I can't really put together a coherent post today. Something about there not being much happening at the moment, and such, so today's post will be a bunch of random thoughts I've had lately so that I stay in the habit of writing things.
The other day, someone mistook me for Jack Black when I walked into their convenience store and bought a drink. This is not the first time, though it typically happens when I don't shave for a few days (though to be fair, that happens most weeks because I shave Mondays, then get too lazy to do it again until either Friday, or the following Monday). It's tempting to run a social experiment to just stop shaving for a while, and see how many people approach me. Perhaps see how long I can keep the illusion up (probably just long enough for them to realise that the man doesn't wear glasses. Well, not ones to allow him to continue to see anyway...)
I recently started playing around with HGE (Haag's Game Engine) in C++ in preparation for an event I've applied for entering called GameJam. GameJam is an event for insane people where you spend an entire weekend making a game from scratch. Little to no sleep. To enforce this, they give you a topic and a set of keywords, which aren't revealed until the event begins. You are allowed to use whatever libraries you like, however, and so I started getting back into C++, since iPhone programming isn't very conducive to presenting the game on stage at the end of the event.
Anyway, I noticed that the HGE tutorials have only some of the WORST CODE I HAVE EVER SEEN. Its rife with magic numbers, global variables, and cryptic math that makes me want to find whoever wrote that tutorial, and shove a programming practices book down their throat, which will likely have the same effect as sunlight has on vampires (not the Twilight vampires, they're not vampires, they're sparkle fairies).
The engine itself isn't that bad, and it's possible to salvage it, but those tutorials... it physically hurt me to code like that. Once I get a bit more of a handle on the thing I'm totally gonna write a basic framework for myself. Well, less of a framework more of an organisational thing.
Today, I had breakfast for the first time in ages. I used to never be able to eat solid food before 10.30 or 11am, because if I did I would be sick all day. It seems this was a side effect of my undiscovered Coeliac, since typically breakfast foods (cereals, toast, etc) are filled to the brim with gluten. This morning I woke up early (accidentally), and decided to give that gluten free cereal Mum found a go. I didn't feel particularly well as I headed into work today, but by the time I got there the feeling passed. Though having brekky didn't have the utterly electric effect on my energy levels that I've been told it would. Science lied to me?
I have been sleeping utterly horribly lately. No idea why. This might be contributing to my acting quite crabby when I get home from work. I'd apologise, but right now I probably wouldn't mean it :P
So damn tired...
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Fooding
Today for lunch I decided to forgo the "bring in your own gluten free lunch" idea, and bought my lunch. I was getting kinda sick of rice cakes with ham and cheese (no idea why ), so I figured I'd bring in the epic "restaurants with food that won't kill you" guide that the Coeliac Society sent me in their new member's pack (which contained, among other things, a guide to every ingredient ever with if its gluten-free or not, a gluten-free cookbook, and a sample for some decent gluten-free pancakes).
So, I feel briefly ill around 11am, which forces me to have lunch later than I normally would (I refuse to eat when I'm feeling sick in the gut on the grounds that food may make me implode). 1.45pm rolls around, and I decide its time to look at the guide.
After realising that the majority of the ones in the Surry Hills section of the guide are sit-down restaurants (not especially conducive to a short lunch break for work, anyways) I look at the websites for two places. Matsuri, and Wafu.
Wafu freaked me out a little bit. Mainly because they had guidelines to eating and drinking there - and reserve the right to refuse takeaway service to people who don't bring their own containers. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not! Heck, they even have a policy page, where they advise you that they prefer you to eat your entire meal - and if not, take a container for the leftovers. I understand the ethics behind this, but it seems a bit harsh - and what are you gonna do if I don't eat the greens on the edge of the plate anyway?
So instead I decided to give Matsuri a look. Unable to find a website beyond some hit and miss reviews from people, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and walked up to Crown Street to check it out, reasoning that if I decided against eating their stuff, I could go back and get a gluten-free sandwich or something at the place at the end of the street (which I have been warned against - apparently that place overcharges for stuff that isn't particularly good in general, let alone the fact that gluten free bread tastes like a vague imitation of bread that's quite brittle ad has the distinctive mediciney taste that Dr Pepper shares), and that the 10 minutes or so walk up a hill to find the place would be good exercise.
So after walking the wrong way, I eventually find the place. To my delight, they served takeaway, and the ENTIRE FREAKING MENU is gluten free. At least, that's what they advertise, and I doubt they'd lie about it since they're a professional member of the Coeliac Society. Those guys would come and kick their asses if they were found to be lying. Its true. Really, I saw it happen*.
I order a beef teriyaki bowl, once its cooked head back to the office to eat. I open it up... realise I ordered way too much (large bowl), but somehow manage to eat the entire thing anyway. It was A M A Z I N G.
If anyone is near Crown St in Surry Hills, and feels like some Japanese food (without the pressure of having to eat all of it, or being forced to take a container for leftovers / takeaway), give Matsuri a look. It makes me happy.
*actual bashing event may not have happened.
So, I feel briefly ill around 11am, which forces me to have lunch later than I normally would (I refuse to eat when I'm feeling sick in the gut on the grounds that food may make me implode). 1.45pm rolls around, and I decide its time to look at the guide.
After realising that the majority of the ones in the Surry Hills section of the guide are sit-down restaurants (not especially conducive to a short lunch break for work, anyways) I look at the websites for two places. Matsuri, and Wafu.
Wafu freaked me out a little bit. Mainly because they had guidelines to eating and drinking there - and reserve the right to refuse takeaway service to people who don't bring their own containers. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not! Heck, they even have a policy page, where they advise you that they prefer you to eat your entire meal - and if not, take a container for the leftovers. I understand the ethics behind this, but it seems a bit harsh - and what are you gonna do if I don't eat the greens on the edge of the plate anyway?
So instead I decided to give Matsuri a look. Unable to find a website beyond some hit and miss reviews from people, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and walked up to Crown Street to check it out, reasoning that if I decided against eating their stuff, I could go back and get a gluten-free sandwich or something at the place at the end of the street (which I have been warned against - apparently that place overcharges for stuff that isn't particularly good in general, let alone the fact that gluten free bread tastes like a vague imitation of bread that's quite brittle ad has the distinctive mediciney taste that Dr Pepper shares), and that the 10 minutes or so walk up a hill to find the place would be good exercise.
So after walking the wrong way, I eventually find the place. To my delight, they served takeaway, and the ENTIRE FREAKING MENU is gluten free. At least, that's what they advertise, and I doubt they'd lie about it since they're a professional member of the Coeliac Society. Those guys would come and kick their asses if they were found to be lying. Its true. Really, I saw it happen*.
I order a beef teriyaki bowl, once its cooked head back to the office to eat. I open it up... realise I ordered way too much (large bowl), but somehow manage to eat the entire thing anyway. It was A M A Z I N G.
If anyone is near Crown St in Surry Hills, and feels like some Japanese food (without the pressure of having to eat all of it, or being forced to take a container for leftovers / takeaway), give Matsuri a look. It makes me happy.
*actual bashing event may not have happened.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Horrible name, fun game!
For Christmas, among some really random items (such as Guitar Hero pyjamas, a ninja themed pen, and a manga called "My Girlfriend is a Geek"), my awesome girlfriend got me a copy of a PSP JRPG called Ys SEVEN.
What a stupid name for a game series. How do you pronounce this? Do you pronounce it like "whys"? Do you pronounce it the way the letter y is regularly pronounced? How is it pronounced on its own anyway?
Turns out that it seems to be pronounced "ees". Which is weird. Very weird.
Call it what you want, I found it to be quite an entertaining game. Much of the plot is standard JRPG fare - Adol the main character is a generic warrior type with a thirst for adventure. He enters the country of Altago with his friend Dogi. They get imprisoned quite quickly, then released and told to go check out the nearby shrine. They do so, and are promptly rewarded by having to fight a gigantic creature, hearing the voice of a dragon in their heads, and given some strange power. He then needs to visit other shrines so that he can acquire the powers of all 5 dragons...
Stop me if you've heard this before. To be fair though, it throws a couple of curveballs late in the game.
Generic-y plot aside, it gets fun the moment you're finally allowed out of the city and begin messing with combat.
This is an action rpg, so you need to run out and start hacking yourself, unlike most other JRPGs I've played, where you simply give orders to your party members and watch as they slash things apart for your enjoyment. It plays very much like a hack n slash action game, albeit with restricted combos, and the RPG tropes of experience points, levels etc.
Differing characters have differing weapon types. Adol begins with a slash type weapon, while Adol a smash type (he punches things until they die). Later on, characters with piercing types appear. Different types of enemies react to different types of weapons. For anything with a hard shell, you'll need Dogi to punch them. Hard.
If you've played Final Fantasy X, you'd recognise the idea, since you needed Auron (or the utterly useless Kimahri) to deal with heavily armed creatures more often than not, while Wakka would do well against flying creatures. This works off the same principle - including the part where later on other characters can get the same bonus ability types (by the end, Adol can have weapons that do each type of damage, and his ultimate covers all at once).
Half of the fun really is the combat. It does get a touch repetitive, however being a PSP game, its very easy to break it up between other games. The length also reflects this, being able to be finished in around 30 hours (rather than the standard 50 hours for a jrpg). The good thing about this is that it didn't feel like they were artificially adding to the length.
Well, it didn't feel like that until you had to run around every dungeon you've already completed AGAIN, with a second dungeon inside the first dungeon that you originally couldn't access. I would call bullshit on this, as it seems like an excuse to make you run through the same content, but more often than not you get to the second dungeon quite quickly, with a minimal of running through the first one again. It seems more like setting the game in a single country didn't leave the enough room for all the dungeons they wanted to do, and so needed to place them somewhere, deciding upon hiding them in dungeons you've already been to!
Half the fun of the game is in defeating the titanos - huge monsters that serve as the majority of the game's bosses. There are 3 optional ones to deal with as well, that are kind of in the way on random wilderness areas - but if you try to fight them the first time you find them, it is absolutely certain that you will find yourself on the Game Over screen in short order. You need to run for dear life at first, returning when you're much more powerful to deal with them.
On that note, the soundtrack is quite good. Particularly the early-game boss theme. Quite a rousing tune - perfect for annihilating titanos!
All in all, I enjoyed it. Might look into some of the other eeeeeses :P
What a stupid name for a game series. How do you pronounce this? Do you pronounce it like "whys"? Do you pronounce it the way the letter y is regularly pronounced? How is it pronounced on its own anyway?
Turns out that it seems to be pronounced "ees". Which is weird. Very weird.
Call it what you want, I found it to be quite an entertaining game. Much of the plot is standard JRPG fare - Adol the main character is a generic warrior type with a thirst for adventure. He enters the country of Altago with his friend Dogi. They get imprisoned quite quickly, then released and told to go check out the nearby shrine. They do so, and are promptly rewarded by having to fight a gigantic creature, hearing the voice of a dragon in their heads, and given some strange power. He then needs to visit other shrines so that he can acquire the powers of all 5 dragons...
Stop me if you've heard this before. To be fair though, it throws a couple of curveballs late in the game.
Generic-y plot aside, it gets fun the moment you're finally allowed out of the city and begin messing with combat.
This is an action rpg, so you need to run out and start hacking yourself, unlike most other JRPGs I've played, where you simply give orders to your party members and watch as they slash things apart for your enjoyment. It plays very much like a hack n slash action game, albeit with restricted combos, and the RPG tropes of experience points, levels etc.
Differing characters have differing weapon types. Adol begins with a slash type weapon, while Adol a smash type (he punches things until they die). Later on, characters with piercing types appear. Different types of enemies react to different types of weapons. For anything with a hard shell, you'll need Dogi to punch them. Hard.
If you've played Final Fantasy X, you'd recognise the idea, since you needed Auron (or the utterly useless Kimahri) to deal with heavily armed creatures more often than not, while Wakka would do well against flying creatures. This works off the same principle - including the part where later on other characters can get the same bonus ability types (by the end, Adol can have weapons that do each type of damage, and his ultimate covers all at once).
Half of the fun really is the combat. It does get a touch repetitive, however being a PSP game, its very easy to break it up between other games. The length also reflects this, being able to be finished in around 30 hours (rather than the standard 50 hours for a jrpg). The good thing about this is that it didn't feel like they were artificially adding to the length.
Well, it didn't feel like that until you had to run around every dungeon you've already completed AGAIN, with a second dungeon inside the first dungeon that you originally couldn't access. I would call bullshit on this, as it seems like an excuse to make you run through the same content, but more often than not you get to the second dungeon quite quickly, with a minimal of running through the first one again. It seems more like setting the game in a single country didn't leave the enough room for all the dungeons they wanted to do, and so needed to place them somewhere, deciding upon hiding them in dungeons you've already been to!
Half the fun of the game is in defeating the titanos - huge monsters that serve as the majority of the game's bosses. There are 3 optional ones to deal with as well, that are kind of in the way on random wilderness areas - but if you try to fight them the first time you find them, it is absolutely certain that you will find yourself on the Game Over screen in short order. You need to run for dear life at first, returning when you're much more powerful to deal with them.
On that note, the soundtrack is quite good. Particularly the early-game boss theme. Quite a rousing tune - perfect for annihilating titanos!
All in all, I enjoyed it. Might look into some of the other eeeeeses :P
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Pub Lunch Friday - The Search
My office has a tradition, well, kind of a tradition. Not everyone takes part in it, so I'm not entirely sure its a true tradition as a result. Usually Ben, Shibs and I take part, so a trio tradition?
Anyhoo, I refer to the "Friday = Pub Lunch" tradition. A tradition I wholeheartedly support, considering that for the rest of the week the majority of lunches are taken at my desk, either still thinking about code, or spending a few minutes browsing random interweb articles for a little relief (hey, you gotta have breaks sometime!)
There was the one pub we would always go to when I first started work here - the Porterhouse in Surry Hills. However, as mentioned here, we moved offices recently. While we did not move very far (we're still in Surry Hills, and moved a matter of streets away), we are far enough away that the Porterhouse is not within easy enough reach to have lunch. Considering that walking all the way across the suburb is way too much effort for lunch and a drink or two, we needed to find a new local.
The new office has a multitude of pubs nearby. To be completely honest, I have no idea how many there are around here. On our lunch trips, we have visited three different pubs, trying to find our groove. I assume we will be trying all of the nearby ones and making a decision once we try them all.
The first one had a name which I promptly forgot. This was, by far, the failure of the three we've tried so far. The steak there was quite thin, apparently the chicken schnitzel wasn't particularly amazing, and Ben's steak sandwich smelt like fish. This greatly worried everyone involved - particularly Ben, who spent the afternoon carrying about it.
The second one was called the Shakespeare, and makes the hefty claim that none of their meals (the food portion anyway) costs over $10. Turns out this was quite accurate. The place itself looked rather dingy, but the steak was good. Well, except for the part where the sauce on it utterly destroyed me as a result of unexpected gluten, but that was likely my own messup rather than theirs. I'll blame them next time :P
Today, we tried yet another pub. A closer one, which again I cannot recall the name of (its a pub dammit. I know where it is, and I know they sell food and alcoholic beverages, and that's enough information for me). This one is, by far, my favourite of the three, for a single reason.
They sell WAGYU steaks. Sure, its more expensive than regular steak (Wagyu being a specific breed of cattle - and Japanese style, and damn delicious), but it great. Even better - the sauce that came with it seems to be gluten-free. Well, as far as I can tell anyway, since I ate it over 2 hours ago and my stomach hasn't threatened to implode (which is the more fun and less...messy part of my gluten symptom), I take that as a good sign.
The other advantage, is that returning to the office from that particular pub take s quite close to 7-11. Most people know what I'm thinking here - SLURPIES! WHEEEEEEEE SUGAR HIGH!
So if we get to vote, rather than just follow Ben to whatever pub takes his fancy, then my vote lies there, and Friday becomes Wagyu lunch day :)
Anyhoo, I refer to the "Friday = Pub Lunch" tradition. A tradition I wholeheartedly support, considering that for the rest of the week the majority of lunches are taken at my desk, either still thinking about code, or spending a few minutes browsing random interweb articles for a little relief (hey, you gotta have breaks sometime!)
There was the one pub we would always go to when I first started work here - the Porterhouse in Surry Hills. However, as mentioned here, we moved offices recently. While we did not move very far (we're still in Surry Hills, and moved a matter of streets away), we are far enough away that the Porterhouse is not within easy enough reach to have lunch. Considering that walking all the way across the suburb is way too much effort for lunch and a drink or two, we needed to find a new local.
The new office has a multitude of pubs nearby. To be completely honest, I have no idea how many there are around here. On our lunch trips, we have visited three different pubs, trying to find our groove. I assume we will be trying all of the nearby ones and making a decision once we try them all.
The first one had a name which I promptly forgot. This was, by far, the failure of the three we've tried so far. The steak there was quite thin, apparently the chicken schnitzel wasn't particularly amazing, and Ben's steak sandwich smelt like fish. This greatly worried everyone involved - particularly Ben, who spent the afternoon carrying about it.
The second one was called the Shakespeare, and makes the hefty claim that none of their meals (the food portion anyway) costs over $10. Turns out this was quite accurate. The place itself looked rather dingy, but the steak was good. Well, except for the part where the sauce on it utterly destroyed me as a result of unexpected gluten, but that was likely my own messup rather than theirs. I'll blame them next time :P
Today, we tried yet another pub. A closer one, which again I cannot recall the name of (its a pub dammit. I know where it is, and I know they sell food and alcoholic beverages, and that's enough information for me). This one is, by far, my favourite of the three, for a single reason.
They sell WAGYU steaks. Sure, its more expensive than regular steak (Wagyu being a specific breed of cattle - and Japanese style, and damn delicious), but it great. Even better - the sauce that came with it seems to be gluten-free. Well, as far as I can tell anyway, since I ate it over 2 hours ago and my stomach hasn't threatened to implode (which is the more fun and less...messy part of my gluten symptom), I take that as a good sign.
The other advantage, is that returning to the office from that particular pub take s quite close to 7-11. Most people know what I'm thinking here - SLURPIES! WHEEEEEEEE SUGAR HIGH!
So if we get to vote, rather than just follow Ben to whatever pub takes his fancy, then my vote lies there, and Friday becomes Wagyu lunch day :)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Pathfinder - The Cornucopia and The Asmodean Knot
The last Pathfinder session I ran for my group's Council of Thieves lasted quite a while. This is a session that began at around 10pm one night and ran until 4am. It then recommenced at 10-10.30am and ran to around 3pm. Quite a long (and difficult to run) session.
After the heroes had successfully survived The Six Trials of Larazod (well, some did and one was resurrected at the mayor's expense), they were invited to a decadent party to celebrate the play - thrown by none other than the mayor.
This was the entire point of the party acting the play in the first place. Let me back up a bit and explain. The city of Westcrown used to be the capital of Cheliax - until their deity Aroden died. How exactly a God can die is a bit beyond me, but anyway what followed was years of civil war - eventually with the House of Thrune - followers of Asmodeus (a Lawful Evil deity) won. They moved the capital north - leaving Westcrown as a shadow of its former glory.
Even worse, in recent years shadow beasts have taken to the streets of Westcrown - preying on all that venture outdoors after sundown. People are generally unhappy with the way things are in the city, which is where the campaign begins. The players are contacted by Janiven Key, a ranger who is also among the leadership for a revolutionary group that is attempting, at first nyway, to "make Westcrown a better place to live".
After rescuing the group's true leader (a half-elf cleric named Arael) from the incredibly fascist Hellknight Order of the Rack, the group has been beginning to fight for the people. First off they defeated the Bastards of Erebus. Though if you've read my earlier Pathfinder posts you'd know what they've done!
So an undercover Pathfinder requested that the players investigate the Westfall Pathfinder lodge (named Delvehaven) since there may be some clue there to the cause of the shadow beast scourge. However, data about Delvehaven is stored in a Chelish Crux (essentially a puzzle box mixed with a bag of holding), in the Asmodean Knot, which is a demonic pocket dimension attached to the mayor's home in Westcrown. They infiltrate the mayor's house by performing in the play.
So, surviving the play got them invited to the Cornucopia - a party held by the mayor at his home. The group attends, and tries to get as much information as possible about the Asmodean knot via rumours and such (they didn't learn much) before everyone gets too drunk and passes out - allowing the players to explore the house, find the knot, and enter it. Of course, it wasn't quite this simple.
Kynan was busy having ~fun~ with Calseinica (an actress from the play they were involved in). This kind of fun involved a pregnancy die roll. I will not reveal the results of said roll at the moment!
Also, Azelia decided it was a great idea to draw a smiley face on the passed out mayor. He woke up and summoned his guards, who threw her out.
Being 2am, she was promptly attacked by a shadow beast (finally confirming to the group that their existence was not simply rumour). The rest of the group heroically exited the mansion to save her, and then reentered. It shouldn't have been so easy to let them back in, but I let them do it simply due to them having done the right thing in rescuing her! Besides, the guards may well have gotten drunk too :P
When they eventually "found" the entrance to the knot (with some nudging from yours truly), Azelia was quite quickly cursed with a scroll. Within a day, a bone devil was doomed to come find her, and annihilate her unless she could get a Remove Curse spell cast on her, or get someone else to willingly accept the scroll. Luckily, she was able to pawn it off to an insane bearded devil later on in the dungeon.
The Asmodean Knot is a strange place. Constructed by the first mayor of Westcrown (after the civil war), it was orginally used simply as a vault. The second mayor expanded on this, by using it to conduct experiments in sadism using demons and prisoners. This, of course, left a lot of random monsters in the knot - as well as some traps (most of which were already disarmed). The knot itself had many a room which didn't adhere to the laws of physics - rooms that had staircases that folded in on themselves, leading the party back to where they originally were, rooms where the gravity was slower than usual, and falling off the bridge meant a slow fall downwards, and reappearing above the party as if in some kind of twisted video-game world!
The current mayor is the third mayor of Westcrown, and had no interest in the knot whatsoever, and never really explored it. Lucky for him, as the knot is a dangerous place!
When they found the prison, Azelia cleverly palmed the cursed scroll off to a clearly insane bearded devil. The devil was insane due to having spent decades in its cell. Once it was killed by the bone demon, they searched the dead devil, to find a spear made out of pure malice. This was taken by Dorn, who now owns an intelligent magical item!
This spear worships Asmodeus, and casts bleed upon any fallen creature - including other allies! (unless the wielder also worships Asmodeus - which Dorn does not... yet). Fun times for all.
Eventually the group encountered a giant poison devil, beat it down and acquired the Crux. As they were leaving, Crux and new treasures in hand, they were ambushed by a tiefling named Sian. After dealing heavy damage to Arael, and almost getting annihilated by Kynan and Dorn's combination of summoned Stirges and giant weaponry, she escaped. Dorn is very unhappy with letting her live - and it seems he will not rest until she is safely not-breathing-anymore.
Next up, the group has to figure out how to open the crux, and then glean as much information from it as they can before entering Delvehaven, looking for the cause behind the shadow beasts.
After the heroes had successfully survived The Six Trials of Larazod (well, some did and one was resurrected at the mayor's expense), they were invited to a decadent party to celebrate the play - thrown by none other than the mayor.
This was the entire point of the party acting the play in the first place. Let me back up a bit and explain. The city of Westcrown used to be the capital of Cheliax - until their deity Aroden died. How exactly a God can die is a bit beyond me, but anyway what followed was years of civil war - eventually with the House of Thrune - followers of Asmodeus (a Lawful Evil deity) won. They moved the capital north - leaving Westcrown as a shadow of its former glory.
Even worse, in recent years shadow beasts have taken to the streets of Westcrown - preying on all that venture outdoors after sundown. People are generally unhappy with the way things are in the city, which is where the campaign begins. The players are contacted by Janiven Key, a ranger who is also among the leadership for a revolutionary group that is attempting, at first nyway, to "make Westcrown a better place to live".
After rescuing the group's true leader (a half-elf cleric named Arael) from the incredibly fascist Hellknight Order of the Rack, the group has been beginning to fight for the people. First off they defeated the Bastards of Erebus. Though if you've read my earlier Pathfinder posts you'd know what they've done!
So an undercover Pathfinder requested that the players investigate the Westfall Pathfinder lodge (named Delvehaven) since there may be some clue there to the cause of the shadow beast scourge. However, data about Delvehaven is stored in a Chelish Crux (essentially a puzzle box mixed with a bag of holding), in the Asmodean Knot, which is a demonic pocket dimension attached to the mayor's home in Westcrown. They infiltrate the mayor's house by performing in the play.
So, surviving the play got them invited to the Cornucopia - a party held by the mayor at his home. The group attends, and tries to get as much information as possible about the Asmodean knot via rumours and such (they didn't learn much) before everyone gets too drunk and passes out - allowing the players to explore the house, find the knot, and enter it. Of course, it wasn't quite this simple.
Kynan was busy having ~fun~ with Calseinica (an actress from the play they were involved in). This kind of fun involved a pregnancy die roll. I will not reveal the results of said roll at the moment!
Also, Azelia decided it was a great idea to draw a smiley face on the passed out mayor. He woke up and summoned his guards, who threw her out.
Being 2am, she was promptly attacked by a shadow beast (finally confirming to the group that their existence was not simply rumour). The rest of the group heroically exited the mansion to save her, and then reentered. It shouldn't have been so easy to let them back in, but I let them do it simply due to them having done the right thing in rescuing her! Besides, the guards may well have gotten drunk too :P
When they eventually "found" the entrance to the knot (with some nudging from yours truly), Azelia was quite quickly cursed with a scroll. Within a day, a bone devil was doomed to come find her, and annihilate her unless she could get a Remove Curse spell cast on her, or get someone else to willingly accept the scroll. Luckily, she was able to pawn it off to an insane bearded devil later on in the dungeon.
The Asmodean Knot is a strange place. Constructed by the first mayor of Westcrown (after the civil war), it was orginally used simply as a vault. The second mayor expanded on this, by using it to conduct experiments in sadism using demons and prisoners. This, of course, left a lot of random monsters in the knot - as well as some traps (most of which were already disarmed). The knot itself had many a room which didn't adhere to the laws of physics - rooms that had staircases that folded in on themselves, leading the party back to where they originally were, rooms where the gravity was slower than usual, and falling off the bridge meant a slow fall downwards, and reappearing above the party as if in some kind of twisted video-game world!
The current mayor is the third mayor of Westcrown, and had no interest in the knot whatsoever, and never really explored it. Lucky for him, as the knot is a dangerous place!
When they found the prison, Azelia cleverly palmed the cursed scroll off to a clearly insane bearded devil. The devil was insane due to having spent decades in its cell. Once it was killed by the bone demon, they searched the dead devil, to find a spear made out of pure malice. This was taken by Dorn, who now owns an intelligent magical item!
This spear worships Asmodeus, and casts bleed upon any fallen creature - including other allies! (unless the wielder also worships Asmodeus - which Dorn does not... yet). Fun times for all.
Eventually the group encountered a giant poison devil, beat it down and acquired the Crux. As they were leaving, Crux and new treasures in hand, they were ambushed by a tiefling named Sian. After dealing heavy damage to Arael, and almost getting annihilated by Kynan and Dorn's combination of summoned Stirges and giant weaponry, she escaped. Dorn is very unhappy with letting her live - and it seems he will not rest until she is safely not-breathing-anymore.
Next up, the group has to figure out how to open the crux, and then glean as much information from it as they can before entering Delvehaven, looking for the cause behind the shadow beasts.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Now I Put You In the Box! - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
I received Castlevania: Lords of Shadow as a Christmas gift from my brother and sister. This made me happy, because I had asked for it, and was wanting to play this game for quite a while.
I had been told that it rebooted Castlevania, took it and gave it a Devil May Cry-like quality. I can see where that comment came from, however, I felt that gameplay-wise it would be a mish-mash of that with God of War.
However, the God of War comparison stops mostly at the weapon. Like previous Castlevania titles, the weapon is a whip-like chain. This is where inevitable comparisons with God of War stem from. I would like to end the comparisons with God of War right there though, because there is a huge, obvious difference between the two.
In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, your character is not an evil bastard out to destroy the world. In fact, you are out to save the world by killing the Lords of Shadow - the Lord of the Lycans, the Lord of the Vampires (who is NOT Dracula in this game!) and the Lord of the Undead/Necromancy.
Admittedly, he stays on his noble path because he has the promise of power, which he plans to use to resurrect his recently deceased wife, but his intentions are otherwise noble. Gabriel Belmont is, after all, a member of an Order devoted to destroying the supernatural creatures of the night.
The game is quite fun, fast and furious in its combat, and rewards skill over button mashing. After a level or two, you unlock the abilities of light magic, and shadow magic - activating light magic allows you to regenerate health from hitting enemies. Shadow magic deals extra damage. You occasionally find fountains of "neutral" magic to convert into these. Enemies also drop neutral magic - as long as you're not using magic when you kill them.
But more importantly, you have the ability to "gain focus". A bar fills up at the bottom of the screen, as you hit enemies. Taking a hit empties the bar immediately. The bar also fills up quite slowly if you spam the same moves over and over again - speeding up if you vary your attacks. Activating magic pauses the bar's growth - unless you get hit while using magic, in which case it still empties.
Your reward for filling this bar is to become focused. When you are focused, every single time you hit an enemy, an orb of neutral magic is dropped. At this point, you need to balance dodging/blocking to not lose your focus, attacking to generate more neutral magic, and actually drawing it the neutral into one of your magic medallions - since it does not simply sit there forever, fading if left long enough.
This all sounds quite complex, but it is introduced bit by bit. Admittedly, I never became focused for long periods at a time, though this was more due to my natural "kill them all quickly, quick make them die!" playstyle than it was a failure to understand the system.
The storyline is quite a good one. Patrick Stewart voices the character of Zobek - one of the main characters of the game, who also narrates during every loading screen. While parts of the story seem generic and played before, and some sections are downright predictable, the epilogue caught me off guard, and sets up another game quite beautifully. A game that I look very much forward to.
Overall, thumbs up to this game. Definitely worth a play. Its also one of the prettiest action games I've played recently (and it shows in its size... the xbox version is 2 discs!)
It also has one of the funniest scenes I've seen in a game. I won't spoil it for you, but it makes the title of this post much less irrelevant.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Return
I now am back at work, and my computer is finally back in the land of the living, and so I can actually make posts again.
Miss me?
Didn't think so.
Anyhoo, the last couple of weeks were interesting... and quite relaxing. A fair bit of nothing went on, though I did do some things.
Christmas Day was the usual shindig at my place. Family members I rarely see appeared, presents were exchanged, and food was eaten. Lots of food. Like, heaps.
The difference is that this (last I spose) year, the food needed to be gluten free so that I would be able to consume it without my insides melting.
This didn't change much. In fact, it was only my portion that was made gluten-free. So once we reached dessert time (after 3 courses of random meats, pasta and more meats), the true difficulty of my condition hit home.
Plaits of wheaty, pastryish goodness covered in syrup. Cake - lots of it, and many brands of ice cream are inedible to me. Luckily pavlova is fine. As a result, I lived off the pav :P
Post-Christmas, I headed to my girlfriend's place for a few days, where we whiled the hours away playing videogames, and preparing for our next Pathfinder session, and just generally bumming around doing very little. And yes, we did get another Pathfinder session in - quite a long one too, covering the most of a night (10pm to about 4am) and much of the next day (10am to about 3pm).
New Year's Eve was a trip to the zoo. I have ridiculous amounts of photos of the tiger (it wasn't asleep for once! Did I mention tigers are my favourite animal actually-in-existence?), as well as numerous photos of the elephants (the baby one was really cute!)
The night portion of NYE was spent playing Final Fantasy VII. I didn't expect this, but we were both exhausted from wandering around the zoo for the most of the day and couldn't be bothered to go out - nor would we have really been able to, considering that there would have been something like 325682476286784275903862 people there...
After that, I was forced to return home, since my parents had gone on holidays, and they didn't trust my younger siblings to look after the house (and the cat - they took the dog with them) on their own. During that few days I managed to reach level 81 in WoW (Dwarf Hunter on Draenor named Kalgar), and caught up with a few mates who I used to work at Maccas with (playing Mario Kart 64, no less!)
Come the 5th of January, my lady and I headed to the south coast for a few days of escapism from family, and general existence. We didn't do much because the weather was utterly schizophrenic, but we did manage to play some putt-putt, and burn ourselves horrendously at the beach.
We returned, relaxed a day, and are now both back at work.
Oh, and somewhere in there, I managed to finish Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Good game, will talk more about that tomorrow.
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