Tiger Eye: Curse Of The Riddle Box

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Meg

Passionfruit Games‘ first title, Tiger Eye Curse Of The Riddle Box> is out this week. This new game blends casual adventure gameplay with the paranormal romance novel Tiger Eye by Majorie M. Liu. I was in the beta last month, so I was excited to see the finished game.

Players take on the role of Dela, a psychic metalsmith who’s visiting Beijing when she stumbles upon a magical puzzle box with an enslaved tiger-man inside. (Sorry, family, all I brought you from Beijing was scarves and pajamas.) As players solve the mysteries as Dela, Tiger Eye blends hidden object environments with puzzles. I’m not enthralled with HO gameplay in general — there are only so many times you can find and reassemble a note or pry open a door with a conveniently-placed crowbar — but the hidden object scenes do follow the story.

Beijing DVD store

I think this shop sells DVD in the back.

The puzzles really shine, blending match-three,  spacial relations puzzles, codebreaking, and other minigames for engaging gameplay. Tiger Eye adds to the usual simplistic jigsaw puzzle. The puzzles here aren’t square, so no looking for corners and edge pieces, and the edges of the pieces don’t follow a regular grid or jigsaw pattern, so you can’t see if you’ve left a decent shape between pieces. There’s also an ideogram-matching puzzle, using some of the basic radicals and stylized pictures of the definition.

Someone was supposed to fix the shower? Hey, that happened to me in Beijing, too!

I’m always impressed when real Chinese characters are used any place that pretty red squiggles would have done just as well. I couldn’t read everything in the environments, but it was great to see “dragon woman” written over a shop doorway and recognize other words throughout the games. My hours upon hours with ChinesePod (Tip: Don’t ask me what level I am now. It’s quite sad.) brought in-game foreshadowing and huge excitement!

The setting was gorgeous, the puzzles were varied and engaging, the HO scenes and minigames followed the story logically, and the protagonist had clear motivations. Tiger Eye had everything I’d ask for in a HO adventure.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed by a couple of the usual romance-novel cliches and a shovel-faced heartthrob in what’s otherwise a great game.

This is Passionfruit Games’ first release, so I’m really interested in seeing what comes next.  You can check out the demo of Tiger Eye or buy the game here.

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How LOST Will End

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Meg

I started watching LOST in Yantai, so it’s been years now that I’ve been hoping to get a job working for the Dharma Initiative.  I’ve fallen a month or two behind on this season (which requires avoiding Twitter on certain evenings), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about it. Here’s how I think the show will end:

It turns out that when Juliet set off the bomb at the end of the last season, it caused a temporal anomaly preventing her from ever being seen in any of the flashbacks, flashforwards or alternate-timestreams. In fact, if you go back and watch previous episodes, there won’t be any scenes with Juliet. The time we had been spending watching Juliet looking sad and being sneaky is now spent developing backstories on the Temple-Others, Illana and her sidekicks, the Still-more-others, and all the rest of the red shirts who keep appearing on the once-deserted island.

Miles is walking through the forest when dead Charlotte asks him to tell Daniel how much she always loved him. Dead Daniel sends a message of love, via Miles, right back to her. Charlotte sends one back. Miles has to walk back and forth in the jungle, which isn’t entirely bad because he stumbles across Nikki and Paolo, who mention the diamonds. They’re actually worth $8, 151,623.42

Someone asks Jack a perfectly reasonable question. He pulls a gun on them and says no.

Someone asks Kate a perfectly reasonable question. She pulls a gun on them and says no, but actually means yes.

Someone asks Sawyer a perfectly reasonable questions. He says “I’m just trying to get off this rock!”

Sayid is left alone with the Others’/Dharma Initiative’s power station for about ten minutes, and runs a secret wire out to Rose and Bernard’s hut in the woods so they can have a hot shower and a reading light. Rose and Bernard also have takeout from the Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack (it was on the island the whole time, but it was over on the side with the lighthouse) sometimes. They hold hands a lot and smile.

A flash-sideways shows Rose and Bernard driving past a Mr. Cluck’s on their way to another restaurant. They bicker.

Someone asks Jack a perfectly reasonable question. He pulls a gun on them and says no.

Someone asks Kate a perfectly reasonable question. She pulls a gun on them and says yes, but actually means no.

Someone asks Sawyer a perfectly reasonable questions. He says “We have to get off this rock!”

Jin and Sun have a tearful reunion. He gives her a flower, and she shows him a picture of their daughter, who’s talking in her timestream, but hasn’t been born in his. More crying.

Meanwhile, Team Whitmore, Team Linus, Team Smoky, Evil Sayid and Jacob’s ghost all have a giant faceoff battle. With giant killer robots. When asked about the giant killer robots, Ben Linus gives the intense stare and says “Oh, those? Peter built them. Peter built everything here.” There’s dramatic music.

After the break, a random new character called Peter appears, he joins the epic battle.

Someone asks Jack a perfectly reasonable question. He pulls a gun on them and says no.

Someone asks Kate a perfectly reasonable question. She pulls a gun on them and says yes, but actually means no. But then she means yes.

Someone asks Sawyer a perfectly reasonable question. He says “It’s the only way for us to get off this rock!”

We trace the history of Hurley’s numbers through a series of flashbacks, each leading to a new revelation about the numbers and Hurley’s bad luck. At the end, he falls madly in love with a games blogger with purple hair.

Did I miss anything?

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Lollicup

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Meg

My friends are all big fan of bubble tea, and I was happy to go along to Lollicup, a bubble-tea spot, because wherever there’s boba, there are also delicious crazy juices. Like watermelon. Yum.

Lollicup Denver on Urbanspoon We’d planned to take our drinks to go, and continue on Hugo and Diana’s tour of all the reasons we should move to Denver, but were distracted by the toys, games and Asian magazines in Lollicup.

There was also a stack of I have a desperately uncool habit of looking at anything written in Chinese and announcing the characters that I can recognize.  It’s lame and annoying, and yet I’m so incredibly proud of myself that I can’t stop. Eventually I will progress beyond just reading the date aloud and actually know what’s in the paper.

DSCF4131

We played some foozball, too, blaming any mistakes the headless players and the rogue Red Shirt on the Blue Shirts’ team.  It was pretty close, but eventually Stick and I pulled into the lead. (This has more to do with Diana scoring on herself slightly more often than I scored on myself, but let’s not talk about that.) (We are prize girlfriends, let me tell you!)

And then Hugo turned Lollicup into yet another reason we should move to Denver.

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Still Here

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Meg

Perhaps I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but I was recently in Denver visiting my friends. And before that, I was at the Triangle games conference. I’m back working my usual shift in the restaurant now, with a refreshed appetite for mango lassis. (I’m also trying not to kill a certain prep cook who cannot seem to remember that every single main course comes with bread. He’s mixing it up a little, instead of staring at the order in confusion for several minutes and then asking me if it has bread, now he’s handing me the finished plate and then asking if there should have been bread. A wise teacher, and a teaching mentor, once told me that getting things wrong in a new way can be the start of learning. I don’t know if it applies here, but I’m hoping.)

Two fairly regular customers came in today. At first, I was flattered that they seemed more than a little pleased to see me. “You’re still here! That’s great!” the husband greeted me, with huge enthusiasm. “We didn’t see you last time, so we figured you’d quit and gotten something better.”

“We thought you’d gotten a new job.” His wife agreed. “You’re so bright and efficient, and waitressing is such a dead-end job.”

“Waitresses have such low pay and such long hours standing and all that running around and no prospects for advancement and customers are rude to you all day long. But you’re still here!”

YES! Okay! Got it! My job situation still sucks! Can I get you a drink?

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Virtual Mooncake Exchange

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Meg

A friend of mine, who’s going to go nameless in this post, called most Facebook social games “window dressing on the poke application.” He wasn’t specifically referring to FarmVille, but it fits.

FarmVille’s genius is turning our contract with society into a game. The addictive side of play is not so much the virtual sheep or farm improvements, but because we have social expectations surrounding favors and gifts (even if they’re pretend ones).

I really like farming sims, I’m having fun with MyTribe on Facebook, and I love the idea of a casual MMO game, so I was expecting to enjoy a recent assignment on FarmVille. But as I played, I saw less of the pretend raspberries and coffee beans, and more of a social currency.

Sure, I noticed the addictive powers of game mechanics like limited-time availability of items, the slot-machine draw of random gifts, the timing and variety of in-game achievements, and the pull of FarmVille status updates, but what fascinated me most is the gifting system.

We have social expectations around gifts and favors, but FarmVille turns the guanxi network into a game. FarmVille encourages you to send free virtual gifts to your friends!  Who wouldn’t spend a couple mouseclicks on a gift to a friend? You do have friends, right? You aren’t some kind of friendless pariah, are you? And you’re not some horrible jerk who won’t share, right? Look at this poor homeless calf! You’ve got to find a home for it!

And then, you have to respond to gifts. Of course you’re going to send a thank you gift — who wouldn’t spend a few moments responding to a virtual sheep? You’re not totally lacking in social graces, are you? And now you’ve exchanged your virtual items, you’re locked in. It would be kind of mean to accept their help for a barn-raising and then not offer them a pink cow or perfect bunch of daffodils. It’s window dressing on our social contract.
That is also the problem with FarmVille (and similar games). The frustration comes when invitations and free sheep from distant acquaintances on the far edges of our social networks seem more like spam than actual connections.  I’m beginning to see Easter eggs or pear tree exchange the way I saw certain Chinese English students accosting me to practice their English on a real foreigner. Somehow the personal connection is missing from what seems like a personal interaction.
What do you think? Is FarmVille brilliantly turning our social contract and expectation into huge fun (and huge profit for Zynga)? Or are we fake-interacting with each other, like the mall greeter, as we grow our pretend crops?
Posted in Game Reviews, Gaming Culture, Raleigh | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

The Argonautica

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Meg

Apparently the oxygen-free heights of Denver city aren’t the real mountains, so we drove out to Idaho Springs, a gorgeous mountain town that made me want to be a pioneer even more than usual. We stopped at an a former gold mine called the Argo. Our guide told us that it had originally opened as Newhouse Mine during the early days of the gold rush. When he told us it was renamed the Argo after Jason’s ship, we all cheered. And then we asked if anyone had ever lost a sandal in the nearby creek. (Classicists find this endlessly amusing.)

DSCF4076

After a film strip of photographs of dioramas showing the history of the mine, our guide drove us up a hillside to the mine. Then he gave us maps and said he’d see us back at the bottom when we were through. I don’t think this had anything to do with our debate about which of the Argonaut’s heroes would have made a good miner…

Detect Secret DoorsI try to detect secret doors.

We walked ourselves down, following the map. This wasn’t a particularly long walk, but I was still feeling the effects of  stupid altitude sickness, so I kept falling behind or stopping to pant.  Along the path, there were piles of abandoned tools and equipment, all sharp edges and rusted metal.

DSCF4075Also, I would not want to chaperon a field trip here.

The inside was equally rundown. We climbed rickety steps, crossed uneven floors, and looked down over wildly unsafe drops, to see the wildly unsafe old-fashioned mining equipment. That description sounded a bit like weathered boards in a charming old farmhouse, and it was, while at the same time, there are nails sticking out of this charming antique handrail. It was really interesting to see the old-fashioned mining equipment up close, but we also spent a lot of time joking about getting killed by a falling beam from the Argo.

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Mile-High Romance

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Meg

The first minute I arrived in Denver, Diana pulled me aside to tell me there was a surprise happening at Hugo’s citizenship party the next day. I tried to keep a straight face, because, well, there IS a big surprise happening at Hugo’s citizenship party, but I didn’t know Diana was in on it…

Diana whispered quickly that they were throwing a Mexican-themed party as a joke, and that their friends had already started preparing Mexican food, drinks and decor, and man, wasn’t Hugo going to be surprised when he saw it?

Hugo’s surprise for Diana involved a ring. (And wow, it was incredibly hard to keep that quiet. Stick and I could never be Secretkeepers. Stick would forget and just let it slip in conversation, and I’d post the Order of the Phoenix’s secret address on my blog.)

On the morning of the party, Diana left to help the friends hosting Hugo’s citizenship party prepare Mexican food and hang up the pinata.  Meanwhile, back at Hugo and Diana’s house, Hugo was getting ready for something else:

Hugo is about to propose!

After a bit of maneuvering with Karena, the hostess of Hugo’s “citizenship party”, Diana was inside waiting to surprise him with a sombrero and a margarita, and Hugo was at the door, waiting to surprise Diana with a ring and a bouquet of roses.

Diana says no

I guess she likes roses.

Diana says yes

Skyping family
Skyping the family (PS: More photos here, Silvana!)

Obligatory Ring Photo
Obligatory Ring Photo

Hugo celebrates
Oh, and Diana’s surprise? Turns out Hugo thought the Mexican theme was pretty good too!

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Airline Math

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Meg

When Stick and I were flying out to Denver, there was a problem with the TV screens on the plane, so no one could watch the movie. It was no trouble at all, because I hadn’t realized that there was going to be a movie, so I’d brought a book (Ok… several books. Shut up!), but the flight attendants came round and gave us all vouchers for $100 off our next flight because of the inconvenience.

I wasn’t sure what was most amusing. First, if you take the price of our tickets to Denver, and subtract the voucher I got for taking a bump coming home after Thanksgiving, and the $200 we’d just gotten for not having to sit through a movie, we were practically making money by traveling.

Second, receiving a $100 voucher in lieu of a movie implies that the inflight movie was worth $100, doesn’t it?

Coming back, we were told that Stick’s suitcase was a couple of pounds overweight, and we could either take something out or pay $130 dollars. Now, that $130 overweight charge, plus the $20 for having a bag at all, would mean that it costs more for us to get our clothes home to Raleigh than to get ourselves to Denver and back. I’m not sure how that makes any sense, or how the counter agent could possibly tell us that with a straight face.

Stick decided to pull out a boardgame out of the overweight suitcase and call that his personal item. Since everyone else had also decided to cram everything into the largest carryon possible, the overhead bins on our flight were quickly filled, and passengers who boarded later were forced to check their carryon bags.

So… if we’d been seated in the fourth cattle call instead of the third, then the overhead compartments would have been full, and the airline would have checked the game box along with all the other excess carry-on baggage. And checking carryons is free, so it wouldn’t have made the airline any more money, and it would have taken up more space in the cargo area because it was out of the suitcase —

And then my head exploded.

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Spaceship Broke Need Money For Parts

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Meg

Spaceship Broke Need Money For Parts, by Simpson’s Paradox

We passed this guy as Hugo and Diana gave us a tour of Denver. (And yes, we did give him some cash for spaceship repairs.)

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Bracing Mountain Air

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Meg

Did you see the brand-new blog category? DENVER. Because we’re in Denver now, visiting Hugo and Diana.

I’ve read that Denver is on a plateau in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, but that doesn’t really describe bumping into gorgeous views of the mountains as we stop for coffee or take a drive.  It’s amazing. With the Rocky Mountains where ever I turn, I feel a lot like I pioneers heading West. And, um, also because Stick and I are considering a move out here. Which means that every so often,  Hugo or Stick will begin singing “Go West! Life is peaceful there!” It’s a lot like playing Oregon Trail.

As you played Oregon Trail, you’d be going about your normal pioneering day, and someone in your wagon train would be struck down with deathly illness. Dysentery. Cholera.  This altitude sickness is a lot like Oregon Trail… We’re going about our normal business when Meg is struck down with nosebleeds. And dizziness. And nausea. And exhaustion.

Most of my memories of being sick involve missing school to lie in my bed and read books, which was kind of what I wanted to do most of the time anyway. I remember being Really Sick a few times. Once, when I had mono in high school, and once when I had Genghis Khan’s revenge in Mongolia, and now here in Denver, where the AIR IS TRYING TO KILL ME.

Turns out, I need oxygen. Who knew?

Posted in Books, Denver | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments