#oneaday Day 869: Eeeeeeee by 3

E3's leaving me a bit cold this year. The fact I'm not covering it for a gaming website is actually a blessed relief, as it means I don't have to stay up until ass o' clock in the morning watching cringeworthy live performances from executives who should know better. But I'm not even feeling particularly inspired to seek out the big news from it myself — nothing's grabbing me as hugely exciting. The most interesting thing to me is probably Nintendo's new console, which does some genuinely innovative and cool things — but we'll have to wait and see on pricing.

E3's not necessarily about people like me though. It's first and foremost about the suits and the money, secondly about the press and the actual gaming public comes in a distant third somewhere. It is, in essence, a huge PR circus whereby lots of companies can make outlandish promises about their new products and hope no-one remembers by the time the product in question actually comes out. (See: anything Peter Molyneux or Microsoft have ever said, anything regarding motion control, anything regarding Vitality Sensors.) It's an important time for publishers to show off their big new titles to keep their shareholders happy, and for the press to help keep the buzz flowing.

I've never been to an E3, so I can't speak for what the experience of actually being there is like. I'm sure smaller developers and publishers are there, too, but I feel a bit sorry for them. As is always the case, the big news is always about what Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA are up to — and probably something Call of Duty-related from Activision, too. Smaller companies are there to get their products noticed, too, but it must regularly seem like an uphill battle to them when all the big sites want to cover is Halo 4, Call of Duty 300 and other Games With Guns In.

There have been a few surprises, of course. Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs is looking cool — at least it did until the dude pulled a gun out — and David Cage's latest project is sure to be just as interesting and divisive as his previous work. I'm not yet convinced by The Last of Us (ugh, zombies) and I want to know more about pricing before I get too excited about Wii U.

Herein lies the rub, though. I couldn't give a crap about the "big games". I know that plenty of people do, otherwise we wouldn't be on our sixth Halo game, our fifth Assassin's Creed game (not counting spinoff titles) and our four hundred and seventy-sixth Mario title. And the big sites certainly cover the big games with aplomb. But where is the discussion about more niche titles like Larian Studios' upcoming new Divinity game and the batshit-crazy looking Dragon Commander? Where's the love for independent developers? Where can I find what I'll be putting in my shopping cart without question next time there's a Steam sale?

This information is out there, I'm sure, but it's hard to find. It's easy to be cynical about E3 because of the information that gets the highest priority. "Biggest budget" seems to equate to "most important" in the eyes of a lot of press and public alike, and that's a bit of a shame. For me, the most important titles should be the ones that move the genre forward, the ones that do genuinely interesting things, the ones that I'd want to discuss on the Squadron of Shame SquadCast. But I guess they call things like that "niche" for a reason.

Also, fuck E3 memes. If one more person makes a "my body is ready" joke I will punch them. Hard.

#oneaday Day 868: Enforced Merriment

The Queen has been on the throne for 60 years. Yay The Queen.

In Britain, despite the fact that we spend roughly 98% of our time being completely oblivious to the continued existence of the royal family (apart from those few members who regularly appear in OK Magazine and have subsequently developed obnoxious and probably quite disrespectful nicknames), it is actually the law that anything vaguely celebration-worthy that involves said group of royals must be celebrated with a Street Party, with non-participants being taken to the Tower of London to be pecked to death by ravens.

As such, there was a Street Party today on our street. I was coming back from my evening of board game and curry depravity and I had work to do, so I really wasn't feeling it anyway, but then my social anxiety kicked in and I was reminded of why I hate this sort of thing quite so much.

I loathe, despise and detest enforced merriment — the feeling that you "should" be somewhere and that you "should" be having more fun than you actually are. Enforcement could be unspoken (a simple feeling that you "should show your face") or explicit (someone outright saying "oh come on, come and see these people!" in such a way that to say "well, no actually, the very prospect fills me with a crippling sense of outright panic" would make you look like A Right Bastard rather than someone suffering from an actual problem). The effects are the same though — a feeling of dread, the thought "I don't want to do this" rattling around your head and, while the socialisation is actually going on, a constant and intense desire to find an excuse to leave or, in extreme cases, to simply bolt as quickly as possible.

The reason I don't want to be in that situation is generally nothing personal to the people I'm supposed to be socialising with — our neighbours seem like a perfectly nice little family, for example — but it is simply part of the whole social phobia. I feel pressured to put myself in that situation, and then once I'm in there, there isn't an easy escape route to get out of it, which makes me panic.

I think the main problem I have with occasions like this is the fact that they centre around small talk, which is something I can't do very well. I tend to think about things a lot before I say them — to a fault, sometimes — and small talk just doesn't work if you're contemplating and considering every single thing that you say. "Should I mention the weather?" I think. "Or does that make me sound like the most clichéd twat ever? Should I crack a joke? What if it falls flat? That's the worst feeling in the world. Everyone's looking at me. Say something."

Oddly enough if I'm in a professional situation where I have a reason to be interacting with strangers, I'm absolutely fine. If I'm running an event, or meeting and greeting customers, or standing up on stage and presenting to lots of people, I have no problem whatsoever in talking, making jokes, being charismatic and charming the pants off people. (Not literally. To my knowledge, anyway.) But take away that sense of context and purpose and I'm fucked. I feel panicked, and all I really want to do is run away and do something — anything — rather than talk to these people I feel I have nothing in common with. I build up resentment, and then I feel guilty about resenting these people for simply being more social than I am, and the whole vicious cycle goes around and around and around until I find some convenient excuse to extract myself and leave, never to return. (Today, I had work to do, so I was able to go and hide for a bit while I did that.)

This particular aspect of social phobia/social anxiety/shyness/whatever you want to call it is why I never really got on with the concept of "going out" for the sake of going out, or going "on the pull", or indeed in speaking to anyone I didn't already know somehow. I count the few occasions that I have successfully managed to initiate and carry on a non-essential or non-professional conversation with a stranger as huge personal victories — justifiably so, in some cases, as some have led to long-term friendships, such as my utterly nerve-wracking first words to my now-friend Cat while trapped in a lift (well, not "trapped" as such… we were both riding it, and it was in full working order) with her on my first day of a pre-term music course at university.

I won't lie, this particular phobia is a real pain to deal with at times, and I really wish I could be free of it. That won't happen without hard work over a long period, however, and I'm sometimes not sure I'm ready to confront this particular problem head on.

#oneaday Day 867: Horrified

Apparently Nintendo did some thing today, but I haven't been paying attention. The reason for this is that I was (still am, in fact) at my friend's house playing a series of excellent board games, including Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, 7 Wonders and Arkham Horror.

I really like Arkham Horror, though it takes so long to play and we almost inevitably start so late that we rarely finish a complete game. Tonight, we actually got to the end of a game. Okay, it was by losing. But that's still something, at least.

For the uninitiated, Arkham Horror is a cooperative board game that uses HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos to excellent effect, challenging players to compete against all odds in a desperate struggle to prevent various old, evil things from returning to the Earth. It is very strongly thematic, featuring a particularly prominent sense of emergent narrative as the players compete against the game itself in an attempt to come out on top… and usually fail.

The reason Arkham Horror is such a challenge is to do with its complexity. It's not complex in the sense that it's difficult to understand — each of the basic mechanics are pretty straightforward, in fact — but it is complex in the sense that there are a lot of rules to remember, many of which are very easy to forget. There really is nothing worse in a gaming session than snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and then realising to your horror that you've actually been playing it wrong somewhere along the line. It kind of takes the edge off your victory somewhat.

It's frustrating to lose, too. The game puts up a hell of a fight (no pun intended) against the players. Sometimes things seem to be going well then everything just goes disastrously wrong for reasons that seem to have been out of your control. On reflection, though, it is usually the case that such a fate could have been avoided — and anyway, if you were practically guaranteed a win every time, where would the fun be? As it is, Arkham Horror is the board game equivalent of something like Dark Souls — it kicks you repeatedly in the testicles each time you play, and the only way to improve is to practice. This isn't always practical, unfortunately, given that the game's large box contains approximately a million components and takes a long time to set up. The game is, however, possible to play solo, which is always a bonus in my book.

If you're looking for a fun, challenging cooperative game to play with friends on a long, rainy afternoon, Arkham Horror certainly fits that bill well. And if the base game isn't challenging enough for you, the various expansions ensure that not only will the play area take over most of your living room, but you'll be battling the Ancient Ones until the small hours.

#oneaday Day 866: NierCast

I've finally beaten Logic into submission and got it up and running on my new Mac, which means I've finally been able to edit the most recent Squadron of Shame SquadCast. Here it is:

(Direct link for those who can't see the inline player)

The subject of the podcast is Nier, an action RPG for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 published by Square Enix and developed by Cavia. You may recall I was enthusing about this game quite a lot back in early May, and that enthusiasm was what sparked the desire for us to do this particular podcast.

Nier is a fascinating game. Whether or not it's actually a good one is up for debate somewhat, but it's certainly a unique experience in the console space. In fact, to call it an "action RPG" as I did above is a gross injustice, since the game also incorporates elements of bullet hell shooters, text adventures, 2D platform games and open world quest-based "traditional" RPGs. The only games I can think of that offer a comparable experience include Space Rangers 2 and King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame, both for PC, and both offering wildly divergent experiences from Nier, but both taking this "kitchen sink" approach to genre blending.

Nier also distinguishes itself by having a mature plot that is worth following through. Sure, it's pure fantasy, but it's good, compelling fantasy — and the fact that the game was released as part of a much larger opus that spans several forms of media is very much apparent if you take the time to read up on it using sources such as Grimoire Nier. The game can most certainly be enjoyed in its own right without exploring any of the additional background material, but it becomes a far richer experience once you delve into the lore of the world — and, for that matter, the story of the game's creation. It's very much an example of a game whose world and characters are "bigger" than the game they inhabit, much like an author who plans out their characters by writing scenes for them that never appear in the book in question.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Nier, though, is its treatment of "New Game+" — the ability to go back and replay it after you've beaten it once. In many role-playing games, taking on a New Game+ is simply a matter of starting again with all your awesome items, equipment and buffed-up characters from the end of your first playthrough and then romping through the game slicing off heads with gay abandon and nary a fear for your own safety. Nier certainly does this — on subsequent playthroughs, boss fights that were once challenging are an absolute joke — but it's not the most important point.

Without getting into spoilers, Nier's New Game+ gradually adds new layers of complexity and nuance to the plot, calling into question the actions that you undertook without even thinking in your first playthrough. The player is given additional context with which to understand exactly what is really going on — and this manages to seamlessly pull the player's perspective around between several different characters and conflicting viewpoints while still keeping them in direct control of the titular hero. It's a very interesting experiment in a variation on the "unreliable narrator" trope, and one which could really only be done so effectively in an interactive form of entertainment such as a video game. It also makes Nier's New Game+ something that is actually worth doing rather than something which is just there for a bit of fun — and it's worth noting that it makes it abundantly clear when you've done absolutely everything there is to do by actually deleting your save file when you're done. In the context of the game, this somewhat dramatic action makes a great deal of sense (though you are asked to confirm whether you're sure you're okay with this five times) — but can you imagine what would have happened if, say, Mass Effect had pulled something similar? It would have been brilliant, but those complaining about the game's ending would have been even more furious than they are.

The final thing worthy of note about Nier is that it takes no more than 40 hours to do absolutely everything in the whole game including three New Game+ runs (an utterly stupid real-time farming minigame aside, which can be easily gamed by dicking around with your console's clock), making it eminently friendly to the busy lifestyles we grown-ups tend to lead these days.

So if you've never given Nier a shot, give it a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised. And if you have played and loved Nier — or, indeed, have no intention of ever playing it, ever — be sure to listen to our podcast for some in-depth discussion on this remarkable game.

#oneaday Day 865: All Change on Squad Mountain

Those of you who follow what I do over at the Squadron of Shame may have already noticed that some changes have been going on recently.

First up, longtime mainstay hosts of our podcast Chris Whittington and Jeff Parsons have moved on from their presenting duties to host their own show. Too Old For This… is a show for ageing, busy geeks who still like to keep up to date with the latest happenings in comics, games, movies, music and beer (lots of beer), and it's a great listen. Chris and Jeff have a great dynamic together and their show deserves your support.

With Chris and Jeff out of the podcasting picture over at the Squad, we're going to be doing a lot more in the way of our traditional "mission" podcasts whereby we investigate a "shameworthy" game thoroughly and then discuss it at great length. This decision came about partly due to the success of our show on Katawa Shoujo, which attracted a bunch of new listeners and community members, but also because it's something we've always done well — and something which is still very distinctive in the crowded world of gaming podcasts. That's not to say we won't be doing any more "topic" shows or "genre primers" — but a bunch of listeners have been clamouring for more "missions" for a while now, so it's time to give them what they want.

The long-term goal for the Squadron of Shame has always been to be a place for mature, wordy, niche-loving geeks to call home. The "Squawkbox", our freeform discussion board which I set up temporarily several years ago using WordPress. has been a good start to that, but I figured it was time we took it to the next level. We have a number of talented writers among our ranks, so I thought we should showcase that fact a little better. And those who don't want to write will certainly appreciate some interesting things to read and comment on.

Enter our new experimental Articles section, in which long-form articles can be presented, featured and archived separately from the main Squawkbox discussion. They still appear in the main feed, but have their own dedicated sections now. Over time, this part of the site will hopefully become populated with numerous long-form pieces from our members (and guests) about things they think are truly "Shameworthy". The categories I've put in place so far are largely games-focused, but there's no reason this can't expand to other media over time — the joy of using WordPress is that it's easy to tweak, poke and rejig everything as the need presents itself.

I'm excited about what the future might hold for our little site, and this is the first step towards that bright future. Be sure to drop by, join the conversation and let us know what you think.

#oneaday Day 864: Spore-adic

On a whim, I started playing Spore again recently, this time with the Galactic Adventures expansion installed, which I never got around to trying previously. I still haven't got far enough in my new game to come across any of the aforementioned Galactic Adventures, but I thought I'd revisit my thoughts on the original game, as I last contemplated it way back in 2008.

Spore caught some flak on its original release for a number of reasons — mainly dodgy DRM with very strict activation limits and early online connectivity issues (some things never change, huh?) — but also attracted criticism for not living up to its hype. Originally dubbed SimEverything, the game was supposed to be Will "SimCity" Wright's last great masterpiece, simulating the entirety of life right from single-celled primordial soup up to space exploration. A lofty goal, for sure. But how well did it manage, really?

Beginning as a single-celled organism that is either carnivorous or herbivorous, you're thrown into the primordial soup and tasked with surviving. Carnivores must eat little red chunks, herbivores must eat little green chunks. Both can be found just floating in the water, but carnivores can help the process along by killing other organisms. Herbivores, conversely, spend a lot of time running away to begin with.

As you eat, you gain DNA points which can be spent on improving your creature with various parts. In order to evolve your creature, you must mate with another of your kind, which pops up the creature editor and allows said parts to be bolted on. These range from various fins and tentacles that improve speed and agility, to spiky things, poison-spitters and other defensive measures. It's even possible, with enough available points, to replace the creature's mouth to turn it from a herbivore into a carnivore — or even to give it two mouths, allowing it to eat everything.

This process continues for a while, with your creature regularly expanding in size until once screen-filling enemies become tiny little minnows in the background, until you eventually fill the progress bar at the bottom of the screen and evolve a brain. At this point, it's possible to continue swimming around in the soup to gain further points and collect any parts you missed, but the game nudges you in the direction of the next stage, which focuses on your creature's life.

After climbing out of the ocean and evolving legs (which you attach yourself as you see fit), you then get to explore the surface of the randomly-generated world your game takes place on. At this point, progress mostly comes about through either befriending or destroying other species. New creature parts can be found on long-dead skeletons on the planet, and the player's creature evolved with these parts, each of which offer various bonuses to either social or combat abilities.

Upon confronting another creature and choosing whether to befriend or kill it, a little minigame occurs. Combat is rather MMO-ish, with a small hotbar of up to four different abilities available. Socialisation, meanwhile, involves watching what the rival creatures do and copying their moves. As this phase progresses, the player's creature gains the ability to bring along a "pack" of other creatures — either of their own species or allied organisms — which makes both socialisation and combat easier.

To make life a bit more interesting, certain species are naturally aggressive and will attack anything on sight, and there are a few "epic" creatures wandering around who are considerably larger than everything else on the planet. These can be defeated in combat with a bit of care, but for the most part they're something to avoid and admire from afar.

Once the Creature phase is over, the Tribe phase begins. Here, the player is no longer in control of a single member of their species, but instead takes on a more "overseer" role, controlling their tribe like an RTS. Progression through this phase is determined by either befriending or destroying rival tribes.

You begin this stage with a small, simple village and the ability to construct a few "tools". Food must be gathered to feed the tribe and is also used as currency to purchase tools and create new tribe members. Tools fall into two main categories, as with creature parts: social and combat. Social tools take the form of musical instruments, while combat tools are weapons and a healing ability.

Upon meeting another tribe, like in the Creature phase, players must choose what stance to approach them in. If approaching in social stance, both tribes will line up in front of each other and one will "perform" for the other. The "audience" tribe will call out different instruments that they want to hear, and the player must quickly activate their instruments to please them before the audience gets bored. Combat is simple point-and-click RTS-style, though there is also a hotbar of special abilities according to what weapons the tribe has equipped at the time.

Following this point, the game enters the Civilization stage, where the player must conquer the planet they are on by taking over, buying or destroying all the rival cities. The game becomes more complex at this point, with a lot more building, trading and military conquest — though as with the previous components of the game, this phase can be passed through peacefully with a bit of effort.

Following this, the Space phase begins, and some would argue this is where the game begins proper — indeed, this is the phase that the Galactic Adventures expansion concentrates entirely on. Players must explore the galaxy in their custom-designed ship, fly down to planets, collect items, terraform, secure "spice" mines, trade with other species, complete missions, defeat enemies and, eventually, if you want to "finish" the game, build yourself up enough to take a lengthy expedition to the centre of the galaxy — a risky prospect, since this is where the Borg-like Grox, the main antagonists of the game, live.

So Spore certainly does follow life from its humble beginnings up to the space age, and it's very satisfying to look at the comprehensive "history" screen in the game and see how your creature has evolved over time. The main criticisms that were levelled at the game on its original release, however, were more to do with the fact that none of the game's phases had a lot of depth to them — it wanted to be "five games in one" but didn't really pull it off as well as some people wanted.

It doesn't really matter, though. Revisiting it now has reminded me that Spore is a very entertaining game — sure, it's pretty lightweight compared to some heavy hitters in the strategy and god game genres, but that only serves to make the game accessible to all. I'm actually rather glad about this, since I find a lot of strategy games rather heavy going and consequently find myself trounced by computer or human players on a regular basis. I can succeed in Spore while still feeling like I've been challenged somewhat, and simply enjoy the sense of progression, discovery and ever-expanding scale that the game offers — not to mention its wry sense of humour and wonderfully self-referential nature. The game even plays music from M.U.L.E. at certain points, for pity's sake.

And I haven't even mentioned what was one of the main draws of the game on its original release: its focus on user-generated content. All through the game, your galaxy is populated by creations from other players. With the Galactic Adventures expansion, this user-generated content goes far beyond player-made creatures, buildings and vehicles — there are full missions designed by players. It's impressive that it all works as well as it does — content simply "invades" your game seamlessly, and built-in community features allow you to rate, comment on or, if necessary, ban content without leaving the game.

I haven't yet touched the Galactic Adventures content since my current save has only just advanced to the Civilization stage, but I'm looking forward to investigating it. Further thoughts will follow when I've had time to check it out. In the meantime, if you get the chance to grab a cheap copy of Spore, it's well worth a shot.

#oneaday Day 863: Trash-Talkin'

It's not often I feel able to say this and mean it, but there's a piece over on Kotaku right now that is an excellent read. Go check it out, then come back to me.

I can't comment on being a rape survivor or anything like that, but I think that article sums up why I feel deeply uncomfortable with the idea of playing online with strangers in competitive games. I hate abuse, particularly pointless, rage-filled, deliberately offensive abuse designed to provoke an intensely emotional reaction out of the victim — and competitive online gaming seems to pride itself on this so-called "trash talking".

In my own case in the past (and not in games, in the "real world") abuse I have received has been in the form of hurtful comments about my appearance and my weight. I can't begin to fathom what must have gone through the minds of the bullies in question as they said those words that lashed at me like a cat o' nine tails, but they hurt. They perhaps weren't intended to hurt quite as much as they did — "I was only having a laugh" is seen as a valid defence by many these days — but the fact is that they utterly ruined my day when they burst into my ears, regardless of intention.

If I feel that shitty after some stranger makes some low jab at my appearance, I can only imagine how awful it must feel to be a rape survivor and hear how freely the word "rape" is bandied about to mean "beat" or "defeated". I feel uncomfortable using the word, given that I know at least a couple of survivors (to my knowledge), so picturing how it must feel to have such an awful thing trivialised by, say, Gears of War players is disturbing, to say the least. Like the behaviour of the bullies I described above, the intention may not necessarily have been to offend or upset, but there are plenty of people for whom such comments could completely ruin an otherwise fun experience — and, really, let's face it, there's no need for it, is there?

Lest you think me some sort of prude, I will point out at this juncture that I'm certainly not above light-hearted insults with my friends, which often skate into sexist, racist, homophobic and other generally offensive territory. But that's something that we do among ourselves in private — we've set the boundaries as to what is "acceptable" in our group, we stick to it and, crucially, we don't do it in public where anyone might misinterpret our words as genuine sexism, racism, homophobia or any other form of misanthropy. Not one of us would even contemplate the prospect of telling a complete stranger that they'd "raped" them — or indeed hurl any other sort of abuse at them, whether or not there was social "context" for such behaviour.

An example springs readily to mind. I was playing the then-new Dungeons and Dragons Online MMORPG, and I was doing my first run through one of the game's cooperative dungeons with a "pick-up group" of random players. All had been going well until we got to the end and there was an unnecessarily difficult platforming section. The platforming controls in D&D Online were not very good, to say the least, so it took me a good few minutes to get through the bit that the other (evidently more experienced) players had passed with ease. I apologised and made light of it, hoping that they'd do the same. Instead, I was confronted with a torrent of abuse through the private chat channels. I turned the game off at that point and never played it again.

The unnecessary, unprovoked wrath of a complete stranger had ruined the game for me. Whether or not they had intended to upset me that much was irrelevant. It had happened. I grant that I am the sort of person who is very easily upset even by heated arguments, debates and disagreements, let alone abusive words, but being sensitive about such things shouldn't preclude you from taking part in certain activities. Something like an online computer or console game — regardless of whether it's cooperative or competitive — should bring people together, not leave them feeling marginalised, or that their own anxieties, issues and mental scars are somehow trivial. There's no excuse for it, and it's something which gaming culture really needs to clean up if we want our hobby to be inclusive to all.

Therein lies part of the problem, I think, though; some people don't want that inclusiveness. Some people want to feel powerful, to be the top of that little clique, to feel like they have achieved something important and are therefore "better" than others. And they go about that by lashing out at the weak spots, triggers and hot buttons of others. Anything goes in the quest to make them feel like The Big Man. (Or Woman. But let's face it, it's significantly more likely to be a male person.)

It feels like such a futile question at times, but why can't everyone just, you know, get along?

#oneaday Day 862: Lion and Logic

I've been meaning to reinstall my copy of Logic Studio for ages now. For the uninitiated, Logic Studio is a suite of music and audio production tools for Mac that has become an essential part of the podcast editing process for me. I have a podcast to be editing right now, in fact, but am unable to do so until I reinstall Logic Studio, which somehow buggered itself up in the transfer process from my old Mac to my new one.

So it was that today I decided to bite the bullet and begin the several hours long process that is reinstalling Logic Studio. (There are lots of DVDs of content.) I popped in the first disc, opened up the Finder window for the disc and double-clicked the installer, only to be confronted by a message that I really wasn't expecting.

"You can't open the application LogicStudio.mpkg because PowerPC applications are no longer supported."

WHAT.

Logic Studio is a Universal app — for non Mac users, this means that both older PowerPC-based Macs and newer Intel-based Macs can run the program. However, for some reason that remains unknown to seemingly everyone on the Internet, Apple decided to make the installer application for Logic Studio a PowerPC-only application.

On past versions of OS X, this wasn't a problem, as a technology called Rosetta was included to allow newer Intel Macs to run PowerPC-only apps. This feature was phased out in the latest version of OS X ("Lion"), however, meaning that you're seemingly fucked if you want to reinstall anything from disc that is more than a year or two old. (This is obviously not an issue for anything you have purchased from the Mac App Store, since when you download from there you always get the most up-to-date version.)

It's pretty clear why this situation is how it is, even if no-one from Apple would like to admit it — the latest verion of Logic Studio is, naturally, available from the Mac App Store, meaning that those who are really serious about their music and audio production needs should just drop £130 and upgrade. Some of us (like me) aren't made of money, however, meaning a frantic scrabble around Google to try and figure out what to do next.

There was plenty of advice on how to get Logic Studio actually running once it's installed (it seems that Apple included some sort of "obsolescence" tech in the app to actually forcibly prevent it from running under Lion — another nudge in the direction of the upgrade, no doubt) but very little on how to install it in the first place. Fortunately, I eventually found the information I needed, and I thought I could serve anyone suffering the same problem well by sharing said solution. So, without further ado, I present:

How to Install Logic Studio 8 Under OS X 10.7 "Lion"

You will need:
1 copy of your original Logic Studio discs.
1 OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" DVD (10.5 "Leopard" may work, too, but I didn't investigate)
Lots of time

1. Insert your Snow Leopard DVD into your Mac and open the disc's Finder window.
2. Double-click on the Optional Installs folder.
3. Double-click on the Optional Installs.mpkg file to run the installer.
4. Agree to all the bumf and choose your OS X install drive.
5. Rummage through the list of optional installs and ensure that the checkbox next to "Rosetta" is ticked.
6. Begin the install process. It should be pretty quick.

You'll probably get a warning message that Rosetta is not supported on Lion, but ignore it and proceed.

7. Remove the Snow Leopard DVD and replace with the Logic Studio Install DVD.
8. Open the disc's Finder window and double click on the Logic Studio.mpkg file.
9. Follow the instructions as normal. The Logic Studio install process takes hours, so go and do something else and check back to swap discs every so often.

Voila! Sorted.

I haven't finished reinstalling Logic Studio as yet so I don't know if any of the poking around to get it actually running is necessary as yet, but the installer certainly seems quite happy. This Rosetta trick also has the happy side-effect of allowing PowerPC-only applications to run under Lion, which was previously impossible — though obviously you do still need a Snow Leopard disc to pull this off. They don't have license keys, though, so if you have a Mac-toting friend with one, just borrow it — or doubtless some enterprising young individual has put it online somewhere, too.

I'm normally pretty patient with Apple's idiosyncratic ways of doing things — I believe things like the App Store, the "walled garden" nature of iOS and numerous other gubbins are all excellent ideas when you consider the demographic that the Apple of 2012 is trying to court — but all this seemed rather heavy-handed and unnecessary. To lock customers out of an application that they had paid several hundred pounds/dollars/whatevers for because of their desire to be up-to-date with their operating system seems ridiculous — particularly as there's no real reason that I can discern that the app itself shouldn't work. I guess we'll see once I actually finish reinstalling and try to get the bloody thing working again.

In other news, expect a new Squadron of Shame SquadCast by the end of the weekend, all being well!

#oneaday Day 861: Cycle of Life

Today I took ownership of a shiny new bicycle. It is red.

Technically I took ownership of a shiny new bicycle (that was red) yesterday, but said shiny new bicycle was far too big for me, meaning that my testicles suffered considerable (and uncomfortable) compression when attempting to stand astride it, and making actually getting on to the saddle without looking like some sort of Special Person an impossible task. It didn't do wonders for my confidence, so I took it back and exchanged it for a smaller one. Now I can ride it without feeling like I'm going to fall off. At least, not quite as much.

I haven't ridden a bike for at least five years, I think. I used to do it a fair bit and have always enjoyed it, despite not being very good at it. I'm fairly clumsy and cack-handed and balance has never been a particularly strong point, meaning that I'm not very good at doing things like signalling, or riding without my hands clamped firmly to the handlebars. (Any tips for getting over that particular phobia are most welcome.) I'm also not particularly good at going uphill, changing gear (with either hand) or bumping up onto a pavement. But I can, at least, pedal, move forwards and stay upright without falling off into heavy traffic and dying, which is a start.

Cycling is good exercise. I've been doing a lot on the exercise bike at the gym recently — up to an hour at a time — and it got me thinking I should get back on the "real cycling" at some point, particularly as the weather is so nice at the moment. Observations so far are that real cycling is significantly more challenging than gym cycling (at least on the resistance level I've had it set at, it seems) but you get to be outside and have the nice feeling of the wind rushing past you, which is most pleasant and one of the reasons I've always enjoyed getting on a bike as a means of transportation and recreation.

That "transportation" part is a good thing about real cycling. At the gym, you pedal and pedal and pedal for hours and don't go anywhere, you just make the little numbers on the screen go up. On a real bike, you can actually go somewhere that is too far away to walk. Granted, the speed at which I cycle probably isn't significantly faster than walking (unless I'm going downhill) but at least it makes some places that were previously inaccessible without jumping in the car a little more, well, accessible. This is nice. I could probably even cycle to the gym if I tried hard enough, though I then have to consider the fact that I also have to cycle back after exerting myself lifting heavy things and/or all the other stuff I decide to torture myself with.

I would very much like to get fit and lose weight, as has probably been made clear numerous times on these very pages. The more alternative activities I have to help achieve that goal, the less likely (hopefully) I am to get demoralised or bored with the whole thing. I'm doing pretty well with watching what I eat and trying to get more exercise on a regular basis — this is just another means to that end. We'll have to wait and see if it helps. Hopefully it will.

#oneaday Day 860: Kairobot

Have you played any of the games by Kairosoft on iOS and Android devices? If not, you really should. They're quite remarkable little experiences, all the more noteworthy for fitting surprisingly deep gameplay into less than 10MB in most cases. This is a big benefit for those of you who habitually fill your phone and/or tablet device with all manner of crap games that you never play.

Kairosoft's games are business sims/strategy games at heart. All of them feature adorable pixel art and dreadful MIDI music. Most of them involve attempting to make as much money as possible over the course of a fixed period of time which varies depending on the title. Some are almost identical to one another, others take slightly different approaches.

All are utterly bewildering the first time you play them.

Most players' first experience with this little Japanese software company's work tends to be with their breakout hit Game Dev Story which, as the title suggests, sees the player running a fledgling game development company over the course of twenty in-game years. As the game progresses, players develop their staff, produce new games, try to woo the public and even have the opportunity to develop their own game console. Throughout, knowing tips of the hat are given to the games industry with pun-based names and not-quite-real game systems coming on to the market and acting much like their real-life counterparts. Develop for the Game Boy equivalent, for example, and you'll be on to a winner. Decide to support the Virtual Boy equivalent and you may find that your sales aren't quite what you expect.

Basic gameplay in Game Dev Story is pretty straightforward. Through a series of simple menus, you tell your minions what to do and keep a careful eye on your finances. What's interesting about it (and all Kairosoft's other titles, for that matter) is how much is going on beneath the surface. Markets are being simulated; seasonal growth and decline is taken into account; real-world trends form a key part of the game. On your first run-through, you may not discover everything the game has to offer. On each subsequent runthrough, you find out more until you're making ridiculous amounts of money with each one of your blockbusters.

The most recent Kairosoft title I've tried is an Android title known as Cafeteria Nipponica. This, as the name suggests, is a restaurant management game where it's up to the player to take between one and three restaurants to the very top of their game. This is achieved by hiring staff, levelling them up, researching new dishes and, occasionally, sending staff members out into the fields to look for ingredients and "treasure". I haven't got my head around everything the game is doing at the moment, but if nothing else, seeing little pixel people running around making a restaurant work is most entertaining. Like most of the company's other titles, a lot of concepts are treated in a rather "abstract" manner, and so long as you don't go in expecting a literal simulation of how a restaurant actually works, you'll have a blast.

If you've read my previous post How to Play Pocket Academy, you'll know that success in these games is sometimes quite hard to come by, and it's quite easy to mess things up beyond all recognition. That's okay, though, because the game remains so unerringly polite about the whole thing throughout that you can't feel too bad even as your money spirals into the red more and more with each passing month.

In short, then, if you're looking for something to occupy your time on the toilet/bus that isn't Angry Birds, then almost anything by our Japanese friends here is certainly worth a look. While they may not be the cheapest mobile games out there, that's not necessarily a bad thing. They'll provide you with a ton of entertainment for about the price of a single Starbucks coffee. And you can't complain at that, really. That's just good business.