I don’t spend a LOT of time in my homes in Wizard101, so I’m not sure exactly when I got some new artwork. Maybe someone can help fit these pieces together?

The First Piece

This piece looks to be a corner piece… those are always the best pieces to start with! Definitely part of the Wizard101 logo; it kinda looks like a piece of the old Celestia art… but it couldn’t be that.

The second piece

This one’s a real mystery. It looks like sand or stone. Part of the right edge. Edge pieces are good, especially if they fit into a corner piece. These two pieces don’t go together. Maybe if I turned the second one around… and used a hammer and some tape… hmmmm….

I’ve heard rumors of other pieces in other places… There’s a mystery here!

FTL

I’m a big fan of ABC’s Shark Tank. I make no apologies, I like “some” reality TV. I don’t talk about it much on the blog anymore because I don’t think people are all that interested, but I still watch. If it’s a decent show and it’s shown on Netflix or Hulu Plus, it’s something to watch while gaming.

Anyway the premise of that show is that five actual real businesspeople, the “sharks”, listen to pitches by would-be entrepreneurs, the “chum”, and if they like what they hear, they invest. It’s an American version of the UK’s “Dragon’s Den”, a show I have not seen.

I don’t have millions of dollars, but I do have a few, and right now some of them are being sent to entrepreneurs who pitch their products on Kickstarter, asking me for my money, in return for rewards. Largely, I have been investing in gaming products.

I was checking up on the progress of some of my investments today when Kickstarter suggested I take a look at FTL, a kinda retro space based rogue-like.

They had me at “space based rogue-like”. So after I invested, guaranteeing myself a DRM-free copy of the game when it is completed in August, I took them up on their offer to actually play the game in its current shape… on OnLive.

OnLive is a service that lets you play games as a stream. You don’t have to have the actual copy of the game, or even hardware that can run the game well. All you need is a fast internet connection. OnLive runs the game on their servers and streams the sound and graphics to you (hence the requirement for a fast internet connection). They had FTL up as one of their independent games festival winners, I played it a couple of times.

The game isn’t really a rogue-like. There’s no way to save and death means end of game — but that’s where the rogue elements end. You don’t get the treasure with the odd names you have to figure out. It has real time combat, not turn based. You don’t have a character on the board. I’m not really sure why they call it a rogue-like.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t a good game, though. You’re given a ship with some crew and a number of ship’s systems, which must be kept in good repair, by sending crew to repair it in real time. Your job is to keep the ship intact, the crew alive, the energy allocated, the missiles loaded and so on as your ship, the Kestrel, struggles to keep ahead of the rebel fleet. The enemy, when you encounter them, can target specific ships systems, set fires, hole the hull and so on. I was happy to see I could extinguish fires by venting the atmosphere into space :)

You’ll meet allies and enemies as you warp through the sector to the exit system on each level. Take too long exploring and the rebel fleet will catch up to you and kill you. Take too little time exploring and you will miss friendly encounters which can result in new crew, weapons or other helpful items — or in unexpected calamity.

Goodbye.

The demo ends after finishing two sectors. To make you understand just what sort of worm you are, you’re destroyed by the ultimate power of destruction in the universe, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s a cute little game. Not a rogue-like, but it looks like it’ll be fun. It’ll come out on Win/Mac/Linux.

I was very impressed with OnLive. I’d always assumed I wouldn’t have the internet connection speed to handle it, but it worked very well for both FTL and Assassin’s Creed II. I tried their 30 minute free trial. No loading or patching or anything, just went right into 16th century Florence… after the prologue. I was very impressed.

I’ve been struggling to get through this comic. The only good joke I had was toward the end, and it was a slog getting through to that point. So, I’m going to just make a NEW comic that speeds through all this beginning stuff. Since it shouldn’t go to waste, here’s the prologue to part 2.

Into the Kruthik Lair

I knew it was going to be a weird night when everyone broke out the hoodies. That’s something you get when you play face to face (via webcam, but still)… Weird stuff can happen.

After some debate, we chose to explore the southern passage instead of seeing what lay behind the metal door. We had mapping to do, after all. The darkness swallowed our discussion. We voted to send Wenner ahead to explore. The vote was 3-1.

Wenner glared at us for a long moment, then melted into the darkness with such skill that he might have been snatched from the dungeon by some hellish force. “Would you take a look at this!” he called from some distance in front of us. I sparked a sun rod and we followed him down the hall.

There was a pit in the ground, surrounded by the shattered flagstone of a false floor. We leaned over the side — at the bottom was a six-legged lizard-like creature, not too unlike a basilisk. “Someone should go down there and search the creature,” said someone. All eyes were on Wenner. The halfling sighed heavily.

We tied a rope around Wenner and lowered him into the pit. The creature had been dead for weeks. A hand stuck from beneath its belly; Wenner shoved the swollen carcass over to reveal a goblin, likely dead at the same time as the lizard. The goblin had been running from the lizard, and both had fallen into the pit and died. The dead goblin wasn’t stone, though, so this couldn’t be a basilisk.

Bryn remembered the dented silver mirror in his pack, the one we’d gotten from the dragon bone excavation up above. If we did encounter any basilisks, maybe there’d be something we could do. Whatever we came up with, it would probably involve Wenner somehow. He’s just so _versatile_!

Wenner had some potions in his arms when we hauled him up. “Healing potions, I think,” he said. “Want one?” I shook my head. Lord Bahamut has promised to keep me safe if I keep him in my heart. Besides, Wenner likely needs them more.

We come to a room; low, narrow tunnels lead off in several places into the east wall. Someone small could likely crawl into one. Sheeoil peeks into the closest one and sees nothing but darkness, but he guesses a certain six legged lizard could have crawled from it.

Holding the sun rod high, I walk to the middle of the room. The floor cracks beneath me, then breaks, and I fall into a deep pit. I jump up and haul myself out.

“Well,” said Wenner. “Let’s do this.” We play the rope out carefully (the rope that was still tied to Wenner from the critter pit) as he crawls into the tunnel. It was too dark for even halfling eyes, so he reached out, trying to feel anything that might be a trap… or treasure. What DOES treasure feel like? Wenner risked striking a small light.

Staring right at him, just inches from his face, were the eyes and sharp, sharp teeth of a monster exactly like the one in the pit, except all too alive.

When Sheeoil heard Wenner’s surprised squeak, he pulled hard on the rope. Wenner popped out of the tunnel like a cork from a bottle. “See something?” asked Sheeoil. Wenner opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t make a sound. He could only point at the tunnel.

While the rest of us stood on either side of the tunnel entrance to take on whatever would come out, Wenner fled to the far side of the pit in which I’d fallen. “Oh, good plan!” I shouted. “When it lunges for you, it’ll get trapped and –”

Wenner smiled, then faded into the darkness. “Bad bait,” said Sheeoil.

The Kruthik Young tore from the hole, turned and saw Sheeoil. It swiped but missed. It was followed by a smaller Kruthik that also turned to attack the elf. It, too, missed.

Clearly, our kruthiks were a mutant six-legged variety.

Sheeoil kills the kruthik hatchling with the light of a sacred flame. I hit the young kruthik with a bolstering strike, leaving it wounded and marked. Wenner took a moment deciding not to continue exploring while the rest of the company took on the monsters. He ran up and stabbed the youngling with a sly flourish; the kruthik staggered, bloodied.

Angered, the kruthik turned to Wenner. My mark exploded, further wounding the creature. Another round of combat and it died. I pick the sun rod up and we go exploring a little further. As I stayed back a moment to shine the light in a dark corner, the others followed the southern passage as it bent toward the east.

A kruthik hatchling popped out of a tunnel and threatened the others. I, hearing nothing, sauntered casually up to the rest of the group. Seeing the hatchling, I rushed it and killed it with a single swing of Lifedrinker. Two more hatchlings arrive.

They die from single hits. They were dying so quickly that Sheeoil stepped back so that Bryn could try to crush one with his Staff of the War Mage. He swung and — missed. Missed?

Oh, look, all our stats have been reset to the default levels. We spent a couple minutes filling them back in.

Bryn actually _hit_! The hatchling died with a squish.

The passage widened into a room, too dark to see the other side. All we could see was a shadow… that moved, and leapt into the light. It was the largest kruthik we’d seen. Long, elongated spines ran along its back. The spines flared up as it sized us up. The kruthik shot quills from its spikes, but all of them missed.

Now it was our turn. Sheeoil seared it with sacred flame. Bryn pounded it with a magic missile. Two younglings crawl from the darkness — nicely gathered for a shot of my acid breath. I spit acid at them and it hits on each, but for only very minor damage. Wenner sliced a youngling with a sly flourish. Sheeoil missed with his sacred flame.

And then Bryn let loose with a thunder wave. Electricity coursed through the adult kruthik’s body. The magic slammed the kruthik back into the darkness; we heard a crash and then a high, piercing wail of pain from it, but it did not come back out of the darkness.

One of the younglings began to dash away; running after it, I crashed through the false floor into another pit. This one was a little too high to jump from. Now I knew how the adult kruthik felt. Wenner kindly used a positioning strike to knock one of the younglings into the pit with me.

Bad new for me, good news for Wenner. He was bloodied from the fight, and Sheeoil’s divine magics weren’t delivering the heals like they should.

After the rest of the company finished with the last youngling, they briefly discussed trying to pull me out, but I’m too heavy. Angry at being left, I manage to jump up high enough to pull myself out.

We find the adult kruthik lying wounded at the bottom of yet another pit trap. It glared up at us, trying desperately to not show how wounded it was. With both the youngling and adult kruthiks trapped, it was easy enough to kill them from safety.

Wenner found some rubble in the corner. He tried to hide a small chest in his pack, but it was too large to go unnoticed. He called us all to it and opened it — it was full of gold and gems. The local Temple of the Dragon Lords is going to get new altar cloth!

Spent from the battle with the kruthiks and the battle before it with the ochre jelly, we headed back to the metal door, thinking to keep an eye on it as we rest. We came around a pile of debris and saw…

SPLUG.

… just as we saw our murderous hobgoblin, he saw us, ran through the doorway and slammed the metal door behind him.

We spiked the door and settled down for a rest.

—

Seeing kruthiks die as they get knocked into pits? Priceless!

Two weeks until we meet again.