Meep!

Once every month is fine, right? I do have some interesting topics to post about though, so I’ll try to squeeze some more content onto this site over the next few weeks. No promises, though.

So two weeks ago, I decided to take part in Ludum Dare 23… for some unknown reason. For those of you that have no idea what that is, a load of people around the world (1400+ for the last competition) have to design and create a video game from scratch within 48 hours, set to a specific thing. I kind of managed to create something (you can download and view my entry over here), but there’s many criticisms and improvements that could be made, now that I look back at that hectic weekend:

• HAVE AN ENGINE READY - With the competition rules, you’re allowed to pre-submit any code as long as it’s not part of the gameplay (such as the engine), but most people go with pre-existing engines like Game Maker or libraries like libSDL. As a programmer, I thought it would be nice to code the engine again to refresh both my 2D engine knowledge and XNA stuff, both of which haven’t been touched in years. Well, I spent nearly all the 27 hours that I worked on the project coding the engine, and in the end didn’t have any time for gameplay. Boo! But I learned a hell of a lot about… well, everything, and with a bit more work and some bugfixes I’ll have a half-decent engine for Ludum Dare 24.

• THINK SIMPLE - Don’t plan some epic-scaled design when it comes to gameplay, especially when you don’t know how to code it. And when it comes to coding, you only need to get something working when time is limited. I made the big mistake of never being happy with my work, and the constant editing and refactoring ended up eating into a lot of my time. Think fast, think simple.

So yeah… mostly a failure, to be honest. We’ll see what the other people say once the voting is done. But I’m kind of glad I got *something* out there, and it was one hell of a productive weekend.

Now that that is out-of-the-way, I can get on with organising my big charity event / project, which is always fun. That’s a whole new blog post, but for now can you follow this, like this, and RSVP to this? kthx.

There goes all my money...

Well, maybe I shouldn’t be that mean about the PlayStation 3, as I certainly hold no grudges or biases when it comes to the supposed ’console war’ now raging seven years strong. I stuck with Nintendo growing up, and made the dive into Microsoft’s realm about three years ago (and don’t regret it). I knew I’d eventually buy a PlayStation 3 down the line because I was interesting in playing some of the exclusives like Uncharted and Heavy Rain, but I never expected it to be so soon! I’ll blame it on a combination of a big pay day from my new job, and Gamestation’s clearance sale last week. Now that I have a console and a large pile of first-party games, I should have plenty to write about over the coming weeks.

The console itself is pretty good (I ended up with a 320GB Slim model), it’s certainly quieter than my old Xbox 360, and the user interface seems solid enough. If we’re comparing it to the new-style ‘Xbox Home’ dashboard, there’s no annoying adverts everywhere, and the store browsing implementation is a lot better than the 360′s marketplace. I say ‘browsing’ only, because the real integration doesn’t work as well – Having to quit out to view the store and related DLC is a pain, but I guess it’s unavoidable with the PS3′s sand-boxed security protocols. The big thing that’s been annoying me is a lack of background updating, and there’s a lot of updating. I’m used to buying a game and be playing it straight away (or with a tiny <5MB title update), not waiting hours for a 1GB+ patch to download on my slow connection.

The friend system implementation could be a little better as well, but I don’t really have any friends at the moment – Add me (‘philcsf’) so it’s not looking so lonely. Expect first opinions of Uncharted and ModNation Racers soon, along with reviews of Heavy Rain and PlayStation Home… if I can get it downloaded and working.

These buggers are so hard to find...

So when I used to write on this blog a lot, it really seemed to have a big focus on games and not much else. Well, today I’m coming at you with a new hobby of mine, and one that’ll actually get you outside the house and looking for adventure… geocaching!

The basic premise of geocaching is to find a hidden box (or cache) using a set of GPS co-ordinates, and using clues or solving puzzles to find the right location. Then you sign the log book to say that you found it, and register your find online using the official website. Sounds boring, yeah? I thought it sounded dull at first… but one day I was in Newcastle, had an hour to kill, and remembered reading an article about an Android geocaching app. I downloaded it, it pointed me to a nearby location, and solved the puzzle to find the hidden cache (which was surprisingly tiny, like in the picture above). Even though I’d only found a piece of paper with other names on it, it filled me with a sense of satisfaction and exploration, that I’d managed to find something that most people would just walk straight past.

I guess that’s one of the big appeals – you now know about a hidden world of puzzles and secret boxes, often in public places. And some of the hiding spots are pure genius (if you’re in Newcastle, try this one), so it’ll take some hard work, and possibly the help of a friend to find them. Another big appeal is the cost of geocaching – free. If you have a smart phone with GPS (which nearly all of you will have), then that’s all you need to get started and track down your nearest cache. Caching spots will often be in interesting locations and in places you wouldn’t normally see, like some creepy-ass statues in South Shields that I went to yesterday. If you find some of the bigger caches, you might even walk away with some treasure (objects left by other geocachers), or trackable coins that have travelled around the globe.

…so there’s my recommendation. Put down that controller, find your nearest geocache, and go outside for a nice stroll. Who knows what you’ll find?

It's not WoW, honest.

So that time of the year rolled around again… no, I don’t mean the Christmas / New Year period (although that was fun)! I mean when Valve decides to ruin my finances and put all their good games on sale with ridiculous discounts. And even though my wallet is empty anyway, I still managed to spend about £40 on games for myself, and £15 on gifts for others. Now, obviously I should see this as a good thing, getting so many games for cheap, but the problem I have is never getting around to play. Hell, I can go back and look at the games I bought in the summer sale, and see that I haven’t played any of them. Or I can go on my Backloggery page and see the huge list of games I already have to play. So why am I buying more? It’s some kind of addiction, the same reason I trawl around charity shops every other day looking for cheap retro games. Once I have a decent income it might be alright, but for now… bleh. Someone hold me back!

This time, I did play a few of the new games that I bought! Orcs Must Die seems like a rather fun mashup between the third-person shooter and tower defence genres, but it’s a big shame that I suck at any kind of strategical thinking. The dark, evil side of me that wants to go back to World of Warcraft decided to buy RIFT… and no surprises, it’s exactly the same game. Same spells, same monsters, same quests, even the keyboard shortcuts are the same! It’s certainly not a bad rip-off, though – It feels more like a holiday from Azeroth. I knew most of the lore and zones in Warcraft, so it’s nice to take a break and see a new world. I just need to make sure it doesn’t take over my life over the next month (I’m not planning on buying a subscription for it, not with The Secret World right around the corner), and actually do some productive stuff!

I guess I don’t have any big new year’s resolutions to break this year, just lots of small ones. I’m trying to read more (starting with James Patterson’s Along Came a Spider), do a little big of exercise every now and again (see: this), and try to hunt for my motivation to do anything. It’s been lost for the past year, and I’m sick of doing nothing all the time, so it’ll be around here somewhere. Maybe it fell down the back of the sofa? Have a good new year, folks.

No waggling this time, boyo.

With so many fantastic new video games coming out this November, my laughably empty bank account and dust-filled wallet told me to not buy any of them. Unfortunately… I ended up buying two of them. Want some initial opinions?

The first is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which I should say that everybody bought, seeing as it’s made over £480 million worldwide. However… that isn’t the case for me, or at least in my group of 20-something friends, with only a handful of them actually picking it up. There seems to be some apathy regarding the latest game in the franchise, possibly due to Treyarch’s Black Ops leaving a slightly bad taste in everyone’s mouth – I haven’t played it myself, but I have a copy waiting for a rainy day. What I do know is that I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2′s fast-paced and ridiculously addictive online multiplayer, and the new instalment doesn’t disappoint when it comes to that. New maps, new challenges, and all at a smooth 60 frames per second (which is really strange to see, after playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2′s multiplayer a lot recently). So if you’re one of the ones that bought the game, pop it in your Xbox 360, add me to your friends list (GT: philcsf), and we’ll go crack some skulls together. Opinions of the single-player campaign will come at a later date, when I can pull myself away from pointless gun levelling and loadout customising.

Obviously, the second game isn’t Skyrim, because I have no interest in the Elder Scrolls series. Instead I chose Skyloft, and dove head-first into Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I’ve always been a big Nintendo fan, so there’s no way that I’d be able to pass this up. And after a six-year wait from Nintendo for a proper Wii game in the franchise, I can say that it’s totally worth it. The art style is fantastic (a hybrid between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess that should stand the test of time), and there’s just so much detail that you take for granted in games nowadays. Roll into a wall, and physics shake lights, knock pots from shelves, and leave you feeling satisfied that you’ve managed to wreck a stranger’s house that you just walked into. There’s been some bitching in reviews about inaccurate controls, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever with them, and couldn’t imagine playing without. Eight hours in, and I only feel like I’ve just scratched the surface. More opinions later!