Not much to write about at the moment, except a few things...

Hello!

I spend my life dreaming of playing and designing games. But my thoughts recently have been too erratic to put down in any cohesive way.

Recently I've been enjoying the delights of World of Tanks on xbox live. It's a thoroughly gripping and well designed game, which you can enjoy for free, but equally, if you want, can start pumping all your cash into the progress more quickly!

I feel the design of World of Tanks is very good though because I don't really feel any great need to pump money into it, at least, not for a good long time. It's only now that I've got some of the higher level tanks in my sights (to unlock) that investing a little money is starting to become more tempting. But I think this is a perfectly legit way to have designed the game. Forcing people to invest money to get any real depth out of a game from the get-go, when you've advertised it as free-to-play, is scandalous and becoming all too common - particularly in the mobile gaming market. Making an investing feel more and more appealing as people invest more and more time in the game feels a very sensible and honest approach.

Xbox live recently reduced Dante's Inferno to a few quid, so I invested. I've mentioned it in the distant past on this blog, but just to quickly go over it again, this is a God of War style hack'n'slash but set in the awesome setting of hell. As a single player experience, for a few quid, this game is an absolute must for those who like good story, engrossing game play, a stunningly evocative setting and harrowing sound track. Can't wait to give a little time to this one again.

I've not played Dark Souls since I downloaded World of Tanks. But it sits there, whispering in my ear, tempting me to dare crack it. To be honest I'm glad of the break from it. It'll make it that much more pleasurable when I decide to go back.

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In boardgaming news, my mates and I finished a whole campaign of Descent! Was a little bit of an anti-climax at the end, but we enjoyed it and look forward to playing again and even trying a different campaign. There are a few aspects to the game which were a turn off for me and I may discuss them in the future, but overall it was a very easy to get into, exciting and challenging game. I recommend it to anyone who likes dungeon crawling but doesn't have enough time for proper RPGing or one of the old skool dungeon crawlers.

This week I'm hoping to play with my the Talisman City expansion, along with everything else. And also try out Zpocalypse for the first time. I've also made a couple of updates to Wastelands which I really want to play test again. I want time to design games again... but priorities and deadlines... blah blah blah...