Added 1 new A* page:I'm gradually starting to realize just how much this scene is going to be a combination of couple scenes from "The Matrix." I may have spent a little too long in Matrix-land. ; )
Speaking of dangerous digital worlds, I got sucked into one of those "free to play" mobile app games today! :"o See, back in the early days of the web, someone pointed me to this fun little Flash-based puzzle game; that was so early that web content providers often didn't really "secure" their stuff, so a little poking around and I was able to download the game's Flash file to my own computer, where I could play it or upload it to my own server or whatever. Ah, those innocent days! So I played that on and off for a while, until eventually versions of the same little puzzle game came out on the Game Boy Advance and PS2—they were flashier and had more whistles and bells, so I went and played those. They were slightly less convenient to play, I suppose, and I eventually didn't play the game much at all...until a good friend gave me a hand-me-down smartphone, and I found that the game now had a mobile "app" version! It didn't run too well on that phone, but eventually I got myself a somewhat newer phone, and that ran it pretty well! And it had been made back in those early halcyon days of the mobile gaming scene were developers were innocent enough to put out their game for a couple bucks, and then you could just play it to your heart's content without having to worry about it ever costing you any more money, until the end of time.
Flash forward to now, and there's a new, flashier, multiplayer version of the game in "free" app form: "free" means that you download it, and for a while it showers you in gold and riches and pixelated colors and smiles, and loves you so much! And it gives you a bunch of presents you can use to make your own little sort of house in the game and decorate it and populate it with fun animals and followers and even have them go on quests even though none of this really has anything to do with playing the game itself. Then you use up the last of the free credit juice they supplied you with when you first signed up, and you're left waiting fifteen minutes for a new "credit" to arrive to let you play the little game again, so you can earn a few more points to save up to raise one of your little house's decorations one level, if you're lucky, and while waiting and practicing in the old version you think about how the various random power-ups and optional purchased items mean the new game isn't exactly about how good you are at playing the game anymore (not that I'm anything special at it, mind you!), and you realize that you don't play these games—they play you!
So yeah I uninstalled it; back to the simple old crusty version for me. Whew! : P
|
