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The Wheels Are Still Turning

I was stoked for the first game but with each stand being a unit, there were too many units on the table for the mechanisms to flow well and keep up interest and excitement in the game so something had to change.

#2: An old chestnut of a scenario and improvised basing but a brisk game. 

After rejecting various options as too "gamey" and abstract or too tedious, I remembered that I had at one point contemplated a system where 2 stand units occupied two adjacent 3" grid squares giving an easy way to reflect formations and frontages without complex or confusing rules or  excessive empty space to confuse me mid-game or distort the look of the thing.  The result feels much more "old school" than the Square Brigadier ever did but with all the convenience of a simple gridded game.

So far that is! Early days yet.

Reminder: 10Th Online School Championships - 8 February 2020.

It is expected that Blake Govender (Oakhill School) will be playing in order tomaintain his spot in the Protea Team.

MSSA is proud to announce that it will once again hold its 10th School Provincial Online Championships on 8 February 2020.

The championship may be used by gamers to qualify for eligibility to be selected for the National Squads, from which the National Teams shall be drawn, should MSSA need to choose a team for any of the titles played in such championships.

MSSA's School Online Championships has become South Africa's largest official online championship. It is an event that lasts from 10H00 until 18H00 and has proved itself to be a most enjoyable event.

The esports titles to be played in all MSSA's school championships and leagues are as follows:

Period/genre	Title	Platform	Age restriction	Players
Shooter	CS GO	PC,	16	5 v 5
	Paladins	PC/console	12	5 v 5
Sport	FIFA '20	PC	3	1 v 1
	PES 2020	PS 4	3	1 v 1
MOBA	Dota 2	PC	12	5 v 5
	League of Legends	PC	12	5 v 5
	Clash Royale	Mobile	12	1 v 1
	VainGlory	Tablet/cell	12	3 v 3
Fighting	Street Fighter V	Console	12	1 v 1
Card	HearthStone	Mobile	7	1 v 1

MSSA would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the dedicated Educators for ensuring that the school teams are ready-and-able and for giving up so much of their time and patience. Only once the learners have left school will they really comprehend what the Educators have done for them.

The championship would not be possible without the continued support from Educators.

Thank you!

Tournament Structure:

As per the MSSA's rules, being:

• If less than six players, the championship shall be a Round Robin Championship
• If 6 to 10 players the championship shall be four rounds as played to the Swiss System
• If 11 to 30 players the championship shall be five rounds as played to the Swiss System

Eligibility:

• Any player/team who is a Registered Player affiliated to a school affiliated to MSSA may enter through such school club.

Entry fee:

• Entry is R35.00 per Registered Player.
• Only fully-paid-up Registered Players may participate in this event.

Entry date:

• Entries need to be submitted by no later than Wednesday, 5 February 2019.

Registration:

• To register, the Educator-in-charge must complete the Google Drive document. The entry form may be found on Google Drive. Educators are to download the entry form, completed the downloaded form, and e-mail it to Mind Sports South Afica. The link for such form is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M07rv0ER9jqE25IqMNZqGlsUPqJaE_X2/edit#gid=1844490715

Age restrictions:

Educators must ensure that their teams/players are compliant with South Africa's age restrictions per game title. Under-aged players shall not be allowed to compete.

Medals:

Medals shall be awarded to the first three gamers for both men and women in the following categories:

• MEN: The top three places (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd)).
• WOMEN: The top three places (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd))

Please note that the medals shall be awarded to the players at the next LAN championship in which such team/player enters and participates.

Colours:

• School Provincial Colours: All Players that win all of their Matches at a Provincial Championship will earn School Provincial Colours. All Players who score within the top 50% in a specific Period at a any two (or more) Provincial Championships, and who also score within the top 50% at a National Championship in the same period and in the same year, will earn School Provincial Colours.

When and Where:

• 8 February 2020
• The first round will start at 10H00. Players shall be given 60 minutes to complete each round. 
• Players must all be on-line at 9H00.

The championship is accredited as being of the same status as a provincial championship. This means that the championship shall be used for the following:

• The awarding of school provincial colours;
• The awarding of medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places for both men and women;
• The ability to qualify for National Team Trials. 

As usual Trials shall be done at a LAN venue, and the team that can best represent South Africa shall then be selected.

Shout casting:

• The MSSA shall decide who may shout-cast the games.
• Anybody wishing to be appointed as a Shout-Caster must apply in writing to mindsportscorrespondence@gmail.com 

Also read:

• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• https://esportscommentator.blogspot.com/2019/09/entry-fees-for-provincial-and-national.html
• How school clubs affiliate for the 2020 season.

• 2020 Calendar of Events
• The various events held by Mind Sports South Africa.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• New National Team Selection Criteria
• Selecting the national Protea teams for Mind Sports South Africa.
• MSSA's umpiring course - 25 January 2020.
• The road to Eilat

Windows 10X: Everything You Need To Know About The Foldable PC OS - Ars Technica

Windows 10X: Everything you need to know about the foldable PC OS

Leaked Canon EOS R5 Image Gives Us Our First Glimpse Of The Mirrorless Powerhouse - Ars Technica

Leaked Canon EOS R5 image gives us our first glimpse of the mirrorless powerhouse

Barbarrossa Pictures

 
A couple of weeks ago I ran a cracking weekend of 3 x 1941 Russian Front games for Big Chain of Command at the Wargames Holiday Centre for Mr Freeth - Here are a few pictures from the weekend, which was based around the German drive to Cherkassy in August 41
A great time was had by all, many thanks for a great weekend played in an excellent spirit

Rubicon T34 supported by Warlord and Crusader infantry  

Ruined building from Charlie Foxtrot

Germans chased out of the factory courtyard

T34 turns into a T26! (the wonders of photography)

Warlord T26, wrecked Opel from Anyscale models 

T26's move up past a Things from the Basement house, re-worked 20mm 4Ground house on the right 

The 2 rear buildings are from Scenic Store

Cat and mouse in the outskirts of Cherkassy

 

Rubicon Panzer III supports the infantry

Pioneer section moves along a ridge to clear the minefields

Black Tree Design and Warlord infantry, 

Soviets attempt to stop the pioneers clearing the minefields

Warlord and Crusader Soviets

T26 comes off worse from an encounter with a Panzer IV

BTD ATR section waits for a target

Building burns following a Stuka attack

Grenadiers come under fire

Soviets attempt to outflank the pioneers while they clear the mines

Game 2: Patrol phase

Outskirts of Cherkassy - ready for game 3

The table for the weekend

Anti- tank rifle section after scaring a Stug!

Game 2 - Stuka hits a Charlie Foxtrot building in its first game....typical

Experimenting With Outlines

I posted recently about how I often do one-week projects to learn and experiment. I don't have a strict one-week time limit. Sometimes I'll extend a project or come back to it after I've learned something new.

Ten weeks ago I had a one-week project in which I wanted to draw outlines on an isometric view of a dungeon game. I didn't want to outline each block, which could be implemented easily by editing the sprites. Instead, I wanted to outline the larger units. Here's a comparison:

Outlines around every sprite vs around walls

The second thing I wanted to do was to implement all of this in shaders. My first attempt was to draw a "surface id" to a texture, and then draw black outlines whenever the surface changes.

Draw a black line whenever the surface id changes

There were lots more details to implement, including outlines around billboard sprites, field of view, and lighting of wall blocks beyond the outline.

Dungeon map with outlines

I was pretty happy with that, even though it had some glitches, and I decided that project was finished.

A few weeks later I re-opened this project to explore a different approach. Instead of drawing the lines in a post-process step, I wanted to draw the lines as the sprites were being rendered. I posted some images on Twitter and got a suggestion from @Rezoner, who had made a version where some lines were white and some were black, depending on camera direction. I took that idea and ran with it, making white lines where the player could see the walls.

Dungeon map with lit and unlit outlines

I was pretty happy with this version too. I then merged the code together into one unified demo, with a toggle. Now I think I'm finished. But who knows? Maybe I'll re-open it later.

Take a look at the demo!

Things for me to keep in mind:

• The one-week self-imposed deadline is just a rough guide. I don't have to follow it strictly.
• Sharing unfinished work can lead to more ideas for improvement. I should share more things early.
• Sometimes all I need is a proof of concept. I don't need to make everything work perfectly. If I actually use this in a real project, I can work out those details then.

Newly-Made High Quality Controllers For Vintage Consoles

When you see new controllers being sold for your retro video game systems in your local retro video game store and in many online stores, they are typically of the atgames, Tomee, Cirka, Retro-bit, Gamerz-Tek or Hyperkin quality, which is essentially no-quality.  When you buy these controllers, expect cheap plastic, stiff or rattling buttons, thin and short wires, useless turbo options and terrible D-pads.  Occasionally one can find quality products that go above and beyond and try to compete or exceed the quality of original, first-party controllers.  Let's take a look at some of the respectable options for your classic consoles.


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You say "obsessed" as if it is a bad thing.

Answering Alex Schroeder - How's My Campign? Just Fine!

Alex Schroeder asks a few questions on his blog/site to folks who've been running their campaigns for awhile. With ten years going and three active games within the campaign (plus wargames!), I thought I'd answer him about Etinerra!

How many sessions have you been playing, more or less?
Tabletop: 92 (we play monthly and I took a break for some time)
Online: 24
Play by Post: Running 2009 to 2011, then 2015 to present
Conventions/One Shots: Under 20

How long have you been running this campaign?
Ten years, although I took a break from July 2011 to Jan 2015. There were a few sporadic games at conventions during that time.

Have you had long breaks? If so, how did you pick it up again?
Yes. I spoke to existing players, I picked back up where I left off in both play by post and tabletop.

How many people are at the table when you play?
4 to 8. I average 4 players/session for 2019.

How many characters are in the party when you play?
Same number of characters as players. Average of 3 henchmen/hirelings per party.

How many players have you had in total over that time period, not counting guest appearances?
I would estimate 50, between regular tabletop, online and pbp players.

Have you had guest appearances? How did it go? Did you gain regular players that way?
I would count both guests to my regular games and one-shots. It's gone great, for 99%. The ones that weren't so great, they just didn't have fun, so they didn't come back. I have gained regular players!

What have the character levels been over time?
1st level up to 6th.

What classes did the players pick? Did you add new classes over time?
We use the core classes from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition, with the exception of assassin. No dwarfs, gnomes or half-orcs in my campaign. I have not added new classes, though I've modified aspects of paladins and now about to do same with monks.

Tell me about some adventures you ran over that time that I might enjoy hearing about?
I've blogged about that quite a bit! 

Have the rule changes over that time? Do you maintain a house-rules document?
I've stuck with 1st edition, although I've changed some things. We're more by-the-book with combat now. For the most part, I've stuck with the same rules, with tweaks here and there. I have a house rules document!

Has the setting changed over time?
Define changed? It's expanded as players have explored and new games started, or I've played wargames within the world. It's the same world/setting/themes, if that's what you mean.

How much in-game distance did the party cover, how big is the area they have visited?
The continent that the players are on is roughly the landmass of Russia. I'd say the players of all 3 games have covered maybe 10% or so of the available landmass.

Have you used proprietary setting books? Like, could you publish your campaign or would you be in trouble if you did?
It's completely homebrew, no inclusion of other settings, though heavily influenced by almost everything! I'd probably be in trouble in that I can't imagine doing a book on my setting or people wanting to read about it and I wouldn't make a dime! It's strange, I guess. I am so proud of my world, and yet I constantly feel like an idiot compared to some of the other awesome cool worlds that I read about. I compare myself to  others and always feel like I come up lacking.

Brave Browser voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

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