Eddings series

Hello people's. Today I'm writing about a book series I recently finished. Here it goes.

The series I finished is called The Tamuli. If you've read some of my other blogs you know that one of my favorite authors is David Eddings because of his Belgariad books that I read as a kid. Well after he wrote the Belgariad and the Mallorean he started writing more fantasy like the Elenium and The Tamuli. The first two and the last two are both series that occur chronologically 1 after the other, the last two series are in a different universe then the first two. So wanting to read more David Eddings I got both of those series and quickly finished the Elenium and then The Tamuli. After reading all four of these series you notice all the similarities between them and the story telling pattern that Eddings has for fantasy. In all of the series the central conflict revolves around an extremely powerful artifact. In the Belgariad/Mallorean it's the orb of Aldur and in the Elenim/Tamuli its Bhelliom. Eddings has also listed out different backgrounds that a hero in fantasy can have, in the Belgariad/Mallorean the hero is Garion and he starts the book as a young boy who is unskilled and uneducated in what's happening so he finds out about the world he's in along with the reader. In the Elenium/Tamuli the hero is Sparhawk and Sparhawk is already a man who is educated and is skilled so it's harder to get the reader to learn about the world because Sparhawk already knows about it so people aren't constantly explaining things to him. There's also a good guy sorcerer and a traveling party of people that accompany the hero. In the Belagariad/Mallorean the sorcerer is Belgarath and Polgara and in the Elenium/Tamuli the sorcerer is Sephrenia. The party the hero travels with in the Belgariad/Mallorean is a group of people that fit into certain roles in fantasy like the huge Viking character, the witty thief, the man on horseback etc. Following Sparhawk is a slightly less diverse group of four Knights who have to be strategic as well as physically powerful, Sephrenia, a smart practical squire, and a thief or two. Both universes also have their own religion and gods and goddesses. In the first the gods are UL, Aldur, Torak, Belar, Chaldan, Issa, Nedra, and Mara and two different near omnipotent "destinies" fight for control over the universe. In the second universe the religion is a lot more complex. So in this universe nearly every culture has its own religion with its own gods and almost all of them are real and interact with each other. The largest one is the "Elene faith which has one God and many similarities to Christianity, there's also Styricum with has a thousand younger gods and who knows how many elder gods, the Tamul faith which also has many gods, and at least 3 other cultures which their own one God. And there I just listed the ones that are real. There are also two similar forces to the first universe which are Bhelliom, the good guy, and Klæl the very very bad guy, and both of these forces fight over many worlds that they create.

So there are some of the similarities between the two universes. Bye.


- By Ashton

Music

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about some more music. Here it goes.

So almost all the songs I listen to are either rock or alternative and I've gotten some new alternative songs since my last music blog. First are a few rock songs that are really good when you are trying to get pumped up for something or you're angry. They're The Bird and The Worm by The Used, Cry by The Used, and Top Notch by Manchester Orchestra. I also have that creepy choir type music from the end of The Mist called The Host of Seraphim.

Now for the full list of Alternative songs I've gotten.

Best day of My Life by American Authors
Breakeven by The Script
Centuries by Fall Out Boy
Come With Me Now by KONGOS
Cool Kids by Echosmith
Counting Stars by OneRepublic
Demons by Imagine Dragons
Every Other Freckle by alt-J
Fade Away by The Black Heart Procession
For the First Time by The Script
Good Life by OneRepublic
Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's
I Bet My Life by Imagine Dragons
I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers
I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
It's Time by Imagine Dragons
Kill Your Heroes by AWOLNATION
Like Real People Do by Hozier
Love Don't Die by The Fray
Monster by Imagine Dragons
Nothing by The Script
On top of the World by Imagine Dragons
Paradise by Coldplay
Pompeii by Bastille
Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People
Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
Riptide by Vance Joy
Safe and Sound by Capital Cities
Sail by AWOLNATION
Say It, Just Say It by The Mowgli's
Secrets by OneRepublic
Show Me What I'm Looking for by Carolina Liar
Somewhere Only We Know by Keane
Stolen Dance by Milky Chance
Sweater Weather by The Neighborhood
Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap
Take Me to Church by Hozier
Trainwreck 1979 by Death from Above 1979
Use Somebody by Kings of Leon
Warriors by Imagine Dragons
We Are Young by Fun.
You Found Me by The Fray
Zombie by The Cranberries.

So there's my list of favorite Alternative songs. They're great, powerful, emotional songs and I love them. Bye.




- By Ashton

Christmas traditions

Hello people's. Today I'm talking about Christmas traditions. Here it goes.

Every year all of us have our own Christmas traditions. The most common ones are obviously putting Christmas lights up and a Christmas tree. In my family we have a small wooden log cabin and it's filled with windows and doors that go from 1 to 25. It's an advent calendar so whenever you get to the date you open up the corresponding window and there's candy inside for me and my brother and sister.

We have four types of Christmas ornaments. We have Lenox ornaments that my mom's parents have given us, these sculpted clay ones from my dad's parents, ornaments that are my dad's that are all superhero themed or nerdy in some way, and other ornaments we've gotten from various places. This year my mom separated all of the ornaments into piles based on which ones belonged to who. After that we all put most of our ornaments on the tree in the sunroom. We also have an angel on it and a bead string around it. There's another tree in our living room with lights on it but it's artificial and not as large.

My dad puts lights on the edge of roof. My grandad got a paint by numbers wooden Christmas themed train and it's been in the family since then and right now that's in my front yard. We also have rudolph's head on a stake.


His nose still glows. Every year we also buy or make Christmas themed cookies and watched Christmas movies.

Darkness Reborn

Hello people's. Today I'm writing about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Darkness Reborn. It's a fantasy MMO. The story is that darkness and monsters started attacking the land of Eirhenge out of rifts in the ground so a heroic knight went to kill the source of it, a dragon named Belphegor. The knight fatally wounded the dragon but not before it laid a horrible curse on the land and on the knight himself. Your mission it to destroy the curse and kill the cursed knight to bring peace.

There are two classes to choose from in darkness reborn. The first is a male warrior class who wields a shield and spear and a female ninja class that has a sword. The different equipment you have is either your spear and shield or sword, headgear, armor, gloves, and boots. You can also carry a maximum of three charms like necklaces, totems, or rings. You don't get the equipment from any kind of store using gold you just get it by looting enemies in the campaign. You can also buy strongboxes in the shop with Sols and strongboxes have random equipment in them. Any equipment you get in you inventory you can enhance which is taking worse equipment and merging it with the one your enhancing to raise it's stats. You can also sell equipment or put jewels in them to raise their stats. The game currently has 3 maps and 45 levels but more are coming soon. There is also 4 different vs. modes. There is one where you fight the AI, one where you can fight against your friends individually, the main vs. mode where you fight random people and then guild mode where guilds fight each other. I have my own full guild that I will fight with as soon as the next update comes allowing that vs. mode.

The fighting is very cool and fluid in this game. You have one main Attack button you can get combos with and 4 special moves that do various things. In the levels you kill a group of enemies and after they are dead the are opens up leading up to another area with new enemies to fight. The last group of enemies will normally have a mini boss or 2 to fight before you win the match.


Darkness Reborn is a very fun fantasy MMO for iOS and I highly recommend it. Bye.


- By Ashton

The Prince of Persia

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about The Prince of Persia. Here it goes.

So on my 9th birthday my parents got me a videogame for my Nintendo DS. The game was called The Prince of Persia: The Fallen King.


I absolutely loved the game and played it through at least 3 times, it was probably the game that got me interested in videogames in the first place. Then in 2010 they announced that they would do a movie called Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.


My dad showed me the trailer and I was very excited but still a little disappointed that the prince looked nothing like the prince of Persia in my videogame. My 10 year old brain filled with limitless wisdom jumped to the conclusion that they thought my prince wasn't cool enough and substituted my prince for this bozo. So I went and saw the movie and I still loved it even though the story was also completely different.

A few days ago I started thinking about that videogame again and how much I loved it so I looked up prince of Persia in Google and got on the wiki. To my complete surprise I learned that The Prince of Persia is a game series that started way back in 1989. The prince that I had always known and loved belonged to the third and most recent reincarnation of the series and the prince in the 2010 movie belonged to the second and longest lasting reincarnation of the series.


1rst


2nd


And 3rd reincarnation of the series, the prince that was such a big part of my childhood.

So I read through the plots of every game 10 in total. After I had read through the plots of all 10 games spanning across three universes I had an idea. Currently at school I had nothing to do during my free time so I started a project that would link together all 3 universes culminating in a completely fictional 4th reincarnation of the series with all 3 princes in it. It was hard at first to connect all 3 universes but I kept trying and pretty soon puzzle pieces started to fit together very nicely without having to change any plot lines in the games that already existed and or assume to much. Currently I am writing the plots for the next 3 or 4 games.

I highly recommend the Prince of Persia series, remakes of the very first two games are available on smart phones and tablets and all of the other games are available on the playstation store as well as for Xbox. Bye.

Alien: Isolation

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about a game called Alien: Isolation. Here it goes.

For my broth day I got a game called Alien Isolation. It's available for playstation, Xbox, and PC but I got it for ps3. It's a horror game by Sega set in the Alien movie universe.

You play as a grown up Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley's daughter. You missed your mother ever since she went missing on the mining vessel Nostromo, so as an adult you work as an engineer in around the space sector where your mother went missing. Eventually a man visits you saying that the space station Sevastopol has recovered the Nostromo's flight recorder. You and a crew of people on a ship go to visit the station... And that's where things go wrong. Even though I have played 2 other horror games before, DS2 and DS3, in those games everything you fought you could kill and in this game you're almost completely defenseless. You have two options. Run and Hide. Preferably run and then hide.

So here you are separated from your crew on a station with violent humans, homicidal synthetics, and some kind of... Monster. Your goal is to survive as long as you can on the Sevastopol and contact your ship so that you can escape. I really like the stealth mechanic in this game and the chases are very intense.

Bye.


- By Ashton

3 free iOS RPGs

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about 3 free games I have on my phone. Here it goes.

All the games I'm reviewing today are free RPG fantasy games. The first game I'm reviewing is called HonorBound.


In it the gods of your world have died and now chaos has completely control of your land. You, an HonorBound, have been summoned to raise an army to defeat the chaos. In HonorBound you use different levels of runes to summon heroes, the better the rune the better chance of getting better heroes.


In the world map you click on a place to fight that mission. It shows you a third person view of yourself as you go along the path with enemies to fight in your way, once you reach the end of the path you've beaten that mission.


The combat is very simple you just tap the enemy you want to fight and you'll hit him, once your mana builds up you can use any special powers you might have.





There is also a very complex research system, you have to research most of the games mechanics like hero slots, upgrading heroes, talismans, etc. My only complaints about the game is that the research system is very daunting to someone starting out, it would be better if it handed things to you slowly one by one instead of just dumping it in your lap. The combat is also lacking in entertainment. 6/10

The second game is called World of Warriors.


In World of warriors your goal is to raise an army to combat the evil across the land, very similar to the first game. To do things you use gems at the temple to summon warriors from different ancient civilizations like Vikings, and Romans, and Templar Knights.


Then you can select warriors to put into a squad and fight with them. Every warrior including the bad guys have 1 out of 4 elements, earth is strong against air, air is strong against water, water is strong against fire, and fire is strong against earth so you should plan which of your warrior fights an enemy warrior based on their elements. The combat is timing based. For a regular attack, you hit the sword button and tap the screen when the gold diamond is directly over the red line, the closer it is the more damage you will do. When an enemy attacks you it will knock out some of you hearts, mana, and sometimes a bomb. Tap the mana and hearts as quickly as possible to regain some of it and don't tap the bomb. After you build up some mana you can use your super move. Your super move normally consists of 1 or more timing games giving you the opportunity to do a lot of damage. If you use the super move of a warrior you aren't currently using it switches the warriors out, so if you don't have enough mana you can't switch your warriors.











There is also the ability to summon warriors with red gems, when you do this you have a much higher chance to summon better warriors. You can also acquire and craft talismans to equip to your warriors to make them better. So far I've only encountered one timer and that is that when a warrior's XP bar is full you have to train them to level them up which takes time. So far the game is put together a little oddly but is fun to play and the graphics are very good. 7/10

The final game, and my favorite of these, is called Adventure Age.


Right off the bat you get to choose a house of heroes, and customize your character, this level of character customization is very nice. This game is also the most nostalgic with its simple RPG elements and beautiful pixel graphics. After that you are showed three land tiles on a wooden surface similar to a Catan board.


Whenever you see monsters roaming in a field tile you can tap it to fight them. The water tiles do nothing as of yet but the special tiles that are unique you have missions in. Once you've completed a certain amount of missions on a tile you unlock three more tiles, giving you a slowly expanding world map. You start the game with the simplest of items and your battle companions are a wild boar, a goat, and a bunny. You're really quite pitiful. You level up as the game progresses, increasing your stats but the biggest jumps are in the different equipment you loot from missions or buy from the shop. For the most part, helmets modify your defense, armor modifies your health, and weapons modify your damage. Your shield has varied stat modifiers. I don't know what talismans modify because I have not yet seen any of them. You can't change any equipment you companions have but you can switch them out for others you think are better. There is also a craftingn tab you can make different items in out of materials you get as you play. There are two different types of combat. The first is the combat in the main campaign. So when you start a mission you come up against a band of enemies normally the same size as your own. You act out each character you have individually. So below your characters is a puzzle board with three different types of cubes on it. Tapping the red sword cube will just attack one of your enemies. The purple focus cube will bring your focus bar up faster. The blue shield cube will raise your defense against he next attack against that companion. After you've chosen your cube it will do the action and once you done so for all your companions it's he enemies turn. The more of a cube you have next to each other the larger the effect will be, for instance tapping a single red block surrounded by cubes that aren't red will do little damage but if you tap a cube that leads to more and more red cubes you will do much more damage. The other combat is how you climb the leaderboards, you fight against other players but only against their own stats controlled by the AI. In this combat there is no strategy the computer just uses your stats against your enemies. You also get the best loot from these battles. Missions also use up hearts whether you win or lose and once you are out of hearts you have to wait until it refills. My only complaints about this great game is that the timer for the hearts is just a bit to long and it would be better if you could real time fight your opponents. 9/10















- By Ashton

Combat in my game

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking more about how the combat works in the sci fi game I've been thinking about. Here it goes.

So last time I attempted to go into combat but ended up just explaining all the weapons to you and speaking of the weapons there's been a new development, where the number of them jumped from 2129 to 4905 through some more ideas and then from 4905 to 8502 and that entire difference is almost all through different combinations you could have with tethers, or grappling hooks. Alright now back to the combat. As soon as your fleet of ships would come into contact with an enemy force both of your fleets would be shown on a 3D battlefield, often very very large including at least parts of any moons, planets, stars etc in that area. At any time back on your home base you can leisurely move ships around on a grid to make battle formations and save them, this way at the start of a battle you could just pick one of your saves. Now the fighting, is going to be as intense as possible with your "role" being the commander controlling all of the ships, all in real time while the AI controls their ships, as the game goes on the "skill" of the AI as in how fast it responded to dangers and it's strategy would increase. As mentioned in my earlier blogs, the efficiency of your engine decided how many things you can do at once, like flying, while shooting, while fighting an infection etc. The more efficient your engine is the lower your cooldown times will be as well. When you are controlling your ships you can control at once an individual ship, all ships of the same model, all ships of the same size, or sometimes all of your ships. When you are controlling all of your ships the commands would be very simple, like try to surround, fire at closest targets, advance all ships, etc. Your commands otherwise would be to move, fire, repair, dock, or fight infections. Moving and firing are self explanatory, repairing would be to actually heal damage done to your ship. You would have to repair while docked to a ship that had repair capabilities, any ship could have this ability but it would severely hinder other abilities so normally you would have specific ships outfitted only for that Now for fighting infections. An infection is any kind of after effect from a weapon, acid, freezing parts, melting parts, growths, fires, etc so when you command to fight it the people in your ship would do their best to eradicate it. Docking is just extending a bridge from one of your ships to another of your ships, this is useful to get extra personnel or ammo. You can only dock to an enemy ship if you have permission from the AI or your opponent. There is also no "health bars" on any of your ships, damage is shown as physically damaging a ship, and once your ship is damaged it changes your hit box, for example if a huge hole is blasted through your ship by a laser, ships smaller than that hole could fly through it. You can also use a computer on any ship to see a 3D model of it that is green, where the redder areas are more damaged, you can also use this computer to see any infections on your ship. Repairing a ship will physically try and restore parts of your ship that were eradicated or blown off but only with a weaker substance than the rest of your ship because of the circumstances you are in. The winning conditions are being surrounded by a force at least as big as yours, or having 4/5 of your fleet destroyed. At this point you are giving a choice, surrender to your opponent, try and flee, or fight to the last man.

So there's my combat system. Bye.


- By Ashton

Sci-fi game part 2

Hello peoples. Today I'm finally getting back to that sci-fi game I had been thinking about that I talked about a while ago. Here it goes.

So the biggest part of this game is the customization and the combat. For a game that I want to be this customizable there has to be a lot of weapons also. So as I was thinking about this I had come up with a total of 5 weapons. Pitiful. So I determined a way for me to progressively come up with more and more weapons. The system is based off of a weapon being two parts. The first, the transmission of how it's delivered, and the second the effect it has on the target. After this I came up with around 8 or 9 transmissions and 7 effects 9•7=54, then I discovered that two of the effects could be divided into themselves to create many more which lead to create 25 fictional and real energies and 25 fictional growths. Growths are a kind of programmable substance that would automatically repair parts of your ship with itself if your ship was damaged, or if weaponized would attack the enemy ship like a virus. So now in total I have 55 effects and by now around 12 transmissions. At this point I used the same technique I used on the effects, realizing my transmissions were to broad and divided those as well leaving me with 100 transmissions. You would think that 55•100 would leave me with 5,500 weapons but unfortunately some effects would not work with certain transmissions, for instance if every bullet fired had the gravity effect things would get pretty crazy so once you multiply all the possible effects with a certain transmission you add together all those numbers for a grand total of...


2129. Over 2000 weapons. With varying intensities. Oh right and some of them have their own customizable area of affect. Feeling quite proud of myself and the incomprehensible scrawl that developed over my crumpled sheet of paper I realized another thing.


Mother of god. With such a wide range of weapons with a wider range of damage I would have to come up with many ways to keep the defense of the ships progressing upwards also so it wouldn't just be a game of who can shoot first.

So the first thing I did was hit the internets and look at lists of fictional metals. Then I took the prefix, the part before the -ium and put it in a word scrambler. Now then if I couldn't get my idea directly from the anagram of the word it would at least spark thoughts about some cool names for fictional metals. So after doing this for a while I came up with 100 fictional metals, all completely original.

Here was my next dilemma. The game would also focus around gathering these metals yourself and making then yourself so if you could easily forge a metal into the shape you wanted then your forge would have to be as powerful as the weapons themselves. So I hurdled that by coming up with this. An example metal may not be as strong as it's predecessor but it would have more potential. This potential would be for a fictional machine that could make the molecules in a substance more and more rigid and structured, increasing the hardness, the more potential a metal had the more the machine could structure the metals. So in the game you would forge your metal into a shape for your ship and then make it hard with your machine. Now 100 metals is still a small number compared to over 2000 weapons so to prevent the damage of the weapons overcoming the hull metals there will also be different protective shields so that the next defensive step for your ship would often alternate between a new metal or a new shield.

Wow that was a rant. Bye.


- By Ashton

NYCC

    Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about the loot I got from New York Comic Con.

So I came to Comic Con with 215$ (more money than my dad had to spend.) At first I didn't see much that I liked there that was reasonably priced until I saw this poster for the only anime show I watch, Attack on Titan for 20$. The poster has all of the titans that appear in the show to be intelligent (wording it carefully here to avoid spoilers) lined up in a row on a black background. After that it was easier to spot things that I liked. The next thing I saw I was coming in to a booth that had the stuffed chibi aliens that I've seen the chestburster and facehugger of, I had already gotten the chestburster and was considering getting the facehugger when I turned and saw the most adorably terrifying thing in my life. It was a stuffed chibi alien as an adult that was a foot tall. IT EVEN SHOT OUT ITS INNER MOUTH AHEN YOU SQUEEZED ITS CHEST. It was 20-30$. After that I got a 3 and 3/4 inch predator and terminator figures that were retro styles for 20$ each. Next I finally relented and got a 90 dollar action figure of The Spitter from Aliens: Colonial Marines. I was nervous at first that it would be a disappointment for a such a high price but everything about it was top quality and it's the best figure I have. The paint is excellent, the articulation is excellent and the joints are very sturdy so your not afraid to actually pose it. The tail is awesome and long and had a bendy wire in it. It came with a small stand with a peg and a broken tube with a facehugger. The facehugger is probably the best one I have also. Lastly I was roaming around and I spotted a booth that was totally devoted to Attack on Titan where I got an awesome hoodie. My only complaint about it is that the zipper was way to cheap to work even once but it was still a good buy for only 35$. I thought that would be my last purchase as I was running out of money but I saw these 4 imported alien figures from china for 20$ dollars each I was ready to say no because of how much I had spent already but then my dad asked which 2 do I want and I was not arguing. I got the boiler and the leader, also both from aliens colonial marines. They are nice sculpts but a bit lacking in paint and the articulation makes me very nervous. The figures also came with 6 extra hands which were nice on the leader (black) but were all almost identical on the boiler (white). They also came with miny stands, eggs, and facehuggers.

So that was my comic con loot. Bye.

Birthday

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about my birthday. Here it goes.

Last blog I said I would write about a combat system for a video game I've thought about but I've been very busy recently so it's being postponed a while. So last Sunday I turned 15. So that morning I got up at 5:30 and ran. A few minutes before 6 I went down to the brick sign and sat with the sunrise until it turned 6 which was when I was born. Later that day my moms parents came down and I opened my presents. I got cards from my grandparents and family and my mom and dad got me 2 shirts. My mom's parents got me some clothes from L.L. Bean and a lot of beef jerky. Next I went to the theatre and saw Annabel. Annabel wasn't bad but I didn't think it was very scary. Afterwards we went to Ruby Tuesdays and back home for some Ice cream cake. After that I saw Alien 3. I thought alien 3 was pretty good and a good end to the last 2 movies. My major present was going to the New York Comic Con a few days ago which I'll talk about as my next blog.


Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples today I'm gonna be talking about a concept I've had for a while. Here it goes.

So when I was in school I came up with this concept for a sci fi game. It would be a space game based around building your own ships. You would start out with a 1 man ship that could collect oil and gas from gas planets, and minerals manned by one man. With the oil and gas you could make more fuel for flying and the minerals for building. When you build a ship you need certain parts plus materials for the hull. For instance a fighter ship would need an engine, cockpit, and a small weapon. Once you have these out on the grid you would place blocks of different materials to make the hull, and then afterwards use tools to smooth, round, or sharpen corners etc. finally you would add exhaust ports on the backside of your ship. The heavier or more materials you used to build it, the more powerful your engine would have to be and the more exhaust ports you would need. When you were done you could save a blueprint of it, that way you could build a copy of it as long as you had the materials. Your base is a small colony in space built with a hangar on top to land your ships on. As you go on and build more and bigger ships and recruit more people your hanger would increase in size and your apartments below would also grow. Your colony moves like a ship but needs to be protected by fighting ships. Green areas in space you could move your colony to but red areas have to be explored by your ships first. As you explore you can do missions that could have either good ratings or bad ratings. Destroying a colony for their resources would obviously be bad and saving a cargo ship from pirates would be good. If your good you would get bonuses like calling for backup from corporations and peace keeping forces, or access to military grade weapons. Being bad would let you call backup from pirates and conquering forces, or black market access. As you go along completing missions and collecting resources you will also need to manage your colony, ships, and people. Once you reach a certain amount of ships of a certain type or complete certain missions, etc. you would unlock another size rating for building. This makes it so that over time your ships will go from 3 or 4 fighter pilots to an armada of ships of all sizes and capabilities, all completely your own. You would also need people to run and pilot these ships so you would have to hire people interested from populated planets and build apartments for them on your colony. This also leads to findings many different alien races. With people there also comes food and water. You would collect water, plant samples, and animals for breeding. The ships needed for these would start off as simple green houses and stables to more complex ships that support many different alien plants and animals. Keeping up with this would also require accounting and commerce. Your first would be a small shop connected to your colony, until you would eventually have huge malls and business centers attached to it with schools, hospitals, gyms, your own police force within your colony, the possibilities are endless.

This is already rather long so next I'll be talking about the combat and how that works. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about books again. Here it goes.

As you all may know The Belgariad and The Mallorean or just "the Garion books" are my favorite book series by David Eddings. Eddings also wrote another fantasy series afterwards called The Elenium and The Tamuli. Currently I'm reading the first book in the Elenium called The Diamond Throne. The prologue is a story that tells part of the mythology of that world much like the Garion books. The story tells of a troll named Ghwerig that found an irregular shaped sapphire of great power in his caves. After an extremely longer time of careful sculpting the troll fashioned a sapphire rose which he named Bhelliom and behind the jewel lied all the power of his gods, the troll gods. However Ghwerig was angered when he learned he could not use it until his gods taught him that he needed two keys of great power to unlock the Bhelliom. So he forged two rings to serve as keys for the Bhelliom out of shards left over from sculpting the gem. The elder Styric gods tried to take the Bhelliom from him but without success because the gems power was to great. The younger Styric gods wanted no god to wield so great a power so they sent the goddess Asphrael and she went and sang the troll to sleep and stole his rings. The story goes on for a while about kingdoms and gods but by the end of it much of Eosia's history is still shrouded in mystery.

Sparhawk is a Pandion Knight of Elenia and the Queen's personal champion however her father unjustly exiled Sparhawk to Rendor indefinitely. Not until 10 years later did Sparhawk return legally by using a tear stained contract the queen had written at 8 yrs old saying that when she was crowned he could come back. He soon discovers that the queen had fallen ill and 12 of his brotherhood of Pandion knights and their teacher the Styric sorceress Sephrenia placed a spell that would encase her in a block of diamond on her throne keeping her alive for as long as Spephrenia and the twelve knights lived. However the burden of the spell would kill one knight every month until the queen Elahna died. The quest is to find a cure for the queen before she dies and the evil priest Anias gains rule of all of Eosia.

I am loving The Elenium almost as much as Eddings' Garion books but that's probably just nostalgia of reading them at a young age. Bye.



- By Ashton

Arrow

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about a TV show. Here it goes.

The show is called Arrow. Arrow is a live action show based off of the DC comics character Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is a millionaire playboy out on a yacht with his girlfriends sister. Not the best guy. Before long what seems like a freak storm destroys the yacht. His father kills himself on the life raft to save his son and leaving him with a promise to right the wrongs his father had made in life. The life raft shores up on an island in the pacific. Incidentally one of the most dangerous places on earth. Five years later a fishing vessel sails close to the island and a heavily scarred Oliver is rescued and taken back to Star City in America.

He arrives with a list of names from his father of rich, corrupt, citizens of Star City from wealthy business men to drug dealers. He sets out as a hooded vigilante in green righting wrongs to save his city with a bow and arrows. As his crusade progresses you see more and more of the mysteries of what happened to him on that island.

The show is intense and action filled however it is also filled with mystery which is something a lot of action shows miss. It also has a ton of Easter eggs peppered through the show referencing the original DC character. I highly suggest this for anyone that's a fan of action TV shows or of Green Arrow.









Bye.


- By Ashton

Gemini Strike

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about another iOS game here it goes.

The game I'm blogging about is called Gemini Strike. You are a clone fighter pilot that protects earth and comes back every time he dies. While you are fighting enemies you earn gems and credits and you can find cargo by destroying cargo ships that happen upon your path. With gems you can open the cargo boxes to get most of the time common parts to equip to your ship. Parts have combinations of three stats, armor, HP, and damage to add to your ship. Most of them also have an effect like lasers, EMPs, healing, rockets, etc. you can also open cargo boxes from the black market using credits and these parts are rare and more valuable. Finally you can go on secret missions that are harder than others to find cargo boxes that cost less credits to open and have even better parts. Credits have one more use. You can also use credits to buy ships. There are 7 different models of ships so far. Each model has it's unique effect plus stat bonuses. The more expensive model you buy the more devastating the effect will be and the higher the stat bonuses will be.

Each sector has around 4-5 missions in it before you get to the last mission which has a boss. In the missions most enemies will die in one shot, are small, and have one type of attack. You will also get bigger mini bosses that have a health bar at the top next to yours. Destroying these, and the cargo ships will grant you things called reactors. Reactors appear at the bottom of the screen and double tapping the screen or tapping it will activate it. Reactors will give you effects based on their color for example green are rockets and pink is a huge laser. It only lasts for a few seconds and then is gone. If you get a new reactor without using the old one it will just replace it. The boss at the end of each sector is a very large black ship with a lot of health and multiple attacks. There are also 3 other types of missions. In these you don't have weapons. In the blockade missions you have to maneuver around lasers. In meteor missions you dodge meteors and in mine missions you dodge mines.

Gemini strike also has some really good music and sound effects that go with the space battles perfectly. I also like how the battlefield extends beyond the screen border a and the camera follows you so you actually have room to dodge the lasers. My favorite feature is definitely the high level of customization you can have on a ship.

Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Little Raiders: Robins Revenge. The story starts with the evil sheriff obliterating the village of Snowbourne making the men fight in a needless war and killing and capturing the others. You as Robin and Brunel try to fight but are overwhelmed immediately and are only barely saved by the tree spirit Wakaba. Wakaba takes the unconscious robin and Brunel to a tall, large oak in the forest south of what's left of Snowbourne. Together you join forces with the tree spirit. Brunel the builder builds houses and workshops along the tree and you fight for magical acorns to grow the tree taller and taller. The more vengeful villagers you rescue from the sheriff's men the more your army of raiders grows. Rescue heroes like Lucius, Turk, and more to train swordsmen, alchemists, and more. Take your vengeance on the evil sheriff.

You can go on raids to gather silver, amber, food, wood, or weapons. You have to be careful on raids because when your raiders are knocked out their weapons break and you have to make them again. Red raids are hard, yellow medium, and green easy. With silver you can buy master weapons, food or wood from the trader. They're four tiers of weapons. The first is craft weapons. These weapons you can easily make at the workshops at your tree but break if your raider is knocked out. Master weapons you can buy from the trader or find on missions. These are better than crafted weapons but can still break. Enchanted weapons are very good and improve 2 stats instead of just one and don't break. Legendary weapons are the best weapons in the game and don't break. Every day Wakaba gives you tokens that you can spend on the wishing well with a chance to get crafted, master, or enchanted weapons. Spending fifty amber on the well will get you master, enchanted, or legendary weapons. This is the only way to get legendary weapons. You can use Amber to speed up timers but you really only want to use them to buy enchanted weapons from the trader or wish in the well. Food will heal you raiders to full health while they are at the tree unless their knocked out, then you have to wait 20-30 min first. You need wood to build things.

Little Raiders: Robins Revenge is a great game with balanced in app purchases, good timers, beautiful pixel graphics, enchanting sounds and music, and great battle sequences. I highly suggest it for iOS gamers. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about cross country. Here it goes.

Cross country started around a week and a half before school started. First I'll go through the different exercises. First off is the tempo run. In this we just run in a square with the coaches there to make sure each of us is keeping their own specific pace. Most of the time we do this in a big field but we've also done it on the track. Next is a fartlick. In this you jog for a random amount of time in a square before the coaches say sprint and you sprint for a random amount of time. So you could end up sprinting for 10 seconds or a whole minute. A new one this year was on the track. In this we sprinted the straightaways and walked the curves. Last year we had an exercise that we called the sedlar circuit and everyone hated it because you had to run up a hill diagonally and then across a knotted field with holes in it. It was boring, had no shade and really hurt your feet. This year the first time they took us out where we do it for a hill workout we saw construction was going on where the course was. We were ecstatic.

The course we have at my school is a 5k or 3.1 miles. The course starts on a field behind the school. After you run across the field you run down a hill and and you turn and run parallel to the field next to some train tracks. You keep going the same direction under the bleachers and then into the soccer fields. Then you run across the second one out the gate and run straight along a gravel path and turn left. Then you turn left again and along that gravel path is a tire that's the one mile marker. Then you turn right up a hill and along a muddy path until you turn right past a grove of trees and then you run a huge loop around a hilly field and come back out the trees which is the end of the second mile. Next you run a loop behind the middle school and back diagonally back towards the highschool, then you cross a parking lot and turn left and back across the field.

Now I'll tell you about the third race I've ran. I had run a race last year and one before this but it wasn't a real race because I ran after the race with other people that didn't have 14 practices which is the requirement to race. So this race is on a new course nobody on my team had run before. That race only 8 of the 10 guys could race and the top 7 guys run a varsity race and the rest run JV. So there are 3 races, boys varsity, girls varsity, and JV which is girls and boys but they are still graded separately. So I ran JV, the last race which was around sunset. It was my school which was me and half the girls and Jefferson who had around 14 or so guys. The first mile went by fast and by the time I did it I thought I had a group of 10ish junior and senior guys in front of me plus one guy in front of me that looked like he was at least a sophomore. This was pretty normal for the others who got around 10 or 12 place most races so I wasn't worried. Most the course was flat and went through fields and the woods. By the second mile I was beginning to catch up to the guy in front of me however if I kept my pace I wouldn't pass him before the race ended. After I thought about that some Jefferson people stood by the course cheering him on and I heard them say that he was in 5th place meaning I was actually only in 6th! So I tried harder and I managed to pass him not long before we would've entered the field that had the finish at the end of it. Shortly before I got into the field... I started throwing up. I had hamburger for lunch that day so I entered the field with all of the people watching me while it looked like I was throwing up dark crimson which they thought was blood. You always sprint the last part of the race to get the best time I so I had to sprint in order to stay in front of the guy behind me. So I sprinted as hard as I could and finished the race with ripped up legs, a stomach tying itself in knots, throwing up black, and breathing like I was missing a lung. After I got cleaned up my coaches congratulated me and told me that fifth place actually got a medal! On my team I got a medal and one other girl got a medal. Nobody else placed. Afterwards we went to chick fil ay before I went home.
So that's how cross country has gone so far. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm talking about my school day. Here it goes.

I wake up at 5:40 and get a shower to wake myself up. After that I just eat breakfast and get my things ready. At 6:25 I head out to the bus stop down my street. The bus ride is actually pretty long because we stop at my old middle school for a good fifteen minutes before we actually go to my high school. Once I'm there it's 1st period because so far my bus has been late every day. So far Homeroom is only on Wednesdays. I have history for 1st which I'm actually enjoying because it's about ancient civilizations which I like. Between classes we have four minutes to get to where we have to go which literally leaves no time for going to the bathroom or checking your locker, hence I carry everything in my book bag which is nice because we weren't allowed to carry them in middle school. After that is Physical Science. We haven't started real class yet there because we had to go over lab safety and all the equipment and everything but I like science so I'm sure that I'll enjoy it. Next is math class. One of the things my math teacher did was to spilt us all into color coded groups using a lengthy personality test. There were 2 or 3 reds which were the people that were supposed to be leaders and take charge. There were 2 or 3 greens which were the OCD very organized people. Most the class was yellow which were the social, talkative people. I was in blue with 2 other people and we were the creatives.

4th period is Spanish 2 which I am not looking forward to. I've got one of those super tall, super skinny, old teachers with the high pitched voice, huge flashing gold earrings and hair that wouldn't break under a sledgehammer. She has given us all Spanish names off of a list and it's gonna take some getting used to saying "here" every time she says Antonio. I have second lunch so next I have 5th period Health class. I like my health teacher because he's serious and funny but not strict. Lunch is next and is a very nice 45 minutes which is why only 4 minutes between classes. It's nice because you can sit wherever you want and talk with your friends. You can also use your phone and headphones. You can use your phone between classes but you really don't have enough time. So far lunch has not been very good and ridiculously small. 6 Chicken nuggets isn't gonna cut it for a teenager with cross country practice every day. 6th period strings class is next however my cello won't get there till Tuesday ~_~ 7th period I have English. My teacher is old and strict however I do like to write so hopefully at least a few assignments will be something along the lines of actually writing something I care about writing.

Finally I have cross country for 1 1/2 hours. It's pretty exhausting after the school day and that small of a lunch so I've been packing cliff bars along with my clothes and water bottle. It's really nice to get back into running and I feel like I'm part of the team more than I felt last year in 8th grade. I get picked up exhausted at 4:30.

So that's my day. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about another movie. Here it goes.

A few days ago I saw guardians of the galaxy in the theater. It was a really funny and action filled movie about a band of misfits that becomes the galaxies only hope. The group of outlaws consists of Peter Quill a Terran (human) that was picked off of earth when he was quite young and roams the galaxy as an outlaw who calls himself star-lord, gamora is the genetically modified daughter of Thanos, she's a living weapon, Rocket is the result of genetic and cybernetic experiments on a raccoon, Groot is a living tree person who is very strong and can grow any part of himself in seconds, his vocabulary is limited to I AM GROOT. Drax is a person bent on vengeance for Ronan after Ronan killed his wife and daughter. Ronan is a Kree terrorist that wants to destroy the xandarians even though they just recently signed a peace treaty with the Kree after centuries of war. Peter gets involved with an ancient infinity stone, something Ronan desperately wants and it's the guardians job to protect the galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a great movie for all ages. It has no gore or very scary scenes although the profanity is more present here than the other marvel movies.

Bye.


- By Ashton

Godus

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Godus. Godus is in the same area as games where you are a god and you rule your own people. A lot of people find these types of games to be annoying and take to long to do anything but Godus is done perfectly. The graphics are very nice and smooth and the game has a great amount of freedom to it. You start out learning how to manipulate the land by sculpting.

Next you see two people drowning in the water. Use your power to sculpt layers of the land out to them and save them. After that they bow down and recognize you as their god. Now they will want to find a place to settle down, a promised land. Lead them towards a hospitable and large place and they will build the first abode. This is where they will live. With an abode your followers will multiply from 2 to 4. This allows you to expand and send out more builders to make more abodes. After you get a certain amount of followers you unlock better abodes and these abodes will generate belief which is the power you need to work when your people are happy. Every time you reach a new population goal you unlock a new card which gives you a power such as building on grass instead of sand. Some cards require stickers to unlock. You gets these by finding treasure chests throughout the land. Next you'll need your followers to build a beacon that will unearth things you couldn't see before like the discovery temple. After you rebuild the discovery temple. This is when your game really begins. After this you can do wondrous things; explore new lands, discover other gods and other peoples, sail the oceans, create complex societies and more.

Godus is a beautiful sandbox game and I highly recommend it for all ages. Bye.



My current race of people. The bar on the side is happiness. If your face is lower than the asatari face (bad guys) than your in danger of having your own people. go there.


These trees I've planted and the fountain I placed raised happiness a lot and my people are having a festival. The hand in the corner lets me access different god powers that let me do different things.


This is the dock. You use it to explore new islands that offer rewards in the form of stickers.


This is a chest. These chests once you open them offer stickers or gems.


This is just a cool shot of a thunderstorm at night in the middle of a lightning strike.


A storm turns the sky dark and the buildings stretch in the wind.

Godus is a beautiful sandbox game and I highly recommend it for all ages. Bye.

- By Ashton

Only One

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Only One. It's based off retro sword and sorcery games with you and a sword facing off 63 waves of enemies and 7 bosses on a huge pillar in the sky. Their are also old school passive and active abilities. The passive abilities are last stand, might, magnet, reflektor, backstab, and regen. You can have a max of 3 of these at once and you don't have to tap them they are always on. The active abilities are push, freeze, bubble, whirlwind and dart. You can also buy more hearts, more shield symbols, faster movement speed, and higher attack. These abilities you have to tap to activate and they have various cool down speeds. When a level starts enemies will appear on the pillar in a bolt of lighting and continue to do so until the level is done spawning them. Once they are all killed the next level automatically starts. Every 10 levels is a single boss. You can buy the abilities with power which is the currency. The currency drops from enemies that you kill, however if you hit them off the pillar the drops also fall. Enemies also drop hearts that fill your health bar one, and shields. Enemies that carry shields if you kill them while they have their guard down, if you hit them while their shield is up eventually it will break and it won't drop. If enemies kill you then you restart on the level right after the last boss you beat, or if you haven't beaten one at level 1. Thieves are the only enemies that don't try to kill you, instead they run around the map stealing things that drop. If your grinding for power it's a good idea to kill them before they teleport off the map because they drop a lot of things. It's also a really good idea to buy the ultimate power. It's a one-time in app purchase that grants you access to some of the above abilities and doubles the amount of power you get. I am currently on the last boss who has a ton of health and is very fast so plan what you buy by that. Only one is a great retro hack and slash game and I recommend it to anyone who likes those.

Slimes are the most basic enemy; when their eyes glow white they are about to lunge at you so simple to dodge.


Three human enemies the archer, the basic swordsman, and the medium swordsman who has twice as much health.


The first boss, Sir Steadfast.



Bye.


- By Ashton

Munchkin

Hello peoples. Today I'm blogging about a game I have. Here it goes.

The game is a card game called Munchkin. Munchkin is a funny medieval card game that has since grown in expansions to eclipse many different genres. The main idea is to make your character stronger with loot from fighting monsters and leveling up and if you reach level 10 you win. A while ago we bought the deluxe version of Munchkin. The only real difference is that it comes with a board to conveniently place the two different card types and each spot 1-10 keeps track of the players levels with their character pieces. Each player starts with one card that has a picture of a male or female munchkin, depending on what sex you are. This matters because some of the cards say (only usable by men) or (only usable by women) and sometimes you can be quite comically changed into the opposite sex by a curse. Next everyone gets 4 treasure cards, which are normally equipment like weapons or armor, and 4 door cards which have various effects. The first things you want to do is look through your door cards and see if you have any class or race cards. Class cards are like jobs such as wizard, knight, thief, etc. Races are like Hafling, Dwarf, Elf, etc. if you don't have a race card your human. You can immediately lay down these cards and they give you certain advantages and sometimes disadvantages. You can only have 1 race and 1 class unless a card says otherwise. Then you want to lay down any equipment. You can either have 2 items that say one handed or one item that says two handed unless a card says otherwise. You also cannot have 2 big items even if their both one handed. You cannot have more than 5 cards in your hand but you can take any extra cards and carry them by turning them sideways on the table. Now that everyone has the cards they want equipped equipped the youngest player goes first and then to the left. First thing they can do is play cards, switch items from carried to in play, trade, and sell items. You need to have 1000 coins or more worth of cards to sell. Every 1000 gets you one more level. Next you kick open the door. Flip over one door card and it acts it's effect. If it's a curse you are cursed with it, if it's a monster you have to fight it, otherwise the card is yours. All the bonuses of your equipment plus your level have to go over the monsters bonus to beat it. If it doesn't you can ask somebody else to fight it with you, play other cards that help, or try to run away. If you didn't draw a monster, next you can look for trouble by fighting a monster in your hand. Then if you still haven't fought a monster you can take a door card into your hand. Considering all of the bribery, backstabbing, alliances and trade in this game, there is much much fun to be had. I would definitely consider buying Munchkin. Bye.


- By Ashton

Epoch 2

Hello peoples. Today I'm reviewing another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Epoch 2. I've previously reviewed the first game Epoch. I was browsing the App Store looking at the weekly featured games and was lucky enough to catch this sequel I knew nothing about. I play epoch 2 on my iPhone. Epoch is post apocalyptic warfare between robots. Supposedly the world ended because it's present day but there's lots of robots for bodyguards and even butlers. So suddenly the 2 biggest robot makers, Omega Tronics and Guardian started wearing on each other with the robots all over the planet and shooting down humans in the crossfire without caring. So you are a unique robot who reboots but you don't know how long you've been out. All you're memory files are there except one. You're mission is to find Princess Amelia. I'm guessing she is a princess somewhere in europe but it doesn't tell you. You are probably the only robot that still serves it's original purpose which apparently is to protect the princess.

So in Epoch you make your way across the city to the cryo tower which supposedly has the princess. In the end you find her in a cryo tube and she is able to communicate with you through a holograph machine linked to her mind. In Epoch 2 she orders you to explore the world around you trying to find out if their are any last traces of humans. One of the improvements Epoch 2 makes over it's predecessor is the abundance of different bosses to fight. In the first game there was only one boss at the need whereas this has a new one every couple levels. It also has the original enemies but also has new ones too. You can buy different guns like an machine gun, a laser gun, a grenade launcher, an acid gun, etc just like the first game but in my opinion the store is laid out much better, is more balanced and it also includes weapon types that are completely new. You can also buy many more grenades, missiles, and special powers compared to the first game.

So I hope you buy. It it's fast paced, you can doge behind barriers and target enemies. Bye!


- By Ashton

Dragon

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about a movie. Here it goes.

The movie is Dragon. Dragon is a movie about Bruce Lee's life. It starts out with his father having a dream about Bruce walking somewhere in China as a kid at night and he starts walking past several stone statues and he gets increasingly scared of them. Eventually he gets to a huge stone samurai and screams and runs away when it comes to life. The stone warrior had just caught up to Bruce when hid dad woke up and visited Bruce to make sure he was ok. Eventually Bruce grows up and after he starts a fight with relatives of some important people in Hong Kong his father warns him of a demon that killed Bruce's older brother in child birth and how he had named him Bruce to trick the demon and taught him Kung Fu to protect him but now to protect him again Bruce must be sent to America where he was born.

Bruce starts off as a typical teenager, an irresponsible money waster and he gets in trouble at his dish washing job for hitting on a girl there that the head chef likes. This leads to a really cool fight scene with Bruce against roughly five guys all with cleavers. After this his boss gives him some money and warns him not to waste it. Bruce starts taking psychology classes in college and a jerk guy at the gym started a fight with him. The fight leads to several people asking Bruce if they can learn Kung Fu. He starts teaching and through this he meets Linda.

Linda and he date as he teaches Kung Fu and eventually they get married. After Bruce's teacher really kicks off he gets a message saying that he can't teach people that aren't Chinese so he has to defeat a man in combat in order to earn that right. Bruce manages to beat the man and he gave up but when Bruce's back was turned he got up a kicked him in the back, breaking it.

Bruce works hard to get back on his feet and eventually he's alright and has a son, Brandon. He goes to a tournament to advertise his own style of Kung Fu but the crowd boos him and ask him to prove its worth. In order to do so he says he'll beat any man in 60 seconds and the guy who broke his back comes up. Bruce barely beats him in 60 seconds. After this he gets some fame but repeatedly gets failure in Hollywood in America. After learning of his fathers death Bruce travels back to China and there gets contacted by movie directors and fires off several hit movies. During this he has troubles with his wife and family and on the set of Enter the Dragon he finally kills his demons borrowing strength in order to kill the demon before it could hurt his children.

Dragon is a great movie. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello peoples. Today I'm writing about another iOS game. Here it goes.

The game is called Rival Knights. Rival Knights is a jousting game made by Gameloft. You are a peasant in a village who has to become the greatest knight in the land to avoid having your village and your lands bought by the notorious Lord Cunnings. The jousting itself is simple but intuitive and fun. First off it counts down to zero and if you tap the screen right on time with it then you get "Perfect Start" icon which raises the speed of your horse. Tapping to early or to late will do nothing. After that you get a curved bar with an arrow running along it. If you tap the screen when the arrow is in the green area then your horse speeds up perfectly, stop it in the yellow your horse speeds up a little, stop in the white and nothing happens. If you get it perfect for 6 or 7 times then you get the high speed icon. After 7 of these speed rises you move on to the next part of the joust. Now you are close enough to aim your lance. The game provides a target somewhere on the other knights body, the target gets smaller and more precise as you get closer. If your lance is almost exactly on target the target will be yellow, if it's on a greenish, blue then your are perfect on it so keep your lance steady. If you hit the knight when the target is green them you get the "Perfect Hit" icon. Getting Perfect start, High speed, and Perfect hit will result in a critical hit that raises all your stats. Their are 3 stats that determine the winner. Before the joust begins it shows yours and your opponents. The three stats are defense, speed, and attack. If the icon showing the stat is red then your opponent has better equipment than you, if it's green you have better equipment than them, white is a tie. If you do better in 2 or more stats at the end of the joust you win, otherwise you lose, or if all stats are white or one green, one red and one white then it's a tie. Speeding up your horse during the joust will raise your speed stats and being closer to the target raises your attack stat. This makes it possible to beat an opponent even if all his stats are better than yours before the match begins. Defense is the only stat you cannot change during the match unless you get a critical hit which raises them all.

There are five different things you can buy in Rival Knights to help you. You can buy better helms and armor to improve your defense. Buying a better horse will increase your speed stat. Buying a better lance with improve your attack stat. Some lances are harder to aim then others and also some horses are harder to speed up then others. There is also a weight factor in Rival Knights if your Helm, Armor, and lance weigh to much for your horse you can't joust and have to either get a horse that can carry it or change your equipment. You can also buy things to change your emblem with which is the flag or banners that represent your knight. You can also buy things that go on your emblem that discount equipment but these cost diamonds which are harder to get then gold.

There are a few different level types. The first is a simple encounter where you joust 1-3 people with each person costing one of your 6 maximum royal seals. There's also king of the hill where you have to start over at the first person if your beat at the second or third, challenges, where you have to beat your opponent and also get perfect start, high speed, or perfect hit, an arena type where you gamble the money you get beating the first person and keep on jousting harder opponents, if you lose then you lose all the money you would have received. Lastly there's sponsored matches where you joust with equipment that's not yours with your reward being to unlock one of those equipment, and the boss matches where you have to get best 2 out of 3 against a boss. After progressing after an entire League of which there are 5 you get access to another round of equipment so that league 1's equipment is pretty standard leather items where as league 5's has expensive steel items. There is also multiplayer where you fight others and if you are a certain ranking after a tournament is done you get rewards. Jousting in these matches requires multiplayer seals.

Rival Knights is a great, simple and addictive game. It's free on the App Store and although it's does have the secondary currency of diamonds that you can buy with real money, it's still very easy to acquire them with multiplayer or beating bosses which is the first time I've seen a secondary currency balanced that well. In most games where you have to wait a specific time before you can play it again it becomes very frustrating but in this your seals full up rather quickly and is perfect for on the go play.













Screenshots showing how your equipment gets better and more complex as the leagues go on.





My emblem




The single player campaign with a boss of league 4 at the top.




The multiplayer tournament screen.




A cool animation at the start of the joust.




Before the joust begins, showing your stats as well as power ups you can use.





Getting a perfect start.




Getting a perfect speed rise, perfect hit happened to fast to screenshot the moment of impact.




Getting a critical hit.

Bye.


- By Ashton