Dominion Drops Dead

On Tuesday nights we play Dominion online. It’s a great game which manages to be different every time you play it, what with the huge range of cards and combinations. Tonight I was just about to put together an awesome power play (as was everyone else in the game apparently) and at exactly 9:00 pm the game died. Most annoying. We went from a closely contested competition to the login screen in the time it took the clock to strike 9. Wah.

We did have problems with games crashing a while back, but that happened at the end of the game. I even made a thing which would read the game log and try to compute the actual scores. This time it happens at a specific hour, which makes me think of timeouts or expirations. Oh well, it was great fun right up to the point that it wasn’t happening any more. And there’s every chance we’ll be back next week. We just might press the screenshot button a bit more frequently.

Takamachi is dice throwing fun

The game comes in a nice tin

Takamachi is a neat little 12 dice game. Be the fastest to spot the greatest number of symbols or colours and win by getting rid of all your dice. The words on the tin say that you can use it “Boost your adaptability”. I’m not convinced by this. However, it is a great way to spend some time in an empty flat waiting for a moving van to arrive.

Thank Goodness You're Here is wonderful

Thank Goodness You’re Here (TGYH) is a breath of fresh air in video game land. It is deeply silly, very funny, easy to play and doesn’t take too long. Some video games create dystopian worlds full of strange creatures with outlandish behaviours. TGYH does this, but in a depressed town in the north of England. The voice acting, artwork and animation are all wonderful. And that’s just the nice things beginning with A. Mostly.

I simply cannot say enough nice things about this game. And the fact that it is now on sale makes it even more irresistible.

Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 is now very good

Photographing stonehenge

We were all very excited when the new version of Microsoft Flight Sim launched last month. We were a bit less excited when it failed to run on the day of release and even less excited when it still wasn’t working after a few days. But now it has settled down and turned into something really very good. The missions are great. We had a lot of fun trying to land on an oil rig and then taking pictures.

It runs well on the Xbox and really well on a proper PC. Well worth a look if you’ve flown before, and if you haven’t the new career mode, with chatty passengers and a chance to take flying lessons at an airport near your house, is rather splendid.

Yakuza Zero Unlocked

I’ve been enjoying playing Yakuza Zero. Right up to the point where they had this car chase shooty bit which I just couldn’t do. Fortunately I’ve just persuaded number one son to get past that bit for me (and the next massive boss fight) so that I can continue the battle.

Sore Thumb Video Games in York

This is not a video game shop

Went to York today. Of course we took a picture of York Minster (see above). Of course we had a great meal at Zaap Thai. And of course we went to the Sore Thumb retro video game shop. This is an amazing place. Consoles and games jostle together on crammed shelves and they have at least one of everything. The even had a couple of GameBoy micros but not at prices I could ever afford. I made one small, silly purchase (of which more later) and they let me take some pictures of the place.

If you’re in York you really should go. If you’re near York you should go to York and then go there. A great place.

Have a go at Uno Flip

You’ve probably played Uno already. It’s a card game that goes back years. I can remember playing it with the kids back in the day. And we’ve found a new version, Uno Flip.

I’d love to have been at the product meeting where someone said: “You know how our cards have numbers and colours, and the aim is to match them. Well, why not put numbers and colours on the backs of the cards too, and then make the players flip between front and back?”.

Genius. So now you have extra cards that you can play to flip everyone to the other side and totally change the gameplay in the middle of a game. And the backs (also known as the dark side) have some really nasty new actions including one that makes someone pick up cards until they match the colour you’ve chosen. We played the game today and it was hilarious fun. The mark of a great game is one I enjoy even when I lose. Uno Flip is a great game.

Marvel Snap is fun

I’ve had a few good games of Marvel Snap today. You can play it for free and have fun, although to progress you’re probably going to end up parting with cash.

Dominion on the Steam Deck works rather well

The Dominion card game has kind of taken over our Tuesday game nights. The great thing about it is that by using different cards each week you can get a totally different game experience. I’ve started using my Steam Deck to play it (you can find the game on Steam). It works rather well. Probably overkill, but it works for me. I like having a Dominon game on the go when watching naff telly. Today I nearly managed beat the medium AI opponent, which was rather pleasing.

Saving money on Gran Turismo 7

If you’re trying to find the cheapest possible way of getting hold of the latest version of Gran Turismo you might like to know that Shopto.net are selling PlayStation network Gift Cards at around 12% off. This means that you can pick up a copy of the game for around 60 pounds rather than 70. This is of particular interest to people like me, who have the version of the PS5 without a disk drive.

Dominion Winner

I’m starting to really like the Dominion card game. Two reasons.

1. You can play it for free online

2. I won a game last night

Humble Bundles for Makers and Gamers

Talking of Discord, as we were, Grace on the Hull Makerspace posted that there is presently a great “Humble Bundle” for Maker books going at the moment. You can get a whole bunch of ebooks from Make magazine for around ten quid. Find out more here or click the image.

Simon (on another discord channel) also told me about a really good bundle of tabletop games that is also available. You can find that one here or click the image.

We’ve played quite a few of these and they all work well, particularly for network play.

Among Us is very annoying - and great fun

We played Among Us for a couple of hours tonight. It was hilarious. Everyone is trying to repair a spaceship. Except one person - the imposter. The Imposter can sabotage the ship and kill crew members. When a death is discovered the remaining crew get together and try to decide who to throw out of the airlock. Get it right and the crew win. Get it wrong and the game continues until the imposter runs out of crew to kill or the crew fix the ship. Dead players return as ghosts who can float around trying to complete their original tasks.

It works on loads of platforms and the graphics and gameplay are super smooth. I only got to be the imposter twice and managed to mess up both times, but I really enjoyed the hearty debate that followed the discovery of each dead person in the other games. If you are looking for a bit of networked anarchy you should find some friends and have a go. I used the iPad version which worked OK although I’ve never been a fan of touch screens. I think the way forward is to pay for it on Steam and then use a PC. The game works across all the platforms.

Quiplash Fun

Jackbox Games are great. I’ve got very fond memories of playing “You don’t know Jack” from CD way back in the day. Tonight we had a go at a bunch more JackBox games, including “QuipLash”. In Quip Lash you have to come up with quick quips which the rest of the players then vote on. My favourite of the night was when Simon was asked to write something you wouldn’t expect to find in a message in a bottle. He came up with “Please send another bottle”. Awesome stuff. We also played some Fibbage, and that was fun too.

Enigma on Netgames.io is great fun

I’ve mentioned netgames.io before. Its a tiny web site that lets you play multiplayer games. They’ve added another game to the site, Enigma. Opposing teams have to give clues to code words and pass messages without them being intercepted. You need at least four or five players and a means of having private chats (we used Discord) but the gameplay is brain bending fun. I was quite pleased to be on the winning team.

Microsoft Flight Sim is awesome

Very exciting day yesterday. Installed Microsoft Flight Sim. It only cost me one pound to get it. I’ve signed up for Xbox Game Pass for PC which will end up costing me four quid a month. Total bargain. Although I guess I should also factor in the cost of a larger SSD drive to hold all the games I’m now going to download….

The game itself took a while to download, what with it taking up over 120 Gbytes. Apparently you can buy it on 20 disks if you want a physical copy. It. Is. Awesome. The install process took ages and the game itself takes a while to get going. But once it is running it is fabulous. The views inside and outside the cockpit are very impressive. You can fly anywhere in the world, although it might not look quite as you remember. The Humber Bridge you can see above looks like it needs a bit of work. You can just see the shadows of the towers that should be there at the bottom of the screenshot above.

I’m not very good at flying the plane (the wings came off shortly after I took the picture) but I’m having great fun. I’m using a wired XBOX controller which gives me all the control I can handle just at the moment. We’re planning our first group flight soon, which should be fun.

If you are interested in flying, or just seeing the world, you should have a go.

Playstation Controller Back Buttons

Number one son is in town for the weekend. We went shopping today and he bought something rather interesting. Back buttons for the PlayStation 4 controller. They are a nifty moulding that fits underneath between the controller sides. By cunning use of a moving plug they wrap themselves around to make it look as if they are part of the controller. They provide two extra buttons that are really easy to press with those fingers that normally wrap around the controller to hold it. They are configured using a tiny OLED screen and a single button. You can get them to produce a button press that is mapped onto any of the other controls.

For example, you might replace things that are rather hard to do, like pressing in the thumbsticks, with rear button presses. And some actions, for example change up and down the gears in a driving game, are crying out to be put onto controls like these.

They work with all existing games because as far as the game is concerned there is nothing new happening. The game is getting the control inputs it is expecting, but they are being triggered in a different way.

I’ve been told (quite rightly) that I don’t play games at the stratospheric level for such add-ons to really pay off for me, but if you want to do things like shoot when jumping or easily change gears, they are worth a look. Apparently in the UK they are being sold exclusively by Game.

Project XCloud looks very good

When David came round last week he showed us some Xbox games running on his Samsung phone. Not directly of course, but via Project XCloud. This is presently in Preview and David had managed to join the preview program. Once he had connected to our WiFi and paired an Xbox controller with his phone we were able to see a perfect rendition of Forza Horizons running smoothly on his tiny device. It just worked. I had a quick go at driving and it seemed as responsive as the local version.

Of course we are quite lucky in Hull, what with our high performance fibre internet everywhere, but hopefully it will work as well in less well connected regions. It looked very good. It even inspired me to spend some more time in the Forza universe, which was great fun as usual. There’s nothing like going sideways down a frosty road at great speed in a top of the line BMW. I sat down for “a quick drive” and got up two hours later…..

Apple Arcade

I didn’t intend to get hooked on the Apple ecosystem but here we are. What can I say? The stuff just works.

The latest iPhones are very nice. They have almost caught up with my Lovely Lumia 1520 which I still have. I get it out every now and then, marvel at the design and the UI and then sadly put it back in the drawer.

I’ve just signed up for Apple Arcade. It costs around the same as a packet of cigarettes a month and I can share it with number one wife, who has found a bunch of nice casual games including one that lets you mess around with Jane Austen text.

I really like Assemble with Care, which has a bunch of beautifully built 3D models to play with.

And Speed Demons is great high sped fun. You can use your favourite XBOX or PS4 controller with your iPhone, which seems so wrong but actually works really well.

You can get a free month to see if you like it. If you have an Apple device it is worth playing with.

Zookeeper Success

I’ve been playing Zookeeper again. Today I achieved this. Go me.