Dice And Pixel

Quick Read Review - Mutant City Blues

2009-12-03T17:58:00.003-08:00

Ten years ago, one percent of the population gained mutant powers. But one percent of the citizens means one percent of the criminals – and you're the cops who clean up the mess.

As you may have gleaned from the blurb, this RPG is set in the near future, after a virus event seemingly grants a significant percentage of the population beneficial mutations – of the super-powers variety. Surprisingly, the world is not radically changed by this – not everyone decides to become a superhero or supervillain, not everyone wants to cash in on their abilities, and so some people go on with their lives trying to hide and forget that they have powers and abilities far beyond those of mere mortals. But enough do, and some of them commit crimes, and that’s where you come in. Powered by the Gumshoe system – a game system focused on investigation-oriented adventures – Mutant City Blues allows you to solve super-powered crimes and capers committed by a cast that could be taken from Heroes with a tone ranging from Castle’s light-hearted banter to Law & Order’s gritty procedurals. One of the more interesting elements of this game is the Quade diagram. While most RPGs involving super-powers make a big deal out of being able to replicate any power in the comic books, Mutant City Blues imposes limits and definite patterns to metahuman abilities. In game terms, abilities connected to other abilities with a solid line are free; abilities connected to other abilities with a dotted line cost 2 points for each ability traversed; and abilities not connected cannot be purchased (you have to trace the web of lines to get to the ability you want). This intriguing part of the game has two immediately obvious effects: (1) it suggests that in this particular setting, there is a predictability to meta-human powers, making professional crime-solving more about investigation, research, and deduction rather than a brainstorming / argument session about what weird combination of abilities was most likely to have been used to perpetrate the crime; (2) it makes certain combinations of abilities more desirable and other combinations of abilities too damn expensive to build. Mutant City Blues looks like an RPG worthy of the mini-series treatment: build characters and play for a “season” of 3 to 6 episodes, then step back and evaluate how your campaign is going. If there’s promise, then make tweaks and start into the second season. Suggested campaign inspirations: Law & Order, Heroes, Touching Evil, Castle, X-files, Warehouse 13 and Wire in the Blood.

bzflag

2008-07-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

or, the last game in the series of 5 Open Source Games You Should Try. (I think I've been watching too much How I Met Your Mother.....)

The final open source game on the list is one of my favorites. Bzflag is short for Battle Zone Capture The Flag. Battle Zone is a classic video game from Atari about vector graphics tanks blowing each other up. Battle Zone may have been the first FPS game ever. (First first person shooter just sounds wrong somehow...)

In bzflag, you drive around in a tank as part of a team which is determined by your color. You basically blow up the other tanks that are not on your team (ie, everybody else not your color....).

There are different modes of game play which depend on the server that you join. The two most popular are Free For All (FFA) and Capture The Flag (CTF). FFA is how it sounds like. The only objective is to blow up all the tanks not on your team. Simple right?

In CTF, each team has a flag in their base. The objective is to get the enemy team's flag and bring it back to your base. Obviously, they're trying to do the same to your flag.

In addition to all this, there are superflags which are powerups for your tank. For example, there are guided missile superflags, laser superflags, and stealth superflags.

And here of course are the screenshots:

5 Open Source Games You Should Try - Part 3 (Tremulous)

2008-07-22T07:35:00.000-07:00

Tremulous is one of the most popular open source first person shooter (FPS) games available. In this game, you can choose to play either as part of the human team of soldiers, or as an alien buglike creature. There is also a real time strategy aspect to the game as both sides need to build structures ala X-craft games. The goal is to kill all opposing species and control their spawn points.

The gameplay is interesting. The graphics are good, but rather dark. Of course, given the storyline of humans vs aliens on a space station, I understand the choice of dark textures. Check out the following screenshots:

If you missed parts 1 and 2, find them here and here.

5 Open Source Games You Should Try - Part 2

2008-07-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

In the first part of this post, I listed Secret Maryo Chronicles and Scorched 3D as the first two games on the list.

For the number 3 game, we have a turn based fantasy strategy game, The Battle for Westnoth. In this game, you can choose to build an army of humans, orcs, elves, trolls, dwarves and some other races to reclaim your throne. Any game which allows you to build an army of trolls is cool in my book.

And you can download Windows, Mac, and Linux versions over here.

Here are some screenshots. (For more screenshots, check out the site):

Stay tuned for my choice for open source FPS games you should try. If you missed the first part of the post, check it out here.

5 Open Source Games You Should Try

2008-07-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of reasons for you to try open source games.
First, the games are free! No need to fork over big bucks for the latest game which will probably give 2 year old PC a seizure.
Secondly, these games are actually really good. Open source games are about gameplay. You don't really need the latest $500 video card to play them.
And lastly, the games are open source! If you're a programmer geek (or a programmer geek wannabe), this is A Good Thing (tm). You can actually go into the code and modify to taste. If you're not a programmer geek, supporting open source is just as good as tree hugging, and not as touchy feely.

So enough of the kool aid. Here is my list of 5 Open Source Games That You Should Try.

At number one is Secret Maryo Chronicles. The game is a 2 dimensional side scroller game. It bears a resemblance to a classic video game, don't you think?

Check out these screenshots:

If Secret Maryo is too childish for you, then Scorched 3D is what you're looking for. It's the classic artillery duel between 2 tanks trying to blow each other up. Add to that 3D graphics, multiplayer capability (24 player mayhem!) and lots of cool power ups. Oh and did I mention that it's free? Here are the obligatory screenshots:

Stay tuned for the rest of the list!

Old School RPGs – the Philippine View

2008-07-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

There are three RPGs that define my memory of old school RPGs in the Philippines: Dungeons and Dragons, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret. The astute members of the Dice and Pixel audience may notice something interesting about these three games – they were all created by TSR.

In those days, TSR was the go-to company for an RPG in the Philippines. Mainly because the folks who bought RPGs from the U.S. and then sold them in their stores probably went, “Hey, you got any OTHER game stuff like D&D?” and so we got the other products from the same company.

Remember, this was back in the 70s and 80s, when SF and Fantasy novels were few and far-between and you could identify your fellow geeks because you haunted the same aisles in National Bookstore. This was back when the Philippine Sci-Fi / Fantasy fandom was held hostage to the endless repeats of whatever SF/Fantasy episodes had been purchased for one of the few TV channels that actually aired them.

So what were these three RPGs about? Well, unless you’re a rank newbie to the RPG hobby, you should know that Dungeons and Dragons, the grand-daddy of the RPG industry, covered the fantasy genre which was and still is the most dominant genre in RPGs today. I remember when I was a rank newbie, and didn’t know that you had to buy the rulebooks in order to play the modules. Furthermore, I was confused by the difference between the Basic and Expert rulesets of D&D and the Advanced D&D rulesets. Still, I tried my best to get the overall flow of things and managed to run one or two games in school. I ended up buying most of the books and modules that I could and reading them from cover to cover, and eventually got rid of them (mostly unplayed).

Star Frontiers was the science fiction offering of TSR, with four good races (which – if memory serves – were the humans, the insectoid Vrusk, the simian-ish Yazirians, and the amorphous doughboy-looking Dralasites) and one bad race: the worm-like Sathar. I remember actually playing in some games run by a classmate, but don’t clearly remember if we ever got to enjoy ship-to-ship battle scenarios.

Top Secret was the espionage RPG of TSR. I had no idea how to run this game (though I tried a series of questionable adventures with some of my cousins), but I was fascinated by the hardware – the guns and the gadgets – and intrigued by the list of martial arts styles and maneuvers.

What happened to all these games? Though TSR no longer exists, Dungeons and Dragons has thrived and is now in its 4th edition of rules. Star Frontiers was revived (and re-laid out) by some die-hard fans, and it’s safe to assume that some people still play it. Top Secret is no longer with us, alas. It tried to modernize and streamline itself with a new set of rules: Top Secret / S.I. but has joined a long list of RPGs that are no longer published and probably no longer played and haunt the memories of aging gamers across the world.