LittleBear
says: Yes, but in the morning I'll be sober.
I wish I could say a little more about the game Blossom, other than I like the use of Haida Indian style art in the game. That and the gameplay needs some more work. Graphically the style speaks for itself, nicely minimalistic. The game has promise, the use of colour being released as the game plays on is nice, kind of like Okami. It is what it is though, a school project and a large download. Keep it up though, there’s obvious talent in the work.
There are a few reasons I spent some time the last couple of days working on a splash-screen animation: I’ll have something for downloading, I’ll have something to work on that’s very defined, and I tend to lose focus and jump around a bit. The really good reason is having something to offer as a download. It allows me to work out packaging the game as a Java Webstart application. I’m going to use an Ant task that checks class dependency and builds the jars accordingly. A little work up-front should save a lot later on. Plus it’s a start to a portfolio… wherever that might lead.
I just finished Iron Council, by China Miéville. This is his third book set in the New Crobuzon universe and continues in his tradition of The New Weird.
At some level I feel that China Miéville is writing books using all the classic industrial appendages of Dickensian London. He’s written about the city itself, of sea-faring boats with pirates, and now he’s written about a massive train. I cannot imagine what the next book will involve, but I doubt I’ll be disappointed.
The Iron Council is in fact the diverse group of people in control of a New Crobuzon steam engine. The group is made up of a variety of the aliens present as well as prostitutes, criminals and the remade. They essentially hijack the train and proceed to travel across the continent with a city infrastructure in tow, laying track down in front that has been pulled up from behind. The council represents hope: hope for the downtrodden working class, hope for the hideously deformed and manipulated remade, and hope for the prostitutes (generally women) as victims of their position. It is in fact the prostitutes who start the revolution that leaves the train in the hands of the council.
There are plenty of creative ideas introduced. In fact ideas worthy of stories themselves are now merely historical references in the history being created. Not many authors would relegate an idea such as the revolt of steam-driven analytic machines with emergent AI as a footnote but China Miéville does. He can get away with it due to his myriad of other concepts: thaumaturgical golems play a large role, as do an incredible array of new creatures. The man has an amazing imagination.
This is perhaps the most political of China Miéville’s books, focussing on the revolution of the council and the inspiration that provides for the New Crobuzon citizenry as well. The book still has plenty of action and intrigue and comes highly recommended.
books china miéville steam punkAny game that can remind me of the Dreamcast classic Rez is alright in my books. And since I’ve already mentioned Sketch Wars I would be remiss if I did not also bring Synchro to your attention. A simple idea, jump around from block to block in time with some catchy electronic music. It works better than the author, Pere Alsina, gives himself credit for.
A short update on this game, reviewed earlier here. I am really starting to like it. Once the patterns are memorized the player has a chance to quickly power-up and the required multiple hits per enemy is less painful. I’ve made it to 3 different levels so far and the variety is great in both the levels themselves and the boss design. I’m getting used to my Sony Ericsson S710a‘s interface and I’m quite happy overall to play this for a few minutes when I need a break.
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William R. Swaney. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
License. 
