Mark Richard
Hey, Pokémon Go. Yeah, I’m talking to you. Come on over here, I have something to say.
Look, you’re a good game. I like you and your whole deal. Walking around, catching Pokémon, getting outside with friends, creating fun styles for my trainer. It’s all great.
But I’ve hated this since the first day.
The Rattata wasn’t just caught. It didn’t happen to walk sidelong into the waiting maw of a Pokéball that was hanging around in the air.
I caught Rattata.
I enjoy hosting trivia, and have now done so twice over Zoom for a core group of friends back in San Francisco. I thought I had shared the first batch on here back in 2024, but evidently not. So, here are both rounds, obviously geared towards my interests and inside jokes among these friends. They are provided as slideshows without the answers, so test yourself and have fun.
November-2024-Miracle-on-Splice-Invitational February-2026-Miracle-on-Splice-InvitationalI’ve played hundreds of hours of Mario Kart 8 on the Nintendo Switch,1Over 910 hours. and though I don’t fancy myself a leading expert on the game—I’m still short of my 10,000 hours—one picks up a thing or two after seven years of gameplay.
I bought the Nintendo Switch 2 to play Mario Kart World and have played a few hours in both solo and split-screen modes. I’m conflicted by their new take on the original Grand Prix while remaining intrigued by the new Knockout Tour option, and I’m too afraid of my free time to dive into Open Roam. Since I’ve spent most of my time with traditional Grand Prix races, I’ll focus my thoughts on them.
Continue reading “Mario Kart World”My company held its second Hackathon last week, when (most) regular work pauses or slows down, so we can instead focus on new ideas aligned to our mission.1We still need to work with customers, provide support, and generally keep the lights on. But anyone who wants to participate can always find the time to do so. We get to explore and build, play around, meet new people, and add to our general culture of inquisitiveness, curiosity, and hard work.
I used it as an opportunity to get back to my curriculum roots. I ran text adventure Math Jams in our online classroom for three years in the same fashion I do with OHAC. The main difference is I’m working with around 200 students who are voting on what to do—it gets chaotic.
It’s been over two years since I ran one of these sessions, so I took the week to brainstorm ideas with some people. The most recent adventure I ran, Casework, is full of company-specific easter eggs and takes place in a loose approximation of our old headquarters. This new adventure, Casework 2: Overwhelming Evidence, follows that up.
I’ve attached the text adventure document, along with the video I created for the final project presentation. It was incredibly fun to work on.
In OHAC 62: Push the Red Button, we played Escape the Dungeon or Die!, a text adventure I wrote with some assistance from a coworker over three years ago. I finally turned it into a proper PDF, similar to my others.
I wanted to take a step forward from Dream Sequence and created what’s essentially a series of escape rooms, each with a puzzle to discover and solve. Per usual with my text adventures, a spiffy title captures much of the information about the world of the puzzle. It’s a double entendre—either you escape the dungeon or die, but is it a dungeon that you’re escaping or a six-sided die?
The entire map is an unfolded die, and the pips offer a canvas for crafting puzzles. You can read more details in the document below.
After several years, I’m still pleased by this adventure. Even though it ended up being a bit too difficult for its original intended audience, it’s great to play with nerds.
You can find the official PDF below, and here is Mikhail and Jack’s collaborative map from playing it for the podcast.
I love puzzles. I was lucky enough to coauthor a puzzle book at my job, and I’ve been fascinated by any logical, engaging game I can find. I’m no expert, but I am an enthusiast. Over the last several months, I’ve nailed down a set of puzzles that bookend each day, getting my mind working in the morning and letting me wind down in the evening.
Continue reading “My Daily Puzzle Rotation”Until my older sister got a Nintendo DS, the only gaming devices we had were those cheap handheld ones that had a single game on it—Sudoku, a baseball simulator—and the similarly-cheap Plug and Play TV game consoles that typically comprised a joystick, a button or two, and composite video cables. They required batteries. They were slow. I loved them.
Continue reading “Plug and Play TV Consoles”I previously wrote about my excitement that Mario Kart 8 was receiving more courses. Two years later, all the courses are released and have been summarily conquered by my Gold Mario character. I have 3 star trophies across all 24 Grand Prix cups, in all available speed levels.
Though I fell off playing Mario Kart regularly in the last year—that change has been for the best—it remains a relaxing activity on a lazy weekend afternoon or a fun evening game to play with Erin. There are no more explicit accomplishments left for me in the game,1I’ve decided to not open up the can of worms that are Time Trials or Battles. so I can launch it when it strikes me as fun, and otherwise spend my extremely self-limited gaming time playing the several other Switch games I’ve purchased over the years. Among those I’ve started and hope to complete are Cuphead, Röki, Bastion, Firewatch, and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It may take me years, but I’ll make progress!
