Tag Archives | Secret

…It’s Website Wednesday: Pencil Rebel?

Pencil Rebel

Grzegorz Kozakiewicz’s Pencil Rebel is made with “Interactive Mixed Media Web Design”, which basically means that he takes cardboard, clay, and whatever else he can find lying around the house and turns it into a website.

Forget Web 2.0; this is Web 0.5, but it’s fantastic, and it shows what’s possible with a ton of imagination, a fair amount of skill with an X-acto knife, and lots and lots of patience.

The goal is to work your way through the puzzle, finding places and secrets along the way, but the journey is definitely greater than the goal, and you’ll enjoy the neat little touches that he added in along the way.

[Pencil Rebel]

…You can catch sunglasses on your face?

Back in May of ’07, I posted a video of a bunch of guys catching sunglasses on their face:

In case you were wondering how it was done (I know I was), Captain Disillusion has posted an explanation video that breaks down each of the seven scenes:

As with all magic, it seems easy once you know how the secret. However, it’s the magician’s innovation that keeps you guessing, and with videos like this:

I’m sure the glasses guys will have us guessing for a long time to come.

…Games are mysterious?

Super Mario Warp Whistle

For some video games, semi-secret items are a way of rewarding players that are advanced enough to find them. For others, their secret items are so hidden that only by chance can you stumble upon them, and even then, you’re often left with an item that has little value beyond ‘Hey, look what I found!”

Why then do designers spend the time to code in these secret mysteries?

According to Gamasutra, it’s a way of lending the game a certain quality, called “verisimilitude, where it “seems like there is a world outside the borders of the screen, happening regardless of what the player does. It implies the existence of a fully-fleshed world” and “it allows a game to better enable the player to forget that it is, really, just a game”.

To prove their point, they have put together a fantastic list of 20 Mysterious Games, including the reason for the secret inclusion, the design of the game itself, and the design lesson that the game can teach future designers.

It’s definitely a trip down memory lane for anyone that has been gaming for some time, and it does give you a new appreciation for the dark arts of video game design, so definitely check it out.

[Gamasutra - Game Design Essentials: 20 Mysterious Games]

[Via: Kotaku]

…It’s Website Wednesday: Wikia Search?

Wikia Search

Wikia Search wants to take down the Google giant with a freely licensed (open source) search engine.

Since Google is now a $200 Billion company, it’s easy to assume that they’re going to be a bit guarded with regard to their search technology; as it is, after all, the driving force behind most of those billions.

However, Wikia Search feels that by putting users in control, they can create a search engine that works faster, is more accurate, and is more informative.

How is it going to do this?

By using the power of a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, and public way.

Their belief is that “search is a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the Internet, and that it can and should therefore be done in an open, objective, accountable way”.

Though it’s currently only an Alpha release (meaning the results are pretty bad because there is no user feedback data), as that data starts to roll in, expect the results to get better at an impressively quick pace. (At least that’s the hope.)

It’s definitely an interesting project, and I hope it’s successful too, because if it can do for search what Wikipedia did for the encyclopedia, then Google definitely needs to keep an eye on this David.

[Wikia Search]

…Paper Mario World lets you play the plumber?

Paper Mario World

Paper Mario World is an impressively thorough Flash game.

Though it’s only one world, the graphics, music, and controls are all true to Mario form, and it’s got plenty of side scrolling action for the fans. Plus, there are even secrets and bosses to round it all out, so get ready to once again smash and bash your way through a land of Goombas and Doombas.

[Paper Mario World]

[Via: Random Good Stuff]

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