I tried to make a Community for fun and profit and everyone died [Community Inc.]

Community Inc. is a video game that would fit in a crossroads of genres.

Those genres that Community Inc. bridges are hard to define though they’re mostly exemplified by:

  • Black & White – a God Game Simulator with citizens to tend to and keep happy
  • Viva Piñata – a garden-based life simulator with a community of individuals who each offer something different and outsiders to protect from
  • Sid Meier’s Civilization – a turn-based strategy game centered on world domination via tile acquisition and resource leveling.

tinyBuild tried something different by taking aspects of different kinds of games and putting them into Community Inc. Afterall, Community Inc asks the player to create a whole, fully-functioning community – that they can then sell to new overlords.

The difficulty is that all these aspects are available and in the mix right from the start. Citizens’ happiness, resource planning, enemies, contracts, and more are all fighting for space on the player’s list of things to do. Continue reading “I tried to make a Community for fun and profit and everyone died [Community Inc.]”

The CW's The 100 is…

...Lord of the Flies. The 100 is about a far future where humanity lives on a space station and they send all the delinquent youths back to Earth to determine is the planet is habitable. … Um, they’ve proven they can’t be trusted so you send them on an important mission to see if earth was survivable? Good plan.

Murphy’s Law
Kill the pig!

All the 100 have these wristbands that monitor their vitals and let the folks up on the space station know they’re alive and thriving or dying slowly. Of course the take-charge psycho realizes you can just take the wristbands off and  let the people who “sent then down to die” think they’re dead and dying.

There’s like one black guy and he’s the noble voice of reason. While their leader is all “they’ll make us prisoners and poor again.”

But reason, neither heartfelt nor rage-filled, won’t do much when they have to face Grounders! Whats? People who stayed on Earth and survived by adapting and becoming something no longer human…

Murphy’s Law
We have fundamental, moral differences. Being good is right! Being bad is fun!

So there are a bunch of youths running around on the surface being total assholes while monsters lurk. Some want to be good, some want to be bad. That’s essentially the plot. Also, that’s essentially the plot of Lord of the Flies.

They’re nerds, bullies, brats, and followers. There’s cool kids picking on losers, noble and strong kids trying to do the right things, and a bunch of expendable others to either punch or defend.

There isn’t a conch … actually, the one guy who decided to be in charge has a gun and everyone else has shanks.

We're up here, and they're down there. We should kill people up here so people up here can live. I disagree...
We’re up here, and they’re down there. We should kill people up here so people up here can live.
I disagree…

The unique (and only interesting) aspect is the people on The Arc (Get it? like Noah’s.) trying to survive and figure out what’s going on. The council keeps talking able a culling and the engineers are noticing that that drop ship that was ejected because of a serious malfunction didn’t leave any damage and no one’s heard from any of the prisoners who are under some mysterious quarantine.

Humanity is screwed from above and below. I’m currently rooting for the Grounders to kill the 100 and the engineers to use the fact that they’re THE ENGINEERS on a SPACE STATION to their advantage.

 Here’s the super-long official summary of The 100:

 

Because The CW...
Because The CW…

Ninety-seven years ago, nuclear Armageddon decimated planet Earth, destroying civilization. The only survivors were the 400 inhabitants of 12 international space stations that were in orbit at the time. Three generations have been born in space, the survivors now number 4,000, and resources are running out on their dying “Ark” – the 12 stations now linked together and repurposed to keep the survivors alive. Draconian measures including capital punishment and population control are the order of the day, as the leaders of the Ark take ruthless steps to ensure their future, including secretly exiling a group of 100 juvenile prisoners to the Earth’s surface to test whether it’s habitable. For the first time in nearly a century, humans have returned to planet Earth. Among the 100 exiles are Clarke, the bright teenage daughter of the Ark’s chief medical officer; Wells, son of the Ark’s Chancellor; the daredevil Finn; and the brother/sister duo Bellamy and Octavia, whose illegal sibling status has always led them to flaunt the rules. Technologically blind to what’s happening on the planet below them, the Ark’s leaders – Clarke’s widowed mother, Abby; the Chancellor, Jaha; and his shadowy second in command, Kane – are faced with difficult decisions about life, death and the continued existence of the human race. For the 100 young people on Earth, however, the alien planet they’ve never known is a mysterious realm that can be magical one moment and lethal the next. With the survival of the human race entirely in their hands, THE 100 must find a way to transcend their differences, unite and forge a new path on a wildly changed Earth that’s primitive, intense and teeming with the unknown.

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Book review: The Zona by Nathan L. Yocum

Publisher’s blurb:[1. Review copy provided by Curiosity Quills Press]

It started with the Storms.

The world got too hot too fast. The weather wrecked Hell on man’s shiny, pretty civilization. With the heat and wet came bugs, with bugs came new diseases, and man’s numbers and sanity dwindled.

The survivors reformed governments like petty shadows of the world’s old empires. They sought answers and justifications, they sought redemption for what they perceived as man’s holy smiting.

Welcome to the Arizona Reformed Theocracy, otherwise called The Zona.

Here the Church rules with power absolute. The laws are simple, all sin is punished swiftly. Preachers enforce the Church’s words like old West lawmen.

But what happens when a Preacher refuses to kill? What happens when men of honor take a stand against their rulers?

As I was reading this book, the one thought that kept going through my head was, “Hey look, Ann and I kinda talked about this very setting already.”

Continue reading “Book review: The Zona by Nathan L. Yocum”

Fangirlin' for Jericho

So, remember back in the 90s when Scream was some seriously groundbreaking shit? That was when Skeet Ulrich was famous. It was one of the things that had me puzzled when I started watching Jericho . I knew I’d heard the name but just couldn’t place it. But, once it was placed it was unforgettable. Everything about him just screams, “I love the 90s!” But maybe that’s just what bad boys in the Midwest look like… maybe.

However, Jericho isn’t about Skeet Ulrich’s heroic reascent to become a famous person — because, I’m fairly sure this show didn’t actually make him famous again. According to wikipedia, Jericho is about:

Jericho is an American action/drama series that centers on the residents of the fictional town of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of nuclear attacks on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.

Continue reading “Fangirlin' for Jericho”

5 Reasons Earth Might be Invaded by Aliens

One of the many possible types of possible apocalypses is the vague and terrifying Invasion by Aliens.

Aliens might invade Earth for a number of reasons. These reasons might be tactical, commercial, political, evolutionary, or simply expansionary.

Continue reading “5 Reasons Earth Might be Invaded by Aliens”

Thinking of the apocalypse during the holidays

As I said last week, I’ve got family visiting for the holidays, so I haven’t had much time to do much of anything that doesn’t involve Christmas (or touristy things, hehe). So I thought I’d have to put the apocalypse to rest until January (because the apocalypse needs a holiday too).

Then while putzing around Amazon, I found some Kindle deals, and bought a thriller called The Breach for $0.99. (Haven’t read it? You should. Go read it. I’ll wait. Why are you still reading this post?

GO READ THE BOOK.)

And THEN I discovered that it was the first book in a trilogy. Because of course it is. So I skipped off to the Kindle Store and bought the second book, Ghost Country (at full price). Because of course I did. And guess what?

IT HAS TO DO WITH THE APOCALYPSE.

Because of course it does.

Image from patrickleefiction.com.

Continue reading “Thinking of the apocalypse during the holidays”

The apocalypse: a sudden apocalyptic event or a slow decline?

I generally think about the apocalypse happening in one sudden apocalyptic event that takes everyone by surprise. But what if it doesn’t happen that way? What if the apocalypse is a slow, years-long decline?

After all, in some ways, the fall of the Roman Empire could be considered an apocalyptic event. And the empire’s decline took a long time, since it technically didn’t fall until Constantinople fell in 1453 (though, okay, the Western Roman Empire was in serious decline and almost completely taken over by Germanic tribes by the end of the 5th century).

Anyway. A slow decline or a sudden event—what’s better? Personally, I don’t know. They’ve each got their pros and cons. Let’s go over them quickly, so we can all secretly hope for one kind over the other.

Continue reading “The apocalypse: a sudden apocalyptic event or a slow decline?”