Wonderland

Zelda crochet

This makes me chuckle - the colours, and the crochet, make it look so vintage and oldieworldie and like something my gran would have had under the teapot.

I wish I could crochet or knit (or that I had the patience to learn). Because then I could have one of these, and in many years, my grand-daughter could visit and get misty in her future about the cruddy old green and beige ancient Zelda crochet mat that granma had under her teapot.

Assuming teapots don't levitate by then, of course.

(Thanks Abi!)

Wiifingers

I think this is a bit old, but I just got round to it. Enterprising bloke hacks together some radioshack bits and pieces to make hand-recognition work using the Wii, à la Minority Report.

He's got one of those cosy voices that makes you smack your lips and go a bit dozy; reminds me of the old educational programmes teachers would make us watch at school. Warm and fuzzy!

Also, weefingers. Snarf.

Really rubbish World of Warcraft "pr0n"

Last time I posted about elf boobs, it remained the most popular post on Wonderland for .. well, a few years. Fear! But I should post this, mainly because it's so blessedly - hilariously - rubbish.

Some enterprising lark has managed to run a private WoW server (how do you DO that??) and applied the nekkid patch - just to the lady characters, natch. (Typical. Can't believe no one is curious as to the contents of the male night elf's prodigious package.) Then - apply bad music, get characters to do standard dance but unclothed, and add in some completely rubbish barbie-doll-smushed-onto-ken style avatar "coupling" ... and admire.

Or laugh, and shake head at the state of the world (of warcraft).

I would embed the vids, but then I'd have to put something up about being an adult before you view, so instead, NSFW vids, SFW link, knock yerselves out.

(Thanks C!)

Disney trying out DS apps

Wired's got a piece up on Disney's latest little experiement with electronics in the parks: a modded Nintendo DS that pulls in live ride data, queue data, and other tidbits designed to make navigating (and therefore gaming) the park a lot easier.

However, two rather irritating moves from Disney: during the test, the testers had to put down a $300 deposit for the pleasure of helping Disney out with its business - !! - so Disney ended up with a very small sample base, and one that raved about the product. But anyone loony enough to hand over 300 bux for a modded DS park navigator is clearly going to be biased about Disney in the first place, surely.

Secondly, they're not considering offering the service as either software or a download for folks who already own a DS, no. If it comes to fruition, you will have to rent one of their grubby ones, with the kit preloaded. And presumably still have to put down a hefty deposit, too.

Of course, this keeps it elite: if every kid and their parent had the park-hacking tool, then it would break the system anyway: if everyone could spot that Indy had only a 20m wait at the same time, it'd be up to 90m within seconds. But still, renting grubware with big deposits, ugh: luckily, me other half has Disney radar embedded directly into his skull, and on my 40+ visits, I've never queued for more than 20m ever.

Maybe I'll rent him out at 300 bucks a day next time and just put my feet up in the Disneyland Hotel bar, why not. 300 smackers is a lot of irish coffee...

PMOG's in beta

I'm a bit late in posting on this.. Peemog has gone into beta!

...yet. You have to sign up for that.

PMOG was conceived by Justin Hall as part of his MA, and I got him to build me a prototype while I was at the BBC. It was good; I wanted to build on it further, but I left the BBC for Channel 4 and PMOG was about to get VC funding from American sources, and now here it is: very much developed and expanded. In beta. Demo'ing at GDC, no less!

Gratz, Justin, Merci and Duncan!
I'll miss you this year at GDC (bah), but I'll see you in the summer...

Grass-collecting in Wonderland Online

Wonderland Online - the extremely weird-concept, terrible-translation MMO in development - has some game detail up, as featured over at MMORPG.com. Again today, the theme is gardening, although unlike Lila Dreams, Wonderland manages to make the gardening idea sound incredibly boring.

There are 3 major resources in Wonderland. They are ore, log and grass. To obtain them players need the corresponding collection skills such as mining, lumbering and collection. There will be a large demand for various grasses, such as Asakusa, Vine, and Fruit which can be obtained through collection as players make their way through the game. There are also some useless weeds, so players should spend some time improving their collection level so as to improve the efficiency of grass collection. When the collection level is high, it's convenient for players to either sell or use them.

To learn the grass-collection skill, players need to obtain five barleys from the monsters at the chicken farm of North Island and hand them to the farmer at the farm in the west of South Island.

zzZZ -wha? Grass-collecting? Sign me up! .. or not.

Oh well. At least they have screenies with excellent titles, like this one: "Release all of the tires with hot spring." Now that shows promise.

Chain Chomp knitted hat

Via SpriteStitch, this hilarious Chain Chomp woolie.

Up there with the Headcrab Hat in terms of general outdoor stylishness, really, but also out there in terms of gamernerd hipness. Come on. Who wouldn't wear this (about the house) with glee?

Etsy etsy etsy! Oi oi oi!

Haven't done this in a while, and there are some new passions emerging:

A companion cube "dangler". Sweet! There's a necklace too.

Interesting gamey prints: characters from Mario Bros and Katamari Damacy reimagined on vintage book pages, including a matching set of three..

A 1-up mushroom crocheted cake slice. Don't ask why, just admire.

A padded Legend of Zelda cuff:

(There's a Half Life 2 one as well..)

Lastly, how about a 2ft styrofoam Pac-Man wall deco?

World of Goo

2 chaps, one coffee shop ..  and a few years later, one Wii game. 2D Boy have developed World of Goo, soon to be available on both PC and Wii (unusual!). It's come on leaps and bounds since entering last year's Indie Games Fest, and it was interesting enough back then, too.

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle / construction game. The millions of Goo Balls that live in the beautiful World of Goo don't know that they are in a game, or that they are extremely delicious.

World of Goo Gameplay Trailer
Uploaded by 2dboy

I like this bit on the front page, made me chuckle:

Genius!

 

Lila Dreams

Lila Dreams is an indie MMO, in development over at Kongregate (the upload-your-own games site). Developed by "three sexy men", it's obviously small fry compared to WoW or the like, but so what - have a look at some of the things they're planning design-wise.

Here's what it isn't:

There are no elves, dwarfs, or other Tolkien-derived player races. There are no dragons, orcs, or other Tolkien-derived creatures. There’s no magic. Well, there are “powers” that might be analogous to magic spells, but in terms of the setting they are psychic powers and not spells. So, there’s no magic.

There is no level grind. Level grinding is when you do boring tasks like killing cellar rats over and over to watch your game character become more powerful so you can kill bigger cellar rats. I personally do not like level grinding, and I think that it puts the focus of play on the experience of grinding rather than on the experience of the game world. I am working hard to design systems that do not require grinding so that the game world itself is the focus of fun.

And here's some of what it is:

... but there is combat: juicy, 2d platforming combat with RPG-like mechanics!

... and, gardening!

There is a kind of crafting, and it’s a central part of the gameplay. All I can say for now is that you don’t craft items–you grow them. Yes, gardening. But in a surrealistic game world where plants are not just plants. But I must not give away too much! (It’s very hard for me not to spill the beans! Oh how I fight!)

Heh. The game is set in an 11-year old girl (Lila)'s head. Here's some concept art:

I'm completely delighted by this, sketchy thought the details are. One to watch, yup.
Lila Dreams blog, from Creatrix Games.

(via the excellent Indie Games blog)