Cheapskate Gaming Guides

I've moved my Cheapskate Gaming Guides over to GeekDo.com and Amazon.com.

• Cheapskate's Guide to Tabletop Board Games

RPGs 

• Cheapskate's Guide to Forge-Derived Indie RPGs
• Cheapskate's Guide to GM-less RPGs Worth Paying for
• The Best Free Versions of GM-less RPGs
• The Best Generic RPG Systems 
• The Cheapskate's Guide to Playing D&D for Free 

Video Games

• The Cheapskate's Gaming Console 
• The Best Value Games for Playstation 2 
• Top Values in Adventure, Strategy, and Other Games 
• The Best Miscellaneous Playstation 2 & PC Games 

Cheapskate RPGs: Scoring the Unpublished GM-less Games

Cheapskates should be thrilled to know that dozens of free role-playing games (RPGs) that do not suck are available online. In my ongoing investigation to uncover the best GM-less RPGs, I turn now to unpublished games, many of which actually beat out early drafts of successful published ones in contests, but still remain, for whatever reason, in playtest form.

Rarely showing up on rating sites like RPG.net and having only a couple contests available to them for extensive peer review, unpublished role-playing games are more difficult to rank than their published siblings. Nonetheless, I have attempted to differentiate between these games with a simple system (see Scoring Sheet) that favors competitions with lots of contestants and multiple judges over those with a handful of contestants and just one judge. It also adds a bonus for every positive playtest available online. Obviously, these assumptions might make some readers uncomfortable, and they are welcome to stop reading here.

• Tier III. These six games exhibit strong potential but score a four or less with my scoring system. If one of them calls your name, play it and post a positive playtest report, which will probably move it up to the next Tier and encourage the designer to finish the game. These games include Liquid Crystal, Merryweather, The Glass Bead Game, Archipelago II, General Mud, Apocalypse Girl, and the Dinner Party. XXXXtreme Street Luge is a finished game but, with no reviews or publicized playtests, we're putting it in this group for now.
  
• Tier II. These four games stand out from the Tier III games for a couple reasons. Cutthroat, winner of a Low Ronny, and City of Brass, a runner up in Game Chef 2005, have award credentials about on par with Tier III games, but they have both have several playtests publically available on the Forge, showing that they are viable and fun games in reality rather than just in concept. Crime & Punishment directly beat out three of the Tier III games in Game Chef 2006 and has since been playtested at least a couple times. House of Masks won Game Chef 2008, an even more impressive victory since the contest included far more contestants. Unfortunately, in the year since, it has only been playtested once as far as the designer knows, and this playtest is nowhere to be found online. All of these games score a 6 or a 7 in my scoring system and might get a playtest at Endgame in Oakland next month.
  
• Tier I. Enjoying victory over a field of competition even larger than Game Chef 2008, Schizonauts and the Young Adult RPG took 1st and 2nd place in the massive Game Chef 2007 and have used the subsequent time well. Schizonauts has a evidence of a couple playtests online, and the Young Adult RPG has been played enough that it is now out as Coming of Age, a revised version with a new title. These games score a 9 or 10 in my scoring system.

Since the free versions of the two most successful published games did not even place in the top three of Game Chef 2005, which had half the contestants of Game Chef 2007 and 2008, many of the above listed games could go on to be excellent in their final form. For now, we cheapskates will enjoy them for free.

The MULRAH Tournament for Best Free GM-less Story/Role-Playing Game

I have moved this post to my personal blog.

Cheapskate Backpacking: What Not to Bring

Cheapskates love the idea of backpacking, but, when they look at the laundry lists of gear many "experts" recommend, they probably have some second thoughts about how affordable this type of travel really is. It turns out that the essentials for backpacking are quite minimal, and you can even take along some extra stuff. Below are some categories of gear you should think twice about bringing (or buying).

1. Wilderness Equipment: If you plan on wilderness backpacking or camping, you will need additional equipment; otherwise, you can leave all of this stuff, much of which is relatively heavy and cumbersome, at home. These items include a tent, a stove, a mess kit, a hydration pack, a sleeping bag, hiking poles, water purification system (a filter or pills), an emergency kit (matches, signal mirror, whistle), cord, toilet paper, a warm skull cap, a compass, and a headlamp.
2. Controversial Items: A number of items get recommendations from some backpackers while other actually advise against bringing them. Army knives force you to check your bag lest they are confiscated at the airport. Guidebooks are quite heavy and usually not useful until immediately before reaching a destination that's likely months away. Shorts, which few other cultures wear, making you stick out as a tourist, and offer less protection against the sun and insects.
3. Miscellaneous Items: These non-essential items tend to fill out other advisors' massive checklists, but are far from viewed as universally needed. If your watch does not have an alarm clock, you might want to bring a separate one. A sewing kit could could be handy, but, as something you might never need, is a candidate for being bought during your trip. Maps are definitely important, but lugging around maps for every place you plan to go is unnecessary; just get one at your destination and recycle it when you leave. Some backpackers also recommend bringing bandannas, binoculars, condoms, earplugs, gloves, and a travel pillow, but these items are far from universally essential.

Sources

• "Backpacker's Checklist", Adventures Around the World
• "Backpacking Across the World," Love to Know
• "Round the World Travel Guide - Travel Library's FAQ," Travel Library
• “What To Pack,” Travel Independent

Underdog Alternatives to Google

Diversity is good, so alternatives to the services provided by internet giant Google are worth considering, even if Google's version is probably better in the end. As I noted in my post on web apps that beat Google at its own game, experts consider Google's offerings as the best in search (Google), webmail (GMail), HD video sharing (YouTube), and feed readers (Google Reader). This post discusses the runners-up in these areas and how much you lose out by diversifying instead of consolidating your activities with Google.

• Search - Exalead: You will get the best search results not from the single best search engine, which undeniably remains Google, but with a combination of search engines. Dolores Labs showed that Google's results are not necessarily more relevant than those generated by Yahoo Search or Live (now Bing). While its relevance relative to the big three is untested, both the UC Berkeley Library and librarian Phil Bradley recommend Exalead, a French search engine with a wide array of search-narrowing filters and tools.
  
• Webmail - GMX: ConsumerSearch usually does a thorough review of reviews, but the WebUser review is the only 4-star or 5-star source used for their webmail report that was written within the past year and looks at more than one webmail service. Ironically, WebUser's choice is not GMail, but rather ad-free and feature-filled upstart GMX. Softpedia, which ConsumerSearch does not cite in their report, also supports GMX as an excellent webmail service.
  
• Video Sharing - Vimeo: Everybody, including CNET experts and tech-savvy Lifehacker readers, continues to pick YouTube as the best video sharing site, but Vimeo is a consistent runner up. Blip.tv and Dailymotion are other options, but do not do as well as Vimeo in CNET's testing or Lifehacker's survey. In other reviews, many (like Martin Paling) actually prefer Vimeo to YouTube for its superior feature set, though YouTube continues to attract more traffic. As with search, it probably makes sense to use both rather than one over the other.
  
• Feed Reader - Twitter: Perhaps not an "underdog" and certainly not a feed reader per se, but many on the cutting edge have abandoned their feed reader in favor of Twitter, which can integrate feed updates with links and interaction from friends, family, and more. The If you really want a feed reader, try former internet darling Bloglines, which justifiably gets annihilated in this ten-point comparison and is not favored in this post by Phil Gyford. However, I continue to use it for a few selected feeds because it is still quite functional and I'm committed to doing some things outside of Google and agree that Google Reader should have some competition.
  

Cheapskate Computing: Top 5 Free Web Apps That Are Better Than Google's Offerings

Cheapskates who want to get the most out of their online experience would do well to start with Google and their host of high quality, free services. ConsumerSearch's superb reviews of reviews pick them as the best for search (Google) and webmail (GMail); CNET's head-to-head comparative testing picks Google's YouTube as the best for HD video sharing; and PCMag's ranking and this ten-point comparison with Bloglines select Google Reader as the best online RSS feed reader. With such an impressive lineup, it is quite easy to just go ahead and use Google for everything else, but several of their offerings are actually not the best in class. Cheapskates and others who want only the best should check out these competitive alternatives to Google.

1. Task Management – Remember the Milk: Google Tasks pops up as an easy add-on for GMail and Google Calendar, but, compared to Remember the Milk, it is underpowered. With Remember the Milk, you can set repeating tasks, organize your tasks into different categories, tag tasks, and even access your tasks within GMail. Although I could not find any in-depth comparisons of the two online, the cursory comparisons all pick Remember the Milk over Google Tasks.

2. Productivity Suite – Zoho: Google Docs is another great example of a Google service that is so easy to get started on due to its integration with Google's other offerings, but Zoho generally offers better web apps for productivity across the board. Donation Coder's extremely thorough assessment of word processors clearly favors Zoho Writer for its all-around best features and limited downside. Webtrends on About.com picks Zoho Sheet as the best among a host of online spreadsheets, though PCMag's considerably more thorough review picked EditGrid instead. Finally, Zoho Show also "blows Google Presentation's socks off" in the arena of online presentation software.

3. Social Bookmarking - Diigo: Yahoo!-owned delicious, not Google Bookmarks, is the biggest player in this arena right now, but Diigo trounces them both. MakeUseOf lists seven reasons why Diigo is better than delicious, and I personally can attest to Diigo's incredible usefulness. One of the biggest advantages of Diigo is the ability to annotate the webpages you bookmark, a feature Google used to have in their now-defunct Google Notebooks.

4. Calendar – 30 Boxes: Google Calendar might feel more like a traditional desktop calendar and folks rave about Google Calendar's integration with GMail, but, as Web Worker Daily describes, 30 Boxes' integration with everything else Web 2.0 (social networks, blogs, photo sharing, etc.) is unsurpassed. CNET counted 30 Boxes among its Webware Top 100 for 2008, and Google Alternatives notes it as a highly acclaimed alternative to Google Calendar.

5. Chat – Meebo: Google Talk allows you to chat with Google Contacts and AIM Buddies from within your GMail, but Meebo can access not only these chat contacts but also Yahoo! Contacts, Facebook Friends, and others. Unless your network is limited only to Google and AOL, you will want to use Meebo as your online chat client. For more customizability, check out Pidgin, a free desktop chat client with the same reach as Meebo but even more features.

ConsumerSearch also picks services other than Google's for blog hosts (Wordpress) and free photo-sharing (Flickr), though Google's Blogger and Picasa are competitive runners-up. I almost included social networking here as well, but I am not convinced that Facebook or MySpace are necessarily better than Google's Orkut—they just have a larger network in the United States, so they are more immediately useful. However, you could have said the same thing about Friendster several years ago, and they are now relatively insignificant here. It remains to be seen which of these services really becomes dominant.

Cheapskate Computing: Other Options for a Lightweight Linux Distro

I recently wrote about the best Linux distro for old computers over at BrightHub and, in the process of narrowing it down to a top three, obviously neglected to mention a variety of other options. While a cheapskate looking for an operating system for his low-end computer should do fine with Puppy Linux, there is a dizzying array of other options available. This thread over at the Ubuntu forums has an excellent starting list of lightweight distros worth considering, but many of them are very barebones, outdated, potentially unstable, or simply don't work as well as one might hope. I narrowed my own list down by applying seven basic standards that any distro I use must meet, as described in this post. By relaxing these parameters, many other distros become possibilities you might want to explore.

1. Linux Kernel 2.6.x: Using an older Linux kernel means losing speed, hardware recognition, stability, and the ability to run more recent software, so I was unwilling to muck around with distros that use anything less than a 2.6.x kernel. However, if you are using an old machine, you might want to relax this standard, making Damn Small Linux, Feather Linux, and DeLi viable options. All of these distros are less than 128 MB, but keep in mind that Puppy Linux is only 90 MB, gets great reviews, is frequently updated, and still manages to use a 2.6.x kernel.
2. GTK 2.x: My most heavily used applications use GTK 2.x, so any distro that was based on GTK 1.x was out for me. Again, if you have an old computer, then you might want to relax this standard, making Ubuntu GTK1.2 Remix a possible option. Damn Small Linux also uses GTK 1.x.
3. Stable Release: Although it might be fun to tool around with a beta release, I only wanted to consider final, stable releases. If you're willing to play with fire, you might want to check out wattOS, an Ubuntu-based distro in beta using OpenBox. I'm also anxiously awaiting the final release of the next version of SliTaz, which hopefully will have resolved the issues with Flash in Firefox.
4. Basic Packages Included: More experienced GNU/Linux users probably feel comfortable with distro so stripped down that it does not even come with a window manager or desktop environment. That's not me, but if you want to build from the ground up, then you've probably already heard of Arch Linux or might want to check out Draco Linux.
5. Ongoing Releases/Update: While it's one of Linux's great strengths that you can find a distro in almost any flavor, I am more interested in using a distro that feels like it is constantly being worked on by a substantial group of people. If you don't mind using something that might never get updated again, then you can include Kanotix CPXmini (2005), Fluxbuntu (2007), TinyFlux (2007), Wolvix Cub (2007), and Icebuntu (2008). Keep in mind that just because a distro is old doesn't mean it's not usable, and all of the distros listed here have dedicated developers and users who want to see their distro continue.
6. Positive Reviews: If a distro does not have positive reviews, I might still try it out, but I am not going to recommend it to others. I have found the reviews at Linux.com to have the best balance between understanding the needs of newcomers to GNU/Linux and the demands of experienced users. They also seem more able than others to constructively criticize distros, and their issues with NimbleX and Slax ultimately removed them from consideration for me. Both are based on Slackware, use KDE, and get positive reviews elsewhere, so they might have viability for you. I myself will probably play around with NimbleX because it apparently includes 12 window managers and tons of software in only 200 MB (or smaller).
7. Size of Download I'll admit that my cut-off for this was pretty arbitrary at 431 MB for the initial download, but one must define "lightweight" somehow. I chose to do it by taking the size of my current remaster of PCLinuxOS MiniMe, so I'm essentially asking myself the question, "Can I get the same functionality out of a smaller package?" As a general cut-off for others, it's not so bad either: other than Katonix Lite, the next smallest distro on this list of distros for old computers is over 600 MB, at which point you might as well consider any of the 231 distros that fit onto a CD. Some of these distros, like the well-reviewed VectorLinux, feel more lightweight and are better for old hardware than others because they are built more efficiently, but that's the subject of an entirely different post.

In my next post, I will discuss the lightweight distros that do meet all of the standards above. They notably do not include any distros using XFCE, so a distro from this post (VectorLinux?) that does might eventually get moved over there even though it does not meet all seven of my current standards. I also couldn't find any "lightweight" distros using GNOME, which probably comes as no surprise to some of you and as a big disappointment to others, depending upon how you define "lightweight."