Mac

The Endless Forest Goes Public

In an unostentatious way, The Endless Forest is an online multiplayer gathering where you play the role of a deer and interact with other deer while mating, crying, sleeping, urinating et cetera. Yes you read that correct - you’re not a Warlock, Elf or Warrior, just customized stags . The ‘game’ which can also be left on as a screensaver, has been kicking around since 2005, but has just now officially went public. We’ve mentioned the intriguing, and non-competitive free roaming forest gathering in the past, and it’s nice to see how far it has come, with over 200,000 downloads and 25,000 registered users.

Created by Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn in Gent, Belgium. Tale of Tales - Endless Forest manifested in response to a commission from a museum -the Musée d’Art Moderne in Luxemburg (Mudam), who still host the server.

Download the game here

PC gaming not dead yet, but pirates are working on it.

The announcement has come from Crytek that they believe they will no longer be making games exclusively for PC. Let’s call this step one, because once they start putting their games out on consoles and nobody buys the PC one, that will be the last of their work on PC, and with good reason. Joe and I discussed copy protection for a little bit in podcast 30, as it relates to the Steam download service. What I didn’t mention at that time is I admire the Steam business model in that the games, which ping home to make sure they’re legit, are all but ensured immunity to piracy. That’s good for the developer, the publisher, and as we will soon see, good for the consumer who wants to play these games. At all.
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For Projectile Dysfunction, Take Stroyent

That’s the consumer name for this frag and health impotence drug, the medical name is (humanifil killemal) in case you’re concerned about side effects and health-related issues. Stroyent is the 2-in-1 Health and Ammo of the Strogg Race for Quake Wars, and is made from 100% human meat! All I can says is: it’s-about-time as I’m tired of embarrassing myself in front of friends when I play Quake Wars online.

Be sure to ask your Doctor if you’re healthy enough for killing activity. Do not take Stroyent if you’re a wuss as it may cause overheating and leakage of the anus.

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You Still Don’t Know Jack!

Back in the mid to late nineties, one of the best things going on your home computer was an online flash-based version of that Jellyvision game show, You Don’t Know Jack!. It’s hard to say what my favorite thing about the game was. Perhaps it was the crazy intros to each question, such as, “Whoo-whee! It’s question number three!” My favorite of those was, “Question number sixteen. And I like it too!”

I found myself wondering earlier today whatever happened to You Don’t Know Jack!. I know there was a long series of CD-ROM versions of the game (and I owned at least one) but what good is that when you eventually run out of questions? I ran a search online and it turns out you can still play the game online. Episodes are released as flash movies, fully interactive and in much the same style they’ve always been done, still by Jellyvision. The only caveats are that it all says BETA in big scary letters and I don’t see any multiplayer, which is where these games always really excelled.

It’s been back for about a year now, and I’m just catching on now. See you there. Or not, without multiplayer.

There are currently 59 individual episodes available, and you can check them out online starting right here.

Penny Arcade Game Ups the Point Cost Ante at $20

Today came word that Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One, the new game from the guys at Hothead Games, would cost $19.95 across all platforms, including the Xbox 360. This is new territory for the Xbox Live Arcade, as this would be the first time a game would cost 1600 points. It is worth pointing out that this is suppose to be episodic as well, which means $20 for each episode.

One would assume that Hothead Games sees the Penny Arcade brand as a way to charge this extra premium, but I feel that they better have something that plays better than the Sam and Max games, because right now, they have set the bar for episodic content, and at a nice easy price tag of $8.95 an episode, or included with your Gametap subscription.

via Joystiq

Blizzard: we’re working on OpenGL patch for Diablo II for Intel Macs.

I posted an article the other day talking about how it didn’t appear we would be getting a patch to allow us to play Diablo II on our modern Intel Macs with all the 3D effects we’d come to love. It turns out my assumption was incorrect. I received the following word from Rob Barris, from Blizzard’s Mac team, in response to my post.

Blizzard is aware of the issue running the OS X version of Diablo II on an Intel Mac in OpenGL mode, and a fix for this issue is already in internal testing. Our hope is to provide this in the next patch update to Diablo II, allowing OpenGL mode to work correctly once again on Intel Mac.

I contacted Mr. Barris back to confirm this, and he was quick to do so. Thanks, Rob! I’ll keep my eyes peeled for it.

Diablo II still not properly compatible with Intel Macs, might never be.

Seeing as how it originally appeared more than eight years ago or so, it’s probably not too reasonable for me to complain too loudly about the fact that I can’t properly play my copy of Diablo II on my new iMac. It turns out the OpenGL functionality in the game falls apart when run on an Intel Mac, and Blizzard’s word on it is simply to play it in software rendering mode, which leads me to believe they have no plans to resolve the issue. The problem with that is it makes a dated game look even worse, removing all the nice 3D effects like perspective. This is a game I’ve gone back to again and again, playing all the way through, and I have a small army of powerful characters I’ve built up, but now I suppose all that draws to a close unless I want to settle. Which I don’t.

With no sign of Diablo III on the horizon though, what else is there?

EA announces Spore for Mac, ready your butter knives.

Unlike some publishers who shall remain Capcom, Electronic Arts knows to butter their toast not only on both sides, but around all the edges as well. While that makes EA toast some of the most slippery toast known to man, it’s also the most buttery and delicious. Where am I going with this toast analogy?

Will Wright’s upcoming Spore game has been confirmed via press release as coming to MacOS. It was announced and is on display at MacWorld, that big show of all things Apple. Those of us who didn’t pony up for Leopard (and aren’t going to until it’s fixed, and even then probably not unless the price comes down which it won’t) no longer have any way of booting to Windows on our Mac (thanks a lot Apple, you fat jerk) and have to wait for native versions of these things to appear now.

So anyway, in the list of Capcom, Apple, and EA, right now I’m happiest with EA, and that’s not something I’d ever expect. Right on, EA, you’re doing a good job lately and we all appreciate the opportunity to add a little more butter to that huge slice of toast of yours. Now comes the decision of which platform to buy it on, since it’s coming to everything.

Read on if press releases butter your toast.

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Cuddle up with Katamari.

Crafters are the best. They manage to whip up the cutest things with just a little bit of yarn, a crochet hook and some patience. Oh, and in this case - a love for a little game known as Katamari Damacy. Ann Fox, a textile artist, whipped up this Katamari Prince of All Cosmos blanket out of good ol’ acrylic yarn (the kind you can find at any craft store) in a pattern she made with Adobe Illustrator and OmniGraffle, a diagramming program for MacOS X. Check out Ann’s other work at her site: Ann Fox Art

This isn’t the first Katamari craft Aeropause has seen, mind you. Check out these other beauties:

Etsy Katamari Mashup Toy
Cool Katamari Shoes
Crocheted Katamari Doll

The best pop for your buck.

PopCap Games is still running their 50% off sale for another four days, and while this deal makes it a bit easier to pick up some games for your Mac or PC (hooray for Mac casual games!) there are some games that are definitely more worth your $9.97 than others.

Available for the Mac are old standbys like Alchemy and Bejeweled, but many of us have played these games to death - whether in their PopCap incarnations or in the the zillions of clones available for handhelds, in Flash games or even on our cellphones. These two games are priced a bit less, at $7.47, but might be worth taking a pass if you’ve played any desktop games at all in the last 10 years.

For my money, the best two games of the bunch, at least for Mac users, are Peggle and Zuma. Both are fast paced games that require you to keep thinking while playing - and are highly addictive. While I already own Magnetica for the Nintendo DS, I might still consider purchasing Zuma, a game reported to be a ripoff of this game, just for the great graphics and the fact that I can sit behind my laptop and pretend I’m doing work while really shooting balls out of a frog’s mouth. Creating chain reactions of similarly colored balls to stop impending doom gives me a charge, and this game is great because it eases you into the fray slowly.

Peggle is the real gem, however. Sort of a combo between Breakout and Bust-a-Move, pachinko and a pinball game, Peggle is great for making you feel good about your game playing skills and then horrible as the difficulty level progresses.

So, c’mon. You can download the games and try them for 60 minutes, and see if you like them. Then, it’s a measly $10. You have until January 3rd at PopCap Games.