Certainly a heavy stipulation to tag onto any resolution is the line “unless I die in the process,” but with a game as sinisterly difficult as Ultimate Ghosts’n’Goblins it may just come down to that. Given to me as a christmas present, I dove right in on December 25th and chose the Normal Difficulty level […]
Beware the Winter Solstice!
Thankfully we have passed this day, when the sun rises for only a few short hours, and now we have begun to blissful journey towards longer days and sunnier times. It may commonly be referred to as the Winter Solstice, which more accurately happened just into December 22nd, but technicalities aside we’re passed it and […]
Review: The Time Traveler's Wife
Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife Author: Audrey Niffenegger Year of Publication: 2004 Genre: Science Fiction Length: 536 pages Rating: 4/5 – Worth paying full price Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife is hard to describe in so many words. When you break it down to it’s basic parts, it’s not much more than a tragic love […]
Why Games Should Never End
We’ve finally figured it out with years of study. The hardest part of designing a game is not coming up with the idea, or original mechanics, or balance, or any of that stuff. It’s figuring out how the darn game ends satisfactorily. This problem, by the way, is not left solely to boardgames. Movies, comics, […]
Child's Play – Penny Arcade Contest
Last wednesday Gabe from Penny Arcade ran a contest to give away a group of tickets to their Child’s Play Charity Dinner that is being held in Washington state tomorrow, the contest was to do a three-panel comic that had to include the following elements: – The 2006 Child’s Play Logo – A Cat – […]
Review: Eragon
Title: Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1) Author: Christopher Paolini Year of Publication: 2004 Genre: Fantasy Length: (I sold my copy, so I don’t have anything to check. Probably at least 300 pages) Rating: 2/5 – Good practice for focusing the eyes on letters* Review: A generic tale of a boy and his dragon. I could really […]
Set Collection
Sometimes… ok, most of the time… you won’t have a complete game. You’ll have a type of game, or a theme, or a mechanic. And sometimes with that mechanic, you’ll need some other mechanics to actually make a game. This happened to a game designer friend of mine recently who had a group of crazy-good […]
Even the Diligent can be Consumed
There is a great monster in my life now, a gnawing, gnashing, biting, consuming beast that thrashes its way into every day of life. It can barely be satiated, and only with the expenditure of great resources may it be contained. You might think you have obligations, or free time, or even a bit of […]
Too Busy Photoshopping Boardgames (Poorly)
Sorry, too busy to write a full column this week. But here’s one of the many projects I’ve been working on lately: (source) (source) (source) This all is for the Boardgamegeek/Mattel Photoshop Contest. If you have a BGG login you can check the other entries so far and whether you have a login or not […]
Review: His Dark Materials (a trilogy)
Title: His Dark Materials – Book One: The Golden Compass, Book Two: The Subtle Knife, Book Three: The Amber Spyglass Author: Philip Pullman Year of Publication: 1995 Genre: Fantasy Length: Each paperback book has between 335 and 465 pages. Rating: 4.5/5 – Worth paying full price. Review: His Dark Materials is a trilogy that should […]
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