segunda-feira, 27 de maio de 2019

domingo, 26 de maio de 2019

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Now, you might be wondering what happened to Wolf after we parted ways in Viridian, but he couldn't have been farther from my mind as I made my way down from Mount Moon toward Cerulean City. I didn't care where he was or what he was doing. I really hoped we wouldn't cross paths again, but Kanto is a surprisingly small place for a Pokémon trainer, I would come to learn. I would run into him again in Cerulean, but in the short time since I started this journey, I had changed. I had a firm resolve and determination to take care of my Pokémon, rather than win at all cost like Wolf or Team Rocket. I had suffered the heart break of losing Rascal and Nibbles, my first two Pokémon. I was still trying to find my way, but I had also grown stronger.
Before I get to Wolf, let me catch you up a bit. Along the way down from Mount Moon, I happened upon a new Rattata. He was strong and fast. He reminded me of Rascal when we last saw each other as opposed to the weak and fragile thing he was when we first met. I caught this Rattata and named him Rascal Jr. If I learned anything from encountering the Dread Rocket Raticate, it was that there was untapped potential within Rascal Jr that I would have to bring out before I could challenge the Cerulean City Gym. Rascal Jr. could be taught to deliver a cruel bite.
I trained more rigorously than ever before. I made sure Rascal Jr. was not only faster and stronger than that Raticate on Mount Moon, but had the hyper fang bite of doom in its arsenal. I did not rest until Rascal Jr met my high expectations for what he was capable of. Retrospectively, I was perhaps a bit hard on Rascal Jr because of how I was feeling about Nibble, but Rascal Jr was soon the strongest Pokémon on my team as a result. As always, although these training sessions were aimed primarily at Rascal Jr, the rest of the team benefited from them as well. Vesper even learned a powerful bite.
During this time of intense training, I was staying in Cerulean City close to our training grounds on Route 4. You simply couldn't get around Cerulean City without hearing Bill's name several times a day. Now Bill is a self-proclaimed Pokémon enthusiast and is credited as the inventor of the Pokémon Storage System that we all access regularly to store and transfer Pokémon even today.
Although Professor Oak first showed the system to me, I had been using it regularly to transfer some Pokémon to my sprouting sanctuary project via Bill's storage system without ever knowing whose it was or how it got there. I had certainly taken it for granted, and I think we all do every now and then even still. I decided that before I would challenge the Cerulean City Gym, I wanted to hike out to the coast north of Cerulean and meet Bill personally. I was curious, and I was thankful.
When I was happy with the progress Rascal Jr had made, I packed up for the trip and headed out across Nugget Bridge to the north. It was there on that fateful bridge that I was tracked down by Wolf. He called out to me from behind just as I was setting foot on the bridge. Apparently he had heard that I was training in town these past few days and was eager for a rematch. I tried everything in my power to keep my face neutral and not unleash the full extent of my anguish at seeing Wolf. I'll never know how successful a job I did.

Wolf had a stupid, cocky smirk on his face when he threw out his first Pokémon which was a Pidgeotto. It was plain to see that he considered this his prize bird in the collection and it was fun for me to see the smirk wipe off his face when I tossed out my recently evolved Kiwi, now a formidable Pidgeotto himself. The two bright-breasted birds squared off against each other on the ground, then took to the sky.
Kiwi and I launched our all-too-familiar "sand in the face" technique which had yet to fail us. Wolf's Pidgeotto had suffered this indignity once before but still fell right into our trap. It's ability to land any hits on Kiwi tanked and Kiwi was soon the victor of the Pidgeotto contest. Wolf was frowning now as he threw out his next Pokéball.
His next Pokémon surprised me. It was a curious little yellow creature that I hadn't encountered yet. More surprisingly, it was completely useless in battle. I believe Wolf had just caught it earlier that day and didn't even bother to train it yet. It was easy pickings for Vesper, who I can rarely say had easy pickings. The Abra (as the Pokédex informed me) seemed particularly weak to Vesper's ability to leech life out of its opponent. It took out the weak little Abra without any problems. I heard Wolf let out an audible curse and it was my turn to smirk.
Wolf's third Pokémon was a Rattata. I could tell just by looking at it that it was a tough little fellow. Still, I couldn't resist tossing out Rascal Jr and sizing up which of us had the better trained Rattata. As Wolf's Rattata attempted to lower Rascal Jr's guard with disorienting tail whipping, Rascal Jr chomped down hard. Following up with a very quick attack, Rascal Jr proved to be the winner of this match up and without even taking any hits at all.
I knew Squirtle, or one of its evolutions would be Wolf's final Pokémon based on our previous match. I admit I was a bit worried about it, but I kept Rascal Jr out on the bridge to hold his ground. Wolf's Squirtle managed to land a couple of tackles on my agile Rattata, while Rascal Jr used his own tail to disorient the Squirtle. Then Rascal Jr bit down on Squirtle with such ferocity that it knocked it completely out of the match. Victory was ours and it felt so damn good this time.
I really felt like the superior trainer. Thinking back on Viridian City, I could see now the difference between a trainer who took his training seriously, and someone like Wolf who just took it all as an idle hobby. I felt bad for Wolf's Pokémon, honestly. They fought so hard for him and he didn't even care.
When Wolf extended a hand for me to shake, I simply shrugged. Wolf stifled a small laugh and shook his head. I remember him saying, "It was good to see you, Fox. Keep up the hard work." Then he turned and walked back into town. I watched him go this time, remembering how angry watching him leave made me the last time. This time I felt almost nothing. This time I was stronger both as a trainer and in my resolve to train harder - to train especially harder than Wolf.

Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.

Suzy Cube Update: May 18, 2018

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames

Holy smoke! What a week! First things first, let me apologize for the lack of update last week. As for this week? There's a lot to fill you in on, so let's get this party started!

Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection Review (PS4)

Written by Anthony L. Cuaycong

Title: Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: SEGA of America, Inc.
Genre: Rhythm
Price: $99.99

It has been 16 years since Atlus thought to release Revelations: Persona on the Sony PlayStation. Expectations were modest then, with the title taking on many of the features of the Megami Tensei franchise from which it drew inspiration. Regardless of outlook, however, it wound up being a sleeper hit, in the process building an extremely loyal fan base and jump-starting a series with immense crossover appeal. For all its humble beginnings, it spawned an intellectual property giant. Boasting of memorable characters, killer soundtracks, and storylines that transcend genres, it now carries a name synonymous to great gaming — a veritable seal of quality that ensures unparalleled entertainment value.

To be fair, Atlus hasn't simply been banking on name recall to deliver outstanding sales figures with every Persona release. Certainly, all the eggs hatched by its trusty goose have been, well, golden in characteristics and, thusly, deserving of critical and commercial recognition. Such is likewise the case with Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection, which carries with it a PlayStation 4 port of PS Vita smash Persona 4: Dancing All Night and the all-new Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. Simply put, they're rhythm games presented in ways and profiles unique to the series.

Picking up from where Persona 4 Golden left off, Persona 4: Dancing All Night has the Investigation Team reuniting to help member Rise Kujikawa regain her footing in show business. En route to the scheduled performance at the Love Meets Bonds Festival, however, the intrepid cast finds its interest piqued by more than just dancing lessons. The entire Kanamin Kitchen — likewise slated to make an appearance in the event — has disappeared, evidently transported to an alternate dimension.

To save Kanami Mashita and company, the team will have to face Shadows and a mysterious figure who holds the puppet strings via battles at the Midnight Stage. In Persona 4: Dancing All Night, these set-tos involve dance-offs, underscoring its rhythm-game interface. As in the ubiquitous Project Diva series, gamers are required to keep track of notes traveling over predetermined areas by pressing the right buttons at the right times and in the right sequences. A conscious contrivance to fit the unique gameplay in Story Mode? Perhaps. Considering the dark themes and its serious underpinnings, a complete commitment to role-playing elements can be argued as superior.

Nonetheless, there can be no denying the pull of Persona 4: Dancing All Night through the three difficulty settings and the Free Dance option on tap. It works because of the smoothness of the controls and the catchiness of the music tracks. And, precisely because of the depth of the narrative and the richness of its characters, it stands as one of the best offerings in the rhythm genre, bar none. Parenthetically, the remaster is head and shoulders better than the Vita version; on the PS4 Pro, colors stand out and sounds are crisp, enhancing the emotional resonance while navigating through familiar tunes.

In contrast, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight provide no overarching storylines. Instead, their progression is founded on more lighthearted premises. The narrative moves along via social links offering specific information on protagonists and triggered by additional character unlocks. Objectives are completed in the Velvet Room, where members of both the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad and the Phantom Thieves dream of facing off.

Meanwhile, the gameplay of Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight is identical to that of Persona 4: Dancing All Night. Only in the character rosters, song lists, and background presentations do they differ. Needless to say, dance animations are extremely fluid, if not quite jibing with the chords. Difficulty is likewise three-tiered, with reasonable jumps to provide a fair challenge. At no time do the titles feel like they're presenting Sisyphean hurdles to artificially inflate replay value.

Under the circumstances, prevailing biases will likely inform the preferences of gamers who go through Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection. True, Persona 4: Dancing All Night has a built-in advantage for being first mover, as well as for retaining a more substantive story. On the other hand, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight offer technically advanced graphics and sound mixes. In short, each title has pros and cons, and usage figures to be determined by personal partiality to specific characters and soundtracks.

In sum, Atlus manages to justify Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection's $100 price tag by leveraging on its intellectual property's rich history. Even in a hitherto-unfamiliar genre, it succeeds in banking on the Persona franchise's biggest come-ons. As far as rhythm games go, its offering doesn't exactly break the mold. But because it lays claim to a distinctively fleshed-out look and feel, it winds up standing out all the same.

THE GOOD

A heady collection of games featuring characters from three Persona series
Smooth interface, with nary any input lags
Memorable track lists
Difficulty levels present fair challenges

THE BAD

Remixes are a mixed bag
Narratives of two of the three titles on offer lack depth
Visuals don't always reflect gameplay progress

RATING: 8.5/10

14 Best URL Shortener to Earn Money 2019

Wi.cr
Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
- Payout for 1000 views-$7
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payout method-Paypal
- Payout time-daily
Cut-win
Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
- The payout for 1000 views-$10
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-22%
- Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
- Payment time-daily
Short.am
Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
LINK.TL
LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
- Payout for 1000 views-$16
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
- Payment time-daily basis
Short.pe
Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
- The payout for 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-20% for lifetime
- Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
- Payment time-on daily basis
Oke.io
Oke.io provides you an opportunity to earn money online by shortening URLs. Oke.io is a very friendly URL Shortener Service as it enables you to earn money by shortening and sharing URLs easily.
Oke.io can pay you anywhere from $5 to $10 for your US, UK, and Canada visitors, whereas for the rest of the world the CPM will not be less than $2. You can sign up by using your email. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made via PayPal.
- The payout for 1000 views-$7
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-20%
- Payout options-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin and Skrill
- Payment time-daily
Adf.ly
Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
Linkrex.net
Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
- The payout for 1000 views-$14
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-25%
- Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
- Payment time-daily
Clk.sh
Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
- Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
- Minimum Withdrawal: $5
- Referral Commission: 30%
- Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
- Payment Time: Daily
CPMlink
CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
- The payout for 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
- Payment time-daily
Linkbucks
Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
- The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
- Minimum payout-$10
- Referral commission-20%
- Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
- Payment-on the daily basis
BIT-URL
It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
- The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
- Minimum payout-$3
- Referral commission-20%
- Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
- Payment time-daily
Ouo.io
Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
- Payout for every 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-20%
- Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
- Payout options-PayPal and Payza
Shrinkearn.com
Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
- The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-25%
- Payment methods-PayPal
- Payment date-10th day of every month

quinta-feira, 23 de maio de 2019

Movie Reviews: Spider-man: Homecoming, The Beautiful Fantastic, Gifted, Paterson, Primer

Spider-man: Homecoming: Another in the long list of passable and entertaining but ultimately unimportant Marvel movies. Tobey Maguire set the standard for the Spider-man role in 2002 and 2004; Tom Holland doesn't quite live up to that standard, but he does a decent job. Tom's Peter Parker is more child-like and less complex, a flat two-dimensional comic character compared to Tobey's rich and conflicted adolescent, but that is more to do with this movie's director and team of Marvel-assembled writers (six of them) versus the better director and single author of the earlier movies.

Slightly better is Michael Keaton's Vulture villain, who steals the screen every time he's around. With a little more character development - some more family time or father-daughter bonding - he could have been one of Marvel's rare, fully-fleshed characters. He gets awful close. I almost cared about him. As for everyone else, they are occasionally funny or emotive but ultimately one-dimensional plot points to serve as backdrop.

The plot works well within the movie, but not quite as well within the Marvel continuity: Vulture is collecting the energy materials left behind after The Avengers and selling them on the black market (we here about the sales, but not much about the effect of these sales). Peter is 15 years old, but jazzed up after having been called to be part of the incredibly dangerous fight against Captain America in Captain America: Civil War, and now thinks of himself as interning for Iron Man in the hopes of being made a full avenger. Iron Man wants him to just stick to his local neighborhood until he gets older - which doesn't make much sense, since he called him up to fight Captain America, for goodness sake. Of course, Peter encounters Vulture and tries to prove himself, takes a beating, earns Iron Man's wrath, gets his gun and badge taken away, but decides to solve the case on his own (excuse me, I seem to have mixed this movie up with every cop movie, ever).

The special effects are hum-drum for this kind of movie. In particular I don't like Peter's "suit", which is basically a copy of Iron Man's (given to him by Iron Man) with computer vision, a talking computer, etc etc. It doesn't have Iron Man's armor, but that doesn't seem to matter, since Spidey is invulnerable to any kind of punishment (like every other damn superhero), so he is basically Iron Man light. If there's one thing that makes a superhero movie good, it's when the hero's powers and surrounding characters are limited and markedly different from the other ones'. This movie fails in this regard, big time.

But, continuity and unoriginality aside, there is nothing else remarkably wrong with the movie. The contained plot flows, some scenes are tense, some are ridiculous (I'm sorry, but holding a boat together after it is split into two parts won't stop it from sinking). The scenes where Spider-man and Vulture encounter each other out of costume and each comes to realize who the other one is are done well.

Roughly on par with Captain America: Winter Soldier.

The Beautiful Fantastic: A deliberately quirky movie, pleasant and enjoyable, not too deep. Imagine the heroine of Amelie with a less challenging set of obstacles to overcome.

Bella (Jessica Brown Findlay) is a librarian and an aspiring children's author who lives in a small flat where she is responsible for keeping up the garden, but doesn't. She is faced with eviction unless she overhauls the garden by herself in thirty days. She is too poor to pay anyone (how she acquires and pays for the supplies is not dealt with). The cantankerous old, possibly ill widower next door neighbor is the one who ratted on her. This widower employs a gay (gayish?) young cook, Vernon, but treats him poorly, so the cook quits and decides to cook for Bella instead, who can't pay him, but somehow the widower continues to pay him and Vernon continues to cook for the widower so long as he doesn't have to deal with him on a daily basis. The widower eventually gives Bella a little advice. Also, Bella is interested in this odd young clockwork inventor fellow, who may also be interested in her.

The thing is ridiculously contrived and its premise exists to provide scenes of gardening and the main characters intermingling in humorous or wistful fashion. It's not a brilliant script, but it has its moments. It's ponderous with metaphor, but it's never mean and it's pleasant and fun to watch. The acting and photography are nice. A sweet little diversion.

Gifted: A beautiful, intelligent, and heartfelt movie, something like Proof crossed with My Sister's Keeper.

Chris Evans is Frank, who is raising his insanely gifted niece who was left in his living room as a baby by his insanely gifted sister after she committed suicide in his bathroom. The sister's intentions become slightly clearer as the movie progresses; however, Frank a) has given Mary, who is now 6 years old (McKenna Grace), access to enough mathematical reading material for her to already be well into advanced PhD level mathematics and b) is trying to send her to first grade in a normal school where the kids her age are learning basic arithmetic in the hopes of her having a more normal childhood than his sister. (It's not clear to me what he's been doing with the child until the movie starts.)

Frank lives a spartan life, and his mother, though she loves Frank, thinks the combination of a one room house and inadequate education is going to rob Mary of the chance to solve the same great proof that her daughter was working on. But Frank blames himself and his mother for his sister's suicide.They go to court to figure out who the girl should live with (again, it's not clear why the mother waited until now to make this move; and FYI, the father is basically out of the picture.)

If you overlook the two niggling questions above, it is wondrous to see McKenna (who is actually 11) act with such poise and emotion. Much of the movie is just watching a smart kid try to deal with her broken family, her loving uncle and his protective friend (Octavia Spencer), and the idiot children who inhabit her world, while the other parts are a courtroom drama without any bad guys and without any clear path to happiness for anyone. It's touching and emotional, funny and suspenseful.

Worth seeing.

Paterson: This is a very unambitious movie by Jim Jarmusch, starring Adam Driver as an unpublished poet named Paterson who drives a bus in Paterson, NJ. He has a girlfriend who doesn't do anything but paint everything in the house in black and white patterns but who wants to play guitar. Every day, Paterson wakes up, goes to work, drives a bus, walks a dog, drinks a beer in a bar, comes home, and straightens his mailbox. He steals time to write poems and he hears other people talking about their lives.

I know this because five repetitions of this is the first hour of the movie, after which I'm afraid I gave up. After I gave up I read the synopsis on Wikipedia and discovered that something slightly interesting happens a little after I gave up, and then nothing happens again, a little like Old Man and the Sea but less intense and less literate.

Everyone does a lovely job acting, and the directing and cinematography are all well done, and admittedly that's a nice thing to see. The only uplift in the movie comes from the four poems written for the movie by Ron Padgett; like the movie, they seem a little dull at the start but, unlike the movie, they display flashes of beauty as they progress. This wasn't enough to keep me watching, unfortunately. Maybe I was in a bad mood when I watched it. I just think there needs to be a little more there, there.

If you want to hear from the poet and how he came to be involved with the movie, click here.

Primer: This 2006 movie is probably the definitive focus on time travel for time travel's sake movie. It tells the story of two guys who are working on various chemical/material engineering projects, when they discover that they have invented a time travel box (it's a complicated explanation of waves that travel back and forth between tie periods). They then have various reactions to it: they go back in time and make money by betting on stocks that they know will go up, and eventually have a falling out about whether to continue using the box(es). Like later movies, such as Inception and Interstellar, the movie takes the math seriously enough to try to explain the paradoxes.

The movie looks like it was shot with a budget of a few thousand dollars, but the camera work is good enough for what it's trying to do, although it looks grainy and dark. The acting is fine. The script is ... well, it starts off with techno jumble that was easy enough for me to understand, but as it gets close to the end I just got lost, After reading up on the explanation, I can say that it does make sense, but it seems like they deliberately make it impossible to follow on screen.

More of a curiosity piece than an enjoyable movie. At least it wasn't bad and annoying.

Come And Play Oceanhorn 2 At GDC 18!

This year we travelled to a (not so) sunny San Francisco on Epic Games' invitation to show Oceanhorn 2 at the Unreal Engine venue at GDC 18. What an amazing opportunity! We prepared a great demo to show at the expo, so if you're an Oceanhorn fan, make sure to drop by and play the latest build of our game. You will also meet us, the developers, and have a chat!

Look at that! Our latest demo takes you to the Great Jungle of Pirta, where the Owru nation is divided by an old grudge. Will our heroes be able to unite the owrus and get them to join the fight against Mesmeroth's Dark Army.

Yes, I said heroes! One of the defining features of Oceanhorn 2 is the party members, who will be on your side through the adventure. Trin, the granddaughter of Arcadia's leader Archimedes and Gen, a mysterious robot wielding an old samurai weapon eki.

The game is still far from being finished, but it will be worth the wait!

Deities & Demigods Face Lift - Need A New Title!

When getting serious about the production of Deities & Demigods, I had to face certain realities about the theme:

Tropes vs Cliches

On one hand, using a familiar theme is useful, because tropes are like pictures -- worth 1000 words. People can recognize things like "Ares is the one that moves your troops" because of what they already know about the Greek gods. Knowing that information up front reduces the cognitive load on the player, who can spend their cycles thinking about whether they want to build stuff rather than having to think "wait, what does Hephaestus do again?" Read this whole twitter thread for a good, technical description of what I've been thinking for years, but didn't have the knowledge or vocabulary to express properly:

Oh, boy, I keep hearing people use the term "trope" like it's a negative. So let's talk about tropes and cliches.
— Jessica Price (@Delafina777) February 6, 2019

On the other hand, gamers tend to complain when a theme is overused. To be honest, while that complaint does come up at times, I suspect it's more of a complaint that the theme was used poorly than that it's really overused, because there are several popular themes that occur in many, many games every year that don't receive that complaint. However, a bigger issue may be presentation...

Looking at the many Greek mythology themed games out there, they all look exactly the same! The typical (maybe stereotypical) depiction of the Greek pantheon may be a good example of a "trope" that has become "cliche." It's difficult to tell any one of those games from another just looking at the artwork. Santorini does a good job of setting itself apart, with the awesome chibi-style artwork, but that's a rare exception:

The chibi style is cute, and works very well for that game, but (a) I'm not sure that kind of style would work as well for Deities & Demigods, and (b) it's been done already!

So how do I make Deities & Demigods stand out from the crowd? I had a few ideas about this...

1. Allocate a large art budget, so that if the game had to look like other, similar games, maybe it could look better. However, looking at some of the Greek mythology art from recent games, it appears they've already done that!

2. Change pantheons, moving from Greek mythology to something less commonly used, such as Egyptian mythology. For a while I thought this would be the right decision, as the art could look different, and people could comment on the unusual theme rather than the same-old same-old of the overused Greek setting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while the outfits would look different, the artwork would still probably look similar to the Greek games, and I wasn't finding Egyptian gods that fit as well with the game action.

3. Find a new style, like Santorini did. I came across the art for SPQF in the portfolio of one of the artists I was considering, and it got me thinking. SPQF is a card based civilization building game, with very nice art of anthropomorphic animals. There have been a couple other games with anthropomorphized animals lately -- one might even say it's the start of a trend, however I don't think we're there yet. This led me to consider a cross between Clash of the Titans and The Lion King... what if we re-imagined the Greek pantheon as animals of the African plain?

Clash of the Titans meets The Lion King

In the end, I liked the sound of this third option best, and have decided to go that route -- re-imagining the pantheon as anthropomorphic animals. This allows us to keep the tropes of Greek mythology, but use art that differs significantly from other Greek themed games, and could look pretty cool.

Photo of SPQF cards by BGG user lovemyfire

My initial picks for animals to represent each deity looked like this:
Zeus (king of the gods) -- the obvious choice is a lion
Hermes (messenger of the gods) -- a macaw seemed like a good choice
Ares (god of war) -- an elephant, or possibly a wild boar
Hephaestus (blacksmith to the gods) -- an ape of some kind (the opposable thumbs could help him build)
Hera (Zeus' wife) -- at first I thought maybe a peacock, but probably better would be a tiger, jaguar, leopard, or cheetah

With a change of theme, a few details will have to change as well. For example, animals have no use for gold, so perhaps food would be a better thing with which to show devotion. That said, perhaps Artemis (goddess of the hunt) would make more sense than Hermes, and as an added bonus it would get more goddesses into the game (something I'd been wanting to do anyway). To represent Artemis, perhaps a bird of prey would make sense.

For the player boards, I figure smaller animals would make sense, something like meerkats, gazelles, monkeys, and I don't know, some bird species perhaps. These are animals that are found in packs or groups, so it would make sense that you have 12 of them under your control. To represent your troops on the board, a regular meeple doesn't really evoke animals, so I've been thinking of something better. One thought is a sort of generic "animeeple" -- a 4 legged something-or-other which is not necessarily related to any of the player boards. The graphic designer suggested a paw shape, which could be cute, and would stack well, but might not be as fun for players to move around the board.

I'm open to suggestions for a meeple shape that would be good. I don't think it can really relate to the player board animals, or else (a) the player who insists on playing red all the time would always have to be meerkats, and (b) if we add more player boards with player powers in an expansion or something, we'd have to add 12 meeples to go with it!

What's in a name?

Deities and Demigods was a title I was kind of OK with, but it was always only a placeholder. 90% of the people who play the game point out that there's an old Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook with that title, which I don't actually think matters. In any case, I've always wanted a better title.

About 4 months ago, I finally put some effort into finding a better title, but didn't come up with anything fantastic. Some of the options were:

Titan's Tribute
Divine Interest
Quid Pro Quo (change pantheon to Roman deities)
Chrysos (Greek for "gold")
Favor of Olympus
Buy The Gods (pretty good, but maybe too "cute" for a real/serious title)

And for a good laugh:
In Gods We Trust
Invest In Vesta

However, now that the game is about animals in the African plains or Savannah, I don't think any of those would really work anyway. I could really use a title for this game, and the sooner the better so the graphic designer can make a logo for it! Please comment with your suggestions.

So far, the only idea I've had that I like at all is Pantheon of the Plains, but I'm sure there could be something better...

Our Game Spaces Are A Reflection Of Us

CW/TW - brief mention of sexual assault issues.

Yea, this post is because of the revelations of abuse by former girlfriends Mandy, Vivka and Hannah of Zak Smith (Sabbath). If you haven't read them, go here and here.

This post is about privilege and the hue/cry I've seen about "Why does real life intrude on my game?!?"

That's because those two things have a lot in common, with these images:

None of these accusations were a surprise. I've kept my distance from Zak since Porngate/TARGA exploded in 2010. I've watched his toxic attitude and behaviors and they were huge red flags for me.

Talk to women in your family. Go ahead. Have that conversation about if things have happened. In fact, DON'T talk, just listen. It'll make you sick. Sex and power and how that has been used and abused is a thread that runs through our history and who we are.

There's another meme I want to share with you before I take a deep dive:

The world is changing. #metoo #blacklivesmatter #occupywallstreet As someone who likes to read to learn, I've been reading a lot about how life changed in the 60s. The kids, the hippies, the changing attitudes towards civil liberties, sex, the government and life in general. I'm pretty sure I would have been a hippie, but I digress...

We're living similar changes now, only we're on the other side as the older generation. Our kids and grandkids don't give a fuck about things the way we give a fuck. They are shaping the world, just as we shaped the world in our youth.

So what are we, the older generation going to do?

Adapt or die. But also put forth our values, the best ones, so that the DNA of those values carries on. Share the wisdom of experience and hard knocks and make it relevant so that the DNA carries on.

So what does this have to do with Princess Bride and the Buddha?

One of the refrains I'm seeing on reddit, on Twitter, on the forums, podcasts and blogs is this idea of "I'm sick of this (real life stuff and/or politics) coming into my games!"

Well, I believe that those things have always been in our games, swirling around us.

As youth, we either didn't give a shit, or we were on the side of games. For my generation, it was Satanic Panic over D&D. We didn't care, but I'm pretty sure that there was the grognardly grumbling over it from folks who didn't like seeing the 70s gonzo feel get altered by TSR as they adapted to the market and their audience.

So now the world is changing. Change is painful. It's constant. Both the Princess Bride and the Buddha say the same thing - life is about pain. But how we deal with that pain says much about us. Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional.

I get the call of seeing games as a refuge. As a place where we can avoid the pain of life. But for me, as a white heterosexual cismale in the middle class, I shit, breathe and eat privilege. This is what I got in life. And it's been my observation, anecdotal as it may be, that the vast majority of those grumbling about politics and real world intruding on games have a healthy amount of privilege -- and they don't like the pain!

Well... how we react to pain, to life, to events like these is how we show the values and character of who we are.

I believe that fervently.

I get that some of us don't want our games to focus on inclusivity, on being thoughtful and considerate of our presentations of our worlds because it's.. .well... painful to change. To let go of the things that we've done/had/lived for 30, 40, 50 years.

Life is pain. Adapt or die.

I believe those things.

Look, I don't focus on the fact that I have tons of same-sex couples as NPCs. I present the fact as normal in my games and I move on. My minis are colored with many different racial colors because that's the way it is, without prejudice or show. I've had transfolks, gay folks, abuse survivors at my table and I've kept to these rules: Your fun doesn't overshadow someone else's fun and don't be an asshole at my table.

To me, this is just what it should be. Respect. Consideration. Awareness of the issues surrounding the people that come to my table.

Because people are affected by the world, just as they are affected by games. I would submit that there's a real truth that our RPG games are just as much of the story-telling, myth-relating tradition that we humans do with books, music, art, etc.. We might not be Plato, Chaucer, Shakespear at the table, but the things we do speak and reinforce things in our cultural DNA as much as the story of Gilgamesh does ... and there are threads that we all share!

I want my games to have the DNA of the values that I think are important. They are going to be political because we are political.

So these discussions are important. Because our niche of a niche has the same makeup as the real world.

There are abuse survivors.

There are abusers.

There are wonderful people, assholes, trans folks, homosexual, conservative, liberal folks and they bring the best/worst to the table. We are sharing space and sharing who we are.

So I get it, it sucks that real life intrudes. Life is pain. The kids don't give a shit if we don't like #metoo or we support it fully. This is the way the world is going.

Adapt or die. Because life is pain, princess. It doesn't mean it has to hurt.

PS. I enforce Laura Antoniou's "porch rule" - this blog is my front porch. I welcome discussion! I even want disagreement, tell me I'm wrong! But if you're going to spew hate, bullshit or just being a troll, I'm going to delete your comments.

You want "free speech" - then go protest against the government, which is what the Constitution of the United States guarantees to the citizens of the USA. Otherwise, my blog, my front porch, my rules.

Back? Well, I Never Actually Went Away.

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Blimey, been a long time since I looked at this, lots has happened, both in life and in wargaming.
Anyway, I will be re-visiting this blog. Maybe not as much as I did seven (7!!) years ago, but I feel now it would be fun to do a bit from time to time.
The main reason for not keeping this blog up was that I'd pretty much run out of puff, so, hopefully now I should be able to capitalise on having had a long break to come up with a few things that some folk might be interested in.