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What the...? That.  Is awesome, GG!  Can't wait to play "The Bris!"   

Normally, when people say stuff like that on these boards, they are thirteen year olds who are full of crap. (Where's that thread with the guy going nuts about his RPG with thousands of monsters, each with their own AI and thousands of rooms, etc?)  But with tolworthy, you know he's on level. 

I would say that making really large games would be the only reason I could think of that I might consider using RunAGSGame.

I'd like to see The Wire.

I have longed attempted to think of a way to make a game that would in any way approach the greatness of this masterpiece.

The Japanese live longer than anybody and spend less per person on medical care; how inconsiderate of them to live so long with out even trying .

If that was trying to say that the Japanese live really long DESPITE their health care system, I've got to take exception.  Obviously life-style will make a great contribution to life expectancy, but the Japanese health care system's low expenditure per person is not a reflection on the quality or amount of care.

The Japanese government strictly controls costs that providers can charge for every procedure or exam.  This allows them to keep the costs of their universal government-provided health insurance program way down.  The total costs to the government, and by extension, tax payers is so low DESPITE Japanese people having one of the highest average number of doctor visits per person per year in the world.

I was just in japan, and my daughter started having some kind of alergic reaction to something with her eyes getting all puffy and coughing all night, so we took her to the doctor WITHOUT INSURANCE and the total cost of the visit PLUS MEDICINE was $40, which is the same as my copay would have been if I had taken her to a walk-in clinic in the states WITH INSURANCE and NOT INCLUDING MEDICINE. 

If I had taken her with insurance in Japan on the same visit, the cost would have been $4. Plus, I would have been able to get that money refunded in cash to me at the end of the month because all children's medical bills are refundable up to a certain age.  So, it would have cost a net of zero.  (Of course, they could have saved all kinds of administrative money by skipping the parts where I pay and a few days later apply for reimbursement, but that's Japanese bureaucracy for you!)

I'm not saying their health care system is perfect.  It causes some strain on their economy to pay for everyone.  It causes strain on healthcare providers by not allowing them to set their own costs.  But fuck, if there isn't some kind of beneficial middle ground between Japan and America.  No one ever goes bankrupt in Japan due to medical bills.  And I think it would be worth it to try to find a system where we can achieve that too.  I'm tired of balancing the severity of my (or my wife's or kids') illness against my ability to pay for a doctor visit that month.  And that's WITH insurance.


Also, regarding the disapproval numbers reflected in polls, what most people ignore is the fact that a sizeable portion of the people who were disapproving of the bill held that position because they didn't think it was liberal enough.  If you subtract them from the disapproval numbers, every poll is showing significantly less than 50% opposed.

Magma's was brilliant!  Three!  Count 'em!  THREE puzzles!  Ish.  Well done.

BAM:

Safe And Sound

I had planned some beep beep beep sounds in the background and an arcade flying sequence at the end but pfff like that was realistically going to happen in an hour.  Phew.

EDIT:

OK, so I took an extra 15 minutes and added TWO SOUND EFFECTS!  Updated the original download. SUE ME!  Or just turn off the sound to hear what it was like after only 1 hours work.

EDIT2:

Safe And Sound source code in case anyone is interested in this crap!  Warning!  It sucks!

By the way, all art was made with my track pad as I have no working mice in my home currently. 

So cool!

I've been on vacation and missed the ceremony!  Big congratulations to all the winners and to all the nominees as well! 

I'm in with the underwhelmed crowd.  Stick a webcam, multitasking, and at least one stinking USB port, and you'd have a product I'd be interested in.  (Webcam alone might do it for me.  Ultimate video chat device!  I use video chat a lot since my family is split over continents.)

However, if I were interested in an eBook reader (which I'm not) it would be hard to justify buying a kindle with the iPad's competitive pricing.  The Kindle's eInk might be easier on the eyes though; I haven't really tried.  So in this regard, they look like they could really take over the eBook market.

I'm totally joking, by the way, anian.  Even though I keep forgetting to add smileys to indicate it.

I'm just wondering where the line gets drawn between "derivative or" "same story but with aliens" and "inspired by" or "modern retelling"  How much do you have to change the story before it becomes worthy of being judged on it's own merits instead of put down flatly for having the same story structure.

There are just so many movies/books with this same "White man meets natives, white man joins natives, white man becomes the awesomest native ever" story.  Dune, Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, The Last Samurai.  Pocahontas, which that fail image (which is admittedly hilarious) compares Avatar to, took more of its story from Dances With Wolves than from the true story of Pocahontas.

I'm not saying that Avatar is particularly original, mind.  I do think that it is way closer to the story and characters of Disney's Pocahontas than it should be and wish it had some kind of original plot that could surprise me (because this one didn't at any turn).  But it didn't stop me for enjoying the movie for the ride that it is, with good characters, effects, and action (in my opinion).

I think, bottom line, Cameron knows what story is going to resonate with the largest number of people and put the most butts in seats. (Titanic also was a derivative love story dropped into a great choice for a setting.)  And that's certainly working out for him.  I definitely enjoy smaller smarter films like Memento or Moon on average more than these big blockbusters, but sometimes you've got to take a break from all the steak and have some ice cream, right?

Took a family photo.

I wasn't responding to you.  I actually hate The Lion King.  You're so vain.

Yeah.  I hate The Lion King because it's just Hamlet but with lions.

IGF student showcase finalist baby!  Congrats JBurg!

Wow!  I was just thinking the other day how disappointed I was that there hadn't been any updates on this in years!  Glad to see it's still alive and sneezing!

That's awesome Steve!  I programmed something like this for an underwater towing feature in a certain upcoming game designed by a certain red head, but yours is far more realistic!  Nice!

Thanks JimBob!  Yeah, adventure games got pretty shut out (as per usual, I guess) from the IGF, with the exception of Trauma which is a pretty groovy looking experimental adventure deal, that I'd like to try out.

But it's all good!  It was a huge field of 300 awesome entries, so getting noticed through all that was always going to be a long-shot.  Thanks for the support!

After I finish crying, it'll be right back to work for the Resonance team!

I went to this for a second time yesterday because my wife wanted to go.  We went to the IMAX 3D (her first IMAX trip, actually).

This time I didn't get a headache, so that was good.  I noticed actually that it was much easier on the eyes watching the fully CG scenes than it was the live action bits.  I don't know if it was because they could fine-tune it better when it was being created in a computer or what.

But my wife had to take off her glasses and close her eyes around the middle of the movie for a while because she was getting so nauseous.  She eventually recovered and enjoyed the second half more.  I don't know if she just took a while to adjust or what.  She also got a bad headache when we watched Coraline in 3D.  But I noticed she kept leaning her head over to the side propped up on her hand, which is not a good way to watch 3d, since it throws everything out of line if the glasses are not perfectly horizontal, but she says she was nauseous before she started doing that.  We concluded that it would be the last time she goes to a 3D movie, sadly.

Fun experiment: I turned my glasses upside down on my head for a while and it throws the 3D in reverse.  Things that are supposed to go to your left eye go to your right and things that are supposed to go to your right go left.  It makes some things that are supposed to be close look far and vice versa.

So, I still think that it's a fun film.  The CG is amazing and the world is engrossing.  I like the story despite it's familiarity and predictability.  All the details and effects blew me away.  I do think the movie is great, but I don't think that it has revolutionized movie making.

I certainly hope that we don't start seeing every film moving to 3d, like films moved from black and white to color.  There are still some big problems with the format, like the headache and nausea-causing issues I've discussed here and in my previous post in this thread.

And really, the heart of films are their stories and this film certainly didn't revolutionize story telling.

But it is a high-water mark for film special effects and the 3D presentation, and is an overall entertaining film that I would easily recommend to anyone.

And hey, it made a billion dollars already, so expect a sequel in a couple years!

Throw me in with the people who are sad to hear this news, but hope you keep making games!

Oh yeah, music.  It didn't stand out to me as good or bad.  I hardly remember there being music at all, actually (which I suppose could be good or bad, again).