LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

video games

Forge of Empires

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You’re going to have to blame Lauren for this one. She told me when I got home from parent-teacher conferences that I had to write the post. In her defense, I only had 3 parents show up. So that went well.

But I know why you really come here. You’re looking for something to waste your time. Well, do I have the game for you.  While I was sitting around the house being sick and bored a couple of weeks ago, an ad for a game popped up in Flip Board and, because reading Flip Board was getting boring, I decided to play the game.

It’s been a pretty good game. That is to say, I’ve enjoyed wasting my time playing it. I don’t know if you’ll like it. It’s hard to pick out games for other people. Except for Deborah. I know Deborah won’t like it. I think maybe it’s like Clash of Clans, but I haven’t actually played Clash of Clans. It seems like there’s more to do than in Clash of Clans though. At least from what I saw of Brad and Tim playing it. When you’re new, they put you in with a bunch of other new players, and that’s nice. I can tell I’m not doing a good job of selling it.

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You can play it in a browser or on an iPad or Android device, which I guess is good for time wasting. If you want to try it, use this link, and I think they send me chocolates or something. I will share the chocolates with you.

Typical Day

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Lauren told me that I get to write today’s post. It’s never a comfortable thing when she says that, because I always wonder if I’m forgetting something. Is today Lauren’s birthday? Is it our anniversary? Is it some other day that, while not technically our official anniversary, is the anniversary of something that I should remember anyway? Did she recently do something really nice for me that I should have taken pictures of and be ready to tell the world? Probably yes to one or more of the above, but I’m not sure which one.

Instead, let me tell you how I spent MLK Day 2016. I like to think that I celebrated it in typical fashion. I started off by sleeping in, because we didn’t have school. I found out later that Seward Public, St. John and –and here I’m just guessing– Concordia all have school, so I was basically the only person in Seward with the day off.

Next I read a little bit. I’m still embarrassed to write that I’ve been reading some fan fiction. If you’re a passingly familiar with Harry Potter –and by this point I think that probably includes just about everyone– and if you’re familiar with Role-Playing games –and by Role-Playing games I mean the 3.5 edition of Dungeons and Dragons– then there’s a good chance that you’ll feel like Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is a complete travesty and makes both of those things you like worse. I myself am not a Harry Potter fan, and haven’t played Dungeons and Dragons for something like 20 years, so it all worked out for me. Your millage may vary.

After that I played Railroad Tycoon II, which is a video game for about 1995 where you, you know, build a railroad. I get a surprisingly large amount of entertainment value out of laying out some track between cities and hauling passengers and cargo around. I don’t actually have the manual for the game. So, while I think I’m doing well and things are coming along nicely with my railroad empire, eventually the game ends and the computer starts trash talking me about how poor a job I did. You don’t know, computer. I did just fine.

Eventually I had to do things like talk to the electrician who was adding another circuit to the room at school where the servers are, so we wouldn’t embarrassingly come to a screeching halt during the school day when we plug in 9 computers and 18 monitors in the Tech Center. I also did a little cleaning and made supper, but I do not consider those to be part of me MLK day celebration.

 

Bioshock Infinite

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So, I finished Bioshock Infinite this week. That’s a video game if you didn’t know. This is Lloyd if you didn’t know.

It was a good game. It was fairly short as far as video games go and altogether well done. I purchased it a few months ago when it was on sale for $9.99 and my students who have played it have been pestering me to play it so that we could talk about it.

The game is set in 1912 and the music for it is just great. There are phonographs that you walk by that play songs from the turn of the century as you walk by them, loud speakers in public squares that have period music playing. Even a barbershop quartet tucked away in a little corner.

But as you get further into the game, some of the music changes. Here are a few samples:

It actually works really well with the story line of the game too. Here’s the final song at the end of the game: