Play Me Ten

Ten Things for the Free Game Lovers

Age of Conquest is "a medieval Risk-like turn-based strategy game where you take the reins of a budding empire and struggle against fellow empires for control of the world" (OS: "Available for all major operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Android and iOS [iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad"])

Based on the classic Frank Herbert fantasy series, Dune Legacy is "an effort by a handful of developers to revitalize the first-ever real-time strategy game. The original game was the basis for the hugely successful Command and Conquer series, and the gameplay has been replicated an extended to a wide variety of storylines and series. There are currently two different branches of Dune Legacy" (OS: designer notes that it will run on Mac, Linux and even Windows)

Homonym Madness is "a very challenging and fun word puzzle game. It is a completely different kind of word puzzle than you have ever played before" (OS: Win 9x/ME/NT/2K/XP/2K3/Vista/7)

LettersFall2 is a free game that "combines Scabble with Tetris" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Monopoly Deluxe is a virtual, point and click freeware version of the classic game (OS: Windows 95-98, Windows XP)

pChess is "a basic chess programme" ". . . with nice graphics and a built-in FEN Viewer. Uses a classic Shannon type MiniMax search with Quiescence extensions and Alpha-Beta pruning. It supports copy/paste of FEN positions, a 'Visual Brain' feature, and a small (700 move) opening book. Comes complete with FutureBasic 5 source code" (OS: Mac OSX)

Rasputin's Curse is "a mind-bending hidden object game" (OS: Mac OS X 10.4 or later)

RPGSuite is "a collection of free software aimed at making Role-Playing Games (RPGs) easier to play and manage. It takes programs from a variety of developers and puts them all in one clean, shiny package. You can install what you want, and ditch what you don't" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

Suqoku is "a sudoku game written in QT 4. It can open game files from other sudoku games and generate random games" (OS: OS X, Linux, Windows 7, WinXP)

WordBog is "a challenging word creation game. Those who enjoy word games such as Boggle and Scrabble will find WordBog addictive" (OS: Windows Vista/XP/2000)

Match Game

Let's play a game. See if you can match the writer to the fact:

1. Officially recognized as history's most prolific novelist for writing 904 books under six pen names.

2. More than once wrote a 35,000 word novel overnight.

3. Currently holds the world's record for longest novel title at a whopping 290 words.

4. Penned a 1.5-million-word opus that is widely considered to be the longest novel in English.

5. Used 70 different pen names to write 850+ books.

6. Composed one of the earliest novels in human history.

7. Wrote a 110,000 word novel in 21 days without electricity, running water, paper or pen.

A. Davide Ciliberti
B. Murasaki Shikibu
C. PBW
D. Marcel Proust
E. Mary Faulkner
F. Lauran Paine
G. Prentiss Ingraham

No Googling now -- answers will be provided in comments at the end of the day.

Tiger Eye

Passionfruit Games has just released Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, the first PC video game based on Marjorie M. Liu's novel, Tiger Eye.

I've been looking forward to the release this game for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that I am a devoted follower of Marjorie's Dirk & Steele novel series. But I have to admit, I'd already assumed that I wouldn't be able to actually play it myself . I've tried exactly one video game in my life and never made it past level one; solitaire and pinball are more my speed. It's also been my experience that video game playing requires superior motor skills, lots of time to practice, and a much younger, hip frame of mind -- none of which I possess. Honestly, I planned to pass it along to the kids.

I am delighted to report that Tiger Eye is eminently playable and genuinely fun, even for a pinball-era gimp like me. You're not required to run around fighting in the street or ripping out your opponent's spine; instead you face a series of fun and very interesting puzzles, riddles and problem-solving challenges that you work through on different levels as the game follows the story in the novel. Intelligence and common sense are your best allies when you play this game. Speaking as a handicapped user, I think it's extremely user-friendly for folks like me who have limited dexterity, as all of the play is point-and-click with the mouse.

The game graphics are terrific; the narrators' voices are perfect for the characters they portray, and I enjoyed the soundtrack so much I'm going to purchase it. There's also options to get hints on how best to solve the challenges, a orb that guides you when you can't find something, and timed bonus levels to add points to your score. The thing I liked most was the ever-changing degree of difficulty; the challenges ranged from simple to very tough, and the mix kept me on my toes and involved (this bicycle chain challenge is one that finally stumped me on my first try, but I'm going back next time to kick its evil twisty ass.)

As a mom who routinely drops thirty to fifty bucks on video games for her kids, I also appreciate Passionfruit Game's prices. You can purchase the basic game for as low as $6.99, or choose an upgraded version that comes with extra bonus bits and perks (I preordered the middle/premium $9.99 version.) Mac users, you have to wait until next month for your version, but it's worth it. I know Marjorie's readership will love how the game follows the story of the novel, but I don't think you have to be a Dirk & Steele fan to enjoy playing it. Be warned, though, it will probably make you want to read the novel.

To purchase and download Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, head over to the order page here.

Holiday Ten

Ten Things to do During the Holidays

221B is an advergame to promote the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Looks like it might be fun, although it seems you have to be on Facebook to play it so I couldn't try it out.

Want to learn how to write a movie script treatment the easy way? Try Bill Myer's Automatic Movie Script Treatment Generator.

ArchteypeWriting.com has a trio of story-starter generators to play with: Character Generator, an Everyday Problems Generator, and a Plot Scenario Generator.

Play the online game Christmas Lights and listen to some holiday music while you try to spot all the differences (not as easy as it looks.)

All I can say about the Christmas Zoom Game is Whoa.

For a distraction-free writing environment, try Dark Room (OS: Windows XP/2000/2003) or Write Room (OS: Mac OS X 10.4 or later)

This Google Image Ripper over at Dear Computer pulls images based on the keyword(s) you put in.

OmmWriter is "a simple text processor that firmly believes in making writing a pleasure once again, vindicating the close relationship between writer and paper. The more intimate the relation, the smoother the flow of inspiration" (OS: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher)

Who is smarter, men or women? Trivial Pursuit has an online game that doubles as an experiment to find out.

If you're bored and want to get in a little writing practice without committing to a huge project, try putting together a scene or short story using prompts from Seventh Sanctum's Writing Challenge Generator.

Play Me Ten

Ten Things for the Game Design/Creation Lovers

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Adventure Games Studio "allows you to create your own point-and-click adventure games, similar to the early 90's Sierra and Lucasarts adventures. It consists of an easy-to-use editor to create your games, and a run-time engine to play them. The game interface is fully customizable, with classic Sierra and Verb Coin templates provided by default. AGS manages most of the game so that you don't have to - it does all the donkey work like load/save game functions, pathfinding and scrolling rooms so that you can concentrate on the parts of your game that make it unique" (OS: Windows 2000, XP or Vista. Designer's note: "The AGS Editor will also run on Windows 98, but some features are not available if you do so. You also need to have the .NET Framework 2.0 (or later) installed in order to run the editor. The installer will tell you if you don't have this and need to download it.")

AutoRealm mapping freeware allows you to design and create "maps of castles, cities, dungeons and more." (OS: Windows)

BYOJeopardy "helps you make custom game boards that you can use in the classroom or play with friends. Features for BYOJeopary include the ability to bold, italicize, and underline text. You can insert symbols° and small images. You can use different fonts or specify the font size. You can use subscript and superscript. You can add media like Quicktime (*.mov) and Windows media player (*.wmf) files to your board" (OS: Windows with the designer's note: "There are TWO versions available: one requires the .NET framework & will NOT run on Win95, the other does not & will run on ALL versions of Windows. Make sure you choose the correct download")

The just-released 0.97.5 version of Construct is "a FREE development studio geared for creating DirectX games and software in a WYSIWYG environment" (OS: Win 2000/XP/Vista)

DimensioneX is an "open source software kit for developing and running multiplayer adventure games" (OS: Any/All)

Golden Realm [not freeware, but for $2.50 it might as well be] is " as user-friendly and anti-programming as possible. A simple understanding of basic GML is suggested but not required. You can do a ton with this engine without any understanding of programming. This is a very easy-to-use Game Maker engine" (OS: not specified)

Jarum Game Creator "allows you to create games and compile them into "exe" files using a simple programming language. Features include a Game Wizard that allows you to create simple games with out having to code them from scratch and a debugger that allows you to find errors in your code quickly and easily. A Sprite Masker that adds a mask to your sprites. A compiler that compiles your games into standalone executable programs. A Help File that includes a list of commands and topics on how to use the game creator." (OS: Windows, Vista)

Official Hamster Republic Role Playing Game Construction Engine is "a free open-source utility that you can use to create your own RPG game in a style similar to the classic Final Fantasy games on the NES, SNES and GBA which have so shaped the RPG genre" (OS: No specific system required, but Has been tested on various Windows and Linux and has a page here with the test results)

Scratch is "a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design" (OS: Win 9x/ME/NT/2K/XP/2K3, Mac OSX 10.3 or later)

World Creator allows you to "create your Artwork for Games quickly and easily, specialises in Game Tiles, 2D, Platform, Overhead, Isometric, Pseudo3D, and Animations. The World Creator has a unique Tiling & Masking system with an open ended structure, so you can design and create / use your own Textures and Masks which in turn provides an ever expanding library which can be exchanged between users" (OS: Windows)

Additional Resources:

Ambrosine.com has a page here with an extensive resource/link list of more sites, freeware, shareware and software to buy for game design and creation for pratically every skill level and operating system.

If you'd like to practice making games online, test drive the free online game maker at Fyrebug.com (also, according to the site, if you register you can create your own images and mp3s for use in games.)

If you need music for your game, you might take a look at the work being done by game music composers over at Sakari Infinity (downloads and uploads are free, but evidently you do have to register first. I don't see any cost involved, but check it out thoroughly before you join.)

Snowy Six

On the sixth day before Christmas, PBW found for me:

Six No-Shovel Snow Things

1.

2. Free Snow Scene Screensaver "fills your screen with large snowflakes. High resolution, high quality winter snow scene images. You will either want to get out of the snow or in the snow after seeing this one." (OS: Windows 95-XP - works best with 800 X 600 screen resolution.)

3. For the Javanuts out there, check out this online tutorial on how to mix water and snow applets.

4. Jacquie Lawson's animated holiday e-card, The Snow Dog (still the best e-card ever.)

5. Play Arcadetown.com's free Snow Boarder XS online game or Shockwave.com's free Snowman Salvage online game.

6. Pepsi will donate up to $50,000.00 to America's Second Harvest -- The Nation's Food Bank Network -- to help fight hunger this holiday season; all you have to do is register with Pepsi World (free) and create a virtual snow globe.