THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Looks like we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel on show 8. All the scenes have been handed out and everyone that finished the scenes they are working on, help others finish the scenes that they haven’t got to yet. I ended up doing exactly that this week. The scene I got is really fun and very funny (or at least I hope it will be after I’m done with it). It’s one of the last scenes of the show and I’m having a good time being silly with Bart and Homer in the kitchen.

MY WEEK

So I spent the beginning of the week working on my web comic (more on that below) and before I knew it, it was almost time to post my blog and I hadn’t even started writing or drawing anything for it. I’m almost always thinking about what I should write on it and always trying to find something worth writing about. That way whoever reads it will at least, hopefully, be entertained. I know sometimes I fail miserably but I try. Well this time I procrastinated a bit too long because I got so caught up in the story I’m trying to write.

The thing that takes the most time about my blog is the drawing part. The drawings I post every week take, at the very least, an hour to do and that is mostly because of the coloring process. The more characters in the drawing, the longer it takes to color. Once I have a drawing done though, the rest is pretty easy. I just type.

Sometimes I get an idea for the drawing before I start typing and sometimes after. Well this time I knew what I was going to write about. This weekend my cousin, my wife, my wife’s best friend and I played a game of Nexus Ops. Nexus Ops is a light science fiction wargame that plays a little like Axis and Allies, a little like The Settlers of Catan and a little like Starcraft the video game. I lost the game miserably and my wife didn’t like it much. Although my cousin loved it but that’s only because he won.

Well, anyway, I was going to write about that and then draw a picture of my cousin on top of the table, kicking board games pieces everywhere, rubbing it in our faces that he won (which he practically did) while we sit by and look stupidly up at him. Well, the thing is, lately I’ve just been drawing the blog drawings on a piece of paper, I scan them in, and I then color and letter them. It’s faster for me that way. If I use the Wacom tablet to draw directly on the computer I find it takes me longer to do. Usually I scan the drawing in at work. This time I didn’t get a chance to draw anything anywhere. My scanner at home is still packed up somewhere, my desktop isn’t working correctly and I just don’t have the time to take care of all these things right now. I was able to go home at a normal time this week. I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and draw the blog drawing at home but since I wasn’t going to be able to scan it in at home, that presented a problem. I didn’t want to stick around at work because I wanted to go home so badly so I thought I’d try drawing directly into the computer again. This time, though, I was going to try something new. I was going to paint the drawing. I thought that maybe, if I used shapes of color instead of lines I could actually get a more accurate and controlled drawing. Since it usually takes me a long time to color the drawings anyway I’d be losing a step of the process.

So I set out to execute my plan once I got home and low and behold it seemed to be working. I was trying to invent for myself the process as I went so it was taking me a bit longer to do it but I was doing it. I was getting really into it. While I was doing this, my wife called on the phone (she hadn’t come home yet) and I spoke to her for a bit. Afterwards I went back to the computer and began working on the drawing again.

Then, that’s when it happened… Photoshop froze on me a second and then crashed. This usually isn’t a big deal except that I had been so caught up in trying to invent for myself a new method of working on Photoshop that I hadn’t even saved the drawing I was working on at all. Not even once. In other words. I lost all my work. I was crushed. I didn’t want to start over. Emotionally I didn’t have it in me anymore. I went on Facebook and put a sad face “how I’m feeling” icon there and sat there staring at the computer. I didn’t do anything else on my blog for the rest of the day.

Next day, when I got into work, I used pencil and paper and drew this instead:

At least I got a drawing done.

MY WEB COMIC

So the story I was trying to write went bye bye. No matter what I did I couldn’t make it work. It was mostly because the story lost focus. It didn’t have a central theme. It didn’t have a point. Every time I tried to give it a point, it became something else. It just wasn’t the story I set out to write. So instead of fighting with the story and trying to force it to go where I wanted it to go, I thought that maybe I’ll go in the direction that these themes took the story. This actually worked a lot better. I’ve actually got a beginning, middle and end to the thing written out in a rough outline. I told the story to my wife and she really likes it, except for the final act climax which I fully admit is really cheesy and it needs work. That’s okay because what I have of this story is a whole lot more than I had with the other story.

I’m actually very excited about it now, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to write. I was trying to write a story about a fourteen year old boy named Joseph before. Now I’m writing about a man named Guy. The stories have the same “inciting incident”, namely the inheritance of money, both stories take place in the modern world and both stories even have a dragon in them yet they couldn’t be more different. If I can make the other story work I’ll still do it but for now I’ll stick to the one that’s working for me.

As soon as I can figure out a really good non cheesy climax to the story, I’ll be ready to start writing.

BOARD GAMES

So I’m not going to write about the game of Nexus Ops I played this weekend because I’ve already mentioned it above. Instead I’m going to call attention to a comment that was left under my About Me page. Imagine my surprise when I read this:

Dear Luis,
Very interesting and thoughtful blog. If you are interested in Catholicism and boardgames you might appreciate “Vatican” the boardgame I designed. It has been selling worldwide and we have gotten very favorable comments

Sincerely,
Stephen Haliczer Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor
Product Designer
The College of DuPage Press

First I’d like to thank Stephen Haliczer Ph.D. for bringing the game to my attention. I appreciate it greatly.

So I checked out the game’s site and read about the game. I also tried reading about it on Board Game Geek (BGG) to see if I could learn a bit more. I found a small forum about the game there where people got a chance to ask Dr. Haliczer questions about the game. When asked how the game is played and how competitive it was Dr. Haliczer answered this:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your interest. I designed “Vatican” primarily as a simulation/game in order to give players an experience of the process whereby a pope is elected. It is based on a deep study of the careers of the most important cardinals especially those who are considered “papabile” that is those who are considered papal material. Of course this is only a minority of the 115 voting cardinals. That being the case, the simulation/game had to bring the players through the process whereby cardinals gain the requisite influence to become prominent. This is essentially the first part of the game: Life and Career especially the acquisition of key offices. Some offices are more valuable than others hence a competition to aquire the most valuable offices. At the end of phase I all players have acquired the minimum number of offices that makes them “papabile” but they have different scores.

The second part of the game takes place after the pope dies (Papacy Ends cards) and takes players through the critical period between his death and the opening of the conclave where his successor is elected. Here the players must make a series of critical choices. As in real life during this period they must take positions on a variety of issues confronting the church and must guess which positions would prove the most attractive to the other voting cardinals. Players compete to figure out which positions would be most attractive but this is not always easy.

The third part of the game is the conclave itself. This is designed to be brief with just a few votes-as in reality. The last conclave was decided by only 3-4 votes in two days.

A broader and more general answer to the question of competition is as follows: You cannot in real life plan to become pope. There are too many chance factors and variables that you cannot control. Age would be an excellent example. A cardinal of 58 might be very attractive at a certain period of time. The previous pope might have been too old and died very quickly after election so the cardinals would be inclined to vote for someone young. On the other hand, if you were 58 after a pope had reigned for 25 years, your age would count against you since the cardinals would not want such a long serving pope again so soon.

As a designer of a simulation/game, I could not build in elements of competition that would distort reality. I had to build in the chance factors that really impact the election.

I hope that this discussion was helpful and gave you some insight into my thought processes.

The game must be ordered online and will probably not be in stores for some time-but shipping is free.

Thanks again,
Stephen Haliczer

This sounds really interesting. Unfortunately, when asked about the “roll and move” mechanic (roll the dice, move the number of spaces on the dice) of the game Dr. Haliczer was silent. The game sounds great but I’m iffy about the game being a “roll and move game.” Paul Sauberer asked exactly the question I wanted answered at BGG:

Does the game primarily consist of rolling the dice, moving a marker, perhaps drawing an event card, and then seeing what happens from that? Or do the players direct where their pieces go and what actions they take and then see how those choices determine how likely they are to eventually be elected pope?

I wish there were more reviews of this game at the official site (there are only two). BGG has no reviews of the game at all. I’m very cautious of the board games I buy and I like to read as much about the game as I can before I spend any money on them to make sure I would really like them. Sometimes I even find free digital versions of games online and decide from playing them, if I want to buy them.

I’d be more likely to buy this game if I could read the rules for it or at least see a sample of play. Never the less I’ve put it on my BGG Wishlist. If “roll and move” mechanics are not a big deal to you, then maybe you ought to get it. If you do, tell me what you think of it. I’m really interested.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

T Melnick, thank you for sharing your position on the comments section of “What in the world is a ‘traditional Catholic’?“. I just wish to clarify something you said. In the post you wrote:

I am a traditional Catholic, and there are many more groups and views than the Society of St. Pius X. For me, the change in the Ordination Rite of Bishops which no longer gives them the power to ordain priests, the unscriptural change in the words of consecration, and the promotion of false ecumenism (JPII having worshipped with every religion on the face of the earth, which is forbidden by Church Law and Holy Scripture, making him an apostate from the Church founded by Jesus Christ) were the main clinchers.

What you wrote above is basically what the Society of St. Pius X also says on their site. So my question is, what do you think of the Society?

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