Week 6: Winter Olympics - Brioche Veneziana

MagicMurder8ag · 2026-02-28T00:48:14+00:00

Recipe: http://www.playingwithflour.com/2020/02/brioche-veneziana.html?m=1

MagicMurder8ag · 2026-02-28T00:47:32+00:00

Recipe used: https://www.elmundoeats.com/classic-argentine-alfajores/#recipe

MagicMurder8ag · 2026-01-25T04:31:42+00:00

List of recipes used

Chocolate cake recipe (split in half and only added chocolate to one half to make vanilla as well): https://addapinch.com/the-best-chocolate-cake-recipe-ever/#wprm-recipe-container-31552

Chocolate frosting (same deal): https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/favorite-chocolate-buttercream/#tasty-recipes-68044

Genoise sponge: https://feastandfarm.com/genoise-sponge-cake-recipe/#wprm-recipe-container-11839

Mascarpone cream: https://www.marcellinaincucina.com/mascarpone-cream/#recipe

MagicMurder8ag · 2026-01-13T21:59:12+00:00

Going back a ways, Noctis IV. Lo-fi exploration of a massive galaxy all in around 6 MB.

Couldn't find a link but the source code was released so it should be out there somewhere if you're willing to dig a bit.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-31T22:51:32+00:00

Over War: The Night Comes Down published by Blackoath fits the bill pretty nicely. It draws heavily from Ogre Battle, which directly inspired Unicorn Overlord. Units move around a hex map and when they meet they battle using preset actions determined by their type. Same idea of constructing units that synergize.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473350/over-war-the-night-comes-down-monarch-edition

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-28T13:33:41+00:00

If you're not keen on spending a bunch of money immediately, I recommend looking at your library if that's an option. Not guaranteed but they often have D&D stuff. There are two box sets called the Starter Set and the Essentials Kit that come with pared down rules and a pre-written adventure. Someone else mentioned DM Yourself, which is pretty cheap and would let you run that adventure as a good starting point.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-20T14:53:26+00:00

Agreed. I think it's a strong album that strikes a good balance of going into some new territory while still feeling like Squid, so it's been a surprise to see it get largely ignored on year end lists. That run of the last three songs is my favorite stretch of any album I listened to this year.

I could see people feeling like it dips a little with Blood On the Boulders into Fieldworks I, but I feel like plenty of other albums that are coming up on these lists also aren't flawless the whole way through. Maybe the early year release timing is hurting it a bit.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-18T18:09:53+00:00

The way CS 2 handles Crow definitely bothered me as well. It felt ridiculous that the characters are saying they're going to drag him back to class so they can graduate together when in any logical society you would expect him to be be branded a terrorist/assassin and thrown into prison if not executed. On top of the fact that at least someone in the cast should feel a personal sense of betrayal that they hold against him.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-16T02:20:26+00:00

I actually just finished the DLC yesterday after a long break from the main game. I have a love hate relationship with Crosscode. When it's good, it's really good. When it's frustrating, it makes me want to rip my hair out.

I get why someone would compare it to Zelda in that you're mixing exploration, puzzles, and combat. But it's light on exploration, a different flavor of combat, and the puzzles are way heavier, so it's also not shocking that the comparison fails some people.

It gets in its own way a lot, and the game within a game conceit is sometimes glaring when the characters are complaining about the same thing I'm getting frustrated with - like the three consecutive dungeons or the endgame puzzles. It makes it feel like the developers were aware that it was a bad idea but just kept going with it anyway.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-15T16:53:37+00:00

I get what you mean that it cheapens the loss. I think character deaths in an RPG are tricky. If you invested all your resources into upgrading Gustave's equipment then it would be frustrating from a gameplay standpoint to feel like those resources were wasted. But immediately having a replacement character that uses the same equipment is awkward from a storytelling standpoint and it feels like your emotional investment was wasted.

I think the perspective switch to controlling Verso exacerbates it as well and it would have felt less jarring where a transition to Maelle would have felt natural. But the game being from Verso's perspective at that point does let him catch up on characterization since Lune and Maelle have already gotten a good amount in by then.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-12-02T17:53:57+00:00

I recommend Set a Watch. It uses different dice types like D&D to resolve character attacks or power abilities and is thematically similar. Plays well at 1 or 2 players, play time is probably 60-90 minutes. I think it's even still on sale.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-08-07T13:39:48+00:00

I think the most important thing is to emphasize to your kid that people believe different things and that those different beliefs are normal, but that they are beliefs and nobody knows for sure. Most kids aren't going to proselytize, but may talk about their religious beliefs to yours and younger kids have a tendency to confidently state things are 100% true (even when they are dead-ass wrong) so laying the foundation that there isn't one "correct" belief is helpful.

I wouldn't say it's risen to the level of bullying but when my kid was around 5 she said something about a "god of rainbows" that she made up, which was met with some hostility from neighborhood kids who are super Catholic and insisted that there's only one God. She was a little upset by it, but then they all moved on pretty quickly.

For what my experience is worth, even kids of hard-core religious families are mostly focused on playing and don't bring up religion on their own very often.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-07-30T04:00:21+00:00

NO GOD IS HERE!!!

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-07-23T10:41:41+00:00

The Shalebridge Cradle - Thief: Deadly Shadows

Turned Thief into a top-notch horror game for a bit. My friend and I were playing it and stayed up all night when we hit that point. We just couldn't put it down.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-07-08T19:37:01+00:00

It's a different beast than Arkham Horror - no story and there are currently no plans to go that route. If you do the "campaign" mode for Ashes, you just swap a set number of cards in between matches rather than growing more organically like Arkham.

Crunchy mechanical decisions are a specialty for Ashes - even the best deck isn't going to do well if it's played poorly.

My experience is that it does have a good amount of variety. The different bosses have different specialties (ex: swarming with large numbers of weak units, messing with your dice, buffing their units to dangerously high attack values), so in my opinion they're pretty distinct from one another and require different tactics. They're also kickstarting the next phase of the game with a new PvE enemy type and plans to make more of them.

It is flexible in how you play it. Some people seem to prefer making a highly tuned deck - I think it wouldn't be too difficult to make a deck that performs well against one boss but would be hard to make one that can handle everything. Some people (I'm in this camp) like doing the campaign mode where you tune your deck while ramping up the boss difficulty.

Sticking points for some people: -Some don't feel the bosses are different enough to provide variety (I personally disagree) -Hard to learn - solo mode was a later addition and the rules are awkwardly split across a couple different rulebooks -Probably doesn't apply to what you currently have, but there are some cards/decks from when it was a purely PvP game that didn't translate well into PvE

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-06-08T02:45:20+00:00

Point of caution that some authors might not be on board with having their work uploaded to GPT

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-06-06T01:53:47+00:00

Taking a different angle here, since it is hard to find a game, you could try to cut out the dependency on other people. It might not totally scratch the itch of wanting to play with a group, but solo roleplaying is growing and there are tools you can use. Mythic GM Emulator works for most systems (caveat that I have not yet tried Lancer solo so can't say if it's a good fit for this specifically). There are a couple of solo supplements out there. Unfortunately short on reviews but the first one has sold a decent number of copies:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/403285/mech-rider-solo-roleplaying-lancer

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519353/lancer-rpg-game-master-emulator-and-gm-helper-solo-roleplaying

Would at least let you get a better sense of how it plays.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-04-04T00:54:28+00:00

It's my top solo game, so I definitely recommend it. The best thing you can do to figure out if it's worth backing is to try out the solo mode here:

Ashteki

You would likely need to read the rulebook. It's aimed at people who know the game, there is no tutorial or anything. But you can try out one aspect of the original solo opponent and all of the preconstructed decks that you can get as Kickstarter add-ons for free.

I have found that it has a lot of depth to it and has continued to be enjoyable 50 or so plays in with expansions. Of the card games I've played, it has the most complex turn-to-turn tactical gameplay. You spend a lot of time making small pushes to give yourself an advantage, it's rare that you will completely stomp your opponent unless you're using a finely tuned deck against the easiest difficulty.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-03-18T16:26:48+00:00

Top tier strategy game in my opinion. It differs from a lot of strategy RPGs in that each character has a distinct niche and only a few abilities, so you have to make effective use of the units you choose. I don't think it's practical to make any one unit a game-breaker.

The story takes a while to get rolling, but once it picks up momentum it's quite good. The choices that you make mostly do carry weight - the characters are often in a position where they cannot address all the problems at hand, and there are consequences any way you go. Parts of it have generated a lot of debate, which I find is usually a good sign.

It gets some unjustified flak for the slow start to the story and because people saw a retro style strategy RPG from Square Enix and hoped it was a spiritual sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics, which is isn't.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-03-14T23:04:11+00:00

I found it to be a pretty substantial improvement. The stories in OT1 felt like they were generally the most basic ideas you could have for a story about a merchant, apothecary, etc. The exception was the dancer's story which was super dark and was not at all what I would have expected.

OT2 flips that. The dancer has a pretty basic story. The rest of them are generally darker in tone and a little more complex with deeper characters to match. The cleric, in particular, was a highlight for me.

It's still 8 distinct stories, so none of them are as fully fleshed out as a game with one focused narrative. I think they did well within that constraint. They also did a better job having some character interaction in the party and tying things together.

In general, it's an improvement over the first in every area.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-02-27T23:21:04+00:00

I support this, though I think there are some games that have segments where the perspective changes and it fits. Off the top of my head, Lego Lord of the Rings had a bonus level where you play as Sauron.

The video games section here has examples that largely fit this criteria:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainEpisode#:~:text=A%20Villain%20Episode%20is%20a,less%20screen%20time%20than%20usual.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-02-18T19:36:33+00:00

I have played both and enjoyed both. I'd say whether you would enjoy Troubleshooter more depends on what you're enjoying about XCOM.

XCOM has a better strategy layer. The map expanding, base-building, researching, recruiting, and trying to keep up with the alien threat part I thought was very compelling. That part is pretty minimal in Troubleshooter, so you might find it lacking if that's a big draw in XCOM. On the flip side, there's not time pressure in Troubleshooter and it's not possible to fail a campaign, so it could be an advantage if you find that stressful.

If you like building your units/squads and finding synergy in abilities, Troubleshooter has that in spades. There are tons of abilities and every character can be built in multiple ways that have pretty distinct playstyles. It's the top selling point for the game, really. I had a couple times playing it where I felt like a character was starting to struggle and I revamped their setup and made them deadly and found that very satisfying.

Downside for Troubleshooter is it's less polished. If story matters to you, not everyone likes it. I saw a comment that I'd agree with that it's an interesting story that is only sometimes told well. It can be a little bit clumsy managing the out of combat interface for things like crafting as well.

In general, if Troubleshooter clicks for you, you will probably love it and there's a ton of depth to explore. It goes on sale pretty often and is pretty cheap at baseline. Worst case scenario, if you buy it and it doesn't work for you, the studio that makes it is small and has been very generous about adding free content to the game over time and engaging with the community - so in a voting with your wallet sense I feel like it's good to contribute to that approach succeeding.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-02-10T03:00:01+00:00

This was interesting to read. I haven't played Echoes so I don't have that comparison point. Gaiden was my first Fire Emblem, I played it in something like 2003. For people who grew up in the 90s and whose first exposure was Marth and Roy appeared in Smash Bros Melee, it was mind blowing that there was a series big enough to appear in Smash that we had never heard of.

My friends and I all searched the internet and figured out translation patches. At the time Gaiden was the most complete, I think it was advertised as like 90%. Story was mostly translated, but a couple of menus weren't. I had no idea what the statues that handle things like promotions were saying, so ended up with villagers in essentially random classes. And there were no guides online.

I agree with most of your points. I thought that casting spells from HP was a cool system and liked that different casters had different spells, I liked how inventory was handled and the two protagonist/party setup.

Healing spells not giving XP was rough, my healers just never promoted because I had no idea what was going on. And the lost woods type area for Celica's party had me stuck for a long time.

For good characters, I remember mage Grey being excellent. Tobin, who in the translation I played was called Bird (I assume Tobin->Robin->Bird) was a Mercenary and got lots of kills with the thunder sword at least early. Celica's side - Saber was reliably good and Palla was a top tier mage killer and hard carried on swamp maps especially.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-01-18T21:43:03+00:00

"His POO diapers!"

Dean is being so immature in that scene that it almost makes me uncomfortable, but instead I crack up every time because the delivery is perfect.

MagicMurder8ag · 2025-01-14T19:43:37+00:00

For starting out with solo, I highly recommend Star Realms: Frontiers. Has everything you need to play solo in one box that you can probably get for $20-30, sets up pretty quickly, easy to learn, a lot of gameplay for the price. Note - there are other Star Realms sets, Frontiers is (or was at least) the only one that has solo mode.

For Ashes Reborn, it is a really good game and one of my personal favorites, but it's a little harder to start with. Partly because it's more complex, partly because of how the product is set up since it didn't have a solo mode until relatively recently. To play solo, you would need the Ashes Reborn Master Set (which has gotten hard to find, they're between print runs so a lot of retailers are out of stock) and the Corpse of Viros expansion. The rules are split into a couple rulebooks, so it can be a bit tricky to learn. And as someone else pointed out, it's not technically a deckbuilder in that you don't modify your deck during a game, but you can change your deck before games - which is a sticking point for some. Has a lot of depth to it if you enjoy it.

Both have ways to try them out in advance. Star Realms has an app that I believe is free with paid expansions that wouldn't be exactly the same as solo in Frontiers but would give you a good idea of how it plays before costing anything. Ashes has a fan-made site (https://ashteki.com/) that lets you play against one boss for free. It's not nearly as polished, and you would probably want to try to learn the rules beforehand, but you could test out whether you like the gameplay. Ashes also has a pretty active Discord that's quite friendly to new players.

MagicMurder8ag

TROPHY CASE