What I'm Playing Now: The Majesty of Colors

There are just a lot of great flash games out there right now. Some of them are rather artsy, like Passage, and the game I found tonight, I fell in Love with the Majesty of Colors. You can play it in a couple of minutes, or spend more finding all the different story lines.

What I'm Playing Now: Guardian Rock

In Guardian Rock, you protect an ancient shrine from pesky archaeologists by crushing them to death.

http://armorgames.com/play/4802/guardian-rock

Tetris Humor

Line piece!

What I'm Playing Now: Spelunky

Boingboing's offworld kept posting about Spelunky, a 2D low-res platform/exploration dungeon crawler, and I just didn't care - it didn't look fun.

But it's free, so I finally gave it a shot, and got hooked. It is surprisingly engaging. Here's why:

Every level is dynamically generated every time, so every game is completely new.

You are given a set of basic actions that can apply to many objects (whip, pick up, throw, drop), an array of interesting tools (rope, bomb at start; cape, teleport are more advanced) as well as some interesting acrobatics that can be augmented by items.

Some hilarious situations can result from experimenting with actions and objects.

Try it out - download for free.

If video games were realistic

I especially liked these Pacman and Zelda graphics from If Video Games Were Realistic. Most of the 27 entries are good, though - click through for yourself.

Pre-launch product hype is a mistake

I don't understand why marketers try to create product hype before launch dates. By advertising, posting reviews, and posting youtube videos of products before their release date, they just ensure I never buy.

Why? I have a life, and that life does not involve managing consumer product release dates.

I have responsibilities at work, and I manage them with Outlook, attask.com,and subversion. I have responsibilities at home that I manage with Excel, google docs, IMs, and a whiteboard on my fridge. I'm busy. I don't want another tool to manage future books, movies, music, and games.

...so when I hear an author on NPR discuss his new book, I check amazon.com to buy it. If it's not released yet, then we're done: he missed a sale. This happens a lot. Why don't they release products before they try to talk us into buying them? Do Sears salesman spend 20 minutes talking you into buying an appliance, then refuse to sell it to you? No, because that would be stupid.

I just saw a vid of gyromancer and it looks great*. I have my wallet out. ...but I can't buy it, because it's set to release "Q4 2009". They should have held the video until then. It's old news by the time it hits the shelves, which means fewer sales.

*all I ask is that they release it in English on PC.

What I'm Playing Now: Osmos

Jon Blow of Braid fame recently recommended Osmos. Osmos is only $10 with no DRM. Those three factors make it the kind of game you can just buy outright without checking the demo, which I did.

It's fun, innovative, and challenging. PC gaming is hot right now, and it's all a credit to indie games. Almost all my favorite games of the last two years have been indie games, with the exceptions being L4D & TF2. Even Portal was made by a small team of recent college grads, even though Valve hired them and published it. Puzzle Quest, Braid, PvZ, World of Goo, and Cogs round out my recent top picks.

L4D: What a wonderful Z-Day

This is a pretty great L4D trailer. I wonder when the new campaign, crash course, is going to hit.

The last 15 seconds of this video (the finale of Dead Air) is great with the soundtrack.

What I'm Playing Now: Cogs

I picked up Cogs this week on a recommendation from Braid author Jon Blow, and it's more puzzle mayhem (which I wasn't ready for after Puzzle Quest, World of Goo, and Braid - I actually wanted a break from puzzling).

It's only $10, and it's pretty fun. I'm fond of steam achievements, but there aren't very many of them to earn for those of us that aren't completely OCD:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993331175/stats/Cogs

I wonder if part of the fun of cogs is the persistent steampunk theme so often posted on my favorite blog, boingboing: http://www.boingboing.net/steampunk/

Zelda in 3D

This guy is porting the original "The Legend of Zelda" to a 3d engine for windows. For those of us raised by NES, this is pretty cool. Unfortunately, all I get is this screenshot (an accurate rendering of the 1st labrynth) and a binary that crashes each time I run it. :(

Link:

http://www.offworld.com/2009/07/one-shot-the-legend-of-zelda-i.html

Bioshock 2 Concept Art

I really like this bioshock 2 concept art, even though Bioshock was a terrible, terrible game.

[cilck to zoom]

What I'm Playing Now: Plants Vs. Zombies

Popcap's Plants Vs Zombies has captured 3/4 of my family. This game stays fresh with a wealth of minigames & puzzles in addition to capaign mode, plus the extra plants you can buy, and 4 different gardens you can create.

I don't even mind the DRM. You can license up to 5 new installations through their website. It's certainly better than Steam and CD-DRM. It still has the problem that I may not be able to play the game in 10 years, though - I assume that eventually Popcap will stop licensing it, and then this thing I own self-destructs. This is why no DRM is always far superior to even the most lenient DRM.

Here sunflower sings about PvZ:

Meaningful life

For those of us raised by 8-bit NES, this is wonderful.

UUDDLRLRBABAStart = Extra Life

UDUDAAABA = Meaningful life

StartDDDUDDDD = Life with brief bursts of joy that are quickly smothered by long periods of darkness.

ASoIaF movie, yes. Videogame, no.

ew. I was glad to hear that HBO will make a series out of A Song of Ice & Fire - I can't wait to see the drama unfold on screen - but to make it into a videogame? No.

Cyanide studios is going to give it a shot. I think I'll pass.

What will this be, exactly? Medieval warfare? Castle-building? spying, intrigue? All these things can be done (and have been done, many times) without the ASoIaF name on them. This doesn't make any sense.

Careers in video gaming

I think that, when I was a teenager and I assumed that jobs in creating video games were practically impossible to score, I was completely wrong about the future. I think I missed the point that, as more humans reach adulthood having been raised on videogames, the audience for games would rapidly increase which would make a bigger market for Valve, Blizzard, and the indie houses to develop more games.

I also didn't expect the increase in gaming platforms. Let me elaborate:

There became commonly 3 consoles from any competing vendor that are active: current gen (PS3), last gen but still generating active sales (PS2), handheld (PSP) - multiply that by as many vendors as can stay in the market (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo currently).

Add in the computer/OS platforms (Win32, MacOS, *nix).

Then add the new entry: miscellaneous personal digital devices. These are devices that can game even though they aren't built for it. Cell phones dominate this category, but PDAs, GPS, other devices can be treated similarly. Hell, I've seen donkey kong on a digicam.

Finally, new budgets for games have allowed an increase in quality/complexity that allow much larger teams to work on any one title. All of this spells out a ton more jobs in video gaming than earlier decades.

Now I think it would have been not only reasonable, but insightful for me to have angled for a career in making video games, even if I can't build 3D engines like John Carmack.

I got to thinking about this after reading an Offworld article predicting a near future where all people are gamers, just as all people are exposed to the other major forms of artistic media: music, movies, books.

What I'm Playing Now: Bioshock

Actually, it's what I'm Not playing. I picked up a copy of Bioshock recently at the discount price of $5 during a Steam sale. I felt obligated to buy it after listening to Tycho rave about Bioshock for years, seeing it's 96 metascore on steam, and seeing it featured in an early HAWP.

Though I really wanted to finish the game before I read through any spoilers on first-person-shouter or otherwise, I've had to give up. I just don't like this game - not even a little.

I'm still early on, too - I haven't even fought a big daddy yet. ...but I have seen the gatherer's garden, and all the things you can 'buy' with ADAM. It's all junk. This game hinges on the player's concern with making huge moral decisions in the drive to acquire more ADAM - and I couldn't care less about ADAM. That's a problem.

I did like the art & music, though, and wondered what Rapture looked like before it was destroyed. That may be what we get with Bioshock 2, according to this offworld post.

What I'm Playing Now: Braid

I picked up Braid for the PC on greenhouse after a long wait (Xbox release was months ago). The art is wonderful, the sound is great, and the time-manipulating game mechanic is brilliant.

While souljaboy's review is all wrong, it's pretty funny:
davidhellman.net/blog/souljaboy-on-braid/

...and the artist's blog is pretty entertaining as well:
davidhellman.net/blog/the-art-of-braid-index/

L4D Survival Mode: Graphs!

They know what I like at Valve: L4D, graphs.

Today at the official L4D blog, they cover the new survival mode (released late April 09) and then address my first question graphically: how do you create the smooth linear increase in difficulty necessary to make survival mode work? Since survival mode teams are scored by the time they survive, scores will be useless if difficulty increase isn't smooth ... and making it smooth can be hard when the addition of 1 extra special infected (and certainly 1 extra tank) creates a big spike in the difficulty for the team, especially during a horde or in combination with other specials.

They explain how they did it at the blog, and they post this snazzy graph. I can't wait for it to release. I can quit playing payload maps and braid and go back to left4dead .

At the 14 minute mark, they are spanwning tanks & hordes every 15 seconds, and specials practically constantly. Wow. I think I heard the valve team never lived past nine minutes. I wonder if I can find a crew to get beyond 5. I need some L4D regulars to game with.

Francis: I hate rapping

I'm ripping this to MP3 for my playlist.  Francis of Left 4 Dead lets us know how he feels about Ayn Rand with some good beats.

Here's the MP3, ID3 tags by me: francis-i-dont-hate-vests.mp3

Everyone should play Passage

Passage is a free game available here: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/ .  It's being called an "art game", and something you can complete in under 5 minutes.

It's important to play it before reading about it - spoilers ruin the experience.  If you plan to play it, stop reading now.

When you're done, read the creator's statement here.

I also like how "Ravenlock" responded to it on the penny-arcade forums:

What impressed me about Passage was that with some definitively Atari-esque graphics and almost no gameplay, he managed to convey an emotion (and arguably a philosophical perspective) through a very straightforward nonlinear experience. ... The "future"/"memory" device is really clever, having the area around you be clear, but having the future be very hazy when you're young, and the past get hazier as you get old. Also, the very simple, but eloquently implemented, "limitations" of marriage. You have a companion who will help you, ... but your travel options become limited and eventually you have to deal with her loss. The moment when she very suddenly is replaced by a tombstone is more jarring than I expected.

For Christmas, I got Untouchables

For Christmas this year, I got my Untouchables achievment.

It was with a bunch of randoms on Blood Harvest on normal difficulty.

TF2: Gold Rush Last Stand

Oh, hell yes: this video "Gold Rush Last Stand" is a great example of what it right about Team Fortress 2.  It's a epic ten-minute stand at the end of the Gold Rush map, between two clans in a league match.   I like the good camera angles and slow-motion shots.

Gold Rush has been my favorite mode of TF2 by a longshot (over CTF, CP, and Arena).  The other game modes don't force the whole team to focus on one clear goal.  Nowhere else does an ubercharge have so much offensive power, balanced nicely by maps with huge defensive advantages.  Enjoy the battle.

Boomercharged must be flooded with traffic

I'm starting to think I should convert clockcleaners to a Left4Dead-only blog. I reviewed my google analytics charts recently, and found that no one knew my blog existed until this game hit and I commented on it. See for yourself:



That's an increase of UNDEFINED % over the last month. My calculator won't give me a percentage increase that's defined; something about dividing by zero is the problem I think. We could express it as a limit, I guess. Let's try it: The limit of my traffic increase is equal to positive infinity over the above time period, as the time period approaches the current date.

Can I even mark it up with MathML? Apparently not. I inserted it here and got total gibberish, despite having the MathML library for mozilla installed. Oh well.

Anyway, boomercharged must be flooded with traffic. They deserve it. Make sure to save that boomercharged RSS feed, L4D fans.

These Are My Friends Now is Train to Miami by Steel Pole Bathtub

I've gotten a whole lot more traffic since I've started posting about L4D, including this post, which got about 320 times more hits (320) than I expected (1) last week.

I'm pretty sure those googling for "These are My Friends Now" want to know what song it is and where to get it, though, so here's some help:

"These are my friends now" featured in the L4D TV trailer #2 is Train to Miami by Steel Pole Bathtub.

Current Music: Flobots, No Handlbars

I guess this is part two in my thousand-part series where post what music I'm listening to now.

Today it's Flobots - No Handlebars. With a great rotoscoped/animated video, good music, and inspired lyrics, this one is an obvious hit. Mix that with my recent TF2/L4D obsessions, and some clever rewriting of the lyrics at ubercharged, and I'm hooked.

Here are the gamers lyrics:

I can play my game with no voice commands

No voice commands, no voice commands

I can play my game with no voice commands

No voice commands, no voice commands

Look at me, look at me

Pushin’ the cart like it’s good to be

On BLU, and I’m a Payload champion

Even when I’m outnumbered 10 to me

I can show you how to pop an uber

I can show you how to eat a Sandvich

I can dominate an entire team

Even when I’m playin’ on my crappy bandwidth

I can stab and run without gettin’ shot

I can outmaneuver any Sniper dot

I know all the routes to the final point

And I can flank any defence you’ve got

Me and my friends, we never lose

Me and my friends got “Cook the Books”

And guess how long it took

I can dominate who I want, ’cause look

I can kill heavies with a bit of lead

A bit of lead, a bit of lead

And I can see you’re playin’ some Left 4 Dead

Some Left 4 Dead, some Left 4 Dead

Look at me, look at me

Just typed to say that it’s good to be

Alive, with hordes of zombies

Tryin’ to stop my victory

I can dodge Hunters without getting leapt on

I can stop a rush, don’t matter how large

I can jump on that wall fan

And I contribute to Boomercharged

I can take out 3 Tanks at once

I can make up for the team dunce

I know how to hold my own on Expert

And I can make a zombie player ragequit

Boomers, Hunters, Tanks and Witches

Me and my crew can wipe out those b*tches

I can outwit the AI Director

I’m one guy you can’t infest, ’cause

I can lead my teammates with a microphone

A microphone, a microphone

And I can win a match with a Molotov

A Molotov, a Molotov

Look at me, look at me

Making zombies go POP!

And it feels so good to be alive and on top

My gun is loaded, my saferoom secure

My win is noted, my victory sure

I can own zombies across the nation

Kill ‘em with bullets or immolation

Turn ‘em into a mass cremation

Whatever guarantees my team’s salvation

I can make boss zombies lose their patience

Send them to exasperation

My team fulfil my machination

To achieve complete pacification, ’cause

I can guide players like a flock of sheep

A flock of sheep, a flock of sheep

And I can leave one dying without a care

Without a care, without a care

And I can board the copter and leave them behind

And leave them behind, and leave them behind

And leave them behind, and leave them behind

And leave them behind!

I can play my game with no voice commands

No voice commands, no voice commands

I can play my game with no voice commands

No voice commands, no voice commands…

L4D Achievments

So they give out a few achievements for the most basic game maneuvers in l4d, which is cool, and then they have super-advanced ones, too.

I'm *all over* brain salad:

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993331175/stats/L4D

"BRAIN SALAD: Make 100 headshot kills."

They should list a quanitity on each achievment, because I think I could get 100 brain salads.

There are 2 reasons:
1. I'm scared of running out of ammo. Headshots save bullets
2. I love the M16, pistols. They are both very accurate at long range, especially plus kneeling

I wonder what "catch a rare strain of infection, then pass it to someone else" means. Can survivors get zombified later?

I'm getting used to the idea that anticipation of upcoming threats is pivotal in weapons selection. If you're facing the Horde and you can back into a single room (your back is safe), shotguns are the way to go. It gives scattered shot with stopping power at close range. Perfect.

For open spaces with sniping ability, the M16 is awesome. When you slow, stop, or kneel, the accuracy gets real tight for sniping, plus it's automatic and has a little more stopping power than the Uzi.

...but I see no use for sniper rifles in anything but single player, and single player is boring.  The weapon may as well not exist.

L4D: These are my friends now

I really like the 2nd TV spot for L4D featuring the song with chorus "these are my friends now." It captures what's key about the game: the survivors don't mingle because they're in the same military or part of an assocation, or because they signed up for some common cause, or any typical reason to unite. In the zombie apocalypse, any un-infected human with a gun is your best friend. I bet Louis detests Francis in a dozen ways, but neither of us are zombies, so hey, these are my friends now.

I have found that, just like in TF2, where people start to associate themselves with their player class (see FYI, I am a spy - though I am actually Engie). In l4d, I've found that I'm Louis. I don't know why, but now it's stuck, and I don't like connecting to servers where Louis is already taken. I rely on voice chat, but when user 1337dood is playing as Francis, I'm never sure if I should speak "dude" or "Francis" when addressing him. I think I've been switching off. When the username is "=P" or "416328", though, it's pretty clear which name to use.

I've gotten used to playing on expert mode, even though it's impressively difficult. Expert mode makes all the other modes feel like target practice. When I revisited an advanced server the other day, Bill decided to just shove zombies around instead of shooting them. After a half-dozen shoves, he yelled "melee only!" and we pushed some zombies around a bit, laughing at them.

In expert mode, though, there are no games, no jokes.  We only fight and die.

Update: See this post if you just want to know who wrote the song and get a youtube link.

What I'm Playing Now: Left4Dead

Left4Dead was released by Valve for $50 this week, or $100 in the better whole-valve-catalog deal. Unable to raise that much cash for a mere video game when I've got kids to feed, but needing to play it, I reviewed my options: hawk my electric guitar, make an early withdrawal from my 401k, or ask my wife to prostitute herself in Danville's seedy red-light district.

Luckily, a friend gifted me the game, which may have saved my marriage.

Before L4D was released, I joked that it was going to be just a stupid FPS with zombies. Not so. This game forces teamwork on people in ways that even Team Fortress couldn't manage. Working in this foursome against the clever AI director is really a blast. You can't afford to have a jerk on your team, but it's even worse for him; get caught alone in this game and you're dead, period. You simply cannot fight the hunters & smokers without teammates, so you have to coordinate, and that's what makes this 20 times better than any FPS on the market since quake.

Amazingly well-done robot flash game

This robot-programming flash game is just really fun. I got to level nine before I had to leave for an appointment. How far can you get?

http://www.gameroo.nl/games/light-bot

What I'm Playing Now: Puzzle Quest

OK, I'm actually done playing Puzzle Quest, one of the better recommendations that Penny-Arcade has made, but I forgot to post about it before; probably because I was too engrossed in the game.

Apparently I was not too engrossed to screw around with the game, though, something I've been doing since I downloaded ResEdit on my mac and learned what a Hex Editor is. The beautiful thing about Puzzle Quest is that all of the art, sound, storyline, spells, items, maps, mounts ... almost everything is stored in open format, user-readable and user-editable files that are loaded at runtime by the game executable. That turns Puzzle Quest into a veritable Z Machine of puzzle-questing.

Anyone could write a completely new game without compiling a line of code - just invent a new story, design your new stuff, and save it in text & JPEG form.

I didn't do that, though. I just screwed around by inserting a pic of me (just home from work, still in my CPC insignia polo) in the game in place of the hero. This makes my kids giggle like mad every time the in-game me starts talking with knights and elves. Some screenshots [click for detail].

Official Braid Walkthrough

I saw an odd link recently: to the "Official" Braid walkthough, hosted by the game developer. I was confused. Game developers don't ever write and post walkthroughs to their own games.

I clicked through to read some of the walkthrough and find out if it was the real deal. The surprise at the end was, well, I won't spoil it for those of you that click through to see for yourself.

I keep watching the news to see when this game is going to be released for PC since I don't own any consoles (that can't be emulated, at least). Even if I did buy a modern console, the Microsoft product is completely out-of-the-question - and that's currently the only place that anyone can play Braid.

So my portal stats need some work

I really like steam's Achievements feature, which augments standard game storylines with additional optional goals, which are published to other steam users, and, apparently, the entire public internet.

Now that I know the whole world is watching, I think my portal stats need some work. You can click through the pic to see how I'm doing. ...oh, and if you don't know, Portal is an excellent game with a whole new game mechanic, well-developed storyline, good humor, a brilliant ending, and is worth your $20.

Todo: Books, games, gadgets

I just realized today that I can actually buy a copy of Spore now. I've got to get that in my list of games to play.

Then I learned Cory Doctorow likes The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin. I've liked GRRM's series A Song of Ice & Fire a lot, but I'm not sure about a book whose genre is fantasy/horror/alt history. I guess I have another for my to-read list.

John Hodgeman has gone and released a new book, too, as though I'm just swimming in money and time to buy & read new books. I suppose I have little choice.

Finally, I may have found the answer to my iPhone/Sprint problem. Specifically, that the iPhone I crave will never run on the carrier my company provides. The Sprint Instinct tries to emulate the iPhone. I wonder if it's worth the investment? When it comes to UI, I'm very picky. If they have the iPhone features but not the polish, I could go insane trying to use it.

What I'm Playing Now: Final Fantasy 1

Well, not really. I remember loving FF1 when I was about 11 years old. It was fun to revisit recently using an NES emulator (FCEU). The fun with emulators, though, is being able to use savestates and cheats to alter the game experience. I couldn't find a listing on the web of Hex locations of major data locations, though, so I'm posting my own small list here. Perhaps the next person to google for "final fantasy 1 fceu hex addresses cheats gold experience potions" will get this handy list.

Note you'll need a hex editor to get this done, I use WinHex. Also note that many values are stored in 2 bytes, with the second byte as most significant. (so to write "4000" to an address, which is 0x0FA0, you write A0 to first byte and 0F to second byte.)

0x1313-1314 Gil

0x13FE-13FF Experience, Party member 1
0x143E-143F Experience, Party member 2
0x147E-147F Experience, Party member 3
0x14BE-14BF Experience, Party member 4

0x132D Tents
0x132E Cabins
0x132F Houses
0x1330 Heal potions
0x1331 Pure potions

What I'm Playing Now: Team Fortress 2

I've owned the Orange Box for some time, and loved Portal as well as Team Fortress 2 (you can keep HL2, thankyouverymuch). I've been reintroduced to TF2 by A Heavy Update, which has included some achievements and unlockables for heavy and some new maps. Those are fun, but what's really great is that I had apparently missed the previous Gold Rush update that included a new game type called Payload. It's a total blast either running with the payload cart, engineering turret locations to defend it, or clearing out those turrets with an Ubercharged heavy-weapons-guy.

TF2 on payload is up there with Quake1 and Starcraft as best multiplayer games available. It's only $20 on Steam, too.

Keep up to date at the TF2 blog.