2011 -- A tiny retrospective
So this marks the last day of the year 2011 – and I'm glad that it's finally over.
2011 was a pretty eventful year in my personal life, seeing both my mother and my father in the hospital (one due to an accident, the other due to cancer – both are fine again, phew!), me having major troubles with both teeth and sinuses in the second half of the year, and let's not forget the pretty stressy work life as well (although that nevertheless was kinda fun, at least after the first three months of the year that very nearly broke me).
At least the year ended on a happy note: We finally found a new appartment1) and will move there march/april 2012, we spent five awesome days in the Southern Black Forest, playing in an epic ton of snow, we had a nice and quite christmas and will celebrate the new year with friends. Also, I rediscovered LEGO as a means for relaxing, built some sets already *happily hugs parents and friends again* and will continue to do so (I ordered that one and got myself a couple of LEGO Technic sets for being busy until it arrives)
So here's to an awesome 2012 (because it can get only better 
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Recommendation: Frozen Synapse
I actually planned on doing a longer write up about another Indie gem I've been playing these days: Frozen Synapse. But since work is currently rather demanding and I don't seem to be able to write coherent sentences currently, I'll leave you with the trailer and the friendly hint that the game is currently on sale at Steam (50% off today).
Love the visuals, the soundtrack (I actually bought the Soundtrack edition and have been listening to those awesome tracks during work) and the gameplay, so if you're up for a nice tactical, turn based (and even “play-by-email” compatible) awesome game, this is your chance!
Update: I currently mostly frequent server UK1, if that is of interest to you ;)
Terraria: I remodelled
Remember my somewhat organically grown looking house2) from Terraria? I kinda remodelled…
Damn, I love this game! 
Terraria
I'm hooked. I really am.
The last couple of days I've been sitting at home3), doing little else but playing the everliving cr*p out of this little indiegame called "Terraria" that was released like 10 days ago on Steam.
It's an exploration/survival/building kinda game, allowing you to explore a randomly generated world including different biomes such as forests, deserts, oceans and such, but also deep cave systems leading down to “hell”. Of course, you are not alone in this world and are constantly fending off different kinds of enemies inhabiting the biomes (Slimes, Zombies, Skeletons, …). If that sounds like Minecraft4) to your ears: Yes, there is a strong resemblance. However, Terraria adds a couple of real ingame goals in the form of bosses to defeat and in game events like Blood Moon, Goblin Invasions or falling meteorites. Besides that, I'm happy to have something like 2d Minecraft, as sadly the original triggers my motion sickness pretty hard.
So I already built a stone castle thingy:
Click to enlarge.
As you can see, I've got a mushroom farm in my cellar, a little well/pool thingie and portcullis made from sand for my outer doors in case of the occasional Blood Moon (where Zombies can open doors and therefore invade my house and slaughter my NPCs).
Speaking of NPCs, I already got a couple of them to move in (a merchant, a nurse and a demolitionist and of course also the obnoxious guide5)) which provide me with different services (e.g. buying and selling items from the merchant).
Below the house is the entrace to a quite complex tunnel system where I go to explore and gather ores and such. I've just hit the -800 feet mark there and encountered my first spots of lava6). Sometimes, I also accidentally trigger waterfalls:
Additionally to my single player map, I'm also playing on a small multiplayer world together with a couple of friends. We just stole a couple of books from the Dungeon and died a horrible death when trying to defeat the first boss.
So, anyway, I can only give a full hearted recommendation for this game. It cost me 10€ and already provided me with more than a day of constant entertainment. If you happen to like sandbox environments and building your own stuff, give it a try
Puzzling Monkey Island
I'm always trying to find ways to distract me from work and to relax better during my free time. So when my mother recently announced that she'd found solving jigsaw puzzles to be very much relaxing for her, I decided to give it a try myself. It has been a while since I did this7) but I surely remember of it being a quite fun and mind capturing pastime, so why not, right? 
Given that demod and me have a very small flat and therefore no place to store a partially solved jigsaw, I first got myself a case for solving and storing away jigsaw puzzles8), and then decided on something special for my first try:
I ordered a custom 1000 tiles puzzle of the “Secret of Monkey Island” cover, based on those poster-ready files I already blogged about some time ago. Printing and delivery took less time than expected9) and so I could get to work last weekend. Due to a very busy week and unexpected difficulties with the motive10), it took me until yesterday to finish it. But now: Tadaa!
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Next up: Either a Sheepworld puzzle I got as a birthday present some time ago11), or some very cheesy but calming motive I found while shopping for the puzzle case12). And – of course – “LeChuck's Revenge” and “The Curse of Monkey Island” sometime in the future
It seems to work btw – I didn't think about work at all while working on the puzzle.
