Some Games

I played Thunderstone with Nadine. She picked up six Trainers at the start, while my draws wouldn't let me get more than 1 in my first three turns. I instead sacrificed four Militias to a monster that made all the attacking heroes have -2 strength. That put her ahead in XP and me ahead in tuning my deck. It was a close game (I occasionally noted to her a more optimal play, like when she tried to trash a dagger, overlooking that she had a disease in her hand). Final result was 47 (me) to 42.

Nadine, my mom, and I played Bridge, with Nadine taking over two hands. It is frustrating to forget so many of the nuances of the standard bidding system after not playing for so long. I need to play this regularly, not once every few months.

Last week I played Go with Anne, giving her a two stone starting advantage on a 9x9 board. She had played once or twice before a long time ago, so this was a refresher game. As expected, she played well. The end game had her up a point on the board, but I had captured many more stones. I very nearly lost an entire swath of the board by not paying attention. Another game that deserves real attention, and not a play every few months.

I also played some more No Thanks and Parade, teaching them to new players. Both were enjoyed, but oddly enough Parade went over slightly better, there being more scope for planning, or so I was informed.

I've been enjoying playing Hawaii for several weeks, and so have some people at the JSGC, but no one in the Raanana club liked the game. for some reason.

DevCorner: Blender Game Engine

While Blender3D is one of the premier FOSS projects out there, its integral part the Blender Game Engine (BGE) is often belittled as not a serious game engine.

While the criticism is certainly not completely unfounded  and the integration of limited "non-programming" game code creation (via logic bricks) gives it a bit of a "RPG maker" image, it really is a quite interesting platform to work on it seems.
Ok, probably as of now the BGE is really more of a rapid game prototyping engine, but previous experience during the Yo, Frankie! project has actually shown that at least compared to some other well known FOSS engines, it is a serious contender (that Blender Foundation project originally started on Crystal Space, and after many problems was implemented in the BGE in a few weeks only).



So what makes it so interesting? Well for one there is the full integration with a creation tool (obviously Blender3D) so that getting your content into the game is only a matter of making it. No exporters or anything needed... it just works. Then of course there is the fully scriptability via Python, also integrated tightly. Basically you never have to exit Blender, and testing your game can be done right in the editor with one click (no compiling etc. necessary). Oh and did I mention the great physics capabilities via Bullet, also build right in?

In addition your created game will be immediately available on any platform the Blender Game player has been ported (all major desktop operating systems, with an Android port under development and a browser plugin, too). In addition you can choose to publish your game as a single .blend file, giving the users a direct access to all the source files of the game; a wet dream of any true FOSS game developer!
The tight integration with the GPLed Blender Player, has been a major source of discontent with the predominately propitiatory game developing users of the BGE however. Thus there now exists also a few options to encrypt your game and/or run it on an external engine that can be kept close source (but I will not go further into that here). 

You can find a lot of (sometimes really awesome looking: 1, 2, 3) game projects on the Blenderartists.org forum. Now as I said, most of it is sadly closed source with propitiatory artworks, but I also have the feeling that some simply don't know or care about the legal implications of their "freeware" game (which sadly shows that even many people who use a great FOSS tool, mostly care about the "free as in beer" aspect of it). 

One of the more interesting projects right now (which might or might not become a full FOSS game) can be seen in this video:



It shows the most recent work by Martinesh, who is basically BGE's resident game art guru. Two years ago we already featured previous awesome work by him, but sadly that Air Race project is by now canceled.
What he is now working on is however rather a show-case for the really nice new graphical features in the BGE which he and others are developing in the so called "candy" development branch (on his blog there are also more details and nice videos from some time ago).

Another cool recent project it the rewrite of the the logic bricks visual programming idea via nodal logic blocks called Hive.

While not completely integrated into Blender yet, you can already try it via an external editor (the created python code works fine inside Blender). There are also some tutorials and a documentation for it.
Since my programming skills also lack somewhat, I find that an interesting tool... however most likely it is rather a nice way to do some level scripting, than actually programming the real guts of a game with it.

So where can you get started with developing your own game using the BGE? Well, the blenderartists.org sub-forums are always helpful, with some nice beginners video tutorials linked here, here, here and here ;)
There are even some books available (this one in particular is quite recent, which is a plus given the fast development of Blender3D) and there is of course the official Blender documentation.
Oh and a good source of content is (besides our friends opengameart.org of course) Blender Swap (nice interview with one of the creators here).

If you have further questions please comment below or ask over at blenderartists.org!

Updates from AgentKeeper

I mentioned this nice new project that appeared on our forums some time ago already, and while the promised source-code isn't available as of yet, a new and quite good looking video was recently posted:



Now as you can see, it shares quite a lot of graphics with OpenDungeons, which is not completely dead either, but there is at least some discussion to "jump ship" as AgentKeeper is progressing much quicker (with it being a University supported project).
You can follow AgentKeepers progress here if you fancy some nice dungeon management simulator ;)

P.S.: Stay tuned for an new version of Red Eclipse early next week.

Universe at War: Earth Assault

Developer: Petroglyph Games
Publisher:  Sega

Universe at War has a bit of a misleading title, when I first heard about the game, I thought you'd pick from several alien factions and then duke it out throughout the Universe. Well I got the first part right, but you only get to fight on Planet Earth despite the Humans not even being a playable faction (huh?).

The campaign progresses in a linear fashion as you take control of the stealthy but underpowered Novus, the amazingly awesome and devastating Hierarchy, whose production facilities also double as giant walking mechs of death and the Masari, who are the more traditional RTS faction, I definitely enjoyed playing as the last two, but I got the feeling Novus' stealth abilities don't really make up for how weak their units really are.

I was also not a fan of the campaign, didn't care for most of the plot or the characters with the exception of Orlok, a battle weary Hierarchy General, the missions themselves weren't too interesting either, with the exception of the final stage for each faction, I always felt like the skirmishes were too small in scale.

Universe at War features cross-platform multiplayer, meaning you can play the PC version against  Xbox 360 players, I'd love to see how well implemented this is, but unfortunately the servers are completely empty, so no luck there. At least you have the usual single player Skirmish options as well as Scenario mode, which places you in a map similar to "Risk" as each player takes turn in taking over territories for bonuses, that mode was pretty fun.

Overall, I have to say, there's no real point in getting this game, the campaign is pretty dull and the online servers are empty and while the Hierarchy is pretty fun to play, it alone can't save the rest of game's shortcomings.

Trivia: Did you know that a lot of the developers behind Universe at War were also involved in the creation of Dune 2?

Pros:

- Three very distinct factions
- Playing as the Hierarchy is awesome
- Scenario mode is pretty cool

Cons:

- The Campaign is pretty boring

- Online servers are completely empty
- I'm fairly certain the Novus are underpowered

Final Grade: D+

I remember buying the game, staring at the box art and having no idea what the heck I was looking at! Is this an alien? A Reactor? A Power Core? After finishing the campaign I now know that it's Kamal Rex, one of the bad guys from the Hierarchy, but still, I really have to wonder how could anyone think that this was a good cover?

 The Manual itself is pretty decent by RTS standards it tells you a little backstory, and gives you some small stats for your vehicles, overall the information is not terribly deep by RTS manual standards, but it does its job fine I suppose.

Packaging score: C-

Some nice screenshots...

So it seems like it is up to me again to keep this blog alive ;)

Not too much to report though... therefore I present you Red Vs Blue Unvanquished edition:

Well at least that could be fun... anyways, as they explain in their last two weekly updates (1,2), their Demon Engine has seen quite a few graphical updated an bug fixes lately. Furthermore they highlighted an upcoming major change in game-play compared to Tremulous, as Unvanquished will be using a real resource gathering system.

Also a cool new screen comes from the "Modern Warfare" mod for 0 A.D.:

Tanks in 0 A.D.

In their WIP thread on the 0 A.D. forums they have also confirmed that the mod will be "open source" however did not specify this further. It also seems like they have plenty of good artists, but are lacking a bit on the coding side. So if you know your way around Javascript and XML hacking, give them a hand (and secretly lobby for a full FOSS release ;) ).

Open Source Handheld Console GCW-Zero: OpenDingux, Kickstarter

GCW Zero Kicksterter is a project to create a spiritual successor to the low-cost Dingoo A320 handheld gaming console.

Thanks to SiENcE for pointing this out!

Fresh versions of Stunt Rally and Warzone2100

Just released today, there is a new version (1.9) for Stunt Rally:

Stunt Rally 1.9

It has a few nice new features, but probably the greatest update is a major change in the car handling physics, including an "easy" mode for those of us not wishing to practice for a career as a professional rally driver ;) and the guys would like feedback in the SR forum so let them know what you think.

A big collection of (partially quite crazy) screens can be found here.

Another great release that surfaced just today is Warzone2100 version 3.1.0. It cumulates all the changes made during the last 2.5 years, however if you tested the RCs already then there isn't too much new. Most notably they mention the new and fully fixed netcode, so that "out of sync" is a thing of the past (unless you have a crappy net connection like me :( ).

Have fun playing!

Star Trek Invasion

Developer: Warthog

Publisher:   Activision

As a casual Star Trek fan I was somewhat intrigued by the idea of a fighter-pilot space combat shooter based on Gene Roddenberry's fictional setting, mostly because the space battles in Star Trek are usually all about strategy, tactics, diplomacy, manipulation, misdirection and freaking giant spaceships being blown up by the Enterprise.

Well after playing Invasion I can now safely claim none of that is in the game, no, not even the Enterprise or any form of giant ship, the few capital ships you get to see are medium-sized at best (think Colony Wars: Red Sun) and the game itself is a by the numbers space shooter, which isn't a bad thing, but it's bogged down by a slew of issues.

The first problem you might notice is how overly sensitive the controls are, if you turn your fighter for more than two seconds then chances are you already did a 180º turn and completely missed whatever target you were going for, after a few play sessions I did eventually get used to this, but I was never too comfortable with it, especially when dogfighting the Borg (yes, apparently the Borg use fighters now). This just makes the game so unnecessarily difficult, made even worse by the fact that the game's objectives are really strict without the control issues. How strict you ask? Well I actually got a game over TWICE while playing the tutorial missions, now that's harsh!

Control and difficulty issues aside, the missions themselves are... okay, when compared to games like Colony Wars or Freespace there's just nothing about them that really stands out, most of them involve you shooting other fighters until the numbers deplete with the occasional extra objective thrown in, but more often not these are done in a very aggravating manner, like how you're sent alone to a nebula and are expected to tractor beam an escape pod to safety, the problem is that your enemies are constantly spawning and you're a sitting duck while towing the pod away, eventually I got through the mission but I couldn't find a definitive strategy for it, it was all blind luck.

With that said, you do have a two player mode, something very rare for this sort of game, in fact, I'm sure this was a first on consoles, you can play either in Deathmatch, which hasn't aged all that well to be honest or a set of co-op missions which are actually pretty fun, it's just a shame you can't take on the singleplayer campaign with a friend.

Graphically the ships look stunning for the PS1 and the shield effects looks pretty damn cool, but the environments are a bit stale and lifeless, especially when compared to the aforementioned Colony Wars series, the soundtrack is pretty forgetful but the voice acting isn't, mostly because you have Patrick Stewart (Picard) and Michael Dorn (Worf) reprising their roles, as well as a few other minor actors reprising their roles unfortunately, their great performances often clash with that of other minor characters.

As for the story itself, I think I forgot what's it even about, it starts out with a Borg Invasion, but you spend most of the game fighting a new, unknown alien race that is not nearly as dangerous or interesting as the Borg, Klingons, or the Romulans, in fact, between the new species and the fact that this is a fast paced dog-fighting space shooter it hardly even feels like a Star Trek game.

Trivia: Did you know originally the game was going to let you order your squad mates and call for reinforcements? It was even mentioned in the official PlayStation demo. A shame it never made the cut, it could have been a great feature.

Pros:

- The ship models look stunning and so do the shield effects
- A two player Option in this style of game is certainly unique, especially for a console
- Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn reprise their roles

Cons:

- Controls are extremely sensitive

- Missions quickly become very frustrating
- The action itself is a little too standard
- It doesn't really feel like a Star Trek game

Final Grade: C

I'm not a fan of the boxart at all, it looks lifeless and generic, yes, it's a space battle but I'm just not drawn to the image, maybe it's the overuse of yellow in the background, but the worst part is that it doesn't even look like a Star Trek game at all, I mean look at it! Do you recognize any of the ship designs in there? 

None of them really resemble the typical federation vessel, even the torpedoes don't look like they're from Star Trek, they never left a blue trail in 'The Next Generation'.

As for the manual itself it's pretty decent, featuring one tiny paragraph of backstory while the game's instructions feel a bit cramped, but at least they it tells you what each weapon does, something which the game never bothered to (Seriously, how else are you supposed to know the difference between a Type 9 phaser and a Type 10 phaser?).

Packaging Grade: D+

Haze

Developer: Free Radical Design
Publisher:  Ubisoft

I remember there being a fair amount of hype for this game, there was even a publication that called it a 'Halo killer', I also remember how the game seemed to have fallen off everyone's radar after it released and now that I had a chance to play it, I can see why. Halo has absolutely nothing to fear from Haze.

Haze is bad, it's really bad, not in the sense 'so bad it's good', but instead 'so bad it's painfully boring'. 

You play as Shane Carpenter, an annoying hipster kid who joined Mantel, a futuristic private security/mercenary force because he felt 'it was the right thing to do', said corporation keeps its forces in line by constantly pumping them up with a performance enhancing drug named 'nectar' which makes you faster, more resistant, makes it easier to spot enemies and turns your douchey squadmates into super-douchey squadmates. 

Seriously, these guys are completely unlikable they don't even feel like characters as much as they feel like parodies of high-school bullies, I get that the game is trying to portray them as the bad guys so that Shane eventually joins the rebels, but the way the writing handled it was embarrassing and when you do join the rebels it's complete opposite: The rebels have no personality at all, outside of their leader whom you don't really know that much about you never talk to anyone, you just assume they're the good guys.

On the gameplay aspect, things don't fare much better, there is zero enemy variety, they all look the same (especially when fighting Mantel), they all act the same and the vast majority of them use the same weapons, made even worse by how laughably bad the A.I. we're talking early-to-mid PS2 gen levels of A.I. here.

The game also tries to add some gameplay variety by giving you vehicle sections, but most of these are handled very poorly, for starters, you only get to one vehicle per faction, moreover I found that these stages consist of little more than one long corridor and the levels where you have to drive these through a minefield are just unbearable.

Graphically the game is extremely inconsistent, the Mantel land carrier looks great and crisp, whereas the jungle, explosions or the surrounding environments look sub-par, or at times, downright lazy, the worst offender being an on rails assault on the Mantel carrier, where you'll be shooting it's weakpoints on one side and once you're done, it magically teleports you the other side without so much as a cutscene.

Finally, if you thought the multiplayer might be its one saving grace, you're out of luck as Haze's servers have been shut down, meaning no competitive play and no multiplayer co-op.

Haze is just one big mess after another, at times you get to see what they were going for but it was just so poorly handled and at times it feels so rushed that it ultimately makes for a very boring game.

Pros:

- Graphically looks pretty good in some areas
- It had some nice ideas

Cons:

- Terrible story, terrible characters annoying voice acting

- Mantel Squad mates are all a-holes, Rebel squad mates have no personality
- Terrible enemy A.I. boring, boring weapon variety, boring enemy variety
- Driving sections range from decent to unbearable
- Multiplayer servers have been shutdown
- Graphically it's somewhat inconsistent

Final Grade: F+

Though the boxart borders on the generic side, I can't deny how eye catching it is, the broken helmet with the soldier staring at the viewer really draws me in.

Inside you'll find the disc and a 28 page manual and an inner box artwork.

The game's manual is actually pretty good, going into more depth on how to play the game then you'd expect from a shooter in this day and age, it also features character background information and some artwork stills I also liked the ad for the first Assassin's Creed game on the back of the manual.

Overall, it's a pretty good packaging, the manual makes for an interesting read, the boxart is certainly catchy and if  it doesn't appeal to you there's always the alternate inner boxart.

Packaging Grade: B

Red Eclipse, STK feature in Microsoft Promo

Hat tip to forum member TheLastProject who posted about a promotional video for a proof of concept research project called 'IllumiRoom'.  The main game shown is Red Eclipse, but SuperTuxKart also briefly appears (implicitly as the game played by a girl!) around the 0:48-50 mark.

I doubt they were actually showing an Xbox as I'm unaware of either Red Eclipse or SuperTuxKart being able to run on one.

I find it fascinating that 2 FOSS games would appear this way.  Either this is an indication of red tape avoidance (no permission required for GPL games) or a cultural shift within Microsoft - or perhaps I'm just reading too much into it.

It certainly adds some validation to the games themselves, indicating they are impressive enough to feature as part of a video by one of the world's foremost technology companies.  So hats off to the developers of both projects and also the projects that enabled them (CubeSauerbraten, TuxKart) - I like it that both games are good examples of open source in action.

GarageGames raising money to port MIT-licensed Torque3D to Linux.

Just a quick heads up.  GarageGames is currently raising money to port their recently open sourced Torque3D engine to Linux, including editing tools.  Here's a link to their IndieGogo page.  They're using a fixed funding campaign, so you don't have to worry about losing your money if they don't reach their goal.

We could use a capable 3D engine with mature, commercial quality editing tools on Linux (yes, there are other FOSS engines that run on Linux, but what we don't have is something that comes close to Unity at the moment in terms of ease of use) -- not to mention the fact that this would open the door for people to port a lot of existing games.

If you'd like to see this happen, stop by their IndieGogo page and help them out.

Banner Special: The First Christmas

As the blogger's first Christmas comes to a close it's with a heavy heart that I realize how hard it is to find Christmas themed games and it's even harder to find games which make good Christmas themed banners.

Alas, this was the best I could do, here's to hoping I find some new stuff by the next December 25th:

 Game: Jack in the Dark

The game is part Halloween and Part Christmas themed, regardless, the ending itself makes for a great Christmas Banner.

The Daedalus Encounter

Developer: Mechadeus

Publisher:  Virgin Interactive

Often named as one of the best (and I use that term loosely) FMV games, the Daedalus Encounter had the rare distinction of actually being granted a decent budget for the time and for better or worse, it kind of shows.

For starters, they seemed to have hired B-list Hollywood actress Tia Carrere, though honestly I had no idea who she was, it wasn't until I checked her IMDB page that I learned she played Cassandra from Wayne's World and while I mean no disrespect to Ms. Carrere, the truth is anyone could've played her role, it's not like there's much to work with in the first place, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

You play as Casey, a poor sod who right at the end of an intergalactic war is nearly killed and has his brain placed inside a ship, serving as a sort of A.I. it sounds cool in theory, but the reality is you never actually do anything, you see your two shipmates interact and occasionally you have to solve a puzzle or two, most of the time your pay-off is that you got to open a door for your squad mates...yippee.

Honestly... there's really not much to the 'gameplay', most of the game is just you watching a low budget movie, I'll give credit where credit is due, both actors are actually trying, Zack does get some funny line and the overall cheesiness is pretty fun at first, I especially loved how the ship's cockpit uses office chairs that creek every now and again or when you see Zack drinking from a water container with his bare hands but they actually never get wet.

With that said, the cheese value does wear out its welcome, I reached a point where seeing two actors acting on a green screen filled with bad 90's CGI just stopped being entertaining (crazy I know) and it probably didn't help that the puzzles got way too hard for me later on.

Honestly, I wouldn't really recommend this game to anyone, you might as well just watch a playthrough a YouTube, at least then the puzzles won't frustrate you.

Pros:

- So cheesy even the syfy channel would find something to cringe about
- The actors are pretty decent and they manage to sneak in a few funny lines
- It does seem to have a decent budget for the time
- It has Tia Carrere! Who's Tia Carrere? I don't know, but the game won't rest until you know she's in this thing

Cons:

- The cheesiness eventually wears out its welcome

- The fact that it had a higher budget means it's not as cheesy as it could have been
- The puzzles get pretty frustrating later on
- You never really feel that you contributed anything to the plot
- Okay! I get it! You hired Tia Carrere

Final Grade: D

The first time I saw the boxart I thought this was a budget re-release of the game, after all, why else would it have that ugly dark green border? But nope, this is a first print edition of the PAL release.

As for the cover itself it's... okay, it's pretty much what you'd expect from an FMV game, real people wearing a costume or an outfit, posing in front of a green screen, what I don't quite get is why do our characters have a white outline? I'm guessing Photoshop hadn't been invented yet.

Inside you'll find a one page hint book, a 17 page manual and 3 CDs, the hint book is very bare bones giving you information that applies to just about every FMV and adventure game out there, the manual fares a bit better though, it tells you a little of the game's backstory and it's just as cheesy as you might expect, you'll also find some basic information on how to use the controls and that's a good thing because the game's tutorial leaves a bit to be desired.

Packaging Grade: C-

Infinite Undiscovery

Developer: Tri-Ace

Publisher:  Square-Enix

Released exclusively and with little fanfare at the time for the Xbox 360, Infinite Undiscovery seems to have acquired a bit of a cult following and though I don't think the game is as good as some of the fans have said, I do understand why it has its fanbase.

You play as Capell, a very annoying, whiny and unlikable character whose only noteworthy feature is that he resembles Lord Sigmund, the hero of the people, fighting his crusade against the Order of Chains who seek to tether the moon with giant chains because of... reasons I guess, yeah, the story is pretty iffy.

In fact, I found the game's writing to be lackluster on just about every level, non-sensical plot, boring characters, a bland world, even the voice acting is inconsistent, though to its credit, halfway through the game tries to throw you a curve ball, but it's really not very hard to see it coming.

On the gameplay side of things I absolutely loved the real time combat in this game, it's fast, flashy, you have plenty of skills to learn and you're required to keep some form of control over your team and by the end of it, you'll have over a dozen party members to choose from and for the most part the battles looks great with tons of flashy visual effects thrown in for good measure, unfortunately you are likely to run into some framerate issues.

There are plenty of towns to visit, but they along with the NPCs feel a bit too sterile for me, you'll often run into some sidequests, but the game doesn't give you a quest log, you also have the ability to craft your own gear, there are dozens of items used for crafting and hundreds maybe even thousands of weapons and gear to craft, but I found the whole process pretty tedious and underdeveloped.

Graphically, the game looks great during battles, but the towns and cities tend to look a bit boring, as for the sound, there are quite a few memorable songs, but the battle themes will quickly start to grate on you, though not as much as some of the voice actors, especially the very annoying pair of underage twins, seriously they're not even 12 years old and their mother just sends them off into war without a second thought, what's up with that?

Overall, I can see why the game has its fans, the game's combat is just so damn fun and even after you finish the 30+ hour campaign you'll still unlock a new multi-level dungeon that should take you quite some time to beat it, unfortunately, I feel the game fails on almost every other level.

Trivia: Did you know that originally the game was meant to have situational choice/consequence scenarios that would drastically change the main plotline? Originally, the game had some very ambitious design ideas in which the story would progress even while the console was turned off, a shame that none of this made it to the final cut.

Pros:

- Combat is extremely fun, flashy, engaging and requires some strategy
- Over a dozen party members to choose from
- Graphics look pretty good during battles
- Some Memorable songs

Cons:

- Terrible story with a twist that you'll probably guess before it happens

- Your characters are either annoying, bland, interesting but undeveloped, or a combination of these
- The battle songs will quickly grate on you, Inconsistent voice acting
- Occasional framerate issues, graphically, the towns don't look too great
- Underdeveloped crafting system
- Annoying underage twins... why did it have to be twins?

Final Grade: D+

The boxart isn't bad, though it's a bit on the generic side, it shows either Sigmund or Capel, proudly posing after destroying one of the Moon Tethers.

Inside you'll find a 36-page manual which features a different cover art (I love it when they do that) and two discs.

The manual is pretty good, it tells you everything you need to know on how to play Infinite Undiscovery and uses screenshots as visual aids, you'll also get some brief background and character information, though for some reason the manual only covers roughly half of your party members, not sure why the rest got left out.

Overall, this is a pretty good packaging by today's standards, it's good to know that some publishers still believe in manuals.

Packaging Grade: B

Cube2: Sauerbraten Collect edition released

After more than two years, there is a new Cube2: Sauerbraten release, called "Collect edition":



Full change-log can be found here, and the downloads are linked here.

Also keep an eye out for a new Octaforge (also Cube2 based) release, as announced here.

A Little Bit Like Ajiaco Bogatano and a Lot Like Rummikub

On the many occasions that I have been invited to Abe and Sara's over the years, I always asked her if what she was serving was representative of native Colombian cuisine. It never was, and this became a running joke: Native Colombian challah and hummus! I would say, or Oh, Colombian Coca-Cola!

I told her that one day we were going to have a meal of Colombian food, even if I had to cook it myself. Seeing as this was the last time that we (and some friends) would be sharing a shabbat meal for some time, I decided to cook Colombian cuisine as a going away present.

The problem with cooking Colombian in Israel is that a number of essential Colombian ingredients are not available in Israel, such as plantains, yuca, guascas, and so on. So I either had to choose recipes that didn't require these ingredients or substitute and fudge the flavors. My menu included Ajiaco Bogotano (chicken, corn, and potato soup with garnishes including Aji (cilatnro, pepper, and onion)), empanadas, chorizos, beef skewers, roast "Columbian-style" chicken, guacamole, hummus with roast pepper, and coconut rice, as well as salad and so on.

The results were a true mixture of classic success and failure.

Sara didn't recognize most of the dishes. What's this? she asked. When I said It's a classic Colombian dish, she would say It is? Ok, so apparently the native Colombian didn't recognize anything I cooked as actually Colombian. Luckily it was mostly tasty anyway. Sara recognized the coconut rice as Colombian, but I didn't use enough coconut milk, and she is used to a presentation that includes coconut shavings and the rice served in a ball.

My ajiaco presentation was correct. I brought out garnishes of shredded chicken, capers, sliced avocado, and aji (she didn't recognize aji; also, I couldn't use sour cream, since this was a meat soup), and even before I brought the soup out she asked Oh, did you try to make ajiaco?

Real ajiaco requires three different types of potatoes, at least one is a specific variety that you can't get here, as well as the herb guascas. Real ajiaco is also boiled down to a thick cream, whereas mine was more soupy. And anyway, ajiaco comes from Bogota- which is the capital of Colombia - but not from the region of Colombia from which Sara comes, so she didn't actually grow up eating it. Nevertheless, it's one of her favorite dishes (when she would go to Bogota). And while my soup didn't taste much like Ajiaco Bogotano, it was similar and familiar enough to make her happy.

After dinner we split into two groups. Nadine, Eitan, and Emily played Thunderstone. First plays for Eitan and Emily, who didn't like it that much. Eitan prefers games where the scores are visible during the game so that he knows how to pace his strategy (when to ramp up and when to cash out).

Sara, Anne, and I played Castles of Burgundy. First plays for both of them, third play for me. Both Thunderstone and CoB have long setup times and lots of moving parts, but during play the turns flow fairly smoothly.  CoB is beginning to make more sense to me. It still seems to be one phase too long. Thankfully, by the last phase we were all playing fairly quickly, so it was soon over. In the last phase I completed a large district or two which jumped me ahead some 30 points from where we were all clustered in the scoring.

The next day's lunch was with two families each of whom had four children. I didn't bring games with me, but  two of the kids engaged me in a game of Rummikub. Often, the finagling of the melds are held up by the lack of a few key tiles. The first to draw one of the tiles and recognize what to do with it then goes out. The following player is usually then able to go out immediately after, or at least would be able to if the game were to continue. That's what happened with us.

This was followed by Crazy Eights where the rules changed (not by me) whenever it looked like I had won.

Hello, I'm the game blogger and I have a drug addiction

I know I haven't posted many reviews lately, I apologize and for that I want to come clean:

The reason why I haven't been here is because I discovered I have a drug problem and the name of that drug is FTL: Faster Then Light.

If you do not hear from me in a week, then it means I've starved to death because I couldn't bring myself to pause the game, get up and get a snack.


Final Advice: If you have a social life, or responsibilities in your life either do not buy this game... or be prepared to lose them, that is all.

Ur-Quan Masters HD released

Happy new year everyone!

So today I found out about this really cool project to improve the graphics of the open-source (with freeware media) classic Ur-Quan Masters (aka Star Control 2):



Having played the SD version back in the day on my GP2X handheld (and it seems to be available for Android nowadays too ;) ), I can assure you that the game holds up very well to today's standards, with a really cool and funny story and awesome voice acting. Higher resolution graphics thus can only make it better ;)

So, NO excuses now... give it a try!