Blog: Games of January 2018

I'm pretty happy with what I played in January. If you've been following for a while I suspect you can guess which games are going to show up in my top five. I've been busy with work and pushing on my thesis so I haven't wanted to game for adventure, instead I've been gaming for relaxation and comfort. At the end of the day I've enjoyed another month of games.
My top five games (by play time) for January were:

1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  - So I'm moving in on the end of my 100% Master Quest play through. I have most of the shrines finished (I think I'm at 97 right now) and most of the side quests done (no idea how many, but a lot). I'm still loving every minute of it. I think this has been the right game for me at the moment, because it has so much depth I've been able to come back to it again and again, which works well with my plan to stay focused on my thesis as much as I can.
   
   

   

   A fine mountain stroll.

   
   
2. Europa Universalis 4  - History talk enevitably brings me back into EU4, as does spending too much time sitting at my desk and cold weather. So I've been back into EU4 trying to rule the world as the Ottomans (and trying not to get crushed but Poland and Austria).
   
   

   

   A fight for Cairo

   
   


3. Stardew Valley - Again on the deep winter gaming tip, I've been playing more Stardew. It's another great game for that regular returning and short play sessions.
   
   

   

   An event in the night.

   
   


4. Ogre Battle 64 - I am ... almost done. I started this play through in November 2016 and I think I'm going to finish my favourite game for the 2nd time. As I've said before I love this game, even though it has some really significant flaws. I think it ties into my theme for the month, it's a comfortable game and one that's easy to come back to time after time.
   
   

   

   A showdown of friends.



5. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival - Again good Animal Crossing charm and good friends to play it with.
   
   

   

   A plaza of fun (and dry cats).

   
   

Here's my total play time for January:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog Post: Books Read in 2018

Wow. Woah. Yikes.

Good Reads

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks - Wrapup

That was fun. I've been really bad about reading over the last few years and I wanted to kick myself to do a little more. And I think I did that, I read 18 books, some were comic volumes or graphic novels and a lot were audio books but I'm happy. I read several books I really enjoyed, particularly The Nameless City and American Gods. The Laundry books also scratch a lot of my nerdy itches even if they do sometimes leave me wanting just a little more.

I'm happy to wrap the project here, although I think I'm going to try to keep a list of my reading updated as I go (like the Lee and Miller's books read list) which will look basically like the project updates did. I've also challenged myself to read 32 books in 2018 in the good reads reading challenge.

Blog: Games of December 2017

I didn't get quite as much time to relax into over the holidays as I'd hoped, but I did still get to play a bit of everything.

My top five games (by play time) for December were:

1. Stardew Valley - Stardrew Valley is still beautiful. I wanted something soothing to play while I spent most of my time marking, this fit the bill. It's also nice that it comes in bitesized chunks. I started a new play-though and now Amri is building a very nice farm.
   
   

   

   Welcome to Old Man's Farm

   
   
2. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Still deep and I haven't even played any of the DLC story missions yet. I'm about 20 shrines short and my plan now is to finish those and power up the armour as much as I can and then tackle the DLCs.
   
   

   

   Always a new vista.



3. Pokémon Go - A pokéstop a day keeps the streak up and the game going.
   
   

   

   It's a new generation, and a new electric rodent.

   
   
4. Ogre Battle 64 - Cold winter nights and a game that plays itself, what else could you need? Whiskey is a good addition actually.
   
   

   

   This is like the second to last battle in the game and the first one that actually feels tactical.

   
   
5. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival - I got this for my friend and I have thoroughly enjoyed Amiibo Fest. If you like Animal Crossing, you might too. It brings a ton of AC charm and is a nice light game, and it has a really nice set of mini-games to play too. (We may have spent a little bit too long dropping cats in to the ocean ... I mean by accident).
   
   

   

   Welcome to Charmingville. Population, however much you're willing to spend on cards.

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for December:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: 2017 in Games

I wasn’t really planning to keep tracking the games I played after 2016, but somehow on New Year’s Day I kept track of the games I was playing and then it just seemed natural for the rest of the year. I think it’s been interesting to track what had my attention when and I think tracking my games played has helped me make better choices about the games I play.

This post is a wrap up of the year, including a look at what I’ve played, what I’ve enjoyed and some thoughts about games I had this year.

The Blood Moon Rises, and I still have many miles to go.

Top Games by Time Played

In total I’ve played 53 different games in 2017 and played for a total of [667] hours. The game I played the least was The Perfect Tower on Kongregate. Sunless Sea is in the middle of my pack at just about 5 hours and I don’t think you’ll be to surprised that Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is my most played game at [211] hours.

By play time, my top 10 games of 2017 (in hours played) were:

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 216
• Hearthstone - 48
• Marvel Puzzle Quest - 45
• Civilization VI - 41
• Pokemon Go - 29
• Mario Kart 8 - 25
• Cities: Skylines - 21
• Stardew Valley - 21
• EarthBound - 19
• Ogre Battle 64 - 15

I think seems like a good description of me and my year in 2017. It is interesting that I stopped playing Hearthsone and MPQ midway through the year, but they’ve stayed high up on the list. Also despite having played PoGo most days at least in the second half of the year, it isn’t as high as I feel like it might have been.

If you’re interested, here is the my total time played for all games in 2017:

Top Games by My Rating

At the end of last year and this year I’ve sat down and rated each of the games I’ve played on a 10 point scale (0-5 by half steps). I didn’t look back at my ratings last year, but I’m thinking if I keep this up for several years I might find an interesting evaluation of either myself or the games I’ve played over time. For the time being, this year, I really liked:

• Bastion
• Earthbound
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Pikmin 3
• Rakuen
• Sunless Sea

He's the WORST!

No real surprises here. A bunch of solid games that have really held up over time and a couple of new ones that, as I’ve already said, I really liked.

Thoughts

So I think 2017 was one of the best year for games. As my game of 2017 post says, I didn’t get to play that many, but I think we’ve seen a general switch (pun marginally intended) in the industry to deeper games that have more artistic integrity and that acknowledge their players are real, intelligent people.

First hand I can tell you that Breath of the Wild left me feeling empowered as a player to explore the world. The creators clearly sweat the small stuff, putting detail into every corner of the world, but at the same time, there’s nothing in the game forcing me to look anywhere, so each discovery feels like my own.

I can also tell you that Rakuen, a much smaller indie game, has that same attention. It may not have the same depth of game-play, but the creators again trust you to manage the depth of the story and to deal with the fact that life can be sad and happy all together and in turns. I think we’re also going to see much more mature stories coming in the next few years.

From games media and YouTube I’ve been really struck by the depth of other games such as Mario + Rabbids, which seems like a real stream-lining and strengthening of the XCOM model mixed with the attention to detail that shows up in most Nintendo products. I feel like Assassin's Creed: Origins similarly streamlines and strengthens the pieces of the series that people loved.

For myself, I think I’ve been happier with the games I played in 2017 than I have for a long time. While I’ve definitely had times where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to play or played something that was not as satisfying, generally I was able to make good choices and spend my gaming time well. Zelda provided some of that since I didn’t suffer from: that was a tremendous experience, what do I play now? but I think my relationship with games was strong this year and I was good about playing good things.

I mean, he doesn't, but this game is still so open and free.

Hopefully I’ll keep that up for next year. I’m trying to pay attention to what’s fun or interesting and making sure that I get a good mix of both. I’m thinking early 2018 is going to be dedicated to some older games (Beyond Good and Evil and Breath of Fire II) and getting better at some other games (Civ VI and EU 4). Then, whenI get my PhD finished, I’ll get a chance to dive into the wide world of Switch.

2018 Resolutions

I haven’t made a post like this before, because I usually feel like how I’m going to live my life is really my own business. This year, I feel like I’d like to be a bit more public since, as I’ll talk about later, I feel like the way we’re making use of social media needs some improvement. I also think as a university instructor and a grad student we often keep quiet about how we’re doing, and I think being a little more open we can all make our lives a little better.

via GIPHY

So here are three general resolutions I’d like to work on for next year:

1. Monotask More - I don’t multitask well and inevitably when I set out to do several things at the same time, I don’t get any of them done the way I’d like. My goal for next year is to do that less, I want to pick one thing, do it as well as I can and then go on to something else. In particular I’m going to try to set aside specific time for twitter and email so I don’t interrupt myself. 
2. Hold Fewer Opinions - At some point this year John and Hank Green decided that we all hold too many useless opinions and I think I agree with them. I think I’m already alright at this, there are often times when I feel like it’s not worth getting excited on a particular topic. At the same time, there are points where I get upset over things that don’t really matter and I’d be happier if I could just move on. My goal for next year is to see when I don’t need to hold a strong opinion and if I don’t need one, I’ll try not to have one. 
3. Act More - I think this ties in with both of the previous resolutions, but I often avoid getting stuff done, even when there’s nothing really holding me back from doing it. I’m going to try to cut down on the size of my todo list to make it easier to see what needs doing and to push myself to get more stuff done. 

And I have a few specific things too:

1. Finish my Thesis - this is the year.
2. Be more Engaged on Twitter - I like Twitter, or at least I like how Twitter was in the early days. I don’t know how to fix all of the problems that Twitter has now, but I think trying to talk more with cool people about cool things is a decent way to go. I’m going to try to reply more and retweet less. 
3. Read More - I don’t read enough, so next year I want to buff that up. (And I’ll be making a project to that end soon). 
4. Make More Stuff - I want to write more, draw more, sculpt more, program more. I think I feel best about myself when I’m getting something made, so I want to do that. 
5. See More Things - I have an amazing flexibility in where I work right now and I should make better use of that to go and see cool places even while I’m working. 

I hope 2018 rises to meet us all as we rise to meet it.

Blog: Games of 2017

This year, I've played 7 games that were released in 2017 and it's time in the internet's honoured tradition to talk about which ones were good.

This year I played: A Hat in Time, Fire Emblem Heroes, Halcyon 6: Light-Speed Edition, Kingdom and Castles, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Rakuen and Seedship.

I don't feel like there's anything missing from my list this year. That being said I've avoided getting a switch until I get my PhD finished so there are a lot of very good looking games that I will hopefully get a chance to play pretty soon.

Unlike last year, I enjoyed all of the games I played so I'm only going to break this set down into: The Okay, The Good and The Great. It's also worth pointing out that I've played widely divergent amounts of these games (I mean Breath of the Wild is in there, so really really widely) and for some, I probably haven't played enough to comment really intelligently. Still, I wanted to capture a snapshot of how I've seen the games of 2017 while it's still 2017.

The Okay

Fire Emblem Heroes

I feel a bit conflicted about almost all of the Fire Emblem games (and honestly all grid-tactics games in general). I really enjoy the gameplay, the world, the characters, and the feel, but I'm really, really bad at them for the most part. Fire Emblem Heroes is great because it takes the basic Fire Emblem concept and breaks it down into bite sized chunks. All the great weapon triangle strategy, none of the ongoing stress and worry.

Beyond that, though, there's not really much more here. It's okay. It's not bad, it's fun and playable but it kinda lacks any depth, so while it's okay to play I'm not going to choose to play it over most other games in most situations.

Halcyon 6: Light-Speed Edition

Halcyon 6: Starbase Command is an interesting game. It's old school RPG combat (parties of three slug it out in a menu), but with spaceships rather than wizards and warriors. It's also a XCOM style base builder and a fleet assignment strategy game. It's also a 2016 game, except that they did a such an extensive "overhaul" that they released the Light-Speed Edition as a totally separate game to "classic". That being said, I feel a little baffled about the changes they made, why and what the new game is compared to the old game.

Last year I wished I'd played more and I guess I'm in the same boat. The gameplay is good and apparently they've increased the tactical depth of the game which was one of my primary complaints. I can't say I've felt compelled to play too much despite enjoying all the game elements, maybe Black Hole Edition will suck me in in 2018 (I'm sorry, this is a bad joke and probably mean to the devs.)

Kingdoms and Castles

In Kingdoms and Castles you can build Kingdoms and Castles. Well medium sized towns and castles anyway. I've actually looked three times to see if this game is in early access, but I don't think it is. The upside of Kingdoms and Castles is that it's pretty fun to build cities and make your little meeples happy, the downside is that there's really not much to the game. Fortunately the devs are continuing work and are adding new stuff to the game. I just hope they're able to expand the game without upsetting the existing fun.

The Good

A Hat in Time

I backed A Hat in Time on KickStarter a very long time ago, and I was pretty sure it was never going to actually come out. Fortunately it did, and it's actually good. As has been pretty widely discussed it's interesting that A Hat in Time finally made it out in a year with so many other 3D platformers, but I think the devs have done a very good job of focusing making a unique game that involves a lot of different elements.

I've played a lot of the first world and some of the second world. I have to confess to feeling a bit frustrated, but 3D platformers have never really been my genre. I think I need to sit down at some point soon and try to take the game as it comes so I can really see the whole thing together.

Seedship

Seedship was a very late in the year pickup for me, but a friend started playing it, and it caught my attention. You play the AI of a a ship containing the last remnants of humanity and you must find them the best place to live. It’s a Twine game and you play by making the best of whatever choice the game gives you. Games usually last for 5 to 30 minutes and end when you find the best option before your ship totally falls apart (or your ship totally falls apart). Then the game tells you how your humans faired after you landed them and then you play again.

What I particularly enjoy is that while the game is really “hard” to win, each game is interesting with new situations and new outcomes. Additionally unlike a lot of rogue-likes the decisions often tilt towards the player, so when you make a choice you have a good chance of getting a good outcome, but in the aggregate your ship always tends towards ruin.

The Great

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I don’t think it should be too much of a surprise that I like Breath of the Wild. I’ve play ed211 hours of it by this point and it has all been really enjoyable. I think most of the things I wrote about when I summed up the game almost fifty hours ago stand and I think since then I’ve really gained an appreciation for the finesse and detail in their design. I’ve also gotten significantly better at the combat which has furthered my appreciation of the game.

I still miss larger dungeons and some of the story elements of older entries in the series, but Breath of the Wild is beautiful and stands on its own as an outstanding game. I think the level of trust it shows in its players is outstanding, and I think it demonstrates how passionate and skilled its creators are.

Rakuen

As I said in my write up on it, I’m biased, but I loved Rakuen. It feels like a SNES journey I took as a child, but dealing with grown up issues. The art is beautiful, the music is wonderful and the story is engaging. The game play is maybe a little thin on the ground but this game is focused elsewhere and that’s ok.

More diversity in games is good for games and for the people who play them. The more of the world we see and the more eyes we see the world through the richer we are. I’m thankful Laura Shigihara created Rakuen, spending four years on it and I feel richer for having played it.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 14

The Legends of the Guard books are interesting in that they're basically other artists playing in the Mouse Guard Sandbox. Lots of quick fun different stories.

Blog: Video Games of November

I wasn't terribly settled to any specific game in November, but I'm feeling relaxed and enjoyed a lot of different things.

My top five games (by play time) for November were:

1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - As  (pretty much) always Breath of the Wild topped my list for the month. I'm trying on this play through (still my 2nd) to do an all shrines play through and I think I'm getting close. I'm curious if the Champions DLC will arrive before I finish.
   

   

   Thank you, Mr. Iwata.

   
   Breath of the Wild has held up to more than 200 hours playing and I'm still enjoying it. Sometimes I miss the tighter story of other games (I went to the Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses last night and was reminded of just how much fun those other games can be), but Breath of the Wild is always fun to play.
2. Europa Universalis 4 - A few times a year I just get the urge to take over the world as the Ottomans, then I give up. EU4 is interesting in how it always has things to do, so you get a version of the Civilization "one more turn" and when I first stop playing I always think of what the next thing I should be doing in the game. I find that this fades for me some the longer I play a particular game as I don't have quite the skill / focus / DLC for a more in-depth play through.
   

   

   I always enjoy it when the game really wanders of historical maps.



3. Super Mario 3D World - Other than Breath of the Wild this has been what I've turned my Wii U on for in the last little while. I've been enjoying dropping in for short play sessions trying to 100% complete the game. I will admit I was a little influenced by everyone enjoying Mario Ojddesy, but I'll get to that once the PhD is finished.
   

   

   Just a giant Bowser head, how bad can it be.

   
   


4. Ogre Battle 64 - I didn't start a new play through this year! That means that I'm surprisingly close to making it to the end, although whether or not I've been careful enough to actually get the "real ending" I guess we'll see. It remains one of those games which I mostly love, but which has some problems in execution. I keep hunting for a "perfect" version, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
   

   

   Zarus and I share a birthday!?



5. Sunless Sea - Sunless Sea is a lot of fun and I should play it more. There's a related game, Fallen London, which is free to play and worth checking out. Both games revolve around story telling in a dark, dystopian(?) steam punk, world where London was stolen by bats and delivered into the Unterzee.
   

   

   It's hard to capture a screenshot that really captures the game, but this is a lot of it all at once.

   
   In Sunless Sea you travel the zee trying to make a fortune, or a name for yourself, or just sense of the world. It is a rogue like sailing game and a story card game. It plays at a wonderful pace, and, if you give yourself to it, a story that will really grab you (maybe by the foot, in the dark, with an icy tentacle).
   
   
   
   

Here's my total play time chart for November:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Project 17: #NaFYoFuThMo - Wrap Up

Has anyone seen November? I distinctly recall there was going to be a November.

Ok. I did kinda notice November an I got a lot written for my thesis. Not as much as I'd hoped, but quite a lot, and I'm almost finished the next major chapter.

via GIPHY

I have to say I really enjoyed doing #NaFYoFuThMo. It was a good motivator to get me to sit down and write even when I didn't want to. It also made me feel like there was an end to the project and it was a small enough chunk that I was able to accomplish it. Finally it was fun to report back to Twitter on how I was doing and post Cowboy Bebop gifs (Also #NaFYoFuThMo is fun to say and type).

I managed to write on 13 out of 30 days in November, and in total I wrote 6356 words. That's not great, but its better than I often am, so I think #NaFYo has been good for me. I also keep a "day score" which is basically a weighted average of the last 7 days and I've managed to keep that above zero for the entire month of November, so I feel like that's a win and a step in the right direction when it comes to getting things done.

via GIPHY

So I dunno where to go next. #NaFYoFuThMo is really tied to the idea of #NaNoWriMo so I don't feel like I can carry it on beyond November. I also think if I do it'll loose the special feeling of a month long project. On the other hand I really did enjoy reporting back to twitter on how I'd done for the day. I'll think about it for a while and see where I get to.

via GIPHY

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks

Provenance doesn't stand up to Ancillary Justice, but it is still a very fun space opera through an interesting universe.

Blog: Video Games of October

I was pretty unsettled in October and jumped between games a bunch. I don't love the feeling of not having something serious to play, but for now I'm focused elsewhere and I'm pretty happy just to get a chance to play when I get a chance.

My top five games (by play time) for October were:

1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - One beautiful thing about Breath of the Wild is just how much there is to do. It makes it simple each time I turn it on to wander off into Hyrule and find something new and fun and engaging.
   
   

   

   Quite the outcome of a side trip.

   
   
2. Pikmin 3 - I love this game. I could play it forever. There's just so much brightness and charm. The game play presents a lovely challenge of first finding a solution and then optimizing that solution. Every Nintendo Direct, I'm always hoping to see more Pikmin 3.
   
   

   

   Work to do, work to do.



3. Kingdoms and Castles - I haven't bought too much in the way of new games lately, but listening to 3 Moves Ahead discuss Kingdoms and Castles it seems like enough fun for $10 to make it worth while. I've enjoyed it so far, although it doesn't have a huge range of things to do. There's something nice about building a simple city and using it to kill dragons.
   
   

   

   A dragon in the rain.



4. FTL: Faster than Light - I suck at FTL. I've been bad at FTL since it came out. Then I watched Eurogamer play it and thanks to Jonneh, I suddenly understood a lot about how *not* to suck at FTL. Either way, even if you're bad it's still a good time.
   
   

   

   Finally.



5. Pokémon Go - Daily bonuses keep me going, other than that I haven't played too much.
   
   

   

   This ... was a bad idea.

Here's my total play time chart for October:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Project 17: #NafYoFuthMo

It's November, so the Social Internet has turned to its habit of either doing or whining about #NaNoWriMo, in which people write a novel in a month. I don't have time to write a novel in a month and I do have a thesis to finish (related points).

via GIPHY

Therefore, I am going to do #NafYoFuthMo, National Finish Your F*ing Thesis Month. I'm not going to be able to finish everything this month, but I have enough stuff that I could do right now that it's a good time to give myself a big push and get closer to the line.

I have 3 big chapters I can finish, I'll consider it a win if I can have significant progress on each of the three. In the smaller scale I'm going to shoot for a new word target of 750 average each day.

I'll update on twitter regularly and occasionally here.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 12

The second volume of Mouse Guard was as good as the first, and possibly even better. I don't read a lot of comics, so while I feel like the pace of the story is a little slow, that might just be par for the course. The art is absolutely phenomenal.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 11

I finished the 10th Anniversary Audio Book version of American Gods last night (staying up way too late again). It was a fantastic read and I feel a little in awe of (and inspired by) just how wonderfully Gaiman writes a story. I enjoyed every single moment of it, I loved the characters, and the world, and most of all I loved how the characters, and the world harmonized with the story.

I also find it really weird (but interesting and cool) how similar Gaiman and Stephen King's stories feel.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 10

I've probably started reading Mouse Guard a half dozen times. This time, I finally actually finished the first volume. I enjoyed it and I'm curious now what goes into the following volumes.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 9

At Christmas last year, I kinda forced my loved ones to all exchange books. Which I think mostly worked out for the good. I especially enjoyed getting A View From the Cheap Seats (the hardcover is beautiful). Neil's writing is engaging and warm and funny and the only problem with the book its it contains a lot of introductions to other books, so now my reading list is longer than when I started.

I also made it to 12 books in 12 Weeks. Mostly Audiobooks, but I'm quite happy. I'm going to keep going and see how many books I can read in the remainder of the year.

Project 16: Covert Action in Space: Update 2

I've been working on my Covert Action in Space project and reached the point where I wanted to be able to see a graph of the spaces I'm generating. Particularly, when I was working on my first system, it was difficult to get a feeling for how the spaces work (or if they worked). At first I had been thinking that I’d look and find a simple algorithm to draw a graph and then implement that in something simple like Processing. Fortunately, poor google-fu prevented me from finding a good algorithm and instead I found GraphViz.

I'm not sure I want to work here, but I'd look for their industrial secrets.

Despite that tweet, I managed to keep my wits about me and realize that I don’t need to create my own graphing system, I just want to see a graph of the space layout. So instead of spending time learning a graphing algorithm and dealing with all of the problems that’s likely to create, now I just need to output a simple text file and let the magic happen.

GraphViz is great. It’s capable of doing a lot of stuff of which I only need it to do a little bit. To output, I need to make a list of all room connections and put it in GraphViz’s dot format. Internally I’m keeping this information in a map so that each entry has all of the rooms that a room connects to. This produces duplicates in the list, but using the strict keyword GraphViz automatically ignores those.

The code to generate the dot file works out to be quite simple.

And the dot file for the graph up top. Again I'm not particularly stressing GraphViz.

As I said, this makes it really easy to look at how spaces are connected and how those spaces work. I’m really glad I was able to get this working without needing to spend too much time on it.

The next job from here is to start laying out an actual floor plan based on the given space. I have a rough plan, basically starting with a default shape for each room and then expanding them to fit together. I can probably come up with something more complex, but as with the space generation, I’d like to start simple.

Blog: Video Games of September 2017

Well, it finally happened. I played something more than Breath of the Wild. Generally nothing grabbed me too much again in September so I tended to default to some basic choices. I did try to keep my streaks up in Pokemon Go, but other than that I didn't feel too attached to anything.


My top five games (by play time) for September were:

1. Civilization 6 - I figured at some point I'd sit down and spend more time with this game. As I think I've commented before, much as I like strategy games I'm never that good at them. I feel like Civ 6 is a bit more open to how you play, although it remains a little bit bland if I set the difficulty low enough to play well. And of course much as I did enjoy it, it managed to get to the top of the list through a couple of "just one more turn" nights.
   
   

   

   I am the mightiest (and only) navel power in the world and yet I can't keep the barbarians off my shores. 

   
   
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Still awesome. I'm still discovering new things. I'm still having fun. I'd like a little bit more story at this point, but I guess we'll be getting that before too long now.
   
   

   

   I was just standing here and then suddenly realized how beautiful this looked.

   
   


3. Kingdom Rush HD - My love of strategy games has a strong component of loving tower defense. Kingdom Rush is one of the best although (as noted above) I suck at it more than I probably should for how much I play it.
   
   

   

   The standard state of any Kingdom Rush game for me.

   
   


4. Pokemon Go - A few minutes a day keeps a game up on the list. Sadly I didn't really get time to deep dive too much on PoGo, but keeping my streaks alive was enough to get me logged in most days.
   
   

   

   His name is Tiny.

   
   


5. Cities:Skylines - I do like city building. But, I also like pretty pictures of video games. I keep a rotating selection as my desktop, and, more than anything else looking at those pictures makes me play Cities:Skylines so I can go get more pictures.
   
   
   

   

   The roads are quiet this late at night.

Here's my total play time chart for September:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Project 16: Covert Action in Space: Update 1

I spent quite a bit of time working on my first approach to procedurally generating spaces. I based a lot of what I did on [this paper] and ended up with a system that worked, but that ended up pretty complicated. It had a system for creating an arbitrary hierarchy of spaces, as well as an arbitrary rules engine, which provided systems for determining how rooms were connected to the outside and each other.

I had already finished that work when I first posted about the project and I thought I'd keep working with that system. I realized, though, that solution was overbuilt and over complicated. So I ended up spending a quick evening rewriting it. The arbitrary hierarchy was very difficult to maintain and creating rules that abstractly described space was frustrating, so I dropped all of that and went back to figure out what I needed to make a minimal viable product.

If my goal is to play with guard AI, then I need space for the guards to guard, furniture to play hide and seek in, graphics to see what's going on and some AI. Plus possibly an interface to play.

The new system was a little messy, but thanks to a timely beer with a friend who had just been reading Uncle Bob, I came out with a nice clean system. I now have:

• A model which describes how to make a space:
• Model rooms which include a room name and a probability that the room should be on the space. 
• A space that includes:
• A list of rooms and a map 
• A constructor that builds a space based on a given model 

The first question I had was would it still be interesting. And I think (at least for limited test situations) it is. Using a basic model of a Hall (with probability 1.0), Office (0.75), Storage Room (0.6), Lounge (0.5) and Bathroom (0.25), it has provided an interesting set of rooms and connections that, I think, could each provide an interesting encounter in a game.

At this point, I’m just producing the text outputs of the system, but I think the above sampling produces something “interesting”. My evaluation for “interesting” right now is: Can I imagine how an interaction between my spy and a bad guy would go down in that space. For the samples above I think I can, and I think with more models, I can expand the interest of the space.

My system has a known bug right now in that it isn’t guaranteed to produce a fully connected graph of rooms. I think that’s a quick thing that I should fix in the near future. Other than that my next step is to put together a quick graph viewer to show how the rooms connect. Once that’s finished then it’s on to expanding the graphs to physical space.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 8

When I was a teenager, Stephen King's nonfiction ruled my world. His fiction too, of course but there's something I always loved about the way he writes and the way he projects himself in his writing. Listening to On Writing again, I was struck that while I still love his style, I have a lot more perspective on his approach to writing. Still he hits the most important point, I think which is if you want to be a writer, write.

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 7

I'm not sure I enjoyed The Player of Games, but I sure did stay up later than I meant to finish it. Machina ex machina, describes it the best I suppose, which leaves me a little unsatisfied with the story as a whole. On the other hand you can always get my attention with vague descriptions of game play.

Project 16: Covert Action in Space

Sid Meyer has a rule, the Covert Action Rule. The Covert Action Rule basically says don’t make Covert Action.

So the next big thing I want to make is basically a recreation of Covert Action. Covert Action in Space.

In covert action you play a super spy (or super agent … or super counter-agent … or something). Each month you’re given a mission and some basic clues. Then you have to stop the bad guys from doing whatever they’re doing. If you succeed you get a clue about the current mastermind plotting the crimes. Once you’ve figured out who and where the mastermind is you can grab them and wrap up that crime spree. Then some other mastermind starts up again the next month.

Now, I’m trying to finish a PhD, so it’s a really stupid time to take up making a game, but that’s where the Covert Action Rule comes in. Basically the point behind the Covert Action Rule is that it’s hard for the player to remember what they’re doing when they have to keep switching between generally unrelated minigames, so make sure that your player always knows what they’re supposed to be doing (XCOM also falls into this territory).

My thought is that given limited time and attention, making a collection of interesting minigames, seems like a good idea. I can work on one minigame when I have time and I don’t have to worry too much about making the whole thing hang together. It should be good practice getting a game made without worrying too much about making the game good.

As for the “in Space” part. I have a sci-fi world sitting around in my head, with a few stories I’d been meaning to write (and a few I’ve managed to put up here). It seemed like a good way to modernize a game that had fallen into abandonware and give it an interesting spin. Rather than having to fight 1990s terrorist across Europe, you could fight space terrorist across the Terran Empire.

The original game had four main minigames; one where you infiltrate people’s offices, stealing their information and possibly arresting them, one where you drive through the city either trying to capture someone or avoiding your own capture, one where you have to swap chips out to trace a car or bug a landline, and one where you have to decrypt messages doing a simple substitution cypher.

I think there are a lot of fun things that could be done after to stretch the game and make it a little more playable than the original. Before that however I want build the original four minigames and get a skeleton basically. Of the four, I’d like to start with the infiltration minigame, and especially with a little bit of fun procedurally generating offices (possibly to do different things) and building up a guard AI.

Due to a mishearing, I accidentally created the mascot for this project. The Flurpin.

I’ve started a bit over the last few months and I have a rough system together that takes requirements for buildings and is able to generate a procedural room graph, that connects all the rooms, but doesn’t actually build a floor plan yet. My next short term goal is to finish creating the floorplans from the graphs. Given that I still have a PhD to finish and this is mostly a “watching TV with the laptop out” activity, I’m hoping to wrap up this the floor plan generation by October 15, 2017.

Blog: Video Games of August 2017

I don't have a very coherent story ab out the games I played in August. I'm finally able to access most of my games again and so can play whatever I'd like. This of course means that there's nothing that I own that I want to play. Hopefully as I get busier I'll find more things to enjoy and if not then I'll be able to put the time I'm not gaming to productive use.

My top five games (by play time) for August were:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - It's good. It's still really good. I haven't even looked at the Trial of the Sword yet. I'm just over 164 hours right now. I also wrote a long blog piece about how cool I think this game is.
   
   

   

   160+ hours in. I have never been here before.



2. Pokémon Go - Well, it's summer, they cleaned up the game and it turns out if you keep playing a lot PoGo gets really good. I think they'll need to keep changing up the array of pokémon I'm getting to keep me in, but it's been a fun addition to the commute home lately.
   
   

   

   GASP! It's YOU!



3. Super Mario 3D World - I've mentioned a few times here that I've finished an embarrassingly small number of Mario games over the years. So I jumped back in and figured I'd try to finish all levels of 3D World. I'd thought some about getting all the stars, but I'm feeling right now that life's too short. The game isn't bad but suffers from not being other Mario games, especially Galaxy. It also has some really bad camera positioning making me feel like the 3D effect would be better left to the 3Ds.
   
   

   

   This game feeds my love of rainbows. 




4. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol - I listened to Soren Johnson's 4 part interview with Sid Meyer on Designer Notes. I was surprised how much he talked about Ace Patrol and so figured I'd fire it up again. I'm curious to try the starship game too at some point.
   

   

   Balloon busting is great. It's like shooting fish floating in the air on strings...



5. XCOM 2 - I'm not buying myself a Switch until I finish the PhD. But, ... uh ... my mind may be taken ... somewhere. That and the new DLC looks like a ton of fun.

   

   XCOM2 Firing at things you can't see the game. (Sometimes)

   
   

Here's my total play time table for August 2017:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Project 15: 12 Books in 21 Weeks: Update 6

Well I didn't expect to blow through the Delirium Brief all at once, but it's was really stressful and I just wanted to know what's happening. I'm more than ready to read the next one too, although I think hoping for a happy ending is ... unwise.

As for The Nameless City I've been working on it a little while and just finished. It's a great book and totally recommended.