Facebook Socialite

It’s funny that Facebook is considered a social site.  For sure, it gives you a chance to interact with your friends and family, leaving messages or playing games with them.

It’s not so bad at first.  People write on your “wall” and you answer back.  Then you start getting “requests.” 

Your auntie, for instance, may be  collecting Rainbow Brite pictures from a Facebook application.  The way it works is that your auntie sends a request to people on her friends list and then those people may or may not, send one back to Auntie.  If they do, she gets more Rainbow Brite characters and, the more people that send them, the quicker she builds up her collection.

You may not give a hoot about Rainbow Brite but since your Aunt does, you go ahead with it.  Then, more and more of your friends get into it and you end up with more and requests. 

Eventually you start getting requests for different games.  People want you to join their mafia, army, dragons weir, or whatever.  Simple games where you basically just need to click on one button over and over until you run out of energy, fatigue, magic, or whatever.  These games give you an option of sending a free “gift” that will help your friends.  You’re getting a lot of them so you feel obligated to send some back.

Then there are the Flash based games.  You suddenly find yourself drawn into games where you take care of your pets, fish tanks, restaurants, gardens, and farms.  And these games are set up so that if you don’t keep a constant eye on them you’ll lose something, usually in-game credits.

For example, in Farmville, you need to plant crops.  If they grow and you don’t harvest them in time they wither away and die.  Different crops take different amounts of time to grow.  There’s about two dozen different farming games on Facebook right now so if you find yourself playing more than one then you have a lot to start keeping straight. 

You may find yourself figuring out schedules.  You can’t cook a pot roast in Cafe World now, because you’ll be asleep by the time it’s cooked.  Or you can’t go out after work with your co-workers because your eggplant will wither.  And do you go to that meeting or do you feed your fish, who are about to go belly up?

You find yourself being more of a slave to a hundred Facebook applications rather than interacting with people on Facebook.  Maybe even putting of real world events for the sake of your digital produce.

It begins to get not too social at that point; neither online nor off. 

Facebook Games VS Linux

Since I did a really good job of screwing up my Windows XP installation (that is, I killed it by accident) I’ve been spending a lot of time using Linux (Gentoo) and KDE 4.3. I love it, but there are a few problems that one can run into now and again.

Facebook games, for instance, are a crap shoot. Some will work fine and others are not so fine. Since I can’t do anything about this directly I thought I would do the next best thing: bitch about it on a blog and hope someone that can fix it will.

So here is my list of Facebook games that I use with Linux.

I’ll mention that I use Firefox 3.5.2 and Flash 10.0.32.18, which is the latest I can get with Gentoo.

• Restaurant City (Playfish) – I’ve never been able to get into this one. I always get a message saying that it’s unable to make a connection to Restaurant City. I get this often on Windows, too, but it’s a constant on Linux.
• Crazy Planets (Playfish) – This one always gets stuck at 10% on the loading screen.
• YoVille (Zynga) – It looks like Zynga fixed the problem where you couldn’t click on the game thing. Or I just managed to skip it. In any case, it looks like YoVille is now working. Wait, I take that back. The inventory screen only shows the first item in your inventory. Still, not too bad.
• Farm Town (Slashkey) – Farm Town has some display issues but that’s common with Windows, too. The only problem that I can see with Farm Town is that there are no scroll bars in the store so you can only see the stuff that’s on top. This is a minor issue until you really want something that you can’t get to.
• Farmville (Zynga) – Seems to work just fine. I haven’t seen any problem yet.
• Pet Society (Playfish) – Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Again, this is also something that happens in Windows. When PS is working in Linux it works fine.
• BeJeweled Blitz (PopCap) – As addictive as crack, Bejeweled Blitz works great with Linux. Which is unfortunate because it’s such a time sink.
• Farkle (Viral Games) – Farkle works fine. I think it cheats, but it works.
• My City (????) – This one works in Classic View. Silverlight might work with Moonlight, but I can’t be bothered to install it. The only problem I see with this one is that there doesn’t seem to be a point to it.
• Pathwords (Zynga) – Works fine. I just suck.
• Geo Challenge (Playfish) – Hmmm. Maybe Playfish has a problem with their network code that doesn’t work too well with Linux. Same problem as Restaurant City in that it can’t establish a connection.
• Word Challenge (Playfish) – Unable to establish a connection. I’m seeing a pattern here.
• Bowling Buddies (Playfish) – Same.
• Word Whomp Derby (Pogo) – Works great. No problems.
• Minigolf Party (Playfish) – Yep, won’t establish a connection. I see a common thread here.
• Uno (Gamehouse) – First, I think it’s great that this card game is on Facebook. Also, I think GH did a great job with it. It also works great.
• Kidnap! (Travel Channel) – Works fine.
• Pirates, Mob Wars, Mafia, etc – All the ones that you just click on stuff work fine, but that shouldn’t be too surprising.

It would be nice if the rest of the world would start realizing that more and more people are using an operating system other Windows. While I’m not a huge fan of Apple, I do like diversity so Playfish, Adobe, and others should do a better job of checking their stuff against other OS’s.

A thought on emulation

My first hard drive was for my Atari Mega 2 ST. It was a whopping 10MB (megs! not gigs!) in size. It cost a stupid amount of money back then, too.

It occured to me, today, that even if I had a modest sized USB key of 1GB, I could put an Atari ST emulator on it and a bunch of games and applications and it would still be bigger than anything I had when I had my Atari working. For what? $9.99? Somewhere around there?

That’s the beauty of technology. What would be nifty would be a way of booting an Atari (or Amiga or whatever) from a key straight into an emulator. The bad thing is that, for the most part, you’d need Windows. That wouldn’t fit on a 1GB stick very well. Maybe you could do it with a bootable Linux distro but I’m not sure how much space they take up.

But booting up off a USB key and having a menu of which computer you’d like to use? That would be pretty cool.

How I Spent My Time

     It looks like I’ve been a bad boy this month.  I’ve hardly done any blogging at all.  I’ve done even less writing.  So, you’re probably wondering, “What’s he been up to, anyway?”  At least, I hope that’s what you’ve been wondering.  So, let’s go down and see what I’ve been doing.

     First, if you’ve ever read my blog before you know that I’m stuck in some melancholy loop that revolves around the 1980’s and the computers of yesteryear.  Well, I dusted off the old Atari 8-bit emulator and thought I could finish some games that I never finished before.  Then I remembered just how many games that I started that I never did finish.  And that’s a lot of them.

---

Dunzhin – By Screenplay

     I am one of the few people I know that bought Dunzhin.  All right, I’m the only person I know that bought it.  I loved role playing games and the idea of running around a dark dungeon with a sword.  The graphics are, um, functional.  Even for the Atari 8-bit, they were a bit lacking.  But that’s not the important part when it comes to RPG’s.

     The premise of Dunzhin is that you’re sent into the Dunzhin to find an object and then bring it back.  An awful lot like the games Nethack, Moria, Rogue, and a few dozen others.  While searching different rooms for your quest object, which I must add was a randomly chosen thing with ridiculous names like “The Screaming Hand of Obyxx,” you could run into a variety of trouble.  Pits could open beneath your feet, you could fall flat on your face tripping on a trip wire, noxious gas could fill the room, or you could be attacked by enemies.

     Ten minutes after starting Dunzhin I remembered why I never finished it.  It’s insanely hard.  Your character is very weak when you start and, unlike many games, you have different body parts that can be attacked and each part has its own health.  While, overall, you may have 35 hit points, your right arm may only have two.  So, if you were unlucky enough to get scratched on your right arm, well, then it’s game over.  And that happens a lot.  If that weren’t bad enough you frequently get teleported all over the place.  Some disembodied women decides she doesn’t like you and bam!, you’re off somewhere else.  Usually deeper in the

dungeon where you don’t stand a chance of surviving.  And just when you think you’re getting a handle on all of it, bopping dwarves on the head, lopping off zombie arms, and whatever, you wade into battle and have your sword bust on you.  And that happens a lot, too.

     Don’t get me wrong, though.  Dunzhin really is a good game.  In battle you can target different body parts of the enemy, and some enemies have some nasty weak spots.  For instance, a zombie won’t have any armor on his right arm, so if you start fighting one that’s where you want to aim.  But if it wasn’t for the “Save State” feature of Atari800win Plus or Atari800 I think I would have given up a long time ago.  Again.

     Perfect example.  I just started it up so I could get a screen shot.  I walked about ten steps before being attacked by four zombies.  My first attack missed.  A zombie’s first attack hit my neck.  Whoops!  Game over.  Total time spent in game before dying?  One minute.

---

Kaiv – By Screenplay

     Dunzhin was the first game in the “Warrior of RAS” series.  Kaiv was the second.  Since I actually did like Dunzhin, despite keeling over dead the moment I walked into it, I picked up Kaiv as well. 

     Kaiv is similar to Dunzhin in that the game play is nearly identical.  Some differences are that instead of walking through a dark dungeon, you’re walking through a dark cave.  The graphics for the walls are different, too.

     But it does have some interesting points that make it an evolution over Dunzhin.  For one, you can buy more than one sword.  So, when your sword breaks you can switch to a back up.  You also have to buy your own armor.  And, unlike Dunzhin, you need to buy torches.  You can probably guess that your torches have a tendency to be blown out frequently.

     There were two other games in the “Warrior of RAS” series: Wylde and Ziggurat.  I’ve never seen them for sale, though, or else I would have bought them also. 

---

     There are a couple of other games, but I’ll get to them later because they’re much bigger and grander.

     Joost.com has a bunch of episodes of the television show, “Have Gun – Will Travel” starring Richard Boone.  I’ve been watching a lot of these and, despite the fact that I don’t care for Westerns all that much, I have to say that I consider this one of the best shows ever written.  The character of Paladin is just amazing: part scoundrel, part nobleman, part Robin Hood.  Some people may be surprised to know that Gene Roddenberry (Star Trek) was one of the writers for this show.

     The stories aren’t just “gun slinger kills guy” stories, either.  There’s a lot of subtlety in how he goes about his business.  They’re old, from the 1950’s, but I highly recommend them.

---

     So, there you go.  A minor update into what I’ve been doing lately.

 

Just the BASICS

** Nerd Alert **

    Yes, this post is quite nerdy.  Feel free to skip it or read it as you see fit.  We’ll be going back in time again, so if you can’t handle that you may want to move along peacefully.

     Turn off your computer, disconnect the hard drives and floppy drive (if you still have one), remove any bootable USB keys you may have.  Now, turn on your computer again.  What did you get?  Nothing, right?  Maybe a bunch of errors?  But you certainly didn’t get anything even vaguely useful.

     You may as well hook all that stuff back up.  Now, back in the old days the majority of home computers were still useful, even if they didn’t have any devices (except for the TV or, if you were rich, a monitor) attached.  Most home computers had some kind of BASIC programming language built in so turning on the computer brought you to some kind of prompt.  While this may not be quite as useful as being able to check your email or listen to an MP3, it’s a lot better than nothing.

     On every computer I have, I have an Atari 8-bit computer emulator.  Every one of them.  You wonder why I do this, right?  You think, “Geez, the guy has a 64-bit, 2.2GHz processor what the devil does he need an emulator for an 8-bit, 1Mhz, 48K of memory computer for?”

     And the answer is simple: BASIC.  See, sometimes I just need to write a quick program that doesn’t do much.  It may be a one-off thing that I need to do.  Simple, short, ready to go.  Modern computers, for all their speed, complexity, and bullshit lack in this area.  I mean, really lack. 

     If I need a quick program to calculate something, I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a developer kit.  I don’t need it to run in its own window with menus and crap.  I don’t want to have to write headers and compile the stupid thing.  I just want to type it in, type ‘RUN’ and press the Enter key.  But, while my computer can run Oblivion in all it’s 3D hardware accelerated goodness, it can’t do the simple task of running a BASIC program.

     The irony is that there are many computers from the “Golden Age” that have BASIC built in and their BASIC was written by a guy named Bill Gates and is copyrighted to Microsoft (sometimes Micro Soft) in 1982 or earlier. 

     It would be lovely if Microsoft could include a Microsoft BASIC with Windows.  Even if it’s the same version from 1982.  Just something simple that can be quickly typed in and run.  No sheet designers, no labels, just good old line numbers and GOTO’s and GOSUB’s and stuff. 

     Until that advanced day reaches me, I’ll keep my emulators for the sole purpose of having a simple BASIC around in case I need it.

     I guess I’m the only person who feels this way, though.

Nostalgia

Old and cheesy

A Small Update

     It’s been a little while since I’ve posted an update.  My life is a little on the chaotic side at the moment.  Problems, problems, problems.

     What you can expect in the future (hopefully this weekend):

• Review of the Vanilla Milkshake flavored Pop-Tarts
• Review of the Facebook game, Tower Bloxx
• Review of the Facebook game GeoChallenge

     I’ll also try and mention Pet Society more because it’s getting me tons of hits.  That shouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me, since I don’t have advertising on my site.  But I still like to think people find the place worthwhile to visit.

     Speaking of Pet Society, as I mentioned before the stadium is open.  You can race against your friends (if you can find them in the game) in a hurdle competition.  You have to jump over hurdles, clear your path of banana peels, and use “speed pads” to seemingly gain a speed boost. 

     I’ll tell you right now that the game cheats.  A racer behind you will speed by you with no problems at all, sometimes, even if you use the speed pad.  And sometimes you don’t jump too well.  And sometimes you just get screwed.  But it’s still a good way to get extra cash and points, even if you don’t win every race.

     The cafe is still not open and everything else is more or less the same.  Playfish is supposed to be adding 10 more ranks, though.  If you’re stuck at level 23 you won’t be for long.

 

Pet Society

For any of you folks looking for Pet Society news, the Stadium is now open.

I had hoped this would be where you could get pets to fight to the death for glory and money, but it isn’t.

Booger & The Dr Pepper

     I got my bottle of Dr Pepper this morning.  Checking the cap, I saw that it was a winner so I hurriedly plugged the code into the website.  I wondered if I were going to win another screen saver?  Maybe the same wallpaper I’ve already won?  Would it be a ringtone I couldn’t use?

     No!  None of those things.  I won a Dr Pepper keychain!  Now I have to wait ten to twelve weeks to get the thing.  Sheesh!  I want it now!

 

    For anyone interested, my Pet Society pet, Booger, has hit upon some sad financial times.  He sure could use your help, if you were so inclined.  Could you let this poor dog bear animal live on the street with nothing more than a tin can, a tire, and a rubber ducky?

     It looks like Playfish has a new game out now, too, called GeoChallenge.  I’ll have to take an in-depth look at that one, too, pretty soon.

Facebook Games Review III: Pathwords

     Pathwords is one of those games that’s great if you have a good vocabulary and a pretty good eye.  It also helps if you’re playing with friends that don’t have a good vocabulary or good eyes.

     When Pathwords starts up you’re greeted by a hexagonal grid that’s covered in letters.  The object is to start on a letter by clicking on it and then dragging your mouse over the other letters until you form a word.  The letters you have selected are also reflected on the bottom of the screen and are colored red, if you don’t have a valid word, or green if you do.  When you release the mouse then the tiles you used are destroyed and new blocks fall to take their places.  It’s a timed game, too, so you have five minutes to find as many words as possible. 

     Overall it’s a pretty good game.  There’s nothing spectacular about it.  Really, it’s quite utilitarian.  I

can’t recommend playing it on a laptop with a touchpad, though.  Sometimes the cursor can go all over the place and you end up trying to spell a word just to get gobbeldygook out of it.

     Like most Facebook games, Pathwords keeps track of your score and taunts your other playing friends with how great you are. 

     There is some strategy that comes into play.  If you see a big word coming up but you can’t quite get to it yet then you will need to settle on lesser words to let the other letters fall into place until you can get your big word complete.

     So, grab your dictionary and try it out for some interesting times.