Yes, that's right, the New Gamer Dictionary returns! For those of you who don't remember, NGD was a feature, hosted by Anthony Burch, that was presented in between segments of RetroforceGO!. In it, he would ask the listeners for a word or phrase that could go with a definition of a trope in gaming (yes, it's pretty much like TV Tropes, but before the site was popular). At PAX, I asked for Anthony's informal permission to bring the feature back, which he gave. So, I now present the "New" New Gamer Dictionary!

How will this feature work?

To keep the community-driven tradition of NGD, selecting an entry will be a two-part process. First, people will post their entries for the week's definition in the comments. In the following week's post, I'll select some of the best entries (3-5, depending on the amount of submissions), and people will be able to vote for their favorites. The week after, I'll post the results, and the winning entry will be "officially" entered into the NGD. Finally, at any time, community members can submit their definitions that might be used for the next (or future) weeks' entries. There's no limit on the amount of entries or definitions, so get creative and have fun!

This week's definition:

What do you call it when...

...due to forgetting to save before quitting or dying, you find that the last few hours of gaming were "wasted", so you quit playing the game for a few days/weeks/years to avoid having to repeat the same tedious/difficult tasks?

For example, you grind for a couple hours in a RPG, finding some rare items in the process, only to realize you you forgot to save before turning off the console for the night. You then switch to the newest FPS, get hooked into multiplayer, and pretty much forget about the other game.

For me, I'd call it "Dead Rising regret", since after having lost too many hours by not getting to a save point, I decided to put the game away and "come back to it later". It's been almost three years, and with all the games that have come out, I never found the motivation to actually play it some more. The same thing happened with GTA IV, Lost Odyssey, and a surprising amount of other games. Maybe the sheen of novelty wears out faster for me, or perhaps my attention span is simply too short.

How you can help.

If you happen to be listening to old episodes of RetroforceGO!, it would be great if you could jot down some of Anthony's NGD entries and send them to me. I'll add them to the NGD master list.

So, submit your entries for this week's definition, and any suggestions for future definitions, in the comments!

So, one of things I do to distract myself is to mess around with Photoshop, or video editing. As I've shown before, my favorite type of art to play with are sprites and animated gifs. I have no natural artistic talent or training (I'm absolutely terrible at drawing and painting), but working with sprites is a lot simpler, since it usually involves working pixel-by-pixel, and there's a lot of templates to build on. When Paul Robertson, the lead animator of the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game, released several of the character sprites he designed, I quickly went to work playing around with them, and seeing what I could make using the animated sprites as templates.

My first attempt was to modify the basic Scott sprite into an avatar of myself.



Most of it was fairly simple, involving recoloring the clothing and hair, changing the short-sleeved shirt into a long one, and adding the small beard. The hardest part was adding the glasses. I pretty much had to replace the eyes altogether, and the glasses "bounce" (which I'll admit didn't work as well as intended) was difficult to sync between each frame. It's not really my ideal result, but it works for the time being. I might go back and change it later.

Did you notice that little Destructoid head on my shirt? Since the amount of pixels in the sprite are quite small, my flexibility for making shapes was limited. However, that gave me the idea to do...



MR. DESTRUCTOID!!!

This is a modification of the Stephen Stills idle sprite, and is a much more substantial edit. Obviously, the head was completely replaced by the Destructoid helmet, which I drew from scratch. To add a bit of life to the face (since it doesn't move like a human one), I made the eyes flash. In addition to recoloring the clothing to match the classic Mr. Destructoid suit, I had to make some major changes in the neck (adding the tie and lapels) and the waist (changing from a tucked shirt to a loose jacket). Overall, though, I think the final product worked out well despite the limitations of the small pixel size.

Just figured I'd put these up here before I go to PAX, and see what people think.

(P.S. For anyone wondering about my Video Game Mind Teasers contest, I'll probably contact the winners in the next few days. However I won't post the results/answers until next week, due to PAX.)

[i](P.P.S. The animated background from the header image comes from this post from Stéphane Boutin, who also did art for the game)[/i

A few months ago, BBC announced that it had partnered with Nintendo to release games based on Doctor Who for the Wii and DS. Today, those games were announced: Evacuation Earth for the DS, and Return to Earth for the Wii. Release dates are still unclear, but some retailers are listing them for an October release in the UK. Whether they get released in North America is another question.

These will hopefully be the first "real" games based on the new series, since the only games that have come out in the 5 years since the series rebooted have been a card game for the PC, and the lackluster Adventure Games (though, next week's new chapter: TARDIS, sounds intriguing). However, the developer for the games is Asylum Entertainment, the makers of such "fine" games as Sushi Go Round for the iPhone, Fisher-Price: Rescue Heroes: Molten Menace, Play With The Teletubbies and Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension. So...yeah. It's going to be a licensed game by a small developer, and it's doubtful the games will be in the running for GOTY or anything like that. On the plus side, presumably these will be budget titles.

So, anyone else excited about being able to control the Sonic Screwdriver with a stylus or the Wiimote? Or will these end up being the usual licensed shovelware aimed at children? Without Anthony Burch on staff, will this news be reported?!?

UPDATE: As of today, I've only received two entries so far! What happened to all you people who usually send in answers every week? Since I'm giving away two prizes, I figure I'd give more people a chance by extending the deadline to 12 AM EST, FRIDAY AUGUST 27. Remember, all you have to do is try and answer as many of the below puzzles as possible, and send your answers as a DM to me. To those who entered already (knutaf and Batthink), you can continue to send in answers, and they won't change your official entry timestamp.



This week is another instance where I'm giving away actual prizes! Not amazing ones, mind you, but they're a step up from bragging rights. As I did last time I gave things away, this week has even more puzzles to answer! More importantly, though, answers must be done through a Destructoid PM. Next Friday, I'll figure out who had the most right, and give away the following prizes:

1st Place: Mischief Makers for the N64! (Cartridge only, and I haven't been able to test it. A bit of a risk, but definitely a rewarding game!)
2nd Place: Beat Hazard over Steam (or a similarly-priced game if you already have it).

PUZZLE #1: Music

This video is a sampler of all my music puzzle formats (reversed, cutbacks, and messed up).



PUZZLE #2: Images

Yes, there's two images for this.

Image 1: Rogues' Gallery (Five enemies from games, answering the name of the enemy trumps just knowing the game)


Image 2: ???? (Four scenes from games)

BONUS QUESTION: What's in common in this image?

PUZZLE #3: Gamebusters

Just a reminder: These puzzles are cryptic/confusing phrases that have a double meaning from a video game, based on Karl Pilkington's Rockbusters. For example: "The black bird won't shoot his gun." = Crow no trigger = Chrono Trigger

#1) The Egyptian god has a French head. (Character, starting with T)
#2) A harsh reaction to a life story. (Game)
#3) Add a Wii avatar to your bike. (Real-life person, starting with M)
#4) Your door is locked, and you forgot the key. What do you do? (Item)
#5) A party member from Chrono Trigger is going on a journey. (Game)

Overall rules for this week's puzzles:
1. Please send your answers privately by a DM. Do not post your answers in the comments!
2. You have until 12 AM EST on Friday, August 27 to send your answers.
3. The people with the most correct answers will win the prizes. If there's a tie, whoever sent their answers in first is the winner.
4. You're allowed to send in corrections and new answers, but in the case of a tie your final message will count as your official entry time.
5. First prize (the cartridge) will be available for the US and Canada for sure, and internationally depending on shipping costs.

Good Luck!

Every Friday, I present some video game-related puzzles that involve music, images, or wordplay. This week not only has the winner of the second season of VGMT, but also some mediocre prizes!



So, it looked like Blorp and Knutaf would pull ahead and win, but Batthink showed his speed and smarts once again to hold onto his lead, and become the winner of the second season of VGMT!!! After this week, the slate will be cleared, so you'll all have a chance to reach for the top!

1st: Batthink: 19
2nd: Blorp: 12
3rd: Knutaf: 9
4th: AlphaDeus: 4
5th: FalconReaper: 3
6th: Pencoin, vApathyv, odber: 2
7th: etirflita, Funktastic, Changston: 1

Season 1 Winner: odber
Season 2 Winner: Batthink



Here's the answers to last week's puzzles, and who got each one right:

Reversed Music

#1) Easy: Cheetahmen Theme (Blorp)
#2) Medium: Deadly Premonition - Life is Beautiful (Batthink)
#3) Medium: Rogue Warrior - Credits (No one)
#4) Hard: Gyromite - Game A (No one)
#5) WTF: Link: The Faces of Evil - Introduction (Blorp)

Gamebusters

#1) "A cloth belt is used in avarice as well." = A sash in greed too = Assassin's Creed II (Batthink)
#2) "These Metroid Prime 2 creatures teamed with Megaman's creator" Light and Ing = Lightning, from FFXIII (knutaf)
#3) "The Bundy patriarch takes a tumble, and he phones a professional." = Al's fall, pro to call = Alpha Protocol (Batthink)
#4) What's in common between these answers? Games that Jim Sterling gave low review scores. (Batthink)



This week is another instance where I'm giving away actual prizes! Not amazing ones, mind you, but they're a step up from bragging rights. As I did last time I gave things away, this week has even more puzzles to answer! More importantly, though, answers must be done through a Destructoid PM. Next Friday, I'll figure out who had the most right, and give away the following prizes:

1st Place: Mischief Makers for the N64! (Cartridge only, and I haven't been able to test it. A bit of a risk, but definitely a rewarding game!)
2nd Place: Beat Hazard over Steam (or a similarly-priced game if you already have it).

PUZZLE #1: Music

This video is a sampler of all my music puzzle formats (reversed, cutbacks, and messed up).



PUZZLE #2: Images

Yes, there's two images for this.

Image 1: Rogues' Gallery (Five enemies from games, answering the name of the enemy trumps just knowing the game)


Image 2: ???? (Four scenes from games)

BONUS QUESTION: What's in common in this image?

PUZZLE #3: Gamebusters

Just a reminder: These puzzles are cryptic/confusing phrases that have a double meaning from a video game, based on Karl Pilkington's Rockbusters. For example: "The black bird won't shoot his gun." = Crow no trigger = Chrono Trigger

#1) The Egyptian god has a French head. (Character, starting with T)
#2) A harsh reaction to a life story. (Game)
#3) Add a Wii avatar to your bike. (Real-life person, starting with M)
#4) Your door is locked, and you forgot the key. What do you do? (Item)
#5) A party member from Chrono Trigger is going on a journey. (Game)

Overall rules for this week's puzzles:
1. Please send your answers privately by a DM. Do not post your answers in the comments!
2. You have until Midnight EST on Friday, August 20 to send your answers.
3. The people with the most correct answers will win the prizes. If there's a tie, whoever sent their answers in first is the winner.
4. You're allowed to send in corrections and new answers, but in the case of a tie your final message will count as your official entry time.
5. First prize (the cartridge) will be available for the US and Canada for sure, and internationally depending on shipping costs.

Good Luck!

It's my final Saturday hosting ShiMuNi for the summer, so I'm going out by showing a movie that's not the most famous or respected, but holds a special place in my heart, that movie is...



THE BLACK HOLE!!!

This 1979 sci-fi film was Disney's first foray into more mature content, as well as trying to ride on the coattails of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and other late 70's sci-fi. It has a pretty amazing cast, including Anthony Perkins (aka Norman Bates), Ernest Borgnine, Robert Forster (better known now for his role in Jackie Brown), and Slim Pickens (this guy from Dr. Strangelove) voicing one of several robots. There's laser battles, some disturbing twists, a rousing score, and a bit of evisceration, not to mention one of the strangest endings ever found in a Disney film!

Before the movie, I've got some episodes of Reboot and Sailor Moon to watch, as well as one of the worst episodes of the Megaman cartoon: CURSE OF THE LION-MEN!

I've also got Bisontoid and Double Dragontoid from last week replaying right now!

Schedule for tonight:
Pre-Show cartoons: 6:00 PST/9:00 PM EST
The Black Hole: 8 PM PST/11 PM EST

Go to www.livestream.com/guncannontv to watch the video at full size.