Gamers Harassing Gamers

There's a gamer on twitter @DraconickGaming who's been harassing a friend of mine (and fellow gamer).  Targeting him and the people he works with.

What kind of a loser does that?  Let's end his kind of abuse.  If I wasn't blocked, I'd confront him myself.  Why this guy can't leave people and products he doesn't like alone, I have no idea.  But I'm not going to lay down, do nothing, and let him destroy my friend and his small, independent gaming business.  

VS

The Legend Of Heroes Trails Of Cold Steel III Free Download

Rean Schwarzer uncovers a dark plot that threatens his homeland. To face their enemies, he must prepare a new generation of heroes as an instructor at a new branch campus and guide them towards victory.

Nearly a year and a half has passed since the Erebonian civil war, and much has changed since then. From the shifting stances of countries to the internal politics of the Empire, and even the life of Rean Schwarzer, the shadows of the past have given way to the embers of a new chapter. Now graduated from Thors Military Academy, Rean has become an instructor at the Thors Branch Campus, a newly-opened academy that quickly finds itself thrust onto the national stage. It is here that he takes the lead of a brand new Class VII, and must guide a new generation of heroes into an unknown future. Though all is calm now, the nefarious Ouroboros organization continues to weave a dark plot that could engulf the entire continent in war…or perhaps something even more sinister.

Trails of Cold Steel III invites players into a world full of intrigue and excitement that is years in the making. They will embark on a whirlwind tour through the never-before-seen lands of the recently expanded Erebonian countryside, and encounter fresh faces as well as old friends familiar to fans of the series. In true Trails fashion, the deep, engaging story pairs with an incredible cast of characters and a combat system refined over decades of innovative RPG worldbuilding.

GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS

DOWNLOAD GAME:

♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
♢ View detailed instructions for downloading and installing the game here.
♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount ISO files.

  The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel III Free Download

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS GAME

➤ Download the game by clicking on the button link provided above.

➤ Download the game on the host site and turn off your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid errors.

➤ Once the download has been finished or completed, locate or go to that file.

➤ To open .iso file, use PowerISO and run the setup as admin then install the game on your PC.

➤ Once the installation process is complete, run the game's exe as admin and you can now play the game.

➤ Congratulations! You can now play this game for free on your PC.

➤ Note: If you like this video game, please buy it and support the developers of this game.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
(Your PC must at least have the equivalent or higher specs in order to run this game.)

Minimum:
• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit
• Processor: Core i3-2100 3.10 GHz
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Geforce GTX 650 Ti
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 25 GB available space
• Sound Card: Onboard

Recommended:
• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit
• Processor: AMD FX-8320 8-Core
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Radeon R7 370
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 25 GB available space
• Sound Card: Onboard

Supported Language: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, and Simplified Chinese language are available.

Rust Memory Optimization

One of my goals this year is to learn new things that take more than a few weeks to learn. I've been learning Rust. One of the claims I saw is that Rust's borrow mechanics allow it to optimize better than C++ does. I wanted to see this in action so I ran some simple examples through godbolt. Here's some C++ code that reads from array A and writes to array B:

int test(const int* A, int* B, int i) {     int x = A[i];     B[i] = x+1;     int y = A[i];     return x+y; } 

This C++ code compiles to assembly, with -O2:

movsx   rdx, edx lea     rcx, [rdi+rdx*4] mov     eax, DWORD PTR [rcx] lea     edi, [rax+1] mov     DWORD PTR [rsi+rdx*4], edi add     eax, DWORD PTR [rcx] ret 

Note that it is loading DWORD PTR [rcx] twice and loading DWORD PTR [rsi+…] once. That means it's accessing A[i]'s memory twice and B[i] once. It knows that A hasn't changed and it knows i hasn't changed but it doesn't know that A[i] hasn't changed. It's possible that A and B overlap. That means it has to load A[i] twice, even though it's marked const.

Here's the Rust version:

pub fn test(A: &[i32], B: &mut [i32], i: usize) -> i32 {     let x = A[i];     B[i] = x+1;     let y = A[i];     return x+y; } 

and the output (some parts omitted):

push    rax mov     eax, DWORD PTR [rdi + 4*r8] … lea     ecx, [rax + 1] mov     DWORD PTR [rdx + 4*r8], ecx add     eax, eax pop     rcx ret 

This code has only two DWORD PTR accesses. It knows that A is a shared reference (so there are no other writers), and B is a mutable reference (so there are no other readers). That means it can conclude that A and B can't overlap. Once it's read A[i] from memory it doesn't have to read it again. Cool!

C (but not C++) has the restrict keyword for this. You can tell the C compiler "trust me, these don't overlap", but C doesn't check. Rust checks this at compile time.

So far I'm enjoying learning Rust. It has many of the things I wanted in a language since the mid-1990s. I don't know if I'll actually use it for a real project, but that's not my goal right now. My goal is to learn some new things that challenge my brain, and Rust is doing that for me.

Out In The Shadows: Dark Mod 2.07 Released

The hide-and-seek simulator The Dark Mod (TDM) has had a new release as of last week. For those who don't remember, TDM is a Doom 3 mod-gone-standalone that aims to recreate a similar game experience to that of Looking Glass Studio's Thief series. It is known amongst both stealth game aficionados and free software enthusiasts as a project of exceptional quality, with a dedicated community of content creators. The latest release 2.07 focuses on stability and performance.

Since we last reported on this amazing project, the game has progressed leaps and bounds both in content and quality. The extensive loading times and performance irks that plagued the initial standalone releases, from the project's early emancipation from Doom 3 game asset and codebase requirements, are now mostly a thing of the past, and are set to be improved even further, as multi-core support has finally been added to the engine (albeit as an experimental feature). Future updates will bring the game to OpenGL 3.3, transferring processing power from the CPU to the GPU.

On the graphics department, the implementation of advanced shadow maps promise near real-life shadow behavior. Improved antialiasing will generally upgrade looks for those with more powerful machines.

The release has also seen the addition of more Creative Commons licensed assets (under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) and map modules, which are free to use in either TDM fan missions or in any other mod or game project. Many fan missions are available under the same license, with incoming releases almost every month. They can be downloaded through the in-game GUI or by accessing the mission portal.

For further information you can access the full changelog here.

Code License: GPLv3
Assets License: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

GameFly Experience (Monday Musings 77)

Addendum:
I returned Sekiro and by the next day, GameFly already shipped out a new game! I'm very happy thus far with my GameFly experience.

I decided to take advantage of GameFly's free month trial, and place Sekiro at the top of the list. Given that Sekiro was recently released, and GameFly noting that there's "low availability", I was surprised to see the game shipped out the day after I signed up for the trial! I signed up Monday, shipped Tuesday, and received Friday.

Given the popularity of Sekiro, I thought I had to wait a couple of weeks, at least, to receive the game, so I was pleasantly surprised to see "shipped" when I checked the status the next day. However, I'm not sure how quickly you can receive a game that has just been released that day. Would I have received Sekiro four days after its release date?

Looking through the list of GameFly games, I was impressed that they not only have the triple A titles, but also some niche ones including the Atelier series, that appear to come out yearly. I enjoyed Atelier Sophie, but not to the point where I want to buy future Atelier series at the $60 price point. 

You can keep the game for as long as you want, and once you finish the game, upon receipt, they mail you the next game.

Games in my queue are newly released Days Gone, Dragon Quest XI (as I was considering buying the game), soon to be released A Plague Tale: Innocence, and Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm curious to see for myself if I'd enjoy RDR2, and GameFly gives me the opportunity to do so free, as opposed to having buy the game and not enjoying it. 

As difficult as Sekiro is, even if it takes me 2 months to complete, the rental is nevertheless cheaper than buying the game full price. However, it does appear to be a game I'd like to buy on sale, once the Bundled edition comes out (From software always releases DLCs), so I can return Sekiro and hopefully get Days Gone (also "low availability").

Indeed, a strat that you can use, is to write down a list of all the game titles you're considering purchasing, sample these games, spending a few hours to see if this game is up your alley, and then return quickly to receive the next game. If a game appears to be a must own, then you can buy it without buyer's remorse. 

If you're a slow gamer like me and you like to take months on a game, then GameFly may not be a good option, since it costs $15.95/month for one game out at a time, or $22.95/month for two games out at a time.

So far, I've had positive experience with GameFly, albeit it's only been 1 week's experience. If you have a GameFly membership, please feel free to describe your experiences with them.

The How Of Happiness Review

Game 361: Planet's Edge (1992)

Note that the game's title screen does not technically exclude the possibility of returning from this point.

         

Planet's Edge

United States

New World Computing (developer and publisher)

Released 1991 for DOS, 1993 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 5 March 2020
           
Because it took me so long to get Planet's Edge up and running, I had time to do more background research first--the kind of thing that I usually save for the "Summary and Rating" entry. I learned from Wikipedia that the game grew out of a desire to merge the boardgame Star Fleet Battles with an RPG. I learned from an RPG Codex interview that the developers wanted to put "Might and Magic in space." Nowhere did the authors report a direct influence from any other game, so it was a surprise when I fired it up and found myself looking at . . . Starflight. It has the same type of base where you enter different buildings to accomplish similar tasks, the same type of ship with commands arranged by "station," the same approach to galactic exploration, the same variety of weird alien races to meet, and the same take on combat. Sure, it does some things differently, but the core of the game was clearly cribbed from Starflight. Was it so hard for the developers just to admit "we wanted our own version of Starflight"?
    
There is some confusion about a couple of elements in the header. First, the title. My policy is that a game's "official" title is the best two out of three on the manual cover, box cover, and in-game title screen. If all three conflict, I go with the in-game title screen. In the case of Planet's Edge, the box includes a subtitle (The Point of No Return) that both the manual and in-game screen lack. Second, a while back, commenter shankao made a case for the game being released in 1992 instead of the official copyright date (and MobyGames date) of 1991. His argument is based on the fact that no reviews appeared for the game until comparatively late in 1992. I didn't find any conclusive evidence, but I decided to accept shankao's argument and move the game to 1992.
                 

Judging by the animate intro, the backstory is "some guy escapes a cruiser by shooting a guard and stealing a ship."

              
Planet's Edge is set in 2045. Humanity has colonized the Moon and has seeded Earth's orbit with various space stations, satellites, and other craft. The denizens of these orbiting habitats become humanity's only survivors when the rest of the planet is sucked into a "space-time warp." The warp is the result of an electro-magnetic burst fired from an extraterrestrial craft, although it is unknown whether it was accidental or deliberate (a Chinese space station had disobeyed U.N. orders and fired missiles at the craft just before the event). Either way, Earth's gravitational influence somehow remains, keeping the Moon and satellites in orbit.
             

The Luna Base commander gives orders.

            
Commander Mason Polk of Luna Base takes charge of humanity's remnant. Without Earth's resources, the base will run out of food and life support within a few years, so time is crucial. From the crashed alien spaceship, scientists recover the device that caused the disaster. They call it the "Centauri Device" and identify eight parts that they need to reconstruct it and possibly reverse its effects: a N.I.C.T.U. (but no K.L.A.A.T.U. or B.A.R.A.D.A.), an Algocam, a K-Beam, a Harmonic Resonator, a Mass Converter, a Gravitic Compressor, Krupp Shields, and Algiebian Crystals. How they came up with these names is left a bit vague. A ship dubbed the Ulysses is commissioned to scour the galaxy for these items and otherwise try to find out why the extraterrestrial ship visited and destroyed Earth. It's a little unclear how we suddenly have the ability to travel outside our solar system, or given that we have said ability, why there's a time limit on survival at Luna Base.
           

I wonder if K-beams glitter in the dark.

         
Gameplay begins at Luna Base, where the player can visit the shipyards (build and modify ships), the warehouse (offload cargo), the crew quarters (view and clone crewmembers), the research lab (check on progress with the Centauri Device), and the launchpad (head out into the universe). The items that you can build for your ship or characters depend on the resources that you bring back from other places--resources such as organics, heavy metals, alien isotopes, and rare elements.
           

Luna Base and its various buildings.

         
The crew consists of four fixed characters. The pilot is William Robert Dean from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Osai Lin Tsakafuchi from Tokyo is the ship's physician and chief scientist. Engineering duties are handled by Nelson T. Ngatadatu of Babaishanda, New Gwelo (a fictional place, but "Gwelo" is a place name in Zimbabwe). The combat specialist (both ground and flight) is Katya A. Mershova from Muntenia, Romania. Each character occupies one of the ship's four stations, some doing double duty if anyone dies. Each character has fixed attributes in body, intelligence, agility, and luck, as well as fixed skills like "Leadership," "Light Weapons," "First Aid," and "Computers." I don't know whether these attributes or skills are capable of developing, but I don't see any sign that they are. 
             

Attributes for my engineer.

         
Each character has a personal inventory, drawn from the supplies on Luna Base or found in the galaxy. The first thing I did was give them all flak jackets and weapons.

I found the ship modification process confusing enough that I decided to save it for later and just blasted off in the default ship. Once in space, commands are organized among four "consoles": navigation, weapons, engineering, and science. For instance, to communicate with another ship, you select the "Weapons" console (counterintuitively) and then "Communicate." To heal crewmembers, you select "Science" and then "Heal Crew." There are far less than 26 commands, so I don't understand why each couldn't have its own key. However, Planet's Edge does a little better than previous games using this structure by at least allowing you to hit single keys on the submenus rather than arrowing through them. Also, a few very common commands like Navigation | Starmap and Navigation | Enter Orbit can be called from the main view with individual keys, without having to go into the stations first.
           

I couldn't make heads or tails of this screen.

           
Moving around is a combination of elements seen in Starflight and Star Control II. As you fly away from a planet, the map's scale changes to show a larger area. As you enter a star system, it changes to show a smaller area. When you've locked onto a planet, you O)rbit it, at which point you can S)can it for information or B)eam down if it's appropriate. (There's no landing craft, just a transporter.) Making things a little difficult is that the planets continually whiz around their stars, unrealistically fast, so it's tough to identify which ones you've already approached.
          

Note how the navigator turns and looks at me while waiting for my order.

       
I guess the player is kind of an invisible "fifth" crewmember. I base this on the fact that, according to his mission directives, he's expressly forbidden to beam down with the rest of the crew. Also, when you're activating the consoles in the ship, each of the crewmembers turns and looks at you, as if you're sitting in a central chair. Despite this, you don't get to name yourself or anything.

A map accompanying the game shows Earth's solar system ("Sol") at the center of a galaxy occupying coordinates from -64 to 64 on two axes. Sol is the point of convergence of eight "sectors" which grow outwards from the center like irregular pie wedges: Alnasl, Ankaq, Zaurak, Alhena, Algieba, Caroli, Izar, and Kornephoros. (Most of these are actual stars). There are a handful of systems at the fringes of the map that occupy no sector. It's not really clear at the outset of the game whether the sector designations are geographic or political. Either way, note that the names of the missing parts suggest that we'll find one part per sector.

I had a few false starts as I got used to navigation. Alpha Centauri is so close that it's easy to blow past it on your way out of the solar system. I got killed three times in a row by hostile aliens who either attacked immediately or demanded cargo I didn't have. I haven't even begun to figure out ship combat. Since you can't save in space, I kept restarting on Luna Base and having to try again.
            

Meanwhile, my crew is saying, "Oh my god! It's an alien!"

           
On the fourth try, I took things more slowly and explored the solar system before leaving it, although it appears you cannot land on any of its planets (which makes sense).
       

Mars can be scanned but not visited.

        
I then carefully made my way to Centauri. The first planet, Centauri Prime, was too inhospitable to land. The second wasn't a planet but an "alien outpost." When I scanned it for information, the computer called it the "Omegan Outpost" and said that it was a "contact point for observers who were assisting with the failed Centauri Drive experiment." I guess we know all these things because of data recovered from the crashed alien ship.
            

Orbiting Centauri Prime. It's a nice looking planet, but we can't do anything there. I was hoping we'd meet Londo.

        
The four expendable crewmembers beamed down and were immediately attacked by robots firing laser guns. Combat in the game is turn-based and like nothing that New World has developed before. It is perhaps most like Ultima VI, occurring within the main exploration window and using a targeting cursor to attack particular enemies. In fact, once combat was over, I found that regular exploration was also a lot like Ultima VI. As the leader moves, the other characters kind of organize themselves around him or her. You can switch between lead characters with the number keys (although there's no "solo mode") and do other common things like L)ook, T)alk to NPCs, and do a variety of things with inventory items. You can't manipulate the environment to the same extent as Ultima VI, and (annoyingly) you can't move on the diagonal, but nonetheless, by including this level of ground exploration and combat, New World has definitely gone a step beyond Starflight and Star Control II, even if the rest of the game seems similar.
          

Combat with robots in the outpost.

              
A door led from the surface of the planet to the interior of the "welcome station," where a friendly message invited us to browse various newscasts. As we moved from room to room, we faced several more combats, and I had to use medpacks (which we found strewn around the area) several times. We also found some better armor than we were wearing (kevlar) and some extra weapons.
           

A character inventory.

         
We ran into an android who somewhat explained the situation: the station had been attacked by unknown aggressors who stole "various tactical data about the sectors." Another android offered that the disappearance of Earth was "a tragic accident" and he encouraged us to continue our quest to find the various pieces of the Centauri Device. He specifically recommended going to Algieba Sector since "there's a part that is named after one of that sector's stars, after all."
             

But . . . Earth scientists named that part! They don't know where it really comes from!

            
Beneath a plaque labeled "Sector Izar," we saw an image of a spacecraft that looks a lot like the extraterrestrial ship that visited Earth. A recorded message was saying that "something is malfunctioning with the drive" and "the experiment may have been sabotaged." The overwhelming suggestion is that Earth's disappearance was an accident, but we still don't know what the aliens were trying to accomplish.

There were a couple of alien newscasts to watch. One suggested some kind of war developing in Sector Caroli. Another reported on a "white hole"--a kind of space volcano--forming in Sector Zaurak. Unforutnately, they were just text; they didn't show anything, so we couldn't see what type of alien they were talking about.
    
I was happy to find that you can save while on "away missions" and that you can turn off the relentless soundtrack with ALT-M. The rest of the sound effects are okay, except that when you view inventory, there's an annoying and unnecessary "ding" as you move from one inventory item to another. Scrolling through a lot of them sounds like you're demanding a bride and groom to kiss. On the positive side, every item seems to have a unique description, which I always think is cool.
            

I confess I don't understand this, though. Wouldn't the adjustment have to be on every cartridge?

        
In the final room we explored, an android gave us a key that would unlock the various "android heads" strewn around the base. There were eight heads, each offering information on one or more of the galaxy's eight sectors. Some of them were explicit about the technology and military level of these sectors, I guess suggesting a rough order of exploration. From lowest to highest, these are:
               

• Sector Algieba, where the Algiebian Empire has a low level of technology. This is the second explicit suggestion to go there first.

• Sector Zaurak, ruled by the "Rana Collective," which controls the resources and means of production and thus has kept development at a minimum.

• Sector Kornephoros, settled by refugees fleeing oppressive governments in Sectors Izar and Ankaq. Their technology is mostly good, but inconsistent because it is based on scavenging.

• Sector Caroli. The android says that at the end of something called the Grand Survey, Sector Caroli was reserved for "recreation and housing for lower tech societies." There, I'll find Oortizam Labs and the Life Gallery. The only native species is the Eldarin.

• Sector Alhena has no government. Two races called the Evian and the Scroe are in a war for its resources, while a race called the Dhoven tries to negotiate. It is a mix of mid- and high-tech ships and weapons.

• Sector Ankaq, ruled by a planet called Shadowside, has a high level of technology.

          

The android head's rundown on Ankaq.

        

• Sector Izar is where Centauri and the station itself are located. The android warns against penetrating further into the sector because the OMEGA (unsure whether this is the race or the name of an organization) is capable of easily destroying everyone but the Ominar.

• Sector Alnasl, ruled by the Ominar. Lately, they have been reporting bouts of insanity and mass violence, and other races are advised to keep away. "These developments," the head noted, "may well be connected to the disaster of the Sol Experiment."

            
If this really is an exploration order, it's too bad that the developers included it instead of encouraging the more open-exploration approach of both Starflight and Star Control II, not to mention previous New World games. Thus, I decided to defy it by heading direclty for Alnasl, one of the farthest stars in Sector Alnasl. I made it there with no problem, but when I arrived, a scaled alien told me that I was in violation of some "space conducts mandate" and refused to allow me to contact the single space station orbiting the star. I never figured out how this resolved because I had to take a break to reconcile my bank statement with Quicken, and Quicken decided it needed to update and took over my screen with its request for administrative rights, and whatever I did to make my DOSBox sessions survive such screen changes was undone when I restored the default configuration to play Planet's Edge. (In its default configuration, DOSBox always crashes for me any time anything causes a major screen change, including unplugging or plugging in an extra monitor, opening or clsoing the laptop, and getting a demand for administrative privileges.) Thus, when I reloaded, I was back on the Centauri outpost. I guess this is a good place to end for now.
        

If I'm "irrelevant," why don't you let me land?

         
So far, it's a decent game that evokes the best of Starflight and Star Control II, although I suspect the alien interactions are going to be less interesting and I worry that the blatantly suggeted exploration order will be essentially required. I also think it's too bad that New World, which has a lot of experience in more traditional RPGs, didn't bring more of their mechanics to character development and space combat. But it's early. We'll see how it goes.

*****

Time so far: 3 hours

X-Wing: Second Edition Is On The Way!

Feeling fresh.

Oh man, I'm excited.  I haven't played X-Wing in a while because the competitive meta was just so stagnant with all the health regen, turrets,and bombs.  Now that they rebooted the entire game, I'm really pumped to get back into it.

The official announcement is here:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/5/1/x-wing-second-edition/

There's a thread on the FFG forums that has all the consolidated info:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274813-consolidated-x-wing-20-changes-thread/

Here's a quick run-down of what changed and what didn't..

These things have not changed in 2.0:

• Models carry over (some models may be re-released with new sculpts/paint/features)
• Dice are the same
• Range ruler is the same
• Range bonuses and obstructions work the same (except turrets)
• Templates are the same size -- but have a line down the center for alignment on nubless bases
• Basic game flow (but phases are renamed; some new phases)
• Maneuver driven by hidden dials plus actions
• Actions include: Focus, Target lock, evade, boost, barrel roll, cloak, reinforce, jam, coordinate, rotate arc (specific action mechanics may change)
• Upgrade slots: EPT, modification, title, torpedo, astromech, bombs, missiles, crew, system, turret
• Some upgrades will still take two slots
• Tokens (some art changes, shape): focus, evade, target lock, cloak, stress, tractor beam, jam, shield, ion
• Conditions are still a thing (Director Krennic)
• Setup Phase is largely the same

These things have changed in 2.0:

• New phases/phase names ("Strategy Phase")
• Medium ship bases (confirmed: U-wing, ARC-170, K-wing, G1A, Kimogila, Scurrg, Firespray, TIE Punisher, TIE Reaper, TBD)
• The new templates have a centerline that aligns to hash marks on the base and assists with bumping.
• Green maneuvers become blue 
• Red actions which gain a stress after taking
• Push the Limit is gone; some ships may "link" a first action into a second and gain a stress (example: focus into target lock linked action)
• New tokens: Force, charge
• Force tokens which power force abilities for some pilots; they may also be used to change one Focus result
• Charge/surge tokens which power some pilot abilities and ordnance
• Token shape now indicates when removed: "End of Round" tokens are round; square tokens have other triggers to remove (e.g. ion, stress) 
• Evade tokens to not add evade results; they just change green dice to evades.
• No costs on pilot cards or upgrades; these are in the squad builder app. Baseline is now 200 points.
• Each ship base has a bullseye arc and quadrants marked
• Turrets adopt mobile arc mechanics
• Turrets also get ranged bonuses and penalties, Ordnance does not.
• New upgrade cards are full sized, landscape
• New upgrade slots: Force Abilities ("Instinctive Aim"), Configuration ("S-foils")
• Resistance and First Order will now be separate factions
• Firespray-31 is no longer Imperial; Scum only
• New pilots
• No upgrade bar; either use ship build cards from the core set or the squad builder app
• Pilot skill is now called Initiative and goes from 1 to 6 [Wedge Antilles: 6]; no Veteran's Instincts or ability to change
• Damage deck - new. Repairing damage is now a thing. New cards ("Fuel Leak", "Panicked Pilot", "Wounded Pilot"); only 5 Direct Hits in the deck now.
• Regen exists, but is powered by charge tokens and nets a weapons disabled (R2 astromech)
• Decimator gets Reinforce and a red Coordinate
• Some ships have built-in abilities: Phantom (Stygium); TIE Advanced (Advanced Targeting Computer)
• Ordnance appears not to spend target locks (e.g. Proton torps); 
• Ion tokens: 1 for small ship, 2 for medium ship, 3 for large ship
• Bombs can blow up obstacles (and do damage in the process)
• New abilities will affect the Setup Phase
• They will introduce new obstacle types
• Shield levels have been reduced on many ships
• Barrel roll is not adjustable; they use the hash marks on the bases for alignment.Barrel Roll now only has 3 positions per side (6 total) – makes Barrel Roll more inline with Boost as you only have 6 total positions.If you declare and action and you can't do it (ie Barrel Roll would land you on a rock), you just lose the action now
• There is a "range 0" for own ship abilities.
• Target Lock is now just Lock – and you can Lock on to objects as well as ships (friendly and enemy).
• Certain ships have different attack values for different arcs now.

Took inventory last night.  Looks like I'm going to have to do some massive trading when the game comes out.

Rebels:
3 A-Wing (2 Aces)
4 B-Wing (2 Aces)
4 T-65 X-Wing (Core)
2 Z-Wing
1 HWK-290
1 Y-Wing
1 E-Wing
1 K-Wing
1 YT-1300 (Heroes)
1 YT-1300
1 YT-2400
1 Sabine's TIE Fighter

Imps:
3 TIE Interceptors
2 TIE Advanced
1 TIE Phantom
7 TIE Fighters (Core)
4 TIE Interceptors (Royal Guard)
4 TIE Interceptors (181st)
3 TIE Defender (Veterans)
3 TIE Bomber (Veterans)
1 TIE Advanced (Raider)
1 TIE Advanced Proto
1 TIE Aggressor
1 VT-49 Decimator
1 Lambda Shuttle

Scum:
2 BroBots
1 Slave I
1 H-6 Bomber

Resistance:
4 T-70 X-Wing (Core)
1 T-70 X-Wing (Heroes)

First Order:
7 TIE F/O (Core)
1 TIE Silencer

THE SACRED MIRROR OF KOFUN

by HeroOfAvalon

With each generation, there is a successful new type of game that spawns many a copycat clone as gaming companies chase the financial success of that title. This current generation we have the model of games as service, the last generation Call of Duty spawned many copycats. A fair amount of generations before these, first-person point-and-click puzzle games were the genre-du-jour thank to the inspiration and popularity of Myst. Let's look at one such clone from 1996; The Sacred Mirror of Kofun.

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Finished Ice Troll

   The big guy is done and ready to terrify the invaders of the lost frozen city...

More Poop Deck, More Swabbing

I've been slogging through the decking, nearly done with this batch just two more ships to go.

Coordinate Transforms, Again

Back in 2015, I had attempted to explain coordinate transforms in terms of matrices. In 2016, I started over, trying to focus on coordinate transforms without matrices. That didn't work the way I wanted either, and I wrote a blog post about that, saying that I was going to focus on game cameras. I started that, but lost motivation. The last line of that blog post is: Well, I failed. I lost motivation to work on this so I've put it on hold … again. I think I may take a long break from tutorials.

I did take a long break. I joined a game company as a consultant, mentored people making interactive articles, improved my existing pages, and also worked on lots of other things (2017, 2018). I'm reasonably happy with how things went. I've continued doing these things, but my attempts at making new tutorials have failed. Several times I tried to make a tutorial about differential heuristics for A*, but lost motivation. I tried to make a tutorial about common heuristics for A*, but lost motivation. In both those cases, I realized that it's hard to write a tutorial when I don't really understand the topic nearly as well as I thought I did. I also run into scope creep: I start with an idea but keep adding more topics to the page faster than I can actually write them.

I don't know where that leaves me. Will I ever write a comprehensive tutorial again? I don't know.

For the past few weeks I've been revisiting coordinate transforms. What am I doing differently this time? I'm keeping the scope small. Instead of all topics related to coordinate transforms, I've picked a style of game and limiting myself to the transforms that make sense for that style of game. All other topics I can tackle later.

Here's the rough outline:

1. Show a side scrolling game with some cool camera effects.
2. Introduce world coordinates vs screen coordinates.
3. Solve the problem of scrolling: subtract an offset.
4. Introduce transforms. (may need to be later)
5. Introduce inverse transforms, for mouse clicks. (may need to be later)
6. Introduce cameras. More complicated than offsets, but can do more.
7. Show some cool effects with cameras. (may need to be earlier)
8. Introduce chaining transforms.
9. Show some cool effects with chaining.
10. Demo showing all concepts together.

In parallel with implementing the interactive diagrams, I'm working on the narrative structure. The standard textbook style is to start with definitions and then give examples. I think that can be unmotivating. But it's also hard to talk about an example without knowing what the concept is. I'm still trying to figure out how to best arrange these sections. This part is often harder than implementing the diagrams.

If this page works, I can then add another style of game to introduce vertical scrolling, and then another style of game to introduce rotation or zooming. With enough examples, I think I'll understand the topic well enough to be able to write a reference that covers translate, scale, rotate, skew, etc. But even if I don't get that far, the first page can be useful on its own.

The "first page can be useful on its own" also served me well for the A* page and the hexagon page. The A* page was originally intended to be one part of a much longer series about pathfinding. The hexagon page was originally intended to be one part of a set of pages that covers all grid types. Those pages became useful on their own, and I haven't written the rest.

UCLan’s cJAM Media Event, Friday 22 November

The games design course was excited to take part in cJAM: Media last week!
The event that enables our talented students to meet face-to-face with senior industry professionals, to share ideas, make connections and pitch for opportunities.
cJAM events are hosted by the Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries and the objective is to give our students the opportunity to win placements that will help launch their careers.

The day included:
FREE breakfast and lunch

Giant speed pitching session

Chance to win industry placements

Industry guest speakers

Industry Q&A panel

Networking throughout.

We were so proud to welcome our Alumni, Saija Wintersun, now Senior Environment Artist at Rebellion, Oxford.
Saija spent much of the day reviewing student portfolios and offering her expert advice.

The Creative Innovation Zone in UCLan's Media Factory was buzzing with conversation as hundreds of students queued for 'speed dating' style interviews with their industry heroes and mentors.

See details of the programme HERE.

Tania Callagher, UCLan Resources Co-ordinator and Richard Albiston, Creative Producer of The Great Northern Creative Expo, must be given utmost credit for arranging this inspiring and exhuberent event which led to 88 placements being awarded to Media students.

[Hackaday] Camera And Code Team Up To Make Impossible Hovering Laser Effect

Camera and Code Team Up to Make Impossible Hovering Laser Effect

Mortal Kombat 11 | Release Date, Trailer Revealed

Mortal Kombat 11 | Release Date, Trailer Revealed

Mortal Kombat has been one of the most popular fighters game in the world for decades.

NetherRealm Studios announced Mortal Kombat 11 to the world in an official revealed trailer at The Game Awards 2018. The trailer featured a bit of new look for the series. Mortal Kombat series co-creator Ed Boon revealed the first trailer for his new game today, showing a shocking, bloody battle between Raiden and Scorpion. And after that another Scorpion. The trailer guaranteed a full reveal of the game in January. 

Mortal Kombat 11 will release on 23 April 2019 for multiple platforms including PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch.




As you can most likely guess after watching, the trailer for Mortal Kombat 11 was typically bloodier. With heads being removed from bodies and blood flowing freely. Also, the trailer seems to feature just how detailed the brutality zoom-ins will be in the new game.

There were also multiple Scorpions. While the first one got taken out by Raiden, the second transformed into a being of fire and flew through Raiden, decimating him. It is unclear what the presence of two Scorpion implies yet, but it could be possible that Mortal Kombat 11 has something multi-universe sort of thing going on. 

The trailer ended on a rendition of Shao Kahn waiting on a throne, imploring consumers to preorder the title so as to get Shao Kahn and beta access to the new game. Preorders for both console and PC start on December 7, 2018, Although there's no word on when the game's beta access period will start.

More more updates, stay in touch with the "Pro-BrosArena"


Also Read: Upcoming Games Of 2019 | Confirmed Release Dates | PS4, Xbox One, PC

The Journeyman Project - Maximum Wave

Written by Reiko

Agent 5 Journal #2: "I've managed to avoid the distortion wave and retrieve the unaffected archive of history. The computer then determined that there were three separate interference events in the past that changed the flow of time. So far, I was able to save Dr. Castillo and destroy a murderous robot, but I've still got a lot of work to do, and it's not going to be easy. I'm going to have to put forth maximum effort to outsmart whoever it is that's caused all this damage!"

To review, I have to prevent three major changes in history: a missile launch toward Gorbastan from a NORAD base in 2112, the destruction of the Morimoto colony on Mars in 2185, and the death of speaker Enrique Castillo at the 2310 rally in Australia. Together, these three changes tipped the balance and prevented the Cyrollans from offering humanity membership in the Symbiotry.

I have no idea at this point how interlinked the solutions to each time period will be, nor how difficult they'll be, so I anticipate having to take a look around each one before I figure out what I need to do. I'll start with the earliest time.

That's one weird-looking robot...

I materialize in 2112 in a small room facing a doorway. In the doorway stands some kind of robot, which immediately taunts me, saying I'm no match for it, but it loves a challenge. Is this my nemesis, or is it some kind of remotely-operated drone or something? The door closes and the robot is gone, but immediately I get a notification that sleeping gas has been detected. I start turning around a little, and spot something that looks like it could be a gas mask or something, but when I grab at it, I'm immediately dumped to a death screen. Somehow I was caught by security, although I'm not even sure what I did. Surely I didn't succumb to the sleeping gas that quickly. Never mind, let's try a different time first.

Another robot??

I travel to the rally at the science center in 2310 next, appearing in a different sort of room, a bit bigger. In the doorway stands something else that looks more like a person in a suit, but still sounds like a robot. This one also taunts me, saying it's been expecting me, and this time it shoots me with a tranquilizer dart, which appears in my inventory after I pull it out of my suit. The robot thing shifts to look like a person in a lab coat, who disappears through the doorway. Some kind of door reappears behind it, and then I'm free to move around. (If I try to follow it through the door, though, I immediately collapse and fail, but I can move around inside the room for as long as I need. Adventure game timing!)

Tranquilizer Dart inventory item

I look around and determine that the room is full of equipment, most of it helpfully labeled for my convenience. We have a Compound Analyzer, a Prototype Holograph called ARES, a Molecular Compositor, a Compound Synthesizer, and (not labeled) two different video log displays.

Log choices recorded by Elliot Sinclair

One log shows someone examining a rat that's had something inserted into its brain, which apparently is going very well, with no sign of infection. I'm not sure of the significance of this. The other device offers me a list of three different log files recorded by Elliot Sinclair about his critical discoveries. The first two seem like they could be the basis for the disappearing doorways, with some technobabble about being able to morph elements into other elements, except for the noble gases. The third one is about his very first successful time distortion, which presumably led to the development of the time machine. It's interesting background material, but I suspect that if I come back and do an optimized run to improve my time, I can skip all this.

Analysis of the tranquilizer dart contents

The Compound Analyzer looks useful, though. When I poke at its screen, it turns on and asks for an object to analyze. I give it the tranquilizer dart, which it determines to be a substance containing a "Dimenhydrinate based liquid tranquilizer." It sends the data to the Molecular Compositor, which is over by the doorway. When I walk over there and face the device, I hear the same malevolent robotic voice taunting me again. Weird.

This tranquilizer's antidote will be related to Thorazine.

The Molecular Synthesizer Interface screen labels itself as belonging to Sinclair Laboratories. I have no idea why this lab is located so close to the stage where Enrique Castillo is about to speak at the rally, but it's convenient. I guess it's a science center, but still, a place for a large group of people to meet is usually not very near high-tech laboratory facilities.

The synthesizer tells me antidotes are available, based on Thorazine (which is apparently a real drug that is used to treat various psychological issues), and asks if I would like to build one. Well, certainly, that's exactly what I need right now. Apparently I have to build three different variations on the base molecule by testing the options to see which are stable.

Molecule-building minigame

It takes me several minutes to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing here. At first I thought I needed to connect the pieces to specific places on the main structure, but eventually I figure out that I just have to get the right order. In fact, the correct order seemed to be the same for all three molecules. (Later I redo the sequence and verify that this is the case: the pieces are just presented in a different order each time, but the correct order is the same.) Once I drag all six pieces onto the base in the correct order, then the variation is complete and I go on to the next one. Once I have three variations, then the synthesis is complete and the physical antidote is available behind me in the Molecular Synthesizer.

Whew, that's better!

Antidote inventory item

When I pick up the antidote vial, it's automatically administered, so I don't have to worry about succumbing any more. Now I can freely walk around the corridors outside of the lab. The complex seems to be sort of like a hotel / conference center, with many rooms, some of which are identified as belonging to specific people. The door behind me indicates that the lab is Enrique Castillo's room, and he'll be speaking at the rally, which of course I already knew. I find a door for another participant in the rally, but I can't enter that room the way I can the lab. Down the corridor, I find a label that says Auditorium, but I can't do anything with that either. I also have to be careful not to go too far. A few places give me a warning that says I detect people up ahead. Like the cliff warning, if I keep going, I get caught by security and encounter a failed ending.

Is that the robot from earlier?

I wander around for a bit and eventually find a door labeled "Auditorium Electrical Access". When I open it, I hear Dr. Castillo announced to speak, and I see what looks like a person aiming a gun down at the stage of the auditorium from a catwalk. Here's where I can stop him! There's no warning about detecting people, though, so I move forward into the access alcove. The person turns to face me. Uh-oh? There are two things in reach: something labeled "Fire Control Access 7" that I can't seem to do anything with, because it has a padlock on it and a cable on the right with a large label: "Danger High Voltage".

Now it's a fried robot!

I pull the cable out, and the end starts sparking. Then the person turns back into the robot. I guess it has some kind of technological illusion? I click the cable again, and this time I'm able to connect it to the catwalk, where it electrifies the robot. The robot crashes to the floor in front of me. I click on it and open up the head area, where if I'm quick, I'm able to pull out two new BioChips, one for optical memory, and one for a power shield. Then the robot self-destructs, and all that's left is a stun gun, which I also collect. Great, I have some offense and defense now.

BioChip - Shield item

Stun Gun inventory item

The notification screen gives me two new notifications: "Mission update: Dr. Castillo's assassination has been prevented; his life is no longer in danger." And: "Temporal rip status: RESOLVED. All anachronisms eliminated. Prepare for auto-recall." I'm then automatically returned to the Pegasus device in the present time.

So I guess I've managed to complete one of the three time periods. That was actually a little easier than I thought it would be given how quickly I died in the first time period. But I don't yet know if that was the optimal solution or if there are other alternate solutions. It's possible that I didn't use a non-violent solution given that I electrocuted the robot, although I don't really understand if it was a robot that looked like a person, or if it was a person in a robotic time travel suit, or what. I don't know what I look like when I've traveled back in time either, but given that the robot self-destructed, I'm assuming there wasn't a person in there?

Elliot Sinclair's video

Back in the Pegasus, I can see that the temporal rip in 2310 no longer appears as an option since the situation has been resolved. The other thing to note here is that the Optical Memory BioChip, which is for storing video data, already had a video on it that I could access, called the "Mercury Objective". In it, we see a rather insane-looking Elliot Sinclair ordering someone ("Mercury") to go back in time and eliminate Enrique Castillo by making it look like an accident if possible, but if not, doing it anyway. That's rather interesting. Elliot Sinclair was the inventor of the time machine, but apparently he's rabidly anti-alien and wants to change history to eliminate any chance of joining with the Cyrollans.

What's particularly odd about that, to me, is that this seems like almost the same plot as Journeyman Project 3. I'm getting ahead of myself, of course, but in JP3, Elliot Sinclair shows up again to interfere with the Cyrollan initiative. I'm going to make a prediction that, at the end of this game, he ends up disappearing into the past and avoiding capture. Maybe his hit man can be brought to justice, though, if there is one other than the robots?

To get all the death sequences, I of course restored back and replayed parts of the rally a few more times, and in doing that, I found one certain bug and at least one inconsistency. The first time, I saved the game right after I applied the antidote, while I was still in Sinclair's lab. When I restored that save later, the game acted like I was jumping into the time period for the first time, showing me the robot sequence, including shooting me with the tranquilizer dart again. I already had the antidote in my inventory, but I couldn't use it. Maybe I should have tried making it again, to see if I would have ended up with two antidote items or something. I started the area over and this time saved outside the lab, and then I had no trouble.

I was trying to optimize my path the second time through, so I just made the antidote as quickly as possible and then went directly to the robot and disabled it. Afterward, I noticed that my score was actually significantly lower this time: I'd ended up with 50472 after clearing the rally for the first time, with about 60% energy left, but now my total was only 43090, with more than 90% energy left. I went back and poked at a few things to see if some of the optional items like viewing Sinclair's logs gave more score points, but I couldn't find anything. I have no idea why my score was higher the first time, as I thought being more efficient and using less energy was supposed to result in a higher score, not a lower one. Am I wrong? Is this another bug? I also tried waiting until my energy was much lower (below 25%) but my score afterward was even lower, around 38k, so that seems consistent with efficiency = good.

BioChip - Optical Memory item

I also noticed that while most of the items I got in 2310 were listed as being found in the "World Science Center," the Optical Memory chip's location is listed as "NORAD VI." What's that about? I wonder if I'm really supposed to have gone through the time periods in order and gotten the Optical Memory chip first from 2112, and then perhaps later the chip just updates with more videos. It probably won't matter, but it seems like a minor bug.

BioChips: Interface, Mapping, Pegasus, Optical Memory, Shield
Other inventory: Transport Card, Journeyman Key, Tranquilizer Dart, Antidote, Stun Gun
Time travel trips: 2 (plus a failed trip to 2112)
Score: 50472 (first time); 45604 (later)
Session Time: 1 hr 45 min (not including half an hour to run out the energy in 2310)
Total Time: 3 hr 15 min

Deaths: 6 (total: 9)

"Curiosity killed the time traveller."

#4: If for some reason you stick around in 200 million years in the past long enough for the suit's energy to be depleted, you'll get a unique ending labeled "Pterodactyl": "You succeeded in escaping the bounds of time and space to travel 200 million years into the past, only to be eaten by a Pterodactyl. Next time you should heed the warnings and move a little faster, genius." This is actually pretty hard to do, as I had to just sit around for about ten minutes for the energy to fully deplete. In the comments on the previous post, Niklas suggested that it was possible to get eaten by dinosaurs by interacting with something in a cave, but I was unable to find any other interactions in the area. As far as I can tell, this is the only other death in that time period. If I missed something else, do let me know.

I barely touched anything!

#5/6: If at any time I succumb to the sleeping gas in 2112, or run into people in 2310, I get a "Caught by Security" ending: "Out of energy and in the hands of law enforcement offices, you have been escorted to the jail cell which is to serve as your new home. Had you paid attention to the warnings, it may not have ended this way." I didn't get any warnings in 2112, other than the sleeping gas, and there's one place in 2310, just past the electrical access alcove, that gives no warning at all.

"Ten-step poison"

#7: In Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, there's a poison, usually applied to arrows, that's called "ten-step poison." It's called that because the victim will only be able to take ten steps before succumbing. There's apparently also a real pesticide that's called Tres Pasitos, or "three little steps," because mice will succumb that quickly to it. That's what this tranquilizer dart feels like if you try to leave the lab without acquiring the antidote. The ending is called "Poison Dart": "Despite your best efforts, you could not resist the life-draining exhaustion which crept over you. You have perished."

I'm so dead...

Laser fire at close range

#8: If I stand around and watch the assassin for too long, he first fires at the stage, presumably killing Enrique Castillo, then he shoots me. The ending is "Laser Blast": "The concentrated blast of the robot's weapon cut through your layers of defense like a warm knife through butter. He had no regrets."

I also included the previous moment before the ending screen to note three things: first, the completed map of the area in the lower right; second, whatever it is (the ending calls it a robot, anyway) appears as a person when firing at Enrique Castillo, but shifts back into a robot form to shoot at me. And third, the padlock that had been on the fire control access is suddenly gone. I have to wonder if there's anything else I could have done with that. Did the laser also shoot the padlock off? Seems like it's too late to make any use of it once the robot has already shot Castillo, though.

I'm lost in time again...

#9: If I wait long enough at the rally to expend all my energy, I end up with the "Encarcerated" ending: "Behind bars and out of energy, you must now live out the rest of your life in the past. Maybe you can start a support group for the temporally displaced." This takes quite a long time, actually, at least half an hour. The rate that energy declined was about 1500 per second when at 200M years in the past, but in 2310, it was about 300 per second. Maybe it takes more energy to maintain the suit when it's farther back in the past? The other quirk with this ending is that I only get the "General Exploration" 5000 points, plus a "Finale" award of 15000, for a total of 20000 points. The other endings all showed my current score up to the failure moment. I'll have to check the other two time periods later to see if the out of energy ending is the same there.

And that's as far as we'll get for this time. CAPS are also available for the first person to find a repeated typo within one of the screenshots in this entry. I'll be back next time with my exploration of the base on Mars in 2185.

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!