Recent Posts

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Blogs / Happy Forty-Eye-Tis Birthday

« Last post by Dragon on September 13, 2022, 22:02:10 »

Well... I finally got reading glasses, the week of my birthday. I guess I've probably been needing them, at least a little bit, for a while now. It's not that big of a deal for me. I can still see fine at a distance. The eye doctor says I still have better than 20/20 vision, it's just my close range vision is declining some. After explaining that sometimes I have to hold things out at arms length to read it, he said, "Ah, yes. You have forty-eye-tis. Your eyes stop being as quick to adjust after forty." I asked the eye doctor about getting those reading glasses that they sell in the pharmacy and he mentioned that it would probably be fine for me to just get the +125 glasses there, which is what he wrote on my prescription for glasses. He said I don't need bifocals, considering I'm sitting at a computer all day. I'll just need them for reading up close, not anything else. When I looked in the Pharmacy section it looked like they had the Blue Filtering lenses with +1.25, so I'm guessing that's the same thing that the doctor mentioned, and I figured with the blue light that comes from the computer screen, that's probably best for me. I'm used to wearing sunglasses outside all the time anyway, this is just a little different visually, but having them on doesn't feel weird. I'm also thankful that my eyesight is still this good, which especially considering my career, could have had me in glasses a decade earlier. I mentioned it to some people I work with and my manager said, "I just keep get bigger monitors."

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General Discussions / Re: 3D Printer Projects

« Last post by Dragon on September 12, 2022, 20:32:04 »

Universal plate/picture stand
by DanRom624 September 09, 2019
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3852495

Mini Ionic Column - Tiny Object Display Podium
by ThreeDeeJon August 18, 2022
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5468379

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General Discussions / Re: 3D Printer Projects

« Last post by Dragon on September 08, 2022, 20:24:28 »

Just so all the other coaster holders aren't forgotten... here is my list of runners-up:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2571941 - Coaster Holder
by becka October 06, 2017

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2428666 - Alien Coaster Holder
by ThePresident July 10, 2017

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4978195 - Aperture Hex Coaster
by ThatEngineeringGuy September 30, 2021

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4446282 - Hexy Coaster Holder
by 3D_Dynamics June 12, 2020

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3328107/files - Drink Coaster Holder
by shults07 January 01, 2019 ... THIS IS THE ONE I ALMOST PRINTED

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1135335 - 3 1/2" Floppy Coaster Holder
by mrhaley623 November 19, 2015

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4757756 - Coaster Set
by ZenLightN February 10, 2021

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3597454 - Coaster Holder
by septemma April 30, 2019 ... This is a simple yet effective looking one.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:622053 - Glacial Coaster Holder
by terrabruder January 05, 2015

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General Discussions / Re: 3D Printer Projects

« Last post by Dragon on September 07, 2022, 13:12:33 »

Last night I was looking through a bunch of coaster holder models on thingiverse last night, wanting to get my disorganized pile of coasters into a nice place. I came across this Castle style Coaster Holder.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3116072/files

I modified it in the preview window just a bit before printing, increasing the size to 125mm across because some of my coasters are a little bigger than others and I didn't want any getting stuck, and printed it using only 5% infill. It turned out great.  

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Rival Troops / Re: Self-Publishing via The Game Crafter

« Last post by Dragon on August 31, 2022, 01:21:28 »

I created a pitch sheet for Rival Troops. Please let me know what you think.

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Table-top Games / Re: Ostia - The Harbor of Rome

« Last post by Dragon on August 28, 2022, 20:06:33 »

Ostia has been a surprise favorite for us recently. We played the game 3 times within the past month, which is noteworthy because we have so many different games that we could choose from that many times we play a game once in a while and then pick something else even if we enjoy the game. This month though... this game really clicked. When we played earlier in the month, Beth and Isaac enjoyed the game enough to play immediately after the first time.

The first game on August 13th, Isaac won with 15 points, while Beth and I tied at 13. We played this first game without Ivory, which is suggested for first-time-players, figuring it had been long enough since our last time to make it almost like our first time. The second game on August 13th, Isaac and Beth tied with 14 points and I got 12. We played the second game with Ivory and prices were higher since we understood payout better. The final round was so close, with all of us making good use of our situations to make the most of where we knew we could each benefit. The game played quickly, but unfortunately we didn't realize what the tie-breaker was before discarding the cards. We think it may have been Beth, but Isaac had just grabbed a few cards and compared them saying that Beth might have won in the tie-breaker because they both had the same number of storehouses at the end.

When playing today, I decided to use poker chips in place of the paper money that came with the game. The paper money in this game sticks together so much that it's very annoying to pick up and move around, and as we've experienced with other games, having coins or poker chips just seem to give a better playing experience. Since I have a set of poker chips with 4 colors, I used the chips for 1, 2, 5, and 10 Denarii by setting 1 chip on a piece of the paper money that it was replacing, while continuing to use the paper 20 Denarii when it was needed. 

Today, once again our scores were close and I tend to think that it might be necessary that they have the tie-breaker rules as often as it has come up with as few times as we've played the game. In the end, Beth and I both had 15 points, while Isaac ended the game with 14 points. I won the tie-breaker, since I had 3 storehouses and Beth only had 2. I thought at first that the goods were the factor in the tie-breaker, but once again we had forgotten and had discarded our cards before determine the final score before realizing the storehouses were checked first. Still an enjoyable game that I hope we remember to bring to the table more often in the future. 

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Table-top Games / WarCraft: The Board Game

« Last post by Dragon on August 28, 2022, 19:22:34 »

WarCraft: The Board Game is surprisingly almost 20 years old. The game was released in 2003 and it was one that I purchased soon after it was released. It has the artwork based on WarCraft III, which was the current video game in the series at the time of release. The board game has a modular board, which was made up of various clusters as small as 2 and as large as 5 hexagon spaces together. The spaces have forests, gold mines, and town buildings pictured on them. The game could be played with 2-4 players, with different maps that could be setup based on scenarios in the book, or whatever else the players came up with. Players collect resources, build up their towns and armies, upgrading them as they go, and head into battle hoping to capture their opponents town or get enough Victory Points from upgrades and important locations on the board. The game can end by getting 15 victory points in the standard game, which requires maxing out your upgrades on your combat units and/or getting "Experience Point" cards from battles, some of which have Victory Points on them.

I had played WarCraft: The Board Game with my son, Isaac, years ago, but after one play he wasn't interested in trying again for a while because it took nearly 4 hours. Normally the game play is about about 60 to 90 minutes. I had played it against some other people also, and although I enjoyed how the game worked, I wasn't able to get it out a lot. I did print off some helper sheets years ago. I also got extra dice that matched the colors of each army in the game, red, blue, purple, and green, which I think was a nice addition to the game because the game originally came with just 4 small white dice - they just totally felt like they were meant to be replaced.

Before Isaac went off to college, we were talking about some of the games he was interested in playing that he hadn't in a while and WarCraft was one that he mentioned. Last night, after he came home for a weekend visit, he agreed to play and we went to battle with the Orcs vs. the Undead. Fortunately I had a little time to re-read some of the rules while he was out with his mom, and we had about a 15 minute overview of how the game work once he sat down to play. Early in the game, he had pushed his Workers out to a forest space that was near the center of the board and I immediately played a "Fast" card and moved my Melee units out to the space to destroy them. We had a close battle soon after that, in which I used Devour to take out one of this Melee units at the start and I got lucky when he was hit, played a couple "Curse" cards, and failed to save himself from getting killed. We both had Outposts near the center of the board by that time and soon after that I went after his and destroyed it. Isaac lost more undefended Workers and more units in some other battles as I continued to Upgrade my units, build up my Town, and continue marching my troops toward his base. I captured his Town about 75 minutes after we started playing, which seemed like a reasonable timeframe for our first time playing the game in many years, but most importantly, Isaac enjoyed the game even though he lost. He said that he knows where he made his mistakes and definitely wants to play it again. 

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Table-top Games / Acquire

« Last post by Dragon on August 16, 2022, 20:22:06 »

Acquire - Manufacturer: Avalon Hill / Hasbro - Designer: Sid Sackson - Year: 2000 - $34.95 AT FUNAGAIN GAMES*
Review by: Nathaniel Dragon

    I have the updated Avalon Hill/Hasbro version of Acquire, which I recently bought due to the popularity of this game among other gamers. The game is for 2-5 players, ages 12+, and game play is approx 90 mins (according to the box).

    After quickly reading over the rules, my wife and I were ready to play. The plastic board has squares to place the tiles, which represent buildings of corporations. Each player starts with $6000, to by stock during the game, and 6 building tiles. Each of the tiles are numbered matching spaces on the board. The object of the game is to build the corporations, invest wisely in stock and finish the game with the most money.

    The game starts with each player drawing a tile from the pool and placing it on the appropriate space. The first player will be the one with the tile closest to the space marked '1A'. The player plays a tile and if the tile touches a solid side (not diagonally) of another tile, a corporation is created. The "founder" then gets 1 free stock card from the bank and has the option to by up to 3 more stock in this turn. Then the player draws another tile (to replace the one played) and gameplay moves clockwise.

    As the game continues, players will eventually place a tile that combines two or more corporations. At this time, the smaller corporation goes "defunct" and is absorbed into the larger and stock holders of the smaller company collect stock bonuses and have options to hold, sell, or trade the stock (2 to 1 for stock in the corporation which absorbed it). When corporations grow to 11 or more tiles, they can no longer be absorbed into a larger corporation. These are called "Safe corporations." They can still grow larger, but they will never be removed from the board as the smaller corporations do with mergers.

    The game ends when a player declares that all "Active" corporations are "safe" or when one corporations grows to be 41 or more tiles. Players have an option to declare the end, which may be to the advantage to wait on, such as if your stock has more potential to grow.

    In the words of my wife, "The game board doesn't look like much to start with, but there ends up being alot of strategy to it." The only thing that I've noticed about the game that I thought may be and interesting variation, is to allow trades and sales among the players before a corporation goes "defunct". The game is still great and I am sure I will have many more enjoyable experiences with.

I'm including an old review of this game from my website above.

It had been a while since we played Acquire, but it was fun getting it out again. I played it with my wife and my son over the weekend. My wife is often a strong competitor in Acquire, and this time was no different. Isaac had some points of the game when he was out of cash, but he had a lot of stock in the America Corp, which ended up becoming the largest company in the game. Beth and I had held onto some Quantum stock, waiting for the company to come back after a merger mid-game, but it never did. In the end, Isaac won with me getting second place.

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Conquest Of The Empire Online / Purchasing Cities

« Last post by Dragon on August 12, 2022, 13:12:08 »

Comment from Isaac: Attempting to buy more than one fortified city for for the price of one doesn't work. Although there should be an error when attempting to.

In screenshot, we can see that 2 cities have been added, then quantity was reduced to 1, which adjusted the price, but both territories were still listed.

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Table-top Games / Jaipur

« Last post by Dragon on August 08, 2022, 22:01:33 »

Another game acquired at the Tampa Bay Comic Convention, thanks to Chris, was Jaipur. I've played this game on BoardGameArena.com several times and was happy to see it there. Chris purchased the game and gifted it to me as an early birthday present!

Chris and Isaac played Jaipur while we were there and Isaac caught onto the game quickly. When we got home, Isaac played against me and won, already making good use of the tips that Chris had taught him. We played again, and this time I managed to win but it was time to end for the night after that.

This is a great addition to my game collection. Isaac has also commented on wanting to have his own copy of the game to take to college. Fortunately, although the game may have been out of print for a while, there seems to be a recent print of it that is available on Amazon.com for anyone looking right now.