I’m here in San Francisco for GDC ’12. Yesterday was the Independent Games Summit – lots of really interesting and inspirational talks by some of the big figures and innovators in indie games.
The clear highlight so far has to be a game called ‘Dog The Wag’ – an ingenious invention by Douglas Wilson of Die Gute Fabrik, the creator of Johann Sebastian Joust. It pretty much involves tying a PlayStation Move controller to your butt, getting down on all fours and shaking it around as much as possible, while other ‘dogs’ try to beat you up (or at least wrestle you to the ground and press a button on your controller). Hilarious, slightly awkward and nothing short of amazing. The game certainly goes a long way towards his rhetoric of embracing the flaws in new technology rather than fighting against them.
Today is the Social and Online Games Summit – so I’ll try to post something vaguely more sensible. It will probably have something to do with leveraging the synergies of low-hanging fruit on Facebook and very little in the way of booty shaking. Which is sad.
Being a gamer myself there is always that point where I could go and do exercise or I could finish that next level and then usually I end up not going to the gym.
Now there is a solution for my first world problem. BitGym has created a control system for playing iOS games while you are on your favourite exercise equipment. Right now it is a racer (that looks a lot like Outrun) and you control the cars steering with you head and your acceleration is based on your exercise rate.
Check out the video:
nifty little tool, but I am not sure if the movements you have to do to get through the game are good for your posture
Today we gathered around and shared videos of animals that… ok I’m not going to spoil it. Just have a look for yourself: (It helps if you watch them in order…)
Attempting to clear some of my Christmas shopping on Amazon, I noticed a rather curious new section under my personal recommendations – English Cuisine Bestsellers.
Currently sitting at number one is a family size consignment of Scampi Fries. It’s great that an artificially flavoured wheat-based snack has been recognised as a leader in the world of English cuisine. Other top sellers include Cheese Moments, catering packs of PG Tips and Buxton Still Water. Who’s buying this stuff?
Team Meat, the team behind the brutally unforgiving platform game Super Meat Boy got some unexpected free publicity this week when they became the latest target of animal rights group PETA.
PETA, apparantly objecting to Super Meat Boy’s meat-themes launched it’s own ironically-bland parody game called Super Tofu Boy. Made in Flash, the game attempts to duplicate the gameplay of Super Meat Boy, but instead it’s the Meaty guy that’s the bad guy this time as he exacts bloody, vengeance because his girlfriend has decided that she prefers tofu. Or something.
It’s been in the news UK now has its very own Space Agency.It’s a serious business and cost 40 million pounds to set up and has 230 million in funds. So how will they prevent disaster and stop asteroids (or NEO’s)? Turns out a small Yorkshire fencing company is the solution (although they probably have no idea about it yet).
This is exactly what torrent and P2P news site TorrentFreak announced that the large file-sharing facilitator TorrentReactor had done. TorrentReactor claimed to have made the purchase, and that with their financial backing, the quality of life in the township of Gar would improve for its 300+ citizens. Not only that, I’m sure they’d be trying to carve out a file-sharing haven for themselves – though whether this would work under Russian law, I’m not certain.
As it turns out though, the town has not yet been purchased. This may have begun as a prank, however it looks like it will end well – for the people of Gar at least. You see, they’re actually interested in the possible investment. TorrentReactor claimed to have bought and renamed the place for approximately $164,000 AUD and the ambitious folk in Gar are keen to see that cash. Apparently all that’s needed is approval from the President.
Apparently they can’t rename the town, but the folks over at TorrentReactor now feel “obligated to help” in some fashion or another, which can only be a good thing. Whether they buy it or not remains to be seen.
As amusing as this idea initially was, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of organisations purchasing towns outright – I worry about what it means for the future. How about you? Or… do you know of any instances where it’s happened before? If so, has it been beneficial, or is this a downward spiral?
Whatever it is, Chartroulette is both entertaining and addictive.
If you’ve ever Skyped with someone, then you are already familiar with the awkward experience that is synonymous with video chatting. Now imagine chatting with a total stranger, or multiple strangers, in rapid-fire succession. Sound like fun yet? Add a hint of speed dating drama and a pinch of chat room mischief, puree it together and you’ve got Chatroulette.
It is something that is both difficult to watch, yet hard to leave.
My past experiences on the site range from: strangers reading poetry, strangers asking me to flash them, strangers flashing me, familiar viral video feeds, occasional legitimate conversations, staring contests, and a lot of male anatomy. In fact, more than 25% of everything I stumbled upon would be rated XXX. Have no fear though, you can always ‘Next’ the crazy ones.
The site is a few months old and was created by Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17 year old in Russia. It currently has about 21,000 users from around the world it at any point in time, and seems to continually grow.
So if you’re an adrenaline junky, if you have a strong stomach, or if you just like meeting random people… test your luck and play a little Chatroulette. Be careful, you might poke your eye out!
Maybe one of the best brand tweets ever by @westpac, but sadly it appears to have been deleted. Some are calling it social media marketing genius whilst others suspect that Westpac may not have stocked the kitchen cupboard with enough TimTams today.
Here it is, preserved in screenshot glory:
Substantiated by a Google Search below:
Anyone know the real story – let us know in the comments 🙂
The new Burger King TV ad in the UK made me laugh. The digital is pretty cool as well, but the gag’s lost a bit in print … and by that burger. Anyway, you can create your own t-shirt and if you get 50 votes, you win it.
The crap bit is that in order to vote, you have to watch the TV ad. (And it was all going so well). I guess those pesky atl suits couldn’t keep their fingers out of the digital pie 😉
Here’s the ****king Amnesia blog shirt. Vote on it (if u can stand being forced to watch the TVC), tell us you’ve voted in the comments below and I’ll send the shirt to one of you if / when we get it :) Vote here
(Image courtesy of Joystiq.com)
Posted by Sandor 
Amnesia Blog 
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