Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The Endless Movie Game (or Two Things)

I've moved things around on the sidebar a bit to make room for The Endless Movie Game. What is the endless movie game? It's my favorite game.

Here is how you play:
You draw two cards with things written on them and try to name a movie that matches both.

Creativity is encouraged. I like to play in a group, but without points or competition. We take turns, but with everyone generally chiming in and helping out.

Now you can play it online anytime, by clicking the "Draw Cards" button on the right sidebar of the Film Walrus. Why? Well the stack of index cards I am using is now rather unwieldy and I want to play from my iPhone. I'd have made an app, but I don't have a mac to develop on.

I wrote about the genesis of the game once upon a time. The idea is more-or-less stolen from Cineplexity, but I've made up my own cards without ever playing the official version.

Currently the cards that appear in the movie game are from my original "white deck" (augmented with hundreds of online-exclusive entries) that are general topics like genres, time periods, technical aspects of film, types of villains, subjective experiences, memory challenges, settings, themes, etc. They are probably skewed towards my proclivities. Sorry if they don't all make sense to you.

There will probably be periodic updates. The biggest is known around these here parts (meaning amongst my friends in St. Louis) as the green deck. The green deck consists of actors, actresses, directors, composers and other specific names grouped into sets based on my own logic, taste and humor. I haven't digitized these yet, but it allows for several play styles:

2 white cards: The easiest mode. Pretty general and free-form. Good for film fans of all abilities. Online now!
1 white + 1 green: Moderate difficulty. This mode is my personal favorite. Coming soon.
2 green cards: Six-degrees of separation. Probably the hardest mode. Coming soon.

Oh, you might be wondering where I've been. If you read blogs then you are sick of apologies and excuses, so I won't go there. Suffice it to say, it has been a while.

Since my last post I got married, quit my job, moved to Wyoming and started a novel. A little while later I got divorced, moved back to St. Louis and returned to my old job. In between there was some unforgettable disc golf road trips across the country and a long bout of depression. Also I watched a few movies.

I'm not 'back' per se, so don't take this as a promise of future updates.