Interesting Bits

Wednesdays are going to be Interesting Bits days! These will be little things I've been toying with this week, and want to throw up a quick post on. Yes, yet another attempt to give some structure to my blogging.

Everyone else in the blogosphere has already posted about it, so I'm going to also! Auditorium. Click on it. Play it. Experience it. Even if you aren't a gamer. This thing is AMAZING! Simple to navigate and learn how to play, but very complex in figuring out the interactions of the light/sound stream.

Playing around with it a bit this morning, I was reminded of two of my favorite PS3 downloads. PixelJunk Eden and Linger in Shadows are two... experiences I really enjoy.

PixelJunk Eden is an amazing little game where you jump and swing your way around a neon garden environment, collecting bits of fluff. The goal - grow more plants in the environment in an effort to collect all the large seeds scattered around the garden. The more seeds you get the more environments you open up. It is an amazing little program that packs a lot of diversity into a simple (in appearance) design. A platformer with a twist, everything is done via threads you swing on from plant to plant.

Linger in Shadows isn't a game, but a demoscene project published by Plastic out of Poland. I downloaded it from the Playstation Store the other night, and was immediately hooked. Basically, it is a graphical/technical demo that has a bit of interactivity attached to it. By fooling around with your SixAxis or DualShock 3 controller you can unlock interesting things in the demo to earn trophies for your collection.

I really like all three of these games as they explore gaming beyond the "traditional" aspects of bash/quest/save the princess. Go back up there and click on the Auditorium link. And, if you have a PS3 I definitely recommend giving the other two a chance. You will be extremely happy you did!

On a slightly different front, I've been very good at keeping my ShutterCal updated. I've only missed one day so far! I'm finding the project to be a lot of fun, looking for different pictures to take and getting them posted up. ShutterCal has a friendly community, full of talented people taking pictures all over the world. If you have any interest in photography, or even if you just have a camera, you should go check it out.