Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Tabletop Games
Continue Countdown #1 – Project Morpheus, The Last of Us Movie, South Park RPG, More
Welcome to the world premiere of Warp Zoned’s “Continue Countdown.” In each 30-minute episode, the Warp Zoned staff will discuss nine news stories from the week that was.
Get your quarters ready because in this episode Editor-In-Chief John Scalzo, Senior Editor Nicole Kline, and Staff Writer Mike Ryan talk about Sony’s “Project Morpheus” headset, the movie adaptation of The Last of Us, DriveClub’s delay, our expectations for Alien: Isolation, Gone Home’s console port, the epicness quotient of Angry Birds Epic, South Park: The Stick of Truth and the future of the licensed game, used games at Walmart, and our suggestions for the Official Scrabble Dictionary.
Posted in Mobile, PC, Podcast, PS3, PS4, Tabletop Games, Top Story, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Alien: Isolation, Angry Birds Epic, DriveClub, Gone Home, South Park: The Stick of Truth, The Last of Us
Hasbro is asking players to add a word to Official Scrabble Dictionary
Arguments over what counts as a legal Scrabble are a time-honored tradition in many households. While the rules officially forbid “slang,” those non-standard words are only removed from the board if they’re not found in the Official Dictionary after a challenge. But who among us hasn’t had the urge to throw down a well-known slang word like “ZEN”? Now, you might finally get a chance to without having to bluff your way through it.
Hasbro is updating the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary for the first time since 2005 and they are seeking suggestions from the Internet-at-large. After gathering all the suggestions, Hasbro will pit the 16 best choices against each other in the Scrabble Word Showdown bracket. The last word standing will make it into the dictionary (along with thousands of other words chosen by Hasbro). To make a suggestion, just visit the company’s official Facebook page from now until March 28 and nominate your favorite slang word for a promotion to the big time. The Scrabble Word Showdown begins on April 2.
One word can change everything. We’re updating the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online Official Scrabble Players Dictionary for the first time in 9 years with the #ScrabbleWordShowdown!
And in case you were wondering… “KWYJIBO,” “CROMULENT,” and “EMBIGGEN” have all already been suggested.
Posted in News, Tabletop Games
Portal board game teleports to your tabletop this Summer
Cryptozoic Entertainment has just announced their product preview for 2014, which included a board game based on the beloved Portal franchise. The best part is that the “custom playing pieces include test subjects, sentry turret, weighted companion cube, and delicious cake.” The tagline even says it comes with cake, and that it isn’t a lie. How exciting!
The final name is not yet determined, but the tentative name is “Portal: Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game.” Also, the good news is that it was “designed by the creators of Portal and Portal 2,” which means it should at least be close to the humor we know and love from the series.
The Portal board game has a tentative release date of Q3 2014. It will be for two to four players, and will cost $50.
Posted in News, Tabletop Games
Tagged Portal, Portal 2
Assassin’s Creed: Arena brings Ubisoft’s franchise to board games
While players await news of where the next installment in the Assassin’s Creed series will be set, Ubisoft has decided to escape the Animus and bring the franchise into the real world. The studio has entered a partnership with Cryptozoic Entertainment, the company behind board games based on The Walking Dead and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, to create Assassin’s Creed: Arena. It is described as “a strategic game of cat-and-mouse that pits 2-4 players against each other in a race for kills,” where players assassinate targets, or other players, to collect Victory Points. Set in Constantinople during the same time period as Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, players can chose various characters including Shahkulu (the Renegade), Odai Dunqas (the Guardian), Oksana Razin (the Vanguard), and Anacletos (the Gladiator).
While there are a lot of rules, Ubisoft believes that those less familiar with board games will still be able to pick it up pretty quickly, and that they’ll soon be assassinating and battling with other players in cardboard form.
Assassin’s Creed: Arena is set to be released in North America on February 26 for $50.
[Source: UbiBlog]
Posted in News, Tabletop Games
The PAXpocalypse List: The Best of PAX Prime 2013
This year’s PAX Prime was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. And even with four days, I still didn’t get a chance to play everything – or even see everything. Lines were long, crowds were huge, and once I got started in on a good game, I wanted to play it as much as I could. We were originally only going to award ten games, but by Monday, we couldn’t narrow it down, so we ended up adding in two more. Here is the PAXpocalypse List for PAX Prime 2013 – the twelve games we’d love to be stranded with if this little convention in Seattle was the end of the world. And they’re in alphabetical order… because that’s how it’s done when you can’t pick favorites. (more…)
Posted in Features, PC, PS4, Tabletop Games, Top Story, Vita
Tagged Bearzerkers, Galak-Z: The Dimensional, Invisible Inc, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, PAX Prime 2013, TowerFall, We Are Doomed
Kickstart This! The Organic Monochrome Augmented Reality Edition
Summer is in full swing, like a party at Jay Gatsby’s house. While we are currently in the middle of a month of suffering thanks to a gaming drought, there’s always new opportunities on Kickstarter. This month, choose whether to join Team Meat or Team Cheese in Organic Panic, explore the chilling dystopia of Monochroma, or get your steampunk on in turn-based strategy Tooth and Cog.
Taking a slight detour from video games themselves, there is also the augmented reality board game Darkling Plain, a new open-source programmable handheld console in the FEZ Game-O, and finally, Double Jump, a novel about a man who finds himself in a world governed by video game logic.
Let’s jump right in! (more…)
Posted in Features, PC, Tabletop Games, Top Story, Xbox 360
DARE To Read This Interview With the Co-Creator of Don’t Play With Drugs: The Game
A few months ago, I got my hands on a terrific card game called Don’t Play With Drugs. It’s frenetic, fun, and fast – you can play a game in five minutes, meaning you can either play a marathon of it, play quick rounds of it in between setting up other board games, or even play it while your Dungeon Master is off taking a break. Right After Then, the company behind the game, did a limited run earlier this year, but fear not – they have a Kickstarter running now, which you should absolutely back. I caught up with the one of the co-creators, Jordan Martin, and asked him a few questions about the game, the Kickstarter, and what else they have in the works. (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, Tabletop Games, Top Story
Shadow PAX: The Hidden Games of PAX East 2013 You Probably Didn’t See
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you first enter the PAX East show floor. With over 200 exhibitors showing off over 500 products (at a minimum), there’s no way to see it all. In fact, it’s possible to seclude yourself in your own little piece of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and not realize that entire other worlds exist within the greater PAX East experience.
The “Three PAX Theory” is the belief that PAX East is actually three different conventions all smashed together. On the north side of the show floor, you have “Triple-A PAX.” That’s where your Nintendos and your Microsofts and your Ubisofts create massive booths, and a game like The Last of Us has a four-hour line. On the south side is “Indie PAX,” which houses the Indie Megabooth and a huge number of small developers who operate booths that are barely big enough for a TV and a few pins. Finally, on the extreme south side of the BCEC is “Tabletop PAX,” where it’s all dice and cards and there’s nary a video game in sight. I wish I had come up with it, but all credit for the “Three PAX Theory” must go to Jake “@jakeninja” Vander Ende.
However, there’s also a fourth side to PAX East that a lot of people don’t see. It takes place in the dark corners of the convention center and in gamer gathering places all across the city after the Expo Hall closes for the night. I like to call this “Shadow PAX.” (more…)
Posted in Features, Mobile, PC, Tabletop Games, Top Story
Tagged PAX East 2013