Tag Archives: fandom

2048: Doctor Who Edition

Some days ago a link was spread across social networks that advertised a game called „2048: Doctor Who Edition“ published on usvsth3m.com. The link was usually accompanied by a taunt „I reached the X*th Doctor! Can you beat me?“ (*X being the number of a Doctor).
I believe I do not need to repeat myself about what Doctor Who is, let me just tell you this: My natural curiosity of course got the better of me and I tried it myself.

What is the games‘ goal and how is it played?

The game gives you a four times four grid and two starting tiles with usually the lowest possible pattern.
The goal of this game – and its original versions, to which you can find links below the Doctor Who Edition – is to combine the tiles with similar patterns using your arrow keys to get up to the highest possible pattern.
In the DW case you combine the tiles with the pictures of each Doctor to reach the Eleventh, while in the normal 2048 you combine numbers to reach the eponymous number (don’t worry you follow the binary numbers starting with 2 and don’t go up from 1 to 2048).
But only the direct predecessor allows you to create a higher tile (Two First Doctors create a Second Doctor tile, two Second Doctors create a Third Doctor and so forth).

Are there any strategies involved?

As it is a kind of logic game there are of course many possible strategies.
I tried several things myself, like randomly moving the tiles around to make them fit, keeping everything on the left side or keeping everything on the right side.
But the one I used after repeatedly playing it for a couple of times was to try to keep the bottom line(s) more or less static and only work with shifting the tiles from left to right, after I established a line. Every time it could not be avoided to make  an up and down movement or a space was empty I would try to regain the static line again.
In these lines I would secure the higher Doctors and have the lines above them to create similar ones to upgrade the ones in the static line, while also filling spaces with lower tiles.

What was my own progress?

When I first saw the link to the game the poster claimed that he had only managed to get to the Eighth Doctor, so I took it upon myself to reach the Ninth. Surprisingly as I played without a proper strategy I did indeed manage to get up to Ten in the first try. (Using the strategy mentioned above my first try on 2048 got me to 1024)
Though as soon as I started thinking about the movement of the tiles as soon did I not manage to reclaim that small victory. After some more playing getting to the first Nine became more and more easy (I had the Seventh or even Eighth in a couple of moves) , up to the point where the second one would follow suit and create the first Ten.
Getting the second ten however was not an easy feat and it took me several more tries and probably a lot of luck to get it when the tiles even lay so perfectly that I could not just make the second Ten, but also combine them one final time:

Prove that a beat the game! =)

Prove that I beat the game! =)


Unfortunately you can’t continue to play after you made the final combination. I would have liked to try how far I would have managed to go with that game.

What did I learn from playing this game?

For one: This game is highly addictive. If you don’t reach your goal, you will try it time and time again until you’ve done it.
For another: Without creating some kind of strategy for yourself you will be hopelessly lost quite soon as the tiles pop up randomly and don’t give you that much of a chance to arrange them properly. (Mine is only an example, use whatever you think suits you best!)
At long last: I like that I managed to put up that strategy for myself. Moments like these give me hope that I am not too bad/stupid for my chosen profession as I still manage to make logical conclusions – just as I did with the buses on Thursday.

What are my other thoughts on the game?

I really liked how the pictures used for the Doctors were black and white until the Fifth and then turned into colour starting with the Sixth and his ridiculous coat. It kind of reminds you that the show has had it’s 50th anniversary last year. Though it was a bit unfortunate that they only took random out-of-character pictures for Eight, Ten and Eleven.
At some point you will even stop thinking about them as characters or people and more as numbers that you need to combine, at least that’s how it was for me.
It’s a fun and also strangely relaxing game, where you don’t really have to think that much after you’ve established your strategy.

If this gave you inspiration to try the game yourself or you have already tried it:

How well did you cope with the game? (Which Doctor did you reach?)
What was your strategy?
I’m curious about your replies. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the game and the pictures used within it belong to their respective owners.

Doctor Who: 50th Anniversary

As you might have noticed from previous posts: I am a Whovian – a fan of the British (Sci-Fi) series Doctor Who.
A series about a time-traveling alien, a Timelord, (credited as Dr. Who, Doctor Who or The Doctor) that picks up (mostly) human companions to show them all of time and space in his spaceship the T.A.R.D.I.S (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), that also has the „convenient“ ability of completely changing his body (regenerating) when he is about to die.
Today (23.11.2013) it has been 50 years since the very first episode „An Unearthy Child“ aired (in 1963, with William Hartnell as Dr. Who) in British television.
Therefore:

Happy 50th anniversary Doctor Who!

And a big „Thank you!“ to all the people involved in the creation of this brilliant show, for all your hard work and efforts to make this show into this special something that it is!

Within the Who(ni)verse

I have to admit that I haven’t been in the Who(ni)verse for that long, but I blame that on the weird scheduling and synchronization of the German version of the episodes. It was either too early or too late for me to watch it. But I do not regret ever setting foot into this strange world. A world with brilliant characters, incredible stories and quite a strange fanbase…
The first ever episode that, I think, I watched was „Tooth and Claws“ with David Tennant as The Doctor. I decided to watch this episode because it had Werwolves in it and as I am actually not that much into Sci-Fi and more into Fantasy stuff I just wanted to see how they did that. Needless to say I was pretty confused by it and didn’t watch more of it for quite a while.
But as I still also had enjoyed watching it and some other snippets from flipping through the TV channels and I later wanted to know what all these quotes and pictures on Tumblr pages were about, I gave it another try.
And what can I say? I’ve been hooked ever since.
Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor with his grinning in the face of danger just made me keep watching. It’s a pity he’d only been with the show for one season, but it was a fantastic season.
He was succeeded by David Tennant, who smiled differently, but still had three seasons of great stories and companions, including my favourite: The utterly brilliant Catherine Tate as Donna Noble.
When Matt Smith took on the role as The Doctor it was strange, as there was a longer time to get accustomed to his predecessor as before. He was so different to both Nine and Ten, yet he put as much heart into the role as both of them. I enjoy his childishness and the way he can switch from goofy to serious in the blink of an eye. He had some really brilliant speeches throughout his run, but I think I still never completely warmed up to him. Especially with all this family-stuff going around him, but he still is a great Doctor.
As you can see, my experiences are more with New-Who than the classic series, which was never really broadcasted in Germany. Nevertheless I have seen a couple of episodes from the very first Doctor and the movie of the Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, and of course scenes and stuff surrounding the other Doctors. When I have a little more time at hand I am going to watch the old stuff. (Some more thoughts on the classic Doctors here)

Specials everywhere

Anyway, this year – this day – marks the 50th anniversary of a show that managed to capture an audience all across the globe with its uniqueness. The special that will air later today is simultancast in about 80 countries, in cinemas and on television, and has many other specials accompanying it. But as I am not sure if I’ll be able to watch the The Day of the Doctor right away, I’ll only cover the other specials I have seen so far.
Many fans have created stuff to celebrate the anniversary throughout the year and this month especially. Among them Diana Dekajlo and Michael Nixon from Geek Crash Course, who made short clips about one of the Doctors each month and this month they made special videos, with additional information. For someone who hasn’t seen much of Classic-Who the monthly specials helped me to get a better overview about it. If you want to catch up before the big thing tonight, I highly recommend it.
The BBC itself obviously made many things for the celebration and I am pretty sure I don’t know every last bit of it.
The most intriguing thing they created were two prequels to the special:

The Night of the Doctor and The Last Day

As it is tradition for anniversaries in this one there will also be more than one Doctor: The Tenth, the Eleventh and an unknown incarnation that has been introduced in The Name of the Doctor – the last episode of the seventh season.
The Night of the Doctor adds a piece to the unknowns puzzle: It shows how the Eighth Doctor chooses to regenerate into the War Doctor, played by John Hurt.
After 17 years Paul McGann was given a chance at reprising his role from the TV movie and he did so brilliantly. I clearly wouldn’t mind seeing more of his adventures.
The Last Day shows Gallifrayan soldiers – I suppose – who discover that their worst enemy a Dalek, a being without consciousness and full of hate, had indeed managed to break through the impregnable barrier surrounding the city. With weird transmission signals interfering this one is quite bizarre and a bit creepy.
Judging from the trailers The Day of the Doctor includes the long foreshadowed, well rather after-shadowed, Time War. The war between Timelords and Daleks that effected all of creation until The Doctor ended it. By the time of The Night of the Doctor people seem to fear the Timelords as much as Daleks, which subsequently let to the choice the Eighth Doctor had to make. Incarnations Nine and Ten still suffered greatly from it and Eleven is at least capable of hiding it better than them.
Something that covered the beginnings of the show was the making-of-drama

An Adventure in Space and Time

written by the brilliant Mark Gatiss. It shows how Doctor Who was created in 1963, what struggles they had to go through until William Hartnell (portrayed by David Bradley) left the show. It was really interesting to watch, quite emotional at points and with a glorious finale, where (SPOILER if you still haven’t seen or read about it) the first Doctor takes a look across the TARDIS console and sees a glimpse into the future of what he was a part of creating, in the form of Matt Smith, fondly smiling back at him, before proceeding to turn switches on the console. (SPOILER END)
You just can see how much Gatiss is a fan of the show himself with all the effort he put into its writing. I clearly enjoyed it.
There are several more things that accompanies this landmark: An audio play from Big Finish Productions with the Doctors 4 to 8 called, The Light at the End for one and a lot of other stuff that I feel too lazy to add, just have a look at this compilation from BBC America: *click*.
I really look forward to watching The Day of Doctor, it will be spectacular and funny and weird and wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey and so much more.
It will be especially weird to SEE John Hurt, as I only know his voice from Merlin – I know he was in Harry Potter too, but I haven’t seen his scenes in English yet – as gigantic dragon… I’m curious what that will be like. (Judging from trailers and stuff: It will probably take me a while to get used to it…)
If I find the time, I will write my thoughts on the special afterwards.
I hope you all have fun on this day, The Day of the Doctor! 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

Bad Wolf Day 2013: "Hiding" Spots

As I told you this morning, today is Bad Wolf Day! (Find out more about it in the last post).
And as I now have placed all my slips of papers I’ll be posting the pictures of the „Hiding“ Spots. (They are both below and on my FaceBook page you can find on the right side)
As I’d also like to talk a little bit about them you can find some notes with the pictures and additional thoughts below the Gallery.


Well, I had made 11 slips of papers, one for each Doctor, but somehow #10 and #11 – for whom I had rather fitting spots, just slipped away and started off their journey on their own…
#10 blew away when I was about to put #9 into place and #11 probably fell out when I had put #2 into the Manga. Therefore only nine where actually placed. I kind of see this as a sign, as it was the Ninth Doctor that encountered BAD WOLF. 😀
Through this I kind of could change the places I had in mind for the other Doctors, that did not have one at that time.
But let me tell you what I had in mind:
#1:
My first idea for him was, to put him in a book in the library, but as I looked for what was available, I not only discovered that our local library did not have anything from the series, but that it in fact only had one novel from Torchwood…
Beside that book I also found two interesting sounding books with „Who is who“ in their title – one about Science Fiction, the other about British History.
Unfortunately the latter two were no longer among the public inventory and would have to be ordered and that’s not what I wanted…
Anyway,  I then decided to pick another Doctor and put him somewhere more fitting – and don’t ask me why I only had the idea for the Sixth Doctor first….
As I wrote for the picture Germany used to have huge yellow telephone boxes and I kind of miss those as they were more fun – yet more warm and filthy – than those glass and pole thingies you can see in the picture.
#2:
Where to place him was unknown to me for quite some time. Then I remembered that I had just bought a copy of Kazue Kato’s OneShot collection Time Killers and I simply hoped they would still have some issues in the bookstore.
As I wrote for the picture the store used to be called „Weiland“ which is approximately pronounced as: „Vailand“ – just with the weird way of pronouncing vowels in German – and it still reminds me of Valeyard…even though it was the Sixth who had his introduction I still picked that place for two…
#3:
This was the first paper I placed today and it was also the first where I knew where to place it.
I don’t know why. Okay, I think it was about the same time when I thought that #11 should have gotten a place in the bus as well, but still the first on my list.
And as I wrote above the slip of paper for #11 just vanished between placing #2 and #9…guess he did not want to take the bus…
#4:
This one was certain from the start as well. I wanted to put him next to Doctor Who DVDs, as I am looking forward to finally seeing his episodes/seasons, but as you can see and read above, there where no such things and the help I asked did not even no what Doctor Who was…(thought it was an interpreter…)…
Anyway, I instead found many seasons of another doctor (and yes, that’s the price season eight has in Germany), so I put him with those.
#5:
Number 5, the celery man. 😀
And therefore he needed to be placed where there is food and preferably vegetables. 😀
Originally I thought we would go to the soup bar, as we did quite a bunch of Mondays before, but the soup did not sound that tasty, so instead we went to the place with the fake plants.
(On a side node: The black fabric in the background are My two colleagues from the post before the last one 😉 )
#6:
This one had the note „telephone box“ next to it…but it ended up in a Hamlet novel – a version I actually read in grammar school – where I wanted to put #10s after much ado (I at first wanted to put him among Pratchett novels, then among the Harry Potter books I could not find and lastly among the Shakespeare works).
But for some reason his paper flew away when I was trying to get #9s…so #6 got his place.
#7:
Seven actually made it into the Torchwood book I had found in the library.
It was nice seeing the library for the first time after it had to move due to reconstructions in their old place. Confusing, but nice. And the woman from the reception did not know Doctor Who either, but they might order some stuff now 😉
#8:
As #8 was the Doctor that came to being in an Hospital – if I remember correctly – and the building is also called House of Doctors (a Medical Centre) I thought it was just fitting…
Besides Doctor Who is also partly a children’s show and that part read: paediatrics. I wanted to hang it near a sign saying „Humanmedizin“ (human medicine), but I could not find any…or it was too high for me to reach…
#9:
As soon as I remembered the wolf-statue I just had to put his paper there. After all it was him who encountered the BAD WOLF. 😀
Well, as #10 and #11 went missing and as I said what I had planned for them before, this is all.
I still don’t know if I participate on the 11th again and if anyone replies from one of my papers, but it was fun. 😀
And if I participate again I take the companions names and put them according to that.
I already know where I would put the one for Jack 😀
For Rory too, but for that I would have to ask IceWolf to get his paper to the Roman Museum I talked about in my travel report (Through a bit of Germany ’12). 🙂
Maybe we’ll see us with the next Bad Wolf Day 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter
© Copyright for the displayed goods and the statue lie with their creators.

Bad Wolf Day 2013

Happy Bad Wolf Day everyone! 🙂
Or as happy as this day can be seeing what it is about.

But what is Bad Wolf Day?

Bad Wolf Day is a fan-celebration for the British television show Doctor Who.
In case you REALLY don’t know what that is:
Doctor Who centres around a time travelling alien being called The Doctor.
Usually The Doctor travels with one or more companions, mostly humans, to whom he shows the vastness of the universe. Their adventures are shown to the television audience since 1963 (with a break from 1989 until the reboot in 2005, plus a movie in 1996), this year having its 50th anniversary.
One of his many companions was Rose Tyler, a normal 19 year old girl from London 2005.

He meets her in his Ninth incarnation (he is a Time Lord, therefore he has the convenient ability to regenerate into a new body when he is about to die – which also is a good way to use different actors for a long running series 😉 ) and they develop quite a special bound based on trust and protective instincts.
Anyway – and this is kind of an Spoiler, but also the essence of what this day is based on – , during one of their adventures The Doctor is faced with quite a bad situation and sends Rose back to Earth to save her. Of course she does not want to stay there and wants to help him. She gains access to the energy of the TARDIS (his space-and-time vehicle; short for: Time And Relative Dimension In Space, a blue police box from the 60s that you might have seen somewhere before 😉 ) and flies it back to him.
Throughout their journey they had encountered the words „Bad Wolf“ several times and with this energy within her, she realizes it was her that put all those writings in all those places, as clues for herself, that she would realize that she is: the „Bad Wolf“ and that she would this time save The Doctor.

Bad Wolf Day 2013 Flyer

Bad Wolf Day is a reminisce of that moment in the series.
The fans – the so called Whovians – are told to go out and write the words on slips of paper, on sidewalks, everywhere. Just to spread the words, to „help“ and so forth.

This year, and I found it through the Facebook Fan-Page: Doctor Who and the T.A.R.D.I.S., it is said to be today: 3. June 2013.  [Edit: I’ve added a different picture of the flyer as the FB-version is no longer available] (There is also the variation, that it is on the June 11th as that was the original date when the episode „Bad Wolf“ aired.)

And feeling a bit nerdy yesterday, made me not just write a bunch (well Eleven, as that is still his hour, I mean, current incarnation) of papers where I wrote the words Bad Wolf and the tag #badwolfday2013 on it, but I also wrote a little note on the back side where I asked to pass along the slip of paper and give me a note where they found it. Pictures of where I put the papers will be added to my FaceBook Page later today. [Edit: They are also added here: „Hiding“ Spots]

Bad Wolf Day

The Papers for Bad Wolf Day 2013

I’m quite curious if that actually works and if I get any replies…(And just to make sure they find the right side I will temporarily make the last post the Home Page and not the static page I usually use.)

So, if you came here because you found one of my papers:
Please leave your note in the comments below or if you’ve even taken a picture of where you’ve found it, you can post it on my FaceBook Page (see the right side for the link).

German:
Wenn du hier bist, weil du einen der Zettel gefunden hast:
Bitte hinterlasse deine Rückmeldung unten als Kommentar oder wenn du sogar ein Foto gemacht hast, von der Stelle an dem du ihn gefunden hast, kannst du das auch auf meiner FaceBook Seite posten (siehe rechts für den Link).

And maybe, just for fun, I will do the same thing on June 11th again. 🙂

PoiSonPaiNter