Battle Simulator, Beta 2

Four months have passed since the Battle Simulator in Americana Dawn was made open to beta testers, and a number of modifications and special rulesets were added to simulate a variety of real-world scenarios.

The initial wave of feedback shaped what GUI elements to include or optimize. In Beta 2, there are a number of visual and game mechanic changes, one of them including 'circles' underneath enemy units, which give a representation as to how soon they will strike and makes it easier to indicate where they are on the timeline as well.

A full list of changes made in Beta 2 is available here.

Chinese New Year 2015

Stockton's Chinese New Year, w/o the Lions

I arrived a bit late compared to other years (11:30), but what should normally be lions there's a music performance instead. And outside on the parade route the streets looked clean, there was no grandstand, and there was the normal flow of traffic like the parade didn't exist, so what's up?

OK, so they actually had the lion dance at the beginning, but was late for it because of the lack of parade participants (there were nine of them instead of 30 as usual), and everything was pushed back appropriately. I also heard the parade route was shortened for this reason as well.

Not to worry, I have another opportunity to see a Lion Dance somewhere else.

Freebies: There's not many booths that gave out free stuff. The most notable one that did was Jackson Rancheria, which left within an hour (at 12pm) and gave out $20 free play coupons like they were going out of style. If you obtained the program booklet at the entrance there's a $30 coupon on the very back page. (They only last for one month, and you can only use one of them.)

Thunder Valley Chinese New Year Calendar

It's somewhat of my tradition to pick up these calendars every year at Thunder Valley, if possible. After spending a total of $3.79* and getting 88 points I got my calendar.

But... it's not as large as the one as I got two years ago, although it's still ok.

2013 Calendar for scale.

*The quickest way of doing this is to keep hitting the max bet button on a 1 cent machine until you reach 88 points. Although any machine will do, the 1 cent has a lower variance if you have a limited amount of money (and the Quick Hit machines allow you to max bet for less). I don't trust table games to accrue points since the number of points seems to vary by a wide margin.

Haggin Museum Art Show

More specifically, the 84th Annual McKee Student Art Contest, which spans two floors, and K-12. This (and other special exhibits here) are really the only ones worth going to once the entire museum is explored (when it's free the first Saturday of every month).

I've participated in an art show once, but that was in Lodi, and was mainly limited to drawings, photographs, etc. Here 3D models and sculptures are also included.

Hyatt Lake Tahoe Gingerbread House

It's self explanatory, complete with a moving train, and I wonder how much effort is placed into making these life size houses. I would guess this is a popular thing to have a picture of, as there's a reminder sign to share on Instagram / Facebook.

Anyways, this seems to be here during the wintertime, changes every year or so and... there's free hot chocolate nearby.

Country Club Plaza

Country Club Plaza - probably one of those malls in Sacramento that looks almost abandoned, seeing a lot of empty space (the directory only lists 21 active stores, though it seems like a lot less). If it closes, this would be the third mall in the area that I've been in to do so.

A review on BigMallRat had good reviews on this place so maybe I'm a bit late...

Americana Dawn: Kickstarter

Brief Summary:

Americana Dawn is a role playing game that takes place in Colonial America inspired from the Suikoden series of games. It emphasizes more on tactics (instead of level grinding), exploration, and a variety of large scale battles.

Almost after two years of developing a custom game engine for Americana Dawn, the Kickstarter is ready to go.

Although the Kickstarter has ended unsuccessfully, it has been Greenlit on Steam so there's a good chance it will be made available there in the near future.

Notes:

• The battle scenes are part of the battle simulator, which generates random encounters as well as showcasing new battle features. It is undergoing testing and will be released at some point in the future when the demo is out. As this is a dev created map, expect a lot of references in it.
• The World map is explorable, though where you can go is quite limited at the moment. This region expands as we go along.
• There will be a later post covering the various features the game engine can do in battles as there were a few things that I wanted to demonstrate, but might not be utilized to their fullest potential in the beta / demo versions.