The Secret World Bonbons

I guess it's no secret that I'm a computer game fan as well. I already published one PC game inspired recipe and now I came up with a way to represent the dark urban fantasy MMORPG The Secret World as a dessert.

In the game, there is another world hidden from us. It is  so near, that it is almost tangible. Every tale and conspiracy theory are true in The Secret World. You are one of the chosen ones by Gaia, you are brought to this world to fight the forces of evil that stir beyond the veil. You belong to one of three factions that, while normally enemies with each other, joined forces to fight against the dark threat. The power-hungry Illuminati controlling the North America, the traditionalist Templars based in Europe, and the chaos instigators Dragon that have hold of Asia.

These three societies each don their colour - blue, red and green respectively - yet to our world they are hidden amongst myths. This gave me and idea for a chocolate covered candy that would have three distinct flavours, so you'd never know which you're going to get. Each, of course, would need to have the proper colour too.

New games in my collection - Flashpoint, DrunkQuest

Drunkpoint is good, but Flashquest is sexier

January was a hectic month for me. Aside from studying for exams and starting a final phase of a project at work, I managed to get two new board games. One I bought while on a shopping spree, the other I funded in September on Kickstarter and it finally made its way to me. And in what was left of my free time I played a lot of The Secret World.

Anyway, I had the chance to try each of the games – Flashpoint - Fire Rescue is an easy to learn but difficult to master cooperative game when the players take roles of firefighters that must evacuate people from a building in flames before it collapses. The players must decide between saving the victims and dousing the ever-present flames and hope that there won't be an explosion anywhere near. Each firefighter has 4 action points in a turn that they can spend on various actions but since even a move from one space to another takes 1 AP (and extinguishing a flame costs even 2 APs), you really need to think about your moves. Flame spreads between each player's turn so in 4 players, it will spread four times before a firefighter gets to move again. There are to variants to the game – one family with simpler rules and one advanced with more stuff like hazardous materials, points of ignition, jobs and vehicles for the firefighters. I have yet to try the full,advanced version because I sorta got lost in the rules.

DrunkQuest, as the name suggests, is a drinking game but this time it is not a variant of a game but a full-fledged party card game. With nice drawings and fantasy setting (and rules), it makes a nice alternative for geeks (Drunk Arkham Horror – everytime you lose sanity, take a shot) who want to drink but play at the same time. Similar to Munchkin, each player has to fight monsters whose attributes can other players change by playing cards from their hands. Every monster has a drink value that can be increased or decreased depending what cards are played on the monsters. To defeat the monster, the player must take that many gulps of their drink as is the monster's final drink value. Since the number is usually around 7, it's best to play with beer or alcohol mixed with soda :)

I still want to give myself some time and more plays before writing on each of the games. Until then, enjoy TSW inspired chocolate bonbons.

Christmas round-up - Cookbooks reviews

It’s sort of funny how things turn out sometimes. For many years I had only two cookbooks – Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook by Terry Pratchett and a cupcake recipe collection called 200 cupcakes by Joanna Farrow. I never gave thought to getting more - I’m more of a digital kid and I can find all the information I need on the internet. However, this Christmas I found three different cookbooks under the tree  for all my fancy food, cupcake and dessert treats.

First I flipped through the pages of each book but later I came back to read more. Each of the books is specific in what desserts it contains. So while I’m waiting for the only shop in Prague that has peppermint extract to restock (should be next week), I decided to write a little overview of what each of the books focuses on and how good or interesting its content is.

Sugar Cookies with M&Ms

Making cookies is easy. Making sugar cookies is even easier. You can’t possibly make a mistake. Did you put in more sugar than needed? So what? They will only be sweeter.

While other recipes might make you feel like an alchemist by how they require careful measuring and combining in a certain way, sugar cookies (like brownies) don’t need any intricate preparation or hard to get ingredients. It’s pracitcally just sugar and flour.

When I first started with this whole baking business years ago, the second cookies I ever made were these sugar cookies with M&Ms. I got the recipe from the official M&Ms site then but when I looked for it last weekend, it wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know why, I found them quite delightful. Sugar cookies, like cupcakes, usually serve as a base for some kind of decoration on their tops. In this recipe, the M&Ms on the top add cheerful colors to the cookies and make them visually very appealing. The sugar caramelizes on the edges so they are a bit crunchy for the first bite but then they turn out to be quite chewy on the inside.