kometbomb

Programming and stuff.

Author Archives: kometbomb

10 Apr

ROM CHECK FAIL

News: Farbs interview added


Thanks to whoever uploaded this video — ROM CHECK FAIL is a bitch to capture

ROM CHECK FAIL is quite possibly the most original game I have seen in a while. That’s saying a lot considering the game is a mishmash of classic arcade and video games. The main idea is that, for example, at one moment you are playing Zelda and after a few seconds the game randomly switches to Super Mario Bros. Or Asteroids. Or Spy Hunter. While you might still be Link or the tank from Space Invaders.

While the game is ruthless in that there are impossible situations (imagine the invaders from Space Invaders suddenly turning into Goombas which of course fall down on you), it is constantly amusing in its insanity. It’s like trying to play a failed download of Wario Ware, Inc. ROM CHECK FAIL is one of the few instances of art games that deliver.

I also found the game really funny in that after playing it for about ten seconds, you immediately realize how much potential crossovers have. After you have battled against the balloons from Pang as Pac-Man, playing Alien vs. Predator or the likes won’t really impress much.

Links

01 Apr

Get your act together, Mozilla

dailyApps writes:

Mozilla has finally lifted the curtains off Mozilla Addons that has a completely has a shiny new look and is simply amazing at the first sight
[…]
What do you think about the new Mozilla Addons site?

Frankly, I think it sucks.

I had to reinstall Firefox and when trying to download all the old addons I used to have, the dreaded addons site stopped the process instantly. First, I had to create a user for a site I have used for years with great ease.

Usually, I wouldn’t even think twice about that but I don’t have the Bugmenot addon installed because I have to log in the site first to download it. I went ahead and saw the trouble of typing in the information and checking my mail for a confirmation email and so on.

I found an addon I need and click the install button on the page, which has to this point been a two-or-three-click deal. Next thing I see is a completely nonsensical and technical error message (one with an error code with no explanation — on top of it all it was a negative number). I had to right click and save the XPI package on the disk in order to realize it’s actually a web page explaining the error I encountered.

The add-on you’re looking for is in the sandbox, which you do not have enabled in your user preferences.

Guess where the option is? Not anywhere near the user preferences. In fact, I can’t find it anywhere. And, I don’t really feel like reading through a forum or a well-hidden FAQ.

If a dedicated Firefox user like me can barely find enough energy to fight through the mess that the new site is, how can they assure the common surfer that addons aren’t that big of a hassle? Sure, the new site might be somewhat safer and somewhat less threatening to the normal visitor but that doesn’t mean it has to be an annoyance for everyone else. Also, I don’t care if this is just a temporary quirk.

At least Firefox 3.0 seems quite promising. Though, I can’t really agree with all of the thousands of blogs that are completely flabbergasted of the fact the next shipped release actually works. Or, that the bookmarking system doesn’t suck balls as much as the current thing.

I think the new user interface has some clever realizations. For example, the two drop down menus that are usually located next to the forward and back buttons have been combined into one menu. It simply has items above (forward in time) and below (backward in time) the current page that is highlighted in the middle. I also think the “Smart Bookmarks” (something that remembers the most visited pages) are a good idea, the most visited pages generally are the same pages as the pages in your bookmarks.

However, I think 3.0 also has some mistakes in the new features. While it’s great you can search the browser history simply by typing in words in the location bar, I think it’s not that clever that it’s always the page title that is the largest part of the results — I bet most users are very used to seeing addresses in there since it’s originally the address bar.

Also, there still is an annoyance I have wished didn’t exist since version 1.0. You can try it yourself: go to e.g. Google, move your mouse just a bit below the query field and type in the beginning of a query. Now, since Firefox remembers earlier form data it will show a drop down list of earlier searches. The catch is that since the mouse hovers over the drop down list, pressing enter will not submit the form but select the item that the mouse is hovering over. Not fatal but it can very annoying (everyone has to agree to some extent, any lost data is at least just a bit annoying).

Anyway, Mr. Mozilla, call me when you have removed the silly stuff from the addon site. Kthx.

30 Mar

Stupid Computer Ramblings (and Ikaruga)

It only occured to me yesterday that there’s a clear benefit in that I bought a new LCD screen a while ago. I leaned on the screen and realized the screen of course rotates 90 degrees flipping the vertical and horizontal axes.

Well, this is nothing new and I knew that was popular back in the days when screens were so small that there was a bona-fide benefit in a tilted screen: you could fit a preview of a A4 document on the screen with realistic dimensions.

I don’t do design work on my computer. But, for me realizing that old feature was a revelation: it allows playing vertically scrolling shmups properly. I it never occured to me that you could do that even though I knew some people simply tilted their TV sets on their sides (which could be harmful).

Long story short, I can be stupid and most importantly: Ikaruga kicks rear. It’s barely playable on Chankast (the better Sega Dreamcast emulator out there, which is not saying a lot) but the game is so awesome that who cares. It’s quite hard in any case, some invisible sprites hardly make it any harder.

Everyone and their mother knows Ikaruga is the best thing out there etc. but it also occured to me just yesterday only four people are responsible of creating it. Similarly, the game is only about 20 megabytes in size and even the game mechanics are very simple even for a late 1980s shmup (no power-ups whatsoever). It’s somehow very reassuring for the bedroom game maker. It’s a real shame the game isn’t available on the PC (it should be available for that Xbox Live Arcade thing this April — maybe that gives hope it could eventually find its way to the remaining few).

28 Mar

Playstation 3 vs. Atari VCS

More demoscene stuff: a very recent PS3 demo (a real-time animation for you not in the know) and a very recent Atari VCS demo. The Atari VCS (redubbed Atari 2600) was pretty much the first game console for the masses and it was released in 1977. The Playstation 3 was released in 2006.


Atari VCS

Sony Playstation 3

Linger In Shadows by Plastic is the first home brew production I have seen for Playstation 3. You can also download a high quality version of the Youtube video shown below.

Next, a demo (or intro, since most VCS demos are so tiny) by Simon Quernhorst called 4K4U. The author has announced that he’ll be selling cartridges of this later. In the mean time, you can download the rom for your emulator over here. A good VCS emulator would be Stella.

Again, I merely found the videos so a big thank you to the people who saw the trouble uploading the videos (it’s surprisingly hard to find a good screen capture tool as opposed to commercial crud!).