If you have been checking out my YouTube channel you'll see that I've been doing weekly guides for the PC game Marvel Heroes (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF0Z55ldDEtRT4vn1b1eJGBA8LSCDKcIj) but sadly haven't done much else in the way of video gaming. But, that all changes today! For my foray back into video games, I'm starting off with a genre run-down of some of my favorite Rogue-like games. For those unfamiliar, Rogue-like games share similarities with the 1980 classic Rogue, a dungeon crawl adventure game with several key features.
Today, permanent death (with little or no benefits from one "life" transferring to another) in games is often marked as Rogue-like, but there is certainly plenty of wiggle room with the exact definition. Here, I go over 3 of my personal favorites: Pixel Piracy, FTL: Faster Than Light, and Rogue Legacy. Enjoy, be awesome, and comment/discuss if you feel the need!
Hope you enjoyed the video! I will see you next time for my next video game genre run-down: RTS!!! And maybe a board game one in the middle..... who knows???
After such a long time, I revisit the very first category of games that I EVER talked about; cooperative games! They're great for new players, as they won't feel as intimidated being on a team rather than being against everyone else from the word go, and many of them are thematically wonderful! Enjoy the video!
If you're new to gaming, these are by FAR the best way to introduce yourself to the world of board games. There isn't nearly as much to worry about (have others worry a bit for you) and they are often a great deal of fun. Hope you liked the video and we'll see you next time!
At long last I get to travel back into my TRUE wheelhouse - SCIENCE!. And not simply talking about how some specific thing works or anything like that, but rather MY science.
I work heavily with stem cells, which most everyone has likely heard of at some point or another. You may have heard about the controversy in Korea from around 2006 when it was found that a professor (Hwang Woo-suk) falsified data when he claimed to have made human embryonic stem cells from a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). It got huge media coverage and began to raise a great many questions about how science as a system functions - since it is self-regulating, how can it be trusted if this kind of thing is going on?
Around that same time, Shinya Yamanaka published his groundbreaking work establishing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Not only did this hold up to scrutiny, but it gave us the opportunity to further examine the therapeutic potential of pluripotent (i.e. ES) stem cells. It also represents one of the fastest turnarounds from discovery to awarding of a Nobel Prize (~6 years). By the way, if you care to see, I've got my old blog post (http://gamingfandomandscience.blogspot.com/2013/02/science-working-and-working-out.html) discussing stem cells, how they work, etc. It's all in the video, but you can read words if you prefer.
Getting back on track, here in 2014, we see another ENORMOUS issue with misconduct. The problem? Another apparently groundbreaking methodology for making ES-like cells that is faster, easier, and more efficient than iPS. Excellent! Right? Wellll...... not so much. Riddled with issues from image splicing to plagiarism and rocking the very foundation of the institute the work was done at, Stimulus Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency is truly a story not only worth telling, but a sight to behold. Please enjoy!
If you're interested, you can check out links to most of the news article's in the video's description. I think this is a real beginning for something major; the idea of peer-review slack, poor running of labs, it's all ridiculous and we have to try and figure out how much blame goes where. Should the journal(s) be scrutinized for not having more rigorous examination of the data? What about the PI of the lab (not only for STAP but general lack of organization, as well)? RIKEN itself is largely independent, with little government oversight; should that stay? So many questions....
Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the video and will see you next time!
With a new board gaming video, I finally did a top 10, rather than a top 5. While the category, broadly, is games that are unique, strange, unusual, and/or quirky, I looked primarily at 2 things - theme and mechanics.
In my last video I talked about theme briefly (in discussing Science Fiction in general), but some games have themes that are so unusual that said theme ALONE made me want to play the game. Mechanics-wise, there are definitely some good ones: Tzolk'in (The Myan Calendar Game) is one that didn't quite make the list, and where turns and worker movement are both tracked by a large gear system. It's really cool and would've been on the list if I had 1 or 2 more spots.
I found a decent chunk of time to do a really special board gaming video to celebrate making videos! Yes, that does seem odd. I've made a decent number of top 5 board game lists but since then I've gotten a decent number of new games, some of which fit into my previous categories, so I wanted to do an update video.
Going from a small, basic collection of games (good games, mind you, but still) to a rather substantial collection gives a lot of opportunity for new stuff. Please enjoy and thank you for watching all this time!!!
Links to the original videos are in both the description and the 'curtain' splash page before I discuss them. Thank you again and see you next time!
After so long I finally made a board gaming video I should've made closer to the beginning; my favorite science fiction games. Themes can be a very difficult thing for many board games. Some take themes and utilize them to great effect, genuinely immersing you in whatever world you're playing in. Others tend to take a game and build a theme around it. I have found that I have much more fun when a theme is integrated to the mechanics. Far too often I see themed games where I can't help but think that it (the base mechanics) could (and likely will) simply be repurposed under new guises of themes. It's a shame to see, but works well for designers and publishers. For example, I cannot think of any other theme that would fit the mechanics of Shadows Over Camelot or Battlestar Galactica. They are both great theme games (the former ALWAYS involving Monty Python jokes at the table) that really wouldn't work well with anything else. Other games, namely wargames off the top of my head, frequently have mechanics utilized in other 'settings' (i.e. Civil War vs. WWII). It's not necessarily a bad thing, but if I want to play a game that takes place somewhere at some specific time period, the last thing I want to think it that I'm essentially playing in the wrong era.
Onto today's video! I've loved science fiction since I was a kid and found this new, wonderful way to enjoy the genre in board gaming. I think that these games all do a good job of feeling science fiction-y without a) being overbearing with it, and b) just generally being fun to play. I'm very excited and hope that you enjoy it!
I'm very excited; my next couple of videos are going to be a pretty substantial departure (at least the board gaming ones will be). Hope that you liked it and I'll see you next time!
Continuing the relatively steady stream of my new videos, my latest video is a pretty fun one, but not necessarily to be taken lightly - board games that can (and probably have) torn friendships or other relations apart at the seams.
Seem unlikely? Unfortunately not. Pretty crazy; drama in gaming can be no less real than drama created with..... well, anything else. It's either that or my gaming group was just completely insane. That's more likely. And the Jagermeister didn't help decrease tension. But that is neither here nor there, enjoy the video!
Enjoy, thank you very much, and see you next time!
