| So there I was... there I was... in... the Congo

Been playing this mobile app called Slingshot Braves which is a pretty nifty single player / multiplayer combo with some RPG elements. At least it was until the devs slowly succumbed to the power-creep greed cycle... which basically took what was an interesting strategy / turn based combat game that involved the player 'pulling back' and firing their character through the map to bounce off and hit / damage bad guys, build combo damage for consecutive hits, that combined when your partner was successful in making contact with your player on their turn, etc. It was great. Then, they started introducing more and more powerful weapons with more and more powerful special attacks, and more and more powerful bosses that required a very specific special skill to do any real damage too... that typically required the player to buy gems with real money.. and now it has become a game that unless you exterminate every bad guy on the screen within 1-2 moves, you get killed yourself. It's kinda stupid. The RPG side of the game has nearly completely disappeared and the dev on that side is at a standstill. I don't remember the last time they added in any actual storyline or new towns/villages to explore.

On the upside, a co-worker just recently told me that Plague Inc. has been released on mobile. I've heard a lot about it on the PC and was tempted to buy it but not at the $15-20 price point. Free mobile app with a 99 cent no-more-ads-option? Hokay! It's a decently fun little game! Kind of morbid playing as the bacteria/virus/fungus/etc that tries to spread across the globe before being discovered, and then racing against the cure to try and take down civilization.. which of course means the death of the player as a plague as well... with all the hosts being dead. So that doesn't make a lot of long-term sense but that's overthinking it. :) Do recommend, good time waster.

| OMFG... surprise live action FPS! LOL

This is beyond epic... haha.. so awesome

| Eric's dwarf obsession got a boost?

Jon and I played Song of Blades and Heroes ages ago (the only time my 15mm figures ever got any play...) and it was OK.  They're kickstarting it right now, but what might be of interest to Eric are some pretty cool Dwarf minis.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9742092/song-of-blades-hammer-and-forge/description

maybe these suckers could offer you the edge your dwarves will otherwise not have against Aaron's Orcs?

| Still playing me some Payday 2

Had a run on the new map "Cook Off" where you basically play the first level of "Rats" in perpetuity.. taking over a meth house, then finding materials to cook meth, then defending said meth against waves of enemies while you run the bags back to a getaway van... as many times as you and your crew want, up to something insane like 100 bags (which would take hours).

So anyway, log into a crew, start playing, get about 3 bags in and notice there are no enemies and there's one of our guys standing at the back of the van throwing in a continuous rainbow of bags in the van... oh lawd, a hacker. But not just any hacker. Maybe the most ridiculous hacker run I've ever seen.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Payday 2.. a very well run, near maximum difficulty mission taking 3 days with no margin for failure on any of the days (Pro Jobs you don't get to restart the mission.. if you fail a stage, the entire thing is scrapped and you get nothing)... you might see upwards of $3M in cash as your split and around 1M in XP. And that's perfect run.

Back to our Cook Off Hacker.. he takes a minute or two to dump in however many bags. We get the 'mission success' and debrief... $623M in cash as my share and something stupid like 150M in xp. I couldn't do anything about having received that XP.. except to reset my character back from the now maxed out level 100 back to level 0 (and gain a level of infamy, which confers some small perks), and then NOT keep any of my cash on reset. With his hack, it would be possible, in the span of maybe an hour or two, to go from absolute infamy/level zero to maxed out infamy of 25 and level 100... that's just nuts.

Additionally, I got to thinking.. it really takes the fun out of the game to just instantly have everything. I don't relate to the hacker mindset I guess. I'd rather be presented with a set of challenges/puzzles and have to solve my way through them, and/or earn skills and grind up to being able to solve them with a mixture of game elements and my own player skill / thought.

| *tumbleweed rolls by...*

Eric invites me to his blog, and then never posts again...

It is awfully quiet around here.

In case you need your dose of nerd, here's my Kings of War 6mm Demons of the Abyss army.  So when are we actually going to play, guys?

Guys?

| *Taps Mic*

Is this thing on? lol

So Sunless Sea! I've been playing it a bit.. pretty fun. It's very text-story heavy, with a semi-random map.. lots of exploration and really the heart of the game is resource management. Making sure you have enough fuel and supplies to make it from point A to B to C and back home to port without running out of gas is pretty much the core of what you do.. and along the way try to work through the various story lines, deliver X cargo to Y location for a Z% chance of what you need to further the story. I'm no where near the end of it (it's pretty rouge-ishly brutal).. the story pretty much tells you right off the bat your first few captains are going to probably die a horrible death, and they'd be right. Heh. I find myself starting to keep hand written journal/notes about places visited, which shops offer which supplies.. who wants certain goods/services and will pay a premium (or offer a discount).. so in that regard it sort of combines old school RPG gaming with the video game experience. Dig it.

Darkest Dungeon! Did I already pump this one enough? I can't get over how much fun it is. A very differently packaged dungeon crawler / character building system. I love how the prevailing theme is how fear and dungeon crawling will slowly break even the sturdiest of adventurers without enough care/mental health maintenance back at home. The voice overs are just absolutely perfect. The combat is compelling and interesting, and the dev's are still cranking out tons of free updates. I think it's technically still an 'early access' game but it plays like a polished, finished product. Highly recommend.

Otherwise, hope all is well with you and yours. :) I'm coming up on my summer vacation at work... yay 17 days off! Very much looking forward to some respite and mental health recovery myself. Hard to believe I'll be there a year and a half soon. Crazy! It's never boring, that's for sure. And getting paid hourly is something I am now getting very accustomed to. lol. Yay for overtime and double time pay!

On that note, time to get ready for my swing shift today. Lates!

| Zombo Apocalypse & Comic Con LV 2015

Went to this place called Zombie Apocalyse the other day and thought you guys might enjoy it if you are here in town with the kids.  They converted a paintball field on the weekdays, and made it into a Zombie infested city.  Then you have to run from safe-point to safe-point away from all the zombies armed with a shotgun with 12 paintball shells.  It was creepy!

It's totally awesome dawesome for little kids I would imagine.  But afterawhile you comprehend that the zombies can't "touch you" so then it takes a lot of the fear out.

It reminded me a lot like "true dungeon" except TD was probably more interactive and challenging for adults and less frightening.

Also went to comic con, but other than the Street fighter II machine that was free to play, it was okay.  There wasn't a load of people, it looked really empty and not as many scantily clad heroine costumes as would have hoped for.

| Sunless Sea ?

Anyone else play this? I see it on sale in STEAMZZZZ for the next while and it looks intriguing.

SUNLESS SEA TRAILER VID

Semi-related, saw the X-COM "The Bureau" expansion on sale for $3 so I grabbed that... pretty excited to have a new environment/new toys/mechanics to play with in the X-COM game-verse... but.. instead of being a turn-based tactical strategy game.. they turned it into just another FPS clone? Whaaaaat. I don't hate it, but it's just so.. uninspiring. It FEELS like a knock off of other uber-linear shooters, but without the pinache of, say, Mass Effect.

It was awesome.

It's nothing like Borderlands. There are real stakes.

So Mad Max Fury Road is getting crazy good reviews (99% on rotten tomatoes right now), so maybe I'll eat my hat and go see it.  The preview made it look absolutely over-the-top awful (yea, I've played that video game with the midgets too...) but hey.  Maybe I'm just a grouchy old man that just needs a good action flick to calm me down?

NERRRRRD!

Heh heh, Grand Moff Tarkin is playing Battle Masters.  Awresome.

This is so good!

It is a lot weirder and more operatic for sure, but... have you seen Road Warrior lately? It is pretty bonkers.

Plus it's mostly practical effects! I'm in for that alone!

I hate to be that guy.  Maybe old age makes you jaded, but I think I played this in Borderlands 2.  I was seriously expecting the midget psychos with hockey masks to come out.