Not much to report really. Deadline is slowly approaching and, as always, we don’t seem to be in good shape. Still, we’ll make it. Like we usually do.
FAMILY
July 3rd was my little brother’s birthday. He’s now 30 something or other, I don’t remember. Didn’t actually manage to celebrate his birthday until Sunday. Didn’t really see him till then either. Saturday the 4th was fun. Especially for Munchkin. We spent the day at a big party at an uncle’s house and Munchkin played and had fun like a crazy girl. Dante spent a lot of time with me, although there was a long time when he finally realized that being with me was the dullest thing he could be doing and he went off to have some fun with his sister. Dancing is one of Munchkin’s passions and near the end of the night, she spent hours doing it. Then the fireworks started at a school down the block. We all watched the fireworks from the backyard. Dante sat on my lap and was wowed by them. It was great. Munchkin almost cried after it was over because she wanted them to keep going.
The highlight for me was playing a game of Magic: The Gathering with some friends at the end of the night. It was a good time because I think we really let the flavor of the game’s theme push our imaginations. It was neat to pretend we were casting spells. It was fun also because it was the first time they had played the game and they liked it. After they go used to the rules, when they pulled out cards they understood, they go very excited. It was neat to see the game start clicking with them.
WRITING
In other news, Alesha spent the weekend obsessively researching and writing another novel manuscript. She couldn’t stop writing.
We had gotten into a conversation about novels, and the fantasy genre that’s hitting it big right now, namely, the “Vampire Romance” genre. The genre has been around for years and the guys on the Dragon Page Podcast where predicting the genre was going to be dead by the end of the year, and that was a year ago. It has only gotten bigger (and a bit tired). Alesha was wondering what the next big thing would be. Obviously, it’s impossible to predict. I just told her that it would be “Wizard Romance” novels. I’m thinking that people will start getting tired of vampires eventually and might be looking for something similar but just different enough (whether or not I’m right is a different story). I was thinking of something more in the lines of Jim Butcher‘s Harry Dresden books (Dresden isn’t a “Wizard Romance” book though). It’s an urban Fantasy wizard book. I told her an idea I had about something under that genre that I was thinking of running as a role playing game but was too lazy to do the research for. She liked the idea and started the research on the spot. By mid morning the next day, she had done enough research that she could start writing. By the end of the day she had an outline. While still researching, she had written up to chapter 2 by the end of the 4th of July. She ran the outline through me on the way home on the 4th. I gave her my two cents and she’s still going strong on it. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve read the first three pages of the story and the prose in it is far superior than the other manuscript she’s written. She’s getting so much better, it’s amazing. This will be her third novel manuscript.
Since she’s done all the work, I think I can take all that work and run the role playing game now. Mwaa ha haa!
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Not much new to report. Had some very complicated scenes to do that really slowed me down. I don’t feel I’m pulling my weight this time around. Hopefully, by the end of today, I would have gotten enough done to feel better about it all.
I read The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut this weekend. It’s really great. It’s geared for kids and the stories are really fun. They’re inspired by some of the writings, thoughts, and real life experiences Chesterton wrote about in this books and articles, as well as some of his biographies. I found the stories to ring very true to the spirit of Chesterton’s writings. As I read this book, my brain was playing out the stories as if they were animated cartoons. I’ve always thought Chesterton was a great living cartoon, but reading this book really proved it to me. The book is a great way to introduce Chesterton to kids and even to parents, if they don’t know anything about Chesterton. It’s also a great tribute to the man. It captures that lovable thing about Chesterton that makes you keep coming back for more.
The other book, The Way of the Christian Samurai, I haven’t read yet, but I started to. I really can’t believe no one had ever thought to write about this subject before. I’m a big fan of the “mythology” of the Samurai. I’m a fan of Samurai movies (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Lone Wolf and Cub, Lady Snow Blood, etc…) as well as some Samurai literature and Manga (Japanese comics). Though I know that the reality of the Samurai may not have been as glamorized as the mythologized figures they have become, the mythology of the Samurai is something quite fantastic and awesome. Paul Nowak has taken the Samurai’s code of Bushido and it’s examples and plugged it into Christianity. Suddenly you have two great tastes that taste great together. Holy Cow! They fit together so well! The small taste I got from the small part of the book that I’ve read so far has got me drooling. As an artist, my imagination is going crazy over the imagery of a Christian Samurai. Urge to draw…rising…
Get these books!
BOARD GAMES
So Andy and I tried out playing Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics (SWAT) with the new variant end game rules we borrowed from other games. We also tried out some random map placement rules that add a small “fog of war” aspect to the game.
First, the end game rules we used where borrowed from two games. (1) We borrowed the HeroScape rules of ending the game after a certain amount of turns, if the other official end game conditions were not met. This way, we tried to cut down the play time and keep it to about an hour to an hour and a half. We failed. At first we picked 20 turns but it was too long. Once we had hit turn 5 we realized we needed to cut the turns down so we decided to end the game on turn 10. It took us about 2 hours to play the game. (2) The next rule we borrowed was from the game Manoeuvre. Turns out SWAT and Manoeuvre have many things in common. I don’t own Manoeuvre but I do have the rules for the game on pdf. From those rules, I borrowed the “controlling enemy territory” victory point conditions, from the game. It worked great and it was a great motivator to not turtle in the game.
Second, the rules for map tile placement, we borrowed from Dungeon Twister. We placed map tiles face down, took turns putting face down buildings and terrain as we set the game up, and as we played the game, (as in Dungeon Twister) we revealed the upside down map tiles and placed the buildings and terrain we had originally place face down on that map tile. We also gave the Recon unit special powers just to add to the theme and to try to keep the game playing like the video game. It worked great. If there is one thing I would change, it would be that the placement of buildings when revealed by one player, would be done by the opposing player. As it was, because we didn’t do that. The person who got lucky enough to reveal map tiles that had buildings close to their home base, namely me, had a very unfair advantage since I was able to place the buildings near me and therefore ended up with tons of money, which won me the game. Had we done it the other way, the game would have been a much closer match.
Most of our additions really helped make the game even more enjoyable. Not sure if we’re going to play the game this Friday. I think Andy got disappointed that I won again. We might play a game of Dreamblade. We’ll see. It will also depend on how many players we’ll have since I’ve invited another friend of mine over to play with us.
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The work load early in the week started off pretty lite. I was helping out on a crew before they put me on my new official crew late Tuesday. Wednesday when we started on the crew officially, we started really late. That never helps. Hopefully it won’t effect us in the long run.
MY WEEK
Had to cancel board game night because I needed to pick up my parents at the airport. The airport is just really annoying. At the time I went to pick them up, they had re-directed where passengers got their luggage. I ended up waiting for my parents in the terminal they were SUPPOSE to come out of. I new I wasn’t in the right place because there was a “note” under their flight number displayed on the screen telling me where they were. Of course since I didn’t know where in the airport that was, they might as well have just had a note reading: “NOT HERE.” Since there was no phone signal within the airport, I had to wait for my parents to come out (an hour later) before I was able to call them and discover where they were. Like I said, the airport is very annoying.
FAMILY
Alesha took me out for breakfast on Saturday for Father’s Day. She wanted to avoid the Sunday “taking dad out for breakfast” crowd. Sunday, we spent the day fairly relaxed. Alesha got me a DVD for Father’s Day that I already owned. After Mass, we went out to exchange it. The DVD was discounted so it wasn’t very much money. Lucky for me, it was exactly the amount of money I need to get what I wanted that week, which was, an Alara Reborn, Magic: The Gathering – Theme Deck – Intro Pack. I was very happy with my present.
My parents also got me speakers for my iPod/PC/Alesha’s Macbook/TV. Very cool.
In the afternoon, I spent sometime in the playground with Muchkin, dropping Matchbox cars down the slide. Then we spent the evening at my parent’s house, talking, and eating El Salvadorean food. It was a very nice Father’s Day overall.
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Monday and Tuesday was crazy deadline days. It was all about scrambling to get out work done. On Thursday night, of last week, there was a story reel screening of the show in it current unfinished state (which was about 80% done). From that, we got a lot of notes of things to fix.
Our new process, (which I’ve yet to explain) is this: The show has been split up into two different crews. The first crew comes on first. It’s a story reel crew made up of three artists, the Director and the Assistant Director (A.D.). The second crew, that comes on after the story reel is finished, is made up about five completely different people, the same Director and the same A.D., who do the traditional Character layouts that we’ve done for years. This crew gets eight weeks to finish the show and get it ready for shipping.
I am a story reel artist. Our job is to make a story reel to show the writers and producers. The story reel is meant to be a slightly plused up moving storyboard. The idea is to show the writers and producers how a show “plays” (how a show is working) so that if there’s big changes, there won’t be a lot of effort lost.
The idea is sound. It’s very similar to the process we had in the movie, BUT (there’s always a “but”) there are some small difficulties.
One is that, not all the boards we work off of are of the same quality. Some are great and we could do our job of plussing the board. Others are so rough and sometimes aren’t even “playing” clearly, that we have to re-draw everything before we can even begin plussing anything up. We haven’t got the time for those issues. The last show I worked on, there was a section in my board that was in such bad shape, I had to come up with shots and re-work the board for almost two of my three weeks, just to get the board to “play” right. When I asked the director how he wanted me to fix it, he told me, “I don’t know. Come up with something and then show it to me.” On the one hand, that was great because he was trusting me so much and that gave me a lot of freedom to “save” the sequences. On the other hand. I had a ton of other scenes to get to and didn’t have the time to be fixing things like that.
The second difficulty that we’ve run into is that, in practice, the producers and writers, expect the story reel to look as clean and solid as an animatic. Which is impossible since an animatic is was done by at least five to seven artist in about five to six weeks, not three artist in three weeks. This always puts us in the dilemma of second guessing ourselves about how clean ans pretty we’re suppose to be working. The cleaner and prettier, the more time it takes to draw. Time we don’t have.
The third difficulty is, no overtime. We get done in the time we are given or not at all. No staying late. The pressure is crazy.
There are a few more but I don’t want to keep complaining. It’s not all bad. There are a quite a few things I really LOVE about he process. We get a lot of freedom to put in our input as to how things should “play out” in the show. It puts all the artist on the story reel crew in the position of an A.D.. We’re basically in charge of directing out section. I like that. It’s a very creative thing. Especially since what we finish doesn’t even go directly to the Director but goes straight to the editor. Everyday we get to see the work in progress on the reel and see how the shots we finished the day before works in the context of the show. This means that often we can make slight changes the next day if we feel like the shot of shots we did aren’t “playing” well. It’s pretty cool. The Director also has a lot more control of the final product because he has a meeting with the editor every evening, sees what working what’s not and can change things on the spot or make a note of the things he would like an artist to add or change the next day. By the end of the process, the story reel is more in line with the Director’s vision than any animatic had ever been. Personally, I like the process. It feels far more collaborative. It’s just too bad we get practically no time to do our thing.
FAMILY
Munchkin always wants to help me do things. She sees me doing something like cooking or doing the laundry and she wants to join in. She’s at an age when she wants to try out new things. Well, she saw that I was going to start washing the dishes this weekend and she decided she wanted to help me out. I let her. I went and got her step ladder and she proceeded to rinse out the dishes with me and handed me the ones she rinsed while I put them in the dishwasher. Surprisingly, it was very helpful. Usually when she “helps” me, it whatever we’re doing takes much longer to do because she’s just a little kid and can barely manage what she needs to do, but not this time. I took car of the knives, pots, and dishes that had very stuck on food, while Munchkin took care of most everything else. She did very well. In fact, she did SO well that the next day I asked her to help me wash the dishes we weren’t able to get to the day before.
I doubt her interest in washing dishes is going to last long but I might as well take advantage while she still wants to do it.
BOARD GAMES
Played Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics again with Andy last Friday. We had a blast. The game is just so good. The only problem with it, is that it takes too long to play. It’s fine when your playing the video game because you can save it but when your head to head at a table, it’s a bit too much. In order to try and speed the game up, this time, we tried out the whole, “first person to capture so many units wins” rule, made popular by the Command and Colors games. It didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. It still made the game long and it almost caused a stalemate because there was a point during the game that neither Andy or I wanted to move, in case we lost a unit. In the end, we decided that next time, we would borrow a rule from Heroscape and play a specific amount of agreed upon turns. After those turns are over, we would then count “victory point” according to a predetermined group of parameters. We’ll see if the game plays faster that way.
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I’m slowly making my way through the scenes I need to get done for the show. There were a few last minute scenes I needed to do yesterday but for the most part, I’m making good progress.
FAMILY
Saturday I took the kids out with me to the board game store. At the store, they made a bee line for some rubber ducks that were out on display for the game duck! duck! Go!. When the kids are older (6 and up), I so want to get this game for them.
I’d totally go for the Justice League rubber ducks.
It looks like a lot of fun.
I also saw the game Pitch Car (which I want to get) but it’s a bit too pricey right now at $80.00. I heard it’s great.
A game about flicking “race cars” around a track.
I saw lots of other games I wanted to pick up (but didn’t). The kids had a good time looking at the games. Almost as much fun as I did.
When we left and went back home, we dropped off Dante for his afternoon nap and left for the local pet store. Munchkin had a fantastic time looking at all the animals. Her favorites where the fish and the birds. I liked the hamsters and the rats but I know better than to own any of those (I used to have some when I was younger). I can’t take it when they die. I get too attached.
On Sunday we all went to Mass together. This basically meant that I payed absolutely no attention to the Mass what so ever, even though the kids where relatively well behaved, mainly because they kept me distracted the whole time as I tried to get them to not cause trouble. After we got home and the kids took a nap, we went out again and went to the mall (just so we had something to do). We wandered around, had some ice cream and Alesha bought a thing or two.
One thing caught Munchkin’s eye. A bike, just her size. She sat on it and wanted to peddle it out the store. I liked the way she looked in it and I wanted her to have it so we got it for her on the way back out of the mall. After all, it was only 30 bucks. Less than the prize of a video game.
Monday she rode on it. The bike is really kinda crummy. If you stop pedaling the bike stops. Kinda like a tricycle. Unfortunately Munchkin discovered that she has absolutely no strength in her legs. She was having a really difficult time trying to get the bike to move. Most of the time I had to help her by giving her a push.
On that same day, Dante built up the nerve to slide down the slide at the playground by himself. He climbed up the steps by himself and once he got to the top, he would turn around and go down the slide, feet first, on his belly. It was really funny to see. He was very proud of himself and loved doing it. He spent all his time doing it over and over.
BOARD GAMES
So we ended up playing the Advance Wars board game (aka. Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics), I printed out, with Andy last Friday. It was fantastic! It works really well. The game plays a bit long so you we ended up borrowing the end game rules from the Command and Colors games (games like BattleLore) in order to have the game end faster. Andy ended up winning because of a blunder I made. Otherwise things were looking pretty bleak for him. The game has almost no luck at all. It plays very much like a game in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem only every “Figure” represents a unit of troops. Also, you are able to capture buildings in the game in order to get more money at the beginning of your turn which enables you to pay for more expensive more powerful units. The only luck in the game is a dice you roll you make in order to see if you do an extra point of damage during an attack, otherwise the damage you will do to your opponent is a known quantity. If really fun. I highly recommend it and you really can beat the price, free.
VIDEO GAMES
I’ve written about Magic: The Gathering before, but now, if you own an Xbox 360 you will be able to play the game without having to buy any cards. The game is coming out for Xbox LIVE Arcade on June 17th for 800 MS points. It seems like it’s going to play fairly well. The only thing I thought was kinda odd is that you won’t be able to buy “booster packs” in the game in order to customize your deck. It will only let you unlock one card at a time as you win matches. That’s the only way you will be able to customize your deck. Otherwise, you only get pre-constructed decks to play the game with. That said, I think the game sounds fun. After I read about the game, I actually considered maybe getting an Xbox 360 for the first time. I doubt I could afford to buy one even if I wanted one though.
I’ve had an erratic work week. Staying late because I had to make up hours. Trying to get my section done but not being able to because over 50% of it needed to be revised by the board artist before I could work on it. It was very frustrating. I still need to finish it all. Time is running out.
FAMILY
So Dante decided it would be fun to destroy his mom’s Macbook Pro. He got a bottle of water Alesha had left by the sofa, poured it over on the sofa and on Alesha’s Macbook Pro which was near by and pretty much destroyed it. It no longer works. It was terrible. We couldn’t believe he did that. Alesha and I were VERY upset. Not exactly something we needed have happen.
We made an appointment for the next day at the local Mac store so they could check it out and see if there was anyway to salvage it. That became it’s own fiasco. I came home from work that day and at the last minute, I thought it might be a good idea to make it a family trip. It took us ten minutes to get to the place once we were ready and we were twenty minutes early for the appointment. Unfortunately, as we were all getting out of the car, Alesha realized she had forgotten the Macbook. Freaking out, she got back in the car and went back home. Meanwhile I was with the kids at the mall not knowing what to do and feeling like it was all my fault because it was my idea to take the kids, which is one of the reasons Alesha forgot the computer. When it was near time for the her appointment I showed up to the store and was going to explain the situation to the Mac people when they called Alesha in. As I was waiting, I called Alesha a few times to keep tabs as to were she was and how close she was to getting back. It was very tense. The kids and I stood at the Mac store for a good twenty minutes waiting. I was hoping that they would call Alesha up late. Munchkin seemed like the only thing she was concerned about was making as much noise as possible as she ran around in a circles. Dante wanted desperately to get out of the stroller he was in so he could mess around with all the fun stuff he saw. It was all I could do to keep him quite. Meanwhile there was a screen that kept showing who was up next and the person that was ahead of my wife was called up. Alesha was not there yet and I was getting a bit panicked. The last thing we needed was yet another thing to make Alesha miserable. She was feeling bad enough about having lost her computer and worse, some things in the computer she hadn’t had time to back up.
I called Alesha one last time, only to find out that she had parked and was on her way over. I was relieved. She showed up before they had called her up and I left her there to continue to wait while I took the kids to the food court and bought them Pizza.
Alesha discovered that to fix her almost three year old Macbook Pro, it would cost $1300.00 so instead, she bought a $900.00 Macbook and called it good. It’s a down grade from the Pro but she’s actually fine with that. Too bad we had to spend that money, we really wish we didn’t have to.
Dante is no longer allowed to even LOOK in the direction of a computer anymore. I won’t allow it.
FAMILY
My Mommy had a birthday last Friday. Like a good son I gave her a call on her birthday…at 7:30 PM. Yeah, I didn’t remember until I got home and was already winding down for the day. It’s embarrassing. I was so disappointed in myself.
Well, anyway, on Saturday Alesha, Munchkin, Dante, Juan (my brother), Deborah (his wife), Paolo (my nephew) and I went over to pass the time with her. We had a good time just being there. Munchkin and Dante played the whole time. My mom was happy. We had an amazing dinner and generally had a fun time.
Happy Birthday Mom!
MY WEEK
The lady that takes care of our kids couldn’t take care of our kids this week. She was in the hospital trying to find out what some swelling on her feet was all about. He checked in on Friday and by Monday night, had not even seen a doctor about it yet. It sounded terrible.
In any case, we need to find different way to take care of the kids. Tuesday I stayed with the kids but had to make up the hours later in the week. Wednesday, Munchkin’s Godmother, Carolina, did us the favor of taking the kids for the day. Today, Alesha took the kids with her to work and is having a half day. Friday will be be the same.
Please pray for Linda who takes care of our kids. Here’s hoping everything turns out okay.
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Started on a new crew this week. Going back to what I was doing in show 2. Working on getting a story reel ready for show 4, to show the producers. We have three weeks to do this. The pressure’s on…again.
FAMILY
We had a very active Memorial Day weekend. The kids were kept very busy. Beginning on Friday, they went to work with mommy for half the day and had a great time. Then on Saturday, we went out of our way to take them out for a walk at Victoria Gardens where they got to ride on a choo choo train and ate ice cream. On Sunday, we went over to a get together at Alesha’s uncle’s house where the place was specially set up for all the kids that were coming. Our kids had a blast.
Unfortunately, the kids had TOO much fun during those day because, come Monday, they wanted to go out and do more. Alesha and I, on the other hand, just wanted to stay home and rest, in our own way. To me, this pretty much meant, spending the day reading comic books. At one point during the day, I took Munchkin out and we rode around on my skateboard and played in the play ground but when we got back I just sat down and began reading. Well, the kids wouldn’t have it. They wouldn’t leave me alone to read. They were going to play with me no matter what. So most of the time, when I was on the couch trying to read, the kids where playing…on ME. They were jumping, dancing, yelling, screaming, running, climbing, on top of me, the entire time I was trying to relax and read my comic book. What am I, a juggle gym? I think Monday was a busier day than all the other days put together for me. I was glad to come into work on Tuesday so I could get some rest.
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Working late for two days straight again this week. Need to make up the hours because I’m going to be missing a day of work to take care of the kids for a day. My work load isn’t too crazy but the scenes I need to do are pretty complicated. I’m working on a new crew right now. I’m helping out for the week. I’m not sure what happens afterward. Hopefully I get put on a new crew. Right now, the show I’m helping out on, is a show from last season. This is their last week to ship everything. I’m feeling the pressure.
FAMILY
Big day for Carolina’s family last Saturday. Angelita, Carolina’s youngest daughter, did her First Communion. We were all very happy for her. Afterward we gathered at their house and had a First Communion party. Munchkin had a fantastic time. She had so much fun that when it was time to go, she left crying.
Meanwhile Dante and Alesha had to stay home. Dante had a fever late last week. He wasn’t doing very well at all. Still, in spite of the fact that he was burning up, he insisted on sitting down to eat. He also wanted to walk around and play. He wanted so much to do what he always does, but the poor boy found himself not being able to do much. By the end of the week, he was back to normal. He just needed to spend at least one weekend at home without going out anywhere.
CATHOLICISM
I went to get my lunch on Monday from the kitchen at work. As I was walking back to my desk I overheard a conversation at a table in the kitchen from my fellow co-workers talking about the whole Obama/Notre Dame thing. Of course, most of the people I work with are on Obama’s side of the debate; and of course, they saw it as a purely political thing. “Conservative Catholics” vs. “Liberal Catholics”. Their conversation was also the typical anti-Catholic prejudice, you hear everywhere. “Those Catholics don’t know what they’re doing, they have it all wrong, they’re holding on to ancient things that don’t mean anything”…etc. It ruined my lunch. All I heard was a couple of sentences but it got me sooo steamed up it just ruined my lunch. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I would say to them and how I would say it. How “I would SHOW THEM”. How my arguments would make them look foolish. How I would show how much smarter and more intellectual my view was. How arrogant, heartless and mean an angry Catholic could be…which is, of course, the reason I couldn’t do it and didn’t do it. I was too angry to say anything that wouldn’t have done more harm than good. It wouldn’t have been a conversion about the topic at hand so much as an exercise in arrogance and pride on my part.
I wondered though, if I HAD said something in a calm, collected, and charitable way, if they would have seen it as a political argument rather than a logical one anyway. I wonder how much I would be able to say to them that wouldn’t have sounded as if I was politically “Conservative” instead of just Catholic. Why is it that if you live your faith as it is taught by the Church you are automatically “a close minded, ultra conservative, right winger”? Why is it that being unfaithful to your Church and faith is celebrated as being “progressive” and open minded? Yes, I understand that there are political Conservatives that are Catholics. I also understand that there are political Liberals that are Catholics. Yet, that really shouldn’t be the issue. The issue should really be about whether you are a FAITHFUL Catholic or not. You shouldn’t put you parties or political views ahead of the dogmas of your faith. If you do, it only goes to show which one of the two is your REAL Religion. In the end, it just made me sad.
MOVIES
I used to like Star Wars more than Star Trek. I thought that Star Wars, in general, was a bit more fun and Star Trek was a bit to “hard sci-fi” to be as fun. Then George Lucas released his Star Wars prequels and pretty much ruined the fun of Star Wars by making three movies that never actually captured the fun of the original three.
Along comes the new Star Trek movie and does to Star Trek what Lucas couldn’t pull off with Star Wars. It updates the Star Trek franchise, makes it fun, captures the essence of what made the original Star Trek work (the characters), takes away the dryness of Star Trek, adds some action and makes it cool to like Star Trek. Yes, the intellectual parts and the hard science, that made Star Trek truly geeky, are missing, but what we get in it’s place is a good fun time. Hopefully, some of the intellectual stuff will make an appearance in the next movies, for now, I’m happy with what they gave us.
BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES
Haven’t written about games in a while so I just thought I’d write about a board game that will become a video game and some video games that have become board games.
Andy and I played a game of Dungeon Twister last Friday. He beat me, but I think the game would have kept going. On hindsight I think we messed up a rule that would have changed the way we saw the last move of the game.
Andy really likes the game. He’s liked it ever since we played it for the first time months ago. It’s a dungeon crawl-ish chess game with a modular board whose parts twist around. There is no luck in the game. It’s all tactics and strategy. Here’s the Description of the game:
Dungeon Twister is a 2-player high level strategy game where 2 teams of adventurers with various powers are trapped in a dungeon. The board is composed of 8 rooms that can be moved and rotated by the players. Each turn, a player is able to spend actions to move around the dungeon, pick up and use items, battle with the opponents team, or turn and move the rooms of the dungeon.
The goal is to reach 5 victory points. Points are collected by moving adventurers out of the dungeon or by killing an opponent’s adventurer. Treasures are disseminated across the whole dungeon and will bring the adventurers well-needed powers.
Each player has the same characters, each with different powers. Some run fast, some fight or disarm traps. The cleric heals, magician burns everything in sight and the goblin is so weak that the simple fact of getting him out will bring you two victory points.
Combat and actions are managed via cards. To move, fight, heal or turn a room, you must manage action points obtained by playing cards. Those cards are not drawn but selected from a set of cards by both players. Both players have access to the same panel of cards at the beginning of the game so the game is really about managing the resources and adapting to the changing environment.
It has recently been announced that a new version of the game is coming out called: Dungeon Twister 2: Prison. This version of the game will actually be different and yet will still play the same as the original and it will be “backwards compatible” with the original. It will be coming out in December. The interesting part is that the game will also be released for Xbox live through Hydravision at the same time.
A few years back, when the first Advance Wars game came out for the GBA, I bought it and totally fell in love with it. I played that game once for an entire night. I started playing it at around 7 or 8 pm, looked up after some hours had gone by and discovered the sun was rising. It was just such a fun game. I didn’t buy the new ones that came out after that, Mostly because (like the Street fighter games) the new games where pretty much, more of the same and I hadn’t (and still haven’t) unlocked all the maps in the game I have, and the original allowed you to make your own maps as well. Theoretically I can keep playing the game without needing to buy a new one. Besides, I haven’t played the game in a few years.
Just found out from the Purple Pawn website that someone has made a free print and play version of the game called Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics. They put it up on BGG and I downloaded the pdf. It looks great. They made the maps modular so you can create your own scenarios and everything. I’m so going to print it out. I just need the figure out how “fancy” I want to make my version. I’m sure Andy will be up for a game. I just hope the game doesn’t take too long to play.
Above is a screenshot of what the original video game looks like. Below is the board game version.
Just looking at the picture make me want to play it. It looks so fun.
From the mind of Reiner Knizia comes FITS. It’s Tetris the board game. It sounds great. He really came up with a great way to translate the game into a tabletop game.
FITS (Fill In The Spaces) is essentially a multi-player Tetris. Each player has an inclined board on which they place different polyominoes – like Blokus pieces, with three, four, or five squares. Cards are drawn from a pile to tell the players which piece to take. The pieces may be rotated and reversed before they slide down the inclined area to dock to other gaming pieces, but unlike Tetris cannot be slid horizontally once dropped. Scoring is based on quantity and configuration of squares left uncovered.
Unlike original Tetris there is no time pressure but like Tetris there is no player interaction as every player is engaged with his own board.
This game is now on my Wishlist under “Must have”. Definitely looks like a game most people will want to play if I was to bring it out.
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This week started out crazy. I hadn’t quite recovered from Mother’s Day weekend (more on that below) and I went to work tired and groggy to finish up the work I need to do. My deadline to finish everything for this crew was Tuesday. Yet, that Monday, I was going to leave work at 12:30 pm and I wasn’t gonna come back that day (more about that below). Knowing that would happen I had stayed late the week before to make up the hours I would miss. This still didn’t help me get over how stressed out I was.
I finished what I could that day and left. The next day I drove myself to work and was even more tired, stressed and groggy than the day before but I kept moving on. Late last week we had gotten some help from other crew members when production realized that three people wasn’t really enough to get the reel looking as good as it could. I still had my chunk of work to do and I had also found a “Post It” note on my computer, when I got in, telling me I had been given even more scenes to work on, on top of the ones I had already. I managed to finish all my work by midday and I was given more work to do as a reward for my effort (which I expected). I had worked, without a break (including a lunch break) all day and I was feeling pretty worn out so I decided to take a breather. I went out to the parking lot, called Alesha and rode my skateboard around as I talked to her, for about 10 minutes. This helped a little. After getting back I managed to finish all the work I was given and even some work that wasn’t exactly assigned to me since I knew, no one would do it, so I took it upon myself to get it done. That was that. Once done, I was told what crew I was going to help out the next day and I packed my stuff and went home.
I was exhausted emotionally, mentally and physically. The last three days had really worn me out a ton. I discovered from a text Alesha sent me, that we were out of diapers for Dante so I stopped off at the store. While at the store, Alesha sent me another text telling me that Munchkin refused to go to bed until I got home. The exact words of the text where: “Your daughter is waiting for you. She says she has to wait for daddy.”
I hurried with the shopping and got on my way home. Finally pulling into the house I got out of the car without getting any of my things out and went inside. When I opened the door Munchkin was standing there excitedly hopping from one foot to another, waiting for me with an enormous grin on her face. I bent down and she came up to me and gave me a hug. I picked her up and I held her tight. Then she asked me:
And my day was worthwhile.
FAMILY
Mother’s day Alesha flew out the door to go to church and then came back for a few minutes before she flew out the door again to be with her mom. Meanwhile the kids and I got ready to meet my parents, my brother, Deborah and Paolo at church. We had plans to go to the Griffith Observatory that day. After church, we had a quick snack and we were on our way. We all had to take separate cars. The observatory parking was full and the kids and I had to park on a side road at the bottom of hill, quite a ways from the observatory. It was a long hike up the hill with the two kids and a heavy diaper bag. I regretted not bringing a stroller along. After barely surviving the trip up with only some scrapes and bruises on Munchkin, we met up with everyone and went into the observatory. I hadn’t known they had remodeled it since the last time I was there. It was great. I had a fantastic time and so did the kids. Munchkin was was really into it. Dante was a little under the weather but he started feeling better after a while.
After our day at the observatory was over, we headed back to my parent’s house for dinner where we were joined by Alesha, my cousin Carolina and her family. Much playing was had by all the kids. Later we all ate dinner and that was really fun too. Unfortunately we had to leave fairly early because it was a Sunday and I had work the next day. Munchkin went to bed late that day. Alesha did also. She still had some last minute corrections to do on her thesis. She need to turn it in the next day so she could graduate and get her Masters Degree. Especially since, her graduation WAS the next day.
I worked from 7 am to 12:30 pm Monday because Alesha dropped me off and was picking us up to take us to her graduation. It took place in the amphitheater at Universal City Walk. Tired and stressed, I was not looking forward to it. Especially since I was going to be taking care of my very tired little kids who were still recovering from the day before, by myself (or at least till my parents showed up to the graduation). Dante had the sniffles.
Having learned my lesson from the day before, I brought the double stroller with me this time. I walked he kids around City Walk and Munchkin was fascinated. I couldn’t help wondering what she would think if I was to take her to an amusement park. Dante was very sleepy and groggy. We all ate some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I had made for us as we walked around.
I was keeping in touch with my parents the whole time because I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle the kids by myself once we got in the theater. I went in eventually, and I discovered that I couldn’t. Once in the lobby, I took the kids out of the stroller and they were so happy to be free that they were running around everywhere, causing chaos, making people trip all over them and bumping into everyone. Munchkin is now potty trained and when she needs to go, she lets you know. Well, she needed to go, so off I went with the kids the diaper bag and Alesha’s purse (which she left me to look after) to the bathroom where I processed to help my daughter pee while making sure Dante didn’t get into any trouble. It was darn crazy. I wasn’t happy at all. Especially since, I needed to change Dante’s diaper because he had pooped and I needed to go to the bathroom myself. Meanwhile I still hadn’t gotten a seat in the theater because I was waiting for my parents to show up.
Turns out they were in the theater sitting down, right around the corner from where I was at the lobby. After meeting them, I had some much needed help and I went I got to change Dante and when to the potty. Meanwhile the graduation had started and I was missing it all. To make a long story short, half our time was taken making sure the kids where okay and the other was taken trying to see bits of the graduation and listening to bits of the speeches.
We ended up meeting up with all the rest of Alesha’s family when it was all over and Alesha had made plans to go to the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Pasadena. I was not looking forward to doing that since the kids where already in pretty bad shape and the dinner was scheduled to take place at Dante’s bedtime. Thankfully, my parents offered to take the kids home with them instead of going to the restaurant, which helped a ton. We went to the restaurant and generally had a good time. I say “generally” because around that time I checked my phone only to discover that the assistant director of the show I was on, had given me call and I had missed it. I called him back, only to get his voicemail, so I left a message. The rest of the dinner I was worried about what the call was about and all kinds of horrible things were going through my head. Later I found out that he was just wondering what scenes I was working on so he wouldn’t hand those out to someone else.
We got home late that night after picking up the kids at my parent’s house. I was really beat and not looking forward to another long day, but as you read above, it turned out okay.
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This is the last full week I have to work on the the episode I’m on. Tuesday, my work load doubled. I have more work than I think I can do. Still, I’m going for it. I have to figure out a way to get it all done. Wish me luck.
Okay so, as of the time of this writing, this is the last of the drawings we’ve done of the superhero versus thing. Once again, Tommy drew something I can’t put up on my site so if you want to see it, you have to go CLICK HERE. When he showed me the pencil drawings I was planning to put it up, and then he colored it and added some details that I thought were a bit inappropriate so…
Paul‘s drawing I can’t put up so here’s my last one:
I drew Spider-man (Marvel Comics) Vs. Batman (DC comics). Yeah, this is reeeaaally stretching it. They fight because their main mode of transportation, in their respective comics, is swinging around the city. Which is to say, I was using any excuse to draw these guys together. I couldn’t help myself and gave Batman “Astro Boy” boots.
Interestingly enough, after I finished the drawing and handed a copy to Paul. He told me I should ink it. Paul is really into inking right now. I told him I might but I’d rather start drawing new drawings than keep working on ones I just finished. I then said, I’d probably go back and ink all the other drawings I’d done, just so that I can get some practice in at some point.
The next day, when I got to work, I found this on my desk:
It seems Paul had gotten a bit of extra time and decided to ink my drawing. Not only did he ink it but since he has been obsessing over inking and he’s been studying Michael Golden‘s work, he decided to ink my drawing in Michael Golden‘s style. The thing I found most interesting about the drawing was that he fixed the things I was most annoyed about in my drawing, namely, that the black had pretty much covered up most of the details of the characters. Paul took in upon himself to add a secondary light source when he inked the drawing, adding a new dynamic to it. Only after seeing what he did, did I kick myself over not having thought to do it myself. It was a good choice on his part.
COMIC BOOKS
A kinda of weird thing happened to me this weeked. It started sometime last week. I was listening to a Role-playing game Podcast were in there was and interview of a game designer. I’m not sure which podcast it was or who the designer was, but they were talking to him about his superhero roleplaying game. He mentioned that he had made “stats” of some public domain superheroes and put then in his game. I thought to myself, “Public domain superheroes?” So later in the week, I recalled the interview and decided to look up these superheroes and I found them. About 100 or so Golden Age superheroes that were never copyrighten and that had fallen into the public domain.
I then discovered how there had been attempts over the last ten to twenty years, by different companies to use and revive these character, without much success. After reading the characters’ their bios, I got excited and wanted to do a take of some of these characters of my own.
May 2nd was Free Comicbook Day. I went to the comic store with Dante, my Brother, his wife Deborah and my little nephew Paolo. Among the comics I picked up was a free issue of Savage Dragon by Erik Larsen, and lo and behold, one of these Golden Age public Domain characters was in the comic. That was a pretty big coincidence. Then doing more research, I discovered that these same characters had made their way into Alan Moore‘s hands (of Watchmen fame) a while back and he had written them into one of his Tom Strong comics (issues 11 and 12), which I owned. I took out my copy of the comic and was blown away. I had read the thing before but I didn’t know that the characters had been public domain. Then I discovered that Alex Ross was having a go at these guys too in his Dynamite comics run, currently on sale. So it seems everyone knows about these guys and I’m really behind the times.
In any case, I think that’s pretty cool. It makes me want to try to do something with them. I think I have an idea for one of them already. We’ll see if I can actually get off my lazy bottom and do it.
FAMILY
My mom got mad at me because I forgot to write about my nephew Paolo’s baptism last week. I had forgotten all about it. Work is really stressing me out right now. It’s almost all I think about. It was a nice baptism. Hurray for Paolo! She also got mad because I didn’t draw a cartoon about it. Well, I only have so much time in the day. I’m working on a commission right now that’s taking up all my drawing time. I wish I could do some cartoons but I can’t.
In fact, I wish I had the time to draw a cartoon about what happened THIS weekend. My Godmother’s daughter Lili, her husband John and their daughter Stella came over to visit from out of state. Stella is the same age as Munchkin and they are both very energetic little girls. I was really excited about their meeting. I wanted Munchkin to meet Stella so bad. I’d seen and read a lot about her from the photos that Lili sends my mom. Well, I won’t go into much detail right now because maybe at some point I might have the time to do that. What I WILL say is that the day was full of fodder for cartoons I don’t have the time to draw. Here’s hoping I can at least get ONE done at some point in the next couple of weeks.
Love you Lili, John and Stella! It was great seeing you.
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