Diablo -- Ultimate Girls Trip Thailand!

Yesterday I played some Diablo 4 while my wife was watching Real Housewives "Ultimate Girl Trip." Which was pretty great, because who doesn't want to listen to rich women get drunk and fight while you're playing a dungeon rich sorceress? I'm in!

You can't tell me she's a wedged-in guest star when she's in center back.

With Stingith in the girls group, the tagline for Ultimate Girl Trip gets a bit punchier than it is now. Add Stingith and it's really "Trouble in Paradise." And I would not want to be the plucky and cute hotel manager/concierge named "Pepsi" to get Stingith a room WITH a view. She needs something a bit broodier. You know? Like, is there a basement apartment with a portal to a dungeon? A girl has needs!

Episode 1 yesterday was titled "We're in Thailand, Bitches!" and featured a little drama right out the bat as Heather made an insensitive comment about Leah's drinking. It was bad enough that it caused Stingith to enter the Wretched Delve, Onyx Hold, the Guulrahn Slums, and the Whispering Vault in order to finish up her Dry Steppes Renown. 

When a housewife doesn't trip while wearing heels, we call it the Dry Steppes

When she came back filled with the spoils of war and a few more extra paragon points, all the housewives had finally gathered at the hotel when Pepsi took all the ladies to their rooms. Thumbs up, great episode, couldn't be happier with the entertainment value.

Episode 2 yesterday was titled "The Elephants in the Room." MAN, when Candiace's shady dinner and off-the-cuff remark threatened to throw the whole trip into chaos, that's when Baewyn the Seer dragged Stingith out of there because if we're going to be thrown into chaos, Baewyn knew it'd be up to Stingith to help the druids bring it back to order. 

Goatmen would have taken that disastrous dinner to the next level. Thanks for stepping in Baewyn.

Episode 3 was BONKERS! Titled "Don't Rock the Boat," Alexi brought a little bit of Miami to Thailand with a boat day on a luxury yacht. The big surprise, of course, was when Pepsi revealed he was actually a shape-shifting werebear known as the Bear of Blackweald! Stingith was all over that and helped him regain his dignity. All the simmering tensions that bubbled to the surface during the boat trip were of no consequence. Pepsi is the true hero.

Pepsi is the true hero of the ultimate girls trip

Honestly can't wait for Episode 4! This one's titled "Dangerous Games," and you know Stingith is ALL ABOUT the dangerous games!

Happy Dueling!

An Adventure at Meow Wolf in Grapevine Texas

All the Summer fun is quickly ending around our house. The kids are back to school next week. That means the Uber Wife goes back to school next week as well (she's an Educational Assistant for special needs kids). Because of this and since my birthday fell nicely near the weekend, we decided to take the 3 hour there and 3 hour back road trip over to a little suburb of Dallas, Texas, known as Grapevine. What's in Grapevine? Meow Wolf! What's Meow Wolf? Let me break it down.

Meow Wolf at a high level is an interactive art exhibit that's basically an expensive Fun House for adults. From the history that I've been told (my oldest is super into this), the first Meow Wolf was in Sante Fe New Mexico, and was really just an experiment to see if this idea could be profitable. The answer was yes, which led to probably the most famous of the Meow Wolf locations, Omega Mart in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The next Meow Wolf location to open up was Convergence Station in Denver, Colorado. This is one my wife and youngest had a chance to visit earlier in the summer when they took a trip to visit her side of the family. A little less than a month ago, the fourth Meow Wolf location opened up in Grapevine, Texas. The experience is titled "The Real Unreal."  

Welcome to the Real Unreal!

The Real Unreal exhibit begins in a house, which very much seems at first like any other house when you enter, but around the rooms you begin to find story clues as to where we find the family that lives there.  So here's the story as much as I could figure out:

Figuring out clues to Jared's disappearance

The boy of the family, Jared, had been missing for three days and the family went in a panic to find him. Jared, as it turns out, had a little not-so-imaginary friend named Happy Gary, a very colorful and crazy axolotl-type-of-whimsical-creature. Jared followed Happy Gary into the Real Unreal for only a short time, but time in the Real Unreal works differently. Upon Jared's return, the whole family got sucked into the Real Unreal because Happy Gary broke something, and now the entire house was serving as a portal into the Real Unreal realm. (um, something like that)

I may be totally wrong on a few things and there seems to be lots of mysterious questions. We ran into a really nice 17-year-old there who took a liking to our nerdy family and kept running into us and talking with us about all the clues and things he had found. He was REALLY into the story. 

I took my 360 camera with me, and unfortunately they didn't allow selfie sticks, so most of my 360 shots also feature my stretched arm and hand holding up the camera, which to be honest, kind of helps sell the vibe of Meow Wolf anyway.

So depending on which portal you take out of the house, you'll end up in different areas of the maze-like exhibit. Eventually the paths kind of converge into a crazy City Street full of neon and wild art. There's a phone booth there with numbers you can call and get random messages about what's happening in the city, like the number we called to find out that every second Tuesday of the month there may or may not be some kind of worm club gathering?

360 photo of a crowded city street ally -- open it up and look around!

Inside the City there's a very chill dance club that plays some really mellow electronic music as the whole black lit and neon filled room undulates to the beat. It was pretty great. We spent a lot of time in this spot, just hanging out and enjoying our time people watching. For an extra 5 bucks a person they'll give you some 3D glasses you can wear, and really the best time to wear these was in this dance club. The colors just gave the walls a new "Real unreal" depth to it.

The undulating dance club of the Real Unreal

There was also a really scuffed up looking arcade here with actual, playable homegrown video games for the exhibit. It was really hard to get some screen time in front of one of the games since there were so many people there, so I let my kids do all the playing while the wife and I sat down on a sofa made from a stitched together pile of clothes.

360 photo of the arcade

Of course, this place also lends itself to Instagram photo opportunities throughout. It definitely has a different vibe than a dedicated photo op installation, but with great spots like the black and white illusion tunnel, it just makes sense: this is a great spot for getting unusual photos and videos.

360 photo of the illusion hallway

It was a long and fun day, and the family had a good time exploring. It might be fun to actually try to come back at a less crowded time than the end of summer on a weekend of the opening month. In fact, a second tuesday of the month, a few months down the road, during the middle of the school year sounds perfect! I'd love to see if there actually was some kind of special worm thing happening at that time. I'm sure Happy Gary would be excited to see us again.

Happy Dueling!

Chilling, Eating, and Dungeon Delving -- It's a good day

I decided to take the day off of work for my birthday yesterday because it was so close to the weekend. I had a nice day, and I have nothing really to write about today, so I'm just going to journal a bit about the day for my Blaugust post today.

The Uber Wife and I started out the day with a really nice walk after dropping our son off to his Band Cult. Yup, the youngest is a new freshman in the high school band, and things have really upped a notch for the band kids since I was one. The tail end of the summer here has been all about Band Camp, and it has become everything in the world. Thus, I've been calling it a cult that we've lost our son to as a joke. Whenever there's fees to pay, I call them cult dues. Whenever there's special clothes he needs to buy, it's his occult robes. Whenever there's a special practice that lasts several hours, it's cult training. You get the idea. In all seriousness, he loves playing the mellophone/french horn, and the high school runs an excellent program here.

It was a sunny Texas morning

Anyway, the walk was wonderful. My wife took me to her new walking spot and it was great. I had given up on Pikmin Bloom a while ago, but wife never did. Because of her persistence, I'm back at it and we were planting flowers, using detectors, and going on expeditions during our walk. I'm also playing Peridot, so I kept toggling between the two apps. 

A magic hatching moment in Peridot

She would point out things that happen on her walk like, "Here comes the guy with the dog that always passes me!" "There's a downed tree up ahead!" "Watch out here the sidewalk is uneven and you can trip!" It was a good time and she got to play tour guide.

After that I grabbed my oldest and we headed over to Leala and Beau's house. They are giving us their old mini fish tank, so we picked it up. It gave me a nice opportunity to show off Leala's collection of Monster High dolls to my oldest, who was absolutely amazed. You too can check out her channel on YouTube at Leala Collects. 

Mac with Leala's amazing collection

For lunch the family wanted to join me in the communal eating of food, so we picked up our little cultist from his band practice and headed to one of my favorite spots here in Austin: Chi'lantro. They've gone a little more streamlined from how they were in the past and their prices have definitely sky rocketed, but it was still delicious as ever. I love to order Umma's Salad with K-pop chicken and a spritz of that magic sauce. SO GOOD. It's expensive but worth it. Even better, they screwed up one of our orders and basically gave us a free Umma's Salad to go, so I ended up having Chi'lantro TWICE yesterday!

Chillin with the children at Chi'lantro 

Later we dropped my son off at a side-cult activity where he and the other mellophone alter boys would practice a lip-sync and put on funny outfits as a part of an evening just-for-fun cult service. Basically every section in the band had a bonding activity night where they independently of each other practiced a lip-sync routine and then competed in the evening as their band teachers scored them. It was actually really hilarious. The flute section got robbed, and the drum majors were fantastically synced. The mellophone group lip sync'd to The Greatest Show from the movie The Greatest Showman. It was pretty great, and our son dressed up as one of the Albino Dancers -- thus lending itself to more cult jokes for me. They did great. It was funny.

My cultist in some cult garb

Finally, at the end of the day. FINALLY, I got a chance to play some Diablo IV. I finished up all my Lililth Statues and I did several Fractured Peaks dungeons. I was going to break down each of them here as a part of the post, but why would I do that when the Wowhead wiki has already done such a nice job of it?

Going full firestarter in Kor Dragan Barracks

I went to Nostrava Deepwood, Derelict Lodge, Caldera Gate, and the Kor Dragan Barracks. All in all, I made some good progress on my Fractured Peaks Renown and will probably shift to quests for a bit here so I don't get burnt out on just dungeon delving for renown.

Man I love Artillery Shrines!

It was a great day and really fun to spend it with my family.

Happy Dueling!

A Birthday Review for Me -- 2022 to Twenty-Twenty-Three

Oh no! It's my birthday and all the social media sites are alarming my friends, family, and past acquaintances that they should say Happy Birthday to me! What should I do?! I know! Make a post on my blog to make sure everyone WHO ACTUALLY MATTERS knows it's my birthday! I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding! . . . but you know I love my readers!

I did a year in review post last year, and so I thought I'd do that again for the span of 2022 to 2023. 2021 saw a kind of rebirth of my personal music journey when I released Red Pinto Hatchback, and I kept that journey going with a beat tape this year titled Rotted Leisure Rooms, which was a pretty big project for me personally. (Hard to explain how much time went into making that collection of songs.) 

It's certainly not surprising to anyone that I spent a lot of time playing games and writing about them this last year, but what you don't know is that it was also a year where I swallowed my man pride and took on some unresolved issues from 52 years of living. Whew. Let's review!

~~

1- Guild Wars 2 -- Team Spode once again focused its Sunday Night adventures on Guild Wars 2, and I rejoined the gang for that journey. Of course, it wasn't just Sunday Nights when I'd play. I dove into the game HARD the last half of 2022. It had always been a thorn in my side that I hadn't completed a legendary weapon, and so finally wielding Sunrise was a big deal.

After that came a pretty incredible journey of just catching up on all the mounts in Guild Wars 2: from the basics to the big boy. I still need to get my two-seater turtle mount, but after conquering the skyscale quest, I took a bit of a break with spending so much time in Guild Wars 2. I still log on for Sunday nights though . . 

My Best Guild Wars 2 Screenshot of 2023

2- VR -- Karnage Chronicles was a game changer for me in VR. After playing that game seriously to completion, I had finally started to earn my VR sea legs. I actually miss it. I should go back and play some more! What a fun game! Of course, that wasn't the only VR game I was playing. 

This blog's big VR push this year was tackling a nine-in-a-row review of the weirdest genre mashup out there, VR Match-3 games. The big winner there was Rainbow Reactor. That's another game I should go back and play again. 

I was equally blown away by the details found in Township Tale. I played so many solid VR games last year, it's hard to mention them all. BUT ALL THAT COMBINED was nothing compared to the real big, recent VR news for me . . .

The embodied crafting in Township Tale is next level

3- Launch of Battle Bows -- Every developer knows that moment when everything you've been keeping secret for the past year or two comes out into the open and people start downloading and reviewing your game. It's pretty magical. I can't say enough good things about the team behind our game and how hard they worked to transition our mobile game company into a VR game company. Thank you so much to my friends and readers who picked up Battle Bows and gave it a playthrough. Your support is appreciated.

Love the Speedy Balloony plushy they gave all the employees for the launch of the game

4- Diablo IV -- I didn't realize how much this game consumed me, but looking back at the past few months, yeah, it really did. I've been fascinated by it and the reaction so many people had to it: good and bad. None of it really matters to me though, I've played the Diablo series since the very beginning, including my fair share of the original old school diablo clones (I'm looking at you Darkstone, Dungeon Seige and Nox). Anyway, it's kind of my thing. Not surprising I got sucked into it.

Lilith bringing me my birthday cake

5- Going to Therapy -- You know, as it turns out, 52 years of living exposes you to a lot of mental knots. This is my first time publicly admitting that I'm in therapy. In 2023 I think it's no surprise to anyone, but it was a big surprise for me. Finally getting to talk through a bunch of life with someone is a huge help. It's also been pretty devastating at times. I've spent a good part of the last few months just cataloging and understanding the grief that's happened in my life, and there's still more work to be done. On the upside, it's also caused me to do a lot of weird digital art.

As it turns out, sometimes you just need to scribble on paper 

6- ACL Festival -- We've lived in Austin 10 years now and last year was the first year we ever braved the mass of people and went to ACL. It's a 3-day outdoor, live music festival. It also coincided with my wife's 50th birthday, so it was the perfect excuse. 

The whole family went and we listened to a TON of great bands; ate a TON of expensive vendor food; saw great headliner acts like Lil Nas X, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Paramore; and danced to a TON of other great bands like L'imperatrice, Goth Babe, and Oliver Tree. 

I think I might need a few years to recover before heading back. It's pretty daunting to do a full 3-day fest like that anymore. 

The whole Friendly Necromancer crew at ACL fest -- my youngest was so tired lol

7- D&D and Pathfinder -- The term "Open Gaming License" or OGL reached far and wide last year as Wizards of the Coast got absolutely raked over the coals from their controversial licensing changes for modifying and publishing Dungeons and Dragons content. It was a strange cultural shift that reached as far as my little Thursday night Dungeons and Dragons group. 

Content creators really had the ear of a couple members of our D&D group and the end result is that we ended up shifting from playing D&D to Pathfinder. Meh. As long as I don't have to DM the game and can still do some goofy roleplay, I'll keep bringing the Rap Snacks for the group. Pathfinder or D&D, it doesn't really matter to me. 

I have a secret gas station I buy my Rap Snacks at . . . it's the only place I've found them for sale

8- Great friends, like you! -- You never know if there's anyone out there that you've touched, and so that's why it's so cool when an old reader reaches back out to you. I had a few really cool moments this year when it happened, and it really does make it all worth it. 

Thanks, Team!

Happy Dueling!

Game Portfolio -- Pocket Duels 2 Card CCG

Pocket Duels: 2 Card CCG

• Release Date: September 2021
  
• Current Availability: Prototype cancelled late 2021
  
• Release Credit Category: General Company Credit
  
• Company: KingsIsle originally -- Rights transferred to WIMO Games
  
• Business Model: Free-to-Play
  
• Category: Mobile Game
  
• Genre: Turn-based Card Battle

Personal Development Notes

• Fun Fact: This game was originally made with Wizard101 and Pirate101 characters as a game for an internal KingsIsle Game Jam. Once the split between WIMO and KingsIsle happened, WIMO could no longer use that great cast of IP characters (specifically Merle Ambrose, Malistaire Drake, and Gortez). 

• Job Highlights: For Game Jam I wore a couple different hats. Originally Scott came to me with an idea he had for a two-card battle system using hero characters. With Scott's direction, I first created a tabletop version of the game in Tabletop Simulator (a great tool for game development for sure). This tabletop version helped us play and refine the game and communicate clearly to our small game jam team exactly the card game we were hoping to make. As game development progressed, it became apparent that the team needed someone who could create and implement sound design. I stepped in and filled that role for game jam as well. 

• Best Memory: Our Game Jam game was extremely polished thanks to some really hard work by everyone on the team. For a week's worth of work, it truly was a thing of beauty. Because of this we won a few awards internally for a job well done -- this also meant a cash prize, which was a nice bonus to receive in addition to the internal accolades.

• Other Comments: Pocket Duels ended up using the great looking RPG Dice characters for the launch of the prototype, but ultimately the game didn't make the metrics we had set in order to warrant a full version of the game. The prototype went well above and beyond the Game Jam game by adding a guided tutorial, extra rulesets, and a nice PVP battle map. While I wasn't directly involved with the prototype version of the game, it did borrow extensively from the look and feel of the gameplay we created for the Game Jam game.

Sample Gameplay:

A Scosglen Walkabout for Lilith Statues

Last night's journey's in Diablo 4 took me on a long walkabout around the region of Scosglen. If you've played Diablo 4, you'll know it as the northernmost reaches of the map. It's an amalgamation of Scotland and Ireland or something of a similar Celtic theme. It's home to the druid enclave known as Tul Dulra and so if you're a druid player, you're very familiar with the area and its bounty of nature and wildlife themed quests. 

A little further East in Scosglen you'll find great towns like Corbach where the innkeeper straight up tells you to bugger off. 

Ok, fine then!

And there's also my personal favorite waypoint in Scosglen, the "Under the Fat Goose Inn." The Tavern keep, Torben, has a great questline where he bemoans all the mischief in town because his tavern's sign has gone missing. Torben is pretty sad that his sign is missing and gives you a quest to investigate.

The man needs his sign!

It reminds me of when I was in my teens and my friend and I took an ice cream cone holder from a local burger joint and got a call from "Dwayne" the owner who just wanted his tray back. Yes, my friend Lex and I were Dwayne's Nairne and Tavish -- local mischief makers. 

Torben isn't mad, just like Dwayne wasn't mad. He just wants his ice cream cone holder back, er. tavern sign back. Unlike Nairne and Tavish, however, one of us wasn't gutted by goatmen. We just took the ice cream cone holder back and ordered more ice cream. 

As per normal when hunting for Lilith statues, it also allowed me to finish up a stronghold along the way. You remember me talking about a Stronghold called, Hope's Light, right? It's still my favorite stronghold.  Love all the fun details that went into scaling the lighthouse and relighting the beacon at the top. So good.

Come on baby, light my fire! Try to set the tidewitch on FIRE!

During my travels I killed a couple treasure goblins, participated in a few tree of whisper events, and did my very best to not get sidetracked by a Helltide (they are incredibly alluring to me). All this amounted to finishing off Scosglen's 4th tier of region progress and lined my pockets with gold.

More Lilith Supporters than you can shake a fire snake at!

That's one thing I have to say about having to find all the Lilith statues again during seasonal play (something many players wish they didn't have to do), it certainly helps with exploring and opening up the map as well as giving you extra easy loot. Sometimes there's just no substitute for easy breezy open world fun.

One step closer to that Paragon Point Goodness!

Hopefully today I can finish up the remaining 8 statues in Fractured Peaks and 6 statues in Hawezar and then start completing side dungeons and quests like a madman to get those juicy tier 5 region progress Paragon point rewards (say that five times fast). Until then, thanks for reading and . . .

Happy Dueling!

Blaugust: Come for the daily posts, stay for the good vibes!

Well look at the date. It's August first, and that can only mean one thing: it's Blaugust season! I went ahead and signed myself up for this month of blogging extravaganza-ness, and guess what? I'm completely unprepared for it, but at this point it's a Friendly Necromancer tradition, so LET'S DO THIS!

Here we go!

I've been mulling over what I might write about during this month, and while I didn't have any major big ideas or themes that came to me, I do have a a few ideas:

• First, there's a few more games to add to my Game Portfolio that I didn't write about last year. 
• Next, I am playing quite a bit of Diablo IV lately, so I'm sure I'll make several posts about the game.
• Then, Team Spode is playing every Sunday night in Guild Wars 2, so that could come up.
• Of course, President Obama's and my birthday always happen on August 4th, so I'll be reflecting on my 51st year of life.
• Also, I'm still playing quite a bit of VR, and I have several games in my Steam library left to play.
• Finally, my social media life is a mess (thanks, Elon), but I have an interesting substitution I've been thinking about. I think I could even talk about that . . .

So there you go. I'm sure I'll be able to come up with something daily. I can't promise the best quality or the longest posts, but I'm here and ready to read and write with you all! I'm staking my reputation on it.

Me, staking my reputation on it. (Love these Diablo "Look" views btw)

In preparation for this upcoming month, I went back and read through my old 2022 Blaugust posts and had a really good trip down memory lane. There's some good vibes there, and I suppose that's mostly what this blog is for me (and hopefully for you too). 

Sure, this little blog was the catalyst for me entering the video game industry back in 2012, but now I keep writing out of the sheer love of games. I hope you feel that when you read my posts. Blaugust is a good time and vibing with other bloggers is what it's all about.

Thanks for reading and as always . . .

Happy Dueling!