Robot Game Squad

[robotgamesquad]

Don’t Play These Games With Friends

Some free advice that I urge you to take to heart.

And with that Season One of Robot Game Squad comes to a close. It’s been very fun and fulfilling but like a British TV show I’ll be back when I have more stories to tell. Thanks for coming along for the ride and I hope to be back at it soon.

[robotgamesquad]

Cookie Clicker

When I started playing Cookie Clicker I was making 0.1 cookies per second. I'm now making 41,886,981,021.6. Yes that 41 BILLION cookies per second. It's actually an interesting game to give to kids to get them to understand large numbers better. But the Grandmas are kind of creepy.

[robotgamesquad]

The Should Have Sent a Poet

Yes the HD reissue of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is one of the most beautiful games I have ever seen. But for a true fan of the game as Casandra is, it's on a whole other level. Thanks to Casandra for her guest drawing of Wind Waker Link.

[robotgamesquad]

Attack on our Psyche

And actually it got way WAY worse. No spoilers but Attack on Titan is one of the most emotionally brutal shows I've ever seen. Casandra and I spent the summer going through the first season. But we have two to go and we haven't brought ourselves to the point where we can watch them. Could anything more bad happen to these people? But yeah - it's a great show!

[robotgamesquad]

Politics

I’ve still never played Die Macher but a friend at work has it and I’d love to get a game in. But I think it would not go over well with the 10-year-old.

[robotgamesquad]

Politics

I've still never played Die Macher but a friend at work has it and I'd love to get a game in. But I think it would not go over well with the 10-year-old.

[robotgamesquad]

Tales from the Dining Room Table: Shadows over Camelot

We got a chance to play Shadows over Camelot recently and it had been way to long. We're certainly now in a golden age of cooperative board games but back in the mid-2000's there was not a whole lot to choose from. Much of the fun of Shadows comes from the players being able to work on different quests. Some of them are solo quests but others can have all the players join. Here's where the communication comes in. Sure you could just play with your cards on the table but then it's just sort of a puzzle. We have a good time skirting around describing our hands in a fun way. My family does not play with the Traitor rule but if your group is into it that adds a whole other dimension to the game. It was fun to get it on the table and I'm looking forward to our next game.

[robotgamesquad]

Her And Reggie Fils-Aime

Our family has suffered a terrible loss as my Father-in-Law Larry Best passed away last week. This comic is dedicated to him and all the love and laughter he brought to our lives.

[robotgamesquad]

Tanks PAX

Unfortunately this is a true story. Ugh.

My daughter and I had such a good time at PAX Prime 12 that my wife and son wanted to come along this year. My wife was into the scavenger hunt for free t-shirts and other swag in the huge exhibiter hall - but sometimes they made you play games to get the swag. World of Tanks looked really cool for the 30 seconds I was alive.

One of the other great things about PAX is the steady stream of Street Passes you get on your 3DS. Shari camped out on the beanbag chairs by the Nintendo 3DS demo area and just soaked in the Street Passes from other 3DS owners passing through. By the time the expo ended she had finished every Street Pass puzzle.

[robotgamesquad]

Tales from the Dining Room Table: Planeswalker

The Planeswalker rules still throw me from time to time. Yes I'm just a casual Magic the Gathering player now. There was a time where I entertained "going pro" but that was a while ago. Now I enjoy playing with my kids and their friends mostly. I taught the game to Casandra when she was fairly young, weaning her off of Pokemon. We're now in the same pattern with my son.

It is an incredible game partly due to the number of different ways you can play it. If I never bought another card I could still play the game for the rest of my life. But, of course, I still buy new cards since one of the great thrills of the game is seeing new cards and thinking through how they fit in with the rest of the game.

[robotgamesquad]

I'm so happy it's almost hockey season again. One of my favorite developments of the last two years is Cory and I getting into the San Jose Sharks together. Cory know all the players and his favorite thing to do is remind me that I criticized a player right after that guy scores a goal. The Internet hockey package makes it really easy to watch and listen to the games since we are up in Seattle so there are no broadcast blackouts for us. I hope this is their year to get the Stanley Cup.

Being a board game and math nerd Strat-O-Matic Hockey is right in my wheelhouse. I've played Strat baseball for a while but just started with Hockey last year. To get through the offseason I set up a mini 12-team league with just a home and home schedule and I'm making the decisions for the Sharks. And they CAN'T SCORE! They have the worst shooting percentage in the league even though they have great players. The real Sharks went through periods like this as well. And just like I tell my son when he's playing hockey or soccer - Just Keep Shooting.

[robotgamesquad]

I just put up a record score on WindRunner and my daughter is not to happy about it. She sketched my comic robot at dinner.

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There were a ton of shiny moments in the PAX Prime Strip Search reunion panel. It’s on their Twitch.TV broadcast and it is good to the last drop, check it out.

[amytfalcone]

Lookit me and my babby Erika.

[robotgamesquad]

PAX Prime and Strip Search

I spend Sunday and Monday at PAX Prime in Seattle. It was my second PAX and this one was very special because of the Strip Search artists being there. As I said in my first comic post I would not have started this comic without the Strip Search web reality show and the awesome artists that participated. This year's PAX Prime had a full cast reunion with a awesome panel. Then a lot of my day Monday was spent along artist row where the strip searchers were set up doing sketches and selling merchandise. There was a fairly big crowd and I wanted to meet as many as I could so I decided to try to get them to sign my first comic. Since I do all my work on my Surface I brought it to get them to sign right in Manga Studio. Here it is:

Thanks to the artists: * Abby Howard @AbbyHoward * Alex Hobbs @AlexHobbs_WK * Amy Falcone @AmyTFalcone * Erika Moen @ErikaMoen * Katie Rice @katiejrice * Lexxy Douglass @Lexxercise (Lexxy is the only signature I missed - she had really long lines!) * Mackenzie Schubert @macschubert * Maki Naro @sciencecomic * Monica Ray @montiray * Nick Trujillo @MyntyFresh * Tavis Maiden @tavismaiden * Ty Halley @tyhalley

The Hosts and Editors: * Graham Stark @Graham_LRR * Kathleen De Vere @Kathleen_LRR

And Tycho!

While I was waiting in line Jerry Holkins stopped by the artists area to meet with attendees and I got his signature as well.

As I said the lines were long so I only asked for one sketch. Here is Abby's drawing of my daughter's robot from Robot Game Squad:

Thanks Abby and thanks to everyone involved in Strip Search.

[robotgamesquad]

I'm so early on with my drawing that just about every comic idea I have presents a new challenge. When I finished the script for today's comic I knew the main challenge would be drawing a really ugly looking spider. I think I pulled it off! I was so excited for how it turned out that I made the mistake of asking my wife for feedback at the end of a very long day. She really freaked out. So - that was bad…but I knew the spider was pretty good.

After every PAX Tycho writes something to the effect that it will take him a week to actually think through everything that he experienced. Now I know a bit of what that feels like. I had an amazing time headlined by the time I got to spend with the Strip Search artists. I'll be posting about it over the next few days.

[robotgamesquad]

My son has been playing Little League baseball since he was 4 and I've been coaching the whole way. Baseball is my first sports love and I'm glad that Cory likes it enough to play. But in the last few years Hockey has come on the scene for us. I'd been missing it from my childhood and it's harder to be interested in Seattle since we don't have an NHL team. But I'm a San Jose Sharks fan and a couple years back I started to really follow them. This past year Cory joined me and we watched at least some of just about every game - Internet packages are great when you don't live in the team's city so there are no blackouts. I was really surprised at how into it Cory got. He knew all the players and after I claimed not to be happy with a player he was quick to show I was wrong when that guy did something good.

All this is leading to the Roller Hockey league. Bainbridge Island has a really excellent roller hockey program that everyone who I've talked to has raved about. Cory was interested in trying it but I was worried about the three-week overlap with baseball. He eventually worked on me enough to let him give it a try. I was actually happy to have a sport that I could just watch and enjoy and not have to worry about coaching duties. Well, everyone was right, it's an amazing program. All the fans sit together and are supportive of both teams and it's really fun to watch. Cory's skating and overall game improved dramatically during the year. There were two high points. His Hat Trick game where his pals went out of they way to set Cory up and he delivered on three goals. And, of course, the Championship Game depicted in today's strip. Cory really was quite nervous about being goalie in the playoffs but he had some very good defense to help and the team got ahead in both games. It was a great team effort for the year and I’m really happy for their championship. I already can't wait until next year.

[robotgamesquad]

Honor Harrington - HMS Fearless

I just hooked another friend on the Honor Harrington series. I don't feel bad about it at all. It's one of my favorite Science Fiction series with an awesome main character and cool hard SF tech. Here is my first shot at some Honor Harrington fan art.

I've always said that I'd love to see the Honor books done as an HBO style TV series but one of the issues is what the ships look like. They’re a bit weird, but that’s necessary as part of the tech world building. The blurred areas are my attempt to show what the powerful gravity bands of the ships wedge would look like.