Over the last couple of weeks, I have had two very different encounters with the world’s greatest animated family. With it being Hallowe’en (side note: I still spell Hallowe’en with the apostrophe. I’m a purist), I allowed myself to look past my increasing apathy towards the Simpsons, and give my favorite yellow characters (except That Yellow Bastard, from Sin City), another try and check out the latest Hallowe’en “Treehouse of Horror,” episode.
Consequently, while preparing for another board-game broo-ha-ha with some of my local besties, I grabbed The Simpsons’ Clue, because one of our group has Clue on the short list of games she will actually play. Besides, since it’s the Simpson’s version of a classic board game, it’s inherently fun, right? I just didn’t realize how much more I’d enjoy the board game than the show.
This past week we were able to push out a pretty nice selection of content for you all. We’ve got some cool stuff being worked on behind-the-scenes right now. Some of it will be pushed out next week and some later this month, but I promise, it’ll be worth that wait! Hope you guys and gals are having a great, geek-fueled weekend. Let’s take a look at the week that was:
On Friday I intended to post something cool, but then Skyrim was released and well, that’s what I did instead. You’ll here all about it next week on our next podcast!
For our random old post this week we’re going all the way back to my review of The Human Centipede.
The Dungeons and Dragons boardgames occupy an interesting space in the tabletop world. Conquest of Nerath is a Risk-inspired war game played out in the fantasy world. The others are inspired by 4th Edition DnD rules, but with all the roleplaying stripped away and able to run without a DM. What that means is that if you’re looking for a familiar ruleset and just want to wreck on some baddies and crawl through some dungeons this is right up your alley. With randomized dungeons and a bunch of different scenarios it’s a lock that it’ll play out different each time you have a go at it. This is the 3rd game with this current system and doesn’t really change much rules wise, it’s more a change in the scenery.
First we had Castle Ravenloft which had enemies, tiles and scenarios based on that gothic horror game world from 2nd Edition DnD, complete with a chance to fight Count Strahd himself. Next up was Wrath of Ashardalon and that was a more classic world with the big baddie being the titular Dragon. Here the game is based around the books starring Drizzt Do’urden, which means ventures to the Underdark, and multiple enemies from his past come out to fight.
The director of “In Time,” Andrew Niccol, tends to make movies that focus on technology and how a parallel society uses that technology to build and control the world around them. “In Time” is a movie about a world where time is traded and earned like currency. Genetic engineering has allowed people to live forever by stopping the body from developing past the age of twenty-five, but people are now born with a green, glowing digital clock on their arm that counts down how much money or time they have left. Once they reach age twenty-five they have one year to start earning more time by going to work, stealing, etc. If their clock counts down to zero, they die.
You probably didn’t realize it since you in such a hurry to get to playing Uncharted 3, but that menu screen sure would make a kick ass wallpaper! Here ya go, in 1920X1080. The perfect backdrop for whatever adventurous adventures you have in store! Just click the image below to load the full size one!
It’s been awhile since we’ve done a Kickstarter Spotlight here at Perpetual Geek Machine, but that doesn’t mean we’ve ever stopped constantly scanning the site for cool and interesting projects. We’re just super picky about what we want to take the time to tell you all about. I think we’ve found a pretty great one in Z-Ward, a survival horror game with a twist.
It’s a moderated game like a Werewolf or Dungeons and Dragons where one person guides the rest of the players through the adventure, but with a text adventure slant. Think Zork but in the real world. So just like in the text adventure games of old on the PC clear statements of action are required and rewards thinking literal. So having a player say something like “I’d like to take my time” might elicit a response like “There’s no time here.” Anyone over 30 that played those games when they were younger can tell you that sometimes solving a puzzle meant figuring out not just the solution but how to phrase it so the computer could understand it. Moderator as text parser.
We took up a few minutes of designer Jared Sorensen’s time to get him to explain the system and answer a few questions about his game and his experiences with Kickstarter. (more…)
What a fine week on Perpetual Geek Machine. New board game reviews, new podcast and some new videos! We’re going to try and do more of those moving forward so we hope you all like them.
Remember the great Konami vehicle game Jackal? The folks over at Avalanche Studios certainly do and they’ve taken their engine for Just Cause 2 and created a spiritual successor to that 8 bit classic. Dan, friend of the site Scott Rising and I met up online to run through one of the missions. The game is an absolute blast so be sure to check out what you can expect in the video below:
Over the last couple of weeks, I have had two very different encounters with the world’s greatest animated family. With it being Hallowe’en (side note: I still spell Hallowe’en with the apostrophe. I’m a purist), I allowed myself to look past my increasing apathy towards the Simpsons, and give my favorite yellow characters (except That Yellow Bastard, from Sin City), another try and check out the latest Hallowe’en “Treehouse of Horror,” episode. 
This past week we were able to push out a pretty nice selection of content for you all. We’ve got some cool stuff being worked on behind-the-scenes right now. Some of it will be pushed out next week and some later this month, but I promise, it’ll be worth that wait! Hope you guys and gals are having a great, geek-fueled weekend. Let’s take a look at the week that was:
