Duckman

Yeah, that was the point. The source of the quote took the 65-75, multiplied by 2bn (2x10^9) and got 130-150bn. When applied correctly to the decibel log scale it would be roughly 160-170dB (which really is 2x10^9 times louder than 65-75 dB unless I am misremembering sound amplitude, in which case it would be even less than that, another square root being involved). WestRider was being mortified that he missed the bn in the response.

Some people should not be allowed to math. dB is a log scale.

Generally speaking I prefer a developer who does not try to expand existing content. There are exceptions. I think Smash-Up can expand as much as they want as long as they don't succumb to power creep. I think Alchemists is a game that cannot reasonably be expanded without making a whole new game so they should just make a whole new game. Expansions to allow more players (e.g. the expansion to Village) are more likely to work than expansions which include more or content which is often not well balanced.

I know others were having problems with the app as well. The secret I found was to get the cards on the same level surface (not across a joint on a table) and then hold the camera high and level over the cards. Really enjoyed my one run at it so far. Hoping to get another chance next weekend.

Alchemists (be careful as there is also an Alchemist game, singular, which is not the same) As I understand it, this was on Kickstarter a while back but I can't find reference to it. Guy from a gaming group I play with sometimes had a copy from Essen (not available here until later this month) and so we played it on Saturday. Feels like a combination of Clue and a Euro worker-placement game. Boardgamegeeks topic at http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161970/alchemists Publisher site at http://czechgames.com/en/games/ Players are budding young alchemists who are trying to make a reputation for themselves. Publish or Perish is the mantra. You have to go out and collect reagents (or hire someone to do it for you) and then combine them and see what you got (either getting a student to try them for you or by trying them yourself). From the results you learn things about the reagents you combined. Publish a treatise on your findings or lie and publish something misleading to see if you can cause problems for your fellows. Either way, you get a reputation boost... At least until someone demonstrates that you are full of it. The game uses a computer (smart phone, web browser or tablet) to referee the reagent combinations. By sharing a 4-character seed you can use multiple devices for the same game. The simplest means of playing is using a smart phone with a camera as the app can actually recognize the reagent cards and so you essentially take a picture of the reagents you are combining and the app tells you what potion you made. Without a camera you can enter things by hand, etc. The app referees all the reagent combining steps (testing on a student or yourself or making a potion to sell to an adventurer) giving only the appropriate amount of information. The design is solid. It lists as 2-4 players and I played it with 4 which is their recommendation. Much to my surprise I spent more time interacting with the other gamers and playing the publish/refute game more than experimenting on things. Includes two levels of difficulty and can be played at both levels at the same time to level the playing field between new and experienced players (or adults and children if needed?). Suggested ages are 12 or 13+ with a playtime of 2 hours for experienced players (with 2 new players I think our game took closer to 4 including time to teach).

Don't get me wrong... I have really enjoyed Abrams work in the past, lens-flare not withstanding. When they finally pried the StarWars IP from Lucas' cold, dead soul I heard a great noise, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy, never to be silenced. I would love to see this movie done well. That trailer in particular pushes my buttons because it specifically highlights aspects of the story/film that were done so poorly (granted, by a different writer/director) in Episode I.

Courtesy of Scott Kurtz (PVP rocks) Hope you and the wife started some traditions worth keeping.

One simple answer.... (And they totally punked it.) Midichlorians... Nanobots that *eat* midichlorians are simple enough Waynetech. What is Vader with no Midichlorians? Oh, right... EMP-bait. Remember, that ain't magic. That's science because Lucas is a nitwit.

Remember Episode I where they showed us the cool Sith with the double-bladed saber? Remember how everyone though that this was going to be soooooo cool and we were finally going to get to see the emperor demonstrate what a good manipulator he was? Remember how we got a waste of 150 minutes with a really cool villain who was so under-developed that we didn't care when he died and instead a talking muppet got all the screentime for hissa self? Yeah, it's Abrams but this trailer leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I was burned so badly by Episode I.

Let me know if you get close. I could be interested and will be down to pick up in March (http://www.gamestorm.org/).

My concern is that this will be like the Space Hulk release... Really good rendition of a game that should not have been made into a computer game. Mordheim may work better but I want to hear what you all think before committing.

Interstellar doesn't get such high reviews from me. 5/10 maybe. Beautiful cinematography but the story had too many holes for me to enjoy it as anything more than eye-candy. Kinda like dating a really hot chick that you can't stand to talk to for more than a minute at a time. This will make a great demo piece for TV sales where the audio is turned off.

Isn't that all early 80's porn?

I always thought that the Nurgle rune upside down explained the Skaven Plaguerats perfectly.

Still curious about the ruleset. Was it written by Kevin Siembieda like all the other Palladium stuff? Is he still illiterate and refusing an editor or proof-reader? When I talked to Cadice one of the concerns he expressed was that the deal involved satisfying the owners of the Robotech IP and they had specific ideas which were not functional in game (like 75% of their details were about how things functioned in the anime and so they were going to be writing pages upon pages of rules for things that would not apply in a tabletop scale game)... Did that stuff get cleaned up into a functional ruleset for tabletop play or is it an incoherent mess or what?

Does this one include religions, culture, zones of influence and all that or does it harken back to the simpler days where national boundaries were a myth?

Thanks, Frosty. Never played anything like those and so even the comparisons in the reviews didn't help me understand what the actual gameplay would be. Any estimates how long a scenario is? Sounds like people are getting many hours of play out of it... Is that multiple play-throughs or is this just one of those old titles where they actually bothered to spend time on content?

Ok, I missed this one. Who is doing it? Publisher, etc. I was talking with John Cadice at PAX 2 years ago and we were talking Robotech and Robotech minis. The minis he had with him were prototypes that he was working on getting printed and I just recently followed up to see what had happened to that line. I expected it to be coming through Sodapop.... Fill me in on the poop, especially on how the rules look as I had some concerns based on what he and I talked about back then.

Ok, I am not a console gamer so this is not something I ever followed before. I'm looking at the steam page for it and they're linking to the RPG/JRPG tags as well. What is gameplay like here? How does the strategy aspect enter gameplay? I don't have any reservations about the RPG/JRPG tags or anything, this just impacts how deep a discount I am likely to look for when picking it up.

Ok, maybe I have played too much Siedler, but this is how I feel about it all the time now.

We're just hooked on showing up Twilight, aren't we?

Trailers often talk me out of a movie as well, either because they convince me that it is something else or because they show me the whole movie... Plot, story, special effects and all the good one-liners already spoiled....

Dude... pretre's post is a better love story than Twilight.

Hugh Howey - Wool Not sure how to categorize it exactly... Fiction? Sci-Fi? Post-Apoc Horror? Billed as an omnibus, it is told as a series of 5 stories following a character or two in "the Silo". The writing is tight and well edited. I want to call it sci-fi but it is science lite if you put it in that category. The later stories are longer and give more details about the setting which is where the science breaks down. As with Freedom, YMMV. The science Howey invokes is not as close to my wheel-house as the software in Suarez so maybe I am more forgiving because I lack some of the fine detail... It is possible to find quibbles with the hard science and you might have problems with specific characters but in general I enjoyed the central idea of his universe and his writing style and happily devoured the stories without worrying about the quibbles. More details... Howey is being held up as one of the shining successes of self-publishing. Wool is pretty tightly written and well edited. He's been picked up by a publisher on a print-only deal and Wool has both a graphic novel deal and a movie deal in the works.

Links? I don't recognize the name or have idea what it is (board, tabletop, etc.).