Like a great acting performance, making a really good game is all about choices. While creating or playing a game, those involved have to constantly make small choices that will affect the outcome, either positively or negatively. And the only thing worse than choosing wrongly is not choosing at all. Too many games, especially today, stick to what they're supposed to do from the get-go and avoid making difficult, small, meaningful choices to differentiate themselves and make their performance...
Continuing the theme of using a muffin pan to quickly whip up super-simple and super-delicious baked things (see Part 1: how to make mini-pies in muffin tins), how about making yourself a savory snack in the form of a pizza cupcake?
Many gamers see the film industry as the premier model that video games should follow, and it's no surprise. Movies are seen as the most legitimate and profitable of all artistic visual mediums, which is certainly qualities practitioners of any new medium would desire. Big budget games like Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire strive for the same level as film by aping its techniques, focusing on storytelling in a cinematic fashion, rather than creating compelling gameplay experiences.
Get ready for an adventure that ROCKS! Karen McGilvray, owner of Toronto's Rock Oasis, shows you some beginner climbing techniques.
Get ready for an adventure that ROCKS! Once you've put on your safety harness, tied in and done your safety check you're almost ready to go. Now Karen McGilvray, owner of Toronto's Rock Oasis, shows you how to "belay", or manage the rope for your partner.
Get ready for an adventure that ROCKS!
Interesting read and an even more interesting itinerary. This guy flew the world for $418. Most people don't have the time to pull off what this guy did, but awesome none the less.
Get ready for an adventure that ROCKS! But before you let excitement (and maybe just a LITTLE fear) take you to new heights, remember....safety first!!
It's debatable whether any of the products are at all necessary. All of these products can be found at REI.com
Here are 50 tools for helping writers at any level. Reading this can give some background to the creative writer as well as specific tips to becoming the best writer possible. I just mused around on "Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs" and "Writing Tool #45: Foreshadow" Which is great if you are reading the blog posts for "How to Write the Action/Adventure Screenplay."
How far do you push to get the ultimate shot? Michael Brown tells how to weigh risk when making a movie in extreme conditions. This is a video from Serac Adventure School. It describes gear and the pros - cons of shooting under duress. Weigh risk when making a film in extreme conditions.
Make special effects at home using Adobe After Effects software. This simple video tutorial shows how to create a forcefield effect over a digital image. Great for action, adventure, and sci-fi movies! Create a forcefield in Adobe After Effects.
DucksTheName and I try out a new custom puzzle/adventure map created by CubicDelight! We absolutely love this map, it's my personal favorite out of all the maps we've played in the past.
TOP MOVIES 2011 The Artist (2011)
According to Ryan Lawler over at GigaOM, automatic editing of that ridiculous amount of video and photos you've collected on your phone is the next big frontier for apps.
The 1.9 pre-release is out right now, download it here! Notch has also said that the 1.10 release will be coming soon, with even more Adventure-related updates. Enjoy!
Contrary to what the infomercials may tell you, you don't have to own a gajillion kitchen gadgets and utensils to function properly in the kitchen when you're preparing a meal or dessert at home. To save money and space, get acquainted with the unexpected multiple functions that are possible with your everyday kitchen tools.
What do you do when you're right in the middle of your cooking or baking groove and realize that you're missing an extremely vital ingredient? Rather than delaying your next meal or one-person cake-eating party with a last minute trip to the supermarket, get around your missing ingredient by substituting another common ingredient. Below are 13 handy cooking and baking substitutions that just might save you time or money for your next cooking and baking adventure.
Shadows of the Dammed (360/PS3) is a polarizing game. It's not shy of being crass and crude. Go ahead and judge the game by the following examples (click to enlarge):
Most employed in the game industry have two-word job titles that start with “game”—game designer, game producer, game critic, game tester, etc. Usually, they’re one or the other, even though some can be both a game designer and a game tester or game critic and game tester. And rarely does one person get to call themselves a “game everything”. Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw is the exception.
Anna the Red, the internet's resident Queen of Bento, has created an elaborate Halloween Bento Box based on video game Costume Quest: "an adorable role-playing adventure game created by Double Fine. It takes place on Halloween night, kids in costume trick-or-treating and fighting monsters to save a kidnapped sibling while collecting costumes."
You can get Alien Swarm for free on Steam starting today. Alien Swarm is a 4 person co-op adventure with an updated Source engine and the ability to create custom levels. Think of this as a top view Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor, but with aliens. Too bad they are not zombie aliens, but it's a free game so we can't complain.
From Walt Disney Pictures and visionary director Tim Burton comes an epic 3D fantasy adventure ALICE IN WONDERLAND, a magical and imaginative twist on some of the most beloved stories of all time. JOHNNY DEPP stars as the Mad Hatter and MIA WASIKOWSKA as 19—year—old Alice, who returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends: the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, th...
The game has undergone many transitions over the years, since its days as LEXIKO (1931) to its briefness as CRISS CROSS WORDS to its current and amalgamated, renowned brand of SCRABBLE. There has been many editions of the word board game along that historic metamorphosis, and SCRABBLE has even given in to pop culture, sports memorabilia, and fanaticism.
The relationship between developers and publishers in the video game industry has always been awkward. Many great game developers such as Bizzare Creations, Clover Studio, and Bullfrog Productions have been disbanded due to corporate shenanigans involving their publishers and owners. The indie game movement has risen largely as a response to this.
Red Dead Redemption is hard to pin down in game play and story. The game offers this massive multi-layered world in which the player can roam freely, offering plenty of challenges, beautiful graphics and atmosphere for the player to experience. Yet after some point the whole world feels barren and unchangeable, and your achievements are nothing more than a trophy that does not matter in the sandbox world the player resides in. The story, told in three arcs, offers an inconsistent narrative of...
Looking back on Alan Wake, more than a year and a half after its release, it's still one of my favorite games. The graphics and ambience have held up well in comparison to any other story driven game, and it's still the best third-person horror game out there, in terms of gameplay. Given how few horror games are actually out there this generation, I would definitely recommend giving this game a try since it's dirt cheap to rent or buy.
So, when Christopher brought up Nikola Tesla in his very first post on Fear of Lightning, it got me interested in learning more about the man behind alternating current. There is plenty of info out there on the Internet, widely available for free, but sometimes it's just nice to have a book in your hands... or on your computer or mobile device.
Lumpy gravy? Gluey mashed potatoes? Dry turkey meat? So many things can go wrong when you are bestowed the honor (and burden) of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Thankfully, some culinary mishaps that you encounter in the kitchen can be reversed or craftily disguised right before your guests sit down to eat.
Today, +Vic Gundotra made it official and announced the launch of games within Google+. It's starting to roll out, and Google+ members will eventually see a link to the Games button at the top of their streams.
Here is an interesting use of AR for a librarian. Anybody read Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge? The book does a great job exploring Augmented Reality in a future thriller & it actually has a moving library! Highly Recommended!
Not in the mood for a sappy ending? Well, strap in because "Emotional Response Cinema Technology" lets your own body physiology control the movie music, the special effects, and even the movie ending. A collaboration between BioControl Systems, Filmtrip, and the Sonic Arts Research Center at Queen's University Belfast, the technology was recently showcased at the SXSW film festival in Austin, TX, where the newly minted horror film Unsound interacted with the audience through wires connected t...
Not enough bible in your games? Damn right! Until we get Grand Theft Moses this is the next best thing. Think of this game as the Old Testament + Acid Trip + Jpop Male Idols. From the Producers of Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami. El Shaddai is a very unique looking game, very much looking forward to it.
I finally got around to trying out this jam jar jet project. The most successful and longest lasting pulse was somehow the only one I did not record. You can imagine how frustrating that probably was, though my tenth and final attempt was nearly as satisfying. But even the failures were fun to watch, especially the blue flame floating, almost dancing, around the jar. I especially liked the small foghorn sound that my first failed attempt produced.
Two wonderful, wonderful things converge! Minecraft Forum's rushone2009 introduces the Bladecraft Project, a melding of Blade Runner and Minecraft. The current texture pack and map downloads contain no adventure or goal, just exploring and discovering movie references. Download here.
After a decent amount of downtime, one of the best indie game sites on the internet has finally relaunched! PixelProspector is a one-man gaming blog and YouTube channel devoted to the weird and beautiful world of indie games. In the first half of 2010, it received a huge boost in popularity from its video 235 Free Indie Games in 10 Minutes, a hypnotic montage of the best indie games the site had to offer at that point. And to celebrate the relaunch of the blog, which now has an improved desig...
Hello wizards! Welcome to The Wizard's Spiral! This new blog is about Wizard101. Feel free to post about anything in the Forums, ranging from equipment to Helephants, from castles to Mooshu. If you have any questions or technical problems, go to the forums and open a new thread. Me or any other wizard will be there right away to help you. For those of you who are wondering what Wizard101 is, you have come to the right place. Wizard101 is an MMORPG game that is all about wizards and magic. Whe...
In our media-enriched world, past and present, SCRABBLE has made a name for itself, whether deliberately, subconsciously, or influentially. You may have a read a book that had the popular word game within a chapter, watched a movie that showed your favorite characters bringing out the SCRABBLE board, or even listened to a rap about this word or that word. SCRABBLE is everywhere, even if you don't realize it.
Minecraft's monsters are so annoyingly tenacious and effective that anyone who plays in survival mode can't help but hate them. That's why we're here to tell you how to kill them!
Update 2: 1.9 Version3 is currently out. Click here to download and install 1.9 Version 3. Update: 1.8 is now officially out! It'll prompt you to update the next time you launch.
