East Lansing has the only program in the State of Michigan that was invited for 2008. It is a Big Deal (and I am proud that my son gets to participate).

The trick, of course, is fund raising in order to allow the (slightly different) Scotland cast to make the overseas journey for a week or so. We are looking for sponsors and/or a major benefactor to help provide the approximately $150K it will take to get the cast and crew to Edinburgh. The theme of the show is such that character/job sponsorships and product placement are possible. (We have already “donated” $750 ourselves.)

Anybody interested in helping out can view the promotional video (on YouTube) entitled, Working Our Way to Scotland. (For fun, see if you can spot William rehearsing in his Pretty Good Solitaire t-shirt in the video.)

Tickets are still available for the remaining (Fall) performances for $10, of which $2 is a contribution toward the Edinburgh trip. I already have my ticket for next Sunday, so maybe I will see you there.