Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Vara Software debuts Videocue presentation software.  Vara Software has intorduced Videocue, a new application that combines a teleprompter with a w... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network] I've been following the work of a company named Serious Magic for a while. They have a competing product they brought out about two years ago. I saw it first on the old ScreenSavers TV show on cable. It looked wicked cool although it was PC only. I'm glad to see the market for this type of product is large enough that someone is willing to take a swing at a Mac version. If it's listed at the same price point as Serious Magic's product ($99 retail) I will definitely buy it. Here's to those brave souls who try to break new ground with a novel Mac Software product! 8:04:02 PM    comment []

Letting Gamers Play God, and Now Themselves. Peter Molyneux, widely considered one of the best high-concept designers in the video-game industry, is renowned for creating "god games." By By STEPHEN TOTILO. [The New York Times > Technology] I kind of loved and hated Black and White. A little explanation is in order however. I spent a lot of time doing tedious stuff during that game trying to be a perfectionist. This is how I approached the FPS style games where I would kill ALL the enemies, find ALL the secrets, etc. on ALL the levels of the game. You need to just go through and finish as fast as you possibly can. It was ABSOLUTELY necessary for me to go to hints websites because I was dumbfounded that there was poisoned grain on the third level. How the hell was I supposed to know that? It never appeared on any levels before or AFTER that one level. To me that's t he most unfair thing, and I wasted probably 24 hours of game time on level 3 in Black and White. It's my own fault for not going to the hint sites earlier. But I do like Peter Molyneux's aesthetics when it comes to game design. He's top notch. 7:38:27 PM    comment []