Last Week's Games: Aracania, Doom, Legions and Misty

Most of my gaming time last week was spent on Arcania; the not-very-good RPG I’ve been playing on the PS4. I’m not sure where I am in relation to my progress through the game but I’m in the area of the game that features a lot of swamplands, which has been curiously named Tooshoo. It’s not so much an open world RPG as several open questing areas chained together in a sequence, which is fine by me; I don’t necessarily like the whole world hitting me in the face at once! And I’m enjoying the game at least enough to overlook a couple of its major flaws:

That Stamina bar is a bit redundant...

First, the stamina bar. You have three bars on the bottom of the HUD, (Heads Up Display, if you don’t know!) one for health, one for mana, and one for stamina. You can increase these attributes as you level up. The problem I’ve run in to is that I’ve not been able to do anything that decreases the stamina bar. Nothing you do in open play seems to affect it, and even the moves that should affect it either doesn’t, or the move doesn’t work at all. I’d have thought dodge-rolling, at the very least, would be a way to exhaust it, but I’d be wrong apparently. Now, you’d think that this was a positive thing rather than negative, since what essentially amounts to unlimited stamina would make the game easier to play. And it does… but it also removes a lot of the challenge and makes some of the skill upgrades redundant.

The other glaring issue is feedback. Apart from your health dropping – and you’re not always looking at the HUD – the player character doesn’t react at all to being hit. There’s no hit animation, no cry of pain, nothing. Hit detection is a little off from the enemies as well, so there’s no telling whether the moves they have done have hit or missed. Often, you don’t know you’ve been hit at all until you’ve looked at your health bar or died. Again, it’s not impeding my progress in any major way, but it could have been handled a lot better than this. A shame, really, as there’s about 60% of a good game in there somewhere, but I’m finding it hard to recommend a game as mired in flaws as this.

He's invisible at the moment...

I’ve tried to play Doom as well, but I’ve found myself stuck on Deimos Lab. I’m having to be careful with my ammo as there are a lot of enemies in this section of the game and I am woefully unequipped to deal with the huge rush of them at the end of the level. I find myself running out of ammo before I can hit the relevant switches to open the end of the level, and even if I manage it, I won’t necessarily be in a good place to tackle the next one! I find myself wondering if I should be more careful in looking for the game’s secrets, as the increased difficulty setting that I’m playing on may require some extra work!

I also went back to the Horus Heresy: Legions. I have been booted from my lodge, because there was a gap of a couple of months where I wasn’t playing at all, but I’ve joined another one mainly for the card rewards. They won’t be as good – there aren’t as many members, and the ones that are there aren’t as busy – but I’ll keep playing with them until I get a 12-win run. I keep playing single matches with my Space Wolves as well; they’re always fun!

I tried to find a different picture,
but all that comes up on Google
Image Search is the character
from Pokémon.

Finally, I played Misty again with Kirsty. She had a better handle of the game this time and put up much more of a fight as we tried to arrange our window drawings strategically. I won again, but not before we’d forced a fourth round out of a draw! The main benefit of this game, we discussed afterwards, is its simplicity. If you’ve never played a card drafting game before, this one is pretty easy as the cards only do a limited number of things; we’d be happy to play this with younger or older family members!

 

Last Week's Games: Misty, Doom and Age of Empires

Last Friday we had Valentine’s day. Kirsty very kindly bought me a game we’d seen reviewed and talked about in Tabletop Gaming magazine and found intriguing: Misty.

Incidentally, I don't recommend
searching for Misty Game with
Google Safe Search turned off..

Misty is a simple card game that uses a couple of nice conceits and mechanics to make an engaging, if brief experience. The idea is that you’re drawing doodles on a steamed-up window in the middle of a storm, and once you have twelve, the doodles come to life and start moving about. Each player picks one card from a hand of six, reveals it by putting it in a 4x3 “window,” then passes the remaining cards around to the next player. Once all the cards are gone, another six are drawn for each player, then the process is repeated except the cards are passed the other way around. Once all the players have a 4x3 window in place, the cards activate…

What the cards do depend on the card. Anything that can move – a bicycle, falling leaves, balloons etc – moves one space in the indicated direction. And if you have a flower and a monster, the monster will eat the flower. You then score points based on how many cards you have left on the window that can score. Any that have gone flying off the window are gone and won’t score any points. And if a card has moved on top of another card, you’ve lost them both. If the monster eats the flower, you’ve lost the points for the flower – but not the monster. And if you manage to get two smiley faces next to each other, that’s worth an extra point.

The strategy involves building your window and watching out for what the other players are doing. Have they got a lot of flowers? Probably worth sending them monsters. Are they playing a lot of movable cards? Send them some cards that can’t move, so that they will have to lose at least some points accommodating them. At the same time, you must build your own window as efficiently as you can – How can you stop your cards from overlapping each other? Will it really be so bad if the monster eats the flower?

It took Kirsty a while to get the hang of what was happening and I won the first game we played, however we both agreed that it’s a great little game with mechanics that are easy enough to understand and use. We’re looking forward to having another go with more players!

In Hell, they have trousers...

I also downloaded and played the Ultimate Doom on my laptop. I owned this game in 1998 and it is still good fun today. The reasons for this lie with a lot of the things I was saying about Wolfenstein 3D back in the summer – the level design is excellent, and the core gameplay loop is solid. Hardware may have been somewhat limited back in the early 90s, but they squeezed every ounce of playability they could out of that they had to work with.

After rebinding the keys with some finnicky DOS-based lists, (now that I’ve discovered WASD for movement, I’m not going back,) and snarling over the fact that for some reason you can’t bind Left Shift (would have been great for running!) I set the difficulty to Ultra Violent (4/5.) I have played through most of the game on the middle difficulty; that was on the Xbox version with a controller, and I’ve got better at FPS since then so I thought I’d give the increased difficulty a go. I was very glad I did, because the general effect of this was to increase the number of enemies present in the level, leading to some truly thrilling battles! I’ll come back to this every now and then.

This is the level I'll be playing next, funnily enough...

Finally, I carried on with the Greek campaign of Age of Empires. I’m enjoying it, but I got stuck on the mission where you need to attack the temple. Whatever I tried, I couldn’t get my units close enough without the enemy priests converting them! I eventually did it by being a bit more economical with my unit building and pounding the enemy from afar with the catapults – standard procedure for Age of Empires!

Thunderstone at Titan Games, 20/1/2014

It has been a long, long time since I've played this game. Usually when I play games with Dave, we try playing things that run a little faster than this. But it's also the game I have that supports up to five players, and one I thought would be good to play in a shop environment so I bought it to Titan games and played a game against Steve Hinnett.

It's been a while since I've posted about this so to summarise how it works: It's basically dungeon-bashing with cards. You attack monsters in a 'dungeon,' with penalties based on how deep into the dungeon you're going, with your cards that grant a certain amount of attack power. You can also visit the 'village' and spend the gold your cards give you to get more heroes, spells and items to improve your performance. The idea of the game is to get to the Thunderstone, and as soon as one player obtains it, the game is over - and the person with the most victory points wins.

I got off to a good start by drawing some hands powerful enough to overcome some low-level monsters at the start of the game, however we quite quickly became stuck at a Sphinx and a couple of Oozes. They both had a relatively large amount of hit points and the Sphinx can only be harmed by magic. Getting bogged down like this is nothing unusual in Thunderstone, and we had to spend a while building up our decks to the point where we could at least take out some of the Oozes. At this point I had two options: Build up a magical attack to take on the Sphinx myself, or wait for Steve to do it and build up a party of fighter-type heroes to follow up with some of the smaller monsters. The trouble is I never really decided which of these I wanted to do, with the result that I never really built up a powerful-enough attack to be much of a threat to the other monsters, and my magic was taking far too long to build up. Steve killed the Sphinx in the end and took a whopping 7 victory points from it.

We had to call time on the game because the shop was closing, so we took stock of what we had achieved up to that point. Steve had beaten me 19-14, largely due to the Sphinx, so well done to him for coming up with a game plan and sticking to it. Could I have pulled it back had the game gone on? Well, it's a possibility, but Steve had a huge amount of damage coming out by then, so the race would have been on.

Either way, we had a lot of fun playing it. It is a refreshing change from Magic The Gathering, where games are often won and lost on deck construction before you've even started playing. It is a balanced set of rules and cards, at least with two players, but one thing we've not been able to determine yet is how the game would play with more players. I suspect a larger level of resource-rush, because you'd have 3-5 people all going after the same resources which would be a lot more limiting, and of course there is always the possibility that this could de-rail the whole game, but we'd really like to check it out and see what happens.

Lets hope we can, in the not-too-distant future!

How to enjoy hobby games

This is another blog I'm doing in reaction to a lot of the negativity that surrounds hobby games. In the midst of all the attitude shown towards it by people who have nothing but criticism for it, it's sometimes all-too-plausible to forget that it's actually quite good fun and you're supposed to be enjoying it. There's no tricks involved with enjoying hobby games; it's all to do with the attitude you go in with, and if you want to enjoy it, you will.

But first, what do I mean by hobby games? Broadly, hobby games is what I say when I'm describing board games, card games, role playing games and war games. They'll almost always include some material components, have a set of rules to them and are mostly - but not always - played competitively, e.g. players play against each other. It could be anything from Chess right the way up to, I don't know, Warhammer would be the obvious choice.

Those who play these games generally have a great time. Those who don't and have no intention to play these games generally look upon them in a passive, dismissive and sometimes quite hostile manner. For a great many people, it would simply not occur to them even to give it a go, and since they're either quite rude or not very forthcoming about the reasons why, (the latter, I suspect, to avoid the former) I'm left to speculate about them. I'll tell you what I think a lot of it is: Stereotyping Start talking to the man on the Clapham Omnibus about Warhammer or Dungeons and Dragons, and his immediate thoughts will be of fat sweaty nerds who live with their mothers on a diet of KFC, and have no hope of a social life or any kind of meaningful sexual relationship. And quite understandably, that is not a world most people want to be a part of. Of course, it's all rubbish, and what we get as a result is people being presumptuous about a group of people who are nowhere near as bad as all that. That having been said, about half of that rather cynical and condescending description applies to me, and the people who I play games with - nice people though most of them are - don't do much to counter the stereotype. Some other arguments centre around not having the time or the money, but these are pretty poor excuses really as you can always get things cheaper if you know where to look, and it's actually not that hard to make time to do something you want to do.

So, a lot of negativity comes from outside its demographic, but what continues to astonish me is the hostility that comes from within its own demographic as well. I've said much of what I want to say about that in the blog I did last year about Bitter Veterans, but I will add that this blog is derived from looking at the posts that Dungeons and Dragons make on their Facebook page. They're talking up what's being released and design-related articles (we're not far away from 5th edition/Next now,) and invariably there are comments under these posts to the general effect of: "Death to Wizards of the Coast!" "4e (Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition) destroyed DnD!" "I'll only ever pay 1st Edition!" and it drives me FREAKING NUTS. Especially if comments like this actually have nothing to do with the feature that's been posted. And that's just with Dungeons and Dragons! That's called trolling, guys. You're trolling your own hobby. Well done.

With turmoil within its own demographic, and a significant amount of the rest of the universe wishing hobby games didn't exist at all, how is anyone who isn't already involved in it supposed to give it a chance, and get in to it?

Well the answer is really quite simple: You've got to WANT to enjoy it.

If you want to give it a chance and have a go, you'll probably enjoy it. If you don't, or you can't work out why you're there, then you won't enjoy it.

So, say someone's starting up a Role Playing Game and asked you to join in. You've never done it before. Chances are, something like this may happen:

If you go in there thinking to yourself "Hmm, games with dice and toy soldiers aren't really my thing, and I don't want to have to learn a lot of rules out of those massive books they all have" then you're not going to enjoy it. Reason is, the real reason RPGs are fun has very little to do with dice or toy soldiers, and only a little bit to do with the rules. However, this is all you expect from the game so that is what all your focus will be on. For the record, it's the engagement with the characters and the immersion into the world of the game that makes it fun. Get that bit right and it can quite often become the highlight of your week. But if you're not aware that this is the whole point of the game, then you'll need to work it out quite quickly or you'll find yourself wondering what's going on.

If you go to the game thinking that "Only nerds play games like this!" - and yes I DO mean nerd in the derogatory sense of the word -  well, if you think that, then the only reason you'd go to the game at all is to prove yourself right, which you will. You will see what you expect to see: A small group of people talking about something you neither know nor care about. You won't be able to join in the conversation because you won't know what they're talking about, you'll feel isolated from the group and you'll come to resent hobby games because of the level of involvement the other guys have in it at your expense. So it's probably best not to bother.

If you're there because a friend has brought you along, well that can go either way depending on your pre-conceived ideas, but if that's the only reason you're there, think about this: Your friend has asked you to go to the game because he or she thinks you might enjoy it. The reasons for them thinking about that are their own, but there will be a reason for it. It's not a bad thing to find something new and fun to do in your spare time, and it's certainly a good thing if a friend thinks you might be interested in it as well because they are pro-actively trying to give you something new and fun to do in your spare time. The least you can do, in that situation, is give it a go.

If you come in to it thinking "Never done this before, let's give it a go and see what it's like, then I'll decide what I think about it," then that's absolutely great and we need more people in the world like you. My advice here would be to look for things you enjoy about it, rather than expect to find things that you don't. And if you don't understand something, it's OK to ask other people how it works. Again, ultimately it could go either way. If you decide you enjoy it, then that's great, I can't think of many people who would say no to more people being involved with hobby gaming. If you decide it's really not for you, then that's fair too, and no one will think any the less of you for giving it a go.

And then there's the one that applies to me: "I've always wanted to try this out, let's go to a game and see how much fun it is." I remember going into the roleplaying group for the first time - I had no idea what to expect from the game, but I really wanted to enjoy it so I gave it my best shot. I've made better characters and played better games since then, but for a first attempt - and I had and appreciated a lot of help from the guy who was running it - it could have been far worse. I also remember my "intro game" at Games Workshop, who hadn't really got the idea of doing intro games at that point and put me in a mass participation battle with a tank I had no idea how to use, got blown up in the first couple of turns and I hadn't got a clue why. By the standards of what we would expect if that had happened to a casual onlooker, they should never have seen me again. But I wanted to enjoy it so I came back and gave it another go... Well the rest of the story's another blog in itself.

But you see my point? Because I WANTED to enjoy it, I did - and still do to this very day. Some more than others, but I always try to find the fun in what I'm doing.

I think it's what's called having your glass half full. A lot of people I know could do with re-filling their glasses entirely...

If that tailed off quite badly then it will be something to do with the fact that it's 2am and I've only had 9 hours sleep in the last 48 hours. Time to go to bed I think.

See you all next time!

Matt

31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord

Hi,

So this is part of a project I'm involved with for work. This one is actually going up around one or two other blog sites that Coady Consultants use, but I thought I'd put it here anyway because it's actually quite good to see how I'm turning a very entertaining hobby in to something I can use in a professional environment. So, what we have is an introduction from John, the Head Consultant, Company Director and also my Dad, and then I'll make a few comments about what I've seen while playing the game:

John:

Our work is all about relationships, productive ones between us and our customers that often present us with an opportunity to try something that is hopefully different and memorable: we hope!

The Director of an innovatory and outward facing team from one of our major clients-a local university-was involved in a feedback exercise related to Conflict Styles. The activity was originally used with the University’s mediators and Dignity at Work Advisers. As our conversation developed the possibility of an extended Team Development Day was discussed and we are due to deliver towards the end of February 2012.

We tend to work along the (to me at any rate) pretty obvious lines that we learn better when we’re having some fun and even though it’s taken some knocks of late, the application of multiple intelligences still holds up for me. There’s a superb piece on TED and YouTube by Sir Kenneth Robinson called “Shifting the Paradigm” in which he present a cogent and enjoyable argument that we’ve tested the joy out of learning: it reminds me that there’s a range of approaches that are valid, have value beyond the event and help us to understand a little more about each other and ourselves.

So, at our next Team development Day, we are going to use a fantasy role play game that requires participants to think on their feet and shift blame: some might argue that this is and has been the primary survival tool for a successful career! Machiavelli would have “got it” straight away.
 

We’ve employed an enthusiastic game player/developer with a view to expanding the approaches we use to Team Days and other areas of our work: watch this space! So it’s now over to my elder son, Matt to talk about the specifics.

Matt: 31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord at the University

This came about as an introductory session to a portion of a development day that Coady Consultants are organising at the University. My part of the day involves running this activity for the team after the lunch break, and we are having four ‘observers’ to comment on the behaviour of their colleagues during the game and to what extent they show the various skills and attitudes that would be conducive to having a good game, and also for getting on effectively in the workplace.

I’ve covered how the game works before in my gaming blog; this and the whole story for how this came about will be in a future blog about the event itself. However, for the purposes of this piece, I would like to discuss a couple of things I’ve observed as I’ve played the game.

The game works incredibly differently between different demographics. The players still have to do the same things to win (or at least, to avoid losing,) but the style of play varies hugely. I’ve noticed the following things about the people I’ve played it with:

The Family

Playing Aye, Dark Overlord! with my family was absolutely hysterical. We played it on Christmas Day in the evening and it was great fun watching everyone being the Dark Overlord; we were really playing up to the role and it was great to see how differently we all did it. Seeing my brother lost for words is a very rare occurrence and I will savour the moment for many years to come. And given the fact that there is generally – across a great many people – a certain prejudice towards the themed games I tend to play, it was great to see one that the family could pick up reasonably quickly and have a play. Great stuff.

The Club

I took it down to the Black Country Roleplaying Society where I go every Thursday, to see how the game played in its own demographic. The guys with whom I played it were all what we might consider seasoned gamers; they know how card games work and they play to win. They had the right idea, but it seemed to be less about having a laugh with it and more about making sure that they didn’t lose. It was still fun, though.

The Professionals

I won’t pretend that I didn’t approach the idea of playing a game like this with academic professionals in the middle of a working day with some trepidation. But at the University, the game actually went as well as I think anybody could have expected. We had already covered the behaviours and skills we were looking for on the day and the team were making sure of the things that were important – speaking clearly, making sure everybody got a turn and at the same time having a bit of fun with what for many of them was an unfamiliar activity! I also saw the team turn the game right around on its head, and all start working together as a team to overthrow the Dark Overlord by coming up with an explanation he had no choice but to be satisfied with. I don’t know what the team do on a day-to-day basis, but if the accommodating and collaborative style they showed here isn’t conducive to a great working environment, I don’t know what is.

So, three different groups, and almost literally three different games! One thing that didn’t change, though, was the fun. We always enjoyed it. And I’m looking forward to running the activity at the Univeristy in a few weeks’ time, to give some light relief in to what is promising to be an enlightening and very productive day for the team – and, it seems, for Coady Consultants.