Putting together the baby's nursery, the paint was epic. It went ok, but I pretty much gave up on doing any of the trim. Did the ceiling and walls and then when I looked at all doors and trim, it suddenly looked "good enough". Then had to build the crib. It went great until one fucking screw would not line up with it's hole. Wasted like 2 hours trying this and that to make it work. Dinged up the wood around it using all manner or inappropriate tools (hello hammer) and finally said FUCK YOU, CRIB HOLE. Baby's gonna have a rickety crib and love it.
Since the nursery was my "office" before, I totally downgraded my big ridiculous desk to the world's smallest Ikea desk (which was still easier to make than the crib because, no dumb fucking screw hole issues). But we also moved out a couch and tv stand we had in there, so now I'm able to close the door to that room if we ever play Star Wars RPG online.
Did anyone see Spring Breakers? It's so ridiculous and crazy. Visually it's pretty rad looking at times, but holy shit, it's just so out there and pretty stupid. I enjoyed it, but I can't imagine seeing that in a movie theater with other people around, yikes. There's a couple of montages set to wub-wub dubstep music that are SO fucking dumb and hilarious. They're basically: "here's crazy spring break hedonism with topless chicks doing beer bongs" - they're so over the top, it's funny and embarrassing. And they show these little montages a couple of times, so it's just nuts.
Kingdom Rush: Holy shit, this game is so good. iOS tower defense game, with a big time fantasy rpg feel to it. It's been around forever and the sequel recently came out. I picked up the first one for free. There's a bunch of hero's you can buy, but it doesn't seem completely necessary to advance in the game. I've been avoiding it forever because I'm just not that into tower defense games, but this one is so friggen addictive and good! Beware, they sell regular and HD versions (for ipad) - I just have the regular versions and play them 2x on the ipad. Also, with the sequel, people seem to be freaking out on how much the extra heros cost and that if you wanted to have them all, it would cost like $40 bucks. Sure, that sucks, but just going off the base game, it's really super fun.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
EDIT: Sorry, that Saturday is completly out for me. We have our lamas class that day then that night is a birthday dinner we're going to. So it looks pretty booked up! Maybe I can secretly play from the restaraunt using my phone and sign language. Aren't I a wookie? All my dialog will be "aaaaarrrllllggghhhhh!"
I'm kinda 50/50 on that Saturday, because it's one of the rare Saturdays I actually have off (a bonus) but our baby shower is the next day and I might be having to help set it up that night. If there's enough interest from the rest of the gang, I'll try real hard to make it happen!
Tiny Thief is pretty rad. I'm almost done with it. I can't really go forward without 3 staring them, so it's taking me a little longer.
I'm kinda 50/50 on that Saturday, because it's one of the rare Saturdays I actually have off (a bonus) but our baby shower is the next day and I might be having to help set it up that night. If there's enough interest from the rest of the gang, I'll try real hard to make it happen!
Tiny Thief is pretty rad. I'm almost done with it. I can't really go forward without 3 staring them, so it's taking me a little longer.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
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Edit, and:
Another thumbs up for Tiny Thief! I ended up having a couple hours free this weekend and I blew through it, although I need to go back and grab a few of the treasures I missed. Very fun little game.
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Scheduling Wars VIII: A New Borst
OK, so it sounds like it might be best to go for a Saturday game then. I can't play this weekend (in-laws in town), so why don't we shoot for Saturday the 17th, 8 PM maybe? Would that work for folks?
Pulling a jr0n
ANOTHER game Aeryk had mentioned that piqued my interest was the Pathfinder card game. Matt had also mentioned it, so I looked more into it and it does look pretty rad! It's sort of a deckbuilder type game but the hook is that it's heavily RPG themed, with the cards in your deck corresponding to your character's spells, weapons, abilities, etc. You go through adventures in an exended series of sessions (solo or with friends) and as you go your character gains treasures, new abilities etc. that all modify your deck. But your character can also DIE and then you have to start a new one. Oh no! It looks like a great game to play if you can get a group together and play it consistently so you go through the whole campaign together. IE, totally inappropriate for us! I'm getting it anyway of course.
Having this new kid on the way brings me back to all this weird time I had to myself in the middle of the night when the ladyfriend was feeding the baby, which I filled playing solo board games/computer games. I played a LOT of Mage Knight during that time (that's an awesome game that I don't think we've played, beyond one game at Aeryk's where we were extremely tired from drinking and barfing). I guess all these solo card games will help me while away the twilight hours.
Monday, August 05, 2013
Sorry for the radio silence. Schedule is wonky as we are just coming out of our summer crunch hell. I should be good any day next week though (finger crossed).
As an aside, I'm eagerly awaiting the Shadowrun deck building game. I have no idea how good the game is going to be. But I'm all about teh kool elf pictures on cards.
As an aside, I'm eagerly awaiting the Shadowrun deck building game. I have no idea how good the game is going to be. But I'm all about teh kool elf pictures on cards.
Sunday, August 04, 2013
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Monday or Boosday
Those are the two days that I wake up at 4:30am to be at work by 6:00, so I am pretty burnt both nights :( I'm not sure I could be counted on to show up to a game and would likely fall asleep around 8pm. Not so say I wouldn't be willing to try, but there is a strong chance I will be falling asleep in Wylie's bed before he himself is asleep.
What a weird memory of bedtime he will have.
"Man, why was dad sleeping all the time?"
"It was the alcohol, son. It was the alcohol."
What a weird memory of bedtime he will have.
"Man, why was dad sleeping all the time?"
"It was the alcohol, son. It was the alcohol."
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Pulling an Aeryk (v.)
1. To get so excited about a friend's game that you buy it immediately, along with all expansions, with the side effect of immediately invalidating the friend's copy.
2. To repurchase a game you have previously purchased and sold.
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Tuesday's game actually saw an exciting (and I believe unprecedented) Double Reverse Aeryk! Not only did he get so stoked on Sentinels of the Multiverse that he picked it up, I had so much fun playing the Lord of the Rings CCG that I purchased it again today despite having previously sold it off to a guy in the game group. I think enr0n has a bunch of it too, so we'll have to make a date to rub our decks together and see what happens.
Not hearing a lot of enthusiasm for SW-RPG Monday/Tuesday this week (except for Rude, bless his heart), so why don't we try a little advance planning and shoot for next Monday, the 12th? Would that work for people?
2. To repurchase a game you have previously purchased and sold.
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Tuesday's game actually saw an exciting (and I believe unprecedented) Double Reverse Aeryk! Not only did he get so stoked on Sentinels of the Multiverse that he picked it up, I had so much fun playing the Lord of the Rings CCG that I purchased it again today despite having previously sold it off to a guy in the game group. I think enr0n has a bunch of it too, so we'll have to make a date to rub our decks together and see what happens.
Not hearing a lot of enthusiasm for SW-RPG Monday/Tuesday this week (except for Rude, bless his heart), so why don't we try a little advance planning and shoot for next Monday, the 12th? Would that work for people?
Friday, August 02, 2013
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Dev Food For Thought - Episode 1
UPDATE: Rather than clutter this place up, I'm moving my dev dumps to a separate blog.
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When inspired with a crazy game mechanic, system, or general game idea, I'm going to jot it down here so I don't lose it either in my brain or on a piece of paper. Feel free to ignore, or comment, or add, but don't feel like you need to acknowledge or discuss any of these.
Threat Mechanic
When a player does damage to an enemy, the card played should have a damage amount listed and a threat value, the card is then attached to the enemy. If another player does damage to the same target, the threat value is compared to the current attached threat:
- if it's higher, the enemy shifts its focus to the new player (effectively the player just 'pulled' the enemy)
- if it is lower, the enemy maintains it's focus on the current player.
Tank roles would of course have abilities that could either immediately pull enemies, or their attacks would have a higher threat to damage value rating (likely healing classes, too). Damage classes could also have lower threat to damage attacks.
Enemy AoE Abilities
AoE abilities affect all players, unless they have a card in play that states they are out of AoE range. This would then allow them to only play ranged attacks or equivalent abilities/spells/etc. Reaction cards ("Dodge!") could cancel or avoid AoE effects.
******************
When inspired with a crazy game mechanic, system, or general game idea, I'm going to jot it down here so I don't lose it either in my brain or on a piece of paper. Feel free to ignore, or comment, or add, but don't feel like you need to acknowledge or discuss any of these.
Threat Mechanic
When a player does damage to an enemy, the card played should have a damage amount listed and a threat value, the card is then attached to the enemy. If another player does damage to the same target, the threat value is compared to the current attached threat:
- if it's higher, the enemy shifts its focus to the new player (effectively the player just 'pulled' the enemy)
- if it is lower, the enemy maintains it's focus on the current player.
Tank roles would of course have abilities that could either immediately pull enemies, or their attacks would have a higher threat to damage value rating (likely healing classes, too). Damage classes could also have lower threat to damage attacks.
Enemy AoE Abilities
AoE abilities affect all players, unless they have a card in play that states they are out of AoE range. This would then allow them to only play ranged attacks or equivalent abilities/spells/etc. Reaction cards ("Dodge!") could cancel or avoid AoE effects.
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durrr-itos
I'm good for either day, Star Wars action! If this week doesn't work, a future week is fine. But Monday/Tuesdays/Saturdays are best for me in general. I'm painting the "office"/nursery this weekend, so if it becomes a drawn out affair (this is my first time painting anything) then I'll have to play via the iPad. That worked super well last time! :) (I think the google house party app is better these days anyways)
PS: I picked up the iOS game Tiny Thief. It's super fun! It's from Rovio Stars which is Rovio (Angry Birds people) publishing games by other "indie" developers. This game is pretty fun, if kinda easy. It's on sale for 99 cents from 2.99. You play a thief and each level is a sort of stealth-based puzzle. SUPER cool animations and art. Nothing has stumped me yet, but it's just a lot of fun to play through. That will only coast you 1/3rd of a Doritos Taco! I had one before and was somehow surprised that it tastes exactly how you'd expect - Doritos for a shell.
PS: I picked up the iOS game Tiny Thief. It's super fun! It's from Rovio Stars which is Rovio (Angry Birds people) publishing games by other "indie" developers. This game is pretty fun, if kinda easy. It's on sale for 99 cents from 2.99. You play a thief and each level is a sort of stealth-based puzzle. SUPER cool animations and art. Nothing has stumped me yet, but it's just a lot of fun to play through. That will only coast you 1/3rd of a Doritos Taco! I had one before and was somehow surprised that it tastes exactly how you'd expect - Doritos for a shell.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
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Rise of the Runelords, tell me about it
I'm intrigued! Are you doing the subscription thing? What's the advantage of that -- promo cards or something? How much is shipping? Is it a deckbuilder?
Sentinels was a lot of fun. The art didn't bother me so much -- but I certainly have lower/different standards along those lines -- but can definitely see room for improvement. I love how it seems like a pretty well-balanced game that just works and was very thematic, although it's definitely a little more complex than I thought, since you do need to track when cards come out in order to resolve timing. I LOVE the idea of the LCGs/CCGs though. Tell Sven to work on his LotR deck, or ship out!
What Aeryk didn't mention was that his visit was also the occasion to resolve an obsession of mine and go get a Doritos-flavored taco from Taco Hell. The wife had actually said she'd be willing to try it but there is no way I would submit my unborn child to such a thing. The Cool Ranch taco itself was pretty w/e, but everything tasted exactly like I remember the countless other Mexican pizzas and bean burritos I sucked down in high school/college.
OK guys, who is down for some Star Wars action next week!?? Would either Monday or Tuesday work for an online get-together, say from 8:00-10:00??? Stop me before I run out the world's supply of punctuation marks!!??
Sentinels was a lot of fun. The art didn't bother me so much -- but I certainly have lower/different standards along those lines -- but can definitely see room for improvement. I love how it seems like a pretty well-balanced game that just works and was very thematic, although it's definitely a little more complex than I thought, since you do need to track when cards come out in order to resolve timing. I LOVE the idea of the LCGs/CCGs though. Tell Sven to work on his LotR deck, or ship out!
What Aeryk didn't mention was that his visit was also the occasion to resolve an obsession of mine and go get a Doritos-flavored taco from Taco Hell. The wife had actually said she'd be willing to try it but there is no way I would submit my unborn child to such a thing. The Cool Ranch taco itself was pretty w/e, but everything tasted exactly like I remember the countless other Mexican pizzas and bean burritos I sucked down in high school/college.
OK guys, who is down for some Star Wars action next week!?? Would either Monday or Tuesday work for an online get-together, say from 8:00-10:00??? Stop me before I run out the world's supply of punctuation marks!!??
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Card Manifesto
Got the game and have started breaking down the heroes to see if there is any pattern that jumps out at me and screams "this is the formula!".
I've done two and after looking at the spreadsheet I'm creating I have no idea if I'll do more.... Uuuuugly. But until all the data is there, I won't know what I'm looking at, so I must persevere! I must be a Sentinel of our Multiverse or the blood will be on my hands!!!
I LOVE the idea of being able to create and craft a story via a game like this. I mean who doesn't want to see Ro, Fared, Brother Simon, or (insert forgotten character name here) as a player in an actual game?
I've done two and after looking at the spreadsheet I'm creating I have no idea if I'll do more.... Uuuuugly. But until all the data is there, I won't know what I'm looking at, so I must persevere! I must be a Sentinel of our Multiverse or the blood will be on my hands!!!
I LOVE the idea of being able to create and craft a story via a game like this. I mean who doesn't want to see Ro, Fared, Brother Simon, or (insert forgotten character name here) as a player in an actual game?
That's way better thought out than any of my game ideas! Run with it! Find a cool genre to stamp on top of it. Something different. Something fun like the Time Bandits - something cool where you can have wildly different types of monsters and heroes.
I think I mentioned this before, but watch Beach Party on Netflix. It's the first of those 60's Frankie and Annette beach movies. The first surfing scene, about 10 minutes in is ridiculous! There's shots of like 20 people all catching the same wave, hahaha. It's way rad. Plus greaser-looking Dick Dale's all over it lip syncing songs which is pretty rockin.
I think I mentioned this before, but watch Beach Party on Netflix. It's the first of those 60's Frankie and Annette beach movies. The first surfing scene, about 10 minutes in is ridiculous! There's shots of like 20 people all catching the same wave, hahaha. It's way rad. Plus greaser-looking Dick Dale's all over it lip syncing songs which is pretty rockin.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
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Sentinels of the Multi-Pass
***Warning, nerdy game design brain dump follows***
So Enoto and I had a small games day yesterday in WC and we played the hot new game, Sentinels of the Multiverse! The players each play a pre-built superhero deck and fight against a single AI/Big Bad deck. It was a lot of fun once we got into it. I liked it so much I picked up a copy from Amazon today!
The success of the separate, static decks for the superheroes, but the wonky 1 - 2 player rules (should have 3 heroes, so with less that 3 players you need to play multiple hero decks), and my less than enthusiastic response to the artwork and theme, made me re-imagine a video game 'instance' as a card game where all the roles would need to be included, but could be scaled from 1 - 5 players. I'm thinking Sentinels for the static decks and AI driven enemy deck, LotR for the concept of 'pulling' enemies (maybe with some threat mechanic to keep those enemies), and the Star Wars LCG for the deck customization that uses groups of cards, rather than single cards, for customization that would sort of emulate 'specs' or 'focus' of different roles, e.g. DPS crowd control, vs. ranged, vs, melee would all have a different potential bundle of cards to be added/removed depending on the style of play each player wanted.
So each role would need to be in play, but each character would have cards with numbers 1 -5 on them to show which should be included in the deck depending on the number of players. If you have 1 player, all the 1 cards from all 5 roles would be added to one deck and then the one player would play all the roles at once. Those cards would probably be the most straight forward, and possibly powerful cards from the different roles since playing 5 roles but with one turn to do so would require more 'bang for the buck' each turn. If you are playing with 2 players, you just divvy the roles between the two players and have at it, etc.
I'm pretty sure there is some formula for creating the Sentinel character decks, so I'm going to spend some time deconstructing each one and trying to find what makes each tick and maybe better understand what keeps them relatively balanced. Then I'll proceed to step 3, and the by the 4th step - PROFIT!
/brain dump over
*Whew* Now that I've said that, you will never hear about it from me again because by the time I post this I will likely be tired and not have the energy or drive to follow-through.
So Enoto and I had a small games day yesterday in WC and we played the hot new game, Sentinels of the Multiverse! The players each play a pre-built superhero deck and fight against a single AI/Big Bad deck. It was a lot of fun once we got into it. I liked it so much I picked up a copy from Amazon today!
The success of the separate, static decks for the superheroes, but the wonky 1 - 2 player rules (should have 3 heroes, so with less that 3 players you need to play multiple hero decks), and my less than enthusiastic response to the artwork and theme, made me re-imagine a video game 'instance' as a card game where all the roles would need to be included, but could be scaled from 1 - 5 players. I'm thinking Sentinels for the static decks and AI driven enemy deck, LotR for the concept of 'pulling' enemies (maybe with some threat mechanic to keep those enemies), and the Star Wars LCG for the deck customization that uses groups of cards, rather than single cards, for customization that would sort of emulate 'specs' or 'focus' of different roles, e.g. DPS crowd control, vs. ranged, vs, melee would all have a different potential bundle of cards to be added/removed depending on the style of play each player wanted.
So each role would need to be in play, but each character would have cards with numbers 1 -5 on them to show which should be included in the deck depending on the number of players. If you have 1 player, all the 1 cards from all 5 roles would be added to one deck and then the one player would play all the roles at once. Those cards would probably be the most straight forward, and possibly powerful cards from the different roles since playing 5 roles but with one turn to do so would require more 'bang for the buck' each turn. If you are playing with 2 players, you just divvy the roles between the two players and have at it, etc.
I'm pretty sure there is some formula for creating the Sentinel character decks, so I'm going to spend some time deconstructing each one and trying to find what makes each tick and maybe better understand what keeps them relatively balanced. Then I'll proceed to step 3, and the by the 4th step - PROFIT!
/brain dump over
*Whew* Now that I've said that, you will never hear about it from me again because by the time I post this I will likely be tired and not have the energy or drive to follow-through.
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