Author: Kate Kligman

Alien Attack in Sim City 2000

In anticipation of the new Sim City release I’ve spent the past week playing Sim City 2000. And it’s pretty good.

I first played Sim City when it was brand new on the Super Nintendo. I still have the game cartridge, and I remember looking at the lesser graphics of the classic computer game and wondering if there were any trade-offs on the console version.

Not long after, I received Sim City 2000 for the PC.  The game had seemed amazing and complex, with the water and pipe system bringing it over the top in terms of level of technical detail. I  played with disaster mode off, because I didn’t want anything I created being randomly destroyed.

In February, when the publicity for the new Sim City launch started to hit, I re-installed Sim City 2000 on the DosBox emulator.  I wanted to see how it would compare, and how much of the gameplay the original 1994 design had nailed.

One of the first things I noticed was the size of the auto-generated map and how small it initially seemed.  This quickly became a plus, because I found it to be both time consuming and difficult to fill without the city going broke in the process.  The speed settings were helpful, but it left me wondering how the speed of expansion on my city compared to the expansion of cities in real life.

In all, Sim City 2000 has aged remarkably well. After adjusting to the older user interface I found it to be just as enjoyable as any modern game. I’m still playing it, and I can’t seem to be bothered to try Sim City 3000 or even Sim City 4.  I still haven’t played the new Sim City yet, but when I do, I’m going to keep disaster mode on.

RiffTrax, the group that used to produce the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, has launched a Kickstarter to raise funding for a live tour featuring the movie Twilight. I hope they are able to secure the rights because I would totally buy tickets to see this.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rifftrax/rifftrax-wants-to-riff-twilight-live-in-theaters-n

When I was in high school my father brought home our first PC computer (486!) to compliment our fading Amiga 3000.  The computer came with a free CD game called Return to Zork.

One of the best parts of the game was the audio soundtrack that would play from the disc as the game ran.  The music wasn’t entirely original, but there was one piece I liked and that my mother remembered as a favorite song of hers from when she was young.

The track is called Forest of the Spirits and it’s a version of “Pavane”, by Gabriel Fauré.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBxEfDpGug

The documentary Surviving Japan has a chance to be seen in theaters, but only if enough tickets are sold by March 4th, 2013. I’m excited, because it looks like only 20  – 30 tickets are needed to guarantee a screening in each location.

From the Surviving Japan website:

The lingering effects of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disasters are captured by filmmaker Christopher Noland—an American living and working in Tokyo during the catastrophic events, who volunteered for the cleanup in Northeastern Japan, documenting true stories from those affected by the disaster.

The only film of its kind takes an indepth, critical look at the mismanagement of the nuclear crisis and tsunami relief efforts by corporations, the U.S and Japanese governments, and Tokyo Electric Power Company© (TEPCO), drawing questions on the future of nuclear power in the 21st century.

Update: 

The movie made it, and will premier in theaters in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego on 3/11 and in New York on 3/12.  Tickets can be purchased via the link above.

The Battle for Milkquarious is back online — this is an extraordinary science fiction rock opera parody by White Gold that encourages kids (and adults!) to drink milk. It’s incredibly well done and I’m very happy that the video has re-surfaced on YouTube.

I’m really digging an indie game called Actual Sunlight: an interactive story about love, depression, and the corporation.  The game is an interactive novel and series of essays formatted into an early 1990’s Japanese RPG.

There have been a few recently launched serious games about depression,  but what makes Actual Sunlight special is the humor.  Despite the serious subject matter, it actually pulls off being entertaining.

Actual Sunlight is a free download at www.actualsunlight.com and there’s an Indiegogo for the project closing Monday, February 25th at midnight available here.   I hope it makes it!

It’s about mid-way through February and I’m still focusing on what I want to accomplish in 2013.  I made some decisions in January, and I’m finally able to lay them out in a blog post.

• Launch and improve this website.  Seems to be off to a good start.
• Continue with harp.  It’s hard to sound bad playing a harp, and it’s quite relaxing to practice.  I’d like to learn to play at least a couple complex and recognizable songs.
• Become a better cook.  I am still trying to figure out how to engage my interest on this.
• Become a better reader and read more books.  Prior to 2013, I mostly listened to Audiobooks and didn’t read much fiction (or non-fiction) at all compared to my childhood.
• Attend a few conferences, including Game Developer’s Conference in March and maybe a couple genre conventions in the summer.
• Release at least one small video game.  I’ve been working on several small game projects and I’d like to complete at least one this year.
• Release some of my mods. I have a thing for modding, especially discussion forum software, and I hope to polish and publicly release a few of my projects.

I have a few other more concrete goals, including financial ones, but I’ll feel generally good about the year with progress made on the above.