How To Murder Time is the next step beyond the Van Hemlock Podcast. It turns out that there is much more you can do with your time than just playing video games. Each episode we take half an hour to tell you about the latest things we are doing to pass the time before we get old.

The episodes cover a range of topics. Here’s a list of the episodes that we’ve done so far broken down by type.

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Board Games

Battlestar Galactica

A board game based on the recent series. Very big on paranoia and co-operation between players.

While the original series was a fun childhood memory of campy space battles and comic book derring do, the 2000 reboot turned out to be something quite different; darker, edgier and a lot more of a grim thriller for adults, which just happened to be set in space. I was captivated all the way through and enjoyed it immensely. So when Jon produced a board game based on it at a recent game night gathering, I was apprehensive at best; the promise of an awful and cynical moneygrab bit of merch inflicted on us. Fortunately, the reality turned out to be something quite remarkable, and surprisingly in keeping with the core essence of the show itself and what made it stand out so… -T

Settlers of Catan

The poster boy game for the board games revival. Players compete to build roads, settlements and cities on an island.

Being a computer gaming loner from a very early age, I’m only just starting to learn that board games are capable of being so much more than rainy-day exercises in keeping the children entertained. My own experiences of these come largely from those decades-old classics; Monopoly, Game of Life, Connect 4, Ludo, Buckaroo, games which are products of earlier generations and which have changed little since then. To see how things have developed and how the modern board game has evolved, I really needed to try one of the most famous of the so-called “new-wave” of european board games. Settlers of Catan is just such a title and beneath the innocent bright tiles, counters and cards lurks a stunning masterpiece of design, encompassing almost every possible aspect of the old school games which game before, skillfully integrating them into something quite distinctive and new… -T

Tabletop Wargames

Dreadfleet

A limited edition standalone game of fantasy naval warfare from Games Workshop.

I always loved Games Workshop’s Man-O-War game, a much more accessible and manageable entry to table top wargaming than their usual complex and labyrinthine army lists and rule books. It was a much cheaper poison too! It was always a shame that it went away, discontinued along with Mighty Empires in favour of the more pernicious addiction feeding Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle ranges. The simple six-model fleets with their bright sails and sprightly sailing were a welcome departure from the often self-parodying ‘grimdark’ confusion of the rest of it. But at last there is a kind of return to that spirit and age with Dreadfleet, a stand-alone offering of high-seas adventure, pirates and swashbuckling. The model count is mercifully low too. I was greatly looking forward to giving it a go, as much to recapture childhood as to try a new game… -T

Uncharted Seas

A fantasy naval warfare game from Spartan Games.

I hadn’t done any actual wargaming in such a  long time, so when the chaps decided to all get fleets for Spartan Games’ Uncharted Seas, I was apprehensive. Was this to be the start of a horrendous spiral of expensive acquisition? But in keeping with the spirit of Games Workshop’s old Man-O-Wan game, it’s easy to get into, and even easier to stop buying more stuff when you have enough. One starter box was enough and I just had to go with the team that has all the steam boilers. Gameplay was straight forward but satisfying and enjoyable no matter who won. It even got me painting models again, a welcome therapeutic distraction from the obsession of computer gaming… -T

Warhammer 40k

The best-selling tabletop war game. Space Marines, Orks and Skulls from Games Workshop.

I have to relearn how to play Warhammer 40k once every four years, on average and every time it seems completely different. Another Olympiad, another starter edition box set. This time it’s Space Marines vs Orks and I’m down to be the Orks. A hobby bordering on a lifestyle, I’m always apprehensive about trying to get into it yet again. If I’m not careful, it’ll consume me! But Jon has spent a lot of time and effort setting up ‘the lab’, a dedicated space to set up a proper gaming table, and even record what goes on, so it’d be rude not to give it a go. I wonder if this time around, it’ll sink in, or whether we’ll be at this exact same exercise again in four years time… -T

Card Games

Thunderstone

A card game of dungeon delving. All cards are sold through expansions and not through random booster packs.

I’m usually in two minds about Magic: The Gathering. On the one hand it is an insidious form of Junior Heroin with a highly reprehensible marketing model, but on the other, oooooh…the colours are prettyyyyyy… This had always made me leery of almost any kind of card game beyond Solitaire. If only there was a way to take all the tactical complexity of the game, but leave behind the viciously immoral shaking down of small children for their pocket-money. It took me several goes to realise that this was exactly what Thunderstone had done, and with each go, the genius of it further unfolded. A customisable card game, where the customisation was a part of that game, not a spitefully withheld exterior marketing activity; remarkable… -T

Video Games

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman has a bad day at the office.

Comic books were never really my thing and my favourite Batman was always Adam West, but even I had some sense of what a ‘proper’ Batman should be. Relentless without obsession, dark without nihilism, brutal without enjoyment. A pragmatic kind of down to earth hero who is theatrical only as a means to an end, and who gets things done without excess. And of course, who does not kill. Such a characterisation is probably difficult at best, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it from a computer game adaptation. Coupled with technically excellent gameplay and presentation, it goes a long way toward elevating Arkham Asylum from mere crappy film tie-in game, to something the rightly stands on its own merit as a solid member of a wider canon. At times, I forgot I wasn’t watching a movie… -T

Black Prophecy

Space combat MMO.

EVE Online is all very well; sweeping, epic, player-driven, full of wide-ranging majesty and all that, but sometimes you just want to jump in the cockpit and shoot someone with your own bare hands. Where did the space shooter go? I looked around one year an there was nothing left. People have a go at it here and there, but the great dream of a truly massive future version of Elite remains, despite several failed attempts. What is it about the Space Trading MMO that remains so unappealing? Why aren’t there as many EVE clones as World of Warcraft clones? I’d been following Black Prophecy on and off for a long time and at last it was here. Perhaps I could find some answers in Reakktor Media’s own go at making a perennial dream real… -T

Civilization

The classic game of building a civilization. Really, if you haven’t heard of it then you have to listen to this.

It often seems like Sid Meier’s Civilization has been with me my entire life. I’ve gone years between actual playthroughs, but as long as I’ve gamed on a PC, Civilization has been there, constantly reminding me of what a computer game even is. It is so integral to my gaming background that I see bits of it everywhere, and in the most unlikely games too. But it had been a long time since my last play of the very first game. I was almost dreading it actually; how much of what I thought I remembered was just glossy hindsight? This is a particular danger for anyone who would talk about the games of yesteryear. Were things really better in the good old days, or did we just know no better? There is an easy way to find out… -T

Dune 2

Considered by many to be where the RTS genre started. How many licensed IP games can you say that for?

It’s called Dune and I do like the book and film, but much of what goes on in here has little to do with Frank Herbert. It was just as alien though, my first ever go at an RTS. I felt powerful! A mighty commander dictating strategies and deployments. The sheer novelty of the format kept this on my replay list for quite some years, and I’ve generally had some kind of Real Time Strategy game on the go ever since. You never forget your first, they say, but I’d clearly forgotten what computer game used to be like; shorter than today, but more difficult to compensate. Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty, it was apparently called, a title which was either very arrogant or very foresighted – it did just that… -T

System Shock

The classic cyberpunk FPS.

Everyone remembers Shodan, of course, cited as one of the best game villains of all time in many such surveys. I didn’t even need the excuse of a show to play this again, and usually have the entire Looking Glass Studios back catalogue on permanent replay rotation. The first System Shock game really was an epiphany for me though, marking the end of a genre which mostly had its roots in point and click Lucasarts adventures, text-based games and the ninety degree turns of Eye of the Beholder and such. From here on, all RPGs would be cousins to the FPS. But those hours on Citadel Station have lasted me a lifetime, and it would be great to live them once more… -T

Books

Perdido Street Station

China Mieville’s take on Fantasy.

Modern classics are had to spot, at least until well beyond their time. I wonder if anyone thought much of The Lord of the Rings in 1955. China Meiville doesn’t think much of it now, but both his own Perdido Street Station and The Lord of the Rings stood out for me and in similar ways, both being breathtakingly complete chronicles of entire worlds, societies and cultures, rather than just stories. Both tell ripping yarns of sweeping consequence and most importnatly, I couldn’t put either of them down the first time I read through them. Perdido Street Station is a much more modern and fresh work though, being of more recent vintage and shows a refreshing confidence in the ability or a mature reader of fantasy fiction to keep up with present-day and relevant ideals. Shows like this one make me wish I was a much more articulate speaker, and capable of more readily sharing what I saw when reading through this classic of the future… -T

Red Mars

Kim Stanley Robinson’s tale of colonising Mars.

I get vaguely defensive when thinking about my love of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature. The stuff is often marginalised as fiction for ‘young adults’, tends to occupy its own Special Shelves in bookshops, away from the Proper Fiction, and all too often its own contributors don’t help matters either. But good Science Fiction is too important to be dismissed as childish. The good Science Fiction author has a responsibility to the future and to us all, as a professional dreamer, a prophet. Not to predict the future, but to aid scientists and engineers in brainstorming it, even if only by process of elimination. Robinson walks the narrow line between business development manager and fantasist with a solid, consistent and believable rumination of what future Martian colonisation might be like which I’ve always found a small beacon of hope for the future… -T

Movies and TV

Ultramarines

An animated movie of Games Workshop’s war game. Space Marines investigate missing troops on an isolated planet.

Doctor Who

The 2011 season of the classic BBC series. This is either series 32, or season 6 if you don’t mind being wrong.

Life in a Day

A film about people of the world in a single day told through clips uploaded to YouTube .

Senna

A documentary about the Formula 1 driver presented only through archive footage and interviews. Amazingly watchable even if you have no interest in Formula 1.

Other things

The Isle of Wight

An expedition to a strange island off of the south coast of England. Here be dragons.

Making your own wine… In seven days!

What happens when somebody who doesn’t drink starts to make wine in an implausibly short amount of time, and then somebody who does drink tries some while podcasting.