Hey Girl! Whatcha Doin’? Hey Girl! Where Ya Goin’?

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 262018
 

Greetings Travelers! Let us speak on things.

As a follow-up to the end of last week’s blog, I didn’t try the game I was expecting to crack my top 100 over the weekend. It’s still looming. Wizards of the Wild may have a chance to make it, but it’d be a mid to low ranking entry. I love the look. The game play is decent, but not great. Zombie Tsunami is alright for what it is. I backed it as it was Lucky Duck Games’ follow-up to Vikings Gone Wild which I really enjoy. It doesn’t come anywhere near the greatness of that title.

I’ve been binge-watching episodes of New Girl lately. I’m about halfway done with the sixth season. The seventh and final season is two weeks away. I don’t know that I’ll watch it first run. I may just wait for it to get to Netflix. Let me say that Lamorne Morris is great as Winston, easily my favorite character.

I’ve got two short work weeks ahead of me thanks to Easter coming up this weekend. I love me a four-day weekend.

So the new Deema story arc has started. It involves her all-consuming desire to join the Mouse Wing and be the first lizard to fly. Well, maybe not all-consuming, but definitely strong. Stronger than most other desires. That’s some powerful stuff right there.

I have one wrestling mash-up left to draw. It’ll soon be time to decide my next theme. Do I continue with some flashbacks or do I go with something new? Themes I want to revisit: Sailor Moon, X-Men, Alice in Wonderland, maybe Ronin Warriors. New stuff? That’s where it gets tricky. It has to be something I enjoy and would like to draw. Maybe Harry Potter? I feel like the costumes would get kind of samey after a few, though there are a couple that stand out in my mind. Any other ideas?

I think this concludes this week’s blog. Have a good seven and we’ll do this again next Monday.

Top 100 Games!

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 192018
 

Greetings Programs! It’s time for another blog.

Back in May 2016, I posted my Top 40 Board/Card Games. I feel like enough time has passed that I can now update and expand the list. This time around, it’s my top 100 games. The first two thirds of the list was pretty easy. Filling in the final third was a little harder. There are games that I’ve played once and they skyrocketed up the list (Millennium Blades) and there are games I’ve played once and didn’t feel justified in putting them on (Cosmic Encounter). There are games I’m anxious to get my hands on and am sure will be on this list the next time I do this. If I did this list a week from now, I think there’d be at least one new game on it.There’s also one cheat and it’s super high on the list: Armello. It’s a digital-only game, but it definitely captures the board game experience.

How did each game rank where they did? It basically boils down to how eager I am to play that game again or in a couple of cases, the really fond memories I have of playing (Ani-Mayhem ranks surprisingly high even though I haven’t played it in close to 15 years). The higher on the list the game is, the more likely I am to say yes if asked to play at any point. Looking at the list, it’s clear that I have a preference for thematic games, that aren’t super heavy. Also I really like to roll dice and build decks of cards.

Anyway, here’s the list:

1. Lords of Waterdeep
2. Star Wars: Destiny
3. DC Comics Deck-Building Game
4. Too Many Bones
5. Millennium Blades
6. Star Wars: Imperial Assault
7. Stuffed Fables
8. Masmorra: Dungeons of Arcadia
9. Dragonfire
10. Vikings Gone Wild
11. Armello
12. Star Wars: Rebellion
13. Mice and Mystics
14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past
15. Aeon’s End (the highest ranked game I do not own)
16. Dark Gothic
17. Heroscape
18. Mechs vs. Minions
19. By Order of the Queen
20. Roll Player
21. The Grimm Forest
22. Firefly: The Game
23. Hero Realms
24. Charterstone
25. Harry Potter: Howarts Battle
26. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game
27. Arcadia Quest
28. Krosmaster: Arena
29. Dice Forge
30. Dice City
31. Tales & Games: The Hare & the Tortoise
32. Century: Spice Road
33. Love Letter
34. Hardback
35. Quarriors
36. Dice Masters
37. Takenoko
38. Parade
39. King of Tokyo
40. Dice Town
41. Tokaido
42. Valeria: Card Kingdoms
43. A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King
44. Star Trek Panic
45. Battlestar Galactica
46. Smash Up
47. Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn
48. Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game
49. Port Royal
50. Letter Tycoon
51. Medieval Academy
52. Ani-Mayhem
53. Elder Sign
54. Castle Dice
55. Tournament at Camelot
56. Enchanters
57. Pandemic: The Cure
58. Champions of Midgard
59. Sheep & Thief
60. Arcane Academy
61. Bunny Kingdom
62. Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu
63. Abyss
64. King’s Forge
65. Seasons
66. The Big Book of Madness
67. Favor of the Pharaoh
68. Dragon Farkle
69. Azul
70. Citadels
71. Imperial Settlers
72. Legendary/Legendary Encounters
73. Carcassonne: Star Wars
74. Fantahzee: Hordes & Heroes
75. Krosmaster: Quest
76. Navia Dratp
77. Onitama
78. Kingdomino
79. Mouse Guard: Swords & Strongholds
80. Tem-Purr-a
81. Rise of Augustus
82. Potion Explosion
83. Sushi Go Party!
84. Dead Man’s Draw
85. Pina Pirata
86. Nyet!
87. Age of War
88. Tumblin-Dice
89. Karuba
90. World’s Fair 1893
91. Star Wars: Escape From the Death Star
92. Ticket to Ride: Europe
93. Speedy Words
94. Eggs and Empires
95. Qwirkle
96. Stop Thief!
97. Dungeon Fighter
98. Sheriff of Nottingham
99. Runebound
100. Arkham Horror

If you compare this list to the last one, you’ll see some major drops for a few games, and some games have completely disappeared. That’s what happens when you discover so many new games. You find out some of the games you thought were good weren’t that great after all.

That’s all for this time. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.

Monday Night Raw (Flashback) – Akeem

 Artwork, Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 122018
 

Greetings Programs! It’s time for a blog…and a flashback’s overdue. So let’s do the two together.

I very specifically remember telling myself on Saturday that it was time to post a flashback, and then I didn’t do it for whatever reason. Oh well. I can now talk about the process a bit as a blog.

I’ve been using MyPaint to draw my mash-ups since the very beginning. For some reason, about a month or so ago, the software started glitching when I try to save. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and it was getting kind of maddening. The forums weren’t of any use. I thought it might be time to change software, but I didn’t want to spend any money. MyPaint was free and it did me fine for so long, I wanted to find another free alternative, so I tried Krita.

Krita looks to be more powerful than MyPaint, but it didn’t work out for me. I’m sure with time I could have gotten used to the different controls, but I took to MyPaint right away so again, if I’m going to change, I want it to be for something I feel better about using NOW.

I went back to MyPaint and tried fiddling around some more. I think it has something to do with where I’m saving the files. If I save them in the MyPaint directory, it doesn’t seem to have any issue. I’ll have to keep testing.

Now about the subject of this week’s mash-up. For some reason, the WWF decided that the One Man Gang gimmick wasn’t working, so they repackaged George Gray as Akeem, the African Dream. Basically, it boiled down to a white guy who thought he was black. Not the most progressive of gimmicks, but he looked goofy when he was dancing around. I liked it way better than the One Man Gang gimmick, so it was an improvement for me.

Here’s Barnaby as Akeem. First, is the version I did with Krita. Second, is the version I did with MyPaint off the same pencil sketch. Which do you prefer? You might need to click on each to really see the details.

Here’s a comparison to the original.

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do the mash-up part again on Saturday and the blog part again on Monday. Carja V.

I Am the Future

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 052018
 

Greetings programs! Time to blog!

Not a whole lot to talk about tonight. The big news is that I’m going to see Weird Al in concert on Wednesday which is going to be awesome sauce. It was this big thing that was super far off in the future. And now it’s here!

Other than that, what’s up? I’ve been asked to give some input for Les Dés Truqués which is pretty cool. Some good stuff came out of our meeting. The next few months should be hopping.

No real site news to talk about. The Deema storyline is coming up soon. I hope it works out well. I’ve been pushing it back for the better part of a year as I’ve been trying to find the best time to start. To paraphrase John Cena, time’s up, the time is now.

I started Stuffed Fables yesterday. I’m really getting into it. More on that in the future.

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.

All Those Happy Hellos That You Shared

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Feb 262018
 

Greetings programs! Time to blog.

I shared the site with the members of my team at work. If any of them are new readers this week, welcome!

I felt super blah over the weekend. For the first time in over a year, I had absolutely no desire to go to Les Dés Truqués. I decided to go to the movies instead. I watched Black Panther and Game Night. If it hadn’t been a two hour wait after that for Jumanji to start, I would have watched that too. All in all, it was a decent way to spend an afternoon away from home but still be in my isolationist bubble. What are my thoughts?

Black Panther was alright. I liked it fine, but I didn’t love it. I don’t get why everybody is going crazy over it. It’s the typical Marvel superhero movie. That means it’s leagues better than most DC movies (pun intended), but the bar is set pretty low there. I’ll give it a B.

Game Night is an imperfect movie, but it was fun. Would I have paid to see it if didn’t specifically have board game nights as a part of the plot? No. But it did, so I did. It featured a bunch of actors that I like too so that didn’t hurt. I laughed so that’s a win too. I’ll give it a B as well.

Both movies got the same grade, but did I like one more than the other? Well, let’s just say I look forward to seeing Game Night in English. I don’t think I ever need to see Black Panther again.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.

 

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