Slaying enemies is hard! Let’s go shopping!
Slaying enemies is hard! Let’s go shopping!
Hasbro’s showing something at Toy Fair that they are openly calling a roleplaying game for pre-teenage girls. Star Sisters didn’t teach them a lesson, apparently. It’s called Dreamlife, and it seems to be some sort of self-contained electronic thingie. I’m actually really intrigued by this. I’m not sure whether it’ll be a huge success due to its essentially being Animal Crossing, a huge failure due to its essentially being Animal Crossing… or a huge failure due to its not essentially being The Sims.
Let me explain what I think the difference is. In D&D, your character accumulates stuff – XP and items – in order to become a bigger badass than anyone else. In The Sims, as in Animal Crossing, you still have to accumulate stuff, but the why of it is different – you’re doing it to have more choices. Your growth aspiration isn’t upward, but outward. So, The Sims and its near-analogues like AC are not saliently competitive but still give you something to strive for, and I think that’s why The Sims is the best-selling PC game of all time. It’s among the only video games out there that are really more dollhouse than D&D. Whether Dreamlife embodies this distinction will be interesting to watch.
Anyway – they are also apparently showing a Candyland DVD game that makes your living room into the board. I’d joke about how the D&D Scourge of Whatever DVD should have made your apartment into the Caves of Chaos, or about that Candyland LARP I wanted to run once that involved doing shots when you lost rock-paper-scissors… but I think maybe the confluence of this kind of game with LARPs could really be fruitful. I’m not quite sure how yet.
I know I’ll regret opening comments on this, but ehh.
Browse the
My apartment already is the Caves of Chaos according to my girlfriend. (just wanted to pre-empt that joke)
I’m entertained by the thought of the Codename: Kids Next Door TCG Hasbro plans for a Summer release. My daughter watches the show a lot (so I have an easy excuse :-> ). The Evil Grown-Ups trying to enslave the Kids that created them; the secret KND organization hiding in giant treehouses, powered by two-by-four technology; and of course, the classic struggle to avoid getting girl/boy cooties.
Yeah, I’ve definitely watched too many episodes.
I am very very interested to see how they spin all of this to LGS’s at GAMA next month. Code Name Kid’s next door is entertaining, I watch it with my son as well…I dunno if it is a big enough property to have enough traction for a CCG, but Hasbro is sure trying to make the “next big kids CCG” and have so far been missing. Interesting stuff.
You mean “at GTS next month”. =P
GAMA is the organization…GTS is the show…
(Wingnut ducks)
yeah, whatever…..
I tend to refer to it as GAMA only because I have been to REAL trade shows
When Chris Attacks!
You know, it’s interesting that Attacktix isn’t on that release anywhere.
Hmmm, that is interesting…..
In other thoughts, I wonder how many other CCGs I will see at “the show” this year? Cyberpunk was trying _hard_ to get noticed last year, but didn’t seem to go anywhere. Anyway, back on track…enough thread nabbing….