Tales from Shattered Earth: Soapbox

October 29, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Annie watched from the shadows, waited to see if he’d be back today. If so, then good news for her and the old man. People distracted were easy marks, and a bit more ration meant things would be a bit easier for a day.  The rich folk who came through the market always seemed to have a bit more to buy ration with, anyway. Not like they’d starve, unlike Annie and the old man.

She spotted him then: the preacher was tall and thin, mostly skin and bones.  Instead of picking up his ration in the market like everyone else, he used the time to preach to everyone else there.  He’d found a box to stand on, and put it near the center of the roundabout, where a tiny garden grew under the light of sun and stars.

“Fools!” He cried out.  ”All of you, shuffling on in this false life after what she did to us.  She denied us our right to an afterlife, and you are just glad there’s a bit of bread or meat to eke out your day.”

Annie watched the preacher and the crowd around him. “Petricalifax didn’t save us! She doomed our ancestors and all their children to roam the empty void forever.  Death is no outlet for us, there is no Heaven waiting for us when we die. All that is barred from us, when we could have gone on when the Gods left us all.”

He was gathering a crowd now, and Annie slipped out.  A coin bag here, a bit of bread there. It all went in her shirt, hidden from view.  The preacher had worked into a froth now, and people were stopping and watching him.  And not watching their purse strings.

“You say she is on the side of Law and Good, that she’s and ancient gold dragon and remembers what is right and honorable.  I say she is alien to us, more so than any dark elf or orc, human or halfling. What is Law without Hammerforge to beat it into shape? Where is Good with Ardent to champion it passionately?

They are gone, and with them any idea of Law or Good or even Evil.  Perticalifax stole that from us when she locked our forebears in her spell.  And why? Why? I ask of you? To save us? Or to play with us?”

The crowd was full, and riled up. Annie shirt was full, too, and she slunk away.  The preacher would be back tomorrow, for another sermon, but she and the old man would eat well tonight.

Note: We’re still looking for a Few Good Adventurers.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (0)

Shattered Earth: Clarification

October 29, 2010 – 9:03 am

Okay some people have said that it’s a bit confusing what I’m asking from players for the Shattered Earth game, and as I’m still looking for responses and players, let me clarify:

The idea is to mimic table top role-playing style over the internet, in real time.

So, the most important thing is the time commitment, which is 2-4 hours every other weekend, probably on Saturday or Sunday afternoon EST.  We can make it a little later, but I don’t see us starting after 4pm EST, as some of us have to get up early.  If we can get enough players, it’ll be possible to miss a session, or drop in occasionally as my plan is to wrap up short story lines each session, with a longer arch storyline that ties sessions together.

You’ll need a couple of tools, which are free and multi-platform:

First, RPTools. RPTools, particularly MapTool, is a java-based program that shows a map, and has some basic IRC-like chat in it.  It’ll handle those moments where we have combat, allowing us all to see the map and move ‘miniatures’ around on it.  I don’t know how much of this we’ll do — it depends on how the pacing goes, but it’s hard to do D&D without any combat. (If you were doing this, just play something other than D&D, I think.)

We’ll use Skype or some other group-based voice chat to talk, or at least the chat section of RPTools. I think voice is an important part of pen and paper gaming, and adds a lot to how things work. If voice makes you uncomfortable or doesn’t work with your setup, but you still want to play, let me know, and we can talk.

That’s pretty much it.  A willingness to play, a desire to set aside some time, and a couple of basic tools that are negotiable and I’ve gotten running, so I can help with, technically.

If you think you have any interest, comment here, or on any of the Shattered Earth posts — or contact me directly — and I’ll be in contact with you.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (0)

Shattered Earth Tales: Lovers on Minos

October 28, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Two dwarfs, Harriet and Lottie, lay in the magicite field, the purple glow of the crystal trees surrounding them.  Mining tools were placed carefully nearby, out of the way and orderly. Their clothes lay in various piles, strewn around them, discarded in haste a half-hour ago.  Now they lay intertwined, looking up at the Minos floor above them.

“Them’s the dark elfs,” Lottie said pointing to a section above them where it was mostly dark.

“Darkvision,” Harriet responded.

“Yep,” Lottie said. “Had to go there once, forgot my torch.  Wound up breakin’ off a chunk o’ crystal to carry around.”

Harriet laughed.  ”Serves ‘em right for keeping it dark.”

“Turned out some rogue mage had attuned hisself to it,” Lottie said.  ”He was mighty upset when his ritual failed when some lowborn dwarf accidentally saved the day.”

“What happened, then?” Harriet asked.

“Got me a medal, and an extra meal ration that week.  Oh, and them dark elfs is matriarchal, y’see.”  She chuckled lowly.

“And when was this?” Harriet pulled away.

“Months afore we met, dearheart, don’t worry. Y’r the beneficiary of that sweet vacation.”

Harriet looked up at the interior of Minos, the cities and houses bending up and around, pressed against the inner egg of the island.  As a dwarf it never bothered her that things were upside down and all that rock and metal and crystal was out there, pressing in around them.  She was more concerned with all the people those houses represented.  ”You ever think they’re watchin’ us when we’re out in the fields like this?”

“Not really,” Lottie said. “But gives a bit of spice to the whole thing, don’t it?”

The two dwarfs rolled to face each other.  Harriet giggled and kissed her lover.  They had a bit more time before they had to return to the magicite mines, after all.

Note: We’re still looking for a Few Good Adventurers.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (0)

Shattered Earth Tales: Porting the Harvest

October 27, 2010 – 11:13 am

“It’s like this,” Jimmy said.  ”You wear the gauntlets of orge power, or the belt of giant strength — never both, you hear?  You grab a crate, and you toss it up in the air so it falls through the hole.  That’s your job, okay?”

Lex looked at him.  ”Seriously?”  He looked down the hole in the center of Coyn, a hundred feet out to the other side — he could see nothing but stars at the bottom.  It made him a bit queasy to look.

“Yep, John’ll grab it on the other side, and toss it over to the portal to wherever the food is goin’ today.” Jimmy pulled on the ogre gauntlets.  ”Let me show you.”

He grabbed one of the huge crates, and lifted it over his head. He grunted a bit, and tossed the crate about six feet in the air and over the whole, and it whooshed on down.  ”Look,” Jimmy grunted. “It’s already slowing down.”

Lex looked, “Sure, so that’s the gravity line?”

“Yep.   You ever fall you’ll bounce up and down around that thing for about an hour before you stop. And run into the lunch you lost about seventy times in the process.  That’s assuming the other guy doesn’t think you’re freight, and you’re in the middle of Minos surrounded by hungry dwarfs and dark elfs.”

“So don’t do that,” Lex said, seriously.  ”Why not wear both the gauntlets and belt?”

“Well, last recruit did that,” Jimmy said. “Tossed it so hard that when it landed on Baobab, the darn crate bounced open, and the contents flew all over the place, and into their precious water. Only, see,  it wasn’t food, it was — shall we say, fertilizer for their giant tree.  Remember how it tasted funny a few weeks ago?”

Lex nodded, and blanched.

“Yeah, Jimmy said.  ”Purified water, sure, but still tasted like shit.”

Note: We’re still looking for a Few Good Adventurers.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (0)

Shattered Earth D&D: Looking for some Adventurers

October 25, 2010 – 1:43 pm

Here’s the thing:

I need more pen and paper tabletop gaming in my life, even if we need to replace the pen and paper with  screens and keyboards, and tabletop with Skype.  I have a few people who have expressed interest, but I’d like to formalize it and extend it to semi-strangers on the internets.

I’ve decided to form a group around a campaign idea, and a time, so that anyone who would like to play can know ahead of time what they’re agreeing to.  Because we are adults, and we have time constraints and stuff happens.  But it’s good to have a plan.  If we get enough people, the campaign design will handle people dropping in and out, as you’ll all be part of a sort of squad tasked with doing things to save the Haven Alliance.

I’ve been GMing for nearly 30 years now, and I know D&D, particularly 3.5 pretty well.  That and it’s the model at least one of my players wants: kill things, get treasure, do some roleplaying.  Okay, so I prefer things to be in the reverse order, but I don’t believe their mutually exclusive.  And having done this for 30 years, I’m always looking for something new.

So Shattered Earth is a bit different.  The planet’s been destroyed, the final war, or Armageddon has happened, and it’s over.  Maybe you’ve been left behind, and maybe the gods didn’t make it either.  Maybe we’ll find out as we play.

Still, the gods are gone, and magic is a bit broken, and alignments are gone.  Things are going to be a bit murky here.  Orcs aren’t evil because their evil, in fact they may not be bad people at all.  The converse is also true.  There’s no morality to judge by, just survival of the intelligent races.  That’s one thing most people can agree on — if not all of them.

The world has been split into small islands, each with their own odd gravity, adapted from the SpellJammer rules (if you’re familiar with them– if not, it will become clear).  The Haven Alliance makes up four of these islands, close enough to work together, and far enough away from everything else that they’ve not met it.  Yet.

That will surely change.

So there’s exploration, and spaceships (of a sort), lost magic and knowledge to find — along with treasure.  There’s people competing for resources back home, and there are your own (and your guild’s) ambitions to further.  I think it’s a fertile ground for gaming.  There’s more on the Shattered Earth wiki, which is still taking shape.

We’re going to play on alternate weekends — exactly when will be up to the group that speaks up, but while Saturday afternoons (in EST) are the best for me, there’s some flexibility.  We’re going to use Skype — I’m JoeTortuga on Skype (as well as Twitter and Facebook).  We’ll use the free RPTools set for maps and battles when we get to those.

I’ll set up a Google group to discuss this in detail, but let me know if you’re interested and have the time to play.  I hope you can.

Update 10/29: A bit clearer info about how things will run.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (2)

Shattered Earth Campaign Teaser

October 25, 2010 – 2:00 am
The astrologist peered through the telescope.  Extending the tower had helped a bit, but the air around the Scepter had just expanded, still he’d gotten some readings in the interim, and his findings seemed grim.  He muttered a small spell, the glyph on his forehead gleaming white with the magic of Divination, and his magicite crystal — which he kept in his laboratory — hummed with a low sound as he drew magic through it.

Divinations hadn’t worked since the cataclysm, and the astrologist was certain that it was due to the increased number of heavenly bodies — the island-bits of the shattered earth were certainly changing the relationship with the heavens.  Whether they should be included in his astrology or not was a hotly debated topic, and one he’d set aside after he’d seen the fast-moving island.

He felt his eyes shift as the sight-improving divination he’d cast settled into place.  That combined with the telescope let him see the island in more detail.  He turned the telescope and focused it on the bit of sky that would contain the island, if his calculations were correct.  He peered through the lens, and there it was — the round, pocked ball of metal, right where his worst calculations said it would be.

He couldn’t be sure, but they would need to do something.  It would pass close to the Haven Alliance islands, that was certain.  It might strike one, and they were all needed for survival.

He touched the glyph on his forehead, cancelling the spell, an began walking down the tower stairs.  The council would need to be told, and the Adventure’s League engaged.  Perhaps even Petricalifax would be roused out of her slumber for this.  ”She didn’t save us all to have it destroyed now,” the horologist reasoned.  ”Surely the council will listen to me this time.”

The Shattered Earth Wiki

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Shattered Earth | Comments (0)

Running Dresden

June 30, 2010 – 12:40 pm

The room was empty except for one person when we walked in.  I had a bag full of the special FUDGE dice, the two Dresden Files RPG rulebooks and a folder of pre-generated characters and cheat sheets.  I was stressed and nervous and felt ill-prepared.  I’d had the PDFs for a few months, since I’d volunteered to do this, and while I’d read them idly, I didn’t get far until I got the books, a little over a week before my time to run.

I still hadn’t read all the rules, but I got the basics. I got Fate Points, I got the tree, and I knew what the characters were about.  I mostly got Aspects.   A character in FATE 3.0, which Dresedn Files is based on, is made of four basic parts: Skills, Powers and Stunts, a Stress Track, and Aspect.  Skills are what you think they are — they’re what you roll on to do stuff.  Powers and stunts are special things your character can do.   In terms of D&D Skill are like skills, as well as your ability to attack.  Powers and stunts are like class abilities: turning undead, or casting spells.   Aspects are like feats, feats you can name. Sort of.

The lone person in the room was sitting at my table. I talked to him a bit, he had FUDGE dice already, and a copy of the game.  ”This is my Dresden game this weekend,” he said. “They were all sold out, but I had a friend give me her ticket.”  He brandished it happily.  He was from Columbus, which was good — I’d set the game there, and was worried no one at the table would get those pieces. Still, the nerves in my stomach roiled a bit, he had more experience with this game than I had.  You could say I had the aspect Sressed-Out Improviser.

A few more people showed up, and I gave folks a few minutes to settle out. A couple of other people hung around, looking for another game, and wound up leaving. I had four of six people, so I passed out characters.  Someone from Michigan actually took my Storytelling Were-Wolverine (this was her high concept, the thing she is.  Harry Dresden himself is Wizard Private-Eye).  It’s also one of her aspects.

Aspects define your character, the good and the bad.  A good aspect is a double edged sword, which allows you to do something, but can also compel you to do something.  The Were-Wolverine has the aspect Scent of a Story.  What does that mean? The player could tap it to add to her ability to track by scent.  It could be used to improver her Investigation score to help her find out something that might be newsworthy (or that she thinks might be, anyway).  It could be used by the GM to compel her to look into a story.

It costs fate points to use your aspects like this, and you get fate points for compels. It’s an incentive to have aspects which can be creatively used for and against you.  It’s a game mechanic that gives incentive to making interesting characters, and thinking imaginatively.

We got into a combat, avoiding some Zombies by directly attacking the cultists doing the drumming. Most of my campaign was cribbed from the books — I didn’t want to venture far from the source material, I saw this almost as a demo of the system and what it could do as much as it was a fun role-playing event. Two more people showed up, one who had mismanaged his tickets, and another who was trying to find a Dresden game and failing.  I let them join, probably outside of con policy, but I really wanted all the characters in play.

They were reading their aspects, which are fairly broad statements, and the short two-three sentence stories I gave them to justify them, and taking them interesting places.  They asked me questions about their characters’ situations and personality (not just their stats) and I responded with how I saw it — it was up to them to breath some life into it.  I was surprised and thrilled that they did.

“Okay, that guy now has an aspect on him,” I said, not sure I was doing this right. “Say… knocked down.”

“Sweet!” says another of them. “I’m going to use that to kick him.”

“Wait,” says another of the players. “How does that work?” I explained briefly to him how players can manipulate the environment via stunts, and others via maneuvers to place aspects on them, that can then be used.  ”And this is something that’s beneficial for us to do?”  Vigorous nodding around the table, and he nodded once, and got a look in his eye.

Later, playing his character to a T, he placed the completely useless Iron Balls in His Pants aspect on a Toad Demon (I told you I didn’t stray far from the books, right?), thinking he was a fairy.  His character, Coyote’s Catspaw didn’t really understand where his power came from or what was going on.  He’s an Emissary of Power, Coyote’s power in particular, but is totally a pawn being kept in the dark.  I don’t know why, that didn’t seem important yet.

We didn’t use a lot of scene aspects or compels, and I was loose on making them pay for tags.  They needed the Fate points in the end to make use of the aspects on the badguy, in order to both beat him — and to avoid being beaten too soundly by him.

This is true to the Dresden Files universe: they took a beating, but still won.  They won not by overpowering the enemy, but out maneuvering him.  The game mechanics supported that style, and it works well.  I had a great time doing this, and look forward to playing Dresden again.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in pnp | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

My Week In Gaming: June 14, 2010

June 14, 2010 – 1:12 pm

I began my week still having Nier, Blur, and Red Dead Redemption. Nier got moved up the Gamefly list, and Blur is on it waiting for Tam’s approval/desire for it.  I’ll play it when she gets it, but I’m not feeling pressed to play it; it’s not like I’ll do any of the online races, anyway.  Travis suggested that I play RDR until I got the lasso, so I gave it one more shot, and got to the lasso mission, but got to frustrated to complete it.  I pulled it off the Gamefly list; I’m not sure what my deal is, but missions that early in the game shouldn’t be so hard — I have to assume I’m missing something, but at this point, it’s probably “caring about this game.”

The good news was that Demon’s Souls was coming from Gamefly.  I played this around the time it came out, and had real difficulty with it — something I now understand was made more difficult by there being “black soul” weekend events when I had it. When I played this on Thursday, it was substantially easier, aided by a different class (Royalty, this time) and an almost incredible amount of healing drops.  I finally finished off the first boss, and am getting into the meat of the game.

I guess it befuddles me a bit, Demon’s Souls has a reputation for being incredibly hard, picky and punishing, and I’m not only doing well, I’m enjoying the game. RDR does not have anything like that reputation, and I find it stupid and frustrating.  I’m not sure why this is; certainly I wasn’t invested in RDR’s story, but DS doesn’t really supply a story to be invested in (beyond my own narrative, of course).  Certainly there’s overall less different options in DS, so I’ve focused on what I have in front of me, and have a general idea of what is available (if not entirely possible) to do next.  Some part of me still wants to play RDR to answer that conundrum, but, well, maybe some other time.

Kongregate has a few games that caught my attention this week. Necronator is a sort of 16-bit game about a necromancer out to destroy a fantasy world. It’s by Toge Productions, who also did Infectionator, a similar game about destroying the world with zombies.

My favorite flash-game developer, jmbt02, put out  a new game this week, as well.  I did a little happy dance when I found out, although this isn’t one of my favorites of his, his games seem to be regularly high quality.  I followed his blog, so I wouldn’t miss this sort of thing again.

I also spent a bit of time playing The Enchanted Cave, a sort-of rogue-like rpg.  Much like Demon’s Souls you lose all progress when you die, and can leave (dropping all normal equipment). There are ways to progress, and I think I’ve got the strategy down now.  The other game that kind of intrigued me was Castle Wars 2, a game very much like the card game from Might and Magic VII.

As you can see, there’s a real problem for flash game developers, as I found four enjoyable games in a week. Getting noticed is hard, and while Kongregate has some tools for that (it’s how I found these games), I imagine there’s a lot that is good and is missed.   Of course, this was a particularly good week for this, too.

Given that Fantasy RPGs were the theme for the week and weekend, I returned to Dragon Age: Origins, this time to play a violent warrior.  I was reminded of one of my favorite D&D fighters, a character who didn’t want to be still. She always just wanted to go on to the next thing, and be pointed at the next batch of monsters to kill, or door to knock down.  I created her to take a break from the more intense story and characterization of GMing, and she was simple and a blast to play.  My City Elf Warrior is much the same, and it made the clichéd City Elf origin story much more fun to play. Particularly when I got to the king.  (Of course, I k new I didn’t have to make nice with someone who was just going to die, anyway, too).

The big focus for my weekend was tabletop roleplaying.  I’m getting the Dresden Files RPG books soon, and I need to pound out an adventure and more characters over the next two weeks, as I’m running it at origins on the 26th.  This weekend was also the Columbus D&D Meetup, and I’m running a game there. I’ll write more about that later, but overall the adventure was fun to run, and I think everyone enjoyed it. It was a bit short, I admit, but, again,  that’s what Girl and I want, and worked for our players.

Of course, I spent a good amount of time playing Dungeons and Dragons Online this week. We had a couple of good days playing our low-levels.  I really enjoy these particular quests, when it doesn’t feel so overwhelming and where we feel competent and successful. Of course, it could also be that our complement works better, since we have most of the roles covered (Fighter/Cleric and Rogue/Wizard).  It’ll be interesting as we get a few more levels and take on some more difficult dungeons.

I had a good run with Tam in Puzzle Pirates, as well. One issue with Puzzle Pirates is that there’s very little you can do on your own or with a small group.  That means that until you join a steady crew (which requires being a more steady player than I am, I think), you are always risking joining a group that has overshot their ability or who has interpersonal problems.

Tam and I got planked (kicked off the ship) during a battle we were winning, because someone’s little brother had a fit of pique. So we headed out to do something a else, perhaps a bit easier.. “I want to win,” I told her, so we joined something easy.  And did very well with a smaller group, and even made pretty decent cash.  Hopefully we’ll play again one night this week.

Heavy Rain is on its way from Gamefly as I write this, and I guess we’ll see how long I keep that one. I don’t have high hopes, but again, it’s a game I feel I should at least try before passing on it.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Games | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Over the Weekend – June 7, 2010

June 7, 2010 – 10:48 am

Given my schedule, I only have a few nights a week to focus on gaming, but tend to get a lot of gaming in on the weekends, particularly on Sunday, which is ‘my day’.  I don’t focus on games for hours at a time — usually — so typically drift from game to game over the course of the weekend, building up impressions of the games.  These are those impressions.  And a bit of a log of what I’m doing lately.

Royal Envoy

I do play a variety of games, beyond the big-budget AAA games, and Royal Envoy is one of those side, casual games.  I played through the 80-minute demo from Reflexive Arcade (which goes away at the end of the month).  Royal Envoy is a building/time management puzzle game, where you meet certain building goals on each level, getting more difficult as the levels progress.  The primary difficulty here is in getting the time bonus on levels, as that requires some thought and planning; otherwise my 7-year old GoddessDaughter has no problem with the game.

I thought it was fun, and think that’s a good way to gateway difficulty, allowing you to decide a level is too hard to meet the speed goal. The voice acting and story appeal more to my 7-year old than to me, but that’s not surprising.

Blur

I picked up Blur, and the next two games at Blockbuster, which means I have five days to decide whether to bump these games from my Gamefly queue (or to bump them up).  I tend to rent games several different ways, and rarely buy them.  I’ll hang onto them from Gamefly if they deserve serious play.  Blur is more for Tam and for me, as she loves racing games, and still plays Burnout: Paradise on occasion.

Blur was criticized for it’s “making fun of casual games” ad that came out, mocking Mario Kart, but given the presentation and style of the game, the marketing of it makes sense. Blur is basically Burnout style graphics and aesthetic, but it’s Mario Kart-style game play.  Yes, the cars handle like real cars (at least ones in racing games), but there are power-ups that mimic those in Mario Kart.  There’s a shield, mines, a weapon that attacks the next player in front of you, etc.

Given the other games I wanted to try out, I didn’t play this much longer than enough to get an impression for Tam. If she likes it, we’ll Gamefly it and, I’ll have a chance to get competent at it, at which point I think it will be fun.  If I can’t manage that, it wasn’t for me anyway.

Red Dead Remption

I’m not sure why I keep trying Rockstar games.  The last one that I liked at all was GTA:Chinatown Wars, and before that, just GTA III. I didn’t like the expansions, and couldn’t get into San Andreas. GTA IV never really interested me, and Bully recently left me cold.  And that’s about the right answer for these games, I’m given a world to explore and do things in, but nothing that I want to do or explore.

I spent some time riding around in RDR, and I like the mechanic that keeps me with the people I’m riding with, but it just made me miss Agro.  I don’t think any in-game horse will ever touch my heart the way she did, though.  I did enjoy the riding, what gets me though, is that it was mostly aimless.  I never got invested in the story, and then I got killed, and when I went to load my game, I thought, “Why?” and watched some Doctor Who instead.

There’s more to say about this, and Rockstar, and open world games, but that’s a blog post, not an impression.  RDR is definitely beautiful, and I suspect I’d like it more if I were competent at it (much like Blur in this respect), I don’t feel any pressing need to become competent.  I loved Westerns as a teenager, so I get some of what they are doing (but surely not all of it), but I’m just not invested in what is going on enough to continue.

Nier

When I rent games from Blockbuster or the G-Box, I tend to pick up games that I’m less likely to love. Something I can play for a couple of days, realize I was right about not liking them, give them back, and cross them off my Gamefly queue.  Why play a game that I don’t think I’ll like? Well, I want to make my own determinations, and even bad games do some things well. Also, it’s sometimes instructive about why games fail, which can inform other things and game designs.

This time, Nier was my game like this.  And of the three I got, I like playing it the most.  It’s brawler style combat is something that I’m generally competent at already, and that’s part of it.  It’s environments (and some of it’s characters, particularly the daughter) evoke Ico in a positive way.  This game isn’t graphically brilliant.  My character is kind of ugly, actually.  I’m not sure the story is complicated, and it’s filled with fetch quests.

I probably have a lot more to talk about with this, and want to play it more. I definitely had an interesting moment with those fetch quests, though, that’s worth some more writing. But first, more playing.

Hello Worlds

Hello Worlds is a pure platformer and flash game (this is a link to it on Kongregate) that has some interesting platforming ideas, notably that your character exists in multiple worlds, and is affected by the floors, walls, and other environmental features.  I played through it a week or two ago when it first showed up on Kongregate, but they’ve added achievements, so I went back and played it a bit more. They’ve cleaned up and added some levels, and it’s worth a look.

The ever-present Dungeons & Dragons Online

Girl and I play DDO at least once over a typical weekend, and this was no exception.  We spent a lot of time over the past week playing, actually, as it was a loot-bonus week (they’d upped the level of chest loots by two levels, allowing us to get some nice drops — or at least stuff that sold well).  Friday we did a bit more, but had gotten tired of the Dave Arneson area, realizing it was as hard and annoying as the Gary Gygax area (Imagine!).

We took our level 10′s and tried to do some level 6 quests we’d never done, and got wiped doing them, until it was at a point where we weren’t succeeding just because we were in a fail mode.  Our characters (a Wizard and a Rogue + henchmen) don’t seem to do well with elementals.  Give us humanoids and we waltz through a level, but elementals always kill us.

We switched to our level 3/4 chracters (my Wizard/Rogue and her Fighter/Cleric) and tried a mission which we somehow failed at the end. We just quit and decided to table DDO for the weekend. I did a couple of solo quests on Sunday with my level 3 Wizard/Rogue, and nearly leveled, but tried another dungeon and died, again, and decided I was done.  Maybe my fascination with Nier is that it was the only game I didn’t fail in all weekend.

Non-Video Games

Girl and I also played the next module of Descent, which we got through by changing one rule that I don’t understand why exists. (Or how the players would ever win with that rule in place).  We also worked pretty hard Sunday morning creating characters for my Dresden Files RPG game that I’m running at Origins. I have a feeling I’m going to crash and burn.  I really need to run combat before I’m doing it for people who paid for the privilege.

And finally, I finished The Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever 2 last week.  Talk about feeling competent (and failing a lot)!

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in Games | Tagged | Comments (0)

Crowd-Patrons of the Arts

April 5, 2010 – 3:15 pm

One of the joys of the internet is that it connects and levels things.  Enough amateurs can be as right as an expert, and uniquely strange loners can find all the other strange loners just like them.  I know I did, anyway.

That connection, and that collective action can be put to good use, and one of the websites that is attempting to put that to  good use is Kickstarter.  While it’s not a requirement (I don’t believe), most of the projects on Kickstarter are artistic projects of one type or another.  It means that those of us who cannot support a creative person as their sole patron can instead be part of a group of patrons.  Personally, I think the patronage model may be one of the best ways to get art that isn’t specifically commercial, and I want that kind of art, and those kinds of games.

As such, I’ve already donated to two successful projects:

Heather Logas is making a web-based choose your own adventure game that sounds interesting.  Dierdre Kiai is making an adventure game called Life Flashes By.  I’ve played Dierdre’s work before, and very much enjoyed it. Plus I’ve got a nice postcard to show for it.  I look forward to playing these games, and watching their development as the projects continue.

But those are closed projects, and I want to call your attention to two other projects that I’ve donated on, and which haven’t closed or met their funding yet.  I believe in both these projects, which is why I donated to them.

The first project is Addicube by Corvus Elrod and Charles Berube.  If you follow this blog, then you know that I’m heavily influenced by Corvus’s ideas about games and narrative. I’ve played several of Charles’s games as well, on his Wasabi Project website.   They are about 2/3 funded, and have about 1/3 of their time left. Actually, it’s just 20 days now.  I have faith that the two of them will turn out something unique and different, and really want to see it.  So I’m urging you to take a look at it, and consider funding them.

The last project is not a game, at all, it’s a comic. Or more rightfully, a web comic site. Patrick Farley of E-Sheep comics is trying an experiment.  He wants to see if he can get 3000 people to give him $1 a month to allow him to do nothing but draw and post comics.  Some of his comics are pretty amazing, his Death of a Jain was amazing, and I was really struck by Delta Thrives (although it seems to be offline).  Those with more pokemon knowledge than me may enjoy his last-revelations take on it, with Apokemon.  I only donated $2 to his project, as its an attempt to get $6000 in two months.  He’s only about 35% funded, and also has 3-4 weeks to go. Take some time to look at his comics, and decide for yourself what they are worth.

I have hope that both these projects will be able to succeed.

By Joe Tortuga | Posted in life | Comments (0)

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