Wednesday Night Release pt2

And here is part 2 of the release roundup. As before, here is the link to touch arcades full release list. I link it because there are about 10 more games on that page I didn't bother grabbing.

http://toucharcade.com/2014/02/26/out-now-disco-zoo-and-lots-more/

And to the remaining downloads I picked up :

Cubed Snow
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id818764539
.99usd, universal, 15mb download.

Simple, fun, hard. You simply work you way down a snow mountain, turning by hitting the correct icon before an actual turn. Very hard for me because when you turn and go the opposite direction, the controls donw switch. So going left to right, right arrow goes down a lane, but after a turn and your going right to left, right arrow means up a lane. I'm not coordinated enough for this heh. Anywho, no iap, low entry price, if you got the coordination for it, enjoy :)

Out There
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id799471892
3.99usd, universal, 42mb download.

Endless runner with an ending? Space exploration rpg that your not to likely to complete on your first five play throughs? Both are apt descriptions. You are stranded, alone on the far side of the galaxy with afew dozen solar systems between you and earth. You visit the systems making your way across but you dont have infinite fuel, oxygen or hull strength. You maintain those three by visiting planets, drilling, probing, etc. Along the way you'll meet aliens, learn languages and new patterns to make more things for your ship that will hopefully make the trip a little more possible.

Graphically, its simple and works well, cellshaded sort of. Sound is great, track is on itunes. Controls work fine, this isnt a manick button basher. Take your time, decide what and where to go and work your way across safetly. The inventory of your ship is limited and made up of squares, you can place anything in any order you like. Clicking on empty squares brings up the crafting menu where you can make all sorts of things assuming you have the materials to do so.

Very nice game, looks like it will be very challenging.

Autumn Dynasty : Warlords
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id813330182
6.99usd, universal, 127mb download.

Sequel to the many award winning Autumn Dynasty this game series is an excellent real time strategy game! Warlords has taken it to a whole new level with capital management, kingdom development and more. There is a whole lot to this game, highly recommend it for anyone with a rts itch needing scratching! Too much to this to explain in a paragraph, watch the video.

Disco Zoo
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id794524208
Free, universal, 54mb download.

Build your zoo by rescuing animals. Rescue animals by playing a match game that sortta reminds me of battleship. Each animal has a shape, each animal is hidden on the grid. Pigs for example are a 2x2 square. You have a limited number of moves to reveal the entire animal. Revealing it adds it to your zoo. New habitats are built as you find new types of animals. Visitors periodically drop coin, animals earn coin, coin is spent looking for more animals. Its a nimblebit title, so its addictive and though present the iap isnt forced. Oh and as with all nimblebit titles the graphics are silly simple to the point of being pretty decent.

Cultures Northland
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id815045183
5.99usd, universal, 355mb download.

Holy crap Cultures is on my ipad! I have no idea how where or why it happened but this is awesome! Cultures, the original title centered around a group of vikings who decided to find a new land to call home. Once they found it they bunkered down and made a life for themselves. This game is a real time strategy that takes it to a whole new level. Name your villagers, choose who marries who, decide when someone gets to have child. Along with that of course is the standard building homes, laying roads, setting up production lines such as fields to produce wheat to the grainery to turn it to grain to the breadmaker to make bread for everyone to live off. Plus the damn vikings look as cool as ever :)

PC trailer because I couldnt find any other. Game pretty much plays like that though. woot, cultures on my ipad!!

Ahem, thats the jist of my choices this week, enjoy :)

o/

Wednesday Night Release

Ok, here we go another wednesday night... and a whole lot more games to muck around in. I downloaded eleven titles, half were premium and other half free-to-play. Not all the summaries that follow are good ones though, some of these games annoyed me for one reason or another. Here's the touch arcade link to the full twenty odd game list that released :

http://toucharcade.com/2014/02/26/out-now-disco-zoo-and-lots-more/

And now, off to my choices.

-----

Primal Flame
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/primal-flame/id600052237
2.99usd, universal, 43mb download.

A very nice game to look at, great graphics! Your finger is a flame thats keeping away the dark, you swipe around collecting seeds that extend the fuel of your flame. Catching leaves reduces he flame, additionally there are 'venus fly traps' that go after the seeds... and you if you sit still. You can draw through these plants stems to cut them off. Additionally you can cut the stem of a fly trap with a seed in its mouth to release the seed before it eats it. If a fly trap catches you, advice : do not swipe around frantically, it dosen't do much, drawl through the fly trap to break free. The music is enjoyable, the game gets quite frantic. Achievements award currency, there is no iap currency in this game. You spend your currency upgrading your flame in various way and also purchasing spells.

Fully recommend this one.

God of Light
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/god-of-light/id735128536
1.99usd, universal, 64mb download.

Another visual charmer, in this game you control a spark of light in a dark world. Your job is to light the pillar on each stage. Bonus points for hitting all three crystals that fell out of the pilar along the way. How you do this is you angle the spark so that the beam of light coming from it hits various plants (mirrors) that reflect the beam around the stage. The iap in this game comes in the form of fireflies that you can use to temporarily light up the stage, doing so shows the route you need to take for the beam to hit all three crystals along the way to the pillar.

Great visual effects, solid music and responsive controls. Fully recommend this one.

Duck Destroyer
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id704235012
Free, universal, 440mb download.

I picked this one up on impulse because the screenshots reminded me faintly of duck hunt for the nes way back when. And largely, thats what this is. You move your finger around on the screen, doing so moves the targeting reticle. Tapping the weapon button shoots. You do this around various stages until the timer runs out at which you are rewarded cash based on how many goals you achieved. Each goal is worth a star and stars are used to buy new guns. Cash is used to by devices like dynamite sticks and also used for upgrading everything. As with all chillingo games there is a good bit of iap present. These range from ad removers which I don't mind to currency packs which I find highly annoying. Still, I don't see a pay wall here so far, just patience required to farm up the coins and abit of skill to get those stars.

Royal Revolt 2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/royal-revolt-ii/id705211891
Free, universal, 94mb download.

-facepalm- Take royal revolt 1's gameplay and slap it on clash of clans. I probably don't need to say more but I will anyways, sigh. This game is part time kingdom manager, part time player versus player. You spend your time and currency upgrading various buildings around your kingdom that do everything from generate income to unlocking new units for combat. Combat is two fold. First half is defense, you have a large swath of forest infront of your castle that you can drawl out with your finger as twisty and puzzly a road as you have road tiles for (unlock more road tiles by upgrading main castle). You toss defense towers and traps all over it. Lastly you lay out the waves your soldiers will come out when another player attacks you. If they win, they get some of your coin and trophy points. The second half of combat is of course, attacking other players and this portion of the game is literally royal revolt 1. Run down the road designed by the other player, smash all their soldiers and defenses, crush their castle door. If you do this within the 2 minute time limit you get much reward and trophy points.

The iap is horrible and everywhere and very much expensive. Developers, there is a reason why clash of clans was so unbelievably successful and why every clone has only been so to small extents. They did it first. Thats it, thats all. Copying their business model and throwing it on what was a great game, just lessens yours.

Play it if you like, but there is plenty elsewhere to better occupy your time in my opinion.

Running Quest
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/running-quest/id711746352
1.99usd, universal, 61mb download.

Temple Run clone with a combat mechanic and prettier graphics. Controls are iffy, often not responding immediately, plenty of iap in two forms. Exp/Coin gain doublers that I don't mind and currency packs which annoy me greatly.

Moving on...

Beyond Space
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beyond-space/id770806299
2.99usd, universal, 660mb download.

Woo, space shooter! Great graphics, responsive controls cheesy voice acting. Stage based, proceeding through the game unlocks new ships and equipment that you can mix and match inbetween each stage. Third person perspective meaning you can always see the back side of your ship, assisted targeting meaning so long as you are 'close' to correct with your aiming, you will hit your targets. All the important control options are hear though I would rather have a emergency brake button rather than a slider. Conversation at work as I loaded this one up :

Me : Woo, space shooter!
Co-worker : Hey look its star wars.

There is ALOT of influence here from star wars space combat, in particular the opening battle of episode 3. There is iap present but it simply unlocks vehicles early. Everything can easily be unlocked by playing the game. Recommended!

Thats it for this post, I have five more games to play and will put them in a part 2 later.

o/

And burn out mode, engage.

Yep, burned myself out on Kerbal. Well.. not so much burned out as I'm to a grind point for those science points and need a break. I'll come back for .24 with the contract/mission system, their predicting next month maybe. -fingers crossed-

Now... now to play something else for abit.

Diablo 3 2.0 is here!

The big patch has hit! Blizzard has decided to handle d3 expansions like wow expansions, meaning just before the xpansion you get a patch with all the technical stuff. And here it is :

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/12671560/patch-201-now-live-2-25-2014


Only thing missing is the crusader class and act5. My observations :
. Difficulty system is gone, no more normal, hell, nightmare, inferno. There is a difficulty system but its just overall challenge/loot/reward now. Higher difficulties give more exp/coin. Probably require a group. In any case, the actual in game difficulty scales to your level.
. Auction House is gone, may she burn in hell.
. Interfaces updated throughout, new map screens, new teleport screens, new menu's, etc.
. Progress through the story has been reset, you'll have to clear all acts again before you can actively move around like before.
. Paragon system now has talent points and trees to spend those points on.
. Paragon talents affect all your characters, not just the paragon.
. I've looted 2 backpack trips back to town worth of blue's and yellow's, every single piece was usable by my demon hunter.
. Can't access cow level till I complete the game again.
. Blacksmithing. Two crafting material tiers now. 1-60 and Paragon.
. The pre-order pet is in game and rewarded. The pre-order reward for WoW isn't.
. Clans (guilds) are ingame.

More obersvations to follow.

o/

Assignment resumed!

NASA put Bob and Bills claim of dodging a deer on the moon as the cause of the rover mk1 flipping on the 'another day list'. Bob and Bill expected to be retrieved but the following morning they found the mk2 sitting outside their makeshift home.

Landing gear really helps keep it form moving, rcs thrusters on the top will let me flip it back over should Bob and Bill attempt to dodge anymore 'claimed' wildlife on Minmus. Only one of each experiment this time and four wheels means less weight. Power ladders removed, replaced with simple metal bars on one leg that has a clean path to the research lab.

Win!

Bob and Bill Kerman on assignment!

Bob and Bill Kerman, the other two astronauts career mode starts you off with have been given assignment and are going about it dutifully! They landed the research rover in the following photo on the outer moon Minmus.

Their mission? To use every single piece of equipment on that rover in every biome on that moon and transmit it all back to Kerbin. Yes, they won't be sending 100% of potential results due to data loss when remotely transmitting back to Kerbin but the lab on that rover processes all experiments giving the data signal a decent boost. Usually 10-30% increase. The lab is also capable of cleaning equipment thus making all the devices on that rover reuseable.

When their mission is complete, or they break the rover Kerbin will send a remote operated two seater rocket for them to return home with.

I've already got afew changes planned for this rover. The mk2 rover will have ALOT more solar panels, electricity is a problem already. and the few panels I do have on this rover don't recharge quick enough to keep up with usage demands. mk1 will never travel in the night thats for certain.

Also, the landing was abit... nerve wracking for me so I'm going to do one important thing. I'm going to add landing gear that extends below the entry/landing rockets and wheels. Land on the landing gear, jetison the entry rockets, retract the landing gear so the wheels touch ground. This also has another benefit, unless your on a completely flat area, your rover will ALWAYS move. No matter what, the damn thing wont sit still. Landing gear extended, wheels off ground, walla. Bill spent 10 minutes earlier this morning chasing the rover after he hopped out to get a dirt sample and it started rolling away. Wasn't a photo moment, did look right out of a comedy movie though.

Speaking of wheels, six wheels... will probably have four on the mk2. Will have to see how six handles.

Also, the auto ladders suck. There are four of them, they extend from the rovers 'legs' to the ground but when Bill or Bob use them they fall off when they reach the top. No more shiney automated ladders, I'll just set up some basic grab rails on each leg next time.

Oh and the leg that they climb down on to when leaving the lab, going to remove all experiments from it. They are currently tripping over the hardware heh. As currently stands, I just rocket pack the boys up to the hatch to the lap and have them grab it.

Lots planned, enjoy the family photo and the landing video that follows. That video is of me landing the rover mk1, text book style. Meaning gradual approach.

Update : This would of been the end of this post but while waiting for the video to upload to youtube I made more observations. Hard right turns while moving at 10m per second with the rover result in a rover flipped over and unable to be recovered. I got about two hours with it, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-400 science to put to talents. The landing gear is a must, rover wont sit still otherwise. Mk2 will aos keep its rcs thrusters. Can use those to turn over a flipped rover. Like the mk1... heh.

o/

New podcast up!

LisaDreams latest podcast is up, she ninja and I all discuss games, ramble, wander off topic and just have a solid fun time. As of this post its not on itunes 'yet' but it can be listened to at her website :

http://www.rulingthegames.com/

Enjoy!

I finally made it...

Made it to the near moon in Kerbal Space Program without dieing/exploding/missing it entirely, for the first time. Put up a flag to celebrate. Want to know what the flag says if you read it?

I finally made it!
Now come rescue me!

I didn't have any plans on actually attempting the near moon with the ship I had been fiddling with. Started out as an experiment to just see if it could get out of orbit. It did. Then I decided to test fuel consumption, got all the way to the moon. Decided "f-k it, lets try landing"

About 100meters from the surface I glanced closer while putting out the landing gear and a fatal flaw presented itself. Since I originally didn't plan on trying for the moon I didn't bother checking to make sure all the I's were dotted and T's crossed. In this case, the engine protrudes about 5 feet beyond the length of the landing gear. The ship plopped on the ground, the engine exploded and after a bit of travel the ship plopped down again.

Thankfully the game isnt overly realistic, infinite oxygen in the pilots suit and they never get hungry. I'll just pluck along with my other pilots and eventually I'll show up on the moon with a spare seat to bring poor Jebediah Kerman home.

o7

Been there, done that

Nuff Said. :)

To Munis... or bust!

Progress report on Kerbal Space Program. Clature mk4 took me to Mun (closer moon) twice successfully... after about ten failed attempts heh. Stream lined design over the mk3 for two reasons. One, I've been learning alot from Scott Manley's video tutorials. He's an expert at this so makes very few mistakes, I make lots of mistakes heh. Using a design closer to his left lesser margin for error, forced me to learn and improve my technique. Parachute, Capsule, two goo containers, two research labs, two fuel tanks matted to the stage three engine. Stage two engine had four containers feeding it and outside that three large thrusters started the fun. Batteries were installed to keep things powered for the long trip since there was quite abit of repositioning and course correcting.

For the initial launch I ran the stage one thrusters at 70% of norm to conserve fuel, I also fuel feed them to the main stage two engine. What this did was allow me to run all four engines at one time while using none of the stage two engines actual fuel, the thrusters fed it nicely. Thrusters got me to almost 10k on their own, I decoupled them and continued at 2/3rd on main engine at a 45 degree angle until my peek orbit on the map screen was just over 100k. From that peek point I added a parameter pushing the thrusters until I had a near perfect orbit. Once in that orbit I made another parameter addition, this time pushing the orbit until it intersected Mun's gravity well. The main engine lasted about 1/3rd in to this course correction, stage three engine carried it the rest of the way.

I could go on but really, just watch Scott Manley's Mun orbit video linked below my photo of the mk4. It does a far better job explaining how to accomplish this feat than I could ever hope to with mere text :)

Now, using what I learned from that video I built the mk5 to be abit more forgiving and pretty much did exactly what I did for reaching the Mun to instead reach Munis. There is some equipment on the mk5 that didn't need to be there because I originally had other plans for how I was going to go about collecting experimental data, but in the end I just did it the same way I did with the Mun, same as how Scott did it in the above video.

Next? I want to land on one of them :) Oh and for giggles, check this accident out :)

Lesson? Do not go EVA if your orbit is near 1k from the planet heh, gravity caught Jeb damn near instantly and pulled him from the capsule.

o/

Ubisoft discount on steam

Quick heads up, the entire ubisoft franchise thats on steam is discounted 10-24% for the entire weekend. Amongst other titles, farcry and assassin's creed series both come to mind.

o/

WNR... followup

And here is the followup to last nights release list, I spent at least 20 minutes with each game and here are some basic observations and such.

Another Case Solved
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id698716187?mt=8

This is probably my favorite of the bunch. Your a private detective in the pro-hibition era with the twist that all forms of candy were probitited instead of alcohol since this is the app store after all. From your office you accept jobs which come from two sources. The first source is the newspaper, these jobs are simple match 3+ style and pay well enough. Completing enough of these though unlocks important jobs which are a blend of match 3 and question elimination. Meaning you stare at portraits of suspects and ask questions like 'is the person a male?' you get a yes or no and that lets you eliminate potentials. Pretty nice system. Jobs reward cash straight up, many have bonus objectives, often times bonus mini games follow jobs and there seems to be plenty of opportunity to earn the games iap currency, candy. When not on the job you can customize your p.i. and upgrade your office. Customizing your character is a pretty standard character creation screen with a blend of free, ingame currency and iap offerings. Upgrading your office lets you move new and better furniture, all of which has delivery times that can be sped up if you so choose. No iap wall so far.

Gamecenter yes, achievements yes.

Bug Heroes 2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id720208088?mt=8

Strategy title of sorts. Build your base, control up to two bugs at a time, stash food bits, fend off fleas and bugger critters. Plenty of upgrades between base and bugs. Solid graphics, decent sound. Feels like a mideval rpg... with cockroaches and bees.

Gamecenter yes, achievements no.

Coldfire Keep
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id660962345?mt=8

Old school rpg, first person perspective, four character turn based active combat. Meaning your attacks have a cooldown before re-use and so does your enemy. Feels mildly hectic but not in a bad way. Inbetween combat there's plenty to explore, loot and even two sisters set up a inn and shop on the first floor that you can use as needed. There is a hunger system present that is offset by rations and fishing. Solid graphics, plenty of narative and banter between your party members. Controls seem to be hit or miss. The default touch gesture based system dosent always do what you want. This game does have controller support but its been lazily implemented. As innavigation works but you can't interact with anything or attack so the controller support is largely useless. Go with the alternative touch button control system, works much nicer.

Gamecenter, no. Chock this up as a purchase without research for me :/

Doctor Life
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id742028366?mt=8

Tower defence meets Theme Hospital. You build the rooms and spend the days diagnosing and treating patients. Medicines aren't infinite so you restock them each night. As you level up you unlock more rooms for your hospital and with leveling up also comes new medicines and new diseases. Dealing with patients is investigative with four choices for ailment and four for medicine. Someone may come in complaining about headaches and soreness, its up to you to figure out which of the four listed ailments is correct and then choose a cure. All ailments can have up to four symptoms two of which you always know and the other two you pick up on over time. This game becomes increasingly more challenging as more diseases are unlocked and the shear amount of medicines unlocked as you level suggest that this game will definitely challenge your memory skills.

Gamecenter, no. Another spontaneous purchase /wristslap

Mad Skills Motocross 2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id695531774?mt=8

Side scrolling dirt biking, part one of this series pretty much defined this genre on the app store. You ride from left to right, jumping hills and doing flips. You can control your landing angle and doing so keeps you moving quick or... wipes you out. Bikes are unlocked over time, there are afew iaps but nothing game breaking so far.

Gamecenter, yes. Achievements, yes.

Second Chance Heroes
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id722309965?mt=8

Top down dual stick shooter...... with ALOT of extra buttons that cover everything from interacting, looting and lots and lots of special abilities. Solid graphics, controllers put me off though as the analog sticks are fixed position due to the placement of smaller buttons around the sticks. This game needs controller support badly. TA's forum post for this game is arguing the meters and ethics of the free to play model present.

Tengami
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id794960248?mt=8

Beautiful puzzle game with great controls and awesome music. Honestly, I have zero complains about this game. Interactive objects are easily identified on the screen, the whole story is told in one of those children books where things fold out as you turn the pages. This one also has no gamecenter but to be honest, I'm glad I spontaneous purchased this one without researching first, its worth the price of entry.

----------

I'll delve further in to the ones I find particularly entertaining, assuming I can pull myself away from Kerbal heh. I've successfully done two fly by's of the closest moon and am planning my first attempt at reaching the second moon now!

o/

Wednesday Night Release

Hey everyone, wednesday night, 11pm and lets see what hit the app store of note worth. The following link is to toucharcade's official list. I link it because not all the games there interest me, some may interest you however so there's the link just incase you want to take a peek.

http://toucharcade.com/2014/02/19/new-iphone-and-ipad-games-out-now-feb-19-2014/

That being said, lets see what I picked up tonight.

Another Case Solved
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id698716187?mt=8
Free, 42mb, Universal

Looks like a match 3 type of game amongst other things. Its free, hard to miss on that.

Bug Heroes 2
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id720208088?mt=8
Free, 407mb, Universal

Base builder, single and multiplayer, 25 unique bugs to improve and master, gear/food to scavange, mission system, definitely worth a look!

Colffire Keep

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id660962345?mt=8

4.99usd, 156mb, Universal

Oldschool first person perspective dungeon crawler rpg!

Doctor Life

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id742028366?mt=8

2.99usd, 65mb, Universal

The comments thread for this one mentioned the original bull frog theme hospital when describing it, sold. Play a doctor, build a hospital, deal with patients!

Mad Skills Motocross 2

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id695531774?mt=8

Free, 67mb, Universal

The original side view racing game is back for a sequel. Great graphics, controls look nice and its got old people head banging in its trailer. Thats a win btw.

Second Chance Heroes

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id722309965?mt=8

Free, 804mb, Universal

Had to grab this dual stick shooter the moment I saw abe lincolin with a chain saw.

Tengami

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id794960248?mt=8

4.99usd, 211mb, Universal

Reminds me of that sword n sorcery title afew years back.

There's a little over twice the above out today, the rest are on the touch arcade link I posted above.

o/

Moar games incoming...

I'll be posting again later tonight about the wednesday evening release for iOS. The list is... pretty big, 15+ games. Epic!

Any real time strategy city builder folk should go to steam btw. Banished just arrived for 20 bucks and since the forum isnt littered with 'i hate it' and 'this game sucks' and 'dont buy this turd' threads, apparently the game is pretty good heh. The concept for it reminds me of the Anno series to be honest, no doubt I'll be blogging about it as well here soon.

Right now though? Time to orbit the moon...

To the moon!!!!... maybe.

The mk3 easily gets me in to orbit. Three engine stages now starting with three solid fuel boosters as stage 1 burn attached via decouplers to three main engines acting as stage 2. Each of these three main engines has 5 fuel tanks feeding them. By the time stage two burns out of fuel I am usually already in orbit :) Stage 3 I use for minor adjustments, re-entry and for one attempt at the moon so far (didn't make it, but did get the pilot back home!). Just above the stage three engine are containment containers and spare battery packs. The new "Science Jr" lab just below the capsule is earning me quite abit of science but is fragile, if the capsule lands on solid ground at the end of the flight, the Sience Jr Lab explodes. Solved that with landing gear.

The mk3 lead a quiet life, afew mishaps early on but she did the job. Off to the mk4... and the moon!

Oh hey here you go, found some EXCELLENT tutorials on youtube from Scott Manley, enjoy!

Part 3 taught me that I've been getting in to orbit the hard way :)

Scott's entire 8 part beginner series, walla!

o/

And then I found my orbit...

Let it be known in the annals of Kerbal'dom that on this day 2/18/2014 at 4:12am EST Taeles reached stable orbit for the first time :)

Clature mk2 consists of capsule, parachute, architecture, four specimen containers, decoupler, fuel tank, small engine, decoupler, four architecture segments with five fuel tanks connected opposite of eachother each to an engine.

I launched full throttle. The atmosphere guage is split in to four colors. At the 10k mark where it goes in to a lighter atmosphere I pulled throttle to 2/3's speed. At 10k mark I also turned to a 45 degree angle. The next stage of atmosphere happens at 70k and at about that point the two main engines burned out, I decoupled them and engaged the stage 2 engine but only at 1/3rd throttle. At 70km I turned to a flat degree, exactly where blue and brown meet on the compass. At half fuel remaining I have established the above orbit.

Ran an experiment, this is one of the ways you earn science points btw. Experiments at various altitudes over any object your orbiting. I did a space walk with my Kerbal, thats another way of earning science points. Go EVA (leave the capsule) and right click on your Kerbal, fill out a report and hold on to it. It automatically turns in once you recover the capsule... or transmit it via antennae.

Sadly there are diminishing returns on anything worth science points. I won't be taking speciment containers up anymore until I learn how to orbit the moon.

Clature mkII

I've now earned enough to purchase another talent pack, I took the one that is aimed towards additional means of research, and batters for transmitting data back, nice! Should make me some profit.

o7

Kerbal Space Program, Career Mode

Ok so this mornings post was in sandbox mode, and I learned alot from it. Here's hoping I carry this hard earned knowledge in to Career mode. From what I'm seeing here career mode adds talent trees and limits the parts available based on the talents you train in to. Lets see what happens as I explore it.

Ive started off with four talent points, unfortunately the first talent that will bring with it four new parts costs five. I suspect I need to launch something in to the air so off to the hangar assembly plant. I built this for my first attempt, a fresh take on the Clature mk1 v1.

Cockpit with parachute, two fuel tanks, simple thruster. TIP : When you assemble this, make sure you create a second stage and move the thruster too it. To do this, mouse to bottom right corner, when you move the mouse over the orange icon a plus / minus button will appear next to it. Hit plus and then drag the thruster icon down in to the new stage. If you dont do this you will deploy your parachute and fire your engines at the same time.

Launch went smooth, 14km total height. Jebediah seems to of enjoyed the trip. Hold shift down to max throttle, space bar to fire engines and then 't' and 'r' so that the rocket at least attempts to keep itself pointed in the right direction. Space bar again when I ran out of fuel and stopped gaining altitude to deploy parachute.

Ok and thats how you earn science which is spent on talent points. I received 5 science points for successfully recovering the vessel (ie, I didn't kill the pilot). Talent trained, I received some new fuel tanks, thrusters and a decoupler, very nice! Also after I trained the only talent on the screen, three more talents choices showed up each requiring fifteen science points to unlock. Rocketry, Aerodynamics and Survivability. 

Anywho, back to the hangar assemble for v2. I removed the two small fuel tanks and replaced them with two larger versions. Longer burn equals greater height! I also added a decoupler so I don't have to worry about the parachute carrying the weight of those larger fuel tanks on the way down.  Now something else I was given with my talent purchase was a "Mystery Goo containment unit". Description suggests that I should attach it somewhere and see what happens and thats just what I've done. There are girder pieces you can place and whatnot so I popped one of them inbetween the capsule and the decoupler then attached four containment units to the girder. Decoupler is after the girder/containment unit combo so that I bring the girder/containment unit combo down safetly with the capsule. Four containment units simply because I like symmetry... and also because aerodynically, it makes sense.

Don't forget to add a third stage. You should have three stages now. 0 should be parachute, 1 should be decoupler, 2 should be engines. Shift down to max throttle, space bar to fire engines! Once fuel ran out, space bar to decouple the fuel/engine assemble. Max height I reached this time was 70km. Afew things worth noting, anytime after firing your engines you can hit 'm' to view the world and see your flight path. Also at any time you can speed up time or slow down time with ',' and '.' keys but not when you are full throttle.

Oddly, this flight only earned me .8 science... this could be a serious grind to advance in career mode. v3 is a simpler design. Capsule, decoupler, fuel tank, fuel tank/thruster combo, four antennae's to see what those do. Learned something new on this flight, fuel tank/thruster combo will not drawl from the spare fuel tank without an external fuel line. Something not available to me yet.

Well there's not a whole lot of options for me here this early on so back to the v2 design, with a third fuel tank for even greater height. Just for kicks I installed the containment units and antennae again. I'm going to try getting in to orbit this time....

Well, I definitely got up there in height and by putting the rocket at an angle later in the flight I definitely got some curve to my flight path. 165km up this go around. Jebediah appears thrilled that I haven't gotten him killed yet :) Got two cool photos of re entry, here :

Well now, apparently new heights are the key to earning science. Got 8 more points for that trip. Anywho, thats enough for this post, feel free to ask questions in the comments and I'll happily help where able. I'll post again later when something significant happens. For now, I'm just going to keep inching higher and higher while trying to earn more science.

o/

Kerbal Space Program

Lets start this by my acknowledgement that if this were real life I'd have multiple families sueing me over the death of their loved ones. I lost... 4? Pretty sure it was four astronauts during my early attempts to get in to space. Or even to get the pod back on the ground without exploding.

The Clature mk1 will be an attempt to simply get a pod in to space and back home again. Simple early nasa design, the pod literally sits ontop the fuel tank.

Clature mk1 v1
Got about 1000 feet in the ground before fuel ran out, it was at this point in time that I realized I couldn't release the pod from the fuel tank, asterouaut died somewhere out in the ocean.

Clature mk1 v2
Discovered how to set up stages. Didn't do it properly. When I fired the engines, the entire ship exploded.

Clature mk1 v3
Discovered how to set up stages properly. When fuel ran out I released the pod from the fuel tank... and realized pods don't come with parachutes as a default. This asternouaut is permanently spread across the facility parking lot.

Clature mk1 v4
This ship exploded on the launch pad, apparently what I thought was a fuel container was actually a combo container/thruster and it didn't like having a separate thruster attached to its own.

Clature mk1 v5
Huzzah! I figured out pre launch stability arms so that the thruster no longer 'sits' on the launch pad. Also figured out fuel lines so I doubled the length of the rocket with two fuel canisters and a thruster. Stages properly setup the thruster took me well out in to outer atmosphere where once decoupled the asternaought(ill figure out its spelling eventually...)'s pod took it in to proper space. This isn't an orbit, trajectory says she'll go out and then come back, distance? Maybe a little over 500k meters at peek. Note : deploying parachutes while still in 'outer space' is scary as hell. No visual of them until the atmosphere, then they look like their on fire. Bug? Udunno, but Asternout Kelbey Kerman is very happy to be back on ground in one piece.

Clature mk1 v5 second launch
Rest in peace Kelbey. I decided to try something, launched as normal but angled the ship post launch 45 degrees. Attempting to get him in to orbit. It... sort of worked but I waited too long to deploy the parachute and it literally broke off from the speed he was coming in. -.-7

Clature mk1 v6
Replaced the one seater pod with a three seater! Forgot to set up stages. Also forgot the decoupler. When I hit ignition the engines fired and so did the parachute. The ship fought to rise against the chute for about 30 seconds then spun afew odd circles about 300 feet over the launch pad. The chute found itself above while the ship was no trying to fly full speed in to the ground. The parachute I had also ugpraded to a really resilient version so eventually the fuel ran out, the body of the rocket swung down, hit the platform and exploded. The second backup fuel container also exploded which disconnected the parachute oddly but the pod with three pilots rolled down the launch pad to a up right sitting position, really darkly singed. Whew.

Clature mk1 v7
Stages set up, decoupler installed, dropped from three pre launch arms to two because... well just because. Added a third fuel container, mostly because of the three man pod size. I failed to take the weight fully in to account. v7 made it a little over 90km in to space before returning safetly.

Clature mk1 v8
Added the biggest thruster I could find. Rest of the mk1 unchanged. Thruster burned fuel from three fuel containers so damn fast I barely made it 5km up. And... oddly the parachute failed on the way down, no survivors. -.-

Clature mk1 v9
Removed the overpowered thruster. Right under the pod decoupler I installed a three arm splitter, went from three to nine fuel tanks, groups of three for each of three engines at the base. Also installed three more parachutes because I'm paranoid. Launched the rocket... and learned something new. Ok check this out. Three fuel tank 'pillars' connected just below the decoupler by a three way splitter. But... not connected to eachother anywhere else. Around 300m/s thrust the entire arms started wobbling, eventually one pillar broke off, hit a second and both exploded. I quickly decoupled and parachute launched and got to watch the third arm go rocketing off in circles out over the ocean. Everyone made it home safe though!

Clature mk1 v10
Structure girder connectors between each pillar, 6 total connections. Huzzah! 700km out at peak, total flight time just under 30 minutes from launch to land.

The Clature mk1 has been a resounding success... and failure. Lost alot of people, but made it really far out there. Very very cool game, extremely complex. Don't believe me? Youtube it sometime :) Here's some photos of the mk1. First two were earlier designs. Last three are the v10.

The Week, Summarized

Monday, World of Warcraft. Tuesday too. Wednesday buried in snow, no game releases that caught my wallets attention. Pretty weak week in my opinion. Played WoW instead. Thursday? Got 20 minutes towards work, roads turned from slush to a inch of snow, lost control of car, recovered control and came back home. Played abit of Diablo 3, then back to WoW.

Friday night, I find myself sitting a work, still no releases worth my eyeballs attention on the ipad. Probably read a book or play wow. Been addicted to WoW lately as you can tell. I'm the proud owner of 1 lvl90 of every class now, which confirms I have no life. The character that I enjoy the most? The shadow priest with the monk in a close second. Both are fully raid finder seige of orgimmar geared. The character that I enjoy the least? DPS warrior. I just can't seem to find my grove with that one.

:P

o/

Midweek Release Roundup

Hey everyone, its thursday morning which means a crap load of games hit last night at 11pm and what follows are the ones installed on my ipad. Seriously, there were enough games to put my ipad browser in to the drop down menu for tabs I was browsing. Most didn't make it due to standards I require for my money investments (translation : i dont play that which has no achievements... with rare exception). Anywho, here's what I grabbed.

Final Fantasy VI
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/final-fantasy-vi/id719401490?mt=8
Universal, 511mb download, 15.99usd.

New age final fantasy fans may call Final Fantasy VII the halo title of the franchise, but old school gamers like me? We prefer the old days of the snes and Final Fantasy VI (or III as it was called back in the early 90's. Why the name change? complicated, don't ask). This is a turn based rpg, massive in size, great sounds, controls, awesome story, its all here. Get it.

Galcon Legend
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/galcon-legends/id803222895?mt=8
Universal, 49.9mb download, 2.99usd.

Action strategy title, involves claiming worlds, building resources over time and inflicting those resources on additional worlds, be damned who owns them at the time. Simplistic art style, great controls, Legend has a bit more of a story to it than the original, reminds me of Eufloria which... probably got alot of its style from Galcon to be honest.

Modern Command
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/modern-command/id723466734?mt=8
Universal, 185mb download, Free.

Top down blend of command & conquer and missile command. I picked it up because its free, I hear horror stories about its iap though. Doubtful but who knows.

Line of Defense Tactics
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/line-of-defense-tactics/id716844850?ls=1&mt=8
Universal, 200mb download, Free.

Looks like a XCOM / Breach & Clear / CoD Strike Team type title. Turn based, stactical squad based. I'm hopeful!

Naughty Kitties
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/naughty-kitties/id778378115?mt=8
Universal, 51.1mb download, Free.

I... well.... I just... words fail me as to the premise of this game aside from it looking so insanely silly that it should be fun as well. Who knows.

And thats that, unless some developer decides to sneak something in on friday which has been known to happen, I'll have my hands full all weekend with the above titles. As always, hit up touch arcade if you want to see the other 10 or so titles that came out last night that didn't make it to my ipad.

o/

7 Days to Die

So.... a zombie survival world builder simulator. -cracks knuckles-

1 minute in :
Alot of customization options when making a new game including multiplayer and whatnot I flipped switches, read descriptions, standard fare. Game defaults to windows mode, changed that right quick.

3 minutes in :
Ahh I am in game! Ok, the terrain is minecraft. Blocky step like hills and whatnot. Much better graphics though, had to stop myself from looking at a nearby Tree. The word zombie is in the description right? Yep, lots of zombies in the area. I loot the wrecked car and two dead bodies near me. Also looted some piles of trash. Found a gun, nice. I set out looking for shelter.

5 minutes in :
Loot table is completely random. I killed a zombie dog and found a can of food on him. A small intersection with afew houses. Standard zombie rules apply here folks. Zombies are attracted to any signs of civilization. And the bastards are sneaky! I snuck in to a three story house, closed the iron door behind me. I noted a hole in the wall across the way and I checked out the upper floors to make sure there were no lurkers. Coming back down stairs there is a really noisey zombie banging on the door I closed so I open it and shoot him in the head. Always aim for the head, that rule applies to this game too. Well I hear another zombie real close and turn around to find three zombies in the main area of the first floor.. oh and a crawler zombie joining them. I shoot my way through the group, winning duh.

10 minutes in :
We have hit points, hunger, thirst and energy. First three are self explanatory, fourth just means how long you can run before needing to walk for abit. I decided to explore some more, left that house I found previously and hit 'm', hey it works, nice. Map. Looks like the map may be pre-rendered, no random stuff. Nice map though, roads and buildings and names for houses and stuff. I hike for abit passing through some woods, confirmed zombies are attracted to civilization. No zombies for abit out here which is good because last zombie I encountered near the first intersection I ran out of bullets. The games got a minecraft like crafting system but its a bit easier. On the 'i' inventory screen you can choose from a list of things you have the materials to make. The placement requirements for the mats darken so you at least know where stuff goes to make the item except you don't know what goes where. Its been pretty self explanatory though so far. I tossed a stick and made a sharpened stick. There's what looks like a farm ahead on the map, onward!

15 minutes in :
Yup, its a farm and it has the whole children of the corn vibe to it. I walked down the road towards it then stopped at the sight of 8 or so zombies infront of the main house. Turning right I walked in to the corn and two things became apparent. 1, you cant walk through the corn. you destroy it as you do. 2, you can 'e' on the corn to loot it. Mmm, food. Oh and there is a 3, walking through corn is noisey as hell. 3 zombie dogs and 2 zombie farmers later and I moved in to the barn. One zombie in middle of barn, I ran past and up the steps to the second floor. I'm safe right? Nah, zombies in this game climb ladders. Killed the one chasing me, looted some stuff.

20 minutes in :
Hoped back down, ran across yard and in to small house. Zombies on my tail I quickly crafted a scrap metal door and tossed it up. Then periodically opened it and wailed on any zombies banging on it. Everything is destructable, walls, doors, you name it. Got to keep the locals off my door.

Thats my progress to this point, will continue on as I explore more. The game is early access so its basically in beta.1.1gig in size. 35 dollars for one copy of the game, 49 gets you a copy for yourself and a friend.

o/