No Man's Sky

Hello. Today I'm writing about an upcoming game.

June 21st a PlayStation 4 game comes out called No Man's Sky. No Man's Sky may be one of the most anticipated games of the year and has a lot of expectations to meet. It's a science fiction exploration game. Alone, you explore the vastness of the galaxy, starting at the edge and working your way to the center. By "vast" I really mean vast. The game has 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets. It would take everyone on earth 10 years if everyone discovered 500 planets per minute. The galaxy the creators developed is entirely procedurally generated, so even the creators don't know what's out there, and they've sent out their own digital probes to explore the galaxy looking for errors and glitches.

Every planet belongs to its own solar system, with other planets, surrounding a star. Everything about every planet is also procedurally generated so there are different color skies, ground, and water. What's even more amazing is that these planets harbor life that's different on every single planet. The amount of different flora and fauna is even greater than the amount of planets, and every time you discover something new it goes into your database and you earn money. Your spaceship and equipment are just as diverse, and you'll never see two things exactly alike. Everyone playing the game will be in the same galaxy as you are but its so big that you may never see another player. To keep it so that the galaxy seems populated, a robot police race guards planets to protect wildlife and from too many minerals being mined. There are also trading posts in space where you can protect them from pirates, or be a pirate yourself. At trading posts like this around the galaxy you can buy ships and equipment like laser guns.

In No Man's Sky you can do whatever you want, but one major goal is to get to the center of the galaxy, where something awaits you. You can upgrade your ship to be able to carry you greater and greater distances at a time in order to get to the center. Every so often on a planet you'll find a totem that will take you to another planet, somewhere closer to the center.

No Man's Sky looks like a very good game, and I've preordered it for PS4. I highly recommend watching trailers for the game if you're interested. Bye.


- By Ashton

Hello. Today I'm writing about two books I've read recently. Here it is.

For school I was recently assigned a book report over Spring Break. You are supposed to read a book that matches your lexile score. Most books have a lexile score lower than my level so I went on the lexile website to look up some adult horror books, figuring that those books would have a high enough score and also keep me entertained. Unfortunately the website is so school-oriented that it didn't have any horror books on it scarier than Goosebumps, so I asked my teacher if I could go ahead and read The Silence of the Lambs. She said it was fine, so I picked up the book at a Barnes and Noble and dove into the world of Clarice Starling, Buffalo Bill, and Hannibal Lecter.

Clarice Starling is a student of the FBI. She's assigned to help catch Buffalo Bill, a horrible serial killer that kills and skins his victims. The murder victims are spread out and found in different rivers all over America, and they have little to no leads. In order to catch this killer Clarice has to consult someone that might be the most dangerous man in America, Hannibal the Cannibal. The Silence of the Lambs was an extremely good book and you are tense with action the entire time. The way Thomas Harris builds his characters is amazing and Hannibal and Buffalo Bill will leave you shaking. It's the best crime/horror novel I've ever read.

(SPOILERS)

Red Dragon is absolutely chilling. Red Dragon is the first book in the Hannibal series and Silence of the Lambs is the second. I read Silence of the Lambs first and read some about what had happened to Will Graham, the main character in Red Dragon. In Red Dragon Will is a very smart consultant of the FBI that has helped them catch serial killers before. He's asked to help them again when the Tooth Fairy appears, a killer that murders entire families. One of the conflicts in this book is wi himself. Will is tortured by the fact that he can catch these killers because it's so easy for him to think just like these horrible people do. Red Dragon is a terry flying start to the Hannibal series and shows the beginning of Hannibal Lecter. The Tooth Fairy killer is equally disturbing, and in my opinion worse than Buffalo Bill.

Since I've finished these two books so quickly I'm going to read the entire Hannibal series as my assignment and I may blog about he final two books, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising. Bye.


- By Ashton

Towerfall: Ascension

Hello. Today I'm writing about a very good PS4 game.

I'm writing about Towerfall: Ascension. Towerfall is a 2D fantasy pixel game about archers, towers, and monsters. There are two main game modes. The first is quest mode. In quest mode you fight monsters to save Towerfall in 12 different towers, with up to 3 other players helping you as 3 more archers. In a tower the area you have to fight fills the entire screen. Most of the edge of the room is walls, but if you exit through an empty space, you come out on the other side. For example, if you fall through a hole at the bottom of the screen, you'd fall through a corresponding hole at the top of the screen, or if you shoot an arrow through a hole in the left side, be careful it won't hit you coming out the right side. There are other things in a tower that you can use, such as jump pads that make you jump higher, hanging objects that will kill you if they fall on you, and torches that light your passing arrows on fire.

Each tower in quest mode has at least five waves of monsters. Monsters will appear through purple portals for each round. Most monsters can be killed in one hit by numerous methods. Most commonly, you'll either shoot them with an arrow, or jump on their heads, but hey can also be killed by explosions, falling objects, or from the shockwave that generates when you respawn. In quest mode you have gems at the top of the screen that are the same color as your archer, that's how many lives you have to beat the tower. You are instantly killed by any kind of damage but if you get the shield power up you effectively have 2 health. Power ups are found in chests that spawn randomly. Other archers can only kill you by shooting you, in quest mode you can't be killed by another archer by being stomped on the head. If you complete all the ages in a tower you beat the tower and unlock more.

The second mode is called Versus mode. Versus mode is where you fight against up to three other players. You play in towers just like in quest mode, but the tower room changes each round. There are still power ups and things like jump pads in the terrain, but you don't get lives like in quest mode, instead the round ends when only one archer (or none) are left alive. One fun thing about Towerfall is that your arrows don't come back to you and aren't unlimited, so after you shoot an arrow you have to retrieve it from where it landed, and other archers can pick up your arrows. The power ups are very diverse with ones that change the area, lava walls, and many many different kinds of arrows. There are also many different variants you can put on Versus, such as max treasure, big heads, infinite drill arrows, and many more. There are three different lengths you can choose for a match, and three different gamemodes. In Last Man Standing you have to be the last archer alive, in Headhunters you have to have the most kills, and in team death match you have to outlast the other team of archers.

Towerfall: Ascension is an amazing game, especially when you are playing with other people. I highly recommend it for PS4.


- By Ashton

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Julia hastily made her way over to the neurotech booth. It was up against the bottom of the wrecked elevator so the roof of the booth caved in slightly. She picked up a broken piece of rebar and pried the jammed door open. Julia slid onto the cold metal chair with the neuro sensors attacked to the back head rest. From the neurotech booth she could access any device with software in a short distance. She opened the main computer and found the signal for the only functioning climbing suit, the one she had saw. Julia had the computer run a diagnostic on it for brain scan capability and waited patiently, blocking out the horrifying sounds coming from the door into the base. After several agonizing minutes the computer finished its diagnosis. Julia could not inhabit the climbing suit unless it was filled with... Heliogel? It had only been a few weeks since the material Heliogel was even entered into the system, why would she possibly need it in the climbing suit and why did he computer think that she did? She didn't have time for questions, the sounds from the door were getting louder. She could try scanning herself into the suit without Heliogel but for all she knew that could leave her completely incapacitated, retarded, or dead. The best thing that she could do was to follow the computers instructions. Julia thought that the booth might have the range to control one of the arms in the lab room. While controlling an arm she could fill the climbing suit with Heliogel that had not been tainted or transformed from this dark node explosion.

Julia exited out of the diagnosis and searched for the signal for one of the arms. She could only hope that one of them was still functioning and able to reach the climbing suit. A faint signal was picked up and with a glimmer of hope Julia scanned herself into the arm. Again she felt the odd out of body experience and was suddenly back in the lab room. The cameras on the arm had been damaged and she could not look at the dark node enclosure, but she could see one entire wall coated with pulsating Heliogel. One of the Heliogel tanks on the far wall had been breached by the explosion, and it's interior had turned into a mix of grey black oil and the light blue sacs of light. Julia didn't want to think about what would happen to her if she used that for the climbing suit. The other tank seemed to be fine, it had no breaches and the gel inside appeared as its normal, black oily self. That didn't mean that Julia trusted the Heliogel by any means, but it was her only option. She inserted the syringe arm into the tank receptacle and filled the arm. With her cameras she could see up through a gaping hole in the ceiling of the lab and it appeared as if the arm could just reach the climbing suit kiosks outside the base. She finished filling up the arm and maneuvered it through the wrecked base, up to the kiosks. She could see the waste line of a climbing suit and she could tell from the surrounding rubble that this was the last functioning one that she had previously seen. Nervously, she entered the thin syringe through a slit between the back metal plate and the waistline, and filled the suit with Heliogel.

Julia was near frantic when the arm had finally finished filling the suit, the door sounded like it could give away any second. Heliogel had filled the suit to the brim and had completely colored the viewport on the head black, but that didn't matter, she would be using the durable cameras on either side of the head to see. As soon as the computer stated that the climbing suit was ready for a brain scan Julia locked the booth door and moved a large filing cabinet up against it. While she was piloting the suit, her body would be completely vulnerable to those things trying to get to her. She didn't want to think about it too long. Julia sat down in the neuro chair with shaking hands and laid her head back against the head rest. Without too many more thoughts she activated the scan and felt herself flowing from her body and into the climbing suit across the top of the base.


- By Ashton

Super Tribes

Hello. Today I'm writing about a very good iOS game. Here it goes.

I recently got an iOS game called Super Tribes. It's recently released and independently developed, and still very impressive. The game is also free and only has one in-app purchase, which is the ability to play as the 5th tribe, the other 4 come with the game. Super Tribes is a turn based strategy game where you play as 1 of 5 tribes. The tribes are Vikings, Ninjas, Samurai, Romans, and a tribe that looks like Native Americans. The game is laid out over a large square, flat world made out of 256 square tiles.

Every time you start a game the world is completely new so the game has infinite replay value. You start off as one tribesman with one very small village and a very small portion of the world visible to you. The goal is to expand your tribe and advance its civilization as much as possible in 30 turns. On the world you can set it to have at least 1 enemy tribe, to as much as 3 enemy tribes. You can battle the enemy tribe and defeat their units, capture their cities, and destroy their trade routes. The basis of the game is city expansion. Every turn a city creates a certain amount of resources, which is what you need in order to do anything in the game except move your units. The bigger the city and the more population it has, the more resources you'll gain each turn. There are many ways to increase your cities' population. You do this by gathering resources near the city, or by building buildings near the city. You can gather fruit, hunt animals, fish, mine, and farm. You can build lumber houses, sawmills, ports, smitheries, windmills, and more. When your cities population exceeds the number of white bars it has below it, it levels up and gets bigger and starts generating more resources for you. You can gain new cities by discovering small villages. These villages don't belong to the enemy tribe and you can capture them and they'll happily join your empire and become one of your cities. You can also get a new city by moving one of your units onto an enemy tribes city, unless they kill that unit on their turn, the next turn you can capture it for your own.

Almost everything you do in the game raises your score, and you win if at the end of 30 turns your score is higher than the enemy tribes'. You can also connect your cities together using roads, and for each city connected to your capital (your starting city) the capitals population goes up 1 and you score points. You can connect cities to your capital across water by building ports, which will automatically create trade routes connecting them. Everything you can do in the game by buying that science. You start out with one way to raise the population of your city, but all the other ways and all the other things you can do, such as sail or climb mountains or farm, has to be bought using resources. The more cities you have the more expensive the sciences get. At the end of the game your score is totaled from your sciences, army and conquests, cities and other categories.

Super Tribes is an amazing, free iOS game and if you're a fan of turn based strategy, I highly recommend it. I also recommend buying the 99 cent in app purchase to help the developer. Bye.


- By Ashton

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Julia stared in horror. The eye twitched, unblinkingly, for a few minutes before more black sludge dripped down over the window in the door. She began to hear the thing slamming against the door, faster and harder each time, as if more creatures were joining it. She didn't have time to think about what had just happened, she only knew she had to get out of this place. Julia turned to look at the elevator in the center of the circular building. It was devasted. The cables were strewn about and the entire thing was broken almost in half, leaning against the wall of The Hole. It was a wonder that the thing hadn't fallen through the cracked and broken floor, that the things underneath her hadn't found a way to her. She stared forlornly at the far wall where the kiosks of climbing suits should be. Tons of rubble had fallen and 5 of the 6 suits were completely crushed or broken. There was one that looked nearly untouched, standing outside its kiosk. Unfortunately it was blocked by the rubble, there was no way she could get it out and put it on. Maybe if she was inside of it she could get out of the rubble but? Julia looked over at the neurotech booth next to the broken elevator. Julia was a scientist but she thought it was impossible to transfer her consciousness into the suit with its limited amount of software. SLAM SLAM SLAM. The door started to buckle. She had to try.

The Runelords

     Hello everybody.  Today I’m continuing my break from my story because I just finished a book series that would like to write about.

     Last summer I went to the Martinsburg library and got the first book in the Runelords series, called The Sum of All Men.  It was an amazing fantasy book by David Farland  written 1998.  As soon as we went back to the library I acquired and devoured the second book, Brotherhood of the Wolf.  After that I was saddened because the library had no more books in the series, due to them being lost and never replaced.  However for Christmas my grandparents came to my rescue and bought me all of the rest of the books except the last.  The series is split with the first four books centering around Gaborn Val Orden and the last 5 books starring Fallion Val Orden.  I recently finished the first half of the series and that is what I’m writing about today.  

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE RUNELORDS SERIES IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST 4 BOOKS AND ARE INTERESTED IN THE SERIES PLEASE DONT READ THIS.

     This was an amazing fantasy series.  Anybody that knows me knows that The Belgariad and The Mallorean by David Eddings will always be my favorite fantasy series but this one offered some very interesting and entertaining viewpoints of the fantasy world.  One of the biggest differences between the two is pacing.  In The Runelords the pacing was very very good.  Some fantasy series get ridiculously boring because everything is very drawn out and prolonged and story progression just does not happen.  For no reason.  Other series (liked Belgariad and Mallorean) are very fast paced and you learn about the characters through their actions and not chapter long deep self reflection.  The Runelords offers a very good mix between these two pacings because it takes it’s time with events that are important and lengthy such as battles or traversing beautiful landscapes, but instead of focusing on a single character’s lengthy, lengthy, perception of boring events, it quickly shows different viewpoints from different characters that invigorates and immerses you into the story.  

     The Runelords also has very good character building and writing.  The main character, Gaborn is not the extremely powerful, confident character you seen in some fantasy stories, but he is also not the extremely innocent farm boy with a destiny trope (i.e. Garion, Frodo.)  A huge part of the series is about learning how to be a king, a king to the world if necessary, and learning how to deal with the power, responsibility, and consequences that come with your decisions.  One of my favorite characters is Borenson.  Borenson is truly a tragic hero.  He comes from a poor, fatherless background and rises to become a huge man, a knight of the king’s guard.  In these four books he has to deal with some truly harrowing sacrifices and is one of the characters that suffers the most throughout the series.  Whether or not he comes out on top is still left to be seen because although he settles down with his wife at the end of the first four books, he reappears in Fallion’s story…

     That was my review for the first four books in The Runelords series, I highly encourage you to pick it up now if you are a fan of intense, high quality, fantasy.