Marvel Super Heroes - New Covers

We continue to play our RPG in the west-end of the city and my talented daughter continues to make comic book covers for each adventure. Here are Issues # 6 & 7.

Liam O'Donnell Owes Me $30 Monthly (Nearly)

Now that The Boy has a regular writing gig on the GamingEdus website and The Girl composes on her Deviant Art page, this blog has quieted down a bit. However, there's still a lot going on with gaming and our family.

For instance, this summer, my daughter read Ganked, by Liam O'Donnell. I had an autographed copy because I was one of Liam's Beta-readers. The Girl read it quickly and really enjoyed the story. Then she announced to the household that she was inspired by the book to play World of Warcraft. Even though the MMO described in Ganked is a fictional one (Kingdom of Strife, or KoS), it captured the feel of MMOs like WoW perfectly. Liam's cast of characters defied gamer stereotypes and the game play that occurred as part of the plot was very appealing.

Even though WoW is still one of the largest MMOs in the world, it has lost a few players since its heyday, so now it is free to play a character up to level 20. Here's The Girl's account of her WoW experience:

Mom wanted me to describe my WoW characters in a couple of sentences, so I'll introduce you to my cast of characters:
My first character was Vestelle, a night elf druid. I played her when I was first getting the feel of the game and didn't really know what I was doing. I've gotten her up to about level nine, but I don't play her much anymore. As I'm thinking of one day composing a story about the group of characters, I like to think that Vestelle would be the clumsy newbie of the group who can't really catch up to the other high level characters.
Then we have my favourite character, Corrinthe, a blood elf hunter. She's really fun to play and I've gotten pretty decent at her. She has a pet Dragonhawk named Talon who accompanies her pretty much everywhere and does some tanking while she shoots arrows from afar. She's level eighteen and I pretend that she's the strategist of the group who gets really mad when nobody sticks to her carefully thought out plans.
Nyamo is my Pandarin mage, who I named after a character from a manga I read, since Pandarin are the fake Asian type race and have anime-esque hairstyle options for females. She's level thirteen and  I plan on making her an Alliance-allied Panda when I finish that quest line. Nyamo is the girly girl of the group and is a bit squishy, play wise, but has some pretty awesome spells that make her worth keeping around.
Nerissea is an undead warlock, whose familiars are an Imp called Gakpep and a Void Walker called Thultaz. She's level sixteen, my second highest character, and kind of interesting to play, since she's super evil compared to my other characters. She's, personality wise, meant to be a little misanthropic and cynical, but is a good leader for the team.
My fifth character is Jiira, a goblin shaman who I last left off at level twelve. She's really fun to play, even though I can never get past this one boss in her story line. Like all goblins, Jiira is superficial and enjoys the thought of being rich. She's a little bossy, but she's very devoted to her guild.
Lastly, I have Dionnae, my Draenei paladin. She's only level seven, since she was made very recently, but she's still an important part of my six man band. She's very different than most of my characters, since the rest of my group are ranged character classes, but I'm getting the hang of her thanks to my brother's expertise on melee characters. She's a gentle giant and very friendly, in my mind, and is often the one to break up the frequent conflicts in the group.
I like WoW for a lot of reasons. I enjoy exploring the world and seeing what there is to see out there in all the zones, even though I get killed by more powerful monsters than I can take on when I do so. I also really like the story and lore of the game, the interactions between different races and the history of the world. I enjoy the type of fantasy that this game has (with the elves and dwarves and such) and I think it was these qualities that I noticed prominently in the game depicted in Ganked, as well as why it drew me to WoW.

While The Girl was playing, The Boy saw this and was equally captivated. He had watched his dad play when he was younger, but now he felt he was able to play on his own, so he tried it too. Here's The Boy's account of his WoW time:

I have a dwarf paladin and his name is Amefist. He is based on my Cube World dwarf character, who is also named Amefist. He is pretty powerful. Amefist has a minor in Engineering. He has a pet bunny. I have not played recently but I think he is level 15-16. The most fun thing I did in WoW as Amefist was getting my pet rabbit.

I think it's neat that one media text can inspire another, and vice verse, although it had the potential to get a bit costly. The beginning of school and screen time limitations mean that both kids had other things to preoccupy them. There's also been this tendency with the younger members of our family that once we purchase an online membership, interest in the game immediately dries up. Still, this may be an ideal Christmas gift for either or both of them, and the interest is due to a well-written novel.

March Break RPG-Inspired Project

Time for the boy to take a break from manning the blog!

I've written before about our superhero RPG with our friends in the west-end of the city. After our last adventure (involving croco-sharks), my daughter was inspired to create comic book covers of each of the five games we've played as a large group. During March Break, I decided that they would look even better in colour, so I scanned the originals, printed out a new copy, and with the girl's help, I inked and coloured them. The results are wonderful, in my biased opinion, and I have new respect and appreciation for inkers of the comic industry. It takes a long time! We are seeing them today and we'll be giving the GM copies of these pieces of art, but I thought I'd share them here as well.

Issue #1: Versus the villainous Jack in Irons! 

Issue #2: Invasion of the Space Ghouls!

Issue #3: The Coming of the Crime Phantom!

Issue #4: Their Deadliest Foe Yet!

Issue #5: The CrocoSharks!

My daughter is currently reading old issues of The Avengers and The Fantastic Four, so she borrowed stylistic elements from those classic comics when designing these covers. 

Short Fuse

This post was written December 11, 2013 but not shared until today, January 10, 2014. No punctuation police today, so enjoy it in its original form.

Today I’ll be talking about an update to the original angry birds

So the pigs are at it again, and they stole the eggs again but this is a science one so they have new things like bomb birds shocking new power, yeah as from what I said it makes it kind of obvious he drank all the purple enzyme as I will call it and a broken wire makes get a new power which is the shockwave!                         So now he will create a new small circle of electricity and pushing things, and electrocuting pigs there are also three other potions the orange one is like orange bird if it splashes on a pig it will blow up in air and kill itself in the process, the blue potion makes the pigs become three smaller separate parts if multiple potions are poured on a pig it’ll create that many pigs example: three potions make nine tinier pigs and finally the pink potion turns pigs into bubbles lifting things up in the pig and then popping and dropping the structures. This is one of my favorite chapters because I thought about a science one including potions turning the birds different colors and maybe it will get a new power, this is also similar to red’s mighty feathers where red bird gains a new power so maybe yellow bird’ orange bird’ and other birds might get a power-up as well? We cannot predict the future sometimes I wish I could I really do, also does anyone remember the king pig toy where he does a random thing to your game? Well soon enough I will see the shock wave piggy so yeah tomorrow I will make a post about angry birds go! So stay tuned next time, and I will make it as best as I can because I do not have the app so it’s going to be a lot harder than you think, sometimes it looks like you did not press space because it’s such a small space, So I hoped you enjoyed this post about angry birds update stay tuned for my next one coming next day and it is also fourteen days until Christmas can’t you guys wait? It’s hard not getting excited so have a good day and a happy early Christmas yeah I know its fourteen days till Christmas this is all in total 399 words! 

Christmas in Terraria

Today's post is a combination of two journal entries the boy has written. The first was created December 17, 2013. Mother, the Punctuation Police, has done some touching up on both sections. 

Christmas is coming and so is the new update for Terraria.

So since Christmas is coming, the creators are doing a huge update to the game after the Christmas update. There are reindeers, elves, and the newest boss - The Santank, yes, a tank that looks like Santa. I wouldn’t be surprised for Christmas weapons maybe like, A Candy Cane Rifle because when they're held by their bend they look like a gun right? But unfortunately we didn’t get any Halloween weapons which I am sad about L I mean unless you give me one J but you need the password - I can give it to you in a bonus post, but presents drop from enemies similar to the goodie bags from Halloween, you either get green and red candy cane blocks or the rare snow globe to summon the frost legion which is a snowman goblin army. After you beat them, an empty room lets you have Santa! It may change due to the update, but yeah, I don’t really use guns in Terraria but I’d love to use the candy corn rifle J because I love candy. Can’t wait! Here's a bit about the other update ... you can visit the moon and fight the lunar boss which drops the S. D. M. G. which is called the Space Dolphin Machine Gun. It's based of Edge of Space; in fact it says “It came from the edge of space” I knew this update, the Christmas one, thanks to the Youtuber  Yrimir  so the next post will be more about the other new update J So enjoy the couple last days till Christmas.

This update was composed January 6, 2014

Unfortunately we have no big info on the new update for Terraria, which is making it hard but… I can talk to you about the new items in the Christmas update just to let you know I’m going to catalyze (catalogue?) the new stuff.

Weapons: Christmas tree sword, Razorpine, Chain gun, Frost staff, and many more - those are the ones I could get atop my head as I write this message... anyway moving to the next section.

Things collected from presents: Candy cane blocks red and green, Suger cookies, (Yes they spell sugar suger) Christmas pudding, Gingerbread men, Pine tree blocks, the Snow globe, Star anise’s, (Which are similar to the rotten eggs) Candy Cane sword, Candy Cane Pickaxe, And finally… Darn it I forgot what I was going to type... oh wait now I remember! The dog whistle summons the pet dog! And the Fruit cake chakram!

Costumes: Mrs. Claus outfit, Santa outfit, Christmas tree outfit, Parka (Reference to South Park Kenny), Snow hat (Nat’s hat from South Park), and I believe that’s it!

Pets: Baby Grinch, Dog, Elf, and I believe once again that’s it.

Now the way to get certain things is to summon the frost moon (Similar to the pumpkin moon) - you’ll have to defeat the 3 bosses in it Everscream, Santa, NK 1, and the Frost Queen. If you want presents, kill enemies to get them! (Similar once again to the goodie bags from Halloween time)

Finally Happy New Year - it’s kind of late but I wanted to say that for all you readers I hope you enjoyed this article of the Christmas update for Terraria also real quick use the naughty present to summon the frost moon have a wonderful day/evening read my other articles too! J J See you all later! J

Shantae

This post was written by the boy December 16, 2013. His mother appreciates the use of punctuation so she did some minor editing January 2, 2014. 

I hoped you guys made your guess, because the topic is Shantae

While Nintendo has made the 3DS and part of it is the Shop, on it Shantae  started her beginning around 1999 where a company known as Way Forward created this purple haired genie. Yeah it gets way better. Her first game was on the Game Boy Color; she is the half-genie protector of Sequin Land. She hasn’t made many appearances in most popular games. Apparently they're coming out with 2 new games - Shantae: The Pirates Curse and Shantae Half Genie Half Hero - but Way Forward  takes a long time for their games, especially with The Half Genie Half Hero Kickstarter. It's too bad it is already over. Look up her name in the 3DS shop and you’ll find Shantae: Risky’s Revenge - yes indeed my first Way Forward game. 

Right now I’m wearing a mood ring and it’s purple which means love. Okay you may figure out by now that I have a crush on a video game character. Do you want to know why? Because she does belly-dancing ... yeah my favorite and since she is half genie she turns into animals when she finishes dancing.

The next topic is going to be the Christmas update for Terraria especially since Christmas is coming so you know give Shantae a chance - you may want the first one too. Believe me, it is really fun so enjoy the Purple Haired, Belly dancing, Half-Genie herself, Shantae!