Europe may host 1st WC Riichi. MaybeAMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, January, 27th - There is a chance that a first world championship riichi mahjong will be held the years to come. And this might very well take place somewhere in Europe. This is stated in a report, written for the Dutch mahjong association. Picture: The Second European Mahjong Championship, Hanover, Germany, 2010. Read more…
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| Tom Sloper Interview |
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| Written by Martin Rep |
| Friday, 28 March 1997 10:20 |
'I'm too smart to get dumb luck'
Tom, could you tell us something about yourself, as personal as you want to? I worked with Activision for eleven years, and I've been making electronic games for almost twenty. When I was a kid in upstate New York, we used to play lots of card games and board games, so I guess I was always a gamer. When I went to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up (I still don't). If you had told me that I would eventually make electronic games, I would have looked at you like you were crazy -- there was no such thing back then! In college, I studied theater, art, radio, and astronomy. There were no courses in computers (not that I was aware of anyway), much less games. My first electronic game design was a little game watch from GCE called Game Time in about 1981. You wore it on your wrist and it had two buttons. My favorite game in the watch was Firing Squad, where you tried to see how long you could dodge volleys of bullets shot at you. Recently I left Activision to start my own business, but I cannot tell to much about that yet. How did you get in contact with mahjong? Through Shanghai. In 1991 when the previous Shanghai producer left Activision, I inherited the responsibility for Shanghai. I played it and got addicted. Later I acquired an antique Mah-Jongg set from a relative. I didn't know how to play Mah-Jongg, although I had been taught once when I worked at Sega in 1984. It wasn't until 1993, when I was working on some new version of Shanghai, that I got interested in learning the real game of Mah-Jongg. I started by playing Hong Kong Mah Jong Pro, and then (using my antique set) played a little bit with my wife and her sisters (who were also from Hong Kong). So in a sense, I 'graduated' from Shanghai to Mah-Jongg -- Shanghai got me interested in the tiles. How often do you play mahjong? Several times a week. I play online on Friday nights. I play the NMJL game with some ladies every Saturday afternoon. I often get together with coworkers to play Chinese at lunchtime. And every couple weeks I go downtown and play Japanese. What kind of mahjong rules do you like the best? Everybody asks me that. I like them all, I really do. I was very challenged by the NMJL game, but I think I've figured that one out pretty well now -- so now my biggest challenge is the Japanese game. I'm still not good at it. Do you ever play for money; I mean, real money? Yes, the Japanese game. But I'd rather not talk about it. Ask me again sometime when I'm good at it! You play all over the world, don't you; at least you did in Japan. I wish I could claim to 'playing all over the world' -- but that would be an overstatement. I have played in Japan twice in the past couple of years, and I did play for a few minutes in Hong Kong once, and I played in my first tournament, in Las Vegas, this year. The one time I played in Hong Kong, we had to stop playing Mah-Jongg because my little niece wanted to join in, so we stopped playing Mah-Jongg and played Shanghai instead. Do you ever play against (semi) professionals? Yes, when I go downtown to play the Japanese players there. But I think the only true 'professional' I play there is the man who owns the place. He's great, he's taken me under his wing and has taught me a bit of basic strategy. Who do you think are the best, the most fanatic mahjong players? Anyone who plays for money twice a week or more, and wins, is the best. Anyone who plays more than I do is a fanatic. What exactly did you do for Shanghai: Dynasty? Do you just think out the game and have other people write the program for you? If they do, how can they determine how strong the AI's are? Designing new Shanghai games was one part of my job, yes. I designed Shanghai: Great Moments, Shanghai: Dynasty, and its sequel, Shanghai: 2nd Dynasty. In addition to 'thinking out' the game, I wrote a very detailed design document that clearly tells the programmers what the game should be. As for the A.I., the programmers start with making the program understand the rules of the game, then I write out strategies for the programmers to implement; we got experienced Mah-Jongg players to Beta-test the A.I. for us. Is Activision's mahjong server a success? Do many people use it? It's a success in that it's there and it's free and it works; not a whole lot of Shanghai Dynasty players play online (most of them play the game solo, either the solitaire modes or against A.I. opponents). And when they do decide to go online, they don't necessarily do it at the same time that somebody else decides to go online. A big difference between Activision's Shanghai Dynasty servers and other online game servers is that before you can go onto the server you have to buy the game CD. What games are favorite there? I assume you mean of Shanghai Dynasty's online Mah-Jongg games? Most folks play the Chinese game. I've played the Japanese game online a few times, and met a player last week who challenged me to a Western game.
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| Last Updated on Thursday, 30 April 2009 06:10 |
In the late 1990's, I had this e-mail interview with Tom Sloper. At the time he was still working at Activision. For this company, he made (amongst many others) Shanghai: Dynasty and Shanghai: Second Dynasty, two of the finest pieces of mahjongsoftware ever written; unfortunately, both are now discontinued games. Tom now teaches mahjong on several places in the USA and he is considered the 'internet mahjong guru'. Although he did not found it (the webmaster of Mahjong News claims that he did that himself) he is more or less the moderator of the internet mahjong usenet group.Add your comment
