Cat Shit One

I just got bounced the first episode of a new CG anime that's been released called Cat Shit One (thanks to the recent father). It's based on PMCs in the Middle East, which is kinda blase now, but the hilarious thing is that they're cute bunnies . . . no really . . . I got the authority from my significant other who is an expert on whether rabbits are cute (it's an arbitrary judgement).

There's nothing funnier than watching an assault bunnie gunning down a series of anthropomorphic camels . . . let's not dig too deep into the underlying racism in making the different nationalities into different species of animals and just enjoy the awesome CG military action.

A warning for anyone who's keen on watching a lot of this, only the first episode is out so far, out of a planned 12, and there's no release date set on even the 2nd episode . . . so I wouldn't get too excited after you've watched the first free episode . . .

Dead Space and the New Playstation Gun

Back in 2008 a lot of us played a singularly awesome game called Dead Space.

It was a Sci fi thriller/horror game that played with hallucinations and psychic disturbances along with zombies rebuilt out of alien infected human flesh. You played as a member of a rescue team who basically only had powered tools to work with, mining lasers featuring prominently. To fit in with that, amputation was one of the main forms of killing zombies . . . head shots really weren't that useful, but if you cut the arms and legs off something, it'd be that much worse at chasing you down and impaling you on some kind of bone spike.

After Dead Space, there was the not so popular, yet critically successful Dead Space: Extraction. It's an on-rails shooter set as a prequel to Dead Space first on the Wii and now on the Playstation Network (it also comes free with the PS3 version of Dead Space 2). I played the demo of this last night and it was singularly awesome. Now all I need is the new Sony submachine gun accessory . . . that's not a joke, it looks like a sci fi version of an MP5, has a digitally attached trigger, pump action reloading and can also happily hold the Playstation Move Navigation Controller. It's coming out at the end of February to coincide with Killzone 3 and I'm pretty psyched to get one to play through Dead Space: Extraction.

This thing has a button on the bottom of the stock so you can slam it to reload your gun . . . or you can use the pump action slider underneath the barrel . . . too much fun!

After that of course, the main event will be Dead Space 2. I haven't got that yet, so I can't comment on it, but I'm certainly looking forward to it :)

Spy Wear the Board Game

About a year ago, I was part of a team that made a game in 48 hours, Spy Wear. It was for the Global Game Jam 2010. We won the Jammers' Choice award for our game, which was about Cold War spies trying to hide in plain sight while carrying on their agendas of building up dossiers of information or killing other spies.

It mixed a couple of different ideas . . . hiding in plain sight and trying to appear as if you were just another member of the populace, while at the same time trying to watch everyone else and determine who was and who wasn't a spy.

A few weeks ago I had a couple of conversations with my workmates . . . one was thinking of getting into Game Jam and the other was talking about board games (in particular, Power Grid). Something sparked in my head and I decided that the ruleset for Spy Wear might actually turn into a really interesting board game.

So far I've incorporated the idea of hiding in plain sight . . . which is a lot harder in a board game where everyone can see which pieces everyone else is using, but I think I've got something worked out that will do a slow reveal of a person over a series of turns . . . the rules aren't really locked down yet, so I can't really elaborate on it. I kept the game mechanics of needing to visit locations to build up information dossiers, and also being able to lay bombs as booby traps for other spies.

It's all still up in the air . . . but I'll put up some information once I've got a playable version.

Echo Bazaar

A friend of mine pointed me towards this game recently.

http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com

It's a browser based game that's linked in to Twitter and Facebook, so I was initially skeptical of it, but it's turned out to be a whole lot of fun. In a way, it's a card game/RPG that's set in "Fallen London", a version of London that's sunk beneath the surface and is that much closer to hell. It's got a very Victorian tilt to it, and has reminded a few of us of Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman) already.

I think the beauty of the game is in the storytelling. You're given a lot of choice for where you want to explore and what kind of abilities/contacts you want to pursue, but they're all a little bit dangerous and quirky. At the moment, I've been having terrible nightmares . . . reoccurring dreams that culminated in my character going completely insane . . . Right now I'm lost in a strange world of insanity. And in the outside world, my nemesis has appeared somewhere and the remembered death of an old love is driving me to revenge!

Well worth checking out . . . there's a side of the game that involves getting more actions by posting tidbits from it on facebook or twitter, which is a little bit annoying, but I haven't done any of that yet (maybe I will after this post just to show it). There's some limited interaction with facebook/twitter friends also.

Nerd Games (Board and Card Games)

A friend of mine has rekindled my love of boards, cards, dice and little wood or plastic figures :)

Dominion was the first thing that got a group of us hooked. It seems to have this universal appeal . . . I haven't been able to find anyone who didn't enjoy it, regardless of how skeptical they are of "Nerd Games".

It's a card game with a few simple principles . . . you play as a feudal lord trying to buy more land than the other lords around you. Every card you buy goes into your deck, which is continually cycled so you see the same cards come up over and over. There's a delicate balance between buying money, action cards (that let you either do wonderful and exciting things or stab the other players in the back during your turn) and victory cards. It has a nice timing feel to it . . . when is it good to build up a deck of actions, and when is it time to just start hoarding victory points for the fast approaching end of the game?

For more information, check out Board Game Geek.

Another beautiful game I just bought (at CanCon, Canberra's board games convention) is Dixit. This beautifully designed and illustrated game is all about aesthetic creativity rather than numbers.

It's a game of storytelling that's incredibly simple yet amazingly enjoyable. Everyone has a hand of cards that have cute little abstract pictures on them that could have many meanings. They choose one and tell a story about it . . . the trick is that if everyone or no one gets it, then the storyteller gets no points . . . you have to be obvious enough that someone gets it, but not obvious enough that everyone does. You end up with those classic "How could you not have guessed that?" moments :)

There's also info on Dixit at Board Game Geek.

I'll talk more about other games later . . .