ToTK too long in the tooth?

nintendo, switch, Tears of the Kingdom, video games, Zelda

SPOILER ALERT! I think I should start adding these. During these posts I will be talking about where I am in the game and my experience as I play it. Some of that might just spoil the game for you if you are planning on playing it.

It’s been well over a month since I last spent anytime on my Switch Lite. Let alone continued my journey in Hyrule by playing Tears of the Kingdom.

I could come up with excuses as to why this is the case. But that is all they are. Just excuses.

Whatever the reason it doesn’t get away from the fact I’ve not played a video game for over a month.

Back in the eighties and my teenage years I had all the time in the world to play video games, read about video games in the pages of such publications as ZZap64!, Crash, or C&VG.

Some games I completed (not many), others I enjoyed but was just crap at them and never got very far. Sometimes you just didn’t have time to complete the game or get good at it before another game came along and demanded your attention and time.

Now decades later there just doesn’t seem to be the time available. Adult stuff like earning a living gets in the way. Age catches up, and energy levels are just not the same after a long day at work. All I want to do in an evening is unwind a little and sleep. Early nights are a thing for me. It’s surprising how drained I am physically and emotionally after a days work.

In fact it is well over a decade, nearly fifteen years since I last had a significant amount of time that I could dedicate to gaming.

Before that my gaming whilst a step parent was hand held titles for one of the Nintendo systems or the Sony PSP (I had both) on my daily commute. Whilst the kids got to play on the Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo consoles. That would give me a couple of hours gaming a day during the week.

Today it feels like I’m stealing moments here and there.

When last I played Tears of the Kingdom I had failed to take out the boss Colgera at the Wind Temple.

Unusual for me these days I had been playing the game after work one evening! Some how I had some energy left over from a day in front of students. Maybe I was feeling energised from having received the players guide a day or two earlier.

I finished the last two locks that would release Colgera, and had an attempt to defeat him fail. I was running out of arrows or more importantly things to meld on to the arrows to increase their damage.

So I retreated.

Sadly the amiibo stuff doesn’t work during the boss battle. I had to retreat to a shrine so I could unlock some supplies.

By that time it was nearly 10pm and I had work the next day. So I left it there, ready for another assault on Colgera.

I’d like to think that a younger me, even when I was playing Links Awakening on my GameBoy in my early twenties, and blasting my way through Doom, would have beat Colgera.

But as Shahid Kamal Ahmad said in the latest Remaster podcast (and I’m paraphrasing heavily here, maybe even putting words in his mouth, but I think I captured his meaning) “I ain’t getting any younger and my reactions are not the same as they were” when he was talking about the latest Street Fighter game and how his kids are thrashing him at the game (is this his “the student becomes the master” moment?)

Memory keeps telling me games were much tougher back in the day. And they probably were. They definitely were much less forgiving. But game design was in its infancy back then. It felt every other game was pushing boundaries, exploring what games could do, or redefining what a game was.

But back then I had youth and time on my side. Time to spend learning patterns to defeat that boss, or advance through the levels. Plus the reactions, hand eye coordination of a teenager.

Now I have greatly less time. And like Shahid my reactions are no longer the stuff of legend (well in my mind they were legendary) but more like that boxer passed their prime trying once more to capture former glory against a much younger opponent.

Am I finding Colgera hard to defeat because I’m old. Do I have to swallow my pride. Admit defeat and get Nathan to get me pass this bit?

Hell no! I’m not ready for the long walk yet (Judge Dredd reference there for you folks).

Time to remind myself of the controls (that drawback of long gaps between plays) and dispatch this boss.

Arm Latest

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

After a weekend of resting the arm, popping pills (only the prescribed medication btw and in the correct dosages and intervals), the arm is currently pain free!

Not only that today I was able to raise the arm high enough to be able to put on a tee.

Until now I was unable to raise my arm high enough (without hurting) to put a tee on.

So I’m a bit chuffed with this progress.

Sadly I had to sacrifice my gaming plans for the weekend to be able to rest the arm and give the medication time to work.

Fenland Gamers Club Night Last Friday aka the one I couldn’t attend. Photo copyright Jonathan Warren

Which meant I missed a really well attended Fenland Gamers club night on the Friday evening. I think going by the photo there were 15 or 16 that turned up, with about 3 new to group folks giving us a try.

Obviously the banter went it was only so well attended because I wasn’t there! “Again, right in the ears, straight to the feelings.” Wil Wheaton Big Bang Theory

The arm also meant I had to cancel our planned D&D session on Saturday afternoon. This Summer so far has not been good for the running of D&D.

No impromptu gaming session Sunday afternoon.

There are plans to play Three Sisters tomorrow evening. Obviously having just introduced Dave to the roll and write genre with the Trek 12: Himalayas entry level roll and write. The next logic step is to throw him totally into the deep end with the sharks (Charlene, Ben, and myself) and play this combotastic, not even remotely entry level or mid level roll and write.

I am hoping the medication and the arm hold out so that I am able to attend the annual Jeff’s all day birthday gaming day next weekend. I believe it is once more going to be Memoir 44 with an overlord map. But more importantly is the home made curry Jeff makes. His curries are rather good.

Even with these plans in place I think my gaming stats will be down for the month. I played way less than I could at Nathan’s because of the arm. It’s cost me a weekend of gaming. How could the numbers not be down?

I’m just happy the alarm is not a major source of pain at the moment. The rest will be what it is. See you in the next post.

Arm Update

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Monday I caved and tried booking an appointment with my doctor. However there were none and was told to login at 8am the next morning and fill in the form to get one (hopefully) for Tuesday.

I did phone the minor injuries department at the North Cambs hospital who do walk ins. However they told me because I had no history of this sort of thing they would most likely just refer me to my doctor! So there was little point struggling to get to them for relief from the pain.

Tuesday morning I did indeed fill in the form that my surgery requires to be done first before getting an appointment, pressed submit and started the wait.

Nearly three hours later I had a text back saying they had sent a prescription to my regular pharmacy. Which surprised me as I hadn’t had a prescription for years and didn’t know I had a “regular” pharmacy. Plus they were referring me to physio.

Within minutes I had a call to arrange an appointment with physio. That will be happening on the 22nd of the month. I also asked them where they thought my “regular” pharmacy was, as I had no idea. When they told me it was ASDA it made sense, its where I pick mums stuff up from.

In the meantime I had my brother pick up my prescription that only had two of the three items I had been prescribed.

But still £28 was a bit of a shock. Tells you when I last paid for a prescription. Plus I had only been expecting one item.

So yesterday saw me having to pick up the missing medication from the pharmacy and after a day it seems to have started making a difference. The arm is less painful with a little bit more movement. But not much.

Hopefully it keeps it this way or better until the 22nd.

Curry, Games, and Pain!

father son gaming, life, the universe, and everything

Last week I got to visit Nathan.

As I was driving down on the Tuesday afternoon Nathan was taking his driving test. Which was finishing around the time I was passing his location. So I deviated from the M3 to surprise him at Fleet train station and give him a lift home.

When Nathan and his instructor pulled up at the station car park I got out to greet him. But had no idea what the outcome was. That was until he got out the car, gave me a quick thumbs up, and posed for the traditional ‘just passed’ photo next to the instructors car.

Once he was finished I got to give him a hug and tell him how proud of him I was. I’m always proud of Nathan but I don’t think I tell him that enough.

It’d been a long day with the driving etc, so I made my go to comfort food for our tea, a bowl of noodles with chorizo (although I use whatever I have in the cupboard/fridge usually).

We then settled down to watch series 19 of Hell’s Kitchen (a series Nathan enjoys). As a compromise we went with one episode of that followed by an episode of Justified. And repeat.

Nathan hadn’t seen Justified before. But after watching the first episode he was hooked.

The thing about Justified is it’s a western with a modern setting for sure. However the writing, acting, casting, are just as near to perfect as you can get. Each of the six seasons are 13 episodes long. They all have a story arc for the season along with an on going overall story arc between the main protagonists of the series. Even the supporting characters are amazing and developed. I can’t think of any dead episodes. You know episodes that just tread water, do nothing story wise.

I think I must have watched Justified six or seven times now. And it doesn’t get boring even though I know what is happening.

I just love the show.

The big thing for me on Wednesday was that I was making Nathan a curry from scratch.

Unlike his old man, Nathan doesn’t do heat in his food. So the challenge was to create a tasty, spicy curry that had no heat.

I had no idea how this was going to turn out. There was no plan apart from using the core three ingredients coriander,cumin, and fennel seeds, and staying away from stuff that added heat. So there was some turmeric added, along with a cinnamon stick, cloves, curry leaves, and star anise. After toasting these ingredients it was time to turn them into a powder using a mortar and pestle. It was a lot of hard work I can tell you.

When it came to cooking I softened a diced onion, added some chopped tomatoes, the curry powder, then two cans of coconut milk, then some diced potatoes, and finally diced chicken breast.

What I ended up with was a creamy flavourful curry that seemed similar in style to a Thai green curry to me. But had no heat. It came out better than I expected. Nathan enjoyed it. which is the main point for me. I did add some heat for me by using some chilli crunch on my bowl contents.

The only game we got to play was LoTR the living card game. Which I did write about at the time! You can find that in this post here.

The rest of the time we spent together on Wednesday was alternating between Hell’s Kitchen and Justified.

Thursday was a completely different story. That was when the right arm started to cause me some pain.

Despite that we managed to get the remaining two games of the LoTR the lcg core campaign played. We did have a blast and I do need to write them up with the similar style that I did for the first game in the campaign.

It was lucky that we got the third and final game out of the way by tea time as that evening the arm was really causing me some pain.

I like to think I have a high pain tolerance. I can usually focus out most things. Having tinnitus does have an advantage. Over the years I have developed the “skill” of being able to focus out stuff like a constant ringing, or a stinging nettle sting, etc. But sometimes things get too painful or loud to be able to do that.

This arm pain was definitely falling into the too painful to focus out. I even resorted to paracetamol and ibuprofen, but that made no difference at all.

The rest of a painful evening was spent watching those two shows.

After what at best can be described as a disturbed nights sleep of pain I was on my last morning with Nathan.

After my usual coffee and pain au chocolate start to the day. Which I wasn’t getting my usual enjoyment from, it was very functionary. But that was the pain talking I think. I introduced Nathan to the Star Wars the deckbuilding game (which will be getting an expansion sometime next year according to a brief comment in one of the FFG In-flight things at this years GenCon).

After taking an early lead capturing two of the empire bases, Nathan managed to pull things back and get the win.

He liked this game a lot. So much so he was going to buy a copy for himself. I knew he would like it. He loves Star Realms for starters, and like his old man loves Star Wars. So this was the safest bet ever that he would like Star Wars the deckbuilding game.

I decided to save Nathan some money and leave my copy of the game with him. After all he’s going to be the main person I will play the game with. It was bought to play with him in the first place.

After that defeat it was time to load up the car and return home. This was not going to be a pleasurable drive home. But I did make it home.

I really enjoyed my time with Nathan despite the arm pain doing it’s best to ruin it. Hopefully once he has wheels he will be able to pop up and visit. When that happens I have so many games I want to share with him starting with Scythe.

Brief update

life, the universe, and everything

I’m keeping this brief.

There should have been at least two posts about my stay with Nathan and our LoTR campaign play.

But at the moment I’m in extreme pain with my right arm. A pain that inflicted me for the last two days of my stay with Nathan and still does.

I think it might be a trapped nerve.

What it means is that I can barely move my right arm at the moment without some pain.

As soon as it improves I’ll be back to a normal service.

Mirkwood Paths #1 – A Passage Through Mirkwood

Campaign, father son gaming, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, Mirkwood Paths

I know the LoTR lcg has been out for a few years. Plus the revised core set that I have has also been out for a couple years too. But still I feel that for this play through of the revised core set campaign (mine and Nathan’s first time playing it) I should give the old SPOILER ALERT! warning.

If you intend to play through the campaign included in the core revised set and prefer not to have anything spoiled then avoid this post and join me in another post.

Just remember that was a SPOILER ALERT! You have been warned and if you continue reading this post (which I hope you do) and it ruins your enjoyment of the campaign then it is on you.

Ok let’s get on with the post.

As hinted in my long winded ramblings justifying giving a spoiler alert above this is the first time Nathan and I have played through the campaign mode that comes with the core revised set. It’s also the first time Nathan has played the LoTR lcg, and my third time of playing the opening quest of the campaign Passage Through Mirkwood.

Passage Through Mirkwood is the recommended introductory scenario for new players. Which considering my other two plays of the game were introducing new players to the game (including myself) it made sense to go with the official recommendation each time.

However this third time was different not only because we were playing it in campaign mode, but because of the decks used.

“You are traveling through Mirkwood forest, carrying an urgent message from King Thanduil to the Lady Galadriel of Lorien. As you move along the dark trail, the spiders gather around you…” Flies and Spiders, card 119

For this campaign we are using the Leadership & Spirit deck, and the Lore & Tactics deck from the Learning to Play Guide of the core set.

I’m playing the Leadership & Spirit deck, that has the following heroes: Aragorn, Théodred, and Éowyn. Which means Nathan is playing the Lore & Tactics deck with Legolas, Beravor, and Denethor as it’s heroes.

According to the Learning to Play Guide the Leadership & Spirit “deck excels at putting allies into play and contributing lots of willpower to the quest.” Whilst the Lore & Tactics deck is a “deck should be used to provide additional card draw and handle most of the combat.”

Hopefully we can remember our decks strengths as we play the scenarios in the campaign.

At least using these decks I don’t have to perform any mental gymnastics to explain Galadriel being in the party of heroes battling through Mirkwood.

“King Thranduil has assigned a guide, Mendor, to assist you in your passage through Mirkwood Forest.” Mirkwood Paths – Part 1, card 129

If Mendor gets defeated, aka killed we lose the scenario. Just a little extra pressure to start with.

“The nastiest things they saw were the cobwebs; dark dense cobwebs, with threads extradionairly thick, often stretched from tree to tree, or tangled in the lower branches on either side of them. There were none stretched across the path, but whether because some magic kept it clear, or for what other reasons they could not guess. – The Hobbit” Flies and Spiders, card 119

Our parties made their way south through Mirkwood following forest paths dispatching the odd forest spider as they dropped from the trees.

Such an early attack of opportunity from a spider managed to do serious damage to Aragorn after I had leant heavily into the decks main questing focus and had no one to defend with.

We were or I should say that team Legolas were already engaged with Ungoliant’s Spawn when we had to choose which path to follow.

To give me a bit of variety from my previous two plays of this scenario we went with the other card that I hadn’t played before, 3B Beorn’s Path.

We had to defeat Ungoliant’s Spawn before we could complete the quest itself. Which was slightly different from the other path.

If we had gone the other way we would have won a round quicker but I wanted to keep things fresh for me. So we quickly finished off the wounded Ungoliant’s Spawn. Freeing up my team of heroes to throw everything into completing the main quest. Luckily some ally powers allowed this to happen.

“The forest is dangerous, but that was beyond what one might expect to find.” Mendor seems shaken. “I fear something is not right in the land. I shall continue to travel with you.” Mirkwood Paths – Part 1, card 129

Our reward for successful competing this first scenario was to add a copy of the boon Mendor’s Support to our decks. Plus Ungoliant’s Swarm to the encounter deck.

Nathan liked his first play of the game. Although he thought this introductory scenario was on the easy side. To which I countered it was aimed at introducing players to the game. So it was never going to be really challenging.

I actually liked the core set recommended deck. It was fun to play with. And played well to it’s strengths. Nathan didn’t seem to have any problems piloting his deck. So that to me says that these are great decks for new players.

Games for a visit to Nathan’s

father son gaming

Getting pretty excited that I’m spending a few days with Nathan this week.

Which means I need to decide which games I’m going to take with me for the visit.

So this morning I went through the collection via the bgstat app and tagged the games I’m planning to take with me.

Except for the two roll and writes I know Nath will enjoy the theme at least of the remaining games.

Obviously he’s played War of the Ring, and Marvel Champions before and enjoyed playing them.

But I think he’s going to like the remaining games to.

Well, how could you have waited so long?

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Friday was once again a Fenland Gamers club night.

I got a chance to play Outlive with its expansion for the first time in about five long years.

When I last played Outlive in 2018 the expansion was a mere twinkle in the games designers eyes.

Marcin got me picking the expansion up for him at UKGE this year for him. So I most definitely hadn’t played the game with the expansion.

I was keen to play the game again.

It was great playing this post apocalyptic worker placement game after such a long time.

I came last, so not even first loser. But I did some cool stuff. I had fun.

After a morning taking Mum to get her new glasses adjusted, and installing a new Wi-Fi router (could have done without that small expense) I picked up a handy game or two to play with Dave as I left the house to meet him.

Which is why we ended up continuing the trend started by Outlive the evening before by playing Eminent Domain.

Eminent Domain is another game that last got played in 2018.

I do like Eminent Domain. But this deckbuilder does not get nearly as much play as it deserves, as the gap between plays proves.

We did waste a bit of time setting up. Working out what cards were what. And for me refreshing my failing memory with the rules, as Dave playing the game for the first time learnt them. But that’s the drawback of picking up a game that I hadn’t played in a long long time.

After narrowly losing to Dave I introduced him to the roll and write genre with Trek 12: Himalaya.

This is a fun introductory roll and write I think with just enough challenge to keep more experienced players engaged.

I did managed to summit our first mountain, narrowly failed the second mountain by 2 points, and was not close on the third and final mountain.

With me getting points for the first two mountains, and Dave claiming points for the third. We ended the expedition a draw.

However I had other reasons for introducing Dave to roll and writes. The next ones I want to play with him are Three Sisters and Motor City. Yep we will be going from the safe paddling pool where Dave has just dipped his toes in the water to dropping him in the deep end!

Splish, splash!

‘T was in the darkest depths of Mordor

Game day, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, star wars

I spent a very enjoyable few hours today round Jeff’s playing LoTR themed games punctuated with a delicious bowl of chicken and mushroom curry.

We started our gaming with War of the Ring the card game.

Jeff played the free peoples of Middle Earth. Whilst for a change for me from the last couple of plays I’ve had I was the minions of Sauron.

Mordor won in the end by a narrow couple of points.

Jeff was a little unsure of the game and thought he needed a few more plays to decide. But he thought it had potential.

Our second game after a break for lunch (the chicken and mushroom curry washed down with coffee) was LoTR the living card game revised core.

We played the introductory scenario seeing as it was Jeff’s first time with the game.

Luckily Jeff had done some homework and had watched a couple of YouTube how to play videos. So no teaching required.

Jeff chose the starter decks for our play and went elves, leaving me dwarves.

I’ve already written about this introductory scenario so I’m not going to repeat myself here.

Suffice to say the combined might of the dwarves and elves won.

Unsurprisingly Jeff really liked LoTR LCG. I had a strong suspicion he might. After all Jeff loves Arkham Horror LCG and they are similar mechanically.

Which reminds me the previous evening John and I met up and played Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

John played Obi Wan, whilst I went with Ashoka against Ventress. We played at the padawan difficulty (3 missions).

Even though the game was brutal against us and beat us (we needed another two turns minimum to win) Jonathan enjoyed this implementation of the pandemic engine.

I have had two gaming sessions with two of my oldest and closest gaming friends. Who these days I don’t get to game with as often as I’d like. So to get to spend quality time with them sharing great games was a Summer highlight.

If you go down to the woods today…

game night, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR

You’re sure of a big surprise.

“The nastiest things they saw were the cobwebs: dark dense cobwebs with threads extraordinarily thick, often stretched from tree to tree, or tangled in the lower branches on either side of them. There were none stretched across the path, but whether because some magic kept it clear, or for what other reason they could not guess.” The Hobbit

Well maybe the spiders weren’t that big a surprise. Given the abundance of cobwebs. However the other monsters we came across were.

It had seemed such a simple task that we’d been asked to do.

“You are traveling through Mirkwood forest, carrying an urgent message from King Thanduil to the Lady Galadriel of Lorien…” Passage Through Mirkwood scenario LoTR LCG

Our party delivering this urgent message would have been an unusual sight, nay even a surprise to anyone coming across them on the road.

It’s not often you see dwarves and elves traveling together. Old animosities put aside for this most urgent of tasks.

Yes Dave (elves0 and myself (dwarves) were playing the two starter decks that I bought alongside the revised edition of the core set.

As this was a learning game we were only doing the recommended introductory scenario Passage Through Mirkwood.

Considering that the elves starter deck has Galadriel as one of its heroes I’m not sure what mental gymnastics to perform that explains her presence.

But blanking out this anomaly worked for me.

As our party of odd comrades made their way through Mirkwood by following the Old Forest Path, passing through the odd Forest Gate, and ascending the mountains of Mirkwood. We encountered the odd spider and party of orcs. But these were easily dispatched.

I don’t know if the encounter deck was being kind to us. But until the last quest card it did seem quite easy. We had single appearances of creatures. Which we fought successfully. At one point there were two scary looking threats in the staging area. But we were able to put facing them off as we had not amassed enough threat for them to engage us.

We’re these starter decks too powerful for this introductory scenario?

Our final hurdle was to find and defeat Ungoliant’s Spawn.

Luckily we found Ungoliant’s Spawn very quickly.

That when revealed ability of Don’t Leave The Path was a great aid in doing so.

However it was joined by forest Spiders and a King Spider.

Things had suddenly got much tougher.

But luck was on our side Gandalf final appeared and did some damage to Ungoliant’s Spawn. Our dwarven and elven allies were falling like flies as we battled to take out these spiders.

But eventually axe and bow managed to dispatch the eight legged freaks attacking them.

I really enjoyed Lord of the Rings LCG. It struck me as a less complicated Marvel Champions. But just as fun.

Resources are a big thing in this game and often you find you don’t have enough to play the cards you want to.

I think 2 players is a nice number to play this type of co-op lcg with. We know I’m not a solo player.

It was quick to pick up the flow of the game. Which I liked.

Obviously I love the theme of the game. And I’ve discussed my history with Tolkien and Middle Earth in a previous post or two.

Dave also enjoyed it. And after a discussion and showing Dave the campaign rules he’s happy to start a campaign. But he had one proviso. That we play on the expert setting where the hero health carries over between games and does not reset. I’m up for that.

So after I have exposed Dave to Marvel Champions we will start the core set campaign.