Game Review: Iconica by Eric Torres (2/2)

Aaaaaaand, we’re back with part 2 of 2. See, I do finish these series sometimes! This was meant to go up significantly earlier, but, you know, Diablo III. Oops.

Gameplay Review

Honestly, the first thing I thought of when I played the game was Final Fantasy: the idea of building a team with its own strengths and weaknesses, with the possibilities of multiple status effects like poison, sleep, and confuse. This isn’t a bad thing at all! As someone who loves JRPGs with a passion and tabletop/board games with almost an equal passion… it’s awesome.

The game definitely has a learning curve: there is a fairly significant amount of text on the cards, and your team is likely to change from game to game, meaning that making decisions can take a little while. There are also a significant number of status effects to keep straight, some of which only last for a single round, and some of which persist unless they are healed or removed. There are also a lot of other pieces of information on each card, including:

• a teardrop-like symbol on one of the six moves on each card that allows the character to remove status ailments and heal a small amount if doubles of that number are rolled
• moves that can cause extra damage to certain character types
• symbols along each character’s health track that make them immune to certain status ailments at certain health points
• pointed health squares that allow characters to parry attacks and to ignore a small amount of damage
• reaction squares that allow characters to deal back damage to attackers
• “Final Acts” that are a little bit like Final Fantasy limit breaks, that, if successful (they are contingent on a dice roll), can be real game changers (they can incapacitate enemy characters, allow the character to heal some amount of health and stay in the game, or cause any other number of effects)

So, you get the idea–it can be a little overwhelming at first. Luckily, a lot of this information is written on the card in straight-out words. Some is encoded in symbols, but the game designer thoughtfully included a quick reference card with each set that can be laid out on the table until players become more familiar with the game.

Purchase Information

Iconica and related merchandise (including a book and lovely poster) can be purchased at the Etsy shop. At the time of writing this post, Series 1 and Series 2 are going for $45 each: each includes 22 cards and dice and tokens for 4 players. The first mini series, Cirqus of the Three Moons, is on sale for $25, containing an additional 11 cards and quick reference sheet of rules, but no dice or tokens. I bought all three and the book, because when I get into something I tend to get into it, and because I love supporting independent designers of awesome products. Iconica (and the world of Rynaga) definitely qualify.

Parting Words

If you’re a fan of great artwork, creative indie design, and/or intrigued by the idea of a tabletop game that combines aspects of Pokémon battles with Final Fantasy team-building and limit breaks… you should definitely pick up this game. As their Etsy page suggests:

You’ll like Iconica if you:

1. like games in which you’re faced with choices (and some chance)
2. want layers of complexity without reading 45 pages of rules
3. like teaming up with friends during games
4. want a NEW experience in a fictional setting
5. want a game where there are no junk/duplicate/fodder cards
6. like games with a rich backstory
7. like games with RPG flavor

Eric and his team also have more plans up their sleeves: 2013 should see the release of Series 3, with 22 more cards, as well as an Iconica Players Guild, with special “members only” content. Intriguing!

Some Thoughts on Diablo III

So. I promise to post the remainder of my Iconica review (it’s already mostly written, just awaiting a few pictures and a little tweaking), but May 15, 2012 was kind of a big day for video game geeks, and I got a little distracted. If you don’t know why, this might not be the post for you.

I probably don’t even know the length of time a lot of people have been waiting for this game. I’m a relative newcomer to Blizzard’s games: I play World of Warcraft on and off, and have done so for about five or six years. I played pretty regularly in the beginning and since then, usually tend to cycle in a 3-6 month pattern of play time and letting my account lapse. I just played for 3 months, and will probably let my account sit until Mists of Pandaria comes out later this year.

I never played any of the previous Diablo games. The first was pretty much beyond my time, released on December 31, 1996. I would have been 7 years old, for the record. It was ported to PlayStation in 1998, which would have been a bit more plausible for me to attempt, but it wasn’t a game my brother ever picked up. Diablo II came out in 2000. I was definitely playing video games by then, but the vast majority of them were on console, specifically, my brother’s PlayStation, and later PlayStation II. (I did buy a copy of Diablo II from Blizzard’s online store, but although they offer a Mac* client, the game was incompatible with my computer since I’d updated to Mac OS X Lion.)

*Shut up, haters. I plan on partitioning my drive and installing Windows as well on my next laptop.

So: although an expansion for Diablo II was released a year or so later, it has been 12 years since a new game was released. That’s a pretty significant wait. Diablo III was announced in 2008, and fans have been waiting for 5 years for the release date. I can attest to this: my ex-boyfriend had the logo as his screensaver when we were dating, which was like a year and a half ago now. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, Before its release, the game broke several presale records and became the most pre-ordered PC game of all time on Amazon.com.

I am just trying to drive the point home that there were a lot of eager people waiting to play the game starting at 12:01 PST on May 15th, and the vast majority of them were angry, angry people.

(Ironically, this picture also comes from a post about Blizzard!)

Blizzard made the decision to require Internet access to play Diablo III. Not just to register the game, but to play any of it, including single player. I’m going to guess this is for some combination of stupid DRM purposes and for Auction House connection (where you can spend real world money on in-game items, and Blizzard keeps a portion of that).

The game had the expected rush at midnight, once it was unlocked. I couldn’t get past the character creation screen until about 1:30 AM, and I played until a little after 3:00 AM with some friends. I planned on taking the day off school (which a lot of people ended up doing, with either school or work), so I went to bed thinking I would pick it up the next morning.

Unfortunately, that required the servers to be up, which… they weren’t.

On opening day, of the five times or so I attempted to log in, I was able to play twice. The Americas server was down for the majority of the day. I would have hoped that being able to see how many people pre-ordered the game in combination with the open beta weekend and running, you know, World of Warcraft, they would have beefed up tech support appropriately, but that didn’t end up being the case. Servers were down frequently throughout the day, and for hours at a time: 1:30 PM would get pushed back to 3:30 PM, and when I tried in the evening around 9:00, the forums announced they wouldn’t be functional until close to 11:45 PM.

But! For the couple of hours I was able to play the game, I have to say, it was fantastic. I rolled a demon hunter, of course: given a choice I will nearly always pick the ranged archer/ranger class. Also, I’m just going to throw this out there: dual-wielding crossbows.

So: some thoughts on the game, pretty quickly, cause I’d like to get back to playing and make it past level 11.

• I play a healer in WoW (a holy priest), and they made Diablo III awesome in the potions/health orbs/health fountains sense, in that in a multiplayer group, you don’t need a healer. Everyone can just pour out massive dps. It’s pretty sweet.
• Dual-wielding crossbows.
• As a solo player you can choose between three companions (a paladin, a rogue, and a mage, more or less) to aid you in your journeys, and provide a little comedic relief in dialogue. It’s great: the templar and demon hunter make a fantastic pair, because, hey, free meat shield!
• It’s the first game in ages I’ve used a mouse for. I actually play WoW without one, using just keyboard commands and my trackpad, but Diablo is definitely a click-click-click game.
• Dual-wielding crossbows.
• The town portal is awesome. Fast travel (WITH a fast return to where you travelled from) makes emptying out overflowing inventory space and picking up new potions fantastically easy.
• Gold is EVERYWHERE. And everything is breakable. Smash those barrels, pull down those bookshelves, kick over that rock pile. Gold is likely hiding there. Also, you can totally shake the dead townspeople and farmers and such you come across and pick up any gold the poor corpses had on them at the time of their deaths. There’s even a freaking mob called the Treasure Goblin that drops gold as he runs away from you, and more as you beat him with attacks. HE IS A LIVING GOLD PINATA. This is so awesome on so many levels.
• In case you didn’t read all those annoying tooltips at the beginning of the game, holding down shift while you click away on mobs will keep you stationary as you attack. For demon hunters, this is awesome. I spent the first 6 levels or so running into things when I was trying to attack from a distance. Reading in-game hints can be useful!
• Dual-wielding crossbows.

Okay, that’s it for now. I’m going back to slay some more motherfuckin’ demons, and just, you know, save the free world.

Game Review: Iconica by Eric Torres (1/2)

Background

So, Penny Arcade can be dangerous for my wallet. Thanks to their relatively new game journalism outlet, The Penny Arcade Report, I picked up a copy of Metagame and can’t think of a better casual game to kill line time and talk to new people at PAX. (Which I totally bought tickets for and I’m now counting down the days until August 31.)  Here is said article from the PA Report. The variety of games really is extensive: I consider myself a fairly well-informed gamer, and there were still a handful I wasn’t familiar with (or at least, familiar enough with to make an educated argument, which is the strategy at the heart of the game). If you are the least bit interested in gaming, I highly recommend picking up a copy: it is totally worth the price for the fantastic artwork alone.

Another purchase I made thanks to a Penny Arcade newspost (by Tycho this time, not on PA Report) is Iconica. (As much as I love video games, I have been way more into tabletop and card/board stuff lately.) Iconica is a new take on a collectible card game by designer Eric Torres, set in the fictional world of Rynaga. Here is a wonderful explanation of the game from the blog.

Product Review

First things first, and to give credit where credit is due: this game is visually gorgeous. As the author notes in his “About Eric” page on his website:

The visual language is grounded in iconography, paying homage to classic forms of art. We avoid software tricks, filters and trends, using geometric forms to communicate ideas and subtle emotions. We stick to fundamentals of design to guide choices in color, typography and layout. We’re working hard to use high production values in our favor to create products which are labors of love, not cheap commodities.

The cards clearly demonstrate this labor of love. They are built of oversized, glossy card material, with shapely, rounded corners. The artwork is striking, a nice balance of bright colors and dark ink. Here is a closeup of the art on Card 001, the Featherune Sentinel:

Eric’s take on a “new” CCG is intriguing. Magic: The Gathering is perhaps the most famous, and there are certainly aspects of it that are frustrating: as a player, I should know! Booster packs with random cards are the most common purchase: they retail for about $4 at most shops, and contain 15 random cards. Generally speaking, most of those won’t be what the player is looking for. As a result, players can spend lots of money on booster packs looking for specific cards and end up with tons of junk they never end up using. I’ve been collecting MTG cards for under a year, and I already have a gigantic box of them, the vast majority of which I am uninterested in using to build my Ultimate Awesome Black Deck (but which my friends can mine to build stupid white and green decks that kick my ass).

Iconica solves this problem. There are no booster packs: players pick cards from sets (large, 22-card Series releases or smaller, 11-card Mini Series) to build a 3-character team they pit against another player’s 3-character team. Duplicate characters can’t be in the same party (or team, if you’re playing with 4 people), and you can’t use the same Legend or Special character as anyone else playing with or against you, which helps negate the need to collect duplicate cards in the first place. Playing face-to-face, two players need only 6 cards, and four players need only 12. (For comparison, a standard MTG decks runs about 60 cards.) This can easily be done with one Series release, with plenty of extra cards to allow for party choices. (I also imagine the game could easily be played over distances with someone you trust, if you each had a matching Series and a program like Skype.)

In the designer’s own words:

…each Character Card is unique and comes with its own set of skills, weaknesses, and strengths. Each card has its own personality, motive, and story. There are no “grunt” or “fodder” cards.

Other collectible and trading card games force you to expand your game blindly, which often results in wasted money as players end up with many duplicate cards. Blind purchases are not a bad thing in all cases. I plan to offer some specific cards as surprises, included as part of other product promotions.

Rarer cards, known as X-Cards, are available as special promotions at places like conventions or for early purchase of a new release (or re-release, as was the recent case for a reprint of Series 1). As of this time, there are at least 3 X-Cards in release:

• 45: Wandering Siryn
• 57: Fairewood Fool Knight
• 58: Dartugan Sea Rogue

When Series 1 was re-released, one X-Card was offered for a limited time: Orders placed before Sunday, May 6th at 12:00 noon AZ time will ship with one of two different Iconica X-Cards. X-Cards are mysterious characters which are offered as part of special promotions only. I was lucky enough to snag the Dartugan Sea Rogue. Here’s a peek at its artwork (in the slightly reflective plastic slip cover it shipped in): 

I think this is a wonderful twist on most CCGs: rather than throwing money at booster packs, you can spend a little more on full Series. The rarer X-Cards still allow some level of “collectibility” to the game.

This ended up being 1400+ words, so tune in shortly for part 2/2. Or, if you can’t wait any longer, here is a link to the Etsy shop where you can purchase the game!

Is It Summer Yet?

I have a confession to make: I’m already on vacation in my head.

This is a slight problem, considering that we’re only at the end of week 5 of a 10 week quarter. As in, there are still a solid 5 weeks of class left. As in, we’re just 50% of the way through.

But all I can think about are Otter Pops, fruit-topped frozen yogurt, cold slices of watermelon, tan lines, sunglasses, the smell of chlorine, and Vampire Weekend’s first album playing on repeat.

That lovely weekend in San Francisco wasn’t any help: gorgeous blue skies, swimming, tanning, and sunscreen. Now all I can do is browse J. Crew’s website and drool over this blazer, which would look fantastic over a solid-colored sundress:

I’m also heading back to NorCal for the summer, since my apartment is getting subleased for July and August. I know a lot of people aren’t really into living with their parents again even for the summer, but it’s saving $2800 in rent (which is a not insignificant amount of money) and I am really not loving Los Angeles right now: people that don’t use their turn signals, all the unprotected left turns, honking, the stupid buses, and oh my god, I never really understood road rage before I moved here. I hate people so much every time I get into my car.

I also just spent some time at home just this last weekend – a lot of traveling, I know. This was the planned trip home, though: two weekends ago was completely random and spur-of-the-moment. This time, some more friends came along and there were touristy moments, including clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, to be had. (Well, for them. I had a crab cake sandwich. Because, yum.)

So: after seeing The Avengers (twice), visiting the local gaming shop (twice), and just getting to spend time with the family and not think about school for the last couple days… well, this second half of the term is going to be hard. I’m consoling myself with the fact that once it’s over, I’ll get to have months off instead of days.

(Also, bonus points to those who got the subtle Daria reference in the blog title.)

Things I Am Loving, Mid-April 2012 Edition

Felicia Day’s “Flog” or video blog, part of her Geek & Sundry brand/company/collective thing. I have a total girl crush on Felicia Day. I think I have a thing for red heads, cause I love me some Christina Hendricks and Alyson Hannigan, too.

Magical Game Time, a great (video game themed) art and comics blog by Zac Gorman. It’s sweet and has just a little bit of animation to the art, and I totally went through and read the entire back archives after discovering it (coincidentally, through Felicia Day’s video blog mentioned above).

Eavesdropping on conversations in the alley outside my apartment through my open bedroom windows. I mean, it’s not intentional eavesdropping, but my windows are open because LA averages 65 or 70 degrees Fahrenheit and I like the breeze. I can’t help if I overhear things that are discussed! One gem involved someone discussing hacking into e-mail accounts and Facebook, keyloggers, implied infidelity, “purposely not asking any questions,” and a possible FBI investigation. Quite suspicious. In a movie, this would all spiral into an exciting and dangerous adventure along the lines of the Bourne series. Instead, I’m blogging about it. Movies 1, real life 0.

My Coach (New) Willis bag. I know. I’m sick. But I am still so very in love with my new baby. It’s just so bright and peppy for spring!

Titanic in 3D. I very much did not expect to like the movie as much as I did, but it’s been at least 10 years since I saw it, and I never saw it in theaters the first time around because I was like 7 years old. I went out to dinner with some lady friends and we stocked up on popcorn and chocolate and submitted to 3 hours of glorious 3D experience. Leonardo DiCaprio was so freaking young!

Jeremy Renner. He’s Hawkeye in the upcoming Avengers film (Joss Whedon, squee!), and he’s gorgeous in everything else he’s been in. And, you know, just gorgeous in general. Swoon.

The Room Service foursquare badge that is no longer available. I don’t actually use foursquare, but I found it amusing: “That’s three late night check-ins at different hotels. Here’s to hoping you got your room serviced.” Sleazy? Yeah, but oh-so-entertaining.

The Cabin in the Woods. It had to be my Joss Whedon fix until the Avengers movie, plus I’m into pretty much any horror movie in general. Also, Dr. Jackson Avery from Grey’s Anatomy and Topher Brink from Dollhouse and Thor from the Marvel franchise get together in a cabin in the woods with some ladies and chaos ensues. How could that not be awesome? Turns out the movie is even better than the trailer suggests, and is this wonderful mix of horror film, satire/parody, and so much more. If you like horror or Joss Whedon or clever writing or any combination of the above, go see it! The best horror movie I’ve seen in years.

My Hipstagram Life

Look, I don’t really remember whether I took some of the following pictures with Hipstamatic or Instagram. They both take faux-arty, square pictures. But here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately.

A sweet mid-afternoon snack.

A handful of pretty glass beads from Newport, OR.

Striped shoes make a Monday a little more bearable.

A wicked thumb wound from a broken glass bottle.

Glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom at home.

Blueberry muffins on a weekend morning.

A sweet (eponymous) stop with friends in Walnut Creek.

The little note in my Kate Spade handbag.

Spring flowers in full, allergy-inducing bloom.

Part of the Metropolis II exhibit at LACMA.

The famous light post sculpture in front of LACMA. Also, a kind of cool cameo by the full moon in the upper left.

Treated myself at Sephora to the Rosé color, which is more of an “every day” sheer pink color than the Passion. $22.50 is ridiculous for a “tinted lip treatment,” but these are the best lip products I’ve ever used. Also, SPF 15, which is awesome.

“Party favors” from my DM. 30-card half decks in each color. Funsies!

GAMES (About Games)

So. Aside from food and notebooks, which you guys already know about, and bags, which I’ve already got a reputation for, there’s another little addiction I have: cards.

Pretty much any kind of cards. Magic: The Gathering, tarot, playing, whatever. My dad even used to buy me baseball cards when we went to Giants and A’s games. I still have those baseball cards, tucked away in a box full of other keepsakes–including Gypsy Witch fortune-telling playing cards, another favorite.

I like the uniformity of the stacks, that slick and glossy feeling that most commercial cards are printed with, the way they shuffle together, spreading them out and examining the art. I can’t be the only person who feels this way, considering the large number of collectible card games (CCGs) out there.

In the last couple days I made two impulse purchases, and I regret neither of them. Coincidentally, they’re both decks of cards for games.

Death Prediction Card Sets: from TopatoCo, 55 for all 5 decks, 4 printed and 1 blank to make your own cards. Each is simply printed in black letters with a way to meet your death. “DEFENESTRATION” is one of my favorites. The capital letters add a certain je ne sais quoi to the set, no? There are a lot of games you can play with the cards, from Apples to Apples variants, exquisite corpse group composition games, and others. Doom-themed fun!

The Death Prediction Cards came about in a roundabout way with a Dinosaur Comics strip and then a short story and illustration contest and a book and a lot of other things. You can read the story here. The book is available as a Creative Commons licensed free download, and I’m about a third of the way through it. I’m also going to buy it afterwards, because I believe in supporting awesome projects.

The other was the Metagame. It was created by Local No. 12, an experimental game collective, and there are 2 sets: one a general culture theme and the other all about videogames.

The game comes with two types of cards: the black/gray backed ones with questions are comparison cards, and the illustrated ones are content cards. Again like the Death Prediction Cards, there is not one “official” game to play, there are a wide variety, but the general mechanic is to play a content card to answer a question posed by a comparison cards, and to argue your point. It can be played with 2 people or 2000 people at a convention–I can see the videogame one maybe being popular at PAX, especially with convention rules available.

Anyways, just wanted to share that! Both of those games look interesting and I can’t wait to see all the artwork in the Metagame decks (and all the ominous ways to die in the Death Prediction decks). Also, as much fun as Monopoly and Scrabble are, sometimes its fun to try out the independent stuff.

A Love Letter to the iPad(2)

I guess a disclaimer should be offered up-front: I’m a total Apple fangirl. I’m typing up this blog on a MacBook Pro, I own an iPhone. And while I’m not the only one by any means, I am really and seriously in love with my latest Apple toy.

I bought an iPad 2. I named it Mnemosyne, after the Greek personification of memory and the mother of the Muses. While my laptop is called the “Turing Machine” after one of the fathers of modern computing, all my Apple peripherals are named after Greek mythological figures: my iPod was Apollo, who was the god of music as well as the sun; and my iPhone is Hermes, as it delivers text messages to me regularly.

The purchase was ostensibly for class, to load up readings to carry to class that would be lighter, more convenient, and possibly more eco-friendly* than printing everything out (one of my classes had decided to forego textbooks in favor of a tangled web of PDF files). I did download some helpful academic programs (GoodReader deserves all the praise that it gets), but I also decided to go to the local FedEx Office to print out double-sided copies of my readings for class anyways, so my excuse pretty quickly flew out the window.

What can I say? I just focus better when I read stuff on paper for class. Also, as much as I love my toys, sometimes my eyes need a break from digital screens.

*I’m still not sure if e-books and such readers for them like the Kindle/Nook/iPad are actually more eco-friendly than good ol’ paper, and neither, it seems, are other people.

I also, however, was quick to download games and other entertainment: both Marvel and DC offer applications to download digital comics (and have helpful links to purchase paper editions as well), and there are a lot of gaming options, including new-for-the-iPad advancements/adaptations (such as a new version of Dead Space by EA) and some great board game adaptations (from classics like Monopoly and Scrabble to still-favorites-but-lesser-known gems like Catan and Carcassonne).

Bypassing all the pre-loaded iPad apps for now (things that Mac users will be used to, like Calendar, Notes, YouTube, and Photo Booth), here is a screenshot of my second screen page, with third-party apps gloriously displayed:

The Video folder includes Hulu and Netflix, as I have accounts for both. Here’s an expanded view of my Games folder:

Fun Mac Tip: Holding down the home button at the bottom center of the iPad (or iPhone) and clicking the top power button will take a screenshot of the device.

I’m not going to do a run-through of each and every app, but I did want to cover my favorites pretty quickly:

• Battleheart is a really fun little hack-and-slash game with an amazingly adorable cast of characters. It has a really simple control system, where you drag a character to an enemy to attack, or to another character to use a special ability. You can switch up your team, recruit new members, buy equipment, and play in arenas until your adorable characters are swarmed by equally adorable goblins and bats. Very simplistic but very addicting.
• Dropbox is a must-have. An account up to 2GB is free, and I use it to sync documents between my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad, as well as back up important papers and such until I’ve turned them in.
• GoodReader is amazing. You can read lovely PDF files, mark them up with highlighting and notes (and save these changes to a second copy, so your original stays pristine), and everything comes through in bright, crisp color – I scoff at your Kindle or black & white Nook.
• Instapaper makes reading long articles and such a pleasure. You sign up for a free account, add a little bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, and save all the reading you don’t want to finish at the moment to your account. Sync it up while you’re on wifi and a simplistic text-and-pictures version is available offline for you to read at your leisure. They also offer editor-picked choices of popular articles, if you’re not sure what you want to read on your commute.
• The New Yorker has a really beautiful iPad app. As a print subscriber, you have access to the digital editions as well. The iPad makes reading magazines a really pleasurable experience, with easy scrolling and links to additional material that a print magazine could never offer: slideshows of additional images, audio clips of poets reading their work, etc. (A one-year print and digital subscription is $69.99, only $10 more than the one-year digital-only subscription at $59.99 – monthly digital subscripts are available for $5.99, and individual issues for $4.99.)

Moving beyond apps and into a general review, the iPad is a genius device. It’s beautifully designed, which is only to be expected for an Apple product. It also just feels nice in your hands: I have a slip case for protection (see below) when I put it in my bag, but I don’t use any permanent case for the front or back. It just feels too glossy between my fingers for me to want to put a case on it.

It’s great for curling up in bed and watching video – it’s very light and comfortable to use, more so than a laptop. The iPad 2 clocks in around 1.35 lbs. The MacBook Pro at 5.6 lbs. Also, the slide button on the top of the right side of the iPad, where the silent/vibrate button is on an iPhone, can be set to either mute/unmute or can be used to lock or unlock the screen rotation – so you can set a video on landscape mode, lock the orientation, and then curl up on the bed in whatever position you want without having the screen get all twisty on you. Which is nice, cause I’m the kind of person that likes to watch video while curled up on my side. Which is awkward, to say the least, with a laptop (damn hinged screen), and just so much cozier with the iPad.

The iPad is also a great little e-reader device. Kindle offers an iPad app, so you have full access to anything from the Kindle store. Apple also has its own app, iBooks, with an integrated bookstore, and a slick digital-bookshelf display:

I’ll be honest: I still love my physical, paper-pages books. They’re heavy, they collect dust, they take up copious amounts of space on shelves. But there’s just something about physical books and turning pages that I’m in love with. Still, I have the iBooks program, and I did download the first book in the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, which my friend Mark has been pestering me to read for over a year now. It was only $1.99, which was pretty awesome, and it did allow me to read in the car when my mom and I left at 5:30 AM to get to LA in time for another of my grad school orientations. It was way too dark out still to have been reading a paperback. Sure, you can buy book lights and stuff, but it was nice and convenient. And just like any other e-reader, you can carry hundreds of books at once for only 1.35 lbs.

For my fellow geeks, I would definitely recommend an iPad (or Nook color) over something black and white, like the Kindle. Why? Because a full-color screen means full-color comics: as previously stated, Marvel and DC both offer apps for the iPad, where you can download both free and paid comics. With DC having just rebooted their universe, it’s a great and far more approachable time to start getting into comics, instead of getting scared by the really high issue numbers and being concerned about massive amounts of backstory.

Also, if you were inclined to scan high-resolution copies of your legally purchased comic books (because you would never illegally download them from the internet), they would not show up well on a Kindle. On a beautifully colored iPad screen, however, comics are a joy to read. Occasionally, there are some issues with double-page spreads, but it’s still a very enjoyable experience.

So, would I recommend that you run out and buy an iPad? I guess that depends on what you want to do.

I tend to agree with the viewpoint that the iPad is a great tool for absorbing media – The New Yorker app is one excellent example of such. Watching video, reading articles, and playing games are all fantastic. However, I can’t really picture using it to heavily produce media.* The on-screen keyboard is definitely easier to use than the tiny one on the iPhone, but it still isn’t the best experience, especially for those used to touch-typing on a full keyboard. (For instance, ‘apostrophes’ and “quotation marks” aren’t available on the primary screen, which makes typing out more than a few contractions or lines of dialogue irritating. The purchase of a wireless keyboard (yay for Bluetooth!) might make a difference in this, and Apple actually offers a version of their wireless keyboard with an iPad dock integrated. This, however, raises the point that you’d might as well get a laptop instead if you intend to be carrying around a keyboard frequently. Part of the appeal of the iPad is the portability and sleek design.

(Then again, the most expensive version of the iPad (WiFi + 3G and 64 GB) will currently run you $829. Even with the addition of the $69.99 Apple keyboard, it remains cheaper than even the lowest-priced MacBook Air ($999) or MacBook Pro ($1199), as far as other portable Apple options go.)

*I haven’t yet tried out the iPad versions of the popular Mac apps iMovie and GarageBand yet. (If my friends and I get around to the collaborative vlog we talked about during the summer, I might pick up iMovie and toy around with it.) I’ve heard good things about both, but neither are currently programs that I would have use for. Also, for heavy creative purposes, I still imagine that their Mac computer counterparts would be more useful.

Sure, there are a lot of competitors out there – Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and more offer versions of tablets. Still, the iPad continues to dominate the market, and I can’t imagine that changing in the next few years, unless something truly revolutionary comes out. (Remember all those so-called “iPhone killers”?) And with their huge share of the market, App availability is something to take into consideration. Developers build for the iPad. Sure, there are a lot of lame things cluttering up the iTunes App Store, but there are a lot of really great programs, too. And while there are some Android-only apps, there continue to be many more that are iPhone/iPad exclusive – and developers often develop Apple versions of apps first, as there’s a bigger market there.

Finally, I have no idea what syncing to a Windows computer* is like, as I use a Mac laptop. I do know that with a MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPad, all my toys play together nicely on the same WiFi network, and as far as syncing documents back and forth with programs like Dropbox, that work on all platforms. I have a fair number of apps that are accessible on both my phone and the iPad, which is great. And there are often Mac version of apps for your laptop or desktop Apple computer that will sync or share with portable versions (such as the iWork suite of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers; iHomework; Bento; and many others).

*Apparently, when iOS 5 is released this fall, needing a computer at all to sync will be unnecessary – something you might want to take into consideration if you’ve been hesitant about mixing Windows and Mac products.

So: should you shell out the money for an iPad? If you can afford it, if you love Apple products, if you already own other Apple products – I would say absolutely. While I definitely purchased some new apps the day I got my iPad, I had many I’d already downloaded for the phone that were cross-compatible, which was nice.

If you’re hesitant but you think you want one, head down to your local Apple store (or Best Buy, or whatever other authorized dealer is around) and play with one in-store. I have a feeling that you’ll fall in love just like I did. The Walnut Creek, CA Apple store had a bunch of apps pre-loaded that let you feel out the capabilities of the device. If you’re looking for a more data-entry heavy machine (like for taking notes every day in class) that is still less than a full computer/laptop, it’s possible a netbook would be more your style. Or you might want to try out the iPad/wireless keyboard route.

If you’re an anti-Mac person – well, sorry for the last 2000 or so words, and I doubt I’ll be able to change your mind. Mac haters are just as enthusiast as Mac lovers. (I should know – I used to be a Windows girl, and groaned whenever I had to use a Mac for class.) But you should still head down and play with one. I went through an enlightenment, and maybe you will, too!

Edit (25 September 2011 @ 7:04 PM): Take a look at this clip from McSweeney’s FAQ about their iPhone/iPad app for what I mean about Apple’s majority market share:

Q. Why is there no version for Android?

A. Unfortunately, we have no plans to make an Android version of the app at the moment. Apps written for the iOS and Android operating systems cannot quickly be ported to one another — they have to be re-written from scratch. Developing an app takes a long time and because we are a small company, with an even smaller technical department, we just do not have the resources to support multiple platforms. There is no subterfuge, corporate bias or underhand dealings — Apple’s platform was simply the most mature when we first decided to make an app. We would love to have an Android version, but we’re just too busy right now. Sorry.

PAX 2011 (Part 2/2)

Wow. I’m actually finishing a “Part X/X” post series. The world might be coming to an end, as I at least consider myself notoriously horrible at following through with these things. Pretty sure there’s stuff from years ago I still haven’t completed.

In any case! I actually think that this picture was taken before our delicious sushi lunch on Saturday, not after, but a picture is always an eye-catching way to start out a post:

Firefall was one of the biggest sponsors of PAX this year, or at least that was how it seemed with their stuff everywhere – posters, escalator decals, that really impressive statue up there that actually had moving parts and emitted some pretty impressive thumping noises whenever it started out. They also made a game out of obtaining their swag: each day there would be a list of tasks to complete, some that stayed the same and a few specific to each day. For each one, there were bonus points available, and for each task you completed, you got some pretty plastic rocks designed to look like crystals. You could then trade in these crystals for various prizes – shot glasses, t-shirts, whatever. One of the tasks was to take a picture in front of the Firefall statue, and I think it was a bonus point if your group was more than 3 or 4 people.

In any case! Returning to a more-or-less timeline narrative. After lunch, Errick went back to homework responsibilities (the boy has a far greater will than I) and Jake and Joey split off to check out some panel or something. Zack and I headed across the street to the Annex for some more tabletop fun.

Zack hadn’t played D&D for a very long time (like 10+ years, maybe?), so we both played through a “Learn to Play” session. I have to give Wizards of the Coast credit, they were brilliant as far as introducing new players to their products. They had a huge presence for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering, and in both cases, they ran continuous Learn to Play sessions all weekend. I was familiar with D&D, but the module was still fun to go through. I was not familiar with MtG at all, but their employees were really welcoming and made the game not at all intimidating. Which is impressive in both cases, considering the vast glossary of strange-sounding terms in both games.

After finishing the Learn to Play game, we signed up for a few Dungeon Delves. The delves were 1-hour sessions on 3 different maps, with something like 2-4 different monster combinations per map. Together they loosely strung together to form a 3-hour adventure: running into bandits outside a cave for the first map, and then half of a traditional dungeon in maps two and three. They were run with pre-generated characters, and had a point system:

• 1 point just for sitting down at the table
• 1 point for completing the first (of two) combat encounters
• 1 point for bloodying everything in the second encounter
• 1 point for completing the second encounter

They had some cute little prizes for trade: treasures you could use on the delves (+1 Magic Weapons, Armor of Beserking, etc.), copies of the character sheets (a set of 6 in total), D&D Fortune Cards, an ogre statue, posters, and a few other small things. I ended up collecting a full set of the character cards, because I’ve got a distant dream/plan/scheme for a combination library and game room, and I think they’re going to look fantastic framed in a set somewhere on a wall. The character on top, Keira, is the elven rogue I played the most:

One of the guys that we played with (I think he may have been our paladin?) was one of the Omeganauts! This was exciting. Part of PAX is the Omegathon, a six-round test of gaming skill. It covers all aspects of gaming, from video to tabletop, and the last round is always a surprise and something quirky. This fact will be more important a few paragraphs down.

After our delves, Zack and I grabbed pizza and sodas (I had nowhere near my required amount of Diet Coke during the course of the weekend, and was pretty sure I could feel myself going into withdrawal, so believe me when I say that I enjoyed my can with dinner) and had a fast dinner before we met up with Jake and Joey, who had checked some board games out of the lending library. They were playing one of the Penny Arcade card games, and had grabbed Arkham Horror, but we didn’t have time to play it. They grabbed two six-packs of beer and we headed back to the hotel with the intention to drink and play Magic cards. Errick ended up being asleep in our room so we headed to the other, where the sound of us opening Magic cards brought Doug out of bed to play. I sat out so it was an even 4 players for two 1-on-1 games, and instead began sorting through the massive amounts of cards I ended up buying that weekend:

(Jake’s Green Lantern pipe-cleaner ring which I stole from the hotel where he’d left it is visible on the top of the blue box. And my ogre statue toy from the Delves is lying sadly on his side to the right of the boxes.)

Sunday dawned just as blue-skied beautifully as the other days. Sunday at PAX is one of those bittersweet days – three days of crashing with 7 other people in two hotel rooms and living out of a backpack is a lot of time, but I also don’t want PAX to end, because it’s this amazing nerd fest and totally feels like home, in a weird and hard-to-explain-unless-you’ve-been way. We headed to the Wolfman Theatre to watch Round 5(/6) of the Omegathon, where we cheered for our Paladin from the night before, Tony. It was 2v2 cooperative Portal 2, and the team we were cheering on won! This was greeted with much glee. Also, nerds are awesome and this was how the sign for the Wolfman Theatre had been edited over the course of the weekend:

I love me some George R. R. Martin references.

We had a group of 4 that headed back to the Annex to play a few more delves. I seriously think that out of the three days of PAX, I only spent one day on the Expo Floor, which was definitely not the way last year worked out. But we managed to run through a couple more delves, including one on Map 3, the fabled most difficult of the set. We also met up again with Tony the Omeganaut, which was exciting. We snagged him for a 5th for our D&D party and gave him our best wishes before we headed out of the Annex to split up and scope out early places in line for the final round of the Omegathon. The boys went to grab lunch and I, having feasted upon a Luna Bar at the D&D table, went to snag a spot in line.

We were in line a fair hour or so before it was necessary, but line-time at PAX is different from line-time in the real world. We sprawled out on the floor and played some Magic, DS, and Jake skimmed the rules to Chrononauts, a really great card game that he picked up on the last day.

The final round of the Omegathon happened live at the Paramount Theatre, though we watched the live-stream at Wolfman again. The total that the Cookie Brigade, a volunteer corp of cookie-bakers and -sellers that traipse around the convention all weekend, offering cookies for free (and hopefully donations for Child’s Play), raised was announced – $14,000, which is a really fucking impressive amount of money for three days and generally one-dollar bills. I love how Child’s Play has proved what big hearts gamers have. I still see red when people cite video games as violent influences on developing children.

The final game ended up being the original Legend of Zelda – classic NES. A nefarious game, the remaining 2 Omeganauts were allowed to recruit one of their fallen companions to act as a navigator with the FAQ to the game. Tony won! We were happy for him. It was a pretty arbitrary way to pick which of the remaining 2 to root for, but we could at least say, “We played D&D with that guy!” in an excited manner.

A quick detour through the Expo Floor to snap up leftover swag the booths were trying to get rid of, and then the sad announcement over the intercom that PAX was over, everything was closing, and we had to leave the Convention Center. We headed outside, made a quick detour to Barnes & Noble so I could grab a gift for my cousin, who I’d made plans to meet up with the following morning, and then trooped back to the hotel, tired and happy and sad that it was all over.

We had our traditional dinner in the hotel restaurant, because by the end of the weekend, we’re all so exhausted we don’t really want to go anywhere other than the second floor of our building. Also, is it legal to call something a tradition when it is only the second year we do so? In any case, we had a table of 8 or 9, and the staff were wonderful. It cannot be easy to serve a table of that many people who want separate checks and tell loud and inappropriate dead baby jokes while eating.

We played some games back up in our room (Magic, Chrononauts), Jake II went over the rules of Tannhäuser, whose impressive 70-something page rulebook completely overshadowed the 30-something page rulebook of Arkham Horror, which I used to think was scary. In the end, people drifted off to sleep sometime around 1:00 or 1:30 in the morning, which wasn’t all that late in general, but relatively late in the sense that Jake and Joey had to get up and leave around 5 am to make their flight.

The morning was a blur of packing, splitting up for breakfast (I had a wonderful bite to eat with my cousin while everyone else went back down to the hotel restaurant), some more packing, final sweeps, and then checking out. Errick and I headed for the light rail to the airport while the rest of our group went in the opposite direction to the Amtrak station.

And that was it, another PAX come and gone.

Some little things I picked up over the weekend, and two of the pages of my diary/planner/journal/scrapbook – a Post-It with a humorous conversation clip, the Mass Effect 3 room keys we were assigned, a better picture of my ogre statue. The business card of a great little gaming shop in Oregon from which I bought all my Magic cards, and who gifted me with that orange sherbet colored d20 when Zack bought his dice from them. A Reese’s wrapper from the mini peanut butter cups one of our DMs used for minions. A faux business card from the Capcom Resident Evil booth. The fortune from my PAX fortune cookie (“You will be the honey badger of game design.”).

And that, as they say, is that.

PAX 2011 (Part 1/2)

Another PAX come and go. I’m sad, of course: there’s something amazing about being at a convention with so many other people that you have so many things in common with. It leads to wonderful random conversations and interactions. On the other hand, five days* of living out of a backpack in a hotel room (or a suite of two hotel rooms, this year) with 3-7 other people is kind of exhausting, as is all the walking, standing, and sitting on generally hard floors. My shower last night at home with proper water pressure and collapsing into my own bed at the end of the night was so amazing I have no words for it.

*My group arrives on Thursday, the day before the show begins, and Monday, the day after it ends, so that we don’t have to rush around and try to make flights an hour after PAX ends.

But! Here’s my wrap-up as far as the weekend goes.

LONG AND PHOTO-INTENSIVE POST FOLLOWING THE CUT. (And this is only part 1 of 2.)