Labyrinth Review

I originally posted this review on lwp. And because I am having trouble getting hold of the movie I was going to review this week, I decided to post this up here.

The echo of David Bowie performing Ziggy Stardust is flowing through my brain. The sound of yelling and screaming from Kermit and Miss Piggy is an image I get of The Muppets. Winding my images around I daydream of The Dark Crystal and Heroes. If I combine all these into a cauldron, stir it around and mix it all together I get the spectacular film that is Labyrinth.

Labyrinth tells the story of a teenage girl called Sarah who is having problems with her life in her family and is fed up with babysitting her little brother Toby. So she makes a wish for Toby to go away. Toby disappears and the goblin king Jareth (performed by the wonderful David Bowie) arrives to meet Sarah. Sarah's quest through the Labyrinth to rescue Toby begins.

Along her journey, Sarah encounters several creatures (some who she becomes friends with), many traps, twists, and learns everything isn't as it seems. This is an important message in the film as it can relate to what is going on in real life.

The music works well as it has dramatic and augmented instrumentation. Like when Sarah is running along the first part of the Labyrinth, looking for somewhere to turn. It gets better with David Bowie's singing in the most dramatic ways.

Jim Henson gave this film that feel to keep you intrigued. The way the boulders rolled out or the the way the goblins all attack and run away. These are just only parts of what Jim Henson does with this film. There are a lot of things today's film-makers can learn from him.

The combination of Jim Henson's puppetry and David Bowie's acting/singing make this film a masterpiece and it's no wonder why so many people enjoy it. I just wish they would make similar films today instead of relying on the special effects that is in modern films like Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.

Cooking with Rach - Berry & White Chocolate Muffins

Berry & White Chocolate Muffins
Makes 12 muffins.

Note: Fresh or frozen berries can be used. If using frozen berries, add them to the mixture while they are still frozen to prevent the berries bleeding into the batter.

Ingredients
~ 300 g (2 cups) self-raising flour
~ 150 g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
~ 170 g (1 cup) chopped white chocolate
~ 2 tsp (10ml) lemon juice
~ 250 ml (1 cup) milk
~ 125 ml (1/2 cup) mild flavoured oil
~ 1 large egg
~ 200 g berries (example: raspberries)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 degrees Celsius fan-forced).
2. Line a muffin pan with muffin cases.
3. Whisk lemon juice, milk, oil and egg in a medium bowl until combined.
4. Mix self-raising flour, caster sugar and white chocolate together in large bowl. Stir in berries.
5. Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stop stirring once the ingredients are combined (do not over mix). The batter should be quite wet.
6. Divide mixture evenly between muffin cases.
7. Bake for about 22-27 minutes. To check whether muffins are cooked, press lightly on the centre of a muffin; if it springs back, it's ready. A knife inserted into the centre of a muffin should come out without any batter attached.
8. Serve muffins warm or at room temperature; dust with icing sugar if desired.

Muffins can be reheated in the microwave. They are best eaten within a few days of when they are baked.

Variations
~ Try mashing a banana and using that instead of the berries.
~ Try using strawberries, blueberries, or mixed berries.
~ Try using a different kind of chocolate or remove it from the recipe completely.
Please add any other variations you can think of to the comments!

Cooking with Rach - Caramelised Lime Fish

Caramelised Lime Fish
Serves 4

Ingredients
~ 1 kg (2 lb) Firm white fish fillets, skin removed
~ 2 tsp Vegetable Oil
~ 2 tbsp Lime Juice
~ 3 tbsp Brown Sugar
~ 1 tsp Fish Sauce
~ 1 tbsp Soy Sauce
~ 1 tsp Chili Flakes

Method
Cut the fish into large pieces. Heat a non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add the oil and fish, then cook for 1 minute on each side or until brown and sealed. Combine the lime juice, sugar, fish sauce, soy, and chili. Add this to the pan and cook, turning the fish once, for 4 minutes or until the fish is just cooked through and the sauce has reduced and is sticky.

Variations
~ Scallops – Cook the sauce for 4 minutes. Then add 16 scallops, cooking them for 1 minute on each side.
~ Salmon – Replace the white fish fillets with 4 x 200 g skinless salmon fillets, cooking for 2 minutes each side before adding the sauce to the pan.
~ Prawns – Replace the white fish fillets with 32 green (raw) shelled prawns.

Serving Options
~ 3 small cucumbers sliced into ribbons, ½ cup coriander (cilantro) leaves, 4 green onions (scallions) sliced
~ 2 sliced celery sticks, 1 cup mint leaves and 4 sliced green onions (scallions)
~ 400 g trimmed blanched asparagus, leaves of a baby cos (romaine) lettuce
~ 100 g baby rocket (arugula) leaves, 2 small sliced avocados

Limerick Limerick

There once was a lady from Limerick
who wanted to use up her turmeric.
She put it on cod,
but it went to sod
from sitting too long at the simmer. Ick!

Creating 'Unique' Roles - Smooshing

My favourite part of our beloved Werewolf game is creating roles. I enjoy it more so than the actual event of hosting the game itself, partially because a role will never go inactive on me, but mostly due to the process of thinking and the little skip of joy that creating a unique or interesting role gives you. So I thought I’d share some of the ways to make ‘unique’ roles, since roles are the heart and soul of Werewolf. Now, I say ‘unique’ roles, because a truly original and creative role is usually lacking some form of procedure to it. That’s not to say that a role created through format is any less enjoyable or unique, but you can understand the lessened impact of it. There’s a few of these formulated steps that I use, but that’s not to say that a host should stick to chronological thought process and nothing else, because personal ideas tend to be far better than those created via a template, in my opinion.

Regardless, sometimes I don’t want to have a plain old boring dreamer in my game. I want to mix things up a bit, but the normal flow of ideas isn’t quite working and so I use some of these things. In a few of these articles I’ll go through some of them to help you out. These will most likely benefit beginner hosts more than experienced ones, because regular hosts will have their own methods and those might include some of these. Enough rambling, though.

My favourite is something that I have labelled as Smooshing. As could be guessed, it’s because it involves the simple idea of smooshing roles together. This is by far the easiest way to create a ‘unique’ role, because it takes concepts already familiar to the host and creates a role that is familiar to the player, but also quite different. There are so many combinations and these combinations still require thought from you as the host, so they’re also unique to your mindset and style of creativity. A good example, which I use all the time, is the Martyr/Guardian Angel. They fit together very well, because the Guardian uses powers when it’s dead and the Martyr tries to get itself attacked. This is also a very good example, because it shows how more creative thinking must be applied. This role’s purpose is to die. That is incredibly bleak for a player, so you have to think about a change that can make it fun again. The change I make is that if the role dies because it redirected an attack at itself, then it is automatically resurrected a few days later. It’s not the most amazing role and nor was the change that phenomenal, but at the very least it brings something intriguing to the role table.

With that above method you can combine some interesting roles to make even more interesting ones, but never forget to look them over. Making sure they’re balanced is the most important issue. Having an Enchanter combined with a Resser to make a one-res-every-night ability is ridiculously overpowered, because it would resurrect players almost as fast as they were killed. If you think of a combination that seems imbalanced, such as a Beloved Prince/Sibling combination, then try to think of ways to adjust it to be viable, but still balanced. For example, the above combo would mean that two to three baddies are guaranteed to die, which is pretty awful gameplay wise. Instead, the Beloved Prince/Sibling roles might reduce the shield of their killer, and if their killer’s shield hits 0% because of this, their killer dies. This now seems more like a Sibling role with a slight tweak, but it’s still a different and balanced take on the Sibling than usually found. And, if nothing else, you could apply that shield reduction with an added chance to kill to a lot of things. It sounds like a good baddie power, actually… might steal that.

And that’s a surprisingly simple way to make unique roles. It does require an angle of thinking to balance it or to see a role inside a mess of others so think outside the box sometimes. It does work, though, and obviously not all combinations are going to give a good result, but I do love this method, because many hosts will understand how difficult it is to change roles such as the Dreamer. If you use methods such as this one, there’s a chance you’ll find an interesting change to dream through. However, careful with your imagination. Sometimes you’ll go a bit further than you want to. Just look at the Parasite and Symbiote roles. I got a bit carried away with smooshing the Enchanter and Psychologist/Serial Killer roles together, but I personally love the role. Just… just a bit carried… away.

Welcome to The Werewolf Gazette!

Welcome to The Werewolf Gazette! This is a blog derived from the wonderful werewolf forum commonly referred to as WGF, which stands for "Werewolf Games Forum". The site was created as a gathering place for people who enjoy playing online werewolf games. We do have some other things in common, such as playing Neopets, shopping, and enjoying various other types of computer and video games. You can look forward to a wide variety of blog posts from our terrific writing staff.

We will have posts dedicated to werewolf games on Monday, while Tuesday will bring any discussion of current world events. Wednesday is our fine arts and cooking day, Thursday is a day of complete randomness and nonsense, and on Friday's, we'll look forward to gaming news. The weekend is a time of miscellaneous enjoyment - you'll find whatever our writers feel like writing about. It's always a surprise!

Thanks for joining us as our reading audience. Please be sure to sign up as a blog follower!