Here's the latest page! The end of the chapter draws near! Once again, I abstain from the April Fools Day shenanigans. Oh, I've got ideas, sure... but there's something about the day in general that bugs me. Since I'm sure I'm not the only one, consider this a loving embrace in the face of adversity. Also, where is everyone? It's quiet as hell around here lately. ;A;
If anybody's feeling ambitious, the OHP Comixpedia article could use a good dusting and polishing! You don't have to go by the official cast page, but it's a good guide for getting started. Minor characters are fair game, too!
OHP's been slowly climbing the ranks at BCx! Thank you for voting, those of you voting! If you'd like to get in on the hustle-OHP-to-the-top action, vote every day!
April's a fantastic month for horror movies this year. Naturally, everyone's waiting with bated breath for Silent Hill, but while you're salivating and fidgeting, you should definitely go and see Slither (from the same guy who brought you the unexpectedly great Dawn of the Dead remake). The marketing for this poor thing was practically nonexistent, but don't let it get swept under the rug: if you love goofy horror in the style of Evil Dead and Shaun of the Dead, Slither won't disappoint. Rarely is the going rate for a movie ticket worth the hassle these days, but I dare say the cost here is completely justifiable. I wouldn't be surprised if James Gunn became the next George Romero.
Tranquility 6 came out a few days ago. I've been a long-time fan of TQ, but I've got to admit... this latest installment sucks. Pop-in? And shooting? For fuck's sake, guys. That's not why I started playing. If I want to shoot things, I'll play a first person shooter, thank you.
And last but not least, I've finally got an interview lined up. It's not an art job like I'd hoped, but it'll be money in the meanwhile. Wish me luck!
Wow, hello! This is unexpected. I must say, the more verbose explanation here illuminates a lot that the brief response I got through e-mail did not. Sorry to be a dick about it, but my gut reaction to the changes made was a bit strong, since TQ has been my source of relaxation in an otherwise twitchy gaming world. TQ, and Rez. The crème de la crème, if you ask me. And while Rez does have a shooting element, it's integral to the Rez experience. Shooting feels completely out of place in Tranquility.
It's really rather disappointing to hear that the Apple boys stiffed you guys on the technicality that your game wasn't an FPS. But... are you including the shooting element just in the hopes that TQ gets packaged with future OS distros? That seems a little backwards to me. I've always felt that TQ's strength has lied in its staunch refusal to conform to gaming norms.
The pop-in I mentioned is the relatively short distance at which the geometry in-game seems to vanish (which was a disturbing surprise, because previous versions had no pop-in that I could see; you could back way out from the game board, park, and look at everything on the level). As of TQ6, if I'm on one side of the playing field, I can't see geometry on the other side of it. Spinners and other things just vanish into rendering oblivion. The game now feels much smaller, you know?
I have indeed tried the E-key... quite beautiful, actually! But, my poor 867 G4 can't hack it. :) Looking forward to giving it another go once I have the scratch for a new machine, though!
Thanks for commenting!
Aloha again... one more comment from me about the inclusion of a 'gun' in tranquility.
Often, when describing the game to someone who has not tried it the conversation goes something like this: "Hey! Have you tried our neat game Tranquility?"
"No, what's it like"
"Ummmm, well... uhhhh, it's a game where you float around and land on spinners, think of it as hide and seek with a jetpack"
"Is there something to shoot?"
"No, there is no gun"
"No gun? is there blood and gore?"
"No, there is no blood and gore, there is no way to die, there is only tranquility and relaxation"
"No gun? No blood? Nothing to kill? What good is that anyway, forget it, I'm not interested"
So one other reason we stuck the gun in was to convince some of these FPS twitch players out there to give Tranquility a shot (no pun intended) - at least now when they ask "does it have a gun" we can say "you bet".
Aloha... I'm one of the designers of Tranquility and I wanted to explain the 'gun' you spoke of.
When we came out with the Mac version of Tranquility a copy got to the heads of Apple who liked it very much. We wanted to see if Apple would distribute it with every release of OSX.
One of the VP's of Apple (who is in charge of such things) basically said "not unless there's a gun in it" (as he likes FPS).
We, of course, refused - and TQ never ended up in any distro (but to be fair, Apple does have wonderful write-ups of the game and it is posted on their software area). We refused because - hey - it's tranquility, and guns basically arn't.
Since that time we've come up (internally) with a number of interesting variations - including multi-player (no, not coming soon to a theater near you) and built in IRC (where you could see other people and chat with them) etc etc etc. In one version we thought "well why not, lets' stick something you can 'shoot'".
So we did, and it's in there. It isn't really a 'gun', more than something you can 'shoot' that removes platforms. If you choose to use it or not, is your decision.
I personally don't use it - however, I can see strategic advantages to using it. In the latest version we have modified the geometry to tilt and have increased bunching capability, this means that the spinner is often very difficult to hit if it's meshed in with a bunch of other platforms. Shooting a few platforms out of the way can greatly increase the ease of hitting the spinner.
There is, of course, a dark side to using the shooter as well - that is, you can accidently shoot out the wrong platform making it impossible to get to the spinner (sorta shooting yourself in the foot as it were).
But the reason it is in there is for the VP in Apple who liked the game, but not enough if it didn't have a gun :)
I'm not sure what you mean by your 'pop-in' comment - unless it's the fact that now some more distant structure 'pop-in' when you get closer. I also found that effect disturbing, but the designer of the game browser itself (Bill) liked the effect.
BTW, have you tried the 'e' key yet?
IT'S THE EASY BUTTON!
"that was easy"
They've sealed the exits! Julian will have to escape through the entrance!
I know that lyric at the top! That's from "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon. =3
when the alarms were starting off i couldn't help but imagine the "chase" theme from Metal Gear Solid playing in the background. which made the last panel all the more funny :)
Snake needs to get one of them remotes sometime
Panel 3 Julian = PRICELESS.
Good luck with the job!