Jun 15 2006
Just … what?
There’s a Japanese guy whose site has some of the coolest and strangest Flash games on the web – Grow RPG is genius.
Brand new is Chronon [eyezmaze.com] – there’s a little yellow guy trapped in a cage inside a large grey monster’s house. Your job is to help the little guy out by manipulating the objects in the room around him – but the crucial tool is that you can skip forwards and backwards in time at will to set things up for later.
It reminds me of a game called Time Machine [worldofspectrum.org] on the ZX Spectrum [wikipedia.org] which had a similar concept of earlier actions altering the later state of the world.
In the case of Chronon, though, it’s characteristicly totally nuts (in a very Japanese way… this is the country which came up with Katamari Damacy) – but worth persevering with, if only to see what crazy thing happens next 😉
Highly recommended!
Jun 19 2006
Weekend in Manchester
On Saturday morning I drove up to Manchester with my younger brother Gareth, where we met up with my parents (who’d also driven from Cambridge) and my brother Peter and Heather (down from Chorley) at the Marriott Worsley Park Hotel and Country Club. Whilst Dad, Peter, and Gareth “played golf” (read: “lost lots of golf balls to overgrown areas and water traps”) everyone else walked around the grounds.
To be honest, I’ve never really been one for golf. To illustrate one of my major bugbears: After having paid for the game, some little Hitler decided that Gareth’s shoes weren’t suitable (flat bottomed trainers, unsuitable?); that his shorts were too long and had a stripe down the sides(?); and wouldn’t let him play without getting changed. This is despite clearly being with Peter and my Dad, who were kitted out, to a large degree, with “proper” golfing gear. To me this is, in a nutshell, exactly what is wrong with golf. “A good walk ruined“, indeed.
Later that evening we had a wonderful gormet meal to celebrate the May Gurney share issue, and the following morning we all used the hotel’s swimming pool. For me, this was a revelation, since it’s the first time I’ve been to a pool since I had Laser Surgery on my eyes (about 3 weeks ago now) – and so it’s the first time in probably a decade that I’ve been able to see in a pool without needing glasses! The Sauna and Steam Room were a bit much for me, though – they made my eyes feel prickly, so I left pretty much as soon as I came through the door 😉
Needless to say, a fantastic time was had by all (even if Gareth was understandably a little put out during his golfing).
By Stuart • Friends, Life, Music 0