Tag Archives: JourneyQuest

New Year, new whatever?

It’s 2017.

Happy new Year!

Or at least I hope it will be happy and have lots of good stuff in store for everyone…
I mean after all that stuff happening in 2016, we are in for a treat, right?
Let’s do a headcount:
It was the first complete year with just Dad and me. Lots of ups and downs on that front, but that’s family for you. Still miss her a lot. Don’t think that’ll ever change.
It was the year the house I live in was renovated and my flat decided to take a bath. I still haven’t completely settled in again…
And of course it was the year that took away many incredible people and gave us some quite frightening things to look forward to. Though the people-part is arguable. With a celebrity-focused media like we have today it’s not really surprising that they talk about so many celebrities that have died this year, it’s what they do, but I’m fairly certain that before all this there would still be a time where the famous people you loved growing up or in your adulthood would still die at some point, because that’s life. It just wasn’t as broadly discussed as it is nowadays. Everyone knows the major players in popular culture, so of course we all have our own stories when they face their untimely demise. And with cancer and heart attacks being common disease spread across nations, why would they stop before people like them? Just saying…

But it wasn’t really that bad a year…

at least not for me.
I might only have been on one Concert (Van Canto as far as I can remember) and one Festival (Rockharz), but I’ve been to a couple of other just as interesting things.
I spent nearly two fascinating weeks in London with Janzy. A long overdue visit that couldn’t have been better. I’m pretty sure I’ll tell you about it one day.
I had a pretty fun (and exhausting) weekend of Convention-hopping with Schmusi and AnnaTao when we went from the German Comic Con Berlin to the TimeLash in Kassel (Review 2015) on the same weekend. I got to see James Marsters live in concert and panel and talk to two Doctors and Ace, so that was worth it. And we rounded the whole thing up with a visit to the incredible Wind Mill Museum in Gifhorn.
Two of my stories were good enough to be published on other sites (you’ve read about it during my Advent Calendar). A few others where published here and at DFPP Entertainment. A third story also won a minor writing competition again.
It was a great year for movies, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange, to name a few, and I got to catch up with some other movies and series I haven’t had the chance of watching before. I also read more than my usual average of books and even dived into a few comics I haven’t read before.
I wrote a couple of often read posts including my review about Mara and the Firebringer and The Gamers that were (recently) shared by their creators, though the most read ones are still my old ones somehow…(apparently WordPress didn’t do statistics like they did the years before so I can’t link you to an overview here, sorry…)
I also helped fund different projects on Kickstarter, including Nichtlustig-cartoons, Attacking the Darkness post-production and JourneyQuest Season 3. For the latter two I also helped create the German subtitles, which was an interesting experience altogether. Oh, and I also got to coin the Orcish words for „whimper(ing)“ – bawulai(/-lon) and „war drum“ – sabatam (based on „Bawling Baby“ and Sabaton – the band – respectively). 😉 And helped a few artists on Patreon…
Anyway…

What will 2017 bring?

Honestly? I don’t know.
I want to to finally finish a few stories that have been lying around all year while I either finished other stuff or was not in the mood to write at all. There are also a few stories that have a basic outline that I want to complete for a different project to be published with three stories I already prepared for it last year (including The Quest for Ore and A new Day 😉 ) and of course many other story ideas that are still floating around in my head.
Last year (that still sounds weird…) I made good on my self-imposed schedule for a while but then dropped it again after a couple of weeks, so I guess I’ll give it another try at some point…
But right now I’ll enjoy my last vacation days and next week I might be celebrating my birthday (unfortunately not in Dublin at a Sabaton concert 🙁 ) with a couple of friends, we’ll see.

All the best for the New Year!

PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday #13

As I’ve been putting up finishing this for quite a while now, I think, it’s about time to face the truth:
I’m bored by this segment.

I don’t really want to get rid of it entirely, but I do think I prefer doing it similar to what I did with the The Gamer’s saga and Attacking the Darkness.
In this one I’ll give you a brief overview of the backlog and starting with the next one the „Specials“ will be the normal version – hence the change of numbering, even if this one would have been #11. You will still get the occasional movie review, but I think I’ll use this segment more for talking about several things at once and not focusing on one thing alone as I do in those.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday I will publish a post in which I talk about (the latest or any episode of) a series or a (series of) movie(s).

In most cases this will be a collection of thoughts that cross through the different media.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

JourneyQuest

A while after the successful Kickstarter for Season 3 I just had to re-watch the first two Seasons of JourneyQuest and with that link included I’ll leave you to read what I already wrote about this incredible show with many female leads, incredible characters and a hilarious and interesting story line.
By the way: In this campaign you had the chance to coin a new Orcish Word, which I didn’t do, I went for the „Bardic Immunity“ Badge instead. 😉

As I’ve already helped with the subtitles on Attacking the Darkness, it was a no-brainer that I’d also apply for Season 3. Let me tell you: It’s an epic (pun intended) Season and I’m proud to be a part of it, even if it’s only through contributing to the subtitles (Episode 5 and 8 are completely translated by me, Episode 9 until ~3/4 minutes and there are edits by me all over the place 😉 ). 🙂

Glitch

Another gaming related web series that was partly created by ZOE, featuring at least four of their returning cast members (Jesse Lee Keeter, Conner Marx, Brian S. Lewis and Trin Miller). The series is about a young Game Tester (Glitch) who’s bored with his life and wishes that it would become more like a video game – which of course becomes true, but different then he expected, as now he occasionally gets stuck in Glitches. The idea is fun and it has some funny moments, but also some really strange and weird ones. It is especially strange to see Keeter, the Glitch actor, out of his Rilk costume (though I have to admit, it took me a while to recognize him in The Gamers: Hands of Fate too…).

And now for the other stuff I watched in bulk, but was too lazy to discuss:

When you start a series, you have to catch up with new stuff, so of course I watched Orange is the New Black Season 4, started with Lucifer Season 2, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 4 (even if I forgot to talk about Season 3 – Episode 10-17 somehow) and Elementary Season 4 and continued with Marvel’s Netflix adventures and Luke Cage Season 1.

I think, I don’t need to discuss the horrible twist we saw in OITNB, it’s been discussed enough and I still think that losing Poussey (especially that way) was a bold, yet somehow necessary, move to stir up some things that are rarely talked about. She’ll be missed in the coming Seasons… (Did anyone read the book and knows if this really happened?)

Just as bold was the whole story telling of Luke Cage. I loved it. A cast true to the demographics of Harlem (even if that meant I had to watch it with subtitles, as I did not always understand people, but that’s a small price to pay), strong female leads that aren’t just there for the eye candy, important topics, no focus on unnecessary sex- (the one that we saw was an interesting contrast to the ones on Jessica Jones) or fight-scenes, everything that was said/done got straight to the point, interesting, multifaceted characters and all in all just an incredible narration (If your German is good enough, check out Joseph’s great review here: Luke Cage). The only thing I missed were comments regarding the Hulk who „broke Harlem“ during his last visit, though that was probably already water under the bridge.
As I summarized on Twitter, I’d quite like a show with this premise:

Daredevil’s theme song, Jessica Jonesdiversity & Luke Cage’s storytelling. Anyone knows something like that? 😀

S.H.I.E.L.D. and Lucifer had some nice turns this Season (Ward finally gone, Ghostrider, Uriel & Mom, telling Linda the truth), but haven’t gotten much different to what they showed last Season(s). Elementary is basically the same old story, but a nice diversion.

In addition to that did I also complete Dead Like Me (including the Movie), Lost Girl and got up to date with The Librarians. Where the first two had interesting premises the result was soon boring and weird (never entirely got over „Der Waffelhaus“, that grammar mistake just makes my skin crawl…). Both shows could have been something great the Grim Reapers and the Succubus? Yeah, that made for interesting story material, but it focused too much on trivialities and too little on actual character development. After Rube was gone Dead Like Me went downhill, probably even before that. Just like Lost Girl made a dive down with the whole Hades-thing and love-triangles/rectangle-thing and Bo’s horrible case of Main-Character-Syndrome, it got annoying after the second iteration of her saving the day because of … reasons … Other than that was it a great show, with a relatively diverse cast and an interesting premise. Even if again all the characters I liked either ended up dead or leaving the show…

The Librarians on the other hand still needs to find its footing. It’s fun and I really liked the movies preceding it, but there isn’t much in terms of character development. What little they had was either retconed or undermined by other actions. And the Point of Salvation was one of the better time-loop episodes I’ve seen so far and a prime example of what I just said. Both Season finales (And the Loom of Fate and And the Final Curtain) had me on edge and it’s generally great story telling, if I would get some deeper connection to the characters (and Agent Baird – I always want to hear/read Bard somehow – wouldn’t turn into a lovesick puppy whenever Flint is around…)…well, we’ll see what Season 3 brings.

I also tried Alphas for two episodes (two-parter unfortunately), but it didn’t quite catch me. My venture into Hemlock Grove lasted for Season 1 and the first Episode of Season 2, but I haven’t continued yet. Maybe it’s partly due to the fact that I want to know how it’s written after Season 1, as I’d like to see if the twist is as well written, as it is portrayed and partly because that ending was kind of good and I’m not sure I like the turns made in that first Episode of the second Season. Maybe I’ll try continuing one day, who knows.

When I’m not catching up with up-to-date shows I started watching Castle. Before I’ve only seen a few Episodes here and there when I was at my Dads at the right time, but now I’ve seen Season 1-4 and a couple of Episodes of Season 5, but I’m currently taking a break as a part of me is afraid to see what will become of Castle and Beckett and how it’s handled, while the other one wants to finally finish the Advent Calendar I have planned for this year. >_<

Hence my Tweet:

Is it weird that I started watching a show about a writer doing research, while I should be writing myself?

Different movies

Most of the movies in this list came through Netflix. I just scrolled through different categories and decided to watch them on a whim. This way I watched No Filter – I believe – my first Spanish movie (with subtitles) and I was highly surprised and amazed by the concept of a timid woman just blurring out everything that was on her mind. Some people need to do that more often. 😉 It was refreshing and well made, a recommendation for everyone who wants to try something different. 🙂

I also discovered Ellen Page’s Roller Girl and Tallulah through this. Roller Girl was great and it just shows that sometimes being yourself means becoming someone entirely different and that’s absolutely okay. More people should watch it. 😀 The pretty much only thing I got from Tallulah was an earworm of Sonata Arctica’s song by the same name. It was strange, jumpy, yet still well played, but not really my kind of movie.

Neither was The Fundamentals of Caring which felt like it wanted to capture the success of Intouchables, but failed pretty horribly. I did not want to see a five minute scenery shot of a boy peeing into a beautiful lake … Most of it felt forced and meh, not even close to the French stories‘ atmosphere.

Aside from new discoveries did I also re-watch some „old“ favourites. Namely Alfie and Avengers. Honestly I have to say that I did not remember Alfie as dark as it was and with a look into the Behind the Scenes stuff regarding the original version, I now know that it could have been worse. It’s a fascinating character study and known far too little. Unlike the other that is part of a high grossing franchise. I just felt like re-watching it.

It was a tiny bit a preparation for Doctor Strange that I saw in cinema earlier this month, but not really. The movie is visually amazing. The story is nothing new, Doctor Strange reminded me a lot of Cumberbatch’s other roles (mostly Sherlock though), but was still filled with some funny jokes and stunning visual effects (though – unlike Ghostbusters – they didn’t use the coming-out-of-the-screen 3D effect, at least not that I noticed… 🙁 ). My favourite was certainly the Cloak of Levitation. 😀
Only downside for me was, that you couldn’t really grasp the time line. Some say the initial accident takes place during Iron Man 2, potentially making the „man with the twisted spine from experimental battle armour“ the one from Hammer Industries – which is denied by Marvel – otherwise this could be Rhodey after Civil War, yet he is seemingly too old and it’s also denied or unconfirmed. We also see the Avenger’s tower which wasn’t really like that during the time – it wasn’t even Stark Tower back then if I remember correctly. If it all takes place after Civil War then the training sequence is far too short. Sure Strange might be skilled and desperate to learn, but mastering something in a couple of months, when he isn’t really mastering his own hands after weeks/months of surgeries and mistrials? Sound unreasonable to me – and I know we’re talking about magic, but come on…have at least SOME realism here….
(Again, if your German is well enough, check out Joseph’s review: Doctor Strange).

On an unrelated note do I now own an official movie poster after participating in a selfie-competition by Marvel and the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, Mall of the West) Berlin. >_<

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month(s)?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
Which version of the WWW do you prefer? The one were I split everything or were I focus on something?

No idea when I’ll even make one of these again, but make sure to keep an eye out for more information on my Advent Calendar. 😉

And I’m off now to attend the advanced showing of Fantastic Beasts and where to find them with Unmei and one of her friends as a birthday present for her. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday #10.2

As I told you did I split the last WWW, as it was just too much to write about, so here you have the second part of the tenth instalment as special edition, just for the movies.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every fourth Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.

You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Different movies

These are the different movies I’ve seen before part one that I’m now covering in this part.

When I grew up Jim Carrey was in every other movie I saw and one of my favourite actors at the time, so it’s not surprising that I watched pretty much every re-run of The Mask that I could get my hands on. Until recently it’s been years since I last saw it and after a certain episode of Supernatural (namely Tall Tales) reminded me of Milo, the dog of main character Stanley Ipkiss I just felt the need to watch it again. I have to say I was slightly afraid it’d lag the spark I saw back when I grew up, but it’s just such a ridiculous movie that that fear was uncalled for. Sure it has some very questionable scenes, but they fit into the narration about this totally chaotic character of the mask. I didn’t bother with the sequel though, as I remember it being horrible.
Speaking of old movies, I’m not entirely sure what made me re-watch Space Jam after all these years, but I do believe it might have been the fact that I saw it on Netflix and felt like it. 😉 While it is – and was – blunt in a few places the overall charme was not lost and it was just as quirky and fun as I remembered. So I kind of feel like that we had a different cut in Germany as I missed a few scenes (I think The Mask had the same problem). Are they really going to make a sequel? o.O

This time around there were a couple of movies I actually went to see in the cinema. The first of them was Deadpool. A lot of people already made great reviews about it, so I’m not going into too much detail here. Even if I enjoyed Marvel’s heroes – especially the X-Men and Spider-Man – in their cartoon versions back in the day, I never really knew about Deadpool. But with a Tumblr comes knowledge and I soon grew curious about the actual Merc with a Mouth that I had only seen in his failed iteration in the Wolverine movie we’re not talking about. So I read up on him, got hooked and subsequently excited for the movie and I was not disappointed. Deadpool comes with a refreshing twist to everything you know from watching superhero movies.
The movie doesn’t take itself serious (Credits, 4th-Wall-breaking, …) and is pretty realistic – except for the part where Deadpool goes on a killing spree because he wants to look pretty again for his girl. Yeah, that and the kiss-and-fade-out ending was what bugged me most about it, but I can overlook that for the sake of the overall humour and fact that it’s filled with tons of references. The latter probably made it hard for people not familiar with the Marvel franchise to watch it – and therefore less enjoyable, which is a pity as this one is just a lot of fun.

Let’s stay with Marvel and skip a few movies times wise: X-Men: Apocalypse. As I’ve seen the cartoon version of the Apocalypse story line I was kind of expecting something different. It was strange already that the cast fighting him would be so young – and I think by now I’m pretty much lost as to when something in the new time line takes place anyway – even if they brought back one of my favourite X-Men: Nightcrawler. Well, his introduction was strange, fighting with Angel in a cage fight? I’ve never heard of that version before… and why was Mystique there? Did she want to stop the mutant-cage-fights? Did she just want to protect her son? Is Kurt even her son in this universe? o.O
The most confusing part, however, was Magneto in Poland(?) with a six year old (?) daughter and wife and then there is Peter/Quicksilver not looking a day older than the last time they met, suddenly knowing he is his father, but unable to tell him, while every one else knows from Mystique? I’m getting confused again just writing this down … as I said, I’m totally lost at the time line, so if anyone can point me to a proper graph about it, be my guest! Additionally to that the titular antagonist was kind of a wimp. How did Black Kat put it? „All he could do was enhance peoples abilities and move sand around“
What was that about? They introduced him as character that accumulated the mutants powers whose bodies he took over (power #3?), but they never showed any of the others – not even the regeneration ability of the last one he became. That was seriously a let down.
It was interesting to see a different iteration of the known cast, but the overall story dragged on and was quite full of strange moments.

One more Mavel movie to go: Captain America: Civil War – or actually Nearly all of the Avengers and three new guys. Fight and story wise was it impressive, I still couldn’t say if I’d be #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan both have valid points in the whole political issue their facing, so I decided to be #TeamAvengers, where everyone just sits down, seriously discusses their points and starts working together again. But yeah, that’s probably just me wanting to find a compromise between both sides. The movie itself was a good mixture of action and character development, even if some stuff felt a bit rushed. Especially weird was the whole thing with Captain America and Shannon Carter shortly after Peggy Carters funeral ( 🙁 ) that never even really been hinted at before (except maybe a few-seconds-long scene in Winter Soldier). An unnecessary addition to an otherwise great movie.

One of the new additions, even if we’ve seen him before was Paul Rudd’s Ant Man. Usually movies he’s in are feel-good romcoms and somehow I just felt like watching some of them. So I followed Netflix’s recommendations and watched  Our Idiot Brother and I love you, Man. Both very different movies, that still work well thanks to Rudd’s charm. In the first one he plays a hippy that stumbles from one faux pas into the next. The character seems simple minded, but it buries a certain anger and determination behind it. There is an incredible outburst from the otherwise happy character that just gets to you. In the beginning I always say I’m using spoilers, but here I don’t want to say what brings up this reaction, for people who still want to experience it. 🙂
I love you, Man has not just a weird title (I prefer the German one „Trauzeuge gesucht!“/Best Man Wanted!) but also a very strange story line. For most part of the movie I kind of waited for the moment where Rudd’s friendless character without a best man for his wedding, calls off the wedding to get together with his new best friend. This wasn’t improved as the ending pretty much showed them declaring their love for each other (as the title would suggest) directly in front of the actual couple taking their vows. It’s just weird … letting those two guys end up as an actual couple might have improved the whole thing.

Speaking of strange movies. While I was in London with Janzy we used the possibility to watch a few movies „for free“ (I’ll explain, whenever I get to writing that travel logue) and ended up watching Hail Caesar! and Youth. Both movies offered a plethora (sorry, couldn’t resist this word is just as much fun as flabbergasted) of great and well known actors (George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Jeff Lewis from The Guild! 😀 for Ceasar and Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda and Rachel Weisz for Youth), but were story-wise totally confusing. Youth jumped through hallucinations, while Caesar added a very weird communistic „plot“. I mean one of the characters was picked up by a Russian submarine from the beach. o.O
Just very strange movies that we’re glad, we didn’t had to pay for directly…

When we got back from the trip we decided to watch Notting Hill while relaxing from the flight as we had spent more than an hour trying to find the book store used in the filming of this flick…it was Janzy’s idea/wish… Anyway, I had actually never seen the movie before, so I was surprised to find well rounded comedy in a movie that’s praised for being oh-so-romantic. Sure it had the obligatory silly, predictable and partly unrealistic love story, but the antics and humour of the characters made up for it.

As I mentioned in part one did I enjoy Matt Ryan as an actor, so I took a look at two movies he had stared in: Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day and Flypaper. I was certainly confused that he was listed for the former when he made an appearance of maybe 3 seconds. Again these movies couldn’t be more different and I can certainly recommend the first one. It’s funny, it’s witty, it’s all over the place and still lovely. And it’s certainly impressive how much you can do in the time of a day and a bit if you’ve gotten yourself mixed in with the right/wrong people … it’s hectic, but in a good way, just go and watch it! 😀
Flypaper on the other hand was … strange … I’m not entirely sure I understood it. It was complex and confusing and suddenly everyone was dead, well almost everyone. The concept and the character-interactions were interesting though.

After I finished reading The Restaurant at the end of the Universe I decided to watch The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy again, just to see how different the whole thing was from the original. Not knowing the books it was enjoyable, but now that I know what actually was supposed to happen I was a bit disappointed at all the good stuff they left out and all the strange stuff they instead focused on. It was still fun to watch, but it could have been better – though the fly swatter field was something I would have enjoyed in the books as well…

I don’t think I have anything more to say for Mara und der Feuerbringer than what I did with the review. I just felt like watching it again, it’s such a great movie…

A not so great movie on the other hand was Warcraft. I admit I never played the games (too easily bored to commit to something so expensive) or cared much about it’s lore. But when I saw the trailer on the big screen, before X-Men, I believe, I got curious. It looked incredible. When our local cinema included the movie in their discount week (only 8€ instead of ~12€ for the ticket) I asked around if someone wanted to see it as well and in the end we were a group of five; the other four getting the discount and I got the ticket for free. For the record: From the five of us only one had ever played it.
Let me quote my comment from Geekritique’s review again:

Even without knowledge it at least is a movie that’s nice to watch without having to think too much – at least you shouldn’t think, because if you do, you get awfully frustrated. The graphics are amazing, but the plot was horrible and even if we kind of expected that from the get go [from reviews that Black Kat had read ahead of the screening] there still was a slight hope that it would not be this awful.

That pretty much says it all. It could have been something really amazing, but no, they made something filled with tropes, blunt and weird at times. I admit the portrayal of the main Orc characters was interesting, but I didn’t get why they put the focus on them whereas the whole game is on the humans story (at least that’s what I know, please correct me if I’m wrong here). They kind of poured pretty much all of what little characterization they had into the Orcs. This made me want to see more of Durotan story line and as usual then he just died…

But that wasn’t the strangest thing: What’s up with Orcs breaking off their dead parents tusks? o.O
Why would anyone gift anyone the dusk of their dead relative as a token of affection? o.O
What the hell? o.O
Needless to say this was the subject of a few jokes afterwards, the ones about false teeth were the best…

I was also quite confused about Anduin Lothar. For the first part of the movie everyone calls him Lothar  – which is an interesting choice of name by the way, as that is an Old High German name and a variation of the Germanic Clothar  and basically means „loud Warrior“ – and then suddenly the King refers to him as Anduin. At first I thought this was just a word for friend – you know, like LotRs „Mellon“ – or brother-in-law, but as it turns out that is his first name … the only character to have a first name or a last name at least.

Long story short:

There are way more interesting Fantasy/Gaming flicks than this. Zombie Orpheus’/Dead Gentlemen’s The Gamers, Journey Quest or their other projects or The Guild or Mara and the Firebringer as a Fantasy movie.
Even Knights of Badassdom has more substance than this at times…

You can find another great review – if your German is good enough – here at What’s best in Life?: Warcraft: The Beginning.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
The next instalment will probably feature both series and movies again and will be published at the 6th July.

PoiSonPaiNter

JourneyQuest: The Epic you never expected to find

My Nerd-Week is long over and the next one isn’t approaching any time soon, but I feel the need to tell you a bit about this web series I already – indirectly – mentioned back then.

What is it about?

Poster for Season one showing the Characters
Season 1 Cover

JourneyQuest by Zombie Orpheus Entertainment tells the story of a group of adventurers consisting of the Priest Carrow, the Warrior Glorion, the Rouge Nara and the dyslexic Wizard Perf on their quest to find the Sword of Fighting.

It also tells the story of Bard-Apprentice Wren trying to become a real Bard through writing down the story of the adventurers as her very own first Epic. As Bard she has to stay neutral and not interfere with the Quest itself and can only gather information from the side lines.

Needless to say neither the groups‘ nor the Bards‘ plans go as they expected…

The watching experience

JourneyQuest currently consists of two Seasons with seven and ten ~10 minute episodes each, that can be found on YouTube and other sites.

The shortness of the episode makes it a fast watch, but it also makes you yearn for more, as you really want to know how the well written story will continue. It occasionally feels like the story isn’t moving forward because of it, but I guess that’s to be expected from a serial that is completely fan-funded and therefore limited in budget and resources.

Yet, that does not meant that they don’t put effort into it. Quite the contrary.
There are scenic shots of forests, castles, dungeons, there are interesting costume and make-up choices for both the main cast and additional characters/creatures like Gargoyles, Orcs and Zombie’s that look quite natural, even if still quite phantastic.
They even added an Orcish language and other additional things like spells and potions that sometimes aren’t that common in normal adventures (e.g. taking a potions to understand a different language instead of mastering the skill for it).

They use several questing tropes throughout the story (lying Gargoyles, talking Swords, spell-mishaps, … ), but they are incorporated well enough to not make them seem simple and dull.

All in all a great – if short – watch, where you just can sit back and enjoy the story.

The characters

The characters are as unique as they come, even if they follow some stereotypes as well.
Dyslexic (and therefore nearly entirely useless) wizard Perf certainly reminds me of Rincewind from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but he is far less cynical and way more adorable and dorky. His antics are highlighted by his interactions with other characters like the single/simple-minded Glorion or clever/snarky Nara, who both hold their own in their respective fields.

Just as Wren’s struggle to complete her Epic is just as interesting as Carrows inner conflict with a certain predicament he was put into.

Though that doesn’t mean these sides are all the characters have. They are surprisingly versatile and have a few funny/interesting surprises up their sleeves. 😉

But not just the main cast is well thought through, the side characters all seem to have their own story that lingers behind their short appearances in the main storyline.

With the stereotypes you’re presented, you expect a few things, but it feels like the characters often don’t care about that and do something entirely different and that’s what I really like about them.
They’re just so unpredictable, funny and great.

General Opinion

I’ve known JourneyQuest for quite some time now, thoughI have no idea how I discovered it, but I’m glad I did.
The characters are great, different and just as much fun as the guys from The Gamers (which incidentally are partly played by the same actors, especially in the later movies).

It’s just a lot of fun to watch and follow the stories of these characters or in other words:

Go watch it! 😀

Stuff I’d like to add

They’re currently running a Kickstarter campaign. So if I piqued your interest make sure to check it out and support the production of Season 3!
I’m certain it will be as much fun as the previous Seasons.

Onwa~rd!

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the Cover belongs to its rightful owner.