Busy Little Week, Lalalala

Hey bloggie, sorry I've been neglecting ya a bit. Next week is Spring Break, so obviously all the professors rush to give work and whatnot right beforehand; thus I've been a little busy with schoolwork and whatnot. I also had some odd issue and was not mentally with it for a day or so, but fortunately that basically wore off soon enough.

It's been a little busy in Publication class with writing query letters for our magazine assignment. My first query letter is to a literary magazine called VERBATIM, my second is to a column in Smithsonian (I doubt my idea will be taken up upon), and the third (not yet written) will be to Chicken Soup for the Soul.

In other classes, I'm trying not to fall asleep in Lit, Understanding Human Cultures is also a bit of a drag, but fortuantely I have been enjoying Psychology - it's interesting stuff to think about and know. I like its applications to real-life situations; fun stuff.
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The screenie to your left (may be small, but oh well) is something else I've been doing this week. Alas, welcome to the RPG, Castle of the Winds. I actually started playing this because my girlfriend has played this game (she is not an avid gamer like myself, but she enjoys a little small game every now and then) and I have watched her play the game myself. I then decided to give it a go for the hey of it.

Don't let the graphics fool you - this may look like a primitive game, but it's gameplay is well made. The premise: avenge the death of your family (and the burning of a town) by setting out into a dungeon with multiple levels. Get through these dungeons, killing monsters, getting items, and avoiding traps. Get to the last level, and kill the boss. Simple as that.

There are actually two games. The first game consists of two towns; a small dungeon (~4 or 5 levels) accompanies the first town, then a larger dungeon (11 levels) accompanies the second town. The second game used to cost moola, but it is now free and can be downloaded with the first game. The second game consists of one town (with everything you'll need) and one dungeon with 25 levels, the last which hosts the boss of the game, the evil demon lord Surtur. I havn't made it all the way through the second game (I am about on dungeon level 18 or something like that); hopefully soon enough I'll make it.

You can learn all 30 of the spells (most likely will learn all of them before you finish the game), and you can keep like 10 of them in a little bar while playing for ease. Most of the spells are ones you'd figure would be in an RPG game (ex. healing, fire, cold, lightning, teleportesque spells), but maybe you want to try out some of the spells that are less likely in an RPG, such as Transmogrify Monster (changes targeted monster to either a weaker or stronger monster), or any of the detection spells (monster/item/trap; detects them on the map level).

While this game may look really old and savage, it's a nice little gem in the pile of older RPG's that should definately be given a try. Enjoy!

To download the game, visit this site: http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/ and scroll down, looking for the link to download Castle of the Winds.
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Well I guess that's it for todays blog; Mike signing off (well first I have to hit the publish button, then I can do whatever). Peace.