Ooh!

Some fun things to post about... where to begin?! I guess we'll go reverse chronological: I just received an email from the Machinarium team (I must've been signed up for updates) that you can pre-order the game here and get some neat bonuses doing so, such as music from the game. There's still a bit of a wait as it's slated for an October release, but exciting stuff nonetheless.

I love Independence Day partly because I love fireworks. Though I've been hearing them on and off for the past few days (tonight especially) the best show I got was at Naim's yesterday evening where we set off some that he bought; hand-held sparkler wands and fountains of fire, colored 'solar flares' and one that shot out zooming green sparks! But more on that in a second; I'm getting out of order.

P2 and I are watching all the Harry Potter movies again before HBP is released, starting tonight with Sorcerer's Stone. As often is the case, going back and experiencing something again will sometimes net you previously unnoticed details. I expected maybe one or two tonight but found four things I'd not previously noticed! These usually crop up because your attention is on some other more focal thing in the scene; but the detail is there to be noticed. What I noticed this time: Near the beginning where the Dursleys are at the zoo with Harry, there's an external shot of the Reptile House in which if you watch the people walking by outside there is a group of students dressed in school uniform. This is a bit odd as technically it's Summer holidays and even Muggles shouldn't be in school then. Anyway, I see it as foreshadowing of school life at Hogwarts, and maybe even of Slytherin* House as the uniforms are green and they're right outside the Reptile House.

Second, I recognized the design of the chess pieces in the Wizard's Chess set that Harry and Ron are shown playing with over Christmas break. The design is very clearly that of the 12th century Lewis Chessmen! Many pieces can be seen from the knight to the queen in her chair, down to the geometric, ebenezer pawns. I had done some research on chess piece design since the last time I watched the movie, so that was rather delightful to discover.

The last two are name related, I never before caught that the centaur who defends Harry against Voldy in the Dark Forest is Firenze (Firenez!), addressed by name by Hagrid. This is probably in the book too, but as you never know which named characters will return to play more prominent roles and which will never return, you tend not to remember minor character names. At least I don't. Finally, at the end of the movie when Hagrid gives Harry the album (P2 said it looked like a cigar box X'D) with the photo of his parents, normally you'd focus on the people waving in the photo, but on either side are pennants bearing the letters J and on the other side L (or it could be the other way round..). JP and LP would be a bit obvious, so the single letters standing for James and Lily are a nice, subtle nod to fans. James' name is at least shown earlier in the movie on the Quidditch plaque, but I don't think Lily's name is ever mentioned.

Fun stuff. I'll keep my keen eye trained on the following movies to try and find other things I've previously missed. Having read all the books now there are the larger story arc things you understand now, like where the invisibility cloak came from and the building suspicion and animosity towards Snape. But those aren't quite the same as previously unnoticed details. Speaking of fun stuff I went over to my buddy Naim's the other night for some fun times as usual. Got to try out some new games including Rocket Riot and Worms Armageddon 2. The former was fun, but the latter just great; pure worms mayhem, polished to a high sheen. Worms scream in terror in the face of nearby dynamite, and the explosion sound effect is quite satisfying. Makes me want to get out Open Warfare 2 (DS) and give it a shot. As it were. :P

*Apart from watching the movie, back when I was designing the Hogwarts uniforms in Animal Crossing (see below), I noticed something about the name Slytherin that's not immediately apparent due to its conventional pronunciation. JKR's big on words and names of things, so while Slytherin obviously relates to slithering snakes, it's spelled with a Y, and so can be broken up to read, "sly therin," relating very specifically to qualities of Slytherin House's members, which the Sorting Hat sings about at some point in the books. I think the song is in the first book, I'll track it down later.

Screens

I'm ready for you, Gulliver! Maybe these crop circles will attract him. :/


The real meaning of "animal crossing:"

Guide to Catching Tarantula/Scorpion

A little backstory: There are only a handful of ways to get 'hurt' in Animal Crossing. You can fall in a hole via pitfall seed, or get bitten/stung by various insects. The mosquito bite doesn't really affect you apart from interrupting whatever you're doing. Bee stings make your face all puffy and deformed, frightening neighbors. When stung/bitten by a scorpion/tarantula the venom knocks you out cold and you wake up on your doorstep. In order to complete the museum, the player must catch (and donate) every type of bug in the game, including the more dangerous ones. Now, in Wild World I caught all the bugs. With scorpions and tarantulas in that game I just got good at going in, guns blazing and snagging them. If you miss, however, you're toast. In City Folk I was having some trouble doing it the old way, and had heard that you could actually catch them quite easily as long as you walk slowly. This was contrary to what I thought I knew about how the bugs operate. I thought that once they spotted you with the net out they would attack. Turns out this isn't quite right, and it does indeed boil down to walking speed.

Scorpions and Tarantulas have the most complex behavior of any bug in the game. If you frighten them by moving too quickly they will run, and whether or not you have your net out determines whether they run toward or away from you. In either case, once you've startled them it's much more difficult to catch them as either you chase them around until you get bored or they fall into water, or they chase you until they catch you or you manage to catch them (which is quite challenging due to factors like motion, distance and angle). As long as you don't 'panic' or 'jump the gun,' tiptoeing up to them with your net is much easier to execute successfully.

To get you to that key moment of slowly* approaching the bug, I found it helps to walk slow while looking. This may seem obvious but it's not normally how players are used to navigating the map. This will also save some wear and tear on your grass, as a bonus. Scorpions and tarantulas seem to tend to spawn along the middle band of acres, and as while trying to catch the Coelacanth, I'd catch or scare away bugs that weren't the ones I was after to cause new bug spawning and thereby increase the chances one of them would be the one I was after. Also, it's easier to spot stationary scorpions and tarantulas (which seems to be their natural spawn state until disturbed by quickly-moving players) when you approach from the south so that the cylindrical perspective allows you to see more of the ground you're approaching.

*I searched the map at about 1/2 to 1/3rd walking speed, stopped when I spotted the bug, got out the net, then approached even more slowly. They will approach you slowly, so stopping (to be sure your net angle is correct) is okay also. Hope this helps someone; between getting stung and losing chased bugs I missed maybe 7 times before nabbing one (scorpion). Tarantula, prepare for a trip to your new home in the museum (once I find you)!

Cave Story... WHERE IS IT?!

More Cave Story News & Previews

Stormy Day

Bah

So, playing in the manner described in the previous post isn't much fun and sort of destroys the idea of time passing in the game. Plus it transforms play from a fun, occasional diversion into a job that consistently takes up lots of real time. Maybe I'll play in that manner once all else has been done in the game and I have nothing more to shoot for, but for now all I'm going to do is try to be watching the skies on the hour and have my slingshot out and ready at all times. I'm also wearing the spacesuit now, mostly in defiance of Gulliver. But who knows, maybe it'll flag him down. :/

Gulliver >:(

In Animal Crossing there's a rare visitor named Gulliver who flies across the sky at a random time on a random day in a UFO. That's what makes him so hard to find; when he'll be there is random. I've been playing City Folk fairly consistently for a couple of months now, and have not seen him. This could be punishment for time traveling, or it could just be that because I generally play once a day, all in one chunk, I've just missed him. I want to make more of a concerted effort to find him as he gives you rare items after you help repair his UFO, but I had some unanswered questions about his appearances.

There is no solid info on such matters as occurrences are so rare, but generally most sources seem to agree that: he comes at a random time between 6am and 6pm, possibly within the first 10 minutes of the hour, on a random day during which there are no other special visitors in town, and he can make more than one pass during the day in question.

One YouTube video showed that Gulliver had been shot down on Sunday, meaning that he had to have been in town between 12pm and 6pm because Joan is there earlier. I don't know if the presence of a special visitor negates the possibility of Gulliver visiting at all that day, or just while that visitor is in town. If the former, it would be much easier to narrow down possible times he could be in town. If the latter, much more difficult as he could still potentially arrive on a day when another visitor had been there, but has left. I'm inclined to think it's the latter due to the rarity of encounters.

My best guess strategy to increase my chances of seeing him are as follows. If I assume a special visitor who's left has not negated the possibility of his arrival, on any given day I'd have to play for at least 2 hours real time, time traveling to the beginning of each hour and playing for the first ten minutes, running a circuit around the center of town to maximize my presence across most of his likely flight patterns. If special visitors DO negate his visit even after they've left, my task becomes easier as I only have to follow the above regiment on days when there has been no other visitor. While the rarity makes me think it could be one way, other ways the game operates, allowing you to "play the system" based on knowledge of how it works makes me wonder if it is in fact possible to watch for him on 'more likely' days. Time limitations may decide action for me.

Already though, I've shot down two* balloons today in test-driving the process, and I would think it would increase one's chances of witnessing possible rain, which means increased gyroids as well. In Wild World I played in about the same way I've been playing normally. In that game I saw Gulliver maybe two to three times as often as I was able to shoot him down, which was only 2-3 times. I had in that game 2 merlions and a Mouth of Truth, but my brother may have given me one merlion, I don't recall. I know he had a mermaid too, which would mean he shot Gulliver down only a couple of times as well. The funny thing is I wonder sometimes if my presence triggers such things or not. Either they're happening all the time and I just miss them, or I happen to be there when they do occur, or their occurrence is triggered by my presence. I wish there was more solid info on this. I do know that some of his 'exclusive' items aren't; one of my character's virtual mother sent him a box of chocolates in the mail, supposedly a Gulliver-only item.

*Make that three, netting me the Mario coin I needed, and it did indeed rain later on. All I need to complete the Mario set now is the flooring. The metroid from Gulliver would be nice, as would the mermaid statue. The Manneken Pis would be humorous, and I'm intrigued about the plate armor, but at this rate I may only get one of them... or none. :( Maybe dressing up in his same spaceman garb will attract him; at this point anything could help.