Media Blog 4: A Brilliant Freeware RPG

Exit Fate

Exit Fate is a small freeware game that I came upon about a year ago and absolutely loved.  It's made by one guy in the RPGMaker program, but I found it to be very enjoyable.  As far as the graphics go it can be compared to other 2D sprite based JRPGs from the older days of the '90s, although there are still a few of them around.  The music in the game is taken from other RPGs, and part of the fun is trying to recognize what game it was originally in. 

Combat is very simple.  It's all turn based, with the character with the most speed going first.  If you've ever played any game like this, it'll come right to you.  The game does a good job of telling you how to do things and what you need to know if it seems to be something that's not intuitive.

Here is a video of a combat scene from later in the game. 



Combat in the earlier portions move much faster, but if you're not patient, this game probably isn't for you.
There is a lot of dialogue between characters to read, and the gossip from the townsfolk which may give you hints or tell you something about the game.

It also features a tactical battle mode in various parts of the game where you control armies to defeat an enemy. These can be frustrating at times, but often give nice rewards for getting a perfect score. Characters also boost an army's capabilities so it's recommended to get as many as possible.

There are many characters to add to your party, in fact there is a total of 75 characters, each with their own dialog and story.  Many of them are minor and are obtained through some small side quest, some can be quite unexpected when they join, and others are obvious or given through the story.

The game is of course, free, and rather enjoyable if you like these sorts of games.  I would definitely recommend checking it out at http://site.scfworks.com/.  He also has another game available called Last Scenario, but I'll get into that another time.

Media Blog 3: Strike the Earth!

Dwarf Fortress is a game that I've enjoyed for a while now, but that many people find difficult to play.  It could be described as "The Sims on Steroids".  The gameplay is complicated and limitless, while the graphics are almost nonexistent.  Here is a picture of the graphics in their original state: 

The infamous BoatMurdered

There are many graphical mods though that will improve how the game looks, three of the more popular ones can be found in the Lazy Newb Pack.

Don't let the graphics fool you, Dwarf Fortress has a lot to offer.  The fun in the game comes from simply how much you can do and how intricate it is.

You start off with 7 dwarves which you can assign skills, and from there you must survive and build your fortress.  As the fortress becomes larger and more succesful you begin to attract migrants who wish to join your fortress.  Eventually you may even attract the king of your civilization who will then declare your fortress the new capital city.

There is no end to the game though, you can continue forever.  Even after a fortress has been destroyed you can form a new party of dwarves to reclaim the land.  The motto of the game is "Losing is fun", this comes from the very odd ways that fortresses have fallen.  The famous BoatMurdered suffered from rampant elephant attacks, other fortress fall from demons from the depths of the earth, and other fall from dwarven ingenuity when a mistake is made and the fortress ends up flooded with water, or magma. 

It can be hard to get started, but luckily there are many tutorials:



The maker of the above video, CaptnDuck has a full series of videos to explain everything that you need to get started, in addition there is also the Dwarf Fortress Wiki.  Once you get started you can find that the game is very fun to play.  It's the fun of The Sims but with more combat, alcohol, beards and digging.  Who wouldn't like that?  Plus it's free!

Midterm Refelections: All the way to Halfway Reflections

1.) After studying 21^st century media for eight weeks in this class, what have you learned? Please be specific.

 I've learned a lot of little interesting facts about the media and the history of media from the Media and Culture book, but I probably won't remember a lot of the dates and numbers.  What I will, will be how to analyze media, the techniques that are used to get us to agree with the producer/buy a product.

2.) What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself as a critical reader, a writer, and a thinker in this class so far?

I don't analyze into the meanings of things.  I've always just sort of taken things at face value.

3.) What’s one thing you would do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

 I would stay on top of the blog posts instead of leaving everything until the last minute.  I spend too much time enjoying media.

4.) What’s one thing you would like me to do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

 I'm not quite sure I get the point of the personal blogs.  The class blog is good though.

5.) Please comment on the usefulness of the power tools, our course blog, your personal blog, our in-class quizzes, our films, and our book(s) as learning tools.

 The Power tools and quizzes are excellent.  I like these, and the 6-box quizzes.  The two combined teach us to analyze media and to look at it in ways that previously we would not.  The courseblog and book notes are good.  It's an easy way to submit homework, and are good to keep track of what we have for homework.  The personal blogs I don't really like.  I've never liked blogs though, it seems like there are many of them on the internet that are just a few posts, or are people talking about their lives, rather than an informative topic.  I think blogging is like writing, you need to have an interesting topic, and an audience to write for, and a certain skill in writing, or talking in the case of a video blog is required.  The movies shown in class have been good so far.  Movies are always enjoyable and break up the monotony of the day.