Inform 7 (Beta)
If, like myself, you are a nerd and over the age of 30, chances are you played a few text-adventures like Zork or The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy in your day. Well, now-a-days these games are referred to as interactive fiction, and there is quite a community of modern-day nerds who are still making text-adventures that rival and even surpass the games from the Infocom heyday.
The modern development language for Infocom, or Z-Machine, type games was created by Graham Nelson and is called Inform. Z-machine games can be played on almost every computing playform including Palm handhelds and iPods! I got my first exposure to object-oriented programming by playing with Inform 6 in the late 90s. Well, in the last month, the first major upgrade to Inform in many, many years has been released.
Inform 7 unlike most programming languages, has been developed based on natural language. So instead of a cryptic list of curly brackets and functions, you simply type stuff like, "The Armoury is a room. The sword is in the armoury." And the compiler does the hard stuff. The development enviroment is really slick, and includes full documentation (Graham Nelson's Craft of Adventure is required reading for anyone even remotely interested in video game design). So if you have an abundance of free-time and a few clever puzzle ideas, start programming and you may be the next Will Wright!
Snowtime Fun!
It may not be new but damn if it never gets old.
http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf
Personal best - 323.3
Pac-Man, Greenwich Village style...
Another Donkey Kong post! The record now stands at 947,200 points. How high can you get?
Download the emulator and ROM for your shot at fame and glory!
Someone with M.A.M.E., Van Halen's 1984 CD and too much time on their hands has crafted this tribute to that most essential video gaming ability: jumping.
Disturbing video game
"Postal 2" a computer game, is scheduled to go on sale in March. It lets players shoot different types of people, including gays.
An earlier version of the game has already been banned in Australia, and a Dutch gay rights activist is attempting to have the government ensure it does not wind up on store shelves in the Netherlands.
After many of my langorous gasps and moans, we stopped playing, and tried to analyze the gameplay experience. "I don't know exactly what the game designers intended with that trance vibrator thing - but it had to be this, right?"
"It's a total stoner game," said Justin.
"But don't you think this trance vibrator extension is so your girlfriend can get off while you're playing the game? Or so a girl gamer can get off while she's playing the game?"
"It was a bit odd," said Justin, "my fingers were working the controls, but they were also kind of working you."
"Mmm. Did you like it?"
via umami tsunami
