Episode 33: Foam Board, Sharp Knives And More Is Live!

Episode 33: Foam board, sharp knives and more!
https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/episode-33-foam-board-a-sharp-knife-and-more

I talk about building terrain using humble foam board and a few simple tools.

Try Audible for FREE! https://audibletrial.com/tvwg

Freyja's Wrath KS https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1512506318/freyjas-wrath-dark-age-and-fantasy-28mm-shieldmaid

Logan adapt-a-rule http://www.logangraphic.com/product/handheld-mat-cutters/logan-524-540-560-adapt-a-rule/

Joint illustrations
Butt joint http://www.woodworkbasics.com/image-files/168x182xbutt-joint.jpg.pagespeed.ic.mQMTHqdWBq.jpg

Mitre joint
http://www.woodworkbasics.com/image-files/171x171xmitre-joint.jpg.pagespeed.ic.Khj8quv3px.jpg

Housing joint what I incorrectly call tongue in groove in the Ep
http://www.woodworkbasics.com/image-files/170x165xhousing-joint.jpg.pagespeed.ic.9XFvhjVeOA.jpg

Rebate joint, what I call a rabbet joint in the Ep
http://www.woodworkbasics.com/image-files/166x185xrebate-joint.jpg.pagespeed.ic.TDhauqEFPJ.jpg

Pic of my space station shuttle bay partially constructed with Power Grab: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJQuJn_8wjTXRYHRmFbhnha-BpwB-1Vrj5edjZKIREUUUl0737r20fw2zkmsKuHG3BIvy2p9w5CQxtSDbI1rDeuuniQZAlc71jBPncZ0P6_bE4Y0usfNUZ7w9T-cDHg7ejLBvWm0iz5lWM/s1600/016_bay_newfloor.jpg

Books and games weighing down the walls and floor of a space station module: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DQ-wTexV4AAPObR.jpg:large

A photo from the archives showing a jig made of Lego bricks to keep everything nice and square and plumb: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUmrlbpWsAAwL1C.jpg

World works games:
http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/

Illinois buildings: https://www2.illinois.gov/dnrhistoric/Preserve/Pages/construct_mainstreet.aspx

Other free buildings: http://www.ss42.com/pt-buildings.html

Germy's Paper Buildings - Designed with gaming in mind: http://www.germy.co.uk/fprpg.htm

Medieval building: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUm2bJTX4AA864r.jpg

Music courtesy of Bensound.com. Keep your town beautiful, get a haircut.

Uncertainty

I have already discussed in this post and this another post how anxiety and fear, which are disturbing feelings by definition, can play a major role in the designing of digital games. People's desire to experience horror/terror games, or games that present many stressful situations, has created an interesting and profitable market niche, congregating a large number of players who are really enthusiastic about this kind of experience.

There are other disturbing feelings that can be strategically used in the process of game design. Today I would like to talk about uncertainty in games.

In this context, I ought to mention the book Uncertainty in games (2013), written by Greg Costikyan—the man behind classic games like Paranoia and Toon RPGs.

Costikyan (2013, p.16) argues that in real-life situations—like when we're shopping online, electing a congressman or using software for work—we want no uncertainty, "we prefer simplicity, surety, and consistency." While we always look forward to eliminating uncertainty when it concerns quotidian situations, products, and services, when it comes to games "a degree of uncertainty is essential" (COSTIKYAN, 2013, p.16), for it is a key factor in creating an immersive and entertaining experience for players.



How would you imagine a version of Dark Souls where enemies could be killed by a single weak blow from your shitty level-one weapon? Would you like to play a Super Mario Bros. game that lacks deadly cliffs and requires jumping just to collect coins?

Costikyan (2013, p.17-71) analyzes different kinds of games and explains that sometimes uncertainty comes from programmed random results; other times, uncertainty lies within opponents and how they perform; ultimately, uncertainty may result from the player's own abilities in the game.

I strongly recommend the book cited herein, and I would like to invite you to analyze ten of your favorite games (digital or analogic) in the light of this post. Try to figure out what kind of features caught your attention in those games—uncertainty was probably one of them.

#GoGamers

---

Reference:

COSTIKYAN, Greg. Uncertainty in games. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2013.

(270 MB) Download Hitman 4 Blood Money Highly Compressed For Pc

(270 MB) Download Hitman 4 Blood Money Highly Compressed For Pc

Screenshot

Hitman 4 Blood Money System Requirements

Following are the minimum system requirements of Hitman 4 Blood Money.

1. Operating  system: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1
2. Processor: Core 2 Duo
3. Setup Size: 270 MB
4. Ram: 1GB
5. Hard disk space: 5 GB

WW1 Naval Campaign - Heligoland Bight

Well it's time for our second Battle Report from our ongoing WW1 Naval Campaign, check out the latest copy of T'Yarkshire Ferret Newspaper above with all the gossip and tittle tattle around the goings on off the table.

If you missed game one, the link is below -

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/2019/04/ww1-naval-campaign-war-is-declared.html

As with the first report, the AAR below is how our game developed, the scenarios in the Campaign have a number of tactical events along the way meaning that games can be radically different depending on how those tactical events play out or how the game has been affected by previous Political events.

Game 2 - Heligoland Bight 

3rd British Destroyer Flottila

Following the first act ion, the Chase of the Könign Luise there was a lull of several weeks with no action. The British however noticed during this patrol phase that German Light Forces regularly sailed out in broad day light around Heligoland.

The British planned to push their own light force inside the German patrol line and bring them to Battle.

German Destroyers quickly under heavy fire 

The game starts at 6.00 am, Visiblity is restricted to 7500 yards. The 3rd British Destroyer Flottila consisting of the Light Cruiser Royalist and the Destroyers Liberty, Lydiard, Landrail, Contest, Garland, Spitfire and Sparrowhawk are steaming South with 2 German Torpedo Boats V2 and V4 7,000 yards West of the closest British ship, line astern, sailing South East. (nb.  Some ship names are different to those present in real life, this is because I don't have models of every ship in the Royal Navy in 1914, yet 😉)

HMS Royalist

Unknown by the British Player the powerful German Battlecruiser Sqn the 1st Scouting Group consisting of Seydlitz, Moltke, Goeben, Von der Tann and Blucher is at sea.

06.23 German 3rd Scouting Group consisting of the Light Cruisers Frauenlob, Stettin and Dresden, appear, 7500 yards South of the Southern most ship, sailing North West.

German 3rd Scouting Group

06.30 Additional German Torpedo Boats arrive from the 1st Half Flottila of the 1st TB Flot, 7000 yards from the western most ship sailing East.

Frauenlob scores a direct hit on the Bridge of HMS Royalist but fails to do any damage, the same turn Stettin lands a shell on the Bridge of the Destroyer HMS Contest but again the British escape with no major damage, the tide of the game could have definitely changed at that point.

1st Half Flottila (German)

The British were under a bit of pressure at the point, outnumbered 3 to 1 in Light Cruisers and on par with Destroyer, the initial aggressive tactics of the Royal Navy had got them in a spot of trouble.

So it was a relief when at 06.37 the 1st British Destroyer Flottila led by the Scout Cruiser HMS Active (with Destroyers Attack, Acheron, Hydra, Badger, Ariel and the Yarkshires very own Ferret) arrived 7500 yards to the east of HMS Landrail.

1st British Destroyer Flottila

The following turn (06.45) saw HMS Lydiard in real trouble, she was hit hard by the German Light Cruiser Frauenlob, sustaining a bridge hit and a serious fire.

HMS Lydiard in trouble

It was an action packed phase with the British player chucking torpedoes at the German ships to no avail.

Bags of action

0700 saw the Britsh Light Cruiser Sqn arrive, HMS Southampton, Birmingham, Falmouth, Nottingham, Lowestoft and Gloucester. Six Light Cruisers with six inch guns was making the German Commanders think seriously about their options.

British 1st Light Cruiser Sqn

But for now the action was all down at the other end of the table, HMS Lydiard despite the best efforts of her crew sank due to the cumulative effect of the fires on board. On the same turn HMS Landrail also suffered a bridge hit and fire from an engagement with SMS Dresden.

The end of HMS Landrail

Both sides had become a little more cagey than the initial gung no charge into contact with the initial forces on table. Lots of shell's were being exchanged but the British Destroyers had withdrawn towards the cover of the Light Cruisers, whilst the Germans were no keen to get too close in fear of the approaching 6 inch guns of the Town Class Light Cruisers.

More German Light Cruisers started to arrive but these were some distance away from the action.

The British finally got some decent hits on two German Torpedo Boats who had got themselves a bit isolated. A rudder hit and a couple of fires made things a bit more interesting for V2 and V4.

German Ships taking proper damage at last

But it wasn't all fluttering White Ensigns and renditions of "Rule Britannia" as HMS Landrail also failed to deal with its fire, this time the ship exploded in close proximity to the Light Cruiser HMS Royalist setting a minor fire on the deck off that ship.

HMS Royalist is now alight

By 07.37 it was like the 1812 Overture as explosions were going off all over the table, V2 exploded having failed to put outs it's fire. It was the day for it and the British players were sweating as the Royalist kept failing to put it's own fire out, which for a Light Cruiser should have been straight forward.

The British Light Cruisers were now starting go get the range of the Germans who had been keeping their distance. Information concerning a possible smoke plume seen to the south was despatched to the British player who sent HMS Gloucester to investigate.

V2 sinks 

The Germans lost one of their Destroyers as they withdrew but the decision to pull back had been made, the remaining German Torpedo Boats making smoke to begin to cover the retiring Light Cruisers, the British didn't really push the pursuit and at 08.30 HMS Gloucester spotted the German Battlecruisers in the distance.

And that was the game over the British player realised that his nearest support, a Sqn of aging Armoured Cruisers were no match for the likes of Moltke and withdrew. The Germans who had already started to pull back couldn't take advantage of the potential help from the Battlecruiser Sqn as they were too far away from the British to keep them engaged.

HMS Royalist is saved.

That just left us with the post game phase, Royalist had one chance left to extinguish it's now raging fire, 16 or more on 3d6. Easy 😉

A further German Destroyer V4 sank due to flooding on its way back to port meaning that the losses in the game were even, 2 Destroyers a piece.

Which just leaves me time to show off my new cool dice shaker !

A evenly matched game which ended in a cautious stand off. There are so many variations in the Campaign book that this could have gone a number of ways, even splitting into two seperate battles. In my first grumble about the book, the instructions for this scenario are dreadfully confusing but I managed to get there after reading it hundreds of times.

There will be a short break in the Campaign whilst I catch up on some painting, I didn't notice initially, but Scenario 3 contains some older vessels I don't own. Who needs an excuse to buy more ! I got the missing ships from Tumbling Dice so look out for a review / comparison post on them soon.

Captain Con And Reflections On Convergence

I just got back from Captain Con yesterday and it was an absolute blast. I haven't been to a convention for about 4 years, and I was extremely excited to get back to one.  This was my first Captain Con and I had only heard good things from my friends who've been going the past few years.

It definitely lived up to the hype and was exactly the kind of con I'm comfortable attending - not too big or too small.  It was mainly a Warmachine convention with roughly about 100 players attending, though there was a sizable (over 32 players!) Guild Ball event run by the Liberty Guild Ball group that plays at Showcase Comics in Media PA.  There was also a AoS tournament but that only had 8 players, where as Monsterpocalypse pulled in 16 players.

Add in role playing, demos, and everything else and we're looking at about 200 people which is just the right size in my view.



What to play?

All of the people I traveled/roomed with were all in on Guild Ball and I was completely hyped for Warmachine.  I was set to play in Champions on Friday for WM, and since I didn't get on a team for the New England Team Tournament and was scheduled to play Guild Ball on Saturday.  I put my name in for the waiting list and managed to get on a team with some great guys from Montreal and got to play Warmachine all weekend.

On one hand I was a little sad to only play a single Guild Ball game against a friend in a pickup game, but on the other I was just completely hyped to play WM.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Ironically I'm still hyped to play WM and Convergence, despite the fact that I lost nearly all of my games. The first take away from this is that I need more experience. My old habits and experience from when I was playing more regularly don't hold up, and the rust didn't just shake off. I haven't been able to get more than 2-3 games a month the past three months because of work/family and it showed really hard in my play at the con. I am far more out of practice than I realized.

There were a few games where I could have easily won had I remembered to spawn a servitor off my Axiom to contest scenario, or didn't rush through a turn after a phone call from my kids because my clock was low and I failed to position my shield guards properly - but even where I didn't really have fun (I got bottom of turn 1 assassinated by Sloan where he basically had to go for it otherwise he'd have a hard time on attrition), I learned WTF I should do in that game properly.

Nearly every time I've played Orion before this weekend it was into a melee list, never into a gun list and so I wasn't properly prepared.  On the plus side, the guy who got me is someone I've listened to on podcasts quite a bit and when he heard I had lost one of my casino dice, he ended up giving me some of his that were the same color. Super nice guy and shout out to Dan Riker and the Battle Driven folks.

So I took a bunch of beatings, but morale is improving. I ran the following lists:

Champions

Convergence Army - 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Clockwork Legions

[Lucant 1] Father Lucant, the Divinity Architect [+28]
 - Corollary [6]
 - Diffuser [6]
 - Diffuser [6]
 - Galvanizer [5]
 - Galvanizer [5]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [0(4)]
Enigma Foundry [4]
Frustum Locus [4]
Clockwork Angels [5]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Obstructors (max) [11]
Reciprocators (max) [18]
Reductors (min) [8]
 - Transverse Enumerator [3]
Reductors (min) [8]
 - Transverse Enumerator [3]

Theme: Destruction Initiative
4 / 4 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Iron Mother Directrix & Exponent Servitors - WJ: +27
-    Iron Mother Directrix & Exponent Servitors Cont.
-    Corollary - PC: 6
-    Prime Axiom - PC: 38 (Battlegroup Points Used: 27)
-    Mitigator - PC: 7
-    Mitigator - PC: 7

Transfinite Emergence Projector - PC: 19
-    Permutation Servitors
Transfinite Emergence Projector - PC: 19
-    Permutation Servitors

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex - PC: 2
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Attunement Servitors - 3 Attunement Servitors: 0

Optifex Directive - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4

New England Team Tournament

Theme: Clockwork Legions
2 / 2 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Father Lucant, The Divinity Architect - WJ: +28
-    Corollary - PC: 6 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6)
-    Conservator - PC: 12 (Battlegroup Points Used: 12)
-    Inverter - PC: 15 (Battlegroup Points Used: 10)
-    Diffuser - PC: 6
-    Conservator - PC: 12

Enigma Foundry - PC: 0
Enigma Foundry - PC: 0
Enigma Foundry - PC: 4
Enigma Foundry - PC: 4

Obstructors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Obstructors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 11
Reciprocators - Leader & 4 Grunts: 18
Optifex Directive - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4


Theme: Destruction Initiative
4 / 4 Free Cards     75 / 75 Army

Eminent Configurator Orion - WJ: +28
-    Corollary - PC: 6 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6)
-    Assimilator - PC: 16 (Battlegroup Points Used: 16)
-    Assimilator - PC: 16 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6)
-    Assimilator - PC: 16
-    Assimilator - PC: 16
-    Cipher - PC: 16
-    Diffuser - PC: 6
-    Galvanizer - PC: 5

Attunement Servitors - 3 Attunement Servitors: 0
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Elimination Servitors - 3 Elimination Servitors: 0
Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex - PC: 2


Optifex Directive - Leader & 2 Grunts: 4

List Reflections

The Lucant list I played in Champions was given to me by a better known player, and I piloted it rather poorly. I had much better success with my own version of the Lucant list that I played in the Team Tournament, though that very well could be because I'm more familiar with that kind of Lucant CL build rather than the no-heavies version. 

I don't know how much I like the no-heavy version of Lucant in CL, in fact after the weekend I'm more inclined to try and run less infnatry and more heavies.  I doubt this has anything to do with the list itself power wise vs. how I prefer to play. 

I think I want a max of 20 Obstructors and then take either Reciprocators or Eradicators as a center unit, and then fill the list out with more heavies. Reason being that taking a ton of small based units gets hard to cover them sufficiently with Enigma Foundries when you have to spread out due to scenario or the center piece of terrain forcing a split in your forces/Foundries.

I had already learned that I need a Diffuser in my lists which worked great, and a CL list with 3 heavies + Diffuser and a skimpier selection of troops may be enough to push it over the edge. Sadly the troops don't seem to do too much and since they're with Lucant, a canny opponent can use terrain to shield their heavies. When I lost with Lucant it was due to simply missing a way an opponent could land an assassination, or just dropping him into the wrong matchup (Siege 1). 

Conservators in Lucant print money and threat far with the Diffuser and have native pathfinder. At ARM20, they're hard to shoot down under decel and they almost always can be positioned to where they'll get Righteous Vengeance triggered in a CL list.  I'm debating just running 3 Conservators + Diffuser and Corollary in my Battle group and trying to make the list work. There's definitely a lot of room to experiment.

Iron Mother's list is solid and performed well and I simply need some more practice to get a bit better experienced.  It also hurts when you're dice off 6 for an Backlash assassination and so you boost damage, only to roll 17 on the dice and leave the jack with not enough boxes left for the backlash to work.  Also I should probably write "SPAWN YOUR SERVITORS" on my hand before the game starts. There's also the mistake of getting way ahead on attrition and camping 0 focus, forgetting Vlad2 can get rid of the cloud blocking LOS to her and getting her assassinated. 

Orion also has legs and I just need more practice playing him into a shooting opponent rather than a melee one. I think either he or Lucant CL is the best drop into Tharn. I actually dodged Circle all weekend, but I suppose being in the losers bracket most of the time will do that. 

Going Forward

Because I'll be doing a lot of work travel on the other side of the country later this year, this was likely my only con for 2019.  I hope to make it to more local Steam Rollers and to get in at least two Scrum leagues before I start travelling heavily. As much as I want to be competitive, I really feel a calling towards playing Aurora and Syntherion as something fun to play. I honestly hate not having Pathfinder in my infantry lists and I'm wondering if there's not some fun tech with Ciphers with Aurora. From a competitive standpoint I'm thinking about spending more time playing Locke who looks both fun and competitive.

The key take away for me is that I'm staying set on playing Convergence this year. Legion and Trolls are appealing, but I'm enjoying painting the rest of my Convergence army and I just want to stick with them since I feel like there's a lot for me to explore and learn. 

A Word About The Brazilian Gaming Market

(NOTE: this content is a teaser from my HCI's 2019 paper and the last post of this year)

The Brazilian gaming market is full of opportunities and peculiarities. The country is well-known abroad for being an emergent field where new game ideas can be explored, andalso for its high levels of piracy, unfortunately. In a certain way, the country is a unique "ecosystem" where different business models and creative processes can be explored, given the size and the diversity of its population, of almost 220 million people.

The gaming industry in Brazil is not consolidated though, and under many aspects it is still in an initial stage. As a first step into our discussion, we can highlight some attributes of the Brazilian gaming market, using as reference the data collected in an important survey named Game Brazil Research 2018 (Pesquisa Game Brasil 2018, in Portuguese), conducted by the company Sioux Games.



In its fifth edition, the research comprised interviews with 2853 people, in an attempt to investigate some demographic, consumption and behavioral aspects of the Brazilian gaming field. The first information we need to highlight is the fact that 75.5% of the Brazilian population plays games in a wide range of platforms, like smartphones, tablets, computers, consoles, portable consoles, etc.

According to this research, the gamer audience in Brazil is mainly cross-platform,with 74% of players experiencing games on more than one device. Smartphones lead the numbers as the most popular gaming platforms in Brazil (37.6%), while consoles occupy the second place (28.8%), followed by computers, in third place (26.4%).

Another interesting piece of information from Game Brazil Research 2018 concerns the self-image of the Brazilian gamer audience: only 6.1% of the respondents considered themselves to be "hardcore" gamers. Most of the interviewed people identified themselves as casual gamers.

It was also remarkable, in the research about mobile games, that 60.7% of respondents said they played while in transit (bus, subway or car).

Finally, it is noteworthy that 53.6% of Brazilian gamers are women, and among the female audience the favorite platform is mobile (59%), in which they spend an average of one to three hours a week playing games.

From these preliminary data, it is possible to understand that Brazil is a fertile ground for mobile games and a place with high potential for new gaming business in this field.

There are no massive game publishers in Brazil yet, and mobile platforms like App Store (Apple) and Play Store (Google) constitute interesting opportunities for game designers, indie studios and small gaming companies to showcase their work, in Brazil and abroad.

#GoGamers

Darksiders 3 - Review

Darksiders 3 - Review

Darksiders has always felt like it belonged on the fringe. As we haven't seen many games like Darksiders III in the past decade or so. The Darksiders series has always been focus and has steady design omnipresent in all of its moving parts. It's a third-person action game that isn't afraid to stunt your progress to an end for an hour or more until the point that you figure out how to beat a seemingly-impossible boss. And of course, every game need not to be a giant open world where you have tons of never-ending supply of side quests. And that's exactly the kinda game where Darksiders 3 fits in. It isn't a giant open world game, it's all about the combat which is freaking satisfying. 

But sure, this game isn't flawless, there are padding issues and other nitpicks, however the strong locales and the more than serviceable action help concrete this series as an actual action contender.

The biggest flaw, I think is the sporadic nature in Darksiders 3. Rather than having dungeons themed around these overwhelming enemies, they're simply stuffed inside destroyed skyscrapers and abandoned museums like any other enemy.



Quick Facts:

• Release Date: 27 November 2018
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
• Genres: Hack and slash, Action-adventure game
• Developer: Gunfire Games

After both War and Death had a fabulous time in Darksiders 3's predecessors, it's now the turn of the perpetually angry Fury, she is incredible, offering a powerful performance that takes each scene she possesses, lending your control of her an extra dose of power. She's sent out to hunt down the Seven Deadly Sins, and every one of them serves as one of Darksiders III's collection of varied major boss fights thus to re-establish the balance between Heaven and Hell torn apart in previous games.

Fury uses a bladed whip known as the 'Barbs of Scorn', which offers a satisfying combat feedback of meaty hits in some demonic entity's face, but you need to be close to the enemy.

Talking about the graphics, while there have been games this year that have really stunned me with their magnificent open world graphics, Darksiders 3 isn't one of them. The stylized, cartoonish characters are plopped into a quite generic-looking world that lacks detail. So, you can say that this game isn't for graphics lovers, but is for the combat lovers.

The act of combat is very easy, achieved with a single button to swing Fury's whip in all direction, striking down all enemies in her vicinity. Your heavy assault, so to speak, is given to a variety of secondary weapons you'll unlock as things progress. Fire, Thunder, and Gravity are only a couple of the things you'll come to adopt. 

Despite being the combat pretty easy, this is no mindless beat them up where you just run into a group of monsters mashing your attack buttons. All way of demons, skeletons, angels, giant creepy insects, and trolls should be chopped down, and you won't get much far without being observant of their behaviors. You need to be patient, wait for their attack, time your dodge at the right time, and boom! Dodging perfectly will slow down time for a spell, opening up enemies for a vicious counter-attack which feels really satisfying.

And as Darksiders 3 has taken some inspiration from Dark Souls, Fury's low survivability forces you to approach combat in a way that gives an exuberant combos. Enemies are quick and hit hard, and are mostly found in groups. With no stamina meter to talk about, there's an emphasis on dodging and keeping out of danger that deviates from Dark Souls' stringent use of energy management.

Fury's ever-expanding arsenal incorporates lots of fun toys, and it's up to you to choose which ones to power up and depend mostly on. Alongside her weapons, she gains new movement powers that give her access to new areas, and once you've unlocked them all it's amusing to switch between all her various forms to find the correct tools for the different combat and obstacle jobs.




Our ferocious fury is surprisingly vulnerable, as no matter how powerful she becomes, she still gets killed in a matter of seconds if you aren't careful. This is a bit of nuisance when Serpent Holes, what could be compared to Dark Souls' Bonfires, are spread so far apart. Trawling through bland corridors filled with boss's bitches glad to throw themselves at you is frustrating when you have someplace to be.

The bosses in Darksiders III are not messing around. While the first couple probably won't pose much of a threat, eventually you'll face one that doesn't appear to react to any trap or assault you've learned up to that point. Not to ruin any surprise, but don't be stunned if a boss doesn't go down as easily as it appears they will. It tends to disappoint abruptly having the tables turned on you, no doubt, however with persistence success eventually comes. In this way, Darksiders III feels like it's of some other time. So be ready to achieve something, not the easy way.


The Verdict

Gunfire Games has put forth a valiant effort, and at times, succeeds in making Darksiders 3 a worthwhile successor to the past two entries. Combat is fun and accessible while exploration is nuanced enough to stay engaging. Its throwback philosophy is comfort food for action gamers of a particular age. But because of so many technical issues with it, It feels like a package that is enjoyable yet ultimately underwhelming.

Addicted!

What's going on everyone!?

Today was spent the same as usual lately by loading up the truck so I can get some more stuff moved to our new place.

All day I couldn't stay away from the Zombies in my pocket app and played 15+ games of it today losing most and winning few but having a blast playing 

I seem to be heavily addicted to the game in my free time like I used to be long ago, lol. 

As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to stop and smell the meeples!  :)

-Tim

[Kitploit] shuffleDNS - Wrapper Around Massdns Written In Go That Allows You To Enumerate Valid Subdomains

shuffleDNS - Wrapper Around Massdns Written In Go That Allows You To Enumerate Valid Subdomains

SYMBIOCOM (Aka SYN-FACTOR)

After helming one of the best interstellar Mary Celeste adventures in Majestic: Part 1 - Alien Encounter, the one-man design team of Istvan Pely got to work on some thematic sequels. Released 1998, the same year as Zero Critical (a future Chamber escapee I'm sure), Symbiocom shares a lot with his previous game in that you are searching a deserted space vessel seemingly abandoned in the deep recesses of space.

Read more »

Deities & Demigods Face Lift - Need A New Title!

When getting serious about the production of Deities & Demigods, I had to face certain realities about the theme:

Tropes vs Cliches

On one hand, using a familiar theme is useful, because tropes are like pictures -- worth 1000 words. People can recognize things like "Ares is the one that moves your troops" because of what they already know about the Greek gods. Knowing that information up front reduces the cognitive load on the player, who can spend their cycles thinking about whether they want to build stuff rather than having to think "wait, what does Hephaestus do again?" Read this whole twitter thread for a good, technical description of what I've been thinking for years, but didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to express properly:

Oh, boy, I keep hearing people use the term "trope" like it's a negative. So let's talk about tropes and cliches.

— Jessica Price (@Delafina777) February 6, 2019

On the other hand, gamers tend to complain when a theme is overused. To be honest, while that complaint does come up at times, I suspect it's more of a complaint that the theme was used poorly than that it's really overused, because there are several popular themes that occur in many, many games every year that don't receive that complaint. However, a bigger issue may be presentation...

Looking at the many Greek mythology themed games out there, they all look exactly the same! The typical (maybe stereotypical) depiction of the Greek pantheon may be a good example of a "trope" that has become "cliche." It's difficult to tell any one of those games from another just looking at the artwork. Santorini does a good job of setting itself apart, with the awesome chibi-style artwork, but that's a rare exception:

The chibi style is cute, and works very well for that game, but (a) I'm not sure that kind of style would work as well for Deities & Demigods, and (b) it's been done already!

So how do I make Deities & Demigods stand out from the crowd? I had a few ideas about this...

1. Allocate a large art budget, so that if the game had to look like other, similar games, maybe it could look better. However, looking at some of the Greek mythology art from recent games, it appears they've already done that!

2. Change pantheons, moving from Greek mythology to something less commonly used, such as Egyptian mythology. For a while I thought this would be the right decision, as the art could look different, and people could comment on the unusual theme rather than the same-old same-old of the overused Greek setting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while the outfits would look different, the artwork would still probably look similar to the Greek games, and I wasn't finding Egyptian gods that fit as well with the game action.

3. Find a new style, like Santorini did. I came across the art for SPQF in the portfolio of one of the artists I was considering, and it got me thinking. SPQF is a card based civilization building game, with very nice art of anthropomorphic animals. There have been a couple other games with anthropomorphized animals lately -- one might even say it's the start of a trend, however I don't think we're there yet. This led me to consider a cross between Clash of the Titans and The Lion King... what if we re-imagined the Greek pantheon as animals of the African plain?

Clash of the Titans meets The Lion King

In the end, I liked the sound of this third option best, and have decided to go that route -- re-imagining the pantheon as anthropomorphic animals. This allows us to keep the tropes of Greek mythology, but use art that differs significantly from other Greek themed games, and could look pretty cool.

Photo of SPQF cards by BGG user lovemyfire

My initial picks for animals to represent each deity looked like this:
Zeus (king of the gods) -- the obvious choice is a lion
Hermes (messenger of the gods) -- a macaw seemed like a good choice
Ares (god of war) -- an elephant, or possibly a wild boar
Hephaestus (blacksmith to the gods) -- an ape of some kind (the opposable thumbs could help him build)
Hera (Zeus' wife) -- at first I thought maybe a peacock, but probably better would be a tiger, jaguar, leopard, or cheetah

With a change of theme, a few details will have to change as well. For example, animals have no use for gold, so perhaps food would be a better thing with which to show devotion. That said, perhaps Artemis (goddess of the hunt) would make more sense than Hermes, and as an added bonus it would get more goddesses into the game (something I'd been wanting to do anyway). To represent Artemis, perhaps a bird of prey would make sense.

For the player boards, I figure smaller animals would make sense, something like meerkats, gazelles, monkeys, and I don't know, some bird species perhaps. These are animals that are found in packs or groups, so it would make sense that you have 12 of them under your control. To represent your troops on the board, a regular meeple doesn't really evoke animals, so I've been thinking of something better. One thought is a sort of generic "animeeple" -- a 4 legged something-or-other which is not necessarily related to any of the player boards. The graphic designer suggested a paw shape, which could be cute, and would stack well, but might not be as fun for players to move around the board.

I'm open to suggestions for a meeple shape that would be good. I don't think it can really relate to the player board animals, or else (a) the player who insists on playing red all the time would always have to be meerkats, and (b) if we add more player boards with player powers in an expansion or something, we'd have to add 12 meeples to go with it!

What's in a name?

Deities and Demigods was a title I was kind of OK with, but it was always only a placeholder. 90% of the people who play the game point out that there's an old Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook with that title, which I don't actually think matters. In any case, I've always wanted a better title.

About 4 months ago, I finally put some effort into finding a better title, but didn't come up with anything fantastic. Some of the options were:

Titan's Tribute
Divine Interest
Quid Pro Quo (change pantheon to Roman deities)
Chrysos (Greek for "gold")
Favor of Olympus
Buy The Gods (pretty good, but maybe too "cute" for a real/serious title)

And for a good laugh:
In Gods We Trust
Invest In Vesta

However, now that the game is about animals in the African plains or Savannah, I don't think any of those would really work anyway. I could really use a title for this game, and the sooner the better so the graphic designer can make a logo for it! Please comment with your suggestions.

So far, the only idea I've had that I like at all is Pantheon of the Plains, but I'm sure there could be something better...

While We're Waiting

Had a delightful time playing the game this morning, a game both enjoyable and useful.

They came on in the old style.

I also have a half written blog post, mostly about rules and games and choices and preferences and the like. Hopefully we'll see what I make of it but right now, I'm off to bed.

Movie And TV Reviews: Lady Bird, The Post, Molly's Game, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Westworld, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

See all of my movie reviews.

Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig's first outing as a director is a smashing success. I have complicated feelings about Greta, in that I admire her intentions in writing and playing in quirky comedies, such as Frances Ha. However, I felt that her movies were not quite there yet, not quite jelled. The characters were too unrelatable, and the plots too chaotic and off-putting. This is the first one she really gets right.

Christine is a teenager who calls herself "Lady Bird" for no discernible reason. The movie is basically an arc in the life of Christine and her relationship with her mother as she navigates the last year of high school in Sacramento. She makes and loses friends, fights, makes up, and fights with her mother, and tries to get into a college on the East Coast that will get her far away from her family.

I have been a big fan of Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement to Hanna to Brooklyn. She and Laurie Metcalf, as well as the rest of the cast, give perfect performances. If there is any flaw to the movie it is that it could have been more: more sweeping, maybe have another deep relationship arc in addition to the main one. But that's hardly a flaw. Worth watching.

The Post: Hanks, Streep, and Spielberg give us another newspaper drama, this one about the publishing of the Pentagon Papers that broke the story about how a series of US presidents and higher ups were all lying about the Vietnam War, pretending that the US was fighting to liberate South Vietnam when they knew all along that the war could not be won and the real aim was to broadly fight China.

It's a good movie, if not a great one. Roughly on par with other newspaper movies I've seen, including Spotlight and All the President's Men., but with a narrower aim. The main conflicts are a) publish or not? and b) can Streep's female character assert authority at the paper without making a major blunder? Streep plays the owner of the Washington Post, a position she inherited from her late husband, and a woman bullied by her all male board. She is seemingly willing to let them bully her until she finally takes a stand. Hanks plays the chief editor who is pushing to report a story while the government wants to sue them for espionage.

If you happen to draw a parallel between the historic ideals of freedom of press versus a tyrannical, corrupt president and anything happening today it's because we once trumpeted these ideals very clearly. Reality has a bias toward the truth, which any amount of modern obfuscation cannot truly suppress. And it is good not to lose sight of the ideals for which we stand.

Molly's Game: If it's been a while since you've seen a Sorkin picture, you'll find it is like riding a bicycle. You will immediately be expecting to see Josh Lyman or Sam Seaborne walk in from some corner of the screen.

This is the story of a woman who uses some incredible insight, people skills, and brass balls to end up running a high stakes poker game for important celebrities and executives, first on the West Coast and then on the East. The enterprise lasts until the feds and the mafia move in on her. The story is told from a series of flashbacks interspersed with her finding a lawyer and navigating her legal case. It is based on a true story.

Jessica Chastain does a fine job in the lead role. Everyone else does fine, except Kevin Costner who seems out of place as her often distant but high pressuring father. Regardless, it is a Sorkin story, which means witty, clever, entertaining dialog and characters who are ten times brighter and more accomplished than most people you will ever meet. Well crafted with great cinematography.

Goodbye Christopher Robin: The story of A.A. Milne, his wife, and his son Christopher Robin, how the Winnie the Pooh books came to be, and the effect they had on their lives. Spoiler: on the one hand the books are the most successful children's books of all time. On the other hand, they destroyed the life of Christopher Robin and his relationship with his parents. The movie actually gives us a slightly happier ending than the real life events.

Milne's wife is shown to be a bit of a shrew, with just enough redeeming moments to make her two-dimensional, but not really likable. Alan Milne is more sympathetic, although he blatantly and blindly uses his son poorly without much thought. It's all pretty tragic.

It's a decent movie for what it aims to be, somewhere on the same level as Becoming Jane or Miss Potter. It is well acted and lovingly directed and filmed. It tells its story well enough. But it's not a very important story or movie, for all that, and only the falsified, slightly happier ending gives the viewer any kind of comfort.

Westworld (season one): I saw a few episodes of Humans and couldn't get into it. I was a little concerned about the level of violence I heard about in this series (I won't watch Game of Thrones). Somehow, the fact that the violence happens to robots makes it easier to take, although the question remains exactly whether the robots are or are not conscious, so you have to decide that for yourself if the violence is watchable or not.

I am a huge fan of Evan Rachel Wood; she and everyone else do fine jobs. Unlike Humans, the stories are quite captivating, with a number of whodunits and what's going to happen nexts that got me hooked. The stories take place in the facility that creates and maintains the robots, as well as in the play world of Westworld, and they include scenes that occur as flashbacks from the robots' perspective, despite the fact that the robots are not supposed to have memories.

There is nudity, but respectfully done and never gratuitous. The sex scenes are all pretty unsexy.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season one): The next series from Amy Sherman Palladino (Gilmore Girls, Bunheads), this one succeeds better than Bunheads did. Bunheads had a few great scenes, but it was too unrestrained in ridiculous plot and ridiculous dialog, which made it hard to relate to. This series only has one Bunheads-style conversation that set my teeth on edge in episode two. Thankfully that was the only one.

Midge is a perfect 1950s Jewish housewife who is supported by her husband and who in turn supports his occasional forays into standup comedy. He's not good at it, and one day he decides that she is not supportive enough of him and he leaves her. She then discovers, albeit reluctantly, that SHE is good at comedy. Cue a lot of denial, drinking binges, and attempts to make a go at standup comedy, all the while continuing to navigate her 1950s Jewish family, neighbors, friends, children, and still husband, all of whom remain blissfully unaware of her secret life as a comedienne.

It's not as good as Gilmore Girls, which had the great triple relationships between the three women, as well as their suitors, husbands, and the funky Connecticut town Stars Hollow as color. The supporting characters here are not as fun, there is no funky community background. But we have a few great scenes with a young Lenny Bruce. The best scenes are the ones where she does her Lenny Bruce style-standup, something which could not really have happened in the time period of the show, and so represents a kind of wish fulfillment on the part of Amy and for the viewers.

Amy's dialog is distinctive, and it's fun to hear. I just wish the show also had a teenage daughter.

I'm That Guy!

I am replaying Suikoden 2 at the moment, a game I last played back in something like 2001. I'm now playing it on PSN, purchasing it for something like $5.

 Funnily enough though, I actually owned the game back in 2001! The actual CD! FFVII basically took over my life when I was 11 years old and after completing it, and becoming obsessed with it, I started looking through my back copies of the Official Playstation Magazine to try and find some games that were like it in some way, part of this genre called "RPG" which I had never even known to have existed previously (I'm not sure I can be blamed for this either, because in the UK we hardly received any RPGs for consoles).

I made it my mission to check out the used sections of Electronic Boutique and the other second hand games shops near me (which included a shop called a record shop called Bebop and another which I think was called Games Express in Sutton, surrey).

 On one fateful day, I found it, Suikoden II, as I flicked through the boxes in Games Express. From what I remember, I think I payed an insignificant amount for the game, I certain don't remember having the save and go back, I'm guessing it must have been about £10. I took it home, I played the game through and I had a great time with it, it isn't too tricky and I completed it, getting the 'bad ending' the only ending I knew of at the time. And then I took it in a second hand game shop and sold it.

 I'm that guy! I had Suikoden II, now worth £150 on EBAY, and at points in the past worth even more. I have almost no recollection of exactly what I traded it in for. Sometimes I like to tell people I traded it in part exchange for Chrono Cross.... but I don't know for certain if that is true. I know I definitely got CC pretty soon after Suikoden II, but I don't know... another memory says I traded it in for Ergheiz (now worth as much as Suikoden II on EBAY! A game which I also traded in!), or possibly it was Destrega or Street Fighter Alpha 3. The thing I do remember though is that I was surprised at how much the store gave me for Suikoden II, I think it was £15 or something, more than I paid for it to begin with.... I think they got the recommended price out of a book.

 Anyway, I'm that guy, the guy that traded a super rare and expensive game in for almost nothing. But in all things Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever. Games are there for fun and recreation, and if we are really lucky, we can find something good and true and beautiful in them which can lead us to praise Him and bless Him and love Him more. Games aren't my life, my life is hid with Christ in God.

 I played a lot of great games back in the day, I owned and played almost every PS1 RPG released in the UK, and now I own Suikoden II once again on PSN, in all honesty I have no regrets that I sold it, but it makes a fun story. I am going to write a review on Suikoden II soon. There is a lot in this beautiful game which is genuinely inspirational and supportive of the truths of our holy faith.

Devil May Cry 5 | Release Date, Gameplay Preview, Trailer, News, & More..

Devil May Cry 5 | Release date, Gameplay preview, Trailer, News, & more..


Devil May Cry 5 is turning out to be one of the great game from Capcom in the principal quarter of 2019, and it's set to highlight new and old characters alike. Going about as a continuation that fans have been holding up a long time to play, Dante and Nero return close by newcomer V, the last of which we've just observed a little bother of up to this point. 

It feels so fulfilling to have capcom's badass child back and all prepared to kick some ass. So here Pro-GamersArena has compiled everything you need to know about DMC 5 including all the latest gameplay, news, trailers, and more...


Quick facts:

• Release date: 8 March 2019
• Developer: Capcom
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Devil May Cry 5: Release Date

Capcom has affirmed that Devil May Cry 5 will release for PS4, Xbox One and PC on March 8, 2018. This is an entirely bustling quarter of 2019 as DMC 5 will contend with different blockbusters like the Resident Evil 2 Remake, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Anthem, and more. 

Devil May Cry 5: Trailers

We've compiled two of the most recent trailers for Devil May Cry 5 beneath. The latest trailer from Tokyo Games Show uncovers V as the third playable character and a broad take a gander at how Dante plays both in investigation and battle. He can part his bike into two swords and murder evil presences with them, which is pretty F**king cool.

Somewhere else in the trailer simply above, we can see the third playable character, referred to just as 'V'. There's valuable little to go ahead about this newcomer at the present time, however we do realize that we'll be playing as him for specific segments of the game, and we'll additionally have the capacity to pick which character we need to play as in a few segments of Devil May Cry 5. 

Gameplay Preview:

Devil May Cry 5 is an immediate continuation of the fourth part that knows precisely what it's doing as far as story, style and being a total rebel. 

So the demo starts as Nero and colleague/tricky specialist Nico walk around a crushed Redgrave City on board a corroded old van with 'Devil May Cry' disdained over the side in splendid, fluorescent neon. It's obvious from an initial couple of moments that DMC is back, and it's prepared to let you know it. 

Subsequent to dropping you off, Nero is tossed straight into some renegade activity. London has been crushed, with evil spirit going crazy among the nearly non-existent, post-Brexit populace. Clearly, being evil presences, they focus on Nero like a flash, which means it's the ideal opportunity for a battle. This is the place you get the chance to see Devil May Cry 5's most inventive new highlights: Devil Breaker.

This is Nero's arm and can be separated and modified to your loving with a variety of gnarly powers. Squeezing the circle catch evokes a little punch, yet holding it is a totally extraordinary story. When you will do as such, Nero throws an appallingly hard left hook before his arm heaved forward a consistent light emission that managed silly measures of harm. 

Obviously, Nero's Red Queen (Sword) and Blue Rose (Revolver) make a merited return and have additionally been skilled a shocking update that enables his character to pop simply more. They're massive and satisfying to use, and show that Devil May Cry 5 is expecting to make battle feel weightier and more noteworthy than past sessions. Sending demons back to the profundities they originated from is an impact, particularly when they look so awful.

The boss fight that finished the demo was with Goliath. Obviously, he was a transcending behemoth that any consistent individual would run and escape. Nero, in the entirety of his astuteness, chose to experiment with his comic drama hacks and estrange the devil. The fight itself partook, to begin with, on the top of a building, at that point inside the building lastly in a gigantic open square. The progressions were consistent and striking as Goliath made short work of anything around him.


So, How's It?

Devil May Cry 5 is a wonderful return for the outrageous action series, displaying all the vital trademarks while pushing the limits of what we anticipate from it. 

So subsequent to viewing the gameplay, it's simply tingling to kill a cluster of evil spirits, however we should hold up until 8 March 2018 to accept the rules as a portion of the world's most noteworthy devil hunters.