Reaching Zenith at Level 8

About a year ago I decided to try my hand at a VR MMO known as Zenith. Why not, right?! I like MMOs! I like VR! It sounds like a perfect fit! So I bought the game and jumped in!

A screenshot of the loading screen from 2023

The first thing out the gate that broke my immersion was listening to a 10-year-old kid mumbling to himself everything he was doing. sigh. I both love and hate integrated voice chat, but really how else are you going to communicate in a VR MMO?

A screenshot of the new 2024 loading screen!

I ended up getting to level 8 in the game before losing interest and moving on to something else.

Leveling up in the tutorial of the old Zenith

Fast forward to a few days ago and once again I jumped into Zenith. It was front and center in my VR library on my Quest 2, so why not?! Come to find out, a lot of things have changed with the game that I was completely unaware of.  The whole front section of the game has had a revamp and now it's split into two different game modes. I didn't even recognize the game when I played.

Behold the mighty paywall between free-to-play and DLC!

Everything that I had played a year ago is now put into something called DLC 1, the Last City, and everything that is new and free-to-play is called the Infinite Realms.

I got wrecked by the Avatar of Telos in the Infinite Realms

So I went to my friends in the Ruff Talk VR Discord channel and asked around about what the situation was and as it turns out, there was an announcement made that the free-to-play experiment had failed with Zenith and that the game would now be put in maintenance mode while the company focused on making other games. Here's the announcement on that if you're like me and completely missed the memo.

Ooph. You know it wasn't well received when the comments for the video are turned off. 

Unfortunately getting that message kind of killed my motivation to log in and level my character like I had originally planned. I don't know why though, it's not like I haven't played tons of dead MMOs before . . . remember my whole Runes of Magic stint?

Anyway, there are some things in this game that are legitimately cool like Physically chopping down trees and mining ore, the crazy skill tree system, and jumping all over the place.

LOL, you know it's a bad sign when you have 5 UIs overlapping each other

There are also things that I never will probably get to experience like an 80-person raid or instanced dungeons.  It's ok though, really. I'm not sure if what I get from a VR MMO is more than what I'd get from a non-VR MMO other than a real-world workout while I play the game and, of course, some unwelcome voice chat from a rambling 10-year-old talking to himself like he was a YouTuber.

Now, if I had a static group of people who still wanted to play Zenith together, and I was along for the ride, I'd probably jump at the chance! I did that when I discovered a group of older people from the Ruff Talk VR Channel who wanted to play A Township Tale together.  Now, THAT, was fun.

Gotta give it up to the town hub in the Infinite Realms, that's some pretty cool stuff.

I suppose if I really wanted to I could join the Zenith Discord channel (which seems impressive btw) and find said static group, but I really don't feel like my drive is there right now.  Maybe in the future?  Anyone want to play Zenith with me?

Happy Dueling!

When Splatoon Meets Brawl Stars

By now you all are probably tired of hearing me talk about Brawl Stars . . . like, we know, we get it, you like this dumb mobile game. MOVE ON, TOM! MOVE ON!

It's a good point you make, imaginary reader who just said that, but they keep doing new things in the game and I really do like to play it, so BACK OFF, IMAGINARY READER! (When I say, imaginary reader, I'm pretty sure that's more reality than fiction according to these Brawl Star post view counts.)

So, ACTUAL READER, I have to say that the Brawl Stars new event is pretty great, mostly because it hails to one of my kids' favorite PvP games called Splatoon. 

This game is so great!

Splatoon is big news around these parts (meaning, my household), and I would be lying if I didn't say I too have taken inspiration from this fantastic game (I may or may not have taken some design queues from the Splatfest event).

In Splatoon, the classic game is a 4 v 4 brawl with awesome painting weapons like a roller brush, Spray guns, Splatterscope, Goo Tubers, paint buckets, umbrellas, paint brushes, and on and on. Once you choose your weapon and queue for a match, you and your team then paint the floor and your opponents with a color. The other team does the same with a different color. At the end of the match, the team that colors the most wins.

Ready to paint the town green!

To go along with it, the characters of Splatoon are pretty much semi-aquatic humanoids, the squid kids if you will, and they're fighting each other for turf in a post-apocalyptic earth. It's great. There's been 3 versions of the game with multiple updates and millions of players. It's well known in the Nintendo-lovers world.

Likewise, The new Brawl Stars season/theme is called Paint Brawl and it comes with a new game mode where you have a 3v3 paint-the-floor match between 2 teams with 2 colors.  Sound familiar? It is slightly different in that you kick around a ball to paint the floor and killing an enemy leaves behind a big splat of paint.

Green destroyed Orange in this match.

Likewise, the new character introduced into the game is Clancy, the damage-dealing crab, which pairs nicely with Hank, the Pufferfish-riding Shrimp. Check out the crazy new video they released to go along with the new season.

People in the video's comments are all claiming it to be a Spongebob collaboration. That very well may be, (side note, Griff would be perfect in a Spongebob Skin) but I'm not sure if it's not just all done out of parody than an actual collaboration. Nickelodeon's famous IP would not come cheap. 

100 percent Spongebob Candidate

I suppose if any game company could pull it off, it'd be Supercell. To me, the whole thing smacks more of Splatoon than SpongeBob.

As for the Brawl season pass, I'm not sure if I'd spring for it just yet.  I've had a hard time justifying it for the past couple season passes. The exclusive skin is for a character I haven't unlocked yet named Sandy, so if it was possible to choose that character as the brawler I unlocked, I'd probably choose him. Meh. If I bought it, it'd be for the gold, let's be honest.

mmm . . . I don't know. I guess it's cool?

So there you go!  It's a new event in Brawl Stars that's uncannily like Splatoon with a possible touch of Spongebob.  What's not to like.

Happy Dueling!

Birthday Redux

A couple decades ago my birthday started to take on a sense of tradition. I'm not exactly how it started, but it usually involved two main activities:

1. Go to an IMAX film at the Planetarium
2. Go eat Mizithra Cheese pasta at the Spaghetti Factory

My kids were little and one of the short hour to 30-minute educational IMAX films was always something they enjoyed, and I liked it too, to be honest. Spaghetti Factory was all me though. I've loved that stupid Mizithra Cheese pasta with Browned Butter ever since I was a kid. 

Rewind to 12 years ago, and we moved to Texas. They still had the IMAX films, but the Old Spaghetti Factory chain was nowhere to be found. I wrote about it once before.  

Now fast forward to yesterday!  We're back in Utah and it was my birthday -- it was time once again to break out the old tradition! Do you know how cool it was to have all my kids with me and go eat at that stupid Old Spaghetti Factory? Super ultra cool. The best part was seeing my sons trust-fall onto the Mizithra Cheese pasta menu item with me and fall in love as I once did. I TOLD YOU IT WAS EPIC!

SPAGHETTI TIME!

The IMAX film we saw was the Secrets of the Sea 3D. I'm not going to lie--I dozed off a bit near the end. The music was so serene and the sea creatures were just floating by . . . and I was blissfully napping with my 3D glasses on. That said, what I did see in this documentary was fantastic. :)

An IMAX film at the Planetarium -- a classic birthday endeavor

The family supplied me with some very thoughtful gifts:

• A new camera stand for my 360 Camera
• A micro collectible wacky packages card set (I have a thing about wacky packages)
• A healing rock necklace
• A shower curtain (it's a long story)
• 50 bucks
• A bag of assorted nuts
• An Applebees gift card (my mom always gets me this)
• A zucchini noodles maker and a few zucchinis to go with it
• A commission-worthy piece of art of my choice
• A slew of birthday cards

It was all very nice, and I feel incredibly loved. For the commission-worthy piece of art of my choice, I asked my oldest to draw The Friendly Necromancer avatar wearing a VR headset . . . check out the cool result!

I love it.

I had a very cool birthday, and I'm happy I got to hang out with the ones I love. I couldn't have asked for anything better than to get to spend some time with my crew today.

Happy Dueling!
 

D&D TV -- It's real and how to make it better?

 The other day I stumbled upon the most fascinating live TV channel. It's the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures Channel on Plex. 

I like free . . . I like good free even better.

What?! What is this world?! What have I stumbled upon?! An actual Duneons and Dragons TV channel that isn't on demand and that isn't some random video on YouTube?  You mean, I can just leave this channel on in the background to torment everyone in earshot with my nonsense? My family might not agree with me, but this is the best!

Always with the crackling fire in the background

At least that's what I thought for the first few days of letting this run in the background at our house, but the reality is a bit like this:

• It's the same 4 programs that run over and over on a schedule
• There aren't enough advertisers to fill the commercial breaks
• I always seem to miss big chunks of information from the programs that are playing.

And that's ok . . . That's what makes it feel like an awesome version of old-school TV, but let's talk more about this starting with what IS available on this channel:

~~

The Old 80's Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon

I had all of these recorded on VCR tape from a kid . . . complete with commercials from the 80's and everything. It was awful quality, and unfortunately, you can see that even in high definition it's awful quality. Not to mention that you could just watch all these old episodes already on YouTube since they're already uploaded, including the fantastic fan-made final episode, which I doubt you'd see on Plex's Dungeons and Dragons Adventures Channel.

Still . . . just flipping on the TV and a random Dungeons and Dragons cartoon being played from my childhood is pretty great. Love it.

Pour one out for The OGs and their unicorn pet.

Heroes' Feast

Anyone that's walked into a game store over the past year or two has seen the Heroes' Feast book. It's a recipe book that features D&D themed food.  Well, they've gone and made a cooking show from it, and you can watch the heck out of it on the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures Channel. They do it up right, and you can be assured your TV chef is a legit D&D player.

Cooking with Dungeons and Dragons.

Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill!

This is a D&D comedy show akin to Whose Line Is It Anyway with actual dice rolling.  The basic premise of this show is that four level-one characters with intricate and funny backgrounds are presented in depth and given a situation. You are endeared to these characters and their players for over half an hour and then, in the last bit of the show they encounter a MEGA-feared CR monster (Like a purple worm, like the Tarrasque, like a Lich) and ultimately die, every time. It's mildly entertaining -- moreso depending on who is sitting at the table/

Yes, that is Matthew Lillard as a final boss.

Encounter Party

This is a full-blown campaign adventure featuring a DM and six adventurers, ala Critical Roll. My main problem is that I keep tuning in at the wrong time, I've seen them at level four, I've seen them at level three, and I still don't know really what's going on here.  I like everyone's characters though for sure! Much to my surprise Khary Payton from Walking Dead fame was sitting at the table and the show got 100 percent more awesome.

Can I have a game table like this for my house, please?!

 And that's it . . . those four programs play endlessly over and over.

~~

Now let's talk about commercial breaks. Some commercials do play, but unfortunately, these ads aren't really relatable. Even worse, at certain points during the show, they just throw up a splash screen that says "We'll be right back after this break" and the VOLUME OF THE BACKGROUND MUSIC GETS REALLY LOUD! Presumably, this is because they don't have enough advertisers to fill the time allotted to commercial breaks. 

This image is actually painful on my ears

Every time the commercial breaks background music pops on my wife yells WILL YOU TURN THAT DOWN and gets super irritated with me. LOL. It's pretty funny, but also not very funny at all. Did they really have to crank it for a non-commercial commercial break?

~~

Now let's talk about what would make this channel 100 percent more awesome!

1- The Easy fix. Show the D&D movies. I know they didn't age well, but so didn't the D&D cartoons. Show 'em.  Show all three of the old movies and the latest movie as well.  Just put them on once in a while. 

• Dungeons and Dragons
• Dungeons and Dragons Wrath of the Dragon God
• Dungeons and Dragons 3 The Book of Vile Darkness 
• Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves

LOL. So bad it's good.

2- Break away from official D&D content and dip into adjacent Anime. I've been watching a lot of Delicious in Dungeon and let me tell you, it's Heroes Feast the cartoon. Really, just adding this anime to your lineup would be a fantastic addition. And then there are other options. Just imagine watching these as your Saturday morning cartoons on Dungeons and Dragons Adventures:

• Delicious in Dungeon
• Goblin Slayer
• Record of Lodoss War
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• Made in Abyss
• The Slayers

I love watching Delicious in Dungeon with my oldest

3- Go hard with the documentaries. One of the best D&D documentaries I've watched in recent days was Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons. I wrote about it on Mutant Reviewers. Now, I know that it takes a bit of a critical look at Hasbro, and probably for that it makes it a hard sell, but really having honest conversations about our past is healthy!  Another D&D adjacent documentary I wrote about on Mutant Reviewers was Monster Camp. A Larping documentary on Dungeons and Dragons Adventures would be amazing.

• Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons
• Monster Camp
• Dungeon Life: A Dungeons and Dragons Documentary
• The Dungeon Masters
• The Dwarvenaut

Artists talking about D&D -- I love it.

4- Gaming convention coverage. When a gaming convention happens, cover it like a news program with a constant stream from a booth. Just think of tuning in to watch the crowds at big conventions like these:

• GenCon
• Origins Game Fair
• PAX Unplugged
• Dice Tower East
• Essen Game Fair

Just give me a cam and a few interviews from GenCon, and I'm good.

5- Embrace Adult Content . . . nah this probably wouldn't work. Sigh, but it would be such an easy win by adding Vox Machina, Critical Role, Adventure Zone . . . heck, just run more adult-language programming from 1am to 4am. I'm sure Hasbro would have some beef with this though.

6- Make a funny late-night program. Again, this probably wouldn't work. You'd have to actually produce a live show and commit to it, but having a Stephen-Colbert-type digesting the news with a Dungeon Master's mind behind it would be fantastic. Again, Hasbro would shy from politics, but MAN I want this now. Guess you could just watch Stephen Colbert when he talks about Lord of the Rings, but I want a half hour to an hour of that every day.

7- Make advertising affordable and easy for nerds and nerd products. Think of all the gaming convention booths, the Kickstarter projects, the local conventions, the renfaires, and all of it that could be advertised, but aren't. I'd rather watch one of those than a Pella Windows advertisement. 

I mean, how expensive would it be to advertise on the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures Channel anyway? They should make it way more easy than running through all this bidding nonsense. Make it easy, please!

I need some Scented Realms advertisements, stat!

8- More D&D Lore-based shows. YouTube has a plethora of fantastic shows that talk about the Lore behind D&D. I'd love to see a heavy lean into Lore with the writers of the game. Every book I buy for D&D seems to have a section where it expands on the background of a race -- I'd love to see this shown in a more cinematic and artistic style. Imagine seeing a program about the fascinating background of the Illithid society. 

Just a half-hour show on Mind Flayers, please. Thank you!

So tell me, fellow nerds, what would you do to make this channel a hit? A reality dating show that happens with a one-shot dungeon? DM Tips and Tricks videos? Whatcha got?!

Happy Dueling!

100 percenting Max Mustard!

You may or may not have caught my post about Max Mustard before. It was a bit buried in the midst of another post, but I've been having a ton of fun playing this VR platformer.  It's definitely unique in the space in several ways, especially in the way it has a simultaneous gun-and-run play.

I really don't want to bash this game AT ALL because it's incredibly fun. Anyone who would make a platformer in VR has my immediate respect. All the levels are meticulously handcrafted with great care and consideration, and honestly, it's a brave design feat by itself.

Max Mustard is a Beautiful World that's Meticulously Hand Crafted with Loves and Hugs

I wanted to make a platformer for WIMO Games, and if I had been given just one more game jam game with the company I would have done one of two things:

• Finished the underwater game jam game we were working on the previous year
• Formed my own gosh darn group and made a level of a VR platformer
  
  

Every time I brought up making a platformer to our team, my design director shuddered and told me straight up NO every single time. Why? Because a platformer of any kind involves a lot of meticulous hand-crafted design with timing, spacing, charm, and interest. Basically, it's a big time sink that will be debated endlessly because of its difficulty or lack of difficulty . . . and also because it was seen as niche and not enough profitable return for your expensive efforts.

As a designer who loves crafting levels, I would have LOVED a chance to shine here. 

So, for those reasons alone, I don't want to bash Max Mustard AT ALL, and as I said before, it's incredibly fun. 

Sigh, but that said, there were a few things that made me pine for more adventures as Lucky the Fox or Astrobot. In this category of platformer where you follow behind a character, I'd put Astrobot as my number one VR platformer, followed by Lucky's Tale, in third place Max Mustard, and in fourth -- I'd put every single player-made platforming minigame you can find in Dreams VR (which is a lot of them). (Sorry there's no mention of Moss -- I still feel bad I haven't finished it yet.)

I wouldn't put any of those in the same category as No More Rainbows or Outta Hand (still need to play it), they're a different, more-athletic platforming genre for me, which I also love. 

Ok, now that I've put that out there . . . You gotta play Max Mustard if you're into this stuff. It's happy, it's fun, and it's well done. Level difficulty isn't really an issue outside of 2 or 3 levels, and that makes it an easy breezy experience that's just pure happiness.

I beat the game last week and had an absolute blast beating the final boss. 

Because of that, I decided last night to return to the game and make a run at 100 percenting it. DONE! Good times!

Oh that awesome 100 percent completion feeling!

The only problem here is that it wasn't as challenging as I had hoped, and definitely nothing like when I was tearing my hair out playing Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. VR games are naturally harder than most gaming experiences. It's proven that people just slow down when they're playing VR Games and struggle a bit more than in regular games, but that said -- I could have used just a touch more challenge here.

On the other hand, the real challenge came on the levels that weren't platforming. The hardest levels to beat were definitely those with timed shooting minigames. It would always take me 5-10 tries, and sometimes much more than that, to beat those levels.

Now that those small critiques are out of the way, what a great game! And really kudos to the developer for using so many innovative techniques to make each level play different from the last. The head nods to other games like Frogger and Galaga filled me with joy. The weird nose-less flying elephants you were saving were super cute. The verticality of the levels was fantastic. The music was fun. The art was fun. All of it was fun. My inner child loved every minute of it. More! Bravo!

Nose-less flying baby elephants . . . aka Mudpups

. . . and I mean that . . . MORE!  Please VR Platforming developers, don't stop. I would take a VR platformer over a shooter any day and we need more developers making games like these. Thank you for your efforts and for making games like this. They really are incredible works of art.

Happy Dueling!

A New Night in the Old 7 Days to Die

This week has been all about LONG DAYS. I've been running my youngest to Band practice and that's also meant a lot of waiting around. Yesterday, however, I got a message from my good friend Dylan (aka Moonstar aka Montgomery aka Hansel), and it was decided that last night would be the official 7 Days to Die night! My wife and I worked it out, and I was in! Time to kill zombies!

My inner critic always thinks the UI sounds could be a little crisper here. I'M BACK BABY!

Why was it official 7 days to die night? Well, the new 1.0 release had launched, and now our wonderful in-development indie darling was official after being, what, 10 years in early release? Listen, it's a glorious game that I've talked a lot about before, and if Dylan says it's 7 Days to Die night, it's 7 Days to Die night!

It wasn't just Dylan who was playing with me, it was his 3 sons as well. I felt a bit like Alice on The Brady Bunch when she was invited to go on vacations with the family. In fact, I somehow accidentally chose the female model when I went in and just ran with it. I guess that's my new persona for this game . . . I'm Alice. I guess I should start reading up more about cooking.

Anyway, it took a bit to remember how to work the controls in the game since it had easily been, I don't know, over 2 years or more since I had played last. Eventually, it worked out, and I was crafting bedrolls, clubs, and axes with the best of them.

Alice finds the Brady Men standing naked over a zombie . . . 

We all started claiming weapon styles, and so I barked out that I wanted to be the engineer gal. Give me my shock clubs and punchy turrets! It was always truly my favorite way to play the game anyway. I just need to start finding some good stuff -- give me all your engineering manuals, STAT!

By the end of our 3-hour play session last night, I think we were around level 5, I was starving with broken bones, and life was good on top of a local Pass-N-Gas store on Day 3. My gear was less than ideal, and I was still looking for a good shock club, but in the meantime, I was happily wielding a big lead pipe baton to smoosh in the undead skulls and break open the locked doors.

The top of the Pass-N-Gas is where the party gets real!

We actually found our trader right by the town we were raiding. He gave us all our intro quests, and then we started to move on to a few Tier 1 missions.  

oh yeah, you press E to start the mission . . . it's right there in the middle of the screen. Got it.

To be honest, it was all very familiar, and really I'm not exactly sure what's even changed with the game yet. If I took the time to read through the patch notes, I'm sure I'd find some gold, but so far, it's pretty much exactly what I was playing 3 years ago . . . and there's nothing wrong with that. A good game is a good game.

My only thought now is: man that was fun, when can I play again!

Happy Dueling!  

Welcome to Blaugust 2024! Life is crazy!

It's once again time for Blaugust, and I've signed up! Blaugust is great! I love seeing all the insightful posts from dedicated writers in the gaming universe. Belghast has really put together something that continues to be loved by bloggers. The objective here is to up your post count during August, and if you can make a post a day, you've done amazing.

In the past years, I've done amazing. This year, well, the verdict is still out and I'm thinking I probably won't make all 30 days . . . that said . . . I'm in! Blaugust is a good time.

So if you haven't heard, 2024 was a pretty stupid year for me so far. It's the year where WIMO Games folded, causing me to lose my job, and the year where I've returned to my old stomping grounds, moving my family 1,000 miles in the other direction.

I'm still struggling to sell my house in Texas, and if there was a secret Blaugust wish in my Blaugust fortune cookie, it'd be that my old house sells, and I buy a new house. That would be amazing! The market in Pflugerville Texas (a suburb of Austin) hasn't been pretty for sellers, and that's been the main problem. Our house has been sitting on the market for a lot longer than I thought it would.

The floor and paint are all shiny and new now! Just waiting for a buyer!

On the other hand, the market in Utah is exactly the opposite. Where perhaps I might put down an offer with a contingency that, yeah, I'll buy your house--but my house in Texas has to sell first . . . um, that strategy just doesn't work because it's a Seller's Market here. I've tried nonetheless. I've put down about 3 contingency offers here and it's always washed over by 5 other buyers with better and more sure offers.

To those ends, my family and I are now in a bit of a state of limbo, but it's working. It was a whole desperate thing that involved fixing up my mom's abandoned house and making it new again. It's been an amazing renovation project that barely finished up right as my family was arriving. Lots of little miracles on the way to be honest.

Living back in my old neighborhood in Utah, you may remember this from 2022.

So, all of this has put gaming on a bit of a lower tier of importance for a bit and blogging about gaming on an even lower tier of importance than that. That said, any time I play a game I'm thinking, what could I say about this experience? It's just a side effect of keeping a blog for so long like this one.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read anything I post here, it's appreciated. I have some big plans to play 7 Days to Die tonight, so there might just be more 7 Days to Die posts in my future. I'm also in the middle of Act 2 on Baldur's Gate 3, and so the adventures of Avantador and Moonstar will be continuing. I'm also still playing a ton of Brawl Stars and Squad Busters on my phone. And in the VR world, I have a literal TON of games sitting in my inventory that I haven't even touched, so there's potential to go a bit crazy there.

Happy Dueling!