Friday, March 31, 2006

Y...A...W...N

Bouncing some ideas off of a weary public while playing Orbox B, the sequel to Orbox.

(***Warning*** Only click one of the above links if you have a good half day to kill, preferably longer. This might be the most addicting puzzle game ever. Then again, it might not be. That's all speculative. I mean really, who's to say what's addicting and what isn't? My brain works completely different then the next man's. Take the bus driver I share an office with. Would he find these games addicting? Probably not. He'd be the first to tell me, however, that the Sudoku puzzle in the Herald that he's been working on for the past half hour is addicting as hell.
"You want a puzzle, Dog?" (He calls me 'Dog' for some, as yet, unknown reason. In return, I call him 'Johnny Rock Star', because his first name is John and 'Rock Star' is exactly what he is not.) "This here's a puzzle. I betcha youze cahn't even figya it out."

I betcha he's right. When it comes to Sudoku, I make like Goofy and say, "Garsh!" But addictive? Nein, mein kinder. At least not for me. Really, when you delve deep into addiction you find much much more than just compulsive behavior. You find, in essence, a threefold disease. Beer, sex, and Tetris. So, you see, Tetris is the standard by which all other addicting games and puzzles are measured. We've yet to see it's equal. Sudoku and Orbox are slowly making their claims, but will they be able to knock the king of the throne? Only time will tell.

Oh yeah - these games seem to come without instructions, and as am embarrassed as I am to admit it, it took me some time to figure out how to play them. All you need to do is use the arrow keys. The cursor will go in the direction you choose, and will not stop until an object in front of it obstructs its path. Your goal is to get to the exit. There are some tricks up the sleeve in the later levels, too. ***End warning***)

I'm trying to think up some new and exciting things to do with this space since I'm having difficulty finding things to write about. Lately it's been work, class, write, eat, sleep, play the occasional video game and watch the occasional movie. Mind you, I'm not complaining. Things are actually very good. But, the motions I'm going through don't necessarily make for good writing material. So, for part of the time, look for more commentary on various odd events and stories I may happen upon. It's what to fill in with the rest of the time that's got my mind awhirl.

Not too long ago, fellow bloggers Sean and Tim had a "Tracks of the Week" feature in which they would post two tracks of music they found interesting, along with commentary. Both of them have stopped for various reasons. Tim, because he's busy writing a dissertation, and Sean because he's made the upgrade to podcasts (which are excellent, by the way. Go check them out.) I have toyed with the idea of doing my own "Tracks Of The Week" feature in their stead, but I'm not sure how successful it would be. Lately, the download stats for the mp3 in the sidebar have been crazy low, so I'm thinking music might not be your thing. Plus, most of you slackers probably read this at work, which for most is not an environment where you can blare speakers loudly.

Still, the stats are far different when I throw up a track in an actual post as opposed to place one in the sidebar. Is it just that people don't look in the sidebar, or are they simply not interested? Not sure. I've even thought of taking the whole "Tracks of the Week" idea one step further and posting up an entire 10 - 15 track mix (in a zipped folder), keep it up for two or three days at most, and then bring it down. That's an awful lot for someone to download however, not to mention that it could very quickly bring me over the "download quota" set by my web host. But something to think about.

If that doesn't work, I could gossip about my friends and the people I work with. For example, did you know that security guard who.... eh, nevermind. That's like playing Russian Roulette. If the wrong person sees it... yeah - not good.

Screw it, I'm gonna mull this one over for a little bit and maybe go with one of the above options, or maybe not. I think more brainstorming is in order. So basically, you've just wasted five or so minutes of your time reading that I'm bored and I have nothing to write about. Oh, but you did get a new vice out of the deal. Now that, my friends, is a successful post. Have a weekend. I'll catch you soon.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That game is great. "There is 30 levels". I'm hooked. Got to level 5 and had to turn it off for a while as a precaution.

No sidebar reading for me. I'm only reading your posts through the feed.

1:11 PM  
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