Tuesday 30 April 2019

The Cursed: Unfair Trappers

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The next fight is really unfair, as it is against a band of thieves who have booby-trapped the arena. They cleverly stay at range with bows which makes them troublesome to deal with too.

Bows are really strong in Baldur's Gate.

It takes all manner of wands to win this fight, including some monster summoning ones just to serve as meat shields. On the plus side, the next two "difficult" battles are not really harder, since it's just a portal summoning Ogre Mage (killing the mob summoning portals first) and a band of well armed Thayan adventurers afterwards.

This completes another "tier" which both delights and frustrates Baeloth, who orders Najim to conjure up a 40,000 gold coin reward. Again, this is spent rather quickly on the even better magical gear now available at the shops.

Insight: I struggled severely with that thief fight, until I found you could replay any previous fight and get the EXP and minor gold reward. I basically farmed the ankheg battle until the party was ready both in level and gear.

Monday 29 April 2019

The Cursed: Hold the Wands

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After the necromancer is a difficult fight against an ogre mage and his ogre buddies. Catharina's wands of fear and fireball win the round for the team here, and back at the cells she discovers Ghorlak the beholder, trapped by Baeloth's antimagic field, who takes an interest in becoming the teams "coach" for upcoming fights.

Baeloth fields a proper adventuring party in the next round, but being human they are all susceptible to Elisabeth's hold person spell which makes them easy pickings and moves the gladiators up to the next "tier".

Their reward is 25,000 gold which is quickly spent on the new magic items now available from the stores. Party Girl is the MVP in the next two fights with her magic bow, taking down the majority of the rabid ankhegs that burrow into the arena and a spider summoning druid. Catharina still has to fireball (wand) said spiders into ash though.

Area of effect is handy after you get used to the radius!

Insight: Wands are plentiful, cast pretty fast, and don't get interrupted by taking hits (I think). Because of this its almost always better to use a wand of fireball (or any wand spell) than memorizing and casting the spell yourself.

Sunday 28 April 2019

The Cursed: On the Tabletop

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Party Girl makes the mistake of insulting Baeloth after their previous victory so he places a geas on her to dance seductively on the merchant tables outside combat.

Insight: This is actually a bug where your party members can get stuck in furniture - while you can work through it in the Black Pits, having it happen in the main game of Baldur's gate requires a reload so have multiple saves just in case!

The next round the team faces a hobgoblin horde, and because they didn't notice one of them was a mage early - they take severe damage from casted lightning bolts bouncing around the arena. Fortunately Lu Lingqi still wins that round for them with her berserk rage.

Stinky hobgoblin mage!

They don't make the same mistake in the following round against a skeleton summoning necromancer, burning down the necro which shatters all his summons.

Friday 26 April 2019

The Cursed: The Bloodsport Begins

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Gifted with 2,500g conjured by Najim the genie on Baeloth's instructions - the team got to know each other and their new accommodations. A small set of cells leading to a merchant hub where they could purchase pretty much anything.

The one room market is suprisingly well stocked.
 
The merchants were mostly slaves to Baeloth too - even Najim who the drow had somehow put a geas on. Indeed only one cruel Rakshasa was there by choice as he quite enjoyed the bloodsport.

Soon it was time to fight again - this time against diseased gibberlings, then healthy gibberlings (Baeloth has a sense of humor), followed by a random group of people abducted from a tavern. Needless to say, these were all easy fights.

Insight: It's often prudent to take down the "support" enemies first (mages, clerics, and archers). You want to remove anything with low HP or that adds HP to your enemies ASAP.

Thursday 25 April 2019

The Cursed: Baeloth's Welcome

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Sir Erland came to in a strange, circular arena of the Black Pits with the most basic of weapons available to him. With him were five women, equally equipped, who looked like they had been through hell. Little did he know that Party Girl, Yuria of Londor, Lu Lingqi, Elizabeth and Catharina were veteran survivors of the Darkest Dungeon.

Before any introductions could be made, a swarm of tasloi portalled into the opposite end of the arena and attacked with crude spears but they were easily cut down by the six disoriented but very competent gladiators.

"Congratulations," came the booming voice of a genie who appeared before them. "You have passed the qualification round. Meet your new master..."

Equal parts cool and scary...

"Hello!" came a shrill, campy voice from behind the menacing djinn. It was a drow mage with a large grin. "I am Baeloth the entertainer, and you are my new toys! I'm sure the crowd is going to loooove you. Come, let us show you around. You need to eat, sleep and prepare for the games ahead! This is going to be fun!"

Insight: In Baldur's Gate, tasloi always appear in numbers but they are just experience fodder for the party and rate low on the threat scale.

Wednesday 24 April 2019

Assassins Creed Chronicles: China

Platforming like the Prince of Persia!

Shao Jun, a disciple of Ezio Auditore, is out for revenge as the Templars have slaughtered almost all her other Assassin comrades. This is the first in the series that is a platformer and it pulls it off rather well.

Guards have viewing cones to help you hide.

Apart from extra equipment there are also animus fragments for those that like to explore but that is risky business as Jun is much more fragile than the other protagonists in the series. Not only do the bad guys hit hard but her life bar is pretty low and combat can be a clunky affair.

That said it is still quite enjoyable and a worthy addition to the Assassin's Creed series and I give this 2.5 rope darts to the head out of 5. If you like platformers or Assassin's Creed, you will probably enjoy this. If you want a "better" stealth platformer then I recommend Mark of the Ninja instead.

Insight: Slide/Jump kills are very handy once you learn them. Till then, hanging ledge whistle followed by rope dart to a curious guard is a handy autokill.

Tuesday 23 April 2019

Pandemic: Fall of Rome

The virus is barbarians!

For those who don't know, Pandemic has become a series of good, cooperative games that usually involve researching (and stopping) the spread of various diseases across the game board map. In Fall of Rome, the "diseases" are barbarian tribes who are marching their way into Roman territory and the players (Romans) must prevent this invasion by allying and/or eliminating all of them.

While there are many similar concepts from the other Pandemic series here, such as card matching to then cure/ally with a disease/tribe, there are new ones too - the most obvious one being the recruiting of legions and the dice rolling battles which is fast and enjoyable.

The components are pretty too!

Also the event cards now have a "stronger" optional effect in exchange for corrupting Rome a little more, bringing everyone closer to defeat. This makes for some great strategy on top of the "which tribes will we ally and which will we just kill?" question.

Yes you can win by wiping them all out, but good luck with that. :P All up this is a very enjoyable take on the series and currently my favorite one because of the fighting! I give it 5 out of 5 and highly recommend it! :)

Insight: Defending the front with forts and legions is a good way to keep the hordes at bay.

Monday 22 April 2019

The Kite

Point and Click your way out of an abusive relationship!

In this short point and click / find the spot game, you play as a poor mother who needs to look after her boy. While most of the puzzles are "logical", there are some (the cat in particular) that just make no sense what so ever!

Only the Kite gets to smile in this game.

At least the mouse cursor turns red when you hover over an interactive space. The story, art and music are also decent. Indeed, the main wall I had was getting the language into English! Worth a try, especially since it's free on Steam. :)

Insight: To get it to English, select the 2nd menu item then the 3rd menu item.

Sunday 21 April 2019

Mice and Mystics

A big adventure on a small scale.

In this cooperative game, players are adventurers polymorphed into mice who must work together to complete missions from a well written story. There is a fair bit of story reading to be had here and plays much like a children's tale.

There are 11 chapters to play through!

Gameplay wise your party is always against the clock to traverse the giant, flipable tiles which depict both above and underground sections which can be traversed during the course of a game often creating a few paths to get to your objective.

In your way are various vermin like roaches, spiders and rats. The models for these are all really nice (or yucky). The dice combat can really skewer your experience though, and while on average you get a good experience we've also had it swing to really easy victories and really crushing defeats. Most memorable is the first time we ran into Captain Vurst. We got slaughtered the first time due to the dice.

Still, if you don't mind the swings of fortune then this is a pretty cool 11 mission game. I'd say the replay value is low but the first time through is definitely worth the experience. I give it 4 cheese slices out of 5.

Insight: The abilities my group made the most use of were Dodge, First Aid, Inspire, Meeps and Accurate Shot.

Thursday 18 April 2019

Today I Smiled: High Voices

I'm taking a short blogging break for a few days so I thought I'd leave you with something to listen to, courtesy of DL who is currently sucked into Filipino singers.

Marcelino Pomoy and Morisette are pretty good, but I was most impressed by Gary Valenciano who sings Chick Corea's jazz standard: Spain. It is amazing! Here's a low res version but with less ads in the middle.

I also can't help but share a few more Brexit funnies. At some point I feel the Queen's just going to line up those politicians and...

Clean house!

slakmehl (on getting further Brexit extension)
Because when you're sitting in a car with a perfectly good steering wheel careening towards a cliff, your only option is to figure out how to make the edge of the cliff slightly further away.

punchdrunkskunk
    Turns out Brexit negotiations are basically the Spice Girls:

    UK: I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
    EU: So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
    UK: I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
    EU: So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
    UK: I wanna Huh I wanna Huh I wanna Huh I wanna Huh
    EU: ...
    UK: I really, really, really wanna [unintelligible].
    EU: ...

Lastly, due to the fire at Notre Dame recently, Ubisoft are offering Assassin's Creed: Unity for free this week. As expected with this outcome, folks on reddit are now suggesting "We need to burn more historical monuments." LOL.

Wednesday 17 April 2019

Captain Marvel

Always be nice to cats! :P

This is one hero I knew very little about, but boy did Marvel give her a good movie. It helps that the main character "Vers" (Brie Larson) starts out as an amnesiac Kree enforcer, which helps the audience learn about her past while she does.

If she looks OP it's because she is.

Much like the high budget CGI here, the acting is splendid all around with Samuel Jackson, Jude Law, and  Ben Mendelsohn being the highlights. As a fan of Agents of Shield, it was also great to see Clark Gregg too but I think my new favorite is "Goose" the cat.

The story is well told and the characters are great as is the unexpected humour which is found in spades here. The Stan Lee tribute at the opening is also touching. I'm actually struggling to find some negatives here, other than Captain Marvel might be overpowered? Fantastic movie and one I highly recommend, I give it 5 science guys out of 5.

Tuesday 16 April 2019

Adamastor

Sail for free, just don't expect to survive!

In this free print and play game, you take the role of a captain who must navigate the seas to reach your destination. The map is randomly constructed via random cards populated by small circular spaces and the bigger the map, the harder the game gets.

Other than the map cards, there is also a multipurpose deck of adventure cards that cleverly handles crew morale, traumas, navigation, weather, land exploration and skills. Run out of them, or gain too many traumas and you lose. Expect this to happen a lot, especially in the harder historical variant where you try to sail from Lisbon to Calicut.

Printing in color helps!

Expect to keep the two page manual handy during play as there are a few steps to do per round, but it like everything it gets faster with familiarity. If you like a challenge then this game might interest you. I give it three clouds out of five. You can get it at Boardgamegeek, just scroll down to the files section.

Monday 15 April 2019

Dying Light: The Mother

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

A radio call comes in giving us a sighting of a whole group of Rais' guys at the granary so we head on down clearing a warehouse of zombies before taking on the bandits whom DL kills the most of while I find the hostage with nails in his face. Before he dies, he tells us to go to the lighthouse and there we find the boss of these thugs... Kaan!?

At this point its the single player finale mode once more, so we individually deal with the sudden influx of bandits that show up - none of whom are really a threat. They do let on that they are going after the Mother at the dam though, so we race there (timed) through enemy gunfire and the usual zombies. For DL and I that is pretty bad. He had to drive at night while I'm just a bad driver.

Eventually we reach the dam to find the Mother didn't need any help. She removes her mask to reveal that she is a sentient volatile, which is what happens when you ingest or inhale the blue stuff. She offers a choice, detonate a nuke to purge the disease or resist. Not sure why she doesn't nuke the place herself, but we all chose to resist which leads to an awesome boss battle against her! I use up all my ammo and eventually resort to fists to beat the monster down.

This was a fun boss fight!

Despite her defeat, she did manage to force the blue liquid down some poor saps throat before hand and that person somehow escapes the quarantine to spread the disease anew... but that's a story for another game!

Insight: The Mother isn't affected by flares but I still used them just for visibility purposes. Also, remember you can re-assign your legendary skill points into bonus hand to hand damage.

Sunday 14 April 2019

Dying Light: Desperate Measures

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

After updating Jasir and resupplying, we go out to save Tolga and Fatin from some bandits and then assist the brothers with fuel and supplies for their next crazy escape plan: a rocket train through a collapsed tunnel. It goes just about how you'd expect.

And you thought you were a good crafter?

During this we also find a number of dead faceless and a convoy of Rais' thugs who have taken an interest in the blue incense. Despite clearing the enemies, apparently one of the faceless is still missing. With no leads we are instead sent to help an elderly researcher who is focused on finding a red mask.

His cancer prevents him from doing much though so we end up doing all the leg work - finding three monoliths in beautiful locations and finally an ancient ritual sacrifice site at the top of a mountain. Jim locates the red mask on a skeleton and we return it to the researcher, then turn our backs on him for just 10 minutes and find the old fool has killed himself - believing that dying while wearing the mask would cure him.

Insight: Mines are near useless and will more likely kill you or your companions instead of zombies.

Saturday 13 April 2019

Dying Light: Treasure Hunt

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

With Ezgi safely on her way (to the more dangerous area of Old Town - stupid girl), it's time to look for Jasir's sword that supposedly went into the hands of a weapons collector in town. It's not as simple as raiding his appartment though as the guy had put them in chests scattered around the place with vague clues leading to each of them.

It's a fun treasure hunt, where we not only find Jasir's sword but a bunch of six shooter pistols as well. Jim manages to deactivate the trip wires around one of the chests by swimming underneath them, but later has great difficulty climbing out of an ultra deep hole. Lucky for him he can teleport out when I reach a sleeping bag.

Not these two clowns again...

During the course of the treasure hunt we also come across the brothers Tolga and Fatin again, who somehow survived a light plane crash. Eager to get paid by their employer, Volkan Dal, who took the only parachute, they send us to find him. This ridiculously leads back to Jasir's farm, as Mr. Dal was killed by a local. For his shoes.

Insight: Interacting with any sleeping bag gives all the other coop players the option to teleport to you. This can help people out of being stuck!

Friday 12 April 2019

Dying Light: Getting High

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

The ritual site is at the top of a high mountain. Obviously this cult has no need for people who are unable to climb flights upon flights of stairs! At the top is a pretty temple with a bunch of worshipers, trader Kaan included, praying to the dais where more faceless stand with their incense. A small group of zombies mill around among them.

We are invited up to breathe the smoke, and find the zombies are docile to us. In the background the leader of the faceless, "the Mother", starts talking to us but we pass out and when we awake, everyone is gone (they just left us there? lol). There might be something to this "cure" we keep hearing about.

Jasir then calls us back to his farm as he has new tasks for us - to find his family sword and to find his missing daughter. Like any sane person, we decide to look for Ezgi first and eventually track her down to a campsite with her girlfriend. She wants to go to Old Town and away from her dad and the cult, so we let her as the tunnel she wants to use is already cleared of volatile infestation. We just have to kill her girlfriend half way as she suddenly turns into a viral.

You're on your own from here. Good night and good luck!

Insight: A trio of crossbow bolts fired simultaneously at a non-boss demolishers head will kill it instantaneously. Obviously this is easier done when it doesn't yet know where you are and is standing still.

Thursday 11 April 2019

Dying Light: Up Close and Personal

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

With the lights back on we decide to split up to cover more ground with me heading back to the dam to look for a missing person while DL and Jim head to some warehouses to save a boy on the radio. This turns out to be a trap, as they find a bunch of kids in there who lock them in with another boss demolisher.

They manage to slay it just fine and when I get back to them they are already hunting the kids who have vanished into thin air. Night soon falls and the volatiles come out to play but this time, we hunt them! My upgraded car has a handy UV zone lights which serve as a flare for 30 seconds (then 1 minute recharge) which is a bonus on top of our surplus of UV flares we had prepared for hive delving.

Ass kicking squad reporting for duty.

It feels good to smash the freaks, and once daylight comes DL states "they have evaded our pursuit" - a message usually given to the player. How the tables have turned! We then head back to Jasir's farm to resupply then onto the main quest of visiting the faceless who are performing some ritual.

Insight: Shotguns are best close up. And I mean really close up. When you have the ones that hold 8 shells, advance on the volatiles till they are near melee range then unload. Preferably in their face. Flare up to reload.

Wednesday 10 April 2019

Dying Light: Power Up

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

With the North clear, we headed to the lower part of the island to look for a missing buddy of Jasir only to find that he had literally become a volatile hive bitch. After killing him we swept the area, killing the spitter champion Beelzebufo as well as another boss demolisher, Behemoth, who was a prime target for the stasis grenade, followed by a trio of shotguns to the face.

It was fun making the demolisher do backflips!

After clearing a hive near the beach and finding more missing people we head to the dam to deliver equipment to the worker there in hopes of restoring the power. The place is crawling with zombies yet he is fine as one of the faceless is there with his blue incense. Somehow this makes them invisible to the zombies.

Obviously we are sent into the dam to flip the main switch and while DL has a bad time in there with the guardian demolisher whacking him through the floor, its a pretty short mission and soon the power is back on. From there it's a short trip to the last hive and since we entered during the day it is easily cleared.

Insight: To easily get items from the top of shelves, look for something nearby to stand on. I know it's common sense but I was doing the jump and grab before DL pointed that out to me.

Tuesday 9 April 2019

Dying Light: Heroes of the North

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

From the pumping station we decide to hit all the quests in the vicinity, starting with a trio of volatile hives: a tiny one in a cave, one under a graveyard (of course), and another train tunnel one. Interestingly there's a military train car here with a high tech case that we can't pry open and can't find the key card to.

Good to know that a triple crossbow to an unaware volatile takes it down so we get halfway through that tunnel hive before resorting to guns. We also find multiple missing/deceased persons, I test out being a passenger (which is fun), kill a bunch of rapists and DL pretty much solos the boss zombie "Thor" - a giant hammer wielder.

That's a strong rope.

We also raid the post office and mail vans then deliver letters to those still living at the farm. The highlight of this is the guy we deliver a power bill to. :D At this stage we are well trusted among the community and can probably progress the main quest, but there's more to do on the bottom half of the island.

Insight: Finding missing people is annoying as the marker can be a good distance away from the actual target, who is usually deceased. This often means interacting with a face down body to turn them over and to pickup their ID tag underneath them.

Monday 8 April 2019

Dying Light: Dirty Water

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

Bilal says turning on the power will take some doing, and we are quickly side tracked in the process back to Jasir's farm where people have started getting sick? Something is wrong with the water so we have to go check it out - again.

Before leaving a "Faceless" (dude in a mask) who serves as a priest to the Mother, gives us a crossbow for all our help thus far and with a small upgrade it is stronger than the ranger bow! It also reloads faster and can be fired from the passenger position of the car. We all switch to it.

The pump station is locked up tight when we arrive, requiring us to lockpick an underwater grate to gain access - and being the best "thief" dude in the party, that's my job. I open locks the fastest in the team. :)

Once inside we find new bandits, these being leftovers from Rais' crew, have taken over and have contaminated the supply with corpses. After killing them, we shut off the water until NPCs can clean up the mess.

I'm quite pleased I nailed this guy right in the eye!

Insight: Lockpicking is easier with a steady hand and using a mouse is possibly more accurate than a game controller but otherwise it is just practice and patience. Remember that even if your pick breaks, the "success" area remains in the same spot and the "wrong" areas remain wrong.

My approach is I pretend it's a clock, and hit the "hours" positions first. On any but the "very hard" locks, you'll already find the success zone doing this. If all the hour positions fail, I then try the half-hour positions and so forth until it opens.

Sunday 7 April 2019

Dying Light: Powerless

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

There is a radio tower near the collapsed tunnel that is a potential safe zone, so we do the climbing thing and find... there's no power. Jasir lets us know that we should talk to Bilal at the town gas station about that, because without power we can't unlock any other safe zones.

Thanks for the heads up, that would have been handy before we climbed. Anyway, we clear two more volatile hives in the area. One deep down in the dark and one in a canyon that requires jumping and grappling. Jim does particularly poorly in this one (drinking :P) as the floor is acid (literally) and falling often results in respawning outside the hive.

Jim taking the fast way down. :P

We then emerge near the coast and encounter a couple of crossbow armed farmers who ask us to finish off a monster in a cave who was stealing their food. The monster turns out to be a regular human, feeding his zombie baby down a well, whom we kill on sight (the baby. )

The nearby town is actually full of zombie babies, so we split up and silence them all before heading towards the gas station safe zone and meet the mechanic, Bilal.

Insight: Bilal serves as a quartermaster, so not only can you turn in air drop supplies to him (those still drop out here) - he also gives away stuff for free every game day. Like car upgrades!

Saturday 6 April 2019

Dying Light: All your Base

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

Of all the quests we are offered the one that interests us most is to destroy volatile hives. There are a few of these on the map, and are "safer" to do at night when the volatiles are out. We enter the first one during the day - and it is glorious!

With volatiles endlessly spawning out of crevices, the three of us make a slow but steady sweep - guns blazing and flares a throwing - to kill the "hatchers"? I don't know what they are called, but they look like volatiles half way in the ground. Killing all of them destroys the nest.

We then head onto the next hive, driving at night which turns out to be very dangerous. Sure the buggies can outrun the volatiles, but just barely. In the chaos it is day time again when we can enter, this one being in a train tunnel. We fight through more volatiles like last time, but in one train car I find a bomb and just for shits and giggles I decide to arm it.

Are belong to us!

We sprint out of there and watch the whole thing collapse. That's two hives down!

Insight: Hunting towers act as respawn points. They are terrible positions to hold against volatiles though, as multiple spitters (yes volatiles spit) will down you quickly. Better to jump down and coordinate an escape or a defense from there.

Friday 5 April 2019

Dying Light: Racer X

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

We manage to rescue one captive from the pump station who knows how to operate the machinery, except something goes wrong and the pipes begin erupting. We are tasked with finding the main valve (or something) and quickly as there is a time limit.

Now both Jim and DL start parkouring their way there but being a wannabe game designer I run the opposite way and get into my buggy, as it feels like a buggy challenge/learning point. This turns out to be the right call because the valve is MILES away - and even racing there I only have 10 seconds to spare to turn it. To be fair, I'm terrible at driving games. :P

First person car driving is not my forte.

With that done we reconvene at the farm where everyone is happy with their fresh H20 and Jasir starts telling us about how their faith in "the Mother" keeps them safe from the zombie sickness. To learn more, we have to help out more, and find that a whole slew of quests have now opened up for us.

Insight: Don't worry too much about leaving your car out in the wilds. There are "car summoning radios" in some safe zones that just teleport your vehicle to you. You can also flip them over you manage to turtle them.

Thursday 4 April 2019

Dying Light: Pump it Up

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

The drive back to the farm is fun, and obviously the buggies also get the attention of zombies due to the noise but they are fast enough to outrun them and sturdy enough to run them over in small enough groups.

Alas we find our quest giver, Kaan, has been evicted from the farm. Jasir's daughter Ezgi tells us that if we want the rest of the people to be more friendly is to simply help them out. Getting the water back on would be a start.

We found the eye candy!

We drive to the pumping station with only a small detour when we find Holler, a named demolisher boss zombie in a villa nearby. We take down the heavily armored freak and then proceed to the bandit controlled pump station.

These guys put up a better fight than the last lot, and I'm quite pleased to see the last one wearing decent armor. He forgot a helmet though, so a single head shot is all it takes to put him down.

Insight: You can use medkits while driving / riding in a buggy.

Wednesday 3 April 2019

Dying Light: The Same but Different

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

The zombies out here are much like the ones inside, only tougher, and spontaneously mutate into runners or into duplicates of themselves which does make it more unnerving to be near them, especially since they now all come in hordes as standard.

Eventually we reach a farm safe zone run by Jasir but he and his folk aren't friendly at all. Only the merchant Kaan talks to us, advising us to get a vehicle from a different ranch to make travel easier - and indeed this map is huge and full of open space.

Said ranch has bandits controlling the place, but we silently take them all down. Our reward is one buggy each! These cars can take one driver and one passenger, with the passenger being able to use gun type weapons only.

These are indestructible!

It also needs fuel, and repairs / upgrades to various systems to make the vehicles perform better. Obviously you can also paint the things so we can tell whose car belongs to who. :P

Insight: You can loot the front of other vehicles now for car parts, and the fuel access point for gas. If you find some that are away from a horde, it might be worth the pit stop, especially at the start before you have a stockpile of said gear.

Tuesday 2 April 2019

Dying Light: The Way Out

[Part of the Dying Light diary - spoilers ahead!]

With Rais gone we do some tidy up in Harran of outstanding fetch quests, and to visit Tolga and Fatin who have somehow built a submarine to escape the city. It hilariously sinks upon launch.

The one day a dying stranger reaches the tower, muttering about a cult of people immune to the virus. With the stockpiled antizin running low, we are sent to investigate. Lucky this stranger brought a map with him of how to exit the city.

So pretty!

Sewers lead into caves which opens up into... the countryside! It is beautiful. Until we see the zombie hordes milling about out here too. So much for the quarantine. Thus begins "the Following".

Insight: Gear up before starting the DLC as you bring your equipment with you. Your stashed stuff is still there too, but reaching the first accessible stash is a bit of a hike.

Monday 1 April 2019

April 2019 Status

Ever since my computer upgrade my brothers and I have been having weekly game nights (Dying Light and now Vermintide 2) which are really fun and last long into the early hours of the morning! There'll be a small break to that routine this month due to scheduling conflicts but that, as well as the extra holidays during Easter, also gives me a chance to finish off other items on the list.

    End 2019 with less weight (+2 kg from last month, running total: +2 kg)
    Make board game prototype (board size decided)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (no progress)
    Clean out wardrobe (no progress)
    Deal with overhanging trees (no progress)
    Clean the roof (no progress)

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS (or freebies)
Dying Light (done)
Shadow of War
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Baldur's Gate (done)
Baldur's Gate 2
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
Deponia: The Complete Journey
The Kite (done)
NWO: Get Acquisitions Inc Boons (done)
+Vermintide 2
+Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China

Board games:
Mice and Mystics Campaign (11/11)
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (10/11)
London Dread Campaign (0/4)
Adamastor (2/2 modes)
Escape from Colditz (1/2 modes)
Pandemic: Fall of Rome (more plays needed)