There’s a new eSport in town

December 3, 2017December 4, 2017 | geekycatuk

No I’m not talking about Rocket League, the game I mean is LockBall.

What’s that? You haven’t heard of LockBall?

Neither had I until I started playing World’s Dawn.

I’ve played Stardew Valley, in fact I brought it while it was in early access. I thoroughly enjoyed the slower paced leisurely, “do whatever you want” style so when I was browsing steam the other day and came across World’s Dawn I thought “yeah why not?”.

It is essentially a Stardew Valley clone. You can farm crops to sell, make friends, fall in love and play the epic game known as LockBall.

In town there is a LockBall pitch where you can practice against the villagers.

The controls are quite simple, the arrow keys move you around and the space bar shoots and “locks down” the goal preventing your opponent scoring. I’ll admit I still have no idea how to lock down the goal. I’ve tried tapping space bar, holding space bar, shouting at the ball, everything.

Anyway, when I first played someone I lost spectacularly. I found the arrow keys on my laptop a bit to small to get the movements right. So with my defeat I thought that’s a stupid game I wont play that again. But then a few days later (in real time) I was informed by the villagers that there’s a LockBall tournament/festival on so thinking I could regain my pride I entered. The first two rounds against the villagers weren’t that bad and I surprised myself and got through to the final.

That’s where it all goes wrong as in the final you play against Paxel, who is some sort of LockBall God.

You would expect him to be harder but his AI really is a step up from the previous rounds, so much so I couldn’t beat him.

Never mind second isn’t too bad.

Then the game goes and does something that is unheard of, it offers you a rematch!

6 games later I still cant beat him and the closest I’ve got is 5-2. Determined to win whatever amazing prize I’ve been promised by Bloom who runs the tournament I ask Chris if he wants a try.

It takes him a few tries, most of which involve swearing, shouting and laughing but Chris finally defeats him and I happily accept the new clothes and 300 coins as a reward.

It turns out, that if I had actually played the villagers when they appear you get better stats at LockBall, but even so, after doing some googling I am not the only one to have trouble facing Paxel. Most resorting to sheer force of will to beat him or even a glitch in some cases!

If other eSports have lost their appeal, I recommend a game of LockBall, I guarantee you will be 2 arrow keys away from throwing your keyboard out the window.

Survival, it’s harder than you think

July 23, 2017 | geekycatuk

A few weeks ago during the Steam sale I was looking for a new game to become obsessed with. I quite enjoy my life simulators and RPG’s but I found myself looking at a game called “The Long Dark” a survival game set in the frozen wilderness of Canada after a geomagnetic disaster. There’s no zombies, which is good for me as I would probably just scream a lot, just you, mother nature and a load of wild animals, that depending on what setting you play on, want to eat you.

Sounds good right?

So I purchase the game, started it up and chose voyageur difficulty with “mystery lake” as my starting location.

I did not survive long.

The game spawns you in the middle of nowhere with no instructions and off you trudge to look for shelter, food or even just some warmer clothes. My first attempt resorted to me finding a small raised shelter and then attempting to make a fire by dropping the wood I had collected onto the floor and throwing matches at it to light it. It didn’t work.

I was determined to not read anything about the mechanics of the game and it wasn’t until my character started suffering hypothermia that in my panic pressed every button on my controller I realised there was a radial menu with things like a campfire, water, food etc. These be crafted or used depending if you had the materials. Unfortunately this knowledge came too late and I died from hypothermia a short while later.

My second attempt was a tad more successful. I spawned in a different place and managed to survive a night now that I learned how to make fire. Travelling during the day I found I was right near a lake with lots of fishing huts with a reasonable amount of supplies I could gather. Feeling pretty confident I travelled between each of the huts stripping them of supplies and continued my adventure. It wasn’t until I fell through some weak ice and ended up with hypothermia again that things started to go south. I managed to make a fire and heal myself of the affliction but by then my health meter had taken such a beating that the second time I fell through the ice I didn’t survive.

Third times the charm right?

Well it was at first as I found an actual house and could use it as my base of operations. A few days hiding and surviving I decide to venture further out. Unfortunately for me I happen upon a wolf that chased me back to my house, I barely make it back inside, patched myself up and waited a few hours. I then open the door and find the wolf waiting outside, it launches itself at me, scaring the living daylights out of me and as I press buttons frantically I can add a different style death to my list.

At that point I change the setting to pilgrim mode and manage to survive 11 days before I get myself stuck on a railway bridge, the game glitches a little and the only way I can move is sideways which results in me falling to my death.

At least it wasn’t hypothermia this time.

And the final count is…

July 1, 2017 | geekycatuk

complete_collection_w_logos_2017-05

Woooo! I’ve done it!

I’ve finished the Walk All Over Cancer Challenge with a total of

302,903 steps

that averages out to 10097 steps over the 30 days and I’ve covered 128.8 miles.

I feel rather pleased with myself.

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me and helped me raise some money for a fantastic cause.

Now to put my feet up.

5 days remaining…

June 26, 2017 | geekycatuk

So I’m almost at the end of the Walk All Over Cancer challenge with 5 days (including today) to go.

It has been a real challenge and I will admit I have failed to reach 10,000 steps on a few occasions but I am determined to get to a minimum of 300,000 steps by the end of Friday.

I have certainly felt a difference in myself from doing this challenge. I have more energy, don’t get out of breath as easily as I used to and have found I volunteer myself to fetch things or that I don’t mind having to go back when I’ve forgotten something as it all adds to the step count.

So far (not including today) I have racked up…

249,998 steps

and walked

106.4 miles

That’s not bad for 25 days and I only have 50,002 steps left to reach 300,000!

Chris is going to sponsor me once I’ve finished and give me extra if I get over 300,000 so let’s see if I can bankrupt my husband!

1-25June

If you haven’t already, there’s still time to sponsor me!

One week down…

June 7, 2017 | geekycatuk

So I’ve just finished my first week of the Walk All Over Cancer challenge and it’s not going too badly.

Apart from a technical glitch, caused by me charging my fitbit then forgetting to put it back on, I only clocked 3507 steps on Monday but I think I’ve made up for it the rest of the week as I’ve done 68,334 over seven days and I technically haven’t finished my count for today yet so that will rise.

Week 1

A huge thank you to everyone who has sponsored me so far and there’s still time to donate if you haven’t, please click the link below!

The Geeky Wife Walks

The Geeky Wife, attempts to, Walk

May 19, 2017May 19, 2017 | geekycatuk

I was looking at trying to get my Alpha Wolf award this year by doing all four runs but my plans have come unstuck as despite the fact we roped a couple of our friends into the Spring one over a month ago the Summer run falls on a weekend where we have prior family arrangements…bugga.

So we have decided to look at doing the Autumn one and see if we can drag some more newbies into it kicking and screaming, but what to do until then…

What’s that I see on TV? An advertisement about the Walk All Over Cancer challenge from Cancer Research UK, that looks like fun!

So yer I’ve signed myself up to do this challenge which involves walking 10,000 steps everyday in June.

10,000 steps a day isn’t impossible in fact I know Chris often breezes through that total but it’s a different case for me as I struggle with motivation and need a goal, so this should be interesting.

Before we got married like most brides to be I went into fitness mode, lost some weight and felt pretty good. This continued on the honeymoon mainly thanks to the Japanese diet, walking so much and sweating most of my body weight from the 30 degree heat, but when we returned unfortunately I started to put weight back on.

Now I certainly don’t think of myself as fat, but I would like to re-lose the weight and tone myself up a bit so when I saw this campaign I thought that’s something I can do that not only gets my fitness back on track but I can help raise some money for a cause that affects so many people either directly or indirectly.

The Wolf Run’s are good motivation but knowing that other people are giving their hard earned money to sponsor me, makes me want to succeed and not let anyone (or myself) down.

I will be updating as the challenge begins and the weeks following so check back now and if you would like to sponsor me my page is below. I’d be really grateful for any amount you can donate.

The Geeky Wife Walks donation page

Time to buy a new pair of trainers…

The Sims 4: Key to extended life = Pregnancy?

February 9, 2017February 9, 2017 | geekycatuk

I’ve played the Sims since it was released back in 2000…wait really, that’s 17 years ago?!

Now I feel old.

I remember my first family was myself and my Husband, who was loosely based on a guy I had a crush on at the time…

Don’t judge me, I was 14.

We had quite a few children but this was before Sims aged so soon we were just reliving each day like a version of Ground Hog Day that was until they released Sims 2 and everyone could grow old and eventually die.

Anyway I’ve owned and played nearly all the expansions, including The Sims Medieval, which could have been so much more then it was and lived the ups and down with my sims. I’ve done all the normal stuff like imprisoning random neighbour sims, breaking up families, “accidentally” setting the house on fire for story progression and completing a Legacy Challenge. So with that I’m now playing Sims 4 with the City Living expansion and it’s recent addition of Toddlers.

The added life stage is pretty good though it does trip over itself in a few areas. For instant there isn’t a buggy or a pram to take the toddler out in. I’m sure there was one in a previous version? So without this you have to carry them everywhere or wait for them to catch up and making a toddler chase after its parent is a little bit cruel.

It also doesn’t help that the toddler DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IT WANTS.

Fair enough it is suppose to be a life simulator but it’s just really frustrating when you’ve just put the toddler on the potty, stood there for god knows how long (is it just me or does it take Sims an age to do anything!) and then once they are done and you ask the toddler what they want, yep you guessed it, they want to go straight back on the potty.

The whole check toddler interaction seems a bit redundant as it often contradicts what the needs menu is telling you and you just end up cancelling interactions.

I’ve also recently realised that pregnancy extends the Sims life. I don’t know if this was in any previous versions, or if its something that has appeared with an update but I had a family who had twins, a boy and a girl. Time passed and they grew into adults and found partners of their own and the female sim fell pregnant. Now I don’t often click on the lifespan menu as I like to be notified that my sims are ageing up or that they are in fact dying in an undetermined amount of time but I must have clicked on her menu whilst she was pregnant and the lifespan bar was glowing like it does when they age up.

Funny I don’t remember a notification telling me about a birthday. I check her twin brother’s life bar and his isn’t glowing and is a fair way from turning into an adult. The pregnancy continues and when she has the baby her life bar returns to where it was before she got pregnant, so my twins now have different birthdays. By time shes has had her second child he is just becoming an elder whilst she is still an adult.

I can understand that elder female sims can’t have children because of this thing called the menopause but why freeze ageing during pregnancy? Seems to me that ageing should just progress normally and if a sim turns into an elder during it then that just how it is.

So there we go, the key to extended life is pregnancy as long as you’re a Sim that is.