Sunday, May 26, 2019

DreamForge Grav-StuG Kickstarter (Postponed To March)


The Kickstarter date is set, pending final approval from Kickstarter...




The Kickstarter will run from January 25th to February 3rd. Its going to be a short one so keep your eye on the calendar!

I will release an introduction video and try to do one to two additional videos, in a Q&A format for the questions asked during the KS, as well as a overview of why I have decided to go the direction I did and where I would like to go next.

There will be retailer/wholesaler packages available.

Please see the previous post for more details regarding this Kickstarter. More details to come...

You can track our progress, sign up for news releases and follow all new content on our web page

I hope to see you there!

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Warhammer Quest Review (NSW)

Written by Anthony L. Cuaycong


Title: Warhammer Quest
Developer: Rodeo
Publisher: Chilled Mouse
Genre: Role-Playing, Strategy, Board Game
Price: $29.99
Also Available On: Android, iOS, PS4, Steam, XB1



Board games on digital platforms are hit-and-miss propositions, and with reason. Many of the very factors that add to their popularity as tabletop must-haves wind up by the wayside as they make their way to consoles. Fortunately, Warhammer Quest's Nintendo Switch version manages to retain much of its intrinsic appeal. It sacrifices all the emotional feedback actual dice rolls, paper-and-pen maintenance of statistics, and physical add-ons provide, but, in turn, presents myriad conveniences modern-day players take for granted en route to making lasting positive impressions.




As a role-playing offering, Warhammer Quest makes up in compelling gameplay what it lacks in story. Its depth as a dungeon crawler is evident at the onset; players are asked to choose from among 11 different types of character classes, and are then made to go through a set of helpful tutorials to get controls down pat. Turn-based mechanics abide over movement of the party of four in close-quarter, ranged, or magic-based combat, with type-specific items at its disposal. Victories translate to level-ups and the acquisition of new skills and abilities.




Enemies abound, but of limited variety, and battles can be protracted as hits either way aren't guaranteed at every instance. All the same, Warhammer Quest provides challenges that escalate fairly and progressively, resulting in a satisfying experience well worth its $29.99 price tag.



THE GOOD
  • Compelling gameplay
  • Deep dungeon crawler
  • Good number of character-class options at the onset

THE BAD
  • Loses emotional heft provided by original board game
  • Enemies of limited variety
  • Combat can be unnecessarily protracted


RATING: 7.5/10





Top 16 Best Highest Paying URL Shortener Sites to Make Money Online

  1. Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
    You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
    • Payout for 1000 views-$7
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payout method-Paypal
    • Payout time-daily

  2. Oke.io: Oke.io provides you an opportunity to earn money online by shortening URLs. Oke.io is a very friendly URL Shortener Service as it enables you to earn money by shortening and sharing URLs easily.
    Oke.io can pay you anywhere from $5 to $10 for your US, UK, and Canada visitors, whereas for the rest of the world the CPM will not be less than $2. You can sign up by using your email. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made via PayPal.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$7
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payout options-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily

  3. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
    The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
    • Minimum payout-$10
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
    • Payment-on the daily basis

  4. CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
    You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily

  5. Bc.vc: Bc.vc is another great URL Shortener Site. It provides you an opportunity to earn $4 to $10 per 1000 visits on your Shortened URL. The minimum withdrawal is $10, and the payment method used PayPal or Payoneer.
    Payments are made automatically on every seven days for earnings higher than $10.00. It also runs a referral system wherein the rate of referral earning is 10%.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$10
    • Minimum payout -$10
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payment method -Paypal
    • Payment time-daily

  6. Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
    You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$14
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
    • Payment time-daily

  7. Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
    You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$10
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-22%
    • Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
    • Payment time-daily

  8. Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
    You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-20% for lifetime
    • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
    • Payment time-on daily basis

  9. Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
    Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
    • The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment methods-PayPal
    • Payment date-10th day of every month

  10. Fas.li: Although Fas.li is relatively new URL Shortener Service, it has made its name and is regarded as one of the most trusted URL Shortener Company. It provides a wonderful opportunity for earning money online without spending even a single $. You can expect to earn up to $15 per 1000 views through Fas.li.
    You can start by registering a free account on Fas.li, shrink your important URLs, and share it with your fans and friends in blogs, forums, social media, etc. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made through PayPal or Payza on 1st or 15th of each month.
    Fas.li also run a referral program wherein you can earn a flat commission of 20% by referring for a lifetime. Moreover, Fas.li is not banned in anywhere so you can earn from those places where other URL Shortening Services are banned.
  11. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
    It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
  12. BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
    You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
    • The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
    • Minimum payout-$3
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
    • Payment time-daily

  13. LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
    One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
    • Payout for 1000 views-$16
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-10%
    • Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
    • Payment time-daily basis

  14. Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
    With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
    • Payout for every 1000 views-$5
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
    • Payout options-PayPal and Payza

  15. Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
    It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
  16. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
    • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
    • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
    • Referral Commission: 30%
    • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
    • Payment Time: Daily

Map Generation On A Sphere, Part 1

I ran into a showstopper with mapgen4. It unpredictably "freezes" in the sense that inputs have no effect, even though both the map generation and rendering are running. I'm taking a break from that for ProcGen 2018 - 9 days to work on a procedural generation project.

I decided to play with procedural map generation on a sphere. I've long wanted to try generating entire planets instead of flat maps. See this project and this project to get an idea of what I'm wanting to learn how to do.

I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I think a week would be a good amount of time. The rough plan:

  1. Select some evenly spaced points on a sphere.
  2. Run Delaunay Triangulation on those points.
  3. Generate Voronoi regions on those points.
  4. Assign elevation with 3D Simplex noise, similar to mapgen4's elevation with 2D Simplex noise.
  5. Construct rivers the same way mapgen4 does it.
  6. Render all of this on a sphere.

The core map algorithms in mapgen4 run on a dual mesh, which means they are not restricted to run on a flat grid. I am optimistic that most of them will run on a sphere. The main exception is wind+rain, which I'll either drop or adapt. The rendering algorithms in mapgen4 won't run easily on a sphere. The oblique projection is designed to match hand drawn paper maps; the outlines work by rendering a flat map to a texture, and probably won't work on a sphere. That's ok. It's a one week miniproject to try something different, and I will be happy if I get half of it working.

I spent the first two days on steps 1–3, and wrote up my notes, including an interactive demo and some links to papers and other reading. The next seven days were part 2. After I finish this miniproject I'll get back to debugging mapgen4.

The New Angry Birds Game Is A Master Class On Hyper Casual Game Design

I have already discussed this subject here and here, but, from time to time, I like to bring it up again just to remind myself of the huge potential of hyper casual games in the contemporary scenario.

The inspiration for this text was the new Angry Birds mobile game named "Dream Blast". Created by Rovio Studio, the game is an excellent example of how it is possible to create an interesting gaming experience using hyper casual game design. 



The game mechanics consist of a very simple touch-screen gesture where you must destroy two or more connected balls of the same color. If you destroy four or more balls, you will create a red bird. If you create two red birds side by side they will become a yellow bird; and, finally, if you create two yellow birds side by side you will create a big black bird. Each one of them, when touched, explodes in a different way destroying more or less of the scenario. 

The interesting part of the gaming experience comes from how the levels show interesting and varied challenges just by using a touch movement in the screen. The video below shows the intro and some of the main features of the gameplay:



Obviously, Dream Blast uses a business model based on virtual coins that the player can earn by playing or just buying them from the game store. 

Another interesting point of this subject is: how platforms like Google Stadia and Apple Arcade will change the "ecosystem" of the hyper casual games. Will they attract this kind of players to simple experiences with multiscreen possibility? But that's a subject for another post.

#GoGamers