#oneaday Day 859: HAWT

It is officially Hot. The sun has been out all day, and this means that all the world's Hot has been stored up for the whole day and is now being stored in our bedroom making it an unbearable oven almost impossible to sleep in without leaving a noisy fan on all night.

This means that Summer is Here, or something along those lines, anyway.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I've written about this subject in the past, but after 858 previous daily entries, frankly it's sometimes difficult to come up with completely original topics, so I'm going to write about it again. (The last time was in 2010, anyway, so I think I've earned the right to do it again.) I digress. Let me start again.

I have a weird relationship with summer. I like the fact that it's warm and it looks nice outside and you can wear shorts and not put a coat on and whatnot, but I dislike the fact it makes my arse sweaty (apparently my arse contains my body's thermostat, meaning that if I get slightly too hot it's the first place to start sweating) and it can be uncomfortable to sit outside in for too long, particularly if you're prone to burning like I am.

I like the fact that it's socially acceptable to get out a hosepipe (assuming they haven't been banned in your region due to "drought" conditions — and let's not get started on the misuse of that term) and spray it all over yourself on the "mist" setting. Well, okay, maybe not socially acceptable, but certainly understandable.

I like the fact that paddling pools become a viable option in the summer, even for grown adults who should really know better.

I like that you can do normally indoor-type stuff outside (though techie geeks really need to invent a phone/tablet/laptop screen that is actually at all visible in the sunlight and has a faster response time than e-ink displays) and that it's pretty much obligatory to have some sort of iced drink to hand at all times.

I dislike the fact that if you get burned, then everything hurts for days afterwards. Particularly worthy of ire is getting burned on the top of your head, which is enormously uncomfortable and itchy — doubly frustrating for one such as myself who suffers from a perpetually-itchy head.

I dislike the fact that scrawny chavs feel the need to take their shirts off and display their hairless, prepubescent-looking chests to the world while walking around town.

I dislike that you can very easily inadvertently blind yourself with nothing but a phone screen and an unfortunate reflection.

I like that you can get in your car, open all the windows and drive to your destination with fresh air blowing in freely, regardless of what it does to your hair. (My hair inevitably looks stupid, so being windswept has very little effect on my usual appearance.)

I like that it's a good time of year to play Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, not only one of the most perverted non-hentai (well, there's no bonking in it, anyway) games in the world, but also one of the most summery things in existence.

I like the feeling of summer humidity exploding into a heavy rainstorm, and standing out in that warm rain getting drenched.

See? Mixed feelings. I don't do "being Hot" very well, and if I had the choice I'd rather be too cold than too hot. But there's plenty to like about the summer. It's a cheerful time of year, particularly in a country such as this which spends an awful lot of time overcast, raining or both.

As such, I've bought a bike and will be picking it up tomorrow with a view to actually Going Outside when I get the chance. This, then, is doubtless a cue for the sun to disappear for the rest of the year and a torrential deluge of Biblical proportions to begin. Oh well. Good intentions and all that.

What are your favourite and most-despised things about the summer?

(Cue silence. In the past, ending a post with a question has generally been a prompt for there to be no comments whatsoever. But I'm not giving up now, dammit.)

#oneaday Day 858: Pete Achieved [Blog-Rollin']

Time to take a break from the creative writing on here for a little while (though I will try and continue doing it behind the scenes) and talk a little bit about the current hotness that is Diablo III. Now the furore over its botched launch has somewhat subsided and at least a few people are starting to realise that "online game" and "persistent online DRM" are two completely different things, we can take stock of the things that the game does extremely well.

I wanted to focus on one in particular, because it's something I think Blizzard handles extremely well, and it's also something which divides opinion about modern gaming immensely.

Achievements.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Achievements. On the one hand, if used well, they can encourage you to try playing a game in lots of different ways — Crackdown springs immediately to mind here, with its quirky challenges such as playing tennis with a car and rocket launchers, sticking things together, climbing up to the top of the highest building and leaping off without dying. On the other, you get shit like you see in Call of Duty, which gives you an Achievement for starting the single-player campaign.

Some people actively pursue Achievements (or Sony's synonymous Trophies), even going so far as to play a game well beyond its enjoyment event horizon just so they can say they have "1000G-ed" or "Platinumed" it. There's often a lot of "filler" Achievements in there, making this an unnecessary slog at times. On other occasions, it can ruin the experience of playing a game by directing the experience too much — I "1000G-ed" The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and walked away from the game realising that I had still missed at least half of the game's content — and had no motivation or incentive to seek it out after that. The Elder Scrolls series is supposed to be about freeform, open-world exploration, and the Achievements (tied to various quest lines) completely spoiled that for me by shunting me down specific quest paths.

So back to Blizzard, and Diablo III specifically. Diablo III features a wide range of Achievements for all sorts of things. There are Achievements for reaching significant milestones in the game's story — beating bosses, completing Acts, that sort of thing. There are Achievements rewarding those who explore thoroughly and delve into the surprisingly deep lore. There are Achievements for completing special challenges, encouraging players to play more skilfully. There are class-specific Achievements, nudging players in the direction of a good way to play said classes. And there are plenty more besides. There are hundreds of them, as they are not limited by Microsoft and Sony's arbitrary limits, and chasing them is an immensely addictive experience.

One key thing about the whole system uses Diablo III's persistently-online nature to great effect. As soon as someone on your friends list attains an Achievement, you're notified. This helps to encourage communication between people and also lets players see at a glance how their friends are doing. It's even possible for players to browse each others' profiles and check out what Achievements they've managed to snag, providing incentive for a little good-natured competition when, say, one sees that the other has somehow killed the Skeleton King in less than 20 seconds. In short, it helps make Diablo III into a more social game, which is exactly what it's been designed to be. Where its predecessors had discrete, segregated "single player" and "multiplayer" components, Diablo III blends this all together into a seamless online experience that encourages communication, competition and cooperation, where players can feel like they're making progress even when playing by themselves, and continue making progress when they want to play with friends. It's a good fit for the series' gameplay, though it makes the ludonarrative dissonance between the ridiculous on-screen action (punching people's skeletons out!) and the rather serious fire-and-brimstone plot seem all the more silly.

If you haven't given Diablo III a shot yet, it's well worth it. Over 6 million people can't be wrong. Although if you value your sanity I wouldn't advise looking at Blizzard's forums. Ever.

(I think I still have a Starter Edition code knocking around somewhere, so if anyone wants to give it a go for free, get in touch and I can give you the code. First come, first served.)

#oneaday Day 857: Another Ending

This had to be it.

He'd been stuck here for — how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Time had lost all meaning in these tunnels. He'd been here so long that he'd all but forgotten why he had been sent down here in the first place.

The only thing keeping him going was the thought of her. He knew that she'd be there waiting for him. She had promised. It was the one memory from his past life that he remembered. She would be there. She had to be there. Otherwise all this was meaningless.

He was the last survivor. He knew that much. None of the others had lasted. Some had died, some had succumbed to madness, others had simply disappeared, never to be seen again. He was alone. That knowledge made him all the more determined to succeed, to get out of this hell-hole.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been running, but he was breathless. He drew the pistol from its holster — he wasn't even sure if it still worked — and sat down with his back against the wall. The uneven rock wall was uncomfortable and dug into his back, but he didn't care. He just needed to rest for a little while. He felt the end was near, but he needed to be on top of his game for any last-minute challenges Fate might have in store for him.

He closed his eyes. Unconsciousness took him quickly, and his head slumped to the side. Visions swirled in his mind's eye. Past blended with present and with future, confused images flashing into his subconscious for a moment, then vanishing.

"Guilty."

The word echoed through his brain. It was the word that had sent him here. The word that no-one ever wanted to hear. The word that struck fear into the hearts of everyone.

What was he guilty of?

"Guilty."

How had this happened?

"Guilty."

Why had it–

He awoke with a start, his eyes flicking open. He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, but down here it didn't matter. All he had to do was press onward. The end had to be near. She would be waiting for him. She would be there. She had to be.

He stood unsteadily, bracing himself on the wall as he pulled himself up. He was hungry and thirsty, and his supplies were getting low. He holstered the pistol and started walking again for a few paces, before breaking into a light jog. His boots clip-clopped on the hard floor and echoed around the tunnel. They pinched his feet, but he had to keep going forward.

As he jogged, the never-changing scenery of the tunnel's walls either side of him, his mind wandered. Fragments of lost memories remained just out of reach, tantalising him with promises of truths perhaps best forgotten. But still her face was there, urging him onwards, pushing him forwards.

"Guilty."

The word that had haunted his dreams while he slept was pounding at the boundaries of repressed memories now. He knew that behind the walls his mind had put up, there was a torrent of pain and suffering. He didn't want to let it out. But every time—

"Guilty."

Thump.

Cracks were appearing.

"No," he said out loud to himself. "Please."

"Guilty."

Thump.

A flash. A vision. A room. Dark, with small shafts of light beaming in through the dirty window.

"Guilty."

Thump.

He was sitting in a chair. In front of him, there they were. Those who decided his fate, whether he liked it or not.

"Guilty."

Thump.

The walls were coming down. He couldn't stop them. He kept running, but the memories were seeping out. The horror.

"You stand accused of forbidden knowledge," said the voice. His blood chilled, and shivers ran down his spine. "How do you plead?"

He was speechless. He couldn't respond. Whatever he said would damn him. He had no control of this. The voices were coming in thick and fast now, flooding his brain — so much noise — and he couldn't stop them.

"Guilty," most of them were saying. "Guilty."

They had already made up their minds. There was nothing he could do that would make a difference.

"Guilty," he said. The voices stopped for a moment. Everything seemed to be frozen in time.

The memory faded. He was still running. He grit his teeth and tried to concentrate as best he could, willing the walls within his mind to push themselves back into place.

"Guilty," the voice still continued, softer this time.

He tripped on a loose stone and fell to the ground, skidding along the floor a short way. It hurt.

He lay on the floor and closed his eyes to concentrate fully. He had to control this.

Be still, he said to his troubled mind. Be silent.

The angry sea of images threatening to break into his mind's eye swelled and roared for a moment before calming, settling and quietening. He was in control. It was all right. He was safe, for now.

He couldn't think about the past. He couldn't. How he had discovered this ability, this curse. It was too much. The memories threatened to swell and overcome again, but he pushed them down forcefully, and they stayed quietened.

Focus, he said to himself. Calmness. That is what will get me through this.

Opening his eyes, he got to his feet and started walking. He did not break into a run this time, he simply walked, his back straight and upright, staring straight ahead. This was different. This was focus. He felt centred, at peace. But it was taking all his concentration and effort to remain that way. He didn't know if he'd be able to hold it. But he had to try.

Minutes flowed into hours as he walked. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, always straight ahead, never deviating from its course. When would it end?

He pushed the thought out of his mind and continued to walk. He had to stay absolutely focused, otherwise he would fail, and he would never get out of here.

Suddenly, a voice. He couldn't tell if it was in his mind or if he was actually hearing it. But it sounded like her.

"You're going to make it," she said. "I know you will. I'm waiting for you. Just a little further."

A door opened. Brilliant white light flooded into the tunnel from the other side. A silhouette stepped into it. A familiar silhouette. A comforting one.

He came ever closer, not breaking his focus for a moment. He had to take his time, to maintain his control, otherwise it would simply slip away from him. He was going to make it.

As he came closer to the blinding light, he saw her face. She was crying, but she was smiling. She extended her hand to him.

He kept walking. Closer now. It was definitely her. She had kept her word.

He reached out.

He took her hand.

And it was over.

#oneaday Day 856: An Ending

The atmosphere in the room was solemn. Silence hung in the air, making it feel cloying, oppressive.

He couldn't bring himself to look at her. Not after what she'd done.

At least she'd admitted it, he thought to himself. But not without him putting her in a position where she had no choice but to admit it.

He hadn't expected things to go this way. He used to think that no challenge was insurmountable, that they'd always be able to make it through, together.

But not this time. Not after what she'd done.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, and all he could see was the face of the one who had caused this whole mess. Of course, he didn't know what the Stranger looked like in real life, so the "face" he saw was obscured by shadow and mist. But he knew who it represented.

He felt himself gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, so he opened his eyes again to try and banish the unwanted intruder into his thoughts.

She gazed at him, her face a picture of abject misery. She really hadn't meant things to happen this way. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but she knew from the beginning that what she'd been getting into carried that risk. And still she'd done it — why? For the thrill? No, that wasn't it; it was more a sense of ennui, dissatisfaction, of being stuck in a rut.

She hadn't felt comfortable raising the subject, so she'd simply started plotting behind his back. Before she realised that every little plan she made without his knowledge was just going to cut deeper, she was in too far. There was no going back.

She didn't regret doing what she did — the alternative was just sinking into a black mire of mutual resentment and depression, and she knew that he knew this too; he just didn't want to admit it, or didn't know how to tackle it. He'd never been good at that sort of thing.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, her voice cracking a little from the pair of them having been sat silently for so long. "I really am."

She took his hand in hers and squeezed it like she always used to. Still he didn't look at her. He seemed to be staring into the middle distance.

His eyes were filling with tears. He couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear the thought that this was it, that it was over. He wanted to hate her, but he couldn't. He loved her, even after everything that had happened. But he couldn't bring himself to turn her way and say it. It was too late. Too late.

She put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him towards her. He resisted a little to begin with, but then allowed himself to be pulled in. He buried his head in her shoulder and felt something snap inside his mind. He started to cry, big gulping sobs that he couldn't control. He'd never felt so utterly wretched in all his life, and here he was, baring his soul and showing himself completely helpless and vulnerable to this woman who had just an hour earlier crushed his dreams for the future.

She held him close, not saying a word as the waves of emotion rocked his whole body. Tears fell from her eyes, but she was silent. She needed to be strong. If she were to give in to this pitiful display before her, then she'd never be able to move on — and neither would he.

His sobs subsided, and she gently pushed him away, trying to get him to look at her. Still he wouldn't make eye contact. His body was limp, deflated, like all the fight had gone from him.

"You know this is for the best, right?" she said.

Gazing at the wall a few metres to her left, he simply nodded after a short pause. He closed his eyes, and the Stranger was there again, mocking him. I won, the cloudy vision seemed to say. I won.

He felt his mouth tighten as he struggled to hold back the pent-up emotions and once again failed, exploding into tears with a wailing sob that broke his companion's heart.

He slumped forward off the seat and onto his knees on the floor. He bent over until his head was on the carpet. Down here it felt safe, for some reason. He didn't want to get up. Everything above the floor was scary and upsetting. The world was out to get him, and he couldn't cope any more. He just couldn't take it.

He clenched his fist and slammed it as hard as he could into the floor. The impact boomed and rattled the room. Searing pain shot through his hand and he instantly regretted his outburst of aggression.

She just watched. There was nothing more she could do right now.

She stood.

She walked.

She left.

She didn't look back. He didn't even notice she'd gone to begin with. Down on the floor, in his own private little world, he was safe, but the face of the Stranger was threatening to invade. He crawled over to the seat and rested his head on the soft cushion, still warm from where she'd been sitting. The question as to where she had gone entered his mind, then was blown out again as quickly as it had come.

He slammed his fist into the cushion, imagining he was throwing a devastating punch at the face of the Stranger. Another. And another. And another. He roared with rage, yelling obscenities with each strike. It wasn't making him feel any better. Inside, he knew what he was doing was useless; impotent. But it didn't matter.

She was gone. And he knew she wasn't coming back.

#oneaday Day 855: Another Beginning

"Hey."

The voice startled him, though it was gentle in its tone. He looked up to see the source of the monosyllabic greeting, and there she was. He wasn't sure quite how long he'd been sitting on this bench staring at his feet, but it must have been some time, as the daylight streaming in from outside the concourse momentarily dazzled him.

"Hey," she said again, smiling. She was a pretty young woman, with coppery, curly ginger hair that fell around her shoulders, and a few girlish freckles still evident around her nose. He regarded her with curiosity, but his cheeks quickly flushed, causing him to reflexively turn back to the safety of contemplating his shoes.

She sat down next to him, bending forward to try and meet his floorward gaze.

"Hey!" she said again, a little more forcefully. "Are you all right?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but it was completely dry. He closed it, swallowed and tried again.

"Nervous," he croaked, still not looking up.

"Yeah," she said. "I got that. I'm nervous too. I think everyone here is."

He raised his head and turned to face his companion.

"You hide it well," he said in a meek voice, cracking a half-hearted smile and inwardly wishing the ground would swallow him up just in case she found his comment in some way offensive.

"And you don't," she giggled. "I'm just teasing. Everyone deals with nerves differently. Me, I just need to talk to someone, to get the thoughts racing around my head out in the open, you know?"

He knew. He wished he could be as easygoing as she evidently was. But talking to people — especially strangers — made him even more nervous, so he found it difficult to imagine how striking up a conversation could possibly help.

"Yeah," he said, turning back to his shoes. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't sweat it," she said gently. "We're all in the same situation here. Far from home, not sure what to expect, far from our friends… so we just have to make the best of it."

"Right," he said, not sure whether he was supposed to offer any more information at this point.

"I'll go first, then," she said, releasing her hand's grip on his shoulder. "I'm Jennifer. You can call me Jenn. I'm here because by some freak of nature I managed to ace my schoolwork despite hating almost every minute of it. They thought I'd be a good candidate, so here I am."

He waited, trying to determine whether or not she'd finished talking. After a few seconds of expectant silence, he realised that it was his turn to say something.

"D-David," he said, pausing. "I test well. I have the 'right kind of brain', apparently, whatever that means."

"It means that you're a good candidate too," said Jenn, placing her hand on his shoulder again. "There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

He sat up and raised his head to look at her, cracking a more genuine smile this time.

"No," he said. "No, I guess it wasn't."

She smiled at him and he felt warm inside. It was nice. It was a feeling he hadn't felt since the last time he saw his sister, but that was–

"You looked lonely," she said, interrupting his train of thought.

"What?"

"You looked lonely," she repeated. "I'm lonely too. You might not believe that given the way I've been acting, but I am. I was lonely back home and I so desperately don't want to be lonely here. I don't… I just…"

She looked upset. The sudden shift in her demeanour took him off guard somewhat, and he'd obviously let his surprise show in his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. It looked like her eyes were glistening slightly with tears, but he couldn't be sure. "Just met you and here I am blabbering on. You must think I'm a right schizo. I'm sorry if I–"

"Would you like to be friends, Jenn?" he interjected. It was the most assertive thing he had ever done in his life, and inwardly he felt immensely proud of himself. He braced himself for rejection, swallowing deeply as he regarded her expression of surprise, somewhat akin to a startled animal just before it bolts. After a second or two that felt like hours, her expression softened and she smiled that warm smile again.

"Of course I would," she said. "You know, you don't have to actually ask."

"I know," he said. "But I thought I'd be polite."

She giggled and suddenly hugged him. The embrace took him by surprise, but he didn't struggle. He was just getting comfortable when she released him again.

"I think we're going to be good friends, David," she said. "Very good friends indeed."

At that moment, all the fear and trepidation he had been feeling melted away. Although neither of them knew exactly what the future held for them — no-one who joined the Project did — he knew now that he didn't have to face it alone, and he felt safe in that knowledge.

"Come on," she said, standing and offering her hand. "Let's go get started."

He looked up at her quizzically for a moment, then smiled, took her hand and stood. The pair of them began to walk hand-in-hand towards the bright light of the day.

The image froze, then quickly faded to black.

"Wonderful," said the observer.

#oneaday Day 854: A Beginning

[Preface: Been thinking I should do some creative writing again, and I had an interesting idea the other day. I thought for the next few days I'd share some doodlings that I'd come up with.

The concept is that the complete "book" or whatever you want to call it will be a book of "beginnings and endings" — short stories/scenes/vignettes that mark either the beginning or the end of something. This could be a first meeting, the beginning of a new romance, the start of a new job… or the end of someone's life, a successfully-completed mission, someone saying goodbye to a past life. I haven't figured out quite how I want to structure the overall thing yet but I'm thinking all the stories will be set in the same "world" and "time", whatever that might end up being, and that characters from some stories will show up in others. Some "endings" will match up with the "beginnings", others will stand alone. They'll all be jumbled, though, so the reader will have to do a bit of mental dot-connecting to figure out the full picture.

Anyway. It might all be a bit ambitious or it might work well. We'll see. Here's the first mini-story/scene/whatever I've written, which is a Beginning.]

"Who are you?" said the girl.

She'd come across the boy completely by chance. He looked about the same age as her, with mousy-brown unkempt hair and some tatty-looking clothing that she guessed was a hand-me-down from a sibling.

He turned to face her slowly.

"Who are you?" he echoed back at her, his face curious; hesitant.

She frowned and looked him up and down. His face was dirty, but his eyes sparkled with life. She had already arbitrarily decided that she was going to like him very much, but she knew better than to declare something like this up front. People had to work for her friendship.

"I'm Laura," she said. "You still haven't told me who you are. And I asked you first."

He looked at her suspiciously and put down the stick he was holding.

"Sam," he said. "I'm Sam."

An awkward silence hung in the air for a few moments. Laura continued to gaze at Sam, sizing him up, analysing him. Sam, meanwhile, looked anywhere but at the pretty young girl in front of him, his gaze alighting by turns on a nearby log, an interesting-looking leaf on the floor or a pattern in the old oak tree's bark that looked a bit like a person if you squinted.

"What are you doing here, Sam?" said Laura eventually, satisfied that she had learned all she could with her eyes alone.

"I, err," said Sam, his cheeks flushing. He didn't like to tell people about his secret place, but since she was already here… "I like to come here sometimes," he said. "To be alone. Away from the grown-ups."

"Why do you want to be away from the grown-ups?" said Laura.

"Because they're mean," he said. "I don't like them."

"You don't like your parents?"

"No."

Silence fell once again. Laura had never known someone who didn't like their parents. There were times when she thought she didn't like them — usually times when she had gotten into trouble for something or other — but she'd learned pretty quickly that fluttering her pretty eyelashes, saying "sorry" in a meek voice and, occasionally, crying usually got her back into their good books.

"Why?" she said after a moment, deciding that the best approach would be the direct one. Sam said nothing in response for a moment and turned away from her. He picked up his stick, brushed away some leaves and started scratching marks into the dirty ground of the woods.

"Sam?" she said, craning her neck to look over his shoulder at what he might be scratching on the floor, but hesitating to come any closer. Still he said nothing. She stood in quiet contemplation for a moment, waiting for him to make the next move.

Finally, he turned around, the stick still in his hand. His eyes sparkled as he looked right at her, making eye contact for the first time. He looked sad.

"What is it?" she said. He said nothing, but simply gestured in the direction of the crude picture he'd scrawled on the forest floor with his stick. Looking back at him with an unspoken question hanging in the air, he nodded. She took a step forward to better see the markings.

Her eyes filled with tears, and all she wanted to do was hug him. She walked right up to him, looked into his sparkling, sad eyes and put her arms around him. His body, stiff and tense until now, softened as he relaxed into her embrace. He rested his head on her shoulder and put his own arms around her.

The pair of them wept.

#oneaday Day 853: Friend Collecting

I didn't understand it back in the MySpace days, and I still don't understand it now.

Friend collecting. Why? Just… why?

I am, of course, referring to the phenomenon seen in the comments thread of this Facebook post here:

(with apologies to Kalam, who is nothing to do with this.)

"Who wants 2,000+ friend requests?" asks Ahmed Hamoui, only with poorer use of punctuation and a seeming inability to use the number keys on his keyboard.

To his question, I answer "Not me. Fuck off."

Facebook is noisy enough at the best of times. Can you imagine how chaotic and useless it would be if you 1) got 2,000 friend requests and 2) accepted all of them? It would completely negate the core concept of Facebook (or what it used to be, at least) which is to be a "social tool" that helps you to connect with family and friends. The very nature of the way Facebook works pretty much encourages you to limit the friends you add to being people you actually know, otherwise there's that horrid risk of people seeing photos they shouldn't. Because despite the fact that everyone knows you shouldn't post embarrassing photos online, everyone still does. (Not to mention the fact that you have no control over what other people post.)

This sort of thing happens on Twitter, too, with the whole "#TeamFollowBack" thing, whereby certain tweeters promise to follow back if you follow them. At heart, this sounds like a relatively admirable thing to do, promoting mutual, equal discussions and– oh wait, most of them are just collecting followers for no apparent reason then filling their entire timeline alternating between bragging about how many followers they have and bleating about how close to the next "milestone" they are. (Please RT.)

I trimmed my Twitter list massively a month or two back because it was just getting too much to deal with. I flip-flopped between two equally annoying problems: things moving too fast for me to be able to keep up with, and everyone posting the exact same thing at the exact same time either due to press embargoes or the death of a celebrity. So rather than complain about it, I cut the people who were irritating me or whom I hadn't "spoken" to for a while, and now enjoy a much more pleasurable life online. Sure, my timeline still gets flooded every time a celebrity (usually one I've never heard of) dies, but at least I can keep up with the conversations for the most part.

Which makes me wonder why on Earth you would want to put yourself in a position on Facebook or Twitter where it is literally impossible to follow and engage with that many people. Surely at that point social media ceases being at all "social" and simply becomes white noise?

Or perhaps I'm just getting old. It seems to be mostly young kids (particularly Justin Bieber fans for some reason) engaging in this behaviour. Perhaps they have a much greater tolerance for being bombarded with crap than I do. Perhaps they're numb to it. Perhaps they don't really want to "socialise" at all online, simply grow a bigger e-peen than their friends and/or strangers they don't know.

Whatever. I don't really care. I have cultivated a relatively small but close-knit circle of friends online, much as in "real life", and I'm happy with it that way. It's nice to have occasional new people trickle into the mix through, say, this blog or Twitter or what have you, but I certainly don't feel any need to bellow at the top of my lungs about how close I am to 1,500 Twitter followers, and I have no idea how many friends I have on Facebook — nor do I care.

If you'd like 2,000 friend requests on Facebook, simply "Like" this post then go fuck yourself.

#oneaday Day 852: Carmageddon Reincarnation

I absolutely loved the original Carmageddon. Like, way too much.

I remember discovering it. I was hanging out with my school bud Andrew, and we'd just grabbed the latest PC Zone with its demo disc. Said disc carried a demo of Carmageddon, and we fired it up out of curiosity, as a lot of the press we'd seen about the game (this was pre-Internet for the most part) had been overwhelmingly positive.

The demo in question carried a single level from Carmageddon, time limited to about five minutes in total, if I remember rightly. That may not sound like much, but a single level in Carmageddon was, in fact, a vast open-world environment in which the race circuit with checkpoints was a relatively minor and inconsequential detail. As such, pretty much every playthrough of the demo we had was totally different — though when we discovered that flinging the player car off the top of the tallest building on the map tended to do utterly hilarious things with the game's damage model, our sessions turned to being races to said building and seeing how many times we could throw ourselves into oblivion before the car became undriveable.

But I'll back up a moment for those who, for whatever reason, are unaware of Carmageddon.

Carmageddon was a series of PC games (later ported to consoles… badly) that were ostensibly racing games but were, in fact, automotive playgrounds that were absolute joys to tool around in. They were also some of the most unabashedly offensive games of all time, though the whole thing was suffused with such a ridiculous, over the top sense of humour that it was pretty much impossible to be upset by the splattering innards that made a regular appearance. You try not to giggle with glee when your car is pinging around a cramped city block like a pinball (complete with PINGPINGPINGPINGPING noises) and electrocuting passers-by with its "Pedestrian Electro-Bastard Ray".

Victory in a Carmageddon level could be achieved in three ways. First, you could actually complete the race by going through all the checkpoints in the right order. This was often referred to as "the boring way", though the later tracks were actually pretty challenging.

Second, you could wreck all of the other racers. This was rather challenging, especially early in the game when your car was a bit crap and couldn't hope to stand up to the might of a huge bulldozer. But it was immensely satisfying when you pulled it off — particularly when you successfully recreated David and Goliath with an appropriately ill-matched pair of vehicles.

Thirdly, you could run over every pedestrian wandering around the map. This was no small feat, given that most maps had anywhere between 500 and 1,000 pedestrians shambling around, going about their business. The best thing about taking this approach is that it forced you to explore the map fully to figure out where they were all hiding. Most maps included a powerup that showed where they all were on the map.

It wasn't just mindless carnage, though. You had to strategise somewhat, since there was a constantly-ticking timer putting paid to your best-laid plans. Doing damage to other racers, mowing down pedestrians and collecting certain powerups extended the timer well beyond its starting value, so an early priority when going for the more challenging victory conditions was getting the timer up to a level where you had a bit of breathing room.

It was, in short, a great game, and one of the earliest "sandbox" games that I can think of. I also have fond memories of the game due to the fact I spent a worthwhile and profitable summer playing it to death and writing a tips book which initially was provided free with an issue of PC Zone, and which was later thrown in for free with Virgin Megastores' special edition version of the game (that came in an absolutely massive box) one Christmas.

Basically, I would love to play a new, up-to-date version with, say, online multiplayer and all manner of other goodies.

And what do you know? Original developer Stainless Games has acquired the rights to the Carmageddon name and is — hopefully, anyway — going to make a new entry in the series. This is possibly the most exciting gaming news I have heard for years. The prospect of a new Carmageddon game on modern hardware with online play is an immensely enticing one. The original games had multiplayer, sure, but they were released at a time where playing online was something reserved for those who knew what an IPX network was. In other words, they were best played at LAN parties or with workmates in the office. Living out in the sticks at the time, I had precisely zero opportunities to do this, so you can imagine my excitement at the idea of being able to crash, bash and splatter friends over my windscreen.

If you, too, have fond memories of Carmageddon — or would just like an immensely fun, irreverent sandbox driving-and-chaos experience — get thee over to Kickstarter and back the new project. With 18 days to go, the project is already nearly three-quarters funded, and there are some pretty sweet rewards on offer for backers, depending on how much you pledge.

Stainless reckons the new game will be with us around February of next year. In the meantime, they're apparently looking into what it would take to get the first two games (the third had nothing to do with them) released on services such as GOG.com and Steam.

#oneaday Day 851: Some iOS Games You Should Try

I know at least a few of my regular readers sport iOS devices, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share a few titles I've downloaded and actually wanted to keep recently. Since my day job sees me downloading and reviewing a metric fuckton of iOS and Android games (all right… five) every week, I get exposed to a lot of great stuff… and a lot of crap, too, but we'll leave that to one side for the moment.

Without further ado, then, here are a few iOS games that you may wish to check out if you have the chance.

Rebuild

Rebuild is a game about zombies. But wait! Don't dismiss it just yet. While the whole "zombie" thing is incredibly played out now, a few games recently have provided a pleasingly different take on surviving the undead/infected hordes. One of these is Facebook game The Last Stand: Dead Zone, which is a surprisingly deep RTS/RPG that is worth taking a look at even if you typically hate Facebook games. But we won't get into that now, as we're talking about iOS games.

The other is Rebuild. As the name suggests, the game is about, well, rebuilding. Beginning with a custom character and a small cadre of survivors (all of whom can be renamed) it's up to the player to recapture a town (which can also be renamed) from the groaning, brain-obsessed ones. This is achieved in a turn-based manner, with each turn representing a day.

Each day, you can assign survivors to locations that surround captured territory and give them a job to do according to where their skills lie. You might want them to scavenge for food on a farm, or search for survivors in an apartment building. Killing zombies clears the way for building specialists to capture territory, and once captured the survivors gain the benefit from whatever building the captured territory contained. Survivors can also be equipped with items (including dogs) in order to boost their stats and make them better at their jobs, and the zombies will occasionally attack the main hideout, meaning you'd better have left some people behind on defence duty.

Rebuild is a simple but deep turn-based strategy game that is in the remarkable position of being a zombie game that is actually both original and worth playing. It's easy to understand but also easy to mess up, meaning it will take time to figure out and determine the perfect strategy. Each game is randomly generated and may take place on one of several different map sizes at several different difficulty levels, so there's plenty of replay value here, too.

Grab it here.

Necronomicon

H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos makes for great games, whether they're of the board, card or video variety. Necronomicon is no exception.

Necronomicon is a solitaire card game that pits players against the deck. The game takes place on two rows of five spaces: the top five belong to the forces of darkness, while the bottom five belong to the ever-present "investigators" — humans from disparate walks of life who are thrown into conflict against the Old Ones.

The basic mechanic of Necronomicon is in battling these cards by placing them in adjacent spaces — forces of darkness at the top, plucky humans on the bottom. Each monster and investigator card has a Defense and a Sanity rating. If one card has both Defense and Sanity higher than the other, it defeats its opponent immediately, scoring points for the player if the investigator won, losing points if the monster won.

If one or both of the stats are tied, however, an element of luck comes into play. Both sides make an attack roll, with the highest roll defeating their opponent. These attack rolls may be modified by playing additional cards onto the investigators and monsters — these cards may also be placed on spaces before investigators or monsters show up, allowing you to set up battlegrounds that benefit the investigators and hamper the monsters. Thematically, these extra cards represent weapons, allies, magic spells, potions, curses and all manner of other goodness.

The game's end is determined by an evil portal thing in the corner of the screen. If the monster row is full and the player draws a monster card, the portal takes damage. If it takes three points of damage, the game ends in a loss for the player. However, if the investigators row is full and the player draws another investigator, the portal heals a point of damage. If the portal is undamaged and gets healed, it is sealed and the player wins.

Necronomicon is quite difficult to describe and even the in-game instructions don't do a terribly clear job of explaining how to play. But after a couple of games, it becomes quick and simple to play, and a great little solitaire card game that doesn't take long to get through a session of.

Grab it here.

DOOORS/100 Floors

I'm lumping these together because although they're developed by completely different people/teams, they're almost identical in concept.

The two games are "room escape" games, an offshoot of the adventure game genre that has no plot and simply requires that the player find their way out of a series of rooms via increasingly-esoteric means. Both games make full use of the iPhone's multitouch screen and accelerometer, and both give you absolutely no help whatsoever, which will ensure you get infuriated as you poke, prod and pinch at the screen, tilt the phone side to side and shake it just to see if anything happens.

While sometimes the solutions are irritatingly obtuse, successfully figuring out the correct way to achieve something is immensely satisfying.

To say much more about these games would be to spoil the infuriating puzzle-solving therein, so I shall leave it at that.

Grab DOOORS here, and 100 Floors here.

#oneaday Day 850: Diablolical

My friends and I wasted many, many hours on both Diablo and its sequel over the years. We picked up cheap copies of the original game when we were in our first year of university and quickly figured out how to take advantage of our free phone calls between rooms to network our computers and play multiplayer. Later, we found ourselves enjoying the sequel a great deal — though I must confess, despite enjoying it a great deal, I only ever beat it once.

Fast forward a large number of years and we come to Diablo III. Does it still have the magic of its predecessors?

Simple answer? Yes.

Oh, you want a little more than that? All right.

First up, let's address the Big Issue that people have been ranting and raving about: the supposed "DRM" that requires a persistent Internet connection. If you spend any time actually playing Diablo III, you'll likely come to the same surprising realisation that I have, and that is this:

Diablo III is an MMO.

It's not an MMO in the same way that its stablemate World of Warcraft is — there's no open world and you don't randomly bump into other players wandering around — but it is a game designed to be played online, and it is a game where hundreds, thousands, millions of people all log in at the same time and are able to communicate and play with one another. There is a persistent chat interface allowing conversation with both friends and strangers even if you're not in the same game session with them, a persistent friends list (albeit one that isn't cross-region, annoyingly) and the ability to sneak a peek at your friends' equipment, achievements and other data. There is an auction house, allowing you to make some money (currently only in-game currency — the controversial "real money auction house" is due to launch later in the month) from those awesome items that your current characters can't use. Your characters are saved "in the cloud", allowing you to log in on any computer and pick up where you left off.

Most notably, there is the ability to immediately, instantly and seamlessly drop in and out of players' games. Friends who are playing are shown on the main menu, and joining their game is a simple case of clicking their name. Joining a public game (or opening your own session up to the public) is just as straightforward. The only thing that would make it easier to play with friends would be Steamworks compatibility, but this is Blizzard; that ain't going to happen.

Yes, you can play the game solo, but you can still chat to people while doing so. You can lock people out from auto-joining your game so you may only play solo if you want to, but you're still soloing online like any other MMO. You have the option to invite people or open your session up at any time without having to come out of your game or make a character specifically to play online with.

In short, the "always-online" thing is actually a key part of the game's design, and in execution really rather cool. While it may be frustrating to not be able to play "single player" offline, and the early server issues were a pain in the arse for a day (a single day, maybe two at a push — the game is running perfectly now) the fact that the game is, in fact, clearly an MMO makes it clear why this is the case. The entire game's infrastructure is designed around playing online.

But let's leave that aside for the moment, as it's a concept you'll either be on board with or you won't. What about the actual game itself?

Diablo III has undergone some significant changes from its predecessors. Gone is Diablo I and II's progression system, which allowed you to distribute stat points on every level up as you pleased, replaced with predefined stat increases. Gone is the "skill tree" system from Diablo II, which allowed you to "build" a character to your own specifications (or create a completely unworkable mess), replaced with a system where you unlock skills at predefined level boundaries and can only equip a limited number at once.

It takes some adjusting to, but Diablo III's way of doing things is streamlined and efficient without taking away the element of player choice. Everyone always levelled up their stats the same way in Diablo and its sequel anyway, and despite the illusion of complete freedom of choice that the skill trees offered, it was all too easy to create an underpowered character that wasn't particularly good at anything. What Diablo III lets you do is customise your character to work the way you want it to in any given situation, and then tweak it at any time. What you can't do, however, is hot-swap skills while you're in the middle of combat. You have to make some choices as to what skills you're going to use before wading into the fray, and reevaluate your decisions after various demon hordes have stopped having their wicked way with you.

The presentation is good, though not stellar. The in-game visuals work well but seem to have surprisingly demanding system specifications for their quality. In-engine cutscenes are a bit crap and look like something out of a game made in the late '90s. The special effects are great, however, with some wonderful physical modelling on bodies and objects around the game's environments, and spell effects are appropriately ridiculous, particularly when you're playing with several people all flinging pyrotechnics around the screen.

Sound design — always a strong point in Blizzard titles — is great, with some excellent voice actors and quality background music. Plus someone on the Diablo team has finally got wise to the fact that boss battles are infinitely more exciting with some boss music rather than the understated ambient rumbling of the previous games.

As with the rest of the series, it's the gameplay where Diablo III shines. There's a decent narrative running throughout the game, but the Diablo series has always been far more about killing thousands of monsters and stealing their stuff rather than paying much attention to the (surprisingly deep, if a bit po-faced) lore. And in that department it delivers in spades. Combat is straightforward, addictive and fun — particularly with friends. There is a huge variety of loot to collect, equip, sell, disenchant and craft. And a well-implemented achievement system actually makes you want to achievement whore because going after the challenges in question is so fun and satisfying.

I get the impression Diablo III is going to grow and change over time, too. We already know that a player-vs-player competitive element is coming, as is the real money auction house. But what then? Expansion packs? Content updates? New character classes? There are a ton of possibilities that Blizzard could incorporate into the game, and they could even use the patch process as a means of incorporating features which some are a little disappointed at the current lack of — things like voice chat. (Personally, I can take or leave voice chat — I suffer from telephobia when talking to people on the Internet almost as much as when I'm using the phone — but I accept that a lot of people expect it nowadays.)

In short, the future looks very bright for Blizzard's latest title, and if the amount of support Diablo II got — even once World of Warcraft arrived on the scene — is anything to go by, then players can likely look forward to a game that will last them for years.