Trinity, Dear Esther, roleplaying and XCom 2

It's getting colder. Reeve is mostly huddled in my room during the day now.

Three weeks ago was bateleur and my dating anniversary and so, as ever, we went out to celebrate. This meant back to Trinity for a third time, although they were no longer doing a tasting menu with matching wines. The menu on the website has since changed (which is actually unusual) but my dinner was pig trotters (which were amazing), duck (which was good, but was served with polenta which I discovered I wasn't fond of) and then what was described a a new twist on tiramisu. We shared a bottle of red wine (Pinot Noir Grace Bridge) which went very well and then desert wine/port.

Last Friday I went with chrestomancy to see Dear Esther at the Barbican. This was the computer game with a live orchestra, narrator and a live play through. It was very good and thought-provoking as the game is about exploring a surreal landscape after an accident.

I've had three roleplaying sessions since I last posted.

The Star Wars one went like this:

• We were told that that senior official on Coruscant wanted to hear our side of the story. After debates about whether it was a trap, we travelled there.
• We met the official, he believed us and said there was some collaborating evidence. It arrived at the bar and then the whole place was blown up.
• We survived the explosion and rescued who we could. We regrouped and agreed to go after the evidence, which had probably survived.
• We pottered around in the lower parts of the planet looking for the evidence. We found the illegal market and the robot factory.
• We agreed to go hunting in the sewers, where the evidence had been sent by a cross Hutt.

The Warhammer 40K (Vibius) session involved Golden Age technology and warfleets.

• The party started on Jihator in a room with Eldar technology. They managed to make it work to show a map and discovered that others had been there.
• They then travelled on to an asteroid belt and met a priest. They saw a Garden named Eden and a machinery base called Neon.
• The characters discovered that the next planet, Hitofex, was under enemy control.
• Finally they returned to an earlier planet and dealt with the aliens that were indeed buried there. This included heroically fighting off a boarding action.

The Warhammer 40K (Atlanor) session was more of an interlude.

• The party spent the entire session on Bearmyn trying to gather information.
• They met a retired Inquisitor named Itzelle Antonin and a Tech Priest who was the descendant of another Inquisitor named Queod. From these two, they gained information about a possible alien sighting on the other side of the planet.
• They travelled to the Dimeit Ring and found the information to be correct. Troublingly, they also found Chaos creatures.

Finally, I have finished XCom 2. I'm not sure I liked it nearly as much as the first one. It seemed a bit too hard in places, there wasn't enough explanation of the differences in mechanics and it started the game assuming that you'd lost the first game early.