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Did you ever wonder what would happen if the hit show ‘The Iron Chef‘ got rid of all of the gourmet nonsense and concentrated on video games instead?

Wonder no longer: Global Game Jam would happen.

Each year the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) puts the GGJ together, inviting professionals and hobbyists alike to hunker down and create a game in 48 hours. In case that wasn’t harrowing enough, there is a catch.

From the Global Game Jam site:

 The structure of a jam is usually that everyone gathers on Friday afternoon, watches a short video keynote with advice from leading game developers, and then a secret theme is announced. All sites worldwide are then challenged to make games based on that same theme, with games to be completed by Sunday afternoon. 

Emphasis my own, because secret themes are awesome and should be emphasized. What was year’s secret theme?

An Ouroboros: an ancient symbol representing a dragon or serpent eating its own tail.

And that’s’ it: 48 hours, serpent eating its own tail, good luck.

Who could rise to such an occasion? Jeff Ward for one!

Fire Hose had a couple of people participate in this year’s Global Game Jam this year, Ethan Fenn, whom we will feature in a later post, and Jeff Ward. Jeff’s team created a two player game with the apropos title Eat Sheep and Die.

Jeff on Jam:

This jam was way less stressful than any other jam I’ve participated in. We essentially had something fun to play by middle of day 2, and just polished things throughout the end of day 2 and day 3. As a result, this is probably the most complete jam game I’ve ever worked on. Very little went wrong. It was great.

You can read more about Jeff Ward’s experiences with the Global Game Jam on his blog.

Hello Fire Hose friends.

Perhaps on Halloween you stumbled across an article on Kotaku about how you, yes you, can play BioShock Monopoly for free. If you did not see it there you might have seen it on GamesRadar, GamePro, or The Escapist . There are other sites that it is appearing on as well….

As it turns out this board game was not made by a 20 something art student in Canada, as some sources are reporting, but was actually created by your’s truly.

It may be hard to believe but I like BioShock.

This is me, dressed as a Little Sister, holding onto Songbird while standing next to Delta across from Elizabeth.

Before coming to work at Fire Hose I taught at a charter school called The Renaissance School for the Arts. There I taught a class about the art of video games. We studied video games and their place in Ludology. As an assignment I asked students to create their own board game versions of video games. The board circulating around the internet was my example to them.

The board was made both for the purposes of my class and in conjunction with a challenge issued by some members of the 2K Forums.

To make the board I spent a lot of time playing BioShock. I wanted to make sure that this was not just Monopoly with art plastered over it, but an experience that would remind players of Rapture. I started by looking at how Monopoly was set up, with the least desirable properties at the start of the game board and the prized tracts of land situated at the end; I sought to mimic this.

People that look at the board will notice that the first properties are BioShock 2′s Limbo Room and Sinclair Deluxe both of which are found within Rapture’s skid row; “Pauper’s Drop.” As you travel the board the properties become more valuable based on their fictional in game location or fan popularity. Some concessions were made, (I wanted Monopoly’s Marvin Gardens to be replaced with Arcadia due to the garden theme), but for the most part the game board mimics the original as far as property values are concerned.

The railroads have been replaced by various scientific ventures. Now you can buy Fontaine Futuristics, Ryan Industries, Sinclair Solutions, or Tennenbaum’s Safehouse.

Waterworks and Electric Company have also been replaced by Raptures two favorite vending machines: Circus of Values and El Ammo Bandito.

No more Chance or Community Chest– now it is Power to the People and Swami. The sites that featured the game board on Halloween mention that there are no cards to go with these spaces….

But I beg to differ. 

The jail space features the officer splicer Ducky, and free parking sports a Bathysphere.

I may have been very thorough with my game board.

Even the money was given a BioShock treatment.

And that is how the BioShock Monopoly was made. It was made by a chick that works here at Fire Hose games.

It took me several hours to make (I would rather not admit how long) and I am very pleased to see that after being on the internet for quite some time people are still enjoying it. ^_^

**Getting back to those Swami and Power to the People cards… The cards clearly do exist and we are going to be posting them on the Fire Hose blog in the very near future!**

Ichiro is safe.

Hi, my name is Alec, and I have a serious problem that is taking over my life: I am completely addicted to PUZZLE QUEST! If you haven’t taken the time to play this game yet, drop what you’re doing and go get this game. I recommend the DS or PSP versions because you never really have to stop playing when you can bring the game with you wherever you go.

Now that you have the game, be ready for your addiction to turn you into an empty husk only slightly resembling your former self. Ideal places to play are:

- In bed while you’re waking up
- In the shower (just wrap up it with a Ziplock bag! It’s totally normal.)
- On the way to work or school (use your elbows to steer)
- At work or school, especially during meetings
- While you’re eating dinner with friends (note: playing video games in a bar will cause them to check your age twice)
- During a wedding reception
- While taking the SATs
- When you’re interviewing for a new job (remember to add your experience level to your resume!)

As you journey deeper into the dark tunnel that is Puzzle Quest, you will certainly find fun new places to get your quest on. Sharing the questing with your friends is also highly encouraged – you now have the power to change their lives, so do it responsibly!

That said, there may come a time when people force you to stop playing and actually look up from your DS/PSP while talking to them. Thankfully, there is an easy solution: give them Dominion! This will give them a reason to disregard your lack of interest in their lives, while also giving you another awesome scenario where you can feed your new Dominion obsession while fiending over Puzzle Quest between hands.

Now that I’ve enabled you, go get busy: You’ve got skulls to match and Provinces to buy!

Happy questing.

Everyone at Fire Hose was super excited to come into the office today and see this new article by the good folks at PSN Stores naming Slam Bolt Scrappers one of the most anticipated games of 2011! A big thanks goes out to Eric G and the rest of the crew over there for showing us some love.

While you were all partying it up for New Years, we were hard at work adding even more gaming sweetness to Slam Bolt Scrappers, so this announcement really makes us feel the warm fuzzies. We’ve put in so many new features since we last showed off SBS at PAX Prime 2010, and the time is getting near to start telling gamers about the increased fun-ness (including NINJAS!), so stay tuned and keep on gaming!

Don’t forget to check out PSN Stores for full coverage on all things PSN.