Busy night, but there's always room for another!

With how busy things have been lately, there's been a bit of a dry spell in terms of story development - but fear not! There's more more than enough of the creative juices to go around, and as soon as this busy phase passes, it'll be full steam ahead!

In the mean time however, there are a few topics which have been neglected but are in desperate need of some loving attention! 

Hearthstone!! I know, right!? Its been old news for a long time now, but with open beta season having started, I've finally been given a chance to play and let me tell you - it's everything I hoped it would be and probably more. It may look like a pared down version of Magic: the gathering, but don't let its simplicity fool you! The mechanics, and the game as a whole is incredibly intuitive, rich with Warcraft flavor and within that simplicity lies a breadth of strategy that would keep even the most seasoned of magic players satisfied. At tthe same time, being digital in nature, Hearthstone has been able to explore a whole new design space that wouldn't necessarily work with a paper game. In short, its AWESOME and being FREE to play, there's really NO reason not to check out and love this game!

For the record, Kallen the priest is BACK, baby! You better believe it! :P

You could say its almost criminal how little love this game has gotten, and you wouldn't be wrong! Whats NOT to love about it? The style? The incredibly open and customizeable game mechanics? The overall-retro-JRPG-sprite-based combat system? Certainly not! 

More game-time, painted figures, custom dungeon layouts, additional monsters, an overarching story with character progression and role-playing opportunities. Enough said!

Nothing special or new here, just good ol' EM TEE GEE! But more specifically, Duels of the Planeswalkers. There's just a special something about that series of games that I find appealing - maybe it hearkens back to a simpler time when card pools weren't infinite and we only have one or two copies of our best cards - maybe its the hyper-thematic deck styles that still have more than enough power to compete among themselves - or maybe the inclusion of awesome legacy legal cards to mostly modern decks - who knows, all that matters is its hella' fun!

I'd recommend it to anyone, player or not, and at a prioce point of well under $20, its virtually free! Now, the only trick would be to find a way to replicate that experience in paper magic, without outright copying it.... hmmmmmmmm... something to Ponder.