What The Heck Is Going On?

So, at this point, I'm a week late for a new episode. Don't fear, a new one is coming. Probably next week. I recognize that I've skipped weeks before and haven't ever said why, except perhaps in passing. Normally, it's because I'm off performing my two weeks of annual training for the National Guard. But not this time.

It's like this. I need to get my life to a better place. Mainly with my health, but also my relationship with my wife and kids. I have high blood glucose and I need to get it under control. I've drastically altered my diet and am exercising more. That means earlier mornings, which require earlier nights. That means less time for recording and editing and everything else that goes into making the podcast.

If you're reading this, I assume you're a regular listener. For that I thank you. I owe you quite a bit. For example, I owe you more and better content. It's coming. Exactly what form that is, I don't know.

But back to my main point.

I'm exercising more, eating better, working harder on my Cub Scout commitments (I'm Cub Master for the Pack my son is in), working harder in my National Guard posting (Senior Platoon Trainer NCO for Officer Candidate School), and wanting to do more "hobby stuff." All of this takes time. Unfortunately, all of these things take a higher priority than simply banging out a podcast when it comes due.

Now, there is some cross-pollination in there. It's especially evident when it comes to my National Guard pursuits and my hobby. For example, Henry Hyde will be publishing an article I wrote as a direct result of my recent military education. Additionally, I'll be writing about my experience in planning a staff ride for the Officer Candidates. More on that later. Furthermore, I'm planning more articles for Henry.

As for the hobby stuff, I want to spend more time with my kids. Luckily, they both want to paint figures with me and play more games. Anticipate that generating more content for the podcast and maybe more blog posts here. For example, the projects I'm actively pursuing include:
- A semi-secret Seven-Years War project
- My son's 40k Orks
- A Full Thrust project using Halo ships
- A microarmor game I'm developing with my brother Chris
- Rommel in 3mm
- The Commands & Colors Epic Fantasy (not BattleLore) project (and I might have a writing partner for this one now)
- The space station project I talked about previously for sci-fi skirmish (possibly Oldhammerish)

Lots of other stuff is ruminating as well. What can I say, I'm a gaming magpie from way back. In the meantime, I'm trying to read more history, historical fiction, self-help, US Army doctrine publications and even the occasional hobby magazine!

I'm a busy guy. Part of this little pause has been taken up with some thought, soul searching, prioritizing, planning, and figuring what the hell I'm doing next. Part of that is going to take me becoming more personally disciplined in how I go about things. I've never scheduled "free time" before, but I might have to start.

We're all busy. So, I hope you can understand why I might be late with the podcast. I hope you'll forgive me. One of these days, you might even think what I produce was worth what you paid for it.

That is all.

The List - December 2019

It's been a while since I've taken a look at The List... Time to once again take stock of my published games, as well as current and back-burnered designs and prototypes! I'll try and be more thorough, like last time.

Published Games:
- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion)
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG)
- Isle of Trains (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (expansion)
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG)
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [In manufacturing]
- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)
- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Finished But Unpublished Games:
- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print]
- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [Ready to print]
- Deities and Demigods  [In line for art]
- Exhibit (BGG)
- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game)
- Dice Works (BGG)
- Wizard's Tower (BGG)
- Now Boarding
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion)
- Suburban Sprawl
- Watch It Played

Current Active Designs:
- Alter Ego (BGG) [moved to Active]
- Apotheosis (FKA "Worker Learning") [moved to Active]

Recent Designs That Are Not On The Front Burner:
- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG)
- Automatown
- Moctezuma's Revenge
- Joan of Arc

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad
- All For One (BGG)
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG)

Old Ideas that Haven't Gone Anywhere (Yet) - some of these have been getting stale as well:
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- Scourge of the High Seas
- Rondel Role Selection
- Cruise line game
- The Untouchables
- Day labor job based on craps

Misc and Really Old Stuff:
- 9-Ball
- Blockade Runner
- Roman Emperors (my version of someone else's game)
- Admirals of the Spanish Main (my version of someone else's game)


Let's take a closer look at the games that have seen some movement recently:

Published games:
Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [In manufacturing]
The first expansion to Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG) has been printed, and is about to ship from the manufacturer! I played two games with a sample copy at TokenCon in Oklahoma City this year, where I was a special guest. Divine Influence adds new building types, and replaces the Influence action with something more intricate and involved. There are 4 new Knight Orders as well.

Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion)
The third (and final) expansion to Eminent Domain was released about a year ago, and is in stores now. Oblivion adds Clout tokens (1-shot role icons), and a Politics role. Using Politics, you can flip over the new Prestige planets in the set, and you can "vote" public agendas into and out of play. These agendas have lasting effects that apply to everyone. So far I haven't seen a lot of comments on this expansion, but the ones I've seen have been pretty positive, so that's nice.

Finished But Unpublished Games:
Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print]
All of the art is done for this Terra Prime re-release, but the production is on hold for various reasons. The game is an update to my first published title, Terra Prime (BGG), and includes an as-yet unpublished expansion I made years ago. The art and theme has been changed to the Eminent Domain universe, as the game fits perfectly as a prequel to Eminent Domain. 

Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [Ready to print]
I have art ready to go for another Crusaders expansion, this one just adds red player pieces for a 5th player. If things go my way, we'll print the same exact thing in yellow to facilitate a 6th player in an "Amber Knight" expansion box. There's a new rule which allows space for more players to play on the same sized board -- you're allowed to build the same building as an opponent has built in a region. So if you built a Farm in a hex, I can build a Farm in that hex as well. This rule means the building spaces don't completely dry up with 5 or 6 players, and it adds an interesting dynamic as well.

Olympus on the Serengeti (FKA Deities and Demigods)  [In line for art]
The theme for this one was so commonplace that, when getting an artist involved, I tried to find something new and different. I landed on animals of the African plain... sort of like The Lion King is Hamlet, but with African animals, Olympus on the Serengeti is Greek mythology, but with African animals. Unfortunately, I wasn't liking the direction the art was going in, so the project has been set back a bit. I've got a different artist lined up for January, so hopefully this one will start moving forward again soon.

Isle of Trains: All Aboard (expansion)
I think it was 4 years ago that Dan and I gave the publisher an expansion to Isle of Trains, and while it kept getting pushed back, I have seen some art that they had made. My understanding is that it's in fact all done, however the publisher now would like to instead do a bigger box game that's like Isle of Trains including the expansion (!) So Dan and I have to figure out whether and how we'd like to re-design the game given the new constraints. One idea they had was to create a game that could use the base Isle of Trains game as an expansion to it... but that seems unlikely to pan out. Unfortunately, we haven't really made any progress on the re-design yet.

Current Active Designs:
Alter Ego (BGG) [moved to Active]
I have revisited Alter Ego after what appears to be 2 years, and I've been playtesting it quite a bit lately. My playtesters finally convinced me that the turn sequence was too confusing, so that's been simplified. And I came up with a new format for the Arch Villains: instead of bringing one or more of them into play at some point, all three Villains will be in play from the outset. Their henchmen will be placed below their Villain mats, and each turn, before you get to fight, each Villain will resolve a Villain Event card. The effect of the card depends on the Villain (the Sadist takes extra hostages, while the Mastermind limits your access to certain abilities) is worse if the Villain has 3 or more henchmen in front of them, so you have incentive to keep the henchmen at bay. So far this new format has been working very well, but the game isn't quite done yet.

Apotheosis (FKA "Worker Learning") [moved to Active]

Michael suggested the name "Apotheosis," which describes the game very well. Thanks to the help of a new co-designer, Rick Holzgrafe, we've made some serious progress on this game. I set it aside this summer and it's been simmering on the back burner since then, but pretty soon I'll probably try some of the latest ideas we've had for it.

Recent Designs That Are Not On The Front Burner:
Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) & Automatown

Each of these games got a playtest recently, which generated something new to try, but they quickly got set aside for other projects. My playtesters don't love Automatown, but they really enjoyed Riders of the Pony Express, so I should bring that one back into active development!

Maybe next time I'll add games I've developed (or am developing) for TMG... would that be something you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments... it's a pretty long list!

Oceanhorn 2: Development Update

All the roads lead to Capital

It has been too long since we gave you guys an update on the development of Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm. Well, all five of us have been focusing on the game, and when you're really concentrated on your work, the time flies!

Grand Core: The city sized machine in the heart of Capital.

It feels like it was only yesterday when we released our first gameplay video of Oceanhorn 2 and even let people play the game at Nordic Game, but the truth is it has been months! The reception of the gameplay video was awesome. We could not get enough of all the impressions from youtube and forums. The excitement of our audience really inspired us to work harder.  After we came back to our studio, we were determined to move to the next step with the production!

Capital's seedier backside

So, what have we been up to? We have been building an adventure! More gameplay, more story, more levels, more worlds. A city. Capital is one of the central locations of Oceanhorn 2's story and it offers tons of open-ended exploration for curious adventurers. In the heart of the city is the gigantic machine Grand Core.

Meeting with friends at Master Mayfair's penthouse study

We hope to bring you more updates in the future, along with some video teasers to give you a real good look at the game! Productions like this require a lot of time and effort, but the outcome will be a cool video game so it is all worth the trouble! When you are making your dream project, you don't count the hours.

Enjoy these iPhone screenshots folks!

EU Switch Release For Arc Of Alchemist Is Now Set For February + Meet The Creators

As previously mentioned, Arc of Alchemist will be heading to North America on January 30, 2020 and in Europe on January 31, 2020 for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The North American release date for both platforms and the European PS4 version will still release on January 30 and January 31, respectively. However, the EU Nintendo Switch release date is now set for February, instead of January 31. The launch date for the EU Switch version will be provided soon.

This week, we also have the last website update that provides more background on the world, the creative minds who were involved with
Arc of Alchemist, as well as free Twitter Icons and wallpapers. Check the links below!

• World: Glossary, Background
• Info: Creators
• Special: Twitter Icons, Wallpapers

The North American version will release digitally for both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. The European version will release digitally for the Nintendo Switch, and the PS4 version will have a physical and digital release.

The North American and European releases for the Nintendo Switch and PS4 include updated system features and the ability to choose and play between 7+ possible characters.​

Low Stock Alert - Cha'alt

All the recent reviews, such as this one and that one, Pundit's one... plus Oh Yeah! and Nic Cage helped sell a lot of hardcover copies of Cha'alt.

Local RPG stores have started carrying Cha'alt, as well, which is fantastic!

Additionally, the PDF just went ELECTRUM (!!!) the other day on DriveThruRPG.

However, the best news ever is that an eccentric (sorry, hoss, but you're only a short step from crazy) gaming collector just bought up 500 copies of Cha'alt so he can sit on them for 10 years and sell them for double the retail price on ebay, as I have no plans for a 2nd printing of Cha'alt (too many new projects I want to pursue).  Dirty pool?  Maybe, but I'm a proud capitalist, so whatever.

After squirreling away the books I owe Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise kickstarter folks, that means I have precisely 297 luxury hardcover Cha'alt volumes left to sell.  Low stock alert, indeed!

You can send me $ via paypal at Venger.Satanis@yahoo.com

It's $60 per book (shipping included if you live within the USA).  Otherwise, the shipping is $30 per book.  Sorry, no discounts on multiple copies...

Also, if you buy the hardcover, you get the PDF for FREE!!!  If you already purchased the PDF, then you get a $10 discount on the hardcover.

Big thanks to everyone who's supported me and Cha'alt and all my Great Work.  Love you, folks!

VS

p.s. If you're looking for a minimalist O5R (OSR + 5e) rule-set for D&D noobs and novices, then look no further than Crimson Dragon Slayer.

Tech Book Face Off: Effective Python Vs. Data Science From Scratch

I must confess, I've used Python for quite some time without really learning most of the language. It's my go-to language for modeling embedded systems problems and doing data analysis, but I've picked up the language mostly through googling what I need and reading the abbreviated introductions of Python data science books. It was time to remedy that situation with the first book in this face-off: Effective Python: 59 Specific Ways to Write Better Python by Brett Slatkin. I didn't want a straight learn-a-programming-language book for this exercise because I already knew the basics and just wanted more depth. For the second book, I wanted to explore how machine learning libraries are actually implemented, so I picked up Data Science from Scratch: First Principles with Python by Joel Grus. These books don't seem directly related other than that they both use Python, but they are both books that look into how to use Python to write programs in an idiomatic way. Effective Python focuses more on the idiomatic part, and Data Science from Scratch focuses more on the writing programs part.

VS.

Effective Python

I thought I had learned a decent amount of Python already, but this book shows that Python is much more than list comprehensions and remembering self everywhere inside classes. My prior knowledge on the subjects in the first couple chapters was fifty-fifty at best, and it went down from there. Slatkin packed this book with useful information and advice on how to use Python to its fullest potential, and it is worthwhile for anyone with only basic knowledge of the language to read through it.

The book is split into eight chapters with the title's 59 Python tips grouped into logical topics. The first chapter covers the basic syntax and library functions that anyone who has used the language for more than a few weeks will know, but the advice on how to best use these building blocks is where the book is most helpful. Things like avoiding using start, end, and stride all at once in slices or using enumerate instead of range are good recommendations that will make your Python code much cleaner and more understandable.

Sometimes the advice gets a bit far-fetched, though. For example when recommending to spell out the process of setting default function arguments, Slatkin proposed this method:

def get_first_int(values, key, default=0):
    found = values.get(key, [''])
    if found[0]:
        found = int(found[0])
    else:
        found = default
    return found

Over this possibility using the or operator short-circuit behavior:

def get_first_int(values, key, default=0):
    found = values.get(key, [''])[0]
    return int(found or default)

He claimed that the first was more understandable, but I just found it more verbose. I actually prefer the second version. This example was the exception, though. I agreed and was impressed with nearly all of the rest of his advice.

The second chapter covered all things functions, including how to write generators and enforce keyword-only arguments. The next chapter, logically, moved into classes and inheritance, followed by metaclasses and attributes in the fourth chapter. What I liked about the items in these chapters was that Slatkin assumes the reader already knows the basic syntax so he spends his time describing how to use the more advanced features of Python most effectively. His advice is clear and direct so it's easy to follow and put to use.

Next up is chapter 5 on concurrency and parallelism. This chapter was great for understanding when to use threads, processes, and the other concurrency features of Python. It turns out that threads and processes have unique behavior (beyond processes just being heavier weight threads) because of the global interpreter lock (GIL):

The GIL has an important negative side effect. With programs written in languages like C++ or Java, having multiple threads of execution means your program could utilize multiple CPU cores at the same time. Although Python supports multiple threads of execution, the GIL causes only one of them to make forward progress at a time. This means that when you reach for threads to do parallel computation and speed up your Python programs, you will be sorely disappointed.

If you want to get true parallelism out of Python, you have to use processes or futures. Good to know. Even though this chapter was fairly short, it was full of useful advice like this, and it was possibly the most interesting part of the book.

The next chapter covered built-in modules, and specifically how to use some of the more complex parts of the standard library, like how to define decorators with functools.wraps, how to make some sense of datetime and time zones, and how to get precision right with decimal. Maybe these aren't the most interesting of topics, but they're necessary to get right.

Chapter 7 covers how to structure and document Python modules properly when you're collaborating with the rest of the community. These things probably aren't useful to everyone, but for those programmers working on open source libraries it's helpful to adhere to common conventions. The last chapter wraps up with advice for developing, debugging, and testing production level code. Since Python is a dynamic language with no static type checking, it's imperative to test any code you write. Slatkin relates a story about how one programmer he knew swore off ever using Python again because of a SyntaxError exception that was raised in a running production program, and he had this to say about it:

But I have to wonder, why wasn't the code tested before the program was deployed to production? Type safety isn't everything. You should always test your code, regardless of what language it's written in. However, I'll admit that the big difference between Python and many other languages is that the only way to have any confidence in a Python program is by writing tests. There is no veil of static type checking to make you feel safe.

I would have to agree. Every program needs to be tested because syntax errors should definitely be caught before releasing to production, and type errors are a small subset of all runtime errors that can occur in a program. If I was depending on the compiler to catch all of the bugs in my programs, I would have a heckuva lot more bugs causing problems in production. Not having a compiler to catch certain classes of errors shouldn't be a reason to give up the big productivity benefits of working in a dynamic language like Python.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning how to write better Python programs through the collection of pro tips in this book. Each tip was focused, relevant, and clear, and they all add up to a great advanced level book on Python. Even better, the next time I need to remember how to do concurrency or parallelism or how to write a proper function with keyword arguments, I'll know exactly where to look. If you want to learn how to write Python code the Pythonic way, I'd highly recommend reading through this book.

Data Science from Scratch

I didn't expect to enjoy this book quite as much as I did. I went into it expecting to learn about how to implement the fundamental tools of the trade for data science, and that was indeed what I got out of the book. But I also got a lighthearted, entertaining, and surprisingly easy-to-read tour of the basics of machine learning using Python. Joel Grus has a matter-of-fact writing style and a dry wit that I immediately took to and thoroughly enjoyed. These qualities made a potentially complex and confusing topic much easier to understand, and humorous to boot, like having an excellent tour guide in a museum that can explain medieval culture in detail while cracking jokes about how toilet paper wasn't invented until the 1850s.

Of course, like so many programming books, this book starts off with a primer on the Python language. I skipped this chapter and the next on drawing graphs, since I've had just about enough of language primers by now, especially for languages that I kind of already know. The real "from scratch" parts of the book start with chapter 4 on linear algebra, where Grus establishes the basic functions necessary for doing computations on vectors and matrices. The functions and classes shown throughout the book are well worth typing out in your own Python notebook or project folder and running through an interpreter, since they are constantly being used to build up tooling in later chapters from the more fundamental tools developed in earlier chapters. The progression of development from this chapter on linear algebra all the way to the end was excellent, and it flowed smoothly and logically over the course of the book.

The next few chapters were on statistics, probability, and their use with hypothesis testing and inference. Sometimes Grus glossed over important points here, like when explaining standard deviations he failed to mention that this metric only applies to (or at least applies best to) normal distributions. Distributions that deviate too much from the normal curve will not have meaningful standard deviations. I'm willing to cut him some slack, though, because he is covering things quickly and makes it clear that his goal is to show roughly what all of this stuff looks like in simple Python code, not to make everything rigorous and perfect. For instance, here's his gentle reminder on method in the probability chapter:

One could, were one so inclined, get really deep into the philosophy of what probability theory means. (This is best done over beers.) We won't be doing that.

He finishes up the introductory groundwork with a chapter on gradient descent, which is used extensively in the later machine learning algorithms. Then there are a couple chapters on gathering, cleaning, and munging data. He has some opinions about some API authors choice of data format:

Sometimes an API provider hates you and only provides responses in XML.

And he has some good expectation setting for the beginner data scientist:

After you've identified the questions you're trying to answer and have gotten your hands on some data, you might be tempted to dive in and immediately start building models and getting answers. But you should resist this urge. Your first step should be to explore your data.

Data is never exactly in the form that you need to do what you want to do with it, so while the gathering and the munging is tedious, it's a necessary skill that separates the great data scientist from the merely mediocre. Once we're done learning how to whip our data into shape, it's off to the races, which is great because we're now halfway through this book.

The chapters on machine learning models, starting with chapter 12, are excellent. While Grus does not go into intricate detail on how to make the fastest, most efficient MLMs (machine learning models, not multi-level marketing), that is not the point. His objective is to show as clearly as possible what each of these algorithms looks like and that it is possible to understand how they work when shown in their essence. The models include k-nearest neighbors, naive bayes, linear regression, multiple regression, logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, and clustering. Each of these models is actually conceptually simple, and the models can be described in dozens of lines of code or less. These implementations may be doggedly slow for large data sets, but they're great for understanding the underlying ideas of each algorithm.

Threaded through each of these chapters are examples of how to use each of the statistical and machine learning tools that is being developed. These examples are presented within the context of the tasks given to a new data scientist who is an employee of a budding social media startup for…well…data scientists. I just have to say that it is truly amazing how many VPs a young startup can support, and I feel awfully sorry for this stalwart data scientist fulfilling all of their requests. This silliness definitely keeps the book moving along.

The next few chapters delve a bit deeper into some interesting problems in data science: natural language processing, network analysis (or graph algorithms), and recommender systems. These chapters were just as great as the others, and by now we've built up our data science tooling pretty well from the original basics of linear algebra and statistics. The one thing we haven't really talked about, yet, is databases. That's the topic of the 23rd chapter, where we implement some of the basic operations of SQL in Python in the most naive way possible. Once again it's surprising to see how little code is needed to implement things like SELECT or INNER JOIN as long as we don't give a flying hoot about performance.

Grus wraps things up with an explanation of the great and all-powerfull MapReduce, and shows the basics of how it would be implemented with mapper and reducer functions and the plumbing to string it together. He does not get into how to distribute this implementation to a compute cluster, but that's the topic of other more complicated books. This one's done from scratch so like everything else, it's just the basics. That was all fine with me because the basics are really important, and knowing the basics well can lead you to a much deeper understanding of the more complex concepts much faster than if you were to try to dive into the deep end without knowing the basic strokes. This book provides that foundation, and it does it with flair. I highly recommend giving it a read.


Both Effective Python and Data Science from Scratch were excellent books, and together they could give a programmer a solid foundation in Python and data science as long as they already have some experience in the language. With that being said, Data Science from Scratch will not provide the knowledge on how to use the powerful data analysis and machine learning libraries like numpy, pandas, scikit-learn, and tensorflow. For that, you'll have to look elsewhere, but the advanced, idiomatic Python and fundamental data science principles are well covered between these two books.

Considering A Master's Or PhD In Digital Media?

The Digital Media program at Georgia Tech is now accepting applications at the Master's and Ph.D. levels. 

The Digital Media graduate program at Georgia Tech is a multidisciplinary program that engages students in making with meaning in digital media through their own discipline, skills, and expertise. Students here from the humanities, engineering, technology, and the arts backgrounds all engage in collaborative, practice-based work where they learn and apply design methods and critical theory in studio courses that are focused on having a voice--or giving a voice to others--through digital media.  

They offer both a two year intensive Master's degree and a Ph.D. in Digital Media, working with leading researchers that touch on topics such as civic media, game design, smart cities, interactive installation, augmented & virtual reality, computational creativity, and STEAM-based education.

They host multiple online events to inform those interested in the program. More information and RSVP is available through our website: http://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/.  The upcoming application deadlines for Fall 2019 are Dec. 10^th, 2018, for the Ph.D. program and Jan. 8^th, 2019 for the Master's program. 

Students interested in visiting the campus can do so during our open house event on January 18, 2019.  RSVP here.

If you have any further questions about the program and admission process, please contact me or the Associate Director Michael Terrell directly at dgs@lmc.gatech.edu.

Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure Free Download

Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure - In August 2017, Microsoft announced that Rush: A Disney–Pixar Adventure without the usual Kinect name would be remastered and re-released for Xbox One and Microsoft Windows 10.

Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure invites families and fans of all ages to experience the worlds of six beloved Disney Pixar films like never before. Team up with characters from The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Cars, Toy Story, and Finding Dory to solve puzzles and uncover hidden secrets & you and your favorite Pixar character can interact on screen and play cooperatively to solve challenges. Move from fast-paced puzzle-solving to moments of pulse-pounding agility and speed. Download this awesome video game on your PC for free.

..:: Purchase the game here and support the developers ::..

1. FEATURES OF THE GAME

• Save the day in your own Fast-paced adventure. Invite your family to join Woody, Lightning McQueen and others.
• Join forces with Characters to Help you through each challenge, or play on the same screen through split-screen.
• Explore and discover the sights and sounds of each Pixar World as you solve puzzles and search hidden secrets.
• Players and their favorite Disney Pixar character can interact on screen & play cooperatively, to solve challenges.
• Rush: A Disney Pixar Adventure invites Families and fan of all ages to experience the world of six beloved Disney.

Game is updated to latest version

2. GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS

3. DOWNLOAD GAME:

♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
♢ View detailed instructions for downloading and installing the game here.
♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount ISO files.

RUSH: A DISNEY PIXAR ADVENTURE DOWNLOAD LINKS

PASSWORD FOR THE GAME

Unlock with password: pcgamesrealm

4. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS GAME

➤ Download the game by clicking on the button link provided above.

➤ Download the game on the host site and turn off your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid errors.

➤ Once the download has been finished or completed, locate or go to that file.

➤ To open .iso file, use PowerISO and run the setup as admin then install the game on your PC.

➤ Once the installation process is complete, run the game's exe as admin and you can now play the game.

➤ Congratulations! You can now play this game for free on your PC.

➤ Note: If you like this video game, please buy it and support the developers of this game.

Temporarily disable your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid file corruption & false positive detections.

5. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
(Your PC must at least have the equivalent or higher specs in order to run this game.)

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 | Windows 8.1 | Windows 8 | Windows 7
• Processor: Intel Core i3-3210 @ 3.2 GHz | AMD FX-4150 @ 4 GHz or equivalent
• Memory: at least 4GB System RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 24GB free HDD Space
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People Behind The Meeples - Episode 214: David Van Drunen

Welcome to People Behind the Meeples, a series of interviews with indie game designers.  Here you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know about the people who make the best games that you may or may not have heard of before.  If you'd like to be featured, head over to http://gjjgames.blogspot.com/p/game-designer-interview-questionnaire.html and fill out the questionnaire! You can find all the interviews here: People Behind the Meeples. Support me on Patreon!

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Name:	David Van Drunen
Email:	theartlion@gmail.com
Location:	Toronto
Day Job:	Freelance game designer, and homemaker.
Designing:	Two to five years.
Webpage:	theartlion.com
BGG:	DavidVanDrunen
Twitter:	@DAVanDrunen
Find my games at:	https://analoggamestudios.com/product/gnomes-at-midnight/

Today's Interview is with:

David Van Drunen
Interviewed on: 12/4/2019

This week's interview is with David Van Drunen, the designer of Gnomes at Midnight from Analog Game Studios. In addition to designing games, David is also a very talented artist, using paints to create dynamic, energetic abstract paintings on canvas. Check out his work (both paintings and games) at http://www.theartlion.com/

Some Basics
Tell me a bit about yourself.

How long have you been designing tabletop games?
Two to five years.

Why did you start designing tabletop games?
It started with changing rules in games to 'fix them', and then to making up expansions in games I really enjoyed. After a while I realized I could make a game "from scratch" and designed my first game.

What game or games are you currently working on?
I like to work on a couple at a time, to bounce between them when I get stuck on one. Right now I'm designing a social deduction game called, "Royal Pie Fight", a real-time game called "Ding-dong Donuts", and a co-op game about grief.

Have you designed any games that have been published?
I'm fortunate enough to have "Gnomes at Midnight" published by Analog Game Studios.

What is your day job?
Freelance game designer, and homemaker.

Your Gaming Tastes
My readers would like to know more about you as a gamer.

Where do you prefer to play games?
In a home.

Who do you normally game with?
Mostly with friends, but also every time with my family when I visit them.

If you were to invite a few friends together for game night tonight, what games would you play?
Magic Maze, Tussie Mussie, Vikings on Board, Shadows Amsterdam, Seikatsu, Timeline...

And what snacks would you eat?
Pretzels and candy are best, (no oily, cheesy, sticky fingers).

Do you like to have music playing while you play games? If so, what kind?
Softly a random mix of pop, soundtracks, and alt rock.

What's your favorite FLGS?
I frequent Snakes & Lattes, the College location.

What is your current favorite game? Least favorite that you still enjoy? Worst game you ever played?
My current favourite is Keyforge, (specifically the 'Call of the Archons' series). Catan is my least favourite I'll still play because I've over played it and there are better games now. Worst: Tic-Tac-Toe, or as it should be called 'Go First and Win or Tie Again'.

What is your favorite game mechanic? How about your least favorite?
Favourite mechanic: Area Control, (I'm a bit of a hoarder by nature). Not really a mechanic but least favourite: Reading, (if I wanted to read a novel of text I wouldn't be playing a game!)

What's your favorite game that you just can't ever seem to get to the table?
Game of Thrones the board game. It taught me war games don't need chance or dice, but it's a big time commitment, and lengthy teach time.

What styles of games do you play?
I like to play Board Games, Card Games, Miniatures Games, Video Games

Do you design different styles of games than what you play?
I like to design Board Games, Card Games, Miniatures Games

OK, here's a pretty polarizing game. Do you like and play Cards Against Humanity?
No

You as a Designer
OK, now the bit that sets you apart from the typical gamer. Let's find out about you as a game designer.

When you design games, do you come up with a theme first and build the mechanics around that? Or do you come up with mechanics and then add a theme? Or something else?
Feeling first; 'wouldn't it be cool if'. From there it splits evenly between whether the feeling relates better to a theme or mechanic. For 'Gnomes at Midnight' it related to mechanics of how pieces move around a shifting board. My unfinished spy game based on the TV show Turn was theme first, and then I built how it would physically work.

Have you ever entered or won a game design competition?
I entered HABAs box of bits contest. It's a great design exercise, (you have to make a game with a random box of their wooden pieces) and very different from my normal design process.

Do you have a current favorite game designer or idol?
I consistently enjoy J. Alex Kevern's designs, (World Fair 1893, Sentient).

Where or when or how do you get your inspiration or come up with your best ideas?
Anywhere! That's why I have notepads all around the house. I'll be watching a movie, reading a book, or just about to fall asleep and it will just hit me. If I want to coax it out, I'll watch a bunch of how to play game videos.

How do you go about playtesting your games?
First I run a couple games by myself acting out different play styles, (normal, timid, wacky) to see if I can break it. Then I'll try to explain it to someone; if I can't get them playing in 5 mins, then something's off. If it works then it's off to Designer Nights at Snakes & Lattes.

Do you like to work alone or as part of a team? Co-designers, artists, etc.?
All my designs are solo, that's why playtesting with many others is so key. I'm open to co-designing, but it's just so much easier right now to do it solo.

What do you feel is your biggest challenge as a game designer?
Going from designer to self-marketer to pitch the game to publishers is tough.

If you could design a game within any IP, what would it be?
I'd love to do an "All you Need is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka" game. Or an "Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer" game.

What do you wish someone had told you a long time ago about designing games?
Start simple. My first design was a mix of Catan meets Risk, and it was too much. Also, avoid designing war games because most publishers won't touch it.

What advice would you like to share about designing games?
Get it playtested sooner rather than later. Learn how to decipher playtesters' feedback well. Get to the core of the feeling they are expressing. Keep asking yourself throughout the process, "why?". Why 10 cards not 9? Why cards not dice? Having a good answer for everything will help strip away the excess.

Would you like to tell my readers what games you're working on and how far along they are?
Published games, I have: Gnomes at Midnight
Games that will soon be published are: My 3D block stacking game will launch in 2020, publisher: Inside Up Games.
Currently looking for a publisher I have: Ding-dong Donuts (Real-time donut disaster!)
Games I feel are in the final development and tweaking stage are: Mystic Nomads (Rondel, area control, minis game)
Games that are in the early stages of development and beta testing are: Grief Game
And games that are still in the very early idea phase are: A stand-alone sequel to Gnomes at Midnight

Are you a member of any Facebook or other design groups? (Game Maker's Lab, Card and Board Game Developers Guild, etc.)
Yes, I'm around online. But mostly just browsing.

And the oddly personal, but harmless stuff…
OK, enough of the game stuff, let's find out what really makes you tick! These are the questions that I'm sure are on everyone's minds!

Star Trek or Star Wars? Coke or Pepsi? VHS or Betamax?
Star Trek because of all the issues it tackled. Water. VHS! because Betamax beta-sux!

What hobbies do you have besides tabletop games?
I really enjoy Sci-Fi movies and unique graphic novels, (Chew, Come Back to Me, Unknown Soldier).

What is something you learned in the last week?
I'm slowly learning where spices grow naturally in the wild, and some of the wacky harvesting required.

Favorite type of music? Books? Movies?
Music: Alt Rock. Books: Sci-Fi. Movies: Time travel.

What was the last book you read?
Why the Dutch are Different, by Ben Coates. A cool look at the reasons behind my ancestral quirks.

Do you play any musical instruments?
I learned the clarinet in grade school, and have recently tried to get back into it.

Tell us something about yourself that you think might surprise people.
I'm in the movie Crimson Peak, and have a brief interaction with Tom Hiddleston.

Tell us about something crazy that you once did.
I did a comedy gig at Yuk Yuks Comedy Bar once. It was crazy scary but it went well.

Biggest accident that turned out awesome?
"There are no accidents, only collisions." - my Young Drivers Instructor.

Who is your idol?
Anyone who stands up against bullies.

What would you do if you had a time machine?
Realistically I'd nit-pick everything trying to change it and then go back to ultimately undo the horrible butterfly effects.

Are you an extrovert or introvert?
Introvert.

If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?
Captain Marvel, it'd be great to shoot beams out of my hands and fly around.

Have any pets?
I'm allergic to cats and dogs, so now I have a papier-mâché cat, who is very good at 'stay'.

When the next asteroid hits Earth, causing the Yellowstone caldera to explode, California to fall into the ocean, the sea levels to rise, and the next ice age to set in, what current games or other pastimes do you think (or hope) will survive into the next era of human civilization? What do you hope is underneath that asteroid to be wiped out of the human consciousness forever?
Smote from space is a fitting end to Cards Against Humanity. I hope Magic Maze endures to delight the future peoples. (Or maybe Trivial Pursuit to teach people about the past.)

If you'd like to send a shout out to anyone, anyone at all, here's your chance (I can't guarantee they'll read this though):
Thank you Ainsley for all your love and support! I couldn't do this without you, and it's been a blast! And to Richard of Analog Game Studios, thank you for believing in Gnomes at Midnight!

Just a Bit More
Thanks for answering all my crazy questions! Is there anything else you'd like to tell my readers?

"Be excellent to each other." Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

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Thank you for reading this People Behind the Meeples indie game designer interview! You can find all the interviews here: People Behind the Meeples and if you'd like to be featured yourself, you can fill out the questionnaire here: http://gjjgames.blogspot.com/p/game-designer-interview-questionnaire.html

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