Update and what's next, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Podcast Idea
Interviews and discussion linking two of my favorite things: games and movies.

Movie-watching Projects
This year, in an effort to keep more data and as reminders to myself, I started tracking each film I watch and creating a separate to-be-watched list. Right now the lists live in a notebook. I keep forgetting to sign up for Letterboxd, where I'll eventually post these for myself. So much good stuff is out there waiting to be seen, and I'm trying my best to carve out more viewing time to fit in as much as possible, especially over the holiday break and the rest of the winter.

With that in mind, a few themes are showing up in the watch lists:

John Carpenter -- Pure Cinema Podcast's fantastic two-part Carpenter retrospective, where they examined all the films and paired each with another film as a double-feature, gave me the idea to try a back-to-back watch of the catalog myself. It's an opportunity to revisit old favorites and discover some of his films that I've haven't seen yet.

Charles Bronson -- Over the last year or so, several Bronson movies have hit Blu-ray, either singles or in affordable multi-packs. A collector's edition Blu-ray of the action/thriller/slasher 10 TO MIDNIGHT is out early next year. All this recent attention has inspired me to take a deep-dive into his catalog of films. Bronson has always been a favorite of mine, but like Carpenter there are many that I missed. I might try watching chronologically if possible, but that might depend on availability. More likely I'll just pick and choose at random.

Spaghetti Westerns -- Like the recent Bronson releases, we've had a couple of good years for Euro-Westerns. The recent Blu-ray of Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE, Kino Lorber's releases of Leone films, Arrow's Ringo and Django films, along with their box set of Sartana movies, just to name a few highlights. This year I also picked up Mill Creek's 44-movie DVD box for a cheap sale price. It's an economical way to see many of the popular titles (a good hit/miss ratio) and it was the only way to get Monte Hellman's CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37 on disc. Over the holidays I'd like to dig into this set and The Complete Sartana box.

Cyberpunk movies -- Continuing my research for a cyberpunk RPG by moving down the list of cyberpunk and related near-future sci-fi movies. Next on my Netflix queue is RUNAWAY (1984) with Tom Selleck.


Thanks for reading this far. I hope that this gives some idea on what to expect here at the blog in the new year -- more gaming and movie reviews, more game setting and mechanics ideas -- and an incentive for me to keep it going.

End of the year update and what's next

I'm trying to write a catch-up post, and hardly knowing where to begin. With the death of Google+ being moved up closer, I think longer posts will end up here on the blog more often.

Game Ideas in the Works
I've got two game ideas that have been percolating for quite a while: first, a smaller kaiju-themed RPG code-named "The Kaiju Hack", and the second is a D&D 5e-based cyberpunk game -- my version of Shadowrun. I'll post more notes about those games here. It's time to stop thinking about them, and actually get something tangible done and completed. I thought that I'd work through these games in posts on G+, but alas... if you can't tell, I'm really bummed-out about the loss of G+ and its gaming scene.

The next month with 30 days is April, which might be a good opportunity to post something about one of these games everyday using the #DIY30 hashtag.

Secret Santicore
No Santicore this year, and we are still working though layout for Santicore 2017. A new layout designer is looking over the project, and I hope to have more to report about that soon. Eventually we will have a free PDF, entries posted to the blog, and (with luck) an at-cost print-on-demand book.

After the holidays, I'll send out some requests to get the band back together again for an early start to Santicore 2019, along with finding a new home for the G+ Santicore production community.

Folk Horror (gaming and movies)
I backed the Kickstarter for Howard Ingham's excellent book We Don't Go Back: A Watcher's Guide to Folk Horror, and I'm hoping to read it over the holiday break. It's an expanded version of his blog posts covering aspects of Folk Horror in movies and other media, and well-worth a look for gaming inspiration or for those interested in the subject on its own. I also have the more academically-minded Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange by Adam Scovell (a gift from Age of Ravens) which I have also started, and I need to finish.

More in Part 2 later today...

A quick word

Was my last post four months ago? Time moves quickly. Expect a longer post here soon to catch up on what has been happening, what to expect here in the future (More posts! A new look for the new year?), and so on.

I've been much more active on Google +, but of course the long-rumored demise of  The Plus was moved up in a dramatic way, so reviving the blog seems like a logical way to proceed. Game design ideas I would have posted on G+ will be here instead.