Want more details on this? Check out Brett’s Arduino Reaction Game in the projects section.

EDGE – NZ$6.49

EDGE is an platformer where you are a cube trying to navigate an isometric landscape in search of the tiny glowing cubes. Some levels are really easy, some require timing, some have cubes hidden away in secret areas. Here though, the music shines, so much that Mobigame released the soundtrack for free! KAKKOI!

Canabalt – NZ$4.19

Canabalt is a free flash game gone iPhone: a one-button ‘daring escape’ platformer. No story up front, but the game has one to tell! Addictive, try the free web version first.

Hook Champ – NZ$4.19

You’re a Jake T. Hooker, an Indiana Jones style tomb-raider stealing idols from dangerous caves and escaping with your amazing grappling hook styles! Easy to learn, hard to master, harder to put down! Try the lite version first, and then buy the full version with more maps and achievements!

Zen Bound – NZ$4.19

A strange game in which you are to bind up a wooden figurine with string. This is meditative gaming at its best: no time limit, but you do eventually run out of string. Again, amazing soundtrack here, with a free download when you buy the game! Get the lite version first to try it out.

Eliss – NZ$4.19

Eliss is a multi-touch puzzler. Gather same coloured circles together, enough so they fit into the ‘squeezars’ to score points. Don’t let different colours touch or it’ll soon be game over. You’ll need all your fingers to play this one, maybe both hands at some points. Lite version also available.

Flight Control – NZ$1.29

A simplified air-traffic control game: draw flight paths for aircraft so they can land on the appropriate runway or landing pad, but don’t let them collide! Harder than it sounds, but quite addicting!

More to come!

If you’ve ever played Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS, then you’ll be instantly familiar with Weewar. Weewar is a web-based turn-based hex-based pixel-art war game what you play in your browser. Lots of fun and works quite well. Go check it out!

1. I sucked at tag. Primary school was pretty hellish for me — I was unfit, I had no friends, and I could never catch anyone. It’s a part of my life that I like to forget. Because I had no-one who liked me or understood me (my parents admit to not really understanding me and my interests when I was young) I turned to reading books and learning. If I had to pick someone who I think understood me when I was young, I’d probably have to say my grandmother on my mother’s side, Lois, who unfortunately passed away while I was at Intermediate, or just starting, I can’t remember. She would buy books for me all the time, and it was her who I credit for getting me into computers and specifically programming. An Osbourne book on Basic for various computers like the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80, and the really simple game listings within it. I would spend hours staring at that code, trying to figure out what the game would do. I wouldn’t get any kind of computer until after she passed away, and then it was a 286 and no-one told me where GW-Basic was.

   Gosh, there’s a bit there. Does that count as only one?

2. I love computer games, but in reality, I’m not a hardcore gamer. I like the games that I can pick up, play for 15 minutes, and then put to one side. To this end, I rarely finish a game. A mild case of ADD? It’s certainly not AD&D I can count on one hand the games I’ve clocked without cheats:
   • Half-Life (PC)
   • Half-Life 2 (PC)
   • Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC) (but that barely counts)
   • Phoenix Wright (Nintendo DS) (but it’s mostly trial-and-error. Heh, trial, law game)
   • Doukutsu Monogatari (aka Cave Story) (PC)

   Yet recently I’ve bought so many DS and GBA games for my Nintendo DS Lite, and haven’t clocked any others

3. I’m not allergic to anything, but I have had cancer. I have a giant scar on my back from where they removed a melanoma (skin cancer). Luckily it came back from the labs that it hadn’t spread, but I can’t give blood anymore. If they’d let me, I’d go every six months. So if you’re reading this, and you are able to give blood, you should go do it — it helps so many people out there, and only inconveniences you for a few hours; heck, most workplaces will let you go give blood on work time!
4. When I want to chill out, the forest is my chill out space. I love to just go somewhere and listen, relax. Rivers are also very awesome. I was baby sitting a couple of my mum’s friend’s kids for the weekend one time in the middle of summer, and they had some really large inner tubes, so we took them out on the river out the back of their house, and had a ball and we all got so tired, we walked back, packed stuff away, and we all fell asleep in the lounge where we were sitting, totally unexpectedly. It was probably the quietest they ever were!
5. I like chiptunes. Music made on old retro hardware that sounds like it could have come out of an old GameBoy or C64. I especially like the stuff that comes out of 8bitpeoples
6. Bonus Fact: I don’t like peas. But that said, they are tolerable when mixed with other vegetables. But by themselves, blargh.

Bob Brown (Confessions of a Guru), Hamish MacEwan (self titled), Hillary (Kiwirose in Canada), Dan Milward (Mind of Mufasa) (fix your feeds, they’re broken), and Unbounded (self-titled), even though Unbounded is the kind of guy who would abhor this kinda meme; TAG – You’re it!

Quinn is an implementation of a popular falling-blocks game which, according to the Tetris Company, must not be named here.

ROFL. You got served, Tetris Co.

Seriously, Quinn is a really good implementation of that unnameable game for Mac OSX.

I had a short problem upgrading the firmware to 2.0; it ‘bricked’ the device. After a bit of wiki reading and obtaining advice from djwillis on efnet#gp2xdev my SD card wasn’t playing well with the firmware upgrade software. I’m now the happy owner of a Linux-powered entertainment device! HUZZAH!

I’ve installed Quake 1, a Sega Master System emulator, a Mega Drive (Genesis) emulator, and can’t wait to see what else I can get running on this thing!

Everyone in my department (apart from the course co-ordinator) owns a PSP. So I figured I should make the most of it and bite the bullet myself. Mind you, it wasn’t cheap :/ Anyway, I got the PSP value pack, a USB cable, a 1GB Memory Stick Duo and the game Mercury, and I have GTA Liberty City Stories preordered.

I also bought a UMD Movie of Steamboy, which is a great anime film — you should see it if you get the chance. But I don’t think that the PSP is a great delivery platform for a two-hour movie, unless you’re stuck on a plane and are sick of playing video games.

Also, hooray for Homebrew! After upgrading from 1.52 to 2.0 and then downgrading to 1.50, I got a Genesis/Megadrive emulator running on there!

And OMG PHEAR LUMINES. That game, once you get into it, is intense. You go into it all relaxed and you come out of it all tense and powered up. I love that game.

As mentioned in previous posts, I’m a huge fan of this game. It will probably go down as my most favorite video game of all time.

For those who haven’t read the post on Webfroot about this game, , Doukutsu Monogatari (Japanese for “Story of the Cavern”) was developed in 2004 in Japan. It’s probably the most fun freeware game I’ve ever played and finished to some degree (more on that later). Now, I’ve played the english fan-translated version, and thoroughly enjoyed it — it’s got a great start, the gameplay is superb, and the plot is intriguing and fun.

The Hook
You start the game with a cut scene of some dude in a room with what seems to be a broken teleporter trying to chat to someone through a computer who isn’t there. The game starts. You’re in a room, weaponless, and there’s a door, and you know nothing else. You soon find a weapon and then more of this dude chatting away. You eventually figure out what to do next and you’re dropped into a village of cute sentient rabbit-like ‘Mimigas’, or what’s left of them, and the conflict is revealed. The sheer mystery of everything in this game is a fascinating start, and draws you in like a good first chapter of a book, and doesn’t stop.

The Line
Cave Story is a platformer game that looks distinctly like a game you’d expect to see on a NES, except this game is for the PC, and was made in 2004. It’s got instant retro charm. Even though the graphics are all really beautiful, cute 2d sprites, all the characters, monsters and scenery graphics are highly polished, and definitely draw you in.

You start with a simple pistol, and as you kill things, orange triangles drop charging the weapon’s power bar up, with it eventually levelling up into a more powerful variation. Each of the weapons in the game levels up three times, with the different weapons forming a powerful arsenal, which feels out of place with the cutesy retro graphics. Some weapons (like the secret ‘Bubbler’) are crap until you get them to level 3, but I found myself sticking to the machine gun and the missile launcher when I really needed it.

The sheer number of monsters keeps the game fresh the whole way through. Some of the monsters reappear on each new level — initially you think you’re up against the same monsters you faced in the previous level, they’re just a different colour. But no, they either move differently or shoot or fly or something unexpected, which really keeps you on your toes. Some non-boss monsters only appear once or rarely, like the haunted door at the end of the first level and the eye-bricks that crush you, which is adds strangely to the mystery of this game.

There are some good fun puzzles sprinkled through the game that you have to solve to proceed; these help grow the plot and game universe, but are standard adventure-platform fare, ranging from “figure out how to open this door” to “find components for >npc< to build you >plot advancing item<. You have a small inventory which you can use to change weapons while pausing, but it mostly serves little purpose save for activating a few important items.

As you progress in the game, more details are revealed about the character you’re playing, where you are, what is actually happening with all these Mimigas being abducted by an evil doctor and his minions.

The relationship between the powerful #2 Misery and her incompetent sidekick Balrog is entertaining; the conflict between Sue and the other Mimigas is mysterious; the strange presence of a handful of humans who look nothing like you; and the strange qualitys of — the game is one huge mystery! The sheer number of truly interesting and charming characters who you will care about are all interwoven in a great tapestry of a story, which will keep you trying to defeat that next tough boss. The plot, along with the gameplay, are the best parts of this game.

The music is also really neat, with a distinctly chip-tune feel to it. Looking and listening to the game, people will ask if you’re playing an emulator

Oh and the BOSSES! This game has enough bosses to challenge even the mightest of small corporations! They do start out easy, but by the end of the game, you’re wondering if the boss after boss after multiple bosses will ever end, and you’re praying for a savepoint!

The Sinker
According to the translators, the game has three distinct endings, two of which I have found. After reading a walkthrough of what I just did, apparently the third way is the true hero’s ending to the game, which thankfully the walkthrough tells you how to activate the plotline switches, but doesn’t guide you through the true ending. The two endings I have found feel downright disappointing and like finishing a Sonic game without the Chaos Emeralds, respectively, so I’m probably gonna play through the entire game again.

The game has a single save slot, which sucks because I can’t just go back to that plot switchpoint. Also, this means you sholudn’t save the game when showing the start of the game to your friends (not that I got bitten by this one).

The Verdict
Cave Story takes the best parts of the old and now-dying 2d platformer genre, injects a heafty dose of original challenging gameplay into it, showers it in fascinating characters, weaves into it an immensely intriguing story, while still staying true to it’s console inspiration to create an incredibly fun game to play and conquer, one you’ll want to be playing again in a few years time to relive the story.

The game is freeware, but puts many of the modern shareware games I can think of to shame. 10 years earlier and released on the NES or Mega Drive and I believe this would have been a mainstream classic.

I recommend this to anyone who misses the Commander Keens, Metroids and Castlevanias of yesteryear, and enjoys a good story.

Doukutsu Monogatari weaved it’s way into my heart. An underground independant gaming classic. A Must Play.

Vitals:

• Windows 98, 2000, XP
• Requires DirectX 5.0 or better
• Also available for Mac
• 6MB when installed
• Download Windows English 1.0.0.5 from the Doukutsu Monogatari page on Home of the Underdogs

More Information:

• Studio Pixel — authors of the original Japanese game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
• Aeon Genesis – the translators of the game (see Doukutsu Monogatari page)
• Doukutsu Monogatari on Webfroot
• Doukutsu Monogatari on 1up.com
• Google Search for “Doukutsu Monogatari”

My Aunty and Uncle were in town for (Rosie’s Mum) Leslie’s 70th birthday party the next day. My cousins Abby and Sam were there too — man they’ve grown and look so different! Abby is now married(?) and has had two kids, one of which was adopted out, but they were both there. My goodness, they look so much like the younger Abby I remember.

I also talked to Leslie herself, and she told me about her trip around South America, and off hand she mentioned going to Easter Island, so I asked her a bit about that… she was only there for two days, but she saw most of the island — remembering that you can probably bike around the island in less than a day.

Mum was crashing at my place, so before we went to bed, we tried to watch Napolean Dynamite, but my computer was having issues and we were both tired; Mum doubly so after a 4 hour drive from Napier.

The next day was Church, and after an ordeal missing late buses back into town, I made it back in time to go to Leslie’s 70th party. It was at the Kingsgate Hotel in Oriental Bay, which is a great venue! After eating many club sandwiches, mini-croissants and drinking glasses of orange juice, talking to the whanau, we got to hear speeches from Leslie’s children telling the attendees about Leslies life. It was really interesting — she used to be in the Lighthouse service, which involved living in and running lighthouses for 18 months at a time. Fascinating!

After the party, Stuart, Mum and myself returned to my place where we relaxed, then we fetched some supplies including popcorn, beer and food for dinner, and Mum cooked up a feast of Potato, Cauliflower and cheese sauce and Porterhouse Steak — YUMMM. Then we retired and watched Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie, drinking beers and eating microwave popcorn. Mum had bought a few fruit-and-nut chocolate bars and said you gotta try this: Put a chunk of the chocolate in your mouth, then grab a small handful of popcorn and put that in there too. I did, and it was great! The chocolate melts from the heat of the popcorn and it tastes great

Monday morning I wake up and Mum and Stuart are buzzing the apartment, so I quickly get dressed and we all go to Fidel’s for breakfast. They had a FIFTEEN PERCENT SURCHARGE for a public holiday! SCREW THAT! Well, we ended up ordering and paying for the meal before we realised there was a surcharge, and the food was REALLY GOOD… and we had a good time, so that was good

After that we walked to Te Papa where Mum wanted to check out the Holbein to Hockney exhibition of pictures from the Royal Collection, which featured some pieces from Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, along with many others. I think the other Ninja Turtle was in there too

After that, Mum was on her way back to the Hawkes Bay and we said our farewells. Overall it was good sharing the city with Mum, and having a real good time. Love you lots Mum!

Oh, and I scored a full copy of Duke Nukem 3D from the Gamesman for NZD$1.00… pity I can’t get it to run in any screen size bigger than 320×240 under Windows XP. I tried a few HOWTOs but they didn’t help

CPU Type: AMD Athlon XP, 1250 MHz (6.25 x 200)
Motherboard Name: Asus A7V333 (5 PCI, 1 AGP Pro, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset: VIA VT8367 Apollo KT333
System Memory: 512 MB (DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter: nVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 (Leadtek WinFast A250 LE) (64 MB) (DirectX 8.1)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2
Game: Half-Life 2 Retail Collectors Edition

So the game suggested:
800×600
Model Detail: Medium
Texture Detail: Medium
Water: Simple Reflection
Shadow Detail: High
AA: None
Filtering: Trilinear
Shader Detail: High
Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled

This game kicks serious ass. This is one game you will have to play! Kick ass! I know my setup isn’t the best around, but it’s extremely playable at recommended settings And it’s mightily more playable than Doom 3 I’ll try and run a benchmark sometime and see how I get on.

The story is great The character animation is phenomenal! The gameplay so far has been exciting! And Headshots with the pistol! Headcrabs! Airboats! And so much more!

Yay!

Anyway, last week Smileychris, Kodiak and I hooked up with a couple of friends from Napier and went and had coffee at a cafe, then we went to an arcade. Chris and I were pretty keen to hop on a DDR machine — Chris hadn’t been on one before, and I’d only tried one time before. It’s much easier with friends. And if you think it’s stupid, you haven’t tried it… it’s quite fun.

Anyway, 3 days ago Chris bought a Dance Mat for NZD$30 and a Playstation to USB adaptor so he could step at home, and he’s really enjoying it. I really like it too, but I haven’t had much of an opportunity to go hard for a session — Chris is always on it

Anyway, it seems to be the #1 geek way to lose weight!

Back when we were living together and he was still at intermediate/high school, he had a mega drive, and we used to play Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and we’d beat each other up. My favorite character was Liu Kang, so I’d be all like “Bicycle Kick Bicycle Kick Fireball Fireball Upper-Cut” and he’d be Kabal and he’d be all like “Mincey Mincey Mincey Mincey” and he’d kick my ass So re-living that last night was real cool.

We also played some Star Control 2 Ur-Quan Masters : Super Melee and he kicked my ass, again… So I burnt it to CD for him… I know he’ll enjoy it

Saturday I slept in and then Chris and Mark gave me a present. It was Lazy Sunday 3, which is what I wanted for my birthday (cheers guys!). But even better was the card they gave me – Mark, it seemed, had spent two days making a birthday card featuring a fake letter sent to Strong Bad asking him to send me an email saying Happy Birthday – LMAO! Excellent, guys!

Later that night a few of my friends (Mark L, Jaron, Ben and Steph) came over and we played xbox for a little while, then got Hells and watched Jackass The Movie. That is one classic movie… if you’ve never seen a Jackass, and are not squeemish, you will be after the end of this movie.

Anyway, the birthday was overall the best birthday I’ve ever had, and caps off the fact that this is the best era i’ve had in my life (new job, girlfriend, overall happy to be alive motif). I don’t things could get worse but we’ll see

20th Dec:
Said goodbye to Mel at the airport – she was flying to Christchurch. Caught the train to Paraparamu, Dad picked me up and we went to Otaki.

25th:
Xmas Day – saw my cousins at my grandparents place – was cool. Dinner was late because my cousins were late, and Dad got completely trashed from drinking and not eating.

29th December:
Dad and I drove to Napier. Went to the cricket with Stuart, my brother. Was pretty neat. Dad stays the night, leaves the next day.

New Years Eve:
Mum and I went up town for a drink. Bumped into Wayne, an aquantance of mine from my NCMT days. Fireworks, was a very good night!

2nd:
Caught up with Guru Bob at his place. Beer and burgers (thanks Linda!) and a GeneRally tourney. Bought GTA3 for PC from Bob for Stuart’s Birthday.

4th:
Saw Harry Potter with my Brother – was pretty cool.

5th: Stuart and I get a ride to Palmerston North with my Mum, meet up with Dad, we buy clothes, and drive on to Otaki.

7th: Dad, Stuart and I drive to Wellington, go to Te Papa for an hour or so, lunch, my house, I discover Chris has bought a giant TV and DVD 5.1 surround sound system for his room, and Mark has bought an Xbox. Wow. Dad and Stuart depart back to Otaki. 7pm I get picked up by Mel’s flatmate Andrew (thanks Andy!) and we go to the airport to pick up Mel, we go to her place have dinner with her flatmates.

First game was 5 players, SmileyChris, Jeremie, Bert, Joel(?), and myself. Joel won with the mission to Destroy Green… which was me. Damnit. My mission was Destroy Red (Bert), but I spread myself too thin. I need practice

Second game was the next night, Smiley, Jeremie, Gareth, Paul and myself. Gareth is a seasoned risk player, and completed his Destroy Blue mission, with SmileyChris manning the blue pieces. My mission was Take Asia and Africa. I started with three of the four countries in Australasia, and went on to hold most of asia for the rest of the game, not actually holding the continent at any point though. Also, I have never seen a Secret Mission game with more than 1 cannon on a country. I think on Gareth’s winning turn he cashed in his risk cards for a whopping 55+3 units. I had 4 cannons on one of my countries, Jeremie had maybe 5 or 6 in western europe, and Gareth had a huge army in the middle east, which was preventing me trying to take Africa. But I’m happy I held most of Asia for so long.

If you’re in Wellington sometime, give me an IM or something and we’ll organise a game sometime…

Last night I played Kill Dr Lucky with Mufasa, MonkeyJay and Nelg, we really enjoyed it – full report later when I get a moment.

The objective of Robo Battle Pigs is to destroy your opponent’s Robo Battle Pig by inflicting five points of damage with your laser or powerful robot fist.

Today, I was amazed to see that Randy Cox, the inventor of RBP had turned up on the forum offering a little tidbit of advice. I’m honoured he graced us with his presence We need three or four more players