in the middle of moving...

Moving is a real drag, but at least I have a place to move to. I'll be out of action for a while -- moving boxes, furniture, etc. for the next few days. Stay tuned next week for more indie gaming goodness!

New adventure game - Globy

Looks like Alawar is breaking records this year with yet another game release - this time its a third person fantasy adventure called Globy. Dont let the goofy name stop you - give it a whirl and see for yourself.

Indie game Chaos Gate

It's not finished yet, and all you can see right now is a video preview, but this game looks pretty good! It's an action platformer where you slay dragons and stuff. Looks interesting!

A new apartment!

I have found a new apartment! God is great!!!!!

Wolves and Apartments

Here's a new cool game for ya:

… The most part of dry land disappeared under the water in result of chain man-caused cataclysms. The planet was flooded with disgusting monsters. And the ruthless pirates have seized the power over survived people… You are the captain of a frigate and you’re furrowing the boundless seas. The sea way is full of dangers and as the captain of your own pirate bands, you should load your ships, explore unknown territories, attack your opponents, amass gold, upgrade armour and etc.

I've been looking at apartments all day - what an exhausting experience. Some places are like "you mean people actually live here?" and other are "you want HOW MUCH for this place?"

ReInvigorate.net down

Re-invigorate, my website stats system, is down this week. I feel blind without it's "eyes" into my site. I didnt realize how I'd come to depend on checking my site's stats every day to see if I've been doing things that get people interested.

There are so many cool things I have in store for this site this year, I cant wait to get past all of these insane challenges I've had put before me. I need to find a new apartment in less than a month - and I am still being plagued by tax issues. I feel like the runner who has the 50 lb weights on his legs right now. When I get these off - LOOK OUT!

Idea: UI for freeform RPG's

Lots of ideas moving around in my brain lately. With the stress of everthing I'm going through (having to move, taxes, etc.) it's been hard to really find time to do anything other than think for a few mins at a time. I've been reading about Interactive Fiction, freeform RPGS, MUD's, etc. and the thought has occurred to me that there's no real way to do that via the net. Sure you can play a MMORPG, but usually the plot is already set out for you, or if you are just chatting on IRC, there's no graphical map, monsters, characters, etc. Perhaps finding something that bridges that gap - that allows you to have a collective experience with other players, while not entering the game with a preset range of things to do... I'm thinking more of a shared stage that allows everyone to tinker with the sets, plots, treasure, etc. in realtime. Almost like how you used to play with your Star Wars figures, as a kid - only the playground is on the net, and you have much better props than the cereal box and a few Legos.

Dunno, would such an idea fly? Create a place for people to come together and freely play, only not just chat, but not some hard-coded dungeon with premade monsters?

Must Have Game: Darwinia

I'm pretty late to the party with this one folks, but I'm still probably the first person you've heard talking about this game. Do you like games that are so well designed that they just ooze greatness? Do you like discovering a complex new toybox that just begs you to explore it? Do you like to have puzzles that are more complex than "match 3 or more colors in a row"? Do you dig retro games?

If you answered "yes" to 1.5 or more of these questions, drop what you are doing. Yes drop it. No, not on the floor silly.

Go to this site. Download the demo. Be amazed. It's like Black and White meets Command and Conquer meets Tron. Enjoy!!

Sylvaniah - flash based RPG / Platformer

Lots of really great retro-style games seem to be coming out lately! This is another example of a Rygar - style game created in flash. The poor site is being hit pretty hard by folks wanting to check it out, but give it a try and see for yourself. Great graphics, parallax scrolling, effects. Retro gaming goodness in your browser.

Flash based Adventure : Forgotten Myths

Here's another in the series of great retro flash based games I'm finding lately. This one looks to be a Kid Icarus style clone. Very cool!

Flash Game: MotherLoad

Warning! If you find yourself hopelessly addicted to great web games sometimes, then you should steer clear of this game immediately! Wow, the room really cleared out there. Well, for those of you still hanging around, this is a game that is simply quite addictive. All you do is pilot a tiny driller down into tunnels under the surface of Mars, bring back the minerals you collect, cash them in, and upgrade your driller (plus get fuel). It seems quite monotonous, but in fact its not only fun, it sucks you in to go drill down deeper and get more lucrative minerals to harvest. This is a shinging example of gameplay over graphics.

Exile - flash based RPG

Exile - The Game! This is what you'll see when you first load up this url. I take great delight in finding cool games and little snippets of fun stuff for folks. This site is one of those gems that you'll most likely immediately bookmark and start playing. There've been plenty of flash based games out there, and this flash based RPG is an example of how flash is maturing as a platform for gaming. You'll find yourself reminded of Gauntlet a bit as you travel through dungeons killing hapless goblins and other creepy creatures. Now that they are ad supported, you get the full game without having to pay! How great is that? If you like games like Wyvern, Adventure Quest, and Runescape, you'll dig this as well.

music and sounds for your games

Eko Projeckt is a site from a fellow named Will Musser who has some fantastic tracks and loops for interactive media and games. Just listen to a few to get an idea just how well done they are.

Also, in the same vein here's another great site (links seem to come in waves sometimes) http://gamenoise.com/. This site comes highly recommended by lots of folks for game sounds, music and voiceovers.

Freeform rpgs

Although I spent some time in my teens playing DnD, I often found the insane amount of scribbling, rules, dicethrowing, etc. etc. to really interfere with the best part (in my opinion) of the whole game - which was to be active in an engaging story where you work spontaneously with other folks. I think this is why games like World of Warcraft are taking off. Anyway check out the link above for a description of "what is freeform rpg" - ing.

I am posting this as well because this is something I want to incorporate in UR...

Dreff's Rantland: A brief survey of the RIA world, and why Rob Jones chose Laszlo

This article points to another one which covers briefly the pros and cons of the world of RIA's and talks about why he chose Laszlo. Nice read. You already know which one I like the best :)

Servelet - less Laszlo

I sat down and created a simple example of a servelet-less laszlo thingy. It's a simple button for my site, and proves that, yes, you can create things using laszlo without having to have the lzx app on your server.

Just scroll down to the lower right hand side of this blog and you'll see a little banner with my Knight fellow fading in and out. I also figured out how to place it here as well for your viewing pleasure. If you would like to link to my site, feel free to steal this button. Just view source of the code beween these lines:



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jpeg sewing machine

This is simply awesome. A sewing maching for geeks. Takes any jpeg and sews it onto whatever you want. Coool.

IGDA Whitepaper on Persistent Worlds

These whitepapers that the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) release periodically are always great reading. In light of games like World of Warcraft sucking up much of thousands of people's free tim, it seems pertinent that they would release a whitepaper on persistent worlds (MMORPG, MUD, MUSH, MOO, etc.) Check it out.

YoHoHo! Puzzle Pirates

Imagine if you could take Lego people, dress them up as pirates, toss them into a MMORPG style world, and then force them to play Bejeweled style games? Sound like fun? Actually its way fun, and if you are looking for something to get your kids to try out something online and dont feel like exposing them to Everquest yet, then you may find this to be just what the Scurvy Dog ordered - ARRRRRH!

Orisinal.com - Floats

Orisinal.com has some of the most peaceful and zen-feeling-inducing games I've ever encountered. This game is no different as you trace lasso lines around little flying bubble bugs which then merge to make bigger bugs - all to nice piano music. Very peaceful, yet fun.

PuppyGames releases Puppytron 2084

If you are old enough to remember Robotron, that classic coin-eating arcade game from days of yore, you'll get a nice warm fuzzy feeling playing this latest installment from PuppyGames. Basically you shoot stuff -- robots with bright neon colors which get harder and harder to beat. It's mindless fun. Oh yeah - for those of you who are still reading this - you may find it much easier to play if you toggle the controls using "T" so that you can shoot with the WASD keys and move with the arrows -- a seemingly more confortable arrangement, at least to me.

Laszlo Chatbar .01 lives

Laszlo does chat "out of the box" but it's a completely underutilized feature. While creating this widget I saw many places saying this is "not for prime time" - meanind more that 100 ppl at a time using the application. Can you ever remember a time when you've been chatting with 100 people at once? With that in mind I sat down on my mini-vacation last week and pulled together a simple chat application using Laszlo. There are already "demos" of chat, yes, but it's always been coupled with something else, or abstracted to the heavens with libraries, etc. etc. I just wanted to create a simple app which implements chat so folks can "get it". So give it a go and see what you think. It could totally be expanded upon for avatars, music, co-browsing, tons of things. For me, I'm going to build off of this and create my simple little rpg.

JPEGBook -- read books on your PSP

Complete with english translation for you ala google: This is a utility to convert text into easily readable jpeg files so that you can then import them to your PSP. What a cool and wonderful idea. Makes me want a psp even more now that I could put a few books on it to read on the plane.

iPSP: intelligent Picture and Sound Pusher

Wow! Itunes style application to sync music, video, etc. on your psp. Where's the windows version? Check it out.

Streets of Rage remake

From remakes.org comes news of a new Streets Of Rage remake, using the Fenix engine. Looks fruity! Go click and see for yourself. Complete with nice google translation for ya.

Edit: 02/04/2007 - the link was broken, I updated it to a new link...

Also, here's an article talking about it...

The Independant Gaming Source

This appears to be a new up-and-coming indie game news source. Complete with RSS feeds too! Give it a go.

quote from lincoln

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862)

Jet Li's Hero

I picked up this movie after hearing from a few folks that it was pretty good - appearantly better than Crouching Tiger. After having watched it - I'd have to agree - its a very complex, meaty, visually engrossing, and highly entertaining movie. Definitely one of the best movies I've rented in the past year.

Bloggers helping tsunami victims

Anders Jacobsen has committed to donate 1 dollar (with others matching) to the tsunami relief fund for ever blogger who posts the links below (and tells others how to do it as well). So check out the links and help earn some money for those folks who need it.

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International aid organizations:
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
United Nations' World Food Programme
Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders (donate!)
CARE International
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

UK/Europe:
Disasters Emergency Comittee (DEC) - comprises a raft of aid agencies, including the below and others
British Red Cross
Oxfam
Save the Children UK

North America:
American Red Cross
Canadian Red Cross
Save The Children
Oxfam America

Anders Jacobsen: Webloggers: Give to tsunami victims and I'll give too!

Responding to the challenge

Today I get to deal with my kids - as I have since my wife went away for a conference last wednesday - clean the house, and get ready for some friends to come over tonight. It's a real struggle to stay positive but I'm determined to do it. Whats eating me? Well I just found out that the owner of the place we rent has decided they dont want to pay the capital gains taxes on the place for this year, so they are selling it - which means we need to find a new place - quickly. We've only been here since July and it's just a wonderful house. I'm working hard to deal with tax issues of my own - owing a huge amount because of some stock we cashed in years ago -- before we even knew what "capital gains" tax was ourselves. It's like being penalized for life for not knowing the ins and outs of stock :(
My car's breaks are about shot, and just a few days ago the washing machine died. My son's health is fragile, and I wake up every morning lately now myself with this wierd muscle twitch. Heh. I'm breaking out into a country music song! (my dog died, bwow bwow twang twang)

Everyone has challenges - it's just hard when they all decide to come visit at the same time. Ah well, back to Real Life. All I want to do is keep working on my world -altering new ideas for a networked game/social sandbox. It's wierd how folks live a dual life -- one of ideas, creativity, and interaction and another of buying milk at the store, finding clothes for the kids, and discovering unpleasant cat suprises under the couch.

Back to work! *swish* *crak* *crak*


Oh by the way - the link above points to a nice flash-based paint program - nice to doodle with in the odd hours at the office perhaps.

Mars Rovers

This is the site to go to view daily images from the Mars rovers. I've been checking this site out off and on since it first came out. Where else can you see pictures from another planet on a daily basis? You'd think seeing ... rocks, and more rocks would get boring after a while, but instead it's just amazing. Think about the fact that you are looking at something no one's ever seen before. I pour over every picture thinking perhaps I'll find something the scientists have overlooked (pshah fat chance of that).

Check it out. Make it a habit to see something new every day :)

A very challenging day

Today has been a challenging day on very many fronts. Things you assume in your life that are "givens" like a home, car, etc. seem to be constantly shifting around. I've been through some of the most stressful, challenging, nerve-wracking, puke inducing days, months, and years that I've ever seen. I was very much hoping for some light at the end of the tunnel style changes for this year... and with what I've been through today it seems like more of the same. But, in fact, something _has_ changed. Me. I'm not going to just sit around wringing my hands any more and hoping the axe doesnt fall on my neck. I'm going to start fighting back. I'm a fervent believer in God, and I had what you call a "word" from Him about a year or so ago. There's nothing supernatural about that, you just find that you are thinking encouraging thoughts, even though there's no logical reason to be doing so. The "word" He had for me is "Be At Peace". A few months later I got the "followup" message: "Take Action".

So - these are going to be my signposts for this year. The things you stick on your monitor to remember every day. This promises to be at least a very interesting year. And I'm going to make the best of it.

Adventure Quest - my character

Adventure Quest has a neat feature that lets you see your character's stats (and everyone else's) online in a sort of "vanity page". This is a great idea which I think is way underused. I hope to incorporate things like this into Unlimited Realms...

Flash MMORPG Update - got chat working!

I've managed in the past few days to pull together my wits and create a chat application in Laszlo. It's extremely simple, but the fact that it only took me 2 days to create it (probably about 2 hours, actually) is a testimony to how simple it is to create Laszlo apps. Anyway, this chat functionality will be core to everything else in my little mud/mmorpg Unlimited Realms. Here's a screenshot:



The link above points to the laszlo forums where I posted the source if you are interested. Hopefully in the next day or so it'll be up on MyLaszlo and you can try it out yourself!

mmorpg update

Just a quick update - I've finally managed to get a little chat demo working in Laszlo, I'll be polishing up that this week and posting something for folks to try out very soon. This is core to the application, since everything will be funneled through this messaging network -- inventory, position, etc. Fun!

Cool Shmup: Area 2048

Japanese shootemups (shmups) are one of my favorite types of games. Mindless shooting, avoiding waves of bullets, taking down bosses, you name it. This game is interesting in that it starts out very simply and sorta slowly - but that only gives you a false sense of security as waves upon waves of new ships start eroding your confidence. I really like the "lock on" system that automatically locks onto the next ship when you let off your z key (shoot), and the interesting powerup (x) which zooms you out to see the whole field for a moment. Very nice shooter!

Game Tunnel: Top 10 games of 2004

GameTunnel is a great site to get news about indie games. They've posted their annual top 10 games of the year article which has some interesting entries.

From the site:

While mainstream gaming has seemingly given up on innovation and embraced instead rehashing old ideas over and over again until you can barely tell the titles apart, Indie gaming has presented another fine crop of games that will give you multiple gaming experiences that you won't find anywhere else in addition to taking some older concepts to new heights. With an increasing number of professional developers who have responded to the mainstream's strangling advances on innovation by creating Indie games, the quality of the Indie games released this year has improved greatly.

PSP Fanboy

Ah! How could this happen? I'm a hardcore gamer, yah, but I have enough games on xbox, ps2, gamecube, and gameboy to last me till I'm 80 or more - without ever having to buy another game (heh). So what happened to me? I got to finally hold a PSP for about 60 seconds playing Ridge Racer and I must say it was love at first sight. The feel of this device is spot on, and the screen is simply amazing. If you have had any doubts about Sony being a major player in the handheld world, put those aside. You will want one - oh yes, you will....

New Year's Resolution

I really have only one resolution for this year, which is to get this idea I have for a very creative, dynamic, and fun flash based mmorpg off the ground. Unlimited Realms is the collection of ideas I've had for a long time, and I am going to get something up and working no matter what!

Einhander and PSP

I walked into the video game store with every intention to buy a new "latest" game. Instead I walked out with an old ps1 game called Einhander (from squaresoft) and a preorder for a PSP, and I couldnt be happier. Apparently, folks just dont understand how freaking cool PSP is going to be. I fully expect it to eclipse DS - at least for the 18 and older crowd. Anyway, I love shmups, and I had never heard of Einhander before a few days ago, now that I go it, I am very happy. It's a great shootemup.