T w e n t y S i d e d
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DM of the Rings CVIII:
His First Decree
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Narbacular Drop
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| The portal in action: Both of those characters are the player. Go in one portal, seamlessly exit the other. This is a pretty simple setup, but when you start mucking about with portals on the floors, ceilings, or at strange angles, it suddenly becomes very confusing. In a good way. |
While reading up on the game I found out that a couple of the designers had already made a portal game – using pretty much exactly the same mechanics – as a project for their portfolios. The game is Narbacular Drop, and it is freely available. This let me play around with the portals idea without having to get another Steam-based game.
It really was a lot of fun to mess around with the portals. It’s a small download, and a great way to kill an hour or so.
Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam
As a follow up to my post back in mid-April: This CAPTCHA thing is incredible. For fellow WordPress users, the plugin I’m using is Peter's Custom Anti-Spam Image Plugin for WordPress. As I said at the time, I used to get many hundreds of spam a day. Traffic here has jumped up since then, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find I’m getting a couple of thousand a day by this point. But all of them bounce off the CAPTCHA, and I never even see them. I only see a spam make it through about once every other week, and I’m betting the ones that do make it though are entered manually.
One more thing to note is that I’m not even sure those few spam are really spam. What I see is that every once in a while I’ll get a comment from someone that is something like, “That’s great!” or “I have always thought so too.” Their name is something harmless, but their URL links back to a page of ads. Are these people really spammers? It’s arguable. Since their name isn’t something like “get a free Wii!” it means they aren’t trying to game the Googlebot. In any case, I tend to can these comments since “me too”-ing doesn’t serve any real purpose, so other readers aren’t missing anything.
In any case, these are really impressive results for a CAPTCHA with only one short phrase that never changes. It really is amazing how well it works. This more or less proves that nearly all spam comes from automated scripts that don’t even attempt to cope with CAPTCHA. I’m more convinced than ever that the CAPTCHAs of warped, mixed case pink-on-purple letters with blue polkadots that are so difficult for humans are pretty much a waste of everyone’s time. An easy-to-read three-letter word is more than enough to defeat automated scripts.
Three in the Afternoon
Warning: Rude language. Also funny.
Prey: Followup
As a follow up to various questions and comments on my initial Prey post:
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| The game really does use the Doom lighting system. This is a good thing. It’s like playing Doom3, except I can see stuff. |
Flexstyle asks, “How gory is it?” I’d have to say: Pretty freakin’ gory. What’s interesting is that for the most part the gore isn’t perpetrated by the player. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prey: Followup”
DM of the Rings CVII:
And the Clueless Again Shall Be King
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And the Clueless Again Shall Be King”
From The Archives:
The Best of 2016
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2016.
Best. Plot Twist. Ever.
Few people remember BioWare's Jade Empire, but it had a unique setting and a really well-executed plot twist.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
If Star Wars Was Made in 2006?
Imagine if the original Star Wars hadn't appeared in the 1970's, but instead was pitched to studios in 2006. How would that turn out?
This is Why We Can’t Have Short Criticism
Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?
Juvenile and Proud
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
Autoblography
The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.