I really enjoyed my time on Conduit 2 working with the great folks at High Voltage Software. While I can’t share much about the game, I am very happy that Sega has released the cover art for it, which I think looks beautiful and will really stick out on the shelves.
The game is already in great shape and I know the team is hard at work making Conduit 2 the must-have shooter for the Wii. I hope you’ll check it out when it’s released.
Thought I’d shed a little light on some of the exciting projects my friends have been cooking up.
Jeff Preston’s 60 Character Portraits
Illustrator-extraordinaire Jeff Preston recently launched a Kickstarter project along with co-conspirator A Terrible Idea called “60 Terrible Character Portraits For Creative Commons Release.” Don’t let the name fool you; the images are anything but terrible. See for yourself below.
If you dig it, kick in a few bucks to help the project here.
Daniel Solis’ Happy Birthday, Robot!
Daniel Solis, along with publisher Evil Hat, just released the print version of Happy Birthday, Robot! I can’t praise this game enough for its concept, goals, and presentation. This game is perfect for getting kids into story creation and using their imagination for the purely fantastic. I can’t sell it nearly as well as the creator does. Check out this video for more information.
If this sounds good to you, pick it up through Evil Hat’s online store.
Monica Valentinelli’s Queen of Crows
Monica Valentinelli released a book trailer for her ebook Queen of Crows, a tie-in to her Violet War setting. She created the video herself, featuring work by illustrator Leanne Buckley and musician James Semple. Check out the trailer below.
If you’re intrigued, you can currently grab the pdf at DriveThruRPG for 25% off its list price (just $3.74).
It’s been a busy couple weeks here as one major project wraps up, a minor one finishes, and I start on some really exciting new ones. Operation: Awesome is moving along well. I’m excited for the future and will keep everyone informed on the fruits of the operation as they ripen.
Tabletop gaming’s big show (in the US anyway) is in two weeks! GenCon Indy runs from August 5th-8th and, for the first time since 2006, I will be in attendance. Equally exciting, I’m going as a gamer this year. While you’ll probably be able to find me hanging out with my good friends at the Cubicle 7 (Booth #315) for some of the show, I’ll also have plenty of time to walk the floor and see a lot of folks I’ve missed these past four years.
That’s all for now. Take care, everyone.
A couple weeks ago, I mapped out the basics of my plan to reprogram myself as a writer. It’s a process I call “Operation: Awesome” because that’s an incredibly uninspired and pretentious title and nothing amuses me more than uninspired and pretentious titles.
I’m bringing it up again because the reprogramming isn’t as simple as following a five step plan. Yes, that plan helps. I’d say the plan has been essential for me even though I’m far from being the A-1 Top Storyteller/Writing Machine that I want to be. This is all a process and I’m in the mix. I’m also fortunate to be in a position where I’m applying what I’m learning and what I’m changing in a real world environment. I’m a working writer in the midst of evolution. I don’t foresee a point where I’ll throw up my arms, declare myself to be fully awesome, drop the mic, and walk off the stage. There isn’t necessarily an end to Operation: Awesome. But there was a beginning.
And it began prior to Step One. It began with conditioning myself. It began with making myself ready to be awesome.
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Last September, I managed to convince the folks at Gameplaywright that I was worthy of being included in their next book. Their previous publication, the well-received Things We Think About Games, was buzzing around the gamer zeitgeist with supersonic speed and I knew I wanted to hop whatever train was leaving their station next.
For those who don’t know, Gameplaywright is the venture of two of tabletop gaming’s brightest stars, Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball. Through my serpentine path through gaming industry, I managed to connect with Jeff years ago. When I heard his outfit was putting together a new thing, I got in touch with him. He put me in touch with Will, who was heading up the next book, a collection of dice stories called The Bones. Will had a pretty full roster, which included smarter and more renowned folks than myself, but was open to hearing my idea.
I pitched him a manifesto, a defense of my favored randomizer: the six-sided die. Will and I hashed out the specifics and I set pen to paper. A couple weeks later, “The Die of the People – A Six-Sided Manifesto” was born.
Will was an amazing editor, cheerleader, and guide. I’d contribute to any book for which he’d have me.
Before you think me hyperbolic in my enthusiasm or insincere in my modesty, check out who I’m sharing page space with: Keith Baker, Greg Costikyan, Ray Fawkes, Matt Forbeck, Pat Harrigan, Jess Hartley, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, John Kovalic, James Lowder, Russ Pitts, Jesse Scoble, Mike Selinker, Jared Sorensen, Paul Tevis, Monica Valentinelli, Chuck Wendig, and Wil Wheaton. Having my name on the list is humbling, to say the least.
Anyway. The Bones. It’s a book about dice. But not about the technical nature of dice. Not math, not chances. It’s about people, traditions, and superstitions. It’s about dice and gamer culture. I have the limited edition hardcover and, though I haven’t read it cover to cover yet, what I have read has been amazing. The standard edition is coming out at the end of this month. I highly recommend you pick it up for yourself, a gamer friend, or anyone who’s interested in games, culture, or the weirder parts of history.
Which I knew. But it wasn’t general knowledge until this morning when developer High Voltage Software revealed the fact at a closed-doors presentation that included the Wii-exclusive FPS amongst its other titles.
WiiNintendo.net has the brief here, if you want to read it.
(To clarify two points in the article: I did rewrites and dialogue revision on PREY and I wrote a full script for BORDERLANDS but that was prior to the game’s reimagining.)
I’m psyched! The team at High Voltage has been a dream to work with and I’ve made contacts and connections there that extend beyond the project. I look forward to hearing what folks think about the game when it ships.
“Blair’s writing this? Woohoo!”
I’m a big fan of games, no matter their stripe, but I have a particular fondness for point-and-click adventure games such as the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, the Gabriel Knight trilogy, and others. And as much as I’m not into world or political history, I am very much into the history of games, often losing hours of my life in the serpentine jungles of Wikipedia and Google, digging up information on whatever game or company is currently occupying the obsessive cycles of my brain.
One of my current interests is the long and tentacular history of one of adventure gaming’s pillars, Sierra On-Line, from its founding in 1979 to the infamous Chainsaw Monday 20 years later. It’s a heckuva history to untangle but it’s been fascinating.
Downloadable games site GOG.com is helping to fill in some of the lacunae in my mental database with these articles about the history of Sierra’s signature games series, King’s Quest.
The second article was just posted and I’ll be digging into it this afternoon.
While you’re at GOG.com, be sure to pick up some of the great games they have in their catalogue. I especially recommend Syberia I and Syberia II, the Tex Murphy games, and the absolutely free Beneath a Steel Sky (and they have the previously mentioned Gabriel Knight trilogy which is a top series). If the articles piqued your interest, you can pick up the King’s Quest 4, 5, and 6 bundle for just $9.99.
And those are just some of the point-and-click adventure titles, they have plenty of other great games and game genres as well (including the criminally-overlooked Beyond Good & Evil).
In other news, work continues apace on the current gig. I am truly blessed to be working with such great people. I love the job and the studio and I’ll say more when I can (which will likely be very soon). Until then, take care.
First! I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones this Saturday at Madison Games Day 4! The event is shaping up to be spectacular. We didn’t anticipate this much response and excitement about the event. If you’re in the Madison area, or willing to make the trek, come on down to Madison Games Day 4!
Second! I have been blessed with some gigs these past few weeks and I am in the process of one that will keep me busy until the end of Summer. I’m very excited for the project I’ve been selected for and I’ll share what I can when I can. I’ll also try to do some more Character Collection entries and maybe I’ll manage a post or two a week aside from that. We’ll have to see.
