Karma Rogue » Video Games

Dark Room Sex Game

Eric Cumberworth — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:36:53 +0000

Dark Room Sex Game allows 2-4 players to participate in a unique erotic rhythm game that takes place in, well, a dark room. The game has no graphics and relies on the player’s imagination to fill in the gap. Not a bad idea if you ask me. You basically bob the the Wii Mote up and down, back and forth, first slowly and then faster and faster and harder and harder until you hit climax! Video goodness after the jump

Zero-Player Games

Eric Cumberworth — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:46:30 +0000

Have you ever given thought to Zero-Player Games? Let’s

Information:
Zero-player games are games that have no human players
Wikipedia Entry

Examples:
Progress Quest
NPC Quest
Conway’s Game of Life

Most sports games (i.e. Madden Football) can be used to create CPU vs. CPU matches and are often used to simulate the outcomes of real games. Fighting games, RTS games, and other games can also be used for this purpose.

Glider, a bot that plays World of Warcraft for you, is also worth mentioning. Botting, in a sense, is cruise control that plays the game for the user. (When I had an active WoW account, my favorite thing about the game was using my bot to turn WoW into an entertaining screensaver featuring my avatar grinding.)

WarGames is a movie where a zero-player game controls the fate of mankind

Discussion:

Do you think there is a future for zero-player games?
What type of zero-player game do you think would be most interesting/marketable/entertaining?
If you’ve ever “played” a zero-player game before, what did you like/dislike about it?
Do you think incorporating “cruise-control” into on-line games is a good idea?

Unreal World: Unique Roguelike

Eric Cumberworth — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:36:09 +0000

Unreal World is an old-school video game that is hard to stop playing once you start. Not to cut the game down at all, but the fact that it produced the “just one more minute” syndrome in me surprised me. The reason it’s surprising is that it is not at all the best looking game.

Unreal World is a graphical RPG with roguelike qualities. The setting is ancient Finland during the late Iron Age. UrW is full of historical atmosphere and emphasises northern folklore, knowledge, and way of life. Best of all, like any other great game UrW gives you freedom to do as you choose; you can become a rough hunter, a brave adventurer, a fisherman, a trapper, etc.

At $4, it’s hard to not recommend this as a lightweight game that is perfect for little sessions on a laptop.

Unreal World Official Site

U.S. Spies Target World of Warcraft Terrorists

Eric Cumberworth — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:11:51 +0000

The U.S. intelligence community is developing software to detect violent extremists in the World of Warcrfaft and other massively multiplayer online games. According to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence, this project, known as the Reynard project, will begin with profiling online gaming behavior. The ultimate goal of the Reynard project is “automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.”

The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are
generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the
emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and
gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned
to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious
behavior and actions in the virtual world.

The report is publicly available, as mandated by Congress. Read the full report in .pdf format.

It’s interesting that Reynard the Fox is a trickster in folklore and literature.

Gordon Freeman on Coast to Coast AM

Eric Cumberworth — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:18:19 +0000

Coast to Coast AM is a great late-night AM talk radio show with an emphasis on the paranormal. And for those that actually don’t know, Half-Life is one of the all-time greatest first-person shooters that has a sci-fi story. If you’re familiar with both, you will laugh your ass off as you hear this phone call in which the caller plays the role of Half-Life’s lead character Gordon Freeman.

AK-47 Wiimote

Eric Cumberworth — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:20:54 +0000

With all the wiimote mods coming out nowadays, it was only a matter of time before somebody produced a replica of terrorists’ gun of choice. The AK-47 is probably the most famous weapon the Soviets ever produced. Somewhere along the line they became an icon of terrorists. Now all of you Wii owners out there can play Jihad!

Rather than me trying to explain exactly how to put one of these badboys together, I will link you to the genius who did it first.

Make a Wiimote AK-47

w00t is Word of the Year!

Eric Cumberworth — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:54:05 +0000

That’s right folks. After years of w00ting the best situations that arise in the world of video gaming, Merriam-Webster has officially announced that “w00t” is the word of the year. w00t, for those of you who do not interact with video games or socialize with gamers that pwn stuff, is a lot like saying “yay,” Merriam said. Merriam-Webster went on to further explain that, “It could be after a triumph or for no reason at all.”

Here’s where it gets silly: Merriam-Webster then claimed that there is a rising trend in using numbers in the place of letters. Is this trend not so 1995?

Bottom line: Score one for l33t speak!

Reuters article on the debacle

Amazon Kindle Games

Eric Cumberworth — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:15:53 +0000

Are there video games for the Amazon Kindle? If not – We need Amazon Kindle games to play! It would be kick-ass to be able to play NetHack on the Amazon Kindle. NetHack the roguelike specifically. If you know whether or not you can play games on the Kindle, please leave a comment.

NetHack Book

Eric Cumberworth — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:07:05 +0000

If you’ve never played NetHack, this will still at least make you say “what the fuck”. NetHack is a roguelike dungeon crawling game that is incredibly difficult to win at. Anyways, I have heard of people creating fan-fiction, stories detailing adventures in NetHack’s ASCII-graphics world, but never one that was a 334-page .pdf book. This takes video game fiction to the next level – especially considering it is about a text-based game.

Read Ellora the Elven Archer

Gay Gamer on Xbox Live

Eric Cumberworth — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 18:45:13 +0000

Video of GayBoy going onto XBox live. I am filing this under humor. If you are gay and offended: tough shit. I am not going to lie; I happen to think the shit-talking in this video is funny!

If you’re a homophobe, go watch Chuck and Larry and be more open-minded.

I will say this: I’ve never made a gaming account called StraightBoy or HetroBoy or iLikeGirls… I’m pretty sure that sexual preference can be left out of your gamertag and I do not feel sorry whatsoever for this idiot. If you do use your Xbox Live tag to advertise your homosexual preference while playing a video game on Xbox Live with a bunch of young punks and expect to be treated any differently than the person in this video you are truly a fucking moron.