Planetbase (Day 1) Reveal

Planetbase is a survival strategy game that tasks players with micro-managing every aspect of a manned-mission to one of four playable planets with varying degrees of difficulty and obstacles. The point of the game is to build on and colonize a planet; starting with a group of four astronauts, each of which have their own traits and specialties, and two working robots.

At the start of the game, players are greeted with the option to pick from one of four planets: Desert Planet, Frozen Planet, Gas Giant Moon, and Storm Planet. With each planet, the difficulty increases and the challenges that the player faces will vary quite dramatically.



The goal of the game is to gradually increase the size and and strength of your base; whether that be with more astronauts, more robots, more resources or more protection against invaders. Players must survive random environmental plights such as: meteorites, solar flares and sandstorms; make sure that your crew doesn't run out of energy or resources and manage growth responsibly.




I watched a quick walk through from a youtuber called STUFF+ who showed his experiences with Planetbase. Basically the video showed how quickly everything can go from 100% all right to "All hell is raising right now" because with all this game has to make a player worry about and micro-manage, it is quite common to have things creep up on you and almost kill everyone in your base.
I also watched a bit of another youtubers playthrough (Quill18) and I found his experiences to be quite entertaining as well

The Martian (Questions)

1. Which Actor plays Mark Watney? - Matt Damon
2. How was Mark Watney left behind? - During a storm on mars, his crew was rushing to get to their ship (that was slowly tipping), he then got hit with some debris from their base, everyone thought he died, so they left.
3. What is the name of the Mars mission? - 
4. What is a Sol? How long is one Sol? How many Sol's did it take for earth to find Watney still alive? - A Sol is the way NASA measures the length of a solar day on Mars (which is 24h 39m 35.244409s) so it's slightly longer then an earth day. Less then 538.
5. What is the difference between the MAV and the HAB? - The HAB: short for the Mars Lander habitat: a place the astronauts can relax without wearing a space suit. The MAV: Mars Ascent Vehicle- the device the astronauts use to leave Mars surface when they left on short notice or when a mission is complete.
6. What does Watney grow on Mars? - Potatoes.
7. What communication device does Watney dig up? What sol is it when he gets communication set up? - Watney digs up the Pathfinder probe and uses the camera to communicate with NASA. 
8. What coding system do they use? - The hexadecimal system.
9. Which country helps NASA? - China
10. What is Project Elrond? What is the project named after? - It's the rescue mission created by the director of NASA which is going to send supplies to Mark. It's named after the Council of Elrond from The Lord of the Rings.
11. Name 5 types of equipment that is used in the movie? - The spacesuit; Rover; Solar panels;  Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs); Ion Propulsion.
12. In the movie what does Watney define as Colonization? - Literally just planting food on a planet.
13. What did NASA want Watney to remove from the MAV? -  Equipment including the windows, nose cone, and exterior panels.
14. Which superhero does Watney reference?  - Iron Man
15. What happens to Watney at the end of the movie? What does he do for NASA? - After returning to Earth, Watney begins a new life as a survival instructor for new astronaut candidates.

Requirements for being an Astronaut

Am I qualified to become an astronaut?

Resiliency:

I think that I meet 4/7 of the practical applications for resiliency: Persistent thought process; connection between internal and external self; at best when things are at their worst; understand the purpose of actions.
I think the reason for my not meeting the other three requirements is because: 1) I'm subject to procrastinating and not always being self-directed; 2) I'm a bit of a pessimist; 3) I definitely don't have a sustainable "can do" attitude whatsoever.

Adaptability:

I meet all 4 of the applications when it comes to adaptability: Adapt to situations and individuals; know my personal boundaries; open and tolerant to other ideas and approaches; draw from other cultural backgrounds.
I know that I'm naturally passive and willing to change so being adaptive comes incredibly easy to me. I'm also intelligent enough to realise when other people have better ideas or plans than me, and I'm disciplined enough to put my pride aside for the embetterment of a group.

Curiosity:

I believe that I meet both (2) of the requirements when it comes to curiosity: Ask questions to understand not just get answers; transfer knowledge to others, not just show-off.
I've always loved learning and absorbing knowledge from lots of different people. There's something about learning that fulfills this need for self-empowerment I possess; knowledge is the best weapon anyone can have.

Ability to Trust:

I meet 3/4 of the practical applications for my ability to trust: Trust built on good judgement; self-informed trust; reflection on previous experiences.
For the most part, trusting in other people comes rather easily to me, I just believe in people too much.

Creativity/Resourcefulness:

I without any doubt meet all five of the requirements in this category: Flexibility with tackling issues; not constrained by how I was initially taught to deal with problems; humour is used constructively; good sense of play and spirit; aware of different forms of creativity.
I've always been taught that being open-minded allows for the most happiness in life, if you're always fixated on what you don't agree with in the world, you never focus on all the positives; that being said, it is easy for me to accept other ideas/opinions and learn from them.

(Pandemic 2) Game Review

Alright, so on Wednesday, I reviewed a classic Addicting Games game that I've played ever since 2009. That game would be Pandemic 2. This game is very strategic and requires patience, planning and a bit of luck.
               The objective of Pandemic 2 is too create a type of virus, bacteria or parasite and level it up over time in order to have it spread all across the globe and kill everyone on earth before the scientists can create a vaccine. Pandemic 2 allows for quite a-lot of re-playability; considering how it has been almost eight years since the initial release and it is very much still relevant. Only a few years ago in 2012 the publishers of the Pandemic series launched a Google chrome extension and an official release on iTunes was and still is very successful.
            The graphics of Pandemic 2 were obviously never meant to be top-notch from their humble beginnings as an Addicting Games exclusive; however, this does not necessarily impact the players overall experience with the game because they are more concerned with destroying the world.

Pandemic 2 map

So, earlier on I touched on the games re-playability factor, this is due to the many different routes a player can take to attempt to beat the game. Starting off with the very first decision the game presents to the player: Picking either a Virus, a Bacteria or a Parasite. Each class has it's own set of strengths/weaknesses: The virus is the quickest to evolve, the most affected by environment and also gives the player a boost to the infection rate; while the bacteria have a medium rate of evolution, are normally affected by the environment and give a bonus to drug resistance; finally, the parasite class has the slowest evolution, are least affected by the environment and have the lowest visibility. 

Selecting a Disease Class

 Another aspect of Pandemic's re-playability is that once in the game, the player can customise their disease to however their liking. You can change how your disease reacts to certain elements; how fast or it's methods of transmission; it's strength against drugs and what kind of symptoms it'll cause on it's victims. 

         In terms of difficulty, Pandemic 2 is without a doubt up there. There are many different factors that can determine how successful your experience is: your starting country, how you manage your disease's growth and which countries decide to shut down their borders first, because if you talk to anyone who's played this game they will tell you: No matter what you do, if Madagascar, New Zealand and/or Greenland decide to shut down their few entrances into their countries, you LOSE.

Every. Single. Time.

So the pros for Pandemic 2 definitely out way the few cons that I can find. The pros to this great game are: re-playability factor is there, simple layout, suitable graphics for a game made in 2008 and great immersion. The cons I have found are: sometimes the game can be unfair with it's random country spawning and with how other countries act.

         

 I'd give this solid, entertaining, strategic game an 8/10 for it's ability to stand the test-of-time and remain relevant in the casual gaming community.

Monopoly Project (Poster)

What future generations will wear

I think that the people living in 3016 will wear whatever materials they can find because my money is on world destruction within one-hundred years. Common people will find warmth, comfort, style and modesty in materials such as: rags, ripped cloth, towels, tablecloths...anything really.

Some people may become skilled in welding together scrap metals to create some sort of rickety, unorthodox body armor.

I think the entire look would be summed up in two simple words: 'homeless' and 'warrior'.

   Basically, the entire idea of 'fashion' would become obsolete and would be replaced with practicality, resourcefulness and survival aspects.

 Imagine the combined look of the people in the Mad Max and the Fallout series . THAT is what i'm going for here.

Grimy, Rough, Intimidating, Post-Apocalyptic....survival gear, not clothes.

 

Monopoly Project (The Box Art)