| $4 MILLION dollars

I was just reading about that game Minecraft which I had tried for a few minutes a while back and the dude has made $4 million dollars off it so far! WHOA! Here's the article I was reading:
5 Minutes of Minecraft
I know people have made amazing things inside the game (on YouTube some dude made a scale model of the USS Enterprise in Minecraft - friggen insane!) but it has never clicked with me. Kinda blows my mind though and it's cool to see 1-man teams making it , even when they never expected it.

minecraft.net - you can play a free version from the site

Hey that sounds good Denis. I'll set aside some time that weekend for sure. So is the plan for you to stay at Elzar's place and come up here? Elzar if you'd rather have an action team man-party (which would be fun, I haven't been down there in a while) then I am sure I could drive down there.

Also, Aeryk, you need some new Tweets homeboy. Those 41-day-olds are starting to stink.

J-Dog: Never heard of that movie. I'll look into renting it if it's rentable. This past weekend I was on a Hitchcock kick and watched 3 of his early movies I'd never seen. That guy was a genius. Those movies were equal parts funny and suspenseful. They don't make movies like that anymore.

D-Dog: Can you cancel your pre-order? I've literally seen Death Angel at every local B&N and Borders. And you can easily find 30-40% printable coupons for both those places that would make it the same cost as Amazon. Cancel! Hope your back feels better old man!

Coffin-Dog: I didn't set out to make them coffin-shaped; I was just trying to take your basic hex shape and make it look different. I should have just made the theme something ghoulish but I'm too lazy.

| I gots teh backorder bluuuues

Been doing some crazy overtime recently. On top of that, I threw my back out this past week. I don't even know how it happened. It grew progressively worse until I was on my back in bed for most of Thursday and Friday. I'm so fragile.

The movie sounds interesting. Did it just come out or did you watch it on video tape? I only saw Being John Malkovich.

I actually pre-ordered the Space Hulk game through Amazon waaaaaay back. It's still backordered. Seems pointless to preorder if I could just walk to the Barnes and Noble during my lunch break. Booooo! In space no one can hear you whine...

So it looks like I'll be visiting Action Team North next month. Leave the weekend of Nov 12-14 open and make any preparations and offerings to the deities of your choice.

I recently picked up Deathwatch, the Space Marine rpg. It's the next step up from Rogue Trader powerwise. Where Rogue Trader starts at 5000 xp (relative to Dark Heresy), Deathwatch starts at about 13,000 xp for character power. (maybe 4th level Rogue Trader character)

Obviously you can only play a space marine. Which is fine if all you ever wanted to be was a space marine. As for me, it looks like I'll still be waiting for Eldar! to come out. Your skills and powers are based on what chapter you come from. There are currently six. Five from GW fluff and a new one created for the game. They hinted that future supplements will have more chapters. I'm looking forward to the Rainbow Warriors myself.

It's an interesting read for background, but I don't see myself playing this game. Roleplaying-wise, it's very constraining. Unless of course you are really onto space marines. Really really. Rogue Trader suits me better. The naked grab for power and wealth speaks much more to my gamer heart than Gears of War rpg. My hope lies in the next instalment of this rpg series: "Titanicus!" You roleplay a titan and go apeshit on styrofoam buildings. That's hardcore!

Speaking of hardcore. I especially like that the warning is basically the name of the product.

This is Hardcore!

Rude - Interesting game concept. I was thinking the same thing Jorn was about the cards. Coffins?

Saw this movie Synechdoche, New York last night, wow. Any of you guys seen this one? It's written/directed by Charlie Kaufman, the guy who wrote Being John Malkovich, so it's similar in that it alternates between moments that are hilarious, and/or really sad, and moves towards a somewhat incomprehensible yet emotionally compelling conclusion.

The short description is that Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a theatre director in a troubled marriage whose body is breaking down in bizarre and horrible ways. He wins a genius grant and uses the money to rent a mammoth warehouse in which he stages an exact reproduction of his own life.

Definitely worth checking out if you liked Malkovich/Adaptation/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and maybe even better than those other movies (certainly up there). Shrek it out! Four Puss in Boots up!

I was inspired to play another game last night and won! Yay me! My experience was somewhat similar to yours Aeryk, I had an easy time of it in the brood lord room. I also randomized and had a very good pull, with both yellow (lightning claws), purple (flame on) and blue (f'in unkillable on defense). Luck mostly went my way too, this was the first time ever that Brother Claudio didn't die (roll 0) on his first attack. I was also much more careful with the "important guy" on each team, as well.

| ..aaaarrarrghhh....~rines... *final exhale*

Played me another two games last night and the night before. It's a fun game, but I think it would be a lot more fun if I didn't have a defective die that has 5 sides reading '0' and one side reading '4'...

I actually did win my game last night which puts me at about a 20% victory rate so far. I like to randomly select my teams from the counter mix which sometimes leaves me with some, er, poor options for killin' stealerz - any game without the autocannon is a super-extra tough hill to climb.

Last night I had the pleasure of hitting the last room with two counters on the door that let me eliminate two of the carry over genestealers which put the Brood Lords in two separate swarms of 1 and 3, including the Lords. The swarm of 3 just happened to spawn in front of monsieur autocannon and the other infront of a team of two that I had an attack card for.

Four marines survived the night!

I tend to only play this game late, late at night when my brain isn't willing to work on other projects anymore so it has made it's way into my subconscious as being a very dark, draining game. I need to play more in the light so I don't get burnt out on it, me thinks. Good stuff!

| SPACE MAaaaarrgh

OK, first of all, I found this article about Insane Clown Posse to be utterly hilarious.

Picked up Death Angel (Rude's tip of checking the bookstore paid off) and got in three games today! I've never encountered a rulebook further opposed from the way in which I like to learn rules, but the game itself is lots of fun. The first game was the most painful -- four of my six Marines died in the first room (of four), the last two barely keeled over quickly in the second. Second game was almost as nasty but I somehow made it to the third room and just now, two stalwart Marines made it to the last room before being utterly swarmed (although the Librarian did go out in a moment of glory, gunning down four consecutive 'stealers). I dig it!

| a little over two weeks

until we start writing our novels, Action Team! Start thinking of ideas, and stuff. :) I think I know what I'm going to write (was Sci-Fi, now Horror). The countdown begins!

| ps: death angel

Oh, Barnes & Noble had a killer board game selection and they had Space Hulk: Death Angel - $20 bucks, online it would have been around $16 but was sold out from where I like to shop. It's fun! Played a game this afternoon. Rules were a headache but eventually it all clicked. Only lost 1 marine through the first 3 rooms and then lost the reminder in the final room. Started with a card called "They're Everywhere!" I think that spawned a genestealer on EVERY marine. Then the last room had the two Brood Lords and I was able to kill 1 before just getting annihilated. Fun! Horribly laid out rules though, so I'm going to browse BGG to clarify a few things. But it's a good game.

Oh, you don't have to try my game Jon. I don't think it's very good, but it was just fun to try and create a game system. Might try to take some of these ideas and make something more concrete. Here was the basic rules:

Rules:
Advance 5 times on the Hospital-track to get your wife to the hospital in time. If you advance the Baby-track 8 times, roadside delivery and game over.

1. Shuffle tiles face down then draw 1 to begin.
2. Connect 1 to 3 new road tiles (depending on the tiles design) to the top of the current tile.
3. Choose which road you want to take and add the number next to that road to the number on the bottom of the destination tile. This is the target score you need to roll equal to or under on the six-sided dice to advance. If you roll over the target score, advance the baby-track by 1 and stay on the current tile. Re-roll on any available road. If you roll equal to or under the the target score, advance to the new tile and move the time-tracks according to the icons on the lower right-hand corner of the new tile. An 'H' means you've advanced 1 closer to the Hospital, while a baby-icon means the baby is 1 closer to arriving.
4. Repeat from step 2 until you reach the end of either the Hospital or Baby time tracks.

I was trying to make it so it wasn't JUST random d6 rolls determining if you win or lose. I tried to make it so the more desirable tiles, ones that just advance the Hospital track and not the baby track, are harder to get on. So they'd have only a +1. You might get lucky and have it connect to a piece of road with a +3 but that's just chance. So trying to make risk/reward system. The theme is silly and cliched too. :)

Alien Frontiers
You guys heard about this indy title?
Alien Frontiers!
I guess they used that Kickstarter program to get funding for it and it built up hype on BGG. Someone on the SA Forums play tested it and said it was good. It's a "worker placement game" - what's another example of that type of game? I don't have the exp that you guys have.

Maybe I'll pick that up! I heard the movie was OK -- good, not great. There are a lot of Michael Cera haters out there. Personally I'm not one of them, he's still got love stored up from Arrested Development and Superbad, but I get it if people don't like him.

What have I been up to...

1. Today we actually finished a WFRP adventure! Wow! Took one intro session and three sessions (well, two and a half). Overall I like the system and the adventure went pretty well. It was an investigation where the PCs had to uncover a cult at an isolated hunting lodge surrounded by Beastmen. The adventure was fairly "sandboxy" and pretty much resolved in a big, ugly fight in the Chaos temple in the basement. Enron's character almost went permanently insane, everyone came out of it with some critical injuries, and at one point a group of cultists was totally obliterated by a single blast from a blunderbuss.

2. I picked up Batman: The Long Halloween which people seem to think is pretty good. Looks like the two Nolan Batman movies lifted a bunch of dialogue and characters from it.

3. The last two weeks have been totally exhausting in terms of my new job and I'm glad they're over.

4. I'll try your game Rude, but is it a coincidence that the pieces for a game about driving your pregnant wife to the hospital real fast are shaped like tiny, baby coffins?

| Scott "Debates" Pilgrim - Kill all the vampires

Scott Pilgrim: I haven't seen the movie but I was curious about the comic and picked up the entire series, Vol 1-6, for around $23 bucks on Amazon. At the book store they're about $12 bucks each, so this was a massive deal. Just read the first book and it's really good! I highly recommend it. Very much feels a part of "our generation", similar to how MicroSerfs felt back in the day. I'll see the movie after I finish the series. If you look up book 1 on Amazon (it's $3.63) there's a "buy 1-3 together and save X dollars" - so buy that 3 pack and then look up book 4 and find the 4-6 together to do the same. Bargain! I suspect they over-stocked it for the movie or something.

| babytime, go go

I knocked out that print-and-play game. It's not playtested OR very good, but I like the tiles I made and the idea is alright. In my mind the actual tiles would have more art to them than just a road, but for a 1 week contest I only spent 3-4 hours on it; been busy! I won't give you the rules, but I will say the game involves 1d6. See if you can figure it out. :)

bad relegon
Wow, I had no idea they had a new album. Listened to the samples on Amazon. Sounds okay, and like Ry I love the guys voice, but I don't think I'll get it. Let us know if it grows on you Ry-dub.

Rudy's Car Advenutre gaem
On the forums there's a little 1-week contest to design a free print-and-play solitaire game. I have till this weekend to post it. I was thinking of a tile-laying car game. The premise could be, you're wife's having a baby, get her to the hospital ASAP! There's a start piece (home or wherever) and the hospital as the finish piece. To keep it simple I'd like to use a d6. You'll have a time limit (she gives birth in 10 turns or maybe it's random or maybe certain tiles will advance her birth-o-meter.) Maybe your car has a speed and the faster you go, the sooner you'd get her there, but maybe with riskier dice rolls to make.

I dunno, sounds simple enough and I think it'll be fun to try it out over the next couple nights. If you guys have any idears, let me know! One thing I was thinking of trying was, you're laying the piece of road that's 1 ahead of you, so you can decide to speed up or slow down depending on what's there (curvy road, traffic, construction, cop, etc.)