Diary
Latest
Warhammer Online talks more about the design of RvR Sieges
If there's a part of Warhammer Online's upcoming patch 1.3.5 that should excite veteran players -- and there is -- it's the shift of city sieges to an RvR-designed focus. One of the central selling points of the game has always been the strength of its PvP, and as the game works to shore up its weaknesses one of the major foci has been enhancing the PvP experience. Content developer Keaven Freeman has penned a developer diary explaining the issues, pitfalls, and ultimate results of the design process and the shift in ethos. As Freeman puts it, the sieges haven't moved completely to PvP only, simply because it doesn't feel quite right to have the capture experience feel equally inviting in an enemy city or an allied one. But the PvE elements exist, from the sound of it, simply to focus attacks on things other than players at times, rather than to give hordes of NPCs to fight. In addition, the diary talks about the cascading control point system, which builds a network of control allowing players to spearhead an assault into the heart of the city. For Warhammer Online players looking forward to answering the call of their respective faction, the diary should be both enlightening and interesting.
Can the Project 365 iPhone app make you a better photographer?
Photographers have always known that the more pictures you take, the more you learn about photography. Digital photography has made it easy and inexpensive for photographers of any experience level to take as many photos as they want. In addition, the advent of fairly high-resolution phone cameras has added the touch of having a camera with you almost all the time. In 2004, a chap by the name of Taylor McKnight started taking one picture a day and posting the photos as a way of chronicling his life and what was important to him. Over the year, he also found that he become a better photographer. The classic photography website Photojojo published his post about the process in 2006, and the rest is history. There are now thousands of photographers who are shooting their way to better pictures one day at a time. Developer Alvin Yu has made it possible for any iPhone owner to create their own Project 365 portfolio through his free Project 365 app [iTunes Link]. The app is quite simple; launching Project 365 shows you a monthly calendar with a blank area for each day. Tapping on the date allows you to add a photo, either by taking one or adding it from your photo library. Once you've chosen the photo, you can add a caption, then send the photo either to an email address, to Facebook, or to Twitter.
DS Daily: Keeping a record
While we're still not fully convinced the DSi is the second coming of awesome, some of the features are undoubtedly neat. We spoke a little about the camera and some of the photo manipulation possibilities the other day, but another feature of the DSi (that also has nothing to do with gaming) is the ability to create an album-of-days, or basically, a photo diary on your DSi. It's a neat idea, considering a lot of people carry their handhelds around nearly everywhere, though it certainly won't convince anyone to buy the reimagined handheld by itself (probably). What do you think of the feature? Is it something you would use, provided you had a DSi?
Diary Girl reminds us why we have no friends
We love the idea of a DS-based organizer and diary (and yes, we're aware that DS Organize exists) but we aren't sure about the rest of the content in Diary Girl. To be blunt, we find the art style off-putting, but then we aren't little girls. We would rather not stare into the faces of those Bratz-like characters as we confess our feelings to the touchscreen.When you're not diarizing, you can keep up a to-do list, customize your horrifying avatar, check your horoscope, and play this little quiz game. If answering honestly, we'd have to pick option 2 here, which is why we're going to make a point to add "stop being a self-centered jerk" to our to-do list.
A week on the Balance Board
Not literally, of course -- really it's more like "A week containing many 30-minute sessions on the Balance Board." Game|Life's Chris Kohler has joined 4cr's Vinnk in long-term Wii Fit experimentation, though in a slightly different style. While Vinnk is updating us weekly with his weight loss progress, Kohler wrote up an entire week of gameplay in a detailed diary. Somehow he thought a week of exercise was a good idea immediately after GDC, which is basically crazy.In addition to providing some anecdotal data about the efficacy of the game (i.e. how sore is he after a week), Kohler's diary offers an excellent overview of the game's modes, since every activity and option he explored is detailed in this diary. Surprisingly, the game got Kohler more interested in exercising outside of the house even as he continued to play Wii Fit. Miyamoto must feel like he got a phantom tummy-rub just now.
Diary Girl delayed, we are unable to note the new date
You may not care about Konami's Diary Girl, but we do, a little. At least in that it's a novel idea with some neat features, like voice chat, horoscopes, and password-protected journal entries. Sure, DSOrganize does personal organizing stuff, but there's room for a retail solution, we think. We don't necessarily know how we feel about the girly branding; is it appropriate or insulting? And should we wait for Diary Dude? In any case, the core software seems vaguely interesting.It was listed for December on that massive Nintendo release schedule a couple of months back, and now it ... isn't. Amazon has the "game" releasing on March 4, and Konami's own Diary Girl page says February. If only we had ... some kind of personal organizer that we could carry around with us to keep track of these dates. Maybe something that went along with a device we already carry around. Somebody should invent something like that.
Pirates beta diary recounts game's opening moments
Perhaps mindful of the beta-envy that afflicts those of us who aren't fortunate enough to get into the early rounds of testing for a game to which we are really looking forward, Flying Labs has posted a rather lengthy first-hand account of the first few moments of the Pirates of the Burning Sea by a fan named Misha to satiate our appetite for all things pirate. And from the sound of it, this beta tester has a certain talent for story telling."Bilge Rats had boarded [the] ship, so when we came aboard, five of them stormed to me and the crewmen I brought along! I blocked the first two swings, but a third hit me in my arm and blood stained my shirt. I was furious, and smashed my small sword against the face of one of my foes, and thrust my dagger into the throat of another one."I have a habit of rolling my eyes and just plowing through tutorials without stopping and smelling the roses. Whether Flying Labs really did that good a job with the opening moments of the game, or whether Misha just has a knack for creative embellishment, I know I'm looking forward to starting my swashbuckling career.
Training a face, one day at a time
Infendo's Dale Rubin is undergoing a bold experiment: diving headfirst (obviously) into the science of facening. He picked up a copy of Face Training and is dutifully contorting for his facial health and for our education.The experience sounds rather a lot like Brain Age for faces, with Facening spokesperson Fumiko Inudou('s head) substituting for our beloved Dr. Kawashima. Once the initial setup was done, Dale began the task of making some faces based on prompts. He was photographed making each of these faces, and then graded on his performance. He got an 89%-- an A on his very first day of face-making class!Just like with Brain Age, the impossible seems to be happening-- we're becoming genuinely interested in the weird training game. Hey Dale, how about some daily pictures, so we can track your face's youthening process? Since that's kind of the whole point of Face Training and all.
TUAW Tip: get more control when creating new Journler entries
While poking around at my favorite new app for getting a lot of my writing done, I found a way to enable a bit more control when creating new entries. By default, Journler has this 'Use quick entry creation' preference checked under the Advanced pane, which allows you to create a new entry using the date as a title and the cursor inserted in the body of the entry, ready to rock 'n roll. Unchecking this pref, however, will instead present you with the dialog you see pictured, prompting you to edit the title, category, tags and other aspects of the entry before you get down to work. It all depends on how you want to get writing, but toggling this option can definitely give more power over creating entries to those who are using Journler for more than, well, a daily Journal.
TUAW Podcast #24: Journler
[Update 2: The direct download link is working fine now, and I pinged the iTunes Store to check our podcast feed again, so it'll take a little time for them The iTunes Store feed has updated so we're good to go. I hope you enjoy the podcast - and of course Journler if you give it a whirl - and please leave feedback as I hope to make a lot more of these in the future (with podcast releases going far more smoothly, of course). Thanks again for your patience.]This week's podcast is a screencast of an app that I finally 'get' and have subsequently gone nutty for: Philip Dow's Journler. It's an app very much like Yojimbo, Mori and SOHO Notes in that it's a journal/digital junk drawer for your work and life. For roughly fifteen minutes I cover some of the coolest features in Journler that both grabbed my personal attention and caused me to chose Mr. Dow's excellent app as my new blogging tool of choice for penning most of my TUAW and Download Squad posts.As usual you can pick up a copy of our latest podcast (weighing in at 36MB and 13 minutes on the dot) from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. I'm also please to announce that I finally did some research into why my previous video screencasts weren't iPod-friendly and have fixed the issue. Even though this particular screencast might look a little tiny on a 5G iPod (I captured the entirety of my 1440 x 900 MacBook Pro display, then re-sized to 640 x 398 for this one), you should nevertheless be able to take it with you on that commute you're packing up for. Enjoy![Update: We are indeed having trouble serving the podcast at the moment. Hang in there, we'll get this fixed as soon as possible and I'll update this post once we stamp out the issue. Sorry for the trouble.]
Lionhead talks emotion in new Fable 2 video diary
We've got to be honest, we felt a bit like a really bad blind date watching this first installment in a new series of video diaries from Lionhead about Fable 2. Yes, we're trying to listen to everything you're saying about the difficulty of replicating love in a game, but our brains are just a bit occupied by unbridled lust to pay attention. To put it bluntly, we can't keep our eyes from wandering to your chest 3D engine.The beauty part is that despite our lecherous behavior, Molyneux still gives it up at the end of the video with just under a minute of slow pans over the revamped Bowerstone Market and Brightwood. Why Lionhead, giving it up on the first date? We haven't even given you 30 boxes of chocolate and flexed 50 times yet. We've got download links below, but you can also get the video on XBL Marketplace.Download - "Emotions in Action Games" HD 720PDownload - "Emotions in Action Games" HighStream - "Emotions in Action Games" High
Elebits developer diary
Producer Shingo Mukaitoge has begun a developer's diary for Elebits over at IGN. The first round of what we assume will be many to come has the gentleman discussing the game's origins, as well as presenting a handful of new screens. Quite a bit of the entry is used to talk up the Wii's controller. The versatility of the control scheme and the Konami team's imagination eventually led to the Elebits we see today. The first developer diary is sadly lacking in revealing any new information on the game, but we look forward to further entries down the line to correct this.
Rainbow Six: Vegas dev diary
Here's a Rainbow Six: Vegas developer diary with some detail on the games "OPA" (Observe, Planning & Assault) system. Good to know in case you ever find yourself trapped in a casion crawling with terrorists.
