i'm in ur bed, snugglin ur plushies

hergé comes to the silver screen

Here comes Tintin, photorealistic and set for a big-screen trilogy. Directed by two heavy-hitters: Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Sweet. I wonder why they didn't stick with the time-tested ligne claire visual style. This could be GREAT, or REALLY BAD. Or, more unlikely, mediocre.
I grew up with Tintin, and used to own a couple comics/works of art of Hergé's (aka George Remi). I actually saw a biography of Hergé a while back, on his (or Tintin's, I can't remember) 100th anniversary. Good stuff. I was inspired by Tintin, and drew a couple comics of a similar style way back when.

Look here.

gaming like it's 1979

So I played, or rather I am playing my first ever Interactive Fiction game. Calling them 'text adventures' is so 1980s. But anyway, I downloaded a parser and the game Floatpoint, authored by Emily Short. I gotta say, it's pretty good. I wasn't expecting a text-only game to be as compelling as this. It started off pretty slow, but now that I'm getting the hang of things it's pretty immersive. Floatpoint is about human genetic modification, xenophobic politicians, and brittle diplomacy between an almost-human race and a post-plauge Earth. Plus, who can't love a game with files that end in *.zblorb? Get Floatpoint here.

To play Floatpoint (and any other IF games) you're gonna need a player. Get 'em here:
OS X: I recommend Spatterlight. Solid, but still in beta.
Linux and Windows: I've heard Gargoyle is pretty good.

Baf's Guide to the IF Archive is a great place to get other IF games, if you so disire.

wadf

Within a Deep forest is one of the best games that I have ever played. It's atmospheric, beautiful, and crazy hard. You play a bouncy little blue ball out to save the world from the evil Dr. Cliché's plan to turn the world to ice. It's very exploration-based, but also a masterfully made platformer. Like any good platformer, the controls are simple and tight: move left and right with the arrow keys, bounce higher with 's', and reduce your bounce with 'a'. The simple pixle-based graphics are masterfully made and animated, very fluid and colorful. All it's cuteness and atmosphere just enhance its maddening puzzles. The music is also ambient and evocative, perfectly complementing the visuals and gameplay to create a almost perfect game.

Get it here.

echoes

The latest game from the talented muchachos at binaryzoo, Echoes seems pretty nice. I'm only going to be able to play it at school, but whatever. It still looks fun. Quote from their website:
"it's a bit like Asteroids' hyperactive, drug crazed brother displayed in blur-o-vision© and viewed through psychedelic sunglasses in a cheap nightclub."

Get it here. (And check out the rest of their games, they aren't too bad!)

fifteen-up

The name "the fifteen-up" is inspired by the Up Series, a set of documentaries of the same people taken every seven years. I think they're working on 56-up now. A couple months ago, my uncle started a sort of personal Up Series, including me and a few other people in his interviews. I originally intended this blog as a companion to that personal vid-doc, but I think I'll let it just take its own direction.

[Edit] Here's the wikipedia link:

welcome

This is my place. I'll be irregulary posting things I find, thoughts I need to get out, ect. I might even post something coherent! Check back later.