I don't know poker, not really , but I'm learning. It's the most legendary and storied of card games, especially since bridge, once a cornerstone of suburban American living, has mostly faded into the mists of history. Terms like "fold," "ante," and "wild card" are all part of our general lexicon. Regular "poker nights" provide complex characterization and plot foreshadowing in some of my all-time favorite media, including  M*A*S*H  and  Star Trek: The Next Generation . For all its history and still-visible presence (we all remember the online poker craze about 15 years ago), there's still a certain mystique to the game. Not only because of the dark, smoky rooms the game brings to mind, or the litany of terms and traditions that have amassed over the years, but because poker is about the  player  as much as it's about the game. Analyzing the other players, not only for how the play but psychologically, sniffing out hidden ...

Given the choice, I probably wouldn't have  chosen  to play as a space bug at the time. But there were very, very few games available, let alone games with manuals , let  alone  games with high-quality full-color comic books explaining the story.  Yars' Revenge  had all of these, and it was a space game to boot, so, for perhaps the first time, I fully envisioned myself as something non-humnaoid in taking on the role of an electronic game protagonist. Maybe I could have ignored it, gone with an alternate interpretation that I was simply flying some kind of insect-shaped spacecraft , but the comic (and the map at the back) were simply too  cool  for that. It gave me a weird feeling, what I now know to be called "cognitive dissonance," but I accepted that slapping that cartridge into the Atari 2600 and flipping the "on" switch meant becoming, for however long I'd be playing, something very different. It's not like I wasn't already in love with the...

There's something seriously, seriously wrong. You know it, I know it... but more than that, we all can  feel  it.  Anybody who consumes media, especially narrative media, feels it. Every round of layoffs, every cowardly kowtowing to censorious bigots, every work suddenly made unavailable, every creator screwed over... there's a  lot  and it's happening so constantly that it's easy to forget that  it didn't use to be like this . And it ain't like capitalism is anything new, but the system's never been so dead-set on eating itself like it has been the past few... I was going to say "years," but really, it's accelerated to an unfathomable degree over the past few  months . We're going to need to stop and take stock of what's going on and what we need to prepare for, as both consumers and creators. Did this whirlwind have a starting point, the flap of a butterfly's wing or the the first tightness in a coalmine canary's tiny chest? C...

How often do you visit the barber in your electronic games ? It could be as easy as revisiting the character creation screen. Or it may require you to visit a specific contact in the game, spend some of the game’s currency (special or not)  and select your new hair style. Rarely does a game have some mechanic where your hair, and preferred styling of such, needs to be maintained in some way. That's a huge departure for something so eventful and important in real life, and something that's ever-changing... whether we want it to or not. It grows, it greys, it falls out - all mostly out of our control. We style it, cut it, dye it, and get it as close as we can to how we actually want it to look. It's something we spend a lot of time on, and yet in most media, including tabletop games, it's largely ignored. So this week, let's do up your hair and bring the barber shop into your tabletop games with Never Say Dice.  Do the New 'do Changes in appearances for your table...

You see, there was going to be a Father's Day post about the way the holiday coincided with the simultaneous No Kings Rallies, Trump Birthday Army 250th Anniversary Parade, Minnesota state government assasinations, and Israel's attacks on Iran. It was going to build on the themes of fatherhood and legacy in the  Metal Gear  franchise, and talk about how the villains are generally motivated by a need to force change for the benefit of future generations. It was going to build on my previous Father's Day post about breaking the cycles of paternal abuse in  Metal Gear , along with the  Yakuza/Like a Dragon  series . And then a series of unforeseen real-world issues came up in my life - nothing catastrophic, but all things that needed to be dealt with immediately... and the post was postponed. No big deal, I thought, Father's Day can be a starting point, but certainly doesn't need to be the focus. I could keep going in the direction I'd already charted.  And t...

Collecting, and curating those collections, is something that seems to span cliques, cultures, and economic statuses, even throughout history.Though there are some major differences: one would imagine the upper crust collects things such as cars and yachts, and historically what gets collected has certainly changed over time along with tastes change... though you still see Hummel figurines, pressed pennies, and fancy spoons in tourist destinations. Ask any average person today, and they'll likely say they collect something themselves. It might be as simple as coins or stamps (if you’re thinking booooorrriiinnnggg , you're probably right, but don’t yuck their Yum !), as widespread as trading cards, or as nerdly as dice (shout out to our fellow dice goblins ). We even have games based around collecting - the writers of Never Say Dice are certainly no strangers to Magic: the Gathering and other collectible card games, even if we’re not currently wizard-dueling each other. They al...

It seems ludicrous now, here in the era of climate grief , when the most powerful financial entities admit that the worst is inevitable and adjust their plans for plunder accordingly , but there was a time, not that long ago, when environmentalism was hip and, even more unbelievably, hopeful . Earth Day turns 55 this year, and it's hard to imagine world that's turned farther from its founding spirit than the one we occupy now. Sure, the Captain Planet era seems hokey and naive now, when we're aware of terms like "greenwashing" and carefully constructed messaging that shifted the onus of eco-consciousness from massively polluting corporations onto consumers and the general public. Cynical ad campaign or not, effective or not, it was still a message of awareness and caring. As we aim our society straight at the wall of climate catastrophe and allow techbros to drop ever more LLM bricks on the fossil fuel gas pedal, it's worth it to remember that, thirty year...

Last week, in the face of an evident (and still extant, if not as prominent) financial crisis, we talked about ways that you can keep getting new experiences with games you’ve already acquired. This time, we wanted to discuss ways that you can access totally new (to you) games without requiring the kind of investment it takes to be on the cutting edge of releases. While we all have those inner voices (that may or may not sound like our parents) telling us to just be happy with what we already have or that we have games at home, if we have any interest in the way the medium of games develops, we want to at least be aware of what’s new and catching people’s attention. So how do we get our hands on games we don’t own (yet) without handing over much loot? - B B : We’re all gamers here, we’re all used to representing concepts as numerical models and converting values within that model. If we’re trying to cut down on one form of currency (cold, hard cash), we need to make up for it in other ...

The way things are going, it looks like we’re headed straight into the third worldwide economic crisis in less than two decades… and the second since we started this blog. So while it seems likely that things will be very, very bad by the time you read this, even if catastrophe is somehow averted, it should be clear that we’re all living in a world that could melt down at any moment. Gaming, in both electronic and tabletop forms, may not be as expensive as some pastimes (particularly if we limit ourselves to… legal activities), but there’s still some degree of investment if you’re pursuing new and innovative experiences. As well there should be, corporate profits notwithstanding, artists and creators should be paid for their work. But, as COVID isolation reminded us, when you’re stuck with the Old Favorites, they well… get old pretty quick. Going into a future where we can assume we’ll all have less money to work with, how are we able to keep having novel gaming experiences and stay on...