Filed under: Developer, Games, Novell, Open Source

You’ve surely heard of Silverlight, Microsoft’s shinier and altogether more-fluffy answer to Flash.

Silverlight is now at the stage where the only real feature it lacks is ubiquity — the only real reason we keep using Flash is because the plug-in is installed on almost every computer in the world. Well, Microsoft wants to change that — Microsoft wants Silverlight to be as prevalent as Flash. To that end, we just reported on Silverlight coming to Symbian phones — and now it seems like the iPhone might also run Silverlight apps… but with Moonlight, Novell’s open source, cross-platform Silverlight implementation.

This is big news because of the XNA and .NET support inherent in Silverlight and Moonlight. Last week you saw Microsoft demo the same game — the same code — running on Xbox, Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 (damn I hate their naming scheme), and now Novell has shown the same game running on an iPhone (image on the right).

Novell is, in effect, usurping Microsoft. Microsoft might even be working on a Silverlight implementation for iPhone — perhaps Novell is just jumping the gun and announcing their intention first. If Silverlight reaches smartphone ubiquity in 2010 or 2011, the desktop computer will surely follow.

Down with Flash, woo!

[via Technologizer]

Novell to bring open source Silverlight clone to iPhone originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Games

Here’s a Flash “game” which I’m not going to tag as a time-waster. Not because it’s work-related, but because if this is what you do “for fun”, your life is not a fun place. Just saying.

ImmorTall casts you as a vaguely anime-eqsue blobby-looking massive alien. There’s a haunting (and deeply irritating) soundtrack, consisting mainly of discordant guitar chords plucked really slowly.

Your job in the “game” is to protect a bunch of villagers (Vietnamese-looking, but can be of any nationality really) from an attacking army. You can apparently take any number of hits from incoming airplanes, tanks and infantry, so you use your body as a shield to protect the civilians. As the game progresses you go over the same scenery again and again, but the attacks become more frequent. Then, you die.

I mean, seriously. I don’t think there’s a way to win this thing. It’s not really a game. What it is, though, is a political statement against war and its futility. At least that’s what I think. Otherwise there’s really no point to it at all. Still, it did make me feel something (other than irritation at the soundtrack).

ImmorTall is a haunting, disturbing, Flash “game” originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Open Source

We’ve all been there…

Those dark, dreary, lonely nights when you’re up to date with your video games and you’re out of books. You look at your last good friend, your ever-present ally that’s seen you through thick and thin: your hand. Just one more time… I’ll get a girlfriend soon, I promise…

I’m talking, of course, about Rock-paper-scissors: the fairest of compromise, the inexorable justice of fates, THE ULTIMATE EQUALIZER. Have you ever played it on your own… or tried to? No, I didn’t think so, but Steve Hoefer has; that sad bastard. He cites a love of ‘computers interacting with us on our own terms’, but we all know it’s because his weiner is horrendously chafed and in desperate need of rest.

He simply slips on his glove and goes to work: ‘Ick… ack… ock!‘ (or however you do it in your country… you weird Americans!) — and all the while, the glove is learning his habits and playing against him! How cool is that?! If you often open with rock, the glove will start with paper. That’s about it really, but as is always the case with ‘mods’ (yes, this must surely be the first ‘glove mod’ I’ve seen), it’s all about the making. Go check the masterful nerd’s site for a complete walkthrough (yes, you can quite easily make one of these yourself!). For me, though, the most interesting bit was the ‘open source hardware’ used to process the glove’s inputs and power the outputs. At its heart is a programmable prototyping platform called Arduino. You can purchase the boards, or make them yourself! The language used to program the platform is also open source– cool.

It’s all a bit nerdy, but as you can see in the video after the break, well worth the effort. No longer will nerds have to carry dice in their pockets to decide what to get for lunch at the canteen.

Continue reading Play yourself at Rock, Paper, Scissors with an open source training glove

Play yourself at Rock, Paper, Scissors with an open source training glove originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

When you start playing Minima Time, you’re instantly thrown into a stressful situation: you only have 10 seconds to live! Sounds like you won’t get too far in this expansive platformer. Heck, 10 seconds wouldn’t even get Mario past level 1-1! In Minima Time, though, you have something Mario didn’t have: the ability to stop time!

Your time-freezing powers are limited by the number of clock icons you can collect, but you can also get to checkpoints that will keep you from going back to the beginning of the game. Press spacebar once to slow time, again to stop it, and a third time to return it to normal. Running out of time isn’t the only way to die in Minima Time, though. There are traps, pits, and enemies to avoid. It’s not an easy game, and I felt pretty good about staying alive for two minutes.

So, if you’re looking to waste a very long 10 seconds, you could do worse than checking out Minima Time.

Minima Time is an intense 10 second Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Games

Unlimited Detail is definitely the most interesting technology demo I stumbled on today. In a nutshell: current 3D technology is based on polygons. Each 3D shape you see on the screen is made out of multiple straight facets (polygons). The more polygons (or facets), the rounder and more natural it seems. The current battle is all about polygon counts — how many polygons can a certain graphics card render per unit of time. This metric has been rising 20% per year on average, for the past few years.

But polygons aren’t the only way to display 3D information. Unlimited Detail works with dots, rather than polygons. The thinking is that if we use 3D “pixels” instead of flat shapes, objects can be far more realistic and lifelike because you don’t have as many straight surfaces. Each object is composed of a mass of “dots” virtually positioned in 3D space.

This, in itself, is not a novel idea. A very similar principle exists in voxel technology. What is different about Unlimited Detail is the way they select what pixels to present. And this is where the “snake oil” bit comes in, because there is absolutely no hard proof for this one. They say they’re applying “search technologies” to figure out exactly what pixels to show. In other words, while an entire 3D scene may contain billions of “points”, you may only have 1024×768 (786,432) pixels on your monitor. So if there’s a very fast way to figure out which of these points must be shown on each of the pixels, you get very fast 3D technology.

And this is what Unlimited Detail say they can do. There’s an impressive (if quite smug) screencast after the jump, with a good explanation for novices (and potential investors, I’m guessing — the site seems quite shoddy at the moment). Graphics experts in the audience, help me out here: Is this snake oil, or is it really the next big thing?

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Continue reading Unlimited Detail claims to leave current 3D technologies in the dust

Unlimited Detail claims to leave current 3D technologies in the dust originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Office, Microsoft

Yes, you too can now be that kind of hero; the type usually associated with guitars. Perhaps you lack the manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination, or maybe you just don’t like playing the same damn songs for months on end. Maybe, like the Microsoft Office Labs team, you don’t think guitar/drum/DJ heroics should be reserved for the home! That’s right, you can now be a frickin’ office hero.

The Ribbon UI, which made its debut in Office 2007, has been rather controversial. After some 20 years of File, Edit, Format, The Ribbon throws you for a loop. The Ribbon is meant to provide easier, faster access to contextual commands — let’s face it, manipulating the old ’standard’ toolbar to find the right commands was pretty painful — it just takes a little getting used to. Enter Ribbon Hero, ‘a game designed to help boost your Office skills and knowledge’. By turning Office into a game — by accruing points and competing with your friends — you can quickly learn how to use The Ribbon.

It’s a novel idea, and by no means a bad one. The game itself installs easily, and the implementation (press the button on the ribbon to get started) is smooth. You can either take part in explicit ‘challenges’ to earn points, or simply gather points by going about your every-day work. After playing around with it for half an hour, it’s not surprising to find out that a professional game designer worked with the Microsoft Office Labs team to make RIbbon Hero.

Oh… did I mention that you can use Facebook Connect to battle your friends to the paraphrased, bulleted DEATH?

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Master Microsoft Office with Ribbon Hero originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Games, Windows

Gamers almost universally groaned when Ubisoft announced a new DRM scheme that requires its latest games, including Assassin’s Creed 2 and SIlent Hunter 5, to be connected to the Ubisoft servers to function. Everyone wondered, “What happens when the servers fail?” Well, we found out over the weekend, when — surprise! — the servers temporarily went down, rendering legitimately-purchased copies of Ubisoft’s latest games temporarily unplayable.

Ubisoft’s initial excuse was that their games are too popular, and the overwhelming server loads apparently caused the downtime. Today, they reversed course and admitted that a DDoS attack had taken down the servers. Despite the fact that such an attack could happen again at any time, locking legitimate customers out, Ubi is sticking to its guns on the new DRM scheme for now. I hope that they take steps to secure their servers against another DDoS attack in the short term, and make a long term plan to drop this crazy DRM scheme altogether.

[via Joystiq]

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Ubisoft’s DRM servers fail, while gamers say “We told you so!” originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Games, Features, Windows, Macintosh

Never, in the entirety of history, has there been so much gaming to be done. You can hardly finish a game without the Next Great Game appearing in your mailbox or on your hard disk — because you pre-ordered it on Amazon or Steam, of course.

Believe it or not, we actually have too many good games at the moment. Until recently, gamers could dedicate themselves to a single stand-out game — Myst, Quake, Counter-Strike, Baldur’s Gate — for months, or even years in some cases. But those days of losing ourselves in a game’s universe are gone. Now we have a matter of weeks to play and master a game before another multi-million dollar title clamors for our attention.

There are many die-hard gamers that think such saturation is a bad thing. Games are becoming consumable commodities, like their steadfast film and television brethren. ‘Games should be savored, not chewed’ they cry. But I think they’re wrong: I think what we finally have now is choice. I distinctly remember one summer where I didn’t like the release — and I had nothing to play until winter! Instead of relapsing to in-front-of-the-television, I now always have something to play. Surely that’s a good thing?

But I’m rambling — back to the point! With news of Steam’s imminent release on Mac, and a truly dizzying array of Windows and console games, you need some apps and utilities to make your life easier. With so many games, and so few hours in the day, let me make your life easier!

You probably didn’t even know that there are apps to improve your gaming experience, did you? Cease your fragging and farming, pour some tea, and read on!

Continue reading Essential apps and utilities for PC, Mac and console gamers

Essential apps and utilities for PC, Mac and console gamers originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Developer, Games

Did you know that the Xbox 360 is just a PC in a box? Sure, the inputs are different and you generally attach it to a TV — but still, internally, it’s PC hardware. You can even use the controllers with your PC if you like! The Xbox doesn’t run Windows though; and despite its name, Windows Phone 7 isn’t anything like the Windows you’ll find on your PC. It’s a similar situation with Apple devices: the desktop machines use standard PC hardware, but the iPhone, iPad and iPod all use ‘phone-like’ integrated hardware.

Still with me? Basically: your desktop computer, console, phone and music player are all computers, but built and managed in very different ways. Interoperability between devices is usually via a communication standard such as USB, Firewire or Ethernet — their operating systems are just too dissimilar to communicate in any other way. It would be like using a keyboard with your toaster. But Microsoft has just changed that; that’s why the video you see in Jay’s story is so damn impressive. It’s the same game, the same code, compiled to run on three different Microsoft devices. It’s integration or hardware feature creep — GPS, a stopwatch, calculator and mobile phone — but for software.

Apple, with its locked-down, isolated sandbox is in trouble. Do game developers have any reason to continue working on games for the iPhone or iPad now that Microsoft is offering so much more?

Continue reading Microsoft set to destroy Apple in every games market

Microsoft set to destroy Apple in every games market originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Sushi Cat is one of the cutest Flash games I’ve ever run across. You play a blue cat with a major talent for eating and, fortunately for you, every level is filled with delicious sushi! The controls are simple: you aim and drop from the top of the screen using the mouse, trying to hit as much sushi as you can on the way down. Eat enough sushi, and you can go on to the next level.

Your score depends on how much sushi you eat, and which bucket the cat lands in when it finally reaches the bottom of the screen. The more the cat eats, the more it grows, and a fatter cat bounces differently off of the various obstacles in each level. Don’t worry too much, though, because your cat regains its normal size before each drop.

To make clearing levels easier, you can get a little help in the form of special sushi pieces. The Maneki Neko (the lucky cat!) in the first few levels gives you bonus multipliers or extra lives, while the Tornado Roll in the middle levels sucks up nearby sushi for you. The last few stages have Dragon Cannons, which let you fire your cat in a direction of your choice.

Sushi Cat isn’t a hard game, by any means, but it’s fun to replay for high scores once you get good. And besides, it’s totally adorable!

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Sushi Cat is an adorable, full-bellied Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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