Sleeping Through Means Games
You might think the challenges of having a baby are greatest in those first few weeks, and that after you’ve figured out how to keep a small person alive, you’ll be able to go straight back to your previous routines. Nope. Do you hear that crazed laughter? Yeah, that was me.
New challenges continually present themselves. Keeping baby entertained, or calming him when he gets mad.. such as when his hardest efforts to crawl only result in him moving backwards across the carpet. Keeping baby contained.. not only out of danger, but out of the cat food too!
I thought I would be back to the whole gaming and blogging thing fairly quickly. I wasn’t prepared for how much of my world my little guy would take up, and continue to take up (though I wouldn’t have it any other way <3 ). There’s also something about spending too much time on Facebook and Reddit.. easy to drop in and out of, especially towards the end of the day, but after a while the diminishing returns leave me even more drained.
However, there are two magical phrases that have relevance here: “getting in a routine” and “sleeping through”.
We’ve achieved the first in terms of bedtime, freeing up some time in the evenings, and had partial success with the second, which means I have a bit more energy and enthusiasm to do something instead of waiting till a socially acceptable time to go to bed! Sleeping through means games 🙂
In the last week I’ve completed Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, run through some Adventure mode and Rifts with friends, and re-subbed to WoW ahead of the latest patch. Oh, and started writing again.. we’ll see if I can keep it up, shall we?
Gamescom 2014 Conferences
Microsoft’s Gamescom 2014 conference focused on games (rather than more TV) and the announcement of three new Xbox One bundles: the FIFA 15 Xbox One bundle, the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle (grey with orange trim and a 1TB harddrive), and Sunset Overdrive which will feature the white Xbox One.. interestingly, Kinect is not bundled in.
Looking to Gamescom 2014
We’re just a week away from Gamescom 2014 now.. time to catch up on what’s happening in the gaming world!
Amongst the more interesting headlines.. Valve is rumoured to have slipped the Source 2 engine out, via the Dota 2 Workshop tools. Fans of the game found references to Source 2 in file names and routines, and the new and improved engine has been rumoured for a while. Valve has made no comment as yet, so we’ll have to wait and see..
Blizzard will be celebrating World of Warcraft’s 10 year anniversary this November with some in-game activities. Players can look forward to Tarren Mill vs Southshore, a special 40 player Raid Finder version of Molten Core and a Molten Corgi pet for those logging in during the event.
Ubisoft have released screenshots and gameplay details about their newest Settlers game, Kingdoms of Anteria. Part city builder, part action strategy, Kingdoms of Anteria allows players to build, manage and expand their kingdom, whilst fighting enemies to gain loot and resources with up to four players. Closed beta launches soon.
BioWare has been teasing something with their short videos (You’ve Been Chosen).. we won’t have to wait long to find out what this one’s all about, as a special fan event takes place next week, at the beginning of Gamescom 2014.
Towns Abandoned
Towns, the city-building RPG which was one of the first games to be accepted onto Steam’s Greenlight system, has now been abandoned.
The Last Tinker: City of Colors Preview
The Last Tinker: City of Colors is a bright and beautiful platformer from indie developer Mimimi Productions, coming in the second quarter of 2014 to PC (Windows and Linux) and Mac.
The Blog of a Gaming Mummy!
It’s been a while since I updated anything on the site.. and that’s because I’m now the proud mummy of a lovely baby boy!
I had expected to take a few days away from the site, then getting back to posting and gaming again, but it didn’t quite work out that way. I vastly underestimated the time needed to look after a newborn, and overestimated the amount of interest I’d have in anything else for a while too 🙂
Since I’m now a gaming mummy, the phrase “family-friendly” may appear more frequently.. though I’ll always have time for shooting a few zombies or exploring the world in whichever RPG appeals. Just maybe a bit less time 😉
Never fear, May Contain Spoilers won’t turn into a blog about babies.. but I can’t resist adding one obligatory newborn picture here!
PAWS – Prime Alien Watch Squad
P.A.W.S. (Prime Alien Watch Squad) is a casual strategy battle game for iOS, Android and PC, designed to be simple to learn and fun to play, with procedurally generated battlefields and cute hand-animated sprites and gorgeous backgrounds.. who said strategy couldn’t be cute?
The Kickstarter campaign is seeking a $30,000 funding goal to allow this game to be completed.. it has been in development for 18 months already, with an alpha available for Windows players.
Neverwinter Shadowmantle launches December 5th
Shadowmantle, the second expansion for Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter, is due to launch on December 5th! This free content update introduces the Hunter Ranger as a new character class, and an entirely new zone, the Dread Ring, an ashen field buried deep within the Neverwinter Woods.
Marvel Heroes Fire & Ice PvP Live!
Gazillion Entertainment have just launched the new Player versus Player (PvP) mode, Fire & Ice, for the free massively multiplayer online action RPG, Marvel Heroes! Gazillion has also revealed that the kinetically charged, card-flinging X-man from Bourbon Street, Gambit, also makes his debut as a playable hero this month. Both serve as extensions to Marvel Heroes’ largest content release to date, Game Update 2.0 – Asgard.
Bundle Stars – The Outer Limits Bundle
Bundle Stars brings you The Outer Limits Bundle, 10 eye-popping Steam PC games across strategy, action-adventure, puzzle, shoot ‘em up and racing genres. Set your phasers to “stunning” and enjoy 10 out of this world PC Steam games for only $3.99…a discount of more than $135 off the normal retail price!
