Blaugust 2016 Day 8 - Guest Post - Author Nick Cole - Hey! You got your Game in my Idea!

I'm both excited and incredibly humbled to host a post from one of my favourite writers of the moment, Nick Cole, author of Soda Pop Soldier and CtrlAltRevolt who when asked to write a short piece on gaming and writing came up with the following opus. If you haven't already, go check out his work and thank me later. Take it away, Nick...

Hey!  You got your Game in my Idea!

Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.  We take ‘em for granted nowadays.  Like peanut butter and chocolate are some naturally occurring substance.  Imagine that farm!  But, back in the day, before all this, there was some genius who put those two together for the first time... and the world was forever changed.  Even early Reese’ Campaigns focused on the craziness of such a concept as combining peanut butter and chocolate... as though only some idiot savant or mad genius might dare violate the laws of time and space to get their flavor on.

Puttin’ stuff together...  Sometimes it’s crazy enough to work, and, other times it’s an awful disaster.

Nowhere is this more evident in the world of video gaming.  Some concepts work.  Some spiral downward and pancake in a glorious conflagration of internet rage and hot potato corporate blame.  Who would’ve ever thought a game like Minecraft would storm the entire world.  And like most games it’s merely a conglomeration of concepts that fit together nicely.  Blocky eight bit nostalgia, farm sim, and lego.  Go kill a whole bunch of hours in your head.  My personal belief, and Minecraft proves this, is that gamers don’t need a lot of story, or background world-building.  I think they’re telling their own stories and sometimes the game gets in the way with how they’d like you to enjoy their opus.  But I digress.

It’s always an opus, y’know.  That’s what every developer wants you to think.  Including whoever made that SuperMan the Game.  Y’know with the rings.

I’m a writer.  And a gamer.  Writers are really good at putting peanut butter and chocolate together.  Our Pope, Shakespeare, basically ran around gluing history and black sheep family drama together.  And the rest of us have been doing it ever since for the occasional paycheck.  For instance, he would take histories and then mix in a lot of standard intrigue and family relationships, just like any of today’s Star Wars movies and voila, he had a show to stage at the Old Globe.  The Globe was essentially the Sixteenth Centuries XBOX One.  Except everything was multiplayer.  As in everyone watched the same show and even, often participated via insults or vegetables.  In fact, shows were written with scenes intent on breaking the fourth wall.  Scenes expecting the audience to get caught up in the action.

Neat, huh?

Fast forward to Now...

While Big Budget movies and Agenda-driven TV circle the ratings drain, gaming is becoming the next big arena for people to not only get involved in, but even watch via Youtube and Twitch.  And game developers are looking for that peanut butter and chocolate combo that will set the world aflame and earn them a cool sixty million in take home.  Sometimes they’ll do movie tie-ins in hopes of catching the zeitgeist of some nostalgia (Sorry Ghostbusters the Game but you folded a studio) or they’ll try to re-invent the wheel with a brand new Call of Duty or World of Warcraft (Which seem to be the two most popular things in gaming to re-invent.  Not because they’re awesome games, but because the Producer and Studio that’s going to pony up the front dough want those epic levels of fabled return.  So they’re taking a “chance.”)

Putting stuff together in gaming is fun.  And profitable. If it works.  If you nail Peanut Butter and Chocolate.

Like I said I’m a writer and I write video game fiction. Stories set in a world where gaming is huge.  Or a big part of the story.  Not stories set in a video game brand like Halo or Warcraft.  But stories where the hero is a gamer playing a game to solve a mystery, win a bunch of stuff, and hopefully not get killed.

In my book Soda Pop Soldier, my hero, a guy who goes by the tag PerfectQuestion fights in a massive MMO that’s a cross between Call of Duty and Battlefield (My Peanut Butter and Chocolate is a game made up of both.  See... putting things together J.) for a weekly paycheck from a soft drink company.  But he needs some extra dough so he games in this thing called The Black.  It’s illegal and its basically World of Warcraft meets the seedier side of Vegas.

  

(AAAaand... I’m putting more things together)

Truth is the public is turning away from movies and their fantastic failures as of late.  They’re getting tired.  Whether it’s hacky re-treads of golden age nerdstalgia, or the fact that they, the audience only watch, something’s not working in the solely visual mediums.   Maybe they want to play?  Y’know, be a part of the story?  Get caught up in the action.  The gaming community is hot, huge and growing, and unlike Hollywood, which tries to shut down valid criticism by review sites so no dissent may be brooked regarding their latest re-invention of the same film they’ve shown you the past twenty years, gamers instead have always been passionately vocal about what they don’t like, and what they love.  And even though some people complain about that, well, that’s actually a strength for the industry.  Criticism weeds out the Suicide Squads and Ghostbusters of the video game world and challenges producers and developers to go deep and bring us the next big experience.  And we don’t like it stupid.  It’s got be smart. 

Games like No Man’s Sky are proof that game developers get this and they’re still trying to earn your buck with that WOW! Factor.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate can happen at any moment.  You just gotta try some weird stuff and see what works.  And if you do, throw your heart over the bar and make something you’d want to play.  I think that’s still possible in games.  I’m doing it in my writing.  I’m writing fiction about games I’d totally want to play.  In fact, next project’s looking like Twilight 2000 meets Civilization.  So... Game on.  See you in whatever that looks like.

Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books.

Soda Pop Soldier is Call of Duty meets Ready Player One in this fast-paced, action-packed novel from the author of The Wasteland Saga.  Gamer PerfectQuestion fights for ColaCorp in WarWorld, an online Modern Warfare combat sport arena where mega-corporations field entire armies in the battle for real world global advertising-space dominance. Within the immense virtual battlefield, players and bots are high-tech grunts, using drop-ships and state-of-the-art weaponry to wipe each other out.  But times are tough and the rent is due, and when players need extra dough, there's always the Black, an illegal open source tournament where the sick and twisted desires of the future are given free rein in the Wastehavens, a gothic dungeon  fantasy world.  All too soon, the real and virtual worlds collide when PerfectQuestion refuses to become the tool of a mad man intent on hacking the global economy for himself.

Get it here... or here in the UK

Review

"This smart combination of video-game action and stinging dystopian satire is meticulously assembled... [The narrator] manages to be a tough, snarky warrior battling his corrupt society's worst excesses. This is a cheeky and enjoyable effort by an author to watch." (Publishers Weekly (starred review))

Review

"Gamers and action adventure fans will find something to like here. I devoured this book over the course of one day. I might have finished earlier, but work got in the way." (SFRevu)

Review

"With Soda Pop Soldier, Nick Cole twists realities and bends minds for a wild ride of an action thriller. Inventive and lots of strange fun." (New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry)

Review

"Without a doubt this book is going to be a classic gamer required reading. It is a science-fiction and first-person gamer's nirvana. ...This book is a five out of five stars." (The Nameless Zine)

Review

"Pumping action, and fantastic futuristic battle is matched with a take on modern advertising that I can't help but love. I'm really impressed with how well Cole writes action, I did not want to put this down!"

-BoingBoing.com

Follow Nick Cole on Facebook over at https://www.facebook.com/nickcolebooks/?fref=ts

Or go to http://www.nickcolebooks.com/

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust 2016 Day 7 - Diablo 3 at last!

So I'm more than a little late to the party but I finally decided to try out Diablo 3. I played the demo to level 10 earlier in the year and now with the new Season 7 upon us, I'm told it's a good time to jump in. 

I'm still not entirely sure how it works. I have my permanent character that I played the demo with, a Barbarian but I gather for the seasonal part of the game you start from scratch, so I rolled a Demon Hunter, as it seems to be the kind of ranged class I like, and I'm playing through to see what happens. As if the time of writing this post, I just completed the Skeleton King, the point I'd reached with the demo on my other character, so from here on out it's all new content.

I enjoyed Diablo's 1 and 2 back in the day and I'm not entirely sure why I never jumped straight on this one, apart from being embroiled in one MMO or another, but right now I'm neither subbed or committed to any one game and with the combination of the new season and needing material to blog about for Blaugust, it seemed like a good moment. I've not yet obtained the Reaper of Souls expansion, and I'm not sure what impact that will have but if I have fun with it, I'm sure I'll pick that up as well.

So here's to much slaughter and looting!

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust Day 6 - Allotment 2016 progress

I've not posted a great deal about what I'm growing this year, but as I'm taking part in Blaugust over on my main blog at knifesedge.net, I include this post as part of that and cross post it as usual.

I had a health issue earlier in the year that put me off my feet for the first couple of months of the season, which put me right behind with the preparation so much of the land I intended to claim back and dig over is still covered in grass. As a result I've been giving notice from the management of the site that I need to get the fallow areas covered to prevent seeds spreading to other plots. Failing to do so will result in me losing the plot, which I definitely want to avoid, but finding time to get it all done has not been easy.

Today I managed to get a full four hours down there and have cut down and covered a large patch with thick membrane that will stop weeds coming through but let water in so I'm now about 3/4 through the job. The hardest part will be clearing the now overgrown compost bins (seen at the top of the photo) but I'll get there.

Today clearing my daughter's over grown flowerbed, which sported one lovely flower (not sure what this one was called) I found a family of baby frogs. I found one on the plot last year so to find a few of them is great. They'll take care of slugs that love to eat my vegetables!










I dug over a few potato patches and got a good amount of Anya potatoes (left), a lovely nutty salad potato and some larger Charlottes and Red potatoes.






The rest of the plot is coming along nicely, with a good crop of runner beans and Yard Long red beans (that I picked while young and tender). The first few courgettes have started showing up as well and my tomato and cucumbers are starting to fruit, despite starting late.

So overall a good day and a beautiful one with barely a cloud in the sky!

This post is part of Blaugust 2016, an initiative to Blog throughout August. For more information visit the Tales of the Aggronaut Blog

Blaugust 2016 Day 5 - Return to the Wasteland

Today I returned to Fallout 4. Having got more than a little burned out on release and never actually getting through the story, I decided it was time to revisit. 

I found my trusty Deliverer right where I left it so dipped right back in to the main story, that required a trip to the irradiated area far to the south. Then I realised why I'd quit, it was too hard. So I abandoned my stealthy gear, got into my lead lined Power Armour and stomped in, barely making it to the crazy Atom worshippers. Once I'd got that out of the way I came to realise not only was I very short on 10mm ammo for my trusty stealth weapon but the ammo crafting mod I used to use no longer functioned. 

Looking into how I could restore the function, I found an official add on had been released that allowed for ammo manufacture, so I snapped it up as it was on sale anyway, and set up my bench in the Castle. Once I'd managed to get everything together for the required power, switch and controller I started the processes of manufacture, only to find I'm drastically short of lead, a key component. Not knowing where best to hunt for lead other than pencils, I searched the map for a viable supply and spotted the Boston Library, as yet unvisited. Let's hope the amount of ammo I use clearing the place will be worth the return on pencil lead!

Blaugust 2016 Day 4 - My Little Hobbits gaming journey

Last year I posted about my then 4 year old daughter's first foray into "proper" gaming. At that time, she'd taken Guild Wars 2 to her heart and she played for a good while and loved it though needed some help from me. At the end of Blaugust last year I was fortunate to be one of the "winners" and won a pack for child friendly MMO, Wizard 101, which she also got into and still goes back to regularly.

Over the last year she has also found a love for Marvel Heroes 2016 and has founded her own collection of heroes, her favourites being Ms Marvel, Squirrel Girl and Black Widow.

Over the last few weeks though she has discovered the joy of the Playstation controller and discovered that she prefers playing on the TV with the PS3. I dug out one of my old fighting games, Virtua Combat, which she enjoys, being a yellow belt in TaeKwonDo herself and I grabbed her a cheap copy of Minecraft as she's into the pocket edition but this week we turned a corner. She discovered Skyrim.

She is in love the with it, the whole sandbox element really appeals, she loves crafting (she even figured for herself that wolf pelt = leather= new armour) and enjoys figuring out quests and where to go on the map. It's awesome watching her discover it all for herself and when mummy came home from a business trip she was sat down and had an hour long explanation of the game, her character and how everything works and what she's achieved.

Oh, and she discovered Singstar...

Blaugust Day 3 - Play by Post RPGs

It has now been a full three months since I reinvigorated my love for pen and paper RPGs relaunching my Play by mail games as Play by Post at Gamersplane.

I have two regular games running, the first using Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition rules and a scenario called Fear the Wurst, a classic from the now long-gone Hogshead Games who briefly published Warhammer and associated sourcebooks.

The adventure takes place in the village of Heideldorf during the annual Wurstfest. The group of bold adventurers consist of, Laurellia the young Wood Elf Bounty Hunter, Old Lady Try'lla the crazy Elven Soothsayer, Yuri Sykora, Kislevite entertainer with his trained pot-bellied pig Hamilton, Gustaf Bieswang the human physician, and Gottri Shalebreaker grumpy Dwarven Watchman.Employed by Heinz Schiffer, host of the festival, they are led a merry dance around the environs and uncover something about the festival they really didn't want to know.

The second game is set in the lastest (7th) edition of Call of Cthulhu test running a forthcoming adventure called A Time to Harvest set in the late 1920's. The group of investigators are all students at Miskatonic University, Jon Masterson Archaeology student, Angel Martin Literature student, Mathis Steele engineer student and survivalist, Father Simon Brubaker Catholic Priest studying Applied religion, Joseph Locke, also studying religion and Harry Wolfe a journalist student. Along with a few other students, the group are on a field expedition to the Town of Cobb's Corner, a hotbed of myths and legends and site of archaeological interest. The group discover that the previous years expedition ended in disaster with one student dead and two going missing. Now strange things are afoot including unusual beasts living around the farmhouse in which they stay.

Both adventures are running extremely well and after three months of almost daily posts, they are coming to a close.

I am also bringing my other long running Call of Cthulhu campaign over to Gamersplane, currently running the classic Shadows of Yog Sothoth.

All three of these games will soon have vacancies, so if anyone is interested in trying out play by post, drop me a line!

Blaugust Day 2 - What I'm playing now.

My PC gaming has been reduced lately thanks to other pursuits like teaching but I have found a little time each night to play something. I spent some time playing The Technomancer which I reviewed here and I've been trying out the Beta of  The Last Leviathon but feel it needs more polish before I review that. I've also been roaming about with Pokemon Go but that's an entire post in itself.

Aside from that, much of my gaming time of late has been in Neverwinter. It's one of those MMO's I keep going back to and unlike LOTRO which I get frustrated with very quickly, Neverwinter always sucks me back in for longer periods. There is so much content including user generated adventures that I never get bored and the seasonal events are always worth playing.



The recent Anniversary and Summer events have both given me worthwhile goodies in the form of new mounts and pets and I've rolled a whole new character, Storri the Dwarven Paladin, who's reached level 20 over several sessions.

I have a lovely War Boar for Storri, something I always wanted in LOTRO but could never have.

I've also found a lovely guild that feels very much a family, something I never found in Guild Wars 2, Archeage, Blade and Soul our Black Desert Online, my four most recent MMOs. I find that makes all the difference in wanting to log in.


I've taken to trying out group content, something I've rarely done in other MMOs as the grouping system is so simple and there is considerably less griefing from other players regarding your gear or general ability.

My daughter has discovered that she loves Skyrim and watching her has given me a taste to jump back into ESO, so I might just do that!