On distributed piloting
“Distributed piloting” is a term invented by Peter Hosey in 2006 (i.e. made up by me just now) for websites like Control Our Junk (which I found on Digg) that promise to let you control some real-world...
View ArticleEnigmo 2’s real requirements
sayeth the Enigmo 2 info page: These are the game’s minimum system requirements: • 800mhz G4 or any Intel Mac. Will NOT run on older Macs with a G3 processor. • 256MB RAM and 32MB VRAM • Mac OS 10.3.9...
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Some notes about Sand Sand Sand
I’ve been playing Sand Sand Sand lately. It’s the successor to World of Sand, and it has some important additions. Water now exhibits waves. This means very little, except that it is now impossible to...
View ArticleSketchFighter 4000 Alpha
First, despite the name, this apparently is a regular release. The Get Info string says it’s version 1.0.0 — no alpha there. The name of the game is “SketchFighter 4000 Alpha”, in a misplaced attempt...
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Requirements for a proper iPhone sudoku app
A sudoku generator. The game should not cap me at x-hundred or x-thousand puzzles. Give me all the sudoku the iPhone OS’ PRNG can create for me. Proper sudoku puzzles, not Number Place puzzles. The...
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iPhone sudoku follow-up: ACTSudoku
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of requirements for an iPhone sudoku app. At the time, no app satisfied all of the requirements, but one did come close. Pierre Bernard of Houdah Software posted...
View ArticleReview: BurnBall
On 2008-12-12, Tim Haines, the developer of BurnBall, contacted me on Twitter to offer me a free promo code. I accepted, and played the game on my first-generation iPod touch. The game is basically Qix...
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Half-Life 2 Photography
My challenge to you: Take a screenshot in any of the Half-Life 2 games (including Portal), and make it look and feel like an artistic or journalistic photograph. (I don’t mean filters; I mean framing...
View ArticleThere should be an achievement for this
In Portal, Testchamber 13: Despite the best efforts of the Enrichment Center staff to ensure safe performance of all authorized activities, you have managed to ensnare yourself permanently in this...
View ArticleEven more works of John Calhoun
I’ve updated my shrine to the Glypha games with even more cool old stuff: The stereoscopic space shooter Stella Obscura! More old versions of Glider—including version 2.02! More source code! A link to...
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Just to recap
Back in 2006, Valve Software released the trailer for Portal. Based on that trailer, We Create Stuff created Portal: The Flash Version. The same day they released it, Valve released The Orange Box...
View ArticleBubble Trouble’s high-quality music
Does this sound familiar to you? That’s the full version of “Coconut Island” by Matt Swoboda. You may know it better as this shorter version, which is the version used as the alternate level-set-1...
View ArticlePortal 2
The best works of fiction all have in common a certain feeling. It comes at the end. You’ve finished it. There is no more; you know this, and it hurts you, because you want more, you want the enjoyment...
View ArticleMore good iOS games
Inspired by this post from last year by Mike Lee, here’s a list of the best games from my iOS app library. Many games are excluded, for any of these reasons: Games on this list must not be violent...
View ArticleOutlining an ecologically-aware, anti-militarization answer to “Factorio”
I’ve enjoyed “Factorio”, but find it hard to progress in the campaign because it quickly bogs down in militarized colonization: the game turns, from one level to the next, from the fun part of Building...
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Probability distribution of multiplied dice rolls
While playing D&D, I wondered: Is there any difference between rolling 1d8×2 (that is, rolling exactly one d8 and multiplying the result by 2) and rolling 2d8 (that is, rolling exactly two d8s and...
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Wordle
Some of you have probably seen some mysterious tweets on Twitter consisting of several rows of yellow, green, and white or black emoji squares (much to the consternation of screen-reader users),...
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