DOS Games Archive

From the site:

It's amazing how far computer games have progressed. But have you ever felt the urge to take a trip back in time and relive the games of the eighties and nineties? Well now you can!

We have 214 DOS games in our archive that can be downloaded for free. The games are shareware, freeware, playable demos and full versions that are released as freeware or into the public domain.

Welcome from SlayerOffice!

Welcome! I noticed that I was mentioned by the fine folk(s) over at SlayerOffice, and I would like to say hello, and offer the link above as the one you are probably interested in seeing. It combines Laszlo with a bookmarklet for some interesting results.

Look for more veddy interesting things to start showing up on this site as well.

Create your own PC Demos

Imagine if you could create amazing quality PC Demos - you know, all eye candy and stuff. But also imagine that you didnt need to know much about programming, and that the actual design was more like pushing post-it's around? That is what you'll find with this amazing new app called werkkzeug. This reminds me quite a bit of Processing - only specifically designed for PC demos.

Late Nite Psi-Ops

I was up last night. I had put the kids to bed, and the lovely wife was asleep as well. I had stopped by Hollywood Video earlier in the evening and bought a copy of Psi-Ops. I had played the demo, and it was so fun I had to get a copy of the full game. I wasn't dissapointed. You get to play as a sneaky military type with psionic powers, but it's really all about picking up hapless soldiers and tossing them through the air like ragdolls. Luke and Obi Wan would have nothing on this fellow. It's not all shooting and hiding, though that's tons of fun - you also have to think about the puzzles put before you - and that's another thing about this game. It's challenging without being too frustrating. Granted, I'm playing on "easy" mode right now. I havent had this much fun since Timesplitters - in that first level where you sneak around a frozen military camp. Ah well. Check it out.

Antifactory - game design blog

Well, I'm hard at work helping to make the new 1up.com a great place to be. I hope folks like it. Meanwhile, in the outside world, folks are taking about gaming as well. Here's a blog of a person who's talking about various game design topics. Kinda interesting.

Blah blah blah, you know you never really read this stuff. Just go on, click on the link and go your merry way. I'll be ok. Just sitting here. Waiting for another http request...

Army of Trolls - Pixel artists extraordinaire

This site is simply amazing. If you like retro-style pixel art - like that from early 80's games - you'll really dig this site.

The 7th Annual Independent Games Festival

I went to the IGF this past year, and - while I was only able to visit the exhibits - I found it to be a fun time. If you want to see the heart and soul of gaming, and see the beginnings of a whole new genre of games - check out this coming year's meeting. If anything, you might get to play a sweet new game before the rest of the world.

Laszlo Clock

A few days ago I got a wild hair to start creating simple little useful laszlo widgets. Here's one of them in action:



It's a simple clock application which demos how to create a laszlo widget with a timer. Laszlo hosting couresy of My Laszlo.

Here's a link to the source

Dofus - the first Flash-based MMORPG

This is something I've been wanting to do myself, although in a much scaled down version. This is a French site featuring a new MMORPG called DOFUS (um, dumb name) but the graphics and the gameplay look great. So far all I've seen are the trailers, but it looks really good. Check it out.

New Bookmarklet concept: Bloxlets

Hello there. This is something I've been thinking about trying out for a while now. Imagine combining the power of bookmarklets like you see at Slayer Office, the coolio widgets from My Laszlo, of which this particular one uses yet another service to search Google from XOOMLE.

Shake it all together and add Chemical X and you get this:

GoogleBloxLet

Drag and drop this into your FireFox toolbar, or "Add to Favorites" or whatever thing IE does to let you save a bookmarklet.

That one let's you search the web via google through laszlo using xoomle.

Here's another one - which is a version of my nascent TinyWorld Game:

TinyWorldLet


I hope you enjoy this.

Why you should Dump Internet Explorer...

Lockergnome talks about why it's time to get some sense and start using Firefox over IE.

Shared Space

My mac is not currently hooked up to the net, but if it was, I'd be using this app just about every day. If anything, contact the site and ask them to restart up the windows version.

From the site:

A tool for visual thinking, group working and content management. It allows users to create visual maps of information using web-like structures.

Documents from any application can be imported into a space, and the software's built in version control allows users to keep track of earlier versions of documents easily.

Relationships between elements can be described using links. Unlike hypertext links, such as those found on web pages, links are presented in a visual fashion, allowing users to see both linked elements concurrently, and traverse the space in both directions.

Spaces and views can be shared over the Internet or a local network. SS2 also makes use of Rendezvous, allowing you to see other users on your local network.

BlogBoxes

I have high hopes for sites like this:

Blogboxes provide exciting, instantly deployed functionality for your blog or Web site. They are free for non-commercial use. Enjoy them and spread the good word!


* Sized compactly to fit within your blog gutter
* Customizable via editing of a simple external XML configuration file
* Easy to embed within HTML templates via script tags
* Viewable from any Web browser enabled with the Flash 5 Player or later

Great web-game: AdventureQuest

From the site:

What is AdventureQuest?
AdventureQuest is a campy Final Fantasy style RPG that you play when you are on your lunchbreak, or the big game servers go down. You receive a certain number of turns per day to fight against hordes of evil creatures so that you can grow stronger and obtain ancient weapons of unimaginable power. You need nothing more than your web browser and the Flash plugin to play. And-IT'S FREE.

CSS Vault

If you are looking for inspiration of the CSS kind, you may find what you are looking for at this site. It's a collection of well-designed CSS based websites. And if you need still more inspiration (you lazy thing) you can also check out CoolHomePages.

Busy busy

How many blogs do you read a day? 10? 100? And how often do you hear posts like "I've been really busy lately, too busy to post". Yeah, so this should sound pretty familiar. I've been getting up to speed at work, and spending some time at home with kiddos. My son's been Ill for the past few days, and I've been taking care of them. Gee I have big plans. Laszlo is going to really take off, friend and neighbors. I've not encountered a language so deep and well thought out since I discovered Javascript. Will Laszlo beat the Flex juggernaut? We'll see, but I think there's plenty of room for both of them to survive and more... XAML? XUL? Let a thousand apps bloom...

Great 1up article on interactive fiction

My first semi-week at 1up has come and gone, and I'm extremely happy. I know that things will not all be peaches and cream, and I know that things will be challenging, but I also know this'll be for a site I actually care about and technology that is going somewhere.

Meanwhile, here's an excellent article on Interactive Fiction from the current 1up.com site. Check it out.

1st day

I'm sitting here at my new desk, hunched over a loaner Thinkpad with a pixel missing in the screen, and I couldnt be happier. I've finally found a job that actually let's me use all the knowledge of web development I have, in an area I'm excited about, and its great. I used to work in the City (San Francisco) a few years ago, and coming back today seems like coming home in some respects. I'm sure I'm going to have days of difficult problems, hours of coding, and deadlines to meet, but at least now I'm doing it for a group I believe in and might actually have fun at a job for a change! Yesterday was weird, leaving my old job. Things were somewhat awkward, projects are still cranking along, and the same-old stuff was happening. I'm so glad to be in this new place!

OK: Link of the moment: Laszlo Forums

Get in there and get involved. Laszlo is a killer application and fun to code for to boot!

P.S. I'm sitting here reading my own post, and I am thinking to myself "gah, I really write like that?" It's time I started getting that literary "voice" and try not to sound too trite :)