The Packbats' Weblog

Cave Diver Edit on Patreon

2019-09-29T16:29:01Z

New Patreon post: the game I made and modified from a PICO-8 tutorial. Animated GIF in link.

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A very personal reaction to replaying Dear Esther

2019-07-16T22:01:31Z

( Content warnings for depression & related heavy subjects, the band How To Destroy Angels, and Dear Esther spoilers )

[edited to add link to the second HTDA track 2019-08-17]

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packbat @ 2010-12-09T14:52:00

2010-12-09T19:52:20Z

One Chance.

Short game. No replay. No undo. Controls are the arrow keys and a spacebar.

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Omegling!

2010-07-26T14:32:55Z

I think I've come up with a new game for Omegle.

Stranger: hi
You: Greetings.
You: Would you be interested in playing a game?
Stranger: yeah... what's game?
You: It's called the imitation game, or the Turing test.
( You: One participant is the interviewer, and the other is either a human or a computer program. )

Footnote: the imitation game is first described in Computing Machinery and Intelligence, a paper by Alan Turing - an easily-read transcription is available from the Loebner Prize website here.

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Tomb of Horrors, Attempt 1

2010-04-14T00:54:47Z

I visited the Tomb of Horrors for the first time today!

I think I may go back sometime, if only to see if I can make it out of the iron box with three levers - so don't tell me anything that happens next! (Or even lie about it, actually - that always makes me uncomfortable when I think I've been "spoiled".)

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Game Night!

2010-02-14T05:47:40Z

(Forgot to mention until today: the heat pump got fixed Friday! Forgot until today, but not to mention: shipped the application for the FE exam that's due Tuesday in Baltimore!)

So, this afternoon I got a call from J.-no-longer-from-school (yay graduation!) suggesting that we have a Game Night at T's house. Being the kind of guy I am, the answer was most definitely "yes", I threw some snacks into a grocery bag, and caught a ride out to College Park ...

... where we discovered that some streets aren't plowed very well after two blizzards back-to-back!

On the bright side, I got to pitch in with the crew pushing a mildly clueless BMW-driver out of the ditch by the road. (I actually contributed one factor which may have helped much: pushing the front wheel out so it could pull the rest.) It was a really good thing that I have those great new waterproof hiking boots, because I was standing in a big snowdrift ... in my sneakers, with my boots in the closet at home.

The gaming was good, though! We started off with "Da Vinci's Challenge", which is this very patterny game where you try to get particular shapes for points - we frustrated L. quite a bit by talking when she wanted to discuss strategy with her teammate, though, which made things very awkward. After that, we played an unusual trivia game I've forgotten the name of - everyone writes up guesses, but then you ''bet'' on the guesses you think are actually probably right. We wrapped up with Puerto Rico.

I actually caught a ride home with L., who lives nearer my house than J. (Funny: three of us in the same area, and we all three go to College Park instead! Next game night might be closer, I imagine.) Fortunately, the street had been plowed while we gamed - although not all the way down to the street.

Ah, well. Fun night, anyway!

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Truth & Justice

2009-05-05T17:45:30Z

A man in crazy pajamas atop a skyscraper rains laser death down on the streets. He's laughing as he does it.

Below, fires bloom for the news cameras. Reporters duck debris as they yammer on about demands and manifestoes and terror.
Meanwhile, in the background, the screams of scorched innocents melt into the wail of sirens.

It makes me angry. My cheeks burn with it -- or that just might be from the wind.

The madman grows closer and closer, impossibly fast. His eyes widen as he lifts his weapon in my direction. He won't make it in time.

My hands tighten into fists as I brace for impact.

I have a set of crazy pajamas of my own.

Truth & Justice is a superhero RPG Eric Burns-White (nee Burns) recommended ages ago.

I desperately want to play this thing.

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