Travel Journal: Escapist Expo, Episode IV (II in the US): A New Adventure!

Soon with more pictures! [Note, the title is a reference to Star Wars, mixed with FF II/IV. This is actually the second Escapist Expo]

I can hardly believe that it's been a whole year since we departed on an epic adventure to the Escapist Expo last year but somehow time has flown by and the second Escapist Expo has come and gone.

We begin the tale shortly before the Escapist, when I discovered, much to my horror, that the tour van had a series of problems...

A super-flat, completely dead tire with a damaged hub cap.

A second tire that's been gradually dying over the last 18 months.

A new hornet's nest on the gas-cap.

A battery that barely works despite not being connected to anything.

The return of the mysterious "flapping sound" (and accompanying smell) every time I turn the air conditioning on.

After a few panicked phone calls I got the van towed to Tire Kingdom, thanks to my "fraternity" membership in the mysterious AAA.

Mike of AAA

It was at this time that Mike (pictured above) told me this was the first van in our class he'd towed that hadn't flipped. He suggested we get wider tires because our top-heavy van is some kind of a deathtrap waiting to happen if we ever deviated from the main road or got hit with a strong gust of wind. Valuing our lives we reluctantly agreed because while we can probably survive flipping a car, we probably can't survive flipping a tour van filled with all our gear.

Later in the week my friend at Tire Kingdom called, explaining (on his own) that our Radiator was awful (more awful than last time, when it lost all of our coolant roughly every 60-180 miles) and needed to be replaced if we didn't want to stop every 30 miles. Awesome... To make matters worse, our battery was verified as being the source of the mysterious "electrical" problem we kept experiencing. We had theories that it might not be the battery but entirely unplugged from everything it all but died on its own after about 2-3 weeks of non-use. I could now verify that it was not being drained from an external source or vampires so...

4 new tires, 1 new battery, 1 radiator, a tightened emergency tire (which almost fell off while it was going on the tow truck), 2 or 4 new "bearings" or "struts" or "shocks" (some sort of technical jargon I don't understand but in short it will make not make us bottom out every time we hit a bump), a set of new wipers (Ours kind of melt to the windshield when we use them), the elimination of that weird "flapping" sound in the AC duct (He never told me what was making the noise though I suspect the swamp-frog mafia had a hand in it) later we had a fully working van and fully negative bank account.

Day 1 - Thursday

Loading the Van

I departed from Sarasota at around 2:05pm towards Tampa to meet with the rest of the band. The plan was to meet up at 5pm, pack, waiting for Konami to arrive from his top-secret job and depart before 7:30, but it didn't quite happen that way. As I listened to the accursed Puzzle Theme solo MIDI on loop, at half speed, for the entire drive to Orlando I got a phone call about 20 minutes away from Moose's. He asked if I'd be at his place soon and I told him I was still perfectly on schedule for 5pm, as I'd hit traffic, and he said he was going to leave his house for a moment to pick up dinner. He didn't return home, leaving me locked outside until about 6:02PM but by then the mosquitoes had already done their damage. Completely starving (I skipped lunch and they didn't bring me any dinner) we got side-tracked in conversations until about 7PM, learned that Konami had encountered the same traffic i'd hit, and went food shopping at Publix, careful to avoid the chicken.

The tour van was packed with band gear, stick puppets, 3 types of sandwich meat, 1 jar of really bad-tasting peanut butter, bread, watermelon, chips, salsa, donuts, and other food by the time Kit arrived, unexpectedly late, at almost 9:45pm. In our haste we forgot the bring a cooler and the half-life of our food was suddenly in question as we drove up. I slept during the entire ride up and didn't wake until we arrived in Durham the next morning. A pleasantly uneventful journey from my perspective.

Day 2 - Friday

Friendly Steampunk Dude!!!

~9:00am. As the band unloaded gear, I took my accordion, merch tote, food, and set up our booth in the Jr. Ballroom. Our booth was located next to the friendly local division of the Art Institute (which I attended in Pittsburgh some years back), and a talented wand maker & Quiddich player (not affiliated with the Art Institute of Hogwarts). The convention had grown significantly since last year and I felt like there was a lot more space for vendors and attendees alike to maneuver. Almost immediately I bumped into friends from last year, fans of the band, and people who have blurred the line between the two. I had a blast meeting people dressed as pirates, Protomen, 'Link's of various genders, steampunk people, zombies, zombie hunters, families of super-heroes, and League of Legends characters as they stopped by the booth to chat. For the second year in a row I was floored with how friendly everyone was, and how genuine the conversations I had with people were. I was really enjoying meeting each new person that passed by, chatting about they journeys at the Expo thus far, how they share a love for Wind Waker, or hearing tales of their drunken misadventures at a party that took place the night before... and then it hit me... though the Escapist Expo might be the largest convention, they've grown the most positive con/fest/expo community I've ever been privileged to be a part of. I type this with utter sincerity. If you get a chance to experience it, I highly recommend going because it seems that the first year wasn't just a fluke of me meeting a reclusive bunch of positive people. I met bakers, bikers, artists, musicians, retail workers, call center veterans, and students, all of which had something engaging to talk about once we really got chatting.

Kit and Konami each beat a Megaman game...
at the same time!

At some point between selling CD's, and telling everyone who came by our table to check out the Saturday Night Shindig (the event we were playing) I got to look around the vendor room, briefly chat with the BoomSlank tee shirt trio, that Josh guy from J.G. Reviews, the incredibly friendly D20 Burlesque girls (who sold me a beautiful notebook), and some really awesome indie game-designers I'd met at MAGFest the year prior. I also got to chat with a cool retro-game vendor I'd bought a copy of 'Dark Sun' from the year prior. One watermelon, one package of meat, one whiff of bad peanut butter, and a full batch of bandannas later in was 6pm, and the vendor room was closed. Konami and Kit picked me up, after checking out a friend's cool looking Imperial Guard themed motorcycle, and we drove to the hotel. Situated a few miles down the road, it was one of the nicer hotels I've stayed in that didn't have free internet or a way of acquiring that didn't involve being a bad guest. I mention this because I had a work-related project due that night and without internet I was forced to take my laptop with me to the evening's festivities, a small rock show featuring Metroid Metal, Danimal Cannon, Eight Bit Disaster, D&D Slugger(s?), Big Brigade, and the friendly ladies from D20 Burlesque. While I didn't stick around for the Burlesque show (not my thing), I had a most fantastic evening as I worked (borrowing internet from a nearby cafe/home) to the live sounds of some of my favorite bands. Somewhere in the mix I caught a few pickup games of Smash Bros. Melee against a friendly gentleman with a "Returners" tee shirt, played about 6 minutes of Metroid while Metroid Metal owned house (a remarkable experience), and watched as Bit Brigade beat Megaman 2 while rocking the soundtrack, throwing in some Kid Ikarus and MM3 in the mix where the soundtrack got redundant. I didn't think their live show could possibly get better, but somehow they do each time I see them. We said goodnight to our friends, turned in early (10pm?!), and tried to sleep as someone in the next room over smoked their lungs out.

Day 3 - Saturday

Formal Shepard

Praise the Sun!

After a late start, Konami and I got lost on our way to the convention center and arrived at the booth a little more late than was fashionable. Our second day of meeting people/vending began at around 9:20AM and I chatted with Dwarves from The Hobbit (a masterful twist, the one pictured above was actually a woman!), Formal Commander Shepard & Liara, some awesome Dark Souls cosplayers [Konami needs to give me that picture], a birthday-baker who gave everyone awesome cookies, my wife from Skyrim (I got really drunk in that game and woke up to discover that I'd gotten married), a random expo-goer who also has face blindness (she told me that she always wears a specific accessory so people like us can always recognize her. I found it very helpful and explained that's why I always wear the same hat), and an Imperial 40K Commissar. One of the Insomniac game guys, a creative director(!), even stopped by to chat about the new Ratchet and Clank game! I got to walk around the Jr. Ballroom a little bit more than the previous day, meet more of the vendors, and was pleasantly surprised when Greg from the Escapist Staff randomly gave me a small platter of meat mid-day, after my rations had all gone bad or been consumed by Moose the night before in a fit of drunken Moose-hunger. I continued vending while the rest of the band set up for the show, and it wasn't until around 6pm that Konami showed up to help me pack the merch tote, accordion, and we took the 15 minute walk to the Motorco. The walk would have been infinitely faster without the heavy merch tote, or the foot traffic generated by a mini October-fest and a wedding, but it was pretty enjoyable otherwise.

Sound Check

We arrived at the Motorco, a real rock venue, at about the time Miracle of Sound was doing their sound check. It was a sort of magical experience getting to watch Gavin and his friend rock out to an empty room, just us, experiment a little, tweak levels, and see the man with the remarkable vocal range actually singing, generating the low, deep vocals I was hearing. It was like a mini-show just for us! We did our sound check shortly after, chatted with elements of the Escapist Staff, and I asked for permission ahead of time to stand on the bar because it seemed like a respectful thing to do. It's worth noting that the writing on the wall of the men's restroom at the Motorco includes the deathly hollows, which I thought was kind of cool. We also quickly became good acquaintances with much of the Motorco staff, who turned out to share similar interests. One of them is even a pretty solid cartoonist who was kind enough to share his work!

Rock Show!
Picture by Jerry Appleman

Konami gave me $5, which I spent $1.00 on to get a drink. As I greedily consumed water, pizza and passed out on the couch, the sun fell, the skies darkened, and a line gradually formed. When they started letting people into the Motorco I had the amazing revelation that almost all of those entering were people I'd personally talked to and who'd said they'd attend. This left a big impact on me... Again, this is normally not the case but people at the Escapist Expo are pretty awesome and if they say they'll see you later, they mean it (more often than not)! The venue started turning people away (we hit venue capacity) at around 8:25PM and the show started on time. The Warp Zone delivered a really catchy song about the One Ring to Rule Them All, and the crowd was really into it. Then Kit started talking to people on stage for awhile, while Konami and Rook tried to figure out what was wrong with her Bass guitar. Something to do with the internal pickup batteries being really cheap... We still started on time but I'm starting to believe that her bass really is haunted. As for our show, it was an absolute blast. People seemed to notice my quirky antics more than usual, people understood some of our inside jokes, and people sang along to some of our songs. I was comfortable enough to attempt Ocean King (albeit with my eyes closed for most of it), made a giant conga line (which got huge really quickly), and experienced one of my favorite shows we've ever played... ever. One interesting highlight was when I was standing on the bar (mentioned earlier) covered in dozens of glass bottles at my feet and was shoved off by someone. I caught my balance, so I didn't fall off, shrugged off the attempted shoving, and carried on like nothing happened, trying my best to not move my feet into the glass bottles I was strategically avoiding. A moment later I was shoved even harder from behind, and plummeted accordion first towards the ground. Luckily some guy was able to keep me from falling on my face, but at the cost of his mug of PBR, which shattered. Mid song, without skipping a beat I pulled out the rest of the money Konami had given me, handed it to the guy, gave him a mini-hug, and ran back on stage. Serious kudos to the PBR guy for helping the evening stay fun and not ending early.

All my new friends at the Escapist Expo II

Shortly after our set Gavin and his friend, the vastly enjoyable duo, Miracle of Sound, rocked house. Though he played the song the previous year, when he played a ballad about my favorite character in Game of Thrones (which I've finally got around to seeing since last Expo) I finally understood what he was talking about and it instantly became one of my favorite songs from last year's "really good song I have no idea what it's about" status. After the show we got to chat with the other acts, with fans, with Motorco staff, and Escapist staff about everything from Mars the Greek god of war fleeing and hiding in one instance, to various real-world cooking techniques prevalent in the the Elder Scrolls series. Friends were made, drinks were consumed, and we were thankful that the venue was open until 2am... because we didn't get home until much much later... After getting very lost in the fog.

Day 4 - Sunday

Best Crossplay Ever!
(Crossplay = Cross Dress + Cosplay)

Moose drew the short straw and drove me to the convention center. We only got a little bit lost and arrived shortly before 9AM. Sustained by potato chips and dozens of cups of water, it was another fun day of meeting people, chatting, and vending... Only with a slightly hung over feel about it. We stayed at the convention a bit later than intended, so I made use of the time to check out the main ball room, bumped into Yahtzee and give him our new album (it was a less awkward interaction than the previous year on my end and he even smiled as he said "Thanks, man. Cheers!"), met Cynthia Sheppard (a friendly and talented artist showcasing lots of MTG work, who I hope to see at Spectrum Live next year), got a 10 minute back massage with the awesome professionals who i'd been chatting with all weekend, and said my goodbyes. We departed at around 4:05PM, chatted until we hit SC, and complained bitterly as every gas station we tried to stop at was closed BEFORE 8PM! Since the nature of our stop was food/restroom related we found a rest stop that had a vending machine straight out of the 80's... complete with melted Hershey's, Whatchamacallits, Vienna sausage, and (I'm told but couldn't confirm) a single can of Surge. A few hours later we stopped at a gas station in Georgia that had over a dozen black cats in sight at any given moment. I slept the rest of the way and didn't wake up until we were at Moose's in Orlando. 

Day 5 - Monday...?

Tokyo Driftin'

We unloaded our gear quickly at around 3AM, though I wasn't coherent enough to verify the time. I somehow sobered up enough to drive Konami and myself to Tampa, dropped him off at around 5:15AM, and drove to my own 8-5 job by 7AM. Joy. A single less-than-productive work day later I drove the van home, being followed by one of my weekly D&D group friends. At about 5:05PM, while driving southbound on I-75, listening to NPR's news segment, with both hands on the steering wheel, not distracted in any way (honestly), a blue car decided to pull in front of me (suddenly, without signaling), obscuring my view of the car in front of him. From what I've gathered, the car on front of him slowed down some, or else blue-car decided to brake check without warning just to be jerky. As I semi-slammed the brakes the van started to drift right, pulling me off the road. I internally recited Shilo's lines from Transformers ("No no no no no!") as the van pulled beyond the shoulder, deep into the tall grass (sans poke'mon) and continued to move forward. The van started to actually drift, moving sideways for what felt like an eternity but was probably under a second, so I turned the wheel hard in the direction that countless hours of GTA taught me would prevent me from flipping and somehow maintained control.  The van ultimately stopped in an empty patch of grass, an area just past the point where a tree line had ended, about 10 feet shy of a fence, and buried about half a foot deep in soft dirt. I'd avoided rear-ending the blue car (who just kept driving), maintained control, and stopped the van in under 80 feet from a speed of about 72-74 MPH. As the final fantasy victory jingle went through my head I called AAA and about 45 minutes later the same guy from last week, Mike, showed up and helped pull me out of the dirt. He was overjoyed to see that I'd bought the good tires and promised that the decision was the only reason I didn't flip. A thank you and handshake later, that officially brings this story full circle... 

Deja Vu

The Escapist Expo II: Fun times and friendly people! I already can't wait till next year, though I'm overdue for some sleep.

Music/Creative: Challenges with making Pixel Glass

Original Album Cover Concept

This is the part three of my personal growth of as a recording musician, aka a cautionary tale of things to think about before going to a studio...

Where we last left the story, Random Encounter had just released Unavenged and was planning a US East Coast tour for the summer of 2011. Somewhere in the planning process it became really apparent that our guitarist Konami wouldn't be able to join us for most of the tour, so on a whim I'd invited my friend Juja (a guy I'd met on youtube, had never seen a picture of, and had never spoken to outside of emails) to join us. Let's back-track a bit... Juja and I had spent roughly 11 months working on the Sonic Suite by emailing each other back and fourth through yahoo mail. It was only a month after Unavenged was released that we thought to collaborate on a second song, just for fun. We talked it over and decided that we wanted to do a cover of Phantom Temple from FF VII. After chatting with my bandmates (Random Encounter) it was concluded that they were all too busy to take part... That or I just had a lot of time on my hands... Either way Juja and I put together an arrangement in midi and completed a version of the song, blended it with two other songs, made a silly video, and posted it here on youtube in under a month. Fast forward to the aforementioned invitation to go on tour.

This Became Disc Art

Juja was happy to accept our invitation to go on tour (5 weeks before the tour). I randomly suggested that we make a short album together that we could sell to help cover his airfare from Utah to Florida (and back), having absolutely no idea what that would entail. I suppose I was just looking for an excuse to use my newly acquired editing/mixing/recording talents so it seemed like a really great idea at the time. He thought it was a good enough idea and because Juja didn't care much about the visual aesthetic of the album, I put together the visual theme and contacted an artist I'd known since childhood to work on the art while stuck on an airplane somewhere. The artist had 4 weeks to design "stained glass style art" of various scenes I had in mind, which seemed like more than enough time for someone who was working part time and not involved in any other serious activities. Juja and I worked on a list of songs we thought it would be cool to include, largely working off pieces he'd already done for his Youtube account. With minimal additions and some light remixing, nine tracks of the album were completed in a weekend but we had some bigger goals in mind... Juja had done an Acoustic Version of Zelda 2 which was how I'd found him in the first place that we'd wanted to re-record with a full band feel. In addition, Juja wanted real drums on a couple of other tracks so I asked my friend Adam "One" if he could help us out. For reference, Moose and the rest of Random Encounter were fairly busy and lived 3 hours away (43 hours away from Juja) so collaboration with them was not really feasible. Adam, recently employed by the same publishing company I worked at, had fairly available hours and drove down to my apartment to record his parts. It was quite an experience.

Recording Drums Low Tech

When recording drums on your own it's important to have multiple microphones, multiple inputs on interface, and software capable of recording multiple inputs at a time. I lacked two of these things... So it with 3 microphones EQ'd through a portable mixing board, outputted to a single channel, Adam and I recorded drums for the entire album (except for Dancing Mad, which had been recorded during the Self Titled album drum sessions). While recording Castlevania we encountered some other difficulties because the neighbors (who regularly blast expletive-filled rap music at all hours of the day and night) were upset that we saw fit to record drums on a Saturday afternoon (a time they regularly blast their music) and complained that their baby was asleep. So the last track in the rock drum recording session was quickly switched to a light jazz-style recording session in an effort to not wake their baby. Three takes through Castlevania later it was complete and the neighbors stopped banging on my door. Before the drums were EQ'd you could actually hear them banging on the door and yelling at certain parts... Which I'd have cared about if they didn't blast their music at 2am the previous night despite my very friendly requests for them not to.

Temple of the Ancients Sunrise Surprise!
Can You Find The Hidden Snail?

The rest of Zelda 2 was recorded in one very full day and mixed the same night by my longtime friend Roman in NYC. It's worth noting that we submitted the "pre-dinner mix" of the song (4:30pm) to the Dwelling of Duels contest and somehow robbed better musicians of 4th place before we passed out. I woke up around 2am and had a yahoo messenger chat/feedback/edit/mix session with Juja and Roman until the song was finally concluded at about 4am. Even after Zelda 2 was compete there was still no time to rest. I'd wanted to record a rendition of Dancing Mad and that would take the rest of the work-week. Not much weirdness there because it happens to be my favorite song and one I've been practicing since I first picked up an accordion. The only thing worth mentioning is that I wrote some lyrics for the song and had them translated to Latin by a friend.

Long Nights of Recording...

Initially we included 'The Entire Soundtrack to Castlevania' in our list of songs to record as a joke but at this point, a mere 5 days before the album had to be complete, it suddenly becoming a very real possibility. It took me the week before to arrange the medley and it took Adam 3 full takes to finish the drum parts (that's really bad for Adam). It took Juja and myself roughly 3 nonstop days of recording (stopping for mere hours of sleep) to record, and it took Roman 2 solid days to mix/master. During this time I had also come to realize that my artist friend was in fact not going to finish the art...

This Was Submitted the Night Before the Deadline

About 1 day before the drop-dead due date for the art, my friend informed me that he wasn't able to complete it, but 'it was okay' because I didn't have to pay him. After a genuine apology from him I was admittedly still upset at a situation I should have seen coming, given his reservation to share his work in progress stuff with me. I asked my friend to give me his sketches, and at 7pm on the eve of the project's due date I called Adam to see if he'd be willing to undertake an insane art project due the next morning. Remarkably he accepted and saved the project. His only question was "What's the name of the album?" because Juja and I hadn't actually come up with a name, and it wasn't until about 5 minutes before that Juja came up with "Pixel Glass by Careless Juja", which we went with. I don't think Juja was actually aware that we went with that title until the finished CD's arrived but it was the best title we had (barring "Vladimir Vengrov versus the Giant Killer Snails from Outer Space by Adam The Careless Horse"). Due to time limitations involved with the artistic deadline, Adam swapped out our original cover sketch (A slightly skewed rendition of the Master Sword) with the picture of Simon Belmont fighting Dracula, put the original sketches through various color filters, and created the CD backing art, the album back art, the credits, and the interior panel art from scratch, and formatted it before the sun rose the next morning.

This Was Originally the Disc Art

With all of our work done and an album recorded in under a month, I uploaded the disc image (made for me by my buddy boR) to the CD production company's website, and a mere week later, just in time for Nerdapalooza, the box of new albums arrived... with a gaping flaw. The data on the discs was not burned correctly so instead of being a music CD, each disc was entirely useless in a CD player because it only burnt copies of the album... Awesome. So a few phone calls and 72 hours later, we had replacement discs overnighted to us (which we were billed-in-full for, despite the company admitting to their mistake) and the album was successfully released, seemly defiant against all odds! I only wish I were embellishing this story but sometimes the truth is story enough.

Death: Who I'd Soon See if I Didn't Sleep

Quick aside: I'd mentioned that I'd never actually met Juja until the day before the tour and while I'm telling my readership this in confidence, my band was entirely unaware that I'd never met him! During the last practice before tour they casually joked that he was probably an ugly, balding, smelly man of 45+ years of age, and as they made these jokes I suddenly began to fear the worst. I was pretty sure Juja once mentioned he was somewhere in his 20's but I couldn't remember... He also didn't have any visual representations of himself online except a badly MS-Paint drawn Kirby profile picture, or various images of horses so when I stood at the airport holding a sign that read "Mr. Gary Horses" I suddenly began to panic. Juja had mentioned that he was going to wear a purple dress shirt like some character from some show I'd never seen before and the man approaching me, holding a guitar case and wearing a purple shirt, was a very flamboyant man in his late 50's. Luckily he walked by me and wasn't Juja. Next a large (for political correctness let's call him fat) man in a purple shirt brushed by, followed almost immediately by a jacked body-builder type with the purple shirt, a guitar-case over one shoulder, and a woman on his other arm. They walked by as I panicked, thinking of reasons why Juja might have brought his girlfriend and where she would fit in the RV. Lastly, a balding man in his late 30's with a purple shirt approached with an awkward smile and stopped directly in front of me. He looked at my sign, looked right at me, laughed in my face, continued to stand there, and walked away. I was a bit confused but incredibly relieved it wasn't him. True to his word, the very last person off the airplane was Juja, a regular looking guy about the same age and build as myself with a sense of humor and prominent glasses. It was one of those moments of triumphant victory that you never tell your friends about or share with anyone.

Photo of Juja from Tour

In short, we became better friends in the confines of an RV with no air conditioning and went on an East Coast tour of the US as Random Encounter. About two years after the initial release, we're proudly re-releasing Pixel Glass with a set of completely re-recorded drums for the Castlevania track! Because we dislike the idea of forcing our fanbase to pay for things twice, if you already happen to own the album send me an email/message and I'll send you the new tracks for free. It's totally worth it. Oh, and if you like the music you should also like Careless Juja on facebook...

Music/Creative: A Recording Guide: The Making of Unavenged

"Live For Revenge!" (photo by Tiffany Mueller)

This is kind of a continuation from the 'Making of Self Titled'... Aka: My personal growth as a recording musician, or a cautionary tale of things to think about before going to a studio... Aka: The ghost of Credit Cards Past...Due. 

So where I ended the last post it was 2010, I was close to $7000 in debt from recording an album, my entire band had quit, and I was just about to quit my semi-public career as a musician. Somehow, less than a month after the band played its last show I was optimistically performing shows with a final and present incarnation of the new band of the same name. I'll skip most of the details here, so just accept that Rook, Moose, Kit and I were enthusiastically performing as the band Random Encounter (occasionally with our friend Konami) for about a month when we decided to start recording a new album that represented us, as opposed to the previous 'Random Encounters.' Our goals were well defined and fairly simple: to record all of the tracks we performed on an album called 'Unavenged!' So I called up the local recording studio again and explained that I had a new band that would actually show up to record their parts; No bs, no experimenting with arrangement for 4 months. We booked weekends at the studio for a solid month and a half.

A New Band is Born!

The recording process for Unavenged was fairly straight forward. The band (driving together from Orlando) showed up, recorded parts, and went home. We were all there for moral support, discussed what we wanted on the album, and even made lists for each bandmate of "things to record" and "things to re-record" until we were happy with how it sounded. It was insanely fun and I personally remember that we (the band) started to really feel like a family of sorts. Notably I also wan't the only person putting in money either (the unemployed in our number sold blood plasma to help contribute). It was a really pleasant experience and the only strange thing about recording the album was the fact that we didn't actually know how to play all the songs before we started recording, nor had we finished really experimenting with them. There's a grey area between waiting too long to record something (stunting the growth of a new band) vs recording too soon and while we definitely could have recorded a better album had we waited a few months I don't think we would have had as many good opportunities if we'd waited, so I'm still happy with our decision. It's also worth mentioning that you should trust a professional engineer to make what you have sound good (setting up mics, mixing, etc) but you ultimately should know your equipment (and what you want to sound like) better than anyone else. Don't let someone else dictate the FX/EQ settings on your guitar, bass, or amp if you have a specific sound you're going for or else your preferences will just become what the engineer thinks sounds good... Which can be really generic.

In The Studio, Late at Night

When it came down to my parts it was similar to the experience with the last album in that I went to the studio alone with the engineer, recorded, and edited for (a few) days on end. There were some things that we were ultimately unable to change due to time constraints (I wanted the album done in a very short period of time) such as: Re-recording the first pass of -72 hours-, which i'd originally thought would be hilarious at 72bpm only to discover that it felt too slow (for me... that and no one seemed to get the 72bpm, 72 measures joke), or that we forgot to record an introduction to Gerudo Valley (which I had to personally make happen), or the way I'd sort of envisioned Still More Fighting's intro. I also reached the same point as I'd reached in the last album, where I noticed that we were pretty much done recording but felt like something was missing... However, this time we were prepared.

Rook's Lucky Doll Head, Masha

A month or so before recording we preemptively requested assistance from a few friends to record parts with the anticipation that we'd need help to reach our deadline. The biggest contributor was Konami (the same awesome guy who later joined as a regular band member). He was insanely busy at the time helping NASA or something but graciously recorded parts for more than half the album on his guitars to help fill in some of the gaps. It wasn't that Kit couldn't learn and record the parts, it was that Konami already knew them (because he performed with us) and could record while we worked on other parts of the album, further helping our very restrictive schedule. Other guest musicians on the album included Elaine Li from Select Start, who drove 4 hours to the studio through a bad storm, was involved in a car accident on the way to the studio, and still showed up 10 minutes early to deliver some of some of the best performances on the album! It's also very much worth mentioning that Moose enlisted Sir. Dr. Robert Bakker from The Protomen as I enlisted Johnny "On The Spot" Frank to record parts on some really intense acoustic guitar tracks (Gerudo Valley and Unavenged respectively) from their respective states while the band was in the studio in Florida. The sound engineer and I also recorded a fun "Clank" sound for Boletarian Syndrome by smashing a piece of iron with a 2 handed mallet, which is technically a sort of guest instrument. The only other guest-oddities of note are that I'd started working with "The Great Juja" and "Auriplane" shortly before the band disbursed and re-formed (in 2010) on a Sonic medley called "The Sonic Suite" (The drums were recorded by Adam "One" during one of the self-titled recording sessions and accordion was recorded at my home using a slightly nicer vocal microphone than the $50 one I started with), which found it's way onto the album. In an effort to tie our album into the previous Random Encounter incarnations we also re-recorded the Introduction Theme from Final Fantasy 6, using it as a 'starting point' of sorts to (somewhat personally) acknowledge that previous incarnations of the band existed but to signify that the name had evolved into something different. We used the original piano track from Neo Symbiance (recorded years earlier by Helios!) to complete it. Lastly, we included a pleasant piano track Helios had recorded and forgotten about (but that I got permission to include) called "Miss You," which I found burred in an old computer he'd asked me to scour for specific data before formatting.

Sound Check

Back to editing: Around that time I'd started taking private lessons for rhythm (specifically snare drum) to improve my sense of timing and also saw a dramatic improvement in detecting if something was 'off rhythm' in the editing phase. The ever-developing "ear for editing" was also kind of a curse because there's no way to turn off the ability and I annoyingly found things I wanted to "edit" when listening to music recorded by other artists I'd previously found soothing. It was a feeling akin to discovering that movies are shot in multiple "takes", as opposed to all at once, and now being conscious of continuity or dubbing errors. The sound engineer also expressed that he experienced the same thing and made a game out of finding mistakes in songs on the radio. In short, I became a significantly better editor during the project (practice makes perfect) and started coming up with creative solutions and "fixes" that the engineer didn't even think was possible. I started to think I was pretty awesome until it came to the part where I had to record vocals...

Kit Enjoying my Vocals

 From day one I immediately loathed working on vocals, especially my own, and there were some big moments during the project where I'd strongly considered stepping down as the band's vocalist altogether. Atonal vocals? Fine. Happy Joy? Fine. Songs with vocal variety were another matter altogether. In working with Melodyne (a program that shows you exactly what you're singing on a grid, kind of like Rock Band), I saw that I knew nothing of how to sing on pitch. To make matters worse, early exports of the vocal tracks I'd shared with a friend got me the single brutally honest criticism of "you sing with no emotion whatsoever." He was correct though, and accepting that fact was invaluable to my growth as a musician. I started taking vocal lessons to improve my pitch and during the recording process I did everything to try and sing "with heart" in the studio. I thought good thoughts, brought pictures of pets and loved ones to the sessions, and ultimately sacrificed some pitch for emotion (Worth noting: I was also still revising the lyrics to -72 hours- and Unavenged during the recording sessions) because I wasn't able to start vocal lessons until after the recording sessions had begun. People have since seemed generally happy with the vocal tracks (or at least didn't comment negatively on them) so I feel a lot better about my vocal abilities (and limits) but I was very upset during this process. I also found it frustrating trying to sing notes you've never heard sung before, pitch-perfect, like when you're writing a new vocal melody. A final note on vocal recording is that I recorded the vocal 'harmonies' during some of the chorus sections on the spot, completely improvised, just for laughs and (surprisingly enough) kept most of them. Looking back I should have thought the vocals through more, practiced them, and recorded them at a later date but we were able to make many of the backing vocals sound passable through the magic of editing.

Fall 2010

After what felt like a month or so of recording and another month of editing (I kid you not, we were billed for exactly "72 Studio Hours" of recording) we sent the tracks off to Rob Kleiner. I can equate the experience of sending our tracks to a true industry professional to the story of the princess from Rumpelstiltskin spinning hay into gold. I only had a small understanding of how professional mixing and mastering worked but even then the differences were easy to hear. While this was being done the band sat down and had deep discussions about our branding, back story, and "age rating." I feel it's worth mentioning that once again we cut the new set of extremely explicit introduction tracks I'd recorded and again cut 'What's Up People', which has allowed us to share our music with a lot of (very young/old) people I wouldn't have thought possible over the years. We also agreed to produce a high quality album on a jewel case (as opposed to "sleeves" or a digital-only release), because we felt strongly about wanting to present ourselves as professionals. While I worked on finding a printing company, Kit worked on our Kickstarter, Moose scheduled an album release show, and Rook worked with Dennis Hansbury on the album art.

Original Album Concept by Rook

Somewhere in the all the above chaos the band had commissioned our friend Dennis Hansbury to make the album art without much of an idea as to what we wanted. Did we want video game iconography, to focus on the Russian monster-hunter mythos, or something else entirely? During a brainstorming session at Yogurt Land while Rook and I were gushing about the Russian artist Ivan Bilibin, (my memory is hazy as to how, but) we finally concluded that we wanted to recreate a sketch Rook had drawn of the band, in a style similar to Bilibin's, focusing on the band's conflict with Koschei the Deathless. Moose mentioned he wanted dilapidated buildings and someone (Kit?) said that profiles might be cool. Dennis gave us some alternate concepts of Koshei, took reference photos of the band members, and eventually the drafts we received quickly evolved into our album art, despite Dennis fighting a rather horrible cold at the time. My favorite piece is definitely the disc art/backing with the needle-egg-duck-rabbit-chest-tree. It just fit really well together.

Rock Party, Fall 2010

Where Self Titled was released quietly and kind of fizzled, Unavenged had an album release party complete with guest musicians, Protomen, and home baked goods! We also got a mention on BadassOfTheWeek.com and the opportunity to introduce people to our album on an east-coast tour of the U.S.! On a financial note, even if you technically 'break even' on the cost making an album, the sheer amount of effort involved with getting your music in front of people (shows, driving to shows, gas, interviews, promotional stuff, giveaways, the great migration from Myspace to Facebook, and your tour van breaking down every other show) comes at a large cost. At the risk of sounding like a corporate tool I'd still like to say that the tools we found most helpful on the post-production side were Kickstarter (crowd-sourcing which helped cover some of the costs associated with making the album), Bandcamp (which helps us conveniently share our music with people who can't afford our album), and CDBaby.com (which puts your music almost everywhere music is sold and has really solid reporting/remittance).

Random Encounter Photo Shoot (Fall 2010, (photo by Tiffany Mueller))

This certainly isn't a Disney success story by any means but it's the journey I've undertaken to learn more about how recorded music is made. I hope that my misadventures are amusing and perhaps insightful. I also can't wait to write one of these about the upcoming Random Encounter album I'm currently working on! ...speaking of which.

Full Band (Photo by Ben Trivett)

How to: Interview with a Game Designer

World Map for my Sunday D&D Group

Preface:

A close friend of mine is about to shape his life into the mold of one who seeks employment at a video game company. He wants to become a game designer or artist, but has very little first-hand knowledge on the topic. As I don't know much either I interviewed an anonymous friend who works at a large game design/publishing company as a programmer to find out what sort of things are needed these days to be a game designer!

Interview by Careless

What does one need to learn to get started in a game design/development position?

Hmm, well that depends on what you want to do. There are lots of roles in game development: programming (within that, AI, gameplay, systems, optimization, UI, physics, online [the trickiest and best-paying]), 2d art, 3d art, concept art, texture art, 3d modeling, 3d lighting, 2d animation, 3d animation, rigging, facial animation, sound engineering, sound production, music production, audio engineering (in the programming sense), interface design (that's what I do), gameplay design, general design, project management, press relations and marketing, quality assurance, and many others.

If you're talking about being a straight up auter game designer then in my experience what you chiefly need, unfortunately, is a lot of luck. Design is what everybody wants to do, so there are a lot of applicants. The trend at My company (intentionally not named) has been to look more to graduates of the game-design master's programs from specific colleges I can't list here... These guys (As opposed to some of the two year colleges) know their stuff!

So, if you want to be a designer you can get a degree in Game Design and you will have a better chance at getting a job than if you didn't have the degree, sure. But anyone's chances at getting a (paying, anyway) job as a Game Designer are pretty slim because there are so many applicants and it's often not really about how smart or clever or creative you are, it's more about leading a team around one vision, which is both much easier and much harder than writing code.

I got into the industry by getting a degree in Comp Sci and becoming an Actionscript developer. I spent a year making very little money, doing Flash web sites, and sending out internet applications. Luckily, it turns out, most video game UI is built in Flash, usually running on top of Scaleform. So knowing how to build stuff got me in the door.

By the way, about Arts Colleges--there are several folks working at my company who are graduates from arts colleges. They all work as artists (A VERY hard gig to get unless you're utterly amazing) or interface designers. If you know how to make a badass Flash website, then you are qualified to do UI on a 3D game, or make 2D games in Flash. I guess I'm recommending that you learn Flash! No matter what Apple thinks about it, it's here to stay in game development for at least the next console generation and with the web trending away from it, less people are going to be competing for it.

What should someone include in a portfolio (concept art, project experience, demo reels, etc)?

As much as possible, honestly. When we hire, we're looking for experience. The more stuff you have in your reel, the greater the perception is of you being experienced, and therefore ready to work and contribute from day one.

Use images or other multimedia wherever possible, instead of a bulleted list of projects. Feature screenshots or concept art! You want to dazzle. Even if the image represents a collaboration you definitely want to pique interest first and foremost.

That being said, if I'm looking at a reel of three awesome things, and another of ten mediocre things, I'll pick the first one. So be proud of whatever you're showing. "Whatever is in your portfolio is going to be someone's assumption of the level of quality you'll be able to deliver the second you sit down at your desk." The specific type of stuff in your portfolio, of course, will depend on the position you want. Whatever it is find some way to be visual and exciting.

Should one attempt to make their own games for their portfolio?

If you follow a game design track in school you'll come out the end with several school projects under your belt. Show these, but don't be deterred from applying without games in your reel.

If you decide to become a programmer, you'll be hireable in games even if you've never worked on a single game.  Just find a way to present your past work visually and dynamically. If you want to be a designer, then you absolutely will need to show games you've either built, or worked on.

Is there a way to shadow someone to see what it's like within the field of game development?

My company has historically offered unpaid internships but they're difficult to get and I'm not sure if we still do them. I'd be happy to answer any other questions you might have about what it's like, but generally it's just about what you'd imagine. Lots of hard work, lots of meetings. Lots of sitting in a cubicle. Lots of frustrations, lots of heartbreak. But if you love games, it's worth it.

Pixel Soldier by Adam Cartwright

Is animation good to learn as well?

Only if you want to be a full-time animator. Roles on big projects are very specialized. If you're more of a jack-of-all-trades, you'd be better off working at a small company where role-switching happens a lot because there aren't as many people. The drawback to this, of course, is that small teams just can't keep up with the EAs and Activisions with their hundreds of artists, so they don't generally bother with 3D art. Instead (smartly) they do 2D facebook/mobile games.

I'd definitely recommend you ignore 3D art of any kind unless you want to market yourself as an expert in that field, because there really isn't much demand for someone who only dabbles--it takes a loooong time and teams of artists to do that stuff. Being a 3D artist doesn't mean you can't eventually make the jump to design either, by the way. I find that once you're in the organization, if you work hard and meet the right people, you can transition to new roles.

My last question: Is it advisable to learn programming? If so what languages?

My personal recommendation--keeping in mind I'm biased--is to start with actionscript. You can acquire a copy of flash, or use Flex, the open-source actionscript compiler. Tons of great online tutorials are available available. You can build a game or any kind of application you want from scratch and you will be hireable as an interface designer. Google "scaleform games" for an idea of how many games' menus were built using Flash. Scaleform is specifically a sort of in-game Flash player. That's not even the whole story: Companies I've worked with use proprietary software that does the same thing as Scaleform and this seems to be a common practice.

If you want to be a software engineer--and make big bucks and have bulletproof job security--then C++ is the way to go. Get Visual Studio and a couple of books and get started. Even at an intermediate level, if you have a head for logic (NOTE: You don't need to be a math or science whiz. Programming is just LOGIC!), you will be hireable in games. Even better, you'll be hireable in about 40 other industries, all of which will pay you enough to start your own small game company if the mood ever strikes you.

But even if you are destined to become a Game Designer who never codes as part of his job the answer is still absolutely 'YES, you must learn at least a little programming.'

If you love music but can't sing or play any instruments, can you write a song? If you love movies but don't know lenses or lighting or cinematography, can you direct a film? If you're the best race car driver in the world but don't know any mechanical engineering or physics, can you design a car?

A computer game is a piece of software. Therefore a computer game designer is a SOFTWARE designer. If you don't know how software works you can't design it. You can come up with ideas, but so can everyone on the Internet.

I'm not saying you have to be an expert coder, but you do need to know the basics--variables, loops, conditionals. You will be working with engineers who will tell you your idea is impossible, every day. People resist ideas that aren't their own. This is human nature. If they can steamroll you by giving you a bunch of technical jargon and you can't understand it, they will always win the argument. This is something I see happen all the time. Whenever I want to innovate and I need engineers to build something for me, the fact that I know conceptually how it can work and can speak their language goes a long way in seeing that the thing actually gets done.

Don't be scared of programming! It's really not that hard. Like I said, it's just logic. You do not need to be a genius to program. The computer does all the work for you. Programming is just how you tell the computer what you want it to do. Best of luck to your friend and anyone else who reads this!

Tabletop: The Evolution of Warhammer Fantasy, 6th to 8th Edition

My Trusty Undead Knights

Note: I attempted to do some research for this and make things scientific but couldn't find as many sources as I'd hoped that were not from a forum... As a result this is more a memoir than the scientific evaluation I'd initially tried to write.

For those of you not familiar with Warhammer here are the basics:

Warhammer fantasy is a tabletop game where you control armies (elves, dwarves, knights, goblins, etc) and battle them against other people. It's a strategy game as opposed to a role playing game where good strategy is more important than a lucky dice roll, largely because of the sheer volume of dice rolled in a given game. Warhammer is a game of 2+ players (generally 2) that takes about 1.5 hours to 4 hours per game, depending on how experienced your are with the rules. It uses a tape-measure, dice, and either a 4x4, 4x6, or 4x8 table/space to play on. Additionally, before you play the game you need to pick an army to play and 'build' an army list/roster using each faction's unique book (which needs to be acquired IN ADDITION TO the main rule book). After you've picked a faction, custom built an army on paper, and assembled the models (or cut out appropriately sized squares of paper, or just used legos if you're new to the game) required to represent the custom army you just built and your enemy has done the same you put terrain on the board (it can be masterfully crafted 25mm scale forests, castles, swamps, and towers or just represented by books, tape, or whatever else you have lying around) and duke it out using a detailed rule set that some equate to business a law textbook.

Warhammer Model by Day, DnD Villain by Night

I found the game on accident around the end of 5th Edition (1999ish) while looking for spiffy DnD models, bought what I was subsequently told by my cousin was "enough undead to field an army", and (a few months later, in 6th edition) bought the undead army book so I could play the game I already had the pieces to play. I fielded an elite force of ~20 skeletal knights, led by a series of super-powerful vampire knights nicknamed "Blood Dragons" (Named for their ability kill dragons), supported by a few dire wolves and a banshee (more for comedic value than true effectiveness because in those days few things could attack an ethereal creature). 

My Vampire Lord, Complete with a Shoulder Mounted Ferret Familiar and Zombie Dragon

While it was a lot of fun but back in 6th Edition the game was admittedly broken in a few ways... While I'd heard people refer to the game's 5th edition as "Hero-Hammer" it seemed to me that they hadn't fixed many of the rules that made Heroes (who are supposed to make up less than 25% of your army's total point value [you use Points to "purchase" things for your army list from your army's respective book]) unstoppable super-powers capable of single-handedly destroying the entire enemy army over the course of the game's 6 turns. This was especially true with my army's vampire lord, a guy that the army book outright called "The Greatest Swordsman in the Warhammer world" that I decked out with the best magical equipment 'points' can buy, riding atop a flying collective of cadavers called a 'Winged Nightmare'! He was only ever defeated in combat four times during my entire experience of playing Warhammer 6th edition and earned a kill count of 953 (I kept count)... Keep in mind that he died to cannon fire or archers or magic like anyone else, but he would charge a unit of 30+ elite spearmen, win a round of combat (routing them), chase them into the next unit, defeat that unit, then "overrun" into a 3rd unit and rout entire armies that way using rules called "Panic!", "Fear", and "Terror" with brutal efficiency  The same Death Star-like properties could be said of my horsemen, though they were slower, significantly less mobile (because they couldn't fly), and were more susceptible to incoming ranged attacks.

My Undead Army Grows!

In short, over the course of 6th edition I eventually swapped out the knights and dire wolves for units of Wights on foot and skeletal spearmen so I could absorb ranged attacks better and still cause roughly the same amount of damage when I reached the enemy. I mention my army specifics because it's pretty characteristic of how 6th edition was. The majority of the armies didn't have books until the edition was almost over and the armies that had books were both fairly balanced and extremely flavorful. There were some things that were broken (like my Vampire Lord) but the game made up for it by having lots of customization options... like the named heroes you could taken into battle, which the rules specifically called for both parties to agree on using before the game was played (so you knew what you were getting yourself into). It also made almost any type of army you could think up viable, so long as you applied the right strategies. There normally seemed to be a basic composition that people would use with a given army, but each army added their unique flavor to the equation.

Fun at a Tournament

Very early on the game I was introduced to tournament play, and while I describe cheating within the context of tournaments it's because that's where I played most of my games, not because they were riddled with cheaters or unfriendly people. Well run Warhammer tournaments are a lot of fun and allowed you to face off against armies/strategies you'd not normally encounter, which I found very enjoyable.
That being said there were many who cheat while playing the game. From a tournament perspective, in 6th Edition people mostly cheated by mis-measuring the distance you moved (using a measuring tape but sneaking in half an inch here or there), by not sharing their barely legible handwritten army list and taking things in their list which were not allowed within their army book or by the main rules, by mis-remembering or outright fabricating army specific rules as new army books came out, by rolling dice before declaring what the dice roll was for and "changing their mind" about what they were rolling for, or by speed-dice rolling (where you quickly roll dice and snatch them up before the opponent can see them, claiming that they were the number you needed). Cheating was kind of common from my limited Floridian perspective and the number of ways in which someone could cheat (specifically on accident) were largely the cause. I personally made a LOT of mistakes when I started to play the game that I'd consider 'cheating on accident' because I was overwhelmed by the complicated rules set and the manner in which the rule book was structured/written. A lot of very friendly people took the time to explain the rules to me over the years and I really appreciated their patience with me.

Fun Times

6th Edition was a weird era where they were still solidifying the number of armies they wanted to include in the game and you'd sometimes find yourself facing a Warhammer Ancient Battles Army (which I was told was legal), a 'Chaos Dwarf' army, a mercenary army, or a number of other armies without books like Wood Elves, the forces of Chaos, or the Tomb Kings. Almost every army with a book had an advantage over the armies listed in the giant compendium called "Ravaging Hoards" (basically an ultra-simple "here's something to use until we come out with your book" book) and they all felt like they were uniquely different forces within the same rule set. They maybe have gone overboard with keeping each new army balanced and unlike with future editions of the game the newest army book to come out was not always given the means to crush its enemies... like with the Dark Elf army (pretty much mutually agreed by everyone I knew at the time as utter trash). I remember trying to play Dark Elves for a few months only to give up after losing every game I played (12 games), despite trying a diverse array of strategies against different players. The book just lacked any clear benefits or creative edge in 6th edition that other armies were given.

A 40K "Demon Lord" Taking a Form Mortals Fear Most

All of the "balanced and equal" (except Dark Elves) stuff changed around the time 7th Edition of the game arrived and the rules were dramatically restructured. The Magic phase was given more power, the Movement phase of the game was significantly changed to allow for "clipping" and other somewhat confusing but entirely needed technical maneuvers, the Shooting phase (for war machines) was simplified, and the Close Combat phase was toned down a little bit to where the vanilla game itself felt completely balanced. Though technically complex enough Erratas, Addendums, QA's, and Expanded Rulesets the rules of the game seemed to cover every possible scenario, whereas the 8th edition would just say my least favorite phrase: "Roll a Dice and on a 4+ that person's perception of the rule is correct." It was awesome from the perspective of the player who wanted no grey areas or for the well versed rules-miesters who wanted to call out would-be cheaters (which were rampant) out on their BS. So why do I say that the "balanced and equal" was thrown out while simultaneously praising the core rule book for being balanced?

The Poorly Painted Beginnings of my Chaos Army

Each army book was designed to target a specific set of rules that it intended to break/bend. Dwarves were a neigh-unroutable army who didn't care about psychology, High Elves were a high-speed army that could be built to dominate any one of the three big phases (Magic, Shooting, Combat), Beastmen were fast, tough, and broke conventional movement, Skaven could easily break the shooting phase or the sheer number of models you can field, etc. From the perspective of my Undead army it was awesome because instead of fighting a generic army-type that I could crush with my Vampire Lord if I played my cards right I'd always find myself fighting completely different armies that would require a unique strategy to defeat. I couldn't just plan for the typical 25% shootie, 50% close combat, 25% support (variable) army that dominated the tournaments of 6th edition (regardless of the faction). I had to expect to fight an ultra-elite force of under 50 Brittonian Knights, a standard Dark Elf (which were now viable) shooting army, an ambushing Beastman army, and perhaps a 300+ model Goblin or Skaven hoard army. The rules were extremely diverse and the game's back story was deep enough where I expanded the number of armies I played to include a Dark Elf close-combat assassin army (a very uncommon sight) led by a super-assassin who can hide in the enemy ranks, an underwhelming Skaven army led by "Pinky" & "The Brain", and a well-rounded Chaos Army that I made using hundreds of spare parts from models I'd collected over the years. I can't stress enough that the basic rule-set was solid and the army books allowed for maximal army list creativity.

I played in a lot of tournaments in this edition, even some Grand Tournaments, ranking anywhere from second place (my personal best) to last place. I don't know how but I also seemed to get 'best sportsman' and 'best army composition' a lot, especially when I played with my ever-defeated Skaven army. It's worth noting that I once got to face off against Gav Thorpe (the guy who wrote most of the army books), and had so much fun in the process that I can't even remember who won. We chatted about rules and back-story that were not yet defined while small plastic soldiers murdered each other... Speaking of which, people attempted to cheat with this edition a lot more than the last one (or maybe was just exposed to them more) because there were many perceived grey areas where the main rules directly contradicted the army books, FAQ's, Erratas, etc. The majority of cheaters still did that speed-rolling thing, or would fudge their movement phase, which made the whole 'Clipping' rule a lot more dangerous.

Random GW Model I used for DnD

People invented a lot of Clipping house rules without realizing it and were rarely happy to be corrected on the topic by being handed a well-earmarked page or two of the appropriate book or addendum for clarification. Beyond the horrid misuse of the Clipping rule to the favor of just about every tournament player (to the point where I'd actually talk to them about it before the game even began so we could agree on how we wanted to play the rule, thus avoiding arguments) and shady dice rolling practices, the rules generally didn't allow for a whole lot of accidental rule-flubbing. A new tool called Army Builder was used by almost every tournament that calculated the points, mapped army lists, and it pinged rules-conflicts within the army lists that made cheating on the pre-game side almost impossible. What's more, it became the norm for players to pass their typed and printed copies of their army lists to their opponent before the game even started for rules clarification, making for solid transparency and QA before the game started. People still cheated but it couldn't be mistaken for an honest mistake anymore on the pre-game side. For instance, one guy hacked the program and lowered the point cost of the magic items. It was not very believable that the program just happened to glitch in his favor...

My Skaven

The most common "cheat" I encountered was where people would "remember" the rules from a previous edition (e.g. Clipping, various special rules, psychology, etc) and proxy them in, which is entirely forgivable and easily clarified by showing them the current rules. I just can't stress how well the rules were mapped out in this edition by the end and though it lacked the fluidity of 8th (and i'm told 5th) it wasn't a practice to cheat and "roll a dice" to decide who's right. At almost every tournament it seemed like the same 2 or 3 guys who clearly knew the rules would intentionally tweak and omit rules to their advantage and there was a lot of comfort in being able to call them out on it. Thankfully I rarely seemed to ever face them.

A Work in Progress: My Chaos Lord on a "Demonic Steed"

Regarding army composition, most people (like myself) played really awesomely themed armies. There were exceptions and I made it a personal goal to tweak my army lists to cripple people who tried to break the game. For instance, a ridiculous highlight in my gaming career was a single lucky roll at the start of the game where an enemy Vampire Lord leading a huge "Death Star" army (one giant unit supported by everything else) failed to cast a spell at my Chaos army so I used an item that hurt one of my guys but turned the failed spell into a "Miscast" (where the spell goes horribly wrong and bad things happen). He rolled a "3" on the miscast chart (a bad thing but not too bad) but I was able to use yet another magic item to modify his roll of a "3" into a "2" (instant death to the caster, cannot be saved or stopped in any way) causing his entire army to crumble to dust. The guy sneered at me, packed up his army, and left the tournament (mid-tournament) without so much as a glance in my direction (beyond the sneer). He was one of those 'clearly only there to win' types (we were competing for the semi-finals) who had been a jerk to all his opponents (my buddies), and told the people running the event that he had to leave early because he was missing his daughter's birthday... Which leads me to the question as to why he was playing table-top games on his daughter's birthday in the first place... Anyway, bad sportsmanship aside it was an awesome moment (crushing the spirit of a total power-gamer and jerk with my goofy gimmick army) and I've had some neigh-equally horrible things happen to me over the years that I've found just as enjoyable.

I think the second best experience playing the game was fighting my undead against a total newbie undead player for last place at the end of a tournament. We were playing a basic variation of the same army (very uncommon) only my Vampire-Lord was on a B.A. Dragon while his Vampire-Lord was on a horse; he had a semi-hoard army while I only had my lucky elite Wights. I cut down his general in single combat on the first or second turn, meaning his army slowly began to crumble to dust asked if we could continue playing because he might turn it around. The guy was a good sport about it and a turn later he somehow managed to get lucky and kill my general as well (causing my army to crumble to dust). By the 5th turn of the game there was nothing left on the board... A rarity and technically the perfect draw. I've also had my Vampire Lord murdered by some EXTREMELY lucky peasant archers in close combat, which I found about as hilarious as all of the above. Another fun moment was when I beat a dark elf player once he gave me a nifty Shade (spy/assassin) model with the promise that "he will learn your tactics and report them to me." Over the years I made a lot of friends in the tabletop gaming community under various nicknames, probably for my ability to enjoy just about every game I was a part of.

My Skaven "Hoard" Army was Perfect for 8th Edition

Years into the glorious 7th edition a new edition was announced and the game completely shifted focus. I was a bit peeved at the huge rules changes after finally perfecting my understanding of the game but was open-minded about it where many of my friends just quit. In short, the game had dramatically changed. Army books no longer contained pages of army-specific magic items (instead relying heavily on a list of communal items found in the main rule book), terrain was now a huge part of gameplay (which was a good idea, but they took it to an extreme by giving certain pieces of terrain the ability attack your army or make nearby units neigh unstoppable), heroes and units of small model count (like cavalry or monsters) were all but crippled (because rank and file will likely not flee unless you have more rank bonus [AKA You need to outnumber them to truly win]), and the Magic Phase was dramatically changed (now able to "Instantly Kill" something each turn if done right) (Dispel dice generation changed, giving every army a naturally good defense against magic). While they did away with any form of Guess Range (a key component of the older versions of the game) and made the rules significantly easier to learn, I felt that the game was less diverse. You could no longer field an army of 35 knights and hope to win, or play effectively in any way except with a "hoard" mentality. The Special Characters who were fun and balanced in 7th edition were now banned at tournaments (leading me to wonder why they included them at all) and the impotency of lone heroes, monsters, cavalry & the loss of army-specific magic item lists also inhibited creativity. Though I will happily admit that it's a nicer ruleset than any edition I've played I still don't like it because it specifically crippled all of my strategies.

Immediately the Undead army I'd played for almost a decade was useless. My general could no longer engage the enemy alone and survive (because you can't use Combat Modifiers to affect a Break Check unless you have more Ranks than your enemy or have Flanked them with a unit that has a Rank bonus. Fear & Terror were both also greatly reduced in effectiveness), and my super-elite unit of Wights was now susceptible to the instant magic-death every army has, and the new rules for combat whereby "the attacking order is dictated by Initiative, as opposed to who has charged," meaning that they generally strike last and generally die (for good) before attacking back. Because I specifically intended to avoid a Hoard Army I was forced to retire my now ineffective undead, which I regretfully sold for $80 to pay for Pixel Glass.

Picture Unrelated: My Warhammer 40k Army "Work In Progress"

But that was okay because I still had my Dark Elf army and my Chaos army, both of which I'd spent countless hours painting and assembling (I'd foolishly traded my Skaven shortly before the new edition was announced, and the friend i'd given it to sold them). As it turns out my Dark Elf army was also rent ineffective because it relied entirely upon the enemy's ability to NOT strike back (Elves are notoriously squishy and die easily when hit), which the new rules specifically changed. In the old rules if you killed all the models in base contact no one could attack back as the next wave of troops took time to filter in to replace the dead models, but now that everyone got to attack regardless of where they were at the start of the fight my army of half-naked berserker elf-assassins covered in war paint was also completely useless as even the smallest goblin with a pointy stick could pierce their nonexistent armor.

"The Zoo"

Last was my trusty reliable madhouse army of Chaos people simply called "The Zoo" due to it's insane non-conformity to physics or visual theme beyond... pure chaos... (see what I did there?) The new rules, which work really well for a single magic user entirely cripple the effectiveness of a Super-Magic heavy army, which pretty much described my twisted warband. Fortunately for me, swapping out four magic using heroes for close combat heroes wasn't that hard of a transition but it greatly shifted my strategy from "sit back and throw fireballs at the enemy" to "slowly walk across the board while getting shot at by things that hurt." To make matters worse they combined the multiple defensive saves of "Ward Save" and "Regeneration Save" from two distinct rolls that would save your soldier's lives to a single roll... Further reducing survival odds as my forces slowly trudged across the board. Lastly the aforementioned removal of special characters (which I thought were just plain fun) further reduced my ability to creatively get across the board without buying a completely new army (complete with lots of cavalry to tie up the shooting units while my main force trudged towards combat). On a comical note the rules also completely crippled my friend & regular rival's army (a knight/magic-reliant Brettonian army which had the same problems as my Undead), leaving us both kind of up the creek and unable to effectively face off against one another... Games were now kind of like watching two small children fight with sock-em-boppers when you could be watching boxing... or gladiators...

"More Fun Than A Pillow Fight"

The few 8th edition tournaments I was involved had minimal cheating (speed-dice rolls were about it) largely because before someone rolls you can ask them what they need to roll and verify it by measuring everything yourself. All the mystery to the game is kind of gone, replaced with random elements like quicksand or shrines of 7'' AoE 5+ Ward Save & Stubborn. While the reduction in cheating (from the few games I've played) is a serious plus to the game, I also felt that I never had a chance to win most of the battles I took part in before the first die was rolled because of how the rules force you to play the game (aka, Cavalry being neigh useless). What can 70 men do against 300+ when the primary strengths of the 70 (the ability to "not die easily", the ability to shoot fiery magic-death in mass quantity, the ability to have characters that can take on entire units on their own) are pretty much gone? As much as I seem to like bashing 8th edition I'll admit it's a better game it's just not one i'm personally interested in investing my very limited time to play. As a result The Zoo collects dust on my shelf, biding its time and waiting for the next edition...