I found these while browsing gizmag (an Australian site BTW), and they are infinately cooler than The Wave.
You have one skate under each foot and use a snaking motion to move sideways. These look perfect as something that you can just throw in your bag when you’re not using them (much better than inline skates or a skate board in this regard).
Check out the promo video on the manufacturer website. There’s also an instructional video on YouTube.
I posted this to the PIGMI mailing list and thought to mirror it here. Nation States is a great game and Max Barry is an intellectual and amusing author. Check it out!
Have many people seen (or played) Nation States?
http://www.nationstates.net/
It’s a non-traditional online game that is technically very simple, but can become fairly involving. It’s also the work of an Australian author.
The gameplay involves making political decision for a small nation state (up to 2 a day). These decisions are summarised by exaggerated status reports and reflected in the nation’s economy, and civil and political freedoms.
Aside from slowly watching your nation grow, players can also get involved in the virtual United Nations and the discussion forums. There are currently 150 UN resolutions reflecting the composition of the gaming community with topics ranging from slavery to DVD region encoding.
I think that Nation States is an excellent example of a game that challenges common conceptions of games and gamers, and I found it fairly inspirational in this regard.
– Nick
“The Wave” is a bit like a skateboard, but it only has two wheels and is meant to feel more like surfing or snowboarding. There’s a brief review on about.com and a bunch of action videos on the manufacturer homepage.
It’s a stupid name, obviously coined so that they could use the phrase “Learn to ride The Wave” (groan). It was previously called the “X-board”. Regardless, I think that I want one.
I recall seeing them for sale locally for around $100 (although I could be wrong about the price).
Update: I found an image on the Amazon product page
Update: I found another review here. It looks like it is called the essboard in Korea and the ex-board in the UK
Update: It’s called the vigorboard here and they sell for $199 (although it’s billed as $50 off the RRP of $249). They are apparantly conducting market testing in Bunbury.