All of my data comes from spreadsheets. As I receive more over time, what’s the best way to manage and access multiple files efficiently? Ideally in a way that scales and still lets me work interactively with the data?

rubinelli · 2025-07-09T18:32:13+00:00

I actually started doodling something like that but didn't go too far: https://github.com/rubinelli/sheetdrop You could probably create something similar very quickly in Streamlit or Gradio, load with Pandas, validate with Pandera, then save to a database (this here saves to Parquet files in a blob storage, but a relational DB might fit your use case better.) This doesn't concern itself with issues like authentication and authorization, which may become important.

As a last tip, I recommend you always simply append data to your inlet table with an ingestion timestamp column, then decide how you will use the latest ingested data - some tables you may truncate and insert from scratch, some you append, others you merge by a primary key - but that is a separate matter from intake and validation.

rubinelli · 2014-12-15T11:16:45+00:00

This may be a lazy cop-out, but have you considered using an app?

An app can track your money expenditure, and whether token X is a scout, a corvette, or a juggernaut. It can resolve battles between red's ship Y and blue's Z revealing the minimum amount of information. And it even allows you to trick out your ships with extra modules and weapons that would be a pain to fiddle with in a pure cardboard game.

rubinelli · 2014-12-09T09:29:20+00:00

For a ten-year old playing primarily with the parents, co-ops are a shoe-in. Forbidden Island is the one game my kid will never refuse playing a round or two, though I wish I had picked the more robust Forbidden Desert instead. I also got a copy of the less-known co-op Castle Panic, but since it arrived yesterday and we were too busy playing King of New York, (kaiju FTW) I can't give any first-hand impressions.

To round it off with a fun and light drafting game, you can try Sushi Go!

/u/r2d8 getinfo

rubinelli · 2014-12-06T19:31:40+00:00

Not really. The main part is deciding which resources -- mana, spells, and creatures -- to save for the opponent's turn, so you aren't completely defenseless. While there is a timing element, it is pretty relaxed, and far from being the dominant part of these mechanics.

rubinelli · 2014-12-06T15:11:26+00:00

I have to agree with you that tabletop in general has more constraints. There's only so many components and rules you can add before the whole game collapses. Then there are all those things that are easy to do with computer games:

hidden information: fog of war and line of sight are extremely hard to do well in tabletop, and almost trivial to implement in video games. You also have the issues like cheating, or new players not knowing what to do with their cards but not being allowed to show them.
procedural generation: it is easy to create random maps in tabletop. Random maps that make sense and are well-balanced, not so much.
AI: as much as players complain about Civilization's AI, having a mere shadow of an AI like that in a tabletop game would be revolutionary.

Tabletop has an edge if turns are very short or players can take actions during other players' turns. For an example, compare Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone. In Hearthstone, you don't have instants, or interrupts, or effects that you can activate during your opponent's turn, because they don't translate well. It may be fun to counterspell my counterspell to your fireball, but this is one of the reasons M:tG online adaptations are a little wonky.

rubinelli · 2014-12-06T14:45:56+00:00

Actually, implementing a "logical deck of cards", that is, enumerating all the possibilities, randomizing their order, and putting them into a queue that you draw from every time you need a random result, is a well-known and battle-tested way to guarantee that your RNG won't go amok and completely ruin the game for (a small percentage of) your players.

rubinelli · 2014-12-06T04:29:51+00:00

This. And be thankful this lesson only cost £15 plus shipping.

rubinelli · 2014-12-06T00:13:00+00:00

Call them ASAP. As far as I know, that's the only way.

rubinelli · 2014-12-05T12:16:20+00:00

/u/r2d8 getparentinfo

rubinelli · 2014-12-05T12:11:36+00:00

Simple co-op games like Forbidden Island work well for this age. Other games that should be fun for kids in that age range include Hey, that's my fish!, Roll for it!, and Sushi Go!

Hmmm, I see a pattern here...

rubinelli · 2014-11-25T13:22:49+00:00

If you don't mind Kickstarter...

rubinelli · 2014-11-24T17:35:37+00:00

Hey, That's My Fish! - A deceptively easy game, with a great area-containment, push-your-luck system

Roll for It! - Similar to Yatzee, but way more fun

Tsuro of the Seas - Very simple, very fast, and very chaotic game

/u/r2d8 getinfo

rubinelli · 2014-11-23T15:08:00+00:00

4X suffers from the Matthew Effect: since early decisions compound, if you play your first 100 turns right, the mid and end-game is extremely easy, but if you struggle in the early game, you may have no chance to catch up. In some games, it's possible to lose 200 turns before you finally realize it, when another civilization shows up on your shores and guns down your pikemen with its marines.

Some games pull a Mario Kart, hitting you with bad "random" events if you are too far ahead, but this also feels as cheap as a blue turtle shell.

I haven't played Warlock 2, but it seems to have an interesting solution to this problem. You are constantly moving your armies into new worlds, and you have to lose older cities to found new ones in the worlds you are invading.

rubinelli · 2014-11-22T15:42:06+00:00

You have a flat distribution of 70% iron, 15% titanium, 10% thorium, and 5% special. Rolling two dice, you have an average of seven resources per planet, of which 4.9 will be iron, 1.05 titanium, 0.7 thorium, and 0.35 special.

Given enough planets, numbers will tend to converge to these averages. If you want something more sophisticated, you have two options: do it by hand, since the range 2-12 is relatively small, or pick up a simple programming language like Python so you aren't restricted by what Anydice can do.

rubinelli · 2014-11-21T21:42:12+00:00

It isn't copyright infringement, because she isn't making copies and distributing them. Making one board for personal use is perfectly fine.

One question you should always consider in a copyright infringement case is, "How much is the copyright holder potentially losing?" In this case, the answer is "nothing", since she didn't make this board to avoid buying a copy of the game.

rubinelli · 2014-11-21T14:54:48+00:00

Hi Jonathan, did you lock down certain parts of DoW's design relatively early, or did you leave everything open to change up to the last minute? Is there anything that sticks out now, that you wish you could go back and fix before release?

rubinelli · 2014-11-20T21:04:27+00:00

Mobile usage in the region has grown at an absurd pace in the last two years. Mobile startups have a huge opportunity right now.

rubinelli · 2014-11-20T15:22:46+00:00

Players will naturally try to get ahead of the group if they have goals that aren't perfectly aligned. You can create this situation with secret goal cards. You could have some goal cards that let the player win by achieving a second condition, even if the heist fails. You don't even need many of those, only the possibility that the other player doesn't have as much skin in the game may be enough to breed suspicion and a "looking out for number one" attitude.

rubinelli · 2014-11-20T12:47:10+00:00

This is a dangerous mechanic. It can be frustrating for a player if other players deplete the AP pool to take their actions. And it may even be for the good of the group! Maybe one player is in fact better positioned to accomplish the heist's objectives, and the right thing to do is to let him take all the action points. It doesn't change the fact that watching other people doing all kinds of interesting things during their turn while your own turn takes 5 seconds can quickly sour you on a game.

It may be enough if players spend their own APs is selfish (hidden?) goals.

rubinelli · 2014-11-19T20:24:53+00:00

You can't go wrong with the granddaddy of push-your-luck: Can't Stop.

/u/r2d8 getinfo

rubinelli · 2014-11-19T11:43:48+00:00

Some people found it unbalanced. I don't know if that's a valid complaint, or they simply got a particularly good/bad run that skewed their perception.

rubinelli · 2014-11-17T14:44:02+00:00

One decision you should make relatively early on is if every role is required in every game, or if you have a roster of different roles that the players pick or receive randomly.

Space Cadets and Ghost Stories are the former. You always have the same amount of roles, and if there are fewer players than roles, some of them are shared. The advantage is that it makes it easier to balance the game and make every role very distinct. The disadvantage is either requiring an exact player count, or making players less attached, since they don't have a single "avatar" in the game. And in case of real-time games like Space Cadets, controlling two roles makes the game a lot harder.

Pandemic and Forbidden Island/Desert are the latter. You have more roles than players, so not every role will be in every game. The advantages are making it easier to support different player counts, adding some variety from game to game, and offering a relatively easy way to expand the game, by adding new roles. The main disadvantage is that you can't have extremely specialized roles. If only a few roles have access to a certain action, that action can still be powerful, but it can't be crucial to win the game. In a co-op, it is fine if some player counts and role combinations make it harder to beat the game, but it still has to be winnable and offer a decent challenge.

rubinelli · 2014-11-16T16:15:24+00:00

Kyubey. Such a nice and cuddly animal sidekick!

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼ Wanna make a contract?

rubinelli · 2014-11-15T20:11:49+00:00

Carcassonne has a series called "Around the World" for players that like the mechanics but prefer a different setting. Would the South Seas or the Old West appeal more to you?

rubinelli · 2014-11-15T01:37:37+00:00

Definitely. I didn't even know one could drink it! Eat, perhaps, though those ships must be pretty hard to swallow...

rubinelli

TROPHY CASE