On the way to a Hanukkah party, Drew and I invented a silly game. We took turns saying random-sounding things: "tree", "Gorbachev", "sawdust", "blue", "question mark", "cranberry", "stumble", etc. After a few rounds, we decided on a rule: what you say can't be associated with the what the other player just said. For example, "Gandalf" can't be followed by "the One Ring", and "speeding ticket" can't be followed by "asphalt".
Michael Mateas of Georgia Tech gave a colloquium talk about Office Plant #1 and Façade. Alex missed the talk.
Alex: What's Façade?
(Selene and Ryan explain the premise to Alex: A couple you knew in college has invited you over for drinks. Their marriage is about to fall apart, but your character doesn't know that when he/she arrives. The characters talk, and you communicate by typing in free-form English.)
Alex: Ok.
Ryan: It's 3D and it has an FPS perspective.
Alex: So there's a gun in front of you?
I've been addicted to the shareware version of Debris 32 for over a year. Debris 32 is like Asteroids: you pilot a ship and go around shooting large asteroids to break them apart and small asteroids to destroy them. Debris 32 adds mines, aggressive enemy ships, and power-ups.
It took me a month before I was able to beat the game on the hardest difficultly level, and I can still only beat it half of the time. The hardest levels are 4, which has a hard-to-destroy enemy base, and 6, which has crystals. Small crystals grow into large crystals if you don't destroy them quickly, and shooting a large crystal results in several small crystals.
The shareware version is addictive despite only having 10 levels. I don't know how to get the full version. The publisher (MVPsoft) no longer sells it and I don't know how to contact the author (David Bollinger).
Download Debris 32 shareware for Windows (4 MB)
Bigger screenshot:
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