Month: April 2021

Boss Rush Banter: What is the Most Enjoyable Multiplayer Game of All Time?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007 was the first time I experienced the greatest multi-player game ever created. I was one of a dozen or so people lined up for a midnight release of the rhythm based, music infused, party game that would create many memories for years to come. I was able to leave GameStop with the enormous box grinning ear to ear, holding the first game in the series Rock Band.

The game allows four people to simultaneously act out “playing” some of the most celebrated rock songs with plastic instrument peripherals, including guitar, drums, bass, and a microphone/tambourine. Each song allows 1-4 players to select their instrument of choice and time the color “notes” to the proper button input at the right time. If executed properly, the music track will play as intended, but for every note missed it goes against the band’s performance meter. If band member continue to…

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Designing Dilemmas for Dungeon & Dragons

Grumpy Wizard

A dilemma is a choice between two undesirable alternatives. Dilemma is one of the most effective and frequently used tools in the story teller’s kit. However, it can be challenging to implement in a Dungeons and Dragons game. It is worth learning how to use dilemma in your adventure designs, despite the challenge.

The most important difference between a good adventure scenario and a bad adventure scenario is meaningful and interesting choices. Dilemmas are the some of the most challenging and interesting types of choices you can present to players. A properly designed dilemma will have your players squirming in their seats. A great dilemma will bring out an emotional response. A powerful emotional experience is what creates memorable events that players will talk about for years to come.

Dilemma in Stories

Dilemmas are the at heart of any conflict in stories of nearly every type and genre. The protagonists…

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PlayStation Hit Milestone Numbers

Today, Sony has reported some milestone numbers in its company earnings report. At this time, they have sold 7.8M PlayStation 5 consoles, there are 47.6M PlayStation Plus Subscribers (which seems low to me), 338 Million games sold for PS4/PS5 in past year, and have made $24.4 Billion in gaming revenue. Additionally, global box office sales were $11.5B in 2020 with many theaters closed. Geoff Keighley tweeted the news today.

With PlayStation 5 consoles in high demand, these numbers show how Sony is flourishing with the PlayStation brand. With The Last Of Us Part 2, Ghost…

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Hardcore Monk IV – The Dark Before The Light

The Order of Syncletica

I’ve typically had three active characters on the Hardcore server. A “main,” or leader character with the most advancement, synced with my Ghallanda guildmates who I accompany. A secondary character is played that I tried to keep no more than 3 levels less than the main. A third or even 4th character are warmed up and played to at least Level 5 or 6 in case the worst of the worst happens.

That worst almost happened a couple days ago.

I’ve typically sent characters into quests or chains to farm on Normal or Hard difficulty. The Feywild became very attractive for its set items that would greatly add to survivability for all.

And during my off-days from work I played alone, accompanied by one or more hirelings, to complete some quests on the secondary and tertiaries, although never with the main.

The first to go was Dianacletica, a Zen Friar…

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Boss Rush Banter: What Switch Games Could Use Some DLC?

I almost exclusively play Switch these days, so my library is jam packed full of first party, AAA, and Indie games. Some games I’ve played to the point that I can’t look at them anymore, and some others are making me want more, but they just don’t have DLC. So while playing Super Mario Party with my fiancée the other day, it had me thinking: which Switch games would I like to see have some DLC? Here’s what I came up with.

Super Mario Party

Super Mario Party is literally the only game I can play with my fiancée that’s not titled Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. However, we’re really bored (not board!) with it now. The mini games are extremely fun, and some of the best in all of the Mario Party games, but only having four playable boards makes the game lose its luster quickly and leaves a…

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Dungeon of the Goblin Lotus

Dyson's Dodecahedron

Dungeon of the Goblin Lotus (300 dpi promotional)
Dungeon of the Goblin Lotus (300 dpi promotional)

The goblin lotus is a vile mutation of the black lotus – like the “typical” black lotus flowers which grant strange dreams under the spell of sleep, the corpse-white goblin lotus brings nightmares and paralysis to those who breathe the sickly scent… and then tendrils reach out to consume the victim as they lay there unable to save themselves. The castellan of Basamy Keep keeps a small cavern of these horrid plants in the lowest dungeons of the keep where they are cultivated by a family with a hereditary lack of the sense of smell.

Dungeon of the Goblin Lotus (1200 dpi)
Dungeon of the Goblin Lotus (1200 dpi)

When removed from the plant proper, the flowers and scent still cause paralysis and horrendous nightmares and the castellan uses them in interrogating prisoners and to reinforce his heavy-handed rule of the locals. Some of the tribes of the regions…

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Boss Rush Banter: What New Genre of Video Game Would You Create?

Role playing games, first person shooters, dating simulators, and educational games: these are just some of the video game genres we have come to love, despise, or mash up. There is so much content out there to categorize games today, but what if a new one came into the fold and changed gaming in general?

DNA Strands and textbooks

The genre I would like to create would be called “Bio-Behave”. Games that will help you understand the biology of human negative behavior. In this genre, you can learn about the negativity and toxicity in people’s attitudes; then your goal is to correct their attitude to something positive. Once you correct their attitude you then showcase the mental harm their toxic attitude had, and adjust the situation to show the person how to help others. Overall, you discover the science of disgusting attitudes from the human mind.

Of course, it would have other elements from…

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Is the PlayStation 5 Worth Getting Right Now?

Gamer Gal Blog

Picture of PlayStation 5 set courtesy of Wirecutter

The PlayStation 5 released in November of 2020, but my husband and I just barely bought one! Between super high prices of $500 plus and how hard buying a PlayStation 5 is (due to everyone trying to get a hold of it), gamers may be wondering if it might be more beneficial to wait it out and buy a PlayStation 5 once its been out for a while. Here are my thoughts when it comes to buying a PlayStation 5.

There Aren’t Many PlayStation 5 Games Out Yet

Spider-Man: Miles Morales DLC Artwork courtesy of Gameslaught

My husband and I bought the PlayStation 5 mostly because a lot of games we’re interested in are going to be coming out on that console, such as “Horizon Forbidden West” and (hopefully) “Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part Two”. However the most popular games aren’t going…

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Great Game Tour Day 8: Dark Sun Shattered Lands

Bio Break

Today’s stop on the Great Game Tour is at 1993’s Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, a turn-based RPG set in the Dark Sun D&D campaign setting. This was one of the titles that led up to a short-lived MMO in the ’90s called Dark Sun Online, but for obvious reasons, I can’t play that. So why not this?

Shattered Lands literally throws you into the deep end from the get-go — your pre-made (or customized) party is tossed without much introduction into some desert gladiator pit.

If you ever lament how hand-holdy tutorials are these days, you should jump into one of these older games that will have expected that you read, memorized, and tested well on the manual before playing. Because going into this, I had no idea what to do as a crowd of monsters started to attack.

It was turn-based, fortunately, but still… no directions. I used the…

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Waterdeep: Dragon Heist – Session 13

Game Night Blog

Our heroes break bread with the main villain of this season, Jaraxle Baenre, but the players are completely out to lunch.

Dragon Heist cover fullFour villains to choose from. Can you guess which one we’ll talk about today?

When last we left our heroes, they were on their way to have dinner with Zardoz Zord, the flamboyant and cryptic leader of the Sea Maiden’s Faire, a carnival that recently arrived in Waterdeep. Along the way, they ran afoul of very nasty drow elf, who shot up a local saloon with a pair of six-shooters. Yes, this guy has guns! And one player is determined to pry those guns from his cold dead hands. The drow also dropped a clue, a blueprint to an unidentified building, that will lead the players to an evil plan that needs to be stopped, but my players don’t care about that. They just want his guns!

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