It’s been over three weeks last my last Game Journal update. While I haven’t played a ton, I have made progress on a few games.
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony
I’m still putting decent progress into this. gem likes to watch me play this, so I can’t play it that often, but I’m enjoying it. I loved the original GTA4 more than the expansions, but I think I’m liking the Ballad of Gay Tony more than the Lost and Damned.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game
Last time I updated, I had just started playing Scott Pilgrim again. Last night Collin, Duncan, gem, and I finished the game on Average Joe, the normal, easiest setting. I had a blast and would definitely love to jump back into it and try on the harder difficulties.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Well, this is kind of funny. I couldn’t play this for months because I lost it, and as it turns out, I had just reached the last level when I misplaced the game. Check, another game completed.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
My desktop died, so progress here is pretty much dead as well.
Portal 2
I didn’t make any progress here myself, but gem has almost finished the single player campaign. This relates to MY game progress because it means we can almost start playing the co-op campaign together.
Hoard
My Hoard review is finally up, and I have played a bit more of it. It’s nice because it doesn’t have a campaign mode. It simply has a variety of short skirmishes available.
Up next…
I’m not sure what to play next. With my computer down, a lot of those options are out. I’m still going to be working on the Ballad of Gay Tony, and I might pick up Pokemon White again. I think Gish would be fun to play as well as Samorost and Samorost 2 on my laptop. As for consoles when gem’s not around, I think I’ll put more time into Super Mario Galaxy 2!
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Hoard
Hoard | Apple/Mac, PC, PC Games, Reviews, Real Time Strategy, Strategy
Big Sandwich Games recently provided me with two copies of their awesome new game, Hoard. To understand Hoard, I’d like to consider an RTS game. Villages grow and become cities while farms increase in size to feed the villagers. Carts of gold travel along the roads. Castles rise, training knights to eliminate the dragons the terrorize the country. Now consider controlling the dragon…
Hoard is a fantastic game because of the complex strategies available that have been boiled down into 10 minute chunks of gaming. Multiplayer is a great way to spice it up, but AI dragons provide fun when no one’s aound with whom to play…
Hoard is a complex RTS dressed up as a tabletop, miniatures wargame and served in small portions. It’s $10 on Steam and definitely worth the pricetag.
Hoard is a fantastic game because of the complex strategies available that have been boiled down into 10 minute chunks of gaming. Multiplayer is a great way to spice it up, but AI dragons provide fun when no one’s aound with whom to play…
Hoard is a complex RTS dressed up as a tabletop, miniatures wargame and served in small portions. It’s $10 on Steam and definitely worth the pricetag.
Joystiq Application
I sent my 2357-word application off to Joystiq! I’d make a good
weekend editor, right? Wish me luck, because I’m sure there are a ton
of applicants.
Are you a closet roleplayer?
Breakfast Topic: Are you a closet roleplayer?
Most players don’t actively roleplay in World of Warcraft — however, it sure seems like some people do without realizing it.
WoW Insider just published my second article! This one is a Breakfast Topic on creating back-stories or thinking as your character without actively roleplaying within World of Warcraft.I very rarely roleplay in the actual game, but I think I “closet roleplay” actively!
Batman Beyond Season 1
Oh, the glamorous and very adult life of Peter!
So I finished the first season of Batman Beyond! I haven’t really read much DC, but as a casual fan, I really enjoyed it. The new Batman seems to be fantastic at martial arts with the only explanation that he was once in a street gang. Overlooking that, having Batman be young and new to the job is an interesting take on the Dark Knight. I enjoyed seeing villains that I knew, but I think meeting the new ones was even better, especially the Blight reveal at the end of the season!
Parsing and Tiles Structures Complete
Excuse the bad art. They’re placeholders. I’m not an artist.
I finished the parser and data structures to hold terrain (ground, walls, ceiling, etc.) tiles. Of course, they will likely be changed over time to accommodate new types of tiles, because right now I only have one – grass. The point is that it works and that at this point it can go through the entire data structure of tiles during each update without any slowdown.
I’ll probably want to add a second tile type soon just to make sure parser and data structures can handle different types. I guess I should expect error and add in some error handling for when the data file has incorrect characters in it.
And then I’ll be on to gravity and, with it, collision detection for the ground.
Level Layout Parsing
I’ve been thinking that documenting my work on Mr. Bear’s Adventure might press me to work on it a little more. It’s a basic platformer (or it hopefully will be) that I’ve been attempting to make. The idea isn’t to make some fantastic game; rather, it’s to just make a platformer at all. The only way to get practice is to churn out some simple games.
I had already created some sprites and done character movement, excluding any kind of collision detection or gravity. So, I hadn’t done much of anything yet actually. When I returned to work on it, I started on the parser to read external data files containing the level layout. Along with it, I started working on the structures used to store the levels.
New Books
I’m still reading Little Fuzzy, the original book that Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation rebooted. Despite having the same basic plot outline, it’s different enough to still be quite entertaining.
I have four books in my queue now thanks to the store making me impulsively purchase books. First, I still have Agent to the Stars, which is written by one of my favorite authors, has a plot that seems fun, and has a gorgeous cover. In the book, aliens want to make contact with Earth but realize we would find them ugly and foul-smelling, so they get a Hollywood agent to help them.
Anyways, today I purchased two more books. I picked up The Lonesome Gods based on a recommendation after feeling like giving westerns a try. I don’t really know what to expect, and I don’t have particularly high expectations. I should remind myself to give the genre another try if this book doesn’t work out. Lastly, I also purchased It’s Superman today. I saw it sitting on the counter a couple weeks ago and decided to grab it today. (Also, I like it’s cover.) I guess it’s a reimagining of Superman. Lucky for me I’ve never even read a Superman comic, so it’ll all be new.
I need to stop buying books.
Has your perspective of Azeroth changed over time?
Breakfast Topic: Has your perspective of Azeroth changed over time?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider’s pages.
The very first time you load into Azeroth, you don’t know what to expect. If you’re familiar with previous Warcraft games, you might recognize some places, but many of the locations will be new to you. As a level 1 character, you can’t ride a mount at all, let alone use a flying mount. The world is huge, and it’s actually difficult to get across a continent.
The very first time you load into Azeroth, you don’t know what to expect. If you’re familiar with previous Warcraft games, you might recognize some places, but many of the locations will be new to you. As a level 1 character, you can’t ride a mount at all, let alone use a flying mount. The world is huge, and it’s actually difficult to get across a continent.
WoW Insider just posted the first of three articles they purchased from me! I have to admit, checking their site has been the first thing I’ve done every morning since they purchased them. I’m very excited!
Winners
Barnes & Noblia (the B is silent), which is the full and official name, tied with Updog for most golds! We also had more silvers than them, so I think that makes us the winners. Of course, some teams only had 3 people, but I consider it part of our strategy that we showed up with a full team.
I had a ton of fun today. Also I guess I suck at video games. Oh well.