games

Kickstarter follow ups

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The Tales of the Emerald Serpent anthology is over and it’s fully funded:

(Let’s see if iframe will work in WordPress.)

Thanks to everyone who pledged. I know a lot of readers were unhappy that the benefit level for a physical book was so spendy, but when the book itself comes out I’m sure you can pick up a copy at regular book price.

The Dinopacalypse Kickstarter is nearly over…

and is running out of stretch goals. The benefit levels are pretty reasonable, too. At this point you can get ebooks of several of those novels for a paltry pledge. Take a look.

Finally, here’s a project I’m not involved in at all, except as a backer:

Sentinels of the Multiverse is my new favorite game to play with my son, and they made their goal for the new expansion set AND the second edition of the basic game in one day. That’s how popular this game is becoming. Personally, I’m hoping that they make their stretch goals so we can get the “promo cards” that let us change the way games are played.

Anyway, I’ve been recommending this game (as often as I do such things) but at this point I think it would be best to pick up the second edition. It will have better game balance for the villains and will make record-keeping less of a chore. And the Rook City expansion means tougher fights.

Added later: iframe doesn’t work in the cross-poster, so I’ve added links in the text.

Randomness for 4/14

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1) Notch, creator of Minecraft, is planning a new “hard science fiction” space exploration game. Sadly for James Nicoll, the early promotional materials mention a cloaking device.

2) Screenshots of Despair

3) The Bad Opinion Generator.

4) Top 10 Dying Industries in the United States.

5) If Darth Vader had been a good father.

6) Nazis hire official lobbyist to lobby Congress.

7) Murals in Minneapolis that will soon face the wrecking ball.

Randomness for 4/6

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1) A webcomic appreciation of Doctor Who. via @sinboy

2) The invasive species diet. I don’t care how much good it does for the planet, I’m not eating nutria.

3) The Dalek Relaxation Tape. Video.

4) Worst Album Covers Ever. Some of these are NSFW.

5) It’s Official: Star Wars Kinect Is the Worst Star Wars Thing Ever. I don’t know. To me, a little silliness if just fine.

6) D&D: The Important Questions

7) Awesome animated gifs. No, seriously for real.

More evidence for Lego D&D

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My son made this MOC and took the pictures, too.

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More at the set.

Brandon Sanderson gets a video game adaptation of his books?

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First of all, I’m glad for him. I don’t know the dude and to be frank I bounced off the first Mistborn book. But his books have been selling very well, and this is a happy thing for him.

But I have the envy, too. The deep, deep envy.

Ah well. It’s not something I can control, but I can go back to my own WIP. Here’s more details:

Mistborn: Birthright announced for XBOX, PS3, and PC — A Dribble of Ink.

Randomness for 3/4

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1) United Artists’ Rejection Letter for STAR WARS. via @rodramsey

2) The Internet Justice League

3) Minecraft Middle Earth

4) Finally, a lit contest I can care about: 2011’s Oddest Book Titles of the Year. I’m rooting for the chicken sexer.

5) Why do innocent people confess to crimes they haven’t committed?

6) Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend in Vain. Big Bird wrests celestial justice from an Egyptian god in a Sesame Street special. For real.

7) A prosecutor and cartoonist creates A Criminal Lawyer’s Illustrated Guide to Crime.

Randomness for 2/22

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1) Author Jim Hines matches the poses of women on urban fantasy covers.

2) Read this fantastic metafilter comment about libraries.

3) Twelve Creative Business Cards

4) The setting of Word of Warcraft recreated in Minecraft.

5) Comics need fewer creators and more owners.

6) How Pilot Season ensures that the right actors aren’t cast in the right TV show. Via

7) How to [Title] Your First Novel

Much ado about fifth edition D&D

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So much ado, in fact, that Forbes Magazine even did a piece on the new “crowd-sourced” rule set.

Me, I was disappointed that this was the big news. For a long time now, I’ve been waiting to hear that Wizards would work out a licensing deal with Lego to create a Dungeons and Dragons line of figures, with swappable accessories and armor. Hell, they already have many of the humanoid creatures. How hard could it be to create a few Yuan-Ti, amirite? And everyone would buy a Lego beholder, just because.

I mentioned this to my son, and he immediately began to put together a tableau. Here are some high-level heroes taking on a red dragon and its minions.

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Skeleton kebob!

More pictures at the flickr set.

Randomness for 1/26

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1) 20 Amazingly Weird Pieces of Classic Video Game Box Art.

2) AZ school officials ban “ethnic studies.” No racism here, folks, just move along.

3) What a comic script is for, by Warren Ellis

4) Cop or Soldier? I could only get 12 out of 21. Can you do better?

5) Meljean Brooks’s Diary of an Author Reader, I LOLed.

6) A comic script, from conception to finished product.

7) A funny video about breast cancer self examinations. No, really. Also features hot dudes with their shirts off. Video. Via +Kat Richardson

Five Things Make a Friday Post

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1) For folks who are still waiting for the Twenty Palace prequel, I have already self-published a number of short stories and novellas. None of them are in the 20P universe, but one is a historical fantasy set near Seattle in 1879, and the rest are second world fantasies. Some have never been published anywhere else: Kindle | Nook

2) Note for folks who visit that B&N page: I’m not the photographer, and I’ve never published scraped text through Hephaestus Books

3) Today is my tenth anniversary. The traditional gift is an ebook, right?

4) Last night we had our anniversary dinner. We ate steaks from Don and Joe’s, roast beets, green beans, and fingerling potatoes, a fancy cheese that I lost the label for and can’t ID right now, a delicious tiny lemon cheesecake from The Confectional, and a bottle of Beringer Cab from 1997 that we bought for our wedding. Thumbs up to all of it.

5) My son read a D&D comic and now wants to play the game. Do I have time to run a fantasy campaign? Shit to the no.