Too long without a post.
Hopefully this won't be the last post on the blog. I am still in draft three of a book, and don't seem to be getting much writing done or even seeing many movie. Distractions and all.
I still have an unfinished story. An unfinished book of parsha shiurim. Several half-baked and nearly baked game designs on the shelf.
However, I am still employed, having a social life, going on a vacation next month. My daughter is married and thriving, my son is thriving, too. Which is all good.
Still have weekly game nights and still get new games occasionally. I just got Concordia, Sushi Go Party, and I am expecting Gentes Deluxe and Haithabu. I am expecting a few thousand new Magic cards soon.
I and my boss have been playing games with three non-gamer coworkers at work every Thursday. It's been half a year, and, aside from Codenames, we have rarely repeated any games. Looks like we may start soon.
The magic of games, those little points, seem insignificant, but it's astonishing how they take a play activity and make people focus on a goal, a start, and an end. It's almost hard to understand why, but it must have something to do with: not only feeling great when you succeed, but wanting others to have a chance to feel great, too. If it didn't, the whole concept of multiplayer games would just fall apart. As long as we still play games together, I think humanity still has hope.
Peace.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Superbowl!
What's going on everyone?
Today for the #2019gameaday challenge dear ol' dad and I played a fun little game called Halftime Football during the Superbowl.
We played usually only during commercials and had our quarters match up with the Superbowls quarters which was pretty entertaining.
In the end dad ended up winning by slaughtering my generic "away team" 45 - 7!
All in all is was a fun evening and I may have to suggest us doing this every other game during the season or something.
As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to stop and smell the meeples! :)
-Tim
10 Best Open Source FPS Games
Time for another overweening list - the SEO godesses demand it!
Tremulous has 1.1 stable, 1.2 dev and 1.3 third party dev versions. It's a mess. Getting bots to run is a mess. Yet I love this game. I am only capable of playing 50% (can't handle moving aliens at all) yet I had the most fun building bases in Tremulous.
So you want to download and play Tremulous? HA! HA I SAY! Pick your poison:
I still don't know which is the most useful for either finding servers with bots or humans. (1.3 has zombie game mode servers with bots is all I know).
Unvanquished is Tremulous 2.0 and a little more complex and hardware requirements. If you can find a better-looking FOSS game I'm all ears and eyes. Uvq has bots built-in.
OpenArena is Quake 3 Arena with strictly freely licensed assets, some of which likely satisfy niche fetishes. Who doesn't know OpenArena?
Rexuiz is really interesting because it takes care to not split the community. Assuming Nexuiz classic has a community? It also publishes on itch.io and any open source FPS is at least 10 times better than any Unity3D-made FPS on itch, so that's a really smart move - if your team has the time to make nice thumbnails/screenshots.
Red Eclipse is still in development and has movement that is quite different from all the Quake descendents thanks to its doublejump and innovative weapons. I can't get over the blurry look though (I guess it's mostly the particle effects, maybe I could tweak them to be... sharper?). Additional microrant: some of RE music I like, some not much.
I like Trepedation's original game mode (Trepedation) but I have yet to try it against human players but at least the characters and levels seem to be hand-made for the project.
Sauerbraten is today minus 2013 years old and still popular, by comparison. And I gotta say: instaCTF is fun! To heck with the "flag dropped" sound though. Sauerbraten is partially non-free-as-in-freedom asset-wise.
FreeDoom is an entire single-player campaign. So is Blasphemer. Amazing amount of content! Once configured with mouselook and advanced sprite upscaling, it's nearly as good as an actual 3D FPS.
- Get the engine: https://zdoom.org/
- Get the game: https://freedoom.github.io
- Get the other game: https://code.google.com/archive/p/blasphemer/
Smokin' Guns actually has a bunch of license uncertainties. But it looks like there's an effort to modernize it and liberate it.
Comment on our forums here.
Comment on our forums here.
The Last Of Us Part 2 | Trailer, Gameplay, Story Characters & All The Latest News.
The Last of Us Part 2 wards off blowing us with rough and clashing trailers, yet despite everything we're holding up to hear when we'll really observe PlayStation's most foreseen continuation on the racks. What is Ellie's opinion about the decision Joel made to spare her toward the finish of the last diversion? Where is Joel, and for what reason hasn't he showed up in any of the trailers yet? Who are the unusual religion that have established such a connection in the recording we've seen up until this point? Here's all that we think about The Last of Us Part 2.
Quick Facts :
- The Last of Us Part 2 release date: TBC
- Formats: PS4, PS4 Pro
- Developer: Naughty Dog
The Last of Us Part 2 release date – When is it coming out?
The Last of Us Part 2 was uncovered with a secret trailer at PlayStation Experience 2016, yet Naughty Dog caveated the uncover with the reality the amusement is still from the get-go being developed, so it'll be a while until the point when we can get our hands on it.
In an ongoing meeting with Argentinian radio station Vorterix, The Last of Us Part 2 arranger Gustavo Santaolalla said the title is intended to dispatch only for PS4 in 2019. Take this with a spot of salt, yet it appears to be a conceivable dispatch window to us.
In an ongoing meeting with Argentinian radio station Vorterix, The Last of Us Part 2 arranger Gustavo Santaolalla said the title is intended to dispatch only for PS4 in 2019. Take this with a spot of salt, yet it appears to be a conceivable dispatch window to us.
The Last of Us Part 2 story will focus on Joel and Ellie. But Joel is still (mostly) missing.
While talking about the likelihood that the amusement may pursue another cast, chief Neil Druckmann has expressed that "The Last of Us is about these two characters particularly," finally year's PlayStation Experience. "'Part 2' is stating this will be a bigger story; it will be a reciprocal story to the primary amusement, yet together, the two joined will tell this substantially bigger story." So indeed, Joel will be a noteworthy piece of the story. We simply don't yet know in what limit. Joel's little girl, Sarah, was the main impetus of the primary amusement, and, well...
In any case, based on Druckmann's remarks, this follow-up will be significantly more firmly connected to its forerunner than numerous other triple-A continuations. Seeing as the keep going diversion finished on such a superbly equivocal, semi-cliffhanger, we expect The Last of Us 2 to manage the lie Joel told Ellie amid that passionate epilog.
The Last of Us Part 2 Story – What's it about?
Naughty Dog has uncovered that The Last of Us Part 2 happens five years after the first left off, with a 19-year-old Ellie going about as the diversion's fundamental character. Joel likewise makes an arrival, viewing over Ellie as a gradually maturing old man. The principle drive of the account is indistinct, however we know Ellie is, extremely irate about something.
In the uncovered trailer, she is seen playing guitar, slathered in blood among a heap of carcasses. In the wake of completing her melody, she says to Joel: "I will slaughter each and every one of them." We've no thought who Ellie is so pissed at, however, it's unmistakable annoyance will go about as a center topic in The Last of Us Part 2. Neil Druckmann has affirmed that Westworld's Shannon Woodward will assume a job in the continuation, in spite of the fact that we right now know nothing about her character.
In the uncovered trailer, she is seen playing guitar, slathered in blood among a heap of carcasses. In the wake of completing her melody, she says to Joel: "I will slaughter each and every one of them." We've no thought who Ellie is so pissed at, however, it's unmistakable annoyance will go about as a center topic in The Last of Us Part 2. Neil Druckmann has affirmed that Westworld's Shannon Woodward will assume a job in the continuation, in spite of the fact that we right now know nothing about her character.
The Last of Us Part 2 gameplay shows Ellie meting out a whole another level of bloody violence.
The Last of Us was an expert when it came to the awkward gut, yet the Last of Us Part 2 ongoing interaction demo is on an entirely another level. Following a delicate scene of kinship and sentiment, we obviously slice to Ellie, cut as of now in a man's throat, gutting him like a fish. It just remains untidy from that point on out, the viciousness delineated as drifting somewhere close to lavishly realistic phlebotomy and dirty, anatomically reasonable repulsiveness. It's terrible, crunchy, stifling, sputtering, and wheezing stuff all through.
Ideally, there's a purpose behind that. The principal diversion was, all things considered, a savage amusement about savagery, in which the unglamourous delineation of executing with repercussions framed a lot of the points. With so little setting for Ellie's activities up until now, it's difficult to know whether The Last of Us Part 2 is accomplishing something astute here, or merely endeavoring to win a 'development' weapons contest with itself. We'll most likely know for beyond any doubt when we get hold of the last amusement.
The Last of Us Part 2 takes place in Seattle (partly)
Fans had just worked this one out quite well, yet The Last of Us Part 2 executive Neil Druckmann affirmed it at PlayStation Experience 2017: an "expansive part" of the diversion will occur in Seattle.
The first started in Boston at that point went on a voyage over the United States as far west as Salt Lake City. When we last observed Joel and Ellie, they'd headed back east far to Jackson County in Wyoming, wanting to remain at the settlement driven by Joel's sibling Tommy. We don't know to what extent that game plan endured, yet Ellie's unmistakably accomplished all the more going from that point forward.
In any case, that is only a "huge part". It appears to be improbable that The Last of Us Part 2 will remain established in the Pacific Northwest after how much meandering the principal diversion did. Perhaps Ellie will advance down the drift? We don't know whether things are as awful on the western seaboard as far as disease and military persecution. Be that as it may, it wouldn't be quite a bit of a survival story if Ellie just gallivanted down to Portland and lived joyfully ever after.
The first started in Boston at that point went on a voyage over the United States as far west as Salt Lake City. When we last observed Joel and Ellie, they'd headed back east far to Jackson County in Wyoming, wanting to remain at the settlement driven by Joel's sibling Tommy. We don't know to what extent that game plan endured, yet Ellie's unmistakably accomplished all the more going from that point forward.
In any case, that is only a "huge part". It appears to be improbable that The Last of Us Part 2 will remain established in the Pacific Northwest after how much meandering the principal diversion did. Perhaps Ellie will advance down the drift? We don't know whether things are as awful on the western seaboard as far as disease and military persecution. Be that as it may, it wouldn't be quite a bit of a survival story if Ellie just gallivanted down to Portland and lived joyfully ever after.
Expected To See Greater focus on the multiplayer.
To the shock of many, 'The Last of Us' multiplayer was brilliant. It deciphered the creating and survival mechanics of its single-player into the domain of online clashes impeccably. You could gather fixings and specialty devices mid-coordinate, getting the drop on your foe through a scope of fierce strategies. The collection of instruments was upheld up by a profound determination of matchmaking alternatives, as well.
One of my most loved parts of the multiplayer was its usage of informal organizations into online movement. A triumph would net you supplies for your group, the individuals from which are named after a horde of Facebook companions. Obviously, they weren't generally stuck in an invaded hellhole, yet the unimportant consideration of their essence gave your activities a swoon yet ground-breaking setting. The Last of Us 2 should twofold down on this thought, making each fight an individual undertaking driving a level as well as a will to survive.
One of my most loved parts of the multiplayer was its usage of informal organizations into online movement. A triumph would net you supplies for your group, the individuals from which are named after a horde of Facebook companions. Obviously, they weren't generally stuck in an invaded hellhole, yet the unimportant consideration of their essence gave your activities a swoon yet ground-breaking setting. The Last of Us 2 should twofold down on this thought, making each fight an individual undertaking driving a level as well as a will to survive.
The Last of Us 2 soundtrack will feature the original game's composer.
Gustavo Santaolalla is the man. In particular, a man who is, VERY great at composing music. The Argentine arranger won consecutive Best Original Score Oscars for his work on Brokeback Mountain and Babel, before proceeding to direct The Last of Us' breathtakingly melancholic soundtrack. Druckmann as of late affirmed Santaolalla is coming back to form the music for the Last of Us Part 2, particularly prominent as it's the first run through he's returned for a spin-off.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Is Gaming A Sin? Response To An E-Mail.
Hello xxxxx,
Thank you so much for your e-mail, and may God bless you in your studies and in the pursuit of your vocation.
I am pretty much the only writer on this blog now and I don't contribute to it enough either, I think I started helping on it when I was about 24 and now I'm 32. I was a seminarian when I started and now I have been a priest 3 years.
I take the view that video games are a medium, just like film, music and literature. There are books that Catholics should not read, there are music types Catholics should not listen to, there are films Catholics should not watch, but this does not mean a catholic should not read any books, not listen to any music, not watch any films.
I also take the view that games are a kind of sport/ leisure activity a way of re-creating, of "playing" which according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is a necessary element in being a flourishing human being.
So with those points put together we get-
1) everyone needs to play, to recreate themselves,
2) video games are a medium, a type of entertainment and like any medium in itself it is morally neutral. The particular message or content that comes from the game will define its morality. I am quite strict with myself on this- games with swearing, impurities, or games where you summon demons, I avoid those- sometimes I have bought them and stopped playing them- like 'the last of us' which i thought was too vulgar language. So you're right GTA is going to be something to avoid. But there are plenty of games that are perfectly fine, just as there are films and books and music.
Obviously, for play to fulfill its job as recreation it will, by definition, be in moderation, because pay is there is help us re-create, to de-stress, it should be to let off steam and not a central part of our life. I probably only play maybe 2-3 hours a week.
I think priests who oppose video games are weird and inconsistent. ... do they have a problem with someone playing a sport? of course not! Do they have a problem with someone reading a decent novel? no.
Video games therefore are fine so long as they are morally neutral games (like for example Pac Man, or Candy Crush, or Mario Kart or a spots game or a platform game), or even, on the rare occasion morally positive (where you have an RPG with an inspiring and christian themed message) and always only as a distraction, a small amount of play or diversion to provide recreation which we all need in order to flourish.
1) everyone needs to play, to recreate themselves,
2) video games are a medium, a type of entertainment and like any medium in itself it is morally neutral. The particular message or content that comes from the game will define its morality. I am quite strict with myself on this- games with swearing, impurities, or games where you summon demons, I avoid those- sometimes I have bought them and stopped playing them- like 'the last of us' which i thought was too vulgar language. So you're right GTA is going to be something to avoid. But there are plenty of games that are perfectly fine, just as there are films and books and music.
Obviously, for play to fulfill its job as recreation it will, by definition, be in moderation, because pay is there is help us re-create, to de-stress, it should be to let off steam and not a central part of our life. I probably only play maybe 2-3 hours a week.
I think priests who oppose video games are weird and inconsistent. ... do they have a problem with someone playing a sport? of course not! Do they have a problem with someone reading a decent novel? no.
Video games therefore are fine so long as they are morally neutral games (like for example Pac Man, or Candy Crush, or Mario Kart or a spots game or a platform game), or even, on the rare occasion morally positive (where you have an RPG with an inspiring and christian themed message) and always only as a distraction, a small amount of play or diversion to provide recreation which we all need in order to flourish.
In Christ,
with the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
Fr Higgins
with the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
Fr Higgins
50% Off Cha'alt
I'm going on vacation in a bit, and my birthday is coming up (November 25th)... so, why not give a little to get a little?
Slashing prices while thrusting deep into the bowels of magenta slimed terrors from beyond time and space. Who wouldn't want to adventure in a mutant wasteland of alien weirdness and ultra-telluric monstrosities?
Yes, my eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalyptic campaign setting + megadungeon Cha'alt is only $10, now through 11/25!!!
Or, if you prefer to buy the hardcover and get the PDF for free... that's also a wise choice.
If I don't get back to you right away, it's because I'm on vacation.
Cha'alt is 218 pages of O5R sandbox lollipop-flavored doom and irreverent exploitation gloom. You'll love it, especially The Black Pyramid. ;)
This just in - Grim Jim Desborough just uploaded a review of Cha'alt. I haven't watched it yet, but will later this afternoon. Here it is...
Let him know you enjoyed his video with a like, comment, and subscription!
VS
p.s. Please leave a review and talk about Cha'alt on social media if you want to keep seeing more from Kort'thalis Publishing.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Brave Browser voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019
Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.
An extremely productive year for Brave
Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.
Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.
The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.
Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:
"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"
Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.
Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now
If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.
The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.
AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.
For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.
Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.
Earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) with Brave Web Browser
Try Brave Browser
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