All posts by Darren

A retro video game project started

gameboy, retro gaming

Merry Christmas.

I hope everyone got everything they asked Santa for.

This post isn’t board gaming related at all. It’s about a little “project” I’ve decided to do that sees me jumping into a time machine and revisiting my younger years and video gaming history.

It all started Tuesday when I saw on social media somewhere (most likely Twitter) some art work related to the video game Nebulus from Hewson Consultants.

Now I’m old enough to remember it coming out originally and playing it in the eighties in its 8bit form. But I had a vague impression that it got released on home consoles that included the Nintendo GameBoy. It was probably an old Retro Gamer I was remembering.

As always a couple of minutes on Google and Wikipedia confirmed that there had indeed been a version for the GameBoy. But it had been renamed Castelian for some reason.

Five minutes later a Castelian cartridge had been purchased on eBay. Which means it’ll be with me most likely in the New Year. If I’m lucky before then.

I thought wouldn’t it be cool to revisit some of the old GameBoy games I own while I was waiting for Castelian to arrive.

Finding my old games was the easy bit. The hard bit was remembering where my handheld consoles were. Eventually I found them after some digging around. I even managed to find the correct chargers!

While I put my GameBoy Advance SP (GBA SP) on charge, along with my 3DS lite I sorted through my games collection to select a handful of games to play (see photo below).

I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this earlier in the year. I could have been playing these during the lockdown.

As I was going through my GameBoy collection I could swear I had Robocop for it. But it was not to be found. Maybe my mind and poor memory were playing tricks on me.

But another visit to eBay saw a GameBoy version of Robocop on its way to me.

Christmas Eve afternoon saw me fire up my GBA SP with Tetris for the GameBoy plugged into the cartridge slot.

Tetris was bundled with the original GameBoy back in the day. It was a classic combo that sold insane numbers. There is an amazing chapter in the book Game Over by David Sheff that goes over the saga of how Nintendo got the license for Tetris and teamed it up with the GameBoy.

For many it was the only game they played on the GameBoy. It was a portable Tetris player.

For me GameBoy Tetris is the definitive version and the yardstick later versions are judged against.

It’s easily been a decade since I’ve played this version. So to clear 75 lines on my first attempt wasn’t too bad for this aging player. My next couple of games I was in the eighties for lines cleared. Back in my younger days I had reached over 120 lines. But that’s with the tetrominos falling at a silly speed.

The music for Tetris on the GameBoy by Hirokazu Tanakais is still iconic and catchy as ever.

While this “project” is going on Tetris is going to be a game I keep coming back to for a break.

Another classic on the GameBoy is Donkey Kong.

Like so many games (and this will be a recurring theme during this “project”) I never completed the game but got pretty far into it.

I like Donkey Kong. It’s an interesting take on the arcade classic.

Donkey Kong starts off with the four levels from the arcade original. And to be honest if they had just recreated the arcade game I would have been happy. But they didn’t.

After you complete the fourth level you start to work through 97 new levels! However although the over all aim is still to rescue Pauline, on each level you now have to collect a key to open the door to advance to the next level. These new levels remind me more of old Spectrum and C64 platformers like Manic Miner or Chuckie Egg.

A nice touch is the ability to save your progress at regular intervals. It aids progressing through the game.

It took a couple attempts before I was sailing through the classic arcade levels without losing a life. It’s amazing how even after all these years it all comes back to you. But the game is still a joy to play.

I’ll write some more on Donkey Kong in the next post about this “project” as I progress through more of the levels.

Until then stay safe.

Hodge podge

Commander, magic, MtG, RPG

We are now in to the last few days before Christmas. A Christmas that will be unusual for many. Where time will be spent away from loved ones instead of with them.

Over on the Fenland Gamer discord server we have a game of chess in progress. Which at the moment looks mainly to be between Jonathan and myself. Gavin did suggest a couple of moves. But otherwise it hasn’t captured anyone else’s imagination and had them participate.

Sitting in my pile of RPGs to try are the new Fate Condensed rules, and the Fate Space Toolkit (a source book for running space themed Fate sessions).

It’s looking like the Cyberpunk Red core rules won’t be hitting the UK FLGS’s until the new year. It’s the now expected reasons for the delay of current world events. So I’ll try and get a copy then.

The last couple of days have seen the start of the Kaldheim spoilers.

If I remember correctly Kaldheim is a viking inspired set.

There have been a couple of cards spoilt that will be insane in my elf tribal Commander deck. Elven Ambush (below) potentially could give me an insane number of elves on the battlefield. With cards like Essence Warden (life gain), Elvish Vanguard (gets bigger), Ivy Lane Denizen (+1/+1 counter) also giving a major benefit from playing it.

Canopy Tactician gives a nice Lord effect making everything else bigger, and taps for 3 mana.

I like Sarulf, Realm Eater. I’d like to use it in the new deck I have in the works.

There are some nice looking angels as well in this set. And I really do need to revisit my angel deck and update it. Especially since Iona got banned.

Naturally I have preordered the two Commander decks that will be coming out along side Kaldheim. Plus a couple of the white and green themed boosters. I also have a prerelease kit preordered too. I’m still deciding whether I’ll get a draft booster or just a gift box.

I’m also tempted to pick up some of the excess prerelease kits that my FLGS has left over from previous sets. Thanks to world events times have been hard for all FLGS’s. It’s because of this that this rare opportunity is an option. Under normal circumstances this would not even be possible because they get sold out prerelease weekend. It’d be cool to use some as prizes once physical MtG is possible again to once more try and get something started locally.

Chewing the fat about nothing

RPG

This morning as I was drinking a rather nice Costa Rica coffee (with notes of cherry, yellow fruit and brown sugar according to the notes, and yes I am a coffee snob) that I got from Craft House Coffee, an email arrived from Gamesquest Fulfilment.

They had just posted my physical copy of the Rogue Trooper supplement for the Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG.

The nice thing about pre-ordering back in August/September (whenever it was made available for pre-orders) from the publisher EN Publishing is that I got the pdf version of the rules immediately after placing the pre-order.

After an initial scan of the pdf, it has sat in my virtual library untouched.

I’ve been a fan of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog (the other supplement introducing classic 2000 A.D. characters so far to the WOIN based system) and Rogue Trooper since their first appearances in 2000 A.D. and Starlord (for Strontium Dog before it merged with 2000 A.D.)

The nice things about these three books that cover three major 2000 A.D. characters is that they represent three very different genres/themes.

Judge Dredd is along with it’s social commentary basically a police procedural. Whilst Strontium Dog with the issues it touches on, is at heart a western. Finally with Rogue Trooper you have your band of brothers war movie.

Sadly for me these three books join a growing pile of RPGs that are not getting to the table.

If the current pandemic hadn’t thrown a major wrench in the works, and I could find interested parties (easier said than done) I could happily be playing/running two sessions a week of non-D&D RPGs.

I suppose I could be doing that now. But I am not a big fan of playing a RPG online. I find them boring to watch (which is an unpopular opinion). And it just doesn’t appeal to me for playing. Plus my main computing device is an iPad Pro and the Roll20’s and Fantasy Grounds of this world are not a brilliant experience on this platform.

In the meantime while I am waiting for things to become safe once more for people to meet up and play games, I can dream and make plans.

The Unhallowed temple of the Phase Spider

#randomdungeon, D&D, RPG

I can’t believe I forgot that I had another way of generating ideas for an adventure using random content from tables using dice rolls.

I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m a fan of Sly Flourish aka Mike Shay and his “Way of the Lazy DM” (that’s my words about it not his).

Each week on YouTube Mike uploads his twitch stream of his prep for his ongoing campaigns. Which are really useful to see the lazy DM principles at work, how another DM preps for a session, and their thoughts on the adventure they are currently running and D&D in general.

Mike has a Patreon (which popular content creator doesn’t?) One of the perks of being a patron (ie giving them money) is access to a regular updated document of Adventure Generators.

“These generators are not complete adventures. They’re intended to inspire you to develop your own adventures based on these themes. They’re intended to help you quickly and easily come up with a scenario that you’d want to run for your group.”

The current themes covered are “Adventurers for Hire”, “Dungeons Deep”, “Seven Samurai”, “Arena of Fate”, “Jaws”, “Apocalypse Now”, and “Dogs of War”. As you can probably guess from the theme names more than one of them has been inspired by a popular movie.

If you can’t decide even on a theme to use, you could always create your own table to roll against to select a theme before moving onto that themes tables.

For this example exercise I’m going to come up with a scenario that could be used in my currently on hiatus D&D campaign.

Although I think any of the themes would work within the campaign. We have already done an arena combat. So I’m ruling that one out for now. I’m feeling pulled towards the “Jaws” theme.

The premise for this obvious movie inspired theme is the following:

“A powerful beast of nightmare holds a settlement in terror. The characters are hired to cut through the threats of the wilds and hunt down the beast before it can kill again.”

There are six tables that I will be rolling a d20 against to create this themed scenario.

The first table is “What is the Beast?” I rolled a 9. Which means my big bad for this scenario is a “Phase Spider“. Not very nautical. But let’s see how this comes out.

The next table and question I am rolling an answer for is “What Makes the Beast Unique?” For this I rolled a 2. So the Phase Spider “Can turn invisible”. This beast is going to be one difficult so and so to get rid of when this combines with it’s ability to “…magically shift from the Material Plane to the Ethereal Plane, or vice versa.”

The Phase Spider needs a liar, and that is the next table “Where does the Beast Reside?” Unlucky for some I rolled a 13. So it looks like my party of adventurers will be venturing into an “Unhallowed temple”.

The next table/question we roll against tells me “Who Protects the Beast?” The d20 said 15. This came out with Devils protecting the Phase Spider. I like this a lot. It fits very very nicely with the previous tables result. Plus this gives an opportunity to make a “deal with a devil”.

Let’s find out what motivates the Phase Spider against the next table “What Drives the Beast?” Double unlucky for my adventurers I rolled 13 again. So the Phase Spider is the “Guardian of a disturbed tomb”. Wow these last two rolls have come up trumps for the liar.

The final table tells us “Who Else Hunts the Beast?” The dice have spoken with a 12. Which means some Trophy hunters are also hunting the Phase Spider.

So here is our adventure idea:

“The adventurers arrive at an island where a Phase Spider has held a settlement in terror ever since clerics disturbed it trying to recover holy relics from a tomb. The adventurers have been hired to hunt down the beast in it’s liar, a nearby unhallowed temple before it can kill again. But the adventurers are not the only ones hunting the Phase Spider, Trophy Hunters have been seen in the area. Rumour has it that the temple is guarded by devils.”

I went to the Dyson Logos blog and searched for temple maps. As you can probably guess there are a few temple maps to choose from.

The secret for me in which to choose is how big a map do I want to use, and does it look right for what I’m using it for.

I decided to go with the “Ye Olde Temple & Crypts” map.

I like that it has crypts. They speak spider lair to me.

The next step with the map is to follow the steps in this Sly Flourish post “Building Lazy Dungeons“. But that’s something for another post on another day.

So there we have it a quick adventure generated for my campaign. A third way of inspiring ideas!

A brief update

apps, Fenland Gamers, game of thrones

I think the Diptic collage below sums up the last couple of days fairly well.

I managed to get into the beta for the A Game of Thrones (AGoT) board game app. So I need to work through the tutorial now, and then get some games in.

I like the physical game a lot. So I’m pretty keen to try this digital version. The hope is once it’s out of beta that I can convince some of my friends to get it and we get a game or two in.

But like my physical collection, my digital board game collection has the same problem. Too many games too little time!

I could play against random strangers online. But I don’t get much enjoyment out of that. For me if I play online I like playing with friends.

Sadly even with app gaming being the only real way to game with friends during this pandemic. After a brief flurry of interest, it died off pretty quickly.

It’s a pity.

But engagement within our gaming group online seems to match that of attendance of gaming sessions. Pretty low.

I started a Discord server for the group so that members wouldn’t get spammed on Facebook from the club page, and/or miss posts. Facebook does seem to have a knack of being inconsistent in what it shows on peoples timelines.

The other positive for Discord for me is that with separate chat areas set up for different gaming interests, members can filter out the stuff they are not interested in. Not to mention the voice functionality it offers whilst gaming.

However the engagement on Discord is just as low.

My latest attempt to help improve things is to try running games of Mastermind (which died off pretty quickly), and the latest attempt a game of Chess.

I’ve not played Chess in decades. And even then I wasn’t very good at it. But we’ll see how it goes.

An early Christmas present

D&D, miniatures, miniatures painting, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Despite the next session of our D&D campaign still some distant time in 2021, session planning is still happening. Just without the immediate time pressure.

I’ve already discussed in a previous post as part of the belated #RPGaDAY2020 some of the plans for the session.

Luckily my friend Duncan very kindly said he would print some 3D models for me to make up a gift box of 3D stuff as a Christmas present for me.

Using a shared Dropbox folder I shared the 3D models for Duncan to use.

I tried to pick models that could be used in the next session and also in other encounters. So I went for statues, pillars, stairs, doors, oozes, and other bits.

That gift box of 3D models arrived this morning.

As you can see Nan enjoyed seeing what Duncan had printed for me. Although Nico wasn’t as impressed.

Now the priming starts as does perfecting painting stone.

Below is an annotated version of the players map for the Dwarven Excavation scenario from The Essentials Kit. Basically I’m using this to help myself work out and keep track about what scenery I need to bring the map alive on the table.

I did also stumble on the fact that Games Workshop sell some Middle Earth terrain that is not only affordable but perfect for what I need. So that has ended up in my grubby mitts.

Once I’m ready I’ll start sharing some test mock ups.

A big thank you to Duncan for such a generous gift.

And the flames went higher

cooking/recipes!, D&D

This is a bit of a weird post.

I’ve developed a little addiction to making my own hot sauce in the last couple of weeks.

Cue the obvious music reference…

I do love hot sauce. And have been partial to splashing Frank’s hot sauce on mash potatoes or even bread crumb covered fish.

Plus I’d made my own chilli oil that I use to spice up a korma or add a warmth to scramble eggs.

So when I found out how easy it is to make my own hot sauce I had to try.

On one of my rare forays into the outside world I found that my local Asda had a better selection of chillies than Morrison’s. So four packs of scotch bonnets ended up in my shopping basket.

After making my first hot sauce with them (link to recipe used below) I was sold.

I currently have four different hot sauces made up.

The recipe I’ve been using as my base recipe to play with is this one.

It’s a slight variant from what I can tell is a Louisiana style hot sauce. Take away the garlic and it is one!

But each hot sauce I’ve made so far has seen me playing with the recipe. Either using a different vinegar, adding garlic and onion, just using garlic and different chillies.

I decided (and this is the loose link to tie this post in with this blog) to be inspired by D&D to name my hot sauces.

So I came up with a naming convention.

If I use a chilli that falls in the top third of the scoville chart then the hot sauce will be named after a dragon in D&D.

If the chilli used falls in the middle third of the scoville chart then the hot sauce will be named after a spell in D&D.

That leaves the bottom third of the scoville chart and the influences for those names will be monsters that have a challenge rating of one or less.

The annotated chart above shows the chilli used, where it is on the scoville chart and the name I gave the hot sauce.

My Magic Missile hot sauce (not shown) only used four scotch bonnet chillies (I had a spare pack left to use up). Made with a cider vinegar, and an apple,maple and spiced fruit juice along with garlic and onion, and salt. I liked the end result.

My next hot sauce will be using Carolina Reapers. Which at one point was the hottest chilli in the world. It still clocks in at around the 2 million scovilles mark. So it’s going to be pretty spicy! I have a name already for this new hot sauce Tiamat.

That will keep me going for a while in hot sauce. But I have plans!

I’ve got seeds for the reaper, scotch bonnet, Trinidad scorpion and one called the Armageddon chilli. So during January I’ll be planting the seeds, and hoping to have a good crop of each to use next year.

Here’s another handy site to look at as well.

The Coiled Manse of the Secret King

#randomdungeon, D&D, RPG

And I’m back with the second example of generating ideas for an adventure using random content from tables using dice rolls.

For this example I will be using the Tome of Adventure Design (ToAD), and following the steps used by Kelsey of The Arcane Library and the enewsletter that you can subscribe to.

Like the previous example using the DMG I will not be creating the map for the adventure idea. That’s beyond the scope of this little exercise.

Right let’s get started on generating this adventure idea.

First up I need a location.

For this I am going to use the locations table 1-1A from ToAD. It’s a d100 table. I roll four times against this table, once for each column. I rolled 18, 72, 85, and 63.

Which gave me the following location name “The Coiled Manse of the Secret King“.

I’m big enough to admit that I had to google the meaning of manse. It was a “what the heck is that?” moment. Well a manse is a person’s house or home, or a clergy’s home, or a large imposing residence. That fits really nicely with the secret king part of the name.

If I look up the meaning of coiled I get the definition of “arranged in a series of circles, one above or inside the other.” I had thought that this was going to be a word I rerolled. But with that definition I’m getting an image of this large circular house that has inner circles for the rest of the building. I like that. It could almost be a maze of some sort!

Using table 1-6: Location-Based Missions I will generate an adventure hook for this great location “The Coiled Manse of the Secret King“. Just like the locations table this is a d100. I roll a 38. This gives me “Find or locate“.

I like this. I like this a lot. I’m going to have the adventurers venture into the coiled manse to find the Secret King.

There needs to be a reason why the adventurers have to do this. Like Kelsey I will go with a time pressure event. The adventurers need to find the Secret King and return them to claim the throne before the false heir to the throne is crowned in two days time.

Time to use table 3-6: Big-Picture Backstories to get a reason to get an idea for why the adventurers need to find the Secret King. Once again this is another d100 table. I rolled 80. Which gave me “A cataclysm or natural disaster took place.” This didn’t click with me. I just wasn’t feeling it. But looking at the Big-Picture Backstories table the entry for 91-95 is “Leaders were slain or imprisoned.” This did inspire me. Remember you don’t have to go with the entry you roll if it doesn’t work for you. You can reroll or as I have just done pick one from the table that does inspire.

So the Secret King has been imprisoned by the false heir for years, long thought dead by the population. The false heir has now made their move and slain the King and about to claim the crown as their own.

I think that’s it.

“The Coiled Manse of the Secret King

Our adventurers hear rumours of a mysterious person thought to be the true heir to the thrown being held prisoner in a nearby location known as the Coiled Manse.

News of the death of the King spreads through out the kingdom. Along with the news that the false heir has declared themselves King and will be crowned in two days time. There is also a decree that the people will have to pay more taxes to pay for the coronation celebrations. Soldiers start raiding homes to collect those taxes.

The adventurers decide to investigate and free this mystery prisoner and help them claim the vacant throne before the false heir is coronated.”

I can even think of inspiration for the story. Such as Robin Hood, The Man in the Iron Mask. And I might watch the movies for some more ideas.

So with the previous DMG example, and my #RPGaDAY Day 19 post there are now three examples of generating ideas for an adventure using tables and dice.

MtG in Medical Drama!

magic, MtG

I’ve been binge watching Chicago Med.

I actually like US Hospital Dramas. More so than UK ones, which I dislike.

There I’ve said it. You can hate me now.

As I was watching the penultimate episode of season five (S05E19) “Just a River in Egypt” I noticed that one of the main characters was playing MtG with a child patient.

It was a pleasant surprise.

Now this isn’t the first time MtG has been featured in a mainstream tv show or movie.

There is the obvious now infamous cock magic episode of South Park. In which Kenny gets involved in underground games of MtG against cockerels.

A much less obvious one is Zombie Land 2: Double Tap. It’s almost an Easter egg. Blink and you miss it. I can’t claim to have spotted this one. I must have blinked. My friend Duncan pointed it out to me.

Have you spotted MtG in any other film or tv show?