Jugando a LANTERNS

Hola hola gentecilla. Hoy os dejo nuestro primer post sobre juegos de mesa. Se trata de uno que ha salido hace poco – finales de 2015 – y con el que yo me tropecé de casualidad en Draughts: el primer café de juegos de mesa de Londres. El sitio está muy bien, si pasáis por ahí echadle un vistazo, que mola. El juego me gustó tanto que de hecho me le compre en el mismo Draughts después de haberlo probado, y desde que lo compre le he dado bastante uso (y eso que esto ha sido a mediados de enero). Así que vamos a ver de qué va el asunto, a ver si os animáis a probarlo.

La caja del juego

LANTERNS: The Board Game

Welcome to our first posts on my never-ending vice – yes, board games, not comics! Shocker, I know!

I came across this one recently. I was meeting with a dear friend in London, to go visit Draughts – the first board game cafe in London, it’s really cool, go check it out if you can! So as we geeks do, we have some noms to eat, and proceeded to spend like 4 hours just trying games. Lanterns was our last one. We didn’t have a clue what it was about, but it was pretty, seemed interesting, and we decided to give it ago. Needless to say, I liked the game so much I bought it on the spot and I’ve played it already countless times (…And the purchase only took place in January…). So please let me show you how this works, ’cause it’s well cool, and Pretty.

Game cover

Undead Wood Elf Riders Conversion

I have been working on some of my Warhammer lately and realised I got A LOT of spare pieces. Just a couple of weeks back I started on some Wood Elves Sisters of the Thorn (I’ll show ya when they are finished), and turns out as they are one of those packs where you can make one of two units out of the same pieces, I ended with five spare bodies, heads, and some really really cool capes! I was thinking maybe I got some stuff I could do with them. Well! Righto! I found in my box of random Warhammer some undead horses – just the horses god knows where the riders went?! And a little lightbulb just turned in my head – Undead.Wood Elf.Riders.Of Doom! Or something.

I had a few problems though – bodies and horses were not a perfect match, not enough elven hair for all the helmets, and the typical, annoying lack of right frigging arms!! (Seriously why oh why?!). However, I am resourceful – I got a TONE of Dark Eldar, which are just as flimsy as the Wood Elves, so the arms shouldn’t be a problem. Heads; same solution really. Who doesn’t want to see an Incubi Helmet on a horse rider dead thing? I do! Gaps and not perfect fittings? Hello Green Stuff. And suddenly it was sorted. It took me a surprisingly little time.

I thought this would go on for ages, but here are the results. Judge them yourselves – photos taken with my phone.

The horses

Kick Ass – The End of the Line

Hello again! So you may have notice we are mad busy talking about multiple things around here. One of the things that has kept me preoccupied has been my ever-growing collection of comic books. I got a fair few for Christmas, amongst which was the last volume of Kick Ass. And tell you what guys…I was dreading the moment I’d get to read it. Why? Because Kick Ass 3 is the end of the Series…Yep, that’s it. No more Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. for you lovely people.

It was a tough decision to make. Picking up something you know once you finish reading, there is no more – apart from re-reading obviously! It was a moment I had been waiting for and yet, I didn’t want to get to. I loved Kick Ass from day one. In fact, one fo my first memories from moving to the UK to go to uni was going to Southampton’s Odeon during the Easter break of 2010 to see the first movie. Man, did I jump on that sit like a child on a candy store! Immediately afterwards, my parents and everyone who knew me were more than aware than I needed the comic. And obviously, I got it eventually. I was blown away by the crudity of the story, yet the invaluable lessons that were thrown at my face like – here, deal with it. Hit Girl was the coolest thing on print. The hype just wouldn’t stop. So I am just going to go on a rampage regarding this amazing series that if you haven’t read yet, you really should. Therefore, and before we continue, please be aware that SPOILER ALERT is on.

Videojuegos Indie – Mini Metro

Buenas tardes gentecilla. Hoy vuelvo al ataque, esta vez con un videojuego que tal vez no conozcáis y se os haya pasado de largo. Yo, como creo haber comentado en mi otro post, tengo una cuenta en Steam – como la gran mayoría de los gamers de hoy en día. Es mis días de estudiante de grado de la universidad, tenía un peque ordenador (un Notebook para los demás) que evidentemente no tenía la capacidad de procesado que uno querría para poder jugar a cualquier videojuego digamos “molón”. Por aquel entonces solía entretenerme con cosillas bastante modestas (el juego de Magic de los 90, Game Dev Tycoon, Theme Hospital…). Un día, un colega me comento que bastante juegos que salen por Steam, tanto por su gama corriente como por Steam Greenlight, solían ser relativamente ligeros para un ordenador como el mío, y que tal vez me convendría echarles un vistazo. Siguiendo con la conversación, descubrí que muchos de estos juegos también eran los productos de diseñadores indie, y que normalmente eran algo más imaginativos, diferentes, y lo más importante: baratos…Si no tienes que pagarle royalties a gente como Bethesda o Blizzard, la jugada suele ser menos dolorosa para tu bolsillo…Total, que echando un vistazo – y gracias a las recomendaciones del ojo avizor de Steam basado en tu propia lista de juegos…- tropecé con Mini Metro. Mi querida madre siempre ha sido muy fan de los juegos de gestión, y cosas tipo tycoon, y por un par de libras, decidí probar suerte.

Así que aquí mismo os lo muestro y os comento un poco de que va el asunto – screenshots míos echando una pachanga en el mapa de Berlin.

Mods: The Best Thing in Gaming

If you’re into gaming then you might be aware that there a lot of trends and business practices in the games industry these days, many of which have left me disappointed on many occasions. However, there is one thing that remains as good if not better than it used to be, and that is modding.

If you aren’t very familiar then it’s quite simple really, mods are new content added to games by fans, for free. This could be anything with some games, there are examples of mods that practically make entire new games out of existing ones, and even further there are some insanely successful mods from the early days that have become the big budget most popular games of today. Modding is, in my eyes, perhaps the last innocent corner of gaming. The one little community island created by hobbyists in an industry ocean driven by greed, conflict of interest, risk aversion and opportunity cost. The one environment where creativity is not stifled and that allows niches to be filled regardless of their commercial viability. The one area of gaming that people treat as a hobby instead of a job. Modding has been something that exists outside of market forces, and that is what has made it so valuable over the years.

Clearly the modding scene in some games has become valuable enough that companies such as Valve saw a great deal of money to be made, who last year in 2015 attempted to introduce a paid modding service integrated with steam for Skyrim. I wont get into the problems this caused, but it could have been far worse if they didn’t cancel their plans after a few days of internet backlash. Thankfully there has been no news of this being attempted again yet, but I’m sure someone will give it a shot, there’s just too much potential for money to be made. I hope modding stays as it is for as long as possible, it has been increasingly successful being driven by creative individuals and groups, and supported by a generous community. Big companies and big money would just make a mess of things.

Geek Economy – the Monopoly of Games Workshop

So this afternoon I just went into my local Games Workshop to buy some supplies – I have currently 2 very neglected armies (Dark Eldar and Brettonia – yeah I like playing hard core where the rules are against you). Moreover, I was bought some lovely Wood Elves for Xmas and I find the painting very therapeutic and relaxing. So I needed some spray paint, glue and some 5 New colours/shades for these models…and just like that 40 pounds disappeared and I virtually bought nothing…

Here is me thinking, I could have got at least a decent deck/cards worth if I had made that investment on Magic The Gathering, bought a few comics, one board game or two…so tell me, why did I do this? This is how the economy of the geek works. There are plenty of comic book producers and game developers. Magic the gathering is not the only collectible card game in the martket with a large enough fan base – Yugioh, Pokemon, etc. But if you want to play table top wargaming, your options are limited.