Future Plans or What I Learnt From This Year

As time inevitably flows on we find ourselves on the precipice of a new year. Honestly I'm equal parts terrified and excited for the coming year though. Placements, another semester of uni and another years worth of procrastinating on pet projects. Good stuff and good times to be had I'm sure.

Re-building the website for uni has been really fun, even if half the stuff I'm trying to add doesn't work and if it does I have no clue how it does. Just another day in that regard really. Still I'm learning new stuff and enjoying the process so there is that. I've finally finished Act 1 of the Pyromancer which means I'm about a 1/3 of the way through the actual writing of this damn story. Biggest positive of this is that I now have a good example of a weakness when it comes to job interviews. Seems I'm overly optimistic of personal deadlines. I really was hoping of having it done by the end of the year but I guess that isn't happening now. Unfortunately I was hoping to start the new year working with Unity and I still might, but I'm definitely going to get this story finished. I think it's too good to just throw away even if it is going to take a little more work. As for my Unity game I have a good idea for what to make so planning shouldn't take long for that, and I'll keep you updated when I start with it.

Writing and recording is music is something I've wanted to do for a while now and with the gift of a microphone I got from my brother I may be making a start on that to at some point this year. I already do a bit of composing but nothing overly fancy, mostly just little piano pieces. Actually recording some stuff will be nice.

Do you like a game where you care about the characters you are interacting with? What about one with an interesting story and enjoyable squad based mechanics? Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut is definitely worth looking at. This game has been a real favourite of mine for a while now for many different reasons. Lets start with the characters. Everyone you meet seems to have something interesting to say. Some comment on the world you're in. Everyone adds to the world in a real organic way and I love it. I would like to give examples but specifics might take away something so I'll pass on that for now and talk about the world itself. For those that don't know Shadowrun is set in a future after an event known as the Awakening. This event turned many into Meta-humans gave a load of folk magic powers and pretty much screwed up a lot of things. The lore is huge so again little details from me just think Tolkienesque races with magic and robot organs/arms/legs/everything. A seriously badass setting populated by badassess.

Mechanically the game is good, nothing super awesome although variety is the spice this game sprinkles on everything. Want to be a spell slinging mage giving the hurt to everyone around you? You can. Like buffs, debuffs summoning things? Shamans have got that covered. Want to be a cyborg who mows down crowds with smgs and grenades? OF COURSE YOU DO AND YOU CAN. Drones at your command, hacking into corporations so many variations and choices in how you fight. Many of your choices effect how the story goes as well. What you can discover and whether you can avoid dangerous fight or not can and are affected by who you are. The game itself plays pretty simply. Move behind cover throw attacks back and forth heal up repeat. Simple but effective. Different skills work better in different situations but you quickly get used to what to do when and what risks pay off better than others.

The story though. Mmmmm it's good. Simply put you stumble into a conspiracy and have to find a way to stop it before the big bad stops you. Nothing super fancy, although the setting and writing add a hell of a lot to the concept. The stakes keep getting raised as you discover more and more what the big bad is up to. Neat twists pop up often too which I like. I can't do the story justice here, just know that it is good at keeping you on your toes and if you like mystery and suspense you'll like this.

All in all I love this game and recommend it to anyone that likes a strategy game that is well made, balanced and has a lot of choice offered to you, the player. Here is a little trailer. Doesn't show much but shows you what the game looks like. (Damn nice is what it looks like.)

Quick point to make. This was originally a DLC for the game Shadowrun Returns. Get this. The base game of Shadowrun Returns (Dead Mans Switch) is not as good as this and the DLC of Dragonfall is not as good as this version (Directors Cut). Just get the Directors Cut version and you'll be fine & dandy.

That's all for this week folks so if I don't see you in person have a Happy New Year.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Back Home for Winter

Back home for the holidays. I love this time of year, good food, gifts and the whole atmosphere is awesome. Even if it is a bit cold. On to important things though, writing is still progressing and I''m rebuilding my website assignment because my first one was shit. Just the way it is I guess. Not much to say otherwise.

Do you know what is great. Probably. But if you want to know it is The Wire. OK, so I'm only at season 3 but still I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. Suspense, drama, action and a huge cast of brilliantly written characters. The biggest strength of the show has to be it's ability to build a world around the relationships that the characters have with each other. From Kima and Bubbles to McNulty and Omar. I just adore how the characters interact on this show, to me it is what makes it stand out. It's less about the characters themselves, who in most shows follow a specific role or stereotype (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but more about how they react to the situations they get in and how they react to one another. I'm not going to go into detail about the plot because 1) I haven't finished it yet and 2) I find plot descriptions boring. If you want to know look it up, I just want to say that if you haven't given it a try yet, go on. It'll be worth it.

Also that intro song is badass and how it changes every season is really cool.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Boring Week Progress: Part 2

Yet another week where not much has happened. As usual progress is still being made with a minimum of 1 section on The Pyromancer either written or edited per day (the sections vary quite a bit in size). It's a few hundred words give or take. Other than that I've been working on a group assignment as well as writing a covering letter and doing a solo assignment so my time has been pretty used up.

Even so I've made a bit of time to start learning songs on piano again so hopefully my skills should improve for once instead of just going kinda rusty. The song/s in question are the lyrical songs from the game Transistor: The Spine, In Circles, We All Become, Signals & Paper Boats. All the sheet music can be found here, for free. If you have any interest in the game and can play a piano, guitar or sing you really should learn these. You might think I'd recommend Transistor this week because of my interest in it but I kinda want to save that for a time when I'm actually playing it again. I could write pages on why that game is not only one of my favourite games but a genuinely fantastic game.

Instead I recommend you check out another game if you haven't already. Fallout: New Vegas, and to a lesser extent the other Fallout games. Do you like the 50's rpg's and a post apocalyptic setting filled with romans? FALLOUT NEW VEGAS HAS ALL OF THESE THINGS, and more to boot. It's hard to put into words what I personally like about this game. I love the way that you gain a reputation for yourself within the different communities of the Mojave. A reputation that reflects back at you, the player, in what you can and can't do safely. Where you can go and who you can talk to can be defined by your past decisions which make playing the game for the third time (what I'm doing right now) a really interesting experience. I'm still making new feeling characters who have their own goals and factions they support/hate.

Another thing I love is the combat. The range of weapon types you've got access to and the volume of weapons within those types is phenomenal. In reality the combat isn't too fancy. Enemies have limbs you can cripple but most of my fights involve just spraying ammo everywhere or sniping (in my case at least, a melee character would make a crap sniper, no?) In general I find the combat appealing when I view it as being way better balanced than Skyrim was on higher difficulties, where enemies are too strong unless you specifically max out a skill for dealing with them. In Fallout: New Vegas I found that changing my tactic was often as effective as leveling up in 90% of circumstances unlike in Skyrim where nearly all tactics involve getting too close to the thing you are fighting. I find even the melee combat in Fallout more rewarding than Skyrim although I can't really explain why. One of the reasons this game really stuck out for me though is because I got the collectors edition. This game being, to date, the only game I have a collectors edition for. I have my brother to thank for that. Anyway here is the ultimate edition trailer because I don't know what else to put here.

Maybe I'll mention Fallout: New Vegas again at somepoint but I feel like I've already rambled too much, so for now I'll say farewell and get back to work.

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Boring Week Progress Report

Not much to say this week. I have made progress on projects and uni work. There really isn't much more to say other than I can't wait for the Christmas holidays when I'll be making much more progress more often.

On a positive note however I already have a few varying replies from the developers I have contacted so it'll be interesting to get in contact and make progress on my internships.

Seeing as I have nothing to say this week I might start a weekly thing where I recommend something,(music, games, whatever) and see if I can find something interesting to write about.

This week I'm going to recommend the game, Dungeon of the Endless. It's an indie title made by Amplitude and is available on Steam. It's a neat mix of genres spanning tower defence, roguelikes and RPGs. It's got some great atmosphere, music and writing too. This is really enjoyable for those who like planning and making strategies but it is also a lot of fun to wing it and see what happens. Due to being part of a larger universe, the lore is surprisingly rich between this game and the other games the studio has made, which are for the record, are also really awesome too.

Trailer:

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

Placements, Night Vale & Pyromancy Developments

So today I started the fun task of applying for jobs to do in my placement year. For those who don't know I am currently in my second year of a Software Engineering degree. Instead of going straight through the universities own placement portal I decided to take a step in the direction I really want to go in and contact several companies that develop video games directly asking if they take on undergraduates or if they are willing to. So far I've only got through to F (I'm going alphabetically) but it's a start.

Second on the agenda. I've finally got the data ready for my Web Application Development Assignment where we are tasked with making an event website. I've decided to base mine on the fictional city of Night Vale, which to those who don't know is city whose stories are told via a podcast called Welcome to Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale is great for fans of stuff like Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone, but you really have to try it for yourself to get an idea of what it is: commonplacebooks.com

Finally I've been making consistent albeit slightly shoddy work on The Pyromancer. It seems forcing yourself to work does reduce quality but going back and improving the writing is something I do often and quite well so this is of no worry to me. Also I've decided to make the final area a small dungeon allowing players to make a few extra decisions and go wandering about which is actually a real nice change of pace compared to the story driven first two acts of the story where the other character guides you around.

Anyway, that's enough outta me for this week (at least until next Sunday).

-Beau

twitter.com/Bocodillo

PS Sorry I didn't update yesterday I was super tired.