Movie Review: Project Hail Mary

 Last Sunday, the family went and saw Project Hail Mary. Here's my review of it.

 

Parents wondering if there are curse words in the movie? Yes, there are. But not as much as in The Martian, a similar movie based on another book by the same author. 

 

First off, this movie is a big hit here in South Korea. My students have been talking about it a lot. And a week ago we tried to see it, but the convenient time slots for us to watch it were sold out. This week, we bought our tickets earlier. Seems like there's plenty of talk about it on the Internet as well. Lots of the YouTube geek media channels have done vids about it. There's talk in book circles about the novel to movie adaptation, etc. 

I haven't read the book. I enjoyed The Martian. Artemis, Andy Weir's follow up novel, was so-so in my opinion. Never bothered to read this one. I may just do that now.  

HOWEVER...the movie was entertaining, but I wouldn't call it great. 

If you don't know, it's yet another story of a human stranded alone in space, having to science their way out of various problems. Except there are a few twists to this movie. The set-up is that alien life is discovered: microorganisms that feed on stellar radiation, which is dimming the stars. The sun and most of our stellar neighbors are in danger this way, so a team is sent to Tau Ceti, which is NOT being affected, to find out why. But things don't go as intended. 

The acting was good, but I doubt if any of the cast will be nominated for an academy award. The special effects were well done. The plot was serviceable (there were some holes), and there were plenty of emotional beats. But in the end...slight spoiler?...the Power of Friendship wins. Which makes for a suitably emotional ending, but left me feeling a bit off about the science parts. Weir's reputation (at least from his first two books) was to try to write hard sci-fi, with as much scientific accuracy as he could. This movie, at least, seems to take a lot of short cuts, so it's more fiction than science. 

Don't get me wrong. It's a fun movie, and it does make you care for the characters and root for them to get out of the fix they're in. It just seems to take a few short cuts to get them out of those messes. And the ending, for me, didn't really make sense. Or at least, it was framed as the "only option" when I could think of at least two ways that it could have ended differently. 

And that's why I now want to read the book. I'm curious if the book took those short cuts, or if that was part of the film adaptation process. 

Anyway, it's a fun popcorn movie. Worth a watch. But I wouldn't blame you if you ignore the buzz (or is it hype?) and wait for it to come out on a streaming service.  

 

The Netrun is Just Another Dungeon (and That's a Good Thing)

I'll admit I have very little experience with cyberpunk themed RPGs. My cousin borrowed Shadowrun from a friend back in the early 90s and we looked through the book. Maybe made characters? And that was it. In the 00s, my buddy Steve had some Forge-inspired story-first games he was developing, and we did some cyberpunk themed games with that. Alex tried to get a RIFTS game going around 10 years ago, which had some cyberpunk elements but was really more superheroic/mecha oriented. More recently, at the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con, I got to play in Keith's Cyberpunk RED game, which was a lot of fun. I think that's about it. 

And yet, while cyberpunk is not my go-to sci fi subgenre, I do really enjoy the themes and aesthetics of it. And I've got some (I think) good ideas for my Missions & Mayhem cyberpunk campaign module, which for now I think will be titled Neon & Nihilism. (Unless I can think of something better in the meantime). 

In M&M's base rules, computer hacking is designed to be relatively quick and painless for the group, as most often only one Hero will be hacking while the others wait around. Make a few quick choices, a few quick rolls, and maybe have to deal with some complications before you succeed or fail. 

For N&N, though, the netrun is probably going to be a fairly important aspect of the campaign. And one complaint I've read about with that in other games is exactly what I was trying to avoid with the main game's hacking rules -- one player taking up a large amount of the game session on the hack/netrun, while the other players sit around twiddling their fingers or scrolling on their phones. 

For N&N, I think I've got a good idea to handle this and get everyone involved. Each Hero (PC) will have a net avatar. This is a secondary character that represents the Hero in cyberspace. The Avatar will have its own class (I'm thinking a Fighter/Thief/Wizard style trio). And the Net will be dungeons. In order to hack into a company's system, the Avatar adventuring party will have to brave the dangers of the dungeon to collect the treasure (whatever info or sabotage they have planned for the netrun). 

The Fighter type class (Cyber-Samurai?) is there to battle security modules and sentient programs to protect the other runners. 

The Thief type class (Shadow Slicer?) is there to retrieve (or plant) whatever needs retrieving, as well as outwitting security programs. 

The Wizard type class (Code Mage?) is there to try and rearrange the virtual environment to the runners' advantage, and will have some limited specials (spells) that can help with combat or infiltration/exfiltration. 

A corporate computer system, internet construct, or AI becomes a series of encounter areas with various challenges meant to keep the party OUT, or eliminate them once they get IN. And somewhere in the maze of programs, data files, subroutines, and whatnot is whatever goal the netrunners are after.  

So pretty much like a D&D dungeon crawl. 

The upside is that the netrun becomes its own adventure, and everyone participates. The downside is that the netrun becomes a dungeon that needs to be prepared, and that players will need two separate character sheets for the campaign. 

I'm also not sure yet how advancement of the meatspace Hero will affect the netrunner Avatar, and vice versa.  

Luckily for me, our modern age isn't that far removed from the typical dystopian cyberpunk setting. Late-stage capitalist megacorps, invasive surveillance tech, government controlled by the oligarchs, and the masses mostly sheep willing to stare at their screens all day waiting for the next dopamine hit. So I won't need to add a lot to the meatspace side of the rules (maybe some replicants, a few gene-splice mods, some cyberware, a bit more near-future tech). M&M can already handle a lot of that. Most of the focus of the book can be on the netrun aspect of the campaign. 

My Next Sci-Fi Campaign

I don't know if it would be Star Frontiers, Stars Without Number, or something else (never played Traveller...maybe I should give it a try?), but this galactic map would work well for whatever sci-fi game I decide to run if I ever wind down the Star Wars game. 

Movie Review: The Matrix Resurrections

It's been a week since I saw the movie. I wanted some time to think about it, but also figured it would be hard to talk about it without spoilers. So I delayed writing this. 

Is there cursing in the movie? Yes. Similar to previous Matrix movies. Aside from that, the end battle scene has some disturbing elements to it, so I'm glad I went to see it with only my teenage son, not my 1st grader. Parents, you might want to see this before taking young kids to see it, and decide for yourself.

OK, on to the review. Did I like it? Yes. Did I love it? Not quite. It was definitely entertaining. It wasn't as philosophical/preachy/talky as the previous Matrix sequels, and the plot was much more direct and easy to follow. That was both good, and bad in some ways. Overall, I was entertained. It was a fitting sequel, and either serves as a fun post-script to the original trilogy, or as a potentially interesting jumping off point for non-Neo-centric Matrix productions in the future. 

The acting was good overall. Keanu and Carrie-Anne were great. They really slipped back into the roles well. Most of the rest of the cast were also well done, especially as some of the actors were constrained by how previous actors had portrayed certain characters in the original trilogy. The action was exciting and usually easy to follow along with. Some cool bullet-time special effects and what not. It's the Matrix. It was what you expect in that regard. CGI and special effects also were well done. The plot was clever in some areas, a bit lame in others, and there are a few plot holes. 

Worth seeing? If you're a fan of the original trilogy, or even just of the first movie? Yes. Fan of cyberpunk or PKD style psychological sci-fi? Yes. Tired of media properties that are just relying on nostalgia to get you to spend money on their new movies? Go ahead and skip this one until it's on a streaming service. They are clever at winking and nodding to the audience about this, but that's not worth the ticket price just for that.

----------------SPOILERS BELOW------------------------

OK, gonna give everyone some space to avoid spoilers on the screen, then discuss some specifics of the film that I liked and disliked. 

Ready? 

Alright then. Here we go. 

The Setup: I kinda liked how they had us return to The Matrix. The new Matrix contains all the events from the trilogy as an in-universe video game designed by Thomas Anderson. Neat idea, and it allowed the cheeky scenes where they make fun of the fact that they're making another sequel that doesn't need to be made just because they know it will make money (and WB will eventually do it without them anyway if they don't do it). Also, the "history" of the Machine Civil War was a great take to move the plot forward. If The Architect's faction had remained in control of the machines, this wouldn't have happened.

Characters: Like I said above, Neo and Trinity felt right. Not exactly the same, but that should be expected. Niobe's heel turn shouldn't have been unexpected, really, but I was surprised by it. Of course she comes around in the end, much like her arc in the trilogy. New Morpheus was OK, but kinda got lost in the second half of the film. Once Neo was made aware of the new Matrix that he was in, New Morpheus's role was pretty tangential. Bugs was cool, but I wish I'd gotten to know her crew a bit better. I can't even remember the name of her Operator. Business Partner/Agent Smith worked well, especially his face turn. The Analyst made for a very good opponent. Much more interesting and clever than the Architect. Not as interesting as Smith was in the trilogy, though. The Merovingian and his renegade programs being a bunch of homeless drifters made me smile. Nice reversal.

Plot: It was a rehash, but they made the rehash make sense (more or less) within the bounds of the end of the trilogy. Still not sure how they could have resurrected Neo and Trinity 60 years previous but yet they're still only 20 years older both in the new Matrix and in the real world (of the film). How was Smith's code recycled when it seemed the point of Neo connecting with the Source was to destroy/delete Smith's code? There were a few other things that also didn't quite make sense, but the overall plot arc and character arcs made sense. Having Trinity and Neo be two halves of The One in this new Matrix was a great touch. I loved that. Overall, though, the plot seemed a bit rushed and some subplot elements seem to have been lost to the cutting room floor.

Themes: I think they made a good attempt to reexamine themes from the original trilogy (Can we trust our senses? Is there free will?) but also worked in new themes (How do we deal with feelings of being trapped in the wrong body? How do we rebuild our lives after disaster? How do we cope with media addiction? Are we drugging ourselves into oblivion?) fairly well. 

The Matrix Resurrections is a solid movie. It's definitely not a must-see, but similar to Bill & Ted Face the Music, we get to see Keanu take up an old role that we loved and it's fun. But honestly, the film likely wouldn't work if it weren't for the nostalgia factor. While it does cover some old ground and break some new ground thematically, it's just not as tight or as gripping as the original Matrix.

Stars Without Number Revised Edition initial impressions

 Back in 2017, Kevin Crawford of Sine Nomine Publishing put out a revised version of Stars Without Number. I hadn't played SWN since Justin's old Panoply Sector game (which he ran at the tail end of his Vaults of Ur campaign), so I never checked out the revised version until just recently. I got invited to a play-by-post game using SWN Revised, so downloaded the free version from DriveThru and made a character (actually remade my old PC from Justin's game, Dr. Zoltana, xenoarchaeologist). 

So I've really only looked through the game enough to make my character. This is not a full review. Just some initial impressions. 

SWN Revised keeps the basic chassis of SWN. It's pretty much BX D&D for characters and combat, but with a 2d6 resolution skill system tacked on. And lots of sci fi tech. 

The revision does a few things that impressed me. There's a new fourth character class, the Adventurer. An adventurer combines half of two of the other classes. So you can be part Warrior, part Expert (as I made Zoltana), part Warrior, part Psychic, or part Expert, part Psychic. 

Backgrounds seem pretty similar to what I remember, giving you some extra skills related to your training outside of your class. And if you risk it and get lucky, it can also boost your ability scores. Each background provides 1 skill for free, and you can either choose two more from a small selection of skills, or roll three times on the skill list or the Growth Table which have chances for +1 to any stat of your choice, +2 to a physical stat, or +2 to a mental stat, a set skill, or a skill of your choice.

There are focuses (foci as Crawford calls them) which are like 3E feats, with two tiers. They provide a lot of customization options for characters, and aren't overly complex in implementation. Many also provide a level in a skill.

But so far, the most impressive improvement to the rules has been how Crawford redesigned the skills. In SWN-R, each skill's name is a simple verb. And they cover a wide area, and different ability modifiers can be added depending on the situation (much like 5E's often ignored rule on skill/tool use rolls). The combat skills (shoot, punch, stab) add to d20 rolls to hit in combat, but can also be used with the normal 2d6 in other non-combat situations. Exert, the general physical/athletics skill, can also be used in combat for throwing attacks or I assume wrestling and the like. 

So far, I'm liking what's been done to the rules. It feels more streamlined, and even more customizable to fit nearly any character concept.

Fey Planet

A while back, I was reading an article about a new exo-planet that was discovered, and scientists think that it may be in the Goldilocks Zone, but tidally locked. That got me to thinking what conditions on a planet like that would be.

The planet orbits its star, and rotates perpendicular to the axis of rotation. In other words, it would appear from a fixed point in space to roll along its revolution. If you are on the planet, one side constantly faces the star, and the other side constantly faces away. Habitable zones, if there were any, would be along the equator. The day side would mostly be too hot, and the night side too cold.

So any life on the planet would likely be in the perpetual twilight/dawn of the equatorial zone.

And THAT sounds a lot like the Realm of Faerie as described by Poul Anderson in Three Hearts and Three Lions.

And THAT sounds like a great setting for a sword-and-planet style game!

The fey kingdoms inhabit the Twilight Zone (OK, probably need a better name than that to prevent endless Rod Serling impersonations). Sunward, the land gets drier and hotter as it gets brighter. The Sun Lands are an inhospitable desert, with a molten sea rumored at the center. Only the fiercest and toughest of desert-monsters can inhabit even the fringes of this land. Nightward, the land gets sparser and colder as it gets darker. The Night Lands are inhospitable glaciers, with a massive ice mountain rumored at the center. Only the fiercest of arctic-monsters can inhabit even the fringes of this land.

There is no night and day. Time is kept by the moons (this planet should have more than one) and the procession of the stars through the sky. "Days" or hours would be kept by the rising of certain constellations in the sky.

Sounds like a cool setting for either straight D&D fantasy, or for a sword-and-planet style mix of tech and magic.

Campaigns I'd like to run someday

I usually come up with more ideas for what I think will be fun campaigns than I can actually manage to run. Currently, my West Marches game is going great so I've got no desire to change it. And realistically I shouldn't be running any more face to face games. The occasional test of Caverns & Cowboys is the exception to this.

But if I could, I'd be running all kinds of games. I'd need to be independently wealthy to run them all, of course. Maybe when I'm retired this will be a way to spend my time and keep my mind sharp as I get older.

In no particular order, here are ideas I have that I've never gotten to run, or ideas that I attempted but got cut off due to my schedule, lack of player interest, or problems with the execution on my part (which I think I could do better now).

The Maritime Campaign. Back in 2010, I worked up this campaign and started it off. But the players and I had differing expectations of what the campaign was to be about. I set it up as an island hopping treasure-seeking band of heroes with a ship (like Jason and the Argonauts, or Sindbad). One player wanted it to be a mercantile simulation, another wanted it to be a game of piracy and fleet building. Other players were pretty uninterested. It died because I lost interest in figuring out markets for fleece in foreign lands and dropped it.

With the right group of players, I still think it could be a blast.

Terminator: War Against the Machines. This would be a game set in the "future flashbacks" of the Michael Biehn character in the first Terminator (and other films in the series). A short term campaign with a set goal of either to take down Skynet or die trying. Not sure what game system I'd use. d20 Modern/Future could work, but it's a bit clunky in areas. Stars Without Number might be a better fit, except without the psychics. There's also the venerable Star Frontiers, or maybe something generic like the WEG Open d6 system.

Land of 1000 Dragons. This is a fairly new idea I've had. Pretty sure I've mentioned the Terminator idea before, and I posted over 20 times about the Maritime Campaign. This game would probably be best with a modern 'high power PCs' system like 5E, or if run in old school D&D we'd need to start at 5th or 6th level. In Land of 1000 Dragons, there is an open sandbox world, and EVERY lair or dungeon is the home of a dragon. Of course there will be other monsters cohabiting (or lurking and scavenging the leftovers). But the whole game would be focused on dragons. Lots of dragons.

Some sort of Supers game. I'm not sure exactly what the hook should be for this. Supers as a genre is really about preserving the status quo, while most RPGs seem to work best around groups that work outside the system and upset it. If I ever do run a game, it would probably be best to set it in some sort of Sin City type setting, where everyone and everything is corrupt except for our heroes. Or, flip it and run a supervillain game! Let the players run amok until the local heroes get on their tail, then come up with plans to foil the caped crime-fighters! That could be fun.

East Marches. I mentioned this the other day. My West Marches game is going so well. The format makes it really easy for players to buy in, and for me to prep for games. I'd love to run a second game in this format, but with Asian fantasy themes (there are some in my WM game, but it's for the most part standard D&D fantasy). I could easily use the TSR-East classes I'm working up now for this. But I really don't have time to prep and run TWO Marches-style games at the same time.

Fiendish Pits of Dr. Lao. This is an idea I had many years ago. An Asian fantasy themed megadungeon. I'm less keen to run this game these days (and I realize I must have gotten the name Dr. Lao from an old Tony Randall movie -- reading the description I don't remember seeing it before, but I probably heard of it somewhere along the way). I think East Marches would be a better game. But I could probably throw a smaller version of the Fiendish Pits into the East Marches. Or work this idea up as something to try and sell some day.

Gateway by Frederik Pohl - Campaign Idea

I picked up Gateway, a short sci-fi novel by Frederik Pohl, at the local library. I'm almost finished with it, and I've been thinking of how well it would work as the framework of a sci-fi RPG campaign.

The 100% accurate but completely gives the wrong impression of the book synopsis is: An AI psychiatrist treats a patient's PTSD.

Doesn't sound like a fun campaign, does it? I'd rather not play some sort of PTSD story-game. Instead, I'd take the story framework for how the guy got his PTSD and use that.

So some time in the future, Earth is a wreck. Overpopulation and rampant capitalism have destroyed the environment. The ultra-rich live in domed cities and have "full medical" which includes all sorts of treatments, organ replacements, etc. The VAST majority of humans subsist. Our hero grows up in the Nebraska food mines. They mine the shale oil and use it as food to grow bio-film which is then processed into food. But luck strikes and he wins the lottery.

Some time ago (in the story), colonists on Venus found an alien spacecraft. The guy who finds it manages to fly it, and it takes him to an asteroid orbiting the sun perpendicular to the plane of the celestial equator, which has been hollowed out with tunnels half a million years ago by aliens called the Heechee. This asteroid also has a thousand or so of their ships docked there.

It's possible to get the Heechee craft to fly, and they go FTL. But it's impossible to know where you're going. It flies on auto-pilot, there and back. Prospectors roll the dice, select a random destination, and head out to the stars. If they get lucky, they find a Heechee ruin and can bring back artifacts. No one knows what they are or what they do, but the Corporation will pay thousands or even millions of dollars for discoveries. Our hero wins the lottery, becomes a prospector, things he witnesses warp his already warped brain (the hellish life in the food mines already sent him to a year of psychotherapy as a teen). And now, as a rich successful former prospector, he lives a luxurious life of wine, women, and psychotherapy in the dome of NYC.

Great concept for a campaign. Stars Without Number would be a great system for this. I've never played Traveller, but it might work well, too, from what I've read about it. Something heavy and crunchy like StarFinder or Palladium could work too, of course, but if the campaign went all out with destinations that could have been safe half a million years ago but now are inside a red giant star or whatever, PC replacements might often be necessary.

I'd also want to increase the chances of finding artifacts, but reduce the reward amounts for finding them. As a story, the rarity of the Heechee artifacts is needed for dramatic tension. The protagonist spends a lot of time on Gateway (the asteroid launching area) fretting over whether he should actually go out on a mission or not. For a game, having players make PCs, go on a mission or two and find nothing, then get a dangerous planet or hazardous system and they just die would not be very fun.

It's mainly the idea of setting out on an alien craft to a random unknown destination that I like. I can imagine a d% table of system types, and then let the players roll the dice to see where they end up. Once they get there, they'd need to examine the system, find any celestial bodies with ruins, then search them for artifacts. Or if there are planets with life, or systems with unusual stars (pulsars, black holes, former supernovas, etc.) they could go for "science bonus" money instead of or in addition to artifact bounties.

Could be fun! But I'm still working on Caverns & Cowboys, so this idea will have to sit on the back burner for a while.

Fun with the Fermi Paradox

Recently, in addition to working on my dissertation, making a new set of fold-up paper minis (just need to format the pdf), and getting ready for a vacation, I've been watching Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos: A Spacetime Oddysey. I missed it two years ago when it first aired. And of course, my mind is now thinking of lots of interesting ways to set up a galactic scale sci-fi RPG campaign.

One good place to start for assumptions about extraterrestrial life in the universe is the Fermi Paradox, and the Great Filter hypothesis that goes with it. Are you familiar with it? If so, you can skip the next paragraph. If not, here's the Fermi Paradox in brief (and click that link for an excellent in-depth discussion of it if you want to know more):

If the estimated number of stars in the universe, the estimated number of planets around those stars, and the estimated chances of life spontaneously arising on any planet with suitable conditions are what scientists believe them to be, even at the lowest, most conservative numbers, our universe must be bursting with life. And given the 13.5 billion or so years since the Big Bang, there must be many intelligent species out there besides us. Yet (this is the paradox), we can't detect any signs of them (or have we?). There are several explanations for why this might be so, including the idea of the Great Filter, an event that makes it highly improbable that life will advance to not only intelligence, but to super-intelligence levels needed to colonize other planets.

So that's the Fermi Paradox in a nutshell (and I'm sure I've introduced some error into the concept by such a brief recap, so if you're interested, click that first link above and enjoy). And the various hypotheses that seek to explain it can give  your sci-fi campaign some interesting twists. The best thing is, they're fairly setting neutral, unless you're planning to use a popular sci-fi franchise like Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Firefly, what have you.

The first way to solve the Fermi Paradox is to suggest that there ARE NO HIGHER CIVILIZATIONS (we aren't quite there yet in real life). In other words, the Great Filter is behind us. Let's look at some conceits that could inform your sci-fi campaign if this were the case:

1. There is no life in the universe except that on Earth.
The Earth is the only planet where there is life. The Great Filter is the formation of life itself.

You could set up a campaign set on Earth in the far future, just with lots of fun high tech toys, but otherwise more or less your typical human drama. Or you could set up an explore/terraform/colonize setting, where the PCs are faced with this challenge - to seek out suitable worlds for colonization (exploration and bottle-city human drama on their ship), or to be among the terraformers or colonists (a survival against nature game).

The Bible (or whatever creation myth you choose) was correct after all. Considering Einstein's Theory of Relativity, if you choose the Earth as your frame of reference and consider celestial motion in a certain specific way, the universe DOES revolve around the Earth. Could the revelation of our unique status in this universe propel humans to embrace Scripture and form future theocracies? This might step on a few real world toes among players, so use this idea with caution.

2. There is life in the universe, but we are the only intelligent life. 

Maybe we're the first and more will come later, or maybe others existed before and were wiped out. The Great Filter is behind us, or else where we are now in the early 21st Century (nuclear or environmental devastation of the planet, overpopulation leading to catastrophe, etc.), and humans just squeak through.

In this case, you may have a campaign set up where the PCs are among colonists sent to settle other habitable planets with no need of terraforming. Of course, the life forms on the other planets will be different, interesting, and often dangerous. If you go with a "we're the first" premise, then you get exploration, cataloging and survival on alien worlds. If you go with a "no others survived this far" premise, you can add in exploration of the ruins of lost alien civilizations to the above. [Stars Without Number uses this conceit as its default, with options to add in alien species if the GM wishes.]

3. There is other intelligent life, but they're only just as advanced as us, or less so.

Conditions in the universe have been such that we're leading the pack as far as super-intelligent civilizations go. The Great Filter is behind us, and behind several other civilizations. And we were just too far away to detect each other's presence until the advent of FTL, warp engines, star gates, or however you want to move people around interstellar distances easily in your campaign.

In this universe, it will be a game of planetary exploration as in #2, but with First Contact opportunities, and the interspecies ice-breaking games that come with that contact. There will be a limited number of player races (the few super-intelligent species), but there could be any number of intelligent but non-advanced civilizations on other planets if the Great Filter is the industrial/nuclear age transition. [Star Frontiers uses this conceit, with only five star-faring races, all of comparable tech levels.]

Finally, it could be that humans form the first Type II civilization and are the first to colonize other planets. If there are other intelligent but not yet advanced alien species out there, then it may be the job of the PCs to study them passively (a la Star Trek's Prime Directive), or to conquer them, or to make peaceful contact with those we can and enlist their help to pacify those we can't make peaceful contact with (although if we're the only star-faring race, there would need to be some sort of situation like James Cameron's Avatar, with its unobtanium, necessitating our even bothering with the hostile aliens).

The second way to solve the Fermi Paradox is to suggest that ADVANCED ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS ARE OUT THERE, BUT FOR SOME REASON WE CAN'T DETECT THEM. We are probably past the Great Filter (although not necessarily), if a Great Filter exists, but by design of the aliens, limits of our technology, or cosmic chance, we (us, real 21st Century humans, not your campaign) just haven't encountered these other civilizations yet. These also give use plenty of fodder for designing a campaign.

4. Advanced aliens visited Earth long, long ago, and just haven't been back since then.

This idea, the Ancient Astronauts theory, is of course a popular one now. Maybe the aliens seeded life here, then forgot to return (or were wiped out by enemies). Once humans gain interstellar travel capabilities, the campaign could be one of piecing together the mysterious clues to the origin of life on Earth.

Or maybe the aliens finally return, and bring humans into the galactic (or intergalactic) civilization. This way, you could play as modern humans, out exploring the galaxy for the first time, but with guides along the way. Alternately, the seeding species may have put us here for a purpose (crops, slaves, lab rats) and the PCs have to resist the alien overlords. Wars of humans vs. alien invaders is probably not a trope I need to go into great detail here, I'm sure you've got a handle on this idea.

The third idea related to this is that our ability to get past the Great Filter, or simply to develop to a Type II and/or space-faring species is some sort of test. Once we pass the test, we become citizens of the galaxy. The campaign will again consist of the players having to negotiate strange alien customs while exploring the galaxy.

5. Most of the galaxy has been colonized by a single Type II or proto-Type III civilization, but the Earth is in a galactic backwater. 

This is the basic concept of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. There's just nothing on Earth to interest the aliens, so why would they bother coming here? As with the Hitchhikers series, maybe the aliens have just stared paying attention at the time the Great Filter hits (whether that be Vogons or something more serious is up to you), and the PCs are the few survivors taken in by the aliens at the last minute. And it need not be silly as in the Hitchhiker books.

Or maybe 'Space Noah' leads a small group of survivors off of Earth just in time, and when they escape destruction, they find an advanced civilization has already pretty much taken all the good planets. This could then be a sort of Battlestar Galactica type game, where the few survivors of Earth need to explore, fight, negotiate, or run from the galactic civilization.

It could also be that there's no imminent disaster for Earth, but a select few, the PCs, by design, chance, or fate, have been taken from Earth (or find a one-way ticket off through science). Maybe they want to get back, and that's the campaign -- survive in the galaxy long enough to find a way back to Earth. Maybe they're happy with their lot in life, and have no desire to return to Earth (like Star Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy). Whether galactic murder-hobos or scientific explorers, the PCs can enjoy their status as "oddities" among the galactic civilization(s).

6. There are several Type I and Type II civilizations that vie for control of the galaxy.

This one, again, maybe doesn't need a lot of explaining. There are two or more "galactic empires" that compete for habitable worlds to colonize, or lesser species to exploit, or just have some sort of beef with each other that prevents them from coexisting (the desire to become the Type III civilization of the Milky Way, maybe). Humans could be one of these empires (and the campaign would be similar in some ways to Star Trek, with the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Borg, etc.), or we could be caught in the crossfire once we're finally noticed or make ourselves known. Maybe the aliens notice the potential of humans, and they are vying to make us allies. Maybe they notice the potential in humans, and are trying to wipe us out before we become yet another threat. 

7. Physical colonization of planets is unfeasible, and interstellar travel is a rarity.

In this situation, the cost outweighs the benefit for galactic colonies. If Type I or Type II civilizations are utilizing all potential energy sources of their planet/star, why bother going somewhere else? Maybe the civilizations come into contact by some form of FTL communications system (the ansible of the Ender books, or subspace frequencies of Star Trek, for example). We can learn from them, they can learn from us, in some sort of galactic Google Hangouts sessions, but never shall we meet...unless, a crazy group of humans (the PCs) decide to build an FTL ship just for shits and giggles and set out to meet these other peoples of the galaxy! This could be fun, because each planet visited would then open up the opportunities for the players to play a member of an alien species (they've got their own crazy weirdos as well).

8. Smart civilizations don't advertise. 

There may be predatory alien species (the lizard folk of V, the whatever they are from Independence Day, etc.). The smart civilizations don't go around making unnecessary signals that would draw their attention. There's a lot of potential with this idea. Humans may have made the mistake of attracting unwanted attention (war against alien invaders) which then leads to the need to find extra-terrestrial allies -- not easy when they don't want to be found. This would be a combination of survival/war, and exploration/mystery solving.

Maybe WE are the predator species, and we need to hunt down and locate the inhabited worlds for some reason. I think most players enjoy the occasional game where they're the bad guys, but this obviously wouldn't be the game for everyone.

There could be a Type III civilization that keeps others down, swatting the flies before they can become a real threat. This could also be interesting, as the PCs would be facing a vastly superior foe. How do you defeat a galaxy-conquering species that is millions or even billions of years more advanced technologically? Do you make this an Ewoks vs Empire type situation for the players? Do the PCs just try to find a place to hide, searching the galaxy for an even more backwater world to relocate to once Earth has been discovered?

9. The government is covering up the evidence.

Maybe there are thousands of extraterrestrial civilizations, maybe there's one Type III super-civilization, or something in between. No matter what, the various world governments (or at least the great powers) are suppressing that knowledge. While many scientists might scoff at this in real life, it has vast potential for gaming. Of course, you could go the X-Files route, with the players trying to uncover the alien conspiracy. Or you could go the Star Gate route, with the PCs being the agents of the government(s) who go out among the stars to deal with alien threats and treat with alien allies.

10. The aliens are all around us, but we just can't detect them. 

Maybe their technology is so different from ours that we can't detect them because we're looking for the wrong things (and vice versa). Maybe their form of life is just so alien to ours that we wouldn't even be able to notice them (non-carbon based, for example) if we were standing next to them.

In the first case, the PCs may be in for a surprise first contact, thinking the campaign was something along the lines of suggestions 1 and 2 above, only to meet a twist along the way. This would switch the explore/survive campaign into a study/befriend campaign. Or an alien war, those are always fun, too.

In the second case, maybe the thrust of the game is to learn about these truly alien life forms, and eventually find some way to make contact with them. There's a lot we could learn from a species so different from us that we wouldn't even likely be competing for the same planets (unless one or both of us are into terraforming!). I could see a game starting out where a planet that we had detected as Earth-like was not (terraformed by the aliens to suit their biology) by the time a generational or hypersleep colony ship could arrive. Solve that mystery, players!

There's more that can be gleaned from the Fermi Paradox and the idea of the Great Filter, these are just a few. Feel free to chime in with others you might think of (or ways to improve my ideas) in the comments!

Shattered Planet: An Interview with Tanya Short

This is the first interview I've ever done for What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse..., and it's with an old friend from my days in Japan, Tanya Short. She is the creative director of a new video game design company, Kitfox Games, and their new game Shattered Planet, a sci-fi Rogue-like, is now available for free download for your smart phone or tablet.

Tanya and I met about ten years ago, and we played together in a Trinity campaign run by her S.O. Brent. Later, Brent and Tanya played in a short Classic D&D game that I ran just as I was getting back into old school games and away from the d20 system, before they left Japan.

I'm happy to help her spread the word about her new game – and I'm a bit envious of all of you who can download it and start playing it today. It's not yet available for East Asian markets, and I'm way too lazy to figure out how to root my smart phone in order to download it now. :D Anyway, on to the interview.

Interview with Tanya Short of Kitfox Games

Tanya X. Short is a professional game designer who worked on MMOs such as Age of Conan and The Secret World before making the leap to indie. She founded Kitfox Games (http://www.kitfoxgames.com) with 3 other devs in Montreal, Canada, acting as their Creative Director. She’s lived in four countries and has a cat that sits at the breakfast table.

LG: What is your gaming background?

TS: There was a huge age gap between my brothers and I, so most of my gaming was done solo. My first love was Bubble Bobble on the NES, or on road trips, Link’s Awakening. As a teen, living in an extremely rural area, I got really into online games as part of my social life – I literally spent 12 hours at a time role-playing in MUDs (textual virtual worlds). Although EverQuest was available by then, I preferred the imaginativeness of text, and even spent a year or two after college volunteering as a community manager for a commercial MUD. From there, I guess it was natural I’d get into designing MMOs!

LG: How did you get into game development?

TS: I am one of the few who went to school for it! I went to an extremely practical master’s degree program called the Guildhall, which is a satellite campus of Southern Methodist University in Texas. It’s staffed by industry veterans and has (or had, at the time) an extremely high hiring rate, because they really focus on what you need to get hired – a good portfolio, team experience, and finished projects. My first offers to join the industry were from ArenaNet, Big Huge Games, and Funcom, in Norway. I accepted the Funcom position because… well, who turns down a job in Norway? Not me!

LG: What sort of work were you doing for the big MMO companies like Age of Conan and The Secret World?  

 

TS: I started out as an A.I. Designer, which is their word for ‘scripter’ – creating enemy behaviours, boss fights and such using their light-weight, high-level programming tools. But I was so enthusiastic and opinionated about social features and guild structures, I ended up creating a whole feature from scratch, which is pretty unusual after a game’s launch! I pitched and lead the strike team developing the Guild Renown feature, which is basically guild levelling (before World of Warcraft did theirs!). On The Secret World, I did various design stuff basically, working mostly independently… various missions, puzzles, improvements to the hub cities, etc. I was the designer who pulled together the “Dreaming One” levels, which are these surreal experiences in ice caves, in a dreamscape. It wasn’t my vision (that was all Ragnar Tornquist), but I filled in all of the detail and gameplay. I also made the Albion Theatre, and all the vendors in the cities – my favorite, of course, being the taco vendor ghoul in London.

LG: How has your table-top gaming experience shaped or influenced your computer game designs?

TS: I have a serious love of the political. Keeping secrets is a unique pleasure that most video games don’t incorporate, but which I highly value. Most of my favorite tabletop characters had a Big Secret they were keeping from the party. They never ended up getting found out, but it still added layers of meaning and drama to every moment of play! And although it’s not quite a tabletop game, Werewolf remains one of my favorites, despite its deep flaws – nothing can replace the joy of innocently lying to your friends.

LG: Tell us about one of your most memorable tabletop RPG characters.  Who was she (he) and what game system was it?  What were his/her goals?  What made that PC so memorable?

 

TS: My favorite character was probably Kaena. She was a fun-loving bard on the surface! But she secretly ran a spy network, working for a cult that was trying to revive an old, dead god. So every time the party found any treasure, she’d refuse to sell it (making up just about any excuse) until she had done a complete lore check on it and/or checked with her secret contacts. The rest of the party thought she was just a hoarder or a collector of some kind… and they never learned differently since the game ended before her true intentions were revealed! I’ll just always remember having five secret notes queued up to give the GM every time we went back to town!

LG: How did Kitfox Games form?

TS: Here in Montreal, there’s an incubator/accelerator program called Execution Labs, where indie teams can come and get training in business development and marketing, plus they’ll pay you while you make whatever game you want! So when I heard about an opening there, I looked around and put together a team with other local indies!

LG: Introduce your compatriots at Kitfox Games – Who are they and how did you all meet?

TS: No matter what I say, you’ll never understand how awesome they are to work with! :D

 

Xin Ran Liu is a traditional concept artist with amazing digital painting skills, but who also makes his own little game projects on the side in GameMaker. He does just about everything art-related in our games.

Mike Ditchburn is our lead programmer. He makes TONS of game prototypes, like just about every day, and owns over 300 board games.

Jongwoo Kim is our gameplay programmer, and he actually was trained as a game designer, so he has good intuitions on that side, too.

We all met at a local indie meet-up group here in Montreal, but we didn’t really know each other very well until we started working together. We weren’t even sure it was all going to work out until we did the Indie Speed Run game jam together last October… but the results were pretty cool, and we were finalists! You can play the results here: kitfoxgames.com/Jams/Sculptorgeist.html Now we’re like siblings. :)

LG: What has been the biggest challenge for Kitfox Games as a small start up?

TS: Getting our name out there is a huge challenge! We’re nobodies! We are planning on having a crowdfunding campaign for Moon Hunters (our next game) this summer, but it’s terrifying because, you know, we’re not Chris Avellone or Tim Schafer. We’re just 4 devs trying to make awesome games, and we have to convince people not only to try our games, but trust that we’re worth giving money to! So we’re working hard trying to earn that trust, which is why we decided to make the mobile version of Shattered Planet free to play – to get more people to try the game.

LG: Tell us about Shattered Planet - what are its selling points?

TS: As a clone of a space captain, it’s your job to explore a deadly alien planet that’s different every time. It’s a solid little game – easy to pick up, but with surprising amounts of strategy, once you start trying to optimise. Over and over, the reviews we get from critics and players compliment our artist Xin’s hand-painted art style, as well as the quirky writing (by yours truly). I don’t mean to brag! It’s just that between your snarky alien assistant, over a hundred items, and dozens of little choose-your-own adventure type events, there’s plenty of room for sci-fi jokes, references, and general silliness.

From the Kitfox Games website

LG: Why did you decide to make it as a Rogue-like instead of another style of game?

TS: It was an accident! We actually initially set out to make a game about exploring. We were trying to recapture that feeling of endless potential from the early turns of Sid Meier’s Civilisation. So we made a few different prototypes, and our favorite ended up being styled as an RPG… and we realised a few weeks later that we had accidentally re-invented the rogue-like.

LG: Most Rogue-likes are fantasy themed.  Was it hard to implement the game style with a sci fi setting?

TS: Not at all! It took a bit of courage, since we looked at the market and competitors and didn’t see anything like it, but once you make the mental shift, it’s easy. There’s a reason sci-fi and fantasy go together so well – they are both really about humans embarking on grand adventures, sometimes with monsters in the way.

LG: What is the number one reason I should download and play Shattered Planet right now?

TS: Well, for one, it’s free! You can go download it and try for yourself! And if you enjoy it but wish it were a premium purchase… well, look for it on Steam in late June!

Also from the Kitfox Games website

LG: What's in store for Kitfox Games in the future?

Well, we’re probably always going to create infinite procedural games, and with the amazing talent of our artist Xin (http://www.xinranliu.com), each game should be more gorgeous than the last. We already have more plans on the back-burner, with hopes to release Moon Hunters (http://www.moonhuntersgame.com/) to Steam Early Access by Christmas. If you want to keep track of what we’re up to, you can join our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/EbbjT

LG: Many of my readers are part of the DIY centered Old School Renaissance, creating and self-publishing tabletop RPG material.  Do you have an advice for readers who might be thinking of getting into computer/video game design?

TS: It’s both easier and harder than you think! Start small – as small as humanly possible -- but plan on everything taking quite a bit longer to complete than you first think. But there are literally DOZENS of free tools out there that are surprisingly powerful. Those of you who are writerly should definitely check out Twine, which is a free choose-your-own-adventure type tool that you can pick up and figure out in 10 minutes or so!

And this is more of a psychological trick than a game development technique, but remember not to tell anyone what you’re working on until after you’ve completed what you want to tell them! If you “pre-brag”, excitedly telling someone what you will do, you’re less likely to go through with it than if you wait until after you actually have something to brag about!

LG: Finally, on a personal note, any idea when Shattered Planet will release in South Korea?  ;)

TS: Haha! Well, we were looking out for potential Asian partners for proper localisation and publishing, but … we might give up on that and release sometime this summer! Thanks for the poke!

LG: Thanks for your time, Tanya! I'm really looking forward to playing Shattered Planet. Hopefully some of my readers will enjoy it as well.

So I rewired it... (March Madness Day 17)

17 Which RPG has the best high tech rules? Why?

It's not OSR, but again I enjoyed the system presented in d20 Modern/d20 Future. It had different tech levels, modular additions to many standard items, and a well-presented system for creating different future settings by the styles and types of tech in the game.

Basically, I liked it because it took some normal base items, and then gave long lists of upgrades, modifications, and alterations that could be done to the items. Since d20 Modern used an abstract Wealth score instead of tracking actual cash on hand, it was fairly easy to work in such a system. If the alteration was big enough and high tech enough, it added to the price a set amount. If the base item was low tech enough, the price dropped, so additions could be added and you'd pay the same as in a 20^th/21st Century game.

Again, the toolkit nature of d20 Future really hit my buttons, since when I think sci fi gaming, I may want something hard sci fi one day, space opera the next, sword and planet the month after...

There may well be better high tech rules out there, but in my limited experience, this was a good way to do it (as compared to Star Frontiers, which has a small selection of stuff that seemed high tech in the late 70's, or Gamma World where high tech items are loot like D&D magic items).

Gentlemen, behold: The Future! (March Madness Day 10)

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

If you've been reading my blog posts this month, or my blog regularly for any length of time, you'll know the answer to this is Star Frontiers. The rules are just simple enough, the setting just evocative enough, that I was able to use it to run all sorts of sci fi themed adventures as a youth. Even now, I've still got designs to eventually run both a straight-up game in the Frontier Sector battling Sathar and exploring strange new worlds, and also a game set in the post-Judgment Day Terminator universe using a slightly modified version of the game (only human PCs, modified weapons/equipment list, otherwise the same).

I've never played Traveller in any form. Never played Twilight 2000, although I now have it on .pdf. Never played the Aliens RPG, although I sure wanted it in the late 80's.  Some day... There are probably lots of other classic sci fi games I've never played and just don't remember, or have never heard of.

What other sci fi games have I played?

WEG Star Wars – Killing Machine and I played one or two sessions of this. I liked it, but D&D and Star Frontiers were easier to run, and I tended to DM/GM anyway. This was KM's game.

d20 Future – the supplement to d20 Modern was well done, a good toolbox book that catered to a fairly wide range of gaming styles. I ran a kick-ass Aliens/Predator game with this for the Ebisu group.

Star Wars d20 – we played a bit of this with the Toyama group over Yahoo Voice Messenger IIRC right after I'd moved to Yamanashi. It was fun, but a bit clunky for Star Wars style gaming.

Trinity – White Wolf's low-powered supers in space game. Fun, evocative, and my only experience besides rolling up a character for the Street Fighter RPG with the White Wolf Storyteller system.

Stars Without Number – free OSR game, basically Basic D&D with lasers and robots. I like it a lot, obviously.

What I'm thinking about:

Some day, after Chanbara is published, Flying Swordsmen is revised, and Presidents of the Apocalypse is released, I'd like to work on a retro-future style RPG, probably titled "Rockets vs. Saucers" since in lots of old 40's~60's sci fi the humans flew rocket ships and the aliens had flying saucers.  Ray guns, heat beams, jet packs, bubble helmets, shiny suits, all that jazz.  I'm thinking it will be class/level based, but in a twist there will be no "Fighter" class.  Everyone will be equally bad-ass (or equally piss poor, depending on if you're a half full or half empty type) at combat.  Classes would be based around exploration of planets, space flight, science, and contact/communication/socialization.

Movie Review: Ender's Game

On New Year's Day, the family and I went to the cinema.  My wife and son saw a dubbed into Korean kids' movie called "Dinosaur Adventure" (may have a different name in English, I didn't check, that's the Konglish name anyway), while I went all by my lonesome to see Ender's Game.

And I liked it. 

Short digression about the political BS, feel free to skip to the next paragraph:
Now, I know there are many people who said they were boycotting this movie for political reasons.  They don't like Orson Scott Card's devout Mormonism and his political activity against homosexual equality.  But just like I don't let Robert E. Howard's or H. P. Lovecraft's personal views on race detract from my enjoyment of their fiction, similarly I don't care that OSC may take a fraction of the $8 I spent on a ticket and possibly use it to lobby against equal treatment for gays/lesbians.  He's got a right to free speech, even if I disagree with him. 

Now that that's out of the way, on to the movie review itself.  Since the movie's been out for two months or so already in North America (it just opened here in South Korea), and since a lot of readers of this blog may also be familiar with the books, please forgive any spoilers I may have in here.

The movie opens quickly, with Ender's first confrontation with a bully after getting his monitor removed, and before you really know it, he's headed off to Battle School with Colonel Graff.  Already there are some elements being condensed, such as Bean being in Ender's launch group (or maybe I'm misremembering the novel?).  Soon, Ender has earned his launch group's respect and he's graduated to Salamander Army.  The plot moves along quickly, but yet it still manages to hit all of the important parts.

Personally, I wish they'd had more time for more of the Battle Room, but we see enough (barely) to set up some of the things Ender will be doing later when he's in Command School.  And if Battle School seemed condensed, the parts at Command School really get cut short, but it makes the movie flow well.

We skip some of the subplots.  Bernard is there, but downplayed.  We don't see anything of Valentine and Peter's subplot back on Earth, which actually was just as well.  It may play into the book sequels (haven't read them yet), but in this film it would have just been a distraction.  This is Ender's story, and they stick with him.

There were a couple of places where they soft-balled a few issues, a bit of Disney-fication.  But while I think that takes a bit away from Ender's internal struggle, the film-makers did have a lot on their plate, and this may make Ender a bit more sympathetic to a general audience.

The characters were all true to their depictions in the novel, and I think that's important.  If the plot is condensed, and the ending is modified slightly (not the salient parts, really just condensing two locations into one), the film still felt true to the source.

This is not your standard style "military sci fi," but it was well done, moving, and relays the message of the novel.  One bone to pick is that the trailers for the movie pretty much showed the whole ending of the film.  But considering that's the most "action packed" part, I can see why marketing people did it that way.  If you haven't seen it yet, and haven't read the novel, just be warned that it's not an action movie, it's a coming of age drama with a military sci fi backdrop.  Don't let that keep you away from it.  It's worth seeing.

Compared to the last movie I saw, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, this movie feels like the creators really cared about the book and wanted to bring it to the screen, rather than just making something full of sound and fury signifying nothing that would rake in a big box office.

Death in the Sky Tombs

Last night, rather than Vaults of Ur, Justin ran a straight up Stars Without Number game.  He had run a session of it months ago.  I'd made my PC, Gawain "Greasebox" Mifune, a technician style Expert, but then wasn't able to play.  Dean's PC Fighterman Jung (a Dr. Who style Cyberman), and Jeremy's PC Killbot5000 (using some android rules from I don't know where) explored a starjammer style ship.

This time, Justin decided to retcon the spelljammer stuff out, and run a more straight up sci-fi game, Panoply Sector.  All of our characters, plus some backups were stranded on Brightside Station, a mining colony in the asteroid sea (there are no planets) around a red giant star, known as "The Beast."  In order to escape near indentured servitude, we'd need to scrounge up 500 credits each without owing our souls to the company store (you know the old song, right?).  Quick way to get rich?  Explore the Sky Tombs of an extinct alien race!

Since we had backup PCs, I should give a roster:
Jeremy -
Killbot5000, combat machine (droids don't get classes, they just have skill sets)
Dr. Atari, super-intelligent science droid on a scraped together junk frame
Dean -
Fighterman Jung the Cyberman, Warrior who will die if not encased in a cybernetic life support suit
Sister Pomepeius Isabella, Psychic Bene Gesserit 9-year old girl
Me -
Gawain "Greasebox" Mifune, Expert technician, crack repairman
Tommy "Six" Gunn, Warrior hotshot space cowboy
Dr. Zoltana, Expert xenologist seeking to study the aliens who left the tombs

After securing slave wage jobs, finding an NPC protector for Sister Pompeius, and getting ripped off by the company outfitting shop, we secured passage to a Sky Tomb on the Leadbelly, piloted by the guy in a wheelchair from Alien 4.  We selected our first away team were Killbot5000, Sister Pompeius, and Greasebox, plus beefy NPC dude whose name I didn't commit to memory.

We explored a bit, and found the place habitable and fully powered.  After opening a locked door, we found some alien artifacts, but apparently tripped an alarm.  Shortly thereafter, we were surrounded by giant black carapaced things which killed Pompeius as she skipped up to a door without checking around a corner, Greasebox as he tried to run back to the airlock to call for help, and then NPC dude and Killbot as they made a stand.

TPK

It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to see if our reserve PCs will fare any better next time!

Book Review: Ender's Game

With the movie coming out soon, I figured I ought to finally read this book.  And last Sunday, I found a copy at our local English library.  The Busan English Library is pretty awesome for our family, since the vast majority of their collection is children's books.  They don't have much sci fi for adults, but luckily they did have a copy of Ender's Game.  So I got it, and read it.  Just finished the last fifteen pages or so this evening as my son was in the shower.

Man, that was a good book!  If the movie is half as good, it will be worth watching.  Or it should be, anyway.  My faith in Hollywood's ability to screw up any source material is high.  And so far, this year's potentially awesome movies have been more or less disappointing.

Anyway, this is about the book, not the upcoming movie.  There's a lot to like in this book, especially if you enjoy military sci fi (I do).  It's space opera-ish, but we don't get to see much of the enemy "buggers," it (like the movie Full Metal Jacket) mostly concentrates on Ender's training.

Card does a great job of getting into the mind of a six-year-old boy (who grows to be a 12-year-old by the end of the book), but one who also happens to be a genius with a pair of older siblings who are also geniuses.  We hear about the Bugger Wars, a pair of invasions of the Solar System by insectile aliens, and we see how young Ender Wiggin is trained to become the great leader who will insure victory in the third invasion.  There are a few twists at the end, one I saw coming a mile away, and a couple that surprised me. 

It's a fairly quick read, and definitely worth your time if you've never read it.

I hear from time to time some people complaining about Orson Scott Card, because of his religious views (Mormon) or his political views (not sure, don't care).  They don't want to buy his books or see the movie because that would "support" OSC's points of view.  I've never quite understood this line of thinking.  But we see similar things all the time, for example with regards to Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft's racist views or the like.  Personally, I don't buy these arguments.  I believe it's possible to support a writer for the strength of their written works, and that has no bearing on whether or not I support their political/religious views.  If you've been avoiding this book because you don't like Card's ideas, I think you're missing out on a nice, evocative, thoughtful piece of science fiction.