For your Friday distraction, the guys from Hipotam threw a whole collection of classic handheld LCD Games on-line. From Donkey Kong to The Terminator. Have fun!
Rory's Story CubesRory's Story Cubes is a pocket-sized creative story generator, providing hours of imaginative play for all ages. There are infinite ways to play wi... Read More >
Organ Trail was an edutainment game developed in 1971. Schools across America used this game as a teaching tool to prepare children for the impending zombie apocolypse and dysentery.
Re-live your childhood with this faithfully emulated version of Organ Trail for the Apple-II here: http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html
The people from The Men Who Wear Many Hats launched a kickstarter project to raise funds to develop this game for the iPhone and Android. The aim was to raise 3000$, which they passed with a nice margin (the counter is over 16.000$ now).
You can also download the game’s soundtrack here: http://hatsproductions.com/organtrailsoundtrack.html
EA Games posted a set of videos on YouTube with an interesting look at the new GlassBox Game Engine, the software that will make the new SimCity run. This new game engine will allow the players to run the simulation from the city to the actual inhabitants level. Another new feature is that you will be able to play this game on multi-player, allowing you to build a city, or several connected cities with your friends.
Here’s the first one:
Looks good. Especially the underlying complexity makes me think this will be a great addition to the series!
more information on the game itself: http://www.simcity.com
If you feel like giving the original SimCity (now called Micropolis) a go, here’s the Facebook page. You can either play it online or download the game.
Back from Christmas holiday’s, I found a nice one on Hack-a-Day. A short article on Nudel (nickname, I hope;), who documents a way to print worlds and objects from Minecraft with a 3D printer.
I guess there are more people playing with this now, but this is the first completed and well documented method I found. Be aware that in order to get the color prints, you should probably send your models of to a service like sculpteo or shapeways.
The lack of resolution on the RepRap and other home 3D printers is an edge here though which gives the finalised models a great Minecraft-y look.
Link: Reprap Prescription and MinewaysVia: Hack-a-Day
Most of the people that know me, know that I don’t like to pay for stuff. That also applies to one of my hobbies, playing computer games. This recently changed, when last week, I bought a copy or a licence for Minecraft.
As you can read on this site, I’m a big LEGO fan and already had a look at a preview of the game and read quite some positive feedback on the many blogs that write about Minecraft.
For the ones that did not hear about it yet, Minecraft is a construction game placed in endless worlds where you have to mine materials, which you can then use to build things. You can build almost anything you can think of. From houses to tools, potions and I even saw people setting up machines, circuits and other things. This is where I saw the similarity between Minecraft and LEGO.
There are 2 main ways of playing the game, in Creative mode, or in Survival mode.
The Creative game mode allows you to build and destroy blocks in a manner in which you can build any sort of structure you would like. Players are given an infinite amount of most blocks to build with and no health or damage to worry about.
Survival mode is the game mode of Minecraft in which players have to collect resources to build structures, battle monsters, fight hunger, and explore the land. To survive you need food, you can farm or you can hunt, but the most important aspect is that at night, monsters come out! This means that when you start a game, you have to prepare for your first night directly.
I have been playing Minecraft now for about a week and absolutely love it! The learning curve is not to steep and you find yourself building quite fancy stuff quickly while fighting off your first monsters with a wooden sword.
The community around Minecraft is enormous. There are loads of tutorials, forums and other resources available to help you get started. Especially the Minecraft Wiki is a great resource for anyone starting.
The above screenshot is from a Game session in creative mode (hence the fancy sword) where I tested my new Tardis Avatar Skin. It is quite easy to create your own Minecraft skin. You can use an online skin editor, or use the template to edit the standard one.
If you like this one, please feel free to download it here: 
You can then import it through the profile page when you log in to the Minecraft website.
Remember, don’t dig tight. And don’t let the Creepers bite.
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