Scribblenauts and Cthulhu

My boys enjoy a Nintendo DS game called Scribblenauts. Well, my son would correct me. He actually plays Super Scribblenauts, the second game in the series. Well, this is a puzzle type game where you can write the name of an object or person and it will appear in the game. Then your little character can interact with it. I haven't played it but it seems like a fun little game that poses challenges for the young lads' imagination.

Much to my surprise my oldest told me that he had summoned this creature called Cthulhu. What? I described Cthulhu and he said that it was indeed the creature he had in the game. He then showed me and sure enough there was a little cartoon Cthulhu. He also mentioned the Necronomicon being in the game.

Once again I was astounded. Talk about video games warping the minds of our youths. That, however, is a post for another time.

He asked me how I knew about Cthulhu. I explained what little I know about H. P. Lovecraft, his stories and the Mythos in general. I'm not a huge fan of Lovecraft so the discussion was pretty limited. I did mention, almost as an afterthought, that there is a roleplaying game called Call of Cthulhu. He immediately decided he wanted to play CoC. I don't have CoC let alone any BRP materials other than the free quick start rules. So I printed out the CoC quick start rules and had him read them. So we are going to play at least one session of Call of Cthulhu. I never imagined I would. I have come up with an age appropriate scenario so away we go.

I hope we both keep our sanity!

Risus Esperanto

I knew Risus had been translated into several languages other than English. I did not know until recently that Esperanto was one of them. I think this is great!

You can find it at S. John Ross' website here.

There is another link here.

Fuzzy Nation

As I’ve mentioned before, H. Beam Piper is on my all time favorite author list. I’ve always wanted to play in a game set in one of his worlds, either the Paratime stories or the Federation/Empire timeline. I have, however, neglected one portion of the Federation/Empire stories. I have only read Little Fuzzy once about twenty years ago. Now, John Scalzi, another author I have come to like, has written a book called Fuzzy Nation. It is my understanding that it is a retelling of Little Fuzzy. So, I am now starting my first re-read of Little Fuzzy. Then I will need to read Fuzzy Nation. And of course compare and contrast.

I haven’t been overly thrilled with Piper sequels written by other hands. Great King’s War written by John Carr and Roland Green did not really live up to the original. It wasn’t a bad book; I just didn’t enjoy it nearly as Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. Carr has written several more sequels that I have not even attempted to read. There is at least on Fuzzy book written by another author that I have ignored also.

So, some of my future reading list is now determined. And I need to work up some Piper gaming material for my son.

Oh, and I still think George Lucas owes Piper’s estate large sums of money for ripping off Piper’s idea for Return of the Jedi.

Modern Day Retroclone?

My son said the other day, "Wouldn't it be fun if there was a D&D set in modern times? You could take on a dragon a lot sooner with guns." I thought it would be fun. Though I contend that any dragons left around would be even more cunning and powerful in order to survive modern weapons.

This got me thinking about retroclones. We enjoy Labyrinth Lord and I know there are at least two science fiction retroclones (pseudoclones?) as well as one set in a post-apocolypse world but I've have yet to run across one set in contemporary times. I've done a few searches and haven't found one. Does such a thing exist?