On Skylanders and Pigs

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 232015
 

Hello and hi Monday Blog readers! Time to start typing and see what comes out.

I finally got my mitts on the Skylanders Light Adventure Set today. Thank you to Chantal from work who picked it up for me. In theory I can now access all areas in Trap Team. I think I know what I’ll be doing next weekend. Well, maybe. Actually, next weekend is Wrestlemania and now that I have the WWE Network I’ll be able to watch all the live coverage throughout the weekend. I may not do all that much video gaming.

Growing up, I loved the Disney adaptation of the Three Little Pigs. In French, they released a series of follow-up stories in book and record sets that to the best of my knowledge never came out in English. P’tit Loup et les Trois Petits Cochons (Lil Wolf and the Three Little Pigs), Les Trois Petits Cochons, P’tit Loup et le Moulin à Poivre (The Three Little Pigs, Lil Wolf and the Pepper Mill), Les Trois Petits Cochons Rencontrent Les Sept Nains (The Three Little Pigs Meet the Seven Dwarfs).

Thanks to Fab, I’ve been acquiring some old kids records through Discogs.com. Some are records I had as a child, some are records I would have liked to have back then and others still are just interesting things I came across in my searching. One such discovery was The Stories And Songs Of Walt Disney’s Three Little Pigs (How They Fooled The Big Bad Wolf & Three Little Wolves And Invented A Wolf-Spanking Machine). Some title right? When I saw this record, I wondered if it might have been something similar to my old favorites only done in English. I found the record at a good price, so I ordered it.

It turns out that it was a retelling (narrated by Winnie the Pooh…errr…Sterling Holloway) of the three Silly Symphony animated shorts Disney did. Wait! Three animated shorts? I was only ever aware of the original short! Sounds like it was time to make a quick visit to YouTube right? Indeed! That’s what I was doing before writing this blog. If you’re a fan of Disney animation and have never seen them, I encourage you to check them out!

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

My Top Ten Life-Changing Tabletop Games

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 162015
 

Have I ever mentioned that I love tabletop gaming? I think I may have once or twice. Just to be sure, I’ll say it again: I love tabletop gaming! I’m not exaggerating when I say that if it weren’t for tabletop gaming, this site would not exist. Age of Animus began as a means of fleshing out and sharing the world I was creating for a board game I wanted to create. It’s now three and a half years later and I may never get to making that game. The site however, continues on.

With that in mind and also because I’ve been watching a lot of Dice Tower Top 10 videos on Youtube lately, today I’ve decided to give my Top 10 Life-Changing Tabletop Games.

Honorable Mentions:

Mystery Mansion – It was just so different from the other games I’d played. The idea of a game board that changed every time you played was just so revolutionary to me.

Match II – Who would have thought that a tile-flipping memory game featuring world flags would be so much fun? This was THE game to play during free time in early grade school. Well other than:

10 – Star Wars: Escape From the Death Star Game (1977)
I am part of the generation of kids who grew up with the original Star Wars Trilogy. Star Wars will always hold a special place in my heart. The first board game based on the movie was bound to influence me. Maybe there’s no future love for board games if I don’t play this one first.

9 – Shogun aka Samurai Swords aka Ikusa (1986)
My friend Stephane introduced me to this game when I was in high school. I was awestruck by the quality of the components and the depth of the game. This was a huge step up from the board games I’d seen up until that time.

8 – Star Wars: Escape From the Death Star (1990)
Same name, different experience. I found this game when I was a CEGEP student living on my own for the first time. It’s the first cooperative board game I ever played and also the first game I found that had solitaire rules. As a guy who spent a lot of time by himself, this game filled a lot of lonely hours.

7 – Arkham Horror
I could have chosen a number of different Fantasy Flight games in this slot. They’re games with a much wider scope and so rich in theme. They rekindled my interest in creating games. But after playing so many competitive games, it was a refreshing change of pace to play a game where everybody is trying to help each other succeed. That’s why Arkham Horror gets the nod here.

6 – AT-43
I disconnected from Warhammer 40K because I found assembling and painting the minis a chore. AT-43 fixed all that. The minis were all pre-assembled and pre-painted. Just buy and play. Sweet. I found them on heavy discount during Fantasy Flight Games’ annual holiday sale and bought in huge. The reason it’s on my list though is that this is the game that brought my most recent gaming group together for the first time. New friends = Good.

5 – HeroClix
It wasn’t just a game. It was an obsession.I met a lot of friends through this game as well. For a time, there were no other games.

4 – Elder Sign
I love the theme and I love rolling dice. More importantly, it’s a game I can play with my mom. An activity that brings us closer is invaluable.

3 – Star Wars CCG
Magic started the CCG craze, but it was Star Wars CCG that got me hooked. This was another of those obsession games. My passion for this game was so high that it actually moved me to enter tournaments on my own against total strangers. I lost just about every game in those tournaments but still loved playing and making decks. It’s my best memory of living in Montreal actually. My obsession eventually carried over to CCGs in general. Today, it doesn’t take a lot of convincing to get me to try a new card game.

2 – Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game
Another Star Wars game? What are the odds? Not 3,720 to 1, that’s for sure. This is another game that was my life for a number of years. I’m a much better storyteller for having run all those adventures over the years. This game was the glue that kept my friends together through the latter years of high school and CEGEP. I just have so many good memories of this game. There’s only one game that could beat it on this list and that’s…

1 – Dungeons and Dragons
I played a LOT more Star Wars but I never would have tried it, if I hadn’t played D&D first. If not for D&D, I also likely never would have gotten to know my best friend, Fab. That alone is enough to make it the most life-changing game I ever played.

A recurring theme in this list is the friends met through gaming. I’m not the most outgoing person. Tabletop gaming helps me connect with people. It gives me something to focus on and helps me overcome my anxieties.

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do it all again next Monday. Until then, please share your favorite tabletop games (and why) in the comments. Carja V.

 

Another One Bites the Dust

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 092015
 

Greetings and salutation friend! Welcome back to the Monday Blog! I reckon you’re here for some news!

Another weekend has come and gone, including another Sunday which I had earmarked for some writing only to forget and do no writing whatsoever. I need to program some kind of pop-up reminder to go off on Sunday morning.

My bi-weekly gaming nights have come to a close. We were cancelling more than we were playing and the situation wasn’t looking to get any better so I decided to pull out. I’m disappointed because I really enjoyed getting to get some more game time in there. I could have kept trying to schedule, but I just don’t have the stomach for being cancelled on anymore. For now I need to find something else to occupy my Saturday nights.

Fortunately I’m still getting a little gaming in. Every other week, my mom and I get together for a game or three of Elder Sign. This past weekend we tried out the Gates of Arkham expansion and it really changes things up.

Elder Sign already has an element of uncertainty because you never know what you’re going to roll. You might get lucky and complete several difficult tasks without losing a die, just like you might lose all your dice on what was supposed to be an easy roll.

In Gates of Arkham, the uncertainty is ramped up because now adventures come out face down. The card back tells you the suggested difficulty at least, but some of the effects on the card backs are so bad you’ll want to get rid of them as soon as possible, meaning you might have to try that difficult adventure anyway. As always, it’s a question of the lesser of evils and trying to give yourself the best chance for success possible.

We started off strong with several successes in a row, then things took a sharp turn for the worse. Things just kept piling on against us (which is thematic considering the source material the game is based on). Even though I was sure we were doomed, I wanted to see how close to our objective we could get. I was amazed we were able to get 10 out of the 12 Elder Signs we needed before the Ancient One awoke.

Most of the times we’ve played, we haven’t gone on to the end battle with the Ancient One. Either we didn’t have the elements we needed to survive the first attack or I just plain forgot there was supposed to be an end battle and declared the game a loss. This time, we played through the end battle and were able to win. Full disclosure, we were facing the Ancient One that the expansion notes stated was the easiest. Given how many other new things I knew there were to overcome, I figured I’d give us a little chance. Next time, we’ll be going back to a random selection.

Speaking of Arkham, I finished the main story of Batman: Arkham Origins on Sunday. The game lets you go back to complete the side missions when you’re done with the main story so I spent most of the rest of my day toiling to complete the Enigma side mission. I’m at 85% completion. I think I might get through it next time I play or the time after that at the latest.

Well, that wraps up the blogginess for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do it all again next Monday. Carja V.

What’s That You Say? Blog Something?

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Mar 022015
 

It’s time for me to write something.

Something.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, it’s one of those weeks. I haven’t had much time to think about potential blog subjects. Work has been more lively than usual. Sometimes I’m able to squeeze in a couple of minutes to jot some thoughts down. Not today. That’s a good thing though, because it makes my work day seem to fly by.

Last night I thought I had come up with a pretty good idea for a future series of mash-ups. I distinctly remember thinking it was something I might enjoy doing. There was a moment there today where I forgot what it was. Will I remember when it’s actually time for a new theme? Time will tell.

Last week I said I’d probably end up writing just enough Funnies scripts to do me for the week: two. In the end, I did myself one better. That means I need another script for this week. The idea of writing scripts apparently did not come to me during the weekend. I hope to do better this upcoming weekend. If so, I should have a much better idea of when the current storyline will end.

I’ve written a lot about getting to the end of the current storyline, however I should point out that I’m not unhappy with the direction the story has taken or anything. Some really good stuff has come from it. The storyline has skewed a little darker than I thought. I’ve done my best to fit some laughs in. I do look forward to writing something a little lighter when it’s done. One thing’s for sure, the storyline’s most challenging  strips to draw are coming up.

In other news, I’m progressing really slowly through Batman: Arkham Origins. I’ve been putting somewhere between three and five hours of play time in per week and with so many mini tasks to accomplish I think I’ve got enough to keep me busy for several more weeks at that rate. I’d like to finish the Riddler/Enigma storyline before I stop playing (I stopped well short in the first two games), but it’s the most tedious storyline, with something like 100+ items to find spread across the map. Some of the puzzles are simple, others take time to figure out what to do and even longer to execute properly.

I guess that’s all for today. Have a good seven and we’ll do it all again next Monday. Carja V.

Writing, Writing, Aspirin, Writing

 Carja's Corner  No Responses »
Feb 232015
 

Greetings and salutations. Let us blog it up, bloggity-blog style!

It turns out that I worked through both of my log of scripts for the Funnies and for Bandit Baby at the same time. That meant this weekend needed to be all about the writing. The ideas were flowing for Bandit Baby so I have material for the next twelve weeks. Lest that seem overly impressive, that’s twelve strips.

I got NO work done for the Funnies. My head has been feeling kinda numb lately…well not the whole head, just the top back part. I know it has to do with the way I sit/lay down to watch TV. No matter how many pillows I put behind my head, it doesn’t seem to help. Anyway! After writing the Baby Bandits scripts, I couldn’t bear to sit at the computer any longer. I took it easy for the rest of the day. Now it’s Monday and I need to write at least two strips to get me through the week. So yeah, I’m gonna cut this week’s blog short and get on that.

Have a good seven and we’ll do it all again next time. Carja V.

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