Fantasy Friday 10/17/14

Welcome to our first Fantasy Friday!  This week, we're talking about the 20 Sided Die!

Image from Uncle's Games

The 20 sided die is what makes table top games possible.  And while everyone would hate you if you used it in Monopoly, it asks as the Random Number Generator in old school pen-and-paper RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons.  And while it is a great source of nostalgia, it can also be a great source of frustration and/or sexual harassment against your enemies.  Ah, the 20 sided die.  Making you the hero or comic relief for the whole party!

Bosses Day 2014

Today is Bosses Day (people celebrate that?) and since we featured Super Mario Bros. as our #tbt this week, it felt appropriate to showcase the original boss of living room temper tantrums, King Koopa!

Image from Piq

For those too young to know, King Koopa was later renamed Bowser in later Mario games.  King Koopa, as his name suggested, was the King of the Koopas.  He appeared in several castles, but almost always as an underling disguised as him.  He is impervious to all of the bros. attacks, save for Fire Flower fireballs.  His attacks include jumping on top of you with his very large scaly body and firing projectile flames.  If you did not have a Fire Flower upgrade, the only way to defeat him was to make it behind him and destroy the bridge you were fighting on with the Golden Axe, which in hindsight, was probably a terrible place to keep that.  Doing so would force King Koopa, real or imposter, to fall into the lake of lava beneath you and allow you to save the fungus man/princess of your dreams!

Throwback Thursday 10/16/14

Today's Throwback Thursday (the day of the week where you voluntarily make yourself feel old) puts the game that started home gaming, Super Mario Bros.!

Image from Games Database

The original 8-bit classic wasn't Mario's first rodeo, but it is his most beloved.  Having an impressive soundtrack of, what, five songs?  And a controller that had such buttons as Start, A, and B, the game followed everyone's favorite plumber (and Luigi if you had a younger sibling) across 8 different worlds in an attempt to save Princess Peach from Bowser (who at the time was called King Koopa because...well, he was the king of the Koopas).