So my siblings and I played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy tonight. It was somewhat amusing; I was kinda sorta napping, because of exhaustion, then heard the famous cry of, "So...". In my family, that word carries an ABUNDANCE of meaning, usually, about what to do, though it can be applied in other contexts. Everyone knows what the speaker means from just the one word, though. In this case, it was in fact about what to do. So I snapped awake instantly, at the ready.

We asked our older sister, who you might recall was not involved before, and she said she was alright. Since we can't do Age of Empires II anymore, the only four-player option left was our go-to game of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which we have a save file on from last year. We decided to do a refresher on the forest levels, noted how our supply of gold was steadily decreasing, then decided to risk taking on the Spider Queen...where we discovered (though in hindsight, for me, it was a rediscovery) that she is a ridiculously good farm, both for coins AND levels, with us gaining 2-4 levels per run and also gaining a massive surplus of coins, while not losing that much health--she wasn't that tough.

With this boost in power, we resumed from where we left off: the third level of the Desert Realm/Wizard's home realm, which we had previously found to be troublesome. This time through, though, we found it to be passable, albeit still a huge resource drain. The Genie proved to be a tough fight, since we didn't have the item for him (I thought we did, but it's either on a later level or we missed it when we had the chance to get it), so we took a beating there, but it was still a fight we could win.

Next, we did the first ice level, though that's all we had time for, and, as we're leaving tomorrow, that's all we could do for this year. Ah, well. It was good to advance.

To describe it, if you don't remember: I'm the Gauntlet expert in the family. While I might not have obsessed over the original (though I DID make it pretty far), for Dark Legacy, I played it so many times that I virtually memorized the single-player layout of every level, because I had the time to go through them multiple times. Sometimes I did so with cheats, even. Other times I played fair, but through farming, was so ridiculously overpowered that it was a cakewalk anyway. Unfortunately, this was years ago, multiplayer alters the levels somewhat, AND alters the dynamic, as you're constantly rushing to get things, avoid things, and struggling with the camera division. Given those three factors, it's no surprise that I've lost my edge.

My brother is always 1-3 levels above me, currently at 61 (I believe) while I'm at 60. (We started the night at like 45/47 me/him respectively.) I'm the Jester, so I can usually be up at the front, though occasionally I get my avatar confused with other players, particularly my older sister since we share colors. I also can get stuck behind my siblings, or obstacles I failed to properly navigate, or I can be choosing a route my siblings don't pursue, which means I typically take a lot of damage, don't get the most reward, but I do get a fairly large amount of front line action: I'm the only one who knows how to use combo attacks, which I use to melee minibosses. I'm faster than anyone else, and use it, but I'm not always hogging everything, even when I try.

My brother should be the slowest, as the wizard, but his level advantage makes him the second-fastest. He cruises through, uses very powerful magic (he's our designated potion-user), and deals strong turbos too. (Though I've noticed my turbo's faster: even if I launch my turbo after his, mine will be sent towards the target before his is, meaning mine impacts enemies first and I get the kills/experience from it.)

He might lack Gauntlet: Dark Legacy experience (though he did play, and was the second-most-frequent player behind me), but he played the original Gauntlet Legends extensively, to the point where while he may not know the levels, he knows how the game operates, and as a result, is very good at getting everything he needs. Though, in spite of our cash surplus, he refuses to buy potions or keys. (I spend money to max mine out. I also tend to not use my keys, letting others use theirs instead, and a result of this is that I often let them claim the rewards.)

My younger sister is the archer, so she theoretically has the talent to keep up with me, but she lacks the skill necessary to stay where she needs to be. She's much lower in level as a result, though she still contributes a fair amount. My older sister, as the slow Valkyrie, is underpowered. Her lack of aggression only furthered the gap, making her rather weak in comparison to us, but she survives.

Soyeah. That's our group. Anyway, I've mostly packed my stuff.

There are a few things I'm leaving out. Pills, because I'm not sure I have the room to take them. Shoes, because I need to wear them. My phone (and its charger), because its battery drained MUCH faster than it should have (it can normally last 48 hours and still be at least above 20% in power; this time it went less than 24 hours and was at 10% and shrinking), not to mention was mysteriously overheating in spite of lack of use. Then, there are things like my blankets (using them tonight), my pillow (same), and my laptop, because I want to blog in the morning before we leave. Similarly, the laptop bed thingy (which I blogged about before) is being left out because it's being used to support my laptop, but once I've got my blog all written for tomorrow, I'll store it away.

Anyway, probably missed a ton of interesting things to talk about (sorry, memory only so good), but this will have to do; I'm tired, and need to go to bed.

Well, I learned that we are leaving sooner than I thought--my younger sister has to work on Monday, meaning we leave this Sunday...AKA, tomorrow. Not that I can actually TELL anyone this, but oh well. It's for the better anyway: with everyone in my family sick (and my older sister probably having pneumonia), not to mention, all the things I want to do at home, it's convenient.

Not that I can actually TELL you, so...you'll just get a pleasant surprise when I show up on Monday! (Because, uh...yeah, not gonna blog Sunday night; I'll be too exhausted.)

Today we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (We being us four siblings: my older sister, my brother, me, and my younger sister.) I had very low expectations, so...by that standard, the movie succeeded in exceeding my standard. I like the EU that existed better. I also felt that them doing the ~spoiler~ (that basically everyone knows at this point) was a huge mistake.

The film was alright, but suffered from the fate of all modern action movies: lack of pacing. Because they're almost all action, action, action. Films as late as the 90s knew how to do it. (Think Independence Day, for instance: it had action, but PLENTY of build-up TO said action.) All the non-action scenes felt rushed, things that should have had focus on them but were just glossed over, missing opportunity for character growth for flashy special effects.

That being said, while the film was CG, the CG at least was less glaringly obvious than the prequel films; the style felt a lot closer to the original.

Anyway, after we did that, we, ah, took the scenic route home, because we were hungry. So after a good ten minutes of wandering, we found a Wendy's. Got a small burger for each (except my older sister), then spent an equal amount of time figuring out how to get back to 97 heading North. (Back to home.)

Then, it was time to put away the tree, and that's never pleasant. Seriously, hazmat suits would not be overkill.

Well, Christmas day. I got a tablet, which I'm pretty satisfied with. It's basically just like my hand-writing, though: very, very sloppy. I'm still trying to figure it out. I think I'll need some SEVERE line smoothing to make it viable.

So still figuring it out as I go.

But...I think it's a good investment!

Anyway, installing Age of Empires III now, may come back to this blog later.

Well, we arrived. There was some unpleasantries with the ornaments (we have split duties: my brother and I bring the boxes up, my sisters do the decorating), because the already-horrible boxes were the worst they've ever been.

Had to wash my hands after THAT.

Then, I waited long enough that I was able to finish the Red Hood Rider page I started over a month ago. And...it looks awesome. Like, I think it's the best page I've ever made. The intended effect didn't QUITE happen, but oh well; it's still a solid page. My arm anatomy didn't work as well as it would have if I had internet access (I had to make do with some already-existing references augmented by my own left hand), but it's passable.

After that, carrying the boxes BACK down, for another round of washing my hands.

With this done, we tried to play Age of Empires II, as we normally do, and discovered that...for some reason, it stopped working. As in, both my brother's computer and my own computer (both Windows 7) ran it last year, no problems at all. Yet this year, the execution file just...won't execute. So the working theory is that Windows sneaked in an update...that discontinued their support for whatever allowed those 90s games to work. (I also tried Majesty, with similarly-bleak results. Though, interestingly enough, both Starcraft and Civilization III work just fine.)

Since our plans were foiled, we went to a backup plan: Ratchet Deadlocked, local multiplayer, death match as per our usual. (We usually play Up Your Arsenal, though.) I actually won a fair number of rounds, and even when I didn't, was usually pretty close. My favorite (and also greatest landslide) was when we did the Leviathan Flail only round. See, they didn't realize at first that it works like a super-long-range wrench attack...whereas I did. So I got three kills quickly, upgraded my flail, and while I eventually lost it, I was able to win without it, because the upgraded flail gave me a greater lead than I already had. Since I was the most proficient user, I could go in against non-upgraded flails at reduced health and still kill two or three times before I was even at risk of death.

Once we got bored of that, we did the board game Trouble. I won the first round. The second round, to make things interesting, we introduced the fourth player, as a destructor player, that would go around the board without going into their victory slot, which would always knock pieces out if it could. THAT round, I only got second in, but I never got third!

Then, we did co-op in Deadlocked (again) for a while, me and my younger sister (my older sister, this whole time, was apparently occupied with some project), but the game was unbearable: graphics looking worse than normal, HUGE graphical lag...

And we finished about five minutes ago.

Soyeah. That's been my day.

Got some art done, wasted most of my time playing video games...

That's about all I have to say for today.

(Hmm, funny, that's not quite how I remember the lyrics going......)

So I'm making a relatively-early blog post today, since we're going to be leaving soon enough. I've had a good breakfast (eggs+cheese, yogurt, chocolate milk, oatmeal+raisins+milk), and as I type this, I'm recovering from the cold. (Because WOWm, do I get chilly fast in these conditions. Maybe I'm just that pathetic, maybe it's latent sickness, hard to say, but it exists, that low tolerance to the cold.)

One thing I wanted to note, though, is that when observing my brother's morning routine, it felt pretty methodical. Deliberate, mechanical moves, one step after another. I could very well be writing into it meaning that's not there, but to me it actually looked like it was sort-of ritualistic behavior.

And when having a conversation with my dad, the way he flubbed words sounded familiar, too. Basically, I'm thinking that autism may run in the family, it's just that in their cases, they hold a MUCH better control over it than I do.

Not something I'm likely to ever know the answer to, but oh well. It was at least an interesting thought.

Well...I'm staying at a motel overnight, in the hopes of better traveling conditions on Christmas Eve for getting over the pass (all the Cascades are terrible, at, like, every single pass right now), soyeah, that's why I can blog right now.

This will probably be my last entry before a week of silence. Heck, I thought my last entry would be, since I didn't get a chance to make an entry earlier today saying we were going.

The trip has been...well, interesting, to say the least. We left an hour and a half later than scheduled (so, about half an hour ahead of expectations!), got to my brother's place, picked him up, and started driving.

We learned that we chose one of the worst possible routes, though, because there was an accident that brought the freeway down to one lane...causing a two and a half hour delay. It literally took us two and a half hours to go TEN miles. You can walk faster than that.

Then, we hit extreme traffic in Portland. We've had some interesting exchanges (we're driving two cars: my parents in our astrovan, us in my younger sister's Subaru legacy, with my older sister's old cat, and my younger sister's toy fox terrier dog), found a few good radio stations (mostly, rock), but the trip has been a little bit painful even to get this far.

That said, when having McDonald's, the iced mocha REALLY hit the spot. I was cold at the time, so it just made me colder, but totally worth it. Store-bought iced coffee is just...BETTER than any warm equivalent. Add in my (plain, because I don't like tomatoes or mustard) Double Quarter Pounder with cheese along with fries made for a good substitute.

There was a slight mix-up on our order (we only got half the number of fries we should have gotten), which caused me to not eat my fries until after my drink was empty, so that was something my taste buds regretted (the food is literally engineered to have the fries eaten BEFORE the drink), but I lived.

We've got cramped traveling conditions, especially given my stubborn insistence of taking ALL my stuff on-hand with me, but I eventually relented when I realized my drawings that I was taking inside my pillowcase weren't getting the protection they normally receive on trips: they were vulnerable, getting crinkled, and such, so I realized I needed to protect them.

Removed my laptop thing (the stand I place it on), put my art inside of it, wrapped it in my spare blanket that I won at my square dance gift exchange, and put it in the trunk.

That's a minor inconvenience NOW, given that it's still there, and no access = no use, but oh well. I'll make do with what I have.

Anyway, I was interrupted in the middle of writing this blog post for an offer to eat at a Chinese restaurant within walking distance of our motel. It was pretty fancy, and the employees all seemed to be Asian, though I don't think they were actually all Chinese. (I think at lease one was Korean. Though, I'm obviously no expert at discerning the differences between their ethnicities.)

Tried some Chinese tea; it wasn't bad. It wasn't particularly good, mind you, not really being more than just water, but it wasn't BAD, and given that I'm generally not a tea person, that's a fair compliment.

I got chicken noodle soup, and to my surprise, I found that they basically leave the ingredients uncut: big lops of chicken, endless noodles, huge pieces of broccoli, peas, mushrooms, and half a dozen other veggies. It was quite delicious, but it was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge; I was not expecting that much food, so I couldn't eat it all. Got take-out, though: they put it in a cup.

Seems like a little bit of an unorthodox method of transporting chicken noodle soup, but surprisingly practical.

Soyeah, that's my day.

Mostly just did Tae Kwon Do tonight. I also took a couple of webcam pictures of myself, but I'm not going to post them here on my blog. (Too public.) That's really about it.

AND WE'RE BACK!
WE'RE FINALLY BACK!

...And I leave for vacation in two days, meaning no internet and thus no blogs for a week.



FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff...

So I thought about what the name of this theoretical game would be...and I think I have an idea.
Because the game deals in ranged weaponry, largely based around combat and taking cues from many things (TF2, GGO, RPGs), I thought of an appropriate name for the game:
Project:ile.

Yes, it's extremely punny, but it's SO suiting for the game.

So you know how, on Friday, I made a game? A FPS game, involving 18 classes, six each of Gunmen, Bowmen, and Miscellaneous?

Yeah, well, today, I thought I would add special abilities to them, which would increase their powers.

Gunslingers have a unique ability called Quickdraw: if their weapon is holstered (you have no aiming crosshairs if you have no weapon out, thus, a holstered weapon is unaimed), if it is rapidly drawn, the weapon will have a 5-second kill-or-stun (50% chance of instakill, 50% chance of stun) guarantee so long as the blow connects. This is a ridiculously strong ability, but it does require good aim, and also for the gunslinger to be a bit exposed. (Drawing your weapon isn't instantaneous--it's based around speed, but it's still something that takes time, during which the gunslinger is vulnerable.)

Gunfighters have bullet time, which works differently depending on single-player, co-op, and multiplayer versus. In single-player, it slows the whole game down except the player character by 50%. In co-op mode, it slows down everything except the player's team by 25%: less of a bonus, but gives a reward to the whole team. In multiplayer mode, bullet time reduces the speed of everything by everyone by 50%...except for characters who have bullet time. The person with bullet time active has their bullet time bar drain. If you possess the ability bullet time but aren't the one activating it, your bullet time meter won't recharge, but also won't deplete. This system prevents the stacking of bullet times to be one after the other.

A guard has the weak ability to see through stealthed characters. This makes them decent at hunting snipers, but is mostly used to detect ninjas and blowdarters. This not being a unique ability, and also being a weak passive ability, is one reason why the guard class is under-utilized.

SWAT have the ability to activate a shield of invulnerability that lasts two seconds. This ability, understandably, takes a fair amount of time to recharge. However, it's activatable and de-activatable at will: you can activate it for one second, deactivate it, and then reactivate it for another second. However, activating the shield drains a minuscule amount of the bar by itself, and when the amount reaches zero, it takes a REALLY long time to recharge, so this ability is not easily spammable. It is, however, useful for nullifying an attack in a split second for a skilled player, making the SWAT ridiculously hard to kill. (Except by abilities that bypass invulnerability; instakill abilities and area of effect abilities take priority.)

The sniper has a motionless stealth mode, where they are invisible if they do not move for 30 seconds. They also gain a multiplier: dealing 1x damage under a minute without motion, and then a multiplier by the number of minutes once at one minute: 1.5 minutes does 150% damage, 2 minutes does 200% damage, etc. Furthermore, if they are in motionless stealth mode, their first shot in initiating combat (stealing from GGO) cannot be detected nor blocked. Even abilities normally able to block bullets, like slicing bullets, cannot interfere with this shot. (It can still be dodged, though.)

Duelists have a rapid speed burst for two seconds, which recharges with time. (So, a sprint.) This works similarly to the SWAT one, which makes it easily exploited, but not infinite. This is how duelists use melee weapons effectively.


It should be noted: gunmen have a wide variety of weapons they can equip, but they mostly lack status ailments to inflict. Other classes have a very narrow amount of weaponry choice (only so many types of bows, only so many types of arrows, only so many types of throwing stars, etc.), but have a greater number of things their weapons can inflict.
Repeating crossbowmen have a unique ability called zen: a choice between passive health regeneration OR a 25% bonus to strength(attack) and defense. This does drain a meter, though; it's not always active.

Arbalesters have the same 2-second shield as SWAT do, but because SWAT have a greater range of weaponry they can use, the Arbalester's version recharges faster, albeit still slowly enough to not be infinite.

Longbowmen can see through stealth. This makes them the best anti-sniper: able to shoot from long distances, yet able to see snipers, means they can easily pick off a sniper with one or two shots before a guard could even be in range.

Compact bowmen have the unique ability of far shot: this ability drains a set amount of their action bar, which slowly recharges with time. What it does is, for a single arrow, basically turn the compact bowman into a sniper, giving one guaranteed long-range hit. Given the drain on their action bar, though, and no increase in damage, this means that they don't have enough shots to kill someone at that range, and even if they did, it'd require draining so much that they wouldn't be able to do it again for at least a minute or two.

Woodsmen have motionless stealth, allowing them to ambush people. They are also the archery class that has bullet time. Furthermore, they have a set number of med kits that they can use on people (including themselves), healing damage and status ailments. (Another reason the class is so popular!)

Yeomen have a relatively weak ability of multishot, able to shoot up to five arrows at once, effectively a shotgun of bows. However, given their ability to inflict status ailments, and how five arrows at close range is pretty much lethal even without status ailments, this is a rather effective crowd control ability. Like far shot, it is activated and drains a set amount of the action bar.

Ninjas have the broken mastery of stealth: they can throw smoke bombs, which expose stealthed units. (This is a free action.) They can also use an activated stealth mode, which progressively drains their stealth meter until it's empty. Furthermore, they have a special ability that combines the two (stealing from Team Fortress 2): if the ninja is in the smoke, and is hit with a SINGLE attack that deals over 50% of their total health (not current, as in half of 32/100 being 16, TOTAL as in 50/100), yet the ninja survives (so if they have 60/100 health, the only way for the ability to activate is if they are dealt 51-59 damage), then they have an auto-activating ability: they instantly enter stealth mode with a full stealth bar, and the cloud of smoke dissipates, meaning they don't instantly expose themselves.

Jugglers don't have a special ability beyond their juggling: they're strong enough without it.

Bombers have the special ability to lay landmines, but these take a long time to set up and drain the active bar. Mostly, bombers just use their various bombs to inflict status ailments. (Acid, magma, etc.)

Javeliners can see through stealth, and have a 1-second version of the invulnerability ability, same way as the SWAT do.

Throwers have bullet time.

Blowdarters, though, are the absolute nightmare of players. (Think a hybrid between the doctor and the spy from team fortress 2, and you'll understand why it's so dreaded.) Blowdarts, obviously, deliver a ton of status ailments, even capable of debuffing enemies. But what makes the blowdarter such a nightmare is that they have certain darts that buff teammates, their syringe can heal teammates, and worst of all, blowdarters have BOTH FORMS of stealth mode: if they stay motionless (like snipers and woodsmen), they become invisible for free; they can drain their action bar by using an activated stealth mode which (like ninjas) they can MOVE in.

Try shooting an invisible medic, who probably has a teammate or two also protecting them, and you can understand why this might be a bit of a difficult task. It's not all bad news, though, since blowdarters cannot buff or heal blowdarters, and their healing syringes only come in a set amount before needing the action bar to receive a new set. (E.g. 5 available, used all, use some of action bar akin to the compact bowman/yeomen abilities, and then having 5 more.)



I really want this game to be made, now.
It sounds ridiculously awesome.