Robot Claw – Page 358 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

B & L’s Great New Zealand Adventure

December 3, 2016

Recently, as you may know, B and L went to New Zealand. Now they’ve both been a bit mysterious about this trip. Where exactly did they go? What did they see? What did they do?

I haven’t even gotten any postcards!

So I have taken it upon myself here to imagine how the seven-day trip may have played out. I’m pretty good at vacation planning, so I reckon this hypothetical NZ adventure is pretty much exactly what they did. So join me dear readers, as we experience New Zealand through the eyes of B and L….

Day 1: Auckland

They landed in Auckland, and spent mere seconds in the hotel before heading out into the city looking for postcards, souvenirs, postage stamps and the nearest McDonalds to try out the local menu item called the Kiwiburger (which doesn’t contain kiwi flesh). As time permitted during all this scurrying, they also did some touristy things in and around the city (such as bungee jumping from that tower).

Day 2: Te Puke

Got up at the crack of dawn and took a train to Te Puke (about 5 hours), arriving before midday. Spent the afternoon at the Kiwifruit theme park Kiwi 360, being sure to ride the kiwifruit-shaped road train, seeing the kiwi birds and eating lots of kiwifruit. After sunset bribed a local fisherman to ferry them out to Motiti Island to see tuatara by torchlight in the wild. Returned to the mainland and took a late taxi to a hotel in Rotorua (about 1 hour).

Day 3: Rotorua

Visited Tamaki Maori Village and were screamed at by ~~professional actors~~ Maori natives. Ate some kiwifruit. Went to the Polynesian Spa for a mineral soak in the afternoon and spend the evening sketching kiwis on dozens of postcards. Relaxed a bit this day, since things would pick up tomorrow.

Day 4: Waitomo

Took a train to Waitomo (about 3 hours) to visit the famous glowworm caves. Found the little buggers dazzling, and make special note to spare no effort in finding and sending brother the full set of glow-in-the-dark glowworm stamps that had been recently issued. After lunch wandered aimlessly through the forest looking for kakapo, and during the late afternoon siesta sketched worms on postcards and grazed on kiwifruit in the hotel. After dinner (kiwifruit pasta) spent time in souvenir shops supporting the local greenstone-carving industry. Had an early night, since things would pick up tomorrow.

Day 5: Tasman Glacier

Woke at 1 am and boarded a chartered helicopter to fly them to Tasman Glacier park on the south island. It cost a small fortune and was terrifying, but was well worth it since the boat trip through the glacial lake in arctic temperatures – or rather the brush with hypothermia due to insufficient warm-weather clothing – made them feel more alive than they had in years. Sadly the kiwifruit supply B was by now carrying in his backpack froze, but as he leisurely sketched frozen vistas on postcards while on the overnight train to Te Anau (about 12 hours) he knew it had all been worthwhile.

Day 6: Te Anau

Visited the other famous glow worm cave, all the way down the southern tip of the south island. They were as dazzled by these little buggers as they had been up north, although perhaps the crisp weather made this experience a little more memorable. Triumphantly found a glow-in-the-dark glowworm postcard in the souvenir store, and later on that day as he sketched glow-worms and wrote my address on the back in glow-in-the-dark ink after applying the full set of glow-in-the-dark stamps he knew that the pinnacle of their trip had been reached. Dinner was steak with kiwifruit jelly washed down with a light kiwifruit juice cocktail. Had an early night since tomorrow would be taxing.

Day 7: Middle Earth

Took a 3 am flight to Auckland (2 hours) and immediately hopped into a rental car and drove 4 hours to Mt Ngauruhoe – aka Mt Doom – since who would go to New Zealand and not visit Mordor? Both of them took turns videoing each other scrambling up the loose shale hills and almost fatally falling before sprinting back to the car and speeding off to Matamata, or as everyone knows it: Hobbiton (about 2.5 hours). Here they rented costumes and spent the afternoon running around as a lady Hobbit and as Gandalf the wizard (watch for a video on youtube soon) before once again driving back to Auckland for some last minute greenstone-carving shopping and then the final mad dash to the airport to catch the flight home.

As I said I haven’t received any souvenirs and/or postcards yet. But I know they’re coming, and they’ll be great. When I get the glow-in-the-dark one covered in glowworms, you can expect to see it right here on the blog 😉

Thanks Mr Dever

December 1, 2016

Most of you probably haven’t heard of Joe Dever, even though he was an author of over 50 books that sold more than 10 million copies combined in many languages. As the owner of more than 50 of his books (in several imprints), it was sad to hear that he passed away the other day at the age of 60.

Starting in 1984 Joe Dever was the creator and sole author of the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks that continued for 29 installments and spun off into other gamebook series, novels, computer games, audio books, role-playing games and even a phone-based adventure game. It’s still going strong (more or less) with iOS games, reprints of the books and even a new installment which was released a few months ago. Lone Wolf was every bit as important as the Fighting Fantasy series, and is as much-loved today by it’s legions of fans.

As a 12-year old already caught up in gamebook mania via the Fighting Fantasy series, I ate up the Lone Wolf books when they were first released. Unlike the FF books, they were all set in the same world and told a continuing narrative where you played the same character through each book. You could even use your old character sheet, which was remarkable in those days! The world of Lone Wolf, inhabited by the jedi-like Kai Lords (and more powerful Magnakai) and the evil Daaklords was exotic and dangerous and fascinating and illustrated by the wonderful art of Gary Chalk.

In those days I had no way of knowing when (or if!) a new book in the series would ever come out so it was a real treat when I went to the bookstore and found the latest one. I must have played through at least ten in the series before I grew out of them (as a youth at least). As an adult, when I fell back into gamebooks about a decade ago, it wasn’t long before I’d acquired most of the low-number Lone Wolf books. My collection grew to include a mishmash of USA, UK and Australian imprints and would soon expand to include Dever’s other gamebooks (Combat Command, Grey Star and the Mad-Max Freeway Warrior) as well as Long Wolf novels and the (long sought-after by myself) The Magnamund Companion Lone Wolf Atlas. All of these are now important parts of my collection.

And yet to this day even in my expansive and encyclopedic gamebook collection there are a few books that remain elusive. And many of them are from the Lone Wolf series. I have books 1 through 20 (in some cases, multiple versions of each) and then book 25. This leaves 9 books out there to be one day found, with evocative titles like The Hunger Of Sejanoz and Vampirium. These books had small print runs, are quite rare, and very expensive (hundreds of dollars for some). One day I may own them.

I’ve read every Dever book I own and enjoyed them all. The gamebooks in particular are among the best written, and the quality of the Lone Wolf novels was a great surprise (since my expectations were influenced by the for-kids FF novels). The Lone Wolf books though are the keystones of his legacy, and I’m just one of millions that have enjoyed them now for over thirty years. Apparently Mr Dever was still writing new installments up until he fell ill. Even though those books will never be read, I believe the many works he left behind will keep readers entertained for many years to come.

It’s Time Again To Talk MTG

November 29, 2016

The five new Commander 2016 MTG decks came out a month ago and as I usually do, I played them against each other to get their measure. Here’s my conclusion: they are the least fun Commander decks Wizards has put out.

This is not to say they are bad (or even poorly designed). The problem is that as four colour decks they play very slowly, lack focus and (as you can see above) quickly become extremely complicated.

I played 10 games, matching each against the other four, and found them to be mostly well balanced. With three wins the ‘Saskia the Unyielding’ deck (BRGW) seems strongest overall (look at her her leader ability) and the weakest deck is ‘Kynaios’ who only managed one win. The other three had two wins apiece.

Of course I’ve already dismantled the decks to use the cards in other decks and as usual they are well worth it (in my opinion) just for the wealth of powerful cards they contain. While these examples were not as fun as decks themselves, I still think Commander is the best MTG product being released these days.

And while I’m on the topic… Australia 2017 is fast approaching and as always I’ve crafted a few decks for some down under card flopping. Adam’s made a bunch himself (which are no doubt evil…) and even Bernard’s making some. The competition will be intense this trip.

At the risk of revealing my cards – literally! – here’s a rundown of the three I’ll be taking with me.

My first deck – which I call ‘Bang A Boomerang‘ – isn’t that new, being mostly a refinement of a deck I made about five years ago. It’s a control deck based around the above with a couple of other tricks up its sleeve and is both the most successful deck in my playtests and the one that’s least fun to play. I may replace this with a mono creature deck…

I love the bicolour enchantment cycle from Eventide and crafted an entire deck – I call ‘Deathlink’ around the one shown above. This is a very conventional creature based deck that I already know is vulnerable to the gimmicks of both A and B’s decks. While I think it’s fun to play, I’m not expecting many wins from this one in two player, but perhaps more success in multiplayer.

The third deck – let’s call it ‘Overload’ – was inspired by the above card, which is in one of the Commander decks. Currently in flux, this is a high concept, very unusual deck that has a very fragile win condition but should – I hope – create spectacular multiplayer games. Fingers crossed!

I can’t wait to play these. I can’t wait to see Adam’s decks. I can’t wait to lose to Bernard’s evil black deck not to mention see what his other one is. I’m pretty sure there’s some titanic flopping in the not-too-distant future…