Payday 12 December 2003

Pic of the day: Yes, the cat looks suspiciously like Chester from CRFH!!!. It's not him, though, but another sleek black cat with the ability to read signs. I think. (Screenshot from The Sims with Unleashed and Makin' Magic expansions.)

PeGaPlaMo

It seems this December is my Personal Game Playing Month. Not exactly as ambitious as Novel Writing Month, I have to admit. But that's what has happened so far. The games are virtually chasing each other across my computers. Remember that glorious Civ3 session, which I intended to play all the way through to the modern age and the space ship to Alpha Centauri? Well, I am still in the Industrial Revolution, and I have stopped playing. I am telling myself that I will return to this game "sometime". The reason for this hiatus is my purchase of Makin' Magic, the expansion pack to The Sims.

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I created a Sims family consisting of a mother and a son, so I could explore both the adult magic and the child magic. Adults and children have different spells and charms, and they largely use different ingredients too. I have made them create lots of spells and charms and use them whenever I thought it appropriate. But I have not seen any crystals in my garden... er, their garden, and no other interesting vegetation there either, except the mushrooms. And the mushrooms don't come from casting magic, they come from sitting on toadstools. More exactly, you can buy chairs in the shape of large toadstools. They are not comfortable, I believe they may be made from stone (that's how they look, at least); but when you sit on one, there is a random chance that a circle of mushrooms will sprout anywhere in your grass. These mushrooms are an important ingredient for children's magic, and occasionally used for adult magic too. I believe they can be sold for magic coin also, although I have not tried that. They can certainly be sold for mundane coins (simoleons).

Closer inspection showed that the high-level spell to change a pet into a human is not on the kids' spell list, but on the adult. (In contrast, kids can research and cast the spell that transforms them into an adult, strangely enough.) Now this may be just a little bit too much information, but I immediately came to think of that episode in the anime 'Ultra Maniac'... This guy finds out that his friend Nina is a witch, and that her cat can transform into a boy and back. So he asks her to transform his cat to human form as well. She does, and the sleek black cat transform into a handsome black haired young boy. Unfortunately, he continues to follow his former owner around, rub against him at random times and try to lie in his lap. Not to mention sleep beside him in his bed. Needless to say, this is as embarrassing to the cat owner as it is amusing to the onlooker. Eventually the cat boy is returned to cat form against a promise that he will then again be allowed to share his precious Master's bed...

Luckily for all simulated wizards, there is an object you can download from the fan site Simstitution (a site I have earlier praised for their supercomputer, the computer that boosts social score and not just fun). This fountain, appropriately found in the Unleashed section, allows you to inspect and even change the gender of your pet. (Made for unleashed ... not guaranteed to work with Makin' Magic. Use at own risk.) I am sure you can see what direction this is going... so let's not talk more about that today!

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As if this was not enough, I am still keeping an eye on the City of Heroes forum. And since that game is not released (and probably won't be for another year or so), I have resorted to playing Dark Age of Camelot again, on and off.

Playing a Paladin in DAoC is not too hard on my wrist when I play alone. As long as I fight creatures weaker than my character, I can basically start chanting, cast an aggression spell on the monster, and start bashing. The combat system will then keep chanting and hacking away until the opponent is dead. With monsters my own level I have to twist the chants, which I can do with two fingers on my left hand. The problem comes if I join a group. This calls for complicated strategy, and typed conversation within the group. This again means that I have to quit after a while to save my wrist. On weekends I can play in the morning when there are less people playing the game, and it is easier to find a free spot that I don't need to share.

Speaking of my wrist, it is better now, thank you. On the other hand (metaphorically speaking), my throat is pretty sore. And it's the flu season, so I don't want to provoke my throat and make it more susceptible. On that note, I'll end this for now. All errors in syntax can be blamed on my Oriental exchange student and former cat, a.k.a. my speech recognition software....