The theme for last week’s 52Frames was Food Photography. I’ve taken enough pictures for our food blog that I know what I like and how to get at least decent food pictures. Since natural light is the main ingredient of that, and since we don’t have that much of that at dinner time, it kind of meant “lunch picture”. Our typical meals may not necessarily be the most appetizing because they may lack structure, so I chose to go for a simple one, with literally no cooking and just setting things up on the plate – avocado and salmon 🙂
The first time we heard about T.I.M.E Stories was at Essen SPIEL 2015, where the publisher had a fairly impressive booth, all white, closed from the exterior as to avoid spoilers, and that seemed to have a fair amount of success. We didn’t get to play there, but it was definitely enough to put the game on the “I’m intrigued” list (marketing ploy: successful).
The base of the game is that the players are part of a time travelling agency, and they get sent to various missions as characters of the situation that they need to fix. As far as I can tell, the probability of finishing a given scenario on the first try is very low – and would probably require a lot of luck. But what T.I.M.E Stories does really well is that, since we’re within the framework of time travelling, all the information that the players have can be re-used in the subsequent runs of the scenarios. Consequently, a game of T.I.M.E Stories consists of one or several runs of a scenario, until the players figure out the whole story and achieve the scenario’s goal – how to achieve the “perfect run” that allows them to unlock the victory conditions. A scenario that is played through does not have any replayability, but there’s around 10 official scenarios, with more to come.
T.I.M.E Stories is more of a “framework” than a game: the base box provides a generic board, tokens, pawns, and base mechanics, as well as a single scenario, Asylum. Scenarios are essentially a deck of cards that player explore according to the framework rules, and define the use of the tokens, as well as any additional rule. The base box also provides a way to “save” the state of a game between two runs. Since we’ve always played through all the runs of a scenario in one afternoon, we haven’t used that feature at all, but I really like the idea!
We’ve played four scenarios (Asylum, The Marcy Case, Prophecy of Dragons, and Under the Mask) and I’m happy to report it’s always been an enjoyable experience. To me, it’s actually fairly close to an investigative game-master-less RPG. There’s obviously little to no leeway for crazy shenanigans and weird plans that are doomed from the beginning, but the whole feeling of solving a narrative puzzle as a team is definitely there. If that makes sense, I also get the same kind of “fatigue” after playing T.I.M.E Stories than I get from an RPG session (as a player), which makes me think that it probably scratches the same kind of itch.
The only point that could be improved in my view is that the rules feel sometimes slightly too fiddly when it comes to handling the time limit of a mission. We’ve had to check them multiple times in the last session because we were not sure if we had to spend a unit of time or not to make certain actions, and that’s a bit annoying. There’s also the feeling that the expansions differ with one another when it comes to the clarity of the extra/specific rules.
But all in all, it’s a solid experience and a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon with friends.
I forgot to post last week’s 52Frames, so I’m doing two posts in one!
This was my entry for “Old“. I bought flowers for another project (and because I wanted flowers), and they wilted (half on purpose because I knew this could work for the “Old” theme. I actually took a bunch of picture of that one, and this one was the one I preferred for that theme. (I have another one that I like a lot and for another theme, but shhhh, it’s still a secret for a few weeks!)
My entry for “New” is definitely in the “consistency shots” category – that is, a wholly uninspired picture that kind of fits the theme, for the sole purpose of not breaking the streak. So: I did not break my streak (this was my 13th week in a row, woo!), and also we have new plates and cutlery 😛
Dove is a student in business school, and she has A Plan for what happens next – she works at developing her own personal brand, and she works as a media consultant to pay her bills. And then one day, her high school arch-nemesis, Seven, appears in the same college, and they end up needing to cooperate on a school project. Seven also has A Plan: she eventually wants to open a goth-themed bakery, and she needs a bit of help testing her creations. Wicked Sweet is a super cute romance book and I really enjoyed it – it may lack a bit in the “plot” and “tension” department, but I really liked the characters 🙂
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t – Nate Silver
I didn’t finish this one – mostly because I needed to look forward to my commute reading at that time, and I wasn’t looking forward to continue reading this, because it felt fairly dry and the chapters were longer than my attention span. I think this is mostly a timing issue for me.
Nine Perfect Strangers – Liane Moriarty
A story that starts with nine people gathering in a luxury health resort, all with their history and their hope for transformation and a better life. The owner of the health resort is convinced to be able to help them – as long as the customers follow her lead. I liked the setting and most characters (although I had a hard time not conflating a couple of them because I messed up the name/character associations in my head), some parts made me chuckle, and some parts got a tear. I’m not necessarily convinced by the major plot point, but generally speaking it was a very pleasant read, and probably exactly what I needed then. Also: I actually missed my train stop the other day because I was distracted by my reading, which is probably a good sign for the book.
Nemesis Games – James S.A. Corey
Fifth book of The Expanse, the series that keeps delivering, even after 2800+ pages. The book starts with the Rocinante crew all getting on their merry way for various (temporary) reasons, and all ending up getting involved in various adventures and catastrophes. Nemesis Games is more centered on the “original cast” than the previous book, which I liked, because it was nice to have a bit more familiarity with the characters considering the large dramatic scale of the plot. To me, this series of books stays very solid; not necessarily very original or mind-blowing, but consistently good and worth reading, which is a feat in itself.
Geek Girl – Holly Smale
Harriet is a (very) geeky/nerdy highschooler who gets unexpectedly hired to be a fashion model. This is not the kind of premise where you expect a very believable book – and even under this assumption, I found myself requiring a higher effort than usual at suspension of disbelief. It was still pretty fun, and there were a few funny moments and a few touching moments, but there was definitely too much eye-rolling from my side to consider reading the second one any time soon.
La Papeterie Tsubaki – Ito Ogawa
This one is a Japanese book, that I read in French translation (there’s no English translation that I know of). The narrator, Hatoko, is a young woman who runs a stationary shop and who works as a public writer/calligrapher for people who have a hard time expressing what they want to say on paper. Most of the book, over the span of a year, is about the encounters between Hatoko and her customers, and the relationship of Hatoko with her trade – how she chooses her paper, ink, writing style to make the written word come to life. It’s a very contemplative and slow book, and it’s quiet and soothing. On a slightly negative standpoint, I was surprised by a few turns of sentences and choices of words, and dialogues sometimes felt weird. But generally speaking I really, really loved this book.
The theme for 52Frames this week was “Experimental Photography“. I have a fondness for pretty rocks/minerals, and I was thinking these days they’d be a nice photography subject (that doesn’t move too much). So last week I pushed the door of a mineralogy shop, and I got out with a few specimens to start experimenting.
This one is a chalcopyrite, and it comes from Wallis, Switzerland. Taking the picture was a matter of taking a lot of them and stack them using Zerene – which I had used successfully a few months ago for the Macro theme. I’m however super unhappy with this picture for a number of reasons:
I hadn’t fixed my white balance and ISO, which meant my pictures were not as consistent as they should have been.
The light was crap, and the shadow below/left is not pretty.
I have an ugly purple fringe on the left that’s ugly, and I’m not sure if it’s a matter of light, of lens, or both.
I used my lens at its longer focal (300) – by mistake, but I didn’t double-check what I was doing – and I think it’s not as sharp there as it would be at 200.
My white paper background is getting very dusty and I should change it.
So, all in all – many mistakes were made… but that also means that many lessons were learnt, and that next one will be better!
For the Easiest Duck Confit at Home, Go Sous Vide [text with images] – I like duck confit. I have a sous-vide water circulator. I sense experimenting in my near-ish future. (Just need to find duck legs around here…)
This is probably the latest I shot my 52Frames submission so far – since I did that on Sunday evening! But I didn’t fail, and there we go: a Symmetry submission.
Again, initial lack of inspiration (this is becoming a theme ) until I remembered the tiles from Azul, which have very pretty symmetric patterns. I decided to add a bit more to the symmetry by stacking them into a symmetric pattern; since they are transparent, they also play pretty well with a back light (although I’m not entirely happy with the shadow at the bottom, which I didn’t manage to get rid of, neither during the shooting nor during the postprocessing).
It was also probably one of my fastest “start setting up things to processed picture” for what I’d qualify as “studio work” 😉
I used to play EVE. I was never any good at it, but it always held a kind of fascination and it’s a world I find myself drawn to. I’m not entirely sure why, mind you, because it’s a pretty stressful game: space is dangerous, unknown players can in no circumstance be trusted, and if you lose a ship… well, it’s permanent, and you need to make enough monies to compensate for the loss. But I think I enjoy the challenge of it, including its brutal learning curve, and I really like the fact that there’s a fairly large variety of content.
I also still know a community of nice and helpful players – people with whom I’ve played in the past, and with whom I still occasionally chat, making the whole “I should get back to EVE” a fairly common self-nudge. And then, someone who shall not be named showed me 21 Day Challenge, Can YOU plex it! the other week – which made me want to explore the PvE side of things more, and next thing I know, I’m looking at my in-game inventory trying to figure out where I left most of my stuff.
Coming back after a couple of years is a weird experience. My character is still there, with all her skills and all her money (which makes the “newbie” experience very skewed, but not necessarily in a bad way). I found my main stack of “stuff” in a station somewhere in high-sec, so that’s where I put my base for now – I’ll reconsider once I’ll have blown up all the ships that are in there 😛 Some reflexes are still there – where to look for what, how to try to fly safely, how the mechanics roughly work. Some “emotional” reflexes are still there as well – the gut-wrenching stress of deciding to go through low-sec to get to a place in 5 jumps instead of 25, or the very large hesitation at even considering to jump through a wormhole. (I haven’t set a wing in null-space yet.)
And then, there’s trying to get back in the game. I’ve had a few close calls already – and I lost a few ships as well. None of these actually happened in PvP, which makes it a bit embarrassing 😦 I’d like to believe it’s because I’ve been careful with regards to PvP, which is not entirely wrong, but I don’t think I was ever at a real risk there.
My first loss was a VNI, lost by engaging something I shouldn’t have. (In my days, Autothysian Lancers didn’t exist, and gate rats were… reasonably safe to engage. I think.) My second loss was ALSO a VNI, lost in a combat site that escalated past my (player) skills. I think I could have escaped that one if I had seen earlier that I was webbed (and not aligned) – I failed at warping out before my ship died. Sad.
After a bit of whining (that I’d lost a ship again) to the aforementioned nice players, someone made the remark that data cache hacking in wormholes was actually fairly good money, and that it was feasible in a pretty low-cost ship. I stumbled upon All-Out Guide to Relic/Data Exploration, which I found pretty useful – took a bit of advice here and there, and went on my merry way through that wormhole. Which lead to my third loss, which was, was, thankfully, less ISK-painful – only a Magnate. I scanned the whole hole, found a pirate signature, went to it… and missed the “covert” keyword on it. Started hacking a can, can blew up, and I heard the “DING” of the ship insurance notification before even seeing that something had gone wrong. Cheap ship, so it’s fine; I am, however, sad that I didn’t make the effort to dump my stuff back home between two sites explorations, because I had loot from the previous successful exploration in my ship 😦
Since then, I HAVE done a successful wormhole data expedition (and brought the loot back to my home base, although not sold it yet), and I brought a bit of salvage to Jita to go back to my starting ISK levels (roughly 1B liquidity – that I had PLEX’d before stopping playing, I think). I also did a couple more sites and got another escalation this morning, played with a Thrasher and guns instead of drones. I feel like I’m starting to slowly getting back into the game (and enjoying it 🙂 ) and re-building the itty-tiny bit of competence I ever had. I think I may enjoy the game more this time around, also partly because in the meantime I did get somewhat better at handling stress and anxiety. Hidden benefits of life skills: getting less bad at video games 😛
I don’t know yet if it’s going to stick – partly because playing both WoW and EVE may be more than I can chew. But this morning, I ran into a group of three Lancers. I wisely avoided them.
I’ve had a hard time coming up with an idea for this week’s 52Frames‘ theme, Negative Space (with an extra credit “In the studio”). My first impulse was to try to find some intricate piece of… SOMETHING, and to go the “product photography” way, on white clean background.
Well, I missed the nice light because I was doing something else, and I got the idea of trying to play with small, very direct lights instead. So I started playing around with a couple of tiny IKEA LED spots, saw the halo, wondered what I could put in there, and got the idea of someone making a speech.
Snuggles was around (say hi to Snuggles), so he became the focus of my attention; the thing on which he’s leaning (after much effort trying to find the right height and form factor) is an oven dish wrapped in a microfiber cloth 😛 Oh, and the black background is a large piece of black fabric that I use a lot whenever I need a black background.
Under Pressure (Piano Cover) – Peter Bence [video, music] – that guy does piano covers of various stuff and I really enjoy his stuff. And I can’t resist a good Queen cover.
Flightradar24 — how it works? [text] – a neat article that explains the real-time tracking of airplanes, including how to roll your own receiver for the planes in your area.
) until I remembered the tiles from Azul, which have very pretty symmetric patterns. I decided to add a bit more to the symmetry by stacking them into a symmetric pattern; since they are transparent, they also play pretty well with a back light (although I’m not entirely happy with the shadow at the bottom, which I didn’t manage to get rid of, neither during the shooting nor during the postprocessing).
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