Saturday, August 31, 2024

DragonStrike . . . the manual!

I was talking to my friend over at Starstruck Games on Twittter a couple days ago, and they mentioned reading my blog post about Dragonride VR and how that reminded them of an old computer game called DragonStrike. I hadn't heard of it before, so I did a few searches, and lo and behold there it was on Steam for 3 bucks. DONE!


Guys, I'm playing the first-ever dragon combat simulator!

After playing it I was instantly transported back to the days in the early early 90's when I would play a turn-based D&D game on my old Commodore 64. (I can't even remember what the game was.) While this isn't turn-based, the graphics and music are spot on.

A recipe for awesomeness: dragon jousting, goo-covered battlefields, and my enemies dead before me!

To be honest, the best thing about this game is not the game . . . it's the manual! 

Whoa . . . this is an AD&D Computer Product?

I mean, yes, you can fly around, home in on a dragon, and either joust its rider or blast it with a breath weapon in several different polygonal pixelated environments, but let's talk about this MANUAL! Look at this beautiful gem of information . . . a schematic on how a dragon lance is put together and attaches to a dragon saddle? What?!

So that's how it all works . . . huh . . . it's all right there . . . in the manual . . .

I mean, there's a 3-page story, the jousting schematic, controls, orders and ranks for dragon jousters, a description of each area of the map, stat sheets for each type of dragon, and a printable keyboard command layout. Could you imagine being the writer for this manual? That's a pretty sweet gig.


"Argent is small for his 723 years of age."

The game itself is a hard-to-play piece of ancient trash, BUT THIS MANUAL IS GOLD! I say it's 3 bucks well spent!


If you ever wondered how the progression of Dragon Jousters work, there you go.

That's more lore and goodness than you can shake a D20 at! The funny thing is, if you ever lost the manual to this game, you were screwed because to play the game, it actually asks you to type words from the manual to verify you bought the game. The manual and the game are tied together by a virtual serial cable that could never be severed! As the execs at Westwood surely once said, "Ain't no kid gonna just copy this game to a floppy and share it with his friends! He's gotta go through Kinkos as well!"

Closing in on my next dragon jousting target!

I was only ever able to get to the 4th mission in the game. I'm sure if I was 14 and had a full day to kill I could get a little higher in the ranks of  The Knights of the Rose, but I hear BG3 calling to me. 

DragonStrike is a great blast from the past, and if anyone wants to build me that dragon-jousting VR game of my dreams, there's a manual for that!

Happy Dueling! 

Friday, August 30, 2024

To combine or not combine, that is my question!

So, I've been thinking about pulling all my archives under one roof. This roof specifically being The Friendly Necromancer blog . . . But I'm not sure. What do you, my readers, think?

For context, I have several other blogs that are out there collecting dust that I'm not sure what I should do with them. Specially these:


I could easily port these blog posts into this blog and insert them into my timeline and be done with the subject separation.

Or, perhaps I only pull over a few Greatest hits? We're talking bangers like:


... or maybe I do nothing at all. Which is what I've been choosing to do for the past decade.

The benefit of pulling these all over is that I can search them up on this blog at any time. If I ever made a book out of my top posts, they'd possibly be included. It would add weight to those early years of blogging to show just how much writing I did back then. 

Some detriments include breaking up the flow of all those Wizard101 posts back in the day. There's also some maintenence of old posts that would need to be done. And, well, it's easier to just do nothing.

I don't know. I guess that's why I'm asking for advice.

I suppose I could also just link more directly to those old blogs on a sidebar? Or maybe I make a blogpost about each one of my old blogs and link list / summarize the greatest hits?

Not sure.

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Still The Friendly Necromancer in 2024?

So, I don’t think I’m exactly winning any popularity contests in the blogging world these days. I mean, back in my quote-unquote heyday circa 2011 when I was a Wizard101 official fansite and scored a job off my blog, yeah, that was life-changing, to say the least. Let's just say that here in 2024, well, things have changed, or have they?

To be honest, I don't even know if I was notable in the blogosphere even back then! It's not like I was ever overwhelmingly popular with the general gaming crowd or anything. I was niche, and I certainly wasn't winning accolades for my writing. In that regard, I guess I've always been a bit of an outsider. Anyway, in the name of introspection and Blaugust (it is Lessons Learned week), let's take a look at where I'm sitting these days.

I guess this is where I'm sitting these days?

First off, I haven’t really been able to dive into the whole blogging community thing with many other bloggers. Sorry! I’ve tried to keep up on the Blaugust Discord and read more posts from others, but let’s be real—life happened, and I just haven’t made it a top priority. Not participating means, no tit-for-tat commenting. It means, not being part of the larger discourse. Instead, I'm over here talking about Spongebob in Brawl Stars on a Blogspot blog instead of Wordpress site (I don't think I'm winning accolades for my content choices or blog design either.)

Secondly, I used to be all about MMOs back in the day. Why, finding myself noted on the Global Chat Community Roundup for Massively OP was fuel for my soul! Now? Well, it'd be food for my soul, but I don't even have the time to log in to an MMO, let alone write about them. Truth, I almost logged into DCUO the other day just to snag my 50th anniversary D&D gift, but… meh. (Side note: Man, I really should log into DCUO for my free D&D gift!!!)

Thirdly, let’s not forget my hot takes, which are about as mild as they come. When I joined KingsIsle, I got a friendly reminder from my boss at the time to not go too wild on my personal blog, so my posts ended up being more like gaming journals than anything else. Uh, I don't think I've had a hot take in years. I don't even think I'm UP to the drama of a hot take. Probably the only reason my blog hasn't died is that I've been dragging it along like a ball and chain for the past decade or so. (Wait, was that a hot take?)

Finally, I’ve been deep into VR, which seems to be as out of place as using a typewriter for coding here among the other Blaugustians. And not only have I been deep in VR, but I've been deep in weird VR . . . match-3 VR even. You haven't read the things I've seen, but that’s okay. I’m here, still diving into Blaugust, and having fun along the way. (mmm . . . diving . . .)

Of course, it’s not just about recognition and accolades and all that. Has it ever been? Nay, I say. It’s about finding satisfaction in what I do and keeping that ball and chain tightly locked to my left leg, right? (or is it my right leg, left?) I'm my own special kind of weird, and I'm guessing since you made it this far down into the blog post, you fit in that category as well! So, raise your water bottles from Walmart, I guess here’s to sticking with what we enjoy and making the most of the journey, even if the spotlight is broken?

Uhhh ... look, I don't even know if I know my own true intentions and motivations with all this blogging. Maybe it's just boredom? Maybe it's tradition? Maybe it's the fact that my TikToks rack up even less views than my blog does? 

Why do I even keep this tagline at the end of my posts?

Happy dueling?

(I'm sure I'll figure it out -- yeah, I'm still the Friendly Necromancer. Even after all these years. How's that for a hot take? Maybe I should bring back my Pet of the Day series . . . the thrill is real!)

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Some Enemy/Hero Design Examples

Several months ago I started writing about some examples of enemy designs I had done back when I was still actively looking for a Design job. I never finished this breakdown, but since I'm low on content for Blaugust, I figured I'd go ahead and publish what I've done so far and count it as a free post for the day! Easy!

At some point I'll probably revisit this post and finish it up with pictures and more examples from FFA and possibly Gloom Busters. For now, I hope you enjoy reading about a few enemies I had a hand in designing.

~~

Battle Bows Enemy Designs

Battle Bows is a cooperative VR Archery Tower Defense game where you protect your castle from invading balloon enemies

I designed the Battle Bows enemies to come in three styles: 

  • Basic -- Always defeated in one shot and not immune to any damage from powers
  • Advanced -- Mostly still defeated in one shot and have various features that make them harder than basic enemies
  • Boss -- Multi-hit enemies with a twist and always finding unique ways to indicate damage states rather than using health bars
Details of each enemy design are below.

Basic Enemies

The main difference in how basic enemies behave is with their movement speeds and characteristics, for example:

  • The Cyclops is the slowest enemy with the most predictable movement.
  • The Speedster has a repeating jumping pattern and moves much faster.
  • The Ninja is the fastest of the three and has points programmed into its pathways to pause in place as if to appear they are hiding behind a tower, house, or tree. 

Basic enemies are the meat of the game. You'll always find one of these three enemies on the board and while at first they're not a threat, eventually there is a sense of overwhelm that comes with them swarming in numbers.

Advanced enemies

One of my favorite aspects of this design is that most of these enemies give skilled players opportunities to kill them outright with a single shot, or they'll require a trick to defeat them, for example: 

  • The Flier is a Cyclops mounted on a cloud. If you hit the enemy instead of the cloud, it is defeated. If you hit the cloud instead of the enemy, it tumbles to the ground and begins to path to the door.  The flier can float over the wall and go straight for your heart, so you must deal with them quickly.
  • The Phantom can be defeated with one hit, but only when it stops to recast its invisibility spell, otherwise, it is invincible.
  • The Golem drags two bombs behind it. You have to destroy the bombs to blow up the golem. The golem can destroy themselves at the door or heart for a huge amount of damage, so while they move slowly, they are deadly if you ignore them.
  • The Necromancer has three shields that circle around it. If you can aim for its head, you will avoid the shields altogether. The necromancer is named such because it occasionally drops eggs onto the ground that hatch into one of the three basic enemy types.  It also can throw a brain bolt at the player that will obscure their view if they don't dodge the projectile.
  • The Rocketeer raises on a platform from a point in the level, ignites their rocket, and shoots toward the heart. It is the fastest enemy in the game. You've got to hit the rocket, not the balloon, so, most times, this enemy will take two hits to defeat.
  • The Warlock is a slower enemy that likes to lurk along the edges at first and shield itself and other enemies. If an enemy has a shield, you have to pop the shield before you can defeat it.

These advanced enemies begin to be sprinkled in as you get further in the game. For example, you may find only one flier per tower at round 3, but by round 5 there could be as many as three fliers per tower. This not only gives you time to get used to how to defeat an enemy but allows for complexity to build over time.

Bosses

The bosses were by far the most fun and complex enemies to design. 

  • Cubert is a single-hit boss that sits within a spinning six-sided shield that has three charges per side.
  • Snoozer has three eyes that require three hits each, but you have to use a power to wake Snoozer up before the eyes become vulnerable
  • Blinky has five eyes that require three hits each. The catch here is that eyes can regenerate back open if you don't take them down fast enough.
  • The Bomber King circles the outside of the castle alternating between throwing gunk at the player and making free throws on the heart with a bomb.

Every four rounds, a boss appears near the mid-point of the wave. At wave 20, players will begin to encounter two bosses every fourth wave.

Increasing Difficulty

We had to cap the number of enemies that could appear in a wave for Quest 2 optimization reasons, so mid-development we decided to add a move speed, base attack damage, delay timer for the first attack, and then a general attack delay for each enemy. As gameplay progresses through waves, these values adjust to make the enemies more difficult. This also allowed us to define a clear point in gameplay when damage values and speed from enemies would be so extreme we could do our best to avoid infinite gameplay, which would make network costs unpredictable.


FFA Hero Design Examples

Fantasy Fighter Arena (FFA) was a turn-based wrestling game that focused on collecting and leveling heroes. Ultimately the game was canceled in prototype, but it was the first time I was able to work with AI scripting to design how heroes would behave when controlled by the computer. In addition, building and balancing a "kit" for heroes was incredibly fun to do.

We began FFA in a paper prototype setting. As an example, one test character I built at the time was a zombie called "Dusty Erodes," who focused on damaging other heroes who attacked him.

As time went on, Dusty became a female fire elf who had the same kit, but different visuals that still made sense. Instead of being damaged by a contact poison, damage over time was caused by fire. We needed more female characters in the game and you definitely don't want to touch someone whose skin is made of fire!

~~

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Fight You For A Friendship MK 11

About 3 weeks ago I sent a message to my high school buddy. We'll call him by his Internet Handle "Halfbite."

I just sent him that picture...

Now, Halfbite is amazing, first of all. He's one of those people that when you get around him, you are instantly energized, and it's like you're suddenly 17 again. Honestly, Halfbite is one of my most favorite people in the world.

So back in high school we used to play a couple of arcade games, Arknoid and Mortal Kombat.  Both of those games were at a local grocery store and our lunch breaks were spent grabbing something to eat and spending a quarter or two on playing those two games.

Later in our 20's he would come over to my apartment and we'd play a bunch of Mortal Kombat 2 on the Nintendo 64 together. We, of course, did a lot of other fun stuff that deserves a whole blog post of its own . . . probably a whole book to be honest . . . but for the purposes of this blog post, just know that we loved playing Mortal Kombat together. "Fight you for a Friendship" was one of our things we just used to say to each other. (Referring to the Friendship Fatalities in Mortal Kombat II)

I take being ID'd to buy MK11 as a compliment 

Now that I'm back in Utah, it means I can do things like text him and tell him to come over to once again play, you guessed it, Mortal Kombat. In fact, just this Sunday we were reunited in Mortal Kombat.

I didn't want to spend full price to pick up the newest Mortal Kombat, but I definitely sprung for a used copy of MK 11.

It was pretty great. Mind you, we paused and just talked about stuff for about half of the time he was there, but I was super happy just to get 4 or 5 matches in with him. As per normal, we were evenly split in victories over each other. We both were basically just smashing buttons trying to find the special moves, and I don't think either of us ever pulled off a finishing move.

Scorpion vs Subzero, a classic match up 

I couldn't have been happier.

Last night I again put MK11 on the Switch and played a bit just for fun.  My wife and oldest were watching and we ended up going through the fatality tutorials and started rating them to our own personal tier list.  Ridiculously bloody and goofy fatalities are exactly what you expect from Mortal Kombat, and that is exactly what we got.

Raiden about to fry some undead

There were just too many to rank and we gave up halfway through. As I'm typing this, I can't even think of who all we gave an S-tier to, but I remember Sonya and Baraka ranked pretty high.  Sonya's fatality involved kicking and shooting a person up into some helicopter blades and Baraka peeled off a face, sliced open the brain, and then grabbed it like a shishkabob on his claw and snacked on it.  Yeah, that's mortal kombat for you.

Anyway, I don't play many M-rated games, but this is an exception. I hope I get to play more MK11 with Halfbite. It's one of the lost joys from younger years.

Happy Dueling!

Monday, August 26, 2024

Yup. Spongebob is coming to Brawl Stars

Well there it is ... I didn't really know if the rumors were true or not, but Supercell just pulled off a Spongbob collaboration.

Bikini Bottom at its Brawliest

I was so positive Clancy would be wearing the Spongebob skin, but nope, they gave it to El Primo. That actually does make more sense since so many more people would have access to El Primo whereas Clancy is a bit harder to get.

The finer things in life always cost money

The exclusive Brawl Pass skin for the season of Spongebob will be Mortis Squidward! I'm not very good at playing Mortis nor the clarinet. :(

The other characters will be Patrick Buzz, Sandy Jessie (with Gary Turret), Mr. Krabs Tick, and Plankton Daryl. 

New power ups are going to be active and changing gameplay Sept 5th to October 7th -- all Spongebob themed. You'll also get a couple new game modes as well, including a Jellyfish collecting game and a new 12-person Trio showdown. 

Honestly, it all sounds pretty great, and you can get all the details from their recent video.


That also mentions a couple new Brawlers and an upcoming Halloween event by the way...

Man, I can't even imagine how fun it must be to work on this game and with a Marketing Team that can pull off a collaboration like this. It's also great to see that this game is technically successful enough STILL to be having events like this. Even if Spongebob isn't your cup of kelp juice, you've gotta be impressed by at least that.

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Fully Milking BG3 Act 1

 As of tonight, I've officially stepped into Act 2 of Baulder's Gate 3!

Why wouldn't I let a Drider show me the way to Moonrise Towers? What could go wrong?

I really did try to milk Act 1 for all I could get out of it though before moving on, There was a side trip to a Goblin hideout where I pretty much slaughtered everyone and everything along the way. Then I took a trip over to the Monastery and the Githyanki Creche 

The lack of handrails is slightly concerning. Is there a Safety Officer in the Monastery?

That was actually pretty fun! I can't believe Dylan and I just walked right passed all this side stuff. Inside I found a bunch of loot and adventure in a broken-down monastery, including a pretty great fight with giant eagles in the highest reaches.

Sorry about disturbing you in your nest and all that . . .

I honestly can't even remember how I stumbled into the Githyanki Creche, but while I was there I recovered an egg, I destroyed a couple of high-ranking Giths, and even managed to irritate the Githyanki wanna-be Goddess herself.

Sorry for killing all your gith friends, Vlaakith

Finally, I sought out some harpies I remembered that I had forgotten and explored an underground cave where the Zhentarim were holed up.  To be honest, I felt pretty murderous here at the end. I was killing everything in sight.

It's like I'm a cooler Iksar with a Barbarian's Wolf pet

By the end of it all my Everquest Beastlord experiment was level 7 in total (: a Level 2 monk / Level 3 Beastmaster Ranger / Level 2 Knowledge Domain Cleric. Honestly, I'm not sure I like taking 5 levels of cleric just to get a slow spell, but I'm on a quest and have to make it happen now!

Happy Dueling!  

Saturday, August 24, 2024

My Invisible Doorway of Dune 2

When I went unemployed, I really wanted to see Dune 2 in the theaters, and I never did.  That whole thing was more important to me than the people around me at the time probably knew.

Let me start by saying that I hate to even keep talking about my stretch of unemployment. A lot of people from WIMO had it (and are still going through it) way worse than me. But MAN . . . not being employed for the first time in 26 years really hit me hard and knocked me for a loop. I'm being honest when I say that I truly haven't recovered from it yet ... AND I'M EMPLOYED NOW!! I'm still processing it day by day. My life has changed.

"He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it."

Anyway, back to Dune 2 -- I had this secret silent hope that someone would take me to see it. I really really wanted to see it. Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful here--I had some of the sweetest people I know do incredibly kind things like take me to lunch, treat me with charity, and even just make time to talk to me . . . but this secret hidden hope went unanswered. I even did hint drops LOL! 

It's no big deal really, and I know it's crazy to have secret hopes like that, but there it was, there it is. I should have just gone to see it by myself and treated the precious money spent on the excursion as needed mental health, but I REALLY cut back on spending. I REALLY cut back on everything. I said it before, but I went full-on survival mode.


My friends. Today . . . today I made my wife sit down with me, despite her gripes at it being a long movie, and we watched Dune 2. I'm left feeling very strange. It's like I've closed that loop and walked through a door, but at the same time . . . there never was a door? Does that make sense?

"The world has made choices for us"

The movie itself was pretty great, and I had a blast watching it. It was visually stunning and a fantastic story. My only complaint is with the casting of Christopher Walken -- I can't take him and his cadence of speech seriously anymore, but all that aside . . . I loved it, and I knew I would love it.

I'm glad I can move on from not seeing this movie, and I hope that there was a door there for me. Two quotes in particular from the movie resonated deeply with that situation and felt apropos in a way: "The world has made choices for us," and "When our resources are limited, fear is all we have." I felt that.

I don't know. I just hope that I can feel good about spending money like that again and that these small joys of being alive won't be taken from me again. I also hope that maybe someday I can be the person who answers someone's secret hidden hope while unemployed. Yeah, it'll be good for that person, but it'll also help heal the part of me that's still here hurting. (Hope that's not too honest for y'all.)

I'm not out of the woods yet, but I think I can see a bit of the sunlight breaking through the trees. Thanks, Dune 2.

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 23, 2024

Busy and Brawl Stars

August has turned incredibly busy. My car's in the shop. We're commuting ourselves and our child long distances. School started. Work is busy. I don't know. Everything just kind of exploded here.

At the same time, right now I'm just kind of doing nothing. I'm sitting outside of a house we put an offer on waiting for my real estate agent and typing a post in the blogger app.

And there's my agent ...

(Insert home inspection walk through)

(Imsert trip to my mom's apartment)

(Insert 2 hours at work)

(Insert picking up child from school)

(Insert picking up wife from work)

(Insert dinner)

(Insert dropping kid off to band)

(Insert Target trip)

OK! So it's now 8pm and wow, the day just kinda dissolved. I'm just waiting to pick up my kid from band in an hour or so.

Anyway, the phone has been my main source of entertainment the past couple of days, so let me quickly talk about Brawl Stars!

The end of the road!

I managed to get to the end of the Brawl Pass and thus time I'm about 12 days early. I like it. Along the way I leveled up Shelly to max level, got my favorite skin ever, and won a new Brawler. Not a bad time at all here.

Cowboy Shelly at yer service, ma'am 

The main reason I leveled Shelly is because he has the potential to earn a supercharge power. As it stands now, characters with a supercharge have an advantage over those that don't, so those are are the most "max level worthy" to me.

Reaching into the hells to grab his bow

Next, seriously, this Bo skin is thee best. I love him as a red skinned demon. He's always been an amazing character and this skin is the icing on the cake.

And finally, look at this little doofus!  He's a sno cone machine!

what a little guy! What a little dude!

He's a little weird to play so far, but I do like how he can freeze opponents!

And there you go. I squeezed out a post on a crazy busy day. Whew. I can't belive I'm still loving Brawl Stars! Such a fun game and time killer.

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, August 22, 2024

Evel Knievel Meets 7D2D

A couple days ago, I logged on 7 Days to Die to play with my buddy Dylan and his boys, and I was beckoned to come to them only with the promise that "it'll be worth it" and "you just gotta see this."

With that I hopped on my motorcycle and drove on over to their location, making guesses the entire way . . . what is it? a new base? A captured hoard of zombies?

Full nerd gear on a motorcycle . . . life is good in the apocalypse!

No.  What I discovered was the most amazing Evel Knievel ramp for us to ride our motorcycles up and through . . . a true test of keyboard and mouse dexterity.  I suppose they had gotten extremely bored of building up our base in hopes of confronting the next blood moon and just thought . . . nope . . . time to change this zombie-killing game into Moto X3M!

YEEHAW!!!!

Dylan asked me how I could tech up the ramp, and I immediately went with lights . . . and not only lights, but lights that would turn on as you took that first ramp.  Much to our disappointment, the pressure plates didn't actually sense pressure from motorcycles, which seems like an oversight from the dev team.

Cranking up the cool

So we replaced the pressure plates with motion-sensing cameras, and that "kind of" worked, but for some reason, a few of the lights just never kicked on.  They would kick on if you approached the ramp from one direction, but not from the other direction. 

Anyway, even with just partial lighting from motion sensors, it was still freaking amazing and I can't wait to log on again to see what became of the ramp.  last I heard, they were trying to build on a loop.  Here's to hoping they found a way to make it work.

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

The Grym Truth

Hello friends and happy Blaugust to you all! I've been enjoying writing every day even if it's about random stuff I'm doing in random games.  I'm sure you've noticed, some days are better than others around here, and I kind of feel like today's post is one of those that will be swallowed up to time and forgotten pretty quickly.  Here I am anyway! Just writing about my crazy boss fight in Baulder's Gate 3 with my weird Everquest Beastlord D&D character!  Enjoy! 

YES! VICTORY IS MINE!

I returned to the Grymforge and decided it was time to forge that awesome suit of Adamantine Scale Mail and fight Grym himself.  Knowing that the fight was scripted to cause you to get the boss into the center (just off of center) and slam the giant forge hammer on him two times, maybe 3, that was definitely my goal.

After a reset from a fight gone wrong the first time, I managed to get him down the second time and win not only my freshly forged Scale Mail but also the boss's helm. 

Gotta love that crit resistance on that helm!

I put the Scale Mail on my beastlord and pushed the helm off to Shadowheart, the cleric. It worked pretty well to be honest. I haven't had any complaints so far.

After that, I decided to swing a hard left and see what was up with the fire elemental wandering the lakes of lava in the area. This fight also took a reset because every round that guy heals for a ton . . . basically up to full.  I managed to burn him down eventually and claim his spoils. 

One dead fire elemental, thank you!

The weirdest reward, however, lay just beyond the fire elemental on a small outcropping of rocks where a chest held what appeared to be a possessed amulet that wanted to make you giggle if you didn't make your saving throw.  

Man, being tickled to death and locked inside an amulet would suck

It's quite a tragic piece of jewelry as it turns out since the person whose soul is trapped inside died from laughing torture. This should be interesting!  I'm actually pretty excited to follow that quest and see where it leads me.

Man, it's pretty crazy how much Dylan and I missed on our playthrough before.  I'm pretty happy I've been able to experience all this extra side content I wouldn't have seen if I didn't get the crazy desire to play an Everquest Beastlord in Baulder's Gate 3.

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

What Sounds Come Next?

While I was unemployed, my happy creative life was destroyed and I lost a lot. Slowly by slowly, I'm trying to work my way back into it, but I still haven't felt the pull to create music again.

I've tried to imagine something new that I want to make, but nothing has really stuck yet. I did think through some options the other day:

Option A: Make a redone version of my newly released An Ant Survives a Rainstorm. I have several tracks redone and it would be kind of fun to reimagine all these old songs.

I was kinda Aphex Twin before Aphex Twin

Option B: Make a "soft grooves" album. I love the healing aspect of this thought -- like I've been through a lot here this year, and I need to be kind to myself, why not do it with some beauty and fun.

Option C: Do a bit of percussive minimalism. Half way through last year I discovered a drummer named Tony Verderosa and his song The only way out is in, and I fell in love with it. It's something I kind of always wished I could do back when I was playing on a pure electronic set in my 20's.

Wish I played as well as Tony V.

Option D: I have two VR music programs that I love making music in. One is called Virtuoso and the other is called Paradiddle. The only problem I have with these programs is the output sound quality is pretty garbage compared to what you might get out of a PC . . . and that may be my problem. The sound is coming from video recorded within the Quest 2 headset. That said, I love the concept of using those two programs to make an album of music.

The wavering is my favorite VR instrument!

Option E: French techno -- it'd be kind of fun to do a deep dive into French Techno and see if I can recreate it. I've got the perfect band name for an album of French Techno. That alone makes me want to do it.

Honestly, if I had the drive, I'd do all five projects.  I have about 6 songs that I've already done for Option A and perhaps I could wrap option A and B into one. Option C and D are possible to combine thanks to Paradiddle. Option E is just out there, which is what attracts me most to it.

... and then there's option F: none of the above.

Anyway, thought I'd take this opportunity during Blaugust to just think it through and type a bit.  I don't know if I'm any closer to what I actually want to do. What do you think?

Happy Dueling

Monday, August 19, 2024

Grymforged Beastlord

I had entirely too much fun yesterday playing Baulder's Gate 3. My Level 2 Monk/Level 2 Ranger (aka the Everquest Beastlord project) finally dinged Level 2 Monk / Level 3 Ranger and now I can summon a beast to actually be a lord over. Man, I'm so bummed that one of the possible summons isn't a large lizard or a velociraptor. It'd be so much cooler for this character. On the upside, it is kind of neat that you don't have to choose just one summon as your perma-pet and stick with it. If I want, I can summon up a bear, a boar, a wolf, a raven, a frog ... all on a short rest refresh, which gives me a lot more versatility to be honest. 

Anyway, to ding that level, I did a bunch of snooping around in a far corner of Act 1 that I hadn't explored before and that caused me to run into some evil red caps and a terrifying hag!

She's terrifying.

Defeating that hag was pretty fun. Not only was just getting down to her lair an adventure, but the "save the girl" mechanic was pretty great. (side note: I saved the girl . . . let's not talk about me turning her dead husband into a zombie.) After that, I once again descended down to the depths of the Underdark. I had so much fun poking around in the remote corners of the map above ground, that I decided to do the same below ground. That led me to a fun jumping section of the map over by the Grymforge. 

I'm glad there's no jumping athletics check for this.

It was pretty great fighting a group of lava mephits that exploded upon death. I ended up spreading my party out to minimize the splash damage. Unfortunately, I had to redo this fight over a couple of times because I forgot to save twice before wandering into the next fight with the forge guardian.

Yeah, um, I wasn't prepared for a scripted fight when I'm used to just straight-up killing things. An enemy that's resistant to almost all forms of damage? Mmm, no thanks.

Karlach turn the wheel, turn the wheel, Karlach!

Not to worry, I'm saved and just waiting to finish this off. Gimme that adamantine scale mail! 

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Saturday Morning Ogden Adventure

It's been a while since I talked about my donut adventures, and I only mentioned it a couple times here on the blog. To sum it up, back when I moved to Texas there were so many donut shops that we dubbed Saturday mornings as the "Saturday Morning Donut Adventure." Every Saturday we'd find a new donut shop and drive there.  This tradition lasted several years -- not every Saturday mind you -- but we hit a good number of donut shops in the Greater Austin area and beyond.

Out for some Saturday Morning fun!

Fast forward to yesterday, I had been given a tip by a coworker that the best donuts in Utah happened to be in a Farmer's Market popup that happens every Saturday on 25th Street in Ogden. Now, I actually have quite the history with 25th Street!  Lemme break it down.

First, 25th Street used to be the third busiest street in the world thanks to a major railway hub there. For many, it was a last stopping point before being shipped off to war and they spent all their money right there on alcohol, women, and gambling. My dad used to actually sell newspapers and work a soda fountain at a pharmacy on 25th Street during this monumental time. He always had a ton of stories to share about it.

Second, I used to live on 25th Street myself in my early 20's, right above the Great Harvest Bakery. It was a pretty memorable time in my life when breakfast used to be going downstairs to get a fresh piece of bread and downing a chocolate milk to go with it.  I was writing music all the time on my synths and penning a lot of stream-of-consciousness poetry.  It was a pretty wild time.

Good old Great Harvest Bakery on 25th Street

I would have loved for a farmer's market to pop up and take over three blocks of 25th Street on Saturdays back in the day!  Now I guess it's just the norm. 

A pretty quirky live band nestled between the buildings

All up and down now on 25th street on Saturdays, you'll find live street bands, clothing shops, baked goods, farm fresh produce, and all manner of knick-knacks.  For us, the draw was first and foremost the donuts. (Although the wife did drop $100+ on clothes there *shudder*) The donuts come from a truck dubbed the Yoder's Family Kitchen and seemed to be run by an industrious Mennonite family.

Yoder's Family Kitchen . . . the food truck

The donuts themselves were warm, fresh sourdough donuts in a large loop that had to be eaten with two hands.  I'd say one Yoder donut was equal to two regular-sized donuts. While donuts are off the menu for me (thanks to developing diabetes a few years ago), the family said they tasted akin to the famous Round Rock donuts we used to love in Texas.

MEGA DONUT BITE!

It's good to know that Saturdays in Ogden are a bit more awesome these days. I'll be back again, but next time for the street tacos.

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, August 17, 2024

The BG3 Beastlord Continues!

 Oh no!  The day ends in a couple hours and I haven't even started writing a blog post today!  *cracks fingers* I got this.

It's been a pretty great day today full of videogames and random fun with the family.  I'll talk more about the random fun tomorrow, but for today, let's talk a little bit about Baulder's Gate 3.

Time for Shadowheart to roll a nat 20!

The past couple of days I've been dipping back into Baulder's Gate 3 to continue a play-through of my Everquest Beastlord build I've been wanting to make.  I was hoping by the end of the day to be level 5, but I've ended up only at level 4. I'm now a level 2 monk and a level 2 ranger. 

The Beastlord and his crew

I'm liking it so far and the NPCs I've chosen to accompany me on this play-through are pretty great. I've got Karlach in my sights for a love interest, although it seems Gale and Asterion really want me to go after them. Speaking of Asterion, I'm loving my new vampiric thief sidekick. He's pretty great in combat. Shadowheart is also fantastic for healing everyone and adding a bit of burn with her cleric spells and flail.

The big battle for today was wiping out the entire goblin camp. It's a little crazy how I just destroyed that place. I started out trying to get in with my goblin insider friend I freed from prison, but then I just went full murder hobo on all of them and couldn't stop.  The very end involved me kiting a big group of goblins down a pathway and behind a waterfall.

Hiding behind a waterfall and murdering goblins one-by-one

I was hoping all that killing would get me to fifth level, but alas.  When I left off I had traveled down into the underdark and made nice with the myconids.  My next target will be the Druegar dwarves, but knowing that the battle ahead of me will take a solid half hour to an hour, I called it so I could run to my blog and type up a quick missive.

down down down we go into the Underdark

My next level for the Beastlord will be dinging level 3 as a ranger, and then I'll probably switch over to cleric for a bit.

It's been really enjoyable going back into the game, but I know at some point soon I'll have to stop playing so Dylan and I can finish our play-through.  He's been keeping us busy in 7 Days to Die.  Tomorrow's fun will be taking on another blood moon. It'll be great!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 16, 2024

August Squad Busters Update

Gosh dangit. Squad Busters updated their game and it was lame and safe and exactly what one would expect from an update. Tipa was 100 percent correct despite my hopeful desires for mode modes and styles of play.



The patch notes are actually quite extensive (which makes sense with a new game's first release) So, here's the Squad Busters update in a nutshell:
  •  A new battle area called Lava World -- Now when you play, sometimes Lava World pops up as an event world you can enter. After August 21st, that world will get put into your squad journey as a world you unlock.

  • Pancakes -- You collect pancakes from playing and convert those into battle chests that have rewards inside them. That also ends with the event on August 21st.

    House of Pancakes? Chests of Pancakes!

  • Three New Troops -- They added more money grinds into the game as Tipa suggested above. Archer, Miner, and Leon. 


  • Megas Removed -- The cool uber mobs you could recruit into your team were too swingy and so they changed them into skins.


    Aww. I liked Megas!

  • Balance Changes -- Troops were nerfed and buffed.
So, yes, new troops for people to invest in. So far I've recruited 2 of the 3 (Miner and Archer).

You no take candle!

Maybe someday my dream of new modes will come to fruition, but not today.

Happy Dueling!