Wednesday 4 September 2013

Oceans & Ogres

Octonauts to your stations!
Octonauts explore the Great Big Ocean by MEOMI.

Professor Inkiling (aged, wise old Octopus) playing what is obviously an Old School retro-clone called "Oceans & Ogres" with the Vegemals, miniatures, modules, octocups, polyhedral dice. Awesome! Of course they went for the classic TSR look, non of this modern D&DNextwhenever mumbo jumbo for Prof. Inkling, just pure old school goodness.

I don't usually talk about personal life on this blog, and it's kind of pseudonymous and I like that. Anyway, my kids really love the Octonauts, and I'm a fan too. It's a great pre-school TV programme that educates without being preachy and has lots of adventure and excitement and fun stuff. It's a bit like Star Trek - the central cast of Medic, Captain and erm, Pirate, go off exploring and every episode we get to learn about a different sea creature, and I'm a fan of the design - cute big-headed chibi characters but with a slight Cartoon Modern twist.

Anyway I was reading MEOMIs latest adventure The Octonauts Explore The Great Big Ocean under the covers (it's got glow in the dark pages) and noticed the D&D reference above and thought I'd share.

Random Encounter Table
The books are generally slightly more fantastical than the TV Series - which is much more rooted in science and reality - yes sea-creatures talk but they don't wear awesome viking hats. I'd love to see MEOMI do a rules lite RPG, stat up all the sea-creatures with their unique fantasy twist, the Creature Catalogue would be a wonder to behold, one can but dream...

13 comments:

  1. That's pretty cool, ddn't have the prof down as a geek, more an octopus of great taste and style. The boys love the show, when they remember there is more to life than Turtles that is.

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  2. On a side note: ever wonder why the captain is the only member of the crew to wear clothes? Perhaps its some sort of 'strip' O&O they're playing?

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    1. He's not. There's an episode where Peso opens his wardrobe to decide which of several identical penguin outfits to wear.

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    2. Dashi wears a skirt all the time. But hey, anthropomorphic cartoon animals.

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    3. Akin to "why does Bungle from Rainbow come out of the shower wearing a towel, but struts around naked for the rest of the time", I suppose.

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  3. One of the other books includes a gag about a 'Lvl 20 Magic User'.

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  4. Didn't know there was a show. We found one of the books in our local English library once and my son liked it (about a lost sea monster trying to find his family).

    I'll have to look and see if there are more there next Sunday when we take our current books back.

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  5. It knocks 'Bubble Guppies' into a cocked hat, which is what my daughter has adopted as her new favourite!

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  6. My 3yr old loves the show too! Though I watch it with her just about everyday (Thank you On Demand!), I must admit that I don't get the turnips....

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  7. I didn't think there was anything that could make me love Octonauts more!!!

    I'm guessing you have clocked that Captain Barnacles is played by the same actor as Michael the Geordie from Alan Partridge (Simon Greenall)?

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