New Poll and More

A new poll is now here. :) I like Mac...yet I like Windows. Its kind of hard to choose between them, :/
Otherwise, I tried uploading a picture of this lace heart hanky we made at Laura's, but thats not working at the moment.

Oh, I just found out that Shannon Hale, her husband, and the illustrator, Nate Hale (not related) made a graphic novel! It's called Rapunzels Revenge, and takes place in the Old West.
More Info here: http://www.squeetus.com/stage/books_rap.html

And amazingly, Nate Hale did all the artwork (sketching, coloring, etc.) for the 140 page novel in 8 months. I wonder how the book will be, since I've never read a graphic novel by novel writers. I think.

Poll Results and Child's Play

Yay! Yay yay yay! JayIsGames posted another IF game! :D
Its called Child's Play (by Stephen Granade), and you can play it online. ^^ According to the review and rating, it seems pretty good (5 stars so far) and the overall story sounds fun. (Type "about" in the game for more info)

Description from the game:

"It is playgroup day and playgroup day is normally a good day, but ever since that little red-haired girl started coming she always wants your toys.

She shouldn't get your toys.

You tried telling the mom this, but she doesn't understand you. She mostly ignored you but then she just shoved a pacifier in your mouth and changed your diaper."

As you can probably tell from the description, you are a baby with very good vocabulary and critical thinking. You are also trying to keep your toys away from that new girl. Im only just starting, so I dont know much about it, but you should get a good idea from the JayIsGames review. Also, you can save and restore your game. Oh, and when that picture of the baby and the fridge magnets appear, just click to continue. You can crawl, you can listen, and you can use your baby tactics. Its easy to tell that this is going to be an amusing piece of IF :) Enjoy~

Now, about the poll. As of now, there are 17 hours until its over. I dont think anyone is going to vote now, so here are the poll results.

Q: Hot Coffee or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Coffee!: 1 (7%)
Hot Chocolate!: 9 (69%)
Blah, neither: 1 (7%)
...I like them cold: 2 (15%)

Hot Chocolate is the majority! I prefer hot chocolate too. Anyway, this will be edited if someone changes or makes a vote. Time for a new poll! (soon)

Small Notes

Only one more day for the poll!

Also, I just read that Shannon Hale is making a fourth book to the Bayern series! :D The other books in the series are going to have different covers for paperback. If you look on her website, you can see them. I like some of the new ones, but I still like the normal ones better. The link is on the side.

And I found the sequel to Once Upon a Marigold, which is Twice Upon a Marigold. Yay! I love that book. Im going to read it as soon as I'm done with this entry.

More IF

Here are more IFiction games.

Downloads:
Back to Life...Unfortunately - You are a king that has come back to life...as an eyeball.
Lock and Key - "Basically, the player lays out doors and deathtraps according to various constraints and then watches an Adventurer try to escape.

Online:
http://www.ifiction.org/games/ - A collection of online IF games.

Interactive Fiction

Ok, I love Interactive Fiction (also called IFiction and IF), so here is a whole post on it. IF is basically a text based story/adventure game. For most IF games, you have to download an IF loader and the actual game. Gargoyle has a nice interface and is good for Windows. For Mac people, Spatterlight will work well, and Glulx for Linux users. Luckily, some are available online, and yet still allow you to save. Lost Pig and 9:05 are such examples.

In IF, you type things for you to do, such as examine chair, open door, dance, say "insert question", and the character will do that, if it is possible and entered in the little database thing. Of course, these commands have to be reasonable and are basic. For example, if there is a locked steel door in your way, you can't just type, "Kick down door with uber Karate skills" and expect it to work. Most likely, you must find a key and unlock the door, unless something insists otherwise. And "find key" will most likely not work unless you know where the key is and have been to that place. You have to look around by opening drawers, looking under stuff, going to other places using compass directions, etc. For a much better in-depth explanation, visit this link.

http://emshort.wordpress.com/how-to-play/

There are many different kinds of stuff in IF. You could just be the traditional knight rescuing damsel-in-distress from evil king, or have completely forgotten why and where you are along with any previous memories (very common), or you could even be the person behind the scenes causing all the traps for an npc (non-player character). You could also make one yourself, except everything is way more complicated in making something than it might seem. Anyway, many of these IF games rely on common sense much of the time. So it might help you get along through the game. Some games have a hint system in the game, so if you type "hint" or "help" then it will provide you with clues on how to continue the story.

Now, if you are looking for a specific kind of IF story, this might help.
http://emshort.wordpress.com/reading-if/

For some IF to start with, I recommend some Zarf IF (check the difficulty), 9:05 (common sense and multiple endings, very short, very interesting twist...) and maybe Enlightenment (fun to play) after you get a bit more familiar with the games. Suveh Nux is really fun too, but might be a bit confusing. Involves a lot of learning and combining magical spell words...

Glass by Emily Short is pretty simple with multiple endings, and relies completely on dialogue. As it is based on Cinderella, the story will help with what to say. Who are you? A parrot.

After playing IF for a while, you'll probably recognise some of the creators of them. If you enjoy some of the games of the same writer, you'll probably enjoy the other ones written by them too. Otherwise, IF isnt for everybody, especially if you're the kind that relies on action and good graphics and animation. I started IF...got bored of it...started again and got addicted to it.

Well, enjoy! :)

Garage Sale

Yay! Nine out of ten of the bookmarks were sold at the Garage Sale at Laura's. :) Lots of labeling and rearranging involved in the preparation though. It was also very hot. Good day for any lemonade stands. Oh, and we sent a crazy e-mail to a few people. :)

Only four more days for the poll! :O Oh, and check out Lily's blog for a word of the day, every day. :) She also has a nice poem a few posts back, so be sure to read it!

Hmmm...I am at a loss for what to do. I really hate sleeping in the day, so thats off. Well, I will post more when I find more.

-Edit-

:D I finished "Square Meal"! All 50! Yay! I just felt kinda bad that I only had level one on it before. The game is kind of easy, its only the last level that gets a lil bit frustrating. Since I have sort of low patience with games, I like it when the characters can move a bit faster than the square monster in that game. The post below has now been updated. :) Ok, my playlist is getting slightly repetitive...anyone have music recommendations? Im going to play another Nitrome game now...

Ok, I got to level 29 in Magneboy... Thats it really. No other things to say at the moment.

Nitrome Game Levels

Spoiler below. (in small text)

Nooo! The snipers are back at level 15! D: I even like the cyber samurais more than them! The reason is because this pink target sign follows you around, and you have to keep moving so that it wont get you. And then you have to find the sniper guy and kill him so that the target will stop following you, except its hard because you dont know where he is, and you have to get past all the shoot-out-green-blobs-of-electricity machines, and try to survive the whole time. And if you dont kill them, eventually, more pink targets come and soon you have 4 of them following you everywhere! Thats because snipers are everywhere. Which is why its always scary to move because you dont know if you stepped onto the sniper's radar. Actually, the guy is using some device to make the target follow you. And this is where the wallsliding gets annoying! If you're dropping next to a wall, it just wallsides and you cant really tell because of the mob of pink targets coming at you, and since wallsliding slows you down, then the targets can easily get you. :/

Oh well, at least its only 5 more levels. Well, I will now name the levels I am at for all the main nitrome games.

• Final Ninja: Level 15 (out of 20)
• Mutiny: Level 10 (out of 20)
• Skywire 2: Level 30 (out of 30) I haven't finished the actual level though :(
• Small Fry: Level 11 (out of 25)
• Knuckleheads: Level 13 (out of 25)
• Cheese Dreams: Level 10 (out of 20)
• Magneboy: Level 29 (out of 50)
• Dirk Valentine: Level 14 (out of 24)
• Aquanaut: Level 4 (out of 20)
• Jack Frost: Level 40 (out of 40) Done! :D
• Snow Drift: Level 6 (out of 20)
• Thin Ice: Level 18 (out of 20) so close!
• Twang!: Level 7 (out of 25)
• Pest Control: Level 22 (out of #)
• Headcase: Level 7 (out of 25)
• Off the Rails: Level 6 (out of 20)
• Nanobots: Level #(out of #) (no levels)
• Yin Yang: Level 2 (out of #)
• Toxic: Level 8(out of 20)
• Square Meal: Level 50 (out of 50) Done! :D
• Hot Air 2: Level 3 (out of a lot)
• Dangle: Level 2 (out of)
• Space Hopper: Level 6 (out of 15)
• Skywire: Level 10 (out of 20)
• Frost Bite: Level 7 (out of #)
• Scribble: Level 3(out of #) (Havent played in a while)
• Tanked Up: Level 2 (out of 8)
• Feed Me: Level 6 (out of 15)
• Roly Poly: Level 2 (out of 30)
• Chick Flick: Level 3 (out of 9)
• Sandman: Level 4 (out of #)
• Hot Air: Level 2 (out of 25)

There. If it says, (out of #) it means I dont know how many levels it has in all.