Flame Con 2022

I had the absolute pleasure of attending Flame Con over the weekend!

This is an amazing even featuring fan and creator events with a LGBTQ+ friendly environment. And when I say friendly, I mean it in the purest way. I’ve been to a ton of conventions and Flame Con remains number one in terms of of how helpful, kind, polite, and just overall a delight to deal with not only the volunteers but exhibitors, authors, artists, and singers. Yes, singers. There was an acapella performance that was just stunning.

I bought waaaaay too many books and had a couple of them signed with cute doodles.

The panel I was most interested in was censorship in libraries and they had some amazing ideas I was able to apply them to what I will likely have to deal with at work considering some of the more… Spicy offerings in my library’s collection.

I had a great time at this event and I look forward to next year!

Sweet Suite 2022 - Upcoming Releases from FUNKO GAMES !

By Nadya Martinez

Last week O&G got to check out all the latest toys at SWEET SUITE !

Hosted by the Toy Insider, Sweet Suite is a legendary toy party for members of the press and top-tier digital influencers, including Instagram stars and popular YouTube creators. At Sweet Suite 2022, guests will get up close and personal with the coolest new toys, collectibles, video games, and more from popular toy companies. This party is all about fun, and it’s full of interactive experiences like photo opps, contests, games, and so much more. Guests will enjoy delicious food and cocktails, all while getting a first look at new product reveals and getting inspired for upcoming holiday gift guides.

Here’s the latest from FUNKO GAMES !

A Goofy Movie Game

Global superstar Powerline is back on tour! Join Max and his friends as they hit the road in this adventure-filled race to the concert! Make your way across the map, collecting fun memories for your scrapbook. Then hurry to score the best seats by the time Powerline hits the stage!Play cards to collect memories and travel to new locations! Roll the die to see if Powerline reaches L.A. or Goofy takes you on a wacky detour! Make the most memories and score the best seats at the concert to win!I

Interesting Gameplay Features
•Includes 6 detailed character figures.
•Travel across the road map game board to reach L.A.
•Roll the giant gold, sparkly die to see where Goofy and Powerline go!
•90s visual design captures nostalgia for the film.
•Original card art depicts beloved locations and moments from the movie.

Game Contents
•Game Board •Goofy Mover •Powerline Mover •4 Character Movers •48 Character Cards •50 Scrapbook Cards •4 Reference Cards •6 Bonus Tokens •Die •Instructions

Game Details •Strategy game• Ages 7+ •For 2–4 players •30-minute gameplay •On-shelf mid-2022* •Game dimensions: 10.5”W x10.5”H x 2.5”D •Master case count 4 •MSRP $23.99

Disney A Goofy Movie Game MSRP: $23.99 Ages:7+
Available Now

Marvel Battleworld: Ultimate Armory Series 3

Battle Ball Pick your favorite Hero, rescue your friends, and win battles to defeat Thanos! Battleworld is a revolutionary cooperative, expandable, collectible adventure game featuring dozens of characters from all over the Marvel Universe! Players get to crack open the mysterious Thanostones during the course of play to reveal the mystery character inside for a constant sense of surprise and delight! Series 3 introduces us to brand new locations, battles, and exciting new game mechanics that will continue to challenge players and test their strategies!

Interesting Product Features
•Expanded series to include 30+ unique new characters from exciting locations all over Battleworld, including cool rare variants! Collect them all!
•New Armor Tokens make the Battles more challenging but also aid the Heroes in making more powerful attacks!
•Unique team-based or solo gameplay allows players to jump into Battle world right away!
•Collectible characters come with their own game cards for immersive, cooperative play. Collect all the unique powers and abilities!
•Free the mystery character from the “Thanostone.” Each time youcrack one open, it’s a surprise!

Marvel Battleworld: Series 3 Ultimate Armory Battle Ball MSRP: $9.99 Ages:6+
Available Now

Disney Kingdomania: Series 1 – Game Ball

Enter the digital game world of Disney Kingdomania! Each level features cherished Disney stories and characters, but troublesome Glitches are causing chaos and mixing up the levels! Patch the problems before they crash the game!Each Game Ball contains everything you need to play, including two mystery characters and 10 unique level tiles. Combine multiple Game Balls for more players, and expand the fun with dozens of figures to collect!

Interesting Gameplay Features
•Series 1 features 40 figures from eight beloved Disney properties. Collect them all—including exclusive items, variants, and chase figures!
•Each Game Ball contains everything you need to play, including two character figures with unique game tiles and special powers.
•Play solo or combine Game Balls to add more players!
•Build your own game level each time you play, and collect more tiles to create bigger, multi-level games.
•Discover the rare Glitch figures—only available in Game balls!

Disney Kingdomania: Series 1 Game Ball MSRP: $9.99Ages: 6+
Available:October 2022

Disney Kingdomania: Series 1 Super Game Pack MSRP: $22.99 Ages: 6+
Available:October 20

TRIBECA GAMES Festival Spotlight: All the Featured Games - Video/ Gameplay & Demos

Otakus and Geeks got to attend the Tribeca Press Preview days for Tribeca Games and experience playable demos of the upcoming featured games. This year’s Festival features 9 official Games selections that demonstrate phenomenal storytelling, art, and innovation through interactive experiences. I got to play and experience each of these game selections, and also speak with some of the creators. Every single one of these games was intriguing, well- thought out and completely original.

You can check my coverage HERE: http://www.otakusandgeeks.com/articles/2022/6/21/tribeca-games-spotlight-all-the-extraordinary-video-games-at-the-2022-tribeca-games-showcase/author

The games featured in the gallery include:

-American Arcadia (Out of the Blue Studios / Raw Fury)

-As Dusk Falls (INTERIOR/NIGHT / Xbox Game Studios)

-The Cub (Demagog Studio / Untold Tales)

-Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course (Studio MDHR)

-IMMORTALITY (Half Mermaid)

-OXENFREE II: Lost Signals (Night School Studio / Netflix)

-A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio / Focus Entertainment)

-Thirsty Suitors (Outerloop Games / Annapurna Interactive)

-Venba (Visai Games)

Tribeca Games Spotlight: AS DUSK FALLS Interview w/ Production Director

Tribeca Games Spotlight: AS DUSK FALLS (XBOX) Interview w/ Production Director Charu Desodt

As Dusk Falls (INTERIOR/NIGHT / Xbox Game Studios) Drama, Thriller *Mature
Watch Trailer HERE: https://vimeo.com/702537117
Available on July 19, 2022

Otakus and Geeks got to attend the Tribeca Press Preview days for Tribeca Games and experience playable demos of the upcoming featured games. This year’s Festival features 9 official Games selections that demonstrate phenomenal storytelling, art, and innovation through interactive experiences. I got to play and experience each of these game selections, and also speak with some of the creators. Every single one of these games was intriguing, well- thought out and completely original. A game that completely caught my attention is the new thriller “As Dusk Falls” coming from X-Box Studios, this game is going to be a literal game-changer. You can check more of my TRIBECA coverage HERE: http://www.otakusandgeeks.com/article...

As Dusk Falls is an original interactive drama from INTERIOR/NIGHT that explores the entangled lives of two families across thirty years. Starting in 1998 with a robbery-gone-wrong in small town Arizona, the choices you make have a powerful impact on the characters’ lives in this uncompromising story of betrayal, sacrifice and resilience.

The cinematic story is brought to life by the performance of actors that are digitally rendered into a beautiful art style, creating a unique experience that plays like a motion graphic novel.

Reveal insights about yourself and those you play with as you discover the underlying values of your decisions in cooperative gameplay with up to 8 players at a time, locally or online (or a mix).*

*Courtesy of XBOX Game Studios/ Microsoft

Additional information

MATURE 17+

• Intense Violence, Blood, Sexual Themes, Use of Drugs, Strong Language, Crude Humor

• Publisher

• Xbox Game Studios

• Developer

• INTERIOR/NIGHT

• Genre

• Interactive Drama

• Platforms

• Xbox Series X|S
  Xbox One
  Windows 10/11

Tribeca Games Spotlight: All the extraordinary Video Games at the 2022 Tribeca Games Showcase

Otakus and Geeks got to attend the Tribeca Press Preview days for Tribeca Games and experience playable demos of the upcoming featured games. This year’s Festival features 9 official Games selections that demonstrate phenomenal storytelling, art, and innovation through interactive experiences. Festival goers will be the first to experience a playable Games Gallery at Spring Studios, featuring demos, art, and artifacts for this year’s selections, which include: American Arcadia, As Dusk Falls, The Cub, Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course, IMMORTALITY, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Thirsty Suitors and Venba.

I got to play and experience each of these game selections, and also speak with some of the creators. Every single one of these games was intriguing, well- thought out and completely original. A game that completely caught my attention is the new thriller “As Dusk Falls” coming from X-Box Studios, this game is going to be a literal game-changer.
You can check my coverage here!

Check out all of the Tribeca Games Selections Below:

Tribeca Games at the Tribeca Festival celebrates the convergence of games, entertainment and culture, highlighting the storytelling, art and innovation of games. Tribeca champions every frontier in the art of storytelling, and video games are at the forefront of pushing narrative to ever greater heights. 

Our advisory board of visionary leaders in both the film and games industry champion Tribeca’s power in shaping the future of games as a powerful form of storytelling.

The festival kicked off with the Tribeca Games Spotlight, a digital showcase featuring exclusive gameplay and creator interviews from Tribeca’s official selections co-hosted by Janina Gavankar, Rahul Kohli, and Abubakar Salim. (June 10th) www.tribecafilm.com/games

American Arcadia (Out of the Blue Studios / Raw Fury)
Action, Drama, Thriller, Science Fiction, Technology

Welcome to Arcadia! A 70s retro-futuristic metropolis where all of its citizens enjoy a life of luxury and comfort… unaware that they’re being broadcast live 24/7! Arcadia is not an ordinary city, but the most-watched reality show on the planet—where a drop in popularity ratings comes at the highest cost: death. Uncover the truth and escape with your life from a televised utopia in Out of the Blue’s brand new puzzle platformer game.

As Dusk Falls (INTERIOR/NIGHT / Xbox Game Studios)
Drama, Thriller *Mature

As Dusk Falls is an original interactive drama from INTERIOR/NIGHT that explores the entangled lives of two families across thirty years. Starting in 1998 with a robbery-gone-wrong in small town Arizona, the choices you make have a powerful impact on the characters’ lives in this uncompromising story of betrayal, sacrifice and resilience.

The Cub (Demagog Studio / Untold Tales)
Action, Environmental, Music, Science Fiction

Welcome to Earth after The Great Climate Catastrophe, where only the ultra-rich managed to evacuate to Mars. Decades have passed and those on Mars venture back to Earth to collect specimens like a safari hunt. As the Cub, a mutant orphan immune to the toxins that killed off most of humanity, players will be relentlessly hunted by a science expedition and must run to safety amongst the ruins of Earth. Featuring an original soundtrack program, Radio Nostalgia from Mars.

Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course (Studio MDHR)
Animation, Action

Another helping of classic Cuphead action awaits you in Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course. Brothers Cuphead and Mugman are joined by the clever, adventurous Ms. Chalice for a rollicking adventure on a previously undiscovered Inkwell Isle. With the aid of new weapons, magical charms, and Ms. Chalice’s unique abilities, assist the jolly Chef Saltbaker and take on a new cast of fearsome, larger-than-life bosses in Cuphead’s final challenging quest.

IMMORTALITY (Half Mermaid Productions)
Experimental, Horror, Thriller, Art, Mystery *Mature

Marissa Marcel was a film star. She made three movies. But none of the movies were ever released. And then Marissa Marcel disappeared.

After discovering rare footage from her three lost movies—Ambrosio (1968), Minsky (1970) and Two of Everything (1999)—award winning Game Director Sam Barlow (Her Story, Telling Lies) has assembled an interactive trilogy in which players can explore the legend of Marissa Marcel through her work.

OXENFREE II: Lost Signals (Night School Studio / Netflix)
Animation, Drama, Thriller, Science Fiction, Mystery

OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is the mind-bending follow-up to the critically-acclaimed narrative adventure game OXENFREE from Night School Studio. In the small coastal town of Camena, unnaturally occurring electromagnetic waves are causing interference with electrical and radio equipment. Reluctantly, Riley Poverly returns to her hometown to investigate the mystery. What she finds is more than she bargained for.

A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio / Focus Entertainment)
Horror, Action, Women, Drama, Thriller, Mystery

This direct sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence follows Amicia and her brother Hugo on a heartrending journey into a breathtaking, brutal medieval world twisted by supernatural forces as they discover the cost of saving loved ones in a desperate struggle for survival. Strike from the shadows or unleash hell, and overcome foes and challenges with a variety of weapons, tools, and unearthly powers. A Plague Tale : Requiem will be released in 2022 on consoles and PC.

Thirsty Suitors (Outerloop Games / Annapurna Interactive)
Action, Women, Comedy, Drama, LGBTQIA, Romance, Asian Diaspora Stories

Jala is a young woman returning home for her sister’s wedding and confronting her past. With wildly varied gameplay, Jala will fight skate punks, random suitors, and ultimately, her exes, in the ultimate battle to heal old hurts and ignite new truths, bringing Jala closer to understanding what she wants from her future. Can she learn to love herself and heal the wounds of her past?

Venba (Visai Games)
Animation, Experimental, Food, Asian Diaspora Stories

Venba is a narrative cooking game centered around an Indian mom who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s. Players will cook various dishes, restore lost recipes, engage in branching conversations, and explore a story about family, love, loss and more.

Cecilia Aldarondo's LANDFALL Has its National Broadcast Premiere on PBS' POV

Posted by Sean Tucker

American Documentary | POV is proud to announce the national broadcast premiere of Landfall, the second film to show on POV’s 34th season. Director Cecilia Aldarondo’s latest feature documentary, which was produced by Ines Hofmann Kanna, will premiere Monday July 12, 2021 on PBS at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) and at pov.org. The film will also be available to stream for free at pov.org until August 11, 2021. Aldarondo was a 2021 Independent Spirit Award "Truer than Fiction'' nominee. The award recognizes outstanding emerging talent in nonfiction film direction.

An official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival and winner of the Viewfinders Grand Jury at 2020 DOC NYC, Landfall is Aldarondo’s second documentary film to broadcast on POV after her Season 30 title, Memories of a Penitent Heart. Offering a prismatic portrait of collective trauma and resistance and set against the backdrop of the 2019 protests in the wake of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico that toppled the governor, the film assembles scenes from all over the island, spotlighting the different ways each community addresses its own recovery.

Landfall speaks to the often competing visions of post-María Puerto Rico’s future. Foregrounding the 72-billion-dollar debt crisis that predated the storm and worsened its impact, Aldarondo’s film explores the intertwining legacies of colonialism, exploitative industries and disaster capitalism and the barriers to recovery they create. As opportunists looking to make a profit descend upon the island, the Puerto Rican diaspora comes together to create unprecedented forms of community-led mutual aid when assistance from the federal government and traditional NGOs fails to appear.

"As a Puerto Rican from the diaspora, I watched Hurricane María unfold from afar while cut off from loved ones, including my grandmother who would die six months after the storm. Reeling from the debt crisis, which unleashed a wave of austerity, poverty and migration that María only intensified, the Puerto Rico depicted in Landfall is a laboratory for greed, privatization, gentrification, the dismantling of social services, and the devastating effects of climate change," said director Cecilia Aldarondo. She continued, "We may have a new President and Puerto Rico a new governor, but little has changed since María hit, as evidenced by the recent privatization of Puerto Rico's electric grid. The Puerto Rican people are still fighting to end the profit-driven policies that have proved disastrous ever since President Obama signed them into existence. In Landfall I wanted to balance a cautionary tale for our times, while also prioritizing a dignified image of Puerto Ricans who have banded together to fight for their sovereignty.”

"It was an absolute privilege to support Cecilia on this remarkable project. Her collaboration with Puerto Rico-based activist Lale Namerrow Pastor was a model of Puerto Rican solidarity, from the colony to the diaspora. By combining considerate and equitable filmmaking with artistic storytelling that challenges what is currently expected of documentaries, Landfall is setting the bar for our field," said producer Ines Hofmann Kanna.

As activists flood the streets to protest government corruption, Landfall finds an archipelago on the brink. While the future remains uncertain, Aldarondo captures the communal power of people fighting for autonomy over their lives. In posing the question of how we move forward in the wake of disaster, the celebratory mood in the streets offers the beginnings of an answer, one emerging from a growing demand for self-determination and a collective spirit.

“Cecilia’s masterpiece is both a sharp condemnation of the continued colonial exploitation of Puerto Rico and a warm embrace of the land and people. Rendered with a singular vision and deep affection, you’ll be swept into solidarity with these Puerto Ricans who resist and rebuild,” said Chris White, executive producer, POV.

Landfall is a co-production of POV and ITVS, in association with Latino Public Broadcasting.

Tribeca Film Fest 2021 (Podcast Wrap Up)

By Justin D Williams

Here is my thoughts and wrap up for Tribeca Film Festival 2021

Tribeca Games Spotlight: All the extraordinary Video Games at the 2021 Tribeca Games Showcase

The Tribeca Official Showcase included eight games from small developers (including some that have the backing of large publishers) coming to both PC and consoles. Festival-goers can virtually demo these games, and watch the entire showcase in the Tribeca Games Spotlight stream! (see video below)

Tribeca Games at the Tribeca Festival celebrates the convergence of games, entertainment and culture, highlighting the storytelling, art and innovation of games. Tribeca champions every frontier in the art of storytelling, and video games are at the forefront of pushing narrative to ever greater heights. 

Our advisory board of visionary leaders in both the film and games industry champion Tribeca’s power in shaping the future of games as a powerful form of storytelling.

The festival kicked off with the Tribeca Games Spotlight featuring a line-up of creator interviews, appearances by special guests, and exclusive gameplay from the eight official selections:

Harold Halibut, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Lost In Random, NORCO, Sable, Signalis, The Big Con and Twelve Minutes. Game fans had the opportunity to virtually catch the new Kena: Bridge of Spirits’ trailer, and hear from such celebrities and gaming industry luminaries as Guillermo del Toro, Khalief Adams, Neill Blomkamp, Japanese Breakfast, Tanya DePass, Reggie Fils-Aimé, Bing Gordon, Melissa Joan Hart, Geoff Keighley, Hideo Kojima, Sam Lake, James McAvoy, Norman Reedus, Kiki Wolfkill, Elijah Wood and Jen Zee.

Catch the Spotlight Here!

Tribeca Games Spotlight digital showcase on Friday, June 11 at 2pm ET! We’re celebrating Tribeca Games’ first-ever full games lineup. The digital showcase will feature creator interviews, appearances by special guests, and exclusive gameplay from our 8 Official Selections. Stream it right here on YouTube, as well as Twitch and Facebook. Learn more about Tribeca Games, sign up for demo sessions, and check out how we’re celebrating the innovative art and storytelling of games. https://tribecafilm.com/games For everything Tribeca, head over to https://tribecafilm.com and follow us: https://twitter.com/TribecaFilmFest https://instagram.com/tribeca