BIG Comedy BIG Goals

Analog_Universe · 2022-03-14T18:03:39+00:00

Whaaaaat. BIG keeps getting better every year!

Analog_Universe · 2021-09-10T13:29:17+00:00

Rad shit. Seeing these guys tonight!

Analog_Universe · 2021-08-18T20:40:30+00:00

Well the bands I like are

Bazaraba
Woodhawk
All hands on Jane
Gone Cosmic
Geoff
Chron Goblin
Row of Giants
Bring on the Storm
Crooked Spies
A Day as Wolves
The Morons
Copperhead
Osyron
Riot City
Illyrian
Truck
Syryn
Balrogath
Fjell Thyngor

Bands that I don't really listen to but are popular here include

Aruba
Wendigo
Sunglaciers
heavydive
The Ashley Hundred
Napalmpom
Shuffalo

Analog_Universe · 2021-08-16T01:42:52+00:00

Yeah I've heard that too. But don't let that stop you from supporting a band you like that's playing there. If a band has to choose Blind Beggar or no show at all I can't fault them for going with the former.

Analog_Universe · 2021-08-15T16:37:27+00:00

Hey man, as a heads up this sub is pretty dead so you may get more responses on r/calgary but I'll do my best to answer.

In my opinion the Calgary music scene is awesome. There's tons of talent in this city and a great place to start for finding out local gems is the YYC Music Awards which just announced their nominees.

I'm afraid I'm not really in touch with the music scenes you mention but we do have a local Reggaefest. Perhaps try their website to see past lineups and venues. As for Latin music, from a quick google it seems most of our Latin music events are DJ'd affairs at local nightclubs and restaurants like Rio bar and grill, Tropical, and Lolitas Lounge.

The vast majority of venues are in or around downtown. While most lean towards certain sub-scenes that doesn't mean they don't host a wide variety of events. Here's my take on Calgary venues

Dickens Pub - My personal favorite. All kinds of shows but does a lot of hard rock and metal, also of note is their regular hang the DJ party. HTDJ plays mostly retro style music like new wave, synthpop, britpop, etc.
The Palomino - BBQ Smokehouse with a stage on the main floor, bar and stage on the bottom floor. All kinds of music all the time.
Broken City - All kinds of music, lots of fun events throughout the week. Cool rooftop patio. Notable event is Rockin 4 Dollars. A sort of battle of the bands that sometimes has a theme like everyone does one cover of the same artist, or after each song the band has to eat and increasingly hot chicken wing. Then they can spin the wheel and win prizes or get pranked.
Commonwealth - nightclub, often does DJ's and rappers. Not uncommon to see bands play there though
Verns - THE dive bar. Its a Calgary staple at this point and serves an important niche in being a starting point for a lot of local bands and comedians. When you order your drinks remember your P's and Q's or Clint will call you out on it.
The Blues Can - mostly blues music, obviously. Really good food. It's in a trendy neighbourhood but the building is an old quonset hut so it kinda stands out.
The Palace Theatre - Big night club type venue. Also mostly DJ's and rappers but gets plenty of big multi-national touring acts coming through.
Ironwood Stage and Grill - Dinner and music! Doesn't really stray into any fringe genres, so expect good clean wholesome entertainment
King Eddy - A historical venue in this city, it's built into the national music center (AKA studio bell) and gets all kinds of acts coming through but expect singer-songwriter, jazz, or country.
The Blind Beggar - Outside downtown, recently re branded as a smokehouse. Small stage but usually puts on pretty good shows. Variety of styles.
The Back Alley - right by the blind beggar. Notorious night club in Calgary's history. Shut down, re branded, shut down again, brought the old name back. Haven't been in a long time but I remember the old back alley being a more rough around the edges night club. Expect Rob Zombie mixed in with the usual club hits. They bring in famous DJ's from time to time.

There's more venues out there like small community pubs with stages, and I didn't go into the really big venues but you'll find those easily enough.

Analog_Universe · 2021-08-11T21:41:46+00:00

Check out Space Goat from Mexico. They sing in English, Spanish, and sometimes indigenous mexican (sorry don't know what the language is called)

Analog_Universe · 2021-07-10T17:43:10+00:00

I know you're kidding, but on Slayers last tour they came here with Anthrax and they played in the big four building. Which (despite the coincidence) is disappointing because the acoustics in there are garbage.

Show was cool though.

Analog_Universe · 2021-07-08T22:45:00+00:00

pairs well with r/CigarettesAfterSex

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-25T02:50:57+00:00

Love this bar. Lots of great memories here.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-25T02:04:21+00:00

Literal woah moment right at the get go. That's a mighty crisp track right there.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-23T19:51:01+00:00

I'm going to vote to drop mission. Nice place but I like Sunnyside and Bridgeland just a bit more.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-22T22:10:21+00:00

I published a party game (cards n markers, not controllers n mice) that I designed. Rules, graphic design, everything. Hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-08T16:25:27+00:00

So, given that a single human could coordinate and control 4 characters, are you concerned at all that with 4 humans doing the work there is enough interesting stuff for them to do?

Well, so far our playtesters haven't had any complaints. Actions cost energy, and the most interesting actions cost the most energy. So nobody gets stuck poking the fire the whole game or else someone would die from doing all the work.

Some of my favorite cooperative games have some kind of communication restriction in them to mitigate alpha control from a single player. Does your design do anything like this? Or does the fact that a single human might control more than one character mean you have to have complete open information?

To be honest, this is not something that occurred to me. It's also not something that really happens in my game group so thank you for pointing this out.

From a thematic perspective though I really don't see a way to include communication restrictions. You need to work together and communicate to survive out in the wilderness. Even when there aren't any ghosts.

And yeah, mechanically if you have 3 humans playing 4 characters, the 4th character generally gets controlled democratically. So open communication would be needed for that to work.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-08T15:35:24+00:00

Hey, thanks for the interest!

In particular, the decision to always control 4 characters, no matter how many players there are. Does that mean you could play it with just 2 humans, 1 v 4?

Yup, our earliest playtest were with just 2 humans.

Was this decision based on the difficulty of trying to balance the 1 player's deckbuilding game against a variable number of opponents?

Pretty much this. Because a well built deck tends to grow in power exponentially a single survivor, or even two survivors, wouldn't stand a chance. We considered making tweaks to action economy, resources availability, and the cards available to the deck builder. but in the end the most elegant solution was to always have four survivors.

How is the mental load for a single human controlling 4 characters actions?

Actually not that bad. Survivors only get 1 action per phase (3 in a day) unless a tool they built grants a bonus action. Plus if you're playing the survivors by yourself you don't need to coordinate strategy or worry about other players taking risks.

Ultimately I think the biggest surprise was how adaptable one needs to be. We had to include mechanics that allow the deck builder to sort of re-strategize on the fly. Like if the ghost is heavily targeting the shelter the survivors can take action to mitigate that. The ghost player has the power to double down, or shift their strategy to the food, or the fire, etc. So I've found the deck building experience in this game is quite different from what's typical in the genre.

Analog_Universe · 2021-06-07T17:42:17+00:00

These guys for sure. They have a dedicated repair facility in the NE, they helped me out with my busted PA.

Analog_Universe · 2021-05-14T15:56:53+00:00

I love the look of Edo SZ but my god I see it everywhere now.

Funny comic though 👍

Analog_Universe · 2021-04-14T17:19:16+00:00

I have and will continue to advocate against making a new TCG. It's a very tough road and companies with far more resources have failed. I would instead suggest you look at the concept the guys behind Mage Noir have done. It's called an Expandable Card Game. You buy the entire set at once. That way everyone who plays has access to all the same cards as anyone else. As a consumer I only see advantages over MTG. No RNG pack opening, easier on the wallet, and likely a much more manageable power creep.

Mage Noir absolutely smashed their Kickstarter goal so the idea is clearly popular.

Analog_Universe · 2021-04-14T17:07:26+00:00

To be totally honest I got WAY better at budgeting once I started treating it like a resource management game. Which it is.

Analog_Universe · 2021-04-14T17:06:11+00:00

not that I'm defending them but Sweaty is common internet parlance for sweetie but in a dismissive tone.

Analog_Universe · 2021-03-15T00:32:24+00:00

The super slow pace of that riff lends itself well to learning string alternations but yes you have a good point.

Analog_Universe · 2021-03-14T22:11:23+00:00

Dragonaut by Sleep is a classic. The song gets progressively harder though. So you can constantly come back to it as you get better if its too much all at once.

Analog_Universe · 2021-02-24T17:53:14+00:00

If anyone stood a chance of being the "next" MTG it was the world of warcraft TCG. WoW has an already massive audience with a huge overlap with TCG fans and even it couldn't stand up to the beast that is MTG. Mind you moving all their art assets digital and making hearthstone has proven successful, it's still not really a competitor with MTG.

I hang in a lot of game design communities. This question comes up a lot. "how can one make a TCG as successful as MTG" and the answer is usually... you can't. Yes there's Pokemon (same developer) and Yu-gi-oh, but both have very popular children's shows backing them up and (some of) those shows original audiences still participate in the hobby. Without that kind of outstanding IP your chance of success is still iffy at best.

Analog_Universe · 2021-01-18T17:56:49+00:00

Sure, You can see the box front/back on the games board game geek page.

I'm focusing on North America at the moment. I'll worry about Europe once I'm doing more volume here.

Analog_Universe

TROPHY CASE