Hey Man, well this is Babylon

Been thinking about this one a bit, but I’ll keep this one quick. I mention them along with the platforms on which I played and preferred them. Starting with number seven…

7. Afterfall: Insanity (PC)

This game received very little fanfare, and still doesn’t have an official support or community discussion forum anywhere online. It’s a damn solid third-person horror game, which clearly takes immense amounts of inspiration from the Dead Space series, especially in controls and user interface. The action is fun, the scares are scary, and despite some kinda lame writing, the story is actually pretty interesting. I look forward to seeing more from this studio.

Link: Afterfall on Gamersgate

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An old, old idea of mine came back to me all of a sudden today, and now that I revisit it, I think it’s perfect for an Apocalypse World hack:

In countless numbers, the husks hang in the silent darkness of the space left behind after all the stars died. They slowly crumble into the void, keeping one another company as all that is left of the universe decays around them. A seemingly endless mass of these once-great arks and flagships house a seemingly endless number of isolated tribes, descendants of the crews and occupants that once piloted them, generations ago.

Yours is one such tribe. Your people have grown up knowing nothing but the ship and its stories. Maybe old Creakbones knows the stories that came before, or even that there was a before. Maybe you’re in contact with the tribe on that husk that you can just barely see from your remaining portholes, illuminated by the farthest reaches of your home’s fading lights. Maybe you’re one of the lucky tribes that has kept its hoppers in some semblance of function, and you can even get to that other husk. Maybe, just maybe, your own husk can still move, too.

But water is running low, and the graskevyns are pounding at the airlock. The ancestral leader has just died without an heir. Puddles of something oily and orange are bubbling from Below, and touching it makes your pee burn. The air got thinner and slimy in the old houses so you had to seal them up forever. Another husk is on a slow but certain collision course with yours, and you have no way to escape. And from the Place Beyond the Dark, It is calling your name and it’s getting louder and your skin is starting to flake on your thighs and you feel like you’re going to throw up but you haven’t eaten in days and ohmigodit’scomingrun…

Sufficiently Advanced is an Apocalypse World hack which takes place after the end of the universe. Empires have risen, warred, and destroyed each other, leaving behind nothing but a seemingly-infinite graveyard of spaceships, all floating near each other in the void. Generations of people have grown and died in these ships, the last remnants of the people who once occupied them.

Very heavily inspired by the movies Pandorum, Event Horizon, Screamers, and Serenity, this game uses most of the Apocalypse World rules as they are written. A few of the playbooks will be tweaked, and I think the Chopper won’t work at all. New ones would fit in well, one based on scavenging, one based on space-walking (and void madness), maybe more. Maybe some new Moves involving using and/or deciphering old tech.

I think I’m gonna take a break from the usual course of things and work on this one some more tonight.

Ammunition in shooter video games is up near the top of my list of Most Ridiculous Video Game Conventions out there today. Seemingly implemented because “that’s what you always do,” the mechanics are purportedly intended to instill a sense of urgency within the player, who should try and make every shot count. In reality, legacy imbalances within the standard implementation of these mechanics almost universally result in half-assed pacing mechanics that seem tacked-on at best, and controller-throwingly frustrating at worst. Read more

It’s been a while since I’ve had this part of my gaming needs so excited:

It’s also been a while since I’ve had a Friday night so wide open and free to dedicate to the pursuit of purely nerdy pleasures. I must have spent full-on weeks of my youthful life plowing intensely forward through each of the many Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Tonight, I shall try and recapture this experience, only this time in Ancient Japan.

I’ll try and remember to post more about it during and after tonight’s experience.

I’m in something of a High Nirvana era of personal gaming enjoyment. I feel that there are more awesome gaming opportunities around me than ever before in my life. Tabletop, Video, Design, it’s a veritable cornucopia of exciting play. Let’s review!

As far as my table-topping goes, I’m in the middle of at least two games, with two more on the horizon. First is my Old School Palladium Fantasy sandbox game, which has had four gatherings so far and seems to be maintaining everyone’s excitement pretty nicely. This game is really doing a good job of reinvigorating me, both as an arbiter of events and as a creator of spontaneous content. I haven’t run this seat-of-the-pants in a long, long time, and it is quite simply titillating my gamer imagination. I go into each session with a mental picture of all the events happening in the world within a 20-mile radius of where the characters are, and as they move around, those events progress of their own accord. So far, the players have managed to hit up most of them quite nicely, and get themselves directly involved of their own volition. It’s wonderful. Read more

If you are a member of my closer circles of friends, you probably by now think I must be secretly working for the marketing team of OnLive. I’ve been a major shill for this company since I first encountered them at PAX 2009, and rarely a week goes by that I don’t spout out more OnLive propaganda, entirely of my own free will. A recent major technical difficulty that I’ve experienced with their service serves as yet another example of how awesome this company is, to me.

A while back, the Capcom game Dark Void went on sale for pretty cheap via the OnLive system, and I jumped on it. I’d played the original demo at PAX that same year, and I’d been wanting to give the full game a try for a while. I wasn’t disappointed, either: despite some fairly scathing reviews, I find Dark Void to be a pretty awesome action game. It’s more or less The Rocketeer, and I effing loved that movie.

Unfortunately, a critical game-crashing error has consistently plagued me at the very end of the first episode of the game (out of three). The error happens every single time I activate a crucial mechanic in the game. In fact, there’s no way to avoid the error, as that crucial mechanic is required to advance a certain scene and complete the end of the first episode.

Trial and error and a whole lot of guessing have led me to believe that the error is exclusive to the use of a game controller in that scene; mouse and keyboard work fine without issue. This wouldn’t be a huge deal for me (being a mouse-and-keyboard shooter fan on PC) if it weren’t for the fact that Dark Void is a much more enjoyable console-and-couch experience than a PC one.

The error is specifically limited to the OnLive platform, and their service team has been on the frickin’ ball with helping me resolve this. Believing it might be an issue specifically related to my own unique user data, the support representative assigned to the case even went so far as to play through the game from the beginning all the way just past the point that was blocking me, and then replacing my save data with his own. I would do terrible secret things if I were able to land a job that let me play video games in order to help out customers, all as part of a day’s work.

The error persists, unfortunately, but I can bypass it using the mouse and keyboard, for now. But their tech team continues to work on it, their support rep continues to communicate with me, and their response time and service level continue to wow me.

I’m impressed. Service teams today rarely do that for me.

I have no effing clue why these sheets are so damn impossible to find online. I looked pretty much everywhere I could think of looking, but could only ever find the 2nd Edition sheets. So I took the time to scan the ones out of my own actual print copy of Adventures on the High Seas, and after compiling them I have uploaded them here for you to use.

Download away!

In this game setup, one player has been previously tasked with bringing a picture to the session. We all sit around the table, and the player kicks off the game by laying down the picture face-up. The guy sitting to that player’s left then looks to the guy sitting to his left and asks a question about an action that is happening now, such as “What is that girl running from right this very moment?” That guy answers, then looks to his left and asks another question, and so on.

Without further ado, let me introduce to you the skeletal beginnings of House Cor of the North. Their motto is “Silent as Certainty,” because when it comes to matters of the Household, well, it just goes without saying. Based in their castle deep in the northern hills, with a stunning view of the valley from which springs the Last River, House Cor is an ancient house with a founding as old as the Wall itself. According to house legend, Bran himself gifted the house and lands to the first Lady of the house, a warrior-woman named Corlynne who was his lover (if the fairy tales of the north can be believed). The house’s years since have been many and plentiful, and marked by the following four notable events:

• Treachery! After the founding of the house, the Cors and the Starks each ruled half of the North. Treachery by the Starks, however, one day propelled that family to greatness, reducing the Cors to bannermen.
• Invasion! During the Targaryen conquering, all the best soldiers went south. While gone, the wildlings of the hills actually took arms and defended the locals from raiders and reavers alike. The locals grew to somewhat trust the wildlings, but when the soldiers returned, conflict again arose. Relationships have been tense but oddly respectful ever since.
• Favor! A family ancestor was in the Kingsguard during the time of the Blackfyre rebellion, and personally saved the life of the rightful king. The Cors received much influence
• Glory! During Robert’s Rebellion, the Cors won glory and distinction on the battlefield. The House has always favored strong, powerful women, in the tradition of Lady Corlynne herself. fifteen years ago, when the Starks rode south to aid Robert in his rebellion against the Mad King, the Cors rode with, bringing their elite archers with them. On the battlefield, the Lady of the House earned herself the nickname of The Wasp for her brilliant deployment of archers against the Targaryens.

Today, the Cors are a highly influential house that has fallen on dire economic times. The lord of the house is old and suffering from near-constant bouts of acute dementia. His wife, the legendary Wasp, now tries to convince him to abdicate power to her oldest son, who she believes she can manipulate. The son clashes with the mother, however, as he is no warrior – far from it, his few attempts at battle and war-play have been disastrous and cost the house minor fortunes in recovery. The house’s bankroll is near run dry, due to poor management by an aged Lord whose marbles have been all but smashed, and a warrior-0woman with no skill at finances.

However, the cold winds of change are blowing hard from beyond the Wall. In a peculiar turn of fortune, the Cors have discovered, of all things, actual gold mines deep in their hills. New talent is being brought in to help with managing the mines, both from the Maesters of Oldtown and the from Free Cities beyond the Narrow Sea alike. Trade is the subject of many bar-room chats in the areas, and the region has new eyes upon it again. Rumor has it, King Robert himself is even riding up from King’s Landing to seek counsel with the nearby Starks of Winterfell, which could in turn be a great opportunity to gain favor while he is in the region. Winter is coming, but this time it could bring with it the gleaming shine of fortune.

The following characters have been established, many of which may be player characters, and all of which will have definite agency within the story we will tell:

• The Old Lord has only a rare handful of moments of lucidity. The rest of the time he is a doddering old bat. He has yet to abdicate his power, though…
• The Lady Wasp has aged quite gracefully, and is in the hearts of all her people. She’s an old schemer with a knack for warfare, but little knowledge of economics. She wants her oldest son to assume management of the house, so she can control him. However, if he proves too willful, there’s always Mama’s Boy…
• The Battle-failed Heir is the oldest son. He is pathetic at warfare, but fairly shrewd at politics and coin. This new gold mine discovery could be exactly the opportunity he needs to lead this House into a financial revival. If only his father would abdicate. If only his mother would stop pestering him.
• The Young Warrior follows firmly in Mother’s wake, a solid warrior in his own right. Always Mother’s favorite, his shocking red hair has led to some very quiet rumors that he isn’t actually fathered by the House’s Lord. No attempts have been made to prove this, however, and why would they anyway? The Warrior is beloved by all: a good son, a fine house captain, and a right good looker to boot.
• The Distant Son is middle-born, and long ago was raised as a foster in King’s Landing. He’s now in his late 20s, attempting to maintain a political presence in the south, but in truth he is but a pawn to another lord’s whims.
• The Faithful Sister is the only girl born to the current household, and does not take after her mother at all. She is unwarlike, and has even converted to the faith of the Seven, shunning the ways of the Old Gods of the North. She is training as an acolyte to the Septon of the castle.
• The Heir’s Right hand is a bastard of a distant cousin to the family, the exact same age as the Cor heir. He was taken in and raised as a companion to the future lord, and now serves as the Heir’s investigator and troubleshooter, of sorts.
• The Steadfast Wife of the Youngest son. She is a demure woman of the Umber family, loyal and firm, but gentle and non-scheming. She has mothered two toddlers for her husband.
• The Marbrand Ward is an estranged son of the Marbrand famil (Lannister bannermen), sent north to foster because “he ain’t right.”
• The Wildling Shaman is gathering power, preparing the way for an eventual excursion from Wildling forces beyond the Wall. He is following in the ancestral footsteps of the region’s wildlings of old, trying to gain the favor of the locals with as little bloodshed as possible.
• The Foreign Mine-Master has been brought in from overseas to help manage the mines, because the Cors would be damned before they seek the help of the Lannisters.
• The Maesters, of which there are now two: the Old Master of the family, who knows little of finance, clashing with the Young Master sent from the south to help with the mines.
• The Septon, who is increasingly defensive about his faith in these lands of the Old Gods.

That should be it for now. More posts will come as new ideas are introduced.

Last year at PAX, I got a chance to try a hands-on demo of the OnLive cloud-based game system. I was heartily impressed, and have bought heavily into it. The short version: OnLive is a cloud-based PC gaming platform that has a huge number of games you can purchase and play, with all the processing being handled via the cloud. You can play either via an app installed on your computer (mouse/keyboard or controller), or via a separate “microconsole” that connects to your TV via HDMI. It even has an app for Mac and iPad, and I understand they are working on getting it on Linux and Android as well.

A couple of months back, I jumped on a special wherein you pre-ordered the game Homefront, and they sent you both another game and one of their special MicroConsoles for free. I cared (and continue to care) nothing at all for Homefront, but the bonus game was the amazing Metro 2033, and the console itself was woth $99. Getting all this for $49 was quite a steal. I continue to play the console regularly, enjoying games like Arkham Asylum, Borderlands, Just Cause, and more, without a single hitch in gameplay.

Well, they have just today announced the exact same deal, only this time it is for the upcoming game Red Faction: Armageddon. If you preorder it for $49, you get the game when it comes out, immediate full access to Red Faction: Guerrilla, and a free microconsole and controller. I have been planning on getting a second controller anyway for the exact same price alone, so this deal I immediately jumped on.

I definitely encourage you to check this one out. It’s an extremely portable full current-day gaming platform, and the array of games is quite impressive. I’ve yet to be disappointed. Plus, since the controller works with your PC, even if the game and system go bust you still have a nice controller left over. On top of that, it really is the only way I have found so far to “rent” new, full PC games and try them before you buy them.

Here’s the Link to the promo (and no, it is not a user referral, if that matters)