The Professional Gamer - January 25, 2016

This has been another pretty great week. I've again been able to spend a fair amount of time dedicated to the more trivial pursuits of life.  Which means that I'll have a bit more to talk about this week compared to what I might otherwise have.  Read on to find out how I spent that time.

My viewing time this week was dominated by watching all but the last episode of One Punch Man.  The series has been so much fun.  It's a real breath of fresh air among the moe serials and overserious cast-of-thousands fighting series that have dominated the air-waves lately.  I only have one episode left to watch, and I'm kinda dragging my feet about it. Mostly because I don't want the series to end, but also because I'm an older anime fan and have seen so many serials fizzle at the end.  Here's hoping that One Punch Man stays strong to the end.

After I finished writing my article last week, I spent the remainder of the evening playing Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale.  The game is a few years old, and I originally purchased it sometime after it was released on Steam in North America.  I had mostly forgotten about it, but decided to reinstall it on a whim.  I played for a few hours that night and a few more hours over the next few days.  In the beginning it was fun, but I feel on the cusp of a very long grind to get through the rest of the game, and that has somewhat turned me off of the whole thing.

I also finally had enough time to get a few decent sessions in with Elite: Dangerous.  I hadn't played for a long time, largely because it is the type of game that I want to dedicate a relatively large block of time to at once.  For the last few months, I haven't felt that I had the appropriate amount of time to dedicate to it.  Man, I love this game a lot, but sometimes death can be swift and arbitrary.  This is largely due to the NPC archetype commonly referred to as the "psychopath".  Basically, these are folks who will kill you just for fun.  They never ask for your credits or cargo or anything like that.  They just pull you out of lightspeed travel and start hammering your ship with everything they have.  At least insurance costs for my ship are not too punishing at my level of play.  It's a little frustrating sometimes, but from what I can gather in the community this is considered a "feature" and an "essential part of the tone" of the game.  I'm not sure that I agree with that, and I may go back to working the relatively safe career of the merchant.

I'm still reading Ways to the West, but I am now more than half-way through the book.  The current chapter is especially interesting to me because the discussion not only centers around Denver, but on the exact area of my current commute: the Southeast Corridor.  I've been enthralled learning about the history that has lead to an everyday feature of my own life.  I should be finished with the book in time to discuss it more completely in a fortnight.  So you should look forward to that in the future.

I'm going to finish off this week with a couple of fun links.  Elysium Adventures is a Denver based firm that organizes wilderness adventure trips with a fantasy theme.  Think of those urban team building exercises, except out in the wilderness of Colorado, and you can pretend to be an elf without fear of judgement.  Finding Molly is a new webcomic that is being published by Emet Comics.  The comic is brand new, but looks really promising.

I hope you all have fun this week and I'll see you back here again next time.  Game on!

One Punch Man

Recetter

Elite Dangerous

Steven Moffat to Step Down as Doctor Who Showrunner→

BBC America is reporting that Steven Moffat will step down as the lead writer and executive producer for Doctor Who.  He will be replaced by Chris Chibnall, who is the creator of the series Broadchurch.  Moffat's final season will air in Spring 2017 in the American market.

I've pretty much been over Moffat's run on Doctor Who since season 6, and just biding my time until he resigned (an inevitability of some sort) or said something inflammatory enough in an interview to get him fired (he has been known to say some shitty stuff).  Overall, I'm looking forward to a time that I can actually enjoy Doctor Who again.

Suicide Squad makeS a decent trailer

What do you get when you toss some of the worst people in the DC Universe together? You get what could be the most interesting movie from the DC franchise in a while. For the most part the DC movies have been serious affairs where the idea of a joke is a foreign concept and the campiness that makes comics so endearing is lost. That appears to not be the case in this most recent Suicide Squad trailer. Take a look:

Not bad huh? And Bohemian Rhapsody just seemed perfect for this crew of misfits. Now the main question, will this trailer end up being better then the movie? Guess we find out in August.

The Professional Gamer - January 18, 2016

Hello readers!  I've had another great week out here.  In spite of that, I don't feel like I have a lot to discuss with you all that is really new and interesting.  I continued to work on my Traveller sector and finished reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.  I also watched the last 14 episodes of Season 6 of Adventure Time that was recently release to Hulu, and the "Log Date 7 15 2" of Steven Universe.  Mostly, I seem to be finishing (in some sense at least) a lot of things this past week.

In terms of starting things, I've picked up a new book.  Not anything that is likely to sound like a lot of fun to you my readers.  The book is Ways to the West by Tim Sullivan, in which the author attempts to take a road trip through the American west without using a car.  Along the way, he discusses our dependency (addiction even) to automobiles and the influence that has had on the cityscapes of the western United States.  But, he's also looking at some changes that have come about in the past decade and how these my influence the future of design.  Due to my exposure to various public works projects, I often take an interest in articles and books that discuss the future of our public infrastructure.  Since most of the books that I have read previously seem to assume the types of urban densities more typical of the coastal and mid-west metropolises, Ways to the West offers a fresh perspective.  Especially with regards to the lower density development that has been the norm in the western states.  I'm a little less than a quarter into the book so far, and I'll have to dedicate some major time to it if I'm going to finish it before it is due back at the library, so wish me luck.

That's all I have for this week.  Have a great week and game on!

The Professional Gamer - January 11, 2016

Hello readers!  This week has mostly been full of adulting. Went to a chiropractor to try and reduce the tightness in my neck (seems to be helping), scheduled a dental exam and cleaning, and did some more yoga and pilates.  All told, I'm feeling pretty good about things.  

Some cool things happening this week.  Of primary interest, we had another Steven-bomb this week.  I haven't watched the Friday episode yet ("Log Date 7 15 2"), but I have enjoyed all of the new episode so far this week.  I loved learning more about Ruby and Sapphire, and seeing some more development of Peridot's character.

I also spent some time this week watching the last few episodes of Community.  I'm sad that the series is over, although the finale was a lot of fun.  Now I have to find another casual show to binge through during the week.  Any suggestions?

In roleplaying news, I've got about a third of my systems information input into a game wiki and have started inviting my players to make some stories about some of the inhabited planets.  I'm hoping that we can make this game a bit more of a collaborative, storytelling game.  This would be in sharp contrast to our typical dungeon delver / combat heavy type games, but would hopefully be a welcome change.

Finally, I'm still playing through Knights of the Old Republic.  I'm a Jedi now, running around with a blue lightsaber in one hand and a vibroblade in the other.  Future goal: duel wielding lightsabers.

That's all I've got for this week.  See you next time, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - January 4, 2016

Happy New Year readers! I hope you all have enjoyed the end of one year and the beginning of a new.  I enjoyed a short week at work (probably the last until we get closer to summer).  And I've ended up spending most of my free time this week working on plans for my Traveller game.  And I've got quite a lot done.  For example, I've made a map of the sector where the players will start out:

View fullsize

If you can't tell, I'm rather excited about this whole game.  I have Star Wars to blame for a large portion of that enthusiasm.

Speaking of Star Wars, I'm still reading Shadows of the Empire, and it has improved somewhat.  I still feel that reads a bit like a fan-fiction, with a lot of purple prose and too much telling, rather than showing.  I'm a bit surprised that I was so into these sorts of novels when I was in high school and college.  I suppose that imagining the action sequences, like the star fighter battles and the blaster shoot-outs, was more important to young Jim than artful prose and characterizations.  In spite of my concerns about the quality, I'm having a ton of fun reading it.

I also got back into reading The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.  I haven't quite finished yet, though I think my favorite part is the visit from George Boole.  I just love the setup and build to the punchline.

That's all I've got for this week.  I hope 2016 treats everyone with care and respect, and that you all have a great year.  Have a great week and game on!