Nev's One Minute Gaming 06- Robot Unicorn Attack 2

Hello and welcome back! This week I've been playing Robot Unicorn Attack 2 - I saw the name on the App Store and just had to have a look!

It's yet another endless runner but this one is more my pace - at least to start with.

You control a Robot Unicorn with just 2 controls - jump or dash. You're running  and jumping across a broken landscape of floating rocks - rather like those in Nagrand actually! and you're collecting fairies, gems, coins etc. You need to use the dash to get through the obstacles and enemies and use a jump or multiple of jumps to get across the gaps between the rocks.

It is definitely a little bit girlie to start with but once you have enough coins collected and have met some of the challenges to level up, you can upgrade and customise your robot unicorn into rather an evil looking beast.

There are also two teams you can choose to join - Team Inferno or Team Rainbow. These seem rather passive right now - you just get a reward at the end of the day if your team has the most stars destroyed for the day but it maybe more interactive at the higher levels - I'm just not there yet!

The graphics are crisp and sharp and I can't wait to get my Void Maker Robot Unicorn! I'd give this game a 9 - I love it

If you have a game you'd like to suggest, you can message me on twitter @Nevahaddict or leave a comment below.

Until next time, have fun

Download Robot Unicorn Attack 2 - Tips & Tricks Now

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E is for EDM! Dance The Blues Away

There were so many things on my list for today and many could be connected so I picked the one that has the most importance for me and links so many of the others. Yes, Electronic Dance Music (EDM) has finally seeped into my very consciousness, thanks to a certain DJ Soulshaker aka Cold of Cold's Gold Factory.

So what were the other possible E words for todays post? Well, eclectic is one I've used to describe myself in the past and my music taste is definitely eclectic. My collection has everything from Barbra Streisand to Meatloaf, Led Zeppelin to Buddy Holly and nowadays, Kaskade, Tiesto and Zedd, just to name a few of my favorite DJ's.

Entertainment, Energy, Enthusiasm and Ecstasy all crossed my mind for todays topic and having watched hours of the livestream of the Ultra Musical Festival in Miami last weekend, three of those were very much in evidence. Thousands of EDM fans descended on Miami for 3 days & nights of energetic dancing and entertainment whilst over one hundred thousand watched via livestream, undoubtedly with the volume up high and dancing around their computer desks! I know I was although I must have looked funny because I was 'tethered' by my headphones!

Ecstasy of course, is an illegal drug, often associated with raves and therefore EDM but having danced the night and the blues away on many an occasion myself, without any illegal help, the music itself brings a kind of euphoria I've not found with other genres. A few glasses of wine or a couple of martinis does help me though, put the music on and I can drift away into my own little world. When stuff is getting me down, it really helps to focus on the music and just lose myself in it.

I wrote about depression yesterday and it was just about the time I was recovering from my last major episode when Cold introduced me to EDM. I had been listening to Breaking Benjamin, which I really enjoyed, knew all the words to and could sing along to for hours. It was only recently when I revisited some of their songs that I realised just how damn depressing their lyrics were. I could almost feel myself sinking as I listened to the first few tracks, it was uncanny enough that I switched it off and deleted them from my hard drive.

There are multiple genres within the broad category of EDM too and I'm not musical at all so I do find them rather confusing. I do know what I like though and following Youtube suggestions when I listen to a track I know, helps me find others I like. I like Deep House, Vocal Trance and Chillout style for background when I'm doing yoga or pilates. Truth be told, there's not much I don't like although Dubstep and Drum & Bass spring to mind for the least favourite category!

I even have some playlists on Youtube so if you want to have a listen to stuff I like, check out my Sweet playlist or perhaps my Gotta Dance one. I like to leave them playing in the background when I'm doing other stuff although the Youtube adverts do get annoying after a while!

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It's Table Top Day - Get Playing!

So I have been informed that it's Table Top Day today which means it's time to grab some friends, a few beers or a bottle or two of wine and get to playing the old fashioned way - on a Table Top!

My family was never a big game playing family apart from Christmas time - mainly because my Dad ruled the roost with Monopoly and took everything so very seriously. We did have a Scrabble board set up for days at a time though - Dad took so long to choose his words that they developed a system where they just played their word then went on with house/family stuff until it was their turn again. Mum used to keep her tile rack in a kitchen cupboard and Dad kept his in his desk.

Anyway, things have come a long way in the board game world since then and whereas I remember only numerical, traditional card games, more unusual card games have come into being now. Cold introduced me to Cthulhu Fluxx and most recently to Lunch Money, both of which I enjoyed although I lost most of them to the master!

Cthulhu Fluxx (and indeed, I'd guess the other themed Fluxx games) is a little complicated at first but half the fun is arguing how many cards you have to pick up or throw away and whether you get to play again or have you finished your turn. Trying to work out whether to keep a card or has your opponent got the other half of the combo makes for some suspense but my favorite part is laying a card that makes my opponents reduce their hand of cards to just 2 cards - take that Mr Bad Guy!

Lunch Money is a whole different type of card game and requires a lot of smack talking as part of the fun. More alcohol was required for me to really get into it as I've never engaged in any type of smack talking and I felt silly. Another margarita or two and he didn't know what hit him although I still lost!

The cards have kind of creepy pictures of kids on them - not creepy in a bad way, just in an old horror movie kind of way - toned to sepia with old fashioned clothes made me think of ghosts. It's based on a playground fight and you have life counters.

You get a starting hand of 5 cards made up of attack, defend or heal cards but the fun starts as you describe what you are going to do but with colorful insults - that bit is even in the Rulebook!

Different cards allow you to counterattack or use a blocking manouvre but it all comes down to last one standing and then the victory dance can be performed - if you've consumed enough alcohol I guess!

I wouldn't recommend either game for young children though - I think both are a bit too complicated for them but older children and grown up children can certainly have a lot of laughs playing these games!

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D is for Depression

Depression sucks! It sucks the joy and colour out of everything around you, makes you feel grey yourself and as if you're wrapped in grey, heavy cotton wool blanket of stiflingness. It makes your head stuffy, your legs turn to lead when it comes time to get out of bed and everything tastes bland.

I found my old notebook from my schooldays last week when I was going through boxes of junk, preparing piles of stuff to send to charity shops or to the dump to make space. I've been here 18 months now & there are boxes I have yet to open, let alone actually unpack. Part of that has been physical - after both operations, I had to take it easy with lifting and stretching but part has been mental too - they contain my old life and all it's memories and I just didn't feel strong enough to clear them.

I'm not sure I'm strong enough now but I have to make a start - clearing out the old to make way for all the new stuff I have planned. Not only that, if my hopes & dreams become reality, I won't be able to take most of it with me anyway, with shipping being so expensive!

I cleared a huge space in my wardrobe too - clothes I'll never be able to wear again either because the cut is wrong or because I just don't like the way they look now. I need to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe and try to find a new style that suits my new body shape. That was harder than I expected it to be - I thought I'd pretty much written those old clothes off  but it seems a small part of me still wants to be shapely.


Anyway, back to the notebook - it held scraps of paper & mementos of my teen years including poems I wrote, full of the usual teenage angst. Some of them however, still hit a chord with me now. Could I have been suffering with depression even that far back?

Loneliness

Alone, all on her own

sad, moody and bored.

She stands on a littered kerb,

hearing nothing but emptiness.

She's cold and unwilling,

she sees only the uninhabited houses.

A bedraggled cat scampers across the still scene.

But the girl notices nothing,

she is alone, all on her own.

This was me, aged 12. The others are much in the same vein although I obviously discovered boys & they became more love lost type poems then. Could I really have had such a bleak outlook even then? It's hard to remember now but I do remember having cuddles with my Dad, crying because I didn't fit anywhere.

I've talked about depression before - I don't know if it's the long, lonely winter, stress from being so far from my love or just hormones on the fritz but the Black Dog is sniffing around my door. Luckily, sunshine is one of my cures and we are heading into Spring. I'm going to fight this sucker, I am not going to let it drag me down again. I've got way too much to do!

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C is for Clash of Clans

Ok so back to more normal topics today - games & gaming. I'm currently playing Clash of Clans on my iPad and loving it. It's a 'build a base then attack others' kind of strategy game but without the frantic quality so many games have these days. It's also free to play although as usual, there are ways to pay the developers real cash and I'm pretty sure most people do at some point! How much you pay over is down to your own patience & will power though! It's available on iPhone, iPad & some Android devices although sadly my phone is too old to run it.

I've joined the EGP clan and am currently sitting in 2nd place behind Cold (of Cold's Gold Factory) for number of trophies although I am quite a ways behind him. I'm at Town Hall level 7 which means that improving any of my weapons or defenses usually takes about 3-4 days each and a whole bucket load of elixir or gold, the two main resources in game.

It's one of those games you can play for just 2 minutes at a time - pop in, collect your resources and pop out again. Or of course, you can stay in game for much longer - working out great layouts for your base, developing a build strategy or building different kinds of armies to go raiding with.

If you get attacked and enough of your base is destroyed, the game gives you a shield too so it's not so bad if you are just getting everything built - you're not going to be constantly under attack by higher level players which is a relief - I have to admit to being fed up with the constant ganking that new players get in almost any game!

One of the achievements available in game is to reach 1250 trophies - this is a main achievement to aim for because it awards 450 green gems - the ones you normally have to buy with real cash! It's extra desirable because to get a 3rd builder costs 500 green gems which is almost a must have element. There is a way to get green gems in game without spending real cash - you just chop down trees, dig up stones & dead tree trunks that appear each day on your land area - unfortunately, those only drop 1-5 green gems and then only if you're lucky!

As a newbie to the game, my advice would be

• Don't spend all your green gems just to speed up building stuff, you'll need them even more later on. 
• Try to keep things fairly balanced between defence, attack and building upgrades - don't spend all your resources on upgrading your army and forget about your walls - keep them balanced!
• You don't have to clear all the obstacles around your base, like rocks & trees. They can give green gems but they can also be expensive to remove.
• Play some of the solo missions against the goblins - that will give you an idea of what you may come across in raiding later
• Join a clan once you have your Clan Castle built. You can request troops to help with attacks or defence but don't get too greedy when asking, donate some to help clan mates out too!
• Most of all? Have fun!

I'm pretty sure this game doesn't really need an in-depth explanation but if you find you want more information, there is a FREE walk through video guide available on Amazon and I'm sure there are others available too. Or if you want, you can ask questions here in the comments and I'll try and help :)

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B is for Blogging

Curious Kitty (© Nev 2008)

I guess picking Blogging for my B topic is kind of lame but it does take a lot of my time and energy on occasions and is one of the addictions I was thinking of writing about yesterday! Currently I have 2 active blogs, this one and my WoW gold making blog Auction House Addict but I also have an old photography blog which I want to re-boot this year over at Helen Shorey Photography and a joint one, Gifts For Gamers And Geeks which started well but we got blindsided by Google so it's faltered a bit.

There's also a food related blog on my list which is a folder full of draft posts at the moment, just waiting for me to get my photography going again and ideas for at least 2 more. I also have about 10 other blog names reserved, all linked on a theme but different too. Will I ever get those off the ground? Who knows! I'm great at ideas, just not so good on following through though.

I started blogging back in 2006 when I first got hooked by photography and joined Etsy. The community and forums at Etsy encouraged me to try blogging and it was those same people who got me on to Flickr, Twitter, Stumbleupon and various other sites! I have abandoned that old Etsy related blog but I brought many of the posts into the newer photography blog - why waste all that work after all!

The blogging community around World of Warcraft is another huge community - you can see from my tiny blogroll that I haven't even started to get really involved here yet but many of those bloggers are on my Twitter feed now so I read posts from there & forget to add them to the list!

This blog was started as a sideline to the main Auction House Addict - I felt my gold making readers probably didn't want all my randomness delivered directly to their mailboxes when they signed up for gold making advice, so my blog roll over there is a much more focused selection. What I do find here though is the freedom to write about almost any subject although I still censor myself quite a bit - it's just not in my nature to rant about stuff in public, no matter how ranty I feel.

There's also a lot of personal stuff I don't share here although I do have the urge to write it all down sometimes - maybe I should start an anonymous blog & just get it out of my system! Or maybe not, I think I have enough blogs on my horizon already, don't you?

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A is for Alphabet Challenge!

You may have noticed a new badge in the sidebar a few days ago - I decided I need a topic push so when I stumbled into the A to Z Challenge, I thought I'd give it a go. Now there are a whole bunch of other blogs over there already signed up as the site has been open for this year's challenge for a while now. If you're looking for a wider variety of blogs to peruse, check out the participants list - there's almost 2000 to choose from!

The idea of the challenge is to produce blog posts based on the letter for the day through the alphabet through the month of April, excluding Sundays. This is going to be a tough challenge for me - I've never been one to post every day but I've built a list of words/topics over the weekend & now I just have to sit down & write!

I'm already well into this post & I haven't even started my planned topic but I just noticed that A-Z Challenge itself counts for A - should I talk about this more or get on with it? Hmmm! One of the guidelines and/or suggestions is to keep the posts fairly short so I guess I'll cheat a little on the first day.

Strangely enough, I have a draft in my Auction House Addict (my other blog for any new readers who may stumble in here) post folder which is alphabet related - I was jotting down ideas whilst I was Stateside. I don't think I'll be doing the challenge on both blogs though - that would be too stressful & I'm sure my writing would suffer.

Up until now, this blog has been mainly gaming related with a little bit of real life stuff creeping in - this challenge is going to help me widen my topics but I still plan on being mainly gaming focused, especially as there are so many new games entering the market right now. I'm still playing World of Warcraft, albeit very intermittantly and I've just purchased the pre-order for Wildstar. In between waiting for Warlords of Draenor and the weekend beta events in Wildstar, I've also been dabbling with League of Legends so I should have plenty to write about - I just have to find the time!

Oh and just in case you were wondering - my planned topic was Addiction! yeah, I think playing 3 time consuming games and doing the free iPad game review segment counts as addiction and pretty much speaks for itself!

I have managed to give up smoking though so that's one less addiction on my list!

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