..that's a pretty intimidating level of Space Invaders.
Also, I was too lazy to add in extra game interface, mostly because SI doesn't really have any interface except for score/high score and number of lives left. But this way, you can crop the image for different screen resolutions!
Japan loves QR Codes. These 2D barcodes are everywhere. They are in advertisements and on websites, and provide a quick way to access some text information with your phone. I've seen several larger QR codes functioning more as art installations than as data in several shops. Yesterday a coworker linked to an article about SET Japan and their creative takes on QR codes, the most recent being an advertisement for Frisk Mints, where the QR code is made out of the mints themselves. I thought that was a really cool idea, and wondered what other things could be made into QR Codes. My first thought was Legos but that's been done. My second thought was to make it from Tetris blocks, because obviously I have an unhealthy Tetris addiction. So here you go: A Tetris game forming a QR code. Go ahead and scan it. My Android phone seems to work okay, which is good, because at first I wasn't sure if all the colors would have an adverse affect on recognition (it doesn't as long as there is enough contrast with the background; on the other hand, you really need to make sure the registration marks are clear, because that's the only way the software can figure out where the code is.)
Now I want to make QR Code mashups from other old games, like Galaga, Space Invaders, Centipede, and Mindsweeper [one of these games is not like the others >_>].
I have started playing The World Ends With You finally. I've had this game sitting around for a while, but I wanted to finish up FFIV first, and that took forever because I only played it in fits and starts. Anyhow, WEWY is especially fun because it takes place in alternate!Shibuya. I can play a video game that takes place 10 minutes from where I live (and one minute from where I work). How silly is that? It is fun seeing what they had to rename the big shops to in order to avoid trademark infringement. Starbucks Coffee becomes Outback Coffee (even funnier because there is an Outback Steakhouse close by), Seibu became Shiibu, Marui City became Cadoi City, Shibuya-109 becomes Shibuya-104. If Book First becomes Book Third, does that mean Book-Off becomes Book-On? Does the Burger King become Burger Queen, and can I buy a Windows 7 burger from there? If Tokyu Dept Store becmes Shibukyu Store (despite having the same "Q" logo except in blue) does that mean Tokyu Hands becomes Shibukyu Hands, and are the Samraats still next to it if I need to recharge on delicious curry or dosa? Does this mean I work in the Carnelian Tower? Why can't I walk right at the train underpass and go to Drunkard's Alley? It took me a while to recognize A-East as O-East mostly because I've never been to O-East, merely walked by it (a lot) when we head towards Bunkamura area for lunch. These are the useless thoughts that occupy my mind as I play this game.
D4G Japan awards ceremony was oodles of fun. I took lots of photos! Afterwards, we went to see the view from the Landmark Tower (currently the tallest tower in Japan) and then shipped over to Chinatown for dinner. It was in the style of a Chinese banquet but sure didn't have the set of dishes I expected. Well, except for shark fin soup, which I didn't actually eat, and the fried rice, which was very tasty. Instead of walnut shrimp there was a dish with shrimp prepared two ways, one with a lighter sauce and one with a spicier sauce. Instead of steamed fish there was fried fish balls. The bok choy came out in a strange cream-and-crab sauce. All in all, the food was delicious, but a little odd.
I've been struggling with getting multi-line HTML form buttons to work for some time now. Usually, if you get a button where the text is too long, you just tell the person who gave you the text to make it shorter. That's not always a solution though, especially after seemingly succinct English text gets translated into, say, Russian or Portuguese. (For example, "Install Google Toolbar" becomes "Установить Панель инструментов Google" in Russian, mostly because "Google Toolbar" itself is named "Панель инструментов Google".) I finally found a decent hack for this today. I am posting this here and boring you with the details because el Goog could not find me an answer, and I figured someone else may find this post one day and regain a few hours of their life. First off, using <input type="submit"> is no good, because it's an inline element and has no inherent idea of word-wrapping -- text fills the button and then gets cut off. I tried to use <button type="submit"> because it's a block-level element (assuming it is not used in an inline context, such as within a P tag), and indeed, modern browsers (anything running a recent build of WebKit, Gecko or Trident) understand that, and wrap the text all neatly without me having to put in manual line breaks. Unfortunately, IE6 (the bane of my existence1) still renders the button as an inline element, and refuses to wrap the text unless you put in manual breaks. Explicitly setting display:block in the CSS doesn't work either, IE6 (and to be fair, IE7) just puts everything on one line. However, the magic is to add a div in the button. As buttons are block elements they can contain other block elements like div (although there are a few elements which are NOT allowed in a button, but you probably don't care about that at this point). IE6/7 sees the div and says, "Hey! Divs are block elements! This absurdly long piece of text should wrap!" and then poof! You have a multi-line HTML button that works in IE6/7/8, WebKit and Gecko browsers. Just be sure to define the div width (100% works fine) first. To recap, here's a simple multiline button: <button type="submit" style="width:150px;display:block;"><div style="width:100%">This is some long text that wraps</div></button> which renders as:
(You still need to explicitly tell IE6 that your button is a block, I think.)
In an effort to not post about Professor Layton, I watched Macross Frontier and I must say, Neo San Francisco looks very much like the real thing. Down to the green-and-gold circular adverts in downtown and the sea lions in the harbor! Well, perhaps not down to the sea lions, they shipped out a few months ago. Also, I like how Neo Shibuya had a Shibuya-99 building instead of a Shibuya-109.
Seriously, I'm pretty sure that's Descole's Crowning Moment of Awesome. I mean, he's got this pipe organ, and then he pushes some buttons and controls pop out, and then half the building pulls away and becomes a giant walking robot intent on smashing stuff. Now that's some engineering. It makes the Professor's helicopter seem a bit, well, dinky.
I was mostly wondering how they would convey the puzzle-solving aspect of the gameplay in a linear movie. In fact, I think it was integrated pretty well, with Descole drawing everyone into his game, where they had to solve his riddles in order to progress towards the prize, the elixir of eternal life. The first two puzzles, which take place at the opera house, are even labeled "001" and "002", in lights, and the standard puzzle-solving music plays in the background.
The main characters from Specter's Flute are all present: Layton, Remi, Luke and Descole, along with Inspector Growski. You don't really have to have played the game to understand their characters as the first ten minutes or so is all setup and intro, but there are a few jokes that allude to the gameplay which are funnier if you have context. My coworker whose main knowledge of Layton was my five minute overview while we were walking to the theater enjoyed the movie a lot too.
Anyway, Eternal Diva was great fun. Over the top but well in line with the games. The expansive production values you would expect from a movie-length animation translate into lush scenery with intricate sets and vibrant colors, lovely music (Layton's and Descole's themes play prominently, as well as several of the puzzle melodies, as well as a bunch of new songs), in-your-face sound effects, etc. There were a few bits of really nice surround-sound effect where some dialogue or action happens behind the camera, and almost makes you turn. Definitely recommended to anyone who's played the games, even if you having gotten to Specter's Flute yet.
Hm, maybe I will try to find the soundtrack this weekend. It was nice to hear a lot of the game music rendered by a full orchestra. Sure, you get a few "live" tracks on the game soundtracks, but even those are not as expansive as what you can get in a movie setting.
A few things I want to do this year: - Continue enjoying life in Japan - Blog more about life in Japan - Learn more Japanese - Visit the Sydney office - Visit the Seoul, Beijing or Zurich office - Hang out with KKD at AX - Move back to CA - Buy a place in SF (probably a condo in one of the newer developments South of Market) - Start doing serious stock market investing
Specter's Flute is done! A sweet and sappy ending. And we get to see how Luke joins up with Layton for further shenanigans. I can't wait to see what Descole has up his sleeve in Eternal Diva. I managed to solve 156 puzzles so far. The rest are either hidden in some place I missed my first go round, or locked until I solve more puzzles in Secrets Mode. Not bad for lacking any Japanese fluency. The word puzzles were the hardest. Whenever I read "please input X hiragana for the answer" I just groaned, pulled out the dictionary on my iPod, and kept trying words. I think my favorite puzzle type were the 'dropping things and bouncing them across the screen to a waiting basket' ones. I solved three so far; you basically have an object (first an apple, then a watermelon, then a bomb) dropped at the top left of the string. You're given a certain number of strings you can arrange on a grid so the object bounces to the right of the screen into a waiting basket. There are various horizontal and vertical blocks set up to make things more interesting. Perhaps I just like dropping apples. It gives me illusions of being Newton. Time to start Diabolical Box! Oh! And the London Life RPG! All I've done in it so far is set up my character (in a Mii-like fashion, you can choose your gender/face/hair/clothes) and found an apartment. Tiny London is adorable, and I love seeing the tiny 8-bit styled sprites of characters from the games. There are folks from all the games, I think; I've run into a number of residents from St. Mystere and Mist Halely when looking for the apartment. Also, you arrive in Tiny London on the Molentary Express. So far my favorite bit of London Life is the warning when the game is loading, which warns you about tiny letters, tiny characters, tiny clothes and tiny life.
This holiday season I have basically been: - napping - doing family holiday stuff - shopping - playing Professor Layton and the Specter's Flute
I have bought Prof Layton and the Diabolical Box but am not going to start on that until I finish Specter's Flute. I'm up to puzzle 100'ish of what appear to be about 150'ish story puzzles, so I am already 2/3rds through the game. The plot is moving along nicely, and I can't wait to finish and watch the Eternal Diva movie! For what it's worth, Remi is simply full of win. She kicks ass. Literally. She knows martial arts. She has been labeled "the explosive woman" for her rather hot temper (although she's not violent unless provoked, and the other party really, really deserves it.) I will miss her presence in Diabolical Box, I'm sure.
Otherwise I'm just hanging out, taking it easy, meeting up with friends, etc. We're going to see Avatar later today. Should be pretty.
Walking home from Nakameguro station is bad for me. Yesterday we had our holiday party at Roppongi Hills, so I took the Hibiya line back home. Only a minute's walk from the station is the Nakameguro branch of Book-Off (they in fact have an ad in the station itself saying "Book-Off: Just a one minute walk in this direction -->") So I went in and got me a copy of Professor Layton and the Specter's Flute. When I got home I realized I got an extra bonus - a Layton hint coin charm! ♥ (While I was at it I also finally picked up Ouendan 1+2. READY STEADY NEVER LOOK BACK~) I figured Specter's Flute would help improve my Japanese comprehension and prepare me for the Eternal Diva movie. I already convinced one coworker (who's never played the game) to go see it with me. So far I've really been enjoying the game (although I am only an hour and 8 puzzles in.) The animation is really gorgeous (and has been eagerly anticipating Eternal Diva), although I miss Layton's British accent (but am glad not to listen to Luke's cockney). Anyway, I was actually doing okay in the game until puzzle 7, a wacky logic puzzle which had me scratching my head and wondering whether it was my incomprehension or lack of logical reasoning that lead to being unable to solve the puzzle. So I typed in the puzzle directions and sent it through Google Translate (which helped, but it still required a leap in logic I did not get until I "solved" the question by moving forwards and backwards form my original answer.) I figured it would be a lot faster to type in the puzzles and send them through Google Translate for at least a first past at comprehension. And if I was going to do that I might as well put them up for viewing. So I started a Specter's Flute gameblog. I'm also adding notes on my impressions of the game as I play through. Hope you Layton fans out there find it useful!
Holy crap, there's going to be a Professor Layton movie coming out next year? Just saw an ad for it on the train. "Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva"... definitely want to go check it out when it's released :3 Guess I should get the Specter's Flute game in Japanese if it's going to be a continuation. Argh, I still have to get Diabolical Box in English... trying to solve brainteasers in Japanese will be a lot more challenging! Ooh, wikipedia is great. There are Layton soundtracks I need to go out and find now!
Last Friday as I was heading home, I stopped by the convenience store. I was thinking of picking up some fruit juice as I've gotten a mild cold lately, but ended up buying a bottle of Azuki [red bean] Pepsi. As you might imagine, this was really a Bad Idea. I blame the Beaujolais I had at TGIF. Now, azuki bean is used in all sorts of sweets and desserts so surely this couldn't be as strange as Shiso Pepsi? (Dunno, I never tasted Shiso Pepsi.) Unfortunately, it is way too sweet. In fact it's almost medicinally sweet. But, if you pretend you're drinking a sparkling cordial, it's just about bearable. It sort of tastes like cordial (with some red-bean notes in it). Let's just say the next time I am thinking of buying juice, I'd better damn well buy some juice.
So, KKD, which con should I attend next year? 1) AOD Pros - San Francisco - Small, intimate setting - We run it, so we take good care of ourselves Cons - Short duration - Not everyone staffs - Timing (I will be in SF end of December, so to go back end of January is a bit much) 2) AX Pros - Long duration - Everyone and their dog shows up - Gong Show Cons - Los Angeles - People tend to be more stressed out with staffing
Regardless, I'll get a hotel room and be an attendee, although I expect a comp badge from one of you folks.
Designers! I have 5 invites for Typekit. Typekit is a service that provides web-embeddable fonts to your site. No more Verdana and Georgia for you! You can learn more about them on their site or their blog. Drop a note if you want an invite. I'll need to know which email you want the invite sent to.
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