Defender Of The Favicon is definitely the smallest game ever featured on DYH.
Designed as a test to see how far you can push the concept of a generated favicon, the idea was to pack a retro shooter into 16×16 pixels using JavaScript, Canvas and Data: URIs
From start to finish, the game took just three nights to complete.
To get everything working: Each frame is generated on the fly in JavaScript into a 16×16 canvas element, then converted to a 32bits PNG images and used in place of the Favicon.
The game logic isn’t really complex but remains true to the original Defender and provides enough action for 16×16 pixels. The original game mechanics would make Defender of the favicon insanely difficult. Therefore a few adjustments were done : none of the enemies fire at you, your Defender got upgraded with a shield, and finally the Landers do not mutate into unstoppable war machines after abducting a humanoid but wander in your general direction.
[Defender Of The Favicon]
The Blogosphere got in a tizzy recently after Google decided to change its favicon (the little icon in your address bar that’s unique to each site).
To address those that demanded answers from the big G, Google has written a post about the new favicon, and explained that “the reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices”.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the little G, and would have preferred that they stick with the big G, but apparently they’ve got some goals in mind, since they “tried in total more than 300 permutations”.
Apparently they wanted something distinctive and noticeable, as well as something that embraced the colorfulness of the logo, yet wouldn’t date itself, and considering the amount of feedback they received from people who noticed the change, I think they succeeded.
Rest assured though, if you can’t stand the new favicon, let them know, because they “really value feedback form users and want to hear your ideas”.
[Official Google Blog]
Faviconize is a favicon directory that wants to list the best favicons from around the Internet. (And with over 11,500 already, they’re well on their way.)
The favicon is an often overlooked and unfortunately under utilized tool. It’s the little icon/logo in your address bar that gives you a quick and visual differentiator between each site and the next, and it also separates out your bookmarks beyond just text.
Though it’s such a small piece of a website’s overall look and feel, it’s a large part of the functionality of a site, and especially if you want to bookmark that site and return later, which is why Faviconize celebrates each little icon as if it was a little piece of art.
You can favorite them, vote on them, and even sort them by color and rating, which means Faviconize covers just about everything you could ever want to do with a favicon. (And then some.)
[Faviconize]
Here’s a quick tip for you Firefoxers out there: To change your homepage, just drag the site’s favicon onto your ‘Home’ button on the address bar.
