Category Archives: Books

Before Sunrise

Posted on by

Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Kim Krizan.

The plot is minimalist, since aside from walking and talking, not much happens. The two characters’ ideas and perspectives on life and love are detailed.

The film received high critical praise at the time of its release and has received a rare perfect 100% rating of positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a 77 metascore on Metacritic.

— Wikipedia on Before Sunrise

.

情留半天 Before Sunrise (1995)

日落巴黎 Before Sunset (2004)

情約半生 Before Midnight (2013)

.

2012.08.10 Friday ACHK

The Dark Knight Rises, 2

Posted on by

The Dark Knight Rises (2012 movie): At the end, why does Batman give Gordon such a cryptic clue, rather than just revealing his face?

He either wants Gordon to know, or he doesn’t. Why does he take the path where Gordon may or may not work it out?

Siddharth Bhandari, Batman Fanatic

You just killed all the emotion when you considered it a cryptic clue. This scene had such beautiful emotions.

A hero can be as simple as a man putting his coat around a little boy’s shoulders and reassuring him the world hadn’t ended yet.

See the beauty in this quote. He’s not just giving him a clue but implying that Gordon has been a hero for him all these years.

— Quora

2012.07.28 Saturday ACHK

The Dark Knight Rises

Posted on by

The great thing about a trilogy is that it feels like you’ve got a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s like an extended version of a regular film. Once you get into a fourth film then it’s just episodic, and I just can’t see him getting excited about making another film where basically you’re just wheeling in different villains.

— Emma Thomas

2012.07.22 Sunday ACHK

Batman Begins, 6

Posted on by

To conquer fear, you must become fear. You must bask in the fear of other men. And men fear most what they cannot see. You have to become a terrible thought. A wraith. You have to become an idea! Feel terror cloud your senses. Feel its power to distort… to control. And know that this power can be yours. Embrace your worst fears. Become one with the darkness.
   
— Henri Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul

— Batman Begins

2012.07.19 Thursday ACHK

Indie Game: The Movie

Posted on by

Indie Game: The Movie is a 2012 documentary film by Canadian filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot. The film documents the struggles of independent game developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes during the development of Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish, during the development of Fez, and also Jonathan Blow, who reflects on the success of his Xbox Live Arcade game, Braid.

The film bookends itself with Jonathan Blow’s opening monologue about how indie gaming differs by offering flaws and vulnerabilities, making the games more personal.

— Wikipedia on Indie Game: The Movie

2012.07.18 Wednesday ACHK

To the Moon

Posted on by
GOG.com

In GameSpot’s 2011 Game of the Year awards, To the Moon was given the “Best Story” award, … It was also the highest user-rated PC game of 2011 at Metacritic.

— Wikipedia on To the Moon (video game)

2012.07.16 Monday ACHK

Permutation City

Posted on by

Permutation City is a 1994 science fiction novel by Greg Egan that explores many concepts, including quantum ontology, via various philosophical aspects of artificial life and simulated reality.

— Wikipedia on Permutation City

2012.07.10 Tuesday ACHK

Good Old Games

Posted on by

GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a computer game sale and distribution service operated by GOG Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt RED.

In order to ensure compatibility with newer versions of Microsoft Windows, some games are pre-patched or bundled with Open Source emulation and compatibility software, such as ScummVM and DOSBox. Unlike some other services, the games do not use digital rights management …

Along with purchasing the games, customers are also able to download numerous extra material relating to the game they purchased. Often these extras include the game’s soundtrack, wallpapers, avatars, and manuals.

— Wikipedia on GOG.com

2012.07.04 Wednesday ACHK

Chrono Trigger 3

Posted on by

.

Masato Kato confirmed that Cross featured a central theme of parallel worlds, as well as the fate of Schala, which he was previously unable to expound upon in Chrono Trigger. Concerning the ending sequences showing Kid searching for someone in a modern city, he hoped to make players realize that alternate futures and possibilities may exist in their own lives, and that this realization would “not … stop with the game”.

– Wikipedia on Chrono Cross

.

.

.

2011.05.02 Monday ACHK

Sins of a Solar Empire

Posted on by

Sins of a Solar Empire is a science fiction real-time strategy computer game developed by Ironclad Games and published by Stardock Entertainment for Microsoft Windows operating systems. Sins is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that incorporates some elements from 4X strategy games; promotional materials describe it as “RT4X.”

Much praise for the game has been directed towards the game’s clever blend of RTS and 4X gameplay, the seamless zoom function, and the user-friendly Empire Tree and UI. That the game was designed to play efficiently on older as well as newer PCs has garnered considerable praise.

The game was awarded the title “Best Strategy Game of the Year 2008” by X-Play and GameTrailers, and the title “Best PC Game of the Year” by IGN.

— Wikipedia on Sins of a Solar Empire

2012.07.01 Sunday ACHK

Simple and fun gameplay

Posted on by

During the late 1970s, video arcade game technology had become sophisticated enough to offer good-quality graphics and sounds, but it was still fairly basic (realistic images and full motion video were not yet available, and only a few games used spoken voice) and so the success of a game had to rely on simple and fun gameplay. This emphasis on the gameplay is why many of these games continue to be enjoyed today despite their technology being vastly outdated by modern computing technology.

— Wikipedia on Golden age of arcade video games

2012.07.01 Sunday ACHK

Games for Change

Posted on by

Games for Change (also known as G4C) is a movement and community of practice dedicated to using digital games for social change. An individual game may also be referred to as a “game for change” if it is produced by this community or shares its ideals.

The Games for Change Festival

Since 2004, Games for Change has hosted the Games for Change Festival in New York. Often referred to as “the Sundance of Video Games”, the Games for Change Annual Festival is the biggest gaming event in New York City. It brings together leaders from government, corporations, philanthropy, civil society, media, academia, and the gaming industry to explore the increasing real-world impact of digital games as an agent for social change.

— Wikipedia on Games for Change

2012.06.24 Sunday ACHK

Civilization II

Posted on by

In June 2012, a Reddit user named Lycerius posted details of his decade long Civilization II game, since dubbed “The Eternal War”. This garnered a great deal of interest from users of the site and the story quickly went viral, spreading across the web to many well known blogs and news sites. The game, which had been played since 2002, closely mimicked the regime found in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with three superpowers all engaged in multiple-front warfare.

— Wikipedia on Civilization II

I’ve been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I’m not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows.

  • The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation.
  • There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands.

— I’ve been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. (self.gaming)

— submitted 8 days ago* by Lycerius

2012.06.21 Thursday ACHK

Civilization V

Posted on by

Sid Meier’s Civilization V (also known as Civilization 5 or Civ 5) is a turn-based strategy, 4X computer game developed by Firaxis, released on Microsoft Windows in September 2010 and on Mac OS X on November 23, 2010. It is the latest game in the Civilization series.

In Civilization V, the player leads a civilization from prehistoric times into the future on a procedurally-generated map, achieving one of a number of different victory conditions through research, diplomacy, expansion, economic development, government and military conquest.

— Wikipedia on Civilization V

2012.06.19 Tuesday ACHK

The Dragon Book

Posted on by

Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools is a famous computer science textbook by Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman about compiler construction. Although more than two decades have passed since the publication of the first edition, it is widely regarded as the classic definitive compiler technology text.

It is affectionately known as the Dragon Book to a generation of computer scientists as its cover depicts a knight and a dragon in battle, a metaphor for conquering complexity. This name can also refer to Aho and Ullman’s older Principles of Compiler Design.

— Wikipedia on Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools

2012.06.18 Monday ACHK

Loki Software

Posted on by

Loki Software, Inc. (sometimes also called Loki Games or Loki Entertainment Software) was a software firm based in Tustin, California, United States, that ported several video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux. It took its name from the Norse deity Loki.

Legacy

Loki Software, although a commercial failure, is credited with the birth of the modern Linux game industry. Loki developed several free software tools, such as the Loki installer (also known as Loki Setup), and supported the development of the Simple DirectMedia Layer. They also started the OpenAL audio library project (now being run by Creative Technology and Apple Inc.) and with id Software wrote GtkRadiant. These are still often credited as being the cornerstones of Linux game development. They also worked on and extended several already developed tools, such as GCC and GDB.

The book Programming Linux Games by Loki Software and John R. Hall is recognized as one of the prominent tutorials for the Simple DirectMedia Layer. Many of Loki’s free tools are still actively used and being developed, often by former employees of the company, many of them having moved to other computer game or Linux companies.

— Wikipedia on Loki Software

2012.06.15 Friday ACHK