OddballGreg - Ludum Dare 31

This wonderfully descriptive screenshot which has the words "Ludum Dare 31" in it a grand total of 5 times, (in case you weren't sure), was taken from http://ludumdare.com/compo/.

A while ago I spoke about my enjoyment of game design and detailed a desire of mine to participate in the upcoming Ludum Dare 31 game creation competition. If you like fun indie games being made in absurdly short periods then you're bound to enjoy this.

First and foremost, I should point out that I was unable to brush up on my game designing skills, (that is to say, I'm useless at it currently), due to various events ranging from family hospital visits to Durban holidays. Excuses aside, I did also mention in that article that I would likely end up participating in one at some point or other, so don't feel too let down... (Please?)

Regardless of my non-participation, the Ludum Dare competition is still a wonderful and interesting event to follow. So what is Ludum Dare? By all means, I implore you to watch the video below which explains it in a particularly... novel way? (Comparable to An0nymoose's videos... I'm not entirely sure what to make of it... but it works.)

tl:dw: make a game in 48/72 hours, drink coffee, get rated, feel tired, sleep.

So how does it all work? Well, for the past month or so, people have been submitting potential theme's for Ludum Dare 31, (31 obviously meaning this is the 31st Ludum Dare), at which point sometime recently, they stopped taking submissions and began multiple rounds of voting to pick off theme candidates up until this point, where it is about 4 hours to the start of the competition and they are busy voting between the final few candidates to determine what the theme for this Ludum Dare is.

Once the theme is determined then it is go-go-go for the participants of either the "comp" or "jam" as mentioned in the video to get to work designing a game around that theme. (If you're unsure, the comp is where one person makes the whole game in 48 hours, the jam is where any number of people can make a game using pre-existing parts in 78 hours.) Once the game is finished, they need to upload it to the Ludum Dare website whereupon it is reviewed by the designers competitors and rated on various things including innovation, fun, graphics, sound, etc.

So why would anyone subject themselves to what is a weekend of torment in the form of sleep deprivation, caffeine overdose and general deadline stress? Well, creative inspiration is always a good motivation. Recognition in the game making community is another. Or maybe you'll even hear one of those strange individuals that call it... dare I say it? "Fun". *Gasp*

Jokes aside, the entire event is always fun to watch as a great multitude of people cover their game-designing processes in great detail, many of whom even going as far as to Live Stream their work via Twitch.TV, of course, with my ever-mentioned YouTube favorite Quill18 being among them. Below I've linked his "Post Mortem" of the game he created for Ludum Dare 30 and his thoughts on it and various other games he's created for the competition. I highly suggest giving it a watch as it provides a fantastic insight into the event and may prove the final temptress in getting you to watch his live-stream when he starts working on his LD31 game.

Interested to know more? Or simply have some questions about the competition or it's rules that you feel I didn't properly explain in this post? If either, do be sure to let us know down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter. We here at TCSA love to hear your feedback and will be happy to assist. And of course, if you enjoy finding out about awesome stuff on the web and world then do please be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left to get all the latest posts as they're published. Also, do be sure to share posts you enjoyed with your friends as it helps us out a great deal. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Happy game-making (or watching) my friends.

(New drinking game, read the article again and have a drink every time "Ludum Dare" is said.)

OddballGreg - Fallout Lore (ShoddyCast)

Something something screenshot something boring something from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mFkx1Um4KJZKkUHsSV1uA. I know I need to come up with a better Header Image system, we've had this conversation.

Some games are very dependent on their story for their worth. Whether it be Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls, or, in this case, Fallout, the main reason that you play these RPG's is for their stories. Of course, sometimes their stories can become a little bit convoluted, and the lore of their universe too expansive. Luckily, ShoddyCast is here to shed some light on their brilliantly detailed worlds.

Like most things I discover on the internet, I found ShoddyCast by complete and utter accident while doing my typical internet browsing that usually forms part of my work schedule. (Don't ask how that works, it makes no sense to me either really.) In any case, suffice to say that I soon found myself watching the absolutely enrapturing and fantastically narrated Fallout Lore series on the ShoddyCast channel. (When I say enrapturing, I mean I watched every episode today...)

So what's so good about this series? Simple, it tells you the tale of American Wasteland from both before and after the great war and atomic bombs dropping, and all the stories of those within it from the original Fallout game all the way to Fallout: New Vegas. (Suffice to say this is gamer nerd's dream and I was quite happy to spend about 4 hours watching every single video in a row.) Quite literally the best part was finding out that many of the characters I knew from the latter 2 Fallout games had a history in the earlier games that I had never had the opportunity to play, and as such, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. (Admittedly, if you've never played any of the Fallout games then a lot of the coolness or sentimental value of the lore will probably be lost on you... but then... why haven't you played any of these games yet?)

In any case, I've shared the first video of the series above to give you a first hand experience of what the ShoddyCast narration is like. (Which I personally think is really awesome and very well done... Just saying.) Give it a watch, and if you like it or find it interesting, then follow this link to watch the entire series in order. Also, don't forget to give the Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls lore series' a check as well. (I have yet to watch them myself, hence why this post is somewhat exclusively on the Fallout Series. That and the fact that I did a post about hoarding that was centered around Fallout in the past. Teehee)

Do you agree that ShoddyCast is really good at narration? Or maybe you simply want to suggest something for future blog post? If so, do be sure to let us know down in the comments below, of via Facebook/Twitter. We here at TCSA love to hear your feedback. And of course, if you enjoy finding out about awesome stuff on the web and world then do please be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left to get all the latest posts as they're published. Also, do be sure to share posts you enjoyed with your friends as it helps us out a great deal. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Enjoy the show my friends.

OddballGreg - Game Design (Unity And Ludum Dare)

Ah, the wonderful default and hardly used layout of the Unity Engine. I will point out that I'm still about 99% noobcake at using this program.

Video Games! You've probably played them. You've probably enjoyed them. You probably, at one point or other, thought "gee, I bet it would be great fun to make my own games." If you have, then you're probably going to find this article interesting. (Provided you probably haven't gotten tired of me saying "probably.")

Gaming. Perhaps the third most discussed topic on this blog besides mathematics, philosophy and my continued YouTube addiction. (That's intentionally 4 things by the way. The list of labels for things that have been discussed in over 100 all time posts is longer than I could be bothered to scroll through.) So what's special about today's gaming article you ask? Simple: We're going to talk about MAKING games for once, not PLAYING them. (Probably.)

The reason is simple really, Game Designer, interesting enough, was actually the first "career" that I ever wanted to pursue in my relatively short life, before discovering acting, and eventually discovering that above almost all other things, I like having money. Naturally, being a somewhat unfortunate resident of a country where the gaming industry hardly exists in terms of actual game making, such a career eventually fell to the wayside as other, somewhat more tangible career paths exposed themselves. (Namely ones that wouldn't leave me destitute. I consider that fairly important.)

Several years later and we arrive at the present with OddballGreg the blogger who, in his constant instant "research" (Cough cough) for the TCSA blog, came across various things at various points which led to a variety of thoughts. (And if I use one more V word, I'm going to have to buy a Guy Fawkes mask.) Quite simply, I came across the free Unity Engine while researching how it was that many independent game developers were building their games these days, and I came across the extremely popular Ludum Dare game making competition thanks to the live-streaming antics of my frequently mentioned favorite YouTube Comentator; Quill18.

As it turned out, Quill18 is also a hobbyist game designer and on multiple occasions has live-streamed his 72 hour long efforts to make game for previous Ludum Dare events in which he has ranked fairly well for his work. beside that, he also runs a side channel called Quill18Creates which I frequent for tutorials in the use of the Unity engine and for is often humorous banter. If you're interested in seeing how the Unity engine works and how to use it, I do recommend checking out his 2d Game Tutorial series which I have linked below, or perhaps have a look at AwfulMedia's tutorial series below that for a fairly well explained 3D tutorial.

That aside, you're probably wondering, what on earth makes the Unity engine so special? Quite simply: It's free and fairly simple to use. Most game engines used  to be purely propriety engines made by large game companies for their own exclusive use while the Unity engine is a mostly free and very powerful engine that was designed with the independent developer in mind. While there are many upgraded versions and benefits to buying pro packages etc, it's entirely possible to design a great multitude of games in the free version with little hassle.

So naturally, having found this very awesome game engine and watched one of my favorite YouTubers frantically exhaust himself over 2 days in an attempt to create his entry for some of the previous Ludum Dare's, I figured it sounded like fun to see if perhaps I can brush up on my coding skills which was part of what had prompted me do the article on that subject in the past.

While I suspect I'm currently far too grossly incompetent at scripting and coding in C# both generally and in conjunction with the Unity API, my hope is that I can make use of some of my less busy days in the coming month to get familiar with the engine and see what I could do when the time comes for Ludum Dare 31. What could possibly go wrong? (Apart from realizing that I'm still grossly incompetent by the time Ludum Dare starts.) If I do happen to participate, I will be sure to make plenty articles about the whole experience, what I got up to and how it went in the competition and scoring. Of course, even if I can't participate, I will still be sure to give the event a good spot of coverage and talk about the kinds of games that were entered into the competition. Basically, It's just going to be fun thing to watch progress.

Of course, there will be other Ludum Dare events every 4 months, so rest assured that it's probably likely that I'll participate in one at some point or other. Until then however, you'll just have to settle for my random and strange banter on all variety of subjects, including those you suggest in the comments below... like right now. Please? (Teehee) Even if you don't, perhaps you have some friends who are interested in game design and would be interested in seeing what I have to say on the competition when it comes in 23 days. If so, consider sharing this article with them as I'm sure they'll appreciate it. Of course, if you yourself would like to read those articles, then do be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left to get all the latest posts, as they're published. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Happy gaming my friends.

OddballGreg - Late Night Gaming Sessions

Payday: The Heist banner from http://starbreeze.com/games/payday-the-heist/. Complete with Hoxton rocking a clown mask and devil horns hand gesture. You can just feel the friendliness as a new batch of coulrophobia sets in..

Any gamer will tell you how easy it is to lose track of time when you're having fun. Recently, we here at TCSA discovered that Late Night Gaming Sessions aren't the greatest of idea's when you've got work to do and blog posts to write. Let's talk about that.

A few days ago, I noticed that the Starbreeze made game Payday: The Heist was going for the absolute steal of roughly R50 for 4 copies on the (in)famous game online distribution store, Steam. (I say roughly because that's a rounded number from after we converted the price from dollars.)

Of course, having heard about the huge reputation Payday has for being an awesome co-op game, and having played games like Left 4 Dead which are very much similar in gameplay, I saw no reason as to why we should pass up the opportunity to net 4 copies of a great game on the cheap. (I do not regret this decision.) Steam sales are notorious for the way they encourage people to open their wallets. (Or beg their friends to open theirs such as in this case. Teehee. Thanks JovialJman.)

In any case, a day or so after downloading Payday, backing it up to a flash and distributing the game files to my fellow would-be-criminals who were gifted the additional copies of Payday, it was decided that it would be fun to at last, try the game out and play a couple games while talking over Skype. Now, I don't mean to say we weren't thinking at this point. I will however, point out that Payday is a disgustingly huge amount of fun to play with friends, and the cumulative result of what supposed to be a couple games was a nine hour long Skype call and gaming session which resulted in myself, JovialJman and my brother being severely incapacitated for the next few days. (Friday, Saturday, Today to a lesser degree.)

As it turns out, planning bank heists, leveling up your criminal characters and just having a regular ball as you realize, for the 10th time in a row, that someone just hit a panic button and the S*** has just hit the fan again, can become rather addictive, even when we all knew we had things to do the next day. My brother and I were going to a friends place for the weekend and JovialJman had to work the next day. Suffice to say, I was unable to stay awake any later than 7pm and JovialJman was unable to work properly or write his already late post. Unfortunately, since I was not at home and had ruined my ability to write any posts while I was still at home, it would not be until today that I could finally write this post and finally publish it late. JovialJman is also in the process of, or already has, published his post from Friday as well.

Suffice to say, one 9 hour gaming session was the most schedule damaging thing we had ever done (yet.) Thankfully, part of the joy of the job is that we aren't getting yelled at for it. Though we are sorry for letting anyone down if they were looking forward to reading some new posts these past few days. On the upside, you'll be getting all the posts that should have been up, as well as the new posts as per our schedule in the next couple days, so better late than never right? (Please don't hit me.)

In any case, perhaps I shall do a proper review of Payday: The Heist in the upcoming few days considering it has the honor of being the first game to actually put us here at TCSA behind schedule. If you would like us to do so, or simply wish to moan at us for being so silly, do be sure to do so down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter. If you have any friends who might be interested in reading up about Payday and perhaps seeing if it might be a game that they would enjoy playing, consider sharing this post with them so that they can see just how fun it can be. Of course, if you yourself would like to read that review, or any other of our posts, as they come out, consider liking the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or following us on Twitter to get all the latest posts, as they're published. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Work hard and work first my friends.

OddballGreg - Total War: Rome 2 (Brilliant War Simulation)

And everyone with even a modicum of OCD, (including me), wants to kill me for the slightly off center subtitle. On the other hand, the practical side of me refuses to move it 5 pixels to the left. Screenshot is of the title screen from the Emperor Edition of Total War: Rome 2.

 Total War: Rome 2 is the most recent Creative Assembly game in the Total War Series, (That's been released so far at least), and is also the most recent cause for my lack of free time for a variety of reasons. As a result, I decided it might be fun to do one of my famous semi-formal reviews on it.

Yesterday, JovialJman spoke about Simulations and the way the reality was starting to be accurately portrayed with computers. Of course, what better opportunity to talk about my most recent timesink: Total War: Rome 2, the grand strategy game from Creative Assembly that revolves around the conquest of the European and North African landscapes which formed part of the Roman empire. (I'll point out that they don't refer to it as a grand strategy game, but I use that as a term for any game that involves the manipulation of a large "World Map" towards goals of victory; ala Paradox Games.) I started playing Rome 2 as a result of the crazy ramblings and tactical soliloquy of one of my other, newer favorite YouTube commentators, DiplexHeated, whom I found while looking for playthrough's of Paradox Games's Hearts of Iron 3.

In my case, I figured it would be more fun to try out the Iceni, a Gallic Brittanic tribe in the lands of what is now the UK. (Later in the campaign I conquered all the British, Scottish and Irish land... effectively forming the UK about 1700 years before it historically did. Give or take.)

 So, before I get into the details, I will point out that I am playing the more recently released "Emperor Edition" of Rome 2, which was released with a large variety of updates, fixes and general extra content, most of which was graciously given to buyers of the original edition for their patience with what can only be described as a "turbulent" launch. For a humorous depiction of just how turbulent I mean, refer to the "Hitler Find Out" video below:

With that out of the way, and you likely in tears from laughter, let me talk about the pro's. Why does Total War: Rome 2 make me stay up far later than I should, and play when I should be writing blog posts or making special Halloween themed graphics? Well, the obvious answer is that it's fun and addictive, clearly preying on my enjoyment of figuring things out.

What's that? "Stop stalling and actually get to the point." you say? Of course, Rome 2 is keeps me absurdly distracted with both of it's game modes, which a fairly interlinked for reasons you'll understand shortly. The first of which is the "Grand Campaign" mode, as shown in some of the earlier screenshots that I have littered throughout this post as I am wont to do with these kinds of reviews.

In this mode, you control the entirety of your empire, managing it's politics, economy, diplomacy and, of course, military, in the hopes of becoming the dominant power on the map and ultimately becoming victorious. Everything from the arrangement of trade, alliances and confederations with your neighbors, to the research of new technologies and expansion of your cities and villages, down to the recruitment, improvement of your armies and a fair bit more is left in your hands; all managed from the isometric view of the world pictured in the screenshots. 

Though the game is turn-based and, admittedly, takes a good minute to process each turn on my frankencomputer, this oddly satisfying bid for domination and supremacy kept me busy for a good 5 hours today, and several tens more this past week that I've been playing. Suffice to say that despite some negative views on what has been called a "dumbed down" game by fans of older games in the Total War series, there is still a great deal of fun to be had with Rome 2.

As it turns out, experience with grand strategy games in general does not make you immune to poor decisions, as the 2 armies denoted by the men with blue flags soon found out. (They died in case you're unsure.)

 Of course, World Domination is not the only thing to keep you busy in Total War: Rome 2. The real meat of the game, (and the thing that made the Total War games famous in the first place), is it's highly accurate model for realtime warfare involving thousands of troops arrayed in their respective cohorts/squads/battalions/whatever you want to call them.

In some of the later screenshots in this post, you'll note that I decided to take a break from the Grand Campaign to try out some of the Historical Battles that come in the game. Of the 3 that I played, I lost 2 and learned that I am really bad at fighting offensively. (Which is part of the "Fun" as Dwarf Fortress would put it.) Between a forest ambush scenario, the siege of Carthage and a fort defense scenario, the only one I was able to win by just a slim margin was the fort defense, which is part of what makes the combat in Rome 2 so interesting.

You see, the Warscape Engine, and the engines previously designed for the older Total War games, are designed to create highly accurate representations of combat with large amounts of forces, thereby making real world combat strategies applicable to the game because of it's accurate representation of the soldiers and the factors that influence them.

At this point, I figured it would be a good idea to show what the technology tree's looked like in the game. Nothing too fancy, but they don't feel redundant at least.

 To be less vague about how this is done, consider one of the battles I fought in the "Grand Campaign" as the Iceni against the Demetae clan. Outnumbered 3 men for ever 2, I decided, having read a great deal of military themed books and taken great interest in various documentaries throughout my life, that the best course of action would be to place all my men up on the nearby hill and force the enemy troops to arduously climb up the hill to reach me.

Having reached the foot of the hill, his men quickly found themselves being pelted heavily by the extended range of my slingers, effectively killing a good 100 of their men before they even managed to get into combat. Those that did make it to the top were severely winded from the steep ascent, and their morale damaged at the sight of their friends dying beside them and the knowledge that at any moment, they could be next.

Not yet broken, their own slingers took up a line at the base of the hill and began pelting their own missiles back up at my mine while their warriors fought. Unfortunately for them, this was the perfect opportunity for my horsemen, in a wedge formation, (which is effective for smashing through ranks of enemies.), to come and utterly decimate his unarmored slingers. Alone and unable to fight back against the agile horsemen, the enemy slinger's morale broke within moments, the surviving men fleeing the field quickly while my own warriors enveloped their enemy atop the hill. Surrounded and without support, the enemy warriors began to die quickly due to attacks coming from all sides, and the death of their general promptly resulted in their surrender.

One moment while I revel in how cool that sounded. (Heehee). Moving on, as you can see, the game's engine allows for the accurate depiction of all the factors that influence a fighting force in the game, from morale, to how tired they are, the equipment that they have, and the effect that losing their leader can have on them. And that's not even everything that can happen. In the earlier mentioned Roman fort defense scenario, use of archers with flaming arrows and onagers allowed me to demoralize the enemy Gauls while holding them at the fort gates, causing more men to flee than what actually died in the combat. (I will point out that I am not actually that good at these games, I just haven't mentioned my blunders yet, such as my inability to regroup my men during a forest ambush, and the fact that I let half my army die to arrow fire from the walls of Carthage during the siege. Truth be told, if I don't choose where I'm going to fight, I'll probably lose.)

Some of the historical battles in Rome 2. I should point out that those earlier mentioned victories in battle were made playing on "Easy". This game is kinda difficult.

 Now, I could continue to give you blow by blow accounts of battles, (Which does sound like fun in all honesty, perhaps I'll do it again sometime.), but I think you've gotten the picture of why I so thoroughly enjoy playing this game, and that's enough for the purposes of this article. All in all, as someone as easily forgiving as me, I have yet to find any real reason to fault Total War: Rome 2, though I am admittedly new to the Total War series. Perhaps the AI isn't the best in the world and maybe the Grand Campaign is allegedly dumbed down from previous iterations, but as a game on it's own, objectively, Total War: Rome 2 is a fun game and definitely worth a go. I would recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of tactical and strategic military combat, as averse to simply running into battle as one guy and killing hundreds of people all on your own. (That can have it's own attractions too sometimes.)

In any case, feel free to check out the additional screenshots and read the side-story that accompanies them at your leisure for a better perspective of what the game looks like. If you enjoyed this article, or have something you wish to add or ask, please be sure to let us know down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter as we here at TCSA love to hear from you guys. Of course, if you happen to have any friends who enjoy large strategy games, consider sharing this article with them too. I am sure they will appreciate it. And if you yourself would like to read more articles like this one, consider liking the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or following us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had and absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Fair battles my friends.

The siege of Carthago begins, complete with a map of the battlefield and a customary Roman-times themed quote.

A few minutes later, and the most I've done is lobbed several hundred rocks at the enemy walls and siege equipment in the hopes that this will make the impending battle easier. (It didn't really.)

Walls and towers down, the time to charge was getting closer, but I had a strange feeling that this wasn't going to go well.

The land based Roman forces which I had little experience commanding. Though better equipped than the Gauls from earlier, the fact that the Carthaginians got to choose where we fought is probably a good indicator of things to come.

The water based troops of Rome. Most of these guys died before they even drew their swords thanks to enemy Onagers and towers.

Having finally assaulted the city, it can be easily seen by my men's healthbars that the Carthaginians had collected a hefty toll for my entry.

Most of my men killed and maimed, it should come as little surprise that I wasn't happy when I found out the enemy was counter-attacking.

Note to self: War elephants are no joke. Just because your men were confident before the fighting started does not make them any less mashable by elephant tusks and feet. -300 Roman Soldiers in 30 seconds.

The enemy counterattack defeated, my roman troops were in complete shambles as they attempted to kill a squad of elites. (This dis not go so well, especially since my general had died a few minutes ago already)

On the upside, my 36 minute long "Valiant Defeat" did drag almost twice as many of their troops to death as they did mine. I don't think Rome is happy with "my best" though.

OddballGreg - rAge Gaming Expo 2014

rAge gaming Expo, the place where all the fine gaming enthusiasts of South Africa gather to stare at the oddly dressed, play new games and gather bundles of advertisements, half of which they are unlikely to look at.

Gaming, a 4000+ person lan, closed door game viewings, public gameplay booths, exclusive offers, local developer initiatives and a lot of walking, these and more were what I experienced at my first time at rAge. Let's talk about it.

For those of you not yet sure, rAge is the large, annual gaming expo organised by NAG (New Age Gaming) and, more recently as I understand it, IGN Africa, which was launched with the aid of NAG back in December 2013. Famous for cosplayers; a 2000+ person lan where people from all over the country, (and perhaps even from outside of it), come to connect to a massive lan network and play games for 3 days straight; game booths and developer talks and just general nerdy madness.

So with that out of the way, here's what I saw at the rAge 2014, the first major gaming expo I've attended. Standing out in the lines outside, the first game of the day was spotting various cosplayers waiting to enter the exposition, with appearances ranging from the blurred out showering Sims woman, to Cloud and Sephiroth Final Fantasy, to a woman dressed in a black rogue outfit that was eventually agreed to have probably been a Legend of Zelda character. (Though there were plenty other great cosplay outfits to be seen within later on, such as fantastic Vi and Jinx outfits from League Of Legends, a large variety of Star Wars characters including the typical Jedi and Sith characers and even some Ewoks, a couple of masked Ichigo's from Bleach and many others, this video from Evetech showing some of the colorful characters from earlier days.

My thoughts were ambivalent as I took my first steps into the actual expo area once the doors were opened, inaccurately stowing my halved entrance ticket into my breast pocket as I walked, my somewhat less nerdy girlfriend beside me with a mixture of interest and exhaustion on her face due to a long night the day before. (I appreciate her suffering my excited explanations of each game we came across, having been following them online for a long time already myself.)

Post entrance, the first place of note we happened to stumble upon was the fenced of Nag Lan, filled with tired looking gamers, a lot of blow up mattresses and sleeping bags, and a rather massive screen detailing how the 2Gb p/s line provided by Internet Solutions had at that point downloaded a whopping 100TB over the course of the expo. (For any foreign readers, I will point out that the average South African uses a 2mbps ADSL line, and frequently gets the urge to punch people that complain about not being able to stream 1080p. Teehee)

That behind us, we proceeded on to find the home_coded stand which is for South African developers to display their works, at which point I immediately found my way to the screen where the highly acclaimed Broforce by FreeLives and watched a good few moments of patriotic madness before we moved on. (I will guiltily admit to forgetting to look at the other home_coded games that were on show due to a desire to see what more this buzzing event had to offer, and perhaps an unnecessary ambition to ensure that my girlfriend remained entertained. BECAUSE PRIORITIES!) 

Nevertheless, onward we walked, our feet bringing us through aisle after aisle whereupon we discovered the XboxOne stand, complete with Assassins Creed Unity as well as various other games such as Sunset Overdrive, Shadow Of Mordor and Alien: Isolation, Forza Horrizon 2 and various others. Having been intensely interested in Assassins Creed Unity and Shadow Of Mordor since their announcements, they received the brunt of my attention while we explored the Xbox stand.

Steps along brought us past the various board game and trinket shops, as well as an enjoyable conversation with one of the local game artists who discussed the state of art showing at rAge, as well as various other things. (And was wearing a Sailor Moon shirt... which was pretty cool.) I admittedly cannot remember her stand name, but will sure to give a shout-out to her for some really cool 8bit art and a very friendly personality.

Continued exploration brought us across the rather inky Splatoon stand, the parkour inspired zombie game Dying Light, and the 2K stand which was admittedly the only one that made me excitedly drag my unfortunate girlfriend along so that I can watch Borderland: The Pre-Sequal in action. Also, here's a trailer for said game... because it's awesome!

That said, we accidentally found ourselves in a closed door showing of a Tom Clancy's The Division walkthrough by chance, which was itself quite interesting as a very ambitious and original MMORPG shooter as they discussed the various elements of gameplay and the engine designed exclusively for the game.

Eyes readjusting to the light of the main dome, our attention soon came to the event stage where League Of Legends pro, Stephen "Snoopeh" Ellis of the Evil Geniusus team, was talking about what it is to be a professional gamer and basically bringing attention to amateur league tournaments such as the BlackMonsterCup which is where he started his professional gaming career. He also did push-ups... 70 of them. (I will admit to feeling slightly lazy at that point, considering my slightly sedentary lifestyle as a gamer, blogger, and general IT aficionado has led to an appalling state of fitness.)

Following that, the final stop was the Mortal Kombat X stand which I only noticed as it was clearly visible from the stands we had been sitting on while Snoopeh spoke. A few minutes of watching Sub Zero brutally remove various parts of his opponents, and it was fair to say that my girlfriend and I were somewhat tired after what had been a rather eventful few hours, (unsurprising considering we were tired before we had arrived.), the Corsair sponsored Dota 2 tournament was announcing it's end as we made our way to the exit, somewhat satisfied with all that we had seen, but glad to be going. (Take into account that we both crashed for about an hour or two after getting home, and it's clear just how tired we actually were.)

All in all, my first time at a gaming expo, and at rAge in specific was fairly eventful and interesting, though I think getting some sleep before I go next time is well under advisement. If you were there at rAge and saw something awesome that I missed, or just think I'm silly for going there tired, please be sure to let us know down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter as we here at TCSA love to hear from you. Better yet, be sure to share this article with any of your friends who went to or wanted to go to rAge this year, they may appreciate the info. And if you yourself would like to read more fun articles like this one, do be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter so that you can get all the latest posts, as they're published. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Happy gaming my friends.

Tomfoolery Tuesday - Dota 2 (The Game Sequel Of The Mod)

Hello and welcome to Tomfoolery Tuesday; the day of the week where I talk about a game that is the sequel to the mod that inspired the other game that I hate. (Also, Russians)

If that description sounds confusing... Don't worry. It's intentional. (Teehee) Make sure to read the image captions, they tell a story mostly separate to the blog article.

If you're anything of a gaming veteran, then chances are good that you have probably heard of Dota or it's now rather (in)famous sequel Dota 2. Considering how often I mention League Of Legends, a game which is effectively based on Dota, I thought it only fitting that I do a review of Dota 2 as well.

A rather funny result of the topics I choose to talk about on this blog is that my passing references to my experience playing League of Legends has become almost as common as my references to the sudden impact of my head against my desk. So it makes sense that after my friends dragged me into playing a game of Dota 2 with them, I would have to do a review of it in order to get a fair balance of opinion between the games. (Before you ask, I think they're both good in their own right. There's no choice of "which is better" to be found in this article.)

First and foremost, Dota 2 is the famous Free to Play, Valve made MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is sequel to the original Dota which was actually a mod for Warcraft 3 and the first MOBA ever made. (You get all that? No? I don't blame you.)

All set to go with my randomly chosen death knight support champ. (I thought. I should point out that I am really bad at these games.)

Starting out, I should point out that MOBA type games have to met specific terms in order to be classified as such. So if you've played any MOBA in your life, be it League of Legends, Smite, the original Dota, etc, you will likely feel relatively comfortable with the way that Dota 2 works. (This does mean that I'm probably going to be mentioning what I wasn't used to mainly...)

Dota 2 involves 5 champions on each side fighting down 3 lanes of minions, (often referred to as creeps) and towers to ultimately destroy the enemy Ancient (Their base basically.) This is done by earning gold which is used to buy items which improve your chosen champion, and earning experience which improves his abilities, so that you can outperform the enemy and ultimately win. (That's the simple version. There's a lot more strategy to it than that.)

The shop is fairly much like you would expect it to be, except some slight differences in gameplay means that LoL veterans won't be quite at home with Dota 2.

However, what makes Dota 2 notable to me are, as I said, it's differences to League Of Legends. There are a multitude of gameplay changes firstly. Things like a special defensive buff for structures that can be activated every five minutes, (I had no idea what it did the first time I clicked it.), a day/night cycle, the ability to pause, requiring portal scrolls to teleport to your base, the availability of couriers to bring items you buy to you instead of fetching them from base, and even the fact that there are actually multiple shops throughout the map rather than just the one at your base. These things all through me off quite badly the first time I played Dota 2, but I found that by my second match, I understood how things worked enough to not be utterly terrible. (For those of you who haven't played a MOBA before, this paragraph probably made no sense to you. I fear only playing the game will help with that.)

However, it is not just the inherent differences in gameplay that make Dota 2 and interesting and discernibly different counterpart to League of Legends, but the way that Steam and Valve run it which truly changes the experience.

"Heh. This doesn't look so hard." I thought for the first and last time...

Firstly, while League of Legends has a large selection of champions of which a selection is made free to play every week; Dota 2 bars absolutely no content in any way, except for the cosmetic items which it uses, like League of Legends, to make it's money in a way that does not affect the experience of the users. While I can't say either system doesn't have it's pro's or con's, I'm most likely simply enjoying the refreshing differences after so many years playing League Of Legends.

Dota 2 does also offer a fair deal more choice in terms of how you want to play it. While there is not exactly a wide range of maps, (a common issue in all MOBA's), there are a fair deal of customization options for how you play that I had not expected. Options ranging from captains picking for their teams to building a champion from a pool of abilities are not exactly standard, and had me fairly surprised when I found them. Considering that Dota 2 boasts Steam Workshop modability while League of Legends bans anything more than client side aesthetic changes, it clear to see which has the greater choice in gameplay options.

Not to say that League of Legends was stale to any degree, their bi-weekly updates ensured frequent changes and a necessity to adaptation that Dota 2 avoids by not releasing new champions constantly. Both again have their pro's and con's.

I happened to be first blood in this match...

In terms of performance on my frankencomputer with it's dual core Amd Athlon and Nvidia 6800, Dota 2 is a clear winner in terms of not freezing and maintaining a fairly constant Framerate unlike League of Legends which freezes frequently and dependably. (I cannot buy an item in LoL without the additional cost of 5 seconds for my computer to come out of it's coma.) Both have a fair deal of graphical options to choose from, though my obvious default setting is to just put everything down to the minimum and cross my fingers.

Which brings us finally to the subject which was pretty much the entirety of my League of Legends review. The community. Unfortunately, a side-affect of being a South African is that I cannot speak with much authority on the subject, and can only pass on what I know through secondhand knowledge.

Firstly, Dota 2 is interwoven with the Steam community features, and makes playing with friends and teammates quite easy and painless. It also allows for the creation of ranked teams and even the in-game browsing of championship and league games. Mostly what you would expect, but very easy to use.

The reason I cannot so much comment of other players behavior however is due to my inability to connect to any of them. I sat in queue for 30 minutes, and the one time I found a match, I was busy making something to drink and got promptly kicked from the queue. I didn't bother to try again. However, if the steam reviews article by Kotaku is to be believed, the Dota 2 community is as toxic as the League Of Legends community. The game is also very good in their opinion... but then again, so is the word "cyka" if those steam reviews are to be believed. (There were also references to Russian Learning Simulator 2014 and a loss of dignity. What on earth are they talking about I wonder? Teehee. You should definitely read that article.)

I was also second blood...

In any case, in the end, Dota 2 is a good game, and has yet to have the fun of it brutally stripped away from it by the competitiveness of it's community. It's differences are still interesting while it's familiarity dispels the brutal difficulty that learning a new competitive game usually has. I will probably play it some more in the future and will perhaps comment on the community in the future if you guys are interested. If you are, or just want to tell me about something else I should have spoken about, be sure to let me know in the comments below or over Facebook or Twitter. Also, if you have any friends looking for something new to play or wondering what Dota 2 is like, be sure to share this review with them. I'm sure they will appreciate it. And of course, if you would like to keep up to date with all the latest articles and upcoming changes to the blog, be sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter so that you can get them, as they're made.
Regardless of what you do however, I thank you for taking the time to read this review; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Proshchay moi druz'ya.

As usual, there are additional screenshots below that I couldn't quite fit into the post. Their captions tell a story separate to that of the review, so be sure to peruse them at your leisure.

And *cough*... third blood

I got pretty good at running by this point. Dota 2 champions are far squishier than LoL champions, and things hit harder to boot.

Thankfully, I figured out how not to die after this point...

Aesthetically, I quite like Dota 2's preference for realism over the slightly cartoony LoL artstyle.

Not really an issue, but I'd never realized quite how flat the LoL maps were until I played Dota 2.

At this point, I almost felt proud of myself for eventually getting strong enough to squash bots.

There are a few more elements to the base that League of Legends has, but the overall impact on gameplay in comparison is negligible.

I would feel proud if I hadn't been playing with bots on Easy difficulty.

If the goal was to be the lowest leveled character on the team by the end of the match... I won.

A decent selection of champions, immediately available for use no matter what.

A fair selection of items grants a fair deal of versatility to your champion builds.

Integrated character builds and steam guides. At least they're easier to find and manage than in League Of Legends. Not that I'm likely to ever use either.

Of course. A valve game without hats would be blasphemy. Dota 2 goes one step further with hats, horses, clothes, weapons, names, etc. A steam card traders dream.

Steam Workshop integration means that people can change things up if they like... Last I checked somebody was making a League of Legends mod for Dota 2 *facedesk*

As you would expect, there's a fair deal of competitive play involved in Dota 2.

While I do like the way that Dota 2 works in terms of matches and playing the game. I fear there's a distinct problem for South African Gamers.

After waiting patiently 25 minutes in the South African queue for a match, I went away for 2 minutes to wring out a kidney and get a drink, only to come back to this. Suffice to say my patience promptly flew out the window.

Madness Monday - Freelancer Roleplay (The Definition Of Madness)

Hello and welcome to Madness Monday; the day of the week where I tel you about a really great game I played for years... and then mention how the Madness of it's players turned from a factor of enjoyment to boredom.

Freelancer boxart is the property of Microsoft. (Also, the mirroring of the planet is not part of the original image. Box art is too narrow for my header image, so I made do.)

Have you ever pretended to be someone else and done strange out-of-character things in the name of Roleplay? If yes, you're either an actor, a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, crazy as all hell, or really kinky. (You dirty dog you. Haha) Some people like to pretend to be other people online sometimes. It can fun... sometimes.

Freelancer is the space gamers special memory of way-back-when game that was made by Digital Anvil, with Chris Roberts at the lead, and published by Microsoft Game Studios in 2003. (If Chris Roberts sounds like a familiar name, that's probably because he's the guy running the development of Star Citizen. You know, that game that made headlines with now $49 million in crowdsourced funding.) Anyways, odds are, if you meet a space game enthusiast, they've probably played one of Chris Roberts's games, and Freelancer is one of the more popular ones. (The other being Wing Commander. And that game was hard as hell to play when you're 7)

In any case, "so why is this on a Madness Monday?", you may be wondering. A couple reasons. Space game enthusiasts are pretty crazy. One good reason is that considering this game was made in 2003, there are still mods being made and updated for this game regularly, one of which is the main subject of this article. The Discovery Mod for Freelancer, which is in version 4.86, is perhaps one of the few things I continued to play for years. (My average playtime for most games is weeks at most.) This mod has added countless things to the game, to the point that it's a wonder that the game still manages to run unofficial online servers for any period of time.

So what did I do for years in a mod for an ancient game? Roleplay. (Apparently roleplay is the topic of interest right now, considering Saturdays article.) I think there must be a lot of bored and somewhat mad individuals out there, (like myself), to go to an ancient spaceship piloting game, fly out into space and pretend to a Space Pirate who goes and steals from the other poor carebears who thought that trading goods in an online game was fun. And the madness didn't end there. Not satisfied with simple in game roleplay, there is a forum more or less dedicated to the mod's official server and all the roleplay that took place on it. And things get weird on there and in game, (and on Skype for some). A term I used in my review of Aura Kingdom; Lolicom, is a fairly accurate description of some of the weird things these people did. Picture two grown men sitting at computers, pretending to be a guy and girl and roleplaying their "story". (*Shivers* it is the internet i guess, rule 34 of the internet being what it is.)

Still, it's not all bad. At times it was an utter blast. If you enjoy writing stories and seeing how people react to and interact with them, there was a definite allure to the strange things we did on this single online server. And the people who liked to make these stories were always a pleasure to meet. To be fair, if I had never played this weird game online, I'd never have started learning to do Photoshop, and maybe wouldn't be quite the actor I turned out to be later in life. (Ah, yes, another crazy thing about this game, everyone and their mother had a fancy header image or graphic that they designed themself or had designed for them. It makes no sense, but I guess people will do lots in an attempt to suspend disbelief.)

In the end though, it wasn't the utterly strange people that played the game, nor the visible aging of the game, that eventually made me stop playing yeas later. It was boredom. In the wise words of Far Cry 3's antagonist Vass Montenegro, "The definition of madness is doing the same thing, over and over, expecting things to change." (Although some other person might have said it first.) Basically, the scope of the game began to limit the stories that could be told. There's only so many times you can fly in and start shooting before the reason for doing so starts to sound overused. Eventually it felt like a chore saying the same things again and again. "Maddeningly monotonous" is putting it lightly.

In any case, it could still be fun for other people I guess, if you can put up with the element of sheer strangeness that even I don't compare to. (And that's saying something.) Do you think that's hard to manage?Or maybe just want to tell me about some other weird roleplaying you've done, make sure to let me know in the comments below. (Not the kinky kind though; keep that to yourself. This is a relatively child friendly blog.) Also, don't forget to share this any friends who think that they do weird things. They might feel a little more normal afterwards. And of course, if you would like to read more articles like this, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated buttons on the sidebar to the right. Regardless of what you do though, I thank you for taking the time to read this strange article; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Peace be with you friends.

Random Subject Saturday - Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; the day of the week where I expose some of my nerdier interests, and talk about how awesome they are anyway.

Assorted gaming dice; the trademark of any self-respecting nerd. And look, they even shine. (Teehee)

Have you ever sat down and thought: "Man. I wish there was a game that was like real-life where you could do anything you liked."? If so, you might be happy to find there are games like that. They're just inherently multiplayer and don't involve computers. If you are a 90's kid, or born earlier, you may have even played one.

Before I start, I should probably explain what I'm talking about, and clarify something. Firstly, I'm talking about "Tabletop Roleplaying Games" and secondly, they aren't so much games, as systems. (You'll get why I make that distinction in a moment.) Tabletop Roleplaying Games are the great grandpapies of modern video games. They're those crazy old coots that say "In my day, we didn't have any of this technology stuff. We had to use our imaginations to have fun." while watching Commander Shepard headbutt a Krogan. (Fistbump if you get that reference.)

To be fair, they aren't wrong with that. Don't get me wrong, videogames are great and will always be a favorite hobby for me; but playing a Tabletop Roleplaying Game is incomparable to that, despite modern games being based upon them. (Games like the original Fallout and Fallout 2 were based on a gaming system called GURPS.) To put it into perspective, one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of videogames is their elimination of the need for imagination. Like the argument of TV over books, they simply remove all need for you to imagine what something is, because it's displayed at face value and requires no further forethought. Nice as not having to think can be occasionally, that can become extremely unfufilling if you ever get a taste of what imagination has to offer. Basically; if imagination were money, then videogames are expensive loans. They get you what you want, but basically rob you of a greater pleasure in the long run.

Inversely, playing a Tabletop Game is like putting a ton of money into a retirement fund. Maybe not as great at first, but the outcome is far greater than anything you could have had in the meantime. Since these Tabletop games are more like systems than the games you might be thinking about when I say the word "game", this allows them a far greater ability to pull in random aspects from anywhere and take the story anywhere. A computer game can only do what it's programmed to do, these tabletop "systems" as I've called them, are limited by a single thing. Your imagination.

What do I mean by that? Say you're playing a videogame and something annoying keeps happening. Maybe your character keeps dropping their weapon for example, and because of that, you would have to pick the stupid thing up every single time that happened. In the case of a Tabletop Roleplaying Game, and I'm speaking from experience, having done this in the first tabletop game I ever played, you can come up with all sorts of clever tricks to solve an issue like that. In my case, I was playing a somewhat poorly made archer character who kept managing to drop his bow. So I asked what it would cost to buy some leather and strap said piece of infernal pine to my characters arm so that I would not have to climb out of tree's to go retrieve the thing. The DM said that works for him, and so a painful issue was solved with some imaginative ingenuity. 

So what do you need to play these tabletop games? ("And what the hell is a DM?" I bet you're asking.) Well, you need yourself, maybe 3 other friends, some time, dice and the rules for one of these Tabletop Games. You might be thinking: "well, what about imagination?". That helps, but usually after a few games you develop one of those anyway, so no stress. 

So what's the downside to these games? Well, you can't play them alone. A minimum of 2 people required, but it usually requires a skillful DM to make sure that it's not boring for so few people; so about 3 or 4 is best to start. And of course, before I delay any more, the Dungeon Master is essentially the Storyteller that makes these games work. (and technically only referred to as a DM in Dungeons & Dragons. Other games have other terms.) I should point out that it's a good idea to have the most imaginative of your friends as the DM, since they're the people that get the game going and dictate what is happening in the game. 

Your DM is the guy who sits and has some cool ideas for a story, writes them down and comes up with an adventure for the other players's characters to experience, and then describes things as those characters interact with the world he is portraying in the story. A difficult role to explain, but you could essentially liken the DM to the world's puppeteer, pulling the strings in reaction to the events caused by the other players. A hefty burden to carry as the person who determines if the story is one worth remembering or not, but ultimately rewarding if done well.

I will admit to being somewhat bad at explaining things occasionally, so instead of listening to my fanboyisms's, perhaps you're interested in seeing a game like this played. If so, while not quite the same as playing it with friends in person, my resident YouTube favorite Quill18 actually has a 4 part video series (1, 2, 3, 4) on YouTube of him playing the recently released 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons system, which he plays with some of his subscribers online. Check it out. While somewhat informal, it better demonstrates how things work than my ramblings.

So, I'm guessing, at this point, you're either bored stiff with my vague/detailed descriptions and nerdiness, or you're itching to try one of these games out for yourself. If you're the former, I understand. Pretending to be someone else and dictating your actions while someone tells you about the consequences of said actions isn't for everyone. However, if you're the latter, then you're probably looking to find out what kinds of Tabletop Roleplaying Games there are, and where you can get them.

Firstly, there are a ton of them... Waaaay too many for me to mention, and they're not even limited to "Roleplaying" games, which is why I've been talking about those specifically. There's strategy type games like Warhammer that I might talk about at a later date, and many others; but having never played those, I'm going to keep those discussions for other articles.

So what systems do I know about? Well, the first is obvious. Dungeons and Dragons, which is by the company Wizards of the Coast. Essentially the staple of these gaming systems, and maybe even the progenitor of them if I'm not mistaken; it's a fair place to start in terms of Tabletop Roleplaying Games. The rules are relatively simple and make sense, there are 5 editions worth of rules for you choose from, and basically everyone who's every played a Tabletop game has probably played DnD, so with a bit of luck, finding someone to play with shouldn't be all that hard. (Unless you live in South Africa, like me, then it's a mission.) Luckily, the website RPG.co.za has forums and such to help out with that sort of thing. (They're also run by the same people who hold the ICON tabletop games convention in South Africa each year.) Probably a good idea to check them out if you're interested, since that's where I found the people I played my first Pathfinder campaign with. There's also an online "Wiki" for the base game, so all you internet savants can go check out some of the things people come up with for their campaigns.

 (As an afterthought, if you do decide to play DnD, dodge 4th edition for your first campaign, it's combat rules are fairly draconian compared to the other editions.)

The other system I know about is a somewhat more... obscure game called Mage: The Ascension that was created by White Wolf; who are now owned by the CCP Games, the Iceland based creators of the MMO EVE online. (Again, an article for another time.) I say game, but in technicality there were many that were more or less the same thing, but spun in different directions for the game "universe" that White Wolf created, known as the "World of Darkness". Perhaps one of the most popular, (yet still fairly obscure), videogames based on the World of Darkness was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines; which was again itself based on the ruleset for Vampire: The Masquerade. However, the tabletop rules I know of are for Mage: The Ascension, for one simple reason. That game is fucking cool. (Excuse the expletive, that's how cool it is.) Based on the aforementioned "GURPS" gaming system, these rulesets from White Wolf ranged on everything from Vampires to Werewolves, Regular Humans and Mages, to Fey and various other creatures, all as playable characters; and, for the more adventurous Storytellers, able to be used all together. Cool as that is, it is Mage: The Ascension that is of the most interest to me.

Mage: The Ascension takes the idea of doing anything you can imagine, and literally pushes it to it's limits. While I did say that these Tabletop Roleplaying Games are only limited to your imagination, I should add that there are the bounds of the rules for obvious reasons. A game is not a game without rules that everyone agrees to play by. Here's the thing, Dungeons and Dragons is pretty awesome, but depending on your tastes, slightly limited. It's great for it's medieval high fantasy and ease of access to new players, but for people looking for something more, things like it's magic are completely limited, and using it in a modern setting does make things difficult and confusing. The World of Darkness setting and Mage: Ascension has the opposite issues. It's modern, and it's rules are so broad that for the inexperienced, it can be overwhelming. (Damn it Greg, explain better.) Consider this: in Dungeons and Dragons, you get the "Magic Missile" spell that shoots three bolts of magic, everytime, the same way, every time you use it. Seems cool, but you would expect magic to be more freeform than that.

Mage: The Ascension takes that idea, and runs with it. While it makes place for what they call "Rotes", the focus of the game is based around the concept of molding reality to ones will. The rules don't detail spells and their effects, they talk about spheres of magic, and what kind of things can be done at various levels of expertise in them. A character who knows the Sphere of life can manipulate all things related to life, seeing life visually, to healing the injured, to eventually even outright snuffing it out or creating it with the click of his fingers. A character that knows the Sphere of Entropy can see the strings of fate about him, and begin to play with them as he carries gains more expertise, forcing normal dice to always roll sixes, or causing the supports of a wall to fail, bringing the rubble onto those nearby. Sounds fairly mystical no? And the best part is, it truly is limited by your imagination. (and your characters expertise within the rules obviously.) Anything from guns that never run out of ammo to time travel is possible within the rules of this game. So I'd say that's pretty awesome no?

Warning: The Next Paragraph contains heavy fanboyism. Read at your own risk.

I should point out that you've probably heard of a similar sounding game or two. Firstly, Magic: The Gathering and Mage: The Ascension are two separate things, the former being a card game by Wizards of the Coast. Secondly, Mage: The Ascension is in technicality a discontinued version of what became Mage: The Awakening, a reboot by White Wolf again. I'm gonna be blunt about this, though you're free to have a different opinion. Mage: The Ascenion = Awesome. Mage: The Awakening = Garbage. The technicalities being the Mage: The Awakening took some perfectly reasonable, sensible and just plain cool ideas, and trivialized them for ease of play, while ruining the idea in the process. Not saying it's a bad game, but in my personal opinion, it can't hold a candle to Mage: The Ascension.

The Danger has passed.

Oh yes, I mentioned that Mage: The Ascension was an old, obscure and rebooted game. You're might be wondering how you would get your hands on the rules and such for this game then. Thank goodness for DriveThruRPG, an online, print on demand service who offer the printing and delivering of all the related game materials for Mage: The Ascension, it's brother games, and even other games like Dungeons and Dragons if you're struggling to find them. A handy service to be sure. (And if I'm not mistaken, you can even just buy the PDF's of these books from them at a steal.)

In any case, before I decide to further carry on about how cool Mage: The Ascension is, I should wrap the article up. If you think I should shut-up about Mage, or maybe talk about/try out another gaming system, make sure to let me know in the comments below... Otherwise, I can't know now can I? Also, be sure to share this with any of your bored/nerdy friends out there, maybe they'll find something to like in this veritable wall of text. And of course, if you would like to see more articles likes this one, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the right. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this and that I have redeemed myself for my lack of a proper article yesterday, hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Farewell adventurers. Safe Travels.