Growing up during the golden age of adventures games has greatly impacted my personal tastes in videogames. Lord knows if you point out a three-headed monkey behind me or drop 12-octaves and begin chanting NUR-AB-SAL there will be an everlasting bond between us that withstands all varieties of flux capacitors.
The same applies to certain Reverends named Anthony who bestowed upon me a novelty replica of the Ask Me About LOOM™ pin from the saloon scene in The Secret of Monkey Island. Last Saturday I wore this out to a bar, and five people asked me about LOOM™. Success!
So yeah. You're a real dick sometimes, Anthony, but it would take at least 1.21 jigawatts to deter me from yielding at least a baker's dozen of less-than-threes in exchange for this pin. LESS THAN THREEEEEEEEEE (x 13)! Also:
Originally from LOOM™, when Chaos tries to persuade Bobbin to give him access to, well, the Loom.*Chuckle*
P.S. Re-live the ultimate Scumm wet-dream in this screen-shot saturated archive of game art from the classic LucasArts games!
Maybe you have seen this, maybe you have not seen this. But if you haven't seen Colin's Bear Animation, you really should, because it will be unlike anything else you've ever experienced before.
Colin's Bear will be popping up again and again in the future. Mark my words.
Last Saturday night Toph, Phist, Powerglove, Galagabug, Samit, Nick Chester & Grrlaction, Cowzilla3, Analog Pidgin (with Nullsleep and Bit Shifter in tow), and myself found ourselves conveniently sauced and filled with song in the East Villiage. After a hearty meal of Japanese foodlings and sake, we made our way over to Karaoke, and rocked on until four in the mornin'.
As always, it was fucking fantastic to see you all. It always overwhelms me how this community manages to thrive swimmingly whenever I meet more of you in person. As Cowzilla remarked: "..look at Topher and Samit...kind of opposite ends of the spectrum there and yet karaoke partners made in heaven" I'm in particular awe of all those who dragged themselves to Comic-Con the next morning. This little puppy stayed in bed until 3 in the afternoon. Everyone +1, .tiff 0.
Now this is the part where I show off the pictures that made you wish you were there, because, well, you should have been.
Teh Toph & Teh Pidgin
Teh Toph & Teh .tiff
[ Samit & Cowzilla3 (+4 = 7) love the sweet sweet taste of candied cotton
Amidst the wrapping up of a dinner party, Charlie, Apple, Ross, and Husky showed up at my house. My friends and I were heading out for a bar, but my roommate had a bit of work to do so we had some dead time. So, naturally, I busted out the Tako King mask (soon to be a Tako King plush for my number one horndog CTZ).
And thus ensued many a hilarious photograph of the Tako Kids that night:
The year has finally gotten a kick start with the very first official Pillow Fort. It seemed that the powers of Stickam were at their lowest nearly a few months ago, but with the help of a few new members, Droobies DJ hour (+ Bandana and Aviators), and maintaining a metal as fuck mentality, the stickam dream stays alive.
The gaming companies are hitting up the streets left and right in San Francisco this week. With M16 bringing in the first flux of the gaming types, Tuesday kicked off my first gaming event with a sit-in preview of Fallout 3. Amidst the preview I had the pleasure of partaking in some The Wire humor with the very personable N'Gai Croal. I thought it was pretty great.
Last night Sierra Entertainment threw an elaborate Ghostbusters party at the highly esteemed speakeasy Bourbon and Branch. Instead of the bar's typical candlelit atmosphere, the interior was splashed with red light in the main room and green light in the secret library room. With a buffet of ingredients for smores to the right and delectably mixed drinks to the left (Such as the Stay Puft drink with vannilla vodka, chocolate liquor, and marshmallow cream with a graham cracker rim), CTZ, Dyson and I got a wee bit sauced. It was, very fun.
Duty eventually called and I fled the scene, sobered up with a quesadila, and wrote that Fallout 3 preview until 5 in the morning. This leaves me in a present state of delirium having only gotten 4 hours of sleep, but all will be well later when I grab a forty and head to Dolores Park for a sleepy outside viewing of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. In the meantime, enjoy the pictchas!
It took a few Belgian beers and some local taqueria quesadillas before I heard from you tonight. I came home, sat down to promenade the Internet with the typical expectations of a post-buzzed Thursday night. A few Flickr comments, a new Vox neighbor, a MySpace message or two from the typical spam bot. The usual, as it were.
But then .harr let me know that you had changed for the better. That you were making great strides in the wakes of Adventure Game abadonware. You had finally welcomed the likes of one Zanthia, the sexy medieval alchemist who conquered evil in style and in turn you are now in full support of Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of fate.
You've come a long way, baby. I have a good feeling that this is forever.
Love,
.tiff
p.s. Not to be greedy, but if you're truly adventurous you should go ahead and add Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father and Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender to your guest list. They're bona fide gentlemen, and I promise you won't be disappointed.
My twin brother 2 years removed, Harrison (or .harr to some, hehe) is visiting from college for the Zombie-Jesus weekend. Sitting side by side, him with my sister's DS lite and me with my PSP, we began to discuss the variety of hand held games we've been playing over the past few months. Back in the good ol' days, Harrison and I would spend many brain power hours in tandem getting through various puzzle and adventure games on the PC such as The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary, The Castle of Doctor Brain, and Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate. Naturally, our experiences with Professor Layton and the Curious Village surfaced between our discussions.
Harrison mentioned that he had a chance to try a few puzzles at GameStop, remarking that he had a little bit of trouble on a couple of them. I immediately related as I too had run into a bit of a jam on what seemed to be some of the most simple puzzles. Our subconcious sibling connection was revealed when we both brought up issues with the 10 picarats Strange Hats puzzle. Pathetic, I know.
I present to you the exact Strange Hats puzzle below. If there's one thing I hate, it's being told that I'm stupid by a simple mind puzzle on my DS. If there's another thing I hate, it's finding out my super smart electrical engineering brother had the same problem. Here's your chance to further convince me of my own stupidity by trying to solve the puzzle yourself!
If you've played the game already you probably already know the answer, but if you haven't have a go... and don't cheat!
When The Final Countdown or Glory of Love aren't enough to keep your gamer spirits up in times of dismay, the World Cyber Games Theme song aptly reminds how gaming goes beyond the game. I'd like to dedicate this song to all the members here that I've met before, through the magic of a moment in cyberspace.
Dont' forget to follow the bouncing ball! Sing along with pride and fervor with these handy lyrics I've typed out for you!
OOOOH Yeeeaaaahhhhhh!
You and I, we have met before
Through the magic of a moment in cyberspace
Driven by a passion to win
Playing heart to heart, and face to face
The challenge of a lifetime
Stands before us now
CHORUS
BEYOND THE GAME In the shadow of the golden gates (Ooooh Yeah!)
We have come to decide our fate
We're here to celebrate
BEYOND THE GAME
BEYOND THE GAME At last, the moments at hand
All we need is to believe we can
We'll make that stand
BEYOND THE GAME
BEYOND THE GAME (BEYOND THE GAME) BEYOND THE GAME (BEYOND THE GAME) The World Cyber Games!
The spirit is right
We're connecting now in a powerful way
We celebrate our diversity
Around the world with a passion to play
The planet will be watching
The message will be heard
CHORUS CHORUS
Last week was convention week for downtown San Francisco with a double delight of both GDC and Wondercon beckoning teams of gamers, nerds, and geeks to visit the bay for the week. Living and working only few minutes away from the Moscone center, I was privy to attending both conferences as a social floater of sorts, watching the flux of conference passerby's on the street as they moved to and from their sessions and housing the occasional Dtoid member in my abode if necessary. While I didn't get to attend GDC itself I had the privilege of attending a handful of the aftermath parties and hanging out with some of my best friends from the interwebs.
Check out my gallery photos on my Flickr account, but in the meantime here's a quick list of highlights of the week:
• Putting up Nick, Chad, Dale, Rich (from Pixeljam), Anthony, Charlie, Ceark, and Dexter in my San Francisco home (Chad even managed to absorb the dining room with his 26 different outfits, thereby designating the space as the Chad Room)
• Meeting the rest of the Mega 64 team (Derrick, Shawn, and Garret) and acting as a passive participant in their upcoming GDC video podcast
• Obtaining two drawn and signed Sam & Max sketches from Steve Purcell, followed by exponential degrees of fangirlish ooh's and ah's
• Unofficially declared married to Dan Paladin in the Hilton hotel by a drunk lobby-goer. While Dan and I are not married, we are certainly Top Friends with marriage.
• Meeting the rest of The Behemoth team (Emil, John, Billy) and contributing a variety of collaborative artwork to the booth table with Dan
• Becoming the delighted victim of Chad and a great range of dirty things he said to me, including: "I'm gonna put a baby in you"
• Flexing my reflexes, wrestling, singing and snorgling at the NARP. This community is the best around. Don't ever let anything bring it down.
Thanks everyone for coming to my city to visit! I miss you all already, and I can't wait until the next convention! LESS THAN THREES PLZ!
Attached photos:
This is me with a bear hat on, drinking coffee from my Iowa mug. Hard at work, of course.
I occupy some hefty space in the Blogocube. Feel free to promenade around the life of this .tiff on my personal blog, my flickr, or follow me on Twitter.
And now the Bio:
Following a fusion of pixels, a pinch of digital magic, and a twinkle in her father's eye, .tiff was born. As a wee sprite, she would spend countless hours at the computer training her restless fingers for the golden age of gaming soon to come, avidly defeating hypercard adventure games until she was well prepared for her very first console, the Sega Genesis.
The Genesis was the first of many consoles .tiff grew to love, and soon her button mashing, boss defeating, platform jumping capabilities opened the door to a wide world of gaming that she has yet to abandon. Not too long ago .tiff had her 10 mb of internet fame while hosting two small segments for MTV's online gaming show, The G-Hole, eventually parting ways with The Man in exchange for a spot in the Destructoid Army (which she prefers, quite frankly). A self-proclaimed interweb n3rd, .tiff is in constant search for the gems of gaming culture both online and in the flesh. She spends her spare time crafting plushes, relishing in the saucesome wonders of the world, and working hard at her day yob. She hopes to bring you the best of the bunch, and maybe someday pwn you in a game of Bubble Bobble, if you can handle it.
