OMGWTFGAMES!!1! » random

My “GET LAMP” DVD arrived !

perry — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:05:55 +0000

I don’t get nearly enough time to play with interactive fiction (aka “text adventures”), but the genre and it’s history really appeals to me .. hence the reason I bought Jason Scott’s new doco – GET LAMP.

Jason (of http://textfiles.com fame) has put some real effort into getting some classic cover art on the DVD, and included a little “feelie” – a fairly weighty numbered coin (as was a common marketing tactic back in the days when Infocom sold boxed versions of it’s games). Here’s a few pics:

I haven’t watched all the content on the DVD yet, but many of the interviews contain little gems of experience on game design issues that early interactive fiction authors encountered, most of which also applies to graphical games as much as text-only games.

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5000th pic submitted to GrandMasterPixel !

perry — Sun, 23 May 2010 00:54:10 +0000

Yup, another milestone. It has been just over two months since GrandMasterPixel went into beta testing on the Android Market. This week, the 5000th picture was entered into the Arena to battle it out.

Congratulations to “lava floe” by meant2live218 — lucky number 5000 !

No prizes, apart from the glory of being randomly featured here

This is obviously a topical pic, inspired by Eyjafjallajökull’s recent activity. But did any one else notice ? Volcano-related pics seemed to start mysteriously appearing in GrandMasterPixel long before the world media was banging on about Eyjafjallajökull erupting. Spooky – it’s almost like GrandMasterPixel players can predict the future. Only time will tell

Link grab bag – Serious games and serious research about unserious games

perry — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:44:20 +0000

Two links I found interesting:

Playing Counter Strike and Call of Duty 4 can improve visual perception of contrast

ABC Australia is funding the production of Serious Games

And a random extra; there have been a number of hyped-up articles about small-time developers making it big with iPhone games recently. A few of the Ludum Dare regulars have been among them. Here’s another one of those stories, closer to home – local Melbourne developer Firemint has apparently had some success with Flight Control. Good for them ! I have no real numbers, but I’d say for every successful iPhone game, there are one hundred or more that never make enough money to break even (assuming the developers makes games for paid work, with real costs, taking wages etc). It’s no doubt a tough market to crack – glad to see some Aussies getting a piece of the action.

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Write an Aussie Chumby widget, win cool stuff

perry — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 02:01:27 +0000

Internode is running a Chumby competition for developers: create an Australian localised Chumby widget. The creator of the highest rated widget wins a chumby, a copy of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional and an $800 credit towards Internode services …. and lots of glory. I probably won’t have time to participate, but any keen Aussie Flash developers should really give it a shot. I reckon some sort of backyard cricket game would go down well.

photo credit: yoppy

Entries close January 9th, 2009, so get crackin’ .

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Spore reviewed by scientists: EA is spouting pseudo-scientific bullshit

perry — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 04:17:13 +0000

I’ve played about 5 mins of Spore in a games store, so I’m in no position to review it. Draconian DRM issues aside, I wasn’t all that impressed with my brief time in the Cell stage, although I was distracted by the gross-out slimy controllers, caked in grease from the fingers of countless snot nosed kids that tried it before me. So while I can’t really judge based on my limited play I think I’ll let the review in the highly respected Science Magazine judge for me:

“Spore is essentially a very impressive, entertaining, and elaborate Mr. Potato Head that uses the language of evolution but none of the major principles,” conclude Gregory and Eldredge.

It sounds like some kind of Mii creator tied together with minigames. Apparently it rates high on ‘cute’, but very low on ‘fun’ or ‘science’. The conclusion is that EA is wrapping this game in marketing language that speaks of ‘evolution’, trying to push the educational aspects, but in reality there isn’t a scrap of evolution in the game. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe games require any educational value whatsoever .. pure fun is fine with me. But claiming your game has a basis in solid science when it is clearly based on cute graphics alone does players (and educators) a disservice.

“the breakthrough science that’s revealing the secret genetic machinery that shapes all life in the game Spore.” — Will Wright

Yeh, right .. thanks for that Will. As far as it’s use in science education … I can only see Spore being suitable for the education system in Kansas.

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Note to self: Ludum Dare voting finishes this weekend

perry — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:07:05 +0000

So, I’ve pretty much played all the games, and taken a long list of notes to guide my voting. Some amazing 48 hour entries this time around. Gotta get those votes in (3 days to go) !!

To make the whole process easier, I used Keeyai’s handy torrent of the games, which included a copy of his Compo Game Loader and gameinfo.xml files (most painfully constructed by Keeyai … thanks for saving me the time !!).

I like to play all the games before I vote on any … let’s face it, voting like this is often ‘all relative’, and is more like a ranking process. Scoring on individual elements of the entry (graphics, sound, innovation, fun, food photos, timeline etc) just helps place an entry in the overall ranking (reminds me of marking student assignments far too much … ). Bah … who really cares about the rankings anyhow … it’s about having fun, improving skills. Still, if I was a “professional” game developer and I won a highest ranking category in Ludum Dare … it would still be going on my CV

Still, it’s not over yet. I still have a few Linux games to play, and I’ve still need to physically enter my comments at the Ludum Dare site, watch timelapses and drool over some food photos before casting my final votes for each entry.

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Highlight games at the Game On exhibition

perry — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:39:59 +0000

The Game On exhibition has been on at ACMI in Melbourne (Fed Square) for about 4 months now. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to exhibit our Atari 2600 collection as part of a collectors event … unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of it in a glass museum case. It was fun spending an afternoon chatting to other collectors (several that collected Japanese games and paraphenalia, one guy who collected old boxed Sierra PC adventure games, and a jacket with just about every Activision patch ever released etc). We played on my Sheen Pong console with kids and parents that came by to chat about our collection, which was a blast. The organisers at ACMI were kind enough to give us free passes to the exhibition (where you can play 120+ games) and a copy of Atari Classics Evolved signed by Al Alcorn (creator of the original Pong arcade machine) !

So, the other day we got a chance to use our free passes to the Game On game exhibition. I would have been happy to pay entry … we played games for 5 hours across basically every platform that mattered in the history of video games !

Highlight games I’d never played, but liked:

Loco Roco (PSP) … innovative type of platformer (“plopformer?”) with a cute and clean graphical style. Great fun, and may actually sway me to buy a PSP if I find one or two more decent games on that platform.
Super Smash Bros (GameCube) … I might buy the Wii version, for a bit of mindless multiplayer fun.
Eyetoy on the PS2 … probably wouldn’t hold my attention in the long term, but it was good (exhausting) fun playing the simplified Eye Toy versions of Virtua Fighter and House of the Dead.
Tempest 2000 (Atari Jaguar) by Llamasoft. Sort of like an updated Beamrider, with psychadelic visuals. Similar to Kenta Cho’s Torus Trooper. Zappo !
Junkbot (PC). It’s a Lego francise puzzle game. Simple, smart and effective.
Warning Forever. I’m usually not a fan of boss battles, and this game is actually one big boss battle, but it works somehow.
The famous Katamari Damacy (PS2, Japanese version). Would have liked more time playing it, but I can see what all the fuss was about, it is innovative.
Rez (on PS2) … psychdelic, and quite trippy once you get into it.
The Discs of Tron. Tricky control scheme (left hand knob, right hand two button joystick), but fun.
Garou: Mark_of_the_Wolves (SNK arcade version).. yet another fight game, but certainly very playable. Some “Street Fighter II compatible” special moves makes it easy to pick up. … eg |\- punch … Wouldn’t be any good on a console (like Wii Virtual Console, which has quite a few SNK fight games available now), unless you have two arcade style fighting sticks (both SNK and Hori have released Wii fight sticks).

Some games I had played various versions of, but stood out for being great implementations:

The original Asteriods arcade machine. The bullets are bright.
Beserk. I’d played the Atari 2600 version, but the arcade version rocks ! It’s much faster and has excellent robot voice samples.
Star Wars, the arcade vector graphics version where you attack the Death Star in an X-Wing. The graphics, sound and yoke control all add up to a great experience.

What sucked:

Halo 3 on the Xbox 360, multiplayer deathmatch (for some reason not actually named deathmatch in the game). There should be a standard extra peripheral for first person shooters on consoles … they are next to unplayable with two analogue thumbsticks. Even if you get the hang of it, they just don’t compare to a mouse+keyboard combination.
Broken controllers … there are a lot of machines here to keep running, especially since many are home consoles that are getting several lifetimes of play a month. I guess at any one time, it’s expected that something will be broken.
Greasy controllers touched by hundreds of nose-picking kids. Keep your hands away from your mouth, and wash them afterwards. Twice, with soap.

Considering entry to the Game On exhibition only costs about the same as seeing a movie at the cinema, I might even go back for another session before it closes in about 2 weeks.

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8-bit : the film

perry — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:09:10 +0000

I went to the Australian Premier (and I expect only screening) of the film 8-bit last night at ACMI last night. It’s essentially a film about the intersection of 8-bit 80 culture video games and art, with a distinct focus in chiptune performers in New York city and various parts of Europe.

I was great … a wicked chiptune soundtrack, lots of video of guys playing Gameboys as synthesizers live, nostalgic “Cracked by … ” title screens from the old BBS cracking days, and some smart (and some wanky) digital art. I stayed around for the Q & A with the Director (who incidently doesn’t own any videogame consoles, or a TV). Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the thumping 8-bit sample infused intro music performed live by DJ Trip (that wasn’t part of the actual film, just a special live set for the ACMI screening).

Well worth a look if you get the chance … the film doesn’t have distribution yet, so I’m not sure where you can actually see it (it took ~ 2 years to make it to Australia, but still seems to be touring various video game and film festivals). Maybe check the screenings page at the official 8-bit site. There was also some pre-screening coverage at Kotaku which has some more info about the film.

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