I don’t work well in Summer, heat gets to me and makes my brain turn into angry mush but overall I’ve been having a weird ‘ho hum’ kinda day today so I’m goings to blurb myself into a stupor…
Rediscovering Magic: The Gathering
Duels of the Planeswalkers launched fairly recently on Steam along with the first DLC pack for it. Magic was something I very briefly collected but never really had very many people to play against and wasn’t inclined to seek out official tournaments or groups and it was something I briefly tried to court again when WotC modernised it in the wake of what the Pokemon CCG did to the market, which presumably depended on your angle… To me, it appeared that MTG just kinda vanished behind the sparkling anime. I remember the Harry Potter equivalent which I have to admit/confess holding a like for but that never blazed quite so brightly.
A long story short, I’m quite impressed by this digital offering and M:TG on-line in general. I’m almost tempted to start collecting the cards themselves. The digital table is beautiful, with wondrous animation and emulation of play.
Painter 11 acquired…
It’s a pretty daring leap ahead for me and makes ArtRage Studio Pro a little defunct (Though I foresee potential areas where it may be handy or manage work better… I enjoyed ArtRage and I highly recommend it, it is worth the money.) though it will take a bit of time to get settled with Painter. I’ve taken up a subscription with ImagineFX as part of my journey and will be indulging in issues of the official Corel Painter magazine. My aim is to work through tutorials and workshops between the two whenever I get the time. Most of my work in Painter 11 will be for Anno Geometrica and The Steamshaft Chronicles, I hope to be able to share that progress (and the learning that went into it) with you every now and again.
Steam Summer Sale
It just made my bank account it’s bitch. I’ve picked up a few games I was planning or pondering a purchase of prior to the sale and gifted a fair few to Nicola or friends. Some real bargains popping up on 24hr cycles not to mention the longer duration savings off large swathes of the Steam catalogue.
-Tom
That is all.
Current mood: 
futuristic.
