My Life in Games 1: Little Computer People (1987)

Seb was trying to get me to work out my Top 20 video games of all time, and I narrowed it down to 20... but it was too hard to put them into order.  So I cheated, and put them into chronological order.  But then I thought that was actually quite interesting.  It's like my life, told via the games I was playing.  So here we go.  

Though our first computer at home was a Spectrum, my gamer memories really begin with our Amiga.  The first game on this list is "Little Computer People", which was released in 1987.  Some would say it is not a game at all, but I'd say it's a game as much as "The Sims" is.  

"House on a Disk"

The premise of this game is that there is a Little Computer Person in your computer.  You buy this "House on a Disk", put it into your computer, and it lures the LCP out of hiding.  He moves into the "House on a Disk"!  This is all badged as some kind of research project, and you're encouraged to make notes to send back to the developers.

Excerpt from the manual

The LCP has a 'unique' name, and whatever you do you're only going to get that LCP with that disk.  (Apparently if you bought the "House on a Disk" again you might be able to lure another LCP out.)  My LCP was called Terence.

When your LCP arrives, he spends a while looking around and getting settled in.  Once he's living in the "House on a Disk", you can use commands to make certain things happen (food deliveries, fill up water tank, ring the alarm clock, deliver dog food, make the phone ring, send him a book or record, or "pet" him).  You send him food deliveries, fill up his water cooler, make sure he has everything he needs.  Make sure his physical and mental needs are met.  

The LCP in his home

You can suggest to him (by typing simple commands) that he do certain activities, for instance 'please type a letter to me', or 'please dance'.  (He appreciates politeness, so remember the pleases and thank yous.)  And you can play games with him.  There are five games: anagrams, war, poker, blackjack and word puzzles.  He's a pretty good opponent!  I spent some happy hours playing games with the little guy sitting at his kitchen table.

Playing Blackjack

Sometimes you just watch him going about his life.  Maybe he'll play practice the organ.  Maybe he'll watch TV.  Maybe he'll play one of his records.  He'll brush his teeth and do star jumps to take care of himself.  And he has that dog to look after, too.

I loved playing this.  It was just such a happy game.  The terrible thing is that it scarred me for life, and I don't really understand what happened.  One day Terence walked out of his front door and... he never returned.  I didn't even know that was a thing.  I had looked after him as well as I could - why did he leave?  And was that even supposed to happen?!  I have no idea.  It wasn't like you could just google it at the time to see if that had happened to other people...

So there you have it.  The terrible tale of the disappearing LCP.  I just hope his dog was ok after he walked out on us...

Thanks to Abandonware LCP longplay - I took the screen captures from their video.  :-)

Shady Oaks update no. 9

Most people haven't been posting videos, so I hadn't been writing up the ones that HAD been put online.  Terribly slack, I know...  But now I have now gone through four SB videos, three Thnxcya/James, one Cupquake one one new video from Dan (though it's very behind story-wise!).  The updated synopsis document is here!

Dan has just got up to Think trying to find the netherite pick with the compass.  Thnxcya/James, Cupquake and SB are all post-Thinknoodles in the storyline, so their videos are now covering the time period following the reading of his will and the destruction of Kraken's Hollow.

There have been a LOT of pranks...

Lots of horses at TDM Towers

Button prank at Honey Co Farms

I presume Squid is still going to post some videos, but I don't know if Ecko has any plans to.  Which would be a shame, I'd like to see what has happened from his point of view.  His huge Eckoville settlement with courthouse is very impressive.

Shady Oaks update no. 8

I have finally added a bunch of Thnxcya and Cupquake videos to the summary, as well as one Squiddy vid.  I have also swapped out Think for SB, a new member on the SMP.  I'd like to try and use the five YouTubers providing the most SMP data, so this might not be the only change I make!  CaptainSparkles has joined now as well.  Oooh.  Updated document is here.

The big event this time was the long awaited horse race.    There was danger (fire, cacti, jumps!) and controversy (did Think or Thnx win round 10?).  Also a slightly confusing setup to the whole competition.  But it was pretty epic.  :-)

Diagram to illustrate progress to the final!

SB, despite being a newcomer to the SMP, emerged victorious!  The after party took place in Cupquake's now finished Speakeasy, The Shady Pickle.

SB on the winner's podium

Shady Oaks update no. 7

Just added some Dan and Squid stuff this time, they are way behind Thnxcya and Cupquake (who have also posted some videos - I will add theirs soon!)  Updated document is here.

The possession of Squid by Kindness has been covered by both Dan and Squid now, and Squid's done some time consuming and frankly pointless activities - attempting to build a blaze farm and find a trident!  (Neither of these things ended well...)

Squid is crying...

Shady Oaks update no. 6

Squid uploaded three videos all of a sudden - possibly an accident since he uploaded #13 first then had to upload #11 and #12!  Lots of big events covered here - much added to the "Curse of Kindness" lore, also lots of horsey fun with "who has the fastest horse" and building the racetrack!  Lots of stuff not covered in Dan, Thnx, Cupquake or Ecko's videos.  :-)  Updated SMP summary doc is here.

Think hears the voice of Kindness!

Shady Oaks update no. 5

Updates in this version of the Shady Oaks summary document include videos by Thnxcya, Cupquake, Think and Ecko.  It seems that things aren't entirely in chronological order in some of these, which is messing with my head a bit!  And Think's making videos of things that happened ages ago...  But I am attempting to pull it all together.  ;-)

There's quite a bit of action involving Think's house, which is a copy of the house in "Up" (relevant of course because the retirement home in that film is called Shady Oaks).  Amusingly, Think builds this house from concrete powder, which is not the best building material.  Apart from obvious issues with it, there's also the danger of Squid turning it into actual concrete a lot as he pours water on it...

Think's House

James is fixing it in the above picture following one episode of Squid destruction...  

House definitely needs more balloons!

Also "Up" related, we learn that Dan doesn't like talking dogs.  Interesting...

Shady Oaks update no. 4

Dan finally uploaded, so here is my updated SMP document!  

It's the big one - Dan takes on the "restricted section" quest, to kill the owner of the netherite sword Kindness...

Death of ThynxCya...

I removed Yammy from the document (sorry Yammy) and added Think's two videos.  :-)

With great sword comes great responsibility!!

Shady Oaks update no. 3

I made my ridiculous document A3 (have added Ecko and Yammy, but might not keep them both, waiting to see who makes lots of useful videos!).  Also I made a special Shady Oaks page on the blog, and a "permanent" URL for the file.  

The file is basically a PDF version of what I've done so far.  I'm fairly up to date though DanTDM is really holding things up!  So this is all subject to change, stuff further down the document will move as I get more info.  :-)

Stuff has been going on with the evil sword Kindness (think "The One Ring"), with Squid trying to get Dan to kill Thnx and get the sword for him, and Dan and James plotting to enchant it with "Curse of Vanishing".  (By the end of the document we know from James that he no longer has the sword, but I need Dan/Squid's version of events to really flesh it out...)

Will DanTDM accept the Corrupted Quest?

Thnx has made a working bee farm.  Cupquake has made a very pretty bakery.  Weirdest thing so far is probably the "Gallery of Squid".  Is it just me, or does aged Squid look like Jeremy Corbyn?  Thnx made this gallery by aging Squid's selfies and adding captions.  Absolute classic.  :-)

The Gallery of Squid

Shady Oaks part 2... (pages 5-6)

Well, I was pretty happy with the reaction I received from my first Shady Oaks post (understatement!!), so I've done some more work on it.  I will have to upload the PDF somewhere. 

(Ok, I think I've uploaded a version that works to an Amazon Bucket!!  CLICK HERE!!)

 If you care about this sort of thing, I've changed the way I did it a bit, so I will re-upload the images of previous ones (they should be the same data though, with a couple of corrections).

Googly eyes!

Spinning horses and googly eyes on skyscrapers, it's all happening...

Page 5

Page 6

I have done more than this, but I can't cross reference things until Dan posts another video!  After watching Squid's latest upload, let's just say THINGS JUST GOT REAL.  ;-)

Shady Oaks SMP!!! (pages 1-4)

iBallisticSquid had an idea, an idea to start a new SMP...  Seb and I are pretty excited about this.  (POG!!!)   

SMP means "Survival Multiplayer", so this is basically an online server for Minecraft.  The most famous SMP so far is probably Dream's.  Unlike Dream's, Shady Oaks is a "family friendly" SMP, as you'd expect from the YouTubers doing it.  

The thing that makes this fun for people who've been watching Minecraft on YouTube for years is it's populated by "OG Minecrafters" - or "Old School.  As such, the people in at the start are DanTDM, iBallisticSquid, ThnxCya and ThinkNoodles, also now joined by others like iHasCupquake and Bigbst4tz2.  Shady Oaks is a retirement community for OG Minecrafters!

They're putting some videos on YouTube, but also there's a LOT of streaming going on on Twitch.

The Rules

The main rules are no trading with villagers (to encourage spending in shops) and no crafting netherite armour or weapons.  There will only ever be one of each netherite object on the server, and these will eventually all turn up.  (The first to show was the netherite sword, "Kindness", for when you want to, er, kill someone with kindness.)

In my sad data-driven hobbyist way I started writing down everything that happened in different YouTubers' videos and seeing where they crossed over.  I don't know if I want to keep on with this, it takes a while (and the more YouTubers join the more videos will happen - not that everyone is making videos on their channels).  I coloured in the crossover bits.  :-)

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

I know this is pretty much illegible, I'll figure out a way to put a PDF online or something. 

(Ok, I think I've uploaded a version that works to an Amazon Bucket!!  CLICK HERE!!)

I might update things a bit more, since I have gone through pretty much all the YouTube videos uploaded so far.  (And I admit I have also watched Twitch streams of Squid and Dan - if you do this, bear in mind the YouTube stuff is substantially behind the streams!)

So far there have been lots of shenanigans, with Think being the excellent comedic relief.  There have been plenty of tense moments between Dan and Squid.  Shady Oaks is definitely the shadiest of oaks...

Hollow Knight and Undertale homemade Plushies!

What with Christmas and Covid things seem to have gone a bit crazy round here.  But now Christmas Day is over, I can finally post some of the plushies I made on here!  Seb wanted a lot of weird plushies that you can't really buy, so I started making them for him, and in the end I made a LOT of plushies.  He had a bin bag full of plushies (though a few were lovely official ones).  I ended up making plushies for friends too, so it certainly kept me busy.  

These are four of the plushies I made for Seb, all of which I had to make up since I didn't have patterns for them...

Gruz Mother

I do like this one, which was one of the first I made - she's just so big and squishy!  It has been suggested that I ought to make a Mark 2 with a zip so you can let all the baby gruzzers in her out... 

Nailmaster Sly

The other Hollow Knight plushie I made was Sly.  He turned out pretty well - it was hard to make his massive nail, but I made it as big as I could.  I expect I could have put something inside it to make it stronger.  Perhaps I will learn more about all this if I keep making plushies.

Annoying Dog

It's weirdly difficult to do square pixelly things in fleece plushie form, but this Undertale cutie turned out pretty well!  I printed him out to make the pattern, and also to use as a guide for cutting out the felt face details.

Gaster

This last one was weird.  I was instructed you had to be able to turn him upside down so his hands/shirt make another strange face.  So I copied him as best I could.  Not the best but Seb was happy with him!

I made a bunch of other things for people, Pokemon and Ghibli related, some of which I used patterns for (there are lots of great Pokemon patterns, many of which are free).  I think Seb has given me a new obsession!  

Also, I really hope I'm getting some serious mum points for all this.  ;-)

I have played Pocket Camp too much...

It finally happened, Level 200.  Not a day goes by without me logging in and performing pointless tasks for these animals...

Level 200, woo

I don't think I am the sort of person they want playing their game, mind you - I refuse to spend actual cash!  I will grind for my leaf tickets!

;-)

Ramble: Indie games are GREAT VALUE!

I had a few things bubbling around in my head that haven't come to anything, but this morning Seb and I were discussing something that's a relatively new phenomenon - the continual updating of games.  We were particularly thinking of Hollow Knight when we started talking, but it got me thinking.  

Remember the old days, when games were released on floppy disks and if they were full of bugs that was it?  No 'day of release' bug fixes.  No DLCs.  The game you paid for was the game you got.  And sometimes that was not a good game.  I particularly remember playing the much hyped Rise of the Robots on the CD32.  That was awful in so many ways...

But apart from the bug fix updates, and the paid for DLCs, these days so many indie developers keep releasing content for years after the game's official release.  I don't know how they can afford to keep doing this - are they attracting new players with the new updates?  Or are they just doing it because they love the game?  Whatever the reason, I've thought of a few games we play that have had significant updates in their lifetime.  Pay once for these and get so much more than you paid for.  In the case of Terraria we've had nine years of significant updates and additions!  What could be better value than that?

First game is the aforementioned Hollow Knight (PEGI-7), a metroidvania game where you have to save a beautiful bug kingdom from a mysterious infection.  This was released in 2017 and has had four major updates, as well as various bug fixes etc.: "Hidden Dreams", "Grimm Troupe", "Lifeblood" and "Godmaster" (released August 2018).  These DLCs go way beyond the initial Kickstarter goals and they were all FREE.  They introduced new areas such as The Hive, and new bosses like Grimm, and new challenge modes like the Pantheons, with the Absolute Radiance (new final boss).

Hollow Knight's last DLC, Godmaster

Second game is another one Seb has played A LOT - Terraria (PEGI-12), a game where you build, mine and defeat some awesome bosses.  This came out in 2011 and has just had its final update - "Rounding Out The Journey".   This has had lots of updates adding new enemies, bosses, biomes and items, and also seasonal events like the Frost Legion Christmas event and Pumpkin Moon Halloween event.  Terraria 1.2 added some major new features including The Crimson (an alternative to The Corruption, a sort of evil biome that spreads across your world in the late game).  1.4 added "Journey Mode", which is sort of a creative mode for the game, and as such a completely new way to play it.  It also added the Empress of Light, Seb's favourite boss.

Terraria's last update - Journey's End

Third game is Stardew Valley (PEGI-12), where you have to become an expert farmer while helping out townsfolk and finding someone to marry.  This was released in 2016 and I believe it's still being updated.  Most updates added things like items, buildings and character interactions, but 1.3.27 added multiplayer, letting you farm with a friend.  This was further enhanced in later updates, with 1.4.0 adding lots of things to the multiplayer experience, including a Four Corners farm map, meant for co-op play.  (This update was huge, with all sorts of crazy things - 181 shirts, 35 hats, even Dinosaur Mayonnaise!)

Stardew Valley's multiplayer update

Fourth game is Slime Rancher (PEGI-3), a game where you, erm, ranch slimes.  This came out in 2017 and again I believe it's still being updated.  Plenty of new content has appeared over the years, with "Ogden's Wild Update", "Mochi's Megabucks Update", "Viktor's Experimental Update", and "Wiggly Wonderland" Christmas events.  The updates have added all sorts of things - new areas, slimes, gadgets, quests...  If you've ever wanted to farm cute slimes and dress them in scuba gear, now you can.

Slime Rancher Pool Party update

Fifth game I'm going to mention is The Long Dark (PEGI-16), where you have to survive in the Canadian Great White North after a strange geomagnetic disaster  - I am on tenterhooks with this one!  The game was first released in 2017 though it has changed significantly since initial release.  (It began as a sandbox survival game in 2014.)  There are two aspects to this game - the survival mode, and the story mode.  They reworked the first two episodes and released a "Redux" update in December 2018, with dialogue re-recorded, missions changed, gameplay improvements - it made the story mode much better.

The Long Dark episode 3 - Crossroads Elegy

Episode 3 (Crossroads Elegy) arrived in October 2019.  We are still waiting for episode 4!  The survival mode updates include new maps, new items, events (such as one where you had to, erm, eat Canadian food).  This is a weird one, updates wise, since you pay for the game and then have to wait for them to finish it - there are supposed to be five episodes altogether.  I sincerely hope they make it to the fifth one, since the fourth has been delayed until next year (boo Covid).

Canadian delicacy, ketchup crisps

With some games, then, you have updates you never expected to happen, adding all sort of cool stuff to a game you were perfectly happy with in the first place.  For completionists this can be a bit of a nightmare, since the goalposts are constantly moving - Hollow Knight is now up to 112% completion if you're speedrunning it.  On the other hand, sometimes you can pay for a game and then wait years for the whole story to be released.  And there's always the worry something will happen and you'll never get to send how it all ended...

However you look at it, games like these are a wonderful thing.  It's fantastic to have dedicated teams of people who love their games and want to keep improving them.  It's definitely not something you get with big titles.  You might get some paid for DLCs.  Or in-game purchases to add stuff.  But you don't get the sheer quantity of free additional things that you do with these small 'indie' games.  

Support these guys, show them some love, they deserve it!

Ramble: Over analysing iconic video game characters!

And so, having looked at various things online, I have compiled a list of 25 iconic video game characters.  (But that is not the point of this, oh no, please read on!)  These are characters who have spawned franchises, numerous sequels, or films.  These are the characters that people think of when you tell them to name a video game character.  But if we look at these characters, what can we learn?  You probably never thought about it.  You probably don't care.  But I have thought about it.  And made graphs.  Lots of graphs...

My 25 video game characters, arranged into order of their origin year, with some other facts I shall be analysing in too much detail, are below...

I should say at this juncture I looked at a bunch of online lists to compile this, as well as asking the people in this house for their opinions.  Any list of characters is going to be contentious, but I'm basing this on how famous they are (do a lot of people know about them?), how many games have they been in, and whether they've had films made about them.  Finally, most of the characters are player characters, not NPCs.  (I reckon these things are all pretty good indicators of how 'iconic' they are.)

First things first, year of origin.  When we look at the graph, there are two obvious peaks in the data.

These peaks are in 1986/7 and 1996-1998 (oddly there are no characters from 1997!).  Looking at the data, these peaks coincide with the US release of the NES (in 1986), and the release of the PS1 (which was on sale worldwide by late 1995).  Perhaps, then, we can infer that the most iconic video game characters come from these two systems - the NES and the PS1. (Indeed, when you look at the figures, over a quarter of the characters do come from those two systems.)

Looking at the origin formats of the characters, Sony and Nintendo consoles are responsible for 60% of the characters.  And Nintendo are also the creators of two of the characters I've given the origin "arcade".  The Microsoft category here is the Xbox and anything that debuted on Windows, which bugs me a little, it doesn't seem quite right.  Still.  The only Xbox character on here is Master Chief (who I always misread as Master Chef).  Is he really the only iconic Xbox character?  I worry that I have biased the list by being a PS geek and not an Xbox geek.  (Feel free to tell me all the Xbox characters I should have included!)

So then I was thinking, "I wonder how many of these characters are female"?  You tend to think that perhaps female game characters are more common now than they used to be.  I mean, there are a few great characters around now who are female, like Aloy, and Ellie, but what about the 1980s?  Or even the 1990s?  In total, a whopping 81% of the characters are female...

The earliest female character on the list is Samus Aran in 1986.  The "biggest" female characters are probably Jill Valentine and, of course, Lara Croft.  In the end, all of these are pretty cool strong females.  Lara Croft did start out as a bit of an oddly proportioned pinup, but these days she's all dark and, er, more normally proportioned.  There could certainly be more female characters for us to play as, though.  Perhaps if I redo this in a few years some of the newer character (like Aloy) will have made it onto the list!

Some Lara Crofts

Ok, so this is a big one - number of games.  Now there are a few clear winners here.  As you might expect, perhaps, some of the earliest characters have the most games.  But the big winner, with over 200 game appearances, is Mario.  I mean, 200?!  The next highest are Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog with 50 games each.  Mario has won this by A LOT.  Part of me wonders what happens if you take all the games and try and create one consistent piece of Mario lore.  Princess Peach would get rescued A LOT.  It would be one very weird story.  

After those big hitters we have Lara Croft, Link, Pikachu and Ryu, with c.20 games each.  But I'm still reeling from the over 200 games that Mario has been in.  I mean, Nintendo have a Mario machine churning these things out.  Some years (2014 and 2015) 14 games featuring Mario came out.  14!!!  They really are making the most of their intellectual property...

Depending on how you count them, there are nearer 250 games than 200 that feature Mario.  Yikes!

The last thing I have made a graph for is to do with film appearances by characters.  Now I know Pikachu has been in plenty of Pokemon movies, but I'm only counting Detective Pikachu (as his live action debut where he was the star).  I'm sure some of the other characters have been in random things too, but I was going for big screen Hollywood movies.  I did count how many films they'd been in (Jill Valentine won by miles, with 6 films to Lara Croft's 3).  But then I thought it would be more entertaining to see who had the highest audience rating for their films on Rotten Tomatoes..!

Sonic's scary human teeth

And the winner is...  Sonic the Hedgehog, with a score of 93/100!  Considering all the initial stress over his freaky teeth it looks like the alterations made this a big success with the fans.  I'm guessing the nostalgia value of Sonic, that Mega Drive mascot, really drove the film's success.  The same nostalgia thing probably affected Detective Pikachu (79/100).  Though it can go either way, I suppose.  If fans feel betrayed by a terrible movie then the score would be way down low.  Like, well, Super Mario Bros.

Jill Valentine gets 55.3 for her six films, Lara Croft 48.7.  The lowest scorers here are Ryu (20), Max Payne (29) and Mario (29).  What can we take from this?  I wonder if studios are getting better at making movies based on games.  I hope it's not a coincidence that the two newest movies, Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog, are the highest scorers.

Kind of looking forward to various proposed video game movies. Especially Uncharted. Though not so sure about Tom Holland as Nathan Drake...  (I like him but I've always seen Drake as more of a Nathan Fillion.)

Oh, I did include Pixels here for Pac-Man.  I know it's not really about him.  But I kind of liked it...

That's pretty much it.  Those are my thoughts.  I guess if we have to crown a 'winner' here, the most iconic character is clearly Mario, with honourable mentions to Sonic, Pac-Man, Lara Croft and Pikachu.

Happy 35th Mario!

Part of me wants to now work out how many characters are 'human' and how many are 'non-human'.  I think it's about half and half.  Aaargh.  I need to stop this now.  Just press publish and walk away.  Ok, I really am going to stop thinking about this now.  Honest.  ;-)

Completionist Challenge, update: Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Game 5/10 then!  I know the point of the challenge was that I wasn't allowed to buy any new games until I'd completed 10 I already owned, but I have to admit I bought Spiritfarer with my birthday money.  Sorry (not sorry, it's good!).  But I have completed more games than I've blogged about.  I've just been terribly lax in writing about the challenge.  I've been lax about writing at all, in August, but that's because there's been a lot of demand for the PC from other parties.  I like having the proper desk and two screens to do things.  So... here I am.  

I finished the game!

I finished Assassin's Creed Odyssey (PEGI-18) back in March (see, very lax in writing about it!) and it's important in my PS gaming history for one reason in particular - it has provided me with my first Platinum trophy!  Considering I've been playing PS games since before trophies even existed, this is pretty terrible.  Maybe this was an easy game to "platinum".  It certainly didn't have any of the impossible ships/elephants or whatever that some of the other AC games had!

Woo my first platinum!!

I think I've played all the AC games apart from Unity; I've even played Liberation on the PS Vita.  I did not enjoy Odyssey as much as Origins.  It was kind of amazing running around in Egypt, not so much running around Greece (it felt very similar to Origins, but somehow something was missing).  The Ancient Greek setting provided lots of opportunities to involve "historical characters", like Plato and Pythagoras.  Plus who doesn't love Spartans?  And it was cool to play as a woman.  (You can be Kassandra or Alexios.)

It's a weird one for the franchise since Kassandra isn't actually an Assassin.  Odyssey is set in 431-422 BC, Origins is set in 49-44 BC.  The first incarnation of the Assassins are the "Hidden Ones", set up by Bayek and Aya in Origins.  So this is an Assassin's Creed game that isn't actually about Assassins.  It's 400 years before the Assassins even existed.  Strange but true.

The worlds in these games are increasingly amazing, but there are things that break the spell.  I mean, just try and follow someone for a quest and things get silly very quickly.  You're there carefully trying to move through all the people inhabiting the world and the person you're following is just elbowing their way through everyone.  And virtually every time I tried to save someone from attackers/animals I ended up killing them.  Which was annoying.

One thing that was insane was your ability to jump off of anything and not kill yourself.  I mean, you could literally jump from any height and you'd be ok.  I know they were kind of saying you were some godlike mystical being, but still.  It was a bit daft.  

As always I didn't entirely understand what was happening, and the modern day stuff was as pointless as ever (is there anyone who ends up in those bits NOT thinking "I want to be back in the Animus"?).  But it was fun.  I just can't resist Assassin's Creed games.  With their ridiculous collecting.  And jumping around on top of buildings.  It feels like the "stealth" aspect of the games has disappeared; we're left instead with the overpowered killing of thousands.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't know. 

My rarest trophy (apart from the platinum)

That's it for game 5/10 then.  I will have to get on with blogging more.  I like blogging, and I only do it for me (hardly any posts get many readers after all).  But it's hard to get motivated sometimes.  

Must try harder...

Game Review: I Love Hue

So I was lying on my bed waiting for Seb to fall asleep, and I started browsing the Play Store to see if I could find a nice, preferably free, game to try.  And I stumbled across this...  I Love Hue (PEGI-3).  This is a mobile game, then, and we've all played it on our increasingly ageing Samsung Galaxy S7's (Edge and Not Edge).  I should say it is also available on Apple devices, and it's free on both.  (You can get rid of the ads by purchasing a Prism pack, the cheapest of which is £1.79 on Android and £1.99 on Apple.)

I Love You, I mean, I Love Hue

I have admit I do like the punnishness of the name.  Hehe.

This isn't a new game (it came out in 2017).  There's an I Love Hue Too now (released Valentine's Day this year - good work there!), which I haven't tried, but it's hard to see how it could do much to improve on this initial version of the concept.

Anyway, on to the game.  I thought it looked like an interesting puzzle game, and indeed it is.  It certainly tests your ability to recognise different shades of colours.  It's hard to explain, other than to say you have to rearrange squares of colour so they run seamlessly from fixed squares of different colours/shades.  It's easier to show you than to explain in words.  

From left to right: gradually those colours fall into place!

In the picture above, the four corner squares are anchored in place (the ones with the dots), so you have to rearrange the colours between those fixed points.

It's so weird.  You start off and you see the colours and think "I have no idea where to start with this!", then you start shuffling them round, and you get to a point where it just clicks.  It all comes together.  And your brain goes "Yay!" with a happy feeling.  And the game generally calls you an iridescent moonbeam or something, for being brilliant.

It's relaxing, it's simple, but it takes some thought.  It's a real feel good game.  I was playing it without worrying about my 'score', but Dad was playing it trying to beat the world average.  So perhaps that made it less relaxing for him, introducing an element of competition.  He did say it 'got too hard', which probably means he was finding it hard to beat the other people, as opposed to not being able to complete levels...

Admittedly it's not a game you'd spend hours playing in one sitting, but it's good for those little gaps when you just want something nice and calm.  (And at the moment in the world, I bet lots of you would like a little bit of calm.)  

I've only done 44 levels, and there are apparently over 900 in total.  It's hard to envisage many people getting all 900 levels completed.  The game isn't exactly varied enough to warrant that.  It's a bit like Sudoku in that you could probably cycle through the same few puzzles and you'd never know.  Unless you have some kind of super brain.  Ultimate memory champion.

Definitely recommend this, then.  It lets you play through the first bunch of levels without ads, but after that it plays an ad after you've solved every puzzle.  The pace of the game means this isn't as annoying as it could be, but still, 30 seconds of random ad every time you complete a level is a bit annoying.  Almost makes me want to pay to get a Prism pack so I can get rid of them.  But, hmm, maybe not.

The Prism packs, incidentally, are needed if you play loads.  Every level costs Prisms to play, and you only get a certain amount of Prisms per day when you log into the game.  If you played it a lot, you would run out.  But I have not played it enough to run out.  Maybe I'm getting old, but after a couple of levels it seems a bit hard on the old peepers.  Poor eyes, having to do all that hard work differentiating between very subtle shades of the same colour...

I'm a bright shining rainbow!

YouTuber Review: Mumbo Jumbo

Recently we started watching a YouTuber who's new to us. What with the new Nether update there's been a bit of a resurgence in Minecraft, and this guy is a brilliant Minecraft YouTuber.  Particularly if you like crazy (but amazing!) redstone builds.  

I'm talking about... Mumbo Jumbo!

At this point I should explain what redstone is, I suppose, just in case you don't know.  It basically lets you create circuits in Minecraft to perform various tasks, such as move pistons, or power minecart rails.  There are special blocks that help create complex machines, such as comparators, and repeaters.  Seb and I only have only done the simplest things with redstone - I am very proud of my trash incinerator, though I copied it from a tutorial and don't completely understand it - and Mumbo is an inspiration to learn more.

Mumbo is completely clean, no swearing, and entirely appropriate for kids of all ages.  (Including 40 year old big kids like me who still love Minecraft!!)  Plus he has friends who are equally ok, like Grian.

Some facts then.  Mumbo's real name is Oli (Oliver Brotherhood) and he is 24.  He's British (hooray, another British YouTube sensation!) and lives in Hampshire.  As of 20th July 2020 his channel has 6.24m subscribers and 1,810,823,022 views.

His top video is 1 minute 46 seconds long and features him going through 20 doors in 100 seconds.  I can only assume this is a sequel to another popular door-related video, since it is called "20 More Doors in 100 Seconds".  It has way more views than any of his other videos - 64m, with the next most popular having (only!) 18m...

I also like that the top comment on this video is as follows:

One of our favourite videos we've watched so far is where he makes a redstone contraption that uses every single block in Minecraft (every single block that existed circa 28th May 2020, anyway).  He makes a Rube Goldberg machine.  A Rube Goldberg machine is (according to Wikipedia), "a machine designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way".  In the UK we'd probably call it a 'Heath Robinson' contraption.  It has a load of silly moving parts that only exist to make the next part do something, a sort of chain reaction, with most parts not particularly achieving anything of note.  But wow, it's amazing to watch!

The other thing Mumbo does is Hermitcraft.  The Hermitcraft server is a private server for YouTubers/Twitch streamers, with 24 active "Hermits".  It was founded in 2012 and is now on Season 7.  Mumbo is the most popular of these Hermits, by YouTube subs.  Each Hermit uploads content regularly and contributes to the Series as a whole.  You can't apply to join the server, the Hermits look for other YouTubers that impress them and invite them to join.  So Mumbo's been doing it since an invite in Season 2.

He's funny, his redstone is totally mindblowing, and he's family friendly.  If you like Minecraft then definitely check him out.  If you don't like Minecraft you could check him out anyway.  Watch him going through 20 doors, if nothing else.  It's actually pretty relaxing.  :-D