The newest game J and I are playing is Dying Light: The Following. AKA parkour simulator. AKA lockpicking simulator.


First off, it meets the multiplayer criterion swimmingly: the full campaign is playable co-op.


In contrast to the classic zombie shoot-em-up, most of the game is spent avoiding zombies by using sweet freerunning skills. You can, of course, always take them on, but it's just a hinderance. The better strategy is to run on the tops of cars or use your grappling hook to dart about rooftops. The parkour is kind of like Assassin's Creed, but not as simple as mashing square to do cool things, so it's pretty rewarding when you get it dialed in.


Melee weapon creation is a big part of the inventory experience. It boils down to finding materials to, say, add electrical damage to your machete. Guns and throwables do eventually come on the scene, but melee weapons are always the close quarters/silent option.


It's an open world game with a lovely cityscape and Fallout-quality building interiors.


The plot makes it to video game bingo pretty quickly. Virus, government cover-up, tragic death of bright-eyed youth, tragic death of love interest, betrayal, betrayal, betrayal. There are some fun and quirky NPC interactions though.


There is inventory and item rarity, you level to gain new moves and buffs. It's enough to want to chase xp but it doesn't drown you in menus and micromanagement.


I think we're near the end of the campaign, but we'll definitely be jumping on that dlc that apparently introduces vehicles.

Right now, you're ranked fifty in the badass leaderboards, which puts you behind my grandma but ahead of a guy she gummed to death. IT TOOK SEVERAL HOURS.

?

Been a while since any of my teams have been to the box. It's been upgraded since the last time and, as bad as the Padres are, they rallied to win against Arizona.



I don't yet have the time or materials to do a big ol' effortpost on mine and Jes's wedding, but here are a few tidbits.


J took the brothers and I around to a few breweries the Thursday before. I hadn't yet seen the new Alesmith location.


The parents rented a huge house on Mt. Soledad. I kind of wish I got to enjoy it more.


The guest board was pretty fun to do. Wedding scheme paint + vinyls + clearcoat, then paint pens for everyone to write their messages.


The photobooth was a fun project that I probably didn't need to take on myself - which is to say I gathered materials and dumped it on Rob, who got the thing dialed in.

I considered digital, but the reliability of instant film made the most sense for something that I hoped wouldn't have to be babysat. The most popular format was Instax, but it seemed way too small to me. The classic Polaroid format is still available, but insanely expensive. I settled on Instax Wide with a pretty clever Lomography camera.

I thought to use continuous light umbrellas to supplement the flash, but Rob hypothesized and proved that it would result in motion blur. So he set the sb800 up to flash trigger into an umbrella.

Props were fun to shop for, I decided against a backdrop because I wanted the photobooth to shoot back at the dance floor - so that the photobooth was obviously at the event. Unfortunately, space dictated that it be in a separate room.