Tonight I went out to have a drink with two old old friends. They are my primary schoolmates. One of them used to be my best buddy in primary school, although I havn’t keep in touch with him for a almost 5 years. He visited Vancouver for a few days after attending a wedding in SF. The other is a girl living in Vancouver. I was not that close to her in primary school. Actually, I don’t really know any girls back in primary school. We become more friend after I moved to Vancouver and through another friend visiting Vancouver quite often. I didn’t contact her a couple of years either. I guess I am just too lazy in keeping in touch with my friends if they don’t have ICQ or MSN. I am lazy in writing emails these days, just don’t what to write sometimes. It has been 17 years since we graduated from primary school, really a long time. We didn’t talk about many gold old days, since we don’t want to bored the guys’ girlfriend. We just chat like good friends on various topics, catching up with our recent life. Havn’t keep in touch actively for many years, I guess it will take a while to warm up our friendship to talk more hearty stuff. Maybe due to the girlfriend is tagging along, we won’t have any chance to talk about it.

I have wasted the whole afternoon watching clips on Youtube. I have been watching clips on this website for a few months, but never look at it seriously. The video clips I watched mostly are links posted to various forums. This website is popular for short and funny video clips. The recent “Bus Uncle” event became a news all over the world, even reported BBC, is mainly thanks to this website. The hit rate of that video clip ranked number 2 this month and generates attentions to the mainstream media. I browsed through the all time top 100 clips, many of them are really hilarious. The type of clips I like most are spoofs, which make fun famous TV shows or movies scenes. Youtube is the number one video website, leaving google video, iTune or Real far behind. Real really missed this golden oppertunity. They have the right technology and already in the game since the dot.com day. They just couldn’t get around to offer free to all video streaming service. Could Youtube successfully reach IPO, or would it be an acquisition target? The development is interesting to follow.

This is probably the best remix of the Bus Uncle movie, Karaoke MTV

My idea about combining Risk and Monopoly is getting some traction. During the lunch, my friends show great interest in this new game and we came up with many great ideas. This get me start to think about it seriously. In the afternoon, I did some research on my idea. It turn out the name Riskopoly is already used twice. One format of game uses both game board, which is too complicate. The other format using the Monploy pieces on Risk board. My idea is exact the opposite, using Risk pieces on Monopoly board. I decided to give my game a new name, Turfopoly – a property conquering game. I also briefly look into how to market a new board game. The best way is first patented the game design, then license it to big company. On coincident, I just come across an article in IEEE Spectrum today about the benefit of writing your own patent. I think it would be quite a learning experience for me. There are two action items to carry out in paralle. First is research the patent library on board game patents. See whether the idea is already patented and learn how to write up a patent. Second is to develope the game rule, have some trials and make improvements.

The objective of the game is to add element of control to Monoploy while keeping the element of luck in the game. Here is a list of rules I just come up today. The number need to fine tune for a balance game play.

1. Each player start with X money, no army.
2. Player can buy a property when land on it and no one owns it. Each property come with 2 army
3. When player lend on a already own property, he can choose to pay the rent or fight for the control of the property.
4. Each time the player pass Go, he rececive $200, 3 basic army plus bonus army.
5. The number of bonus armys is based on the number of land / 3 + 1 street bonus if the player owns all properties with the same colour. The new army can place in any land or put in his battalion. The street bonus can only place in the property in that street.
6. When a battle starts, the player can only use the army in his battalion to fight against the guards of the land owners. Follows Risk 2+3 dice rule.
7. If the player lost, he still have to play the rent. If he wins, the take the ownership of the land.
8. At the end of each turn, the player can choose to move army between one of his land and the battalion or between two lands or buy army for the battalion.
9. A player out of the game if he goes bankrupt.
10. Money can buy army, army can trade in for money. Exchange rate TBD.
11. Two wining mode: world domination and mission mode. In world domination who wins all lands on the board win the game. In mission mode, each player draw street cards in the beginning of the game. He has to win all the streets on his cards to win the game.
12. Land owner can build barricks and fortress on his land. It will increase the rent as well as act as one extra army in defense. The attacker can destory the barricks if all army on the land is killed. He can build 1 barrick at the end of each turn. Sell a barrick gives 50% money back.
13. Roll double dice can roll again
14. Need a new set of “Chance” and “Community” cards with more relevant events.
15. Rail road station can teleport the player to any land on that side of the game board.
16. “Go to Jail” becomes “Military Court”. Jail becomes POW. Rule same as Monopoly. Escape from POW kills 25% of your army + pay $200 fines.
17. Landing on free parking collects all the fines.
18. Hydro, Electricity and Rails allows duel between the general. Each player role one dice, higher number win. If the attacker wins the dual, he is allow to go without paying the rent. He can optionally do a full-scale attack for the ownership of that land. If he lose either the duel or full attack, he have to pay the rent following monopoly rule.

These are rules I can think of so far. Version 1 of Turfopoly can use standard monopoly board. We can modify the game board to add new features as fit.

Finally, after procastinated for over 2 months, I had posted some of my unwanted toys on eBay last week. The auctions end today, half of the items are sold. The macross toys are very popular, I am able to make a small profit on all of them. Even the broken one, but still minted in box, is sold at a price higher than I had expected. I have less luck with Gundam models. Probably models get out of fashion fast while diecast toys become classics. For the unsold models, I have to lower the price and relist the items again. Once again, I confirm the theory that the value of Bandai’s toys never go up. The problem with Bandai is the company tends to re-produce its toys every now and then, even on limited editions. People learn to wait for a re-issue rather than paying the hefted price. The price of toy is strictly governed by supply and demand. The question is which one is a better strategy for a toy company. Milk the last cent in the market by killing the second hand market or keep a healthy second hand market to create a premium band.

For those who are interested, here is a link to my auctions