Author: Peter Jones

I’ve been paying State of Decay this weekend, and I’m becoming more enamored with it.  Characters did and stay dead, the people you’re not at any given time seem to almost always be dicks.  I’ve even gone so far as pay some characters a little hard just to watch them get ripped in two and never have to hear their stupid voice again.  I still don’t understand how I’ve let Alan stay alive.  I’d use that old bastard as zombie bait. 
The ai definitely has some quirks, like how I help the besieged neighbours out of a jam multiple times and they never get the hint.  Or my peeps have radios, but I can’t dial a buddy.  Rusted out cars are immovable glacial boulders, picket fences are made of rebar and the rustling of bushes is silent while searching a bookshelf is like a dinner bell to zombie ears.
With that, here’s my real issue.  Why are there no pets.  I have no cat, dog houses with no dogs.  I can’t change my clothes.  Everyone is wearing mom jeans.  Someday I need to make my own game.

After recent failures, our space program stopped and began a much needed soul searching.  We were losing Kerbalnauts; our research was stagnated; the people had lost their faith in the brave new Kerbin.  It was by all accounts or darkest hour.  For 24 hours we built no new rockets, we launched no new missions.
We failed.  Not from a lack of effort, even walking to the nearest bat and writing on a cocktail napkin is effort.  Not from a lack of courage, albeit liquid courage from said bar.  Not from a lack of public spending, at said public bar.  No, it was a lack of a soul that was the root of failure in our tree of woe.
There was no soul beneath the couch cushions.  17 socks found in the space-time wash, but no soul.  We yelled ‘Marco’, but no souls replied ‘Polo’.  We were as soulless as the demon eyes of the fast food mascot.
With our deficiency finally measured, quantitatively described, algebraicly proven, we had a solution.  We fired up some James Brown.  We strapped on more rockets.  We added an antenna.
In our fear we were less than Kerbals.  Now we were a bit more.  We were too hot, too hot in the spaceship.  Yeow!

Suck it astrophysics.

Waiting for Shanna I did this.  Once I run my numbers for a coefficient of gravity, I should be able to calculate my landing burn before I put another frowny face on the Mun.

In other news I totally just defeated the Enemy Unknown on normal mode.  ‘Ice’, my Zambian sniper was a death machine.  It was kinda a let down because after trying different compositions and tactics, it all came down to the Our Lady of the Fortuitous RNG, solid pulling and yelling ‘Boom! Headshot!’
Our it might be I’ve become a more conservative gamer in my dotage.  Maybe getting burned by playing too aggressively in games like Europa Universalis and Banished has translated into a more mature thoughtful play style.  Would I still be able to gleefully level as suicidal soul stoned Warlock in WoW?  Could I make it past the 9th level in nethack more than once a year?  Would I join a corporation and be a cog in the machines of war on a galactic level in Eve?  I doubt it, I think found that comfortable place where I’m playing the right games.  I no longer pay mmo’s so I no longer pay content designed for either a full team or a bad.  I finally got tired of the easily exploitable rules in Civ 5 (though a lot of that was finally fixed in Brave New World).  I rarely play first person shooters where is easier on my vertigo to run so fast that I can’t even see the ground anymore.
Every one in a while people will still me what kind of games I play and it’s always a difficult question.  I go from being the president in Saints Row IV, to Scotland during the 100 year war, running my own space program and deciding to prove science to myself.  I rescue the townsfolk from the zombie apocalypse, watch them one by one be consumed by starvation in my small settlement, or ransack their houses while they look on.  I game, at things that are fun out challenging.  The only limit I really put on myself is it has to be entertaining.  I won’t make a weekly appointment to raid.  I don’t buy stamina to smash sweets.  I won’t read strategy guides or spoilers usually.

I was super stoked when the humble store announced a spring sale.  Rotating deals and flash sales make shopping for video games into a video game itself.  More importantly, in the name of fiscal responsibility, I had made the decision that when Saints Row IV went on sale on humble, I was risky going to pick it up.  There really is nothing like playing a video game of being an over-the-top street gangster and being able to claim it for charity.  Played that a bit over the weekend, it’s definitely worth it.
I also started up Kerbal Space Program again while working on other things.  While I declare myself to be effing smart, I also have an overly aggressive play style in every game.  When we’re talking orbital maneuvering and rocket design, Kerbals die.  Jebediah, you’re sacrifice will forever be remembered.  His mission was plagued with the minor nuisances that accompany poorly planned expeditions.  Attempting to reach Mun, but without enough fuel, he turned back, firing his thrusters in a fast burn trying to get back into the Kerbal atmosphere and do an early deployment of his chutes before oxygen deprivation incapacitated him.  Knowing he was short of time, he increased the passive of time itself to the point where his rocket disintegrated three kilometers from safety.  His last transmission, which was only partially comprehensible due to the time warp already causing radio waves to arrive before they were transmitted, had been transcribed as “Sta… I’m full of…ars.”  His spirit of sacrifice and exploration will be forever memorialized and used as an example to all new Kerbalnauts.
Since that tragic flight, Kriminel Ink had since transitioned to unmanned flights while new rockets are designed. The third and fourth flights of these new less risky adventures, named Chubby II and Chubby III, after Jebediah’s nickname, were successful.  Landing on the moons Mun and Minimus respectively, they were able to take invaluable readings that will expand our knowledge of our universe.