I mentioned a while back that I purchased Descent: Journeys in the Dark, for my son. It's a "lite D&D" game that has a few fairly difficult rules to grasp. One of the most confusing is "line of sight". Line of sight dictates what the players can see, what monsters can be summoned by the dungeon master, and how ranged attacks work during battle. Determining what our characters can really see has been the cause of some disagreements. A resourceful Internet player created a small tool to help players with this problem. Check this out! Descent - Line of Sight. You can flip the display between attack and spawn modes, depending on the view you want. I plan to use this next time we play.
Somehow I tore myself away from Toulouse and Xplorers to play something new (to me, anyhow). I usually try to steer away from the plethora of cheap games out there, like those on RealArcade. It's too easy to spend that "expendable" $20 on one, two, ten, or twenty addicting games. These would include such classics as Bejeweled and probably Tetris, even though plenty of free Tetris clones exist.
My new love is called Lux. It's based off of Risk rules, is graphically pretty, and customizable. The default install comes with a handful of maps, and each map theme can be altered to "auto generate" a map based on the size you want. So, within my favorite theme (the Castles one), you can play the default map (gigantic), or play a quick, 5 minute version with only a small amount of territories. It's small, portable, and addicting. Sure, we've all seen a lot of Risk clones, but for some reason, this one maintains my attention. You get 20 plays for free, after that you'll have to register it, for $25. Registering gets you access to a bunch of new maps and the ability to make your own. The program self updates and grabs new maps when you tell it to.
I just thought I would take a minute to promote some of my favorite gaming sites. These are places I trust with information for various things. Review sites are a dime a dozen, so I try to stick to the ones that matter. I also receive a few print magazines, so I don't read as many reviews online. However, here are places I visit for different types of gaming:
Just Adventure - If you like adventure games, JA is a worthy stop. There are a lot of honest opinions here and most of them are right on. They cover mostly PC games, but some console versions of RPGs as well.
The Spoiler - After trying out some of the games recommended by JA, you will likely end up here. Some of the best guides available, for various RPGs and adventure games, exist here. If you are really lucky, the game in question involves one of "Sinjin"'s solves. He creates and entire Web site devoted to each of his guides.
GameFAQs - If you are not too ashamed after checking out some spoilers, GameFAQs is another logical stop for hints and guides. Most games have more than one and the reviews are fairly good as well.
GameSpot - GameSpot used to be the online extension of CGW Magazine, but it has been on its own for many years now. I still think they have one of the most honest review crews on the 'Net.
Board Game Geek - This is the home of the "uber" board game enthusiast. The gang here not only reviews games, but they post complete play sessions to show you how the games flow. There likely isn't a game that exists that isn't on this site. Once a game is out, they are quick to review it. An excellent resource.
RPGDot - This is still one of the best resources for RPG gaming of all types (computer, tabletop, etc). They run daily news, guides and have all sorts of excellent information to give you your RPG fix.
IronWorks Forums - If you are playing some of the classic RPGs of recent years (Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, etc), there is a huge community of help here. I've gotten a lot of decent information on the inner workings of my favorite RPGs from the IronWorks.
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