NSG's October 2020 Giveaway!

[nosweargamer]

56 minutes ago, RickR said:

Thank you @nosweargamer.  PM is incoming.  My plan is to play those games during this fall season, and regift them to a local friend who does not have any of them.

The gum will be chewed and not regifted. 

You know what's ironic? After I made the giveaway video, I wrapped up the games for shipping, but when I did, I added an extra piece of gum!

So I guess you do have a piece to regift...or a second piece to chew, 😆.

[RickR]

Or I could snap them in half and use as a straight razor! 

[RockyRaccoon]

On 10/23/2020 at 10:49 AM, HDN said:

This dude has really good taste!

Yeah, Tunnel Runner is one of those spooky games. As in Mind Master. 

Someone mentioned Ghostbusters, which kinda slipped my mind as a 'fall game', because it's one of my top favorites, but I play it at least once a month so it kinda slipped for it being connected to a specific season for me. X3

[nosweargamer]

The package is in the mail!

Thanks to everyone who participated.

If you are new to the site, feel free to introduce yourself here: https://forums.atari.io/forum/59-introduce-yourself/

This is one of the friendliest retro gaming forum sites you'll find anywhere!

I plan to do another giveaway here next month, so stay tuned!

[RickR]

Thank you again @nosweargamer.  The games and gum arrived yesterday!  This evening, I gave "Home Run" a try in honor of the World Series going on.

I tried game 3 first and won 1-0.  I figured game 1 might be easier, and I won that one 2-1.  Fun!

 

[HDN]

Home Run is a really good game. One of my favorite Baseball games. I have weird taste in sports games.

[RickR]

It's very basic and primitive, but it's still fun.  They didn't bother with throwing on defense.  I like how quick the pace is. 

[RickR]

Such fine humor

[HDN]

In the first panel, we are introduced to our main protagonists. Two completely different individuals, yet still living in harmony. Both people are the polar opposites of each other. We have what appears to be a middle-aged man on the right side. He's obviously working hard to get where he is today for years and years. His head is starting to bald, his forehead is wrinkled, and he's wearing thick glasses. His mouth is held opened; he's obviously surprised at something he sees. If we were to follow his eyes over to the left side of the panel, we would see the second character. He appears to be a mere child, maybe eleven or twelve. He's got long, scraggly hair poking out from under his large, blue baseball cap. He is resting his palm on his forehead with a concerned look on his face. If we were to look at his face, our eyes would immediately be drawn to his eye patch. With this information, one could infer that the child has some form of injury to his eye. Was this child in some horrific accident? What was his past like? Perhaps the answer lies in his family. Perhaps he has an abusive father.

Above the two individuals is a text bubble. If we were to follow said bubble back to its origins, we would conclude that it is in fact the small child who is speaking. The child says to the middle-aged man, "Doc, please help me." A cry for help. This child needs something of the man. With this line of dialogue, we can also assume that "Doc" in the sentence is an abbreviation for "doctor". Of course, how could we not realize this! If we were to look to the left of said medical professional, we would notice a tall white cabinet with what appears to be medical equipment of some kind on it. The child continues on: "I can't remember a thing!" This matches our hypothesis from earlier that the child is suffering from some sort of head injury. Perhaps it not only effected his eye, but his brain and memory capacity as well.

We move on to the second panel. In this shot, we get a better look at the doctor's office and attire. We see a poster on the wall behind him. The doctor's clothing is reminiscent of medical clothing from the 1950's. Oh, of course! It all makes sense now. The child, with baseball cap and all, is almost a stereotypical interpretation of a young boy from that era! The only outlier is his eye patch. This further reinforces the theory that the child was either abused or was in an accident of some kind. Safety and child abuse laws were much less strict in that era. He could have easily obtained such an injury at the time being how he's likely unsupervised most of the time. So far in this comic strip, we don't see his parents. Could they be dead? Out of frame? I feel the most likely possibility is that they simply don't care about their boy.

This time, it's the doctor's turn to speak. The boy looks the doctor right in the eye with a slight frown forming on his face. The doctor, not thinking hard enough about the situation at hand, asks the first thing he's been trained to ask in a situation similar to this: "How long have you had this condition, Joe?" From this single sentence, we learn so much. The doctor refers to a Joe, whom we can only assume is the name of the young boy. He also knows the name of the child already, signifying that he's visited the doctor many times before. Perhaps this same doctor treated him when Joe lost his eye. Perhaps this is only a short while after that horrible incident. Perhaps the memory loss is a side-effect and sign of brain damage.

But the doctor instinctively asked Joe about how long he has had this condition. The doctor obviously wasn't thinking when he said that. If Joe had severe short-term memory loss, how would he know when he got the condition? This expands on the character of the doctor. He's obviously a very intelligent and educated man, but he lacks common sense.

We see a resolution to the story and the consequences of the doctor's mistake in the third and final panel of this cartoon. Joe, the child, puts his arms out and shrugs his shoulders. He has a smug grin on his face as he asks the poor doctor, "What condition?". This grin could mean anything. It could mean that the child forgot of his brain condition for a brief moment and was blissfully unaware of his crippling mental illness. But, this may show the child is starting to crack. Perhaps he never had a brain condition at all and was just pulling a prank on the doctor. Oh, how funny would that be! However, I don't think that is the case. If we were to look at a simple diagram of the human brain, we would see that the prefrontal cortex plays an important part in memory. The frontal lobe of the brain is located behind the forehead. Perhaps this eye injury of Joe's somehow effected his frontal lobe. If something were to enter his eye socket at just the right angle, that would do the trick. We know that something is up with his eye, and we also know that the doctor is aware of this. We can see in the corner of the panel that the doctor is understandably confused. How is he supposed to work with this? If the child can't remember his condition, how can he be helped? I assume that after this strip ended, the doctor and child had some hilarious shenanigans occur during the visit. Was the child helped? Was his condition legitimate? What happened? That, the author leads up for the reader to decide. One could imagine anything in the world happening during this appointment! How humorous is that?

And that, my dear friends, is comedy at its finest.

[RickR]

Your analysis is spot on, but you missed one important point.  The doc is in Joe's "Gang" as evidenced by the title of the strip.  I'd say if you have an M.D. in your gang, that's one sweet gang.

 

[RickR]

<golf clap>

 

[RickR]

PS - the gum is good.  It's not the super thin pink razor that breaks into shards that I remember. 

[HDN]

14 minutes ago, RickR said:

<golf clap>

 

Someone please analyze this for me. I spent 35 minutes on the last one and I don’t feel like spending 35 more.

[RickR]

No one can beat your detailed analysis.

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by RickR

[RickR]

@nosweargamer is correct that the 3 wide-apart fielders is easier for some reason.  I was able to beat the computer 21-2!  And I added a RickR special end label to the cart.

 

[HDN]

Thanks again @nosweargamer for bringing more folks over to the site. Your giveaways are always a fun time, even if you don't win. I hope to host one myself someday.

You can always tell if you have a @RickR game by the custom label! My copy of Galaxian is also a limited edition RickR release. I don't know how many were made! Maybe I should sell it on eBay for an outrageous price because of its "rarity".

[RickR]

I think I own about 20 of them in my collection.  Extreme rarity.  I've also given the same treatment to my 5200 carts, which don't have an end label (what were they thinking????) 

 

[Atari Creep]

On 10/20/2020 at 2:53 PM, nosweargamer said:

Just to clarify, when I say this time of year, it can refer to anything from fall, including Halloween, Baseball, Football or whatever.

🧟‍♂️🍁🥧🏈

NO! Its football and Halloween. Fall is a close 3rd. LOL

[nosweargamer]

I just think it's cool that the contest inspired Rick to play some Home Run!

It's super common, but as is the case with some old Atari sports games, it's often overlooked despite being a fun game imho.

[RickR]

56 minutes ago, nosweargamer said:

I just think it's cool that the contest inspired Rick to play some Home Run!

It's super common, but as is the case with some old Atari sports games, it's often overlooked despite being a fun game imho.

Home Run is fun! 

"Haunted House" is next on my list.