The Humble Indie Bundle
Soooo… six months later. I guess this sort of fell by the wayside. And I make my return with a brief post. Ah, well, so it goes.
I just wanted to direct any gamers out there who haven’t already heard of it to wolfire.com’s Humble Indie Bundle. This is a “pay whatever you want” sale of a bundle of five indie games to benefit Child’s Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The games in question are World of Goo, Gish, Aquarius, Lugaru, and Penumbra Overture. They work on Windows, Mac, or Linux, and there’s no DRM. No catches. Just a chance to get a couple of great indie games while also supporting some deserving charities. Which reminds me, there’s no “overhead” on the donations (aside from credit card charges), and you can choose how much of your money goes where, if you’d like.
As I write this, there’s about 4 days 15 hours left in the drive, and they’ve collected just over $430,000. Check them out.
Categories: Computer and Video Games, Websites | Comments (1)
A bit of Halloween surrealism…
In going through my old emails, I came across this gem from Amazon.com:
Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated “Rashomon – Criterion Collection”, you might like to know that “Zombie Self-Defense Force” will be released on October 13, 2009.
Yes, I can see the similarities. Thanks, Amazon.
Adding Fear to Your Game
…Okay, obviously, my last plan didn’t quite work out. So, rather than tempt fate again, I’ll just say I’ll post when and as I’m able, and leave it at that. Moving on…
Happy Halloween. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, I thought I’d say a little about fear in your game. Maybe you’re playing a dedicated horror game like Call of Cthulhu. Maybe you just want to visit the theme for a plotline or two in a game like D&D or HERO. Either way, if you want to inspire some fear in your players, there are a couple of things to consider.
Description Matters
As with evoking any other emotion, your description of the characters’ surroundings and the NPCs will have a large impact on the amount of fear the players feel. Sensory detail is your friend. Perhaps most important are the non-visual details. Does the old windmill creak and groan as it turns? Does the wind howl? Is there no sound at all in the abandoned manor except for the characters’ own muffled footfalls across the carpeted floor? And while aural cues are very effective, the sense of smell or touch is often even more evocative. Is the tomb dry and dusty, or damp and musty? Are the characters having to brush cobwebs off their exposed skin? Is the air cold and clammy? Or is it uncomfortably, and unaccountably, warm?
Categories: Advice, Philosophy and Rants | Comments (0)
Still Alive
Look at me, still typing when there’s science to do…
To be brief: A family emergency has kept me more or less offline for the last month. It’s one of those things that didn’t seem like it would take long, and then kept complicating until much more time had passed than I’d expected.
New posts will resume next week. I’ll be on a lighter posting schedule for a little while — 1-2 posts per week, rather than the previous 2-3.
Kicking things off, I have an interview with Wolfgang Baur about Open Design and his latest 4e project, Fey of the Shadow Court.
Rampant Sects
(This is a repost. This article was originally posted on November 24, 2008.)
In my last post, I talked a little bit about how religions are rarely monolithic in reality — how they splinter into a network of related sects, some of which can believe very different things. Today I offer a brief illustration: three sects I’ve developed for my game, all based on my interpretation of the Raven Queen, the fourth edition’s new and ever-intriguing goddess of death.
The Most Ancient and Honorable Order of Deathspeakers is a militarized splinter faction of the church, whose warrior monks seek to destroy the undead and oppose the machinations of Orcus and his minions. Many of these are fanatical in their beliefs, and enough are reckless in battle that the common folk often call them the “Deathseekers” (but not to their faces).
The M.A.H.O. is actually not very ancient, having been established within the past century — it claims the adjective through a dubious philosophical connection with an earlier sect of a similar name, which was eradicated centuries ago by a combination of Orcus cultists and their own infighting. It isn’t terribly honorable, either, for that matter, although its activities are largely confined to crusading against the undead and related enemies (necromancers, Orcus cultists, etc.).
The Deathspeakers have only one large monastery devoted to their order — in the wilderness north of the kingdoms of Tir Eselyn and south of Ravenspire. Few rulers are willing to support a large independent army of religious fanatics on their soil. Smaller chapterhouses of perhaps 20-50 members are scattered throughout the region, though, and itinerant crusader groups of 3-7 warrior monks and acolytes are a reasonably common sight throughout the north.
Categories: Advice | Comments (0)
