Brilliant article on the Life Hacker website about budgeting your hobbies.
It’s an excellent read and I’m up for getting organised, I’m going to try it out.
The article is here: http://lifehacker.com/5921991/a-geeks-guide-to-budgeting-hobbies
DG
The Escapist website have produced a unboxing video of the new D&D Monster Vault from the Essentials Line.
As well as producing some brilliant video reviews of crappy computer games with Zero Punctuation there is some excellent articles. Go and visit.
There are a lot of highly talented people on the web producing quality videos for our entertainment.
James Rolfe is one of these people. His love of film (and random other film formats) really shine through in his videos and it looks like he loves Hero Quest about as much as I do.
Check out his Hero Quest video here:
His website is at http://www.cinemassacre.com/.
His youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd.
While you are on his site also check out the brilliant Angry Video Game Nerd videos, but watch out for the shitpickle.
Looking for a great podcast about gaming? Then you need to check out the little metal dog show on iTunes. Produced by a fellow Brit Michael Fox who makes podcasting sound easy, but take it from me it’s not. Michael has a talent to make it sounds awesome with brilliant interviews and news about the gaming scene.
There is also a great looking website with some nice game reviews. Visit the website at http://littlemetaldog.wordpress.com/ and the link to the new episode of his podcast is at http://littlemetaldog.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/podcast-episode-7-now-available/.
Download it to you mp3 player now and listen to one of the best resources for gaming on the web.
Drunken Goblin is throwing its full support behind the PIP (Play In Public) Campaign.
Boardgames mean a lot to me. They mark a large change in my life style and I wanted to give something back to the hobby, this was one of the reason that I started the Drunken Goblin website.
I was a computer nerd right through secondary school, sat alone in my bedroom typing away on my ZX Spectrum+ playing as many Ocean games as I could get my hands on (Robocop & Batman the Movie, best games ever!). So I sat there day after day playing computergames late into the night, sleeping, getting up, rewinding the tape and starting again.
I now feel that I missed out on quite a bit of my childhood. My fondest memory’s are playing in the woods at the end of the road where I lived, making bows from sticks tied together with fishing string I nicked from my dads shed, donkey elastic catapults, Dutch arrows. Those memory’s always stick with me and even today I always want to play a Ranger with a bow.
The other problem with sitting in a darkened room day after day (can’t have the sun glaring on the screen now can we!) is that your weight balloons. I got up to an impressive 21 stone 3lbs at my heaviest, then I started playing boardgames at the age of 30 and things started to change. Why would THAT make a change I hear you ask? Well it introduced me to the social side of gaming. I was going out and meeting people face to face and became more conscious of my size and the effects my lifestyle was having on the people I loved.
So I started reading an inspirational and brilliant blog written by Veronica Noone at ronisweigh.com and I relised that I could do something about my weight. So I started playing badminton with friends from roleplay and recently I joined a gym.
Me…..joining a gym…..GET OUT OF HERE!
I have currently lost over five and a half stone and I am happier with my life style. I also get to play games with other brilliant people in a relaxed environment. I go to gaming conventions, I now enjoy camping and I want to kayak. Where will it end? Who knows but its going to be a fun journey.
I will be supporting the Play In Public Campaign.
Want to know more about the campaign then follow this link:
Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen the new issue of Thru-the-Portal is available for download.
There is some great articles in this quarters issue:
And if thats not enough how about some reviews of:
So go and support a brilliant gaming magazine click the link here.
I’m always on the look out for gamers in the UK so when I came across this website I was beside myself.
So if you want more information about boardgames from someone in the UK?
You quest has been successful why not try…
Why are you still here?….go check it out.
No need to thank me, your welcome!
Excelsior! Comics an independent comics store here in Bristol, which also has a nice selection of roleplay books and board games, have just let me know they have just launched a brilliant new website & forum.
http://www.excelsiorcomics.co.uk/
Why are you waiting? Go and join the forum….NOW!
While re-organising my game collection I came across these boards I made about a year ago. I’m a massive fan of the board game descent and while browsing the web I came across Hirst Arts moulds. Using just simple plaster with these moulds you can create some brilliant 3d terrain to bring your games to life.
First I read the tutorial here on their site about how to use the moulds and then the tutorial on making the descent boards here. Then I got out my credit card and within 3 weeks the moulds were in my hands. You can get these quicker by ordering from the UK on ebay but I was so eager at the time I just ordered straight from the Hirst website without looking for other suppliers.
With the two moulds for descent you can make any amount of dungeon flooring that you need as long as you have plaster. I made a massive amount of the tiles and it still was not enough to make all the boards for Descent: Journeys in the dark, let alone all the expansions that I own.
To make these boards I used a thin piece of plywood and secured the tiles with simple white craft glue. This glue is brilliant for this task as you can move the tiles around while the glue is wet to make sure they are perfectly aligned then I added smaller modelling stones if I think the board needed it.. The other nice thing about this glue is that when it dry’s it loses all it’s colour and becomes clear.
Once I was happy with the position of the tiles I then left the boards overnight to make sure that the glue completely dried. The next step is to paint the boards. I used a dark green to under-coated the whole board then dry brusehed with a 
beige colour. Then to highlight the raised areas I used white, dry brushed very lightly, on top of the beige.
I added grass in the deep pits just to give the boards some life as they can look all the same if your not careful. I also changed areas by placing blood trails and wooden boards over some of the holes.
The moulds also give you some extra accessories like doors and treasures for your game. If you are serious about making terrain for your games then you cant go far wrong with these moulds but I did find that the price of all the plaster can mount up quite quickly.
If you are into gaming then you will probably already know about Boardgamegeek. If not then you are missing out on one of the best websites for gaming ever made. With a massive user base there’s tonnes of user created content and as many reviews as one person can handle.
They are also moving into role-playing games as well which is a fantastic move.
Visit the site http://www.boardgamegeek.com/