A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

Died before level 20. Threw out executable (again), emptied trash. Need a shower. (I mean: literally.)

I sort of feel that my occasional public railing against digital games that function mostly through their continual and entirely illusory exploitation of one's accomplishment-drive makes me like unto a gay-bashing Republican who desperately cruises public restrooms when nobody's watching. (Yes, redundant definition, wev.) On the other hand, I deny nothing, and at least can confidently speak from experience.

Here is a much less psychotic looking picture of me at the lakeside, though my head is still huge because it was taken at arm's length with the iBook's built-in camera.

( Someday I will re-assemble my camera-shaped camera. )

I proclaimed this to be a working vacation and I did work, to an extent. Put in all the time I could for the client - only about three hours, before my plate was clean - and kicked Volity around a little. Made palpable progress towards the demo but there are too many bugs to fix before that can happen, and this just isn't the environment for swatting bugs. Gotta be at my own desk for that.

Started a new Angband character (a Dunedain ranger) and am having maybe my best game yet. Controlling the urge to just play and play fairly well, this time, though I wonder if that will remain true when I'm back by myself in Somerville. There's novelty with this character - she's become deadlier with a bow than anyone I've run through the dungeon previously - and I am having honest fun with it, though there's still a distinct and unpleasant aftertaste of addiction after each play session. We'll see what happens. Anyway, I finally learned how to use the targeting command and my dude killed Wormtongue yesterday, which in my experience is the point where the game starts to get really interesting. (Whenever you manage to splat your first non-Farmer Maggot-related unique, anyway.)

Learned to play Tigris & Euphrates this weekend, and decided I really like it, though I'm quite far from figuring out any sense of good play. I've felt vaguely bad for years that I didn't know how to play this T&E, though, which is considered a high water-mark of modern board games. I did play it once before, and for whatever reason it didn't take and I found it confusing and frustrating.

General personal rule I've recognized for some time but need to enforce better: If my opponents point out a good move to make, and it is different from a good move I had been eyeing, I should not make that move even if it seems better. Since the people I usually play games with are my awesome friends, I do not accuse them of deceitfully metagaming me; rather, it's a personal fault to always see a new suggestion as better than one that I came up with myself. Their decision may be wise, but mine is based on the most intimate knowledge of my personal game state and sense of how I'm likely to follow through on the move. In yesterday's game, I ignored a tile-placement suggestion at first but took advantage of it a couple of turns later, and it scored big for me. But later I made a game-ending move right when it was pointed out to me, and ended up losing by one point. Was still a fun and rewarding game, but: yes, that's enough of that.

Mr. Ranger finally accepted the sweet embrace of death just now, after three days of play. Not before taking down Wormtongue and Muzgash, though, making this the best Angband run I've ever had.

He died not so much from rotten luck as from pushing my luck a little too far, but I think my self-consciousness about the timesink was giving him a bit of a deathwish too. It was hella fun but I'm grimly glad it's done. For addiction-prone sorts like me, Angband and other roguelikes trump WoW and such because they make death fatal; if your character dies, it's immediately and forever gone. None of this chickenshit pay-100-gold-to-resurrect-yourself business. Want to play more? Suck it up and roll a new level 1 guy.

As if. Done for now; deleted the executable, just to make sure. Back to real life.

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Not to say I haven't been doing other things. I should probably note that yesterday was one of the worst stomachache days I've ever had. I hadn't had one in a while, so when I woke up with that light burning feeling, instead of taking it easy I decided to go ahead with a planned museum date with classicaljunkie. This turned out to be a poor idea, and before long I was hobbling around like an old man because of the hot coal in my stomach. An attempt to feel better via Museum Soup made things much worse, and I was grimacing with knife-in-the-gut pain the whole T ride home.

Immediate administration of pepto, water, and rest mellowed things out quite a bit within a couple of hours, and as always when I woke up this morning there was no trace of it.

Yes I should see a doctor about it. The prerequisite here is deciding whether to go full-time or remain a contractor and buy into a plan myself. I told myself I'd decide once the ITA project was done, but it's near enough to that now than I really oughtta think about moving ahead with that decision soonish, eh.