jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2728 Posts

When I first got into NES games I begged my parents for a subscription to Nintendo Power. Nintendo Power was a monthly dose of magazine crack that kept us all updated on all things Nintendo. New YouTuber Shawntendo64 has a fun series called "Nintendo Power Recharged" where he talks about Nintendo Power an issue at a time. His first video on the topic covers Nintendo Power 1 and is a good summary of what's included. If you were part of the Nintendo Fan Club you received this issue for free as an attempt to get you to opt for the yearly sub.

I remember reading this issue cover to cover but due to the ignorance of youth never held on to the large stack of Nintendo Power Magazines I had. I always wanted Nintendo to release a Nintendo Power digital PDF bundle something I would buy in an instant.

Shauntendo64 has a few more videos in this series that cover issues 56 and 82. I wonder if he will review them all?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0IxoiTR_Xw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOUbueJIKxU


The Indie Game scene is bigger and more vibrant than ever. Steam has over 7481 games and DLC available, a large percent of those games being made by Indie developers. As large studios continue to release the same kind of shooter or fighting game Indie developers often branch out with unique titles like Besige, The Talos Principle & Kerbal Space Program. GameLoading: Rise of the Indies is a new documentary that explores aspects of Indie game culture as seen through the stories of developers.

Since GameLoading derives it’s story and flow from the developers and games they are building occasionally the pacing suffers as it breaks out of a personal story in favor of a focused topic. The biggest instance that nearly threw me off entirely was in the start of the film when they talked about adults and play. I don’t mind documentaries that focus on an idea but it breaks out of the personal stories of developers that are the most engaging part of the film. That said, after GameLoading starts focusing on the people and the games they make the film clicked with me.

The developer stories GameLoading features are Rami Ismail of Vlambeer, Davey Wreden of The Stanley Parable, Zoe Quinn of Depression Quest and a few more. The inclusion of a wide mix of developers is good as I hadn’t heard of some of them or the games they released before. In my experience not all indie developers are “camera ready” and to the credit of GameLoading they don’t shy away from this in whom they feature.

If you love documentaries and want to consume all things gaming, you should check out GameLoading: Rise of the Indies. It doesn’t quite achieve the incredible heights of Indie Game: The Movie but it it’s a good film that shows a community of people making what they love.

http://www.gameloading.tv/


PIGSquad is a local Indie PDX game group that I frequent and Cheerful Ghost sponsors from time to time. Recently OPB radio covered the Ludum Dare game jam and you can listen to the story above. The piece paints a great picture of how jams work and also covers the local scene.

I am also part of the piece so if you want to hear me talk about a local game jam game, check it out starting at 12:28. I wasn't at the jam as I was away from Portland and the time but was able to make to the OPB and talk to April about PIGSquad and gaming.

If you are interested in going to a local PIGSquad event, I recommend you checkout the PIGSquad site and subscribe to the Facebook page.

http://pigsquad.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PIGSquad

I want to thank Will for putting on the jam and April Baer at OPB for letting me be a part of the story. Heading to OPB to talk to April was some massive wish fulfillment and ticking off "interviewed on the radio" was a fun addition to my bucket list.


Ever since Hearthstone has dropped on phones I've been playing lots of matches. That might sound like a lot of time but considering each Hearthstone match typically lasts between 5 to 10 minutes it's not. The individual match length and ability to play on phones make it a great choice if you don't have hours to allocate to playing games or a beefy Desktop. Oh and the game is hells-o-fun too.

The classes I have been having the most fun with are the Shaman and Warlock. I have been trying out simple strategy decks with some basic cards. After I unlocked all the basic cards by leveling up each class to 10 by practicing on the computer I decided to take my hand playing casual matches on Battle.net. I haven't had as much fun playing other competitive online games as I have with Hearthstone. I think part of this is that Blizzard has focused fairly well at match making at the level I am at. I win about half the time and don't really get paired with people that are wildly overpowered. Occasionally I get paired with someone with a unique card back, a pretty good tell that they have sunk way more time and money into the game than me. The fun part is when I can come out of those battles with a win, which happens from time to time.

What i've been focusing on is clearing out the daily quests, practicing with the Shaman and Warlock and building and rebuilding decks. When I bought the collectors edition of Reaper of Souls it came with 4 Hearthstone packs that I immediately redeemed but never opened. I didn't play Hearthstone much at the time but figured I might as well get them in my account if I ever did. After losing a few times more than I wanted to with my Shaman deck I bit the bullet and opened the 4 packs and got a few really great cards that helped me ramp up my win average.

I picked up Harrison Jones, which is a fun neutral card that if you bring it out while the enemy hero has a weapon equipped, you draw cards equal to the weapons durability and destroy the weapon. This is great in my Shaman deck but this shines in my Warlock deck.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/602-harrison-jones

I also picked up Lightning Storm, a cool card to help wipe the opponent minion board. It has an overload cost of two, so it's not a great card at the start of a game as the overload cost can really kick you in the gut very early on.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/676-lightning-storm

One fun strategy I like with this Shaman deck is ramping up the total minions and totems and then dropping a Frostwolf Warlord that gets +1/+1 for each friendly minion on the board. One thing that helps ramp up to that and also provide some cover is Feral Spirit. Feral Spirit summons two 2/3 Spirit Wolves with taunt.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/214-feral-spirit

Since I am still fairly new I am adapting my strategies and decks to what I have. I haven't crafted anything because I don't have more than two of any kind of card and would prefer to not disenchant anything now as I might want it at some point later. I have enough gold to buy 9 packs but I am currently waiting as I want to get pretty good with what I have now and incorporate newer cards when I understand the game a bit better.

If you are starting out and want some Hearthstone tips the video above is good and I also recommend the link below from Polygon.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/8/5691996/hearthstone-tips-guide-video-strategy-how-to-survive

Ultimately my biggest recommendation is to level up all the heroes to 10 practicing against the computer. Then find a class you like and build a deck using the helper. You won't understand everything you need right away, that's fine, the helper will get you something good-ish enough to start playing to help you figure it out. One thing I have been considering much lately is making the best trades possible. When I mean trading I mean, what kinds of minions and spells should I use to kill enemy minions in certain situations. For instance, if someone has a 3/1 minion and I have a 1/1 that cost 1 it's a fantastic trade to sacrifice your 1/1 to kill the 7/1 minion. That's a pretty obvious example, but it's a good place to start and checking the card cost and special abilities can help you make strategic choices that help you win.

Also, don't give up on a match as I just had a match where I won and I had 1 health left. Every heal, attack and counter matters and I nearly conceded that match and I am glad I didn't because pull out a victory on that match was a really fun time.

My current spend on Hearthstone to date is $0 and have been having fun playing it casually for free. Not sure if i'll drop money on the game but it might be interesting to try out an adventure. If anyone has any experience with how those work i'd love to hear about it.


Double Fine released Broken Age part 2 today that wraps up it's wildly successful Kickstarter project. After reading a few initial reviews of act 2 I was disappointed to see the reviews mixed. On one hand the people laud the games look and feel, music and tone. On the other hand they critique the old school difficult adventure game puzzles for being very hard to understand. This makes sense as I never beat many of LucasArts old adventure games without walkthroughs as the solutions to situations were so obtuse. That said, it seems the backers of the project wanted a modern take on the adventure game and today we have the delivery. I am personally looking forward to starting it up and letting you know what I think of it.

Have you tried Broken Age? Are you interested in checking out Double Fines latest release?


Kerbal Space Program is a unique game where you take control of designing a spaceship that will launch the Kerbal race into outer space! Apparently it's hard to launch a spacecraft and Kerbal Space Program let's you build your ship and experience the bitter pangs of space launch defeat. Lately many people have questioned games on Steam Greenlight and early access games in general and Kerbal Space Program stands in a crowd of games that rise to the top of what Greenlight and early access can offer. For a few years fans of the game could play it all the way to it's final launch and take part in that journey.

Kerbal Space Program is available today 25% on Steam for Linux, Mac and Windows.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/



Jack and Rich from Red Letter Media/Previously Recorded review the latest PS4 exclusive Bloodbourne. If you love Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Titan Souls, Wayward Souls or Soul music it looks like Bloodbourne is worth checking into. Jack wondered if Bloodbourne was a good enough reason to buy a PS4 and Rich seemed to agree. Not sure i'll pick one up for this game but all the Dark Souls games have come to PC eventually and this might be one I get. The fights look epic and who doesn't love gruesome horror games?


It's so incredible and I nearly teared up. Yeah, just watch it because this movie looks absolutely amazing.

As always, discussion in the comments.


Mortal Kombat X released this week on PC and the consoles and to the amusement of fans it shipped with some pretty gruesome fatalities. Someone collected all the fatalities and released them in a video I linked above. Some people are saying these fatalities go too far and I see where people are coming from but consider this. When I was my young 90's self I was absolutely shocked and amazed watching Sub-Zero rip out someones spine. Mortal Kombat X has really amped up the gore here and like the Mortal Kombat of the past it pushes some buttons.

Are these new fatalities too much or are they a modern homage to a classic series?