Cellphone Game: Bluetooth or Crazy

On April 29, 2014April 28, 2014 By James CastroIn Games, Random FunLeave a comment

In conjunction with the Cell Phone Annoyances post from Sunday I thought I’d share a game I came up with a few years ago.

Allow me to set the stage: When I worked in downtown Nashville my RevPub partner and I used to have lunch two or three times a week on the phone. We called them “car” lunches, though usually I sat on the steps of the state capitol or on a hill overlooking the bicentennial mall.

One time while waiting for her to call I was sitting watching the myriad of people stroll by when I observed something: there is a very thin line between a ponce talking vociferously on his/her ridiculous Bluetooth in public and slightly disturbed street people who mutter loudly to themselves about the voices in their heads.

That experience prompted me to create a slightly non-PC time-waster game for people in urban environments, Wal-Marts, Krogers, all kinds of places all over the world.

I called it “Bluetooth or Crazy” and surprisingly after a quick review of the internet I found I wasn’t the only one to think of this! It’s very simple and played like this:

You can play alone or with friends. It’s kind of a betting game. You can bet change, or snacks, or something similarly silly. When someone walks by chattering inanely to themselves you weigh their appearance and the substance of their over-loud droning. You then declare “Bluetooth!” if you think they are talking to some distant, equally irritating person on a wireless headset, or “Crazy!” if you think they are some disturbed individual discussing the value of their tin foil hat in preventing space rays from harvesting their tooth enamel.

The results can surprise you. In my most memorable play-through I randomly encountered a wild hipster douche-lord. He rambled loudly and angrily about something to do with his job. His velvet blue jacket, striped dress shirt, and corduroys clearly marking out his alignment. As he approached I instantly declared “Bluetooth!” and was shocked as he passed that he had NO earpiece or mic of any kind. He was just shouting randomly to Tennessee’s capital city. I would have lost my precious white powder donut six pack if I’d been betting for real! So you never know!

I now work in a suburb with very little foot traffic, but still when I’m out shopping or dining I seize the opportunity to play.

If I could create it as an app for this it would be interesting to play world-wide Bluetooth or Crazy. Hear all the incredibly awful Bluetooth conversations from Bangkok to Brighton and all the random stuff people rant about on street corners from Lima to Lushunkou. I bet douches are douchey and crazies are similarly crazy world wide, we aren’t that different after all.

It would sure make Angry Birds look pretty monotonous! Oh wait… 😉

Off the Top of My Head: Painting 40k Scenery

On April 9, 2014April 9, 2014 By James CastroIn Art, Games, Random FunLeave a comment

Wrahammer 40k and Citadel Scenery Painting

Official TableTop Day has come and gone but those of us who play table top games every day can be a table top day. 40k isn’t usually thought of in the same realm as “table top games” even though it truly is. I consider it almost a “table top lifestyle” as it really starts to seep into your thinking and, for an artist, your aesthetic.

Painting canvas isn’t something I do well or enjoy, unlike my RevPub Player 2, but I do love to paint models. and as I said in my Nazdreg post I love to create bases. One of my other favorite things to paint is scenery. Games Workshop/Citadel release some great-looking scenery for 40k. I love the little details and terrain pieces, especially rubble and ruins, and it’s fun to try to test some painting techniques on them.

These are from the Urban Barricades set and I painted them last year. With some of the new technical paints out now I’d like to maybe add some new touches to them, but I think they came out pretty well, at least well enough to be table ready!

I love this one with the Space Marine bike.

All the little skeletons and pieces are great small details.

This one with the door and unexploded ordinance is also wonderfully detailed. I like the bullet holes, battle damage, and debris in these pieces.

Over the holidays Citadel released some new technical paints that got me pretty excited. Yes I’m lame enough to get excited over technical paints, but I like to paint, I have a lot of fun with scenery, and I’ve been waiting for these kinds of paints to be available.

One of my favorite scenery pieces is the “battlescape” piece with the dead trees, craters, and the wrecked Rhino, complete with combat damage and customizable doors.

The base was basic Mournfang Brown then dry brushed with Longbeard Grey and Praxeti White.

The trees were the most difficult actually, I started with more Mournfang, dry brushed Praxeti, shaded with Biel-Tan Green, and glazed with Waywatcher Green.

The Rhino I painted in Macragge Blue, then used the Typhus Corrosion + Ryza Rust combination shown in the technical paints video released late last year. I also used some Forge World rust weathering powder to give the impression of the rust running off into the terrain.

The craters I plan to add some water effect mixed with some combination of Moot Green and Skavenblight Dinge to make a murky green with a bit of oil. I’ve got an extra arm from an Ungor kit and some extra chaos bits so it’s not just the imperium showing the damage in this piece 😉

Once the piece is completely finished (I’m still testing the water effect…) I’ll post an update!

Check out my previous painting posts for more!

Black Reach

Dredtrukk

Warboss with Attack Squig

Boss Zagstruk

Stormboy Nob on Flying Base

Bad Moons Nazdreg

Dark Angels Dreadnought

Dark Angels Standard Bearer

Dark Angels Librarian

And for more 40k my Kharn illustration posts! Part 1 and Part 2. And my fond farewell to the World of Battle.

Life Lessons from Video Games: Finding a Good Player 2 in a Beat em Up World!

On January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 By James CastroIn Games, Opinions, Random FunLeave a comment

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but a recent conversation with my muse of a RevPub partner provided inspiration. A lot of stock is placed on “multiplayer” in video games nowadays. I admit, I don’t care for the feature for one simple reason: Anonymity. Playing a game online to me is playing a video game in a chat room from the 90s. Everyone is anonymous, which for some reason increases the a-hole quotient by 75% in about 85% of people.

In the arcade days, you had jerks that ran the machine, kids that tried to step up, and challenges face-to-face, but in the skating rink I played arcade games in people would get cocky, talk trash, and laugh about it later. Even losing didn’t seem so bad. With online gaming now, the lack of a person to play face-to-face with just makes a lot of people act 12 even if they’re 30… With the prevalence of online gaming, it seems we’ve started missing out on one of my favorite kinds of gaming: two player games…the kind you play when you’re actually IN the same room as your player two.

When I first started home-gaming this was THE way to play many games — my favorite of which was the side-scrolling beat ‘em up. My best friend Mike and I (friends for over 20 years) became good friends during games of Streets of Rage 2, Street Fighter II, and Final Fight. My lovely but vicious RevPub counterpart, Raven, and I played the new Double Dragon Neon and proved how effective we could be as a fighting team, as well as a writing team. You learn a lot about the people you play with during the course of these games. I submit that you can tell whether someone could be a good friend, fair-weather friend, or mortal enemy based on how they behave during a side-scrolling beat ‘em up. It’s the basics of life in a microcosm of 16-bit simulation. Here are some benefits to playing these games with perspective friends, co-workers, mates, whatever. It’s a great relationship barometer. So just some basic thoughts on finding (and being) a good player 2 in a beat ’em up world:

Cardinal Rule of two-player side scrolling beat ’em ups: NO friendly fire! Working as a team is pretty easy. You can even do team moves, but you start punching me on purpose in the game someone’s getting hurt out of game!

Axel is whacking Blaze…with a weapon no less. Breaking the cardinal rule of co-op beat em up gaming!

1.) Does everyone share the Found Food? There’s really an etiquette to this. Found food power ups go to the person with the lowest health, or failing that, the one with the weakest constitution (usually the girl or kid character…sorry PC people) if a player rushes in to take that roast turkey when you’re in the red and they’ve got nearly full yellow they might be the “out for themselves” type.

Streets of Rage 2 Turkey — Roasted fowl found on the street. It’s good for everyone!

2.) Similarly, how are found weapons treated? Did you know weapons can be found EVERYWHERE? Trash cans, mail boxes, phone booths; everything hides a weapon. Two players with weapons are a juggernaut of insurmountable proportions. Beware the second player who drops his or her pipe (thereby maybe making it mysteriously vanish) to grab the recently found sword rather than keeping his pipe so you can have the sword and making a stronger team.

From the SoR remake. Axel with a pipe, Blaze with a knife. Life is good.

3.) A good friend won’t leave you in the midst of a multithug pummeling. Even if it means taking half the damage, the idea behind two player co-op is twice the enemies, twice the damage. Good player twos are there to thrash and get thrashed in turn right there with you.

Streets of Rage 2 bosses…and yep good player 2’s would be right there with you!

4.) If player two ever says “Ok, I’ll let them target me…it’ll give you the chance to take them out…” they’re a keeper. We all need more friends like these. As long as they don’t hog all your shared continues…

Shiva…anyone willing take take hits from this guy for you is a true friend…

5.) Real friends will avenge your untimely demise by viciously beating your assailant into blinking pixels. If you drop dead from a well-placed punch, kick, pipe, sword, barrel, whatever, a good player two should turn into Wolverine in a berserker rage and, in the words of Mack from, Predator cut your name into them!

With Wil Wheaton’s Table Top bringing tabletop gaming back into vogue, I can only hope Felicia/Ryon Day’s show Co-Optitude can do the same for playing video games in person!

2013 RevPub’s Year in Review

On December 29, 2013December 27, 2013 By R. PettyIn Random FunLeave a comment

New Year’s steadily approaches, and as we enter another fabulous year of antics and projects, we at RevPub want to THANK each of you for your loyalty and readership. It’s been a hell of a year, and we’re on our way to more great things!

Here’s a look at your favorite posts for 2013:

Psych’s Uzi Flowers: This means the world to me because this was a special gift to a special person. It took more than a month to paint, and I hope it inspired others to think outside the box and exercise creativity.

The 90s TMNT Movie: A staple of most 30-somethings guy’s childhood. If there’s one thing we can do, it’s show our nostalgia for the 90s!

Lindsey Stirling in Nashville: And guess who’s coming back to Nashville in June 2014?! We’re very happy to have her back, and this time we’re going with a group of six. That’s the power of music.

Thanksgiving – The Little Things: This one surprised us a little. My grandma’s very small gesture turned into shares all over Facebook and lots of positive feedback. We’re happy to know so many of you appreciate the little things.

An Illustrator’s Foray into Adobe Illustrator – Week 3: We at RevPub love to learn and try new things. James dove right into Illustrator, and he has produced some amazing art and gifts. We’re looking forward to producing Lil Horseman 2 this year and maybe some new projects.

How to be a Good Fan – Don’t be the Comic Book Guy: James had a blast writing this series, and it went over very well. We’re all fans of something or someone, so it’s nice to be reminded we don’t have to conform or shove it down someone’s throat. The one good thing about people is we’re all different, so we should accept and respect one another.

So, what’s next? We hope to get Lil Horsemen 2 produced, more merchandise up, we’re both volunteering for a special project we’ll discuss later (wink), and we’d like to have a lot of fun!

Thank you for your support, and we wish each of you a safe and happy New Year!

Off the Top of My Head: 40k Dark Angels Librarian Turmiel

On December 11, 2013December 10, 2013 By James CastroIn Art, Games, Random FunLeave a comment

This guy I painted the same day as I painted the standard bearer. In fact I may have painted him first but who can remember such details now?

He’s the Dark Vengeance Dark Angels Librarian and GW really showed off what they could do with plastic minis in that set. So much so that I’ve heard that finecast has met its demise going forward. I had a previous librarian, but since this guy was so utterly Dark-Angel’d up, yo, I moved my other one to my little Blood Angels army.

I didn’t follow the exact color scheme used in the Dark Vengeance literature, but it’s more fun to riff a bit right? He, like my standard bearer, needs some serious touch-ups as I can spot all kinds of places I didn’t blend well, but I do like his force sword! Other areas are just things I can look forward to correcting soon.

I actually had two of these guys, but the crew in the sadly closed Woodfield Mall GW store gave me a GREAT idea what to do with my other one. He’s been primered and painting has only just started on him but this is what I did with my other Turmiel:

I altered the command bike to carry an extra Tome of the Long Hunt from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue on the wings of the angels on the rear fender.

I’ve included several other little additions, such as the second volume on the side of the fender, A scroll from Skaven plague monks on the front fender, and a cherub I got with an Empire General Standard bit.

I heard of a few ways to convert a regular Ravenwing sergeant into a librarian-on-a-bike (including using Grey Knights bits), but with Turmiel’s dynamic posing (love that outstretched hand) and iconography it was hard to think of another one that would look nearly as Dark Angels-y.

Once I have him completed I’ll post pics of him, hopefully showing, hopefully, more advancement in painting ability.

Check out my previous ork painting posts for more!

Black Reach

Dredtrukk

Warboss with Attack Squig

Boss Zagstruk

Stormboy Nob on Flying Base

Bad Moons Nazdreg

Dark Angels Dreadnought

Dark Angels Standard Bearer

Off the Top of My Head: Painting 40k Dark Angels Standard Bearer

On December 4, 2013December 3, 2013 By James CastroIn Art, Games, Random Fun1 Comment

My dreadnought got me in the mood to paint more Dark Angels, and I decided to jump into robed characters rather than the standard green-armored tac-marines.

The new finecast standard bearer is a nice-looking model with a great bas-relief standard. It’s what appealed to me about it. The chance to paint the raised relief edges and also try my hand at the robes for the first time. I had mixed results but I was happy with my first effort: