The last quarter of 2024 seems to be an exciting one for lovers of anime, toys, comics and games in Singapore.
We have 3 events coming up one right after another from mid- October to mid - December.
Firstly GamesCon Asia starts from 17th Oct (Thursday) to 20th Oct (Sunday) and will be held at Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre. I think the public event is from 19th to 20th Oct with the daily ticket priced at $19. 18th Oct is also available to "super fans" at $55?
The second event is Anime Festival Asia - AFA Singapore, held from 29th Nov to 1st Dec, and again at the Suntec Convention Centre. This event is a lot more focused on animes and so we would expect the cosplay folks to be more interested. The tickets are priced from $28 (1 day) to $80 (for 3 days). I guess fans of cosplay would wanna attend all three days.
The last event is Singapore ComicCon (SGCC) and this event would be held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre from 7th Dec to 8th Dec. Prices of tickets ranges from a one day $38 for either 7th or 8th, to the ultimate $268 fans pack. Kids under 8 years old can enter free with their families.
Starbound is an established open-world game with that nostalgic 2D side scrolling gameplay. Among the many activities (include building your own bases, getting a space mecha, main story quest of saving humanity and all space races etc), a player could also dig and collect fossils to display them in nice looking shelves.
The fossil hunting / excavation part could be a bit confusing initially since there isn't any explanation. It is actually quite simple. When the player sees fossil like symbols underground, the player could activate a fossil brush on these symbols. This activates a mini-game with a screen shown below.
Starbound - Fossil Excavation Start Screen
In the initial screen, the box on the left would have two "soil types" of different colours. The player needs to use the brush (1 of the 5 tools on the right of the screenshot) to brush away loose soil. This would reveal the fossils pieces (and possibly a treasure box as well). The screenshot below is what the player sees after initial brushing.
Starbound - Fossil Excavation Process
The loose soil would be gone, and the remaining are 'rocks' to be dug / knocked away. This is when the player needs to do some planning. Based on the tools (the other 4 boxes on the right showing tools and their dug area that are almost Tetris looking shapes), player could select the tools to dig remaining rocks. There would be clues on screen, i.e. those revealed bones.
Fossil Excavation Tools
The end result is that the rocks are 'cracked / dug' but the player still needs to use the brush to brush away the cracked / dug soil. This would reveal the underlying hidden parts which may include the fossils. After a few tries, the player would know the standard shape of the hidden fossils. The minimum is 9 parts (which would always form a T shape) while the max I have seen is 17 parts. In the screenshot above, 9 out of 11 (9/11) have been revealed. If the player used a tool on the reveal fossil, this cracked the fossil and excavation failed. Likewise if all tools have been used and the entire fossil is not revealed, the exercise failed too.
Revealed Fossil - Successful Excavation
A successful excavation means the entire fossil is revealed and the player gets the random assigned fossil. If the treasure box is also revealed, the player would also get some free items. Initially it is normal to have a few failed excavation but once the player gets the hang of the min-game, especially after recognising some of the standard fossil shapes, it is not difficult at all.
Starbound - Piece of Ixodoom Fossil
The fossils would form part of a collection - some collections are a singular fossil piece, e.g. a fossilized egg or a mysterious skull. A number of the humanoid types collection comprise 3 parts, while the larger versions e.g. T Rex would need 5 parts to complete a fossil collection. The result from each excavation seems to be random - I had some challenging puzzles that gave 1 piece penguin fossil while there were also simple 9 pieces puzzles that gave 1 of the 5 parts complex fossils.
Completed Penguin Fossil - Single Piece
The player still needs to build a fossil display shelf to put the fossils before Starbound recognises the achievement. Yes this is needed even for the single piece fossils. Upon completion, the Collection could also be viewed in the Collection side tab. A completed fossil display would have a red barrier placed in front of the glass shelf.
It is a fun activity to put all the Starbound fossil collections together, almost similar to a real life museum collection! I've yet to complete all the fossil collections, which I think Starbound would give me an Alien Archaeologist achievement. Have fun!
Anyone still playing Myminicity? I am! It is an on-off affairs over the past 7 years, and I must say I've picked up the 'game' again in recent weeks. The interest waned when I couldn't exactly see the new 'buildings' on the game map, but the minute I noticed any differences, my interest in this simple game picked up again. :)
Just a short summary about Myminicity - it's a browser game where each city is denoted by a name e.g. scraze.myminicity.com, and via the 'post fix' behind the name, any visitor could help to grow the city in terms of 'industry', ' security', ' transport', 'environment' and 'commerce'. Without use of the 'post fix', each visit would merely help to increase the population size. Each visit is counted based on the unique IP address per day. For those who are interested to find out more about this browser game, I've done a previous blog post about the myminicity mechanics.
The above picture is how my myminicity city looks like currently - picture patched up from multiple screenshot of the growing city. :)
After getting bored with yet more social games, I decided to try out the good ol' single player flash games. There are pretty good ones like Samorost, Machinarium, Bomba etc. One can easily find good games on Miniclip and one of the latest top games is Rubble Trouble by Nitrome.
Nitrome has many good games, including Bomba (which I covered earlier) and another game involving dismantling of ice pieces. Well the current Rubble Trouble game is also about dismantling of items, in this case it's buildings and the job centres around demolition using various tools.
The Rubble Trouble game play is very simple. It's just a mouse and click game where the player select given tools to destroy the required building(s) in a fixed period of time. There is ample time for most of the levels. The tools are pretty self explanatory and there will be a simple description tied to each tool. For example, using a canon ball tool means the player can position a canon ball firer and click to fire the ball at various angle. Clicking longer means there will be more power stored in the fired ball. Of course, the power bar for the canon ball is reactivated under prolong holding of mouse button.
There are many other tools and here's the description for some of them:
Nitro - area effect bombs with small radius. The 1st tool for demolition.
Grabber - A 'grab' machine to hold on to a piece of the building. Very useful to move pieces in order to avoid damaging surrounding important buildings.
Missiles - tough to control but useful.
Airstrike - carpet destruction with limited range but easy to use.
Chain gun - well, chain gun! A rotational military grade weapon and now it is used for demolition.
At the end of each level, the player can submit the high score and be compared against other players' scores for some competitive play. The fun part is not in the competitive play (I feel) but in completing each level of the puzzle.
There are other elements introduced into the game, for example some levels will include surrounding important buildings (e.g. glasshouse) and the player must not cause the destruction of these buildings. Another element is the trapped characters in the buildings and that means players must be careful when demolishing the buildings.
Another aspect of the Rubble Trouble that is interesting is the simple and fun dialogue at the beginning of the levels. These dialogues introduce the levels and make the game more personable. The Ivan's and the Larry's of Rubble Trouble do bring a smile to the face while the player tries hard to complete the levels.
I've only managed to finish up to level 23 out of the 30 levels and yes do give the Rubble Trouble game a try!
It is interesting how the mainstream media treats games nowadays. On one hand they published articles about games addiction, including one where a politician was sacked from the city council committee for playing farmville while attending budget meeting; and on the other hand the media published articles about celebrities playing the same game.
Yes the game in question is farmville, and here's the extract from the article about the sacked politician:
The other article focusing on celebrities had quotes from both local and foreign celebs, including Bryan Wong and Shu Qi, which gave the impression that it is alright to be addicted to the game.
Oh well, this is yet another example of how social games are changing our landscape, for both professional workspace as well as leisure purposes. With the arrival of the iPad where people could enjoy their social games on even larger (and stylish) devices, I am sure there will be more reports of games addiction.
Nope I was never addicted to Farmville, perhaps Restaurant City or Cafe World yes, but not Farmville. Lolz.
Having played in the recent Closed Beta Testing, here is some of the screen shots, details and views about Dragonica.
Character Choice & Tutorial The game is pretty simple to learn with good graphics and background music. There are four characters (warrior, archer, magician, thief) to choose from at the beginning. As the character levels up say level 20, there are other 'split professions' to choose from. This reminded me of Maplestory somehow. The characters vary in skills and I think Warrior class is an easier class to start with. Magician is long range, while thief is fast and short ranged. More description could be found on Dragonica's site.
Dragonica is easy to learn because of the tutorial. Once a new player enters the game, there are on-screen instructions about the movement and other keys. Skills will be learned along the way, and can be assigned to keys (e.g. Q,W,E,A,S,D) for ease of activation. Oh, when one press direction arrows twice follow by the jump key, the character actually fly into the air to cover a long distance, quite cool.
There is also a floating pet that tags along with the character and give instructions and advice on what to do next. This pet is quite helpful in towns in the beginning, especially for those who are not familiar with how MMORPG works.
Towns, Shops & Mission Quests
Navigation in the town is not that difficult. There is the general map on the upper right corner, that indicates NPC with "!", i.e. quest givers. In any map, the player can press 'N' to bring out a mini map version of the area. I've only visited the first two towns in Dragonica, and I read somewhere that there are a lot more towns, and a few continents to explore.
In towns, other than quests givers, there are other NPCs, including shops, guild master...etc. Some quests can class specific, i.e. unique to Warrior, Magician...etc. Generally I think the items and equipments provided in mission quests will be better than those in towns.
Speaking of mission quests, other than those quests that ask for monsters to be killed in the general area maps, there are also 'mission quests' that teleport a group of players (up to 4 normally, but I heard as many as 25 for PvP) to instances.
There are a couple of maps in such mission quests, and other statistics like combos, attacks, damages ...etc will be tracked. Try to complete the quest faster in order to get higher rankings. The rankings will also be tracked at the end of the game, and different groups will be ranked accordingly.
There will be a boss monster at the end of the mission map, and that can be quite a pain to kill depending on your character's level. Of course, there are minor / normal monsters in the same map as well. Having potions and boosters will be useful.
At the end of the quest there will be rewards. Higher 'ranks' will earn the player more rewards if I am not wrong. The rewards given is random, and you could see the 'scrolling' of the rewards on the screen. Different mission maps will give different types of rewards, with higher level mission quests giving better rewards (of course).
Others Generally Dragonica is fun. Other than the normal hack and slash, there are other minor in game play e.g. cooking that is pretty amusing and yet provides boosters that is useful to the game. Their combo counts, as well as monsters killed counts, provided more incentives for players to 'kill' better in the game. High combos gives more experience per kill, while monster kill counts hitting bars like 100 monsters, will give an in game box with random items.
The GMs are quite responsive to gamers' request. For example, many gamers have asked for their character names to be retained even post-CBT, and GM agreed. There is also an on-going competition to develop game guides with attractive rewards.
I hope the Open Beta for Dragonica will be released soon. :) Looking forwad to the game. Want to see a YouTube of the PvP war: Emporia War for Dragonica? here's it.
After playing Travian and pretty much enjoyed myself, it is only natural that I started looking for other city building games. One that caught my eyes was Ikariam. Ikariam is a real time city building games centred around Greek mytho.
I gave it a try, and the game is generally alright. The goal is not exactly clear, i.e. no particular objective except to grow the cities you own. Cities in Ikariam are grouped together on an island, like the picture shown below. Each island will have two particular resources, wood and another e.g. wine, sulphur, crystal. Players on the same island can help each other by upgrading these two available resources on the island, thus allowing for more of these resources to be harvested.
Within each city, there are empty plots where buildings could be sited. Initially the range of buildings is limited. There are some default plots for walls and harbour. After some 'research' in one of the 4 areas, buildings options (e.g. embassy) will appear. Buildings could be upgraded for better functionalities later. News and updates will result in one of the 4 advisors (the 4 faces on top of the screen) having a lighted background.
In Ikariam, resources can be traded easily or shipped among your settlements. If you clicked on the main townhall, a report is shown containing coins, happiness of the citizens, housing left... etc. It reminded me of SimCity somehow.
While gamers in Ikariam are generally cooperative, the existence of battle options mean players will get attacked. I haven't exactly see the benefits of attacking, except perhaps to loot the resources. Walls are useful to up the defence attributes of your troops. Various troops are available, e.g. slingers, archers... etc. Players need to upgrade their barracks level before troop options are available to be built. If the level is not high enough, the game will indicate that.
There are many other islands in this Ikariam world, which contain the default wood, as well as another resource. So players will colonise a few more settlements, partly to reap these other resources. Wine (and taverns) is useful to keep citizens happy, and thus allowing for bigger settlement. Sulphur allows for troops to be built (I don't understand the logic of this but oh well), and crystals can be used in research to improve the attributes of the troops. Stone blocks are needed to upgrade the wall and for higher level buildings.
One thing to note is that when players want to colonise more settlements, remember to send wood piles along with the ships. Once settlements are built, it will be ideal to build governor building soon to reduce corruption. The number of settlements allowed is tied to the level of the palace built in your capital. Also, when more settlements are built, the respective governor buildings have to be upgraded to reduce corruption.
Generally the game is not fast paced enough for my taste, and so after 3 settlements are built, I left the game. :p Give it a try and see how you like it.
Hurry! For those who are interested to try Dragonica, they are opening Closed Beta Testing from 7 May 09 till 18 May 09. The announcement is on their website.
Those who have signed up for their newsletter will also receive this email (picture below). I've downloaded the 700+M of Dragonica installer, which took about an hour or so.
There is another flash game attracting much attention for the casual online gamers, and that is MyBrute. MyBrute allows the player to create an online character which fights with other players' characters of the same level. Upon creation, the character will have one special skill / item / pets and a set of three attributes, namely strength, agility and speed. As the character levels up, additional weapons, skills or pets are acquired.
The skills are interesting, offering benefits like better speed, agility, more health, or the capability to immediately respond to opponents' blows with their own additional blows. The descriptions of the skills can be quite funny.
Fights are conducted in the arena. While the player could choose which of the opposing characters to fight, he cannot control the exact skill or weapon to use. So the fighting is quite random. There are times when I wish my character could be smarter in his choice of weapons. It can be frustrating to see your character fighting with bare hands and not use his store of better weapons, e.g. spear, against the opponent. Other times I wonder why the character throw his knife / spear at the opponent and not hold onto it longer.
Another drawback of the game is the limited number of fights per day. When the character is first created, 6 fight opportunities would be given. After that, only 3 fights per day is allowed. 3 fights is somewhat limited, and given the experience per fight (1-2 points depending upon victory or defeat), the character progression can be slow.
Other features of the game include pupils and clans. If you create a new character by fighting against one of the existing ones, your character becomes the pupil of the said character. The pupil then showed up as an avatar in the dojo. When the pupil level up, the main 'teacher' could get some experience as well. I've not tried the clan function but the game said that one could create a clan upon level 10.
Overall the feel of the game is alright. I suspect the game is created by the same group / developer who done Myminicity. The look and feel of the game, and the buttons announcing the progress of the games, e.g. leveling up, seems familiar. There were also some posts in the Internet about a downloader.swif.C virus when users access Mybrute via Internet Explorer. Firefox or Chrome have no such issues.
Miniclip offers a lot of interesting flash based short games. One of them is Bomba by Nitrome, a game where the player controls a small green critter via the use of mouse, to light up the dim stars within the Bomba stages / maps.
While the concept looks deceptively simple, the game play is not. Player needs to avoid the solid walls, moving objects, other creatures...etc. Along the way, new functions are also added in the different stages of Bomba, to help the small green critter get past obstacles like green moss. The green moss can be demolished via the use of bombs. Again the control is via mouse and mouse clicks. Bombs could also be used to kill the other creatures like flies (they look like flies to me) and fishes. Only one bomb can be released each time.
The bombs are floatable. Once the bombs are released in water, they can float up. The green critter only have a short breathing time within the waters before the critter would drown and so the player has to be fast and strategic. There are also 'flying' bombs which remain stationary at the spot where the bomb is released. Players need to be careful about the flying bits released when bombs destroy the green moss. Maybe the name of the game, Bomba, is derived from these bombs in the game.
Other than bombs, there is also the 'flaming' function introduced towards the middle stages of Bomba. Flaming function has a limited timespan, and while activated the small green critter can burn through green moss. There is a danger though because the moss may hide walls which are still deadly to the green critter at flaming state.
Stages of Bomba may introduce a combination of these different functions, and the player need careful timing and innovative use of these tools to get pass the obstacles.
The game is never boring because new features are added frequently, e.g. laser beams that only allow bombs to pass through and not the critters, and also bombs with short timing before explosion.
Generally Bomba is fun and worth a try. Players need to be patient, and think carefully before navigating each stage. Each stage of Bomba offers only 3-4 green critters, i.e. lives, but the game remembers which stage the player has cleared, and the player could always start from where he left off the next time.
There are a good number of interesting Facebook applications. Other than the Pet Society which I covered earlier, there is also this Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application.
In Tiny Adventures, one could choose from over 16 classes of characters, including Tiefling Warlock, Eladrin Wizard, Human Rogue, Dwarf Warlord etc. Each character can level until they reach level 11, and the application will automatically retire the character. At this point in time, the player can choose an item from the retiring character to pass on to the next character, and the next character will be labelled as Generation 2. This retiring process can carry on, and each generation will unlock new ability. At Generation 5, a new class of Swordmage will also be unlocked.
As per other Dungeons & Dragons game, the character will come with a set of attributes but for Tiny Adventures they are pre-rolled. There will also be equipments for each 'slot', including weapons and armour. The equipments will come with different attributes enhancements but not all classes can wear all the equipments, e.g. wizard can only wear light armour.
In order to level up the charater, the character could choose from a number of available adventures of around the same level as the character. There are quite a number of interesting quests / adventures to choose from. As the character level, bonus attribute points will be given at level 4 and 8.
Prior to the start of the chosen adventure, the character can choose two potions to bring along, including healing potions or others that boost the attributes, e.g. Potion of Heroism giving +5STR for 4 encounters.
Each adventure provides multiple encounters / parts (from 5 to 12 parts & higher levels seem to have more encounters), and each encounter comes with a description of what is happening to the character, as well as a dice roll that determines the outcome of that particular part. Occasionally there will be 'rare' encounters that provide better challenge and rewards. Success from the encounter will reward the character with experience points, golds and sometimes items.
The different adventures could also be reviewed later and the review log includes the different dice rolls as well as rewards from each adventure. Tiny Adventures has many tabs and statistics that keep track of the character's progress.
Generally the Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application is quite fun to play with. The option of 'drinking potions' with triggering of certain conditions is also useful. The irritating part is that many of the encounters requires AC checks, and certain weaker classes like mage will have problems. It does not help that each healing potion costs 130 golds, i.e. expensive potions.
Will try the application and see if I have the patience to reach Generation 5!
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