Author: ctrlalttabby@comcast.net

HISHE

In the world of obsessive fandom (where I have been stranded for years), sometimes we like to write our own endings for films. Sometimes, it’s because we think that our ending makes more sense, and sometimes it’s just plain funny. HISHE (How It Should Have Ended) uses a combination of both in their videos. I don’t think I need to say this, but I will anyways: these videos contain spoilers, so don’t watch them if you don’t want to know how the film ends.

I first ran into HISHE years ago, when my mother showed me the Frozen HISHE. Since then, I’ve scrolled through on my own, watching as many videos as I could. They’ve created two new places, the Super Café and the Villain Pub. At the end of the video, if the good guys win, they frequently hang out at the Super Café with Superman and Batman.  If the villain wins, they can be seen bragging about it to the others at the Villain Pub. Each of these settings also has their own little compilation of videos, grouping together all of the clips from the previous videos (Super Café 1, Super Café 2, Villain Pub.)

When they’re not busy rewriting stories and pulling running gags (“Because I’m Batman!”), HISHE also does musical parodies. There’s the Sound of Violence (Batman, compilation), Here Comes My Arrow (Yondu, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2) which is actually the extended version of the one that played in the video, Not Worthy (Thor, compilation), and The 12 Days of Christmas (Villains in Villain Pub, assorted films).

You may have noticed that the videos I linked to have different styles of HISHE logos before them. So far, my favorite is the one that appears in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and Spider-Man Homecoming.

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Guillotine

Off with their heads! No, you don’t get to behead your opponents. Yes, you do get to compete over who can behead the most important people in France. Yes, there are a lot of puns. No, King Louie is only worth 5 points, not 12.Guillotine

In my Social Studies class, we recently had a discussion about the French Revolution, so naturally, when my mother and I were trying to decide what game to play, I suggested Guillotine. Ironically, while I remembered the history behind the game, I didn’t actually remember the mechanics of the game itself. I have, of course, remedied that.

I would call this game straightforward, except the line of people awaiting beheading keeps shuffling… after all, nobody wants to be that one executioner who kills the Hero of the People (Yeah, that’s a card. He’s a -3 pointer, too.) You do, however, want to be the one to kill Marie Antoinette, King Louie, or even just that poor unlucky Cardinal who happened to be in France at the time (the religious figure, not the bird. I’m not even sure if a cardinal is large enough to behead properly in a guillotine. Perhaps a miniature guillotine?).

Anyways, the question becomes, if you don’t want to get stuck with the Martyr, how do you manage to kill somebody else? Well, there’s always the possibility that your designated Martyr Trips (Move any Noble back one space) and you end up with that Unpopular Judge instead, who, while not necessarily the best choice, is worth much more than that Martyr (It’s a matter of -1 point versus 2 points).

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Crossy Road

The other day, I was on my phone playing a game called Crossy Road when my mother looked over my shoulder and said, “Wait… you’ve downloaded Frogger?” I was naturally confused, as to me, Frogger is the game where you all sit in a circle with the “Detective” in the center, and the “Frogger” sticks their tongue out at the other individuals in the circle, causing the others to “die” while trying not to get caught by the detective.

So, as I have found to be wise when I am utterly confused, I asked her what she meant and then showed her how the game I was playing worked. She has since downloaded the game, which I take to be a good sign.

Crossy Road appIn Crossy Road, you pilot your avatar (the starter is a chicken) across roads and rivers, avoiding many different obstacles, such as various speeds of cars and trucks, getting run over by speedy trains and jumping into an icy river in an attempt to cross it.

You play daily challenges, which can be anything from frightening three birds (background scenery; I barely noticed them until I got one of these challenges) to hopping four hundred times (every time you move is counted as a “hop”). To move forwards, you can just tap the screen, and if you want to move sideways or backwards you swipe in that direction.

Challenges and daily prizes give you “gifts”, which you open to receive a randomized quantity of coins. You can also get coins by jumping on them during the game. Once you get one hundred coins, you can “win a prize”, which is where you win a randomized avatar.

The avatars are grouped by category. I’ve been mainly using the Arctic setting since near the very beginning, when I won an Arctic fox, then later on an Arctic hare, and I believe my default right now is a puffin.

Every map has it’s quirks. the Savanna has ridiculously breakneck fast tourist buses, Australia has alligators in place of some logs that can snap up and eat you if you jump too close to their head, and Pac-Man has ghosts to avoid instead of cars, but don’t be fooled by the little pellets that Pac-Man eats in standard Pac-Man: they’re just for show.

Each avatar has it’s quirks, too. The pumpkin leaves a trail of candy that falls out of its top every time it jumps, the vampire spontaneously turns into a bat and then turns back, and if you have your volume on, you can hear that the piper really does play bagpipes!

Some of the avatars are awesome, some are strange, some are adorable, and some are downright impossible! There’s 3.1, the computer; the African termite, which is kind of freaky due to the blocky animations; the baby animals category, which has fawns and iguana hatchlings and baby bunnies… so downright cute; and somehow the plate of kimchi is able to move independently?

Woah, look at me… I haven’t even told you the goal of the game! It’s a game against yourself, so your goal is to beat your highscore, and possibly those on the leaderboard, if you’re more ambitious than I am.

You can also play multiplayer if the other players are using the same router as you are, in which case the goal is to see how far you can make it as a team.

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Are You Phrazy… Holiday Edition!

I’ve already told you about the original Are You Phrazy, but what about the holiday version? Are You Phrazy? Carols Edition

If you didn’t read the previous post, and you don’t want to do so now, let me summarize: Are You Phrazy is a speed word game, where on your turn you play one of the cards in your hand, unless somebody else can match the previous card played, in which case if they say theirs before you say yours than play goes to the person directly after them. The goal is to be the first person without any cards left.

The holiday edition of Are You Phrazy is pretty much the same as the original, except for the messages on the cards. All of the messages are direct quotes from Christmas songs, like “Pa rum pum pum pum” and “You would even say it glows.”

After playing this version of Are You Phrazy, we revisited the original, and I determined that I preferred this one. I found the original to be less amusing than the holiday version, and also slightly ruder (You’ll never find a “Talk to the hand” or “Can the chatter” card in the holiday deck, because you’d never find either of those in a Christmas carol).

Also, a lot of the original Are You Phrazy lines are quotes from 80’s and 90’s TV shows, so I didn’t understand the humor involved.

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Mad Libs, the card game!

I’m sure most of you have played the original Mad Libs, where they have a whole story and you fill in the spaces with whatever words you please, but have you ever played the card game?Mad Libs the Game

I first tried this version of Mad Libs a year ago at DorkStock (see that post here) when I was hanging out with the Looney’s. Instead of answering with whatever word you want, you have to choose one of the words in your hand. Each card has a word and all of its conjugations, which you match accordingly to the conjugations required on the card.

The results are hilarious. “He who strikes last strikes best, but he who lives by the mud shall die by the mud.” Wait… what?

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Wicked (Minimal Spoilers)

Today, we rode the train into the city to go to my first ever showing of Wicked! I had been listening to the soundtrack in my mother’s car for years, but I had never actually seen the show itself. Before we went to the actual performance, we went to this great all-you-can-eat sushi place a few blocks away. It was delicious!

But back to the show: I was ecstatic to be finally seeing it! I knew a lot of the plot from inferences that I made based off of the music, but there were still plenty of surprises throughout! The performers did a great job, and the way they did everything from Glinda’s bubble to the flying monkeys were extraordinary.

But the shining star of the day was the plot line itself. The intricate, twisted plot is interwoven with the traditional Wizard of Oz, and the connecting points shed more light on the original character while introducing a few more. The best part for me, however, was the drastic character development that took place throughout the story. The best example of this was probably Fiyero, who also happens to be my favorite character.

I tried to make sure not to include any spoilers in this post, but I extend my apologies if I did spoil anything. I thought that this production went above and beyond my expectations, and hope that you look into it!

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Superfight

Superfight: aka the strangest argument you’ve ever been a party to! Where the group discussion isn’t what toppings should be on the pizza, but whether one hundred Genghis Khans with a battleship would be able to defeat a steel, fire-breathing dinosaur skeleton*.Superfight

In Superfight you are drawing three objects (mostly people), like MacGyver or Ghandi, and three descriptions, like “has a puppy gun” or “can remain invisible as long as they hold their breath”. You take the character of your choice as well as two descriptions, one of your preference and one random.

Everybody reveals their strange, deadly combinations, and then the argument commences! It’s best to play this game with somebody sitting on the side as the Judge, because otherwise you may never reach a consensus. The debate is about which one would be best able to defeat the others, and it can get pretty silly! For instance, my fire-breathing Hulk with a portal gun managed to defeat my mother’s acid-spitting, neurotoxin-emitting demon because I just summoned the Bifrost** or something similar and teleported her away!

On occasion, the card turns up where there are multiple interpretations thereof. For instance, my cousin insisted that his “can control all animals” card included humans, since we are animals, and when I played the character “Mr. Rogers”, I insisted that it was Mr. Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (played by Chris Evans in the MCU).

In the end, it’s not about who wins, but who can claim and defend the title of the craziest, silliest, most overpowered being in the history of Superfight***!

 

*Yes, this was a real scenario.

**Thor can handle an acid-spitting, neurotoxin-emitting demon, right?

***There is no documented record of the actual craziest, silliest, and most overpowered combination that has been drawn.

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Happy Holidays!

Alright, we’re taking a new twist this week. Instead of me rambling incessantly over some game, person or event, I want you to leave me a comment telling me about one of your favorite things. It could be anything: a game, book, toy, person, group of people, or a memorable event. I’d love to hear what you all have to say!

Happy Holidays and may the force be with you!

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Crazy Ates

Yes, you read that right. Crazy Ates, not Crazy Eights. Most of you know the original, Crazy Eights, with the boring numbers, but Crazy Ates steps it up a level: each number has a food allocated to it!Crazy Ates

Possibly my favorite is 10, the banana split. But what’s really fun is when you add the colors. You know how in Crazy Eights, there are colors as well as numbers to match? Hopefully, you know what I’m talking about. Anyways, something my cousins and I like to do is think of a food of that color and add it to the dish of that number. For example, a blue number 3 could be the blue cheese burger. Or a purple 9 could be an eggplant quiche. It adds just a little more flavor to the original play.

8 stands as the wild card, depicted by a steak with ice cream on top (please don’t ask). If you don’t have a matching number or color to the card in play as of your turn, you can play your favorite dead cow topped with dairy to get you out of drawing! The goal of the game is to be the first person without any cards left.

Both the Crazy Eights and Crazy Ates are simple and good for little kids while not being brain-numbingly boring for the adults. There’s still a level of strategy involved, even if it is pretty small.

 

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Terraforming Mars

One of those things that we all love to fantasize about. Or at least, I do. Because honestly, who doesn’t want to imagine turning a desolate, uninhabitable planet into a technological wonder?Terraforming Mars

In Terraforming Mars, each player represents a corporation that is helping in the terraforming process. They are competing to help the most (tracked as points) in order to gain more government funding.

The terraforming process itself has three necessities. Oxygen, heat and water. To make these, you play cards out of your hand that increase your steel, titanium, plant, energy, heat and money productions. You use the money to do this, which is why you (of course) want as much money as possible.

Some cards just require money, but some require specific things that you have to discard or simply have in front of you.  This is where you have to be really careful and smart about how you play (Munchkin skills help with that). Other cards can only be played when the conditions are right. For instance, some cards (Livestock, I believe) can only be played when there is at least 7% oxygen. The game ends when the planet is technically habitable, or -if you’re playing alone- when you hit a certain amount of generations (turns).

If there was one thing I could change about this game, it would be to add a cooperative version. As fun as it is to be competing corporations, I would like to believe that in the event of a terraforming mission we would work together.

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