Taking a Brief Break

These last 2 weeks have been quite busy for me Starcraft-wise. From Saturday January 14 to Friday January 27, I recorded 11 videos and published 11 blog posts.

Two weekends ago, I started work on a computer program to help me create the summary and intro clips for my upcoming CSL casts. Last week, I tried to start interacting with subscribers and commenters on YouTube. And a few days ago, I got permission from Blizzard to use assets from the game and soundtrack in my videos (with some qualifications of course)!

Last week was also an adventure on the daddy side of things!

My daughter started potty training, we confirmed that we had at least one raccoon living in our attic, and apparently my hefty son has lost a pound since his last pediatrician appointment. So we now have a one-way door installed on the roof (thanks to a wildlife control company) and my son now has full snacking privileges for the next six weeks!

So as you might guess, by last Friday evening, I was ready for a break from the 1v1 ladder!

CmdrTallon had been bemoaning losses to the Protoss Four-Gate, so I offered to do some practice games with him. I believe this is the first time I've done this sort of thing - played custom games with someone to work on a specific part of the game.

We did 4 games of four-gate, once on Shattered Temple, and three games on Tal'Darim Altar. By the last one, he did an excellent job of shutting down my proxy pylon before it even finished.


Time: 6:48 - Two marauders and one marine kite my two advance zealots, and I'm forced to cancel my pylon and pull back.

At this point, I changed my focus to expanding - which I suppose was against the rules for a practice session focused on 4-gate... and ten minutes later, we had a large engagement which characterized the rest of the game.


Time: 16:48 - This large force of marauders struggles to push up the ramp against charge-lots, guardian shield, stalkers, and immortals.

After that, it was time for something less, um, intense. So we played two 2 vs. AI co-op matches, and won :)

Then, I'm not sure how this happened, but we rounded off the night with my first ever custom map game (the mod style of custom map) - Blizzard's "Left 2 Die"!


The basic concept is that play is divided into timed Day and Night modes. During the day, you take your forces out to kill infested terran buildings and earn points for enabling new units. During the night, you run back to your base to defend against a steady stream of infested units and large mutated zerg units!


Time: 4:07 - Night 1, 2:27 left - Our first night, and you can see why a Nazi zombie fan would like this custom map!


Time: 4:35 - Night 1, 1:59 left - The zombies (er, infested Terrans) are in the base! Here, one of the mutated Zerg units is leaping from his previous kill to slice up a marine. Who says SC2 isn't dramatic?


Time: 6:33 - Night 1, 0:01 left - With infested Terrans all over the base, these two marines are about to bite the dust.


Time: 6:36 - Day 1, 3:58 left - Moments later, they are saved! Daytime starts, and the infested Terrans explode into flames! Time to rebuild the base!


Time: 11:54 - Night 2, 2:40 left - The second night begins, and we encounter some nasty mutated Zerg units - this one explodes into a massive ball of acid when killed!


Time: 13:49 - Night 2, 0:45 left - The night is almost over, but the infested Terrans break through a wall of debris, entering an undefended area of the base! Thankfully, my vultures had carpeted the area with spider mines. Since I haven't played the SC2 single-player yet, I had never played with vultures in SC2 to this point - they are wicked awesome!


Time: 26:07 - Day 3, 0:27 left - The next night is about to start, and my infantry are healing up. That's right, that white infantry unit is healing a marauder! Meet another cool unit not available in standard multiplayer, the medic!


Time: 28:21 - Night 4, 2:14 left - Another massive mutated zerg unit, the Stank - basically a huge ultralisk, but not the balanced version from multiplayer! See the little swirlies on some of the units (even the bunker!)? It's a status effect placed on units that are THROWN by one of the Stank's attacks. And yes, that's a TON of defensive units :)

As you can tell, this was SUPER fun!

So much so, that I played a round on Saturday night, a round on Sunday night, and a few half-played rounds in between. Is this as addicting as Nazi zombies? Close, but not quite. Now had Blizzard tied more achievements to it (like for finishing X games per difficulty like they do for normal Custom games) or some sort of high score system, I would find it a huge distraction from playing competitive 1v1 ;-)

So I had a nice break over the weekend, and now it's time to get back into casting and preparing content for the CSL!