The new series of Spooks (one of my favourite Television shows) is now airing on the BBC, which means there's a new version of Spy Academy on-line. Anyway, remarkably I haven't mentioned it so far (as I have in the past), and I hadn't even played Spy Academy until Allegra stumbled accross it and dropped me a note. I'll hand over to her for the description as she does it quite well:
A very very well made, nice-looking game about a British spy show I've never seen (being American myself).
The basic gist is that you've enrolled in Spy Academy and are training to become an M15 agent. Wait, this is not as corny as it sounds! You have to go through basic training first, which consists of a series of 10 minigame-type-things, each one measuring some meter of logic, speed, or reaction (they're called the SLR tests, I believe...).
Once you've completed those, you can move on to the real missions. So far I've only done one real mission because I can't figure out why the spy man won't let me play more of them....
The game is styled nicely, with some tough little mini games in there, and even comes with a "screen saver" if you sit there long enough!! (Don't ask how I found that one out...)
Oh and I almost forgot to mention, the game comes with a very nice little host video, a man, I forget his name, who leads you through the process.
Also:: You do have to register if you want to save your data, which I highly recommend and only takes like 2 seconds to complete, and as an added bonus when you've finished registering they bring you right back to the game, which is nice and not done by enough sites now a days.
All I have to add is that the host is Harry, as any fan will tell you, and that if you haven't seen the show I encourage you to try it as soon as possible. The current series of Spooks is currently airing in the UK on Thurday nights on the BBC, and can be seen in the US, re-titled as MI-5, on A&E. In the meantime Spy Academy is a great game that will keep you occupied for a while.
I could spend (er...have spent) hours playing C4 Hamster. A fantastic game for a Friday. The premise is, er, simple. You play Death Jr. (a younger kind of Death), and your task is to hurl hamsters with C4 plastic explosive strapped to their backs at the large red monster, and see how far the resulting explosion flings the monster's flaming head around the landscape. Bonus points for distance and hitting other monsters along the way. I know the idea isn't new, but it's very well done, is really quite funny, and looks great. I might even have to get the PSP game it's advertising if it has half the sense of fun this does.
Find the six objects, to help you solve the six energy related problems, in under nine minutes, in "Unplugged". An educational point'n'click game designed to teach Canadian kids how to save energy. I kid you not. To win you have to switch off your PC, and turn off the lights in your house. I kid you. Anyway game play-wise this is meant for kids so be very ashamed of yourself if you get stuck [subbed by tim, jackie & karlee].
Well you have to point, and you have to click, but "Polly Wants..." is hardly an adventure, but that's not a bad thing once in a while. Is it? You play Polly, a parrot with a passion for pinching things from his perverted possessor. Steal as many items as you can from your owner while he's distracted by Baywatch. Bizarre.
The graphics for Siegburgspiel are fantastic - this is one good looking point'n'click game. Unfortunately there's a lot of writing, and that writing is in German. Thus while it might look great, I don't know what you are meant to do! Could be the greatest game ever but I just can't work it out. If anyone out there can speak German and translate what is going on that would be great. For now I'm just wondering around and taking in the view.
Some people just play the point'n'click games I post here, some people are nice enough to leave a comment or two to help others, and then again some people, like murtaugh
, go that extra mile and write a game of their own, and post that. Most commendable. Submachine has some eerie music, cracking sound effects, and I haven't been able to work out any of the puzzles yet - which means it gets a big thumbs-up from me. Leave your impressions in the comments, I'm sure murtaugh
will appreciate any feedback you have.
Maybe I've played too many point'n'click games, (what am I saying? Surely there's no such thing as too muchpoint'n'click?), but I could have sworn I'd posted Thief before. I can't find it in the archives though, so I guess something in the game is just ringing a bell in my head. Anyways... You're a Thief (hence the name) in a scientist's house, and you have to find the code to gather the atom bomb secret from the safe before the 15 minute time limit runs out.... Just a regular Monday night then [subbed by deenoa, debra & lennart].
The triskabiblios monster is taking over my life! Careful kids, you might dabble with point and click and think it's harmless fun, but before you know it your "harmless" games will lead you to the land of arg - a land where you sometimes don't sleep for 24 hours (twice so far for me!), and where find yourself calling, being called by, having answer machine messages from, text messages, and IMs from people you don't know (none 'in game' before you game followers get too excited). It's a weird world, but I'm loving it.
Now it turns out so far triskabiblios has been entirely 'pre-game' - it hasn't even started! It looks like with this one, if you are 'in', you're in for the long haul. I for one have passed passport control, and I'm on the plane waiting to depart. Anyways I'm going to keep posting updates on the 'game' here at lazylaces, but I'm going to try and limit it to an update a week - mainly because I have other nonsense I like to talk about, and other people like to read, here. To make life simple to find triskabiblios related posts I've added a link in the right-hand column of the site so you can retrieve them easily. As a general rule if you want to make a comment on the 'game' add it to the latest post. Right, that's the general stuff out of the way, what's been happening in the 'game' this week?
Some basics first:
The homepage has changed. Is this the final version? Probably not. But I think we're much closer to the game version. From hints we have received so far I think it's fair to say the moon, and especially moon cycles, will play large role in the 'game'.
We know the game's rules, but there a lot of room for interpretation and you can sign-up to play. But why do they want your address? I'm not sure I want Islington knowing where I live. Although I think he knows where I live already.
The lovely Moutain Girl now has her own scribe page (thanks for the phone message MG!).
I'm now officially a scribe! My scribe page now features a photo-shopped and flashed picture of me (see above), and I look like a badass (not my description). It's a kind of a web fame!
Now, perhaps most importantly, I've had an e-mail from Islington which he has asked me to pass on to you(!). Here it is in full:
Subject: The Search Begins
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:10:51 +0100
From: Islington <t.islingtonSCOOBYgmail.com>
Reply-To: islingtonSCOOBYtriskabiblios.com
To: graemeSCOOBYlazylaces.com
Dear Graeme,
A thousand thanks for your help thus far, and for that which is yet to come.
Events are unfolding around you, the Town of London in the months to follow will reveal a secret.
My notebook, book zero of 13, will prove a guide to those worthy growing numbers Searching and Scribing for the Triskabiblios Library.
Although this book is not one of the 13, it does give a glimpse into the Mind of Islington, a look behind the curtain of my mind into the growing mystery beyond.
Disseminate this information to your eager audience.
I cannot give direct instructions, for to strive is to succeed. The exact location of my notebook will be revealed, and every active scribe will need to play a part in it's uncovery.
May your journey be blessed with uninterupted conversation.
Islington
--
Triskabiblios | the13books
Well I'm creeped out. I work in London, so I can feel this 'game' getting a whole lot more 'interactive' for me soon. If we can figure the what, when and where of what's in London, I'm up for being our man on the spot. Now let's get on with the puzzling...
Not entirely point'n'click, get those cursor keys ready, but Griswold The Goblin is an adventure that should keep you occcupied for a while - can you find the stolen gem? He also farts alot which made me giggle childishly [subbed by kara].
Love the grow point'n'click games? I know you do. Almost all of you feel compelled to mail them to me (good effort folks!). As far as i can tell, I haven't had time to play until completion this time, the idea with Grow Cube, as usual, is to select the items in the correct order, and to get it wrong a few times as well so you can see all the cute animations, until you finally get a nice "success" message at the end. That's all I have to say - it's going to take me the rest of the night to name check everyone who sent this in [subbed by Think~Pink, max, Andrew S, benfry, Tim, Miranda, vacklay, Castor, Adam & kennymfk].
PS. As I haven't had time to play this through don't rely on me including a clue in my picture to illustrate the post - I was randomly clicking when I did this screen-shot.
So there wasn't much to report on the triskabiblios front today. My post was going to say something like "no news is good news?" (note the emphasis on the question mark), that was until Yann started posting comments on this site this evening.
I haven't made my mind up about Yann yet (as Tafkam will tell you I'm pretty open minded). Perhaps he's genuine (sorry if you are Yann!). Perhaps he's Islington/Orkid/Toby in disguise. I don't know. Anyway, first up a link to Yann's comments so far (there's too much to post here verbatim), then I'll tell you what I do know (and speculate a little):
So first up. What we do know. All the posts are from IP address 213.105.224.14, an NTL address in Swansea. Not Islington's usual address(es?) from BTInternet, but still based in Swansea (home of ISlington/Toby I think we can say). Yann claims to be in the Uni Library at Swansea though. Room for conspiracy arguments and genuine player arguments there I think.
I did challenge Yann to prove that he (I hope I'm not wrong, assuming he here) wasn't Toby via e-mail. But as Yann quite rightly pointed out how can you do that? I've emailed Toby directly to question Yann's provenance, but I suspect the answer to that, if any, will only to serve to confuse more. Anyway in Yann's defence he did mail back his on-line details as some form of proof:
Well, I don't know if I can prove that I'm *not* Toby unless you have some information on him, but I can pretty much prove that I *am* Yann Best - you can find me on the following sites, and can message me on/from any of them to check whether I really am who I say I am, or indeed try asking on the forum as to whether I'm a) real, or b) called Toby. Or even if I'm the kind of person likely to pull that kind of stunt - I'm sure you'll find most people will say I'm too boring to do that kind of thing, and sadly I'd have to agree - I'd never have te balls or imagination to do such a thing. Anyway, the links:
On the rllmuk forum photowall - http://ooer.com/photowall/ - as yprbest and wiper [I changed my username on the forum, but couldn't delete the old name on the photowall]
Not sure how much use this is, but it does show I've not listened to any of Toby's band's music [though I realise it only lists music I've listened to on my PC].
If there's anything I can do to prove I'm not him, please let me know!
Ok. Finally MHO. I'm staying open minded, but Yann's verbose, and rather involved comments make me suspicious, combined with the Swansea locale it make's me think player (or PM as my newly acquired knowledge from unfiction would put it). Also (this is slightly frivolous) the screen name "yprbest" is rather like the txt speak "yr best" = "you are best". Some kind of "in" joke? I leave you to decide upon some kind of conspiracy around the name "wiper".
