Episode 18: Threes Company is live!
https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/episode-18-threes-company
We talk with John Siewenie of Picoarmor about small scale gaming.
The Veteran Wargamer is brought to you by King's Hobbies and Games.
https://www.kingshobbiesandgames.com/
Special Artizan Service Miniatures
https://www.facebook.com/Special-Artizan-Service-Miniatures-1791793644366746/
Picoarmor links:
http://Picoarmor.com
Twitter @socialpicoarmor
https://www.facebook.com/picoarmor/
Other companies we mentioned:
Oddzial Osmy
https://www.facebook.com/oddzial.osmy/
Blitzkrieg Commander
Cold War Commander
Future War Commander
http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/
GHQ
http://www.ghqmodels.com/
Soviet Army FMs
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-2.pdf
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf
Central Front
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/4255/central-front-series
Panzer Korps
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16323/panzer-korps
Advanced Squad Leader
http://www.multimanpublishing.com/Products/tabid/58/CategoryID/4/Default.aspx
Panzer Blitz
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2238/panzerblitz
Rock-Con
https://www.facebook.com/groups/93980714283/
Kingmaker
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/987/kingmaker
Winter War
http://www.winterwar.org/
Diplomacy
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy
I Ain't Been Shot, Mum
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/product-category/i-ain%C2%92t-been-shot-mum/
Team Yankee (Battlefront)
http://www.team-yankee.com/
Baccus 6mm
https://www.baccus6mm.com/
Games Plus
http://www.games-plus.com/
Historicon
http://hmgs.site-ym.com/?page=HconHome
Aepticon
http://www.adepticon.org/
Team Yankee (Audible)
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Team-Yankee-Audiobook/B01LXT7NLS
Red Storm Rising (Audible)
https://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/Red-Storm-Rising-Audiobook/B004D5K3LE?qid=1496350535&sr=1-1
Music courtesy bensound.com. Recorded with zencastr.com. Edited with Audacity. Make your town beautiful; get a haircut.
jueves, 5 de marzo de 2020
Frictional Fan Jam: Winter Modding Event
Screenshot from Draugemalf's SOMA Winter Asset Pack.
Quick overview
Duration: 11th of December until 19th January 2020
Theme: Winter/Hibernation
Medium: HPL engine modding
Submission link: Frictional Fan Jam 2019: Winter modding event submissions
Info
Winter is coming for us in the Northern Hemisphere. Get a hot drink, curl up under a blanket, and start up the HPL level editor – it's time for Frictional's Winter Modding Jam!
Join us for a month-long event focused on HPL modding! You're welcome to participate alone or in a small team (up to 5 people). For peer support, head on over to our Discord server.
Are you an artist, writer, or other kind of creator? You can still participate by teaming up with one of the modders. Head on over to #winter_modding_jam on our Discord and find your team! We will also be holding specialised events for you in the future.
Duration
The Jam will start on the 11th of December 2019 and last until the 19th of January 2020.
You can submit your work on the night of Sunday the 19th, as the submissions will be checked on Monday morning.
Theme
Winter and/or Hibernation.
One or both themes should be present in the Fan Jam entry. You are welcome to interpret them however you wish. The mods don't have to have a connection to Frictional Games titles.
Medium
This Frictional Fan Jam is specifically for HPL modding. You are free to use HPL2 and HPL3, or even HPL1 if you're brave enough.
Aside from the game assets, you are also welcome to utilise other assets you can legally use, or have permission to use from the creators.
You can for example use the Winter Asset Pack for SOMA, made by a long-time contributor and one of our Discord moderators, Draugemalf.
Submitting your work
Upload your mod on a platform like ModDB or Steam Workshop.
For entering the event, please submit a link to your work through the following form:
If you worked as a team, have one team member submit the entry.
All works will be showcased on the #winter_modding_jam_showcase on Discord.
Prizes
The jury of Frictional Games employees will pick the winners of the jam. Discord moderator team will not be voting on entries, and are therefore allowed to fully participate in the event.
The winners will receive A5-sized posters of a game of their choosing sent to their home address (team members will be sent theirs separately). The Frictional team from the Malmö office can sign them if you wish. Once our next project is out, the winners will also receive a download key for the game on an available platform of their choosing.
Depending on the amount of entries, the Malmö office Frictional team will stream all of the entries, or only the winners.
Contact
The Fan Jam is organised by Frictional Games' community manager Kira, with support from the Frictional Games Discord moderators. The easiest way to contact either is through the Frictional Games Discord server's #winter_modding_jam channel. The channel can also be used to share ideas with other community members, get feedback, and look for team members.
If you don't have a Discord account, you are welcome to contact Frictional Games through Twitter or our Contact Form, and we will help you as soon as we can.
For general questions: Contact Kira, for example by pinging them on the Discord channel.
For technical questions: Join our Discord server which has an active modding community.
Have fun, we're looking forward to your wintery creations!
miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2020
Blue Dwarf Group
The wood and white have now been finished up and I started in on the blue on the dwarves. This is going to be a long one, I think. There's a lot of small areas that I'll need to be careful on. After that it's leathers, flesh and hair. Fourish weeks left before Fall In, still hoping to make it.
Types Of Projects
When I started writing articles on my site, sometimes I had great results, like writing the hexagonal grid guide in 6 weeks, and sometimes I had terrible results, like writing article about curved roads in 5 months. I eventually realized that the difference was that with hexagons, I understood the topic well, but with curved paths, I spent most of the time trying to understand the topic. To make matters worse, because I had a high standard for my articles, I spent too much time trying to polish the article about curved paths, even before I understood it well.
Back in 2013 I decided to create a separate directory /x/YYWW-name/ where I'd put the lower effort and experimental pages, numbered by year and week. For example, 1942-isometric means year 2019, week 42. Over the last few years I've realized I do two different types of projects:
- fixed scope, variable time, usually focused on explaining something
- variable scope, fixed time, usually focused on learning or understanding something
The fixed time articles typically go into /x/. An unexpected benefit of these short unpolished experiments is that sometimes it lets me explore a set of topics that comes together into a larger polished project. The best example of this is my map generation work in 2017–2018. Back in 2017 I had started experimenting with map generation topics:
- 1721-read-painted-map - I played around with the idea of reading a jpg file with a map, and turning it into a game map. This was an "experimentation" project.
- 1721-voronoi-alternative - I took a look at the modified voronoi structure I used in my "polygon map generation" project. That project was an "explanation" project, and this was an "understanding" project.
- 1722-b-rep-triangle-meshes - I had gone to a GDC talk about 3d triangle meshes, and thought this might help me with the 2d map generation projects I wanted to try. This was a "learning" project.
- 1722-delaunay-map-import - I combined the previous projects into something that read in a file and overlaid it on a triangle mesh.
- 1723-procedural-river-growing - I learned how to represent rivers in the mesh data structure.
- 1724-elevation-from-rivers and 1725-procedural-elevation - I had read a paper about generating rivers before mountains, and wanted to try implementing something inspired by it.
- 1728-elevation-control and 1729-generate-details - Instead of reading a jpg file with a map, I wanted to implement some ideas for directly painting a map.
- 1730-terrain-shader-experiments and 1730-terrain-shader-experiments/noisy-hex-rendering.html - I learned a bit about shaders and how I might be able to use them for map rendering.
- 1730-webgl-particles and 1731-wind-patterns - I wanted to experiment with wind simulation, but didn't get very far, and instead just made something that looked neat.
- 1733-sine-wave-terrain - I experimented with sine waves for terrain generation; it didn't work so well.
- 1733-territory-assignment and 1744-territory-outline - I wanted to mark regions of a map.
- 1736-resource-placement - I wanted to place natural resources like iron and gold.
- 1740-map-painter - I wanted to improve my painting code to work directly on the mesh data structure instead of on a pixel grid.
- 1742-webgl-mapgen2 and 1745-rotmg-maps-webgl and 1746-headless-gl - I brought things together and experimented with map rendering.
This structure let me try things quickly, and also abandon things quickly. Those of you who know garbage collection algorithms know that there are two general strategies: throw away the garbage, or keep the non-garbage. In my regular projects I follow the "throw away garbage" strategy, but in this experimental folder I follow the "keep non-garbage" strategy. Things that work I can copy into a new project. Things that fail I leave alone. When I wanted to produce mapgen4 in 2018, I went back through these small projects and picked the parts I could use, and turned that into a new big project.
People ask me if I share links to all the /x/ pages. I don't do this because I found that by not sharing at first, it increases how much I write. I don't start every page worrying about how to explain something, or cross-browser compatibility, or making things work on any machine other than my own. If something works out, I can then fix it up and share it. Many things don't work out, and then I can abandon them quickly. This strategy has been extraordinarily successful at getting me to write more. I started these in 2013, with 7 pages, and then 11 in 2014, 20 in 2015, 24 in 2016, 33 in 2017, 36 in 2018, and 27 in 2019 so far. The downside is that it's so much easier to write the /x/ pages that I am not making many of the regular pages. I'm annoyed with myself for that but I'm just going to have to accept it for now.
lunes, 24 de febrero de 2020
Watch Out! Hedgewars Releases Long-Awaited V1.0.0
Have you heard of Hedgewars? What began as a simple attempt to clone Team 17's Worms Armageddon has evolved into one of the most polished and community driven libre game projects on the scene. After more than ten years of continuous development the project is finally celebrating the release of version 1.0.0.
Boasting full campaign support, several online multiplayer modes, full customization, and mod support, Hedgewars is without a doubt an impressive endeavor that rivals its source of inspiration in many levels. So whether you are a Worms Armageddon fan or if you are just looking for some online turn-based fun, we definitely recommend a download.
Code license: GPLv2
Art license: GFDLv1.2 and GPLv2
Comments about this article? Post them here.
domingo, 23 de febrero de 2020
Life Is Strange 2 | Episode One "Roads" Review |
After a late spring of prodding, Dontnod's continuation of its award-winning episodic adventure arrangement Life is Strange is here, and it has a loud and clear message to convey to every one of us.
Quick Facts :
- Initial release date: 27 September 2018
- Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
- Genre: Adventure game
- Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
'Roads' What Is It About :
'Roads', the first episode in Life Is Strange 2, is around two primary things; naivety and wistfulness. It's a testing, self-contradicting true to life experience about children growing up and confronting the duties that join that, encircled through the account of two siblings who are unreasonably youthful to be outfitted to manage their nerve racking circumstance. That juxtaposition is, at its center, what makes this opening section to Life is Strange 2 so exceptionally extraordinary.
Life is Strange 2 includes none of the characters or settings of its forerunner. Its new saint, a 16-year-old hero Mexican-American kid named Sean Diaz, does not have a choice turning around time-travel capacity like Max Caulfield. Be that as it may, the minute an acoustic guitar starts carefully strumming over the sun-kissed title screen, it is obvious what you are playing. This might be a new story among new faces and obscure districts, however from every other angle this is Life is Strange.
Life is Strange 2 includes none of the characters or settings of its forerunner. Its new saint, a 16-year-old hero Mexican-American kid named Sean Diaz, does not have a choice turning around time-travel capacity like Max Caulfield. Be that as it may, the minute an acoustic guitar starts carefully strumming over the sun-kissed title screen, it is obvious what you are playing. This might be a new story among new faces and obscure districts, however from every other angle this is Life is Strange.
The game rapidly sets the scene. Sean is a relatable track star youngster who is attempting to discover his way in the world , trying different things with workmanship, medications, and young ladies and stressing over whether kinships will last as his training finds some conclusion. The two siblings live with their dad Esteban, a workman and the passionate shake of the family which the siblings rotate around.
Life is Strange 2 is inside and out a more intricate issue: its activity sprawls out from Seattle to the forested areas of Oregon and still more distant abroad, giving it the vibe of a street motion picture in amusement frame.
The carefree dynamic of the Diaz family is quickly fathomed as you examine Sean's home, gathering supplies for a late-night party. The course of action has had a honest to goodness graphical refresh as a result of Unreal Engine 4, which infers swathes of superbly completed the process of describing objects, ordered journal doodles, and fluid, human activitys that pass on another level of nuance to the record.
Life is Strange 2, most importantly, is an account of fellowship and society, and even in its beginning times Sean and Daniel's relationship is tremendously contacting. Out and about, Sean is urged to not just pay special mind to or secure Daniel, but rather help raise him. That duty shows in manners both self-evident – don't spook the child with phantom stories previously you stay outdoors amidst the forested areas around evening time — and more hazy. You're bankrupt and eager and urgent. Is it worth a critical dollar to offer him a hint of something to look forward to as a chocolate bar or a toy?
An untidy whiteboard demonstrates a disorderly errand plan… Invoices and apparatuses uncover that Esteban is a compulsive worker. Sean chimes in contemplatively to The Streets in his room, and Daniel opens his entryway somewhat subsequent to pummeling it close to ensure his sibling won't see his Halloween ensemble. It's a living domain, more so than any found in the principal diversion.
The devil genuinely in the subtle elements, and this is extended to the discourse. Sean would now be able to respond to surrounding discussions amid ongoing interaction, or, in other words, much like the framework found in Night School's Oxenfree. This implies the game doesn't simply bolt you out when you associate with something, and there's very little dead air when you're investigating, which I for one believe is a colossal move up to life is strange part 1.
Discussions proceed all through physical activities, which helps me to remember discussion among Sam and Nathan in uncharted 4, makes the experience undeniably streaming and artistic. This is helped by an influx of new camera strategies, from taking off feathered creatures eye-see shots of the siblings to astute close-ups and wide edges that give space to the player to think about and consider what unfurls before them.
A progression of grievous occasions happens not long after the introduction which results in the incidental demise of their racially provocative neighbor, which subsequently prompts their dad turning into a casualty of police severity, shot dead without hesitating.
The menu and stock framework have been fleshed out definitively, and your knapsack is loaded up with nostalgic things from your home and will keep on clamoring with articles as you advance through the story. You can likewise hang trinkets and connect fixes to it, these going about as the discretionary collectables you can discover amid the occasions of the diversion.
In particular, the things in your rucksack really mean something, As it holds everything that the siblings have left from their previous life. Sean's journal is another key bit of gear. Amid calm minutes Sean can utilize his craft aptitudes to sit and draw the earth around him, a fun little amusement that effectively makes a memory,(This too helps me to remember Uncharted 4 where Nathan draws his own guide in somewhat entertaining path as he continues investigating ) demonstrating DONTNOD's proclivity to attach play to the story.
While investigating you will locate an additional blue feature on specific things in the condition that takes into account a dialog between the siblings, rather than perceptions neighborhood to the hero. You can train Daniel about trail blast blemishes on trees and push him to continue attempting when he has a craving for abandoning skipping stones.
Its influenced fascinating in light of the fact that you to understand that Sean is similarly as green to the world as his sibling, however is presently his sole gatekeeper. You're compelled to consider how you utilize that duty. Daniel is starving and you don't have any cash for nourishment, yet by taking you affect him by obscuring the lines among good and bad, which have outcomes even inside this one episode.
Obviously, there are additionally interchange, more twofold flashpoints that don't have simple answers, however I found that creation intense choices and lamenting my activities attempted to make a feeling of perpetual quality and promise to my own story that had me considerably more drew in with this account than I at any point was in past titles in the arrangement.
At last, this outcomes in a wonderfully paced prologue to a fresh out of the plastic new world, one that I never needed to take off. Cunning composition and important moves up to the moment to minute ongoing interaction guarantee that Life is Strange 2 is an equation breaking development for the experience diversion kind.
The Verdict :
The first episode of Dontnod's Life is Strange 2 guarantees a greater, more intricate story than told by the predecessor, Though its social reactions feel expansive and rather awkward up until now, its center story of fellowship and clique between two conceivable characters is as of now gigantically contacting. With Life is Strange 2, DONTNOD has overhauled and refined each component that made its ancestor fruitful, while sprinkling some supernatural new increases in with the general mish-mash to make a basic kind pushing background that isn't only for fans.
Life is Strange 2 is inside and out a more intricate issue: its activity sprawls out from Seattle to the forested areas of Oregon and still more distant abroad, giving it the vibe of a street motion picture in amusement frame.
The carefree dynamic of the Diaz family is quickly fathomed as you examine Sean's home, gathering supplies for a late-night party. The course of action has had a honest to goodness graphical refresh as a result of Unreal Engine 4, which infers swathes of superbly completed the process of describing objects, ordered journal doodles, and fluid, human activitys that pass on another level of nuance to the record.
Life is Strange 2, most importantly, is an account of fellowship and society, and even in its beginning times Sean and Daniel's relationship is tremendously contacting. Out and about, Sean is urged to not just pay special mind to or secure Daniel, but rather help raise him. That duty shows in manners both self-evident – don't spook the child with phantom stories previously you stay outdoors amidst the forested areas around evening time — and more hazy. You're bankrupt and eager and urgent. Is it worth a critical dollar to offer him a hint of something to look forward to as a chocolate bar or a toy?
An untidy whiteboard demonstrates a disorderly errand plan… Invoices and apparatuses uncover that Esteban is a compulsive worker. Sean chimes in contemplatively to The Streets in his room, and Daniel opens his entryway somewhat subsequent to pummeling it close to ensure his sibling won't see his Halloween ensemble. It's a living domain, more so than any found in the principal diversion.
The devil genuinely in the subtle elements, and this is extended to the discourse. Sean would now be able to respond to surrounding discussions amid ongoing interaction, or, in other words, much like the framework found in Night School's Oxenfree. This implies the game doesn't simply bolt you out when you associate with something, and there's very little dead air when you're investigating, which I for one believe is a colossal move up to life is strange part 1.
Discussions proceed all through physical activities, which helps me to remember discussion among Sam and Nathan in uncharted 4, makes the experience undeniably streaming and artistic. This is helped by an influx of new camera strategies, from taking off feathered creatures eye-see shots of the siblings to astute close-ups and wide edges that give space to the player to think about and consider what unfurls before them.
A progression of grievous occasions happens not long after the introduction which results in the incidental demise of their racially provocative neighbor, which subsequently prompts their dad turning into a casualty of police severity, shot dead without hesitating.
The menu and stock framework have been fleshed out definitively, and your knapsack is loaded up with nostalgic things from your home and will keep on clamoring with articles as you advance through the story. You can likewise hang trinkets and connect fixes to it, these going about as the discretionary collectables you can discover amid the occasions of the diversion.
In particular, the things in your rucksack really mean something, As it holds everything that the siblings have left from their previous life. Sean's journal is another key bit of gear. Amid calm minutes Sean can utilize his craft aptitudes to sit and draw the earth around him, a fun little amusement that effectively makes a memory,(This too helps me to remember Uncharted 4 where Nathan draws his own guide in somewhat entertaining path as he continues investigating ) demonstrating DONTNOD's proclivity to attach play to the story.
While investigating you will locate an additional blue feature on specific things in the condition that takes into account a dialog between the siblings, rather than perceptions neighborhood to the hero. You can train Daniel about trail blast blemishes on trees and push him to continue attempting when he has a craving for abandoning skipping stones.
Its influenced fascinating in light of the fact that you to understand that Sean is similarly as green to the world as his sibling, however is presently his sole gatekeeper. You're compelled to consider how you utilize that duty. Daniel is starving and you don't have any cash for nourishment, yet by taking you affect him by obscuring the lines among good and bad, which have outcomes even inside this one episode.
Obviously, there are additionally interchange, more twofold flashpoints that don't have simple answers, however I found that creation intense choices and lamenting my activities attempted to make a feeling of perpetual quality and promise to my own story that had me considerably more drew in with this account than I at any point was in past titles in the arrangement.
At last, this outcomes in a wonderfully paced prologue to a fresh out of the plastic new world, one that I never needed to take off. Cunning composition and important moves up to the moment to minute ongoing interaction guarantee that Life is Strange 2 is an equation breaking development for the experience diversion kind.
The Verdict :
The first episode of Dontnod's Life is Strange 2 guarantees a greater, more intricate story than told by the predecessor, Though its social reactions feel expansive and rather awkward up until now, its center story of fellowship and clique between two conceivable characters is as of now gigantically contacting. With Life is Strange 2, DONTNOD has overhauled and refined each component that made its ancestor fruitful, while sprinkling some supernatural new increases in with the general mish-mash to make a basic kind pushing background that isn't only for fans.
jueves, 20 de febrero de 2020
Super Mario 64 (N64)
Hey, welcome back, it's Super Adventures 9th birthday etc. But never mind that, I've got TERRIBLE NEWS for you. Some quirk of Blogger has retroactively screwed up all my damn 256 colour images, removing shades and leaving them more dithered than they should be.
It only ruined little bits of them, only a few of the colours, but ideally you want your screenshots to be 0% ruined.
So I've got GOOD NEWS for you: mecha-neko wrote a thing and I did a thing and over Christmas we replaced something like 14,000 images over 1000 posts. So now the site is entirely fixed... or mostly broken, or somewhere in between. Why not click a few old posts and find out! I mean after reading this one.
This week on Super Adventures, it's Super Mario 64!
It's a game that needs no introduction, so instead I'll start off by talking about how much I hate 3D platformers. Actually I don't hate them, as long as they keep their distance and don't bother me, but they've never been my genre. I like 2D platformers, I like games where you wander around in 3D, but somehow when you combine the two I lose interest. Maybe it's because I don't like slipping off narrow platforms and misjudging depth.
Actually I will give the game a bit of an introduction, because I like trivia. Super Mario 64 was designed by pioneering Nintendo game genius Shigeru Miyamoto, who's been making Marios since the first Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. He'd already set the template for the 2D platformer genre with Super Mario Bros. so they were hoping he could pull off the same trick in 3D. And he did... though he took a few months longer than planned. Unfortunately Mario 64 was meant to be the big launch title that got people buying the Nintendo 64, so they had to delay the console for months as well. They probably made the right choice though, as the PlayStation and Saturn were well established even before the delay and the N64 needed to show off some actual magic to lure people over to a cartridge-based machine without videos, voices or CD music.
Personally I love the N64 and I've got a lot of nostalgia for it, but Mario 64 not so much. I've maybe played the game twice and the furthest I've gotten is the stone slab boss that falls on you. But some people seem to like it, and it's "acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time", so I'm going to give it another few hours to win me over.
Read on »
It only ruined little bits of them, only a few of the colours, but ideally you want your screenshots to be 0% ruined.
So I've got GOOD NEWS for you: mecha-neko wrote a thing and I did a thing and over Christmas we replaced something like 14,000 images over 1000 posts. So now the site is entirely fixed... or mostly broken, or somewhere in between. Why not click a few old posts and find out! I mean after reading this one.
| Developer: | Nintendo | | | Release Date: | 1997 (1996 in Japan + US) | | | Systems: | N64, DS, iQue Player |
This week on Super Adventures, it's Super Mario 64!
It's a game that needs no introduction, so instead I'll start off by talking about how much I hate 3D platformers. Actually I don't hate them, as long as they keep their distance and don't bother me, but they've never been my genre. I like 2D platformers, I like games where you wander around in 3D, but somehow when you combine the two I lose interest. Maybe it's because I don't like slipping off narrow platforms and misjudging depth.
Actually I will give the game a bit of an introduction, because I like trivia. Super Mario 64 was designed by pioneering Nintendo game genius Shigeru Miyamoto, who's been making Marios since the first Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. He'd already set the template for the 2D platformer genre with Super Mario Bros. so they were hoping he could pull off the same trick in 3D. And he did... though he took a few months longer than planned. Unfortunately Mario 64 was meant to be the big launch title that got people buying the Nintendo 64, so they had to delay the console for months as well. They probably made the right choice though, as the PlayStation and Saturn were well established even before the delay and the N64 needed to show off some actual magic to lure people over to a cartridge-based machine without videos, voices or CD music.
Personally I love the N64 and I've got a lot of nostalgia for it, but Mario 64 not so much. I've maybe played the game twice and the furthest I've gotten is the stone slab boss that falls on you. But some people seem to like it, and it's "acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time", so I'm going to give it another few hours to win me over.
Read on »
The Journeyman Project - Last Impression
Written by Reiko
Agent 5 Journal #4: "I'm almost done. All three robots are destroyed, and now the last thing to do is to catch up with Elliot Sinclair. My impression of him is that he's unstable and very dangerous. I was almost flattened by his robot, after all. He may be a genius, but his intelligence does us no good if he's going to interfere with the history that he helped make accessible."
Only one mission left to complete, and we come full circle back to where we started. For the second time, I jump to the NORAD base in 2112. This time, after the robot taunts me, I immediately put on my oxygen mask, and I'm no longer gasping or in any danger from the sleeping gas. I look around again, but this time I'm more careful about what I touch.
To my left, there's a screen that shows me various areas around the base. I can tap through to see a wireframe layout of the base, and then I can see what look like feeds from surveillance cameras in various sectors of the base. One sector seems to have a large mechanical arm of some kind. One feed from Alpha sector seems to have some people passed out, presumably because the sleeping gas has permeated the base.
I don't see anything else to do in here, so I open the door and step forward. Immediately I get a warning that I detect "plasma field buildup." That doesn't sound good. I turn to face the corridor and see the robot at the other end of it, shooting some kind of weapon at me! It shoots two or three times, and the projectiles look like large balls of fire, but it doesn't kill me; it just knocks my energy down by about 25%.
Later, when I replay, I make sure the Shield BioChip is active before I step out of the room, and that seems to help somewhat. I think I only lose about 10-12% of my energy instead. So maybe the shield absorbed half of the damage.
I figure out that I've arrived in Beta sector, and I can move around in the corridors between a few of the sectors. But many doors refuse to open due to a security alert, including the door that closed behind me, so I can't get back into the first room to look at the screens again. I was going to see if I could determine where the robot went.
As it turns out, it's not hard to figure out where the robot went. The other end of the corridor ends in a cross-corridor with a door at the end. The left turn ends at a door into Alpha sector that won't open, but through it I can see the robot and hear the computer announce that the nuclear launch code is wrong, and warn that the manual override station in Alpha 2 is unmanned. I think I need to get there and override the launch manually to keep the robot from launching the missile.
The other end of the cross-corridor ends at a door into Epsilon sector that won't open, so I take the door going forward and proceed to the next door, which has a pressure lock. I have to decrease the pressure in the submarine dock in order to enter the room. Oddly enough, the verbal warning tells me not to increase the pressure to maximum, but nothing seems to happen if I do. It just seems to be something to slow me down, as I have to hold the down arrow for several seconds while the pressure slowly decreases far enough that the door will open.
The submarine dock holds a small pool and what looks like a large grabber arm. I think it's the same mechanical arm I noticed in the surveillance feed. I can't find anything I can interact with in this room. The side wall appears to have individual lockers with names on them, but none of them open. So I proceed into the next room.
This appears to be a command post overlooking the loading arm. I can turn on the screens, one of which shows the layout of the loader arm room, and the other one gives me a "Loading Arm Menu"; "Choose Input Mode": "Manual" or "Programmed". If I select programmed mode and hit Activate, the arm moves forward, appears to grab, and then moves back. But there's nothing there, so I don't accomplish anything. If I select manual mode, I just get an error screen that says "Waldo Glove Disabled". Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes it does the exact same thing as programmed mode.
There's another exit from the command post, which leads to another short corridor bounded by doors, which then leads to another T corridor with exits to various sectors. The loading arm seems to be Delta sector. The cross-corridor again leads right to Epsilon sector and left to Alpha sector. Unfortunately, all the rest of these doors are locked due to the security alert.
Actually, the Alpha sector door is locked, but it also has a retinal scanner on it. When I trigger it, it says, "Please hold for ten seconds for Alpha sector retinal ID scan." I can back away to avoid the scan. If I stand still and let it scan me, it figures out that I don't belong there and triggers another security alert. I then hear that the nuclear missile has been launched, which fails the mission and causes me to be pulled back to the present automatically.
At this point, I got stuck. I didn't have any way through the door with the retinal scanner, and I hadn't found anything else to do in the NORAD area. Fortunately, Ilmari came to my rescue and confirmed that I had ended up in a walking dead scenario. I had missed something in a mission I did earlier. I am not pleased at the game design that allowed this to happen, but I'll save my detailed comments on that for the final rating. For now, Ilmari's hint pointed to the existence of another BioChip that I had failed to get from the robot at the Science Center, the first mission I completed. That meant some significant backtracking in order to fix my mistake. The rest of this post was written a few days after my initial exploration of the NORAD level above.
I reload the appropriate save in order to go back to the science center after making the antidote. I quickly move to the electrical access room and electrocute the robot as I did before. This time, I carefully pull out all the BioChips that are available. The chip I was missing is, appropriately enough, the Retinal BioChip. (I have to wonder, though, how it manages to be effective. How can it know what an "acceptable vein structure" would be for any given retinal scanner lock? And why did the robot need it in the first place?) After returning to the Pegasus with six chips total, my score is at 50607.
Actually, I barely managed to get all of them first try, and then I accidentally killed the program before I saved, so I had to do it again. Then it took me three tries to get all the BioChips. The auto-destruct sequence triggers quickly enough that it's really not very easy to get them all. I don't think I commented on it in the original post, but the first time I played through the sequence, I only got the Optical Memory chip and didn't realize more than one could be taken. I'd already tried multiple times even to get two chips, and then it turns out I still didn't get them all. That sequence is probably the hardest sequence to get right in the whole game.
After getting the chip I missed, then I have to play through the entire Mars sequence again. I know what needs to happen, so it only takes about 25 minutes to do the whole level, although for some reason I have a little more trouble with the Mastermind mini-game this time around. Eventually I get through it, grab the bomb, work my way through the maze, carefully use the ore crusher, blast off in the shuttle, and capture the robot. I make sure to get all the chips from this one too, of course, although this one has a duplicate chip (the Mapping chip) for some reason. That's especially pointless given that it'd be more difficult to get through the ore tunnel maze without already having the Mapping chip.
After two missions cleared and seven BioChips, now I have a score of 76915. This is significantly higher than the score I reported at the end of the previous post (60560). This is probably a combination of the 5000 point increase for the extra chip as well as more points for being faster at completing the missions. I've done the first two enough times now that I know what's necessary and what isn't.
Finally, back to the NORAD level. I start the same way as I did before, wearing the oxygen mask, and having the shield chip active when I face the robot's plasma blasts. I make my way through the pressurized room and along the corridors to the second Alpha door with the scanner. This time, I activate the Retinal chip before I trigger the scanner, and it does its thing.
The door opens to reveal the defense station. I walk in and trigger the screens. The left one shifts from a surveillance video of the other Alpha station to a close-up on the robot, who begins gloating at me about how he just broke the nuclear activation code and began the launch sequence for the nuclear missile strike. Am I too late? (Apparently the country it's aimed at is spelled Ghorbestan, although given all the typos, even that can't entirely be trusted.)
I have only one way to stop the missile launch: I have to play another mini-game where I race to shut down several missile silos in quick succession before time runs out. To do this, I have to click on the trackball below the globe to move the cursor around the globe and select the correct silo site. Then a button appears on the right screen to deactivate it. Each time a silo is deactivated, the installation selects a different site, and the amount of time I have to deactivate it decreases, starting at two minutes and decrementing by 10 or 15 seconds each time down to only 30 seconds for the last one.
I like this minigame in one way, because it requires some knowledge of geography. It just gives you a city and country, and you have to navigate around the globe to find the correct red dot that corresponds to that location. Some of the locations are reasonably uncommon, like Bangkok, Thailand. Some aren't even capital cities, like Bonn, Germany, although there's only one dot anywhere in the vicinity of Germany, so that hardly matters. The globe is tiny enough on the screen that there's not enough resolution to really make it interesting. I doubt that Pegasus Prime actually did this, but I could certainly imagine a remake that could offer difficulty levels by using more common or less common locations for the silos.
What I don't like about this minigame is the fiddly control of the trackball, though. The difficulty should be primarily in identifying the correct location, but instead, most of the difficulty is in actually selecting the location. The trackball is incredibly imprecise. Most of the time I found myself sliding back and forth around the vicinity of the right dot, trying to get the selector to stop in the right place. The mouse is way too sensitive in the game as it is, and the clicks are no better: often when I just need a single click to shift the selector over a small bit, it acts like I clicked and held for a moment, sliding it too far.
Eventually I manage to get a bit better at controlling the selector, enough that I never run out of time. The robot tries to taunt me several times, telling me I'll never succeed, but I get the impression it's getting a little alarmed as I continue deactivating silos. After at least eight different silo locations, I reach the end. The screen shows a new message: "Maximum deactivation allotment exceeded. Global launch override safety feature engaged. ALL SILOS DEACTIVATED."
Now I've really made the robot angry. It's coming for me, so I'd better find a way to stop it like I did the other two. (As far as I can tell, though, it never shows up if I just wait in the Alpha sector.) I start making my way back along the corridor toward the original end of the station.
I am not very surprised to encounter the robot once I step into the room just before the pressurized submarine dock. I look through the door and see it coming toward me. Once it's in front of me, I'm not allowed to move or turn away any more, so the only thing I can do is use the pressure controls. Well, low pressure won't do anything, but what about maximum pressure? I was warned that maximum pressure is pretty strong - is it stronger than a robot? Apparently yes! The robot crumples like a tin can. The door opens, and again I get a look at the robot's chips as it prepares to self-destruct. This one doesn't have anything that isn't a duplicate, though.
And that's the end of the mission. The missile launch has been prevented. All I needed was the retinal chip, and then I played one minigame and solved one puzzle, and that's all. But before I go on, I'm going to go back and do the last puzzle a different way.
When I get into the control room, instead of turning to face the robot at the door, I continue forward to the control station for the loading arm. Then when I face the room, the robot comes over to the window and starts pounding on it. It also taunts me again: "What do you think this is, human? A game?" (It didn't talk when it was at the door.) As quickly as I can, I trigger the loading arm screen, select Automated, and hit Activate. The arm reaches out, grabs the robot, and smashes it through the window, destroying it, and the mission completes as before.
So one of these solutions should be the "violent" solution, and one should be the "peaceful" solution. But honestly, both of these seem about equally violent to me. Both result in the destruction of the robot, and the loading arm solution also results in damage to the window. For next time, I'll complete the game both ways to find out which one is which.
BioChips: Interface, Mapping, Pegasus, Optical Memory, Retinal, Shield, Trace
Other inventory: Transport Card, Journeyman Key, Tranquilizer Dart, Antidote, Stun Gun, Wire Cutters, Maintenance Key, Access Card Bomb, Oxygen Mask
Time travel trips: 4
Score: 98570
Session Time: 1 hr 30 min
Total Time: 7 hr 15 min
Again there are typos in my screenshots! I called out the Addis Ababa one, but there are at least two others. Who can find them?
Deaths: 3 (total: 19)
#17: (Thanks to MorpheusKitami for alerting me to this death.) I didn't try this last time, but if you don't take care of the bomb before entering the mining tunnels, then it will explode, destroying the colony. The ending is called "Explosion of Mars Colony": "Your expert sleuthing abilities have led you to the discovery of what actually happened to the Mars Colony." I assume we blow up with it.
#18: If you wait too long at the door, the robot will eventually break it down. Somehow the robot is strong enough to break down a steel pressure door, but not strong enough to withstand the pressure that the door can withstand? Maybe it punches through it. Or maybe the writers were confused about this too. This ending is "Crushed by Robot": "Not even a 2000 lb. steel pressure door could keep the robot from losing this round. Winner by TKO: the robot." Right, so did the robot win or lose? I guess the lack of proofreading extends beyond just spelling errors.
#19: If you wait too long at the window by the loading arm controls, the robot will eventually break it down too. This time, we're "Killed by Robot": "Next time you should have a plan before confronting a two-ton robot who wants to see you dead." So that means the robot weighs twice as much as that pressure door.
Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
Agent 5 Journal #4: "I'm almost done. All three robots are destroyed, and now the last thing to do is to catch up with Elliot Sinclair. My impression of him is that he's unstable and very dangerous. I was almost flattened by his robot, after all. He may be a genius, but his intelligence does us no good if he's going to interfere with the history that he helped make accessible."
Only one mission left to complete, and we come full circle back to where we started. For the second time, I jump to the NORAD base in 2112. This time, after the robot taunts me, I immediately put on my oxygen mask, and I'm no longer gasping or in any danger from the sleeping gas. I look around again, but this time I'm more careful about what I touch.
 |
| Those people didn't have oxygen masks handy... |
 |
| This plasma isn't hot enough to kill...? |
Later, when I replay, I make sure the Shield BioChip is active before I step out of the room, and that seems to help somewhat. I think I only lose about 10-12% of my energy instead. So maybe the shield absorbed half of the damage.
I figure out that I've arrived in Beta sector, and I can move around in the corridors between a few of the sectors. But many doors refuse to open due to a security alert, including the door that closed behind me, so I can't get back into the first room to look at the screens again. I was going to see if I could determine where the robot went.
 |
| I can see the robot, but I can't get to it. |
 |
| Maximum pressure does nothing right now. |
The submarine dock holds a small pool and what looks like a large grabber arm. I think it's the same mechanical arm I noticed in the surveillance feed. I can't find anything I can interact with in this room. The side wall appears to have individual lockers with names on them, but none of them open. So I proceed into the next room.
 |
| Loading arm control screens. |
There's another exit from the command post, which leads to another short corridor bounded by doors, which then leads to another T corridor with exits to various sectors. The loading arm seems to be Delta sector. The cross-corridor again leads right to Epsilon sector and left to Alpha sector. Unfortunately, all the rest of these doors are locked due to the security alert.
 |
| How to fail the NORAD mission. |
At this point, I got stuck. I didn't have any way through the door with the retinal scanner, and I hadn't found anything else to do in the NORAD area. Fortunately, Ilmari came to my rescue and confirmed that I had ended up in a walking dead scenario. I had missed something in a mission I did earlier. I am not pleased at the game design that allowed this to happen, but I'll save my detailed comments on that for the final rating. For now, Ilmari's hint pointed to the existence of another BioChip that I had failed to get from the robot at the Science Center, the first mission I completed. That meant some significant backtracking in order to fix my mistake. The rest of this post was written a few days after my initial exploration of the NORAD level above.
 |
| Retinal BioChip item |
I reload the appropriate save in order to go back to the science center after making the antidote. I quickly move to the electrical access room and electrocute the robot as I did before. This time, I carefully pull out all the BioChips that are available. The chip I was missing is, appropriately enough, the Retinal BioChip. (I have to wonder, though, how it manages to be effective. How can it know what an "acceptable vein structure" would be for any given retinal scanner lock? And why did the robot need it in the first place?) After returning to the Pegasus with six chips total, my score is at 50607.
 |
| How many BioChips can I grab in 3 seconds? |
After getting the chip I missed, then I have to play through the entire Mars sequence again. I know what needs to happen, so it only takes about 25 minutes to do the whole level, although for some reason I have a little more trouble with the Mastermind mini-game this time around. Eventually I get through it, grab the bomb, work my way through the maze, carefully use the ore crusher, blast off in the shuttle, and capture the robot. I make sure to get all the chips from this one too, of course, although this one has a duplicate chip (the Mapping chip) for some reason. That's especially pointless given that it'd be more difficult to get through the ore tunnel maze without already having the Mapping chip.
After two missions cleared and seven BioChips, now I have a score of 76915. This is significantly higher than the score I reported at the end of the previous post (60560). This is probably a combination of the 5000 point increase for the extra chip as well as more points for being faster at completing the missions. I've done the first two enough times now that I know what's necessary and what isn't.
 |
| The retinal chip at work projecting a simulated retina for the scanner. |
The door opens to reveal the defense station. I walk in and trigger the screens. The left one shifts from a surveillance video of the other Alpha station to a close-up on the robot, who begins gloating at me about how he just broke the nuclear activation code and began the launch sequence for the nuclear missile strike. Am I too late? (Apparently the country it's aimed at is spelled Ghorbestan, although given all the typos, even that can't entirely be trusted.)
 |
| Apparently the writers couldn't spell "Addis Ababa" either. |
 |
| The US has eight silos (nine including Hawaii), but I only have to deactivate one of them. |
What I don't like about this minigame is the fiddly control of the trackball, though. The difficulty should be primarily in identifying the correct location, but instead, most of the difficulty is in actually selecting the location. The trackball is incredibly imprecise. Most of the time I found myself sliding back and forth around the vicinity of the right dot, trying to get the selector to stop in the right place. The mouse is way too sensitive in the game as it is, and the clicks are no better: often when I just need a single click to shift the selector over a small bit, it acts like I clicked and held for a moment, sliding it too far.
 |
| I've prevented the missile launch by deactivating too many silos. |
Now I've really made the robot angry. It's coming for me, so I'd better find a way to stop it like I did the other two. (As far as I can tell, though, it never shows up if I just wait in the Alpha sector.) I start making my way back along the corridor toward the original end of the station.
 |
| I'm trapped unless I deal with the robot right here. |
 |
| Mission complete. |
 |
| The loading arm grabs the robot. |
So one of these solutions should be the "violent" solution, and one should be the "peaceful" solution. But honestly, both of these seem about equally violent to me. Both result in the destruction of the robot, and the loading arm solution also results in damage to the window. For next time, I'll complete the game both ways to find out which one is which.
BioChips: Interface, Mapping, Pegasus, Optical Memory, Retinal, Shield, Trace
Other inventory: Transport Card, Journeyman Key, Tranquilizer Dart, Antidote, Stun Gun, Wire Cutters, Maintenance Key, Access Card Bomb, Oxygen Mask
Time travel trips: 4
Score: 98570
Session Time: 1 hr 30 min
Total Time: 7 hr 15 min
Again there are typos in my screenshots! I called out the Addis Ababa one, but there are at least two others. Who can find them?
Deaths: 3 (total: 19)
 |
| Finding out first-hand how the colony was destroyed. |
 |
| Sure looks like the robot won this round with the door. |
 |
| The picture should really show Agent 5 with the oxygen mask on. |
Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!
Austro-Hungarian Vindow Vasher
I finished up the gun barrels and windows this week. Just the funnel, colors and touch ups left to go.
By Blood, Short Film, Review And Interview
With the feel of a classic fantasy tale By Blood tells the story of confronting death. This film is well set and well told.
By Bloodwas screened at the 2019 FilmQuest film festival (website). It was nominated for Best Score and Best Costumes.
I would recommend this film to those who enjoy a good sword and sorcery style tale. Below Jonathan Delerue and Guillaume Enard shared more information about where they developed from and what it took to bring it to the screen to share. They also give a hint about what they have coming in the future and some tidbits about their past.
Synopsis: Once a ruthless war lord who won his land by his sword, Mort-Lieu is now a sick old man. A mysterious knight appears; Mort-Lieu believes the stranger is Death himself coming to get him. Facing his own end, Mort-Lieu has to confront his legacy.
What was the inspiration for By Blood?
We're Jonathan Delerue and Guillaume Enard. We are the director, writer and producer of the short movie "By Blood.". "Par le Sang" in French.
The story is loosely based on the iconic French knight DuGuesclin's story. DuGuesclin was an illegitimate child. He defeated anonymously all his father's men in a tournament to gain the right to bear his name. When he ended up confronting his father, he knelt down before him. It's a powerful and moving story! However, we quickly realized it was much better if narrated through the father's point of view, especially if the man is sick and facing his own death. You could build the story around the mystery and the threat of the Dark Knight. When we first considered about making a medieval film, we agreed to envision it as a western. We believe that the medieval genre should be to us French audience like western and samurai movies for the American and Japanese spectators. We can call it a "Ratatouille Sword & Armor Western!" J
However, making a historical short film in France is extremely challenging because the industry believes producing this kind of feature is too complicated. The first two years we applied to the funding institutions in France with no results because of the scope of our film. If the French movie industry assumes making a historical movie is very expensive, we knew we could do it within a decent budget. When we understood that no one in France would make a bold move with such an unusual production, we decided to jump and fully self-finance it—and we created Claymore Films and we searched for a co-producer to take over the shooting...
What project(s) do you have coming up you're excited about?
We're started working with a well-known French Production Company on a full feature horror film. It's about an iconic French grim reaper… We also have a very ambitious project. It's a medieval thriller, something between The Silence of the Lambs and Name of the Rose.
What was your early inspiration for pursuing a career in film?
Filmmaking is a particular art, a unique way to tell stories. You deal with costumes, sets, acting, light, music and so much specific, artistic craftsmanship. You can't achieve a film by yourself, you need to work with very talented people. It's a team effort to create a realistic fantasy world and bring one's vision to the big screen.
What would be your dream project?
It's a medieval movie based on a dark period of French History. We don't want to be too much historically accurate. We want to use History to tell our story. It's a siege movie with something of Shane and Mad Max 2 in it.
What are some of your favorite pastimes when not working on a movie?
Jonathan likes to go trekking in the Northern countries. He's a true Stark! I like to read and watch movies myself.
What is one of your favorite movies and why?
Robin and Marian, directed by Richard Lester, with Sean Connery as Robin Hood and Audrey Hepburn as Marian. Returning to Sherwood from the crusades, old Robin Hood tries to ignite a new rebellion against King John like the old days. It's an amazing love story and a melancholic, fun movie about old age and the passing of time…
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Sergio Leone… it's an epic, fun and very clever western that uses the three main characters' lust for gold to tell us about the mess that war brings…
I'm working at keeping my material free of subscription charges by supplementing costs by being an Amazon Associate and having advertising appear. I earn a fee when people make purchases of qualified products from Amazon when they enter the site from a link on Guild Master Gaming and when people click on an ad. If you do either, thank you.
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
I have articles being published by others and you can find most of them on Guild Master Gaming on Facebookand Twitter(@GuildMstrGmng).
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)
Entradas
