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.

2755 Posts

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?


In this Episode of the Cheerful Ghost Roundtable we talk about the Cheerful Ghost Games Club and what we've been playing with that. We talk about replaying Half-life 2, Guild Wars 2, Titan Souls and the recently released Hearthstone on phones. We head to the main Roundtable discussion covering GDC and Valve's final Steam Controller, Steam Machines & Valve's new VR headset. As always we keep the discussion fun and hopefully Travis can answer why robots kept him away from this episode as for now, it's a secret to everyone.


http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/hf/HFVRX3M6X10H1428616926500.jpg
Blizzards digital collectable card game just dropped on iPhone, Android Phone and Amazon phones today. It features a very streamlined interface built with small screens in mind. I played 3 matches on my iPhone 5S today and they ran flawlessly. As someone that isn't really into tablets or playing Hearthstone at the Desktop I love Hearthstone on my phone. As far as I am concerned it's the best way to play it and allows for very casual in and out play.

I recommend you play a match on your phone as they are handing out a free card pack to everyone that plays a game for a time(practice matches included).

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/18648148/hearthstone%C2%AE-now-available-on-mobile-4-14-2015


http://i.imgur.com/3sgNfwG.jpg
Interstellar is a new sci-fi epic by Christopher Nolan about a crew of astronauts that travel to space to find a new home for humanity. Christopher Nolan is a great director and I usually enjoy his films and Interstellar was no exception. The story, cinematography, acting and score are all top notch and really showcase a director at the top of his game. If you love hard sci-fi you need to watch Interstellar.

When I really enjoy a film I buy it. I typically watch movies I love many times over and I also like scouring over the extended scenes, outtakes and behind the scenes features. I usually buy films on Bluray as digital copies don't usually provide extras, commentary tracks or the ability to loan to a friend. The Interstellar Bluray had a cool feature where they would clip out an IMAX film cell to include with each Bluray package. It's a cool addition for fans of the film and makes sense when you consider that Christopher Nolan is one of the few remaining film makers that insist of shooting on reels of film and not digital. There is a larger debate in cinema on the merits of film VS digital and if you want to go into that more, I recommend Keanu Reeves amazing documentary Side by Side. Needless to say I don't have a preference but I think Nolan does have a look to his films that other directors don't and I imagine shooting on film is one of the components of that.

When I heard that Interstellar included an IMAX frame from the film I was interested in getting something featuring the machines Tars or Case. That said there are a ton of great scenes in the movie and any of that would have been great too. When I got the movie I was excited to see what frame I would get and opened it with gleeful anticipation. Nothing could have prepared me for the massive disappointment of opening it up and finding out I got a frame of the baseball scene. Now the scene was good and made sense in the film and I have no problems with it at all and quite enjoyed it, it's just that.... A BASEBALL PITCHING FRAME FROM A SPACE MOVIE???? *Sigh* Massive first world problems disappointment.

Most movies don't release a film cell with the Bluray so adding it is a pretty unique thing and I am actually pretty happy to have an IMAX frame at all. Still, I think I would have preferred a main character looking like a derp instead of a frame of someone pitching a baseball. That said, this IMAX frame will go up on my bookcase of nerd treasures and it's still pretty cool to have even if it is a baseball pitching frame from a space movie.

That said, if anyone buys Interstellar and is upset that they didn't get an IMAX frame from the baseball scene I have a high quality frame I would be willing to trade for just about whatever else you've got. smile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_%28film%29
http://sidebysidethemovie.com/