Game Journal #57 - Finishing Tokens, Battle UI, Iron Maiden

What is UP bois! Today I've got a pretty good journal for ya. I went to that Iron Maiden concert on Friday, and man! It was amazing!!!!! The whole day was a total adventure, too. I'll detail it below!

Firstly, a small life update. I got employee of the month at FedEx. Yeah, really. My first month there, and I get an award. Lol! I guess they just like hard workers. If anything, that's the one thing I'm good at. I don't really talk to anyone, I just show up and move packages. Apparently, that's award worthy!

Ok, now for the meat and potatoes. Friday was the day of the Iron Maiden concert! It was scheduled for 7:30 pm, so I decided to hang out with my friend earlier in the day. She lives an hour away from me, but she was 30 minutes away from the concert venue, so I figured it'd be cool to do something since I'd be driving up there anyway. 45 minutes into the drive, I realized that I left my concert earbuds at home. NOOOOOO!!!! If you've never been to a rock concert, the music is LOUD. So loud, in fact, that it'll probably damage your hearing if you don't have protection. (I learned my lesson after going to see Judas Priest without any. My ears were ringing for 2 weeks afterwards.)

Thing is, I bought those earbuds two months in advance (just like my concert tickets.) Yeah, really! Iron Maiden is still super popular. For Judas Priest, I think I bought my tickets a day or two before, and there were still general admission and regular seats left. Not many, but a couple. Iron Maiden though? Two months beforehand, I check and there's literally 3 seats left, all nosebleeds, and no general admission at all unless you bought resale for like 400$. Not happening! So I snagged my nosebleed seat, and bought some earbuds too. But I forgot to bring them with me when I drove up, so I had to buy new ones. Grrrr! They did work really well, though! My ears are completely fine, and the sound came through perfectly. 100% recommend!

EAROS ONE High-Fidelity Hearing Protection

Anyway, I get my earbuds, and hang out with my friend for a few hours. She had to go to work at 12, so I had a bunch of time left before the concert. So, I went to Mitsuwa, a nearby Japanese marketplace. There, I bought some onigiri (an eel one and a spicy salmon one) and was enjoying walking around. Then, once again, trouble struck. My concert shoes LITERALLY FELL APART while I was walking. It was a big WTH?! from me. One second they were fine, the next my sole was flopping around like a fish. I was super annoyed because I didn't get to wear them that much, so I didn't expect them to fall apart. But there they were!

Recreation of what happened to my shoe.

Thankfully, I was inside of a convenience store when it happened, so I was able to buy some glue. Unfortunately, the glue didn't hold the sole and shoe together, and it became a sloppy mess, so I had to throw them out. But thankfully thankfully, I had a spare set of shoes in my car! Because of the welding class I'm taking, I have to wear durable boots while welding so that the sparks don't burn my feet. I keep them in my car just for convenience's sake, since I don't wear them outside of class. So I was able to wear them instead! Pretty nice.

After the shoe mishap, I still had some time left, so I drove to a nearby strip mall. I went to a variety of different stores, and at each one I found some really cool Halloween merch (score!) Most of it was discounted too, because it's so close to Halloween and the stores were beginning to put out Christmas merch. I got some awesome stuff, like a hanging skeleton on a swing, and some spoopy pillowcases. Ooh, so much fun! I haven't had a day where I just do shopping in a while, so it was really nice to walk around to all the different stores.

Mr. Bones, hanging around.

After all my shopping, it was about 4 pm, and I still had a lot of time left. Thankfully, a few days previously I'd gone to the library and rented out a bunch of Phillip K. Dick books, and they were in my car. So I drove to a nearby public park, sat on a bench, and read. The book I was reading was called "The Clockwork" something or other, don't really remember. It was about a world where time started moving backwards, so people became younger, and dead people came back to life. Pretty bizzare concept, eh? I figured I'd start reading science fiction again to prepare myself to write Joe Maverick 2.

But, of course, like all Phillip K. Dick books, there was cheating. I don't know what his deal with it is. Does he like it? Did it happen to him and it was traumatizing? Whatever the case, there's always someone cheating in every book I've read from him. It's nothing more than a mild annoyance to me most times, because his plots and writing are great, but in this book it completely ruined the story. There was an undead man who had a much younger wife, they have a small falling-out, and THE VERY SAME DAY he cheats on her with a literal whore that comes on to him to steal valuable intel that he had. I literally stopped reading right there. Grim, just grim. I don't want to read about a protagonist that has no self control around thots. Deezgusting.

By the time I'd gotten to that point in the book, it was 5 pm, and it'd take an hour (up from 30 min because of traffic) to get to the venue. So I made my way down. Why'd I leave with an hour and a half buffer, you ask? Parking. It's all paid near the venue, and I'm BROKE, baby. (At least, for entertainment, I'm broke. I rely on my review copies.) So I had to find a free spot. Here's a tip: if you want to go get free parking at the Prudential Center in New Jersey, go shopping at ShopRite. Man, I sure do I love shopping at ShopRite right before going to a concert! Such wonderful parking, and only a mile away from the venue? So convenient! Of course, I'm shopping there, not just parking. Of course!

So I walk to the venue, and get in. There were merch booths on the top floor, and I bought an iron-on patch for my jacket. Cost me 10 bucks, not bad! They had t shirts too, but they were 50 bucks apiece. Love Iron Maiden, but I can get official merch at Hot Topic for half that. NGMI! I also bought a cinnamon pretzel for 7 bucks. Pricey? Yeah. Tasty? Definitely. No regrets, no remorse.

Finally, I get to my seat, and the show starts. The opening band was called Within Temptation. They were decent. Kinda cringe at times, but decent. Here's some photos.

Why do I say they were cringe? Cause of this.

They were singing a song about freedom, and the singer (woman btw) is waving around this Ukraine flag. Like WTH? They aren't from Ukraine, song had nothing to do with Ukraine, but here she is with this flag. It was rather awkward because a lot of fans had flags for where they were from, and there was a fan with a Russia flag. (Speaking of, during Iron Maiden's performance Bruce Dickinson pointed out a lot of the flags and could name their countries. It was a pretty big reminder that he isn't American. Haha!)

Whatever your thoughts on the war is, I think you can agree that it doesn't belong at a concert. I'm here to rock, not deal with international affairs. Other than that though, they were ok. They played well, but their sound was rather generic. I was falling asleep during their performance (a pretty good testament to my earbuds, eh?) They kinda reminded me of Evanescence, if you know them (Wake me up inside.)

Anyway, their act went on for about an hour, then there was an hour intermission. I was slightly confused, because the concert was sold out and yet there were a lot of seats left. I'd never been to a sold out concert before, you know. But as it turns out, most people come late to skip the preshow and just see the main band. Look at the difference in the crowd!

Excuse me, but WHOMST THE WHAT?!

Isn't that crazy? There were even people waaay at the top! I remember Bruce saying, "Don't lean over too far up there!" Lol. Anyway, here's the pictures of the concert! Some are potato quality because I had to zoom in a lot (and I have an android...) but they're pretty cool! I tried to get a photo of each set change and costume change. At one point, someone in the crowd blew up a balloon and people hit it around in the air. It even got to the stage! You can see it in some of the photos if you look closely.

I got some video, too! I spliced them all together and put them into one here. I also tried to title all the songs, though there were some that I didn't know.

Overall, the concert was AWESOME!!!!! Iron Maiden can really rock. They played all the songs I wanted to hear except for "2 Minutes to Midnight." Argh! But no harm done, their performance was great. Bruce Dickinson was really funny. There was this part during "Iron Maiden" where he said, "ALL RIGHT GUYS, I WANT YOU TO PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, AND EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE HANDS, PUT THEM UP ANYWAY!" Made me rofl. And during "Number of the Beast," for the line "I'll possess your body and I'll make you burn," he made it "I'll possess your body and I'LL MAKE NEW JERSEY F'KIN BURN!" That made me go whoo! Glad to see that I agree with him on where New Jersey should go.

Speaking of, Bruce used the f word quite a bit when addressing the audience. It was a little shocking, since all their songs are pretty clean. Maybe it's 'cause we're American. Is this what Brits think we talk like? Haha. I really did get to see the Bri'ishness of Maiden in this concert, though. During "Run to the Hills," Bruce let the audience sing the main line once, and Steve Harris (one of the guitarists) was able to be clearly heard in the backup vocal. When he sang, instead of "Run to the hills," it was more like "RUN TEW THA HIIIIIILLLLLLLZZZZZ" HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Bruce himself has a bit of an accent when he's talking, but you can't really hear it when he sings, so I didn't even realize they were a British band until a few years after I heard them for the first time.

If you want to see Iron Maiden, GO AND DO IT! Seriously! They're old, you know, they won't be around forever. You've gotta see Bruce's on-stage charisma yourself. He really moves with the music! I'm pretty sure that Dave Murray (another guitarist) was on speed or something though, lmfao. The guy literally couldn't stop moving, he was swinging his guitar around, at one point he was kicking the speakers. Maybe he's just super energetic? Either way, they rocked out!

So that was the concert. Afterwards, I went to a nearby 7-11 and bought a slushie, but at the same time, I dropped my car keys. Yeah... I walked the mile back to my car, discovered I didn't have my keys, walked all the way back to 7-11, got them (thankfully a nice lady gave them to the register,) and walked back to my car. This was at 11 pm in Newark btw. If you don't know, Newark is known for being dangerous. And I was by myself, so... yeah. Not the most pleasant experience ever. Plus, it was super cold! But thankfully, it all ended up ok, and I got back home at about 12:30. What a day! It was really an adventure. Makes me grateful that I can stay home and be cozy while working on my game. Haha! Adventures are good once in a while, but once I do one, I've gotta relax afterwards.

Game Journal Section

Ok, now it's finally time to get into the actual game journal part. Haha! I did quite a bit since last time. Here's the changelog.

10/18/22
-Fixed bug where movie would keep playing after closing the widget.
-Added Level up function for tokens.
-Added Power metric to tokens.

10/22/22
-Upgrade Token functionality
-Crafting token functionality
-Updated Sell and Inventory Ui.
-Resumed work on battle mode.
-Set Camera angle for player.

10/23/22
-Setup player placement for battle
-Fixed ui bug on party screen
-Battle screen Turn UI

10/24/22
-Worked more on battle ui

Yep, that's all. I started the battle UI this week. It's still a work in progress, but it looks rather nice so far, and I'm gonna take a small break from my game anyways. So I figured now would be a good time for an update. Yeah? Yeah.

Here's the week's video.

As always, lemme know what you think. See ya next time!