Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Oct 17, 2006

Still collecting lots of screenshots from Dreamfall. Concerns about the plot abound, but visually this thing is just relentlessly good.

I will say this: Dreamfall is big, scenery-wise. How big? I would liken it to Final Fantasy X. It’s hard to judge, though. I’m sure I’ll beat this game in under 20 hours, and even a “quick” run through FFX is going to cost you about 60. However, if you removed all of the combat from FFX and reduced the game to travel time and cutscenes, I think you would be left with something the size of Dreamfall.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. A game which offers 100+ hours of game time is pretty great, but there is also a lot to love about a game which strips everything out except the essential parts: Character, story, and exploration. It offers these juicy morsels without distractions or filler. It’s like a box of Lucky Charms with all marshmellows and none of the cereal.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Dreamfall: Spooky GirlPrevious Post

Next PostDreamfall: Nitpicks 

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Porco Rosso

By Shamus Posted Monday Oct 16, 2006

Filed under: Anime 0 comments

 Fullmetal Alchemist, The MoviePrevious Post

Next PostAnime Day 

Pete Zaitcev watched Porco Rosso and offers up a generous supply of screenshots. I’d forgotten how great it looked. (It was the very first post in my increasingly anemic anime category.)

He also poses an interesting challenge – the final frames of the credits offer an interesting bit of animation that Pete suspects is based off a real photograph or scene. You’ll have to go there and have a look for yourself.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Fullmetal Alchemist, The MoviePrevious Post

Next PostAnime Day 

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DM of the Rings XVII:
Of Dubious Value

By Shamus Posted Monday Oct 16, 2006

Filed under: DM of the Rings 85 comments

 DM of the Rings XVI:
TeamworkPrevious Post

Next PostDM of the Rings XVIII:
Cartographer's Lament 

Lord of the Rings, Tentacle monster, player apathy.

One of the things I loved to do in our campaigns was give out magical items which were interesting but mostly useless. We’ve been trained by movies that if you find some seemingly unimportant bauble, then the story will later create a situation where it will be the key to solving a problem in an unexpected way.

My favorite was a rope I gave them that untied itself the moment you let go of the knot. It was pointless, but enough of a novelty that they hung onto it. Another was a chalice that would purify any water you put into it. It was sort of a magical water filter which could turn a glass of swamp sludge into mineral water in about five minutes. Another was a magic staff which had only one property: It could be placed tip-down on the floor and it would keep itself balanced.

Once in a while they would haul out one of these magical booby prizes and actually put the thing to some unexpected use. I always loved when they did that.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 DM of the Rings XVI:
TeamworkPrevious Post

Next PostDM of the Rings XVIII:
Cartographer's Lament 

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I’m back, feelin’ good… FEED ME

By Shamus Posted Monday Oct 16, 2006

Filed under: Pictures 9 comments

 Pictures from Silent HillPrevious Post

Next PostEvil has a bendy new ally 

And we’re back. My kid is doing great.

I’m still plowing through the comments from the weekend, plus email, plus cleaning the lint out of the spam filter and checking out the new incoming links. So, if I don’t respond to something you’ve said, that’s why.

I actually have some notes and stub posts from last week that I need to hammer into some sort of shape before the original ideas leave me altogether. So, a couple of my posts may be a bit stale in the next few days. (As in: Linking to stuff everyone is done talking about.) I actually have quite a lot of stuff like this. On Tuesday and Wednesday I was on some sort of writing bender, and it all got stuck in the queue when things went sideways on Wednesday.

I feel good today. You know that depressing slump you feel right after vacation or something really, really happy? That sadness that hits a couple of days later? I’ve noticed emotions are always like this. The week after summer camp was always a slide into depression for us as kids. The post-camp world seemed empty, dull, and lonely. This was because we were coming off a five-day manic spree and the pendulum was swinging back. I knew this was the cause (I knew there wasn’t really any reason to be depressed) but that never made me feel any better.

But today I’m experiencing the opposite: I feel energetic and happy for no other reason than I’m no longer stressed. I’ve even got a new DM of the Rings for later today.

2¹⁶ geek points to the person who can identify the source of the needlessly obscure title to this post.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Pictures from Silent HillPrevious Post

Next PostEvil has a bendy new ally 

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Remember Me?

By Shamus Posted Saturday Oct 14, 2006

Filed under: Personal 15 comments

 Where is ShamusPrevious Post

Next PostSeizing Up 

I’m back. Just got home from the hospital, with my daughter. She’s on the mend. Feels like a week since the last time I was home.

On Wednesday night I held my limp daughter in my arms while her open, unblinking eyes looked past me. I couldn’t feel her breathing, and for a good minute or so I wasn’t even sure if she was still with us. If you’re a parent then you can probably imagine what this feels like. If not, you’ll have to extrapolate. Anyway, after those moments of primal emotions and the subsequent three days of uncertainty, writing about how “scary” the Silent Hill movie is seems childish and shallow. Something like this is great for putting things into perspective, although a healthy sense of perspective is really bad for enjoying the fantasy worlds of movies, videogames, and roleplaying.

So, I need to step back from this thing for a couple more days and, as the hippies say, “Get my head together, man.”

Thanks for the well-wishes from everyone. Really, it was nice to come home to that. She’s doing fine. She’s tired of needles and drugs and bizzare tests she doesn’t understand, and we have every reason to believe she will recover fully.

I will say this: The last five months or so certainly have been interesting.

I’m really hoping the next five months or so will be exceedingly dull. That would be just super, thanks.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Where is ShamusPrevious Post

Next PostSeizing Up 

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Where is Shamus

By Heather Posted Friday Oct 13, 2006

Filed under: Personal 14 comments

 The Tallest Blade of GrassPrevious Post

Next PostRemember Me? 

In case any of you are wondering where my husband has gone, he is at the hospital right now, staying over the second night to be with our daughter. She was rushed to the local hospital Wednesday night and then taken to the Children’s Hopital. I stayed the first night and he stayed last night and tonight.

If you are interested here is what is going on so far.

She was taken to the hospital due to a possible seizure. They are currently trying to solve two separate problems.

Earlier today:
1. She has a headache, a sore throat, a high fever and is vomiting. They are trying many things to find out what is causing it. She is sleeping or groggy most of the time. She is not eating or drinking. She is on IVs for fluids as well as most medicine. They have done a spinal tap, a viral culture, a CT, and many blood tests. So far everything is coming up negative. There are several tests we are waiting on.

2. The seizure. After discussing her past behaviors we have realized that she has had small staring (not grande mal) seizures in the past meaning that she has a mild tendency towards seizures and that the fever lowers her threshold causing larger ones. The neurologist is considering her dyslexia/dysgraphia, Migraines, and known sleep disorder to be related to the seizures. This morning she had an EEG to see if they can detect the seizure. After she is healthy she will be going to the sleep clinic to get some tests in regard to the sleep disorder. They are hoping by dealing with that that the migraines and seizures will diminish. They are considering putting her on something that will prevent both the migraines and the seizures. They are watching her to see if she has another seizure while she is at the hospital.

Now: The fever had diminished though it still might spike. She was up and about and not groggy. When I left the hopital she was doing much better but they were still doing tests trying to find the root. Shamus is enjoying having some much needed time with his eldest daughter. He will be back as soon as she gets home or I take a turn at the hospital (though I think right now she prefers him.)

– Heather

Heather Young

 The Tallest Blade of GrassPrevious Post

Next PostRemember Me? 

14 comments

DM of the Rings XVI:
Teamwork

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Oct 11, 2006

Filed under: DM of the Rings 49 comments

 DM of the Rings XV:
Riddle me ThisPrevious Post

Next PostDM of the Rings XVII:
Of Dubious Value 

Lord of the Rings, Grapple rolls, Tentacle monster.

Welcome to this special edition of DM of the Rings with special behind-the-scenes director’s commentary…

An alternate joke I wanted to use here was that the other players were not afraid of the monster per se, but afraid of getting involved in a battle which would require knowledge of the grapple system as well as the byzantine system of attacks of opportunity, and they were terrified of trying to wrap their heads around all of this while fighting a many-tentacled creature.

The gist was that they were fearful of spending the next four hours leafing through the rulebook trying to figure out how to wrestle with this thing. There is some truth (and thus humor) in this idea, but I couldn’t figure out how to deliver the comedic payload.

So instead you got this.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 DM of the Rings XV:
Riddle me ThisPrevious Post

Next PostDM of the Rings XVII:
Of Dubious Value 

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