Links - O_O

Here's a link.

Tone Matrix - Draw squares on the grid. Each square sends sound-waves, and as you draw more, the waves kind of bounce back and make music.

They have a bunch of interesting things on that same site. Here are a few more I like.

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/ - Original Site
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/mariokart - Mariokart. Use the Arrow Keys. You can't actually race, but its still cool.
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/bitmap-particles - An image. Then click. Particles. It looks similar to the game, Coign of Vantage.
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/people-on-a-planet - The people look like those people on the bathroom gender signs. Cute. :D
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/cell-talk - Lots of circles bumping together, making sounds. :)
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/cable-clock - I love this. A clock, but the hands are cables. Click!
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/ball-bezier-collision - Drag the ball and rotate the shape with the arrow keys.
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/ocean - Sailboat on the water. Cute, ^^
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/lego-bricks - Legos. What do you do with them? (Hold space while clicking for blue legos)

Wow.

Caligraft: Hilos - Its like a font that changes focus when you move the cursor. Type in something, press enter, and move the mouse. You can pick different font things too. (A bunch on the Exhibition page) Also, I found this link from the aM laboratory site, so I'm guessing they have more cool links. :) All the fonts types work differently, though.

FractalFalbet - This one is amazing. How do they come up with these ideas?

You know what? All these sites have cool links. I just clicked on another link on Caligraft, and that one is cool too. So here it is.

TypeTalk - They just keep getting better and better.

Sugar and Spice - All cuss words are translated into nicer words. (9 yr old girl)
Shy Slacker - Punctuation and some words are translated into other words. Ex. ! = dude! (teen boy)
Framcophile - Some words turn into French. :D (french woman)
Cranky Kid - Apparently your words are translated into 5 year old boy language.

I Know What You're Thinking - Ooh. Intriguing. Creepy title. Read description.

Letterscapes -Click a letter and it shows you a letterscape. Click the border to exit the letterscape, and click another letter. My favorite ones are a, k, r, s, v, and w.

Intersection - Cool. Actually read the last few paragraphs! Reminds me of those math problems.

All links below the Caligraft link is from the Caligraft Links section. Those are the ones I thought were the most interesting out of the list.

Dwarf Fortress

Well, I found this new game called "Dwarf Fortress" which can be downloaded on Windows and Mac. Its a pretty small file size for a very big game. This game has dwarves as its main species. There are two options- you can build a fortress and assign the dwarves jobs or be an adventurer and travel and go on quests. The whole game is made in ascii, which is letters and numbers and symbols.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/

Saving the game is slightly complicated. You have to press Esc in game and choose Save Game. Then go to the zip folder you downloaded to load the game and open it. Then open the dwarfort.exe file and extract everything from there. Open the data folder and then open the save folder. Click the region1 folder and copy it to a safe folder. When you want to load a saved game, copy it back to the save folder and play. Don't overwrite files, since it might leave some leftover stuff.

The game has its own Wiki online which is really helpful since the game is huge and its in-game instructions are very long. It took me 2-3 hours to read it all. Its a bit overwhelming at first.

The link below will tell you what you can do in the game, along with its features.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/features.html

Bought some cute flats yesterday. :)

Ok, Im still learning the game. o_o Once you get through the whole deciding what to bring to the fortress stuff, you have to save to close the game. Dont click abandon fortress or anything because it will delete previous info. Thats what I did, o_o Although, I had back-up since I copied the save file to my other folder...

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! :)