Tag: games

Afoot!, football refs, music books

Things I’m thinking:

  • If I was a detective, or if I was writing a detective story, I’d never have someone say “The game is afoot!” … Why? Glad I asked.
    • Because “afoot” is a terrible name for a game. I get that there are games based on “Dr. Pimple Popper” and stuff, but “Afoot, the Game” is just… too far.
    • If it’s NOT the name of a game, then … you’re risking stepping on whatever game it is you’re talking about. Detectives detect. They don’t step on what they’re hunting. That changes them from detectives to … step-upon-ers.
    • Again, if you’re a detective and you’re on a case – it’s not a game! Take your job seriously, detective! Sheesh!
  • As bad as I feel for the Saints, I’m glad the NFL is going to have to confront officiating in some fashion. Refs have really struggled these past two years on both the collegiate and pro levels, with fans being able to see things that really should have been called being missed, and refs focusing on ticky-tack things instead… I almost hope there’s a “voice of the watchers” kind of reviewer put in place, someone who says, “Look, a four-year-old can see that. Throw the flag,” or “If you’re going to call THAT, you’re going to have to call THIS, too,” or even “If you’re NOT going to call that, you shouldn’t be calling this.”
  • I’ve done no music of any kind for a while now. This is getting distressing, and I need to change it.
  • Speaking of: limited time offer from Humble Bundle: Computer Music Books from MIT Press.

Flit, Trump’s Address on 19 Jan, Elite: Dangerous

Things that are crossing my path lately:

  • Flit, in context of “Python Packages and You.” Python packaging is not a strength of mine.
  • I hate to say it, but the Democrats’ rejection of Trump’s offer to open negotiations about the government now look kinda stupid, based on their oppositions. They’re saying that a three year suspension of some of the deportations and other such hot-button issues … basically, getting the things they wanted was not enough. They’re idiots. Sure, he is one, too… but the whole three year delay for the application of law gives Congress three years to fix the law, which is what Trump said they should do when he said he was going to resume deportations in the first place! In other words, from me to them: Congress, do your flippin’ jobs. If Congress wasn’t relying on executive power to do what Congress was meant to do, a lot of this mess would have gone away, but they keep digging in their heels and saying “no.”
  • The worst thing about Elite: Dangerous is how long it takes to get into a gaming session. The best thing about Elite:Dangerous is “pretty much everything else.”
  • I just realized I can select a region in WordPress’ editor, and then paste a URL – and the region is converted to an HTTP anchor automagically. Now that is useful.
  • Few things are both more and less amusing than watching someone stomp about, screaming “I am not a prima donna!”

DuOS-M: Android on Windows 8.1

One of my sons recently got me invested in Ice Cold Muffin‘s ICE, a game in which you try to take over bases in a simple directed graph. It’s a lot of fun, despite the extreme simplicity – maybe other game makers could benefit from noticing how simple games can be fun.

Anyway, while it’s fun to play on my phone, it’s a little small – most of the ICE ships end up being barely perceptible. That’s probably okay, really, because you don’t win bases with single ships – you overwhelm them with fleets. But it’d still be nice to have it on the Surface, because… well, just because.

Running Android games on Windows is possible, of course, because Android has a development kit for Windows. But you wouldn’t want to run the Android emulator as an actual runtime environment.

After noticing BlueStacks and reading some reviews about it, I decided to give AMI’s DuOS-M a try; it seemed to get rave reviews and looked very clean.

Sure enough, DuOS-M worked, and worked very well; it’s trivial to install Google Apps (it comes with the Amazon Store by default, but after initial installation it directs you to a page through which you can install the Play Store as well). From there, it felt like an actual (and giant) Android installation; it was fast and convenient.

It occurs to me that with DuOS might allow me to read all of my uploaded Amazon content on the Surface, via Android. I suppose I could use it as a way to migrate away from Amazon.

At any rate, DuOS-M is well done, from what I can tell so far; I’m glad I found it. ICE is also a great game, if you’re interested in such things, written by a kid who’s only 17 – well worth supporting, in my opinion.