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Game Review: Knights of Pen and Paper

Knights of Pen and Paper game review - whatwasithinking.co.uk

If you’re feeling a little nostalgic for the ‘90s, you may be intrigued by the Knights of Pen and Paper role-playing game, released by Behold Studios. The new RPG uses retro-style pixel art and old-fashioned storytelling in an attempt to help gamers recapture the love of the quest, before it went digital. But does this throwback RPG succeed or fall short? Here’s what you need to know about Knights of Pen and Paper:

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Concept

Many consider the Dungeons & Dragons era the height of role-playing, and Knights of Pen and Paper cleverly embraces that viewpoint rather than trying to compete with it. The basic concept of the game is that a group of friends play a classic pen-and-paper RPG together, complete with a Dungeon Master, who narrates the quests. The friends and Dungeon Master are present on screen at all times, with the fantasy world and quests emerging in the background, which gives Knights of Pen and Paper the feel of a game-within-a-game.

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Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition (iPad) – Review

Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition logoBack in the 90s there was an engine that pretty much defined RPGs as we know them now – the Infinity Engine. And the first big game on that engine was Baldur’s Gate, followed by Baldur’s Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and more. In short, times were amazing for RPG enthusiasts. GOG.com released BG1 and BG2 DRM-free a few years ago, and modders built a set of tools to enhance BG1 to run on BG2’s updated engine, enabling the game(s) to be played on latest hardware and widescreen monitors.

Not so long ago, Beamdog announced Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for PC, Mac, iOS and Android, and it has finally arrived on the iPad. But is it still an excellent game? Has its core gameplay survived the port to the iPad? Is it still the amazing game it used to be?

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An involving story

BG: EE revolves around an impressively deep story and mysteries. Why do people try to kill you? Why won’t your foster father trust you with what is going on? Why do you have to leave Candlekeep? Why are all the iron tools in the region suddenly crumbling and disintegrating? The story begins at quite some speed, forcing you out of your home, making you find allies, form parties, take on quests and sidequests (though sometimes you don’t know which is which, which is quite nice). Unlike other recent RPGs (e.g. Skyrim) you can’t just wander off and explore the lands to your heart’s content… Keep Reading

So I am married now…

wedding photo 12 weeks ago my beautiful wife and I finally said “yes” to each other. It was a beautiful day indeed – many friends and family members shared this wonderful day with us, making this a very memorable day in both our lives. While the weather was said to be “rain and thunderstorms” according to the Met Office, we were lucky that it was only raining lightly, and when the ceremony finished the sun came out for some amazing photo opportunities. The wedding breakfast and speeches followed, and after that – the first dance and the hog roast!

Looking back at it now, there is only one thing I would have liked to have changed: that everything would have happened at a snail’s pace! It felt like the day started, people got ready, guests arrived, the ceremony happened, some photos happened, and then it was midnight!

My wife Vikki and I are very happy for everyone who attended, and I would like to take the opportunity to say my thanks to a number of parties and companies who helped make this day a very special day:

 

Thank you Chloe, for your help on the venue!

First of all, without a venue there is no wedding. As such, my first thanks has to go to Chloe and all of the staff of Burnham Beeches Hotel for everything! If it wasn’t for Chloe’s massive amounts of help we wouldn’t have been married in this beautiful venue, and if it hadn’t been for the staff on the day before, on the day of and on the day after the wedding it wouldn’t have been such a successful day!

Every staff member we encountered (from reception to bar staff, staff during the meals, cleaners, etc) was extremely friendly, supportive and had this amazing “can-do” attitude that just made things perfect. As we were told from them “Difficult we can do, impossible takes a bit longer” – thank you guys!

 

Thank you to James for your amazing photos!

James is not only a great friend of mine, but he is also the most talented and gifted photographer I know! Him and his colleague Gurdev managed to take some amazing shots of the day (all photos you can see here on this blog post are from him), thanks for a very unique style of casually walking around, mingling with people and then taking some amazing shots of us, of friends and families.

Throughout the day we felt being taken care of while at the same time not being ushered here or there for photos, we felt very much in control of what we wanted to do, and thanks to both James’ and Gurdev’s casual, friendly –  sometimes comical – way of dealing with us and our guests it made everything look and feel even more natural. Thank you both!

A gallery of our wedding photos can be found here on James’s website.

If you would like to get in touch with James or would like to hire him:
 James McClean

James McClean’s Facebook page

 

Thank you Kirsty for the dance lessons!

A wedding is one thing – preparing for your first dance is another. Thankfully, Kirsty managed to make it happen:

Just so you know, I am pretty bad at dancing. I have never ever had one lesson in my life, I understand music and rhythm, but next to the speech the one thing I was really worried about was the first dance. Thankfully, Kirsty has this positive and up-beat attitude to even get the most useless of people in terms of dancing (i.e. me!) to understand the dance and learn even a quickstep within a few hours! Once we picked the music we liked Kirsty went away and choreographed the whole routine, making amends and quick changes when any of us three felt that something wasn’t working or wanted to include something a bit more special. In fact, it took us not long at all to get the dance sorted, and on the night we managed a great performance!

View our full dance on YouTube.

If you would like to get in touch with Kirsty or would like to plan dance lessons with her:

Kirsty’s Facebook page

Kirsty on iMDB

 

Thank you, Cleo, for the cake!

We had real issues with finding an affordable wedding cake to begin with. We went to a place in Hitchin which was recommended to us, named the Cake Hole. In there the notion we got throughout our conversations was “pay us a deposit, then we will contact you before the wedding about what we could do.” Wedding or not, you don’t do business like that, ever. Not with someone who has worked in sales for a very long time. We were quite disheartened, until we met Cleo.

Cleo was amazingly helpful and friendly, and prices are very reasonable. Starting from our basic requirements, she talked us through all sorts of options, with help from her extensive recipe collection and portfolio, until we had our perfect cake planned out. She really knows her stuff and the word “no” doesn’t seem to be in her vocabulary. The cake was so delicious that every single bit disappeared on the day, and it looked just stunning. She also liaised directly with the hotel and florist regarding delivery and flowers for decoration, which saved us some work.

If you would like to get in touch with Cleo to discuss a wedding or birthday cake:

Cleo’s Creative Cakes

 

Thank you, Suzanne @ Hot Flowers, for some amazing floral arrangements!

Hot Flowers were very friendly to deal with, happy to have as many meetings and emails as needed (although we only needed 2 short meetings and a few emails to get everything sorted out). They were very prompt in replying every time and communications very clear. Flowers were beautiful, smelled lovely, with the exact colours and feel that Vikki wanted, and were very well put together. In fact, a friend of mine showed me the floral arrangement she took home 3 days ago, and they still looked amazing!

Suzanne offers a wide range of arrangements, bouquet and buttonhole/corsage styles, bay trees, and also hire of candles etc if wanted, so we felt we were in really good hands here. There was a slight hiccup over the cost because of misunderstanding about whether we were on a set package or not (and so whether the hotel would contribute towards the flowers) but it was dealt with very professionally.

If you would like to get in touch with Suzanne about flowers or floral arrangements:

Hot Flowers & Art

 

And finally, thank you, Bridal House, Leeds, for the wedding dress!

Since I was not involved on this one I let Vikki take over:

“The Bridal House Leeds is a lovely independent bridal shop with friendly staff. During the process of finding a dress or the fittings I never felt rushed or pushed into anything, and when I burst into tears on realizing “I’m getting married!” they were on the spot with tissues and water. Brides can take two people with them when trying on dresses or for fittings. My sister got her dress from the same shop two/three years beforehand, and they still recognized her when she came in, and were eager to know how she was getting on. As I had to travel 3+ hours for each fitting, they were very helpful with trying to arrange these for convenient times. Alterations were high quality, and the selection of dresses was quite large, with some unusual styles on offer. They also stock various accessories and shoes, and offer a bridesmaid dress service.”

If you would like to get in touch with the Bridal House:

 The Bridal House, Leeds

 

I think that’s it for now, once again, thank you everyone for your help, work and support for our wedding, it was such an amazing day! 🙂

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Z, The Game released on iPad!

The app developers Kavcom have finally released the remake of the 1996 classic Z for £2.99 on the iTunes store.

For those of you who do not know the game, unlike traditional RTS games, you do not collect resources – you capture sectors, which in turn will allow you to manufacture units quicker, or allow you to have a tactical advantage because sectors can contain factories or turrets. Originally developed by the Bitmap Brothers the game was very well received, and it was the first game I was ever bought by my parents.

The game plays very well on the iPad, the videos are the same as in the original release. Gameplay itself hasn’t changed one bit, it is still very fast paced and can get very hectic at times. Swipe gestures and multiple selection of units works really well. Sound effects are nicely done, both on the music and sound effects front. (btw, you can change the sound and music settings in the iPad Settings, not in the app itself)

 

Screenshots:

Getting ready for carnage:

 

Win!

Liked:

  • Easy to pick up gameplay, hardly changed from the original
  • Easy to use mini-map and building menus
  • Great music and sound effects follow the 1996 original to a T!
  • Price!

Disliked:

  • A few translation mistakes
  • Building menu is a bit small and may provide problems for people with bigger fingers
  • Seemingly no ability to replay videos

 

Verdict:

Overall this is a fantastic game, regardless of you having played the original or not. You really ought to give it a try for that price!

You can grab the game from here.

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Taking the iCab – first impressions of the iCab Mobile Browser

A few weeks ago I tested Mercury Web Browser Pro for iPad, which in my first impressions didn’t do so well. I went out again and had a look at a few more browsers, and this week’s choice is iCab. And at a price twice the cost of Mercury (£1.19 to be exact).

At first run I tried to use my company internal websites to see if I could work with them, since Mercury had a problem with popups. Well, the first time I tried my pages everything seemed to work fine, however on second try the next day they would not. Really annoying. I have been playing with the settings, even cleared the cache and uninstalled and reinstalled the app, but no joy. A real shame!

So, now that we established that the app failed at the most critical task for me (I know, it is a really trivial thing, pop-ups, but because this is how the in-house system works it therefore means that I won’t be able to use iCab for work) let’s have a look in more detail and see if iCab can redeem itself (also, screenshots after the break)…

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Playing with Mercury – first impressions of Mercury Web Browser Pro for iPad

So I have been trying out a new browser for the iPad, and seeing that the Mercury Web Browser Pro is currently only £0.59 I couldn’t say no.

So far, I am enjoying it, it looks nice, the tabs are nicely done, albeit the buttons are a bit small; however, I found 3 points with it that made me reconsider my buying choice a little:

1. Bookmarks import. The import went fine, however managing bookmarks didn’t. Some folders it would let me move, some it wouldn’t, and no matter how the folders are spelled, some it just would not move or even let me edit. Very annoying.

2. Pop-ups! Safari can handle pop-ups, so why can’t Mercury? A real shame as an intranet application we use requires pop-ups for confirmation and data managing, so cannot use Mercury for that task

3. Bookmarks grid. Not sure what I am doing wrong, no matter what I press I cannot find an easy way to move bookmarks to that grid! It’s probably a user error on my part, it is just frustrating that I do not seem to be able to do that.

 

Overall, it looks like a decent browser, but these 3 issues need to be resolved until I can really consider it a worthy replacement to Safari…

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