For the last few months, the lategaming web site has been offline – this has been for a combination of reasons. I wasn’t getting much gaming done I wasn’t getting much writing done I was really busy doing other things (travel, study, work) We caught a bit of malware…..oops But as things are starting to…
Category: Commentary
Current work…writing scripts
For the last few months, on top of travelling and attending a bazillion courses, I’ve been writing. I’ve written five short scripts in the world of THE 23RD LETTER. I’ve written two more in the world of STATUS: REFUGEE. I’ve written one horror script. And I’m looking at writing some scripts based on FRONTIER and…
Where and back again…
It’s been a while since I updated anything here. Partially because of “situation” but also partly because the blog got infected with some malware (the curse of WordPress) and I needed to shut it down. But it’s back now and I’m going to update it a bit more. Lategaming started out as a game journal…
Games Development Seminar – Belfast, 14th Sept
Last chance to register for a games technology development seminar here in Belfast. Wed, 14 September from 10:00 to 12:00 at Radisson Blu, Gasworks, Belfast The speaker is Paul Durrant, Abertay University’s Director of Business Development. He has been instrumental in developing a range of projects to support digital media IP generation, business start-up, incubation,…
Email sent to gaming group
The plan is to have a Plan B game to turn to. I’m happy to run one though you’d have to choose between: Ars Magica (campaigns over years, trouple play, multiple characters – what’s not to like?) Smallville (I’d love to try this out with the Batman legend or maybe Traveller (No ideas here but…
God Willt
Another book arrived in the post that I’d forgotten about. Deus Vult by Mongoose Publishing is essentially playing the bad guys from The Da Vinci Code but back in the Middle Ages. It’s like Ars Magica re-told from the point of view of the Church. It uses a variant of BRP which will please some…
New Haul: from Cromwell to Cthulhu via Mirkwood
Today I got a new haul of stuff. Some of these were PDF bundles so at some point the dead tree version of the book will arrive in the post. These are: Clockwork and Chivalry – clockwork and alchemy in Cromwells England The One Ring – the latest in a long line of RPGs set…
Back again
I’ve been on a holiday-and-work-fueled hiatus. Two weeks driving in France and Spain and then two weeks spent helping people access seed funding for new ventures in “digital” as part of the CIIF programme. The latter has been frustrating because essentially as I am part of the process, I am unable to apply for any…
Christmas Happened. Woot.
Consisting of Houses of the Blooded, Collins Complete DIY Manual, We Are The People We’ve Been Waiting For, Simple Boat Maintenance, Hot War, Cold City, Nameless streets, QIN: The Warring States (plus two supplements) and Aliens and Creatures for DWAITAS.
The Laundry is here
On Thursday I received ‘The Laundry‘ in the post. The announcement came back in March so I was really excited to get the book in the post this week. I have now spent a few hours reading it (all but most of the rules – which is another flavour of BRP, familiar to any CoC…
The Final Frontier. No, really.
Ian Sales writes on his blog: And sometimes those imaginations run a little too free. A lot of science fiction is set in outer space, or on worlds which orbit other stars. Or, indeed, other types of celestial objects, both natural and artificial. In these stories, much of the difficulties associated with space travel are…
Setting Riff: Oa versus Krypton
A thousand years ago, on the planet Krypton, there was a technologically advanced, cruel and nihilistic race which carved a vast stellar empire, subjugating thousands of civilisations under their regime. Only one planet managed to overthrow the grip of the empire, Oa, but their rebellion only served to free their own planet. Their thirst for…
Cold-Blooded Killers
Lizaur on TheRPGSite commented: Well, the vast majority of RPG has leeengty chapters just about how to kill people, so what do you expect my players do? Being a bunch of cold-blooder killer bastards, that’s. The fuckers. Which stands to reason that if you want a game that is violence-free (though not necessarily conflict-free) then…
Digital Games can be Social Experiences
Professor Mark Durkin from the University of Ulster suggested: “For customers, the constant and often simultaneous use of laptop, MP3 player, smart phone and TV, especially by our young people, has serious implications in terms of attention and focus, he says. “Of note is the fact that such stimulating multi-tasking makes the necessary recovery time…
Once, Twice, Three Times a Detective
Dolgion Chuluunbaatar of Gamasutra writes about non-linear adventure games: As I was on vacation, I picked up my sister’s copy of Sherlock Holmes stories, and quickly I got caught up in the really really beautifully narrated and well thought-out plots. As I had my phase of obsessively playing the classic LucasArts adventure games, the very…
Current Inspirations
Portal – for the non-violent nature of it and the neat teleportation physics puzzles. And removing half of the stupid ways to die. And for this. Mirror’s Edge on iPad – for the simple swipe-based mechanics, showing us a new way to do a simple platformer. For showing us how to convert a FPS for…
8 Bit Demakes
This article describes 8 bit de-makes – remaking some of todays popular games in 8 bit and 16 bit forms. Some of them still look amazing such as Little Big Planet and Mirrors Edge. All of them are great but these two – you can see why I like them – they’d work really well…
Runnin and Jumpin genre mash
Earlier this week, we had a meeting of local iOS developers and we segued into a conversation about the development of game ideas ahead of a ‘gamestorming’ event we have planned for next week. We talked about the development of game ideas and there was a look at the Mirror’s Edge game in the context…
I would not have played if…
From Wired: A federal judge is allowing a negligence lawsuit to proceed against the publisher of the online virtual-world game Lineage II, amid allegations that a Hawaii man became so addicted he is “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.” Smallwood…
Sunday afternoons are punctuated with the sounds of war.
Izaak had his Scout 3 training at Games Workshop yesterday and afterwards he decided that he was going to focus on building an army of Chaos Space Marines and that would be his tag in the future. This is not a worrying development at all.