Mid-July 2015 Update!

I haven't done an update so since I'm feeling kinda down recently, I'll do one right now in the middle of July.

Games are really awesome right. They take you out of the real world and let's you enjoy the virtual...yada yada, you know what they say about entertainment. Well, Heavensward just dropped around a month ago and I have been spending most of my free time playing it. As far as the overall feel goes, I think it has delivered at least to its expectations if not better. There is so damn much to do! Hopefully once I start clearing them, I'll have more time to go back to doing other things.

Aside from that, Hearthstone's not so bad. I managed to hit rank 7 before the end of the month despite not playing as much. I tried a variety of cheap decks this time like Face Hunter, Hybrid Hunter, Midrange Hunter, Aggro Tempo Mage and Patron Warrior. Face got me all the way to rank 13 or 14 I believe before running into Handlocks that run double healbots. Midrange/Hybrid hunter then got me up to 10 and Patron Warrior all the way to 7. It's really interesting to see how the meta shifts over time and over ranks.

Meanwhile, my Persona Q is slowly...making some progress...lol

Now for more depressing news...mostly about the games industry because I care for it.

First, Iwata-san's passing. He's arguably the most engaging CEO in the games industry and possibly an inspiration of many aspiring game developers. It is truly a sad moment for Nintendo, for its fans and above all, for the games industry. Hopefully Nintendo recovers from it and continue creating great games. They just stepped into the social market, which is a big step but in the right direction imo.

That aside, a friend of mine discussed with me about starting his own indie game company. The last time I went to Casual Connect, it seemed that indie game companies are floating in SEA but now I know that Singapore is behind, if not sinking. Every indie game company I know are barely making ends meet. Some will probably be gone in a couple of years time unless they manage to land a crazy good title. Kinda depressing.

Starting an indie games company in Singapore sure is difficult. Basically what I heard is that you will get no funding until a playable version. 'Playable' is, of course, subjective but by normal means it takes like minimally 3 full months to create a 'Playable' version of a really small scale polished game. Money will then kick in through funding to keep everyone afloat to hopefully make their next game. Hopefully one day, one of your games will make it big and your company can grow.

Sounds nice in theory, except that there is no real incentive for people to stay in the company, I feel, other than your promises of a brighter future. As far as software development goes, there are so many higher paying jobs which practice better software development techniques compared to games so if you are your own boss running an indie company, you have to realize the 'competition'. I already have a couple of friends who are burnt out from a couple of years of games development despite studying to be a games developer for nearly a decade.

And this is just skimming the surface of the many problems that can occur.

Well, I'm not exactly rich, passionate or business-minded enough to start my own company. Just thinking of starting up an indie games company makes me jaded and tired.

Aside from that, Konami has done some questionable stuff a month ago from, I think, anyone's perspective. With Kojima Productions disbanded and the new Silent Hill cancelled, we can guess that internally, it's not very healthy. I do not have doubts that Konami will still be fine, but it seems like a mess in there so it will probably be some time before we hear any news I guess.

On the bright side, this weekend I have a LiSA concert and upcoming would be a Eir Aoi concert follow by maybe a Japan trip with hopefully another concert (Animax?), and following that would be AFA!

The best part of my 2015 is yet to come!

お楽しみ~！

April 2015 update!

It's April and a month more to my birthday! 

So me and a group of friends did a 3-day Tioman retreat. For those who don't know, Tioman is a nice island off the coast of Malaysia. It's nice to experience life with almost no internet for 3-days. Some of my friends went for a full snorkeling, but I was more in a slack-ish mode and really only wanted to eat Ramly burgers, drink beer and sleep ^^;;

We did fishing though! We had pics of it too, but my friend hadn't uploaded it yet. It's pretty nice to see like...really blue seas and skies. I'll probably drop pics here when it's up...which is probably...gonna be awhile.

Also had a glorious BBQ at the beach in the night. I was mildly intoxicated enough to ask my friends (and Heber aka Johnny Tseng) to help me create this glorious picture for our FF14 Free Company!

All in all, the trip's pretty great! Took my mind off stuff in general. But damn the mosquitos at night are brutal -_-;;

Aside from that, I'm can't really say much about work stuff here, but things have been quite hectic. Lots of things are happening internally which I can't really say much about but from the company's general point of view, it's progress. I'm still trying to fit into my new role, and still trying to figure out the future. 

Because things are...happening, it emphasizes that I should not stay past midnight anymore. Which means that I need to somehow make myself tired and knockout at night, since for some reason, my brain gets active after midnight.

Other than that, I'm just going to share some stuff I thought about at the end of the month. Fighting games are pretty much done and over with to me. I haven't been training anything in fighting games for close to 2 months, and it looks like it's going to stay this way. This is mostly due to lack of time, and other dedications like side projects, FF and the desire to actually play more games. Street Fighter 5 don't really interest me all that much either. Mike Ross is right. You don't 'quit' fighting games. You just fade away from it. 

But I just started going back to Hearthstone! Like...finally. This is thanks to it being ported to Android phones. Been trying to see and watch what the meta is. Hearthstone is really a tilting as hell game but meeeeh there are some really cool stuff you can do in the game which I find pretty fun like Reincarnating Kel'Thuzard and stuff.

The year ahead is pretty exciting for me though! LiSA concert at July, Eir Aoi concert at October, I might fly to America at the end of the year and maybe even take the chance to drop by Japan on the way back!

Oh yes, the new Nagato Yuki anime has been airing for some time too...I hope Japan isn't flooded with merchandises by then -_-;;

Melancholic Happiness? (+カレーの歌)

I'm feeling kind of melancholic recently. And also in a mood of writing. Problem is, I have no idea what to be melancholic about.

SO.

Instead of being melancholic, and make myself suffer about thinking about a melancholic topic that I might potentially cringe at writing (I dunno, maybe like ending up giving life advice or wallowing in 'could've should've would've' crap ), I shall post one of my favorite happy songs that dispels all melancholy:



歌詞：（＾o＾）ノ

すべては愛のターメリック　ハラハラハラペーニョ
泣かれちゃやだもん　シナモン　カリダモン
無理か　パプリカ　コリゴリコリアンダー

錯乱してサフラン　ちょこっとチョコレート
いまさらガラムマサラ
でも明日があるもん　シナモン　カルダモン

美味しいカレーの

すべては愛のターメリック　ハラハラハラペーニョ
泣かれちゃやだもん　シナモン　カリダモン
無理か　パプリカ　コリゴリコリアンダー

錯乱してサフラン　ちょこっとチョコレート
いまさらガラムマサラ
チョコはうまいぞー
でも明日があるもん　シナモン　カルダモン

美味しいカレーの　出来上がり

And this version is epic!


Wow, it's been awhile (like forever) since I posted ANYTHING related to anime. Well, it's hard to blog about animes because firstly, I selectively choose animes I like and drop animes I don't, which eliminates all possibility of angry rants. Secondly, the animes I generally like are slice of life 90% of the time, which means 90% of the time, I can't create a proper constructive discussion on anime since plot is non-existent and events are character driven, in which it would be much better if you would just watch it.

The 10% that remains are really special animes that are not slice-of-life which I MIGHT consider discussing, perhaps sometime in the future. There aren't many of them, but a rough list goes like: Eureka 7, Bounen no Xamdou, Ano Hana and the recent Kill la Kill. Hmm, interesting proposition ですね！今度やってみましょうか？

I'm still alive!

Hi guys, just letting everyone who somehow visits this blog know that I am still alive. My 4th semester have started and so far it's been looking great as my maths-heavy modules are disappearing from my schedule, replaced by design and other non-core art modules. Allow me to ramble a bit...the workload feels just as much, but now we seem to be tackling more abstract problems. It is fun, yet difficult, but refreshing.

I'm trying my very best keeping this blog alive. I learned a buttload of things just by looking at my old reviews and rants and I am glad I am still getting page hits for some of them. However, time really have not been on my side and there are far more things to do and explore. I have definitely been playing less and less games recently, but Fall is coming and there will be tons of upcoming games I am eager to play.
I have tons of things to share, from random half-done articles in my iTouch, to things I learned in school that can help small time game developers start up their basic games (non-disclosure stuff aside, of course). There are still games I actively play like WoW TCG, but I have no idea what to type about it on a blogger level other than card reviews. At most I can give deck compositions, cards which are key in my friend's decks and the like. Unforunately, WoW (and Magic), works on blocks so whatever review I do will be outdated in a matter of months. I'll see how it goes.
Aside from that, DND is occasionally poking me now and then. I'm in the midst of typing out a newbie guide because I realize, to a great extent, how new players constantly not see and focus on what's REALLY important in a party and also in building their character. It is hard and tedious to actually pen down and try to explain to them how to plan their characters and how it would suit their party, but I'll try regardless.
Overall, I think it's gonna be a great semester for me =)
That doesn't mean I'm any more free than I was >_<

Failed exam answers (from Sankaku)

I was surfing Sankaku Complex and came across this.

I'll post it here so because it's too epic to disappear off the face of the internet..

All the credits to Sankaku Complex.























I'm racist, so I'm just gonna say: I like the Malaria bit.

3D floor art

Holy shit. Just imagine how hard it is to do this. You must be damn good at perspective for this.