MT 5662, Tron Deadly Discs!

Happy New Year! The first episode of 2019 is all about Tron Deadly Discs, by M Network, a tiny little division of Mattel Electronics. Please stay tuned to the feed for an interview with programmer Jeff Ronne. I enjoyed talking with him and I hope that you will give it a listen. Next up will be Pengo by Atari. If you have any feedback for Pengo, please get it to me by the end of the day 20th January. You can send it to 2600gamebygame@gmail.com.Thank you all so much for listening!

Tron Deadly Discs on Random Terrain
Jeff Ronne on Quora
Takeover on Intellivision Lives
M Network decal card on Atarimania
Tron Deadly Discs on Intellivision Lives
Encom 2600 mod by Russ Caslis
Atari Bytes 153 - Mega Force the Movie!
Tron for 2600 Atari Age Thread
Only Solutions by Journey

Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise Kickstarter

Yes, the creative batteries have been recharged and I'm ready to scribble my little eldritch-green heart out!

Right over here is the Kickstarter campaign.  Yesterday was a soft opening... today is the full-scale launch.  And it's already nearly funded. 

I'm excited and encouraged by the projected numbers.  Several individuals whose opinion I trust believe this will top out around $28,000. 

Numbers like that mean we can go all-out with the book, just like our gorgeous Cha'alt hardcover!  I intend to add as much value as I possibly can.  Backers are like family to me - better, actually, because I don't want to kick backers out of my house an hour after the Thanksgiving meal.

Have any questions?  Please ask.  Have suggestions?  Yes, indeed.  Want to share this KS on social media?  May you live to be a thousand years old, and the seven purple moons of Cha'alt shine their shadowy tentacles upon the fabulous wealth of your intrepid adventuring party!

Thanks for your support,

VS

p.s. I'll be making frequent updates to the KS.  Additionally, keep an eye on those stretch goals.  Regardless of how far we get, the list will grow.  ;)

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• Frei0r video generator plugins (e.g. color bars and plasma)
• Color, text, noise, and counter generators
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• Fade in/out audio and fade video from and to black with easy-to-use fader controls on timeline
• Video wipe transitions:
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Steel Cut Oats, Short Film, Review And Interview

Finding meaning in your life through mentoring. Some do it with their children and others do it by teaching something they know how to do. Steel Cut Oats is a deliciously made short film that pulls at the heart strings of anyone who worked to make their dreams and feel they fell short. Passed along their knowledge as a mentor and parent to find out they did well after all.

Steel Cut Oats was screened at the 2019 FilmQuest Film Festival (website). It was nominated for Best Fantasy Short, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Production Design/Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects.

This is a film I can openly recommend to everyone for the reasons mentioned above.

Synopsis: A washed-up boxer builds a giant monster out of oatmeal... and raises is as a son.

Harry Chaskin, the director provides some thoughts about their film, what they are working on and their inspiration for pursuing a career in film making.

What was the inspiration for Steel Cut Oats?

I grew up watching classic Ray Harryhausen movies and wanted to make something that combined stop-motion and live action in a similar way. But rather than focusing on spectacle, I tried to combine these techniques to create an emotional bond between two characters. From there, I wove in various elements that inspire a lot of my work—folklore, pulp noir stories, and 50s sci-fi television, to name a few.

What project(s) do you have coming up you're excited about?

I'm currently developing 3 feature scripts. The genres are very different from one another, but they all aim to tell character driven stories that employ practical, handmade techniques. I also just released my first graphic novel, The Happiest Place, about a jaded security guard at a Disney-esque theme park who uncovers a web of cartoon corruption!

What was your early inspiration for pursuing a career in film?

I've been watching movies with my dad since I was very young. He showed me everything from Young Frankenstein to Citizen Kane before I was 10 years old, and I was hooked! I soon got my hands on a super 8 camera and the first thing I remember doing is animating matchbox cars crashing into one another on our driveway, then dousing them in lighter fluid and setting them on fire to get the 'perfect shot.' I got in trouble for that one.

What would be your dream project?

There are so many. Really, I think the 'dream project' is any original endeavor collaborating with talented, kind people. I hope to continue doing this as much as possible.

What are some of your favorite pastimes when not working on a movie?

This is honestly something I struggle with. I'm a bit of a workaholic and very fortunate in the sense that my profession and favorite pastime overlap most of the time. That said, I like to draw, build plastic models, play guitar, and hang out with our dog and cats.

What is one of your favorite movies and why?

The list is long, but my favorite movie of all time is probably 2001: A Space Odyssey because there is simply nothing else like it. Conventional structure and formula go out the window to create a sensory, emotional experience. It simultaneously broke the mold and pushed the technical envelope in ways that still boggle my mind, and I still find it deeply emotionally affecting. 

You can watch the trailer on Vimeo (link).

And find out more at

The website steelcutmovie.com

IMDb (link)

I'm working at keeping my material free of subscription charges by supplementing costs by being an Amazon Associate and having advertising appear. I earn a fee when people make purchases of qualified products from Amazon when they enter the site from a link on Guild Master Gaming and when people click on an ad. If you do either, thank you.

If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.

I have articles being published by others and you can find most of them on Guild Master Gaming on Facebookand Twitter(@GuildMstrGmng).

 

[Hackaday] A Turing-Complete CPU From RAM

A Turing-Complete CPU From RAM

Orbits Of Planets

When I'm not feeling particularly inspired to work on a bigger project, I explore topics that might be useful later. I have been reading about planetary exploration, orbital mechanics, lunar chemistry, and other space topics. Along the way I found John Carlos Baez's blog post about the Pentagram of Venus. What a cool image! I wanted to try it myself. So I did.

Play with it yourself!

The Final Form Of My Home Made Magnetic Army Transport

I wanted to put out an update to my last post on building a magnetic model transport system for my Convergence.

Just before Captain Con my wife was kind enough to finish making the bag to carry all of the magnetic bins I built. It's frankly huge, but it carries absolutely everything without any issue.

It's huge! Total size is 16" deep, 24" wide, and about 15" tall. In the above picture it's carrying my dice tray, dice, all of my Convergence and a Blacksmiths Guild Ball team, and my sheet pan/tournament tray (sprayed silver).

The bag is semi-rigid, using some foam internally between the fabric to give some stability and padding. My wife did an outstanding job on it.

I got some flak from my Guild Ball friends for how much room I was taking up in the trunk on the drive up, but its awesome.  It fits neatly in my own car's trunk and will be used for all my local travel from now on. This is significantly easier than when I had to use an old PC carrying strap to bind all my cases together to carry the CoC around locally.

In case you didn't see the last post, here are what the cases look like populated with my stuff:

Conclusions

If you compare this to an actual product of equivalent size, it's about what you'd get in a Magna Rack 1520 from Battle Foam.  The racks plus bag for that is $365 plus shipping.  If you add up total materials for my system, I'm likely looking at about $100 max. Of course, I didn't have to pay for any labor in this creation.

On the flip side, I mentioned to my wife that she could probably pull $100 to $150 for a bag like that for other gamers if she tried to make one and she said in no uncertain terms that it flat out isn't worth it for her labor to charge that little.  Apparently the bag was a bit of a pain in the ass for her to make. She was happy to make it for me, but no one else has my charm to convince her it's worth making another.

If I wasn't married to an extremely talented quilter (and all around amazing woman) I'd probably would have to had been more careful when picking out my bins to make sure I could arrange them to fit in a piece of luggage I could buy rather than having the bag being fabricated to meet the specs of what bins I purchased.

I'm very happy to have done this, and I intend on magnetizing my other armies to use this system going forward, though I already have a bunch of foam so I'm not as motivated to go ahead with that. Plus I plan on just using Convergence for a while anyway.

Up Against The Wall - 1944 Scenario AAR

The problem with having a lot of figure collections is not being able to use them very often, I try and get round most of the stuff I have at least once a year but my 6mm WW2 has been away too long (April 2016) so it was about time we continued our journey from D-Day to the Assault on the Rhine.

Scale 6mm, Rules Homebrew based on Korp Commander by Bruce Tea Taylor, figure scale approx 1:4.

Based on a scenario from the book White Star Rising, scenarios for Spearhead published in 1997.

A King Tiger waits for its prey on the edge of the village

Historical Background

12th Sept 1944 near Aachen Germany - it's been just three months since the landings and after a slow start it's been a wild ride to get to here but things have been slowing down. Montgomery in Holland and Patton against the Vosges Mountains.

Here in 1st Army sector the going is easier, the plan to punch through the lightly held Siegfried Line and maybe even reach the Rhine, after all the Germans haven't got anything left..... have they ?

The table is 8ft x 6ft and is shown above, you should be able to see all the main features.

Germans set up hidden anywhere to the left (as viewed) of the line of hill, field, hill, field hill on the far right (apologies for adding humour) of the table. Germans set up on numbered counters with 1 blank counter for each real one.

Americans enter the table anywhere along the right table edge.

The Westwall runs along the left hand side of the table.

The game is decided by a points count up after 15 turns.

American Forces

The game will be decided on points you will receive 5pts per town sector held at the end of the game. 2pts for each AFV destroyed and 5pts for any enemy Battalion routed.

Initial Wave consists of 2 Tank Battalions (Morale 5) each with,

BHQ 2 x M4A3E8 Str 5, Recce Company Inf in Jeep Str 3
Gun Co M8HMC Str 3 and a Mortar Company M21 Sgt 3
2 x Tank Companies with 3 x M4A3 Str 5
1 x Tank Companies with 3 x M4A3E8 Str 5
1 x Tank Companies with 3 x M24 Str 5 (Second Battalion has M5s)
Attached 1 Tank Destroyer Company with 3 x M36 Str 4

2 x Armoured Infantry Battalions Morale 5

BHQ in M3 Str5, Recce Company Inf in Jeep Str 3, MMG Coy 3 x MMG in M3
Gun Coy M7 Priest Str 3, Mortar Coy M21 Sgt 3, AT Coy 2 x 57mm AT & Tow Str 5
3 x Inf Companies each with 3 x Inf mounted in M3 Str 6

On table Art 3 Batteries of M7 Priest Str 6

Off table Art, 1 Battery of 8" How Str 6 and 3 Batteries of 105mm How Str 6

Reinforcements

Any remaining assets from a standard US Armoured Division at the time so 1 Tank Battalion, 1 Armoured Infantry Battalion, Recce Battalion, Engineer Battalion, Artillery Battalion (2 Companies left) at a rate of 2 Companies per turn anywhere on the US baseline. Once a Battalion is committed all of its companies must be activated before another Battalion can be selected.

Air Power

Each player rolls 1d20 and any score over 15 will bring a supporting flight of aircraft. Roll a second dice on any success with a 50% chance of receiving a flight of rocket armed Typhoons if not a flight of CAP arrives over the table, they will remain over the table for 6 turns and may perform 1 gun attack on a ground target as they leave.

German Forces

The German player scores 2 points for each enemy Rifle Platoon Killed, 1 point for each Tank Platoon Killed, 10 points for each enemy Battalion routed.

81st Korps Tank Reserve Morale 8
1 Company of 3 x Tiger II tanks Str 4
1 Company of 3 x Jagdpanther Str 4
2 Companies of 3 x Jagdpanzer IV/70 Str 4

48th Volksgrenadier Regt Morale 5

RHQ Str 5 in Horsch Car, Recce Company Inf on Bicycle Sgt 3
Gun Coy 120mm Mortar Sgt 8, Engineer Platoon 3 x Engineer in Sdkfz 10

2 Battalions each with
BHQ Str 4, 81mm Mortar Str 4 and 75mm Infantry Gun Str 6
3 Companies each with 2 x V Gren Str 7

Set up as described above, there is no off table artillery, all German players will receive 1 roll of a d20 per turn with the Luftwaffe turning up on a 20. Roll for type as American.

How did we get on 

This is quite an interesting game with the Germans having all the Gucci toys but the Americans having all the resources. The Germans set their main line of defence down the centre of the table from the large wood in the foreground of the set up shot across the villages using the Armoured resources to form killing grounds in front of the terrain whilst the Infantry waited in Ambush in the cover.

Tigers spotted

The American Players, uncertain of the location began their attack with two main lines of attack. One against the hill nearest the camera on the set up shot, commanded by myself. My plan was to push forward in the centre with my tanks whilst rushing my APC borne Infantry round the wood to flank the hill, leaving my M36 Tank Destroyers on the hill behind on Overwatch. Let's call this the Left Column.

Left Column Advance

The second column pushed forward around the hill and woods in the centre of the American lines, the Infantry heading for the wood, the Tanks for the two section village. I will call this the Right Column.

Both columns came under heavy fire as soon as they broke cover, the Left by a Company of Tiger II, the Left by some Jagdpanthers on a hill and the JpzIV in the village.

Casualties were as expected quite heavy, especially on the right where the Americans were caught in the open as shown in the above. However the main German Armour had been located, it just needed the Air Force to turn up.

German AA waiting .........and waiting 

The problem was it didn't turn up enough and when it did it was CAP and not Ground Attack ! But that's the dice for you. The Luftwaffe wisely didn't turn up at all, it wouldn't have got anywhere anyway as there was around 20 Spitfires over the table waiting for something to chew up.

The American Infantry on the left got into the woods in strength driving out the Volks Grenadiers who had been holding out in there, this allowed them to start turning the flank of the Tigers. On the other side of the table the Americans had brought on their ACAV battalion and scores of Jeeps Greyhounds and M5s started to pour down the right flank.

The game ended after a couple of our evening sessions and all that was left to do was add up the points.

German Losses

6 Tiger II, 6 Jagdpanzer IV, 3 x Recce, 3 x 75mm Infantry Guns and 9 Infantry

24 points to the Americans for 12 AFV kills.

American Losses

Right Flank
15th Tank Battalion 2 x Recce, 27 M4A3, 15 M4A3E8, 9 M24
613 Tank Destroyer Btn 9 x M36 Jackson
9th Armoured Infantry 3 x 57mm AT Guns and 3 Infantry
86th Armoured Cavalry 1 x M5 and 33 M8 and 2 Infantry

Left Flank
69th Tank Battalion 14 x M4A3, 16 M4A3E8
40th Armoured Infantry 2 x Recce and 12 Infantry

17 points to the Germans for 15 Tank Platoon losses and 1 Infantry loss.

A good scenario, the Germans get to shoot loads of stuff but the Americans have the upper edge in numbers. Next up in our WW2 6mm games will be a Market Garden game whilst on the table we have the next instalment of our Op Compass Campaign.

Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused product of 2020

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

Earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) with Brave Web Browser

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