Categories
Stupid things Videogames

Press & Move – A playable version of the XKCD comic Click & Drag

If you remember the cool XKCD comic strip “Click & Drag” where you could view a huge, never-ending panel full of tiny surprises all around the place, then you’ll probably love this playable version that the wonderful people of Kajakklubben in Copenhagen have pulled off.

Basically they have made it into a nice exploration game where you’ll keep getting surprised by the small details that have been added everywhere. I recommend you give it a look and I applaud Kajakklubben for the awesome idea!

Click here to start exploring now!

Oh, and one more thing! You can also check where players are in real time!

Update: Woah! Looks like this little game got far more attention than anyone thought possible! Their statistics service even went down for several hours from so many simultaneous visitors!

First we have XKCD comic creator Randall Munroe commenting about the game:

“I *love* Press and Move. I don’t know anything about animation or about game interfaces, but it’s exactly how I would’ve set it up if I’d been designing a more game-like version. I spent quite a while exploring, which until this I’d done surprisingly little of.”;

And then we have Kotaku, who along with other online gaming websites have praised the game.

Once again, congratulations to Tim Garbos, K. Shonibare-Lewis, Martin Fasterholdt and Kasper Videbæk for a nice job!

Categories
Stupid things

Where the North Sea meets the Baltic Sea

Sometimes we can only marvel at curiosities like this one.

This is what you can see from the town of Skagen, in the North of Jutland in Denmark. It is literally the place where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet, the connection of the Skagerrak and the Kattegat. Since these two seas have different salinity and temperatures when they meet they cause turbulences that make it a dangerous area to cross by boat.

Quite a view, isn’t it?

Edit: Seeing how many visits I receive on my website based on this post alone, I decided to add yet another amazing picture of Skagen that I hope you will all like. Enjoy! 🙂

skagen

 

Categories
Internet and technology Mobile Stupid things

A quick thought on the Samsung Galaxy SIII

So today Samsung announced the next phone in the line of its successful Galaxy S series of Android smartphones.

Usually I applaud Samsung for their impressive smartphones, which tend to be among the best out there in the market.

But seriously… I think this time they are going a little bit too far. How big does a phone need to get to be called “better” these days? Does the size of the screen really matter that much? And how long is this trend going to continue?

I decided to make this stupid little joke on the increasingly huge size of the screens on Samsung’s phones, but this could easily apply to other makers too. Please mind that I put all this together really fast, though the phone sizes are proportionally correct between one another.

The funny thing is that, as I mention in the picture, Samsung already has a tablet/phone hybrid called the Galaxy Note (which as a tablet I think is quite nice, but as a phone I think it is simply too big for anyone to carry around in their pockets), and then they also offer the Galaxy Tab in several sizes.

So what will they do next? Will the tablets increase in size to make space for even bigger phones? Or will this nonsense of “bigger is better” stop someday?

As a disclaimer, I used to have a phone with a 4″ display (the Samsung Omnia 7) and I recently switched to a phone with a smaller screen: the Nokia Lumia 800 which has a 3,7″ display, and I’m quite happy with it, not needing more than that as it is a very comfortable size to work with.

Categories
ITU Copenhagen Stupid things Videogames

Cake Wars! Or how to make someone’s birthday feel special =)

It all started with a cake by Tim Garbos in Corinne’s Facebook wall for her birthday (as seen above).

And what started as an innocent little monster cake with a Danish flag became a series of back-and-forths between some of us to out-do the other. A real cake war!

In came Samuel Walz’s improved version of the cake, dubbed the Cakemonster 4.2 (in a seemingly random version upgrade) with:
– More candles
– More strawberries
– Improved danish flag (more cozy according to Sam and possibly attracting Spanish tourists)
– Candles already lit

This upgrade didn’t go unnoticed, and soon after Kristín posted on Corinne’s Facebook wall yet another improvement!

This new sexier version of the cake was now up to Cakemonster 6.8 (Woah! These numbers go up fast!) and according to the official changelog it included:

– Make-up, it’s what every cakemonster needs to feel oh so pretty
– Bigger shoes
– Two extra creepy fingers on each hand!
– Engraved candles

Then Kayode (feels so weird to call him like that now when we all name him K.) allowed us to take a break from monster cakes and gave Corinne a different kind of drawing. Birthday laser included.

But alas, it didn’t take too long before the Cakemonster evolved even more! Now it went up to a more stable-looking version 7, courtesy of Freyr!

This version’s biggest upgrade was obvious: the Cakemonster was now together with its extended family! (With a lovely meme in the background).

At this point even Google joined the cake party!

Meanwhile I was deciding how to add my two cents for Corinne’s birthday, and seeing how I was in the 3D Game Art course at that moment it just felt right to take the cake to the third dimension!

Apparently the one who started this entire cake trend, Tim himself, felt up to the challenge. After all my cake was in 3D, sure, but it was not our dearly beloved Cakemonster! So here came the new 3D rendition of it by Tim!

Taking it personally (I mean, come on, Tim did publicly state that his cake was meant to beat mine!) I declared the Cake Wars and quickly returned this personal attack with the following picture with my cake angry and ready to cut the Cakemonster (9.3? I lost count of the version number already!) in pieces:

But it seems like you cannot simply take it against Tim’s cake and leave unscathed… His next move took it yet one step further! The Cakemonster could now move and do a backflip! Or a sideflip… Or… well, something that ends with lots of colorful lines! It lacked the several improvements made during the day, but hey! It jumps! And that’s awesome, right?

Ok, so he’s made the Cakemonster animated? Alright! I’ll take it on! I’ll make it interactive!

After all we’re Game Designers in here, so why not quickly learn how to do a simple First Person Shooter with the Cakemonster?

Of course a picture just doesn’t show the full thing, so why not give the game a try? It’s available here and it only needs the Unity Web Plugin to play!

At this point Tim had made me think that he was giving up and would not take it further (LIAR!), so I happily sat down… until an unexpected challenger raised up!

The duo of Samuel and Kayode surprisingly made this flash game based on Space Invaders, with with the Cakemonster (this time once again in its latest version) attacking… both Tim and me. Oh noes! Nice touch with the custom-made music, by the way! Of course you can also play it yourself here!

Were these two the winners of the Cake Wars? Up to now Corinne had received more than enough cakes and Cakemonsters to make this for her most delicious birthday yet.

But NO! That was definitely not the end of it! While I couldn’t stop laughing at the second Cake Wars game, Tim had inadvertently created something that could easily surpassed any digital cake! He made a REAL cake in just under 30 minutes!

Sure, it’s made out of an orange. But it’s still a cake with two candles! And two Danish flags! And it’s still a Cakemonster (11.7?).

That last sneaky move was performed 5 minutes before midnight, thus officially closing Corinne’s birthday. I gave up, I couldn’t reply on time and Tim Garbos won this Cake Wars.

And I’m sure this is one war that will go down to the history books 😉

Categories
betaDwarf Videogames Videos

betaDwarf Developer Diary #2 is out!

It’s been a little bit longer than I had originally planned (the idea is to produce these videos at a faster rate) but yesterday I recorded and edited the second episode in a series of videos for Danish videogame developer betaDwarf.

If the first video introduced you to some of the dwarfs working, at that moment, in a small space at the University of Aalborg in Denmark, this new episode has CEO Steffen Grønning showing you their new offices: an awesome house full of concept art everywhere you look that is fifty times more cozy than the former. Heck, just the kitchen itself has received a tremendous upgrade! It also gives programmers a new meaning for the term “caving” as you will see.

Once again I have to thank all of betaDwarf for giving me this opportunity that is definitely helping me improve my skills with the camera and editing, as well as learning how an indie videogame company runs (they recently had their first anniversary!)

So go ahead and enjoy the video in all its HD glory! And don’t forget to leave any comments and suggestions on what you want to see for the next episode!

Follow betaDwarf on Twitter and Facebook, as well as on their website Betadwarf.com!

Categories
Stupid things Videos

Dogs barking a very familiar song…

image

Ok, so I admit I have no idea what the heck this viral video is supposed to achieve, but Volkswagen has definitely gone out of its way to create this hilarious video that is definitely more than just watching once.

If you don’t recognize the song, then please, just stop using the Internet.