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Games that end up linear and boring.

I think most people would understand that the post title of this entry is referring to Final Fantasy 13.  It’s been lambasted for being a linear experience. But why is it suddenly reasonable to judge a game on it’s linearity? I think about the games that were purposely linear, and those that simply end up as being linear. There isn’t much of a difference between the two ideas. One is done on purpose and the other one is accidental.

So which one is FF13?

Let’s find out. A one, a two, a three…

Experimental Games (00000001)

This category of games is rather filled to the brim if you know where to look. Many of these games are just like Yume Nikki, where an easy and simple platform of content generation is the main drive behind it. Yume Nikki was made with RPGMaker. It didn’t even use most of the functions that RPGMaker is for. Yume Nikki is mostly ignoring the functionality of the software it was made on, bearing no resemblance to an RPG. But the more interesting aspect of these types of games is that they are made by a very small group, if not a single person. One example today is Eskil Steenburg, the creator and sole person working on Love. Doesn’t need massive amounts of people behind it; talking to gamers about this concept would be preaching to the choir. All modern day gamers that grew up on the 8-bit era would like to think that a game only needs to be fun.

The way I use experimental might be a misnomer. But I’ll be damned if the games I mention here didn’t correctly execute some strange aspect or function that is either still not working in other games, or no one really hasn’t done it in the same scope. Here’s an old one for you all.
Wait for it.

create.Computar_Art()

I recently got a new computer, and specifically a tablet pc. I can’t believe how much I’ve been missing out on such a piece of technology. Those years I spent getting used to the Wacom tablets seem so meaningless now. Although this now means I have to quickly brush up my previous art skills that were hiding while I was using the Wacom tablet. Dammit.

It’s a Toshiba M750. I might have been lucky in getting the pressure sensitivity working from Day 1. It’s thanks to the wonderful forum belonging to Tablet PC Review.com. Go give it a visit if you’re looking for a digital sketchbook companion more reliable than a person named Amara-san. (No offense meant to anyone actually named Amara.)

Should the M750 be the tablet pc you’re aiming to get, visit this site for instructions: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=26662

In general, the driver you need is labeled as the Bamboo series of drivers. Install those, and you’re good to go!

God dammit. (Podcast/recording/audio related.)

It’s not fair to make silly excuses for not showing up routinely with something that’s supposed be made weekly. For us, it’s been our podcast. If I can’t produce a podcast for one week, I usually just wait until next production week and make up for it with content. No excuses made. Besides, this is all in good fun.

But goddamit. Just a few minutes ago while editing the audio file in Audacity Beta 1.3.2, it crashes hard on me after a simple edit. In my case it was deleting less than a second of noise. Audacity crashes on me and loses all of my progress. I boot the software back up with hopes of trying to salvage. It pops up a dialogue box that says I can try to recover the progress that it supposedly could bring back. When I click on the button to recover the data, the dialogue disappears and nothing happens.

“Isn’t there supposed to be two tracks with my audio?”
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