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| Happy Birthday Scott 2011 |
Showing posts with label Arcade Cabinet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arcade Cabinet. Show all posts
04 December 2012
Another exercise in literary spewing
11 March 2011
Arcade Cabinet update
Whelp, ladies and gents, I think I have a solution. After thinking for quite a long time about what picture i want on the side of the Arcade Cabinet, I realised I want nothing more than Sonic. Fair call, I say.
But you know what else I have? I have a Playstation 2. I have a CD called the "Sonic Mega Collection" which, as you may or may not have guessed, has a collection of Sonic the Hedgehog games on it.
So if I get myself a VGA Cable that'll work (I'll have to fork out about $30 or something), I can plug it up to the LCD monitor mum gave to me (or that unused CRT monitor I could pick up from work), make the frame following the instructions of old mate Dugell with small modifications involving the Playstation 2 console I have, and Bam! I got myself a sonic the hedgehog arcade machine for my Nerd Hold.
I could make it right now if I could be bothered dropping the $130+shipping on the 2player controller... and then the, probably not really close to, $100 for MDF and pine frames. Oh and the $10-20 for the monitor...
Dollars. What are they good for. They just get in the way.
But you know what else I have? I have a Playstation 2. I have a CD called the "Sonic Mega Collection" which, as you may or may not have guessed, has a collection of Sonic the Hedgehog games on it.
So if I get myself a VGA Cable that'll work (I'll have to fork out about $30 or something), I can plug it up to the LCD monitor mum gave to me (or that unused CRT monitor I could pick up from work), make the frame following the instructions of old mate Dugell with small modifications involving the Playstation 2 console I have, and Bam! I got myself a sonic the hedgehog arcade machine for my Nerd Hold.
I could make it right now if I could be bothered dropping the $130+shipping on the 2player controller... and then the, probably not really close to, $100 for MDF and pine frames. Oh and the $10-20 for the monitor...
Dollars. What are they good for. They just get in the way.
09 March 2011
Onward to Nerd Hold!
I think my mood for video gaming has begun to wane again. Lately I have been playing Castle Crashers, because I picked it up knowing that it's a really fun game by playing the Demo. Picked it up and bam, played it with Scotty and Dick and mowed through the game like a goat through your washing.
I went to their website, www.castlecrashers.com, and looked at the latest blog entry. Turns out their preparing for the Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) and to promote their game they've made a series of Arcade Cabinets. It looks awesome.
Since then, I've been practically obsessed with the idea of making an Arcade Cabinet. One day I will have my own Man Cave which i will call Nerd Hold because when I was trying to type the name of it earlier I put in a D instead of an E and frankly it just sounds cool (btw Kel, if Alex's little castle gate goes missing one day, I didn't steal it even if it is standing over the door for added effect).
So now I've been playing with the idea. It'd have to be designed for four players on a curved table (so nobody is playing with a twisted neck) and room for food and drinkholders (if it's for personal effects, you know at least 3 people will be drinking on its christening), and the lot of em will plug into a console of some sort. I thought about adding a stereo and speakers to it, something for some bass I thought before thinking "What am I, a guido?"
No, sir. I am not.
To boot, the space lizard Blarkon himself pointed me to a mate of his who scratch built his own cabinet! Under AU$500 too! Thats just awesome! (I'm sure if I slipped the boss a few dinero I could nick the CRT monitor that's sitting in the corner at work... if it still works that is...)
http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=842
http://cid-c9ab6b8b280c0084.office.live.com/view.aspx/Docs/Win7%20Arcade.pptx
But yeah. I even toyed around with the idea of having two cabinets but themed based on their console. So a Playstation one would look like a Giant Playstation Portable, and the Xbox one would look like this but put a rectangle for the screen. Or do their controllers respectively. I dunno, we'll see I suppose. This is for years down the track when I get Nerd Hold up and running.
I went to their website, www.castlecrashers.com, and looked at the latest blog entry. Turns out their preparing for the Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) and to promote their game they've made a series of Arcade Cabinets. It looks awesome.
Since then, I've been practically obsessed with the idea of making an Arcade Cabinet. One day I will have my own Man Cave which i will call Nerd Hold because when I was trying to type the name of it earlier I put in a D instead of an E and frankly it just sounds cool (btw Kel, if Alex's little castle gate goes missing one day, I didn't steal it even if it is standing over the door for added effect).
So now I've been playing with the idea. It'd have to be designed for four players on a curved table (so nobody is playing with a twisted neck) and room for food and drinkholders (if it's for personal effects, you know at least 3 people will be drinking on its christening), and the lot of em will plug into a console of some sort. I thought about adding a stereo and speakers to it, something for some bass I thought before thinking "What am I, a guido?"
No, sir. I am not.
To boot, the space lizard Blarkon himself pointed me to a mate of his who scratch built his own cabinet! Under AU$500 too! Thats just awesome! (I'm sure if I slipped the boss a few dinero I could nick the CRT monitor that's sitting in the corner at work... if it still works that is...)
http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=842
http://cid-c9ab6b8b280c0084.office.live.com/view.aspx/Docs/Win7%20Arcade.pptx
But yeah. I even toyed around with the idea of having two cabinets but themed based on their console. So a Playstation one would look like a Giant Playstation Portable, and the Xbox one would look like this but put a rectangle for the screen. Or do their controllers respectively. I dunno, we'll see I suppose. This is for years down the track when I get Nerd Hold up and running.
19 July 2009
"He's an Ideas man"
Brimming with ideas, I am.
Brimming I say, like a pot on boil with too much broil.
Over the past... year?... I have made up Iron Kingdoms Diorama ideas.
A few people know about this, as I posted one up on Defiant Gaming not too long ago.
But wait. THERE'S MORE!
So I've posted them up on the net.
I was bored, okay?
One of my favourites is one I thought up for Spenny for his Heartkids events: Mammoth.
The figure is Beast-09, but with a Marauders head and weapons, standing in the gateway of an Orphanage, a stone Archway overgrown with vines, defending them from Tharn Ravagers, whom eat hearts.
I thought it was a little clever. Too bad I don't have the motivation (money or ability) to go through with it.
Another of my favourites is The Arcade, which is segregated into three parts (four as soon as I think of what to put in the fourth section).
The first is a Shooting gallery where some of the characters from Iron Kingdoms that use firearms as a preferred weapon are testing their skills on Spin offs of actual games, such as House of the Mechanithralls (House of the Dead).
The scenes in front of them are actually constructed from other IK figures.
The second scene is a Skirmish map.
You know Skirmish, with the paintballs that leave welts on your body large enough to convince people you have cancer.
That. So far, I have Trenchers and Dawnguard. Their melee weapons would be painted like Nerf Bats, because lets face it: People wouldn't be allowed into Skirmish with a sharpened blade. Nerf solves everything.
The third is a little uninspired. It's the "Managers office".
It's just the Butcher of Khardov, with Lola removed (Lola is his weapon), attacking a punching clown, in the midst of a messy room.
Uninspired, but still a little funny.
Other ideas that I've fiddled around with in my head is a Starcraft/Warcraft custom campaign story.
I have no idea what story I would do, but the desire is there!
A while ago, I wanted to do a webcomic.
That's right, a webcomic.
I have poor drawing skills however, which in my opinion is a rather large obstacle.
The comic would be a gaming comic, basing a few characters 'Role Playing' in different gaming settings.
The first story would be based on a D&D Campaign idea I have based on Wonder Boy.
The first arc would be Wonderboy in Monster Land, a classic tale of a boy destined to defeat the evil dragon.
The second arc would be Wonder boy III, the Dragons trap. The sequel and continuation to Wonderboy in Monster Land, where after defeating the Dragon, he finds that there is more to the incideous plot and continues his adventures to remove the curse that the Dragon has placed on him.
The third arc is not related to the Wonder Boy games, though. No, the third arc would be based on Ghouls and Ghosts, originally a story of a Knight names Arthur who saves the princess from the god Loki who is sending the world into an Apocalypse.
Since there are more than one character 'Role Playing', there are some slight variations (Such as more than one Wonder Boy). And instead of having to fight the Trickster God, Loki, I thought to have the party fight Tiamat instead. Since they will be fighting dragons through the whole thing, why not fight the Five Headed God of Dragons to finish off the story?
I thought it was a cool idea.
Just having a bit of trouble figuring out what to change the players races to in the WBIII set.
If there's one thing I've learnt as well about D&D is that you can make it "Episodic", something I learnt from Rob. Episodic makes it interesting between levels. You can have one session, with three encounters and role play between, and you would have a good session.
Changing subject entirely I move onto Monsterpocalypse, a game based on Gigantic Monsters rampaging through a city to defeat their opponent/s.
The game has been around for approx 8 months now (maybe 9) and has had 3 Series: "Rise", "I Chomp NY", and "All Your Base".
The current series, "All Your Base", has taken a different spin on monsters by creating "Morphers": Units that transform into a Monster. For those who don't quite understand, think "Voltron". Or "Devastator" from Transformers.
So as per my own tradition I have my Series 3 Monster to represent my faction through this series.
First season, I swapped between Yasheth and Cthugrosh. Yasheth was the biggest fear because he regained health up the wazoo so he was rather tough to kill.
Second season, I discovered I didn't like Mogroth. So I played Ulgoth for the whole season. Turns out Ulgoth is ridiculously difficult to play against for most monsters as he 'explodes' every time you attack him, and if you're standing next to Ulgoth when he 'explodes' then you suffer damage. Also, his Ultra version deals additional damage on his normal attacks. To top it all off he couldn't be 'Thrown', one of the more common power attacks in the game.
Because he was so brutal I won his Mega form which I play to this day as he is not as brutal as his Ultra version.
Season Three, I field Osheroth, the first Morpher monster of the Faction. Four tentacles, burst through the ground to tear apart and manipulate their enemies in a small variety of ways.
The Morphers are an interesting concept. They work a lot like Units, however are very dangerous.
Osheroth's tentacles (yes, four tentacles with different painted tips) aren't the most threatening in the game. They have the same stat line, have average health, and have mostly the same abilities each.
Their differences lie in their melee attacks.
The two most dangerous are those with Beat-back and Vampirism. The other two are there for combining attacks and summoning.
The Summoner remains behind, helping with securing buildings and increasing your units on the field.
The Vampire and Beat-backer charge up the front to either deal damage to the monster, or steal back hit points lost. The last guy, who has Fling and Telekinesis, goes where he wants. I find myself securing buildings, most of the time.
A trick I pulled out on The Dick yesterday was one pulled on me not long ago. When you power up and go into your ultra form, you place your ultra overlapping a space one of your morphers were occupying. You then move using one action dice.
When you're in a profitable position, you power down into your Morphers Form using the same spaces that your ultra form occupied.
Aside from the similarity of matching abilities, the morphers each have a Red ability allowing figures adjacent to them gain that ability as well.
So all four have Telekinesis, Siphon, Penetrator and Hit-and-Run. The only two that really matter are Siphon (Steal a Power dice from them) and Penetrator (Lowers their DEF stat). Use summon to bring in a Cthulubite, a new unit that also lowers opponents DEF stat, and then brawl away at them against their DEF-2.
Most monsters come down to about DEF 4 or 5, easy enough for 2 combined attacks to really put the hurt on. Heck, if you're lucky enough to get a Corruptor in there with flank (Another -1 DEF to the enemy) then you can easily make 4 attacks against the monster for a MASSIVE amount of damage.
Back to the original setup: One combined attack to steal back health, siphoning Power dice at the same time, and the other combined attack to throw them into a nearby building, siphoning more Power dice.
Four damage, right there, if you consider the hazard available as well.
This was possible because the Powerup on my monster is Cheap. Probably too cheap. The only thing that Osheroth really has going for him is Annihilate and Radial attack. Sacrifice is a nifty ability if you have units to spare, and Global Telekinesis adds options to your units that you didn't have before unless you fielded taskmasters in your force. Frankly, I rarely have a taskmaster on the field as they are too expensive and hardly worth the effort, and when I do I put their shadow incarnations on at a discounted cost (Summon at 1A-die or a dying Meat Slave at 0A-die, compared to 3A-die) only to act as a distraction.
So with a ultra so cheap I feel a little overpowered since my morphers are really quite powerful, and when I lose my morphers I have an ultra that can clean up what's left.
What should I be afraid of?
Monsters with immunity to buildings or super damage.
Or maybe martians with enough Nuclear hazards around the field. A good example of this is Tharsis-5. He doesn't have Immunity to Super Damage, but he does have immunity to buildings, so hitting him into a building is not going to do much damage unless it is a fire hazard that he can land in.
Monsters with beat-back. This is actually something ALL morphers should be worried about. If you have a morpher aligned with another one of your morphers, they will suffer 3 points of damage from a single beat-back attack (one for the attack and 1 each for collisions). It's a harsh thing.
Multishot is no longer a worry. Multishot has been nerfed to only target units with the additional attacks.
Radial Attack is somewhat of a big danger. If a monster is surrounded by Morphers, they can deal a bucketload of damage. An example is if Osheroth was surrounded by morphers and he did a radial attack, that would be 5 damage to the enemy morpher form. Super damage does not apply to the additional attacks, so 2 to the initial target, and 1 each to the morphers around him. Still, 5 damage is not a easy thing to pull off. It's usually reserved for those situational events and is often worth it since it drops a monster out of form (In most cases).
So this Season of MONSTERPOCALYPSE? Yeah, it's going to be fun.
And if I'm lucky, Erin might get bored one tuesday night, offer a drive wherever and we can chat afterwards. If she's really lucky, I'll be in a complimentive mood.
On a final note, I'm loving the Horizontal rules.
They do well separating subjects.
Brimming I say, like a pot on boil with too much broil.
Over the past... year?... I have made up Iron Kingdoms Diorama ideas.
A few people know about this, as I posted one up on Defiant Gaming not too long ago.
But wait. THERE'S MORE!
So I've posted them up on the net.
I was bored, okay?
One of my favourites is one I thought up for Spenny for his Heartkids events: Mammoth.
The figure is Beast-09, but with a Marauders head and weapons, standing in the gateway of an Orphanage, a stone Archway overgrown with vines, defending them from Tharn Ravagers, whom eat hearts.
I thought it was a little clever. Too bad I don't have the motivation (money or ability) to go through with it.
Another of my favourites is The Arcade, which is segregated into three parts (four as soon as I think of what to put in the fourth section).
The first is a Shooting gallery where some of the characters from Iron Kingdoms that use firearms as a preferred weapon are testing their skills on Spin offs of actual games, such as House of the Mechanithralls (House of the Dead).
The scenes in front of them are actually constructed from other IK figures.
The second scene is a Skirmish map.
You know Skirmish, with the paintballs that leave welts on your body large enough to convince people you have cancer.
That. So far, I have Trenchers and Dawnguard. Their melee weapons would be painted like Nerf Bats, because lets face it: People wouldn't be allowed into Skirmish with a sharpened blade. Nerf solves everything.
The third is a little uninspired. It's the "Managers office".
It's just the Butcher of Khardov, with Lola removed (Lola is his weapon), attacking a punching clown, in the midst of a messy room.
Uninspired, but still a little funny.
Other ideas that I've fiddled around with in my head is a Starcraft/Warcraft custom campaign story.
I have no idea what story I would do, but the desire is there!
A while ago, I wanted to do a webcomic.
That's right, a webcomic.
I have poor drawing skills however, which in my opinion is a rather large obstacle.
The comic would be a gaming comic, basing a few characters 'Role Playing' in different gaming settings.
The first story would be based on a D&D Campaign idea I have based on Wonder Boy.
The first arc would be Wonderboy in Monster Land, a classic tale of a boy destined to defeat the evil dragon.
The second arc would be Wonder boy III, the Dragons trap. The sequel and continuation to Wonderboy in Monster Land, where after defeating the Dragon, he finds that there is more to the incideous plot and continues his adventures to remove the curse that the Dragon has placed on him.
The third arc is not related to the Wonder Boy games, though. No, the third arc would be based on Ghouls and Ghosts, originally a story of a Knight names Arthur who saves the princess from the god Loki who is sending the world into an Apocalypse.
Since there are more than one character 'Role Playing', there are some slight variations (Such as more than one Wonder Boy). And instead of having to fight the Trickster God, Loki, I thought to have the party fight Tiamat instead. Since they will be fighting dragons through the whole thing, why not fight the Five Headed God of Dragons to finish off the story?
I thought it was a cool idea.
Just having a bit of trouble figuring out what to change the players races to in the WBIII set.
If there's one thing I've learnt as well about D&D is that you can make it "Episodic", something I learnt from Rob. Episodic makes it interesting between levels. You can have one session, with three encounters and role play between, and you would have a good session.
Changing subject entirely I move onto Monsterpocalypse, a game based on Gigantic Monsters rampaging through a city to defeat their opponent/s.
The game has been around for approx 8 months now (maybe 9) and has had 3 Series: "Rise", "I Chomp NY", and "All Your Base".
The current series, "All Your Base", has taken a different spin on monsters by creating "Morphers": Units that transform into a Monster. For those who don't quite understand, think "Voltron". Or "Devastator" from Transformers.
So as per my own tradition I have my Series 3 Monster to represent my faction through this series.
First season, I swapped between Yasheth and Cthugrosh. Yasheth was the biggest fear because he regained health up the wazoo so he was rather tough to kill.
Second season, I discovered I didn't like Mogroth. So I played Ulgoth for the whole season. Turns out Ulgoth is ridiculously difficult to play against for most monsters as he 'explodes' every time you attack him, and if you're standing next to Ulgoth when he 'explodes' then you suffer damage. Also, his Ultra version deals additional damage on his normal attacks. To top it all off he couldn't be 'Thrown', one of the more common power attacks in the game.
Because he was so brutal I won his Mega form which I play to this day as he is not as brutal as his Ultra version.
Season Three, I field Osheroth, the first Morpher monster of the Faction. Four tentacles, burst through the ground to tear apart and manipulate their enemies in a small variety of ways.
The Morphers are an interesting concept. They work a lot like Units, however are very dangerous.
Osheroth's tentacles (yes, four tentacles with different painted tips) aren't the most threatening in the game. They have the same stat line, have average health, and have mostly the same abilities each.
Their differences lie in their melee attacks.
The two most dangerous are those with Beat-back and Vampirism. The other two are there for combining attacks and summoning.
The Summoner remains behind, helping with securing buildings and increasing your units on the field.
The Vampire and Beat-backer charge up the front to either deal damage to the monster, or steal back hit points lost. The last guy, who has Fling and Telekinesis, goes where he wants. I find myself securing buildings, most of the time.
A trick I pulled out on The Dick yesterday was one pulled on me not long ago. When you power up and go into your ultra form, you place your ultra overlapping a space one of your morphers were occupying. You then move using one action dice.
When you're in a profitable position, you power down into your Morphers Form using the same spaces that your ultra form occupied.
Aside from the similarity of matching abilities, the morphers each have a Red ability allowing figures adjacent to them gain that ability as well.
So all four have Telekinesis, Siphon, Penetrator and Hit-and-Run. The only two that really matter are Siphon (Steal a Power dice from them) and Penetrator (Lowers their DEF stat). Use summon to bring in a Cthulubite, a new unit that also lowers opponents DEF stat, and then brawl away at them against their DEF-2.
Most monsters come down to about DEF 4 or 5, easy enough for 2 combined attacks to really put the hurt on. Heck, if you're lucky enough to get a Corruptor in there with flank (Another -1 DEF to the enemy) then you can easily make 4 attacks against the monster for a MASSIVE amount of damage.
Back to the original setup: One combined attack to steal back health, siphoning Power dice at the same time, and the other combined attack to throw them into a nearby building, siphoning more Power dice.
Four damage, right there, if you consider the hazard available as well.
This was possible because the Powerup on my monster is Cheap. Probably too cheap. The only thing that Osheroth really has going for him is Annihilate and Radial attack. Sacrifice is a nifty ability if you have units to spare, and Global Telekinesis adds options to your units that you didn't have before unless you fielded taskmasters in your force. Frankly, I rarely have a taskmaster on the field as they are too expensive and hardly worth the effort, and when I do I put their shadow incarnations on at a discounted cost (Summon at 1A-die or a dying Meat Slave at 0A-die, compared to 3A-die) only to act as a distraction.
So with a ultra so cheap I feel a little overpowered since my morphers are really quite powerful, and when I lose my morphers I have an ultra that can clean up what's left.
What should I be afraid of?
Monsters with immunity to buildings or super damage.
Or maybe martians with enough Nuclear hazards around the field. A good example of this is Tharsis-5. He doesn't have Immunity to Super Damage, but he does have immunity to buildings, so hitting him into a building is not going to do much damage unless it is a fire hazard that he can land in.
Monsters with beat-back. This is actually something ALL morphers should be worried about. If you have a morpher aligned with another one of your morphers, they will suffer 3 points of damage from a single beat-back attack (one for the attack and 1 each for collisions). It's a harsh thing.
Multishot is no longer a worry. Multishot has been nerfed to only target units with the additional attacks.
Radial Attack is somewhat of a big danger. If a monster is surrounded by Morphers, they can deal a bucketload of damage. An example is if Osheroth was surrounded by morphers and he did a radial attack, that would be 5 damage to the enemy morpher form. Super damage does not apply to the additional attacks, so 2 to the initial target, and 1 each to the morphers around him. Still, 5 damage is not a easy thing to pull off. It's usually reserved for those situational events and is often worth it since it drops a monster out of form (In most cases).
So this Season of MONSTERPOCALYPSE? Yeah, it's going to be fun.
And if I'm lucky, Erin might get bored one tuesday night, offer a drive wherever and we can chat afterwards. If she's really lucky, I'll be in a complimentive mood.
On a final note, I'm loving the Horizontal rules.
They do well separating subjects.
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