Hey Des Moines What Iffers! Scott here. I think it would be fun to do a whole week of State Fair related What If questions starting on August 6. Think about the entertainment, the attendees, the schedule, the location, the exhibitions, the FOOD, the traditions, and, yes, the butter sculptures. Think up some wild, funny, or thoughtful “What if…” questions about the Iowa State Fair and send them in via whatifdesmoines.com/submit.
DO EET.
Torchlight vs. Torchlight II in numbers. Holy cow.
Will 2012 be remembered as the year of the Click Ass games?
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
Bat Kid
The Dark Knight Rises…to elementary school!
So, just because I haven’t added to my official creative projects page in quite a while, doesn’t mean I haven’t been drawing. If you’ve taken a look at my art page recently, you would see that I have indeed been adding artwork somewhat regularly (if by “regularly” we mean something along the lines of “a minimum of once a month”).
This one was a fun little drawing I did tonight based loosely on a joke between my kids about Batman riding a quote My Little Pony of Pain unquote. It got me thinking about a Bat Kid. Maybe Batman deciding to start fighting crime a bit earlier than his previous origin story suggests. I decided to engage in further attempts at crosshatching as shadow and dark coloring effects, and I’m happier with it than in previous attempts, but still obviously have a lot more to learn.
In any case, more art. Enjoy.
A new game console company is trying to enter the market, and they are doing it in the most splendid way imaginable.
As if it wasn’t already painfully obvious, I fully support this endeavor (not to the tune of $1000 or anything, but I’m definitely pitching in a few bucks). The ability to have a game console that connects to my TV, featuring indie games where the content and prices are controlled almost exclusively by the developers, fully hackable, AND cheap? The current lame-duck generation of consoles has needed some excellent competition in order to force them to realize they are charging WAY too much for their content, and forcing WAY too much control over assets. The OUYA could be a major disruptor, and I for one am voting with my dollars for its eventual success.
Why did I just decide to change the gender of my main character halfway through chapter 8? Does it possibly have something to do with the female empowerment article I read earlier today? At least my son was cool with it. And it actually works to enhance the main point of conflict in interesting ways. Hopefully I can force myself not to go back through and rewrite the first seven chapters immediately. It can wait until the second draft. Or at least, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.
Last week, around Thursday, I was sick. It was a pretty far gone kind of sick, too. The kind that hits you really hard early on with a pillowcase full of Sick Bricks™ which basically just lays you out flat for the rest of the day. So, laid up in bed (with unfortunate periodic trips to the bathroom PLEASE, ASK FOR DETAILS, I DARE YOU) I did what any self-respecting human met with an entire frequently interrupted day in bed would do: I consumed massive amounts of Netflix. What that meant for ME in particular was finally taking Wil Wheaton’s advice and diving headlong into the first season of Eureka.
And, man, am I ever glad I did.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched a show that has such talented actors bringing to life such wonderfully insane characters. The show’s overarching situation is engaging and open to huge possibilities, the plots are crazy fun, and I think I’ve probably fallen in love with Colin Ferguson and his common sense detective style, chiseled jaw, and disarming smile (but in a totally platonic NOT GAY way. Totally). This has to be one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve watched in a great while.
So, thank you, Wil Wheaton (who will never see this, but I’m choosing to address to directly regardless in order to allow me at least some semblance of a manageable conclusion to this blog post) for introducing me to this show through your recommendations on the Internets. You have a new fan.
Dice Mountain is a game my daughter and I invented (I’m sure many other have “invented” the same game) after I bought her a set of dice at one of the cons I was exhibiting at and she asked, “What do you do with them?” to which I responded, “You play games.” Then I realized I didn’t actually know any games she could play with them so we made a few up on the spot.
The players roll 1 D6 (usually 2 D6 to make each round go a bit faster) in order to “climb” up and down their mountain. Use you another D6 to mark your place on the board. If it’s right before bedtime and we’ve already played a few games, we’ll start rolling 3 D6 each for a speed round. Sometimes once of us will roll three consecutive numbers (like 4, 5 and 6), thus rocketing up or down our mountain at breakneck speeds. She thinks that’s pretty much the coolest thing ever.
Today I retired our original pencil and paper “game board” and drew up on a new one on cardstock and let her color it. Looks pretty flippin’ sweet if I do say so myself. (SPOILERS: I do.)
Now go dig out some dice and play some games with your kids.
QFT: Now go dig out some dice and play some games with your kids.
There is nothing not awesome about this. Yes, go dig up some dice and play games with your kids. (Zombie Dice is one of our favorites, but obviously not the ONLY awesome dice game around).
Not from the games themselves, but from other gamers.
Seriously, I think I hate an ever increasing number of users on every gaming forum, as for guys who claim to be smart and educated, they sure as fuck know nothing.
I’m also starting to think that games don’t make people violent, they just make you selfish and impair your ability to relate to others, also be really defensive about gaming.
Blargh, I am beginning to feel the same way.
We always get told those asshats are “just a small, but vocal” part of the gaming community. But if that’s the case, then why are they ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE?
I think today’s gamers are the byproduct of growing up, spending practically their whole lives playing the same story over and over of a white male hero who can do no wrong.
“Gaming” has let us down.
But I think we’re starting to see the rise of a new “small but vocal” community of socially-conscious gamers.
I want to figure out how to incubate and grow the socially conscious gamers, as I think there need to be more.
I know a few sites have good communities and are of good size, namely Gamers With Jobs has always been great, I just don’t visit there often. Gaygamer.net also seemed to have a pretty good community.
I’m finding a good community barometer are threads about Tropes Vs. Women. , in terms of seeing attitudes of various posters, how they post, and also what the general views are. The message boards I frequent most were utterly shitty and were threadjacked into being about how “Uppity” is totally non-offensive and no one should be offended by it.
I encountered the same thing, and solved the problem quickly and easily. I stopped going to those sites. I befriended the people who I thought valuable and worthwhile on places like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. And then I simply stopped engaging the hivemind. Just like that.
These days, I just play games. And I enjoy them. And I don’t have to worry about whether or not people like the games I play, or like the current president, or like women, or like certain TV shows or movies. Because, honestly, I just don’t care.
Sounds like you enjoy games. It also sounds like you hate game communities. Seems like a very simple problem to solve.
I need this jacket
Want.
This is an amazing jacket. I have a feeling it wouldn’t actually be all that comfortable, but that doesn’t matter since it looks so awesome.
I just got an email a little while ago letting me know that I was one of the winners of this ebook contest over on Tor.com. Which is pretty awesome, I’ll admit. Between this and being a finalist in the Redshirts art contest, I think I’m starting to have a little love affair with Tor (granted, the Redshirts contest was specifically from John Scalzi, and not directly related to Tor, but Tor is publishing the novel, so it counts in my mind, and that’s all that matters).