This week, I've been totally distracted by several things. I've recently become significantly busier, in a good way, but it has also left me going "Tomorrow is Wednesday? Already?" the past couple of weeks. I'll get things sorted and get some more gaming stuff up in the future, and follow up on the outpost from a few weeks back.
One distraction this week is my new android phone, my first foray in to the smartphone arena. No, it's not "droid" branded model, though that would have been appropriate and fun, especially the special edition R2 model.
So, Angry Birds is seriously distracting.
Anyway, I've been thinking about how to use this thing with gaming. I've looked at various dice rollers, but frankly, I don't get the draw. I also looked at some of the d20 and RPG apps, but haven't been taken enough to try any of them. Seems like you'd spend more time entering the character info, or whatever, into the phone than is worth it.
I always wanted to use a soundboard at the table, but never wanted the huge keyboard or even the laptop taking up space. There are a lot of soundboard apps out there - some preloaded with Star Wars sounds and all look to be copyright infringing (probably). The generic apps where you load your own sounds might be an option, if you can find a trustworthy source. In the meantime. starwars.com's web-based soundboard works through the phone's browser, so there is no need to hassle with questionable apps or (likely) illegally distributed content, though you will require an internet connection.
Speaking of starwars.com, it looks good on the phone's browser, but the video never ran, and some of the content is difficult to read. Wookieepedia looks great on the phone. The Star Wars RPG Saga Edition Online index works, but with a bit of tweaking could be a really hand reference. Mainly, the links need to have more space between them, in order to minimize zooming in to click on them.
I had high hopes for the starwars.com crawl generator and it runs great....except you can't edit it for some reason in the phone's browser.
It looks like the official Star Wars apps from the iphone haven't migrated to android yet.
So, I'm looking forward to using this in some way. I might load up an image or text and use it as a "datapad." Oh, I know, I'll record 12 phrases of text into a soundboard and make someone use it as a vox-box (page 134, SE). Or droid noises. Or wookiee noises. Or something else.
.....angry birds....