Arcade Memories II: Tiger Road

Quite I few years ago, I lamented my inability to identify arcade games I had seen as child but couldn't remember their names.

The one with the "bald naginata guy", I did eventually track down to be Tiger Road. It still looks very cool. How did I do that? By watching compilation videos until I recognised it somewhere. But that is not especially effective.

Now, times have changed. I am quite sceptical of overvaluing the use of LLMs, but in my personal experience, if you describe what you remember about a game, the current models can give you suggestions that are often, but not always, spot-on.

STill, my next white whale is this one shareware RPG with "ferocious armless" monsters. One day...

Best of the Best: Dorfromantik

While I am known for preferring video games that are more like Excel sheets with a graphical interface, sometimes I do need something relaxing. My prime pick for that is Dorfromantik. You lay tiles making up a countryside out of fields, forests, villages, waterways, and train tracks.

Only complication - your tiles are limited, and to get more, you need to fulfill development goals like building a forest of a certain size.

Laying together a landscape is very, very relaxing. Give it a try.

Stay epic!

Recommendation: Menace from the Deep

To the surprise of nobody, I do like roguelite RPGs. I recently recommended Slay the Spire, for example. Now, I did find another game like that, Menace from the Deep. It is fundamentally a StS clone, but does a few nice spins on the game mechanics and uses a Lovecraftian setting to distinguish itself.

It might not be the most novel experience, but if you need something to do while waiting for Slay the Spire 2, you might enjoy this one as well.

Memories: Arcomage

Games within games have been a staple of the RPG genre, probably with Witcher 3's Gwent as the most popular example. Back in the olden days, for me this rather was Arcomage, the tavern game of Migh & Magic 7.

3 Ressources, 1 card per turn, obvious Magic the Gathering undertones. Outbuild or out-destroy the other wizard. It was great. Even better, kind souls made a remake that is easily playable in a browser.

It might not be the most sophisticated game, but it is worth a quick round of nostalgia.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: Stellaris

 Another one of my most favourite gaming time sinks is Stellaris, by Paradox Interactive. Released in 2016 and expanded/iterated upon since 9 years, it is THE space 4X game and the first one I liked better than Master of Orion 2 (released 1996).

Explore the galaxy, meet new species and hug and/or kill them, build an empire.

It is a complex game and not without long term issues centered about performance and AI (both issues being genre staples as well). Yet it shines as the ultimate sandbox for emergent SciFi strategy, having slowly incorporated most tropes of the field. Emulate the Galactic Empire from Star Wars, the Federation from Star Trek, or the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K? Sure, why not multiplayer all of them in the same game? How about a ring world to go with that? No matter if you want to turn the galaxy in a garden of wonders or utterly wreck it, there are dozens of playstyles available. With galactic archeology, anomalies, and space fauna, the void is everything but empty.

Release your inner empire if you dare.

Best of the Best: Vampire Survivors

 Vampire Survivors is another case of "well, of course it is good, look at all the hype around it". Sure, it is not unknown, but I am writing about my personal GOATs here.

In short, Vampire Survivors has you move around a character besieged by waves of enemies. The character automatically attacks with the weapons they have equipped. Player agency is about picking weapons and where to go, trying to survive till the stage's timer end. This is framed in a Castlevania-ish style and story rudiment. Collected gold allows general upgrades and character unlocks.

But the "true" game starts when you stop surviving and start hunting. As soon as you have figured out how to beat the enemy growth curve, it turns into a game of unlocking content and exploring secrets.

As a big bonus, the game completed the circle and features an official and ginormous Castlevania DLC, allowing us to scratch this itch once again.

Who doesn't enjoy fragging 100k opponents as Alucard?

In its totality, Vampire Survivors is completionist dopamine-farming done perfectly, sold cheaply and without microtransactions. I have put more hours into it than in most AAA games I played, as it is perfect to let the brain cool off after a long day of sciencing.

Stay epic!

Best of the Best: The Dominions series

There is a series of fantasy strategy games that unites Spartan graphics, ultra-detailed mechanics and absolutely everything of myths, legends and fantasy lore into a single game: Dominions.

Currently at Dominions 6, it is the game for people who want to dig into fantasy warfare campaigns with micro- and macro-management and many opportunities for role playing.

Multiplayer mode and extensive mods (including randomized and a full-blown Forgotten Realms mod) on top of incredible customisation allow for incredible replayability. Sure, it is not an easy game to get into. But it tries to give lots of information on what is going on. Mostly.

If you enjoy old-school gaming and fantasy, give it a try.

Best of the Best: Slay the Spire

 It occured to me that I could make up for my lack of content over the last decade with a series of posts about the "best" media that I encountered over that time. Favourite book series, long-time gaming favourites, whatever comes to my mind.

Let's start with Slay the Spire. In short, it is an unforgiving roguelite card builder game.

Collect cards, potions, and relics on your mission to slay the heart of the Spire. Do not expect to win often. One round going up to three hours for successful and complex builds, I can fit that time into even busy weeks without worries about RPG or strategy campaigns. I can even play it on the Switch. Oh, and part two is in development right now.

It is not a "new" game, but one that I come back to some time since years. 

Well, let's start the necromantic ritual: This year, the blog was admittedly not the main focus, with only a few posts. BUT this was mainly due to new and exciting projects: I started recording gaming videos ("Let's Plays" for YouTube), while rapidly professionalising. At some point, I set up a proper channel called Professor Plays! Check it out, I even have an SFX intro. Highlight was my ability to play and upload the Wasteland 3 Alpha at launch due to holidays.

More creative energy went into the overdue continuation of my musical side project Commander Deep, with the release of its second Album Rematerialisation In Finity. The production volume is approximately 100x higher than the last one, featuring multiple instruments, better SFX and proper artworks.
Gradient of Disorder is still around, with our first album rapidly steadfastly approaching completion. Only vocals and a few instrumental parts for one song need to be recorded, with eight songs being already mixed. Expect it 2020, for real.

On the scientific front, I wrote an article about magnetic fields for "Der Skeptiker" that can be ordered here. Next year will probably see a few public education talks about 5G and why you don't need to hide under a stone because of it.

During traveling for conferences and meetings in north america, I made a nice travel video.

But most importantly, I got a new position (to be exactly half of one) for research using an intraoperative MRI that will be online in the near future. This cutting edge imager will offer exciting possibilities.

I summarise: 2019 was a productive and successful year!

Happy solstice, have a christmas and stay epic!
GG

Awesome Games Done Quick 2019

Admittedly a bit late as it started yesterday, but one of my favourite streaming events of the year, Awesome Games Done Quick, ist happening this week. It is an event that shows incredible speedruns of video games to raise funds for charity. Donations go to the Prevent cancer Foundation and currently the Castlevania block is running.

Stay epic!

Darkest Dungeon: Finally beaten!

Long time ago, I blogged about playing Darkest Dungeon, and my frustration at this game. A great game, but also unforgiving. Since that time, two addons and some quality of life improvements were released, so I gave it another try. Over the course of the year, helped by the less grindy Radiant mode, I slowly built up everything needed to finish the game.

After a long journey, I reached and defeated the final boss yesterday!

What can I say? It is a good game. It is an obnoxious game. It likes to punish you heavily, but this only makes victory so much sweeter. Still there is the Sleeper boss waiting in the Mill, so I might go back the old road one more time...

Stay epic!

Gaming memories: rental games

Today it is time to dive into the past again. In the early nineties, when we got our first gaming consoles (NES, SNES, Megadrive (aka Genesis)) we were plunged down the rabbit hole of video games. While we owned some nice ones, our main supply of games, until the age of PC hit us in 1997, was a local toy store.

Retrospectively, considering the town I grew up in, I should consider myself lucky for having a store closer than Vienna to introduce me into console RPGs, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer and other staples of nerdity.

In general, most games we rented were "for the family", meaning our father would play them and we would watch. This included pearls like Faxanadu, Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, FF Mystic Quest, Landstalker, Dune 2, Metal Marines, and Yoshi´s Island. Therefore we actually started playing the RTS genre right at its first popular milestone of Dune 2. I am still convinced that the Megadrive version was actually the superior version.

Of course, other games like Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger never made it to us, while others like the "Secret" games even received German translations. Many stories could be told about these and other games, but today I want to write about only three of them.

In the later years of the rental era, I started to play some RPGs for myself, like Lufia II, Shining Force 2 and Phantasy Star IV. Totally not confusing to start in the middle of all these series. Back then, I did not finish any of these games and would only do so many years later. With Lufia, a German version, I was just not able to finish some bridge puzzle close to the end of the game, despite it coming with a guide book by Nintendo. This was a feature a lot of them had, which probably allowed a lot of people to actually finish these games. Megadrive games did not have that feature, and without internet (access) or the right issue of a gaming magazine, an eleven-year-old not fluid in English struggled quite a bit at understanding anything.

In Phantasy Star IV for example I managed approximately half of the game, but did not understand that I needed to disrupt Zios shield with the Psy Wand (used to lower the barrier to his base), only doing 1 damage with every attack to him and getting wiped soon. If I just had known that immediately afterwards I would go to space... Bets are on if I would have understood it with better English skills.

But I would say the crown goes to the awesome tactical RPG Shining Force 2, where I would have had to insert a wooden plank into a hole in a tree in order to get the Achilles Sword that could wound the giant Talos. Without it you just run away from the fight and never get the caravan, a machine that opens up new areas of the map. Also at the halfway point of the game, and I have even less idea how one could figure that out easily by oneself.

Well, these old games were great, but of course far from perfect in regards to userfriendliness. Time to stop rambling until the next episode of gaming memories.

Stay epic!

Gaming Memories: Imperialism

One of the older games I like to still play now and then over 20 years later: Imperialism. This game, as the name might imply, simulates being in charge of an expanding early industrial nation in the 19th century (either a random "fantasy" world or a historic Europe scenario). Luckily, it does not try to simulate every little thing that could be done, but focuses on a few mechanics that reflect the times politics quite well I think: Production and recruitment only happen in your capital, where you expand factories, build ships, railroad cars and such. It is your first task to connect your countryside to your capital via ship or train, which purpose is basically to just supply resources to your centralised state: Food, wood, iron, coal and a few more, with the later addition of oil.
Money for your budget comes, aside from gold or gem mines, only from trading, which requires even more resources to produce export goods like textiles, weapons, tools or furniture. To further this, you can make smaller countries your colonies, leading to them selling cheap raw materials to you and buying your processed goods.
It might be simplified, but to me, it shows how centralisation, resource exploitation and colonialism work very well. As an adolescent, I also learned quite a few things about history from the games tech progress. Going till 1915, you can develop early modern arms, leading to an approximation of WW1's meat grinder if you try to charge into 30 fortified artillery units.

You may either win by conquest (try before the aforementioned situation occurs) or by being elected world leader (also happening if you conquer enough clay).









In my experience, the higher difficulties are brutal, but the funny random country and province names as well as the quarterly newspaper let you fail in enjoyment.

On easy difficulties, it is nice relaxing game caring about cotton, wool and wood shipments. Just a few more guns than Settlers of Catan. Added benefit: It runs on any kind of wimpy Notebook if needed and is available on gog.com.

There is actually a second part, set in the age of colonialism, but I never warmed up to it.

Stay epic!

Arcade Memories: Out Run et al.

While in general, I am too young and from a region without big gaming arcades back in the time (at least to my knowledge), there were some placed at the ice skating rink of my hometown, presumably many years after their original releases. While there where several ones (one must have been Michael Jackson's Moonwalker), the one that got stuck most in my memory was Out Run, a racing game with the objective to finish a course using a sport scar versus a strict timer.
I do not remember if I just watched others back then or how I fared back then if I tried. But as nowadays you can just play it online, for example on archive.org via streamed arcade emulator, I gave it another run. I could not even finish the first level. Arcade games were serious business, that would not go easy on you (as they wanted your money and where often quite short, this is not even surprising).

Apart from the ice rink, I remember a gaming arcade at the holiday resort in Croatia my family visited several times. There, I saw Ghosts n' Goblins for the first time! I also do remember one other game about a bald guy with a naginata and other Japanese weapons that I have not identified so far. If anyone has a clue of what game I am talking about, I would be really happy if you comment on it.

Stay Epic!

Nerdy Recommendation: Chrontendo

One more thing to dust off the virtual shelf: Recommendations for stuff on the internet. Not very creative, but still interesting. I want to start with the YouTube channel Chrontendo, a project that not very surprisingly aims to create a chronology of all NES/Famicom games. Yes that includes lots of strange Japanese games. ;)
So far, there are 52 episodes online (as well as some other stuff like eight Chronsega episodes) and while the backlog to watch might be... huge, the release speed of new videos is low due to the necessary amount of research. This means catching up is actually possible!

I like this channel because it is the easiest way to get an overview over the whole NES catalogue in more than just some pictures. Maybe you are interested too?

Stay Epic!

Alert: Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 online!

A quick note as it is starting this evening: Awesome Games Done Quick, the biannual video game speedrunning event for a good cause has started again. If you are interested in these things, you might check out the stream.You can also look at the schedule here!

Stay Epic!