Gaming Blogs

On Tuesday I played in a 6-player game of Alhambra on Boardgame Arena. The version on there is apparently in beta at the moment, but we did not encounter any issues with it. I had played it a few times before, in real life, but not for a long time, so i only managed 4th place.  I enjoyd it though - it's a fairly simple game, with only 3 possible actions you can choose from.  There is a way you can get more than one action on your turn, but it only happens quite rarely. You use money cards of different colours to pay for available tiles, which you then need to either place immediately, or store for later placement.  There are rules around placement of the tiles - you can't rotate them, and most have a wall on 1 or more sides, so you can't place a tile somewhere on your area if there is no unblocked route to it from your starting tile.  The tiles are also different colours, and that is what controls ther victory point scoring.  Basically the more you have of a par...

I have played some more on Monkey Island 2 this past week - I found a site that gives hints for the various puzzles, but not as far as giving the whole solution.  This is what I need, especially when I miss parts of conversations with the various charactersa in the game. I'm better at that than I used to be - in point-and-click adventure games, often clues can be found when eploring the various conversation trees in the game, and Monkey island 2 is no exception! It's important to pay attention, and also commit details to memory to help with later parts of the game.  I'm enjoying playing through it, at any rate. I have also played some more of Mark Of The Ninja - I'm slowly making progress, still on the first overall mission but I think nearing the end of it (the first mission) now.  For most of it i use the mouse and keyboard combination for control, although as I mentioned in a previous post, there is the odd occasion where I switch to my Xbox360 controller.  But th...

(Posting this a couple of days late!) This week I mostly played on Monkey Island 2.  I got a little stuck, so i had to consult a guide a couple of times - to found out how to win at the gambiling game with the wheel, in the alley on Phatt Island.  (I then won each of the 3 prizes).  I also ended up reading about how to buy stuff from the shop on Booty Island.  I am still trying to do as much of the game myself, without looking it up in a guide. Also, on Saturday I played 2 different boardgames (Concordia and Crown Of Emara) within Tabeltop Simulator. For remote board/tabletop gaming, this is an excellent program, even if it relies on there being a good mod for the games you want to play.  In these days of the Covid pandemic, another way to play remotely is welcome. And at least when the mod you're playing has been well-made, it's an enjoyable experience, even if it does not beat/replace playing in person! Finally, on Saturday eveing i played around 1.5 hours of ...

This week I mostly played some more of Mark Of The Ninja - I have now got further than I had on my previous PC, which I mentoned before I had lost a bit of that progress.  I found a couple more Artifacts (collectibles hidden throughout the level) and I suspect I'm nearing the end of the first mision/level. I also learned some more about how the savegame checkpoint system in the game works - the biggest thing being that you can re-visit a savegame checkpoint, when you've made some more progress nearby, in order to use the checkpoint again! This is useful for areas where there are a bunch of guards and dogs in a tricky location/patrol pattern, because it means you can save the game after taking out each guard individually, rather than having to play through the whole area in one go without making any mistakes. I also played a little more of Assassin's Creed II, learning some more about how the parkour system works (it's not every part of every wall that can be climbed on)...

I managed to get in a few hours of PC gaming overall this past week.  I split this time between 4 different games.  First up, I picked up on Mark Of The Ninja.  I'd not played this since i upgraded to  a new machine near the end of last year.  It had, unfortunately, lost a bit of my progress, but thankfully not much.  I'm still on the first overall mission, but some way into it.  If you're unaware, Mark of The Ninjs is a 2D-action-stealth-em-up.  I mean, properly stealth - the only real way to take out enemy guards, for example, is to sneak up undetected and take them oui with one sword thrust.  It's also then a good idea to move the body where it won't be found by a living guard!  Control-wise, I tend to switch between mouse-and-keyboard, and (Xbox 360) controller - there are situations where io find the latter easier than the former, and vice versa.  Mouse-and-keyboard is my default, and I switch to controller when I need to. I've...