Blogworthy: Productivity, Inverted Controls, Sea Shanties, Iggwilv, The Mummy

Looking to improve your workflows, streamline your life, and de-stress your life in the new year? Check out “The Ultimate Guide To Productivity Methods“, Pocket’s round-up of productivity methods including “Eat The Frogs First Thing in The Morning” and “Productivity 101: How to Use Personal Kanban to Visualize Your Work”. Vegetarian Eggs Benedict with Spinach … Read more

Radio Active #94: Keep Calm and Geek On

Welcome to 2021, the year in which we try to release more than one episode every 12 months. On this episode of Radio Active, I talk about life during the COVID-19 pandemic, delve into using exercise and meditation to stay calm, and then geek out with the Nintendo Switch, Animal Crossings: New Horizons, Roll for … Read more

@NuketownSF: Guardians of the Galaxy, Stellaris, WW84, Immortal She-Hulk

A recap of NuketownSF’s tweets for the week of January 10, 2021. COMICS & COFFEE | Guardians of the Galaxy 1 (2020) – Corrupted, power-mad Greek Gods from another universe invaded our galaxy; it’s up to Nova, Peter Quill, and the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop them. GAMES | STELLARIS – Compelling 4X space … Read more

Getting Lost in a Hexcrawl

An example of a hexcrawl map, featuring beige hills, grasslands, a large lake, and a volcano.

My current lunchtime game is Scales of Truth, a hexcrawl set in a post-apocalyptic science-fantasy setting. Think of a mashup of Thundarr the Barbarian, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and Mad Max: Fury Road, powered by Dungeons & Dragons. So what’s a hexcrawl? It’s a style of RPG campaign in which the game master populates … Read more

Ready Player One Video Game Replay

A male teenager climbs up the side of a stack of mobile homes, looking off into the distance, where he sees a dystopian skyline. Cover art from the novel version of Ready Player One

Welcome to the Ready Player One Video Game Replay! Ernst Cline’s dystopian novel Ready Player One (Amazon) is set in a cyberpunk-ish future in which climate change, economic upheaval, pandemics, and other catastrophes have transformed our world. Poverty is rampant, with many people living on the fringes of big cities in the hopes of scraping … Read more

Under the Geek Tree 2020

This year, in addition to enough new geeky ornaments to push the tree over its carrying capacity, the Geek Tree’s skirt gathered several new pen-and-paper role-playing games as well as their video game kin. On the video game front, I got Spider-man: Miles Morales for PlayStation 4 (Sony | |Amazon). The game builds on the … Read more

Geek Tree 2020

It finally happened … the Geek Tree is at capacity. A few years ago, I bought myself some time by getting a 9-foot-tall narrow tree (replacing the earlier 6-foot-tall version). The new tree bought me some time, but alas unless we get a bigger house (so I can get a bigger tree) I’ll need to … Read more

RPO Replay: Smash TV

A Smash TV contestant, surrounded by whirling blades, fends off enemies.

The Ready Player One Replay is an exploration of the games that inspired the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Quote Aech and I had wasted countless hours on two-player classics like Contra, Golden Axe, Heavy Barrel, Smash TV, and Ikari Warriors. Game Play Smash TV is a frantic run-and-gun game inspired by the likes of Running Man … Read more

RPO Replay: Heavy Barrel

The Ready Player One Replay is an exploration of the games that inspired the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Quote Aech and I had wasted countless hours on two-player classics like Contra, Golden Axe, Heavy Barrel, Smash TV, and Ikari Warriors. Game Play Heavy Barrel is a top-down shooter in which one- or two-players blast their way through … Read more