Seems I’ve settled on a three – legged set of games to play for the moment.
Mobile gaming is Ingress. Enough said. Read recent posts for more info 🙂 .
PC Gaming alone is Marvel Heroes. Cyclops will soon be level 54, and 60 won’t be far behind.

The fights are colorful, and chaotic.
I think I’m starting to get the hang of the game as well – just what are you supposed to do in the game ?
- Level up to 60. This is not the end of the game – it’s the beginning.
- Acquire uniques, at quality 63.
- Acquire a legendary weapon – go to Asgard and buy it with Odin marks. Time to level it up.
- Gear grind.
- Somewhere in here are blessings for your weapons – final level of uniques is quality 69.
- Unlock more heroes, and do it again. Many synergy bonuses here.
- There’s more that I don’t quite get.
The gear grind manifests itself in many ways, instead of older-school MMO style of “Go on a raid and hope something drops for you, and you have enough DKP”. Omega points are one, although they are usable by all your heroes, I think starting at level 30. Relics are another – bind them to a hero and collect them, one at a time, for teensy extra bonuses each. Trade in your uniques (? They’re unique, but I collect them? Whatever.) and get other bonuses.
It’s best enjoyed in small doses.
Multiplayer gaming is Minecraft.
I read with amusement TAGN’s getting treated like a noob by his daughter while playing Minecraft. “No Dad – hold down shift” << sigh >>. I’ve experienced that many times myself. And sharing the world with his daughter.
And I thought – why not try that with my son ? I loaded up my old world from last year, and didn’t really feel like continuing it. I wanted to start again, map as I went, and build my railroads a lot faster rather than trying to experience all the biomes – I’ve done that already. And using tools for intel I don’t think helped either.
I did use similar world-building parameters, so I’d get enough Iron and a smidge more diamonds, and started the game up.

And so, my first world.
I ran like a madman looking for the most important thing for your first day of Minecraft – sheep. Kill three sheep, and you have 3 wool, and can make a bed and survive your first night of minecraft.
I couldn’t find any sheep.

World #2. This time I start in a swamp.
A swamp island on the edge of an ocean – and wonderously, sheep right next to the spawn. I swam from the island to what looks like a continent, and found coal in a little tunnel drilled through a hill. And so, my first base was born.

After closing off both ends of the tunnel, it’s now a base.
My son, not interested in the idea at first, watched me play and said “Wow that actually looks like fun”, and came into the world to help me at this point. Wheat farming is now started, a mine to level 12 has been established, and a treasure room is under construction. I’ve even escaped death so far.
I plan to make it look nice immediately – I typically have waited until I have thousands of items stored in chests, and I’m not going to do that this time. Having found lava, I set to work baking cobblestone in my oven, while my son clears trees from the area – the base is in an Oak Forest biome and so there’s tons of cover for monsters during the day.

Started on the interior roof, since I had to fill in the holes anyway.

My boy pushed back the forest this far at least.
So we have an intensely PvP-like game (Ingress), the ultimate in relaxing and sandbox (Minecraft), and an exciting MMO pulling you along on a treadmill (Marvel Heroes). That’s a good mix for the moment.