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Messages - Kuildeous

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1
Forum Games / Re: RIP Quicktopic
« on: March 16, 2022, 02:02:43 pm »
I've been out of it for a while. I remember using QT for some of these games. It was very handy. Sad to see it gone.

2
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: March 16, 2022, 02:01:08 pm »
Well, that was indeed random. Thanks.

3
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: March 16, 2022, 02:00:47 pm »
I felt that Kylo Ren was the Anakin we deserved. While prequels Anakin was okay, Kylo really epitomized the sense of entitlement and rage that goes along great with a Sith.

For all the flaws of the prequels, though, I felt they were redeemed by the Clone Wars. Even Jar Jar was only mildly bothersome in the series. And as incredible as it sounds, they made Darth Maul to be infinitely more interesting than the blah villain in Phantom Menace.

4
General Discussion / Re: Thanks for making me feel respected
« on: February 28, 2022, 10:14:04 am »
Now you have too much respect. I have to go back through the archives and find 18 times I upvoted you so that equilibrium can be reached.

5
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: February 28, 2022, 10:13:08 am »
I've reached a weird point where when I play old games, I sometimes look online for info about them - strategy stuff, formulae and so on. And I find a good post giving the kind of detail I'm after, only to realise it was posted my myself, 5-10 years ago. It's a strange feeling.
I have something similar where I'm looking for suggestions on a piece of software, and I'm like hey, here's a post from someone with the same issue, only to see that it was posted by me 3 years earlier.

If I'm lucky, someone's posted a solution since then. Sometimes not, and I'm even more frustrated.

6
Other Games / Re: Pandemic Legacy (probably will have spoilers)
« on: February 28, 2022, 10:09:42 am »
I'm 2/3 into Season 0, so I can't read Tables' spoiler. Hopefully I'll remember to come back and read through.

Though the timing is weird playing Season 0 during a pandemic and now amid Russian aggressions, it's a fun game. Still has that Pandemic mechanic of flipping cards and making certain cities worse until bad things happen. I agree that the incidents in Season 0 are harder to account for, but I think I kind of like that because letting a city reach a critical point can cause a sense of dread. Are we going to flip a card that screws us entirely, or will we be safe? We had a tense moment where we lost a safehouse in Europe, and three of us were hiding out in a Moscow safehouse. Fortunately, we had another safehouse in Europe, so we sacrificed that one. But it was close.

I think I still prefer Season 2 because of its exploration and building. I really enjoyed those. I also enjoyed constructing the spreadsheet to track what was happening with our cards. We were able to affect things so that we knew we could ignore certain cities (especially those hard to reach) in future games. It was really handy, but not everyone gets off on spreadsheets like I do.

7
Other Games / Re: Outer Wilds
« on: February 28, 2022, 09:46:39 am »
I want to like this more, and I do like it. It's a really good game actually. I think maybe it's not 100% compatible with me.

I loved the flavor of the game, especially the fact that everything is basically held together with lumber and hope. There are some really clever uses of the planets, and the overarching force of the game provides some interesting exercises in timing. It does feel all so overwhelming because where on earth do you start with this game?

While I enjoyed uncovering many of the secrets, I couldn't get them all on my own. I probably could have if I were willing to keep trying at them, but the timing mechanic that makes the game so enjoyable was also the obstacle here. I didn't want to go back through some of these explorations. The closest analogy I can think of is when you're playing a game with a boss who keeps beating you, but when you return to your save point, you have to go through the grueling level that gets you to that boss. Or sit through an unskippable cut scene each time. Finally you just want to cheat code the boss because you don't want to keep going through all that stuff each time.

An obvious solution here would be to provide save points, but that would honestly defeat the whole point of the game, so it's an awkward situation.

Fun game, even if I did have to look at a walkthrough to get through the bits I missed. Many of the texts you find in the game give you a hint on what to check out next, so it's really put together well. It just didn't click perfectly for me. Like two gears that look great together but are just a micron off.

8
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: June 11, 2021, 02:23:42 pm »
You know, I didn't love the ending of SAM either. I'm generally okay with weird, ambiguous endings, but this one didn't do it for me. Felt almost like they had to wrap things up without a clear direction. But the reveal was nice.

9
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: June 11, 2021, 09:48:44 am »
Just watched Swiss Army Man. It was amazing. Really, really loved it.

Between this, Guns Akimbo, and the Miracle Workers series, I'm really digging Daniel Radcliffe's freedom to film whatever madness he wants as he cashes his Harry Potter checks. Dude is living the dream (I hope; I haven't dug into his personal life to see if it sucks).

SAM was a fun, whimsical film. It did get rather sad and downright creepy at the end.

How many actors can proudly put on their CV that they played a great corpse?

10
General Discussion / Re: Petty Complaints
« on: May 24, 2021, 09:26:36 am »
This house hunt in this part of the States is insane. We barely even become interested in a house, and it's snatched up by someone already. Lots of sellers list a deadline of 2 or 3 days after it's gone to market because they know they'll get a lucrative offer.

And after weeks of frustration where we express interest in a house only to be told that it's now under contract or has a deadline in a few hours (which wouldn't even give us the opportunity to "sleep on it"), we finally see a house we like enough to bid on. We go ahead and bid $50k over asking price, though we felt that the sellers underlisted it by $30k, so in our mind, we bid $20k over what the asking price should've been.

And we still didn't get it. I've heard that some buyers are even waiving inspection, and who can blame a seller for choosing that option. Guaranteed sale with no chance to back out? Sold!

Fortunately, we're still comfortable in our current home. It was a bit crazy during the pandemic because our place isn't fit to have two home offices. Now that I'm going into the office physically, my wife has more sanity working at home, so at least we have that going for us.

But yeah, definitely not a great time to go looking for a house unless you have really deep pockets. Or are willing to living far away from the urban core, which is admittedly a self-inflicted problem.

11
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Anything coming in 2021?
« on: May 19, 2021, 08:28:05 am »
I should have known where that link went before clicking it. Dominion-rickrolled.
To be fair, it wasn't an unrelated link. It pretty much described exactly what Awaclus was joking about.

12
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Anything coming in 2021?
« on: May 18, 2021, 02:20:49 pm »
Dominion has a terrific amount of variety already. So, even more than new sets, I'm hoping for revised versions of the existing sets that could use it (Seaside 2.0?), because Base 2.0 and Intrigue 2.0 were such great improvements. Added bonus: if Alchemy 2.0 comes out before the long-awaited mobile app, the (mystery) developers might not need to program Possession!

Me: Mom, can we get Alchemy 2.0?
Mom: We have Alchemy 2.0 at home
Alchemy 2.0 at home: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=11402.msg395070#msg395070

Holy crap, am I ever out of it! I don't remember when I last seriously discussed Dominion (sad panda), but even if I was doing that in 2014, I didn't find variants interesting enough to read. But yowzer! I could tell when I saw the signature of being banned that I was about to step into some crazy. Thanks for resurrecting that, Awaclus. I completely missed it before.

13
General Discussion / Re: Petty Complaints
« on: April 02, 2021, 03:39:28 pm »
I have a co-worker who constantly gives me work but then changes something and gives me rework. It's gotten to the point that procrastination is the best use of my time since I stand a good chance of doing the work only once, though even then I still might have to do it twice or thrice.

So now I just measure the amount of unnecessary work in units called Jills (name changed to protect the guilty). I have another coworker who isn't that bad, but sometimes I'll measure her shenanigans in Jills. Today was a 0.2-Jill day as Jill gave me no work, but the other coworker gave me work that was really beyond her control. Then I saw that something was missing and got clarification, so it jumped to a 0.6-Jill day.

14
Non-Mafia Game Threads / Re: Codenames XI
« on: March 16, 2021, 09:42:18 pm »
Is "desease" a typo? Can we agree to change it to "disease"?

Ha, ha, I just happened to wander by and see this. Fixed in the spreadsheet. Actually, I downloaded a list of the words on BGG from the base set and Duet. I added them together and uploaded all 827 of them to the spreadsheet. That nearly doubles what was there before. I chose not to add the Undercover expansion. It'd be easy enough to clone this spreadsheet and add it for groups that want sexy time. If this addition is not welcome, I can revert back to an older version.

I may come back to look at responses here, but I've been bad about that lately, so feel free to message me on Discord at Kuildeous#3231 if there are any obvious problems. You might want to spread the word among other Codenames players to let them know of this update. Or not. Surprise them with new CHEESE or JOAN OF ARC.



15
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: April 27, 2020, 03:34:05 pm »
I watched Green Room finally. I had been interested in it when it came out since how often do you see Patrick Stewart play a neo-Nazi scumbag? It was a good movie, but the bland characterization did not help my face blindness at all. I couldn't tell the band members apart aside from the fact that one is a woman. I couldn't see much difference between the neo-Nazis except for god Stewart. As a result, it was a bit difficult for me to pick up on the nuances of the story. But it was a brutal story that worked well. I noticed that while the pit bull was a credible and brutal threat, its portrayal was sympathetic. I wonder if that was influenced by Stewart's love of pit bulls.

I also watched the Endless based on a Netflix ad. It was an interesting movie about UFO death cults, mysterious video tapes, and time distortion. I was unaware that it's a soft sequel to Resonance, though sequel is not the right term for it based on what I read. Even though I had not seen Resonance, I got the gist of the Endless. Resonance is not required viewing for the Endless, but there apparently are crossover moments between the two. Interestingly, while the Endless contains Easter eggs for Resonance, there are Easter eggs in Resonance as well, even though it was filmed 5 years earlier. I find this shared mythology interesting, and I'll have to check out Resonance now.

16
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: April 27, 2020, 03:28:20 pm »
I'm going to create a new Pandemic roll called Karen. You have to add an infection cube in your current city, but you get a sick haircut.

17
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: February 11, 2020, 02:00:04 pm »
I finally got to see One Cut of the Dead.

When the credits first rolled, I sat there thinking, “Well, yeah, it was an amazing feat of technical skill, but why on earth did people rate this movie so highly?” Then it was what followed the credits that I realized what a wonder this movie was—enough to prompt me to rewatch the earlier scenes that I had dismissed before. Nicely done.

18
General Discussion / Re: STAR WARS
« on: February 10, 2020, 10:02:04 am »
Quality show. Very Western feel to it, which makes sense from a Star Wars point of view. While Firefly never got a second season, this makes for a pretty good replacement, atmosphere-wise.

And though some people were up in arms at Stormtroopers punching a baby, that baby is older than me, so I can’t feel bad for it. Maybe belong to a species with a shorter maturation time.

19
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: February 07, 2020, 03:57:51 pm »
I was today years old when I realized that the sign for 100 and 1000 utilize the sign for C and M, respectively. Blew my mind that I never picked up on it before.

20
General Discussion / Re: STAR WARS
« on: January 09, 2020, 01:58:26 pm »
I wasn’t fond of the Chewie cop-out either. It was a clumsy shell game. I had hoped that the whole thing was Kylo clouding Rey’s mind with Dark Side chicanery so that she saw the shuttle explode—all as a ploy to get her to give into anger more. I wish they did that.

I do like the callback to the “I love you” “I know” trope from V and VI. That was brilliantly done.

21
General Discussion / Re: Movies: Any movie buffs?
« on: October 16, 2019, 05:31:45 pm »
Okay, I saw the Facebook ad for the Banana Splits movie, and I instantly set the DVR. I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch this, but I eventually braved it.

It was…better than I expected. Of course, my expectations were low, so that’s faint praise. The family’s story was actually pretty decent. Not overly deep but clearly some writers spent a bit of time crafting the tale. A few of the supporting characters devolved into caricatures. I will say that the two kids they cast in the lead roles did a really good job considering their ages. The casting was a good call.

Honestly, when the horror started, I found it a bit pedestrian. It was a step up from a Troma film. There’s the trope of the person running away from danger in a straight line, which was, of course, completely avoidable.

Turning the Banana Splits into animatronic robots was amusing. I’ve seen accusations that they couldn’t get the rights to Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I could certainly see it. Honestly, does it matter which intellectual property they use? Freddy’s, Showbiz, Disney’s Hall of Presidents? The movie probably would’ve stayed the same. The big difference is attracting the audience. Having Freddy’s name would’ve brought in some audience members, but so does having the Banana Splits’ name. At least it worked for me in that morbid curiosity sort of way.

The important thing here is: Simpsons did it.

The movie does allow for a sequel. I hope they don’t try it, but it’s not up to me.

In all, I enjoyed the movie. There was zero groundbreaking going on here. It was your typical slasher fare with the bonus of having a story that doesn’t suck. Was my enjoyment enhanced by the inclusion of the Hannah-Barbera content? Maybe. I would’ve certainly only had a passing interest in this movie if it was about some generic animatronic band. Attaching the Banana Splits caught my attention. While I liked Five Nights at Freddy’s, even if they did release a movie based on that, I’d probably shrug it off. This is likely a cash grab, and it worked on me (assuming I bought anything as a result of their commercials).

22
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: October 11, 2019, 11:21:28 am »
Wow, the view counts are insane right now.
The maths thread has 103k views. The movies thread has 136k views. The random stuff 4 thread has 21k views. The roguelike games thread has 114k views.

I mean, I know we’re some fascinating motherfuckers out there, but this is silly. Those poor bots.

23
General Discussion / Re: Random Stuff Part IV
« on: September 18, 2019, 09:00:50 am »
It makes me wonder if there is a benefit to teaching with the obelus as a representation of a fraction instead of teaching the fraction itself.

But I’m not in elementary education, so I don’t have a lot of firsthand experience on that.

It just feels like the obelus is still being used because it’s what’s already in use.

24
Other Games / Re: Pandemic Legacy (probably will have spoilers)
« on: September 17, 2019, 09:41:29 am »
Is the player count "locked in" once the campaign is started? I fear that it may be difficult to find people that are willing to commit a game as long as this.

It’s not a hard lock. Like you could play a month with 4 players and then the next month with 3 players and then 4 players but not the original. You could theoretically have Theseus’ Ship at the end and end the campaign with 4 entirely different players than who started it.

It depends on how much of a completionist you are when playing the game. I like to get involved from beginning to end. My S1 experience is kind of weird. I played someone’s game in February, thinking this was the same as Risk Legacy. Then years later, a couple friend of ours had an aborted game, so we agreed to finish it with them, so we came in on September. It would’ve been nice to play all the way through, but we figured we weren’t going to ever get to a full S1, so we bit that bullet.

Gamers can be a fickle bunch, so I fear you may have a harder time finding players willing to get into the middle of a campaign more than players committing to a campaign but maybe not. After all, my friends did.

The good thing about Pandemic is that it’s cooperative, so even if your group falls apart, you can still play it out by yourself.

Is starting with only two players unwise?

I’ve seen claims that two players is actually better than four. I can see that since each piece gets more actions before an epidemic hits. I personally like the extra options of additional characters, especially since there’s a max on how many advancements a character can have. When we mapped out the deck composition, it was a little disheartening when you see one epidemic in every 8 cards. This means that you might only get one turn before the epidemic comes out, assuming you don’t get back-to-back.

I’ll say that I enjoyed it with four. I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it with two, but I like the back-and-forth discussions.

Does the game still suffer from quarterbacking?

Pretty much, yeah. You have to tell the quarterback to cool their jets. And as I’m notoriously the quarterback in many games, I’ve had to force myself to sit back and let people do their own thing. And in many cases, it still worked out, possibly better than if they went with my plan. And I refrain from I-told-you-sos if their plan failed.

The hardest part about quarterbacking is when you see you can’t win and have to convince the other players to play to improve the next game rather than play to win. If the win is impossible, that’s an easy sell, but if there’s a glimmer of hope, then there are a lot of options to weigh.

I wonder if it might help to decide as a group beforehand some basic strategies. For example, without giving too much away, there is an argument for not searching everything when given an opportunity. I disagreed with that philosophy, but it wasn’t a unanimous feeling. So when I decide on my own to conduct what others consider an unnecessary, and even dangerous, search, then it annoys the other players.

But yeah, whatever methods you have in place on corralling quarterbacking in classic Pandemic will likely need to be employed in Legacy. Just keep in mind that losing is not always bad. It may affect your final score, but I find it more fun to build and explore anyway.

25
Other Games / Re: Deck-Building Games
« on: September 10, 2019, 01:28:31 pm »
I recall Thunderstone had a mechanic you could invoke when you received a crap hand. I cannot remember it though. This was back in original Thunderstone. I understand it’s gone through some changes, but I certainly can’t speak to that.

I did like how thematic Thunderstone was, and the rules were okay. It had a lot of currencies to track though. You needed to pay attention to the car cost, sure, but also the strength required when attaching a weapon, how much light you produce, and your combat total. It had a lot of moving parts, and I can’t fault someone if they feel that this produced more bloat than good. I was okay with it, but it certainly did weigh the game down more.

That being said, I liked the ability of training characters. You didn’t have to start from the beginning though. You could wait until all the level 1s were gone and then start recruiting the level 2s.

While the rules for the original were not really elegant, the game was dripping with theme. It felt like a dungeon crawl, which was fun but also could get as tedious during the bad parts of a dungeon crawl. I’d be interested in play the new version to see what all was streamlined. While I enjoy Thunderstone, I think Clank! scratches that itch better.

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