Games

This Could Be the Hardest Puzzle You’ll Meet This Week

June 6, 2011 by noemi Leave a Comment

Do you love challenges? Do you like sitting down and pitting your wits against puzzles? Well I have discovered something that you might like to spend time on when you have nothing else to do. I don’t know what it is called although the first text that you will see is “Enter the Door”.

This level’s pretty easy. Even I figured it out within a second. However, the moment I moved to the second level, I found myself embarrassingly stuck.

The idea of the game is fairly simple. You have to move on to the next level, no matter what. You have to use everything in your power to move to the next level, and as you progress, the solution is not always obvious. You can always read the tips and hints provided with the game, but then if you consider yourself brilliant and independent, you shouldn’t need to check that document. 😉 (Also, the hints are only provided up to level 8. From level 9 to 81, your trainer wheels are taken off, and you’ll be on your own.

It’s Monday, and you may have tons of work waiting for you, but if you need a break, go check out NotPrOn. Please don’t blame me if you end up not getting any work done today. (It’s Monday anyway.)

Ecotopia: A Worthwhile Facebook Game?

March 10, 2011 by noemi Leave a Comment

For some reason, I have never gotten into FarmVille, which is perhaps the most popular Facebook game of all time. I did find myself wasting lots of hours on CityVille, though, for reasons I cannot explain. Now, here comes another game, which aims to catch the attention of the hordes of people already addicted to Facebook games. Called Ecotopia, the game seems to have some similarities with CityVille and other games in the same category. The big difference is that Ecotopia is being touted as a “green game”. It is being developed by Talkie, in cooperation Conservation International, with Hollywood star Harrison Ford’s support.

The game has not been launched yet, but there is already a Facebook page for Ecotopia. According to what the developers, the game is:

Eco-friendly
A heroes-versus-villain adventure
Players start with an environment that is dirty and inhabitable. The task is to generate resources and eventually create one’s own utopia – with the good of the environment always a prime consideration.

Just like all other social games on Facebook, players can connect to their friends and interact with them via the game. Indeed, no social game will be complete without these features. For those who may already be raising their eyebrows and thinking that the game is nothing more than an escape from reality, Ecotopia does reach out to the real world. I don’t know exactly how the system will work, but the developers say that “players will also be heavily rewarded for performing real-world acts of green and incorporating them into their Ecotopia gaming experience.”

I know many of my Facebook friends do not care about my fish, my mafia, or my city; but if Ecotopia is going to be good as it is being hyped up, I wouldn’t mind risking the ire of some Facebook friends for a worthy cause. Shall we give it a try when it comes out on the 4th of April?

FarmVille for Dummies

February 8, 2011 by noemi 1 Comment

It is no joke – there is a new book in the Dummies series, and it is titled Farmville for Dummies. Now I don’t know about you, but I think some of the books in this series are quite useful. They make things easier for the average person who may not be as savvy as others. But what about if the topic is NOT hard to begin with?

That’s exactly what I thought when I heard about FarmVille for Dummies. If you think about it, FarmVille is one of the easiest games that you can play out there. It practically guides you every step of the way, and if you have a question, you can simply ask your friends who are probably as addicted to it as you are!

So why the need for the book? Is there really a market for FarmVille dummies out there? Perhaps. This is the argument from the perspective of co-author Kyle Orland:

Sure, FarmVille isn’t a particularly difficult game—it practically holds your hand in telling you how to play, and there’s a limited amount of strategy to playing…Some of the sections of the game—especially the farmer’s market and some aspects of animal tending—require multiple, time-lapsed steps to complete successfully, and the game only gives one screen of text-heavy explanation for how to go about them.

I guess that there will be some people who will appreciate all the tips and tricks put together in one handy reference. Then again, if you have to go through that hassle to be a success in FarmVille, I guess dummy is the appropriate word. Or am I being too harsh?

The book is available on Amazon on a pre-order basis.

Angry Birds Rio Trailer

February 1, 2011 by noemi Leave a Comment

That little game that pitted irate birds against green pigs has reached such proportions that everyone around the world knows about it by now. Angry Birds, the game, has converted many a self-proclaimed non-gamer into chronic casual gamers. From the iPhone to the iPad, you will see people swiping and cursing just to get those irritating viridescent hogs out of the way. And, I bet you know just how tough those pigs can be!

There have been several versions of the game, but now, the birds and the pigs are coming to the big screen! In a few months, we can all queue up at the theater to see Angry Birds Rio the movie. The plot – if it can be called that – is ridiculous, I think. Still, the game itself is so ridiculous that it is good, isn’t it? So anyway, the birds are shipped off to Rio for a “vacation”. READ: They are caged and kidnapped. Of course, the protagonists escape from their cages, and that’s when they discover hundreds of other captive birds.

Angry Birds Rio will also be released as a game to complete your avian experience. Here’s the newly released trailer to get your adrenaline going.

Oh, and if you are impatient and cannot wait till March, you can get the Valentine’s Day edition in a week or so. Of course, it goes without saying that this version will have lots of pink in it. 🙂

Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer’s Edition

January 27, 2011 by noemi 2 Comments

So you think you’re the best Guitar Hero player ever born? Think again! You’ve seen all those YouTube videos about little kids kicking the butt of everyone else – never mind that we are twice or three times his age. If you want some “light reading” that is all about gaming, then Guinness has the perfect thing for you – the 2011 Gamer’s Edition. Just to give you an idea, here is an interview with the record holder for the highest scoring female Guitar Hero player. Hats off to you, Annie Leung.

It’s not all about “serious” records, though. In case you have ever wondered about all that swearing in video games, you can read up on that in this edition. Other pieces of trivia that you can start memorizing (to use as pick up lines, conversation starters, or whatever):

The oldest gamer included in the book is John Bates of Onalaska, Wisconsin. He is 85 years old, a former high school principal, and is a certified Wii Bowling addict. His feat? He has the highest number of perfect games on Wii Sports Bowling: 2,850.
Mitsugu Kikai from Tokyo is only 25 years old and has 5,400 items of Super Mario-related memorabilia. Does anyone out there have more? Let Guinness know!
Angry Birds is the Top Paid-For Apple App Store Game. But then again, we already know that, don’t we?

Find out how to get your hands on the book from the Guinness web site. If anything, it will be a good way to pass the time when you don’t have anything else to do.

A Whole New World of (Biotic) Games

January 19, 2011 by noemi Leave a Comment

Just the other day, I had the chance to play World of Goo for the first time. Yes, I know that’s a really old game, but some of us have to work. 😉

Anyhow, the experience was a strange one as I didn’t immediately get the concept. Little blobs of black goo (sometimes white) bouncing around just didn’t tickle my fancy, so I didn’t really end up playing it for long. For those of you who are interested in this kind of gameplay – the weirder the better – then you will like these new “biotic” games.

A team in Stanford University led by Ingmar Riedel-Kruse have come up with a bunch of biotic games based on – surprise – biological processes. The main player is paramecia. Quick bio review: paramecium is a kind of unicellular ciliate protozoa. It moves – just like a caterpillar – because of the cilia covering it all over. Now do you see where this can go?

So the scientists had a lot of free time in their hands and decided to have some fun. The games they created are:
‘Enlightenment’, ‘Ciliaball’, ‘PAC-mecium’, ‘Microbash’, ‘Biotic Pinball’, ‘POND PONG’, ‘PolymerRace’, and ‘The Prisoner’s Smellemma’. I cannot even begin to imagine how these games will work, but here is a video that will aid your imagination in case you are in the same boat as I am.

Fancy a biotic game of Pac-Man or soccer? Maybe Ingmar and his team will play nice and let you have a go at their games. I think I will stick to my “traditional” games.