Dec 30 2006
Nancy and I have begun exploring game development for the Nintendo DS. We found that most of the material available online wasn’t of the greatest quality. So we set up nds-homebrew.net to be a repository of the useful information we find, as well as being home to a blog tracking our efforts and progress.
The blog is there now, and more structured information will follow.
Tags: ds games nintendoDec 29 2006
Dec 24 2006
Dec 21 2006
We celebrate Yule (winter solstice) rather than Christmas, so we do our gift giving 4 days before most of you.
This has been a very Nintendo-heavy season. It’s hard to say what’s the coolest: the 1-up mushroom T, the DS homebrew hardware, or what….
But I think it’s between the Opera DS browser and the gold stylus and Magnetica.
In fact, I’m writing this post using my DS. How cool is that!
Nov 23 2006
We’ve had our Wii for a few days now, so I thought I’d add my voice the the growing number of opinions floating about the blogosphere.
The Wii is a beautiful piece of hardware in the same way that iMacs, PowerBooks, and iPods are. Sleek & white, elegant & minimalist. very nice. The controller and nunchuk fit the hand well, and the controller has a pleasant heft to it. The wrist strap is sturdy and well thought out… much to the relief of our big screen tv.
The user experience is good, and very smooth. Again, somewhat reminiscent of Apple’s OS X. The Wii remote speaker & rumble are used very effectively for interface feedback.
The bundled Wii Sports is a blast. The golf game is the first computer golf game that I’ve ever enjoyed (I’m not a golfer btw), although the swing does seem a bit twitchy at times. So far, I’m attributing that to unfamiliarity with the controller. Baseball and Bowling are other favourites. The boys enjoy boxing.
I’ve only had a bit of time to spend playing our other games. Rayman Raving Rabbids is hilarious. We weren’t sure about it, but Thomas was adamant that we get it. He was right.. it’s great fun.
I haven’t played any of the previous Zelda installments but The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess feels pretty good. I’m looking forward to exploring Hyrule. The changing camera angle is a bit off-putting, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
I picked up Need for Speed: Carbon as well. I love racing games, and this ones seems solid. Again, it’ll take a while to get used to the controls… but I usually find that with a new racing game.
We preordered Red Steel as well. I wasn’t as impressed with that. The Wii’s graphics aren’t up to the standards set by the Playstation and Xbox, and are, IMO, not up to “realistic” rendering. That doesn’t cause me any grief, as I favour Miyamoto style gaming. Also, the “shoot everything and everyone you see” style of game leaves me shaking my head and muttering about the state of society. I think that one will be going back to EB Games to be traded in for a copy of Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam.
Overall, the Wii is a keeper. Nancy, who is a self labelled “not a gammer” loves it. I’ve been a casual gammer lately (since Quake and it’s ilk outran my ability to keep up with the hardware requirements), but with my new DS Lite and now the Wii, that’s quickly changing.
Now I’m anxiously waiting for the contingent of Mario games to be released… and hoping to see a rendition of MarioKart for Wii… although MarioKart DS keeps me happy (especially with online play).
In our house we go to Sony for the TV & sound system, but it’s Nintendo for games. And Microsoft… we have no use for them at all.
Tags: games nintendoNov 20 2006
The new Wii console from Nintendo launches tomorrow. Across the continent, people who didn’t preorder are lining up overnight to get one. We are 4 of those people. The boys have been saving up for it and have over half toward it. We thought it’d be a good experience (or at least a good source of stories) so we’re going in on it with them and making it an early family xmas gift, as well as a family outing/event/adventure. I have my powerbook with me and will be making notes through out the night and tomorrow morning until the store opens (11 am AT).
We arrive. Nobody is here yet. The boys take up stations in line… AT THE HEAD OF THE LINE.
If you’re going to be in line for something, why not strive to be first… especailly when there’s a limited quantity.
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Thomas & Jason |
This is a small place.. with a small EB Games.. but a fairly active gaming community. Nobody in line at Walmart (just across the parking lot) yet either. There was about a dozen people lined up at Walmart Thursday night for the PS3.
Nancy & I are heading over to Walmart to pickup a couple more camping chairs and some thin gloves so that we can play our DSs through the night and beyond. Recharging you may ask. We’re total geeks.. we have car chargers, and a couple charged UPSes in the back of the truck… we’re covered.
Oh, and the EB staff agreed to leave the download station on overnight and we have full signal from outside the store so we can sample a few more games than we have.
New chairs acquired. The four of us are in place. Still nobody else here yet.
Thomas called his buddy (and creative partner at Crunchy and Chewy, Colin and told him what we are up to and he came down to wait in line and get his own. Colin wasn’t even hoping to get a Wii until around February. His parents are nowhere near as cool as us.. they didn’t stay, although they did drop by a bit later with warm drinks. In fact, we were the only parents there.
Wayne and Ruth, Nancy’s parents, dropped off some thermoses of tea & coffee, as well as military/redcross issue parkas and blankets. No worries about keeping warm.
A couple other guys showed up… the line grows. Turns out it’s a neighbor from when we lived in Hantsport last year, Jessie, and his buddy, Brandon. Brandon wasn’t initially planning to buy a system, but ended up doing so.
| Thomas, Jason, Brandon, Jessie & Jerome |  |
Another guy joins us: Jerome. Who’s there to secure a spot for his friend in exchange for a new DS Lite. This is a seriously cool dude. He draws.. and some of his work would rival what you see in the Warhammer manuals.
We ordered pizza & chicken to be delivered.. how cool. We told them what we were doing, and asked to have it delivered to “EB Games”. They were great, sending paper plates and cutlery. Everyone joined in.
When the food arrived, we sat it on the ground. Nancy though “This is awkward.. it’d be nice if we had a table. Oh wait.. I DO have a table”. The cargo area floor of her CRV is, in fact, a folding table. So for the rest of the night we had a table at our disposal. Very nice.
Jerome’s friend, Adam, showed up. Another very pleasant, friendly guy. Adam’s to the far right here:
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Jason, Colin, Brandon & Adam |
A few more people joined the line… one guy, Nick, getting a Wii with a couple friends to keep him company. There are 6 Wiis accounted for now. 6 left up for grabs. We expect more folks to come along around 3 or 4. Apparently the line for preorders started at 3.
The EB staff has been great… wishing us luck, leaving the download station on for our entertainment, and one guy dropped by later to check on us. He suggested we keep a list of who was there and in what order, which we proceeded to do.
It’s getting colder, but everyone is getting on nicely.
Keegan’s asleep (under the pink blanket).
| Jessie, Keegan & Jerome |  |
I could say a kid showed up… but really his mother showed up. Set up a chair, deposited the kid into the chair, changed his footware for him, tucked him in, brought him a pillow, and held the cup while he had a drink. WTF. He wasn’t 2.. he was probably about 10. His mom didn’t seem to happy about being there… muttering something about “At least we’ll get a damned unit”. She promptly got back into her oversized SUV where she stayed until light.
We felt sorry for the kid with a lame mom, and sitting alone in the cold & dark. So we passed the candy bag to him. BIG MISTAKE. He moved over into the main group:
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Sam, the annoying kid |
Once he got going… what an annoying, condescending, pretensious git. The party atmosphere was mostly gone after that, with the rest of us taking turns rolling our eyes.
There are some folks here now who are here to pick up their pre-orders.
| Preorder folks, the clot of people standing behind the blue blanket |  |
The 12th and last Wii just got accounted for. It’s light, we’ve had some breakfast, and there’s 2.5 hrs left… excitement is rising. Keegan’s still asleep.. Blissfully unware of the crowd milling around him,
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Keegan asleep |
We clean up our stuff leaving just the chairs to sit in. Also we figured we should get back into line order along the store front. People move to do so. Annoying kid plops his chair down next to me at the head of the line. He’s #7. I tell him that we’re getting the line back into order, and ask that he assume his position. He laughs. I politely tell him to get in line. He sits down. I’m a pretty mellow guy.. ask anyone who knows me moderately well. But after listening to this kid being pretensious and condescending for several hours, then be laughed at by him.. enough… “GET YOUR ASS IN LINE!”. He scurried then. His mother was behind me… and Jason says the look on her face was priceless. She’d just commented that he’s a bit spoiled. Really?
Keegan (in the orange coat below) finally woke up, with Nick’s help.
| Waiting to be let in… Keegan finally awake and thnking that he should have signed up for a spot in line so he could sell it now that there were more people wanting systems than systems to be had |  |
The EB Games staff arrived. After a brief chat they said they wouldn’t keep us waiting any longer than required… after getting organised they would start letting us in, 2 systems at a time, in line order (they passed out tickets with the help of our list).
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Our “1st in line” ticket |
| The final few minutes of waiting |  |
Twenty minutes or so later, we had our Wii. Home we went, tired but happy. We opened our controllers, and had a peek at the unit. Then we went to bed to catch up on some much needed sleep.
We’re up. Coffee’s on. Soup is heating. We’ll have the Wii up & running soon.
Turns out that we didn’t need our power reserves, we played DS some.. but the group of folks waiting was awesome, we spent most of the time chatting.
What a great way to spend a night. Getting the Wii was almost anticlimatic after the event of the overnight wait. The group of folks that stayed overnight was great. We had a great time, and hope to keep in touch somewhat. There was a big range of people: kids in Junior and Senior High, a line cook, tech support folks, and us.
Funny, the main reason there was a line & wait seems to be because we started it. Lots of the overnight folks were there becasue they saw/heard that there was already a line.
Nancy also blogged about our little adventure
Tags: games nintendoNov 17 2006
Nov 16 2006
We all have Nintendo DS Lites now. One of the cool features of the DS is built-in wifi and internet gaming. The one gotcha is that it’s slow wifi, and with limited configurability. We want to play around with the wifi features, but don’t want to slow down or open up our in house network(s). So Nancy grabbed one of the spare WAPs and went about setting it up in the living-room exclusively for gaming use. How geeky is that. That makes 4 wifi networks in the house (the other 3 are due to a combination of the size of the house (not big.. just long) and the lame reception of my powerbook).
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Now, Nancy is not one to do a half hearted job… especially when network cables are involved. Here she is installing the WAP. FYI that’s a 12 foot ladder. |
And here’s a shot of the cluster of WAPs/antennas. |
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Update: The Netgear didn’t work out… so we used the Airport Extreme we had leftover.. it worked fine and we’re gaming online. See you on the WFC.
Nov 13 2006
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About a year and a half ago, more or less, we outfitted everyone with Gameboy Advance SP systems and Thomas scored a Nintendo DS for Christmas. All these systems got heavily used and over time we amassed a far collection of games. Fast forward. After some hard times, things have improved… we were in need of a treat. What better than to upgrade our gaming platforms. So Nancy suggested that we gather up our SPs, along with most of the games we had collected and trade them in at EB Games. And so we did. Throw in a bit of cash on top and we walked out with a DS Lite each. Mine is “Onyx”. See the pic to the right. |
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The DS Lite is a totally sweet piece of hardware. The unit is nice & tight, with a pleasant heft to it, but not so much as to be tiring to hold. The screens are brilliant, far brighter than the original DS screens. Sound is fabulous, with or without headphones. After the GBA SP, I’m very impressed. MarioCart DS is great fun, especially multi-player using the wireless connectivity. On the more practical side, the chat application is nicely done, supporting freehand drawing as well as typed text (Japanese as well as English.. cool). Nintendo truly rules the gaming world. Ya.. I’m a fanboy.. so what. Hmm… I wonder what it would take to run Ruby on these things… I’ve already installed the C++ toolchain for it on my Mac… Maybe we should try our hands at game development. |
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Something else we bought were clear protective cases.. much like our Agent 18 iPod cases. They’re made by Mad Catz and are quite nice. One touted feature is the ability to put a piece of paper (ideally a photo or some other image) inside the case, and so personalize the look of your DS Lite. The case comes with several alternatives, as well as a template for cutting your own inserts. They even have a free application (alas Windows) to generate custom inserts. I’m a fan of things Celtic and Norse, especially art, and I enjoy putting pen to paper in attempts of creating something of interest. So it was natural that I make my own insert. The result can be seen to the left. I’m happy with it as a version 1.0. Once I get darker, glossier paper and a finer tipped ink pen I’ll try it again. |
Aug 04 2006
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We’re in full blown Euro-Gaming mode now. My friend, Jason, visited last weekend and brought a copy of Carcassonne. We were hooked after a single game. After I got home from Philly, we picked up a copy. |
