- https://dell.com
- https://www.dell.com/identity/global/in/98254675-AC6F-47D9-A7E4-4537724F135D?redirectUrl=https%3a%2f%2fwww.dell.com%2fen-us%3flfs%3da&c=us&l=en&r=us&s=gen&cs=&~ck=mn
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- https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/perspectives/realizing-2030.htm?dgc=IR&cid=2030&lid=3-2&ref=bnn
domingo, 26 de maio de 2019
Dell United States Official Site | Dell United States
Movie Reviews: A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Christopher Robin, Eighth Grade, First Man
See all of my movie reviews.
A Star is Born (2018) - Bradley Cooper directs, writes, and stars in this third (at least) remake of the 1937 story. He is joined by the captivating and talented Lady Gaga. I assume you know the story, so here be general spoilers.
The original story is about a talented man whose best days are behind him. He is on the way out, but he finds and starts the career of the young woman. They fall in love. He is depressed, not only because he is no longer wanted, and is an alcoholic, but because he can't take the idea of a youngster and a woman besting him. Meanwhile, out of love - or maybe out of what is expected of a woman - she is on the verge of giving up her career because she thinks she can save him if they live a normal life. He overhears this and decides to end his life, either because he has finally reached bottom or so as not to allow her to give up her dreams for him.
This remake downplays the parts that make it seem like it is natural for her to give up her stardom for his sake. He has a drug and alcohol problem. She doesn't consider giving up her career, although she makes an attempt to get him booked on her tour, threatening to not do her tour if he is not allowed to join her. Her manager is a creep who flat out tells him that he is in her way, which leads him to end his life; this is far more sinister than having him overhear a conversation he should not have heard.
This is a pretty good movie, with good original music. Everyone gives a solid performance, and most of the camera work and directing is excellent (I had one or two minor quibbles, nothing major). The leads have good chemistry, and Lady Gaga's singing can blow you away; I suppose some will complain that no one can sing like Barbra Streisand in the second remake from 1976, but that movie wasn't as good as this one.
It is emotionally draining, however, if you have a hard time watching someone resort to suicide (not graphic, but the scene is long) or a woman having to deal with a lover who is an alcoholic and drug addict. Just so you know.
Bohemian Rhapsody - A biopic of Freddie Mercury of Queen, and also the story of Queen, from its founding until Live Aid. The main plot elements are Freddie vs his girlfriend Mary (as he comes to realize he is gay), Freddie vs his manager, Freddy vs some boyfriends and the swinging 80's lifestyle, Freddy vs his family and his traditional background, Freddy vs his contracting AIDS (only superficially covered), and Freddy vs his band-mates.
If you love Queens's music, of course you will love the movie. If you hate Queen's music ... what's wrong with you? Some of their songs, like We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, seem like they were chiseled out of music itself. On its own merits, Rami Malek does a great job as Freddy, and Lucy Boynton as Mary and Gwilym Lee as Brian May also shine, as does the rest of the cast. The plot is captivating, since Freddy seems equal parts genius arranger and singer, but also self-destructive and helpless. Mary, if you believe the movie, is the one who drags him back into sanity, even while she is kept apart from him due to his sexuality.
As an ending to the movie, Live Aid, while a lovely concert, doesn't really answer all of the questions. If you know the real story, you know that a lot of the early days are skipped over or compressed (they went through a bunch of bass guitarists and their first album was not a great success), Live Aid was a phenomenal triumph, and the story continues to the early 90's. So threads are left dangling.
But it doesn't matter. Good performances and great music, an interesting portrait of a tormented genius. Not the best movie ever made, but worth watching.
Christopher Robin - Ewan McGregor plays a grown up Christopher Robin, famous son of A. A. Milne, who works as an efficiency expert in London and who is tasked with firing a bunch of people unless he can figure out a way to save their jobs. He runs into Pooh Bear who needs Christopher Robin to help him find more honey in the 100 acre woods. CR tries to make sense of this, and they go on several adventures. Everyone learns something by the end of the movie.
The closest analogy here would be Hook (Robin Williams). It's an okay movie, though rather childish and cliche. Kids will probably enjoy it. I got a bit bored.
It's a little odd to see this movie after last' year's Goodbye Christopher Robin, which painted a rather grimmer picture of CR's relationship to his father's stories.
Eighth Grade - A good but intense look at a high school girl (Elsie Fisher) who spends all of her time, and tries to find all of her validation, on social media. Her real life, unfortunately, doesn't conform to her expectations from her virtual one. Not only does she have low self-esteem and low popularity and fall for the wrong boy, she also runs head on into a few moments of real danger and harassment that up the significance of what happens in real life.
Josh Hamilton plays her single father, desperately trying to help and support her while she fights to keep him out. It's not an easy movie to watch, but it's a fairly good one.
First Man - A biopic of Neil Armstrong, and also the story of the mission to land a man on the moon. Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody, in which the focus on one character made the story interesting, I wan't as happy here. Neil has a few problems with his wife and kids, but not really; I'm pretty sure most of the problems were invented by the screenwriters. The conflict with his wife was not believably portrayed. Meanwhile, all the parts about the moon landing were fascinating, but they were not the main focus of the movie.
The movie makes several other mistakes. Instead of a grand story of triumphs and tragedies (i/e, what really happened), the story concentrates solely on a series of tragedies (real ones). I guess that's the screenwriter's way of ratcheting up the tension, but it a) makes the story very narrow and small, making it more like a Marvel movie than a real story, and b) it makes it unrealistic: why would anyone continue with a program that fails so tragically and continuously over and over, killing people each time? Of course, that wasn't the real or entire story. But we don't get to hear the real or entire story.
The worst parts for me were a) the long sequences of shaking cameras that simulated the shaking rockets and flights. One such sequence of reasonable length in a movie is great. This movie does this at least three times, for 20 minutes each time. At some point it moves from being a good simulation to being distracting and unwatchable. Enough already. 2) About sixty percent of the movie is a closeup of someone's face. This is the same mistake used in Jackie. Again: a few face closeups are great but 60% of the screen-time spent on face closeups is not, It's just pretentious, distancing, and annoying. Which is a crying shame, because the cinematography of the other 40% is beautiful.
Aside from all that was bad about the movie, the movie did everything else well: well acted, well scored, well paced, and an important piece of history. For what its worth, my fellow movie-goers (friends) liked the movie.
The original story is about a talented man whose best days are behind him. He is on the way out, but he finds and starts the career of the young woman. They fall in love. He is depressed, not only because he is no longer wanted, and is an alcoholic, but because he can't take the idea of a youngster and a woman besting him. Meanwhile, out of love - or maybe out of what is expected of a woman - she is on the verge of giving up her career because she thinks she can save him if they live a normal life. He overhears this and decides to end his life, either because he has finally reached bottom or so as not to allow her to give up her dreams for him.
This remake downplays the parts that make it seem like it is natural for her to give up her stardom for his sake. He has a drug and alcohol problem. She doesn't consider giving up her career, although she makes an attempt to get him booked on her tour, threatening to not do her tour if he is not allowed to join her. Her manager is a creep who flat out tells him that he is in her way, which leads him to end his life; this is far more sinister than having him overhear a conversation he should not have heard.
This is a pretty good movie, with good original music. Everyone gives a solid performance, and most of the camera work and directing is excellent (I had one or two minor quibbles, nothing major). The leads have good chemistry, and Lady Gaga's singing can blow you away; I suppose some will complain that no one can sing like Barbra Streisand in the second remake from 1976, but that movie wasn't as good as this one.
It is emotionally draining, however, if you have a hard time watching someone resort to suicide (not graphic, but the scene is long) or a woman having to deal with a lover who is an alcoholic and drug addict. Just so you know.
Bohemian Rhapsody - A biopic of Freddie Mercury of Queen, and also the story of Queen, from its founding until Live Aid. The main plot elements are Freddie vs his girlfriend Mary (as he comes to realize he is gay), Freddie vs his manager, Freddy vs some boyfriends and the swinging 80's lifestyle, Freddy vs his family and his traditional background, Freddy vs his contracting AIDS (only superficially covered), and Freddy vs his band-mates.
If you love Queens's music, of course you will love the movie. If you hate Queen's music ... what's wrong with you? Some of their songs, like We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, seem like they were chiseled out of music itself. On its own merits, Rami Malek does a great job as Freddy, and Lucy Boynton as Mary and Gwilym Lee as Brian May also shine, as does the rest of the cast. The plot is captivating, since Freddy seems equal parts genius arranger and singer, but also self-destructive and helpless. Mary, if you believe the movie, is the one who drags him back into sanity, even while she is kept apart from him due to his sexuality.
As an ending to the movie, Live Aid, while a lovely concert, doesn't really answer all of the questions. If you know the real story, you know that a lot of the early days are skipped over or compressed (they went through a bunch of bass guitarists and their first album was not a great success), Live Aid was a phenomenal triumph, and the story continues to the early 90's. So threads are left dangling.
But it doesn't matter. Good performances and great music, an interesting portrait of a tormented genius. Not the best movie ever made, but worth watching.
Christopher Robin - Ewan McGregor plays a grown up Christopher Robin, famous son of A. A. Milne, who works as an efficiency expert in London and who is tasked with firing a bunch of people unless he can figure out a way to save their jobs. He runs into Pooh Bear who needs Christopher Robin to help him find more honey in the 100 acre woods. CR tries to make sense of this, and they go on several adventures. Everyone learns something by the end of the movie.
The closest analogy here would be Hook (Robin Williams). It's an okay movie, though rather childish and cliche. Kids will probably enjoy it. I got a bit bored.
It's a little odd to see this movie after last' year's Goodbye Christopher Robin, which painted a rather grimmer picture of CR's relationship to his father's stories.
Eighth Grade - A good but intense look at a high school girl (Elsie Fisher) who spends all of her time, and tries to find all of her validation, on social media. Her real life, unfortunately, doesn't conform to her expectations from her virtual one. Not only does she have low self-esteem and low popularity and fall for the wrong boy, she also runs head on into a few moments of real danger and harassment that up the significance of what happens in real life.
Josh Hamilton plays her single father, desperately trying to help and support her while she fights to keep him out. It's not an easy movie to watch, but it's a fairly good one.
First Man - A biopic of Neil Armstrong, and also the story of the mission to land a man on the moon. Unlike Bohemian Rhapsody, in which the focus on one character made the story interesting, I wan't as happy here. Neil has a few problems with his wife and kids, but not really; I'm pretty sure most of the problems were invented by the screenwriters. The conflict with his wife was not believably portrayed. Meanwhile, all the parts about the moon landing were fascinating, but they were not the main focus of the movie.
The movie makes several other mistakes. Instead of a grand story of triumphs and tragedies (i/e, what really happened), the story concentrates solely on a series of tragedies (real ones). I guess that's the screenwriter's way of ratcheting up the tension, but it a) makes the story very narrow and small, making it more like a Marvel movie than a real story, and b) it makes it unrealistic: why would anyone continue with a program that fails so tragically and continuously over and over, killing people each time? Of course, that wasn't the real or entire story. But we don't get to hear the real or entire story.
The worst parts for me were a) the long sequences of shaking cameras that simulated the shaking rockets and flights. One such sequence of reasonable length in a movie is great. This movie does this at least three times, for 20 minutes each time. At some point it moves from being a good simulation to being distracting and unwatchable. Enough already. 2) About sixty percent of the movie is a closeup of someone's face. This is the same mistake used in Jackie. Again: a few face closeups are great but 60% of the screen-time spent on face closeups is not, It's just pretentious, distancing, and annoying. Which is a crying shame, because the cinematography of the other 40% is beautiful.
Aside from all that was bad about the movie, the movie did everything else well: well acted, well scored, well paced, and an important piece of history. For what its worth, my fellow movie-goers (friends) liked the movie.
Without Map Or Compass
In the original Legend of Zelda the Map and Compass are indispensable for surviving dungeons and reaching the boss. The map shows you the layout of the dungeon and the compass positions you in it.
In the pilgrimage of the Christian life, I think the map would be the teachings of Our Blessed Lord and saviour, preserved in the Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church that He founded- this constitutes the way to Eternal Life.
The compass I think would be the interior life, the daily life of prayer composed of mental prayer, examination of conscience and perhaps above all, the sacrament of confession. Through these powerful means we can discern where we are headed, how we stand with regards to that map, whether we are near the end of the dungeon, close to completing it, or perhaps down a dead end.
How tragic for the worldlings and for the followers of false religions, they have neither map nor compass- where will they end up? They can send Link a thousand times round the dungeon but without map or compass they have little chance of coming out alive.
Praise be Our God and Saviour Jesus Christ for providing us with the Map and Compass in His One True Church.
The compass I think would be the interior life, the daily life of prayer composed of mental prayer, examination of conscience and perhaps above all, the sacrament of confession. Through these powerful means we can discern where we are headed, how we stand with regards to that map, whether we are near the end of the dungeon, close to completing it, or perhaps down a dead end.
How tragic for the worldlings and for the followers of false religions, they have neither map nor compass- where will they end up? They can send Link a thousand times round the dungeon but without map or compass they have little chance of coming out alive.
Praise be Our God and Saviour Jesus Christ for providing us with the Map and Compass in His One True Church.
sexta-feira, 24 de maio de 2019
Top 13 Best Highest Paying URL Shortener Sites to Make Money Online
- Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.- Payout for every 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-20%
- Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
- Payout options-PayPal and Payza
- BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.- The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
- Minimum payout-$3
- Referral commission-20%
- Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
- Payment time-daily
- Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life. - Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
- Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
- Minimum Withdrawal: $5
- Referral Commission: 30%
- Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
- Payment Time: Daily
- Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.- Payout for 1000 views-$7
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payout method-Paypal
- Payout time-daily
- Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.- The payout for 1000 views-$10
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-22%
- Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
- Payment time-daily
- Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.- The payout for 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-20% for lifetime
- Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
- Payment time-on daily basis
- Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.- The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
- Minimum payout-$10
- Referral commission-20%
- Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
- Payment-on the daily basis
- Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.- The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
- Minimum payout-$1
- Referral commission-25%
- Payment methods-PayPal
- Payment date-10th day of every month
- Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.- The payout for 1000 views-$14
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-25%
- Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
- Payment time-daily
- CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.- The payout for 1000 views-$5
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
- Payment time-daily
- Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime. - LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.- Payout for 1000 views-$16
- Minimum payout-$5
- Referral commission-10%
- Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
- Payment time-daily basis
quinta-feira, 23 de maio de 2019
UCLan Alumni Steph McStea Named In The 100 Rising Stars Of The UK Games Industry.
So thrilled to see our lovely Alumni, Steph Mcstea @TeaAndMonsters named in the 100 rising stars of the UK Games Industry!
Check out the interviews with the winners of this year's GamesIndustry.biz 100 in the link below.https://wwgamesindustry.biz/top100/2018/s
Steph's website is in the link below.
Steph is very passionate about games and has her own distinctive art style.
She was a first class honours student at Uclan Games Design Course and graduated with both a BA and MA in Games Design. During her time in study, she never failed to help and encourage others to achieve their goals in games and she was involved in many projects, including the development of the 'Plinky Plonk App', leading the UCLan Games Society and site organiser for the Global Games Jam.
Steph attended the annual Women in Games Conferences as a student where she found much encouragement and had the chance to network with some very interesting people from the industry.
She is currently working as a QA analyst for Team 17 in Yorkshire.
SaltCon 2019 Post Convention Recovery
SaltCon 2019 finished up Sunday, March 3rd. It is my "home" gaming convention. It's not because I've attended it the longest. It's not the closest. It's not the first convention I attended either. It's the convention I enjoy going to the most because of the people and experiences. I have the 2020 dates already entered on my calendar for next year.
Across the country people attend their local gaming convention for the same reasons I go to SaltCon. I'm not going to say my convention is better than your convention because I haven't been to all the conventions I would like to. I have a family, day job, and writing commitments, so my convention attendance is limited to the restraints of my schedule. What I will say is I hope your local convention has the same feel and gives you the same satisfaction.
SaltCon started on Thursday and continued into Sunday evening. Over 1900 people were present, sharing the experience of playing games. The people are a big part of the positive experience for me. There are always people willing to share their experience with a game and teach it to new players, and there are always players looking to learn new games.
The number of games available to play were well into the thousands. The game library on its own has that many, but many people bring favorites to share and find new friends with. I don't know how many games I played. It included all sorts of tabletop games from traditional board games to role-playing games (RPGs), older games to new games, and others still in development. There are some great games out there. I have notes on what I played and will be writing reviews. I also attended the convention with another writer/reviewer and look forward to seeing their articles.
I moderated a couple of panels this year. The first one was an introduction to RPGs. Taking a poll of the audience, we found some had never played while most had played only once or twice. We had a great and insightful discussion about what RPGs are about, character creation, and running a game. RPGs are growing again in ways I find exciting (more on that later).
The second panel was about running a Kickstarter campaign for funding a game development project. Another great conversation took place. SaltCon has the Ion awards every year and there is a developers' guild in Utah, so this panel was well attended. Because I was also on a panel at LTUE on crowdfunding, another article is forthcoming about what came from the two.
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| One corner of the game library |
The number of RPGs is increasing. When I first attending SaltCon in 2012 there might have been one RPG being run. It may have been hidden in the corner in the backrooms of the lower halls, behind the kitchen. This year RPG tables were packed. Every game had people signed up and on Saturday and Sunday every scheduled game had waiting lists. I even saw some pickup games taking place that weren't part of the official schedule. This year the number of games was even greater than before. And the variety was broader.
A few years back Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder were about the only games available. There were a few others. Two years ago, the choices began broadening as games like Savage Worlds, Seven Seas, and Star Wars were present. It continued through last year. This year the number of different games played in the RPG room (and beyond) was fun. Games like BESM(1st edition), Kids and Bikes, Cthulhu, and Beach Patrol were some of them. I also was able to sit in on some playtesting/preview of two RPGs—Ariumfrom Adept Icarus at adepticarus.com (announcement) and Stone Age from Woerner's Wunderwerks (partnered with Gallant Knight Games—site). I recommend you keep an eye out for them. I can say that Ariumis a world building RPG and Stone Ageis roleplaying a member of a tribe in the Neolithic era. Both games get players working together to create the setting and keeps them involved in the scenarios. Both were a lot of fun.
Check out SaltCon, or your local tabletop gaming convention. Every person I've taken with me to one has looked forward to getting back to the shared tables. They are a great place to make new friends and meet up with those you already know. You can play old favorites and new games. You probably will have the chance of playtesting games and giving feedback to developers. You might even get the spark to finally take that game idea of yours and put it together.
If I'm there, please feel comfortable to step up and say hello. I'm always interested in meeting new people.
You can find out more about SaltCon at the website (website) or on Facebook (link) (they take more and better pictures).
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
Game 327: Darkwood (1992)
Darkwood
United StatesPublished as shareware in 1992 for the Macintosh
Date Started: 15 May 2019
Date Finished: 16 May 2019
Total Hours: 4
Difficulty: Easy (2/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)
Difficulty: Easy (2/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)
You are an orphan named Derek who wants to join the elite city guard of Darkwood, the safest city in the kingdom. Anyone who defeats the toughest creature in the arena will become Captain of the Guard. You start at Level 1 with no experience, a dagger, and 10 gold pieces. In front of you lies a town with a weapon shop, an armor shop, a magic shop, an inn, and an arena.
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| Starting the game. You click on buildings to enter them. |
Because it's all you can afford, you buy some leather armor for 5 gold pieces before heading into the arena. You are offered battles against 20 creatures, listed in order of difficulty from a giant rat to a red dragon. You choose the giant rat. You defeat him in a few rounds of combat and get 10 gold pieces and 75 experience points. You rest up at the inn, and with your newfound wealth, you upgrade your weapon to a short sword. Back you go to the arena to face the next monster.
Over the next several hours, you kill successively harder monsters, buy successively better equipment, and level up. You can save at any time, so death is not permanent. Eventually, you make your way to the arena wielding a Sword +5 Holy Avenger and wearing Full Plate +4, and you defeat the red dragon. Then the game is over.
As tempting as it is to go immediately to GIMLET and make this the shortest entry of all time, there are a few more things to talk about. The first is that I've played this game before, when it was new. Someone had loaded it onto one of the lab computers at my university, and I copied it to floppy disk and brought it home. (This would have been around 1993, in my only Mac-owning period.) The entire time I played, I assumed I was playing a prologue, and once I was named Captain of the Guard, the game would open up and I'd perform a bunch of quests in my new role. I couldn't believe that it was over when it was over.
I mis-remembered a few things about the game. I thought I remembered that you could only fight each creature once, but not only would this make for a 10-minute game, it would be impossible. You need to grind relentlessly against low-level creatures to survive and build wealth. The game doesn't really encourage you to test your limits. Even with reloading, if a goblin gives you 25 gold pieces and 110 experience points, and you can kill him 100% of the time (which you can after Level 2), what is your incentive to move up to a bugbear, which offers 40 gold pieces and 250 experience points but a 50% chance of death? Just fight the goblin twice. It only takes a few seconds.
You have to be careful not to be lured by the ghoul (400 gold, 500 experience) or the wight (500 gold, 700 experience). They can drain levels, so their rewards aren't worth it. If you can get to the point that you can defeat the troll, he's a reliably rewarding enemy, offering 1500 gold and 1800 experience. He's the third-to-last enemy, so he should be a lot harder, but something isn't programmed properly. He almost never hits you.
I bought the best weapon and armor in the game, as well as a ring of protection +3, before purchasing any healing potions (easier just to reload than chug a 1000-gold-piece potion) or tomes. The tomes cost 2,000 gold pieces each and allow you to increase your dexterity and constitution to 18 and your strength to 18/100. (I don't think intelligence, wisdom, or charisma do anything. They can't be improved.) After that, the only things to spend money on are wands and potions.
I made it to Level 8. It was taking too long to grind to Level 9. I found that the red dragon was unconquerable with melee weapons, even with a full stock of healing potions. But it was vulnerable to the lightning wand that you can buy in the magic shop. Four or five blasts and I was Captain of the Guard.
In a GIMLET, it earns:
That gives us a final score of 18. It's about as minor as you can get and still qualify as an RPG at all. Author Robert Chancellor returned to the setting with Siege of Darkwood (1993), a light strategy game that he published through Pointware. Based in La Verne, California, Chancellor would later go on to work for Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios.
What Darkwood does best is raise uncomfortable questions about what makes it a "lesser" RPG. Imagine that it is the menu town of something like a Gold Box game. Instead of leveling up and gaining wealth by fighting monsters in the arena in 30 seconds, you have to spend hours questing in dungeons, only to ultimately return to the city to spend your money and level up. What have all those extra hours gained you? Are they anything more than sound and fury? In stripping away the frills of typical, more elaborate RPGs, does Darkwood also strip illusions about the value of time spent playing those games? Can I honestly say that the endgame screen is less satisfying than a typical era title that takes 5 times as long but introduces no extra plot?
Those questions might be more worth thinking about if the combat in Darkwood were a bit more elaborate, a bit more tactical. I feel like if you're going to set your title entirely in the confines of an arena, combat needs to offer something more than clicking the icon of a sword until someone is dead. (Has any good RPG been set entirely in an arena? I'm open to the possibility.) Perhaps an action-oriented approach drawing upon the underlying attributes. Perhaps the ability to team up with other NPCs. As it is, Darkwood leaves me uncomfortable and unsatisfied. Perhaps I can pretend it's a prologue to Darklands.
****
I've removed Dragons Shard from the list after playing it for a while, then realizing that the shareware version caps character development at Level 5. This is my third half-hearted attempt to play a Bit Brothers game, all of which seem to feature the same engine. Until I can somehow obtain a full-featured copy of the game, I can't get far enough to bother writing about it.
Also gone is Mission: Thunderbolt, which it turns out is not really a 1992 game but a 1991 Macintosh release of a single mission of a mainframe game called Doomsday 2000 (1987). The game has been moved to re-consideration in its appropriate year.
 |
| Battering away at an enemy. |
As tempting as it is to go immediately to GIMLET and make this the shortest entry of all time, there are a few more things to talk about. The first is that I've played this game before, when it was new. Someone had loaded it onto one of the lab computers at my university, and I copied it to floppy disk and brought it home. (This would have been around 1993, in my only Mac-owning period.) The entire time I played, I assumed I was playing a prologue, and once I was named Captain of the Guard, the game would open up and I'd perform a bunch of quests in my new role. I couldn't believe that it was over when it was over.
 |
| Dad would be so proud. |
I mis-remembered a few things about the game. I thought I remembered that you could only fight each creature once, but not only would this make for a 10-minute game, it would be impossible. You need to grind relentlessly against low-level creatures to survive and build wealth. The game doesn't really encourage you to test your limits. Even with reloading, if a goblin gives you 25 gold pieces and 110 experience points, and you can kill him 100% of the time (which you can after Level 2), what is your incentive to move up to a bugbear, which offers 40 gold pieces and 250 experience points but a 50% chance of death? Just fight the goblin twice. It only takes a few seconds.
You have to be careful not to be lured by the ghoul (400 gold, 500 experience) or the wight (500 gold, 700 experience). They can drain levels, so their rewards aren't worth it. If you can get to the point that you can defeat the troll, he's a reliably rewarding enemy, offering 1500 gold and 1800 experience. He's the third-to-last enemy, so he should be a lot harder, but something isn't programmed properly. He almost never hits you.
 |
| Grind all those experience points again? Or just reload? |
I bought the best weapon and armor in the game, as well as a ring of protection +3, before purchasing any healing potions (easier just to reload than chug a 1000-gold-piece potion) or tomes. The tomes cost 2,000 gold pieces each and allow you to increase your dexterity and constitution to 18 and your strength to 18/100. (I don't think intelligence, wisdom, or charisma do anything. They can't be improved.) After that, the only things to spend money on are wands and potions.
 |
| Using a tome. |
I made it to Level 8. It was taking too long to grind to Level 9. I found that the red dragon was unconquerable with melee weapons, even with a full stock of healing potions. But it was vulnerable to the lightning wand that you can buy in the magic shop. Four or five blasts and I was Captain of the Guard.
 |
| I don't want to accuse the author of anything, but our past experience with shareware titles makes me suspicious of the provenance of these graphics. |
In a GIMLET, it earns:
- 2 points for the game world, featuring a basic backstory commensurate with the scope of the game.
- 1 point for character creation and development. There's no creation, and leveling doesn't seem to do much more than confer extra hit points.
- 0 points for no NPC interaction.
- 1 point for encounters and foes. The bestiary is Dungeons and Dragons standard, and the level-draining attacks of the undead are the only special attacks programmed in.
 |
| A few statistics help you determine what foe you'll want to defeat next. |
- 1 point for magic and combat. Your options are only to attack, use an item, or surrender.
 |
| Using the Wand of Lightning in the final battle. |
- 3 points for equipment. Only one weapon and armor slot, but the magic item selection is decent.
- 4 points for the economy. It lacks any complexity, but it remains relevant until the end.
- 2 points for a main quest.
- 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. There are only a couple of sounds: hit, miss, and "you won!" Graphics are sparse enough that it might as well have been a text game. It's disappointing how all the monsters are represented by the same helmeted figure. I found the all-mouse interface annoying, as I do all all-mouse interfaces, but it was easy enough to determine what to click on.
- 2 points for gameplay. Too easy, too limited, and not replayable, it's at least short.
That gives us a final score of 18. It's about as minor as you can get and still qualify as an RPG at all. Author Robert Chancellor returned to the setting with Siege of Darkwood (1993), a light strategy game that he published through Pointware. Based in La Verne, California, Chancellor would later go on to work for Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios.
 |
| He sure got a lot of mileage out of that graphic. |
What Darkwood does best is raise uncomfortable questions about what makes it a "lesser" RPG. Imagine that it is the menu town of something like a Gold Box game. Instead of leveling up and gaining wealth by fighting monsters in the arena in 30 seconds, you have to spend hours questing in dungeons, only to ultimately return to the city to spend your money and level up. What have all those extra hours gained you? Are they anything more than sound and fury? In stripping away the frills of typical, more elaborate RPGs, does Darkwood also strip illusions about the value of time spent playing those games? Can I honestly say that the endgame screen is less satisfying than a typical era title that takes 5 times as long but introduces no extra plot?
Those questions might be more worth thinking about if the combat in Darkwood were a bit more elaborate, a bit more tactical. I feel like if you're going to set your title entirely in the confines of an arena, combat needs to offer something more than clicking the icon of a sword until someone is dead. (Has any good RPG been set entirely in an arena? I'm open to the possibility.) Perhaps an action-oriented approach drawing upon the underlying attributes. Perhaps the ability to team up with other NPCs. As it is, Darkwood leaves me uncomfortable and unsatisfied. Perhaps I can pretend it's a prologue to Darklands.
****
I've removed Dragons Shard from the list after playing it for a while, then realizing that the shareware version caps character development at Level 5. This is my third half-hearted attempt to play a Bit Brothers game, all of which seem to feature the same engine. Until I can somehow obtain a full-featured copy of the game, I can't get far enough to bother writing about it.
Also gone is Mission: Thunderbolt, which it turns out is not really a 1992 game but a 1991 Macintosh release of a single mission of a mainframe game called Doomsday 2000 (1987). The game has been moved to re-consideration in its appropriate year.
TOP 10 GAMES OF 2018
Compared to last year, 2018 was one hell of a year for games. Sony hit it out of the park while Nintendo continued their Switch streak with a number of steady releases. Microsoft did some good too, though I only experienced them on the PC. All and all, it's been a good one so let's take a look at what new games I actually got around to play and which one holds my highest esteem...
Read more »
2018 Americas Team Championship Raw Data
So if you pay attention to the world of competitive Warmachine & Hordes, you probably know that the 2018 Americas Team Championship just happened. The event brought out a lot of the competitive players in the US to compete to try and win one of the 3 team spots on the USA's WTC team.
If you hadn't heard, the event was won by Top of 2, Grab a Brew - so Congratulations are in order to them!
The ATC team did a great job publishing all of the information for each round on their website, though what we didn't have is all of the raw data from that in an easily accessible format that would allow people to sort through and pick out interesting information.
So I decided to go through the round-by-round information and transcribe Faction, Caster, and Win/Loss for each game played, as well as recording the scenario and putting it into a spreadsheet to make it easier for other people to analyze the data.
You can click this link to view the sheet online. This should let you copy/paste the data into your own spreadsheet to sort/analyze the data as you see fit. (Note: This was updated to a corrected sheet on 1/16/18).
If you're interested in any of the lists used, you can take a look at them all here.
Some Caveats
The main reason I went through and transcribed the data was because I wanted to play with it myself, just to be able to get stats on Faction/Caster win rates, or see if any matchups didn't work out well.
That said, I feel that while you can try to glean a lot of information from this data, you have to remember the data isn't really definitive. This was a team event, which means players can use the WTC pairing process to throw certain players to into a bad match up so as to secure a majority of good matchups for the team. This also means that certain players/lists can effectively dodge their worst matchups, which can inflate win statistics.
Still, this kind of data does give a general idea about where the game and meta looks to be at, and it can help pin point what sort of lists you might want to prepare for when you're creating your own list pair to take on the general meta.
Plus it's just fun to analyze this stuff, at least for me anyway!
Also FYI, I transcribed the data in order from the Rounds page, so if you use the Entry Num key from the Spreadsheet, you should be able to track down exactly what Players/Teams were used to cross reference exactly what lists were matched up.
If you hadn't heard, the event was won by Top of 2, Grab a Brew - so Congratulations are in order to them!
One of the really sweet things about the online Warmachine community is that TO's and other people in the community and behind the scenes do a lot of work to publish information about what factions, casters, and lists were used. Due to work and family life, I get to think about the game a lot more than I get to play, and I'm a bit of a data nerd as it is, so this kind of thing is really enjoyable for me.Congratulations to Top of 2, Grab a Brew for winning the 2018 ATC and earning the right to represent America at this year's WTC! Well done, guys! pic.twitter.com/fWSAPDLQKt— atcwmh (@atcwmh) January 14, 2018
The ATC team did a great job publishing all of the information for each round on their website, though what we didn't have is all of the raw data from that in an easily accessible format that would allow people to sort through and pick out interesting information.
So I decided to go through the round-by-round information and transcribe Faction, Caster, and Win/Loss for each game played, as well as recording the scenario and putting it into a spreadsheet to make it easier for other people to analyze the data.
You can click this link to view the sheet online. This should let you copy/paste the data into your own spreadsheet to sort/analyze the data as you see fit. (Note: This was updated to a corrected sheet on 1/16/18).
If you're interested in any of the lists used, you can take a look at them all here.
Some Caveats
The main reason I went through and transcribed the data was because I wanted to play with it myself, just to be able to get stats on Faction/Caster win rates, or see if any matchups didn't work out well.
That said, I feel that while you can try to glean a lot of information from this data, you have to remember the data isn't really definitive. This was a team event, which means players can use the WTC pairing process to throw certain players to into a bad match up so as to secure a majority of good matchups for the team. This also means that certain players/lists can effectively dodge their worst matchups, which can inflate win statistics.
Still, this kind of data does give a general idea about where the game and meta looks to be at, and it can help pin point what sort of lists you might want to prepare for when you're creating your own list pair to take on the general meta.
Plus it's just fun to analyze this stuff, at least for me anyway!
Also FYI, I transcribed the data in order from the Rounds page, so if you use the Entry Num key from the Spreadsheet, you should be able to track down exactly what Players/Teams were used to cross reference exactly what lists were matched up.
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