Famblam!

Time traveler in Charlie Chaplins 'The circus' - not many cell phone towers back then?

2010-10-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

If there's supposed to be a cell phone user in Charlie Chaplins 'The circus', they aren't a very bright time traveler? Not exactly many cell phone towers back then?

Walkie talkie would make more sense, but isn't as cool sounding?

On other matters the phrase 'Book 'em, Danno' becomes more historical as the 'Hawaii Five-O's' actor James Macarthur sadly passed away this thursday.

Mini Review: Desktop Dungeons

2010-03-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Expanded from my post at rpg.net

I don't get this game.

It's like it almost makes a resource management puzzle - it has all the components to do that...but kind of fails to actually have a solution each time, when it is so close to being really good at that. It has random number grinding instead, where you'll be doing alot of pointless busy work clicking in between each random chance at getting through.

I guess it's an evolutionary stage between random crap happening and sold resource puzzle, and the gill lines are still quite visible on the neck so to speak...

Yet other people rave about it, and even support the whole solitaire like play (ie, where you'll be randomly blocked).

I have to admit I am interested in seeing a complete pattern happen, but that could happen with the game actually setting one up rather than waiting for one to randomly be available.

A literal time waster, most of the time, right now.

Review, micro: Multiple Choice Dragon Game | Choice of the Dragon

2010-02-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

This is a multiple choice game, and as it says in it's 'why' section, it basically gets down to what's 'meaningful' instead of dithering around with choosing either a bonus to str or a bonus to dex. It cuts to real choices instead of choices which are like choosing whether you have fuzzy dice in your car or not.

Now by real choices I mean what the author thinks is a real and meaningful choice. So basically these questions are from the authors own personal sense of what's important - you have to realise it's partly a conversation. Though I'm not sure the author realises this - they seemed to think they were giving meaningful choices as if they are meaningful by galactic standards, rather than their own person standard.

That said, this will provoke you with questions/choices that you just don't find in dozens of other games.

On the other hand, I found it emotionally wearying - I'd choose stuff, and it led to more stuff, and more stuff, and onward. It started wearing me out and I could see no end to it, so I didn't finish it. I think if it had some sort of meter of progress I could have sucked my guts in and made it. But otherwise it was too much for me...maybe I'll come back to it latter.

Also the choices don't seem to really follow any theme. Again I didn't feel I was progressing toward any sort of conclusion - it just seem to be interesting yet random choices thrown at me.

Also sometimes none of the choices really suited the dragon I wanted to play. But I could imagine doing one for certain reasons, and the game didn't conflict with my certain reasons. So that's fairly smooth.

But in the end this little gem, in terms of really presenting you with meaty choices, kicks arse over tons of games (particularly commercial ones) you'll find out there.

And hey, you just might like being a dragon!

Multiple Choice Dragon Game | Choice of the Dragon

Welcome to Famblam!

2009-11-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

To start it all off, here are some nifty links found!

Ownage burst is a great little game with some design principles I'm really jelous of!
http://www.thestylemachine.com/ownage/

If you've ever played fallout 3, you'll look at this pic and go 'Ah, so what....OH! LOL'
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g34/Vengefulviking/fallout3vatsdog.jpg

And this is a nifty little flash game - really tight design. But the pipe always gets me!
http://www.onemorelevel.com/games/avoider.html

Enjoy!