Tomfhaines

Felicia Day was kind enough to reserve some time for a press conference during DragonCon 2015. Fortunately, for me anyway, only two reporters, myself and Eris Walsh, showed up so we were able to have a fun, intimate chat with Day.

Day walked in and started right in with a great quote.

Felicia Day: Yesterday, the quote of the day was, “If you skin me, I would be a pale palette. I would be like a white knight armor.” Because my ass is really white.

Eris Walsh: Believe me, I feel you. All of my pigment is fake.

FD: At least you have a little pink. I’m the color of dead things. You probably want to get to the parade.

EW: There’s so many people.

FD: It’s really a lot of people.

GeekDad: It’s actually kind of nice not being in the crowd for once.

—

Only two of us had shown up on time. DragonCon media relations then locked the door.

—

FD: So you’re from Mary Sue. Where are you from?

GD: GeekDad

FD: GeekDad. So Marvel’s f—ed?

DragonCon: We keep notes on who shows up and who doesn’t so…

FD: Really? They enter a blacklist? This is the most fascinating part of this interview! It’s the DragonCon Press Blacklist.

DC: Yeah, if they’re really bad, we blacklist them. When you get an opportunity like this where it’s only three reporters, it’s very different from a large press conference.

FD: Yeah, that’s true.

DC: Because we don’t want to waste your time either.

FD: Yeah, that’s true, we all could be sleeping.

DC: Or if they ask really horrible, personal questions.

FD: Oh well that’s good. What’s the worst thing anybody’s ever done?

DC: This was several years ago, and we used to let college kids come in to interview. This guy came in dressed as the Riddler, full spandex. And it was Billy West. Billy West just talks. He’s amazing. And Billy West was so uncomfortable. The questions were so awkward. After five minutes I just said, “We’re done.” There was another reporter who was going around asking people about how they live in their mom’s basement and when was the last time you showered.

FD: What? That’s horrible.

DC: Or we had a reporter who had a gag where he would ask people questions and then smack them in the face with the microphone.

FD: I know that guy. That guy is a husband of somebody who I know, and I’ve never liked what he’s done. And it’s very awkward.

EW: That’s technically assault!

FD: I agree with you.

DC: So, yeah, we blacklist them because we protect our members, our guests, and the fan experience.

FD: Yeah, you should. This is what I love about DragonCon. This is my favorite con. It’s much different from Comic Con. I don’t know. I like some aspects of Comic Con just because I have a business, so I see it differently. I don’t know if I’d want to be a consumer at Comic Con versus here. It’s not the same.

EW: I don’t know if I’d ever go to SDCC without a press badge. I would never pay to go.

FD: It’s too much and too many people who are just motivated to get Hasbro toys. That’s all they want you know.

EW: Just go to Toys R Us. It’s cool.

FD: You don’t have to try to punch somebody for a Barbie.

GD: I’m surprised nobody got hurt yesterday.

FD: What happened yesterday?

GD: The Force Friday thing.

FD: Oh yeah.

EW: I was particularly wondering about Charlie and there’s been a lot of like “They keep killing off all the female characters.” How do you feel about it? Was that your idea or was it the writers’ idea?

FD: No, it wasn’t my idea, but being somebody who is in front of and behind the camera I understand the need for a show to run the way a show needs to run. So I, of course, as an actor, was like, “Oh I’m sad” because I love being a part of that family for four years, but I can’t begrudge anyone who wants to kill me off. I’m kind of the Sean Bean of women now. I’m being killed by the best, so I try to look at it as a compliment. Personally, I would love to see more diversity on television both behind and in front of the camera. I hope for this next season of Supernatural they introduce more women characters or diverse characters. I think Sam and Dean need to be supported, and I love the fact that Charlie supported them, and they formed a little bit of a family together. I’m excited to see what they come up with. I can be sad that I don’t get to go and work on that wonderful set anymore, but I have to completely trust that the writers are doing the best that they can do with the tools that they have and the characters that they have. I try to be positive and look and say, “Hey I get to be on a different show now.” The good thing is you’re always part of the family.

EW: I’m sure the fans are never going to let Charlie go.

FD: That’s a beautiful thing. And that’s really a testament to the writing. Robbie Thompson wrote every episode except the last one that I was in, and it’s very hard to create a character that fans instantly like. Especially that fanbase. The Supernatural fanbase is very protective of their lore and their characters. To be welcomed into that family was kind of amazing. What do you do? Next job!

EW: What is the next job?

FD: Right now I have Con Man coming out. I’ve been concentrating on my book (You’re Never Weird on the Internet, Almost) for two years. It’s been a really long process. I’m not the kind of person who can juggle seven things at once. I mean I do juggle seven things at once because I run a company, and I oversee all the productions on that creatively, but personally I can only focus on one or two things at a time that I own, in a sense. Now that my book is coming to a close, I have a pilot that I’ve written that I’m shopping around to get made somehow. Once I get home I’m going to be pretty excited about looking for new opportunities. I get offered to be on shows a lot, and now I can finally say, “Yeah! I can be part of that family now.” It’s hard to cleave your attention especially when you’re in a show that has that sort of fandom aspect. You want to belong to that one. Otherwise it feels like dating someone else at the same time.

GD: Staying on the TV topic, are there any shows that you like watching that you feel have good strong female characters?

FD: Obviously, I love Amy Schumer. I love Girls. I loved it in the beginning. I tend to fall off a wagon and not get back on with shows, and it’s nothing personal to any show. I loved the first season of Sleepy Hollow. I love that character. She’s kind of a revolutionary character. They don’t necessarily have a romantic relationship. I think getting away from women only as romantic relationships is a key to progressing because women can be platonic friends with guys. They can be platonic friends with women. In TV land, not really.

GD: *cough* The Flash.

FD: So I love the fact that you can have a woman who is independent and have a guy friend, and they don’t need to be romantically linked. I thought that that was a great show. My favorite show lately is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. Although the female characters are pretty disempowered in that, it’s so artfully done as a character study, and they were interesting characters. His wife was a very strong personality, and the woman who was captured… I don’t want to spoil anything, but they were key to the journey at least.

EW: Are there any downsides to having written the book? I’ve heard people say, “She’s really young to have written an autobiography.”

FD: A lot of people have said that, but then nobody has said that after reading the book. I think the cool part of it is that I’m much older than the YouTubers who are doing books now and talking about their digital lives. We’ve all grown up in this really formative time, so you can be any age, and you can offer your experience. The coolest thing about the book is that I’ve seen so many younger girls come up to me and tell me how important and empowering the book was to them to be themselves. Especially when you’re that age, you get a lot of peer pressure to conform to this idea of femininity and how women achieve things which is usually through ability and attractiveness and getting rid of the things that make you different in order to be attractive to men. I think, for me, to empower people to be weird and not to abandon the things that make them different in order to conform is a good step forward. Being my age, hopefully they are able to relate to me a little bit more because I’m telling a journey that’s not five steps away from them. They may have grown up on my work–five years on the internet and if they’re 10 or 15, they grew up on my work–and I used to shy away from that like, “Oh my god, I’m old!” But not really when you think about in the digital world most of the audience is young. I just encourage people to be as weird as they want to be and to not get rid of the things that make them special especially to conform to the stereotypes the world is telling us to be.

GD: Was there any one thing that made you want to do the book now?

FD: I describe this in the book, but I had a very bad nervous breakdown physically and mentally. I really had a horrible time, and I almost didn’t come out of it in a lot of ways. I almost quit. There were a lot of branching storylines I could have followed in the RPG of my life. Because I decided to stick with it and was able to emerge from it a much stronger person and a much healthier person I really did want to relay some of the things I learned to help other people if they find themselves in that lost place. I wanted to make people laugh because I love Tina Fey, and I love Mindy Kaling, and I loved their biographies. And I knew that I wanted to do something like that. But at the same time I really wanted it to mean something to somebody else. Our creativity isn’t about ourselves. It’s about other people. Our life journeys should be about sharing our experiences with other people and it helping steer their lives in small ways or large. We’re not about ourselves. We’re about what we express and how we affect others. If you think about life like that, it’s important to get your voice out there. Because I had gone through very many traumatic things that I wish I had known or that somebody had shown me an example of so that it would have occurred to me during the journey, “Oh you could have just done this.” We have blinders on a lot in life, and the more you can see different representations, the more you have possibilities for yourself. Hopefully there are a couple of nuggets in my book that open doors for people that wouldn’t have occurred to them before.

EW: You mentioned the RPG of your life. How many games do you actually get a chance to play? And which ones do you like?

FD: The good thing is that I fell in love with Twitch streaming last year. I started playing for myself only. Nothing to do with my company. Nothing to do with anything business-wise. I just needed to do something that got me back to my roots of doing what I love which is talking to a small community online. I was so inspired by the community building aspects of that platform because on YouTube it felt like I was diving into a pool of a lot of beautiful fish but there are a lot of piranhas too. And there’s no way to get rid of the piranhas. Nobody is empowered with the tools on that platform to really craft a community that anybody you meet in the comments you’d want to meet in person. And Twitch does have those. I love the idea of just logging on and seeing the same people over and over. And I wanted to extend that to my company because that’s really what I wanted to start the company for. I wanted to have a community building aspect where people who loved The Guild could continue with my work in other areas and stay together. YouTube just didn’t provide that for a lot of reasons.So I turned that into a whole business for Geek & Sundry, and we stream like six days a week, and it’s really awesome, but I still do my own stuff. I try to stream twice a week for myself which is really fun–once with my brother and once just me. And then when I’m really stressed out I play video games. Lately I’ve been playing The Witcher 3 which has some very interesting storytelling, but I really love it. The quests and the transportation system is so efficient that it should be a standard because you don’t have to waste time. You get on your horse, you fast travel, and it’s like, “Wow, why did I ever commute in a video game?” I’m also a big fan of indie games, and I really like to champion them. I love storytelling based roleplaying games. I love the Telltale Games because, again, it’s story-based. A lot of indie games have a lot of story to them or ambience that’s really unique. If you’re a lone developer in Sweden, and if I play your game and get ten more people to play it I feel like I’m doing good for the world.

EW: Do you get to play any tabletop games or is it just video games?

FD: When I’m in town more I have a monthly game. My brother comes out once a month or once every month and a half to record Co-optitude which is a show I just do for fun with him on YouTube. Every time he would come out, I would have board game night, so I’d invite my friends over, and we’d play. I love board games. It’s not something I ever loved before I started doing Tabletop with Wil (Wheaton). He really introduced me to that whole world, and the fact that his enthusiasm made me enthusiastic which made me enthusiastic to share it with everybody was really a big driving force in the last couple of years of my life. To discover all these amazing games and have this thing that brings friends together and screaming at people not to get pizza grease on the pieces, “Sleeve that card!” It’s the funnest ever, and it’s hard to justify getting together and just hanging out with friends. I don’t really see the point sometimes in that, but if we have a game we can focus on that.

GD: Speaking of Wil, I have my Wesley Crusher socks on.

FD: Oh wow. The secret Wesley Crusher socks!

GD: Who is more fun to beat at a game, Wil or Ryon (her brother)? You beat both of them pretty regularly.

FD: Yeah, I beat both of them. It’s fun to beat my brother because I’ve been beating him up all my life. He’s not a very competitive person. But Wil treats me like a little sister sometimes, and I really love that. I’m the kind of the person who likes to fight really hard so very often his skill is very, very high. When I can sort of slip around and surprise him from the back of his head that makes me feel like an annoying little sister annoying her older brother, so I guess beating Wil is pretty fun because I’m not as used to it. It’s a bigger victory.

EW: Completely off topic, but I have an issue with first person shooters. I can’t play them. I just can’t control them. Stairs are the enemy. My friend and I filmed it because it’s that ridiculous. We played Halo and his wife suggested we played PVP.

FD: Oh no. That’s not cool!

EW: It was hilarious, but it did not end well.

FD: I don’t know why games became associated with first person shooters. That’s really what drives a lot of the “you’re not a gamer” thing. And I don’t understand because there are so many different kinds of games, and also that wasn’t the original kind of game. It’s just a type of game. Why that became the definitive sort of “this is the architecture of gaming–everything else is other.” It doesn’t make sense to me, and it’s really myopic and ignorant in a sense. You can’t just say one type of media is TV, like, only one hour drama is TV, and everything else is crap. No. There’s all sorts of TV. And that’s what I like to see–that all different types of games can be equally lauded and more than defining a game as being good at headshotting someone.

EW: When the statistics came out that women are huge gamers people kept saying “Well that’s not real games.” Especially cell phone games. It’s still a game!

FD: It’s very easy to define gameplay, and that’s a game. It’s just a way for people to cling to their superiority and defining the world of games, but pretty soon it’s going to be a moot point because there’s so many more women playing games that it can’t even be an exception. I would love that to happen with female directors–that there are so many that we don’t need to point it out anymore. Soon! I think way less soon than the definition of gamer.

GD: What’s your favorite thing you’ve learned on The Flog of all the stuff that you’ve done?

FD: Oh, that’s a good question. Let’s see. I loved blacksmithing because it was dangerous, and I really like making things, and that’s really satisfying. I just recently did a pole dancing class which has a lot of views for the obvious YouTube reasons, but at the same time it was really fun. It was way more fun because I love the merry-go-round at the playground and basically it’s that. It was a safe place where you could really have fun and not feel like you’re being sexual, or dirty, or trying to entice somebody else. It’s not about other people. You can actually have sexuality for yourself which is not something that’s a foreign concept to me but in actuating that I was like, “Hey, I’m just going to have fun for me. This is not about you.” And a lot of that we live with everyday. We feel responsible for our sexuality because of the way it affects other people. I think that’s really stupid because that other person should have control of themselves. They are just as much of an adult, and I shouldn’t have to curb all of my behavior based on their inability to curb theirs.

EW: That’s a basic concept that can be applied to pretty much everything.

FD: Pretty much everything! But unfortunately it isn’t a lot. Anyway, it was fun. It was fun to spin around on the pole and get sick.

EW: Did you get sick?

FD: Definitely. I don’t deal with vertigo very well. When they unplugged the pole you can make it spin really fast. You unplug it, and it becomes a revolving–it goes crazy fast! It’s kind of terrifying but fun, but then at the end I was like, “Oh boy, this was like being on a Six Flags ride I didn’t want to be on.” I think if I’d done it a couple more times maybe I’d get used to it.

GD: It’s a really good episode. It’s amazing how, that episode especially, in such a short amount of time, someone can watch you go through being super uncomfortable at the beginning, at least it seemed like it.
FD: Yeah, I was. I was.

GD: And then at the end you were like, “This is awesome. I want to do it again.” You can watch that story arc in five minutes of show.

FD: It’s good, and I went in with a preconceived notion that was not necessarily what my experience would be. That’s kind of what I want to do with the show. I hope to bring it back again next year in another limited run because that’s more doable for my schedule. Each one of those things is opening a door for myself but hopefully also opening doors for other people. Why not try a pole dancing class? I had a lot of reasons why but they weren’t even good reasons.

—

We then had to clear the room for the next press conference, but I did get confirmation from Day before she left that she is looking forward to Fallout 4 as much as I am!

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Hello, humans.
Now that you’ve been awakened from your Covert Hibernation Vault™, it’s time to resume testing. To motivate the best results, you’ve been divided into divisions and assigned a jumpsuit in your new favorite color. The best performing division will be forever remembered in the history book I’m writing entitled: “Team of Rivals: The Scientific Genius of <insert jumpsuit color here>.” Good luck!

So begins the instruction manual for Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game, a game for 2 to 4 players, aged 12 and up and plays in 30-45 minutes, from Cryptozoic Games. (More information and rest of the rules here.)

Summary

Portal is played on fifteen Test Chambers, arranged in three rows. Players add their Test Subjects to the Chambers (and sometimes Cake), while trying to avoid turrets, Companion Cubes, and the incineration of their own Cake. Players compete to earn the most Cake slices while destroying opponents’ Test Subjects. The player with the most Cake in play at the end wins.

Components

Each player has eight Test Subjects and eight slices of Cake. Additionally, there are cardboard Test Chamber panels, a couple of Portals (blue and orange, of course), a cardboard standee of GLaDOS, a number of wonderfully designed cards, and plastic minis of a Companion Cube and a Turret.

All of the plastic pieces: the Test Subjects, the slices of Cake, the Companion Cube, and Turret are perfect. Beautifully sculpted, molded, and painted. They are almost worth buying the game for, by themselves. The standee of GLaDOS is just a standee. I wish it could have been more, but GLaDOS is elaborate and cardboard probably makes the best sense.

The cards are a nice weight of paper on a linen stock and the art and design on these cards is very evocative of the video game with iconography and flavor text that will take you to the Enrichment Center in an instant. On one side, the Aperture side, are a number of effects that a player can play on herself or on others. After playing the Aperture side of the card, it is flipped and discarded, revealing a character card that has a lasting effect shared by all players (until replaced by another character card).

The weakest part of the components are the Test Chambers, which are sometimes difficult to fit together. This is unfortunate because the game requires their continual movement. The artwork is very nice, but the Chambers are supposed to fit together like a puzzle and some are too tight to really piece together easily.

The box is also worth mentioning for several reasons. The artwork was designed to look like something out of your parent’s game closet from the ’70s. It has been printed to look aged and the back is exactly what you’d expect from the twisted, errr, scientific minds at Aperture Laboratories (see photo). Additionally, there’s a board you place over the box’s insert that allows one of the insert’s bins to act as an Aperture Science Facility Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.

Oh! There’s one more component in the box: a card with a free activation code for Portal 2 from Steam!

Setup and Gameplay

Everyone chooses a color and takes a Portal Gun card, Test Subjects, and Cake in the chosen color. Players construct the gameboard by randomly discarding three Test Chambers and then assembling three staggered rows of Test Chambers, made up of 5 Panels each. The edge on the left is considered the new edge and the right is the old edge. Test Subjects are placed by each player, one in top row, one on the bottom, and two in the middle, all on the new edge. Portal tokens are placed on the top and bottom rows at the old edge of the laboratory and Aperture cards are set out. Gameplay is ready to begin.

Each turn, a player takes three actions with one optional action. The optional is first – playing an Aperture card if she has one available. Aperture cards give the player an action and then are flipped and discarded, providing an effect for all players.

A player then moves one or all of the Test Subjects in a single Test Chamber. If the player only moves one Test Subject, she may take an Aperture card for her hand. Test Subjects can be moved together to any adjacent Test Chamber. The Test Chambers are a conveyor belt, so all Test Subjects are continuously being pushed to their inglorious demises, toward the old edge. It’s not a dignified death, but it could very well reward the player with cake.

The current Player then activates a Test Chamber on the old (right side) edge by placing the GLaDOS standee on it. If there are Test Subjects on the Test Chamber, they all die horrible deaths, but before they do, the player with the majority of Test Subjects receives rewards as noted on the tile. If there was Cake on the activated Test Chamber, it is placed in the incinerator. Test Subjects are returned to their respective players.

The activated Test Chamber is recycled by flipping the tile and moving it to any of the three rows on the new edge. All rows must maintain a minimum of three Test Chambers, otherwise the tile can be placed on whichever row the player chooses.

Activated tiles reward the majority player with additional Test Subjects, Cake, and/or Aperture cards. Some Test Chambers or Aperture cards also allow placement of the Companion Cube, which distracts Test Subjects from receiving rewards on activated Chambers, and the Turret, which destroys Test Subjects on the tile where it is placed.

When playing an Aperture card, the player has the option of ignoring the text on the card and, instead, deploying her Portal Gun, which allows her to reassign the Portal tokens. Portal tokens act like, um, Portals, making distant Test Chambers adjacent for movement’s sake. Test Subjects, when moving, can each carry one slice of anyone’s Cake with them.

There is one additional special rule: when a Test Chamber is activated and recycled, any Portals, Companion Cube, or Turret moves to the new Test Chamber on the left edge.

Gameplay continues until one of two conditions occurs. If a player has all 8 slices of her Cake incinerated or if a player has no Test Subjects on the board, the game ends. The player with the most Cake in play (on the board and not incinerated) wins.

Verdict

When it comes to licensed games, I really feel like their successes (and fun factors) are hit or miss. Some licensed property games feel like most of the game’s budget was spent on licensing, rather than game design. Happily, I can report that Portal is a hit. Not only does it do a good job of carrying over many of the elements of the video game to cardboard and capturing the essence of Aperture Labs, it is actually a pretty fun game too.

Like a good Eurogame, there’s always something to do and developing a good strategy can win this game for you. However, there’s also a very high likelihood of conflict as players try to destroy opposing Test Subjects and incinerate Cake.

Portal is simple to teach and to learn and gameplay moves pretty rapidly. Thanks to the double-sided Test Chambers (not bedchambers), the game sets up differently almost every time. While the gameplay is a bit repetitive — players commit to the same actions each turn — the Aperture cards provide some unpredictability and challenge when played. To complicate matters further, once the Aperture card is played, the Character card grants an effect to all players, so a player must really consider the benefit of both sides before playing a card.

Because the game ends when one player is without any Test Subjects on the board, players must keep an eye on their charges and make sure all of their lab rats don’t fall off in one turn. That is, unless you lead with the most Cake. Also, don’t forget that you can carry your opponent’s Cake to the incinerator as you sacrifice your own Test Subjects.

The game plays really well at 2 or 3 players but shines at 4 because the challenge is greater at this level.There are more Test Subjects, more Cake, and more that happens between your turns; four players requires altogether new strategies.

Portal also comes with one of the best tiebreakers that I’ve ever come across: if, at the end of gameplay, two players are tied, the two tied players may appeal their cases to other players (and anyone else nearby) in 10 words or less. None of the ten words may include the letter ‘E’.

I really enjoyed how the packaging and the instruction manual did a really good job of emulating the language and atmosphere that players of the video game will be familiar with. Cryptozoic Vice President of Creative, Adam Sblendorio, told me at Gen Con this summer that Valve played an important role in making sure that the board game was a worthy partner for the video game.

There’s enough replayability in Portal to keep you testing for quite some time and the game requires enough strategy that it will be a long time before it gets old. It is a really good time (a triumph, I dare say), as long as you don’t mind conflict, and one exponentially enhanced by quoting GLaDOS, Wheatley, Cave Johnson, and the Turrets while playing. If you’re a fan of Portal, this is a must buy … remember, testing is the future, and the future starts with you.

Aperture Science would like to thank you for cooperating in this uncooperative testing initiative. The most effective color for science has been duly noted and assigned to all remaining Test Subjects as their new favorite color.

Disclosure: GeekDad was sent a sample of this game for review purposes.

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Daily #DadJoke for September 12, 2015:

Most wills hold absolutely no surprises…

They are typically dead giveaways.

---

Have a great joke that you would like to see in print (complete with a “submitted by your name here” shout-out)? Send it in to GeekDadJokes!

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I was trying to think of a good myth for them to bust, and then it hit me. Why don't they tackle some of the real classics on the TV show? Surely anything can be tested by their traditional techniques.

We have been living with two dogs for a little over a week now. My daughter's dog, Summit, is a white, shorthaired mutt. My dog, Shasta, is a black, shorthaired mutt.

Together, they apparently believe they fight crime. Judging from their barking, at least.

Shasta's short black fur hides pretty well on the furniture, but Summit's white is another matter. My carpet looks like it's grown elderly and needs a dye job. I haven't vacuumed because Summit goes home tonight. Tomorrow, there will be vacuuming.

In the meantime, however, I am adding to the mess. What I'm shedding, though, isn't fur. It's threads. I'm working on a quilt for Ferrett, and hauled my sewing machine and equipment upstairs. Because I am insane, I chose a pattern that has over 3500 pieces, many of them not much larger than a quarter. This has led to a lot of thread bits, many the same length as the dog hair, scattered on the floor, the carpet, tumbleweeding companionably with fur in corners.

So, yeah, pretty much the whole family is shedding. Oh, did I mention that Ferrett is balding as well...?

Matt Blum recently did a masterful job examining the fan theory that Disney’s Tarzan is the little brother of Frozen‘s Elsa and Anna, showing pretty convincingly why the notion, while fun, is not at all supported by the facts of the stories. The behind-the-scenes conversation around this topic raised the question of what Disney movies take place when, and a few hours down the Google rabbit-hole later, we have some conclusive answers for you.

First, a disclaimer: We’re not telling you not to invent stories about the films and their characters; if you want to come up with your own fan theories to explain how the various films are connected to each other, or write fan-fiction about having the various characters meeting, you’re entirely welcome to do so. However, we think it may be helpful to take into account the actual details of the films, so we’re going to give you an overview here. At the very least, now you’ll know the relative ages of the characters and whether or not you need a time machine to bring them together.

Next, let’s narrow our scope; we’re only talking about Disney animated theatrical features; We’re excluding all the shorts, as well as prequels, sequels, or spin-offs; no Pixar, Marvel, Muppet, or Lucasfilm releases, no Studio Ghibli or other rebranding, no TV or direct-to-video releases. The Unified Pixar Theory is somebody else’s problem and we’re not going anywhere near it. This means we’re leaving out the Three Caballeros, Winnie the Pooh, and Ichabod & Mr. Toad, among others. Also, there’s no way to pin the two Fantasia films down to a particular time setting, so we’ll skip them as well. If somebody wants to figure them out, that’s what comment sections are for.

We found a number of helpful sites and blogs offering their own timelines; wonderfully talented artist Claire Hummel has created some fantastic historically-accurate costumes for the Disney princesses (a few of which are shown here), and her arguments for particular time and place settings are generally pretty convincing. There’s also the very helpful “Disney Princesses” blog on LiveJournal, and this well-done Buzzfeed video and post on the topic. There are a few others out there as well, and while we may dispute the particular details of one movie or another at each of these sites, we think they are all worth a look. Please don’t think we’re declaring our dates to be definitive or that these others are wrong; we’re just taking our best shot at deciphering whatever clues we can find and taking our best guess, just as they did.

The timeline here includes all of Disney’s feature films except those mentioned earlier, and our estimate of time and place for each is based on the following criteria:

In-story details come first; if a film says when and where it takes place, we go with that; for example, Atlantis: the Lost Empire directly states that it takes place in 1914, so there’s no question there. If a film doesn’t explicitly say when and where it occurs, the next thing we look at is the details shown in the film; things like clothing, technology, references to news events, history and culture, and so on.

If there’s little to go on within the film, then the next thing we look at is the animators’ comments on their inspirations and references. Frozen doesn’t indicate an exact year, but the filmmakers said it’s set in 1840, so we’ll accept it.

The last resort is to look at the source material on which the film was based. For example, The Sword in the Stone never says when the story is set other than that it’s England in the time of knights; the kind of armor and castles shown are what one might have seen around 1200 AD, but the King Arthur legends go back to the fifth century. Since T. H. White, in his novel The Once and Future King, on which the film is based, mentions that Uther Pendragon died in 1216, and Arthur is 16 when his father died, we’ll go with that date.

There are three additional rules we applied:
The “Musical Number Exception.” Any references that are only mentioned in a song are considered “artistic license.”
The “Magical Character Exemption.” Anachronisms presented by magical or supernatural characters such as the Genie, Merlin, Mushu, and others are chalked up to magic and not evidence of anything beyond that.
The “Easter Egg Nullification.” Nothing in any film is dated on the basis of a background reference to another Disney movie. If it’s obviously just the animators having fun, we don’t attach any importance to it or cite it as proof of anything.

A few examples:
Musical Number Exemption:

• Frozen: Elsa mentions fractals in “Let it Go.” The word “fractal” was invented by Benoit Mandelbrot around 1970 and didn’t come into common usage until several years later.
• Beauty and the Beast: The dinnerware forms itself into an image of the Eiffel Tower about 120 years before it was built.
• Aladdin: “Friend Like Me” is a cornucopia of anachronisms, and during “I Can Show You the World,” the young couple sees scenes that occur thousands of years apart, from the sculpting of the Sphinx to Chinese fireworks.

Magical Character Exemption:

• Practically everything the Genie says or does is a pop culture reference.
• Merlin mentions events and inventions from the future.

Easter Egg Nullification:

• Hunchback of Notre Dame: Belle from Beauty and the Beast is seen walking through the streets of Paris, but Hunchback still takes place a couple hundred years before Belle was born.
• Aladdin: Sultan plays with a Beast toy, but Aladdin is still set 2,100 years earlier.
• Tarzan: There is a tea set that looks suspiciously like Mrs. Potts and Chip, but Tarzan is still 150 years later.

In order to make the timeline a little more manageable, we’re dropping off the two extremes; Dinosaur is set in the Early Cretaceous Period, roughly 125 million years ago, and Treasure Planet takes place in a far-distant future with no dates given or implied, possibly 10,000 years from now. Of the other 42 films, the range is narrowed to about 6,000 years or less, from just after the Ice Age to 2037.

GeekDad Randy Slavey generated the great timeline presented here, which I’ve decorated with poster images lifted from Disney’s “Oh My Disney” blog.

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Check out more Lunarbaboon comics on Webtoons.. Lunarbaboon on Webtoons

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I’ve made no secret of my feelings concerning artist/musician/yo-yo ninja Doctor Popular–he is awesome–or, for that matter, my feelings concerning socks–also awesome. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I find the concept of socks designed by the aforementioned Doc Pop an enticing proposition.

Currently such accoutrements are being proposed via Betabrand’s crowdsourced clothing collection. Yes, the same keen minds that brought us the Dress Pant Sweatpants are now considering making a three-pack of Doc Popular-designed socks available for purchase.

Incorporating the same love of glitched graphics that the good Doctor features in many of his video and photography projects, designs include everything from a Pac-Man kill screen to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Head over to the Doc Socks page to cast your vote and leave a comment concerning your favorite designs.

And, while you’re there, be sure to check out all the other amazing, innovative apparel available from Betabrand. They are, unsurprisingly, awesome.

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To tell the truth, I didn’t do it in order to teach them anything. I was just frazzled and worn out and had simply had enough. In retrospect, I think it was a good way of teaching something important.

The kids were on my last nerve. Well, the older two were; the three-year-old was fine, but the nine-year-old boy and the twelve-year-old girl were impossible. They’d been fighting for hours, nonstop, arguing over everything. The boy was a master at finding things to argue about, and the girl was incapable of ever letting anything go, so round and round they went. Screaming, hitting, the works. Separating them didn’t do it. Sending them to their rooms only brought a brief cease-fire. They were clearly never going to let up.

Finally I’d had enough. Then I remembered a story a co-worker had told me, something her mom had once done, an example of “extreme parenting,” which is when you do something so shocking and unexpected that it throws the kids off their usual pattern of behavior. The problem with extreme parenting is you can only use each thing once. So you have to save it and make it count.

I stomped up to the battling siblings and barked “get into the kitchen, NOW!” then stomped off, leading the way. When we arrived in the kitchen, I reached to the knife block on the counter and pulled out two steak knives. I handed each of them a knife and opened the back door.

“Both of you get outside right now! One of you will come back alive, and I will have peace and quiet!”

They stood there, mouths hanging open, staring at the crazy man who had just ordered them to attempt homicide. I went on. “You two hate each other so much, you want to do nothing but fight all day long, so let’s finish it. Go into the backyard and try to kill each other. Be done with it!”

They looked at each other. Eyebrows raised. Then they slowly backed away, slipped the knives back into the block and quietly left the kitchen, sure that Dad had completely lost his mind.

But there was no more fighting for the rest of the day. And though they often fought again and again over the next few years, it was never again with the ferocity they had displayed that morning. They had learned that things can escalate and spiral out of control, and they knew they didn’t want to go where that road led. Actions have consequences.

Maybe I’m a Bad Dad for encouraging my children to murder each other in broad daylight, but confronting them with the opportunity to do so taught them that, despite their many clashes, they didn’t really want to harm each other. As adults, they get along pretty well. I call that a win.

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Heading to Indianapolis, we were excited about Codenames from Czech Games. The press-your-luck game is a bit of a departure for designer Vlaada Chvátil, who had previously given us games like Galaxy Trucker, Mage Knight, and Dungeon Lords, because Codenames was a quick-playing-party-word game. Still, despite our anticipation, none of us was prepared for how much fun we would have playing this game.

Components

There are three essential components to Codenames: agent cards, key cards, and codename cards. The agent cards come in red and blue to represent the two teams competing against each other. There are eight for each team, plus a single card that is red on one side and blue on the other. Whichever team goes first has the burden of an additional card to identify and this card is used for that purpose.

There are seven bystander cards, which act like a stop sign on a team’s turn and are placed on the board when a team picks a word that doesn’t belong to either team. There’s also an assassin card for identifying a hidden assassin that will end the game for any team that’s unfortunate enough to pick that fateful codename. All of these cards are good quality cardboard and are double-sided with a female character on one side and a male on the other (except for the shadowy assassin).

Key cards are used by the spymasters to identify which codenames belong to their teams. There are 40 of these map cards, and they can be inserted into a card stand in any orientation. The key cards are made from playing card stock, and each has red or blue border notation to identify which team goes first when using a particular card.

There are 200 codename cards, and each is double-sided, making for 400 different codenames. They are all mini-card in size, and the codename is printed so both the team and the spymasters can read them from either side of the table.

Additionally, there’s a sand timer, which we never used, and even the humorously written rule book says it is seldom used when Czech Games play. Still, if you have someone who is taking too long to make a decision, you can always pull it out and set the timer before them. If sand timers aren’t your thing, there’s promise of a timer app on the game’s site. However, this site is locked up tighter than MI6, so you’ll just have to wait on the site and the app.

Setup and Play

A great party game is one that should set up in less than a minute, be able to be taught in about the same time, and have tons of replayability. Codenames hits all three of these requirements. Setup is a breeze, requiring a 5 x 5 grid of codename cards be laid out and a key card be placed for the spymasters. Place the agent and bystander cards close by and you’re ready to go.

Spymasters, who give clues, sit opposite their teams, who guess clues. Teams are split as close to evenly as possible, both in numbers and skills. (There’s not much point in adults playing kids in a game like this.) The spymasters look at the selected key card, visible only to them, identifying their codenames, their opponent’s, and the bystander’s and assassin’s codenames. When they are ready, the team whose color is in lights on the border of the key card goes first. That spymaster will provide a one word clue, along with a number denoting how many words are associated with the clue.

For example, in the image below, the blue spymaster might say “Tomato – 1″. The blue team then looks at the cards and discusses options to fulfill the clue. If they guess “Ketchup,” they have made a correct guess and the card is covered with a blue agent card. After a correct identification, that team can make a single, free guess of any codename. This is helpful if the team is behind in the game, however, if a neutral card (beige on the key card) is guessed, a bystander card is placed on that codename and the guessing team’s turn is ended.

Finally, on each board there is an assassin, marked with an “X” on the key card. If either team guesses this codename, the game immediately ends and that team loses. The spymaster doesn’t have to give clues that only refer to a single card. Looking at the grid in the image above, if the red spymaster gave the clue “Patriotism – 3″, the red team might be able to guess “Eagle,” “State,” and “America” and be able to place agent cards on all three codenames.

Spymasters are only allowed to give a clue and a number and then are to sit passively by while the team discusses. Additional hints like “this is a bit of a stretch” or facial expressions or any other hints are not allowed. Once a team makes a decision, they touch a codename card and the spymaster places a card to cover the codename–either for their team (and the team may continue), or a card for the other team, a bystander, or an assassin, all of which end the turn (or the game) for that team.

A team may stop guessing at any time. For instance, in the example above, if the red team figured “Patriotism” referred to “Eagle” and “America,” but were unsure about the third codename, they can stop and pass on the rest of the turn. The blue team would then go, but the red team knows there is a third word relating to “Patriotism” that they can guess on a subsequent turn, after a correct guess. The team which covers all its codenames first wins.

As the game draws to a close, there are a couple of “expert clue” strategies that the team that is behind may use. The red spymaster, if behind, might want his team to just try to get lucky in catching up and give a hint like “Narwhal – unlimited.” Now, if the red team guesses “Unicorn,” they can continue to just guess at cards until they find one that forces them to stop. Another tact is if the blue spymaster told his team “Continent – 0.” This hopefully tells the blue team to avoid the codename “Africa,” since that’s the assassin in this game. The blue team then can guess blindly, in hopes of catching up.

There are a number of additional rules that govern clues. The number can’t be a clue like “Legs – 8″ for “Octopus” (but you could use “Eight – 1″ for “Octopus”) and you can’t use any part of a word that is currently shown on the table. And your clue has to refer to a codename’s meaning, rather than a hint about the word’s syllable, part of speech, or spelling. There are a number of more flexible rules, which you can further define in your house rules. Ultimately, how strict or loose you play is up to you.

If you don’t have four players, there are rules for a two and three player game, but Codenames plays much better with a bigger group.

The Verdict

We were excited to play this game when we showed up at Gen Con, and, after procuring a copy, we played it again and again and again. I lost count, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we played Codenames a dozen times (or more) last weekend. Everyone had fun and it was, by far, the game at the top of every GeekDad’s list for best game of Gen Con.

Codenames will likely be brought up in the same breath as party deduction games like Mafia or Werewolf, which are so popular these days, but it’s not really a deduction game. It shares more with partnership games like Password, Taboo, or Catch Phrase. In Codenames, it’s about divining commonality among the codename cards your team is responsible for and finding a single clue that describes that umbrella concept. It’s a lot harder than it seems, and a good spymaster is indispensable in winning. But the team’s vocabulary and ability to work out relationships is important too; it is a true team effort.

A winning team will know when to keep guessing and when to quit a turn early. If you are unsure about guessing a final codename, retreat might be a better option. You can always return in a future turn because giving your opponents a free agent card or revealing the assassin is a pass to defeat.

Codenames is a great value for a couple of reasons. First, the game was selling at Gen Con for only $20. I’m not sure if that will be the price when it hits retail stores next month, but, even if it’s close, it’s still an incredible value because, with 400 cards and 40 key cards, there are some estimates that you can play every day for 10^62 years without repeating the same game–and that’s before the inevitable expansions!

Codenames is a lot of fun and it is a game that plays so quickly (average game is about 15 minutes) that you can rip out several games in an hour, cycling through teams and spymasters. It’s enjoyable, it’s a great value, and it’s got quality components. Call your local game store today and reserve Codenames. There’s so much buzz surrounding this game that the first shipment will sell out quickly and you may have to wait a long time to get your hands on a copy.

Disclosure: Geekdad was given a copy of this game for review purposes.

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Daily #DadJoke for August 2, 2015:

They blew up an old cheese factory in northern France.

The only thing left is de brie.

---

Have a great joke that you would like to see in print (complete with a “submitted by your name here” shout-out)? Send it in to GeekDadJokes!

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XMPPwocky: My own https://xkcd.com/349/ story. Yesterday, I worked my way from "I should try installing Qubes OS on my dual-boot" to "I have no working boot discs, no CD drive, and no OS on the actual hard drive". Today, i got to try and fix that.
XMPPwocky: The issue is, this is my only computer. so I can't make any bootable media to boot from, except I also had, tucked away in my closet, an OLPC XO-1. Aaand I couldn't find the charger.
XMPPwocky: What I could find? The hand-crank charger.
XMPPwocky: To make a long story short, I cranked through the entire download and installation of an Ubuntu liveCD.
XMPPwocky: would not recommend

++ | --

Make a dad happy with Lunarbaboon Volume 1: http://lunarbaboon.bigcartel.com/product/lunarbaboon-volume-1

Haba is probably most well known for two things: high-quality kids games with fantastic production values… and those bright yellow boxes. You’ve seen them. They’re kind of hard to miss. And when you see one, chances are there’s a remarkably well crafted, incredibly fun game inside.

Rhino Hero is no exception.

The concept of the game is rather simple–it’s a stacking card game. You build a tower, floor by floor, by adding walls and ceilings. Be the first to place all of your ceiling cards without knocking over the tower. That’s pretty much it.

I mean, come on, what were you expecting? Haba makes games for the littlest gamers. And I have to tell you: my 3-year-old took to this one right away!

Each player is dealt a hand of ceiling cards (that are designed to fold in half so they can be placed on end), and, on your turn, you need to place (one or two) walls and then balance a ceiling on top. The higher you go, the more precarious this becomes.

Each ceiling card has marks indicating where the next player must position walls, and some have other symbols with various effects, such as making the next player lose a turn or draw an extra ceiling card or causing a change in the direction of play. This is also when the rhino comes into play.

Some ceiling cards have a Rhino symbol on them. When these cards are placed, the next player needs to move the Rhino Hero from wherever he is to the top of the tower. This adds an extra layer of dexterity.

However, if your kids are anything like mine, their little sticky hands are basically made for dexterity games like these. They’re completely careless, but they never knock anything over. Then along comes Dad’s clumsy adult hands, and, no matter how slow and steady I try to be, it all comes tumbling down.

Haba has labeled the game for ages 5-99, but it can certainly go younger than that. It plays in a quick 5-10 minutes and is super easy both to set up and clean up.

Rhino Hero (like most Haba games) is highly recommended for early gamers… and, admittedly, it’s also a lot of fun for those of us with a few more years under our belts.

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maggiesox:

anthfan:

TOO SOON!!

I AM A LEAF ON THE WIND.

ellyjstahl:

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Caroll Spinney is a living legend. Even if you don’t know his name, you know his alter egos: Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. There’s a new (largely Kickstarter-funded) documentary out about his life and work — I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story — and it is magical.

1. What’s it about?

The first season of Sesame Street (1969) featured three regular puppeteers: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Caroll Spinney. At 80 years old, Spinney is the only remaining Sesame Street regular who’s been there from that first season.

Over the ensuing 46 years(!), many things changed on Sesame Street: it moved out of the projects, many new monsters (including Elmo) moved in, the human cast rotated several times, the target audience shifted younger, and many of the puppets’ voices changed ever so slightly (with new performers).

But through it all, one thing has remained unchanged: Caroll Spinney. He still wears the Big Bird costume, he still performs and does the voices for both Big Bird and Oscar, and he still looks like he’s having the time of his life.

I Am Big Bird chronicles Spinney’s life and career on Sesame Street, both past and present. It’s a beautiful tale that reveals the man behind the world’s most famous 6-foot bird — personally, professionally, and creatively.

It also breathes new life not only into Big Bird but also Sesame Street in general and might leave you wondering why you stopped watching.

2. It’s a documentary. Will kids like it?

Depends on the age of those kids. I mean, it’s about Sesame Street, so if kids (of any age) are or were fans of the show, then they’ll probably be engaged with the film. Some of the “talking head” segments might go over the heads of the youngest kids, but you’re never more than a minute or two away from some great footage from the show or of puppets.

I should note, though, that there’s quite a bit of footage that betrays the magic of Sesame Street and the Muppets. In other words, we see the puppeteers doing what they do and we see Spinney putting on and taking off the Big Bird costume. It’s up to you if you want to spoil the illusion for the littlest kids who still watch the show. There are also several emotional/painful scenes (see #5 below) that may be difficult to discuss with the very youngest.

3. Will little kids understand what’s going on?

Granted, most of the footage included in the film is from the early days of Sesame Street, so much of it looks very different from what kids today are used to. However, if your kids are familiar with old-school Sesame Street — from DVDs, the Christmas special, Big Bird in China, Follow That Bird, or other — then they’ll find a lot to love here.

There are still ties to the current show, though. The character of Elmo is mentioned, so he makes an appearance (but he in no way steals the show). There’s a lot of great backstage, making-of footage that shows Spinney playing the role today, so the current incarnation of the Sesame Street set is all over the place. And many of the on-screen interviews are old-school series regulars (e.g., Bob, Susan, Gordon, and Maria), so they’ll likely be familiar to kids.

4. Will I like it?

If you’re a fan of the Muppets, Sesame Street, and/or puppetry, then you’ll find a lot to love here. The film includes a lot of never-before-seen footage from Spinney’s home video collection, some great footage of early days on the Sesame Street set, a heavy focus on Jim Henson, and some great interviews with Sesame Street / Muppets superstars Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Jane Henson, Bob McGrath (Bob), Roscoe Orman (Gordon), Emilio Delgado (Luis), Sonia Manzano (Maria), and Loretta Long (Susan).

It’s a fascinating insight to the creative genius of a true living legend and one of the original guiding forces behind the world’s most popular (and enduring) children’s show. Let’s face it: if you watched Sesame Street as a child, Big Bird played a huge role in your childhood. He’s the embodiment of innocence and pure love, and he is very much an extension of his creator, Caroll Spinney.

5. Will I cry?

Unless you have a heart of stone.

Admittedly, the film can get a little overly saccharine at times, and the wall-to-wall music often unfairly targets the tear ducts and overshadows the genuinely compelling story that’s being told. However, the film hits all the right notes and is a surprising sucker punch to the emotions.

If you grew up with Sesame Street or through the ’80s, it might just turn you into a blubbery mess. I hadn’t really realized just how central Big Bird was to so many defining moments of my childhood.

• We’re treated to the heart-wrenching scene from 1982 where the cast tries to explain Mr. Hooper’s death to Big Bird.
• We get to relive the Challenger disaster (Spinney was supposed to be aboard, but the costume was too big and he was replaced by Christa McAuliffe).
• We watch (and cry) along with Big Bird’s entire rendition of “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” from Jim Henson’s memorial service in 1990.
• The film ends (not really a spoiler) with an emotional reunion between Carroll and Debra Spinney and Lianzi Ouyang, who played the little girl in Big Bird in China.

Yeah, it’s pretty rough in parts. The only surprising omission is the emotional scene from 2012 where Big Bird’s nest is destroyed by a hurricane (an episode aired in response to Superstorm Sandy).

6. When is the best time for a bathroom break?

The film is a swift 90 minutes, so if you’re watching it in the theater, be sure to clear out your systems in advance. I can’t really recommend a good time to make a run for the bathrooms where you won’t miss anything.

7. How can I see it?

The film is now playing in select theaters across the United States (full list here) and is also available online — from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu.

8. Is it worth seeing in the theater?

I saw it in the theater, and it’s great to see some of the footage up on the big screen, but I wouldn’t say it’s absolutely necessary. If you happen to live somewhere where the film isn’t playing, you’ll be perfectly fine renting or buying the digital version. Honestly, it feels like it was made for the small screen anyway.

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In February, Instructables user Jon Climpson published his first instructable, detailing how to build a Folding Sewing Box. It quickly had thousands of views and hundreds of favorites. I’d never heard of a sewing box, but my wife had recently taking up sewing, and this seemed like a great project to combine our new hobbies.

Jon’s design consists of a base box a bit smaller than a shoebox, plus four more boxes half-as-tall and half-as-wide stacked on top. Add a lid to each stack, plus twelve straight supports so the whole structure can hinge open.

I decided to build my version from birch and use the same metric measurements as in Jon’s Instructable. Instead of making the supports from wood, I wanted to try working with metal, so I bought a $3 sheet of 1/16″ aluminum from an art supply store and cut and sanded them to size. Using metal allows the struts to be thinner and lighter, but more importantly, I think gives the box an interesting mixed-media look. Finally, I added wooden pegs to the top left box to hold thread spools. The build was a lot of fun and cost under $50.

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