Hey, I know!
I thought for sure by now someone would have come up with an easy WordPress plugin to make Wordles. Yes, they do…erm, but “wordle” is what some people call those word cloud things. That wasted a lot of googling.
Finally, I rummaged up a link to a standalone “make your own Wordle” page and then had to learn how to embed a live web page within my post. I HAD TO LEARN SOMETHING, PEOPLE! It was awful.
I think this will work. Let me know if it doesn’t. Sorry it temporarily ruins my monochrome blog, but weasels can’t be choosers.
Oh! All credit to the site that created the page I’m embedding: strivemath.com. Seems to be a cool math visualization site for kids.
Ready? GO!
May 2, 2022 — 7:43 pm
Comments: 23
If I wanted to get some exercise I wouldn’t be playing vidya games
Oh my giddy aunt! It’s the next great innovation in computing technology.
In case you can’t tell what’s going on here, you can strap your phone to your ankle and walk in your VR games. So in case you don’t look quite stupid enough inexplicably waggling your head back and forth and waving your arms about, you can now do it while you march in place like a first grader doing the Horsey Dance. Score!
The program is called Natural Locomotion and it’s a tenner on Steam. Those who gave it a thumbs up said it made the motion sickness cease and open world games like Skyrim became super immersive, but you owe it to yourself to hit the link for the video of what it’s like to watch someone use it.
This has to be the biggest disconnect between what-it-feels-like-to-experience-a-thing and what-it-feels-like-to-observe-a-thing-being-experienced since public sex.
I’ll have to download the demo and give it a try. Natural Locomotion, not the other thing.
April 5, 2022 — 6:19 pm
Comments: 17
Handsy
The Oculus headset has cameras all around the edges. This means, for example, you can “pass through” a ghostly image of the room you’re in by double-tapping the side of the headset (that’s right, Uncle B – I can *see* you make fun of me).
It can also do pretty good hand tracking. Usually, you control the beast with those Jetson’s-looking controller doohickies, but you can also set them down and use your hands.
Hand Physics Lab is a game built around hand tracking. It’s freaky. The tracking is imperfect enough to make it a challenge (man, I was throwing them apples all over the place instead of placing them in the bowl). But it’s a lot of fun.
I am assured I look amazingly stupid wiggling my fingers in the air. I mean, nobody looks good wearing a VR rig, but this is exceptionally ridiculous.
Ironically, because of the cameras, you can’t play Oculus in the dark. I’m’a wait for daylight to get better tracking.
Covid? Pff! I feel like I have a moderate headcold. I think I’ll take tomorrow off, though, and then see about Friday. No sense spreading my germs around.
March 23, 2022 — 8:33 pm
Comments: 14
Now in the Steam Store!
ABOUT THIS GAME
The heroine is a girl who likes sports. However, what is troubling is that after exercise, the stockings on her feet will be wet by sweat, giving out a unique smell.
· There are some exercise machines in her room and the player needs to control her movement.
· After sports, stockings on girls’ feet will become smelly.
· Players can make stockings with different smells by combining different sports, shoes and stockings.
· Smelly stockings can be reclaimed for money.
· Smelly feet can be washed in the bathtub after exercise.
· Fatigue can be recovered through massage props.
REVIEWS
Recommended.
POSTED: 1 MARCH
As you know, this kind of game is rare on steam. It still suits some people’s interests, doesn’t it? （just like me ）XP
I hope it can do better and better.
Not recommended.
POSTED: 13 MARCH
?mAKE game more girls need more girls sweat odor sport girls athletices in this game NOW! game not enough girls stink
Recommended.
(Original in Chinese)
POSTED: 2 MARCH
I’m an idiot After playing for 22 minutes, the main way to play is to buy new socks, then do sports to make socks and sell them online. If you want to play, remember to buy socks before exercising, otherwise your exercise will be in vain (being able to change clothes does not mean that you already have that type of socks, be sure to see clearly) There are two status bars. If the cleanliness is low, you can go to the bathroom to wash. If your physical strength is low, you can go to bed for massage (really massage, don’t have any unrealistic desires) This can only change socks and take off the sports suit, and it can’t even make me a dress-up game
Only £3.99 on Steam.
We live in an age of miracles and wonders.
March 14, 2022 — 6:27 pm
Comments: 11
An update on my toy
I was struggling to play a sword-and-sorcery game with my new VR rig and couldn’t understand why everything was way high over my head out of reach. Then it dawned on me the damn thing wanted me to stand up, like I was a real person in a real environment. I stood up and…hoo, boy! Now I get why this thing makes people motion sick!
I’ll adjust. Eventually. Though I have a feeling I will always prefer apps I can use sitting down. I’m not a gamer so I can *stand up* and *get some exercise*.
There’s a cool freebie called Ecosphere that features high resolution real footage from Kenya, Borneo and Raja Ampat. I’ve always loved drone footage, but even more when it feels like I’m the drone. Also, you get up close and personal with elephants and orangutans and giant rays. Pretty convincingly realistic.
Of course, it’s sponsored by the WWF, so you get the obligatory lecture to go with, but that’s been a feature of nature films for decades. I’m immune.
Surely, somebody has made one where you just hang out under water and stare at fish for an hour. I’d so play that. I did it for real in Florida once when I were a lass – floated around on the surface for eight hours staring at fish. Worse case of sunstroke ever.
Easily my favorite so far is TRIPP – the deliberately hippie-dippy trippy meditation app. When you inhale, you see your breath swoosh in like sparkly white fairy dust; when you exhale, it flies away like shiny red sparks. A man with a California accent slowly reads a life-affirming script. It’s seriously corny and I love it.
Just the app for the moment, as we wait to see if that senile old coot in the White House gets us into a nuclear shooting war. Good weekend, everyone!
March 4, 2022 — 8:17 pm
Comments: 5
Yeah, I’m one of *those* people now
After seeing Twitter people piss and moan about other people posting their Wordle scores, I checked it out.
And now here’s me, posting my Wordle scores.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I can’t be arsed to explain. It’s a word guessing game. You can find directions lots of places.
No, I want to talk about strategy.
There is some controversy about the frequency with which letters appear in English words, but the acronym I remember is ETAMOINS. My guess is, S should appear closer to the front (because of plural), but that list is good enough for Hangman-type games.
So, start with a word entirely from those letters. MOIST. NAMES. SMOTE. Something like that. So far (in my whole five tries), I’ve gotten at least one green letter on the first guess.
Use more ETAMOINS letters for the second guess, after which (if you’re lucky) you’ll have enough of the word to make a good final guess.
My first try, I got it in 4 (my starting word was stupid). Then I got in 3. And once, I got it on the second guess. I think the word was ROBOT. It just looked like ROBOT, you know?
Now, I’m not bragging or nothing, but NEENER NEENER NEENER!
Lavendergirl takes it again with Louie Anderson. She heard he was ill and nipped in quick, a venerable Dead Pool strategy. I didn’t have time (read: was too lazy to get out of the comfy chair) to put together a new Dead Pool today, so you have that to look forward to.
We’ll see how many more good picks croak before then. Good weekend, everyone!
January 21, 2022 — 6:55 pm
Comments: 15
That hurt
No Man’s Sky is a space exploration game. You discover new planets, collect resources, identify wildlife, build bases and continually upgrade your equipment so you can do more of those things.
I’m enjoying it. It’s a good gin and tonic game – lazily floating round the galaxy mining asteroids with the occasional frisson of intergalactic adventure.
And then I read a review that said it’s basically an inventory management game and it broke my heart.
Because that’s exactly what it is. You need all kinds of different materials to make things and there isn’t enough room to keep them in any one base, ship or exosuit. So you ferry junk around until you have the chromatic metal and ferrite dust where you need them when you need them.
Sigh. I’ll never be a swashbuckler.
November 1, 2021 — 8:18 pm
Comments: 8
Remember this?
Remember this thing? It’s a relic of around 2000 AD called soda constructor. It’s a little 2D creature simulator. The straight lines are bones or muscles, the dots are joints. When you’ve built a thing and you’re happy with it, run the simulation and it…does stuff.
Walks. Hops. Adjust the stiffness, friction and gravity. And K. I’ve forgotten what K is.
Here’s an interesting interview with the creator, Ed Burton.
The thing in the picture is the default creature. I played with it years ago and managed to shake it up so badly it broke. Lay on the ground quivering. I felt surprisingly awful about that (because I’m an anthropomorphizing moron).
I went to find it today and hit a lot of broken links, but finally managed to find a working version here. Oddly, in the instructions the author says it’s strictly for beta testing and please don’t share the link, so I dunno if I should’ve.
Seems fully working and true to the original. Try a few pre-built models. The default creature is daintywalker.xml. But don’t tell ’em I sent you.
September 1, 2021 — 8:04 pm
Comments: 5
This creepy-ass fox
Welp, I’ve gone back to Skyrim. I was largely inspired by watching this lady play.
Note to self: if you thought you could stream games and your gimmick would be “old lady plays games”, you’re late again.
I like watching her because she doesn’t necessarily play the game the way she’s “supposed” to. If she can’t find out why that man wants her to assassinate his wife, she is by-god not going to do it. And she interacts with NPCs like she’s playing with Barbies. It’s a hoot.
Make your own game is a thing you can do in open world games. There’s a man who plays Far Cry 5, which is set in current day rural Montana. He doesn’t care about the storyline at all, he just wants to go into the woods and shoot bears. With a handgun. That’s the game he wants to play.
Anyway, main stories like to make you do things that are uncomfortable. I don’t know why game designers are like this. No, Skyrim, I don’t particularly want to be co-opted by a cannibal cult. No, I don’t want to crush a political figure to death on her wedding day, while she’s giving a speech to her guests.
And no, I most definitely do not want to beat a priest to death over and over (a minor godling revives him for the purpose) for the sin of treating victims of the plague. Even if I get a really good mace for it.
My first time through Skyrim, I realized I was doing fewer quests and spending more time in the wilderness to hunting, then back to the city to sell my stuff and buy more arrows. Basically, I had a job. But it was a really fun job.
There are 273 scripted quests in the game. But there are 343 locations big enough for a map icon (and about the same number too small for an icon). You can just walk around and mess with things, forever.
August 24, 2021 — 8:24 pm
Comments: 6
Beautiful fake
This is supposedly the most-viewed house in Sussex at the moment and it can be yours for £1M. It is part of the old Tudor Close Hotel and it was the inspiration for the board game Clue (Cluedo in its native Britain).
The hotel was a popular stop for Hollywood celebs in the Thirties. Management often hired actors and put on elaborate murder mysteries to entertain guests. Anthony Pratt hosted one, and then went on to develop Cluedo. Seems a bit of a cheat, really.
The setting is actually still called Tudor Mansion in the game. The house is a fake, kind of. It was built in the Twenties but with original materials – old ship’s beams, Tudor fireplaces. So an authentic fake, I guess.
There is a lot of that kind of architecture around and it really should have its own name. What do I know? It probably does.
Have I played Clue? I so. Is that the one with “Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a candlestick”?
You can get it on Steam now, if you’re so inclined.
August 11, 2021 — 8:45 pm
Comments: 6