Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Via Boing Boing, the results of spidering Microsoft's public websites for Word documents retaining their deleted changes due to Word's own change-tracking system, along with some amusing analysis.
Wizards of the Coast proudly presents Typos of Doom Illustrated. Sure, it's an April Fool (a followup to the classic pie fiend), but it's entirely possible that it's rooted in truth.
Via Metafilter, lists of April Fool's pranks around the web. I'm glad to see that Bungie's Pimps at Sea gag has continued into its third year.
Gizmodo is pretty funny, but it took this post to make me laugh out loud:
"Boeing has developed a special system that protects airplane avionics from interference from passengers' WiFI devices using a special 'money shield.' By offering airline passengers its unlimited internet access 'Connexion' at rates between $9.95 and $29.95, Boeing is able to generate a 'Profit/Safety Phase Array,' suspending the effects of any previously claimed dangers from in-flight WiFI use by harnessing proven economic principle. The service is scheduled to start on Lufthansa flights at the end of April."
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Yeah, I know, it's likely as lame as the rest of them. But
It must be seen to be believed: A blast from the adventure games of my past: Mysteries of Time and Space.
UPDATE: Puzzle on Level 12, you are the bane of my existence.
Thirteen Ways to Raise a Non-Reader (via Electrolite). Thankfully, my parents broke every one of those rules.
"Time to fill bike with fuel and open throttle, we are on best road in this area, this one lead from big egg to Chernobyl. There is no commercial gas stations in a dead zone, so tank must be full. We don't need to run out of fuel on the middle of some nuclear desert.Theo was on the ball while I was out of town: he also passes along this motorcycle tour through the Chernobyl area. Great pictures and fantastic stories, from the big egg to the people who make their living in Ghosttown.
My old comrade-in-arms Kris has had a piece published! Just in time for Easter, it's "Jesus Dumped Me". Keep your eye on Ditchweed--they're putting up some funny pieces, and now they've got Kris on board. Read the omens as you will.
In a similar vein of shamelessly promoting the work of my friends, a story over on ESPN.com on one of the projects Jon and his compatriots have been working on out at WizKids--MLBClix. Now that it's out, we can start looking forward to Pirates of the Spanish Main, which looks like it will be a blast.
Steve Fine is looking at two pictures every second. He's been keeping up that pace, with frequent short interruptions, for over four hours, and he'll keep it up for three more. Four-megapixel JPEGs of football players, coaches, fans, entertainers, and certain assets belonging to Miss Janet Jackson go flashing across his computer screen in a dizzying sequence. "Think we edit fast?" Fine asks, as more images flash by. "I'd be going faster if this shitty computer wasn't so slow." That shitty computer is a dual-Xeon 2.4GHz machine with 1.5GB of RAM.
A terrific piece on Sports Illustrated's digital workflow, passed along by Theo.
UPDATE: Also via Theo, play a racing game in Times Square. I just played at 3:15 AM EST, so if you happened to be walking through Times Square and saw someone driving like a jerk up on the Jumbotron...that was me.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Also on the floor of the Game Developer's Conference was the Independent Games Festival featuring the work of some great small development teams. A couple of the games I'd seen before and mentioned on OD, like Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. But Bontăgo was new to me. It's a physics-driven real-time territory acquisition game, and it's a lot of fun. Download it and give it a spin.Next on my IGF to-check-out list: Dungeon Scroll.
UPDATE: Large Animal Games submitted AlphaQUEUE to the IGF this year. Digging around on their website, I quickly discovered and was quickly sucked in by Unipong. Enormous, tricky fun.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
I created four of the devices in the Warcraft RPG Might & Magic preview posted over on WarcraftRPG.com. Points available if you can guess which ones I created. Sadly, the points are not redeemable for cash or prizes.
(But the points come with a free frogurt!)
Friday, March 26, 2004
Still at the Game Developers Conference. The highlight of today's panels was Will Wright proposing a Battlefield 1942 mod which would add a new civillian class to the game and give them points for finding their lost loved ones and escaping without being killed by the hordes of rampaging soldiers playing the typical round of BF around them.
No, wait--the highlight was actually later in the day when I went with Karla and Rope Kid (people who read this blog and know who he is: three, maybe?) to a presentation by Tim Schaeffer on character building where we not only got to see a lot of great preproduction materials for his upcoming game Psychonauts, but also a trailer for the game. He's definitely someone I'll want to contact when and if I ever manage to get the Game Studies Archive of production materials project off the ground.
I've challenged myself to design a game for each day of the conference while I'm here. Day One I designed a tile game that works reasonably well. Day Two I designed a chess variant that I'll type up and post here when I return. Tomorrow, I think I'll do something with a poker deck. Updates anon.
old pictures
