fun – Page 7 – Tiana Feng

My First Loot Crate!

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013Shopping, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

I was so excited when I found out that Loot Crate started shipping to Canada that I signed up right away. It’s a monthly subscription of nerdy gifts to your doorstep. It’s $19.99 for US residence and $29.99 for Canadians. Each month the boxes have a theme. May’s theme was EQUIP.
Inside the box was a card that explained all the product’s relationship to the theme. I also received a membership card since this was my first crate. There was also this $10 digital subscription to Pure Nintendo for iOS and Android so I could be equipped with nerdy news on the go.

This ninja by The Dojo is for wrapping your tangled earphones. I assume I received pink because I registered as a female.

These stickers (via Fred & Friends) are for making your inanimate objects come to life. Hmmm.. maybe now I won’t look so crazy talking to my computer.

I think my boyfriend is going to love this 8-bit tie from Black Tie Geek.

The box contained a DC figurine at random (The Flash, Green Lantern and The Joker) and I was lucky enough to get Batman. Woohoo.

In reference to Douglas Adams’ May 25th towel day we were equipped with this silly towel from Graphic Lab.

Like Mario, we were equipped with a question mark box of coins. These ones were edible and surprisingly strawberry flavoured.

I really enjoyed building this Iron Man figurine from Mini Paper Craft.

I’m loving my Loot Crate so far. It is full of great childhood memories, nerdy references and most of all encourages playfulness.

If you’d like to check out Loot Crate please use this link to help me save on my next box!

Board Games: King of Tokyo, Ricochet Robots and Survive!

April 8, 2013Board Games, EntertainmentLeave a Comment

I had not visited Snakes and Lattes post-renovation until a few days ago. The wall between both sides had been torn down, resulting in a much more open space. The bar became larger and the front area a big storefront for board games.
Picking completely random things from the shelves are my specialty so I chose King of Tokyo.

In the game you choose a monster and literally try to take over Tokyo. A set of die is rolled to determine what happens: gain cubes to buy cards, attack, gain victory points. The first to 20 victory points or the last survivor wins.

Ricochet Robots is like that ice maze in Mohagony Gym in Pokemon Gold:

Except with robots.
The person who solves the most puzzles in the least amount of moves wins.

This Survive! board game had a lame slogan like “A Sea Full of Dangers and Oceans of Fun”.

The game is from the 1980’s and I have to hand it to them, it was quite entertaining. The island in the middle disappears as you take turns flipping parts of it over. The premise of the game is to try and get as many of your people to the safe islands as possible with some people worth more points than others. The board is full of distractions such as whirlpools, sharks, sea monsters and whales that make life much harder for your coloured dudes.

Post-renovation, Snakes and Lattes had a few new things on the menu including a Nutella Latte.

Of course, I tried it.

I Haven’t Been To The Science Centre in 10 Years

March 29, 2013March 29, 2013Entertainment, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

Yesterday Nash, my cousin William and I went to the Ontario Science Centre to check out the Game On 2.0 video game exhibition. The exhibit, located on the level 6 of the Science Centre featured vintage game art, pinball machines and of course playable games.

One of my favourites was Space War. The premise of the game was there were two space ships controlled by two players. I really liked the sounds and the shiny lights that the ships used as bullets. The three of us also spent a great deal of time playing Gauntlet (which I forgot to photograph), a hilarious 1985 hack and slash where we could play as a warrior, wizard, valkyrie or elf. The most entertaining part of the game was the game voice that announced things such as “Your wizard is about to die” or “Don’t Shoot the Food”. All the games in the exhibit were free to play so we continued the game until we got stuck in a maze.

Tron had the coolest music, but we had no idea how to play the game. Most of our lives were lost in less than five seconds. Thank god we weren’t wasting quarters!

I forgot that in Donkey Kong if you fall down the holes, you die.

They had this Virtusphere thing that sadly wasn’t opened to public yet. We talked to the staff and they said it was a virtual gaming simulation that was to open in April. The sphere was to simulate walking in a game.
Here are some other games and things we saw in the exhibit:

Egg Head Pinball Machine

Donkey Kong Concept Art

Pong!

Virtual Fighter

Centipede

Handheld Tron

NBA Jam. Will creamed me and Nash

A Slow Year- The Explanation

A Slow Year- The Box

A Slow Year. A game where you watch landscapes. Seriously.

After we were all gamed out we ventured through the rest of the Science Centre in no particular order. Here are some photos:

Evolution of Rocks

I’m driving a Space thing

All the needles point north

The Impossible Ladder

This room makes me look taller than Nash

Some hot, some cold

The Rainforest

I thought this would electrocute me

William has 45L of water in him

We’re all in our 20s and probably a bit too old to be there, but we still had a ton of fun walking around.

I Cut All The Ropes

November 21, 2012March 10, 2013iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

I spent a lot of time commuting lately and short-level games have been great for the ride. I finally I beat Chillingo’s Cut the Rope. I’ve had the game on my iPad for quite some time but I recently restarted it on my iPhone and within a month of commuting finally finished the game.

If you live in a box, Cut the Rope is a cute little physics game where you literally cut rope, avoid traps or use things to your advantage in order to get the candy to the cute little dinosaur. The game is only 99 cents in the iTunes app store and has over 300 levels.

Levels are arranged in “boxes” and each box has a certain type of theme that determines the types of traps in the level. Like angry birds you can gain up to 3 stars per level. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t get 3 stars for all the levels (and I think if I did that for every game it would take forever).

It’s definitely worth the money with the amount of levels and the promise of more to come.

Board Games: Blokus 3D, Q-Bert and Formula D

September 14, 2012Board Games, Entertainment1 Comment

Here’s another round of interesting board games from Snakes and Lattes.

Blokus 3D Game was 3 dimensional take on the original game of Blokus. The difference was that in this game you had to touch the sides of one of your blocks (where as in the original you can’t) while building the required 3D shape.

The game comes with a few templates of 3D things to build and diagrams of how they look depending on the amount of participants. The object of the game: to get rid of all your blocks. The challenge came when building the 3D object, not all pieces were the right fit.

Next we found this Q-Bert Board Game. It dates back to 1983, and totally looks that way.

The goal of the game was to take turns being Q-Bert and getting more pegs than your opponent. Your opponent played all the nasty characters such as Coily, Slick, Ugg, green and red balls. The game was complete with flying discs that would take Q-Bert to safety.

I grabbed a random racing game called Formula D.

The game worked like a regular roll-the-dice and move type of game except with cars on a road. It also involved shifting gears and protecting your car parts from dying. There were enough pieces for up to 8 players. The first one to get to the finish line, or the last to be destroyed was the winner.

That’s all for now, I’m sure I will explore some more board games soon!

Board Games: Starcraft, Mille Bornes, Crocodile Dentist, Pop-Up Pirate, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

August 30, 2012March 10, 2013Board Games, Entertainment, Food1 Comment

On Tuesday we got really bored of the CNE after 2 hours so we decided to waste the rest of the day at Snakes & Lattes. Since we had an unlimited amount of time we started with a rather complicated board game.

Sitting high on a shelf was Starcraft: The Board Game. I asked one of the employees to lend me a hand and his words were: “You don’t want to play that game. I’ve never seen anybody finish that game. They’d take 1 hour to read instructions, and another to set it up.” I wasn’t going to give up though and part of me really just wanted to prove him wrong.

There are around 60 pages of instructions but we read and setup the thing at the same time. It took around 2 hours to get through one game. The game actually plays a lot like the video game. There’s resources, units, fights and areas to take over. It’s like a card game and a board game in one. I don’t think there’s an easier way they could have written the instructions but it did take a bit to figure out. Once you play it once though, the second time is easy peasy. The game allows up to 6 players and it would have been even better with more than 2 people but explaining the game is the challenge.

After the Starcraft game we needed something a bit more brainless. Nash taught me how to play Mille Bornes.

The goal of the game is simply to get up to 1000 mph. There are distractions such as flat tires, red lights and other things that you can hinder your opponent with.

Then for some reason we went completely brainless and opted to play some children’s game starting with Crocodile Dentist.

It’s one of those games I really wanted to try as a kid because of those enticing YTV ads. It’s actually not that fun when you’re a grown up though because there’s a way of pushing down on the teeth to ensure that he won’t ensnare you.

Pop-Up Pirate did not require any brain power either. However, the first time through it scared the hell out of me when Nash poked a sword through and sent him flying. It was unexpectedly loud as it popped up.

We finished the day off with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pizza Power Board Game. It was probably the most “board game” like thing we played the entire day with the exception of how you kill the bad guys. There was this dice bouncing seesaw thing where you had to bounce it into the right square. It was challenging.

I seriously wish I lived near at (or atleast near Snakes and Lattes). I don’t think you could ever get bored there with the HUGE selections of games they have for you to play. I’ll definitely be back, even if it’s to eat this prosciutto and brie sandwich again:

Pacman, Spaghetti, Logos and Dexter Board Games

July 23, 2012July 29, 2012Board Games, EntertainmentLeave a Comment

Since the discovery of Snakes and Lattes, I fell in love with it and want to go all the time. They have so many board games that I can never get, well bored.

We saw another table playing the Pacman board game. The great thing about this place is that you can see so many interesting games going on at different tables. We politely asked for the game after they were done. The board looked exactly like a level of the video game. There were plastic “Pacman” pieces in different colours and 2 ghosts.

The way the game worked was there were 2 different coloured dice. One moved your Pacman across the board and you ate the marbles that were along the path. The other dice moved the ghosts in any direction you wanted. Ghosts were used to send your opponents back to start and steal their marbles. There were also coloured marbles that allowed your Pacman to eat the ghosts along the path. They effectively integrated the classic parts of the video game into a board game!

I was looking for some ridiculous looking games and one of them was Ready! Set! Spaghetti!. The goal of this game was to roll the dice and remove ingredients on the board so that your spaghetti could be perfectly curled up in your spoon. It was a silly but fun idea for a game.

We also dove into the Logos Board Game. The interesting thing about this is I watch a lot of TV but I actually sucked at this game whereas my boyfriend who doesn’t watch TV knew way more about random companies and their products. I guess he is way more affected by marketing than I am. This game isn’t actually too exciting otherwise though.

I didn’t even remember to take a picture of it

If you’ve ever played Clue, we found a Dexter board game which was like the opposite of clue. The objective was to get all the weapons, find the suspect, kill him and head to the marina. We kind of changed the rules a bit or it would have taken hours to play. Despite this, it was a decent effort to turn the idea of a TV show into a board game.

The majority of the games we played so far have been short length games, but we’ll definitely be back again and I’ll share all my board game adventures with you.

What strange games have you played? What are your favourites? I’d love to know!

Snakes and Lattes- A Board Game Cafe

Missed Connection at Edgefest

July 17, 2012July 17, 2012Drinks, Entertainment, Food3 Comments

On Saturday, I went to Edgefest at Downsview Park. The weather was 30 something degrees, but your touch hit the mark.

I met you next to a super delicious stand, that sold me this sandwich of pemeal bacon:

You were pale, yellow and cold. Your flavour was bold. We met 3 times that day. What the hell am I talking about? It was a $6 lemonade.

I blame the poem above on the 37 degrees weather Toronto’s experiencing today. It made me miss this delicious (but super over priced) lemonade. I don’t have any pictures of it. I also have no idea if the vendors have a store outside of Edgefest, but if anybody knows I’d love for you to help me solve this missed connection!

Snakes and Lattes- A Board Game Cafe

July 16, 2012October 13, 2012Board Games, Drinks, Entertainment, Food3 Comments

Located at 600 Bloor Street West, Snakes and Lattes has become one of my favourite new discoveries. Simply put, it’s a board game cafe. A place where you can have a drink and play a game with your friends.

The place is only a few years old, but already they’ve expanded into the building next door. For now, only one side is liquor licensed so if you’re looking for some drunk board game times ask specifically for that side. When you walk in the place its usually full of people playing games of all types. I saw some pretty complicated boards with islands and giraffes.

The atmosphere is friendly and inviting. There are a couple of walls lined up with thousands of board games. According to their site they have over 2208 games. There are even really limited edition versions of the board games that you can’t even buy any more. I got really nostalgic when I visited the shelves. I love Jenga and I found the Mario version (which I later ended up buying).

I was there for a birthday party and we asked for game suggestions. The staff is pretty knowledgeable about all the games and will teach you how to play if you’re too lazy to read the instructions. We discovered a game called Cards Against Humanity which is a hilarious and dirty minded version of Apples to Apples. Definitely a great one to try if you’re there to drink.

I wish I lived beside this place, because I want try all the board games. It’s a great place to kill time and hang out with friends. For only a $5 per person charge, you can sit in the cafe all day. There is also food and drinks available so you won’t starve if you really do decide to stay the day. It’s also a great place to try out new board games before you buy them. They have a bunch of new games on site that you can purchase if you do become attached to one.

I definitely will be back to play some more games soon!

Lessons I Have Learnt from Draw Something

April 5, 2012April 5, 2012Art, iOS, Technology, Video Games3 Comments

elvis — Really horrible drawing I did of Elvis

If you don’t know already, Draw Something is the new mobile game sensation. It’s basically a set of Pictionary that you can play with your friends who have Apple and Android devices. I have been playing it for a couple of weeks now and through observation I have realized and learnt many things.

Celebrities are really hard to draw. I try my hardest not to use words when I am drawing clues. I think it’s cheating. However, when you get hit with a celebrity, it can become hard.

drake — This is Drake, boyfriend didn't get it.

britney — Name the first generic blonde person you can think of!

People draw people that look like themselves. Whenever the drawing requires the use of a person to describe something, they always seem to look like the person who drew the picture. I’m guilty of this too. My people always look like the doodles of me that I do on My Life In Drawings. Other people do this too though. My friends who have blonde hair draw blonde people. Those that have curly hair draw curly haired people. Even if it takes an extra step to do these things.

pegasus — Guess the hair colour of the person that drew this.

It can be used as a genius marketing plan. Companies should insert their names into this game. Subliminal advertising after all. And hey, if your logo isn’t recognizable for anybody to want to draw it, maybe you should do something about that.

Continue reading ➞ Lessons I Have Learnt from Draw Something