Play@YSDC

Posted: **Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:05 pm**

Saw this one for inspiration. Not my kind of film. But I love the poster!

Just finished Lee Child´s One Shot. Never read anything by him before. Really like the writing. Good character portraits and easy reading, a good flow.

Awaiting the 6th season of Dexter, I´m watching Jeremiah, watchable two seasons of post apocalyptic scenery - without zombies. The return of the Walking dead takes a life time, so this will have to do for now.

The series is fair. The comic albums are superb!

Reminds you of a TV-series? Minus horse....

The series is akin to BBC´s The Survivors and Jericho. I might try to make something out of a mix of those three. Some other time. These two scenario ideas we´re working on will have to do for now.

what about you? What are you guys reading / viewing?
/Dave

Btw. Have the [sup] and [flash] buttons been in the edit bar all the time???

Posted: **Thu Jan 27, 2011 3:53 am**

They've been there at least since the last major upgrade, I think. I've never used them myself.

Currently, as in this very moment, I'm watching The Snows of Kilimanjaro with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward on TCM. I'm also making my way through the classic Doctor Who series (all 26 seasons!), and I've got most of them on DVD. The ones that aren't out yet on DVD I've been watching online, including reconstructions and animations of the missing episodes. I started last February with An Unearthly Child and proceeded in order. After finishing The Talons of Weng-Chiang, I went back and watched The Dominators again because I had just gotten the newly released DVD. Tomorrow I plan to finish watching the bonus features for The Dominators and then start Horror of Fang Rock, the first story in Season 15. The seasons get shorter as you go along, with the first six being much longer than the others, so I'm already close to two thirds of the way through.

I'm in the middle of reading Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove. It's the conclusion of a lengthy series of alternate history novels he wrote about an alien invasion in the middle of World War II (Worldwar) and the subsequent arrival of their colonization fleet in the 1960s (Colonization). Though I've read all of the Worldwar and Colonization books and Homeward Bound came out in 2005, I'd never read it before. It concerns the arrival of a human starship at the aliens' homeworld (Home) in the 21st century. I've been reading a lot of Turtledove in recent months, including the last three books of Settling Accounts, part of an extremely long alternate history in which the Confederacy won its independence from the USA in 1862 that began with one book set in the early 1880s, three during World War I, three during the interwar period, and finally four during World War II. I just finished Hitler's War, the first book in The War That Came Early series, where World War II starts in the fall of 1938 with the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I had wanted to read the next book in the series, West and East, but it had been checked out of the library, so I got Homeward Bound instead.

I've also started reading December 6, by Martin Cruz Smith. This one follows an American expatriate named Harry Niles living in Tokyo shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. I put it on hold partway through to read Homeward Bound, but I intend to get back to it.

Posted: **Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:45 am**

I see your trait in following through. I also tend to watch whole series and read certain authors in streaks. But not yet for 26 seasons! That must be some kind of record?
Thanks for sharing your nightstand with me. That was a mix of what ifs and science fiction. The only thing I´ve read coming close to Turtledove is Philip K Dick´s The man in the high castle.

You might have heard of Do androids dream of electric sheep filmed as Blade Runner with Harrison Ford? (My number one favorite sci fi film as well as favorite author.)
In The man in the high castle, the axis powers won the war and rule USA. The book is made into a TV-series by Ridley Scott as we speak. (Announced on IMDB.)

Speaking of adaptions, a best seller from the 80's Joseph Garber´s Vertical Run. Something I´d like to try to convert to a solo adventure. "Dave Elliot comes to work as usual. But something is wrong. He will have to fight to get his way out of the office alive. As he did in the jungle all those years ago." It is being filmed by Warner Bros, produced by Jon Peters(Batman Returns, the only good Batman film ever made).

Posted: **Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:11 am**

Well, I think the 1966 Batman movie with Adam West and Burt Ward was also good, in a campy sort of way.

Philip K. Dick is great, and I have The Man in the High Castle, though it's been years since I've read it. I also have Through a Scanner Darkly. I've heard of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but I've never read it. I've seen Blade Runner plenty of times, though I've heard it's very different from the book.

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:04 pm**

Hi guys!
Blade runner is excellent, but they have left many things out of the book, it would be impossible to include everything. And it's THE cyberpunk movie, you may forget Matrix. Scanner darkly was a bit weird. And about The man in the high castle, it's a great book, it really understands the ethos of fascism.
I'm currently reading "The other Greeks" from Victor Davis Hanson. It explains that most of values of the western world were created by the free farmers of the Greek polis and not by the intellectuals of the greek cities. I'm also reading the manga "Monster", it's a thriller about experiments and social engineering done in the late East Germany (this one would be a great scenario). On TV, I'm watching again Rome, the first season,
Computer games; I'm playing Bioshock 1 (I'm not very found steampunk, but I must agree it's well done).

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:43 pm**

I'm currently playing Fallout 3. It's fun, but it's not really true to Fallout 1 and 2 nor up to their level of quality. I've heard good things about Fallout: New Vegas, though.

I have Bioshock 1 and 2, but I haven't had time to play them yet.

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:14 pm**

Between writing a paper on women´s and men´s teaching styles and trying to be productive on the site, I play some odd rounds of Jagged Alliance 2 (newer mod as of 2010) can´t give it up.
I laughed when I saw my 13 year old son play the char generation phase of Fallout 3! Kid stuff!
Then it turned out to be an ordinary shooter.

In real life my oldest daughter has some aviation reading to do, hopefully. She went down to do try out tests for pilot school.
Oh, how I would like to trade places with her... They let her know how it went in a month.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:14 am**

By the way, I was was drawing a comic with a mythos theme and part of the action was in Egypt. Now, it's all ruined.

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:03 am**

Just place it to occur last year

. Can we get a preview of your work??

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:15 pm**

It's all written in Portuguese, and I'm still learning how to draw (when I started, I didn't knew at all), but here is the link:

http://oartefacto.blogspot.com/

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:28 pm**

I see you are drawing in the computer. Have you tried to draw on paper and scan the pictures? I think that gives a better look to it. Drawing in the computer is really hard, I think.

I made a quick character pic for a scribe I played some years ago:

I guess, given sufficient time and training anyone can draw decently.
That said, if one not keep the drawing up, one loses the talent quickly. I used to draw pretty good. This is light years from my work from twenty years ago. Sadly...

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 2:39 pm**

Nice! I wish I could draw like that.
I've been drawing the scenarios in computer to be quicker. The figures I made them in paper, but I will take a long time (on the other hand, I already saw worst comics than mine in the net, so not everything is lost

)

Posted: **Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:34 pm**

But then again, the message in the text will put the strip in another light. (I´ll look at it more closely tomorrow.)
Regarding art, I´ll be putting together a "front page" for the Aquitania scenario. What elements would you like to have?
I was thinking of the cliffs of Morocco, a dive shot, ocean liner, raging war, horrors of the deep... I just need to compose those in a neat layout.

Any ideas?

Posted: **Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:45 am**

Imagine the ruin of a ship at the bottom of the city with divers exploring, and "something" appearing, hows that?

Posted: **Sun Feb 06, 2011 10:34 am**

I´ll work on that! Some snatching from the web. Morph it. Then upload for approval. Give me some time....

Posted: **Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:03 pm**

OK, I had a look at Sanctum.
It fits the "How was the dive?" "Same all, same all..." as Kabs said before. Some great underwater scenes.
I also had a rewatch of The Cave.

Into the Blue 1 & 2 got on my watch list and I´m about to see #2 right now. All to prepare for the 2011 epsiode of Aquitania.

The thing with diving is when things go bad - it´s hard to do them right again

. With the planning of baddies with harpoon guns and lost treasures, greedy Brits and such, we´re in for a treat!

Posted: **Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:44 pm**

Jeez!

Halfway in the film, I´m thrilled! It´s like Aliens in UK! Possibly one of the best films in the genre ever! Cool environ suits. I like the plot. The pace is increasing all the time and I´m only half way...
The rest can be a flat out, but based on the film so far it´s a ten pointer.

Spoiler:

Expecting nothing... Enormously glad I had a view of it.

Posted: **Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:50 pm**

In retrospect... I should have stopped watching there! The second half was...not to par with the first half. I´ll make good use of the first part for a future project of mine, though.

You seen it?

Posted: **Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:00 pm**

Ok, what am I thinking of? The scenes in the first half set a great tense mood.

That is suitable as an eye catcher.

The plot is from Ursula LeGuin´s Intracom, paired with an old Traveller scenario: Sky Rig.
It will be quite a quick job to put these pieces together and have a scenario going.

I guess I´ve found yet another thing to add to my to-do-list

But..later...later

Posted: **Mon Feb 21, 2011 3:29 pm**

I finished to see the anime Higurashi (When they cry). The idea is simple: in 4 episodes you see what hapen in a beautiful and peaceful small vilage (a group of teenagers playing, a festival, a murder, then a spiral of murders and madness). Then the story repeats with some minor changes in another 4 episodes. In a total of 52. Each group of 4 episodes gives hints for what is really hapening, until at the end you know almost everything. I didn't like how it was solved (a true happy ending with everyone happy, including the baddies).

Posted: **Fri Feb 25, 2011 5:05 pm**

Ok, I did it... I added myself as keeper to the above scenario. Over at Umbria They got a neat site - in Spanish. Kabukiman - do you understand Spanish? Anyways, I drafted Airbornexo to join that game. Does either of you guys want to jump in?
I have two slots open. One as a Geology Professor and one as Electronics Specialist. Place: Antarctica (swapped Sky Rig for Rig below massive ice...)

While trying to wrap my non Spanish speaking head around the board, I kind of slipped with my effort over here. But I´ve been creative!

Regarding forums in general. The Umbria forum has one up on PLAY@YSDC, that is the character and player tabs. Check them out and you´ll see what I mean.
I visited Dark and moody forums, and couldn´t get past the fact that I didn´t like the black background and multicolour texts. It´s subjective, I know. And arguable if it´s better to have texts in Spansih

So, when you guys get back, please drop over to umbria and say hi. It will be a short scenario. I just want to test the forum and see if it´s possible to create something similar in English.

Link to the game:http://www.comunidadumbria.com/?MW=2&SW ... TIDA=16698 (If you didn´t check it up top

)

Posted: **Sun Feb 27, 2011 11:12 am**

Got seven Spanish players and one Brit, Airbornexo on board over there. I can still add any of you if you want to check it out. There´s a function to get VIP-passes to watch the game - without participating.
Still one character not taken - Electronics Specialist Camilla Vasqez.

Posted: **Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:07 am**

I'm still catching up on everything I missed while I was away, but I'll be sure to check it out once I have time.

Posted: **Wed Mar 02, 2011 1:10 pm**

I read spanish, but don't know to writte (if you need any help to translation, jusk ask me).
I'l read the scenario first to get an idea.

Posted: **Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:17 am**

I know a bit of Spanish too; I took two semesters of it in grad school. That said, it was a long time ago and I'm very rusty.

Posted: **Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:03 am**

If you could read spanish then you MUST read portuguese!

Posted: **Sun Mar 13, 2011 11:31 am**

Yesterday, I watched True Grit, and I think my one-eyed marksman for the Maple Hill scenario made an appearance there

. Added the first character to that scenario.
My movie weekend ended with The Tourist, what I like to see as a sequel to Salt (Saw it a month ago). Oddly enough I haven´t used Mrs Jolie for any of my characters... She´s awesome!

Besides these two films I managed to sneek a peek at The Adjustment Bureau.
As with most films I watch, I tend to like the concepts but not the final turnout. Guess that´s the drawback of being at the helm plotwise in gaming. Of the four films I keep the one with Evelyn Salt as the best.

Posted: **Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:43 pm**

What about you, Shane? What´s on your night stand / in your DVD?
Welcome back to the cyber-realm, btw.
/Dave

Posted: **Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:12 am**

I saw The King's Speech when I was in London last month, in a very expensive movie theater. Had to sit through ten minutes of commercials there too, but at least they were different commercials from the ones I've seen, and then ten minutes of coming attractions before the movie actually started. It was very good and earned every one of its awards.

I just finished reading Harry Turtledove's The Man with the Iron Heart, an alternate history novel that speculates on what might have happened had Reinhard Heydrich survived the assassination that killed him in 1942 and gone on to prepare an effective guerrilla resistance to American, British, French, and Soviet occupiers. It was pretty good, but I don't think American sentiment would have turned as rapidly against the war as it did in the timeframe involved. I know the author was trying to compare it to Iraq, but it was a different mindset in the 1940s - and even in the 2000s, Americans didn't turn against the war anywhere near as quickly.

I finished Season 15 of Doctor Who some time ago, but I went back to watch the new DVD releases of The Mutants, The Ark, and The Seeds of Doom. Now I'm ready to start Season 16, which is about the quest for the Key to Time. I haven't seen those in a while. The second story of Season 16, The Pirate Planet, was written by Douglas Adams. He also cowrote City of Death, the second story of Season 17 (and probably my favorite overall). I also just ordered about half of the DVDs I don't yet have because BBC America is having a big sale on them. With that and my promotion codes, I'm getting 12 stories for just $170 plus tax, and my collection is now nearly complete.

My Doctor Who/Call of Cthulhu game The Terror Out of Time is going really well. I just wrapped up Episode 3 with a doozy of a cliffhanger, and Episode 4 just started. It should be quite a rip-roaring conclusion. If things really go pear-shaped, and there are a number of ways this could happen, the investigators may end up meeting Nyarlathotep himself. This scenario has used many of the standard tropes of both Doctor Who and Call of Cthulhu, but with some novel twists. After that, I plan to start the second adventure in my Doctor Who campaign, the science-fiction themed The Ninth Planet. I still need to do some more work to develop it before it's ready to start, but I haven't had time lately, nor have I had time to do much work on the Aquitania scenario.

Posted: **Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:06 am**

Good to hear things are running smoothly. I ordered something too. The USB-from yoggie with the two first issues of The Black Seal. I really liked reading the preview and look forward to reading the real deal.
My game at Umbria is flowing just fine. I have set a slow pace and have had time to interact off-topic with the players. I even tried the chat function. I will use that next weekend to take my players to the mission site. If enough of them log on at midnight.
Kabs, you´ve been lurking over there, any comments?

Posted: **Mon Mar 21, 2011 12:08 pm**

Well, to tell the true I hate the system of navigation there. I think it's much more confuse that good old YSDC... But the players are doing well, and that's what counts. And the campaign is nice remembers me "The thing".
I had enouth of see my son playing super-mario and sonic. so I have introduce him to Sid meyer's pirates and he just loved it. And I have play with him for the first time dungeons and dragons (I had the old red box translated in portuguese) and he liked. Now I'm thinklig to buy miniatures to be easier to understand it.

Posted: **Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:22 pm**

Yes, it´s quite a roundabout way to navigate the site. But when one has reached the actual game, the structure is easy. All threads on the same drop down list and the die-roller is in the message menu. I just wanted to have the VIP, Player, character and group messages on a similar drop down.
Maybe less effort should be put on décor and more to optimize browsing?

And a big plus is that it´s a huge community. It took no time to gather players

. Even in a foreign language!

I see how you get a feel of The Thing, I sure have had that in mind when putting the scenario together. Well, let´s see how the actual mission turns out...

Posted: **Tue Mar 22, 2011 3:06 pm**

There are a lot of spanish playing. Several of the material of CoC (and other rpg's too) that I bought were in spanish because they translate it and it's much cheaper.

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 6:11 pm**

I´ve just got The Black Seal #1 & 2 in my hand. Bought the pre-packed USB from yoggie and printed the articles I was interested in.
Is there something in these volumes either of you is interested in?
I can pdf-print one or two articles for you to review as part of our writing scheme.

'Unusual suspects' - Sermon Grant, occultist; and Michael Scrimgoer, city analyst.
'Mental Health in the United Kingdom' - a factual introduction to modern mental health laws.
'Let Sleeping Gods Lie' - PISCES section 'H'
'Dangerous Places' - The Devil's Rings.
'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' - procuring illegal firearms in the UK.
'The Further Files of Prof. Grant Emerson' - Delta Green: Countdown's Quincy reports more.
'With Extreme Prejudice...' - PISCES' dirty jobs squad.
'Zodiac Clearance' & 'Drive Through Carefully' - DG-UK-style. Campaign outline and starter scenario.
'Tale of Terrors' - A couple of tales for Cthulhu Now and Delta Green.
'A Landscape of the Stones' - an examination of stone circles, standing stones and ley lines.
'The Tombola Cipher' - your very own secret code based on the UK National lottery results!
'Firearms of the UK and Irish Police and Military' - the Ronseal article.
'The Mythos Gazetteer of the British Isles' -updated to 2002 from Games Workshop's 'Green and Pleasant Land' (1987).
'British Investigator Templates' - a list of military and civilian agency profiles and character templates in the style of Delta Green: Countdown.
'Green Box' - the latest gear for the well-equipped investigator.
'Reviews' - no magazine would be complete without a review section.
'What is the Black Seal?'

PISCES: Her Majesty's Watchmen
A Brief Summary of known Great Old One-worshipping Cults and Independent Agents in the British Isles
Missing Persons...: PISCES' Magonia Facility
Unusual Suspects: Wilbur Bromley
The Avengers: Off-beat espionage in the Swinging Sixties
Dangerous Places: RAF Hobwood
Perfidious Albion: PISCES Operations in the United States
A Stylish Death: A Tale of Terror
Mind Games: A Tale of Terror
The Wrong Man: A Tale of Terror
Strange Histories: Four alternatives to PISCES for Cthulhu Now games
The Penhew-Carlyle Foundation
13 Places of Interest in Brichester
An Interview with Gary Sumpter
The Further Files of Professor Emerson Grant: Report on Peruvian Mummy
Reviews
Investigator Templates
Dangerous Places: Stranger's Race

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 7:13 pm**

Nice! The police/military firearms and the investigator templates could prove useful for my scenario. So could the PISCES summary. I hadn't thought of using them, but that would spice things up. Maybe PISCES knows something of the fate of the Aquitania, and there could even be a PISCES operative aboard the sub.

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 7:20 pm**

I´ll print it at upload it right here!

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:05 pm**

Here we go:

Firearms.pdf: (320.54 KiB) Downloaded 77 times

Penhew.pdf: (527.38 KiB) Downloaded 206 times

Pieces of Pieces.pdf: (1.47 MiB) Downloaded 161 times

Templates 1.pdf: (225.8 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

Templates 2.pdf: (401.25 KiB) Downloaded 64 times

I added the Esteemed Penhew Foundation to the reading list.

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:48 pm**

I've tried opening the first two of the PDF files, but they're pretty badly messed up. Almost all of the text is missing or unreadable.

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 9:53 pm**

Hmmm, works from my end. I used pdf create along with foxit reader.
I´ll put the two mags in my drop box and post the links her instead.
Just hold on.
/Dave

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:05 pm**

https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/the-blac ... w=d8df23b7

https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/the-blac ... w=591574dd

That´s the whole shebang! Hope this works....

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:09 pm**

Number one works, but the second I´ll have to up once more.

Posted: **Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:54 pm**

The other three PDFs are just as messed up as the first two. I cannot access the ones on Dropbox, as I don't have an account there.

Posted: **Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:30 pm**

OK, this turned out to be more work than I anticipated. I brushed up some screen dumps in Photobucket and attached them to an Articles thread. I´ll post the text in a quote post after the jpegs. I´ll get the other articles up later.
I hope this way works for you guys.

/Dave

Posted: **Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:14 pm**

Thanks! It might take me some time to read all that.

Posted: **Sun Mar 27, 2011 8:19 pm**

We have all the time in the world, right?

Feels great not to work against a deadline.

Posted: **Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:42 pm**

Just watched Source Code, with Jake Gyllenhaal.
I watched it with no prior knowledge - that´s the best way to see films! And was pleasantly surprised.

Spoilers

Spoiler:

Posted: **Thu Apr 28, 2011 7:46 am**

Currently reading:
Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novels by Steven Erikson. These are much simpler and easier to read than the whole Malazan series, which I've found make me use my brain while reading. The guy is the Tolkien of our time, a real pleasure to read some high literature in the loads of crap we're bound to read.
Speaking of crap, I've been rereading the Harry Potter series for some light reading. These books don't require much brain usage

Which is pleasant after a month of physics of optics day in day out.
I've also started reading a history of Poland pre- WW1 to almost present day.
Yes, I multitask, but it's hard to read anything consuming with a year old girl runninga around the same room

Currently watching:
Would like to see Dexter season 2 sometime soon. Also House season 7 is halfway through, and I'll be seeing the Game of Thrones which is an all time fav book of mine.
I don't watch many movies, but I finally bought the Dark Knight DVD and intend to see it soon.

Haven't had much time for anything lately, so there's lot's of catching up to do. I saw a bit of "the great escape" recently. I decided I have to watch it. Also have the dirty dozen lined up (book).

If looking for aquatic adventures and ideas, definitely read some Clive Cussler books. Sahara is a classic bestseller with a film on top of it (that wasn't all that great, but fun to watch).

It's good to see people of totally different interests here

Posted: **Fri Apr 29, 2011 3:39 am**

I just finished The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises, the third book out of five in Stephen Donaldson's Gap Cycle. I read the first two books a couple of years ago and just got back into them after a long break. I'd forgotten how good they are. Syrinx first pointed me towards them, as he used the character of Morn Hyland as the inspiration for one of his characters in my Zombie Apocalypse game. I'm planning to read the fourth book (The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order) soon, but I just got the new Mongoose Publishing version of Lone Wolf Book 15: The Darke Crusade (part of an epic gamebook campaign), so I'll be reading that next.

My Doctor Who marathon is nearing the end of Season 17, and I'm 3/4 of the way through The Horns of Nimon. Next up is Shada (or at least what exists of it), also written by Douglas Adams. Last year I saw the animated version of this with the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) instead of Tom Baker along with Lalla Ward as Romana and John Leeson as K-9 instead of David Brierley. That's a great story, and it's a shame they never managed to finish it. I'm getting to the end of Doctor Who's Golden Age, so it kind of goes downhill from here, but there are still some gems to come.

Oh, and I've just rediscovered Star Blazers! I first saw it over thirty years ago and used to watch it all the time when I was little. Now that I'm older, I finally get some of the aspects of it that I had completely missed then. Star Blazers (and the original Japanese version, Space Battleship Yamato) is the granddaddy of anime, and there was nothing else like it in its time. SyFy finally brought it back to TV, but they put it in an awful timeslot: two episodes from 2:00-3:00 AM every Friday morning. I can't stay up that late, and I'm having a problem with my VCR, so I've been watching it on YouTube instead.

Posted: **Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:15 pm**

There's a lot of cool stuff to be taken from the Scooby Doo series, I'm sure. I hope to watch some soon

Space Ghost was a favorite of mine too.

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:35 pm**

Currently reading: Just started Game of Thrones, as I liked the look of the series pilot (not watched the rest yet), just finished a steampunk novel called Terminal World that was pretty good. I returned to Abnett's Ghost's novels frequently and also Lovecraft's main earth based works but have always struggled to get into the dreamlands with the exception of the Carter cycle. I also enjoy Cussler and have read nearly all of them - good 'popcorn' novels.

Currently watching: Finished a CSI marathon of seasons 9 & 10 last night, I do like that show and also watch it with the wife. Next up on the slate is criminal minds boxed set of s3. Literally cannot wait for the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester to start up again next week in S6 (no spoilers please), I think that might be my favourite show on TV.

Also watching all of BSG again from the start as they have double bills on my satellite network. Another must not miss for me is Castle starring Nathan (Firefly) Fillion as a writer working with the NYPD, cheesy but fantastic. As I have had a week's vacation I can also not get enough of The Wire, which again I've started from S1 and am mid way through S2 now.

Movies: Cannot be arsed with film at the minute, I quite enjoyed the last Harry Potter and will be waiting for the final instalment as I haven't read the books beyond Order of the Phoenix. Last film I really loved was:

Cheers, Hal

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:57 pm**

Welcome to our reading/writing/watching corner Hal. We have some varied tastes and all seem to have the time watch and read some. Regarding Game of Thrones, I started to read the latest novel, A feast for Crows, but it went missing when my car got stolen. Got the car back but not the book

. Now, I´m watching the series and it´s quite good but very comprised.

Never saw Supernatural, might give it a go.

Now, I´m off to the beach to get some tan and read the first three chapters of The Dead White World.

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:25 pm**

Supernatural (despite all the promos that tell you it is a girly show like vampire diaries or some such cack) is about as close to a CoC modern TV series as I have seen. Occasionally it gets bogged in a 'creature of the week' or some crazy religious-war overtones. But seriously it is a massive winner! Give it a go, but make sure you watch from season 1 for maximum viewer pleasure.

http://www.tv-links.eu/tv-shows/Supernatural_656/ enjoy!

PS and there's enough hot chicks in it to keep the fellas interested as well.

Cheers, Hal

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 8:35 pm**

Yes, I sure will. Like Chuck then? Modern investigative agents with hot girls!
What did you think about the background material for the scenarios btw? We haven´t got around to much writing yet, but the general idea is out there.

Posted: **Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:08 pm**

Welcome, Hal!

I recently finished Chaos and Order, and I went to the library today to return it and get the final Gap Cycle book, The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die, only to find that the room where the books are kept is being renovated and all the books put into storage. They won't be accessible again until January, and this is the only copy the library has in the entire city. So it's back to Lone Wolf for now. My recent attempt at Book 15 started out well, but my carefully cultivated character died at the end because of a random unavoidable instant death. I'd gotten past quite a few of these throughout the series, but this one was worse in that it has a 20% chance of killing you instead of 10%, and there's nothing you can do about it. I'll be starting over from Book 1 and try to get through the series again before Book 16 comes out.

I'm finishing up Season 18 in my Doctor Who marathon. I'm currently in the middle of Logopolis, Tom Baker's last story. I remember watching it when it was new 30 years ago. I've also finished the first 20 episodes of Star Blazers, with 6 more left in the first season. SyFy has moved its timeslot up a little, but 1:00-2:00 AM is still too late. Next week it'll be from 12:30-1:30 AM and I can sleep late the following day, so I think I'll watch it on TV then, but otherwise I'm stuck with the low quality YouTube videos.

Posted: **Tue Jun 07, 2011 4:13 pm**

There seems to be a new series out called Teen Wolf. Lot's of lacrosse, so I'll have to check it out

I'm going to have to stop watching Game of Thrones until my wife reads the book, so we can watch together. Loving it so far. Feast for Crows was worse than the first three. I hope the next one is better.
Started reading the Wheel of Time series again, as I got book 12 as a present but I seem to have totally forgotten what was going on in book 11, so I decided to start over and relive the fun

I also received a Kindle 3.0 in the meantime so I'm reading on that, as my books are starting to fall apart, and I'm missing books 7 and 8 which I lended out and didn't get back.
Started watching True Grit today, but I'll leave it for the evening with the wife. Looks like a good one

Can't wait to see X-men: first class and Kung Fu Panda 2. Had fun watching The Hangover, might catch the second sometime.

Posted: **Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:41 am**

The first ten books of The Wheel of Time plus an introduction (The Strike at Shayol Ghul) and a prequel are a free download on the Android Market; you just have to put up with some ads that pop up and cover the page navigation buttons. I started reading the intro, but haven't had much time to get into it.

I may be able to get the last book in the Gap Cycle a lot sooner through Interlibrary Loan, as there are copies at universities in town. I requested it, but it's possible I won't be able to pick it up, as I work 9-5 during the week and there might not be a way to pick it up on weekends. In the meantime, I found a sample online that had the first three chapters, so I devoured those.

I finished Logopolis and plan to start watching Castrovalva, the first Doctor Who story to star Peter Davison, tomorrow. I finished Season 1 of Star Blazers and am about five episodes into Season 2 now.

Posted: **Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:42 pm**

Video diving for a while over here. Found one gem:

Some neat close encounters

. I watched the dubbed version. From French to English.

Posted: **Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:17 am**

Nice! I generally prefer subtitles to dubbing. I do like Star Blazers, which uses dubbing, but one of these days I'd like to see Space Battleship Yamato in the original Japanese with English subtitles. I do know some Japanese, which is helpful, but not enough to follow it without the subtitles. I finished Season 2 of Star Blazers and saw the beginning of the first of two movies that takes place between Seasons 2 and 3. These movies are only in Japanese, but they have subtitles.

I'm currently reading The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die, which finally came in a little over a week ago. I'm just over 40% done, and things are really getting good!

My Doctor Who marathon is in the middle of Season 19 now, early in The Visitation (Peter Davison's fourth story).

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:28 am**

This cat has never watched Dr Who. Maybe I will give it a go? Anyway, I saw some episodes of Supernatural and found it quite good. Still, I prefer Chuck - no angels and mythos but a good sense of "this could be a rpg session" feel to it.

On Midsummer´s Eve I had a look at The Dunwich Horror (1970) - for the first time. I didn´t know Dean Stockwell had done that great amount of films! The library scenes worked out quite well and had the feel of what might have passed in Masks, and some of the scenes could work in a trailer for that campaign, Airbornexo...

On that note I stumbled upon a review site: Beasts in Human Skin Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) could be something similar to The mountain of the Black Wind? I´ll have a look

Apocalypto - some neat sacrificial scenes.

Besides Mountain of the Cannibal God, I´ve put a few more films on my watch list.

Vampire flick with HPL influentions, I think I read that Medusa’s Coil by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop was an inspiration to the film. Have to see it to be sure.

From the review site, I had to watch

Just for the Deep Ones similarity. Guess there´s a certain boob warning here.
I watched Pirahna (2010) the other day and thought that the clicketi click sound when the fish came, would work as mood setter in a table RPG, just drum with the fingers against the table! Hilarius take on the music dum, dum, dum - from Jaws

On a completely different note I decided to watch this one!

A pastiche of James Bond, duh?! Well, it got to be an early version of Shagalicious

Which makes me remember this old game:

Excuse my ranting and non stop image dropping. Must be the-day-after-remedy of ten cups of coffee talking. Cheers! Off to watch those flicks now!

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:51 pm**

Doctor Who is definitely worth it. I'd start with the classic series. The new series is kind of different, and you'll probably appreciate it more and get the references to the classic series if you're familiar with it first. I finished The Visitation, but I'm watching the new Series 6 Part 1 episodes on On Demand in HD before they fall off before I watch the bonus features and then move on to the short but sweet Black Orchid, which is set in the 1920s and has a certain Lovecraftian vibe, though there are no monsters/aliens in it. It was the first pure historical adventure in a very long time, and the last one they made.

I've passed the halfway mark in This Day All Gods Die. Just keeps getting better and better! Can't wait to find out what happens next, but also don't want it to end.

I've seen the 1970 version of The Dunwich Horror, but it's been a while. Dean Stockwell has been in many movies for well over 60 years now (he started as a child), in addition to TV series such as Quantum Leap and the new Battlestar Galactica.

I saw Apocalypto once before too, but my memories of it are a little hazy.

That cover's from the 1996 remake of Humanoids from the Deep. I saw that one (an edited version on SciFi) before I ever saw the (unedited) 1980 one, which is even more boob-filled. I haven't seen the 1996 version since then, but the explanation for the creatures' existence was less implausible in that one. I've never seen the 2010 Pirahna, but I did see the original 1978 movie long ago.

I've seen both Our Man Flint and In Like Flint years ago. Classic spy shenanigans! I've seen all three Austin Powers movies, but the only one I watched recently was Goldmember. And I love No One Lives Forever! I haven't played those games in so long, but I still have them. I have the Game of the Year Edition of the first game with a bonus mission, the second game, and Contract J.A.C.K., where you play a hit man who gets caught up in the middle of things in a story set between NOLF 1 and 2.

Posted: **Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:24 am**

Ahem... Sorry for the bad judgement to considering watching some of those films. Let´s say that it was pretty much wasted time. For most part the first half hour of any has promise, then the decline begins. I still look forward to Mr Flint, that can´t go bad.
And to remedy the lack of skill in picking odd films, I´m preparing to watch the 1937 version of King Solomon´s mines, to find something Masks worthy. Fingers crossed. The era is right. It´s Africa. It´s an expedition. Missing people. The future looks bright.

Posted: **Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:56 pm**

After watching the Salomon films I re watched Apocalypto, which is the highlight of my viewing spree.

Fear is a sickness. It will crawl into the soul of anyone who engages it. Quite good quote to start off a scenario with!

This film really have the qualities to function as a Mesoamerican chapter to Masks. I read about the various locations in Brady´s statement and paired with the different forms of Nyarla. To use a hidden cult in the jungle would be an easy task for any keeper. To change the setting to 1500 could turn out more difficult.

Posted: **Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:17 am**

Yeah, Xipe Totec would be active in those parts. As for setting it in 1500, time travel is always a possibility where the Mythos is involved.

Part of Zombie Apocalypse may even eventually find its way to that area. I don't want to say any more, as I don't want to spoil it. Of course, at the pace Zombie Apocalypse moves, "eventually" could be several years of real time. The journey from the U.S. heartland alone could take ages. The pacing is another thing about which the later books in the Gap Cycle remind me (over 70% done the final book, by the way). So much is going in on in such a short period of time, and the interlocking motivations and interactions of the various characters is similar too.

Posted: **Sat Jul 09, 2011 12:51 pm**

Hi guys! I have been awfully busy lately. Now I'm in holidays for the next 2 weeks.
Well, I've been reading different things.
"Naissance des divinité, naissance de l'Agriculture" (starting of the gods, starting of the agriculture). It's a book about the neolithic in middle east, and it can be used easily as a source for a scenario of an archeological expedition finding traces of Shub-Nigurath.
"The Himmler brothers". The details to make a very original enemy in a scenario. Someone who is nice, soft, and will help others. And at the same time, is a mass murder. For the players it's a surprise very different of the normal maniac cultist.
Cyberbad days. Collection of stories in India in 2050. Without the technology0 they give lot's of information to make scenarios in that country,
I've been reading several stories of Dylan Dog (an italian comic). It's about a private eye that investigates paranormal cases. Most are perfect to one-shot scenarios.
About movies: I saw "3 Extremes". Horror stories made by oriental producers. They are indeed a bit extreme... But have good ideas (one is a about cannibalism and eternal youth).

Posted: **Tue Jul 12, 2011 3:57 am**

I finished This Day All Gods Die before I left for the convention, and I've started replaying the Lone Wolf gamebook series starting with Book 1, Flight from the Dark. As the last surviving Kai monk after the Darklords invade your country Sommerlund and massacre your kin, you must make a dangerous journey to the capital of Holmgard to warn the King. This is the first adventure in an epic campaign that is currently at 28 books, with the long awaited book 29 due out before too much longer and three more new books in the works. This is the revised and expanded version published by Mongoose Publishing in 2007, which has 550 sections instead of 350 and adds a lot to the story - but also adds annoying unavoidable random instant deaths and particularly hard battle at the end. Still, at least it's the first book, so if I die I don't have that far to replay when I start over. I made a wrong turn early on, as I hadn't remembered which way to go, and wound up in a place where there were a couple of random rolls that could have killed me, but I somehow survived. I'm about halfway done the book now.

I'm in the middle of watching The Descent 2. It's not as good as the first one, at least so far. The creatures remind me of ghouls.

In my Doctor Who marathon, I've finished Time-Flight, the final story of Season 19. Next is Arc of Infinity, the first story of Season 20 which features the return of an old enemy and Colin Baker in a small role as a Gallifreyan commander - he later went on to play the Sixth Doctor after Peter Davison left.

Posted: **Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:57 am**

Re-reading the Wheel of Time series due to Jordan passing away after publishing book 11 and the long wait for book 12, and me totally not remembering what was going on so far, so I've started over. I first started reading them some 11 years ago

Posted: **Fri Jul 15, 2011 3:50 am**

I had finished the intro and started reading the prequel New Spring a while ago, but it's been a while and I haven't gotten back into it. But now I understand why there are no male Aes Sedai.

I think I mentioned before that I have those and the first ten books as eBooks on my phone. They were free, but annoying ads pop up and block the page navigation buttons.

I almost finished Lone Wolf Book 1, but I died in the final battle. I rolled up a new character and got one that was a good deal better, but again I died in the last battle due to some bad rolling. So I started up a third character and got nearly optimal stats, and this time I made it to the end and really kicked butt in that fight, prevailing with damage to nothing but my armor. My copy of the book started falling apart last night, with pages starting to come out of the book. The original run (from which my book came) had faulty bindings, but I had never had a problem with my copy before, and this is the first time I've read Book 1 in two years or so. Thankfully, Mongoose will send me a replacement with a good binding quickly. I'm still reading the final section, but when that's done it's on to Book 2: Fire on the Water. In order to save Sommerlund from Darklord Zagarna, I must journey to the heart of Sommerlund's ally Durenor to retrieve the fabled Sommerswerd, the only known weapon that can destroy him. But the forces of Evil know about my mission, and they're going to try their best to stop me. They probably won't succeed, unless I roll a 0 at the wrong time and killed by a certain falling mast...

I'm almost done Arc of Infinity. Before I move on to the next story, Snakedance, I intend to watch The Gunfighters, a classic First Doctor story that was just released on DVD. It's a pure historical set in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881, involving the famous gunfight at the OK Corral.

Posted: **Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:10 pm**

What I´m currently writing?

I´m starting another project - A Blade Runner rules set and background material for running Blade Runner scenarios.
I´ve invited Steff Worthington from Miskatonic River Press and he´ll be doing this as a hobby project.

My goal is to have a scenario ready to run by December, using whatever we´ve created by then as skeletal rules.

/Dave

Posted: **Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:26 pm**

And btw, say hi to Steff!

Posted: **Fri Oct 14, 2011 4:27 pm**

Hi Steff, welcome to the gang!
I'm starting to read a book of Osprey publications about the battle of Leyte (Americans versus japonese) and Altered carbon, a kind of cyberpunk book.
And I'm playing Deus ex3.
Two last weekends where quite interesting. I was in the Iberanime (a convention of anime/manga in Oporto) and the national meeting of boargames. Played several games (including "The order of the stick", based in a webcomic) and bought "Pandemic".

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2011 4:45 am**

Welcome, Steff! I'd noticed that you'd joined the site. Glad to have you aboard.

Can Steff even see these forums? Let me know if you need me to add him to the list of moderators, Dave, unless Raiko has already done it.

I bought Pandemic too, and it's fun. I've seen the Order of the Stick game and would like to play it, but I've never had the chance.

I have a couple of conventions in New Jersey coming up in November, and I'm really looking forward to them. The first one is Metatopia, in Morristown, which is centered around game designers. There will be a lot of playtesting going on there. It was also recently announced that Kenneth Hite will be there. Philcon is two weeks after that. It hasn't been the same since they moved it out of Philly, but maybe there will be more and better stuff this time. They've been treating gaming as an afterthought the past few years.

I'm not writing anything at the moment, but I'm about to have some free time. The first thing I plan to do is write the third scenario in my Doctor Who/Call of Cthulhu campaign. It's a UNIT adventure set in 1985 called "The Shadow Over Dunwich" (the real life UK town, not the fictional one in Massachusetts). Then I'm going to work on "Alone Against the Invaders," a short solo adventure set against the backdrop of the War of the Worlds broadcast of October 30, 1938. I intend to submit this one to Protodimension Magazine, hopefully by the end of the year.

I'm starting to play Civilization V, but I don't have much time for it. I've just completed the basic tutorials. I like the new hex map and the addition of city-states, but I'm disappointed that they took out religions (which were introduced in Civ IV) and espionage (which had been part of the game since at least Civ II, maybe even Civ I). It also doesn't look like they'll have a real expansion pack.

I finished Lone Wolf through Book 16 and am ready for Book 17 when the new Mongoose edition comes out. That one's really tough, I remember, but I'm well stocked up on the potions and Combat Skill-boosting gear that I'll need. I recently read Alan Moore's The Courtyard and am planning to borrow Watchmen next when I return this one to the library. I'm also reading a Greg Iles thriller, Third Degree, that I bought for $1 at a book sale in my building. I also got Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo there.

I've made a lot of progress on my Doctor Who marathon. I've just finished Revelation of the Daleks, the finale of Season 22. Season 23 (Trial of a Time Lord) is next, and from here on out the seasons are only 14 episodes - and there are only four seasons of the classic series to go. I expect to finish it by the end of the year. Before I move on to Season 23, I just got the new Special Edition of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, so I'll be giving that a watch first.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2011 9:06 am**

Hi! Steff has some serious cartography do finish so he won´t be committing to the forum as such, but work on the Blade Runner thingy solely. I´ve set up Raiko to sort out visibility and mod rights to the new forum.

Cheers!

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2011 11:58 am**

Altered Carbon

Right on that, Kabs! Read it a couple of years ago and found it in line with Blade Runner. Memory stacks and retiring expired licenses.

Posted: **Sat Oct 15, 2011 8:45 pm**

Just had to put some inspiration up here!

Posted: **Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:15 am**

To show you what the finished product might look like, here´s a sample:

One Last Song

Posted: **Sat Nov 12, 2011 12:04 pm**

I just watched a hilariously fun Johnny Depp portraying a drug addict extraordinaire.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This must be how totally whacked out people see reality. I guess the choice of movie to watch was due to my Philip K Dick research.

I couldn´t help but thinking of Robbie William´s "Me and my Monkey" which is a rip off from the movie. But cool nevertheless.

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:02 pm**

I love that movie! It's been far too long since I've seen it. I did play in a great series of LARPs at DEXCON and Dreamation over the past year and a half which featured Hunter S. Thompson as a PC. In the last one I teamed up with him in a failed but entertaining attempt to stop my character's misguided cousin from "becoming the king of Groundhog Day," as Jack O'Neill put it in an episode of Stargate SG-1.

I recently read V for Vendetta for the first time, and it's very different from the movie, which I also watched again last night. Currently I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stoker for the first time, which reads a lot like a CoC scenario.

My Doctor Who marathon hasn't made much progress in the last month or so. I finished watching The Mysterious Planet, the first sub-story in The Trial of a Time Lord (Season 23). Colony in Space was newly released on DVD and just arrived last week, so I'm watching it before moving on to the second Trial of a Time Lord story, Mindwarp. I probably won't finish all of the classic series by the end of the year, but I hope to at least get close.

Posted: **Sat Nov 12, 2011 10:16 pm**

Having an old touch mobile phone, I´m trying to emulate android OS on my old laptop. Going to have a run of wordfeud if I get it to work. (Just bought my two teenagers new cells. They can´t sleep without them!)

Posted: **Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:04 pm**

Hah, that really didn´t work. Found a website doing scrabble online. Worked fine. Gets boring quite fast, though.
Back to RPGing instead.

Five episodes into season 2 of "The Walking Dead" it feels like I´m watching "Zombie Apocalypse"... I guess that´s why it so great. I´ve caught up on Dexter as well. Not so great, yet. That leaves two shows to wait for: "Game of Thrones" and "Breaking Bad".

Still haven´t finished "A Feast for Crows" but guess I´m done when the next book comes out.

Posted: **Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:49 pm**

I've been watching and enjoying The Walking Dead too. Interestingly, Welsh and I were discussing back in 2008 the possibility of making Zombie Apocalypse into a TV series.

I've finished Colony in Space and am in the middle of Mindwarp now. I should finish that tonight.

I was very sick yesterday with a migraine, and I'm still recovering today, but I'm mostly better now.

Posted: **Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:10 pm**

Glad to hear you´re better. I just came back in from the cold. -3 Centigrades

. Had to swap to winter tires. Bummer. Can´t feel my toes and my hands are pitch black. Sucks to do manual labour

Cheers!

Posted: **Wed Nov 23, 2011 11:18 am**

How are you now? Hope you recovered.
I have been playing the mmrpg age of conan. One quest was interesting: getting 3 tomes. The Shadow Over Acheron, The Pashtun Horror and The Haunter In The Dark. The reward wasn't great, but the reference were nice.

Posted: **Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:43 am**

Yes, I'm fully recovered. I went to Philcon last weekend and had a great time (I'm still catching up). I bought some new games there as well that I haven't had time to play yet: Death Angel (a cooperative WH40K card game of Space Marines vs. Genestealers on a Space Hulk), Luna (a cooperative board game), the Space Alert expansion The New Frontier, and The Legend of Drizzt (a D&D board game of the same type as Castle Ravenloft, which I have, and Wrath of Ashardalon, which I don't have yet).

I'm still reading Dracula, and I'm not yet halfway done.

Spoiler:

just died.

In my Doctor Who marathon, I just finished watching Terror of the Vervoids, the third sub-story of The Trial of a Time Lord. The final two episodes, The Ultimate Foe, are next, and that's it for Colin Baker as the Doctor. Then it's three 14 episode seasons of Sylvester McCoy.

I recently started playing Civilization V's full game tutorial. It's on the easiest difficulty level, so I'm doing amazingly well. I'm playing as India (chosen randomly), and their special ability has a bonus and a penalty, though the penalty outweighs the bonus. Building more cities is a huge disadvantage, though not as much of one on easier levels. I'm going for a cultural victory, though I may end up with a science victory first. My capital is growing and flourishing, and I've just founded my second city and built my first Wonder of the World, Stonehenge (which produces gobs of culture as well as Great Engineers). I can really churn out wonders thanks to my high production, a local supply of marble in my backyard, and one of the social policies I obtained. The Great Library is next, as I can really use the science boost. The only other full-fledged civilization in this game is the Iroquois, and they're not doing so well, though they do have a couple of techs that I don't. They never built a single military unit as far as I can tell. Their starting warrior must have gotten upgraded to a spearman by finding ancient ruins, and they just sent it marching due east (my scout met it on its way) until it reached my territory. There were some ruins that I hadn't found yet, as they existed on a tile I hadn't managed to explore yet, but I sent a newly built scout there and it arrived just behind the spearman. There were also barbarians camped out there, but rather than fight them, the spearman went straight for the ruins, blocking my path. It got to them ahead of me, but the spearman got badly wounded by the barbarians and managed to escape with 1 HP. It later got picked off as it moved north, probably by a barbarian galley off the coast that I can't see. Now they have no military at all, and there are barbarians not far from their only city.

Posted: **Thu Nov 24, 2011 11:30 am**

I stopped playing civilization at II. It was consuming too much time, and I didn't wanted to repeat the mistake with the III.

Posted: **Fri Nov 25, 2011 5:22 am**

I played Civilization I, II, and III a lot. They are a lot of fun, but it's hard to find the time. I preordered Civilization IV, but there was a bug that they never fixed that kept it from working properly on the computer I had at the time. You could play it, but there were bizarre graphical effects, and the fog of war still revealed rivers and flood plains when it should have kept them hidden. It would probably work right on my current computer, but I never installed it on this one.

I just got to the Medieval Era in my current game. I got the Iroquois back for "stealing" my ancient ruins. One of my scouts found another ruins just four tiles away from where they had started, yet they had never found it (probably because they didn't build any military units up to that point). I got my scout upgraded to an archer, which I hadn't been able to build yet at the time, and it still retained the scout's special ability to ignore terrain costs. Unfortunately, it only had 2 HP at the time and got killed by a barbarian archer before I could get it home. At least the Iroquois didn't get it. I completed the Great Library and the Pyramids in my capital before turning my attention to other things, though with another Golden Age coming up I'll be getting back to building wonders soon. My capital is now size 10, and my second city is size 6. Both are still growing fast, as I'm positively swimming in food. I'm about to build my third city, and I think that'll be it for me. I'm going for a cultural victory, and it's better to build fewer cities. I've completed one social policy track and started on a second (which will help me get more culture), but I need to finish five tracks before I can build the game-winning project.

Posted: **Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:30 pm**

Speaking of games. I´ve been checking out some relatively new games. I´v just recently built a good-old desktop to my six year old son. The specs are around 2gb video memory. 3,8Ghz processor 2,5Gb memory. I threw in a 160Gb drive and a DVD burner. (I have 20 desktops in the storage so I have plenty of spare parts.)
Not much to brag about but it´s a relief not to be forced to head out and buy stuff to be able to play games.
The specs let me play almost anything at low graphics performance.
The low drive space is worked around with twenty 160Gb drives as back up.

Now to what I´m play-testing:

L.A. Noire
Skyrim
Kane and Lynch Dog Days.
Heavy Rain (PS3)

The background for testing those games is that I really liked playing Mafia - The City of Lost Haven when it came out in 2004.
I also played a lot of Dunegon Siege when it was hot in 2003.
Fahrenheit - The Indigo Prophecy back in 2005.
Codename XIII from 2003.
That and not having a good enough computer for newer games I decided to try out the new games on the newly assembled desktop.

I think the games I´m playing now are mirrored in the games from 2003-2005 with a mixture of some of them. The extended realism and enlarged game worlds speak to me. But I really see where the games come from.

L.A. Noire could work really well to use as a Call of Cthulhu game. (Just played a little of Dark Corners of Earth from Betsheda but I like the Noire game better.)

Anyway I just wanted to share my gaming diary with you guys.
Currently I´m hooked to watching playthroughs of Darksydephil. He´s quite funny to watch. Guess I´m a bit lazy

Those gives a general idea of how the game runs before playing it.

Over and out.

/Dave

Posted: **Thu Dec 08, 2011 4:41 am**

I've played and enjoyed Mafia, Indigo Prophecy, and XIII. I've never tried Dungeon Siege, though. I do have Heavy Rain for my PS3, but I haven't had time to try it yet. I have literally hundreds of games I've never had time to play. In Civilization V, I just need four more social policies on the fifth and final track before I can build the Utopia Project and win the game, and I can do those quickly thanks to my huge cultural output and massive production in my capital (which also has an absurdly high defense strength even if an enemy somehow manages to breach my rather secure borders). Victory is pretty much assured in 40 or so turns (I should be in the early to middle Industrial age then), but I haven't had much time to play of late. I did squeeze in two turns tonight, but I want to get Zombie Apocalypse fully going again before I play any further. After that, I want to play again on a higher difficulty level with a larger map and more opponents, but before I do so, I want to play Watchmen: The End is Nigh for the PS3. I just bought it a couple of days ago, and it was rather cheap too. It takes place years before the events of the graphic novel, and you can play as Rohrshach and Nite Owl.

I tried Death Angel and managed to breeze through the first of four locations quickly and with no casualties, but I lost two Space Marines one after the other early on in the second location. Then I lost three more, leaving me with one, just before I made it through to the third location. Luckily, that location is easier to get through when you have fewer marines, so I reached the fourth and final location, which was a breeding ground for Genestealers that also contained two Brood Lords. In order to win the game, I had to kill both of them. My lone marine didn't even survive the first round.

I also played Luna, which was clever and fun. It was kind of easy playing it solitaire, but that was using the preselected start recommended for one's first game. There are also higher difficulty levels that will make it harder.

I'm over 80 percent done reading Dracula. Our heroes are in a confrontation with the infamous Count, but not the final one.

In my Doctor Who marathon, I'm now two-thirds of the way done Delta and the Bannermen, the third Sylvester McCoy story. Only 33 more episodes remain in the classic series.

Posted: **Fri Dec 23, 2011 12:28 pm**

Merry Nerdy Christmas to you all!

(Not my craft

)

This could have been mine, though. I just returned from a tour to the garage. Dug out some scart cables and an old P4 desktop along with a GeForce 6600 graphics card. Also found an ancient steering wheel and pedals.
Will be assembling a VCR for my five-year-old kid. Got hundreds of Disney movies in the attic. So, it´s time to let him watch a select few.

The computer stuff, I´ll use to try to play Need for speed -the Run.

Beside that I spend too many hours in Skyrim Universe. Just restarted a game and am going to clear all quests in Falkreath.

About movies - I watched Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which I can recommend for some casual fun watching. A more RPG oriented movie is Straw Dogs with Alexander Skarsgård. That one was really neat. "Horror in the cabin" meets "Redneck mentality". Great fun to watch!

Merry Christmas, once again.

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:22 am**

Merry Christmas!

I've seen the original Straw Dogs from 1971 (directed by Sam Peckinpah), which was quite good. I haven't seen the recent remake yet.

I finished reading Dracula and started on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It's good so far, though I haven't gotten very far yet.

I'm in the 26th and final season of classic Doctor Who. I've just finished Battlefield, which leaves three stories containing ten episodes to go. Next is the confusing and complicated Ghost Light, which I only vaguely remember.

I won that tutorial game of Civilization V almost two weeks ago, then played through Watchmen twice, once as Rohrshach (whose fighting style is really vicious and dirty) and once as Nite Owl. It's a fighting game and is fairly short. There's also Watchmen-related bonus material on the PS3 Blu-ray disc, but I haven't had time to watch it yet. I've also started a new game of Civlization V on the second difficulty level. Still easy, but a bit more of a challenge. A new patch was just released a few days ago, which was good timing, but it still didn't fix the graphical problems or the annoying crashes. My random civilization is Arabia, so I'll be swimming in gold and (eventually) oil. I'm planning for a diplomatic win this time, as I'll be rich enough to ~~bribe~~ display my generosity to the city-states. I actually managed to meet Germany on the very first turn - my starting warrior moved onto a hill, and theirs moved onto a hill barely within sight of it. Berlin is only nine tiles away from Mecca. Fortunately Bismarck likes me and is friendly, as the Germans can make nasty neighbors if they're hostile. I just have to snatch up the choice territory that lies between us before they get it. I also met the English on the tenth turn. There's one other civilization I haven't met yet, and they're doing the best according to the Demographics screen. The Germans managed to find El Dorado and snag a boatload of gold (they also made first contact with two city-states). I could have had it first if I had headed in the right direction, but I didn't know it was there and had gone looking for Berlin. I did manage to find two sets of ruins and grab them just before someone else would have. One got me the Sailing tech for free, which was nice, though I can't use it until I build a coastal city. The other gave me survivors of an ancient civilization that increased my capital to size 4 right after it reached 3. I'm 22 turns in and I'll be able to start making settlers and expanding rapidly pretty soon.

Posted: **Wed Dec 28, 2011 2:55 pm**

This days I haven't play any MMO (usually I play age of conan or Lord of the rings online), because I started playing knights of the old republic. It's a rpg where we play a jedi and we can choose with actions the light or the dark side (I'm playing the light).
I read 4 more books of the manga higurashi: we see the things of the perspective of the twin Shion and we finaly understand why she got crazy.
I resumed my drawing and I should post them in my blog soon.

Posted: **Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:27 am**

I'm just about finished The Curse of Fenric in my Doctor Who marathon, which I think is the best Sylvester McCoy story. I still have the bonus features as well as a special extended edition to watch. Next is the final classic Doctor Who story, the three-part Survival, which I should be able to finish on Monday.

I'm more than a quarter of the way done The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

My Civilization V game is going well. After a little over 85 turns, I'm into the Medieval Era and well ahead of my rivals. Egypt and Germany are friendly, though England doesn't like me much. I built three more cities in quick succession, and I'm starting to win over the city-states and connect trade routes before I expand any further. I've explored most of the world and found several more ruins that the other civilizations missed. They were nice to have, but nothing spectacular.

Posted: **Thu Jan 05, 2012 5:38 pm**

I went back to 2007 and found a treat from Paris!

Frontier(s) by Xavier Gens

A love story. A family... A troubled family. Riots and right wing winds. An absolute gore feast.
Starts out with a regular modern urban scenario and ends in a desolate rural area. Great movie!

You can really feel how it could be used as an RPG scenario with a lot of choices.
Deception and horror all the way!

Posted: **Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:58 am**

I saw that one years ago, but I don't remember it too well. I'd like to watch it again the next time it's on, though.

Well, my Survival DVD turned out to be blank. Apparently they forgot to burn it back at the factory or something. The bonus DVD was fine, though, so I watched that and watched Survival online. I called up BBC America and they're sending out a replacement, but the problem is that I bought it months ago with a card that has since expired and been replaced. They can only send out a replacement by refunding me and charging me again (at least this time I got them to take into account the original sale price and promo code I used, so that's one less thing to straighten out; it was a pain when they sent me the DVD version of Doctor Who Series 6 instead of the Blu-ray version I ordered), and the law requires them to only refund to the original card, so I'm going to have to call up my bank and get them to move the funds over. That was why my replacement order had been canceled, which I had just found out today. It took me 23 months to finish the classic series Next up is the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, which I last saw in 1996. Then I have a collection of Eighth Doctor audio stories. After that, I'll put the new series on hold so I can watch the DVDs and Blu-ray discs I bought in the past couple of years and haven't had a chance to watch yet.

I'm almost halfway done The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and it's getting really good.

On Monday I got to within two turns of the Renaissance Era in Civilization V, but haven't had a chance to get anywhere since. Germany betrayed me by denouncing me to the world and threatened me, but so far there's been no war. I'm ahead in tech and production, so if there is one it won't go well for the Jerries. Half of the city-states are now my allies, and I'm on track to win eventually.

Posted: **Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:37 am**

Too bad with the blank DVD. Regarding The Millennium - Series: I have cheated

I started to watch the trilogy, the Swedish not remake with bad Swenglish. I´m really enjoying the investigation Blomkvist is taking on.
Strangely, I tend to compare most things to my "gaming life" and this one fits right in the CoC - investigation niche.

Cheers!
/Dave

Posted: **Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:12 am**

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as I was reading it. I don't want to watch the movies before I finish the book on which each one is based, as I want to avoid spoilers. I want the mystery to take weeks to unravel rather than have the whole thing revealed in a couple of hours. The Swedish trilogy is available here too, with English subtitles.

Posted: **Sat Jan 07, 2012 11:51 am**

Good think I didn´t reveal anything then. The TV-series release in DVD is nine hours long and will deliver more depth than the trilogy movie release. (Adds about two hours of plot

)

Cheers!

Posted: **Sat Jan 07, 2012 6:39 pm**

A war started in Civilization V, but it wasn't the one I expected. Egypt declared war on England (and England's city-state ally Monaco jumped in on England's side). Egypt is my friend and England isn't, but I don't want to get involved in a war at this time and risk Germany stabbing me in the back while I'm distracted. Their denunciation wore off 50 turns after they made it, and the very next turn they denounced me again! Luckily nobody's paying any attention to that, since they weren't my friends any more when they denounced me the second time. I'm still able to give some support to Egypt and improve our relations further without having to commit to war (they recently asked for a spare luxury resource, and I gave it to them), but they haven't asked me to join yet. Egypt has only one city, but gobs of military units. England has almost no military but three cities (plus their ally). England also has a lot of gold and can rush buy troops. I expect Egypt to have some early success, but the tide may turn. One of my units near the fighting caught a glimpse of a nearly dead Egyptian archer, though it survived whatever attacked it.

Posted: **Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:01 pm**

I am playing Deus ex the human revolution. I'm in Hengsha (fictional city near Shangai). I'm doing most of the scenarios with stealth avoiding killing anyone, even if sometime I feel the urge (like when the mecenaries killed the residents of a slum). I'm working for a corporation that suffered an attack some months ago, and I'm investigating who was the responsable; for now, the clues point for a rival that wanted to buy the company that I work for.

Posted: **Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:34 am**

I have the first two Deus Ex games, but have never gotten around to playing them. I've heard wonderful things about the first and horrible things about the second. I've heard of the new one, but I don't know too much about it.

As I expected, Egypt started out well in Civlization V. After besieging Nottingham (the closest English city to Egypt), it finally fell and the Egyptians installed a puppet government. A few turns later they attacked York, England's second city, but it managed to hold out. Then Egypt and England made peace. England had blown it, wasting its money by trying to buy Warsaw as an ally and get them into the war. However, because Warsaw is naturally hostile and I had recently completed the Patronage social policy branch, the alliance lasted all of one turn, and then Warsaw made peace with Egypt the next turn. England did manage to build the Great Wall, which is a good defensive wonder that slowed down Egypt's advance. Then Egypt built Himeji Castle, another defensive wonder that they didn't end up needing, as Egypt's territory wasn't threatened. As a result, the war got into a stalemate. I'm about halfway through the Renaissance now.

Posted: **Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:44 pm**

Skyrim update: Reached level 20 by doing quests in the Falkreath region. Mostly clearing caverns and shrines as well as training to become a decent Smith. The graphics in that game is outstanding, mountain slopes and flowers, great vistas.

Posted: **Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:16 pm**

Deus ex 1 was full of good ideas, deus ex 2 was full of bad ideas, deus ex 3 have copy good ideas.

Posted: **Sun Feb 05, 2012 11:22 pm**

Welcome back Hal. Just issed you on my way out. I´ll be back in a few weeks. Have fun in SH!

Still playing Skyrim. Also had Half Life 2 installed on a newly assembled laptop, has no shader 3.0 tech so I run older games on it. Also had a peek at Dark Corners of The Earth on it. Windows 7 is acting up on mostly anything I try to run

. So, I put a third laptop together and run XP on it. (Never understood the idea of XP-mode in W7 and the comparability mode is not sufficient to run all games.)

I did play Deus Ex back in the day on PSone, I believe. Alongside Metal Gear ah! and Golden Eye on the Nintendo. Good times.

TV-serieswize I picked up a French Canadian series starring Tom Berenger in a few epsiodes. XIII-the series. I´ve already revealed that I´m a fan of Van Hamme. Saw the Largo Winch films last year and really liked the Burma Conspiracy. The game XIII was great in my opinion and anything made nowadays in fps is cloned from that game - with super realistic graphics as opposed to the cartoon in XIII.

The TV-series will be starting shooting the second season next week and I´m just watching episode one.

Speaking of Tom Berenger, I just wamtched the credits of Platoon. (Prepping my next appearance here at PLAY.) It´s quite good, but man it was a long time ago I watched that one at the cinemas! Everyone´s got old except Charlie Sheen. And Johnny Depp must have been seventeen!

Now it´s time to get that timeline ready and pick locales for the story to unfold at. It will all begin in ´Nam, 1968.

Posted: **Mon Feb 06, 2012 5:11 am**

Awesome! Looking forward to going to Vietnam, unlike a lot of the people who actually went there in 1968. I love Platoon. I also have the Avalon Hill board game that tied in with the movie. It's actually a pretty good wargame where the units are individual soldiers, but I've never had the chance to play it (two players are required). Willem Dafoe is in the movie too, and he's cast against type as the good guy in this one. Often he plays a villain, and I had him in mind as Gardner in Zombie Apocalypse.

I watched the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie featuring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. Now I'm listening to a collection of Eighth Doctor audio adventures starring him. I'm a little more than halfway through those. After that, I'll take a break from Doctor Who to watch all of those other DVDs and Blu-ray discs I bought in the last couple of years.

XIII is a terrific game. I had no idea there was a TV series based on it. I have PC versions of Deus Ex 1 and 2. I also have the PC version of Metal Gear Solid, which is a great game - feels a lot like an interactive movie. I played the original Metal Gear a very long time ago on a friend's NES. I also have Metal Gear Solid 2 and 4 for the PS2 and PS3, respectively, but haven't played them yet. I have Half Life 1 and its offshoots, but not HL2.

Everything went as planned in my Civilization V game, and I got my diplomatic victory back in late December. Funnily, Egypt and England started another war just a couple of turns before I won and put a stop to all the fighting. Germany never attacked me, which was too bad. I far outclassed them in tech by the end and had troops lined up on their border waiting to smash them flat within a few turns. Since then I've started to give Civilization IV a whirl. The tech tree there makes a lot more sense, and it has "or" as well as "and" requirements. I like that some units require multiple resources in order to build (knights need both horses and iron, for instance), whereas in Civilization V units require no more than a single resource (many modern units that should require oil don't). However, I prefer how resources are quantized in Civilization V. If you have X oil, you can build X units that require it. In Civ IV, one source of a resource is enough to supply your entire civilization. Civilization IV also has religion and espionage, which were dropped from Civ V. I do prefer the hex map of Civ V to the traditional square maps of Civ I-IV, though, and I like how cultural growth of cities in one tile at a time in Civ V, whereas borders grow in quantum leaps in Civ III and IV (the first two games didn't have cultural borders). Civilization IV also still has wonder and victory movies (as well as movies that play when you found a religion). Civ V just has a splash screen that zooms out and music in the background. Oh, and Civ IV starts up in seconds (whereas Civ V takes a few minutes), and unlike Civ V, Civ IV hasn't crashed on me even once.

I played the Civ IV tutorial, which was the quickest game ever. You can't save during the actual tutorial portion, which is a shame as it takes hours. However, once you get past that to the open-ended part of the game, you can save and play it as normal. I won a swift conquest victory by "axe-rushing" (building and/or upgrading warriors to axemen quickly and rushing him) poor, helpless Gandhi. The tutorial gives you a huge headstart, and I had two fully developed cities and was about to found a third before India was even plopped onto the map. They started with a spearman, which they lack both the technology and the resource to build, and a scout, which they also cannot build yet. My first axeman unit was actually able to take Delhi and win the game alone, though he was backed up by an archer for support and my second axeman was only a handful of turns behind him. Shortly before the end I had discovered iron and was building a couple of praetorians (Rome's unique unit, which is more properly called a legion in Civ V). They're nigh unstoppable, and I had a galley ready to take them to the front if the axemen failed to do the job. Luckily, India didn't even have archers yet, which could have caused my axemen some grief.

I started a proper game of Civilization IV a couple of days ago, though still on the easiest level and on the smallest map with just one opponent. My random civ is the Incas, and my rivals are the Greeks. I lucked out and found copper right near my starting point, though the Greeks got iron near their capital and recently discovered Iron Working, which means they can build all sorts of nasty units. There's a second source of iron on the map, though the Greeks just plopped down their second city a couple of spaces away from it. Luckily, there's still room for me to slip in a settler next to the iron and grab it, and I outclass Greece in culture, so I should be able to hold Sparta off that way. Unfortunately, I can't just mop up Greece so easily militarily since they have iron, as I'd need a pretty good tech lead before I tried to take them on. I am using religion very effectively, founding the first one just five turns in (right after I met Greece, in fact). Missionaries are very helpful for spreading it to my other cities, and I'm about to send one in to Athens to spread it there. I built Stonehenge, which is a lot cheaper when you have stone, and my capital of Cuzco has insanely high production. I'm now building the Oracle there. Pretty soon I'll generate a Great Prophet who can create my religion's holy shrine. This means I get bonus gold per turn for every city that has my religion (whether or not it's my city), and I'll get line of sight into every city that has it, so I'll be able to keep an eye on the pesky Greeks. I don't want to spread it to Sparta yet, though, as if Greece adopts the religion they'll get culture from it, and I don't want Sparta to grow.

Posted: **Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:38 pm**

Two "new" TV-series I´ve started to watch.

Cool 1960´s / present time conspiracy alá Delta Greenish stuff. The entire population of Alcatraz got vanished at ´64. Now they are back to even the score. An agency is protecting the town from the new arrivals.

Sam Neil as the old guy.
Jorge Garcia (Lost) is a comic book store owner.

Quite good series.

Breaking in- a mix of Chuck and Leverage and a dose of The Office... Some fun entertainment.

Posted: **Fri Feb 10, 2012 4:29 am**

I haven't seen either of those shows. I wanted to see Alcatraz, but it's in a bad time slot for me and I missed it every time.

I finished the Doctor Who audio adventures while I was home sick, and now I'm in the middle of the bonus CD with the Making Of documentary. When that's done, I plan to watch the Choose Your Own Adventure movie on DVD. Yes, you heard right. It's an animated feature based on The Abominable Snowman (which I also have, but haven't read yet) starring William H. Macy, Frankie Muniz, and Felicity Huffman, and as the viewer I get to make choices throughout the movie that will determine which scenes and which ending play.

My Civ IV game is going well, though I realized that I accidentally started a game on the second easiest level instead of the easiest. That explains why it hasn't been a complete cakewalk, though I'm doing well enough. I have four great cities, a strong tech lead (I'm in the Medieval era, and Greece is still Classical), and lots of culture. The city I founded near Sparta has swamped it with my culture and has already caused it to revolt once. When it happens again, Sparta will break off and join my empire. It shouldn't be long now; the city is almost entirely Incan already. The Greeks did found a city near the only source of horses on the continent where we started, but I don't really need them. I have a source of iron, which is what I really need.

Posted: **Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:51 pm**

Just watched the relaunch of The Walking Dead at AMC. Great it´s back again.
No comment about it as I don´t want to spoil it.
Now, wait for Dexter.

Off to the cabin for a week of solitude and writing. I´ll be back online on the 18th.
I will warm myself with 30 days of night.

Cheers!

Posted: **Tue Feb 14, 2012 3:55 am**

I saw the new episode of The Walking Dead last night too. Great stuff! Reminds me so much of Zombie Apocalypse. I saw early episodes of Dexter years ago, I think during a free preview of Showtime. Unfortunately, I don't have Showtime (premium channels are expensive), so I can't watch it now. I am watching Alcatraz right now, though, and liking it.

I've been reading Imperium, by Robert Harris, a fictionalized biography of Cicero in the late Roman Republic as told by his slave and secretary, Tiro (who was very interesting in his own right and is the inventor of shorthand). Apparently, Tiro wrote a real biography of Cicero that was well admired, though it was lost sometime in the Middle Ages. This book is the next best thing to the real one and is fascinating reading, though the author does inject some thinly veiled references to 21st century American politics that would not have been present in Ancient Rome. There are plenty of similarities to be sure, but there were also differences.

I'm doing great in Civ IV, though Greece got a Great Artist and created a great work in Sparta, so it did not revolt a second time and my territory got pushed back, but I'm holding my own there. I've just discovered gunpowder and entered the Renaissance, while Alexander is still in the Classical era. I've recently started getting a very high positive cash flow, so I'm starting to found new cities again and grab up the rest of the land, soon to include a large island I discovered (with new sources of horses and iron, as well as silk, which cannot be found anywhere else) once I research Astronomy and can build galleons to carry settlers to it, which won't be long now. There was a one-tile island close to Greek territory that can be reached by galley, but Greece just claimed that one. I'm thinking of going for a domination victory. I already have much more than enough of the world's population, and while I have most of the land in my territory, I need 74% of it to win and the Greeks have 29%, which means I'd need to get some of their land either by culture flipping or, failing that, by conquest. That would have to wait until I get some more key technologies and build up an army. It'll be rare that I'll have an opportunity to get a domination victory on a larger map with more rivals, so I'd like to get it now. If it's not feasible, I can always get a diplomatic victory once I get Mass Media. Then all I have to do is build the UN and vote myself world leader, since I have such a large majority of the world's population.

Posted: **Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:30 pm**

I read a comic "neonomicon" from Alan Moore. I liked the first the part the story (about the detective). The second part with the dagon cult was too obvious.
I saw a japonese movie that include the necronomicon and a spell to make zombies. It was quite bad. Then I saw a german movie (demons) that included a cult and a monster with tentacles: made the japonese movie seem ok. Bad script, bad actors, no logic.

Posted: **Wed Feb 15, 2012 3:15 am**

I'm actually about to read Neonomicon. I placed a hold on it at my library, and it just arrived yesterday, but I won't be able to pick it up until Saturday. The first part of it is actually The Courtyard, which Alan Moore wrote in the 1990s, I think. I read that last year. The second part of it is Neonomicon, which just came out recently.

After I read The Courtyard, I read a couple of other graphic novels/comics that Alan Moore co-wrote (I mentioned them earlier in this thread): Watchmen, which was excellent, and V for Vendetta. I also bought the Watchmen motion comic on Blu-ray, though I haven't watched it yet. The entirety of Watchmen is there, only with animation and voice acting added.

Posted: **Wed Feb 15, 2012 10:38 am**

I read THe watchmen. It is indeed excelent. I didn't read yet V. From Moore, I read also the league of the extraordinary gentleman. It's good pulp adventure, but no match to The watchman.

Posted: **Tue Feb 28, 2012 8:49 pm**

Picked up a relatively new series,

it looks promising. Feels like Enemy of State and Minority Report mixed together in a contemporary setting.

Posted: **Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:05 am**

I like Person of Interest, but I've missed most of the second half of the season.

I'm currently reading Volume 1 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I finished the comic portion, and now I'm reading the Allan Quatermain story in the back. Lone Wolf Book 17 finally came while I was away, so that's next on my reading list. It's easily the toughest book in the series.

I bought five board games at Dreamation, though I haven't had a chance to try them yet. They can all be played solo. I got Elder Sign, a dice-based game similar in theme to Arkham Horror. I did get to play in a multiplayer game of that at Dreamation. We all lost, narrowly. Yig woke up and devoured us all. I also got the On the Brink expansion to Pandemic (which can be played solo if I play all of the roles), which adds a lot to the game. I got Castle Panic, which is like a boardgame version of Tower Defense. I got Space Infantry, a science fiction squad-based wargame. And I got Mage Knight, which is made by the same designer who made Space Alert.

I played in a bunch of fun games at Dreamation, but I don't have time to go into them right now. I'm still catching up.

I'm watching Island at War, a British series set on one of the Channel Islands (a fictitious one) during the German occupation in WWII. It's very good stuff, and it features Philip Glenister as the colonel in charge of the occupation. It took me a little while to recognize him, as his voice, appearance, and character are very different from his later role as Gene Hunt in Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.

I won a domination victory in that game of Civ IV as planned, all without firing a shot. Corinth flipped over to me much sooner than I thought it would, and that allowed me to amass enough territory. I started a new game on a slightly larger map on the next higher difficulty level. This time I have two rivals, though I haven't met one of them due to us being on different continents. I drew the Germans this time, and Egypt shares my continent with me. I'm in the early Medieval era with a small lead, though I am getting all of the World Wonders before the others so far. I managed to build my cities strategically to block Egypt off into the northern third of our landmass. They tried to swamp me with culture, but I caught up and then surpassed them. I'm planning on getting a diplomatic victory this time.

Posted: **Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:02 pm**

I have already read the first 2 volumes of the league, and the first is much better.
I finished to play an hentai, black bible. We play a high school student who put his hand in a book of black magic. In my first 2 try I was killed bu the cult, until I was able to defeat it (the good ending). The other endings are bad endings (finishing mad in an asylum, being a slave of the cult) or evil ending (turning in a member of the cult or killing the leader and ascend as new leader).

Posted: **Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:54 am**

I haven't had much time this week, so I haven't gotten much further. I've only played a few turns of Civ IV here and there, but I'd forgotten to mention some things in my last post. It took me twenty turns to explore my starting continent, thanks to starting with a scout, getting another one from a tribal village, and building a third first thing. I got all or almost all of the tribal villages before Egypt found them. I founded my second city next to the only source of horses on my continent, getting there just ahead of the Egyptians. Shortly after I did that, a barbarian city sprang up to the east of it, exactly where I had planned to put my third city. I built a chariot quickly in my second city while a scout kept an eye on the barbs, then sent the chariot in to attack. There were two warriors defending, and the first one should have been a cakewalk, but I had bad luck and my chariot was badly damaged, though it did prevail. I got a promotion out of the deal, which partly healed the unit and made it stronger. The next turn I took a chance and attacked the remaining warrior with the chariot, with odds not much better than even, as to wait for the chariot to heal or a new one to be constructed would take too long. It worked, and the city was mine! The chariot even got a second promotion out of the deal.

Posted: **Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:30 pm**

Serendipity strikes again. Got my hands on a digital network series from BBC4 HD.

Based on late h2g2 author Douglas Adams work: Dirk Gently´s Holistic Detective Agency!

I watched the first episode just now, and it´s a crazy mix of Sherlock Holmes and Chuck... A nerd, tech and investigation. All blended in to a somewhat childish format. A show that can be described as comical.

There will be two more episodes during March.

I´m still following Person of Interest and Alcatraz, both working as amusement pass time. Not much time to get my Vietnam game past equipment phase. Sorry about that.

Posted: **Thu Mar 15, 2012 3:24 am**

I read both Dirk Gently novels a long time ago, but I don't remember them very well. I finished Island at War, and I'm currently watching some newly released classic Doctor Who DVDs before I move on to the rest of my collection. I just watched the Special Edition of Tomb of the Cybermen and am starting on the special features.

i'm reading Lone Wolf Book 17 and almost got killed due to a boneheaded mistake caused by sleep deprivation. I had an opportunity to run from some really tough unavoidable enemies that are practically guaranteed to kill an inexperienced character (which does not have the chance to flee until it's too late, as I've discovered when scouting the book with new characters), and I decided to tough it out and fight them rather than risk getting shot in the back and instantly killed, as I did not know what would happen if I fled. Unfortunately, I forgot that they're immune to all forms of psychic attack, which makes them absurdly tough. I beat them in the end, but got badly wounded and had to use up some potions that I hope I don't need later.

I had a chance to play through a few of the board games once each so far. Elder Sign is great. I messed up on the rules the first time and started over early on, and this time I was able to beat Yig as Darrell Simmons. Castle Panic was fun and not too difficult, and I tried Pandemic with the expansion's basic additions and won fairly easily. Next I plan to try a mission of Space Infantry.

I've made a lot of progress in Civilization IV. A barbarian warrior gave me a scare when I settled my fifth city, Cologne. I had sent a scout ahead, and the intended garrison (a longbowman) was just a little behind. I moved the scout into the woods between the warrior and the city, which also had a river protecting it, but the barbarian was lucky and killed my scout. The city was wide open for the taking, but I tried leaving a worker out next to the warrior as bait, and it worked. The barbarian killed the worker instead of sacking the defenseless city, and my longbowman killed it on the following turn. Then it just moved into the city to guard it. Currently I'm around halfway through the Renaissance and about to get gunpowder. I found the Aztecs on the other landmass, and they're doing a lot better than the Egyptians, though not as well as I am. I'm swamping Egypt with culture and just got one of their cities to flip to me (along with their only source of iron; they no longer have copper either). I recently agreed to Open Borders to improve relations now that I've got almost all of the choice territory, but they sent a galley with a settler and a longbowman all the way to the south of my lands to claim a luxury and an untapped source of copper in the icy wastes there. I expect I'll be able to achieve victory with little difficulty, but it'll probably be a couple of weeks.

Posted: **Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:01 pm**

An update on series to be renewed during summer.

June 17 Season 2 of Falling Skies
Been a looong time in waiting for this - hopefully it will be good.

I didn´t think Leverage would get another season, but it will. (July 15)

Just recently, I checked out Homeland
, and I find it really good. A huge hint to the stellar show 24. I guess it´s the way the story is built up that makes me constantly think of 24. Somehow I think that Mandy Patinkin´s character Saul Berenson is the mole in the CIA operation.
This show is renewed as well.

Person of Interest is renewed, a thing that in my opinion was a long shot. Shows I like tend to get cancelled

. So, that´s good news.

Another show I picked up was The River. I like the Amazon shots and The Magus, the expedition ship. The show is a little hit and miss between episodes but all in all a neat, new acquaintance.

Posted: **Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:07 pm**

Hello everyone.

I've been playing a Facebook/Twitter connected game called Echo Bazaar. I'd also really like to play Fallout 1 and get the experience everyone says is so great, but the dang thing keeps crashing all the time!

I'd also be playing Myst, but I'd have to do some finagling with QuickTime and I've been putting that off. I don't think my computer likes old games very much.

Posted: **Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:15 pm**

Good old Fallout! One game from the same era I can´t stop playing is Jagged Alliance 2. Isometric as well. Not RPG though but tactical turn based combat.
Cheers!

Posted: **Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:55 am**

Welcome, Kadael!

Jagged Alliance 2 has RPG elements in it though, far moreso than in the first game (which I also own and have completed), and you can interact with the world in other ways than combat. I haven't played it in years, and I never did finish it. I also have Unfinished Business and Wildfire for JA2 but never tried them.

I always keep my old computers, just in case, but I've managed to get old games to run on my "new" computer (which is approaching four years old). Resident Evil 2 gave me some problems, but with a little searching on the Internet I found the solution. Many other people had the same issues.

I'm getting much further in Civ IV. I just entered the Industrial Era a turn after Egypt entered the Renaissance. I'm about to get Steam Power next turn and am monopolizing almost all of the Wonders, though Egypt beat me to the Sistine Chapel with a Great Engineer. They're neutral towards me, but we both don't get along with the Aztecs. The Aztecs have their landmass all to themselves and have an empire almost as big as mine, but with Egypt's help I can win a diplomatic victory in the early Modern Era (and I can block the Aztecs from winning even without their help). One of Egypt's cities, Heliopolis, just went into revolt and is on the verge of flipping over to me.

I picked up Supreme Ruler 2020 Gold last night for $15. It looks great, but I don't know when I'll get a chance to play it.

I like and watch Falling Skies, Leverage, and of course Person of Interest. I haven't seen Homeland (I don't have any premium channels) or The River.

I played Space Infantry's introductory mission several times with the basic rules, but I kept getting defeated due to a run of bad luck. It does play quickly, though. I finally won rather easily when I drew an enemy that wasn't too hard. Some of the enemies you can face are truly nasty. I started looking through the Mage Knight rules. It looks like a lot of fun, but I probably won't be able to play the first scenario until next weekend.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I did successfully complete Lone Wolf 17: The Deathlord of Ixia. The tough combats turned out not to be too much of a problem thanks to my reserves of potions, though I was almost out of them by the end. The real problem was a random roll after the final battle with the Deathlord that you have at least a 30% chance of failing, and I've heard that if you fail that roll you die instantly. Luckily, I succeeded. After that point, you later have to choose between two directions, and I heard that choosing the wrong one gives you a 10% chance of dying automatically. Fortunately, I picked the right way. Now I'm ready for Book 18, Dawn of the Dragons, though Mongoose is pretty slow about releasing these books. I've been playing the bonus adventure in the back of Book 17, where I get to play a Helghast, which is a lot of fun. I'm very close to the end of it now.

Also, today I bought a limited edition of Elemental: War of Magic, a turn-based fantasy strategy game for the PC. It only cost $20, which is half the usual price, and the limited edition comes with all sorts of goodies. I'm looking to play this next after I finish my current game of Civ IV. It reminds me a little of Master of Magic, which I've always enjoyed.

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:50 am**

I took the risk of updating my Windows 7 to Windows 8 prewiew. Now, I have access to IE10. I don´t usually use IE, I prefer Mozilla.
I thought it would be nice to try out the latest Microsoft has to offer, though.

At the moment I think it works out OK. I´m hesiatant to the app idea. All my programs are changed into apps and I have an ipad look to my interface.
In a way I have an App-top right now.

I understand the Windows 8 is supposed to be run on a touch pad, but it does work for laptops too.
It takes some tweaking to feel comfortable, though. Sadly, I miss my old laptop.

The problem with trying out new things is that you never know how it will work out.

I still have my old files so there won´t be any trouble keeping up with my games. When I wrap my head around the change, I´ll update the Nam scenario.

Cheers!

Posted: **Sun Mar 25, 2012 6:30 pm**

Is there any idea Apple came up with that Microsoft hasn't stolen?

I started reading Monstrous Regiment, a Discworld book by Terry Pratchett. It came out eight and half years ago, but I never finished it. I'm woefully behind in reading Discworld books.

I finally got a chance to play the Mage Knight board game's introductory scenario yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. It's a fantasy game of exploration and conquest (though conquest is purely optional in the first scenario, where the focus is on exploration). There are many options and different ways to play. I'm still learning the rules, and the intro doesn't introduce everything in the game, so there will be more to discover when I try a full game scenario.

I'm still not quite done Civ IV, though I'm getting much closer now. I'm in the middle of the Industrial Era, though I had to delay winning in order to research Biology and Medicine so that I could get my population up higher. Otherwise, I would have fallen under the 60% necessary to win the vote (with Egypt's help). Egypt likes me well enough and hates the Aztecs. They converted to my religion for 410 gold once my Open Borders mellowed them enough (I still had about 3000 left), and that got them happy enough with me eventually to agree to a Defensive Pact. They just converted back to their old religion shortly after that, but they're still okay with me. The Aztecs hate me even more for forming the pact, but if they go to war with one of us it'll be both of us fighting them, and my infantry can crush them easily. I just researched Physics, which gave me a Great Scientist for free that I'll use to speed up researching Electricity. That'll take a few turns, and then I just need Radio and then Mass Media (which is much easier to research than Radio) before I can build the UN. I may not be able to win tonight, but it should be tomorrow or soon after.

Posted: **Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:16 pm**

I purchased an anthology at the library the other day. "The mommoth book of fantasy". Reading through the short stories in it I found a gem.

"The Moon Pool" by A. Merritt. The story begins with the vanished expedition of Dr David Throckmartin. The site of the expedion is placed on the Island of Ponape.

Half way in I feel it connects well with the mythos, and being published in 1918-1919 makes it a candidate for a classic era scenario.

Over and out!

/Dave

Posted: **Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:24 pm**

I was looking around the local library for something to pass the time with. The selection was disappointing (six copies of Animal Farm and no 1984?!).

I vaguely remembered reading some Raymond Chandler when I was younger, and the library had precisely one copy of Trouble is My Business.

Cue new Philip Marlowe/protagonists who were later given his name obsession.

Posted: **Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:39 am**

Murray would definitely be into that.

I put Monstrous Regiment on hold partway through because I checked out a book from my library, which has a much better selection (though much of it had been put away in storage for most of a year while they were doing renovations that have only recently been completed): In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove. It's an alternate history novel set in 2010 where America stayed neutral during WWII and Germany won, and it's about Jews secretly living in Berlin. After that, I plan to read Ruled Britannia by the same author. The alternate event in that one is that the Spanish Armada defeated Drake's fleet in 1588 and Spain went on to invade and conquer Britain, and William Shakespeare is one of the central characters.

The Mage Knight board game is awesome! There's a steep learning curve and it takes a long time to play and needs a lot of space, but it's an awful lot of fun. I played a full game, where you have to conquer two cities in three days and three nights. It seems impossible when you're just starting out and not very strong (even orcs aren't pushovers), but you can grow your power pretty fast and it wasn't long before I was able to slay a dragon. I lost my first full game narrowly. I lucked out in being able to conquer the weaker of the two cities in the final night. I thought there wouldn't be any way I could conquer the second city, but the city I did conquer allowed me to buy an artifact by spending gobs of influence, so I did it, burning some movement cards to get enough. The artifact actually gave me a chance to take the second city because by sacrificing it, I could keep the defenders from fighting back and only had to worry about causing enough damage to destroy them. Without the movement cards, I thought I'd never reach it, but I used a skill to get a new spell, which made another spell available that would let me reach the city. I bought the spell at a mage tower I had taken on the way to the second city, but I had to use cards I needed for the attack to get it and my deck was nearly empty. I launched a desperate attack on the last turn of the game, but I couldn't destroy all of the defenders. I'm playing a second full game, and despite a tough initial setup I managed to get off to a rolling start. The third and final night is just about to start, and I'm poised to attack the first city. This time I may succeed, as the two cities are very close together and I have a lot of cards that can help me, including that same artifact that I was lucky enough to find in a dungeon. I just have to stop making stupid mistakes.

In my Civ IV game, the Aztecs still gained population a bit too quickly and had just enough to stop me from winning the vote, but I realized that this would happen shortly before getting Mass Media and hastily assembled an invasion fleet. I found a weakly defended city (just three spaces away from their capital) and snatched it, and that was just enough to tip the population balance in my favor. I was able to hold it against counterattacks that were halfhearted (I had been expecting serious resistance). I kept flooding in infantry and artillery, and my forces had marched right up next to the Aztec capital and were about to attack when I won the diplomatic vote. Guess the Aztecs saw reason and surrendered before I crushed them. I started playing Elemental: War of Magic's campaign mode, which also serves as a tutorial, but it's a big disappointment. The game still has bugs even after being patched up, and some things are just plain broken. There is no sense of scale in the economy, as personal wealth and your nation's budget are one and the same, and even a simple staff or a piece of salted pork costs the same as the annual output of a gold mine! It's still fun, and I intend to finish out the campaign, though it may be some time before I play it again. I much prefer Master of Magic, which also has a wider variety of stuff in the game. After I finish this game, I plan to play Civ IV again with the Beyond the Sword expansion, which adds so much that it's like a new game. I'll keep the same difficulty level for now but use the next larger map size with more rivals.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:38 pm**

"Let´s see if we can give this world another day.", character 1.

"Who talks like that?", character 2.

Priceless!

This quote and the gallery of characters in the movie Battleship, including Alexander Skarsgård and Rhianna - make it a fun to watch film. I won´t go in to politics of the movie. For me it´s an alien invasion and the response by a handful of characters.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:22 pm**

Poked around on the Interactive Fiction Database and found a couple games I hadn't played before - Shrapnel and Insight. I enjoyed them both, though I had more feelings about Insight:

1. Confusion
2. Confidence
3. Shattering of aforementioned confidence, due to confusion
4. Disappointment
5. Realization
6. Frustration
7. Utter bewilderment
8. Jon Ingold is evil
9. Jon Ingold is evil
10. Jon Ingold is evil and clever
11. Satisfaction

It's one of those games.

Unrelated: I'll be starting my game here soon. Experiencing pre-Keeper nerves. Wanting to triple-check everything.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:26 pm**

I´ve only played The Lurking Fear set on Miskatoic Campus. Enjoyed it immensely. I´ll have a look at Insight.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:33 pm**

Be warned: it's not a game that can only be played once. It's essential that you play it several times, to fully grasp the evil.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:35 pm**

Eh, Insight... The dude don´t understand English! What?!

OK, the commands are clunky as expected, but dang! It´s confusing as you said. I´ll get back on that

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:42 pm**

Hmm, investigated and tried to get back to the interview room. Mission finished. I´ll have another go tomorrow. Didn´t solve the case today.

Posted: **Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:51 pm**

Btw Kadael, did you know Mr H has written some interactive fiction? I guess he has a link somewhere to his scenario.

The end of it all

(Found it, but he has written other stuff too.)

Posted: **Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:38 am**

Yeah, I've been writing interactive fiction for over 30 years, but I'm not as old as you might think. I started when I was about five years old after discovering the first Choose Your Own Adventure books in kindergarten. My early works weren't very good, but I've gotten a lot better since then. Somewhere I've posted a list of the stuff I've written since the mid-1990s, on Yog-Sothoth.com in one of Yockenthwaite's blogs here. I've written computer IF games as well on my old Apple IIc. I grew up on Infocom games and similar IF games in the 1980s, and I've played a lot of them.

I'm more than two-thirds of the way through In the Presence of Mine Enemies. About a year has passed in the story, and things are changing gradually, but I think the pace will really pick up in the rest of the book in order to resolve things.

My plan in Mage Knight worked like a charm, and I conquered both cities with two turns to spare. I've played Elder Sign again and won; it's a lot easier playing solo than Arkham Horror. I've played Castle Panic again, which is also pretty easy, and I played another game of Pandemic with the On the Brink expansion, but I narrowly lost. After I play again and win, I want to try Space Infantry with the advanced rules and then play Mage Knight again.

My PS3 died again last week. It didn't even last three months, and I lost another DVD that got stuck inside it. Luckily, it's still discounted so I can buy another copy without spending as much. Apprently there was also no warranty on the PS3, or on any online purchases from GameStop, but at least they're giving me a refund anyway. I ordered a used PS3 through Amazon from a guy in Hawaii that still has three months of warranty left on it, and he threw in an extra controller, a cooling fan (which will hopefully keep my system alive longer), and a whole bunch of PS1, 2, and 3 games. It was supposed to be a backwards-compatible 80 GB model, but it turned out to be a 60 GB model like the two I had that died.

I finished the campaign in Elemental, which was easy but time consuming. Now I'm looking through the expansion changes before starting a game of Civ IV with Beyond the Sword added. There's a lot of cool new stuff.

Posted: **Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:37 am**

Wow, that's really cool! I've done a little work with both traditional IF and choose-your-own adventure, but I have yet to finish anything. I don't personally know anybody with an interest in those kinds of games. If I'm lucky, they know what a grue is.

Those old books were silly. I think in at least one, it was impossible to get an ending that resembled winning.

Posted: **Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:22 am**

I'm in the middle of watching There Will Be Blood, which is great so far. I bought two DVD boxsets that were on sale last week (Knight Rider Season 2, which completes the series for me, and The Fall Guy Season 1, which is the only one available in North America), and when you buy two things they had a special deal where you get your choice of one of about a dozen movies for free, and I chose this one.

I've got a huge collection of gamebooks, though it's by no means exhaustive. The Way of the Tiger series was great. There are only six books (I'm missing Book 5, which is supposed to be the best), and the sixth one ends on a cliffhanger, which I've heard was intentional. Maybe that's the one you mean. The Lone Wolf series is epic and features a living, breathing world. Mongoose Publishing is editing and rereleasing them with bonus adventures in hardback collector's editions, and I purchased a deal where I get them all as they come out. However, they're going much, much slower than they promised. They were supposed to release one every month or two, but it's been almost five years and they're only up to Book 17 (there were originally 28, and the author is working on four new ones). They came out fairly quickly initially, but now we're lucky if we get more than two per year. They're also full of errors. Even when they've corrected errors in the original books, new ones have crept in.

I also have some solo adventures for various roleplaying games. The only one I have for CoC is Grimrock Isle, as the others are out of print and I haven't found them. I do plan to write some solo adventures myself if I ever have time. If you look at the list in that link, you can see that I've written some for GURPS, but I haven't had time to do that since 2001.

Posted: **Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:30 am**

I have yet to come close to finishing the Lone Wolf series. I love it, but it keeps killing me.

Posted: **Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:06 am**

I know what you mean. I was extremely lucky just to get to Book 17, let alone actually complete it with my veteran character who has been through all of the books. I start over from Book 1 whenever I die, and there are a lot of random instant deaths that are unavoidable. Many of them are in the first five books, which isn't so bad, and there are none in Books 6-12, but the Grandmaster series (13-20) has a ton of them. Book 17 is one of the deadliest, and I think I'm out of the woods, though I have the sneaking suspicion that I might not have the right disciplines to avoid random instant death in Book 18. If I do manage to get this character through the end of Book 20, any deaths after that point will restart from Book 21, as I'd actually be playing a different character. I've never played any of the books after 20 (and I've only played the abridged US versions of 18-20, plus it's been many years since I played those), so I'm really looking forward to them.

You can read and play Lone Wolf (and Joe Dever's other gamebooks) here on Project Aon for free, legally.

Posted: **Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:23 am**

That's actually where I've been playing them.

Posted: **Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:36 am**

I borrowed The Little Sister from a friend who likes Chandler as much as I do. I'd read it once a few years ago, and finished re-reading it today. It didn't make any more sense, but I still enjoyed it.

My friend assures me that The Long Goodbye is less complicated, so that's what I'll be reading next week.

Posted: **Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:06 pm**

I guess I´m holding the banner for easy Reading

. Never read Chandler… Took an English literature course at college, though. My bed stand has Baldacci´s Divine Justice on it. It´s about a government wet jobs specialist going below radar and trying to remain unnoticed. Doing horribly...

Posted: **Sat Apr 28, 2012 11:22 pm**

I'm almost done In the Presence of Mine Enemies. I'm in the last chapter, with about 25 pages to go. I might finish it tomorrow.

I played Pandemic a few days ago and lost again. I don't remember it being so hard. I played another game of it the next day and finally won. I've read the advanced rules for Space Infantry, but haven't had a chance to play with them yet.

I finished watching There WIll Be Blood, watched V for Vendetta on Blu-ray, and have just started watching Donnie Darko on Blu-ray.

Posted: **Sat May 12, 2012 5:17 am**

Been reading The Long Goodbye, like I said. It's opened up avenues for assorted silly conversations with my Chandler-reading friend.

I've also been playing through the Lone Wolf series again, since Mr. Handy reminded me. I'm only on book ten, The Dungeons of Torgar, and to be honest I've only gotten there because I don't restart from the very beginning of the series every time I die.

Just to the beginning of the book I died in.

The battle at Cetza keeps killing me. Rushing into combat is probably the cause of that, but I have a combat skill of 41 and an endurance of 36, and I want the cosmetic awards my playing aid will give me.

Posted: **Sat May 12, 2012 10:01 pm**

Are you playing using Seventh Sense? I've heard about the achievements feature that they included in it. I'm still waiting for Mongoose Publishing's new edition of Book 18, Dawn of the Dragons, which from my vague recollection is a great one. They haven't even announced it for pre-orders yet, so it'll probably be months. I could play it on Project Aon, but I want to run my veteran character through the new one, which may have changes, and I want to scout the new version with fresh characters so that I'm not surprised by them if I'm used to the original edition. Dungeons of Torgar is awesome! I don't want to spoil the ending for you, but it's a good one. The Battle of Cetza is very hard if you have the Sommerswerd (I found that out the hard way), but not so bad if you don't. The Hellswamp route is safer, and it's usually the one I take. There is a Special Item you can get in the battle that may prove useful later, though.

I finished In the Presence of Mine Enemies and have started on Ruled Britannia. Shakespeare has been recruited by those still loyal to Queen Elizabeth (locked in the Tower of London) to write a play that will incite the people to rise up against their Spanish oppressors, and it's very enjoyable so far. When I'm finished that, which will probably be a while, I plan to read a two-book series also by Turtledove, Days of Infamy and The End of the Beginning, where Japan actually occupies the Hawaiian Islands rather than just raiding Pearl Harbor.

When I played Space Infantry with the advanced rules, I lucked out and had the easiest game ever. I was up against the Dark Gods' Followers, whose cultists have a nasty tendency to run up to you and blow themselves up. Fortunately, I didn't run into any of them through an incredible run of luck. My squad's mission was to rescue a bunch of scientists on this planet that was infested with huge sandworms. Luckily, I only bumped into one of them, and I was able to kill it easily. I also managed to find all of the scientists very early, again due to luck. I played Mage Knight again, this time making sure I got the rules correct. There is an ambiguous rule in the rulebook, but the FAQ clarifies it. It turned out I was playing it the wrong way, so I played it the correct (and somewhat more difficult) way. I beat First Reconnaissance again, and then went on to successfully complete the Solo Conquest mission, doing an even better job than I had when I had played it before. I amassed a huge army and was able to steamroller the two cities pretty effectively (thankfully, they were also very close together again).

I recently watched Donnie Darko on Blu-ray and also saw, for the first time, the Director's Cut. That version actually explains things better and makes it easier to understand what happened and why, and it has a lot of extra footage. I also have S. Darko on Blu-ray, which I've never seen. That one's next on my playlist after I finish watching the newly released Doctor Who DVDs I just got this week.

I started playing Civ IV: Beyond the Sword a couple of weeks ago, but it's been slow going since I haven't had much time until today. The random civilization I drew is the Koreans (one of the expansion civs) led by Wang Kon. I share my continent with Arabia (led by Saladin) and the Aztecs (led by Montezuma). Both of them found me with their scouts within five or six turns. There are two others on some other landmass somewhere, but it'll be a long time before I find them. I grabbed an early religion thanks to starting with Mysticism and researching Meditation to start, but the Arabs got the other early one a few turns later. Having different religions soured our relations, and I knew that they would be my chief enemies. I've stayed on good terms with Monty, who doesn't like Saladin much either. I got off to an excellent start, founding a second city close to the Aztec capital (and securing a source of gems before they could) and almost founding a third city before anyone started a second. Almost. The Arabs beat me to the only source of copper I could find by one measly turn and plopped a city right on top of it, and not having copper is a huge disadvantage, especially if you don't later end up with any iron either. So I did the only thing I could. I declared war on them and sent in my archer, which had been escorting my settler and would later garrison my third city, to attack their new city while it was still weak. Only a single warrior guarded it, and it didn't have much time to fortify. The warrior had a slight edge, except for my archer's first strike ability, which saved my butt. I was very lucky and took out Medina with only minor damage to my archer, which earned two promotions out of the deal and became the ultimate city garrison. The city was automatically destroyed because it was only size 1 and had no culture, but I used my own settler to build a city on the spot I had selected, next to the copper. Saladin was afflicted with massive war weariness as a result and was only too happy when I offered him peace. Of course, he still hates my guts, but he was never going to like me anyway. I was able to grow rapidly, while their early growth was crippled - it was a long time before they got a second city. They did, however, beat me to building the Oracle, which gave them a free technology that allowed them to jump into the Medieval era (instead of giving one to me). Still, I'm doing much better than they are. I'm just over 100 turns in and have entered the Classical era. The random events are cool, but forest fires seem to come up an awful lot. Maybe it's just the luck of the draw, or maybe different events are more likely in later stages of the game.

Posted: **Sat May 12, 2012 10:40 pm**

I am indeed playing with Seventh Sense. I like shiny buttons and having something to bookkeep for me. I think I might leave the Sommerswerd at the monastery this next run. (+8 Combat Skill, double damage versus undead, doesn't take up a weapon slot, and protects you from a lot of strange beam attacks? What drawbacks could there possibly be?)

Posted: **Sat May 12, 2012 10:46 pm**

A lot of the boss battles in the Magnakai series were made insanely tough when you have the Sommerswerd, but are more manageable without it. However, that's not always the case, and sometimes it's better to have it. It can save your life and is very useful. The tougher bosses seem to be Joe Dever's attempt to balance the game so that everything isn't a pushover when you have the Sommerswerd, which does make most combats way too easy. However, it makes some combats too hard.

One realistic drawback of the Sommerswerd is that it radiates such goodly power that it (and therefore Lone Wolf) can easily be detected. This will come up in later books.

Posted: **Sun May 13, 2012 8:39 am**

Had a check in with the Canadian / French studio Prodigy Pictures. I was about to check on their status on XIII- the series, season two.

There I found out they have a Project in production: Neuromancer

Might be Worth a view if it´s actually made…

The studio has one show on it´s third season, Lost Girl. Never heard of it but will give it a chance.

http://www.prodigypictures.com/in_production

Posted: **Tue May 15, 2012 6:12 am**

Now even my Chandler-reading friend is tired of my ramblings about Philip Marlowe. I'm about halfway through The Long Goodbye now.

My brother wants me to read The Hunger Games, and I've picked up a non-fiction neuropsychology book called Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me).

As for Lone Wolf, I did indeed leave the Sommerswerd in storage, and was better off for it... until The Prisoners of Time started and I didn't have my +8 Combat Skill bonus. Now I keep getting killed before I can get that last Lorestone.

Posted: **Wed May 16, 2012 4:26 am**

The Prisoners of Time is hands down the hardest one in the Magnakai series, though there's a harder one still in the Grandmaster series. The Chaos Master is much harder to beat with the Sommerswerd, but the fighting at the end is much harder, especially if you're still hurt from the Chaos Master battle. I always bring the Sommerswerd along on every adventure, but I can see why some players put it in storage for certain books (The Cauldron of Fear is a good one for that).

I'm about 1/4 of the way done Ruled Brittania. The Spanish now want Shakespeare to write a play about the life of King Philip so that it's ready to be performed when he croaks, so now he has to write two plays for opposite sides at the same time (and finish a third play that he was working on before). Still, if anyone can do it, the Bard can!

I'm about 125 turns into my Civ IV game. I now have a fourth city, Pusan, established guarding a chokepoint into the barren northern part of my continent, where nobody lives but barbarians. There's also iron, stone, and sheep close by. The Aztecs could get up there if they wanted, as I allow them passage through my territory and they can just sail across in a boat anyway. The Arabs are using their spies to harass me. First they destroyed my horse pasture, and while I had a worker nearby who quickly rebuilt it, that delayed my using said worker to build plantations and hook up resources. I built a spy of my own in Wonsan, my city next to the copper source. No sooner had it set out than it caught an Arabian spy lurking at the copper mine and getting ready to destroy it. But while it was away scouting Arab lands, they sent in another spy and poisoned the water supply in Wonsan. Once my spy returns, I'll keep it there for defense. I managed to build the Temple of Artemis in Seoul, which increases my trade income and, more importantly, gives me a free priest specialist. I can now generate Great People pretty quickly. I also just built my first Hwacha, the Korean unique unit. It's a primitive rocket-firing artillery piece. In Civ IV it replaces the catapult, in spite of the fact that gunpowder is a very long way off. In Civ III it replaced the cannon, which makes sense, but in Civ IV you get cannons so late that you're probably not far off from artillery at that point. I'm now most of the way through the Classical Era and making good progress.

Posted: **Fri May 18, 2012 3:32 pm**

I´ve joined a Person of Interest RP at The Daemon Accord
I´m using one of my previous NPCs as a PC.
Character details: Lucy Mills

Check it out, only six members and no dice rolls. It looks quite good.

I also have had a look for a forum that uses an integrated dice roller. I´ll get back to that when I know how it goes.

Posted: **Sat May 19, 2012 4:06 am**

I've only had time to play about ten more turns, but they've been very eventful. I found myself in a war, but not against Saladin. It was Montezuma who sneak attacked me, in spite of the fact that we were on good terms and share the same religion. Just can't trust that guy.

He had demanded tribute from me earlier (Monarchy, an expensive and useful technology), but I rejected his demands. It was a while before he attacked, though. Fortunately, his initial assault was halfhearted, as P'yongyang (the city by the gems near their border) only had one defender, an axeman. They moved one of their own axemen into my territory and stumbled around the jungle, but they didn't attack with it. A turn later they moved in a chariot, which has a huge bonus to attacking axemen, and attacked the city, but I had enough defensive bonuses to counter them. My axeman was wounded badly, and a followup attack probably would have finished it off and cost me the city, but the Aztecs had nothing in position. I quickly moved in an archer from Seoul and built another one in P'yongyang, so the city was very well defended by the time they moved their real army across the border. I had started building a spearman in Seoul when the war started, and he just moved into P'yongyang right before the army attacked. They included Monty's other two chariots, and spearmen get a big bonus against them. I wiped out their army without losing any units, and then my own chariot took down their axeman that was a turn behind them. I had redirected my spy to the Aztecs' sole source of iron in the hopes of sabotaging the mine, but he got caught. My hwacha made its way all the way from the border with Arabia to P'yongyang and has just caught up. I'm about to build another one in Seoul. Now the tide has turned, and I've moved some of my forces across the border into Aztec lands, just two spaces from their capitol, Tenochtitlan. I'm hoping to draw out some of the garrison so I can defeat them with better odds, thus reducing the capital's defenses. Shortly after the war started, I began researching Feudalism, which will advance me to the Medieval Era and give me some huge advantages. I'll be able to build longbowmen (and upgrade archers to them with enough gold), which will make excellent city defenders, especially with my Protective trait. I'll get two civics: Vassalage (bonus XP for newly built units and several more units are maintenance-free) and Serfdom (workers work faster). I'll also get the ability to make someone a vassal state, which is my plan for the Aztecs. Once I take their capital away, they'll probably cave. If not, they'll only have two cities left, and those won't be as hard to take as the capital.

Posted: **Sun Jun 24, 2012 11:47 pm**

I have been playing as beta tester"The secret world" an horror/ocult/comspiracy mmrpg. I'm having a mix reaction and I'l post with more details in a couple of days.

Posted: **Mon Jun 25, 2012 1:54 am**

I'm currently reading Days of Infamy, and I'm over 1/4 of the way done. Japan has invaded Oahu in force and has recently taken Wahiawa. It's now December 26, 1941, and Hawaii will probably fall before much longer.

I've been watching Wish Me Luck, a British show that originally aired on ITV in the late 1980s. It's set during WWII in Nazi-occupied France from 1942-4 and is about female Special Operations Executive agents. There were three seasons with a total of 23 episodes, and I've now watched all but the last two. It's very good, with complex characters and a starkly realistic portrayal of underground operations.

I'm still playing the same game of Civ IV, now over 300 turns in. Tenochtitlan was on a hill with walls and too heavily guarded, so I had to settle for taking Tlatelolco, which was also near the Aztecs' only source of iron. After a long siege, the timing of everything came together perfectly, and I was able to take the city and get all of their gold in exchange for peace. I found Hannibal of Carthage and Elizabeth of England on the other major landmass. The Aztecs attacked me again much later after we'd been friends for a while, and while I was able to destroy their entire invasion force on the first turn of the war, Saladin jumped on me on the second turn when I wasn't ready. I nearly lost Wonsan, but I managed to keep it because they ran out of attackers before I ran out of defenders; only a single explorer was left garrisoning the city on the last turn of the war. I used the new Apostolic Palace wonder to force them to make peace with me, and I had the votes to carry it by myself. I had built it hoping to get an early diplomatic victory, but I experienced setback after setback that kept me from it. Still, its other functions have proved very useful. I ended up in a third war when Carthage sneak attacked England and destroyed the tiny new city of Canterbury, and Elizabeth came to me asking for help. I agreed because I needed her votes to win a diplomatic victory, as I didn't have enough otherwise. Being wartime allies was good for winning her support, but not enough. When the vote came up, she abstained. Meanwhile, Saladin attacked me again after I refused to give him tribute, and this time he actually took Tlatelolco even though I had three riflemen defending it while he had camel archers, macemen, and catapults. I should have won, but he was very lucky. However, his forces were crippled after that. I had started besieging Baghdad, just south of Wonsan, at the outset of the war, and I captured it and took back Tlatelolco on the same turn. I extorted gold out of Saladin in exchange for peace. Meanwhile, relations with Elizabeth had improved greatly. I wasn't able to do much to help her in the war, but I gave her a caravel and used my own navy to fight Hannibal's caravels, though I took heavier losses than I should have in spite of my more advanced tech. Then she lost Nottingham, and a couple of turns later she surrendered and became his vassal. Suddenly she hated me and was now at war with me as well. Luckily, I used the Apostolic Palace to force peace again. I'm now in the late industrial era and well ahead of anyone else. Diplomatic victory seems out of reach, but I"m on track to win a cultural victory in about 100 turns if I can't get another kind sooner.

I also just got the Civ V expansion, Gods and Kings, but I want to finish my game of Civ IV before I try it.

Posted: **Sat Jul 14, 2012 12:15 am**

After reading your player I tried to play again Civ II and discovered that it didn't worked in my computer. I decide to buy a new version. In the stores, they had expansions for Civ IV but not the game, so I had to bought CIV V. Different, but most of the mechanics are the same (there are culture points and other new stuff, but nothing too much difficult). I'm playing the greeks. I discovered an independent city, and made a peace treaty with the aztecs. For now, the only real trouble are the barbarians; I haven't discovered any other civilization. I am the most prosperous and rich, but I have a pathetic military power.

Posted: **Sat Jul 14, 2012 4:38 am**

That tends to be how it goes for me too. I usually concentrate on building up the infrastructure of my cities while keeping my military forces relatively small unless I'm specifically preparing for war or find myself already in one. I didn't get to finish my game before going to the convention, and I was about 15-16 turns from a cultural victory at the time I left. I finally had a chance to play some tonight, and now I'm only about ten turns from winning. My culture is swamping the Aztecs, and their capital may go into revolt or even flip to me before I win if I'm lucky. I'm actually into the future era now since I researched genetics early, but there are still a number of modern techs I don't have. I'm building the Apollo Program now, but I'll win by culture long before I'd complete the spaceship. I'm pretty assured of peace since I used the Apostolic Palace to force everyone to make defensive pacts. If anyone goes to war with me, it means war with the entire world. I expect to finish the game this weekend and I'll finally be able to start Civ V after that. I had originally skipped Civ IV since it wouldn't work right on my previous computer, but it works wonderfully on this one, and I'm glad I went back to it. You can buy Civ IV with the expansions on Steam. Culture was introduced in Civ III, which you also skipped, but Civ V handles cultural expansion differently. In the previous two games, your borders expand in large leaps on rare occasions, but in Civ V they expand gradually, one hex at a time, which I prefer. I also love the use of hexes instead of squares/diamonds. I'm hoping the expansion will make up for all of the deficiencies of the base game.

I bought some interesting board games in the dealer's room at the convention, but I haven't had the chance to play them yet. I got Thunderstone Advance, a deck building fantasy game, and its expansion, Heart of Doom. I also got Wrath of Ashardalon, a D&D boardgame, and Flying Colors, a naval wargame set in the Age of Sail. In addition, I used prize points for playing games at the convention to get an adventure pack for the Lord of the Rings LCG. Normally it would be $15, which is a lot for just 60 cards and one adventure, but for prize points it was a no-brainer. I'm also planning to order When Darkness Comes... and all of its expansions from Twilight Creations, since ImpInTraining reminded me of it and told me that it can be played solo.

I'm over 5/8 of the way done Days of Infamy. It's well into 1942, and all of Hawaii is now under Japanese occupation.

I finished Wish Me Luck and am well into Manhunt, another British WWII series. This one is from 1970 and has 26 episodes, and I'm almost done the 12th. The three main characters are a British airman who was shot down over occupied France, a half-British, half-French resistance man, and a French woman in the Resistance who has vast knowledge of its networks. They're trying to get her to England, but they have orders to kill her rather than let her fall into German hands.

Posted: **Sun Jul 15, 2012 6:00 am**

Goodness, what happened? I joined some games with a friend of mine, and the time just disappeared into a void!

I'm about a year late, but I watched the Thor movie and enjoyed it considerably. The season finale of The Legend of Korra also made me all emotional.

essentially.

I played the Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3's ending about a week ago. I don't feel like talking about it much.

In addition to all the roleplaying, Sims have been eating up all of my time! I'm sure there's a word for that feeling when your Sims have unexpected twins and suddenly there isn't enough room in the house to comfortably fit enough beds.

Oh, and something I just remembered. I recently cleaned out my downloads folder, and found a treasure trove of unplayed interactive fiction. I decided to give Room 206 a spin.

I'm sure the creator would be delighted to know that I was really uncomfortable the following day.

Posted: **Mon Jul 16, 2012 5:03 am**

I haven't played Mass Effect 3, but I've heard about its lack of an ending. I haven't played the first two games either, though I do own the second one. I must have hundreds of games that I've never had time to play yet. Before I started working full time, I didn't have money to buy the games I wanted. Now I have the money, but no time to play.

I did finish my Civ IV game last night, winning a cultural victory. Oddly, on the very last turn of the game, Hannibal declared war on Montezuma, forcing me into war with him and Elizabeth thanks to the defensive pact. That messed up some of my trade deals, but it didn't matter since I won immediately after that happened anyway. I've just started looking through the Civilopedia for Civ V with the expansion to see what's changed (it's a lot!). It'll probably be a week or two before I actually get to start playing.

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:14 pm**

Ladies and gentlemen, I just saw a quite above average action film. Safe stands to compare to both Ronin and Leon .
For next weekend´s amusement I say, watch it. It´s worth your time.

Also, I´ve almost finished my second Lee Child novel, Nothing to lose. Jack Reacher is on the move again. Easy action digestion. Perfect for the hangmat.
I know the season closes to the end, but never the less. I noticed Tom Cruise is doing a series of Jack Reacher films. Might be worth watching.

Gamingwise, I have tried out Telltale games´ The Walking Dead. A comedic gem, it is

Still slacking over here, I have been active over at Obsidian Portal playing a Pathfinder and a Traveller game. Both are moving on at a high pace and are fun to follow/play.
I´ll be trying to steer my Vietnam game over to the 80´s here at P@YSDC. On that note, I find Lee Child writing in a similar vein as Joseph Garber (Vertical Run).

Cheers!
/Dave

Posted: **Sun Sep 02, 2012 11:17 pm**

I bought The Walking Dead as part of the Almost Everything Pack when they offered it for $45. It included all three seasons of Sam & Max, Back to the Future, and several other games. I haven't played any of them yet, as I'm still playing Civ V, and there are other games ahead of them on my playlist. I also bought some Telltale Games that weren't included in the pack during their promo sales on GOG (a few of them are on sale now). Civ V is going well. I'm playing as the Ottoman Empire, and my opponents are the Songhai, the Romans, the Russians, the Celts, and the Carthaginians (the latter two being on another continent). I have a massive tech lead, having just entered the Modern era in the mid-16th century. The Romans got into the Renaissance a while back and just got cannons, while a couple of the others just reached the Renaissance and the Celts and Carthage are in the Medieval era. Rome is the real threat, and I beat off an early attack from them, luckily before they could bring any of their unique units to bear. They conquered the city-state of Sidon during their war with the Songhai that otherwise didn't go anywhere. The other 11 city-states are now my allies. The problem with having such a huge tech lead is that everyone spies on me and steals my technology in spite of all I do to try to stop them. Sometimes they'll agree to stop when you call them on it, but then they go right on doing it. The Songhai tried this one time too many, so I declared war on them finally. While the war was going on I caught Rome at it again, but I had to let it slide this time as I can't take them both on at once. I'm about to finish researching Replaceable Parts, which will allow me to build WWI-era infantry (among other things). Then I'm going for Flight, which will let me build WWI-era fighters and bombers. I won't bother with fighters, as nobody else is even close to Flight and I won't need air defenses for a long time, but bombers will kick butt. I'm building an artillery unit near the front, and when it's ready I'll deploy it on a hill in range of two of the three Songhai cities (though out of the cities' range to return fire), at which point I can pulverize their defenses quickly and just walk in and take them. I've crushed their army in the field already and I'm clobbering them in a naval battle off the coast of their third city. My unique ability to take prize ships with any melee naval unit and pay less maintenance for my navy has been very useful - I only ever had to build one warship. I didn't have any coal within my borders in spite of having lots of jungle, but Songhai have a big source near their capital, and there's already a mine there. Once I take it, I can start buiding factories and upgrade my caravels to ironclads - when I have the cash. I haven't been able to fully upgrade my units to what I can, but I'm still well ahead of anything the Songhai can field. Plundering their rich cities should fix that problem.

I played the first two scenarios in When Darkness Comes... The second one, Last of the Tzimovars, was much easier than it looked, but I really lucked out, as it should have been nearly impossible. I happened to select the random hero who was best suited to it, and I managed to automatically kill the boss monster thanks to a very lucky roll.

I finished Days of Infamy and started on The End of the Beginning, which follows on from it. I put that one aside when Coup d'Etat came in. This is also a Harry Turtledove alternate history book, the fourth in a series where WWII started in 1938 over Czechoslovakia. It's late 1941 there, and while many things are similar and familiar, events have taken some very different turns. I'm almost done that book.

I finished Manhunt and the first season of Enemy at the Door, which takes place on the German-occupied Channel Islands during WWII. I'll come back to the second season after I finish a wave of newly released Doctor Who DVDs. I just finished the special edition of The Seeds of Death and am about to start the special edition of Resurrection of the Daleks.

Posted: **Sun Sep 09, 2012 12:00 pm**

Never played Civilization on PC, only as a board game. It was fun, though to plot and scheme.

Watched yet another survival movie. I have watched quite some non-American films over the posts in this thread. Now, it´s time for an American movie set in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

The pathfinder game at Herocentral is about to restart, Runelords of Varisia. (A two year hiatus is over)
Obsidian Portal games played are
The Approaching Storm, Pathfinder.
Free Trader: Maverick, Traveller.

Keeping the CoC-modern, Antarctica 1983.

Finishing my INTRACOM CoC-end times scenario over at Comunidad Umbria.

The Person of Interest game died off - but the TV-series is soon starting again. And Watch Dogs, the game is up next year.

On PLAY@YSDC, I´ve managed to close the fist part of Eyes of Doom, 1969. Beginning the Vertical Run chapter, 1989.
Playing Zombie Apocalypse and having a blast doing it. Never know what´s coming next. Not many players left though.

That´s my gaming update.

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 3:41 am**

Civilization is even better as a computer game, deeper and much more involved, with many more options. While I was laying siege to the Songhai capital of Gao, Rome backstabbed me after pretending to friends (again) and declared war on me, starting a two-front war. They invaded the land around Bursa, which was in a pocket surrounded by Rome and Russia and had just been completely cut off. Fortunately, their puny weapons were no match for my superior technology. Even without fully upgrading my units, I was able to destroy their invading army, in part because they diverted part of their force in a failed attack on the city-state of Venice. After I conquered the Songhai, I took the fight to the Romans, quickly taking their second city of Antium and liberating Sidon. Rome offered me two cities for peace, including one I was about to take in my backyard. I told them to stuff it; I will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender (i.e., I'm going to finish them off). I took that city and now am marching on Rome itself. I'm in the late modern age and have WWII-era infantry (I just received one from Sidon), and soon I'll finish researching Combustion and get the ability to build landships (WWI-era tanks), and I can also upgrade my cavalry units to landships then.

I finished Coup d'Etat and resumed The End of the Beginning.

My PS3 died again, the third one so far this year. I had bought it used online from someone in Hawaii, and it still had some time left on the warranty at the time. It had just expired less than two weeks before, but the PS3 was supposed to be an 80 GB backwards compatible model. Instead it was the more flawed 60 GB model, the same as the first two I had that died earlier this year. The receipt for it claimed that it was the 80 GB model, but GameStop sold the guy an inferior model instead, and he sold it on to me. Now I have to wait for GameStop to get back to me. In the meantime, my parents loaned me an old DVD player, but the DVD of Resurrection of the Daleks is stuck in my PS3. I'll watch Greatest Show in the Galaxy next, and then Mad Nation, a Fallout fan-made post-apocalyptic series in a similar vein that the creator was giving away free for the first 20 No Mutants Allowed members who asked (and for $3 for those who came later).

I still need to get Zombie Apocalypse moving again, and it's doubtful I'll have time tonight. I recently finished The Ninth Planet, the second game in my Doctor Who/Call of Cthulhu campaign. I'm now recruiting players for my third game in that campaign, The Shadow Over Dunwich. It's a UNIT adventure set in Dunwich, England in 1985. I still need to catch up in my other games before I can finish preparing for it and getting it started.

Posted: **Mon Sep 10, 2012 6:01 pm**

Thank you Syrinx for inviting me to this thread. I've had an enjoyable 15 mins reading what everyone is playing/reading. I have to agree with Kadael:

I played the Extended Cut DLC for Mass Effect 3's ending about a week ago. I don't feel like talking about it much.

but I got one bonus: it's put me off playing XBOX so I now have more time on my hands.

We played a great live game in town last week run by IGFest. It was called 2.8 Hours later we had to get across zombie-infested town centre using a map and coordinates. Most of the zombies were located in scenic run down buildings that the organisers had hired: churches, an old fire station complete with cells, a four storey bank lit only by candles. It was very scarey. If you got caught by a zombie you were marked with a UV pen which showed up later in the quarantine screening area and you were whisked off and made into a zombie. Here's one we met on the way, luckily a slow one.

Posted: **Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:32 pm**

I haven't gotten far in Civilization V lately, both due to a lack of time and the fact that wartime turns tend to take a lot longer than turns in peacetime, as much more planning is required. Still, I've made tremendous progress in blitzing through what's left of the Roman Empire. The turn after I took Rome, I caught Russia spying on me again. They had done it several turns before, early in my offensive against the Romans, but I'd had to let it go because I wasn't ready to face both of them. At this point I only had to finish mopping up Rome, so I declared on Russia. I was able to grab their annoying Great Prophet that was converting my cities to their religion, but it was useless to me as it could only spread their religion, so I just disbanded it. Luckily I just accumulated enough Faith to get a Great Prophet of my own religion, so now I can start converting my cities back. I also snatched their settler. At this point I'm shelling both the last Roman city of Arretium and the Russian city of Rostov. I should take Rostov this turn, as the Russian cities have poor defenses, but Arretium is a tougher nut to crack and it'll have to wait until next turn to finish them off. The Russians only have three other cities, so I'll make short work of them. At that point I'll have the whole continent to myself aside from my city-state allies. Once that's done, I'll relocate my forces overseas to my city-state allies on the other major continent and prepare to conquer the Celts, as they just denounced me after I declared war on Russia and I've caught them spying before, plus their own Great Prophet had been messing with my cities. When I eliminate them, all i have to do is take Carthage and I'll have won a Domination victory. The Celts and Carthaginians have been fighting each other for quite a long time, but neither side has enough of an advantage. Each of them has only three cities. I'm about to finish researching Ballistics, which will allow me to make machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, not that I need the latter. Then I just need Electronics, which lets me build battleships and carriers, and I'll enter the Atomic Age. My research just got a huge boost because I just finished building research labs in all of my cities.

I'm over a quarter of the way through The End of the Beginning. At the end of the previous book, Japan thwarted an American attempt to invade and retake Hawaii, defeating the Navy and sending the transports full of Marines packing back to California. Then they installed a puppet king and queen of the "independent" kingdom of Hawaii. It's now November 1942, and American submarines are wreaking havoc with Japan's supply lines to Hawaii, but they've got a ways to go before they can attempt to mount an invasion again.

I was able to borrow an old DVD player from my parents, so I'm at least able to watch DVDs while I try to get a replacement PS3. I just started Mad Nation.

Posted: **Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:34 pm**

Am starting A dance with dragons next weekend. I got it just as summer sprung but never got the hangmat up. Now I´m finishing up Nothing to lose by Lee Child. Yes, I find it hard to get time to read. Too many TV-series worth watching.
This summer I´ve watched a couple of cops-series.

On top of the list ranks The Wire and Southland. Those two are brutal and really good.

While reading Laraqua´s blog I started to think of what games I´ve played face to face, they are not many, but enjoyable.
On my RPG played-list are:

Ravenloft
The Temple of Elemental Evil
Desert of Desolation

Those three, of course are AD&D and in bits and pieces good modules. As with films, I tend to see what´s good in the product and disregard any flaws.
For RuneQuest I played Apple Lane and the Pavis campaign.
Traveller and Prison Planet was the scariest ever!

Those adventures might not seem a lot, but we made our own scenarios and played sessions where we changed GM ever so often.

I never got to play Masks of Nyarlathotep but heard about it when others spoke of Jackson Elias and the Carlyle expedition. It seemed to be a real historic event. As a CoC player I did my share of B&E:s. Can´t say I remember what it all was about, but we always tried to talk ourselves out of trouble.
That seldom worked.

The funniest rpg-moment ever was while playing Paranoia. A friend of mine had his hands clasped on a Computer interrogation booth when the Computer asks him if he´s part of a secret society and he says yes. Twice. He burns two clones at that booth. Hilarious. His character was honest and couldn´t lie. Then, he crosses the street (with 4 in APP) and we, the other jumpsuit troubleshooters, see how a driver spots the ugly nogget and puts the pedal down and rams him. One more down!

That´s what my memory tells me of the past. Bet I forgot everything that was horrible and dull. Those glimmers shine through.

Back to Laraqua, who is writing about video games to RPGs. I´d like to change the phrase to Movies to RPGs. My first thought is Tremors.
That film could be a neat scary scenario.
Firefly, already is made. I can´t watch that series and not think of Traveller.

Enough Saturday rambling. What about you guys, what did you play back in the day? Maybe still playing? And what film would make a good scenario?

Posted: **Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:12 pm**

I finished off Rome in Civilization V and then easily wiped out Russia. Now the whole continent is mine, and my expeditionary force has already landed on the other major landmass and is lining up on the Celtic border. Now I just have to wait until I catch them spying on me again before I unleash hell. Or maybe I won't bother waiting once everyone's in position and at maximum strength. It's not like I need an excuse, and my modern forces will easily squish the medieval units the Celts have. I could even fight both the Celts and the Carthaginians at the same time if I have to, and I may. They ended their war shortly after I beat Russia. The Celts have the Great Wall, which will slow me down, but it won't stop me. Even though it's peacetime now, the turns are still taking quite some time because I'm monitoring all of my conquered cities. Once I finish this game I'll start on the Tex Murphy series, beginning with Mean Streets. Then I intend to play the Broken Sword series in anticipation of the new game that was just funded on Kickstarter (in part thanks to me). I've played the first three games before, but never the director's cut of the first and never the remastered version of the second (or the fourth game at all, though I have it), plus it's been so long since I've played them. I'll be getting all of them free on GOG as one of my rewards.

I'm almost halfway done The End of the Beginning. It's Summer 1943, and the American invasion force is on its way to retake Hawaii. A huge naval battle is about to begin, and this time the Americans are ready and Japan is not.

I'm watching the second season of Enemy at the Door on DVD now. It very realistically portrays the situations that arise on the German-occupied Channel Islands in WWII, and the characters on both sides are very human and complex. I'm still waiting for GameStop to call me back, but they are going to replace my PS3 - it's just a matter of them working out how to do it.

I used to run Paranoia back in high school. I made up my own adventures for that one. One of them was a murder mystery - the victim was a previous clone of the NPC troubleshooter team leader. The PCs didn't solve the mystery, though. Instead, they ended up killing every NPC except the one who was actually the killer (including their team leader, I believe). I don't think they even suspected her, and she managed to get away with it. I used to play D&D in college and grad school, and I also played Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: the Masquerade.

I've been inspired more by TV series than movies when running my games here (Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, and Doctor Who), though the Romero zombie films are a big source for Zombie Apocalypse. So are Quentin Tarantino movies, at least the way I've been running it. Witty conversations, sudden violence, and gruesome endings for characters all abound. There was even a scene that played out somewhat like the end of Reservoir Dogs late in Chapter 3, with the farmer's zombified wife. The situation turned into a bloodbath when Alvarez shot her, and then the farmer shot him dead, taking off his other leg (Gardner had already cost him one earlier) - and then the zombie killed the farmer. Now there were three zombies, and things went downhill from there. Flynn and Jack both ended up dying, and Lauren nearly bought it as well when she climbed out the window and dropped onto the roof of the porch.

One book that would make an excellent scenario is Dracula, which I read last year. It felt exactly like a Gaslight Call of Cthulhu scenario.

Posted: **Sun Sep 23, 2012 1:21 pm**

Sunday.
What to watch?
I decided to check out some new series, new to me at least. The series decided upon was.

Revolution, post apocalyptic theme!
Flashpoint, never watched SWAT series...
Last resort, submarine crew dram, don´t know much more.
Lastly, I´ll watch the first episode of Scandal.
Four series with Scandal being out of my comfort zone

I´ll comment later tonight what I thought about the batch.
/Dave

Posted: **Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:57 pm**

I saw the first episode of Revolution, which was pretty good. I'm really looking forward to Last Resort, but I didn't think that was airing yet (it premieres Thursday here). I've never seen Flashpoint either, though I did watch the entire first season of Scandal, which I think you'll enjoy.

As I was lining my forces up on the Celts' border in Civ V, Boudicca called me on it. I could have said they were just passing through, but I decided to just declare war at that point. Unfortunately, it was on her turn, so she got to strike first, and one of her crossbowmen damaged one of my artillery units. It also hadn't had time to get into position yet, nor had a couple other units. Even so, I managed to take Cardiff last turn, and I barely missed being able to capture Dublin on the same turn. Instead, I'll polish it off this turn. I now have a WWII-era tank and bomber in Cardiff, where they can strike at anything they need to hit. I have a carrier, but it's not needed now that I have Cardiff. In a few turns, I should take Edinburgh and eliminate the Celts. That only leaves Carthage, who now has caravels and musketmen, but those didn't help the Romans any, and I fought them with WWI units. My destroyers may be able to seize their capital before my land forces even get near. I'm now midway through the atomic era, but I should win before I advance to the information era (the final age).

I've passed the halfway point of The End of the Beginning, and as expected the American fleet trounced Japan and sank both of their carriers. Onward to Hawaii!

Posted: **Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:08 pm**

The Voyage of a lifetime

Wherein the parties of the story leave Britain
due to a lost football match to maybe lose
yet another game. The chance game of life...
Four gentlemen of The Athenaeum Gentlemens´ club of Liverpool board the first class area of The Aquitania. The maiden voyage of the ship that a few weeks earlier had been furnished and made ready for her first trip across the ocean.
The misfortune of last day on the sea had cast a dark shadow over the festivities but people were still cheering as the passengers boarded the ocean liner.

The center of the club, the library, had been where they had decided on making the trip. It was just after Liverpool had got kicked out of the FA Cup they´d decided that it wasn´t worth staying. They had to find amusement elsewhere. It was mostly a bet that had caused for this drastic solution. "Should the Reds lose - we´ll emigrate!".
Promises made in wine - never end well. The most beautiful ship in the world sounded like a splendid alternative to watching some other team than the Reds take the cup.

Posh drinks and fancy women would easily change their mood. Once they´d get to New York they´d surely find something other to pique their interest.

They enter on C deck, along with the second class passengers, above the third class passengers. having been greeted by stewards and been offered a brochure on the ship´s restaurants and pass time activities their luggage arrive and is carried to their suite. As they enter their suites they quickly pick their beds. Then after getting the luggage unpacked they take the promenade to watch the ship leave the landing. Beverages are served on silver trays and they move up a deck only to discover there´s a swimming pool sitting invitingly waiting for them.

Keep your light on...

Hmm, I´m considering having a stab at this old idea. First, just a brief outline that can be winged here on the site to see if it´s playable. Is there ant interest in writing some more on the bits of this scenario? Anyone?
We could keep the grand schemes to other scenarios. As I see it things can grow to humongous proportions really fast if we don´t think small.

Back to the TV-series of last night:
I´m definitely watching Last Resort as it airs more episodes. I liked the cast and see some great ideas brewing in the plot.
Revolution is a bit half hearted, I think. A mixture of things seen before. Not bad but not good either, just not all there. As always, just my thoughts.
Flashpoint and Scandal might be recurring on my watchlist, they didn´t pop though.

The winner ultimately is Last Resort.

Posted: **Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:17 am**

I'm still interested in the Aquitania scenario. I'm still pretty busy, though, especially with all the preparation I have to do for The Shadow Over Dunwich, but I'd contribute as I can. The first WWIII segment is a small (though crucial) part of the much larger war, so it need not be overly complex. The war and the events leading up to it are there as a backdrop, and many of the details can be glossed over. I've already plotted out the general course of the war, and not all that many specifics are needed.

Revolution's second episode is on now, but I'm not watching it because the Castle season premeire is on. Revolution will reair on Saturday night, but I'll be busy then. I'm definitely planning on watching Last Resort when it premieres on Thursday night; the concept alone sounds excellent.

Last night I won my game of Civ V. Dublin fell as expected, and I took Edinburgh the very next turn. The turn after that I declared war on Carthage, and all I needed to do was take their capital, so I ignored their other two cities. My destroyers made fast work of their navy, capturing most of it as prize ships. One destroyer specialized in coastal raiding took advantage of an opening through Carthage's waters to raid the capital after my bomber softened it up. The turn after that, my bomber struck again and my destroyer seized the city. Game over! Next up is Mean Streets. I may have ten minutes to play it tonight, but I don't think I'll get much past the intro. I should have more time on Wednesday to get into it.

In The End of the Beginning, American planes are blasting Japanese bases and positions in Hawaii in preparation for landing the invasion forces.

My replacement PS3 should be shipped in by the end of the week.

Posted: **Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:26 pm**

I´m considering reading Doctor Glass(1905) by Hjalmar Söderberg, one of Sweden´s classic writers.

One wants to be loved,
in lack thereof admired,
in lack thereof feared,
in lack thereof loathed and despised.

One wants to instill some sort of emotion in people.
The soul trembles before emptiness and desires contact at any price.

This rhymes well with the core of being a Keeper of a Call of Cthulhu game.

Will trot over to the library and retrieve a copy. Love and deceit should be the theme...

Posted: **Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:16 am**

I've only had a little over half an hour to play Mean Streets so far. I've gotten used to the interface and am now accustomed to flying my speeder and searching a room. I'm finding some interesting clues already, but I have a long way to go before I unravel the mystery.

The Marines are coming ashore on Oahu in The End of The Beginning. I'm a little over 3/5 of the way through the book now.

Posted: **Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:28 am**

Another great return.

Person of Interest relaunched, and what a beginning. I really enjoyed seeing the show again. Now, my watch list is almost back to normal.
Tonight, I´m guessing I start the last season of Dexter. Hoping for a good ending.

In the future only two shows remain to be continued. The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Those four are why I have a TV at home.
The rest are only... substitutes.

Game of Thrones
Person of Interest
Dexter
The Walking Dead

Which are your Big Four?

Posted: **Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:31 pm**

The Walking Dead is on my list too, as is Doctor Who (which just wrapped up the first part of a split season and saw two companions who had been around for over two years depart). I'm not sure what other shows I'd add.

I don't have any premium cable channels, so I can't watch Game of Thrones or Dexter, though I did see some early episodes of Dexter during a free preview or something. Person of Interest is great, though I missed so much of the first season. I did catch the premiere last week. Last Resort was awesome, and I'm looking forward to more.

I've gotten pretty far in Mean Streets, which is not as big a game as it seems. You can go anywhere in California and western Nevada, but there are only a certain number of interesting locations. I don't know if I'll finish the game tonight, but it is possible. Martian Memorandum, the second Tex Murphy game, is next.

I played my first multiplayer game of Mage Knight with Job and taokan, who came over for a visit yesterday. We played the tutorial First Reconaissance scenario, and taokan won. I got off to a slow start and came in third, but I managed to catch up enough that I wasn't too far behind. We stopped at The Compleat Strategist before and bought some games. I got a solitaire game called Struggle for the Galactic Empire, a science fiction game where you have to manage and expand a large interstellar empire, develop technologies, and deal with internal and external threats. I also picked up The Most Dangerous Game, an expansion for When Darkness Comes... that's out of print and is the only one I didn't have, and The Coast, a big expansion for A Touch of Evil. I don't know when I'll get the chance to play them.

I'm about 70% of the way done The End of the Beginning. The Americans are closing in on Wahiawa, in the middle of Oahu. I just bought Hornet Flight by Ken Follett, a WWII novel of his that I've always meant to read but never got around to it, for $1 at a book sale in my building. That's next on my list.

I'm finishing up the newly released Doctor Who DVDs. I watched Planet of Giants, the first story of the second season of the original show in 1964. It was originally a four part story, but it was edited down to three parts (with episodes three and four cut down and merged into a single episode). The original parts three and four never aired and were lost when the BBC wiped its archives, but they reconstructed them using the scripts, footage from the existing episodes, animation, and voice acting from the two surviving actors and impressionists doing the voices of the other characters and included the reconstructions as special features on the DVD. I finished Vengeance on Varos Special Edition and am now starting the special features. I previously watched the first seven episodes of the second season of Enemy at the Door, and I plan to watch the remaining six next.

Posted: **Sat Oct 20, 2012 4:15 pm**

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Tom Mead http://www.mrmead.co.uk last night at a art auction find-raising event. I didn't realise until I got there that it was in aid of a candidate's campaign for the new city mayor. Still, Mead's work was the best thing on the wall and I'm still seriously considering buying an original if I can cope with having such an unearthly drawing in the house. Tom listed his influences, which included H.P. Lovecraft; his is described as cathartic art and he says he can't help himself, he just has to produce the images in his head. Have we met one or two artists of his type in various C of C games?

I am also talking to Jim Mortimore (Dr. Who, Farscape, Babylon 5 novel and episode writer) about illustrating his new graphic novel, watching my first TV drama in years- Game of Thrones and replaying Skyrim as an imperial thief.

Posted: **Sat Oct 20, 2012 7:34 pm**

I finished Mean Streets, which was a bigger game than I had thought at first, on the morning of Saturday, October 5. Then I played through Martian Memorandum over the rest of the three-day weekend. Last week I started Under a Killing Moon, and I'm now a little more than 40% done. This is the only Tex Murphy game I had played before, but it was so long ago that everything's new to me because I hardly remember it.

I finished The End of the Beginning and had started Hornet Flight, but I've set that aside for now to read The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. I'm over a fifth of the way through that, and it's very good so far. I had read his first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, last year.

I finished watching Enemy at the Door and am now making my way through Jeeves and Wooster, which I'd bought a couple years ago but hadn't gotten around to seeing yet. It stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, and it's hysterical. I'm a little more than halfway done, currently on the second episode of season three. I finally got my replacement PS3 two weeks ago.

Posted: **Sun Nov 11, 2012 9:08 pm**

Just watched the first part of the Coma remake.
One thing that caught my mind was this house.

Sure feels like the house on one of the rule books, right?

Posted: **Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:40 am**

Yes, it looks almost non-Euclidean.

I finished Under a Killing Moon before I left for London and am now about 3/4 of the way through The Pandora Directive.

I finished The Girl Who Played with Fire right before I left, and this morning I returned it to the library and checked out The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which I've started reading and am enjoying. I had been wondering how everything from the second book would be resolved as I was getting closer to the end, since there were so many loose ends, and then I realized that it would take the third book to do it.

In London I bought a bunch of board games. Star Trek: Expeditions is a fun game by Reiner Knizia and is set in the rebooted Star Trek universe created in the 2009 movie. I did pretty well my first time out, though I was playing on the easiest level. Defenders of the Realm is a fantasy game which uses a similar mechanism to Pandemic for the armies of darkness to spread out and taint the land, but there is a lot more going on. I barely won my first game. The hero I randomly drew, the wizard, is quite powerful, so it would probably be even more challenging with a different one. There's a built-in mechanism to increase the difficulty as you make progress, which keeps the endgame interesting rather than making it a dull mopping-up phase. Dungeon Run is a fun little dungeon crawl that's different every time. The single player variant is short and very hard. It took me several attempts, but I finally prevailed with Stabbins the goblin rogue. His arsenal of dirty tricks made it possible for him to defeat the boss monster (which was a fire-breathing dragon in that game). I also got Boots on the Ground, which pits special forces teams against terrorist insurgents in an urban setting, though I haven't had time to play it yet. I also bought some gamebooks that I can't get in America: Blood of the Zombies, the new 30th anniversary Fighting Fantasy book, as well as the first two DestinyQuest books. These are brand new (the second one only appeared in stores as I reached London) and only available in the UK. They are massive books, with nearly a thousand numbered sections and six or seven hundred pages. I've started on the first one, but I had extremely bad luck on my first two tries, getting killed by a couple of goblins I encountered at the beginning of the first "easy" quest I tried. My third attempt was better, and I completed all of the easy quests and figured out the optimal order to attempt them (the one with the goblins should be done last), but I died on the first "moderate" quest I tried, again due to very bad luck. I also bought the soundtracks for the remaining missing episodes of Doctor Who on CD, completing my collection of them.

I finished Jeeves and Wooster and watched the extended collector's cut of Avatar and the first disc of bonus material. I'll wait to watch the other bonus disc until after I finish the two new Doctor Who DVDs that arrived while I was gone. I'm watching the special edition of Claws of Axos, and then I'll watch Disc 2 of the special edition of Resurrection of the Daleks; I had to buy another copy after my first Disc 2 got stuck in my dead PS3 in September.

Posted: **Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:01 pm**

Lately, I´ve been addicted to the TV-series Flashpoint. Good that there were four seasons to watch.
Of the TV-series mentioned before, they trailed off. Last Resort, Revolution and Scandal had nothing to compare to the SRU-series.

Halfway into the new season of The Walking Dead, I´m enjoying myself. I also checked out the game. (Telltale Games) Gruesome!
Dexter is back on my watch list.

I bought the core rules for Götterdämmerung. I´m in the middle of the secret societies bit.
Other recent purchases are the Lifeboard board game for Fallen Reich. I also have the rules.

I managed to hunt down a series of 1939 scenarios for OP:Fallen Reich as well. This will make a great campaign some day...

Posted: **Sun Dec 02, 2012 11:16 pm**

That Lifeboard looks awesome! I've never heard of it before and can't find anything about it on BoardGameGeek. I'd love to play Fallen Reich.

I missed a bunch of episodes of the TV shows I usually watch while I was away on vacation, including two episodes of The Walking Dead. Luckily, AMC has a marathon today before the new episode, so I'll be able to catch up. I missed three episodes of Burn Notice's new half-season, but I did manage to watch the first of those.

I finished Pandora Directive a week and a half ago and am making excellent progress in Overseer, the fifth Tex Murphy game. It's a retelling of Mean Streets, but with so much more added and changed, and there are plenty of new surprises. I'm most of the way done that, but I won't finish tonight. When I do, I plan to start playing through the Broken Sword series, starting with Circle of Blood. I've played the first three before, but never the Director's Cut of the first game or the remastered version of the second (or the fourth game, period). This is in preparation for when the new fifth game comes out next year.

I'm over 3/4 of the way done The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, and I'm fast approaching the point where the bad guys' house of cards comes crashing down and they get exposed. Should be awesome! I also ordered the reprints of the first six Fabled Lands gamebooks, which I had never seen before either in the original or the new editions, from Amazon. I got one free as part of a 4 for 3 promotion, and they should arrive in a couple of weeks.

I ordered the last copy of Fortune and Glory from Noble Knight Games during their sale, where it was $72 instead of the usual $100, plus shipping is only $10 instead of $22 or so when ordering from Flying Frog. It should get here later this coming week, so I'm hoping I'll have a chance to try it next weekend.

Who watches the Watchmen? I do! I just started watching the Director's Cut of the Watchmen movie after finishing both the Doctor Who DVDs and the last Avatar bonus disc (though I didn't have time to read the entire scriptment, screenplay, and Pandorapedia - which alone has 449 pages). After that, I plan to watch Tales from the Black Freighter with Under the Hood, and then the complete Watchmen Motion Comic. All of them are on Blu-ray. I first read Watchmen last year, and it'll be great to see it with animation and voices.

Posted: **Sun Dec 02, 2012 11:45 pm**

A review of the game at Boardgamegeek: OP:FR
Cheers mate!

Posted: **Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:07 pm**

I have now scanned the game board and all cards. Next, I have to arrange and edit all files to make them useful as game aids for rolling up a character.
If someone want to try to roll/play up a character for Call of Cthulhu using those rules.
I´m game to host a forum for that purpose.

As I see it, characters for Operation Fallen Reich will be between 35 and 55 years old. My idea is that they will have lived an exciting life before joining the British Secret Service which is labeled OP:FR.

When beginning creating a character I will hand out five cards, randomly with starting careers and traits. Pick one of the careers and the traits from the remaining four cards. This will be the base we start off from.
One point on the cards will translate to 5% for Call of Cthulhu skills.

Sample Career Cards

The head office of OP:FR is Central Library.
One of the departments of CL is King´s Cross Badminton Club, a possible branch for the players to join.
Below is some back story to said department.

After finishing the character, the character gets some extra training in the society he or she chooses.

Anyone?

King's Cross Badminton Club
The Players

This is the in depth description of the tad more highbrow — but definitely effective — company and its colourful commander.
Indoor court in London

As the name implies the badminton club was situated on King’s Cross Road in London. Each day the staff — mostly classy women and possible agents — arrived with sport bags and rackets. Oddly enough the badminton courts were filled with games since the staff didn’t exactly have a lot to do.

The president of the Club, Sir Percy Carmichael, encouraged the independence and initiative of the different groups and personally handled many of the reports. He wasn’t specially particular with keeping notes or files of events, instead he keeped most of it in his head. The task of the staff therefore became more decorative than functional.

The lack of a proper archive would prove to have a practical advantage, since the badminton courts was hit by bombs during the war no less then three times. Some claimed that the bombers were attracted by the huge emblem of the club painted on the roof, it’s also a possibility that the true activites of the club were known to the germans. Anyway, the bombs caused very little effect and the emblem was painted back after each bombing on the orders of Sir Carmichael.

President Sir Carmichael

Just before the war, Sir Carmichael, was a leading diplomat. In 1914 he took the credit for being one of the responsible for starting the war — by not attending a final diplomatic meeting to save the peace. He didn’t mention the fact that he overslept, due to spending a more than exciting night with two russian mistresses. Since the war was meet with cheers he even managed to get knighted before the popularity took a severe fall with the realisation of enormous number of casualties.

After being assigned an obscure desk job he resigned in 1918 and started a business that would make him excessively wealthy. Sir Carmichael is the image of a wealthy, skirt loving playboy in the prime of his life. He’s good looking, unbelievably charming and rather inconsiderate.

This is a man with no scruples — he started the bloodiest war in history and sleeps well at night after a lesser orgy. Sir Carmichael is a very competitive man and loves seeing his agents perform spectacular and remarkable heists. But he is also a man of a sharp intellect, as long as he’s not distracted by beautiful ladies, which as least according to Sir Carmichael himself is all to seldom.
No everyday missions, please

The Players has a liking for sensational operations, at the same time they are the most skilled company in stealth missions. They preferably keep to the high society lifestyle, seem a tad highbrow and they prefer cunning to violence. Mostly active on the continent they have an an extensive network i larger parts of europe (with the exception of Germany) and are able to perform complex missions almost anywhere. Although, as a rule, they avoid frontline assignments.

Mission summary #1:
The Destruction of the SS Skull Rings

The raid of Castle Wewelsburg is a classic mission of the Club. This medieval castle was the spiritual headquarters of the SS, rites were performed and courses in the art of war, archeology, myths and astronomy filled the agenda. Early on the Kings Cross Badminton Club took an interest in the place, and managed to identify that in the castle was situated a small chest containing all the rings from fallen SS-soldiers.

A small hand picked team was assembled. Assassinating a group of swedish and danish nazis on their way to the castle — the group managed under false identity to infiltrate the castle and make their way to the chest. The objective was to let a priest do a blessing of the rings and then blow them up. What actually happened is unclear. Only one member of the team managed to escape and somehow make her way to Sweden. Unfortunately she had aged 50 years and died of heart failure shortly after her arrival. She is said to have rambled on about destroyed rings before she past on at a hospital in the city of Malmö. Sir Carmichael took this as a sign of success and the club celebrated with champagne and canapés.

Mission summary #2:
The Kidnapping of Antonio Verdici

Antonio Verdici was one of Europe’s most reliable psychics with a special flair for predicting death and illness of prominent persons. He also had a severe gambling obsession and toured the casinos of Europe spending all the Deutsch Mark the Nazis gave him. Unfortunately his gifts were of very little use at the roulette table, except for one time when he predicted the death of the croupier, made an astronomical bet on number 36 and put the ball on the right number when everybody was helping the dying man.

The Players first plan was obviously to kill him, but after two disastrous attempts the Players realized that it will never work. Instead an advanced kidnapping plan was set in motion. With the help of a hypnotizing roulette wheel and a bribed casino manager in Monte Carlo they managed kidnap not only him but also one of Mussolini’s cousin and German general. After being relieved of his gag, Verdici claimed to be predicting the death of all the members of the team, himself, the cousin and the General. By now however the team had realized that his prediction could be altered and they swiftly changed plan. Instead of crossing the border to Switzerland they only sent a decoy car. It was shot to pieces before getting even close to the border station.

Instead the team got hold of a pilot who could fly them out, but on the airfield they ran into a Hussarian rescue team, in the ensuring fight all was gunned down except for Verdici and Moussolin’s cousin who both ran to and boarded the aircraft and took off by themselves. Verdici had heard about Havana’s gambling dens from one of the agents and was filed with an unbending desire to visit them. However, after the hypnotizing roulette wheel his psychic abilities was no more. He was believed to have been killed when his ship was torpedoed on the way to Cuba.

Mission summary #3:
The Burning of the Library of Castilé

This is by most people seen as an act of extreme vandalism as the library contained many unique and historically invaluable volumes including “Abyssus Abyssum Invocat” and early manuscripts of “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”. Hidden amongst the thousands of other books were also several potent scripts on occult and terrible matters. Not even the methodical Germans had managed to find a scheme on how to uncover them and a small staff of historians worked there since the occupation. A team of Player agents posing as a German film crew managed to get into the castle, following ancient scripts found previously in Marseille they got their hands on two dangerous documents and had leads on several more. They were however interrupted by Gestapo, after a brutal fight most of the team was killed but two survivors manages to set the library on fire and get the French to blame Gestapo. A bad day for both Nazis and historians all over Europe, but a very glorious day indeed for the two surviving agents and the Players in general.

Kings Cross Badminton Club

This is were a gentleman or a lady gets training in the noble art of espionage.
Skills: German, Shadowing, Stealth, Photography, Observation, Searching, Interrogation, Lock Pick, Acting/Disguise.
Mandatory: Clubs and Etiquette.

Posted: **Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:08 am**

This looks great! I'd certainly like to give it a try.

Fortune and Glory arrived, and the game looks awesome! I won't have time to read much of the rules (let alone play the game) until the weekend.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 10:26 am**

I'd like to give that a try too - id it's not too late? Have been reading your threads on the game with ever increasing interest

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 4:01 pm**

Never to late, Sir!

Always a pleasure to get the attention of your superiors. I´ll be sending the first four cards your way during the next couple of days, Mr. Handy´s character is wrapping up and we´re trying to get the OP-FR/CoC rules to work out without too many glitches.

Regarding an actual game, I´m launching another game before the Fallen Operations.
But when we set off at Oxford, I´ll send you a letter good Sir.

Jolly good to have you joining the ranks, Lee.

/Dave

Posted: **Fri Dec 21, 2012 6:01 am**

I finished Overseer a week and a half ago and have started playing the original version of Broken Sword 1. I'm more than halfway through, and I hope to complete it and start on the second game (original version) this weekend.

After finishing The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which was excellent, and I'm now reading Hornet Flight, which is great. I'm more than halfway done now.

I got through all of the Watchmen material and have started watching Rome on Blu-ray. I picked up both seasons when they were on sale for $20 each. I've seen the first two episodes so far, and it's quite good. It reminds me of how much I miss Cthulhu Invictus. I haven't played that in quite some time.

I've only had time so far to play two games of Fortune and Glory, which is every bit as awesome as I'd expected. My first game pitted me as Jacques Moreau, tomb robber, against the Chicago mob in a race to secure dangerous ancient artifacts. It was a quick game, lasting only six turns. Half of the artifacts in the game ended up in Africa, and my starting city was Cairo, right nearby. On my first turn I went to the Ivory Coast to try to retrieve The Helmet of the Azure Jewels before one of the villains showed up. Unfortunately, the first of two dangers I needed to face brought a villain to the site, and I failed to sneak past, which resulted in me getting captured after a brief fight. The villains also got a huge boost from a random event that sped up their search for the artifacts, and one of them recovered The Armor of the Cursed Eye. On the second turn, I managed to escape from the villain and snatch the helmet right out from under him. On the third turn I made my way to New York to sell the artifact for Fortune, which I need to amass to win the game. Meanwhile, the mob spread its operations. They started with HQ in Chicago and an outpost in New Orleans, and most of the random locations where they spread were in the USA, though they did deploy thugs in Berlin. They opened a new outpost in Los Angeles and recovered another artifact, The Book of Hades. Their outposts also generated a lot of cash that brought them gradually closer to victory. I decided it was more efficient to raid the mob and steal the artifacts that they'd already collected than to go hunting them down, especially since Moreau is combat oriented. I went to L.A. on the fourth turn to raid the outpost. Luckily, I managed to find a revolver, which helped out immensely. I raided the outpost and was intercepted by three mobsters. They should have been easy, but I had bad luck in the third fight and we took each other down. I still managed to shut down their outpost and steal the armor, and I was lucky that I got to keep the armor after getting knocked out. I got sent back to Cairo. On the fifth turn I made for Paris, where I got help from a friend of the "Family" based in New York and sold the armor for a lot of Fortune. I only needed one more artifact to win, so I went to Chicago on turn six and raided the HQ. Again, I had to face three mobsters, only this time I clobbered them with no problem. I stole the book and immediately sold it, winning the game.

My second game didn't go as well. I was Doctor Zhukov, master of science, battling against the Nazis. Appropriately, the randoml location of their first secret base, zeppelin, and first soldier was in Germany. The game started off almost exactly the same way, but I experienced more setbacks as I played. I was raiding the Nazi base to get the last artifact I needed to win when the Nazis got enough victory points due to a sudden spurt.

Posted: **Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:26 pm**

Currently at The Hobbit.... Better put down the phone... Don't want to get it confiscated...

*********

Well, out from the cinema, I can just say. Wow! HD, 3D and never out of focus anywhere. Even the grime looked pristine. Might be the only thing that I can complain on. Might be I´m getting too old for super realism.

Neat gap-filling in the plot by Jackson and crew.

Stellar performance by Smeagol/Gollum.

And lastly, great to see dwarves standing tall! Never saw that coming.

Posted: **Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:42 am**

I saw The Hobbit last weekend on IMAX, but I forgot to mention it last night. It was not as good as the Lord of the Rings movies, but still great! Loved seeing Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor from Doctor Who) as Radagast the Brown!

Posted: **Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:03 am**

I played another quick game of Fortune and Glory today, and it was a close one! I played race car driver Shelly Hargrove, and I was battling against the mob. I started out in Paris, and the mob's initial hideout was in Washington, D.C. I quickly made for an artifact in Scandavia, but despite my car's movement bonus, I rolled poorly and couldn't get there on the first turn, though at least I picked up a couple of useful Event cards on the way. I did eventually get there and retrieved the artifact after two more turns, then went to Moscow to sell it for Fortune. Meanwhile, the mob was expanding, deploying a thug into London and getting deeply entrenched in China. They moved another thug into Shanghai, then coincidentally established a hideout and a thug in Hong Kong within the same turn. I went to get the Spear of the Monkey God in Arabia, but the villains had been busy. They collected a few artifacts and were racking up victory points. Also, Nazi femme fatale Tresa put in a guest appearance, but I managed to sneak past her. While diving to retrieve the spear, I was attacked by a shark and barely survived thanks to my Spunky special ability that let me spend Glory to heal wounds. I managed to beat the shark and get the spear, but on their turn the villains reached 17 victory points out of the 20 they needed. They also built a new hideout in Paris. I knew I only had one turn left, as the villains would almost certainly win on their next turn. I hatched a desparate plan to hurry back to Paris and try to sneak into the hideout and steal an artifact in spite of my lack of combat skills and weapons. If I succeeded, I could cash in both that artifact and the Spear for enough Fortune to win. When I arrived in Paris, the random City card gave me a secret delivery mission that would give me 1d6 Fortune if I delivered a package to...Paris! I was able to instantly deliver it and rolled high enough (a 5) that I didn't need to go into the outpost after all - I just traded in the Spear and won!

I've set up for the next game, but I haven't started yet. I drew Shelly as my hero again, but this time she's facing the Nazis, led by occultist Herr Teufel and Tresa. Two of the starting artifacts are in Western Europe (The Valley of the Dead) and Germany (The Sword of the Sacred Stone). All of the initial artifacts are worth a good deal of Fortune. Herr Teufel is already in Western Europe looking for the Valley's treasure, so I'm planning to slip into Germany and get the Sword. Even if I can't get it in one turn, Tresa is still going to go for an even more valuable artifact somewhere else, so I shouldn't run into her. The Nazis' first secret base and accompanying soldier and zeppelin start in South Africa, thankfully far from everything.

Posted: **Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:18 am**

Hah! It sounds like a OP:FR scenario. Nazis, Zeppelins and world dominion.

On another note, I was at the mall today and bought a 7" touch pad for the wifey. It will do nicely as a reading pad (or gaming pad). The usual ipad is too large to carry around, if you ask me. And an iphone is a bit too small to read from.
Hence the 7" choice.
While walking aisles, I walked by the US department. What caught my eye was the chocolate stand. Hershel´s dairy/chocolate bars! The Walking Dead...
No.. wait. Hershey´s bars. Close enough for me. Bought a bunch and wrapped for the kids.

Another Lee Childs novel "Gone tomorrow" sits on my side of the sofa. As is a historical novel about the Swedish / Russian battle of Poltava. "The Ratan Affair" by Björn Holm.

Posted: **Mon Dec 24, 2012 12:04 am**

The inspiration for this game is more Indiana Jones, though I can see the similarities. Fortune and Glory takes place in the late 1930s, before the war starts in Europe, though some of what the Nazis can do in the game makes it seem like the war is already underway. They can deploy soldiers randomly anywhere in the world, either from their secret bases or their zeppelin (which is similar to a mobile base), and the Vile Tactics card also lets them send them out and try to hunt you down or occupy cities near their soldiers, which means you'll have to fight tougher Nazis in order to get access to those cities. In my first game against them, they only managed to occupy Berlin and Venice, which at least made sense historically, though it's quite possible for them to occupy any cities in the world, including those in America.

I played two games today, both of them pretty fast. Now that I'm becoming more familiar with the rules it goes faster. Still, I keep forgetting them sometimes, particularly the ability to exert by taking wounds to get extra dice on Cliffhangers and my characters' special abilities. My first game didn't go very well, as I kept messing up trying to retrieve the sword in Germany. I got knocked out twice, forgetting that I could try exerting to improve my chances, but on the third attempt I finally managed to get it. However, it was too little, too late. The Nazis did very well early on, and their soldiers spread out very quickly. I had an Event card that gave me a chance to steal an artifact from a villain, but there was no time and that wouldn't have given me enough to win. Three of the artifacts at the end were in Australia and New Zealand, so I headed to Bombay first to sell the sword instead of New York. The City card I drew was a Secret Delivery for New York, which would have meant 1d6 Fortune had I gone that way instead. I still would have needed to steal something even if I had rolled high, though.

My second game got off to a slow start. I played reclusive novelist Alexander Cartwright against the mob. They took an early lead, getting five out of twenty victory points on the first turn, but they got bogged down and took forever to find the next couple of artifacts. It took me two tries to get an artifact that popped up at the start in Greece (if I'd remembered I could exert I'd probably have had it in one). I unloaded it and went for another one quickly in the steppes of central Asia, selling that just in time for a temple to pop up on Madagascar. The villains were otherwise occupied, so I had time to slip in there before they arrived. WIth temples, you earn Fortune as you go, so I was able to win there without having to return to a city to sell an artifact.

So far, I've won every time I've faced the mob, but I've lost to the Nazis every time. Maybe now that I've mastered the rules better I'll be able to beat them too with a little luck.

Posted: **Tue Dec 25, 2012 10:41 am**

I had a dream last night that I remember. Which is unusual. As with all dreams it lacks a reason for things happening. This dream had a clear story, what was lacking was the beginning. I stumble in when searching for a wounded bad guy.

Hospital mayhem

The agents arrive at the observation room where the spy is being kept.
The sounded spy is gone, a nurse says that an unknown man in doctor´s coat was rushing the patient to the OR.
The wounded spy is taken via corridors cross-crossing through the hospital floor.
A flurry of a hunt ensue.
After loosing and recovering sight of the escaping duo, they are caught up at an elevator bay. The two escape moving upwards (they are currently at mid level of the hospital 8 floors.

Catching a second elevator, clinging to the outer wall of the hospital, some of the team members take up chase that way. While the others take the stairs.

When in the crammed glass elevator facing the entrance below with hot dog stand and bus terminal, there´s an explosion underneath the glass carriage. The floor drops away and all inside the elevator try to cling to each other or a hold on the walls. Miraculously they all get a grip, but only after falling a bit.

A woman, second to the bottom has caught a man who fell unconscious to his death and grab him by the coat. She swings him in an arc and drops him to the roof of the hot dog stand. Then she herself lets go and jumps to the roof, three floors down!

The remaining agents climb up and manages to pry up the elevator doors and reach safety.

Just about there, I wake up and wonder how it all ends.

When getting up, having breakfast, and nibbling on the Christmas treats I start my read through the 116 pages of The Second Chapter of The Masks Companion, an unexpected gift from Yoggie.

Posted: **Tue Dec 25, 2012 9:47 pm**

That is an awesome dream! I also don't usually remember my dreams. Once I wake up, I usually have to run around like crazy to get to work on time. I also never get enough sleep, which doesn't help with remembering things.

I played another game of Fortune and Glory today, and it went fast. I played flying ace Jake Zane against the mob this time, and I won handily. I've now played five of the eight heroes so far, but there are still many things about this game that I haven't seen yet. After my first adventure, I got a free revolver when I went to Hong Kong to sell the Book of Illusion, which helped immensely (Jake isn't bad at combat even without it). A mobster thug showed up there afterwards, but I took care of him with no problem. The villains had really bad luck, their search for artifacts slow and causing them a good deal of injury. Seductive singer and mob operative Vanessa Love managed to raid an ancient temple and take its treasure, while hitman "Icebox" Eddie was getting lost and hurt in another one in the American heartland. I headed there next, rolling enough on movement that I didn't even need to use my plane, so that I could keep Eddie from recovering the treasure there. I got lost in the maze of caves and had to fight my way past a cultist of the Order of the Crimson Hand and score a single point of Fortune, but the temple collapsed. I managed to escape in one piece, but Eddie wasn't so lucky. He didn't get well enough to go back to artifact hunting until after the game was over. The mob had gotten a couple of new hideouts in Paris and Moscow which were helping them rack up victory points, so I raided the outpost in Paris. I only got intercepted by one mobster and killed him in the first round, then stole the temple treasure they had recovered and trashed the place. Also in Paris, I got a secret delivery mission to Moscow. There was another hideout I could raid there anyway even though the villains had not recovered any other artifacts to steal, but it was not necessary. I went to Moscow in the following turn and rolled a 6 for the Fortune I gained from the delivery. Then I sold the treasure, which gave me enough Fortune to win the game.

I finally finished Broken Sword 1 today. I only needed two hints for some very obscure things I needed to do, but I probably could have figured it out if I'd just kept at it long enough. I started the second game, but I haven't gotten far at all yet.

I'm in the middle of the eighth episode of Rome, which is excellent. It follows two soldiers, centurion Lucius Vorenus and legionary Titus Pullo, as they move through and influence key events in Roman history. They are real people mentioned in Julius Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars, though I'm sure they invented their postwar exploits and the necessary details about their personalities and family lives for the show. It starts with Caesar completing his conquest of Gaul and being ordered back to Rome by Pompey, which quickly escalates into civil war and the end of the Republic. Pompey died at the end of episode seven, and now Caesar is in Egypt. King Ptolemy (who is just a child) and his advisors thought Caesar would be pleased when the killed Pompey after he fled to Egypt and offered his head to Caesar, but they couldn't have been more wrong - he was seriously pissed off at them for murdering the Roman consul.

I'm almost finished Hornet Flight - our heroes have just caught sight of the coast of England. After that, I plan to continue with the first DestinyQuest book.

Posted: **Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:40 am**

So today I got a shiny new gaming computer! I haven't had any time to really try it out, since I've been reinstalling all my old things, but it's quiet, it glows a nice blue color, and I'm no longer trying to run The Sims 3 on a sandwich toaster.

I'm a little concerned about my old games being able to run (hello, 1998, your polygons are calling), but I do have some newer games that'll work just fine. Like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and L.A. Noire... which I guess don't count as new anymore, but that just means they were cheap.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a lot of fun! I'm not very good at it, though, and I keep getting attached to my soldiers. My brother complains that I visit the memorial too often.

If anybody likes browser/textish games, they should join me on Improbable Island and fight malfunctioning rice cookers or build houses or something.

Posted: **Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:57 pm**

I've played a few more games of Fortune and Glory, and in my last one I finally beat the Nazis. Of course, this was only the third time I played against them, as I kept drawing the Mob as the random Vile Organization. I was Jacques Moreau again, and he's very good at kicking Nazi butt. I rolled poorly for movement on my first two turns and couldn't reach any of the initial artifacts, but I was able to reach the secret Nazi base in the Himalayas on the second turn. I clobbered the Nazi soldier guarding the area, and it took me a few turns to get through the dangers in order to find it, but it also took the Nazis that long to retrieve an artifact - which I promptly stole when I destroyed the base, thus keeping them from flooding the world with too many troops. I brought it back to Moscow, where there was an auction, the first time I'd ever seen one come up. Then I went into Eastern Europe, beating the Nazi soldier that was there and finding another artifact, which I also sold at auction in Moscow. Both artifacts sold for the list amount of Fortune. I was running out of time, as the Nazis were finding too many artifacts and racking up victory points, but I was well equipped. The Nazi war zeppelin happened to be in Germany, so I hurried over there to sneak aboard and steal one more artifact that would give me the win when I sold it. A couple of Nazis did intecept me, and I forgot that I could have used my Driving Gloves to reroll and probably evade one of them, but it didn't matter. The President was my ally, and I used his special ability to defeat one of them automatically. I couldn't use my Rifle aboard the zeppelin, but Jacques is great at fighting even without it and I took out the other Nazi without a scratch. I swiped the artifact and destroyed the zeppelin, though they got a new one at the end of the turn in the Sahara. The next turn, I went to Moscow, used the President's special ability to take care of the mobster thug there, and sold the artifact at auction for an incredibly high price, giving me far more than enough Fortune to win. I think I'll give this game a rest for now and play some of the others, starting with Struggle for the Galactic Empire, which I got three months ago. I just need to finish reading the rules.

I'm in the middle of Broken Sword 2 and doing well, so far not needing a single hint. I'm hoping to finish within a week. I've found that DosBox is very useful for running my old games, and I also have a bunch on GOG that use it. I also only buy games after they become cheap, which is how I've ended up with hundreds of games that cost a handful of bucks each. Now I just need time to play them all. During the Steam sale I've picked up more games I may never have time to play. I picked up the complete Civ IV for $7.50. While I have the base game and the second expansion (Beyond the Sword), I didn't have the first expansion (Warlords) or the Colonization remake. They also finally made an upgrade from the standard edition of Civ V to the Game of the Year edition, so I was able to get all of that DLC when it was on sale for a mere $5.00.

I'm in the middle of the twelfth and final episode of Rome's first season, where (spoiler alert!) Julius Caesar is going to be assassinated.

I finished Hornet Flight and got back into DestinyQuest Book 1. I managed to complete all of the easy and moderate quests in Act I, but the first hard quest I tried ended with me getting killed by a giant spider, the final monster in that quest. Though we were evenly matched, I couldn't land a single hit due to extraordinarily bad luck. I've restarted and am currently working on the final easy quest.

Posted: **Sun Dec 30, 2012 9:08 pm**

I´ve rebooted one of the PCs from my attic, and installed a mod for Skyrim. Now, I´m chopping wood and mining ore to get meself a wood cabin by the stream.
Happy days, if it wasn´t for the pesky frost dragons.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 9:46 pm**

I like this site better than the one I got through Herathfire. This location is superior and I get more variation.
Even a fishing spot.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 10:05 pm**

Two Science Fiction movies to bring the year to an end!
I watched these two really good films the last few days. Looper runs like a homage to Philip K Dick, while Cloud Atlas like a dream on speed.

Being a fan of Inception (2010) and Brazil (1985), the movie year couldn´t end better.

Happy New Year!

Posted: **Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:32 pm**

I'm approaching the endgame of Broken Sword 2, but I won't have time to finish it tonight. I did need to look up a hint at one point, only to discover that I'd already tried the solution to the puzzle. The problem was that I'd had to do the same thing twice in succession, which I had done, but apparently I'd waited too long between attempts and the same thing that happened the first time I tried it happened the second...and the third...and the fourth. I had no way of knowing what I needed to do and thought I must be missing something even though I'd tried everything. I'd played the game before, but probably not since 2000 and I didn't really remember it. I also found out that the Civ V GOTY content didn't include the Korean civilization/scenario pack or the Wonders of the World scenario pack, but luckily Civ V went on sale again briefly and I was able to pick up a combo pack with both of those for a nice discount (with 75% off on top of that).

I finished Season 1 of Rome and have started on the first episode of Season 2, which only has ten episodes in all. I also completed my collection of Breaking Bad on Blu-ray (except for the fifth season, which isn't done yet), and I plan to watch that after I finish Rome.

I tried a different hard quest in DestinyQuest 1, but it was harder than the one on which I'd died, and I died again. I restarted after realizing that my selection of items hadn't been optimal, and now I've found a way to max out my Speed stat, which is the most important one, as much as possible. You need every point of Speed you can get just to have a chance. It's the eqivalent of SKILL in Fighting Fantasy. I just started the only hard quest in Act I that I haven't yet tried.

Posted: **Sun Mar 10, 2013 12:36 pm**

TV-series-wise I´m having a look at Continuum.
The pilot felt really good.
I will also have a look at Outcasts.

I did have a look at Cult and The Following, none of them seemed that good.

Fringe has ended.
Last Resort came to an end, also.
Revolution never picked up pace...

Person of Interest is still running, which is a good thing.
Obviously The Walking Dead is on my playlist.
One police series I´m watching again is Southland.

That gives a current watch list of four TV-series.

Posted: **Mon Mar 11, 2013 12:47 am**

I finished playing through the Broken Sword series in mid-February and started playing The Longest Journey (for the first time ever) in preparation for the new game that just got funded on Kickstarter today. It's an awesome game, and it really lives up to its name, but I'm glad it's so long since I'm enjoying it. I'm not even halfway done yet. I've really gotten into the head of the protagonist, April Ryan, and can sometimes tell what she's going to say before she says it. I'm so April!

After I finished Rome, I started watching Breaking Bad, which I'm loving. I was in the middle of Season 2, Episode 9 when my PS3 died, the fourth one in a little over a year. It's covered by the Product Replacement Plan, but I'll have to get it to the store and then later pick up the replacement from the same store, so it'll be some time. Luckily, I was able to get the disc out this time because it's an 80 GB model, not the 60 GB one. In the meantime, two new Doctor Who DVDs that I'd preordered arrived early. I've watched the first disc of The Aztecs Special Edition, and now I'm in the middle of the reconstruction of Galaxy 4, a missing story, on the second disc. Episode 3 was just recovered in July 2011, and this is its first release. Six minutes of footage from Episode 1 also still exist and are incorporated into the reconstruction of the entire story, and of course the soundtrack exists in its entirety. Once I finish that and the bonus material, I plan to watch The Ark in Space Special Edition.

I'm still playing DestinyQuest 1, but I'm nearly finished. I just have to wrap up the final quest of Act III, where I'm about to fight the main boss, and then visit the camp to stock up on supplies, and finally hunt down five optional legendary monsters before tackling the ultimate boss. You don't have to restart the entire book when you die, but I'd done it anyway for a while to learn the best paths and optimize my equipment. I've managed to get my Speed very high and my Brawn even higher, while completely neglecting Magic and Armour. I'm playing a Rogue, so my preferred tactic is not to get hit in the first place. Once that's done, I'll give DestinyQuest 2 a whirl.

I got some board games at Dreamation and have finally had time to start playing them. I played The Walking Dead boardgame based on the comic (not the one based on the TV show). It seemed ridiculously easy to me, but maybe I was just lucky since I found an axe very early and then picked up an excellent survivor who kept me supplied with more gas than I could ever need. Without competition, since I was playing solo, I could just take my time and stock up on it. Now I'm playing Mice and Mystics, and I've just successfully completed the first scenario (out of eleven) in the campaign. It took me a few tries, as I'd kept messing up, but I've got the hang of the rules now. I also picked up the new version of The Merchant of Venus, but it'll be a while before I have time to try it.

Posted: **Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:37 pm**

Back from the cabin. The first couple of days without a wintry feel to them. A bit too chilly, still. All snow and ice was gone. Great sunsets!
Now, back, I face an ice covered lake and snow here and there.

While gone, I´ve watched two series with a definite feel of RPG to them. Warehouse 13 & Zero Hour.

Anyone seen them?

Play@YSDC

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