What Am I Playing / Reading? That’s a Complicated Question!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 8, 2016

When people ask me what video game I’m playing or book I am reading, I tend to stammer a lot. I mean, if they are pointing to the screen or the book in my hand, then sure. No problem. But if someone asks it as a more generalized question, like “What have you been reading […]

Filed Under: Books, Geek Life - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Computer beats Go grandmaster for the first time in history

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 9, 2016

Wow. It happened. ‘WE MADE HISTORY’: Google’s DeepMind AI just beat a human world champion at Go It’s only the first of a five-game tournament. But still, this is a huge development. Much bigger, in my opinion, than Deep Blue’s victories over Gary Kasparov 20 years ago. Why? At that point in the 1990s, Chess […]

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The Finiteness* of Time

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 24, 2016

When I was in elementary school, summers seemed to last forever. In junior high, there was plenty of time in the afternoon to do just about everything… except maybe all my homework. That perception really does go away as an adult. Things seem to move faster. As a guy trying to pack in family, game […]

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Personal Relationships with the Audience

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 17, 2016

I’ve recently noticed that about half of the video games I play and the books I read are written by people I am personally acquainted with. Maybe not close friends – in some cases they are just people I’m Facebook friends with, or who I’ve exchanged emails or forum posts with, or who I’ve chatted […]

Filed Under: Biz, Books, Geek Life, Indie Evangelism - Comments: Read the First Comment

Felipe Pepe tackles the nature of the RPG

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 9, 2016

Elitist Old Farts unite! Or… uh, not. Why should we start now? Felipe Pepe has composed a not-short article describing the nature of role-playing games, which largely breaks down into a discussion of why they are getting so difficult to define, and why they are proving difficult to… *cough* evolve. Why Are RPGs So Difficult to […]

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John Romero Releases New Level for Doom

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 18, 2016

Yeah. This happened. It's been 21 years since I made a DOOM level. Here's my version of E1M8 using DOOM1.WAD. https://t.co/ueKM7gBbXd pic.twitter.com/NlmA9aIALN — John Romero (@romero) January 15, 2016 A new Doom level by John Romero himself. It is entitled, “Tech Gone Bad,” and it’s… pretty brutal. Here’s a video of a playthrough (on full […]

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And the next uber-cheap computer is…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 8, 2016

Okay, the Raspberry Pi Zero at $5 is pretty dang amazing. Phenomenal, really.  Its more powerful siblings are also pretty impressive. They made waves. So of course… it’s competition time! Well, more competition. Next out of the gate is the PINE 64, now in a crowdfunding & manufacturing phase. While the release of the Pi […]

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Escapes and Subjectivity

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 7, 2016

When I was younger (and sleeping a lot more than I probably needed to), I suffered from insomnia. A lot. Nowadays, I usually only have that problem when my sleep schedule has been seriously messed up … with travel, more often than not… or when I’m sick. When I finally give up on trying to […]

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The Jedi are Mother, the Jedi are Father…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 4, 2016

We’re still in a spoiler-free zone here, as this has nothing to do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, other than having helped inspire this musing. It was also inspired by our Thanksgiving family session of the D20 Star Wars RPG. I haven’t read many of the non-canonical “Expanded Universe” Star Wars books. So a […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life, Movies, Writing - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

The Dream Game

Posted by Rampant Coyote on December 16, 2015

I used to have this recurring dream about an old arcade machine that I’d just discovered, or one that I’d somehow forgotten about. Why an arcade game? I think it’s rooted in that magical era of the arcade. Sort of in the same way we get the (manufactured?) urban legend of Polybius, that era kind […]

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The Void: Welcome to the Future

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 13, 2015

“We played the VR game Dactyl Nightmare back in the 90’s,” I tell the girl who is helping us suit up. “It made us sick.” “That won’t happen now,” she says, and then corrects herself. “I won’t say it never happens, but it almost never happens. This is very different, and it isn’t even the […]

Filed Under: Geek Life, General, Impressions, Tech - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

The Twilight Zone Influence

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 10, 2015

Over the weekend, at the Local Authors & You event, I chatted with author David West for a few minutes. We’d been on the same row at Comic Con a couple of months ago. He also writes some cool, weird stories running across several subgenres of speculative fiction. (His latest anthology was just released a […]

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[Archive] Life Lessons Learned Playing Computer RPGs

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 11, 2015

Note: This article originally appeared in 2006. I was playing a lot of Oblivion at the time, but it included many other RPG life lessons. It’s amazing how much you can learn about Real Life from these games… #1 – People will use really elaborate locks to protect their pickaxes and yarn #2 – Strangers […]

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Salt City Steamfest and Steampunk Video Games

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 15, 2015

I’m going to be at Salt City Steamfest this weekend, Friday and Saturday. I won’t be showing off Frayed Knights 2 or anything, but I will be with the Xchyler Publishing booth selling and signing books, talking to folks, and attending what panels I can. And generally having fun being all steampunk-y. What is “Steampunk?” […]

Filed Under: Books, Geek Life, steampunk - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Giant Robots – Let Them Fight!!!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 6, 2015

Okay, this is just a geeky fun (and a very cool marketing idea). This Japanese company named Suidobashi Industries has has created a giant pilotable robot line called Kuratas. Sadly, on wheels, not walking, though some day we’ll get there. Anyway, it’s a million-plus-dollar robot (if you have that kind of disposable income) with lots […]

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Why “Bad Old Games” Matter

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 3, 2015

Filipe Pepe has an outstanding rant at Gamasutra about the disappearance of games from history. There is a similar article to be found on the subject to be found from Ars Technica. Shamus Young takes an interesting approach towards more recent games – how Windows-era games may soon become impossible to play. As a person […]

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