Canterbury Renaissance Faire

I just got back from the Canterbury Renaissance Faire!

Sadly there was no jousting today...

It was my first ever ren faire, and my costume was built from goodwill finds, but I still had a ton of fun. I went with my boyfriend and three house-mates. It was awesome! The boyfriend didn't originally have a costume, but we bought him a tunic and belt while we were there. I think he looks pretty awesome in it!

I'm the bard and he's my bodyguard, I guess.

Sadly it was really rainy and muddy today, so they couldn't do jousting since the horses could be injured. We also got our car stuck in the mud twice, it was an adventure! But we had lots of fun exploring the faire, listening to music, and seeing really cool hand crafted stuff. We might go back next week to see the jousting, they gave us a coupon for cheaper tickets since there was no jousting today.

We did get to see two of the knights training their squires in swordplay. It was interesting to see the difference in skill level!

Tomorrow I'm trying out a new game system called Engine Heart. I'm very excited, as I haven't played many non-D&D tabletop RPGs. I'll report back on my experiences with it tomorrow. I also just picked up Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader from the used book store - I'll post a more detailed article about those another day. Finally, Wednesday I'm meeting with a friend from my last college to discuss game ideas. I'm really excited! I've got a busy week coming up!

Game Design Document

As I've mentioned previously, I'm currently developing a game called Pollinator. Now, while I definitely have hopes of making this game something worth playing (and worth paying for), my main aim is to practice coding and learn about the game design process. Because of this, and because I've actually had several people offer to contribute art, music, and voice acting to the game, I've decided to create a design document.

From Wikipedia:

A game design document (often abbreviated GDD) is a highly descriptive living design document of the game design for a video game.^[1][2][3][4] A GDD is created and edited by the developer team and it is primarily used in the video game industry to organize efforts within a developer team. The document is created by the developer team as result of collaboration between their designers, artists and programmers as a guiding vision which is used throughout the game development process. When a game is commissioned by a game publisher to the developer team, the document must be created by the developer team and it is often attached to the agreement between publisher and developer; the developer has to adhere to the GDD during game development process.

 Now, exactly how to go about creating this document was something of a mystery, so I decided to exercise my google-fu and round up some resources on the subject. Rather than rewrite what these resources already say, I'll link them here for you!

• Brenda Brathwaite on her blog Applied Game Design has an excellent post discussing in detail the first section of the game design document. Since this is really the only section that's universal to all game types, it was very useful to see an in depth discussion of it.
• Mark Baldwin has created a template that covers most types of games. Obviously your game may not need some sections, and may need sections that aren't listed. Your mileage may vary.
• Intelligent Artifice has an old blog entry listing several game design documents for real games.
• The Gamasutra site has a pretty good article covering game design documents, though they are focusing more on people pitching their idea to a company rather than on independent developers who plan to self-publish.

If anyone else has good resources for game design documents, or for the game development process as a whole, let me know! I might even post my own document up once it's done - I almost certainly will once the game is released.

Steam Sale Ends

Sadly, the steam sale has come to a close. Last week, I shared the purchases I had made so far with you, and discussed the ones I had played. Since then, I've also bought:

• Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• Monkey Island 1 and 2
• Sanctum
• Worms Reloaded

 I also played two of the games from my previous purchase list.

The first was Torchlight. Yes, it's very strange that I haven't played this yet. For anyone else who hasn't tried it out, Torchlight is basically a Diablo II clone. It's a GOOD Diablo II clone, with very simple yet pleasing graphics and interesting heroes, but it's basically the same kind of game - if you like Diablo II, you'll like Torchlight. I haven't played very far into it but I'm definitely enjoying it so far!

The second game I've had time to try out is the Tiny Bang Story. This is a charming point and click adventure and puzzler. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a game in that genre. My only complaint so far is that it definitely tries dirty tricks sometimes to make things harder. For example in one section you are tasked with putting together a train based on a schematic. At first I thought this was a pleasant twist to the typical jigsaw puzzle, but then I couldn't find the last part, a wheel. I looked everywhere. I looked outside the puzzle room, which resets the puzzle. I spent close to half an hour looking for this one part. Finally I had to look it up online, and found to my chagrin that the part was actually ON the schematic. Did it look like it was taped there? No. It looked like it was part of the schematic. I felt like this was a cheap trick rather than a clever hiding place - making the item actually look drawn on to the schematic, then having it change when you pick it up, with no warning, hint, or explanation (even through the in-game hint system) just seems rude. Hiding it there would be fine if it still looked like a physical part. But other than that, I've enjoyed the game. It's got a calm and relaxing atmosphere even when I've been frustrated with it.

I will continue to post little updates as I try out my different purchases.

Dungeon Delve - Level 1

Woops, I managed to get my posts out of order. Oh well.

Friday night I ran a DnD Delve for my WoW guild mates. We use an online tool called Maptool which allows us to share a map and tokens and move them around in a manner similar to a physical tabletop setup. The tool is somewhat buggy and resource intensive, but it's free and it can be used by both PC and Mac users, which is important for my group. Overall it's a decent tool which fits our current needs.

The delve we ran is from the Dungeon Delve book produced by Wizards of the Coast. The book has 30 delves, one for each level from 1-30. The main purpose of the delves for our group is filler between the main campaign. I had my players create separate characters for the filler delves, and they will be leveling them up between each delve session.

The first delve was fairly simple - the PCs were sent to clear out a small mine, which was inhabited by kobolds lead by a small white dragon. I previously ran a group of 3 level 3 adventurers through the dungeon and they had a lot of trouble in the last room, so I was worried this group might as well. The Friday group consisted of 5 level 1 characters with a good balance of roles. They absolutely slaughtered all three encounters, so difficulty was definitely NOT a problem.

Overall the session went really well, despite it being somewhat easy. Since I had some new players and people who haven't played in a long time, it was probably good to start out easy. The only other problem I had was not having enough time to create programmed macros for all of my monsters, which really helps speed up play on my side.

It's really nice that, though I'm not playing WoW consistently, I can still do fun things with my guild mates!

Oregon Country Fair - Part 1

I promised juicy details on my trip to the Oregon Country Fair, and I shall deliver! Unfortunately I won't be getting pics of today's visit until later on, since I didn't have a camera with me and the one in my phone is terrible, so my mom was the photographer for the day. I went to the fair with my wonderful mother and my good friend Brit.

Let me explain what the OCF is and what it is NOT. Often when I tell people about the fair, I get one of several responses: "Oh, country? I hate country music", "Will there be rodeo there?", and "Oh, I love Ferris wheels!"

... No. Just no. The OCF is NOT about country music or rodeos and there are definitely no Ferris wheels. It is not a county fair. In fact, I think maybe if they spelled it "faire" it might be a bit more obvious of what kind of event it is. The OCF is a meeting of everything that is quintessentially Oregon. There's excellent folk music of every possible type; all sorts of entertainers from dancers to jugglers to pupeteers and more; amazing food; and wonderful hand made crafts. But more than anything, I attend the fair for the people watching. You've never people watched until you've people watched at the OCF.

While I can't provide pics of today's visit, I can give you some examples of what I mean from the fair's website. Enjoy, and I'll post my own pics soon!

Gaming Portland!

Yesterday I attended a wonderful gaming event here in Portland, Oregon, my current home. I found the event via the Portland Gamers Meetup Group. I've used Meetup in the past and it can be really hit or miss depending on the people in charge of the group, but this one is really great.

The event was awesome! It was a simple casual board game night. Apparently I know quite a few geeks in the community, as about half the people at the meetup were actually invited by me! Good thing I've decided to join the group's organizing/publicity team :) Also, there was free pizza, a nice touch.

The event was held at my local game store, Other World Games. It's a fun little store, with lots of tables for playing games. They don't have very many board games in house but they are happy to order for you. I have to be up front in that I did order a game there and it took a very long time to arrive, apparently they forgot to call me when it finally DID get there... but I eventually got my game. Other than that issue, I've really enjoyed the store. The owner seemed genuinely happy to be hosting the event and meeting new people. I got to meet several new gamers and may even have an in for a Warhammer campaign, something I've been wanting to play for a long time.

I brought one of my favorite games, Thunderstone. It's a deck building card game in which you create an adventuring team to kill monsters.  It's nice for events like this because it can accommodate up to 5 people. I also brought Bang!, but we didn't end up having time to play.

So hooray for meeting new people and having a blast!

I'll be cooling it on the speed testing updates until next week. Tomorrow expect an update about my DnD delve I'm running tonight, and Sunday I'll be posting about my trip to the Oregon Country Fair (which does NOT involve country music, nor ferris wheels. I'll have pics, you'll see what I mean!)

Revenge of the Jiyas: Red Cloud Mesa

Chapter three has arrived for the Revenge of the Jiyas series of articles, in which I speed test the  WoW-Pro Leveling addon! Today we begin our journey in the tauren starting zone, Red Cloud Mesa, located in Mulgore. We follow Jiyacow, the mighty tauren warrior, as she sets out to make a name for herself.

Is that supposed to be a salute?

Note: The 1-5 starter zones are very quick, with levels flying by so quickly it's hard to get an accurate measurement. Additionally,  the pacing of some starting zones is vastly different than others. It will be nice to have a comparison of how long each takes, but not too much should be read into these tests. The higher level tests will be much more accurate and indicative of zone and guide quality.

Total /played at level 5: 20min 
Red Cloud Mesa (1-5): 20min

4.8 min/lvl

Previous Chapters:

• Project Overview
• 1-5: Valley of Trials | Echo Isles

The run time for this zone was definitely shorter than the last two starters. Whether I'm just getting faster at setting up my UI or this zone is simply better designed, I'm not certain. It did seem pretty efficient, especially compared to the drugery of Valley of Trials. The quests weren't as fun as those in the Echo Isles, but they weren't awful, and setting pigs on fire was kinda cool. The flow was very nice, sending you in a circular pattern around the mesa rather than having you return to the central hub every time.

They added a very stylin' and fast way to get to the next town, too!

For the most part, the guide was very well done for this zone. However I did find a couple issues. First, one of the quests didn't show the quest tracking due to a spelling error. Second, the step where you hearth to Camp Narache and get your skills was both incorrectly coded so it did not auto-complete, and also should have been moved one step later to minimize running around. These issues are now fixed and will appear in the next update for the addon.

Overall I really enjoyed this starter. They kept a lot of the flavor of the original zone, but revamped it to improve flow and make quests more interesting. If only they had done the same for the Valley of Trials!

Bye now, brown cow!

I've updated the guide page for this section on WoW-Pro.com, and the changes will be included in the next addon update. I wouldn't recommend trying to update the file on your own unless you are experienced working with addons. If you do decide to update early:

1. Go to the Red Cloud Mesa page and copy the contents of the guide. 
2. Open up your WoW folder and go to Interface > Addons > WoWPro_Leveling > Horde 
3. Open up 01_12_Gylin_Mulgore.lua. 
4. Copy the guide contents there.

Next Up: Kezan!