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The horrible truth about cats, haunted houses and shrinking potions

10/26/2014 Gaming

One of the many, many downsides (many) of having a trusted comrade BETRAY you by shrinking you and your fellows down to Lilliputian sized test subjects whilst exploring a giant poorly designed haunted house, is that inevitably  they release their hungry (albeit playful) feline friends to hunt you down while you try to escape their slavering maws and sharp claws.  Another downside is that your plans don’t always work out near as well when faced with poor dice rolls.  Also crappy plans don’t help.

As a child I remember fondly the days leading up to Halloween, the anticipation of all the future dental bills that the sudden and vast influx of sugary treats would bring. These days I run towards the simpler, less tooth decay causing activities, usually just long for a night where I can play some of the many zombie, Cthulhu, ghost or other horror themed board games I have collected since my discovery that such things exist.  And this year it finally happened.  Enough at least to satiate my desires for another year and perhaps urge me towards completion of my own games in the genre.

We played Betrayal at House on the Hill, Cthulhu Gloom, Ghost Stories and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  All great games and very enjoyable.  Maybe this year I can clean off my desk enough to try a solo game of Arkham Horror on Halloween night unless that might be too much for the Old Ones ones to overlook….

-v- out.

Minutiae by the Minute

10/02/2014 Daily Minutiae - Gaming - Vampyres
Where my time goes to die...

Might as well continue the trend and get another post out there while the mood is right.  Time to relax and listen to some Louis’ greatest hits while I think of something to post.

I’m on the fence about whether or not to buy the upcoming Borderlands game Borderlands The Pre-Sequel.  Much like the previous iterations, I’m sure ill finish the game and enjoy it a great deal.  The concern is whether or not I can hold out long enough for it to go on sale or even a bundle with the season pass.  I have a current backlog of games that I need to finish or even start.  Some of my favorite gaming moments are when playing with friends and while a few others might get the game release day, it’s highly unlikely I’d end up playing co-op with them.  I tend to chew through the content at a pretty rapid pace and become despondent when I finish the game.  I also don’t enjoy playing the game immediately after with another character just because the content is too fresh in my mind which is one reason why I love Borderlands with all its expansion packs and content updates.   Anyway I’m on the fence about that one, but its a rickety fence and I’m already leaning toward the side that has cel-shaded open arms waiting for me.

One of the games I was hoping to get this year from Kickstarter was Pillars of Eternity, but it looks like that has been pushed back until next year so will have to hold longer for that one.

Speaking of Kickstarter, thats where a big chunk of my backlog is waiting for me.  For completed games I still have Banner Saga, Shadowrun Dragonfall, and Wasteland 2 (although I’m close on that one) to finish.  Not to mention all the ones that are already in early access like Dead State, Shadowrun online, Dead Linger, and Stonehearth that are fun to just check out and see where they are at in the development.  I need someone to manage my time since it seems I have too many things to play and not enough time to play them.

First world problems.

-v- out.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

09/30/2014 Daily Minutiae - Gaming - News
Arr avast ye!

Or however that saying goes.  Another year come and gone and while a lot has happened, at least I’m pretty sure that a lot has happened, not much has really changed.  Not enough to post about it seems which is strange since the tag for this blog is “daily minutiae” and you would think that that implies I post about just about every little thing.   At least it does to me.  I’ve let blog me down.

New year (well 10 months in to the new year anyway) and it’s time for a a blog post.

Just got through with a great weekend of gaming with friends.   Since we won’t be attending BGGCon this year we felt we should attempt to at have some major gaming sessions to make up for it.  Friday and Saturday were jam packed with games of all types from an epic 7 player Battlestar Galactica session that started much too late on Friday to even just a few quick games of Love Letter games of all types were played.   I had the great fortune of playing in BSG and for once was not a cylon.  The humans held out for a while but in the end humanity was not worthy of being victorious.  Mistrust, backstabbing and greed were the typical responses by the humans while the Cylons tried to save us from ourselves.  Frakkin’ toasters.

Let’s see if I can remember a rundown of all the games I was able to play.

Friday:

Koryŏ
Doomtown Reloaded
Settlers of Catan Card Game
Boss Monster
Alien Frontiers
Mascarade
Shadow Hunters
Battlestar Galactica

Doesn’t seem like a lot but that took up just about all of Friday and ran into about 2AM of Saturday.  I think if I play BSG again it won’t be with 7 people at least not when the game starts after 9PM.  Still a great game though and a very excellent start to BroCon 2014.

By the time I got back to BroCon on Saturday I was already feeling pretty worn out.  The old gaming stamina ain’t what it used to be, but there were still plenty of games to be played.

Saturday:

Castles of Burgundy
Kingsburg
Cutthroat Caverns
Mission Red Planet
London
Pirate’s Cove

There could be one or two more that I’m missing since I was pretty sleepy most of the day.  I soldiered on though like a good gamer though.  Fatigue be damned!

I’ve also been trying to get back in to some more creative outlets like game design and writing (which I hope to practice here).  I’d like to start chronicling my game design or writing efforts with the belief that it will help me process those idea and keep them at the forefront of my mind and focus my energies.

I won’t lie and lead you on with the promise of more posts, but if you’re lucky there may be more than one per year.

-v- out.

Not Sure What a Sol is but I’m Forging it

09/18/2013 Daily Minutiae - Gaming

I had some fancy alliterative sentence featuring the words sol, sole and soul but I gave up on that because the amount of effort to smash all that together just wasn’t worth the effort. That’s the kind of quality assurance I try to deliver in each and every post.

My nights lately have been taken up with more than just watching Hearthstone streams. I’ve been playing SolForge. It’s another free to play online strategy card game. It has some interesting mechanics it brings to bear to the lane based card game genre. I’m not sure if that’s really a genre but for the purposes of this post it will be. Currently in open beta there are plenty of planned features that aren’t in yet, but so far the basic game play seems solid. Play two cards a turn in one of your five lanes and try to damage your opponent and bring their life to zero. One novel mechanic is that your cards each have three levels and after you play a particular card the next level card is placed in your discard pile. The higher level cards feature better stats and abilities than its predecessors and are generally more useful. It creates a nice overall flow to the game since as your cards level up the tension level also increases and hastens the end of the game.

The game has both single player and multiplayer modes and they feel the same. The computer opponent is generally not as good as a human player but it does make a nice easy method to test out new deck ideas before braving the wilds of multiplayer arena. Overall I feel with 300+ cards in the opening set there is good mix of themes and abilities spread across four factions with each faction having its own particular shticks to fit a good variety of play styles. I’m not a huge lane based card game fan, but SolForge offers a few interesting ideas to the genre.

Next up we hunt cards!

-v- out.

Hearthstone, SolForge and Card Hunter

09/16/2013 Daily Minutiae - Gaming

Hearthstone Gnome ArtI am become Lust, demander of awesome online card gaming… awesomeness.

Let’s start with Hearthstone seeing as how that’s probably the game that I’m most looking forward to playing out of this tantalizing trio of temptation. I have not played the game myself, but I’ve watched/listened to many hours of streams on Twitch TV of others playing. It is basically a clone of the, soon to be retired, World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. Many aspects of WoWTCG have been streamlined and beaten into what is now Hearthstone. Gone are potentially confusing timing rules, the resource row constraints and overall fiddlyness of having to manually track your health and your enemy health. Many of the cards from the original game are even found in Hearthstone so the feeling of familiarity is fairly overwhelming. That could be good or bad depending on your experience with Hearthstone’s cardboard counterpart. You’re left with, what I believe to be, the core game experience which is what makes it something I’m looking forward to playing for myself. In particular I like the look of the Arena, which is a limited draft and its one part of the WoWTCG (and CCG/TCGs in general) I wish I had done a lot more of since I found it to be some of the most fun I’ve had in the game. Speaking as the Midwest Regional A Game of Thrones Draft Champion of 2005 I speak from experience. Game mechanics aside, the interface for Hearthstone seems very inviting and just screams Blizzard/World of Warcraft. Blizzard has taken nothing for granted when it comes to delivering what looks to be another high quality experience to one of my favorite genres of gaming.

Next couple posts I’ll share my views on the other two games which I’ve actually been fortunate enough to play.

-v- out.

Writing, Games and Everything Else I’d Like to Do but Don’t

09/08/2013 Daily Minutiae - Gaming - Vampyres - Writing

Once again the idea of removing distractions, mainly games, has floated to the surface of my meandering stream of consciousness. The detachment of games from my life would be akin to the surgical removal of a much needed body part. I’m talking like limbs, toes or something equally necessary to do stuff with on a daily basis type of hard. I’d like to write more, whether its in a blog, short stories or even a novel, it’s something I’d like to pursue as a method of extricating myself from the current drudgery of “working for the man”. Of course, after about two seconds I realize that I am also accustomed to a certain level of lifestyle which would be taken away almost certainly since I could no longer afford to buy or do the things that facilitate that lifestyle. Like games. If only you could hear the sigh from where you are gentle readers. Its epic.

Anyway, another endeavor I’d like to continue with is the compilation of an e-book of short stories that two of my oldest friends wrote during our formative childhood years. I have quite a few that I would need to type in manually and perhaps do a little editing, but there is a literal stack of papers sitting near my desk that I have to manage and I just don’t ever seem to have the energy or the drive to go through it. Every once in a while I will take out the stack and put it in front of me in order to sort through and compare what I have in digital form versus what I have in hard copy. Every time I do this I end up reading one or two and it really takes me back to a time that I think needs to be remembered if only for the idea that we were a creative bunch and enjoyed it. I’ll keep you updated if there is any progress on this front.

I’ve mainly been playing Diablo 3 once again in anticipation of the upcoming expansion and despite my utter hatred of the auction house I always did enjoy that game as my over 150+ hours on multiple characters can attest. I’ve heard the console does away with the auction house portion of the game but instead increases the drop rate of the higher quality items. While I’m not sure that’s a bad thing I certainly don’t think its the right “fix” to make it more loot friendly. I will not be getting it on console as far as I know even though I really enjoyed the first Diablo on the PSX but I will probably keep playing the PC version for a while longer just because I still enjoy the game itself.

-v- out.

(Very Short) Crisis of Faith

07/22/2013 Daily Minutiae - Gaming - Writing

For the briefest of moments I toyed with the idea of quitting video games for a year. Two seconds total. Maybe three but I think the heart crushing depression that came with that idea slowed down my cognitive processes somewhat. The reasons that lead to the point where I would even consider doing something so drastic are pretty common and may be something everyone experiences at one point in their lives.

I love being creative. Whether that’s writing, game designing or even thinking up some nifty (yet utterly futile) new feature to add on my blog that I barely use. I love thinking that I made something that I enjoy or if I’m lucky, something other people might enjoy. I derive a great amount of pleasure from the creative process especially the beginning. The middle is a tad tedious but necessary and I hardly ever make it to the end but that is one of the reasons why I think I need to devote less time to video games. I’d like to finish more of those creative projects that I start. I’m far too easily distracted and if I’ve had a bad day or stressful day at work (which happens more and more and more) I tend to just do something mindless and non-productive. It helps in the short term I think, taking my mind off that bad day, but eventually I’d like to change my mindset to do something creative instead.

What makes it hard though is that I love to play games. Whenever Steam has a sale, it takes quite a bit of discipline to not buy everything in sight even if I know I’m not going to get to it. Just the knowledge that I have it available whenever I want is akin to eating a big bowl o’comfort food. That’s another reason to try and stop or maybe even just cut back. Spend less money. Between board games and video games I’d need at least three full time jobs to pay for all the games and hardware I want.

The end goal for me in all this would be to get to a point where I am good enough and disciplined enough to write and game design in order to make enough money to live on. Or even just enough of a side income to get in to job where I might actually look forward to going to work.

So anyway I’ve been playing The Walking Dead that was just on sale on Steam and…

aw crap.

-v- out.

To Live and Die in the Old West That Never Was

07/16/2010 Daily Minutiae - Gaming 0 Comments

RANDOM – Thanks to my friend and companion, Hulu, I’ve re-watched about just over 6 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and have experienced the same good feelings that I had when I watched it the first time. I’ve also recently finished all of Stargate Atlantis for second time which was also just as good the second time around. I’m confident that the inevitable third re-watch of either series will elicit the same euphoria. This all comes on the heels of the end of the first season of Stargate Universe. While I’ve enjoyed all the Stargate Universe episodes so far especially the season ender, it just doesn’t seem to have the same appeal. The early episodes seem to try too hard to be a Battlestar Galactica wanna be that other than the big glowing Stargate they use occasionally its hard to associate it with its earlier incarnations. The few reappearances of the old cast help to tie it in together so that helps out somewhat. I won’t stop watching the show despite my very minor gripes and I look forward to the next season.

GAMING – I just finished Rockstar’s latest open world game set in the old west, Red Dead Redemption and I must say it was very enjoyable. If you’ve played Grand Theft Auto IV, then you’ve played the same engine and the game is basically a western themed version in some respects. The story does a good job of standing on its own even if it feels forced sometimes. One of the things that really seemed to stand out to me, was the added focus on the “stranger missions” which I believe were introduced in GTA IV. It was very satisfying riding out between locations to get stopped by a stranger in need of some help or to ambush you. It made the world feel just a little more alive. I also enjoyed the inclusion of the Mexico area and while it didn’t feel totally different than its American neighbor, it did feel different enough to make you notice you weren’t in Kansas anymore. Thankfully my experiences in Red Dead Redemption aren’t at an end since they’ve just announced some single player DLC. One word. Zombies.

-v- out.

Wherein Our Hero’s Boardgame Adventure Awakens Dormant Desires

07/12/2010 Daily Minutiae - Gaming 0 Comments

*Explosion die joke here*

I was fortunate enough this weekend to be able to attend Green Country Gamers monthly gaming get together over at Wizards Asylum.  Playing boardgames several weekends in a row was almost too much for me to handle and I nearly experienced pleasure overload.  Luckily though I was able to channel that energy into something more productive other than just sleeping… well maybe only small part of that energy went to non-sleep related activities but gaming wears you out!

We played a game of Ghost Stories which I have yet to win but thoroughly enjoy playing nonetheless.  I will say that if a village ever depended on my skills as a Taoist monk to defend it from a ghostly uprising, that village would be doomed.  In the last two plays of Ghost Stories our intrepid band of monks fought valiantly despite facing overwhelming odds and having mrchucho on our side.  (zing! @mrchucho)  We were able to come within several cards of actually having the boss ghost appear before succumbing to our spectral adversaries.  The game I played at GCG night was also a loss but was so lopsided that I actually think it took longer for us to set up the game than it did for us to lose.  In any event it was still fun and I look forward to my next ethereal encounter.

Finally, I come to the reason I slapped the title on this article.  Another game we played this weekend at GCG night was Fantasy Flight Games’ Chaos in the Old World which is set in the Warhammer universe.  Plays 3 or 4 players and each player represents one of the gods of Chaos.  Gorgeous board and bits helped with immersion in the theme.  I enjoyed the fact that it seemed like each god had a very unique playstyle and when you embraced that style it really helped you.  It took me a few rounds before I got the hang of playing Tzeentch the Changer of Ways but eventually I got in to it.  Unfortunately every time I had thought I set something good up for my turn it was burned down.  Luckily we were all new and I was able to squeak out a win thanks to some rules we played incorrectly.  Overall it was a fun game and I really would like to play it again.

Anyhoo, after playing Chaos in the Old World, I came home and opened up my Collector’s Edition copy of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and browsed through all the artwork and skimmed over the comic and it made me nostalgic for such a great dark fantasy setting.  So much so that I fired up the PC the next day (today) and patched up my endless trial.  When I first purchased the game I think I played it for a few months before cancelling.  It was a great game but in the end if my friends don’t stick around its highly unlikely I will either.  When the company announced they were moving to a free endless trial I decided to install that since I primarily enjoyed the Tier 1 battlegrounds.   They’ve made many changes since I’ve been gone and hopefully they’re all for the better.  I created my Magus and began vanquishing foes in the name of Tzeentch.  FOR THE HOR… err.. DESTRUCTION!

-v- out.