Do You Want Anything From The Shop?

I went on a bit of a Kickstarter spree in the nine months from September last year. I backed a bunch of boardgames. So far, they’ve all come through and been pretty darn good. Last week I got the latest one delivered. The small but mighty, Tiny Epic Zombies.

The game comes in a box not much bigger than the average novel, but contains a huge amount of stuff. Firstly, there’s the nine mall cards. The eight stores are laid out at random around a central courtyard. Once the board is laid out, you can move on to picking the three objectives for the game from the 9 each available for co-operative or competitive modes. Between the randomised nature of the stores and the variety of objectives, there’s a lot of replayablity with this game.


Each of the objectives will include their own setup instructions with extra tokens being placed out, or markers placed on the objectives themselves, to monitor progress. Objectives could be anything from tracking down the true source of the zombie outbreak to building a weapon and ammo cache by scavenging the mall stores.

There’s options to play cooperatively with 1-4 players against an AI zombie force, or else 2-4 players can go up against a human controlled enemy.

Each player is dealt 3 characters and picks one to represent them in the world. Different characters having their own unique skills which offer an advantage against the horde.

A zombie is selected or chooses who they’ll play as. These zombies can be found on the back of the character cards and are the decomposing versions of those heroes. For the AI versions, only the passive skills are used. However, for a human controlled horde, there are a range of increasingly powerful skills available.


Gameplay consists of players moving three spaces through the mall and carrying out any number of actions as they do so. This could involve performing melee attacks on zombies in the same room, ranged attacks on zombies in adjacent rooms, collecting items from stores – once they’ve been cleared out, etc.

At the end of each turn, players perform a search by turning over their scavenge card. If the icon on the card matches the store, this will give the zombies an advantage. Once revealed, these scavenged items can be collected by the next player to visit the store, after it’s clear.

For the zombie player, they’re trying to attack the central court of the mall, break down the barricades and kill any survivors they find there. They can also kill the player characters, which will deplete the survivor count from the central courtyard.

The health and ammo mechanic in this game is unlike anything I’ve encountered before. Basically you start in good health and with 9 bullets for your ranged weapon. Ranged attacks (and some of the player character abilities) will deplete ammo. Zombie player abilities and poor melee attacks by the players can cause them to receive wounds. However, the health and ammo meter are on the same track. Should the two meet, or overtake each other, that player is dead. Either due to their wounds or because they were too badly equipped to survive. If there are survivors left in the courtyard, that player can take another player card and start again. Their old character dropping all their weapons and items in the store they’re standing for anyone else to collect.

One of the first things that really drew me to the game on Kickstarter was the ITEMeeple. These are fairly standard shaped meeple – maybe a little larger than average – but with little holes at their hands. One of the unique things about this game is that the weapons you scavenge around the mall can be equipped to your meeple. Adorable knives, swords, Uzis, mp5s, etc can be attached to your avatar as you wander around the mall. There’s also the vehicles that can be used. Either a motorcycle or a police car. You really haven’t lived until you’re riding a cute little motorcycle through a mall while brandishing a dinky chainsaw and rocket launcher.

Pros:

  • Lots of replayablity
  • Great artwork
  • Adorable game pieces

Cons:

  • Can be a lot to take in the first time
  • Good chance you may lose a zombie or two due to size
  • If you’ve got the Deluxe Edition, you may have to deal with the dog dying.

Overall: 8/10

Alone In The Dark & Slightly Poorer

Three and a half years ago, I chucked $5 at an interesting little project on Indiegogo. It was an augmented reality game for mobile called Night Terrors and claimed to be “an ultra immersive gaming experience that transforms your environment into a terrifying hellscape”. Fucking. Sold.

There were updates as the campaign went on, but it came to an end, having made only about ¾ of it’s target. A a couple more email updates came thereafter, but then things really slowed down. I heard rumours that the game had come out, in some manner for iOS, but the promised Android version was still nowhere to be seen. Backers were told to wait, and as soon as the Android version happened, we’d get our copies. However, on Monday night I got an email telling me that Night Terrors: Bloody Mary was being released (woo?). This was followed a day later by a request for information. Telling me that if I still had that email address, I should should them a message and get a code for NT:BM. This I duly did and tonight my code arrived.

The first thing that struck me was that the game’s icon is a default Unity icon with the text “BMH-test”. I was now preparing to be more disappointed that if the game hadn’t even shown up, if they’d just taken the money and run. It wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve crowd funded and lost out on.

I remained unsurprised as the usual array of checkboxes for permissions that games are want to have, popped up on screen, before the game presented me with instructions to turn off my lights – check, put in my earbuds – check, and click to sign a long ass waiver to say that the dev isn’t responsible if I fall over my headphone lead while wandering around my house in the dark – check, I guess.

The camera light flicked on and the screen showed my living room with some video flicker effects over the top and a timer in one corner. Oh the horror. Be still my racing heart. As I wandered around, the light periodically flickered off, odd noises came out of the speaker, and occasionally, the screen would just go black and some video would play. The first sighting was someone cutting up a body on a table and eating bits of it. I wouldn’t call this AR though, despite the fact that angling my phone around could show it mostly hanging in one area. The room wasn’t showing as a background, just this cheesy video.

Once that faded I wandered to the hall and lost light again, lots of weird sound and then a phone ringing sound and a screen showing an incoming call. Pushing answer on screen did nothing, as far as I could tell so the whole point of putting this on a phone and in my hand felt pointless and gimmicky.

The whole dreary experience took about 15 minutes, and by the end I was just walking up and down the hall waiting for whatever happened next. At one point I was told to look on the floor for something, which wasn’t there, but did eventually show up. At which point it just followed me around the house, until that scene had played out.

I wouldn’t call this augmented reality. Just a badly implemented gimmick. Considering that the project I helped crowdfund had promised environment mapping, meaning that the scares would be appearing in your play area. Ghostly figures appearing in doorways, etc. All in the hopes of creating a “breathtakingly scary experience”. Sadly, that’s not what I got when I walked into my bathroom, the light went out and I watched a video of a person in period costume and a mask sitting in a puddle (of blood?) on the floor, while someone else scurried past in a totally black space. At least in Pokémon Go makes Pikachu stand on my couch sometimes.

The acting is cheesy, the graphics are ok at best, the sound design is fair. Nothing about this game should make you want to spend just under £3 for this on Google Play

Pros:

  • Short
  • Over Quickly
  • Good costumes

Cons:

  • Not worth the money
  • Cheesy acting
  • Not nearly as AR as it claims to be.

Overall: 2/10

Night Terrors: Bloody Mary is out now on Android & iOS.

Hurling Poop

Windjammers has been around as long as Super Metroid. Sadly, it hasn’t stood the test of time nearly as well. First released on the Neo Geo in 1994, and then again in 2010 on the WiiU Virtual Console, this Flying Disc Game (because I guess frisbee is a brand name) sees you picking one of six characters and to play a suped up pong-like.

Characters each have different power and speed, meaning they can throw the disc harder or move around faster. As rallies go on, the pace gets more swift and you find yourself sliding around at high speed to avoid letting your opponent score.

The angle you throw at can be changed by moving the stick diagonally forward before throwing. Alternatively, throwing while holding diagonally backwards will make the disc bounce up and down across the court, making it more tricky to catch. You can also perform a half circle before throwing to do a powered up special move.

Each match takes place in a different arena and each has a unique layout of scoring areas and centre obstacles. Score in a yellow zone for 3 points or red for 5 points. The center obstacles provide additional bounce points in around the net, meaning that you can bamboozle your opponent by hitting them just right.

Between some matches, you’ll get to play one of the two minigames: Dog Distance – throw your disc and have your doggo friend chase after it, while avoiding beach users; and Flying Power Disc Bowling – Knock down pins with your definitely-not-a-frisbee (I found playing as the Spanish character and holding forward and throw got a strike every time,so that’s fun /s). These are very short and simplistic and can also be accessed through the local game menu.

Windjammers, features online multiplayer, local single and multiplayer, and a wireless mode. So plenty of opportunities to bore the crap out of your friends playing this.

Like a lot of old games being ported to modern systems, and new games that want to look like they were, there’s options to play with or without scanlines, or even a CRT mode. Furthermore you can play in the original 4:3 (with or without your choice of borders to fill in the blank spaces at the edges) or a stretched out 16:9 screen ratio.

According to Wikipedia, there’s talk of a sequel coming to Switch next year. So if you really must throw digital discs at your rapidly diminishing circle of friends, you may want to hang on for that and hope for the best (I don’t really see how it could be much worse), or else invest in something like Mario Tennis Aces.

Pros:

  • Er
  • Um
  • Oh, the controls function

Cons:

  • Bland
  • Short
  • End screen is a picture of you holding a trophy and a three line congratulations message. Fucking woo!

Overall: 4/10

 

Windjammers is available now on Switch.

Legendarily Fiendish

Every now and then, a hero comes along. One hero, born to fight the hordes of evil. You probably know the drill by now. Mighty, smitey, probably not bitey human comes to wreck evil’s shit. And you, you are not that hero. You’re Bill. Say hi to Bill. Look at his evil little goatee. Marvel at that despicable widow’s peak. Stare in awe at his angry eyebrows. Yeah, you know he means business. He’s a go-getting type, ready to wipe out humanity like a baws.

The Legend of Evil as a 2D, side scrolling, tower defence game, with a pleasant pixel-art style, and a chiptune soundtrack from Springloaded Games (a fact, I only know because it’s written on the Steam page, not because I found it mentioned anywhere on their website. Still, I suppose making games is more important than rabbiting about them. Perhaps Peter Molyneux could learn a thing or two).

The wiley Bill begins his conquest of the human world with limited powers. Movement is controlled by left stick, there’s a dash on B, you can interact with towers with A, view the whole area with L, and dig with R. Later on, in certain circumstances, you get to use a summon move, with Y.

Your first task is to get a demon tower built by moving next to the glowing rune on the ground and hitting A. This brings up your a menu showing all the available demons you’ve unlocked. At first, you’ll only have access to a very basic melee unit, but as you progress you can unlock all kinds of creatures – the slow and sturdy, rock-like Lapis; the mighty, flying Sky Spear, the kind of like, but legally distinct from a beholder Coral Lights, and many more..

Over time, your towers will generate demons to fight for you. Demons will be opposed by the pitiful human forces. These wielders of sticks and stones will pose you little threat and once there bodies are broken, you can harvest their souls. Souls are the currency needed to upgrade your towers. Have them generate more souls over time, churn out demons more quickly, or create area of effect fields such as healing, slowing enemies, or protecting your horde. With your army made strong, you make progress across the map to destroy the human gate and claim victory, before moving on to the next area.

During play, you may find yourself waiting for souls to generate for your next upgrade, It’s times like this you should be searching for small, lit areas. These can be dug up to reveal coins (used for winning bonus medals in the campaign and permanent upgrades in rogue conquest mode) or yet more of those tasty tasty souls.

Gameplay is fast paced for the most part, and the difficulty curve is steep, bordering on vertical at times. With the first six or so levels of the campaign being simple affairs, to introduce mechanics, you’re suddenly thrust into levels where you’re forced to make decisions about where you will build your first tower within seconds. Choosing incorrectly can lead to very quick death. However, with practice, you can pick up what the level wants from you. Be it a quick start from a particular position, followed by demolishing an old tower and replacing with something stronger and then working on upgrades, or building ranged and melee units to support each other against a more diverse enemy.

Ultimately, I haven’t found the campaign all that fun. It often feels like there is one specific way that the game wants you to play an area, and it’s up to you to figure out exactly what the designers had in mind.

Significantly more enjoyable was the rogue conquest mode. Here you play through eight, randomly generated stages. You use a random generator to create an avatar you’re happy with (I got a little green-haired person in a witch hat, who suits me just perfectly) and head into the world. Initially, you are awarded a low-level demon, who is adapted to the biome you start in, be it forest, cliff, snow, or swamp.

As you play through each level, it’s important to keep an eye out for the glowing dig points, as getting money is vital to unlocking new demons, additional towers, power-up orbs for your troops, and abilities like additional starting souls.

Aside from the shop, you can also visit the forge between battles. Here you can attach orbs to your minions to boost their stats or give them new abilities, such as explode on death, knock-back resistance, or the ability to survive in biomes that they are not naturally adapted to. Want to take your best melee, ground fighter out on the cliffs? Give them the ability to jump, and they’ll be able to navigate safely in these battles.

Rogue conquest mode is a great way to see more of the demon types and upgrades that you’d have to play further through the campaign to get a look at otherwise. It’s a fun and interesting challenge that avoids the steep difficulty curve of the main campaign.

The Steam page makes note that the developer is planning to release more content for the game, including PVP, a map editor, a hundreds of levels long conquest mode, and more. I’ll certainly be interested to see what comes of all that.

Pros:

  • Nice graphics.
  • Pretty soundtrack
  • Very replayable rogue conquest mode

Cons:

  • Steep difficulty curve
  • Not a huge amount of content
  • Those lumberjacks can get in the sea (of fire)

Overall: 6/10

The Legend of Evil is available now on Steam and Switch

Gooey Centre

I do enjoy a metroidvania. I’m not good at them, but I do enjoy them. I recently spent about a month playing Hollow Knight. However, I didn’t finish it due to lacking certain skills which that game demands. It’s a shame, but there we are stuck. In a frustrated rage at dying for the umpteenth time in the same area, this time losing a bunch of money I’d been saving for a big upgrade. The game is beautiful. The music is stunning. The mechanics can kiss my heart-shaped booty while I’m mid-poop, the morning after a particularly lively dopiaza.

And so it’s gone. It’s only legacy, a stain on my heart and gnarled fingers and a cloud with an arrow icon showing on my Switch menu.

So what now? I’m still craving that kind of game, Nintendo Online hasn’t updated to include SNES games like Super Metroid yet and I can’t be arsed to fanny about with emulators, especially with a bunch of new games coming out in the run up to the primary commerce period of the year.

I’ll tell you what now – Dead Cells.

I’d seen stills of the game and thought it was another, pretty enough, pixel graphic affair with (*big sigh*) procedural generation. Don’t get me wrong procedural stuff can be interesting, for a little while, but I often find it turns to boring mush before too long. Dead Cells, however, has done a good job making a game that is very playable, pleasantly different on each run, and with enough difference between the stages to keep it fresh as your make your progress in the world.

You start the game as a rolling ball of mush, which slithers into a body of sorts and is ready for the next run. One of the few characters that you encounter seems to imply that even on your first run, that this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Like you’ve been here a while, and only just becoming aware of that. This is fairly typical of the way the world in which you find yourself is introduced. Prison cells containing notes, hidey holes, little clues as to what has happened here.

As you move through the levels, you’ll find a variety of different enemies. Some will drop gold for your coffers, others leave jewels which can be sold for profit, or even minor health items. If you’re very lucky, enemies will drop, or you’ll find weapon blueprints. These can been handed into the blacksmith. Once they’re safely handed in, you’ll start to find these weapons in the world to collect on future runs. Arguably more important than all of these are cells. These glowing orbs are the key to paying for the game’s permanent upgrades.

In addition to enemy drops, you’ll come across weapons like swords, bows, and whips; shields; and special items, like grenades, deployable arrow launchers, and bear traps. Lastly, you’ll find scrolls to power up your weapons and abilities. You can choose to power up your brutality – represented by things like grenades and swords, survival – shields and bear traps, and tactics – bows and arrow launchers. They will also provide a helpful percentage health increase.

Once in a while, you’ll come across vendors selling weapons or special items. These are bought with gold and there’s usually something worth grabbing to help on your journey.

The other way to spend gold is to open the golden doors which you’ll run across. I guess it’s like a money box that you put your cash in until it opens, because otherwise I have no idea how paying a door to open would even work (unless maybe it’s sentient and has a better minimum wage than any country I know of). There is the advantage that you can see the item type on the other side before you decide to spend the pennies, but there’s no guarantee of what level said item/power-up may be. That said, the game feels like it’s skewed towards moving you on to better things, rather than offering crappy items at inflated prices.

As I mentioned earlier, cells are the most important currency, but these are only spent between levels. Here you can buy those vital permanent upgrades. Want a health potion or two? Spend cells. Want to be able to keep a little gold for your next run? Cells. How about powering up the quality of weapons you find during your runs? CELLS (and plenty of them!). The more unlocks you buy, the more will open up. Behold the cycle of cell based capitalism!

Something else you’ll spot in the safe zone between levels is the chance to mutate (I crossed my fingers that I’d be getting tentacles, but sadly I was disappointed. Watch now as I don’t get on twitter and shout at the devs like some entitled twatbag. Marvel as I don’t harass someone off the internet because this one thing wasn’t specifically taylored to my desires. You too can achieve this level of chill). There’s a good selection of options, each influenced by how you’ve powered, up using the scrolls you’ve nabbed. Do you want to do more damage for a few seconds after each kill? Take a 30% health bonus? Grab a little health after each kill? These handy little bonuses will only stay with you during that run, but they can really make all the difference. Especially as you gain more mutations and power them up further with scrolls.

You’re going to die a lot in this game, it’s half the fun, but the fact that you can leap quickly back in, and eek out a little more distance on your next run is what really makes this game. And you certainly will be getting a little further, by virtue of having earned and spent your cells or beaten certain enemies. Relatively early on you can pick up a health potion that will refill between levels, a chance to carry some gold over to the next run, and – possibly far more important – the ability to access new areas by tickling moss (which is my new favourite euphemism).

The game is quite pacey. Your character runs everywhere, combat is fast and fluid (unless you’re using a particularly heavy sword), special items have nice short timers so you can be ready to use them again in ~20 seconds. Even death and revival feels like a minor trip, rather than an agonising fall into the void where you must plead for resurrection. For me, that really helped keep the rhythm of the game going.

Everything is beautifully animated and despite pixel art being fairly overused of late, it’s very well done here. Lots of bright colours, beautiful lighting effects and well-designed scenery. Enemies are bold and easy to identify. A few runs in and you know how that enemy attacks. You know how to take it out, without suffering too much, or any damage. Each enemy clear and distinct, but very much a denizen of the world.

Controls are tight, you never feel like death was the fault anything other than rashly running into a densely populated area or overestimating your skill. Primary and off-hand attacks on Y & X, jump and dodge on A & B, specials are on the shoulder triggers, and interact is the R button (Quick note – I’ve only played the Switch release).

Pros:

  • Fast paced.
  • Very replayable.
  • Fair price for a lot of game.

Cons:

  • Loss of sleep due to the endless ‘one more run’.
  • Once the initial power-ups are purchased, perm upgrades can feel expensive.
  • I had to stop playing to go to work.

Overall Score: 9/10

Let’s (Mario) Party!

If you’ve owned a Nintendo system in the last 20 years (well, now I feel freaking old), chances are you’ve played one of the fifteen or so Mario Party games. If not, the concept is pretty simple – roll dice to move around a game board, compete in simple minigames, collect coins (to buy bonus items and stars, the player with the most stars after a set number of turns get to rub their glorious victory in the faces of their loser friends (Suck it, Peach. Shy Guy is the boss round here. Go back to your castle and cry more! … Ahem). It’s a really simple idea that is made or broken on how good the minigames are, as that’s what you’ll spend most of your time doing.

And so we come to the eleventh game in the main console series – Super Mario Party.

Once again, Mario’s heroes and villains have gathered to see who will be the superstar. Choose from 16 characters (to start with and 4 more to be unlocked as you play), including fan favourites like Shy Guy, Waluigi, Bowser and Dry bones (I mean, Mario and that lot are in there too, but they get quite enough of the spotlight in other games tbh. Also, I think it’s time to petition Nintendo for Bowsette DLC). Each character will have access to their own unique special die as well as a basic D6. Shy Guy, for example has is five sides showing ‘4’ and one of ‘0’ – pretty handy if you’re looking to move a very specific amount to land on something good.

With your character chosen, you can set the difficulty level for any CPU players and then stroll on into the Party Plaza. Here you can check out the game’s modes. Initially, not everything is open, but in time you’ll have access to a whole range of options.

First up there’s classic party mode. 4 players go head to head to take on one of three game boards, each with their own unique mechanics to help or hinder your progress. Once all three have been completed, you’ll open a fourth board for this mode. You can choose to play 10 or 30 turns. With 10 working out to approximately an hour of play.

Different spaces on the board will have different effects, blue for extra coins, red to lose coins, exclamations cause special effects on the board (e.g. taking a warp to another area), clovers award a random bonus, bad luck spaces cause a random loss, and then there’s the ally space.

The ally space allows you to pick up a companion from the remaining available characters. You’ll get to use their special die and they’ll roll a bonus die along with your roll that will add 1 or 2 to your total. It’s cute and fun watching dialogue between sworn enemies, agreeing to help out… just this once.

Next there’s couples mode. Two teams of two make their way across a much more open board. Rather than the usual, single lane, branching path, these boards tend to have more room to move and plan your strategies. Both players on a team will roll their dice and the total is added together. Players then get to move the total of the dice roll each. I found this mode to be a bit slower on the board itself, as the teams make plans to move around. Do you move together, towards the star or split the party, with one going for a special item, to gather coins, or pound on your opponents in order to steal their precious coins?

Additionally, the fact that one player will always move first of the two, becomes important, since the first player can trigger a special event, which may change the possible routes around the board. This could mean that bad planning sees the second player being stuck behind a wall, losing some of their moves.

During this mode, you’ll find allies being air dropped in at intervals. If you can swoop in and grab them before the opposing team, they can really make or break your game. Here the ally’s added dice rolls will only go to the player that picked them up, rather than to the team as a whole.

If you’re feeling up for some rhythm action, there’s Sound Stage mode just for this. The actions range from washing suds off of a window, riding a horse by pulling on the reigns, spiking fruit with a sword, and more. The music is great and controls are suitably responsive as you waggle your way to victory.

Next up is challenge road. A single player mode where you must play through each of the 80 minigames in a specific order. The difficulty is pre-set and can get pretty tricky, especially if there’s games you know you’re weak on.

Finally, why not take a nice gentle paddle down the river? I’ll tell you why not, because the water it pretty darn choppy in River Survival and there’s plenty of obstacles in your way (Bloopers making whirlpools, Cheep Cheeps bouncing out of the water, etc.). This mode is played as a co-operative, four player team, working together to take on the many dangers of these choppy waters (and maybe overthrowing capitalism once they’re done… please?). As there were only two of us playing, I was initially concerned that having two CPU players would make life super difficult. We made sure one of us was on either side of the boat, with the CPU helping one of us each, they did a great job paddling where we wanted and held their own in the mini games.

One game in particular really showed off how considerately programmed they are. It’s a basic memory game, with cards laid out showing the suits, you’re given the target suit and after a few seconds, they’re flipped over, some will move and then you have to pick out the correct cards. My first thought was that, if I’ve been focusing on one particular card, and the CPU picks that one, I’m pretty screwed. However, I noticed that there was a distinct pause before they move, giving you good time to get to your target. It’s a simple thing, but makes all the difference and stops it feeling unfair if you’re not playing with a full team of hoomins.

Along the course of the river, you’ll find balloons, which will trigger minigames. These can be completed for additional sailing time, with higher scores/better times meaning your earn more time. There’s also stop watches which award an extra three seconds. As you progress, there’s the chance to pick different routes so you can eventually see all five endings of this mode.

If all the main modes seem like a bit of a time commitment that you can’t afford, there’s a mode to free-play any of the games you’ve unlocked and even compete in five minigame, online marathons.

That’s already a lot of game, but wait, there’s more. Anyone who’s seen the trailer for the game will have noticed that there’s a special mode using two Switches. First, you’ll need two consoles and two copies of the game. Set up is pretty simple from the tile screen, and then you can head into Toad’s Rec Room. Now, just lay your Switches down next to each other, on a flat surface. Draw a line on the screen to let the system know where they are relative to each other. Now you can drive tanks through warp pipes to travel between the screens and attack your opponents. It’s pretty cool, but expensive to get started.

This game has a huge amount of heart. One of my favourite features is the high fives. At the cue, just punch the air with your controller in hand and your characters will perform a cute little high five. In River Survial mode, you can perform the manoeuvre after every minigame, or clap your paddles together between areas to earn three extra seconds. In couples mode, you can do it to gain some extra coins after minigames.

If that’s all a bit hectic for you, why not retire to the sticker room and just cover some scenes in Mario themed stickers. If you’ve got Mario character amiibo, you can unlock shiny stickers for those characters, other amiibo will award you additional party points to spend on more unlocks.

I’d say we spent about 15 hours total playing through classic party mode, river survival, couples, sound stage mode, and challenge road. After all that, I’m still up for playing it a whole bunch more and really excited to see what it’s like with four friends. The music is great, it’s graphically beautiful, with wonderful texture work, and it never once felt like I was fighting the controller.

Speaking of which, all you need to play the game is a single Joy-Con. There’s a good variety of games using motion control (for example to throw boomerangs or shave ice), many using the stick and one or two buttons, or just single button pounding. Even the HD rumble feature is put to good use (This was really my first experience of the HD rumble as I’ve not had a chance to check out 1-2 Switch). One game features a number of passing characters (Wigglers, Bullet Bills, Thwomps, etc) each causing the controller to rumble very differently. The rumble is then played back blind and you have to identify which character it was you could feel. I was super impressed with how different they could make the rumble feel.

Another game sees you having to select boxes and shake them to see which have the most nuts inside. Once you’re happy, pop them down on your side of the play field and see how you scored at the end. It’s a really innovative use of the controller and I’m super glad it’s not been ignored beyond that pricy tech demo

#12SwitchShouldHaveBeenAFreePackInWithTheConsole.

Pros:

  • A lot of game to get through.
  • AI is capable in co-op and challenging at higher skill levels.
  • Very replayable.
  • Looks beautiful.

Cons:

  • No option to use download play to try Toad’s Rec Room.
  • River mode doesn’t work super well in single player.
  • I was robbed in classic mode during the bonus awards *shakes fist*.

Overall Score: 10/10

A Steaming Pile

In a recent post, Valve announced their grand plan to convert the bleeding, wounded, scabrous beast that is Steam, into a feculent puddle of decaying filth.

The post begins, ‘Recently there’s been a bunch of community discussion around what kind of games we’re allowing onto the Steam Store. As is often the case, the discussion caused us to spend some time examining what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we could be doing it better’. From the looks of things, the discussion took place between a parent who’s given up on parenting and would rather just be hoovering coke and an exhausted teenager.

Parent Valve: Tidy your room, there’s all this active shooter stuff everywhere and even the rats are starting to complain about the quality of trash in here. Good gravy, gay world?! This is despicable, clean it up.

Teen Valve: I don’t wanna. Cleaning up is haaaaaaaaarrrrrd.

PV: Fine, well when you drown in trash and raw sewage, don’t come crying to me.

PV: [heads off to their den to shovel charlie up their slowly collapsing nose]

‘Decision making in this space is particularly challenging’ so why decide, just shrug and watch the fees roll in from any rando with a first edition copy of Klik & Play, willing to put in the bare minimum effort, in the hopes of getting on the service.

Those games perhaps shouldn’t be being sold. Maybe they should be the demos you put together on the road to becoming a better creator, because Steam shouldn’t be your Google Docs, full of early drafts that could do with polish. Steam could, and indeed has been, a great marketplace for vetted games.

In the last few years, I’ve had to accept that bad, unfinished, asset flippy crap will be on there. That I can cope with and will willingly block/ignore them, using the new Steam functions. It’s the hate I can’t be dealing with. It’s the hate that will make me want to demand refunds on all 703 of the games I own on the service. They can undulate out of the Unity asset store, looking like a 1998 Net Yaroze release, leaking slime and pus, shimmy up my new release list, and vomit in my face all they want, because making a bad game is far more noble than putting effort, style and polish into pixelated hate speech.

‘[W]e’ve decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling’. And there it is. Steam saw its house on fire, made a coffee, pulled up a chair, said ‘This is fine’, and just sat there, watching its world burn.

‘[T]he games we allow onto the Store will not be a reflection of Valve’s values’. Oh, come now, that’s not true. They represent money. Money has value, and that value will roll into their coffers. Money they can use for truck-loads more ethically dubious, uncut, relevance powder.

‘We are going to enable you to override our recommendation algorithms and hide games containing the topics you’re not interested in’. Isn’t that a simple solution? Isn’t that the best way? Don’t fancy that game about killing the gays or the essjaydubyas or the school kids? Just flick that off. You won’t have to see it. You can hide in your little bubble (ya snowflake). Let these settings help you make a safe space.

Sure, why bother setting an example. Who cares about having any kind of morals or principles. Those things are for whiney babbies who can’t handle real life, where there are no safe spaces.

Jane, all this sounds like loony lefty cerrrrserrrsrrrrrrrp. That’s because it is. As a member of the trans community, who have been attacked repeatedly and with more bile, by bigots of every flavour, and with increasing frequency in the last few years, it’s become clear that sometimes you just have to say no to hateful bullshit. No platform for you you far-right arsehead. No hosting your talk, you hateful exclusionist, wearing the mask of radical feminism. No show for you, you racist fuck. And so on. And so on.

But that makes you just as much a fascist as them! Short answer, you’re wrong. Long answer, so what. If censorship of this kind means that hatred of people of colour, disabled, neuro-diverse, queer, bi, pan, lesbian, gay, trans, non-binary, aces, aeros, demis, etc aren’t exposed to hate in gaming, art, or in their day-to-day lives, because some rando took their principles from wrong-headed games or hate groups, or miscellaneous bigots, then I’m glad. It really doesn’t hurt to put more love and support into the world, but what we’ve seen each time Valve takes a step back on Steam is blatant homophobia, racism, and edgy dickhead simulators (I’m looking at you Active Shooter and Gay World).

If Valve ran a supermarket, you could take a shit, put it in a sandwich bag and sell it in their store. Don’t like seeing bags of Bristol type 6 human waste on the shelves? You can put these blinkers on. All our cereal has glass in it. Don’t worry kids, it turns the milk bloody when you bite into it. How about some of that early access bacon? The dev paid their money and they assure us that it’s still coming out. The trotters you tried out a few months back showed a lot of potential. Meanwhile, in a forgotten shed somewhere in Dorset, racist, homophobic flies are the only devs left on the stinking, green paste that was Baconator Reckoning Revengence. They’ve added new maggots, a rape scene and streamlined the overall pig, but it’s still a rotting corpse.

In any other market place, the buyers check the quality of the product, see if it’s something they actually want to sell, that doesn’t make their business look like it supports hate groups, and make arrangements to bring it to market. What Valve are proposing at the moment is not a shop, it’s a cesspit. Anyone can dump a load in there, and if people want to dive in to and have a swim around in, they’re welcome. Grab a net, hope for something shiny and enjoyable, try not to drown in the burning piss and diarrhoea milkshake.

If anything, this news has made me more grateful for GOG Connect. I’ve been slowly reclaiming games I own on Steam over at GOG since the service launched. I’m very grateful I won’t have to pay for some of those games again and it makes me much more inclined to make future purchases there than fishing them out of the steaming poo puddle.

itch.io creator, Leaf shared the following on twitter:

See, it’s possible to take a stance against hate and intolerance and still be a successful platform. I hope that all this Steam chaos will make consumers sit up and question whether it’s a storefront that they feel comfortable aligning themselves with, or supporting.

It’s Valve’s business, they can do what they want, they’re free to speak, but if that’s the kind of place it wants to be, I’m not going to spend my money there anymore and I’m not going to listen to them.

E3 2018 Hype Train

Choo choo. All aboard the hype train.

It’s nearly time for E3. So let’s have a look at all the awesome things that we can get overly excited about, and start getting our pre-orders in for this stuff.

Ringo Starr [narrating]: “Oh no, there’s been a terrible accident. The hype train’s derailed and smashed into the Sodor nuclear power plant.”

Janeiac: That doesn’t seem good Ringo. Should we call someone?

RS: It’s too late Janey. Look there.

Kevan Brighting [narrating]: Ringo was right. As Janeiac looked, she saw Sir Topam Hatt’s face start to blister and melt off as he screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. And then his eyes melted too.

KB: It was absolutely horrific. Probably most horrifying thing she’d ever seen, and she’d once walked in on her mother having sex with a hairy pot dealer when she was 12. Sometimes she still had a memory of that monumentally hairy set of bouncing buttocks. It was not a visual memory, but was still scarred into her mind.

KB: Janeiac wondered if this was perhaps more tasteless advertising from the people that brought you the dismembered corpse that came with Dead Island. She felt deep in the very core of her being that somehow, all of this must have something to do with the E3 article that she’d planned to write.

Richard Ridings [narrating]: It is pay day!

J: What are you doing here?

RR: There are unspeakable horrors unfurling. It seemed appropriate. Also, I had to get out of that dungeon, the yoghurt was starting to go off and it smelled worse than a bile demon’s foreskin after a week of humping a handful of its own faeces.

RS: I think we’re losing track of this whole E3 thing.

Morgan Freeman [narrating]: They were, in fact, losing track of the whole E3 thing. People were supposed to be getting excited about the latest electrical wizardry, but sadly, everyone was too distracted by the fact that, Thomas was on fire, nuclear waste was turning biological matter to cancerous soup, and Richard Ridings had forced me to think about a bile demon’s foreskin.

RS: At that moment, Spencer pulled up and expressed his disappointment in the assembled narrators.

RR: A tory has entered your dungeon!

Spencer: I’m very disappointed in all of you assembled narrators.

J: Oh, do fornicate off, you David Cameron looking twunt.

RS: Spencer had to admit that he did rather look like David Cameron. Right up until the meteor fell from the sky and turned him into sheet metal.

All: [4.27 minutes of riotous laughing]

MF: Such laughter in the face of a world falling to pieces was a much needed tonic. Everything had gotten rather dark of late in the world and laughter was really all anyone had left in the face of utter unpleasantness.

Edward Norton [narrating]: I never felt so alive as when the earth began to spew boiling lava that pushed up the train tracks, causing Gordon and Percy to go flying at high speed into the air. The whole world was tearing itself apart and I couldn’t help but notice Reggie Fils-Aimé, sitting on his horde of ill-gotten Amiibo and wrapping gaffer tape around his head like a discount balaclava, while laugh-crying and bleeding from a small graze on his knee, which he got while running too fast with an untied shoe lace.

J: Wait a minute!

RS: Said Janeiac.

J: Shush you.

KB: Ringo had been suitably chastised by Jane…

J: and you

RR: [laughs evilly]

J: [glares at the assembled narrators]

Narrators: [uncomfortable silence and awkward shuffling]

Does anyone have any information about E3?

Andrea Libman [Pinkie Pie voice]: I don’t!

J: Oh, hey Pinkie.

AL: Actually, I’m Andrea Libman.

J: Sorry, it was because you did the voice.

AL: I suppose that’s fair. I do do other voices though, you know.

J: I did know that. You’re a very talented voice actor.

AL: Thanks.

KB: Somewhere in the distance, Annie and Clarabel exploded into a billion splinters, which flew through the air and fell around the duck pond like a rain of needles.

J: So, let’s get this straight. None of us have any information about E3, or any idea about what’s coming.

[silence… apart from the sound of all the fires and screaming and exploding and general awfulness]

J: Right, well, thank you everyone. This has been fascinating but I’m heading home.

AL: Wait, I have a thing!

J: You do?

AL: Pretty sure we’re going to see more of that Yoshi game from Nintendo.

J: That’s a fair guess.

RB: Jane felt an amazing sense of relief at hearing at least one thought on what might be appearing at E3. This was because she kind of liked the idea of writing about games but didn’t really have time to do proper research. Or rather she did, but she seemed to prefer oddly written improvisational pieces to actual journalism.

J: Hey, I’m not against journalism. I just prefer to get hands on before I write about games and stuff.

[distorted voice of Jigsaw]: Hello narrators. I want to play a game.

J: Not right now Jigsaw.

[Billy the puppet dejectedly rides his tricycle away, a single tear running down his cheek]

[Fade to black.]

[closing title card, overlaid with some visual scratches and picture jumping, to imply old timey black and white film]: fine

[Fade out]

[Fade in]

[Title card is on fire]: …this is fine.

So there you have it folks, all the good good E3 news you could want ahead of next week’s big event.

Hyrule Genocide Simulator

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Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition has just been released on Nintendo Switch. This is actually the third version of the Nintendo-property-skinned genocide simulator from developer Koei Tecmo, having previously been released on WiiU and 3DS. I’m told this one suffers with less frame rate issues than the previous incarnations, but having never played them, I couldn’t say for sure.

You take control of various familiar faces from the Legend of Zelda franchise history + KT’s self-insert character, that I’m fairly certain is contractually required in all such games. The game opens with Hyrule castle being attacked by enemy forces and Link – here appearing initially as a fairly standard guard, training at the castle – find’s themself on a chaotic battlefield full of demonic looking little bastards that need a strongly worded… sword to the face. Hack cleave and grind your way around the map, following blips on your minimap and character conversations in a tiny box on the bottom left of the screen.

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Ok, here goes, I’m going to wade in with everything I hate about this game *hits the badge shop and throws all the resources into defence badges*. I get easily overwhelmed. It’s a thing. If there’s too much going on around me in the street, I sometimes need to just go hide in a toilet stall and gather myself. So the idea that I would have to track hundreds of onscreen enemies, a minimap that could do with being about 10-20% larger to be clear enough, and unvoiced character conversations in a tiny corner of the screen. That’s too much, man!

*waits for the bottles of piss to stop being thrown*

Right, so here’s the thing. I love this game. I’ve been playing it every spare minute and I nearly blew off going out for my friend’s birthday this weekend because it would have allowed me another 8 hours of solid play. In spite of all I listed above, this game is brilliant fun and very addictive. The first thing I had to learn – as this is my first time really digging into a Warriors game – is that a lot of the shit on screen really doesn’t matter. You just push your way through the general minions to whoever the quest marker deems important, like a white, middle-class woman with a bob desperate to take her ire out on the store manager. Then, if the quest marker isn’t satisfied with their answer, you go find someone more senior to shout at until victory happens (look out summer 2019 for Soccer Mom Warriors).

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As you progress through the game you’ll gain experience from those that fall at your blade (or crossbows, or book… somehow). As you level up, your characters become stronger. Just stronger, no other stats matter. Just how ready you are for more slaughter.

Randomly brutalising any enemy with a health bar can gain you extra weapons or materials. Weapons add a little more strength to your attacks and often come with various elemental or bonus perks. These perks include the ability to find better weapons (with higher damage or more perk slots), power up certain combos, have advantages against certain enemies, or the ability to find better materials. Perks can be swapped into empty slots in the smithy between battles, for a price.

The final way to power up your characters is with badges. These are crafted between levels and allow yet more perks. These come in three delicious flavours: attack, defence, and assist. The attack badges unlock more combos, more damage against defending foes, give additional special attack uses, etc. Defence badges will let you take less damage from different elemental sources or allow use of health potions. Assist badges allow you to take over enemy keeps more quickly and increase the duration of certain power-ups. Each character will need their own badges, and each may require different materials for the same badges, on different characters. So there’s going to need to be a lot of item farming if you want to unlock everything for everyone.

The Story Mode takes you on a super meandering journey through Hyrule to defeat Cia (a witch originally tasked with keeping the balance of the Triforce) as she causes chaos while trying to gather up some funky glowing orbs. I’ll not spoil the plot here, but there’s more to it than that, obvs. The story takes several branches along the way, as you get to visit areas from Ocarina of Time, Twiglet Princess, and Skyward Sword. Then sends you back to see things from other perspectives. See how things got going for Cia and her captains – Volga and Wizzro. In addition, you can enjoy Linkle’s side adventure. (Side note: Pleeeeeease Nintendo, we need you to fully adopt Linkle, she’s hecking awesome and needs to be in mainstream LoZ games).

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The graphics are beautiful and the characters are really nicely modelled. It’s really good to see hi-def versions of so many familiar faces form LoZ history. Each of these warriors plays quite differently, having different movement speeds. From the plodding Goron, Darunia to the fleet of foot Link. Each character has a number of combo attacks and specials to wreak havoc on the armies that oppose you. The animations for these are pretty stunning, but can get a little repetitive if you’re playing the same character for an extended period. A perfect excuse to swap out to another of the 28 playable characters.

As well as the familiar playable characters, there’s some familiar boss monsters in the shapes of King Dodongo, Gohma, Manhandla, the Imprisoned,  the Helmaroc King. They all look stunning and all need to be taken down at some point. Luckily, you’ll slowly be gathering the unique items during the game that will help with this. Series favourites like Bombs, boomerang, hookshot, bow and arrows, and hammer will help you take those giant, aggy arseholes down in short order.

While all the original game characters are open from the start, the DLC characters of old now have to be unlocked from Adventure Mode. Speaking of which, here’s where you’ll be spending a considerable amount of time if you want to get those final characters and indeed the epic number of alternate character costumes and weapons that are hidden away. I’d felt like the Story Mode had been a good value for money experience. Then I popped open Adventure mode – as the character select screen was now showing a bunch of question mark characters in addition to those I already had – and it suddenly became obvious to me that amount of content in this game is fucking ridiculous.

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There are 9 separate Adventure Mode maps, each with slightly different mechanics, but based on a previous LoZ game. Each cell of the map represents a different challenge and can lead to new character, weapons, costumes, or item cards. These item cards can then be used on certain cells to open up more rewards in other cells of the map. Each of the maps features a wide span of difficulties per level and each map is rated overall from the menu. This is an epic task and should take you a decent chunk of time to work through. I’ve probably put about 16 hours into this mode and still have 2 characters to unlock and I’ve barely touched the weapons and costumes yet. Challenges include slaughtering more mobs than your opponent, butchering a certain number of enemy captains, trouncing a number of boss monsters in a time limit, slaying specific foes to answer questions, and more. Basically, this game does killing a lot.

LoZ has some pretty iconic music, and HW:DE does a wonderful job of covering them as stunning, driving guitar tracks that really add to the metal as fuck mass slaughter fest. I’m terrible for turning off game music and whacking on my own tunes most of the time. I had no intention of doing so with this because it’s just too good. I can’t recommend the soundtrack for this enough.

Pros:

  • A whole lot of awesome game for your money.
  • Beautiful graphics.
  • Awesome soundtrack.

Cons:

  • Starting the co-op mode is ridiculously contrived and needs to be reinitialised after each level.
  • The minimap is a little small for my liking.
  • Possibly dangerously addictive.

Final Score: 8/10

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive edition is out now on Switch.

Vegan Recipes

Every now and then, someone tells me that they’re going to try the vegan thing and ask me for recipes. Now I will just link them here. Excuse the awful photos, I never intended them for show, but I wanted to try and illustrate an otherwise text heavy page.

Ultimate Chocolate Pie/Cheesecake

For pie:
1 cup flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
Vitalite
Some water

Method:

  • Sift flour
  • Start with a super heaped tbsp of Vitalite or other, non-dairy spread that’s suitable for cooking. Mix into the flour until you get breadcrumbs. If it gets too wet, add more flour.
  • Add water by the tbs until it forms a pastry.
  • Roll out pastry to about 3-5mm (depending on preference). Place in a greased pan. Blind bake on 180c until golden brown. Prolly about 10-20 mins, I don’t know eyeball it.

Alternatively, buy Just-Rol or other vegan pastry, save a fuckload of time, and it will have cooking instructions on the side =)

For cheesecake:

1 pack plain Hobnobs (Hobnobs = Success)

Some Vitalite or coconut oil, maybe some of each.

Method:

  • Eat 6-8 Hobnobs
  • Pour rest of packet into a bag or, if you’re nasty, just between some tea towels.
  • Beat the shit out of them with a rolling pin or bludgeoning weapon until they are oaty rubble, not too rubbly.
  • Lightly grease a pan and pour in the biscuit dust
  • Heat 2-3 tbs of the not-butter or oil in the microwave for 10-20 seconds
  • Pour it into the pan and mix up.

If it’s sticking together nicely then you’re good to spread it evenly over the base and pop it in the fridge to chill for 5-10 mins.

If not, lube that biscuit rubble up with more of the same until it is.

For the filling:
1 pack of silken tofu (sometimes called firm silken because people talk utter shite)
1 bar of super vegan dark chocolate.
2 heaped tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
A splash of non-dairy milk – pref soy as it plays well with the tofu (natch).

Method:

  • Drain the tofu, you don’t need to press it, just get the excess tofu water off of it.
  • Place in a blender (you could probably do it with a hand blender but it could get messy)
  • Turn it to paste.
  • Melt the chocolate, either short bursts in the microwave after you smash it up, or in a bowl, suspended in a pan of hot water.
  • Add chocolate, vanilla, 1tbs icing sugar to tofu and blend until smooth and evenly chocolatey.
  • Taste, if it’s too bitter, you may want the rest of the sugar. Add more to taste.

If it looks like you could turn the blender upside down and it wouldn’t move in a month, add a splash of the milk.

It should pour like golden syrup

  • Pour it into you your case/base and pop it in the fridge to set. Overnight is best but if you can’t wait, 1-2 hours will do.

In the meantime, enjoy licking all the things clean of chocolate and sugar. (this is an excellent way to flirt)

Delicious Foody Noms™

You’re poor. We’re all poor. Down with capitalism.

With that in mind. Here is cheap food you can add or remove bits of depending on how recently you got paid.

1-2 carrots

1 medium onion (can use onion powder if you’re strapped – pro tip, onion powder comes in huge bags on amazon for a couple of quid and will do you for onion flavour for over a year)

An amount of garlic relative to your taste (again, powder is an option. Your local asian supermarket probably has big ole bags for a couple of quid that will last ages).

1 tin/carton of chopped tomatoes (basics is just as good as branded stuff)

1-2 sticks of celery (optional)

1 bell pepper of your preferred colour (optional)

1 handful per person of dried soy chunks (asian supermarket will likely do big ole bags for about a fiver. This should last a month or so, even if you’re using it in every meal)

Some kind of gravy granules/seasoning powder. (eg all purpose seasoning, swiss bullion, etc. Heck, you can use worcestershire sauce some paprika, curry powder, liquid aminos, liquid smoke. Go fancy, go minimal if you’re skint. You do you).

Herbs if you have them.

1-2 tbsp of nutritional yeast if you have it

Method:

Boil kettle.

Add soy chunks to a measuring jug or bowl.

Cover with boiling water and stir.

Add a couple of teaspoons of gravy granules/seasoning powder/whatever flavouring you have.

Stir occasionally until soft.

Chop and fry any veg you have until softened and lightly brown.

Mix in tomatoes.

Add garlic if you have it.

If you’re doing this with something (rice/pasta/noodles/the last of your hopes and dreams) put this on now.

Bring to a light bubble and then put on a low heat for ~10 mins

Now add the flavoured soy chunks to the sauce and stir. You may wish to add some of the

flavouring water from these, to the sauce and simmer this down for added flavour.

Serve and enjoy.

Fancy this shit up:

So, you’re in the money or the supermarket had stuff on sale/expired discount/some jars are small and easily concealable (I’m not at all encouraging whatever you may think I’m suggesting there) and you want to make this a bit more spesh. Well, you could add some courgettes, sliced and fried until browned. Add some sun-dried tomato paste/sriracha/peri peri sauce to add some explosive flavour.

Whatever Curry

It’s totally not curry in the traditional sense, but it has nice flavours and smells amazing.

1-2 carrots chopped or cut into thin strips

1-2 sticks of celery finely chopped (optional)

1 red or yellow pepper diced

1 medium onion chopped

Like, a bulb of garlic. Garlic is the best. Add some, then add a load more.

1 tin/carton chopped tomatoes

2 cups of dried soy chunks

Herbs/Spices: Curry powder, chilli powder, turmeric, coriander, cumin. OR a pre-blended curry spice of some kind.

3 heaped tsps curry paste

1 tin coconut milk (can use low fat coconut milk, powdered coconut, that dehydrated coconut stuff that comes in the green packed that you add water to to make it more milk/creamy, if you’re making it rain, there’s always coconut cream.

Rice

Method:

Boil water.

Make up soy chunks in a measuring jug/bowl.

Add some of each of the spices to the water to add lots of that sweet curry flavour and get those good good smells going.

Fry all the veg in a little oil until softened and lightly browned.

Add curry paste and stir thoroughly.

Add garlic, tomatoes, coconut milk/cream/whatever you’re using.

1-2 tbsp of nutritional yeast if you have it

Your kitchen now smells amazing.

Give it a taste as the coconut may have nerfed the spice and other flavours somewhat.

Add spice/seasoning to power it back up to your taste.

Add in the soy chunks

Bring to the boil and then reduce heat to low and let it simmer for about 15-20 mins. (If you’re in a rush, give the curry 5 minutes and then add some veggie gravy granules to thicken it up and bring out the flavour.)

Get your rice going, add a little turmeric to the water to add colour and aroma to your rice, if you like.

Serves 4, or 1-2 ravenous curry monsters. Hey! Don’t judge me.

Something Resembling Lasagne

Guess what’s in this, can you? Prolly by now.

For red sauce:

1 medium onion – finely chopped

1 red or orange pepper – chopped

1-2 carrots – finely chopped

1-2 celery sticks – finely chopped (optional)

3 cups of dried soy mince (optional)

1-2 tins/cartons of chopped tomatoes

1-2 tbsp of nutritional yeast if you have it

6-7 metric tons of garlic, with additional garlic to taste.

Italian herbs. Lots of oregano.

For white sauce:

1 pack silken tofu

¼ cup of non-dairy milk (pref soy)

1-2 tbsp of nutritional yeast or cheese flavour sauce powder.

Grated gary (optional)

Other:

Grated gary to top (optional)

Lasagne sheets (there are squash lasagne sheets but not tried them myself. Plus pasta is awesome, why deny yourself that)

Method:

Fry veg until soft and lightly brown.

Add tomato and all the garlic in the world.

Add herbs, nooch, soy mince. If the soy mince dries everything else out. Add a little water to get it back to a proper consistency.

Heat on high until it start getting aggy and then turn to low for 5ish mins.

The sauce should be a little bit wetter than you’d like for bolognese as it needs that to soften the pasta while it’s cooking.

Tofu in blender, blitz.

Add all the other sauce stuff and a little black pepper if you have it.

Build the lasagne. Red sauce, pasta/veg sheets, white sauce x2/3 depending on the size of your lasagne dish.

Top with a little shredded gary if you have it. I’m told you can mash cornflakes or tortilla chips if you want to make the top have a bit of crunch to it.

Pop it in the oven on 180c for 40-50 mins.

Maybe time to make some garlic bread. (bread, butter, garlic, parsley (optional))

The Family Ginger Cake Recipe™

When I was little, my maternal parent used to make a magical cake. It was sweet and sticky and made me silly and sleepy and then pass out. It’s a Scooby Doo mystery =O

227 gram / ½ lb Self-raising flour.

227 gram / ½ lb Golden syrup.

85 gram / 3 oz Margarine.

57 gram / 2 oz Dark brown sugar (Demerara or Muscovado)

2 tsp Ground ginger (Level)

1/8 pt non-dairy milk

1 tbsp Cocoa

Enough VeganEgg to equal 1 egg.

Mysterious ingredient X

Method:

Preheat oven to 150c

Sift Ginger, Flour and Coco

Melt Margarine, Sugar,Syrup, that other thing (Don’t boil)

Beat VEgg and not-Milk

Mix all ingredients together until it is battery

Pour into greased cake tin.

Put in oven for 45 mins.

Pancakes

Aww yiss gotta have a delicious golden stack one morning.

1 cup plain flour

2 tbsp baking powder

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup soy milk (vanilla soy milk is also good for this)

Method:

Sieve dry ingredients together

Add soy milk

Mix to a thick batter

Cook on a medium heat in a lightly oiled pan.

Flip when the edges firm up and the bubbling stops.

Peanut Butter Heroin

They vanish somehow. I know not where they go. These are some sweet sweet peanut butter cookies.

75g non-dairy spread

50g 100% peanut peanut butter

50g caster sugar

50g demerara sugar

100g plain flour

Handful of porridge oats

1 tsp almond essence (optional)

2 tbsp cacao nibs (optional)

Dark chocolate buttons to top (optional)

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 200c

Mix all dry ingredients together

Mix in the moist ingredients

Divide into 8 balls and flatten them to delicious disc shaped.

Add buttons if you’re going super fancy.

Bake for 20 mins.

Leave to cool on a rack for about 5-10 mins.

Blink and realise they’re all gone somehow.

How did this happen? My delicious cookies, Where did my delicious baked goods vanish off to.

Ignore feeling of fullness and suspicious crumbs.

Bake more cookies.