Facebook -> Snake

...this got 1,300 "Like"s?  Wow!  Well, it was nice to reminisce about the Vic 20, I suppose... actually, the graphics in this game are probably better than the Vic 20.  I don't think the Vic 20 could handle such vibrant colors terribly well.

The Web -> Pac-Man Variation

Well, you know, if I had more time... anyway, this is from worldsbiggestpacman.com.  You can use Facebook to connect to it, BTW.  Alas, it's never one of the recommended games... you know, unlike those f... wonderful Pou games.  I swear the only reason I found this was because it's in a JavaScript textbook.

Friday, Dec. 9, 2022 - 9:43pm - It's STILL THERE!  That's worldsbiggestpacman.com.  Stop by and design a level today.  Maybe two!

Zune -> Hexic

That's right... I've got a Zune.  Of course, I don't use it to listen to the radio or anything cool like that, or to connect to hundreds of my fellow Zuners.  I've got the manual in deep storage someplace, so I can't figure it out.  But every once in a while, when I'm sitting there, trying to fall asleep at 3 in the morning, trying to not look back at the train wreck that is my life, studying the configuration that the various cars have made, and why I can't seem to move them... I'll turn to my Zune and either watch some videos I have on there (mostly non-porn now) or I will occasionally turn to the unfortunately short list of games.  I was playing the checkers for a while... oh, crap.  Now I KNOW I'm getting old.  Next thing you know, I'll be telling people "Okay, thank you!" all the time as I get ready to go back to the old folks' home.  But last night, I believe it was, I was fiddling around with the ol' Hexic again.  Yes, give that Pajitnov his due.  Even he couldn't replicate Tetris's success with such hasty follow-up fare like "Hat-tris."  Hah!  But his legacy seems to live on, if only for me, in such modern incarnations as your Candy Crushers, your Bejeweled Blitzes, what have you, and now your Hexices: a hexagonal switch-em game.

 But as with all Microsoft products, it ultimately falls upon the users to provide feedback to the programmers and to the finer minds who've chosen the Microsoft lifestyle on a more permanent, salaried basis, yet somehow manage to not find all the flaws that the poor suckers who actually use their products always manage to find.  Of course, games are odd birds, and their logic is far too complicated these days, even with seemingly simple fare like that fu... wonderful Farmville 1 and 2 and all its ilk.  But where they're part of a vibrant community, Hexic is in an all-but-forgotten backwater, and I'm certainly not expecting a patch any time soon... and if I do get one, well, then I'll know for sure that I'm of interest to the NSA and their ilk.  But I think I understand programmers of games, and that they can't be expected to anticipate all the permutations that can arise.  In this case, as you can sort of see from the circle in the lower image, I was on the last move in "Survival Mode," "Expert" level.  The algorithm missed that green combo there, and started the end-of-round tally when the every last move has been exhausted.  So, if anyone does want to look for that glitch, it'd be somewhere in there.  It does the tally, counting all the empty spaces and locking down all the free hexic tiles, then goes on to the next level.  But in this case, it couldn't go on to the next level, because, well, there's one combo that hasn't been processed!  And so, the game froze... hence, my ability to take a picture of the screen.  I had to let the battery run out, and start the whole thing all over again, which as a Zune user (...or a Zunatic?), I'm used to by now.  It happens.  Probably happens with video iPods, too, right?  ...RI-IGHT????!!!!!!!

What a Load of Crap

Well, once the world's sewer systems start backing up, and politicians everywhere start removing scoop laws from the books, I'll be very sorry indeed that I didn't get in on the ground floor of all these so-called "Pou" games, but I'm sorry.  I'm taking a stand.  I'm developing some arrogance on this one, and I'm not playing a game where my avatar looks like a smiling, white-eyed dog turd!  I don't care if it's a ripoff of Pet Rescue Saga, and I'm DEFINITELY not playing a "kissing game" with that thing in it.  I'm not kissing A DOG TURD!  I'm NOT DOING IT!  I don't care how cute it is, I don't care how much they're paying, I'm not doing it.

 ...okay, here's one where it looks more poop-like.  Get on board now, folks!  2,500 people are playing this game!  Nope, I'm sorry.  I'm still taking a stand, and putting my foot down... probably into a big pile of "pou."

Gubble (Anniversary Edition)

Just finished Rennigar, Falzigar and Plumaxia!  I almost gone Tropiso, but got interrupted.  Well... it is just 9pm on this slice of the planet.  Any real gamer worth their weight in zits plays at 2am or so.

Atari 2600 -> Super Breakout -> Progressive Level

I guess I haven't blogged about this before, but here goes.  Apparently no one on the web cares about this but me.  But I write about this now because I'm trying to extract some of the music from Super Breakout via YouTube, and these videos aren't as numerous as cute kitten videos.  Go figure.
Now, what usually happens when you've played the Progressive level (Atari 2600, Super Breakout, that is) for any considerable length of time, you'll eventually find yourself almost hopelessly surrounded by a virtual forest of bright green bricks.  Well, gotta eat your vegetables sometime!  Some nice broccoli stalks clean out the ol'... anyway, these bricks are worth one point apiece... but every once in a while, you hit a green brick that makes the game GO COMPLETELY CRAZY!  The ball speeds up, and you start earning hella points... crazy mad points?  This doesn't happen all the time, and not very often at that, but it's happened enough to consider it an easter egg.  What I think happens is this: a brick is chosen at random to make the phenomenon happen.  And what happens is, instead of adding a one to the point accumulator... which, in Super Breakout, as you should know, if it's full of points to be accounted for, the game takes rather a long time to count them out, but provides some nice musical accompaniment while doing so.  Now, for all you computer nerds out there, the Atari 400, 800 and 1200, and a couple others like 800XL or 600XL that we really don't care that much about... they were 8-bit computers, which means they mostly processed integers from 0 to 255.  So I think what happens is, you hit the magic brick, and the point accumulator gets subtracted by one, thereby making it 255.  And of course, if you've got more than about 32 points in the point accumulator, they get counted down by 4 instead of by 1.  And of course, when the brick is hit and the ball speeds up, usually what happens in that panic and frenzy is that I QUICKLY MISS THE FREAKING BALL!!!  But that's that tightrope you walk in Progressive Atari 2600 Super Breakout, as you go for the juicier bricks worth more points.  You don't want to destroy them all at once, because you want some bricks to react with when the next wall comes; at least, until you make a hole big enough to get the ball through to bounce off the ceiling.
But that's a video game fanatic for you.  You build these games right, you'll get bloggers gushing about them 35-40 years after their creation date!  Dayamn... All this Farmville crap's a mere flash in the pan, I tells ya.  Unless, of course, they're investing well.  Then it's here to stay.

MAME -> Gauntlet 1

Boy!  And I thought I was the fanatic!  1000 LEVELS?  Even Pac-Man is apparently not infinite!  I can think of a few games I'd want to play forever, but somehow Gauntlet was never one of them.  I guess it was because all the cool kids played Gauntlet in groups of four... at least, until they got bored.  Then they went back to punching nerds in the stomach.  Of course, I was always seeking justice for "Dandy" creator Palevich.  Don't know why, really; he didn't give a crap about me.  Anyway, this is a place for me to store all my brain farts about my Gauntlet adventure.  First brain fart: love that countdown in the Treasure Room.  "4,5,6... just kidding!"  Damn, those Atari people were good.

8/3/'15 - Welp, I tell you one thing I noticed right away.  There's a couple of levels that sure seem to get repeated a lot... especially that great one where you can see the exit, and there's a Death locked behind a door next to it, and a ham or a turkey.  That's what's so insane about Gauntlet.  It's a game for four players, yet it's full of narrow hallways where you have to go single file, so you have to vary who takes the brunt of everything all the time.  Also, they always seem to put the shootable food behind the enemy generators.  Cute!

 420..... heh heh heh!!!!!!

Boy, I tell ya... this level must've been some kind of huge achievement or something.  It sure seems to pop up a hell of a lot!  Five variations or so!  One for each pathway.  Perfect for four players, of course...

....I can't even remember now.  Not terribly devilish; it was probably a repeat.  Not like that Candy Crush level 666!  Talk about Satanic!

...okay!  This is what it's all about!  All that hard work.............................

...and there you have it!  Much like how on level 1, you can skip ahead to level 8, so too do you skip ahead to 1008 from 999.  Well, they gotta give you something!  Not quite as dramatic as the jump from 50 to 70 in Bubble Bobble... then again, I thought the levels in Bubble Bobble were their own reward!  Go figure.

Facebook -> Tetriex

What can me say?  Me want to try new things.  So I tried clicking on the link to what some have described as the best Tetris clone... and by some, I mean the makers of Tetriex.
So I was well on my way to trying the greatest Tetris clone ever.  Then I had to give permission to use my Facebook friend list.  I confess; I picked "Not now."  Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I picked "Not now."
Then I had to give permission to post to my feed.  I was given a choice of who could see these posts.  I relented and tried "Only me."  I selected the one that wasn't the "Not Now" button... I think it said "Okay."
Then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
One of those spinny circles came up again.  And again.  And again.
So then I closed the whole window, because I thought that Tetriex had gotten my Facebook password.  Apparently they hadn't yet.  Did I tell you about the time I gave my Facebook password to a malware site?  It was so stupid.  It was a site promising to give me 20 million Zynga Poker chips.  At the last millisecond I thought "...wait a minute.  This is a mistake, right?"  And sure enough, rather than getting 20 million poker chips, it stole all of mine.  Guess I'm a member of the wealthy elite after all!  Go figure!
So, to sum up... Tetriex is the best Tetris clone ever!  And you heard it here as well.  Now time to get back to Tetris Battle.  I'm only about 900 battles away from the next level!  Gotta keep going.