The folks over at NeuroSky have come up with a brainwave detecting headset about the size and shape of a pair of headphones, which plugs into your Android or iOS device. Right now it works with around a hundred Apps for some hands free control, and not all of them are games. It is a bit pricy, but at $130 it is hands down the cheapest and most portable EEG mapper you can buy. Thanks to the folks at Gear Patrol for the heads up on this one.
I don’t play games for more than 15 seconds at a time before my character is dead or disabled, but that doesn’t mean I cannot appreciate some good Mod Game footage. Thanks to the folks at Blastr for the heads up on this one.
The Art of Video Games is a new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with a collection of 80 games, interviews with the creators, quite a bit of history and background, and a whole lot more. So I am sure not many will be surprised to learn that the folks from Think Geek are making a run to attend the event this weekend , and they are inviting everyone along for the fun. It works like this: meet up at the F Street lobby no later than 12 noon on Saturday, the 26th, to gather and be identified as part of the event. Of course, you might want to sign up ahead of time so if you are one of the winners they know where to send your prizes. At 12:30PM everyone will have been split up into teams of three and start cruising the exhibits, where you will want to pay plenty of attention. Finally, at 2PM, reconvene in the F street lobby to answer questions about the exhibit and the games for a shot at the prizes. This gathering should be a lot of fun, but if you already have plans this weekend the exhibit runs through September 30th, so you still have plenty of time to see it.
This week it is Battleship on the big screen, and I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, it is based on the Hasbro game Battleship, and games turned into movies are rarely any good. On the other hand, it is based on a Hasbro game, and they have already turned a cheap plastic toy from the 70’s into a movie franchise that was quite enjoyable with Transformers, so I am not willing to count this one out without seeing it first.
Kickstarter is a way to mobfund projects that might not otherwise ever get made, a social media variation of the good old Begathon that public radio and TV go through all the time. In it’s simplest terms, if there is a project you think should be done, you can vote with your wallet, offering as much or as little as you think it deserves within the limits of your own budget. Some of the projects entered are just silly, and some of them will be world changing if they get the correct backing. As usual, most are somewhere in between, offering an interesting result if enough people are willing to contribute.
Since nothing of value ever happens in a vacuum, many of these projects have rewards, with different returns for different levels of monetary commitment. The fail-safe here is that you can only achieve these rewards if the project actually gets fully funded and goes forward. If a project does not get fully funded, it does not go forward, you do not get billed for your contribution, and there are no rewards to share in. To date there are something like 20,000 projects that have been funded and created, with many more failing the test of support.
Yes, all of that was just the intro, and most of it you probably already knew even though it will be new to some of those reading here. I made the preliminary comments to give you the background, because there are some projects I think will be worth your time to consider, and today I have two of them for you to think about.
The one that could be a real game changer, or at least a first class creators tool, is in fact a game creation toolset called Storybricks. If they are allowed to bring this into the world, you could find yourself in possession of software that could potentially allow you to create your own online interactive RPG environment on a par with anything Steve Meretzky ever cranked out, at least in terms of game logic and environmental consistency. Assembling a game that was interesting enough to draw an audience would still be all up to you, of course. I have already contributed to this project, because I would love to have this toy to play with.
A different kind of Kickstarter project is Project: 13, an animated music video attempt where the music will drive the animation, 3 songs done as 3 music videos. The desired result being a video, the appeal for funding is also a video since that is what the creators understand, as you can see below. There are thousands of additional projects all hoping for funding over at Kickstarter; check them out, find the ones you want to support, and pass the word along. This kind of crowd sourcing is how we help create the future we want to live in, and support the people and groups who are trying to make that future happen in the way we want to see it come down.
In this game you get 12 women pregnant, bond with their kids while they are growing up, and the kids become your team for the battles. Games may have changed a bit since I last noticed. This one is for the PSP platform, and is scheduled to be released tomorrow, at least in Japan. I am not sure what category it should be listed under, since it mixes dating, child-raising, and combat role-playing in an alternate universe setting. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one.