Multitasking

Happy Thursday!  How are your pets today?  This hasn't seemed like a very good day for pets.  For instance, this morning we found Donnie covered in mud, so wet, so sad.  He's been in fights almost every night and this one he fell? in the gutter? of mud?  My mom brushed him so now he's just half covered in dirt.  And then Carolyn found one of her fish all bitten up by the turtle and flopsing around in the filter, so that guy's on emergency watch. 

Did I tell you last week I was going to make a board game?  I think I called it D&D+Munchkin+Risk?  Now it's more of a Borderlands+Tales of the Crystals+a board game.  At the mechanical level.  The quests further the story, given by characters who talk to you and to whom you do not talk, and there's side quests as well for loot and exp.  But it's also based on player-input, like the D&D+Munchkin social side with less of the pen&paper&card side.  Even though there are, in fact, pens and paper as well as cards. 

I've ironed out the races, the classes, the battle system, the movement system, the quest system, the character advancement system, the item system, and how to organize it all.  There's even a way to change your surroundings based on your decisions.  Now I just need to flesh out the map and add content, and then 1/4 of this game will have a rough draft.  Then I need to do the same for the other 3/4s of the world.

I mean, I have pretty much the first tutorial town all sorted out, and half written.  And I know which quests are going to pull you through onward, and the two places you go next and what the main adventure is going to be.  The map is quadranted, so in the end each starter area will have this same intro setup, and at a mid-point be able to travel to the other parts at will.  But I don't have the other parts yet, so for this rough draft I'll just be focusing on the Human quadrant from start to "finish."  Even so, I have such grand schemes for this game, and different layers of completion based on how interested you are or how long you want to play.  I know what the grand 4-player endgame is, but also what the Human starter endgame is, and what the midpoint-game is, and once I have the latter two set up we can all try it out.

I'm going to be the green player, the Mechanic, in charge of area cards and battle management, and I will play an Orc Berserker.  My mom is going to be the yellow player, the Arms Master, in charge of equipment/money token management, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna make her play a Dwarf Mage.  We will need a Ranger and it would be cool to fill it out and also have a Mercenary. 

Each race can be one of two classes:  Orcs Berserkers and Mercenaries, Humans Mercenaries and Rangers, Elves Rangers and Mages, and Dwarves Mages and Berserkers.  Each race has a character stat bonus that the others don't, and each class has a different set of six abilities.  I want to be an Orc Berserker because my style of play is smash things until I win, and that's a combo that will enable me to do that without much thought. 

The weird thing about trying to make this all come together is that I feel like it's all I want to work on, think about, or do.  But after the weekend ended, I had to go to school for all day long.... and all this week I've felt busy all afternoons.  Basically, it feels like I haven't had any time at all to work on this.  But somehow, in spite of the way it feels, I've got all this info and data and thoughts and dreams and plans. 

It's unstoppable.

I just hope it'll be as fun as I keep telling everyone it will be.  I mean, you get to have a llamacorn as a steed and quell the clockwork uprising.  And stop the King of Bandits Nefario and his Marauding Minstrels from committing all this highway robbery.  And explore the Grove of Whispers.  What more do I have to say?

-Steph

Around all this, I've also been studying for the N+, which is way harder because I didn't bother to learn about OSPF and IGPs and EGPs and SNMP and ICMP and IGMP and EIGRP.  Today I think I finally understood subnetting.  So that's coming along.  Yesterday we had a luau.

Onward!

Happy Thursday!  I just spent like an hour gabbing to my mom about an RPG adventure board game I want to make.  What a good listener.  I don't think I've talked that much or at such a speed for probably about ever.  (haha I forgot that before that I was ranting at my dad about my classmates)  When I get started on a subject, sometimes there's just no end.

Daydreaming about game mechanics is how I spent my day.  Also, there was quite a bit of playing around in Excel.  OH.  But actually, today I passed my second test so technically (?) now I'm A+ certified.  Nothing in the 'verse can stop me.

Next up is N+ and then who knows what.  I'mma fix all the computers.

And then I almost hit a car on my way home.  It wouldn't have been my fault, just terrible.  I was waiting to turn left from a side street to the main street (literally), in the middle lane.  The light turned green and sluggishly I realized it and equally slowly the truck to my left started as well.  And then about a second and a half later the truck HONNNNNKS and I look and SLAM ON MY BRAKES because flying by in front of us comes some little white two door through the red light.  If that truck hadn't seen it, he would have hit it.  And if he hadn't have honked, I would have hit it.

But everyone was okay, at least at the moment.  Also.  Two out of three times in that paragraph I wrote "trunk."  It's been a full day.

So my board game, right?  It's like, D&D+Munchin+Risk.  You get to pick a race and a class, and go as a party around and take quests and level up and gain loot and achieve objectives.  It'll be great.  More on that later.  Although, I can't help but feel like this has to exist somewhere.  I choose to be surprised.

To close, does anybody have any good steam punk recommendations?  I was reading about like, the origin of cathode ray tubes and wacky stuff like that, and man how cool was science in the 1800s?  Even cooler if it was steam powered, amirite?  So that's something I want to get into. 

See ya later!

-Steph

whut

Happy Thursday!  How have you been liking summer?  The internet says it should be staying in the 70s for at least a little while longer, and I'll take what I can get.

Last week I strained my neck?  I can't look left or yawn.  Staring straight ahead is just fine, and that's what I've been doing mostly.  You should see me trying to drive, though, I look like a freak twisting around my whole self just to check the traffics.

This week at school has been studying for the second part of the A+, which is somewhat harder.  But I'm just about done memorizing these practice tests so I'll be taking that probably early next week.  The Student Council met again this week, too.  And there's an open house this weekend.  It's a cute little school.

The Olympics are over!  I attempted to shoot some hoops, as they say, to fill the great empty void.  When my ailment has passed I will be doing some more, I guess.

Oh geez I'm sleepy.  This blog just drains me.  Ahaha.

-Steph

A+

Happy Thursday!  I picked a great week to start taking peaceful strolls around the business park at which I educate myself.  It's been the sort of mild, blazingly clear, breezy weather that reminds one of the gentle warming of late springtime, when one can count the remainder of the school year as a handful of weeks, and beyond that is simply months and months of glorious summer...

wait.

So this is definitely August, and it's just now getting properly sunny.  And school's not out, I still have five or six solid months of full time book grinding.  Nothing is as it seems.

I did, however, take one of my tests today-- exams, really.  I took the first part of my certification and passed with an 880 which I guess is pretty alright.  So I'm half-certified.  Woot.

Oh man I just got sooo sleepy.  I was up til midnight last night which was ridiculous, but Minecraft had an update this week so that was pretty important.  I think you can tell a lot about a person's character by their playstyle?  For the past forever I've been hollowing out the underground to form a ranch/orchard/farm in which I simply make a circuit of the grounds and collect all the collectables (chickens, watermelon, pumpkin, reeds, oak/apples, cactus, wheat, birch, spruce, jungle tree, cocoa beans (the cultivation of which is new this week!!) mushrooms, slimes, pigs and cows) and then deposit the loot in carefully arranged holding facilities.  Natural born hoarder, this one.

Before I forget again, the fair was pretty fairy.  I had a bratwurst which was surprisingly good.  And we brought home the big bag of kettlecorn because there's none better and when my folks went on Tuesday I had them bring home another.  I pet the donkey!  We also saw Joan Jett and then froze on the pier waiting for the fireworks which ended up being a half hour later than we expected due to it being Saturday.

I also read a whole book this week, so there.

I'm so happy tomorrow's Friday.

-Steph

Oh hello

Happy Thursday!  I almost forgot about you.  Not about you exactly, but about coming here and sitting in front of the Internet for hours on end every day.  You have the Olympics to blame for that.  I've been sitting in front of the TV all week instead.  ;p

I've never sat myself down and watch the Olympics before.  And certainly hardly ever "sports" in general.  But this is every sports, and it's every place, and it's very much more epic and seemingly deserving of being watched.  The best of the best are here, setting records left and right and proving to everyone that their life's work has been worth it.

Highlights:
Volleyball team hugs

Dressage (look it up!)

When people knock themselves down in soccer

Fencing

The way the person who was in the lead for the first 3/4s of the race probably won't even medal

Fireworks shooting out of the stadium

When America was playing North Korea at badminton and all the players were Asian

Canada swinging that tie with Sweden in women's soccer

Field hockey = handball = water polo = soccer = field hockey

I feel like I haven't seen all the sports though.  Like, where's the track and field?  Like, pole vaulting and jumping really far and all that.  It's like it's all soccer and swimming and gymnastics and if you wake up early enough you get to see the cool stuff like archery and fencing and table tennis.  Over the weekend I wasn't feeling great so I just sat around and watched the different NBC channels 48 hours straight.  Monday I wasn't up to anything so I skipped and basically did the same thing.  XD  I've been late to school every day, and spending the last two hours before bed cramming in all the sports possible.  Who am I.

In school, however, I've finished my curriculum and am now studying to pass the certification exams.  So no pressure there, I sort of feel like I can do whatever I want.  Like study.  Or go on walks.

Speaking of studying, I found some handwriting worksheets for the Russian alphabet and have been scratching those out in the 8-10PM Olympics hours.  They are a lot the same and a lot weird.  They have a letter that is pronounced "shcheh."  Uppercase P is R and lowercase g is d.  It's the best.

Other than being sick and watching the Olympics, this week I played Journey at Carolyn's house.  It was pretty magical because I had a mysterious friend appear and help me through it, I'd recommend at least looking up some playthrough on youtube.  What an artistic game. 

Um and Beth had a birthday!  Good jorb.

OH and the fair is started!  I totally forgot to enter any crafts or produce, so half my reasons for going are nonexistent, haha.  But I'm still excited to go because I love that place.  Probably Saturday.

I'll tell you all about it later!

-Steph