Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! My son asked his grandmother to make him a Kirby costume this year. Here he is (with his Kirby head on backwards so you don't see his face). My daughter chose to be Lagoona Blue from the web TV show "Monster High".

Using a typical Hollywood trick - remixes!

"It's like Lord of the Flies meets America's Next Top Model" (Libba Bray's Beauty Queens)
"It's like 1984 meets Survivor" (Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games)

Take one successful commodity. Marry it with another. Create a whole new entity! This is what my boy did - he combined Super Mario Galaxy with his favourite video game character, Kirby.

Kirby's the cure

The writing here may need some explanation. It says "In your knee - Don't worry, Kirby will help you!" There is also a labeled "Kirby white cell". When I was using Picasa to fix the contrast and name this scan, I asked my boy what this all meant. This was a get well card that he made for his friend J. J hurt his knee and so his friend (my son) made him this imaginary battle scene of what was going on germ-wise under his skin. I guess Kirby is an awful lot like a leukocyte!

POV Writing - Done By Choice!

You know how in school, sometimes the teacher makes you write a description or a letter from a certain character's perspective? Well, our boy did it of his own accord, writing a letter to Bow and Mario (of the Paper Mario game) from Kirby. Let me tell you, if he had to do this for an assignment, he'd be groaning and moaning, and he certainly wouldn't write this much!

Kickin' it old skool

Today's scan is my son's invented instruction manual for playing Kirby games using an "old-fashioned" controller. Many of the Kirby games only came out for less-than-current game systems and he's been looking into how to play these using the newish gadgets he owns - a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo Wii.

Move over Arnie, Kirby's the newest action hero!

Halloween is coming up and my son does not want to be any muscular superhero like Batman, Spiderman, or Superman. No, he asked his grandmother to make him a Kirby costume. Kirby may be a round pink blob that eats anything in his path, but to my boy, he's the coolest. Here's Kirby in action doing things both in his own games and activities found in other video games.

Comics + Video Games = Cool!

You'll see a lot more examples of my son's creations. For some reason, he's producing a lot more than he used to in terms of drawings and writing of his own choosing. In this comic, Ice Kirby is freezing a flaming Leo (I'm sure I have the term wrong) while a Waddle-Doo shouts encouragement.

Back to the drawing board

No, I'm not redesigning this blog - I'm re-committing to posting more samples of my kids' artwork, stories, and other articles created due to gaming inspiration. This one was created by the boy and contains most of his favourite game elements.

Risk 2210 - Sometimes it pays to be crazy!

The photo on the right is of the board at the point when every other player decided to concede and admit defeat - and this time I was the winner! Is it geeky to take a photo? Is it "rubbing it in"? The answer's a "maybe yes" on both counts, but let me explain why it's super-sweet.

I don't usually win when I play Risk 2210. The last two times we've played, my daughter has won both times, with an improbable "rule Asia" strategy combined with a possible "be nice to the child" unconscious inclination by the other players. I know my Risk strategy weaknesses and so do the other players, especially since we play semi-regularly with each other. I over-stretch. I want to control continents so I will sometimes spread myself too thin over a wide area. There are times where I should be more conservative and not bother attacking but I can't resist trying to oust a rival army out of my territory. I am also tricked by the other players when they talk. I can be goaded into attacking someone even when it's not crucial to my standing in the match. Even in tonight's game, the men teased about me playing my "cease fire" diplomat card and, just to be contrary, I chose not to play it that round, and I ended up having my diplomat and my land commander defeated. It turned out that it was useful for me to save it for the next round. I won't give you a play-by-play of the game, but in the end I controlled Australia, Europe, most of the sea colonies, and the moon. (I'm the black pieces.) My husband (green pieces) had a good hold on South America and most of Africa, and our family friend (red pieces) was ready to take over North America (after a bloody battle with my daughter [blue pieces]) but I was collecting too many mods and too many energy credits per turn for them to make a serious dent. The turning point of the game was when I (typically but crazily) stretched myself thin and took Europe (nearly impossible to hold) when I was the fourth player in round two and then won the bid for playing first in round three, allowing me to gain all the extra armies and cash for holding Europe, even briefly. This is why I love Risk. It's a great mix of random luck and planned strategy and even if you do things "wrong", you have a chance of winning. Yeah me!