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Ok, so, my “normal” life has been affected by this neverending tale of tropical depressions, level 99 storms, and days and days of opportunistic hails of rain…
Out-doors activities are all canceled…
So I say: In-Doors Activities!
Here’s a self-compiled list of nice and entertaining stuff to do while the world’s sewer system colapses.
Tool-less, space and people demanding activities:
1. Hide and seek, I bet you saw this one coming (VERY space demanding).
2. Obstacle racing, I bet you didn’t see this one coming… Your house has an integrated racetrack… you just have to find the “safe” way to go with the flow.
3. Kick the can, yep, in-doors is a whole different challenge.
Generally, any game you can play with the least degree of “safety measures”.
Hands, pen, paper, glue, scissors, scotch tape, etc. activities:
1. Tic, Tac, Toe. Yeah… classics are classics…
2. Chopsticks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks_(hand_game)
3. Thumb war.
4. Rock, paper, sissors. Cheap, I know.
5. Chess. I know you might think about needing a chess board, and pieces… but… then… where is your imagination and your creativity. you can always draw a chess board, and you can always cut out some paper pieces to names them or draw the shapes of the real pieces.
6. Checkers.
7. Mancala.
8. Backgammon. (mancala on steroids… that’s my opinion…)
9. Reversi.
10. Arm wrestling.
11. Origami. This is surely the most productive time-wasting activity…
12. Papercrafting, ever dreamed to make awesome stuff? Papercraft your dream… it’s fun and entertaining.
13. Paper plane folding …and flying. My fave.
I got brain damage from recalling so much alternatives already… But there’s many more.
Any boardgames you may have are definitely a choice at times like this.
Computer games:
I’d be bored to death without this section.
1. “Spring Project”. Real Time Strategy meets freedom, of speech, of price, and of choice.
As many people seem to get lost at trying to understand how to play this “game”, I’ll try to explain it as best as I can:
“Spring” is an engine, what you download when you download “spring” is like, the tools needed to play a certain game.
“mods” are the rulesets for a game, and you need this if you intend to play a game with “spring”.
“maps” are like the gameboards for a game, though in a much looser context, but you still need one to play a game in any “mod” with “spring”.
Now, as for the aquiring of such things I will put a list of things needed to download by order, and you’ll se by yourselves that this ain’t rocket science:
First, “spring”, download and install before proceeding with any more downloads: http://sourceforge.net/projects/springrts/files/springrts/spring-0.81.2.1/spring_0.81.2.1.exe/download
Secondly, download a “mod”: http://dé.su/EEv46.sd7 (Please account that this “mod” is only my humble suggestion, you could try to skip this and open “Springdownloader” located in your spring installation folder, and then moving to the download tab, and then double clicking the latest version of any of the mods that draws your attention)
Third but not least, download a “map”: http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=2579 (Once again, this map is only a suggestion, it’s not the only map available, nor is it an example of what all maps look like)
This should set you up for a nice singleplayer or lobby game.
2. Tremulous.
This game is my favorite mix between First Person Shooters and Real Time Strategy.
You build and you fight, this is a must see to understand. Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tremulous/files/tremulous/1.1/tremulous-1.1.0-installer.exe/download
3. Americas Army 3. Supposing you have the bandwidth and the hardware requirements… WHY AREN’T YOU PLAYING AA3?
This is one of the best free First Person Shooters out there.
Here’s the download page, I’m using deploy version but I’ll let you choose between Steam or Deploy download options: http://www.americasarmy.com/downloads/
4. Warzone 2010. This is a very entertaining RTS that combines tons of macromanaging features, with the ability to micromanage your units to design depth, mixed up with a tech tree of hundreds of technologies.
5. Battle for Wesnoth. If you don’t like or you are tired of RTS or FPS, and you prefer to think well all your moves: http://wesnoth.org/
6. Last, but not least in this small list: Sauerbraten. Sauerbraten combines Fast Paced, First Person Shooter action with Cooperative Map Editing, which makes it a very entertaining game, open for the exploration and expression of your creativity and architectural skills.
Download: http://cubeengine.com/files.php4
This In-Doors activities is far from complete. There’s lots more stuff you can try out at your home, you just need a bit of imagination, and lots of good intentions, to find something fun to do in a rainy day.
Yesterday at Costco I saw an HP touch-screen computer, and I’ve seen plenty alright, but this one blew my mind away, because it had World of Goo loaded in the green “compromise-issues” goo-balls level (ok… “Ivy Towers” level…).
I had to stop and touch that. (”touch that” …you get it? no?)
Veredict is: Boy! AWESOME.
Sure, controls are awkward at first, because, it’s hard to understand how to play without a mouse… but after a few touches and swipes with your finger, you start playing with so much comfort and ease, it looks like if you are leading an orchestra!
It’s definitely a very nice and refreshing way to play World of Goo again.
But brings up this question:
Touchscreen games, are they better native or ported?
Now here’s a challenge!
Try to finish this game, it will make your brain react.
If you thought America’s Army was a game. You better check your info a second time.
This army game may be as full of bugs as my backyard, but it hits me right where it hurts me the most: simulation.
This game really does its best to simulate the real army experience, and that is a feature I like.
To show my point, here’s a video of one of the medic expert badge qualification tests.
And so you know… I did take this class (not the video, it’s not mine, I mean the class), and many others. And my profile is full with expert badges.
One of the several projects I have is to make an era for Wesnoth.
As some of you may know, Wesnoth is a Turn Based Strategy game, which means players get to move their units in turns, thus, sharing some of the complexities of chess (Shogi, go, checkers, etc.).
Wesnoth has a very simple coding language, to make new units, create scenarios or define new abilities for the game; the coding language goes by the name of:Wesnoth Markup Language (WML for short), which I have been using for some years now, and I’ve created some rough eras and learned the concepts of unit creation, and of always testing for syntax errors… 
But more than anything, through several fails, I have learned that graphic quality, animations, and features that are easy to understand, are something important if you want your game to be accepted by most players. It took me a while to realize this, because I’m the kind of player that will play your game, even if things are still invisible, as long as the game concept is interesting; I don’t care about cool graphics and animations, I care about gameplay. But sadly for me, it looks like my brothers get discouraged when they find my units lack animation, or decent graphics.
So I will be working on studying animations from other units, and how to mimic them for my own purposes, and maybe come up with new animations.
Nevertheless I will also work on the era itself; for now, I have a goal of at least 10 units on each faction and 4 factions (namely: Air nation, fire nation, water nation, and earth nation).
Then, I can plan on releasing a beta, so that I can get feedback from players… (…my brothers)
Anyway, I will be posting my progress every once in a while. And maybe sharing some of the creation process.
So stay tuned.
Just recently, I discovered that one of my favorite multiplayer game sites has been updated, and I thought it was a good idea to post about it, to add something to my last post.
As I had previously posted, there are good games that fall in the educational genre, and I want to share this link to a website with various online games, that work with math, spelling, and US states:
Many of the games in there are multiplayer games, thus meaning you compete against other players around the world.
I’m very fond of this website, cause it allows me to play with my cousins even though we are at some hundreds of miles…
I hope you can find it amusing, or useful.
Educational games, oh yeah.
Do they exist? -Yes, there’s a whole bunch of games that have been rounded up to the “educational” genre.
Are they really games? -Yes, they are fun to play, and sometimes, they offer a new challenge to veteran players.
Do you really learn something from them? -Yes, you do, they really work, you really learn stuff by playing. Sometimes unconsciously.
So… Where to find some? -Ah… Good Question. And I happen to have the answer…
Since I can remember, educational games have been a part of my gaming diet, their easy to spot UI buttons, their easy to understand objectives, and their never ending “try again” are some of the factors that make them enjoyable for me.
Educational games were very important in my childhood, cause I learned many of the skills I have now from playing those games.
By exercising small skills like: pattern recognizing, object memorization, reflexes, etc. players gain skill for more complex exercises, like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, memorization of historical events, geographical knowledge, or science facts, etc.
Right now, I will only recommend two games:
Timez Attack, by BigBrainz.
And:
Dimension M: Evolver Pre-Algebra, by Tabula Digita
Both of them cover Math topics, Timez Attack covering only the multiplication table, whilst Evolver Pre-Algebra covers more advanced topics, like primes, squares, etc.
They are both really worth playing.
Ever since my brothers and I started our “network-gaming brotherhood” (meaning, since we first played a 2 or more player game over a network), I have had the honor of beating all of my brothers in-game, every time we fought.
But this supremacy (particularly aided by the fact I’m the older brother… the oldest of my brothers has 4 years less than me.) has come to an end.
My brothers have grown up,
surpassing my mind skills, and my game skills in many ways.
I’m still more intelligent than all of them together, of that I’m sure.
But I’m definitely not as smart, or skillful as they are in some areas…
…strategy included.
This makes me totally uncomfortable, and at the same time, makes me happy.
Now that they play well enough to beat me, my games with them become far more interesting, giving me a total “satisfaction” feeling every time I play vs them.
On my won games vs my brothers:
More than I can recall. (No kidding)
On my lost games vs my brothers:
3-5 games lost, and 1 draw in “Tremulous” (and only vs Ed, [4 years’ difference]).
18-20 games lost in “Wesnoth” (mostly because they teamed up vs me).
And, last and most painful for me, is my defeat in “Warcraft III demo” vs Eri (the next brother after Ed… [7 years’ difference]).
I don’t really know what happened. But I got pwned.
My excuse is that I hadn’t played in a LONG while… I started the game on a very average strategy, I totally pwned his hero, I had 2 expansions, and then…
I couldn’t keep the pressure on him, I couldn’t find the way to attack him, so, he took that chance, and turned the tide; since that game I lost, I’ve re-matched him like twice, and I made sure to overwhelm him, and finish him off…
(so I was definitely asleep when I lost)
I’ll be updating the numbers, if there’s any changes.
Elí
My next review is for Kavasoft’s “iConquer”, which is basically: Risk, mac style.
As some of you may know, Risk is a classic (and the most popular) “world-conquer” board game.
Well, Kavasoft managed to bring the board game to the mac, and made a game with all the simplicity a mac implies:
No More Complications
Setting up the game, dice-rolls, card checking, counting countries & troop income, etc. will stop being something to worry about, as the computer will take care of all that for you, so all you have to take care of, is to have fun, and think your strategy. (mine is to make the world look a “uniform green”, if you get what I mean)
No more “Abandoned games”
Yes, that’s right, forget about games lost to time.
In iConquer, you just save them!
No more “I can’t play with you right now”
Well, not actually; people can still reject your playing proposal, but what I mean is that iConquer comes with several different AI’s, that let you play iConquer, with no need of human players. Plus, in the case you had a human player, and he leaves (or bails out), you can change his status, from human to AI. (the same viceversa)
More worlds to conquer
iConquer has more battlegrounds to offer than just our world map.
There’s some spin-off maps from the world map, like a digital-themed world map, or maps of Europe, United states, etc.
And there’s some totally new ideas, like a shattered glass map, solar system, and even tenochtitlán!
Internet features
iConquer features two buttons in it’s game interface: Connect, and Server.
Guess what the buttons do?
Yeah, they connect you to a game in the network, or make you start your own server in the network.
And iConquer uses Bonjour also, thus meaning, that if there’s another mac in the reach of your local network, you can connect to it (or the same way around) without any fuss, just by selecting the mac and clicking connect. And you will find yourself playing in a matter of seconds. (provided both macs have iConquer of course…)
Also, when you start a network game, and enough player join, a feature in iConquer, allows you to communicate with them through iChat. (something I haven’t tried, I guess it has to do with the seldom use I have of iChat, and the fact I don’t have many friends that use their macs to play iConquer, most of them use them to play “developer” and I don’t have that game… ;b)
Things I liked
I really don’t play Risk often, just a small peek at its gameplay every one or two years. (whenever I visit someone that has the game).
So when I wanted to play iConquer, I had some doubts, and when I clicked the Help button, I never expected so many help!
It doesn’t mean I got a scroll of a thousand words, explaining me everything about the game, it was actually only a paragraph or two, aided by some images.
The thing about the help is that it worked contextually, depending on what you where doing (if I was placing armies, it would show me how to place armies, if attacking, it would show me how to attack, etc.), and this kind of help, makes you understand what you are playing, and enjoy it.
The innovative features. Every now and then you find an application with some weird features, and iConquer manages to put together some:
Boss mode: you just hold “apple-command+e” and you change to a nice excel worksheet, which is really a map in disguise. (be warned, this works only if you were playing the default map.) I had seen this feature in “Defcon“, and in “N“.
It’s basically a quick way to hide the fact you were playing, hence the “Boss mode” tag.
It also features some dev packages, that add automatically to your Xcode apple dev tools. (It means you can create AI’s of your own, and maps too… With some editing knowledge.)
Things I didn’t like:
Bugs, of which I’ve found two:
Number one: adding players in the new game setup window will cause weird behavior, I had to do some maneuvering to get 4 players, with their preferred colors and their respective names.
Second and last bug: sometimes, changin a human player to an AI controlled player, will stop the game, like if on pause. No one moves, and no one get’s turn. This fixes if you change the AI back to human, or if you save and quit and then resume the game with the AI’s there.
And no sound…
Yep, this game is MUTE. No sound. At all. I don’t know you, but I would have liked the option to turn on sounds.
Summary:
This game is for the Risk fans, and for those who have longed to play Risk before, but never had time, or a manual to do it.
This game is for the strategic fan, who likes all of his plans to have a probability of failing, to be realistic.
The last thing I can say is, this game is for bringing your friends along, and have a blast (of fun).
It’s like inviting them to play a board game, but it’s far more easy to set up, and pick up.
Hope you liked the review, or that you found it helpful.
This game falls in the puzzle genre, a genre I don’t like as much as I like real-time strategy, turn-based strategy, or first person shooters…
But Pangea really added some immersive detail to this game, and I like it very much.
Enigmo 2 is all about getting different forms of matter (water, laser and plasma, to be precise) into their correspondent container, through the obstacles in the different levels. Manipulating the different forms of matter with some tools, or gadgets (gutters, mirrors, magneto-spheres, etc.), that you are able to move around and position.
This way, you can “guide” the matter into the correspondent container.
Then, the complexity arrives, as all the levels in Enigmo 2 are three-dimensional, thus, meaning that guiding the matter becomes a really hard job, ensuring a really puzzling experience.
Things I liked: All of the surfaces have different effects on the matter (mirrors, or plain surfaces deflect laser, but other things, like a wall of stone, don’t. The same applies for plasma, but water may bounce in the wall. )
You can build your own maps, with the integrated map editor.
There are many different ways to accomplish your mission, you don’t need to think in one particular way.
The music in the background is great.
Things I disliked: The camera is hard to manage, I have a laptop’s one-button mouse, and it’s really hard to move around the levels when they start getting big and three-dimensional.
Consequentially, placing your gadgets in a 3-D level can get very tiresome, as it’s not a very intuitive placement mechanism, you have to correct your gadget placement very often.
Summary: This game is designed to be fun, entertaining, and a challenge to the minds of puzzle-solvers, but even when you are not a puzzle-solver yourself, the immersive detail of the game will have you entertained all the way until you can’t solve the next level (get stuck, and fail, and maybe fall in a gaming depression).
Anyway, hope you find this review entertaining, or helpful.
Elí
P.D. Happy new year! …(couldn’t hold myself.) ;b
Pics:
Trailer: