Month: March 2012

Double Fine Awesomeness!

Posted on by Steven
Grim Fandango Box Cover

Inspiration that brings your passion for games to life, or afterlife.

I love Tim Schafer’s work.  He’s so awesome.  Who’s Tim Schafer you say?  Why he’s the fantastic guy (along with his awesome art, programming, and other useful things Team) who brought Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and helped to bring in the Secret of Monkey Island.    I am proud to say that I’m a kickstarter backer of his fabulous new game from Double Fine called Adventure!  (probably a placeholder name) but it’s an Adventure! game – so why not?  Yaharr!

Day of the Tentacle

I'd give my right tentacle to work with Tim.

He was looking to raise $400,000 but – no doubt because he is so awesome and gave us such stellar adventure games that we’ve been craving his games for the past umpteen billion years! (at least I have) – he raised over $3,300,000!  My gosh that is not only so cool, but it’s also exactly what he deserves.  To know that we love his talent and style and we bloody well want adventure games to come back!

I’m so excited about his endeavour that I’m beginning my own little adventure game (I’m only a team of one at this point).  I’ve got the concept of a kid going out in the rain with his umbrella and meeting various characters (thinking talking ducks, cats, etc.) but I also just want him to muck around in puddles and such and go on an adventure in his mind.  So perhaps I’ll scrap any dialogue and make a voiceless adventure.  That would be fun (maybe have little “Whees!” when the kid jumps or “ouch!” if the kid does something wrong or something like that.)  Oh and yes, I specifically want this to be a kid so bundled up in his rain coat that the kid is whatever gender you want.  (That’s not so important to the story so I want everyone to put what they feel is important into the character themselves.)

Anyway, that’s my thoughts for now.  I love Double Fine!  I love Tim Schafer!  and I love adventure games!  whoo!!! *runs off with arms gesticulating wildly*

I am Dovahkiin!

Posted on by Steven

Huzzah!  I have gotten the Elder Scroll, gone over to Sovngarde, and defeated Alduin!  I am Dovahkiin!  Having completed the main quest I feel I have “finished” Skyrim and now will get to muck around doing whatever (which is still lots of fun, but also means I’ll be okay with working with the creator tool and not worrying so much if a save goes wrong.)

But to the Exciting stuff!  Here’s what my Priest Assassin Looks like!

Skyrim

Priest Assassin wearing Morokei Mask at Hrothgard

 

Argonian Priest Assassin at Hrothgard

 

My awesome game story:

 

I began as an Argonian Priest.  I did healing and Illusion (so I wouldn’t have to actually attack anyone – just get them to attack each other).  I wasn’t stealthing a lot then but found my illusion spells weren’t leveling up fast enough so did some enchanting and used a stamina stealing mace.  I loved that strategy.  Just whack ’em until they’re exhausted then finish them off.   Things were going well until the Bard college started looking interesting.  I didn’t want to give up my magical-ness I had been accruing as I had just started some of the mage quests at the college of Winterhold.   I started a new character which went to the bard college for a bit and then decided I would just do everything with the one character.  Well, I got bored one day and helped out a little kid doing some ritual wanting someone dead.  Well, he was part of an orphanage and I thought “just one evil deed to round out the character.  Besides I’m going to check out the evil quests eventually with this character.  Why not now?”.  Now I didn’t make my character sleep in inns – or much at all – so I did the assassination and went my merry way for quite a few levels before anything came about it.  About 10 levels later I was unearthing a dragon priest mask and thinking about how to solve the Labyrinth quest when I came across a quest that required me to go to sleep.  When I did, I suddenly woke up to the Dark Brotherhood asking me to complete some more assassinations.  I actually saved here and tried all sorts of ways to get out of it, but there wasn’t much option but to kill one of the characters or die myself.  So, I went through with it and considered just ignoring the assassin quests.

I went on to try companions helping me in quests so I could heal them and lightning bolt the enemies, but they kept getting in the way of my lightning bolts which I was getting quite good at.  Since I was so frustrated with them I thought I’d try a ranged attack that was a bit more precise – Archery.  This was a skill I was trying with the temporary character and really enjoying.  So I tried it out a bit and enjoyed the stealthy sniping.  That’s when I realized – Stealthy Archer Assassin! so cool!  And then even cooler – ASSASSIN PRIEST!  Life and Death with one character.  How even cooler!

And so, I went forth as the assassin priest.  Making potions and enchanting bows to great awesomeness.

My last aside which I think is worth mentioning.  right in the beginning I really enjoyed the underwater breathing of argonians.  I swam through the rivers EVERYWHERE.  So much! They were my transit system.  So cool.

Anyway, Check out Skyrim if you haven’t yet.  It’s lots of fun!

Mock DnD

Posted on by Steven

So, I’ve been working on my latest in a series of role playing games of mine called “Mock DnD”.  This is a game all about making fun of (or mocking) Dungeons and Dragons.  I’ve gone through making fun of Traditional D&D games, LARPing, Vampire: The requiem, Goth Culture, Geek Culture, Puzzles, Mafia and Gangsters, Disco, and my latest game (Mock DnD 6) will be making fun of Board Games, Video Games, and LGBT Culture (It’s for a very specific group of friends).  I’m really excited to bring back my favourite cookie dough-wizard Mafia Crime Boss, Bauss, and bring in some new heroes!  They include Murio and Loogie: The Super Murio Duo (two dwarven adventurers),   Lunk (the grossly overweight Elven swordmaster known for his patented spinning move – people are more afraid of his big behind than his flailing sword), Noid Jackrabbit (avoid this noid, he’s a gymbunny who’s hugely buff, but is a pacifist at heart), and finally Simone the Sorceress (who looks surprisingly like a certain L. Croft with the two boob bombs she keeps in her front chest pockets), and more adventurer options abound.

Our heroes will be adventuring past snakes and ladders, through dangerous gloombas and gummy bears, and deep into the dark and mysterious dungeons where they must save Princess or pay off their debts to Bauss with their lives.

Rockin’ Plants VS Zombies!

Posted on by Steven

So, Plants VS Zombies was on sale on Steam recently and I love me them Plants Vs Zombies. So I picked it up and went to town on it. I love it! so much fun! Here’s my winning strategy for Survival Pool (HARD).

Winning Plants vs Zombies Survival Pool (Hard)

Start with the sunflowers, split peas and the walls of nuts and quickly add the spike terrain so that the zombies are hurt as they attack the wall. Then add the right hand column of spikes and start upgrading the left column of spikes. (Upgrade the right ones first if against a level with vehicles so that the spikes don’t disappear when the vehicle drives on ’em) Then add your frozen peas and you’re good to go! With the water level, get at least one cattail early on (around when you’re adding the first column of spikes) and add the rest when you get the cash. Finally add the pumpkin walls going left to right. These are to protect your plants from the miners so your split peas can shoot the miners while you have no casualties. I forgot about the cattails redirecting to take out the miners, but it’s still cool.

I added the middle column of pumpkins in the centre just for fun.  Also, note the sunshine!  I have full!  I can’t get more! yahoo!  (got an achievement around 8000)