Irondale Irregulars

recommendations

Celebrating the small things

A small selection of our favorite equally small games!

tabletop

Stories-Bones-Tell

A quick primer on tabletop RPGs that are Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark!

invisible-sun

Adventures under the Indigo Sun

An update on the Irondale Irregulars' adventures in the world of Invisible Sun, plus our first campaign poster!

Diablo3

Somewhere Over the Rainbow... Goblin

A quick guide on how to farm rainbow goblins in Diablo 3.

invisible-sun

Stepping in to The Actuality

The Irregulars haven't played a long-term tabletop game since ending our multi-year Dungeons and Dragons campaign in 2011. Last Sunday, we embarked on a new adventure set in Monte Cook's Invisible Sun. It's pretty weird (like Monte's other titles, Numenera and The Strange), so I'll defer the quick explanation to

electronics

The Summer of Making

Ever since I soldered my first electronics kit (an Adafruit MintyBoost) together two years ago, I've been dedicating time to making something every week. This summer was a busy one, and I thought I'd share two things I worked on with you all. Weather Station For my Dad's birthday, I

reviews

Alienware 13 R3 Impressions

Breaking with a long tradition of building my own desktops, I recently took the plunge and decided to switch to a mobile setup: an Alienware 13 R3 and Graphics Amplifier. Today is all about the 13 R3, and I'll go over the plusses and minuses of the Graphics Amplifier in

nintendo

Nintendo Switch Review

Before we dive in, let me set the stage! I have my parents and Nintendo to thank for introducing me to video games, starting with a Christmas gift of an original Game Boy (and a copy of Tetris) in 1991. About a year later, a family friend gave us his

stories

Seeking the Name

Spoilers abound for Fallen London's "Seeking the Name of Mr. Eaten" - feel free to skip this one if you're working on it! Thirty years ago, London was stolen. Now it rests on the shore of the Unterzee, that old dark ocean under the world. Hell is close,

stories

The LAN lives on

I recently had the opportunity to attend a small LAN party that one of my co-workers puts on twice a year. If I'm dating myself: back before the days of ubiquitous internet and always-on broadband connections, the easiest way to play multiplayer PC games with your friends was by lugging

stories

For love of the sandbox, part one

One of my favorite things about playing games is that they give us a wonderful way to create our own stories. While you can get good anecdotes out of just about any game, some titles lend themselves to the story-telling process better than others. At the top of this list

electronics

Building the Solder : Time Desk Clock

I've been having a great time assembling some of the kits from Spikenzie Labs over the past few weeks. Yesterday, I wrapped up one of the more soldering-intensive projects that I've done -- the Solder : Time Desk Clock! I've done a little work with LCD screens and socketed ICs before,

mud

Finding happiness in text

For Miranda and Katrina, who helped me discover my love of tales. May the Minotaur live forever in our hearts. You could be forgiven for not knowing what a MUD is in 2016. Created in the late 1970s, they're the original "massively multiplayer" games - text-based online worlds

logo

Concept Art

From the esteemed Paige Martin, we've got a few concepts for the new Irondale Irregulars logo!

electronics

Building your own calculator

I've been slowly teaching myself to solder and build simple electronics for about two years now. I especially like kit projects -- they're fun to make, give me a chance to hone my skills, and I usually end up with something neat at the end. Last week, I ordered one

snes

Taking the Super Nintendo in to the modern era

The Super Nintendo is my favorite video game console of all-time. Great games, durable cartridges, and comfy analog controllers made for a delightful experience. Unfortunately, the SNES came out in August 1991 - long before we had HDTVs, digital video inputs, flash memory, and wireless technology for peripherals. The system's

impressions

Pocket C.H.I.P. Impressions

Next Thing Co.'s C.H.I.P. is positioned as cheap ($9) competitor to the wildly successful Raspberry Pi, featuring a 1GHz ARMv7 processor, 512MB of RAM, and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth built-in. I recently got ahold of one and its not-as-cheap ($60) Pocket case. Once you slot your C.H.

stories

Origin Stories, Part II

This is part two of the Irregulars' Origin Stories project, where we tell short stories and anecdotes about our early days in gaming. In this installment, we continue with some more adventures involving my brother Ryan and I on the Krynn's Demise Ultima Online shard. Enjoy! Raising edible birds for

impressions

Vast: The Crystal Caverns Impressions

Fresh from Kickstarter, we've got a copy of Vast: The Crystal Caverns! Play as the classic, daring Knight, the chaotic Goblin horde, the colossal, greedy Dragon, the scurrilous Thief, or even the Cave itself — powerful, brooding, and intent on crushing the living things that dare to disturb its gloomy depths.

broken-token

Cardboard Organizer

Not all board games are guilty of doing a shoddy job with box inserts. Just look at Black Fleet's! On the other end of the spectrum, this is what ends up happening with all of the "big box" games we buy from Fantasy Flight. Obviously some room for

stories

Origin Stories

Everyone's got a story to tell. Here at the Irregulars, we love telling stories - it's the reason we play games together in the first place. Today, I'm going to tell you bunch of old stories about when my brother Ryan and I first played Ultima Online on a tiny

tutorials

Constructing an AIS Receiver with a Raspberry Pi 3

Special thanks to Wegmatt LLC. for producing the dAISy AIS receiver, Stripydog (the makers of kplex), Matt Brown at m/v C:\ESC, Terry, and Freek Van Koolbergen for your documentation, tutorials, and comments -- I couldn't have done this without you! Last updated on September 27, 2017. My wife