Project Zomboid and Dead State: Two different takes on zombie games for PC.

I love the zombie genre. I'm just gonna put that right out there. One of my favorite horror movies of all time is still the original Dawn of the Living Dead, and the popularity of the genre in recent film, TV and games is something that I relish. We're already starting to see the “Ugh, I'm so over Zombies...” hipster backlash, but long after zombies aren't the “hot” thing anymore, I'll still be into them. If I were to profile all of the video games about zombies, I could do a multi-week series of nothing but, testing my own assertion that I can't get sick of the topic. Instead, I want to talk a little bit about two games from small studios that have similar visions of a game about the zombie apocalypse, but intend to have very different executions in their finished projects.

An indie game worth supporting. The developers have already been through
a horror story nearly the equal of the one they are trying to tell, just to get this made.

First up is a game you can actually play, today... or at least a version of it. Project Zomboid, in development by The Indie Stone, is a survival game with equal parts isometric action/exploration and RPG elements, including a crafting system and (soon to be introduced) character classes. I was first introduced to the game via a thread on Reddit linking to articles over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The game is being developed and sold using the same model Minecraft did, that is to say, you support the developers early and you get a copy of the game on the cheap while it is still being worked on. I got in early on Minecraft and was intrigued by the vision the devs had for their final product, so I happily jumped at the chance to get in on the ground floor.

From the beginning, Project Zomboid tells you the philosophy of the kind of story it wants to tell. This isn't the story of brave survivors who shotgun blast and eat canned goods until they are safe and a cure is found, or the military sweeps in and saves everyone. This is the story of the struggle against an inevitable end. No matter what you do, how well you play or what paths you take, in the long run, the zombie apocalypse is total. This is not the story of how you survived. This is the story of how you died. The setting, and the “no one survives” concept may be bleak, but the human stories about how people treat each other and what sorts of decisions people have to make in order to survive are present from the very first pre-alpha tech demo release.

Even with great planning and plenty of supplies, when things go bad in Zomboid, they go BAD.

In the demo, you are Bob, a normal sort of balding middle-aged dude who has just escaped a group of survivors who turned on him and his wife and took all they had, and she broke her leg in the process of getting away. You are introduced to basic first aid, inventory management, scavenging for food and supplies while hiding from the horde, some item crafting and combat with both zombies and hostile survivors. Buildings can be barricaded, supplies scavenged, and you can, at the moment, deal with various needs like hunger, need for rest, panic and pain management. The basic gameplay is reminiscent of a version of The Sims with more RPG elements and where most of the other Sims are trying to eat you. I look forward to seeing what this game will look like in six months or a year, as I'm impressed with what I've seen so far.

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The other game is one that I've been looking forward to for a very long time, and shares a lot on its surface with Project Zomboid, but focuses on different things and should provide a very different experience. Dead State, still in development by Doublebear Productions (release date of "when its done",) is a game with its focus built around the maintenance of a safehouse, adding other characters to the group of survivors and dealing with the crises that come with being cooped up together. NPCs may be found “in the wild,” and depending on the circumstances of your meeting, may be cautious, friendly or hostile on different playthroughs. The focus in a lot of the development journals is on making a LOT of NPCs, and fleshing them out as characters.

Zombies might think I meant something different by "fleshed out" NPCs.

Where Zomboid seems to take gameplay inspiration from The Sims, Dead State seems to have grounded its philosophy in turn-based tactical RPGs like Jagged Alliance and Fallout 1&2. All combat will be using action points and turns rather than arcade action or real-time strategy rapid clicking, and in general, single zombies are only a problem if someone is surprised by them. Running into other hostile and armed survivors while scavenging for basic needs, and the very real danger of a firefight attracting many dozens of zombies will present the real challenges. Morale and fright will also impact how perfectly survivors follow the orders they are given, as someone who doesn't trust in your leadership to being with may behave unpredictably when panicked.

In terms of building trust, one of the most interesting things is the events and NPC concerns while living in the safehouse, that remind me of old political sim games that frequently ask the player to make policy decisions. When someone who commands a lot of respect among the other survivors starts asking for an unfair ration of food, do you agree and risk people becoming upset when they find out... or do you say “No special favors,” knowing they will undermine your leadership later in casual conversation with others? Dealing with others who become selfish, mentally unstable, ill or injured... or just think they'd be a better leader than you are is what makes me want to play this game. Now.

Managing people's respect for you in moments of crisis looks like it will be key.

Both of these games have taken the "zombie as target practice" and "blast your way to freedom" out of the equation, and I like this more thoughtful approach to the genre. Not that I don't enjoy shooting zombies in the games that do it best, but I've played that already.  The personal horror of making terrible decisions in order to survive, wondering if everyone hates you or fears you because of what you did... Zombie films are about people, not zombies, and I'll be happy to play a few different takes on games developed with that in mind.

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Blog Gadgets

Game of Thrones Season 2 – Casting Update!

HBO has a hit on its hands, and it doesn't hurt at all that between seasons of Game of Thrones a new book in the series finally released (No, haven't read it yet. Have three things on my list to finish first, including one other that will for sure be reviewed here.) Fans of the show who haven't read the books are likely reeling from the last few episodes of that first season, and wondering with all of the tragic and exciting, erm, things (don't click that if you don't wan't spoilers) that happened, where can the show go next season? Those of us who have been fans of Westeros for years already know that we've got a few new characters turning up, and some of these are incredibly important for the story to be able to move forward.

Casting has been surprisingly amazing for the characters I've grown to know well over the last ten-plus years that I've been a fan of the books. I've heard the usual complaints from the people I expected to hear complaining that this character wasn't cast quite old enough, that one has hair the slightly wrong shade, and the other one isn't actually and actor 8 feet tall capable of shooting lighting from his... well, you get the point. Reasonable folks who have seen casting directors do a hell of a lot worse with beloved characters have, in general, been very pleased with the actors selected so far. These new characters, however, give casting directors all new opportunities to enrage fans, and some of the people showing up in season two are ones you just can't get wrong and do the rest of the show right. So, how'd they do?

The face of Stannis Baratheon. I always kinda pictured him as
Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show, but I suppose he was busy.

There's been an awful lot of talk about wars, and succession and family, and at the center of those conversations has been Stannis Baratheon. We haven't seen him yet, but we've heard a whole lot about him. He's younger than Robert, but older than Renly, and his personality leaves quite a bit to be desired if the rumors are true. His strict and grim nature make it impossible for a populace to ever love him as a king, and this fact means that people can (and will) go to war to make sure exactly that can never happen. Stephen Dillane, best known for his work on The Hours and his role as Thomas Jefferson in John Adams has been cast as the Lord of Dragonstone and potential heir to the Iron Throne. Dillane is a versatile British actor, capable of pulling of the gravity that personifies Stannis. It is a challenge to play a character with absolutely no sense of humor or warmth, and I look forward to his portrayal.

Stannis' religious beliefs have also remained off-screen for the first season, as we've been introduced to two of the Westerosi religions, the Old Gods of the North and their godswoods and the worship of the Seven as practiced by the Andals and most of the rest of the continent. The Red Priests and Priestesses of R'hllor, Lord of Light hasn't even been mentioned up to this point, but, to be fair, even in the books only minor characters espoused this new faith in the beginning, and it feels more like a cult than a legitimate priesthood. This will all change with the introduction of Melisandre of Asshai, advisor to Stannis Baratheon. The mysterious and reverent (some might say fanatical and seductive) Melisandre is a tricky character to cast, and Carice van Houten, a Dutch actress best known for her part in Valkyrie is a flat-out perfect choice. She looks amazing with flame-red hair, and should nail the piercing gaze and exotic mannerisms of the Red Lady just fine.

Melisandre has that look like she wants to have sex with you
 and set you on fire, maybe not in that order.

Earlier this summer, two other casting announcements were made, and I won't gloss over those. There are two ladies associated with Robert's other brother, Renly, who haven't made an appearance mainly due to his brief time in season one being on the Small Council, rather than at home. We saw in Season One that Renly has already found love, though very few publicly know of his homosexuality, and it wouldn't really do for someone taking a shot at the throne to have his knight-champion and his, um, queen, for lack of a better word, to be the same person. In preparation for “looking the part,” Renly must marry, and who better to assume that role than his lover's sister, Margaery Tyrell? Ser Loras' beautiful younger sister has been cast, with Natalie Dormer, who played Anne Boleyn on The Tudors taking on the role in a spot of inspired casting. They've managed in all cases to get actors who look as though they could be related to their on-screen siblings, and this is no exception.

Cute as a button, and perfect for the younger Tyrell. At least she won't
have to worry about her husband and brother not getting along... and her wardrobe will be fabulous.

The other woman in Renly's life who would desperately like to be both knight and queen if Ser Loras didn't already have the jobs locked up is Brienne of Tarth. Brienne “the Beauty” was tricky casting, as she's described as freakishly tall with a broad and homely face. I personally worried that they'd take one of the pretty actresses known for “tough chick” parts and cast her here. I am glad that my fear was completely unfounded. Gwendoline Christie is 6'3”, and while not bad looking while fully made up, her features are well-suited to the part without modern cosmetics and with just a little bit of grime and makeup to “ugly her up” a bit, I couldn't imagine a better job casting. Her only major screen role was a supporting player in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but she's been working in the UK for years.

I can't imagine that is is much of a compliment to be called "perfect"
for Brienne, but she is such a loved character that the adoration of fans can't hurt.

With summer rapidly giving way to a new fall season, principal shooting will likely have to start fairly soon, which means that there are only a few key characters left uncast. I'm looking forward to hearing who is finally cast as Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight, though insiders say the most likely choice is Irish actor David Wilmot, also an Alumni from The Tudors. If all goes well, the new faces we'll run into next season will help to bolster the cast, as we know the body count rises as the Game is played. You win, or you die. 

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Blog Gadgets

Agricola, by Z-Man Games – Farming as a boardgame is way more fun than it sounds.

This past weekend, I spent quite a bit of time in the company of friends at multiple gatherings. Usually, once things get going and people have had the chance to chat, catch up and get a bit to eat and drink, we're looking for some sort of activity. Invariably, since many of my friends are nearly as geeky as I am, board games come up. Two of the more popular choices these last few months have already been reviewed/discussed by me previously: Battlestar Galactica and Shadows Over Camelot. The only other game I've played more than once in the past few months is a relatively new one without knights, spaceships, or fighting of any sort whatsoever. We've been playing Agricola, a game about farming.

A game besides Settlers of Catan where the less mature gamer can
make jokes about wood and sheep. Yeah, I've gone there.

Personally, I actually like farming games period. Harvest Moon is a video game series I return to regularly, and the combination of resource management and simulation aspects of these sorts of games I think appeals to the deep-buried part of me that desperately wants to be an accountant despite the fact that I'm terrible at math. Agricola has one of the things I really adore about the best games. You have many options for what you can choose to do with your turn, and there are many different and equally viable strategies to win. There are a lot of things on a successful farm, and having each gets you points based on quantity and a farm missing one of these key things loses a few points. Victory points are awarded for efficient use of land, having stables and fences built, having grain, produce and livestock, and the size and quality of the farmhouse and number of people in the family. Bonus points are available for improvements made to the homestead such as a cooking hearth to bake bread, a well, or a pottery or basketweaving business to sell goods to augment the family income.

The components of the game are high quality, which is nice, as Z-Man Games is evolving as a company to be taken seriously in the boardgame world. Some of their early games had solid mechanics, but the components just weren't as well made as something from, say, Days of Wonder, Fantasy Flight or Rio Grande Games. I'm glad that the nice painted bits of wood to represent resources, building materials, animals, etc. as well as the cards, boards and counters are all very well put together. The game itself has a main board which displays the options players may choose on each round (which start simple, and evolve as the game develops,) and each player has their own board to store their harvested resources and to build the farm on their own plot of land. Cards are used to scale the game based on the number of players and how complex you wish the rules to be, different cards representing options players may select on their turns.

A nice overview of the bits and pieces.

Each player has a number of actions equal to the current number of family members they have (families start with 2,) to work in each phase. Work might mean a number of things, but in order, each player selects an option on the board, and only that player is allowed to perform that action for that phase. Each new phase starts with one new possible action that may be taken, and spaces on the board that produce resources refill if they were selected on previous turns, or additional resources are placed if they were not. This makes spaces neglected for multiple turns more attractive options as time goes on. Players can collect wood, clay, reeds and stone, get animals, build fences to give livestock a place to live, plow fields, sow grain or vegetables or improve their homes. Balanced against the “gather and build” mechanics is the need to feed your family. Every harvest, crops give farmers more veggies or grain, animals breed (if you have room for more and two or more to handle reproduction) and the family members have to eat.

Getting to do everything you want in a turn with the looming threat of needing to feed the family makes the game a balancing act of managing your actions on each round, and hoping that you aren't blocked off by another player who gets to act first. You can't eat raw grain or just grab a fork and eat a cow, so improvements to bake bread or slaughter and cook livestock are key. If you find yourself constantly out of position due to going late in the round, selecting the “take 1 free food and the 1^st player token” is attractive. It is also very possible that you may spend several actions gathering wood only to find that someone else has blocked you out of the ability to build fences or stables, so the timing of your actions is nearly as important as managing your resources. The most successful players will be efficient on every turn, balancing the need to survive the next harvest against the desire to make sure that there is a little bit of everything in the farmstead for endgame, when victory points are counted up.

An example of an endgame farm with a little something in every bit of land.

I've played a few times now, and as a board gamer I usually turn my nose up at the least complex version of the rules when there are multiple options presented. The “family game rules” are the version I've been describing up to this point, and the play experience is suitably rich and I'd say rather more complex than a typical game of Monopoly or Risk. The advanced game adds in profession cards for family members and minor improvements that may be built around the farmstead for more bonus points and additional options on any given turn. I look forward to playing a few times with the advanced rules, but this is a complete and fun game even without them. The game takes about 2 hours assuming you aren't teaching the rules for the first time, and supports up to 5 players, with solo play as an available option. Ages of 12 and up are suggested for the game, and younger players will need to be fairly patient and bright, as this isn't a traditional “kids game.”

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Blog Gadgets

A Few Things I Learned Along the Path to 35 and Unemployed.

So, the day this post goes live is my 35^th Birthday, and let me tell you, I really considered completely taking the day off. However, when I did my Origins week, and managed to have a full week of updates despite being out of the state, I established some sort of internal precedent. So, with the arrival of guests looming and tasks around the house still unfinished, this piece will be a little shorter than usual.

No lies ahead, just a few thoughts. Some will inevitably be thought of
as cliches... that's just how these things go.

Without further ado, I present: 

7 things I know as an unemployed 35-year old that I didn't understand at 25.


1. The mind overestimates the long-term impact of tragedy on the heart.

This one, I didn't understand until recently. The loss of a job, end of a relationship, death of a loved one, these things suck. The incredible resilience of the human mind to find happiness when there is no choice but to deal with what has happened is amazing. (It is called impact bias, we also overestimate the effect good fortune has on happiness.)  There's a TED talk about it here, you owe it to yourself to make a few minutes to watch this.

2. No matter how much free time or money you have, what you think you need will take up almost all of it.

Whenever I made a decent amount of money, I never felt I had enough to cover what I needed and wanted. The same is true now, with a whole lot less. On that same front, I've been out of work for almost six months, and despite having nothing but free time, I always manage to be too busy to get to everything.

3. Little, stupid, easily correctable things will erode your sanity if you let them. Don't.

The things that have driven me to stupidity aren't usually the big arguments with friends, family or my wife. It is stupid things like coming back from a hard day and the remote doesn't work. I always have spare “AA” batteries in the house, it is an investment in peace of mind.

4. Sometimes, the most important thing you can do is shut up for a few seconds.

Some people will never get this one. They'll wreck relationships trying to “talk it out,” get attacked by someone who was on the verge of calm, and won't understand why. Sometimes, what you gotta say is nothing at all.

5. It is key to identify when you are losing control of your emotions, and make sure no rash actions are taken or decisions are made until you get it back.

Sane and rational adults lose it sometimes. Instead of denying that fact of life, recognize when it is happening to you and don't say or do anything in those moments that will wreck your life.

6. Learn to let things go.

I still struggle with this one. I've stayed in relationships that were hurting me and going nowhere, stayed at jobs where I was miserable and had no future and stuck with projects that were a waste of more time and effort. When things stop working, don't let the fear of the unknown make you stick with it. Learn to bail when it is time.

7. Life isn't a competition, or if it is, we don't all use the same scoring system.

I've worked jobs where people looked down on me for what I did or how much I made. I've gotten myself down looking at where people around my age are, and envying their success. Forget it. Triumph and tragedy happen suddenly, when they happen and no particular moment guarantees either. I've been happy by experiencing and learning, playing and sharing with people around me. By the way I'm keeping score, the lack of an expensive car of annual vacations doesn't mean I'm not winning. What you do for a living isn't who you are.

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Enough musing. Time to get ready to celebrate surviving another year, and get on with doing what I do. Back next week with the usual comics, games and science fiction.

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Blog Gadgets

Full Review of the Mechanics and “Crunch” of the Arcanis RPG from Paradigm Concepts.

After a few weeks with the book in-hand, and experience with character creation and a half dozen sessions using the new mechanics, I think I'm about ready to tackle a full review of Arcanis: The RPG. I wrote about the setting and what I like about it before here, but I experienced the Shattered Empires first the way most people likely did, as a setting for Dungeons and Dragons. I can clearly say that Arcanis is no longer D&D. In terms of design, it is reminiscent in some ways of the Warhammer Fantasy RPG for character creation and advancement, the magic and martial technique system remind me of Paradigm's own Witch Hunter, and skill/task resolution is similar to West End Games' Masterbook (a spiritual descendent of TORG.) Combat has a flow unlike anything I've ever played due to the “clock” initiative system, which is both a strength and a potential weakness in the game, though I will say that combats are fun in spite of my few lingering doubts.

A very, very pretty book. Heavy, too.

Starting with the presentation of the book itself. The main rules are in a hefty tome, a full-color 448 page hardcover with uniformly polished interior art. Some pieces were re-used from cover paintings or particularly good bits from older Arcanis sourcebooks, but there is also quite a bit of brand new artwork inside. One thing I always take careful note of with roleplaying books is the binding, especially on a book with a cover price of $49.99. They did a fantastic job on that front, making a book that looks like it will endure (though I'm not tugging at pages to see if they fall out, and I'll certainly come back here with an edit if any fall out of their own accord.) There is a lot of information to absorb in this book, and most sections are properly organized and cross-referenced for ease of use. There are a few places where key information is split across two entirely different sections of the book (most notably weapon tricks, more on this later) without proper cross-references which can be confusing.

Making a character grows from building a concept one block at a time. Each part of a character's life before they start the first adventure is an integral part of their statistics and capabilities. Step by step, race, home nation/region, archetype and background profession give each character certain granted abilities and other options to pick from a short list to build their base statistics. All of these elements serve to allow the mechanics to support the character that is envisioned, rather than min-maxing and writing a justification background later. For those unfamiliar with the setting's long history, the first 90 or so pages of the book lay out the basics of the setting, as well as recent events for returning players, as 45 years (game time) have passed since the last published Arcanis product.

Gamemasters wanting to run Arcanis as a Home Play personal campaign can
expect a lot of product support.  Arcanis isn't just for convention play anymore.

Character development and advancement is one of the key elements of any system for me, and Arcanis starts off strong with the archetypes and background professions, and continue this process through character paths, which are like prestige classes in D&D or advanced careers in WHFRPG. An archetype is the general “type” of character you are playing, and there are four to choose from: Arcane (wizards, sorcerers and psions,) Divine (cleric/priest/shaman casters,) Expert (any character whose skills are their primary asset, like a thief or scholar) and Martial (warriors of all types.) Archetypes determine basic advancement options available once a character earns the experience required to gain a rank, martial characters find it easier to learn new techniques with their weapons, experts can improve skills faster, etc. Background Professions provide a basic set of skills and talents, and some character concepts make the selection of one of these nearly automatic. A healing cleric will likely select a Divine Archetype with Initiate of the Gods as a background profession, but it is possible to combine archetype and background in different ways to create a unique character.

For every ten ranks earned (typically, it should take 4-6 sessions to earn a rank,) characters go up a Tier. Tiers are the real benchmarks for characters passing from one level of power to the next, from “low level” through to “high level” play. More powerful spells and talents are limited to higher tiers, characters existing weapons can be used in different ways, and options that can only be taken once per tier are among the best advancement options available. One of these is the Path. Paths represent a refinement in what a character does, a commitment to something, whether that is a Knightly Order, a Specialization in a type of Spell Casting or an advanced profession like Assassin. Often, options selected upon gaining a rank will be taken with qualification for a Path in mind. Talents (similar to Feats, Edges, etc) will sometimes be “Tiered,” and may be selected again for an upgrade in what they do, and every weapon is capable of performing various “tricks,” provided the wielder has the requisite skill ranks in its use, is trained in wielding it, and is the appropriate Tier (or higher) for the trick.

A supplement detailing one of the many Paths a character may take, and its in-game lore.
This book is available at Drive Thru RPG as a PDF.

Whether casting a spell, swinging a sword or picking a lock, skill resolution is handled at a basic level in a similar way. Each attribute is displayed on a character sheet as a numerical value, a die type (d4 to d12) and a passive value. When actively rolling any skill, two ten-sided “action dice” are rolled along with whatever the attribute die associated with that skill is, and ranks in the skill are added to the result. Attribute dice “explode,” that is, they are rerolled and added again to the total if the highest number on that die is rolled (a six sided die that comes up six is picked up and rolled again, if it comes up four, ten is added to the total.) Passive attributes are used for when a skill needs to set a resistance value and the character is making no conscious effort to use it, such as perception for a guard not particularly searching anything. Damage rolls are like action rolls, except they do not get the action dice, and the weapon, spell or ability provides its own dice which are usually combined with an attribute die (Might for hitting someone with something, for example) to generate a total.

The flow of combat is determined by the “clock,” Arcanis' initiative system. There are no combat “rounds,” and initiative is rolled only once per combat, to determine when each character may take their first action. The clock has 12 “ticks”, and every attack, spell, action and special move has a speed associated with it. A character performs an action on their turn, and the speed of whatever they do determines when they can act again. Slower weapons (tend to have larger damage dice) or complicated spells or maneuvers may be performed at the cost of not being able to act again for some time, while faster attacks don't hit as hard, but strike more often. Spells and combat maneuvers also have “cooldowns” called strain and recovery respectively. These are additional ticks AFTER your next opportunity to act that must be waited out before another ability that produces strain or recovery may be used without consequence. A gamemaster should maintain a “Master Clock” that counts from 1 to 12 and then starts over at 1 again to keep combat flowing.

Several companies have released initiative "combat dials" to aid in tracking when
your character's next action is up. I use one like this, but with a second dial for strain/recovery.

Mastering which dice to roll and managing the clock takes a little time for new players to pick up on, and the first few sessions of Arcanis seem slow-paced in comparison to other RPGs. This is especially true if someone uses a weapon with a slow speed by default. I have a few lingering doubts about the balance between slow weapons and fast ones, as it seems easier to make a fast weapon do more damage than it is to make a slower weapon fast. Familiarity with the combat system and players choosing the right weapon for the task at hand assists with this a LOT, though. Combats start to speed up and characters reserve the big heavy hammers that swing slow for attacking foes with heavy armor, instead of “one tool for every fight.” When all players are sure what they roll and when to roll dice, the gap between fast and slow weapons closes a little bit, and as characters advance, weapon tricks, combat maneuvers and spell augmentations will give characters a lot of tactical options on any given turn.

The last thing I want to talk about mechanic-wise is the damage system and Fate, which are closely linked. Every character has defenses, which are like a combination armor class and saving throw for various types of attacks. These values are derived from attributes and usually provide target numbers for them to be affected by a weapon, spell or ability. The sum of all of a character's defenses is their Stamina value, and damage (less armor rating) is applied to this number. When it is reduced to 0, a character slips unconscious, but not dead. Wounds are lethal damage, usually only removed with a critical hit from both action dice on an attack coming up “10”. Wounds are hard to heal, and apply a penalty to all rolls for a character who has one. Fate points, which are awarded regularly for good roleplaying, clever or dramatic actions, etc, can be used for many things including ignoring wounds, re-setting Recovery or Strain and re-rolling failed Action Rolls. The min-maxed character doesn't get as much out of Fate, as the maximum number of Fate that may be spent per adventure is limited by a characters lowest attribute. The relative low base lethality of the system combined with clever uses of fate make combats dynamic and dramatic, encouraging characters to attempt cinematic but difficult feats.

From the 2011 Convention Arcanis official T-Shirt:
"Stupidity Leads to Character Creation, But it Helps to be Lucky."

This review was my longest article to date by far, and I hope it was useful to those curious about the system. Personally, I really like each and every one of the systems that have gone before that have elements that I find similar to something in Arcanis, so there is an easy answer for me to a tough question. A legitimate question posed regarding this system is “Do gamers really need another set of rules to do Fantasy Roleplaying Games with everything that is on the market now?” For my tastes, the answer is “As long as the whole package is this good, then yes.” If you are intrigued, but not quite ready to drop $50 on a hardcover with an admittedly fairly steep learning curve, check out the free Fast Play PDF here.

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Blog Gadgets

Google Plus: Don't Be Evil.

The current “thing of the moment” on the internet is, of course, Google's offering in the world of social networking services, Google Plus. With the proliferation of Facebook to the point where it sometimes seems like literally everyone is using it (I've actually had to go way out of my way to remember that certain friends didn't have it, and invite them to events by e-mail or a phone call,) a new platform begs a few questions. Why would anyone launch such a thing with the status quo so well established? Is it possible to dethrone the current king of social networking within a year of a movie being made about it? Why would anyone join such a thing if what they have now is popular, and people like it?

"It's like Facebook, only less evil and with no Mafia Wars."

Google, as a company, is the world's greatest data aggregator. Their services include one of the world's most popular e-mail clients, one of the most popular web browsers, document creation and online publishing (including the platform for this very blog,) YouTube, and of course, the world's most popular search engine. With access to loads of data that market research firms might literally kill for, you'd think that whatever product they chose to launch would be nearly a guaranteed success, after all, they can predict whether something is a good idea or not better than anyone. However, the failed launch of a host of services from the e-mail replacement Google Wave to Google Video Player, Coupons, Catalog, proves otherwise. Google Plus isn't even the first time the company has tried its hand at social networking, as the failed platform Orkut can attest to. So we know it isn't as though they are incapable of missteps.

If Google's own innovation at its internal R&D “Google Labs” is not infallible, then what hope does Google Plus have, and why is there so much hype about it? The answer to this question may lie not just in what Google is doing right, but with what Facebook is doing wrong. A lot of people are angry with Facebook over a multitude of privacy scandals, a poor customer service track record and new and surprising ways they find that the social networking giant is using and profiting from their personal data with the only form of consent being the EULA clicked when joining. If people don't like their policies, they're free to not use the service... This smug reply to a host of concerns leaves a whole lot of disgruntled people wishing there was another game in town, and along comes Google.

Are decisions made by this man and his company even more relevant to
the success or failure of Google+ than the folks at Google?

While “I'm not the other guy” works as a winning strategy in party politics, on its own it isn't enough for a successful product launch. Where Google Plus is at its strongest is with policies and features that are specifically different from weaknesses that Facebook has. First, Google claims no rights to any of your personal information or content generated for inclusion on their site. You choose how and if your data is used. Privacy and security settings are easy to understand and manage, and are by default set to reasonable options, rather than the most open and public possible choices. Unlike Facebook, if you make a typographical error in a post, you may edit it after putting it up, something that I personally value. The most-hyped feature, Google's Circles, makes it incredibly easy to sort contacts into different groups and choose what you share with each group. Facebook can do this with their lists feature, but it is nowhere near as easy or elegant as the Circles of Google Plus.

Google also has features that either work as well as what is offered on Facebook or aren't present on Facebook at all. Google Plus also makes it very easy to invite people who don't yet use the service, and allows you to contact people and share with them even if they choose not to sign themselves up. Sharing pictures, videos and links is handled in a very similar manner to the familiar Facebook interface, and everything integrates cleanly with Gmail and other Google services. The "Google +1" button is currently nearly indistinguishable from Facebook's "Like" feature, though its integration into Google's search engine makes it potentially more powerful. Hangouts, a communal video chat where people can choose to talk with some or all of the people on their circles is an interesting feature, and one I'll be watching public response to very closely. A lot of people feel strongly about video chat, and I wonder if Hangouts will break down any of the barriers that people who don't care for video chat in general have erected for themselves.

Currently the best thing about using Google Plus.

For the moment, the very clean integration of Google Plus with my Gmail account means that I'll be using it alongside Facebook as a sort of companion social networking tool. The fact that you can add people to your circles without them necessarily needing to add you back allows for fans to interact with celebrities who choose to share some of their Google Plus content with the public, and this feature reminds me of Twitter, only it seems more personal somehow. In particular, Felicia Day of “The Guild” and “Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog,” one of my favorite actresses, contributes a LOT to those who have added her to their circles. She is, as of the time of this article's publication, the fourth most followed person on Google Plus. All of this, and no Farmville. It isn't quite enough to get me to leave Facebook, and it doesn't feel as much like a replacement as, say, Facebook did when I had a MySpace, but I'm sure I'll be using it for some time to come.

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Falling Skies on TNT – Alien Apocalypse by the Numbers

It took me a few weeks to get around to checking out Falling Skies, and I am glad that I made a commitment to blog 5 days per week, as I now go out of my way to read, watch or play virtually anything new that falls into my niche here, and I've gotten some really great entertainment that I'd have otherwise missed. I'm going to start right off by saying that I like Falling Skies a lot. If you are looking for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down from me, it is an enthusiastic up. I say this because I may spend quite a large portion of my review picking at nits or comparing it to the even better show it could be, and I don't want the negative comments I have to be the main thrust of what is remembered from my impressions. It is not a perfect show by any means, but it is a damned fine one.

The opening scene in Falling Skies sets the stage quickly and deftly, as we hear children describe what happened in the months previous as they draw to process the horrors they've had to live through. The audience quickly learns that aliens came to Earth, and we did not fire on them, supposing they might be friendly. We were wrong. They destroyed our armies and weapons and annihilated the majority of Earth's human population right away. They kill adults, but they capture children and put some sort of biotechnological harness on them that turns them into mindless slaves. We are immediately drawn into the post-apocalyptic setting and the sort of new society that has come from it. Most fighters in the new resistance are very old, retired military, very young, or used to do something else, but as able-bodied adults, they fight now.

The setting is immediately familiar to anyone who has watched any movie or series where the apocalypse happened recently and as a result of an external malevolent threat. The typical “monster” in these sorts of things is, of course, the zombie, but we've seen it done with dragons in Reign of Fire, and aliens in other places as well. The world has been taken over, and humanity has to cope with the ever-present threat of the creatures themselves, as well as the very real dangers presented when a society completely collapses. Our protagonist in this particular tale is a former history teacher and father of three boys (Noah Wyle), one of whom was taken by the aliens. He has joined the ranks of the resistance fighters since the death of his wife and is quickly promoted to a leadership position under a grizzled and rather unpleasant retired soldier. The settlement the resistance created became too large to escape the notice of the aliens, so forces of 100 “fighters” and 200 “civilians” split up for a chance at survival.

Caring father who doesn't want to fight leading a group of rebels.
A few years back, this would have been Mel Gibson, before he went nuts.

The characters, with very few exceptions, play to familiar archetypes. We have the eldest son who is cocky and rebellious, frequently challenging his father's authority. There is the sympathetic doctor who speaks up for the rights of the civilians in a society that is de facto controlled by the improvised sort of soldier caste. The grizzled leader who is obstinate for no reason frequently, and while being in charge seems to have no concept of how to manage the morale of those he leads. And, of course, there is the caring father, reluctant fighter and man of peace and learning whose ideas are typically clearly the right ones, but who is shut down so as to not be a threat to the grizzled commander's authority. When we meet other characters, they also tend to neatly fall into established tropes, such as the gang of violent racist rapists who are lead by an extremely intelligent and well-spoken, but entirely amoral man.

These characters all start from familiar and safe ground, and as a consequence, I don't think that many of them are as interesting as, say, the similar team of survivors we met in The Walking Dead. There, we saw things get complicated with the Best Friend and Protector, understanding that people can have multiple roles. “Good guy” and “bad guy” can easily become murky concepts as people make decisions based on what they feel is right at the time. I do like the inclusion of a thirteen year old in the emergent “fighter” caste, who watches children only a few years younger play and exist as something to be protected, while he is out with the adults fighting. I have some hope that the characters will grow and develop out of their stock archetypes as the story continues to be told.

I'm totally not going to give an order so stupid and horrible that it demands to be disobeyed.

The aliens themselves look amazing, and they move in distinctive and creepy ways, with their six-legs and swollen carapace-like heads. They are fast, tough, and extremely heavily armed with a weapon that is reminiscent of the triple-beam laser from Predator. They are supported by bipedal mechanized infantry that have even heavier weapons mounted, and whose armor effectively makes them immune to conventional small arms. The creatures display tactical intelligence, using stores of food and weapons as bait to trap groups of humans, and they seem to be adept at tracking and hunting their prey. We see two types of ships, the light fighters that provide air support and focus in on sources of heat on the ground, and the huge (about the size of a human city) structure in the distance that is presumably the alien mothership.

The stories told about how people cope with loss, deal with the collapse of everything they've ever known, and try to fight to survive without losing the essential elements of themselves that make them human may not be a new story, but it is one well told. The performances of the principal cast is uniformly good and the production of the series itself is of very high quality. I did notice that the sound design seemed to make dialogue way too quiet as compared to explosions and music during fight sequences, as I had to turn the volume frantically up or down to wither hear what was going on or to not wake up my sleeping wife. The visual effects are on par with Hollywood films in terms of quality, falling short only of the standards set by summer blockbusters who rely on such effects to distract the audience from the lack of a coherent script. For TV, the quality of both the scripts and the effects here are impressive.

Overall, I look forward to the rest of the season and hope that with the traditional broadcast networks constantly dropping the ball when it comes to science fiction and the “SyFy” channel preferring to air wrestling, that cable stations like TNT and AMC could be the future of great geek TV. We've certainly had a lot to complain about in the last few years, but shows like Falling Skies give me hope for a brighter future... (as least for us. The future for the survivors of the 2nd Massachusetts militia, not so rosy.) The industry juice that comes with the involvement of Stephen Spielberg doesn't hurt, and the series has already been picked up for a second season.

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