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....