MUCH OF WHAT IS PRODUCED

by independent content creators on youtube and elsewhere on the internet is far (or infinitely) better than any of the stuff produced by the “professional industries and studios.” Just saying…

PSEUDO-HISTORICITY

what I like most about this “Shorty” is its pseudo-historicity…

STAR TREK BRIDGE CREW

You’re in Command with Star Trek: Bridge Crew

StarTrek.com Staff

June 13, 2016

A+ A A-

Today at E3 in Los Angeles, Ubisoft announced a fall release for Star Trek: Bridge Crew, a new virtual reality game that will allow players to explore space as a member of the Federation. Supporting the announcement: a cool video featuring LeVar Burton, Jeri Ryan and Karl Urban trying out the game. Playable co-operatively with a crew or solo as Captain, Star Trek: Bridge Crew puts players directly onto the bridge in a Starfleet ship. The game will be available on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Bridge Crew puts a player and their friends in the heart of a brand-new starship, the U.S.S. Aegis, where every action and decision made will determine the fate of the ship and her crew. The overriding mission is as follows: Explore a largely uncharted sector of space known as The Trench, in hopes of locating a suitable new home world for the decimated Vulcan populace — while coming into direct conflict with the vaunted Klingon Empire.
As developed by Red Storm Entertainment, a Ubisoft Studio, Bridge Crew is designed exclusively for VR. It capitalizes on the powerful sense of social presence only possible through virtual reality. Through hand tracking and full-body avatars, including real-time lip-sync, players can experience what it’s like to serve as an officer on the bridge of a Federation starship.
As a crew, players will form a team of four to operate the roles of Captain, Helm, Tactical or Engineer. Each role is crucial to the success of the varied missions players face, and only by working together can the crew complete their objectives. Also playable in solo, players will assume the role of Captain and dispatch orders to their NPC crew mates. The Captain’s strategic decisions will be vital in order to successfully complete missions. In other words, it’s your ship and you’re in command.

Keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details about Star Trek: Bridge Crew.

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– See more at: http://www.startrek.com/article/youre-in-command-with-star-trek-bridge-crew#sthash.pGLwqy04.dpuf

ENIGMA – DESIGN OF THINGS TO COME

Enigma: A Steampunk-Themed Cafe Filled with Kinetic Sculptures Opens in Romania by Christopher Jobson on October 20, 2015

Welp, now we’ve seen everything. Just last week, a new cafe opened in Romania called Enigma that claims to be “the world’s first kinetic steampunk bar.” We have no way to verify if that’s true, but it certainly looks impressive from these photos, if you’re into that sort of thing. A slightly terrifying humanoid robot with a plasma lamp cranium bicycles by the door, and a variety of kinetic artworks churn and rotate on both the ceiling and walls. Watch the video to take a peek inside, and if you’re in town you can visit Enigma Cafe at Enigma at Iuliu Maniu, Nr 12, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Photos by Zoly Zelenyak from The 6th-Sense Interiors. (via Steampunk Tendencies)

MARVEL’S ANNOUNCEMENT

Marvel Encodes: I have two theories of my own but let’s see…

By the way, the images are on the original link.

Marvel Has A Big Surprise Coming, Here’s A Clue

By Eric Eisenberg 43 minutes ago 27 Comments

The next few weeks are going to be rather huge for Marvel Studios. This Friday will see the release of their first Netflix series, Daredevil; then Joss Whedon’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron will be dropping on May 1st; and soon after that the company will begin production on Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: Civil War. That’s all pretty huge stuff, but evidently it’s not enough, as now a big Avengers announcement has been scheduled for tomorrow morning.

This extremely exciting news comes to us from Marvel Cinematic Universe star Robert Downey Jr. himself, who teased the special reveal on his personal Twitter account. In addition to revealing that there will be big Avengers news tomorrow morning on Good Morning America, he also presented us fans with a rather cryptic image as well:

Given the source of the tease, the metallic plates, and the red and gold coloring, it’s pretty clear that what we’re looking at is a close-up of some kind of Iron Man-related “thing” – but what the hell is it? Is it a new suit of armor? Is it something bigger? Is it some kind of vehicle? (UPDATE #1: As one of our commenters pointed out below, it looks like this shot is a closeup of Iron Man’s shoulder from his character poster). Perhaps even more importantly, what’s up with the very strange and very specific white spaces. My first instinct is to look at them as letters, but that still doesn’t really clear things up.

Because the image isn’t much help, let’s look at this mystery from another angle. It’s interesting to note that Downey Jr. says “Avengers announcement” as opposed to “Iron Man” announcement, and while that could be a reference to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, what if it is instead something to do with The Avengers: Infinity War? That movie is certainly many years away, but Marvel Studios has earned a reputation for always thinking 10 steps ahead.

Without more information, it’s tricky to figure out this puzzle at face value – and hopefully throughout the day we see more clues pop up and give us more of a hint of what to expect. Of course, speculation is always fun, and this is a fun and exciting jumping off point to do just that. Hit the comments section below to tell us both what you think the image is and what you think the big announcement is going to be tomorrow. And be sure to come back in the morning, because you can be sure that we will have full coverage of what goes down!

UPDATE #2: The official Good Morning America Twitter account has posted a clue of their own, which appears to be Hawkeye-centric, and has more of what now definitely appear to be big white letters. Check it out below:

UPDATE #3: Now the official Jimmy Kimmel Live! Twitter account has chimed in with their own post, this one featuring Captain America’s chest star. It’s pretty clear that the letters here say “Jimmy,” and as one of our commenters pointed out below, it looks like the lettering in the Iron Man image above is very similar to the logo of Jimmy Kimmel Live!

THE PROJECTED GAME

Actually I’m working on an invention that would replace this altogether for all kinds of tabletop games, not just Role Play but Wargaming, Board Games, etc. Anything imaginable played on a tabletop.

But I still like the general set-up described/displayed here.

Dungeons and Dragons comes to life on digital maps

on February 02, 2015

A projector combined with a Web-based tabletop role playing game tool make for a new and really cool way to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Reddit user Silverlight is a developer for Roll20, an online tool for virtual tabletop role playing game sessions, so he knows a thing or two about blending technology into traditional RPG play. By pairing Roll20 with a projector mounted on the ceiling, Silverlight is able to display digital maps on the tabletop for a home session of D&D.

imgur

imgur

And the coolest thing about these digital maps is the ability to show characters’ actual line of sight as they explore. Discussing the setup on Reddit, Silverlight says that this functionality is built into Roll20, and he made the cones of vision possible by manually revealing portions of the map to the players.

imgur

This isn’t really a practical setup to replicate. Silverlight used an Epson brand projector to make the digital maps, and a cheap Epson projector should run you about $300 on Amazon. Still, it demonstrates new possibilities for playing tabletop role playing games. Roll20 runs in a Web browser. Maybe someone can figure out how to make this setup work using a much more affordable smartphone projector.

Photo via Silverlight/imgur

http://www.livefyre.com/v3/tracking/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Fgeek%2Fdigital-projected-tabletop-rpg-map%2F%3Ffb%3Dgk

THAT USUALLY DOES THE TRICK

THE LANDSCAPES WITHIN

Wow! Just freaking wow!

And can you just imagine what you could encode in these puppies?

Also by way of fiction and/or gaming, just imagine a book you could open that would create either magically interactive landscapes such as these or holoconic/holographic ones that you could explore or further encode or explore…

By the way I now highly recommend the blog Colossal.

 

New Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laraméeby

Christopher Jobson on June 12, 2012

Artist Guy Laramee (previously) has recently completed a number of new sculptural works where he transforms thick tomes into incredible topographical features including mountains, caves, volcanoes, and even water. Many of the works are part of a new project titled Guan Yin, a series of work dedicated to the forces that enable individuals to endure grief and pain, or in his words “the mysterious forces thanks to which we can traverse ordeals.” If you happen to be near Quebec, a number of Laramee’s works are currently on view at Expression gallery in Saint-Hyacinthe through August 12.

Update: You can also see a number of works by Laramée at Foster/White Gallery in Seattle.

ANCIENT AMPHIPOLIS

ISOLATION

I’m very selective about the video games I play. I like video games but have very little time to ever play them. As a matter of fact I still have 6 or 7 video games in my library I’ve never finished. But I would buy and play this game. I love Survival Horror Games.

The Secret, of course, is, you don’t wanna panic…

 

​Watch People Panic And Die In Alien: Isolation

Alien: Isolation isn’t exactly a “fun” game to play. It’s super stressful and really difficult. It’s definitely fun to watch other people play it, however.

​Alien: Isolation: The Kotaku Review

Knock, knock. Who’s there? An alien. It kills you.Read more

Once this game is out, I sense there will be a lot of good times to be had watching people hide, flee, and panic as they attempt to survive. In the meantime, a few notable folks on YouTube who got early copies have shot some enjoyable videos of themselves playing.

If you’re curious how the game holds together, I reviewed it. (Short version: Very cool, extremely stressful, has some issues, not for everyone.) But if you’d like to see how the whole “Hide from an alien until it eventually kills you” thing plays out in action, these videos are a good start. Worth noting: these videos spoil some early parts of the game, so if you want it to be as scary and surprising as possible, you might want to skip them.

First up, Mr. Jim Sterling has a pretty enjoyable playthrough of the medical complex, which highlights just how many ways things can go wrong…

JUSTICE LEAGUE MACHINIMA

This will be interesting…

Machinima Lands Exclusive Animated ‘Justice League’ Series

 

September 17, 2014 | 04:26PM PT

Marc Graser

Senior Editor @marcgraser

Machinima, an online network that mostly targets younger males, has secured the exclusive rights to a three-part animated “Justice League” series from Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment.

“Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles” will launch in the spring of 2015.

“Chronicles” is said to revolve around a newly conceived reality in the DC universe where Justice League members Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are much darker versions of the superheroes that people know…