I understand that we haven't been in contact since a few months back. I understand that it's due to our quiet, mutual respect towards each other that we were willing to let go some things we worked on so hard for the past two years. I understand that you were searching for your own 'truth', which was something far more noble than what we were striving for. I understand that some things will have to wait.
I remember meeting you for the first time in our first day in university, you were always the star of the show, the center of attention. You were the brilliant, outspoken one, the one whom I could only see myself in the shadow of. I remember that you were the one who organized a nationwide gaming event, and despite a last-minute fizzling it paved a wide path for the club to bigger and bigger events in subsequent years. I remember that you're the one who brought all of us together. In two years our group grew and shrunk. We rewrote designs at least thirty times and reprogrammed the client from scratch thrice. We spent the majority of nights sleeping in the office. We met people. We received grants. We attracted fans. We had our fifteen minutes. Within the industry you were criticized and viewed as a threat. Of course, they were only afraid of you.
We spent nights debating over game design decisions, programming problems, philosophical issues. Our futures. Lots of things. You had a dream that I could share. The dream was simple: We wanted to make games. And it was because of you that I dared to step out of the beaten path of life and ventured down the seldom-walked path of original game development. We always dreamed big. We never looked at ourselves and thought that we were 'indie'. We never sold ourselves out despite getting lucrative offers more than once. We almost made it.
I remembered that you considered me to be your best friend, but at that time I did not reciprocate the sentiment. I wish I did, though, if it's not too late. Being out of contact for eight months made me wonder if you were still having the same opinion of me after all this while. I was wondering if we were prepared to come back together again. But of course nothing could have prepared me to receive the news that you succumbed to a blood infection this morning. The last thing I want to hear about you after so long is that you are gone forever.
The memorial service was oddly calm, but then again I've never been to one. Your girlfriend told me that she was going to inform me about you but you didn't get through the night, though it was comforting to know that in your last moment you found peace. I saw you lying there. You've gained weight. Another friend was silently weeping beside me, but I don't know. I should be feeling sad about it but I could hardly feel anything. It was the suddenness of everything that gripped me. If only I could be with you through all this while. Still, there's nothing to be gained from merely wishing 'if only'.
Be assured that our game will one day be launched again, and this time it'll kick ass. We called it 'Chess 2.0', and I still find it appropriate. Well, I've been wanting to restart the project only after I settle down with a permanent job, but looks like I'll have to work extra hard.
The colors are a little subdued compared to the original, mainly because I'm still not familiar with painting backgrounds yet and the colors don't really match. Still there was a lot of blending done. I'll probably stick to cel-shading
I meant to do Sorin Markov next, but perhaps I'll draw some of my own stuff first.
I didn't play Stangg because I thought that I'm spending 6 mana on two 3/4 creatures. Little did I know that Broodmate Jr. can be so awesome, and more so when it was known that the client had a bug of not removing the Twin token when the other leaves play. I followed the advice of my Round 2 opponent to focus on Jund colors instead, and so I sideboarded out blue in Round 3 onwards.
Game 1: A turn 2 Fellwar Stone was responded with an EOT (foil) Disenchant. He laid the first creature - a Fire Drake - next turn, but I had a Hunting Cheetah to match. We traded blows for the next two turns, him casting Bone Flute in the mean time and me just picking up stray Forests. I played a turn 5 Wormwood Treefolk, which got Misfortune's Gained the next turn, resetting my life total to 19. The Cheetah rode the Dilu horse next turn to deliver massive beatings. Two hits sent him down to 5 life, and a Cinder Storm ended the game.
Game 2: I sided out all three blue cards and brought in Stangg and Raging Minotaur (which was somehow unnoticed while deckbuilding) for game 2. Both of them were cast during the course of that game, and my opponent didn't offer much resistance except for a turn 1 Kobolds of Kher Keep and a Fire Drake some time later.
I sided out the usual blue cards and, thinking that I needed more creatures (12 without the blue guys), played one of my three Wei Infantries.
Game 2: I opened with 2x Mountain, Swamp, Forest, Wei Infantry, Chain Lightning and Fire Ambush. The Infantry came down on turn 2 and started beatings, being joined by a hasty Raging Minotaur on turn 4. The next turn he Chain Lightninged the Minotaur, but after another attack he was down to 11, enough for my burn spells to finish the job, and even though he bounced my Infantry with Sun Ce, Young Conqueror the game was over on turn 7 with Cinder Storm.
[b]Win[/b] (2-0)
[b]Round 5[/b] vs the_crisp_one
Game 1: I chose to play and mulliganed to a hand of 2xForest, Island, Astrolabe, Spoils of Victory and Meng Huo's Horde. A slow start but the mana is smooth. I drew a Hunting Cheetah on turn 4 which made things better, though my opponent Ghostly Visited it on his turn. He plays Young Wei Recruits, but I had a better turn 4 play of sacrificing the Astrolabe to power out a Wei Elite Companions. It happened that he had TWO Wei Elite Companions, but by then I'd drawn two Fire Ambush to remove them. Despite casting two other creatures he never blocked or damaged the Cheetah, and he was already in burn lange when I have the lands.
The only drawing that I've been doing were inked sketches of cartoon characters (well, some OCs too) requested by the kids. What's new from the previous WIP post was done in the last two days, after work.
And I still don't know what's in his right hand. I twitted dailymtg a question and have yet to receive a reply.