"Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming."
-- Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), The Lost World: Jurassic Park
In the past few years there have been several great games such as Dinosaur Island and DinoGenics that were clearly inspired by the Jurassic Park franchise. Interestingly, those games are about building a successful, functioning dinosaur zoo, the one thing that doesn't happen in any of the films; they're always about the dinosaurs escaping and causing chaos. I guess it takes a legitimately licensed game like Jurassic Park Danger! to really understand what the franchise is all about.
It's a one vs. many game based on the first film in the series, where one player takes control of the escaped carnivorous dinosaurs while the others play as a selection of the humans trying to make their way through the malfunctioning park to the helicopter pad and escape.
Each human character has a unique deck of cards giving that player general options such as moving and hiding as well as a few that are specific to each character, such as Ray Arnold's "hold on to your butts" that allows him to turn the electric fences back on, or little Timmy's encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaur behavior. Human players have to carefully manage their cards, choosing the best moments to play certain cards; if a human player ever runs out of cards, their character is eliminated and removed from the game (but not to fear, that player gets a new character to play).
In addition to avoiding the wily dinosaurs, the human characters each have a goal they must accomplish before they can head for the helicopter pad. Most of them just have to go to a specific location to collect their goal token, but some have to perform a specific task: Muldoon the game warden has to distract the Velociraptor, for example. Sneaky Dennis Nedry starts play with his goal token already collected, so all he has to do is make a beeline for the chopper, but he's more likely to be attacked by a dinosaur than the other characters.
The dinosaur player's goal is simple: eat a certain number of humans before they can escape. The dinosaurs move via a deck of cards similar to what the humans have, and each dinosaur has a special ability that they can't use every turn, so their player has to employ some strategy to get the most out of each dinosaur.
With cardboard components and wooden meeples instead of sculpted miniatures, Jurassic Park Danger! has clearly been designed for mass market sale. In an industry that seems increasingly interested in marketing expensive, overproduced, made-to-order games for a small market of mail order consumers (a trend I'm as guilty of supporting as anyone), it's nice to see a cheap, accessible game that's a lot more interesting than we usually see in licensed mass market products.
It's not going to change your life or anything, but it's fun and simple and evokes the source material very well. This might be a good entry level game for younger gamers, people new to the hobby, or even for your regular gaming group if they need a break from Gloomhaven...
Rating: 3 (out of 5) not quite in the same league as most hobby board games, but close, and definitely worth the low price.
I hopped back on CoC for an Oblivion Campaign with a friend of mine partially in anticipation of the new Convergence CID and partially because the Void Archon should be here next week. It's honestly been a lot of fun with some good back and forth thus far. We're officially half way through the campaign and I'm looking forward to every time we get to play.
Much to my surprise, the CoC CID is going to start in less than a week (Nov 4th), and yesterday we were treated to an extended Dev Chat where they showed off artwork and gave some rules previews.
You can watch the video on YouTube here.
I posted a summary of the Dev Chat on the Convergence Facebook group you can check out here, but honestly watch the video those guys are great.
Because I'm not a patient man and because wild speculation is fun as hell I wanted to write about what possibilities have me the most excited and the few places where I'm a bit worried.
The Tesselator "SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!" – Lil Jon
Two Guns, Range 10, POW 12, Volume Fire (+1 Hit and Damage vs. Med Base, +2 for Large/Huge bases), Reload 1 on each gun. Flight.
Can you imagine Orion's feat turn with a swarm of these? It will simply gun down entire units worth of models, including things like Satyxis Raiders. Oh and vs. huge bases it's easy to get this thing to POW16.
The only weakness is that it's not a spray, so range limiting abilities will apply to it, making it as sad into Kruger2, Old Witch2/3 and a few other bits. Still, if it's fast then this can be mitigated.
We don't know it's points cost yet, which will be a big deal on what this model can really do.
Asphyxious 4 "The Most Interesting Robot in the World"
Do you like taking damage buffs and/or a melee beater in ranged focused lists? Because Gaspy4 will do that for you!
Gaspy is in Convergence and he brings Dark Shroud to everything in his battlegroup. He can take Cryx(!), Merc, or CoC jacks.He also has his Iron Litch stats with DEF 15, ARM 17, and 18 Boxes with 5 focus, with the ability to claim souls to get even more focus.
Many casters in Convergence can bring a +2 damage buff for jacks, and Gaspy probably brings a more reliable Dark Shroud application than taking a Void Archon. As such it seems almost trivial to swing +4 damage on a target.
What's better is that he gives Bloodthirsty to all construct models in his command range, extending the threat of jacks and infantry alike vs. living models. So he brings a conditional speed up and a damage buff to Convergence, plus whatever the other two spells are on his card (it's revealed he has Caustic Mist clouds).
Gaspy has always had MAT 6 and RAT 3 and my guess is that will stay to keep him reasonable and to not make an obvious melee addition able to effectively run ranged vectors.
While he is being added to Clockwork Legions and the new Strange Bedfellows themes he's the only Mercenary unit Convergence can take, so he's easily available in Destruction Initiative without sacrificing your Merc solo option. He will be expensive at 14 points PLUS taking a jack, but honestly 1 or 2 Stalkers with him seems like the de-facto standard, though there definitely seems to be a case for taking some other Cryx heavies or even Merc Heavies that can do ranged roles if you want them.
Stalkers just to apply Dark Shroud reliably from a million miles away just seem incredibly obvious and it's not hard to get them up to PS16 with Blessed and Grievous Wounds, and they have extended control, meaning they can be up to 20" from Gaspy.
Imagine Orion with a bunch of the Tesselators and other jacks, with Gaspy providing Stalkers for applying Dark Shroud when the melee gets joined, or to apply Dark Shroud to a huge base, further buffing our ranged output. Heck if you want to go the Assimilator route, you can apply the +2 damage to any target.
Still, Gaspy4 with just a single Stalker would cost 22 points, likely 30 points with two stalkers. That's not a cheap package, but it seems like it could seriously add a ton of value.
Nemo4 "Look at what they've done to my boy" - Hungerford
We know a bit less on the specifics of Nemo4 beyond the fact that he's a Protoss Looking Battle Engine with 30 damage boxes, a good gun, and the ability to take Cygnar, Merc, and CoC jacks.
So why am I excited? Well Nemo1, 2, and -1 (the alt CoC caster) were all MAT 5 RAT 5, Nemo3 was MAT 5 RAT 6. I'm guessing Nemo4 will probably be MAT 5 and RAT 5, making him very likely to focus on bringing ranged jacks to CoC lists that don't want to take ranged heavies in the Battlegroup because the caster has a low RAT: Axis and Lucant, I'm looking at you.
That's not all he's good for, there are certainly some other jacks that may be interesting from Cygnar that immediately come to mind: A Centurion in a Lucant list seems really rough to deal with on Feat turn, and then there are all the ranged lights in Cygnar.
Nemo will have limited applications because he will only be in Destruction Initiative and Strange Bedfellows with no ability to get him into Clockwork Legions.
Still, I can see applications for wanting to take him in an Axis DI list where he'd support some TEP's, putting out serious firepower and not being able to be charged.
Negator "Well Damn"
6 Points, two Initials, flight and "fast", and POW 11 with Flank: Negator
Um, yes please. This thing can easily get itself up to POW 15 or 16. Taking a literal swarm with the new Syntherion setup seems like it could be utterly devastating. I'm having a hard time identifying what caster wouldn't be strong with this. Flank on jacks gets silly and this thing is 6 points. That's two for Requisition options in Clockwork Legions after you take a Corollary, and then you start filling up jack points. I do want to see the rest of the rules but this just seems incredibly powerful based on what we know.
Debbie Downer Time
I have some mild concerns that there will be a few Legacy models left behind in the CID, though I hope that bringing this up will have a few simple changes be addressed:
No Pathfinder out for our Infantry
CoC has two casters that can actually solve Pathfinder issues for our infantry: Aurora 1 and Axis. Neither of them really help protect the rather expensive Enigma Foundry package we need to keep our infantry running.I'm hoping that the Transverse Enumerator will get Pathfinder as an option to give out turn to turn. They are FA:3 so they limit the ability to spam it everywhere, and it gives a reason to take the UA that largely gets ignored a lot these days.
Primarily this just lets us play infantry in a variety of casters that would otherwise get ignored and it requires a tax to take it. It's an easy way to open up new options in list design for a limited faction that doesn't appear to really break anything by allowing up to 3 units to be able to pay for the ability to get Pathfinder.
Modulator Guns
Most of the new electric guns are coming in at POW12 base, which means the Conflux can up the damage to POW14 with some hoops and well, a 33 point conflux. The Modulator being taken up to POW12 base would be a real quality of life improvement, especially since the new Tesselator starts at that and brings more shots at only 1" shorter range. We still don't know point costs for the Tesselator so this could just be moot, but I'd love to see the Modulator get a bit of a boost while keeping it's value at 10 points.
Conclusions Monday is going to be awesome, I can't wait to see all the new rules. I intend to get playtest games in as well as post at least the Pathfinder concern above in the general feedback group Overall I'm stoked to see what can be done and I'm trusting the process to get us what looks like will be awesome releases.
Local Cerulean trainers were hosting a tournament of sorts on Nugget Bridge, but by the time I got there the tournament was over. In fact, the tournament was exposed as a recruiting ring for Team Rocket and was overturned by a trainer quite a few years younger than me. Although Team Rocket was gone, the trainers were still there accepting challenges and I took them on one by one without hesitation or incident. After trouncing Wolf and the Nugget Bridge trainers, I was feeling pretty proud of my team and confident in our ability to succeed. Beyond Nugget Bridge which spans Route 24 was a short hike along Route 25 to the Cerulean Cape. Bill lived out there in a small cottage and welcomed trainers to come visit and discuss all things Pokémon with him. Just west of Nugget Bridge, I caught a second Pidgey whom I named Charlie. He was a bit stronger than Kiwi when we first met, but now that Kiwi had evolved into Pidgeotto, Kiwi was a star member of my team. League rules dictate that trainers can only carry six Pokémon at a time in Kanto, so Charlie would soon be stored away waiting for his day to train and battle alongside his teammates. The sixth member of the team was about to be Arnold, a small Oddish I caught on Route 25. This tiny little sprout was unexpectedly strong. He single-handedly toppled an Onix in his very first trainer battle on our way to meet Bill. I knew in that moment that he would be a great asset when I went to challenge the Cerulean Gym, which was known for its fierce water-type Pokémon.
When I first met Bill, he was recovering from some rare illness. He assured me it was not contagious, but he was still not feeling quite himself. I could tell he didn't really want to talk about it, so instead I steered the conversation to our absolute favorite topic: Pokémon. Bill is a self-proclaimed PokéManiac and no one has ever really challenged it. His obsession with Pokémon has very few rivals. Bill is credited with inventing and operating the Pokémon Storage System that was available in Kanto at the time, and that system's descendants are still in use today. At that very moment, Charlie was sitting in a subsection of the Pokémon Storage System that was allotted to me for my own personal Pokémon needs. Much like the Pokédex, this would prove to be an invaluable tool to help me kick start the Pokémon Sanctuary that I run today. It's because of people like Professor Oak and Bill that Kanto was such a tremendous hot spot for aspiring Pokémon trainers back then and is still somewhat of a legendary region to this day. Bill was delighted at my idea for a Pokémon Sanctuary. He was also interested in my resolve to not let any Pokémon faint in battle. He was shocked I was able to let go of Rascal (Sr.) and Nibbles. I assured him then and I assure you now, it was not easy. It truly broke my heart, but it was an important part of my growth as a trainer. Bill offered to help in any way he could with my project. He also offered to look after or find aspiring new trainers to take care of any future Pokémon I was forced to release by my own personal code. His love for all things Pokémon was abundantly clear. Bill was eager to show me his favorite Pokémon, one I had never heard of before meeting Bill. He had numerous files on his computer system about the Pokémon Eevee, and Bill had been doing research into its wide variety of evolutions. Bill was a leading expert on the Kanto Evolution Stones which included Moon Stones first found on Mount Moon, as well as Fire, Water, Thunder and Leaf Stones. More would be discovered in time, but these were among the first known to transform certain Pokémon when exposed to their faint light. Bill showed me some pictures and sketches of Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon. Bill and I spent several hours passing the time in conversation, but eventually it was time to head back to Cerulean City to rest up before my gym challenge. I was really happy I had taken the time on my trip to meet Bill and shake his hand. As I said, I couldn't have gotten where I am today without Bill and his amazing work on the Pokémon Storage System.
The day after I met Bill, I challenged Misty at the Cerulean City Pokémon Gym. Unlike my devastating loss to one of Brock's junior trainers, my new friend Arnold made short work of the two trainers in Misty's gym. They simply couldn't hurt him more than his own absorption could repair. All the Pokémon of the Cerulean City Gym were powerless against Arnold's ability to drain their energy and bolster his own. I was worried about facing Misty. I had been warned that her Starmie was one of the most powerful Pokémon in the region, so I came prepared. After defeating Misty's Staryu efficiently with Arnold, I put her Starmie to sleep with a soothing powder that spreads from Arnold's leaves. Though, Starmie's powerful psychic attacks had the potential to cripple or even knock out Arnold instantly, it simply slept peacefully while Arnold nuzzled up to it and sapped its energy. Misty was soundly defeated and Arnold was the super star of the Cerulean Gym challenge. It wasn't the most exciting series of battles in Kanto, but sometimes strategy and planning is more important than a fast paced battle of strength and determination. I was lucky to have found such a great Pokémon like Arnold just a day or two before challenging a tough gym leader like Misty.
Current Team: Attacks in Blue are recently learned.
Space Park is the type of game that tends to appeal to me right away: great looking illustration and graphic design, at a low enough price point that I can afford to take a chance and buy the game on impulse. These impulse purchases can be a mixed bag, sometimes resulting in great looking games whose novelty wears off quickly (Grimslingers), or games that sounded more interesting than they actually are (Deadline), but every once in a while we end up with an entertaining game that, while simple, bears out repeated plays and earns a place in our collection.
First let's talk about the artwork. The game board is made up of a series of large tiles, each intended to look like a tourism advertisement for a location in outer space. The illustrations are gorgeous: any one of them would look great at poster size, framed on a wall somewhere. The rest of the game's printed components use snippets from these pieces of artwork along with some considered and sophisticated typography and graphic design.
Okay, so the game is pretty, but is it any fun to play? Yes it is. Space Park is an interesting marriage of familiar game mechanics with a few unusual ideas. At its core it's a resource collection game: players move around on a board made up of the aforementioned tiles, each representing a location where various different resources can be picked up, exchanged, or spent in various combinations to purchase victory points and game advantages.
What sets the game apart is the way players move around the board. Regardless of the number of players, there are three silver rocket ships, each starting at a different location. On a player's turn, they perform the action at a location where there is a ship (usually collecting a resource), then move that ship to the next empty location. This is interesting for several reasons, the most obvious being that each player doesn't have their own playing piece, they always have a choice of three pieces to move. More strategically, it means that every time a player takes their turn, they need to think about where the piece will be moving and what advantage they're giving the next player by moving it there.
It's one of those rare games with simple rules but a lot to think about that's great for when you want a lighter game with a reasonable amount of strategic depth. And it's very pretty to look at.
Rating: 4 (out of 5) Not necessarily an immersive "play all day" type game, but excellent for what it is: lightweight and fun.
Today, the 16th of July 2018, Simon Jarrett would have turned 30. He never quite made it, the proposed treatment for his brain damage proving ineffective.
And yet he did. A Simon Jarrett made it to the ARK, facing eternity among the stars. Another(s), infinity below the sea, at least as long as the batteries last. But he didn't just live, he left a legacy. His scan, for a generation of programmers to use. The ARK, preserving humanity until the Sun burns out.
And you.
Simon lives on in every fanart, every mixtape and cosplay. He gets a different story in a fanfic, be it finding a cure, finding love, sometimes dying, yet still living on through those moments. You have taken him well beyond 4.0, and for that we are thankful.
As a small celebration we have collected 30 of some our favourite fan works of Simon, one for each year since his birth. In all honesty 30 is an arbitary number, a cutoff point to keep this post from being far too long. We love each and every one of your fan creations, as well as mods, meta commentary and even just coming together as a community.
From us, and from Simon: thank you!
PS. If you want to see more fan creations from SOMA, Amnesia games and Penumbra, we have an official Tumblr blog where we have collected your works from Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Deviantart. The blog updates daily! (We might not have found your work, so please tag us on social media, or send us a message!) Cosplay and art by Zerachielamora
Zerachieamora is one of the top creators in our community, having done cosplays of all our protagonists, as well as having time to run ask blogs and make art. Their stuff always has top-notch detail and creativity. We certainly hope our next protagonist will be cool enough to inspire them to make another cosplay!
Sketchinisfun has made a lot of awesome contributions to the fandom, such as TinyCatherine, but this animation has to be our favourite - everyone knows just how much dedication that requires!
We also can't help but appreciate their take on Simon and Catherine's voice actors' coping mechanisms (which we cannot officially endorse):
One of our favourite levels deserves some love, and Shaidis delivers! This piece is beautiful, and it is no wonder it shows up whenever you search for SOMA fanart. Art by Rennerei
Is it a screenshot? Nope, just Rennerei working their magic!
This pick might be biased as our community manager has followed Rennerei since the early TBFP/Motorcity/TF2 days. It is truly inspiring to work on something, and then receive fanart from someone you admire.
Doseph has made an incredible set of all our major protagonists that you can find in their Frictional Games tag. The detail, atmosphere and claustrophobia in the works is astonishing.
You can also follow them on Instagram. Art by Fayren
Fayren does amazing original work, but it is an honour that they took time to create fanart for us. They has also made another piece of SOMA fanart that we have up on our wall in the Malmö office.
You can also follow Fayren on Twitter. Art by Mcfudgie
Sick. We're serious developers, but not too serious to enjoy some light-hearted wall punching! This is what any of us would do, isn't it? Art by KylieRusek
Ess and her brother did an amazing job on the diving suit, down to the glowing eyes, WAU-infested trousers and even an Omnitool! And Simon eating pizza with a kawaii Reaper is the crossover we didn't know we wanted, but have now been enlightened. Doll by Sadunacc
Sadunacc has created a lot of lovely fanarts, including some more beautiful Leggy Catherines. But this doll is so unique we had to share it - just look at it! A pocket-sized Simon! Art by Piranyeaah
It is always cool to see artists' work progress - and for this work you can also see the progression shots! Piranyeaah did a lovely job capturing Simon's confusion. Art by Snuffysbox
If you're Simon and I'm Simon... then are there also other Simons, possibly disguised as Roombas? Let's not think about that, and instead think about how nice it is to see all of them together.
Inspiring people to push their limits and make something awesome is great! Steampoweredwerehog - if you're reading this, we'd love to see the final cosplay! Art by S.paceheart
You can find all the SOMA pieces by Cprartsalot in their SOMA tag! But if we had to pick our favourite, it would be this one. Minecraft skin by IcarianPrince
Just look at that Minecraft boy go! Just don't stay underwater for too long, we can't guarantee this skin will make you into an actual diver. Art by TigerSpuds
Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.
An extremely productive year for Brave
Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.
Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.
The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.
"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"
Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.
Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now
If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.
The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.
AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.
For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.
Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.
Earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) with Brave Web Browser
