Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=119https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339Finally, I found the clothing store! Woohoo! It was in an alley of all places and sort of hidden. My thought is that in this bohemian world, although appearances really do mean something and help you get by and fit in, that maybe the process of acquiring materialistic possessions is supposed to be minimized to show how they don't value it? I don't know. Either way, I got clothes, money and got passed the body guard. Check mate (Oops wrong game). So I completed more tasks and succeeded in interacting better with the other characters. I even opened up new places, the Blackeyed Peas are waiting for me...somewhere. Hence the next problem. I have had trouble navigating my surroundings. I think that some of it has to do with the camera angles. I used to having more control because the perspective is from the actual characters point of view, not above, around, over, inside. Just everywhere and no where. i have also never experienced the process of loosing my person. I think it is fun, but annoying. I have to take care of my own need and taking care of my avatars' needs too is just not a compelling enough reason for me to want to do it over and over again.Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:31:52 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339&iddiary=1013https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339After my initial shock of just trying to figure out how to play had subsided, I attempted to take on some of the goals of my Sim, like getting a job, earning a reputation, buying furniture for the apartment and trying to find some new clothes so I could get around properly and not stick out so much (cause many of the other characters told me that they wouldn't talk to me until I changed :( ). I found the job an easy task and made money in no time. So I went looking for a store, somewhere to buy, something. But I couldn't find one. All I found was a cash register sitting on the counter. This seemed out of place to me because there seemed to be a mapping to many other aspects of the game, but not this one. I thought originally that shopping was a big deal in the game so I thought it would have been more of an event. But it wasn't. Anyway, I bought some floor tiles and wallpaper and then realized that i already had a shower in my secret inventory. I found this round gave me more experience reading the characters but it was still more of a "good luck" kind of gig when it came to getting the correct response. I also found I was somewhat offended when one of the chiks slapped me. I really wanted to hurt her a bit more than the game would allow. I guess I got attached.Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:23:11 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339&iddiary=1012https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339Let me preface this entry by saying I have never played any SIMS anything. I know some people may find that hard to believe, but yes, it's true. Having said that, I had preconceived expectations. First, that it wasn't going to be that hard to play. I was wrong. Apparently my real time socializing skills are a bit better that my digital ones... i started out in front of my "new" apartment and immediately began exploring my world. Since there was a dumpster, I figured, "hey why not." Because you'll get dirty, that why not. So I then went to check out my apartment and get a shower, only to find, there was no shower. There was no anything!?! What kind of "new" apartment is this anyway? Since I couldn't find anything to do in my meager, empty apartment, I headed down to go network with, well people. The characters are bohemian like. Artsy I would say. This is where my networking failed. I had a hard time trying to read the characters and determine what would be the appropriate thing to say at first. Afterwards I guess it makes sense that the beatnik chik may not be so happy to talk to a perky blonde. humph... I also had serious troubles trying to balance my daily needs. It took some time to figure out that I could go sleep in someone else's bed and use a toilet that was just sitting in a room with the bed. I wasn't used to the environment in real life so I had a hard time mapping the events to my virtual world. At one point she went running to the bathroom herself because I seemed to have forgotten to take her. I found out that life in the Urbz really is a hard place to make it after all...Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:15:40 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=339&iddiary=1010https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337After I found the boat, it opened up a new mode of transportation. i thought it was going to be really cool, which it was at first. But then the idea that you have to sail everywhere which takes a really long time. Too much time. i think somewhere in the game you get to teleport yourself but I haven't found it yet. And I'm annoyed...Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:57:08 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337&iddiary=1007https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337Frustration...After the first time of trying to get across the obstacle course in the pirate ship, I had almost made it then lost it on the last jump. The second time I made it, only to be foiled by button smashing. The next 10 minutes were spent trying to get back to a treasure I already had access too! Finally I made it across and progressed onto the "stealth" mission. This is the first time I have ever experienced Zelda with a "stealth" type mission. I thought it was a really interesting twist to the game and made it a bit more dynamic. There were even barrels around the environment which you could pull over yourself and then walk around in so as not to be noticed. Too cool. Another aspect of the stealth part is that you loose your weapon when you first get to this area. So you have to sneak around and smash the bad guys over the head with a vase in order to find pieces inside to use against them. But this is not so easily done because if they have a weapon then you have to shield yourself from them, make them drop the weapon, pick up the weapon before they do, and then attack them with it. This adds a whole new complexity to the game but can also become a vary long and tedious process. Another interesting tidbit about this level is that it is the first place where i realized there is no JUMP! You can't actually jump just to jump. It sucked. Really limited my options and continued to annoy me throughout the rest of this play.Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:53:55 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337&iddiary=1006https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337The last time i played a Zelda game was on the NES, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from a new fangled 3D version of one of my favorite childhood games. But when I heard that lovely music, I knew it would be ok. The first problem I ran into was the length of time it took to read the story (around 10 minutes)! Although the story was very intriguing, the fact that I couldn't button smash my way through it somewhat annoyed me. Fortunately, this annoyance was quelled by the o' so cute little characters that awaited me on the other side of the opening narrative. However, I soon realized that if you don't pay attention in this game it could make your life much harder. For instance, when it was finally time for my game-play to start I was to go to grandmother's house. My friend assured me they had shown me the location in a camera shot but there was no other way to tell the direction you needed to go. No indicating marks on the map you could see in the bottom left corner, nothing. So the game effectively made you wander around until you found the right place. I guess since the world really wasn't that big for me to explore this wasn't too much of a hassle. But if the worlds get bigger (which I imagine they do) I hope I get a map or something! The interactions with the player are all a text based, walk over and push the button to hear them talk. I think something I would have liked to see was the ability to choose different answers. For this game however, I don't guess that was the premise, for you just keep tapping until they are through. Either way, after approaching several characters, I realized there were different tasks that you could either take on or ignore. Of course, there were some that you really had to do, such as finding the sword. But others, like trying to catch a pig, were just fun exercises. I ended this round of playing after I went onto the pirate ship. All in all I'd say that so far the game captures my interest but it does have some quirks about it. I guess I'll get used to them.Mon, 20 Nov 2006 12:21:25 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=337&iddiary=1001https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333My final round with "Life" was more interesting than I thought it could be after playing the first time. I started testing out scenarios, not necessarily identifying with the abstract little blocks but creating my own social experiments (if you will) to see how stable populations would react when faced with an outsider. Or what would happen when 2 stable populations were mixed. Would one absorb the other? Or would they both die? I connected 2 stable populations of 6 cells together. This ultimately resulted in 10 stable populations. i connect one population of four by a single line to another. They died. Creating a block with six double squares and 2 hanging off one end created an interesting pattern of life movement where one piece breaks off and becomes stable while the other moves around the board like a bunch of gypsies. It turned out to be a rather interesting game because it ultimately drew me into trying to determine what would kill or populate cells, and thereby allowing me to create my own little game. I don;t think I could play it for an extended period of time by any means. It was very abstract but very interesting none the less. engulf a stable population then reform a stable one in a different shape. then some populations were never "stable" they constantly fluctuated in an and out of the same shape . interesting sometimes trying to connect one population to another stable population would inturn kill themMon, 20 Nov 2006 12:05:15 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333&iddiary=999https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333The second time I played "Life," i decided to try a systematic approach to the game. After all, it is based on mathematics right? So this time I started playing the game by looking at all of the pre-configured examples: glider, small exploder, exploder, space ship,tumbler and gospel glider gun. This process proved to be the best way to ease my brain into connecting with the abstract dots that were living and dieing before my eyes. In the glider example, the cells move around until they hit the bottom of the screen, around 59 generations or so were the population becomes stable but, in my opinion, stagnant, because it quits moving all together. The small exploder only takes around 17 generations to create a stable population. The regular exploder produces a stable/unstable pattern because the pieces are constantly rotating around 3 different patterns. Therefore they are stable in their instability. The coolest was the space ship because it really started to illuminate the "life" the squares can take on as a population. Once it starts it moves across the screen bouncing around quite a bit before becoming stable. The tumbler was nothing much, as far as being able to connect to it, the blocks just sort of moved around in the same space over and over again, hence the name tumbler. Finally, the gospel glider gun. Whoa. Three of the starting squares move upward across the board and "infect" the other square. then then produce "stable" pieces and constantly move back and forth. It is really the best of the pre-configured patterns and really got me thinking about how to create a game out of this "game." The articles I read about it described it as a solitaire game, but even solitaire has a game, whereas this one does not. The game is sort of you creating your own game in the game. To this end I started creating geometric shapes or writing in numbers to see which created more stable populations. A square is more stable than a circle or triangle. And 1 becomes stable before 2 or 3. Interesting...Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:57:09 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333&iddiary=998https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333To begin with, here are the "rules" of the game: For a space that is 'populated': Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by loneliness. Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation. Each cell with two or three neighbors survives. For a space that is 'empty' or 'unpopulated' Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated I initiated some of the pre-configured runs such as glider and then tried to just experiment with the game and populate random cells with "life" and see what happened. Honestly, I wasn't that excited with the outcome. All I could see were patterns that the cells made. Since there are no characters per se it made it even harder to think about these abstract yellow colored little cells as anything more than little yellow squares moving around the screen. I think it is because the game is so abstract that it didn't catch my attention. But I vowed to play again...Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:41:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=333&iddiary=996