Lusipurr, Ethos, and SiliconNooB advance resolutely into the unknown.
Lusipurr, Ethos, SiliconNooB, Blitzmage, and Iliya are momentarily buoyed by report of English Cricket victories, surpassing all expectations. Unfortunately, a run of depressing news is more than enough to misdirect the panelists into the doldrums.
DiceAdmiralInfo Blast Plunges to the Crushing Depths
This week’s panel
Ethos
Silicon Noob
Blitzmage
Iliya
Lusipurr
Donators
Cumulative total record holder: Imitanis
Single Donation record holder: Imitanis
Donators eligible for drawing:
Greg H.
John V.
Matthew D.
John M.
Brett W.
Aram Z.
Peter V.
Billy B.
Les E.
Martin B.
Jeremy V.
Simon H.
Feature: Select-A-Misery
Voting Closed! Reviews incoming!
Hype and Go Seek
“As the epic story unfolds, a band of warriors blessed with mystical powers will fight in large scale battles against the evil that controls the land and explore parallel worlds!”
This sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I have played this game though.
Tomb Raider exclusive
I think that we may end up with an industry where the only actual exclusives are those developed by first party companies. It just doesn’t make financial sense for most companies to limit their sales without equivalent compensation that the console makers increasingly cannot provide.
Microsoft Selling XBox To Warner Brothers?
Pokemon Card Game coming to iPad
I remember having a ton of fun with the original Pokemon TCG video game on gameboy. It was a great way to level the field. Every player had access to every card. I’d probably be interested if I had an iOS device.
Woahhhh The halfway point!
Ubisoft Pledges to take PC More seriously
Imitanis Literature Corner
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Lusi’s voice for Milo is the same as his voice for Candide. I really enjoyed the other voices though, especially the Lethargarians.
Imitanis Gaming Moment
Still no D&D this week (sorry). My friends and I have a tradition of playing D&D in line at PAX Prime which is in a couple of weeks. The session lasts the entire weekend, so I expect that I’ll have some stories from that if not sooner. I’m very much looking forward to returning the lawful-evil bureaucratic dystopia setting that I created for our PAX adventures. I call it EverDusk and the world is ruled over by a massive corporation that seeks to do evil through over-organization and crushing paperwork. One of the PCs is an accountant and the other is a dock worker when not doing evil at nights. At the end of the last adventure I told one of the PCs that he had obtained a bag of holding full of astral diamonds (the most valuable piece of currency), so I’m looking forward to exploring how the economy has reacted to his immense wealth: $4 Quadrillion gold pieces IIRC.
I did play R3D N*V3MB3R. And while I hate the spelling of the name the game is pretty amusing. The main idea is that the players are gnomes trapped aboard the eponymous Red November, a failing submarine filled with broken hatches, flooded or flaming compartments and various other disasters waiting to befall the crew. On a players turn they may move between as many compartments as they want and take a single action like fighting a fire or pumping a compartment. What makes the game difficult is that everything a player can do (such as opening a hatch or attempting to fix a problem) takes time. This is both good and bad as the goal is to get all surviving (yes, players may be killed by flood-waters, fire, running out of air, or the Kraken) to the end of the time track. Taking an action is simple, you choose to spend X(1-10) minutes on the task, then roll a ten sided die. If you match or are lower on the die than X then you succeed at the task. So why not just choose 10 every time? Well, every time that your time marker passes a star on the time track, something bad happens like a fire starting or a hatch breaking. Lucky for you, there are items that can give you bonuses on these checks to help you spend less time. The best of said items is probably Grog. Grog gives you a +3 to any check and allows you to enter rooms that are on fire. The problem with this is that your gnome has a pretty good chance of passing out and loosing 10 minutes from being drunk.
In the game we played one gnome went to fix our engines which were threatening to plunge us to the crushing depths. While he stood in the engine room both hatches leading out broke and the room flooded, drowning him with no chance for escape. The funniest thing about this is that he had one of only 2 Aqualungs (Scuba Suits) in the game, but the rules only allow you to use that item to exit the sub, and not to survive high water. We ended up being destroyed by the problem that he died trying to save us from (the reverse-Spock if you will).
One interesting mechanic is that the Aqualung item allows a player to abandon ship, leaving the other players behind. If you do this, your win condition is reversed and you only win if the other players all die. We didn’t get to try that out, but it sounds like something I’d totally do given the option to use the Aqualung to fight the Kraken or to leave the other suckers behind.
The game is a little math-y but it is a pretty good time if you can get into the spirit of the game. Thumbs up. Recommended for people who don’t take their games too seriously. Very similar to Space Alert now that I think about it, just substitute Destroyers for Kraken, busted elevators for broken hatches and malfunctioning missiles for… the same.
Playthrough: Pokemon X&Y was also a release time spin-off.
Hiring: You want 7 staff members? Do you even have 7 non-employed readers? Where do you expect these people to come from?
Ratings: I’d rate but I don’t have iTunes and won’t be getting it.
@Lusi, I changed it up this week. Are Swedish Vallhunds acceptable?
Lusipurr@DiceLieutenantCommander:
I think that we may end up with an industry where the only actual exclusives are those developed by first party companies. It just doesn’t make financial sense for most companies to limit their sales without equivalent compensation that the console makers increasingly cannot provide.
GOD I HOPE SO.
Lusi’s voice for Milo is the same as his voice for Candide. I really enjoyed the other voices though, especially the Lethargarians.
Slightly lower in pitch and slower. It’s hard to figure out how Milo should sound, because he’s (very deliberately) a sort of empty, non-entity, meant to be occupied by the reader. I would use my own voice… but I don’t have one!
Still no D&D this week
UNACCEPTABIBBLE
lawful-evil bureaucratic dystopia setting
It’s not roleplaying if you use the Real World as your setting.
I did play R3D N*V3MB3R
No.
And while I hate the spelling of the name
No.
the game is pretty amusing.
No.
You want 7 staff members? Do you even have 7 non-employed readers? Where do you expect these people to come from?
Hell if I know. But I want 7 new staff members. And what Lusi wants, Lusi gets! Eventually. Sometimes. If conditions are favourable.
Are Swedish Vallhunds acceptable?
No.
00AstalThe answer for the Hype and go seek is Suikoden Tierkreis
LusipurrDid you guess, or look it up? Because it looks like you looked it up.
00AstalI own the game in my closet
00Astalso i did some digging on the games i have that had parallel worlds
LusipurrNaughty! You should be using your memory!
Luckily, this won’t be a problem next week . . . (gya ha ha)
00Astalhaha. If any constellation my first guess was Chrono Cross but i new it couldn’t be that easy.
LusipurrOn the up-side, we have learned that Suikoden Tierkreis is in your closet where it belongs.
Ethan 'Ethos' PipherHey, I did guess that it was a Suikoden game! Do I get a prize? Will it be something that involves a swift kick in the pants? I will not expect that!
DiceAdmiral@Lusi:
I’ve been pulling from
http://www.reddit.com/r/corgi/ and
http://www.reddit.com/r/swedishvallhund/
Maybe you can find editing resources from?
http://www.reddit.com/r/cat
Lusipurr@DiceLieutenantCommander: Noooooooooooooope! I’m not touching Reddit.
KiskaiProjectI never read Phantom Tollbooth because my sister liked it. As a boy that was good indication something was terrible. Now I see I missed out. Looking forward to your reading.
