After getting addicted to DiRT for the Xbox 360, I started making a top-down, rally game in flash. Assuming I have the time, I’d like to have a ton of tracks and cars as well as online racing/tournaments. It is very unpolished at this point and only has 1 track and 1 car… but here it is after a few hours.
If you are looking for a high definition video camera to mess around with, the Aiptek A-HD 720P High Definition Camcorder is your answer. I was looking for an inexpensive camera to make some videos for YouTube and this does a great job. Anything comparable is much more expensive.
I made my first video which shows my X-Arcade stick w/ Amiga port in action. Unfortunately, the original HD video is too large to upload. It has been compressed multiple times and the aspect ratio has been changed by YouTube.
You may have noticed that it has been a while since my last post. For the last few months I have been putting the finishing touches on a social networking script I wrote. If you are into reading and writing poetry and stories, making friends online, having a public journal, and getting achievements (awesome) for doing it, check out the new members section at Lovingyou.com. If you are not into any of that, you can check out my profile at any rate.
Synaesthete is an interesting mix of genres. It is part shooter and part rhythm. Imagine playing Geometry Wars but instead of pointing where you want to shoot, you have to press buttons to match the rhythm much like Dance Dance Revolution. If you are interested in trying it out, it can be downloaded for free here. Synaesthete is a finalist for the Independant Games Festival so be sure to vote for it if you like it.
I added an Atari/Amiga/Commodore joystick port to my Xbox 360 X-Arcade stick today… Why you ask? Sensible World of Soccer of course! Although I never played the older versions, I have become very addicted to the recent Xbox Live Arcade release. The guys at sensiblesoccer.de seem to prefer an Amiga joystick over any other type of control method so I decided I would give it a shot. Since the Xbox 360 controller can be used on the PC, I figured this project would also be good for emulation.
The gamepad I used is a wired Xbox 360 MicroCon Game Pad Pro. I had to use a relay (TF2E-4.5v-1-H50 ATF20620) on the left and right buttons because they don’t share a common ground. If you decide to do this and just want a joystick port on the controller and not the X-Arcade stick, you should use an opto-isolator instead of a relay as they are smaller.
| 1 | UP |
| 2 | DOWN |
| 3 | LEFT |
| 4 | RIGHT |
| 6 | BUTTON |
| 8 | GND |
On my controller, pins 3 and 4 go to the following relays which connect to the left and right d-pad buttons. Other controllers may be set up differently. Any button that does not share a common ground needs a relay or an opto-isolator.
A NooberoUno Folding@home team has been created and anyone can now join. You will need to have downloaded the Folding@home software or own a Playstation 3 in order to participate. Once you have it up and running, just enter 91933 as the team number. If you have no idea what Folding@home is then read the following:
“What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease?
Proteins are biology’s workhorses — its “nanomachines.” Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.
Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. “misfold”), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.
You can help by simply running a piece of software.
Folding@home is a distributed computing project — people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer takes the project closer to our goals. Folding@home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.”
Having recently acquired a PS3, I decided to install Linux on it. If you are only interested in playing games, specifically newer games that require a graphics accelerator, then don’t bother. If you are looking for something that has the potential to be the next XBMC, can run many emulators, and has a ton of built in apps including Thunderbird (e-mail) and Open Office (MS Office equivelant) then this is something you need to do. Unfortunately for us, Sony only allows other operating systems to use a fraction of the processing power the PS3 has to offer. This means that linux can run a tad slow but is still able to run the majority of apps I was interested in.
Read on for instructions…
Electronic Arts is offering the original Command & Conquer as a free download. If you are interested, you will need to download and burn the cd images.
“In order to give back to the fans for over 12 years of devotion we are putting together a 12th Anniversary celebration during the month of September. However, as any Command & Conquer fan knows, the true party starts today, August 31st, which marks 12 years since the original Command & Conquer launched way back in 1995.”
The newest version of Google Earth now has a built in flight simulator. This was kind of a no-brainer for them to throw this in since the hard part (creating a 3D version of earth) was already done. I have always enjoyed flight sims but since there is no point to them, I never purchased them. Now I can enjoy flying over my girlfriend’s house and crashing into pyramids for the low price of nothing. The controls are pretty basic so it is not a flight “simulation” in the true sense, but who wants to learn how to fly a real plane anyway? Okay, many people would. That’s not the point. The point is, it’s free and it’s pretty fun. If only they would add multiplayer dog fighting, you could shoot down your neighbors and watch them crash into their own house. Awesome!
Anyway, try it out. I suggest using a gamepad; I hated the mouse and keyboard controls. I have a feeling this will turn into a full-fledged flight sim over time and will probably be the best one available. Hopefully it stays free…
Here are the full instructions
Here is the first CamShots update. For those who don’t know CamShots is an application that allows you to capture screenshots from a video capturing device in intervals from 1-60 seconds. It is based on the InterVideo Home Theater software. For more information, see Home Security System For Under $50 - Part 2
New Features:
Keep in mind you need the InterVideo Home Theater software (came free with my video capturing device) as well as the .NET framework for this to work.
Download CamShots - (freeware)
I hope to use something other than InterVideo for future updates.
