Some Of Our UCLan Games Design Success Stories.

Steph McStea Team17 QA Analyst · 2017 to present · Wakefield

Graduated from MA(Hons) Games Design 2017. Prior to her Masters Degree she completed the BA Hons in Games Design (again at UCLan) to a First Class standard.




You can see some of her student work on her Tea and Monsters Blog and website.


Steph is currently working as part of the QA team at Team17 and she loves it!





Steph has a high profile in the industry because she makes herself visible by getting involved in activities and networking. In her spare time Steph enjoys volunteering as an artist for Girls Make Games and further developing her forum: StudentGameDevs.co.uk.

Steph created StudentGameDevs to act as a hub/community for those studying Games Design and for those hoping to pursue a career within the Games Industry.
Something that she found when she was studying for her degree was that while there's a lot of passion for our industry, there didn't seem to be much communication amongst students outside of their own universities.

The aim of StudentGameDevs is to try and bridge that gap between university courses and the students studying within them, giving potential for new Indies to be created, and for new connections to be born.



If you have any questions about StudentGameDevs, or wish to know anything about the site and the ideas behind it, please do feel free to contact Steph @teaandmonsters on Twitter, or through private message on-site.


Interesting to see that through her active networking she has some great followers on Twitter, including Arthur Parsons, Head of Design at TT_Games Ltd.




All Steph's hard work paid off when she was named in the 100 rising stars of the UK Games Industry! Check out the interviews with the winners of this year's GamesIndustry.biz 100 in the link: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/top100/2018/s

Steph is also an Ambassador for Women in Games (@WIGJ).

The Ambassador program created by Marie-Claire Isaaman, CEO of Women in Games, will act to grow the membership of the organisation, helping the organisation to expand both its reach and scale. This will help Women in Games to achieve its strategic goal — to double the number of women in games — over the next 10 years.







Women in Games have also been super encouraging to Steph. In Sept 2016 Steph was among the women selected in a jam packed ceremony featuring 30 minutes of awards and presentations to honour and recognise some special people and the winners of their Student Competition.
Winners of the Student Competition were awarded by Debbie Bestwick MBE along with Helen Kennedy,
Head of the School of Media, at the University of Brighton:
Read Steph's post about the event here.

Victoria Goldsmith

(Alumni working as 3D Artist @ PlayStation London Studio graduated in 2011. Vic has written a guide about getting into the games industry.

https://www.artstation.com/lowpolyfish/blog/LQOV/breaking-into-the-games-industry

https://lowpolyfish.com/resume









Here's a snippet of Victoria and her friend, Steph Brookes talking about games when they were on the course in 2009.

https://gamescourse.blogspot.com/2011/03/games-by-girls-at-uclan.html

Twitter https://twitter.com/lowpolyfish

Sarah Akers is an Alumni of the BA(Hons) Games Design course at UCLan 

and a 3D artist.

Sarah's recent experience is at Paw Print Games Ltd in Chester as Lead 3D Artist.
During her 2 years in the game industry, Sarah, has been responsible for art direction, managing fellow artists and working within all spectrums of 3D and technical art. 

In 2016 Sarah spent 13 weeks as a 3D prop Artist at WHITE PAPER GAMES Ltd. in Manchester in a part-time internship. She designed, modelled and textured a variety of game ready props for their upcoming title, Occupation. She was able to experience first-hand what it's like to be involved in independent games development.







White Paper Games







Sarah has a keen interest in advanced shader creation and she's passionate about developing tools to enhance workflow. She loves fun, "pick up and play" multiplayer games and creating fitting art to go with them. My goal is to create solid, cohesive visuals that aid gameplay and look fantastic! :)
Sarah worked on Blood Zombies for PawPrint Games in Chester!

BLOODY ZOMBIES

TEAM UP. BASH BRAINS. SAVE LONDON.
Bloody Zombies is a co-op brawler designed to be played with any combination of TV and VR players. Fight across the ruins of London using carefully refined Free-Form Combat, taking down a terrifying variety of un-dead with an expanding special move-set. Created for 1-4 players, Bloody Zombies is also enhanced with VR - using its unique viewpoint to help the team overcome obstacles & discover secrets in the game. Out 2017 on P­­C, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and also supports HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR headsets.

Sarah worked on Border Patrol as lead artist and art director at Paw Print Games. It is currently available to demo on Steam.
As a fully motion controlled, room scale VR experience, Border Patrol requires you to interact with various objects and tools in order to process each robot that comes to your booth. The primary goal was to create a fun and light-hearted experience that gives the expected feedback to the player to ensure they feel fully immersed in another world.
Her responsibilities included:

· Overall art direction and research & development
· Exploring different artistic and technical ideas considering the limitations of VR
· Task and time management for art team
· Modelling, texturing and lighting environments
· Particles and VFX
· Shader creation
· Working to keep art consistent across various platforms including PS4 VR

Alex Haddow-Mendes. Find his portfolio here! www.Alexhm.co.uk 

Alex is currently Technical 

Designer at Team 17 Software Limited




A Level Designer, Technical Designer and Games Designer. He recently graduated from the Games Design course at UCLan with a First, where he says he "learned how to create games as well as how to be a fully functioning human being." J
He has been designing games since he was 12, creating modifications for the Source Engine. Also using games that allow user generated content; like LittleBigPlanet or Halo's Forge mode. Where others would look for gimmicks, he would create a solid, lasting design.










Projects.
Advanced First Person Character ​— Unreal Engine Marketplace A popular tool, Selling on the Unreal Marketplace - A tool for Unreal Engine 4 that is the basis of modern First Person games, increasing usability for designers without technical skills Luck Screen ​— Google Play Store Luck Screen is a casual, puzzle/pattern mobile. The game is based around the pattern lock screen on a mobile device, you must figure out the correct pattern to unlock the phone.

Available on the Google Play Store.







Alex made several games for his final degree portfolio.
One of them, 'Come In, Over' has been written about in an 80 level article .

Alex has a YouTube Channel where he shares his level design work.

Stonne 1940 Big CoC Weekend Part 1

This has been in the pipeline for a few months now, the first public Big CoC public weekend at the WHC. In this first post I'll give some idea of the thought process (sic) behind the game and then I'll give you the scenarios and how the game played out...oh, and there will be a few pics.

Warlord and Crusader French

Mark Freeth was very keen to get an early war 1940 scenario together, initially we toyed with the idea of running a weekend with 2 games running side by side, one containing French and the other BEF taking on the invading Germans. While this was certainly achievable, it involved a few more logistical headaches concerning turning the games around, plus simply having to focus on 2 games at once rather than one. So, in the end we plumped for a single set of scenarios with just the French and Germans.
A small problem with running Big CoC games is that the scenarios are somewhat dependant on the number of players attending, and given the nature of the WHC the numbers can vary, Some players book months in advance, but often people will book relatively late so the scenario needed to be capable of being tweaked to fit this in. The nuts and bolts of the game don't alter that much, the idea being that each player will command an infantry (or armour) platoon, then the force as a whole has a degree of support which is then dished out. On the whole this is not a problem, but for quite a while we were looking at having six players (fine, 3 on 3) then suddenly the numbers went up to seven. My initial reaction was one of mild horror because it meant balancing the game for a three versus four. However, when I started looking at the way the Stonne game might play out, the imbalance of 3 platoons  against 4 became more and more attractive.

A little Panhard 178. It bogged in the ditch......

The battle at Stonne took place over 4 days commencing on 15th May 1940, with the Germans having the Grossdeutschland motorised infantry regiment, and elements of the 10.PzD (Panzer-Regiment 8)
They were encountering in these scenarios the 3e DIM (Division d'Infanterie Motorisée), supported by 3e DCr (Division Cuirassée)
Looking at the platoon lists for CoC the 1940 German infantry platoons are enormous. Each platoon contains 2 senior leaders and a 50mm mortar team plus 4 x 10 man sections, for a total of 44 men.
The French platoons are a similar size, with 2 platoon leaders (1 senior, 1 junior) a VB rifle grenade team of a junior leader with 4 men. plus 3 sections of 11 for a total of 40 men. 

So if we had seven players, with 3 on the German side and 4 for the French it wouldn't be too bad. 1 player a side would be playing a tank platoon anyway, so it would be 2 German infantry platoons against 3 French, however that is actually 8 German sections opposed to 9 French, making it less unbalanced than first appears. A little extra tweaking by making the Germans "superior regulars" meaning they treat rolls on their command dice of a single six also as a 5, giving them more CoC dice pips during the game, plus increasing the size of their panzer II platoon to a whopping 5 vehicles would compensate for the additional French numbers. Additionally, each German platoon would start with a full Chain of Command Dice. 

Poilus advance, CharB in support 
So I worked on that basis, and prepared everything with 7 players in mind, Then of course Mark called and said " I've got an 8th player"......So the superior regular, and the extra CoC dice went out of the window, and the Panzer platoon was cut from 5 down to 4, and the Germans went up to 3 infantry platoons to make it 4 a side. Also the Germans would not have a significant advantage in support points when they were attacking, while the french would.
 Even after this we had another couple of guys wanting to sign up, but at that late stage we sadly had to say no, and stick with 8, as I think a single game with 5 a side is really stretching it for this rule set - not saying its not possible, but I think the game might suffer.
So that is the format we ended up going with, having said that I'm pretty sure the scenarios will work fine with seven (or 5 for that matter) players if the Germans are bumped up a bit to cater for uneven forces.


Panzerjeager I supports Black Tree and Warlord infantry
The other aspect of the games that numbers have an impact on is the size of the table used for each scenario. The recommendation for Big CoC is that the table size should be the same as for normal CoC (6' x 4')  with an additional foot width per additional infantry platoon added - you add nothing for the armour.
Well, The main table at the WHC is 24' long by 6' deep, and so we already play on a depth of 6' which I prefer over 4'. The patrol phase gets forces into action quickly enough anyway, and having the extra depth gives players a bit more room without slowing things down.
Just adding 2 feet per platoon gives us a width of 8' x 6 " which is fine, but the centres' terrain boards are 3' each so it is convenient to go for a slightly larger width of 9'. a bit more room both on the table and for player comfort. That meant that it wasn't too tricky to divide up the table into 3 sections - 9' at each end and then utilise the central 6' and 3' of one of the other sections to give us 3 x 6' x 9' areas.

The point of all this meant I could set up the entire table beforehand, and players go from game to game  with no great interruptions in order to maximise playing time. Also I think it looks good!

Stonne from west to east: Game 1 at the far end, game 2 in the foreground, game 3 in the centre. The Germans are advancing from the north, the French, the south.

I also planned to have a 4th scenario, which would have meant re-setting the terrain at one end of the table- it would have been that which was fought over in game 2 so we could do it while game 3 was in progress giving plenty of time. As it turned out, we didn't get in 4 games over the weekend, a bit of a shame but, sometimes CoC games can be like that, some go faster than others.

The table was made up simply from having a look at Google Earth, backed up with some excellent maps in Prieser's "Blitzkrieg Legend"- to  get the overall topography. Generally the village hasn't changed enormously since 1940, although it was rebuilt there has been no development sprawl, The critical points haven't changed, in terms of the woods, the road layout, and the extent of the village.Being able to get down at street view is an amazing resource, it shows just how winding and steep the only road the Germans had to approach the village from the north was, as it approaches the Butte De Stonne at the Eastern end of the village, and how despite it appearing very flat on the map, the countryside to the west and south actually has quite a lot of small undulations, the view south from the village is somewhat restricted. At the eastern end of the village the countryside is more wooded and broken, with the road becoming sunken before it winds down back on itself down the steep wooded slope to the north of the village (off- table)

Map showing the initial German attack on Stonne, May 15 at 0800. Influenced by Eric Denis' work. (wikipedia)

Given the nature of playing 3 or possibly 4 games over a weekend in a campaign format with 8 CoC novices I thought that the first scenario should probably be a bit gentle in order to ease them into it, and allow them to possibly make a few mistakes without getting horribly punished. I also wanted to keep it relatively simple.
Given the nature of the fighting in Stonne (the village apparently changed hands 17 times in 3 days), it lent itself to a relatively straightforward narrative: i.e. Attack and counterattack- So I decided to make the first game an attack/defence scenario with the Germans on the offensive at the eastern end of the table, the second game was to be another attack/defence with the French on the offensive at the western end of the table. Game 3 was to be in the central area of the table with the Germans attacking in an "attack on an objective" scenario.
I planned a 4th scenario which was to be played out on new terrain to the east of Stonne and that would have been the French conducting a flank attack. However, time sadly ran out. I'm sure we will do it one day.

The View from east to west, the broken ground of the Butte De Stonne in the foreground

The scene was set:

8 players, hopefully 4 games, Germans versus French at Stonne, one of the iconic battles of the campaign.

What were the salient features of the battle? The Germans had crossed the Meuse a couple of days earlier and were trying to exploit that relatively fragile bridgehead, the French had rapidly managed to assemble a counter attack force. The massif of which Stonne is a small part doesn't readily show up on a map, but have a look at Google Earth and you can see just how important it was for both sides. The village itself is rather innocuous, just a farming village with two roads entering from the south, however, it is the terrain to the north which both sides were focused on. There is a single road which leads out of Stonne to the north, this snakes down the hillside along a steep wooded slope before reaching the more gentle plain. The entire northern side of Stonne is covered in thick fir trees which extend down the steep slope- there is nowhere in the village itself (other than the "Butte de Stonne") which has a view to the north. However, if you hold the town and can establish OP's in this wooded hillside you have a magnificent vista stretching out 4 or 5 kilometres and more to the north, the German bridgeheads, and the routes they will take as they expand. Subsequently this tiny Ardennes village became vitally important.   

French section enters central Stonne

DE: Updated List And BFG:A2

Still my favorite meme.

Hell, it has been a busy year for me.  Still enjoying playing my Dark Eldar whenever I can, but too busy to attend any events which has been a big bummer for me.  Well, where do we begin? Drukhari are still doing good, but dropped off the top tables once people knew how to to deal with them. Should this be a surprise to anyone?  Not really.  People just need time to adapt and even the Meat Mountain lists have been taking a backseat because Imperial Knights and other shenanigans have been setting the meta.  This is what happens with every new book and that's that people will take time to adapt, figure out the counters and then actively employ them in mass depending on what the meta is.  Either way, I've been getting in a few casual games with my local playgroup when I can but have been primarily out of the competitive circuit this year because of real life.

Don't worry though, I'm still getting my fill of active competitive Dark Eldar players whispering all the good stuff in my ear.  It's one thing to stay active in the meta and the other to keep updated.  The only thing that dulls over time is experience, but active play can always pick that back up.  If there's one piece of advice I can give you folks is to stay updated, even if you can't play so when you do jump back into the fray, you're not behind and know what to look out for.

With that said, my other minor update is to let you guys know that I'll be playing our faction on Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 and streaming it!  Yes, lol, I also stream.  I was a big player back in the original BFGA1 days but balance kind of ruined it for me.  Thankfully, balance will be a big focus in the second game (hell it better be, all 12 factions!) and the game looks primed for MP success.  Well, success in the sense that it's still a pretty niche market, but it looks to be much more polished overall.  I'll be playing all 3 Eldar factions but you guys know which one I'll be flexing first!

Oh yes, and here's my pure Kabal list that's been doing well, even against some of the new Knights.  I haven't really played against the new Orks though, and from what I hear, that might be rough.

Kabal of the Black Rose
1999 // 10 CP

Obsidian Rose Bat +5 CP

HQ:
Archon, Blaster, PGL = 92
Archon, Blaster, PGL = 92

TROOP:
10x Warriors, 2x Blasters = 94
10x Warriors, 2x Blasters = 94
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47

+++

Black Heart Spear +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Blaster = 89
Cunning, Living Muse

CHEERLEADERS:
5x Warriors = 30
5x Warriors = 30

PARTY BUSES:
Raider, Dissies = 80
Raider, Dissies = 80
Raider, Dissies = 80
Raider, Dissies = 80
Raider, Dissies = 80
Raider, Dissies = 80

HEAVY:
Ravager, Dissies = 125
Ravager, Dissies = 125
Ravager, Dissies = 125

+++

Flayed Skull Wing +1 CP

FLYER:
Razorwing, Lances = 145
Razorwing, Lances = 145
Razorwing, Lances = 145

>>>
Firepower Analysis:
15 Dissies at BS3+
6 Dark Lances at BS3+
8 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blasters at BS2+
3 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+
48 Splinters at BS3+

I changed the Razorwings to Flayed Skull just to try them and so far they've been pretty decent.  They normally fly as Black Heart, but I really like their Strategem and the Ignore Cover is pretty big.  With the upcoming changes to Prepared Positions and rumors about more Cover systems, I'm going to be looking at Flayed Skull much more closely.

Dead Island: Definitive Collection [Updated To V1.1.2 + MULTi8] For PC [9.5 GB] Highly Compressed Repack

Dead Island: Definitive Collection - is a collection of survival horror action role-playing video game developed by Polish developer Techland and published by German studio Deep Silver for Microsoft Windows.

Featuring: Definitive Collection contains Dead Island Definitive Edition, Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition and a brand new stand-alone 16-bit game Dead Island Retro Revenge. Dead Island Definitive Edition and Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition are fully remastered versions of Dead Island and Dead Island Riptide including all released DLC and patches plus Dead Island Retro Revenge: A brand new stand-alone 16-bit game set in the style of a classic side-scrolling action/endless runner within the Dead Island universe.

..:: Purchase the game here and support the developers ::..

1. FEATURES OF THE GAME

• Plus caught in the Midst of an Epic Zombie Outbreak on the tropical island of Banoi, your only thought is: Survive.
• Featuring epic Dead Island: Smash heads, Crack skulls, and Slice up with the visceral Astounding Melee Combat.
• Contains Dead Island & its Undead successor, Dead Island: Riptide Bundled with all the previously released DLC.
• Brand new standalone 16bit game set in the style of a classic sidescrolling action within the Dead Island universe.
• Introducing: Welcome to the Epic Zombie apocalypse experience of a Lifetime plus, now more Beautiful than ever.

Game is updated to latest version

Included Games

▪ Dead Island Retro Revenge - Updated to version 1.0
▪ Dead Island Definitive Edition - Updated to version 1.1.2
▪ Dead Island Riptide Definitive Edition - Updated to version 1.1.2

2. GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS

3. DOWNLOAD GAME:

♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
♢ You need μTorrent program to download torrent files, download here.
♢ View detailed instructions for downloading and installing the game here.
♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount ISO files.

DEAD ISLAND: DEFINITIVE COLLECTION [v1.1.2 + MULTi8] - DOWNLOAD LINKS

      

PASSWORD FOR THE GAME

Unlock with password: pcgamesrealm

4. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS GAME

➤ Download the game by clicking on the button link provided above.

➤ Download the game on the host site and turn off your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid errors.

➤ When the download process is finished, locate or go to that file.

➤ Open and extract the file by using 7-Zip, and run 'setup.exe' as admin then install the game on your PC.

➤ Once the installation is complete, run the game's exe as admin and you can now play the game.

➤ Congratulations! You can now play this game for free on your PC.

➤ Note: If you like this video game, please buy it and support the developers of this game.

Turn off or temporarily disable your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid false positive detections.

5. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
(Your PC must at least have the equivalent or higher specs in order to run this game.)

• Operating System: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows 10 | requires 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5 Processors GHz or higher for better gaming experience
• Memory: at least 4GB System RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 26GB free HDD Space
• Video Card: Geforce GTX 560 Ti or AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB VRAM or higher graphics

Supported Language: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Czech, Polish and language.
If you have any questions or encountered broken links, please do not hesitate to comment below. :D

Movie And TV Reviews: Lady Bird, The Post, Molly's Game, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Westworld, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

See all of my movie reviews.

Lady Bird: Greta Gerwig's first outing as a director is a smashing success. I have complicated feelings about Greta, in that I admire her intentions in writing and playing in quirky comedies, such as Frances Ha. However, I felt that her movies were not quite there yet, not quite jelled. The characters were too unrelatable, and the plots too chaotic and off-putting. This is the first one she really gets right.

Christine is a teenager who calls herself "Lady Bird" for no discernible reason. The movie is basically an arc in the life of Christine and her relationship with her mother as she navigates the last year of high school in Sacramento. She makes and loses friends, fights, makes up, and fights with her mother, and tries to get into a college on the East Coast that will get her far away from her family.

I have been a big fan of Saoirse Ronan, from Atonement to Hanna to Brooklyn. She and Laurie Metcalf, as well as the rest of the cast, give perfect performances. If there is any flaw to the movie it is that it could have been more: more sweeping, maybe have another deep relationship arc in addition to the main one. But that's hardly a flaw. Worth watching.

The Post: Hanks, Streep, and Spielberg give us another newspaper drama, this one about the publishing of the Pentagon Papers that broke the story about how a series of US presidents and higher ups were all lying about the Vietnam War, pretending that the US was fighting to liberate South Vietnam when they knew all along that the war could not be won and the real aim was to broadly fight China.

It's a good movie, if not a great one. Roughly on par with other newspaper movies I've seen, including Spotlight and All the President's Men., but with a narrower aim. The main conflicts are a) publish or not? and b) can Streep's female character assert authority at the paper without making a major blunder? Streep plays the owner of the Washington Post, a position she inherited from her late husband, and a woman bullied by her all male board. She is seemingly willing to let them bully her until she finally takes a stand. Hanks plays the chief editor who is pushing to report a story while the government wants to sue them for espionage.

If you happen to draw a parallel between the historic ideals of freedom of press versus a tyrannical, corrupt president and anything happening today it's because we once trumpeted these ideals very clearly. Reality has a bias toward the truth, which any amount of modern obfuscation cannot truly suppress. And it is good not to lose sight of the ideals for which we stand.

Molly's Game: If it's been a while since you've seen a Sorkin picture, you'll find it is like riding a bicycle. You will immediately be expecting to see Josh Lyman or Sam Seaborne walk in from some corner of the screen.

This is the story of a woman who uses some incredible insight, people skills, and brass balls to end up running a high stakes poker game for important celebrities and executives, first on the West Coast and then on the East. The enterprise lasts until the feds and the mafia move in on her. The story is told from a series of flashbacks interspersed with her finding a lawyer and navigating her legal case. It is based on a true story.

Jessica Chastain does a fine job in the lead role. Everyone else does fine, except Kevin Costner who seems out of place as her often distant but high pressuring father. Regardless, it is a Sorkin story, which means witty, clever, entertaining dialog and characters who are ten times brighter and more accomplished than most people you will ever meet. Well crafted with great cinematography.

Goodbye Christopher Robin: The story of A.A. Milne, his wife, and his son Christopher Robin, how the Winnie the Pooh books came to be, and the effect they had on their lives. Spoiler: on the one hand the books are the most successful children's books of all time. On the other hand, they destroyed the life of Christopher Robin and his relationship with his parents. The movie actually gives us a slightly happier ending than the real life events.

Milne's wife is shown to be a bit of a shrew, with just enough redeeming moments to make her two-dimensional, but not really likable. Alan Milne is more sympathetic, although he blatantly and blindly uses his son poorly without much thought. It's all pretty tragic.

It's a decent movie for what it aims to be, somewhere on the same level as Becoming Jane or Miss Potter. It is well acted and lovingly directed and filmed. It tells its story well enough. But it's not a very important story or movie, for all that, and only the falsified, slightly happier ending gives the viewer any kind of comfort.

Westworld (season one): I saw a few episodes of Humans and couldn't get into it. I was a little concerned about the level of violence I heard about in this series (I won't watch Game of Thrones). Somehow, the fact that the violence happens to robots makes it easier to take, although the question remains exactly whether the robots are or are not conscious, so you have to decide that for yourself if the violence is watchable or not.

I am a huge fan of Evan Rachel Wood; she and everyone else do fine jobs. Unlike Humans, the stories are quite captivating, with a number of whodunits and what's going to happen nexts that got me hooked. The stories take place in the facility that creates and maintains the robots, as well as in the play world of Westworld, and they include scenes that occur as flashbacks from the robots' perspective, despite the fact that the robots are not supposed to have memories.

There is nudity, but respectfully done and never gratuitous. The sex scenes are all pretty unsexy.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season one): The next series from Amy Sherman Palladino (Gilmore Girls, Bunheads), this one succeeds better than Bunheads did. Bunheads had a few great scenes, but it was too unrestrained in ridiculous plot and ridiculous dialog, which made it hard to relate to. This series only has one Bunheads-style conversation that set my teeth on edge in episode two. Thankfully that was the only one.

Midge is a perfect 1950s Jewish housewife who is supported by her husband and who in turn supports his occasional forays into standup comedy. He's not good at it, and one day he decides that she is not supportive enough of him and he leaves her. She then discovers, albeit reluctantly, that SHE is good at comedy. Cue a lot of denial, drinking binges, and attempts to make a go at standup comedy, all the while continuing to navigate her 1950s Jewish family, neighbors, friends, children, and still husband, all of whom remain blissfully unaware of her secret life as a comedienne.

It's not as good as Gilmore Girls, which had the great triple relationships between the three women, as well as their suitors, husbands, and the funky Connecticut town Stars Hollow as color. The supporting characters here are not as fun, there is no funky community background. But we have a few great scenes with a young Lenny Bruce. The best scenes are the ones where she does her Lenny Bruce style-standup, something which could not really have happened in the time period of the show, and so represents a kind of wish fulfillment on the part of Amy and for the viewers.

Amy's dialog is distinctive, and it's fun to hear. I just wish the show also had a teenage daughter.