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Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

February 20, 2012 – 12:39 pm | 3 Comments

Tiny Diggers has just been released on the iPad and soon the Mac computer. Here’s the details on this fun, educational game from TouchTilt Games.
Tiny Diggers Delivers Learning With Construction Trucks For Kids on the …

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Video Game Poetry Slam

Submitted by on December 11, 2005 – 12:53 pm2 Comments

fasttetris.jpgI came across a few game related clips on iFilm. A couple of mention: This one shows a guy playing Tetris incredibly fast. I know – pointless really. Actually I don’t buy it, I think the left side showing the actual game is sped up. How could anyone play a puzzle game that fricken fast? It’s so fast it seems like you wouldn’t have the bloody time to make a conscious decision where to properly place a block.

vgamepoet.jpgThen there’s the video game beat neck poetry readings. I thought they were well done. The “Atari” readings by Ernie pretty much sum up life in pop-culture land. Then there’s “Joust” by Shappy, hilarious readings presented in a old Shakespearean English accent. My favorite line: “…I will send thee into the boiling lava below, where you and your feathered steed will explode, like a powdered keg…”

  • Michael

    Having lived in Japan, I’m familiar with competitive Tetris and have seen several people play at this level. You have to keep in mind a few things when watching this video:

    1) The controls on these machines are specially-designed for competition. They’re hair-trigger sensitive but still provide excellent feedback for each move. Two joysticks make it very easy and quick to quickly maneuver each piece where you want it.

    2) That unlike standard Tetris, which gives you very little time to reposition a block after it’s dropped, competitive machines give more opportunity to do so. If you watch the video again, you’ll see that the guy has not thought out his moves lightning-fast. He makes a quick judgement as to the general area to put the block, drops it, then spends as long as a full second getting it into the proper place. Anyone who has spent hundreds of hours with Gameboy Tetris (as some dorks like me have) would find the improved control system of these machines easy to adapt to and could improve their high-speed play skills. Though not nearly as fast as the guy in the video, I was able to play faster than most people with these systems.

    3) Realize that instead of most modern Tetris games, which drop a block smoothly, on these machines blocks drop immediately when you press down. They only move more smoothly when repositioning.

    You really should play one of these machines to appreciate how nice the experience is. The controls are great… the difference was like when I traded my Atari 2600 joystick for an Epyx 500XJ years ago: immediately I began to beat all my best scores on every game.

  • http://www.aeropause.com Shane

    Thanks for shedding the light Michael. I had no idea there were machines designed for this. I was obsessed with Tetris when I was a kid, although that was only played on the Gameboy, and these days – on my cell phone and computer.