Posts Tagged ‘leisure’

New York from the First Sight

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

While traveling to New York I expected to find something that would attract me to return there again in the future. The city made a lot of impressions especially on the first days, but during eleven days I got used and got tired of the size of the city.

New York consists of five boroughs. They are Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. We settled and spent the most time in Manhattan – the island of skyscrapers. We visited Brooklyn, the borough of blacks, and the Bronx, the native land of hip hop. We stayed for five days relatively close to the central park and then another days in China Town, in a hotel where every person gets a room cabin of six square meters with only a bed and a shelf.

We have purchased New York City Passes, which allowed us to visit the main sightseeings with a discount and waiting in less queues. We saw the city from the highest building – Empire State Building – it looked similarly as from an airplane. Also we went around Manhattan by cruise ship also passing the Statue of Liberty. We walked by the embankment and had rest in parks. Also we walked in the Times Square – the street full of screens and advertisements washing your brains. Then you want hamburgers, M&M’s and Coke (to gnaw out the eaten food).

Now I’ll tell shortly about everything. Mc Donalds and Starbuck’s provide a free wifi access. People read electronic books on Amazon Kindle and similar readers in the subway. Buildings and subway trains have air conditioning. Public transportation is quite uncomfortable comparing to Berlin – there are no time schedules and it’s difficult to find stations to change trains. Electricity sockets differ from European and English, so you need adapters.

“Welcome to America, my darling!”, said a woman of a shape of a ball to her tiny friend, the waves mildly hit the embankment, and you could see the Statue of Liberty far far away. There are not so many fat people, but the S size of t-shirts in America is the same as M size in Europe. There are not so many smoking people. Bouncers at the bars demand to show IDs to check the age. There are people leading two or three dogs at once.

During the nights mice and big cockroaches run in the streets. People of homeless lifestyle sleep under staircases. Somewhere the drain holes smoke. Water drops down from air conditioners attached to windows. How hot the weather can be! The streets are full of sacks of rubbish at nights. China Town smells of fish.

The transportation system reminds Grand Theft Auto. There are lots of different cars including limousines. There are lots of taxis. Cutters, Yachts and Cruise Ships float at the piers. The most impressive thing in the architecture are Gothic churches build between many-storied buildings. One of the twins is being rebuilt again close to the original place where a memorial will be built.

That’s my mixture of impressions. I was lack of alternative people and places. I liked the trip, but I would go there next time only if I had some business there.

Inspirations for Level Designers: “Vilija”

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

After crossing the pedestrians’ bridge over the river Vilnele, I climb the snowy hillside up. Then I go by the wire fence until I reach an unraveled hole in it. I go through it, pass the opened drains, and step inside through squeaking door. I am starting a new column in my blog. It will be about astonishing places which waken imagination for the creators of adventure, action, and horror games. Scary abandoned unexpected spaces, strange details, and mystic lighting will show what labyrinth of rooms your game character could be running in, what textures to use for covering your models, and how to adjust the lights..

A huge spool of thread lightened by the sun in the evening

It’s evening. The beam of sunlight through a window drowns half of the visible territory. Somebody might hide not only in the dark, but also behind the beam of light. The mystery is created not by the darkness, but by the penetration of light in the darkness cautiously touching things scattered all over the place.

Pigeons perching on the frame of a window

Pigeons being the new settlers of the house are watching me through the open or “opened” windows. Take a look at the light projected through the windows on the wall.

Kubrick-style-like corridor

Suddenly, I discover a white Kubrick-styled marble corridor. Plaster ceiling is broken and fallen down on the ground. They create me associations with the “Spring” by M. K. Čiurlionis. When you go on the pieces of the plaster, they clatter like metal faces in the Jewish Museum in Berlin. This room contrasts sharply with the rest of the factory. Is it a corridor to the baths of the chiefs? The door is locked. I hear steps and barking dogs. Somebody is putting a key into the door from the other side… Let’s run!

Ramps for extreme adventures

Urban activities make the building reborn in a new form. I roll over the ramps prepared by BMX bikers. Hurry up!

Wide spaces divided rhythmically by pillars

There is a lot of wide space, monotony, and rhythm. No matter how fast you run, you seem to stand in the same location..

Molded ceiling

The molded ceiling can be used as an example of texture. Do you feel that smell?

Holes in the ceiling

Of course, there is much water inside, because the roof has holes in it. Are those chimneys or holes for ventilation? Should we try running away through them like people did in the labyrinth of “The Cube“? It’s quite high. We should probably find some shelves, put them on each other, and then help each other to reach the holes. Oh! I can’t squeeze through them. You go up and wait for me!

Icy ground

This office is all covered in ice. I slip and bruise my elbow.

A window

The communist-styled window of this office gives me a hope that I can still get out of here until it gets dark outside…

Ghosts

Ghosts appear on my way. If you want to catch a view by a photo camera in twilight without flash, you need to do a long delay. If something moves in the shot at that moment, it will become pale and blurry as a ghost in the final photo. Theoretically it would be possible to make a ghost-like view in 3D by adding transparency to a model and making copies of it while it’s moving, where each copy would disappear little by little increasing the transparency. I’ll try that at some point in the future, when I start learning 3D modeling and animation. I turn aside…

Mysteriously creepy hall

Oh no! Everything has just started. My heart is bumping.


Location: textiles factory “Vilija”, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Time: January, 2009.
While writing, I was listening to music tagged “creepy”.


Others also were there:

  • Wd40 – correctly photoshopped moods.
  • JOG – the diversity of stuff found there.

Sunday Celebration: the Last Descendant of Space Invaders

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

The main dish from the Sunday menu is a shmopBroken Garden“. The author K. Thor Jensen gonna create 12 games in a year. This one is the fourth.

Broken Garden

Airplanes of strange shapes (I’ll keep my associations to myself) are called by the names of mythological sinners. They are Adam (the first man created by God), Eve (the first woman created by God), Cain (The first son of Adam and Eve), Lilith (ex of Adam. I’m not sure what kind of creature she was), Judas (the apostle of Jesus), and Satan (angel-manipulator). You choose one and then shoot at all the armies of angels in order to come back to the Gardens of Eden.

Each airplane has one normal and one super gun. The game is divided by levels, where the opponents are shot, and their fragments are collected as experience points. The protagonist has a few lives. Each level ends with a boss, i.e. a large airplane called by the name of archangel Gabriel. After finishing the boss and completing the level, you can buy an additional live or enhance one of the following features for your experience points: the power or speed of your normal gun, or the power or charging speed of your supergun.

If you multiply all you choice options, you get a lot of variations how to complete the game. The choices encourage you to replay and try different combinations.

The gameplay is almost the same as in the shmupXevious” which is of my age. But it doesn’t directly propagate wars among people. In worst case, you could see through the symbols inducing to fight for your rights, no matter what powers try to weaken you. The fiction is original, unexpected, and even shamelessly sacrilegious from the perspective of some religions.. I’m interested how it will end up so I’ll try to reach that Garden.

Sunday Celebration: Charge Yourself!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Games can be divided by verisimilitude into these categories (1):

Level 3 solved

Electric Box uses animated icons to illustrate the law of conservation of energy which states that any form of energy can be transformed into another form. You can transform electricity to light, steam, wind, laser, or stream of water, and then transform that to back to electricity. The gameplay is like in the TIM – you have to lay out the things from inventor to a gridded field so that the energy from the source of electricity reaches the target.

The main strategy for playing could be finding pairs of things which use the same material for the energy transformations to electricity (for example, a lamp uses electricity when shining and then solar energy generator creates the electricity) and laying them at electricity cables supporting correct directions (for example, water drops down, steam goes up. wind blows horizontally, and light spread in four directions).

Animation and several moving objects like a conveyer, a magnet, and fan make this puzzle game look dynamic. Nevertheless, it would be absolutely possible to play this game on a gridded cardboard using cards with symbols. Probably, the prototype was created like that.

I completed almost all game, but got stuck in the last level and, in addition, I found a bug there where a convey carrying objects goes through some other objects in a strange specific case.

Bug in level 15

The creators foresaw that 15 prepared levels will be too few and made it possible for players to create levels themselves. You can try some custom levels of other players or my own masterpiece (copy the code and paste into the input field which will apear when you click on the link “Enter Code”):

Creating custom levels

Once I told to myself that if I have a house somewhen in the future, it will certainly use renewable energy from the sun, wind, stream or surf of water. Electric Box reminds me that dream.


(1) According to the book “Half-real” by Jesper Juul.

Word-pooping

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

I am reading a book with a lot of trash talking. Maybe that’s the reason why the book is so thick. I heard that the book will be useful to me. I trust the recommendations. But at the moment I have to torture myself with such sentences as:

Meaning, meaning, meaning. If you repeat the word enough, you can almost coax it into the realm of pure non-sense. Because asking about the meaning of meaning can quickly turn into a jumbled, meaningless mess, let’s frame the connection between play and meaning as simply as we can.

Fun, isn’t it!? The authors of the book either wanted to fill the planned 700 pages, or to write such a book that nobody wants to translate, or they are just playing words.

Anyway, there are several reasons to read such belles-lettres:

  • There are useful facts in all that mess. You just have to find them.
  • You can learn to speak about specific things understandable.
  • It’s a perfect way to improve your dictionary and structures of sentences, learn new words and phrases, and juggle your language more flexibly.
  • It’s a way to learn talking nonsenses so that you could parody shit-talkers in parties.

Kids, read books!

Sunday Celebration: Power in the Pants

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

If the stickman had no colorful pants, he wouldn’t probably be able to run as fast as Sonic and jump from wall to wall as the bunny from Tiny Toon. This Sunday, I suggest you a funny game Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2 with all the functions an active side-scroller has ever needed.

FPA World 2: Logo

The game with FancyPants has no exclusive graphics. The proportions of characters are far away from reality (i.e. bees are bigger than mayor of the Squiggleville). The story of the game is ridiculous (FancyPants goes to the angry rabbit to get his ice-cream back). Also the view lags from time to time. But there are a few things that are done totally cool. They are consistent motion animation, sounds, and game physics engine.

FPA World 2: running under momentum

The guy can run so fast that he doesn’t fall when running in a loop upside-down. The hero can fall on his back and slide under all obstacles. It’s no problem for him to hang on rocks or get through a strained rope using hands as for the Prince of Persia. If necessary, FancyPants will jump on the walls as Jacky Chan or will kick snail shells and cowered spiders not worse than Beckhem. If I only had such pants…

FPA World 2: hanging on rocks

But that cannot be true. The game creator Brad Borne says in his website:

Yep, that’s right, all the physics in my games are faked. That’s probably why they’ll glitch out if you push them too hard, but a ‘realistic’ physics engine won’t make a game good, in fact, unless it’s one of those two-wheeled-vehicle-2d-platforming games, a realistic physics engine will probably take most of the life out of your game.

FPA World 2: flying on bees

You’ll complete the game for the first time just to see how it finished. You’ll do that second time to execute the additional tasks. There are hideouts and trophies to collect in the game. Also you’ll find a snail in each level which you can kick to a special hole to get new pants of some color. All achievements are registered in cookies, so you don’t have to register. You can come back anytime and play again.

FPA World 2: jumping from wall to wall

Go, but don’t forget that it’s Monday tomorrow.


P.S. Don’t hesitate to vote in the new poll.

Antispam Postcard

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Finally I dedicated some time to implement an old idea. One day I did a postcard for BadDog postcard contest. Maybe they will print it.

Antispam postcard: Attention! Please throw commercial flyers and unsubscribed newspapers to the trash container outside!

The postcard says: “Attention! Please throw commercial flyers and unsubscribed newspapers to the trash container outside!”. I have an analogue card made in German and it’s stuck up on my mailbox. This antispam filter works 90% successfully.

I am striking this task off from the TODO list and going further to the other tasks.

Sunday Celebration: Puzzled Out

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

Usually while playing we are used either to impersonate the characters and control them till the end of the game, or to solve some impersonal puzzles which get more difficult in time, and everything what you learn in the beginning is used later. This time I will show you a game consisting of about 20 mini puzzles which are almost not related to each other. That’s ClickPLAY!.

ClickPLAY! Obstacle Course

You have to do some task in each level in order to find a button “Play” and to click on it. You control everything just by mouse. You need either to click or drag some objects. By the first clicks you try everything how it works. Then you realize the task (or not). Then you try to solve the problem. That’s like an IQ test, but with funny animation.

ClickPLAY! Bowling Ball Bash

The game trains your observation, reaction, logical thinking, and memory. Sometimes some special knowledge is required. For example, you’ll need to sort four kinds of spices in one of the levels. If you are no expert of English folklore, you’ll probably won’t guess that the names of the spices are words from a song. Try to google.

ClickPLAY! Mega Squeal

Every mouse click is counted. The less you do that, the better. Players done less than some amounts of clicks, get golden, silver, or bronze cups. Also they are suggested a form by the third-party MochiAds to log the amount of clicks. The leadership board is integrated with facebook. The login to facebook happens through facebook.com, then MochiAds gets some specific token by which it can recognize the logged in user, using facebook API (so there is no fear that your password is stolen). Then you can compare your results with the results of your friends. The counting of points induce replay and aiming for better achievements.

ClickPLAY! Facebook Integration via MochiAds

Try it.

Sunday Celebration: Let the Castle Not to Be

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

“Yes!” – I shouted when a metal joist cut the head of a princess. Finally, I completed the last level. The birds are singing. The grasshoppers are chirping. That’s romantics.

Sound castle

If you are lazy to press keys on the keyboard this weekend, “Crush the Castle” will be the perfect choice for you. The game is controlled by the left mouse button or a space key. You can eat chips using one hand and attack castles by catapult using the other one. You don’t even need to move the mouse unless you decide to change the thrown stones.

Catapult

I totally don’t support wars and aggression, but “Crush the Castle” is no more cruel than chess. Just it is not strategic, but physics-based. One or three stones are thrown by some direction to a castle depending on a chosen moment. The castle itself is nothing else than a framework built out of three types of bricks. The wooden joists are easiest to throw down, stone-based ones are heavier, and the metal joists are the most stable and it’s most difficult to move them.

The game consists of 24 levels. The purpose of each of them is to throw down all the figures of people in the castle. The completions of levels are saved in the servers of the game by IP or other computer parameters. So the next time you open the game, you can continue playing. When you complete all the levels prepared by the game creators, you can crush the castles of other players. For example, you can copy the following noodle, go to BUILD YOUR OWN -> LOAD, paste, and try to crush my building in one or more shots:

Play here!

Crushed castle

P.S. You can feel your part deeply into the game if you put a photo of Kernavė on your desktop.

P.P.S. The sound track fits for afterdinner nap.

If I Opened a Bar in Berlin…

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

I work quite a lot on workdays. Sometimes I even have to sit in the studio at night in order to update the code for the developed websites on public servers. After all work I want to have enough rest on weekends. So sometimes I go around in the night Berlin.. Then day Berlin.. Then night again. So are my weekend marathons. Little by little I find my favorite places with positive, literate, creative, tolerant, and open-minded people. Last day a friend of mine raised an idea to open a bar somewhere in the city. So today, while my cloths were being washed in the house on the opposite side of the street, I was sitting in Oberholz and brainstorming what a bar should be to be a favorite place for getting together.

  • A bar should be located somewhere in East Berlin. Kreuzberg, Friedrichshein, Prenslauer Berg, or Mitte would be right districts.
  • There should be no sightboard with the name of the bar (maybe in spite of inside). The visitors would recommend this place to each other.
  • There should be benches next to the entrance for sitting down and smoking (personally I don’t propagate killing youself), or for just breathing the fresh car exhaust.
  • The furniture inside should be collected from the street. That gives an impression of simplicity.
  • There should be elements of street art. The interior could be decorated with graffiti and stickers. Special stands could offer free postcards and freetime magazines for youth.
  • There should be some unique creative or totally crazy detail or concept in the interior. For example, you can find the following in other bars of Berlin with distinctive atmosphere: a girl projected on a wall cries in real water down to a sink; furniture attached to the ceiling; the ground floats in a river; monsters frightening in shadows and water-lilies dipped into vases near a bar; etc.
  • Wireless internet is inevitable in the area, so that students could write their thesis or sit at facebook, the lovers of science could enhance wikipedia, and the managers of young progressive companies could have appointments with candidates to employees. It’s very important to have enough electricity ports for laptops at each table. Technophiles would probably use internet at nights using their iPhones browsing for information about the best events of the night where they would go after this bar.
  • At least one service worker should be of nontraditional sexual orientation. In those cases, some of the visitors are gays and lesbians. Usually, when such people visit a bar, angry ones avoid coming and joining.
  • Songs of Nouvelle Vague, Morcheeba, and Kings of Convenience could be played at daytime. Whereas in the evening DJs would play Minimal Techno, IDM, Acid Jazz, and Lounge. Disco of the sixties wouldn’t trouble from time to time too. Have I already mentioned a small dance floor?
  • The bar would never be lack of ginger and fresh mint tea, cappuccino or caramel machiato, Club Mate, Fritz Cola, Augustiner beer, Watermelonman cocktail, and absinth.
  • The food should be cheap and tasty. Something like pizza or pasta would perfectly fit.

No no. Probably I will never open a bar in my life (except some day in a far future when I turn into a millionaire for the ideas generated and for the influence to the world). But maybe my contemplation will inspire somebody. It’s always fun to gibber! :cool: