A Touch of Serenity

Don't Starve

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:00:38 -0400

Don’t Starve is a game I tried a long time ago and have recently gotten back into. I highly recommend it to people who like survival-type games. The game is supposed to be challenging, but they have added in settings to help make it a little easier—or harder if you wish!

I made it to Day 50- or 60- something a while back, but I’ve lost that save and it was worth starting over with all of the new things they’ve added. My current game is at Day 36 and things are getting tricky. I blame the spider nests that apparently can now sprout legs and create more.. O.o o.O And the dogs.

This game is on Steam and is currently $13.49 for one copy.

League of Legends - Mac Client

Sun, 01 May 2011 11:50:29 -0400

I managed to get my hands on the Mac Client for League of Legends… and that’s about all I was able to do. The download and install went just fine. Updating AdobeAir was fine. Downloading the first two steps of the patches was fine. And then I hit the third step of patching. It eventually patched, but the time remaining kept switching between 0:00 and negatives such as -54:-37, and the negative times weren’t ascending or descending, but seemingly random times. Also, the progress bar started going from 33% at the end of step two, to 35% at the beginning of step three and then all of a sudden both bars looked empty and I was back down to 33%. I decided to let it sit and see if it would just give me an error message and self-quit on me, but it didn’t! Eventually I just checked back and the updater had finished. So I clicked that lovely large, orange PLAY button.

The sizing of the browsing client was a little weird, but my laptop screen is only 15”, although I don’t think that should matter. Anyway, starting up a game was fine. The load screen worked just fine as did champion selection. Then we got in-game. Luckily for me, I had queued with another person in the same room as me. We queued for a Co-op because I had no idea how bad “glitchy” meant the gameplay would be. Glitchy apparently meant really glitchy.

I’m not sure how else to describe it past my screen constantly “derping.” It looked like what I can only imagine an acid trip must look like. Occasionally I got lucky, and my screen would refresh for the most part, but I never really got to see what the champions looked like. If I managed to mouse-over a champion, or turrent, my mouse would change to the little sword or the outline of the champion/turret/minion would should up and that’s how I managed to target things, but my screen would not constantly refresh, nor would the colours stay the same. Everything turned neon and it honestly looked as though I had dropped my laptop and broken my screen. The health bars would “trail” along the screen, leaving an image of itself and show the path of the moving object on my screen. Enemy or allied health-bars did the same thing, so I could sort of tell where enemy champions were and where my allies were, but even when my screen refreshed I couldn’t see the actual champion.

I was laning with Akali, and all I could see of her was a little green glowy ball of light that looked like a Wisp from WarCraft III ((Wisps are night-elf ‘worker drones’ if you’re not familiar with WarCraft III)). Potion animations showed up just fine, too. I don’t remember if buffs appeared or not. Afterall, I did play most of the game with leftover images all over my screen because the couple times that my screen did refresh, it wasn’t for long.

The minimap, store, and all other UI graphics seemed to be unaffected by whatever gameplay “derping” was going on over the rest of my screen, so it was possible to navigate and get a general idea of where I was standing based off the minimap.

I felt badly for my team, but it was only a Co-op vs. Beginner A.I. so I didn’t feel too badly. Plus, I only died once… Granted I didn’t help all that much, but I didn’t feed at least. I got a couple kills and quite a few assists given that I could hardly see what I was doing. I kept checking-in with the other person in the same room that I was playing with and occasionally asked for a screen check, but it was marginally playable.

We did win that game, and I had made sure to let my team know before the game started that I was trying out the Mac Client. The end animation of “flying” to the enemy’s nexus and then the nexus exploding looked… indescribable. If I can, I will record that animation. It was epic in every sense of the word.

That said, I wouldn’t normal queue using a Mac Client and most certainly wouldn’t play any ranked games, but if you wanted to get your First Win of the Day bonus from playing a Co-op it’s definitely doable. A glitchy Mac Client, and one in production, is a lot better than no Mac Client at all.

I’ll try to either screenshot or record some of that epic gameplay to post so you guys can see what I’m talking about.

Now, currently, Mac-Beta is closed, so I will not supply any links to any downloads for it-please don’t ask-but that doesn’t mean you can’t still find it out there. No beta keys are required, you just need a League of Legends account.

If you would like to try out League of Legends you can go to the League of Legends website, or if you’d like to help me out, you can click on THIS referral link.

Forums for the Mac Client can be found HERE. There you can find more information and updates/potential fixes for the client.

"If something seems too good to be true, it’s good to shoot it. Just in case."

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:42:11 -0500

“If something seems too good to be true, it’s good to shoot it. Just in case.”

- Fiona, Burn Notice

Thank you commercials…

lazcraft: Close-up of the letter A. More to follow...

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:40:43 -0500

lazcraft:

Close-up of the letter A. More to follow soon!

This is getting pretty epic. If you haven’t checked out lazcraft/THE1LAZ, and are really into either working with redstone in MineCraft, or computer circuits/logic in general, I would highly recommend heading over to either his tumblr [lazcraft] or youtube [THE1LAZ].

Talk about some old-school gaming stuff. The Top Gun GBA game I...

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 12:20:44 -0500

Top Gun for GBA

Flight Simulator '98

Full control set for Flight Simulators

Talk about some old-school gaming stuff. The Top Gun GBA game I found at a Bullmoose, and the last time I went home, my dad had set up the Flight Simulator stuff at an old computer because we can no longer hook it up to newer ones. I can’t remember the type of input it plugs into, but I don’t think he’s been able to find an adapter for it. Still pretty awesome ^_^

ilovecharts: via lovecraft This is awesome. I love planes.

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:18:56 -0500

ilovecharts:

via lovecraft

This is awesome. I love planes.

My dorm had a pumpkin painting program before Halloween ((I...

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 07:31:00 -0500

My dorm had a pumpkin painting program before Halloween ((I know, it took me a while to take a picture and upload this…)). About half the people that have seen it have recognized it, so I figure that’s not so bad!

Just in case: It’s supposed to be Master Chief. I tried…

Photo

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:21:01 -0500

"we heard you like minecraft. So we built a computer in your minecraft so you can play minecraft..."

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 11:10:25 -0500

“we heard you like minecraft. So we built a computer in your minecraft so you can play minecraft while you play minecraft”

- MrMixWhelan

I was watching a video of an 8-bit CPU that THE1LAZ [youtube]/lazcraft [tumblr] created in MineCraft, and saw this posted in the comments below the video. I thought it was hilarious, and it has made want to re-find the epic StarCraft II “base while you base” photo that I found months ago.

Rules of the Commutative Property

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:34:41 -0500

Commutative:

-addition

-multiplication

Not Commutative:

-subtraction

-division

-the phrase: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”

"Shiny, gold things are awesome."

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:45:32 -0400

“Shiny, gold things are awesome.”

- - TotalHalibut [What video games have taught him]

Tip of the Day

Tip of the Day

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:41:36 -0400

“You don’t want to be eating plutonium. It could really ruin your day.” - Prof. Tracey

"If you are diseased, people will like you less"

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:20:59 -0400

“If you are diseased, people will like you less”

- Tip of the Day: from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Screen Capture Software for Mac

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:35:06 -0400

So I’m trying to find some free software to record my screen for some of my games, such as recording a video for the Machinima Challenge #6: MineCraft Videos. Currently, I may have found one, and in my research this morning I did find SnapzPro? I think that’s what it’s called, but like the rest of the college student population, I can’t really afford the $69 to purchase it. It looks like it’s very good and has many good reviews, so maybe I’ll save up for it, but in the mean time…

Anyone have any good suggestions for screen capture software for macs?

Casting?

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:03:40 -0400

I’ve been watching a lot of casts on YouTube by many different people covering a decent range if games. I’ve been tempted to make casts of some of these games, or, in the case of things like StarCraft 2, even cast other players’ replays. Maybe start a new MineCraft world and do a tutorial? Who knows. Do we want yet another caster?Should I try it out anyway and just see if it works out?

What do you guys think?

Working On It!

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:26:00 -0400

I still haven’t had enough time to really get in a good post, so I’ll give you guys some links to a few good YouTube channels to keep you busy while I work on being less busy.

NextGenTactics - A channel with a lot of walk-through’s and guides for many different games.
PsyStarCraft - Great for Zerg SC2 players. He casts a lot of games that he plays, but will also cast games played by others. On special occasions, the game will not have a zerg player; usually there’s at least one zerg player.
HuskyStarCraft - Mostly Protoss games and strategy for SC2. Some games are his, some are just other games, cool games, and most contain at least one protoss player, but non-protoss games are more common on this channel than non-zerg games are on PsY’s. ((Currently, he’s moving, but still continuing to cast. He’s joining TheGameStation which just launched on Monday, Sept. 20))
HDStarCraft - Just a lot of SC2. Haha.
AhnarisStarCraft - Another great SC2 channel. I know, I’m giving you a lot of StarCraft2 people, but they’re so good, how could I not? He has some great tutorials.
TotalHalibut - aka The Cynical Brit. He has a series following his introduction to SC2, called I Suck At StarCraft 2. Great for players wanting to learn what not to do. He also reviews some other games; the most recent one that I watched was his review of R.U.S.E.
SeaNanners - The first casts I saw that got me interested in MineCraft, a game that still is in the alpha stages. His series is short right now, but very good.
jx23 - Another MineCraft person. The second one I found after I finished watching all that SeaNanners had. His series is longer than SeaNanners.
X - The longest series for MineCraft I’ve seen so far, I haven’t even finished it. This series is really good for figuring things out, and he does a lot that’s informative and just fun to watch. As far as I know, his series is 40 episodes, although some have multiple parts.

If I can find more great channels I’ll make another post, assuming there’s enough of them.

Spontaneous Break?

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:53:39 -0400

Believe or not, I did not forget about tumblr. I have been meaning to post again and really have just been incredibly busy. Yeah, yeah, excuses excuses. So back to business:

I have a few games that I really need to review/talk about: - StarCraft II - MineCraft - Halo: Reach - Army of Two

Those are on my list for now, and I WILL review them.

Other things I’ll be talking about soon: - this philosophy class about “certainty” - the computer programming I’ll be doing - YouTube casting and some great gaming channels

I’ll be behind for a little while, but I should be able to catch up.

Free Running

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:00:00 -0400

Alright, I’ll admit it: I love running. Absolutely love running, but track running has never appealed to me and I don’t think it ever will. Running blindly through the woods, down the coast ((sandy or rocky. Rocky preferrably)), running along rocks, down city streets, through and/or around buildings and any other obstacle that could pop up. That appeals to me.

So finally I’ve set a new goal for myself for something to do during the day. I have begun working out to be able to pick up free running. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years, and finally I’ve given into that desire and I’m working my way towards it. I know it’s more than just running, and I’m doing it for more than just the desire to run.

tinycartridge: Dreamcast Boombox by XCKDIY. Yes, the same...

Sun, 30 May 2010 15:46:51 -0400

tinycartridge:

Dreamcast Boombox by XCKDIY. Yes, the same Chinese modder behind yesterday’s Mini Game Boy arcade cabinet also created this amazing hybrid of a portable stereo and Sega’s beloved 128-bit console.

From what I can tell, the boombox’s tape deck is replaced with a small display and controller ports, and the CD player now accepts game discs (pirated copies, too, apparently).

If you doubt the authenticity of the mod or these photos, refer to this video recorded by XCKDIY:

I can’t say for sure what that whistling sound is, but I presume it’s the game disc spinning. Or maybe the modder had a kettle going while he filmed this, I don’t know.

See also: More Dreamcast posts that are worth reading because the Dreamcast was awesome

[Via XCKDIY]

This is just plain awesome, and I would love to do/have it! Definitely looks like it would make a fun weekend project ^_^

Steampunk Boba Fett // by DimHorizonStudio (via dbsw,...

Sat, 22 May 2010 11:32:00 -0400

Steampunk Boba Fett // by DimHorizonStudio

(via dbsw, karlthulhu)

I’m seeing a mix of Boba Fett and Dr. Who… Hmm… What a deadly combination. Imagine: Boba Fett with a ship that could time travel. The ultimate bounty hunter!