Mediocre free Flash game websites are all too common. Many of them thrive off peddling the same few popular games to fans who have slim cause to pick one over the other. They thrive off the indifference of casual gamers and an environment that does not have to stand out to survive, only appeal to the lowest common gaming denominator with tower defense clones and brightly colored Peggle knockoffs. In that context, what Nitrome is doing seems downright commendable.
+Tom Anderson of MySpace has been very active on Google+ over the first week, and he's not shy with his thoughts on the evolution of the industry he once owned. Here's his take on this morning's Facebook announcement and Mark Zuckerberg's response when asked about Google+.
Different genres of social media have changed the world, but they are not omnipotent. In most cases this is a good thing, but not in the case of Operation Rainfall. It has been a purely well meaning social media movement that should have led to a great boon for the North American gamer public, but instead has served as a reminder of how stone aged Nintendo of America's (NOA) corporate thinking remains.
World of Warcraft has been on top of the world for seven years. No other MMO has come close to challenging its dominance of the genre, and it has generated billions of dollars for Blizzard. They have spent a lot of money adding more and more content, to the extent where the full game with all the expansion packs takes up 65 GB of hard drive space. It is a beautiful game; well balanced, and a milestone in the history of the medium.
A few weeks ago I wrote about Atomic Web as the best web browser for iOS devices, and while I believe it is a superior option, Atomic Web is not the only alternative web browser you can use on your iOS device. There are three more—Dual Browser, iCabMobile, and iSwifter—that are all great options because of their unique features. Let’s check them out.
Every Friday here at Indie Games Ichiban, I will feature a sampling of reviews from the mountains of indie and vintage games that have crossed my internet connection in the past week. Each week will have some sort of theme, this week being old school turn-based strategy games available on Steam.
Pressing the button on a video game controller quickly is like running the 100 meter dash. Both require dedication and a precise exercise regime. There is also an odd quality about both in which the range between the very best and complete neophyte is tiny. Sprinter Usain Bolt holds the record in the 100 meter run at 9.58 seconds, only three seconds faster than I ran in freshmen high school track. And yet there are thousands of sprinters from a hundred years of Olympic competition in between ...
Sticking with our theme of XBLA games with uninspiring names, we have Outland. This game shares its name with an unrelated sci-fi cult film from 1981, unrelated comic strip from the '90s, and unrelated region in World of Warcraft. Didn't exactly try hard to build name recognition. Other than that, Finnish developer Housemarque has created the best 2D platformer I've seen in years.
I was raised in the glory days of Japanese RPG's (JRPG's) on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the biggest game franchises, and real gamers could debate their merits endlessly. We remained engaged in the stories of the games, even though the soldiers, princesses and schoolchildren all had spiky day-glo hair. We waded through hours of randomly triggered menu-based battles instead of playing Doom or baseball. And we loved every minute of it.
Attention all National SCRABBLE Association members: You know that newsletter that you get in your mailbox every month or two? That SCRABBLE News mailing from the NSA? Well, they're axing it. No more printed SCRABBLE News. No more ink on your fingertips. No more surprises in your mailbox. It's done for... kinda...
The prank I'm going to describe to you In my opinion is fairly original and I've chosen this one because I was 8 when i did it and its always remained a classic.
Baking bread might feel intimidating in advance. The fear to screw it up can make one chicken out and instead keep buying bread as usual at the store. Personally, I am very picky about which bread to eat, and learned over time that home baked bread bits them all when made properly.
FOXBORO, Mass. - The New England Patriots Alumni Club (NEPAC), announced that more than a dozen former Patriots players are gearing up to host a "Football for You" youth clinic in Worcester on Saturday, May 29 from 12:30-5:00 p.m.
This is my fourth (and final) installment on SCRABBLE adverts. I'm sure there's a lot I haven't found, but that's for another day. But this post features all of the remaining SCRABBLE advertisements (prints and posters) that haven't already been listed in my previous posts:
I still have hope that this will be a good World Cup... This article aggregates a lot of things that have been said about the World Cup experience this year (South Africa's infrastructure, low scoring games, uninteresting first round match-ups, etc). I've noticed in a few broadcasts that upper seating areas are not filled to capacity and maybe the vuvuzelas make up for this. I think this will change once the Knock-out stages begin, but Nick Webster has a point:
You may want to create a list of certain friends so that you can post certain status updates, photo albums, links, or application posts for just them to see. I'll show you how to set up lists
Artist Austin Houldsworth of the UK has come up with a device that drastically speeds up the process of fossilisation. Entitled Two Million & 1AD, Houldsworth is capable of creating a fossil in a few months (which otherwise might require thousands of years). Houldsworth is currently experimenting with objects such as a pineapple and phesant, but ultimately hopes to fossilize a human. Houldsworth proposes:
Levon Helm... The longtime drummer for The Band , Levon Helm wore many musical hats throughout his long career, including multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, impressario, studio owner, studio engineer and producer. He grew up working on a farm in Arkansas; his first instrument was guitar, which he began playing at ag eight, but after seeing the F.S. Walcott Rabbits Foot Minstrels, he decided to ...
Junk, junk, junk or so you might think. Remember the saying, your junk can be someone else's treasure! This article is going to guide you through a successful garage sale. With the economy the way it is, more and more people are going to garage sales. They are fun to have and you can earn some extra money.
Synopsis: Tell one guy that a girl that one of the other guys knows just had some sketchy demonic encounter/satanic experience at some Wicca gathering she went to last night while she was trying to get answers from the past. Then say she’s incredibly creeped out right now and is home alone tonight so they are going to seize the opportunity(while she’s still scared) and have him dress up as Satan himself and go to her house late at night and “appear” to her in her bedroom. (Don’t be overly des...
Definition Judgment is a game where you have to predict the number of hands you'll make and try to make those number of hands that you predict. It is a game usually for 3 or more players. Even 2 players can play but then the game won't be that interesting. 5 players can play the game using one deck of 52 cards. Jokers have no role here.
You can get a spa like experience in your own home. Follow these tips to treat yourself to a well deserved facial at home. Create your environment
Dreams are like an internal human holodeck. Inside your mind, anything is possible, from your grandest wishes to your worst nightmares. This is all well and good, but what if you could control your dreams and become the omniscient god of a handpicked reality whenever you go to sleep? Inception took this idea to the logical extreme by invading other people's dreams.
I finally got around to trying out another one of Will's mad science experiments and found out that this one was actually more satisfying (and less frustrating) than my slightly uncooperative jar jet. There's something very pleasing about making potassium nitrate at home in the kitchen and then watching the transformation from semitransparent liquid to spiky, frozen crystals. That was the best part for me, second only to igniting it with its sugar companion.
Are you a Minecraft cake fanatic, but have a hard time gathering enough eggs together to satisfy your addiction? Have you ever wondered if there was an easier solution to getting those "hard to get" chicken eggs? Well, today we will be going over a method of chicken egg farming.
There is nothing more annoying than a greedy roommate. It's absolutely infuriating to wake up and find the cookies your mother just made for you gone without a trace. Your favorite drink is empty and the homemade meal you worked so hard on the night before is nowhere to be found. This irked me so much that I made this shocking cookie jar. When a cookie burglar touches the side and the lid of the jar simultaneously, a small electric shock stops them in their tracks.
How many of you know all the amendments of the Constitution? Do you even know how many there are?? Well, many of the people I speak to don't. And let me tell you, that's a bad thing. Knowing even the basics of the Amendments can have a profound effect in your lives. Ever got pulled over by a cop? Did you know you can deny his request to search your car (unless he sees something 'suspicious')? If you own a gun, you sure know about the Second Amendment. Here's a neat one: a public phone booth i...
You've probably seen those deep-web images floating around on the Internet. Usually, it goes something like this: There is a towering iceberg and the deeper the underwater portion extends, the more “hidden” and “exotic” the content is described to be. Sometimes these images are accurate to a point, but most are just making things up.
Facebook's new Timeline feature has been rolling out gradually since its unveiling in September, but yesterday it finally became available to Facebookers everywhere. It's even available on your mobile device, too. Those who want to upgrade to the radical new profile design can do so by simple logging into their Facebook account and visiting the About Timeline page on Facebook.
It's once again Monday, which means it's time to highlight some of the most recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Since two of these posts were on polyhedral versions of M.C. Escher's tessellations, I thought we'd take a look at building a simple tessellated cube based off of imitations of his imagery.
Modular origami is a technique that can be used to build some pretty interesting and impressive models of mathematical objects. In modular origami, you combine multiple units folded from single pieces of paper into more complicated forms. The Sonobe unit is a simple example unit from modular origami that is both easy to fold and compatible for constructing a large variety of models. Below are a few models that are easy to make using this unit.
It's another Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. Additionally, I thought we'd take a look at the Mobius Strip.
Fractals and stars are two of the most beautiful and complicated-looking classes of geometric objects out there. We're going to explore these objects and how to carve them on a pumpkin. Unlike the last one on carving polyhedral pumpkins, where we used the entire pumpkin to carve a 3 dimensional shape, the pumkin carving in this post will involve two-dimensional images on a small part of the pumpkin's surface.
Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty are some of the most horrific fairy tales ever written, but over the course of nearly 200 years they've become watered down and sugar coated for innocent children everywhere. The original tales by the Brothers Grimm are virtually opposites of how we know them today, because they were never really intended for unsullied youngsters. The folk tales came from storytellers across the German countryside, recounting the terrors they've heard ove...
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...
No matter what word game you're playing, whether it's Scrabble or one of its near-homogeneous counterparts like Lexulous, Wordfeud or Words with Friends, one of the easiest ways to stay on top of your opponent is knowing all of the legal two-letter words you can play. You're not going to win by only playing two-letter words, but there are definitely occasions when the game could slip from your hands by not playing them.
Game demos are unfortunately a dying breed. While broadband has made it easier than ever to distribute demos to PC and console gamers, they've become more expensive and risky to make. They seldom come out before the full game, especially for AAA games. Developers realize their games are crud and that a demo is just going to make people not want to buy it.
Dropbox continues to make headlines with their recent programming blunder which left the accounts of its 25 million customers wide open during a four-hour time span. During the duration, anyone in the world could access any Dropbox profile by typing in any password. And seeing as this wasn't the first security failure, everyone, including the most loyal users are considering dropping the Dropbox.
As I was listening to Apple's WWDC conference today, what ran through my mind the most is if there were ever a time to switch to the world of Apple computing now is it. Today's WWDC keynote presentation was chock-full of new and updated iOS mobile software—too much to cover in this one article. But the most "new thing" coming from Apple this Fall is iCloud, a file sharing and streaming service that requires no wired connections.
When Apple‘s iTunes was introduced back in 2001, it rekindled my interest and purchasing of music. I was so excited by the program that I immediately started converting all my rather large collection of CDs into MP3 tracks. I then sold off my CDs and remaining vinyl albums, and used the money for additional iTunes purchases. iTunes made managing and listening music a wholly different experience. But in the last few years, iTunes has taken a back seat to streaming music services, which I find ...
