The Secret Life of Board Games
October 17th, 2011

Posted by Matt

Hi adventurers! Use your move action to head over to The Escapist by clicking this link, and watch this week’s video! (We’ll count the click as free).

This week’s video was written by Graham, and features the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons board game Legend of Drizzt heavily. We’ve fallen in love with these games since Jer got a copy of Wrath of Ashardalon, so it was only a matter of time before they ended up in a video in one form or another. This, as it turns out, is the final result. Graham had the following to say about the writing process:

I think everyone, regardless of what game they’re playing, has at some point given little voices and characters to their play piece. Even if its something as simple as giving revving and screeching noises to the race car in Monopoly. Come on… we’ve all been there.

Going from that, I thought that turning a game filled with as much magic as the D&D board games into “just another day at the office” seemed like a fun idea.

I like that Gary and Dave dislike Ronny not because he’s a big scary half-spider creature (who, in the game, is legitimately a difficult enemy), but because he’s a dick. Then, adding the little cutaways to other games just fell into place. Originally we’d wanted Clue and Snakes & Ladders (“Now it’s Snakes & Ladders & Spiders, bitches!”), but we couldn’t get a hold of them, so Chess and Robo Rally were the replacements.

Unskippable this week was Drakengard 2. You’ll find that video here.

Over on PATV, you’ll find this week’s Checkpoint – once again featuring our good friend Justin McElroy, of Joystiq.

Cheers!

Cruise Vacation
October 10th, 2011

Posted by Matt

CONGRATULATIONS! You, lucky winner, are about to receive an ALL EXPENSES PAID, ROUND-TRIP FOR ONE, to OUR NEW VIDEO! (click here for details).

This video was shot about a week or so ago, and as it happened, on a weekend when both James and Kathleen were out of town. This left a skeleton crew of myself, Paul and Graham to take care of this video, and with one person being responsible for the camera, and another for the boom, we had to call in some friends! So this week you get a dose of Missie and Cam, who don’t show up in videos nearly often enough. The script this week was written by Paul, and the video was shot mostly on location at one of our many favourite haunts, Graham’s parents’ house. Amusingly, they were on vacation in England when this video was shot, and after we inadvertently set off the house alarm when we got there, we had to call them in order to figure out how to turn it off. We’re awesome at this.

Unskippable this week was Space Marine. You can view that here.

Checkpoint is online as well, with Episode 23: HD Remix.

Finally, please note that our new tee-shirt is up for pre-order, if you love Magic: the Gathering (and we hope you do!) you’re sure to love this shirt as well.

Cheers!

Me Again
October 3rd, 2011

Posted by Matt

This video is not from the future. You should still probably check it out.

The video was written by Graham this week, and he has provided the following write-up, for your reading pleasure!

As with Rent, this video comes straight out of a conversation. I’m not sure who was there, but I think Kathleen and James were involved. Basically the “did I lose my fashion sense?!” line was the catalyst, leading to the “that’s next year!” exchange.

Once I started writing I went from there and basically freeformed this bizzarre conversation. The ending was tricky. I was trying to avoid two (what I felt to be) obvious endings.

The first was that Future John was just messing with John, which I avoided by having John straight-up acuse Future John of such. The second was that everything Future John says is true, which seemed too easy to me.

So I wrote this dark ending with Future John (revealed to actually be John’s twin brother, Brian) vaguely referencing some problem John has, and the “future-self therapy”.

Paul (rightly) thought it was a little too far of a stretch and combined what I call “The Brazil Ending” with my second outcome from above, into a no less dark and weird ending, but one that at least has more connection to the rest of the video.

Oh, and why Jimmy Fallon? No idea. Seemed funny at the time.

Unskippable this week sees the return of the ever-unfortunate Metroid: Other M

Finally, Checkpoint investigates the failures of Final Fantasy.

Cheers!

Duty Calls
September 26th, 2011

Posted by Matt

Hark, travellers!  I have for you a divine quest.  Follow this holy link, and the LRRd shall reward you with comedy!

And lo, Kathleen did write:

So this week’s video was inspired by an off handed comment I made while Graham, Cam, Alex, Jess and I played a game of Commander. I mentioned that I wanted to do a D&D campaign, but only if my character could be really resistant to the whole questing aspect. Not a coward, but someone who despite a less than noble background wasn’t at all stupid and wasn’t really into the idea of being sent on some gloriously dangerous quest. After realizing that that would make a terrible D&D campaign I decided to write a video about it instead. The ending was terribly difficult to write, so I would like to say while I get the writing credit, Paul and Graham helped me arrive at the ending, and Graham wrote the stinger. Originally I had wanted Graham to play Gabriel, but as it turns out, it’s hard to find an angel costume for a man. A quick gender switch later and we were ready to go.

On any heavenly quest, hellish abominations are sure to appear. I think this week’s Unskippable counts. Metroid: Other M (Part 1)

And finally, Checkpoint seeks the wisdom of a new prophet, to tell us great stories of Sony’s acts. Featuring a guest appearance by Justin McElroy of Joystiq.

Cheers!

Annette – Internet Receptionist
September 19th, 2011

Posted by Matt

The LRR video for the week is online and ready to watch! You can find it right here.

So, you may note from the credits of this video that it was written (in part) by none other than the video’s co-star and our good friend Andy Cownden! On top of writing the video itself, he was also kind enough to write a paragraph about his part in the writing process! I’ve included that below.

Back in June, I had this idea for a sketch. It had one location with one actor and was therefore the perfect sort of script for Loading Ready Run. The problem was, I was only able to write two pages of one-liners and two pages is not quite long enough for a LRR sketch. Dissatisfied, I sent it along to Graham and Paul anyway, hoping they might be able to do something with it. Naturally, we all forgot about it. The other day when I was visiting from Vancouver, I brought it out again at the Moonbase. Paul sat down with it, added enough lines to flesh it out and we shot it all on the same day. I was immensely pleased with both Paul’s new material as well as Kathleen’s performance.

Unskippable this week features everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog in Sonic and the Black Knight.

And Checkpoint is tackling some hard hitting questions (and birds) over on PATV.

Cheers!