Personal Projects: Order of the Stick Amber Characters Part 3

And me in Pete's game!

Personal Projects: Order of the Stick Amber Characters Part 2

Here's Andy from Mikey's game!

Personal Projects: Order of the Stick Amber Characters

Because my GMs in both Amber games (Mikey in one and Pete in the other) award bonus XP for additions into their games, I figured I'd turn our characters into Order of the Stick characters. I will now upload each as I complete them for the enjoyment of all!

The first is my character in Mikey's game.

Facebook Games: The Addiction Grows

I never fancied myself a Facebook game player.

Most times I tried playing any Facebook games, I got bored quickly with some aspect or another and uninstalled them.

Well, that was then and this is now.

I've started playing various Facebook games for various reasons and am now thoroughly addicted to them to the point of obsessively checking them every few minutes to see if there's something new I can do or accomplish. It's getting to be rather terrible, honestly. I even bought some of those ridiculous Facebook Coins for one of the games.

Well, here, I'll be talking about them, the ones I play that is, in a bit of detail so that everyone knows what to avoid (or what's good, if you're a glutton for punishment).

Zombie Lane

Ah, Zombie Lane. I got started in this because I am currently, as you may have guessed from some earlier posts, working on an amateur zombie movie. Several of the people involved in the movie started playing this game, no doubt in honor of the movie, and kept sending me TONS OF INVITATIONS. I, as per normal, would reject most requests, but finally relented and added it.

What is the premise, you may ask? Well, it's essentially Farmville with zombies. You rebuild your house, plant crops, build fences, find your spouse and dog, and other such tasks, all the while fending off hordes of zombies.

I have to give this game credit for the sheer variety of...well...everything! There are ten different variety of zombies of varying strength, design, etc. There are at least 12+ different kinds of weapons available with different strengths. Achievements, item collections, crops, decorations, missions, etc. all have different flavors and whatnot.

Now, I say the missions are varied, and they are, but for the most part they boil down to "kill this many zombies", "do this many of a task", or "collect so many of an item". Those three vary on how it's accomplished, who (between yourself, your spouse, or your dog) is performing them, and where (your home or your neighbors' places) they're done.

For the most part, I like Zombie Lane immensely. Or maybe I'm just hopelessly addicted...

Alchemy

The above picture isn't the Facebook version of the game, but it'll do for the purposes of this article. The two (meaning the smart phone version and Facebook version) are essentially the same.

The premise is simple. You start with the four base elements, and start combining two things to get other things and then combine the new things with other things to get more things and so on. This continues until all combinations and items are discovered. 

The game itself is a bit glitchy, often acting up when you try to move some of the elements. Also, like any of the Alchemy games, the combinations can be a bit ridiculous to figure out. For example, I believe the combination I was scratching my head over was "Woman" which required "Human" plus..."Bird"? 

Sometimes I don't even know...

Dungeon Overlord

Dungeon Overlord is a new addition to my addiction to Facebook gaming. I added it at the insistence of my friends who say that it is "awesome". I figured...why the hell not?

The game was a bit complicated at the get-go, but the same friends that suggested it were also kind enough to walk me through the basics. You start off with a simple dungeon and build upon it to create a powerful force of goblins, orcs, warlocks, and possibly other creatures later on. 

Again, I'm new to it. 

It's part strategy, part simulation, and part adventure as you control the various aspects of the dungeon you build. You control food production, the mining of gold, iron, and crystal, arcane research...so many things. You have to decide what items are worthy purchases and balance your pools of resources accordingly to build your own dungeon!

It's pretty fun so far. 

 Bejewled Blitz

The original go-to in casual gaming. I added Bejewled on Facebook because I needed a distraction inbetween sessions of the other games (mostly to wait for energy/resources to accumulate before doing anything else). 

It's actually quite addicting once you get started with it! I found myself playing round after round trying to beat my personal best of 102k, which is NOT easy, let me tell you. There's also some silly leveling system to show others how many games of it of you've played, but it has no real bearing on gameplay as far as I can tell.

And that's about it so far! I've managed to keep my Facebook gaming to a minimum thankfully and hopefully I can stave off any more in the future. I don't think my time can be wasted anymore than it already is so...yeah.

Man...so addicting.

A Taste of India Special Event

Ah, India!

A week or so ago I saw this ad on...Facebook, I think it was? It was for a local event called A Taste of India being held at the Ted Constant Center (located on ODU campus). Me not being a biggot and a worldly individual (or try to be at least), decided I wanted to attend. Viewing this as an opportunity to spend time with my lady, I invited her much to her delight and happiness (she'd been wanting to go but had no one to go with).

So, we went! And it was quite fun!

Granted, it didn't have the varied enjoyment of, say, a renaissance festival or a theme park, but it still had it's own appeal in opening up certain aspects of a strange culture for people such as myself to experience. You initially walk in realize that this is not only a chance for regular joes like me to get a literal "taste" of India, but also a chance for the local businesses run and owned by Indian people to advertise.

The entire first stretch of the event was lined with booths of various Indian-owned businesses. Everything ranging from real estate, law practice, wedding photography. It was quite the site to see considering there must have been, oh, 10-12 different booths?

None of these interested me, however, so Julia and I moved right along.

Rounding a corner, we walk out into the main stage area.

This area was encircled by food vendors offering a variety of Indian cuisines (along with other cuisine vendors on the upper floor), and the main stage area where dancing performances were being done to the delight of the audience.

I didn't actually see many of the dances, but the ones I saw were almost entirely children. I have nothing wrong with children performing the dances of their native homeland, but I expected there to be some real professional-level bollywood-style dancing going on up there. Maybe it was later in the day, after we departed.

Ah, well.

Finally, there was the dealer room with a large number of stalls selling Indian-related goods. Specifically, but not entirely limited to, jewelry and female clothing. I made good use of this opportunity to splurge and buy my lady a few nice blouses and whatnot to enjoy. She, in turn, bought me a kurta! A nice black (go figure) kurta to enjoy and possibly use in future videos and movie projects.

We HAD a picture of me in said kurta, but Julia accidentally didn't save it haha. Poor thing was so upset about it after the fact.

The event was enjoyable but if I noticed a few things I would do differently to improve upon things. As I stated earlier, try and mix older dancers in with the children's performances. That way we can see the up-and-coming young'ns giving it their all AND see some semi-professional dancers. Next, I would like to see a little more variety in what was offered. Maybe have some booths set up discussing the history of India or some of the key sites IN India. It would have been nice to actually LEARN something y'know? Back to the main stage show, they should really get some better people to host because those ladies, as nice as I'm sure they were, did NOT grasp my attention to want to watch anything. I did anyway because I wanted to see the performances, but those hostesses KILLED it. Finally, and this is really nitpicking, but do NOT put the only exits in the entire building in a place that requires no food or drink. What if I want to leave with my drink? I can't do that if the only exit door is in a room that DOESN'T ALLOW FOOD OR DRINK.

People are nuts. Haha it was fun though and I'd like to go back next year if possible. Check it out.

EDIT: OH! I almost forgot! One of the foods Julia and I tried was a dessert called "rose ice cream". It's just like regular ice cream but it had the SWEETEST taste with, I kid you not, a floral aftertaste. It was amazing!

What is a line?: A followup on wards and tactical nuclear powers

So, we're back to lines.



Another session of Mikey's Amber game has come and gone since our first experimentation with our powers. We have since had more chances to try out certain ideas we've had. I, myself, have discovered several very important facts yet still have more puzzling questions.

I suppose the first of the two biggest facts I learned about my power is that when I was told that "lines" were the basis of my power, it really meant "wards". Wards, in the Amber games (and probably most other formats), are barriers of varying design that are created to block various things. In the Amber games, they're used to block physical action, mental, spiritual, perception, etc.

So! Knowing this now, I plan on attempting to integrate "ward" into my mental components to see if they work more effectively. In my brief experimentation last session, I was able to create a physical barrier to protect against harm. I was pleased with this, despite it being broken so easily.

We'll work on that.

The other important fact that I discovered is that I'm able to utilize my power as a "tactical nuclear strike" as we call it, meaning I can use it to cause massive amounts of devastation.

I do this by using my power on the Broken Pattern lines we see when we travel using the Broken Pattern. It was an accidental discovery as Pete wanted me to use those lines to bar the pursuing Amberites from following us. I didn't quite do the mental component properly, causing the lines to crack and schism, releasing the ridiculously large amounts of Chaos creatures on the worlds that the lines connect to.

Oops.

Essentially, I doomed/murdered about 30-40 billion people with that snafu. I felt bad, but appreciated knowing I had the ability for future use. Brand (mentioned earlier) was pleased with the result.

Though, I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

However, now that I've learned these facts, I must proceed forward. Experimentation is key to discover if a line can be metaphorical and symbolic to use my power, or if it requires the line be a physical line or object that I'm calling a line. Can lines I not see also be utilized, like the "lines" on a brain? How can I use this power to its greatest effect?

So many questions and so little time to try. Maybe Mikey will be open to having lunch sometime.

Games that Ruin Friendships: You Don't Know Jack

Ah...here we are again. Back to the land of video games and friendships that ALMOST stood the test of time and trial. In this installment, we'll talk about the ever-maddening You Don't Know Jack.

 

For those of you who don't know about this game, You Don't Know Jack is a long-running series of trivia games that pit players against each other to answer a variety of questions about a variety of topics. I'm not certain how the earlier versions of this game played, but we'll be discussing the most recent X-Box 360 version.

Allow me to paint you the picture. 

It's a Saturday night. I'm at the local game store (Tower of Games, located in Chesapeake, Virginia) waiting for the other players in my weekly Amber game to arrive so we can start playing. One of my other, non-Amber friends, Don, happens to be in the cyber cafe playing You Don't Know Jack. 

He asks me to play. I don't see the harm so I agree. Suddenly, the unspeakable force of rage and friendship destruction swoops in to set the mood and set the bar for my patience: James. Yes, James. The same James from my Lego Star Wars article. 

He wants to play too.

Oh, joy. This should go well.

So the three of us sit down and begin. Now, before I get into the cataclysmic battle of minds and wills that was our couple of rounds playing the game, I have to tell you about the obnoxious manner in which this game presents itself.

This game, I shit you not, sets the tone for wanting to punch people. It's designed in the same style as a game show, where the players are the contestants. The obnoxious part is the disembodied voice host that won't SHUT HIS FUCKING MOUTH EVER. 

I'm not kidding. I hope the goddamn voice actor that read all those fucking lines of dialogue for that goddamn game got paid by the word because he would be fucking RICH after doing You Don't Know Jack. Change questions, he talks. Buzz in, he talks. Answer a question right, he talks. Answer a question wrong, he talks. Screw someone (we'll get to that, I swear), he talks. Pick your nose, he talks. Punch your friend in the junk (we'll get to that too, true story), he talks. Press the start button, he talks. Summon Satan to doom this game to hell forever, he talks.

He NEVER. SHUTS. THE FUCK. UP.

On top of that, the introduction INTO a new round of the game takes fucking forever and he's just talking the whole damn time. So, when the questions actually started getting asked, I was about ready to commit murder on the nearest possible living thing.

Which happened to be James, coincidentally.

Anyway, we begin playing and it acts like a normal trivia game. Get asked a question, buzz in to answer, get points for right answers and lose points for wrong ones. There are different ways questions are asked and whatnot, but it essentially boils down to this:

Right answers good. Wrong answers bad.

In addition to trying to beat your opponents to the right answer, you can literally SCREW them with the "screw" option.

How you do this is simple. When a question is asked, you simply hit the screw button and choose which of your opponents you think doesn't know the answer. When your decision is made, that person gets to pick an answer. If they answer wrong, you lose a LOT of points. If they answer right, the "screwer" loses points. Simple enough.

Except it can be used strategically to not only screw your opponent out of any sort of lead OR hope of winning and simultaneously summon from within that opponent the unbound and unspeakable rage of a thousand exploding suns.

Here's a true story:

Me: Okay guys! Next question.
*question is asked*
James: *hits the screw button*
Don: All right...who do you pick James?
James: Jason, duh. *picks me*
Jason: Ha! I've got this in the bag! *picks the wrong answer and loses the lead*
James: Hahahahaha! You're an idiot!
Jason: *punches James in the junk*

 

Yes, I punched him in the dick. I rendered him unable to act for a couple of minutes, forcing us to pause the game until he was better. Suffice it to say, he wasn't a happy camper. 

But no...the most frustrating and friendship-destroying thing about You Don't Know Jack is the final round of single session of the game. As I stated before, the usual format consists of a question being asked in some form or fashion and the players answer. In the LAST round, however, the game switches it up.

I can't describe it properly but here's the Wikipedia entry:

"After ten questions are completed, the final round of the game is the "Jack Attack" where all players compete against each other. Prior to the round, a brief clue is shown to the players to describe a relationship that they must match, for example "BFF" (Best friends forever). The game then shows one word or phrase, and then cycles through other phrases which the players must match. If players respond to the wrong phrase, they lose money; only the first player to buzz in at the correct time wins and earns money. After seven such phrases, the total scores are added and the winner is determined."
Doesn't seem so bad right? WRONG. Each correct answer is worth like...2000 fucking points. Even the asshole that's in LAST PLACE can win if they get all these questions right. Hell, one time Don was in SEVERE last place and STILL beat us in the last round.

THAT pisses me off. Not just at my friends, but the game itself. The game itself undermines its own system and basically makes it so that everything done up to the last round is meaningless as long as your the fastest trigger finger.

FUCK THAT.