Bye-Bye to my firs

Ever since I've moved into my flat, there were two large fir trees in front of my living room window. But now they're gone without a trace, cut down today.

I can understand my landlord had them cut down, they were huge (taller than the three-storey house I live in) and might have cause a lot of damage in a storm. On the other hand they served as a protection for me - and I could watch birds a lot who came to sit there for a moment. I still have a yew in front of my bedroom window which has grown considerably during the almost three years I've been living in my flat. Maybe, if I'm lucky, my landlord plants some more of these - as I can't imagine any 'normal' tree to grow on the grounds where two firs have stood (firs and other trees with needles 'poison' the ground underneath in order to keep all the good things in it to themselves). I'd love to have some yews to replace my lovely firs.

Where are the strong women?

It's a question I ask myself frequently. We've had about 40 years of emancipation and still most heroes are male. What for, honestly?

Admittedly, I can live without a female substitute for Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" (whatever part of it). And there's other action heroes I won't deny them their place either, but where's the women in this business? There are some, but not many. "Dark Angel" was one of them, "Buffy" too, of course. Lara Croft still is (although, looking at Angelina Jolie's current body, I don't really want to see her as Lara Croft in a new movie). But for everyone of them there's five or even ten male heroes.

And most women in the action movies? Either they're strong and evil, but always fall for the hero (how's that - does the male villain fall for a female hero?) or they're in dire need of help. And, sometimes, there's the female specialist who's basically neutral anyway, because her only job is to give the hero information or some gadgets.

Where do women play a leading role? Usually in romance or melodrama. They are in love (unhappily at the beginning, usually) with some good-looking guy and he gets to impress them with something (once he's fallen in love with the heroine, too). Sorry, if I make it sound too easy, but I'm usually too bored by love stories to watch them for a long time. And melodramas aren't much better. They start out horrible and get worse from there. One of those can you make want to cut your wrists on a fine summer day. Yes, I'm not exactly one for those stories either, although I can stand them as long as they're not going all the way (meaning the heroine leaves the hospital after she's been cured from cancer just to be driven over by a truck or something).

What does that tell the audience? Anything that requires strength and/or intelligence also requires a 'true man'. And everything that centers around emotion is the right thing for women. Admittedly, I probably wouldn't like a love story any more if the protagonist was a man. (Well, if there were two men in the story and there was more than just two hours of 'I love you' to it, we can talk about it.) But sometimes I wonder why so many women love those movies. Then, on the other hand, that might have something to do with the title of my blog.

We've spent years fighting for our rights and trying to be treated equally (which hasn't completely happened yet, but we're on our way). But on screen, at least in most movies, the women are mainly portrayed the same way as they were before the whole emancipation started.

As long as the movie-bosses think people don't want to see a strong woman who doesn't get 'punished' in the end, we're not truly equal.

Boo, I'm a ghost

Don't worry, I haven't died and I'm not a spirit walking on earth. I've just played two adventure games that deal with ghosts and demons and so on: "Delaware St. John" volume 1 and 2.

I bought those games in a package, for about 16 Euros - which isn't bad for two games, even though they are quite short. I'll replay them for sure and thus they will pay off. (I've just investigated, in English the two games are called "The Curse of Midnight Manor" and "The Town with No Name".)

And even though the graphics aren't that advanced (the games aren't that new either), the shock effects from ghosts just turning up seemingly at random - and a strange, cat-like creature suddenly attacking which results in a flight to certain places which are "safe" - are quite good.

Most ghosts aren't evil, but souls caught in two places which have become a prison for them. One is an old manor that was transformed into a hotel, the other is a town whose inhabitants disappeared overnight (and at the same time it disappeared from the maps). But actually the 'town' is just the combination of two houses, the local cinema and the local orphanage which were led by the two children of the town's founder. Those two also are responsible for the demon (one of the two cat-like creatures Delaware encounters in the two games, called hunter) that has killed every being in the town. And - as Delaware finds out - who wanted to sacrifice him as a child to bring an even more powerful creature into the world. But two other nuns (Helena, the daughter, was a nun and led the orphanage) exchanged him for another child and sent him away.

After the two games, not everything is clear (there's at least one more, as I have gathered on the website I found when searching for "Delaware St. John"). The real initiator of both incidents isn't found yet (as the siblings are not responsible for what happened in the manor) and why Delaware was chosen (although his ability to see and hear the dead does set him apart from others), isn't completely clear either. The third one has just been released under the title "The Seacliff Tragedy".

At first, the games look a lot like "The 7th Guest" and the many 'interactive movies' that followed it (and such games as "Myth"), but even though the movement through the rooms is the same, the game offers more than just a couple of simple puzzles. There's an inventory that gets filled and there's a lot to do, as well.

Admittedly, there's two situations which made me want to puke. The first happened in the second chapter of the first game (both games have two chapters, the second one can't be played before the first one has been finished) when I had to unlock the elevator of the hotel/manor in order to reach the second floor. The three-digit code necessary for it was coded in a way I just couldn't figure out (and still can't, I looked into the forum to get an answer - the same went for the situation in the second game - and I found an answer there, which means I wasn't the only person who couldn't find out). The second situation happened in the first chapter of the second game (the second chapter was easier there - or at least more fair). In order to open a hidden door that leads beneath the stage of the movie theatre, Delaware has to find a coin and play an arcade game (!). That's a bit far fetched, even for someone who's rather used to that sort of stunt.

Apart from that, the puzzles can be solved with looking around and thinking. And even though it's theoretically possible to 'die' in some situations, the game is fair there - if Delaware dies, because the player isn't doing the right thing, he's transported back to the beginning of the situation and can start anew. Sooner or later (and as there's always tips on how to do it right on screen) everyone can make it.

The whole surrounding is nice (in a very un-nice way, of course), though some of the places look a bit sterile (like the entrance hall in the manor). But once Delaware has reached the first floor of the hotel, it get's a bit more interesting. Actually, the two games remind me a bit of "The White Room", a freeware-adventure set on a derelict space station which also features ghosts and other scary incidents. And with the ghosts suddenly turning up, there's always some suspense.

On the whole the games aren't bad - although I wouldn't pay a full price for them (which, in Germany, is about 30 to 40 Euros per game). But even when I saw them for the first time - the first one, at least - they were sold for less. As far as such games go (and I wouldn't call them 'real' adventures), they are pretty good, a lot better than other games of that type I have played (although "The 7th Guest" was quite scary sometimes). I can still remember "Dragon's Lair" and "Brain Dead 13", two 'interactive movies' of the worst type, and "Delaware St. John" is much better.

News from Far Far Away

I've been to the movies yesterday - a lot sooner than before, this time it has just been about a month since "Pirates of the Caribbean", last time it was a lot longer - and seen "Shrek the Third". (And I'm already planning the next trip to the movies - on the 12th of July when "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" starts. By the way, Lucius Malfoy is to be found twice on the large advertising that's been positioned in the movie theatre of my hometown. Life can be so nice...)

But back to Shrek. I've been a big fan of the other two movies, so I wanted to see this one as early as possible. I haven't been disappointed at all. The movie had everything I expected: a lot of humour, shrewd characters, an interesting story and more allusions to other movies, stories and so on than ever before (including the whole story of King Arthur, who turns out to be the looser Arty at a medieval high-school - and don't ask me about Merlin, I couldn't go on writing, because I'd be on the floor laughing my head off).

My favourite ogre has a big problem (well, three, actually): his father-in-law has just died and so he's to become the new king of Far Far Away. But with his dying breath his father-in-law also spoke of the next in line behind Shrek and Fiona, the only other suitor to the throne: Arthur Pendragon. While Shrek is on a mission to find Arthur, he has to deal with two more problems: becoming a father and having the infamous Prince Charming taking over his kingdom. Charming is easier to deal with, on the whole, because ogres aren't really known for their parenting skills.

Charming has managed to talk the other villains into helping him to conquer Far Far Away. But even though he can hold the kingdom (after all, he's got an army of bandits, pirates, witches and other evil beings behind him), that's not enough for him, he wants to kill Shrek once and for all. And with Fiona and the other fairy tale princesses (apart from Rapunzel) imprisoned, he thinks he's well prepared for the great show in which he will kill Shrek. But the fairy tale princesses aren't as helpless as they might seem - and Fiona's mother can literally push her head through a wall ... or two.

I'm not going to write much more about the story, because otherwise it would be pointless to go and see the movie. And I'd recommend it, even for those of you without children. Shrek isn't just for kids, there are many layers to the story (oops, back to the first movie and "ogres have layers") and a lot of it is only funny for an adult, because kids won't understand it.

I see more work coming

After finishing the booklets about JavaScript, I've decided to overhaul my website (again) and change a few things. My stories will, after the changes have been completed, be found at "Geschichtenschmiede" and I will change "Night-Shade" into a website with quizzes and suchlike (that should be easy enough to realize with some JavaScript). I will never finish what I had in mind for "Geschichtenschmiede" and that way I can use both domains.

Of course, that's the plan now, but wait until I've started the whole work...

Oh, and just because I couldn't help it: Here's a Nodwick-cartoon I found highly amusing. (Although it's the currently last comic, I've included the archive-address here, because the current comic changes.)

EDIT: I've changed a few things about my old "Night-Shade" site and transferred the data. The stories are now online at "Geschichtenschmiede" and "Night-Shade" will get changed whenever I get to it (by the way: I've got a new job!)

My special collection

Those books are rather special for me. First of all because they represent a kind of book you don't find too often, so they are special as a rule. But there's a second reason, too: I doubt I can write something like this, although I've tried.

Those six books each contain three books that were originally sold separately. They were all more or less written by the same authors, namely Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The six books on that photo were only sold once, they're not republished at the moment - as far as I know.

They are not meant to be read the normal way, meaning starting with the first page and reading until you've read the last one. Instead they are separated into about 400 small paragraphs, each of which tells a part of the story and at the end of each you can decide what to do next by choosing between two or more different options. For example:

"You have reached a cross-road. A street leads towards the east where you can see a mountain range. Another one leads to the west towards what seems a large city. The street towards the south seems to lead to a large forest full of old trees. Do you want to

go east read 215

go west read 350

continue south read 19"

After deciding on an option, the reader will continue with the paragraph belonging to the number mentioned. This way the whole story unfolds slowly with a lot of moving back and forth in the book. In addition - just like in a role-playing game - there are fights, there are things to be found and used. The books actually are some sort of one-person role-playing game that can be played everywhere: at home, at the beach, in the train or plane etc. I can even remember "Das Schwarze Auge" (a German role-playing system) publishing single-player campaigns working that way (I owned one, as far as I remember) for players to level-up a new character.

Of course, it's easy to cheat in such a game, you can read all possibilities before deciding, you can decide you've gotten all you need for the final fight, even if you haven't. I personally mostly assumed I was winning every fight, because I was more interested in the story than in figuring out the numbers for every fight in the books. And in the final battle it paid quite often to choose the decision with the highest number, because the "happy end" usually came with the last paragraph and number 400. (Although not always, I can remember there was at least one adventure for which this wasn't true.)

Most of the stories were fantasy - after all, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone are the founders of the "Game Workshop" and thus among the 'fathers' of role-playing everywhere. Nevertheless there's a few science-fiction inspired stories and at least one horror story. And there's more than one type of fantasy worlds, too (even though some adventures mention places from others).

I got one of the original books, "City of Thieves", when I was about twelve or thirteen, but soon after the books disappeared from the market for quite a while. Later on they resurfaced in a rather shabby paperback-version before being collected in those six large volumes (which together contain all the 18 books published by Jackson and Livingstone).

In a time before computer games became a prominent feature in the world, those books were a good way to play a role-playing game (or at least something of that type) alone. And even today they're a good way to spent some time, because they don't need any hardware (apart from a lamp, provided it's dark outside) to run.

Nevertheless, up until now I've never managed to write such a story myself, it's extremely hard to organize all the paragraphs.

But I'll go on trying!

EDIT: Just found out that the English name for those books is Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. (Link taken from Bitchy Jone's Diary and leading to Wikipedia.)

News from the games front

I've written about the games I got online before, last when I wrote about finally cracking "Ravenhearst". Now it's time for another update.

I've got a few new games by now (making good use of the fact that the Euro is currently quite strong compared to the Dollar). Three of them - the last three - will be the topic of this post.

First of all there's another "Mystery Case File" (I got another one, "Mystery Case Files: Prime Suspect" some time ago and I've cracked it already, but it takes quite long). The first produced game of the series is the last one I bought (actually I bought them in reverse order), "Mystery Case Files: Huntsville". It takes the player to Huntsville in the United States where strange crimes have been happening (see picture above for the starting screen). Just as with the other games, you have to find a number of objects on each screen in order to be allowed to solve every case by clearing a picture of the site of crime (one ingame screen on the left of this paragraph). There's quite some crimes before you can go after the boss of a strange organisation: S.T.A.I.N. By now I'm quite familiar with most objects and know a lot of names for some objects I would never have learned by just reading English texts. Talk about not learning anything from gaming...

I've already finished the game twice, as it takes about two hours to do so and I'm quite well trained to find those objects by now (see picture below this paragraph). In fact I've realized by now that it is quite useful for my own quickness of mind to play such games - they train the brain while at the same time providing some reprieve from writing or working at the computer.

The other two games are arcade-based, meaning they've got less to do with thinking and more with reaction (or rather with quick thinking and reaction). Nevertheless they're both interesting and challenging.

The first game is "Shopmania" and its looks are more cartoon-based. It tells the story of a young man named Lewis and his gerbil Gerry (who's got a terrible cold and needs medicine). Lewis works in a shopping mall, starting in the fashion department and working his way upwards. Now, unlike in a normal shopping mall where you're supposed to give the customers what they want, this shopping mall requires its workers to fill the shopping carts of the customers with as many things as possible.

Each shopping cart has a certain free space, starting with a grid of two on two and building up from there; depending on the money earned and the happiness of the customers, the shopping carts can be upgraded to store more - and earn more money with them, naturally. A shopping cart filled enough will turn from the grey you see on the screen beside this paragraph to yellow and a green button with a Dollar-sign will be activated. Then the customer can be send off to the cashier. But Lewis earns more money by filling the carts completely (twice the worth of the contents) and filling them completely with goods in the same colour (three times the worth of the contents). And especially in the higher levels with their high quotas (the minimum of money Lewis has to make during his shift), it's very necessary to learn all those tricks and fill the carts as efficiently as possible. Of course the objects on the belt (in some levels the belts) aren't all shaped easily, some of them are (one on something objects aren't too hard to pack), but most of them are not. And it really is an art to pack them into the cart without leaving hard-to-close gaps.

The fact that the customers are different in type doesn't make the job easier - some will wait quite long, others are quite impatient. And they all make requests you can (but don't have to) meet. Some want a certain colour, others a certain object. To keep them happy (or optimize their carts), Lewis has a couple of tools at his disposal, like sweets (makes customers happy to wait a bit longer) or wrapping paper (turns objects into gifts that count as any desired colour). But the most useful tool for Lewis is Gerry who can be stored in a shopping cart (he turns up on the belt later on again) and will count as any desired colour, too (and in addition can be an object of three different sizes). That's necessary, because a customer who grows too impatient will leave without buying anything - which counts as a mistake for Lewis. An object that falls off the belt and is destroyed by the shredder also counts as a mistake and after three of them, the level is considered 'failed' (just as serving all customers without meeting the quota of the level). Luckily, there's no real 'Game Over' in this game, you just have to retry until you manage to get everything right.

There's two different varieties of the game, too. One is the story mode, in which the gamer follows Lewis' career from the lowest level (fashion) throughout the shopping mall (past toys, household items and garden stuff) to the highest level (luxury goods). Once a level (which contains a certain number of different sub-levels) is unlocked in the career-mode, it can also be played in 'Overtime' mode, in which Lewis has a certain quota and a certain time to serve the customers and can buy additional stuff with the money above his quota. The 'Overtime' mode runs until Lewis fails to meet the quota or makes three mistakes in one level.

The third new game is "Mystic Inn" and it surely has the best graphics I've seen so far. It tells the story of Daphne who wanders into a strange inn one day and finds out she's unable to leave it, because it's cursed. So she goes on working there and serves various portions to her customers (who are all wizards and witches, but seem unable to help her with her problem). The magic she earns is used by the inn to rebuild itself, adding more tables or even changing the station which produces the potions.

Level for level the game gets more difficult - and more interesting, too. The basic principle stays the same: customers arrive and have to be seated (the first difficulty, because they can only be seated at appropriate tables - there's no way to split up a large group, even though smaller groups can be seated at a larger table), after a short time they'll start ordering and want their potions as fast as possible. They pay for the potions in magic and leave a tip, provided they've been satisfied. In addition later on an owl turns up to take orders away and a little dragon appears which steals the potions from the bar where they whiz past until they're picked up by Daphne. As long as there's only one or two groups to serve, it's quite easy, but the more of them you get, and the more impatient once are in, the more difficult it gets. There's a quota you have to meet in every level in order to advance.

The process is always the same, though, but it gets tougher every level. Seat customers, walk to their table to take orders (that's what you see on the picture beside the paragraph; two from two different tables can be taken at the same time), order the potions from the bar with the icons you can see in the lower right of the screen, pick up the potions at the bar, take them to the table and repeat the process with every group and every table until they leave, upon which you have to collect the tip before the table can be used for the next group of customers. Ever level runs from morning to evening while the inn is open for customers (but you finish serving the customers after the inn is closed, of course). It gives the gamer a good insight in the work of a waitress, actually.

All three games are quite interesting and worth their money, I'll get weeks (and, in combination with the other games I got that way, even months) of fun and reprieve from them.