Sunday, lovely Sunday

[andrewducker]

Made it out of the flat last night, in a sudden burst of energy, to the flatwarming of a person Julie knows from her time as editor on PsyPag. Which was nice, even if I was worried about fitting into the conversation in a flat that was basically full of 26-year-old clinical psychologists in training. As it was, it was fine, I chatted happily to a couple of people, learned a few things, and then we staggered out to catch the last bus home.

And then, once we were on it, Julie suggested emailing ajax_nz to see if he was up for a visitor. As it turned out, he already had one, but was happy to have another two, so we dropped in to find him chatting to an old NZ friend, who happened to be a stats-head, so Julie chatted to her while I chatted to Alan about geeky computer things, until at 2am I dragged Julie away back home to get some much-needed rest.

Today didn't start until 11:30, which was blissful. I then spent the day pottering around the flat, playing Portal 2 multiplayer with Ed (awesome fun, and I'm glad we finally got around to it), faffing with The Project (finally got it migrated to GitHub), and playing Rochard.

Rochard is awesome fun. It's a 2D platformer, with a lovely physics engine that makes the puzzles and battles a lot more fun. You get to turn gravity up and down, or even invert it, while platforming, solving puzzles, and shooting a variety of enemies. It even has a half-decent plot. It introduces a variety of concepts in small chunks, which means that by the time you're leaping off of a lift, lowering the gravity just before you hit the ground, dropping a grenade behind some guards and then shooting down a drone, before using the G-lifter you carry to pull a box towards you and then fire it in a long arc to take out the _other_ guards, you're doing it without thinking.

Have a trailer:

It's dirt cheap on Steam, and a download on PS3 as well, if that's your preferred gaming platform. I recommend it.

And frankly, that was enough for a Sunday. Bed now, lots to do tomorrow...

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you for suggesting Rochard, that is very fun! The incremental "solve puzzles and minor platforming with steadily acquired abilities" is a genre I like. And it's pleasant to play someone who actually works for a living.

(Although now I think about it, there have been a fair variety of video game protanogist careers -- in addition to lots of soldiers, there are plumbers, theives, journalists, patent lawyers, pirates, criminal lawyers...)

Although I did want to shoot the guy with the accent who immediately betrays you as soon as he showed up on screen -- somehow you just KNOW he's going to be bad news :) And I wonder what those health stations do when there's not a crisis :)

[andrewducker]

I know! I'd have whacked him straight-off too. Clearly dubious.

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm hoping for a sequel.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I suppose there's not much Rochard could have _done_ -- it's hard to NOT tell your boss "we found something weird and now we're under attack by space pirates and my colleagues are trapped in a giant cave in". But he could have been less optimistic about the guy :)