Friday, July 27, 2007

New Fury Trailers

The Fury "Cinematic Trailer" and "School of Life Trailer" are up on Gametrailers.com I've embedded the normal versions below with links to the widescreen HD versions.

There are also more and more reviews popping up everyday, but like I said I wouldn't even have posted that last huge set if somebody hadn't already gathered them.

Cinematic SD <Click here for widescreen HD version>


School of Life SD <Click here for widescreen HD version>


Alex, our community manager and not to be confused with my bother (notice the lack of flaming staff & giant Asian dragon tattoo), posted a timeline for Fury on our forums that shows all of the upcoming dates and such.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Unleashing more Fury links

So E3 has come and gone again. If you follow the gaming press at all then I am sure you have heard about all the ups and down, deaths and rebirths that E3 has gone through. This year it was all invite only where the various companies invited select journalist to private showings in hotel meeting rooms. There has already been official word that E3 is getting yet another change around next year. They claim because of publisher feedback, I think it may also have something to do with all the companies who showed up at the same time, put on their own showings in other hotels and didn’t pay the E3 people a dime.

One such company was the new independent publisher ‘Gamecock’ which just happens to be publishing Fury, the game I’m working on. I wasn’t going to post all the links from various online news sources because there were just too many of them, but as it happens one of the guys at work did collect them all. Since I have them I might as well post them.

First up are links specifically about Fury followed by ones that are more about Gamecock & their EIEIO show which includes the Wake and Funereal service they held for our beloved E3.

Warning: I spent ZERO time making sure these links work and at the moment I don't even care that they overlap into the right-hand menu. I've been working the non-stop for the past few weeks and I'm going to go to bed. (edit: yeah, who am I kidding? Like I could walk away while it looked like crap. I stripped the text of the links down to the host site so they don't run over the edge. Still didn't test them all though.)

P.S. I've also started to see Fury banner ads popping up on some of the bigger game related sites including the likes of Penny Arcade and PvP Online.

Specific Fury links:
kotaku.com
gamershell.com
gamespot.com
gamespot.com
ign.com
gamespy.com
destructoid.com
tentonhammer.com
1up.com
worthplaying.com
gamespot.com
gamezone.com
gamedaily.com
gamespy.com
joystiq.com
gamevortex.com
tentonhammer.com
tentonhammer.com
mpogd.com

General Cock Links:
vgblogger.com
fungz.com/destructoid
news.com.com
mercurynews.com
variety.com
tgdaily.com
slashdot.org
destructoid.com
gamespot.com
gamespot.com
zdnet.com
wiiha.info
venturacountystar.com
npr.org
usatoday.com
dagbladet.no
joystiq.com
forbes.com
latimes.com
kotaku.com
firingsquad.com
mtv.com
mtv.com
mtv.com
mtv.com
mtv.com
mtv.com
destructoid.com
wired.com
wired.com
ripten.com
wired.com
forbes.com
kotaku.com
joystiq.com
grrlgamer.com
vgblogger.com
washingtonpost.com
gameshout.com
nintendojo.com
gamemusic4all
gaygamer.net
gamedaily.com
gamersinfo.net
escapistmagazine.com
gamersinfo.net
firingsquad.com
cnet.com
grrlgamer.com
gamasutra.com
wanderinggoblin.com
gamasutra.com
publicradio.org

Have you signed up for the beta yet? www.unleashthefury.com

Monday, July 02, 2007

Deadwood as a LARP

I just got season 3 of Deadwood from Amazon. I knew it was coming so for the last week I have been watching seasons 1 & 2 again to catch up. As I’ve been watching it I can’t help wishing that I had seen the show back when I was running Testament, my live-action role-playing game. It has so many elements that would work so well in that type of game.

The game I was running was White Wolf’s “Vampire the Masquerade”. Now if you don’t know anything about that particular game; throw away all those pre-conceived notions you just got. It’s not what you think and yes I know what you are thinking. Toss out the whole Ann Rice, Anita Blake, tight leather and lace, pansy ass, vampire images. See told you I knew what you were thinking.

When run correctly, a live-action game is a social-political one. It is basically a power struggle set in a social setting of people who don’t really like hanging out with each other in the first place.

I can so easily see setting up a Live-Action Role-Playing game right now based on Deadwood. I wouldn’t use the Deadwood setting exactly but instead maybe do it as either sci-fi or fantasy setting, but the set-up could be mimicked under both. The sci-fi or fantasy thing just lets you throw in some other magic or technology items that help role-playing games. For example things like healing potions/med-kits that allow injured characters to quickly recover from injuries.

But look at the set-up of the power structure in Deadwood. Most of the major characters in Deadwood are completely supported by the miners. They don’t mine themselves, but rather run casinos, brothels, and the like which are supported by the regular people aka the hoopla heads. I can easily see setting up the really good power players as owners of casino/brothels just like in Deadwood. In the show each of the major players then has a cast of secondary players which new major characters have to interact with to learn the lay of the land. This is how the two major players learn what is going on and how the goals of the new people fit in with their own goals and motivations. For example in the first few episodes where Bullock and Wild Bill first arrive in town, Swearenger is worried that Bullock and Wild Bill are together and will open a business that will compete with him. Bullock and Swearenger’s archetypes are already diametrically opposed to each other. That sets up some good role-playing. Both Swearenger and Bullock get to play off each other and interact with the secondary characters to establish themselves. Later when you have Hearst come in, look how he both opposes and aligns himself with the existing power players. I’m only a few episodes into the 3rd season and haven’t seen him interact too much with the secondary players but I can see how I would arrange that. Man I could do so much with that setting. Maybe I’ll just steal it for a short story or something.