Spent far too long this week arguing on internet forums, which is like fighting sand, no ones really interested in discussion and will never be convinced to change their opinion. Its just arguing for arguing’s sake.For a niche game Dragon’s Crown has been quite prominent in the games media over the last week or two, the reactions have been mixed, even from the same website (e.g. compare the varying response on Penny Arcade between the comic, the positive comments from Mr Holkins and Krahulik and the negative article from Mr Kuchera). Though a lot of the commentary has been questioning the design of the sorceress characer (and to a certain extent the amazon). Continue reading…
Month: April 2013
What anime’s worth watching on Netflix
If you’re looking for streaming anime I’d suggest Cruncyroll, even the free subscription has a fairly solid selection. There’s also Neon Alley which has a solid selection. Both of these also have simulcast stuff from the current season of anime in Japan. (Of course what I actually recommend is tweaking your media player setup to a ridiculously anal level and then only watching 1080p 10bit BD re-encodes). But for those of you who already have a Netflix subscription and want to know what to watch here is my (super brief) opinion on the anime available. Continue reading…
The Kanzume Goddess Kickstarter and why I’m never buying another Japanime Games product
Last July I backed a project on Kickstarter. It was for a cardgame called Kanzume Goddess which was being translated and produced by Japanime Games. I have still not received said card game, despite the Kickstarter having a target of September 2012. Here’s a look at the timeline of this ongoing debacle. Continue reading…
Ave Imperator – Design Journal – 03 – System Matters
As I mentioned in the last post after fiddling with the core mechanic for The City I ended up re-assessing the system I was using for Ave Imperator. My original goal for the system was to have to be as “realistic” as possible. Which is somewhat of a silly goal, when people talk about realistic systems they generally mean a system with a decent level of verisimilitude. People want the system to “feel” real. Not necessarily fully simulate reality (because that would be both extremely complex and demanding and also runs the risk of being rather boring). To boil it down even further, all I really wanted was a combat system that felt fairly lethal, as when talking about rpg systems most people equate highly lethal or “gritty” combat with realism. The system I had was decent enough, as far as it went. It was a dice pool system that worked for the most part but had some odd probablity issues (mostly the weird scaling on the probability of success). It was also open to abuse in that attributes were much more useful than skills. Which wasnt really an issue per se as the player would never be manually generating any characters (more on that later). But after playing BRP for the first time in ages last week, and working on dice probability stuff for The City, I just couldnt leave the Ave Imperator system as it was. So I’ve come up with something new, and, I think anyway, better. At least in terms of combat its a bit more involved but also hopefully more fun. Continue reading…
The Woeful 108 – Quarterly Update 1
So back here I outlined my plan to curtail my spending on games and deal with my ever growing backlog. The list of games wasnt a goal, it was a leash. It’s been three months since then so how has it worked out so far? Continue reading…
Top 25 (recent) Anime for people who dont watch anime
What’s this all about then? Well this is some suggested viewing for people who are only passingly familiar with anime in general or with anime thats come out in the last few years. If the last time you watched some anime it was prefaced by this:
or the words “Studio Ghibli” then this list is for you. If you think all anime is shallow super powered adventures aimed at teenage boys or heaving tits and demon penises, then this list is for you. I’ve tried to cover as many of the major genre’s as I could (so now you have no fucking excuse for referring to anime as if its a genre rather than a medium ;)) without a) sacrificng quality or b) sacrificing accessibility. So the majority of shows listed here require no prior knowledge of or familiarity with anime or japanese culture in general to fully enjoy. If you do end up checking any of them out let me know what you think. Continue reading…
Best of 2011 – Anime – Unfinished
Note: This isnt done (well theres a full top 10, just not a full entry for each), but I’m not going to finish it and I’m sick of seeing it floating around in Drafts
I thought I’d watched a lot of anime this year. But looking back I only watched around fifty shows, actually, I suppose that’s nearly one a week. Is that a lot? Who can say. Not I anyhow. Well, whether I watched a lot or not is really secondary to the main issue, which is quality and based on that metric it was an excellent year for anime. It’s been a while since its been a meaningful chore to decide what to include. But this year it really was a struggle and some great stuff didnt make it, like C – The Money of Soul and Possibility, Highschool of the Dead, Code Geass, One Out’s, etc. To be honest there was so much good stuff out there that I would suggest taking a look at my complete anime list over on Myanimelist if you need some viewing suggestions. Of course, I only watch an anime when its complete, which means that some great looking stuff wasnt even eligible for inclusion (I’m looking at you Persona 4 Animation and Fate/Stay Zero, among others). Continue reading…
Ave Imperator – Design Journal – 02 – Mirroring Lenin’s treatsie on steps
The title was just going to be “One step forward, two steps back”. But clearly that wasnt wanky enough for me. This is going to be short because its late and my thoughts, much like the organ they emanate from, are squishy and soft. I’ve abandoned UDK (don’t cry for me Epic) in favour of Unity. I then ran into one of the first problems I had with UDK – lack of cohesive learning material. There are few books for either (and software updates have made the ones that exist somewhat out of date). There are professional video tutorials, but they are a) for slightly older versions and b) despite telling you they will teach you how to use the program they will in fact teach you how to do one thing with the program, generally create a third or first person game. Which isnt really what I want to do. Continue reading…