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Florida Life

If “Floridian” was a race in Dungeons and Dragons

Photo: “Floridian” as described in a Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook.
It looks just like an entry from the Player’s Handbook! Tap the image to see it at full size.

Why play a human, elf, or dwarf in Dungeons and Dragons, when you can play a race that really knows how to have a good time: a Floridian?

This D&D parody page does a great job of describing the strange race that inhabits the swamps of America’s drainpipe. It’s actually pretty good — I would want to play as a floridian bard in my next D&D campaign!

Here’s its text:

Floridian

Much like tieflings carry the essence of Asmodeus, the floridians are descendants of a human bloodline cursed by the trickery domain. A floridian parent will pass along this curse to any and all offspring they create. Anyone born to at least one floridian parent is destined to become an agent of chaos themselves.

Floridian traits

As a floridian, your traits combine those of a human with uncanny traits provided by your chaotic nature:

  • Ability score increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
  • Age. Floridians age similar to humans and live less than a century. However, they are likely to perish due to an accidental mishap before they reach old age.
  • Alignment. Floridians are entirely chaotic with no discernible logic to their actions. Their intentions are difficult to discern but can lead to results of any alignment.
  • Size. Floridians are approximately the same height as humans, though their weight is usually above average. Your size is Medium.
  • Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
  • Hold my Beer. You have the uncanny ability to succeed in the least likely of circumstances. When you fail an attack roll or ability check that you rolled with a disadvantage, you can choose to take the higher of the rolls instead, potentially turning the failure into a success. You must finish a long rest before you can do so again.
  • Muddled Thoughts. You have an advantage on saving throws against being charmed and your mind cannot be read by magic.
  • Reptile Wrangler. Whenever you make a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check to handle a reptilian beats, you are considered proficient in the Animal Handling skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
  • Language. You can just barely speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice. You can understand the ramblings of intoxicated creatures as long as they’re in a language you know.
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Uncategorized

“No Escape”: A Portal Movie

No Escape is a short film set in the world of Portal, and it’s seven very well-done minutes.

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.

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Uncategorized

Limbo

I’ve been spending summer playing a couple of Xbox 360 games situated in dark nightmare worlds. One is Microsoft Studios’ and Remedy’s Alan Wake, which could be described as an homage to Stephen King (so much so that they name-drop him in the opening credits); the other is Limbo, an Xbox Live Arcade game: 

Calling Limbo a “2-D side-scroller game” does it as much injustice as referring to Red Dead Redemption as “a cowboy third-person shooter”. Limbo is the most gorgeous and haunting side-scroller I’ve ever played.

The world of Limbo is a monochromatic one, shrouded in gloom and fog and nothing but the game itself. The screenshot below shows what the game actually looks like while you’re playing:

Limbo screenshot: the boys runs towards some rolling flaming logs

No heads-up display, score or distractions of any kind: it’s just you and Limbo’s world. The controls are minimal – you just use the left thumbstick to move, the A button to jump and the B button to perform actions on things (typically push or pull objects). Where Limbo goes deep is gameplay – this game really sucks you in.

Limbo screenshot: the boy comes across a body hanging from a noose
You control your character, a young boy who wakes up in a dark forest, with no idea what’s going on. There’s no opening cinematic, no explanatory text, no little pop-up hints, but somehow the game manages to convey a sense of what to do next solely through the way the game reacts to your actions. The developers, Playdead – an indie game dev shop in Copenhagen – did an amazing job in programming Limbo to communicate just through gameplay.

Limbo screenshot: The body travels across a body of water in a boat

With its black-and-white graphics, smooth animation, minimal sound (you only hear things you need to hear) and the many, many ghoulish ways your character will die as you learn to navigate the game’s many deadly puzzles and traps, Limbo feels like the sort of ghastly-but-addictive game that Edward Gorey might have conjured up, had he decided to take up programming rather than becoming an illustrator.

Limbo screenshot: the boy encounters a pit filled with spikes and two children bearing spears

As of this writing, Limbo has a Metacritic score of 90, placing it just below Super Street Fighter IV and Red Dead Redemption, having earned heaps of praise from all sorts of reviewers, including this one.

Limbo may just be the best Xbox Live Arcade game ever released, and I suspect it’ll be in my “Top 5” for 2010. If you’re looking for a stand-out game for your Xbox 360, Limbo is well worth the 1200 Microsoft Points.

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods Geek It Happened to Me Music Play Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked

Joey deVilla playing "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" on accordion at Loser Karaoke

One of the songs in my MP3 collection that’s on heavy rotation is Cage the Elephant’s Beck-ish, slide-guitar southern-rock-y ode to “doin’ what you gotta”, Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked. It practically begs for an accordion version, so I’m learning it in order to add it to my repertoire, which could stand a little refreshing.

Joey deVilla playing "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" on accordion at Loser Karaoke with Jason Rolland in the background

While I haven’t learned the song well enough to perform it unaccompanied, I’ve had just enough practice to do it as an accordion karaoke number, which I did at last week’s Loser Karaoke. Loser Karaoke is a regular Thursday night event at Tequila Sunrise where having a good time trumps singing ability. It helps that Jason Rolland is an entertaining karaoke host. As an added bonus, it’s where a lot of the people from Accordion City’s high-tech, startup, social media entrepreneur scene come to cut loose. For more on Loser Karaoke, check out their Facebook page.

I should feel ashamed to say this, but a decade’s worth of public accordion playing has attenuated my ability to feel shame: the reason I know about Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked isn’t because I’m dialed into the alt-rock music scene. Thanks to middle age, I used to be with it, but they’ve since changed what “it” was. I know about the song because of…well, a video game. Namely, Borderlands, which uses the song in its intro sequence:

For the curious (and the fans), here’s Cage the Elephant’s official video for Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked. Enjoy!

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Geek Play Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Hand Eye Society Indie Game Social: Toronto, May 27th

Banner from the Hand Eye Society's blog: "The Hand Eye Society: Meshing Toronto's Videogame Communities"

The Hand Eye Society describes itself as a “not-for-profit coalition of people and projects in support of Toronto’s videogame communities”. Their goals are:

  1. To help people make games
  2. To connect game makers with each other and with an audience, offline
  3. To foster diversity in game creation and public perception of games

I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the people behind the Hand Eye Society is Jim Munroe. He’s a former Adbusters editor turned self-publishing author of a number of enjoyable science fiction books such Flyboy Action Hero Comes with Gasmask and Angry Young Spaceman, developer of indie games including the interactive fiction piece Punk Points (the online version requires Java), maker of movies and all-round Toronto DIY-espousing creative type.

Also connected with the Hand Eye Society are other indie videogame notables including:

Poster for Hand Eye Society's "social": "Free presentation and social event from the Hand Eye Society / May 27 2010 @ 19:30 EST / Unit Bar, 1198 Queen West / Featuring: Mr. Brandon Boyer, founder of Offworld, contributing editor of Boing Boing & IGF Chairman"

The Hand Eye Society is throwing a social this Thursday, May 27th in Toronto at Unit Bar (1198 Queen Street West, a shade east of Dufferin/Gladstone, halfway between the Drake and Gladstone hotels). The doors will open at 7:00 and there may be a set of curated videogames for you to check out.

At 8:00 p.m. special guest dignitary Brandon Boyer, Chairman of the Independent Games Festival and contributing editor for Boing Boing and Boing Boing’s games blog Offworld, will, as the Hand Eye Society’s blog puts it, “deliver some form of immensely significant communication to the assembled videogame creators, enthusiasts, organizers & slack-jawed onlookers.”

If I weren’t going to be in Montreal that evening for the Make Web Not War conference, I’d most certainly at this event (I’ll definitely catch the next social). If you’re in Toronto and love videogames (especially ones that break from the mainstream) and especially if you love making them, catch the Hand Eye Society’s social this Thursday!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Geek It Happened to Me Play Work

Developer Junior: Creating Your Own Games with Kodu

My tech show for kids, Developer Junior, premieres today on Butterscotch.com! In this episode, Junior (the puppet) and I (the human) take a look at the Kodu game builder system and go through a quick tutorial:

Developer Junior is a show on Butterscotch.com aimed at the younger set and is all about helping kids make the most out of the technology in their everyday lives. It’s about writing programs, creating media, playing games, and having fun with technology. (It’s also a dream come true for me – I always thought I’d be a great host for a kid’s show.)

There’s another episode coming up, in which Junior and I walk through the process of making a movie using Live Movie Maker. Watch for it!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

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Play

The Truth About Pac-Man

pac-man

[Found via Certified Bullshit Technician.]

This article also appears in Global Nerdy.