Bring on the mobile - TripleTown and Paperland

So, for all I post here about games more often than anything else, I don't think I've posted anything to date about mobile games.  Partly because, until very recently, I haven't done much with them, due to the limitations of my cheap phone... partly because, frankly, I haven't been impressed by what I've seen so far.  That's changed a bit, now that I've run into a little slice of evil called TripleTown.

The reason it's called TripleTown is fairly straightforward... a major part of the game play is the sort of match-3 game that's been around for years now.  However, the creators took that idea in an entirely different direction... instead of a filled field of symbols, swapping, and so on, you start with a mostly empty field, and, instead of swapping things around, you're placing semi-random things, which, when matched, combine into an upgraded thing instead of disappearing entirely.  Using this mechanic, the goal is to build as large of a town as you can, building up from grassy fields to bushes, trees, houses, and beyond.  That might be an interesting puzzle on its own, but they also added bears... which you place like any other item, but then moves about on its own, until it's trapped (at which point it dies, leaving behind little gravestone symbols, which combine into churches, which combine into cathedrals, etc.).  This elevates the game from an exercise in how to most efficiently build your town to dealing with a roaming problem that you have limited control over at the same time... and don't even get me started about the ninja bears.

Of course, many fun ideas die a horrible death in the mobile realm, because of the interface.  Here, the makers purposely used a "cute" theme to simplify the display, and hid little-used options away, while still giving access to them through the main screen... it's a well thought-out system that leaves you to play the game as long as you want, while minimizing the downtime involved in doing less-common but sometimes useful things.

Of course, the game's not perfect, but that's just the nature of the medium.  It's a free download to start, and it gives you a limited amount of playtime for free (in my case, "limited" would have equated to about 3-4 full games).  Beyond that, it's got the standard cash-milking systems involved, if you want to go that route... OR, you can pay the full-upgrade cost (about $3-4), and get additional map types to play on, and leave the micro-transactions alone (unless you really need some coins to make a critical purchase for your map... so, if you have no willpower, this might not be the game for you after all).

All in all, I've had enough fun with it so far that I was willing to pony-up the unusually high "full version" price.  It's good for both short sessions or longer bouts, which is rare, and it makes you think ahead if you want to do well.  To me, that's all to the good... and it's free to try, so you really should.

...oh, and I did see something else cute that I considered worth paying for.  If you want something interesting but unobtrusive for a "live wallpaper", you can do far worse than Paperland.  It's built to look like paper cutouts of things you might see in a landscape, all animated to produce a scrolling backdrop for your phone.  Beyond that... well, it's hard to describe in words.  Since it has a free version too, I'll just say it's worth a look, and leave it at that.

Wow, I guess I'm a visionary...

So, here's a post from a couple years back... note in particular the section about what might make for an ideal video game controller.  Now, compare that to this, a patent Sony filed not quite a year later.  Mind you, I didn't see the great glowing balls on top of each piece... but that's because that's nothing short of stupid.  I'm not just saying that because it's Sony (for all I'd rather almost anybody else had filed that patent)... pieces potentially in the way of trigger fingers is not a good thing.  Still, it'll be interesting to see if something like that controller actually gets made... it'd be fun to see how it behaves in the real world.

Blast from the Past: Extended Edition

Looks like this cycle of drama has likely run its course, so I can post something less cryptic than my previous post... and, since there's popular demand for such, why not.

First, some back story... back in high school, like most guys, I "fell in lust" with my share of ladies, but never really went any further than that until my senior year.  That's when a fetching young lady, who I'll just call F for this story, transferred in.  Not only was she pretty, she was smart (I believe I met her in my calculus-based Physics class), and she was a Trekkie.  What more could a growing geek ask for, right?  Still, it's not like she was perfect... F always struck me as being a bit "scattered", but that didn't bother me at all.  We became friends and, in time, something like boyfriend and girlfriend... again, it wasn't perfect, but it was more than just lust.

Things went astray at our senior prom... I invited F, and drove a close friend of mine and his date (a junior whom I'd never met before) there.  After a while, F and my friend went off on their own, leaving me with the stranger.  Let's just say that I didn't handle that well, and I made quite certain that all involved knew that I was hurt by it.  No, hurt would be an understatement... it strongly shaped my outlook on life, and it took the better part of fifteen years for me to get back to a point in my life where I could truly forgive F and move on with my life.  It never occurred to me that any of the other participants in that incident could still be weighted down by it.

Fast forward to this past October, when I received a call from F from out of the blue.  She needed a little liquid courage to make the call, so she may well have said more than she intended... while I make no claim to being a gentleman, there's still much she said that it wouldn't be right to repeat.  The main highlights, then:  F was truly and terribly sorry for the grief she had caused, she had been recovering for several years from a nervous breakdown brought on in part by the 9/11 attacks (she had been in the greater New York area at the time), she's working to get into grad school (a process complicated by how long she had been out of, well, everything), but she would also like a relationship with me... that and much more, she laid at my feet.

Like I posted before, she mostly talked and I mostly listened... the fact was, it was obvious that she had a decision to make, and had likely called me, consciously or not, hoping to get the proverbial door slammed in her face, so she could concentrate on the path she really wanted to follow.  More's the pity for her, I had forgiven her some years back, so I didn't have that lash-out instinct at play... instead, I was intrigued.  I could still see the bits that attracted me all those years ago, and got reminded of things I'd forgotten (like her voice... it still has the power to coil around my brain stem and give it a nice squeeze), and, layered on top of that, was a couple of decades of change, paths she took that I never went near.  There's no way I could just "dive in" the way she wanted, but sniffing around the edges couldn't hurt much...

There was a problem, though... it became apparent, the more we talked, that she had a lingering image of me as a good/nice guy, perfect in too many ways.  If we were going to pursue any sort of relationship outside of Facebook-friendship, that needed corrected.  Since I also needed to get my thoughts and feelings straight, I tried to kill two birds with one stone... since she was extremely open and honest with me during her call, I composed an honest telling of my own experiences for the same general time-frame.  It took me the better part of four nights to get everything down, and I ended up with about six pages of prose, which I promptly emailed off to her.

Writing has many good things to say about it, but it also has one major downside... if you're not careful to understand your audience, and write in a way that works for them, you can get results you never intended.  F read my manuscript, and it was like I walked into her home, dropped trou, and crapped on her carpet.  It necessarily included a section surrounding the events of that long-ago prom, and, for all I had told her on the phone, and written in the manuscript, that I had forgiven her long ago, she took it as an indictment of her behavior.  A flurry of emails and text messages followed, as I tried to convince her that, truly, I wasn't trying to dredge up the past in a damning way... and she seemed to be somewhat mollified.

Thereafter... well, we texted a very little bit, but we never got on the phone again.  F kept herself quite busy with studying for tests and the like, so my hopes for getting to re-know her dwindled and faded.  Finally, I sent her an email last night (a mere four paragraphs, how's that for brevity? ;) ), putting the ball firmly in her court for initiating further contact, once she's not so busy... she didn't take well to that one, either.  Still, I think it was the right thing to do... it lets me get back to my normal state of serenity and contentment, and there's no sense in both of us being miserable.  Besides, if she does get back to me in a few weeks' time, it'll be a (possibly) pleasant surprise.

Blast from the Past

So, my high-school girlfriend from a couple decades back called me over the weekend, and we talked for a couple of hours (or, really, she mostly talked and I mostly listened, but, in my case, that's more or less to be expected).  Let's just say I'm "conflicted", and leave it at that for now.

こんばんは

Ran across some cheap language-learning software on my last trip out of town, and I decided, given my addictions to manga and anime, that it might be fun to take a stab at learning Japanese.  It's only a week, and I've already discovered that I'm in for way more than I bargained for, thanks to multiple writing systems, of which I would only classify two as "sane", from what I've seen so far.  Still, I'm hopeful that I can pick up on it all, in time... after all, many people would classify me as only partially sane, so it should be a good fit... ;)

Oh, as far as the title of this post goes?  That's the Hiragana representation of the word "konbanwa", which means "good evening", which I can never think without hearing it in Alfred Hitchcock's voice.  It's one of the few words I know how to spell so far (as long as I'm using a keyboard... I don't know how long it will take me to attempt writing by hand), so I thought it might be a fun test of how this blog system handles non-English scripts.

School lunches

OK, not my usual sort of topic, especially since I don't have kids myself, but I do have school-aged relatives.  I knew that there was a push on to put more "healthy" foods into school lunches, to try and combat the growth of childhood obesity... but I never knew that they were trying to calorie-restrict students, especially to the point where students would collaborate to complain publicly about it (link).

That in itself would be bad enough... but then I think about the kids who get reduced/free school lunches, some of whom don't get a reliable meal elsewhere.  Then there's the talking heads... I caught "the professionals" on the Today show talking about this earlier today, saying how this is supposedly a good thing, that the kids should only be eating until they're "satisfied", not "full" (which obviously isn't happening), and then one of them started going on about how this was a "shared sacrifice" issue... can't find a link to their segment online, unfortunately, but it's been enough to stick in my mind all day, hence this post.

Note to the "food crusaders" out there... if you want to try and push healthier options, more power to you.  As soon as you start harming one group of children, in the name of helping another group, you've gone too far.  Now, I'll just leave this here...

2012 Olympics - Closed

Summer Olympics are done for another 4 years... no major incidents that I heard about, and the U.S. pretty well dominated medals-wise, so that's nice.  Once again, NBC coverage was sucktastic, for anybody without a cable subscription especially.

As far a closing ceremonies go... well, I didn't watch much of it this time.  Pretty much every time I tuned in, it was another rock/pop group performing, which doesn't strike me as particularly "ceremonial"... except, of course, when there was a Python performing "Always Look On the Bright Side of Life", which was definitely not ceremonial, but at least amusing.  When Brazil's turn came up for the "coming attractions" part of the show, that was... interesting, at least.  Certainly, it was a damn sight better than what London did last games... it'll be interesting to see how things shape up, in four years' time.

2012 Olympics - Open

It's that time again... athletes from around the world, competing to show that they/their team/their country are "the best".  Good luck to all involved!

Of course, after China's spectacular to open their games last year, I had to see how the UK would handle their opening ceremonies, especially considering how disappointing their portion of the closing ceremony of the last games was.  Thankfully, they didn't embarrass themselves... it was genuinely entertaining, and my only quibbles come down to matters of personal taste (excess use of pre-filmed clips and popular music from decades back, mainly).  Still, for me, the highlight had to be Rowan Atkinson's part in the ceremony this time around... so, yeah, "spectacular" isn't the word I would use to describe it.

Another no-buy... Cisco/Linksys (updated)

So, I posted a while back that, while I was leery of Netgear and their equipment, it didn't rise to the level of needing to never buy their equipment again.  In contrast, let's look at Cisco and their Linksys brand... looks like they auto-updated some of the routers they sold, requiring existing users to set up a "cloud" log-in with them to get access to the features they had previously... and, in the process, decided that they could snoop on any of those users' network traffic, and lock out their access for any of a number of reasons, including porn (link).

Now this, this rises to the level of "never buy again"... I've had and enjoyed Linksys equipment in the past, but, especially when it comes to security hardware I've purchased, I'm not OK with either snooping or getting in the way of my access to features I paid for.

Update:  So, a positive sign... Cisco appears to have recognized their error, and is going to make their "cloud" service optional (link). In my opinion, that's how it should have been to begin with... so, now I can list them as just "questionable", instead of "avoid like the plague".  I'm still quite glad that there are several other vendors to work with...

Constitutionality

With the Supreme Court's scheduled ruling today on the Affordable Care Act, I fully expected to be terribly disappointed however the ruling came down.  Surprisingly, I'm much better pleased than I expected... the health-care mandate was preserved without resorting to arguments that Congress can force you to buy whatever they want you to, by re-framing the concept as a tax matter, for all everyone involved postured about no new taxes being involved.  Amazingly, it was a ruling of "try and call it what you want, this is what it really is", which I honestly never expected to see in my lifetime at that level of the judiciary... with Chief Justice Roberts playing the deciding role, no less (link).

But, for every pleasant surprise out of Washington, it seems there needs to be at least as much derp.  To wit, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, with his office's "Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so" statement (link).  Yeah... funny thing, when the majority says so, really it does make it so.  That's kind of their job.

The final verdict on Activision... we'll never know

It's a little over two years now since I put Activision on probation for potential sleaziness with their employees, and I've been patiently waiting for the truth to come out in court.  Looks like I'll never get that opportunity, though... they finally settled.  Of course, the terms of the settlement are under wraps, so there's no hard evidence one way or the other as to how that worked out... but news reports have one of the lead developers involved "smiling broadly" on the way out of court, so it's a fair guess as to where the balance of the settlement, and thus the validity of the original lawsuit, lies.

Oh well, since Activision was unwilling to let the details air out in court, I just get to add them to the permanent "do not buy" list.  Pity... I might have enjoyed checking out Diablo 3, once their server issues got worked out.

*choke*

You know, I used to think that, should I become (or otherwise turn out to be) immortal, that I might get bored... but humanity has this amazing ability to come up with new ideas.  Sometimes, those are awesome ideas, but other times it's things that should never be.  So, here's three words that should never have been conjoined, but are now a thing... human flesh capsules.

Duty and Nostalgia

The time is fast approaching, if all goes as planned, where my mother's house, the house I grew up in, will finally be sold. I'm a practical sort at heart, so I made peace with this eventuality when my mother moved out of the house something over a year ago... but now, it falls to her children in Spokane to finally sift through 40+ years of attic and basement clutter, playing the game of "keep, donate, or trash" for weekends on end. It's unkind to say, but there has been a lot of "what the hell was she thinking, holding on to this?" My favorite of that category so far has to be the state driver's license exam book from the '60s, with the multiple copies of "Catcher in the Rye" a close second.

Amongst the other odds and ends, I came across a box with my name on it. Apparently, she tossed the odds and ends that I left behind when I entered the Navy into it. Let's just say that, for the most part, it was stuff that, if I remembered it, I hadn't felt the loss of it... old birthday cards, get-well cards from the time I got run over by a car, that sort of thing. I did scavenge an old picture or two, plus a couple of names I'd forgotten that I might try my Google-fu on, just for kicks. I've also set aside some old table-top gaming gear temporarily... odds are that most of it will go the way of the rest of the detritus, but I'll probably thumb through one last time first, just to be certain.

So, I got a little whiff of nostalgia to compensate for the nasty, grimy work I'm fated to endure. It's something, I guess, but let me make this plea to all you people accumulating stuff in your attics, basements, or, heavens fore-fend, in a storage unit somewhere... if you're holding on to it because you honestly think it will be useful to you at some point down the road, or it has known sentimental value (pictures, for example), that's all fine and well. However, don't just hold on to stuff because it might come in handy, or for lack of a better idea of what to do with it... the trash can exists for a reason, and those who clean up after you will be ever so grateful, when the time comes.

What's up with the manga sickness?

So, it's now about a year and a half from when the manga bug bit me hard... time for a "state of the sickness" report, if you will. Consider this fair warning, any of you that are thinking about getting into it.

I've had great fun with the Negima! series, which is still being published, albeit by a different publisher. Sadly, that's been one of the larger trends over that time period, publishers going under (like Tokyopop) or getting out of manga (like Del Rey), with series left in limbo.

There's still a healthy amount of viable series being published at the moment, as well... plus, more and more "older" series are getting "omnibus" editions printed (usually equating to three volumes of original material for the price of about 2, which generally works). Unfortunately, the time between releases on any given series varies widely, so, if you get bit as hard as I did, you'll be looking for older series to fill the gaps with...

Old series present their own issues. Something I didn't really realize, getting into this hobby, is how ephemeral manga can be. I mean, take your average fantasy/sci-fi book series as an example. If the publisher thinks it's worth printing the series, they tend to make a sizable first run, and reprint if necessary... and, so long as the last book in the series was completed by the author, it generally gets printed, although possibly not as many, based on past sales, etc. The end result is that you can often find a new copy of any book published within the past few years, and inexpensive used copies otherwise.

Manga... doesn't play out that way. Since there's significant work involved in translating volumes, series that reach completion in Japan don't necessarily survive long enough in the US to tell their story. In particular, Seven Seas Publishing has dropped a number of series on me early, but I've had enough good/fun stories come from them that I haven't blacklisted them over it. On the other hand, Tokyopop is another story entirely... they're out of manga entirely now, and shut down so suddenly that several series were left in limbo, with nobody coming along to pick up afterwards. One of the first things I look for on "old" manga now is whether it has the Tokyopop imprint... if it has it, I don't pick it up, so I reduce my chances of starting a story I will never be able to finish.

But, suppose you have a series that's still being published, or has reached completion... even then, you're not exactly safe. One I was looking to get into, after another "Netflix doesn't have all the discs" episode, was called Genshiken. Nine volumes total, all readily available, except the last volume, which, at the time of this volume, is still listed "new" at Amazon for $45. Luckily, I dodged the bullet on that one... and, luckier still, it looks like an omnibus edition is coming out in May, so no great harm there. On the other hand, take the series "Hayate the Combat Butler"... I picked up the first three volumes in the series, and would pick up the fourth, but the cheapest Amazon option for that is over $30, and this for a series that is still being published.

So, the tl;dr version on the state of manga: Current versions of current series are mostly safe (as are omnibus reprints), but not guaranteed, and older volumes/series are spotty at best. I'll stick with it for a while yet (and, likely, keep that Amazon Prime membership active), and, if you can handle the uncertainty, I can still recommend it to you.

For any of you Spokane sci-fi/fantasy readers...

On the off chance you don't know about it, there's a neat little used bookstore by the name of Cal's Books. It has a couple of nice features...

• It has a fair-sized stock of fantasy and sci-fi books available (as well as other genres for those of you who are into those sorts of things)
• It's got a fairly decent trade-in system... you get some percentage of the cover price of your books' value as credit, which you then access for a pittance per book. End result: books for about $0.40 each, so long as you have credit at the store
• It's at the other end of the block from the Donut Parade, so you can have handy access to good donuts without explicitly making a trip to get donuts.

I've been going to Cal's off and on for years... and honestly, that's why I'm writing this. You see, it had been about 5 years since I last dropped in, between work and other hobbies interfering, and I have hundreds of dollars in credit there. Many places would have found a way, in that time, to quietly 'lose' my record or otherwise erase that credit... but everything was as it should be, all these years later. For that alone, I recommend taking a look into Cal's... worst case, it'll give you an excuse to go get donuts.

El Shaddai

It might sound like the setup for some sick joke, or maybe a disaster waiting to happen... but El Shaddai is a game based, however loosely, on a story from a book in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I've played a ways into the game now... it's a mildly interesting mix of 2d and 3d platforming and beat 'em up elements, without any obvious heresies to set off those so inclined. Game-wise and story-wise, it's decent, and that's about it.

However... it is visually unique, with a style that changes throughout. Anybody that wants to debate whether video games can ever be art needs to see this game. Myself, I'm quite taken by it... enough so to recommend that you rent it or check out a demo, at least. If you like it, it's down to about $20 new now, so you can almost certainly find it cheaper used.