Cerise Magazine

Welcome to the Back Page! This is where we publish the odds and ends that our readers send in, from artwork and writing, to shout outs, thoughts on gaming, and whatever fun and silly things we can come up with. If you have something you want to show off to the rest of our readers, head over to our submissions page and fire off an e-mail to us! (more…)

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Mac, Hothead Games, 2008

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is the first episode of the game inspired by Penny Arcade, the world’s most popular gaming comic. It is a game where you can distract robots by throwing oranges at them, whereupon they are overcome with passion, plunge their juice chutes into the moist orange flesh, and pump their steely hips.

If this doesn’t appeal to you, do not read the rest of this review. Also, we probably shouldn’t be friends.
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Families bond in many different ways: gathering together for meals, going out to social events, helping each other out… The list goes on and on. In my case, one of the ways that my family has bonded has been through games. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a “gamer family” or anything like that. It just happens that some games, especially board games, have offered us an opportunity to spend time together while having lots of fun.
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Hi, my name is Carla, and I don’t play D&D.

This makes me an oddity among the gamers I know, female and male, old and young. Sure, they all play other games, too, but every single tabletop gamer I’ve ever met either used to play or currently plays Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve had wonderful gaming groups, supportive gaming groups, interesting and creative gaming groups where I couldn’t participate for weeks or months at a time because they wanted to play D&D and I didn’t. Dungeons & Dragons didn’t appeal to me for a variety of reasons, but mostly that it didn’t feel accessible to me with my (still new!) background of d10 gaming, and I wanted more emphasis on the roleplaying and less on the dice – more role, less roll.
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I learned to play Dungeons & Dragons because my cousin Brian (who lived with my parents, my older brother, Erik, and me for several years) wanted to put together a game, even if that meant playing with two little kids. I got into computer games because Brian and my father were both early fans of that amazing new machine, the personal computer.

I kept playing tabletop games with Erik as I grew up, and I’ve played through several computer games with my brother or my parents along for the ride (one memorable Christmas, the four of us and my mother’s youngest brother took turns playing Riven and completed the game before the goose was cooked). I met the newest addition to my family, my husband, on a MUD.

I guess you could say that I’ve had some experience in gaming with family! So I’d like to share some ideas based on my experiences so that you can set up some game time with your family.
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In the media’s onslaught of Microsoft coverage following the disappearance of Grand Poobah Bill Gates from day-to-day operations, MSNBC published a hits and misses list of Microsoft products over the years. It includes the Xbox as a “hit,” though it notes that Nintendo’s Wii has been the runaway console sensation in the last couple of years and that the Xbox has suffered from some technical glitches that might have pushed late adopters over to Playstation3. Overall though, it has been a decent investment on their part, the author concludes.
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This month I got to interview a girl after my own gaming heart. Fireez is the mod for the LiveJournal group gamer_chicks, (Also known as the Guild of Gaming Women) I sat down with her, (actually my computer as she lives in Germany) and enjoyed one of the most intelligent conversations I’ve had in years. Her intriguing outlook and honest opinions prove once again that girls who game are more than just a pretty face. (And hot bodies, we gamer girls have very hot bodies!) I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. (more…)

The inspiration for this month’s Craft Check came from my current tabletop game, where the players and I are using some of the polymer clay tokens that I taught you how to make in “Make Your Own (Easier) Miniatures.” One of the women in my game is playing a character who just obtained a mount, and we’ve spent several sessions representing the horse on our battle grid with scraps of cardboard, large dice, and anything else roughly the right size that comes easily to hand. It works well enough, but the random object solution to the mount problem is hardly elegant.

So I came up with a better answer.
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Greenpeace is not playing.

According to BBC News:

Games firm Nintendo has come bottom of a ranking of the world’s most eco-friendly electronics firms.

The quarterly Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics ranks 18 electronics firms by how green their production processes and products are.

In the latest guide most firms have seen their ranking plummet as the charity introduced new, stricter guidelines for evaluating companies.

Nintendo said its scored low because it had not provided data for the survey.

“Greenpeace chose to conduct a survey and produce a report, which graded companies upon the voluntary submission of information,” the firm said in a statement.

“Nintendo decided not to take part in the survey and were therefore ‘ungraded’ in the resulting report.

But Greenpeace countered the company’s statement and insisted it had been graded.

Poking around the actual report, it appears that Greenpeace judges companies on three basic points:

The ranking criteria reflect the demands of the Toxic Tech campaign to the electronics companies. Our three demands are that companies should:

• clean up their products by eliminating hazardous substances;
• takeback and recycle their products responsibly once they become obsolete.
• Reduce the climate impacts of their operations and products.

However, the actual Greenpeace review is a bit more involved, describing specific actions to be taken and chemicals to be avoided. Greenpeace also notes that their rankings are based on publicly available information on the companies websites, which may not be the most reliable source of information.

Nintendo ranked dead last, scoring a paltry 0.8 on a scale of one to ten. Rival companies Sony and Microsoft scored a 5.1 and a 2.15 respectively. Sony (also referred to as Sony Ericsson) scored the highest of all the companies reviewed. However, this is still far short of the maximum rating of 10.

Greenpeace has also dedicated a section of their site to the Clash of the Consoles - releasing the shocking information that all three gaming systems contain hazardous materials that could easily be replaced with non-toxic substitutes.

There is even a place to take action: environmentally conscious gamers can follow a link to send emails to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo encouraging them to come into compliance with Greenpeace recommendations.

We’ve got a fun lineup of articles for you this month here at Cerise, ranging from Carla Lee’s reflection on her experiences at Worldwide D&D Game Day to Mara Poulsen’s examination of the potential impact of Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club. Editors Robyn Fleming and Andrea Rubenstein share stories and ideas about gaming with family members, and in this month’s Gaming in the Media, Latoya discusses the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics.

Next month’s theme is “Fight Like a Girl” – do you have something to say about that? Stop by our submissions page to find out how.