Though in many ways not at all productive, I've been playing with Alchemy again more lately. If you're interested in getting it to play around with for yourself, you can download this zip file and whatever (it's free):
docs.google.com/folder/d/0B8Rc…I've also made some more Pull Shapes for Alchemy, which can be found here:
al.chemy.org/forum/viewtopic.p…Moreover, I wrote up a tutorial detailing how Pull Shapes can be made for Alchemy, with the help of Inkscape:
al.chemy.org/forum/viewtopic.p… (Inkscape itself can be downloaded here, and is also free:
inkscape.org/ )
What's been eating more of my time though has been a little free-to-play multiplayer (1-4 player), online game called Warframe. It's not amazing or anything, but it's more mindlessness, and is reasonably fun I suppose. It's a 3rd person action affair, where you play as a gun-toting and blade-wielding, futuristic, armored space ninja or some such. PARKOUR! Anyway, it's not bad, and while it's not exactly a finished game (still in open beta), it's at least not got quite as hefty computer requirements as Planetside 2 does. It takes a little figuring out to get into (the Wikia for it can be handy to answer questions you have early on especially), but it's pretty smooth sailing in a short time.
I've also been playing a bit of Neverwinter, the new free-to-play Dungeons and Dragons MMO RPG thingamabob. It's kinda' neat in that it tries (IMO, reasonably successfully) to be an RPG with a more action-based slant. I'm not very far into it, but was able to get my character up to level 15 or something within a week or so of playing occasionally. It's pretty fun, and I'm just barely getting started.
ANYway, since they both can be played with other people, if any of you would like to play with along with me sometime, let me know. (For Neverwinter, if you're making a new character, I'm on the DRAGON server, so pick that one so that we can play together. For Warframe, I'm not sure it makes a difference, but I'm on the North American East Coast server or somesuch.) I swear that each game is reasonably easy to pick up, so there'd be no real need to get "caught up" to where I'm at or anything like that.
WARFRAME can be downloaded/ played via Steam, or downloaded here:
warframe.com/NEVERWINTER can be downloaded here:
nw.perfectworld.com/So yeah, we should totally play sometime.
That said, I may have to say something similar again sometime later, since I'll soon be doing some visiting and concert-seeing (including such highlights as FINALLY getting to see Weezer, and getting to bear witness to BB King... so nutty) and will be away for a large chunk of July as a result. Between that and seeing family, it should be a good time. Until then though, as usual, I spend much of my awake time on or near my computer.
Last, but not least for sure, I'm happy to say that one of my favorite comics (originally a 5-issue mini-series), Herobear and the Kid, is finally getting a long, LONG overdue followup. It's a superb all-ages book that you really owe it to yourself to check out. The old one can be order off of Amazon or something if you so please, and it's being re-released sometime soon as well. And here's a preview of the new one, also in stores now:
www.comicbookresources.com/?pa… Its creator, Mike Kunkel, has dome some work in animation, providing a very "animated" look and feel to the look of the book. It really does look pretty dang great, but at the core of the original story anyway, is a really cool and sweet, heartwarming tale. It's seriously brilliant, and I need more people to talk with about it, so yeah, check it out.
While I'm at it, I'll also plug SAGA by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples again. It's just so damn good, and in no small part due to the stunning visuals and character designs Staples is kickin' out. SO so good, and it's only a dozen or so issues in (some of which have been collected into a pair of volumes, so far), so THIS is a fantastic time to start from the very beginning of something so damn great that you're probably going to be hearing about it everywhere in no time at all, and you'll be able to say that you knew all about it BEFORE most everyone else did. I swear, if anything was destined to be a new TV or movie series based on a comic, it's this one. Do check it out, I implore you. You'll thank me later, I swear.
Oh, and I also recently made an appearance on Radio PSI again, since the lovely Izumi was doing a dedication show to me, on my birthday. It was a good time. You can listen to it here, if you like:
radio.fobby.net/dumps/archives… And you can find out more about Radio PSI, a podcast type thingee that's vaguely related to starmen.net, which is a fansite for an old Super Nintendo, 16-bit game called EarthBound, for any of you who are unaware...
Anyway, this once again has taken me far, far too long to write. And for what? No one reads these things anymore, right?... Blergh.