Jaded Gamer Diary - Working for free

 

Okay once again we are seeing this topic come up again, rearing it's ugly head and screaming. What am I talking about? Companies wanting you to work for free on their projects that are made to turn a profit. Y'know those kind of folks that want to pay you in exposure bucks for your labor. 

Let me break down the ONLY times that you should ever even consider doing work for free. 

1 - Fan Projects. This where you and a few like minded friends or associates work together to create something together that nobody is going to profit off of. Usually done for a specific game that everyone involved is really into. Example: Once upon a time I worked to help build a fan site for the Kult RPG called 'The Abyss'. This was back when the game was no longer in production and there was very little hope of seeing it ever come back again. We worked together to build a website, put together sourcebooks and even a sort of ezine for the game. It was all free. We made no money off of this. It was fans working together on something they love. Doing stuff like this for free is fine.

2 - Charity. Some projects are established to raise money for a charitable cause or organization. If you feel strongly about that charity and your desire to help them raise money is deep then this is a good idea as well. Make sure it is a legit fund raising operation though, talk to some people, get some proof. Helping others is something that many of don't do enough of. 

3 - Your own personal projects. Of course this is a no brainer. Especially considering many personal projects eventually turn into something that has the potential to make money in the future. Just don't expect others to work for free on these projects. 

That's about all I can think of. So when some fucking asshat offers you 'exposure' for your art, your writing, your editing, your whatever, tell them to hit the damn bricks and start walking. They aren't concerned about actually helping or promoting you, they are only concerned with putting money into their pockets. 

WttC - Work Crew Infobyte 001

 

Welcome new Work Crew member. In this first Infobyte we will be telling you about the access hatches to our cities vast and expansive underground and sewer systems. In a city as large as our the need to safely move large amounts of human waste, vent air from lower sections and run other utilities out of harms way is great. To accomplish this we have built up large tunnels and access ways under ground and between levels. All of these various tunnels share one thing in common, the worker access hatch that allows you entry into them. 

These specially designed hatchways are made to keep out those who wish to use our underground system for nefarious deeds. Please note the idea of them being made to contain various so called "threats" are completely unfounded. To open these you simply follow these instructions. 

1 - Retrieve the hatch opening device from your service crew truck (the CRP001 located in the back passenger side compartment), unplug it from the charging cord and make sure it is fully charged. 

2 - Place it onto the center socket of the hatch, set it to "open" and pull the trigger. This will spin the socket clockwise and open up the hatch one section at a time. This can take up to thirty seconds to accomplish.

3 - Return the CRP001 to the crew truck and place it on the charger. Then take the CRP002 (the large wrench located in the same compartment) with you as you return to the access hatch. 

You have now successfully completed the hatch opening process.

To close the hatch follow the simple process. Please note, you cannot close the hatch from the inside using the CRP001.

 1 - Retrieve the hatch opening device from your service crew truck (the CRP001 located in the back passenger side compartment), unplug it from the charging cord and make sure it is fully charged. 

2 - Place it onto the center socket of the hatch, set it to "close" and pull the trigger. This will spin the socket counter clockwise and close the hatch one section at a time. This can take up to thirty seconds to accomplish. Please watch your fingers and toes during this part of the operation.

3 - Return the CRP001 to the crew truck and place it on the charger. Then replace the CRP002 back into the compartment as well.

Now as for the CRP002 and it's uses. This is the mobile opening and closing device that is made to be used for anyone from the inside of the hatch. You is made so you can manually open, or close, a hatch in case of an emergency or if you find yourself unable to locate the hatch you entered from. 

Up near the top of the steps you can find the bottom of the socket that is normally visible on the surface. Simply attach the wrench and turn it counter clockwise to open the sections one at a time, or go clockwise to close them. This operation can take from five to ten minutes to accomplish and is not recommended unless absolutely necessary. 

This concludes today's Work Crew Infobyte 

Review: The Dungeon! boardgame

 

You can pick up this game over on Amazon or at your local game shop. 

Dungeon! is a classic game released by TSR back in the day. The copy we played is the newest version to be released by WotC/Hasbro. 

I've seen the ads for this boardgame for years but never picked on up. Mainly because I was more of a roleplaying game guy than a boardgame guy. There was always something that I had wanted more. But finally my brother picked up a copy. So the two of us and our wives sat down and gave it a go.

First off it takes a bit getting used to. The fold out rules sheet makes it looks a bit complicated at first but once you start going through the steps it gets really easy. Basically you play one of four different classes roaming through a dungeon trying to reach a specific amount of gold in order to win. You have a rogue, fighter, cleric and magic user. 

It's pretty basic. Each monster you encounter has a different number you have to roll to kill it, which is determined by your class or spell. If you miss the monster has a chance to attack you and has a table for them as well. Monsters in specific areas drop a treasure based on their level. 

There is no interaction between players except for maybe picking up a treasure they dropped because they got hit by a monster. You have secret doors, some magic items, traps instead of monsters and a few other bits tacked on. But it's pretty straight foward.

Now this is by no means a high end elegantly designed boardgame like Catan or Ticket to Ride. But it does fit nicely as a bridge for people who want to work their way up to the more complicated and intricate games out there. Especially for younger players who want something more challenging than Monopoly and Battleship. 

My big problem is the board seems small for the amount of stuff that is on there including the dungeon map. The monster, treasure and spell cards along with all the various markers are all rather small. Not to mention treasure and monsters being split up into six different stacks each. But we did have a good time

But in the end we did have a good time. My brother won with his rogue after sliding through secret doors and grabbing up treasure quickly. This was while both my wife and I had gathered up our required amount of treasure and were making a run for the staring point/end point as well. We'll try it again soon and I'm sure we'll approach it with different tactics now that we know how it plays. 

Soda Reviews part two

 A few years back when Rural King first opened a store here they had a large variety of bottled soda's to chose from. My wife and I took this as an opportunity for some fun and wrote up several reviews for them Doing three to four different types each time. Originally posted quite some time ago on a local Facebook page I decided to just post them up here. Some of these brands may not be available anymore. Anyways on with the quick taste test reviews. 

Cherry Ski. Well this was a let down. I really enjoy a good cherry flavored soda however the 'good' part just wasn't there as much. Katie thought it tasted like liquid pixie stix but not in the good way while I thought it was a bit like an unfroze freezer pop. The cherry flavor didn't pop much and while I know that most soda uses artificial flavors for cherry this one tasted really artificial. The little kid version of us may have liked it but the grown up version not so much. It's sort of a 'meh' soda, won't be picking it up again.

Kickapoo Joy Juice. A classic soda that claims to use the original recipe. I could taste the citrus in there without being a full kick like Mtn Dew or Mello Yello. However it also felt really thick as well, Katie thought it had some honey flavor which didn't mesh well with the citrus. I thought it had another flavor in there I couldn't put my finger on that didn't sit well with me. While we said it was okay and we would drink another if somebody offered it we won't be tossing it into our shopping cart on our own. Unless my eleven year old son wants some as he loves it.

Frostie Root Beer. A good straight forward root beer plain and simple. The flavor pops really well and we both think it would be perfect for a soda float root beer right up there with A&W on that. But it's doesn't have that one thing to set it apart from most other mainstream varieties in my humble opinion. But it was good and we may pick it up with some ice cream again.

Cheerwine. I included a picture of the bottle this time. It is hands down my favorite soda on the market. Less of a cherry cola and more of a cherry soda. I, and a few others, gave it much praise when I mentioned it in the last review. Evidently that had an affect because they were running really low on it at Rural King this weekend. So please, leave a bottle or two on the shelf for me.

Soda Reviews part one

 A few years back when Rural King first opened a store here they had a large variety of bottled soda's to chose from. My wife and I took this as an opportunity for some fun and wrote up several reviews for them Doing three to four different types each time. Originally posted quite some time ago on a local Facebook page I decided to just post them up here. Some of these brands may not be available anymore. Anyways on with the quick taste test reviews. 

Druthers Black Cow Vanilla Creme Rootbeer. This was a good solid root beer. We could both taste just a hint of the vanilla to set it off from most others but still plenty of that classic root beer flavor. Two thumbs up.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory Coco Fizz Chocolate Soda. Okay we could taste some chocolate here, but is was buried under some really bad taste that I couldn't identify along with an even worse after taste. We ended up pouring it down the drain after only a few sips. Two thumbs down all the way down.

Dang! That's Good Butterscotch Root Beer. I can tell you one thing you can taste the butterscotch. So much that you really can't taste the root beer at all. While good it creates an overly sweet taste that can be a bit much. May want to balance it out with something salty like chips. One thumb up and one down.