The Download Munkey

Random Monday : Rotated Text in TequilaCat Bookreader + Text Mining Tools

Roys — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:00:16 +0000

Alex Vdovichenko, developer of TequilaCat Bookreader (TCBR) kindly sent me an email a few weeks back with instructions on reading rotated text with TCBR.

You’ll need to create a new JAR file for your mobile phone (see previous post) with the following additions.

Add Windows Font - only Windows fonts can be rotated
Click on Font Direction button (last button) to rotate the font 90 degrees clockwise or anti-clockwise
Change font properties as desired - I recommend MS San Serif size 16 and inverted colors with white text on a black background
Change midlet name to something like TequilaCatRotated so that the application will not install over your existing installation. Using the same name requires you to delete the existing application data which probably means that your bookmarks are gone
Install on your mobile phone and you’re all done!

Since the GetText utility used by TCBR supports HTMLs but not compiled HTML files in the CHM format, users may want to manually convert their CHM files to TXT using this freeware Text Mining Tool.

The Text Mining Tool has some quirks though as listed below.

Unzipping the application in a folder with a extremely long pathname will cause it to fail when processing certain CHMs. Since internal HTML files in the CHM are extracted and written to the application folder, the resultant length of the pathname of these files may exceed Windows limit and cause a writing failure
Unhandled HTML entities e.g — (probably Unicode characters) are left in the output text file. It’s only a minor annoyance which can probably be solved with some programming or search-and-replace.

Download TequilaCat BookReader or Text Mining Tool.

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Foxit Reader vs PDF-XChange Viewer vs Sumatra
Lifehacker.com - Productivity and Software Guide
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Art Friday : Heavenly Sword Animated Series

Roys — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:39:41 +0000

A wonderfuly animated five part series about the origins of the titular sword in Ninja Theory’s PS3 game Heavenly Sword and how Nariko, that lovely heroine with her distinctive flowing red tresses came to wield the sword.

It all started with a story of a holy warrior purportedly dispatched from the heavens above with his mighty sword to put an end to the murderous rampage of the merciless Ravenlord and his bloodthirsty warriors many generations ago.

The sword that the mysterious warrior left behind after defeating the Ravenlord later fell in the hands of mortals thus ensuring that death and bloodshed followed each successive wielder of the sword as ambitious men schemed and murdered in order to possess this powerful sword.

Watch the rest of the series to find out how the sword finally ended up in the hands of Nariko. Although the plot is rather cliched, it’s an engrossing piece of work, beautifully animated by the guys at Chase Animation Studio and well narrated enough to make it a must-watch for anyone who loves a good fantasy tale. A detailed list of credits can be found at FEED.

Watch the entire animated series at the official Heavenly Sword : Animated Series site.

While I try not to provide direct links, I figured that these gems might not be online forever, so here’s the direct download links for the five episodes (in Flash video ~20 MB each):
Episode 1 : The Legend of The Sword
Episode 2 : Guardians of The Sword
Episode 3 : The Rise of Evil
Episode 4 : The Divine Birth
Episode 5 : The Day of The Warrior

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Shinobido Imashime Opening Movie

Games Thursday : Tomb Chess - Ghoulish Ban Qi (半棋)

Roys — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:00:24 +0000

Tomb Chess is essentially similiar to the Half Chess (banqi) variant of Chinese Chess (xiangqi), albeit with wonderfully drawn undead and demonic pieces on a 6×6 chessboard / graveyard. Found this over at JayIsGames as usual

Tomb Chess can be played against the AI or hotseat against another human or even as a spectator sport while two AIs battle it out (of course, not to the dead since half of these guys are already dead in the first place )

The two players take turns to either unearth tombstones to reveal an undead creature which might belong to you (highlighted in red) or your opponent (in green) or move any existing creature already uncovered. In Tomb Chess (and similiarly in Half Chess), all pieces move the same way - one square in any of the four cardinal directions unlike in standard chess.

Tomb Chess is therefore much easier to pick up and less time-consuming to play but requires a bigger pinch of luck as opposed to the standard rules of chess due to the random locations of your pieces. There’s is still some strategy involved in selecting the most favourable tombstone to uncover as well as the need for improvisation of tactics to deal with the current situation at hand.

There are 6 different ghoulish creatures (or pieces in chess) in Tomb Chess arranged in ascending order of power.

Ghostly Pawn (Strength 1 : 8 pieces) - Essentially Pacman’s iconic ghosts. Although they get butchered by every other piece, guard them well since they are able to kill Demon Kings with a single headbutt

Rook of Doom (Strength 2 : 4 pieces) - A dagger-wielding ghoul on a drawcart. Reminds me of wheelchair-bound Doctor Finklestein from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Dark Knight (Strength 3 : 2 pieces) - Armed with a vicious mace to give Rooks of Doom and Ghostly Pawns a nasty bonk on their heads.

Satanic Bishop (Strength 4 : 2 pieces) - A mummified bishop to be exact.

Hellfire Queen (Strength 5 : 1 piece) - Inspired by the mythical Nagi, the Hellfire Queen that conquers all with a single swipe of her tail except for the Demon King.

Demon King (Strength 6 : 1 piece) - Bearing a slight resemblance to Demitri from Capcom’s Darkstalkers with extra pins on his head (probably as a conduit for the electricity he uses for frying his foes), the Demon King trumps everyone except for the lowly Ghostly Pawn.

Play Tomb Chess @ FreeWorldGroup.com.

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Wallpapers Wednesday : Lego Batman

Roys — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:12 +0000

Wallpapers for the Batman range of Lego mini-figs. Can’t wait for the upcoming Lego Batman : The Videogame to be released later this September since I’m a big fan of Traveller’s Tales games - their previous Lego Star Wars : The Videogame made me into a Star Wars fan.
Hopefully a romp through a Legofied Gotham City will change my opinion of the depressingly dark and gloomy Batman universe.

Also check out the six promotional comics for a quick primer on the major villains (below) as well as Batman’s garage of Legofied vehicles. Almost all the villains are present except for the strange omission of Catwoman. Hmmm….

More Dark Knight goodness in the exclusive debut trailer for Lego Batman : The Videogame which you can watch or download from Gametrailers.

Travellers Tales has another soon to be released Lego game in the form of Lego Indiana Jones : The Original Adventures but I think the Dark Knight is far cooler - although I have to admit that the exotic locations in Lego Indiana Jones as shown in the wallpapers do have their attractions

Apparently, Lego no longer has the Harry Potter license so I’m wondering which license they would use for the next Lego game -a Lego minifig version of The Lord of the Rings would be fantastic

Download the wallpapers or view the comics for Lego Batman.

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Military Tuesday : Lessons from BBC History Channel Games

Roys — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:00:54 +0000

A couple of educational flash games from BBC History Channel presenting two important battles from English history - the Battle of Hastings between the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons under King Harold II and the Battle of Waterloo pitting the forces the Duke of Wellington against Napoleon Bonaparte. Both games allow you to exprience the battles from either side and the possible outcomes if either side had fought differently at critical points during each battle.

The Battle of Hastings : The Normans have infantry, archers and cavalry whereas the Anglo-Saxons is primarily a infantry based army.

A Norman victory (top) and an Anglo-Saxon victory (bottom)

The Battle of Waterloo : The heavily outnumbered French army has powerful artillery and better cavalry than the more numerous Seventh Coalition army comprising Belgian, Dutch, Hanoverian, Brunswick and British troops under the Duke of Wellington.

A Seventh Coalition victory (top) and a French victory (bottom)

Below, I present some of my findings after playing both games several times to discover all possible choices and outcomes.

While both battles took place in different eras, the same basic principle of preserving a mobile reserve to reinforce a successful breakthrough of enemy lines or to bolster a faltering defence or seal critical gaps in defensive lines is readily apparent.

Tactics of course vary according to the prevalent weapons of day. In the Battle of Hastings, the bristling spearpoints of the English shield wall provide an effective counter to Norman cavalry charges whereas infantry of the Napoleonic era form into equally immobile squares with their musket bayonets to deter enemy cavalry.

Above is Wayne Reynold’s illustration of the effectiveness of a solid shieldwall from the 11th December edition of Osprey Publishing’s “Advent Calendar”. Another shield wall is depicted by late Angus McBride on the 1st December edition.

These two battles still involve armies arrayed in formation against each other before the actual commencement of battle since massed infantry did not possess accurate ranged weapons to inflict substantial damage to their opponents during those times. This probably explains why the artillery were emplaced in front of the French infantry in the battle of Waterloo and the resulting disaster during the early days of WWI when armies attempted to use similar Napoleonic tactics in the face of vastly improved ranged weapons like rifles and machineguns.

The same lack of accurate long-ranged weapons could also make a heroic charge by leaders and their heavily-armored and armed bodyguards exemplified in the Battle of Hastings as a viable way of transforming a crisis into sure victory. A similiar valiant attempt would be pure suicide in today’s wars.

It’s apparent that tactical units have become smaller through the ages probably due to advancements in communication and signalling methods as well as the increased tempo of battle. The increased accuracy and destructiveness of artillery as it evolved over time was possibly a important factor too.

Play The Battle of Hastings and The Battle of Waterloo at BBC History Channel.

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Osprey Publishing’s Military Art “Advent Calendar”
War and Game - Military History Blog
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Random Monday : Mecha Galore in A.C.E 3

Roys — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:00:35 +0000

This one’s specially for Mr Hardian

A.C.E 3 (or Another Century’s Episode 3 : The Final if you prefer) is a PS2 game by FROM Software, better known for their Armored Core series.

What’s interesting about this game is the sheer quantity of user-controllable mecha as documented in the Wikipedia article for A.C.E 3 - a whopping 103 mechas from 18 meta-universes in total.

Let me now try my hand at identifying all the mecha that I can find in the 2:46 min
intro trailer in the same order which they appear in the trailer.

King Gainer from Overman King Gainer - The dreadlocks on this one looks really awful.

VF-19 Excalibur from the Macross Plus universe with its distinctive forward swept wings not unlike Grumman X-29.

Roy Focker’s VF-1S Super Valkyrie from the Macross meta-universe.

Wing Gundam Zero Custom from Gundam Wing : Endless Waltz.

A hoverboarding Nirvash typeZERO from Psalm Of Planets Eureka Seven.

Shin Getter-1 from Getter Robo Armageddon - Loved the original 1976 Starvengers / Getter Robo G

Gundam X from After War Gundam X.

Cannon fodder in the form of RGM-79[G]s appear throughout the trailer to be blasted and chopped into tiny bits.

The trailer then concludes with a flypast of 15 mecha including the awesome Rx-93 Nu Gundam.

Check out the intro trailer at Gametrailers or visit the official A.C.E. 3 site which has info and renders on all the mechas in the game.

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Titans of Steel - Warring Suns - Free Mecha Wargame

Most Popular Posts for April 2008

Roys — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:00:50 +0000

As usual, the most viewed posts for April 2008

Enjoy!

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Art Friday : Tony-B Machine - Flash Toy for Creating Early 90’s Techno/Electro

Roys — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:00:55 +0000

Another electronic music toy, Tony-B is the brainchild of a French flash developer with the same name.

You get synthesized melodies, bass and percussion (snares, hi-hats, kickdrums) with some early 90’s techno/electro soundbites (try pressing R for that classic C+C Music Factory’s Everybody Dance Now sample) as well as some nifty EFX which you can activate via Street Fighter like controls (Down,Right,Left,Up) for the Thunder Break snare roll or (Up,Down,Up,Down) for Extreme Danger sirens.

The Tony-B machine boasts a very well-designed and intuitive interface where everything can be accessed either via the keyboard or the mouse (or both for optimal effect). Switch the instruments on and off by pressing the number keys, play the keyboard via the ASDFGHJKL; keys for the standard QWERTY keyboard layout (it also supports the AZERTY keyboards used in France and Belgium) and trigger the sound samples with the QWERTYUIOP keys.

Check out my 3 minutes track (2.90 MB) recorded with Audacity. It doesn’t exactly show off the full power of the Tony-B machine since my reflexes suck when attempting to control all the instruments, samples and the EFX simultaneously but it should give you an good idea of the style of audio generated by this marvellous little Flash toy.

Start creating your own track with the Tony-B Machine. You might want to read what each of the sound samples correspond to over at the official site before playing around with it.

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Be Your Own One Man Band
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Games Thursday : Explore 3000 Rooms & Kill 10000+ Monsters in Meritous

Roys — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:00:42 +0000

Read about Meritous over at the excellent PlayThisThing blog quite a while back. Unfortunately, I’m not sure whether the guys at PlayThisThing actually recommend it since some of the stuff written there seems pretty ambiguous at times. Maybe my impressions below will help you decide

In Meritous, you are psionic user MERIT adventuring into the Orctus Dome to set things right. You’s armed with only an area attack which conveniently fries the brains of any creature within a certain radius, the lethality and range of the attack being directly proportional to the length of time spent charging your PSI circuit by holding down the Space. Your psionic attack is also a defensive skill as it can also clear most enemy projectiles within the same radius when discharged (after releasing the Space).

Initially you will encounter weak and underpowered beetle-like things but as you progress, more formidable foes start to appear like laser-firing spiders which require quite a significant PSI charge to kill as well as spiky creatures which quickly release a hail of projectiles not alike bullet hell shoot-em ups .

While attacking single enemies is simply a charge-and-release affair, you can choose to tackle groups of monsters in multiple ways such as aggressively zigzagging closer towards the enemies and release a series of short-ranged psionic blasts or evade enemy projectiles or even backing out into a previously cleared room while charging up to the maximum amount required to kill every single moving creature with a single shot

To aid you in your quest, MERIT has three upgradable skills, Reflect Shield which conjures a shield to absorb a certain number of hits before your vitality is affected, Circuit Charge which increases the damage of your attacks and Circuit Refill which reduces the cooldown period after each attack during which you’re dependent on only your shield and reflexes to defend against counterattacks from the remaining enemies. All skills are upgradable with crystals that you collect from fallen foes.

Your playing style therefore depends on your skill levels, the type and number of monsters you’re facing and even the size of the current room since smaller rooms allow for less room to maneuver. The visual cues in this game are fantastic and allow you to quickly access the tactical situation at hand and react accordingly.

When you charge your PSI bar, monsters are in range are marked with a circle around them and those which will be wounded/killed by that particular amount of charge are marked with an additional cross.
Rooms are colour coded by their threat level - empty rooms in serene dark or light blue and heavily defended rooms in progresively warmer colours like magenta or in the cases of treasure rooms, ruby red.

The play experience is wonderfully simple to pick up thanks to cues and features like the essential map and an ingenious Crystal Magnet Device which teleports all uncollected crystals directly into the current room. Frees up the time trying to pick up every crystal to explore more rooms

If you’re stuck, there’s always the Online Help which can be accessed by pressing H in-game. Right now, I haven’t even exactly figured out the exact objectives in Meritous since I’m having lots of fun just by exploring the 3000 rooms (currently explored 822 - 27.4%) and killing monsters (current tally - 4143 out of 10723 - 38.6%)

Download and play Meritous.

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Wallpapers Wednesday : Valkyria Chronicles

Roys — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:00:41 +0000

Wallpapers from the PS3 game Valkyria Chronicles aka Valkyrie of the Battlefield : Gallian Chronicles, which looks more like an interactive anime film than a game thanks to the unique rendering techniques used by its CANVAS graphics engine.

While most of the content for the Japanese site for this SEGA game is already accessible (not that it would make any difference to visitors who can’t read Japanese since Google Translate can do nothing for Flash-based sites), the wallpapers section is still under construction with only 3 out of the total 20 wallpapers being downloadable at this time.

What really interests me about Valkyria Chronicles aren’t the beautifully designed characters nor the refeshingly different anime graphics but the world in which Valkyria Chronicles is based.

Valkyria Chronicles takes place in a fictional pre-WWII Europe where the tiny nation of Gallia (somwhere in The Netherlands) is wedged between the forces of the Atlantic Federation and the East European Imperial Alliance (a pre-war NATO and Warsaw Pact if you will). Most of this information is stuff that I gleaned from watching the various Japanese trailers posted at Gametrailers so there may be some inaccuracies here and there.

The game retains that WWII feel familiar to most gamers except for the seemingly outdated East European infantry who still wear 15th century sallets rather than WWII helmets and are armed with cumbersome giant pikes. The infantry later actually reveal the true function of these pikes as early model RPGs by employing them in an offensive anti-tank role - you weren’t half expecting the infantry to form up into square formations to await a charge by tanks, do you?

Since the main characters fight with or alongside the blue tanks, I assume they belong to the Atlantic Federation. Curiously, these tanks look very much like a turreted version of the late production model of the German Sturmgeschutz III Ausf G with its distinctively contoured Saukopf gun mantlet/shield (check out thisTamiya model of this exact StuG III version which I used as a reference.)

The brown tank of the East European Imperial Alliance (above) appears to be a more sensible version of the monster Soviet T-35 multi-turreted tank with a boxy turret reminiscent of the KV-2.

Download the wallpapers from the official Valkyria Chronicles site or check out the trailers @ Gametrailers.com.

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