Starfield

Starfield, with gameplay footage a year on from the earlier reveal, joins the likes of Destiny as big computer games I want to do as a tabletop game. Possibly with Trinity Continuum: Aeon. Definitely stealing the vintage explorers’ clubhouse in a shiny space city.

Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws looks great (trailer, alpha gameplay trailer) - only the CGness of the human characters confirmed to me that it was actually a video game.

The big world and shifty heroes (including the design of the patron) make me think of the unmade Ragtag.

The fuzzy axolotl you can direct as reliably as R2-D2 is a thing. (Did they get so used to Force TK that they had to have a way to do it with a non Force player character?)

And if it was live action some of it was made in Antelope Canyon.

Two trailers so far and nobody with a lightsaber!

Jurassic Park at 30

Jurassic Park was released in US cinemas thirty years ago today. Michael Crichton basically took his sci-fi theme park disaster idea Westworld and replaced cowboys with dinosaurs, and Steven Spielberg made it more-or-less family friendly, playing up the appeal of the idea - yes, I want to go see live dinosaurs! - as well as the danger when it all goes wrong.

Empire visited the set back when

CG effects were just there, with each shot taking a long time to process so a lot of work done to make them all work, while puppets and costumes were used extensively as well.

And one of the best known effects shots is the water on the car dashboard, made by plucking an attached guitar strong.

I remember the trailer with the big reveal of the Brachiosaurus stopping halfway up their necks - teasing that the effect would probably work but not confirming it. (But I can’t actually find that clip now.)

GEAS summer game pitches

GEAS summer game pitches are tonight. I’m not planning on playing or offering to GM this time as I’m running Last Dance. We’ll see in the new academic year - when we might not have a venue, and if we do it might only be bookable for ninety minute slots.

V5: Blood Stained Love and H5: Alma Maters

Blood Stained Love, a newly announced book on romance for Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition. (Following Requiem with Strange, Dead Love, as it followed Wraith: The Oblivion with Love Beyond Death.) With a big section on Storytelling and considerate play and comfort. Fiddling with genre dials is a nice way of expanding what this version of Vampire can do.

Bonus: Bleed And How To Deal With It.

Also first word for me at least on Hunter: The Reckoning - Alma Maters, about education and research for the hunt, including college and university settings. Which, hey, could work.

The Boogeyman

The Boogeyman, loosely based on the Stephen King short story, is the first conventionally constructed film from Host director Rob Savage, from a script by writers of A Quiet Place and Black Swan. It still plays with negative space in the frame and use of sound, though. Sophie Thatcher gets the Final Girl role she was very obviously going to be offered after Yellowjackets started. And Vivien Lyra Blair as her endangered little sister is great though I had to set aside that she was previously great as Princess Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi so I can’t quite buy the jeopardy.

KiwiRPG Week 2023

KiwiRPG Week 2023 is go!

Ghostbusters

Also, happy Ghostbusters Day! Expect more for the 40th anniversary next year.

Warhammer stamps

Warrhammer 40th anniversary stamp sets. We live in strange times.

(Also, the stamp packs called Miniature Sets are always called that.)

Edinburgh Fringe 2023 programme

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme for 2023 is out, and the database-y online version is up too.

Macbeth 5, Hamlet 2.

(With the straight-up Hamlet group also doing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.)

The Fantasy tag has two different D&D-ish improv shows in eight results. And three more in Game Shows.

Oh, and Buffy Revamped is doing an encore run.

World Ocean Day 2023

Happy World Ocean Day to all!

Click to help take out some plastic.

Bloodlines 2 announcement... announcement

New screenshots from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to accompany advance word of an announcement of some kind in September. They also confirmed physical preorder refunds, suggesting it will now be download only.

I want to believe...

Darkness Emergent

Darkness Emergent, the first V5 LARP weekend event, in Texas in November, with a decent-sized convention’s worth of non-LARPy stuff attached.

Jousting

Hey, who wants to go and see jousting at the start of July? it’s been a while.

Cymera 2023

I got to say hi to Gar and the Rookery. Did not try the quiz by myself.

Go big AND go Barbie Dream Home

The Barbie movie caused a global pink paint shortage.

RPGaDAY 2023 is coming

The RPGaDAY social media has a new banner for the tenth anniversary.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

I’m glad I knew going in the Across The Spider-Verse was part two of three, with Beyond The Spider-Verse in nine months. And that I was otherwise largely unspoiled, having avoided trailers and clips as I knew I’d go see it ASAP anyway.

Fun, gorgeous, heartfelt, loaded with blink-and-miss-it referenes like a Muppet movie. Roll on March.

Warhammer 40,000 new core rules

Ahead of the new edition big intro box, and the anniversary stamp set(!), the new core rules for Warhammer 40,000. Keywords!

June

Enjoy PRIDEMONTH.