Hello. Today I'm writing about some more mobile games on iOS.
The first game is called Vector. Vector is a very fun 2D platformer. It's not a normal platformer in that you don't fight enemies or bosses, instead you use parkour to travel to the end of the level as quickly as possible to avoid being captured by The Hunter that's following you. You can also do special tricks and collect bonuses in the levels in order to get a higher score and unlock new levels. There is a story, but it is very simplistic and the story is not one of the game's main selling points. The graphics are nice and stylized but amazing.
The next game is titled Shadow Fight 2. This game was made by the same developers as Vector and has the same art style. Shadow Fight 2 is a ninja fighting game whee you have a lot of different armor, weapons, ranged weapons, and magic to use against your opponent. The fighting system is the best I've seen on iOS before and it gives you a lot of different options as to how you want to fight and the fights are fun yet challenging.
Next is a game named Blood Gate - Age of Alchemy. This is an RPG type game where you fight monsters by matching 3 or more corresponding element orbs in a grid similar to a bejeweled game. There's a pretty good story that's much better than the previous 2 games' and the graphics are really amazing. The game is very fun with tons of weapons and items and it's definitely a game you could keep playing for a long time.
The last game is called Mazecraft. Mazecraft is a charming pixel game where you can build mazes and fill it with challenges like traps and monsters. Other players can play and rate your maze and you can go and play other people's mazes in order to level up and gain access to more content. The game is a very cool concept and the pixel art is nice, however is feels like it is lacking some content. That being said the game is free so there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
There were 4 new mobile games. Bye.
- By Ashton
The Grey Jack Frost
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
New X-Wing Rebel Ships
Hello. Today I'm reviewing some new X-wing ships.
Today it's all rebel ships so let's start with the HWK-290. The HWK-290 is a pretty cool rebel ship and with its title "Moldy Crow" you can really make the best use of focus in the game. The HWK can focus and target lock, with 1 attack, 2 agility, 4 hull, and 1 shield. The Moldy Crow title you can equip it with is really cool because it lets you keep focus tokens so you can accumulate them throughout the game. My Dad has taken advantage of this by giving it the co-pilot Recon Specialist which lets you focus twice, the Blaster Turret which gives it a 360 firing arc with 3 dice at range 1-2 if it spends a focus, and the elite pilot skill Calculation which lets you use focuses to make criticals instead of regular damage.
The next Rebel ship is the K-wing. The K-wing has a 360 degree firing arc, 2 attack, 1 agility, 5 hull, and 4 shields. It can focus, target lock, and perform the new SLAM action which is very useful for maneuvering and speed. It has the modification Advanced SLAM which lets you perform a second action after you SLAM, the twin laser turret which only does 1 damage each time it hits, but gets to hit twice. The most important upgrade on the K-Wing is called Extra munitions which will give it an extra shot on the advanced homing missiles, plasma torpedos, Connor net, and proton bombs. There's also a co-pilot on it called Bombardier that lets it use the 2 template instead of the 1 when dropping bombs.
The last ship is the new T-70 X-Wing from the new Force Awakens Core set. The ship is pretty beefy with 3 attack, 2 agility, 3 hull, and 3 shields, almost matching up to the Tie Defender's 3 across the board. It can focus, target lock, and boost which is new to an X-wing. It has the same upgrade slots as the original X-wing except it can also equip tech upgrades. The ship is definitely a huge improvement on the original X-wing being only 2 more points than the original and still less expensive than an E-Wing, which was considered the X-wings original improvement.
There were some new rebel ships for X-wing. Bye.
- By Ashton
Today it's all rebel ships so let's start with the HWK-290. The HWK-290 is a pretty cool rebel ship and with its title "Moldy Crow" you can really make the best use of focus in the game. The HWK can focus and target lock, with 1 attack, 2 agility, 4 hull, and 1 shield. The Moldy Crow title you can equip it with is really cool because it lets you keep focus tokens so you can accumulate them throughout the game. My Dad has taken advantage of this by giving it the co-pilot Recon Specialist which lets you focus twice, the Blaster Turret which gives it a 360 firing arc with 3 dice at range 1-2 if it spends a focus, and the elite pilot skill Calculation which lets you use focuses to make criticals instead of regular damage.
The next Rebel ship is the K-wing. The K-wing has a 360 degree firing arc, 2 attack, 1 agility, 5 hull, and 4 shields. It can focus, target lock, and perform the new SLAM action which is very useful for maneuvering and speed. It has the modification Advanced SLAM which lets you perform a second action after you SLAM, the twin laser turret which only does 1 damage each time it hits, but gets to hit twice. The most important upgrade on the K-Wing is called Extra munitions which will give it an extra shot on the advanced homing missiles, plasma torpedos, Connor net, and proton bombs. There's also a co-pilot on it called Bombardier that lets it use the 2 template instead of the 1 when dropping bombs.
The last ship is the new T-70 X-Wing from the new Force Awakens Core set. The ship is pretty beefy with 3 attack, 2 agility, 3 hull, and 3 shields, almost matching up to the Tie Defender's 3 across the board. It can focus, target lock, and boost which is new to an X-wing. It has the same upgrade slots as the original X-wing except it can also equip tech upgrades. The ship is definitely a huge improvement on the original X-wing being only 2 more points than the original and still less expensive than an E-Wing, which was considered the X-wings original improvement.
There were some new rebel ships for X-wing. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 11, 2015
New X-Wing ships
Hello. Today I'm writing about another new batch of X-wing ships.
This time it's a pure imperial batch starting out with the 2 First Order Ties you get in the new Force Awakens core set. It comes with 5 different pilot cards for each ship and 3 of them are very useful. The lowest point cost is 15 for an Epsilon Squadron Pilot with 1 pilot skill and no ability. The extra 3 points over the lowest regular tie is very worth it because these Ties have 1 more shield, the ability to target lock, and a much better maneuver dial. The new maneuver dial has a Segnor's loop on 2, green 2 sharp turns, and no 3 k-turn. Overall that makes the new First Order Tie highly maneuverable and much better than the normal ones especially since it's only a 3 point difference. The second useful pilot card is the Epsilon leader with pilot skill 6 that lets you remove stress from every friendly ship at range one at the start of the combat phase. This is very useful because if you're flying a formation doing a red maneuver will still give you stress and prevent you from taking an action but since he clears it right after the entire formation could repeatedly pull red maneuvers. The last useful pilot is Omega Ace at 7 pilot skill and his ability is to change your attack results to damage results if you have a target lock on the defender and a focus token. That ability combined with howl runners will make sure your Ties are doing damage with every attack. Every ship can also equip the new tech upgrade slot and a useful upgrade comes with them for tech called weapons guidance that lets you spend a focus to change a blank result to a critical. The Omega Ace can equip an elite pilot upgrade and a card called Wired that comes with it will make it even easier to to damage by letting you reroll an eye result if you're stressed.
The second ship I got is the Tie Punisher. The Tie punisher has a high/low point cost of 21/27 and has 2 attack, 1 agility, 6 hull, and 3 shields. The Tie punisher has upgrade slots for systems, 2 torpedoes, 2 missiles, and 2 bombs so you can really load a ton of secondary weapons on this ship. Another awesome selling point for this ship is that it comes with a torpedo card called Extra Munitions which basically gives you an extra shot for every torpedo, missile, or bomb you have equipped. This is awesome because you could potentially have 10 shots with secondary weapons, so if you have this ship you should be target locking or dropping bombs every turn because you've definitely got the firepower. My favorite pilot to use with this ship is Deathrain at 6 pilot skill because it can drop a bomb from its front guides and then barrel roll before moving, this makes it a lot easier to line up a bomb in your enemies path and get away from it fast. The highest pilot skill card is Redline with 7 pilot skill and his ability is to be able to maintain 2 target locks on one ship as only 1 action which is pretty good for all the target locks you're gonna need. A systems upgrade card that comes with it called Enhanced scopes lets you treat your pilot skill as 0 when it comes to moving if you decide to which could be useful for a bomber because you could drop your bomb and get away before anybody else had a chance to move. The Tie punisher is obviously not very maneuverable but it does have a 1 forward which is useful, and a red 4 k-turn. It has the ability to focus, target lock, and boost.
The last ship is a large ship called the VT-49 Decimator. This ship is a beast. It's huge with 3 attack, 12 hull, 4 shields, and unfortunately 0 agility. With these stats it has high health but is gonna get hit all the time and after only 4 shields those critical hits are gonna be nasty. It's got turreted guns and a high/low point cost of 40/46. It has the ability to target lock and focus. Has upgrade slots for torpedo, 3 co-pilots, a bomb, as well as an elite pilot upgrade for most pilots. My favorite pilot to use is Captain Oicunn with 4 pilot skill because his ability is to cause 1 damage to every enemy ship he's touching after he moves. That's awesome. Whether you're using that pilot or not it has some awesome upgrade cards to choose from. It has the elite pilot upgrade Intimidation which lowers the agility of every enemy ship by 1 that you're touching which is awesome with Captain Oicunn. It also comes with 4 co-pilots, a fleet officer than can focus up to 2 ships at range 1-2 for an action and a stress token, Moff Jerjerrod who lets you sacrifice co-pilots to turn critically facedown, Ysanne Isard who lets you perform free evade actions of you have damage every turn, and Mara Jade who gives every enemy ship at range 1 at the end of combat a stress if they didn't have one. Those are amazing co-pilots. The Decimator has the standard Large ship maneuvering dial except it has literally no maneuvers that give it stress which is again, awesome.
There were some of my new X-wing ships. Bye.
- By Ashton
This time it's a pure imperial batch starting out with the 2 First Order Ties you get in the new Force Awakens core set. It comes with 5 different pilot cards for each ship and 3 of them are very useful. The lowest point cost is 15 for an Epsilon Squadron Pilot with 1 pilot skill and no ability. The extra 3 points over the lowest regular tie is very worth it because these Ties have 1 more shield, the ability to target lock, and a much better maneuver dial. The new maneuver dial has a Segnor's loop on 2, green 2 sharp turns, and no 3 k-turn. Overall that makes the new First Order Tie highly maneuverable and much better than the normal ones especially since it's only a 3 point difference. The second useful pilot card is the Epsilon leader with pilot skill 6 that lets you remove stress from every friendly ship at range one at the start of the combat phase. This is very useful because if you're flying a formation doing a red maneuver will still give you stress and prevent you from taking an action but since he clears it right after the entire formation could repeatedly pull red maneuvers. The last useful pilot is Omega Ace at 7 pilot skill and his ability is to change your attack results to damage results if you have a target lock on the defender and a focus token. That ability combined with howl runners will make sure your Ties are doing damage with every attack. Every ship can also equip the new tech upgrade slot and a useful upgrade comes with them for tech called weapons guidance that lets you spend a focus to change a blank result to a critical. The Omega Ace can equip an elite pilot upgrade and a card called Wired that comes with it will make it even easier to to damage by letting you reroll an eye result if you're stressed.
The second ship I got is the Tie Punisher. The Tie punisher has a high/low point cost of 21/27 and has 2 attack, 1 agility, 6 hull, and 3 shields. The Tie punisher has upgrade slots for systems, 2 torpedoes, 2 missiles, and 2 bombs so you can really load a ton of secondary weapons on this ship. Another awesome selling point for this ship is that it comes with a torpedo card called Extra Munitions which basically gives you an extra shot for every torpedo, missile, or bomb you have equipped. This is awesome because you could potentially have 10 shots with secondary weapons, so if you have this ship you should be target locking or dropping bombs every turn because you've definitely got the firepower. My favorite pilot to use with this ship is Deathrain at 6 pilot skill because it can drop a bomb from its front guides and then barrel roll before moving, this makes it a lot easier to line up a bomb in your enemies path and get away from it fast. The highest pilot skill card is Redline with 7 pilot skill and his ability is to be able to maintain 2 target locks on one ship as only 1 action which is pretty good for all the target locks you're gonna need. A systems upgrade card that comes with it called Enhanced scopes lets you treat your pilot skill as 0 when it comes to moving if you decide to which could be useful for a bomber because you could drop your bomb and get away before anybody else had a chance to move. The Tie punisher is obviously not very maneuverable but it does have a 1 forward which is useful, and a red 4 k-turn. It has the ability to focus, target lock, and boost.
The last ship is a large ship called the VT-49 Decimator. This ship is a beast. It's huge with 3 attack, 12 hull, 4 shields, and unfortunately 0 agility. With these stats it has high health but is gonna get hit all the time and after only 4 shields those critical hits are gonna be nasty. It's got turreted guns and a high/low point cost of 40/46. It has the ability to target lock and focus. Has upgrade slots for torpedo, 3 co-pilots, a bomb, as well as an elite pilot upgrade for most pilots. My favorite pilot to use is Captain Oicunn with 4 pilot skill because his ability is to cause 1 damage to every enemy ship he's touching after he moves. That's awesome. Whether you're using that pilot or not it has some awesome upgrade cards to choose from. It has the elite pilot upgrade Intimidation which lowers the agility of every enemy ship by 1 that you're touching which is awesome with Captain Oicunn. It also comes with 4 co-pilots, a fleet officer than can focus up to 2 ships at range 1-2 for an action and a stress token, Moff Jerjerrod who lets you sacrifice co-pilots to turn critically facedown, Ysanne Isard who lets you perform free evade actions of you have damage every turn, and Mara Jade who gives every enemy ship at range 1 at the end of combat a stress if they didn't have one. Those are amazing co-pilots. The Decimator has the standard Large ship maneuvering dial except it has literally no maneuvers that give it stress which is again, awesome.
There were some of my new X-wing ships. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Strings Class and Cello
Hello. Today I'm talking about my experience with strings class and playing cello.
I started to play cello in sixth grade so I've been playing for 4 years now. In 6th grade at North Middle School the year started with 3 or 4 cello players so I was not alone and there was one person that was abetted player than me so I would have been 2nd or 3rd chair. My teacher was Mr. Cushwaw for most of that year until he stopped teaching so I had another teacher, Mr. Newburger for the rest of middle school. 7th grade was when things really got started because all the other cellos in my grade stopped playing. This meant that I would be the only cello player and I was for the rest of middle school. During concerts if I was lucky there would be 1 or 2 other cellos because that was the only time all 3 grades ever played together. Being the only cello player for so long definitely helped both my playing skills and gave me a lot of confidence since I would often be doing solos. Being the only cello I was also often playing loud, fast, deep parts, which happen to be my favorite part to play and it's also the reason the cello is the instrument I chose. My 7th and 8th grade years playing I had a good amount of friends in the class too, and being an essential part of the orchestra definitely helped me, even though a senior cello player could have taught me some useful things.
After 8th grade I went to high school to play at Spring Mills High. At high school the orchestra was a lot larger because all of the grades are in the same class and practice the same music together, and because of this there was an even larger range of playing ability and there were 2 other cellos, both better than me. I think that this was my worst year because since I was last chair I got a lot less attention and since my orchestra teacher, Dr. Sturm, doesn't have time to teach every single thing to every student, the senior players in each section are supposed to help and teach the others in their section. Neither of the other 2 players ever taught me anything even though they were both much better than me so I started to really lag behind and there was a lot of guilty fake-playing-hide-behind-other-cellos. Also most of what we played didn't have those loud, fast, deep, almost dreary parts that I played in middle school and I definitely missed that and didn't have near as much fun playing these other pieces. One song that did have those elements was Fantasia on Theme (no not Disney) and I very much enjoyed that.
This year I am in the same situation as I was for most of middle school in that the other two players quit and graduated so I'm the only player. This way I've started to actually learn things and grow and get better as a player because I'm being taught directly by Dr. Sturm, who's great. Because I'm actually learning new things and becoming a more well rounded player I'm also enjoying all kinds of music and not only what I was used to playing. Recently there was an event called WV Strings Day hosted at our school where the best players from our school played very challenging pieces with good players from across the state. My regained confidence and skill had me enjoying something I'm sure I would have dreaded the previous year and I was even 3rd chair out of 9 cellos, which is pretty good. There's another girl playing cello this year I'm friends with and she's just starting this year so I've resolved to actually teach her things and help her get better, unlike the other 2 players from my previous year.
I'm definitely looking forward to playing cello at Spring Mills High for the next 2 years and it's going to be a very awesome experience being the head of a section with my friends also a surprisingly large amount of cellos coming from various middle schools next year and the year after that. So there was my history of playing cello and strings class. Bye.
- By Ashton
I started to play cello in sixth grade so I've been playing for 4 years now. In 6th grade at North Middle School the year started with 3 or 4 cello players so I was not alone and there was one person that was abetted player than me so I would have been 2nd or 3rd chair. My teacher was Mr. Cushwaw for most of that year until he stopped teaching so I had another teacher, Mr. Newburger for the rest of middle school. 7th grade was when things really got started because all the other cellos in my grade stopped playing. This meant that I would be the only cello player and I was for the rest of middle school. During concerts if I was lucky there would be 1 or 2 other cellos because that was the only time all 3 grades ever played together. Being the only cello player for so long definitely helped both my playing skills and gave me a lot of confidence since I would often be doing solos. Being the only cello I was also often playing loud, fast, deep parts, which happen to be my favorite part to play and it's also the reason the cello is the instrument I chose. My 7th and 8th grade years playing I had a good amount of friends in the class too, and being an essential part of the orchestra definitely helped me, even though a senior cello player could have taught me some useful things.
After 8th grade I went to high school to play at Spring Mills High. At high school the orchestra was a lot larger because all of the grades are in the same class and practice the same music together, and because of this there was an even larger range of playing ability and there were 2 other cellos, both better than me. I think that this was my worst year because since I was last chair I got a lot less attention and since my orchestra teacher, Dr. Sturm, doesn't have time to teach every single thing to every student, the senior players in each section are supposed to help and teach the others in their section. Neither of the other 2 players ever taught me anything even though they were both much better than me so I started to really lag behind and there was a lot of guilty fake-playing-hide-behind-other-cellos. Also most of what we played didn't have those loud, fast, deep, almost dreary parts that I played in middle school and I definitely missed that and didn't have near as much fun playing these other pieces. One song that did have those elements was Fantasia on Theme (no not Disney) and I very much enjoyed that.
This year I am in the same situation as I was for most of middle school in that the other two players quit and graduated so I'm the only player. This way I've started to actually learn things and grow and get better as a player because I'm being taught directly by Dr. Sturm, who's great. Because I'm actually learning new things and becoming a more well rounded player I'm also enjoying all kinds of music and not only what I was used to playing. Recently there was an event called WV Strings Day hosted at our school where the best players from our school played very challenging pieces with good players from across the state. My regained confidence and skill had me enjoying something I'm sure I would have dreaded the previous year and I was even 3rd chair out of 9 cellos, which is pretty good. There's another girl playing cello this year I'm friends with and she's just starting this year so I've resolved to actually teach her things and help her get better, unlike the other 2 players from my previous year.
I'm definitely looking forward to playing cello at Spring Mills High for the next 2 years and it's going to be a very awesome experience being the head of a section with my friends also a surprisingly large amount of cellos coming from various middle schools next year and the year after that. So there was my history of playing cello and strings class. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Pokemon Go
Hello people's. Today I'm going to look at the upcoming game, Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go is a game coming in 2016 for iOS and Android. Because of the nature of the game it's making a lot of dorks like me or anybody really that played Pokemon when they were little very excited and nostalgic. It's doing this for a few reasons. The first is that it's going to be on smartphones which makes it a lot more accessible and convenient than only having it on a device solely for gaming. The next reason is that this game is going to have every Pokemon in it, without trading between games, it's the first game that's done this and it's very cool. The biggest reason is that in this game is location based so you actually have to go places to catch Pokemon, trade, or battle with people.
Another cool part of it is that there's an optional clip that you can buy that looks like a pokeball, it helps you by vibrating when a Pokemon is near so that you don't have to have your phone out all the time. One of the coolest parts about it though it is that having it on you lets other people that play the game know that you play it and then you can go up to them and battle and trade with people you don't even know which is awesome. Depending on how expensive it will be I might buy it if I like the game as much as I think I will. The game having every Pokemon in it is very cool because Pokemon has been around since 1996 and every few years they release new games with a new generation of 100 or so new pokemon. Since this game will have all of them it's going to be attracting fans from all across that 20 year timespan so there's gonna be older fans in their 20's battling and trading with little kids that just got into the series.
The coolest and most exciting aspect of the new game is that it's location based. It will work like this, at any point in time when you're walking around your phone might buzz and say there's a wild Pokemon 56 feet in this direction and once you're near the location all you have to do is use the app to access your camera and you can actually see what Pokemon it is right through the camera as if it was standing there in the real world. Now it's obviously not going to be perfect and most the time it's probably going to be half in a wall or just look like a sticker on the screen but that's still pretty cool. Then once you are near it you can battle it and catch it just like you can in the main games and once you've caught it, it's yours to take wherever you want. If you meet someone with the game on their phone it's easy to just fight their team for fun and then you can trade them for ones that they've caught. It's gonna spark so many cool stories like "yeah I found my favorite Pokemon while I was out with my friends and it was right there by the side of the restaurant parking lot" or "yeah I traded this kid I saw in a subway and gave him is favorite Pokemon he was so happy." This is so exciting for fans of the series because we played this game when we were little kids, for me I was only 8 or 9, and we would have done anything to bring the Pokemon we had caught in the games out into the real world to show people or just have a friend or a pet. I can tell you for a fact that there were a lot of birthday wishes that went something like that. (Guilty as charged). And now years later we can experience something that comes pretty close to that and that is why this game is making people so nostalgic and excited.
So there were some thoughts on the upcoming game Pokemon Go. Bye.
- By Ashton
Pokemon Go is a game coming in 2016 for iOS and Android. Because of the nature of the game it's making a lot of dorks like me or anybody really that played Pokemon when they were little very excited and nostalgic. It's doing this for a few reasons. The first is that it's going to be on smartphones which makes it a lot more accessible and convenient than only having it on a device solely for gaming. The next reason is that this game is going to have every Pokemon in it, without trading between games, it's the first game that's done this and it's very cool. The biggest reason is that in this game is location based so you actually have to go places to catch Pokemon, trade, or battle with people.
Another cool part of it is that there's an optional clip that you can buy that looks like a pokeball, it helps you by vibrating when a Pokemon is near so that you don't have to have your phone out all the time. One of the coolest parts about it though it is that having it on you lets other people that play the game know that you play it and then you can go up to them and battle and trade with people you don't even know which is awesome. Depending on how expensive it will be I might buy it if I like the game as much as I think I will. The game having every Pokemon in it is very cool because Pokemon has been around since 1996 and every few years they release new games with a new generation of 100 or so new pokemon. Since this game will have all of them it's going to be attracting fans from all across that 20 year timespan so there's gonna be older fans in their 20's battling and trading with little kids that just got into the series.
The coolest and most exciting aspect of the new game is that it's location based. It will work like this, at any point in time when you're walking around your phone might buzz and say there's a wild Pokemon 56 feet in this direction and once you're near the location all you have to do is use the app to access your camera and you can actually see what Pokemon it is right through the camera as if it was standing there in the real world. Now it's obviously not going to be perfect and most the time it's probably going to be half in a wall or just look like a sticker on the screen but that's still pretty cool. Then once you are near it you can battle it and catch it just like you can in the main games and once you've caught it, it's yours to take wherever you want. If you meet someone with the game on their phone it's easy to just fight their team for fun and then you can trade them for ones that they've caught. It's gonna spark so many cool stories like "yeah I found my favorite Pokemon while I was out with my friends and it was right there by the side of the restaurant parking lot" or "yeah I traded this kid I saw in a subway and gave him is favorite Pokemon he was so happy." This is so exciting for fans of the series because we played this game when we were little kids, for me I was only 8 or 9, and we would have done anything to bring the Pokemon we had caught in the games out into the real world to show people or just have a friend or a pet. I can tell you for a fact that there were a lot of birthday wishes that went something like that. (Guilty as charged). And now years later we can experience something that comes pretty close to that and that is why this game is making people so nostalgic and excited.
So there were some thoughts on the upcoming game Pokemon Go. Bye.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Colleges
There are many different colleges with different programs for me to choose from. The main things I'm looking at for each college are locations, the programs, the length of the programs, and the tuition. The programs I'm interested in are anything to do with video game development like digital graphics. Because tuition prices are so incredibly high in America I've made a list of colleges in other countries like Germany and Denmark.
Let's start with Denmark. One of the colleges I saw in Denmark had a rather long name called The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It had a program titled Game Art, Design, and Development. The program lasts 2 years and is 6168$ per semester. Another university was titled IT University of Copenhagen. The university had a program simply titled Games that also lasts only 2 years that was 7514$ per semester. I wanted to find programs that lasted longer because I assumed that would mean they had more to teach and would treat it more seriously so I kept looking and found some programs for a college called VIA University College. I would reconsider these colleges only if I found out more about the programs they offered that made me excited or if they created new courses or lengthened the existing ones.
Denmark also has a college called VIA University College with 2 game programs. The 2 programs are Character Animation and Computer Graphic Arts. Both programs last for 3 and a half years and cost 7943$ per semester. If I did end up going to this college I would have to look at both programs more extensively in order to make a choice between them, because even though the price is comparatively low, 7 years would be a long time. I guess if I did end up taking both programs then I would want to get an actual job while I was there in the video game field, that way I could continue studying and still be doing what I want to do.
Next lets look at Universities in Germany. I'm looking at Germany because not only would it be really cool to live there and meet the people and the culture, but also because the tuition prices are not even a fraction of what you have to pay in America. First is the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The University offers a course in Animation and Game that lasts 3.5 years and has an unbelievable 0$ tuition. Similar to it is the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It has a program named Digital Games for 3.5 years that is only 249$ per semester. The third college I saw was called Berlin School of Applied Sciences. The program is called Game Design and lasts 3.5 years. A downside as well as an upside is that even though there is a 0$ tuition fee they are only accepting 40 applicants per year. All I can say about that is that hopefully it is a very high class course with a lot to offer, otherwise I might not have a large chance of getting in unless I'd already gotten some training in the area.
While I was looking at colleges in Germany I found one in particular that interested me called the Technical University of Munich. They offered a course called games engineering and what had drawn me so much to it is that the description of the course and the pictures that went along with it was exactly what I had wanted in a college course. The course is very broad in that it isn't confining these games to a single platform like computer gaming or mobile gaming it's looking at all types of games across all platforms, even virtual reality. It also showed that it's a perfect blend of teaching how to create the 2D and 3D art styles of video games and the actual development and coding of them. The course also has a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree available making it last a total of 5 years which is the longest amount of time I've seen for any single program so far. Last but not least all of this comes in at only 127$ per semester which is just incredible.
It's obvious that there are some pretty great colleges in both Denmark and Germany. My two favorite options are still the VIA University College in Denmark and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. The field is still growing so I'm sure that there are going to be more and more opportunities in these countries as well as others and I plan to keep looking at different programs and colleges especially internationally because of the low tuition and amazing experiences I can have there.
- By Ashton
Let's start with Denmark. One of the colleges I saw in Denmark had a rather long name called The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It had a program titled Game Art, Design, and Development. The program lasts 2 years and is 6168$ per semester. Another university was titled IT University of Copenhagen. The university had a program simply titled Games that also lasts only 2 years that was 7514$ per semester. I wanted to find programs that lasted longer because I assumed that would mean they had more to teach and would treat it more seriously so I kept looking and found some programs for a college called VIA University College. I would reconsider these colleges only if I found out more about the programs they offered that made me excited or if they created new courses or lengthened the existing ones.
Denmark also has a college called VIA University College with 2 game programs. The 2 programs are Character Animation and Computer Graphic Arts. Both programs last for 3 and a half years and cost 7943$ per semester. If I did end up going to this college I would have to look at both programs more extensively in order to make a choice between them, because even though the price is comparatively low, 7 years would be a long time. I guess if I did end up taking both programs then I would want to get an actual job while I was there in the video game field, that way I could continue studying and still be doing what I want to do.
Next lets look at Universities in Germany. I'm looking at Germany because not only would it be really cool to live there and meet the people and the culture, but also because the tuition prices are not even a fraction of what you have to pay in America. First is the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The University offers a course in Animation and Game that lasts 3.5 years and has an unbelievable 0$ tuition. Similar to it is the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It has a program named Digital Games for 3.5 years that is only 249$ per semester. The third college I saw was called Berlin School of Applied Sciences. The program is called Game Design and lasts 3.5 years. A downside as well as an upside is that even though there is a 0$ tuition fee they are only accepting 40 applicants per year. All I can say about that is that hopefully it is a very high class course with a lot to offer, otherwise I might not have a large chance of getting in unless I'd already gotten some training in the area.
While I was looking at colleges in Germany I found one in particular that interested me called the Technical University of Munich. They offered a course called games engineering and what had drawn me so much to it is that the description of the course and the pictures that went along with it was exactly what I had wanted in a college course. The course is very broad in that it isn't confining these games to a single platform like computer gaming or mobile gaming it's looking at all types of games across all platforms, even virtual reality. It also showed that it's a perfect blend of teaching how to create the 2D and 3D art styles of video games and the actual development and coding of them. The course also has a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree available making it last a total of 5 years which is the longest amount of time I've seen for any single program so far. Last but not least all of this comes in at only 127$ per semester which is just incredible.
It's obvious that there are some pretty great colleges in both Denmark and Germany. My two favorite options are still the VIA University College in Denmark and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. The field is still growing so I'm sure that there are going to be more and more opportunities in these countries as well as others and I plan to keep looking at different programs and colleges especially internationally because of the low tuition and amazing experiences I can have there.
- By Ashton
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Sinister
Hello people's. Today I'm talking about the Sinister movies.
So a few days I saw Sinister 2. I'm a huge fan of the first movie, I love everything about it so I wasn't surprised when this one wasn't quite as good. However the movie was much better than the ratings that it got. The basis of the Sinister movies is that a demon called Bughuul, better known as the boogeyman, will corrupt an innocent child until it creatively murders its family, usually with some art involved. In modern times Bughuul tends to use film as the art so it's often grainy old cameras filming gruesome murders. Urban legends about murders being filmed and titled "snuff films" already exist and are a terrifying concept in itself. Add in a terrifying real life boogeyman and creepy children and it's no wonder that these movies are so disturbing.
(SPOILERS)
Both movies center around families moving into a house where one of these murders took place, both families eventually learn about the supernatural causes behind the murders but always find out too late that their own murders would be triggered as soon as they left that house. In the second movie a deputy from the first has been going around and burning unoccupied houses where these murders took place so that all the chains of child killing family Bughuul has created will be broken. However eventually he discovers that there's already a family living in one.. By far the best part of the second movie were the snuff films. In the original film the most disturbing and iconic snuff film is when a family is hanged simultaneously from a tree in their backyard and in the second movie of the 4 new snuff films, all of them are equally or even more disturbing than that. If you watch this movie without seeing the first than these parts will be an enormous shock.
In my opinion if you took the plot from the original Sinister, replaced the least disturbing snuff films with the ones from Sinister 2, and kept the music from the first, then you would have the best possible Sinister story. What was mainly lacking from the second movie was a creative plot line and while I was seeing the movie I started thinking if I could have come up with a better (scarier) ending. Unlike the original Bughuuls plan for the family being murdered fails and only an abusive father is killed. If I had been writing the movie I would have written it so that the mother died, which audiences would have cared about much more, and then after the threat of Bughuul and the murderous child was over I would have a shock ending. The ending would have been the innocent child taking the opportunity to kill his extremely abusive father without Bughuuls influence, showing that true evil is not necessary for the corruption of innocent humans.
(END SPOILERS)
So there were my thoughts of the Sinister movies. Bye.
- By Ashton
So a few days I saw Sinister 2. I'm a huge fan of the first movie, I love everything about it so I wasn't surprised when this one wasn't quite as good. However the movie was much better than the ratings that it got. The basis of the Sinister movies is that a demon called Bughuul, better known as the boogeyman, will corrupt an innocent child until it creatively murders its family, usually with some art involved. In modern times Bughuul tends to use film as the art so it's often grainy old cameras filming gruesome murders. Urban legends about murders being filmed and titled "snuff films" already exist and are a terrifying concept in itself. Add in a terrifying real life boogeyman and creepy children and it's no wonder that these movies are so disturbing.
(SPOILERS)
Both movies center around families moving into a house where one of these murders took place, both families eventually learn about the supernatural causes behind the murders but always find out too late that their own murders would be triggered as soon as they left that house. In the second movie a deputy from the first has been going around and burning unoccupied houses where these murders took place so that all the chains of child killing family Bughuul has created will be broken. However eventually he discovers that there's already a family living in one.. By far the best part of the second movie were the snuff films. In the original film the most disturbing and iconic snuff film is when a family is hanged simultaneously from a tree in their backyard and in the second movie of the 4 new snuff films, all of them are equally or even more disturbing than that. If you watch this movie without seeing the first than these parts will be an enormous shock.
In my opinion if you took the plot from the original Sinister, replaced the least disturbing snuff films with the ones from Sinister 2, and kept the music from the first, then you would have the best possible Sinister story. What was mainly lacking from the second movie was a creative plot line and while I was seeing the movie I started thinking if I could have come up with a better (scarier) ending. Unlike the original Bughuuls plan for the family being murdered fails and only an abusive father is killed. If I had been writing the movie I would have written it so that the mother died, which audiences would have cared about much more, and then after the threat of Bughuul and the murderous child was over I would have a shock ending. The ending would have been the innocent child taking the opportunity to kill his extremely abusive father without Bughuuls influence, showing that true evil is not necessary for the corruption of innocent humans.
(END SPOILERS)
So there were my thoughts of the Sinister movies. Bye.
- By Ashton
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