{"id":591,"date":"2009-05-08T13:14:08","date_gmt":"2009-05-08T13:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2009\/05\/08\/evolving-doom\/"},"modified":"2009-05-08T13:14:08","modified_gmt":"2009-05-08T13:14:08","slug":"evolving-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2009\/05\/08\/evolving-doom\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolving Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been reading for a while, you may remember the Finger of Doom<\/em>. If not, here\u2019s a quick refresher.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, the game was called Slow Poke<\/em>. It was something I started, and it was a really bad idea. You can read about it here<\/a>. Some time after that, the combination of Slow Poke<\/em> and an angry wife inspired the creation of Finger of Doom<\/em>. You can read about that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite our best efforts, Finger of Doom<\/em> continued to be a part of our life (click here for an example<\/a>), and eventually more variations were spawned (more examples<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now, almost two years after Slow Poke<\/em> first sprang into existence, we\u2019ve finally hit on a version of the game that works. Here are the rules:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Prior to poking someone, you must hold up your finger and say \u201cFinger of Doom\u201d. You can\u2019t poke before finishing the word \u201cDoom\u201d.\u00a0 This gives the target a chance to run away or parry.<\/li>\n
  2. When poked, you must make the \u201cdead\u00a0 face\u201d. To make the dead face, close your eyes, tilt your head sideways, and let your tongue loll out of your mouth – so you look like you\u2019re dead. This is your acknowledgement that you\u2019ve been doomed.<\/li>\n
  3. Poking arms doesn\u2019t count. Bellies are best.<\/li>\n
  4. Once poked, you are\u00a0free of doom from that person. Once you\u2019ve been doomed by someone, you can\u2019t be doomed again. This means that in a three person game, each person can only be doomed twice and then the game is over.<\/li>\n
  5. The game can be started at any time anywhere by anyone, with two exceptions. First, it cannot be started within thirty minutes of the previous game. Second, it cannot be started when momma is looking.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Why am I telling you all this? What does this have to do with the kids? Well, it depends on who you are.<\/p>\n

      \n
    • If you\u2019re a mom, this is a\u00a0cautionary tale. Avoid poking games at all costs. There\u2019s no way to get rid of them once they start.<\/li>\n
    • If you\u2019re a dad, this is an instructional memo. Give this game a try. It\u2019s actually pretty fun.<\/li>\n
    • If you\u2019re into game design, it\u2019s an interesting little tale of how a game can evolve, particularly when there are a group of people involved. Had I sat down to create a poking game, I probably would not have come up with something as effective as this. It\u2019s fair, funny, quick, and it has safeguards built in to prevent people from ganging up on each other.<\/li>\n
    • If you actually know my kids, this is a warning. If you hear the words \u201cFinger of Doom\u201d look around. You are probably about to be poked. If you get poked, make a dead face. That way you won\u2019t be poked again.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      If you\u2019ve been reading for a while, you may remember the Finger of Doom. If not, here\u2019s a quick refresher. In the beginning, the game was called Slow Poke. It was something I started, and it was a really bad idea. You can read about it here. Some time after that, the combination of Slow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daddytales-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-9x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}