I’m not sure what reason the ancient Chinese had for using animals and why they were assigned to their respective years, but Wright actually provides historical justification as to how the Geek Zodiac is arranged. For example, the Alien sign takes 1938 – and all years in its cycle – because that was the year when the infamous radio broadcast of H.G. Welles’ War of the Worlds occurred. You can browse the details of each sign on the gallery below, or you can head to the Geek Zodiac website for the original charts.

Wright and Eckert have since turned the concept into a comic, which you can also read on their website. You can also get Geek Zodiac merchandise at Zazzle, including a poster of the zodiac itself. So what’s your sign?

[via Walyou]

The dragon costume is a one-piece suit, but the Dragonborn armor is made of several pieces, including a sword, a shield and of course the iconic horned helmet.

After listening to the Internet’s demands – and no doubt seeing dollar signs as well – Alicia is now planning on making more of the costumes to sell on eBay. Looks like she’s gonna need a few bottles of Blacksmith’s Elixir.

[via Buzzfeed via Geekologie]

The Skyrim Creation Kit will let users create new characters and locations as well as tweak and mess around with the existing game in many ways. The developer says that the kit is the same program that their team used to make the world of Skyrim. If that’s true, this is a very generous gesture from Bethesda. They’re giving the public a chance to see what the pros work with.

Modders will be able to upload their creation to Steam Workshop for the world to see, play, adore and berate. Console (and OS X) users, in case you still didn’t get it by now – the kit and the mods are for PC users only. Watch the video for more on the kit:

Bethesda also put up a wiki page for the Creation Kit as well as a series of online video tutorials for using the kit. The first episode is already up, and thanks to the magic of embeddage, is already here! There. Below.

Steam users, the Skyrim Creation Kit should be available under the ‘Tools’ drop-down menu in your Steam library. If you don’t know what a Steam library is, go here and sign up. But that’s not all! Bethesda has also released the High Resolution Texture Pack free DLC for the game. So many bits!

Before you download the DLC or the kit, make sure your hardware meets the Skyrim‘s recommended requirements: Windows Vista or 7, a quad-core CPU, at least 4GB RAM and a DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with at least 1 GB of RAM and the latest drivers. We await your mods! And don’t even think about making a peen-dragon – Bethesda has explicitly stated that they will ban any “offensive, copyrighted or trademarked material.”

[via The Escapist]

Watson made the game using openFrameworks 007 and ofxKinect. As you can see in the screenshot above, Watson’s game uses the player’s hand as the revolver. The controls are simple – make a gun gesture with your hand, point it to your head and then move your thumb downwards to shoot. There is a one in eight chance that the gun will go off. Watch Watson’s demo to see what happens if you’re unlucky:

It could be a fun mini-game if it wasn’t so wrong. Watson said he’ll post his game’s source code soon, so if you want to take a chance without taking a chance, keep an eye on his blog for updates.

[via The Escapist]

You can choose from two variants – one that says “Biohazard – Stay Out” and another with the more specific message “Caution: Zombies Ahead.”

Pack some green herbs and head to ThinkGeek to order the tapes. They comes in 50ft rolls and sell for $3.99 (USD) each.

Appropriately named My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic, the game is being made by indie developer Mane6. Gameplay-wise, Fighting is Magic seems similar to the Marvel vs. Capcom series. The ponies have four basic attacks – Light, Medium, Hard and of course Magic. As you’ll see in the gameplay footage below, there are also launchers, aerial combos and high-powered special attacks.

The game is currently in pre-alpha, but have patience. The folks at Mane6 promise that a version of the game will be released soon, featuring lead characters Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, with more characters coming. Fighting is Magic will also have online play, a “lengthy” story mode with boss fights and will be totally free. No “pre-order now to get the Nightmare Moon exclusive” gimmick.

[via Reddit]

I’m not a Pokémon addict but I think it’s fair to say that this is something that fans of the series will pay to play. The main Pokémon games mostly feature static battle animations, so to have the monsters’ moves fully animated is an enticing proposition. Type Wild has nine fighters with movesets similar to Street Fighter characters. Here’s a demo video uploaded by YouTuber BlameTruth:

I have no idea why an official version of this game doesn’t exist. Unfortunately it seems as if development on Type Wild has stopped; if I understood the developer’s FAQ correctly the last update came in 2009. Commenter pandafrag summoned another page of the Type Wild website and it’s super effective – it seems that the game is still being updated. This download link still leads to the latest version. Like most PC games, Type Wild only works with Windows. Maybe someone can come up with a Digimon brawler for OS X.

[via Pokésho via Game Informer]

The figurine is about 1.5″ tall and is made of polyurethane resin, cast from a handmade mold. Isaac’s adorable black eyes and anguished mouth are hand-painted and the whole thing is sealed with a glossy finish.

Escape to Etsy and pre-order the Isaac figurine for $20 (USD). Each figurine comes with a sticker of pixelated Isaac. Who is also crying.

[via Edmund McMillen]

LEGO said that they’re “developing a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the LEGO system and in Minecraft” and have not yet mentioned a release date or media of the actual products.

The images above are not from any official LEGO sets though – they’re just mock-ups made for Minecraft‘s CUUSOO page. But they look pretty Minecraft-ish enough. What’s next? Indiana Jones in Uncharted 4? Space Ghost in Ace Attorney 6? Ash Williams in Dead Rising 3? Gobots in Transformers 4? I can do this all day.

[via LEGO CUUSOO Blog via Brothers Brick]

That’s a good question Barry. The Resident Evil Wiki says that Capcom decided not to release this port because of poor quality. Then late last year an Assembler forum member named kiff claimed to be in contact with someone who has two cartridges containing unfinished builds of the canned game. That someone will be kind enough to upload the contents of said carts online for public consumption, but not kind enough to do it for free. The person is asking for $2,000 (USD), hence the fundraiser. Here’s some gameplay footage of the port, uploaded back in 2007 by YouTuber Dot50Cal.

Jill looks like a monster herself. If that wasn’t horrifying enough, remember that these are unfinished copies we’re talking about. They have significant glitches and missing content, such as non-functioning enemies and weapons. Kiff also said of one of the builds, “I am not 100% if any of the endings work.” And yet as of this writing kiff has raised nearly $1,500 with almost a month to go, so there’s a good chance that these builds will be released.

Then again the donors to the fundraiser are probably less excited about playing the game than the thought of virtually digging up a relic from a bygone generation. Head to Assembler if you’d like to donate as well. I wonder what the original developers think about this.

[via Siliconera & RetroCollect]

Made by artist and photographer Mishka Henner, the width of each page in Astronomical represents a distance of 1 million kilometers (about 621,000 miles). Naturally it begins with the sun in the first two pages of volume 1. The rest of the books are nothing but blackness, interspersed with the planets where appropriate. The picture above shows the Earth – we’re on page 155 of volume 1. Meanwhile Pluto is on the 6,000th page of the set. Perhaps there are aliens lurking in the other pages.

This read-through really drives the point of the collection home:

Believe it or not, you can actually buy your own copy of Astronomical for your own bookshelf. Contact Mishka and he’ll gladly make you a whole set for £100 (~$157 USD). Honestly I think we just need the one set and any more would be a waste of paper, but that’s just my two cents.

[via io9 & CultureLab via Laughing Squid]

The replica is made of lightweight plastic and coated with acrylic paint. Its face and eye lids are moveable and the batteries take care of Wheatley’s glowing eye. Hooton worked on the replica on and off for about a month without using any modeling software or rotary machine, which makes this piece even more impressive.

Open a portal to eBay and bid at least $150 (USD) for a chance of taking Wheatley home. And if you do, don’t take him to the Central AI Chamber, no matter how nicely he asks.

[Sabretooth's Workshop via Super Punch]

These stackable soaps were made by Digitalsoaps and come in three different scents and colors, including “The Executive”, a set made of black, gray and white pieces. Because nothing says you’re a person of authority like owning video-game themed soaps.

Head to Digitalsoaps’ Etsy shop to get your own Tetris Soap for $9.50 (USD) per set of eight.

As you can see, four of the six Avengers featured in the upcoming movie have their own scent – Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk and Thor. Hawkeye and Black Widow probably don’t have their own cologne because they like to be sneaky and so they don’t want to have a distinctive scent. I have no logical alibi for the Hulk cologne, or for these Nick Fury and Loki perfumes.

Tell Jarvis to warm up the Quinjet and head to Urban Collector to pre-order these colognes. The first four come as a set and can be yours for $47 (USD), while the Nick Fury and Loki colognes cost $32 each. Or you can get something that works every time, 60% of the time.

[via JADS via io9]

Damn photobombing penny. These cufflinks were made by Etsy seller Oh My Geekness. Unfortunately her laptop broke so she can’t tend to her shop at the moment, but she did say she’ll be back online by next week. Until then feel free to barge in and break the pots in her shop for some rupees.

[via GeekAlerts]

Using a screenshot from Halo: Combat Evolved, Thorsson made a 3D model in TurboCAD. He then used the model to make molds made out of MDF. The replica itself is made of styrene plastic. He then added nylon webbing for the hinges, a latch made of foam PVC and neodymium magnets and finally a vinyl sticker for the icon and voila. A Halo lunchbox! I mean a first aid kit!

Clearly Thorsson is the Master Chief of craftsmen, but if you think you’re up to the task, ride a Warthog to his blog for the full build instructions. The rest of us grunts will have to be content with the pictures on Thorsson’s Flickr page.

[via Make:]

The lamp is made of poplar, colored translucent acrylic and colored paper and it measures 16.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 inches. The top part is detachable for easy access to the 60w bulb inside.

If I read the description correctly, the lamp’s switch is attached to its cord. Maybe you can hack or move it just like with this DIY coin block to make it punchable.

Jump to The Back Pack Shoppe on Etsy to order your own Mario Question Block Lamp for $60 (USD). The power-up bulb will not be included for orders outside of US and Canada.

[via it8bit]

Fast travel to Red Bubble and pay about $25(USD) to get your own Town Guards T-shirt. Then whenever you get the urge to say or type the line, go ahead and wear eat this shirt. Chew slowly.

[via Shirtoid]

That’s the TARDIS-inspired Doctor Who jersey, complete with Police Box window graphic on the front and TARDIS shoulder patches. I don’t know if it’s bigger on the inside. Below is the Zelda jersey, which I think looks more bad ass, especially with the shield graphic.

Initially, just like with the first batch Dave had three designs, with the third one based on Battlestar Galactica. Unfortunately for BSG fans NBC Universal sent him a Cease and Desist request, which Dave promptly followed. You can view the banned design on Google’s cache of Dave’s web page if you like. Or we can just be happy with what we have and order the remaining jerseys. They cost $80 (USD) each and will only be sold until January 19, 2012. Head to Dave’s website to order.

[via Topless Robot]

The screenshot above is from the shakey-cam video below, which was uploaded by co-Redditor animatedintro, who tried out the module and (seemingly) lived to tell the tale.

Fire up a portal to Reddit or Megaupload to download the unofficial file. It’s been confirmed to work with Nuvi 40, 200, 200W, 250, 250W, 350, Garmin Mobile XT and StreetPilot c550 units. TomTom users can also endanger their lives with a similar mod.

[via Reddit]