Hugs & Toes

My friend laurapoet just stubbed her toe.

You know, hugs are a great way to greet people and skip the weird part of awkward silence, because its so totally unexpected that you have to have a reaction to it.

Alabaster - New IF by Emily Short and 11 other people. Its a twist on the traditional story of Snow White, and its mostly in dialogue. 18 different endings! Yay!

Listening to: Miss Invisible
Feeling like: Writing a story
Browsing: DeviantArt
Playing: Little Wheel
Discovering that: Sunburns don't just make your skin red
Learning that: putting loud songs after quiet songs are frightening

I love stories. And quizzes. And polls. And humor.

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! :)

Links

Ok, I am going to go through my links so you can get a good idea of what each of them are. Future links will probably have their own summary in another post. I'd add it to this post...but its long enough as it is.

• DeviantART : A place with tons of art that people make, including literature, emoticons, photography, painting, and much more.
• Dino Run : A cute game in which you (the dino) are running to dino paradise so that you can escape the apocalypse. Balance on meteors, eat lizards, collect power-ups, get rides from other dinos, collect eggs, and even race in multiplayer with other dinos. There are many milestones to use, and the overall retro look to it is just too awesome.
• Emily Short IF : Im a big fan of Interactive Fiction (IF). If you dont know what IF is, you can check this website and it will have a good How-to guide to playing interactive fiction. Emily Short has some really good interactive fiction, so be sure to try them out!
• Flickr : A place where anyone can upload photos and share them with others. If you find a picture you especially like, add it to your favorites! The people on Flickr have some really neat pictures. How do they do it?
• JayIsGames : A collection of casual games. I usually find games here, and they have reviews and ratings on them all, along with some helpful walkthroughs. IF, webtoys, grow games, escape-the-room games(although I suck at those) are among the many many games that they have.
• Laura's Blog : My friend's blog. She created it a few hours before mine and convinced me to make one too. She's a writer and poet and I have a feeling she's going to have many interesting posts...
• MiniCity : A virtual city that grows everytime someone clicks on it. Click this link and you'll help my mini city grow. :)
• Neave : Interesting website I found a few weeks ago. Try the lines one. You wont believe your eyes. o_o
• Nitrome : One of my favorite links ever. Nitrome creates its own pixelized games and everything in it is just so cute and squishable. Especially the little characters in "Mutiny". The only game I've ever beaten completely was "Jack Frost". Although they update frequently and have a fun-to-read blog, its always exciting when they come up with a new game.
• Playlist : Make your own music playlist and listen to others. I usually have my playlist on in the background while browsing the web.
• Powder game : Another one of my favorite links ever. This is a sandbox game, so you can basically do anything you want. There are many elements to choose from. Water, seed, powder, player, fighter, magma, c-4, metal, thunder, superball, wind, ice, and way more. The fun part of the game is how the elements interact with each other. blow the ice away with wind and create snow. Sprinkle some seeds on powder and grow a plant. Then burn it up with fire. Create a fighting arena, a volcano, a waterfall, an obstacle course for the player, the possibilities are really endless. For a really nice experience, change the BG to BG-shade. You can even save these and share them with others. Also, scroll down for information about everything, especially player and BG. :) Have fun and enjoy!
• Quizilla : Make quizzes and stories and post them for people to rate, read, and try. Once thats done, see if it will make it to the Most Popular or Top Rated list.
• Scribbler : Draw a simple design. Then click scribble and watch it work its magic. Voila! Change the color of the scribble and you have more control of how the scribble works. Also check out the website of the person who made this. The only thing it seems to be missing is an eraser, although an imperfect drawing seems to turn out really nice anyway.
• Shannon Hale's Website : This is the website of my favorite author. Read up info on books she's written and info about herself that might be helpful to novel writers-to-be.
• Travian: Make a village. Conquer other villages with your troops. Expand your resources. Survive raids and attacks. Then try to make it to the high scores.
• World-o-Meters : Current statistics on population, economy, environment, education, energy, health, water, and food. The numbers might be surprising.

And that concludes the afternoon announcements. Have a nice day!