Frank Duriancik added 10 new photos

Frank Duriancik Frank Duriancik added 10 new photos Like · Comment You are receiving this email because you've listed Frank Duriancik as a close friend. Change Close Friend Notifications. facebook Frank Duriancik Frank Duriancik added 10 new photos Like · Comment You are receiving this email because you've listed Frank Duriancik as a close friend. Change Close Friend Notifications. View Post This message was sent to john2706.funstuff@blogger.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025

📷 Kappy Mahaz High shared Donna Maxey-Shores's photo

See the post that she shared.           Facebook                 📷 Kappy Mahaz High shared Donna Maxey-Shores's photo. March 29 at 8:01 AM   View             This message was sent to john2706.funstuff@blogger.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025         To help keep your account secure, please don't forward this email. Learn more.

Top 16 Best Highest Paying URL Shortener Sites to Make Money Online

1. Clk.sh: Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
   • Payout for 1000 Views: Upto $8
   • Minimum Withdrawal: $5
   • Referral Commission: 30%
   • Payment Methods: PayPal, Payza, Skrill etc.
   • Payment Time: Daily
   
   
2. LINK.TL: LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc.
   One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
   
   • Payout for 1000 views-$16
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payout methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily basis
   
   
3. Ouo.io: Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options.
   With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
   
   • Payout for every 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payout time-1st and 15th date of the month
   • Payout options-PayPal and Payza
   
   
4. CPMlink: CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link.
   You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
5. Short.pe: Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere.
   You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$5
   • Minimum payout-$1
   • Referral commission-20% for lifetime
   • Payment methods-Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer
   • Payment time-on daily basis
   
   
6. Adf.ly: Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly.
   It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
   
7. Oke.io: Oke.io provides you an opportunity to earn money online by shortening URLs. Oke.io is a very friendly URL Shortener Service as it enables you to earn money by shortening and sharing URLs easily.
   Oke.io can pay you anywhere from $5 to $10 for your US, UK, and Canada visitors, whereas for the rest of the world the CPM will not be less than $2. You can sign up by using your email. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made via PayPal.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$7
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-20%
   • Payout options-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin and Skrill
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
8. Wi.cr: Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5.
   You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
   
   • Payout for 1000 views-$7
   • Minimum payout-$5
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payout method-Paypal
   • Payout time-daily
   
   
9. Bc.vc: Bc.vc is another great URL Shortener Site. It provides you an opportunity to earn $4 to $10 per 1000 visits on your Shortened URL. The minimum withdrawal is $10, and the payment method used PayPal or Payoneer.
   Payments are made automatically on every seven days for earnings higher than $10.00. It also runs a referral system wherein the rate of referral earning is 10%.
   
   • The payout for 1000 views-$10
   • Minimum payout -$10
   • Referral commission-10%
   • Payment method -Paypal
   • Payment time-daily
   
   
10. Shrinkearn.com: Shrinkearn.com is one of the best and most trusted sites from our 30 highest paying URL shortener list.It is also one of the old URL shortener sites.You just have to sign up in the shrinkearn.com website. Then you can shorten your URL and can put that URL to your website, blog or any other social networking sites.
    Whenever any visitor will click your shortener URL link you will get some amount for that click.The payout rates from Shrinkearn.com is very high.You can earn $20 for 1000 views.Visitor has to stay only for 5 seconds on the publisher site and then can click on skip button to go to the requesting site.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views- up to $20
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment methods-PayPal
    • Payment date-10th day of every month
    
    
11. Fas.li: Although Fas.li is relatively new URL Shortener Service, it has made its name and is regarded as one of the most trusted URL Shortener Company. It provides a wonderful opportunity for earning money online without spending even a single $. You can expect to earn up to $15 per 1000 views through Fas.li.
    You can start by registering a free account on Fas.li, shrink your important URLs, and share it with your fans and friends in blogs, forums, social media, etc. The minimum payout is $5, and the payment is made through PayPal or Payza on 1st or 15th of each month.
    Fas.li also run a referral program wherein you can earn a flat commission of 20% by referring for a lifetime. Moreover, Fas.li is not banned in anywhere so you can earn from those places where other URL Shortening Services are banned.
    
12. Linkbucks: Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country.
    The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$3-9
    • Minimum payout-$10
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment options-PayPal,Payza,and Payoneer
    • Payment-on the daily basis
    
    
13. Short.am: Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API.
    It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
    
14. Cut-win: Cut-win is a new URL shortener website.It is paying at the time and you can trust it.You just have to sign up for an account and then you can shorten your URL and put that URL anywhere.You can paste it into your site, blog or even social media networking sites.It pays high CPM rate.
    You can earn $10 for 1000 views.You can earn 22% commission through the referral system.The most important thing is that you can withdraw your amount when it reaches $1.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$10
    • Minimum payout-$1
    • Referral commission-22%
    • Payment methods-PayPal, Payza, Bitcoin, Skrill, Western Union and Moneygram etc.
    • Payment time-daily
    
    
15. BIT-URL: It is a new URL shortener website.Its CPM rate is good.You can sign up for free and shorten your URL and that shortener URL can be paste on your websites, blogs or social media networking sites.bit-url.com pays $8.10 for 1000 views.
    You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $3.bit-url.com offers 20% commission for your referral link.Payment methods are PayPal, Payza, Payeer, and Flexy etc.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$8.10
    • Minimum payout-$3
    • Referral commission-20%
    • Payment methods- Paypal, Payza, and Payeer
    • Payment time-daily
    
    
16. Linkrex.net: Linkrex.net is one of the new URL shortener sites.You can trust it.It is paying and is a legit site.It offers high CPM rate.You can earn money by sing up to linkrex and shorten your URL link and paste it anywhere.You can paste it in your website or blog.You can paste it into social media networking sites like facebook, twitter or google plus etc.
    You will be paid whenever anyone will click on that shorten a link.You can earn more than $15 for 1000 views.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.Another way of earning from this site is to refer other people.You can earn 25% as a referral commission.
    
    • The payout for 1000 views-$14
    • Minimum payout-$5
    • Referral commission-25%
    • Payment Options-Paypal,Bitcoin,Skrill and Paytm,etc
    • Payment time-daily
    
    

Warmaster Ancients - Dacian Counters (Revised & Updated)

If you are using my Early Imperial Roman counter set or already have a miniature EIR army, you need enemies for Rome to fight other than itself in civil war. The Dacians are an excellent barbarian enemy army for the Early Imperial Romans. Update: This set, which I uploaded May 2018, replaces the previous set, bringing it inline with the other "revised" counters I had started making a few years prior, as well us updating some of the images.

A Brief History of the Dacian Wars
According to Encyclopedia Britannica Online: "Dacia, in antiquity, the area of the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, in present north-central and western Romania. The Dacian people had earlier occupied lands south of the Danube and north of the mountains, and the Roman province eventually included wider territories both to the north and east. The Dacians were agricultural and also worked their rich mines of silver, iron, and gold. They first appeared in the Athenian slave market in the 4th century bc; subsequently they traded with the Greeks (importing especially wine) and used Greek coins. They spoke a Thracian dialect but were influenced culturally by the neighbouring Scythians and by the Celtic invaders of the 4th century bc. The Dacians engaged Roman troops in 112, 109, and 75 bc. In about 60–50 bc King Burebista unified and extended the kingdom, which, however, split into four parts after his death.

During the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus (ruled 27 bc–ad 14) and again in ad 69 the Dacians raided the Roman province of Moesia but were beaten back. The Dacian Wars (ad 85–89) under the emperor Domitian resulted in their recognition of Roman overlordship. The Romans under Trajan reopened hostilities in ad 101 and by 106 subdued the whole country. A large part of the population was either exterminated or driven northward. The Romans seized an enormous amount of wealth (the Dacian Wars were commemorated on Trajan's Column in Rome) and immediately exploited the Dacian mines. Roman influence was broadened by the construction of important roads, and Sarmizegethusa and Tsierna (Orsova) were made colonies. The new province was divided under Hadrian: Dacia Superior corresponded roughly to Transylvania and Dacia Inferior to the region of Walachia.

In ad 159 Antoninus Pius redivided the region into three provinces, the Tres Daciae (Dacia Porolissensis, Dacia Apulensis, and Dacia Malvensis), all subordinate to one governor of consular rank. Marcus Aurelius made the provinces a single military region in about ad 168. The limits of Roman territory were probably never clearly defined, but the Romans benefitted both militarily and materially from the occupation."

The Dacian Counters
While I try to stick to the troop names that Warmaster Ancients uses, I had to take a few liberties with this set so the id on some counters did not consume the entire counter. I changed "Sarmatian Cavalry" to "Roxolani Cavalry" and "Dacian Mounted Skirmishers" to "Dacian Cavalry" for such reasons. As with my other Warmaster Ancients sets, I've tried to provide enough counters for a typical 2000-point army. However, 1,200 to 1,500 points seems to be the Warmaster Ancients sweet spot. Counter images are from Wargames Foundry and Warlords.

Revised Counter Set
I recently revised this set to print the counters at the proper size because the previous set I uploaded printed the counters slightly too small.


Printing the Counters
I hope some of you find these counter sets useful.You can print these at office printing places, like Staples, using heavy card stock paper printed at actual size. You can also print on regular paper and then glue the counters to wooden bases. (Check the older posts on how I did this with my Empire army.) Currently, I'm printing the counter sets at Staples using regular paper, spray gluing the back of each sheet with Super77, attaching each sheet to an old comic book backing board, and then cutting out the counters using a sharp Xacto knife with steel ruler. Using the backing boards makes for cheap, sturdy counters.

Click on the counter set image above to download the complete Dacian counter set in PDF format. The set has enough counters to create any of the sample armies below. Of course, if you need more counters simply print more copies!

1,000 Points
1x General w/Portents
1x Leader
1x Subordinate
8x Warriors
3x Archers
1x Falxmen
2x Skirmishers
2x Sarmations
1x Mounted Skirmishers
Total Points: 995   Break Point: 7

1,000 Points
1x General w/Portents
1x Leader
1x Subordinate
8x Warriors
4x Archers
2x Falxmen
3x Skirmishers
1x Sarmations
1x Mounted Skirmishers
Total Points: 995  Break Point: 8

Whistle Stop "Plays Thru" GreyElephant Gaming

Post-Octopalypse Week 2 WIP! It's TNT Time!

   All right, I promised you some Tribal action this week, and here they are! I didn't get as far a playing a game with them last night, but they are ready! There are a couple late editions that are not as far as the rest, and there are a few more I am hoping to start in case of casualties, but there will be no gray primitives on this field. Or, white, I guess, since a lot of them are Bones models.  Don't worry; you'll get a better introduction when they are all done.

   I know that "Tribal" can mean a lot of different things, but when I was growing up on the East Coast of the US, that always meant Native American (actually, at the time, it meant American Indian, but, you know, PC changes...) Anyways, I really wanted to at least allude to a Native American style. So, I stuck mainly with models that could be reasonably wearing leather or bone. Yes, it's post-apoc, and they are wearing whatever they can find, but more or less that was the plan. I looked up naturally occurring dyes in the US, and a large percentage of them are reds, oranges, and yellows, so I used a lot of those, and variations of browns for different leathers. And, naturally, the metals are mostly silver and copper, because you always see them in Native American jewelry (modern, at least). And, of course, a pinch of turquoise.

   So, this is as far as I've gotten for now. Nobody's finished, but there's a lot of base coat going on. No, you know nobody's finished, because there's no war paint. Of course I'm doing war paint. I mean, come on. War paint.

More next week!

All Download Links

All Games : Download Here

Go go Download All Games before this links.

Please do not share Mediafire links, single link or folder link.

Reminder to other blog owner:

1. You can download games,
2. Edit ReadMe, remove our link, put your blog link.
3. Re-zip the file with the edited ReadMe file.
4. Upload to your own Mediafire or other hosting services.
5. Share your download links in your blog.

What happen if you share the Mediafire links:

1. The possibility of the links being banned is higher.
2. When the links banned, not only it affect this blog, but also your blog.
3. So, to be safe and not Selfish, please do not share Mediafire link from this blog.
4. Download, and re-upload to your own account.
5. Thanks :)

Visit 123FullSetup.blogspot.com for more.

Update: Out Of Town This Weekend

Hey just want to let you know that I'll be out of town this weekend so if Bores posts something worth talking about in that time, don't expect a post on it for a while.

Thank you.

Super Adventures In Amiga Fighting Games

This week on Super Adventures I'm writing about fighting games on the Amiga! Lots of fighting games, a dozen in fact! Why? Because I'm taking a two month break from Super Adventures after this and I wanted to give you something that took at least that long to read.

Plus the more of them I play, the less I have to write about each of them, which is good because I am the last person who should be writing anything about fighting games. The only technical terms I know are 'special move' and 'block' and I've had really limited success ever doing either. Though Amigas and I have something in common, as they suck at fighting games too! And not just because of the one-button joystick and floppy drive.

So far this sounds like a lot of reasons why I shouldn't be playing these games, but I think there must be some good screenshots hidden in them somewhere, maybe even some good gameplay. Plus it's given me an excuse to create that nightmare crossover between IK+ and Human Killing Machine's title screens up there.

Anyway, here are 12 fighting games in vaguely chronological order:

Read on »

📷 Marty Moses added a new photo

Jennie, see the photo that she posted.           Facebook                 📷 Marty Moses added a new photo. March 28 at 12:02 PM   View Photo             This message was sent to john2706.funstuff@blogger.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025         To help keep your account secure, please don't forward this email. Learn more.

Improving Freemium Design - Combat Monsters

As a gamer, I love almost all genres of games. There are genres that I'm not particularly good at (sports) but I can still appreciate them for what they are. (There's even been a recent one that I've liked!) However, there are several other genres that I love such as RPGs, shooters, racing and strategy games. If you've read my articles before then you probably know that I game more on mobile than any other platform. However, I've had a hard time finding a turn-based strategy game that's good. Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't count because I played that on PlayStation and Nintendo DS so I'm not exactly excited to play it again on mobile. I wanted a new experience. Then I found Combat Monsters. Let's take a look at a F2P turn based strategy game. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/combat-monsters/id698616840?mt=8

For the record Rubicon's other strategy games are great, but I never played them because they were premium and I rarely pay for premium games.

What they did right

Solid Foundation

Rubicon has built a pretty good framework for a fun and engaging game. There's a core loop, several different types/classes of characters to fit your play style, hundreds of unique cards, single player campaign and multiplayer. I can't tell you how many games I see that are missing a crucial aspect(s). This helps increase their odds of becoming successful through optimizing.

Graphics

I really like the 3D graphics and effects they implemented. Definitely not necessary, but having a game that looks great certainly doesn't hurt the cause. 

Single Player Missions

I love that there's a single player campaign as well as multiplayer matches. This helps make the game appeal to players of several types. If you're using the Bartle test, I'm more of an explorer myself and I'm more interested in playing the single player missions than PvPing.

Fun Gameplay

Rubicon really knows what they're doing when it comes to fun, challenging and engaging turn-based strategy games. Beyond Combat Monsters, I highly recommend the purchase of Great Big War Game. 

What could be improved 

Tutorial 

8 tutorial missions!?! I understand that fans of this genre might fall more into the hardcore category, but you also need to take the platform into consideration. On average you might have 30 seconds to get a mobile players attention, and fans of this genre might be more like 1-2 minutes. However, 8 tutorial missions took me over 5 minutes to complete. This should be condensed into 3 tutorial missions and cut some of the text out.

I should also note that the tutorial isn't required which is a good thing, but some players might miss the option to skip and those are the probably the types of players who would quit after seeing the tutorial is much too long for them.

No Leveling System

If you wanted to show a friend your progress in the game how would you describe it? If you're playing a multiplayer match how do you know the experience level of the person you're playing against? If there was a leveling system these questions would be a whole lot easier to answer. Sure, a leveling system doesn't tell you exactly where you are in the single player missions or prove that you're a pro if you reach a certain level. It won't be 100% accurate, but having a numeric value to compare is the simplest and quickest way to make these comparisons. Implementing a leveling system also helps drive a players sense of accomplishment and can be great moments to share via social media.

Unlocking Content

Incorporating a leveling system enables another crucial virtual store tactic which is unlocking content versus making it all readily accessible. This is often overlooked by developers that are newer to the F2P space. Typically speaking, you don't want to immediately allow players to purchase anything in the game for several reasons that we'll tack one by one. 

1. No sense of accomplishment. Think about Zelda as a F2P title. How would you feel if you could just open an IAP menu and buy all of the gadgets or even the master sword? Players should need to play and journey through a portion of you game before being able to purchase some of the end game content. 
• NOTE: there's nothing wrong with allowing players to pay to progress more quickly through the game to reach those end game items. Almost everything should be obtainable for the "right price."
2. Too many options is overwhelming. In the commerce world it's a fact that if you display too many options to consumers they will get discouraged and walk away. Read one of my previous articles on this topic and some other tips regarding your virtual store.
3. This makes your game appear pay-to-win to non-payers. F2P is constantly criticized as pay-to-win, but it should actually be "pay for competitive advantage." See my 5 Ways to Fail Freemium post to see the difference. Putting a leveling system in place makes players "earn" later game content, and makes the game feel fairer between paying and non-paying players. 
• NOTE: Combat Monsters isn't a pay-to-win game. I need to understand the game's strategy, various strengths and weaknesses and find the right IAP/monster that complements the way that I play. However, the typical player won't likely analyze games like you or me. 

Upselling

Combat Monsters has a few really interesting options built in the game, but the game doesn't call enough attention to them. The first one is the Coin Tripler. This is a permanent enhancement that triples the amount of currency earned in battles. If you're a fan of the game this should be your first purchase as it holds the most value (assuming you'll be playing the game for a longer period of time). At the battle results screen they just list the tripler in the lower left corner. A cost effective way if gaining attention is adding a shimmer or animation to the coin tripler button. 

The other feature that isn't getting the attention it deserves is the Daily Deal. Rubicon built a feature where they run a sale on one card per day. This is an awesome idea, but it's buried in the marketplace menu.

I would make this an interstitial screen that appears at every launch. I'd also link popular IAP options on the side, communicate the discount and further emphasize the card that is on sale in the middle. Excuse my awesome MS paint skills, but maybe something along of the lines of this. 

Here's a great example of an effective upsell screen for reference. 

The value and discount is clearly communicated, there's no question of what they player is getting and there's a timer to create a sense of urgency. 

Coin Balancing

At the time of writing this article this was already changed, but when originally playing the game I was being awarded ~20 coins for winning a battle which took around 5 minutes to finish. OR I could watch a 30 second video for 50 coins. If I wanted to grind for currency it actually made the most sense to sit and watch advertisements. 

Account Creation Process

I don't encourage a forced account creation processes on mobile, but they're more tolerable to me as a player if I can quickly create one via social networks (most popularly Facebook or Twitter). You can grab all my account information at the press of a button versus forcing me to enter the information manually. I've seen huge improvements in day 1 retention by removing forced account creation processes. Also if you're ever planning to spend money on user acquisition then you need remove as many annoyances or barriers as possible, and this would need to be the first thing to go.

Insufficient Currency to IAP Menu

This is an easy fix, but never grey out virtual items or buy buttons if the player doesn't have enough money. Players won't focus as much on those items then or won't attempt to purchase them. 

You want to allow them to select an option that's too expensive because this is also a great time to notify them or navigate them to your IAP menu. There's a reason why most top grossing titles with a currency system and virtual store function like this. 

Genres may take some time to adapt

Rubicon certainly had their work cut out for them building a F2P turn-based strategy game. I don't think I can name another one that's F2P on mobile (or on any other platform for that matter). It would be easier to develop this genre as a premium title, but I don't think they could expect the same return as Great Big War Game if they did develop Combat Monsters as a premium title due to the shift in F2P market dominance on mobile (even though GBWG was released just 1 year ago). In fact, this is probably a dilemma that several readers are facing. Should I learn to create a F2P game or release as a premium game? Should I work with a publisher? How can I make the most of what I got before launching?

These questions can sometimes be difficult to answer when if you're trying to tackle them on your own or internally. It's much easier for the game's creators to be forgiving than your players so it might be worth having a third party look at your design before launching. If you'd like help in this area feel free to contact me or hit me up on Twitter!

Movie Reviews: Black Panther, The Shape Of Water, The Greatest Showman, Darkest Hour, Professor Marston And The Wonder Women, McEnroe Vs Borg, Fifty Shades Freed

See all of my movie reviews.

Black Panther: So far, the only Marvel movies that I think are actually really good movies are X-Men 1, Iron Man 1, and the first two Tobey MacGuire Spider-Mans. I also enjoy the first The Avengers and was at least passably entertained by a few others, in that empty candy calorie sort of way.

That said, Black Panther is one of the better ones, possibly about as good as The Avengers. The most important thing that it does right (and please, please, movie producers, learn from this) is that it doesn't simply present us with a Big Evil bad guy and a two hour slug-fest until one of the heroes finally hits him hard enough. Instead, the bad guy has a compelling point of view; in fact, he is actually kind of right ... except that he takes it way too far. To mildly spoil things ...

Wakanda is an African nation with advanced techology that it hides from the rest of the world for ... reasons? Black Panther's father, the king, was killed in one of the other Marvel movies, and now BP is king, but a long lost cousin battles him for the throne, because said cousin has been living with the black people of the world and thinks that Wakanda's technology should be used to help them out of their oppression.

Ummmmmm .... yes, it should. Not to mention, Wakanda's advanced medical technology could be saving millions of lives around the world, instead of being kept hidden for no apparent reason.

Fortunately for the plot, cousin usurper doesn't simply want to help the world's black people out of their oppression, he also wants to help them kill and/or oppress everyone else, because it's "their turn". So, evil. If they had actually made his goal a little less obviously evil, the movie would have really risen to great. But then how would we be able to end the movie without a clear good guy and bad guy beating each other up in a slugfest until the hero finally hits the the bad guy hard enough?

The movie gets extra kudos for the same reason that Wonder Woman got extra kudos: it proves that a black cast, black writers, black director, etc can write a perfectly good and relatable superhero movie (why this should have had to be proven is still beyond me), which will hopefully lead to many more black characters as hero/protagonist in the future. It also has powerful black women fighters, which is still pretty rare.

The movie revels in a particular version of African culture - drums, clothes, hairstyles, language and tribes, etc. That doesn't speak to me as a white American/Israeli; it didn't bother me, either. I can't speak for its authenticity, as others do, but I guess it's a pretty idealized version of a monolithic idea of what African culture is supposed to be; I'm sure it is as representative of African culture as A Stranger Among Us was representative of Jewish culture.

The Shape of Water: It took me four tries to finish this movie. It is freakin' boring, predictable, and unoriginal. Well shot and acted is about all I can say for it. It is, nearly exactly, one part facile imitation of the movie Amelie - crossed with three parts non-amusing version of Splash. With a dash of gore, nudity, and cursing thrown in. The music is indie French accordion (something like what you heard in Hugo), but if it had any melody I forgot it.

In the 1960s, an American research institute has some kind of weird aquatic humanoid life-form in a top-secret lab - with what must be the worst security ever seen in a motion picture: the cleaning staff and Russian spies waltz in an out of the the creature's room and spend hours alone with it, all with nobody noticing or challenging them until the break-out scene. A mute cleaning women falls in love with the creature who is scheduled to be dissected, so she breaks it out of the lab. The scientists/military are caricature villains, the next door neighbor is a friend/artist who is useful as an interpreter and assistant to the plot. Another cleaner, played by Octavia Spencer, shows up in half of the movie's scenes but really serves no useful purpose to the plot, at all.

I was so uninterested with what was going on that I kept turning it off. And this was nominated for best film? Good grief.

The Greatest Showman: This was a fairly enjoyable musical, probably only green-lit for production after the success of La La Land. Its music was somewhat more forgettable than La La Land's was, but it was not too bad. Dancing and choreography were nice.

This is the sanitized story of how P.T. Barnum began his circus of human oddities and animal acts, with Hugh Jackman starring as Barnum. Barnum starts in poverty and marries a lovely woman Charity before starting his circus. After a slow start, he is successful, but he is mocked by the arts establishment as a low-brow panderer, and constantly facing protest from moral groups and "concerned citizens" (i.e. mobs) as a purveyor of filth (people with deformities and odd talents). He takes on a playwright as a partner and also flies in a European opera performer to try to raise his stature in the arts community with some success, but also some additional trouble. Meanwhile, the circus's "exhibits" are happy to be out of the shadows and be part of a family, while simultaneously upset at not being treated as humans. This last subject is, unfortunately, only given cursory treatment in the movie; also fairly neglected by the movie is anything having to do with US current events of the 1850s, such as slavery and so forth (despite there being at least one black person in the circus troupe).

It was quite fun, if a little overly showy at the expense of deeper characterization. I would see it again.

Hard to understand why the circus didn't get Wolverine as an exhibit, however; wasn't he around in the 1850's?

Darkest Hour: 2017 has several movies that covered the same ground or connected with other movies. This movie is the second of two about Winston Churchill, and it also managed to fit neatly in with Dunkirk; in fact, this movie and Dunkirk could be merged to form one movie. They cover just about the same amount of time and end at the exact same moment.

It is well acted, scripted, and shot, with great visuals and sound. There were a few scenes that crept into the same territory that ruined The Iron Lady - too much acting and not enough plot. Thankfully, most of the movie avoids that, and instead concerns itself with Churchill's coming into power and the enormous pressure he faced to sue for peace with Hitler's far larger and aggressive Germany, particularly since Great Britain was facing the imminent loss of their entire army on the beaches of Dunkirk.

It's a slice of history movie, not as thrilling as Dunkirk, and perhaps a little limited in scope, but still a success. But not one that I would see again (unless someone makes the merged movie that I suggested, above).

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: The second movie about Wonder Woman from 2017, this one is not starring Wonder Woman, but instead the somewhat true story about the comic author and his weird life, perversions, and scientific theories and achievements. William Marston developed a minor psychological theory called DISC theory, which describes personalities based on dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance. He also, apparently together with his wife Elizabeth and their lover Olive, created the lie detector.

Not surprisingly regarding someone who could come up with DISC theory, he and his wife were into kinky games, and so, eventually, was Olive. All three loved each other, and this was not exactly a relationship that could be made public at that time (or even today, really). After suffering fallout due to the relationship being made public, he created a superhero comic book about domination and submission - based on his theories and his sex life and one of the fetish outfits that Olive had worn. Since it was also the first superhero comic with a strong woman (albeit one who was subject to domination by men, on occasion), it filled a niche in the comic world.

Kind of a far cry from the other Wonder Woman movie that we saw last year.

It's a well-told, well-made movie, a little kinky but not really (less than Fifty Shades of Gray, and it didn't have any nudity). It was well acted and shot, and the script moved well enough. The movie touched on a number of different subjects - morality, kink, DISC theory, lie detection, relationships, societal disapproval. All of these are touched upon, but the only one that really comes into focus is the last one: at least according to the movie, they really did all love each other in a way that was not acceptable by society, and that can be a hard thing to get around.

McEnroe vs Borg: The second 2017 move about a famous tennis match: Battle of the Sexes was the other one and was far better. This one is simply a depiction of the lead-up to McEnroe trying to prevent Borg from winning his fifth Wimbledon. McEnroe, as you know, was young, ill-tempered, and rude in a way that no tennis player had ever been (it was always considered an English gentleman's sport), and Borg was rumored to be an emotionless machine. Screentime is devoted in flashbacks to both of them as up and comers, and to the few days before the match, as well as the match itself.

I found the movie to be a big bore. Just watching the actual tennis match would be far more entertaining. You see scenes of them having difficulties and facing them, as well as people booing McEntosh and his young obnoxious ways. But the movie never makes us feel why we are watching them or gives us a reason to care one way or the other about the outcome of the match.

Fifty Shades Freed: Sure, why not? I saw the first one and actually thought it wasn't too bad. The second one was dismally bad. This one was somewhere in the middle. The first hour or so is shots of Anastasia and Christian on vacation with some furrowed brows over how Jack from the previous movie is still angry with them for ruining his life. The last 25 minutes or so is a kidnapping scene and a rescue that was shot and scripted well enough if not exactly surprising. This last part might have worked well as a mid-season episode of a drama show.

Everything about the movie, aside from the last 20 minutes, is dull. Dull scenery, dull characters, dull "tension" scenes, dull sex scenes. In some ways, the subplot with Jack is a bit of a shout-out to the #MeToo movement, since he acts like the perfect example of a sexual harasser, but, honestly, he is almost nothing compared to Christian. Christian continues his stalker ways ever worse than he did in previous movies. At least in those movies he made some moves in the direction of growing out of his obsessive, harassing, and terrifying behavior. In this movie he continues to do things that would make any sane person run screaming in terror from him, but Anastasia simply chastises him and then forgets about what happened moments later. And he hasn't changed at all by the end of the movie. Anastasia is somewhat more into submission by the end, but that doesn't even make sense, since Christian's dominance is shown to be the result of a severe pathology rather than a harmless kink. So are we supposed to be happy now that they found each other? Ugh.

Don't bother. Go watch Secretary, instead.

Revolution Software Unveils Beneath A Steel Sky Sequel And It'S Out This Year - Eurogamer

Revolution Software unveils Beneath a Steel Sky sequel and it's out this year

📄 Georgett Elias shared Union Thugs's post

See the post that she shared.           Facebook                 📄 Georgett Elias shared Union Thugs's post. March 26 at 11:27 AM   View             This message was sent to john2706.funstuff@blogger.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Community Support, 1 Facebook Way, Menlo Park, CA 94025         To help keep your account secure, please don't forward this email. Learn more.

Ai Starts To Crack The Critical Thinking... Astonishing Experiment...

Just eighteen years after 2001 (older readers will know the significance of that date), the AI-debater on the left, a 6 foot high black stele, with a woman's voice, used arguments, objections, rebuttals, even jokes, to tussle with her opponent. She lost but, in a way, she also won, as this points towards an interesting breed of critical thinking software.  This line of AI has significance in the learning world.

How does it work?

First, she creates an opening speech by searching through millions of opening gambits, removes extraneous text and looks for the highest probability claims and arguments, based on solid evidence, she then arranges these arguments thematically to give a four minute speech.  In critical conversation,  she then listens to your response and responds, debating the point step by step. This where it gets clever as it she has to cope with logical dilemmas and structured debate and argument, drawing on a huge corpus of knowledge, way beyond what any human could read and remember.

Debate

In learning, working through a topic through dialogue, debate and discussion is often useful. Putting your ideas to the test, in an assignment or research task or when writing an article for publication and so on, would be a useful skill for my Alexa to be able to deliver. It raises the game, as it pushes AI generated responses beyond knowledge into reasoned argument and checks on evidence from trusted sources. But a debate is not the great win here. There are other more interesting and scalable uses.
Critical thinking
Much of the talk about 21st century skills is rather cliched, with little in the way of evidence-based debate. The research suggests that these skills, far from being separate 'skills' are largely domain specific. You don't get far in being a creative, critical and problem solving thinker in, say Data Science, if you don't know a lot about...  well... Data science. What's interesting about this experiment is the degree to which general debating skills,, let's call it stating and defending or attacking a proposition, shows how one can untangle, say critical thinking, into its components, as it has to be captured and delivered as software.
There are some key lessons here, as the logo of debate is actually the logic we know from Aristotle onwards, syllogistic and complex, often beyond the capability of the human brain. On the other hand the heuristics we humans use are a real challenge for AI. But AI is rising to this challenge with all sorts of techniques, many species of supervised and unsupervised AI that learns through machine learning, fuzzy logic to cope (largely with the impreciseness of language and human expression) and a battery of statistical theory and probability theory to determine certainty.
This, along with GTP-2 (I've written about this here), which creates content, along with techniques embedded in Google Duplex around complex conversational rules, are moving learning AI into new territory, with real dialogue based on structured creation of content, voice and the flow of conversations and debate. Why is this important?

1. Teaching

When it reaches a certain standard, we can see how it starts to behave like a teacher, to engage with a learner in dialogue and interpret the strengths of arguments, debate with the student, even teach and assess critical thinking and problem solving. In a sense it may transform normal teaching, in being able to deliver personalised learning at this level, on scale. The skills of a good teacher or lecturer are to introduce a subject, engage learners, support learners, assess learners. Even if it does not perform the job of an experienced teacher, one could see how it could support teachers.

2. Communication skills

There is also the ability to raise one's game by using it as a foil to improve one's communication skills, as a learner, teacher, presenter, interviewer, coach, therapist or sales person. Being able to persuade it that you are right, based on evidence, is something we could all benefit from. It strikes me that it could in time, also identify and help correct various human biases, especially confirmation bias but many others. Daniel Kahneman, in his Thinking Fast and Slow makes an excellent point at the very end of the book when he says that these biases are basically 'uneducable'. In other words, they are there, and rather than trying to change them, which is near impossible, we must tame them.

3. Expert

With access to over 300 million articles it has digested more than any human can read and remember in a lifetime. But this is just for reference. The degree to which it can use this as evidence for argument and advice is interesting. The experiment seems to support the idea that domain knowledge really does matter in critical thinking, something largely ignored in the superficial debate at conferences on 21st century skills. This may untangle this complex area by showing us how trues expertise is developed and executed.

4. Practice

The advantages the machine has over humans is the consistent access and use of very large knowledge bases. One can foresee a system that is an expert in a multitude of subjects and able to deliver scalable and sophisticated practice in not only knowledge but higher order skills across a range of subjects. The development of expertise takes time application and practice. This offers the opportunity to accelerate expertise. Of course, it also suggests that expertise may be replaces may machines. Read that sentence again, as it has huge consequences.

5. Assessment

If successful, such software could be a sophisticated way to assess learner's work, whether written work, essays or oral, as it puts their arguments to the test. This is the equivalent to a VIVA or oral exam. With more structured questions, one could see how more sophisticated and objective assessment, free from essay mills and cheating, could be delivered.

6. Decision making

One could also see a use in decision-making, where evidence-based arguments would be at least worth exploring, while humans still make the decisions. I'd love, as a manager, to make a decision based on what has been found to work, rather than guessing or relying on faddish decision making.

Conclusion

This will, eventually, be invaluable for a teaching assistant that never gets tired, inattentive, demotivated, crabby and delivers quality learning experiences, not just answering questions. It may also help eliminate human bias in educational processes, making them more meritocratic. Above all it holds the promise of high level teaching that is scalable and cheap. At the very least it may lift often crass debate around 21st century skills beyond their cliched presentation as lists in bad PowerPoint presentations at conferences.