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SiegeBeast Playtest

I finally did more playtesting on Siegebeast with some friends. I’m finally ready to unveil mechanics and such!

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SiegeBeast is a strategy game that uses dice for units. The key mechanic of the game is using the dice sides to keep track of life totals for each unit. There is no dice rolling at all in the game, except for choosing who goes first, or who gets a color of dice/ specific faction if multiple people want them. I’ve checked all over, and I haven’t been able to find any other games that use dice as units like this, I’m pretty proud of it. (I could be wrong. If you know of any other game that does this, let me know!)
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My computer monitor is miraculously lacking in fist-related cracks

My computer monitor is rapidly breaking down.

It’s a huge iF281D something or other, and it overheats, badly. In warm weather, when I’m playing a graphics intensive game, or when I’ve just had it on for too long, the screen goes black briefly. Since my sound is running through the built-in speakers, that shuts off, too. Then, anywhere from half a second to thirty seconds later, it pops back on. Then, a few seconds later, off again. Back in the fall, it was a minor problem that only happened once or twice a week, and I could stop it with Ctrl+Alt+Del. (Dunno why, changing to the menu screen it brought up immediately stopped the process. I didn’t have to do anything else, I’d just get back to what I was doing.) Now, it’s a daily occurrence. I recently had to spend nearly four hours watching a movie, because I had to turn the monitor off to cool down every ten to fifteen minutes. (It was a hot day, to be fair.) Plus, the monitor turning off and on unexpectedly is really, really jarring to the eyes. They are not adapted to that. This is obviously extremely frustrating, but it is not without unexpected advantages.

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A Not-So-Brief Followup on the Hugo Controversy-Fest

Larry Correia posted his take on the events around the Sad Puppy list controversy. It’s pretty long, but it covers his views on most of what happens, and he brings up some stuff in his defense, some of which is pretty good.

The Vox Day/Theodore Beale issue only gets a little space (which, considering the sheer length of the post, is actually a good bit), but Correia seems to claim that much of Day’s racism is exaggerated. I very strongly beg to differ. (The linked post contains screenshots of the specific blog post that was the main driving factor behind his expulsion from the SFWA, it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING RACIST.) For some context, there, the author Beale attacked on his blog, N.K. Jemisin, is black, so the stuff Beale’s saying about her is really goddamned racist, if you couldn’t tell already.)

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Great Hugo Readthrough: 1954 Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

First off: I’m changing the name to the Great Hugo Readthrough. While it is inspired by Tor.com’s amazing series rereads, it’s different enough that I feel I should call it something else.


First Time/ Reread: Reread
Acquired: Already owned.

Other Nominees:
Arthur C. Clarke: Childhood’s End
Hal Clement: Mission of Gravity
Isaac Asimov: Caves of Steel
Theodore Sturgeon: More than Human
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