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I am not going to lie. I was never fan of tabletop games. I mean, we played cards as kids with grandma, we played some games with parents on vacations and stuff. But I was never into tabletop gaming. I did not even liked Monopoly – always took way to long for my attention span.

So I was, naturally, very surprised when I visited gameshop with tabletop games (I was buying it as a present for significant other) and I found there are “escape games like” tabletop games. We love escape games (and if I can say, we are pretty good at it with my team).

This is how I entered rabbit hole of tabletop games. But this article is going to be only about one – and our first one – Detective. From introduction it is clear I am not an expert regarding tabletop gaming – but let’s skip to conclusion – I hella loved this game.

What is a Detective about?

We are new detective unit and we are solving five crimes. These crimes have something in common. You choose your role, each role have different set of skills. Pretty usual stuff. I am not going to spoiler here so you have to play for yourself. There are Nazis, there are murders, conspiracy, time pressure. Everything you can expect from great story.

Game that stands out

What really stands out here is this game breaks tabletop “table” boundaries. For solving a crime you have to use computer to access database, you have to google stuff, consult Wikipedia etc. We had probably more fun discussing options and making theories than playing a game. I can imagine this kind of games can be a good way to practice communication in groups. You have to give space each team member for articulating opinion, you have to listen etc.

Skills to use

If players have analytical thinking, can draw (or willing to learn) mindmaps, can follow evidence and create notes about progress – they are will enjoy this games.

This is how your table going to look probably:

Your table will look like this. This is “orderly” state.

Sometimes, database sucks and destroys pleasure from playing

I am not going to elaborate way too much here. We played before the end of the year 2018, and maybe app was under heavy load, however we were pretty annoyed with lack of response from Antares database (application where you search for clues, read interrogations, …). Just take a look on pictures, this is what we saw mostly during our play.

Results sell, even in tabletop games

It is very same as when you are hacking something. It is all the fun and jazz, until you have to write report and make presentation. Report is way how this game measure results, You have to answer few questions and if you well this is how it is gonna look.

Maybe not the best agent in the world, but we solved it.

Add-ons and conclusion

Overall, we liked game a lot. We even bought add-on which is significantly shorter, probably three hours of play if you are not rushing. For comparision, original game with five cases took us three eveninings – could be shorter, but Antares database did not worked very reliably during our gameplay. What sucks here is folder with new cards for add-on case does not fit original case – I liked design of game however this is failure.

In conclusion, thanks to authors for and awesome game. In our add-on play Antares worked very good so no reason not to buy.

I also have one thing about legacy of this game – this game relies on Antares database which is right now hosted probably by authors. Authors should put sources to Github to ensure this game will be playable in case they servers will go down or overall in 10 years.

I am happy owner of Das keyboard Model S Ultimate for a long time and wanted to do this for more than year. Finally time had come!

Introduction

I really like mechanical keyboards and mine with Cherry MX blue switches is really awesome. Even sound is pretty rad, sounds like skeletons having sex. However, there was one problem. I am avid keyboard shortcuts user and bottom left had this layout:

From bottom left there was CTRL – FN (red arrow)- SUPER – Spacer. To match Macbook keyboard layout on right side I switched CMD key and ALT key in keyboard settings so no problem here. However FN key is used to switch multimedia keys which I do not use and what sucks FN key does not send scancode, meaning this key can’t be remapped to ALT on operating system level.

Well, what can’t be fixed using software can always be fixed hardware way. Since I like to approach things with customize everything mindset all I had to do was hardwire left FN key to right super key which is remapped to ALT in MacOS.

How to

For this hack I needed soldering set, screwdriver, few centimers of wire and circa 30 minutes. First I had to unscrew screws on bottom of keyboard.

Then I had to remote top cover of keyboard. I do not have photo of this step but I recommend after unscrewing to grab a keyboard, start from top left. Keyboard is assembled with with 8 clips. Two are on top, one on left and right and four on bottom. How I did this is by bending and removing. All it take is patience and sensitivity. They work by sliding in bezel side inside tray. You will end with something like this:

I unscrewed two screws holding microcontroller and keyboard is free. You can remove PCB from tray. It looks like this (when you turn it to key down position):

Obviously, remove microcontroller (on previous picture I already did it) and fun part begins. I had to solder FN which is now on right side (keyboard is in key down position and Super key (WIN_R).

BTW Das keyboard engineers did good job in design of PCB, description and overall job. Kudos!

First, before I started solder I had to cut electrical paths in FN key. I did using carpeting knife (so much to sophisticated tools) and scratching. End result looks like this:

Good way how to definitely check you interrupted electrical paths is using multimeter and beeping function. If multimeter is beeping keep scratching paths. I did not wanted to interrupt some paths on other side of PCB (more things to solder).

Soldering part begins. I used two random wires I found in some box. This is how end result looks like:

Assembly process is reversed dissasembly, no need to cover it.

Conclusion

As a avid keyboard shortcuts user (I hate to grab mouse, it slows me way too much), I have to say keyboard works as I wanted to. Nothing is broken, no problems.

I think I have to learn to make better pictures when documenting what I do. As always – customize everything approach wins.

Pilne sa pripravujeme na štart.