Michael Langlois's Blog, page 9

Liar’s Harvest: Cover Update

Based on intensive focus-group studies and two rounds of animal testing, I decided to make a few changes to the cover for Liar’s Harvest.  I’m going to go with the animals on this one, it’s 100% pure awesome.

As usual, Vinny took my input and produced something about a hundred times better than what I asked for.  Because he’s a badass like that.

Release is coming up quick, so watch for some free weekends for Bad Radio soon.  That way you can catch up on the story before release if you have a hankering to do so.

 

 

Filed under: Blog Posts, Writing

Gaming: Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator

THIS IS NOW A SPACE DESK.

I firmly believe that this game was willed into being by the collective need of my people.  You know the ones, I don’t have to spell it out.  I could never really come to grips with the fact that something like this didn’t exist, and I can only imagine that its creator, Thom Robertson, was compelled to build it in order to set the universe right.

Artemis is  a starship bridge simulator.

There are five stations: helm, weapons, engineering, comms, and science.  You can man as many stations as you think you can handle, but the game really shines when people can focus on one or two.  Stations can get pretty busy, and nothing says derelict space wreck like real-time multitasking on the bridge.

There’s also a main viewscreen, which the helm and weapon stations can assign to different views.  Unlike the other players, the captain doesn’t have a dedicated station, so he relies on the main viewer plus his crew for information.   There is a sector map available for the captain if he likes, but it’s optional.

Ideally you play this together in a room, which allows for the kind of chaos and shouting that the best games bring out in people.  You can also play across the internet, spawning multiple versions of the main viewscreen so that all players can see it, but I haven’t tried that yet.  My guess is that it’s still a blast, providing you have voice communications to use.

The essence of this game is teamwork under pressure.  Few things are as satisfying as knowing that other people are depending on you, and then kicking ass when it counts.  Of course, the opposite is true, too.  Be prepared for thrown popcorn and a swift kick when you pilot the ship into that mine we warned you about.

In short, it’s everything you ever wanted in a non-holodeck-based fantasy about exploring the universe.  If you’ve ever wanted to man a station on the bridge of the Enterprise, then you owe it to yourself to check it out.

The Artemis Site

The Artemis Wiki (go here to learn your station if you’re not a fan of explosive decompression)

Filed under: Blog Posts, Gaming

Zombicide Review

Don’t look now, but I think I saw a zombie.

Remember when I got my copy of Zombicide?   Well, I finally got a chance to sit down and rub the pieces all over my body play it a few times.  For those who want the TL;DR version: I LIKED IT VERY MUCH.

For everyone else, let me give you a quick summary of the key gameplay ideas:

Everyone plays one or two characters, each with a particular set of abilities that they can get as they level.  Players die after taking two wounds.
The more powerful the players get, the more zombies spawn each round.
As a rule, zombies are slow and fairly harmless in small numbers, just like in the movies.  In groups, they can be deadly.  The main danger is that in order to leave a square with zombies in it, you need one action per zombie, plus the move action itself.  Since you only get three actions to start with, you can see how this would be bad.
Zombies that start in the same space as a player deal a wound.  Since you can only take two wounds to begin with, groups of rotters can be right dangerous.
Players create noise, both by being in a space, and by loud actions they take.  Shooting guns, for example.  If a zombie can see you, it will head your way.  If it can’t see anyone, it will head for the noisiest spot on the board.
Shooting into a space targets players first, then walkers, then fatties, then runners.  Melee weapons let you pick your targets, as does the sniper rifle.  So, shooting into a crowd of zombies surrounding your fellow players is a good way to get a punch in the chops at the table.
Each weapon does 1 or 2 damage per hit.  Hits are dealt out to targets, and do not add together.  So, a fatty can only be killed by a weapon that does 2 damage, like a machete.  A pistol does 1 damage, and since hits don’t stack, you can shoot them all day and they won’t give a zombie rat’s ass.
Each map comes with a win condition and may contain multiple objectives.

Those are the important bits.  There are more rules that cover searching for gear, combining things together to make even cooler gear, how to drive over zombies with a car, etc, but this will give you an idea of what the meat of the play is like.  One of the fantastic things about the game is that the rules are fairly lightweight.  While some people will turn their noses up at games that lack a certain depth, those people are likely not looking to shoot a bunch of zombies in the face while hoarding a can of beans.

At its heart, Zombicide is about trade-offs.  The more powerful a player gets, the more zombies spawn on the map.  How badly do you really need that extra combat bonus?  Having one or two orange level survivors on a map with blue (starting) level survivors is a good way to lose half your party.  Weapons are the same way.  The more dice a weapon rolls, the harder it is for any given dice to hit.  I like this part of the design quite a bit, as it keeps the difficulty ramped up, even as the groups power level increases.

Like the best zombie flicks, the zombie population starts off small, and the survivors have a pretty easy time of things, scavenging and shooting lone walkers with a song in their hearts.  And like those movies, it’s hard to pin down exactly when things go from “piece of cake” to “why didn’t we loot any adult diapers”, because it happens so gradually.  But rest assured, the game really shines when things do go pear-shaped.  People will heroically sacrifice themselves for the group (or not, I’m looking at YOU, Josh), and even pull off amazing last stands versus a shuffling hoard that stretches as far as the eye can see.  It’s pretty cool.

So, it’s a ton of fun, but it’s not without its flaws.  The scenarios in the book are uneven, to put it mildly.  The first scenario is amazing, but can be very tough and take a long time, which isn’t really what you want for your first outing after the tiny tutorial mission.  The second scenario, in contrast, is so easy that it can take longer to set up than complete.  My advice here is to read though the missions, and pick the ones that send you into the city for multiple objectives.  Anything that looks too simple probably is.

The other issue that the characters are not evenly balanced.  Some really are better than others.  That said, all of the characters are fun, and very competent in the zombie killing lifestyle.  If it bothers you that someone else might be more powerful than you, then pick carefully.  If, like me, you’re just looking to have some fun separating zombies from their unlives, then just pick the character that looks the most interesting to you.

Nitpicks aside, Zombicide is the most fun zombie game I’ve ever played, and as a fan of the genre, that’s saying something.  This is a perfect example of the fact that the entertainment factor of a game can be independent from, or at least very tolerant of, problems with the game rules or balance.

If you have any love in your heart for shooting, bludgeoning, and chopping up the undead, then I highly recommend you give it a try.

Filed under: Blog Posts, Gaming

Perseids Weekend 2012

Wiki Image

It’s that time again, kids.  If you love meteor showers, and I know you do, be outside during the wee hours of the dark this weekend to catch an eyeful.

You can check in with NASA’s Fluximator to find out when the best viewing time is at your location: http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html

Click to visit the Fluximator!

Be sure to wake up your loved ones by running through the house at 3am shouting METEORS at the top of your lungs.  It makes a great annual tradition if you survive the first time.

Filed under: Blog Posts

Zombicide

Click Me!

 

Speaking of delightful Kickstarters, this arrived in the mail today.  Well, to be completely honest, this arrived inside a box that contained more boxes.  Which was necessary, because of all this:

Yeah. That’s a lot of zombies.

And this picture doesn’t even show all the bits.  I had to leave the map tiles and tokens out of the shot, or I would have had to have taken this from space.  True story.

Zombicide is a co-op game, where you and several other survivors attempt to take down a zombie hoard, culminating in a showdown with the horrifying Abomination, who looks like the bigger, angrier, spikier version of the Tank from Left4Dead.  And the best part is that the more zombies you kill, the more badass your character becomes.  Which is awesome, except that powering up also brings in more zombies.   It should make for one hell of an entertaining mess.

Rules are here if you want to check them out, and the official site is here.

 

 

 

Filed under: Blog Posts, Gaming

My Future Wallet will be Slim

A friend of mine is a minimalist.  When we travel together, I lug one of those rolling suitcases, and he slings a messenger bag over his shoulder.  I carry a (beautiful, hand-stitched) laptop bag.  He carries his iPad.

So here I am, hauling an order of magnitude more stuff, and he’s getting along with the same amount of functionality, and what’s more, having a much easier time of it.

Since we started hanging out together, I’ve gotten better about ditching the extra load, but there’s one thing that has so far remained stuck in my old ‘must carry everything’ past.  My wallet.

It’s one of those leather tri-fold abominations, filled with my own personal landfill full of crap.  But no more.

This friend of mine is going to change that for me.  With this:

 

Check out his Kickstarter for the full story.  Slim has hit 400% of its funding goal in three days, which is pretty damn impressive.  Looks like I’m not the only one who needed a little help.

 

Filed under: Blog Posts

OMG: Descent 2.0

 

I’m not gonna lie, kids.  I did some squealing and box-hugging when this showed up today.

As you may recall, I love me some Descent.  It’s the game I’ve played the most consistently, the most often, and over the longest period of time.  I just finished the second of two back-to-back year long campaigns, and would have been happy to play more the very next weekend.

That said, Descent isn’t without its flaws.  Like a lot of tactical games, each expansion pushed the limits of the core ruleset further and further away from what it was originally intended to do, until we ended up with things like sea battles in a dungeon crawl game and epic campaigns for a single session ruleset.  I think the designers did a fantastic job overall, but honestly, there’s only so far you can take things.

Which brings us to today, seven years after the original release back in 2005.  The new rules are more elegant: easier setup, better line-of-sight mechanics, more streamlined overlord experience, even a built-in modular campaign system.  The hero characters are better designed and now support classes, making them more customizable and interesting.  They even revamped the dice system.

That’s all to the good, and from having read the new rules and gone over the new mechanics, I think it’ll be a delight to play.

I hope I’m right.

I haven’t played it yet, but when I do I’ll post my thoughts about how the play experience has changed, and if I think it’s really for the better.

In the meantime, check out the official page here, and grab the rules here.

Now I’m off to fondle punch out all the parts and round up some victims players.

Filed under: Blog Posts, Gaming

Free Books for the Fourth!

Because I like you, I totally want us to celebrate Independence Day together.  I considered showing up at your house with a sack full of illegal fireworks and a bottle of tequila, but I seem to recall having to hitchike home naked from the pet store last year.

So, this time I’m just going to give you a present and let it go at that.  I think we can both agree that’s the smart thing, even, dare I say it, the adult thing to do.

Today only, both Bad Radio and Walker are free on Amazon.

Cause the best part of the word freedom is free.

Filed under: Blog Posts

Lovely

It’s a beautiful day here, hope the same is true where you are.

Filed under: Blog Posts

Tiny Foods

So tiny. So very, very tiny.

Tiny foods are a peculiar kind of Japanese toy, in which a small cardboard box contains a bewildering array of foil packets and plastic trays.  If you do it right, you end up with tiny edible replicas that look and taste like the real thing.  My daughter introduced me to tiny foods via the YouTube videos of RRCherryPie, a tiny foods afficianado:

She was fascinated by the process, and I think, the quiet, meditative quality of the videos.  So, because I love my daughter very much, and also because the things are a kind of candy, I bought some for us to try out.

Truth to tell, the assembly process is a lot of fun, and the candy is tasty, if a little plasticky.  We’re doing the sushi one next, because of the clever salmon roe making thing seen here:

Should be fun.  Also, I’m a sucker for anything sweet I can cram into my face.  If you’re interested in something fun and sugary that you can claim is for your kids, you can find them here.

Filed under: Blog Posts, Food