Sometimes, it's nice to finish a game in an afternoon or a weekend! With so many games moving to a "games as a service model" or touting 60+ hour playtimes, we thought it would be nice to collect some of our favorite short games from the past few years. In no particular order:

A Short Hike

Created by Adam Gryu, available on Steam, itch.io, GOG, Epic Games Store, and Nintendo eShop (Switch)

You could finish A Short Hike in under an hour, rocketing up to the summit of Hawk Peak...but you'd be missing the point of Adam Gryu's lovely adventure. Wander the (surprisingly large!) island that is Hawk Peak Provincial Park, go fishing, help people with their problems, or hunt for Golden Feathers to boost your stamina (did we mention that you're a bird and can fly?). There's plenty here to keep you busy for an afternoon, and the low-fi art style and Mark Sparling's superb soundtrack make it all the better.

The Red Strings Club

Created by Deconstructeam, available on Steam, itch.io, and the Humble Store

A short, provocative cyberpunk narrative about the nature of fate, happiness, and where our blind trust of technology could take us. The Red Strings Club starts in media res with one of our protagonists falling from a skyscraper, and it only gets weirder from there. Serve cocktails, craft cybernetic implants, and try to get to the bottom of a vast corporate conspiracy (and all in under five hours!). There's some truly excellent writing here, and a few branching paths to explore if you care to replay the game after you finish.

(Polygon has an excellent review if you're on the fence!)

Untitled Goose Game

Developed by House House, available on Epic Games Store, Steam, itch.io, PlayStation, Xbox, & Nintendo eShop (Switch)

Untitled Goose Game is hilarious. Channeling slapstick comedy in the best of ways, you control a horrible goose who waddles around a quaint village causing all sorts of mischief. The premise is simple: complete a short checklist of activities in each area to unlock the next one. You might have to steal a gardener's hat, or make a small child buy their toy back from a shopkeeper. Or pretend to be someone's goose-shaped lawn ornament so they'll tie a red ribbon around your neck. Oh, and all of this is done with four actions: walk, honk, flap your wings menacingly, and pick up/put down stuff, so it's simple to learn!

There are plenty of secret objectives to find, and a timed challenge mode in the post-game if you really want to show off. Plus, now it has co-op! Double the mischief!

Pocket Watch (Sokpop Season 10)

Developed by Sokpop Collective, available on Steam and itch.io

Where do we even start? If you have three dollars to spare and want a game to play, this is the one you should pick. You're a duck on an island. At the end of every day, a volcano erupts and destroys everything. Loop time with your trusty watch, figure out the islanders' routines, and solve puzzles to save the island! There are lots of secrets to uncover, a big island to explore, and plenty of collectables to track down.

Olija

Developed by Thomas Olsson and Skeleton Crew Studio, available on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo eShop (Switch)

An action-adventure platformer about a shipwrecked captain trapped in a mysterious country. Wield a magical harpoon, rescue other castaways, and try to return home. Great art with a morose soundtrack to match its mood. Plus, there are magic hats to craft! A crisp, well-presented experience that you can finish in 4-5 hours.

After we wrapped up our Invisible Sun campaign in October 2019, the Irregulars took a short break from our regular tabletop schedule. I'm happy to say we're back in to the swing of things, with Katherine taking over as MC in our new Blades in the Dark campaign!

Blades is part of a new wave of tabletop role-playing games that started back in 2010 with Apocalypse World, all of which emphasize collaborative storytelling. Games built on top of Apocalypse World's rules are Powered by the Apocalypse, while ones based on Blades in the Dark are Forged in the Dark. There are mechanical differences between the two, but both systems share some guiding principles:

1. Play to find out what happens. Rather than the game master or MC coming up with an entire adventure on their own, they start with a loose "skeleton" and the players help fill in the blanks as everyone plays.
2. Don't overplan. In Blades, players can have flashbacks to explain why they know things or have certain pieces of equipment (it just costs a bit of Stress, a renewable resource that measures how...er...stressed characters are). In The Sprawl (a cyberpunk RPG that uses the Powered by the Apocalypse system), players get gear and intel for their missions that "become" items or information when the players need it!
3. Don't say what you're rolling for – say what you're doing! Not only is it more interesting, it allows everyone at the table to be more creative. These Moves are the way players and their characters do things. You explain what you're trying to do, find the appropriate Move, then roll to see how well things work out:
   
   - You do what you set out to accomplish
   - You succeed, but only partially or at a cost
   - Something goes terribly wrong

Every "failure" is a chance for the GM/MC to complicate things for the players, and as we've quickly learned as we've jumped in to these games, complications are fun!

If any of this sounds interesting, there's something for almost everyone out there regardless of genre or theme. Here are some of our favorites:

• Blades in the Dark, if you've ever wanted to run a thieves guild. The game that all Forged in the Dark games are based on.
• The Sprawl, if you love classic cyberpunk fiction. This one's Powered by the Apocalypse.
• Dungeon World, if you like Dungeons and Dragons. Also Powered by the Apocalypse.
• Beam Saber, if you like mecha and giant robots in general. This one's Forged in the Dark!
• Scum and Villiany, if you like Firefly-esque science fiction. Forged in the Dark!
• The Veil and its sequel-expansion Cascade, if you want some post-cyberpunk introspective roleplaying (it's weird, but in a good way!).

Finally, here's a quick introduction to our latest venture!

The Shattered Isles

A Blades in the Dark campaign

The proprietors of Moonlight Salvage can get you almost anything for the right price. Set in the city of Duskwall where the ghost field keeps legions of spirits at bay, our ragtag crew of smugglers attempts to claw their way to the top of the underworld. Our cast includes:

• Katt Bedell as our Master of Ceremonies
• Scott Duchesneau as Oliver Boden, ex-guard and pit fighter
• Hannah Maguire as Zahra Dagher, resident tinkerer and Hull specialist
• Tim Maguire as Martin O'Malley, former Skovlan scout and sharpshooter
• Ryan Bedell as Opal Hawthorne, operations planner and scion of a ruined noble house
• Kyle Bedell as Pax Adelai, arcanist and priest of the Unbroken Sun

The Irregulars have played a number of pencil-and-paper games over the years, including a four year 5th Edition D&D campaign, Traveler, FATE Core, Numenera, BATTLETECH, and Cortex. Out of all of them, I think Invisible Sun has been the most compelling – its focus on character-driven narratives has made our players the center of attention. They talk with each other about their characters' relationships (unheard of!), write stories about their "off-screen" adventures with one another (wait, what?), and are the primary drivers of the main plot!

With help from Monte Cook's Directed Campaign option, our vislae have:

• Delved in to the mystery of a street that never existed
• Explored an unfinished train station haunted by the ghosts of commuters that never were
• Seen a house (and everything inside of it) sprout spider legs
• Ridden an impossibly long train to a desert town where the residents mine magical ice
• Ventured in to ruined expanses between city districts to eliminate weapons made of hate
• Crossed the boundries between the Suns to explore new realities
• Founded their own mercenary group
• Established a trade route between their headquarters and a fortress that trades in good fortune
• And so much more!

To celebrate the 18 month mark of our campaign, we commisioned a poster from Bernadette Meeker (who is a pleasure to work with – highly recommended!):

Here's to future stories and adventures!

Image shamelessly taken from Diablo Fans Wiki

So I've been spending a lot of time playing Diablo 3 hunting for the elusive cosmic wings. Since I needed a break from the grind, I figured I would share what I know. You can find the video below. Beneath the video are some more details in regards to areas mentioned, and two links to some great guides.

How to Get to Each Zone

Here is a brief listing of how to get to each zone mentioned in the video. Please be aware that this is by act, not the order in the video. (My personal preference is to run them in this order.)

Act 1

1. Southern Highlands - Head here to find find the Clan of the Moon Cave
2. Northern Highlands - Head here to find the Northern Highlands, and Leoric's Hunting Grounds. You will end at Leoric's Manor teleport point.
3. Cathedral Level 2 - From here you will back track to reach Leoric's Passage.
4. Royal Crypts
5. Weeping Hollow

Act 2

1. Ancient Waterway - Use this point to get to the Western Channel and the Eastern Channel
2. City of Caldeum - You should see the entrance to the sewers right from the entry point
3. Stinging Winds

Act 3

1. Tower of the Damned
2. Tower of the Cursed
3. Core of Arreat
4. Bridge of Korsikk - This will get you to the entrance to the Fields of Slaughter to find the Caverns of Frost

Act 5

1. Pandemonium Fortress Level 1
2. Pandemonium Fortress Level 2

Links to Great References

Dreamwalker's Guide

Choob’s Guide

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 him:

Do you think you live in the real world?

You don’t. This world you see around you is Shadow—a world illuminated only by the Grey Sun. You think it is your home, but that’s because you have forgotten your true self. Awaken, and return to the Actuality and Satyrine, the city under the Indigo Sun. You are a vislae, a wielder of fabulous powers and capabilities, a shaper of reality itself. You sought shelter in Shadow to escape the war, but the war is now over and your home has called you back.

Having GMed Dungeons & Dragons, Numenera, and a few other tabletop RPGs in the past, I'm really excited to run a narrative that's driven by character arcs – every character in Invisible Sun grows primarily through their arc. They come in all shapes and sizes, from Finishing a Great Work to Uncovering a Secret. Instead of preparing an on-rails adventure where the characters are just participants, this new system puts the control in to the players' hands. The GM still does quite a bit of work, but the preparation is more piecemeal. That cavern you put together could be the hideout of Dark-Eyed Manfred. That older man with the goldfish head and animated anteater tattoo on his arm? Brigand, shopkeep, or whatever else you need him to be.

As we dive in to this weird, surreal world, I'll be logging our adventures here with updates roughly every two weeks. To start us off, here's...

Our Cast

Bet, an Itinerant Empath of the Order of Makers who Is Adored by the Sea

In Shadow, Bet was a housewife trapped in a loveless marriage with no children. Dreaming of escape, Bet discovered that The Actuality was the true reality. Since returning, Bet learned that she was a much-feared pirate who sailed The Alone in search of secrets and power. With no ship and no crew, she hasn’t done much sailing as of late. She seeks to assemble a band of sailors and resume her travels across seas of water, salt, and aethyr alike. Bet is rivals with Locke.

Her neighbor is Franklin Wells, a sapient shadow who runs the Dockside bar. He’s adjusted surprisingly well to Fartown.

Jeremiah, an Itinerant Gallant Apostate who Channels Strength and Skill

Jeremiah doesn’t remember a lot from before the War that forced the vislae in to hiding, but in The Shadow, he was a Catholic chaplain during World War I. He believes strongly in the true teachings of Christ, channeling his righteousness in to helping others.

Since returning from Shadow, he’s fallen in love with reggae music. He never stopped believing in his Shadow-gods, and currently lives in a run-down chapel on the northern edge of Fartown, near the Changeries, just on the edge of The Bleed. He frequently hosts orphans, the homeless, and others down on their luck. He's also fated companions with Locke.

His neighbors are:

• Corian McMasters, gentleman. Corian is in the process of buying up as much land in Jeremiah’s neighborhood as possible to make room for a new Satyrine Rail stop. He detests the poor, and keeps attempting (and failing) to demolish Jeremiah’s church.
• Endrima, a self-proclaimed expert on ghosts, the Dead, and “necromancy.” She is tall, her natural paleness enhanced by cosmetics, and long black hair that hangs like serpents. Her house is covered in gargoyles and filled with ornate, spooky decor. It’s undoubtedly the most haunted place in Satyrine, as she encourages ghosts to co-habitate with her.

Locke, an Established Gallant of the Order of Makers who Breathes Runes

A prison executioner for the English Empire in The Shadow, Locke learned he wasn’t terribly thrilled with the ideal of harming living things. Currently residing in an uptown section of Fartown near Kryven’s Books, Locke owns a castle with spinnerets, towers, and far too many crenelations. Now that he’s back in Satryine, Locke seeks to help others become become their best selves. He believes that violence is the last answer, and wears an unusual amount of armor because “it’s not violence if they can’t hurt me.” He is rivals with Bet and fated companions with Jeremiah.

Cheery and optimistic in a grating sense. His neighbors are:

• Wystrin, a 4th degree Vance who teaches Advanced Spell Mechanics on the Vancian Campus. She’s got an office there, businesslike to the point of being severe. She loathes the massive amount of crenelations on Locke’s castle, and finds his cheery demeanor to be most unbecoming. She’s also the head of the local homeowner’s association. Her home is a stately cylinder made of thousands of tiny silver spheres.
• Myriam, a 3rd degree Goetic who works to reduce poverty in The Hollow and Satyrine’s other less-well-off districts. Her primary home, is next to Locke’s castle, though she has other abodes throughout Satyrine.

The Professor, a Volatile Mendicant of the Order of Weavers who Dwells in Darkness

In Shadow, The Professor was a...professor...of astronomy who hated teaching classes. She preferred research above all else. Obsessed with near Earth objects and life on other planets, teaching was more of an obstacle in the way of the search for truth.

After returning to The Actuality, she’s searching high and low for the people who stole her name and threw her in to Shadow (far before the War). She basically “missed” the entire thing. She doesn’t have a home, per say, currently residing in an alleyway near the Vancian Campus in Fartown. She's fellow students with Kenny, having studied in the same Weaver cell.

Her neighbors are:

• The fraternity house of the Delayed Fireball, a group of Vancian University students specializing in fire, heat, and melting substances. They seek to uncover the secret to burning that which is inflammable, and are…begrudgingly…tolerated by the faculty. Their house is never dark.
• Nefy Esott, a 2nd degree Vance who teaches Spellbook Upkeep at the university. Clad in spectacles, Nefy’s recently joined the faculty at the University and dreams of teaching something interesting (to him). He loathes the fraternity house even more than The Professor does.

Kenny, a Connected Empath of the Order of Weavers who Converses with Everything

In Shadow, Kenny was a regular working-class joe employed as an office worker for a paper company. Not particularly driven, he never advanced far from his initial position at the firm. His possession from The Shadow is an 16oz Thermos.

Since returning to The Actuality, Kenny has discovered that was of a noble bloodline with a number of connections to high society. He hasn’t done much of anything since coming back…mostly mooching off of his family and taking advantage of their resources. Since getting a close confidant pregnant, he’s moved in with his lover in a middle class part of Fartown, near the Taragal Artist Commune. Perhaps he's finally realizing that there's more to life that being a dilettante. He's fellow students with The Professor.

His neighbors are:

• Bartholomew Elewip, a foppish writer who, according to neighbors, has been working on his first (and only) book The Secrets of Love, for the better part of the past ten years. He desperately seeks a way to remove his nigh-permanent writer’s block.
• The Othrim family: Meredith, Joseph, and their five children (a pair twins, Joseph Jr & Josephina, and triplets, Bill, Phil, and Steven). Joseph Sr. works at the Emotion Mill Consortium during the day and practices his woodworking at night.

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 decided to make an ESP8266-powered weather station using the Ruiz Brothers' tutorial on Adafruit. The screen is an AdaFruit TFT FeatherWing with a backpack slot on the rear for my beloved project workhorse, the HUZZAH with ESP8266 WiFi. This project actually had a on/off switch (a first for me) -- I had to wire up the switch directly to the EN and GND pins on the microcontroller and trim a few wires, but nothing too tricky!

I have a LulzBot Mini 3D printer, so I used Verbatim's excellent PLA plastic filament to print out the case. I can't recommend it enough -- I started with some significantly more temperamental filament and was amazed at how nice the Verbatim PLA prints looked.

I think it turned out really snazzy once it was assembled!

Raspberry Pi Tablet

This was another Ruiz Brothers project: take a Raspberry Pi 3 and the official Pi Foundation touchscreen, then merge them in to a somewhat unwieldy tablet! I started by getting the case and interior parts printed at Shapeways (if you decide to do this and want 15% off your first order, you can use my referral code G7JF7). I wanted to use nylon for the case exterior, but I don't have much experience printing with it, and the exterior shell was too large for the Lulzbot. Don't be like me and get the interior parts printed in a different material -- nothing fit quite right...

The official Pi Display draws a lot of current, so I put an Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C in. It doubles as a charger for the 2500mAh lithium polymer battery, and is smart enough to switch over to mains power when it's plugged in. Plus, you can still use the tablet while it's charging.

Here's everything wired up. Not pictured: my attempt at potting the Raspberry Pi 3's GPIO connector with epoxy to make sure my solder connections didn't come undone. It was...er...messy. I'd recommend doing it in a tin or container instead of on your workbench.

And here's the finished product not exploding in a cloud of blue smoke! The touchscreen works out of the box without calibration, but there's no on-screen keyboard built in to Raspbian. I have heard good things about Matchbox, which you can install using sudo apt-get install matchbox-keyboard in the Terminal. The folks over at ModMyPi recommend setting up a desktop shortcut for Matchbox so that it's easier to launch if you decide to go this route.
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Here's to making! I'll be assembling a Planck 40% keyboard sometime soon, and hope to record the process!

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 follow-up post.

Up until fairly recently, buying a "gaming laptop" meant making a compromise -- you could have something that was portable and underpowered or heavy and powerful. The 13 R3 is the first laptop I've used that breaks this trend, thanks to some recent chip manufacturing improvements. These include a GPU die shrink from 28nm to 16nm from NVIDIA and (because it took so long to migrate to a smaller manufacturing process) a focus on power efficiency from both NVIDIA and Intel.

Hardware

A laptop with specs like these would have been a unwieldy beast just a year or two ago. Now, it all fits in a 13.6-inch chassis:

• A 13 inch, 2560x1440 OLED display (the first I've ever seen in a laptop)
• An Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor
• An NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (almost identical to the desktop version!)
• 16GB of DDR4-2666 RAM
• A 512GB NVMe solid state drive that reads and writes at 1GB/second (faster than the drive I had in my desktop)
• Lots of modern ports, including two standard USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.0 Type C port, a Thunderbolt 3 port (in USB-C style), separate headphone and mic jacks, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0, mini DisplayPort 1.2, and a proprietary PCI Express 3.0 x4 jack used to connect to the optional external GPU dock

Design

The reason all of this fits in to such a small chassis? The hump!

This is actually a fairly clever bit of engineering -- I cracked open the machine to look around and Alienware has used the extra space created by moving the display hinge forward for fans, heatsinks, and the rear port cluster. You never notice the hump when you're using the machine because you can't see it!

The build quality is fantastic. The top and bottom panels are solid metal, and wherever plastic is used, it's thick and of high quality. One thing I like about the 13 R3 is just how dense it feels. It's a small laptop (13.5 inches), but it weighs 5.4 pounds!

As I mentioned earlier, the port selection is hard to beat. It's especially nice having all of the video-related ports on the back of the notebook.

Heat

There's one small problem though -- while the cooling solution in the 13 R3 is excellent, there's an easy way to screw it up: use too much thermal paste and mediocre heat transfer pads. Unfortunately, this is what I saw when I took the heatsink assembly off:

Oh boy.

Thermal paste is funny. It's not incredible at transferring heat, but it's a heck of a lot better than air. The problem is that the surfaces of the CPU/GPU and the heatsink aren't perfectly smooth. Viewed under a microscope, you'd see little pits all over both surfaces. The job of the thermal paste is to fill in all of those pits and help mate the two surfaces together, which means better heat transfer. The thing is, you don't need a lot of it! Too much thermal paste is just as bad as not using any at all.

Given that the fans in the machine were coming on when I was idling on the Windows desktop, I figured it would be a good time to replace the paste and the thermal pads (those colored rectangular bits). It's not a difficult process, you just need some time, new paste/pads, and a copy of the Alienware 13 R3 service manual. I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut paste, one of the better non-conductive thermal pastes out there, and Fujipoly Ultra Extreme thermal pads (in 1.0mm and 0.5mm sizes). Now, under maximum load with Prime95, the temperatures on the CPU don't go above 75°C (167°F).

Display

You have a few options for the display in the 13 R3, listed by quality from best to worst:

• A 2560x1440 OLED panel
• A 1920x1080 IPS panel
• A 1366 x 768 TN film panel

I opted for the OLED panel, something I haven't seen in a laptop yet. So far, OLED has only shown up in high-end televisions like the LG E6. It's unique because, unlike LCDs, there's no backlight or filter -- the material an OLED display is made of glows when electricity is applied to it. Since no light is emitted when there's no current, OLED displays can show super-deep blacks. They're also quick -- it's much faster to apply and cut current to part of an OLED display than it is to twist and untwist the liquid crystals in an LCD.

It's hard to show how good the panel looks with a photograph, but the best comparison I can give is from Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror -- check out his article on external GPU docks and find the comparison photo between the OLED TV and the LCD TVs. I guarantee that you'll be able to pick out the OLED one with just a glance.

Keyboard & Touchpad

In a blessed change from what many PC manufacturers and Apple are doing with their keyboards, the Alienware 13 R3's is not an island-style board.

While not as nice as my favorite laptop keyboards, the ones on Lenovo's ThinkPad T and X series notebooks, the 13 R3's is pretty good! The keys are full-size (18mm x 18mm). Key travel is good too at 2.2mm, and if you've had the displeasure of typing on a 2015 MacBook (the super-thin model) with its butterfly keyboard, the 13 R3's keys feel like pillows. If you've had laptops with keyboards that sag when you push on them, you're in luck here; there's no flex at all, courtesy of a new steel backplate. The backlighting is nice for typing in dim light, and while there's no per-key backlighting, the board is split up in to four zones that you can adjust independently.

The touchpad inherits the keyboard's colorful backlighting. It's a Synaptics-brand pad, and unfortunately not compatible with Microsoft's Precision Trackpad standard. This is a shame, because Windows 10 supports some really useful gestures with Precision Trackpads. One thing to note: turn trackpad delay off under Mouse & Trackpad in Windows 10's settings or you'll run in to all sorts of issues with your external mouse playing games like Overwatch or Battlefield 1.

All in all, this is a great little notebook. Next time, I'll go over the external Graphics Amplifier and let you know if it's worth picking up!

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 Nintendo Entertainment System with copies of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, and Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat...and I was hooked. Since those days, I've been an unabashed Nintendo fan -- from the NES all the way to the Wii U and from that original Game Boy up to the New 3DS XL, I've played on every Nintendo console except the Virtual Boy.

This isn't to say that Nintendo is incapable of making mistakes -- sometimes I think that the corporate HQ in Kyoto is stuck in some sort of temporal bubble that floats five or ten years in the past. A few issues that come to mind from recent history:

• Friend codes
• The Wii U naming debacle, which arguably helped doom the console to low sales
• Ignoring mobile until 2016
• Forcing customers to re-buy Virtual Console titles from the Wii > Wii U

But now, for the first time since the Wii's launch in 2006, we have a console that's generated some serious hype. A console/portable hybrid, the Switch has the full backing of Nintendo's now-merged development teams and pretty good indie support. Time will tell if this enough to take the Switch where the Wii U couldn't go, but the software launch schedule for 2017 looks decent.

Today though, let's have a look at the hardware, the OS, and some of the different control options/play styles!

Hardware Tour

What do you get for your $299?

The Switch tablet

The tablet is the heart of the Switch. Unlike its predecessor, the Wii U Gamepad, all of the Switch's internals are contained inside this tiny rectangle. iFixIt has a wonderful teardown if you're interested in seeing what's inside. The build quality is excellent, though the tablet itself is thicker than your average iPad or Android tablet. I was really surprise by the weight -- the tablet by itself is about 10.5oz, which is actually lighter than a New 3DS XL (11.6oz)! Even with the Joy Con controllers attached, it's still a very manageable 14oz, just under a pound. The 6.2 inch, 720p screen is capacitive touch (like on your smartphone), a first for Nintendo. The panel is of the IPS (in-plane switching) variety, so the colors are vibrant and the contrast is excellent!

Along the top, we've got the power button, dedicated volume controls, a vent (there is a small fan in the Switch, but you can't hear it unless you put your ear right up to the vent), the headset jack, and the Game Card slot. Yep, Nintendo is back to using flash-based game cards with the Switch! Don't, er, try to eat them though. They're covered in denatonium benzoate, the "most bitter chemical compound known to man"...presumably to keep kids from chewing on them?

Moving around to the sides and back, we have the metal rails for the Joy Con controllers. They're extremely sturdy, and give the Switch some extra rigidity. Underneath the extremely flimsy kickstand is the MicroSD card slot, which can handle cards up to 2TB...though such cards don't exist yet. Your best bet is to track down a 64GB or 128GB UHS-I certified card -- I'd recommend Samsung's EVO Select or EVO Plus cards. The Switch only has 32GB of built-in storage, so you're going to need a card if you plan on downloading anything off of the eShop.

The bottom is pretty uneventful, boasting a single USB-C port. This little port handles just about everything when the Switch is docked, including HDMI video out, charging, and connecting to wired peripherals like the Ethernet adapter. A note on charging -- the Switch is a power-hungry beast. The included charger is capable of putting out 15V at 2.6A, for a grand total of 39 watts. As a comparison, your average phone charger can put out somewhere around 5V at 2.4A, for a grand total of 12 watts. This means that you shouldn't expect your Switch to charge quickly if it's plugged in to a battery bank or a phone charger.

So far, battery life is a little on the short side. I've gotten about 3 hours out of my unit when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild undocked. Nintendo says you can get up to 6 hours with less demanding games.

Joy Con controllers & accessories

These are the Joy Con, the controllers for the Switch! They're small, lightweight, and pretty versatile (as you'll see in a moment).

The one on the left has a minus button, two shoulder buttons (L and ZL respectively), four directional buttons, and a dedicated screenshot capture button. The one on the right has a plus button, two shoulder buttons (R and ZR respectively), the console-standard XABY buttons, another analog stick, and the Home button. It's also got an IR/depth camera on bottom and an NFC chip under the analog stick for reading Amiibo data.

Both Joy Con controllers have rumble motors inside too. They charge when attached to the Switch, and Nintendo says each one is good for about 20 hours of use.

I'm a bit torn on the Joy Con. They're a little too small for me, so I have to rest them with the bottoms in the middle of my hand. There are a few other compromises that have been made in the controls department: the analog sticks don't have as much range as an Xbox or PlayStation 4 controller. In fact, they're closer to the Circle Pad on the 3DS in terms of how far they can move. I've found that the "split" configuration (in the above photo) feels the most comfortable to me.

That being said, there are a few other configurations. The Switch comes with a Joy Con grip that you can slide the controllers in to:

Your mileage may vary, but I am not a fan of this -- the grips around the back are too small for my hands, and unlike the Xbox-style controllers I use, there's no place for my fingers to rest on the back. I end up with this sort of uncomfortable claw-grip.

The other configuration worth mentioning is the "two-player" style. This is used for games where two (or more) people are playing on the same Switch console. Since the Joy Con controllers are so small, Nintendo has included two wrist straps that make them a bit bigger. The straps also make the shoulder buttons a bit easier to press. This is okay in short bursts, but the Joy Con controllers are too small to be used horizontally for long sessions.

If all of this sounds foreboding, Nintendo also makes a Switch Pro controller, though it's an extra $70 (!) on top of your console purchase. I have one coming in the mail today, so I'll post some impressions after I get some time under my belt!

The Dock

The Dock is how the Switch connects to your television, the charger, and any other wired peripherals you have plugged in to its USB ports. Its main feature is a USB-C connector that the Switch slides down on to, but around the back, it's got an HDMI, power, and USB 3.0 port hidden behind a flap:

On the left hand side (not shown) are two USB 2.0 ports that can be used for charging things.

My only concern with the Dock is the lack of padding on the inside-front (where the screen is facing when you slide the Switch in). I'd feel better if there was something soft there to keep the screen from being scratched.

The OS

I won't spend too much time on the OS, but can say that it's responsive, minimalist, and informative! It's...so, so much better than what was available on the Wii U. Interestingly, it's also one of the few places you can use the touchscreen or a controller to navigate. After the v2.0 "day one" update, you'll be able to access the News, eShop, Album, Controller, Brightness, and Power options from the main screen, as well as profile/account settings.

A quick note on friends and friend lists; it looks like the all the infrastructure isn't quite there yet. You can add friends via friend code, folks you've recently seen, locally (in person), and through a "Suggested Friends" section that shows friends from Miitomo and Super Mario Run on mobile. There's no way to add folks via their usernames or Nintendo Accounts yet!

The Launch Library

Would it be a console launch from any of the major players without a somewhat lackluster launch library? As of this morning, the eShop has the following titles available:

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (it's huge, so get it as a physical cartridge)
• Fast RMX (to tide you over until Mario Kart 8 Deluxe comes out)
• Shovel Knight (a really fantastic platformer)
• Super Bomberman R
• 1, 2 Switch
• Just Dance 2017
• Snipperclips
• I Am Setsuna

So far, I can say that Zelda, Snipperclips, and Shovel Knight are all good! I'll be doing more in-depth reviews on these titles in a few weeks!

Conclusions

I think we're off to a solid start with the Switch, despite some issues with comfort with the Joy Con controllers and an OS whose online features aren't quite finished yet. Nintendo's scattered their big software releases across 2017, and it looks like we'll have beginnings of a healthy indie library on the system as the weeks progress.

Did you pick up a Nintendo Switch? How do you feel about it so far? Feel free to leave a comment or post over at our Discourse forum, The Happy Minotaur!

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, immortality is cheap, and the screaming has largely stopped…

I'm a huge fan of Failbetter Games' Fallen London universe, currently comprised of the titular Fallen London, Sunless Sea, and the soon-to-be-Kickstarted Sunless Skies. The universe is bizarre, mysterious, funny, and smart, and there are enough stories to keep you busy for months. I'm such a huge fan that I have the Dawn Machine tattooed on my left arm as lovely reminder of what happens when you let hubris and pride rule your heart.

But that's not what I want to talk about today -- I want to talk about an absurd, horrible journey that I'm currently engaged in with Fallen London. A questline called Seeking Mr. Eaten's Name. Something so terrible that when you start it, you receive an item called A Bad End that allows you to opt-out (without undoing any of the damage you've done to yourself) and have to accept the following disclaimer:

Seeking Mr Eaten's Name is a story of misery, obsession and self-destruction. It doesn't play by the same rules as the rest of Fallen London. It is capricious, difficult and very unfair. And there will be no happy ending, unless you abandon the quest. Don't begin the story unless you are prepared to regret it.

And there is no happy ending here. Reaching the end of this trail of misery renders your character unplayable. Here's just a taste of some of the things I've had to do putting the pieces of this tragic tale together:

• Die seven times. It is brutally, brutally difficult for me to come back from A slow boat passing a dark beach on a silent river now.
• Be imprisoned seven times ("memories of chains")
• Get seven "stains on my soul" -- it's left...unclear...what that means, though the devils leave me alone now.
• Betray seven friends (SEVEN IS THE NUMBER)
• Spend an atrocious amount of Echoes (the in-game currency)
• Given up almost all of my in-game possessions
• Shove my neathy-adopted daughter off of a cliff inside of a cave that consumes memories

That last bullet really got me thinking. I told my wife Katt what I did and she said "Wow, Kyle. That's...really dark. And absolutely not like you!" I know it's just roleplaying...and part of the fun of roleplaying, in video games or in tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, is to become something you're not. But this feels different to me, like a line has been crossed. That even though I'm making these decisions inside of a "safe" place (a game), I'm turning my character in to some bizarre, dark reflection of myself. Maybe its because of how much time and effort I've put in to this. It's not like making a snap judgement in Star Wars a-la Emperor Palpatine and throwing Force Lightning around.

"A reckoning," you shriek, "will not be postponed indefinitely!"

Perhaps that's the point of a story like this. Especially one that's so candid up front: "a story of misery, obsession and self-destruction." It forces us to ask ourselves...what lengths are we willing to go to for knowledge? Or for vengeance, to right a wrong?

In any case, I'm interested to hear what you have to say! Leave a message in the comments!

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 all of your stuff to someone's house. Everyone would plug in to a switch and form a little private network to play games together. Games like the original StarCraft and Diablo even had special LAN-focused versions called spawn installs that you could make from any full copy of the game. Spawns only worked for LAN multiplayer (no single player or Battle.net access), but they were a great way to introduce people to new titles. They also kept costs down, since you only had to buy one copy of the game to play together.

These days, while local multiplayer games are still available, LAN-focused titles seem to be few and far between. On modern consoles like the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, they're virtually non-existent, long-since replaced by internet multiplayer. I can remember playing the original Halo over System Link (the Xbox version of LAN multiplayer) in college back in 2004, all of us carrying our consoles to the Student Center and hooking everything up for a 16 person match.

Having a LAN party in today's world is a little easier than in the past; PCs are lighter, laptops can actually play games, and networking is certainly more straightforward! If you're interested in holding one, the Irregulars have assembled some tips and a few recommended games!

Setting Up

Ensure that you have:

• Chairs for everyone (we really like Flex One folding chairs)
• Enough tables to fit everyone's PCs
• Power (try as you might, you won't be able to run ten PCs off of a single circuit!)
• Networking gear (you'll need a router, a switch, and plenty of Ethernet cables)
• Snacks and beverages

Also, we've found that (inevitably) someone has some kind of part or system failure, so having a spare hard drive and a few sticks of memory around never hurts. You could also consider building a small guest machine -- check out our latest budget build on PC Part Picker if you're interested in heading down this route.

Some suggested LAN games

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Torn Banner Studios has been working on Chivalry since 2012, and they've created a melee-focused team brawler that's just hilarious to play. Automatic yelling when you charge your foes? Count us in! A slew of different weapons makes for good, stabby fun all around.

Depth

From Digital Confectioners comes an asymmetric, 4v2 multiplayer game that pits treasure-seeking divers against sharks. Divers escort a small robot around collecting treasure until they need to return to their boat. Sharks attempt to nom said divers. The divers use saved treasure to purchase equipment, while the sharks earn "evolution points" than can be spent to upgrade their abilities. If either side runs out of lives, the game is over! Funky, and well-polished. We like it!

Guns of Icarus

Ahh, airships. Who hasn't wanted to fly a giant blimp around and blast people with cannons? Guns has been around for awhile, a follow-up to Muse Games' 2010 title The Flight of the Icarus, and it pits teams of airships against one another in a battle for aerial supremacy. Each airship has a crew of four that must manage piloting, repairing, and manning the guns. Customizable ship and player loadouts allow you to make every ship your own, and you can play with up to 24 people at once in a 3v3 ship battle. We highly recommend playing the tutorial!

Team Fortress 2

Since 2007, Valve's premiere hat simulator has sent the RED and BLU teams to fight for...we're not really sure. If you like team-based shooters, you can't go wrong with TF2's eclectic mix of classes ranging from a one-eyed Scotsman with a grenade launcher to a German doctor with questionable medical credentials.

Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection pits two asymmetric sides, space marines and aliens, against one another in an effort to eliminate the other team's base. Each side gets a commander who plays the game in a top-down RTS style, allowing him or her a bird's eye view of the battlefield. Players on each team need to follow their commander's orders to build, expand, and exterminate enemy forces. While the marines get global upgrades and can purchase new weapons from a team pool of funds, the aliens can independently evolve their abilities and characteristics.

Some suggested local multiplayer games

Up for some things you can play on a single PC?

CRAWL

Powerhoof's four-player homage to the classic dungeon crawler comes with a unique twist: only one player can be the hero at a time! The other three players are the vengeful spirits of said hero's former comrades, hell-bent on slaying him to take over his body. Ghosts possess monsters and traps to slay the hero, slowly building up their repertoire of monsters. The hero uses gold to purchase new abilities and equipment along the way. If the hero successfully slays the boss at the end of the dungeon, he wins!

Samurai Gunn

Four samurai, each armed with three bullets and a sword. Need we say more?

Overcooked

We've affectionately dubbed Ghost Town Games' co-op cooking simulator "the relationship destroyer." You and three friends are all chefs trying to fill orders as they appear on the screen...except the kitchen is split in half...in a volcano... and the onions are no where near the cutting board. Oh, and that soup is about to boil over! Overcooked encourages lots of communication (which we like!) and some of the later levels will truly test your coordination and teamwork.

Jackbox Party Pack One, Two, or Three

Jellyvision (now Jackbox Games) was responsible for the YOU DON'T KNOW JACK trivia series in the 1990s, where "high culture and pop culture collide." Their sense of fun hasn't diminished over the years, and now we have three different collections of party games to choose from! We recommend taking a look at each party pack and seeing if anything jumps out at you.

The best part? You don't need controllers! Just about any tablet or phone will work!

Enter the Gungeon

This twin-stick shooter from Dodge Roll is marvelously produced, packed full of content, and just received a free Supply Drop update that adds...even more stuff! If you've ever wanted to find a gun that shoots tiny guns, which then shoot even tinier bullets, you've found the right game.

You can play with a friend (though we're not sure if it makes the game any easier!) Will you reach the end of the Gungeon and claim the Gun That Can Kill The Past?

And so...

As nice as internet multiplayer games have become (and with the popularity of voice services like Discord, Mumble, Ventrillo, and TeamSpeak), there's nothing quite like playing something with 24 friends in the same room! If you decide to throw your own LAN party, leave a comment or drop by The Happy Minotaur to chat with us. We'd love to hear how it went!

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 are the sandboxes -- games that provide players with a framework to manufacture their own worlds, then get out of the way. These games hold a special place in my heart; growing up, my brother Ryan and I would play 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons on a regular basis with our friends. Ryan's gnome wizard persona, Locke Vanthor, lives on to this day in many pencil-and-paper games we play. I tracked down a description of his D&D character from about 15 years ago for our Origin Stories article back in August. A lot of it still holds true; who wouldn't want to be a crazed gnome wizard who loves fireballs?

In more recent history, we've looked at titles like Ben Robbins' Microscope and Ross Cowman's Fall of Magic that strip out all but the most necessary "gamey" elements in pursuit of crafting a story. They're definitely not for everyone, since they require a lot of participation from everyone at the table, but are absolutely worth trying if you're looking for something different. Fiasco, a storytelling game about small-time capers gone horribly wrong, is also excellent if you'd like something a bit more structured!

I'd be remiss talking about games and storytelling if I didn't mention one board game that the Irregulars have been playing: Rob Daviau's SeaFall. In SeaFall, each player is the ruler of a province that has set out to explore a vast ocean. Along the way, you'll be naming your provinces, sailing the sea in search of islands, treasure, and trade, and generally having a grand time putting stickers all over your board. By the end of a campaign, you have an entire board covered in stories. That shipwreck over there? That's where Dana was the first person to sink another player's ship. The slew of atolls all grouped together? Just the luck of the draw from the event deck! That island covered in enmity stickers? You can thank countless raids from Wartopia. Why is one of the provinces named Candy Mountain? You'll have to ask Katt.

When I think of video games that accomplish a similar feat, Minecraft is the first game that comes to mind. It's gone from a barebones alpha title to a worldwide phenomenon in just a few short years, and much of its success comes from giving its players a set of tools, then getting out of their way. It's accessible to kids and adults, and being available on just about every platform out there certainly hasn't hurt.

My very first Minecraft world. We've come a long way since 2010.

The hour is late! Next time, we continue the storytelling conversation with a look at IO Interactive's brilliant assassination sandbox HITMAN.

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, but nothing this large. Here's a few shots from the build log, along with some pointers if you decide to build the kit for yourself.

First things first, we need to get the capacitors and resistors installed! I always have trouble telling resistors apart -- I have protanopia, which means reds, oranges, and yellows are way less vibrant for me. Purples and violets are had to distinguish from blues as well. To get around this problem, I usually keep all resistors of a particular type bagged and labeled and just fetch them when I need to. I eagerly await the day when someone cooks up a "photo ID" app for iOS that can translate the bands on the fly!

Jumping ahead a little bit, we have the same board, but now all of the sockets for the integrated circuits are installed. This makes it easier to replace the ICs if something breaks! There are a couple of benefits to using integrated circuits:

• A much smaller board -- every IC is a collection of transistors and other components that would take up a lot more space if they weren't printed on to a chip!
• Cost -- ICs are usually cheaper than the cost of all of the discreet components you'd have to buy if you wanted to make the circuit "from scratch!
• Ease-of-use -- once you figure out how to build something like a timer, it's nice to just be able to pop a chip in to replicate it (think of how much soldering you'd need to do for three or four timers)!

Since we need to display numbers on our clock, we need screens! Since displays tend to be fragile (I've certainly destroyed a few), we're going to make them easier to install and replace by soldering in some female headers. We'll use them a bit like the IC sockets we installed earlier; instead of soldering each display in to the board, we'll pop them in to these makeshift sockets instead. A word to the wise -- I highly recommend putting the female headers on the displays, then soldering them in with the display already installed. Getting everything to line up perfectly without the displays in place is a huge pain in the butt!

Okay! Now we have everything installed on the board except the screens! The bits on the left edge are the power socket and voltage regulator -- we're going to power this off of a wall wart! Moving across the board, the sea of tiny holes is a prototyping area. I didn't do anything with it on this clock, but you could install all sorts of things in this space. Next, we've got all of our integrated circuits from earlier. I've installed them all in their sockets and soldered in a 12-pin header in case I want to re-program anything at a later date. The header's just below the longest integrated circuit. Wrapping things up is a CR2032 battery holder; this is so the clock doesn't forget the time if it's unplugged (handy), the set/mode switches, and a tiny speaker for the alarm feature.

Hooray, the circuit is good! Remember, always test your project before you install it in a case!

The case for the clock is made out of my least-favorite material, piano black acrylic! I understand that cost is a big driver here, and the fact that acrylic doesn't conduct electricity makes it easier to mount boards and circuits. However, this particular acrylic suffers from two major flaws: it's not strong, and it's a huge fingerprint/scratch /dust magnet. You can't see it in these photos because of the "cosmetic panels" I have surrounding the frame, but I cracked the rear frame panel in four places while mounting it. Make sure you sand all the tabs with a file or some light-grit sandpaper -- it'll make the construction process a lot easier (and you won't crack things)!

And here's the functioning, finished product! The text pops a lot more here compared to the LCD test photo because of a red filter that's installed in the front of the clock.

I had a blast assembling the Solder : Time desk clock (with the exception of that one piece of acrylic)! Spikenzie Labs has newer, cheaper version of this kit called the Solder : Time LTE with a minimalist case and some extra customizability, so take a look that that one as well!

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 full of mystery and adventure. As graphical horsepower has become easier to afford, the popularity of MUDs and their kin has waned in turn. Some MUDS, like GemStone IV, still have active, dedicated player bases (though their numbers pale in comparison to the average AAA MMO of today). Their impact and legacy can be felt to this day: these games are the ancestors of Ultima Online and EverQuest, titles that arguably set the MMO genre in motion. Those games, in turn, eventually lead us to modern titles like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.

Even though the heyday of the MUD is over, they still played a pivotal in my life when I was in middle and high school. Some of my oldest friends are folks I met online in those days. A lot of the memories are hazy, my old writings and records long since lost to bit rot and failed hard drives, but my time in SporkMUCK will always be close to my heart.

If you stumbled in to the back alleys of Spork's gloomy, dilapidated city-of-industry, you might have stumbled across a small bar nestled in to the side of a brick building. The sign to the right of the door, small and dingy, would have read The Happy Minotaur. Behind the bar counter, a quiet older gentleman would be polishing glasses, humming along with the music. Tapping out inspect Trokair on your keyboard, you'd have seen something like this:

Intelligent, lighthearted, and possessing a somewhat irritatingly happy demeanor, Trokair ended up in Spork City many months ago for some strange reason or another. Full of tales of faraway lands, he doesn't talk much about himself, although it is widely known that he's had a lot of experience in the restaurant business. A guru when it comes to medieval history, Trokair has studied the art of staff-fighting for many years, and is quite formidable when armed with a 6-foot long cylinder of oak. Sadly, Trokair has a problem with alcoholic beverages, and tends to drink too many of them on a regular basis, but disdains any sorts of 'illegal substances' and claims that the smoke from tobacco products 'irritates his lungs'. He currently resides in an apartment over the Happy Minotaur Bar, where he works as the local bartender.

I spent many hours in that bar, chatting with regulars like Miranda, Katrina, Alex, and Gravecat. We talked about life, relationships, things we liked to do, and what we wanted to build in this virtual city. I practiced mixing fake drinks, eager to put the /emote command to good use, always asking if I could get anyone anything. I couldn't have asked for a more understanding, respectful group of friends at a time in my life when I didn't have too many of my own. All of you will forever hold a special place in my heart.

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

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 of SpikenzieLabs' Calculator Kits from Adafruit to replace our lost calculator at home. Now, I know that every smartphone under the sun has a calculator, but sometimes it's nice to be able to press physical buttons! Plus, you get the gratification of being able to say you built something yourself.

As with any kit project you get all the parts, but none of the tools! If you want to get in to soldering and kit electronics, I'd recommend picking up a few things first:

• A soldering iron - start with a really basic XY-258 and stand, then upgrade to something nicer later if you really get in to it!
• Solder (there are a few different kinds; I use this thin lead-free stuff for most of my projects)
• A set of flush diagonal cutters to snip the ends off of pins and such after you solder them -- it looks nicer, and the ends won't catch on stuff!
• A solder sucker, in case you mess up (you will!)

You could also opt for Adafruit's Learn to Solder pack, which includes everything I mentioned above, a light painting kit, a phone charging kit, and a tiny computer called a microcontroller to play with.

Ok, now on to the calculator!

The printed circuit board (PCB) is labelled really well; if there's something you need to install and solder, it's printed right there on the board for you. I've got the battery holder in the upper right and a few resistors (the little cylinders with the colored lines) soldered in.

Time to snap all of the buttons in! The nice thing about these buttons is that they'll actually stay in place when we flip the board over to do our soldering. For things like the resistors, you usually want to bend the wires at a 45 degree angle (thanks Adafruit!) so they'll stay put.

Now we need to get the displays for the numbers installed. There are six of them, each with ten pins that go through the board. It's a little tricky to get them inserted, since the pins have to line up perfectly. These were the first parts I installed where I had to use painter's tape to hold them in place; the pins are too short to bend and the displays will just fall out if you flip the board over!

And here's the underside of the board for the first time! Those clusters of ten pins are for the displays we just installed. You can see a great example of bad soldering in the back left of the image; too much solder on the pins on the far left! I also spilled molten solder on one of the holes for the microprocessor...which I'll have to clean up later.

Woo! It works! Professional tip: always make sure the thing you built works before you put it in a case.

And here's the finished calculator after we've cased it in acrylic and put all of the buttons on! Be careful with acrylic - it looks cool, but it's pretty brittle and scratches easily!

This is a fun kit; a little more advanced than something like Adafruit's MintyBoost charger, but not too tricky! Plus, you get a really cool calculator out of the deal!

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 got composite video cables, wired controllers, and all of the games rely on battery-backed RAM to preserve their data. What's a modern gamer to do?

Luckily, there are some seriously dedicated enthusiasts out there, folks who have created all sorts of interesting hardware and upgrades for the SNES that make it easier to use with today's AV equipment and home layouts. Today, I'll go over a few of these products (all of which I use!) and hope that you find them as useful as I do!

Dealing with modern video

The cables bundled with the original SNES and its late-90s revision the SNES Mini are composite. The picture information is smooshed in to a single analog cable (yellow cable) and the sound broken up in to left and right channels (white and red cables). This made for a pretty blurry picture back in the standard definition days, and modern TVs & receivers tend to make a mess of composite video if they support it at all. While the SNES Mini is only capable of outputting composite video over its video-out port without a mod, the original SNES-001's video chip can actually output RGB, which looks a lot nicer.

To take advantage of the SNES-001's RGB capabilities, you'll need a new video cable. I've had great success with HDRetrovision's SNES component cable -- it'll take care of outputting a 240p image to your TV or receiver using the best video output possible on the SNES. Make sure your HDTV or receiver has a component video output on it for best results -- I've heard mixed reviews about using converters or upscalers.

Now you have the best possible picture, short of getting your hands on an exceedingly rare and expensive RGB television.

Wireless Upgrades

First, if you've never used a controller from Hong Kong-based 8bitdo, you're missing out. The company makes phenomenal classic controller replicas, and their SNES models (the SNES30 and SFC30http://www.8bitdo.com/sfc30) are better than the originals. They have great weight, work with any Bluetooth-compatible device that takes gamepad input, and last about 8-10 hours on a charge. They're also firmware-upgradable, so you can add new features after you buy them.

But how do we connect these new Bluetooth controllers in to our SNES? Enter another 8bitdo product, the Retro Receiver. This dongle plugs in to the controller ports on your SNES, giving them Bluetooth capabilities. After you pair your controllers to the Retro Receivers (a process that takes about 30-45 seconds the first time, be patient!), they'll automatically connect to the SNES when they're powered on.

The Save Issue

Back in 1991, before flash memory was cheap, SNES cartridges relied on special battery-backed RAM to keep your save data intact. The CR2032 batteries in each cartridge are good for a long time -- my copy of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past lasted nearly 15 years -- but they're not permanent. Luckily, they're not too tricky to replace, and you can make some modifications once the cartridge is open to make future replacements even easier. I'll post the details step-by-step the next time I change a battery out so you guys can see.

If you just want to look the directions up on YouTube, you'll need some equipment:

• A soldering iron and some lead-free solder
• A CR2032 coin cell battery for each cartridge
• CR2032 battery holders -- I use Harwin Inc. S8421-45Rs
• A screwdriver with a 3.8mm Nintendo security bit tip to open the cartridge

But wait! What if you already have saves that you want to keep? Taking the battery out will wipe them out! To fix that problem, I present to you the Retrode 2. At its core, the Retrode is an SNES-to-USB adapter that will let you plug cartridges in, then play directly off of said cartridges in an emulator on your computer. However, you can also use it to back up and restore your save data and take a digital copy of the cartridge (called a ROM). With this gadget, you can back up your precious Secret of Mana save, change the battery out, then restore the data on to the cartridge. Then you're good for another decade or so!

Do you have any other interesting tools or tricks to make your classic consoles work better on modern equipment? Are you still hanging on to that Sony Trinitron TV? Let us know in the comments!

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.I.P. in to the Pocket, you get access to a lithium polymer battery, a 480x272 touchscreen, keyboard, and easily-accessible GPIO headers.

Here's a quick look at the hardware and what you can actually do with it!

The front of the Pocket has extended headers for all of the C.H.I.P.'s GPIO ports, making it easy to wire up new hardware. For example, the Pocket doesn't have a speaker built-in, but it's pretty easy to add one. The screen isn't high resolution (480x272), but it's big, bright, and easy to read. There's a resistive touch screen over the LCD panel, so you can use your fingers or any other blunt object to tap icons and controls. This makes it much easier to navigate!

Moving a bit farther down, we've got a keyboard with some special extra keys to make gaming easier, a dedicated power/home button, and holes to make a stand out of a pen or pencil.

There are no screws on the Pocket, so you can take it apart if you want! There are some extra prototyping traces in the upper left corner you can use if you're adding a new internal component. The C.H.I.P. itself is removable, but be careful -- it's slotted pretty tightly in to the Pocket's connectors. If you want to use the C.H.I.P. for something else, it needs to be re-flashed; the one that comes with the Pocket is running special software to drive the touchscreen and that nifty app launcher.

Digging around a bit more, you'll notice a 3000mAh LiPo battery pack. NTC says it's good for about five hours, though I've been able to squeeze more out of it by lowering the screen brightness and turning off WiFi/Bluetooth. The C.H.I.P.'s power circuitry handles charging the Pocket's battery, so don't charge the battery directly unless you know what you're doing. Lithium batteries can be dangerous, and any cell phone charger that puts out at least 1.5 amps at 5 volts will work fine.

One of the built-in apps is a standard terminal running the bash shell. The C.H.I.P. runs on an ARMv7 version of Debian Jessie (8.5), so you can install pretty much anything you like. I've been using my Pocket to do network analysis with nmap.

The Pocket's biggest claim to fame? It runs the PICO-8 fantasy console, a "fake" gaming console done up in software. The PICO-8 suite has loads of fan-developed games available that are all editable on-device. Feel like editing the sprites? Go for it. Audio? You're covered. Maps? There's something for that too! It's a really interesting concept, one that I hadn't heard of until the Pocket came along. Now, I'm slowly working my way through top games list, trying new titles out. One of my favorites so far is Tower Of Archeos (shown below), a puzzle RPG where you have to balance defeating foes with collecting useful items and keeping your hearts topped off.

I have a software-defined radio project in the works that I'm going to try to leverage the Pocket for. In the meantime, do you have a C.H.I.P. or a Pocket? If so, let us know what you think in the comments!

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 fun and profit

One Saturday afternoon, the game masters on Krynn's Demise decided that it was the perfect day for chicken battles. Everyone on the shard had one day to tame the most fearsome specimen of poultry they could find, then hone its fighting skills to perfection. Naturally, Ryan and I christened our champion fowl Pollo. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think he was orange for some reason...

These foolish birds are cultivated by farmers for their eggs and succulent meat. One of the staples of the Britannian diet and economy, chickens cannot long survive outside of the care of man.

--UOGuide

Pollo's training regimen was intense:

• We polymorphed him in to a dragon and herded him through flame walls to increase his magic resistance
• He fought other assorted woodland creatures to build up his physical skills
• He consumed an obscene amount of bandages, as chickens are not known for their large hitpoint reserves

Fast forward a few hours; at this point, we've spent all day training this chicken in hopes of advancing through the tournament. Our names are called; we're in the first round!Pollo goes on the attack...and immediately perishes at the feet of a much more well-trained fowl. Thankfully, Ryan jumped at the opportunity to salvage the situation. Using his magical flames, he roasted our poor chicken over an arcane flame, and we got a few drumsticks out of the deal. Rest in peace Pollo; you were delicious.

The Invisi-Wizard

When you're a Grandmaster Mage, you don't cast spells to defeat monsters. You let other people defeat the monsters, then use your spells to secure the treasure! This was the case when the great dragon (unpronounceable name) invaded the city of Britain one weekend in 2001. It took the combined efforts of many heroes to slay the monstrous green beast, saving the city from temporary destruction. Strangely, when the dragon's corpse was examined, there was no treasure present (not even a scale)!

Accusations immediately started:

We've got a looter on our hands!

Unbeknownst to our band, Ryan had snuck in under the cover of invisibility and stripped the dragon of its artifacts and treasures before the body even hit the ground. He emerged at the Bank some hours later clad in a tie-dyed set of shimmering green plate, grumbling incessantly about "adventurers these days". Though most of us suspected foul play on the part of our land's grumpiest wizard, no one ever managed to successfully challenge him about the event. Those who brought their concerns to bear found themselves burnt to ash or stepping through a "free beer" portal to a horrid pit full of daemons.

I don't think Ryan ever removed that plate mail after he put it on.

Dangerous Waters

For a short period of time, my now-wife Katt played Ultima Online with Ryan and I. If you know her at all, she loves fishing in video games. After she joined us, we made sure she was equipped to reel in sea's bounty, and even provided a boat so she could reach distant waters.

However, we forgot to mention the presence of sea monsters.

Ryan and I were camping along the coast, when we see Katt shouting FORWARD FAST, FORWARD FAST, FORWARD FAST at the tillerman, sea serpent in hot pursuit. She had fishing up an extremely cranky kraken, and was making a beeline for the shore in her ship.

At the time, the boats were a little laggy as the shard was hosted on a 3 megabit cable connection. Katt successfully landed the ship and disembarked, but the serpent's attacks caught up with her a few frames later and she perished. After that, she mostly kept to the shores!

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. Each role has its own powers, pieces, and paths to victory … and there can only be one winner.

This asymmetric dungeon crawler from Leder Games was a big hit at GenCon this year, and we've got some first impressions from our initial playthrough.

The Cast

Vast pits five players with drastically different goals against one another in a cave that shifts and changes each time you play. If you don't have five players, that's okay; alternative win conditions are listed in case one or more roles aren't filled.

In their turn order, the roles are:

The Knight

The Knight's goal is to slay the Dragon. Equipped with loads of bombs, a magical map, shield, and bow, the Knight is ready to deal with almost any scenario. When the Knight starts, she has two hero cubes she can allocate to move, encounter things, perceive hidden characters like the Thief, or use her treasures. As she gains grit from performing actions, she'll slowly unlock more cubes.

The Goblins

The Goblins are trying to kill the Knight. Split across three tribes that each get a single action per turn, the Goblins are unique in that their strength is directly proportional to their population and rage. These things ebb and flow as the goblins attack, are attacked, and move around the map. They like dark tiles (ones that haven't been flipped over/explored yet), and are weaker when exposed to light.

The Dragon

The Dragon is very, very sleepy and would like nothing more than to wake up and escape the cave. By collecting treasure, eating Goblins, and exploring rooms in the cave, the Dragon will slowly grow in power as he wakes up. Once he awakens, he becomes a rampaging engine of destruction (albeit one now hindered by walls) and must reach the cave's entrance to secure victory. His powers are semi-random as he draws a number of power cards each turn that can be combined to produce a variety of spells and effects.

The Cave

The Cave player is responsible for building the map, resolving events and treasures for the Knight, and generally trying to be a pain in the butt to everyone else at the table. Since the Cave is sick and tired of all of the things running around inside of it, it begins to collapse once every tile has been placed on the map. If it can remove five crystal tiles from the map before someone else wins, the Cave achieves victory!

Each turn, the Cave gains a number of omen tokens based on the number of unclaimed treasures and revealed crystals on the map, which it can then use to alter the map, place more tiles & treasures, and hinder the other players.

The Thief

The Thief is cursed to live forever, returning after each death until he can collect enough treasures to break the spell that grants him unlife. One of the most flexible roles, the Thief can reallocate his statistics to make himself more stealthy, strong, or agile. He also has a slew of upgradable abilities -- angry Dragon in your way? Backstab it and siphon away a bunch of cards! Walls blocking your path? Climb over them!

The downside to being the Thief is that you're essentially a walking treasure bag -- your loot level gives players who slay you all sorts of bonuses.

Things We Liked

• Every role plays very differently, so there's something fun for all sorts of players!
• On a similar note, the way the roles interplay with one another is very interesting
• Easily scales based on skill levels; new players can start on an easier difficulty level (which makes it easier to win). Expert players can make things more difficult for themselves by moving to a higher difficulty.

Things We Didn't Like

• The instruction manual doesn't do a great job of laying out how the game is played (mostly, it just describes each role and lists some game variants)
• Length -- Vast is fun, but it takes a long time to play (~2 hours)
• Sometimes, you get a feeling of "inevitability" where you can see someone's victory a few turns in advance and can't do anything to stop it

All in all, pretty good! We'll be adding Vast to our regular Game Night rotation!

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 improvement here, unless you're particularly fond of plastic baggies.

Luckily, there's a wonderful company called The Broken Token that makes custom box inserts out of Baltic birch with a laser cutter. Everything ships to you in flat-pack format, then a little time and glue can take you from this...

To this:

They do take a little time to put together, and Broken Token warns that you may need some wood glue for loose joints (something I can confirm) and tape for the corners if you decide not to glue them (I usually don't). However, being able to rapidly set up and break down a game can be the difference between playing and not playing. There have been times when our tabletop group skipped over something awesome (Civilization, Eclipse, Mage Knight, etc.) simply because these games take so long to set up! If there's something in The Broken Token's collection for a game you play regularly, give them a look! They have a ton of their items on Amazon.com as well.