Tag Archives: Role-Playing
Origins 2018 – My First Time Running an Event at Origins
A behind-the-scenes look at a GM for an RPG event ~
Avery Abernethy, 26 June 2018
Although I’ve run a Cons before going all the way back to 1983, I’ve not run at Origins. My experience was quite favorable.
Rogue Cthulhu
My event ran under the Rogue Cthulhu group. Rogue is quite strict on whom and what they allow to be run under their logo.
They must see you as a player before they will let you run an event. The leaders of the group also review the materials before you run to maintain a certain level of quality control. Rogue does not run anything that has been published previously, although they will run one or two new, unreleased scenarios by Chaosium every year.
What’s Gus Playing? Assassin’s Creed – Origins, part 2
Today, a different kind of “Origins” as Gus takes us back to the desert ~
Lloyd Sabin, 25 June 2018
Still smarting from a harsh and quick defeat as Nabatea in Rome 2 Total War, I returned to the warm bosom of Alexandria in Assassin’s Creed: Origins. I am currently at Level 13, and have just cracked open the game world by killing the first in a series of other assassin’s who tried to kill my wife, Aya.
Progression in this game is effortless, almost to fault…mind you that the difficulty level is adjustable. Players get experience points for just discovering locations, in addition to more difficult tasks like completing side quests and advancing the main plot line and completing quests. The controls can occasionally be slightly wonky but this is offset by the beautiful set pieces and visuals, all accessible to the player.
If you have any interest in the ancient world of Rome, Greece or Egypt you will love Origins. And if you don’t, Origins may kindle that interest. My continuing advance through the game world of is below.
After a few hours of introductions, the player can gain access to ancient Alexandria, where the game really begins to shine.
What’s Gus Playing? Assassin’s Creed – Origins, part 1
When is “too much” actually “not enough”? ~
Lloyd Sabin, 4 June 2018
I love me some AssCreed. I’ve been playing the series since the first game appeared on PC 10+ years ago. Through the years my love has waxed and waned – I loved the series installments set in Crusader-era Jerusalem, very much enjoyed the installments set in Renaissance Italy, never played AssCreed: Unity, and absolutely loved AssCreed: Black Flag and its arcade portrayal of 18th century naval warfare set in the New World (mostly the Hudson River Valley and the middle Atlantic). And I loved AssCreed: Syndicate, set in 19th century, industrial revolution era London. I’ve even bought a few of the platform spin-off games, AssCreed: Russia and AssCreed: China…but still haven’t fired them up yet. I will soon. Most of all I have always enjoyed conjugating the title to AssCreed…it is the gift that keeps on giving and always makes me giggle.
Most of all I have always enjoyed conjugating the title to AssCreed…it is the gift that keeps on giving and always makes me giggle.
It took me some time to pick up AssCreed: Origins, mostly because of the ancient Egyptian setting. That is, until I learned that it was set in roughly 50 BC, during the waning days of the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Hellenistic Egypt, with the Romans slowly encroaching, and not in the distant Old Kingdom era.
And so with my new found interest in Greek, Roman and ancient history, I lurked on Steam until Origins went on sale and got it at half price a few months ago, and just started playing literally yesterday in between bouts of Field of Glory 2 and a new campaign of Rome 2: Total War. I have about an hour and half invested so far.
What’s Gus Playing? Deadlight!
The mighty mite of meandering muses on melancholy moods ~
Lloyd Sabin, 23 April 2018
Sometimes games just click with us. There’s no break-in period, no giving the game “a chance,” no mucking around…we love it right away.
That was how it worked with me and Deadlight, a side-scrolling, zombie-killing, puzzle-solving adventure game built in the Unreal engine by Tequila Works. Most players clocked in game length at around 5 hours…I got very close to the end between 5 and 10 hours, and then got stuck on one part where the acrobatics involved were just too much for my slowing hands.
Up until that point, though, the game was great. I loved the story, I loved the setting (Seattle and the surrounding area circa the mid 1980s) and I loved the gunplay and survival components. Players get s small variety of weapons to use including a shotgun, pistol, and ax.
The mood created by all of these facets combined was palpable…the player really does develop a sense of hopelessness, which slowly recedes the better the player gets at the game’s mechanics, which can get a bit complicated.
Certain obstacles and levels also featured the developer’s sense of humor, especially when you come across them the first time and get slaughtered…left to think ‘how the hell am I supposed to beat that?’ It also didn’t hurt that the game is now roughly six years old and I picked it up for a dollar. Literally. So I easily got my money’s worth x 25, at least, even though I didn’t quite finish the game completely.
As you can see below, Deadlight is one of those games whose visuals speak for themselves. So this week I don’t really think captions for each shot are necessary, which will allow me to show off more shots than usual! Plus I’m feeling pretty lazy today. Enjoy the below and if you can pick up Deadlight for 1, 5, 10 or even 15 dollars, it’s definitely worth it if you enjoy platformers, zombies, survival games, moody lighting and the original Pitfall game by Activision…with an edge.
GrogHeads Reviews Underrail
Airboy dives into the bowels of Underrail to see if it’s worth taking the plunge ~
Avery Abernethy, 14 April 2017
Computer RPGs often have an excellent design concept but poor execution. Other RPGs have a great design and good execution, but play balance goes off usually later in the game. Your characters become so powerful that almost nothing presents a challenge. Very few RPGs have a good concept, and game mechanics while retaining challenging (but not impossible) play throughout the game. Even fewer RPGs manage to do this while enabling different effective play styles. Underrail is one of a handful of games I’ve ever played which hits all of these benefits.
