Farmville layouts

My mother, who owned an NES as a kid, and occasionally played NSMBW and Mario Kart Wii on the Wii when my brother and I were kids, has recently bought a Nintendo Switch. She is having trouble getting used to the more modern controller layout that the Switch Joycons offer compared to the simplicity of a Wii Remote or the classic NES controller. She has tried playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Super Mario Odyssey, and a little bit of Mario Kart, but she fumbled around with the controller a lot while trying to figure out how to play these games. Do you have any tips or insight on how I could help her warm up to modern controllers? It would be nice if this Switch purchase didn't go to waste, so I'd like to get her familiar enough with the console's controls so that she can easily play the games that she bought.
Edit: She doesn't really have interest in playing any games that aren't Mario or Zelda related, so I've got her started on Princess Peach: Showtime, which should be a nice and easy start. She has tried Mario Odyssey, but some of the sections that are intuitive to modern gamers tended to confuse her since she's never played an open world in her life. Mario Wonder also seemed overwhelming for her in terms of needing reaction speed and dexterity with a controller, so Princess Peach: Showtime was the best option I could come up with. I'll try to get her to play it often enough to get used to the controls.
I also got her Stardew Valley, which I'm hoping will be fun for he, since she loves Farmville. She hasn't played it yet, but I hope it'll help her learn controls.

I just want to share some ideas. I think some keystone quests should open up in the endgame that give new functions/abilities.
Ideas for a lvl 60 keystone quest. Set a location for an alternate teleport.
The occultist has a new apprentice who doesn't speak. She does know how to make "tangible scroll of teleport" though, somehow. It's difficult to make, requires ancient silk or some such. The occultist won't let you engage with their apprentice. "back to work cleaning!, sorry about that." The trader Goren is the only person who's bought a scroll so far. Talk to him. Goren is a successful trader, capitalist. "I only use them for emergencies - they're soo expensive. You can't get that silk, no one knows how to weave and imbue like that anymore" Well, he's actually been using them to teleport large amounts of looted goods from a mine or sacked town or something. You bring him to justice. "if you let me go, i'll tell you how I found the silk, then you can make your own blah blah" And so, you get a tangiable scroll of teleport, to be able to set an alternate teleport spot. You can set it next to the blacksmith, or next to your chest, or anywhere in any capital. Or possibly, just anywhere.
Idea for level 70 keystone quest. Choose where to set a new waypoint stone and acquire a house in a village.
The occultists mute apprentice run errands and was scolded for leaving goods behind at an unknown waypoint stone. "Can you help her? she's useless!" you go looking for the stuff. She opens a teleport and you go thru, looking for the goods. You find an inactive minor waypoint stone in the first settlement option but no goods, so she opens another teleport. She guides you through 4 different options for a place you can open a new waypoint, so you can choose a settlement. at some point she speaks "sorry" and then she's real chatty. "I'm just laying low.. the less I said the better" She's Horadrim trained, and quite talented. She opens all 4 portals so you can explore each place and decide which one you want to activate. "I'll active a waypoint for you, but please, keep my indentity secret. I just need to hide out for a few more weeks." When you set your new waypoint stone some quest opens up to rescue the blacksmith, free the jeweler, find the occultist, and encourage merchants to sell and buy armoujewelry/weaponry. You could get to choose the layout of where each NPC each sets up shop, to design the town in your own way a small bit.
A quest early on would be someone selling you a house, well a ruin. But it has potential. And once you fix it up you can make a vault. A huge chest, but it isn't linked to your main chest. It's large, but can only be accessed here. The seasonal chest/bench can also be in your house. I'm not saying we throw farmville into Diablo, but we all have our favourite town or place, and it would be fun to have an extra teleport to our own place. Could be that it's not required, but if you do this quest you have your town laid out in a very accessible way, and with seasonal chest/benches this could be the only way to have every utility at one location.
Another side quest will let you add a laddejump/slide/rope to your town that makes it more accessible/fun to move through.
Just some ideas. I think there needs to be big keystone moments at 60 70 80 and 90. I'm sure most of this has been thought of and considered already, probably.

Family Island - Guide
3000SB
Challenge - get to level 15 in 5 days
Region - UK
Numbers are keyed to the photos above.
All details correct as of date posted
Currently on the discover wall is the above offer. I saw this at 2000 a good month ago and my first reaction was to have Farmville 3 PTSD nightmares and dismiss it but actually, though its similar, it's absolutely possible to complete and no way as needy as that game.
Though the offer is on the wall, I found it out by email. The email I had said the offer will change on the 2nd of June so if you intend to do this one, do it before then.
You get 5 days to complete the challenge, I did it in 2. These were, for the most part, 2 solid days of having my phone on all the time whilst I was waiting for timers. Not the most gripping of games but needed no spending at all.
I will pop the details of the guide below. For a TLDR too long didn't read) version:

• once you complete the tutorial make sure you like their Facebook page and make sure you have your notifications on. The FB page gives daily gifts, at least 1 a day.
  
  • as soon as you are able to, put down the crop fields and get working on growing roots.

-be frugal with keys and the golden tools (axe, spade etc).

• remember at least once a day to check every island for free energy, including your own island.
  
• try to keep salt for cooking
  

Guide
Intro
So, I completed this one in 48 hours or so. You get 5 days, so you don't need to speedrun it like I did but it cost me nothing and I was able to balance it with doing random shit at home, like chores etc.
I practically had my phone on the game the whole time for this one. Its a good challenge to do if you don't mind mindlessly clicking things and waiting. I did loads whilst watching TV.
So, when you start the game and finish the tutorial, you'll get the basic layout of the game and your island. Make sure that you don't use any keys or gold tools unless it's part of the tutorial and save any salt collected (more below).
Then either go to Facebook and like their page and follow or do it in game here (1).
Levelling up
Got to get to level 15. Top left corner is your player level. (2). No levelling up buildings for stupid amount of resources here. You can level up without building buildings at all but this would take an age. Simplest way to play is to follow the tasks on the left side of the screen (3). These will come and go as you play and fulfil them. Keep doing these to unlock things to build and create.
Roots
Roots are the first crop item you get to grow and tbh, they are the only one you really need to concern yourself with. They take 2 irl (in real life) minutes to grow each one and you can instant grow them after 90 secs. You can then sell them for 1 experience each. When you get to level 11 I think, you get your last crop field before level 15 so you can grow 8 at a time. Doesn't sound much but when you are harvesting and growing them every 2 mins it all adds up and you can earn so much experience from it. I probably earned the most experience in this game from growing roots. Harvesting roots will make up 90% of this challenge. Boring but effective.
The hearth and the dining table
Early on you get to build the hearth. The hearth allows you to cook food items and the table allows you to serve them up. Eating served food gives you energy and once a day you can boost the energy given by watching ads (4). Don't worry about upgrading the table. There is a task to do this later in the challenge.
Salt
Salt is really important and since you can't get them from the Shaman for this challenge (I presume because you get to level 15 before the option to trade with him appears) they are only found in clams, starfish, chests or as rewards for completing tasks. All randomly earned. Every item you can cook requires salt. Save your salt for making roasted meat. It gives you a good amount of energy.
Other islands
So early on, you'll get the option to go to different islands. I would mostly ignore these unless there is an event going on or something that gives you extra rewards. In my case, I was doing the movie island challenges. Though you get loads of energy for exploring them, they also cost a lot of energy. Can't really say for sure if the other islands are worth investing time and energy in to be honest. Again, I spent most of my time harvesting crops, so I'll let you be the judge.
The merchant
Can't remember what level but you get access to the merchant fairly early on. I'd really only use him for the keys he gives. Everything else is kinda whatever.
Can't think of anything else at the moment. This challenge maybe advertised as getting to level 16 but it pends at level 15 for 14 days. (5)
Any questions, please ask whilst it's fresh in my mind (it won't be for long!).
Thanks for reading.

We have the nintendo switch and these are some games my wife have played and enjoyed in order from best to worst:
Animal Crossing
Super Mario odyssey
Zelda BOTW
Super Mario deluxe U
Metroid dread
Mario Maker 2
Super Mario 3D all star
Paper Mario
Kirby
Super Mario Party
Pokemon
Luigis mansion 3
She did not like Super smash bros
I have suggested Fire Emblem but she did not like the trailer, characters, the fighting or the layout of the map. She is more of a candy chrush and farmville gamer, which I dont like.
I liked
Zelda BOTW
Super Mario deluxe U
Metroid dread
Mario Maker 2
and I also play on PC. I played GTA V, CSGO, PUBG, Flight sim 2020 and Elden ring (it got to hard for me and I quit after hitting a wall after 150hours.
Any suggestions for games we can play together on the switch or a not so hardware dependent PC game? (She has my old 2016 gaming computer after I upgraded in 2020)

Hey!
My mom's phone is slowly going to an end. Since its christmas soon my sister and I would like to get her a new phone.
It needs to be an android, since none of us ever used any iphone before. I've done some research but cant really decide between 3 phones.
The phones I picked out would be:

1. Google Pixel 6a - cheapest is 349€ for the 128gb version
2. Samsung A53 - cheapest is 337€ for the 128gb version
3. Samsung A52s - cheapest is 289€ for the 128gb version

Our budget is at around 350€. If theres anything a lot better available in germany for 400€, I can go with that.
I know about the A53 and A52s difference, one has longer support while the other has a better processor, SD Card slot and headphone jack.
I've never seen here use headphones tho. Her current phone has 64GB of storage and it seems like thats enough for here so I assume 128GB will be fine.
It will be used for normal phone stuff and playing candy crush / farmville, I assume those dont count as heavy gaming. Button layout or anything wont be an issue, she will get used to a new layout. Her current phone is a samsung, I think its from the A series also, but not 100% sure.
​
Im leaning more towards the A53 or 6a, since she usually wont upgrade unless its broken or has issues.

*BANG* “He’s down.” is what I heard as I quickly and quietly crammed myself into a locker. I tried to quiet my breathing as the guards swept through the halls, guns and flashlights in hand. I swear to you I was moments away from being caught before a scream came from further down the hall and the guards rushed after it.
So yeah, that’s what made my life become the living hell that it is. I rarely sleep, I can never stay in one place, relationships are a thing of the past, my life is nothing but a game of cat and mouse at this point. I keep running and they keep finding me, this is how it’ll be until the day I die.
I know none of this makes sense, I’ll explain. I’m a bit of an anarchist, and when you happen upon a group of like minded people who ALSO just so happen to have found the location of a secret government lab, it means big things are stirring in smalltown Minnesota.
Putting government facilities out in the middle of empty farmville never made sense to me. I mean, yeah, I guess people are less likely to look out there, but it’s such an inconvenience in every other way. How do you even plan to move supplies into it? Oh yeah no one will notice the line of military vehicles slowly descending into the middle of a field. Flawless logic, one point to the US government. Then again, not many people live out here, I don’t know, just seems dumb.
When I was grocery shopping once a month, like usual, yeah I live alone, I looked at the pinboard in the front of the store. It’s usually the same thing every day,one free guitar lesson, volunteer opportunities, donations needed, a group of anarchists looking for fellow rebellious people, etc. Well maybe not that last one, that one's not always there and it caught my attention. Should they really be advertising like that? Like,”Hey! Everyone! We’re looking to overthrow the government!” It was searching for new members, I quickly took it down and stuffed it in my pocket, I didn’t want to risk anyone else seeing it and I needed the number for later.
So that kind of explained it, right? At least part of it, you’ll likely piece the rest together as I go on. If you can’t, well, sorry.
After I got home and finished putting the groceries away, I took out the paper and flattened it on the counter. I read it over again, “Anarchists looking for like-minded people willing to join the cause, if interested, contact us [REDACTED].” Of course it wasn’t redacted on the sheet, but I’m not giving away the information to you guys, I’m doing you a favor.
Anyway, I emailed the address, saying that I found their flyer and told them I was interested. After that, I made dinner and ate alone, watching TV, as always. See this is why I needed a change in my life, everything was so mundane and repetitive that I felt like I could feel my sanity slipping away each day I went on. I couldn’t keep living like that, otherwise I’d probably end up like Hemingway. Guy was a cool writer and all but the end didn’t see that appealing to me.
I checked my email one more time before bed at around 2:00 AMish. Not like the guy with the beards but the time. Like, roughly around that time. Why am I even explaining this? I checked my email and saw I had received a response. There was no subject and the only thing it contained was a link, I ran the link through my virus protection and it came back clean, I clicked it.
“Government Spy Catcher” was the title of the google survey it brought me to, oh great. The survey contained two questions, “1. Are you a government spy? (A.) Yes, I’m a filthy spy. (B.) Ew, no.” and the second, “2. Are you sure? (A.) Yes. (B.) No.” I was beginning to see the type of people I was dealing with. I answered it anyway, because why not? B and A, obviously. I submitted it and went to bed, only guessing what I could expect in the morning.
“Yo, get up.” is what I could (but didn’t) expect apparently. I looked over to my laptop, seeing I hadn’t closed it before passing out last night. There he was, who I’d come to know as James, later on. He was dressed like a...don’t even know. He was like the mix of a stereotypical 90s hacker along with an FBI agent who became a basement dweller. His hair was slicked back, but he was wearing a suit jacket with a white t-shirt and jeans. He looked kind of what I’d imagine a formal greaser to look like.
After recovering from that rude awakening, I looked at him, “I don’t recall ordering a wake up call, who are you, again?”
“Doesn’t matter, you answered the survey, I’m here to do one final check.”
It took a moment for last night’s quick questionnaire to return to my waking mind, but then I remembered.
“Ah, yeah, right. Alright so what’s left to ans-”
“Are you a government spy?!”
“Wh- No.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Alright, you’re in, here’s the address, be there by 10, tonight.”
An address quickly popped up onto my screen through the notepad app, just as quickly as it arrived, James left.
“But I have work then…” I said half to the absent James and half to myself. Well, guess I’m calling in sick. I’m sure they’ll just love that.
After calling in sick, I got out of bed and checked the time, it was only 10 AM, 12 hours to kill. I decided to spend it doing various pointless things that aren’t even worth writing here, so I’ll just skip to the good part.
I left for the address around 9:40 PM, arriving a few minutes early. It led to a pretty normal looking house, just WAY out in the country. I pulled into the driveway, and turned off my car. As I stepped out, a woman opened the door to the house, shrouded in darkness.
“Are you (You’re not getting my name)?”
“Ye...Yeah?”
“Then get it! Quick quick quick!”
I rushed over to the door, mentally going over the fact that this could very well be the last place I ever enter, and stepped inside.
The inside was of course, pitch black. I flipped a nearby lightswitch and the woman slapped it back down, returning the room to darkness.
“No! No electric light!”
“Why?”
“*sigh* It doesn’t look as cool! Duh!” she said, cracking a glow stick.
“Ah, right then.” I said, slowly nodding, but also giving her a very confused look.
“Ugh, where does James even find these people…” She muttered to herself “Follow me.”
Not wanting to deal with this woman alone any longer, I followed her. She led me through the fairly normal looking home, albeit a bit decrepit, to a dusty living room. There was nothing notable about it, it was filled with regular living room furniture. There was an old Zenith TV (wow) a lumpy couch and loveseat, a lamp, coffee table and two very clearly fake plants. Oh and a rug, a rug she moved to reveal a metal hatch, honest to God. She reached behind the TV and flipped a switch, the metal hatch slid open and revealed a well lit staircase that descended far beyond what I could see from the top.
She motioned for me to start walking down, I did a double take. She rolled her eyes, made an annoyed sound, and started leading me down.
“I don’t get why you’re acting like it’s such a big deal.”
“A stranger is motioning me into the secret basement of an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere without giving me any information on where I am or what it leads to.”
She stopped for a second, processing what I said, and then kept walking. Yeah, I wouldn’t have believed they ever had the brains to work for the government either.
After walking for about a minute, it was seriously that long, we came to a big vaulted room with thick metal walls. In stereotypical fashion, the walls were lined with lights, computers, monitors, buttons, switches, the whole nine yards.
“Well, go on, get familiar with everything.” The woman said. Then, quickly muttered, “Oh yeah, I’m Tara by the way.” and proceeded to quickly walk away.
Well, what the hell am I supposed to do here? I started to walk around, reading the panels with dials and knobs. I flipped one labeled “Break Room.” A loud whooshing came from my right and I spun my around head to face it. One of the walls had lifted to reveal a large break room. It was filled with vending machines, several refrigerators, cabinets, ovens, microwaves, snacks, basically everything you’d expect and more.
James walked up to me, wearing the same outfit he was wearing when he called me. He punched my shoulder and said, “I see you found the break room! That’s my favorite one here, but there’s plenty to choose from.”
“Uhhh.. how many people are in this group again?”
“Four, including you.”
I stared at him in confusion, he didn’t seem to think that this was overkill.
“What?”
“You don’t think this is a bit much for three, now four, people?”
“Nah, we don’t really leave much.”
Of course, I could’ve guessed that based off the amazing social skills Tara showed off.
“Ah, alright then.” I said. He flashed a smile at me, two rows of surprisingly bright and straight teeth. Probably fakes.
I continued to explore the bunker, finding more rooms with the flip of each switch. It was almost funny, this seemed like a fantasy world, the work of science fiction. It wasn’t fake though, I was really experiencing this. As I moved towards the back of the first room, I saw the presumed third member of the group. He was sitting in a desk chair, typing away at one of the countless monitors in the room.
“Ah hey, you must be the third member, sorry they haven’t given me your name.”
The man glanced up from his computer to my face, looking like he was trying to remember something.
He jumped up, “Ah! You’re (REDACTED), what’s up!” He said enthusiastically.
This guy is huge, he’s like the old viking stereotype. He has a big, long beard and hair that went down to the middle of his back. He’s built like a tank, huge, broad shoulders, arms like tree trunks and a chest to rival a gorilla. He has to be at least 6’10”. He was wearing a “I Smash Computers For a Living” t-shirt that was clearly too small, but I don’t even know how there would be a shirt made for someone his size so I don’t blame him. That shirt seemed ironic though.
“Oh uh- hey! Not much man, what’s up with you?”
“Not much, not much, I’m Todd, real nice to meet you!” He said as he reached out his oven mitt sized hand for a handshake.
I shook it, feeling each bone in my hand trying its hardest not to snap. We talked for a bit, and then he said he had to get back to his computer, but would like to talk more later. Todds a cool guy. You may notice that I talked about him in present tense, yeah I think Todd made it out alive. The reason I think that is because on my way out of the government facility we were caught in, there was a trail of soldiers laying on the ground who looked like they had their chests caved in by a boulder. I’m not exaggerating Todd’s size.
After meeting each member, I just walked around for a while, eventually sitting at a table towards the center.
“Wandering around like a lost little puppy, I see.” said Tara, walking up behind me.
I turned to face her, “Well, I’m not wandering, and it’s not like I was given any direction or even the slightest idea of what I’m supposed to be doing.”
She sneered at me and started to walk away. I watched her, she stopped, turned to me, looking at me like I was the dumbest being she’d ever encountered. She jerked her arm in the direction she was walking and I stood to follow her. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be able to read minds or something but she sure seemed to think I could.
She brought me over to one of the many vacant computers and showed me the layout of that bunker I mentioned earlier. Proceeding to pull up separate documents on each monitor around me, she said, “This is our goal, we need to get in here, figure something out.”
I nodded, and got to work. I called my boss and said I had some weird sickness. Life-threatening, with flu-like symptoms, I don’t know I just made it up. He asked me if I knew what it was exactly and I had to think fast, I looked around and saw James had an empty pack of corona next to his desk.
“Uh- Yeah it’s like, the uh.. Coronavirus, I think.” it was so dumb, I don’t even know how he believed me. It worked though, he told me to get some rest and take off as much time as I needed. Seriously though, who would name a virus, “Coronavirus?” That’s just stupid.
Anyway, I started working on analyzing the blueprints of the bunker. Only one obvious entrance, the huge, obvious, metal hatch that could fit a semi. I knew, however, that they wouldn’t be dumb enough to have only one way in and out. There had to be some other exit, even if it was a terrible way to evacuate an entire bunker of employees in the event of a disaster. Yeah that sounds oddly specific, that’s because it is. They had a, stay with me here, manhole cover. A single manhole cover about a half mile from the hatch. It was in an ol, abandoned utility shed in the middle of the field. I guess they didn’t think anyone would ever be curious enough to explore an old shed. HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE RUNNING THE COUNTRY?
I pointed it out to Tara, she looked at me, back at the monitor, then back at me.
“That’s a sewer, idiot.”
Without a word, I zoomed in on the tunnel that lead directly from the shed to the back of the bunker. She squinted at it, moving closer.
“Oh.” she said.
“Yep.” I said, smiling.
“Well, I’ll get the others.” she muttered, swiftly moving over to James.
A few hours later, she walked to one of the switches on the walls and flipped it. A wall slid open, revealing several suits of “Covert ops infiltration” gear. Todd’s, unsurprisingly, was many sizes bigger than our’s.
“Everyone suit up, we’re leaving tonight.” Said Tara.
“Tonight? Isn’t it like 4 am already?” I questioned.
“No, my guy, it’s not. It’s (he checked his phone) 9:30 am.” James told me, smiling.
I didn’t believe him at first, I checked my own phone and sure enough, he was right. I had already been down there for that long? Time flies when there’s no sun to remind you.
The suits were amazing, they adjusted to seamlessly and flawlessly match our movements. No sounds whatsoever, they must’ve had some INCREDIBLE communication systems built into them because we could hear each other through the suits just fine, but outside the suits, our voices didn’t make a sound.
Flipping another switch, Tara revealed a wall several meters high that was lined with weaponry. Lasers, plasma, pistols, grenades, rifles, pistols, machine guns, shotguns, knives, machetes, and even rocket launchers. I have no idea how they managed to get their hands on all this, or even the bunker for that matter. I didn’t ask questions though, I just started to take a look at the weapons.
“Ever shot a gun before?” Asked Tara.
“No, actually.” I replied.
“Here! It’s easy, watch!” Todd said, jumping up to grab a heavy machine gun.
He then flipped a switch, revealing yet another room, a firing range. He proceeded to pump a training dummy full of about 300 .50 caliber rounds. The thing was decimated in seconds.
Todd looked back to me, I can only assume he was smiling under his suit’s mask. He handed me the gun and told me to fire at the next target. I held the gun, steadied my aim and fired. The thing kicked like a damn mule on steroids. I fell back, luckily releasing the trigger before my line of fire reached outside the range.
“Oh I’m so sorry dude! I probably have a frame that’s better fit for that than most people, huh?” He said, helping me up.
“Yeah, yeah you definitely do. I can see why these are usually mounted.” I replied, accepting his hand and regaining my composure.
“Here, maybe this is more your size.” He said, handing me a pistol.
The thing was like a toy gun in his hands I swear.
I smiled, realizing that was pointless with the mask, and took it from his enormous hands. I know I keep pointing out how huge he is, but seriously, it’s insane.
I took aim and fired at a hanging target, 9 shots, dead center.
Tara whistled, seemingly forgetting her always unimpressed attitude and slapped me on the back.
“You sure you’ve never fired a gun before? Your aim is better than any of our’s, and we’re government trained.” she said.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I replied, reloading the gun. “Just played a lot of video games.”
We continued to train at the range, trying out each weapon. We more or less left all the large arms and explosives to Todd, understandably. I think I’d do best with the sniper, but that wouldn’t be very useful in closed quarters.
A few hours later, we were ready. We geared up and headed out. I settled on a pistol (with a silencer), a knife, an MP5 (incase we had to abandon stealth) and a bag full of grenades. The grenades were a last resort.
We walked to the shed, this walk was in no way short and in no way enjoyable. Todd carried Tara on his shoulder at one point, yes, one shoulder. It felt weird for me to ask to be carried as well, I mean, I’m a grown man, but I really wanted to, my legs were getting tired.
When we arrived at the shed, Tara went in first, checking for any security measures, surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, judging by all their other decisions, there was none.
She tried to lift the manhole cover, but it was too heavy. You already know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? Todd crouched through the door and picked it up like it was a pancake filled with helium. He nodded, and we went in, one by one, Todd taking up the rear so he could recover the hole.
A veerryy long hallway was ahead of us. Another long walk, so wonderful. I couldn’t tell you how long it took, I never checked the time and it seemed like we were never making any progress, no matter how long we walked.
Eventually, however, we came to a door, Todd took the lead and we all exited into what looked to be a storage room. We all started opening crates, seeing what was in each. They contained various supplies, secret weapons and technology. All pretty cool stuff, we help ourselves to some of the smaller items we could carry and moved on.
That’s when it hit me.
“Hey, uh, I feel dumb asking this but, what exactly are we trying to do here?”
“Search for anything that could be useful to us in our fight against the government.” said James.
“Ah, alright then, that makes sense.” I replied, not expecting James to know anything about what was going on.
Our search continued, each room was full of more and more new things to take. The security in this place was awful, not a single guard or alarm in any room we entered. The government isn’t doing great at protecting their secrets, but I suppose that pattern has been pretty clear throughout this.
One room was locked, a metal bulkhead with a big hazard sign on it. Tara said the stealth suits had built in protection to any type of radiation, toxic gasses, poisons, or anything else that would usually kill someone without proper protection. So, Todd just ripped the hinges off and caught the door before it fell. He lightly placed it against the wall and told us to head inside.
Now, if you’re faint of heart, you may want to stop reading now. We’ve all heard tales of government experiments, and of course, those that have gone wrong, but I’ve never heard a story that could even shadow what I saw.
The room was huge, the floor, walls and ceiling were all a bright white tile. There was a constant haze in the air, but I don’t know what was creating it. We activated the night vision on our suits, surveying the room. There were cages, hundreds of them, lining the floor. Each contained a different, horrifyingly mutated, vile and repulsive creature that was once a human being, as far as I could tell. Their skin was covered in boils, rashes, burns and any seemingly any form of a painful blemish a person could have on their body.
We started walking towards the cages, and that’s when the smell hit us. I could never properly describe the foul, gut wrenching, and vomit inducing scent that filled my nostrils. It was a combination of blood, bile, sweat, urine, feces and the sickly sweet aroma of rotting flesh. I’ve had to repair my septic tank before, I’ve come back to my house after forgetting to take out the trash for two weeks, I’ve been in a men’s locker room on, “Bring a Friend” day, but none of those could begin to compare to this smell.
I had to stop moving completely and focus every fiber of my being on not throwing up. If I just stood there for a minute, I’d probably get used to it, at least kind of, right? Maybe, maybe, but I didn’t get the chance, one of the “people” began to approach the edge of their cage, dragging their body forward, slowly. It was completely naked, its face was twisted in an unimaginable look of agony. They were missing a leg, it looked to have been messily amputated, or eaten.
With each drag of their body, a ragged and labored wheeze came from their toothless mouth. I got a better look at their face, their jaw was clearly broken, just hanging there, pointlessly. One of their eyes was missing, an empty, bloody socket in its place. The other eye, bloodshot and gray.
When they reached the edge of the cage, I could see a large, oozing gash on their back, clearly infected. I think they tried to speak, but when they opened their mouth, all that came out was another wheeze, and what remained of their tongue.
That was too much for Tara, she tore off her mask and started vomiting, either forgetting or not caring about the room being full of something quite deadly to us. Todd picked up her mask and quickly tried to put it back on her, but he was too late.
Whatever was in the air has already made its way into her lungs, she gasped, looking at us with wide eyes and an expression that spoke volumes. Her last few moments weren’t pleasant, but none of us could even think about putting her out of her misery before it was too late. I’d only known her for a day, and she wasn’t the most friendly person I’ve met, but somehow she already felt like family.
“She.. she.. No, no no she’s fine, Todd she’s fine, pick her up, we’ll bring her out, she’s fine!” James cried out.
“James man, I’m so sorry, she was an amazing sister, but.. You know she’s gone…” Todd whispered, wrapping James in a bear hug.
“NO NO NO NO SHE’S FINE GET OFF OF ME!” James somehow managed to wriggle his way out of Todd’s vice grip and ran over to Tara’s lifeless body.
“Come on, come on Tara, you’re okay, come on.. please..please.. GET UP YOU HAVE TO GET UP!” James screamed, every word dripping with anguish. He took her shoulders, lifting her up and shook her, hard. We only stood and watched, not knowing what else to do. James only stopped after Tara’s neck gave a loud snap and her head went completely limp.
He dropped her back onto the floor, sobbing into her suit between deep inhales. Todd started to move towards him but I placed my hand on his arm, signifying to leave him alone. Todd looked at me and I motioned towards James’s hands, one laying beside Tara and one laying on his pistol.
We didn’t know what time it was or how much time we had left, but we weren’t going to leave him here, so we waited. Until suddenly, out of nowhere, he shot up and bolted out of the room, running towards the central part of the bunker.
Todd and I got up, and chased after him, trying to stop him before he attracted any attention. As always, though, we were too late. Guards flooded the halls ahead of us, chasing James and firing at him. Todd and I debated taking shots at them, but knew it would just get us killed too. I reached for my bag of grenades, hoping they would be enough, before I realized that I dropped them in the same room Tara was in. It was far too late to go back and get them, we knew they’d be on us any second and had to think fast.
Me, being small enough crammed myself into a locker before the soldiers saw me. Todd, being not so small, charged through them and kept on running towards the main entrance of the bunker. I don’t know if he just forgot about the manhole or was still planning on finding James, but he was out of sight fast.
The guards shot James, confirmed his death, and started to move towards the lockers before Todd screamed on the opposite end of the hallway. It was very obvious that this was a scream of anger, this is probably when he plowed through all the guards.
After they ran down the hall towards his yelling, I slipped out of the locker, ran down the hall and made my way out of the shed. I quickly headed back to our base, got in my car and sped home.
I took everything important, threw it in my trunk, and hightailed it out of the state. I’ve been moving from place to place every once in a while to make sure I’m never pinned down. I haven’t heard from Todd, and my boss hasn’t called, so I assume everyone I know thinks I’m dead, but the government knows I’m not. They’re still hunting me, always.
If I could find Todd and go back to the bunker, I would, but I don’t know how likely that is. If I ever do, I guess I’ll keep you guys updated. Wish me luck.

I’ve played this years ago when I was 6 or 7, on my family laptop, while browsing on the Facebook game icons, I stumbled upon this game. The artstyle it had looked like yoville/yoworld, and the gameplay layout is indifferent towards the sims social or just any other sims game. I made a little description though only a bit. In my first play through, you are in a new apartment, but it needed to be renovated. I walked in the bathroom to take a bath (I guess because I recently moved in) and here I could see there’s certain scratches on the wallpaper (green-ish jade). With a bathtub and your character next to it. There’s a window and see other buildings, it has a high view. You could see other windows. It ends here.
Closed the laptop, got to sleep and never got to play that game again.
I was extremely familiar with flash games, visiting Friv/coolmathgames on a daily basis and I think this game was pretty early too, categorized with Farmville etc. I don’t think it’s playable anymore. It might have been a flash game or something.
In conclusion, if you know this game, have played, or heck, even remembered it as I did (maybe? I’m bad at description) I just want to know the name of it. Thanks for reading and for your time. Have a nice day/night.

Hi all,
Pretty new to this account as a previous reddit lurker for many years.
I've recently started to feel nostalgic about a certain game that used to be available on Flash (RIP).
I remember playing it on miniclip, addictinggames and newgrounds - and probably several other flashsites i visited back in the day.
Anyways it was a farming simulator style game, but based on being a gnome or an elf. There was an old grandfather figure who'd give you the tutorial. You could plant pumpkins, turnips and such in the front yard of your own house, and also go fishing on the peer. I remember it so vividly. It was almost like every other farming game, but you'd have a pointy hat and decide when to sleep, you'd put your produce in a bucket and a truck would come, or you'd have to walk to the market to sell it, or you'd have to see it to the old "grandpa figure", forgive me that I cannot remember as all of them roll into one after a while. I don't really remember much other than the fact there was a green clock at the bottom of the screen with a White display and either a purple or blue or red colour marking when it got to 10 pm, which had something to do with the crops you were planting.
You'd also have to go to the pier or a pond to refill the watering can which is what you spent most of the game doing.
Yu could walk into houses and shops to buy seeds or talk to people. I don't necessarily remember quests, though: But when entering a house it became an almost "top down pixel game", but still had the same 3-Desque quality to it. I don't think you could change the layout of your home as the bed always remained in the same place.
It wasn't a horror or spooky game - more peaceful but time forgiving strategic. I can't find it anywhere. Its not farmville or anything I've managed to come across building up to the death of the Flash, but I'd love to know the name of it to be able to find it again and hopefully figure out how to play it (if thats even possible). If anyone can recommend how to play the games that might have been lost - if I can find the name through that post, that would be amazing.
I've been thinkin of this game for years.
​
If you need any more info then LMK. Thanks guys x

*BANG* “He’s down.” is what I heard as I quickly and quietly crammed myself into a locker. I tried to quiet my breathing as the guards swept through the halls, guns and flashlights in hand. I swear to you I was moments away from being caught before a scream came from further down the hall and the guards rushed after it.
So yeah, that’s what made my life become the living hell that it is. I rarely sleep, I can never stay in one place, relationships are a thing of the past, my life is nothing but a game of cat and mouse at this point. I keep running and they keep finding me, this is how it’ll be until the day I die.
I know none of this makes sense, I’ll explain. I’m a bit of an anarchist, and when you happen upon a group of like minded people who ALSO just so happen to have found the location of a secret government lab, it means big things are stirring in smalltown Minnesota.
Putting government facilities out in the middle of empty farmville never made sense to me. I mean, yeah, I guess people are less likely to look out there, but it’s such an inconvenience in every other way. How do you even plan to move supplies into it? Oh yeah no one will notice the line of military vehicles slowly descending into the middle of a field. Flawless logic, one point to the US government. Then again, not many people live out here, I don’t know, just seems dumb.
When I was grocery shopping once a month, like usual, yeah I live alone, I looked at the pinboard in the front of the store. It’s usually the same thing every day,one free guitar lesson, volunteer opportunities, donations needed, a group of anarchists looking for fellow rebellious people, etc. Well maybe not that last one, that one's not always there and it caught my attention. Should they really be advertising like that? Like,”Hey! Everyone! We’re looking to overthrow the government!” It was searching for new members, I quickly took it down and stuffed it in my pocket, I didn’t want to risk anyone else seeing it and I needed the number for later.
So that kind of explained it, right? At least part of it, you’ll likely piece the rest together as I go on. If you can’t, well, sorry.
After I got home and finished putting the groceries away, I took out the paper and flattened it on the counter. I read it over again, “Anarchists looking for like-minded people willing to join the cause, if interested, contact us [REDACTED].” Of course it wasn’t redacted on the sheet, but I’m not giving away the information to you guys, I’m doing you a favor.
Anyway, I emailed the address, saying that I found their flyer and told them I was interested. After that, I made dinner and ate alone, watching TV, as always. See this is why I needed a change in my life, everything was so mundane and repetitive that I felt like I could feel my sanity slipping away each day I went on. I couldn’t keep living like that, otherwise I’d probably end up like Hemingway. Guy was a cool writer and all but the end didn’t see that appealing to me.
I checked my email one more time before bed at around 2:00 AMish. Not like the guy with the beards but the time. Like, roughly around that time. Why am I even explaining this? I checked my email and saw I had received a response. There was no subject and the only thing it contained was a link, I ran the link through my virus protection and it came back clean, I clicked it.
“Government Spy Catcher” was the title of the google survey it brought me to, oh great. The survey contained two questions, “1. Are you a government spy? (A.) Yes, I’m a filthy spy. (B.) Ew, no.” and the second, “2. Are you sure? (A.) Yes. (B.) No.” I was beginning to see the type of people I was dealing with. I answered it anyway, because why not? B and A, obviously. I submitted it and went to bed, only guessing what I could expect in the morning.
“Yo, get up.” is what I could (but didn’t) expect apparently. I looked over to my laptop, seeing I hadn’t closed it before passing out last night. There he was, who I’d come to know as James, later on. He was dressed like a...don’t even know. He was like the mix of a stereotypical 90s hacker along with an FBI agent who became a basement dweller. His hair was slicked back, but he was wearing a suit jacket with a white t-shirt and jeans. He looked kind of what I’d imagine a formal greaser to look like.
After recovering from that rude awakening, I looked at him, “I don’t recall ordering a wake up call, who are you, again?”
“Doesn’t matter, you answered the survey, I’m here to do one final check.”
It took a moment for last night’s quick questionnaire to return to my waking mind, but then I remembered.
“Ah, yeah, right. Alright so what’s left to ans-”
“Are you a government spy?!”
“Wh- No.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Alright, you’re in, here’s the address, be there by 10, tonight.”
An address quickly popped up onto my screen through the notepad app, just as quickly as it arrived, James left.
“But I have work then…” I said half to the absent James and half to myself. Well, guess I’m calling in sick. I’m sure they’ll just love that.
After calling in sick, I got out of bed and checked the time, it was only 10 AM, 12 hours to kill. I decided to spend it doing various pointless things that aren’t even worth writing here, so I’ll just skip to the good part.
I left for the address around 9:40 PM, arriving a few minutes early. It led to a pretty normal looking house, just WAY out in the country. I pulled into the driveway, and turned off my car. As I stepped out, a woman opened the door to the house, shrouded in darkness.
“Are you (You’re not getting my name)?”
“Ye...Yeah?”
“Then get it! Quick quick quick!”
I rushed over to the door, mentally going over the fact that this could very well be the last place I ever enter, and stepped inside.
The inside was of course, pitch black. I flipped a nearby lightswitch and the woman slapped it back down, returning the room to darkness.
“No! No electric light!”
“Why?”
“*sigh* It doesn’t look as cool! Duh!” she said, cracking a glow stick.
“Ah, right then.” I said, slowly nodding, but also giving her a very confused look.
“Ugh, where does James even find these people…” She muttered to herself “Follow me.”
Not wanting to deal with this woman alone any longer, I followed her. She led me through the fairly normal looking home, albeit a bit decrepit, to a dusty living room. There was nothing notable about it, it was filled with regular living room furniture. There was an old Zenith TV (wow) a lumpy couch and loveseat, a lamp, coffee table and two very clearly fake plants. Oh and a rug, a rug she moved to reveal a metal hatch, honest to God. She reached behind the TV and flipped a switch, the metal hatch slid open and revealed a well lit staircase that descended far beyond what I could see from the top.
She motioned for me to start walking down, I did a double take. She rolled her eyes, made an annoyed sound, and started leading me down.
“I don’t get why you’re acting like it’s such a big deal.”
“A stranger is motioning me into the secret basement of an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere without giving me any information on where I am or what it leads to.”
She stopped for a second, processing what I said, and then kept walking. Yeah, I wouldn’t have believed they ever had the brains to work for the government either.
After walking for about a minute, it was seriously that long, we came to a big vaulted room with thick metal walls. In stereotypical fashion, the walls were lined with lights, computers, monitors, buttons, switches, the whole nine yards.
“Well, go on, get familiar with everything.” The woman said. Then, quickly muttered, “Oh yeah, I’m Tara by the way.” and proceeded to quickly walk away.
Well, what the hell am I supposed to do here? I started to walk around, reading the panels with dials and knobs. I flipped one labeled “Break Room.” A loud whooshing came from my right and I spun my around head to face it. One of the walls had lifted to reveal a large break room. It was filled with vending machines, several refrigerators, cabinets, ovens, microwaves, snacks, basically everything you’d expect and more.
James walked up to me, wearing the same outfit he was wearing when he called me. He punched my shoulder and said, “I see you found the break room! That’s my favorite one here, but there’s plenty to choose from.”
“Uhhh.. how many people are in this group again?”
“Four, including you.”
I stared at him in confusion, he didn’t seem to think that this was overkill.
“What?”
“You don’t think this is a bit much for three, now four, people?”
“Nah, we don’t really leave much.”
Of course, I could’ve guessed that based off the amazing social skills Tara showed off.
“Ah, alright then.” I said. He flashed a smile at me, two rows of surprisingly bright and straight teeth. Probably fakes.
I continued to explore the bunker, finding more rooms with the flip of each switch. It was almost funny, this seemed like a fantasy world, the work of science fiction. It wasn’t fake though, I was really experiencing this. As I moved towards the back of the first room, I saw the presumed third member of the group. He was sitting in a desk chair, typing away at one of the countless monitors in the room.
“Ah hey, you must be the third member, sorry they haven’t given me your name.”
The man glanced up from his computer to my face, looking like he was trying to remember something.
He jumped up, “Ah! You’re (REDACTED), what’s up!” He said enthusiastically.
This guy is huge, he’s like the old viking stereotype. He has a big, long beard and hair that went down to the middle of his back. He’s built like a tank, huge, broad shoulders, arms like tree trunks and a chest to rival a gorilla. He has to be at least 6’10”. He was wearing a “I Smash Computers For a Living” t-shirt that was clearly too small, but I don’t even know how there would be a shirt made for someone his size so I don’t blame him. That shirt seemed ironic though.
“Oh uh- hey! Not much man, what’s up with you?”
“Not much, not much, I’m Todd, real nice to meet you!” He said as he reached out his oven mitt sized hand for a handshake.
I shook it, feeling each bone in my hand trying its hardest not to snap. We talked for a bit, and then he said he had to get back to his computer, but would like to talk more later. Todds a cool guy. You may notice that I talked about him in present tense, yeah I think Todd made it out alive. The reason I think that is because on my way out of the government facility we were caught in, there was a trail of soldiers laying on the ground who looked like they had their chests caved in by a boulder. I’m not exaggerating Todd’s size.
After meeting each member, I just walked around for a while, eventually sitting at a table towards the center.
“Wandering around like a lost little puppy, I see.” said Tara, walking up behind me.
I turned to face her, “Well, I’m not wandering, and it’s not like I was given any direction or even the slightest idea of what I’m supposed to be doing.”
She sneered at me and started to walk away. I watched her, she stopped, turned to me, looking at me like I was the dumbest being she’d ever encountered. She jerked her arm in the direction she was walking and I stood to follow her. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be able to read minds or something but she sure seemed to think I could.
She brought me over to one of the many vacant computers and showed me the layout of that bunker I mentioned earlier. Proceeding to pull up separate documents on each monitor around me, she said, “This is our goal, we need to get in here, figure something out.”
I nodded, and got to work. I called my boss and said I had some weird sickness. Life-threatening, with flu-like symptoms, I don’t know I just made it up. He asked me if I knew what it was exactly and I had to think fast, I looked around and saw James had an empty pack of corona next to his desk.
“Uh- Yeah it’s like, the uh.. Coronavirus, I think.” it was so dumb, I don’t even know how he believed me. It worked though, he told me to get some rest and take off as much time as I needed. Seriously though, who would name a virus, “Coronavirus?” That’s just stupid.
Anyway, I started working on analyzing the blueprints of the bunker. Only one obvious entrance, the huge, obvious, metal hatch that could fit a semi. I knew, however, that they wouldn’t be dumb enough to have only one way in and out. There had to be some other exit, even if it was a terrible way to evacuate an entire bunker of employees in the event of a disaster. Yeah that sounds oddly specific, that’s because it is. They had a, stay with me here, manhole cover. A single manhole cover about a half mile from the hatch. It was in an ol, abandoned utility shed in the middle of the field. I guess they didn’t think anyone would ever be curious enough to explore an old shed. HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE RUNNING THE COUNTRY?
I pointed it out to Tara, she looked at me, back at the monitor, then back at me.
“That’s a sewer, idiot.”
Without a word, I zoomed in on the tunnel that lead directly from the shed to the back of the bunker. She squinted at it, moving closer.
“Oh.” she said.
“Yep.” I said, smiling.
“Well, I’ll get the others.” she muttered, swiftly moving over to James.
A few hours later, she walked to one of the switches on the walls and flipped it. A wall slid open, revealing several suits of “Covert ops infiltration” gear. Todd’s, unsurprisingly, was many sizes bigger than our’s.
“Everyone suit up, we’re leaving tonight.” Said Tara.
“Tonight? Isn’t it like 4 am already?” I questioned.
“No, my guy, it’s not. It’s (he checked his phone) 9:30 am.” James told me, smiling.
I didn’t believe him at first, I checked my own phone and sure enough, he was right. I had already been down there for that long? Time flies when there’s no sun to remind you.
The suits were amazing, they adjusted to seamlessly and flawlessly match our movements. No sounds whatsoever, they must’ve had some INCREDIBLE communication systems built into them because we could hear each other through the suits just fine, but outside the suits, our voices didn’t make a sound.
Flipping another switch, Tara revealed a wall several meters high that was lined with weaponry. Lasers, plasma, pistols, grenades, rifles, pistols, machine guns, shotguns, knives, machetes, and even rocket launchers. I have no idea how they managed to get their hands on all this, or even the bunker for that matter. I didn’t ask questions though, I just started to take a look at the weapons.
“Ever shot a gun before?” Asked Tara.
“No, actually.” I replied.
“Here! It’s easy, watch!” Todd said, jumping up to grab a heavy machine gun.
He then flipped a switch, revealing yet another room, a firing range. He proceeded to pump a training dummy full of about 300 .50 caliber rounds. The thing was decimated in seconds.
Todd looked back to me, I can only assume he was smiling under his suit’s mask. He handed me the gun and told me to fire at the next target. I held the gun, steadied my aim and fired. The thing kicked like a damn mule on steroids. I fell back, luckily releasing the trigger before my line of fire reached outside the range.
“Oh I’m so sorry dude! I probably have a frame that’s better fit for that than most people, huh?” He said, helping me up.
“Yeah, yeah you definitely do. I can see why these are usually mounted.” I replied, accepting his hand and regaining my composure.
“Here, maybe this is more your size.” He said, handing me a pistol.
The thing was like a toy gun in his hands I swear.
I smiled, realizing that was pointless with the mask, and took it from his enormous hands. I know I keep pointing out how huge he is, but seriously, it’s insane.
I took aim and fired at a hanging target, 9 shots, dead center.
Tara whistled, seemingly forgetting her always unimpressed attitude and slapped me on the back.
“You sure you’ve never fired a gun before? Your aim is better than any of our’s, and we’re government trained.” she said.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I replied, reloading the gun. “Just played a lot of video games.”
We continued to train at the range, trying out each weapon. We more or less left all the large arms and explosives to Todd, understandably. I think I’d do best with the sniper, but that wouldn’t be very useful in closed quarters.
A few hours later, we were ready. We geared up and headed out. I settled on a pistol (with a silencer), a knife, an MP5 (incase we had to abandon stealth) and a bag full of grenades. The grenades were a last resort.
We walked to the shed, this walk was in no way short and in no way enjoyable. Todd carried Tara on his shoulder at one point, yes, one shoulder. It felt weird for me to ask to be carried as well, I mean, I’m a grown man, but I really wanted to, my legs were getting tired.
When we arrived at the shed, Tara went in first, checking for any security measures, surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, judging by all their other decisions, there was none.
She tried to lift the manhole cover, but it was too heavy. You already know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? Todd crouched through the door and picked it up like it was a pancake filled with helium. He nodded, and we went in, one by one, Todd taking up the rear so he could recover the hole.
A veerryy long hallway was ahead of us. Another long walk, so wonderful. I couldn’t tell you how long it took, I never checked the time and it seemed like we were never making any progress, no matter how long we walked.
Eventually, however, we came to a door, Todd took the lead and we all exited into what looked to be a storage room. We all started opening crates, seeing what was in each. They contained various supplies, secret weapons and technology. All pretty cool stuff, we help ourselves to some of the smaller items we could carry and moved on.
That’s when it hit me.
“Hey, uh, I feel dumb asking this but, what exactly are we trying to do here?”
“Search for anything that could be useful to us in our fight against the government.” said James.
“Ah, alright then, that makes sense.” I replied, not expecting James to know anything about what was going on.
Our search continued, each room was full of more and more new things to take. The security in this place was awful, not a single guard or alarm in any room we entered. The government isn’t doing great at protecting their secrets, but I suppose that pattern has been pretty clear throughout this.
One room was locked, a metal bulkhead with a big hazard sign on it. Tara said the stealth suits had built in protection to any type of radiation, toxic gasses, poisons, or anything else that would usually kill someone without proper protection. So, Todd just ripped the hinges off and caught the door before it fell. He lightly placed it against the wall and told us to head inside.
Now, if you’re faint of heart, you may want to stop reading now. We’ve all heard tales of government experiments, and of course, those that have gone wrong, but I’ve never heard a story that could even shadow what I saw.
The room was huge, the floor, walls and ceiling were all a bright white tile. There was a constant haze in the air, but I don’t know what was creating it. We activated the night vision on our suits, surveying the room. There were cages, hundreds of them, lining the floor. Each contained a different, horrifyingly mutated, vile and repulsive creature that was once a human being, as far as I could tell. Their skin was covered in boils, rashes, burns and any seemingly any form of a painful blemish a person could have on their body.
We started walking towards the cages, and that’s when the smell hit us. I could never properly describe the foul, gut wrenching, and vomit inducing scent that filled my nostrils. It was a combination of blood, bile, sweat, urine, feces and the sickly sweet aroma of rotting flesh. I’ve had to repair my septic tank before, I’ve come back to my house after forgetting to take out the trash for two weeks, I’ve been in a men’s locker room on, “Bring a Friend” day, but none of those could begin to compare to this smell.
I had to stop moving completely and focus every fiber of my being on not throwing up. If I just stood there for a minute, I’d probably get used to it, at least kind of, right? Maybe, maybe, but I didn’t get the chance, one of the “people” began to approach the edge of their cage, dragging their body forward, slowly. It was completely naked, its face was twisted in an unimaginable look of agony. They were missing a leg, it looked to have been messily amputated, or eaten.
With each drag of their body, a ragged and labored wheeze came from their toothless mouth. I got a better look at their face, their jaw was clearly broken, just hanging there, pointlessly. One of their eyes was missing, an empty, bloody socket in its place. The other eye, bloodshot and gray.
When they reached the edge of the cage, I could see a large, oozing gash on their back, clearly infected. I think they tried to speak, but when they opened their mouth, all that came out was another wheeze, and what remained of their tongue.
That was too much for Tara, she tore off her mask and started vomiting, either forgetting or not caring about the room being full of something quite deadly to us. Todd picked up her mask and quickly tried to put it back on her, but he was too late.
Whatever was in the air has already made its way into her lungs, she gasped, looking at us with wide eyes and an expression that spoke volumes. Her last few moments weren’t pleasant, but none of us could even think about putting her out of her misery before it was too late. I’d only known her for a day, and she wasn’t the most friendly person I’ve met, but somehow she already felt like family.
“She.. she.. No, no no she’s fine, Todd she’s fine, pick her up, we’ll bring her out, she’s fine!” James cried out.
“James man, I’m so sorry, she was an amazing sister, but.. You know she’s gone…” Todd whispered, wrapping James in a bear hug.
“NO NO NO NO SHE’S FINE GET OFF OF ME!” James somehow managed to wriggle his way out of Todd’s vice grip and ran over to Tara’s lifeless body.
“Come on, come on Tara, you’re okay, come on.. please..please.. GET UP YOU HAVE TO GET UP!” James screamed, every word dripping with anguish. He took her shoulders, lifting her up and shook her, hard. We only stood and watched, not knowing what else to do. James only stopped after Tara’s neck gave a loud snap and her head went completely limp.
He dropped her back onto the floor, sobbing into her suit between deep inhales. Todd started to move towards him but I placed my hand on his arm, signifying to leave him alone. Todd looked at me and I motioned towards James’s hands, one laying beside Tara and one laying on his pistol.
We didn’t know what time it was or how much time we had left, but we weren’t going to leave him here, so we waited. Until suddenly, out of nowhere, he shot up and bolted out of the room, running towards the central part of the bunker.
Todd and I got up, and chased after him, trying to stop him before he attracted any attention. As always, though, we were too late. Guards flooded the halls ahead of us, chasing James and firing at him. Todd and I debated taking shots at them, but knew it would just get us killed too. I reached for my bag of grenades, hoping they would be enough, before I realized that I dropped them in the same room Tara was in. It was far too late to go back and get them, we knew they’d be on us any second and had to think fast.
Me, being small enough crammed myself into a locker before the soldiers saw me. Todd, being not so small, charged through them and kept on running towards the main entrance of the bunker. I don’t know if he just forgot about the manhole or was still planning on finding James, but he was out of sight fast.
The guards shot James, confirmed his death, and started to move towards the lockers before Todd screamed on the opposite end of the hallway. It was very obvious that this was a scream of anger, this is probably when he plowed through all the guards.
After they ran down the hall towards his yelling, I slipped out of the locker, ran down the hall and made my way out of the shed. I quickly headed back to our base, got in my car and sped home.
I took everything important, threw it in my trunk, and hightailed it out of the state. I’ve been moving from place to place every once in a while to make sure I’m never pinned down. I haven’t heard from Todd, and my boss hasn’t called, so I assume everyone I know thinks I’m dead, but the government knows I’m not. They’re still hunting me, always.
If I could find Todd and go back to the bunker, I would, but I don’t know how likely that is. If I ever do, I guess I’ll keep you guys updated. Wish me luck.

Hello all,
We developed a web app where a specific part of it allow users to sketch/stretch/move basic rectangle shapes, drag & drop tiles, zoom & pan to create a kind of 2D layout plan. We leveraged D3.js to manage the above. Now, we want to convert this web app into a mobile app for both iOS and Android.
Our main challenges are:
1) small screen size (ie. be able to create layout efficiently)
2) using fingers instead of mouse to manage all the actions efficiently
I'm pretty sure these are common challenges for complex processes app, however still seeking a good solution. Ideally we would like to convert the work we did with D3.js directly into mobile app, perhaps using React Native or Flutter. We're also open to look something completly different like using a game engine approach, perhaps Unity. If we follow the latter, our mobile app may look like FarmVille or Hayday isometric game.
If you have any idea or reference on the subject, I'll be more than interested to ear from you. Also, if you're interested and cursious, I can privately provide a YoutTube link showing a quick guide describing our web app.
Looking forward to your reply,
Thanks all for your support! \o/

Hi. This is aimed at you GGG as a massive feedback about why I'm not going to continue playing this league from this very moment and how there's recurring issues league after league after league that you just don't seem to understand or learn from. Unsurpisingly, yet again this boils down to three things. Mechanical problems with the league. Performance. Visibility. These three are strongly intertwined.
Let's start with a basic understanding of the league. Once I have set up my optimal farm that I have acquired from a minmaxer's spreadsheet from reddit, I am left with a couple of fields to grow my plants on in my relatively large garden. I'm also left with about three-quarters of the zone covered in elaborate pylon-storage tank setups to store enough energy that can power the entire world for several centuries to come, or to store roughly enough lifeforce to grow about one and a half tier 4 plant.
What's wrong with this? I was told I was going to have space. I'm having trouble squeezing in an extra harvester because I'd need to take out a million tanks. I store excess lifeforce in my stash rather than physically because if I leave full storage tanks out of juice I don't use I might have to discard. But it's ridiculous micromanagement to do this so I don't do it, I just craft my excess lifeforce into horticrafting stations. So now I have I dunno 200? storage tanks just sitting in my garden being filled up and drained. This is fine. Or is it?
Well, the first thing I noticed is that storage tanks have a material cost. I'm not talking about the 75 lifeforce. I'm talking about the 1 fps that 3 storage tanks, a pylon and a conduit costs. I'm talking about the baseline of 100 fps stable dropping to 30 fps stable when entering the garden area. I don't understand how this eludes detection. I'm not doing anything special. Everyone's gameplay loop collapses into this. You do maps, you get t1 seeds, you notice that on average you get enough t1 seeds to fill 2 fields tops before it's really just harvest ready, you harvest that, you start filling your higher tier fields, you start getting lifeforce, you notice you're getting so much juice you need to fill everything with tanks, you fill everything with tanks, your FPS drops. I see nothing out of the ordinary in that line of natural progression of the league, so surely, it would've had to be tested right?
But hey, if it's just farmville, I don't care if I have no FPS in the garden. After all, if there's no danger I don't need to react. Well, that's wrong, right? We get to harvest t1 seeds, for t1 monsters that are so laughably weak that they completely predictably all have on-death effects because apparently that's the only way to balance against players. They're not particularly deadly or intrusive, although I personally hold that maybe the blue monsters exploding on death into pods that explode is maybe a bit too much, but whatever, that's not even the real issue, I mean porcupines exist and they're worse. Tier 3 and tier 4 monsters are no joke at least, they'd be fairly decent fights, especially in large numbers, until you consider the location.
This is the point where I feel the need to tie in that this isn't even an isolated incident. In metamorph we've received an endgame fight in Oriath, nearly completely unchanged at first. Then delirium received an endgame map that forces challenging boss fights in town layouts, and honestly, it makes no sense to me thematically that this would be a thing, it really, really adds nothing to the whole delirium thing other than a really frustrating arena. There was an understandable backlash against this, the unclear pathability, the random decorative debris obstructing your path. Well, turns out the garden is an even worse arena. I mean the base geography is fine, but then you add on top the insane amount of visual clutter that your, you guessed it right, unreasonable amount of storage tanks, pylons, and conduits add. I fought my first yellow tier 4, between managing the shitshow I notice I keep nearly dying. Well hey turns out there's explosive pineapples on the ground that do ridiculous damage, except I can barely see it behind my storage tanks. Great. Fantastic. Lovely. Immediately the next problem. I'm pathing like complete shit. I'm in a grid of storage tanks. They're forcing me to move in the vertical and horizontal of the isometric grid. So: explosive ground effect that I have to get out of after I path through it, dangerous monster chasing me, but if I click, it's going to pathfind me through my own maze of shit that I'm forced to fight in, potentially turning me around or forcing me in an unexpected direction before forcing me into another unexpected direction. It's frustrating. Why are we not phasing out all gardening equipment during this? What does it really add that we have several hundred objects on scene that a) drain FPS unreasonably b) obscure dangerous elements of the fight and c) cause you to path unexpectedly. At this point my understanding is if I don't want to deal with it, I manually pick it all up before the fight, tanks AND pylons, initiate the fight, do it, then replace the whole thing, relink it manually, and then do the crafting. That, or I play a build that instantly destroys everything. Those are my options.
GGG, I love this game and will support it eternally but I really, really need you to sit the fuck down and think about these things. This is the third league in a row where we're forcing fights into unreasonable area.
And you know, the funny thing about this whole deal is that it just boils down to storage tank capacity. You'd literally reduce this shit by 90% if storage tanks were upgradable to eventually hold 10x its capacity. It's not even hard to make it so that it doesn't mess with progression - just let us upgrade tanks to a tier 2 and tier 3 version respectively by using 150/450 stored lifeforce from the network, holding 900 and 2700 lifeforce. Yes, this is a huge rant just to suggest "hey, make storage tanks expandable" but currently the amount of tanks what we need to have cause lag, pathing issues and visual clutter.
Personally I'm very confused how an internal testing team wouldn't catch this. This isn't an edge case, this is literally the natural progression of the league.

Text conversation between me and a fellow person in my neighborhood.
Neighbor:
So, you with your 5.5M points do not have income other than from plundering someone with 200K points? Why don't you attack someone in your rank? Because you are a coward.
Me:
Actually I attack everyone. Truly nothing personal; just part of the game. i attack everyone and i also take the time to snipe the top 30 or so...
As it stands right now im on
(Removed)'s arc for 79 and am getting 112 back
(Removed)'s arc for 418 and getting 496 back
If you don't want to be attacked or sniped as often i'd recommend you stay in the lower ages, this is common practice as you level higher in the ages.
Honestly, there are people that I can't beat because they are rocking 800 defense ((Removed) - #19 in our neighborhood) (which is just a stupid thing to do)
Best way to play the game is to use defense buildings as filler, and not stack them as #19 is doing. He got so worried about me that he is using vital space that could be used for FP's when i was only taking a few goods.
One tip is send a friend request to people that attack you, or make sure you have all your collections in sync on a 24 hour timeframe and collect quickly daily. Even if someone gets past my defense (which they do all the time) they have less then a 5 min window during my daily collection to attempt to plunder me.
Neighbor:
Thanks for taking time to explain, and for not taking offence.
I find it silly to invest in defence more than can ever be taken in plunder.
Still you are a bully, and as any bully, you are a coward.
Me:
like i said, i attack everyone. send me a friend request and i will aid you instead or deal with the attacks. its part of the game. this aint farmville
Neighbor:
F*ck you, we'll never be friends
Me:
then thank you for the FP's :) and hope you have fun giving me moar FP its part of the game. I tried to be nice. Dont be bitter because parts of your city belong to me.
Neighbor:
Like I said, F*CK you
Me:
love you too butter cup.
Ty for the paper, my atlantis gb rolled on it so i got 40 instead of 20 :D
Neighbor:
F*ck you coward. You have no dignity. Hope you choke on that paper.
Me:
I normally take a break from attacking the nighborhood because of the battlegrounds starting up, but i know how much you would miss me so i made an exception just for you. Just 10 wire today, thank you :)
Neighbor:
If you think I am worried about those wires or whatever you took, you are mistaken. I don't give a damn. What makes me sad is that scum like you still exist in this world, people who believe they can grab whatever they can reach, who think they can do whatever they can get away with. Good luck with that in your miserable life.
Me:
its a game (and you suck at it), its not real life. I wish you the best and have told you a few different ways you could stop me; but you choose not to. Its not my fault you are so stubborn in your ways you would rather play the game badly then take advice from a higher ranking player.
Neighbor:
That's the part you are missing. Who you are in the game is a reflection of who you are IRL
Me:
Wow that gave me a good laugh. You are so daft, this is not real life, this is a video game. FoE is a strategy game, which a player exceeds by maximizing city layout and fighting - in all forms (gvg/battlegrounds/neighborhoods). Not sure how old you are but its evident you are new to games/internet. This is not your facebook account, this is a game. Dont get upset for people playing the game how it was meant to be played.

Here are the characteristics of a website that I'm testing.

• The website is brand new, and has only been indexed for the first time about 2 weeks ago.
• There are no backlinks at all for now, as far as I know, not even from social networks.
• The website is a WordPress, has HTTPS, responsive layout, and loads very fast.
• The website is a blog and only has a couple of posts and another couple of pages or so.
• The articles don't have a tag, but as far as I know that doesn't have a direct impact on the SERP.
• The articles are pretty long (above 10,000 characters), and the formatting should be ok (paragraphs, lists, a couple of images or a youtube video, etc.)
• The articles have several outbound links (about 5 to 15 links) and they are all provided at the end of the article, one after the other in an ordered list. The outbound links generally point to well-established sources (think of the New York Times, Wikipedia or YouTube, The Verge, etc.)

The website is indexed, and all the pages can be seen when you type "site:www.example.com" (of course example.com is just an example, not the real website). But if I look up some words that are present in the articles, I can't see the page in the results. But wait! I'm not that stupid, I'm not complaining that I don't show up for very competitive keywords, that would be stupid, or rather ignorant. So let me give you an example.
Suppose I've written an article about drug addiction. In that article, I end up telling a related story that involves Farmville, the video game, and video game addiction. The part about Farmville is not very long, but the word "Farmville" is repeated a couple of times in the content anyway. In other words: the article is not about Farmville, but part of it definitely is (say, a paragraph). Now what happens if I look up, say, "drug addiction farmville" on Google? First of all, that article doesn't show up in the SERP, not even in the next pages. And second of all, all the results that show up have nothing to do with drug addiction AND Farmville, but are all about EITHER drug addiction OR Farmville. You might get pages about Farmville that don't have anything to do with drug addiction, or pages about drug addiction where Farmville is not even mentioned. If you look for "drug addiction farmville", that article should be the closest thing that Google should find for you, but in reality Google doesn't even include it in any pages of its SERP (literally, after a few pages you will reach the end of the results, and there's no trace of the article). Wait, I'll tell you even more: sometimes the results are just spam, that is, you get sites that contain bot-generated text with broken grammar, and yet even among those low-quality results there's no trace of the article.
Can anybody explain what is going on? I can only suppose that when Google says "content is king", they must have a pretty weird definition of "content" in their mind.

Obvious spoilers for both games, but I feel a comparison would make it much more understandable for people why fans of TAB are kind of upset with the campaign that was released.
1. TAB tech tree sets you up for failure
If you are new to the game and/or don't have foreknowledge about what kind of missions are coming your way, it is extremely easy for you "soft-lock" yourself in the current TAB campaign. "Soft-lock" means being stuck in a state in which it is almost impossible to advance further solely based on your tech tree choices. There's no way to respec or go back to rack up more points.
The problem with TAB is that they're forcing you to pay for core tech and units. As another poster had said, it is extremely easy to get distracted by the low difficulty of the early missions and end up in a state where you have no farms or soldiers. SC2, on the other hand, introduces all the core units for FREE mission-by-mission to teach you. All the tech choices make tactics different or easier. Instead of having to pay for the right to build marauders, siege tanks, etc., you spend your tech points on things like stim pack, less friendly-fire splash damage, and more.
It is possible to beat SC2 campaign on brutal without purchasing a single upgrade because all the core units and buildings are given to you. You're never stuck in a state where it becomes impossible to progress further in the campaign. Since TAB campaign is nowhere close to a roguelike, forcing players to restart entire 30-hour campaigns on the same repetitive missions just to respec is a monumental failure in game design.
2. SC2 spec ops missions were amazing and inspired
The SC2 missions in which you spelunk a cave with Raynor and friends and the one in which you have to rescue Raynor with Kerrigan are among my favorite in the whole series. The former puts you in a zerg-infested cave with 4 heroic units that each have 3-4 abilities. All manners of obstacles and puzzles are thrown your way and you have to find inventive ways to get around them. The latter puts on a high-security space prison where you constantly get reinforcements and you have to punch through enemy defenses within a set amount of time. The key here is high variety of gameplay and unique objectives, sometimes all within a single mission.
TAB spec ops missions, on the other hand, is just endless room-clearing with a single powerful ranger. You just hang back and aggro zombies a few at a time until you kill them all. The entire mission just feels like a grind, like you're fighting lvl 1 boars in some rpg over and over again. The hover-mouse-over-everything secondary objective just compounds the problem. These spec ops missions destroy any desire I have of ever playing the campaign a second time.
3. SC2 had a variety of objectives that made each mission unique
It had everything from escort objectives, to base defense, to punching through a position with limited resources, etc. You could describe any mission in SC2 and I would know exactly what you're talking about since it would be unique and memorable. SC2 had one mission that kind of resembled TAB. It was where, as Raynor, you had to survive 30 minutes against ever-increasing waves of zerg. Imagine if Blizzard took every other mission in its campaigns and replaced them with versions of this one. That's what TAB campaign feels like to me.
TAB standard missions are all the same. Every single mission is just a reskinned survival mission. Take over the map and spam tents. The map layout is also almost the same on every repeated attempt so each mission is just a glorified farmville simulator. There are no interesting strategic options or tactical considerations. Every map is just figuring out how to optimally clear the map to spam tents and figuring out which direction the swarms will be coming from.
4. SC2 had a compelling storyline that integrated well with the gameplay
I cared about Raynor, Kerrigan, and every other character within that series. They spoke to me, literally, and I was invested in their individual journies. The plot advanced through and sometimes even within missions as these characters discovered new things and/or encountered other characters.
TAB has nothing. Absolutely nothing. There are no characters within the game. The closest we have to a plot character is Quintus and all he does is monologue menacingly at you over and over. The generals are just hero units. 15 missions in, not once have they spoken to any other character or advanced the plot in any way. There's no overarching storyline. It's just "beat a long string of survival missions". I don't feel the world changing in any meaningful way. I just have more points to work with.
Before you argue and say that's just TAB, I will respond with.... why? I'm not asking for fancy cinematics here. If the developers put in a story and conversations conveyed entirely through text, I would be happy. All they needed to do was hire a good writer. Instead, it feels like Numantian Games just handed all of the game's writing to some intern who had minored in literature in college. Hell, give me 15 minutes and I could write a better opening sequence than what we got. It just feels like they put in absolutely no effort in this aspect.
Conclusion
A game is measured by inventive gameplay and a compelling storyline. You can have one without the other but you can't lack both. That's where I find myself with TAB campaign. It has no interesting gameplay AND no interesting story to keep me hooked.

Got out of the game and redownloaded on a whim. Always wanted to mess with the layout of the landscape so love the new updates. The main CITY takes up the majority of the middle of the map. With 6 additional TOWNS in the surrounding area. Just areas with their own power and water separated from city blocks. Also, tried giving emergency services their own block and courtyard, enjoy the look!
Code: 2m8o
Towns include:
Greendale: Home to the Greendale Nation Park perfect for weekend camping trips as well as providing logging jobs for local residence.
The City Zoo- Come out a enjoy Belleville's latest attraction! First left on your way to Greendale!
Harlo Palms & Heyman Island- The Carribean never felt so close! Enjoy the surf and turf offered by this lovely tourist town. For the true lovers of all this slice of paradise has to offer try taking a short boat trip to Heyman Island! Where all your island fanasty become a reality.
Farmville- Quaint little farming town following the main river with their own state tech university!
Mount Moria & Mount Coleman- Atop these marvelous peaks view the rustic cabins and luxurious ski resorts below. The mountain side town is a short drive on the highway so stop in. Open all year.
NASP (Noot Airport and Space Program)- That's not a mirage, there is infact a massive rocket standing in the middle of the dessert. The proud researchers at NASP have been working tirelessly to bring this technology to the modern era.
Enjoy!

Hi folks,
While there is a link to a list of free medical / dental clinics on this sub's sidebar (right now it can only be seen with Reddit's older layout), I checked over the websites listed and there are several useful places missing. I'm currently trying to suggest / add the missing clinics to the sites, but it's a slow process.
So for now, I'm also going to post them here in case anyone needs immediate help.
In case anyone is curious or suspicious about the places listed below, they're all individually-run volunteer-based medical clinics which work together under Volunteers in Medicine (VIM). I've been using their services these past two weeks in my area, so while I'm sure each clinic is different, the one I've been visiting has been very gentle, respectful, and compassionate. I don't doubt that the others are all the same way.
​
Don't be afraid to ask them if they have any resources for other, non-medical / non-dental help. For example, the one I go to has different funds for non-medical needs (ex.: they have a fund to fix people's cars they otherwise couldn't afford to repair, so they can continue to go to work). Some offer free chiropractor or acupuncture visits, emotional therapy, financial counseling, etc. And if they don't have anything extra, they may still be able to hook you up with outside free resources / help -- so don't hesitate to ask!
​
Because they are all separate clinics working together under VIM, each will offer different medical and / or dental services or non-medical-related assistance. Some will accept you as a walk-in with little info, others will want proof of need (so as to avoid scammers). Please check each clinic's website for info so you'll know in advance what they offer and what they might or might not want to know.
​
Anyway, here are some of the clinics working together under VIM (there are plenty more, but they're already posted on Free Medical Camps' website):
​

• Alabama
  • Montgomery: Medical Outreach Ministries Family Health Center
• California
  • Indio: Coachella Valley Volunteers in Medicine
  • San Bernardino: Cornerstone Community Health Free Clinic
  • San Diego: Volunteers in Medicine
  • San Francisco: Clinic by the Bay
• Florida
  • Daytona Beach: Volusia Volunteers in Medicine
  • Viera: Space Coast Volunteers in Medicine
• Georgia
  • LaGrange: Troup Cares Free Clinic
  • Lyons: The Mercy Ministries
• Indiana
  • Aurora: Volunteers in Medicine: Dearborn, Ohio, and Switzerland Counties (VIMDOS)
  • Batesville: Southeast Indiana Health Center
  • Crawfordsville: Montgomery County Free Clinic, Inc.
• Mississippi
  • Gautier: Volunteers In Medicine (VIM) Gautier
  • Meridian: The Free Clinic of Meridian
• Missouri
  • Kirksville: Still Caring Health Connection
  • Lake St. Louis: Crossroads Clinic Volunteers in Medicine
  • Manchester: Volunteers in Medicine West County Clinic
• Nebraska
  • Lincoln: PCM Medical Clinic
• Nevada
  • Las Vegas (main office): Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada / Ruffin Family Clinic
  • Las Vegas (satellite site): Volunteers in Medicine of Southern Nevada / Paradise Park Clinic
• New Jersey
  • Cape May Court House: Volunteers in Medicine Free Clinics of South Jersey / Cape May County
  • Egg Harbor: Volunteers in Medicine Free Clinics of South Jersey / Atlantic County
  • Forked River: Coastal Volunteers in Medicine
  • Hackensack: Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative
• North Carolina
  • Cary: Mariam Clinic
  • Elkin: Grace Clinic
  • Highlands: Community Care Clinic of Highland-Cashiers
  • Laurinburg: Scotland Community Health Clinic
  • Mooresville: HealthReach Community Clinic
• Ohio
  • Rootstown: SOAR Student-Run Free Clinic
• Oregon
  • Springfield: Volunteers in Medicine Clinic
• Pennsylvania
  • Butler: Community Health Clinic of Butler County
  • Corry: Corry Area Free Clinic
  • Pittsburgh: FOCUS Pittsburgh Free Health Center
  • Southampton: HealthLink Dental
  • State College: Centre VIM
  • Wilkes-Barre: Volunteers in Medicine
• South Carolina
  • Aiken: Community Medical Clinic of Aiken County
  • Hilton Head: VIM Clinic
  • Ridgeland: Greater Bluffton Jasper County Volunteers in Medicine (Ridgeland Clinic)
  • Rock Hill: York County Free Clinic
• Tennessee
  • Chattanooga: Volunteers in Medicine, Chattanooga, Inc.
  • Tullahoma: Partners for Healing
• Texas
  • El Paso: Salud Sin Fronteras
  • McKinney: Community Health Clinic
  • New Braunfels: New Braunfels Volunteers in Medicine
• Virginia
  • Farmville: Heart of Virginia Free Clinic
• Wisconsin
  • Rice Lake: Rice Lake Area Free Clinic / Volunteers in Medicine
  • Watertown: Watertown Area Cares Clinic
• Wyoming
  • Cody: Heart Mountain Volunteer Medical Clinic

On July 3, 2017, about 1300 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-15, N4195H was destroyed during takeoff from a field near Farmville, Virginia. The private pilot was seriously injured. The personal flight was conducted under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed for the flight that was originating at the time of the accident, and was destined for Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) Frederick, Maryland.
In a statement provided to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, the pilot stated that he purchased the airplane the day before the accident and was flying back to his home airport. After departing from William M. Tuck Airport (W78), South Boston, Virginia, the pilot made a precautionary landing in a field due to a possible fuel transfer issue. After confirming fuel flow to the engine he attempted to take off from the field, which was covered with high, matted grass. The pilot reported he was unable to clear the trees at the end of the field. He then made a low altitude turn and the airplane stalled, impacting terrain before a spin could fully develop.
Examination of the wreckage by the FAA inspector revealed a post-crash fire had destroyed the airplane. The two seat, high wing, tailwheel-equipped airplane, was powered by a Continental C85, 85 horsepower engine.
The pilot held a commercial pilot certificate with ratings for airplane single-engine land, airplane single-engine sea, airplane multiengine land, and instrument airplane. He also possessed mechanic certificate with ratings for airframe and powerplant. The 1255 weather at FVX included wind from 040 at 3 knots; visibility 10 statute miles; sky condition, 6,000 ft scattered; temperature, 32 C; dew point, 11 C; and altimeter setting 30.05 inches of mercury.

Category	Data	Category	Data	Category	Data
Event Id:	20170703X54557	Investigation Type:	Accident	Accident Number:	ERA17LA225
Event Date:	07/03/2017	Location:	Farmville, VA	Country:	United States
Latitude:	37.357500	Longitude:	-78.437777	Airport Code:
Airport Name:	N/A	Injury Severity:	Non-Fatal	Aircraft Damage:	Substantial
Aircraft Category:	Airplane	Registration Number:	N4195H	Make:	PIPER
Model:	PA 15	Amateur Built:	No	Number of Engines:	1
Engine Type:	Reciprocating	FAR Description:	Part 91: General Aviation	Schedule:
Purpose of Flight:	Personal	Air Carrier:		Total Fatal Injuries:
Total Serious Injuries:	1	Total Minor Injuries:		Total Uninjured:
Weather Condition:	VMC	Broad Phase of Flight:	TAKEOFF	Report Status:	Preliminary
Publication Date:	02/27/2018

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20170703X54557

When Apple launched the original iPhone in 2007, nobody ever imagined phone games will grow into a 40 billion dollars a year industry, more than both PC and console gaming. But here we are, ten years later, when even Nintendo, at heart an anti-mobile gaming company's stock price jumped big time when they finally launched a successful mobile game in Fire Emblem Heroes.
This list is about the greatest mobile games ever. I am only going to pick the best in-genre, games that started complete new trends, dominated specific market segments and inspired other success stories. It doesn't matter if a specific idea has been done before, iPhone itself was not a new idea but it took smartphone to unprecedented heights.
I also strongly believe successful mobile games need to be built for the platform. Straight up ports like GTA San Andreas or Final Fantasy 7, they were iconic for their time on their platform, you can make a little money off nostalgia, but they will never be able to compete against games built for mobile audience from day one in the current era.
Finally, one can acknowledge greatness, impact and influence without enjoying a particular genre. I could never get into Candy Crush, but I don't believe someone playing Candy Crush is a "lesser" gamer than me playing Hearthstone. At end of the day, a great game is a great game regardless of genre. It is the same way I could never get into Mario/Zelda games but understand why they are auto-includes in any greatest console game of all time discussions.
To compete in a 40 billion dollar a year industry like mobile is every bit as difficult, if not more so than PC and Console AAA games. The amount of work a developer like Supercell put in to keep their players spend hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter, five years after release is simply mind blowing. It is no less difficult than building the next Skyrim. I understand traditional gamers still discriminate mobile and will not include mobile games in greatest of all time lists, but time will change as their favorite studios switch to mobile for their main source of revenue.
Without further ado:
1) Clash of Clans - The base builder game that started it all and inspired countless clones. At its peak, Clash of Clan was top 10 grossing in every major market: US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea, an unprecedented feat. Like all Supercell games, it has a single global server for both iOS and Android, so you are truly playing against the world. You can log in every 12-24 hours and treat it like Farmville, or you can play in a hardcore clan and compete in intense clan wars and spend hours to optimize your base layout against intruders. Five years later, it is still going strong, still a top 10 grossing game globally, a testament in how well Supercell maintained this franchise. Countless base builders followed suit and many went on to grow into their own success stories, Game of War including Supercell's own Boom Beach. None have truly surpassed the original.
2) Puzzles and Dragons - The first mega success in gacha games and the first mobile game to accumulate one billion dollars in revenue. At one point, Puzzles and Dragons pushed its publisher Gungho's market value above the mighty Nintendo. Skill-driven match 3 where players can perform dazzling combos and battle against some of the most difficult PVE encounters on a mobile phone. Throw in the original gacha system, and once again you have a game that is still top 10 grossing in Japan, five years after its release date. More importantly, Puzzles and Dragons's mega success inspired other developers to release their own take on gacha with different game play, from Monster Strike to Fate Grand Order to Nintendo's own Fire Emblem Heroes. Other publishers eventually realized players did not really want high skill cap game on a mobile phones, they want simpler game play and more refined gatcha systems. Puzzles and Dragons however, paved the way for all other gacha games to follow.
3) Candy Crush Sega - Imagine a single mobile franchise making combined revenue of Blizzard's entire portfolio? That is exactly what happened in Q3 2017 in Activision/Blizzard's earnings report. Five years after its launch, what looked like a more polished Bejeweled match-3 clone then turned in $530 million dollars in a quarter. King implemented many innovative marketing techniques (socializing your game play on Facebook, limited lives instead of energy timer, showering player with rewards that keep them coming back) that became standard in mobile gaming.
4) Honor of Kings (Arena of Valor in Western World) - There have been many efforts to create a great MOBA experience on smartphone. Vainglory was a decent effort from a small publisher but never made any progress on the top 100 grossing charts. Honor of Kings shattered all of this. Tencent found the perfect balance between touch screen controls and stripped away all the complexity of League of Legends and only kept its core essence, and made the game accessible to everyone from grocery store owners to teenage girls and ran all the way up to 200 million players per month. The Chinese government had to impose a ban of the game after 9PM for kids under age 12 and 1 hour daily limit. Tencent now has world's #1 grossing PC game in League of Legends and #1 grossing mobile game in Honor of Kings as it ran past Facebook to become world's fifth most valuable company. Ironically, both games are 100% skill based, zero advantage for pay-to-win players, something we hope to see more of down the road.
5) Pokemon Go - Thanks to Nintendo's IP, Pokemon Go turned into a worldwide cultural phenomenon and put argument reality based gaming on the map. Trainers all over the world roamed the streets and created a tremendous sense of positiveness. Gamers met new people in real life and got more exercise as part of the process. One year later, it is still a top 20 grossing game world wide, and embarrassed Nintendo's own first party efforts (although Animal Crossing may change that).
6) Hearthstone - The only pocketable game streamed on Twitch top 10 night after night. Blizzard has world's most successful TCG by a huge margin and it transitioned perfectly onto the mobile platform. While many have criticized the RNG nature of the game, the wow moments made it much more suitable for streaming than other games. The flashy graphics, great sound/voice acting and high production values made it instant appealing to people who normally don't play TCG games. Blizzard has consciously made the game casual enough so it can co-exist with other mobile games. Player only need to log on once every three days to clear their daily quests, once a week to collect their tavern brawl card pack. The arena mode gives everyone a fair chance regardless of their collection. Both features were adopted by Clash Royale later and inspired Supercell to come up with its second biggest hit of the decade.
7) Angry Birds - The game that put mobile gaming on the map, along with Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump, Plant vs Zombies and many other early games. None of the developers of the time successfully transitioned to the billion dollar big league years, but they all contributed to the industry in its infancy. Angry Bird was clearly the most iconic game of the era and its publisher took advantage of the momentum to fire off its IPO. Simple, physics-based touch game play was appealing to many at the time and inspired many others (Flappy Bird anyone?)
8) Clash Royale - The only company with two games on this list. Supercell took the best of real time strategy games and condensed them into intense 3 minute matches suitable for mobile devices. A global server for every player in the world in real time, I have personally never experienced any lag playing 1v1 or 2v2 and that alone is a incredible accomplishment. Throw in addictive card collections, upgrades, clan donations, timer on treasure chests. Supercell once again created the formula for other publishers looking to provide quick 1v1 experiences. It is also the only mobile game with a $1 million dollar prize pool. Golf Clash (a major success story on its own) and Capcom's Puzzle Fighter both took elements from Clash Royale.
9) Summoners War - Despite the lack of strong ip, COM2US took the best of Japanese gacha games, added Clash of Clans style guild battles, and now real time arena matches against other players with pick/ban systems with 40K viewers on Twitch during tournament time. At its peak, along with Clash of Clans it is the only top 20 grossing mobile game across all five major markets (US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea), and the developers did a marvelous job extending the game's life span over the years, keeping it on top 20 grossing chart world wide, three years after its release. Unlike Japanese gacha games, Summoners War is big on PVP and offers auto-play to make grinding easier. It also has a refreshing level up system allowing you to level up any monster to six stars and also puts a big emphasis on runes (equipment) quality. Onmyouji, a Chinese take on the core Summoners War system with high production values, went on to become a top 10 grossing game world wide.
10) Infinity Blade - Set the bar for mobile graphics and Chair was invited to every Apple iPhone launch in the early days. It opened the world's eyes on what smartphone games can look like, and the second game of the series went on to become the only IGN 10 of 10 mobile game. While the developer never fully embraced the free-to-play model and was eventually left behind, they still showed the world how you can make $20 million revenue with a small development team long before bigger companies followed suit.

When Apple launched the original iPhone in 2007, nobody ever imagined phone games will grow into a 40 billion dollars a year industry, more than both PC and console gaming. But here we are, ten years later, when even Nintendo, at heart an anti-mobile gaming company's stock price jumped big time when they finally launched a successful mobile game in Fire Emblem Heroes.
This list is about the greatest mobile games ever. I am only going to pick the best in-genre, games that started complete new trends, dominated specific market segments and inspired other success stories. It doesn't matter if a specific idea has been done before, iPhone itself was not a new idea but it took smartphone to unprecedented heights.
I also strongly believe successful mobile games need to be built for the platform. Straight up ports like GTA San Andreas or Final Fantasy 7, they were iconic for their time on their platform, you can make a little money off nostalgia, but they will never be able to compete against games built for mobile audience from day one in the current era.
Finally, one can acknowledge greatness, impact and influence without enjoying a particular genre. I could never get into Candy Crush, but I don't believe someone playing Candy Crush is a "lesser" gamer than me playing Hearthstone. At end of the day, a great game is a great game regardless of genre. It is the same way I could never get into Mario/Zelda games but understand why they are auto-includes in any greatest console game of all time discussions.
To compete in a 40 billion dollar a year industry like mobile is every bit as difficult, if not more so than PC and Console AAA games. The amount of work a developer like Supercell put in to keep their players spend hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter, five years after release is simply mind blowing. It is no less difficult than building the next Skyrim. I understand traditional gamers still discriminate mobile and will not include mobile games in greatest of all time lists, but time will change as their favorite studios switch to mobile for their main source of revenue.
Without further ado:
1) Clash of Clans - The base builder game that started it all and inspired countless clones. At its peak, Clash of Clan was top 10 grossing in every major market: US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea, an unprecedented feat. Like all Supercell games, it has a single global server for both iOS and Android, so you are truly playing against the world. You can log in every 12-24 hours and treat it like Farmville, or you can play in a hardcore clan and compete in intense clan wars and spend hours to optimize your base layout against intruders. Five years later, it is still going strong, still a top 10 grossing game globally, a testament in how well Supercell maintained this franchise. Countless base builders followed suit and many went on to grow into their own success stories, Game of War including Supercell's own Boom Beach. None have truly surpassed the original.
2) Puzzles and Dragons - The first mega success in gacha games and the first mobile game to accumulate one billion dollars in revenue. At one point, Puzzles and Dragons pushed its publisher Gungho's market value above the mighty Nintendo. Skill-driven match 3 where players can perform dazzling combos and battle against some of the most difficult PVE encounters on a mobile phone. Throw in the original gacha system, and once again you have a game that is still top 10 grossing in Japan, five years after its release date. More importantly, Puzzles and Dragons's mega success inspired other developers to release their own take on gacha with different game play, from Monster Strike to Fate Grand Order to Nintendo's own Fire Emblem Heroes. Other publishers eventually realized players did not really want high skill cap game on a mobile phones, they want simpler game play and more refined gatcha systems. Puzzles and Dragons however, paved the way for all other gacha games to follow.
3) Candy Crush Sega - Imagine a single mobile franchise making combined revenue of Blizzard's entire portfolio? That is exactly what happened in Q3 2017 in Activision/Blizzard's earnings report. Five years after its launch, what looked like a more polished Bejeweled match-3 clone then turned in $530 million dollars in a quarter. King implemented many innovative marketing techniques (socializing your game play on Facebook, limited lives instead of energy timer, showering player with rewards that keep them coming back) that became standard in mobile gaming.
4) Honor of Kings (Arena of Valor in Western World) - There have been many efforts to create a great MOBA experience on smartphone. Vainglory was a decent effort from a small publisher but never made any progress on the top 100 grossing charts. Honor of Kings shattered all of this. Tencent found the perfect balance between touch screen controls and stripped away all the complexity of League of Legends and only kept its core essence, and made the game accessible to everyone from grocery store owners to teenage girls and ran all the way up to 200 million players per month. The Chinese government had to impose a ban of the game after 9PM for kids under age 12 and 1 hour daily limit. Tencent now has world's #1 grossing PC game in League of Legends and #1 grossing mobile game in Honor of Kings as it ran past Facebook to become world's fifth most valuable company. Ironically, both games are 100% skill based, zero advantage for pay-to-win players, something we hope to see more of down the road.
5) Pokemon Go - Thanks to Nintendo's IP, Pokemon Go turned into a worldwide cultural phenomenon and put argument reality based gaming on the map. Trainers all over the world roamed the streets and created a tremendous sense of positiveness. Gamers met new people in real life and got more exercise as part of the process. One year later, it is still a top 20 grossing game world wide, and embarrassed Nintendo's own first party efforts (although Animal Crossing may change that).
6) Hearthstone - The only pocketable game streamed on Twitch top 10 night after night. Blizzard has world's most successful TCG by a huge margin and it transitioned perfectly onto the mobile platform. While many have criticized the RNG nature of the game, the wow moments made it much more suitable for streaming than other games. The flashy graphics, great sound/voice acting and high production values made it instant appealing to people who normally don't play TCG games. Blizzard has consciously made the game casual enough so it can co-exist with other mobile games. Player only need to log on once every three days to clear their daily quests, once a week to collect their tavern brawl card pack. The arena mode gives everyone a fair chance regardless of their collection. Both features were adopted by Clash Royale later and inspired Supercell to come up with its second biggest hit of the decade.
7) Angry Birds - The game that put mobile gaming on the map, along with Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump, Plant vs Zombies and many other early games. None of the developers of the time successfully transitioned to the billion dollar big league years, but they all contributed to the industry in its infancy. Angry Bird was clearly the most iconic game of the era and its publisher took advantage of the momentum to fire off its IPO. Simple, physics-based touch game play was appealing to many at the time and inspired many others (Flappy Bird anyone?)
8) Clash Royale - The only company with two games on this list. Supercell took the best of real time strategy games and condensed them into intense 3 minute matches suitable for mobile devices. A global server for every player in the world in real time, I have personally never experienced any lag playing 1v1 or 2v2 and that alone is a incredible accomplishment. Throw in addictive card collections, upgrades, clan donations, timer on treasure chests. Supercell once again created the formula for other publishers looking to provide quick 1v1 experiences. It is also the only mobile game with a $1 million dollar prize pool. Golf Clash (a major success story on its own) and Capcom's Puzzle Fighter both took elements from Clash Royale.
9) Summoners War - Despite the lack of strong ip, COM2US took the best of Japanese gacha games, added Clash of Clans style guild battles, and now real time arena matches against other players with pick/ban systems with 40K viewers on Twitch during tournament time. At its peak, along with Clash of Clans it is the only top 20 grossing mobile game across all five major markets (US, Europe, China, Japan and Korea), and the developers did a marvelous job extending the game's life span over the years, keeping it on top 20 grossing chart world wide, three years after its release. Unlike Japanese gacha games, Summoners War is big on PVP and offers auto-play to make grinding easier. It also has a refreshing level up system allowing you to level up any monster to six stars and also puts a big emphasis on runes (equipment) quality. Onmyouji, a Chinese take on the core Summoners War system with high production values, went on to become a top 10 grossing game world wide.
10) Infinity Blade - Set the bar for mobile graphics and Chair was invited to every Apple iPhone launch in the early days. It opened the world's eyes on what smartphone games can look like, and the second game of the series went on to become the only IGN 10 of 10 mobile game. While the developer never fully embraced the free-to-play model and was eventually left behind, they still showed the world how you can make $20 million revenue with a small development team long before bigger companies followed suit.

Category	Data	Category	Data	Category	Data
Event Id:	20171020X15857	Investigation Type:	Accident	Accident Number:	GAA18CA017A
Event Date:	10/20/2017	Location:	Farmville, VA	Country:	United States
Latitude:	37.356111	Longitude:	-78.438611	Airport Code:	FVX
Airport Name:	FARMVILLE RGNL	Injury Severity:	Non-Fatal	Aircraft Damage:	Substantial
Aircraft Category:	Airplane	Registration Number:	N25YD	Make:	YOUNG DAVID E
Model:	PITTS S1 C	Amateur Built:	Yes	Number of Engines:	1
Engine Type:		FAR Description:	Part 91: General Aviation	Schedule:
Purpose of Flight:	Personal	Air Carrier:		Total Fatal Injuries:
Total Serious Injuries:	1	Total Minor Injuries:		Total Uninjured:	1
Weather Condition:		Broad Phase of Flight:		Report Status:	Preliminary
Publication Date:	11/01/2017

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20171020X15857

Let's get a few things out of the way before we get started...
Abreviations
RSS = Resources
bubble/EB = Empire Barrieprotection
Alright so lets take a look at your city layout for starters
You have 11 City build spots open and approximately 21RSS build spots after the tutorial is completed.
During your first week of play growth is important, my growth layout as follows based off of whats most important during that first week.
6 farms/mines/energy fields
7 Quarries
10 banks, 2 barracks, and 2 hospitals
You will most likely be switching your buildings around later on in the game, so dont worry to much about making all the extra banks max level, level them as needed based on how badly you need gil. (5-10k/hr should be fine for the first week)
Later on you will switch the banks out with more barracks/hospitals as this is when the games getting more war oriented and less farmville oriented because peoples resources will finally be overflowing.
Disclaimer: Farmville period will last anywhere from 1 week-1 month
Gaining Resources.
Ok to prevent RSS waste think before you start doing this as the RSS you get will be needed to upgrade as well so preventing unneccesary re-building will be important.
when you build 10 of any of the following buildings, Farm, Mine, Quarry, Energy field, Barracks, Hospital, and Banks, you will complete a quest granting 5k-30k of each resource.
Try to build what you are going to keep for awhile last, that way you get as much out of this as possible and can have that little step above those that don't know about this.
Monsters for RSS!
Alright, so there are monsters and RSS tiles in the wild which you can attack and or occupy.
Single and max attacks on monsters can yield various items and RSS packs, try to kill these guys whenever you see them, if they are within 1-60 seconds for attacking try to do single attacks so you can kill more than 1 every 5 or 6 hours and maximize your gain, and decrease downtime.
Once you have 200 of every troop and 100 seige or 715 seige you can start looting the monsters lair as well, however its not really worth it until later on.
RSS tiles - try to occupy these and keep them occupied with as many troops as possible during the growth period because attacking others, is a complete waste of time and more often than not, will yield absolutely nothing.
Mid-Late game (usually 1 week-1 month)
This is usually when alliance pacts and guilds tend to start falling apart in these games, whether their attacked or internal drama or whatever, it always happens. (which is why i avoid hives, it's rather nasty when they fall apart)
However assuming yours is resilient lets go on to general combat strategies.
Now, take your opponents strength and weakness into account.
if his power alone is more than your entire alliance, having everyone use an EB is probably the smartest thing, and will allow you to regroup later and launch a counter attack when your alliance is stronger.
Why it's stupid to fight a foe that much larger well, let me explain it.
as you might know, troop tiers matter a lot on these games.
T1 generally dies to T2, and so on, so lets say you have 40,000 T4 troops and the enemy only has 10,000 or 20,000 T7 troops, even though it doesnt seem like much, those T7's are going to fuck your shit up.
Now, lets say you can fight back, a few strategies to take note of.

1. occupy empty spots inside and around your hive to decrease their tactical strike points so you have more time to react and defend your guild.
   
2. Rally stronger members or people with a lot of troops to decrease your losses, if the person your rallying gets reinforced by a much stronger player than your alliance call it off ASAP, it is better to take a hit than hit and be wiped out. remember, when your attacking you dont get woundeds, you lose troops!
   
3. Dodging, for those that are ballsy enough to do this good job. essentially you want to lure the big guy into attacking you, while you and your guild tears apart the weaker members to make them leave, or to distract the heavy hitter, sometimes you can tear down the big players like this because they can only reinforce so many troops on small players.
   
4. Attacking - with what little attacking i have done, it appears what you send together might matter, as i tend to lose more of everything vs just infantry like on other games, i still need to test more on this
   

WILL UPDATE WITH MORE INFORMATION LATER

MetaWorld: That pitch for a social community “game” that keeps popping up in your feeds.
Tired of it yet?
Fuck, man, I was up to “here” with that shit. Sure, I had read the post blurbs, the quotes, the weak marketing surface detritus that had oozed out in the last week or so, and, you know what? I went ahead and categorized it right in between Second Life, that place where furries live, and Club Penguin, that place where racist 9 year olds live(or lived. RIP, you hateful little assholes).
But the posts and comments just kept coming from all over. And the posts for this ridiculous idea that sounded suspiciously like some advanced mutant love child of Farmville and Facebook seemed… off. You know how, sometimes when someone puts something on the internet, you can kind of “feel” that it was dictated to them by someone in fashionably conscious but ultimately cosmetic suspenders with little TARDIS’ on them? Yah, these weren’t like that. Most of them weren’t the expected direct links to marketing-fed articles or “Social Media Relations” professionals. They were from people. Genuine-seeming people that seemed genuinely interested in this thing and wanted to see more about it. Hmm.
To say that I was on the fence about this one is an understatement. My “fence” had a deck with a comfy chair and a sexy librarian holding an icy glass of lemonade. Why give it any more of my time? It wasn’t going to happen. The large open world (a billion kilometers or WTF ever) seemed implausible at best, especially in the cross-platform environment they were shilling.
The unexpected public enthusiasm wasn’t the only thing nagging at me. VR, man. That’s the key. It’s commercial now, in a big and increasingly bigger way like we’ve never seen before. Maybe, just maybe, this old idea - that large online communities could form organically if planted in the right medium - just needed something to bloom that it didn’t have before. VR. Hmm Part 2: Electric Hmm-a-loo.
So, yah, I was interested at that point, either to prove this whole thing was an overblown turd burger of an idea, or to see the light that was MetaWorld.
I did some snooping around the tech behind it. The "world-driver" so-to-speak, particularly intrigued me. Other popular MMOs were, in their time, tested by the same standards; Could the servers providing the game world support the user activity seamlessly and, if so, was the world able to adapt and change based on inevitable software and hardware advancement? Oddly enough, it seemed the building blocks were there with MetaWorld. With the SpacialOS framework, the MetaWorld environment would run on a multi-server chained layout. It wasn’t exactly a revolutionary idea, but they seemed to be utilizing it in a way that would not only avoid world “sharding” and long load times (a mood killer under a VR helmet, I-tell-you-whut), but allow the world to be expanded, changed, and serviced while maintaining world continuity. In an environment where persistence ties to familiarity and reuse, a MMOVR world that’s readily expandable, modifiable, and resilient made sense to me. Hmm 3: The Hmm-ining.
So the supporting tech seemed solid, but the idea behind the “game” worried me. Was this just going to be an initial purchase cost? Would there be a monthly fee? How are they going to keep the lights on in MetaWorld?
The answer, it seems, is user-created vendor-based micro transactions. There are multiple Vendor-based perks on the Indiegogo campaign, the more expensive of which include extended storefront and design tool support. People will make money in this world, it seems. Assuming this is the case, the logical follow-through is that the developer will take a cut of that micro transaction cheese to support the world. Not bad. Not great, either, but there are worse ways to keep a game running than allowing users to create and sell their own wares for real profit. Hmm⁴ :You’ve got to be Hmm-ing me.
Finally, I looked at what the creators were actually saying (or tried to decipher what they were trying to say). They wanted a world where the focus on usability and interaction trumped photo-realism or simulation. This was “right” to me. It matched their stated goal of building an accessible VR world. They wanted, from the outset, a user-inclusive creation process that the users themselves had the potential to benefit financially from. This made sense. It laid out a tacit plan to persist beyond the initial release. They already have the funding in place to develop the game. This campaign seems to simply be intended to pull in users and get them invested. Users, perhaps, like me… Hmm: The Next Generation.
So, there I was, on the Indiegogo signup page, mulling. Brooding. Trying to convince myself of a reason why this wasn’t worth a shot. Could this work? Would this this work? It had the foundation to, certainly. There were possible drawbacks but, then again, what weird idea didn’t have drawbacks? That reality of the game’s promise started to seep in. Daily life in this new place… I'd own land in a different world. There'd be a house there. A yard. My own little virtual acre. I won't lie. That sounded rad.
Yah. I wanted to participate in this. I wanted to have a part in contributing to something this weird, fun, and, for better or worse, groundbreaking.
That's why I was smiling when I backed it and I smile as I write this. $50 bucks, because that’s what you pay for a game you want to play, right?
I don't know if it'll be great or terrible.
I don't know if it'll get bought up by Facebook or close down a few weeks in.
Maybe, if you are still reading, you might give it a look.
Perhaps you’ll want to see a project like this blow up so you’ll just throw $5 into the pot. Then, maybe, you’ll be able to tell uninterested future kids that you helped build the first MetaWorld. They won’t hear you, probably. Damn future kids with their damn loud-ass brain implant computer games.
All I know is that I want to be there. I want you to be there. I want us to try it, get to know the others that had the same urge we did to be pioneers of this strange new world, to gather around a campfire, shoot the shit, and drink lemonade.
Maybe that sexy librarian will be there…