Polymath

Submachines

I have just discovered two new games in Mateusz Skutnik's Submachine series, Submachine 2: The Lighthouse and Submachine 3: The Loop.

(Here's a link to the original Submachine)

While the atmosphere of a Skutnik's "escape" game is often gloomy, the gameplay itself is friendly -- there are no dead ends which require you to restart. They do require some cultural knowledge, however, such as English color names.

Choose Your Own Adventure -- Now on DVD

View the trailer for The Abominable Snowman here. It claims there are 11 storylines, which maybe means there are 11 decision points, I don't know.

Did I mention it features the vocal talents of William H. Macy?

I escaped from the room!

A high-production, interface heavy, and ultimately uninspired "locked room" puzzle can be found on the Firewall promotional site.

Spoiler:

Hotel Oscar Tango Echo Lima

I just came across HOTEL - an interactive tale by Han Hoogerbrugge. Mad doctors, naked clowns, freak accidents, everything you could want in an interactive tale. Nine out of ten episodes are currently available, the series started some time in 2004.

Bronze Monkey Floor Lamp

This phrase appears on a number of junk pages I didn't want when doing a search at Yahoo. So I'm blogging it.

White Chamber

Another puzzle from Takagism and FASCO-CS: The White Chamber. [Link is to the FASCO-CS front page.] Click (and sometimes drag) to escape from the White Chamber.

Eyezmaze Grow RPG

For those who were intrigued by a little game called Grow, there is now Grow RPG. The mechanics are still the same, despite the "RPG" in the name, and the game overall is much easier (only 8 items instead of 12), but there is a stronger relationship between the elements than in the original.

Handicapping the Lit Blogs

Something happened a week or two ago... I think I posted a comment over at C. Max Magee's The Millions, and then he posted a link to my 20th Century Novel Handicapper, and that got picked up by Bookslut. Anyway, tens and hundreds of people have since visited my site. Hello!

It is only fair that I link back to the folks who have enjoyed my handicapping tool:

- Backwards City: The semi-official blog of Backwards City Review. Avoid this site if you dislike headlines in smallcaps.
- Confessions of a Bibliovore by Maureen. Maureen doesn't seem too keen on the great works of the 20th century. Maureen also seems surprised that some movies were actually books before they were movies. But then, Maureen also appears to be into fanfiction. How cute!
- Hey Trey: Another Writer's Journal. Trey had trouble with Gravity's Rainbow.
- Horizon: A collaborative general-interest blog of history, literature, culture, and stuff. They were also interested in my choice to include Gravity's Rainbow in the dataset. FYI, I've read it twice.
- sprite writes: broodings from the burrow. Not sure what is going on there.
- the wanker's swansong: THE DAILY (HEH) RAMBLINGS OF A DIGITAL MISANTHROPE. A self-proclaimed misanthrope? Sounds fishy.

Darwinia Yay!

What with all the noise about a new Wright game that plays itself, some stupid photorealistic racing game, and the totally bland PC game selection on the shelves, I almost missed Darwinia by Introversion Software.

I like these guys, their previous game was Uplink, an interesting and original game about computer hacking. Darwinia has the same kind of geeky sensibility, set in a simulated work where viruses have enslaved the AI creatures who live there.

In the UK you can find Darwinia in stores, but in the US you can as yet only get it through mail order. I've just placed my order. You should go buy it, too -- these guys are only going to survive with grassroots support. If you're not sure, there's a nice demo to whet your appetite.

Vectorpark / levers

I came across the levers game at vectorpark this afternoon. There are no credits on the page, but the internet suggests that it was created by Patrick Smith, and it has been around since at least May of 2001.

Spoilers below, so go play with it for a bit before you continue reading.

One Idea about Narrative

There was an interesting editorial by Norman Mailer in the newspaper last week: PARADE Magazine | One Idea (Norman Mailer)--January 23, 2005. While he spends a little too much time praising the current educational reform effort, his "one idea" is the need to eliminate commercial interruptions on television, because they interrupt the narrative of the programs, and attention to narrative is an important part of reading literacy.

"In the early years of television, it was even hoped that the attention children gave to TV would improve their interest in reading. Indeed, it might have if TV, left to itself, consisted of uninterrupted narratives. That, of course, was soon not the case. There were constant interruptions to programs—the commercials." [emphasis mine]

I think this is an interesting argument with respect to interactive narrative and computer games as well. Computer games remain relatively free of commercial interruptions, so if there is something nice to be said about the narrative expressiveness of the form, it follows that computer games should encourage the type of concentration which will lead to improved literacy. Unfortunately I don't think there is much to be said for game narrative, and I also think that the economic disparity between those families who can afford computer game systems and those who cannot gives all the benefits to the former. Note that the so-called premium channels, where one can watch uninterrupted movies, require monthly subscription fees on the order of $600-1200 a year.

NaNo '04

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Visit nanowrimo.org for all the details, support forums, &c.

The idea is to get people around the world to write a novel in one month. You know how you always say you are going to write that novel some day? How hard could it be? You could write it in the morning, before you go to work....

For the purposes of NaNoWriMo, a novel is 50,000 words. That means you need to write 1667 words a day for the thirty days of November. Most people emphasize quantity over quality -- you can edit it later.

I "won" in 2003 with a 50k word detective novel. I've started making outlines for this years effort. I will perhaps update the blog as I make progress.

Ban Comic Sans

I recently installed a Windows operating system on a new machine, and one of my first tasks, along with disabling VBScript and removing all those wretched screen savers, was to delete the Comic Sans font.

I guess I'm not alone: Ban Comic Sans website

I'm not just against Comic Sans because it is an ugly font; I am against its painful and inadequate usurpation of comicbook style lettering. Look at that weak 'a', and that meagre 'g'... wait a minute, who the hell uses lowercase comicbook lettering in the first place?

Proof that Videogames are Evil

17 year old boy kills 14 year old friend with a claw hammer after playing Manhunt. [The Sun] (link expired) [BBC News]

This story doesn't seem to be making much news at all. (My unscientific research: a Google News search for "Rockstar Manhunt murder" brings up 5 results.)

Not something I recommend

If you are happy with life, if you feel like the US is doing a bang-up job in Iraq, if you wish to remain content and unaware of what war is really all about, then I don't recommend you spend an hour or two browsing through this extensive collection of photos from Iraq at CBS News.

ALT-CTRL deadline

I should probably mention, in relation to my upcoming political game, that today is the deadline for ALT+CTRL submissions. This is an event to be held at the Beall Center for Art and Technology at the University of California Irvine.

It looks like an all-star jury. Given my batting record for the year I'm not setting my hopes too high, especially since my game is pretty much an alpha version.

Illegal Art

Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age.

Nintendo Cartoon Hour

"Oh, God, what a beautiful day!"

A fun little animation based on old computer game graphics, from the creative minds at The Lonely Island:

Quicktime: nintendo.mov
Real: nintendo.rm
MPEG: nintendo.mpg