Archive for April, 2005



In the recent thread on Buddhabot thread, Nomotheticus says that one of the reasons he screens users by charging them is because

In past experiments with public domain bots I have observed that most humans first try to break or test the bot, then they abuse it and try to “pervert” it and then, if […]

Strongbad on Thy Dungeonman 2

Read Part 1
Part 2: An Affectionate Critique
Homestar Runner show real affection towards the retro subject matter that it parodies, and the neat skewering of Text Adventure Games here is no exception. Traditional IF is mocked for:

Faux-archaic style - “ye find yeself in yon dungeon”
Intellectual pretensions - “people with better imaginations”
Frustration, frustration, frustration - “You […]

Strongbad on Thy Dungeonman

Part 1: You Just Have To Sit There And Imagine

It is possible that you aren’t familiar with Homestar Runner or their weekly flash cartoon Strongbad Emails, notable for a goofy nostalgia-driven aesthetic and narration by a loveably sinister man-child, a nerd/bully in a Mexican wrestling mask.
However if you are at all interested in games or […]

Sims Playing Sims 2

Read Part 1
Part 2
What is the distinction between the a game-within-a-game and a mere representation?
While Sims 2 characters appear to be playing Sims 1, they are not - the tiny sim-screen on the sim-desk doesn’t display the results of a fully modeled Sims 1 world, let alone the Sims 2 world that would make it […]

My notes on:
Session 1: MMORPGs: At the Boundaries of the Virtual
No matter how technical the crowd, no panel is complete without a huge problem trying to get a laptop connected via DVD player to a TV, etc. etc. - most of us have had this happen, and combined with a conversation with presenter Chris Cruz-Boone […]