Mad scientists, doomsday devices, minions, money laundering, and theatrical costumes.  Mwahahaha is a game that takes the best parts about being a Bond villain and packs them up neatly into a casual escapist experience.  Not to mention, you sound like a complete fool when speaking it’s name aloud.  Go on, walk into your nearest game store and ask if they carry Mwahahaha.  Everyone’s doing it. (more…)

You know what’s funny?  This is the same mindless doodling I used to fill the margins of my notebooks when I was in grade school.  Today, these artful sketches will guarantee a trip to the counselor with a high probability of suspension and an exciting new prescription drug cocktail… you know, to “help” you.  While wholly inappropriate for the wee ones, Let’s Kill! will certainly have your adult friends laughing at a series of ridiculous situations.  If you are easily offended due to an absent sense of humor, this game is definitely not for you.  For the rest, read on. (more…)

So I’ve been on a bit of a card/board game kick in the past year, but hey, it’s kind of hard not to get excited when you simply stumble across titles like War on Terror: The Boardgame and Aye, Dark Overlord.  The good news is that excellent games are not far off, and with any luck, you too, could score yourself of few of these charming little distractions.  That said, I like gremlins (the game calls them bodgers) and I like oversize wrenches.  Because they’re cool.  Meet Infernal Contraption.

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I’ve got a weird thing for playing cards. I love playing casual games of poker with my friends and enjoy having unusual cards with which to play. In fact, sitting next to me I’ve got a deck of Beatles cards, Marvel Ultimate Alliance cards, two decks of World Championship Poker the Video Game cards, and now an awesome set of Dawn of the Dead playing cards. I’m a zombie fanatic and there is no better zombie movie than the original Dawn of the Dead, so how could I resist spending $5 on these bad boys? I like ‘em so much that I decided to scan all of them so you could see the images. Fans of the movie (I’m looking at you, Phneri) should definitely seek these out. They come from Aquarius Images and can be found here or here.

Click on for the rest. (more…)

Save the world from the treacherous Bucket Man and Bimborella! Repel the notorious Literary Lass back to the evil lair from whence she came.  While it can be a full morning’s work, crime-fighting isn’t all ZOP!, POW!, and BANG!  Boots that Shoot, Body of Real Hard Stuff, and Sidekick: Monkey with Costume Like Yours are just a few of the cards representing such spectacular perks of being a superhero in the Munchkin as defined by established game designer Steve Jackson.  In reality, there is nothing heroic about this, but once again, that’s pretty much right up my alley.

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Well… yeah.  It’s exactly what it looks like: a card game about pimps and ho’s.  And just in time for the weekend!  It’s filthy, degrading, immoral, disgusting, repulsive, explicit, stereotypical, insulting, abhorrent, and a “Premium Quality Card Game.”  I know because it says so right on the box.  And I love it.

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I do not believe in romantic fantasies.  Things like fate, soul mates, and the American Dream are as real as the Jackalope and O.J.’s remorse.  But occasionally I find sanctuary in the words of another.  This time it is the wisdom of that wise, old sage, Jerry Maguire, as he speaks to his estranged wife.  After explaining how hard his work can be, quickly buttressed by how mean other people are, he looks into her eyes with as much testosterone as he can muster (it is Tom Cruise, after all) and mutters those words we have yet to forget “….you complete me.”  While I would never be one to mock the conciliatory delight of the Maguire family, it seems that I, too, have found my other half, my guiding light, my soul mate… if you will.  And so it is today, in front of God and the registered users of Robot Panic, that I proclaim, “Aye, Dark Overlord!…. you complete me!”

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Nate drops by to give us what may be the most valuable article on Robot Panic. I’ve always wanted to know the nuances of this game in a casino setting and have always been too afraid of pissing someone off to try it. If you’re like me, than this is the article for you!

Article by: Nate Serefine

Save your scoffing. Yes, you probably know how to play blackjack. More accurately, you know the rules of blackjack. Knowing the rules will suffice if you’re playing cards with your friends. But only knowing the rules will earn you the distain of your tablemates at a casino. Blackjack has many nuances when played in a casino and you’d do yourself a favor if you learn these before you sit down, cowboy.

But what makes me qualified to tell you, fellow reader? I learned the hard way. I sat down without knowing anything other than the rules and through years of playing learned all the ins and outs of the game. Here’s a quick run-down that will have you playing relaxed and confident so that the hot cocktail girl will ask for your number, not ask you to leave.

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When we visited with the Gamers with Jobs crew a week ago, Shawn Andrich called me out on being “closet”. The reference for this (lest we all get a bit confused) was that I was truly itching to go with them to GenCon 2008 and that deep down inside, I was one of those gamers. You know, the kind that plays Magic the Gathering style CCG’s and secretly creates D&D campaigns when nobody is looking.

He’d be right, of course.

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Ah, Kings. The drinking game with more names than Dracula and more rule variations than Calvinball. You know that one card game in Final Fantasy VIII where every person played it and every town had its own rule set? Kings is probably the closest possible card game toward representing such a phenomenon. I’ve played a crapload of this game back in the college times. I don’t remember any of those games having the same rules as another time. If I did anything from playing at a different college to going one town over, I’d have to relearn the rules all over again. Many-a-napkins were used in rewriting these temporary scriptures. The other problem I ran into is that no one person knows 100% of the rules, so almost as a common law, the first 15 minutes after deciding to play is spent piecing together the little bits everybody in the room knows about playing Kings. Of course, whenever we decide to play, nobody has a fucking computer around. Mind you that all this takes place after spending 2-3 minutes assessing that everybody in the room agrees we’re talking about playing the same game. Maybe you know Kings as Circle of Death, Avalanche, Waterfall, King’s Cup, or even Captain Dickhead.

Regardless, I grew tired of that twenty minute standing period filling up the cocktail napkin with pencil marks. I made a greatest hits version list of all the fucked up rules I’ve run into over the years. It was used a few times. It was successful.

Let me teach you how to play Kings:
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