hmpf

Discovered this game beta a couple of days ago and found it so thoroughly enchanting that I've since played it three or four times (it's only about 10 minutes long). It's a totally unique concept, and the artwork is utterly beautiful. If you need something that'll put a smile on your face, go download this:

Gorogoa

Short impression of the gameplay: Video

is that I always get tempted away from social things by books or comics (mostly books and comics, that is. Occasionally TV or games.)

I really think, sometimes, that I need therapy to learn to cope with *people*. It can't be normal that even *pleasant* social interaction is so draining for me that I shy away from it, can it?

I've been job hunting and doing housework and reading, mostly. Yes, I stopped the LJ catch-up almost immediately after I'd started. There was a rather large number of interesting job ads recently, but that's no excuse, really.

Gah.

Have some recs:

beccatoria made another awesome Farscape vid! Actually, I'm sure she's made at least a dozen good vids recently, because she went a bit crazy last month and tried (possibly even managed?) to make one vid(let) per day. So head over there and enjoy!

Did you realise you can read shitloads of classics of the fantastic genres for free on gutenberg.org? I've decided it's time to check out some of that old stuff, and have read Peter Pan and am currently reading The Napoleon of Notting Hill (I read The Man Who Was Thursday years ago, though maybe a reread is in order...) Peter Pan was much odder, and darker, than I expected. TNoNH is about as odd as I expected, because after TMWWT I expect major weirdness from Chesterton. Got any recs of other old stuff I should check out? Maybe A Voyage to Arcturus? That's definitely available there. Or I could try to get back into News from Nowhere, I started that two years ago and then was interrupted by uni stuff...

I've also reread two webcomics I'd more or less stopped checking regularly because they were (and still are) in the habit of going on really long hiatuses. They're both really really good, though. Dicebox is social science fiction with beautiful art and very three-dimensional characters and relationships. Hero is fantasy with religous/mythological overtones, possibly set after some apocalyptic(?) conflict between some analogues between the forces of heaven and hell. Or something. Beautiful digital watercolour manga art, and a surprising sense of humour. (For even more webcomics, check out the links in my sidebar here.)

I've spent a bit of time playing flash games, too:

I really enjoyed Little Rocket, despite the fact that it took me ridiculously long to learn how to control the rocket. But when I finally had the hang of it, I played the entire game through twice.

Endeavor is a nice, big-pixeled exploration platformer.

Looming plays like an extremely minimalist, retro version of Myst.

Seasons is another beautiful web toy/experience by the maker of Windosill.

The Dreamerz (don't ask me about the stupid "z"!) is a charming little point-and-click adventure that feels like you're reading a slightly surreal picture book.

And Transform is another example of patented Eyemaze madness. In other words, it's awesome.

****

I just rediscovered a very fitting old tag so I'm using it...

It's been a while since I did one of those, so, so as to keep a complete record of the games I *really* enjoy, here's some - mostly - more recent recs.

But first, two public service announcements:

The Submachine series, which recently gained a sixth part, has a new home: http://www.pastelportal.com/stories/the-submachines/

And so does the Deep Chalk series, which likewise gained a new part somewhat recently: http://www.deepchalk.net/

Okay. Newish discoveries:

http://www.alchemiagame.com/ - Alchemia, a nice point-and-click adventure in the vein of Samorost

http://www.bubblebox.com/play/adventure/1362.htm - Morningstar, a science fiction point-and-click adventure

http://www.smallgreenhill.com/games/finwick/ - Finwick, a beautiful platformer (only the first 26 levels are free, though, the rest costs 5 dollars.)

http://windosill.com/ - Windosill, quite possibly Vectorpark's best game yet (only half of it is free, the rest costs 3 dollars.)

http://jayisgames.com/cgdc6/?gameID=9 - Small Worlds, an unusual, beautiful and slightly disturbing exploration platformer

Also, I'd like to link you to Hapland, a series I really like (although I never managed to finish the third part), but the creator's site seems to have gone MIA. I'm sure you can find it on other sites via google, though. I just don't have the time to do the searching.

in my last entry.

What I really meant to say was this: if you download just one vid in the next twelve months, let that vid be "Improper Dancing". It's like a drug. I can't stop watching it.

(There's a list and detailed description of all the clips used in the lj entry I linked to yesterday. It's helpful to read, to get some of the finer details.)

amonitrate writes a brilliant Cooper. She says her Albert isn't quite as good, but I don't remember Albert well enough to judge that. Anyway, go read her TP snippet here.

*wants TP box set*

(Because occasionally I do take a five-minute break from uni work to watch a FS vid, so as to reduce the "unsorted" folder on my disk and be able to finally burn them all to DVD.)

Yesterday's discovery:

Love and Peace by Di. A vid about the final four of season two that makes *excellent* use of internal movement and internal effects to create a very dynamic impression. Nitpick: Image's a bit blurry, sadly. Still, as with the last vid I recced, it would be a shame to ignore this vid because of that. Simply watch it in small instead of full screen mode and the problem shouldn't bother you. If that seems like an unacceptable hardship, try to remember what watching vids was like in 2001! ;-) (I still have favourites from those days... and I still love them, even though you can only watch them by minimizing the player to stamp size...)

A note: When I play this vid in zoomplayer the image breaks up in the fast parts, so there's either a problem with my zoomplayer or with the vid. It plays fine in VLC, though.

but since it's currently getting thoroughly revamped, it's worth pointing out again:

North World by Lars Brown.

A webcomic about a wandering swordfighter in a world that looks much like 1950s/1960s America, only without television, and with slightly more up-to-date clothes styles. And an amusingly anachronistic (sub)culture of people who run around the woods armed with swords, hunting monsters. (Yes, the monsters are real.) If this premise sounds a bit bizarre, wait till the hero decides to attend his highschool sweetheart's wedding in his old hometown. Yes: it's Grosse Pointe Blank meets Dungeons and Dragons. Lars Brown, the author, calls the genre he invented with North World "plain-clothes fantasy", and that just about describes it.

North World is one of webcomics' bigger recent success stories. The author recently got a publishing deal for it with, err, I forgot which publisher but it was a well-known one (in the realm of comics, that is). He's using this occasion to rewrite and redraw parts of the - already finished - first volume, and, being a generous webcomicker, he's posting it all, page by page, to the North World website again. It's like a rerun, only better, because it's improved! *g* (It was pretty good to begin with, but you could see that the author was 'still growing', in places, and there were a few things that were a bit confusing, which will hopefully be cleared up in this new version.)

Lars Brown also endeared himself to me by being a Finder fan, something he has in common with the authors of some of my other favourite webcomics, too. :-)

Oh, and I recently updated the links bar here in my LJ (left column in my current LJ layout), so if you want a few more recs, do check that out. Or you could just click on one of the tags here, of course, for older recs. I can only encourage anyone who hasn't so far dipped a toe into the world of webcomics to try it - it was, to me, just as wonderful a discovery as reading fanfic.

Well, and now I'm off to make dinner.

Sadly, communicating (except for these one-way missives I'm posting here), thinking about Stuff, writing, and getting Stuff done are all impossible at the moment.

And no, I don't feel bad, not really - except for the usual guilt of not being able to keep in touch like a normal human being etc. In fact, I've spent a lot of the last two weeks or so on a near-constant reading high - and I guess I feel vaguely guilty for this, too, because all that time... well. You know.

Reading is my additiction, I guess.

Here, have some more recs:

Shí Lòng Páng: Kung-Fu and Chinese history in a way you've never seen them presented before. Philosophy, gentle humour, great, unique art style.

S.P.Q.R. Blues: Roman history and intrigue. Hyper-detailed, intricate artwork. You had that David Macaulay book about Roman city planning when you were little? That's what the artwork of S.P.Q.R. Blues reminds me of.

Beccatoria has made another vid, this time in a reasonably obscure fandom: Neverwhere! And it's good! So go and download it, and leave her feedback here: http://beccatoria.livejournal.com/19883.html?mode=reply