QWOP Deserves Its Own Post

play it now

EPICWIN Productivity App

This thing I linked to before somewhere is now available in the iTunes store:



It attempts to realize the old dream of converting the effort and concentration given to addictive games into real-life work. I can see how it just might work from the demo, with the in-game personal enhancements and random rewards that cause my best friends in the whole world to exclaim "The fishing part of WoW is fun!"

Does the time invested playing the game significantly offset any productivity gains? Is it fun? Is it fun enough? I don't know! I'm downloading it now! I'll let you know!

via LifeHacker

Starcraft Legofied

My productivity will go to exactly zero

Asbestos is harmless! For serious: watch in HD.

Game Seeds explained(?)

It's Been a Long Time...

The Hell is Dwarf Fortress?

Here's what happened to one guy.

Why you should consider getting an iPhone

Robot Unicorn Attack Hands-On for the iPhone from Eli Hodapp on Vimeo.

Roger Ebert simply will not believe that video games can ever be art.

As loathe as I am to give Ebert even more press than he already gets,this interested me.
As a functioning artist and gamer, this mystifies me. I feel there have already been several experiences of art as video game. Perhaps it is because I am not an art critic that I am mistaken? Perhaps some video games are potentially an evolution of art? I like that idea.

Do we have to discuss everyone's interpretation of the word "art"? Or the word "game"?


Shall we?

Discuss: Y/N

Portal: The Flash Version

This turned out to be much cooler than I thought...

Insurance companies paying facebook gamers virtual $$$ to oppose reform bill

Forgive me my moment of self righteous indignation or if you've already heard about it, but I just read this and it made me vomit all over my computer. Everything is well described in this article, here:

In a game like Mafia Wars, you can get in-game currency in a number of different ways. One of them is by accepting offers from third-parties.

It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.

Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:

"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

So congressmen and women are getting swamped with these letters from facebook gamers. This would be fine in and of itself, except that they are sent by people who just want a new gun for a video game and have absolutely no interest in or knowledge about healthcare reform, and are not actually working with any grassroots organization (hence, "astroturfing"). Who they are working with, knowingly or not, are all the organizations associated with gethealthreformright.org: insurance companies (see the list in the article).

It's one crazy, terrifying future to think that insurance companies are gearing up to change healthcare forever with their facebook gamer army.

Star Crack II

Just FYI for StarCrack fans. Don't know if anyone heard yet but they're making a live action.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037854/fullcredits#cast

Call of Duty 4: Galactic Warfare

This is an unlicensed mod for Call of Duty 4. Looks great. Slightly more info here.

More of a good trauma game!

The Space Game 2 is out!

Emergent AI in Fleets

Kind of skimming the top of the Curated Internet today, but I saw this article on how the AI in the game AI War: Fleet Command. works. The title of the game is apparently to make up for the game's weird graphics, but the article from one of the game's designers may be very interesting to those of you currently developing games; looking at fleet command from a bottom-up approach rather than an entirely top-down command path.

Article here.

Starcraft lessons from authentic Korean

From craigslist:

Hi, my name is ByunTae from South Korea. I have been playing Starcraft since 1998 and I was born and raised in Korea. I'm 100% full blooded Korean, meaning I have been gifted with unparallel talent to master any video game, particularly, Starcraft: Brood War...

...I'm offering my expertise in Starcraft to be taught to non-Koreans that wishes to have the skill of a Korean player.

Via the Curated Internet.

Things collected from the internet this week

000. 59-foot Gundam, now lit up.

001. For all you drawerers: Kongregate, the guys who've given us a ton of great flash games, is calling on you!

010. In about two weeks, this kid is going to wake up with super powers. At the very least that scar should be an instant get-out-of-jail-free card for pretty much anything.

011. Useless Superpowers crossover time!

Summon Ice Cream Cone

100. Choose your own adventure with Dinosaur Comics!

101. This movie always depressed the hell out of me. I like this better.


110. And finally, monkeys.

notPr0n

Here is an old Internet puzzle that you will remember if you are old. Not super-old, though. Medium-old.

Click to play.

You Have to Burn the Rope

Play You Have to Burn the Rope. Via Play this Thing, one of the more interesting sources of game criticism I've encountered.

Disappointing news for Mr. 'Panic.

It seems that a Lego based RTS game is in the works and will be released in June. What's disappointing is that it looks pretty crap. This is a personal thing for me. I take this seriously folks. I'm feeling a little doo-doo right now. Not literally feeling it, (though I probably do that daily with the boys...) but really folks...This isn't what I wanted to hear from Lego, or Real Time Strategy games. I'm disappointed in both.