Too Many Kickstarter Projects

There are too many great Kickstarter/IndieGoGo gaming projects in the wild right now. How can I choose?

 

* Monster Stock Art and Stand-Up Minis

* Dwimmermount

* The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time and The God that Crawls

* Mobile Frame Zero, the new edition of Vincent Baker's Lego robot game Mechaton

* Battle Blokx wargaming terrain

* Random Dungeon Generator as a Dungeon Map

* Tectonic Craft Studios laser-cut wargaming terrain

* Mass Transit IV maps

* Story Forge brainstorming cards

* Lions of the North RPG

 

I had already decided to use my March allotment of gaming funds to pre-order Night's Black Agents, and then I see that Skyrim is on sale at Best Buy this week...

Keyboards for Rock Band 3

After the teasing hint at the end of the Green Day Rock Band demo, there has been wild speculation about the possibility of a keyboard added to Rock Band 3. Now with the story (video) in USA Today this morning, it's official.

This is great, exciting news. The new gameplay elements are neat, but the keyboard opens up the possibility for songs by The Doors ("Break on Through" is in the demo video), Journey, Boston, Billy Preston, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby (OK, maybe I'm dreaming here) and other synthesizer/organ/piano-heavy rock. How about Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression"? Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets"? Van Halen's "Jump"? (a song that could do for RB3 what "You Really Got Me" did for Guitar Hero)

Eventually, Harmonix needs to review some past content and update it for the keyboard controller, such as Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time" from RB1.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of 80's synth-pop like this:

Dragon Age Warriors

A couple of additions to something I mentioned here before.

Dragon Warriors is a compilation of rules from an English gamebook series released in the '80s. The Free RPG Day quickstart rules are available from the Mongoose site. Looks like old-fashioned gritty RPG play in the grand British tradition. I'm glad they have the Free RPG Day booklet available in PDF. I almost picked it up that day but for my "one item to a customer" choice I opted for the Hollow Earth Expedition quickstart instead.

Dragon Age is a tabletop RPG designed by Chris Pramas, released by Green Ronin and based on the upcoming videogame from the folks who created Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic. I have high hopes for the tabletop version. The current plans call for a boxed set release, so it could be a neat and easy entry into the hobby.

I'm disappointed by what I see for the videogame. Since they also did Baldur's Gate, I had hoped this would be another good co-op button-masher RPG that Mrs. Kaiju and I could play together. We've been looking for another one after finishing BG: Dark Alliance and the two Everquest/Norrath games on the PS2. Dragon Age will be a single-player-only third-person RPG.

Rock Band/Star Trek cross-promotion

Only 35 days until the movie opens...

Paramount has been pulling out all the stops on promoting the movie and the ST franchise in a big way, but here's one of the oddest:

Paramount and MTV Games announced a promotional partnership for the new Star Trek movie and the popular rockin’ videogame Rock Band. The promotion kicks off today and will include music track giveaways, an in-game Star Trek themed battle of the bands and a futuristic avatar contest. You can even win your own personal screening of Star Trek.

I feel that the more promoting they do -- and in many different directions -- the better it is for the movie and creating a bigger fanbase. Get all the details at the official Rock Band Star Trek site, or the summary at Trekmovie.com.