The RAah Project

I caught these guys on Sunday Arts and thought them well worth the shout out. There used to be a category in the music stores called 'Acid Jazz' that mixed jazz and electronica - I find it hard to find now! The RAah project take it one step further, throwing in a classical orchestra and hip hop as well - I found it very enjoyable and relaxing. Check out some free samples on their site.

In cyberspace, no-one can hear you clapping...

...but they can hear the rattle of spare change.

I've recently been buying a few games on Steam (Dragon Age and the Orange Box) which made me realise how long it had been since I had purchased a pre-paid, big corporation type game. Before this, the last two 'bought' games I'd played were the subscription games World of Warcraft and Champions Online, which only lasted a few months each as they both bored me pretty quickly*. And those two games were almost a year apart - the fact that I am only just playing Portal now should show how far behind on the 'popular' games I am!

In the past five or six years at least, most of the games I've been playing are 'free to play' games such as Kingdom of Loathing, Puzzle Pirates, Dwarf Fortress, and of course Whirled. And those games have interested me a hell of a lot more than those purchased subscription games that demand their moolah upfront and in large amounts. So do I find the free-to-play format more enjoyable because it's free? I don't think so. For all of the free-to-play games I've mentioned, including games like Dwarf Fortress that only receive money through donations, I have paid a fair bit of money into their coffers, maybe not as much as I forked out for WOW, but close. I didn't need to - I just wanted to support their games because they are more inventive, creative and downright enjoyable than the more popular stuff out there.

I donated to Wikipedia too, as it's so incredible useful that I'd hate to see it disappear or be hobbled by poor finances - so maybe it's just the type of person I am. But I've come across plenty of people that seem to think that free-to-play games or free websites are obliged to provide everything for free, and gibber and whine the moment the site makes moves to encourage people to pay real cash to keep the site going. I've seen it particularly happen on Whirled, I'm seeing early tremblings on Facebook with "I don't want to pay for this incredibly useful site" protest groups popping up in the news feeds of otherwise sensible people, and I know many mature adults that would feel compelled to hand-waving freakoutery if Wikipedia started throwing in ad-popups or subscription services. And with the news that Whirled, while a fun and interesting place, isn't doing as well financially as the people paying it's way might hope, it makes me wonder at the attitude of many people to services on the internet that they enjoy and use almost every day. Why do we seem to find it so unbelievable that we might be asked to pay? Why don't we voluntarily cough up cash when site we find useful and fun start throwing out subtle hints and 'scratch our back and we'll scratch yours' paid features? Have we had it too good for too long? It doesn't occur to most of us to demand cinema seats, groceries, books or theme park entry for free - so why the grumblings when places that let you amply sample their wares without asking for a cent ask for a little payback?

And if we put the money into the places that we like best instead of the ones that demand it loudly and up front - will we end up with more useful, more creative and more interesting sites and games?

Pondering...
Trowzers (hypocritically posting on her free blog)



* WOW paralysed me with boredom whereas in Champions I just became a little lost in the endless list of quests. At least with Champions you have a little creative input into your character - WOW you have zilch and if it weren't for the people I met, I'd rather have gone and watched a good movie rather than kill-this, fetch-that, walk-here endless grind. What is more, I felt compelled to play the game to support my team, and the moment I feel 'compelled' to waste time on what's supposed to be entertainment that I'm not really enjoying, I know it's time to drop it. It took nearly three years for that to happen on Puzzle Pirates (which I still return to from time to time), and hasn't happened yet on Whirled after several years. Yet WOW - I really don't feel the need to take a second look at it. Not even to get a pair of doubleplus-good super-absorbant purple-class armor pants of super strength, or to kill the penultimate all-time-super-heavyweight-champion dragon-thing that mysteriously carries them. Instead I'd rather draw an awesome chair for my room, and see other people use and enjoy it when I post it in the shop. Or go patch up some pirate ships :)

Ice Cream Review #2 - Maggie Beer's Burnt Fig Jam, Honeycomb and Caramel Ice-Cream

Due to the weird popularity of the last ice-cream review, I've decided to continue to the Australian ice-creme theme! I actually tasted this ice-cream back on January 31st for (another equally good ice-cream eating excuse) International Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day! Did you miss it? Tough titties - I certainly didn't! But make sure you put it in your calendar for next year and keep an eye out for that special tub o' icy cream goodness.

I picked up this brand at the last minute from a city supermarket. Incidentally it's the same store I picked up the Digger's ice-cream, and despite them stocking barely any ice-cream apart from the generic Neopolitan mega-tubs, I found this little number hidden on the top shelf.

It's an interesting combination. I like fig jam. I like caramel. I like honeycomb. And, dammit, I sure do like Maggie Beer too. She featured on my favourite cooking show, which unfortunately has finished now, but it's nice to see you can still pick up a little bit of Maggie when you want it :)

I know, I know - how did it taste! I mean, 'burnt' jam? That can't be good? Well, you are sadly mistaken. This was delicious! The burnt taste was only noticeable as a subtle background note, which reminded me of the burnt sugar coating on the top of a creme brulee. I only noticed the fig in the first mouthful, which is a shame, but the rest was pleasingly creamy and sweet, without being sickly. I couldn't have eaten much of this in one sitting (especially not at breakfast) but in moderation, or as a side to a complimentary desert, this will go down very nicely. And this is an ice-cream that give and gives! The burnt sugar/toffee taste lingered long afterwards, mixing deliciously with the hot green tea I was drinking. Almost enough to make me buy another tub just to enhance the tea-drinking experience! I'm going to have to hunt down some more Maggie Beer products and see if they are equally interesting.

I love the smell of melted crayons in the morning...

Ahhhh crayons. Remember the neatly curled paper wraps? The slightly greasy-fingered feel after a session of hard-core colouring? The poignant smell of a tin of melted crayons left in the sun too long?

Crayon memories have been percolating to the surface ever since receiving a few crayon colours in the Everything game on Facebook. I remember getting a rocket-shaped plastic tube once, full of
more colours than I'd ever had before! I was fervently proud of my rocket ship of Crayons, and I still remember how monumentally pissed off I was when one of my neighbour playmates dropped it during a shared colouring binge, breaking the case and snapping some of the precious little nubs of colour. Lucky none of the purple ones were broken or it would have been WAR!

Anyway, if you remember Crayons too, check out this article about the shift in crayon colours over time at Weather Sealed. It includes this awesome chart.

I want a huge print out of that on my wall, stat!

Screenshots from the Spiral Knights game

As promised here are a few screenshots from the Spiral Knights game.

Here I am laying some smackdown on some wolf characters (this shot shows the full game screen):



A close up of the character screen:



Some chroma lizards feel the bite of my sword:



The entrance to the Adventure Boards, showing other players:



And lastly, the peril of taking screen shots while in a room of hungry jellies (and I'm glad those delicious looking wobble-bodied jellies are still in the game!):



It looks like the game will work on the 'free if you wait for your energy to build up, or pay if you can't wait' model used by so many Facebook games, and that there will be survey offers just like the Facebook games.

The gameplay is fun and simple, and I found it pretty smooth. Oddly I found the multiplayer, where you can play with four other people, even faster than single player. You can play levels solo, but the game makes it easy to play collaboratively, and there are a lot of elements in the game where you have to co-operate to get through (such as buttons that only work when all players stand on them). The characters are almost too cute for words, especially the little whirly helicopter-winged birds that infest the lobby levels. If you're after blood and gore and are afraid of all things 'cute', this game is not for you, but if you want a simple, absorbing and visually pleasing game where you can also run into and play with other people without much hassle, this is your game.

Spiral Knights

A long, long time ago, I accepted an invite from one of my favourite game makers, Three Rings, to playtest a game in development. For several hours I ran around as a cute little knight character squashing jellies and running away from bronze giants, then filled out a little survey form, and heard nothing more.

Today I stumbled across the game again - but this time in more open testing! I'm currently waiting in the queue to log in (because it seems only a certain number of people are allowed on at a time) but I think my readership is low enough that I can afford to share ;) So go check out Spiral Knights - it's java based so you'll have to download a client, but from the screenshots and promo videos it looks like it's developed hugely from the limited 4-5 level demo I played all that time ago (and even then it was incredibly smooth and gorgeous).

Oh - did I forget to mention? It's free!

Ok ok a real post. I've been making stuff!

I had a tremendous time over the holidays making things for Whirled, mainly furniture for the Kawaii theme including some trees that I'm quite happy with (one had 70 purchases in the first 24 hours so I guess I'm not the only one!).

I also made a backdrop that I'm very proud of, because despite my allergy to coding I sat down and played with Actionscript long enough to code some randomly generated clouds. They are very relaxing to watch, and the result is much smoother and less laggy than anything you could do with normal animation.

You can view the room here:

Launch the full version of Whirled


And if you want to play with Actionscript, you can see the code I used here (because I did have to ask for some help to get it working! but happily I got most of it done on my own).

For Conrad

Just for you Conrad, I am updating my blag. Here you go!