Previous News01.21.2009 - Terrence Marks:Kevin & Kell has been reinstated in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution - in color! As the folks who color it, we're chuffed as chips. Thank you, everyone who voted!01.20.2009 - Terrence Marks:I have two awesome videos for you.The Gist has an amazing music video for their song, Believe. I should mention that the drummer is my brother. Is that why I put the video up? No. It just means I can probably get in free to their shows.
Also, the multi-talented Wil Wheaton as The Blue Beetle.
I remember the Blue Beetle back when he was thin. And living. I was a huge fan of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold back in the Justice League International days. I haven't bought superhero comics in since then, but that's a whole 'nother post in itself (which I probably would've put up today if it weren't for all the cool videos). Anyhow, I'm a huge Wil Wheaton fan. To me this is like putting two awesome things together and coming up with something even more awesome. Like the opposite of pizza ice cream.01.13.2009 - Terrence Marks:A little while back, I mentioned that we're both a few months behind on answering email. If you wrote to us, we're not going to be able to reply. Why? My cats enjoy sitting on my keyboard. It's right by the window and gives them a nice view of the patio. The view, apparently, is best from on top of the delete key. I mention this because I left Thunderbird open and they deleted all the email I've been meaning to reply to for the last several months. Then the inbox got corrupted when I tried to restore the messages. This means that everything Isabel and I meant to reply to is gone.If you said something nice, we read it and really appreciate it. I'm very glad you enjoy our work; if people didn't enjoy it, it wouldn't be worth doing. We meant to send you a reply that said something like this, but more personal, and hope you continue to enjoy the comics.
If you pointed out something that needed to be fixed, I probably fixed it. I usually do that when I'm on my way out the door and don't have time to send something better than "Thanks! Fixed!". If I didn't fix it, or if there's something else that got spelled wrong, please email me again so I can get it corrected.
If you sent us condolences on our niece's death, we appreciate your support in difficult times.If you sent us fanart, please, please re-send it so we can put it up properly.
If you sent us anything else or would just like a more personal reply, please e-mail us again.01.12.2009 - Terrence Marks:On Monday, January 12th, the Atlanta Jounal-Constitution cut 13 comic strips. One of those strips is Kevin & Kellwhich we color. They're having a poll to determine which two strips get brought back - the full details are available at kevinandkell.com. We ask that you please vote for Kevin & Kell, especially if you live in the Atlanta region.01.11.2009 - Terrence Marks:I tried playing Monato Esprit. Firstly, it looks beautiful. It's a new game, and is going to look better than something four years old. There are a few new games that look great, partially because they're giving up on the market segment with older hardware. I don't think Isabel's computer could run this one at any kind of speed.It has a decent tutorial section. You start out on their equivalent of Noob Island and they send you on a lot of quests. If Alice sends you to find Bill, you need to talk to Bill once to finish the "Find Bill" quest, a second time when he asks you if you're ready for the next quest, and a third time when he actually gives you the quest. Just a minor issue, though.
There's a decent range of appearance customization when you start. You choose a horoscope sign and season, as well. I mention this only because it gives you various bonuses. I do not like it when a game has you make what might be major decisions then makes you wait an hour before telling you what the consequences of that may be.
The game has a non-navigable mini-map and a manually controlled camera. The graphics settings are not adjustable.
I died while exiting a dungeon. When I got out, I didn't see any NPCs. I logged off. When I logged back on, I was in a new city. My spawn point was in a woodpile. I couldn't move. I don't think there were any GMs on. I'm not sure there was anybody on, actually.
Reading about it online, I found that the game's currency is MetaTIX, which can only be bought with real cash money. It costs money to go into some (most?) dungeons. The game hints that you can just trade things to other players, to avoid paying. The player base doesn't seem big enough to realistically support this. The literature mentions these being accepted in many different games, but Monato Esprit is the only one they actually name.
The game's classes include Harlequin, Hwarang, and Sheriff. It sounds like the design concept was "Let's take the awesomest stuff we can find and toss it all in". The Templar and Hwarang seem similarly tankish and I'm not sure what the difference between the Sheriff and Mage are, much less what the Harlequin actually does in game terms. Again, stuck in a woodpile.01.06.2009 - Terrence Marks:Firstly, I recently discovered PS238. It had been highly recommended to me several times in the past and I finally got around to reading it. It's a superhero comedy comic book that's being brought onto the Internet, one page at a time. I enjoy it very much and highly recommend it to you.Secondly, I've been a bit busy for the last month or two. Working a lot of overtime. If you emailed me and I didn't get back to you, it's because I pretty much didn't get back to anybody. I'm taking a break from my game search for a bit. I still have about five reviews to write and post.
I know the tone of things has been a bit negative lately. I fail to mention most games' good points. I'm trying to find the right game for me. This is why they aren't it. If you enjoy the game, I hope you continue to enjoy it, and aren't waiting for my validation. Also, I enjoy listening to myself complain.
I've been thinking more about what I want in games. Like an automatic camera. I like the option of adjusting it manually, but when I turn I want the camera to turn with me. I want the camera behind and above me about 98% of the time when I play, so why do I have to move it myself every time I turn? It's 2009. Computers should be able to do this on their own.
Noob Island is a fairly clever idea. I had overlooked how clever it was because it seemed completely obvious to me. I keep finding games that don't give you much any tutorial or instruction. I want a quick walkthrough of the controls, what classes there are, and such. I want to have stuff to do at least until I hit level 10.
A lot of games dump you in the hub city. There's the NPC for that level 50 quest standing by the gate asking if you have any copper marbles. You, being new, don't realize that they're only dropped by greatly huge dragons who can kill you as a free action, so you're trying to figure out if you have any, and where you get them. There's 30 mostly-identical NPCs standing around, so finding the five that you actually need is hard, and making the game hard isn't condusive to keeping me as a player. Give me a small area with five NPCs, free healing, and nothing that can kill me in one hit until I decide to leave Noob Island.
I want a tutorial that explains things concisely and as I need them. If there's a green bar in the upper right that I'm not going to use until I hit level 15, don't even show it to me when I'm on noob island. I want to be able to pull up a cheat sheet that tells me what an enchantment does and how it's different from an inspiration, especially if one is difficult to obtain and/or permanent. Maybe I wasn't paying much attention the the tutorial. I do that sometimes. And don't just show me the tutorial again. If I didn't sit through it the first time, I probably won't sit through it the second time.
One of the design principals of Final Battle Adventure Online is that you don't have to make decisions before they're relevant, and that very few decisions are immediately permanent. (Gender is, for instance, because it doesn't affect gameplay, and because you should know which one you want to play as). Don't make me start out the game and decide if I want a bonus to magical defence or physical attack before I do anything else. I don't know if, say, there are only three enemies that use magical attack, or that you can buy attack boosters at any shop in town.
If I'm an archer, I want to start out shooting things with arrows. If I'm a cleric, I want to start out healing things. Don't make me spend the first four hours hitting rats with a stick, as if I'm some kind of incompetent fighter.
Anyhow, that's what I'm looking for in a game. I'll let you know when I find it.
01.05.2009 - Isabel Marks:*PHEW* Comics are once again back on track... if you didn't catch the three comic updated yesterday, they are in the archive at their respectful dates. Hopefully this insomnia I keep having doesn't come back any time soon. Sorry for the delays- thank you for your patience!