Driving Dangers

 General Gaming, Video Games  No Responses »
Jul 262011
 

What do destructive driving games and social checkin applications have in common? THEY’RE EVIL! .

I’m speaking from experience here. Many years ago I worked far away from home and sometimes would wind down the work day playing some Carmageddon – the *original* version. With red blood, not green blood. And human targets, not robots or zombies. The goal of game is to rack up points destroying people, property and other cars. After one prolonged session I tidied up my office and got into my car for the long drive home, except this time something was different. As I began to pull out of my parking spot, I began to notice my driving goals were different this time. I viewed fences, street signs, medians and other cars as targets for destruction and had to slow down and concentrate on driving normally. It was truly scary but I made it home safely, after which I instituted a personal rule to have a 30 minute cooldown period after playing before I would attempt to drive home.

Fast forward to the present. With the gamification of social applications, checkin apps like Foursquare encourage you to record your visits to local places like shops, churches and other sites. You earn badges as a result of your “checkins” to these places, even when returning at a later time. Any red-blooded gamer would realize that what better way to score a lot of points and earn badges than to drive around with Foursquare running on your mobile phone and clicking on each location as you drive by. Would you believe this makes you a really sucky driver? I guess I didn’t see that one coming. Even worse than Carmageddon since there’s no cooldown period. Had to put that one down for good.

At least I can find comfort in the fact that a new Carmageddon game is underway and this time I’m prepared!

Juicing – Geek Style

 General Gaming  1 Response »
Apr 102011
 

Every now and then I need my creative juices squeezed. LIke an orange on one of those pointy ceramic spears. You know you really need this when you open up the door to your game/anime/comic/<insert geek hobby here> closet and heave out a deep sigh of boredom. Nothing new. Maybe I should sell it all, you think. Geek conventions are my pointy spear, ripping open my peel and letting those juices flow.

Recently, I attended MegaCon in Orlando Florida. This is the biggest convention in the state, a menagerie of geeky goodness. Everything from comics to cosplay can be thrust into your orange for three days. I’m always on the lookout for games or new ideas that spark my gaming imagination. As I walk down the artist rows I look at their work and see if I can put them on my mental list of potential future collaborators. I’m looking for my Jeff Dee.

One of the artists that really stood out was Mike Maihack, a local fellow over from Tampa for the convention, his Cleopatra in Space concept hooked me and I plunked down the modest change to pick up a signed copy of the book. I was laughing at all the right places and having a throughly enjoyable read all the way up to the cliffhanger. My juice meter was at 50% capacity at the end of day one.

Day two arrived and I returned to the convention still on the lookout for the rest of my squeeze. From out of the corner of my eye I spotted what looked like a card game going on in the artist alley. As that pointy eared fellow says, I was intrigued.
kaiser

What I found was a new species: an RPG Card Game impressively named Dark Legacy – The Rising. After a play through of a couple turns I had a taste of a game that combines classic CCG mechanics with character progression and piece placement. The designer, Bryan “The Kaiser” Tillman, was also the artist for the majority of cards in the two fifty card decks used in the demo. This is a pretty elaborate game design backed up with professional looking artwork and card layout. The whole package conceived and created by one cool cat was enough for me to plop down the precious cash on a deck. My juice meter was reading FULL. Bryan is getting his game ready for its official debut at GenCon this year. If you are going, say hello and check out the game over at his site.

Now where did I put that OJ….

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