I have a super-short #TableTopGails thread today, just five items!
HEY! It's SHORT!
But MAN, were these games fun!
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Okay, so this lovely company that makes a lot of family games and puzzles, @ThinkFun, saw that we love Escape Room and mystery games, and sent this big lovely box...and I really want to talk about two of them that we freaking LOVED.
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The games I want to talk about in particular are the COLD CASE games, but first, check out these ESCAPE THE ROOM games...we have played a few from other companies, but they were not this elaborate...these look incredible. Anyone played them?
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The boxes are filled with story, props, and puzzles, and you have to ‘escape’ a locked building in the story. We love these kinds of games, during lockdown they are very cathartic.
This one makes the box itself into a dollhouse, with paper doll characters! That is just cool!
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Okay, we haven’t played any of these, but I looked and they have a nice online component, with hints, difficulty settings, mood music and more, all on the thinkfun.com website.
Nifty...we might do one this weekend!
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Now, here are the ones we DID play...we made a last minute decision to drive up the beach on the Oregon coast and stay at a nice hotel for the first time since lockdown. We grabbed some games, including the first of these Cold Case games...
A Story To Die For.
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We were HOOKED. It’s a simple package, a box with a file full of relevant papers to a murder that happened years ago that was never solved. We couldn’t stop until we finished...it was SO FUN. You read witness interview, examine documents, check the autopsy...
We loved it.
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This is some of the interior, and you just really examine it all.
There are tricks and lies and red herrings, and when you actually solve it, it feels like a genuine triumph.
You check your answers in a online ‘database’ to see if you can get the case re-opened.
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We enjoyed it so much, that as soon as we got home, we opened the second Cold Case box and did THAT one.
This one was about a nice old man being killed on the day of a church fete. SUPER satisfying to find his killer!
This one is just released this month, I believe.
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This is a LOT of entertainment in a box for just $14.95, but be aware that you can only solve the mystery personally once. You can get the set to another true-crime loving friend as often as you like, though.
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We loved it, I have enjoyed many escape room boxes, I have never played a case file game like this.
We’re hooked, anyone know of any others? There are only two in the series so far from @ThinkFun games, but we’re in, definitely buying future editions. FUN!
I have a Roger Corman story. It’s fun, but weird, as I am gathering most Roger Corman stories tend to be.
I was a fan of his movies and his legend and legacy.
At the very beginning of my comics career, his office contacted me.
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I was very new to writing professionally. I didn’t become a writer to make films, comics were not a stepping stone. And I had mostly been drafted, so my sense of value in myself as a writer was a bit shaky and tinged with a lot of, ‘how did I get here? What’s happening?’
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The idea that a legendary movie guy would contact me for anything made no sense. I still had my hair salon. I hadn’t even written very many comics, and I was pretty sure it was all going to go away very quickly.
I remind everyone of this each year, apologies for repeating myself.
This Saturday, May 4th, is @Freecomicbook Day! Please go and enjoy and have a wonderful time. Some great shops have sales, cosplay, events, guests, even treats planned for you, PLUS FREE COMICS!
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Howerer, this is just a gentle reminder that, unlike what many think, the stores DO have to pay for the comics they give away for free. They pay for them in bundles. This year there are dozens of individual comics being given away...imagine how much that might cost!
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But that's not all. They also pay (often outrageous) shipping on all those books.
Stores often pay for extra employees, decorations, advertising, cosplayers, guests, and lots more. It is EXPENSIVE.
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Here is my central core thought while writing Deadpool.
It is no secret that I don't like endlessly 'zany' Deadpool. He was described as 'serial killer Daffy Duck' to me early on, that's the version I don't care for.
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I also don't care for endlessly bleak, 'nothing matters,' kill everyone Deadpool.
I think that could be a thousand other characters, and it's far from the magic potion that makes Deadpool fun.
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So the Deadpool is a subverted version of both of those.
He is a goddamn loudmouth, whose humor comes from tragedy.
But he's so endlessly high energy that it saves him from being insufferable and dreary.
And ALSO so internally sad and broken that he's not a constant punchline.
Today is @Dwayne_McDuffie's birthday. He would have been 62 today, if he hadn't passed unexpectedly one day after his 49th birthday.
To me, and most everyone who knew him, Dwayne was a light we all orbited in someway. There are many great creators.
Dwayne was a giant.
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I've told this story before but it can't be overstated. I absolutely would not have this career I love, and this life I love, without Dwayne.
I am far from the only person he lifted up and put on the stairway out. Out of poverty, out of an unfulfilling career.
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You may have heard some or all of this before. But to this day, when I think of Dwayne McDuffie, I am a bundle of terrible and wonderful emotions. I smile at the fact that I got to meet him at all, and then I cry because his loss is so vast, it still seems insurmountable.
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One time at SDCC, Dan DiDio invited me to lunch at a beautiful seafood restaurant on the bay. He had been given a list of properties that WB owned, many of which DC would have had the ability to adapt to comics.
It was STUNNING. I had no idea, I don't think Dan knew, either.
He said that this list could do something for DC that hadn't really been the case in a long time, it could open up a ton of genres with already-popular IP.
Many were very dormant concepts, but many still had active fanbases, and some were huge.
And we could use them.
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So there were a lot of things people know, like MORTAL KOMBAT and the various Bugs Bunny-type things, but the list just went on and on and on, things like the Three Stooges and tons of toy lines and action movie franchises. It was an incredible list.
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