Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 7

We're getting so close now, I can feel it. Aren't you excited? Soon we'll be moving on to another scenario and before we know it, we'll be at the end of The Keepers Campaign. Then we play through the other campaign and finally we can retire the Age of Wonders campaign series.

Previous

Next

This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

Check out more of my stuff!
- On YouTube
- On Twitch
- On Twitter

~ DaemonVirus

How Time Flies

Every once in a while I find myself taking a step back and realizing just how time flies by and life gets so busy. There's so much I have to do and so much more that I want to do; how can a person fit everything into such a short amount of time?

Today I find myself somewhat disappointed for putting my blog on the backburner. So many stories and experiences and thoughts I find rushing through my head that haven't yet been given a chance to be shared with the world. On one hand, I suppose that's a good thing that I was able to have that break because now I feel like I've hit somewhat of a muse that I've been missing previously.

I suppose what I'm looking forward to coming up is the end of my school courses. While they've been fun, I think it really is time to buckle down and complete them. Yeah, that may mean some of my other projects won't get as much attention as I would like. It may even mean I cannot spend as much time with the family as I would like, but once I'm done... I don't have to worry about it anymore. It will truly be such a load off my mind and a weight off my shoulders to not have to devote so much time to working through these classes. I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm about to start a strict diet of textbook material for a while until I can be confident that I know what I'm doing.

So don't be alarmed if you don't hear from me for a bit... though I still fully intend to get back to making blog posts more regularly and continuing to try to stream more often. Perhaps it is a strange thing to many people out there, but live streaming... even if I were to be reading a book or working through schoolwork... something about it seems to motivate me to work harder and to be better and more proactive in other parts of my life. I don't know how to explain it really, but it's there in my mind working away, breaking down the wall that builds up stopping me from getting the simplest things done on a day-to-day basis.

I'm not going to go into detail about everything I have to do and everything I want to do, you'll see the results of all my hard work as things are completed. I can say my primary goals at this time include performing well with my new job (which I absolutely love), spending quality time with my family, and getting back up to date with the real (not gaming) blog posts that I know you all love.

I look forward to continuing to entertain you all. Don't forget to follow the blog, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch so you don't miss any of the coming action!

As usual, you're all fantastic and I look forward to hearing from you when time isn't flying away from you too. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Mobile Game Review -- Crossy Road - Arcade Clicker - 4/10 ===

Today we take a look at the mobile game, Crossy Road. I've been a little busy recently with starting my new full-time job and still working on school at the same time... along with being a little bit sick. It can be quite difficult to have enough energy to keep going when there's so much going on, so sometimes I pick simpler and easier games to play in my spare time.

If you're looking for an simple game to pick up and play where you can learn to be better every time you play while being reminded of the good old days of playing Frogger back in 1981, this game is for you! The controls are really easy to learn, just tap on the screen and you hop forwards; moving to each side and backwards can be done by swiping in the proper direction; if you are faced with a solid object or any situation where hopping forward would block the character... you'd better figure out which way to swipe to fix that before hopping forward, otherwise you're not going to move anywhere at all.

Something I'm not really a fan of when trying to be awesome at a game is RANDOMNESS. Now of course randomness is important in the replayability of a game, but there's a level of randomness in some games which is just silly; I'm talking about the type where due to uncontrollable factors, you've run into an impossible to beat situation. Does that come up in this game? Yes... sometimes you end up stuck with no holes in traffic to pass through while the ever-moving camera swallows you up or forces you to jump to your death into oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, for the most part, this isn't too much of an issue. Because it's so easy to get into a new game and because many situations are avoidable if the player is able to think and react fast enough, I don't mind the amount of randomness in this Crossy Road.

Reasons to come back to this game and keep playing after having played for... a while? Challenges I suppose. I believe a new one starts every day or every few days where a preset character and level is put forth into the world for many players to attempt to see if they can be the best at getting the furthest into the level. Based on the player's rank at the end of the challenge, they are given some sort of reward such as a special character.

I really enjoy the fact that different characters in the game don't really have an effect on how the game is played. Different characters change the setting of the game and the aesthetics, but nothing changes other than that.

I suppose the real downside to this game... is that nothing really changes. Once you've figured out how to play it reasonably well... there isn't really much left to do. I mean hey, if you can consistently get to 200 hops, then you get to keep seeing pretty much the same 200 hop idea every single game you play. What happens when you get further than 200 hops? You see more... of the same... thing.

While I believe Crossy Road is probably a one-week game at best, there is one bonus thing that really truly made me want to play in the first place; they have a version of Crossy Road at Ruckers which is basically the same game without the ability to move side-to-side or backwards. Surely this results in more randomness than I am comfortable with seeing as the game makes its decisions to move to either side on its own, but there's still a chance to play really well and get really far into a level which results in quite a few tickets.

Verdict

Gameplay: Fun and easy to pick up, but the gameplay gets quite repetitive incredibly quickly.

Sound: The sounds a basically what you'd expect; sounds of traffic driving past and honking their horns, water rushing as you jump across logs, trains running across tracks right before your very eyes.... but no music.

Replayability: No game is EXACTLY the same twice... but after a few plays, there isn't much change to the game with each new play.

Bonus: There's a version of this game made for earning tickets at Ruckers. If it wasn't for the cost of buying all those tokens just to play the game this way, I would be playing it ALL THE TIME.

SCORE: After some consideration, I have decided to give Crossy road 2/5 because I was super excited about playing it after experiencing the arcade game at Ruckers... but then I quickly lost interest after only about a week of having it on my phone.


~ Kyle Welykholowa


Back to Game Reviews

The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo Two

We continue our adventure through the Calgary Zoo!

When last we met, we were wandering through the Canadian Wilds, today... I bring you a little bit more of that, because I haven't planned out each post to be about a different area. Maybe if I had taken an equal number of pictures in each area... but I didn't do that either... I HAVE DIGRESSED!

Little Prairie Dogs at the zoo... so many holes!

Past the Wolves we saw Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs who were having a fantastic time being harassed by the mutant black squirrels in the area; the squirrels were running in and out of the prairie dog holes stealing their things and playing with the prairie dogs. It really was quite a sight and I'm a little bit sad that I wasn't able to get any good pictures, but I was able to get a short video of one of the squirrels.

Seriously, these squirrels are actually a mutant strain of gray squirrels which escaped the zoo back in 1929 and now run rampant throughout the area. They're very beautiful to see and they seem to be quire the troublemakers. Luckily I was able to get a very short video of one of them jumping around seen below.

Look up on the edge! There's a little black squirrel jumping up and over!

On the other side of the trail was something a little bigger than little prairie dogs...

TEDDY BEARS! Okay no, a little bigger and more real than that.

There were quite a few bears in there actually; black, brown, and even a white one hidden in there somewhere. We were lucky enough to come back to the bear area later on in the day to see them doing training with one of the bears. They explained to us how the training with the trainers is good for the animals because it helps them if ever there was any sort of emergency or situation where someone would need to be in control of said animal or the animal would need direction. The example they gave us was when half the zoo ended up being flooded a few years ago, their animal training really helped them keep the animals calm and direct them to control the situation.

Whoa, that's a BIG cat!

The last awesome creature we saw in the Canadian Wilds area was a Cougar! How crazy is it that there are wild cats that big possibly outside in our backyard? I think it's bad enough when I see a house cat wandering around outside because I don't know if it's going to be friendly, or if it's going to try to scratch me up on the sidewalk... what would I do if I ran into one of these on my way to check the mailbox?

There are so many animals living just outside the walls of our houses, but it's so hard to imagine them because we spend so much time inside staring at our screens we forget about the beauty of being outside and enjoying the fresh air. Learning about this stuff is truly amazing and I hope as we progress into the future that it isn't the only way we are able to learn about these things.

Fun Fact: I heard the results of a survey recently where about 90% of Canadians felt happier when surrounded by nature... and about 75% said they find it easier to stay inside.

Let me know in the comments below what your favourite outdoor activity is.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 6

Looks like we're starting to get overwhelmed by this silly teleportation point right next to our starting town. We might have to give this location up and move somewhere else. Another short part for you this time.

Previous

Next

This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

Check out more of my stuff!
- On YouTube
- On Twitch
- On Twitter

~ DaemonVirus

Age of Wonders -- Keepers Scenario 6 - Part 5

I haven't uploaded a video for quite a while so finally I've managed to find some time to do so. I can tell I actually recorded this quite a while ago, but NO MATTER! New videos will be coming out right away as we get going on all content production now that we have a proper schedule going. This part is a little bit shorter than usual.

Previous

Next

This campaign and more can be found on my Age of Wonders page.

Check out more of my stuff!
- On YouTube
- On Twitch
- On Twitter

~ DaemonVirus

=== Age of Wonders -- MolzyMoz - Fire Rebalanced -- Mod Review - 5/5 ===

Okay so here's something a little bit different today. Normally I review games or food or movies... but today I'm reviewing a MOD for a game. I'm also going to take this opportunity to start using a 1-5 rating system because I think it's a much more straightforward system for just how good I think something is which I'm reviewing.

So FROM HERE ON OUT I will be rating everything on a scale of 1-5.

MolzyMod - Fire Rebalanced (Download)

Rating: 5

Even though I am a long-time Age of Wonders player, using mods is something I'm not super experienced with, so this managed to be my first mod to EVER use for this game. I have to say I'm very pleased; I honestly think this may be what I start using in my own games from now on.

There are quite a few changes to units, some of which are in their stats and many of which are in their abilities as they increase in skill; especially for making level 4 units more powerful and unstoppable just by having empty fortified cities. I haven't been able to experience much of this as I just started using the mod and have only read about the majority of the changes so far.

One of my favourite changes includes the change to the Goblin Bomber at silver level gaining a Call Flames ability (which would only be attainable using an arena or the Warmonger spell).

Speaking of SPELLS... Many of the lower level combat spells have been lowered in casting cost which makes spell-based leader and hero builds possible to use throughout the game. Many of the spells such as flame arrow only have a cost of 1 now which means your hero can be useful even with Spell Casting I and low stats.

So all in all, this mod is pretty sweet. It's super easy to put into the game and doesn't make a huge number of overwhelming changes; if you have any thoughts about using any other mods in the game but are unsure after reading all of the HUGE number of changes... this is truly a great place to start when getting into trying out different mods.

As a result, I'm giving this mod for Age of Wonders a 5/5 rating as I really do think it has been done very well and has broken down the door for me to try other new things with an already great game.

~ DaemonVirus


To Age of Wonders Directory