Fatigue

Man, maintaining my schedule has been rough. I've been slipping a bit back into unmotivated mode. While I was hoping the antidepressants would help, I haven't really noticed much change so far (almost a month in, so they should kick in soon).

Upside is I haven't yet missed a youtube video release, but I haven't been blogging, working out, or working on game design as much as planned. There's also been a lot going on at work, which has been a bit time-consuming.

We're halfway through February and I've barely started on any of the things I have planned to do for this month, so pair the cheese of demotivation with a glass of 1939 anxiety.

Definitely gonna keep trying to keep up on things, but just so you know I'm struggling a bit and may need to rework my schedule to be somewhat less intense. Thanks for reading.

Altered Preconceptions

I was always kinda intimidated by painting. I saw it as a fine art for which I had no talent, and I didn't want to do poorly and have my artwork seen by other people.

Then a few years back I was flipping through the Magic subreddit and found that some people like to paint on their cards to make them prettier. It looked fun. So I decide what the heck, I can do that. I grab some paints with a 50% off coupon at Michael's and get to work.

Turns out, everybody starts out bad at painting, so I needn't have worried. Here are my first three attempts (some cards in this article are side-by-side with original so you can see the difference.

Clearly needs some work, but I was happy with the result for a first try.

The bottom here is muddy, but the color-matching up top worked out nicely.

I was kinda awestruck at my work on this one.

Then I got interested in the double-faced cards.

Up to this point, I was merely doing border extensions. I decided to branch out a little bit and add some subtle flair.

I was getting better.

One of my favorites.

A brush mistake added to the scene, making the background wavy and uncertain.

But some were still kinda bad.

Still can't get the hang of simple color matching.

Anyhow, I'm trying to get back into it after not having done anything for over a year, and I thought some people might like to see my previous efforts. I'll post more as I make them.

Journey Before Destination

College was rough for me.

I had spent my last two years of high school at a residential "smart school" where I lived with all my friends and, despite my depression, generally felt at home and happy.



High school graduation day was one of the worst days of my life, because I knew I would be forcibly leaving my home and friends behind. I would no longer be comfortable.

Secretly, I was dying inside.

And I was right. College was very different, in part because I attended a commuter campus. The upside was that most everyone there wanted to be there. The downside was that everyone went home after class. It made it very difficult to make friends. Add to this the fact that I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life (and therefore didn't know which classes I should be taking) and I generally felt aimless and life was dull.

To fix this (and try to recapture some of what I had felt in high school) I decided to transfer to IU Bloomington with one of my Academy friends and begin double majoring in physics and astrophysics.

It didn't go well. Between my stress over all the loans I took out for this privilege, my newfound friend group that I used to procrastinate, and my still undealt-with depression, I had a poor semester. So poor, in fact, that I failed my first classes ever and returned home even more hopeless and frustrated than before.

I went back to IUN for a semester before deciding that I needed a break. So rather than enter my third year of college, I moved back to Bloomington for the sole purpose of working and having a good time.

Believe it or not, this was a good decision for me. I got some more job experience under my belt, got promoted to supervisor at Baja Fresh, and generally felt a bit better about my life. I took salsa lessons for fun, started playing Magic weekly at the game store (which is when I got good at the game), and solidified my friendships with the people I had met the year before. While I didn't seem to be accomplishing much, I planted a lot of seeds for things that would be important in the future.

After a year of this, I knew the fun was over and I needed to get back to my college career. The problem remained: what was my career exactly? I didn't know. So I took chemistry and calculus, classes I knew would be important for a variety of career paths. These were fun (if difficult) classes, and probably the best time I had in college. But after a full year of that, and I was still no closer to figuring out what classes I needed to take next.



So when enrollment for the next year opened up, I just...didn't enroll. Depression was creeping back in, and the lack of direction wasn't helpful. I spent several months just playing video games and doing nothing else when my dad sat down and told me I needed to do something, anything. This little talk ruined my DotA game, but he was right.

I got a job working at a bar & grill, which was unexciting but fine.  I continued to focus mostly on video games in my free time, and pretty soon another year was gone.

I got the point that I was sick of sitting around doing nothing. I was sick of wasting all my time instead of accomplishing the things that I wanted to. I felt like I just needed to finish a degree, any degree. I sat down and looked at IUN's various majors and found one that would only take three semesters from where I was -- Spanish.

Now I had a direction. Because I knew what I had decided to do, there was no excuse for missing enrollment or taking blowoff classes. Every class I took was one I needed to graduate. I got a job on campus so I had an easily-accessible job. Three semesters later, I finally received my bachelor's degree. It only took six and a half years for a four-year degree.

This is probably my diploma.

But I don't regret it. It took me a lot of time wandering to finally realize that I have the need and the ability to take active control of my life. Things aren't just going to fall into place. They happen as a result of my choices.

And a lot of the time I wasted resulted in some pretty good things. One of my best friends I met at Bloomington, and we get together to play board games pretty frequently. My job in the math lab those last two years allowed me to meet a friend who introduced me to my now girlfriend. And my delayed graduation allows me to work at Ball State while she is finishing up her degree.

Everything happens for a reason. Not necessarily because everything is part of some grand plan, but because our choices are meaningful, and everything happens because we made choices that led us to those things. And no matter which choices you make in life, you will eventually find meaning in what came before. Life goes on no matter how poorly things have been in the past.

True to that, I still have good days and days where I waste all my time crippled by anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. But it's never too late to make good choices either.

DZP Update: Jan-Feb

Earlier this month, I wrote about the goals I have for this year. I have further divided those goals by month. My plan is to have a monthly update on where my goals for that month and the next stand. Although some of these goals don't appear on my DZP list, they are still important. Also, I couldn't think of any topical photos to include in this post, so I'm gonna break up the wall of text with photos of places I wish I could be right now.



January goals I completed:

- Buy a car: While this hasn't happened yet, I did test drive a car last week. It was good enough, so I'm try to negotiate with the dealer now.

- Revive my dying plant: When I moved to Muncie a year and a half ago, Makenna and I each bought a houseplant. Mine had been going strong for quite a while. Unfortunately, I think I combination of the cold weather and my pot's drainage getting clogged were killing her. While the original plant is now truly dead, I did cut off a couple clippings to propagate her. One of those died, but the other is still going strong a few weeks later. So this may be a success? Too early to tell.



- Make YouTube videos: I posted the first one yesterday. My goal was to have 3-4 by the end of the month. I currently have two that are finished and two that are started. Mission partially accomplished.

- Block schedule my week: I talked about this earlier. I did this and it's been helping me stay on track, though it's not perfect and I'm not always the best at keeping it. But the fact that I'm writing this is evidence of some success there.

- Custom MtG set: Finish first draft of uncommons. I'm mostly happy with where they sit, and I've moved back to the commons. It's coming along. I hope to have this finished by June.

- Plan the year for Day Zero Project: Duh. What does it look like I'm doing?



- Get antidepressants: I started therapy, but it wasn't quite enough. I've been taking Lexapro for a couple weeks now. I should start seeing results in a couple more. Hopefully I will. I gave up drinking for this (lol jk I barely drink anyway).

- Begin exercising regularly: One of my coworkers is a personal trainer. I got him to set me up with a workout plan and help me get comfortable with the gym. It's been going okay. Though I have missed several days, I am doing a lot more than I ever have in the past and that's a success.

- Clean out my phone so it stops being so slow: Well, I cleaned it out. The slow part is still up in the air.

- Print photos of my friends to decorate with: Well, I'm not pleased with the quality of the photos Snapfish sent me, but I do have enough decent ones to decorate. Probably gonna do that sometime this weekend.

- List important birthdays/anniversaries so that dates stop sneaking up on me: Did it! I even got a couple of birthday presents in time for friends' birthdays. It's helping already.




January goals I didn't complete (these will become February goals):

- Make a schedule to keep in touch with people:  The problem is I'm not sure where to start or if my free time will coincide with the people I'm trying to talk to. Still

- Open a savings account:  Just something I totally forgot to schedule,

- Get a bike: Kelsey literally has one in her garage she wants to give me. I just have to go pick it up, but I haven't yet.

- Read Gardens of the Moon: I even scheduled reading time at night. However, that's the part of the schedule I'm not great at keeping up with.



New February goals:

- Get a new wallet:  I almost bought one, then I was like "I can find a cheaper good one online." But nope, I haven't been able to.

- Make MyHeritage give back the money they stole: I cancelled my free subscription in time and they still gave me a full year one. They are the worst.

- Get rid of 100 things: My apartment is a mess, in part because I have too much stuff.

- Visit Kelly: Already planned for the 22nd!

- Practice blind-solving Rubik's cube: Not gonna try to get down to 10 minutes just yet, but I need to practice my memorization a LOT more.


There will probably be more goals added during the month. You will see them when I write next month's update. Thanks for checking in. Stay fresh.

Tourist Destination: Marim

The world of Marim was created when the Great Mirror shattered, scattering fragments of reality across the universe. Or so the philosopher Kriffus wrote, several hundred years ago. He said that each world, each plane is a different piece of the original, harmonious reality, of which now only shadows can be seen. These shadows are the gods, vestiges of perfection in a broken world, who shape it in ways only glimpsed by mortal eyes.

Far to the north, off the coast of the mainland lies an island permeated by mystery. Garos has long been regarded as a cursed place, and to be sent there is a worse punishment than death.

Naturally, I had my party start out on a prison ship bound for Garos. This is the intro to the world I created for my D&D campaign.

The players:

- Katie Miller as Orma, a half-orc barbarian whose drive to rescue her father is equaled only by her desire to kill the wizard who took him and slaughtered her village.

- Chris Miller as Tihgomma, a wealthy dragonborn paladin whose family became destitute in the search for his father, dispatched by political rivals. (Chris and Katie, is your dad okay?)

- Jamie Trost as Saiorse, an elf rogue who like, killed a lot of people.

- Kelsey Witt as Vaerfina, the halfing ranger with no known past.

- Matthew Becker as Ruvin, the dwarf cleric who keeps them all from dying.

As they neared Garos, a sudden storm swept upon their ship and destroyed it. They and the ship's captain, Aslar, were the only survivors, rescued by a group of other prisoners. They discovered that though the island is dangerous, there are many who have survived by banding together into clans. In order to assess their abilities, the clans had our heroes fight against each other.

They impressed three of the clan. They chose to accept Echidna's offer to join the spider clan, who have remained safe from the island's horrors by building the treetop village of Loften.



On the way to Loften, two night wolves (think a wolf the size of a small house) attacked the spider clan. They were defeated, but the spider clan lost Caris, one of its strongest warriors. Before moving on, Saiorse found a pale pink crystal on Caris's body and retrieved it.

The rest of the trip to Loften passed without incident. The party rested there for the night. In the morning, however, after being equipped from Loften's armory, they heard a commotion outside. A crazed woman covered in spiked armor was standing over Echidna, now unconscious. The rest of the spider clan was gathered around. The woman entreated the spider clan to join Rophidian, saying that he had already taken the Cradle of Souls -- a revered place on the island where the souls of the dead are sent to rest peacefully.

The woman left as quickly as she had come, and the spider clan was left to make a decision. Should they travel to the cradle to confirm the woman's words? Or should they fight the forest fires to the north or the giants to the the east, both of whom were threatening to press in closer to Loften? With Echidna down, leadership fell to the second strongest in the clan -- now Orma.



She decided to organize an expedition to the Cradle. She took her fellow survivors (minus Aslar), an intellectual named Clyde, and some redshirts. It was to be a three-day journey.

As they neared the edge of the treetop platforms, the expedition was ambushed by a group of paint-faced warriors: natives of the island of whom little is known. After a drawn-out battle, the natives retreated. The fallen natives also carried pale pink crystals, which the party took. Clyde explained that these crystals are how souls are stored. After a week with a corpse, the soul leaks into the crystal, which is then sent to the Cradle. Without a crystal, the soul will dissipate forever. Saiorse also found a hammer-pendant necklace adorned with two chunks of crystal, one on each face of the hammer.

The expedition pressed on. Three times they came across a huntress named Della in the woods, who invited them to share her meal. Three times they refused. She gave them an uneasy feeling. They thought they may be going in circles, but Clyde the guide confirmed that they were still moving forward.



Along the way, he mentioned they could take a brief detour to a tree that answered any question asked of it. They decided to go.

Upon being asked what they should do about the Cradle of Souls, the tree whispered in words of wind: "you must release what has been bound".

Orma asked where her father was, and received the response "you are where you need to be".

After this, they continued onward, and finally reached the end of the forest. As the trees gave way to rolling yellow fields, the expedition was attacked once more, this time swooped down on by Aarakocra -- bird people.



The party prevailed once more with minimal injury. This is where they remain, until next we meet to continue the story.

StrataGames

As I may have mentioned previously, my family loves games.

My younger brothers and I used to have a Christmas tradition, which was that we would play board games in the morning before we were allowed to wake up my parents. We also used to make escape the room games out of legos. We made our own Star Trek CCG cards, and later on Magic cards.

We've been interested in game design for a while, without really knowing it. But now we're trying to turn it into a real thing. Starting today, we'll be releasing videos on YouTube (1-2 every week) about gaming.



Matthew and Jason are working on Simple Strategies -- a series where you can learn how to play games better. The first one, Five Tribes, is up now at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHOGcgF3Mkk.

Then on Thursdays I will be releasing videos on Magic design. This can be useful for learning how to create your own cards, or just how to understand better how the game works.

Eventually, Jack will join in with some fantasy football.

We hope to build up a following that loves games, so that when we eventually release our own board games, we'll have people interested in our product. If you like us or just think we're funny, please subscribe and watch all our videos (we're keeping them pretty short).

We're very excited about this. Thank you everyone who supports us, and we look forward to building up our brand in 2020.

Andrew's Guide to Love and Murder

Actually, just love. I'm being told the second one is not something I should talk about publicly. But hit me up if you want my thoughts on it. Joking! But seriously though. You know where to find me.

As an awkward, sheltered, homeschool kid, it may surprise you to know that I had quite the array of female admirers in high school (I went to a public school for the last two years). As an awkward, sheltered, homeschool kid, it may not surprise you to know that I was completely oblivious to that fact.

Once I discovered this (one of my friends literally had to point out the signs to me), I didn't know what to do with the information. Which was actually kind of nice. Most of these girls, I wasn't interested in, and as it turns out, a whopping 0% of them had the guts to ask me out. So eventually they just faded away.

I didn't want to date someone unless I was certain they would be worth the time and energy. However, after years of having failed to find anyone who fit that criteria, I got frustrated watching many of my friends going out and having dates for prom and everything else.

So the next time there was someone I was even a little interested in, I asked her out. She was attractive, and nice enough, but deep down I knew that my interest was superficial and wouldn't last.

Sure enough, once I graduated and we were no longer together, I realized I didn't want to put in the energy to date her long distance. I broke up with her by phone and that was that.

Although she hadn't been perfect either, I blamed myself. I knew I shouldn't have dated her in the first place. I had been depressed and hated myself, and was looking for some kind of meaning and support in a romantic relationship.

Fun fact: that's not how it works.

Our society places such importance on having the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend that we miss the beauty in just living a healthy life. Spending time with friends, hobbies, working to improve our skills. Instead we fear that if we don't have someone, we are missing out.

And romantic relationships are great and they are important. I'm not saying that dating for the fun of it is bad. But it should not be so important that you should waylay your life for it.

After many long years of waiting, I do have someone that is worth rebuilding my life for. Someone who meets my basic needs. She is supportive, and adventurous, and open-minded, which are some of the most important things to me. But I was only able to find her and make a relationship work after I dealt with my self-esteem issues.

My point is: stop relying on relationships to fix you. Stop dating people you don't even like just so that you won't be alone. It won't make you happy in the long run. If you're scared of being alone, determine why and deal with that problem. Everyone is different and you're not missing out just because you aren't in a relationship. You're missing out if you allow bad relationships to replace who you are.

Strategy Games

Anyone who knows me knows that I love games. A lot. In 2009, I played a game with some high school friends that would change the course of my life. I played Catan. I lost twice. But I enjoyed it, and it was a different kind of board game from the ones I had spent my whole life playing. Two of my brothers and I all had gift cards to Barnes & Noble, so when we saw Catan there, I suggested we all go in on it.

That was our gateway game.

Ten years later, my family is has shelves and shelves of strategy games, and we host multiple large game days every year. My dad has taken to buying, selling, and trading on BoardGameGeek.com, and gets lots of stuff on the cheap.

Today I'm going to give you my top ten board and card games.







1. Magic: the Gathering

The original trading card game, this game pioneered a new type of game while staying rooted in something simple and resonant: a medieval world filled with magic. The game has strategy, lore, and is incredibly customizable. You can play however you want to play. There's a reason why ten years after I started, I'm still playing and still heavily invested in this game.

2. Android: Netrunner

I'm not gonna lie: I have a weakness for collectible things. A:NR is at least an LCG (Living Card Game), which means that the cards you buy aren't random. If you buy a set, you get 3 of each card, which is as many as you can use in one deck.

What's great about A:NR is the asymmetric strategy. Both players have different goals: one is a megacorporation trying to do (allegedly) evil things, and the other is a hacker trying to steal their data for (allegedly) good purposes. Despite only running for six years, this card game has enormous depth of play and is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I only have one friend willing to play it with me. (It's pretty complex)





3. Terraforming Mars

The first actual board game on my list. Terraforming Mars is another game with megacorporations. The difference here is that EVERY player is a megacorp, and each is looking to terraform the red planet in its own unique way.

The best part of this game is how huge it is. There are so many corporation options, and so many cards in the deck, that you can play dozens of times and still find new strategies. The best part of this is that even when I lose, I don't mind because I had a lot of fun accomplishing the things I did. My family has been obsessed with this game for probably a year now, and we're still enjoying it.




4. Dominion

Surprise, surprise. More deckbuilding. But this one has you build the deck during the game, and the replayability is incredibly high thanks to the fact that you only use ten out of twenty-five sets of cards whenever you play. This means there are 3 million ways to play in just the base set alone. Once you add an expansion, things get out of control quickly.

However, the game can start to feel stale if you just stick to the suggested sets of ten on the backs rulebook. That said, it's still one of my favorites. Pro tip: try to trash all your starting cards.




5. Castles of Burgundy

Castles of Burgundy is one of those games that offers you more to do than you can actually accomplish in a single game. This is both a blessing and a curse. It's frustrating that I can't fill my entire board, but it's good gameplay to make players pick and choose what will be the most beneficial game plan in the long term.


6. 7 Wonders

My family latched onto 7 Wonders hard because it's one of the only games that can play almost all of us. It's a drafting game (which I love), which is where you get a hand of cards, you get to pick one, and then you pass the rest to another player. Rinse and repeat until the cards are gone. Once you know what you're doing, games only take half an hour.





7. Concordia

Welcome to ancient Europe, where you will be buying and selling goods to build cities in various provinces. The cool part of this game is that the cards you play to determine your action each turn are also worth points in various ways, so you have to buy them both based on what they will do for you and how many points they give you. Pro tip: buy as many cards as you can.




8. Five Tribes

Like Castles of Burgundy, Five Tribes offers you more to do than you actually can. This is made more severe by the fact that all of your options affect (and are affected by) the options that other players take. You'll be playing the game, working on your strategy, and suddenly realize there are only two moves left in the game. The meeples dry up quickly out in the desert.

That said, the quick end leaves you wanting more. This is a great strategy game for when time is limited.





9. Scythe

The only war game that my family plays. Like most war games, it takes a long time to play. However, the game mechanic of moving your token to a different location on your board each turn, each with its own actions, is brilliant. It limits what you can do each turn in an interesting way and challenges you to find the most efficient combinations of effects.





10. Love Letter

This is an incredibly fast game. Rounds can take as little as a minute, though most probably run closer to three. Each player has a secret role and is trying to figure out who everyone else is while simultaneously switching out their role for a more powerful one.

It's an airtight social deduction game that, despite its simplicity, can entertain for hours (though it serves better as an in-between activity).




There you have it. Andrew's top ten games (as of now). Don't pay too much attention to the specific ranking (I didn't). Just know that these are all great games for people who like strategy. If you don't....I dunno, play Candyland.