#so i may be a little rusty xp

[old-severed-hand]

Sellsword: Playtest 2

This week I ran the second-ever session of Sellsword, my one-page OSR ruleset. For an adventure, I used “Incident at Torn Throat Gorge”, a work-in-progress one-page adventure with an Old West flavor.

In no particular order, here are my dominant takeaways:

1. Extend the “noob” stage.

When I started playing Runescape in 2005, the most fun I ever had was playing on a free account, fishing for shrimp in Lumbridge and trying to get enough gold to buy a green cape. I was a noob. And the smallest things— like selling an inventory load of mined iron, or picking up 10 gp from a dead guard— mattered. That changed as I leveled up and gained more gold. As I leveled up, the percentage of the game that posed a challenge and offered value, that delivered joy, decreased.

How might a game designer avoid this? I’ll be reflecting on this for a while I imagine. But off the top of my head, two things come to mind...

First is Dark Souls. I’ve never played a Souls game, but my impression is that even the lowliest foes remain deadly when you’re a higher level. You never level into safety, which means that percentage of the game still holds value for you as a Player.

How to bring this experience to Sellsword? Low HP. HP increases very little as the Players advance. This means even a veteran adventurer can be eviscerated by wolves, or pin-cushioned by goblins, if they’re not careful.

Second is the accumulation of wealth. This has been explored a lot in the OSR— especially in XP for gold systems— where the adventurers accumulate so much gold that gold stops being meaningful or valuable to them. Things like carousing (spend gold to gain XP) or building a stronghold (the “endgame”) tackle this problem. But another way is to simply limit the Players buying power.

How to bring this experience to Sellsword? A ramshackle, frontier setting where goods are scarce and expensive. If you can find someone selling a suit of leather armor, it’s going to be damaged or very expensive. This means the Character “outfitting” phase is extended over multiple sessions. (Remember, they begin with only a rusty sword.) Unlike D&D, there’s no starting with a bow, sword, shield, and light armor. You have to earn that shit!

If I go with the “Debt Objective” (at least as one possible game mode) then the Players are also faced with a meaningful choice: do I spend my gold to increase my chances of survival, or to spend my gold and get out of debt as soon as I can? Right now, that choice doesn’t seem significant to them. But if I turn up the pressure— during every mission, there’s a chance your debt holder will send thugs after you, and it increases over time— this may become a more meaningful choice.

2. Two actions is rich, but not decadent.

Last post, I wrote a list of things I wanted to include in the next playtest:

Combat with multiple foes at various distances.

Shields, armor, heavy weapons.

Situations where combat is not a viable method of survival. (Incentivize diplomacy, roleplaying, etc.)

Set a starting debt (5000 coins? Thanks Electric Bastionland) and a reason for the debt. This will tie Player Characters to at least one NPC and the World at-large.

Run a non-dungeon scenario. A settlement or wilderness region, likely. Perhaps an “escort / retrieve the NPC” mission.

This session checked many of those boxes, particularly a large-scale battle (over a dozen combatants) in a river delta at the mouth of a gorge. The battle was dynamic, tactical, and truly unpredictable (without being swingy) and at no point was it clear the PCs were going to win.

Specifically, 2 actions felt both balanced and fun. It also rewarded positioning. For example, two of the Black’s Gang with crossbows, fortified on the cliff edge, got two attacks every round (they didn’t have to move).

Is this a problem? Not seemingly, but I will need to continue to test it. The last thing I want is static combat, with a strong incentive to stand still (like D&D 4e).

3. “Fatigued” felt too punishing.

When a Character has 0 HP, they are fatigued and have disadvantage on all rolls. At least, that’s the way I originally wrote the rule. But mid-fight, that just didn’t seem fun. As a kid, I remember remarking to my dad (and DM) that one of my favorite things about D&D is that you are in the fight til you’re out of the fight. As you receive damage, your ability to deal damage is not decreased. (This is really a quality of HP, as opposed to stat reduction.)

In light of this, I modified the rule to “vulnerable”. When a PC has 0 HP, they only have disadvantage on rolls to avoid harm (Defense/Saves). Feels better, and truer to the intent.

Is this a problem? I doubt it. A Player still has an important decision to make: keep fighting, or very likely die next turn? (Even 1 damage will kill them, and they have disadvantage— bad odds.) However, time will tell if low HP will incentivize Players in exploration mode to rest and recover.

4.  The economy needs to be refined.

Until now, I’ve been spitballing the cost of goods. Early on, I liked the idea that there were ~5 tiers of prices at regular increments:

Cheap (1 coin)

Moderate (10 coins)

Pricey (100 coins)

Expensive (1000 coins)

A Fortune (10,000 coins)

But somewhere along the way I got the idea to randomize these values. I tried this first time during this session, at beginning, during the “buying gear” stage. (This stage is completely abstracted-- no shopkeepers, which is my strong preference. I just don’t enjoy those store interactions as a DM. And if the DM isn’t excited to run it, there’s a 90% chance it’s better left out.)

I used a d6*X to find the cost of different pieces of gear, but I found the d6 too swingy, especially when multiplied by larger numbers (100, for example). Leather armor can cost anywhere between 100-600 coins? Too swingy! 

In my rules tweak post-game, I opted instead for a 3d6*X system. It looks like this right now:

Cheap: 3d6*1 (10 coins)

Reasonable: 3d6*5 (50 coins)

Pricey: 3d6*10 (100 coins)

Expensive: 3d6*100 (1000 coins)

Small Fortune: 3d6*1000 (10,000 coins)

Using multiple d6s gives us a nice bell curve and 3d6 specifically gives us an average of 10. This merges my original idea (1, 10, 100, etc.) with my second idea (d6). This eliminates swinginess considerably. I also gave some thought to economics: if you can buy a cheap meal for 10 coins (~$5 USD in 2022) then it tracks you could buy armor for 1000 coins (~$500 USD). I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it feels logical enough to work.

Is this a problem? I don’t think so. My Players had no issue with the “roll to see how much you can sell your loot for”. I also like that this has a baked-in way to account for scarcity, selling contraband, or working with a favored merchant (roll advantage / disadvantage!). Also, I can always default to the average (10, 100, etc.) a la monster HP in D&D (roll HD, or take flat HP).

This got long, so I’m going to wrap it up here. Here are some things to include in the next session:

Send debt collectors after Players.

Build a combat scenario that encourages dynamic actions-- not just attacking with a sword.

Create repercussions for killing innocent NPCs / leaping to violence (without imposing a hardwired “morality” in the system).

Introduce some advantage / disadvantage when buying/selling.

Get better at making point crawls

Run an adventure in town (Wolf’s Jaw).

If you’d like to playtest Sellsword yourself, here’s the free PDF. Let me know how it goes!

—Severed Hand

[sonichkkaaascreams]

Mountain with a Flower Crown (chapter 1)

Just a super long one shot that is broken into a bunch of parts

Zaraki Kenapchi X OC Yamase Yasu

wordcount: 3090~

this is the fist part instalation of Mountain With A Flower Crown. this was inspire by post made by @bleachhaven  and @shadowsnlace   who both made posts regarding Kenpachi and an S/O who is larger than him. I use their headcanons as inspirational sparks to my own greedy little imagination.

Kenpachi may seem a little off but eh, what can I do about it. it just happened. also the starting point of this oneshot came to me in a hormonal fever dream. this is gonna be a super fudging long thing. i think it may be a very well around 6 to 8 chapters knock on wood to keep up my writing mojou.

enjoy ;) and please let me know what you think. XP

Yamase Yasu prided herself on being an early riser. She had practiced the discipline of waking up before sunrise to another day of hard work no matter how tired she may be from an early age. As such, her current circumstances were less than ideal.

 She was not only awake, forced to endure the bright rays of the sun right in her eyes and listen to the damned feathery monsters sing annoyingly but also she was required to stay still and not move an inch.

 Unlike her, her beloved spouse was sound asleep free from all the worries of office work. She greatly envied the man’s ability to not only sleep through the annoying chirping of birds but also all the way through the morning to evening regardless of the loud ruckus his squad members made. The only thing that would make him open his eyes was if she moved about. Witch is why despite her dire need to get up, stretch, make breakfast for an entire squadron of men who can’t take care of themselves properly and go to her own squad office to work; she was laying on their futon and fighting the urge to coo at the slumbering beast.

 Contrary to the common belief of those who shared a futon or a roof with Zaraki Kenpachi, he is not by any means a light sleeper. Take away the threat of the man rolling on top of his partners and smothering them to death and the man sleeps like a bear through winter. And that extra layer of peace and ease showed on his face and the way he slept.

 For one, he was sprawled on top of her with no care in the world. No matter how neatly or sweetly they sleep he always finds a way to roll over her, using her chest or stomach as his pillow. And so long he didn’t drool on her she wouldn’t mind it. Another sign that he was deep asleep was the light yet deep and rattling snores. And even those were endearing and cute.

 This morning however it seemed her spouse was hellbent in testing her patience – witch she was never renowned for – he was not only sleeping with a slighting parted lips, lightly snoring, and had done this absolutely cute thing where he held a fistful of her sleeping Yukata, but also his stupid and unreasonably soft hair was fanned out over her, tickling her skin.

 She is only but a mere woman. She is flawed and weak to temptation. Especially one as sweet and divine as this one. Not many would describe the 11th captain of the 11th division who just happens to be the sole successor of Kenpachi Yachiru cute. But at the moment that was the only word she knew of, that could capture his peaceful slumber - And until someone made a better word her husband had to deal with being called so – as mentioned Yamase Yasu as disciplined as she claimed to be, was only a mere woman and of course, she gave in to the divine temptation and ran her fingers in her husband’s hair and feel the silky soft yet soapy dry hair – he refused to use any proper hair product and she had no right to complain since she was no better – running her fingers a little higher she reached his scalp and began to massage his head. Feeling every secret scar that charcoal black mane hid. And taking inventory of the one or two gray hair she would find.

 “hmmm.” The rumbling groan of his dry throat rattled her bones and resonated in her skull. How she truly found his voice calming. “you’re awake.”

 “Sorry I woke you up. I couldn’t resist.” Her voice equally cracked and dry was louder and clearer than his own. Zaraki Kenpachi refused to admit that even after 100 years of married life, her voice still made his heart race.

 “I’m not complaining.”

 With a grunt, he pushed himself up and pulled himself up towards her face. His unkempt mane falling around them like a curtain of privacy against the prying eyes of the sun and those birds – that Yasu, who also prided herself on being ‘peaceful’ wanted to kill one by one if they didn’t shut up and let her listen to Kenpachi’s voice and NOTHING else – it was a solid minute or two of them just staring at each other and by any bystanders, it was not only unromantic but also rather unsettling to have the beastly captain Zaraki stare at them for long periods. Usually, a glance was enough to make grown men lose control of their bladers. For this fated pair, however, this was a ritualistic habit of cataloging every scar and wrinkle the other had gained.

 The small scars on her face, the slightly chipped and torn lip, the small scar and the smaller bald patch it had resulted, a barely visible scar on her eyebrow, the shallow wrinkles around her eyes resulted by squinting at the sun, and the visible laugh line, the small blue veins he could see if he paid attention and the way every muscle twitched.

 “it’s a bit late for you to be still in bed.” He stated matter of factly in a way that only she would realize what it meant. It’s a bit late for you to still be in bed meant: did you sleep in again because you didn’t want to wake me up. And only she knew his matter-of-fact tone was not an observation or a statement but a self-condemnation.

 “why captain Zaraki! You think me so cruel that I would up and leave my beloved husband cold in the morning to go to work? Without saying good morning?”

 His grunt made evident that her teasing was effective. With a smile she continued to tease as she wrapped her iron grip around his waist and slide a finger on the arch of his back – she couldn’t bring herself to call anything on this man small even to describe the small of his back – “you’re not just a warm body my dear. I love to wake up to see you still asleep so peacefully. You look so cute I want to eat you up.” She giggled. The Mountain woman of Gotei, in all her 8’8 glory, giggled. “I love it when I get to run my hands in your soft hair and take in your scent and have your head in the crook of my ne-AAHH…” her insufferable cooing was brought to an abrupt end when the strongest Kenpachi hit her in the face with a pillow. Using her initial shock as a distraction he rolled off of her and buried his face in the pillow to cover the ever-growing deep blush that dusted his face. It wasn’t a feminine blush rather it was a dark, red almost brownish. And he was not cute. By gods, he was NoT CuTe. AT ALL. HE WAS THE CAPTAIN OF SQUAD 11 AND HE WAS NOT CUTE GODDAMIT. Well, at least he’s not cute as far as anyone else is concerned.

 Laughing loudly she rolled and embraced her husband in her arms, after 100 years of marriage and 50 more years of knowing the woman beforehand, it still amazes him how easily he is held in her arms. How well fitted his face is in her neck and how safe it all feels. Like he's a scrawny child all over again back in Zaraki woods but this time he’s safe and he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open or dig himself a hole under a tree for warmth, hell he doesn’t even need to hug his sword for safety and safekeeping. No, he can just sleep, or rest, or just lean in the warm embrace and drown himself in the scent of sea salt, peaches and ink. Completely safe and loved. He’d never tell her that, no, he’ll take it to his grave and beyond. But he doesn’t need to. She doesn’t need him to. The simple soft hum that rumbles in his chest and the long, deep exhale on her throat says more than enough.

 “you’d think after this long of a time, you’d be used to my pampering chi-chi.” She cooed at him barring her nose in his hair. She loved how he always smelled so distinctly him. Just him. Nothing ever changed his scent. His sweat, his stupid cheap dry soap – that she also used because she is too busy to use the shampoo and hair conditioner and all the other dumb things lieutenant Matsumoto gives her every year for her birthday – and woods, the special pine woods only found in Zaraki. He always smells of those. And if he comes back from missions, blood. The metallic rusty smell of blood that always compelled her to ask for a full day off from her captain immediately to attend to her… private needs with her husband.

 “Unfortunately, love of my life, you are awake which means I have no excuse to stay in bed any longer. And if you and the boys want breakfast I better shake a leg.” She hummed as she left chaste kisses over his face.

 “Fuck them, the bastards can go eat shit for all I care.” He snarled. How dare they and their needs take his wife from his bed?

 “Honey, you need breakfast as well.”

 “No I don’t.” he – dare she say the word? – whined like a bratty child and gripped at her even harder. It wasn’t even a sexual groping, he just really really wanted the warm embrace to last longer. But from past experiences she knew if she catered to him any longer she would most likely not leave this room for about another years or so. And so as the sensible wife of the squad 11 she wiggled into a comfortable position and willed herself to her feet. Her 2 feet shorter husband refusing to let go, hung from her neck.

 “chi-chi, light of my life please don’t swing from my neck.” She lovingly stroked his back and hair beckoning him to be a little more mature. Earning a guttural, loud, ground shaking, ear-piercing growl as he tightened his equally iron grip. “ at least wrap your legs around my waist so I wouldn’t trip and fall on you. you wouldn’t want to explain to Isane-Chan WHY you have a broken arm early in the morning again…. Right?

 Given the choice of letting go of his precious peach-scented giantess and holding on to her like a monkey’s babe, you’d think the strongest Kenpachi would hold on to his dignity and let go. But no.

 The man had gone nearly 800 something years of his life touch starved with no real understanding of affection, the moment his beloved Yasu had begun to shower him with it his mind was simply blown. ‘Is this why Yachiru always hung off of his shoulder everywhere? Is this why she always ran to his arms like a crazed boar?’ because that’s what he wants to do with her.

 “She can keep her mouth shut.” He says taking in another breath full of sea salt and peaches. But finally, lets her go. It’s been 100 years for them and he knows she gets annoyed when she can’t go to her office on time. But he can sure make it difficult for her as he is still very much salty that she chose squad 10 over his own. “the hell you chose the Lil' brat over meh?” he had thrashed and at one point picked a fight with everyone from squad 10 – the captain in question, the Lil' brat. Refused to indulge her suiter at the time. – “you coming home earlier today? for lunch I mean.”

 Home. Another thing that made her heart flutter and bounces about like a lamb, is Kenpachi referring to squad 11 barracks as home. He had only started calling the place their HOME about 30 years into their marriage and Yasu firmly believed to this day he doesn’t realize he started doing so and if she pointed it out he would instantly stop.

 “Ahh, no. I promised to go to this new ramen stand that’s opened recently with Momo and others.” She smiled apologetically as she followed him to the adjoined captain’s bathroom. Kenpachi fast to strip to wash off before entering the basin of warm water and Yasu, who hated showering in the morning simply brushed her rust-colored crow’s nest, braiding the gray strands and adding her handmade decorations. Smiling at the second set of decorations that belonged to her beloved. They were much simpler and significantly less intricate than hers – just a few sharp wolf teeth and hawk feathers and one or two polished stones kept for special occasions such as date nights – which was just a stroll and wrestle in the woods and sex in the wilds night – and birthdays – the same as date nights but less walking, more sex and a lot steamier plus a gift is given as well –

 “I should seriously get going love, I won't be home for lunch but I’ll try to be home for dinner earlier so we can wrestle.” She smiled her big kind stupidly beautiful smile that made Kenpachi avert his eyes to avoid another humiliating blushing event. And he would have succeeded if Yamase Yasu, the mountain of squad 10 hadn’t bent down – he still can’t wrap his braid around the fact that she has to bend down for him – and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

 He deemed himself lucky that she left and didn’t see how that simple cherishing act turned his whole being into mush. And also very unlucky because now that she had departed for the barracks kitchen, he was left alone to deal with the aftermath of looking at her swaying hips in a thin, light white Yukata. As a married man, he should not have to deal with this predicament alone, however, he realized soon after actually living with Yasu under the same roof that, being an obstacle between her and her career is a fool's errand and it’s best if she is left to manage her time and duties herself. In fact, he begrudgingly admits, their afternoon wrestling is far more enjoyable than any morning quicky he could convince her into.

 On the other side of the barracks, newly dressed in formal black Shikaushou, Ymase Yasu was already in the middle of preparing breakfast for her hundreds of beloved morons. Ymichika, being an early riser himself was also present. Having retired from his morning shower he was enjoying a cup of tea as he helped Yasu warm up her habitual – albeit horrid and unsightly – blood milk. “you don’t have to help you know. I can manage myself.” She would politely say, which was her way of saying ‘please get out of my way.’ She had already stepped on his poor dainty feet and her mobility was further reduced by being careful not to barrel into the small, dainty fellow. “I know. I want to help dear. You don’t let me take care of your hair so I thought I’d do something else.”

 Oh, god. Please no. “ Yumichika, dear, I already told you, I don’t care for hair. It’s fine as it is. And you don’t need to help me in the kitchen.”

 “what she really means is that you’re small and get in her way. Stay around and she might accidentally step on ya like a bug.” Madarame Ikkaku, her husband's lieutenant and right-hand man – and in her personal opinion, the closest thing Kenpachi has to an actual friend. – may be rude and insufferable with absolute no table manners but she could always rely on him to tell the mean things she didn’t want to say.

 “that’s one way of putting it.” She smiled, offering him a full plate of the most protein-filled breakfast a man could ever dream of. “I put extra spinach, berries, and eggs for you; I hear it’s good for hair growth.” She adoringly said as she patted the lieutenant's shoulder. Making Ikkaku break his chop-sticks. Oh, how he wished he could kick her ass. Unfortunately, his captain would kill him if he so much as looked at her with ill intent. – something about her not partaking in violence witch was dumb, he’d seen the way they ‘wrestle’ once by complete accident and the image that’s unfortunately burned in his mind is nothing if not violent and he hears things. Violent-sounding things. How is she not into violence when she married him?- he shouldn’t think about his captain’s wife that way, he tells himself. And instead says:” I’m not bald…my head is shaved.” A vein popping on his head.

 “I didn’t say you were.” She deadpans causing Yumichika to snort into his tea. “just because I’ve never seen you shave your head, or your hair to grow out – even after spending time on missions or never seen you in possession of a single strand of hair – anywhere – doesn’t mean I said you’re bald.”

 Ikkaku Madarame respects his captain greatly. Sometimes, however, he thinks he married a devious demon.

 “you take that back you damn Yama-Oni.” He cries out attempting to draw out his sword but is held back by Yumichika who is using his mastery over his eyebrows to tell Yasu to ‘please don’t bully him.’

 “mountain- demon? Now that’s a new insult. I should write this one down.” She happily sings out as she prepares the last bits of breakfast and proceeds to ring the bells of the kitchen. Informing the squad that their breakfast is now served.

 Yamase Yasu is an eternal pain in Ikkaku madarame's behind, but he admits if it weren’t for her food that this squad would have A) starved to death and B) would have slept till evening. She managed to convince them to get up early and to eat a healthy diet. What was it that Yumichika had said? Something about a woman’s touch?  The berries are too tasty for him to care for anything else.

 And as she is about to leave to her own squad, to the one she actually works at, the members of the loudest, rudest, nastiest squad in Gotei all bow and thank Yamase-san. And the new ones who are still shy around the giantess bow and thank their ‘Oujou-sama’ which makes him want to laugh.

 Yeah…a woman’s touch. Or something.

[ggmanreviews]

GGMan's Weekly Video Game Recommendation #9

I play a lot of games. Some, everyone has played. Others, not so much.

I'll be listing one game per week, that I have played and believe it deserves more attention. If you have already played it, then that's great! If you haven't, then you might as well.

Name: Hand of Fate Genre: Action RPG Card Game Developer: Defiant Development Publisher: Defiant Development Engine: Unity Length: About 15 hours Singleplayer? Yes. Multiplayer? No. Release Date: February 17th, 2015 Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Linux, Classic Mac OS

Reviews: Steam 9/10, PC Gamer 73%, Metacritic 7.8/10

Hand of Fate might not be the most highest-rated game out there but, most of the time, games aren't entirely defined by the ratings given to them by critics and such. What matters most is the user experience and basically how much fun one has with the game. This is an action role-playing card game where basically, the cards that you play, decide your fate or basically how much of a cakewalk your RPG experience is going to be.

You start out sitting in front of a mysteriously evil (BUT charmingly awesome) hooded man who offers you to play a game of cards with him. You nonchalantly accept despite not knowing that this isn't just a simple deck of cards but rather, it is a game between life and death. Apparently, you're either dead, in hell, cursed, or all of the above and your story is to complete this card game and escape the never-ending nightmare.

This game isn't like Hearthstone where you see magical looking cards with fantastical creatures on the top sending sparkling lights and elements at their opponent's set of cards in order to destroy them. Hand of Fate presents a hybrid between a table-top dungeon simulator and 3D visceral combat. The cards themselves make out the type of dungeon you will be forced to fight for your life against a variety of monsters and unearthly inhabitants. With each level, there comes the naturally increasing difficulties of a video game alongside bosses that somewhat represents the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace from a standard deck of cards. If you die, it's fine because you are cursed to forever play this game until you win.

Throughout the dungeon, you are faced with events that react based on your decisions with these said, events. For example; you may come across a woman begging for food and depending on how much food you give her, she will react accordingly and give your rewards for your generosity. A more interesting example would be when you're faced with a decision to go after a treasure chest - little did you know, this chest is a trap and depending on your luck of the draw, you could either claim the loot or suffer just as much and end up losing more than you were to gain.

Although Hand of Fate is an intricately genuine piece of originality, it does lack in the combat department as the controls are relatively simple despite every battle slowly turning into a war of the Titans. With luck, you could be fighting with a mace that farts electricity and a shield that RKO's skeleton kings. However, with the luck of RNG (random number generator), you're most likely to fight a copy of the final boss, at the begin of the dungeon, with a rusty axe and dinner plate shield, after being cursed down to 50% of your original health, with an additional level of regret from giving away all your food and gold to the poor.

System Req (Minimum) OS: Windows 7/8/8.1/XP/Vista Processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Memory: 4GB Graphics: NVIDIA 260 GTS / Radeon HD 4850 DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 5GB

System Req (Recommended) OS: Windows 7/8/8.1 Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 Memory: 4GB Graphics: NVIDIA 460 GTX / Radeon 5770 DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 5GB

Price (USD): $14.99 Base Price but it's currently $9.99 as it's 50% off on Steam for the weekend

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[3dpixelmmy7v0-blog]

How to make a wolf boy skin Pixel Gun 3D?

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[thessalian]

Thess vs Bad Company

In a bid to add a bit of variety to my gaming life, I decided to at least try to go back to Overwatch. Okay, fine, there’s a certain level of prepping for the upcoming changes in D.Va and Mercy on my mind there, but still, I have this game, and not enough time to spend with friends. And I needed something after a dungeon of complete stupid in FFXIV.

Look, I’ve been leveling Archer lately - have now unlocked Bard, in fact. And @true0neutral has been leveling Lancer with a view to Dragoon. This has meant us alternating the Duty Roulette XP bonus - see, to maximise our chances of getting into a dungeon in a timely fashion, some days I’ll go in as heals and let him play Lancer, and the next days I’ll go in as Archer with him as tank. After that, we swap over and do the level-appropriate dungeon for the character who didn’t get the XP bonus. It works well - most we’ve had to wait is five minutes, and that’s rare.

Anyway, after Lancer Roulette for @true0neutral yesterday, we hit Haukke Manor to nudge my Archer up so I’d be nicely leveled and maybe have shinier gear when I faced the level 30 Archer quest and the quest to unlock Bard. That ... was a mistake. Look, we had this WHM / BLM team that just ... I am not entirely convinced that they weren’t some kind of really sophisticated bot team. They spent a lot of time just staring at people while fighting was going on. They ran around in circles for no reason. The BLM blew limit break on trash mobs, and we still got killed because the healer wasn’t healing. Sometimes the healer would start healing after a fight and not stop for awhile despite target being at full health already. And they completely ignored the void lamps in the final boss. In the end, I broke out the limit break in the final boss because the BLM was running around in circles again and for some reason refusing to use anything but Blizzard. Just Blizzard 1. Not Fire 1, ever, despite the whole Astral Fire Gives You POWAH thing. It was awful. Simply awful. We ran what turned out to be Amdapor Keep for a 50/60 roulette after that and that was better, at least. We had a Bard who didn’t spam Peloton, anyway, and no one died to that fucking wall, thus no one obliged me to solo the last fifth of that fucking wall’s health. Again.

Anyway, after all that, I needed something. And given the fact that my last experience with loot boxes gave me the two skins I desperately wanted (Winged Victory Mercy and Widowmaker’s Huntress skin), it felt a little like Overwatch was welcoming me back with open arms. So I thought, “I may be rusty, but it won’t be that bad, right? Just like riding a bicycle?”

It wasn’t. You tend to wobble a lot more when riding a bicycle than I did getting back into my favourite winged Healbabe. It helped that, despite a lack of ‘real’ air support on Oasis that first match, I had a Zarya willing to protect me (bubbled me during a Reaper ult and everything) and a Junkrat (waves at @true0neutral) who was willing to bounce-launch himself up high so I could get an above-ground-vantage point on the field during my approach. Second match wasn’t quite as great, but Luna really requires something a little more bunker-buster-ish than we had. I did manage a three-man clutch rez, but we still couldn’t break through. I don’t think having the world’s squishiest Genji and an attack Torb helped much.

Then I tried Orisa. I wasn’t bad, for a first go. It helped that it was Dorado, a map I’m fairly familiar with. In the end, we managed a seat-of-the-pants win, though we - or at least I - was constantly scuppered by the Sombra ults. SO MANY SOMBRA ULTS.

Anyway, last match was D.Va. Looking forward to the changes in her but I managed pretty well. My Top Five highlight for her was a Shutdown; we were heading up the final stretch in Hollywood and I heard a voice I am so very familiar with now - Mercer. Didn’t even register the tag line; just, “Mercer, oh shit”. Turned left, and there’s a McCree, all glowy. So I hit defense matrix, ate his Hiiiiiiiigh Nooooon ... gave him just enough time to stand there going, “...oh shit a cowboy regrets his life a cowboy regrets his choices...” before I rammed him into a corner, bounced him off a wall and shot him to death. Ended that round out of mech, still assisting with clearing the last of the defending team off the point as the limo cruised home.

So ... yeah, I can probably manage a few rounds now and then. We were fairly short on stupid, at least. And sometimes I want fun-with-friends that doesn’t involve FFXIV. RP’s nice, but... y’know.

Now going to look at my groceries, debate how best to do my lovely lamb roast, and consider whether I want to go back to Andromeda (did I mention how much I hate the fact that that map starts scrolled out as far as humanly possible so all the quest markers blend into this Venn diagram of horror and death? Why can’t it start middle-ground-ish?) or try something new. I have plenty of games I haven’t even touched yet, that I might be better at now that I’ve had a bit more practice with other modes of gaming.

...Still not touching Beyond Good and Evil, mind. As much as I’ve heard good things, mandatory vehicle sections can eat my ass.

[fanroi]

Five things meme

I was not really tagged but I wanted to do this when I saw other people do it. Hehe.

FIVE THINGS YOU’LL FIND IN MY BAG

Napkins. I have terrible allergies so my nose is running all. the. time.

Bottle of water. Can’t go without it anywhere.

A little teeny tiny journal/sketch book. A doodle random things I see and write things I think about when I’m on the move.

Random makeup, hairbands etc. I don’t use a lot of makeup but I carry it around and I always leave the house with my hair open but I get frustrated because it’s so long so I always tie it up at some point.

Embarassing amount of random trash. This is the reason I never find anything from my bag.

.... needless to say that I carry around a really big purse or a back bag.

FIVE THINGS IN MY BEDROOM

A LOT of photographs framed on my walls. I love old fashioned photographs and I have them from all points of my life (parties, trips, vacations, school things) and couple of old photos of my parents and grandparents. My favorite ones are the ones of my paternal grandparents from 1930′s. They died when I was little and I absolutely adored them and still do :)

Books and papers all around. I have a lot of books, which sadly I rarely have time to read, but I pet them lovingly from time to time. And just papers; workstuff, drawing etc. etc.

Music stuff. Two guitars, a keyboard and loads of cd’s, old and new.

Blankets and blankets and blankets. I get very cold easily and I live in Finland so in the winter time it gets very cold so I’ve surrounded myself with the loveliest of blankets I can cover myself with when the cold hits.

Quite a bit of technology. I have four laptops (windows 98, windows XP, seven and 10), three consoles (playstation 1, 2 and 3), tv, dvd player and a vinyl player of my fathers that has a sticker “rock’n’roll” on it form 1970′s

FIVE THINGS I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO IN MY LIFE

Go to New Zealand. Haven’t had the money but one day.....

Learn to play a Banjo and an accordion.

Get a lot of cats and two big dogs.

Get involved in making a movie. I don’t really care what I’m gonna do, I can get everyone coffee but I just want to do it.

Go hiking in all these different places. I did Scotland last year and next I’m thinking Canada.

FIVE THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

My friends. I have the nicest and funniest fiends I like spending time with and do all of these crazy antics together.

Seeing the seasons change. I love them all and obviously I’m really loving spring at the moment even though it was been very cold here....

The fact that I’m getting my masters and then be finished with school by Christmas (this is a promise. I will do ittt)

My god daughter who is the sweetest thing on earth and I could spent ages just hanging out with her. She is five and everything is no new and wonderful to her :)

Being creative and doing things with my hands. I’m a worrier and a thinker whose brain just never stops and doing creative things lets me relax and enjoy myself.

FIVE THINGS ON MY TO-DO LIST

Doing my master’s thesis 

Get into sports again. It’s so much harder to find a club to do something as an adult. I want to play tennis or football but I have no friends to play them with :(

Finish some fics and arts and POST them. I have tons and tons of stuff half started and some even finished but I’m for some reason very bad at posting them heheheee

Doing this annoying thing for work that I’ve been putting off and now it has come and bit me in the arse.

Get a plant for my room and keep it alive for a change.

FIVE THINGS PEOPLE MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME

I’m a huge fantasy nerd. Tolkien is my favorite but almost everything goes.

I enjoy drinking fancy alcohol. I’m not a huge drinker, I party but not really much but I like to buy nice bottles of Scotch or Wine or Port or Gin and then enjoy them with friends.

I get scared of things and situations but I’m so stubborn that I usually just fight through them.

I speak five languages. Some of them not as well as others but I can get by with them. I hope. I’m prolly a bit rusty on some of them. 

I have a tattoo on my side! A quote from the “All that is gold does not glitter” poem from Lord of The Rings. 

I had to do a lot of thinking, almost couldn’t fill all the points. I don’t know who to tag but do it. It was fun!

[itsworn]

Stunning 1955 Chevy 210 from Australia that took 21 years to build!

This humble scribe has been lucky enough to come into contact with thousands of high-quality feature cars over the last 15 years or so. The average gestation period for a decent build seems to be around five years, give or take. But some take longer … much longer!

For Aussie Bill Sharkey, the journey to trophy-winning completion took a whopping 21 years, with a lot of literal chopping and changing along the way. The story begins with a rusty hulk of a rolling shell that needed plenty of attention.

“I’d wanted a ’55 since I was a young fella,” Bill says, a panel beater by trade. “I couldn’t afford the car I wanted so I went looking for something I could afford.”

That search took Bill to South Australia where he found a bare rolling shell at Joe’s Golden Gasoline Classics. It may have fallen into Bill’s budget at the time, but it was missing everything and it was carrying plenty of rust, too.

Luckily, Bill could handle all that kind of work himself and he got busy in his spare time cutting out the cancer from the doors, sills, fenders, floorpan, and trunk. When he wasn’t repairing the rust he was scouring catalogs from Danchuk and Classic Industries, making lists of all the myriad parts he’d need to build a complete vehicle.

As it turned out, a friend of Bill’s happened to have a right-hand-drive dash, firewall, and floor section that he could graft into the Chevy, repairing rust patches and converting the steering in one go. Although it was the roof that Bill says probably required the most work to get right … having been previously slathered with filler, which had begun cracking out. Bill tapped out all the damage before file-finishing it baby-ass smooth.

As you can imagine, styles change over time and as the years rolled by, Bill found himself with some parts that started looking decidedly dated. Things like Billet Specialties rocker covers and air cleaners and billet interior pieces were sold off and replaced by newer items. Even the quarter-panels that Bill had spent hours getting straight were cut off and replaced by fresh repops. Same with the outer door skins.

“The car got better as the build progressed,” he says. “I just wanted to make it as good as it could be.”

Another area where Bill was able to save some time and money was when he heard about a complete chassis for sale … complete with RideTech front end, Aldan coilovers, triangulated four-link rear and 9-inch. “Glenn Rulach from Air Ride had built it up for coilovers but then decided to go for airbags, so I had someone check it out for them and I made a deal. It’s great! It gives the old girl just the right stance.”

Bill added to the recipe with a neatly relocated PBR booster and master cylinder setup that clean up the already spotless firewall. This controls the mirror-finish Wilwood calipers at each corner, lurking behind those gorgeous 17-inch Schott Mod wheels.

Life—and a couple of other personal build projects—got in the way of the project for a handful of years before Bill returned to the ’55. Around the end of 2015, Bill and wife, Penny, decided to draw a line in the sand and set a solid completion date for the car. This gave them just over a year to get the car done, just in time for Summernats 30 in January 2017.

One part of the build that didn’t change with the passing of numerous stylistic fads was Bill’s choice of color scheme. Even 20 years ago he had a clear vision for how the car would look. “I’d seen this combination of PPG Vivid Yellow and Cream on a vintage Harley-Davidson and thought it would look good on the Chevy,” he says. The two hues go so well together that Bill says he intends to paint the next project car (an FC Holden for Penny) in the same colors, only reversed.

Like the flawless exterior, pop the hood and an equally beautiful sight will greet you. It’s all centered around a 400ci small-block, many parts of which Bill received as payment from a job he did for a friend. Another mate, Trev Hutchins, was given the task of bolting all the parts together. Filled with Scat rotating guts along with SRP pistons and a Crane cam tickling a set of Jesel rockers, the big-inch small-block is topped with a Weiand 142 roots blower and a Holley 750 XP carb. Coated Pacemaker headers are bolted to the AFR heads to vent the spent gasses out the 2.5-inch stainless exhaust.

“I told Hutcho that I only had enough money to build it once so it had to be right the first time,” Bill says. This was particularly pertinent considering the Weiand 142 blower that Bill had ready to go on top of the combo. He probably doesn’t need to worry, given the stout list of internals included in the modified mill.

“I drove a blown car many years ago and it made my hair stand up,” he says. “I wanted the same. It’s also Penny’s favorite aspect of the coupe.”

While the ’55 looks all-show, it definitely has plenty of go to match the show, and Bill backed the 400-cube combo with a Turbo 400 and 9-inch with 31-spline axles, Detroit Truetrac LSD and 3.50 gears. The car doesn’t have many miles on it yet, but it’s been built to cope with plenty of cruising as well as the odd excursion to the strip, should Bill ever feel the need.

In the last six weeks of the build, Bill worked himself to the bone to get the car ready for the Summernats deadline. While he made a pact with himself to hold off on working on customer cars at his Dubbo, New South Wales, body shop in mid-December, he ended up continuing to work on customer rides as well as his own. As a result, he found himself at the shop from as early as 4 a.m. each day until midnight.

One of the last parts of the build to be completed was the interior, which due to deadline pressure, was completed piecemeal between Bill and the trimmer Shaun at Trims by Shaun. While Bill was still working on the car, he sent the seats to the trimmer to be worked on, with Bill handling the roof lining himself. At the last minute, he sent the car to Shaun for final work and installation to be done, including the custom door trims and custom-fit BMW carpets.

Things got a little scary toward the end of the project. Bill wasn’t sure he’d see the Dakota Digital VHX instrument cluster in time so, just in case, he borrowed an earlier model he’d previously sold to a friend. It didn’t look like the radiator would make it in time either, so he bought a PWR unit from a friend’s Holden Torana, modifying the top and bottom tanks to fit the Chevy.

Bill got so close to the deadline that the only driving the car did before powering itself into the Summernats judging hall was a quick lap around the block to make sure it was going to work. The first real cruise Bill and Penny got in the car was the trip to our photo shoot location and a couple of laps around the area before heading for home!

The plan now is to finish off the odd small details and enter it in a few more shows before committing the car to a lifetime of regular cruising. We do wonder if it will take another 20 years to finish Penny’s FC Holden, though!

The post Stunning 1955 Chevy 210 from Australia that took 21 years to build! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/stunning-1955-chevy-210-australia-took-21-years-build/ via IFTTT

[slapegg]

Quick Critique: Steamworld Dig 2

Steamworld Dig 1 was a neat game with a pretty unique take the exploration genre. It combined the exploration and upgrading of the usual fare with some platforming challenges and paid off with short bursts of the kind of happiness you get from clicker games. Heist didn't interest me, so I was happy to see Image & Form revisit the Dig world. Dig 2 is a lot of tweaking and updating what Dig 1 started but some of the changes are great, some don't really create meaningful differences, and others bring the game down a bit. You play as Dot this time and she levels up by killing enemies rather than gaining resources.  Leveling up is still a way to gate high level upgrades but this time, it also gets Dot a bonus on how much she can sell resources for. I'm jumping ahead a bit, but while this sounds good, it's actually a major annoyance. Unless you seem to spec out for all the money skills and grind out levels before you cash out digs, there aren't enough resources to get all the upgrades. I beat the game without dying and collected every resource I could outside of a handful that got destroyed in enemy chain reaction explosions leading to the resource being crushed or fall into a pit and I have a few upgrades I still can't afford and I'm not at the level cap. In Dig 1, if you play the game well, you finish it was a lot of extra cash and a few dozen extra Orbs. In Dig 2, as soon as you find some enemies that pay out decent XP, spend a bunch of time farming them to boost your levels and get the sale bonuses early and then spend all your money and upgrade points on the abilities that lead to extra money or else you're going to come up short. A huge appeal of exploration games is unlocking new abilities and maxing out your character, so coming up so short here is a huge letdown. I could understand that if you played sloppy, died and lost resources, or didn't go back to clean out old caves, but for a player invested in the game, that's just misguided construction. I actually started a second save file and bought the upgrades that grant more money and farmed a bunch of levels to get my sales bonus up before collecting resources, and I was swimming in extra cash by the end of the game. So that definitely looks like the intended way to play or somebody just didn't check their numbers/balancing for players that want to play with the fun upgrades rather than the money ones or that explore the mines early rather than only doing a clean up late in the game. Beyond the actual number balancing, Dig 2 has a much more robust upgrade system. Instead of using Orbs to just buy new parts like Dig 1, Dot can find "Cogs" to unlock new skills and abilities for items you've bought/unlocked, and some of them can majorly change how you play. You also aren't locked into what you spend them on and you can respec any time you return to town, so finding Cogs becomes a huge reward. The ability unlocking is also sped up to get you back to where you were when you finished up Dig 1. One of the earliest skills you get allows you to hit blocks above you or at a distance, like Rusty's rocket punch, and you eventually unlock the ability to fire that while in the air, which is a major game changer. The control scheme has also been greatly improved, so there's a lot less fiddling around to swap equipped items because they removed the consumable items.

Dig 2 has a lot of nice quality of life improvements. Your water and life automatically fill up when you return to town, so there's no needless farming of easy enemies to get back to full health. The map ticks off caves if you've found every secret in them so it's a bit friendlier for doing the end game cleanup than Dig 1 was. The map has a guiding arrow to point you to the next objective too. You have the option to turn it off but I left it on to see where NOT to go so I could explore more. I get oddly stressed out in games when I accidentally progress the story before I've had a chance to look all over, so having the arrow was a nice way for me create a lot of mini points-of-no-return and play how I like to. There are a lot more little things to find while exploring, which means more secrets as rewards for exploring and then more upgrades as you cash in the items you find squirreled away in odd spots. A couple of them are kiiind of BS in the way they're hidden though. It even has a nice touch where when you go to quit the game, it gives you the standard warning that any unsaved information will be lost, but then it actually displays a timer for when the last autosave was. It's small things like that that let you know this game was made by people that care

While a lot of the quality of life work has been improved, I'm not sure if I like Dig 2 better than 1. Dot isn't as "neat" as Rusty as a protagonist. Rusty's design is exactly what you want from a steam-powered Wild West explorin' and diggin' old timey robot. Dot is too humanoid. There's also a character that looks like a more bulked up version of Cronenberg dimension Summer from Rick and Morty and it bugged me every time I saw her. Can't really fault the game team for that one, but just know... that's there. I found the ending of Dig 1 to be super disappointing and Dig 2 doesn't really do much to redeem it, so Dot and Rusty's stories don't really come together in great ways. Seeing what Rusty was up to between Dig 1 and 2 seems like it's far more interesting than what Dot experiences. Steamworld Heist wasn't my thing, but I appreciate how the games all tie together. It's not in your face, but you'll appreciate some minor things more if you know their other games (or just read a wiki page) and Dig 2 connects the "lore" together in a fun way.

The combat still sucks. There's no way around that. Fighting enemies in these games is not fun and when you reach the boss that can teleport around the arena while spamming projectiles, the combat just feels shoehorned in because games "must" have combat. The final boss is absolutely lousy due to this. Dig 1's final boss felt more puzzle-y than action-y and that's what made it work in a game that wasn't super fighting focused. Rusty had an objective while a thing was fighting him. Dot has a combat experience that feels like it was taken from a rather different, and much worse, game. Heck, the post game content is also super lousy. It's such a massive disappointment that the game closes with such awful moments. They run so counter to everything that made the game fun that it's baffling that a team that could make a game so good would sully it by adding such awful, awful segments. They're moments built around having you fight with the worst of the game's controls and combat problems so it's shining an extremely bright spotlight on combat that's awful, chase sequences that kind of just come down to luck unless you come equipped with specific abilities that you weren't warned about and that weren't needed in the main game, and bad platforming/camera combinations. And just to twist the knife even more, it has a Portal "cake" reference. It's hard to even know how to react to that in 2017. Anger seems to have washed over, so I guess we're just up to despair on "the cake was a lie" references.

I've tried to avoid specifically mentioning specific game elements because in an exploration game, that's pretty close to being the only thing you can spoil, but I do feel the need to talk about two new upgrades and how they change the game from Dig 1. For the good side, you eventually get a hookshot in this game. And it's awesome. It's the perfect natural progression from Rusty's abilities. It lets you zip around the mines and creates some really fun challenge rooms and for some reason you can negate fall damage by grappling to the floor right before you smash into the ground. Hookshots are so awesome they defy physics. For the bad side, you shortly earn another mobility-based upgrade and it all but completely negates every other mobility ability. From that point on, challenges are focused on using that one power and the mines are built for navigating with it. It's so overpowering while not delivering any of the fun of a double jump or hookshot, that kind of ruins the back end of the game. You even get an upgrade that removes any skill or challenge in making sure you don't overuse your power, so the end of the game is just you using that one thing to solve any issue and ignoring all your other abilities.

Much like Dig 1, your enjoyment for Dig 2 will be heavily dependent on how laid back you're willing to have the game be. There's a despondent zen to the Dig games as you go alone into a mine, slowly break away at blocks to get deeper while your light burns away, and you head back through your path to leave the mine barely having gotten any further and barely having made any money but knowing that your next trip in will be that touch easier. Most exploration games ramp up the power fantasy as you gain amazing new powers and strength, but the Dig games are more chill than that. You unlock tools that allow you to progress but it's not until late in the game that you feel any sense of power. But that's what makes them interesting and fun. Steamworld is almost depressing with the state of the land, the townsfolk and their issues, and even the music, but it's never a slog. I appreciated its downer nature right up until I got those final upgrades that changed the whole feel of the game. Dig 2's jump to a $20 price tag just isn't worth it. The game is very short and features a lot of padding on the back end, so unless you want to find 100% of everything, it's going to be a brisk experience. That was fine with Dig 1 where the game was half the price, but Dig 2 suffers for it. If you do want to 100% everything, prepare for a lot of backtracking and grinding, which may sour you by the time the credits roll. It's rough to say, but Dig 1 and Heist go on sale seemingly every month, so maybe wait for Dig 2 to do the same. I had a gift card with store credit sitting around, so I'm not upset about the purchase, but I'd have been more willing to overlook the problems in the last act of the game on a cheaper and shorter but tighter game.