“Typing of the Dead is like Mavis
“Typing of the Dead is like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing…if Mavis Beacon was a flesh-eating zombie!!”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about games
The schedule
Today I’m starting (and hopefully completing) Operation Empty My Inbox and Operation Close All My Browser Tabs.1 Over the past month and a half, I’ve barely replied to any email I’ve gotten, so if you sent me something during that time period, I hope to get to it today and perhaps send you a reply. I’ve also got about 20 33 tabs open in my browser, waiting to be read, so expect some output from that as well.
Update: Ok! With the exception of 6 messages that need my attention in the next day or after I get back from my trip, my inbox is completely empty. And it only took 5 solid hours of writing, dragging, dropping, applying rules, and eye strain. Still no progress on the browser tabs glut. In fact, the inbox clear-out resulted in 6 or 8 more tabs being opened. One step forward, two steps back.
[1] I’m also starting two smaller projects, Project Learn How To Type Again (jeez, five days of almost no computer use and I’ve completely dogrhottem hiw tp typw) and Project Steal Footnote Technique From John Gruber, Who I Met At SXSW And Is Completely Delightful. Both of these are in lieu of what I really want to be doing right now, Project Save The Princess. Some friends lent us their GameCube with the Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition, which contains the original Zelda game which is still as fun as ever. Octoroks, Tektites, and Leevers too! ↩
Findings indicate that behavior in online worlds
Findings indicate that behavior in online worlds mirrors that of the real world, namely than men stand further away from each other than women, men maintain less eye contact with each other than women, and the amount of eye contact decreases when people stand close together.
There’s only one unwinnable game in Freecell.
There’s only one unwinnable game in Freecell. I used to play Freecell all the time…hey, Freecell for OS X. (via rw)
“What would your ideal fantasy-baseball lineup be
“What would your ideal fantasy-baseball lineup be if you had to create it using only characters from classic Nintendo video games?” Toad and Mario from Super Mario Bros make the starting lineup.
Quake 3 running on 24 monitors at a resolution of 10240x3072.
Quake 3 running on 24 monitors at a resolution of 10240x3072.
I can’t believe The Legend of Zelda
I can’t believe The Legend of Zelda is 20 years old. One of my proudest gaming accomplishments was beating Zelda without dying, using only the wooden sword.
David argues for more variation and serendipity
David argues for more variation and serendipity in video games. “…games overcompensate for their lack of variance in game play with over-the-top psychedelic graphics and sound effects. This is not a new problem of course with Pac-man and Super Mario Brothers often held up as classic examples.”
Andy unearths an old video game by
Andy unearths an old video game by Penn and Teller called Smoke and Mirrors, which famously features a game in which you drive a bus for 16 straight hours to score a single point. See also Takeshi no Chousenjou, a similarly challenging Japanese game.
Ultimate screenshot collection of Tetris for the
Ultimate screenshot collection of Tetris for the Nintendo DS. Metroid + Tetris??!! Awesome.
Skiing videos
I did some skiing last week up in Vermont and took some videos with my phone on the slopes. The quality isn’t great, but hopefully you’ll get the gist.
A short clip of me skiing through the trees:
Riding the chair lift:
And one of me skiing behind Meg:
The motion in the last one reminds me of Quake…like I’m chasing after her with a railgun or something.
Gamers show a “similar pattern of high
Gamers show a “similar pattern of high performance in resisting irrelevant impulses” as bilingual people. “Maybe those kids who play video games and who are also bilingual will be the best of older adults at filtering out distractions.” (via sjb)
Sorry to hit you with this on
Sorry to hit you with this on a Monday morning because the falling sand game is really addicting so you might not get any work done today. Sorry in advance.
Burgertime art. The pickle’s package is *very*
Burgertime art. The pickle’s package is *very* disturbing to me. Yet, I cannot look away. (via nelson)
Blast from the past: influential online game
Blast from the past: influential online game SiSSYFiGHT 2000. I know a married couple that met on SiSSYFiGHT.
Out and about
Some player names I observed while playing Fastr (a multiplayer game based on guessing tags for a selection of Flickr images) last night for about 15 minutes under my usual online nickname “jkottke”:
jkottkesucks
kottkesucks
jkottkesucksass
ihatekottke
yes no one likes kottke
For some reason, this reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Being John Malkovich where he’s just popped out of his own head and onto the side of the New Jersey Turnpike and a passenger in a passing car says, “Hey Malkovich, think fast!” and pegs him in the head with a beer can.
Averaging Gradius is a movie of 15 simultaneous
Averaging Gradius is a movie of 15 simultaneous games of Gradius layered on top of each other. Robin says: “So what you see, instead of a single ship going at it, is a fuzzy cloud of ships — bright where strategies overlap, faint where someone does something especially daring (or dumb).” Very cool; reminds me of Jason Salavon’s amalgamation of Playboy centerfolds.
Ian Albert collects really large digital images (100
Ian Albert collects really large digital images (100-900 megapixels) and constructs maps of video game worlds, including Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. (via lia)
Very high on the list of things
Very high on the list of things that don’t need to be advertised is Tetris. Chances are you remember this Tetris commercial from the 80s anyway. “Use your thumbs, use your eyes, find yourself Tetrisized!”
More than you’d ever want to know
More than you’d ever want to know about Tecmo Super Bowl. Still one of my all-time favorite video games…I play it on my Gameboy and still have a Sega Genesis in the closet.
Beggar Prince is slated to be the
Beggar Prince is slated to be the first new game released for the Sega Genesis since 1998.
Rufus Griscom interviews Steven Johnson about television,
Update: This article appears to have dropped behind Nerve’s paywall. Sorry about that.
Transcript from the final moments of Asheron’s
Transcript from the final moments of Asheron’s Call 2, an online game that got turned off on Dec 30 because it wasn’t making any money. “This world will be shutting down in 2 minutes. Please log out.” (via wonderland)
The 50 greatest gadgets of the last 50 years.
The 50 greatest gadgets of the last 50 years. The original Nintendo Entertainment System should really be on here…it singlehandedly made video games popular again in the US. (via rw)
Looks like the popularity of poker might
Looks like the popularity of poker might be fading. “It may be reducing down to the niche market, which would be people in their 20s, macho-man type of people”
Milton Bradley’s secret invasion orders for the
Milton Bradley’s secret invasion orders for the attack on Boston Harbor.
Two experts on street-level NYC go sightseeing
Two experts on street-level NYC go sightseeing in True Crime: New York City, a video game that has attempted to recreate the city down to its last manhole cover.
GameSpot has an ongoing series of articles
GameSpot has an ongoing series of articles about the greatest video games of all time. Lode Runner, Tetris, Quake, Oregon Trail, Defender, and Metroid all make the list.
Stay Connected