Hasta La Gadget!

Nope, you’re not dreaming. An independent group called Pilot Study is working on Inceptor, a competitive board game for two to five players. Based on Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi heist movie Inception, the game is about assembling a team of specialists who will plant an idea in someone’s mind.

In Inceptor, players are randomly given a mission card. The mission card indicates the idea you have to plant and the number of cards of each job – signified by different colors – that you have to get in order to plant said idea. For instance, in the mission card below you need three Architect i.e. blue cards, four Forger i.e. green cards and so on. Players will then go around the board, and at certain spots will be given a chance to randomly draw these colored cards.

Just like in the movie, each of these jobs are accomplished at different levels of the victim’s dream. Once you have enough cards for a certain job, you can then go to the dream level – represented by the concentric circles on the game board – where that job is to be completed and finish that part of your mission to get points. Jobs that require more cards net you more points.

The moment any player completes all four jobs in his mission, the endgame or “Final Kick” takes place. Just like in the movie, all players have to get out of the victim’s mind. This is done by going to the first or outermost dream level within a set number of turns. Otherwise he will be stuck in limbo. Mechanics-wise, this means a certain number of points will be deducted from each player who gets stuck in limbo.

Even if multiple players complete all four parts of their mission, only one idea can be fully planted in the poor victim’s mind. I don’t know how this idea will be chosen, but the player whose inception is successful will get bonus points. That’s the gist of the game, but there are other rules and mechanics that I didn’t discuss here.

Twirl your browser and pledge at least $49 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a copy of Inceptor as a reward. A pledge of at least $99 will get you The Chemist edition, which includes the aluminum briefcase shown in the video.

[via Super Punch]

The Doctor Who merchandising machine has really kicked into high gear of late. It seems like every time we turn around there is something new carrying the Doctor Who brand. This time out, there is a new trivia game for fans of the series to compete against each other with.

The game is the Doctor Who Trivial Pursuit Travel Edition. It’s like traditional Trivial Pursuit, but all the questions are Doctor Who themed, naturally.

I think my friends might like this game. I usually dominate at normal Trivial Pursuit, leaving my opponents feeling dumb and defeated (with good reason). They won’t play the game with me anymore. Since I have never watched a single episode of Doctor Who all the way through, they might have a chance.

The cards have 600 questions and include categories like Time Lords, Companions, Episodes & Stories, Monsters, Cast, Crew, & Beyond, and Years and Dates. The game is available for $19.99(USD) from ThinkGeek. The game comes with a Dalek die,  numerous question cards, and a blue wedge container to hold it all. What, no TARDIS?

While I like playing the occasional game of chess, I don’t think I’d be able to make it through a round playing with this chess set without throwing up a little bit in the back of my throat.

Yes, what you’re looking at is an entire chess set made from taxidermied mice. It was made by Etsy creator TheCurious13 “to get people’s attention.” Well, mission accomplished, Curious, mission accomplished.

According to its description the set is made from “fur, taxidermy, mouse, mice, foam, cotton, wire, beads, fabric, wood, paint, paper, and glue.” That’s right, there are so many mice, he had to state it twice. Hey, I made a rhyme!

Each mouse has been dressed in appropriate garb, including tiny crowns for Kings and Queens, and these adorably creepy little bishop’s outfits:

Each of the 32 mice in the set was already dead, frozen and bred to be fed to reptiles, so I suppose this is a slightly more pleasant outcome for them. I guess. Unfortunately (or is it fortunately), the set has already been sold, so we don’t have to worry about the cat eating all our pawns any time soon.

[via Dangerous Minds via Geekologie]

Sometimes I see the kinds of toys being sold in stores today and I worry. Baby dolls with a diapered monkey pet, pole dancer dolls (apparently, these exist), shopping spree board games… Don’t get me wrong, these toys are probably fun and your kid will probably love them.

But I’d love to see more toys with better educational values on the shelves, because that way, they have tons of fun and actually learn something – like with the Robot Turtles board game.

Thought up by Dan Shapiro, Robot Turtles is a board game that teaches your kids the basic language of programming. The premise of the game is simple: the kids get a stack of action cards, while an adult reads the instructions and moves the turtle for the on the board. When they want to move the turtle in a certain way, they have to pick a card and lay it on the table.

Don’t you wish you played something like this growing up before you enrolled at, say, MIT or the University of Management and Technology, to take up some IT course so that basic programming would’ve been at least one of your first languages? Yeah, I bet you do.

Dan sums the entire game up pretty nicely: “The little programmers put instruction cards down, driving the turtles through the maze, but the grownup is the computer, executing commands on the board.  At its heart, Robot Turtles is a game about bossing around adults. Just like programming is about bossing around computers.”

A lot of people think Robot Turtles is a good idea, because it raised over $630,000 on Kickstarter, which is many times over Dan’s $25,000 project goal. If you didn’t have a chance to make a pledge to get the game, then you can join the mailing list on the Robot Turtles website to find out when it becomes available again.

Funny thing is, this isn’t the first time turtles have been used to help kids learn how to program…

[via Dvice]

Pac-Man and Yahtzee are two of my favorite childhood memories. Both games provided endless hours of fun (and frustration) so what could be better than a game that combines the two?

The Yahtzee Pac-Man Collector’s Edition plays just like regular Yahtzee, but the dice faces have been replaced with ghosts and fruit. And the shaker. Well, the shaker is the best part of the game. It’s Pac-Man himself.

So what are you waiting for? Roll yourself five blinkies and head on over to Amazon, where you can grab the Pac-Man Yahtzee set for $24.99(USD).

[via Geekystar]