You Can't Fix Stupid

Image via keepcalm-o-matic

Today I've had more than my fair share of stupid and it all piled on in a matter of about 5 minutes.

I stopped by the local Jacksons for a soda and as I was walking up to the counter I overheard a customer complaining to the Manager that there was a guy outside who wouldn't stop smoking. I look up and a fricken Jacksons' employee is standing between two pumps smoking.....seriously? The Manager gets on the outside speaker and tells him to stop smoking. Of course this dimwit just waves her off instead of....I don't know....doing what you boss, I'm sure company policy, and common sense says you should (or in this case shouldn't do).

Wow...all kinds of stupid there.

Of course he eventually puts out the cigarette, when he's basically finished, and comes into the store. The Manager wishes me a good afternoon and all I could say was, "I'd wish you the same, but I think its too late." I get in my car and pick up my phone thinking I'd call my Manager friend that works for Jacksons. As soon as I unlock my phone I get a notification that I got a review on something I wrote and put up on DriveThruRPG.

Since an actual review is a once-in-a-blue moon thing for me I followed the link and read this wonderful 4 out of 5 stars review. I've just cut and pasted so any errors are not mine:
"Enjoy the ease of using this product, ecepecially when you're trying to create a load of npcs. The only problem that I have is that I have had to modify it because I can't find a d30 anywhere around."

Don't like the layout or my font choice....I get it....but having a problem that it is a d30 table? This is the cover graphic for the download, showing the title. The product description mentions the d30 four fricken times.

I just don't get people....why would you even download a free d30 table if you didn't have a d30? If you thought maybe you could tweak it for use with another die, great....but don't consider it a problem after you've downloaded it.

Remembering One of My Briefly-Lived PCs

I was completely planning on putting this on my other blog, but wisely decided against it because.....well the because will become readily apparent. I may have told this story before, but I doubt everyone has heard it (I might like it, but it isn't that good)....

I was reading a RPG-themed post on Facebook asking about "epic" skill check failures. Now some games, or maybe just some GMs, don't allow you to completely screw the pooch, but I remember 4th Edition HackMaster sure did. Heck, you could fail so bad when trying a skill untrained that you could never....every, learn that skill because the earlier failure was so traumatic.

Now this isn't a HackMaster story, but a D&D 3.5 story. I didn't play too much 3.5, but this edition saw the beginning of my "infamous" PC that started out as an inside joke about what would happen when two gamers had a kid and treated him like a PC. The mythical tyke's name was BALADAR and he would refer to himself in the 3rd person. BALADAR wants a juice-box! BALADAR wants his blankie! Yes, BALADAR is always fully capitalized....just like on his birth certificate.

After a game session of laughing and having a fun running commentary about this poor mythical kid I had to create my next PC in honor of the joke, but I went with the subtly different "Baladar". He was a 1st level cleric and we were off to our first adventure, once we could overcome the usual DM dickery. Our DM wanted out first obstacle to be actually getting to the adventure location, which was on the other side of this desert. The quickest and easiest way was to get hired on as caravan guards, but the caravans were already full up when our Sorcerer went to make arrangements with the caravan matron, an older woman of "generous" proportions and appetites, according to the DM. Think a female version of Jabba the Hut, but not worm-like. Evidently she was more than willing to hire on a few more guards if the Sorcerer was willing to "satisfy her". Yes, this is the part where I'm to go

Well neither the player or the PC was willing to partake in the means to an end and instead offered up my PC to do the deed. Now I'm trying to think quick on my feet and see something to my advantage so I agree to it. The DM smiles like he's going to roll 3d20 to see how many STDs I get and I just point out that I had prayed for the "Command" spell today. "No problem," I state triumphantly......"I got this." My PC casts the spell and commands the caravan matron to "orgasm".

Now at this point I'm pretty smug with myself and the DM lets me have my 10 seconds in the sun before "politely" pointing out that we are playing D&D 3.5 and not AD&D or even HackMaster. Evidently what used to be a pretty multi-purpose spell was "nerfed" to one of something like 4 command words that could be used. Instead of choosing any one word the recipient had to unfailing try to act upon, I had t pick one of the four. I think I remember him managing a "nice try" as he laughed in my face.

So Baladar figuratively had to take one for the team. It was no surprise to me that in our first combat my dice turned on me an Baladar died a quick and painful death. It wasn't a curse or twist of fate....it was a blessing for that PC because he didn't have too long to live with his shame.

Needless to say, I'm a little more careful about spell selection when I play...especially if it is a new system. I'll just stick with archers until I get the spell mechanics worked out, thank you very much.

$5 Says DM Rob still thinks about that and laughs.....that bastard.

Maps for Heroes

I normally don't share posts between blogs, but I thought this was worth it.

An Internet Associate of mine.....I don't have a better way of putting it, likes to draw maps. I like to draw maps too, but he's just much better at it. I used to be in the military, working with the Army, but he's actually in the Army. I like to think I do things to help others, but once again I find myself falling a bit short in comparison.

I'm OK with that as I've learned I have nothing to gain by comparing myself to other's standards, but enough about me.....

Matt Jackson has decided to put together a cool little fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project. It is a cool organization (though I wish they wouldn't limit themselves to just helping post 9/11) and Matt decided to organize a bunch of respected RPG map-makers to contribute a map for his fundraising campaign:

+Mike Schley 

+Carl Bussler 

+Gus L 

+Simon Forster 

+Monkeyblood's Model & Map Mayhem 

+Rob Conley 

+Logan Knight 

+Tim Shorts

Now putting together this effort is cool enough on his own, but Matt has also decided to donate any of the July proceeds from his Patreon campaign to the fundraiser as well. The goal is $1K, very reasonable.

I'll go one step further than just suggesting a donation.....I think you should donate at least $8. Eight map-makers, at least eight maps, at least $1 a map. Totally reasonable and it will only take 125 of us...maximum..to make that goal.

Come on....you do have $8 lying around, right? It is totally a Win-Win here.... 

An Important Message From the White House......

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Been busy with other projects and some work. It felt like all my posts were complaining about the job search, so I just kind of put this blog on the back-burner.

One thing I have been doing is playing some (probably too much) Call of Duty: Ghosts. I finished the game on the hardest difficulty and have barely played around with the Extinction mode, which means I've been busy with the multiplayer. I'm in a good clan of folks I knew from my HackMaster 4th edition days and guys I've come to know online.

Anyway this video popped up on my Google+ feed and I thought it was hilarious. I hope you find it funny as well.  NSFW by the way.....

Cool "New" Zombie Game Promo

Imagine my surprise when the folks over at iO9 pointed me to a Machinima video of EPIC proportions.

I have quite a few zombie video games, or games with zombies in them. I've enjoyed them all, but for some reason I just didn't really get into Dead Island. I might have to give it another go, but for now I'm content with what I have, especially since the new COD game is coming out.

Anyway, this video is a shot-for-shot remake of the original "reverse" Dead Island promo. It is a cool fan-made effort.

What Should We Buy?

For those of you thinking about maybe....possibly....kind of getting a next generation console this year, no doubt you've been pondering the great PS4 vs. XBONE debate.

Hopefully this NSFW Bert & Ernie Mashup will help you decide....

....ok, it won't help with anything, but I found it amusing all the same.

Two Geeky Video Game Shorts

Today was a rich video-game video day thanks to the fine folks at Kotaku.

They featured two videos today, one was a cool fan-film making fun of the venerable Resident Evil franchise. It basically makes fun of some of the absurdity of the video games, but I think it is largely still approachable for those that haven't played any of the games.

The other is actually part of a series (ok, episode two of a two-part series) that looks like it could have been made by the creators of Portal. It it really well done, but if you aren't familiar with the game this short is probably lost on you. The animation is good though. I'll post the vid for the 1st episode instead of the one released today.

Enjoy....

Fallout: Nuka Break-Red Star

Yesterday I got pointed to a Machima Prime video that I didn't have the time to watch....until just this morning.

This "fan" video is a bit lengthy at 25 minutes, but it barely seems like a fan film, which makes every minute worthwhile.

Fallout: Nuka Break-Red Star is much more than a labor of love. Fallout: New Vegas has been out for almost three years. It is one of the handful of AAA games that I've completed 100% of the achievements on. In the case of New Vegas that was a tough fight for me.

If you enjoyed the game I think you'll enjoy this video.

Return to Garweeze Wurld

My posts, at least for the last week, have been kind of light because I was putting a little bit (ok, probably too much) of time into a new blog.

I'm not trying to be overly ambitious or anything, it is just that I needed a good way of documenting my monthly HackMaster game and a blog seemed to fit the bit quite nicely.

I had considered hosting my own site or maybe even using some content management software, but when I listed out what I really wanted & needed it was clear that Blogger could easily meet all of my needs and require far less effort than my other options.

Return to Garweeze Wurld is my campaign blog and I'm pretty much done with it for now. I might end up adding some pages or even just adding some links from the blog to specific content on my webhost. This way the blog itself can really be a useful tool for running my game.

Feel free to check it out....or not. It's really for my group and my personal GM needs, but I know a few folks who would get a kick out of reading it.

If you delve back far enough into this blog's archives you'll find a bunch of posts that I imported from my old gaming blog. This new blog isn't an attempt to replicate that old effort, but instead is strictly for use with one gaming group's adventures, and even then, only for this one campaign setting.

Brief The Walking Dead: 400 Days Review

I just got done playing The Walking Dead: 400 Days. It is a rather short DLC and while I was playing it I kept thinking to myself, "How is this supossed to tide me over to the next part of the game?"

The portions of the DLC seem rather disjointed and aside from taking place around a central location I felt a bit lost. Starting off that feeling was simply trying to figure out how to start the game.

You have to select one of your game save, or start a new game, and forward through the episodes (RB on the Xbox 360) to the end where the DLC shows up as the last episode. What I did not know was that if you haven't played the game's previous episodes already you can "skip ahead" to this DLC and the game makes earlier decisions for you.

The beginning of this DLC is pretty cool. A quick visual intro and you begin standing before a large bulletin board filled with pictures of missing loved ones. It looks like the numerous spontaneous displays that pop up after a tragedy and the effect was quite chilling, at least for me. The scraps of paper and photos sway in the breeze.

You can do any of the five brief missions in any order you want. None of them seem particularly difficult and they shouldn't be. The whole point is simply to set things up for the starting group in the next "season" of the game.

While I initially felt a bit lost, there was an interesting bit at the end that really did a good job of wrapping up the individual stories and setting things up for the next season. I found it quite amusing

that all of the decisions I made in this DLC had me siding with 50% of the other players.

Overall I really liked this DLC, but I wish it had come out much closer to the beginning of the next The Walking Dead.

Two Gaming Pictures

I was going through some pictures, trying to find one particular picture I had taken last summer. I haven't found it yet, but I did come across two somewhat geeky pictures that put a smile on my face.

It's been an "interesting" week, to say the least, with a variety of ups and downs. I've blogged a bit about both ends of the spectrum this week, so I won't get into it too much.

I was able to pick up our Knights of the Dinner Table #199 from Captain Comics and was surprised to find a picture Carolyn and I sent in to Jolly gracing one of the pages. This is a special issue because Carolyn's adventure submission (KoDT had a contest) was inside, but seeing the picture was icing on the proverbial cake.

Game On!

Some mutual friends of ours (we all belong to the same Toastmasters Club) went on vacation and asked Carolyn and I to house-sit their cats. We had full run of their rather large house full of a LOT of cool toys. Since we were going to be there during game night we asked if it was alright for the rest of the group to come over. We decided it would be way too cool to don our HackMaster Association volunteer shirts and play some HackMaster in the hot-tub. We didn't really play so much as "play" with the minis and dice, but we did have a map and some terrain. I was actually surprised just how much of our gaming gear is waterproof.

Dice Don't Fail Me Now!

This was the second picture that I had all but forgotten about. A couple of years ago I decided to buy into the hype and go with Gamescience precision dice. I love my dice and I think they roll better than anything else I've had. By "better" I don't mean "high".

As you can see in this picture, the d4's are squared off at the corners. I don't remember the roll, but I was tossing out 3d4p for some reason and one of the dice landed on it's "point". My rolling surface is the lid from a cigar box that has been lined with stiff, thick leather. The dice don't roll over as much, and I tend to toss them a bit harder to compensate. Imagine my surprise when this happened. Luckily I had witnesses and my camera to document the occasion.

My wife isn't the only one in our family that gets excited by dice.....

The Deadpool Game Rocks!

For my recent birthday Carolyn got me the new Deadpool game.

If you are a fan of Deadpool and are even thinking about trying out the game, run...don't walk...to your nearest retailer and pick it up.

I'm barely into it and I was pretty much sold before playing the first mission. The folks at High Moon Studios captured Deadpool perfectly.

My wife's first comment about the game was, "There sure are a lot of warnings on there." Hmm...let's check...

Well, it looks like they forgot a few things. I think I can make the needed changes:

Much better....and sounds about right. I'm giving this game a definite two thumbs up! Extremely
awesome birthday gift. I think that High Moon Studios has to be involved in any Deadpool movie in the pipeline because they seem to understand the character better than what we've had so far.

The Walking Dead: 400 Days DLC Coming Out From Telltale Games

I really didn't expect to have two different posts about Zombie games in just a couple days, but I just found out that Telltale Games has some DLC for their Walking Dead game coming out.

I reviewed the Xbox Arcade Walking Dead game before and I liked it, but it really didn't seem so much a game as an interactive comic. The fact that the story progresses no matter what choices you make didn't take away from my enjoyment, but it did lessen the impact as a game....for me at least.

Called The Walking Dead 400 Days, this DLC for the previous game doesn't seem to add anything or actually build upon the previous game. I'n not really sure why it is considered DLC instead of a stand-alone content other than to make people have to purchase the earlier stuff. This DLC is a collection of 5 shorter story-arcs that can be played in any order and Telltale Games says that the choices you make in this game
will carry over to the Second Season of their Walking Dead game.

This still doesn't seem like DLC content to me.......it seems like a measure to keep people interested in the property and to get a few more sales out of the 1st game.

I know I'm a bit cynical. Some of the crap being pulled by other game publishers (*cough* Gearbox) kind of causes me to not give folks the benefit of the doubt. On the plus side, the 1st season is only $5 (400 Microsoft Points) for the full game. It is a great price....a lot less than I paid and I wasn't complaining about the cost of the content before. Heck, that's pretty much how expensive the DLC is going to be.

I also just found out, and only because I went through the FAQ, that 400 Days does look at your saved game file and some of the choices you made in the first game evidently have some bearing on content in this DLC. Combined with the fact that they've stated that choices in 400 Days carry over to Season 2 and this makes a DLC decision make a little more sense.

Is it just me, or could they have done a little better job advertising this relationship between the three games?

State of Decay

I recently got the opportunity to play some of Undead Lab's new Xbox Arcade Game State of Decay.

My one word review: WOW!

While I like Zombies, I think they've been overdone unfortunately, but even with my stick-a-fork-in-it attitude I have to admit I really like this game.

State of Decay is really a sandbox game just about in the purest sense of the term. So far I haven't seen it roll out in a Skyrim fashion where you have a bazillion scripted missions and the order or choice to do them is all up to you. While there do seem to be some scripted missions, for the most part the whole game is relatively randomized.

Now a lot of people will not enjoy this game. Not because of the zombies, but because there is a

decent amount of monotony to the game. You will need to spend a LOT of time looting, directing looting efforts, and searching for team members that have become stranded or simply gone missing....and killing Zombies. You'll have to kill a LOT of zombies because they respawn and they like to form hordes that need to be mowed down from time to time. It seems that if two special zombie types managed to cohabit a house together it becomes an "infestation" that you will have to deal with.

The constant scrounging for supplies may be monotonous, but it is necessary because your group of survivors will use up resources on a daily basis and your equipment will degrade through use. You do get a head's-up that your equipment is damaged so if you keep on using it you will eventually get stuck in the middle of a zombie fight without a weapon. This leads me to my only real complaint with the game.

Gunlist Courtesy of Undead Labs

The controls are a little fiddly and working the menu can be frustrating. Your main use button is the "Y" button and you basic attack button is the "X", but if you have a zombie down and want to do a special killing blow the combination to do so is they Left Shoulder Button + Y. Y...I mean why?! This makes no sense to me. Using the Left Shoulder Button and X makes so much more sense. The confusing controls get amped up even more when your character gets some special maneuvers, all of which are Left Shoulder Button + something else. Because you'll be switching off characters so often odds are all you'll be doing is watching your guy fumble around aimlessly while zombies are closing in. The fun extends to other controls as well. You use the thumb sticks for driving and clicking in the left stick....the one you use the most, will make you honk your horn. Needless to say I end up honking my horn way too often.

Aiming firearms is trickier than it should be. With all the time in the world it is difficult to actually line up a headshot. I don't know if this is a control issue or actually a game feature where as your character gets more proficient with firearms aiming gets easier.

The menu for checking things out in your compound and upgrading skills is also a little wonky. It is hard to shift between areas in your compound and try to get things done. A simple tutorial or maybe even a better interface would make this portion of the game much more enjoyable.

Overall though, I enjoy the gameplay mechanics and I really like the plethora of looting possibilities and the sheer guided randomness of the game. Odds are you'll find the type of generic supplies where you expect to find them, like ammo at the police station and medical supplies at the veterinarian's office. The specific weapons though are quite numerous. I've been playing with melee weapons almost exclusively, but now that I need to clean out some infestations I've taking to using silenced weapons. There really seems to be a difference in performance between the different handguns, more than I was expecting.

This may sound dumb, but what I'm enjoying most about State of Decay is this randomness in loot. Finding a pistol that has been modified for a different sized cartridge is interesting and to date I've only managed to find two large backpacks. Weight and space for inventory management are a big deal because you don't want to be encumbered out there fighting (or running from) zeds.

Face275

Overall it is a good game and worth the money. I'm finding that with a little more spit & polish, some of these Xbox Arcade games compete quite well with the AAA titles, especially considering the price. State of Decay goes for 2400 Microsoft Points ($30) and I think it is worth far more than half of a $60
new game on disc.

Of course you cannot wait for the disc to come available at GameStop or go on sale, but they do put Xbox Arcade games on sale.

Missed Opportunities for my Own Stand-Up Arcade Machine

There have been a couple of times in my life where I had the opportunity to purchase a stand-up arcade game and I didn't jump on it. Both times were for games I loved playing, but they weren't very popular, so the sale price was low, as was the wear and tear.

Of course I cannot remember the name of either game.

The first one was an odd "cartoony" game where you were a hero trying to save a damsel that had been kidnapped by a mad scientist. I want to say it had two joysticks, one for moving and one for shooting (like Robotron) and the levels were stacked vertically such that you ran from the bottom of the screen to the top and when you got there the whole thing scrolled down. I remember it was kind of campy and you could fall off the edge of the screen. When this happened your hero would grab a hold of the edge and kick like mad until he managed to pull himself up.

The second game was a top-down scroller where you were always firing your gun and never-ending hordes of enemy soldiers. As you moved along you picked up parts of a large gun. I believe after the 10th piece you'd find your self armed with a giant machine-gun bazooka of sorts and would get to absolutely annihilate everything for a short period of time before the gun exploded and you'd have to find the pieces again. I have no idea why I liked that game because it doesn't sound so exciting now.

Earlier this week I came across another miniature stand-up arcade game that a guy built for his daughter. While it isn't as tiny as the GarBade, it is pretty fricken cool on its own. I wish I had the resources to pull off a build like this.


One of these days I might get off my duff and make something using my "old" Toshiba Thrive. I doubt I'd go into the extra effort to make a cabinet so I could instead travel with my game machine, but it might be cool to design something for home use.

If I could just figure out the names of those games I could be convinced to look for the appropriate marquee and signage from Arcade Artwork.

Deadpool Game Less Than a Month Away, But No Gameplay Reveals?

Here we are, less than a month out from the new Deadpool game and there really hasn't been squat for press. I'm seeing more press for the new Krieg the Psycho character for Borderlands 2 than I am for this entire game.

A month from release and no game footage to see? This really is a bit worrisome. There has been some promos for the game, mostly live-action bits of a dude dressed as Deadpool, but pretty much no gameplay.

The closes thing I could find was a small hands-on mini-impression review by Rev3Games. There is a smidgen of gameplay shown and the reviewer says he got to play a bit of the game:

Major Munchkin Reporting for Duty at Monsters University

A couple years ago at GenCon I was helping out at the KenzerCo Booth  tearing it down after the show was over. Across the way the guys from Steve Jackson Games were tearing down their booth and they hadn't put away the Munchkin costume yet. A good buddy of mine is one of the Men In Black and demos a lot of Munchking(he actually introduced us to the game). I so wanted to have a picture of me wearing the Munchkin head.

I was warned, several times in fact, that the inside of the head would be quite nasty because it hadn't been cleaned, but I just had to do it.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I'm looking for a picture to use to make a "fake" ID card. The new Monsters University movie comes out in a couple of weeks and the advertising is up in the theaters. One thing they had was this big blank Monsters University ID card on the window. The idea was you could stand behind it and get your photo taken, but the placement of the window sticker was such that you couldn't actually get a picture taken.

Something tells me he is a PE Teacher

I thought it was a funny idea and assumed there would have to be something online to do the same Monsters University ID maker. It is a simple website and it took me a while of tweaking the Munchkin head photo to make it work, but it came out the way I envisioned it.
thing. Sure enough, they have a

Now to just get it printed and laminated.

Tiny Towers Game Exploit: Free Bucks!

A couple of days ago  I discovered an exploit for one of my games. As far as I can tell I'm the first to write about it. This is not a cheat or a hack, but a bug exploit.

I play a couple games on my iPad  and one of them is Tiny Tower, from NimbleBit. Tiny Tower is one of those free games that makes some money off of advertising and "micro-transactions" for players buying a leg-up in the game. Usually you can spend a buck or two, or more likely $10-$20 if you get hooked on the game, obtaining some valuable resources.

Tiny Tower is a building game where you build a tower, stocking it with people and shops. Your goal is to build the highest tower and get your residents into their dream jobs in your shops. Your workers earn coins you spend on building and stocking and there are in-game "bucks" that you can also spend to boost things along. You get these bucks when you build a new floor, fully stock a shop, complete missions, and when it is a resident's birthday.

Recently NimbleBit introduced another way to get bucks, which is by watching a short 10-15 second video for another game or product. You can usually only watch maybe six to ten of these little short ads before the opportunity for free bucks dries up until the next day.

Before

I discovered a way to get unlimited bucks without having to hack anything whatsoever. After the advertising video plays the game presents a final screen shot of the ad with a close button and a repeat button. On your first free buck ad of the day just keep hitting the repeat button to show the same ad again. You can just keep watching that same ad over and over again as long as you like. As long as your iPad doesn't get shut off, like you forget to hit repeat and it goes to sleep, and you don't hit the close button, you will continue to earn bucks, one per viewing.

Unless NimbleBit gets paid for these ads I expect them to fix this bug in a

After

future game update, but for now it works like a charm. I've been hitting the repeat button over and over while I'm working on this blog post and I earned 142 bucks! (More time was spent on making the intro graphic than the post itself)

I forgot to mention that after you finally close out the ads you'll have to hit the "Thanks for Watching" continue dialogue button about a bazillion time....ok probably just once for every video you had watched. If you mash the hell out of it trying to get them to close eventually you'll finish and end up hitting the button for purchasing some bucks. You can back out of that transaction easily enough, but there is the chance your button mashing locks things up because of the attempt to purchase bucks. A simple re-boot will un-glitch it.

This isn't cheating the game at all because you aren't doing anything other than playing the game as it is presented. heck, I'd barely call it an exploit, but my guess is that the player was only expected to get between five and ten extra bucks a day from watching the videos, so the ability to watch 142 in one setting has to be a bug.

Xbox Arcade Game Review: Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale

I haven't played Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and while I'm not trying to dismiss the game it is fair to say that I never intended to give it a go in the first place. I already have a game I like and a one-off with a system I'm familiar with is OK, but a game that by all accounts is a complete departure from expectations...not so much.

A lot of commentary I've heard regarding 4th Edition was that it played like a video game. I do not have any idea if there is any truth to this, but I've heard it quite a few times.

GentleBot Hell from MisterMulluc

In the home stretch of a relatively big project, but I needed a break.

Thank you Kotaku for sharing this awesome video mashup between Team Fortress 2 and Futurama.

I hope you like it as much as I did: