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Once In A Blue Moon

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  1. Once In A Blue Moon

    Living up to my name.

    1. Once In A Blue Moon

      Once In A Blue Moon

      Funnily enough, I learnt the expression long before I learned of the phenomenon. 

    2. Once In A Blue Moon

      Once In A Blue Moon

      Oops, forgot about the forums for a bit again. Yes, I do have a Discord.

    3. Once In A Blue Moon

      Once In A Blue Moon

      Sure, I suppose.

  2. Once In A Blue Moon

    I keep watching those Game of Thrones Official Licenced Mobile Game adverts, despite them being awful adverts for an awful game, because I am just fascinated by how diabolical they are.

  3. Once In A Blue Moon
    When I was younger I had issues with my teeth*, which had to come out. For various reasons reasons I had to go to a specialist hospital to have them out, but we arrived early and the hospital hadn't opened yet. It was freezing outside, but it turned out the eye hospital was open, so we sheltered in the eye hospital until the dental hospital had opened. And then I talked about Weetabix with the nurse (who was a total wimp and couldn't even eat two, when I could go up to four some days), and being told (as I was being anaesthetised) to count to ten, and while I know I didn't get to ten I can't remember what number I did get to. Then I got my teeth to take home... and they might still be about somewhere. So that's my tale of 'surgery' (well, having my teeth out under anaesthetic) that is tangentially related to eyes. *milk teeth, thankfully
  4. Once In A Blue Moon
    I'll concede that point. Still, I can dream.
  5. Once In A Blue Moon
    I agree it's not the only way, but I think that as a show with a strong community and such a big focus on friendship, it has an opportunity to leverage that to make a game that is mechanically and thematically focused on 'Friendship is Magic' in a way that a stand-alone title doesn't. It would probably fail, but if it succeeded then it would become a remarkable game in its own right (and if you want to avoid the drab, unimaginative licenced games that are so common among film or show tie-ins then you should be looking to push boundaries. Not that that's easy with the tight deadlines tie-ins usually have.) And if they made a singleplayer game where there were excellent interpersonal relationships and a good story with strong writing then that would be excellent too; if some of the superb fan-fiction I've read is anything to go by then there is a great deal of potential in developing the world, so I don't disagree that there is substantial potential there (not to mention that a lot of people, myself included, aren't big fans of online games.) On a slight tangent, I think that this Extra Credits video on non-combat gaming is of relevance - might I recommend it; it presents some ideas about game design that I think would be pertinent to an MLP game.
  6. Once In A Blue Moon
    I think this faces the same challenges as the various efforts I've seen at MLP-based tabletop roleplaying games; one of the main focuses (and indeed, strengths) of the show is the strong inter-personal relationships in various situations (friendship is magic, after all) and that's difficult to do"". To that end, I think that a cooperation-focused online game* would best match the themes of the show - if it made determined efforts to build small inter-player social groups that worked together to solve problems then that would be both fun to play, and if done successfully^ would be a notable step forward in game development. Still, if making a huge leap forwards in online game design is seen as a bit too ambitious then will do nicely. "" for tabletop RPGs, I see a lot of re-skins of existing, combat-focused RPGs such as D&D. Those are fun (indeed, I have run a D&D 5th edition Ponyfinder campaign) but I don't think the mechanics really match the social focus that a 'true' MLP game would have *I don't think an MMO would be a good idea - too high a cost given the limited appeal ^and that is a rather big 'if' - there aren't many games that do co-op really well
  7. Once In A Blue Moon
    Now that's one to take out of context. But I digress. There might be some Tree Hugger quotes that might relate to astrology? I can't think of any off-hand, but at risk of stereotyping I think she would be into astrology. You know, even though I've run a done world building for, and run, a few fantasy RPGs, I never actually had the idea of using astrology as a 'genuine magic'. I'll have to file that idea away somewhere for next time.
  8. Once In A Blue Moon
    I played AC2:Brotherhood on my brother's console, which was fairly good fun, and I put a good 20+ hours into AC2 (in that order and with a fair gap between them) on the PC, which was good but felt incredibly padded. I remember one fight with a major antagonist where all of your allies turned up, and I thought Right, we're really going somewhere now, this should be interesting! Only for the fight to finish and to be sent to *another* city to sneak and stab in exactly the same way I already had. I will say that the historical aspects to both those games was quite interesting, and I remember someone's parents remarking that their child played the game and spent most of a trip to Florence pointing out monuments they had stabbed people from, areas of castles where there was a secret passage, etc., as well as showing impressive knowledge of the people of the day.
  9. Once In A Blue Moon
    I vaguely recall not getting into The Fifth Elephant as much as other Pratchett books, though I couldn't say why either. At the moment I'm switching between the rather heavy 'Napoleon the Great' that, while rather interesting (and relevant, given that I'm rather enjoying Europa Universalis IV at the moment), can be a bit much for bedtime reading; and Freeport Venture: Old Wounds in which I will admit to enjoying the familial conflict a bit too much. Chengar Qordath is one of my favourite authors, pony-writing or otherwise, and the interpersonal relationships throughout their stories are very well done - as in Fallout Equestria, I am repeatedly amused by the realisation that the most appealing part of my favourite MLP stories is in fact the very human aspects of their characters.
  10. Once In A Blue Moon
    I really don't tend to get angry and I really don't like conflict or confrontations; I almost always back down from a serious* confrontation^ and I've never (yet) resorted to violence. I guess that makes me 'a bit of a pushover', but I'm fine with that. *as in beyond 'I disagree with you' discussion and into a 'I'm right and you should back down' situation - then I usually will. ^verbal or physical
  11. Once In A Blue Moon
    In the original 'Read it and weep', my understanding was that Daring Do looked so much like Dash to emphasise that Dash identified with Daring, which was how Dash got into the story and learnt that reading wasn't just for egg-heads. If Quibble also looks like Daring, then that might be a visual cue that he also identified with Daring, albeit for slightly different reasons (hence his dislike of later books.) In effect it's the reverse direction of the in-show best guess which is that he dyed his hair to look like Daring because he identified with her.
  12. Once In A Blue Moon
    I agree - building a strong team that works well together fits with the whole theme of the show (and I suppose one could play around with combat mechanics to try and depict 'social combat', were one so inclined.) I don't know if a mod 'counts' in this context, but I do play a fair bit of...
  13. Once In A Blue Moon
    I think Battle Brothers would fit well, thematically speaking: Claymores and blue face paint would fit right in. Not so kilts because no-one exists below the chest, apparently. Looking through my games library, the idea of a Tropico game in which you are the dictator of, say, the Shetland Islands, would be hysterical. Oh, and I suppose on this topic, honourable mention should go to the game that didn't have Scotland in it, but definitely should have:
  14. Once In A Blue Moon
    Fried eggs go well with quite a lot of things; I found that they add quite a bit to an otherwise bland meal of rice and baked beans - throwing in a fried egg or two, along with a chopped pepper, really adds to the flavour and changes up the texture a bit.
  15. Once In A Blue Moon
    I suppose that's the entertainingly illogical result of following a logical process (character-wise ordering.) I suspect that it's a lot easier to do when you have a string of unknown length that could be composed of letters, integers or both. As to how you would solve that for n files (for n arbitrarily large), so long as you knew how many files you had you could put in an ordering block at the start of the name that would force it to go in the correct order (so generate the blocks in such a way that they will be ordered correctly - e.g. 0000, 0001, 0002... 9997, 9998, 9999 should be ordered sequentially, I think, for n < 10,000) It's discussed more here - apparently it's called 'lexicographic ordering', and I agree with one of the posters there that it's highly predictable (nothing worse than not being quite sure what an ordering function will do when you're trying to spit out a list in a specific order.)
  16. Once In A Blue Moon
    It's rare enough that I find any currency these days, never mind its age. I have a pile of small change, and a quick inspection turned up '2 NEW PENCE' and '1 NEW PENNY' coins from 1971, which was when the UK switched to decimal currency and so is about as old as I could expect to find. I think most banks will usually still accept them (I think they're accepting the old £1 for the foreseeable future.) Also (and I'm being really pedantic here) it wouldn't be a 'tax free windfall' for the government as the effect of removing money from circulation would be deflation (which would increase the value of the valid currency - so it's effectively distributed between savers, which the government isn't.)
  17. Once In A Blue Moon
    I have some experience of running the D&D5E rules included in the Ponyfinder rulebook, although not the Pathfinder rules.
  18. Once In A Blue Moon
    Yes, but only semi-skimmed pasturised milk (and in quite substantial quantities.) Anything else tastes wrong; full fat is too creamy, skimmed is too watery, UHT has a weird aftertaste and the less said about flavourings or powdered milk the better.
  19. Once In A Blue Moon
    I enjoyed school and university, but I have found working life to be far easier. I've found work nowhere near as challenging as learning, and once I moved out of the admin jobs it lost the main downside of being dull - and even then, when I took an interest in the work (which I tend to do naturally) and tried to 'do it smarter' rather than working harder I found it engaging. Not to mention that I get loads more pocket money now...
  20. Once In A Blue Moon
    I remember the final mission of Stronghold was a nightmare. You had to assault a superior force holding a mountainside castle, with several choke points that were full of hidden pitch ditches* and spike pits that negated my usual siege strategy of going around the tough sections of the defences. In the end I used a money cheat to buy more siege weapons and crawl my way up the mountainside with the use of excessive firepower. I also remember some really hard missions in Codename Panzers Phase One and Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps - indeed, most games where you have to play as the Allies and fight through a greater number of superior German tanks (the worst was a DR vs. AK where you had to take a German airbase before the aircraft could take off. Even though it let you steal tiger tanks you had to get through a wall of Flak 88s - all on a time limit. I seem to recall that you had persistent [or persistent elements? I can't recall] tanks too, so losing a high-end tank hurt.) *despite the fact that there was a whole mission about keeping the secret of burning pitch out of your enemies hands. That one was rather fun too - you had to defend a monastery in a marsh... I set a lot of spearmen on fire that day.
  21. Once In A Blue Moon
    I've always preferred 'pegasus ponies' as the plural for that reason.
  22. Once In A Blue Moon
    The Lunar Rebellion, by Chengar Qordath. They also wrote A Moment in the Sun, which was very good and leads into The Freeport Venture, and Rise of a Phoenix Empress which is excellent and leads into Tales from the Phoenix Empire. A Moment in the Sun and The Freeport Venture have audiobook readings. Ponibus also writes some stories in the same universe (Midnight's Shadow leads on from The Lunar Rebellion, and is what I would recommend reading after it.) Fallout Equestria by Kkat is also excellent, and has an audiobook reading. On the comedic side, Whom the Princess would Destroy... is quirky but entertaining. Those are all the ones that immediately spring to mind (i.e. that I've read recently), but I do remember listening to the Oh Babble Scribbler! podcast, where they regularly talk about and review various MLP fan fictions (usually referencing plenty of others while they're at it.)
  23. Once In A Blue Moon
    Depends which 'last day' you're referring to. I remember that the last exam I was in for was a STEP exam that I was taking just for the sake of taking it (as it wasn't needed for the universities I wanted to go to, but I would always have been curious if I hadn't tried it.) There was also a physics party, which I'm glad I went to - we had cake, the teacher nearly stabbed me by accident by holding a knife while making an exuberant hand gesture and I asked a couple of questions about subatomic physics that had been bothering me*. I remember climbing into the car afterwards and saying something to the effect of "Well, that's that." The other 'last day' would be results day, when I drove in to pick up my results. I'd already had an e-mail from my university at around 7am confirming that I was in, so without that suspense it was a really great day; talking with other people about what they were going to do, where they were going to go and what they would be studying gave a huge sense of anticipation and optimism (one that I've tried to hold close ever since.) Getting drunk and setting notes on fire are also supposed to be traditional activities, but not ones I'd encourage. *yes, I was that sort of student.
  24. Once In A Blue Moon

    I was watching Stellaris trailers to try and find a bit of inspiration for a sci-fi RPG I'm running. They're all quite well done, and good material, and perhaps the best moment was a YouTube pop-up in the top right hand corner reading "Would you like to know more?" Credit to the person who did that.


    For those that don't get the reference, it relates to the news / information broadcasts from the film Starship Troopers (just search for 'Would you like to know more?' on YouTube. Be advised that some of the information broadcasts are quite gory.)

  25. Once In A Blue Moon
    Oh, yes, sorry - I was referring to the Nightmare Moon one. I will speak up for animation and sound design here; this video shows how Hearthstone gives feedback from more damaging attacks. The only other design that sprang to mind were the designs Metroid and Metroid Prime used (skip through videos to see the health change.) The health counter / bar is always 100 health, but a new one is added and represented by pips along the top or side; when a health bar empties a pip empties and the bars refill. In that context it was quite intuitive as you picked up health in energy tanks that would add an entire new energy bar; if you want to add 3 or 4 health per level then that won't be as intuitive. The 25 + f(n) length (f a function on the level n) looks quite good to me, although I think that (potentially quite discrete) markers for 25%, 50% and 75% would be consistent, even if the thresholds changed (especially so if they were tied into wound states.)
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