Brandon Schieckoff's Blog

Brawlout Review: Nintendo Switch

Thirsty for your Super Smash Bros on the Nintendo Switch. Well this game could potentially quench your watery mouth or dry it up even more. Brawlout is your typical side scrolling smash 'em up fighter that takes a lot from it's predecessor and feels more like a true indie. But what it doesn't shine at it does get the modern day gaming of grinding for progression and unlocks right. Let's get into the review.In a world dominated by Super Smash Bros. How can another fighter likes it succeed? Well Brawlout gets close when it comes to feel. The game's mechanics feel as if someone took this fighting genre and modded it to near perfection. There is a smashing feature to help power your opponent off the stage and it feels good when your opponents fly off the screen as quickly as he came. There is a rage meter below you life percent that will fill as you deal damage and take damage. Once half way you can push L+R and block others. This didn't feel as good as a assume it suppose to. "Quite useless." Once the gauge fills completely and you push L+R your knock off power increases and it becomes easier to take other players lives. This makes it easier to win games. There is no blocking in this game so you have to rely on dashing while fending off the onslaught of others attack. This makes for a ton of action and a lot more offence then defense. This does not bother so much. I don't usually block in games like his one anyways.Each character gets a unique special move set and they all different in strategy. This helps with finding a character that best suits your play style. With two important characters from the indie gaming community making an appearance, it really helps the roster out. With them there is 6 starter characters to play with. There is more characters to unlock once you have collected 1 of 2 currencies offered in the game. Once you acquire an incredibly grind heavy blue currency you can unlock a random new fighter. These fighter are all enhanced costumed fighters of your standard 6 you already have, with a different move set. If you grind enough gold you can unlock different outfits for these characters at random as well. By the time you have enough blue currency you will most likely have a random costume or two for him or her which is nice. What's not so great it doesn't feel rewarding as you get these random costumes for these characters that take a long time to obtain. Each character can level up to 5 while unlocking something along the way is a must have for this game. Pinatas at level two and blue currency should be flipped in my opinion to help unlock additional characters but it is what it is. It does't take to long to level up early on but perhaps this could be tuned down see the grind as you further your progression. Each player can earn experience for there brawler as you play. So it helps to have some friends to play along with. Each extra brawler can also be obtained by collecting their own tokens within the game in the various modes and leveling them up.Multiplayer is a highlight in this game like others similar to it. I had 3 players "brawling" each other up at once and it was a lot of fun for all of us. The maps were big enough to knock each other off while giving yourself comfort room to wait while the others fight each other. With 3 maps to start off and the ability to unlock more once your characters reach level 5. It is a decent reason to come back and have more friends fight. Brawlout offers three modes, Stock, Timed battle and Stock Timed battle, which fuses both options. I had an issue with Stock battle as it only allows you to have 5 lives max. It doesn't seem enough as matches don't last that long. As long as your friend and yourself don't get bored from the only game options there is you'll be having fun for hours. Online is a misstep only allowing you fight 1v1. The option to find local users isn't present either, usually paring me with others halfway around the world causing the game to be super slow and unplayable.Single players out there who want a challenge in the game get to play Arcade style. This places you in a Mortal Kombat style ladder where you fight a brawler in 1v1 or 2v1 or 3v1 depending on your ladder you choose. The more difficult you choose the better the rewards. (not that much better) As the battle starts you get some minor story dialogue which doesn't feel as great as it should. The lore shines each character in a unique way but falls short as I didn't feel the consequences of my actions. Maybe the end of the battle could have highlighted my victory in another dialogue scenario. Oh well, once you beat all your opponents and get the the top, a boss battle ensues where you fight 3v1 against a copy of the main enemy with only 1 life each. "Unimaginative to say the very least."Daily achievements are present but a laughable when you find out you have to play online and time consuming to actually obtain. Why the developers decided online only rewards was a little short sighted seeing that 1v1 is the only option you have. Unless all your friends online have bought that game, your not going to get too much out of this feature. Which is a huge downfall to the game. Rewards need to be attainable with both online and offline modes. The game also has a daily login reward, which seems bugged because I have only ever received the first day reward each time I play. The game has a micro transaction user interface that feels good. Only you can't use money to unlock those features and must play the grind to earn both currencies. Even though the game has a ton of unlockables including Taunts, Avatars, and effects for when you knock off brawlers in all modes. There s lot of different items to unlock to keep you interested.Overall, this game feels good. There is a lot of content to keep me invested enough to have me log in each day. Personally love the level progression in the game that keeps me invested in a single brawler at a time. Multiplayer is always a great time with other players on the couch while online is unplayable for me. The game feels very rewarding as long as you play and grind enough. With that being said I gave the game 5*/10*.

Moving Forward

"Certainly things will work out as long as you work hard and put a little heart-filled effort into your process."It was 1 minute till midnight on New Years Eve. I thought to myself lying in my bed and staring above at the ceiling while my upstairs neighbors beat down the floor with his loud ass stereo. The big bass sounds of Johnny cash prevents me from sleeping at all. My bedroom a stinky mess of hate and despair. I hated those assholes upstairs so much just trying to get back to sleep. I made a promise I would better myself and do whatever it takes to realize my first published book. Little did I know I would achieve so much more.TopicsDestiny SeriesSocial MediaWebsiteWant to give some insight and highlights of how things have transpired this past year. Also going to quickly talk about what is going to happen moving forward and into the next year pertaining my marketing and promotion tools. I've learnt a lot this year when it comes to writing. What works what doesn't work so well. So moving forward I'm going to centralize my authorship and push into high gear. 1. Destiny SeriesDestiny: Book of Love was a huge hit, especially for a self-published indie author. Just goes to show you what can be achieved with hard work and persistence. (Just patting myself on the shoulders.) I'm very happy to see so many interested in Destiny Book of Love. Happy to hear what you think of it once finished. Feel free to message me or email me anytime. Also if you didn't know it is now free on a majority of eBook apps and devices. So grab it while your on holidays and get into the world of Destiny.Destiny: Book of Hate was released on December 13th this year. It takes off where Book of Love left and leads the main characters down the path of Darkness and Despair. It takes the world of Destiny and enhances the stakes to the point of no return.Defiantly and huge achievement to be able to finish 1 book this year let alone 2. Book of Hate was an easier book to write from the first because of how much I learnt this year in such little time. I'm so happy with this part of the series because of its raw and brutally great story and arc. So many great characters striving for what they what down the path of their own tormented and magical Destiny.Destiny: (insert title here) is well on its way in the early stages of writing. More info will come out in the new year. SO keep your eyes peeled for the epic conclusion the first trilogy in the Destiny Series.The world is going paperless. When it comes to book sales or books ordered, its awesome to see so many more people grabbing the eBook version of Destiny Book of Love. 2. Social MediaSocial media is a roller coaster of constant followers dropping and popping back up. I've figured out what is working and what is not working out for me. Facebook has worked out the best but maybe is not the be all place to focus my authorship. Twitter does very little but has the best potential of success. Goodreads, a website for readers who love to discuss the books they are reading and a website for authors to share their collection. This website is middle ground for me along with Instagram. What does all this mean? Well moving forward I will not be posting as much book content on Facebook and Instagram. My focus points will be going to Twitter and Goodreads. As they have the potential of massively increasing book sales and help with promotion. If you haven't already you should follow me on Twitter and Goodreads for all the book related content. There will be posts periodically on my other social media sites. My Twitter account has had a successful year with over 300% growth since the start of the year, which is awesome. Hopefully that will continue into the new year. Goodreads was a hidden power I didn't know about until halfway through this year. It was the best potential for finding readers for my books. In 2018 I will be making better strides towards finding more and more readers using its secret power. (lol)3. WebsiteThis year I took on a new hobby and tried to turn into a career. I had to shelf my addiction to video games and push my limits into the #Writerslife.Did it pay off?Does it really matter? I enjoy writing so much now that the pay off comes every single day that I put on my new headphones I got for Christmas from the the in-laws. (Thanks, they rock) It's the best feeling in the world to craft something out of nothing and chisel it out to be an essence or form of life.With that being said I pursued such a great deal and tried to take on so much that I stumbled and rose to the occasion. The website was the back bone of my Authorship and had great substance to everything I did. I worked hard at it and made sure to use it to its full potenial. The once things got to busy in real-life I had to put it on the back burner and focus on that part of my life. Well it showed. Moving forward I will be putting a lot of time into the following. Breaking NewsBlog (Reviews on Games, Books (comics mostly), and Movies) Currently reading Michael Crichton's Dragon TeethShort StoriesTo help keep fans and friends interesting in my content I believe these items will help drive excitement and and readership based of my writing skills. There is a lot of styles t write in and I would like to pursue some of them.Blog Reviews being 1. I enjoy a lot of different art types and love talking about them. So why not write and show my opinion about them too. Most of you who know me know that I love to talk about the nerdy stuff that I live around. Hope your excited about this one because this is the biggest welcomed path I plan on walking next year. Breaking News is more of the same. Just going to revitalize it through my website. Be sure to subscribe for *free* on the homepage of my website for up to date content.Short Stories. With help figuring out where to go after my first trilogy of Destiny is done, I am going to write quiet a few *free* short stories and post them on my website. There is a plethora of ideas rolling around my head and I need to get them out. here's a short list.Epic fantasyApocalyptic westernFamily Christmas comedyOld style westernZombie style (my take)Destiny Side Stories (4 different ones)As you can see there is a ton of things I want to write about. Haven't really planned out how this will all go down but extremely excited to get into this next year. Also these will be free on my website or an app next year. (haven't decided how to pursue this one yet)So with all that said, Moving Forward shall be an even more breath taking experience than ever before. I am super happy with what I've achieved both in the good and bad times this past year. I would be happy to hear what you think about this post down below by leaving a comment or a like.

My Top Five Free Things You Need To Have in Your Indie Author #Writerslife

What do they say, if you have lemons make some lemonade. Let's face it, your a new upcoming indie author and you don't have that much money. Well, if you have these five free things in you writers life it will make it easier on yourself. I want show you a run down list of my favorite freebie software or items I have managed to stumble upon in my last year of writing that helped lead me to become a published author. 1. Wix.comWix website creator has been a great way of providing me with the tools I need to help promote, market and shout out to all my fans and audience. The website design is flexible and easy to use. If you want to begin blogging its a great way to source and compile all you blogs here with a great SEO google search engine capability. So searches may find your blog with ease. Wix.com does offer a pay monthly subscription for added benefits. I do not use this for any reason. My website does well on its own with a free base status. I have over 450 visits to my website to date and have received lots of positive feedback. ww.wix.com2. WPS writerCan't write blogs or books or poems without some sort of software. WPS writer is a great value compared to Microsoft's disgustingly expensive Word Document. WPS is a perfect fill in and great for those who are familiar with Word Document. The comparisons between the both of them are unwell. Now this is a free based software but there is a buy in option available. I haven't even come close to be tempted to give it a try because I am able to manage just as well without it. My one gripe about this software is your word count seems to track differently then that of Microsoft respective software. Other than that a tiny learning curve is necessary with anything new you take on. Once you've used this program for a few weeks you will never look back.https://www.wps.com/office-free3. GrammarlyWOW, this app is crazy awesome. Is it even classified as a app, extension, or software? What is it? It's essential, especially if you want to edit some or your whole manuscript. This little guy will find all the little mistakes your eyes don't see because you have looked over your gold mine over and over again. Its okay to have a second set of eyes to scan through your masterpiece. Grammarly highlights anything that stands out and is incorrect. So I hope you can take criticism. I remember the first time using it and it highlighted over 60 mistakes in a chapter I thought was near perfect. You only see what you believe and this program opened my eyes. Love it, get it. Can't say enough about it.Of course like all free software there is a payment option for the software to find technical advanced issues. But you gotta start somewhere, and ignoring the issues completely is not an option. So take the first step and grab this puppy.https://app.grammarly.com/4. SpotifyWithout the universal language known as MUSIC I wouldn't get very far. If you love music and hate spending too much money on it. Or you download torrents and mp3's from w/e software you have. STOP NOW. Spotify is a free streaming service that allows you to listen to millions of songs for free. It's awesome and helps me keep calm and peaceful while writing countless amounts of pages per day. Helps my mind relax and imagine all the scenes take place when I go for walks. Inspires me and brings me to that happy place to enjoy what I'm writing. Sets that certain mood so you can adjust your style for that impactful moment in the biggest scene of your book.Spotify is free but the premium offer they have so you can skip those annoying advertisements is a whole 10 bucks a month. This is about the only money I pour into my top 5 list here. To me its worth the price. I love music and how it twists my thoughts to push me further, and helping get the words on the page. https://www.spotify.com/ca-en/5. Kindle Direct PublishingWhich is owned by Amazon,is a sweet self publishing service for all us indie authors. Making it so streamlined and easy for authors to make content and produce via there off company Createspace for paperback copies, it would have been near impossible to distribute my paperback version without it.I am a huge fan of statistics and this has a great interface for me to track all the sales and info I want. I am able to track sales with such ease and market my book so seamlessly its not even funny. Amazon lets me feel like I am in total control of the product I have to offer with the great user interface they have at there disposal. Amazon has taken the industry and turned it on its head the last 5 years by buying Goodreads which is a huge part of the book readers world. Where readers and reviewer can chat and discuss and post review of the novels they are reading, what they have read and what they recommend. Amazon has so much to offer its so hard not to see the light in what they have to offer.www.kdp.amazon.comIts tough ride out there, and hopefully some of the writers who read this come out with a little bit extra after they read my top 5 list here. This isn't the end all be all list. It's only what works for me and I thought I would share it. Like I sad before, out of this whole list the only money I've put into some of the essential items needed for helping your writers life out is spotify and that is just my preference. Everyone is different, and that's okay.So do you agree with the list or have something else you would add instead, start the conversation down below.Destiny Book of Love wouldn't have been such a personal success if it weren't for the 5 freebies above. A story I had in my head for 18 years came to life with their help. Enjoy 3 chapters on me down below.

Confidence is Key pt.2

I was about one third into my novel and couldn't escape the writers block that constantly plagued me. It was my main excuse for never achieving much when it came to writing. The invisible wall that blocked me from accomplishing my dream. But that's all it was, it was only and "excuse". A few years later and a ton of harassment, I finally landed a new position in the company I'm still currently at. This signal handling alleviated a ton of stress off my shoulders. And not that I am a manager or anything but we got a new facility and needed someone to to control over the shop floor. That would have been me, or at least should be me, since I'm the only guy on the shop floor working 100% in this lab. With the coming weeks, I learnt how I am able to organize, manage and found how well I can get shit done. So it was almost 1 1/2 years ago when I finally told a few more people about the book I'm writing. This helped me find a way to vent out my seeping imagination. Just the look on their faces shoved me to do so much more. Still telling everyone I had been benched from all the writers block I had and I couldn't get much done ever.  Or it would be I'm too exhausted when I get home to do anything creative.When I would tell someone about me writing that was close to within my family, they didn't really think much of it. "Oh he is just doing it for fun, or he is just wasting his time." This is exactly the kinds of thoughts I had going on in my own head when I would explain what I was doing. This wasn't good for my confidence level because if they didn't care about what I thought could be huge for me, why would I. Thus the reason I would get lost in video games, as a means of escaping reality. In this addiction I found some light. During my summer vacation of 2016, I had two weeks off. The first week was refreshing and I had some of the best times I could have ever wished for. Just me and my wife with our two kids relaxing in grand bend at my dads trailer. I was able to shut off my mind and relieve all the stress I had built up over the years. All the heartache that had accumulated since the dark side of life I endured, vanished that week. It was super awesome to have the time to relax my mind. I told myself I wanted more of this and promised myself that I would get there someday. It was only going to take a lot of hard work and dedication. The second week I took the time to really buckle down and work hard on my novel. And boy did I ever. Every morning I had waken up and got some coffee and wrote for over 4-8 hours each day. I got a lot of work done. Made me feel like I could accomplish this great feat, and made me realize how much I really did enjoy this side of my life. The creative side was my new addiction. Once my holidays were over I set a goal for myself that I would finish my first book later that year at Christmas time. Trying to set a goal for the rest of the year seeing how close to finishing this first story in the series, and how much fun I had during that time. It was going to be great.Christmas holidays past and I gt absolutely nothing done. Well that was demoralizing. It took me a few weeks to get back in the groove. Something had to change this year. I needed a extra push to get the job done. So I took up using Instagram to post some tidbits of my novel to showcase my work. At first I was only getting a few likes which for me was the world of difference. Those erupted into a huge push of confidence for me to continue on and really finish this book. After about a week I took up more social media outlets and started the conversation. Before you know it everyone wants to know about my book. And they want to discuss everything about it. This was a huge confidence boost for me.After I had finish the novel I had to set goals and continue on my way to become a published author. It would be a huge step for me to get this read by beta readers and take in the comment or criticism they might have with it. But the biggest hurdle was to train my mind to stop coming home and turning on the games from the computer and losing myself within them. I had to make sure I made goals and stuck to it mentally. This was going to be a massive leap off the stage, but for the better.Fortunately I was able to snag 7 beta readers, and 5 of them actually finished it and had crucial criticism and useful comments that helped elevate my novel for the better. This drove my confidence level out the roof. And for this I am very grateful. Thanks goes out to all of you who have helped me transcend all my hurdles and made me who I am today. Because of you I got my confidence back. Lastly, I haven't played a single video game in three months. Hurray for me. 

Confidence is Key Part 1

I my first real blog I want to tackle what caused so much dilemma throughout the years with me and my writing. It is a impalpable trench that nobody can pass through. Unless you get others to come find you while you get lost in its inconvenient maze of weight and pressure. It's the single tool that helps you push through and believe in anything and everything you do. It's used from the greedy to get everything they ever needed. In school, jocks would foam from the mouth with it just by standing there holding their balls. Yes I said it.The crucial component I needed to push through to get to this point in my writing career was confidence. I didn't find confidence in my self, well not necessarily. But others helped me find it within myself. This is how I got so far with my writing. In the beginning, probably high school, around grade 11, I radiated confidence. I was the perfect aspect of what you would tell your grandchildren how to be confident. With confidence when you're young you become arrogant and take the world by your feet. Everything is below you and you're invincible. Well it so happens that's exactly what I thought. My own naive nature got the best of me and for the next 3 years I felt like I was at the top. Like every teenager aspiring to become super rich, I landed a job at Mcdonalds. That's right king burger joint of the whole wide world. During my first year I was king of the place because of the "C" word(confidence, what the hell did you think I meant). Or at least I thought. My confidence level sky rocketed as I progressed through the ranks of management chain right up to the point where the owner inadvertently said me I could own stores one day. Well with my ego brain I took it for granted. I really did think I, Brandon David Schieckoff could own a store one day. I would be rich. Well that all crashed beneath my feet when the other mangers began to revolt against me. It was a civil war within the fast food joint. Only I didn't know until it was too late. I made the mistake of being super arrogantly confident that I thought no one could touch me. I was wrong.I know that now. And I'm okay with it. I lost my job and did it on my terms. Thus causing all my built up confidence to fall beneath me as well. I was jobless and without any confidence I had walking into my second job, so you know what I did. I reverted to playing video games like a cocaine addict feeding off his own addiction scraps for more. I had no money, how could I afford to live. I needed to snap out of it and find a job. Luckily I have a great family, and within that family is my Auntie Rose. She is also my godmother. She hooked me up with a turkey farm job later that month. My first turkey broke me down even further, these are known to me as the start of the darkest days to come. The farm manager was sort of a dick. And didn't help me learn how to do the things I needed to do. Times were tough so i learnt  on my own. I was able to gain a lot of confidence using an assortment of tools, like a handyman should know. About 8 to 9 months in and a lot of emotional stress, he wanted to replace me with another worker, but had offered to get me a job with another turkey farm 20 minutes away. This also didn't help me at all. It seems everywhere I went the world around me was breaking itself apart and falling down on me. Assholes are everywhere, and I needed a change.So starts my steep climb through my current job. I worked at the start of the line, for a factory position at first and assembled these machines. Life looked up for about two months and one day off my probation period. They brought me in the boardroom and told a bunch of us."The recession has hit Canada. Your a permanent lay-off.""What the fuck does that mean?"I was in my most depressing period of my life. Zero confidence and honestly had suicidal thoughts because i didn't have any job in sight and started playing World of Warcraft like the cocaine addict once again. It was the worst thing I've ever did in my whole life. That game broke me down to my very core and suck all aspiration to do anything away from my soul. It gave me a false sense of purpose. Life had nothing for me accept a game addiction, a fiance and hope for a better day. That was a long nine months, before I had to resort back to working at the turkey farm. This was my third and final stop working with these damn creatures. Luckily I had to grade eggs and work in the farm house away from the damn annoying clucking turkeys. Thank god.It took a long time and some pestering, but I finally got called back to the factory life. It felt good, well sort of. After a year and a half I got back in and told myself, I wouldn't let this happen to me ever again. I needed to make sure I was the foundation that held this place up, because I didn't need to get laid off ever again. This is the rising action of the confidence coming back into my life.It must have been four years ago, and I was only half way through me first draft in my second book. No one else around me was writing or even into the artsy type of things this world has to offer. But there was Dan C. I'll let his last name be nameless for his privacy, but at least he will know who he is. Dan was the first person I talked to about the sheer fact I was writing a book. "That's sweet, whats it about?""insert book synopsis here"I told Dan my basic idea of what I was doing. He liked it and accepted the fact I was an amateur author. It felt great. I get home later that day do do a shit load more writing. Why? Because it felt good to have someone listen to what I had to offer. I had the confidence to speak to Dan about what I was writing about And with all that added confidence backing me up, I was able to push through more creative writing. It became very apparent that I couldn't get a lot done without confidence boosting me up and springing me ahead every day I needed it. After hours of physical work each day it was extremely hard to come home and sit down to get some writing down. 

First Off! Who the hell am I

I'm Batman, just kidding. Name is Brandon David Schieckoff and I'm a husband and a father of two hilarious and crazy kids. I have lived in the same town for all my life, and in fact I have lived on the same street for the majority of it. When I was 12 years old my parents got a divorce which spun me into an torrential emotional roller coaster. From the ashes I grew up to be a mature hard working, over achieving, crazy likable guy. But it didn't come without its dark days of losing a job, a recession that that almost killed me. Well maybe not that dramatic, but you get the point. I've been through some nasty stuff and between all of this I began to imagine and create this world I know as Destiny. The characters I have been able to produce through daydreams and love is absolutely astonishing. There would be days I would go to work and think the entire day and imagine how different stories could go I my head. It goes to show you that not only does hard work can go a long way. The mind is one powerful mother f$@@##. lol. Lets have some fun with this.This was a short introduction to who I am, look forward to my first blog next week. Confidence is Key.Welcome to my Blog!