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:

Read more

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.

Read more

Next Page »