Bulldogs funded!

some sort of ewok/ badger style alien...

Looks like my first Kickstart backing has made it’s mark and is going to press shortly.  While this one worked out, the Kickstart system is essentially ‘pledge to buy it before it exists’ which is a huge risk of something totally sucking ass.  You don’t get charged until the funding goal is met so you’re covered if it doesn’t make it’s funding (and most projects on there don’t).    I think a few lessons from watching this and some other projects–have your shit close to done, if not totally done, so you can show off pieces to people and let them know that “hey this is not just an idea, this is something real, we just need funding to publish it or get through X phase.”  Artwork is also key at the funding stage.  If you can put together some good comps that spark the imagination in people, the cash is probably going to flow pretty well.  One kickstart I saw had a description of “I don’t want anyone to steal the idea” which is silly because HUNDREDS of people have had the same idea and will probably not get it executed.   Needless to say, that had no funding at all.

So I’m looking forward to seeing the Bulldogs book and will be checking Kickstart for good stuff which I’ll post.  The awesome thing is that this system totally circumvents the current publishing system while allowing people to not have to take out big loans or self-fund their (good) ideas.

Comic/Culture blog ’84-’91: the “Copper Age”

As, the so-called “Copper Age” basically encompasses my Junior High School through High School years, I find Very Fine / Near Mint to be entirely engrossing with it’s period comic coverage and music and wrestling videos.  As much as I am a kid of the 70’s and shamefully look back to ALL that stuff with pure unabated nostalgia (even when so much of it was crap), I have an entirely cynical view of anything that even slightly approached crap during the “copper age.”

That said, what happened in ’92 to make the cut off for this period ’91? I certainly remember getting back to college in the fall of ’92 and noticing a distinct change in the kids on campus, clothing, music, attitudes as if the grown ups were suddenly gone. For the focus of this blog especially–Image Comics hit the comic world like the Thing’s knock out punch-a hit we’re still feeling to this day; and of course no one could really look fondly the same way at Poison or Motley Crue videos after Nirvana came around.

Some more time with Brink

I got in a few more hours this wweek (not nearly enough!), and I have some initial thoughts and, gods forgive me,  feelings.  Of course I’ve been reading the rather mixed reviews–some good, some bad and a lot that note that the game had/has a lot of potential that it didn’t live up to. Granted there was a lot of hype about this game as it was being published by Bethesda and used id Tech for the engine  and expectations for something awesome was high.

I didn’t even start the campaign at first as I wanted to get as much multiplayer as possible–and also complete some of the excellent challenge mode missions.  The challenge missions are all quite fun.  There are only four types (variable objectives, parkur, escort and tower defense)  and each gives a ton of unlocks when completed.  They are difficult without being impossible, and they expose the nuances of the gameplay that I missed jumping directly into multiplayer and just shooting everyone.  The parkur challenges are the best and I expect to see tons more puzzle missions like this going forward, even some Parkur races would be fun in this engine.

Gameplay is pretty frantic, but not as twitchy as UT3 or Quake as movement rates are much slower. It’s difficult to run and gun by design, though the game certainly encourages constant movement.  There are no gibs and no blood that I saw and one major difference from other games (and the first time I’ve seen this in multiplayer): health regenerates.  iI you get shot up and run away and hide, your health comes back after a time as if all the characters in the game were little Wolverines.  In addition, when you do get capped, you have a choice, you can either wait for a medic to rez you, or ‘sign up’ to be in the next reinforcement wave (hits about every 15 seconds).  So if a big massacre happens, it can occur that your whole team is back in the respawn area.  This gives an interesting flow to the game, one the jury is still out on for me due to what I’ve seen most in the multiplayer: Spawn camping.

Even the bots do it. A couple nights ago I was playing against two other guys, and so the server was filled with bots.  Once we closed the other team off in their base, the bots hung around right there and built turrets (like 4 of them over the course of the map) and with the exception of the human players who were filled with hijinks (of course), the opposing bots were mowed down as soon as they left their spawn.

And that’s an issue with Brink, not a bad one really because it allows you to play any time without having a full slate of human players, but an issue nonetheless.  If you jump on a server with 2-3 people– the server automatically fills the empty slots with a ton of bots all over the place, so it’s very difficult to tell what the game is really like with all real, human people.  I have yet to get on a full server filled with only human beings– that’s going to be the true test of the game.  As most human-only servers are full all the time, you end up fighting the bots… a lot.

I did get to the campaign a bit and no sir, I don’t like it. The bots all crowd around objectives, running all over outside of cover, not working together except to attack en masse, just shooting while standing in the open and tossing grenades.  After 2 missions (about 15-20 minutes each), I was pretty tired of it.  The bots on your side don’t help when they should and sometimes seem totally godlike on the other side at times.  Added to the fact that most maps have a single big firefight in one central area of 2-3 rooms for most of the game time doesn’t help either.  Brink is not a game that you should buy for the single player.  While the challenge missions are really fun, the campaign itself is simply the multiplayer maps with bots and a short intro, and the latter is a lot better with actual human players.   Like Battlefield/BF2142– I would have scrapped single player all together if this is what it’s going to be like, instead, since they do have bots, just make it so you can play multi-player matches against bots.

 

Yet another Talisman Expansion!

I’ve gotten in only a couple plays since the Sacred Pool expansion (they were great games and it’s a solid edition to the game) and now we have an announcement of the next Talisman expansion, not city— not Timescape: DRAGONS! With the 2nd edition Dragon expansion setting records for prices for ink printed on cardboard, I can see why FF would take on this subject.   Their take on it looks very different from both 2nd and third editions, no big tower in the middle of the board (but a new board space to replace the center region), no giant corner section to further balkanize the game, and, because it’s Fantasy Flight, looks like a boatload of tokens.  Six new characters are included, looks like a Dragon Hunter, a Dragon Priestess, some sort of barbarian, what looks like a Harpy and an elf with strange pants.

I don’t get in enough games of Talisman, granted, it’s a 3-4 hour game but I’m hoping when this comes out, I’ll be able to get in a game or two out of pity from the game group for my purchase…

My first Kickstart backing

Bulldogs: Sci-fi that Kicks Ass

Kickstart is a place where people can put up products they want to develop along with a cost to start. They then solicit pledges from people and if the project $ goal is met, the project (supposedly) commences.  Of course, most of Kickstart’s stuff is crap, but they do have a bunch of games up there, most are just crap ideas that will never see the light of day, but some are really interesting and I bit on one of them: a pulpy sci-fi pen and paper RPG using the Fate system called Bulldogs.   As there are pledge rewards, pushing them 50$ or so seemed like a good idea since, if the project goes through, you get a copy of the book along with certain pledge levels: essentially buying it before it exists.

This is definitely something I want to try for a couple game ideas I have kicking around, so I also figured I’d back a project and see what happens.

For those privileged enough to currently suffer through my Exalted campaign, no worries: I am not switching systems!  Exalted, burrs and all, is just an awesomely fun game to play, and as my heaving bookshelves can attest, I’m in it for the long haul.  This could turn into a discussion of the Fate system and why it’s so intriguing, but that’s a dog for another day.

office mayhem

From a few years back:

To whomever left the stack of old Dreadstar comics in the 3rd floor men’s room…

At first I laughed at them. But during my restroom visits over the past few weeks I have come to appreciate and enjoy the adventures Of Vanth Dreastar, Oedi the cunning cat-man, Iron Angel, and the rest of this rag-tag crew of space-adventurers. Plus I think the reading is keeping me ‘regular’.

So please bring in more issues, preferably where the other one’s left off. I want to see how Vanth and Co are going to destroy the fat green guy they just mistakenly made ruler of the universe.

It’s bad when….

…you find a print out at the top of a stack of papers next to the printer at work of your 1000 point beastman army.   It LOOKS like a normal spreadsheet except that it has words like Chaos Hounds, Gorbull and Bray Shaman on it.  Obviously someone found it and put it right on top.  I don’t even remember printing it is what’s worse.

Once again I’d like to bring you low energy commentary from my home

smooth!Bayonetta developer diary part 2. Interesting to see what sort of madness was going on with these guys during development.

Link

Oh and Anarchy Reigns will not be out until 2012 making this fall slightly less sociallydevastating  (Elder Scrolls, Diablo 3 beta, Guardian Heroes redux, Dark Souls and gods know what other must-have titles…).