Merry Christmas! (Or happy holidays, or whatever winter greeting you use.)

I’ll be honest here – the main reason I had to kill off Ezra is to mainly kick off Violet’s character development. While Ezra was going to die in the original draft, I had to do a bit of tweaking here and there, mainly due to Violet becoming a much more popular character (in both my eyes and the eyes of the readers) than I initially expected, so I gave her a larger part in the story. She’s one of my favorite characters, mainly because she’s different than the rest of them. It’s a lot of fun drawing Violet being happy for once (such as that last panel,) but since the characters are in a lot more danger than they know as of now, she’s not going to be happy for a while.  Not that there won’t be happy moments in the comic – chapter 9, all things considered, is a really happy chapter – but this book is where stuff in the comic starts to take a turn for the more perilous. (If you watched the Halloween Preview Video, you might get an idea about what’s going to happen. Still not sure when the remade version of that comic will be out.) Also, there’s something I’ve been hiding in every comic since the very first, and I’m surprised nobody has caught on – the darkness of the background in between the panels varies depending on how happy or somber the mood of the comic is at that time. Since the first pages, it’s been on a more or less steady slide downward, but this page, being at bit happier than the last one, is a lighter shade of grey. Go check it out if you don’t believe me – compare the color of the first few pages to the pages where Violet loses it in chapter 6.

And as promised, here’s that review of Battletech.

You know that show Game of Thrones, right? Lots of noble families duking it out to rule over a kingdom on a throne made of swords, each with an army of Knights in armor ready to serve? Well, take that, but instead of a continent make it the galaxy, make it around the year 2600, and instead of knights in armor, have pilots driving giant metal robots. You take the persona of a down – on – their – luck mercenary commander, and who helps their childhood friend (who happens to be a queen) reclaim her small empire from her uncle who staged a coup. It’s a generic story, but you don’t really have to follow it that much, having most of your missions take place in you doing odd jobs for the other star empires in the eternal back-and-forth that empires do with each other. It’s a turn based combat game (think like chess), where you move your ‘mechs and shoot at the robots controlled by the A.I. It’s a lot of fun, but it ain’t easy. It takes some getting used to. Eventually, however, your robots get powerful enough to be more or less invincible, allowing you to take on A.I. armies four times your size and win. I was lucky enough to get a “King Crab” mech, which in my opinion is the best in the game, relatively early in the game, allowing me to wreak bloody vengeance upon anybody who got within missile range. I kept playing after I beat the game, and eventually I got this:

Yeah, that’s four of them. I don’t think you were ever meant to get this far ingame, as I can curb-stomp any force thrown at me, with minimal damage to my force. Needless to say, the Quad King Crab setup is overpowered. Overall, I really enjoyed the game, and highly recommend it. One thing – If you feel like trying it (which I recommend you do if you like strategy games), you’ll probably see reviews complaining about how the A.I can throw 12 ‘mechs at you, while you can only use 4. This is normally because the A.I. is dumb as a rock at times, and the only way it can hold against a moderately talented player is by having more guns than you do. (For a story on how dumb the A.I. can be, see below.) If you’re cautious about your characters, you should end up OK in most engagements.

Ok, now for the story about the A.I. having the intelligence of a brick: To stop you from loading a ‘mech up with too many weapons, the ‘mechs have a certain amount of heat buildup they can take. Firing weapons creates heat, so occasionally more gun-heavy ‘mechs will have to take a turn to cool off. Where you place your ‘mech can effect heat: putting it in water cools it down (while also making it slower), while parking it on say, a geothermal vent, heats it up. I had more or less destroyed an A.I. ‘mech, due to it being nearly overheated and unable to fire. Upon taking its turn, the A.I. marched the overheating mech onto a geothermal vent, causing the heat to reach a critical level, which damages the ‘mech. The problem is, the ‘mech was so damaged already, that the overheat caused the ‘mech to EXPLODE, killing it. I like to think the A.I. knew it was doomed, and just kinda gave up at that point. I’ve only seen it once, but the A.I. makes mistakes no sane human would ever even consider, so I think the robots won’t be taking over anytime soon. Oh, and an ingame tip since you read this far. Always focus your fire on a single target when possible. Two full health targets are better than three partly damaged ones, since there are less things shooting at you. This has helped me in lots of fights, and even works in multiplayer. So yeah, there’s a handy hint for you.

See you next week.