#oneaday Day 965: Geometry Makes the Best Games

Being "in the zone" is a curious experience. On the one hand, it's enjoyable and satisfying, whatever the context — sports, games, music, writing — but on the other, it can be terrifying. The second you become aware of your own "in the zoneness", panic strikes. Your pulse races and you worry that you will fall out of said zone any moment. You struggle to maintain your "in the zoneness" but as you become more and more stressed, you get more and more likely to make some sort of critical mistake until, eventually, you give up and go and do something else.

This is the feeling you are constantly battling against while playing Super Hexagon, a new iOS game from Terry "VVVVVV" Cavanagh.

In Super Hexagon, you play the role of a teeny-tiny triangle attempting to not meet a sticky end against the various walls that are being inexplicably flung at it from outside the screen. Or perhaps it's attempting to escape a maze without crashing into any walls. Or… well, it doesn't really matter what it actually is. It's an abstract, "pure gameplay" game in which the aim is simply to survive as long as possible. In essence, it's similar to those "endless running" games that are so popular on mobile platforms right now, with the difference being that you're rotating a shape around a point rather than jumping, ducking and sliding.

In your first couple of games of Super Hexagon, you're likely to last a matter of seconds — five at most. This brutal level of difficulty will likely be enough to put many people off immediately, and that's fine. Stick with it, though, and you'll find yourself increasingly slipping into "the zone" as you survive just a tiny bit longer each time, your skills consistently improving as you learn to spot the various patterns that come your way — and how to deal with them.

Then, of course, you make the mistake of thinking "gosh, I'm doing quite well this time" and plough straight into a wall while 0.05 seconds away from beating your high score. Then, you will immediately tap the screen to try again and be unable to break this cycle for at least half an hour. (Consequently, I do not recommend playing Super Hexagon on the toilet.)

The simple, addictive, abstract nature of the game brings my love affair with Geometry Wars 2 to mind. Both are completely different types of game, of course, but both also have a lot in common. Both tend to have relatively short play sessions, both have an aesthetic so abstract that it stirs the imagination to a surprising degree, and both have a relatively low "penalty" for failure. Mess up and you're back in the game within a second or two to try again.

This latter quality is one of the most important factors in making a game "addictive". Super Meat Boy is another game that understands this — fail a level in that and simply by pressing a button, you're trying again, with no loading breaks, no obtrusive "You Failed" screens or statistical breakdowns, just a tap of the "Retry" button and an immediate response. Geometry Wars 2 did this; Super Hexagon does this. Because it's so simple and habit-forming to just tap the screen to retry after a failed attempt, you get locked into a compulsive cycle, determined that this time is the one, that this time you'll be able to progress just a little bit further and hear Jenn Frank's voice whispering the name of a shape with even more sides at you.

Super Hexagon is out now for just 69p. Grab it from the App Store.

#oneaday Day 964: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I've never really been one to just "go out" unless I had a very good reason, usually in the form of some friends asking me to join them. (I have, of course, tried going out by myself a few times in the past, but as chronicled in this post, it rarely ended well.)

As such, I've never really had somewhere that I could call "my local" with any confidence, there's nowhere that I could accurately describe myself as a "regular" of. I'm not really bemoaning this fact — I have plenty of better things to do than sit in the pub — but it's an aspect of life that I feel may have passed me by somewhat.

It was a little different back when I was at university, of course. We regularly frequented a wide variety of places that could quite politely be described as "dives", but all of them had their own unique charms.

In the first year, there was Chamberlain Bar, which was the "local" for a group of several university halls of residence in the area. It wasn't a particularly exciting bar, bearing a closer resemblance to the sort of half-hearted establishment that exists to make a few extra pennies for a community recreation centre than a jumpin' nightspot, but it was "home" for a while. It was where most of us discovered the "Juicy Lucy" (pint glass, vodka, blue curaçao or however you spell it, double shot of Taboo, topped up with equal amounts orange juice and lemonade) and the "Passion Wagon", officially the laziest cocktail of all time (shot of Passoa with a bottle of Reef emptied into it). It also had a tendency to throw crap events — our flat were the only attendees to dress up for "Seventies Night" and a Hawaiian-themed evening consisted of them turning the heating up full and serving nothing but the aforementioned Passion Wagons all night.

Southampton had one big club at the time when I was studying at the university. I'm not sure what it's called now, but it used to be called Ikon and Diva, as it was one of those weird places that was split into two separate mini-clubs inside. It was shit. It was the sort of place that you went after you got really drunk and consequently barely remember anything from. Consequently, I barely remember anything about this place save for the fact I was clearly so impressed by it that I never went there ever again after my first visit.

There were plenty of smaller clubs, though. One that springs immediately to mind was New York's, which has been closed and derelict for several years now. It was also shit, and like Ikon and Diva, it was the sort of place you only went to when absolutely off your tits. I only have random flashes of memories of the one (I think) time I went to New York's, but I vividly recall looking down from a balcony to a stage-like area below, where a bunch of drunk men and women were stripping because the DJ had asked them to. Sure, I got to see tits, but even in my horrendously intoxicated state, I found the complete lack of human dignity on display to be more obnoxious than titillating. Consequently, I never went back there, either.

Then there was Lennon's, which I think is probably home to most of my best "going out" memories, perhaps largely because it's the place that several of us tended to frequent most often. I'm not entirely sure why this was, as Lennon's was a fairly bare-bones club, being essentially a moderately-sized wooden room with a bar on one side and a DJ on the other, occasionally accompanied by a nice man named Vince who sold chips. They played good music, though, and often played host to live bands. I even performed there myself on a couple of occasions, with our university band the Coconut Scratch Orchestra discovering the folly of leaving drumbeats up to a backing track rather than a live drummer. (We all swore after that to never, ever play Mission: Impossible again.) It was also nice in that it was not frequented by the sort of waxed-chest, greasy-haired chav that frequented places like Ikon and Diva.

Would I describe myself as a "regular" at any of those places, though? No, probably not. I see a "regular" as someone who knows the bar staff by name and is recognised by bouncers; someone who meets friends there without having to make prior arrangements; someone who sees it as a "home away from home" — a place to socialise, hang out and just relax. I never quite saw it that way — it was always fun to go to Lennon's, sure, particularly if my friend had enough to drink to get to the stage where he thought kebabs made him literally invincible, but it was never a place that I felt like I was a "part of".

I'm not really sure if I've "missed out" on something by not having that kind of experience. I guess I have another chance when I hit, what, 50 years of age and start liking real ales or something?

#oneaday Day 963: Being an Attempt to Rescue the English Language from the Imbeciles who Pervert it So

I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing this post, as I know for a fact that most of the people who follow this blog, whether they're regular commenters or not, are literate and perfectly capable of using the English language correctly. I just thought it would be fun to have a whinge about some of my pet peeves with regard to English usage… or lack thereof.

I'm not entirely sure what it is about the Internet that makes people's English usage so much worse. The world has plenty of intelligent people in it, yet if you were to go solely by Internet comment sections it would be hard to believe that. I know intelligence is a much more complicated equation than simple spelling, punctuation and grammar — and there are specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia to bear in mind — but the fact is, technology should make it easier than ever to write things technically perfectly. So why do people not bother?

Laziness, usually, or a desire to get whatever is in their head out into the digital domain as quickly as possible. Most people would be quick to blame social media for this one, with the presence of "Like" and "Comment" buttons on pretty much everything these days encouraging people to spew their facile musings all over things they really have no knowledge of whatsoever. But it's actually a much older problem that, most likely, stems from more real-time forms of communication such as chatrooms. "a/s/l" is a linguistic object of ridicule these days, but in the early days of Internet communication it was an essential part of the "introductions" process when entering a new chatroom. (For those who don't actually know what it stands for, it's asking everyone present what their age, sex and location is.)

Chatrooms often got very busy, and it thus became important for people to be able to make themselves heard as quickly as possible. Consequently, a lot of the abbreviations we use (and/or ridicule) regularly today entered popular usage. Some had been around for a while; others had changed their usage significantly, occasionally leading to comic misunderstandings when one speaker thinks that "LOL" means "lots of love" and the other thinks it means "laughing out loud".

This is no excuse, though! Proper English usage when addressing another person online is, to me, a sign of respect. If you don't take the care to spell and punctuate correctly when addressing someone, to me that says that you don't think they're worth more than the bare minimum amount of time it takes to bang out a furious, cackhanded message and then switch to another tab to, I don't know, watch some porn or play FarmVille or something. (Or both. The mind boggles at that possibility.)

Anyway, rambling explanation over, allow me to present the crimes against the English language that irritate me the most at present. If you are guilty of any of these, please stop being guilty of them, because they all make you look like a bit of a tool.

(Oh, before I go on, my day job requires me to write in American English so I am not going to cover any of the silly things they do with English, such as misusing the words "momentarily", "solicitor" and "patronise".)

1. "LOL" is not a substitute for punctuation.

I've lost the original Facebook post (not by me, I hasten to add) where I first became aware of this obnoxious usage of "lol", but it happens all too frequently, particularly in comment sections. "LOL" is not a substitute for a comma, full stop, semicolon or indeed any punctuation mark.

To judge whether or not using "LOL" is appropriate, read the thing you have just typed out loud. Did you laugh out loud when you got to the "LOL"? If not, remove it and replace it with an appropriate punctuation mark. In fact, even if you did laugh out loud, please remove it and replace it with an appropriate punctuation mark.

2. It's "definitely", not "definately" or "defiantly".

Definitely. Definitely. It's not that difficult a word to spell. It's no "accommodation" or "antidisestablishmentarianism" and it's certainly no "floccinaucinihilipilification". So stop fucking it up.

Also, every time you use "defiantly" instead of "definitely", you are significantly changing the meaning of your sentence. Compare and contrast the sentences "I will definitely do the chores" to "I will defiantly do the chores". One is a nice assurance that you will do the things expected of you; the other suggests that you are going to be an arse about it.

3. Games (and drugs) are "addictive", not "addicting".

"Addicting" is a word, but not in the way you think it is used. Angry Birds is not "addicting", it is "addictive". "Addicting" is a verb. "Addictive" is an adjective. Observe:

"I am addicting my little sister to Angry Birds because it is better than crack. She finds crack worryingly addictive."

(Note: I do not have a little sister, and no-one I know is addicted or in the process of being addicted to crack. Also, Angry Birds is shit and I would rather my hypothetical little sister were addicted to crack than play that bollocks.*)

In fact, no. The word "addicting" is a surprisingly difficult verb to put into a sentence without it sounding stupid. So just stop using it. Addictive. Addictive. Got it?

4. When you write in lower case, you look like an imbecile.

I know professional writers who write everything — blog posts, status updates, comments, even their own name — in lower case when they're "off duty". It makes them look like imbeciles. I don't think I need to say anything more than that. The Shift key is right there. Your little finger is probably hovering over it anyway as you type, so stop being so fucking lazy and use it.

5. This review is "biased", not "bias".

I'll grant that speaking like a twat is something of a meme on the Internet, but any time you accuse something you read of "being bias", you look like a complete cock. An article exhibits bias if it is biased. Not the other way round. Or any other arrangement.

If you can't remember the difference, how about you just say you disagree with what you have read rather than accusing it of "being bias"? Or, better yet, just close that webpage before clicking the "comment" button?

6. Apostrophes denote possession, not plurals.

CDs. GCSEs. Sofas. Not CD's, GCSE's and sofa's. Under no circumstances are you to use an apostrophe to denote something is a plural. Why? Because it's wrong, that's why. Even when using an abbreviation. And even when the word you are pluralising ends with a vowel, which appears to be when this issue more commonly raises its ugly head.

Related note: "it's" is short for "it is", while "its" means "belonging to it". This is, I'll admit, a particularly stupid rule, since it breaks the "apostrophes denote possession" rule by overruling it with the "apostrophes also denote missing letters" rule. Stupid language.

7. If you're going to swear, just swear.

You're not protecting anyone's innocence by writing "f**k". Everyone knows you mean "fuck". If you're going to censor naughty language, censor it completely. If you're going to make it clear what all the words you've asterisked out are, then you may as well just type them all out properly, you f**king c**t-faced w**ksplat, you t*sser, you kn*bjockey, you complete twunting sh*tbag b*****d. ("Twunting" is not a swear, despite it sounding like it should be.)

8. You're a twat if your knowledge of "your" and "you're" is poor.

As Ross from Friends put it so succinctly: "Y-O-U-apostrophe-R-E means 'you are'. Y-O-U-R means 'your'!"

Read your sentence out loud. Could one of your "yours" be replaced by the words "you are"? If so, you should be using "you're" instead.

Here's an exercise. See if you can spot which ones are correct and which ones are not.

1. You're mum's face smells of poo.
2. Your not very good at this, are you?
3. You're defiantly going to get some of these wrong.
4. Get you're f**king words right lol
5. You're very brave if you successfully managed to navigate your way through those monstrosities.

9. Have fun!

Above all, have fun with language!

Actually, no, bollocks to that. Learn to write properly first, then have fun with it.

(Author's note: Any indication that I am a pompous grammar Nazi in this post is entirely intentional and mostly played for comedy value. Mostly. Comments that do not follow the above rules will be printed out and fired into the sun, then deleted.*)

* not really

#oneaday Day 962: Signal to Noise

We're reaching saturation point with social media. In fact, I think we got past that point a long time ago, meaning that we're at the "completely sodden and dribbling all over the carpet" stage.

There is too much social media. There are too many possible places for people to share things that nobody cares about with people they don't know. And it seems that every day some bright-eyed startup CEO decides that what we really need is yet another social network service of some description.

I've indulged in a few of these superfluous social networks over the years. GetGlue was a bit of fun, allowing you to "check in" to movies, books, games and even "topics" that you were interested in, leave comments and discuss things with other community members. This was at the height of the "gamification" craze, so there were plenty of achievements to collect, and you could even get some real-life physical stickers sent to you if you collected enough achievements.

Similarly, Foursquare and the now-defunct Gowalla proved fun for a little while. During the period of time when I was unemployed and quite spectacularly depressed, I made extensive use of Gowalla to "tag" various places around Southampton and assist with building up a crowdsourced map of places of interest. I even made some actual real-life friends through it, but since then location check-ins have lost their lustre — what's the point, really?

Then I tried Path, which promised to be a high-quality mobile-focused social network. But since you can access Facebook, Twitter and Google+ — the biggest social networks in the world — via your mobile phone, why on Earth would you need a mobile-specific one? Sure, Path had a lovely interface and the bizarre ability to track when you woke up and went to sleep, but it was ultimately pointless.

Today, I reviewed an app/social network whose purpose remained completely obtuse to me even as I made use of it — and even as an employee of the company frantically tried to convince me that the service was worthwhile via both Twitter and the service itself. (I'm not going to name it as I really can't be bothered to be chased further — I gave it a fair shot, I explored it, I found it to be a complete waste of time. Sorry.)

The service in question allows users to, like GetGlue, "Like" things. Any things. Like cake? Then "Like" cake. Like Tori Amos? Then "Like" Tori Amos. Not sure whether you like broccoli and stilton soup? Then add it to your "To-Do" list, then "Like" it if you like it. Great. Sure. Fine. One question: why?

This questionable usefulness was only further obscured by the fact that the app also, for some utterly unfathomable reason, allows its users to "plant" "Likes" at actual physical locations, meaning you can claim to have hidden, say, an iPhone 5 in your local McDonalds, or Jedward in your local sewage works. Fun for about five minutes again, sure — and a means of seeing who lives vaguely near you and likes Jedward — but again… why?

There's too much noise and not enough signal in social media these days, in short, and this fact is a big part of why I stripped back on all "non-essential" social apps a while back. I keep Facebook, Twitter and G+ around because there are people I regularly speak to on all of those, but outside of those "big three"? There's really very little reason for a lot of these services and apps to exist, but the amount of money being thrown at them by venture capitalists is terrifying.

Kind of makes me think that I should come up with an "innovative" idea for a mobile social network in order to attract several million dollars' worth of funding.

Okay… give me a minute.

Thinking.

Eureka! I got it. Everyone likes taking Instagram photos of food, right? Well, I propose a social photography network that is nothing but pictures of food with a selection of retro filters (some of which are available via in-app purchase). You can "check in" to the food you're eating, discuss it with other people and share photographs of your lunchbox. It'll be a big hit. I'll call it "füd", all in lower case, naturally.

That'll be two million dollars, please, Mr Venture Capitalist. KTHX.

#oneaday Day 961: I am Thou

I wrote a piece about Persona 3 over on Games Are Evil earlier today. Go read it, please.

I have, as you may have guessed from the fact I chose to write about Persona 3 today, been playing Persona 3. I have been meaning to play the extended FES version for many, many years now and have started several times. This time I intend to finish it, including battling my way through The Answer, which I understand is a bit of an ordeal. Then, if I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I will proceed to play Persona 3 Portable as the female protagonist.

I fucking love Persona 3 and 4. They are still my favourite games of all time. I own the first two for PSP/Vita, too, but found the first one a little hard to follow plot-wise and haven't delved particularly deeply into 2 yet. Fortunately, each one stands quite nicely by itself — though 3 and 4 are nicely interconnected, even if certain aspects clash (why do the kids in P3 need Evokers to summon their Personas, but the ones in P4 don't?).

My love for these games stems primarily from the fact that they push all my gaming happy buttons. I love JRPGs and I love visual novels, and Persona 3 and 4 combine the best bits of both genres. You have a simple-to-understand, hard-to-master combat and character development system; you have an in-depth storyline tackling very "human" issues. You have "saving the world" drama; you have characters dealing with personal crises that can, at times, seem more important than impending disaster. Somehow the game manages to avoid pretty much every cliché that critics of JRPGs hate to create an emotional, mature experience with an absolutely badass soundtrack.

The highlight is, of course, the cast of characters throughout. And as I said in my piece over on Games Are Evil, the interesting thing about Persona is that it's not only the heroes and villains who "matter" in the grand scheme of things. The "Social Link" mini-stories that arise as the protagonist gets to know his new school friends and people in the community are fascinating plotlines to follow through in their own right, and help to lend a greater sense of poignancy to the overarching narrative of the Persona-users attempting to Sort Shit Out. In other words, everyone has their own demons to deal with — sometimes these are literal demons, others they are the barriers we create for ourselves: fear, anxiety, shyness, a lack of self-belief. Watching the protagonist touch the lives of these people and be there with them as they come to terms with their own issues gives the small game world a much greater feeling of "life" than almost any other RPG I've played.

It also, once again, highlights the difference between Eastern and Western game design philosophy. When it comes to RPGs, I am firmly in the Eastern camp. I am yet to come across a Western RPG that has captivated me in the same way as the Persona series. You can rant and rave all you like about the beautifully-rendered worlds of Bethesda adventures or BioWare's (increasingly questionable) storytelling chops, but, for me anyway, no-one has the Japanese beat when it comes to interpersonal relationships and a sense of "human" drama amid supernatural chaos.

#oneaday Day 960: Moe Moe Kawaii... Wait, What Are You Doing...?!

Where do you draw the line between art, entertainment, sexist nonsense and porn? It is a rather fine and difficult line to walk, particularly when the definitions of all of those terms vary enormously from person to person according to their open-mindedness, experience with various works, gender and general social attitudes. It's a particularly pertinent question with regard to the genre of games that I seem to be spending a fair amount of time with at present — the ol' visual novel.

The current game I'm playing is called My Girlfriend is the President. I will refrain from talking about it in too much detail as 1) I haven't yet finished it and 2) I will be doing a READ . ME column on the subject for Games Are Evil this Sunday. Suffice to say, however, it is utterly bananas — and yet, there is a slight sense of discomfort while playing. Not enough to prevent me from enjoying it, but just enough to make me think that it might, in fact, be deliberate.

The tension stems from the game's protagonist, whom in TV Tropes terms is probably best described as a Chivalrous Pervert. He openly admits to sexually harassing women and getting turned on by ogling his female peers in a less than honourable fashion. He takes every opportunity to make a smutty comment just to "try his luck". And he's a peeping tom. In short, he should be an immensely dislikeable dick whom any self-respecting player wouldn't want to spend any time inside the head of whatsoever.

And yet he's not. At least part of his perpetual horniness can be attributed to the fact that he is a teenage boy, and consequently subject to the same hormonal urges that all teenage boys find themselves afflicted with. His supposed sexual harassment never leads anywhere, as his female peers are all well aware of the fact that he is a wannabe pervert and thus make sure he doesn't have the opportunity to do anything truly inappropriate — not that he actually would given the opportunity. Several of them even take every chance they get to toy with him, making him more and more wound up and frustrated while at the same time making it clear that they are the ones with the true power in their relationship.

And alongside all this perversion comes the fact that, at heart, he doesn't want anything bad to happen to these girls. He takes every opportunity to attempt to prove his "manliness" and "protect" them, even if they don't really need protecting. He gets embarrassed, flustered and overexcited if anything actually does happen, and when it comes to his adorable childhood friend (the titular President) he is — for the most part, anyway — respectful and sweet.

It puts the player in something of a quandary. Since the game takes place from the perspective of this horny young gentleman, we're frequently subjected to his male gaze sizing up the bodies of the people he's with and pondering what's under their clothes. If he thinks there's the chance he'll see something naughty and the girls in question aren't in any actual physical danger, he'll stand by and watch rather than preventing something embarrassing happening to them. But when the chips are down and Bad Things are happening, he's the first to spring into action in an (often misguided) attempt to keep them safe — usually with hilarious slapstick results.

So what does all this mean? Is the game itself sexist, or is it simply putting the player inside the head of a protagonist with definite sexist tendencies? Or is it somewhere in between?

I don't know for sure. Whatever it is, My Girlfriend is the President is most certainly a gloriously guilty pleasure that I have absolutely no shame in saying that I am enjoying a great deal right now!

#oneaday Day 959: Free iOS Games That Don't Suck: Zookeeper Battle

From a personal perspective, I have grown to pretty much loathe the mobile gaming industry. I find it interesting to write about for my day job, but as time passes, I find myself wanting less and less to do with it in my free time. It has become abundantly apparent that "free to play" or "freemium" is seen as the way forward, with most developers believing it impossible to get your game seen if it costs money up front; and when developers do release something of comparable quality and price to something you'd see on a dedicated gaming handheld — see: anything Square Enix puts out — everyone seems to complain, even if they wouldn't hesitate to pay $20+ for, say, a PSP or Vita title.

Consequently, it's a genuine pleasure when I come across an iOS game that doesn't feel like it's violating my wallet and badgering me to do things I don't want to do. It's even more of a pleasure if said game falls into the "free to play" category and doesn't feel in any way exploitative to the player, nor does it feel like a cynical, lazy clone of something else.

I present to you, then, exhibit A: Kiteretsu's Zookeeper Battle.

Zookeeper Battle is a "match-3" puzzler of the Bejeweled Blitz mould. You have coloured shapes — in this case, zoo animals — and must swap them around to make groups of 3 or more of the same colour either horizontally or vertically. Doing so causes them to disappear and more to fall down in their place. It's the player's aim to do as much of this matching as possible against a tight time limit.

In the case of Bejeweled Blitz, players are simply competing for a high score, but in Zookeeper Battle, it's a head-to-head competition against another player — and live, rather than asynchronous. Matching animals adds to a player's attack or defense score for a round, and after time has expired the two players will attempt to smack seven shades of shit out of each other. Attack points are absorbed by the opponent's defense points, after which they translate directly to damage. Whoever reduces their opponent's life bar to zero first — or whoever has the most life remaining at the end of five rounds — wins. It's simple, effective and incredibly addictive, and regular "quests" with custom backgrounds, greetings and other non game-breaking goodies on offer help provide incentive to play regularly.

What I find quite surprising about Zookeeper Battle is that it does most of the "freemium" tricks that I abhor so and yet somehow manages to come out not being obnoxious. There's an energy (sorry, "CP") bar throttling how much you can play in a single session, for example — but it restores quickly and the game also provides you with five "energy drinks" to restore it for free upon first booting it up. It's also pretty rare that when I sit down to play Zookeeper Battle that I want to play more than one or two matches anyway, so in practice, despite energy systems being the worst thing that has ever happened to gaming, here it's not too obtrusive.

The same goes for the in-app purchases. Zookeeper Battle allows players to spend real money in exchange for "booster" items, all of which allow the player to counter special "attack" items that may be sent their way during a match. The thing is, though, these paid items aren't actually that helpful and are certainly no guarantee of winning, as all of the "attack" items either lose their effects after a few seconds or are easily countered. In other words, a system that could have easily become "pay to win" is more a system that just doesn't need to be there at all — like the energy system, it's a shame it's there, but it doesn't really get in the way of the core game, which is solid.

While I would perhaps prefer that Zookeeper Battle dispensed with this freemium crap altogether, I appreciate that such monetization strategies often prove somewhat lucrative for developers — certainly more lucrative than asking for a single, one-off "price of admission". What I believe Kiteretsu should be praised for in this instance is incorporating all the usually-obnoxious freemium mechanics in such a manner as to not be obtrusive to players who don't want to play — and, more to the point, not to provide such a massive advantage to paying players that it just makes the game completely pointless to play at all.

The only thing that is a real shame is the fact that the Game Center leaderboards for the title have, as usual, been rendered completely useless by cheating players. The current number 1 player in the world has apparently won over two billion games. Assuming an average of three minutes per game, this would mean that the player had been playing for six billion minutes in total. To put it another way, this would equate to a hundred million hours or 11,408 years. I'm pretty sure the game hasn't been out for 11,408 years. I'm also pretty sure that iPhones haven't been available for 11,408 years. And I'm fairly sure that the person in first place isn't over the age of 11,408 years.

Oh well. I can be happy with my performance so far. Feel free to challenge me — I'm Angry Jedi on Apple's Game Center, so feel free to add me if you have an iOS device.

#oneaday Day 958: Gratuitous Self-Promotion (And Promotion of Others, Too)

Hello! How are you? Great!/Sorry to hear that! (delete as applicable)

I have something to share with you that I've been working on recently. Some of you may have already seen what I've been up to; it may be news to some of you. I thought I'd share it here, though, in the hope that I can get more people looking at it.

I'm talking about the website Games Are Evil. I was a contributor there a while back in the post-Kombo years, but was then lucky enough to score my gig at the late GamePro. I kept abreast of what the team was up to during and after my time at GamePro, and always felt a certain degree of "attachment" towards it, even during the times when I wasn't actively involved.

So when it became apparent that the site was in need of a bit of a "reboot" and resuscitation, I was keen to step forward while I had a bit of free time on my hands. I'm lucky enough to have a flexible (and well-paid) enough day job that I have time to take on a "pet project" like this as well as fulfilling my other responsibilities, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to gain some experience in running a site as well as experimenting with some "alternative" directions and content strategies.

That "alternative" thing is key. Having had some interesting conversations with a couple of my friends in the PR industry in recent months, it became clear that a lot of representatives were becoming frustrated that the vast majority of gaming sites focused on the upcoming blockbusters, while "B-tier" titles (for want of a better term — I'm not saying their quality is lower, only their profile) went forgotten, or were barely acknowledged with a somewhat dismissive news story. As such, I felt that there was clearly a gap in the market for a site to cater to the "niche". Since Games Are Evil was not particularly beholden to advertisers or investors, the time was ripe to launch something of an experiment — a video games site that deliberately eschews stories regarding things like the Call of Duties and the Mass Effects of this world in favour of smaller-scale titles and interesting stories from around gaming culture. My original manifesto from when I took over can be found here, if you're curious.

Since taking over the reins at GrE, I've launched a series of regular columns from a range of talented and enthusiastic writers keen to write about their passions. These columns are becoming the main focus of the site, supported by a few daily news stories and occasional reviews when we have code to hand. Each column has a tight, narrow focus and concentrates on a specific genre or aspect of gaming culture, meaning that readers of Games Are Evil will be able to follow their favourite niche and get to know the writer of said column in the process rather than having to scroll through page after page of news which might not be relevant to them. The model which I wanted to follow with this was the way old-school 1up used to work — people came for the personalities rather than necessarily the specific content of the articles. It's too early to determine whether or not this has been successful or not so far, but I am very proud of what the team has achieved to date — we've seen some great columns ranging from comprehensive roundups of Minecraft news to in-depth explorations of obscure strategy games.

Here's some handy links for you to find your favourite column and follow it:

Distant Worlds — a weekly roundup of news from the MMO sector. What's new, what's hot, what's not.
FreePlay — a weekly delve into free-to-play and freeware games to sort out the "must plays" from the microtransaction-riddled crapfests.
Insert Coin — a weekly exploration of arcade machines, arcade restoration and arcade culture.
READ.ME — a weekly foray into the world of visual novels (I do this one!)
Swords & Zippers — a weekly roam through the colourful worlds of Japanese role-playing games (I do this one too!)
Tactical Tuesday — a bi-monthly deep dive into some of the most obscure, underappreciated and fascinating strategy games available for PC.
The Craft — a weekly roundup of what's new in the world of Minecraft.
The Vault — a weekly dive into the annals of history to rescue underappreciated or forgotten classics from obscurity. Fans of the Squadron of Shame will be right at home here.

It's early days for the site's new direction as yet, but things are starting to come together nicely. If you've been reading the daily new content, thanks! If you haven't, please feel free to check it out. Leave a comment on articles you'd like to discuss. And please, please share anything you happen to read that you find interesting, entertaining or just plain awesome. With your help, we can make Games Are Evil into the go-to destination for "alternative gaming".

Gratuitous self-promotion (and promotion of others) now over. Normal business will resume tomorrow.

#oneaday Day 957: Too Tired to Think of a Good Title

EHMAGERD. So tired. SO tired. I'm at that stage of tired where you can barely keep your eyes open, and yet here I am blogging, showing frankly admirable commitment to a cause that all but one other daily blogger (to my knowledge) had abandoned.

I apologise in advance for what is doubtless about to become a purely "filler" entry, its word count padded out with overly flowery language and unnecessarily complex descriptions of things that probably don't need to be described or discussed in the first place. But it's 2am and I've just got back from a two hour drive having spent all day playing board games, so… meh. My blog, my rules. (If you're a new reader, though, sorry. Seriously. I'm usually much more coherent than this. I think.)

So what board games have I been playing? Well, the vast majority of the day ended up being monopolised (no pun intended) by the official board game adaptation of Blizzard's Starcraft. This game comes in a hefty box with hundreds of cool pieces, and is quite complex. I've had a copy for some time now but for various reasons we had managed to play it precisely three quarters of a time prior to today. And that was so long ago that we had all forgotten all the rules.

Our board gaming group is somewhat loose in terms of "discipline", for want of a better word. Gaming night is a social occasion primarily, though the games themselves of course play a prominent role. What this means in practice is that we spend a lot of time talking, looking at Cassetteboy videos on the Internet and drinking coffee when we "should" be playing. By extension, this means that a game that should take a few hours tops takes all day.

Starcraft is a prime example. The box claims 3-4 hours, which is already hefty, but throw in time for consulting the rule book and various interruptions — including a friend popping by to demonstrate the Airsoft guns we're going to be using for one of our number's upcoming stag do — and it's easy to see why it took us from 3.30 to well after 10pm to finish up a single game.

Actually, it doesn't quite explain it. Time, as the cliché goes, tends to pass incredibly quickly when you're doing something entertaining, particularly with friends, and the experience is over all too quickly. It's a stark reminder of the fact that we are all, in fact, adults, and consequently should probably manage our free time a little better than we sometimes do.

Still, I'm pleased to report that we did, in fact, manage to complete a game of Starcraft, and it was fun. We all understood the mechanics by the end — no thanks to the rule book, which is incredibly poorly organised, though this is not really anything new for Fantasy Flight games — and were in a position where we could take a turn without having to continually refer to step by step instructions. Which is nice.

Whether or not Starcraft will make another appearance at the table remains to be seen — games that take a very long time often tend to be bumped in favour of several shorter ones — but I enjoyed it and would certainly be up for playing it again, preferably while the rules are still fresh in my head.

But anyway. I am about to collapse from exhaustion so I am going to leave that there and go to bed before I fall asleep on my keyboard.

#oneaday Day 956: Knope

The great thing about Netflix — and the reason I was immensely joyful when it finally made its way to the UK — is that you can "take a chance" on TV shows you've never seen before without having to shell out for a DVD box set. (I realised the other day that I can't remember the last time I bought a DVD. I'm not sure I will ever again, to be honest.) Trying out a new show is a simple matter of spotting it, clicking on it and giving it a shot for a few episodes to see if you like it.

So it was that I found myself starting to watch Parks & Recreation. I knew literally nothing about this show before I started watching it, so it was with total beginner's mind that I jumped in.

Initially, I wasn't quite sure what to think. It had that slightly awkward "comedy drama" feeling about it where you're not quite sure if you're supposed to laugh or not. I'm not a massive fan of laugh tracks these days — it's funny to think that they used to be a fixture on popular shows — but sometimes it's nice to have a cue as to when it's "okay" to laugh.

After a little while, though, I started to "get" what the show was doing. I was supposed to feel awkward and uncomfortable. I hadn't immediately twigged that the show was going for a The Office sort of vibe, but when I started watching it in that mindset, it became immediately a whole lot better. Since the first season, the show has seemingly successfully distinguished itself from The Office despite retaining the "docudrama" format. What this means in practice is that the characters in the show are free to break the fourth wall, address the camera and do lots of things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do in a more traditionally-shot show. At the same time, though, the format is somewhat subverted on occasion by characters doing "talking head" shots explaining what's really going on in a scene and then being lambasted by another character who can hear what they're going on about.

The show's biggest strength is in these characters. Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope is a strong lead, and her straight-laced nature is the perfect foil to the colourful, exaggerated characters that are her colleagues in the Parks and Rec department. It also means that when she does do something amusing, it has more impact.

Highlight of the show is clearly Ron-freakin'-Swanson, a mustachio'd gent who hired sullen summer intern April not for her secretarial skills, but for her total incompetence at dealing with other people, meaning that he never has to do any work. Frequently, we'll see Ron in his office carving wood, weaving baskets or, in one memorable scene, using a typewriter he restored to "type every word I know". Anything but work.

Not all of the characters are exaggerated caricatures, however. Rashida Jones' Ann is another character whose understated, human performance inspires viewers to relate to and empathise with her. The way she uses casual idioms like "Dude…!" when talking to people gives her a very "real" feel, and her relative normality actually makes her stand out amid the rest of the cast.

To cut a long story short, despite thinking I was probably only going to watch a few episodes of the show, I'm now halfway through the third season with no intention of stopping. I've enjoyed it a great deal so far, and am looking forward to seeing more. If you haven't checked it out before and are a fan of the awkward, slightly cringeworthy comedy of shows like The Office (particularly the original Ricky Gervais version) then you'll find it an absolute hoot, I'm sure.