Are you changing the IP?

I had a major play test last Friday for my Thornwatch game. It was the first time I tried to run a full adventure rather than just testing combat mechanics. If you're working on a game of your own I cannot stress enough just how important it is to get it in front of other people. Watching how my friends played it showed me right away what parts were working and what parts needed help.

Hugo House is a House for writers, it "fosters" them, it "builds community and engages the Pacific Northwest in the world of writing." They just had their second annual "Celebrity" Spelling Bee, and it was my pleasure to return as Arbiter. It's possible to manifest a smug, trebeckian sort of omniscience at something like this; all the words are spelled out on your paper. I still managed to be imperious, somehow.

There's lots to like, or not like, or to think and talk about as regards the onslaught of Wii U data. I happen to believe Wired's Chris Kohler does it best; he's got a psychic investment but it doesn't cloud his analysis. The price is a concern at the individual level and also at the meta/tactical level, but if - like Gabriel - you saw your son gleam in the presence of the device, you might feel compelled to see that glow again.

So I posted some information about my tabletop game earlier this week. I got a ton of great responses and I really appreciate that so many of you think it sounds interesting. I’ve got a lot more mechanics than I posted about and I’ll be sharing those with you a little bit later. right now I wanted to address one of the big questions I got.

We came home from Sir Frederik of Meyers a couple years ago with a copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Catshit and literally no way to lose.

I ran my D&D group through a test of my new game on Saturday. I was nervous as hell but it went really well. It is a tabletop role playing game that attempts to express each class as a deck. I realize this is nothing new but none of the other games we’ve played have done it how I would do it. I figure there must be lots of people out there like me who want to make a game but just aren’t sure how to get started. I’m not a professional obviously but I’m having a lot of fun. I figure if I share my process maybe it will inspire some of you guys. I’m still ridiculously early in the development but here’s how I got started.

Like most sensate organisms, Gabriel didn't know what he was supposed to think about the Wii U. Reasonable, perceptive creatures can't be faulted for thinking that the enhanced controller was simply a peripheral, not terribly unlike the two fairly high concept peripherals they might already have been asked to purchase - one which is placed on the floor, of all places, and another that increases the resolution of the remote when used in space (?). The idea that a new controller would come out that has a teevee in there isn't that weird.

Now that PAX is over and I am still alive, I can look at all the shit is coming out and actually let it nest in my mind. I've been excited for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, and apparently it's coming out in like ten days. Given the wide span between now and its original release, it seemed like a good time to stop and smell the technology.

One of the things that came out of our Q&A panel at PAX this year was that I’m making my own tabletop game. Someone asked what exactly was in the sketchbook I didn't want to show Tycho in this strip. I had not planned on talking about it for a while but the answer was notes for my tabletop RPG.

I came away from PAX this year with some pretty cool stuff. Here’s a quick rundown of what I picked up at the show:

People asked us many times how we chose Australia for the next PAX, and we didn't really; you chose it. We know how to run shows, that's it. "Where they should be" and "who will go to them" is your department, and thus far it's been an efficient division of labor.

It felt in some ways as though we had just done a PAX, and I guess it's technically true; I wonder if six months is actually enough time to recuperate. I'll have an opportunity to find out if I can spring back in even less time, as we're rolling out a whole PAX in Australia as well, and PAX Prime is moving to four days, and you may feel "con"-fident (!) that we aren't finished yet.

There is another Madden game out, a football simulator, and because I know you are starved for our incomparable insights into Sports we have done everything to encapsulate our crucial perspective in comic form.

I backed Zombicide and said so, and then they put the Cardboard Tube Samurai in there, which was banging. This time around, they wanted to know if they could use Tycho and Gabe, which generally we don't do, but they wanted to gussy them all up fiction and art-wise and I got curious. We let them go hog wild, and they worked crazy fast. Penny Arcade "cyphers" are their next stretch goal now, which is (at the time of this writing, at least) forty-eight hundred dollars away.

I loved working on Precipice with these guys, so I got to get their backs on this: they've got Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath of Death VII in a double pack (!) for a buck forty nine. THEY'VE GONE INSANE, etc.