The Expressive Photobooth is a photobooth with a difference. Without warning, it surprises you by wobbling the seat or blowing air in your face, and then takes your photo. Its creator, Tim Hunkin, says, “I really enjoy the screams I hear coming from the booth.”
Introducing Inform 7. Stephen Granade at Brass Lantern gives a good introduction and overview of Inform 7. I think what I missed in my last post on the subject is that the natural language thing is more than just syntactic sugar; it actually introduces a whole new rules-based way of describing your game world to the computer.
I’m finding it difficult to put into words just how happy this game is. The LocoRoco are wobbly, singing, cute little blobs, who can join together to form a lumbering mass o’ fun. There’s a demo out, and I urge anyone who has a PSP to download it now.
Don’t be worried about not being able to understand the Japanese, the controls are beautifully simple. You tilt the world using the shoulder buttons, and jump by pressing them both down then releasing. Tapping the circle button will split the LocoRoco up, and holding it down will join them together again.
Don’t be fooled though, the game is amazingly rich. Even after playing the demo over and over, trying for a perfect score, I think I’ve spent more time just sitting and watching them play around on their own.
What if… The BBC’s on a roll. Some classic philosophy thought experiments, presented with good, clear explanation of the background and the consequences. Makes you think.
Believe it or not: The battle over certainty. A nice column by Lisa Jardine, a historian, on how science is not about certainty. She describes how creationists who demand science to ‘prove’ evolution are barking up the wrong tree, and that (more pressingly) we can’t wait for ‘certain proof’ of pending disasters like global warming before taking action. “We are going to have to learn how to participate in debates which are not about certainties.”
Graham Nelson has just released Inform 7. It’s a radically new frontend to the de facto standard of interactive fiction design tools, Inform.
The big difference? Instead of having to learn a special programming language, you can now use natural English sentences to describe your game to the computer. See the gallery for a walkthrough of its new features. It looks really impressive.
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