Last night at storytime I figured that maybe my 7yo daughter Alice would be ready for some of my favourite books as a kid. I suggested we read some Roald Dahl and she agreed. Last time I tried to read some, it didn’t go down well but this time she told me her best friend was reading Matilda.

We read the first chapter and have to say I had forgotten how wonderful Roald Dahl writes. Matilda is about a little girl who happens to be a genius but has horrible parents. The first chapter is about the wonder of books and libraries. After the first chapter, my daughter asked to read more herself and she would have read all night if I hadn’t told her to go to sleep.

And this morning, she was telling me all the terrible tricks that Matilda did on her parents in revenge. I remember the story myself when I read it as a kid and to see the excitement from my daughter as she retells how Matilda put super glue on her father’s hat or how she switched her mother’s hair bleach with her father’s hair spray, made me all happy this morning.

tl;dr Books rock.

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I’ve finally put down my 3DS to do some writing. And I thought I’d quick jot down my thoughts on the batch of 3DS games I’ve gotten over Christmas. I had wanted to write a single post on each of three games I’m about to mention, but I found I just don’t have that much to say on them individually.

The game I’ve recently being playing the most is Super Mario 3D Land. Of the three it uses the 3D effect the most. I’ve found it improves my accuracy when jumping and there some clever optical illusion type levels that uses the 3D. I also found the game pretty easy if not too easy. I completed most of the levels on the first try and grabbing all three coins along the way. Compared to the other Mario platformers I’ve played, this felt the easiest . That wouldn’t be bad if there was tons of levels to get through but despite being eight worlds, there is only five or so actual levels per world. That’s nothing compared to New Super Mario Bros, Mario Galaxy or Super Mario Wii.

I did complete it last weekend and discovered there is another set of eight worlds, “secret worlds”, unlocked which include a few new enemies, the ability to play Luigi instead of Mario and at least one new suit; a variation of the Racoon suit. There are brand new levels but sadly most of the other levels that I’ve tried are recycled from the original set but with different configurations of enemies or time limits. The castles levels don’t even include any boss battles.

Ultimately, despite the nice graphics, the use of 3D and the obvious polish in the game, I was just a tad disappointed. It feels like it isn’t really complete, that it was rushed despite the Nintendo magic. Makes me wonder if Nintendo rushed this game out so that people will buy the 3DS (the strategy has  worked in Japan).

And then there is MarioKart 7. I played MarioKart DS to death on my old DSi and I still play against my daughter for fun. So what I wanted from MarioKart 7 is MarioKart DS improved for the 3DS. And that’s what I got. It doesn’t really need 3D that much, I don’t think it has much bearing on playing the game. The flying modes are fun but I found that they were a bit limited and not enough of them. I wanted to have more time in the air and the chance to use some strategy but they aren’t even used in the balloon battles. The vehicle customisation isn’t too complex and actually better than MarioKart DS or MarioKart Wii. New levels are fun. Retro levels are fun. But the problem is, what I wanted is not what I needed. What I mean is that MarioKart Wii was fun and it was fresh because it was different from previous iterations of MarioKart. But MarioKart 7 doesn’t stand out from MarioKart DS. It’s better and it’s got new stuff but it’s not… different enough. (Which lends to the theory that Nintendo are rushing the games to get them out and get people to buy 3DSs…)

Sadly I couldn’t get the multiplayer to work so maybe that’s the “different factor” for MarioKart 7. (I tried every solution I’ve read online, from using static IPs, sticking the 3DS in the DMZ, configuring the router to allow as many connections as necessary, etc. but none worked).

That all said, I’ve stopped playing MarioKart DS on my 3DS. MarioKart 7 has replaced it as the game I use for a quick game.

And finally but also the first game I bought for the 3DS and also not made by Nintendo, Super Street Fighter 4. I have a lot of nostalgia for the Super Street Fighter series: from playing Super Street Fighter 2 in the arcade and then on the Super Nintendo console way back when. I have to admit the idea of playing a new version of Super Street Fighter on a Nintendo handheld was a personal draw for the 3DS.

It’s fun to play, appeals a lot to my need to master a skill and enjoying challenging myself with it. I’m going to be playing it for while I think. And the online multiplayer isn’t bad at all, I like the attempt to create the arcade experience (people can challenge you while you’re playing the single player game much like in the arcade). The 3D is a nice visual flair but doesn’t enhance the experience at all. There is also a ton of characters I’ve never seen, so there is a lot to learn. If you like this sort of fighter games generally you’ll probably like this game too.

My only moan though about it is the characters themselves. There is a lot of humour among the character designs, from “profound sadness” emo death chants to “cooking time” saucepan wielding Mexican wrestlers. Ryu, Guile, Chun Li, Cammy and so on are so iconic. But sometimes the costumes (particularly the alternative ones) are bit too ridiculous. The women’s costumes are nearly all very sexy – there is even one female character who is a “nightclub dancer” (walks like a stripper IMHO). You kinda have take the borderline sexism and racism as part of the humour of the game and ignore it. If you’re a 10 year old boy you might find it funny.

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(I tried to avoid doing cross-post, but I think this is too cute to not share and it gives me an excuse to put Ninja legitimately in a post title!)

My seven year old daughter Alice announced she wants to be a ninja when she grows up. She’s already formed a secret ninja club (girls only) in her class. And after homework I was press ganged into making ninja stars from tin-foil and cardboard and my wife made braces from black velvet so she could start her ninja training. She plans to train every day.

Of course she is young, she has much to learn and she had many questions, like, how do ninjas train? What do they actually do? What weapons do ninjas use besides ninja stars (toilet roll nun-chucks are planned)? Hmm she is wise.

(Someone has already kindly pointed to the Ninja-shirt-technique. This will be tomorrow’s Ninja training!)

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I’ve been an RPG  gamer (I mean Pen and Paper/Tabletop version not computer games)¹ for too many years to remember² and at varying intensities over the years. Right now I have a regular once a week game (online using G+ Hangouts), do a bit of designing and enter lots of nerdy/geek discussions on it. And today my intertubes have been filled with the news that, lo and behold, there is to be a new version of a game about dungeons and the occasional dragons including an article in the New York Times where they talk about “crowdsourcing” this version.

I shrug my shoulders and worry about something else. I have no issue with Dungeons and Dragons RPG or any of the editions – however it has been come something of a standard or emblem of the whole roleplaying hobby. People who don’t really know much, if anything, about roleplaying will have heard of Dungeons and Dragons. And certainly it’s one of the grandfathers of the hobby.

But you know, it’s not the entire hobby at all. It’s a large visible portion sure. But it was not what got me into the hobby. I do not own any books from the series (though I have on many occasions flicked through the Player’s Guide). I only ever played two campaigns of it but only after first playing and running other games for ten years.

I wonder how non-gamers see the hobby. Do they think we all play Elves and Dwarfs raiding dungeons for loot using miniatures on a hexed sheet? I’ve played vampires in the modern day and the ancient world, fought the evils of technology and then donned black suits to keep the aliens secret. Wielded magic entwined with philosophy and esoteric theory and created alien races in the depths of space. I’ve even ran games of gods and demons fighting over the world.

Yet Dungeons and Dragons still forms the outsiders perception of the hobby. It really is the tip of the ice-berg you know. From open-source story systems to systems using CCGs (collectable card games), drawings, cards or beads instead of dice. From linear stories that explore “sedate” human relationships to the pure freeform pleasure of story telling.

And lets not forget LARPs (Live Action Roleplaying) that combine something like Historical Re-enactments with roleplaying and story-telling. While it’s never really been my cup of tea, people do put a lot of effort into them and they are hugely popular.

Yet none of that or news from other non-Dungeons and Dragon’s games gets an article in the new New York Times.

¹Yea, terms here are a bit confusing seeing that computer game players seemed to have co-opted the traditional terms we use such as “gamer” and “RPG”.

²I think it’s about two decades now, my friends may have a more accurate accounting.

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First things first, happy new year and welcome to 2012! I hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas.

This is a bit of belated post, really should have done this in December but I haven’t written anything since November after NaNoWriMo ended. If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, well it’s a month you’re meant to set aside and attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel. The idea is to flat out write non-stop, get the writing juices going.

I sadly finished at only 30063 words, which averages out at about 1000 words a day and just over half the target. Once NaNoWriMo finished, I took short break… and didn’t write until a month later. I was drained, my motivation to write anything had been sapped. It’s not as bad as it sounds, December is full of stress too, new work project, present buying, organising travel and arrangements for the holidays, school shows to attend and so on. So lots of things to drain any extra energy I had. But now the busy-ness of the holidays is over and I can start to get back into the swing of things.

Still I can’t deny that NaNoWriMo drained me a lot. Before that I was doing a solid 1000 words a day with my wordcount. I wasn’t getting 7000 words a week out though because I took a few nights off to do various other things. It was a much more healthy approach. So when I was writing, I was enjoying the process and the wordcount target kept me going. However with NaNoWriMo that got turned up to 11. I had to hit a target of 2000 words a day at least to hit the 50,000 words, and I had to write every day. If I missed a day, I had to catch up the next day. If the story wasn’t working, I couldn’t give up the wordcount for a day to go back over it and see what I needed to do. I had to keep going.

I haven’t looked at what I wrote. It wasn’t until the 20,000 mark when I realised the story wasn’t going to work. But I kept going, pushing forward. I had a lot of good ideas but I mowed through them to try and hit that target. The lack of flexibility created stress and I discovered I really do only have a finite amount of creative “bandwidth” for these things. Pushing over the limit didn’t work for me. Everyone has their own limits. I do a lot with the kids in the evening for example and so my writing is done after the kids are in bed.

It’s not all bad, it was great to attempt to write a novel. Taught me a lot about long-form writing. I’ve written so much flash fiction and short stories over the years that I hadn’t realised that novel writing is a different sort of craft. So there is no regrets. Even during December where I wrote nothing, I did instead reach for my pen and my new Wacom tablet and do some drawings and images. (I even setup a DeviantArt profile if you are that way inclined). It also gave me some space, a break from my existing projects. And now I’m rearing to go, getting back into the swing of things.

Here’s to 2012!

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I haven’t been updating or working on this WordPress plugin of mine for a while now. And it seems it has been removed from the WordPress.org plugin directory.

I’ve put up a temporary mirror link on the page here for it for those desperate enough to want it now. However an exploit was reported against it. Details below.

tl/dr An exploit was reported to WordPress support. The plugin was pulled. Will be fixed.

I think the term “exploit” is a not completely true. I’m not able to replicate the exploit on my web servers.

You have to have a public visible form, with an upload form and allow anonymous users to upload. The reported exploit uses only the first form, but in theory any form could be used. You temporary upload folder must also be publically available, but if you the post is automatically published, then the uploaded file will be publically available.

But you must also have your webserver configured to execute files as .php even if their extensions are .jpg. On my host and even on my default test setups, this is not the default. I’m not a big enough web server admin expert to properly understand all the ins and outs of this part, but generally it’s outside the scope of wordpress or tdo-mini-forms.

Example, the exploit user would upload script_to_run.php.jpg to your upload form. They’d then run it using a URL (if it’s public from the temp folder (uploads are kept for one hour). My setup would always treat that file as Image file and so it wouldn’t run.

See this thread from wp-hackers mailing list for more info on it.

If you think you’re currently affected, remove the upload widget from your forms or only allow trusted users to upload files.

WordPress does have some code now to remove the double extension. So I plan to update tdo-mini-forms to do this. I’m afraid I don’t currently have a test bed or a huge amount of time to fix this, but I will do it in the next month or so.

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Now I know what it’s like to not be a writer (even a perpetual amateur like me).

It’s quite liberating. No agonising over not writing, no overthinking on words and scenes and meanings. Freedom to choose what I spend my time doing. Is this what it’s like all the time for people who don’t write?

I got two new shinies in the last three weeks, a Nintendo 3DS and a shiny new Android phone. I knew I’d loose a few days of #wordcount to the new toys. Heck it was my birthday, right?

But that niggling feeling that you should be writing… it’s gone right now. The “niggling feeling” can be the worst source of procrastination with writing (sometimes called Writers-block). You know you should write, but you don’t have the energy/will/whatever to start something right then¹. Which only feeds that niggling feeling, which in turn increases the tension between starting something and your energy and can be a vicious circle. I thought I broke it with my wordcount² which I was successfully hitting nearly everyday.

It’s even snaked it’s way into my social media habits, making me more of a consumer than contributor. I’m just more than a little disinclined to engage or post on the various (okay two) services I frequent and even less likely to comment. I even let one or two days go by without checking it and don’t make any attempt to catch up.

I find this mildly curious, why my desire to write is tided into my desire to share online?

And my ennui does not appear to be abating. In fact I see it getting worse. I just got Street Fighter 4 for my new 3DS and a mixture of solid casual gameplay and a strong dose of nostalgia, has absorbed me. But Gaelcon ascends on the horizon (despite the flooding) this weekend and after that is the potential of NanoWriMo next month (which I seem to have avoided making any decision on). So maybe it’ll pan out.

Maybe I should consider this a holiday away from writing.

¹ It’s not just in writing, in my secret identity as a programmer, we jokingly call this tension in our work flow “context-switching”, after the computer operation (done by the CPU) of switching between tasks and loading in and out the associated context of states and threads and so on. When you’re working an embedded device, you want to reduce these sort of operations as it can be an expensive task in terms of load. It seems it can also be an “expensive task” for us humans too and if you’re already tired, it can suck all motivation out of your next task.

² This blog post only counts for ~500 or so words of my #wordcount for the day. But it’s something. It’s all words.

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I remember playing the NES in a friend’s house as a kid for the first time after a Christmas in the 80s. Super Mario Bros was the first game we played on the system. I must have been about 8 or 9 at the time though it wasn’t the first console computer game I had ever played. That was an Atari before that. But this was such a leap from watching a square “ball” bounce across the screen and it was addictive, watching this little orange character bouncing around the screen.

And so it was that throughout my childhood, game consoles were a part of it. Mostly Nintendo but not exclusively (I loved my Sega Megadrive and Sonic at the time). I think I’ve owned a Nintendo product most of my life; Super NES, Game Boy Advance, Wii, DS and  a DSi. They’ve all brought me a lot of fun. So of course when Nintendo 3DS was launched I wanted one, partly because of some of the games that were going to come out on it, partly because there seemed to be some cool stuff (maybe) built in to it (like AR for example) and partly because it was Nintendo (yes I guess I could be considered a fanboy).

But the price of the device was way too high for me and then it was getting slammed for weak games at release and the 3D was giving people headaches. I wanted to try it for myself, make up my own mind, but every computer games store I dropped by, never had one available for demo at the time. I admit, I didn’t try that hard, I liked my current DSi.

But now the price has dropped and there is a great bunch of great games coming out for it. I am particularly excited by a new MarioKart and new Monster Hunter game (the concept trailer looks amazing). On top of that so many of the game stores are doing deals right now for 3DS, if you keep your eyes open.

And that’s what happened. A deal on in Game, trade in your DSi (not DS) and get a (red) 3DS for €40. (It’s also my birthday soon so it was a gift from my wife). Sadly I had to give up all my DSiWare games and there wasn’t a way to transfer sounds recorded, though I did copy the photos onto an SD card. Also, the remainder of points I had left on the DSiWare shop were lost too. They were not redeemed when I connected the same account on the 3DS. Arg. But still, I now have a 3DS!

I’ve been messing with it all weekend now, though I don’t have any actual 3D games for it but… I’m liking it. There is a lot of stuff baked in and even without getting any 3D games there is a lot you can do on it.

So let’s talk about the 3D thing first, because we can touch on lots of things along the way. My daughter jokes, calling it the “three-dee-dee-s” and I’ve had conversations with her about the difference between 2D and 3D with her. (I’m such a geek-father). 3D is in the title, so it is important, one of the big features of the device.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure about 3D before playing with the 3DS. It was more the upgraded graphics capabilities that seemed important to me. Seeing that my only other exposure to modern-day 3D technology is 3D movies, I wasn’t expecting much.

When I booted up the 3DS, on the configuration screen, they have this image of a grid and then it says, “calibrating 3D…” and suddenly the grid extends back into space. It’s a neat “oooo” moment. The 3DS menus are very slick and the 3D effect is used well actually. Pretty much like greying out an unused or paused screen, stuff get’s shifted into the background when not in use. It’s a nice visual UI trick.

And you can modify the intensity of the 3D effect. Which turns out to be really useful. I don’t know about you, but when I watch a 3D movie in the cinema, the 3D effects are pretty noticeable at the beginning of the movie but it seems about a third into any movie my conscious mind doesn’t seem to register that they are there despite that I do see them and thusly they loose impact. Occasionally I’d be looking at a 3D image and I couldn’t tell if it’s in 3D any more, but the 3D effect is there. Flick off and on the 3D and it refreshes it in my mind and I can go, ah, yea.

As a side note, when you quit a game, you don’t quit it. You suspend it and the last screen is pushed into the background in 3D while you browse the other icons. When you start another game, it asks you to if you want to kill the suspended game. You can’t run multiple games or applications but… you can access the internet browser, and some of the other built-in features like notifications, game notes, online friend’s statuses and so on I believe. And I could imagine that being quite powerful. I keep a piece of paper with lists of combos for Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii (Monster hunter tri is being ported to the 3DS!), and use my laptop to look up the internet on advice on choosing armour and weapon upgrades. I can now do this from the 3DS without quitting the game I’m playing, in theory. I haven’t used that feature aggressively yet.

Of course my existing DS games do not use 3D so I can’t really comment on actual 3D game play, but all the built-in games like Mii Maker, Mii Plaza, AR, Face-Raiders, etc. all use 3D. So you can get a good feel for it. Moving your Mii around in 3D is nice but not exceptional. It’s just as nice with the 3D slider turned off. You can also take 3D photos which is silly and fun but not amazing. The images aren’t as striking as some of the other 3D effects. However it’s in the 3D camera application that the most striking 3D effect is available. it’s one of the graffiti options where you can create bumps and digs of various strengths over a photo. It’s actually stunning, seeing this dip extend backwards as you scribble or rise up.

But I did I get a small headache. I’ve read about the “sweet spot” for viewing the 3D. Well I found it’s more of a sweet area, not big enough for two heads but big enough that I didn’t have to put myself in any awkward position to get the best of the 3D effect. I used it exactly like I used my DSi to get the full on 3D effect. Tilting the screen left or right does knocks out the 3D effect and it can be disconcerting though you can tilt the screen up and down much more.

As I said, I did get a headache, but it’s quite minor, it passed quite quickly. It’s definitely caused by eye strain, like wearing your glasses wrong (I know what eye-strain feels like sadly). You can quickly increase the eye-strain by flicking the 3DS left-right and breaking and restoring the 3D effect, my eyes would be trying to adjust too quickly. Also looking over someone else’s shoulder at the screen can strain your eyes. Thankfully you can shut it off if you’re trying to show something on screen or if you’re moving a lot while playing.

I have more to say on the 3D but I want to talk about some of the other stuff first, but my opinion of 3D is changing I have to say. It’s more than a gimmick, but it’s not the be all end all of the 3DS either.

So like the DSi, it has a internet browser built in. It also a physical button on the side for turning on/off Wireless (and I think Street and Spot Pass). Which is good on conserving the battery life, I’d imagine. The sharper and bigger screens makes reading the web much nicer than the DSi and I found the keyboard (using a stylus) easier to use too for the same reason. Of course no flash, so no videos. But I had no problem browsing the mobile versions of Twitter and Gmail (Google+ is not supported).  It is what it is and it’s not primarily an internet device. I’d fine it handy at home for checking my mail/twitter because it starts up straight away, but I wouldn’t do more than that.

They have significantly overhauled the eShop compared to the DSi or Wii. It’s much fancier, it has inline trailers (some in 3D) for both items that you can download from the eShop and ones being released in retail shops, prices in Euros, a nice selection of categories such as “cheap games”, “action”, “sports”, “games with Mario in them”, “camera fun” and so on. Sadly no free demos that I could find. There isn’t a huge amount of 3DS specific titles right now but it does inherit all the DSiWare games plus it has a Virtual Console for black and white Gameboy stuff. You can also easily submit reviews/ratings in simple Nintendo style as well.

As I said at the beginning, I couldn’t transfer or get the DSiWare games I had already purchased. Apparently there is a tool to transfer from a DSi to a 3DS, but seeing I was trading in my DSi, that left no way to get them onto my 3DS. A pity. I don’t understand why Nintendo couldn’t have kept a list of the games I downloaded and if they available on the 3DS allow me to re-download. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a little frustrating.

The eShop is massively improved and really looks like Nintendo are making a real effort here. Sadly I’ve heard some news about how Nintendo treats indie developers and they’re doing an Apple thing with a “walled garden” approach. And they’re only interested in “real” game developers apparently and at the same time fighting constantly to take down homebrew efforts. *sigh* I’d love to have the power to write code for the 3DS myself (I’d love to try doing some stuff with AR for example), just for fun. Ah well.

There is a few free items to download straight off the bat though.

There is a 3D Pokedex for pokemon fans. My daughter is still playing Pokemon Black on her DS and thought she’d get more of a kick out of the Pokemon’s in 3D, but a few minutes play and you go, that’s nice next. Still it’s free and it’s a nice way to show off the 3D to other Nintendo fans.

Also available for free is the Zelda Four Swords, celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Zelda. I didn’t play more than a few minutes. It’s designed for multiplayer and it’s basically dungeon crawling in NES Zelda-like style.

But the best free item is the Video app. The Video app downloads 3D videos to your SD card in the background over Wireless or by Spot Pass. It downloaded a 8 minute animated cartoon, a video of a orchestra and a magic trick. I’ve heard of content deals between Nintendo and Dreamworks and Aardman Animations so some interesting stuff could popup here. Nintendo have been releasing episodes of a cartoon based on Kirby on the Wii, week by week. The kids love it and I did love the stuff Aardman Animations did in Flipnote Studios on the DSi, so this app could be a huge selling point. I’m looking forward to what else it downloads for me.

So with the eShop you can download the trailers of the games shown at the Nintendo presentation at E3. And now I can see how 3D can be used in the game. Seriously the Kid Icarus: Uprising trailer looks amazing with the 3D turned on, clever use of a small sprite in the middle the screen, loads of small objects or one big one, I’ve now added that one to my wish-list. Mariokart 7 also takes an amazing visual turn with 3D turned on.

The Super Mario 3D Land trailer is worth checking out. There is a scene where you have a pyramid style set of blocks, but one appears to stick further out in 3D but not in 2D. The scene twists and you can see that it was an optical illusion and it wasn’t really a pyramid. The 3D highlighted that one of the blocks was a trick. Another scene, you’re looking top down and you have to make Mario jump out into nothing and it sense of depth is exciting. There is also a brief scene showing how the gyroscope in the 3DS is used to aim a cannon to shoot Mario up to a set of blocks.

Hey! Look at that ugly mug. It's me, as a Mii!

You can now share you're Miis as QR Codes and now you can have me on your 3DS, forever!

Built in to the 3DS is an application called the Mii Maker where you create those little Mii characters of yourself. It has a nice feature of automatically filling in details of your Mii from a photograph, which is fun but I radically changed it’s output for my own Mii, so YMMV. You can also download your Miis from the Wii as well and view them in 3D. It’s, well, nice. But it feels like a companion tool to the Mii Plaza application.

I think Mii Plaza and Street Pass feature could be described as Nintendo doing a Zynga/Farmville. Also hats. Yep, hats for you Mii and that’s why you’ll want to play it. You collect other Miis using StreetPass. StreetPass appears to be some way for the 3DS to quietly talk to other 3DSs when you’re out and about. Over the weekend I brought the 3DS with me to Dundrum Shopping Centre, just to see if I would collect any Miis and it did, a whole two Miis, not particularly amazing first attempt.

Once you’ve collected a few Miis you can put them to work in the two mini-games in the Mii Plaza. Puzzle Swap just gives you a piece of a puzzle for each Mii you collect. There there is StreetPass Quest. Here you can use Miis you collect to battle ghosts and monsters. As far as I can tell so far, it’s purely a numbers game. Just beating baddies by the number of Miis you throw at them. But, with each stage you beat, you win a hat for your Mii to wear.

Thankfully if you can’t find places where there may be other 3DS owners, you win coins simply by walking. Then you can buy Miis to battle in StreetPass Quest or buy puzzle pieces.

It’s like Nintendo want you to take the 3DS with you everywhere. The new docking station for charging means you can just pick up without the (minor) hassle of plugging/in out cables. The StreetPass encourages you to just carry it with you when you’re out walking around. There is also SpotPass, which seems to be some internet hotspots have deals with Nintendo and send content to your 3DS, as far as I can understand, though I’ve yet to hit one myself. Is the 3DS feeling guilty it isn’t a smartphone so it offers other excuses to carry it around? Still the Mii Plaza games are entertaining and silly. I’d imagine games like Animal Crossing will benefit from this. I wonder is there a potential for ARG-like events with the 3DS using SpotPass and StreetPass?

Kirby in AR!

There there is AR; augmented reality. You get a set of cards with the 3DS. Dump one on the table, start up the AR game and point it at the card. Now you’ve got little boxes popping up and targets to shoot. You can also have famous characters like Mario appear or your Mii and take photos of them superimposed on your table.

It’s here where 3D is useful. It helps to make what you see on the screen more, I guess, solid. As you move around, the table to shoot stuff, you 3D makes the experience engrossing. While the AR stuff included is a bit gimmicky (I found anyway), it does show it has potential. Face Raiders, another AR-style game built in is a lot more fun. You take a photo of someone, it puts it on a flying ball and you have to move the 3DS around to shoot it. If you have a DSi you’ll probably have tried the graffiti options on photos and seen it change someone’s expressions. Well here it is used in Face Raiders to make faces look angry, laugh or try to kiss you! It also bashes holes in the walls around you that the balls fly out of.

The combination of a 3D screen plus augmented reality software is potentially amazing. Though from the media I’ve seen online, this feature is ignored. There are no games coming for it as far as I can tell. What I would love to see is a physical board game with pieces with gameplay like Atom Zombie Smasher. Imaging laying out a grid like board, then placing your counters/figures that represent your snipers’ or exit points and then you playing a helicopter and moving around the board taking out zombies as they advance forward. Or even more simple board games but enhanced with animations and moving buildings, much like taking the Wii’s Mario Party titles and giving them physical boards.

And it’s this potential for AR with 3D that finally sold me on why 3D was a good idea and it’s not just a gimmick.

And to finish off this post, a few final notes.

There is a new controller on the 3DS, a circle pad. They also kept the classic cross D-pad. Seems a little redundant but I found the circle pad great for Mario Kart, much easier to get those boasts and make smooth motions. And in Contra, much easier to aim diagonally. However there is a little loss of precision. I found I much prefer the D-pad for Bomberman. So perhaps the circle-pad is not a true replacement for the D-pad yet. Also I found playing DS games on the 3DS to be disappointing because the graphics now look a little pixallated on the shaper 3DS screen and after watching the trailers of the new games, I’m only left with envy.

The stylus is different too. It’s fits in the back, a bit hard to pull out if you’re in the middle of a game, but less chance of it falling out. A problem me and my daughter had with the DS and DSi, was that the stylus starts to become loose and fall out all the time. When the new stylus is extended fully, it feels longer than the stylus from the DS and DSi which is nice because the old ones were just a tiny bit too short for my hand.

Battery life is not stunning. Leaving the StreetPass on in Sleep Mode, I got a day out of the 3DS before I had to charge it again. So I’m finding I’m only going into sleep mode when I want StreetPass to be on.

Finally, I’m not a fan of the actual physical hardware. It feels heavier than the DSi and it uses three very different plastics (the top, middle and bottom of it) unlike the more smooth design of the DSi.

My new 3DS in all it's ginger colours!

Overall though, I’m happy to have it and now all I need are some actual 3D games!

Note: I had embedded vids for some of the games I mention, but WordPress seems to have gobbled them up. Arg.

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One of the positive things for me that has come out using Google+, was when I was complaining about my inability to make time to write, between early starts, a full time job and two kids, my wife and myself are pretty exhausted by the time they’re in bed.

It was suggested by some¹ to stick or target a word count per day, post about it regularly and so build up the habit of writing. Once that suggestions was out in the open I had no choice but to try it.

A few other things have been percolating in my mind as well. I’m sure many of you have already seen the “sitting is killing you” infographic where it extols the terrible dangers of sitting. Made me think of how sitting in my favourite chair (which I loving now think of as my seat of DOOM!) in the evening, my body just turns off, leaving me, at best, to watch TV, or at worst, troll the internet from my laptop. I can’t write when I hit that seat in the evening, I’ve tried.

So, for my first experiment, I took the laptop to the kitchen table, turned off the wireless (the internet is nearly a bigger danger than my seat-of-doom) and started writing, resulting in about 1000 words and taking a reasonable amount of time, about an hour and half. So that became my target. Afterwards I retreated to my seat-of-doom and let my brain switch off for a while before bed.

And so far it seems to work. Sure there has been up and down days where I’ve written less than 800 words and other days where I haven’t written anything (I think falling asleep at the laptop is a good excuse). I haven’t slavishly stuck to the word count metric though, because sometimes starting a new section means pulling in notes and organising them and planning how to attack the section, so few words are actually written but the same amount of brain-space used. In that case the amount of time becomes important. I do post on Google+ about my word count but not every day, noting why I failed if I did.²

I think I’ve hit a good rhythm with the word count. It’s about long enough to get something done but not that long that I start to steer too much into brain-shutting-down-for-the-day. So I don’t have much re-writing when I read back over the words. I’ve also focused steadily on one project, which has made it easier to just sit down and start writing. This blog post is an attempt to use up some of that word count to do something else, such as blogging. And more importantly, I’m starting to get an “itch” when I get home, grabbing the laptop and bringing it in the kitchen so I can write while the kids play.³

But there is a downside. First, I’m not playing any computer games at all. I was really getting into Oblivion: Elder Scrolls, but now I’ve stopped. I have an not-yet-played copy of Portal installed. I haven’t made the time to play. I’m sure that doesn’t sound like a great evil, but still playing games exercises other parts of my brain than TV and books.

I read less. Much less. This is a greater evil! I have two books out from the library that need renewing, not a normal situation for me. I’m also spending over an hour, in the kitchen, by myself, leaving my wife in the living room by herself and sometimes left waiting because there is some show we like to watch together.

But so far, having a word-count target seems to have worked for me for getting over procrastination and other excuses. In fact, this post counts to 832 words of my word count for today. Yea!

And finally and probably the most important thing in this post, do you think footnotes work in a blog post? Are they distracting? (I have a tendency to want to read the footnote within the text of other people’s posts myself).

¹ Not sure what the right protocol these days for naming names or linking to profiles. The discussion was on a “Limited” post on Google+. One of the strength of Google+, at least early on, was connecting with people of the same interests, writers (both with stuff published and not) in Ireland.

² It seems folks on Google+ either don’t mind such posts or like to see them because they think it’s neat or even inspiring to see someone start a new habit. So there you go, another +1 for G+.

³ Doesn’t often work that well, spending 15 minutes writing one sentence because my wonderful son wanted to draw beside me and kept wanting me to look at what he was drawing is frustrating because of the context switching my mind was doing. Sometimes it’s better to shut the laptop and draw with my son instead.

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Seriously, once you’ve seen it, you’ll never be able to watch or see a news report in the same light again.

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