role playing – Mindflight

Horse Isle 3 – my new obsession

Ever since I was little, I’ve dreamed of exploring a brand new world, untouched by bipeds, a place I could journey across and marvel at every new sight. I have also thought it could be nice if there were people there too, yet not so many that I couldn’t have my alone-time. Horse Isle 3: Infinite Wilds helps scratch that itch and gives me as much to explore as I could want!

Infinite Wilds is designed to be appealing to all ages and unlike my other great love (Star Wars: The Old Republic) has absolutely no violence. The really interesting part is that nearly all content is player created. Towns, ranches, horse breeding farms, crafted items, and competitions are all dreamed up by the players, who start with a fresh new world to do with as they please.

Want tack for your horse? Well, you can buy it from other players or you can make it yourself – and then dye it with colors made from things you pick out in the wild. Want to ride? Buy one from a player – or catch one yourself. The system of genetics is fascinating. You can stake a claim on land in the game and build a huge ranch, or own a club and help contribute the prosperity of your own small town. You can join clubs to have your own stores, set up shop as a merchant, a horse breeder, a craftsman, or what have you. You can also choose to train your horses really well and compete with them in various competitions. Did I mention each horse is unique with various stats and personality traits, and almost infinite color combinations?

So, what about people like me, who might like to spend time with people sometimes, but

crave exploration? Well, there will always be room for exploration because the world is one MILLION kilometers across! That’s 621,371.192 miles, enough distance that to cross the map, you’d have to walk around the circumference of the Earth almost 25 times. Big enough for you? Well, it’s big enough for me! So even if thousands of people were exploring all at the same time we’d all have room to build, or harvest, or roam as we saw fit. A certain amount of instantaneous travel keeps the world from being too large.

There are multiple ways to explore too. You can walk, ride, use a kayak, swim, and there are plans for sailboats and hang gliders. There is so much to see, too. Everything from mesa studded deserts to vast dunes to sunny beaches to alpine forests to a mushroom and flower festooned Wonderland. The horses found in each area, or Biome, will tend to be adapted to that area as well.

Beach Biome — I love those sunny beaches.

Because the map is so huge, the game installs onto your PC but doesn’t take up an inordinate amount of space. Right now the game is in Beta and only Windows players with 64 bit systems are being accepted, though there will be more systems supported later.

Because I love the game THAT much, I’m going to post various hints and tips for other people like me who want to get a good start. They can all be found here and I’ll be cross-linking my posts when I make a new one. I’ll be exploring the different Biomes and posting various tips on how to do well.

Come on! Join the adventure!

(Note: I make no money out of this. I write about this game out of love, and though I am a Beta tester, I didn’t make the game.)

Daydream your way to happiness

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Pretend

Remember when you were young, and you pretended that you were someone else? When I was little, sometimes I’d be a bus driver, sometimes a pilot, sometimes a doctor, sometimes a vet, sometimes a detective.

Just as kittens stalk leaves and toys as imaginary mice, we mold our young brains by pretending. Fortunately, it’s not entirely that deadly serious, or otherwise I’d be trying for a career as an elevator or trolley car! However, we can shape our thinking by pretending.

As adults, many of us forget this. We live our lives, rooted in the ordinary routine. We might forget to stop and wonder what things would be like if we were other people, or acted in different ways. We miss out on a rich buffet of possibilities. Later, we see an opportunity and say “why didn’t I see that coming? Why couldn’t I have taken advantage of that and live my dreams?”

We can get around this by pretending.

Taking a few moments to let your mind fly free, and imagine every detail about how things might be if circumstances were different can prepare you if things really do change. Some might do this to roleplaying games, others through guided meditation, but daydreaming can be done most places, in just a few minutes, with no special equipment or partners. It’s also a form of meditation if you allow it to be.

If you take a moment and just wonder, pretend, it might open up doors to opportunity you never saw. Who would you be if you could be anyone, do anything? What would that feel like? Is there something you can do right now that is more along those lines, instead of your mundane everyday?

Let’s pretend.

Art Exploration “Kitsune”

Books and Stories, Tips for Artists, Tips for Self Publishing

Cover final painting small

This is the second version of a cover painting I did for a novel I wrote. I usually try to paint things that tell some kind of a story, but this was meant to be representational of some of the book content and hopefully somewhat intriguing to the casual viewer.

The novel was “The Dice of Fate,” a story about a young woman who was suddenly transported directly from her day job to a place that was like something from one of her roleplaying campaigns. Early in the story, a little white Kitsune with three tails comes and helps her, and the theme of dice features prominently in the story. Therefore, I chose to depict the kitsune, the ten sided die, and a hint of the long road she had to walk on foot to get to civilization.

I started (as usual) with the sky gradient. The better the sky gradient, the better the foundation of the work. Since this was acrylic, I could dispense any worry about the transparency of my layers. With the trees I worked from dark to light, always keeping in mind that most trees have gray bark, not brown. For highlighting, I used chalks and pencils in the final steps.

I was fairly pleased with the work. If anyone wants to see it on the cover, feel free to click through to the link – and if anyone wants to buy it, it’s free for Kindle subscribers. Just search the title “The Dice of Fate.”