The Michael Swayne Story V: King of his Castle

I finally started playing Ni No Kuni today. I really like it so far. It was rather slow to get started, but now that I am fighting battles and able to gain abilities and whatnot, it is really fun to play. Here's how the characters look like so far stat-wise.

	Oliver	Mitey	Lemahl
Level	7	7	4
HP or Stamina	68	30	30
MP	32
Movement Speed	4 Stars	3 Stars	4 Stars
Attack Speed	3 Stars	3 Stars	4 Stars
Attack	18	32	19
Defense	19	29	16
Magic Attack	33	16	13
Magic Defense	22	28	13
Accuracy	29	35	18
Evasion	18	30	28

I like how the main character is a magic user. And it's a male magic user. Many RPGs reserve magic to female characters (Yuna, Garnet, Terra, etc.), and you just don't see a lot of games where the main character is a male magic user. I know when I play around with RPG Maker 3, I almost always make a main male magic user and with a female stealth character, male physical attacker, and an animal as support.

Anyway, back to this game. It is a bit too cartoonish for my taste, but the game is rated E10+ so I can't really complain that they are going for a younger audience. I am surprised that it received E10+ for its rating instead of T because of everything it has listed (Tobacco and Alcohol references, simulated gambling, mild language, comic mischief, and fantasy violence). The last three I listed I have seen in the game. Drippy semi-curses a lot (flipping, heck, etc.) and comic mischief and fantasy violence are normal for RPGs.

The idea that people are heartbroken in this game is really kid-like. But it's cute in the same way. I wish there was a mechanic where I could actually cast the spells by drawing the symbols, instead of just choosing them from the list. It makes the symbols meaningless otherwise. Or if there was a way to make the spells stronger by drawing them repeatedly in a mini-game or something.

For all I know, there could be those things already in the game and I just haven't gotten to that point yet.

Which brings me to where I am currently in the game. I am in a sewer. The game is still really new, so I won't go into too much detail. I have to find someone that it has been kidnapped (er, catnapped) and the party is fighting snakes and Rabbots in the sewer. Other than that, I completed a few little side quests and bought some equipment for my party members. Just a bunch of basic RPG stuff. It has kept my attention for nearly five hours, so it can't be too bad of a game.

In other news, I baked pumpkin cookies and made tuna salad today. I washed my clothes and done normal Saturday things.

I am improving my ranking in Osu! more and more with each song I play. Right now, I am ranked 39,683rd worldwide in osu!mania mode, and 2,011th in the United States. My goal is to get into the Top 10,000 worldwide that way I will be on the big list they have. I have found that if you play the newer songs, you get bigger jumps in your ranking because there haven't been thousands of my plays of the songs. Like this morning Girl's Day's newest song Expectation had been added to the list of ranked songs. I played it and received more than 100 points added to my ranking (I was the second highest score at the time). It has gone down since I played because there have tons of plays of the song. The point is that there are more points available with the newer songs.

As for Gaming King, I am 23rd Place with 292 votes. I had already received 10 votes today by the time I logged in to vote. So, that's cool! There's only 5 days and 16 hours left in the current voting cycle (at the time this is posted). That means my next big attempt at winning will start in 6 days and 16 hours. I have been thinking a lot on my strategy. But I can't confirm anything until I figure out the current voting style. What category I enter depends on my forecast of where I will end up. I want to get the highest rank possible. Right now it looks like I will get 4th Place in the King of the Web category, and 6th Place in the Gaming Category. That's just based on what figures I have received from the people I know who are helping me. If I knew of any other people helping, then I could get a better idea of how I will fare.

I was actually considering offering an incentive for those people voting. If I were to make the Top 3 of the King of the Web category, or to win the Gaming category, I would get a cash prize. I thought of giving part of my winnings to the people who help me get there. I was thinking if...

2 people help, I would split the winnings three ways ($300/$150 for each of us).
4 people help, I would split the winnings five ways ($200/$100 for each of us).
And so on.

Yes, I would potentially be buying people's support, but people are more inclined to do something if there is something in it for them. There would be a couple of rules in order to qualify for the money if someone helps. The person would have to first tell me of their interest in helping. And if they aren't already friends of mine on Facebook, they would have to friend me (since voting is linked with Facebook, it would show proof that they voted for me). The person would have to give me 20 votes each day for the entire cycle of the election (10 votes allotted for the category I enter and 10 Earned votes the person receives for filling the Vote meter). And that's it. If I were to get a cash prize, then those people that help me would get a share of it. The prize amounts are listed below.

1st Place in King of the Web	$1000 USD
2nd Place in King of the Web	$500 USD
3rd Place in King of the Web	$250 USD
1st Place in Gaming King	$500 USD

It's not a bad deal really. Just take a minute or two out of each day and vote for me. And then possibly getting paid for it. And if I don't a cash prize, you still get a good finger exercise by voting. I would think of something if I don't win to repay the people who help.

Anyway, I have had Ni No Kuni on pause for about an hour while I type this up, so I should get back to the game. I hope to see you around the forums, and until then...

Later!

Michael