Daring EA
I just noticed that EA – a game publisher that is mostly known for popular, unoriginal and mediocre game – was responsible for Spore, Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space in 2008.
I like the idea of the first two and the implementation of the third (although I’ve yet to play any of them in any meaningful volume) and I may have to revise my previously held views about EA.
Since these are not received particularly well by the general populace, if they continue to produce innovative games in 2009, I will respect them!
Yay! My first rating!
And, I can’t vote for my own posts/comments but if I could, I would have given this post a 4 at most!
By the way, could you guys who actually humor me and my poor blog and read it do me a favor and rate my older posts too? At your own leisure, of course.
(What a waste of comments I commit!)
I’ve got a huge number of posts on my 360 blog. I recently wrote a dirty piece of python code and exported the whole thing with comments and everything into a wordpress blog. I didn’t tag my posts back then. When I finish tagging and categorizing all my previous posts I’ll start rating your entries here. And of course meanwhile you could also come and rate my blog, at your own leisure, of course! Now how about that
@MatGill:
A link would really be helpful! Some of us don’t have the knowledge of Google, you know.
man, it feels great to give your posts a one star!
It gives a strange feel of satisfaktion (d’oh, that “k” came from hours of Rammstein! you know!)
“I can do that” but I’m not a person who should comment “your” posts.
but again, its strange the urge of giving a one star!
I would love to give one star but that would decrease your overall blog rating which I have no idea is good or “bad”.
hint hint: it would be great to have an “one star” option too!
I’ll give your posts from start to the end with one star ratings, I will drag your rating down to hell, where I drive my bicycle, muwhahahah, srsly.
We will meet soon enough…
oh, now THAT’s scary.
My new blog is ready on the host. There are some complications with the domain at the moment (I’ve got no access to the settings). I’ll send the link as soon as my lazy friends update the dns for the domain.
BTW, it costs me 100 USD for a 2-year hosting package (everything unlimited). Is that the right fee? Or was I scammed? It’s on hostupon.
Meanwhile, check this out:
http://beatthepuzzle.info
yay, I solved it!
@MatGill(10):
Went there, solved less than half, got depressed, came back.
Fsck! How do you extract the pre-stored thumbnail from a JPEG?! I’d hate it if I need Photoshop for that, or for the steganography job (IIMNM!)
@yzt(12):
RTFA man! Read the fracking article!
@yzt: get the thumbnail easily! use python! 3 lines of code.
by the way, some feedback is really appreciated.
oh i forgot, don’t get depressed. the other guy who finished them all spent 3 month on them (and got a little bit of help from me).
At first I got just solved the entry one and none of the actual puzzles, but then I saw you solved half of them (and go knows how you solved “4.5″ of them!) and got motivated to go solve the rest, so I did three of them.
But honestly, asiding the fact that having such thing as a site is cool, puzzles are designed bad and I’m judging by the three ones that I solved, they could’ve be more entertaining and more hintful at the places that you wanted to reveal hint, it seemed something that you and your friends know about or somethin.
At first it really amazed me but when I see you assuming me know Python, that was not fair, its ok to assume good knowledge of google and Wikipedia, which I have, or that Pi puzzle which you could solve by following several methods but such those assumptions? not me.
Any by the way, I’m very doubtful that yaser got depressed by puzzle’s difficulties, if not their boredom.
tnx for the feedback.
well, you don’t need to know python, but you should be able to solve the types of problem that yaser mentioned, using any tool you wish. it’s just that EVERYTHING is easier with python.
when i was making this, i had my own self in mind, and no one else. so this is perfect for my clones, only! in a way, it is _meant_ to be clueless, boring and difficult to others. not that i see myself “geeker” or anything. but i have come to know that different people respond to different types of clues.
in any case, i strongly doubt it that my friends and i have some special common knowledge that makes it easier to them. in fact i don’t know most of the players at all. apart form the guy who finished them all, all others did it all on their own. the only hints they used are the general hints on the site and those in the problems.
oh, i forgot, the coolest ones are the most difficult ones. personally i would have gone naked and shouted eureka in the street (if it wasn’t -20 outside
and) if i did the last one myself.
last but not least, it is _really_ difficult to design good puzzles. i’m getting better at this little by little and feedbacks help with that.
I’m agree with the part that designing good puzzles are hard (and as a bigger picture, designing good games) but I don’t feel challanged to solve the rest, like I don’t say any possibility to solve them and thats why I won’t even bother for the rest, but I don’t lie, I will check newer ones, if any exists.
@MatGill(9):
I’d say that’s a good price. If it includes a domain name and SSH access then it’s a rather sweet deal.
BTW, “beatthepuzzle.info” is down (or I can’t access it) since 6-7 hours ago.
@MatGill(14):
I got it rather easily once I realized you were not limited in the type of data that you can put where you stored it! I got it out using an editor! Kudos to you for that.
But what the hell is wrong with me that I can’t understand what the extracted message means?!
@MatGill:
I don’t think the puzzles are boring. However, I do think you need some medium puzzles! I solved the ones I’ve solved in a few minutes each, and I couldn’t solve any more in a few hours.
But, I must add that a “medium” puzzle is different to each person with her own unique mindset, so you probably just need more puzzles. Some of them will inadvertently be medium to some people.
@yzt(21): I don’t see it down here. I think i checked it out 4 hours ago. Kind of unusual.
yes it does include a free domain for life, ssh and unlimited everything. it also allows unlimited addon domains (beatthepuzzle.info)
@yzt(22):
Isn’t it amazing that you could get it out by simply changing the extension of the file to the appropriate one?
It needs a few more levels of research to find the solution. The only criteria that I kept in mind while designing those puzzles was to make sure that once you are on the right track, you know you are.
@yzt(23): It is quite amazing, and puzzling to some extend, that different people finish different puzzles with drastically different effort. Some of those that you solved took much longer for others while they finished those you didn’t quite fast. I think having tons of puzzles in the ultimate solution. Yet i’m a bit out of shape for that right now.
@MatGill(24)->yzt(22): I think thats because each of our minds is trained in a different, if not unique, way. each of us had a different childhood and went to different schools and had different events in our lives and that affects brain.
Oh brain, …, a mysterious box.
Maybe its a good start to hate EA again:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080403-another-blow-for-pc-gaming-ea-drops-pc-version-of-madden-09.html