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December 16, 2008
Adventure Gamers : Use Key on Door
What we are overlooking here are puzzles that do not require any inventory items at all, completely curtailing the ritual of fiddling with the contents of your bottomless pockets. At the most basic level, merely having someone Interact with a hotspot to solve a problem isn't going to stump anyone, especially not with today's minimalist approach to verb lists, but there are so many other possibilities. Here are a few that spring to mind:
- Dialogue puzzles, where you have to select the right conversation options to bring an NPC around to your way of thinking, such as talking to the electronics shopkeeper in Under A Killing Moon.
- 'Obscure Knowledge' puzzles. Telling the player through hints of varying subtlety a secret code required to open a door, or a secret action far too obscure for them to think of by themselves, such as in Full Throttle when you are advised to kick a particular section of wall.
- Exploration puzzles. Making new possibilities arise after the player examines certain things, or visits certain rooms. There are numerous examples in the Broken Sword games where the player looks at a hotspot, and from then on can discuss it with a relevant NPC, sometimes even coercing them into action.
- Timed puzzles. Pressing a button in room A causes something in room B to activate for a limited time, giving the player a short period to figure out what they're supposed to be doing. For example, distracting the old woman near the beginning of Hook in order to pinch her dirty laundry (this being perfectly acceptable behaviour among pirates).
Of course, these are just off the top of my head, and there could be many other additions to this list that escape me at the moment. One puzzle that I can't seem to fit into any of the above categories is the puzzle involving the cliff and the rock catapult arrangement in Secret of Monkey Island. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about -- just a simple sequence of pushes and pulls combined with a degree of logical thought, and we've got a clever, thought-provoking puzzle that doesn't even have to rely on fetch questing to challenge the player.
A Game That Does This Well
The amateur game to use as an example in this case is No-Action Jackson, the recent AG award winner by Cerebrit. NAJ marries excellent Day of the Tentacle-esque graphics with a firm grasp of puzzle structure that is almost LucasArtsian. The game gets away from the above-described complaint by (a) having a number of different objectives that can be solved in whatever order and (b) incorporating many puzzles which require complex interactions rather than simply throwing an inventory item at the problem. Take for example the use of the family cat, whose path must be cleared before your torment has desirable results, or the manner in which the VCR cables must be arranged to work the TV.
So, in conclusion to this half-bright rant, it's about time we got back to what adventures have always been about: using our brains. It's supposed to be one of the more intellectual of the genres, and it's difficult to be snobby when your first person shooter friends next door are having such a good time while you stand out in the rain messing about with your keyring.
http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,522/p,2
Posted by thdyck at December 16, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2008
John M. Perez.Com: The 25 Best Alternatives To Your Enterprise Applications & Functions
2009 Budgets are in and for many who oversee the Operations and IT Budget, you are probably challenged to reduce your capital budget by at least 40% lower than what you originally put in. As the pressure to cut continues, you may want to rethink about the software vendors you have selected to introduce into the Enterprise, or even think about replacing your legacy Enterprise applications with more cost effective open source or lower cost alternatives.
Still not convinced about Open Source or Lower Cost Alternatives? Well according to Gartner, approximately 85% of companies surveyed are already using Open Source Applications in 2008. The other 15% surveyed have plans to incorporate Open Source Strategies within their Enterprise in 2009. Whether your a small business, or you are looking to minimize costs - attached are some of the most cost effective applications on the market that can easily replace some of your more expensive Enterprise solutions and functions.
John M. Perez.Com: The 25 Best Alternatives To Your Enterprise Applications & Functions
Posted by thdyck at December 14, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Find Open Source Alternatives to commercial software | Open Source Alternative - osalt.com
Find open source software alternatives to well-known commercial software
Our mission is to provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.
Find Open Source Alternatives to commercial software | Open Source Alternative - osalt.com
Posted by thdyck at December 14, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 8, 2008
Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins
David, the high-maintenance user from product engineering, calls: "I need you to help me understand why I can't compile supercode.c on these new machines you deployed."
"Fine," you say. "What machine are you on?"
David responds: " Posh." (Yes, this fictional company has named its five production servers in honor of the Spice Girls.) OK, you say. You exercise your godlike root powers and on another machine become David:
- su - david
Then you go over to posh:
- ssh posh
Once you are there, you run:
- screen -S foo
Then you holler at David:
"Hey David, run the following command on your terminal: # screen -x foo."
This will cause your and David's sessions to be joined together in the holy Linux shell. You can type or he can type, but you'll both see what the other is doing. This saves you from walking to the other floor and lets you both have equal control. The benefit is that David can watch your troubleshooting skills and see exactly how you solve problems.
Lazy Linux: 10 essential tricks for admins
Posted by thdyck at December 8, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 4, 2008
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ancient supernova mystery solved
In 1572, a "new star" appeared in the sky which stunned astronomers and exploded ancient theories of the universe.
Now the supernova recorded by Tycho Brahe has been glimpsed again, by Max Planck Institute scientists.
They used telescopes in Hawaii and Spain to capture faint light echoes of the original explosion, reflected by interstellar dust.
This "fossil imprint" of Tycho's famous supernova is reported in Nature.
The study will help solve a 400-year-old mystery over the nature of the celestial event which captivated observers across the globe.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ancient supernova mystery solved
Posted by thdyck at December 4, 2008 | Comments (0) | TrackBack