Last weekend, at the 5 th installment of the Roludothon - a quarterly social gaming event in Montreal, I've had a change of trying out Dread.

Dread is a very different breed of RPG than any I've ever encountered - its core mechanic revolves around Jenga.

D&D Birthday Party

DMed for a group of 12 year-olds this week-end.

I had already been DM for them 2 years ago and have been trying to schedule something with them ever since. This game was a birthday request from the birthday boy himself – a request I find myself very happy to oblige.

I decided to run a quick level 1 scenario from the Chaos Scar (you can find it Chaos Scar D&DI) a simple kill evil creatures scenario.

Before we start the game, birthday boy told me:

Eric, this time, I’ll try want to assert myself and take a more active role

Fine, I thought. This’ll be cool.

Learning to play Mouse Guard has me figuratively standing on my head, my feet helplessly flailing in the air in desperate attempts of achieving that sacrosanct performance level I always strive for.

Truth be told, from my understanding, Mouse Guard plays in the exact opposite way I have ever played RPGs.

MG is not exactly about you playing a character that reacts to its environment - its about you and your buddies working together to build a story.

This should - and could - be my holy grail for sharing narrative control.

But it seems that it also wants to be some sort of torture device aiming to make me feel inadequate at something I used to feel I was good at.

Kind of like high school.

I've been planning to come up with my own version of GameTable - now called OSU-gt - for a while.

I've actually ended up joining the dev team, but at this time, our objectives do not seem to be compatible. I planned an architectural redesign the whole thing - mainly to allow third party plugins, update to latest technology and potentially plug in a better graphics engine. They are working on stabilizing what they already have to push out a 2.0 version. They don't seem to have enough time on their hands to really look over what I plan to do.

I'm not "mr. Free Time" either, so I hate spending what time I had spare for this project on waiting to get my ideas approved... so I decided I'll branch my version out and see what happens. More details on my short-term objectives later on.

Right now, I need a name for the project.

I love my PS3. I have nearly more games after a year of PS3 than I had during my PS2's life time... and I loved my PS2.

The PSN - PlayStation Network - is great. I love that it is free. I love that you can buy games online - even though my wallet sometimes do disagree.

One of my good buddies recently got himself an XBox 360 Arcade game system (found a pretty sweet deal too!).

So I went to his place and we browsed the XBLA (XBox Live Arcade) - which is the "equivalent" of the PSN Store.

I use quotes here, because XBLA is actually far superior to the PSN store.

And I'm not talking about the quantity of games (even though, IHMO, it beats PSN's offering), their price (PSN seems overpriced to me) or even the quality of the games offered (won't play them all :P)

I'm talking about the store itself - the way it is browsed, the way the games are presented.

See, every game we saw on XBLA had a demo, some screen shots and a short description - just about everything you need to make a basic educated decision on your purchase.

The games were also neatly displayed and easy to navigate.

When I came home to my PS3 and was treated to the grid layout (yes, I know I can change it to a less horrible layout), lack of any relevant information on games and prices that always seem to be 5$ too expensive, I've started to get XBLA envy.

See, I think the PSN store has the capacity to be a very (and I do mean //very// profitable venture for Sony and game developers, but - as I seem to notice in a lot of Sony products - it lacks some vision.

PSN does a very poor job of selling the wares it show - they are (outside of the main page), badly showcased, provide very little information and really do nothing to stimulate the potential customer from parting with his hard-earned money (or too-easily acquired credit).

When I go to a game store, I can pick up a box and look at the description at its back. Look at the screen shot. I can talk with the guys at the counter. I have just about every resource at my fingertips to decide whether the game is of interest short of actually trying it out.

On the PSN, I am nearly forced to whip up a laptop and ask the Internet what it thinks of the game I'm looking for.

PSN is basically forcing me out of the store, away from the "purchase" button.

That, as far as marketing goes, is usually a no-no.

In the no-brainer category.

What do I need from the PSN?

A decent description

All games should have a decent description. What game type is it? What age is it for? What is it about? Why would I want to play this game? Why is its existence relevant to the rest of the world?

What we currently have is always nearly useless, informationless blabber.

Screenshots

What does this game actually look like? PSN can do this, it just never actually bothers to do so. You have to buy to see.

Gameplay Videos

Like the screenshots, PSN can actually do this, but few developers really bother to provide. Again, I ask, what is it that I am purchasing? What do you have to hide?

Demos

Yikes. XBLA has a demo for every game out there. On PSN , if you're lucky, you get the demo a few week after the game comes out. The main game and its demo are not even linked together. If you stumble on the full game and are interested, there's nothing to get you to the demo, if it exists. There's nothing to tell you whether the demo exists or not.

It is my belief that demos should be mandatory for every PSN game. I know it taxes the developers but really, in the end, it will only stimulate sales. Except, of course, if the game is bad. In which case it will hurt the sales.

Do you think Sony wants to sell PSN games? No - they'll want games that are good enough to get friends of customers to purchase as well.

Ratings

Community ratings would also help towards closing sales. I'd love to see community reviews, but I would expect that moderation of such things would be way to bothersome.

Platform Clarification

PSN can sell games for PSP or PS3. What tells you this is a little logo under the game's icon. That's it.

How cool is it to download a PSP game or demo when you don't own the device? Not much.

Games should be either categorized by platform, or you should be allowed to filter them out.

Conclusion

I think Sony should invest and push the store forward - it can be improved to deliver even greater content and boost its rentability through simple, basic selling techniques - its not even marketing efforts yet (almost), its just the equivalent of having a competent salesperson in the shop.

Did you know you can propose and vote on ideas and features related to the PSN?

Check these out: All Games Should Have Screen Shots All Games Should Have Demos Community Reviews Clarification on Platform

I've had the pleasure of sitting with my friend, co-worker and business associate Alain and his brother for a night of StartCraft : The Board Game.

Lets skip analyzing the packaging (pretty & impractical) or the material (very nice - lots of figures, good quality).

We jumped right ahead at going through the rules book - it took us roughly 30-40 minutes for us to be able to start wrapping our heads around the concept.

Its not that the rules are overly complex, but there are many of them and the rules are not organized in a way that seemed to work the same way our brains does - and we're used to sifting through technical data.

In fact, I couldn't help referring to the rules book as the "specs book", as I felt like I was sitting in front of a client who was trying his best to tell me what he wanted his software to do!

When we got the gist of the basics, we dug in head first: we each chose a faction out of the six available factions, drew planets, prepared our starting units, built the space map and were on our way.

Playing the game itself is nice - you get an elegant RTS feel: every turn your workers gather resources from the territory you control (either crystals, gas or victory points). With the resources, you can upgrade your buildings, build new units or purchase technology to upgrade your existing units.

Commands

Giving commands to your units is done using a game mechanic that holds some pretty sweet strategic action:

Each player can issue one hidden command (either build, move or research) on a planet. Players can issue commands on the same planet - in which case the commands "stack". When every one issued 4 commands, we start resolving them.

Here's the cute catch : stacked commands are issued in reverse order than they were placed. In other words : last in, first out. (Lets call it a "LIFO Command Stack" and keep the tech-head in me happy)

It gets better : commands are resolved one by one, player by player - meaning that it is possible you don't have a playable command (an opponent's command stacked on yours blocking you) - while the fluff doesn't make any sense, the strategies you can use to delay opponents were quite entertaining and satisfying.

Combat

Combat was interesting - its a mellow deck-building concept. You have a "combat deck" from which you draw cards to build you hand. These cards give stats to your units (simple attack vs defense) and can also contains technologies to boost your units.

I say "mellow", because you can't really choose the cards you use other than by adding technologies. The rules variation are not many and there is no way to thin the deck. Basically, you won't play with deck statistics as you would in Magic The Gathering or Dominion.

I probably should call it "hand building" - you can manage to draw a lot of cards during your turn - always having to drop down to 6 cards at the end of the round. This is how you can plan your attack slowly and build your hand - and not your deck.

While the system is fairly simple and enjoyable, it seems to be biased in favor of the attacker. Since the attacker decide which creatures attack which creatures, he's the only one that has a chance of grouping his units together against his enemy. Combined wit the fact that equals attack and defense scores means the attacker wins - so it ends up being much easier to attack than defend... good for the Zerg's natural strategy and less so for the Protoss...

Passage of time

The game time is limited by a "timer" and lasts only up to three "eras". The eras are made out of a stack of cards, all containing joyous events that happen at the end of a round.

During the game, if you cannot do one of your commands because you are blocked, or if you choose to cancel a command, you can draw an "event card" - but you can't look at it! You also get event cards when you do research.

Event cards trigger the change of eras - once you've used all of the first era's cards, you move on to the second era, then third, in which the end of the game can be triggered - one of the ends, that is, as there are multiple victory conditions through which the game can be ended.

Victory conditions

The basic winning condition is the first player that achieves 15 victory points (which you get at the end of a round, depending on the victory point zones you control).

Every faction (2 per race) also has its own "special victory condition" - which is where the whole thing started falling apart for us.

They all seemed benign at first: you win if, at any time during era 3 you have 3 bases. Another wins if he controls 6 resource zones during era 3. Another one, if he controls more zones than any enemy during era 3, etc. etc.

Every faction as a condition to meet during era 3 (except mine - I'll get to that later).

Problem is : all players but one easily realizes his victory conditions within 3-4 turns... way before we get to era 3. So as soon as we turn era 3, we've got a tie.

My winning conditions

I like to play play the underdog. I always build a bard or something similar. If someone says a class is unplayable, I'll play it (Bothan Noble? Really?). So, I jumped at the only race that didn't have an "era 3" condition.

My victory condition: every opponents need 20 victory points instead of 15 to win. you win when two "the end is near" cards are played... which, I didn't know at the time, is the condition for the end game.

You see, "End is near" cards are only found during era 3 - at which point all of my opponents have already completed their victory conditions.

And I don't think we ever passed the 10 points mark before 2 players meeting their conditions.

The Verdict

Game time : We played only 2 games so far and the second one took nearly 2 hours.

Learning curve : Steep. The 1st game took roughly 5 hours. If we had a learned player teaching us (or better rules), it could have taken us half that time.

Balancing : Either we missed something important, or the "special victory conditions" should be completely dropped. They killed the game for me.

Enjoyment: The game itself (sans the victory conditions) is very enjoyable.

We'll have to play it a few more times to see if I'd bother shelling the money for it (it nears 100$ around here!).

We'll consider letting the victory conditions go and just use the points system the next time and enjoy the true RTSiness of the game.

Claw of Elevation R&D Report,

by Kreegle Hacktardy, head engineer,

Description of the item:

The Claw of Elevation is a foot-long magical rod. The rod has a leathery texture and its bottom half can be gripped as solidly as any sword.

The rod can be aimed as easily as a hand crossbow. When activated, the top part of the rod splits from the bottom part and travels at great speed towards its destination.

Fitting a rope to link both parts proved to be impractical - we have tried fitting a tube of holding within the device, but the containment ward reacted poorly to the separation and the rope was banished to an unidentified realm.

We have finally managed to link both parts of the rod magically - there's no more rope to handle. This also rids us of the previously reported problems of getting tangled in the rope, or of fitting the rope back in the tube before being able to reuse the device.

Drawback of this solution: the current device can not be separated by more than 50 feet. Passed this distance, the top part sling shots back to the bottom part, causing probable injuries.

We recommend pairing the Claw of Elevation with the Hocksprocket Gloves of Holding to prevent injuries related to misfiring the device.

Once the top parts collides with its target, three claws extend from it and attaches itself to most porous material.

So far, we have successfully attached to various types of rocks, bricks and wood. The claws do not seem able to attach to solid metal, such as certain type of shields.

At any time, the wielder can activate the rod again to reunite both ends - if the wielder has gripped the bottom part of the rod solidly enough, he will be pulled towards the top part of the rod. Again, we strongly suggest that this item be paired with the Hocksprocket Gloves of Holding to prevent unnecessary bruises of free falls from using the Claw of Elevation.

Maximum range: 50 ft. Maximum weight pulled : 800 lbs

Advanced Techniques

When testing the device on goblin test subjects, to determine the effects of grappling a live being instead of a building wall, our technicians found interesting unforeseen characteristics of the Claw of Elevation.

If the wielder has more weight than the Claw's target, the target will be pulled towards the wielder.

While this might be bad news if the wielder has attached to a loose brick or boulder, it also allows to capture smaller live targets and bring them closer to range.

However, if the target is heavier, the wielder will be pulled towards its target, which might not be a tactically strong maneuver.

In any case, the wielder which does not intend to move, should plan his feet firmly to prevent chances of accidental movement.

Once we work out the remaining kinks in the Claw of Elevation, I would recommend starting a new project towards foot gear that prevent unwanted mobility of its wearer.

I used to rely on http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com for analyzing under-performing web pages - and to heighten customer's awareness of the impact of file sizes and load times.

While the tool is great, I never actually took the time to see how well it did its job.

Here's my beef with it at this time:

• It might not be smart enough in its CSS analysis - from what I understand, it will look for every image link in the CSS and count it - no matter if the image actually needs to be loaded.

I'd love to find a FireFox plugin that would use the browser's rendering engine to figure out what has been downloaded.

I tried to save to disk using the browser, but it does not always pick up the files linked by the CSS (both in IE and FireFox).

Anyone knows of good alternatives for this kind of analysis?

As some of you might know, ChattyDM.net is soon to "close" and be merged with Critical Hits - another pretty cool RPG blog.

I was goofing off in Chatty's comment board and suggested he get himself an audio bumper for when users switch to his category on the new Web site.

Here's what silliness I ended up coming with (click on the "play" button below...):

Critical Hits!

Chatty DM

Playing as a grown man

Rollin' 20s

Way in his thirties

What will he write next?

We can only guess

(I kinda like the "Critical Hits" scream!)