Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Monday, February 24, 2020
Storium Basics: Challenges And Cards
Continuing my Storium Basics series, today we'll be taking a look at the basic gameplay mechanics of the Storium system.
Storium is played, primarily, by making moves that lay cards onto challenges. These cards tell the story, move by move, of what happens during the challenge.
When you play a card, write a move explaining what your character does, and how those actions impact the challenge.
The effect depends on the card you played. Strength cards improve the situation covered by the challenge. Weakness cards make it worse. Neutral cards, which might be subplots, assets, or goals, push it closer to conclusion without making things feel better or worse.
To think of it from another angle: Challenges have Strong outcomes and Weak outcomes. A Strength card pushes the challenge closer to the Strong outcome, and a Weakness card pushes it closer to the Weak outcome. A Neutral card pushes it closer to a conclusion - a Neutral card doesn't change the direction or push it closer to either outcome, but it does shorten the amount of moves left in the challenge. Thus, a Neutral card might feel good if the challenge is trending Strong or bad if the challenge is trending Weak, as you show things continuing along the lines they have been so far.
It is a very good idea, actually, to check the possible outcomes before you play any moves on a challenge. You can do this simply by clicking on the challenge title / challenge card - this will also show some descriptive text, which can help guide your writing as well. The outcomes tell you what the possible range of results of a challenge are, and where you should be focusing your writing. Knowing them in advance gives you something to work towards. You know that if you play a Strength card, you should be writing something that pulls things closer to the Strong outcome, and if you play a Weakness, you should be writing something that pulls things closer to a Weak outcome. This gives the scene more of a feel of a full story, rather than a bunch of independent moves.
When you lay a card, be sure to involve that card in your move—if you play a Strength card labeled "Agile," for instance, your move should be based on your agility in some way, showing how it helps. If you play a Weakness card labeled "Cowardly," your cowardice or tendency to be overcautious should affect things and make them worse somehow. And if you play your subplot, it's a good time to get a little introspective and show how that subplot is driving you to do what you do, or how the events of the game have changed your view of your subplot.
Note that when you're starting out in a game, it's usually easier to play your first move as either a Strength or a Weakness. Subplots are great cards (my favorite type, in fact), but they can be hard to use for your very first move.
Because you know what impact you're having on the challenge when you lay your card, you should go ahead and write that impact. Don't feel that you need to keep to just your actions—write how you changed things.
A lot of narrative power rests with the players here. Don't worry if you don't quite get it right away—it can take some time to learn the right balance, especially if you're used to a tabletop or MUX method where someone other than you determines your results.
There are limits: until all pips on the challenge are filled, neither of the final results of the challenge should happen. For example, let's assume that the following two challenges exist:
Likewise, until "Rescue the Villagers!" is finished, you shouldn't state that all the civilians are free of danger, and you shouldn't state that any significant number the civilians have been killed, especially not the mayor.
However, while playing on "Drive Back the Assault!" you might kill some of the bandits on any card play, organize some villagers into a strong defensive line, take down an enemy champion, slip up and let some bandits surround you, get knocked aside and let the bandits get closer...any of these things, and more, are within the bounds of the challenge.
And on "Rescue the Civilians!" you might certainly get some civilians free, kill a bandit or two threatening them, rescue some from a burning building, be unable to find a way past some threatening bandits or into a burning building, or otherwise show the situation developing.
It's a balancing act—the trick is to show development but leave the final conclusion for the last card. Be guided by your own card play as well, of course, and by which Outcome the challenge is headed towards.
When you play the last card on a challenge, you need to write the conclusion. You'll do that based on the result the game displays. Strong or Weak results are written totally by the player.
Take a look at the outcomes above - they state, in low detail, what happens when those challenges conclude Strong or Weak. If you finish the challenge Strong or Weak, the applicable outcome text will show, and you should use it to guide your writing.
For example, if you play the last card on "Rescue the Villagers!" and it finishes Strong, then by the end of your move, it should be clear that most civilians, including the mayor, are in relative safety further into the village and away from the bandit threat, and none are notably injured. How that happens, though, is up to you!
Remember: The challenge outcomes are important. Don't just stick them in at the end of your move - if you're writing the final move of a challenge, involve the outcomes in your move. Make them a central element of that move's story.
An Uncertain result - which happens if there's an even number of Strength and Weakness cards played or if none are played - is written by the narrator. If that comes up, you'll leave the final results open and the narrator will write something for them. I generally advise that in those cases, you pretend you're writing the second-to-last move of the challenge rather than the last.
Though there are only 3 result types—Strong, Weak, and Uncertain—Storium does track the actual number of each card type played, and if more cards of, say, the Strength type are played, it will take more Weakness cards to bring it back to neutral—or vice-versa. In Storium, every card play does matter, even if the results only fall into three basic fields.
And, of course, the scene can feel very different depending on the card play flow. If the group plays 3 Strength cards followed by 4 Weakness cards, the scene will read differently than if it played 1 Strength, 2 Weaknesses, 2 Strengths, and 2 Weaknesses, or some other combination—even though the final result is Weak either way. The first way will feel like a situation that was promising at first and took a drastic disastrous turn from which it never recovered, while the second way will feel like it went back and forth.
In Storium, by default, you can play up to three cards on a single move, and up to three cards per overall scene. This can vary by game based on settings the narrator chooses, but bear it in mind - if you blow all your card plays on a single challenge, you will have a major impact on that challenge...but no impact on the rest of the scene. Sometimes that's entirely right and proper, mind! It's just something to be aware of.
Some narrators will set up special rules regarding card plays - for instance, some narrators want players to generally only play one card at a time. If your narrator has set up rules for how to play cards, be sure to follow them, as they are part of how the narrator sets up the feeling and tone of the game.
For more information on playing on a challenge, see...well, most of the articles I've written. But especially these ones:
Storium is played, primarily, by making moves that lay cards onto challenges. These cards tell the story, move by move, of what happens during the challenge.
When you play a card, write a move explaining what your character does, and how those actions impact the challenge.
The effect depends on the card you played. Strength cards improve the situation covered by the challenge. Weakness cards make it worse. Neutral cards, which might be subplots, assets, or goals, push it closer to conclusion without making things feel better or worse.
To think of it from another angle: Challenges have Strong outcomes and Weak outcomes. A Strength card pushes the challenge closer to the Strong outcome, and a Weakness card pushes it closer to the Weak outcome. A Neutral card pushes it closer to a conclusion - a Neutral card doesn't change the direction or push it closer to either outcome, but it does shorten the amount of moves left in the challenge. Thus, a Neutral card might feel good if the challenge is trending Strong or bad if the challenge is trending Weak, as you show things continuing along the lines they have been so far.
It is a very good idea, actually, to check the possible outcomes before you play any moves on a challenge. You can do this simply by clicking on the challenge title / challenge card - this will also show some descriptive text, which can help guide your writing as well. The outcomes tell you what the possible range of results of a challenge are, and where you should be focusing your writing. Knowing them in advance gives you something to work towards. You know that if you play a Strength card, you should be writing something that pulls things closer to the Strong outcome, and if you play a Weakness, you should be writing something that pulls things closer to a Weak outcome. This gives the scene more of a feel of a full story, rather than a bunch of independent moves.
When you lay a card, be sure to involve that card in your move—if you play a Strength card labeled "Agile," for instance, your move should be based on your agility in some way, showing how it helps. If you play a Weakness card labeled "Cowardly," your cowardice or tendency to be overcautious should affect things and make them worse somehow. And if you play your subplot, it's a good time to get a little introspective and show how that subplot is driving you to do what you do, or how the events of the game have changed your view of your subplot.
Note that when you're starting out in a game, it's usually easier to play your first move as either a Strength or a Weakness. Subplots are great cards (my favorite type, in fact), but they can be hard to use for your very first move.
Because you know what impact you're having on the challenge when you lay your card, you should go ahead and write that impact. Don't feel that you need to keep to just your actions—write how you changed things.
A lot of narrative power rests with the players here. Don't worry if you don't quite get it right away—it can take some time to learn the right balance, especially if you're used to a tabletop or MUX method where someone other than you determines your results.
There are limits: until all pips on the challenge are filled, neither of the final results of the challenge should happen. For example, let's assume that the following two challenges exist:
- Drive Back the Assault!
- Strong: You and the other defenders solidly repel the enemy army, driving them away from the town with a minimum of damage or casualties. The battle isn't over and the bandit lord still lives, but the town has some breathing room.
- Weak: You drive back the bulk of the army to give the village some breathing room, though the bandit lord still lives. However, several of the bandits break through the defenses and make it into the village proper. There, they light several more fires and snatch whatever limited wealth the villagers have.
- Rescue the Villagers!
- Strong: You manage to get most civilians - including the mayor - further into the village, to relative safety, without any of them getting notably hurt.
- Weak: You get most of the civilians to safety, but a few - including the mayor - are killed either by the bandits or by being trapped among fires started in the midst of the battle.
Likewise, until "Rescue the Villagers!" is finished, you shouldn't state that all the civilians are free of danger, and you shouldn't state that any significant number the civilians have been killed, especially not the mayor.
However, while playing on "Drive Back the Assault!" you might kill some of the bandits on any card play, organize some villagers into a strong defensive line, take down an enemy champion, slip up and let some bandits surround you, get knocked aside and let the bandits get closer...any of these things, and more, are within the bounds of the challenge.
And on "Rescue the Civilians!" you might certainly get some civilians free, kill a bandit or two threatening them, rescue some from a burning building, be unable to find a way past some threatening bandits or into a burning building, or otherwise show the situation developing.
It's a balancing act—the trick is to show development but leave the final conclusion for the last card. Be guided by your own card play as well, of course, and by which Outcome the challenge is headed towards.
When you play the last card on a challenge, you need to write the conclusion. You'll do that based on the result the game displays. Strong or Weak results are written totally by the player.
Take a look at the outcomes above - they state, in low detail, what happens when those challenges conclude Strong or Weak. If you finish the challenge Strong or Weak, the applicable outcome text will show, and you should use it to guide your writing.
For example, if you play the last card on "Rescue the Villagers!" and it finishes Strong, then by the end of your move, it should be clear that most civilians, including the mayor, are in relative safety further into the village and away from the bandit threat, and none are notably injured. How that happens, though, is up to you!
Remember: The challenge outcomes are important. Don't just stick them in at the end of your move - if you're writing the final move of a challenge, involve the outcomes in your move. Make them a central element of that move's story.
An Uncertain result - which happens if there's an even number of Strength and Weakness cards played or if none are played - is written by the narrator. If that comes up, you'll leave the final results open and the narrator will write something for them. I generally advise that in those cases, you pretend you're writing the second-to-last move of the challenge rather than the last.
Though there are only 3 result types—Strong, Weak, and Uncertain—Storium does track the actual number of each card type played, and if more cards of, say, the Strength type are played, it will take more Weakness cards to bring it back to neutral—or vice-versa. In Storium, every card play does matter, even if the results only fall into three basic fields.
And, of course, the scene can feel very different depending on the card play flow. If the group plays 3 Strength cards followed by 4 Weakness cards, the scene will read differently than if it played 1 Strength, 2 Weaknesses, 2 Strengths, and 2 Weaknesses, or some other combination—even though the final result is Weak either way. The first way will feel like a situation that was promising at first and took a drastic disastrous turn from which it never recovered, while the second way will feel like it went back and forth.
In Storium, by default, you can play up to three cards on a single move, and up to three cards per overall scene. This can vary by game based on settings the narrator chooses, but bear it in mind - if you blow all your card plays on a single challenge, you will have a major impact on that challenge...but no impact on the rest of the scene. Sometimes that's entirely right and proper, mind! It's just something to be aware of.
Some narrators will set up special rules regarding card plays - for instance, some narrators want players to generally only play one card at a time. If your narrator has set up rules for how to play cards, be sure to follow them, as they are part of how the narrator sets up the feeling and tone of the game.
For more information on playing on a challenge, see...well, most of the articles I've written. But especially these ones:
- Make an Impact!
- Play to Your Cards
- Take Charge!
- Leaving Things Open
- Address the Challenge
- No Card Play is "Wasted"
- Multi-Card Moves
- Finishing a Challenge: Strong Results
- Finishing a Challenge: Weak Results
- Finishing a Challenge: Uncertain Results (Player Role)
- Writing a Move: Strength and Weakness Cards
- Writing a Move: Neutral Cards
- Reading Ahead: Outcomes as Inspiration
Friday, February 21, 2020
Spinners Of The Night
The Wild Riders haven't been holding my attention so I switched gears and started on the Night Spinner turrets this past Tuesday. The cockpits and undersides are done while the orange got started. I've since finished that up and got the barrels glued on since this picture was taken.
Movie Reviews: Thor: Ragnorak, Justice League, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, Victoria And Abdul
See all my movie reviews.
Thor: Ragnarok: This movie has received heaps of praise, and much of it is for the very things that I hated most about it. And I basically hated this movie.
First off, the plot (spoilers, as if): there isn't one. Thor has to escape from something, then he and Loki get lectured at by their dying immortal father, then their sister shows up and breaks Thor's hammer, then Thor gets caught in some arena, has to fight Hulk for some reason - which is pointless, since they are both indestructible and anyway we all know they won't die. Then they escape, and then Asgard blows up and Thor and the rest of the cast is in a spaceship.
It's not a plot, it's a series of disconnected comedy and battle sequences, with zero tension and not a single character worth a damn. Every hero is going to survive, and even if they don't, there is not a whit of emotional interest if seeing them survive or not (and if they are killed, they'll probably just get resurrected again in the next movie). Hela is so unbeatable, that every fighting scene she was in was a complete waste of screen time: everyone else is beaten, whoop-dy do. Why bother filming it? Loki, the one person who at least had some interesting character in his other movies, is now useless window dressing with almost no character at all. There is only one memorable scene in the movie, and it's the only scene in which Loki displays his old trickster character. It lasts for 30 seconds, and then we're back to an endless blank nothing of emotional involvement.
I honestly don't remember a single line of dialogue outside of "We work together!" and the scene I mentioned above. Was the movie funny? I cracked a smile three times. Admittedly, if I had not seen the trailers, I would have cracked a smile four times. The acting is mostly adequate but unremarkable, and the sets, visuals, directing, and so forth are adequate and unremarkable. There is one pretty scene which would have been enjoyable if it wasn't basically a copy of the scene we saw a few months ago in Wonder Woman. Four cracked smiles are not enough to sustain a movie. There is no tension, and there is nothing and no one to root for. There is no bigger message to learn. There is no real reason for this movie to exist.
There is no explanation as to how Thor's hammer is so easily broken. Thor rips out a hammer shaped piece of plumbing that causes as much damage as his original hammer. Huh? Even after smashing into the Hulk and vice versa, the hammer shows not a single piece of wear. Banner falls hundreds of feet onto a solid surface - without turning into the Hulk - and, rather than dying, the scene is played for laughs (he is unscathed, of course). Thor must have lived for thousands of years, yet he doesn't remember that he is the freaking God of thunder and lightning until he cries like a baby because he does not have his hammer to play with - what a puny god. Any one of these was just freaking insane. But mostly, who cares??? The movie is a bunch of unfunny attempts at insult and slapstick humor and Attack of the Clones levels of emotional dialogue. It's like Deadpool, only I hated Deadpool more because Deadpool was also immoral and visceral, which made me feel sullied. This movie was merely a pathetic waste of time.
Justice League: DC comics follows up a series of boring, gritty, dark, mumbling slugfests - followed by the excellent Wonder Woman - with a return to boring, gritty, dark, mumbling, slugfest. They never learn.
If there was more than 90 seconds of daylight in the movie, I must have missed them. The origin stories are cookie cutter and uninteresting, the characters are one dimensional, at best, and no one has a relationship or seems to care about anyone or anything other than being cool. With the exception of Amy Adams, who has nothing to do but be Superman's girlfriend.
Ezra Miller's Flash takes the role played by Spider-man in the Marvel movies: wisecracking and boyish, but hardly relatable. Gal Gadot continues to be superhuman, but all she gets to do is bash people and make a few encouraging remarks. Henry Cavill as Superman managed to use his tiny screen time to exude a little more personality than the others. The bad guy, the other heroes, and the mcguffin were forgettable.
As were the action scenes. Look, guys, good fight scenes are not ones where lots of people get bashed repeatedly until one of them finally bashes harder and wins, while everyone else walked away un-scarred. Good battle scenes are ones where the bashing is kept in context and a story continues to unfold. Where victory is not finally bashing a lot harder, but where humanity is exhibited, emotional connections are made or rebuffed, and entirely new things come into play (for example, see The Dark Knight). You recent superhero film makers just don't seem to get it; I mean, you make lots of money, so I guess you're fine. But your movies are emotionless shells. They are no better than episodes of superhero TV shows.
Please: give me stories and characters, not beams of light, wisecracks, things going smash, and guys in suits posing. Lots and lots of posing.
This movie was, at least, not terrible or fatally flawed, so it earns its place among the watchable but forgettable of superhero movies.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: This flawed, beautiful movie was incredibly creative and generally fun. It has a simple Avatar-like theme of some peaceful creatures, some big bad bosses, cute creatures, and mystery. It also has two cute main characters who look like they are barely out of their teens (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne). Unfortunately, while they act well, there is not a smidgen of chemistry or fun between them. A major subplot hangs around their emotional relationship, written by someone who has no clue how to write relationships. So, although the characters are not exactly one-dimensional, they are not engaging.
The move is still fun, since the main plot - who is attacking the floating spaceship and why? - works fine. It is so inventive and fresh, you kind of wish that whomever is behind the visuals and the bestiary would have been working for the Star Wars production team. A visual feast full of surprises, directed and shot well.
Victoria and Abdul: This flat biopic introduces a topic but doesn't do much with it. Apparently, Queen Victoria spent some of the end of her life in the presence of some Muslim Indian man who was plucked out of India to perform a meaningless ceremony for her, but whom she came to think of as a teacher, despite his occasionally hiding or omitting certain aspects of the truth from her. Everyone around her hates him because he is Indian, not to mention that he is taking time and attention away from things she should be doing.
Judi Dench is a treasure, of course, but Abdul (Ali Fazal) and everyone else puts in fine performances. Costumes and cinematography are adequate. But it's not really much of a story, and the story that there is is not developed properly. For example, the movie introduces a Chekhov gun by having Abdul tell Victoria about a mango early on in the movie. In the middle of the movie, someone brings her a mango, but it is rotten. I'm not an expert filmmaker, but even I know that somewhere near the end of the movie there needs to be another mango. Either Victoria finally gets to eat a ripe one before she dies, or Abdul returns to India and reflects on a mango tree, thinking of Victoria, or something. But no. We never hear of mangoes again; the thread is simply forgotten.
Other interesting story elements were hiding in the screenplay, but they also never made it out. Victoria and Abdul walk and talk, everyone else threatens them (both), and then it's all over. The main characters' changing feelings towards each other are presented, but not well. I was left feeling hollow.
Thor: Ragnarok: This movie has received heaps of praise, and much of it is for the very things that I hated most about it. And I basically hated this movie.
First off, the plot (spoilers, as if): there isn't one. Thor has to escape from something, then he and Loki get lectured at by their dying immortal father, then their sister shows up and breaks Thor's hammer, then Thor gets caught in some arena, has to fight Hulk for some reason - which is pointless, since they are both indestructible and anyway we all know they won't die. Then they escape, and then Asgard blows up and Thor and the rest of the cast is in a spaceship.
It's not a plot, it's a series of disconnected comedy and battle sequences, with zero tension and not a single character worth a damn. Every hero is going to survive, and even if they don't, there is not a whit of emotional interest if seeing them survive or not (and if they are killed, they'll probably just get resurrected again in the next movie). Hela is so unbeatable, that every fighting scene she was in was a complete waste of screen time: everyone else is beaten, whoop-dy do. Why bother filming it? Loki, the one person who at least had some interesting character in his other movies, is now useless window dressing with almost no character at all. There is only one memorable scene in the movie, and it's the only scene in which Loki displays his old trickster character. It lasts for 30 seconds, and then we're back to an endless blank nothing of emotional involvement.
I honestly don't remember a single line of dialogue outside of "We work together!" and the scene I mentioned above. Was the movie funny? I cracked a smile three times. Admittedly, if I had not seen the trailers, I would have cracked a smile four times. The acting is mostly adequate but unremarkable, and the sets, visuals, directing, and so forth are adequate and unremarkable. There is one pretty scene which would have been enjoyable if it wasn't basically a copy of the scene we saw a few months ago in Wonder Woman. Four cracked smiles are not enough to sustain a movie. There is no tension, and there is nothing and no one to root for. There is no bigger message to learn. There is no real reason for this movie to exist.
There is no explanation as to how Thor's hammer is so easily broken. Thor rips out a hammer shaped piece of plumbing that causes as much damage as his original hammer. Huh? Even after smashing into the Hulk and vice versa, the hammer shows not a single piece of wear. Banner falls hundreds of feet onto a solid surface - without turning into the Hulk - and, rather than dying, the scene is played for laughs (he is unscathed, of course). Thor must have lived for thousands of years, yet he doesn't remember that he is the freaking God of thunder and lightning until he cries like a baby because he does not have his hammer to play with - what a puny god. Any one of these was just freaking insane. But mostly, who cares??? The movie is a bunch of unfunny attempts at insult and slapstick humor and Attack of the Clones levels of emotional dialogue. It's like Deadpool, only I hated Deadpool more because Deadpool was also immoral and visceral, which made me feel sullied. This movie was merely a pathetic waste of time.
Justice League: DC comics follows up a series of boring, gritty, dark, mumbling slugfests - followed by the excellent Wonder Woman - with a return to boring, gritty, dark, mumbling, slugfest. They never learn.
If there was more than 90 seconds of daylight in the movie, I must have missed them. The origin stories are cookie cutter and uninteresting, the characters are one dimensional, at best, and no one has a relationship or seems to care about anyone or anything other than being cool. With the exception of Amy Adams, who has nothing to do but be Superman's girlfriend.
Ezra Miller's Flash takes the role played by Spider-man in the Marvel movies: wisecracking and boyish, but hardly relatable. Gal Gadot continues to be superhuman, but all she gets to do is bash people and make a few encouraging remarks. Henry Cavill as Superman managed to use his tiny screen time to exude a little more personality than the others. The bad guy, the other heroes, and the mcguffin were forgettable.
As were the action scenes. Look, guys, good fight scenes are not ones where lots of people get bashed repeatedly until one of them finally bashes harder and wins, while everyone else walked away un-scarred. Good battle scenes are ones where the bashing is kept in context and a story continues to unfold. Where victory is not finally bashing a lot harder, but where humanity is exhibited, emotional connections are made or rebuffed, and entirely new things come into play (for example, see The Dark Knight). You recent superhero film makers just don't seem to get it; I mean, you make lots of money, so I guess you're fine. But your movies are emotionless shells. They are no better than episodes of superhero TV shows.
Please: give me stories and characters, not beams of light, wisecracks, things going smash, and guys in suits posing. Lots and lots of posing.
This movie was, at least, not terrible or fatally flawed, so it earns its place among the watchable but forgettable of superhero movies.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: This flawed, beautiful movie was incredibly creative and generally fun. It has a simple Avatar-like theme of some peaceful creatures, some big bad bosses, cute creatures, and mystery. It also has two cute main characters who look like they are barely out of their teens (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne). Unfortunately, while they act well, there is not a smidgen of chemistry or fun between them. A major subplot hangs around their emotional relationship, written by someone who has no clue how to write relationships. So, although the characters are not exactly one-dimensional, they are not engaging.
The move is still fun, since the main plot - who is attacking the floating spaceship and why? - works fine. It is so inventive and fresh, you kind of wish that whomever is behind the visuals and the bestiary would have been working for the Star Wars production team. A visual feast full of surprises, directed and shot well.
Victoria and Abdul: This flat biopic introduces a topic but doesn't do much with it. Apparently, Queen Victoria spent some of the end of her life in the presence of some Muslim Indian man who was plucked out of India to perform a meaningless ceremony for her, but whom she came to think of as a teacher, despite his occasionally hiding or omitting certain aspects of the truth from her. Everyone around her hates him because he is Indian, not to mention that he is taking time and attention away from things she should be doing.
Judi Dench is a treasure, of course, but Abdul (Ali Fazal) and everyone else puts in fine performances. Costumes and cinematography are adequate. But it's not really much of a story, and the story that there is is not developed properly. For example, the movie introduces a Chekhov gun by having Abdul tell Victoria about a mango early on in the movie. In the middle of the movie, someone brings her a mango, but it is rotten. I'm not an expert filmmaker, but even I know that somewhere near the end of the movie there needs to be another mango. Either Victoria finally gets to eat a ripe one before she dies, or Abdul returns to India and reflects on a mango tree, thinking of Victoria, or something. But no. We never hear of mangoes again; the thread is simply forgotten.
Other interesting story elements were hiding in the screenplay, but they also never made it out. Victoria and Abdul walk and talk, everyone else threatens them (both), and then it's all over. The main characters' changing feelings towards each other are presented, but not well. I was left feeling hollow.
Bonus Track - Toys R Us
The closing of Toys R Us has been rolling around in my head for months, I finally had some time to sit down and record it. I guess it's appropriate since it's Christmas time. I hope you enjoy it, thank you for listening!
Toys R Us bankruptcy press release
Vintage Toys R Us on Retro Junk
Sunnyvale Toys R Us on Computer History Museum (thumbnail photo)
Doug McCoy's Nintendo Get With It Kit video
Jean Shepherd's Route 22
Toys R Us bankruptcy press release
Vintage Toys R Us on Retro Junk
Sunnyvale Toys R Us on Computer History Museum (thumbnail photo)
Doug McCoy's Nintendo Get With It Kit video
Jean Shepherd's Route 22
Thursday, February 20, 2020
AZ 030, The Activision Decathlon!
Welcome back to the show! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, now we're back to playing Atari 2600 games every two weeks until I screw something up. The first game of 2020 is the Activision Decathlon by the amazing David Crane. I hope you enjoy the show. Next up will be Moon Patrol by Atari, so if you have any feedback on that game, please send it to 2600gamebygame@gmail.com by the end of the day 26th January. Thanks so much for listening!
Brand new Discord server! Why
Decathlon on Random Terrain
David Crane article by Tony Tyler, Big K magazine April 1984
David Crane article by Colin Calvert, Hi-Res magazine January 1984
From the Digital Press Activision Patch page:
Decathlon Bronze patch
Letter with Bronze patch
Decathlon Silver patch
Letter with Silver patch
Decathlon Gold patch
Letter with Gold patch
Atari Age Decathlon with Driving controller thread
Atari Age Decathlon Training Suit thread
Decathlon glove on Atarimania
Bugler's Dream by Leo Arnaud
Brand new Discord server! Why
Decathlon on Random Terrain
David Crane article by Tony Tyler, Big K magazine April 1984
David Crane article by Colin Calvert, Hi-Res magazine January 1984
From the Digital Press Activision Patch page:
Decathlon Bronze patch
Letter with Bronze patch
Decathlon Silver patch
Letter with Silver patch
Decathlon Gold patch
Letter with Gold patch
Atari Age Decathlon with Driving controller thread
Atari Age Decathlon Training Suit thread
Decathlon glove on Atarimania
Bugler's Dream by Leo Arnaud
New Year, Fist Update....
Hello all,
Just wanted to drop in and give an update. The transition from WGF is complete, we have our warehouse and have been shipping from that location for about two months. We have worked out the software issues for the wholesale orders and have been filling them.
We have about a year's supply of product on hand and OOS items such as the Panzerjäger are on the water heading here now.
I have been working on the day to day business aspects, cost analysis, product restocks back end implementation issues, etc. so not a lot of glamorous items to give an updated on for that front.
We have two restock orders incoming from China, the cost has been educational. The cost of shipping is not just crazy expensive for my customers but for us as well. In some cases, it costs more to ship a product than it does to produce it, in other cases the cost to produce a kit was not in line with what it is being sold at into distribution. Some kits were being sold at a net loss once shipping was factored in. Unfortunately, this will mean a price increase, some kits will see a marginal increase, other will be a bit more drastic.
I will give a detailed SKU by SKU run down and explanation later this week.
We have two new SKU's that will be offered once they arrive. The 15mm scale Capacitor cooler and a 60mm tall display model of one of our Assault Troopers. We should have these in hand sometime next month. We are putting the final touches on the files for the Shadokesh main trooper box set. No eta on a release date yet for the Shadokesh, until they are on the water and heading here it is simply impractical to give an estimate.
That's it for now.
All the best!
Mark
Friday, February 14, 2020
Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused product of 2020
Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.
An extremely productive year for Brave
Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.
Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.
The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.
Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:
"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"
Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.
Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now
If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.
The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.
AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.
For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.
Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.
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