The Best Games You're Not Playing

Would you like to get over $100 worth of games for a fraction of their price?  I've been a longtime Humble Indie Bundle fan, but this latest bunch is by far the best I've ever seen.  When the bundle first came out, I thought it was an amazing deal and the best bundle they'd done up to date, but they've added even more to it and I just had to share.

Here's the official introduction to the bundle, with plenty of nerdy memes:

First off, let me review the games.  They are:

• Gratuitous Space Battles:  This game does away with all pretenses of story and just jumps straight into the explosions.  You don't actually control the ships, you design them, program them and then watch things blow up.  The challenge is winning a map with the minimum size fleet possible.  You have to build your ships to fit a role, while programming them to match that role.  Like 40k, deployment is key.

• Cave Story+:  I've just started this game, but it is a platformer/RPG.  It plays like Castlevania or Metroid.

• Jamestown:  A space shoot-em-up but takes the alternate history premise that the New World is actually Mars.  You play as Sir Walter Raleigh fighting the Spanish and indigenous Martians.

• Bit.Trip Runner:  A platformer/rhythm game.  Your actions in the game influence the music.  This is a hard and frustrating game, but still addicting.

• Super Meat Boy:  One of the more famous Indie games out there.  It's a platformer that once again is maddeningly frustrating at times, but gives you a real feeling of elation when you conquer a level.

• Shank:  I haven't played this one yet but it's a sidescroller beat-em-up.

• NightSky HD:  I haven't played this one yet either but it's a sidescroller platformer where you control a glowing sphere with unusual abilities.

The above games were the Bundle as it first appeared.  Just yesterday they added the contents of the third Indie Bundle if you pay more than the average.  Those games are:

• Crayon Physics Deluxe:  It's a simpler version of LittleBig Planet.  You use crayon drawings in a full physics engine to solve puzzles.  You can create your own levels.  Every level has multiple solutions, some far more complicated than others.

• Cogs:  A sliding puzzle game, but set in a 3D steampunk environment.  The puzzles play over a variety of 3D surfaces.

• VVVVVV:  The most maddeningly fun platformer of the bunch.  You can't jump in this game, instead you reverse gravity.  There's only three buttons to the game; forward, back and flip.  Despite this the game is extremely difficult, incredibly frustrating and extremely fun.  The soundtrack is a fun, peppy chiptune score that gets stuck in your head.

• Hammerfight:  Possibly the most bizarre game among the bunch.  You control a flying ship with a weight at the bottom.  Flipping the mouse around swings the weight like a ball and chain.  You fight through various levels against giant bugs and such.  Of the ones I've played it's my least favorite, but it's not a bad game.

• And Yet It Moves:  A platformer where instead of jumping or flipping gravity, you rotate the entire level.  This is a tricky mechanic and requires a bit of practice to get right.  The art style is like torn paper, everything has rough deckled edges.

Yet that's not all.  In addition to all these twelve games, you get the soundtrack to each one.  The soundtrack to VVVVVV alone is worth the price, but there's quite a few good ones among this.  Bit.Trip Runner and Super Meat Boy stand out, but there's many others.

So how does it all work?  The Humble Indie Bundle is a pay-what-you-want deal.  If you beat the average price, which currently is $5.18, you get the bonus games as well.  Even if you just play one or two of the games it's worth it.  All the games are cross platform, Windows, Mac and Linux.  Portions of the funds go to charity, and you can split up the payment as you wish.  All games are DRM free, and you can activate most of them on Steam if you want.

The bundle will only be up for six more days as of this posting, and then it's gone forever.

What are you waiting for?

Commissioned Lugft Huron

I painted this one on commission, my patron being Col. Dracus.  His Space Marine chapter is a custom one, called the Celestial Lions (so that's not technically Lugft Huron).  The colors were chosen by him, as seen in this post.  He's going for a really unusual basing scheme which is why I didn't do the base for this one.  Be sure to check out his work on his blog, linked above.  His basing scheme is to make them look like they're in a palace.

The color is similar to the Astral Claws.  He wanted the broad flat blue areas to be reminiscent of blue marble.  This was one of the trickiest things to figure out how to do.  The eyes were also really small and I had to do them twice to get them looking in the same direction.

To weather the flamer I used Tamiya weathering powders.

Here's a closeup of the banner.  Dracus named the Celestial Lions' chapter master Gaius Magnus.  I almost had to stop myself from writing Gaius Baltar on the banner.

Frequent Internet Spelling Mistakes: Pour vs. Pore

This one has been building up to a slow boil.  Goatboy's post on BOLS yesterday finally drove me to make this post.  Folks, when you say you were "pouring over the new Necron book" you are not doing what you think you are doing.

This is pouring:

This is what happens when you pour over a book:

This is poring over a book:

If you didn't know the difference, go ahead an pore over my other spelling and grammar posts.  If you use it wrong again, I'll pour you a nice glass of hemlock.

Secret Weapon Miniatures: A Review

As a preface to this review, this encounter took place a few months ago.  I am just now getting around to writing about it.  The product mentioned below seems to no longer be available from their website, but I would assume the same quality from their other products.

I ordered the Secret Weapon Miniatures Infected Village bases for my Mordheim Skaven warband.  I ordered two sets since Skaven can get up to twenty guys in the warband.  The shipping was timely and inexpensive.

Image courtesy of http://blog.secretweaponminiatures.com/

When I got them I was impressed by the quality.  They bases have a nice heft to them, they're not flimsy at all.  They stand slightly taller than a standard base and the edge is not bevelled (more room for detail that way).  I had to do a minimum of trimming flash and washing to get them ready to go.

As I was cleaning the bases I noticed that I had only 19.  I double, triple counted and emailed MisterJustin and told him I was short one.  I had already worked out which of the ten it was I was missing and was prepared to show him which one, expecting only to receive the missing base.  I was surprised when I received an email back saying that he was sending me a full set of ten!

This is a great example of customer service.  He responded to my email promptly and sent the new bases out without delay.  I recommend Secret Weapon Miniatures if anything for their customer service.  They have a wide variety of products, not just bases.  They've been adding a lot of terrain lately as well as creative additions to terrain like buffalo skeletons.  I will certainly be buying from them again.

Two Blogs That Need More Followers

Forever Alone

First off I'd like to thank Zero over at Hive Zero for his contest in the which I was the only entrant!  So naturally I won.  The contest was to send in your best painted Blood Angel model (no vehicles).  I submitted my Brother Claudio.  The contest ran for a whole month and I was the only entrant?  How many people play Blood Angels?  In the words of Gob Bluth, "Come on!"

The prize is Death Angel, the Space Hulk card game by Fantasy Flight Games.  He has another copy, so follow his blog for updates.

The second blog I'd like to plug is a new one by one of the guys in my area, Col. Dracus.  He is in the process of creating a homebrew Space Marine chapter using various 3rd party add ons to create a really interesting chapter.  His basing scheme is one of the most unique I've seen.  I'm currently painting a Forgeworld Huron to serve as his chapter master.

Don't let these blogs be Forever Alone.

Harlequin Shadowseer

Here's a Harlequin Shadowseer that I did on commission.  This one was hard to paint.  There's a lot of detail and the finecast was full of bubbles that I had to fill in.  There's about a bajillion gemstones on it as well as the freehand pattern on the leg.

Warhammer+Minecraft

My incomplete Lustrian Temple

So I've been playing a ton of Minecraft lately.  I would love to try the multiplayer out, to build something huge with a dedicated group.  What I'd like to do is build cool Warhammer Fantasy/40k type things, and perhaps even hold pvp battles in them.

To that end I've been experimenting with running my own server, though I want to wait until 1.8 comes out so I can get the new biomes and such.

If I did start a multiplayer server with the purpose of working together to build something Warhammer related, would there be enough of an interest to do it?

I would intend to keep the server free to join but with donations optional (running a server isn't free).