Bearing Good News with 'News@11'
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#FAKE NEWS IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE September 18, 2017 / 10:21 AM
Possible Shape Shifting Shia LaBeouf Terrorizes Town Kiwi Time
Don Van O'Donovan
A small town celebrating an annual fruit festival at their local Farmer's Market was in for a big surprise this morning when actor Shia LaBeouf showed up and made a mess of things. Channel W-PEU News had a reporter on the scene conducting a local piece on the community event when things got juicy.
"I was interviewing the mayor on the annual impact of Kiwi Time and the city's precautions while hosting it during Spontaneous Kraken Awareness Month when out of no where, Shia LaBeouf grabbed The Mic from the stage and started killing it," explains Irma Freeze, "not in the successful, like, wow, this is an awesome speech or listen to those vexing vocal chords kind of way, but literally killing The Mic. The Mic dropped. Shia wouldn't let up. The next thing we know, The Mic was dead, and Shia just seemingly vanished," she further elaborated. Authorities were unable to revive The Mic, the town's local emcee and Mc D's night shift manager, Mickey Mulligan.
The W-PEU live feed attempted to cut away accidentally airing part of the attack before leading in to an impromptu segment of an understandingly bewildered Derek Manson with the traffic and weather. "It wasn't a pretty sight. Traffic was backed up already with Kiwi Time being such an extravagant local event, and then, an accident had occurred when a bloody LaBeouf la bounded across the highway causing a tanker carrying a carbonated beverage to wreck and spray the bewildered crowd with bubbly, grape goodness. All of this was even more unfortunate due to the sudden and definitely unpredicted acid rain monsoon." Manson attempted to warn the crowds of the acid rain, but a now unemployed Teleprompter Typist had led him to tell the people in their vehicles that it was Arid Rain. Since "arid" describes a bone-dry and moistureless climate, this caused the curious commoners to collectively vacate their cars and perish.
We caught up with Cherie Stone, another anchor at W-PEU, while she readied her make up for the afternoon segment. She informed us that station had been receiving incoming reports that the lavender liquid was actually aiding in protecting the crowd from the meteorological madness. "As it turns out, the beverage seems to be acting as a buffer against the acid rain protecting the people from having their faces melt off, unlike Mic's." Some speculation remains on whether Mic's mug was a victim of the rain or if Shia LaBeouf is actually an actual cannibal. "Honestly, it all happened too quickly for anyone to take note of what really occurred," Cherie admitted while her stylist applied purple paste to her face.
Reports about LaBeouf sightings have since caused quite a commotion for the small studio who have leaked notions that he was last seen in passing suddenly shape-shifting as a woman, had something to do with a shifty but shapely woman's sudden passing, or maybe suddenly passed a woman whose face looked like it was shape shifting but was likely melting off from acid rain. Some cite that LaBeouf himself caused the acid rain. W-PEU has failed to comment further. Perhaps we'll know more with their News@11.
News@11 is a party style, storytelling game from Floodgate Games and Infectious Play. It is based from the previous game of the same name that came out a couple of years prior. It is a bit different from most games for the fact that it contains no rules for winning. The players instead collectively form a studio who delivers the morning, afternoon, and evening news utilizing cards that contain a word and additional blanks with categories underneath that they are tasked to fill in as they go, a la Mad Libs. They are tasked with building on the day's stories as they go and, more importantly, with having a hilarious time doing it while trying to maintain a straight face and stay in character.
The game begins with each player receiving 3 cards. They are then charged with filling in one blank of those cards with a suggestion from the other players, with a permanent marker. Once each have filled in one blank, they then pass those cards to the player who wants to be the lead anchor for the day. The lead anchor is charged with assigning segments such as "Weather", "Sportsball", "Health and Beauty", etc. They must also introduce the station during the opening of the news and transition to each other anchor while handing off the segment that anchor will be doing and eventually wrapping up the segment all together. Aside from these roles, there is also the role of producer reserved for any players who are likewise reserved and would rather take a viewing role with slight interaction and no speaking required. The producer will help organize the segment utilizing cards such as "Interview", "Technical Difficulties", etc. If everyone is good to go with being an anchor, then the Lead Anchor will also act as Producer.
This game is simple to understand and obviously relies on the creativity and outgoing personalities of those playing. If played with the right group, it is a gut-busting, good time that will create some hilarious memories and inside jokes. The permanency of the things written on the cards is a bit trivial at first--I was very concerned about doing it--but when carried across to different groups, it makes things interesting and entertaining. And when it gets back in the hands of one of the original anchors at a much later time, it is fun trying to work something new in with it or even call back to an older event and build upon it even further. There are also a lot of cards included in the game, so coming back on to one that is already filled out will take quite some time.
The Kickstarter is running currently and will end on October the 7th. It is only $19 and contains 10 segment cards, 130 cue cards, and 6 producer cards (pictured below). You can also pledge more to get two copies at a slightly cheaper price. You can find it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/floodgategames/news11.
Please note, this is a review of a game that is in pre-production meaning some mechanics, appearances, rules, and other components may change. WYLD Gaming was provided this copy for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated in any manner, nor were their words, results, or review scores influenced in any way by anyone outside of the author's own opinions and perspective. If you've enjoyed this review, we encourage you to share it with others to help WYLD Gaming get similar opportunities in the future while also helping the game being reviewed get more attention for their Kickstarter campaign. Thank you!