My name is Aleksander Skjæveland Larsen. I am a masters student in Information Science at the University of Bergen. I enjoy coffee, music, old computers, programming and hacking around in general. Both me and my wife are left handed. I prefer the keyboard over the mouse any day.
The Graveyard is one of the shortest, yet most beautiful games I have played in a long time. The beauty lies in the refined graphics and sublime sound, and the extreme unnatural limitations on the gameplay. I think the sound is sublime, because it indirectly tells you about the environment and the mood. The only difference between the demo and the full version, is that the possibility that the old lady can suddenly die.
Beside the obvious beauty, the game has serious flaws any gamer could point out: the lack of gameplay. The unnatural limitations of the gameplay is the fixed position of the camera, pacing and extremely limited number of options you have. There are hardly any interaction at all. You controll the old lady with the cursor keys, and the gameplay is based on walking up and down a relatively short path and sitting on a bench. Your own skills don’t affect the course of the game, and as mentioned it is very slow paced. You are never rewarded or measured.
The Graveyard definetly talks the same language as other interactive computer applications intended for play, also known as games. But because of the limitations, you might not consider The Graveyard a proper game if you don’t find it fun. Games have to be fun, right?
What if play is more than fun? I saw an interesting talk about this yesterday, and discovered that my definition of play probably is flawed. Dr. Stuart Brown talks about this at the TED conference. Click the link or the picture to see the talk.
A short summary of the talk is that play is essential, and that play is not necessarily just fun. I think games are a form of play, and after the talk I realized that games don’t have to be fun in order to be a form of play.
Play for me is some sense of exploration and wonder, much like you might get from pieces of artwork. I consider games to be an interactive way of playing, often with goals or some way of measuring my skills. This means that I probably can call The Graveyard a game of sorts, because after all it does offer some level of interaction, and it gives me a sense of exploration and wonder. If you don’t like looking at art, listening to music and such, The Graveyard propably isn’t something worth your time. However, if you are like me, you should at least try the demo.
Download The Graveyard demo here. It’s for Windows and Mac OS. The full version is only 5$, and is worth it to give the developers respect and support, if you want to.
I should probably let you know that Microsoft Songsmith is a tool for autogenerating accompaniment on recorded vocals. It can be argued that it already has achieved legendary status, not only by being so bad but also a rather frightening infomercial
So this game D-Pad Hero got released some days ago. Its for the over 25 years old 8-bit Nintendo, the NES. You have perhaps played Guitar Hero for a modern console. We have seen Guitar Hero beeing ported to the Commodore 64, but it seems the Commodore version have not enjoyed the same level of buzz the new guys are having. This is probably because the Commodore 64 version of Guitar Hero, Shredz64, needs an external interface to be playable. You buy this interface to be able to connect a PlayStation Guitar Hero controller to your Commodore 64, which is extremely cool, but cumbersome and inaccessible.
The great deal about D-Pad Hero, is that it’s designed to be played with the original controller. This makes it much more accessible, compared to Shredz64. People are able to play the game in emulators with their keyboards, as well as gamepads connected to the computer. You can also connect an original NES gamepad to your pc, if you got the equipment.
As you can see, I am playing D-Pad Hero with an original controller.
But what kind of emulator is DScaler? That’s no emulator, it’s a video capture application! Which should make you able to deduce that ..
.. it is not being emulated, it is being played back on real hardware!
Download the game for free from http://dpadhero.com/Download.html. You can find an emulator over there as well. If you want to play it on real hardware, you can do as me and use one of these.
Lately I have been looking at some old demos, and I found this demogroup from Finland called PWP. They state that they create audio-visual megamultimedia. Never before have I found something Finnish to be funny, cool or even mildly entertaining. This is so much more. It is awesome on many different levels!
Warez cd, internet bomb. Haha, I love it!
Great story, even better music!
Another great story, with the same theme as the last one.
Note that these demos where written for very old, limited computers. The two last ones where made for the Commodore VIC-20, which runs on 1MHz and was released in 1981. This is more or less incredible, what these fine coders made hardware this old do! In our day and age, limitations like these are considered severe. Our hardware is so much more advanced in every way, and coders don’t have to exploit the hardware in the same way these guys are doing. For example: my cellphone runs at 200MHz, your iPhone runs at around 400MHz. This is nothing compared to modern PCs, still 1MHz is enough to make me smile.
I painted this the other day, but Photoshop decided to freeze on me. Because the painting started spontaneously, it didn’t occur to me I should save my work as it progressed. I kind of loves when that happens, because then I paint more than I think. I also hate it, because I sometimes lose what I am working on.
When Photoshop froze up, I swiftly pressed the Print Screen button, and pasted the screen dump into MS Paint.
I’ve had a great start on the new year. I visited the dentist today, and fixed three holes and pulled one wisdom tooth (have pulled the two lower ones earlier). From this point on it is likely I don’t have to do much with my teeth, at least hopefully.
Many people have a stressed relationship with dentists. Luckily, I don’t. My teeth have been exposed for more dental treatment than most people have to endure. I don’t think it is usefull to go into very specific details, but let’s just say it involves cutting both rows of teeth from the jaw and cranium, screws and jaw wiring.
Despite my experiences with extensive dental treatment, I still have a pretty relaxed relationship with dentists. However, the conversation they had today, while working on my teeth, seemed rather strange. New tools, better equipment, budgets, different types of fillings where all topics they openly discussed. I thought for myself I would probably cry from listening in to this conversation, if I had some sort of phobia related to dentists and strangers in my mouth. I don’t think many patients enjoy hearing a discussion on the finer points of dental scrapers and other tools, while they are working the very tools they are discussing inside ones mouth.
Anyhow, I might have been slightly hazy from the anaesthetization while suffering from a serious lack of coffee. The dentists where not as vicious as they look on the picture I painted, they where actually sincerely sweet, and I could give them a hug.
You are likely to be pretty stessed out by the season at this point in time. If you don’t feel any Christmas spirit, only stress, I am sure you are not feeling to happy about that. If you haven’t started buying or making presents yet, it would be a miracle if there is any Christmas spirit in you this year. No matter how grim the situation might feel, there is hope. Christmas music!
There are two albums in particular I want to share with you. They have proven to be rather special to me, and boosted my Christmas spirit many times. One is free, one is not.
8-bit Jesus by Doctor Octarock
8-Bit Jesus: Classic Christmas Songs in the Style of Classic NES Games. Make use of the nostalgic feeling, in order to boost your Christmas spirit. It can be downloaded for free if you click on the picture.
Kasio Kristmas
Kasio Kristmas is those old Christmas songs played by a bunch of Casio keyboards. It is very good, but if you don’t want to buy it, check out this video.
If this doesnt make you feel the seasons, it is likely nothing will. Or perhaps you have other songs or albums to recomend? Please say so in the comments.
This happened to me some days ago. I was going to bake some cinnamon buns, because I had to use up some milk and butter before I traveled home for Christmas. It was then I noticed. The foods, they where trying to tell me something. First there was the milk.
I thought it was a nice thing to say to me, that I was 1337. This made me feel good about myself, knowing that the milk thought I was elite. When it was time to pour the flour into the bowl, I just emptied the entire package. There wasn’t much left. I looked at the scale, and was met by the following message.
It said 360. I didn’t even notice this before I was going to pour more flour in the bowl, from a fresh package. This made me feel even more awesome. The flour talked to me, through the scale, about my Xbox 360. It seemed the milk and flour was telling me that I was 1337 on my Xbox 360!
After a train of happy thoughts, I started to think about the implications of this message. Was this a message of irony, seeing that I had neglected the Xbox 360 in light of my recent examinations? Perhaps this was some sort of twisted joke, intended to pump up my self esteem, only to break it down once I play the Xbox 360 again? Mabye the milk and flour told me I sucked at it? This I might never know, because I am now terrified to ever bake cinnamon buns or play Xbox 360 ever again. At least for the rest of the year.
This worm thingy is something I drew up quite recently. It was made with an old Wacom drawing pad, which I found in the trash. It was working fine, but the pen was missing. The person that threw it away might thought it was useless, or had bought a new one. I had been thinking about buying a Wacom pad for a while, and was thrilled about the find. I bought the pen for a fraction of the cost for a new Wacom pad, and have enjoyed it ever since. This happened some years ago, and it is still working fine.
The picture was made with ArtRage 2.5, which is a nifty little painting application. It emulates real paints very successfully, and is much lighter and easier to use than Photoshop. Regarding the price tag, it is very friendly at $25. The Photoshop to ArtRage ratio is almost 1:40, with Norwegian pricing on Photoshop. I’m not saying Photoshop isn’t worth the money, but ArtRage is much simpler and cheaper for doing digital painting. As for the moral of this post I might say, pick up the stuff you find in the trash?
While walking home from my girlfriend one night, I caught a glimpse of this character. He looked like he could be something like 25, but he radiated the impression of an elderly man. He wore a sixpence (the right way, not backwards which I remember was very cool some years ago), had a large coat and was walking with a cane. Additionally, he carried a bag from “Deli de Luca” somewhat in a strange manner. I guess there was some sort of food in the bag, he didn’t want to spill or wave around, but it still looked rather special.
I only looked at this person for a split second, but the impression was so strong. When I got home, I drew this drawing on my computer. Most of the things I draw these days are on the computer. I like painting the most, because of the colors and brushes. Drawing on the computer can be much like painting, if you got a tablet like the Wacom. Compared to the real deal, it’s not the same, but it has other qualities weighing up for the differences. It is faster, simpler and less messy than real paints, but still very flexible.
Have you seen any strange characters lately? If so, you could draw and share them. Then you’ll be able to remember them for times to come.
What if play is more than fun? I saw an interesting talk about this yesterday, and discovered that my definition of play probably is flawed. Dr. Stuart Brown talks about this at the TED conference. Click the link or the picture to see the talk.
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