Tags
Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed, Charles Dickens, Coen Brothers, Day of the Dead, Deus Ex Machina, Galaxy Trucker, Halloween, Hand of Fate, Herman Melville, Malcolm Lowry, Master Reboot, Skyrim, The Hudsucker Proxy, Under the Volcano
Happy Halloween and welcome to a special edition of things I’ve enjoyed lately.
1. Hand of Fate (Video Game): This is an early access game on Steam that does theming so well, it’s easy to ignore the few bugs and unfinished details hanging around the game as it enters its last stages of completion. The game is very personal: it pits the player against the dealer, an arbiter of fate itself, whose calm, authoritative narration begins as an encouraging guide and gets gradually more competitive as you overcome his challenges. But the fate you endure is represented by decks of cards: one deck for your equipment, another for the encounters you come to, another for the monsters you encounter, another for blessings, another for curses, another for penalties, and so on. The game proceeds like a rogue-like, offering randomized “floors” of encounters that you deal with one by one, gathering resources and equipment for your final confrontation against the bosses of ascending strength (represented by the face cards of four “suits” – dust, skulls, plague, and scales).