Tag: en

Package received – Sushi Go! [LT-EN]

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sushigo[LT] Šią savaitę pagaliau atvyko siuntinys iš JAV su žaidimu kurį laimėjau kasmetinio Jack Vasel Memorial Fund akciono metu. Kadangi ant pakuotės buvo nurodytas mano numeris, šį kart Lietuvos Paštas pranešė apie siuntą sms žinute, o ne kaip visada su lapeliu. Progresas 🙂 Sushi Go! žaidimas yra gana populiarus. Dėl savo lengvumo, paprastumo ir kainos. Be to jį pardavinėjo plačiai įvairiuose prekybos centrų tinkluose. Pagrindinė žaidimo mechanika “drafting” yra viena mano mėgstamiausių. Vienas pavyzdžių yra 7 Wonders. Be to šis žaidimas turi labai mielą suši tematikos apipavidalinimą. Gaila tik, kad maksimalus žaidėjų skaičius yra 5. Nes man rodos jis puikiai tiktų žaidimų vakarams, kai mūsiškių susirenka 7 žmonės. Šiaip, žaidime yra net 108 kortos, taigi manau galima sugalvoti kažkokias tai namų taisykles ir žaisti su didesniu skaičiumi žaidėjų 🙂

[EN] I have finally received a package from US this week with the game i have won during the annual Jack Vasel Memorial Fund auction. As this time there was my phone number on the package this time our Post Office informed me with a text message and not with a paper notice as usual. Progress 🙂 Sushi Go! game is quite popular. Because of its light and easy gameplay and a pretty wide distribution through various supermarket chains. The main mechanic of the game is “drafting” which i like. One of the examples would be 7 Wonders. This game also has a cute sushi inspired artwork. It’s a pity it only goes up to 5 players though. Because i think it would go over well during game night when we have 7 players. Well, it has 108 cards, so we can come up with some house rule to include more players 🙂

New purchase – Brick Party [LT-EN]

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brickparty[LT] Pasinaudojau Juodo Penktadienio nuolaidomis Rikis parduotuvėje ir įsigijau jau antrą iš eilės Renagade Games Studios leidėjo žaidimą, kuris beje irgi turi laikmatį 🙂 Brick Party irgi yra komandinis žaidimas. Tik šį kartą žaidėjai dalinasi į komandas po du žmones ir visos komandos varžosi tarpusavyje. Vienas komandos narys būna Architektoriumi ir žodžiais bando nusakyti komandos draugui kokią konstrukciją mato kortoje, o Statytojas bando tą konstrukciją kuo greičiau pagaminti iš spalvingų kaladėlių. Kai viena komanda pabaigia konstrukciją, kitiems lieka 30 sekundžių pabaigti savąją. Taip pat žaidime yra įvairios papildomos taisyklės, kurios apsunkina komandos darbą (tarkim statyti užsimerkus ar nenaudojant nykščių). Kaip ir FUSE atveju manau šis žaidimas gali padėti gerinti komunikaciją tarp kolegų. Ar sugriauti santykius 😀

[EN] I have used the Black Friday discount opportunity and purchased my second game by Renagade Game Studios in my FLGS Rikis, which by the way also has a timer 🙂 Brick Party is also a team game. But in this one all players are splitting into teams of two and all teams compete among themselves. One team member is the Architect trying to describe to his team mate what he sees on the construction card with his words (or gestures). And the Builder is trying to to build that construction with the colorful blocks. When one team accomplishes this, other teams have 30 seconds to finish theirs. There are also various rules in the game, which make it harder to complete constructions (say you have to doit with your eyes closed, or without using your thumbs). Just like with FUSE i think this game can improve communication between colleagues. Or destroy relationships 😀

Latest purchase – FUSE [LT-EN]

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fuse[LT] FUSE – šis kooperacinis (ar solo) žaidimas sudomino mane iškart kai tik pamačiau pirmą jo apžvalgą. Man patinka kooperaciniai žaidimai (tokie kaip Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot), bet jie paprastai trunka kelias valandas. Šitas gi visada užtrunka 10 minučių. Žaidimo leidėjai netgi nemokamai platina papildoma programėlę (iOS ar Android), kuri nuotaikingai skaičiuoja šį laiką iki kosminio laivo sprogimo, juokauja, erzina žaidėjus ir didina įtampa artėjant laiko pabaigai. Žaidimas labai paprastas. Išridenami skirtingų spalvų kauliukai su skaičiais ir žaidėjai turi juos sudėlioti savo turimose kortelėse pagal reikalaujamas spalvas, skaičius, sumas, eiliškumą. O įvykdžius visus reikalavimus korta-bomba neutralizuojama ir žaidėjas gali ištraukti kitą kortą iš bendrai pasiekiamų. Jei žaidėjai spėja paimt visas kortas iš bendros krūvos iki laikui pasibaigiant – jie laimėjo. Jei ne, tai pralaimėjimas, bet vis tiek skaičiuojami taškai ir galima bent jau pasidžiaugt pasiekus naują rekordą ar pan. Taip pat po to kai kauliukai išridenami žaidėjai turi tartis kam kokio labiau reikia. Manau šis žaidimas puikiai tiktų komandinio darbo stiprinimui tarp kolegų. Kol kas spėjau tik kelis kartus sužaist vienas treniruotės sunkumu. Abu kartus pralaimėjau 🙂 Bet progresas jau yra. Pirmas žaidimas – 27 taškai. Antram gi jau 47 😉 Kiek vėliau pateiksiu išsamesnius įspūdžius, kai pavyks sužaist jį su įvairiais skaičiais žaidėjų.

[EN] FUSE – this cooperative (or solo) game has peaked my interest after the first review of it i saw. I like cooperative games (such as Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot), but they tend to take a few hours to play. This one always lasts 10 minutes. The publishers of this game even provide a free app (iOS or Android), which whimsycally helps you track the time, jokes or annoys the players and increases the tension towards the end of the time. The game is very simple. The dice are rolled and players then pick them to put on the cards in front of them to fulfill the requirements of colors, numbers, sums, ordering, etc. When someone puts all the requirements on the card, the bomb-card is neutrilized and he or she can score it and take another card from the common pool. The players win if the manage to empty the common pool of cards before the timer runs out. If they don’t, they lose, but they still score the game and can at least find a joy in beating their high score. Also, when the dice are rolled, players have to discuss and decide who takes which die. So i think it is a good tool to improve your teamwork with colleagues. So far i have managed to play it twice solo on a training difficulty. Lost both of them 🙂 But i’m already improving. First game – 27 points. Second one – 47 😉 A bit later i will provide more impressions after i will be able to play it with more counts of players.

Essen Spiel 2016 – Most interesting games [LT-EN]

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[LT] Essen mugėj įsibėgėjus nusprendžiau pateikti sąrašiuką žaidimų, kurie labiausiai patraukė mano dėmesį peržvelgus labai ilgą sąrašą naujų žaidimų. Tikriausiai nei vieno iš jų nepirksiu, o gal net ir neteiks pažaist. Taip pat neseku jų specialiai, bet tiesiog jie kažkuo patraukė mano dėmesį.

[EN] As the Essen fair is starting it course i have decided to present my little list of games, which has drawn my attention and look interesting. I probably won’t buy or even play them ever and i don’t follow them specifically, but something about them has spiked my interest.

Adrenaline

[LT] Apie šį žaidimą daug kas kalba. Tai lyg ir turėtų būti žaidimas atkartojantis FPS tipo video žaidimus, bet tuo pačiu ir turintis euro žaidimų mechanikas. Intriguoja.

[EN] Many are talking about this game. It tries to mimic a video game of FPS genre, but also has euro game mechanisms. Intriguing.

Chromosome

[LT] Tai gali būti paprastas vietovės kontrolės žaidimas su kubelių stumdymu, bet žaidimo tematika skamba labai įdomiai. Ateivių virusas bandantis išgyventi laboratorijoje.

[EN] This might be a simple area control game with cube pushing, but the theme of this game sure sounds interesting. An alien virus trying to survive in the laboratory environment.

Fold-it

[LT] Apie šį žaidimą papasakojo Zee Garcia iš Dice Tower portalo. Ir jis tikrai atrodo unikalus. Žaidėjai turės atkartoti paveikslą parodytą ištrauktoje kortoje. Bet tai jie turi padaryti turint didelį medžiagos gabalą su paveiksliukais lankstant jį taip, kad  matytųsi kortoje parodyta paveiksliukų kombinacija.

[EN] Zee Garcia from the Dice Tower told about this game. This game is really unique. Players will have to match the pattern shown on the card. But they will have to do this by folding a big cloth of material which has same pictures on it to match the pattern on the card.

Bios: Genesis

[LT] Kažkuo primenantis Chromosome. Šiame žaidime teks valdyti ir tobulinti pirmuosius Žemės mikroorganizmus. Žaidimą galima bus žaist ir kooperaciname režime ir konkuruojant tarpusavyje. Taip pat bus ir solo variantas.

[EN] This game reminds Chromosome a bit. In this game the task will be to manage and improve first micro organisms of Earth. There will be a cooperative mode as well as competitive. And also a solo variant.

[LT] Ir dar kažkiek žaidimų, kurie mane sudomino.

[EN] And some other games that draw my attention.

Targi Expansion
Camel Up Cards
Kanagawa
Taluva Deluxe
The Daedalus Sentence
Pandemic Iberia

XenServer cleanup [EN]

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Speaking about XenServer again. Recently i had to fix its certificates because of the recent Windows update. This also reminded me about a long standing issue with Control Domain disk running out of space. XenCenter was showing alert messages for some time stating that this storage was already at 96, 97 and last time at 98%. It’s annoying that it doesn’t show this storage details anywhere in the XenCenter GUI (or i haven’t found). Because this is an internal XenServer’s disk, used for configuration, logs, etc. I’ve read that space may be occupied by logs. So i went out on a hunt. Here’s how to deal with this:

Control Domain disk can run out of space after running XenServer for a long time. Our server is in duty for 5-6 years and we never cleaned it up.

First you need to connect to its local shell. Either directly (if monitor is connected) or via SSH. Login with root.
Go to /var/log/
Run command: du -sh (it will show how much space does your log folder take; it was 1.7 GB in our case)
Additionally ls -lh will list all files in that folder with a readable size values (MB or GB)
Then delete logs with a force switch (you may want to leave some logs, but i just wiped them all as this is just a testing box):
rm SMlog* -f
rm xensource.log* -f
rm messages* -f
rm xenstored-access* -f
Run du -sh to see how much space have you freed. In my case it was around 1.5 GB.

Fixing SSL error when accessing XenServer after KB3175024 update [EN]

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We’ve been using Citrix’s XenServer at work for probably 6 years now (originally Citrix, now it is Open Source and not run by them). But we were too lazy to upgrade to the newest version. Because it is time consuming and would take lots of effort to migrate current machines. But mostly, we were lazy 🙂 So, we are still on 5.6 version (i think). This month Microsoft has released a Windows update KB3175024, which probably made all certificates using less than 1024 bits of encryption not secure and made apps trying to access services, which were still using such certificates, go bonkers. So, trying to access our XenServer from a Windows application XenCenter resulted in a TLS\SSL error. Windows Event Log also was collecting useless Schannel errors (yeah, errors just giving some random numbers are very useful). XenServer is using 512 bits keys by default (and from what i have gathered browsing Xen forums, even newest versions are affected by this). Combining tips from several sources i have compiled a little guide to overcome this issue. On a plus side, this made me use SSH (to access our XenServer) and refresh my Linux cmd skills a bit 🙂 Read More

1 year blog summary [LT-EN]

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blog-1year-sm-2

[LT] Lygiai prieš metus pradėjau šį blogą, paskelbiau pirmą įrašą. Per tuos metus iš viso paskelbta 78 įrašai. Sulaukta 4 komentarų (na gera, gudrauju, du iš jų buvo mano atsakymai 🙂 ). Tiesa, kol įdiegiau anti-spamo įskiepį sulaukdavau nemažai spam komentarų kasdien. Šiuo metu blokuota 1347 spam komentarų 🙂

[EN] Exactly one year ago i have started this blog, posted my first entry. During this year 78 entries have been posted. I’ve received 4 comments (ok ok, i’m cheating, two of them were my replies 🙂 ). Although, until i have installed anti-spam plugin i was getting lots of spam comments daily. 1347 spam comments have been blocked by now 🙂

[LT-EN] Paskelbti įrašai pagal kategorijas/Posted entries by categories:

Board Games (43)
Technology (19)
Next game (14)
Movies (12)
Top10 (10)
Yes-No (5)
Artwork (2)
General (3)
Live session (2)
Books (1)

Board Game Review – Camel Up [EN]

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Camel Up

A neat little game, which can be fun with the right crowd (non-gamers or casual gamers). It even works fine with 8 players (and more with the expansion). Granted, i haven’t tried it with less players. All my 3 plays of it were with 8 players. It probably can be more strategic with less players and you can probably have more options on your turn and plan ahead a bit more. But it is still very light, very random and swingy. Which is part of its charm and which makes people scream of joy or sadness when a die comes out of the pyramid 🙂 But this is not a game for those liking a bit of thought process, heavier mechanisms. Though heavy gamers can appreciate this as an evening closing game to relax. I’m glad i own it and this is a strong 7/10.

Board Game Review – Automobiles [EN]

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Automobiles

A deck building game with a bag of cubes instead that you pull from to move you car in a race. This sounded like a perfect mix of one of my favorite mechanisms (deck building) with some unique theme like racing. The game is not bad, but after playing it 5-6 times i failed to find much to like in it. First of all it is too much random and “swingy”. You can crawl a few spaces for a few turns and then jump half a track ahead. Yes, you have to manage your pull of cubes and improve the selection, but this just doesn’t work. Hard to explain. There is too much trash in your bag from the start and you get even more of it during the race. There are some cubes that help you cull bad cubes, but those cubes on their own will clutter you selection. Also this is hard to foresee which regular racing cubes you will need the most, because every track twist needs different ones and you can pull completely useless ones from the bag. The game provides a lot of variability with different setups (every cube color has a few cards with different abilities, which can be used in a game). But that creates another problem of constantly checking what a particular cube does in a particular game. Yes, you will probably memorize it after a few turns, but this memory won’t stay with you, because next time you will have to memorize different abilities. This gets especially frustrating when playing online and doing a few moves per day (i know, this is not fair, as this game is not designed to be played this way, but that’s how i play the most). So, i admit this is a unique and clever design with a bag building mechanism and interesting racing theme, but only 7/10 for me.

Yucata implementation: as with many new games it uses 2.0 framework and it works fine. The only problem is the cards that i have mentioned above, they are too small and you have to click on them to zoom and be able to read the ability. I guess nothing can be done about this. 9/10