Customizable Game Screen

By Hammerdog Games

The Great Wall of Vinyl

The gamemaster screen is a tool as old as straying eyes. And straying eyes were invented way back when the second woman came into being. You can trust Gamer Bling on this; he’s a guy. And “guy” is spelled with a capital G and two straying I’s.

So this particular Gii was referred to Hammerdog Games by the beneficent Ryan Thomas of Open Mind Games, who wanted their good dear friends to get exposure and Gamer Bling to have more happy treasure for his gamer-geek shower.

For those who don’t know what a gamer-geek shower is, it’s like a money shower Pacman-Jones style, except you throw all your gaming accessories in the air. Thus it’s noisier and involves a greater number of bruises and a significantly lower quantity of strippers and arrests. All in all, a fair trade.

TCG players typically don’t do gamer-geek showers. Sometimes they don’t do any showers. Gamer Bling knows. Although he wishes he didn’t.

“Didn’t know,” that is. Not “didn’t shower.”

Now that Gamer Bling has gone completely off track, he will refer back to the title to remember what the heck he’s supposed to be reviewing now.

Screens.

The ones for your gaming table, not the ones for your porch. Unless you game on your porch. In which case there are probably a lot of dice under your deck.

Hammerdog apparently decided that most GM screens were not robust or useful enough, so they built a manly (if decidedly bland) screen of their own.

Manly yet bland… you can tell that Hammerdog is from Canada, eh?

Gamer Bling, however, is not from Canada, and thus is neither manly nor bland but—

…

…

This review has suddenly taken a decidedly unpleasant turn.

Ahem.

Billed as The World’s Greatest Screen, this accessory may fall slightly short of its lofty title, but is nonetheless a pretty darned cool item.

The screen is carefully hand-crafted in the classical colonial Canadian minimalist vinyl-pressing style. Its four panels are made of sturdy vinyl-covered cardboard. Think of a high-quality three-ring binder—the good ones, not the cheap ones you get for discount prices—if you want a comparison. This screen will not bend under casual use or even casual abuse. Of the sort that Gamer Bling inflicts on his cat.

Each of the four panels has two pockets, one on the front and one on the back. Each of the pockets can hold an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. For those of you in Europe who suffer under the oppressive bondage of the metric system and cannot spare the few hectoseconds it takes to do the unit conversion, Hammerdog helpfully points out that A4 paper fits nicely in the pockets, too.

Why metric paper is called “A4″ is beyond Gamer Bling’s comprehension.

Note that since most GM screens are printed at the same size as letter paper, this means that you can tear up your other GM screens and fit them into the Hammerdog offering. The Hammerdog screen in fact measures 11-3/4 by 36-11/16″, making it the largest GM screen of which Gamer Bling is aware and providing your adventure secrets maximum SPF50 protection from all the other nosy Giis at the gaming table.

Big is good. Except when talking about Gamer Bling’s belly.

So enough talk of how manly the screen is. What about useful?

Answer: Not at all. At least not by itself. See, this is a customizable screen. You print whatever maps and charts and secrets you want and put them in yourself. Preferably on your side of the screen. Then, on the other side, you put art of buxom women in chain mail bikinis (or swarthy Giis with washboard abs) so the players are too distracted to think about tactics, and you can kill them all. If you want some art to fill the players’ side with, you can download some for free at the Hammerdog website. Sadly, none of it has under-clad over-endowed women.

In short, the utility of this screen is dependent on you putting your secrets into it. Yes, the Hammerdog screen is designed to eat your homework.

Now, by itself, the Hammerdog screen is an even monotone silver. If it were, say, gray or white, Gamer Bling would be forced to give it a bling factor approaching zero. The pockets are clear (duh) with a satin finish so that scratches and fingerprints do not show up easily.

Finally, the screen takes wet-erase marking-upishness. You can make notes and track HP losses and the like. And, since the screen weighs in at a beefy 1 lb 10.65 oz (equal to 0.119 stone, 238.6 kt, or, for those of you using the metric system, 0.00756 q), your pen strokes won’t knock it over.

Weak Points

Gamer Bling will have to reach a little bit to find some.

It’s not magnetic. Everything is better if it has a steel core. Even beer is better with a steel core. If it had a steel core, you could use Alea markers on it. Gamer Bling has no idea why this is necessary, or why someone would want to use Alea markers on beer, but it would be cool.

It can be a little bit of a pain to get your sheet of paper into the pocket without crinkling it. In fact, it can be a little bit of a pain getting the cover sheet (with the bar code and such) out. But at least you don’t care if you crinkle the cover sheet.

You have to make your own tables to put in the pockets. Since this involves something that resembles work, Gamer Bling is against it.

Finally, Gamer Bling will test the vinyl to see how easily laser jet, inkjet, and toner-printed pages stick their inks to the vinyl of the pockets. And, if GB ruins his screen, he’ll whine to Hammerdog for a new one. And post a warning here so you don’t suffer the same fate.

The Bottom Line

Gamer Bling really likes this. Even if he never sticks a single page into it, it’s a large, heavy, well-made screen good for hammering disciplining the dog.

Gamer Bling says buy it. Not only is it a good product, but we all also have a moral responsibility to infuse money into the economies of third-world nations.

Summary

Bling Factor: 4
Quality: 10
Utility: 8
Price: 29.95 ($347.58 Canadian)
You need: 1

The Future

When Canada manages to leave the Ice Age (always possible with global warming), maybe they’ll make a steel-core version.