Character names I will probably not use

Chad Ampersand
Rod Truculent
Henrietta Spivvens
Deuce Vanders
Ralf Frittata
Toro Apparanata
Dill Viss
Kane Gelatinous
Neville 'Crunchy' Took
Chick Contraflow
John

Kill Doctor Lucky

In my opinion the best board-games combine an intuitive design and rule-set with enough room for a bit of strategy and psychological sword-fighting. Sadly I tend not to buy them because I don't like to pay £30+ for any kind of game, even for computer or consoles. However when I was in Compendia yesterday I found Kill Doctor Lucky, a brilliant £6 boardgame from Cheapass Games, whose name describes their philosophy but not the game's quality. The company says that Cheapass Games come with the bare essentials: boards, cards, and rulebooks. If you need anything else, we'll tell you. And it's probably something you can scrounge from a game you already own...
To ignore the game's aesthetic debt to Cluedo would be pointless, but it plays at a less sedate pace. Self described as a pre-murder mystery, you have to move round the board trying to corner the perpetually moving Dr. Lucky, then, if no-one's in your sight-line, bump him off with weapons of various values. The other players can then play 'Failure cards' which off-set your weapon's values with random and fluke occurrences that save the old bugger's life.
The game starts with about 5 minutes of confused rule-crunching before suddenly becoming insane chaotic fun, like an Agatha Christie adaptation directed by Tex Avery. It also comes with a larger alternative game-board, rule variations, a director's commentary... The invention and care that's gone into this game is a lovely antidote to the endless cash-in Opoly variations and deluxe Cluedo sets with pieces crafted from Atlantean Osmium. And I think I'm certainly going to be buying a lot more of their products...

Strange Thoughts

Strange thoughts dance on the surface of my mind all day and much of the night, like fleas feasting off my creative blood-stream.
An example: Have they produced a new 'I Like The Pope, The Pope Smokes Dope' Poster featuring Benedict XVI? If not, why not? Do they feel he doesn't have that same beatific stoned look that John Paul sometimes got? Maybe he has, but they couldn't find a photo where a spliff and smoke could be easily photoshopped in? Or maybe they think Benedict's face is the last thing you'd want to look at if you're likely to be consuming recreational drugs. I wish I had the time to investigate this, or at least the cash to hire private detectives to look into it for me. But I live in the agony of unknowing.

Tracked With Gilt #2

A track that I associate with my first love:
Charade- Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini
The theme song from the 1963 film Charade always reminds me of my first love. The only thing that reminds me of her more is actually being with her, which is fairly easy as she's upstairs right now, being not only my first but also my current love.
She introduced me to Charade early in our relationship as it's possibly her favourite film, and it's a suitably witty and stylish Hitchcock parody starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. But I'm writing about the song, which aims to combine the elements the film unites, mystery and romance, style with a certain self-conscious cheesiness. And it's Mancini. I could have named the first track we danced to but I don't remember because I was too distracted. Charade actually means something.

Bareback

You know how it is, you get drunk with a housemate and you start talking about werewolves. Well I do, anyway. Kit Whitfield was perhaps the first person who took an interest and started talking back. I fished out the kernel of a concept from the back of my mind, where I keep the thousands of other tenth baked concepts that aren’t ready for reality (How about a sitcom set in Janis Joplin’s hair? No?). We fleshed it out and after a huge amount of work (from her, that is) Kit’s debut novel is due to be published. It’s entirely her own creation, and is a brilliantly fur-crawling thriller, a compelling character study, an exciting analysis of the lengths that human-kind will go to deny their own animalistic nature, and, most importantly, has more werewolves than any novel ever written. Check out her website, buy the book, then get me a drink and I’ll tell you this idea I have about flesh-eating mudskippers…

True Story

I dreamt that I sprained my wrist grabbing for an apricot thrown to me by Armando Iannucci. It was a prize for having had come up with the best new name for Great Britain.
No wait, that actually happened. I was in the audience for the recording of the last 'Charm Offensive'. Having one of my comedy heroes laugh at something I'd written was a feeling as fuzzy as the apricot itself and well worth the 4 days of agonizing twinges. It had some effect on the activity I'm going to talk about in my next post, though*.
It was 'An Audience With Guernsey', by the way.


*Not that activity.

Ideas I Wish I'd Had- Game Edition

The International House Of Mojo
This already wins huge points for being an excellent resource about classic Lucasarts games and the next generation of point and click adventures. However, the idea I wish I'd had is the page tab on the right side of the header, which flips the page round so you can see the hastily duct-taped back-stage workings of the site, including topical comic strips. Nicely done.

This Spartan Life
This Machinima project is actually a genuine talk show hosted in game-space. It's filmed on a Halo server with both the hosts and guests as player-characters (as well as the camera-men, DJ and, ahem, dancers) and combines surprisingly witty and intelligent conversations with blistering combat as they defend themselves from all the other people on the server who don't know they're filming. This will eventually spawn a raft of inferior imitators. I'm almost tempted to try and host a chat-show here.

Grand Theftendo
Brian Provinciano has decided to adapt GTA 3 into a NES game. Neither Rockstar or Nintendo are licensing him to do so, and it'll only be playable on emulators of the long dead console, unless for some reason you have the equipment to burn it to a cartridge yourself. It's a monumentally geeky unpaid waste of time. Which is why it's right up my alley. Good luck, Mr P.

GTA4 Exclusive fake preview that I made up

Read the imaginary truth about the new GTA game here.
Yes, it's a batch of terrible lies accompanied by shots that aren't actually from the game, but isn't that a lot more interesting than some glossy Champagne-and-Canapé fuelled puff piece? Well, no, actually.