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The home for the written work of The Bonus World

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The Master of Disaster: Holiday Havoc – 18

I currently play in two Dungeons & Dragons groups, one of which I run and the other I just play in. For my group, we’d been running the newly released Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, while my other was neck-deep in a Dragonlance campaign. However, as we crept closer towards the end of 2020, we found ourselves in the middle of one of the weirdest holiday seasons of all time. So with a lot of people unable to see family and get particularly festive this year, I wanted to do something special for them the only way I knew how to: A holiday themed one-shot. It was also an opportunity for me to move away from the lackluster module of Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, but that’s a story for another time. Instead, I’d like to tell you the story of Holiday Havoc: The Clausening, the holiday one-shot I ran for both of my D&D groups…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Immortals: Fenyx Rising

When talking about Immortals: Fenyx Rising, it’s impossible not to bring up 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, an excellent game that was bound to inspire other developers to build upon its success. Enter Immortals: Fenyx Rising, a game that’s so clearly inspired by Breath of the Wild that at times it feels like plagiarism. However, for better and worse, Ubisoft did not make a carbon copy of Breath of the Wild, because that would be an insult to one of the best Zelda games out there. What we have on our hands is a louder, less subtle, yet still solid facsimile of a modern classic…

By Ari Posted on

Articles 1

Gut Check: Fuser

Somewhere between my first and fiftieth Smash Mouth and Carly Rae Jepsen mashup, the comedic flair that initially attracted me to Fuser faded into the background and was replaced with a genuine desire to make a song that actually sounded good. While Fuser isn’t much of a “game,” it is a pretty powerful and accessible piece of software that’s capable of generating some genuine ear-worms of songs in an easy and accessible way…

By Ari Posted on

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Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that not only builds on the incredible foundation that was Marvel’s Spider-Man with a new protagonist and mechanics, but cuts out a lot of the bloat that plagued its predecessor. The refinements overall result in a tremendously well-paced experience that every Spider-Man fan should check out as long as they aren’t using a launch PlayStation 4…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Watch Dogs Legion

When I think about my time with 2016’s Watch Dogs 2, I’m reminded of its many ups and downs both in terms of gameplay and story, but at the end of the day it’s a game that had a lot of heart and charm that managed to make it a memorable and satisfying experience. Watch Dogs Legion however, lacks any of the joy and fun that its predecessor had, contains repetitive and frustrating missions, and also runs like hot garbage…

By Ari Posted on

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The Master of Disaster: God – 17

It’s been a bit since I’ve actually told a story from my D&D games, hasn’t it? Lately I’ve been prattling on about my ethos and how I prep for games, but sometimes all you need is a good story about players being overly confident. So buckle in everyone, cause this one is short but oh so sweet…

By Ari Posted on

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Review: I Am Dead

Contrary to what its morose title might suggest, I Am Dead is a genuinely touching and pleasant puzzle game that has you uncovering the history of the small port village of Shelmerston in an effort to secure its future…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Solasta Crown of the Magister

Not so long ago I wrote a lengthy piece about my issues with the state of the early access release of Baldur’s Gate III. Without rehashing that entire article here, the main crux of it focused on the mechanical liberties Baldur’s Gate III took with the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. My initial thought was that translating the rules of D&D into a video game would naturally require a ton of concessions, however another CPRG named Solasta Crown of the Magister recently entered early access and proved that theory wrong…

By Ari Posted on

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Some Notes About Baldur’s Gate III

Before I dive into the bulk of this article, it should be mentioned that no video game could ever truly capture the Dungeons & Dragons experience solely because there are static limitations to any video game. You can account for a lot of things as a game designer and try to cater to dozens of styles of play, but no game could adapt to the wild and imaginative things that players regularly ask of their DM’s quite like a living, breathing person present. Yet in spite of all of that Baldur’s Gate III already shows incredible promise when it comes to representing D&D and is a game I’m genuinely enjoying…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Hades

When I finally gave in to all of the peer pressure I felt from the deluge of praise people were hurling at Hades and begrudgingly bought it, I felt this immediate wave of buyer’s remorse wash over me. After playing a little of it however, I can honestly say that it’s one of the most fun action games I’ve played this year. I can also confidently say that I won’t be seeing it through to the end because I’m bad at it…

By Ari Posted on

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The Master of Disaster: Prepping – 16

One of the most interesting, fun and tedious parts about being a Dungeon Master is preparing from session to session, but even more of a challenge is preparing a new campaign entirely. My group and I are currently wrapping up our “one-shot” of The Sunless Citadel, a pretty decent Dungeons & Dragons adventure, and are gearing up for our next big campaign. As luck would have it, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden released just as we were finishing up, so we decided that it would be our next adventure. Being that this is my first time prepping a full campaign, I figured I do it as meticulously as possible. Here’s what’s happened…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

It’s rare when something that’s so clearly playing off of your nostalgia actually delivers and makes good on all of those memories you have of a game instead of just reminding you how flawed your brain is. It turns out that the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series was phenomenal and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 brings everything you loved about the series into the modern era extremely successfully…

By Ari Posted on

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The Master of Disaster: Combat Encounters – 15

People often talk about the three pillars of Dungeons & Dragons and how crucial they are when making a well rounded campaign. Of the three pillars, exploration, role-playing and combat, I usually tend to focus on the role-playing pillar the most while paying less attention to the others. I’ve always felt that exploration was the toughest one for me, but as I run more Dungeons & Dragons games with different groups, I find that combat ends up feeling the weakest and least interesting…

By Ari Posted on

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About That Avengers Beta

Since their surge in mass popularity during the 2010’s, I’ve been yearning for an Avengers game that would appropriately blend the varied powers of the Earth’s mightiest heroes with actual fun gameplay. Things were looking very promising when Marvel’s Spider-Man released two years ago on the PlayStation 4, but all of those positive feelings slowly drained away as I spent some time with Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers beta…

By Ari Posted on

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Gut Check: Fall Guys

Approximately 17 years ago at the last E3, the folks over at Devolver Digital had their annual conference(?) in which they revealed among other things, Fall Guys. Looking at that initial trailer, I had no idea what to expect and immediately shrugged it off as some sort of Mario Party clone. Fast forward to just last week when it finally released on Steam and as a “free” PlayStation Plus offering, and it’s completely blown up to the point where the servers couldn’t handle the amount of people trying to play it. It turns out Fall Guys isn’t a clone of a bad game from a bad franchise…

By Ari Posted on