Okay…. From the Wonderland blog: While we’re debating the use of English pronouns in RPG books, we find that Ubisoft have just created a range of games for the Nintendo:DS which consist of shopping, fashion, animals and babies. The world is imbalanced, side-loaded, lurching: we need more female policemen, actually – aren’t Ubisoft watching Life…
Jame’s Herbert’s ’48. A review.
I recently read James Herbert’s ’48 which is a post-World War II version of a few post-apocalyptic stories. It was essentially “28 Days Later” or “Night of the Comet” but with Nazis. It read like a muh shorter ‘lite’ version of Stephen King’s “The Stand”. It’s Dawn of the Dead with a swastika. Sure –…
Natural Wonders
The Giant’s Causeway is one of the most astounding natural formations in Northern Ireland. This got me thinking about the representations of natural wonders in gaming. In the Aurore Sourcebook for 2300AD, they described a tidal flood plain which was so flat that the tides, sped by the influence of the large lunar satellite on…
A Guide to Britain, for Americans.
It’s funny 🙂 You will find British people very polite. Here are some of our quaint phrases; if you learn them before visiting Britain, you will be able to understand us much better, and soon will be talking “like a native”! Phrase – Meaning Efforf – Would you like to join me? Bleadenyanx – I’m…
Being moody sucks.
I’ve been a grumpy bastard all day and the kids just turned what was already going to be unpleasant for me into something hellish and I think I took my mood out on everyone. Being moody sucks. Sorry to everyone.
More on Sexism
This time it seems to center around the use of the English language (which does not have a gender neutral pronoun). Is it possible to write gender-neutral (as opposed to say balanced) text and still entertain? Yes. But if the audience is spending more time counting the number of times you used he and she…
Crucible Design’s Games on Sale at Key20.
After what seems an age, the first roleplaying games I wrote are on sale again at Key20 SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO The 23rd Letter ( RPG.net Review ) Zombi: The Earth Won’t Hold The Dead ( Review by Jeff Rients ) I’ve linked to reviews before but they’re easily searchable anyway.
What other cultures can we suppress?
A disturbing development: The fashion chain Zara has withdrawn a handbag from its stores after a customer pointed out that the design featured swastikas. .. As well as being the Nazi symbol, the swastika is also a religious symbol for Hindus and Buddhists. What disturbs me about this is that if the Nazis had adopted,…
He said, do you speaka my language? (Foreign RPGs)
I’ve bought a few foreign language games in the past – a few French games (Humanydyne, Vermine, In Nomine Satanis, Te Deum Pour Un Massacre, Apocrypha) , a couple of German games (Das Schwarze Auge, Space Gothic) and my friend Paul gifted me with a copy of Ars Magica in Russian a few years ago….
I haven’t eaten anything since later this afternoon.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Time Killers game – mostly about whether or not there is room for ANOTHER time travel game out there. One of the best time travel games I’ve ever read was Continuum (1999) which really went to town on background and gave special focus to making sure you fulfill…
I tolerate this century but I don’t enjoy it.
Jim passed me this link about Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day.. Now imagine mixing this with KILLER and I think you’d have a bundle of fun with your time-travelling cohorts. Then again, there’s always >a href=”http://www.johntitor.com/”>this guy.
An update and also “Under Development”
These are the games I’m currently working on – as in trying to spend an hour every night writing something, anything. Some nights are more productive than others. I’m only hampered my Black Macbook being pinched by my partner because she has more important stuff to do but hopefully before the end of September that…
CONTROL
Tonight I put together the first eight pages of CONTROL, a game I hope to release in PDF form in just two weeks, time permitting. CONTROL is an espionage game set at the start of the second Cold War, a period of intense emotions which I remember well. The game itself uses the model of…
Proof of the Matrix: The Roger Paradox
To be honest it eludes me…how anyone could hold a baby in their arms and be drunk in by their tiny eyes, heart softened by their tiny fingers closing around your own elephantine digits… ….and then call the wee boy Roger. I never knew any kids called Roger when I was growing up. But I…
Top 10 Roleplaying Games of All Time
Just to confuse matters, these are in alphabetical order but to my mind they represent the absolute cream of the crop when it comes to roleplaying games. Amber – The godchild of Zelazny’s novels, Amber brought us some really innovative methods of determining hierarchy and conflict resolution in a diceless roleplaying system. Re-defining the player…
Racer
For the last forever, Aidan and I were working on a new game. It started out as an idea for a videogame based on racing through courses around the Solar System, such as skimming the rings of Saturn or around an asteroid with an irregular spin. The idea was exciting – at least to us….
Spy games …
Over the last few hours I’ve been watching episodes of ‘The Sandbaggers’ – a Cold War spy thriller TV series which aired in the late 70s and early 80s. Twenty episodes were made and though it was not popular at the time, it is one of the few TV shows I’ve seen with truly intelligent…
Yes. God is as real as the Tooth Fairy.
John L. Morton of the University of Glamorgan wrote into the Guardian on July 21st with a rather excellent letter. It finishes with the following line. So, biblical fundamentalism only makes one testable prediction, and it’s wrong. I guess this is the whole point. We’re meant to take everything on faith…
SeaFarers: TheePort
Characters are from the fishing port of Theeport located on the western coast the country. The town has nearly 1000 people within it’s area of influence – 10 miles radius from the dockstone – a large dolmen at the main dock which historically was used to secure longboats. The weather is mediterranean so characters wear…
SeaFarers: Characters
Our beginning characters in SeaFarers are going to be inhabitants of the fishing port of Theeport which lies on the West coast of a large country. The Narrator has decreed that we should all know each other to start, come from Theeport and know a little about boats or the sea. I use the term…