As you may have heard, Team Screen-Shaped (or at least the Scottish side of the team) went along to Scotland’s premier tabletop convention a few weeks ago and we really rather enjoyed it. We recently caught up with Phil Harris, Conpulsion Co-ordinator for his thoughts on how the event went and what the future holds for Conpulsion.
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Review: Kairo
Kairo intrigues me. It’s been longer than I like to remember since I last played a game that drew a line in the sand and said, “Here’s some puzzles and nothing more”. It’s become the fashion for puzzle games to be narrative-led and Kairo stands as a striking counterpoint to both the folly and genius of story-based puzzlers.
God Only Knows: Some Musings on Bioshock Infinite
There’s a lot that’s been said about Bioshock Infinite and the rafters of the internet creak with the mass of speculation and praise that the game has received. That will not stop us for a second. So here, with the caveat that I’m not going to use any traditional structure for this article and will leap from idea to idea, is what I took from Bioshock Infinite. There will be spoilers after the break. This is a warning. Do not read further without completing the game.
Review: Impire
Contrary to the experiences of every other reviewer of Impire, I’ve never played Dungeon Keeper. I certainly tried, back when my family first bought an old PC from my Mum’s office. It did not go well. The game would stutter and lag and despite my expert technical knowledge (I was 10), I couldn’t ever actually play it. I did, however, play a lot of Theme Hospital, so before you condemn me for what you’re about to read, know this: I do have experience with this building management genre.
Preview: Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves
I’ve often wondered what it’d be like to be Canadian and therefore a lumberjack. Apologies if that stereotype offends, I don’t really think all Canadians are lumberjacks. Some of you are Mounties too, but I know what that’s like, thanks to daytime TV. I’ve often imagined it a bourbon-swilling, axe-swinging sort of job. Holding away wolves with one blistered and splintered hand while felling trees right and left with the other. I didn’t however, think it would involve werewolves, rock traps and blessed bullets. Which shows how much I know about the logging industry.
Preview: InFlux
A sphere crashes to the ground, cast down from the sky into an abandoned landscape. Emerging from a crater, the ball rolls along a beach to encounter an incongruous cube, blighting the sands with its stark sterility. The surface of the cube ripples as the sphere approaches and breaches the wall between this reality and the next. This is InFlux.
The PS4: Glass Half Empty
When a new console is announced, it appears to be customary for games writers to fall into one of two camps. On one hand, we have those who devour press releases and regurgitate them in sprawling paeans to god given silicon form, frothing wildly at the mouth and genitals for the chance to touch the very future of gaming. On the other, the cynics. The embittered husks where joy and enthusiasm once dwelt, their faces a sculpture of disdain and ill-hidden sneers.
I am going to try to avoid falling into either camp, but I’d like to apologise for the inexorable decline into cynicism and sarcasm that I’m pretty confident will happen throughout this article. You see, I don’t really hold out much hope for the PS4 as the future of gaming.
Review: Munchkin
I’d like to tell you I’m new to tabletop gaming. I really would, but I’m going to have to lose some of my hard-earned street cred and tell you that isn’t true. I’ve incinerated foes in Magic: The Gathering, I’ve forced tiny animals to battle while playing the Pokemon CCG and I’ve played that odd board game with the capitalistic hats and dogs. Exclusive Possession, I think it’s called. I’ve been wanting to delve a little more into the tabletop scene and it was Munchkin I chose to start with. I also started with some friends. I’m not sure I have the latter any more. Continue reading
Depression In The Borderlands
I was a tiny nipper when I first sat hypnotised by the lanky form of Mowgli. I’d been sitting in front of the Mega Drive Jungle Book game, one that my Dad had rented out from Blockbuster for me (and what an odd concept renting out games is these days). I was absolutely engrossed and completely incompetent, failing in every conceivable way to make progress across the simulated jungle. It’s a memory I look back on with a faint feeling of satisfaction when, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the fire kindle in my younger eyes, engaging in a hobby that would envelop my spare time for years to come.
