tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363992502024-02-07T19:08:09.228+01:00A not so average womanI'm no average woman and I don't have an average woman's interests. In this blog I hope to share my interests with the readers, so expect posts about society, computer games, literature, movies and TV ... and a few others, probably.Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.comBlogger1148125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-10017982107544886132018-03-08T23:12:00.002+01:002018-03-08T23:12:50.598+01:00Gamehouse Going Too Far?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For a long time,
Gamehouse had only a small number of original games. Their only long-term time
management series was “Delicious” in its various iteration (“Campfire Legends”
was their shot at horror HOGs). While I’d personally say everything before “Delicious:
Emily’s Taste of Fame” isn’t really good, the series definitely has evolved
over time. Recently, they’ve used the same engine (with various tweaks) to
start off several more series and do several one-shots (so far).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Their first try quite
some time ago was “Heart’s Medicine,” which also was the game which started
their ‘mini-game craze.’ After playing the game, a lot of people were waiting
for a sequel, but it took ages until it came - only to be followed very quickly
by a third one.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It might seem logical
that they would make a ‘sister series’ to “Delicious,” especially as Emily,
main character of the “Delicious” series, has a sister who has featured
prominently already: Angela. So about a year ago, Angela got a short game with four
levels (“Fabulous: Angela’s Sweet Revenge”), the first “Fabulous” game - if you
can call a four-level affair for 99 cents a game. After a lot of people enjoyed
the four levels of Angela getting even with her (now ex-)husband, she got her
first full game with “Fabulous: Angela’s Fashion Fever.” Fashion in addition to
food proved a good idea and the game sold well enough so recently there was a
third (actually second) “Fabulous” game (“Fabulous: Angela’s High School
Reunion”).</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But Gamehouse didn’t
stop at that. Several other games have come out during the last few months
alone, including “Dr. Cares” (veterinarian drama), “The Love Boat” (yes, based
on that TV series you might still slightly remember), and “Parker & Lane” (crime
drama). In addition, there’s games like “Cathy’s Crafts,” “Mary le Chef,” and “Sally’s
Salon” (they got the rights to Sally from the original makers, apparently).
They even made a FROG with the engine, using another original content they had:
“Mortimer Beckett and the Book of Gold,” which also features the sister of
Emily’s husband.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In addition, they
pushed their publishing schedule for the “Delicious” series, more than doubling
the output per year. It seems that since Emily got married, she’s more
interesting than before - or she needs to work more in order to keep the family
afloat, who knows? After all, she’s got three kids now.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m not sure what to
think about this. On one hand, I like most of the games. They have the same
feeling as the “Delicious” series (which I still love, despite Emily being a
wet hanky most of the time - Angela has a better drama management than her
older sister, as is obvious from her own series). They expand the basic topic
from only food service to fashion, medicine, and many other things. They bring
in new characters (or bring back loved ones, like Sally).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yet, the newer games
no longer have an adjustable difficulty, which is a little let-down for me.
Some also seem a little imbalanced - which is one reason why I recently started
buying them from Steam instead of Gamehouse, because there I get automatic
updates. The other is the Premium Editions (which are the Gamehouse equivalent
to BFGs Collector’s Editions) are cheaper on Steam. Yes, I’ve invested a lot of
money into Steam by now…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The new game policy of
Gamehouse is a double-edged sword for me, therefore. A lot more games to play (and
they’re all colourful and fun), yet also a few developments which I could very well
do without (mini-games and only one difficulty, especially). The fun
achievements from the early “Delicious” series such as ‘have an order on your
tray before it turns up’ have disappeared, too. The games still have
achievements which are usually shown on an extra screen, fitting with the topic
of the game, but they’re pretty much the same old now, the same kind of
achievement you find in most casual games (especially the PEs or CEs). I’m
afraid they’re actually going to ruin the series (and its type of time
management game) in the long run with the changes and the huge number of games
they put out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yet, I still get giddy
when a new game turns up, especially when I wasn’t expected it (like “Parker
& Lane” two weeks or so back). I still get curious, I have to download the
demo, I fidget until it’s on Steam (or break down and buy from Gamehouse
instead). I still like the games - well, most parts of them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Gamehouse is still doing good time
management games, which is good news, because they’re pretty rare by now (lots
more HOGs on the market which I’m by now hardly interested in, a few series
withstanding). But I would really like it if they toned it down - with the
amount they release and with the drama in some of them (looking at “Delicious”
and “Heart’s Medicine” especially).</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-58245042472467565592018-03-08T15:55:00.002+01:002018-03-08T15:55:32.160+01:00Subnautica Review<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0doXd16LBuTnYw8uRX50toLGQiCsF63u_mYy8LcrnrQVtzjfxYkMzDEEIGRSQ7FemlW1eSeeU585W_VC2oANd4cEN8n6_vr_umcouK4-VZ6lzT43ucukXnRdVgGgDdHiuvRi4w/s1600/Subnautica+Header.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="135" data-original-width="1069" height="40" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH0doXd16LBuTnYw8uRX50toLGQiCsF63u_mYy8LcrnrQVtzjfxYkMzDEEIGRSQ7FemlW1eSeeU585W_VC2oANd4cEN8n6_vr_umcouK4-VZ6lzT43ucukXnRdVgGgDdHiuvRi4w/s320/Subnautica+Header.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, after my last
review, here another one. This time for the underwater survival game “Subnautica.”
I mean, it’s an underwater survival game, what’s not to love here?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">First of all, I have
to admit that I didn’t have an eye on it at all. I had heard about it, seen
some stuff on Steam sometimes (mostly in the ‘popular’ section), but I didn’t
pay any attention. That changed when one of my favourite YouTube channels ran a
first Let’s Play on it. I was completely fascinated by what I could see - even
though it was not much of what you can actually do in the game. Since the guy
doing the Let’s Play was just beginning, he was putting out the fire in his
lifeboat and diving in the shallows, where you can’t go deep and every life
form is either completely harmless or at any rate passive (except for that
stupid exploding fish in the caves there).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What fascinated me was
the great way the diving was simulated in the game. The movements of the
character underwater felt right - even more so after I’d bought the game and
started playing it myself. Swimming and diving felt like it should. I’ve never
done any diving in deeper water (where you’d need an oxygen tank and training),
but I’ve done some diving in shallow water while holding my breath. A lot of it
while I was a kid, really.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In addition, the game
was outright beautiful in my eyes. Some people might argue that the textures
aren’t as high definition as they could be and, yes, sometimes stuff plops up
without warning, but on the whole, the underwater world looks great. Well, not
in that area where there’s little but some shark-like creatures and barren grey
spires, but everywhere else. Even in the depth there’s weird and beautiful
things. To a degree, even the leviathans (huge sea monsters in various types)
look beautiful in a scary way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, I bought the game
and started playing, completely losing myself in that world. The game comes
with four different difficulty settings from hardcore survival (with permanent
death) to creative (where you don’t have to worry about anything and have
unlimited resources). While I do really enjoy the survival mode (not hardcore,
bur regular, where there’s no perma-death), I’ve spent more time in creative
mode, simply because it allowed for me to already build the two submarines you
can build in the game (the small and manoeuvrable Sea-Moth and the large Cyclops).
I also have quite a nice base constructed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The two submarines (you
can also build a heavy-duty underwater suit which allows for you to drill stuff
and endure more pressure in deep sea) are another reason why I love this game
so much. They are completely different in handling. The Sea-Moth is small and
quick, it moves very much like the player does in the water. You can dart
around, are quite a bit faster, have a place to replenish your air (while not
in creative mode, where oxygen isn’t a topic), and have light for night-time or
deeper sea explorations (fully upgraded, the Sea-Moth can go to a depth of up
to 900 meters). The Cyclops on the other hand is a mobile base. It can host
either the Sea-Moth or the Prawn suit, has space for putting up furniture or
machinery (such as putting a fabricator in the ship), and can go really deep (down
to 1,700 meters, if fully upgraded). It’s also more stable, in case you meet
with a leviathan (those usually live in the twilight and dark zones of the
ocean). Ideally, you put the Sea-Moth in the Cyclops for longer travel and do
your actual exploring the smaller ship while returning to the Cyclops for creating
and storing stuff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The game not only
encourages exploration beyond the direct surroundings, it actively pushes the
player to go out and have a look around. As soon as you have repaired the
lifeboat and the radio inside, you start getting messages from other lifeboats
and you get destinations to go to in order to find out more. You find new
technology to scan (among it the information for the submarines and the mobile
base necessary to build them), you can scan new life forms, too, since some of
them may come in handy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There’s a lot of
resources you need and can find in the different biomes, so you have ample
reason to travel a lot. You’ll want an oxygen tank and fins first, because they
enhance your movements underwater (you swim faster with the fins and can stay
underwater longer with the tank). You’ll need a survival knife for harvesting
some resources and stabbing the first smaller predators who’ll attack you. You’ll
need the repair tool and the scanner to get anywhere. You’ll want to start your
base and need to make a habitat builder and gather the necessary resources for
the rooms. Later on, you’ll be sure to expand it or build an auxiliary base
somewhere else. It should be noted that the game doesn’t overdo it with the need
for resources, though. Most objects can be build from few resources, even if
some of those are not too easy to find.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Besides, who doesn’t
love a game where the PDA claims that severe head trauma is the best possible
outcome after a crash? Or a game where you can find and explore several alien
bases? Subnautica has a lot to offer, even in the longer run. Also don’t get me
started on the Cuddlefish and how I can’t bear having one, because I would have
to leave it behind when I finish the game.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Subnautica does have its weaknesses,
mostly in the graphics, but it has a lot more strengths overall. It gives you a
whole ocean to explore which is filled with the strangest alien life forms. It
gives you amazing biomes, from the shallows to the fiery depths of a volcano.
And it tops it off with an interesting story and a lot of emotional moments.
For me, that makes it a great game to play, so you might want to check it out.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-20139734744176433522018-03-07T22:10:00.000+01:002018-03-07T22:10:25.283+01:00The Sims 4 Review<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjnz2793P7_b6-sjXd60E8pKob09QjJJ8TVrZE3Jxn6uILFmCadydAbixActfK3P0wzV_cf0YaM-s3Cab3SN-y8vb9urXRkJLHOKzu7MtbwWtpf832kWCKBW8PQaHfgRRvPEicg/s1600/Sims+4+Header.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="429" data-original-width="919" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjnz2793P7_b6-sjXd60E8pKob09QjJJ8TVrZE3Jxn6uILFmCadydAbixActfK3P0wzV_cf0YaM-s3Cab3SN-y8vb9urXRkJLHOKzu7MtbwWtpf832kWCKBW8PQaHfgRRvPEicg/s320/Sims+4+Header.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">First and foremost,
this is only a temporary review. “The Sims 4” (from now on Sims 4) is still
added to, just a few days ago, the latest game pack (Jungle Adventures) was
released. In addition, a single review can’t encompass the whole game. I’ve been
playing quite a lot of it, but I haven’t even tried out all jobs and all other
things the game offers (such as having a long-lived dynasty or owning a
business or restaurant or vet clinic). But still, the game deserves a review.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In their fourth
iteration, the sims have been changed quite a bit. Gone is the large, open
world of Sims 3 where you could walk around the whole neighbourhood and travel
around with cars, motorbikes, bikes, and even horses (Pets expansion necessary).
Sims 4 offers a combination between the world of the first two titles and the
third one. You have small neighbourhoods with an open area which the sims can
walk around in, so visiting your friends is still possible, but between those
small neighbourhoods, you have to travel and get a loading screen. It’s not as
bad as it might sound - there’s quite some stuff to discover and gather in
those neighbourhoods and loading times are not too long. And you can visit all
worlds, no matter which you live in.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The classic wishes
which have been around since Sims 2 (the fears were removed in Sims 3) are
gone. Sims have whims and ambitions. A whim is something simple and short-term,
such as reading a book, watching TV, hugging a sim, or travelling to a certain
place. They come and go and some of them are influenced by the sim’s mood (more
about that below). Ambitions are something you choose, something your sim will
strive for, like a big family, wealth, becoming a master vampire, or many other
things. Ambitions are not set in stone, they can be changed at any time (and
you keep your progress) and they come in steps, each of which includes a few
things to do, such as practice with an instrument for a certain time or try the
food from the Jungle Adventures world. Ambitions do not include careers, unlike
the life wishes in Sims 3 (if we’re honest, a lot of them are about reaching
the top of a career).</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Whims bring us to
another big change: moods. Sims 3 had moodlets which influenced how happy a sim
was at a given time. Moods have more influence on the sim than the moodlets
did. A sim can feel happy, focused, inspired, sad, angry, and many other things
and it influences their behaviour and what they can do. They can also be in a
neutral mood which is called ‘Fine.’ Certain actions, surroundings, happenings,
but also traits have an influence on the moods. Sims with the ‘Creative’ trait
are inspired more often, sims which have made a blunder in front of others tend
to be embarrassed, sims which have worked intensely can become tense, focused,
or confident. You get the drift.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Create-A-Sim (or CAS)
has been dialled back, too. The colour wheel is gone, completely free design is
no longer possible (but every object comes with quite some pre-designed
varieties).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What has also been
changed is the way the game is growing. In the first iteration, there was the
basic game and the expansions. Same goes for the second iteration. With Sims 3,
the players also got stuff packs which didn’t bring changes, but new things for
build and buy mode and for the create-a-sim tool, in addition to expansions.
Sims 4 added the game packs to the mix. Settled between full expansion and stuff
pack in price, they’re also in-between when it comes to content. As the stuff
packs, they add new objects. As the expansions, they add new game-play, but on
a lower level. A recent example: Sims 3 had “World Adventures” as one of its
first expansion packs. The pack brought three vacation locations (France,
Egypt, and China) with a lot to discover. Sims 4 recently got “Jungle
Adventures” which brings one vacation world (the second overall) with a few
locations to discover. It’s mostly centred around the new culture and the
temple exploration. Both is fun, don’t misunderstand me, but World Adventures
had a lot more content for about twice the price. Yet, the game packs are also
closer to the point in many cases. Instead of an overall expansion like “Supernatural”
for Sims 3, Sims 4 had the “Vampires” game pack. It was completely focused on
the vampire theme, from the objects to the new game-play. So if you want to
play vampires, you buy it. You don’t need to shell out for an expansion pack
which includes creatures you don’t really need (I mostly played the witches
from the Supernatural expansion, hardly the fairies or werewolves). It’s also
more logical than including the vampires in another pack (Sims 3 included them
in their Late Night expansion which brought the only metropolis setting).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFous6v4bRdmNajvFjI2oIpv90fHexTh0wz8-64-NgQDoc2XMg0RIQhW5f3u5DwZPoYMGsiq2I8ybSLfQvykDplg7YkkWIMqrHI0g5HUZmUf9Y9kynj3iQi0_6THwWR4ai5rH_XA/s1600/Sims+4+Temple.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="1107" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFous6v4bRdmNajvFjI2oIpv90fHexTh0wz8-64-NgQDoc2XMg0RIQhW5f3u5DwZPoYMGsiq2I8ybSLfQvykDplg7YkkWIMqrHI0g5HUZmUf9Y9kynj3iQi0_6THwWR4ai5rH_XA/s320/Sims+4+Temple.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But now from the basic
mechanics to the actual game-play. The basic principles of The Sims haven’t
changed, of course. They were there since the first iteration.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Your sim has traits
which define their interests and what they enjoy or don’t enjoy doing. They
also have a certain influence on the moods. Sims with some traits can also learn
specific things faster (a sim who loves dancing, for example, will learn it
faster).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Your sim also has
needs. In Sims 4, there’s six of them (bladder, fun, hunger, social, energy,
hygiene), the first iteration had 8. Sims are autonomous enough to take care of
their basic needs when they sink below a certain level. They will go to the
toilet when their bladder need is low. They will get some food when their
hunger need is low. And so on. So you don’t have to keep an eye on all of your
sims the whole time, they can manage their daily lives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sims need a job or
another way of making money (painting, writing, gardening, and some other
skills can result in things to sell). They will not choose a job by themselves,
but in most careers, they’ll leave the house and come back without you having
to control them much. There’s, however, three interactive careers with the “Back
to Work” expansion pack.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sims age and will
eventually die (and, perhaps, return as a ghost). They can also die sooner in
an accident or, if they’re emotional, of too much feelings.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sims can fall in love
and found a family. They can have kids together (or adopt them). Kids grow up
into adults and can then start their own life in the same game, but another
home (even in another world in the same save game). Like this, you can have a
long dynasty of sims in a save game, generations upon generations of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In short, sims are a
pretty good simulation of everyday life and that’s what the game is about. You
can try out whatever life model you want, from a sim who just earns money to
pay the bills and uses their spare time for their true passion of meeting every
sim in the worlds to a sim who wants to be a triple agent one day (top of the ‘evil’
branch of the secret agent career, the only career with 11 instead of 10 stages).
You can found a large family (8 sims er plot is the maximum, though, so before
your couple can have more kids, the oldest might have to move out) and see
where it leads you. You can have a sim who is filthily rich (there are money
cheats which are easy enough to use, the two most-used have been around since
the first iteration) and just does as they please without working a day in
their life. You can just build houses with the build mode, if you feel like you
should have become an architect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And you can share
every family you make and every house you build with the whole community. With
Sims 3, Origin and EA started a community to share content and Sims 4 has
capitalized on it with an in-game browser to go through all the
community-created content.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the technical side,
that comes with a few bad sides. You need to install, maintain, and open the
Origin app to play the game. You need to register all expansions with Origin,
too (not much of a problem for me, since I bought most of my additional content
directly from Origin). But such programs are no longer unusual. Whether that’s
good or bad is pretty much up to your personal tastes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My verdict of Sims 4 so far is
positive. I’m having a lot of fun with the game and I know I will have more fun
with it in the future. There are a few things I don’t like and a lot more which
I like. No game is perfect, but this one definitely is eating more of my time
than it should - like every Sims game before.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-73831124106533658222018-03-07T20:40:00.000+01:002018-03-07T20:40:22.209+01:00Blinded by Success<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I know I haven’t been
posting a lot here for a while now. Fact is, my book reviews and my thoughts
about writing and storytelling go on my <a href="http://writersblogcr.blogspot.de/">Writer’s Blog</a>. Social stuff which
heavily involves or revolves around women and women’s rights goes on <a href="http://feminismwow.blogspot.de/">Feminism Wow</a>. There’s little left
for this blog, my first on. Although, perhaps I’ll start doing game reviews
here again. Subnautica and Sims 4 come to mind, as does Stardew Valley (a game
I have sunk more hours into than I should admit). But the topic I want to
tackle right now doesn’t fit with either of my other blogs, so it goes here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I got into an argument
with a guy of FB today which showed me again that people sometimes get
completely blinded by their own success - or what they perceive as their own
success. Now, this is not about the topic we argued about so much - the
question of why minimum wage is not a living wage in most places, although it
should be -, but about the way his personal success blinded him to what other
people can and can’t achieve.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You most often hear
people like that guy chiming in on two topics: success at work and success at
weight loss. Those people have either managed to work their way up the career
ladder from humble beginnings to somewhere in management or they have lost a
lot of weight in a short time. The problem with them is not the success as a
such, success is recommendable, especially when self-achieved. But here’s
already where things can go awry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let’s have a look at
the definition of ‘success.’ A promotion at work surely is to be counted as a
success, it’s something to strive for and something to be proud of when it
happens. Same goes for losing weight and becoming more healthy and fit. But how
much of the success is really self-achieved?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Surely, if they lose
weight through dieting and working out, it’s their success. And, yes, in the
weight-loss category, success usually is self-achieved (unless they got a
liposuction, of course). However, there are quite some factors they can’t
influence which can help or hinder their success. Such as certain diseases
which will either make it easier or harder to lose weight. Such as the fact
that some bodies lose weight easier than others on the whole. Such as having
the money for a personal coach and someone to make diet food for you. Such as
having gained the weight in a short time (which often makes it easier to lose
it again as well). Don’t misunderstand me - even in the most unfortunate cases,
it’s still possible to lose weight permanently, but it might be a lot harder
than in others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And as far as business
is concerned, there’s a lot of things outside of the successful person’s
control which play into the success. First of all, all qualification and hard
work won’t do them any good if there’s no free position. Or if their boss has a
favourite subordinate which they are not. In such cases, they might still be
looking for a new job for a long time, since most companies first try to fill
positions higher up the ladder with their own people and reach out to the job
market only after having exhausted their own resources. Entry-level jobs are
easy to find, those higher up require more luck. A lot more luck in some cases.
Vitamin B helps, of course (or is that Vitamin R in English?). Knowing the
right people can tremendously expand their chances for a better position,
inside and outside the company where they’re working at the moment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In those cases listed
above, success might have been easier than the person thought it was, simply
because factors outside of their control were in their favour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The problem, however,
is not that those people were successful. The problem is that their personal
success (or what they perceive as their personal success) has blinded them to
the problems of others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That guy I mentioned
above simply continuously stated that because he’d been successful, everyone
else could be, too (a staple of people with that problem). If people didn’t
have his work ethics or weren’t prepared to work as hard as he had, they,
essentially, deserved not having a living wage. That is a general opinion of
those blinded by success. They were successful and everyone who doesn’t want to
do as well as they did deserves their fate. When I asked him what would happen
if everyone were as hard-working as he was and had his work ethics, if everyone
qualified for better jobs and got their promotion, he didn’t answer my
question. Because my point was that society actually relies a lot on there
being people to do minimum wage jobs. Our society wouldn’t continue for a long
time without waiters, cleaners, and many other minimum-wage workers. His point
only was ‘I was successful and they’re just lazy and that’s why they’re not.’
And while that might be a possible interpretation, it’s far from being the only
or the most realistic one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The same kind of
discussion can also happen if you talk to someone who lost a lot of weight
quickly (and, perhaps, even made a career out of it). They are blinded by the
success they had and don’t understand that not everyone will have the same
success with the same method. Some people can lose weight the same way, others
have a body chemistry which makes this an impossible or near impossible way to
lose weight. Some people can’t dedicate that much time to their weight loss (which
might mean not having as much workout in their day or sometimes eating
less-than-ideal meals). Some people have other things interfering (like family
life).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And in some cases (less
with the weight-loss and more with the career), people might not even want a success.
They might know they will never qualify for something better (because, for
instance, they have a learning disability). They might like the overall work (because,
for instance, they like physical work much more than mental work). They might
simply have a life outside of work which demands the resources (mostly time and
money) which ‘successful in business’ has invested in their success. They might
be caring for a sick or simply elderly relative, they might have a big family,
they might be following a project outside of work (like remodelling a house or
creating art) which takes their time and money. There’s many reasons why not
everyone can work their way up in business. And, again, would it be good if
they did? If everyone was over-qualified for the low-level jobs? The jobs on
minimum wage?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Women are often ‘accused’
of not putting as much time and energy into advancing at work. Of being more
comfortable with the job they’re doing, even though they could do better. A lot
of the time this is down to women having another focus outside of work. A focus
on society, family, other projects. At the same time, it’s seen as more normal
if a woman doesn’t do her best to advance at work than if a man doesn’t. Men
are supposed to be focused on success, on getting on, on advancing through the
ranks. So to a man who has done his ‘duty’ of succeeding, men who don’t may
seem even more lazy than women who don’t. The whole ‘if you weren’t so lazy,
you wouldn’t have to do this job’ discussion is getting us nowhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Neither is the ‘if I succeeded,
you can as well’ attitude of some people. It’s an attitude which assumes
everyone is living the same life (and, hence, has the chance to distribute free
time and money the same way), has the same life goals, and has the same chance
of success. Neither of these three things is true.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Even two people who
seem to have the same life (same marriage status, same income, same area they
live in, same job), most of the time don’t really have that same life. One of
them might have to pay off an old debt (car, house, student loan, etc.). One of
them might have a relative in the same job who they’re on good terms with. One
of them might have another passion than work which they need time and, perhaps,
money for. One of them might get on better with their immediate superior. They
do not really have the same life. The one in debt doesn’t have as much
disposable income as the other one. The one with the relative in the same line
of work doesn’t have to invest as much money in a new qualification, because he
gets the training ‘for free’ (or, perhaps, a few lunches and beers). The one
with the other passion isn’t as driven in business matters and will spent less
time and money on a qualification and do less overtime. The one who gets on
better with the superior will be more likely to be chosen for promotion if
there’s several candidates.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And even if they’re
similar in the question of spare time and money, they might have different
goals in life. Not everyone is totally focused on their career. And even if
they initially are, life has a way of changing things. One might suddenly find
themselves in a situation in which they need to put their personal life above
the career. Or they might realize they don’t want to spend the rests of their
life in that job. There’s a lot of things which can change a life goal.
Epiphanies are more common than people often realize. So they ‘slack off’ in
the eyes of the one blinded by success and are no longer worthy of that person’s
support.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Finally, not everyone
is born with the same chance to succeed. If you’re born into middle-class, you
have more chances to succeed than someone born into the lower class (it goes
without saying that the rich and wealthy have it easy to succeed, not to
mention some of them don’t even have to succeed something else than their
parents). If you can afford college after school (and go to a good school in a
good area), your chances are much higher than those of someone who does evening
courses to get their college degree. If you manage to get into a certain line
of work to begin with, you have much more of a chance to promotion. Some jobs
simply don’t have a big career ladder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If you’ve been successful in your
line of work or consider yourself very successful in another aspect of your
life, please try to keep in mind that life isn’t ‘one fits all’ and you shouldn’t
stop caring about your fellow humans just because they seem to ‘slack off,’
unlike you.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-47798093602530612452018-01-19T12:04:00.001+01:002018-01-19T12:04:40.625+01:00Why 'Trickle Down' Will Never Work<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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For ages - since the 1970s in the US, to be more precise -
some people have advocated for ‘Trickle Down Economy,’ which will make everyone
have more money by making sure the rich can make more money. The latter will be
achieved by giving them less regulations for their companies (such as minimum
wages or suchlike) and forcing less taxes on them. That is supposed to make
them spend more money which will then lead to more jobs and more money for the middle
class and the working poor. But does it work? Well, obviously not.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Before we get back to the ‘obviously not,’ we have to talk
about the economy as a such and how it works. Every economy on our planet (yes,
even in communist countries) is based around consumption. Or around supply and
demand. Both are essentially the same, because supply and demand (what is
offered and what people want) leads to consumption. What drives economy is
actually the flow of money. As long as money is flowing, as long as we all
consume the goods and services offered to us, economy works. Because we make
the demand and, as workers, we also make the supply. We keep the money moving,
by buying goods and services and by earning the money made by those goods and
services. It’s a huge circle, albeit not the Circle of Life™.</div>
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So far, everything is pretty clear, I think. You get money
from your work or through other channels (perhaps through investments, through
the government, through some inheritance) and you use this money to buy goods
and services you plan to consume. Consumption is very important, okay? Because
if companies just pushed goods back and forth, the production chains would
disintegrate and everything would go broke.</div>
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<br /></div>
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With this in mind, we have to ask ourselves the next
question: who is keeping most of the money running as a consumer? Is it the poor?
The middle class? The rich?</div>
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Actually, it’s the poor. You see, there’s a lot of poor
people and they usually have to use up all the money they make in a month just
to pay for what they absolutely need (shelter, food, necessary utilities, what
you might call their ‘overhead’). Sometimes, they make less in a month than
they would need just to go on staying alive. What would happen if they got a
little more each month? They’d probably spent it, too. Not because they have no
idea how to keep their money together, but because they’re far from the point
where they can afford not to spend it.</div>
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The next-biggest group of consumers are the middle class.
They keep a little money on the side, save it up, but usually with a specific
idea. They want to buy a new car, send the kids to college, or go on a nice
vacation. They might also put aside a little for the ‘bad days,’ but those do
come sooner or later. They pay for their overhead, they can afford a few
luxuries, but they still hand most of the money they make back to economy. What
if they got a little more? They’d probably spent most of it as well. They might
put a little of it in the ‘bad days’ account, but most of it would go back into
economy.</div>
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The smallest group of consumer and the only one with a
strange problem are the rich. They only spend a relatively small percentage of
what they make in a month, even though they nominally spend a huge amount, of
course. But they are few and compared to what the rest spends during the month,
all rolled together, it’s not all that much. And the problem they have? There
actually is an upper limit to what you can spend in a month. You see, they’re
not spending so little of their income because they’re all Scrooges. Some may
be, yes, but quite some of them dive into all the luxury they can imagine. They
spend a lot, but they make much, much more than what they spend. And so the
money adds up in their accounts. They would spend more than they have already,
but, oh, it’s the first again, the new money is in the account, the spending is
reset. And this is the group which ‘Trickle Down’ advocates say needs more
money. Think about it for a moment, I’ll wait until you’re done.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the 1950s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a very shocking
plan. He wanted to put a 90% tax rate on the net income of all companies in the
US. Nine out of every ten dollars net income should belong to the state. Was he
greedy? Was he mad? No, he was neither. He was clever.</div>
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You see, the net income is what a company makes in a year
after all of their spending has been subtracted. Every dollar they spend on
something, be it resources, personnel, research, machinery, advertising etc.,
does not count for the net income. And that was what he wanted: he wanted the
companies to spend more money, so they wouldn’t have to pay that high tax rate.
How could they spend it? On bonuses at the end of the year. On higher wages for
the employees. On new machinery (which means buying as a consumer from another
company). In new branch offices somewhere else (creating new jobs). On research
and development. Boy, can you leave money in R&D. It’s basically a
bottomless pit in a lab coat. Like this, Mr. Roosevelt thought, they were
investing in their communities. And if they didn’t want to - well, then the 90%
tax rate would allow the communities to invest instead.</div>
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<br /></div>
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He didn’t get the 90% rate, but he did get 70%, which was
also fine. And the tax rate stayed at 70% until the 1970s, until someone told
Ronald Reagan that Trickle Down was a great thing and companies and their
owners needed to be able to keep more money. Until then, economy in the US was
booming, because a lot of money was on the move. Employees were paid well, the
middle class had a solid foundation, the poor were slightly less poor than they
are today. After Trickle Down became a thing, wages went down in relation to
the costs of living. People made less money, people could spend less money.
Production moved overseas, where it was even cheaper. Nobody asked who was
supposed to actually buy the products if nobody in the US could still make
money. Greed ran rampant through the economy, through the management offices
everywhere. Manager wages rose higher and higher as the wages of the actual
employees fell. The job market shifted, people started to work two or three
jobs, just to keep afloat. Not for something extra or some luxury, just to pay
for all the bills and the rent and the food, for their overhead. Temp agencies
sprang up, at first only as a help for employers who needed someone quick and
for a certain time (temporary, which is where the ‘Temp’ comes from), then to
rent your workforce for unlimited time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, the US, where everyone thinks the economy was
basically invented, has a greedy businessman (well, a greedy man who has
managed to tank businesses which should be un-tank-able, such as casinos) as
its president who only looks out for himself and his friends. And people still
believe that Trickle Down will start working right now … or next year … or
sometime in the future.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Wake up! It’s never going to work … unless you’re rich!</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-39844951787889593402017-12-21T10:00:00.000+01:002017-12-21T10:00:01.719+01:00Happy Holidays!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnHJPTJ2tAu7adWy7EOvN8GVS0ZgeNDkA6gmIWsPqv9JwND0teG4W0O0T4X1CZT2PfdvQuQNDcMz6V-SvbItt6loCZ3PKpXFTyCauhc3CHOEoqaAxptvB3-Gy5F3rUgnj1sz8WA/s1600/Holidays_001.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1000" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnHJPTJ2tAu7adWy7EOvN8GVS0ZgeNDkA6gmIWsPqv9JwND0teG4W0O0T4X1CZT2PfdvQuQNDcMz6V-SvbItt6loCZ3PKpXFTyCauhc3CHOEoqaAxptvB3-Gy5F3rUgnj1sz8WA/s640/Holidays_001.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-48921688060122787172017-01-22T17:23:00.000+01:002017-01-22T17:23:26.203+01:00A different kind of strategy<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I like
playing strategy games. I enjoy plotting and planning. I also enjoy playing
business simulations and building games, though. Because of that, I soon
realized that “Offworld Trading Company” was a strategy game and not a business
simulation or a building game, despite its look.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVf0Irw9g8dvRbKgKdeeisIj4w-HAAZnPLXwCGGgdTDOl3bvRiXj0q3e8ed3eejyc6E_6RO73n6tTDupt03zh9CZzj16FFHPRlkxqz-xgTrLIw68a3Ly-AI5VtQBjWV8teB0JfA/s1600/Making+Mars+Great+Again.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVf0Irw9g8dvRbKgKdeeisIj4w-HAAZnPLXwCGGgdTDOl3bvRiXj0q3e8ed3eejyc6E_6RO73n6tTDupt03zh9CZzj16FFHPRlkxqz-xgTrLIw68a3Ly-AI5VtQBjWV8teB0JfA/s320/Making+Mars+Great+Again.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I stumbled
over OTC a little while back at GOG, during one of their sales. The game looked
like a building game of sorts to me and I decided to buy it for myself. After
playing through the tutorials, however, it was very obvious I had not bought a
building game. Nor was it a business simulation, despite how well it simulates
the movements of a market. It was a strategy game, but an unusual one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Why was it
unusual? Because it’s not the kind of game you imagine when I say ‘strategy.’
You don’t fight with soldiers and tanks and other weaponry. You fight with
money. You do not set out to destroy what your enemies have built. You buy them
up and use their production for your own gain. That makes it a very interesting
and challenging game and I do have a lot of fun with it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I also like
the setting very much. Mankind has started to colonize Mars. But the colonies
up there need a lot of things: food, water, air, building materials, and so on.
This is where companies from earth and companies only created for this venture
step in. They provide what the colony can’t create by itself, because they have
a lot of other work to do. They build farms and sell food. They build wells and
sell water. They build converters and sell oxygen and hydrogen (which serves as
fuel). They build mines and sell aluminium and iron. They build factories and
sell steel, glass, electronics, chemicals. They even build structures like the
pleasure dome and profit from the workers relaxing and having fun in there. Or
they even use their money and resources to expand the colony.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But, as
with the Highlander, there can be only one. To make the best out of the deal,
only one company can cater to one colony. Since several usually set up close
by, the only way to become this one company is to eradicate the competitors.
And since open violence is frowned upon, the companies fight with shares. Every
company has a total of 10,000 shares. 2,000 usually are owned by them at the
beginning. If you own 6,000 shares of another company, they become your subsidiaries.
If you own all 10,000, they become part of your company. Shares have to be
bought at market value and in packages of 1,000 shares. If a company owns at
least 5,000 of its own stock, you have to buy those in bulk. If they own more,
not only do you have to buy in bulk, you also have to buy for a much higher
price. So it’s in your best interest to make sure you buy in early.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">How do you
make money? By producing goods and selling them. It’s literally the only thing
you can do in this game. You can buy from the black market, to protect yourself
(with the hologram or the goon squad) or to damage the others (with the pirates
or bombs), but that will only give you a slight advantage and the more you
partake in the offers of the black market, the more it costs you. Trading
offworld with a rocket brings a lot of money, but to get there, you need to
earn a lot first. And you only have limited space, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Limited
space is actually where this game becomes a strategy game. With every upgrade
of your headquarters, you get a number of new claims, which means you can build
a couple more structures. You can also buy claims from the black market, but,
as mentioned, that gets more expensive every time. You have to plan what you
want to buy. You can destroy structures again and build something else instead,
but you don’t have enough claims to build up a huge production. You need to
decide what to build and what to do with it. Do you want a second offworld
market (the rocket) or do you want a hacker array to manipulate the prices
with? Do you want to invest in research or do you rather want to overproduce on
food and send out rocket over rocket to the asteroid belt?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the end,
it doesn’t matter what strategy you have for making money, as long as you make
much of it quickly. At the beginning, the shares usually are in a range of $15
to $17 a share, which means you need around $15,000 to $17,000 to buy the first
package. After you start buying, as with everything on the market, shares go up
in price. Do you want to go ‘all out’ and buy in bulk, even though the last
packages will be very expensive like this? Do you want to buy a package here
and there, which is cheaper, but will allow the other player to buy up shares
as well to make it harder for you? You can cash everything you have in at once
and use the money to buy up package after package, but what if you lack a few
thousand in the end? It will take you ages to build up your stock again. You
can go the safe way and buy shares only when you have enough money on the side,
but that gives your competitors time and resources to do the same to you - or
to buy their own shares to force you to buy in bulk. That is where the game
becomes challenging. Have I also mentioned the game runs in real time? This isn’t
one of your 4x4 turn-based affairs, despite the hexagonal tiles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And you
have the choice between four types of companies, too. There’s the expansive
fraction which seem pretty much the regular ones. They have advantages in
freighter movement and building and get extra tiles per upgrade of their
headquarters. There’s the scavenger fraction who are connected to the black
market much better. They build with carbon instead of steel, so they don’t need
steel mills, they learn about shortages in advance, and they can buy from the
black market more often (all companies have a cool-down time after buying a
black market offer). There’s the scientific fraction which has the advantage of
technology. They can build production buildings on resources to cut out mines,
quarries, or wells, EMP attacks and power surges are over more quickly for them,
and they can do their patent research faster. Finally, there is the robotic
fraction which doesn’t employ humans. They don’t need life support (food, air)
and work on power (of which they need more, of course), they use electronics in
upgrades (and don’t need glass), they don’t need hydrogen fuels, and their production
buildings become more efficient when next to a building which produces their
resources.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The choice
of the fraction has a huge influence on your strategy. Robots can settle even
in places without water resources (or ice) nearby. They can produce food to
sell it (same goes for oxygen and hydrogen), but they can totally forego water
and invest in other buildings. Scavengers can do without iron and steel. Their
close connection to the black market allows for pulling a lot of tricks on
their competition, such as munity (redirect resources from a building to your
own headquarter for a while) or slowdown strike (lowers productivity of the
building targeted and those around, very effecting in clusters). They can make
use of the market more often, because of the shorter cool-down time, but they
will suffer from the increased prices and lower efficiency on the same tile as
well. The scientists don’t need to go for quarries or mines (except for
aluminium, which is used ‘raw’), because they can build production buildings
directly on a resource. But many buildings need two resources and thus they
need to produce one of the resources directly or to auto-buy it. They have an
advantage in research, but since their production buildings are usually
scattered around, they can’t make as much use of clusters (productivity is
enhanced, if production buildings of the same type touch). The expansive
fraction is the most beginner-friendly of the four, it doesn’t have huge
advantages (building cost, speed, and more tiles aren’t that much of an
advantage), but it also doesn’t require an ultra-specialized strategy. If you
want to experiment and play around, they’re the best choice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But the
core of the game which really makes it a taxing real-time strategy game is the
market as a such. All of the resources, primary or otherwise, are on the market
and the prices offered for them constantly change. If a player buys a lot of a
resource, prices go up. If a player sells a lot of a resource, prices go down.
If there is a shortage, you can take advantage of it and sell a lot of a
resource at once for a higher price. If there’s overproduction, you can take
advantage and buy. Every action on the market is met with in real time. Every
time you click on the sell or the buy button, the prices change. Sell much at
once and the price hits rock bottom, which means you don’t get as much as you
thought. Buy much at once and the price skyrockets, forcing you to pay a lot
more. Build a hacker array and you can create false shortages or overproductions
and take advantage of them - but the competitors will suspect something and
they can take advantage, too. Sooner or later, you will need to sell or buy.
The claim limit means you can’t produce everything for every eventuality and
you will at some point need more money than you have, too. You might have to
sell so you can buy a share package, you might have to sell to meet the financial
requirements for the first rocket shipment (afterwards, you usually have the
money from the last shipment), or you might have to sell so you can buy a
resource you can’t produce yourself. Every time, you will influence the market
and your competitors can see it. And that is what I like about the game. I like
it that you have to outsmart your opponents, that you can’t just rush at them.
You can’t just produce more than everyone else, because you lack space for
that. You can’t just make soldiers and overrun them. You have to devise a
strategy to make money faster than they do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And the
games don’t take that long, which is a plus for me, too. Instead of spending
hours with advancing my culture in AOE or AOM (which I also love playing) to
build up a large army, I need to advance my headquarters, build up a
production, and find a way to efficiently sell what I make so I can buy the
others up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">OTC is a very good example of taking
a genre into an unusual setting and making it work. So if you like strategy games,
I suggest you give it a chance or at least a good look.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-8041071552655197902016-11-09T13:06:00.002+01:002016-11-09T13:06:34.646+01:00Dear Americans<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Dear
Americans,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">in 1949 you
brought Germany the first real democracy in our country. After the failed
attempt during the Weimar Republic, which led to the election of Adolf Hitler
and through him to the Third Reich and World War II, you brought us one of the
most stable and efficient democracies in the world. We are very grateful for
that (apart from a few right-wingers and a few hopeless people who live in the
past).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">With your
2016 election, you have, however proven that you are in dire need of a true
democracy yourself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You have
been holding on to an old institution called the ‘Electoral College’ for too
long, for one thing. An American friend I spoke to recently thinks it serves to
make sure stupid people (or uninformed people, as it is put officially) don’t
take too much influence on the election of your president. Well, that either
means you’re wrong or it means even intelligent people voted for Donald Trump.
I choose to believe the first one, because I can’t imagine any person who is
intelligent would vote for a con-man who has no plans and will destroy everything
his predecessor, one of the best presidents you’ve had, has built up in eight
years in office. The bottleneck of the Electoral College means that a lot of
votes go unnoticed every time. It doesn’t matter whether a party wins a voting
district by a few votes or by several hundreds. If it wins, the other votes
cast don’t matter for the rest of the electoral process. It also validates the
technique known as Gerrymandering - a way to make sure as many voting districts
as possible will go to the party the person doing the Gerrymandering favours.
Get rid of the Electoral College and just count out all the votes. Overall, you
might get different results.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You make
the electoral process look like a huge party. You make it extremely focused on
entertainment. And you make it extremely important that the candidates (and
their parties) raise a lot of money. It’s no wonder the candidates in the end
were both extremely wealthy. But how much do people with millions in the bank
know about the struggle of the common citizen? Not much, usually. Yes,
candidates should speak about their plans for the presidency. They should take
a stand on political and social topics so the voters know where they stand and
what to expect from them. They should not make a show out of it. The showman is
close to the con-man (not all showmen are con-men, but all con-men are showmen)
and will rarely keep his promises after the votes have been cast. Cap the
amount of money candidates can invest. Like this, money isn’t that important
for becoming a candidate.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Make sure
the polling places are controlled. Not to avoid voter fraud as a such, but to
make sure people are not bullied (for example by armed people standing outside
and threatening those they think will vote for the other candidate) or are
turned away, even though they have the right to vote. Having a system which
gives every citizen the automatic right to vote might help. Make sure everyone has
the chance to get a photo ID (meaning making sure everyone can afford one) and
make the photo ID mandatory for voting. To get a photo ID, you need to be a
citizen - which means a person with a photo ID is eligible to vote.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Many years ago, you brought a country
you had just defeated in war the wonderful gift of democracy. Please do not
allow things to go badly enough this country needs to be part of a UN mandate
during the next elections to make sure America stays a democracy.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-58990771912982120022016-10-17T20:08:00.002+02:002016-10-17T20:08:57.728+02:00A New Clue<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So there
might be a remake of the “Clue” movie. I’m not really sure what to feel about
that. I mean, on one hand, remakes can be good (even though quite some aren’t).
On the other hand, “Clue” was mostly as good as it was because of the cast,
most of which, for one reason or other, won’t be available for a remake. I’m
not sure someone can successfully replace Madeline Khan as Mrs. White or Tim
Curry as butler Wadsworth. That doesn’t mean, though, I can’t be wrong.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
original “Clue” movie, thirty years old by now, is one of those secret gems
which you either love or hate. There’s really no in-between. Either you enjoy
the take on the classic Manor-Murder-Mystery genre as written by the likes of
Agatha Christie or you simply find the jokes off-base and the whole story
convoluted. I learned about it by accident, when a TV station showed it and I
zapped in and stayed. Afterwards, I went on a hunt for the DVD and found it.
Since then, it has been in my DVD player oodles of times. I just love the
movie.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Clue” is a
comedic take on the classic mysteries which bring together a group of people at
a place, show you there’s nobody else coming or going, and then have a murder
happen. Who did it? In addition, the movie is loosely - very, very loosely -
based on the board game by the same name. The six suspects take their names
from the six suspects of the board game (Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, Mr.
Green, Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum, and Mrs. White) and the ground floor of
the mansion is cut like the board itself (including the secret passages between
the corner rooms). Mr. Body, the victim (first victim in the movie), is also
from the board game, but has a different background. By the end of the movie,
six people have been killed (none of them one of the suspects, of course) and
the question of who the murderer is looms in the main hall. It’s then when
Wadsworth, the butler, will clear up the case, one way or other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Originally,
“Clue” had a little gimmick, like many movies over time. It came with three
different endings, each of them putting the blame of a different person or
different persons. In the DVD version, you can either have a randomly chosen
ending or you can watch all three endings one after the other (with the classic
‘the butler did it’ ending as the ‘real’ one).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But it
wasn’t the gimmick which made “Clue” a classic over time. Like some other
classic movies, it was a sleeper - a movie which didn’t do too well at the
movie theatres, but had a long and strong life afterwards in rentals and on TV.
People enjoyed the movie, even those who were far too young to watch it when it
was released. The movie has a lot of great lines which can be quoted in a
variety of different situations. It had a great cast, too. And it managed to
keep the comedic tone despite the six murders, which isn’t easy, either. It’s
also one of the few movies in which I can endure Angela Lansbury for one and a
half hours. (Two others being “Death on the Nile” and “Evil under the Sun.”)
She pales a little against actors like Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, and, above
all, Madeline Khan.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now there’s
talk of a remake and I’m not sure if I want that. There are movies which have
the perfect formula, but a formula which only works with all the ingredients
the way they are. I have the feeling “Clue” might be one of those. The fact
alone that it was a sleeper and not an instant hit points to it for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What I’m
most worried about, is the off-chance of a gritty remake. Admittedly, a movie
with six murders might qualify as gritty, but the fact that “Clue” managed to
keep the comedic tone even with all those murders was one of its strong points.
It wasn’t as if the characters made jokes about the dead, but the way the movie
handled the murders and, in some cases, the hiding of the corpses (the party
scenes to hoodwink the police officer especially), was fun and classy at the
same time. The way the reactions dampened from the first murder to the last (when
the Singing Telegram girl hardly got a reaction out of the group) was both
amusing and fitting, since there is a moment when the mind will just shut down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A new movie
might not be up to par with that. On the other hand, there is also a (slight)
chance the remake might be better. Perhaps there will be an even better
chemistry between the new actors. Perhaps the jokes and puns will be even more
on point.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fact is, whether or not the fans want
it, if the owner of the rights wants to remake something, they will do so.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-42307752535507438932016-09-19T17:44:00.000+02:002016-09-19T17:44:05.454+02:00The Adventures of Sherlock Hound<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgzNnL3sO2ywFPsM4Pv23aK7Zyf_PevCiY-QiY0jWZEY-rrQuKSULDAzxEYqqXKL-UXN1V2KtY9Z540aD5ZySMQliMBNPyk8wyUQ_qQHnXzX6KP9UF_X_Prxt63IBW2opaIG-xw/s1600/Sherlock+Hound.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgzNnL3sO2ywFPsM4Pv23aK7Zyf_PevCiY-QiY0jWZEY-rrQuKSULDAzxEYqqXKL-UXN1V2KtY9Z540aD5ZySMQliMBNPyk8wyUQ_qQHnXzX6KP9UF_X_Prxt63IBW2opaIG-xw/s320/Sherlock+Hound.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">This week, I had the chance to grab a DVD
of the first season of “The Adventures of Sherlock Hound” (as is the English
reference), an animated series made by Mr. Hayao ‘Spirited Away and other great
Animes’ Miyazaki in the 1980s. The title Sherlock Hound is fitting, because all
sentient beings in this series are dogs (well, Moriarty looks more like a wolf
to me, but still…).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The series takes its freedom with the
stories written by Doyle (like “The Blue Carbuncle” or “The Speckled Band”) and
almost overuses Moriarty and his two henchmen (they’re essentially guilty of
every crime in the series), but apart from that, it’s a highly enjoyable series
which has aged well - something which can’t be said for all animated series
made in the 1980s. It also has the most badass Mrs. Hudson I’ve ever seen in a
Sherlock Holmes series. Honestly, the episode “The White Cliffs of Dover” has
her spring across a garden wall with an axe to save a crashed aerialist and
later on chase a plane in two cars (jumping from one into the other at full
speed when the first car runs out of gas) with Watson holding on for his dear
life. Before she lost her husband and became a landlady, she was piloting
herself, too. She is a good deal younger than you usually see her portrayed,
too, and capable of actually charming Moriarty when he has her kidnapped.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Even though the series was produced for
children, it also doesn’t omit the dangerous parts. There are several episodes
where bullets start to fly and usually the main characters survive through a
mixture of agility and luck. Yet, the series also keeps a light tone and is
enjoyable even if you watch it from episode 1 to episode 13 in one day as I
did. The cases are logical and can be solved with the information you are
given, so there’s never a feeling of being kept in the dark, either.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I’m also still amazed at how well the
feelings of the characters are shown, since putting human emotions on dog faces
isn’t all that easy. Yet there’s never a doubt as to what the characters feel.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">From today’s point of view, the series also
has a great Steampunk style to it, from Sherlock’s car over the regular use of
steamboats and trains to Moriarty’s flying contraption and his steam tank
(there is no better way to describe this monster of a ride). There are zeppelins,
balloons, and dirigibles, interesting machinery, and a lot of fun situations
that arise because of them. It also has a great intro music and a nice casting.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">All in all, it’s a great series to watch, no matter whether
you’re a kid with interest in Sherlock Holmes or an adult looking for something
to fill a relaxing half an hour (or day).</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-89697784804186239272016-06-26T15:25:00.000+02:002016-06-26T15:25:38.437+02:00Please don't tell my parents ... again<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB">A while ago - okay, a long while ago - I
wrote post about the <a href="http://anotsoaveragewoman.blogspot.de/2015/02/please-dont-tell-my-parents.html">first
two novels about Penelope Akk</a>, “Please don’t tell my parents I’m a
supervillain” and “Please don’t tell my parents I blew up the moon.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yesterday, I bought and read the third one,
“Please don’t tell my parents I’ve got henchmen.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">After successfully - if not willingly -
establishing herself as a villain and blowing up a Jupiter moon to save mankind
(without mankind actually knowing), Penny Akk could take it more slowly, but
she still wants to be a hero. Her first try at that, however, ends in a very
strict sentence from her parents: she is not allowed to fight anyone who might
challenge her, unless she wants her allowance to be withheld for a week and no
computer or phone access for the rest of the day. Little do Barbara and Brian
Akk know, of course, that her daughter has thousands of dollars in a secret
bank account (villainy does pay, it seems) - which she can’t spend in her
civilian life.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Around Penny, a lot of other children of
heroes and villains are fed up with pretending to be normal. And the club Penny
originally only founded so she and her friends could use the old lab beneath
their school as their lair is a way out. Suddenly, it grows and Penny becomes
the reluctant club leader. While Penny Akk can’t take part in fights now, Bad
Penny and her team have to find a new lair - which happens to be across the
street. Things get difficult around Penny, as puberty doesn’t only set in for
her, but also for a lot of the other children. But Penny also proves herself a
very good leader of the club in times of crisis, may it be to save a few of the
group from Mourning Dove or provide guidance during a sudden rise of zombie
robots. And all without fighting as Penny Akk, even though Bad Penny has to do
some of that.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The third instalment of the series has made
me curious again. I didn’t like the second one as much as the first and thought
the series might run itself dry, but “Please don’t tell my parents I’ve got
henchmen” is a nice sequel to the first two books. Things change, that is a
major plot point in the book.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Ray, who started the team on the villainous
path when he tried to trash the science fair and who always liked the crimes
most, is weaning off them.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Marcia, who always set herself up as the
righteous hero, is going for villainy all in a sudden. Or rather, she’s going
for fights, testing her new ability to heal from everything to the limits.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Claire wants to turn into a cat-burglar,
which would afford her a single career.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Claudia, whose strength and near
indestructibility made her a dangerous adversary for the Inscrutable Machine, gets
closer to her father again and starts to realize she doesn’t have to save
everyone, if she doesn’t want to.</span></div>
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throughout the school year, starting the moment she decides to show off her
powers when a football player decides to show off his at a game.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The school itself changes as well, when the
children with superpowers stop hiding them. Because of the early intervention
of Barbara Akk and some colleagues from the hero side, though, the worst
excesses get curbed even before they could become a problem.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">With Bull, just retired supervillain,
overlooking the club meetings and sparring matches, nothing too serious
happens. It also affords him time to spend with his daughter Claudia. Yet the
students can hone their powers, even those who don’t want to fight (but, in the
cases of Jacky and Barbara [not Mrs. Akk], make excellent healers).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The balance in school changes dramatically
with Marcia no longer being the popular cheerleader, changing her style
completely to fit with her new outlook on life. After all, she puts her own
father into hospital during her first rebellious act.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">By the end of the year, Penny has changed
as much as everyone else, to a certain degree merging the confidence of Bad
Penny with the uncertainty of Penny Akk. And she finds a strange offer thrust
at her - to become Spider’s apprentice once she turns eighteen.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">Again, the book is meant for teenagers and young adults, but
it’s a very entertaining read for other people as well … if you love
superheroes and supervillains.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-27194227575722617022016-03-03T00:05:00.000+01:002016-03-03T00:05:02.662+01:00This should be paid advertising...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">…and it would be, if it didn’t mean paying
myself for writing these words. Two days ago, I published my first novel for
real. On Amazon. Where it can be bought. I’m still not completely over it.
Anyhow, I already posted the details on my <a href="http://writersblogcr.blogspot.de/2016/02/release-is-imminent.html">Writer’s
Blog</a>, but I guess some more advertising can’t hurt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgi_aPPWpKeY7tFN1FBn4TVrAxiMgyxXlNb6HiCGDk3XDSowWlhmsnI2PouzqitToYHC4ZuwgMoVs_eiXz-trx3U-W1NNDBj79HJj8w7bY6e6LZdydas0vzTKVKeyA6P4px9urhQ/s1600/Knight+Agency+01+Cover+Small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgi_aPPWpKeY7tFN1FBn4TVrAxiMgyxXlNb6HiCGDk3XDSowWlhmsnI2PouzqitToYHC4ZuwgMoVs_eiXz-trx3U-W1NNDBj79HJj8w7bY6e6LZdydas0vzTKVKeyA6P4px9urhQ/s320/Knight+Agency+01+Cover+Small.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We are the thin red line which separates
order from chaos.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For a thousand years, the Knight Agency has
secretly kept watch, protecting mankind and society from innumerable threats.
For five of those, Agent Jane Browne has already played her part in this game
as well. But now, a threat is aimed at herself and the few she cares about. The
mysterious ‘M’ might find out it’s not a good idea to tease a Knight Agent in
general - and much less of a good idea to tease Agent Browne in person.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The book is available as e-book from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CCZBW5C?*Version*=1&*entries*=0">Amazon</a>
(worldwide), <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secret-keeper-cay-reet/1123477300;jsessionid=654A3B25184E37E8C41AE875ABAC6ADA.prodny_store02-atgap04?ean=2940152777659">nook</a>
(Barnes & Noble), <a href="https://store.kobobooks.com/de-de/ebook/secret-keeper-9">kobo</a>, <a href="http://www.inktera.com/store/title/889fec22-e3e3-45c1-8da5-cd6fbd509490">Inktera</a>,
and <a href="https://de.scribd.com/book/301206097/Secret-Keeper-Knight-Agency-1">Scribd</a>.
In addition, it’s also available on iBooks and Tolino, but I can’t link to
their stores from here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Knight Agency series is developed quite
a bit further than that, between late September 2015 and February 2016, I wrote
a total of four novels (the first novels I’ve ever written, I never made it
past 35,000 words for a story before). All deal with Jane Browne (who was Jane
Bond for thirty minutes of her existence) and her ever-growing cast of
acquaintances, friends, and foes. My idea of writing a parody of James Bond
turned into a series of adventure stories centring around a badass female agent
and her adventures in the modern world. Honestly, Jane’s best weapon is her
phone (and her gun, but that’s to be expected).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve grown fond of them, too. They have
developed into personalities, not just Jane, but also Steven, Brock, Grand,
Frank, Liam, Cynthia, Myra, Stacy, and all the others. The stories have
surprised even me while I wrote them. Sometimes, they took a turn even I couldn’t
foresee. And while I write these lines, I’m working on a fifth novel, which is
set in an alternate universe in which Jane is a criminal, not an agent, and I
have the first few ideas for another novel set in the regular universe. I will
edit and publish the other novels (the ones written already as well as those I
will still write). I hope I will find some readers who enjoy Jane’s adventures
as much as I do. Yes, I had a lot of fun writing the stories. I hope, that
means readers will also have fun while reading them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">Jane is out in the world now and I hope she’ll make her way.
As long as she has Steven by her side, though, I’m not too worried about her.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-32989997708513836392015-12-18T22:15:00.002+01:002015-12-18T22:15:32.478+01:00Alternate Star Wars Prequels<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here it is, my promised blog post on an
alternate story for the Star Wars prequels. When you read this, you will
realize I’ve kept most characters (well, Jar Jar had to go), but changed some
of them. Now, without further delay, into the “Phantom Menace.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">Episode
1:</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A ship is on its way to Naboo, but not on a
diplomatic mission. When the Trade Federation approached the planet, they
blocked all kinds of communications and, after not hearing from back home, the
representative (a certain Senator Palpatine) has requested a scouting mission. Qui-Gon
and Obi-Wan are on their way to the planet when they encounter the fleet
blocking their approach. After a breathtaking run through enemy lines, the ship
lands on Naboo and both Jedi leave it to make their way to the capital.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the shadows close to the ship, we get a
first glimpse at Darth Maul. He has contact with his master, Darth Sidious, who
tells him not to interfere at this time, but keep an eye on the Jedi, also
reminding his student what happened the last time Maul acted too early. The two
Jedi approach the capital carefully, avoiding the droid army, not aware of
being followed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Inside the palace, Padmé, one of the queen’s
ladies in waiting, is not happy with just keeping hidden inside the fortified
structure while who-knows-what happens to the people outside. She is sixteen
and wants to do something. It’s actually the reason why her family sent her to
the capital - hoping she would learn to behave more like a lady and less like a
wild tomboy. Padmé decides to sneak out and do something.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On her way out, she meets a few droids and
the Jedi, who come to her aide - but only after she’s had some time to
demonstrate her own skills with a blaster. Padmé takes them to see the queen
who in turn asks them to take Padmé with them, so she can meet up with the
Senator and act as witness in front of the Senate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">While they make their escape, their ship is
damaged and so they have to make an emergency landing on a nearby planet which
happens to be Tatooine. There they first find a farm where a young guy named
Anakin is not happy with his life. He’s fourteen, his mother is on her second
marriage, and his father (a soldier) died years ago. Anakin leads them to a
nearby settlement (could be Mos Eisley or another place) where they buy a few
spare parts (let’s be honest, a galactic organisation like the Jedi Order or an
interplanetary government should both have some emergency accounts for people
travelling in their name). Qui-Gon realizes the boy is force-sensitive, but
wasn’t found because of the remote location he lives in. Anakin’s mother and
stepfather don’t want him to come along with the Jedi, because they need all
helping hands on the farm (and his mother, of course, worries for him,
especially given his father’s fate). Anakin, doing what most fourteen-year-olds
might do in such a situation, stows away on the ship and Qui-Gon pretends not
to notice it. Once they’re halfway to the capital of the Republic, it’s far too
late to send the boy back, so he has to come along.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Once they’ve arrived, Padmé joins Palpatine
on his way to more power … eh, I mean help for Naboo, of course. Anakin is
dragged to the Jedi Council, but not allowed to train, because he’s too old
already (makes more sense with the older Anakin, who’s really missing something
between ten and five years of training at his age). Qui-Gon argues, but caves
in at the end and promises to take Anakin back home as soon as the situation on
Naboo is resolved.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A small force is sent out to Naboo to team
up with the populace (both human and non-human). On the way back, Qui-Gon gives
Anakin a few simple lessons, Anakin starts flirting with Padmé, and Obi-Wan (who
is around twenty) and Anakin start to hang out. Qui-Gon, sensing his end is
near (after all, Yoda does that, too, in Return of the Jedi), records a last
wish for the Council: for Anakin, who’s extremely gifted with the Force, to be
trained despite his age. When Anakin talks to Obi-Wan about Padmé, he learns
relationships are not encouraged by the Jedi Order, because they might get in
the way of their duty. When they reach the fleet, they are viciously attacked,
but Anakin shows his extreme flying talent and manoeuvres the ship through the
blockade and safely down to the planet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Padmé manages to win the trust of the
Gungans and they agree to fight side by side with the humans. Once the small
task force reaches the capital however, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are challenged by
Darth Maul (who is acting against his masters orders) and a fight begins. Padmé
leads the soldiers inside and raises the remainders of the army there for the
battle for the capital. Anakin smuggles himself into one of the starfighters
and leaves for the battle above the planet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">From here on, there’s various battles going
on, the one the Gungans fight on the plains, the one Padmé and the soldiers
fight in the capital, the one of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan against Darth Maul, and
the one Anakin is in above the planet. As in the movie, Anakin takes out the
control unit of the droids after extremely impressive flying. Padmé gets her
hands on the heads of the Trade Federation. The Gungan flatten the droids,
although the shutoff is helpful. Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon, but considers
Obi-Wan beneath him, so he lets the Padawan live and escapes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Jedi Council respects Qui-Gon’s final
wish and accepts Anakin as a Padawan. Obi-Wan is promoted to full Jedi Knight
and put in charge of Anakin. Padmé accepts to become part of the diplomatic
corps. Darth Sidious is not amused about his student’s disobedience, but
accepts the overall outcome, because it serves his plans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">Episode
2:</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Darth Maul tours the Outer Rim, looking for
new allies for his master. He has been sowing several conflicts, hoping to
stretch the Republic’s resources to their limit. Anakin, now around twenty, is
still staying with Obi-Wan. He’s resentful of other Padawans who mock him for
not being on the same level in his training. The missing years are still to be
felt and can’t be balanced out completely by his powers. He accompanies Obi-Wan
from planet to planet, unknowingly following Darth Maul, trying to extinguish
the fires the Sith has left behind.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Padmé, now about twenty-two, is tiring of politics.
She is still in the diplomatic corps and attached to Senator Palpatine. She
sees the inefficiency of the political system and Palpatine does agree with her
on it. He tells her he will do everything to make it more efficient and ensure
help for everyone in the Republic, no matter how far away from the centre they
are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Jedi Council finds it harder and harder
to reach consent. The numerous small conflicts demand a lot of decisions, most
of which aren’t between right and wrong, but between ‘what we consider more
important’ and ‘what we consider less important.’ Conflicts are growing inside
the Council, especially between Yoda, representing the guardian side, and Mace
Windu (what? you think I’d leave out a character played by Samuel L. Jackson?),
representing the warrior side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Obi-Wan and Anakin manage to catch up with
Darth Maul who taunts them. Obi-Wan rushes off after the man who killed his
master and Anakin finds himself alone in the middle of a group of masked
warriors (clones, but not in the proto-stormtrooper armour). Anakin is almost
overwhelmed, but when his fear rises, so does his power - he taps into the Dark
Side instead of the Light Side and comes out victorious. Obi-Wan battles Darth
Maul and manages to wound the other one (I’d suggest a leg, there’s enough
cut-off arms in that universe already). Darth Maul escapes, however, and
retreats. Obi-Wan, remembering his own student, returns to find Anakin in the
middle of his slain enemies. He senses the Dark Side, but decides not to
mention it this time - Anakin is still in training and it’s not uncommon for a
student to have a brush with the Dark Side at one point of his life. Better
early, than after the end of the training.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Count Dooku (what? you thought he’d be
missing?) assures Darth Sidious that everything is going as planned with the
clone warriors. Production is going well and they have proven efficient enough
in their first battles (except for the one against Anakin, that is, but Count
Dooku doesn’t mention it). Once Darth Sidious has seized power, he will have
his absolutely obedient army. Darth Sidious is not happy with Darth Maul’s
fight with Obi-Wan - it’s not wise to challenge the Jedi too early.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Back home on Coruscant, Anakin receives a
message from his younger brother Owen, who tells him their mother has died of a
disease. Anakin knows the disease would have been easy to treat, had his mother
lived somewhere less remote than the Outer Rim. He seeks out Padmé, with whom
he has been meeting regularly during his training. Once he has told her about
his mother, she comforts him and then tells him about Palpatine and his plans
to make the Republic a better place where everyone will find the help they
need. She promises to arrange a meeting.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin and Obi-Wan are sent out again and
find themselves facing a large force of clones. During the fight, Anakin taps
into the Dark Side again. This time, Obi-Wan reprimands him for it, telling him
the Dark Side is never a solution for a Jedi. Anakin distances himself a little
from his master and friend at that. He doesn’t see where it is bad to use this
power, too, when he needs it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin meets Palpatine, who not only
assures him that he seeks to make the Republic a better place where everyone
will get the help they need (which would have saved his mother), but also shows
a lot of knowledge about the history of the Jedi Order, even though he claims
he has no connection to the Force himself (a lie, but he is the villain, after
all). Anakin speaks about the problem of Dark Side vs. Light Side (still angry
about Obi-Wan’s words) and Palpatine tells him that, from his point of view,
only the outcome is of importance, not the means.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin is chosen as guardian for Padmé on a
mission (on Palpatine’s request) and they both leave for a supposedly peaceful planet.
On the flight, they start talking and drop into flirting after a while (they
have stayed in contact during the last six years, after all, so they are
familiar with each other already). Anakin is brushing off more and more of the
Jedi principles and he wants to have a deeper and more emotional relationship
with Padmé. At first, the mission goes well, but then they walk into an ambush
and are both brought down unconscious (gas, whatever, something a Jedi can’t
defend against).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Count Dooku has them transported to another
planet, where they are supposed to die in the arena (as in the movie).
Palpatine, of course, has other plans, knowing Anakin will be forced to either
use the Dark Side or he will lose the woman he loves and, perhaps, his own
life. Obi-Wan, however, has been shadowing them, still not trusting Anakin’s
promise not to tap into the Dark Side again, and follows them. He calls for
help from the council. In the arena, Anakin and Padmé fight back to back, but
the sheer amount of enemies threatens to overwhelm them. Obi-Wan joins them,
but it’s still not enough. Anakin doesn’t dare to tap into the Dark Side while
his master is right next to him, but a strike force of other Jedi, led by Mace
Windu, arrives at the very last moment. Anakin follows Dooku and they start to
duel. Dooku cuts off Anakin’s hand, but before he can deal the final strike,
Obi-Wan arrives and takes over the duel. Dooku makes his escape, telling
Obi-Wan another of his master’s servants has reserved the right to kill him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Obi-Wan talks to Anakin during the flight
back, promising to keep the secret of the growing love between him and Padmé,
but also warns his student that at some point he might have to choose between
love and duty. The Jedi Council is alarmed, they slowly start to realize there
is a guiding force behind all the troubles they have been facing recently (speak:
since the beginning of the movie).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">Episode
3:</span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin and Obi-Wan are still running from
one place to the next, as are most Jedi who are considered warriors rather than
guardians. They are on the trail of Count Dooku and catch up with him on a
planet in the Outer Rim. Obi-Wan falls behind, but Anakin keeps fighting the
fallen Jedi and taps into the Dark Side again, finding the strength he needs to
overpower the other one and kill him. Since he has battled a fallen Jedi who is
using the Dark Side, Obi-Wan can’t tell Anakin has been using it, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Padmé fully supports Palpatine’s campaign
for the position as Chancellor. She uses all she has learned from him and other
diplomats to gain votes in the Senate. Finally, Palpatine is pronounced
Chancellor and immediately starts putting his emergency laws to work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The clone warriors arrive at Coruscant,
Palpatine claims they have originally been produced for the other side, but he
managed to gain control of them. Since there’s still lots of wars going on in
the Republic, nobody wants to know too much about where the unexpected help
came from. Clones and Jedi are grouped, so the Jedi will have more help during
their missions. Instead of sending out small groups of Jedi, each is teamed up
with a group of clone troopers instead. Everything for the destruction of the
order is put in place. Yoda is not happy with this decision, but has to admit
it is the only way to gain any chance of stomping out all the wildfires the
Republic is facing. The Jedi on their own just aren’t a large enough force.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin and Obi-Wan are separated, too. Like
several other Padwans, Anakin is promoted to full Jedi Knight a little early.
He goes out on his first mission and manages it well, even without the Dark
Side. When he comes back, Padmé has news for him: she’s pregnant, Anakin will
become a father. He secretly marries her, but doesn’t inform the Order. He
knows he’d be forced to become a guardian or leave the order completely. He
doesn’t want to stop being a warrior, it’s all he ever wanted to be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Palpatine suggests to Padmé to get her
husband to leave the order, pointing out that she is becoming a better diplomat
every day and could do with a strong guardian. They could travel the galaxy as
a family, instead of hiding in the shadows as if doing something wrong. Anakin
refuses for the time being, but promises to reconsider once their children have
been born.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Padmé is attacked, but manages to escape (Palpatine
staged the attack). Again, she asks Anakin to leave the order and be with her.
Shocked by the possible loss of his wife and his unborn children, he agrees. He
resigns from his position in the order and openly moves into Padmé’s rooms on
Coruscant. Obi-Wan comes to see him, begging him to stay at least until most of
the problems are resolved, but Anakin declines, pointing out that he almost
lost Padmé already. Palpatine uses this situation to poison Anakin’s mind
further, pointing out the Jedi Order always sees the big picture, but denies
its members any personal happiness. Anakin agrees.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Palpatine stages another attack, this time
on himself. Darth Maul appears during a diplomatic banquet which Anakin and
Padmé both attend as well. Anakin, still armed with his lightsaber, faces Darth
Maul while Palpatine seemingly takes care of Padmé. But Palpatine, realizing
the occasional use of the Dark Side will not bring Anakin into his hands fast
enough, captures Padmé and has some of his minions take her off planet. Anakin
manages to kill Darth Maul, but only to find Palpatine seemingly injured and
his pregnant wife gone. He seeks Obi-Wan’s help, but his friend can’t help him,
there’s too much to do and he can’t just walk away from the Order himself.
Seemingly from the sickbed, Palpatine suggests that full use of the Dark Side
might give Anakin a chance to find his wife.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin taps into the Dark Side, using his
fear for Padmé and his hate for those who have kidnapped her to force a vision.
It’s not much, but he starts his search for her. At the same time, Mace Windu
investigates how a Sith (Darth Maul) could ever have made it into the high
security area of the diplomatic district. He meets Palpatine for the first time
and senses the Dark Side around the other one. When he accuses Palpatine of
being a Sith himself, the future emperor drops his mask and they start to
fight. Mace Windu holds himself well, but they are evenly matched and Palpatine
is more devious by nature. Palpatine lures the Jedi into a trap and kills him.
Anakin comes back from his fruitless search just in time to witness the end of
Mace Windu. Palpatine claims the Jedi are behind Padmé’s disappearance and
admits to being a Sith himself. He twists the truth enough to make himself and
other Sith those who seek to change the Republic for the better while all the
Jedi want is keeping the status quo. And he offers Anakin full help in finding
Padmé, but only if the other one agrees to become his student. Anakin, shaken
by the lies he’s been fed and still afraid for Padmé’s life (and that of their
children), agrees to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Palpatine has reached most of his goals
now. He gives the order to kill all Jedi and the murders start. Only Yoda, who
hasn’t been with a squad of clone troopers, and Obi-Wan, who is lucky, escape
the killing. Special squads have been dispatched to the temple, led by Anakin
who has to prove himself, to kill the students and the guardians still staying
there. Anakin realizes he has passed the point of no return, the only chance he
still has is to embrace his new life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin is given the location of his wife’s
prison and he goes there immediately. Once there, however, he finds out who
really has been behind the kidnapping and is prepared to turn against Palpatine
himself. He makes contact with Obi-Wan, but his former friend is too outraged
by what Anakin did at the temple. While refusing to fight with Anakin, he is ready
to take Padmé as far away as possible, for her sake, not for his former friend’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Anakin returns to his new master and
outright challenges him. In a fight, however, he is not strong enough to stand
up to Palpatine, let alone kill the other one. Palpatine threatens him with the
death of his wife and children and Anakin submits.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Padmé gives birth to the twins. Knowing
they are in grave danger, she asks Obi-Wan to take the boy to his uncle Owen,
to Anakin’s half-brother. She herself takes the girl to Bail Organa, who has
become a good friend during her time in diplomatic service. Afterwards, she
seeks out Anakin, but finds Palpatine instead - who kills her, because she
might be able free Anakin from his control. Anakin finds his dead wife, but
doesn’t know who caused her death. Angry with Obi-Wan for not protecting her,
he seeks out his former friend and they start to fight. During the duel, Anakin
is gravely wounded (similar to the movie). Obi-Wan leaves him to die, but he is
found in time. After he has been rebuilt (in other words: once he has become
Darth Vader outwardly), Palpatine tells him Obi-Wan not only was responsible
for Padmé’s death, but also for that of their children, sealing the fate of his
new student and taking the last hopes from Anakin. Darth Vader is truly born.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Yes, I have left out the droids completely.
It’s too unrealistic to have them in the movies the way they were in the
prequels. Even if their memories were erased at some point, people like Obi-Wan
should remember them. Darth Vader should remember the droid he built himself.
Besides, the original trilogy has several droids which come from the same or similar
production lines as C-3PO, so he’s not been built from scratch by a kid
somewhere on a backwater planet. And how would Owen Lars recognize C-3PO as a
protocol droid, if he weren’t a standard model?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">This is my vision of the prequels. I think it works out much
better than the prequels themselves do.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-49548274109353825582015-12-18T15:27:00.000+01:002015-12-18T15:27:36.552+01:00Problem with Prequels<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">No, this is not just about the Star Wars
prequels (even though they will play a role). It’s a general post about the
problem with making prequels to movies, TV series, or other stories. I might do
another post on an idea for better Star Wars prequels, too, but this one is a
general ‘why prequels rarely are a good idea’ post.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The main problem with prequels is,
obviously, that the audience knows what will happen afterwards. We’ve already
seen the X-Men movies before the Wolverine one. We know who must survive (because
they turn up later). We’ve already seen the original trilogy years before “The
Phantom Menace” came out. We know what will happen to Anakin Skywalker in the
end. One of the most interesting parts of a movie - who will make it to the end
- just isn’t there in a prequel. We know who needs to survive the Wolverine
origin movie. We know who will survive the rise of the Empire in the Star Wars
prequels - and who will not, like basically all Jedi who are not Yoda or
Obi-Wan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">You can still make prequels, of course, but
you must realize what problems you will be facing. You have to make sure you
don’t make things too straightforward (or invent stupid new stuff for no
apparent reason). You have to make sure not to bore or annoy people with ‘how
it all happened.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Let’s turn to Star Wars for a moment, shall
we? There is no question that the prequels failed in a lot of ways. As a such,
the question how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and the question how the
Emperor gained absolute power are interesting. They promise a new story in a
universe the audience is already familiar with. Where the prequels failed was
not the premise. Where they failed was the actual execution. Where they failed
were new characters and parts of the story. I’ll do a post with a possible
alternative story for the prequels later, so I won’t go in depth here.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">They failed in making us care about Anakin.
They failed in drawing a succinct picture of the Jedi Order or the Republic.
They failed in keeping characters the way we know them to be later in life.
They introduced too many new characters at once. They tried to do too much (such
as introducing the whole political level). They got a little too carried away
with things nobody needed (like the pod race, seriously). They failed to make
Jar Jar Binks disappear after the first movie. Is a little accident too much to
ask for?</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Instead, they took out a bad character good
for at least three movies in the first one. Darth Maul should never have died
in “The Phantom Menace.” He was too interesting a character to start with. And,
no, his latter resurrection in the “Clone Wars” series doesn’t count.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then there’s the long gap between “The
Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” Yes, a few years for Anakin to
learn the ropes of the whole Jedi business are perfectly fine, but if you feel
you must introduce the love interest in the first movie, don’t put that much
time between them. Padmé is a good deal older than her boyfriend/eventual
husband. Less time would have been better. If you’re going for a trilogy, don’t
try to introduce all and everyone in the first movie, either.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">If you look at the Wolverine origin movie,
you can also see quite some little things. They might not be as glaring as with
Star Wars (although naked Hugh Jackman jumping into a waterfall might have
clouded my thoughts here), but they still are there. A walking Professor X wasn’t
all that necessary. The extra-heavy bones Wolverine has because of the metal
are only a topic once or twice. Either make them relevant for the story or
forget about them - and since they’re not relevant later, just leave them out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What I liked, however, was how they twisted
expectations for the end of the movie. From the beginning, you expect the final
fight to be between Wolverine and Sabretooth, between the half-brothers who,
let’s be honest, can’t really kill each other, because they’re both healing so
damn fast. It would have been a great fight, too, but having them both going up
against Proto-Deadpool instead was better. Still, the final villain was a
little bit pulled out of the hat at the last moment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Enterprise” failed to convey the feeling
of the original “Star Trek” series. Each of the sequels were different, too,
but they stayed within what the fans knew and liked, adding zeitgeist to the
formula. “Enterprise” did not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sure, making a sequel is a lot easier than
making a prequel, because you actually have free reign. Yes, you have
established characters, but who says you need to use them? And even if you do,
can’t they develop some new sides?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">You can’t give a prequel character
abilities which they didn’t have in the original story, unless you can give a
damn good reason for them losing that ability later. You can’t make them
stronger in the prequels than they were in the original story, unless you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have a good reason for their declining
strength (like old age or a sickness).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then why make prequels? Perhaps because you
feel you need to give the characters more background. Perhaps because you can’t
go forward. After seeing the first trailer for “Fantastic Beasts And Where To
Find Them,” I’m pretty sure the movie will enhance the Harry Potter Universe. But
then, it’s not about what an established character did before, it’s about a guy
who wrote a book used as textbook at Hogwarts. Much easier to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">You should think very carefully about whether or not you want
to make a prequel. You should think twice before writing the script and three
more times before starting to film it. Then you have a chance to make a good
prequel.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-50470491615224402752015-12-18T14:25:00.000+01:002015-12-18T14:25:52.686+01:00Movies for Christmas<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Okay, so you will have time to yourself
during the Christmas season and you don’t want to watch a typical Christmas
movie. Here’s a small selection of movies I enjoy watching, during Christmas
season and during other times. Let’s have a look at the list, shall we?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Clue”:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> I know, this is a love/hate movie. Either you really love it or you
really hate it. Personally, I love this one. It has a great story, great
actors, great lines - and it’s the only crime story I know with three plausible
solutions, too. I love seeing Tim Curry as butler and quite a host of great
actors as the guests. It’s also one of the few movies in which I can actually
bear seeing Angela Lansbury.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Despicable
Me 2”:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> I love the second one even a little more
than the first one (but if you’ve seen neither, you should definitely watch the
first one, too). Brooding Grue is a great character, but he’s even better when
seen together with bubbly Lucy. Not to mention he’s a fun dad to watch with his
three girls.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Hot
Fuzz”:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> They say the middle of a trilogy is always
weakest, but I like the middle of the Cornetto Trilogy more than beginning (“Shaun
of the Dead”) and end (“World’s End”) together. I just love this over-the-top
police story.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Kingsman
- The Secret Service”:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> Agent movie doesn’t have to
equal James Bond, you know. Kingsman has all the Britishness of James Bond, but
with a lot of interesting characters. IMHO, you just have to love a movie where
the instructor training the possible future agents has them jump out of a plane
only to tell them afterwards that ‘one of you has no parachute.’ Merlin rules!
Plus, in the light of recent movie events, Mark Hamill actually is in this one,
too.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">“Black
Butler”:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> This one is the real-life movie, not part
of the animated series. It changes a couple of things (among them the gender of
one main character), but it does keep the basic idea. And no matter whether he’s
animated or real, Sebastian remains a devil of a butler.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red;">These are a couple of movies I might watch during Christmas
season, if I get around to it. I might also give a few seasons of “Mein Leben
& Ich”, a nice TV series, another go.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-37816915505363478922015-07-25T19:20:00.002+02:002015-07-25T19:20:26.224+02:00A few thoughts on IHOGs<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">IHOGs
(Interactive Hidden Objects Games) have taken over the market for hidden
objects game a long time ago by now. Unlike the classic hidden object game,
which is merely search scene after search scene, they tell a story. I
originally started out with the good, old-fashioned games which are search
scene after search scene. My first-ever HOG was the third “Mystery Case Files”
game, Ravenhearst. These days, I usually prefer IHOGs, though, because they’re
much closer to adventure games, which I always have loved and always will love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I
have taken a hiatus from IHOGs a while ago, because playing them became some
sort of chore for me and I play games for amusement, not as a job. Recently, I
went back to playing them, with the “Nightmares of the Deep” series and, the
last two days, the two “9 Clues” games. I still have quite a backlog from when
I wasn’t ready to admit I’d run out of energy for searching hidden objects and
bought new games without playing them. I will get around to them all
eventually, I guess, but not at the moment. Pacing myself a little seems like a
good key to keep having fun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So,
what do I like and what do I hate about IHOGs? Here’s a few of my thoughts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What
I really hate about IHOGs is when they hand you a strong tool, like a crowbar,
but insist you can’t use it to open doors or drawers, because those need a key.
When I’m caught in some kind of old, creepy asylum which has been bereft of
living inhabitants for years (and you’d be surprised at how often that happens
in IHOGs), I don’t care for the damage of a door, I want to get through it
ASAP. If I happen to have a crowbar in my bag, I will pull it out and just
break down that annoying door. Only, the game doesn’t let me and I find that
aggravating.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another
thing I really hate is when games come with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing -
meaning you have to walk through half of the game’s world to pick up something
and then back to where you started to use it. Some adventures do that as well
and it’s no less annoying, but in IHOGs, it gets even worse if the game makes
you go back through half of the game world to play an hidden object scene to
get the object you need. It’s not ‘oops, I forgot picking up that crowbar by
the gate I came in through, silly me,’ it’s ‘I’ve spent twenty minutes by that
gate, doing a scene, using seven objects, playing a mini-game, and now I’m
supposed to go traipsing back for another search scene, instead of doing one
two screens from here.’ In recent years, most IHOGs come with a map, which
makes things more bearable, if it serves for quick travel, but it’s still
annoying. “MCF: Fate’s Carnival” was a recent game which played that ‘you have
to go back again’ card for all it was worth and even more. Towards the end, you
have to comb through all of the screens again for stuff, just to make the game
longer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Sometimes,
there’s no logical connection between what you look for in search scenes and
what you gain from them, which I also find quite annoying. That is never true,
of course, for the FROGs, the Fragmented Objects Games, where you need to find
pieces of an object in the search scenes. But there are far less FROGs around (even
though the “Dark Parables” series is still going strong).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There
are also certain mini-games I’m not very fond of, but those are easily taken
care of by using the skip button, so I don’t mind it that much. And I will
never, not in a thousand years, keep the solution for the 8-Queens-problem in
mind. (In case you have avoided that one so far, it’s a classic where you need
to put 8 queens on a chessboard so none of them can strike the others.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Naturally,
what I like about IHOGs outweighs what I hate about them, otherwise I would
have stopped playing that kind of game a long time ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">IHOGs
have a story they tell, they’re no longer only about beating the search scenes
(although I like a few pure HOGs from Playrix I replay every now and again). In
many, the search scenes have become a mere nuisance, something you need to do,
like a mini-game you don’t really like, but can beat before the skip button is
charged up. Some games, like the new “9 Clues 2: The Ward,” even offer playing
something else instead of a search scene (in this game or the “Nightmares of
the Deep” series, you can play Match 3 scenes instead).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Good
IHOGs are a lot like adventures - a genre which was supposed to die out a few
years ago. At any rate, that was the reason Frogware gave for making the sequel
to the adventure “Dracula: Origins” an IHOG (“Dracula: Love Kills”) instead.
Adventures have recovered, as I knew they would, but good IHOGs are a lot like ‘light’
adventures. They deliver the story and the interactive part without as much
item-gathering and puzzle-solving as a ‘true,’ full-fledged adventure. As a
matter of fact, there are games which are often classified as IHOGs, but have
no search scenes (like the “Witch’s Prison” series) or only have very few
search scenes overall, which makes them feel more like adventures.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">IHOGs
are also the games most likely to come out as Collector’s Editions (which is a
topic all by itself) and quite some of them come with achievements of some
kind. Some companies do almost too many achievements for their games and you
get a new achievement done every few minutes. I’m not a natural achievement
hunter and usually simply take all the achievements I get without working on
getting more, but some people I know will play a game several times, just to
get all of the achievements down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I
also do like the search scenes, in moderation - even though I suspect they were
the main reason why I did have to take that hiatus a while ago. I like quite
some of the mini-games - although those are in quite some modern adventures as
well. I like good graphics, preferring drawn art to photographs on the whole. I
rarely leave the sound on, admittedly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In moderation, I’m still a
fan of IHOGs, although, given a choice, I will prefer playing a good adventure
to playing an IHOG. They are more entertaining than the pure HOGs, but there
are times for both of them.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-11011508819677397472015-07-19T21:14:00.002+02:002015-07-19T21:14:47.692+02:00The Adventures of Prince Ivan<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I
really do enjoy playing visual novels and there are some I have played more
than once not just for unlocking all pictures of a gallery. The lead of those
is definitely taken by “<a href="http://darkeroticagames.blogspot.de/2013/12/adventures-of-prince-ivan-russian-fairy.html">The
Adventures of Prince Ivan</a>” which, apart from being a really fun game, is
also for free. Also take a look at the other games on that side - Morgan Hawke
makes good and fun games. Try “The Visitor” while you’re there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZFbW3296OFfbGABIL0OjRyCvQL5wLSOhzHPP0oYmzUqY3qwdJo8or8qXgm9HKIwYHOH61cFR-5NeKtnA51GVJkok2W60-oD38zV3LqjmCa_qXmBXG8DHomFzM6vdjQcaud6NMA/s1600/Prince+Ivan+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZFbW3296OFfbGABIL0OjRyCvQL5wLSOhzHPP0oYmzUqY3qwdJo8or8qXgm9HKIwYHOH61cFR-5NeKtnA51GVJkok2W60-oD38zV3LqjmCa_qXmBXG8DHomFzM6vdjQcaud6NMA/s320/Prince+Ivan+2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
game is so high up my list because it doesn’t have the usual graphics of a VN,
copying the Japanese anime style. Instead, Morgan managed to create characters
(the first one which are not heavily photo-shopped photographs) which look fresh
out of an illustrated Russian fairy tale. That’s only fair, since the story is
basically motifs from several Russian fairy tales rolled into one and turned
into a new story. The graphics are bright and the photo-shopped backgrounds
blend in nicely enough with the drawn characters. It’s a highly enjoyable
mixture.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
game itself tells the story of Prince Ivan, youngest of the three sons of a
Tsar, and Princess Elena, oldest daughter of another Tsar and on a quest to
find a suitable bridegroom. Elena, who insist on not being Elena the Beautiful,
but Elena the Wise, is disguised as a man, so she can travel safely, making
good use of a hat given to her by Baba Yaga, who happens to be Ivan’s
great-grandmother on his mother’s side. Ivan is in possession of a feather
which shows him the truth, also given to him by his great-grandmother. He
starts plotting his ‘happily ever after’ the moment he first lays eyes upon
Elena - proving his family wrong, since his father and his brothers see him as
dumb and slow in the head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When
Elena and Ivan fail to capture the fire bird stealing golden apples from Ivan’s
father, they manage to keep a feather. The lure of the brightly-glowing feather
makes the Tsar send out his two older sons to find it, so Ivan sets out as well
and Elena accompanies him, after learning from Baba Yaga that this quest will
also lead her to what she desires. Everything seems to go well for the two
until Ivan’s horse gets eaten by a wolf - who then offers to take the place of
the delicious horse he’s had. That’s when things start to get very weird- and
not just because the wolf can talk.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85OQNZfowWiVJ0Iof7-K0Wqu8QDe9z6uMtFB_AS_UkW1hovGn8d65Nz2Lcq1Njdhwazy8g08HiRvbeg-YqoOmK17mbc6n5opwjck_V-3liRdnkMpE2CcG4pI0RGphyphenhyphensAJSngxzQ/s1600/Prince+Ivan+1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85OQNZfowWiVJ0Iof7-K0Wqu8QDe9z6uMtFB_AS_UkW1hovGn8d65Nz2Lcq1Njdhwazy8g08HiRvbeg-YqoOmK17mbc6n5opwjck_V-3liRdnkMpE2CcG4pI0RGphyphenhyphensAJSngxzQ/s320/Prince+Ivan+1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The game has four endings,
one mini-game (a labyrinth, but with a map provided), a lot of fun dialogue,
nice graphics, and a good story. Did I also mention it’s for free? What more
motivation do you need to try it out?</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-78344620848927728552015-06-30T13:50:00.002+02:002015-06-30T13:56:17.673+02:00Sad Truth about Greece<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Honestly,
I still wonder why my country - and several others - shy away from doing away
with Greece’s debts and allowing them a restart of their system. It must be
obvious to everyone and their blind grandmother that anything else will simply
fail. Of course, all the banks who have backed up the debts don’t want that -
and we know how important the thoughts of the banks and ‘the economy’ are for
our politicians. The cuts (right down to getting money out of your own bank
account, if you happen to be a Greek) don’t hit those who are really
responsible for it, after all. Who is responsible? The rich who don’t pay
taxes. Those live everywhere, but in Greece, they’ve really lived out their
dreams.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Look, none of us wants to pay taxes. Nobody wants to hand over some of their
hard-earned money (the money someone earned the hard way for them at some
point, anyway) to the government, instead of buying the tenth Ferrari.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But
the government doesn’t take that money just to fill its own pockets. They pay
for social security, public schools and hospitals, public transports, roads,
the police force, the army, and oodles of other things. The government keeps
the infrastructure of the country working and makes sure people can live in
peace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So,
you’re a billionaire and say you have your riches, your private school and
hospital, your car, and you also could afford to pay some security company for
the protection of your family and your possessions. True, but your car is
driving on roads kept in working condition by the government. The teachers in
your private school, the nurses (and some doctors) in the private hospital, and
the security personnel most likely went to public schools themselves, some of
them will most likely also have been to public universities. And no matter how
many security guards you pay for, if the whole economy breaks down and riots
start, your possessions and family aren’t safe at all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
problem with rich people don’t paying their taxes is similar to the problem
with telling the banks to stuff it and accept defeat. Both are very cosy with
politicians. They pay for political campaigns. They offer jobs after the
political career or ‘consultant positions’ throughout it. And for that, they
can be sure to be on the winning side of new laws and other political
decisions. Thus, there’s no real pressure put on Greek billionaires who don’t pay
taxes and have moved abroad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What
I would do? I’d tell them to either pay their taxes or be throw out of the
country for good. If they ever come back afterwards - even if it’s just the
plane touching down in Athens to fill the tank -, they’ll be arrested on the
spot and kept in jail until the outstanding taxes have been paid. It’s probably
not legal, but it would be effective. How many of those people would want to
lose the country they consider their home? Perhaps lose all the property they
still own back home (confiscated to get at least some of their debts paid off)?
They’d be without citizenship (although they could probably ‘buy’ their way
into another). They’d be outed for the criminals they are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Would
it be right on a moral level? I’d say yes. If<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>they don’t pay for the state they’re part of, even though they can
afford to (unlike the people at the other end of that scale who simply have no
money to pay taxes from), they don’t deserve to be a part any longer. Community
(and a state is nothing else) only works when everyone does something to keep
it working. Once upon a time, everyone could put in a few hours of work or,
perhaps, donate some of their harvest. But we’ve all grown specialized and so
we need the government to organize all the community stuff and pay people to do
it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Most
of the rich Greeks would probably pay their outstanding taxes and would
continue to pay them later on. I think only a minority would really risk having
all their connections with their home country severed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What the EU is doing, on
the other hand, is basically pushing Greece deeper and deeper into misery. Punishing
the normal people for something they didn’t do and had no power to prevent. It’s
not the rich ones who now ‘pay’ with unemployment and poverty, it’s the normal
people and those who were poor to begin with.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-53663519688957086412015-06-25T23:28:00.000+02:002015-06-25T23:31:49.099+02:00What women find attractive<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
idea for this article was spawned in a discussion on FB with a guy who, I’m
pretty sure, was just trying to troll me. Still, he did help me list once more
what I (and quite a few other women, I guess) find attractive in a man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEwL0fa-IaiWw8jr5Odtaj1FXKROYZkAf0kQS7-1r54Uk9IkTZ2mS3nE7KA-FMIP5kumy27Xs49kFuAp_52oW3ULopCVu-tan4mHaIwFEPTA4fzjBjrJF-04h8ggIG0puS-awZQ/s1600/Not+listening.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEwL0fa-IaiWw8jr5Odtaj1FXKROYZkAf0kQS7-1r54Uk9IkTZ2mS3nE7KA-FMIP5kumy27Xs49kFuAp_52oW3ULopCVu-tan4mHaIwFEPTA4fzjBjrJF-04h8ggIG0puS-awZQ/s320/Not+listening.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
picture does serve a purpose, yes. The discussion was about why women should
prefer the guy on the left to the guy on the right. For those of you not
interested in movies/action movies/comic movies: the guy on the left is Chris
Hemsworth playing Marvel’s Thor and the guy on the right is Tom Hiddleston
playing Marvel’s Loki. The still was taken from the first “Thor” movie.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now,
don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Mr. Hemsworth is ugly and I’m sure he’s a
nice guy, too, but what guys don’t seem to get is that ‘muscled and blonde’
doesn’t suffice to entice all women. Neither does being a hero.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
guy I argued with (I do enjoy arguing) tried to show Mr. Hemsworth’s good sides
by listing Mr. Hiddleston’s bad sides: Loki being scrawny and asymmetrical. First
of all, when looking at a front centre picture of Tom Hiddleston’s face, I don’t
really spot any visible asymmetry - although I will admit no person is 100%
symmetrical. What of being scrawny, then? What the guy doesn’t seem to get
about women looking at men is that many of us prefer the ‘runner’s build’ (like
Mr. Hiddleston’s) to the more muscled athlete’s build of Mr. Hemsworth (especially
the look of him in “Thor: The Dark World” … seriously, what are they serving in
Asgard? Only steroids?). I get how and why they look different, since Thor is
supposed to be much more of a warrior than Loki (who relies more on
magic/intelligence).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let’s
list what I (and probably quite some others) tend to notice about guys at
first.</span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Eyes.
Mr. Hemsworth has very beautiful blue eyes, no doubt, but those of Mr.
Hiddleston are a very charming and enchanting green.</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"></span></span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Smile.
Both men have a very charming smile, but there’s just a very nice hint of
boyish, mischievous charms in Mr. Hiddleston’s. Nice teeth are an addition to
that category, but those usually are even and white with young actors.</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Hands.
I haven’t paid that much attention to Mr. Hemsworth’s hands so far, but Mr.
Hiddleston has long, sensitive fingers - a turn on not just for me.</span></li>
<li><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Voice.
It might surprise men, but women really do have a thing for guys with a strong,
deep voice. Both gentlemen have a very nice voice, but Mr. Hiddleston’s catches
me a bit more.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As
you can see, build doesn’t feature in that first list, although, to a certain
degree, height does. Women like men who are taller than them. Since both Mr.
Hemsworth and Mr. Hiddleston are quite tall (1,93 m and 1,87 m respectively),
there’s no clear winner there, they’re both definitely taller than the average
woman (or my own meagre 1,68 m).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now
to the question why quite some women prefer villains to heroes. Some might say
it’s a proof of growing up - no longer looking for your Prince Charming. This
is my personal theory, there’s no scientific or other proof it’s right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let’s
be honest, movies, comics, or other stories are infused with our morals. And
our morals don’t allow the evil to win. Therefore, as unrealistic as it might
seem, the hero will, in the end, always vanquish the villain. However, in
reality, things never go that smoothly. Women know that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In
reality, villains would probably win in at least 8 out of 10 cases. They are
better organized, they have minions, they have a lot of money, they have
supreme technology, they have no qualms about using any means at their disposal,
they are utterly ruthless. If you look at news from everywhere, you will
realize that is what usually wins you whatever you’re going for.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yes,
their ruthlessness doesn’t really make them good partners (but all alphas are
bad partners long-term, that includes quite some heroes as well), but they have
the means to support a lover and their children - and to keep them protected,
if they consider it in their best interest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Villains
know what they want and they take it. That’s another point. There’s not much of
a ‘will they/won’t they’ with villains. If they want, they will. While it might
seem charming that an attractive hero is unsure about breaching the topic of
sympathy and love to a woman who, obviously, likes him very much, it does grow
old quickly. As love interest of a hero, you’re either going for a long (years
or even decades in comics is quite possible) waiting time or you end up dead
after he has declared his love and his arch-nemesis decides to kill you to
strike at the hero.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Since
heroes adhere to a moral codex which frowns upon killing the innocent (and if
you’re a villain’s love interest, but not villainous yourself, you are an
innocent for them), you don’t have to worry about a hero to kill you, because
your boyfriend happens to be a villain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
bad boy whom women want to help is a romantic idea, too. Yes, in reality it’s
next to impossible to change someone, so if you go for a relationship, don’t do
so thinking you can change the parts of a person you don’t like. But in a
story, it’s possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another
reason to like Loki, despite him being a villain (in “Thor” and “The Avengers,”
he’s more of an anti-hero in “Thor: The Dark World”), is how many facets the
writers have worked into him. Villains tend to be more complicated and complex
than heroes. There’s not much to being a hero, to doing the right thing, but
these days, becoming a villain needs to be justified.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Loki
is the younger brother, the adopted one, the one in the shadows, the one who
has been lied to all his life. He snaps and slashes back. He tries to take what
he considers his right (become king of a realm, if not Asgard, then
Midgard/Earth). Women can understand that and identify with it. He doesn’t do
evil, because it’s evil (no villain these days does). He doesn’t just do it for
the money and the power. He has a definite deficit and thinks ruling Earth will
fill it. It won’t, we know that, but it makes him someone to relate to.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Loki
has heaps of charm, his silver tongue (and in Norse mythology also an
insatiable appetite for sex, but that’s not in Marvel’s universe), his
intelligence. He’s a guy you can talk to. A guy who would flatter you in
interesting ways, if he wants something from you (be it information, assistance
- or plain sex).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxamzPvXHwHSzsN9Z8OD9k2lXdOostMD0-i8hjycN4LcNZzV1RqRp1s74Z1Z1uEsNUMrmZ6cOFemN7_Ssuf9rSWZqwMrOGJLAonhXiq29hqLoQ-XW_lIYuTo1qA4_xMfTn8DsO6g/s1600/Suggestion126.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxamzPvXHwHSzsN9Z8OD9k2lXdOostMD0-i8hjycN4LcNZzV1RqRp1s74Z1Z1uEsNUMrmZ6cOFemN7_Ssuf9rSWZqwMrOGJLAonhXiq29hqLoQ-XW_lIYuTo1qA4_xMfTn8DsO6g/s320/Suggestion126.png" width="284" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That’s
why there’s a blog like <a href="http://lokis-dirty-whispers.tumblr.com/">Loki’s
Dirty Whispers</a> (to be fair, there’s also one for <a href="http://thors-naughty-whispers.tumblr.com/">Thor</a>). Loki clearly would
strive to be the dominant in a relationship, but that’s not necessarily bad.
There’s a clear difference between being dominant and being abusive (take heed,
Mr. Grey). A relationship with Loki probably would be short, but it would also
be rather interesting. Certainly not boring.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, what do women find
attractive in a guy? Eyes, mouth, teeth, hands, voice, height first and
foremost. Then they’ll look for the character more than the body - honestly. My
mum always wanted a tall, blond guy, she ended up with a short, dark-haired
one. Yet, my parents have been happily married for 50 years. Okay, okay, women
also look at men’s asses. Enough said.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-88215894776366518232015-05-17T18:36:00.002+02:002015-05-17T18:36:49.953+02:00Back to the Dungeon<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When
Bullfrog (why, oh why, did they have to be swallowed by EA?) released “Dungeon
Keeper,” I was quite in front of the line to buy it. When they released the
sequel “Dungeon Keeper 2” later on, I was snatching that one up ASAP as well. I
like good games which combine different genres (building, strategy, and a
little resource management in the DK games) and I like being evil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Because
that is the main selling point of DK, you see. Instead of playing the hero who
enters the dungeon and raids everything (as in basically every RPG), you play
the keeper of the dungeon, a floating hand, who is building the dungeon and
keeping the workforce happy. Your job is it to overcome other keepers and
defeat the heroes to take control of the realms, one after another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
game comes with great humour and the second part really makes everything
better, unlike with many other games over the years. You might lose one of the
strongest monsters of the first part (the Horned Reaper, also known as Horny),
but for that you gain him as a special creature you can only call at certain
points. It’s probably for the best - Horny was an extremely strong monster and
made the game too easy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
principle of DK is easy enough to understand. You start out with nothing but
the Dungeon Heart (the source of your powers) and a few Imps (your workers).
You have to excavate space out of the soil and turn them into special rooms.
The rooms all have a use, of course. You also need to find a portal, so
creatures can enter you dungeon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
Lair will serve as sleeping spot for your creatures (they become unhappy
without a sleeping spot in the Lair). The Hatchery offers tasty chickens for
your creatures to eat (some creatures will get extremely upset without food).
The Library attracts Warlocks who will research your spells and make them
better (and the Warlocks are good ranged fighters). The list goes on, of
course, but those are the first few rooms you can build in the game.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Certain
rooms attract certain creatures. Without a library, no Warlocks. Without a
Guard Room, no Dark Elves. Without a Torture Chamber, no Iron Maidens (they’re
pretty powerful fighters and good at ‘encouraging’ caught enemies to switch
sides). Some rooms also create creatures (Prisons create Skeletons, Graveyards
create Vampires) from captured or dead enemies.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You
can possess your own creatures, which allows you to lead a group somewhere they
can’t or won’t go otherwise. It also allows you to expand your dungeon tiles in
a certain direction (by possessing an Imp) or to explore the dungeon in the way
you want to (by possessing a suitable creature, preferably a Firefly).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
first half of a typical game is building up first the dungeon (excavating and
defining rooms, finding and mining gold), then the army. Training creatures in
the Training Room (also available early), having spells researched or optimized
in the Library, exploring the surroundings, trying to spot some secrets
somewhere.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
second half of a typical game is finding your enemy (or enemies) and smashing
them. Strong creatures are better against foes, battle makes them stronger. (The
Training Room can only train your creatures to level 4, the Arena later allows
training to a higher level, but only in battle your creatures can reach the top
level, 10.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">To
protect your own Dungeon Heart (if you lose it, you lose the game), you can
build several traps and you can create doors to block off small openings (one
tile wide). Guard Rooms are usually manned by Dark Elves who will alert you to
any kind of intruder and attack them immediately, so it’s a good idea to build
them at the border of your territory or in an area where there’s a Hero Gate (those
are gates through which heroes will enter you dungeon).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Enemy
rooms can be taken over, enemy tiles will be converted into yours by your Imps.
You can take over a complete dungeon from a rival Keeper, if you manage to
destroy the heart. That will allow you to expand your own dungeon cheaply,
since you don’t need to pay for the rooms you take over. Rooms are not
attacked, so they won’t be destroyed in the battle for dominance. Sometimes the
fortress of the lord of the realm will also have rooms you can take over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Dungeon Keeper” and “Dungeon
Keeper 2” are available from GOG by now, set up to work on modern machines. I
grabbed them from there the moment they were released again. And recently, I’ve
gone back to the dungeon, to teach those pesky heroes with their morals a thing
or two about angering the Keeper. Although I think, it might be even worse to
anger Horny, he has a huge scythe, not just a big hand.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-74229024812103353012015-04-25T21:16:00.002+02:002015-04-25T21:16:32.164+02:00Penny Dreadful<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yesterday,
I got my hands on the first season of “Penny Dreadful.” Today, I started
watching the episodes and simply couldn’t stop until I had seen all eight of
them. They were even better, because they didn’t feel or look like your average
‘turn of the century’ series done at the moment. There’s series like “Ripper
Street” which are great on their own, but especially that one never really
caught me. “Penny Dreadful” does a lot of things in a different way and that is
what makes it so great.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Years
ago, when “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” came out (the movie which put
Sean Connery off acting), there was a good base to it, but the realisation was
bad. The comic series it’s based on, also called “The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen” and done by Alan Moore, is a very good, very tight, and very well
structured series. It introduces characters well. It gives the characters a
good background and a believable set of traits. It makes the story run well and
it takes its time. Which is precisely where the movie failed - badly. Fact is,
if you want to bring together a group of characters from several novels (or
other backgrounds), you need time to bring them all together. You can’t do a
total of three or so minutes for every character as they do in the movie. But
you can do a total of almost one episode per character in a series, which is
what “Penny Dreadful” does.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a lot of horror stories were
written and published, usually in the form of a penny dreadful, a weekly or
monthly magazine filled with stories, cheap, printed like a newspaper,
available for everyone. They in turn inspired authors to write more of that
type, to take those scares to the ‘better’ market. “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”
and “The Mysterious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” bring together the three
most important pieces of what Stephen King called the ‘Tarot’ of horror in his
book “Danse Macabre.” The vampire, the creature, and the werewolf (because that
is, deep down, what the story of Dr. Jekyll and his other self comes down to). Even
though the series holds back on the werewolf for a long time, it brings
together all three of the archetypes, including the demonic as well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Then
there’s the topic of life, of elongating life. It shows, of course, with Dr.
Frankenstein, but also with the vampires (ever-lasting existence), with Dorian
Grey (and his deal with the devil to stay young), and with Brona (who is on the
verge of death and doesn’t want to die).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“Penny
Dreadful” takes it slow with all those topics. It paces itself very well. We
are introduced to the characters, to their stories, to their backgrounds. We
are introduced to Victorian London (filmed in Dublin), to Victorian society
with all its facets (including the dirties sides). We are pushed bit by bit
into things, learning slowly what is going on actually.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
ending(s) of the story is(are) surprising enough, proving the old proverb of
being careful of what you wish for (to Lord Malcolm). Things get turned upside
down in the end, cards get shuffled, fates get dealt anew for most characters.
The series leaves us hanging with very important questions: does Isabella desire
to be normal, to be rid of everything dark about her? And if she does not, will
she become what fate has chosen her to be? But there are similar questions
attached to the other characters. What will become of Victor and his first ‘son?’
What will become of Ethan, now that he has shown his dark side in England? What
will the master do, now that his bargaining chip is gone? (One question which
bothered me during most of the series is where the hell the vampire masters get
those masses of slaves from. Another was why all of those develop white hair,
especially why all of the woman grow long, flowing, pure-white locks.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I really enjoyed watching
the first season of “Penny Dreadful” and I’m now looking forward to season two
which has already been confirmed. I will also watch the episodes again at my
leisure. The series is a rare gem and deserves to be treasured.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-36021270797824735742015-04-14T15:47:00.002+02:002015-04-14T15:47:41.646+02:00Thoughts about the RPG Maker and some unusual games<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">After
my rant last night, I have a more relaxed and positive post here. It’s about
the RPG Maker, <a href="http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/products/programs/rpg-maker-vx-ace">a tool for
making your own old-school, old-console RPGs</a>. I’ve owned and used the RPG
Maker (in various versions) for several years now, having fun with it and, most
of the time, getting caught up in figuring out aspects of a new project instead
of finishing it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While
you can really make a professional game with the tool (check <a href="http://aveyond.com/">Amaranth Games</a> for a lot of those), it’s
actually cheap enough for a non-professional to buy and easy enough for a
non-professional to use. You paint your maps with tiles, add a few events with
pre-defined commands (which are pretty straight-forward), and export the whole
thing as an installation file you can share with whomever you want. You can add
your own tiles (there’s free ones as well as sets to buy in the shop), your own
music, your own characters (the ACE, the newest version, even has a character
generator), and your own scripts to make the game do something different.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And
this is where this post actually starts for me. You can’t just make RPGs with
the RPG Maker (although you can surely make those and they can be a lot of fun),
you can also make other games, if you can script. I can’t, but I can appreciate
those who can.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Three
of those other games will feature in this post, two I wrote about before and
one I never mentioned so far.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
first one is “<a href="http://www.johnwizard.com/game.php?game=10">Madame
Extravaganza’s Monster Emporium</a>” by John Wizard Games. It’s a
monster-gathering game of sorts. It has turn-based battles like a regular RPG
Maker game, but you buy your monsters from Madame Extravaganza and earn money
by going into randomly-generated dungeons and fighting your way through normal
monsters and one boss per dungeon. After you won the boss fight, you get
rewards (you can also find stuff in the dungeons). There’s different types with
different monsters which unlock as you level up (so will your monsters). You
can customize your monsters by choosing which attacks they will use and you can
exchange members of your group whenever you’re in the town and not in a dungeon
(if you have more than 3 monsters, of course). I admit I haven’t finished this
game, because I just can’t get two of the orbs I need to unlock the last area
and I just can’t get some of the special rooms in the dungeons I need to spot
all monsters (you need to fight a monster and defeat it once before you can buy
it). That’s the downside of Madame Extravaganza.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
second one is “<a href="http://www.johnwizard.com/game.php?game=11">Our Love
Will Grow</a>,” also by John Wizard Games. It’s a game like “Harvest Moon” or “Animal
Crossing.” You have your own farm, you start growing crops, you get new seeds
in a while, you also can pick stuff in the forest, keep animals (cows, sheep,
chicken, bees, and a dog), mine for stones, iron, silver, gold, and gemstones,
and find the love of our life. There’s regular parties in town where you can
meet several different women whom you can woo. If you manage to get one of them
to marry you, you can even have a child. This, of course, requires a top-kept
farm and a big farmhouse instead of the small hovel you start with. I haven’t
finished that one, either, but I did a lot of farming and I had a lot of fun
with it so far. And one of those days, I will get all I need to propose to the
girl of my character’s dreams and they will have a kid and live happily forever
after on their farm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
last game is “<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/346270/">Fortune’s
Tavern</a>” by Michael Flynn (available on Steam). It’s not an RPG and it has
some aspects from both games I already mentioned. Like “Madame Extravaganza,”
it offers various pets for you to raise and keep. They accompany you into the
forest behind the tavern, where you go working on quests (usually ‘find this’
or ‘find out about that’). Your main job, however, is to run and to renovate
the tavern itself, so you get more guests and make more money and can do even
more for the tavern. There’s three fractions you can cater to, there’s
different additional buildings you can rebuild and put to use. On the whole,
you can do a lot of stuff in the game and they just added a DLC where you can take
over the job of Mayor for the nearby town of Fortune, as well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All three games are a lot
of fun and not the usual RPGs you might expect. And they show that with the
ability to use the right scripting language, you can make a lot of different
things with a relatively cheap and mundane tool.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-55585189051493405982015-04-13T23:02:00.000+02:002015-04-13T23:02:04.928+02:00Easier than getting a law passed<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Okay,
I had decided after my burnout that I didn’t want to get annoyed about things
again that easily, but after quite some recent stuff about people denying
services of various kinds to others based on their race/gender/sexual
orientation, I have something to say about the topic myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If
you have a problem with serving a person in your job because said person is,
according to your eyes or to that personal belief system of yours, the wrong
race/gender/sexual orientation or whatever, there is a much easier solution
than passing laws: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Don’t work in a service job</span></b>. Yes, it is that easy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If
you take a job in service, no matter whether as a cashier, a pharmacist, a
doctor (technically, doctors and nurses also work in service, since they
provide health service), a pizza baker, or something else, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">you will have to be ready to serve everyone</span></b>
- as long as they are ready to uphold their part of the deal and hand you money
for it. It doesn’t matter what your religious book or your preacher or your
conscience has to say about it. If your conscience tells you to absolutely not
do it again, then get another job, one where you don’t have to do that again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And
if you consider yourself a Christian, you might want to read all of your holy
book one of these days, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">not just the part that justifies your prejudices</span></b>.
It’s going to take a while, especially if you read all of it, Old and New
Testament. You might be shocked by the content especially of the New Testament.
You see, this guy called Jesus whom you believe in, he had a strange way of
seeing things. In essence, he only wanted people to do one thing: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">be nice to others</span></b>.
He sided with the poorest, with the outcasts of society. And he said there was
only one rule to follow: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">love others like you love yourself</span></b> (or, in some
cases of extreme self-loathing, perhaps a little more than yourself).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
same, by the way, goes for the religious organisations operating public places
over here in Germany, like kindergartens, schools, or hospitals. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Stop looking down
on people who you think have done the wrong thing</span></b>. Stop choosing
your employees merely by their religious belief and their marital status (nobody
who got divorced and remarried is allowed to work in a Roman-Catholic
kindergarten, school, or hospital). You want to serve society? You want to
actually get people to listen to what you say? You want your slice of the cake?
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">Then act like a
responsible part of society and accept its reality</span></b>. Divorce is
reality, religious freedom is reality. Deal with it!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">You don’t need to make
laws to allow people to discriminate against others based on their personal
belief. What you need, is to make laws to forbid people to discriminate against
others for whatever reason (religious belief, race, gender, sexual orientation,
whatever).</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-47892885358494587982015-04-02T22:39:00.000+02:002015-04-02T22:39:52.162+02:00Digital Dress-Up Dolls<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I
admit I loved playing with paper dolls as a kid. I loved dressing them and
making new dresses from paper (although my creations definitely left something
to be desired). I’ve not thought about them for a long time, though, ever since
my dolls went the way of everything made of paper and ripped. But today I
stumbled over <a href="http://www.dolldivine.com/">a nice website</a> dedicated
to all those little Flash games out there which are basically digital paper
dolls. I spent a very funny afternoon making several different types of those
dolls. Some of them I will show here, so it’s going to be a picture heavy post
this time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
<a href="http://www.dolldivine.com/dandy-maker.php">Dandy Maker</a> was my
original link to the site, shared by a Steampunk group on Facebook. I only made
two Dandies there so far and only took a snapshot of one, so here he is:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYE_V7cW0cgMfl7SCYbLJh_n96zaYkqxp-_ZcAXlDrSRp-vCa1QhmzVCE4P8pbASpOfUawx8uMRAbRZSaLb_0FKSldMaVerGBiv0KoO81ilPLBIYs44iHGEENbEV78VP2bRMgaVA/s1600/British+Dandy+01.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYE_V7cW0cgMfl7SCYbLJh_n96zaYkqxp-_ZcAXlDrSRp-vCa1QhmzVCE4P8pbASpOfUawx8uMRAbRZSaLb_0FKSldMaVerGBiv0KoO81ilPLBIYs44iHGEENbEV78VP2bRMgaVA/s1600/British+Dandy+01.png" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Same
time period (roughly), but opposite gender is the <a href="http://www.dolldivine.com/victorian-butterfly.php">Victorian Butterfly</a>.
I made three of them, one very regular, one more Steampunk-ish, and one rather
dressed for bed than for society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug3YInLeKMWao3Rkkm_ZJ0ZN8dJUPgrhNPdunSmRUmCzlrCvMUgiCEZCh3pbC0xqGF_4gGGkK1nd0BO75uxeGL0S9CaEQdjK3KlgplTKkegIviVJexlbBkxVWz1GIWwvH60Sh8g/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug3YInLeKMWao3Rkkm_ZJ0ZN8dJUPgrhNPdunSmRUmCzlrCvMUgiCEZCh3pbC0xqGF_4gGGkK1nd0BO75uxeGL0S9CaEQdjK3KlgplTKkegIviVJexlbBkxVWz1GIWwvH60Sh8g/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+01.png" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBSZ_Bwe7HPbMJB06jFh5He2ynIkiBYnHiACng2aGmN2qYCkaf_8WU-SsmFpdzbeqBafMkkakX-67jPGZi2HejYGfOO1Zm83ocaAqWZZIwqQ_ssoXtL2M2sfAN4KKsGyawpBIkg/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBSZ_Bwe7HPbMJB06jFh5He2ynIkiBYnHiACng2aGmN2qYCkaf_8WU-SsmFpdzbeqBafMkkakX-67jPGZi2HejYGfOO1Zm83ocaAqWZZIwqQ_ssoXtL2M2sfAN4KKsGyawpBIkg/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+02.png" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzqjs_yFg1czATTYG7PnerF4JKxxxnSNtafZGkGBCOREHx68tdB0NfgU8m6YKSLLiqhjiCpHEPn2Uyd2mmovxXMk1s7iR-W19AzQ7cNAc9b1I-Rvg38dv3fxi9I7Ph2SAvtiNTUQ/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+03.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzqjs_yFg1czATTYG7PnerF4JKxxxnSNtafZGkGBCOREHx68tdB0NfgU8m6YKSLLiqhjiCpHEPn2Uyd2mmovxXMk1s7iR-W19AzQ7cNAc9b1I-Rvg38dv3fxi9I7Ph2SAvtiNTUQ/s1600/Victorian+Butterfly+03.png" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The
doll I made most use of so far was <a href="http://www.dolldivine.com/x-girl.php">X-Girl</a>, which allows you to
create a female comic character. I made nine of them already and I’m not going
to share them all here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqyD9-G2dMddvNhTnia0plyJVMHEfrg-y_80cmWtkgu_futNmomDbxkSYDxye_roXSFm7j1jC_3UE2WAlNSL_mWGDy0kXJy9_jfAOFkUQdNYZ7XAyDQN1TmJiNmTmiNlRE0GPMg/s1600/X-Girl+02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqyD9-G2dMddvNhTnia0plyJVMHEfrg-y_80cmWtkgu_futNmomDbxkSYDxye_roXSFm7j1jC_3UE2WAlNSL_mWGDy0kXJy9_jfAOFkUQdNYZ7XAyDQN1TmJiNmTmiNlRE0GPMg/s1600/X-Girl+02.png" height="320" width="187" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuoWN6weMWXVnurDcwg_jOOv1qnpby0A9_aKPaYJ3DXi8uZtb6CQmdQFL0whEWoSQ0_lNKLbr1FsQoVL0eFQhQIXz8Gxl7xjS1RzEKGhxpME9fNE0pDAYwoPh12_dgGanJAbvFA/s1600/X-Girl+03.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhuoWN6weMWXVnurDcwg_jOOv1qnpby0A9_aKPaYJ3DXi8uZtb6CQmdQFL0whEWoSQ0_lNKLbr1FsQoVL0eFQhQIXz8Gxl7xjS1RzEKGhxpME9fNE0pDAYwoPh12_dgGanJAbvFA/s1600/X-Girl+03.png" height="320" width="232" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbEdUo6LPz9XAwIXfr5FvbBq1s7e0q_Ldl6BRycqx_EogodSkfCAeBHjt1VfgDkl1aUza74_mV-9NEtUd5Bej-5-FO0Wm5Wk9CZZLr6w2xEVtQdI3QCflW6XVzaxbpSU9dcW6vIA/s1600/X-Girl+06.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbEdUo6LPz9XAwIXfr5FvbBq1s7e0q_Ldl6BRycqx_EogodSkfCAeBHjt1VfgDkl1aUza74_mV-9NEtUd5Bej-5-FO0Wm5Wk9CZZLr6w2xEVtQdI3QCflW6XVzaxbpSU9dcW6vIA/s1600/X-Girl+06.png" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwKs-0Aqe2msBSRUaIth7SucpzgLPqGdiDbAC2zcB4rgSCy63oNHtcIgtKvJx5gg_OINIio-2pVnFNg6aF86CujIVfCRvV6m1QclYNULEm_pFhMcN2MR4HQVAAD1BSjYpeHc-jQ/s1600/X-Girl+07.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwKs-0Aqe2msBSRUaIth7SucpzgLPqGdiDbAC2zcB4rgSCy63oNHtcIgtKvJx5gg_OINIio-2pVnFNg6aF86CujIVfCRvV6m1QclYNULEm_pFhMcN2MR4HQVAAD1BSjYpeHc-jQ/s1600/X-Girl+07.png" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another
doll I had a lot of fun with was <a href="http://www.dolldivine.com/twisted-princess-dress-up-game.php">Princess of
Doom</a>. I made two princesses so far, unfortunately, you can’t put them more
into the centre of the picture, perhaps I should cut them out and post them
again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_l__pcrgirANGWU4Z5pHXEWigFrndVuGgzMAPmKB0Ooo0VEFrr_MNo1usvdD4vYvZuZ3TD6dHPHOFaxnKvflC7kkt2UR6BsrENf9fIjWpckiQE4WSs-eZLZyCA1EtQoSzNrn4g/s1600/Horror+Princess+01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_l__pcrgirANGWU4Z5pHXEWigFrndVuGgzMAPmKB0Ooo0VEFrr_MNo1usvdD4vYvZuZ3TD6dHPHOFaxnKvflC7kkt2UR6BsrENf9fIjWpckiQE4WSs-eZLZyCA1EtQoSzNrn4g/s1600/Horror+Princess+01.png" height="246" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaCaE60uFWRzoIHbbhudpbO1nDkGIQe1jB12iBnEFZSfvA6m_R4fNSzDo1eKLiwFa1oJVLkPreF89eX6cbE6Tq35ATuJ9id7VPdmfxgNdMwZ7NBereJ6OPU7tp0VHrgI5p-wVqA/s1600/Horror+Princess+02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitaCaE60uFWRzoIHbbhudpbO1nDkGIQe1jB12iBnEFZSfvA6m_R4fNSzDo1eKLiwFa1oJVLkPreF89eX6cbE6Tq35ATuJ9id7VPdmfxgNdMwZ7NBereJ6OPU7tp0VHrgI5p-wVqA/s1600/Horror+Princess+02.png" height="249" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are lots of other
dress-up dolls on that site, including most interesting time periods, a lot of
TV-series, movies, books, and games, and a lot of fantasy stuff. Give it a go,
if you enjoy playing around with such dolls.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36399250.post-34281467011574047372015-03-19T18:07:00.000+01:002015-03-19T18:07:12.694+01:00Weekend Plans<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I
haven’t done any ‘what will I do this weekend’ posts for a long time now - I
have pretty much neglected all my blogs for quite some time. I’ve stopped
getting overly annoyed about things after my burn-out some years ago and I was
getting tired of basically doing the same kind of post once a week, just to
tell you what I was reading/watching/playing - especially as my plans and my
reality often differ. However, I think I might take up my posts about plans for
the weekend again.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So,
what am I going to do this weekend?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ve
several stories that need more writing, my old enemy, the ending, is at it
again. It’s true, I find it easy to start a story, I get though the middle well
enough, but I have a hard time with the end. Perhaps, subconsciously, I don’t
want the story to end, as I like writing. Consciously, I often am not sure
where to end, since I usually think further ahead than necessary, make up much
more of my characters’ fate than I need. I should finish some smut stories I’ve
been writing (first time I got past the beginning of vampire stories in a long
time), most of them merely need a few more scenes. There’s a couple of Loki
stories which only miss a chapter or two, same goes for the retelling of a
fairy tale I did a while ago. I’ll be occupied for more than just a weekend
with all of that, though.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ll
probably be reading in “The Shadows of Sherlock Holmes,” an anthology edited by
David Stuart Davies I bought ages ago. It includes a lot of detective stories
written at the same time as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and
overshadowed by them. I have been cross-reading it before, but now I want to read
all of the stories.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ll
definitely be watching the last episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”
this weekend, as I just downloaded it from iTunes. In addition, I think of
tackling either Season 4 of “Doctor Who” (new series), the one and only season
of “Dracula,” and/or the second half of the second season of “Sleepy Hollow.” I’ve
still got a lot of catching up to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ll
also be playing some stuff, hopefully. I want to finish some TMs, namely “Sweet
Kingdom,” “The Musketeers - Victoria’s Quest,” and “Fairy Kingdom.” I’ve also
got quite some HOGs that need finishing, at least “Midnight Mysteries:
Ghostwriting” and “”Revived Legends: Titan’s Revenge” deserve to be finished
soon, since I got far with those already. I also want to go back to some
adventures I was playing, like the remakes of “Gabriel Knight - Sins of the
fathers” and “Grim Fandango.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’m sure I won’t get to
finish all I planned. I’ll definitely watch “One of Us” tomorrow or during the
weekend. I might start on “Sleepy Hollow,” since it’s only seven episodes and
the other two series I want to watch are longer (10/14 episodes). I might get
somewhere with my games, too. I should also play the second episode of “Tales
from the Borderlands” this weekend, since it just came out and I have really
been waiting for it. So much to do and little weekend.</span></b></div>
Cay Reethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13772538022666591677noreply@blogger.com0