Explore a Futuristic Kowloon Walled City as a Cat?!

After reading Jim Butcher's latest book, The Aeronaut's Windlass, I found myself confused by some of the public book reviews. I saw many references to "giant talking cats" popping up from time to time. It's true there are cats in the book. It is also true, to a certain extent, that they talk. The thing is, they aren't "giant" cats and they don't "talk" in any way that is particularly fantastic. In Butcher's book, the "fantastic" thing isn't that cats can talk, rather the fantasy element is that some humans can speak cat. In our own "non-fantastic" world, grown cats only seem to meow in order to communicate with humans. They will, in fact, modify their meows to create a subtle cat to human interactions that simulate language, but we humans seem to be pretty dim when it comes to understanding what cats are trying to say. Some of us are, that is.

What really impressed me was Butcher's ability to write about cats without overly anthropomorphizing them, though there are Warrior Born who go a little in that direction. He was so successful in his writing that he created an interest I didn't know I had, an interest in playing a cat based adventure game on the computer or console. It looks like game designers Koola and Viv are working on a project that will perfectly scratch this its. They are working on a third-person adventure game where you play as a cat exploring a terrain based on Kowloon Walled City. I don't think I could ask for more.

Every Fighting Game Ever Mirrors My Own PVP Experiences

Freddie Wong's video Every Fighting Game Ever is an amusing 1 minute and 42 second short film that demonstrates why I'm not the biggest fan of PVP video games...well this and the fact that I'm genuinely terrible at them.

Siri as D&D Dungeon Master

As might be guessed Siri is a "killer DM." I think she ran a Call of Cthulhu adventure for me at an old DundraCon (it's in Apple's backyard).  On a serious note, check out the copy of Gary Gygax's ROLE PLAYING MASTERY on the table. That is a significant easter egg, especially given the kind of DM Siri turns out to be.

 

And yes, I own a copy of ROLE PLAYING MASTERY. I also have a copy of MASTER OF THE GAME.

A Glimpse at the Downton Abbey SNES Game

To this day I'm still a big fan of the old style "adventure" games where your avatar is sent on a variety of often meaningless quests in order to complete a grand narrative. Every now and then, I'll reinstall one on my PC or download an updated version for my smart phone. They are quite fun.

Someone took the time to imagine what one of these games would look like if it were based on the popular brit-soap Downton Abbey.  The show is quite wonderful, and I think I'd like this game as well.

Now if only I could find an Eric Goldberg/Greg Costikyan designed "Paragraph Based" boardgame version of Downton Abbey to go along with my old Star Trek one and my copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights.

And before you ask, the answer is yes. I do own a copy of SPI's ill fated Dallas roleplaying game. Would you like to come over an play a game some time? We could film it and submit it to Geek and Sundry.

David Lo Pan Style: Big Trouble in Little China meets PSY

As many of you know, I am of the opinion that John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China may well be the best film ever made.  Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you know the way that some Gen-Xers constantly reference Star Wars or Star Trek in conversation?  I'm that way with BTiLC.  I lost count of how many times I have watched the film a decade ago.

The film combines everything I love from Western genre film, Shaw Brothers over the top acting, and post-Tsui Hark Hong Kong cinematography and action.  In short, it is all things great about film that aren't in Singin' in the Rain.

BTiLC doesn't need a remake, but it does need more awesome fan creations like this.  If only Dennis Dun managed a cameo in the video.

If you don't like this video, you must be monumentally naive or already living in the Hell of Lacking a Sense of Style or Humor.  What can I say?  The Chinese have a lot of hells.

Nintendo and Why I Love Minor League Baseball

Bull Durham is one of the best baseball films ever made.  It's one of the classics like Major League, Bang the Drum Slowly, For the Love of the Game, Fear Strikes Out, and Pride of the Yankees (not a complete list by any means).  One of the things that separates it from those other films is that it is a story about Minor League baseball players who play for the Durham Bulls.  The Bulls are currently Tampa Bay's Triple A affiliate, but were an Atlanta Braves Single-A team at the time of the film.  The film's protagonist "Crash" Davis is a long time minor league veteran who had been playing AAA and is sent down to Single-A to season a pitching phenom.

"Crash" may be the protagonist, but the Minor Leagues are the spotlight character of the film.  If you follow the background dialogue, you get to hear about many of the unique events and promotions that happen in the minors.  Taco nights, Little League Nights, "Clowns of Baseball," hot dog eating contests, and a lot of other classic small town activities abound in their mentions.  Add to that baseball that is played at a level much better than most of us ever played the game, but clumsy in comparison to the play in "the show" and you have a perfect demonstration of why baseball continues to capture the American imagination.  Yes, home runs in the Majors and phenoms like Mike Trout are awe inspiring to watch, but games played by the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes which open with FUNTAINMENT are Americana at its best.  They are filled with hope, inspiration, and the delusion that if we'd only listened to our High School coaches a little more often, that we too might have a fun career.  As Willie Stargell said,  "It's supposed to be fun, the man says 'Play Ball' not 'Work Ball' you know.

And fun is what it looks like the players of the Dunedin Blue Jays are having.  They recently qualified for the playoffs, and have taken this as an opportunity to create a unique season highlight video.  They have created a fictional Nintendo Entertainment System baseball game that depicts their recent accomplishment.  The video is a good deal of fun, and shows once more why I love Minor League Baseball.

It brings back memories of the 8-Bit version of the infamous Bill Buckner World Series moment.

What Every 40k Geek Needs: Warhammer 40k Lore in About a Minute

The Warhammer Universe is a rich environment that has provided millions of gamers with countless hours of entertainment.  The setting has been used as the background for role playing games, miniatures war games, board games, card games, video games, and a quite entertaining animated film written by Dan Abnett.  But a rich environment can be intimidating to neophytes.

For those of you wanting to know what this whole 40k thing is about, some wonderful chaps have created Warhammer 40k Lore in About a Minute.  Remember...in the Grim Dark Future of the 41st Millennium there is Only War.

First a D&D Song, Now One Inspired by "The Jerk"

Allie Goertz's latest song is a love song inspired by Steve Martin's classic comic film The Jerk.  As it uses quotes from the film, it's got some amusing moments and is a great listen.  All that's missing is an Opti-Grab on her glasses.

Another Gaming Music Video

Fightin' Dragons in My Mind -- Roll a D6

I'm thinking about adding this to my mp3 player playlists.

Rebecca "Black" Metal -- It's Friday

A friend of mine wondered -- rhetorically -- how long it would take for mash ups of Rebecca Black's new song "Friday" to work their way to the net. My answer was that they had probably already happened, but that none had become viral yet. So I did a quick check this morning to see what was out there, and of that what was the most "out there." I came across this bit of mindshattering contrasts. It's the Rebecca Black song sung as if it were a death metal tune. The video remains the same, but the pulse pounding drums, gravely vocals, and wailing guitars are different.

What I found most amusing were those moments where the song and the video lined up in intriguing ways. There are are a couple of times during the video where it almost seems like it really is an ironic death metal video.

Light Grammatical Amusement for Your Friday Pleasure

David Mitchell, on behalf of the Queen's English, conveys a small grammatical lesson to Americans. Quite funny and quite useful.

You Got Rick Astley in My DOOM!

What If 16-bit Fantasy Games Were Designed by Bitter Divorcees?

The good folks over at SF Signal posted this amusing video featuring a more cynical view of what the solution to a side scrolling 16-bit fantasy adventure might be. In the video our intrepid hero rescues the princess, but then gets more than he bargained for as the material demands of the princess continually increase. One can imagine that this is a video game level that Oscar or Felix (of the play/movie/tv series The Odd Couple might design). Though the humor is cynical and staid, the video has its charms because one can actually imagine a game designer going to great lengths to create "meaningful" relationship tasks and goals within a video game experience. Such games may already exist.

I would be lying if I didn't say that the sequence where the video's protagonist goes to work for "the man" doing a task of physical labor, in order to pay for a wedding ring for his princess, didn't remind me of Peter Molyneaux's efforts at verisimilitude in Fable II. Molyneaux's game features complex systems for relationships (including financial support/gifts), real estate, and manual labor. In fact, I often joke that the amount of time I spent playing the "Blacksmithing" mini-game in order to earn money to purchase businesses/houses essentially transformed the game into a game of Blacksmith Hero. It was great fun to watch my labor equate to property ownership, which itself equated to revenue, though it wasn't fun of the combat/conflict variety. These tasks made my Fable II experience feel somehow more real. After all, even heroes have day jobs.

Even pen and paper roleplaying games sometimes offer their equivalents of the Blacksmith Hero experience. D&D 3.5's magic item construction system was a much needed rules set for the game, but the crafting rules could be utilized in a number of ways. One could merely have the players roll the skill checks and do the math, but one could also role play out the forging/crafting experience between the rolls. The 2nd Edition AD&D setting Birthright, one of my favorite settings, had sub-games devoted to govern the kingdoms and large scale battles. These sub-games were the setting's greatest strength and its greatest flaw. Superhero 2044 is essentially a pen and paper simulation of the "patrol" patterns of the superheroes being played by the characters. DC Heroes has gadget construction rules that can be roleplayed, and included recommendations for incorporating character's mundane -- but still meaningful -- sub-plots into the campaign. Marvel Superheroes rewarded characters for keeping up with their mundane lives while combating cosmic calamities.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Do mundane mini-games add realism to a fantasy video game? Do they detract from the experience?

Dungeons and Dragons Revealed -- Why I Wish You Tube Had Been Around During the 80s

Can you imagine what all those Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons types would have done and said if they saw this video representation of a Dungeons and Dragons gaming experience?



Key "easter egg" points for me were:

1) The map from the Dungeons and Dragons black boxed set.
2) Miniatures from the Dragon Strike introductory roleplaying set.
3) Miniatures and "doors" from the classic Heroquest game.
4) The Jack Black moment.
5) The Blair Witch moment.
6) The use of Boccob.

Super Mario vs. Phoenix Wright -- Which is the better Queen video?

Both videos are pure awesome, but which is "awesomer?" You be the judge.



Super Mario video from GoNintendo.


Phoenix Wright video from Joystiq.

Introducing "The Most Medieval Man in the World"

Picking up on a sometimes entertaining ad campaign about "The Most Interesting Man in the World," Professor Richard Scott Nokes of Troy University is running a series of parody commercials entitled "The Most Medieval Man in the World." So far he has posted the first two mockumercials featuring Professor Nokes superheroic alter ego Professor Awesome, PhD. Like the taglines in the Most Interesting Man campaign, the individual quotes are hit and miss -- but the overall effect is quite funny. On an aesthetic note, one wishes that Professor Awesome had used a hand held digital video camera for the live action sequence. Apparently the Most Medieval Man in the World also owns the Most Medieval Digital Camera in the World. The grainy, skippy, blurriness, of the live action ending diminishes a very entertaining idea.

As an aside, I'm still waiting for the tagline, "The D&D Module the Temple of Elemental Evil is based on what happened during one of his 6 week Mead drinking binges."

Ah, Sweet Nostalgia.

I want my...I want my...I want my YouTv...

I remember the early days of Music Television. You remember right? Back when they still played music and videos. One of my favorite songs was the Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star." Watch the above video and you might see why.

Thanks to Jackie Danicki for pointing this one out.

Calls for Cthulhu Makes for Mind Shattering Tuesday Goodness

I am pretty sure that all of you know all about "Ask a Ninja," so I'm not going to write about him today. What I am going to write about is the wonderful cheerful goodness that is Calls for Cthulhu.

Are you in need of advice from someone, or something, that can provide you with down to earth common sense solutions to your problems? Sure, we all are. A lot of people ask Amy Alkon, the Advice Goddess, and she fills that role fairly well. But why ask advice from someone who claims to be a goddess when you can ask a real god while he lies sleeping in the sunken island of Ryleh?

That's right you can ask Cthulhu for solutions to your trivial day to day problems. True, he will eventually shatter all our minds and devour our souls, but he wants to make sure our minds and bodies are sound until the stars are aligned.

The Housing Market as a Roller Coaster Ride.

The following video represents home value costs, adjusted for inflation, for the past hundred plus years as a roller coaster ride. Those of you thinking of buying now "while the market is good" might want to look at the past first. As for me, I can't wait until this crest drops.

The roller coaster was based on this graph: