back to the future

Day 294: DungeonQuest

Just a few turns and I'm almost finished. Dungeonquest is brutal.

Just a few turns and I’m almost finished. Dungeonquest is brutal.

I didn’t do anything special for Back to the Future Day, but my gaming group did do a little time traveling tonight. We split into two groups and my table did some space colonization in Tiny Epic Galaxies before we went back to the time of dungeons and dragons in DungeonQuest.

When I was in junior high I played D&D, but I grew out of it as I entered high school. DungeonQuest isn’t a role-playing game, but it has all of the fun aspects of D&D: different characters with special abilities, monsters to be fought, and treasure to be gained.

And, of course, a big ol’ nasty dragon to wipe out you and your fellow adventurers.

I quickly learned that DungeonQuest is a brutal game. Getting to the dragon was hard enough and the various monsters, traps, and what-not could easily take you out. My first action resulted in my near-death and the other two players bit the dust within a few turns. We used a house rule that regenerated our characters and extended the game, but there was more death to come.

It was a lot of fun strolling through a dungeon again. And as long as the house rules permit multiple lives, I’m happy to do it again.

 

 

Day 49: Time Travel

Back to the Future

Back to the Future

The Streak is over. After blogging for the first 48 days of 2015, I spaced out yesterday and forgot to post something. I usually blog around dinner time, but plans changed last night and by the time I was ready for bed I was wiped out, my quest completely forgotten.

Fortunately, thanks to the magic of WordPress I can change the date of this post to yesterday. Like Superman turning back the clock to save Lois Lane from death-by-earthquake*, I can travel back in time to post my 49th blog of the year. The Quest continues!

My earliest recollection of time travel, aside from childhood games, was the Twilight Zone episode “The Rip Van Winkle Caper.” Four criminals steal $1 million and hide in a cave, where their leader has them enter suspended animation chambers. Their plan is to lay low for 100 years and wake up when their crime is forgotten: outrunning the law through the use of science. Of course, this being the Twilight Zone, nothing goes according to plan and the bad guys get their comeuppance. I’ll never forget the criminal mastermind (played by the fantastic Oscar Beregi) at the end of episode, desperate and dying, trying to barter for his life.

Another time-travel favorite of my youth was Back to the Future. I won’t rehash the well-known plot here, but two things I remember from that movie are 1) vest that Marty McFly wears throughout was similar to one I wore throughout middle school, as my wife likes to tease/remind me and 2) the mall parking lot scenes that bookend the film were filmed at the still-standing Puente Hills Mall. Whenever I visit the mall, I’m tempted to tear through the parking lot at 88 MPH.

Finally, during my senior year at UCSB, I read Captain Blackman for my senior thesis. It’s a novel that moves back and forth in time, exploring the role of African-Americans in the U.S. military in different wars, as told by its African-American protagonist. Captain Blackman was one of a handful of books I kept from college and I’ve been meaning to re-read it for years. If only I could travel back in time to read it instead of wasting my time rooting for a bad football team.

*I always get a kick out of Superman geeks that get fired up about that ending, talking about the impossibility of Superman reversing time like that. People, we are talking about an alien that has x-ray vision, superhuman strength, and FLIES.