Tag Archives: kickstarter

Nextbit Robin

This morning, I’ve seen a bit of buzz about the Nextbit Robin, a new Kickstarted smartphone from the guys who made Baton.

I looked at it and thought “that looks awesome, and it makes me want to get one more than the OnePlus Two does. Thing is, I have Baton on my phone – courtesy of a CyanogenMod update and I’ve never used it, so I have no experience with this company. I’m wondering if I’m just experiencing a bit of Kickstarter fever.

I have a slight Kickstarter problem, you see, and this would be a big investment – buying a new phone outright when the old one isn’t even a year old yet. I bought the OnePlus One because I wanted to get out of the cycle of contract upgrades and buying phones that cost twice as much as they should through those contracts.

The Robin is $349 (£228), which is cheaper than my OnePlus One was (£269 last November, £219 now), but I don’t know how much use I’d get out of the flagship feature – I’ve never had a storage warning on my OnePlus One.

So my question to myself is: how much of this is going “ooh shiny?”. Backing the Kickstarter saves $50 on retail (according to the campaign), and maybe I’ll just wait for the retail package in February next year rather than prospecting a new phone now that I won’t get for at least six months.

But still… I kinda want to back it. I’ve put it on reminder so I can make a decision closer to the end of the campaign. Except for the “special SIM tray”, I’ve not seen any reason other than the discounted price to back the Kickstarter, and they’re fully funded now so they’re going ahead in any case.

#rpgaday2015 day 25 – favourite revolutionary game mechanic

This one I have a little issue with, as I may have said before, as every new game mechanic has a tendency to be proclaimed as revolutionary but there hasn’t been any real revolutions in gaming caused by any of them.

That said, I’m quite interested in the Mayhem deck from Planet Mercenary. They’re cards that add something interesting to the game, bits of story that can make your game better or worse either on a temporary or permanent basis. The game uses a 3d6 mechanic with one die being a different colour – if the odd die is highest, you get a Mayhem card.

Example cards can be found on the Planet Mercenary site, and I really like the ideas behind this game. Playtesting of the Mayhem deck indicates that it works well and encourages story coming from rolls as well as results, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it, and trying the mechanic out.

I’ve seen similar mechanics before – the most memorable of which was a storyteller who would draw a tarot card for some rolls and situations and the card drawn would influence how things went.