Archive for the ‘Skippy is a huge nerd’ Category

Around a week or so ago I got my first official board game rejection.

Despite how that sounds, this is actually pretty good news.

You see, I have submitted my designs to publishers in the past. But no one has ever actually bothered to tell me that they don’t want it. Usually they just ignore me.

Heck one company, which will remain nameless, expressed interest, told me they liked my game and wanted to run with it, and then never spoke to me again.

And so an actual honest-to-goodness rejection letter is actually a step up.

This time they cared enough to tell me to buzz off.

I’m still waiting to hear from some other potential publishers and I’m also looking into the possibility of self-publishing, either by making it a downloadable file that the customers print themselves or by actually shelling out the bucks for a print run.

Of course, this means that I would have to also find an artist to make all of the illustrations. So if you know an illustrator that works cheap and can follow instructions, please encourage them to contact me.

Also, if you know anything about the Board Game Industry, or just happen to own a publishing company, feel free to email me about this.

Details about my new project are here.

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I recently purchased one of the fancy new Series Three Tivos. I’ve had a first generation one for years, and I was finally tempted by all the new features available one the latest version. The only problem I had was that I now had to re-enter all of my TV shows. So to make it easier, I decided to go through the list of every show that Tivo could find, and tag all of the ones that I liked. I discovered two important facts.

First there are a lot more shows on cable television than I had previously suspected. Secondly, there are an awful lot of television programs that appear to be “adult oriented”. Unfortunately this was not the case and they misled me into recording them.

Sara’s Secrets – To a man, anything that starts with a woman’s name and ends with “secret” means sexy underwear. Alas, this was a cooking show.

Sweat on the Beach – This was some kind of obstacle course.

Whitetail Diaries – This show was about hunting, and not very tan women as I had imagined.

Singles Pleasing the Lord – This was a religious show.

Answering the Masters Call – So was this. Why do shows about God sound creepily like the titles of bondage fetish porn?

World’s Richest Penthouses – This had absolutely nothing to do with the magazine.

Shop Erotic – It turns out that the home shopping channels sometimes host “passion parties”.

Bare Essentials – This is a QVC special on skin care. On a side note, if you are really into making informed skin care decisions there are probably better places to go than QVC.

The Bad Girls Club – I hate you Oxygen network! This show had absolutely no right not to be porn.

Wife Swap – This was technically not false advertising, but was nowhere near as interesting as I thought it would be.

The Big Bang Theory – This is a good show, but not what I was expecting.

Boxcar Bertha – This could have been the bum-fights of porn. But instead it was a period movie.

What you get for the money –This is about buying a house. Not a floozy.

Tuna Wranglers – Turns out this show is actually about tuna. Go figure.

Honorable mention goes to Hoover Innovations, because I though it said Hooker Innovations and wound up getting psyched up for a documentary on vacuum cleaners.

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Fair warning, this is gonna be geeky.

Seriously, there is a big time world class nerdening happening below. You have been warned.

A few weeks ago me and some friends were discussing settings for MMOs. While weighing the pros and cons of science fiction vs fantasy vs other more unusual settings I was struck by a bolt of inspiration.

Gamma World.

If you are unfamiliar with this property (Likely because you dated in high school, or are under 30) here is a quick primer, courtesy of Io9.

Basically you have the perfect formula for an online game.

First of all, you have a back story that can be explained in seconds.

“WW3 destroyed the entire world. The planet is now a wasteland were survivors and mutants battle over the crumbled remains of civilization.” Done. Now everything the players do will make sense.

Next up, players like to customize their avatars. Many free-MMOs make their profit off of this fact. Most players in Gamma World are mutants. This is an excuse for the kind of player customization that is seen in City of Heroes. Want to play a bunny with a sniper rifle? Done. A turtle with a penchant for oriental weaponry? Not a problem. An offshoot of a flying squirrel that has the ability to generate electrical energy? Why the heck not. Pretty much anything the a player can come up with fits into the game.

All you need to do is come up with a balancing mechanism for the player that, for some reason, choose to make a regular human. Possibly by giving them better technology.

Which brings us to tech. If you are playing in a post-apocalyptic world, where high tech used to be common, you have pretty much the everything that you can think of available. Low level characters would start with primitive weapons, like hatchets, crossbows, and machetes. As they level up they could acquire ceramic body armor, automatic weapons, and explosives. High level players could get science fiction devices such as laser rifles, and force fields. Pretty much everything is fair game.

Low level player could have horses, or even some sort of mutant riding animals. As the players advanced they could get better pet/mounts or trade them in for a dirt bikes, a dune buggy, or even the last of the V-8 interceptors. You could even allow the players to strip the vehicles of defeated enemies for parts to tweak their own rides.

And thanks to the whole “psionics” angle you don’t even have to give up spellcasters, you just have to rename it. Heck if you start the players off privative enough, you don’t even have to rename it. After all one man’s pyrokinetic mutant is another’s fire-spec mage.

I really think this could be developed into something great. Now all I need is an investor with 5 million laying around, my own game development studio, and my trusty razor boomerang and I’m set.

Any of my gaming readers have any comments on this idea? (The game idea, not the ‘Skippy ruins amok with a razor-rang part)

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So a few years ago I saw Terminator 3.  To say that I thought it was a bad movie would be a mild understatement.  It was a train wreck with opening credits and a soundtrack.  It’s so bad that I actually enjoy the other movies less, ambulance knowing that part 3 exists.

But next month there’s going to be a TV show, anesthetist and I’m kind of excited about it.  I mean sure it’s on FOX which means that they’ll kill it at the first sign that it looks decent, but they lined up a good cast and the previews make it seem pretty interesting.

On a similar note, it appears that there will soon be a new Star Wars live action show.  And despite the fact that each of the three last Star Wars movies made T3 look like Shakespeare, I’m still looking forward to that too.

I am positive that I am not alone in this phenomenon.  Nerds have become the equivalent of those housewives you used to see on Jerry Springer.  The ones who, despite years of abuse, keep going back to the same violent men because, “This time he promises he won’t hit me any more.”

Movie Viewer : Oh my god! That movie was terrible! What the hell happened to it George?

Mr. Lucas: (Gives a vicious glare)Yeah.  What happened to it?

Nerd Audience: It fell.  Down the stairs.  Twice.

Mr. Lucas: That’s what I thought….now get back in the kitchen and fry me up a pork chop you geeks!

Now I have a mental picture of a trailer park filled with a collection of white-trash nerds…and which I have now passed on to you.  Your brain probably now feels about as clean as Lindsey Lohan’s bicycle seat.  Pleasant dreams.

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To start off here are some facts about me.
As I have stated before, pills I make video games for a living. I design board games for fun. I read comic books. I have memorized most of the works of Monty Python. I have a few dozen characters on Warcraft. I regularly watch repeats of shows and movies that contain the word “Star”. I listen to Jonathan Coulton, cheap order the Aquabats, medical and Nerf Herder.

There is more.

I play a game, called “Warhammer” which essentially consists of adults playing with plastic army men. I have worked in technical theater. I wear glasses. I have worked at an Anime convention. I once guilt tripped a stripper into dancing to the “Underdog” theme. I worked in PSYOP. I own a copy of the Star Wars Christmas special. I have gone to Ren Faires, and even engaged in mock medieval warfare using foam rubber weapons.

In short, the cool ship set sail without me a long time ago. (And if you mentally added the words “In A Galaxy Far Far Away” you’re stranded right here on the dock with me.)

I am not saying these things to impress you. I’m pretty sure my fan base is at least 50% nerd, and I’m sure many of them could out-dork me with their eyes closed and one hand tied to a limited edition Optimus Prime which is still in the box.

I said these things to establish that I am speaking from a position of authority when I say:

These people make me look cooler than the Fonz, at the South Pole.

Not really sure what to say beyond that. I’m torn between being flattered and creeped out. On the one hand, I like the thought that they enjoy my writing that much.

But on the other hand, being used as the basis for fan fiction? That’s nerdy even for me.

In case there are any people reading this who do not know what fan fiction is, it is basically where an amateur author takes an existing set of material, usually a cartoon or science fiction product, and then writes about it in such a way as to destroy anything good about the original material.

I will further illustrate this with a badly conceived analogy to drug use.

Watching Star Wars is like getting drunk. Normal enough behavior provided that you don’t overdo it. Playing Dungeons and Dragons is like experimenting with pot in college. Less people have tried it, but still enough that you could be considered a normal human being.

Well following this analogy, writing fanfic is the equivalent of trading oral sex for crack, in a mens’s room. In a furry costume. I will now leave you with that mental picture, as I go and try to scrub it out of my brain.

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Please note: If you are not a big gaming nerd, ampoule then this post may not mean a whole hell of a lot to you.

The other night I was picking up some stuff at Best Buy, viagra when I saw one of the coolest things ever.

http://www.ubi.com/US/Games/Info.aspx?pId=5737

I saw this game, sitting on the shelf. I’m a not huge military game fanboy, it’s not getting stellar reviews, and I don’t even own a PSP. So why am I so excited about this game?

I helped make it.

For the past year I’ve been going in to work every morning helping to build a small Central American country so that Captain Scott Mitchell can run amok shooting guerrillas.

Since I got out of the service I have bounced across the country a few times, gone to three different colleges, and basically busted my butt to get to this point. Now, I have a video game out.

I had previously done some low level scutt work on Brothers in Arms. Thanks to me, when someone in France plays it, the French translation has a correct lip sync. Bah, if the French wanted to play WWII video games, they should have fought in it.

Well this time I helped a bit on the initial design and did a lot of the level design and construction. By the end I was responsible for about a third of the levels.

So I’m pretty psyched. It’s kind of like how I felt when I graduated from Airborne school, except a hell of a lot less tired.

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