Saturday, February 27, 2021

The Latest Delight

While waiting for your favorite story to update, why not reminisce about what playing MMORPGs was like before we developed magical VR or were all hit by trucks? What do you mean, that sounds boring and vaguely depressing? It's winsome and lovable.

New Release

Such a story is found not in heaven but on this very Earth! Excited? Check out "First We Reroll," available at a special special launch price for Kindle, free with Kindle Unlimited, or in paperback format.

Friday, February 26, 2021

Come to This Side

If only there were a story about the MMORPGs of yore with no VR and no plot of any kind. Such a story could remind us what things were really like, remind of us inane group chat and worse town chat when combat was stately. Slow? No, stately.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Notes on Armada for the Dreamcast

Spoilers! Armada is a neat game might be good if it had anything in it. Unfortunately, with only one town, linear ship upgrades aside from a mere four module slots, two mission types, and one side mission type mean it runs out of interest long before it runs out of game time.
Leaving aside whatever troubled development and budget issues aside, what was that ending? All five people who ever finished that game had to run to the internet just to find out if it was actually over or not. If you can't end with a bang, at least end. The only NPC with a real resolution is the guy who's going to open a restaurant.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Qualities of a Side Book

Much like you might keep Azur Lane or Princess Connect as a side game while playing Epic 7 or Granblue Fantasy, so too might you read Sherlock Holmes stories between the Iliad and the Odyssey. Just the same way, when between VR MMORPG stories, why not read something more grounded yet nostalgic?

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Main Books and Side Books

When you get a new LitRPG, obviously you want to see thrills, intrigue, and numbers going up. You'd better want to see a spellblade too, because that's what you're getting. However, even thrills and intrigue can lose their charm. That's when you need a good stun or sleep.

Monday, February 22, 2021

History Corner

Speaking of the Hundred Years' War, the English were right. That's why I refuse to recognize France to this day.

The Topside

The world just keeps going whichever way you go, so somebody in one of those directions must once have wondered what was on the topside of clouds. The town of Wheating was home to none of that sort until that pleasant day when even the doomsayers saw no cause for complaint in the broad, blue sky until a cloud jerked away from its path and something fell from it.
Wheating may have been a town that acknowledged the place of routine among the civic virtues, but taking an early lunch is no great crime when something like that happens. The entire citizenry temporarily relocated to the field owned by Wheating's number one citizen, Inkle, where the cloud refuse fell.
Less surprising than the fact it was a man was that he lived through his fall and took less harm than some have descending a simple staircase. His only source of distress, he told us, was his untimely removal from the cloud where he had work to do. The Wheatingers assured him they were eager to assist him, but in the meantime they hoped he would favor them with some tales of the world above the clouds. The man, whose name was Rmachl, begged them to forgive him for having nothing interesting to say since the topside was a boring, tedious sort of place.
The entire town with Inkle at its head came together to build a tall ladder which outsiders unfamiliar with its purpose might call a tower. Rmachl grew antsier as it rose and hopped from one foot to the other in an endless personal dance when it was nearly done. He thanked the townsfolk less fulsomely than etiquette might advise when the day came and put his foot on the first step when Inkle stopped him.
That local head man asked again what things were like on the other side of the clouds, and again Rmachl said it was nothing special. Inkle allowed that might be true, in which case there was no reason for him not to go up the ladder himself or even for a few of his friends to make the ascent. Only then did Rmachl, no longer intent on the ladder's progress, notice the force of armed men Wheating had gathered which was far from detestable. At a sign from Inkle the men climbed the ladder, which was how the world below discovered and immediately conquered the sky palaces and their celestial gifts of inexhaustible food and drink left behind by the gods after they made the world and hoarded by Rmachl's people while they looked down and laughed every day.
Finis

Friday, February 19, 2021

Discussion Corner

Fantasy movie and tv adaptations should always be animated. There isn't much to discuss there, since it's universally correct, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Think about this instead: "Feist" spelled backwards is "tsief," which is you would say "thief" with certain speech impediments maybe. What a twist!