Category: Gaming

Masterwork Dwarf Fortress

One of the things I enjoy the most about RimWorld is that you can expand and customize gameplay with mods. The steam workshop is filled with hundreds of them, and I can spend hours picking and choosing which mods to incorporate in my game.

Dwarf fortress plays a lot alike. There are extensive mods that can customize the game for you.One of those mods is Masterwork Dwarf Fortress (MDF). The wiki explains that it makes DF 4 times as big, but still keeps true to the original atmosphere of the game. It adds buildings, restrictions, creatures, races, utilities, and other quality of life changes. One of my favourite changes is the ‘generic materials’ system. Instead of having leather from 40 different creatures, you just have leather. Instead of having milk from 5 different animals, it’s just milk. This helps my Dwarves organize by not requiring a different container for each and every type of item.

I had my husband set up a world for me and choose the embark location. I like to be surprised and I figured why not. Almost immediately shit started going downhill. First, I live in a weird hole in the ground made of rock (I mean the surface is rock) with vegetation above me. There is a tiny little lake for water (supposedly there’s an ocean nearby but I haven’t seen signs of one) and I have no idea who my neighbours are but I was under siege from undead almost as soon as I landed.

I received a warning that the undead walk and all my Dwarves should run away and hide, so instead of finding the undead on the map I frantically made 6 floor hatch, designated a burrow, and stuffed everyone downstairs.

Then the siege passed, the undead were off the map. My animals untouched. Can they not reach me in my little cavern in the ground? Maybe the sun frightened them away? I have no idea.

At least we’re safe.. for now.

WTF Wednesday

This week we’re featuring two games that are apparently made by different but the same people. What The Heck, Dude? and Dude Simulator. The best comment is the one pictured above that says “you can figure that it’s just one dev that doesn’t understand how to make a playable game, but knows how to sell the same game twice.”

Apparently you run around punching things in the first game – and that’s all there is to it. Who doesn’t like to solve everything with violence?! Sound like a game you want to play? Maybe not.

The description of the game on steam is pretty self explanatory:
What The Heck Dude? is a drunk fight simulator with realistic physics. You are going to find yourself in different life situations, and every time you will have to start a fight. No matter where are you and what you are doing, your only task is to spoil the event and initiate a brawl.

Road to 5 Million for the Ultra (Ultra) Casual

Instead of tracking money every single day in World of Warcraft I decided to switch to a weekly system (along with blog post) so I could prevent myself from burning out too much. We’re still above where we need to be at this time – but if money doesn’t start trickling in a little bit faster we won’t make the goal of 5 million in 365.

Now a lot of this is not because of lack of sales (per say) but because I still haven’t gotten back to actually PLAYING the game. I log in and re-set the sales I already have – and while that does work to earn some coin here and there, in order to make the big money I need to be doing a tiny bit more than I have been. Being active is absolutely key to my earning gold in game.

Still, we’re closing in on 1.7 million gold, and that’s also not too shabby. There was a time I had never seen more than 100,000 gold before and I was always asking my husband to help me out if I saw a mount or pet that I wanted. Gold is also still moving in an upwards pattern and that’s really important, we haven’t slipped down too much with broker fees.

I do have a new gaming schedule set up that should help me get more involved in World of Warcraft and help inspire and motivate some money making. The problem is when I get attached to a game (currently Dwarf Fortress) I tend to ignore all other games and play that one until I burn out, and then I wander back to the other games slowly over time. I’m hoping to prevent that by spacing out what I play each day, and dedicating time to each one.

Will it work in rejuvenating my love of gaming? Who knows. I’m also taking a bunch of courses at a local school and of course I’m still a full time mommy to two littles, so it’s not like I have a lot of spare room on my plate – but I’m going to try.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Dwarf Fortress – Fortress II

I started a second fortress with far more knowledge of what I was doing. I used the macro tool to create uniform bedrooms quickly, and stayed ahead of the population (for once). I figured out how to interact with caravans, and pissed off the elves by trying to trade some leather that were inside a wooden bucket (that they chided me for because hey that bucket was ONCE ALIVE). Sorry.

What I failed to do was set up a military, any sort of training, weapons, armor, or army, so when the goblin siege happened we were woefully unprepared. Not only that, but I had left the gates of my fortress wide open (ie: I had zero traps set) and I forgot that I mined away one of the support walls down on a lower level that lead to a flowing river.

Guess who flowed right in, turning the water red with blood.

Goblins. That’s right. Goblins.

BUT we survived! We rebuilt. We had a new mayor and things were looking up.

Until a wereass (yep, a were donkey..) showed up on the map. They wandered right into my base and turned into their typical self which happened to be a night troll. Looking for mates.

They bit a good portion of the population before they were killed, so once the wereass body was handled and things looked like they were calming down again (hah, things never calm down) shit hit the fan in a big way, and dwarves started dying all over the place.

That’s where I decided to abandon the fortress for now. Next time we’ll build up bigger, badder, better – maybe with some sort of military so we can handle stuff. Maybe we’ll lock the doors, this time, too. Maybe we’ll have doors at all (I just had staircases leading to our lush caverns).

Round three will be glorious.

Intrigued by ANNO 1800

I’ve never played anything from the ANNO game series before, but the latest one that is coming out, 1800, looks fascinating. I debated picking up one of the older versions while they’re on sale (ANNO 2070, and ANNO 2205) but so far I haven’t pulled the plug. The reviews on both games are mixed and include issues with gameplay and technical problems. The newest one isn’t due out until April and it has a pretty hefty price tag, so I don’t think it will be a purchase that I make right out the door. $80 CAD is a lot of money for a series I’ve never been invested in. Thoughts?

While I was checking out ANNO 1800 Scopique asked if I had seen Foundation before. Foundation is an early access game developed by polymorph games, and claims to be a medieval city building simulator. A lot of friends have it on their wishlist, but I don’t know anyone who is playing it yet, and I have no idea if it’s any good but the trailer for the game certainly makes it look neat. I think it’s one of those games where I’ll just have to wait and see (ie: wait for a sale, and then we’ll see).

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!