Cherie's Blog

Seriously, it’s Batman

I am recently into the Lego DC Super-Villains game, playing monthly with my friends on Switch. Therefore, the game piece that I thought about for the 3D printing project is a Lego toy. Although Batman is not the protagonist in Lego DC Super-Villains, he is an imposing figure in the DC universe, and most importantly, it is almost all in black that could save me time to put on color.

However, unexpectedly, the TechLab mistakingly printed my Batman with the white plastic, and I had to color it by myself. It is hard to paint color on the slippery plastic, and there are unapproachable cracks that don’t take color. After my painting, it is even less persuasive that this 3D printed piece is not a naive Japanese childish cartoon figure whose name I could not recall but Batman.

Fiasco Reflection

Fiasco is an exciting role-playing board game that is surprisingly portable, requiring only several dices and rule books to play with. The setting up process for the game was rather quick. We used Main Street and Willow Road play-set. After rolling the dices, relationships between each neighboring player, locations, needs, objects were settled. The game Fiasco requires a great story-telling ability as well as a creative improvisation skill.
Our game took place in the Woods up around Hickory Terrace. My relationship with Austin, on my left-hand side, was the former spouse. However, the relationship between Sadie, on my right-hand side, and I was a gambler and bookie. The “double identity” of each player makes the game hard but fun to play that everyone has to keep the scripts of settings in mind and to develop reasonable plots accordingly. For instance, in the first place, I failed to set up the connection between my divorcing problem and gambling habit. The opening scene started up with Austin and I arguing and breaking up due to mundane money issue. I was expelled from our house in the county. At that point, the arguing was just about domestic duties and financial problems. Moving to my round, because of my implied relationship with Sadie as friends in the previous rounds and at the same time she being my bookie, the story was messed up a little bit. To make more sense for the divorce and gambling, I suddenly decided to make up the story of I stealing money from my ex-husband and would like to bet my future life no gambling. As my bookie, Sadie could offer me the game; however, as my best friend, Sadie tried to persuade me to keep out of it. The unexpected pieces of information due to the rash decisions formed small conflicts lead to the unsettling feature of the first scene. In Act One, although each conversation was somewhat independent, we were trying our best to combine the two needs and the objects. For example, the hoodlum murdered an elderly lady; the hoodlum and my ex-husband planned on stealing a purebred animal; and the nurse in the hospital tried to develop an affair with my ex-husband.
After getting the tilt, we realized that Fiasco, as a game building up disastrous situations, emphasizes more on the dark side of humanity, greed, lust, jealousy, and insanity. Even the player with the largest number of white dice got degraded and defamed hint that pushed players towards a more chaotic ending in Act Two. Players more actively involved themselves in the crime, even if they are not at all evil figures in the first scene. At the same time, whereas, we failed to keep on track with the details. I remembered almost every single one of us got a “bad” ending. For me, I was publicly humiliated and suffered permanent injury, and the money I stole was mysteriously stolen according to the tilt. That is to say, I ran away from the conversation in the senior care and came across the hoodlum Giovanni, hooking up with him. However, the police came up to us after a few days, and Giovanni hit-and-run, which causes my permanent physical disability. Therefore, I am also humiliated over stealing money from ex-husband and betraying him on his best friend.
The genuinely intriguing part of Fiasco is its flexibility and unpredictability. Every player contributes their idea to the overall story. It is each one of their decisions that leads to the ending of the game. The interactive mechanism makes it more engaging and fun to play. Overall, the gaming experience is a little bit struggling for me because of its chaotic nature and the mismatched expectation. I would like to try Fiasco with a better-prepared mindset if there is another chance.

“Cycle of Eternity”

I played the game “Mansion of Madness” with Wenyi and Kimberly. It basically combines the form of both board game and video game, featuring Lovecraftian’s horror monsters and puzzle-solving mindset. That is to say, we not only have to set up the cards and roll the dice on the table but also have to download its app to trigger the plot.

When Wenyi and I first started setting up the game, we were confused when going through the wordy rule book, because there are a lot of rules that make sense only at the particular situation. Thanks to Kimberly, who has previously played this game with her friends, we get to understand the rules and set up the game successfully. We chose one of the base game that is supposed to be about 90 to 120 min. However, we still couldn’t finish it in 3 hours. According to Kimberly’s previous gaming experience, she said, it is because we tended to explore the map more after Wenyi got a Claustrophobia Horror Effect with accumulative Horror cards that could lead her to Insane when in a small map. At first few rounds, we played slowly, checking the rule book frequently. Also, we forgot that each character has their own strength. For example, William Yorick, my character, can gain an extra clue whenever a monster is defeated, but we did not realize it until halfway through the game.

The game is more comprehensive and playable than I thought it would be. It is an interesting combination of video game and board game that I believe it preserves the most enjoyable part of each game formats. For example, the gaming process, like dice rolling, could just be a random number generator in the video game, which makes the players feel like they have less control during the game. However, there are drawbacks as well. If the game is entirely data-based, the mistakes like forgetting the characters’ strengths will not happen.

Sword Out

My roommate recently got sick. Therefore, when I was hunting down something small enough to fit in an A4 paper to create an illustration, a thermometer popped into my sight. The idea that pulling out the old school thermometer from its case is similar to pulling the sword from its sheath has been in my mind since I was young.

With this idea in my mind, I searched illustrations online, try to mimic its stance on the paper. Finally, I referred to the image below. Unable to find an ideal color pencil to create the blending effect, I tried to use the eyebrow pencil. Playing the make-up on a piece of paper instead of a face is a novel experience. Though the final illusion is not as good as I expected, creating “Sunday Sketches” is still enjoyable, which encourages me to think more creatively about the rather everyday stuff in life.

Reference: http://www.sucaidaren.com/sucai/4263787.html

Fly Me to the Moon

The significant challenge for the Combophoto is to find two images that are graphically and chromatically matching. For the first attempt, I failed to come up with a decent idea. However, later when I was watching the documentary film First Man (2018), the idea of combining the image of astronaut and moon popped into my mind. The shape of the space helmet ideally matches the shape of the moon. With the basic idea, it is not hard to find the images of the astronaut and the moon.

However, I had a hard time piecing two pictures together. I was too lazy to explore new apps, so I tried to use Procreate on my iPad. However, this app is not friendly to rookies like me. I tried hard to figure out how to work with the layers and brushes.

People are naturally respectful and curious about things like outer space and astronomy. The idea I would like to convey here is similar to the spirit of moon landing: to explore the unknown.

Picture reference:

https://images.app.goo.gl/pnHaK5mTFJW8eFWn8

https://images.app.goo.gl/BjEf7gTSMtNKtETS6

Liveblogging Gone Home

Sat 20:16 The game is set. Ready to play. Here is the link to Side Quest 3: https://eng101s20.davidmorgen.org/quests/side-quests/side-quest-3-liveblogging-gone-home/

Sat 8:32 The game looks like a horror game, the unstoppable rain outside and the dim light in the house are typical elements when a horror story takes place. The game is really detailed. Notably, the sound effects in the game are really vivid. When turning the character with the mice, there is a change of volume on each side of the channel. For example, when the character’s left ear is closer to the window, the sound of rain on the left channel is bigger. However, the sensitivity of the mouse is too high that even with a little move, the character could suddenly be facing the roof or the floor.

Sat 21:07 It is just hard to play the game when I almost missed all the switches of the light. I am literally going through darkness.

Sat 21:38 The setting of the game is so authentic. I have to take the book under a lamb in order to see its cover. There are so many elements in the game. I guess I missed a lot of them. The subjective searching process makes the game really interactive.

I took a break.

Sun 12:08 I am getting better with finding the lightings.

The markers are rolling as I am opening the drawer.

Sun 13:02 I have been hanging around in Sam’s room, finding the locker code for 10min, but I still can’t find it. I guess I’ll just let it go.

Sun 13:20 I think I’m scaring myself more than the game is scaring me. The game is intentionally building up a sense of horror, which is based on my own imagination.

The “blood” in the bathroom and the quirky red light at the end of the hallway

Sun 14:45 It is enjoyable to unlock Sam’s closet by finding the locker code behind the secret panels. It leads to more secret rooms and basements.

Sun 15:30 I finished playing this game. Playing Gone Home is an immersive experience. Though my laptop is lagging, I can feel that the game is well made. The details are impressive and are functioning in the storytelling. However, Gone Home is not my favorite type of game. I don’t appreciate it always creating the horror atmosphere, like the ritual things, but its ending is not horror-related. It is a little bit disappointing.

What’s in my Bag

Interestingly, I am literally sticking with every episode of the “In the Bag” from the British Vogue, and I am now going to do one episode for myself. Therefore, I would like to go along with the Vogue routine to introduce the things in my bag.

First of all, my name is Cherie Lou, and this is my bag.

My backpack is transparent with plastic texture, which makes everything inside transparent as well.

From top to bottom and from left to right, there is a list for all the stuff in my bag (and the applications in the parentheses) :

A mask (I bring it because of the recent flu, although I barely use it)
The key to my dorm (I always bring it, because my roommate and I are used to locking the door after we leave the dorm)
Feminine hygiene products
Laptop & iPad (I usually take one of them with me to class, rarely both, because they are so heavy)
The pillbox (I always bring it which contains my allergy medicine and pain killer)
A small notebook (I always take it to record some reminders)
AirPods (I always bring it to listen to music during the commute or to call friends at leisure)
My phone (I always have my phone everywhere I go because it makes me feel safe)
Tissue (I always keep it in my bag, but I could never find it when I need one)
The Japanese textbook (I always take it, since there is a Japanese class almost every day…)
A pencil case (I always take it, although the product I use most in it is the lip balm)
Flyers (I didn’t get a chance to take it out)

I actually made some subjective choices when choosing which bag to show, because I have two bags in the shift. The bigger one is for carrying the laptop and the iPad at the same time. I chose the plastic bag over the regular one because it is more stylistic, which is a characteristic that I appreciate and pursue. The content that my bag says about me is that I am a well-prepared but slightly disorganized. That is to say, I prepare things like tissue for incidents, but I couldn’t always find them when I need them. Also, I am such a typical and practical student that almost everything in my bag is the necessity for me to take classes and to study.

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The badge I use is made based on a prank meme of the mobile game PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds). One of my Facebook friends combines the image of a girl from the Japanese meme and the PUBG theme. PUBG is one of my favorite mobile games in which I enjoyed a lot of fun with my friends. The knowledge of tactics, reflexes, and cooperation in the game is fascinating. Before playing PUBG, I thought games, especially video games and mobile games, are addictive. However, after I start, I could see some wisdom and incredible designs in each of them.