Memoirs of a Roadie

Reanimator

Posted on 30th January 2020

So it's been a while since I posted, and there are several reasons for that. Mostly the fact I have been busy with real life, including family and work, and haven't had the time, inclination and/or ideas to put thoughts down in this blog. However, I'm going to try and change that this year, and start a series of blog posts with themes, that I can pick up in parts over the course of the year. The aim being to post at least once a month.

This month you'll get this post, which is mostly an apology, but I have another that I have planned as the beginning of a regular once a month post. 

As you can probably tell if you've read my blog posts, my main interests are music, gaming, Perl and exploring. I've done precious little of that last one over the past few years, but hopefully that will change. Perl is still my focus at work, but my OpenSource projects have largely taken a notable backseat. That is something that will be definitely changing this year, with maybe even the occasional blog post, as I want to update a lot of the code that has been sitting around on my old laptop, waiting to be released. 

I'll take an aside here, briefly, as back in 2015 I bought a new Linux laptop, but sadly I dropped it, and damaged the screen. At the same time, work gave me a brand new laptop, so the impetus to get the personal laptop sorted fell by the way side. And by the time I thought to get it fixed, it had just passed it's warranty. I couldn't use the work laptop for my OpenSource projects, so they got put off, with minor fixes here and there, by using my webserver as a dev box. It kind of works, but not ideal for how I was used to editing, commiting and deploying to test environments. So they have languished a bit. Ok a lot! 

However, Gaming and Music have both had somewhat of a resurgence in my interest these last few years. 

Music never really went away, but my gig attendance had dropped off during the earlier part of the decade. That kind of changed when a lot of the bands I hadn't seen in a long time, or had never seen, all happened to start touring. This year I have several already booked throughout the year, so expect the odd review now and then too.

My gaming exposure, aside from board games and mobile gaming, has seen a lot more of me watching and enjoying the current retro gaming community. Many of the games I've never heard of, and those I have, I haven't played since the 80s, so it's been wonderful to see that era of gaming, a time that saw me get more into programming, come to life again. I'll never be a streamer, but I'll quite happily watch the fun of someone else playing those games now. The retro gaming community that I've discovered, also happens to have some of the loveliest people around. It's the kind of gaming community I wish I had been a part of back in the 80s ... even though there wasn't really one like there is now.

With the lack of writing over the last few years, I've been out of practice with blog writing, so you'll have to forgive my rambling for a while. I might get there one day!

Any road up, expect some music posts, Perl posts and maybe other rambling, notes and rantings. 

Lost Horizon

Posted on 8th April 2008

For the past few months I've been playing Lost Cities on a site called YourTurnMyTurn. I've got into it so much I'm considering upgrading to a VIP account so I can play even more. I've tried some of the other games on there, but none have kept my interest as much as Lost Cities.

I'm hoping that they introduce a few more two player games based on German style board games, as they've certainly scored a hit with me for this. Kahuna and Pick And Pack aren't bad, but for me personally I got a bit bored too quickly. If I was playing them with someone in person, then it would probably have been alright, but playing remote lost the momentum for me.

I managed to get to the Quarter Final in my latest torunament, but unfortunately was up against a good player who managed to just pip me in the points. I'm playing in another 3 and soon to start another, so fingers crossed I can get further in them.

I've been playing it so much I haven't been playing Xplorers (aka Settlers of Catan) on AsoBrain for a while. Might even start entering some tournaments in that too at some point .. if I ever get the time!

Turn, Turn, Turn

Posted on 7th February 2008

Last month I discovered a games site called Your Turn My Turn. They feature several online games, which are based on two-player games that are turn based. Several are quite traditional games, such as Backgammon, Rummy and Go, but they are starting to introduce some other games. One of which is Lost Cities, which I've enjoyed playing with DanDan, but wanted to play a bit more with more experienced players. Their online version follows the original game, although only one round is played. I won my first game, but it looks like I might be losing my second game. However, aside from the one-off games, they also hold tournaments. This weekend I decided that I would put my name to the Lost Cities tornament.

It all kicked off on Sunday and I've already got through several plays of each game in my group. I don't think I'm doing too badly at the moment, but it can easily go downhill rapidly when you get to the end game, as I'm discovering in my second one-off game. Still, it makes a difference to losing at Scabulous far too often recently ;)

Games Without Frontiers

Posted on 17th January 2008

Last night was my first visit to the Halesowen Boardgame Club. A nice bunch of guys, and very enthusiastic gamers. In the end there were 8 of us, so we ended up splitting into two camps, one playing Power Grid and the other playing Brass. Seeing as Brass was a new game that Dave had brought along, and all of the group knew Power Grid, it was suggested I play Brass. I was quite happy to play either, as my intention for coming along was to get to play some new games, so I could see whether they were suitable for me to buy for DanDan and I.

Brass itself is a pretty decent game. The thing I like about it is that you can employ several different strategies throughout the game. All of us seemed to be trying very similar strategies to begin with, which is understandable, as we were all still learning how to to play the game. It meant there were a few points collecting strategies that weren't observed until much too late in the game. However, I think part of the problem with this was that we were playing with 4 people, and as such we got through the game cards fairly quickly on a per player basis, although the total gameplay took roughly 2 hours. I think if I ever play it again, which hopefully I will, I will be developing a lot sooner.

The game is in two parts, the canal phase and the railway phase. Observing the points scoring, at the end of the canal phase none of us really got any clear lead, and the final victory points at the end counted for a lot more. As such I think developing early would in turn set you up for later in the game. We also noted that the iron works and coal became much more important later in the game, and had we developed appropriately, it would have paid out much bigger dividends. Dave also built two shipyards in the last throes of the game and consequently bumped his score by 36 points. I had looked at building a shipyard, but not realising the large victory points it got you, ended up taking another track.

All in all, it was a great game and I would certainly like to get it, although it's probably a bit too advanced for DanDan at the moment. Dave noted that apparently the game has proved very popular and is in short supply at the moment. I'll have to keep my eye out for it, as it might be a good game to take to YAPC::Europe if I can generate enough interest for another Games BOF session :)

I'll certainly be visiting the club again, although seeing as they also meet on a Wednesday, I'll have to slot it between my Perl and Linux meetings. Hopefully I'll be able to make it once a month and catch up on even more new games.

Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll

Posted on 14th January 2008

I got hold of Lost Cities last week, and this weekend DanDan and I played a game of it. We would have played more, but he has still yet to finish his homework :)

It's a fairly simple game and as a consequence pretty quick to set up and play. Although the box specifies a minimum age of 10, I would have said those younger can grasp the gameplay without too much difficult. DanDan certain understood the concept of playing and taking the cards, and building up the expeditions from investment cards to numbered cards. He hadn't spotted that he quickly ran out of time building the expeditions beyond the 20 points needed, as he spent time trying to build up all 5 expeditions. I did the same to begin with, but in subsequent rounds concentrated on 3 at maximum. It made a big difference. DanDan said he really enhjoyed the game, and Nicole liked it simply because it meant he had to do maths to play the game.

For reference, should anyone need them, an English rules translation is available online. It's a shame that The Games Cabinet no longer runs, as that was a great source of reference for the English language versions of the rules. I note there are links to other language versions (mostly Portuguese) on Boardgame Geek, as well as some other interesting resources, but they seem to forget that some of us buy the German versions of the games as they can be cheaper.