NESJohnny

Dungeons and Doomknights is a new NES release. I was a kickstarter backer; the release was finalized not too long ago so I sat down and I finally got to put some time into it this weekend! It's a lot of fun. The old game references and internet humor are a little too thick for me, but, all in all I enjoyed the experience. I played for about 90 minutes and it kept my focus the whole time (which isn't easy these days!). Game play reminds me a bit of a medieval StarTropics. Simple overhead combat, explore the world, find the new thing, reach the new place. A checkpoint save system is built in, but I found the checkpoints a bit tedious and you may prefer save states. For you collectors, it has a physical release; I enjoyed reading the PDF manual and wished I could see a real printed one. (I don't collect anymore but I still love seeing a new release.) And the music! So good. Could use more variety, but the music and sound are well done. Overall score, 8/10. I'd recommend it to anyone that likes 8-bit adventuring or home brew. Check out the website here. Let me know what you think about it if you've been playing it, I'd love to bs about it with some fellow 8-bit gamers.

Only speaking to California, educational counseling can be a bit competitive, but grad programs everywhere skew a little under-enrolled at the moment. You're correct that inexperience is a bit of a weakness, and everyone else is also correct that you shouldn't worry about it and just focus on putting together the best package you can. As far as your resume goes, create a functional-style resume highlighting anything you've done working with students, and anything you've done in an advisory role (stretch as much as you can, even something like training coworkers in a retail setting illustrates capacity and experience). Put together the best package you can and hope for success. If the application/admission process doesn't pan out as you'd hope, I got my start in higher education working in an admission department. They're always looking for people (it's a LOT of work a pay can be minimal), and you may be able to get into an institution that offers tuition remission so you can attain your educational goals while you learn. Another backdoor in is to take a course or two before applying. This will depend a lot on the culture of the school. USC was the very first link that came up with a web search for "educational counseling master's" so I'll use them as an example. Linked is the course schedule and I found: EDHP 500 Foundations of Higher, Adult, and Professional Education. You can get in touch with the instructor and ask if you can take or audit the course for your own professional development. Frankly I doubt anyone at USC would say yes; they're big and a little hoity-toity, but many state school professors in the same region would be cool with it. Who knows, maybe USC would allow it. (It's good for a department's numbers to have the class cap reached, so even if there's one available seat in a course, they have good reason to allow a community member to take the course.) Reapply the next year with that credit in your resume and a rapport with the professor established. Good luck on your apps! And remember, even if you don't get in anywhere, it doesn't mean STOP, it just means WAIT.

Loving the warm welcome, thanks everyone! Yes, it's interesting to come back from hiatus and see everything changed so much. But do you know what I can count on to never change?? Video games made in the 1980s! 🕹

Fantastic write-up! Guard is such a great, overlooked title. I like its use of the dual-screen, which we didn't see enough of. So many games just cloned the TV and the gamepad, it's neat when games like this (or ZombiU) really tap into what that system could do. I wonder if that style of play is going to come back. Nintendo has been dabbling in phone games, and I could see a new Nintendo release that utilizes a phone app. It would be cool even as a phone, no app ... imagine linking your cell number and getting pre-recorded voice calls or texts about what to do next in your heist! It could be a lot of fun. I think people will look back on the WiiU as a bit ahead of its time (even if in some ways it was also behind!) and I could see a collecting craze really taking hold for the system. (Maybe there has been one, I don't pay attention to game markets anymore.)

Hey friends, I've deleted my social media and I'm missing a place to go interact. I loaded up NintendoAge - well, I'm sure you know the rest. I'm a busy career guy these days with too little time for gaming, but now that I have a little more freedom/money I'd like to go to a NES-con and kick back a few with some old homies (if they're still around?) and some new homies (glad to have found you). I sold off my collection of 650+ carts around 2015 and haven't looked back. I'm primarily gaming on the MiSTer, Switch, and PC these days (in that order). I was always more of a gamer than collector. Look forward to bullshitting with you all about games that were released decades ago; cheers!