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Thursday, August 31, 2006
Audio report: coming down from Gen Con ‘06
Chris and Mike got out to Gen Con Indy this year, as you’ve already seen from the set of audio interviews. But what did they really think? We sat down a few days back and discussed everything that came to mind, rational thought or not, which resulted in our Gen Con ‘06 impressions show. As always, tremble in fear.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
OMG Wizards pre-announces Mike’s dream game
OMG OMG OMG. “‘The Goblin Game’ is a Web-based game that can be played using any standard Web browser (EG: Internet Explorer or Firefox) that supports the Flash plug-in. […] This is a competitive strategy game not unlike a board game. No collecting is involved, although there is a great deal of depth to the game and there are many different ways to play it and win. […] Rather than a monthly fee, Wizards plans to require a one- time fee to join in or start a new game. Each game should last from 2 to 3 months.”
Monday, August 28, 2006
Audio Report: three story gaming interviews from Gen Con, with odd introductions
Please don’t let my little found sounds distract you from the gravity and awesomeness of our talks with Ben Lehman of Polaris, Clinton R. Nixon and Emily Care Boss of The Shadow of Yesterday and Breaking the Ice respectively, and Jonathan Walton of Push. We did get audio from some non-story-gamey stuff, but I wanted to deliver these as a triple threat. Let us know what you think below.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Settlers, Carcassonne, other board games head for Xbox Live Arcade
Via Penny Arcade, the story: Microsoft is to offer some heavy hitters of Eurogaming on the paid-downloads Xbox Live Arcade service by the end of the year. The only title announced thus far besides the big two is Alhambra, but speculation is of course running where it always runs: rampant. Also, I have no Xbox and I must scream. I wonder if these are 360 only or backward-compatible.
Monday, August 21, 2006
OgreCave review: Faery’s Tale
I’d hoped to post this last Friday, but an eye appointment and my resulting dilated pupils made for rather poor typing skills. So now we have Brian “Kuma” Hollenbeck’s look at Faery’s Tale by Firefly Games. Have a read, and see what makes this versatile-yet-child-friendly RPG tick, or look over some of our other reviews.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
A step beyond making scene selections
I’m surprised our gamebook specialist Demian never posted about this, but then again, he’s adjusting to being a newlywed (congrats, man!): the first Choose Your Own Adventure animated DVD. This thing is being pushed hard - I keep running into online ads and TV commercials for The Abominable Snowman, which is based one of the classic interactive books. In fact, the big marketing push for the DVD has encouraged big bookstore chains like Barnes & Noble to stock up on Choose Your Own Adventure books, introducing them to a new generation of gamebook players. Now, if we can just get the Lone Wolf books stocked right next to them, we can convert more youth into the fine, upstanding gamers of tomorrow.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Perplex City board game in September
Finally found the info on this: Perplex City: The Board Game will feature fairly simple puzzles by PPC standards, Trivial Pursuit-esque gameplay (here’s hoping that play on the board gets a little more fun than that), and a $40-esque price tag according to Funagain. Neat-looking product, but it isn’t clear how it’ll key into the story given that Season 1 is in its final stages. I suppose it doesn’t have to.
Monday, August 14, 2006
“License” no allowed word in Og
Neither is “allowed”, for that matter… or “word”. Anyway, in the Unexpected License Department, Firefly Games has announced an agreement with Wingnut Games to create a new edition of Og, the comedic caveman game with a limited set of words players can use. In today’s press release (see below), Firefly’s Patrick Sweeny describes Og “as an ancestor of the indie game design movement”, an apt description of the funky little RPG that keeps popping up at conventions to rave reviews from participants. Robin Laws will be taking the indie ancestor into its new evolutionary stage, which makes sense, I guess, considering his keyword method of character creation in Issaries’ Hero Wars… I’m reaching, aren’t I? In any case, the new edition of Og is expected sometime next year.
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The only thing cooler than a helicopter is two helicopters: Perplex City in San Francisco
Information concerning the big Perplex City live event in San Francisco this past Saturday is frustratingly scarce on our friend the internet. The perplexcity tag on Flickr has a paltry few photos so far, and even the normally hopping Unfiction forums just have a few dribs and drabs. It looks like it really was a mistake on Mind Candy’s part to schedule this event concurrent with Gen Con… or at least to promote it the way they did. But here’s what I’ve gathered so far.
A few days before the event, the existing link between Earth and Perplex City was severed - we got email to that effect - and the celebration of a new connection was redubbed an emergency rescue mission. Once the event was on, a new website appeared with two progress bars: one for onsite progress towards reestablishing the link, and one for online progress. Online players could help nudge progress forward by answering questions about PXC trivia and other puzzles, as well as simply hitting certain pages a lot. Players on the ground in SF… well, it isn’t clear, but we know they were advised to have transportation ready, so maybe their challenges involved info gathering throughout the city. In the end, the link was established with minutes to spare, and players were rewarded with a video message of congratulations from the cube hunt’s head honcho (obviously posted to Google by someone who can’t spell under pressure). However, players watching the video in SF were interrupted by a phone call from baddies The Third Power (here’s another variation that some got) just before they got buzzed by not one (as in a previous event in London), but two (oooohhhh) black helicopters.
So there’s a lot missing here. I had a couple of friends present but they haven’t reported in yet. Mind Candy might be thinking that documenting their live events incompletely or slowly incentivizes people to show up and participate, but I think the history (short as it is) of ARGs so far shows that not to be the case. You need to make room for a passive audience, especially when your sense of urgency is already a little bit lacking. They will probably get some nice details up on the official site eventually; we’ll let you know when.
(Incidentally, some of the most interesting talks I had at Gen Con concerned the ways in which RPGs and story games could benefit by making more explicit room for a “home audience” that doesn’t participate directly. More on that soon, maybe.)
Sunday, August 13, 2006
ENnies Award 2006 winners announced
As expected, the ENnies Award winners were announced Friday night at Gen Con. Among those taking away the prize were Green Ronin Publishing (Best Game, Best d20/OGL Product - Mutants & Masterminds 2e; Fan’s Choice Best Publisher; multiple others), Paizo Publishing (Best Campaign Setting/Setting Supplement, Best Adventure - The Shackled City Adventure Path; multiple others), and our friends over at Yog-Sothoth.com for Best Fan Site. Click the link for the full list of winners.
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