So It’s Been A While

First things, well, first is traditional. I’ve failed abysmally in regards to my goal to blog once a week for 52 to consecutive weeks. I think it rests partly in my reactionary opposition to any task being forced upon me, even if the forcing is self inflicted. If I set myself a goal, with no outside pressure, I immediately begin shrivelling away like a singed hair. It’s not very conductive for personal projects, but shit happens. Well, shall we get on with addressing my goals for 2011, seeing as the year has pretty much come to an end?

 

1) Blog once a week, minimum – Okay, we don’t need to dwell on this. I failed.

2) Get a job in Birmingham or Wolverhampton by April – Again, I failed this one, simply because I had a hard time getting a job ANYWHERE, let alone in the West Midlands. I did manage to find 3 months employment at the start of the year, but that was a temporary contract. But I am going back to the same company, almost a year to the day later that I first started with them

3) Get Money for Hong Kong – Thanks to the amazing generosity of my granddad, I was able to go to Hong Kong with Viv and her family and I had an AMAZING time. So that’s my first success.

4) Reach a Gamerscore of 25,000 – Okay, I really didn’t think I was going to make this until the very last minute. Seeing as I’ve only obtained 100% on one game since setting this goal (Saints Row The Third, great game), I accumulated the other 4k over several other titles, including Portal 2, Arkham Asylum, LA Noire, Dead Space 2 and, most recently, Assassin’s Creed Revelations. So a second success!

5) Complete an Entire Dungeons and Dragons Campaign – I’m going to mark this as a success. Although the campaign is far from ‘complete’, it’s still on going and we’ve managed to play quite regularly over the past 9 months or so. This has included multi-part story arcs, reoccurring villains and even a pair of holiday specials.

6) Play more Risk and Magic: The Gathering – This was most certainly a success. I’ve been playing a lot of Magic with two friends from dnd, and even got a third interested, who has really taken to it. In addition to playing more Risk, I’ve played more ‘traditional’ games in general, including Setters of Catan (which I now own) and Dominion. I have the Discworld and Game of Thrones board games on my wish list for the future as well.

7) Work on a Video Game Project – This failed more through inaction. I didn’t even install any level editing or 3d modelling software after my computer blew up in the middle of the year. But I did put together a portfolio DVD, which I was quite happy with.

8) Learn Cantonese – No comment (and certainly no comment in Cantonese)

9) Improve my Blog Design – I pretty much gave up on blogging, so I gave even less thought to it’s design.

10) Buy more Books – Now this one is a great success, although not in the way I anticipated. I didn’t end up buying many more Discworld books, only having received the latest book; Snuff, for xmas. But I have bought many other books, including the first 5 ASoIaF books and the first three Dresden Files books. I plan on getting the next paperback ASoIaF book in March, and the rest of the Dresden Files titles once I finish the first three.

So, 5/10 for goals. That’s pretty good. The way I see it, if I had achieved that on one goal, it would be counted as a failure. I’d rather set ten goals and achieve half then set one goal and fail it all together.

But what about 2012? Well, I’m probably not going to set as esoteric goals for this coming year, but I will set some.

1) Work on my story that I’m writing – On some random impulse, I began writing what began as a short story. It’s a bit hard to explain the concept, but it’s basically a story about relationships, those between friends, siblings, kids and their parents, romantic ones and self destructive ones, all centred around ground of people playing a game of dnd. I’m at about 30k words and 1/3 into the story, tops, so I would like to see this through.

2) Play more ‘traditional’ games – This basically means playing more d&d, magic the gathering, risk, catan and any other board game I can get my hands on.

3) Visit Viv as often as possible – Quite self explanatory.

4) Produce a better games design CV – Again, explains itself really.

5) Read more books, more often – Do I have to explain this?

That will do, I’ll go with five this year.

Well, happy new year to all of you.

MMXI Week 12 - RIP Bertha

Okay, here's the ideal plan. Today, you would've been experiencing my first video blog. But thermodynamics got the better of me. You see, if you chose to convert several 1080p video files consecutively, well, you can do some serious image to your 2.5 year old computer.
Let me sing the obituary of Bertha. Bertha was a great computer, built in November of 2008, she wasn't the apex of technology, but she was powerful none the less. She endured Portal, a degree of computer games design and several thousand rendered videos and images.
Now most computers either go out peacefully, like an old relative passing in their sleep, or a blaze of 'glory' like a spectacular car crash. Bertha, on the other hand, passed like an 80 year old who got up at 5am to go jogging, only to have a brain annurism and go face down in their organic porridge.
Its a mixed experience for me, as it leaves me without a.computer. But this is only for a week as I'm off to Hong Kong in a week. Ergo, xbox to the rescue. It's going to cost in the region on £300 to fix, depending if I decide to upgrade to a) windows 7 and b) get a bigger hdd.
I have to say I'm disturbing happy, but I think that's party due to my improved outlook on life. Things are more relative than you realise, and stressing is a waste of time. For example, rather than dropping one because of what of I cant do until my computer is fixed (my files are okay as far as I know, its my mobo that died), I looked at what I can do instead. I'm gonna read some more, do some drawing, add generally find solutions. It's an amazingly great mental attitude, that I owe in no small part to my girlfriends great outlook on life rubbing off on me.
(Quick clarification, this blog is via my phone)
But yes, that's pretty much it. No more blogs for 5 weeks ish, which doesn't void my one blog a week goal, as I intend to post retroactive blogs.

Peace and love.

Night vision photo for no reason.

MMXI Week 11–The Summer of Our Disconnect

Okay, I’m sorry, I know, I know, I’m terribly late with this weeks blog entry. I have a brilliant, very simple reason for not posting. I haven’t had internet since Saturday, thanks to a technical fault with our ISP.

Okay, now the grovelling is over, what was I up to the past week? Well not very much, work mainly and biding my time until my Epic April begins.

It’ll obviously be in my next entry, but I thought I’d mention my d&d campaign I’m starting on Sunday. I’ll probably post more over on the D Twenty.

That’s it for now, sorry it’s so brief!

MMXI Week 10–Grand Promises

Okay, I did originally promise something a little special, but due to lack of time (and energy) this will be postponed. What I am going to post instead is a small progress report on my goals and a brief summary of my week (well, mainly weekend).

First up, goals progress:

1) Blog once a week, minimum – Well, kind of obvious here. Ignoring late posts, I am managing to put up one entry per week. Only time will tell if I can keep it up for the whole 52

2) Get a job in Birmingham or Wolverhampton by April – this one has been pushed back until May/June due to going to Hong Kong, but I’ve also expanded it include a job in Guildford, as being closer to Viv would be nice.

3) Get Money for Hong Kong – Done and done!

4) Reach a Gamerscore of 25,000 – Not doing too badly, almost at 21k thanks to dead space. Got Bulletstorm, Portal 2, Mortal Kombat and Mass Effect 3 at the very least to help me achieve this.

5) Complete an Entire Dungeons and Dragons Campaign – This weekend I will be conducting the opening chapter of a small, but complete, d&d campaign. This won’t quite be of the same scope of my current campaign, but I hope it will be none the less fun for my players (many of which are newcomers)

6) Play more Risk and Magic: The Gathering – I’m doing very well at this, having played several games of both, even having a magic build off with Viv. Her Vampire deck thoroughly booted my Chandra deck.

7) Work on a Video Game Project – This one has sadly gone on the back burner for a while now. I have been working on general art work, which can contribute to my portfolio, so not completely frozen.

8) Learn Cantonese – No, not happening, let us not speak of this failure

9) Improve my Blog Design – Again, nothing much really happening on this front. I’m getting by with the current design, but need to work on something more personal.

10) Buy more Books – I haven’t got anything new since Viv got me the first two Discworld books, but I most certainly intend to order the last two Scott Pilgrims very soon, along with perhaps the third discworld book.

Not doing too badly me thinks, perhaps rated at about 60% progress.

As for last week, work was the usual repetition, but the weekend was amazing. I’ll give you a brief breakdown:

Friday: Got train from Bicester to Guildford, arriving late that night. After a change of plans, me and Viv ordered pizza, opened my two Magic the Gathering deck builders toolkits (more on this over at the D Twenty eventually) and watched some stuff on her new TV that I had bought her.

Saturday: After a nice lie in, we headed off into town to get some cables and food for pancakes at some point. We also had milkshakes from shakeaway. Viv had a Dave with cream and I had a Ben with nuttella. Later that day, we went to the cinema to see Battle: Los Angeles (which was very good) and then had take away (again, chicken and chips this time)

Sunday: Woke up fairly early (before 10am) and decided that we would make the pancakes. We used an amazing recipe from the Metro and served them with nuttella, blueberries, strawberries, powdered sugar and butter. There were AMAZING!
Before I caught the train home, we went for dinner at Nando’s, which was gorgeous as usual.

The only down side was my Reading-Oxford train being 10 mintutes late, so I missed the last train to Bicester. Luckily, my brother came and rescued me from Oxford station.

All in all, an amazing weekend. I’ve got to post a few more entries this week covering some magic stuff, time permitting.

MMXI Week 9–Once more, and this time with Zealotry

This is most likely (in theory) going to be a more brief blog entry, as this past week has been quite uneventful. The main landmark on the chronological topology of my week was completing Dead Space 2. Now I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you that haven’t played it yet, so I’ll just say that it’s amazing and a very powerful climax. But what I really want to talk about is some of the things that Dead Space 2 got right.

• Quick time events: Most people (rightly) loathe QTE’s. The ‘press A not to die’ mentality can be frustrating and imbalanced. But in DS2, the managed to pull it off. Rather than the usual single press required in a two second window, you are required to furiously mash A in order to survive. This really lends weight to your flurried attempts to prevent a ghostly apparition from shoving a needle in your eye!
• Making the player jump: Don’t get me wrong, DS2 isn’t ‘scary’ in the sense of giving you nightmares. But it does keep you on the edge of your seat. Never before have I been so terrified of an empty corridor, or a cylinder rolling down a hall.
• Mixing it up: DS2 isn’t all shooting. There are some great breaks in the gameplay, the best of all being the zero-g sequences. There are various little puzzles involving solar arrays, derailed lifts and even ocular needles! All in all, they mix up the game play nicely

But what DS2 does best in my opinion is replay value. You see, I’m not one for replaying any story heavy game. Once I know the plot, I’m pretty much done, and even going back for achievements is a chore for me. But DS2 changed all this, the moment I completed the story, I went back and started a new game on Zealot (the hardest difficulty). What inspired this was the New Game+ mode, where you get all your gear from your previous play through. This levelled the playing field a bit more so that even though I’m on the hardest setting, it’s not impossible (but still a challenge).

Oh, and a special mention for the Achievement ‘Clever Girls’. Any Jurassic Park reference is alright in my books.

The other high point of my week was a back to back viewing of Tron and Tron Legacy. It was quite interesting to not only see how special effects have come along in the years between the films, but also the little references to the former in the latter. But the one thing that truly struck me was how Tron feels so much longer than Legacy, even though Legacy is 30 minutes longer and, according to my friend who had never seen it before, a lot more ‘talky’. This is a fair observation, there is a lot more exposition in Legacy, characters often taking moments to ‘develop’ and ‘bond’. But the film is still more steadily paced than the original Tron. Maybe this has something to do with the style of film making in the 80’s, particularly science fiction. I’ve noticed that a lot of classic sci-fi films feel drawn out and tedious by comparison to current films, even when they contain ostensibly more action and activity.

On a side note, a little goal update. Not done much progress towards my level, but have been doing some art work, which will work in my portfolio. Gamerscore is almost at 21,000. Still don’t know any useful Cantonese. Running a short DnD session in a couple of weeks. Planning on picking up a couple of Discworld books soon, along with the last 2 Scott Pilgrim.

Peace

MMXI Week 8–Achievement Unlocked

Oh wow, I’ve managed to this blog out on time, and in celebration, I’m going to talk about something short and sweet and a little a deviated from my usual topics. This week, I bring you the 10 Commandments of Achievements. This is a doctrine of rules that I feel all developers should follow when implementing achievements (or trophies if that’s your thing). So let us begin the sermon.

First Commandment, Thou shalt give reward that dost reflecteth the work doneth for thine achievement.
I don’t want to get 20 achievement points for completing the training mission at the start of game, but only 30 for completing the game on Insane-Impossible-Haveyounolife difficulty in 1 hour using your feet. The amount of gamerscore you get should be a fair representation of the time, effort and skill that goes into obtaining it.

Second Commandment, Thou shalt not subjecteth thine players to more than one play through, especially for longeth games.
Some games are reasonably short (Portal) or have stories that can be enjoyed multiple times (Dead Space for me), but most of the time, with a story heavy game, one play through is enough. So I don’t want to see an achievement that says ‘Complete two play throughs’ (I’m looking at you Mass Effect 2). A player should never be forced to play a game more than once.

Third Commandment, No achievement shalt be missed
This one relates to the second commandment, in that I don’t want to find that I’ve played through the game but missed the only opportunity to kill the only pink flamingo that spawns once half way through level 22, with no way to go back and replay the level. The only thing worse than being forced to replay a game for an achievement is being forced to replay a game for an achievement you could have unlocked the first time round.

Fourth Commandment, Thou shalt stacketh achievements based on thine difficulty
I’ve completed the game on expert. I’ve got the achievement for completing the game on expert. Now why must I go back, considering I can take all the game can throw at me, and prove I can complete it on an easier difficulty? It makes no sense. Completing the game on one difficulty should unlock achievements for all lower difficulties. Arguably there are some exceptions, such as music games where playing a lower difficulty can be just as challenging as playing a high one. Just ask anyone who is used to playing Rock Band on hard guitar to go down to easy!

Fifth Commandment, Thou shalt not use achievement to force thine players hand.
I have my uber evil character, they’ve been evil the whole game. I’ve made them kill puppies, evict orphans, destroy churches and even leave the toilet seat up. Now why must I choose to save the kingdom rather than let it burn, just to get an achievement? Now it’s fair enough you want to reward ‘moral choices’, but reward both extremes. I don’t want to ever have my choice based gameplay influenced so i can satisfy my achievement OCD.

Sixth Achievement, Thou shalt not reward the best at thine multiplayer
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t see anything wrong with multiplayer achievements. But I do hate is achievements for say, being the top of the leader board for a week. Or for racking up the most hours online. Or for any of the hundreds of online status’ that only one person can occupy at a time, usually the person with the least amount of a real life so they have the time to sink every waking hour into multiplayer.

Seventh Achievement, Thou shalt always respecteth the sanctity of 5
Okay, I get a little crazy about my gamerscore, always aiming for aesthetically pleasing numbers like 1,000, 5,555 or 20,000. But even the most sane person gets a little annoyed when they get an achievement worth 1, 2, 6 or any other non-multiple of five achievement, fucking up the standard convention of gamerscores being a multiple of five.

Eighth Achievement, If thoust giveth away special editions, dost not allow special editions to make thine achievements easier or harder.
The are times when, no matter how badly you want, you just either can’t afford or find the that rare special edition of the game, with its various codes, props and art books, so don’t give those who did an easier time unlocking achievements. Now I’m not extending this to DLC, which can also make certain achievements easier, as DLC is available to everyone, whereas special/limited editions are just that, and not everyone can get hold of them.
Equally, don’t give players special edition codes that make it harder to unlock achievements. This includes special weapons that may disable achievements for completing the game a certain way, for example.

Ninth Achievement, Thou shalt not cause pain, to body or mind, in pursuit of achievements.
Okay, straight up, I’m looking at you Bladder of Steel. Yes, you, don’t look around, no other achievement has caused me so much suffering and anguish. I’ve had hand cramps, rages, aching bladder and even the shakes (from too much pre-setlist Relentless). An achievement should never hurt. Ever. That’s all there is to it.

Tenth Achievement, Thou shalt always track thine achievement progress
”Have I already got that bonus? I’m pretty sure I got it last round? How many of those guys have I killed, I’m pretty sure I must’ve killed more than 100. God dammit, where’s that check list” – I fucking hate this, right here, this uncertainty. I want to be able to go into the options menu and see how many skeletons I’ve killed, how many of the multiplayer bonus’ I’ve unlocked (I’m looking at you Assassins Creed Brotherhood) or see any of a myriad of possible achievement progressions I could have.

Well, that’s it, there’s my Ten Commandments of Achievements. If you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Hell, please comment! Until next time.

Nerf Zombie War–Rules

Okay, since getting my latest nerf gun, the Stampede ECS, I’ve been dying to ‘play’ with it in a competitive scenario. As such, I’ve concocted the following rules for a Nerf Zombie war. The idea is to act out a zombie outbreak using nerf guns. So here’s the rules:

Equipment
Red strips of fabric (for armbands)
Permanent marker (to number armbands)
A phone with lots of credit/unlimited free texts

Additionally, each player must have:
A Nerf gun of some kind (obviously)
Ammunition
Soft foam weapons for close combat
A phone, with which to receive the game messages

Lock and load!

Prologue
Before the game begins, an inventory is conducted for all players, the game area is defined, safe zones designated and a time limit set. It is recommended that areas where none players congregate, such as libraries, lecture rooms, or other such public locations, be labelled ‘No Go’ for anyone playing.
All players are given a red numbered armband that is tied onto the right upper arm. It must be tied with a bow, with plenty of excess so that it may be easily pulled off. This will become clear as to why later.
Players may be armed with whatever Nerf guns they can beg/steal/borrow, along with all the ammunition they can carry. It is recommended that you a) keep a count of your ammunition and b) don’t bring more than you can afford to lose, as there is a chance of darts going missing, especially as you fight for your life. It is also a good idea to establish if exchanging/gifting/inheriting weapons is permitted. Additionally players may carry soft foam weapons, but care is to be exercised when using these.
All players then must disperse and find a ‘safe’ spot from which to start the game. Once an allotted amount of time has passed, say 5 or 10 minutes, a text message is sent out to all players with a random number. Whoever is wearing the armband with this number becomes Patient Zero

Characters

Patient Zero
Patient Zero is the malevolent plague bearer, the source of the outbreak. Their goal is to infect as many people as possible with the deadly plague they carry

Infectious – Patient Zero, or P0 from now on, is the only survivor who can remove armbands, thus infecting other survivors. P0 may infect a survivor in one of two ways:
1) P0 may kill another survivor first, using a nerf or foam weapon, and then remove their armband. They may then keep the armband and the player comes back as a shambler.
2) P0 may attempt to remove a survivors armband while they are still alive, without getting killed by the survivor in the process. If they succeed, the player immediately ties their armband to their left arm and comes back as a runner.

Regeneration -  If P0 is killed by a survivor, they use one of their armbands in their possession to come resurrect. If they are wearing their last armband (the one they started with) they instead come back as shambler, but should they take an armband from a survivor, they may once again regenerate into P0

Hard to Kill -  Unlike other zombies, you cannot execute P0 in order to prevent him resurrecting. The only way to kill P0 is to kill him while ‘alive’ in his human form once for each armband he carries, then kill him as a shambler.

Anonymous -  Any player infected by P0 must not reveal the identity of P0 to another player. They may however kill P0 should they encounter them again if they re-enter the game as a survivor.

Zombie
Zombies are the living dead, the restless deceased. They are neither truly dead or alive and hunger for flesh. They are highly infectious and will turn anyone them come into contact with. There are three types of zombies:

Know your enemy OR be all you can be!

Shambler (0 armbands) – These are slow moving, but fairly resilient zombies that represent the most common form of undead. They can only walk at a s shambling pace (hence their name) but can only be killed with a head shot. It takes a shambler 10 seconds to open a closed door and they cannot open any door with a latch, lock or other obstruction.

Runner (1-4 armbands) – Once a shambler has consumed enough flesh, it begins to adapt in order to hunt more prey. Its metabolism accelerates, but it becomes more vulnerable. A Runner can move at a running pace, but they can be killed by a head or chest shot. Runners are capable of regenerating and can open a door that isn’t locked or obstructed in 5 seconds.

Predator (5 armbands) – The most advanced and deadly zombie, the predator not only is tougher, but also more intelligent. Any zombie that accumulates 5 armbands becomes a Predator. A Predator may run, can only be killed with headshots, can open locked or obstructed doors instantly, and most disturbingly are capable of using close combat weapons. Predators cannot accumulate more than 5 armbands, any armbands they do collect are lost.

Zombie Special Rules

Infection
A zombie can infect a player by removing their armband from their right arm. Once a zombie has done so, the player becomes a Shambler 60 seconds after being infected, and the infecting zombie gets to keep the armband, allowing them to evolve into a Runner or even a Predator. Armbands cannot be transferred between zombies, but can be collected by a player performing an execution.

Evolution
When a zombie infects a survivor and collects their armband, the zombie wears their acquired armband on their left arm to show their evolution. This is important for identifying Runners and Predators.

Regeneration
When a zombie is ‘killed’ or downed, if they have any armbands, they may remove them in order to regenerate. If a Runner regenerates with only one armband, it becomes a Shambler again. When a Predator regenerates, it becomes a Runner.

Survivors
Survivors are the last bastion of humanity, standing against the waves of undead. They must fight, or be food.

Weapons – Survivors have to arm themselves in order to survive. Permitted weapons include Nerf/Foam dart guns and foam/soft weapons. When using dart guns, headshots may be required, but try to avoid the eyes. As for close combat weapons, don’t be too boisterous and be careful. ‘Pistol whipping’ is allowed, but it must be done safely, in a more role play fashion.

Execution – When a survivor puts a zombie down, there is a chance they may regenerate and come back. In order to prevent this, a player may execute a downed zombie. This can only be done 30 seconds after the zombie has been downed and requires the player walking over, simulating a headshot, and removing the zombies armbands. This must be done once per armband, with 30 seconds between each armband. The survivor may then keep any armbands they accumulate this way, which are important for rescuing civilians.

Friendly Fire – While there is no friendly fire per say, a stray shot is harmless, survivors may intentionally kill their team mates, either as an act of mercy or treachery. If a survivor does so, they may collect their fallen teammates armband.

Look after your ammo and your ammo will look after you!

Civilians
Civilians are the unarmed, disorganised, panicked and scared masses. Any player that dies either as a shambler, or without being infected (i.e., headshot while alive) becomes a civilian and must head to the nearest safe zone.

Safe Zones -  Safe zones are designated areas where civilians gather until rescued. Zombies may not enter safe zones and survivors may only enter them in order to rescue civilians, and may not use their weapons while doing so.

Rescue – If a survivor has spare armbands, they may give them to any civilians he finds at a safe zone, allowing them to re-enter the game as survivors. Optionally, they may even chose to re-arm the rescued survivors.

Game Rules

It is considered good etiquette to collect any loose ammo you find, even if it was used to shoot at you. It is sensible to conduct a pre-game inventory of each players weapons, ammunition and accessories, so that hopefully everyone will get back what they started with, although loses are to be expected. Don’t bring more than you can afford to lose.

If a survivor is turned and does not wish to lend their weapon to another player, they may instead carry it with them (remaining in character appropriate to their zombie status) to a designated drop off point. This will usually be the point where the game started and where non-playing members of the game will wait. A zombie carrying their weapon cannot infect survivors and is considered a shambler for all purposes. Once they are rescued, they may make their way to the drop off point to collect their weapon, but this is not without its risks.

Game Modifiers
Game modifiers are spontaneous changes to the rules that can modify the game significantly. With the exception of ‘The Cure’, all modifiers and revealed by a mass text message sent to all players. It wise for the purpose of timing to make sure all players have the same time at the start of the game.

The Cure -  “The Cure” is a rare green armband placed somewhere in the designated gameplay area that prevents the wearer from from being turned. Instead, when they lose their red armband (they wear both red and green at the same time) they go straight to the safe zone as a civilian. Additionally, they may cure a survivor of their infection just after they have been turned. This requires the survivor to have a spare armband to give to their infected team mate.

The Safe Zone Ain’t So Safe! -  One of the safe zones, chosen at random, is demoted to a regular game zone and is thus open. All players are notified of this by a mass text (see why free texts would be useful?) Once the safe zone is demoted, any civilians in the zone become zombies instantly.

Get to da Choppa’! – A rescue chopper is on the way, but it won’t stick around forever. There is a small window for the survivors to escape. All players are notified of the evac location and time, and any survivor or civilian who makes it to that zone before the allotted time escapes to safety.

A something like this

The Final Stand – This is it, time for humanity to make its last stand against the undead hoards. A final stand location is texted to all players and the survivors must defend it until the last man. The game will then continue until either all the survivors or all the zombies are dead. Any civilians in safe zones become zombies and the usual 60 second wait after infection is waived.

Game ‘Win’ Conditions
Although nobody truly wins in a zombie apocalypse (well, except the zombies maybe), there are certain conditions by which one side or the other may claim a small victory.
After the allotted time has expired or the chopper leaves, the team with the most points (based on the score sheet bellow) is the winner. In the case of Final Stand, the last surviving team is the winner.

Scores – Survivors
2 Points per Survivor
1 Point per spare armband in possession of the survivors
5 Points for being in possession of “The Cure” armband
10 Points for killing P0
5 Points per Survivor or Civilian who escapes on the chopper

Scores – Zombies
1 Point per Shambler
2 Points per Runner
3 Points per Predator
1 Point per armband in possession of the zombies
10 Points if P0 is alive

Well, there we go. Hopefully all you living dead lovers and Nerf nuts out there will get to try out these rules for a bit of playful Armageddon! Post in the comment section with any feedback, questions or suggestions! And happy hunting.

MMXI Week 7–Part 2 The Completening

Well, here it is, my late blog entry for the seventh week of the year. There is a good reason for this; I’ve had an amazingly fun and busy past ten days. Thus I will summarise these past few days. These days of awesome began last Thursday (the same day I posted my previous entry). Due to the massive amount of stuff I did, this blog will actually link to several smaller entries, that I will try and post before this entry (so this entry actually shows up as the most recent and links back to the smaller entries.

Thursday
Thursday was the longest day of work I’ve done in what seems like forever. I was counting down the seconds until I would be free. Once 4pm rolled around, I ran off home (well, got a lift) and begun throwing together all my luggage to go down and see Viv in Guildford.
Upon arriving late that night, I had a plate of delicious pasta that Viv had cooked up and saved for me. Sadly, I didn’t take any photos as I was so eager to nom it all up. After nomming the pasta, I presented Viv with her first Valentines day gift;

Bamboo the Panda!

Needless to say this went down very well! He was taken to bed by Viv that night (after copious amounts of squeals at his cuteness).

Friday
Friday began with Viv rising early for work, as she has to do everyday due to her commute. I got up around the same time, helped her get ready for work and saw her off. I am used to rising around this time (around 6am) due to having to start working myself on a usual day quite early.

I used the rest of the day to do some laundry, cleaning and even a little DIY around the apartment. This was party to keep myself occupied, but also so that it would be nice for Viv when she got home.

Saturday and Sunday
Viv returned from work around half six that night and Valentines began proper for us. We had decided to have a Valentines weekend, as Valentines proper was Monday, when Viv would be working. You can read about what we got up to, including pictures, here.

Monday
Following an awesome weekend together, Viv had to go back to work, gotta earn the pennies somehow. I used this time to do a bit more laundry and cleaning around the flat. Then the intercom went. I was apprehensive as I don’t like answering doors/phones in houses that aren’t mine, but I picked up the receiver and answered; it was a delivery for Viv.

Upon bringing what was the largest amazon box I had ever seen upstairs, I texted Viv letting her know that something had come for her. She replied saying that I could open it! What could it possibly be?

This!

That’s last years nerf gun present at the bottom.

Not only had Viv given me some amazingly awesome fantastic presents over the weekend, she still had a trick up her sleeve! Needless to say many foam bullets flew that day! I will possibly review this item on this blog later on.

Tuesday and Wednesday

The following day, I had another couple of awesome days. Mondays highlight was playing my second game of Risk 2210 AD, this time verses Will.

Will contemplates his next move

I won this game as well, but I put this down to knowing the rules better and having played more games of Risk before hand. It was still a very fun game and proved that 2210 deserves all the accolades put upon it.

Wednesday was another DIY day, this time coming up with a non-permanent way of hanging the notice board Viv and Anne had acquired. Using the string that held my nerf gun in it’s packaging, I created the following rather successful setup:

Is there nothing this boy can’t do???

That evening, me and Viv decided to take advantage of Orange Wednesdays down at the Odeon and see the new Simon Pegg and Nick Frost film; Paul. All I can say is that it was money very well spent! We laughed so much and enjoyed the film thoroughly. The best way to describe Paul is thusly; what Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is to video game culture, Paul is to science fiction. There were some great jokes, brilliant references to science fiction classics and some fantastic sub-plots. All in all, an amazingly enjoyable film that I would certainly see again.

Thursday
Thursday morning I had to catch my train early in the morning back to Bicester. This was a very weird experience as I felt like I should be saying good bye to Viv for another or month or so, when I’d actually be seeing her the following evening, as she was coming down for the weekend.

I arrived in Bicester around 2pm, then promptly jumped on another train, head in a bag, and set off for Birmingham. Head you ask? More on that later.
Once I arrived in Bicester, I made my way to my friend Emma’s place, as we were having a cocktail night. This proved to be quite a potent night, as this video will testify.

Tequila is a dangerous thing!

I was rather fortunate as I was spared the hangover I felt I deserved, instead just blighted by a mild headache and a craving for sugar.

That evening I made my way into Birmingham city center in order to meet Viv off her train and travel off to Wolverhampton. We had an early start the next day, as we had plans involving the head in the bag!

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning, we got up early and walked over to Vivs cousins place. Wessie was taking us all to Telford for the MCM Midlands anime and comics expo. It was something I was truly excited about and even had a costume for. You can read all about it right here.

The following day we went out for a meal to celebrate Viv’s mums birthday. We decided to go to the relatively new all you can eat buffet restaurant; Cosmos. It was a pan-Asian restaurant offering a wide selection. And wide is an understatement. I ate until I was almost sick and and probably only sampled a 1/3 of everything on offer. I didn’t even try anything from the live food stations, where your selection was cooked to order.
The only complaints I had were the usual saltiness you get at all you can eats, and the nuts at the desert bar. You see, when you have what looks like peanuts on a desert bar, next to almonds and raisins, between jelly and ice cream, you expect them to be honey roasted or caramelised nuts. Finding out they’re salted can slightly spoil your desert that you happened to have sprinkled them over. But ignoring that, I was a mighty tasty meal that was excellent value.

So this marks the end of this somewhat delayed blog. On the topic of goals, I haven’t any major progression, except that my passport has now arrived, so I am 100% prepared for Hong Kong in a few weeks. It’s so bizarre that it’s so close it’s not even measurable in months any more. I haven’t made any progression in learning Cantonese, I may just rely on Google Translate, lol.
Hopefully my next entry will be much less tardy. Until then, TTFN

MMXI Week 7–MCM Telford 2011

So Saturday morning we woke up early, threw ourselves into Wessies car and begun the drive to Telford for MCM Midlands 2011. I had my costume in tow, which you may have already seen in parts. Here it is before I put it on:

And here I am wearing it outside the International Center:

The convention was an amazing experience, especially as it was my first time in Cosplay. Everyone was so nice and it was so weird having people ask to take my photo! I saw some amazing costumes including a Sonic team;

Some amazing Bleach cosplay;

And one of my favourite outfits, cardboard storm trooper;

There were so many awesome costumes, so I’m going to have to do awards for three categories; video game, anime/manga and film/comic book. First, best video game cosplay:

Third Runner Up

Medic, Heavy and Scout from Team Fortress 2

Second Runner Up

Desmond and Two Altairs from Assassins Creed

First Runner Up

Link and Midna from Twilight Princess

And First Place

Faith from Mirrors Edge

I liked the Faith costume the most because of its simplicity and accuracy. She just looked the part naturally.

Now for the best anime/mange costumes:

Third Runner Up

Giselle from Enchanted

Second Runner Up

The Flash

First Runner Up

The Goddamn Batman

And First Place

Kick Ass from, well, Kick Ass.

Just an amazing costume that looks like he walked off set.

Finally, the best Anime/Manga cosplays.

Third Runner Up

Grimmjow Jaggerjack from Bleach

Second Runner Up

Sajin Komarmura, 7th Division Captain, from Bleach

First Runner Up

Nappa, Goku and Frieza from Dragon Ball Z

And First Place

Super Sayan Goku from Dragon Ball Z

I loved this costume simply for the wig, it looks so perfect. He could have done without maybe so much foundation, but that’s just a minor complaint.

Aside from the costumes, there were some great stalls, including two Nintendo stands, one for the somewhat underwhelming 3DS, and another for various Nintendo games, which I didn’t really interact much with. The retailers were quite homogenous with a lot of the same stuff on sale at each stand. The two that stood out the most was the Spit Like This/Smell Your Mum t-shirt stand and the Magic the Gathering card stand, where I found these amazing cards to complete my Myrcraft deck:

Can you see where I’m going with this?

That’s 3 Masters Call from Mirrodin Besieged, 2 Palladium Myr, 1 Myrsmith, 2 Myr Propagators and 4 Myr Galvanisers. I’ve been dying to get hold of these cards and they make for a devastating combo of infinite Myr tokens.

All in all, it was a fantastic day and I’m so glad I went. I enjoyed it even more that I was with Viv, Vinki and Wessie. Being in costume gave me a sense of belonging that I’ve not had before. I’m totally planning on going to MCM London in May, with some additions to my costume, I may even try my hand at the masquerade!

Here’s a youtube video of the pictures I took:

And you can see them all here on my Flickr stream.

MMXI Week 7–Valentines Weekend

The valentines weekend began late Friday night, when I presented Viv with a choice of two of her presents from a selection of three. The selection was two of her books and the Magic The Gathering Phyrexian Poison deck I had bought her. Much to my pleasure, she chose one book and the deck, the latter of which she was very surprised at. It was her first deck of Magic cards and she liked the selection and was happy to have a deck all of her own. I hadn’t bought myself a corresponding new deck, so I tried my luck using one of the older decks I’d brought with me. Needless to say I was trounced by Vivs plethora of poisonous creatures. Poison is an evil ability in magic that I have yet to find an effective counter to. After getting my ass handed to me and then watching a film, we decided to get some sleep as we were both quite tired, Viv more so as she had been at work.

So, Saturday morning, me and Viv rose after a reasonable lie in (until about 9am, when you get up at 6am everyday, 9 is a veritable luxury) and set about the important task of having a thoroughly awesome valentines day. We started by swapping gifts, starting with me giving Viv the remaining book and earrings. She loved the earrings especially as she has developed somewhat of an obsession since getting her ears pierced. But the apex of her present pyramid was contained within this box:

Oooh, shiny

For as long as I could remember, Viv had been wanting a bottle of Diesel Fuel for Life Unlimited. So imagine how happy I was when i found a gift set containing a bottle of said perfume and some skin lotion? She absolutely loved it and promptly spritzed herself. I even got a little something out it in the form of a tester of Fuel for Life for men. It was quite a nice fragrance that I could see myself wearing in the future.
Here’s the sum of what I got Viv this year:

Not pictured are the earrings, which I believe Viv was wearing at the time.

But what, you may be asking, did I get? Well, I’m so glad you asked imaginary person. Viv knows me all too well and got me three things I’ve been dying for for a long time now.

Risk 2210 AD, The Light Fantastic and The Colour of Magic

The books were the new cover prints of the first two discworld books, starting my collection proper. But the masterpiece was a copy of the out of print board game Risk 2210 AD. This futuristic adaptation of Risk was first published ten years ago and is very hard to come by, but Viv found me a new, sealed copy and I couldn’t have been happier!

Viv then suggested that we wander into town to check out a comic book store a friend had mentioned. Unfortunately this turned out to just be a Games Workshop, but the trip wasn’t a complete waste, as I managed to pick up Myr of Mirrodin intro deck, to complement and compete against Vivs Scars of Mirrodin deck. I was very excited to try out my new deck, but we had more important things to attend to, namely our 8pm reservation at TGI Fridays! Om nom nom!

As you can see, Viv looked absolutely amazing for the meal;

And the meal looked almost as good!

Just the starter! Soooo good!

Proof of how amazing the meal was lies in the size of Vivs ‘food baby’

Thoroughly sated, we decided to change into our comfiest of jammies and break in my copy of Risk 2210 AD.

First I will wipe out the browns, then the reds will fall

It was a damn fun game, I was so happy that Viv got it for me. I am planning to do a full review over on The D Twenty asap.
I do think my prior knowledge of the rules helped me win the game, but it was still very enjoyable for both me and Viv. The two player rules worked really well, and invading the moon was a lot of fun! Afterwards, we decided to let the urge to hibernate after eating so much take over and crawled off to bed. Snoooore!

Sunday was a very quite lie in kind of day, not doing much except just enjoying not having to do anything. We played another game of Magic the Gathering and in the evening, we ordered pizza and watched Community.

Mozzarella makes for amazing nachos!

That marked the end of our valentines weekend, but we still had loads of time together over the coming week. I couldn’t say this was the best Valentines I’ve had, as every one I spend with Viv is amazing! But it definitely was a weekend I will treasure!

MMXII Week 7 - Part 1 The Beginerning

I am exceedingly disappointed in myself for being this late in posting this entry. In my defense, I have been having too much fun (I never said it was a good defense). But I decree that, UK recompense for my laxity, I will blog twice this week. The send blog to follow this will also be supported by no less than 3 game review entries over on the d twenty. Now I must be going as blogging while crossing roads is far from safe. Watch this space.

MMXI Week 6 - Blogger On The Run

This blog is going to be considerable more brief than my usual affair, as I'm am not at my computer, or any computer for that matter. I am spending the Valentine period with my amazing girlfriend and therefore don't have access to my usual blogging setup. "But Davyd" I hear you cry "how are you writing this?" Well I'm glad you asked. I am writing this entry using the Blogger app for my HTC desire hd, and I have to say its a surprising painless experience.
You see, I'm never one for writing huge amounts on phones (contrary to what the length of my average text would indicate). But with a solid app, responsive on screen soft keyboard, intuitive auto correction and, most importantly, a gorgeously large and clear 4.3" screen, the desire hd is more than adequate for the task.

"But enough of your phone, what else has been happening in your disturbingly mundane life?" Well, nothing much to be honest. I've been thoroughly enjoying dead space 2, an excellent game, and adding the finishing touches to my cosplay. More pictures will come either next entry or possibly the one after.

Well, gonna keep this brief by wrapping it up. I've expanded on my game design goal bf coming up with a secondary concept, which I'm going to work on from an art/narrative/gameplay angle. I don't want to give anything away, but controversial would be the best way to describe it. Not learnt any more Cantonese, and the Birmingham job hunt has been unproductive. I have made a few games design applications which I'm waiting to hear back from and I'm also expanding my search radius to Guildford.
Finally, I'm debating refocusing my goal to buy more books into focusing on buying a kindle and joining the ebook movementn
Well that's all for this week, until later.

MMXI Week 5–Things That Go Bump in the Night

This week I really felt the impact of working full time. Not in tiredness, but lack of free time. Before I started working, I had a plethora of empty hours with which to fill with whatever fancy took me. I thought nothing of maybe playing Minecraft for a couple of hours, then settling down in front of the Xbox to unlock a few achievements, back to Minecraft, then maybe a movie.
Now it’s very much a different case, as I’m out of the house five days a week from 7am till 5pm. This means that I have to priorities my activities in terms of what needs to be done and what I really want to do. No more spending a couple of hours just browsing Wikipedia. But this isn’t entirely a bad thing, as I do have a new found focus for getting things done. ‘But why are you telling us this, Davyd?’ Well, the answer is that it leads on to explaining why this week I feel like I haven’t got much to write down for what is a whole busy week.

For the majority of my week I have spent my evenings wrapping valentines day presents for Viv, with a new found obsessiveness for neatly wrapped packages. I have never in my life put so much effort into wrapping a present!

A veritable work of art

Apart from professional present wrapping, I’ve also been working on my costume for the Midlands MCM anime expo in two weeks. I’ve decided to go as ‘Minecraft guy’, otherwise know from now on as ‘Steve’ (he looks like a Steve.
The inspiration came when I realised that I happened to own a t-shirt and pair of jeans the exact same colour as ‘Steve’ and all I would have to do was make a cube head and possibly a Minecraft tool. And so began project box head!

From this…..

….to this!

I’m in too minds about posting my completed costume before the convention itself, as I think it might be a nice surprise. The only thing I’ve got left to work on is the pickaxe and Viv’s ‘costume’. She didn’t like the idea of wearing a big box on her head, and she’s too pretty for me to do that to her. Instead I’m going to put together a simple ‘cute creeper’ outfit for her, but we’ll see how that turns out.

On Saturday (which incidentally should be ‘today’, but due to repeat tardiness in my blogging habits, is ‘yesterday’) I had my passport interview. It was one of the weirdest experiences, I was basically being quizzed about myself by someone who seemed to know more about me than I did. When was my father born, what’s my mothers date of birth, how long have you lived at your current address? These are all questions that I couldn’t answer because you never think about them, lol. Luckily I’m not getting deported as a terrorist or whatever, and even better, my passport will be arriving in four to ten working days.

While in Oxford, as this was the nearest location where I could have my interview, I decided to purchase Dead Space 2 as I loved the original and what with getting paid weekly, I had the money to drop £40 on it. Just over an hour in, I’m absolutely loving it. The first game in ages that is properly making me jump and creeping me out!

“Why do I have to be in such a creepy game, I had it good in Skate 3, but no, I had to come back to Dead Space”

On a final note, I’m slowly settling into, and thoroughly loving my new phone. I was delightfully surprised to discover that I was wrong about the music player not supporting wma format when synced from windows media player, and now all I have to do is get myself a bigger memory card, and I’ll be able to completely stop using my old phone (which is now just a glorified mp3 player). I am debating making one small modification, to the hands free kit. You see, my old phone had an inline remote/ hands free kit that allowed you to control the music/manage calls, that you could connect your own headphones to. This was great for me as I have a pair of skullcandy asyms that I love using as they’re perfect for me.

They look odd, but my misshaped ear holes wonderfully

Now the desire HD does come with a hands free kit with music and call control (although lacking volume control strangely enough) but the head phones are built it. What I’m contemplating is buying a 3.5mm stereo jack and cutting the built in headphones off and wiring the jack in their place, thus enabling me to use any headphones I wish. Now I’m obviously apprehensive as this is an accessory for a new product and there’s no guarantee that I’d be able to successfully wire the headphone wires to the jack. But on the other hand, there is an almost zero chance that I’d use the headphones otherwise, favouring to just use my asyms with no remote. I’m certainly going to leave it for a while, at least until I get a bigger memory card for my phone, and then I’ll probably wait until I can maybe get another hands free kit, that way if it doesn’t work, I still have a working kit.

Well, that’s all for this week, goal wise nothing much has really changed, I’ll probably do a more concise summary next week. On a small note, the image I posted last week of what I said was my new phone was actually a picture of the previous model, the HTC desire. This is my new phone:

All 4.3” of glory!