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Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 5:21 am
by Pastiche
What did you think of Dreamfall Chapters? I heard it's not as good as the previous games, and I'm wondering if I should sink time in it..

Congratulations on your published scenario!

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2017 5:30 am
by HelplessBystander
Congrats, Mr. handy!

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 3:44 am
by Mr. Handy
Thank you both!

Dreamfall Chapters is good, but it's not as good as the previous games (The Longest Journey is my favorite from that series). It took me a long time to play it, but part of that was that it was very buggy, including some gamebreakers that kept me from advancing until I found workarounds (or in some cases waited for a patch). Hopefully the bugs have all been fixed in The Final Cut, but I played it before that was released, and I have no idea when I'll have time to replay it. I'd still recommend playing it, especially for the continuing story, but you might want to wait until it's on sale.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2017 10:05 pm
by Dave Syrinx
Did some tidying up on the boards. Am reading some Popular Science Magazines from the 50's I bought on a flea market. Cool stuff. They have a real Fallout feel.
I watch Mr Robot and am off to check the season 2 premiere of Stranger Things.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 10:36 am
by evil_scientist
I'm slightly afraid to approach Stranger Things season 2, mostly because I have a lot of work to do, and I cannot guarantee that I don't binge watch the whole season straight away :mrgreen:

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 11:20 am
by HelplessBystander
conversely, I have too much work on my hands to allot time do anything else except reading short stories, RPing, and whathaveyous. No guarantee to ever find the time to watch Stranger Things.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 12:26 pm
by evil_scientist
I read a lot while commuting, mostly contemporary horror anthologies, and also some classics as well, like Howard's "Worms of the Earth". I really liked it.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 8:46 pm
by DrPeterson
I've just gotten back from Essen Spiel and the two top games I played there were the new Civ by Fantasy Flight and Joan of Arc by Mythic Games.

The new Civ is a lot less clunky than the old Civ, plays faster and has an interesting action mechanic where you use cards representing different fields, science, culture, military, commerce and production, you can research tech to improve the effects of these actions and they vary in strength according to their position on your game board, the cards sliding up when you play one that was higher in value.

Joan of Arc is an epic scale (meaning 15mm) miniature game with wonderfully rendered mini's in the setting of the Hundred Years' War. It has a very fluent game mechanic, is easy to learn, but still strategic af. The 15mm is really refreshing scale-wise as it truly brings out the awesome presence of cavalry piece next to the trembling peasants. In their kickstarter they also made a dragon and tons of other stuff. But the dragon is the must see piece, it is breathtaking! Instead of pointbuilding and making competing armies, the game is scenario-driven with predetermined armies facing off in (near-)historical campaigns and battles, such as the Battle of the Herrings.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11 ... oan-of-arc

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 5:42 am
by Mr. Handy
I've never played the Civ board games, but it's something I'd really like to play, considering how much I love the computer game series. I've heard of the Joan of Arc game, but I didn't back it because it's not playable solo, so I'd probably never get a chance to play.

I'm heading to Metatopia in a few days, where I'll get to try out some new games in development. Some of the events there are playtesting games that were at Essen, but they don't tell you which ones beforehand. I'm signed up for mostly roleplaying games.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:52 am
by evil_scientist
I'm reading "Agents of Dreamland" by Caitlín R. Kiernan and enjoying it so far! Creepy government agencies against a creepy cult and a seemingly imminent Mythos threat, all delivered in Kiernan's brand of evocative prose (which I personally really enjoy) and cut-up structure. I think this book is the most outright "Lovecraftian" or Mythos effort from all her stuff I've read, but she still retains her own voice.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 6:10 am
by Mr. Handy
I'm now about halfway done Season 6 of MI-5, which is great. They have a story arc that continues through the season this time, building on what's happened in earlier episodes.

I'm almost a third of the way through Voyager. Claire and Jamie are finally reunited! :D

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:27 am
by evil_scientist
evil_scientist wrote:I'm reading "Agents of Dreamland" by Caitlín R. Kiernan and enjoying it so far! Creepy government agencies against a creepy cult and a seemingly imminent Mythos threat, all delivered in Kiernan's brand of evocative prose (which I personally really enjoy) and cut-up structure. I think this book is the most outright "Lovecraftian" or Mythos effort from all her stuff I've read, but she still retains her own voice.
"Agents of Dreamland" was great, but way too short :(

I want to watch Mindhunter - a netflix series about late 1970s criminal profilers.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2017 5:20 pm
by kabukiman
I have been playing stellaris a game about space (a bit like the old Master of Orion). I have also been watching Babylon 5 : I have finish the first season, I'm watching now the second.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:37 am
by Mr. Handy
I haven't had much time to play Ultima Underworld lately, what with three conventions in a row followed by my trip to California. I did play some of my old solo game of Civilization IV on my laptop while traveling. I finished researching Machinery and am starting on Optics now, so I can build caravels and find the civs on other landmasses before they find me.

I'm in the middle of Season 7 of MI-5, which just keeps changing, with all sorts of twists and turns.

I'm now just over halfway through Voyager, which continues to be excellent.

I still haven't had time to play solo board games, but I did play some at conventions. I was in two Terraforming Mars tournaments at PAX Unplugged. I advanced to the final round in both of them. In the first tournament, I came in second, losing by only two points. I won the second tournament by several points.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:34 pm
by evil_scientist
I am reading Jesse Bullington's novels. The Enterprise of Death was a blast! Definitely not for the fainthearted! But then again, it is a book concerning necromancy (among many other things), and necromancy is supposed to be dirty business. I'm one-third way through the next one, The Folly of the World, and really enjoying it. Macabre and weird.

All his novels are set in late medieval to early modern Europe. Not alternative history, but maybe more like hidden history?

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 5:04 am
by Mr. Handy
I've recently had time to resume playing Ultima Underworld, and I'm just short of halfway done, having defeated the mid-game boss. I have Civilization Beyond Earth with the Rising Tide expansion lined up to play when that's done.

I'm now about halfway done Season 9 of MI-5, and I'm planning to watch The Fall when I've finished the entire series.

I just completed Voyager last night. I put a hold on the next book in the series, Drums of Autumn, at the library a week and a half ago, but it still hasn't arrived. In the meantime, I'm reading the first chapter, which is included in the back of Voyager, and when that's done I can read the online sample that the library has while I wait, which contains about 10% of the book.

I haven't had time yet for solo board games. I've been playing some games with a local group that plays them. I played The Thing, and I and my fellow humans managed to survive and escape, leaving all of the imitations behind. I've also been playing some more Terraforming Mars and had two excellent games yesterday, scoring over 100 points both times. The first game I won by 30 points, but the second I was actually eight points behind the winner.

EDIT (12/27): I forgot to mention that last night I read William Shakespeare Punches a Friggin' Shark And/Or Other Stories by Ryan North, a work of interactive fiction in which the reader plays William Shakespeare and (major spoiler here) gets to punch a friggin' shark. It was silly fun, and I got the best possible ending on my first try. Also, Drums of Autumn arrived at the library today, so I returned Voyager when I went to check out the new book.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:32 pm
by evil_scientist
I watched Quatermass and the Pit (the 1967 movie version), and it is basically a Call of Cthulhu actual play!
Minor spoilers,There are three PCs, Quatermass (professor of physics), Dr. Roney (professor of anthropology) and her assistant, Barbara. Plenty of Sanity rolls... some of them fail... and one of the characters turns against the other!

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:10 pm
by Mr. Handy
I've seen that movie before and enjoyed it. It's also the inspiration for the Doctor Who story The Daemons.

I read the novel Dracula a few years ago, and that also feels like a (Gaslight era) Call of Cthulhu actual play.

I've started exploring the fifth (out of eight) level of Ultima Underworld. I have two and a half (yes, you read that right) of the eight artifacts I need to find.

I'm halfway done Season 10 of MI-5, which is the last one. Only three episodes remain.

I'm enjoying Drums of Autumn, and I'm now almost a fifth of the way through. It's really making late Colonial America come to life.

I've finally had time to start playing solo board games now that I'm done writing my Call of Cthulhu scenario and caught up on other things. I played Jailbreakers: Plan Your Escape, which is a fun game where you have to gather materials and craft them into items to help you enact escape plans to bust out of prison. However, the solo variant is far too easy, as the dummy player lives up to its name. Of the two initially available escape plans, both required the shovel, so I made that first (there's only one available in a 1-2 player game), making it impossible for the dummy player to attempt to escape as long as I held it. I simply couldn't lose. I managed to deplete the escape deck of all but one Fail card, which made my next escape attempt succeed automatically, and the next one wasn't much harder. Battle for Souls was harder, and I lost my first solo game, but I have only myself to blame. I kept farming one soul for relics when I should have let him build up enough Holy Points to take him straight to Heaven and get a second Archangel on top of it, which is the key to winning. Most relics don't do much in the solo game, and the one I got that would have been useful wasn't under the circumstances. Even so, I managed to get 26 points out of the 35 needed to win.

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 3:54 pm
by DrPeterson
I'm eagerly awaiting the next wave of Star Wars: Armadan which will feature both the Chimaera and the Profundity. Yay, big ships!


And I've just finished Godless, what an epic Western adventure that was! And that finale! Much love!

Re: What´s my/your current reading/viewing/playing amusement

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:53 am
by Mr. Handy
The Humble Monthly Bundle is currently offering Civilization VI with the Australia Civilization and Scenario Pack and Vikings Scenario Pack DLC. For a monthly subscription of $12 ($10.80 with a 10% off coupon, which I had), you get them all now plus a bunch of other games that will be revealed on February 2, and you can cancel the subscription any time, which I probably will in February. I'm currently installing it, which is taking forever, but I want to finish Ultima Underworld before I start that or Civilization Beyond Earth Rising Tide.

I'm now into the penultimate episode of MI-5, and things are starting to come to a head.

I'm now more than a fifth of the way through Drums of Autumn.

I played a few more games of Battle For Souls. In my first game, I had had a lucky starting setup but didn't know the winning strategy. Once I figured it out, I then got unlucky starting setups, but I eventually won. I got 41 points, as I managed to get a bunch of free relics that were all useful, in addition to being worth victory points. Then I played three games of Godforsaken Scavengers, which is very hard, as a little bad luck can get you killed. I got pretty far in my first game, died early on in my second, and in the third game I almost got to the final location. I could have, but I wouldn't have had anything left when I got there, making success there highly unlikely. Instead, I pushed my luck just a little, but that was enough to be fatal. Next I plan to play Hostage Negotiator: Crime Wave.