Ladies and gents, do not be swayed by the art on this one. Response time for just moving around or interacting with objects is hampered so much by loading screnes (even within the same scene) it will drive you nuts

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 09:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I spent two hours this morning playing a solo conquest in Mage Knight the board game.  I took Tovak into the world of Atlantea, and used Nighthawk as the dummy player. It was an interesting run overall. more...

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 11:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Seen elsewhere on the net, not mine)

The last man in the world sits alone in a room.
There is a knock on the door.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 08:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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   The alarm went off at 7:00am. From the surface of his nightstand, a glow began to appear and then an animated image of a female appeared. It hovered over the surface of the nightstand, looked around for a second and began to take a deep breath.
    "JEAN, WAKE UP!" she yelled, in a voice that actually shook the coffee cup sitting on his desk. She continued to yell this for several seconds until a hand snuck out from under the covers and began to randomly smack portions of the nightstand surface. The hand finally struck the top of the clock, causing the female image to wink in his direction.
     "I knew that would get your attention. See you 'round the ship!"
more...

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 08:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 You'll read a lot of warnings about starting a story with the protagonist waking up and starting their daily routine. It's a bit boring, isn't it? I mean, I've experienced doing that thousands of times. I don't want to read about it unless it's important, exciting, or somehow interesting.

Start somewhere exciting. Cut the dull stuff.
Make sure every scene has some sort of purpose.
Scenes don't have to be presented in chronological order.
What does "The words just sort of bubbled out" even mean?

Posted by: amandachen at May 02, 2013 09:46 AM (kP8LA)

2 Good points, I'll have to look and see how it goes. 

Give me some credit, at least I didn't play the amnesia card.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at May 02, 2013 10:46 AM (T5fuR)

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I hadn't looked at some of this for a couple of months.  So just in case I started reading it again and discovered why they say 'Show, don't tell.' when you write. 

*makes liberal use of the backspace key*

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 04:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm going to set up a regular day, either Friday or Saturday, to have short sections of my work in progress posted here.  Feel free to give feedback on this!

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 12:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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YES! It is coming!!

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 04:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(Yes, I realized I had a blog today, so I'm doing some posting.)

Finished up Bioshock Infinite on Monday and wanted to let the game ending sink in before I said anything on the subject.  This post might allude to events in the game, but should not contain any spoilers for the main plot.

more...

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 11:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've finally mastered capturing a monster on the Bear Hunt mission, as well as managed to kill that same monster type for a reward later.  I'm slowly working on building up supplies and armor bits for better armor as well as a better lance. 

Trying to get the parts for the Ludroth Lance has proven to be a little annoying, as I can't get the small pieces to be able to upgrade my Bone Lance+.  I'm also finding the skill system to be a bit of a pain, just because it can be hard to tell which armor is the best one to go for, so I'm still in Chainmail at this time. 

Three Star missions now available to me, so slowly moving forward and still enjoying it.  REally enjoying the play on the gamepad feature that just got added as well.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 11:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've been playing the Walkthrough scenario of Mage Knight the Board Game several times this week as several of my friends want me to teach it to them.  I'm still very impressed by this game.  By using a deck of sixteen base cards, I'm expected to conquer a territory in just a few rounds (anywhere from four to six rounds, each round having multiple turns.)  I explore new tiles, recruit units to help me, descend into dark dungeons and ruins, and if it suits me, sack monastaries, mage towers, and keeps for powerful artifacts and spells.  To be honest, at this point I have not successfully defeated a power city yet, which defeating two of them is the goal of the basic conquest scenario.  I've managed to learn how to get around, but learning what a great hand for attacking, or even a good hand, still eludes me at this point.  The upside is that I want to keep learning.  I've not even seen half of the advanced skills nor have I used a spell card once yet. There are still a lot of play options I haven't even attempted yet.  Time to go explore Atlantea again!

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 07:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bronchitis sucks... that is all.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 01:25 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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