in my head

Posted on By Wil

Today, I got to do something that is so amazing and unexpected, I can’t believe it was real … and I have to keep all the details of it a total secret for a very long time.

That seems to be the story of my life these days. I’m not complaining, but everything I work on has this huge list of NDAs and terrifying agreements that make me responsible for millions of dollars in damages if I give up the secrets. Seriously. I had to sign an NDA recently where I affirmed my understanding of the value of the information I would be holding in my head, and that I further understood that if I leaked this information out of my head before a certain period of time, I agreed to be responsible for a minimum of a million dollars per bit of information, up to several millions of dollars. I was so afraid of something happening when the materials were out of my hands, I destroyed them — first in a shredder and then in a fire — to ensure that nobody could somehow dig through my trash for some reason and go through the improbable and difficult series of events necessary to put me on the hook for the millions of dollars that I do not have. It was a little weird, in retrospect. And don’t ask me what it was, because I won’t say.

This is pretty awesome, because it means that I get to work on projects that a lot of people are really excited about, including me! This is also a bummer, because one of my first loves, narrative nonfiction writing, doesn’t have as deep a well to pull from as it has for the last decade that I’ve been writing it almost every day.

Over a decade. Wow. That’s …. a thing.

I’ve been telling Anne that I need to take some time away from my on-camera work, so I can focus on storytelling and creative writing. I have lots of ideas that can be turned into things, and there’s a very good chance I’ll get to pitch at least one of those things to a comic publisher this week. Fingers crossed. I’m also working on narrative fiction pitches for Geek & Sundry, Nerdist, and Legendary Digital, so I can do that sort of thing in addition to the games and the hosting and stuff that’s been most of my professional life for the last couple of years. These are all first world problems, I know, and they are good problems to have, on balance.

I have stories to tell. I just need to find a way, and find the time, to tell them.

HopCon is coming!

Posted on By Wil

It’s become an annual San Diego Comicon tradition: HopCon, at Stone Brewing’s Liberty Station. We release W00tstout, have a big old party, and tap a bunch of rare kegs and interesting casks for fans of great beer to enjoy … and the whole thing is a fundraiser for The Hero Initiative!

This year, something special is happening, and I’m turning it over to Mike Palmer to tell you exactly what that is:

Among the über-cool upgrades we have in store for Hop-Con 3.0, we’re taking the giant plot behind building 12 (aka the garden bar) and turning it into the HOP-CADE! Our dream of creating an outdoor arcade and beer garden from last year has been realized. We’ll have only IPAs on tap, our oversized lawn games (Jenga, Connect Four, etc), two pinball machines (Twilight Zone and Theater of Magic), Donkey Kong, Miss Pac-Man and a Skeeball machine. Not enough? How about an arcade game with a 25 foot screen driven from a used beer barrel converted into a vintage arcade console? This last feat will be created by our friend Hunter Bond, Troll Slayer and resident Pinball Mechanic at J!NX, with custom metal routing by San Diego’s ReproHaus. This is all in addition to the five vintages/variations of Stone Farking-Wheaton w00tstout, exclusive beers we brewed with Aisha Tyler and Kevin Eastman, epic food and all-around geeky good times. See you on July 8th!

Tickets and more deets can be found here…
hopcon.stonebrewing.com

I think this is pretty great. This year, HopCon is not just for people who love great beer, it’s also for people who love great beer and classic arcade games, which is basically a Venn Diagram describing me.

Tickets are going fast, so if you want in, go get yours today!

chewin’ gum for something to do

Posted on By Wil

Chapter 3 of Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana is online, like, RIGHT NOW.

The Beer Baron and Keg-E bid farewell to the party after considerable celebration and revelry. In an attempt to learn more about their mysterious orb, the group heads to Nestora in search of Farkiah the Antiquarian. Excited for an opportunity to bargain, barter, and more importantly, shop, the heroes quickly head to the market district, but they soon find that it holds more than goods. What does the city-state have in store for our heroes? Tune in to find out.

Looking for sweet Titansgrave loot? Check out the store here!

This is a reminder, because we think this seminar will fill up quickly, and if you care about that sort of thing, I want you to be able to join us:

TitansgraveAtGencon

And if you do care about that sort of thing, you probably want to be reading Chris Pramas’s blogs about the game design. for Titansgrave.

This happened last night:

Screen Shot 2015-06-22 at 20.46.50

I was checking my network speed, because Netflix was trying to stop me from watching the end of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and nothing would stream off my media server in the house. I couldn’t figure out exactly what was wrong (I even tried turning it off and back on again), and the whole troubleshooting experience felt like trying to get the Babel Fish. But, eventually, things sorted themselves out and I got that insanely fast network speed, so I could finish the show.

In general, I liked it. The first few episodes were fantastic, and some of the middle ones were real stinkers, but I kept watching all the way to the end because Ellie Kemper is just so fantastic and such a joy. The show has a lot of problems that have been discussed to death elsewhere, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Finally, this is a show I’m doing for Playstation Network:CwCWithWilWheaton

We’ll release new episodes, every Tuesday in the US and Canada, on PlayStation Store. You’ll get them for the low, low price of FREE on your PS3, PS4, and PS Vita. What’s that? You loaned your device to your cousin and she went out of town, locked it in her house, and didn’t give you the key? Don’t worry. If you don’t want to try out those lock-picking skills just yet, we’re also going to make our episodes available on PlayStation’s YouTube channel.

So, I hope you’ll join me and some really interesting people as we talk about games like Destiny, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War and more. I’ve already taped a couple of episodes, and I’ve had some really fascinating conversations about the similarities and differences between videogames and movies, the origins of Destiny, and exactly how The Last Of Us scared the hell out of us all, while simultaneously making us care about Joel and Ellie more than we care for actual people we work with in our real lives. Yes, Mark, I’m looking at you. You are never going to get a spot in my zombie survival compound, Mark.

I’m actually on my way to the studio in about ten minutes to do interviews with the team that brought us Black Ops, and the Santa Monica Studio team, who brought us God of War and Journey, among others.

Let me tell you this: I am profoundly late to the party on Journey, but it’s maybe the most beautiful and emotional experience I’ve ever had playing a game. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.