The beach is a giant sandbox. Here’s something I created at a beach at Half Moon Bay.
Category: Entertainment
Minecraft Survival Games
Above is an example Multiplayer Minecraft Survival Game
You’ve heard about Minecraft, right? It, or its lightweight version–Minecraft PE–is probably the top selling app on iPhone and Android phones. It is quickly reviving the PC game market since its full capabilities are only available on PC/MAC versions. There are some 14,000,0000 copies of the PC/MAC version out there! That is certainly a lot of customers.
Anyway, it’s sort of difficult to describe what it is. But… It has two game modes–creative and survival.
In creative mode, you–your character, that is–can build anything to your heart’s content. Building is based on blocks or objects which can be built on blocks. You could say that it is a 3D editor, in this regard, but its resolution is limited to its block-object oriented paradigm.
In survival mode, your character has to survive the dangers of the Minecraft world. At night, or in the dark, monsters appear and attack. Aside from these supernatural dangers, your character can also die from natural means–like drowning, burning, falling, or starvation.
Here’s the interesting thing in survival mode. Minecraft has a built-in motivation for players in survival mode to do things by using the same natural instincts we have in true life–like hunger and fear of death. For example, if you simply decide you wish to explore the beautiful surroundings of a Minecraft world, you will soon find out that day light turns to night. When darkness comes, monsters spawn and attack. If for some reason you get lucky and survive the night, your hunger meter will eventually drop down to nothing, and your life meter will dwindle down to nothing. At this point, your character dies. What an awesome natural way to motivate a player to survive!
This same driving force will help the player get motivated to create tools to help with survival. With tools, a player can mine resources like wood, stone, and various ores. With resources, a player can build better tools and weapons. With better tools and weapons, a player can create armor, more tools, farm, and even tracks and mining carts! At some point, a player can get certain resources which allows him to build powered mechanics to allow automated farming, doors, lights, and so forth.
Once a player has mastered the basics of survival, he can then start challenging himself by entering “hell”, also called “the nether.” The nether is a barren hellish like underworld where there is an eerie athmosphere. In higher game difficulties, the nether becomes inhabited by stronger and more dangerous monsters. The surrounding is also filled with danger because there is no water there. However, there is plenty of lava. An advanced player can learn to enchant his tools, giving him higher level of attack and defensive power–even the ability to swim in lava. At this level, a player can learn to find his way to “the end” where he will face the big boss–“the ender dragon.” Once at “the end” he cannot leave until he has defeated the ender dragon, or he dies and respawns in the overworld.
This is pretty much the rough path for player advancement in single player Minecraft. But guess what? Minecraft has a multiplayer capability. It is in the multiplayer capability where gamers have flocked. Imagine playing survival mode in multiplayer Minecraft? In this mode, players can fight against other players. The demand for this kind of play has grown so much that Minecraft server hosting has become big business. Many players have built their own servers so that they can have many other players play along with them in survival mode. Someone even created a survival modifications that mimic the “Hunger Games” type of fighting. If you look and check around for hosted Minecraft servers, many of them have some version of “Hunger Games” running on them. There are even ones that boast having over 500 players!
If you did a search on YouTube using “minecraft survival” as search terms, you will see many videos of people playing Minecraft Hunger games. It is amazing how this game has evolved.
I never really paid much attention to it until one time my curiosity got the most of me, and now I find myself playing it more often than some of our electronic-based entertainment systems or games. Today, I have all versions of the game:
- PC version from minecraft.net (buy direct form their site)
- Minecraft Pocket Edition (takes you to Amazon.com, just in case you decide you too wish to buy it)
- Minecraft Xbox 360 (takes you to Amazon.com, just in case you decide you too wish to buy it)
What has been your experience with Minecraft? Comment below.
Why Traditional Radios are Passe
Traditional Radio (credit: zirconicusso from www.freedigitalphotos.net)
During the 70s, 80s, and even 90s, FM and AM radios were prevalent. People used them regularly to listen to music. There were many type of radio stations–with each station specializing on a genre of music. People used to turn to radio stations for their preferred music. If you were within reception range of your type of music, you are in luck. This means you can listen to music you like. However, if you only had a couple of radio stations within reach, more likely than not, it wasn’t your type of music, and probably had to purchase a few albums or CDs to listen to your favorites.
I was one of the lucky ones, but I was at the mercy of the radio station’s programming.
Fast forward to 2012. Today people listen to their music everywhere! Thanks to a development called MP3 player which were later popularized by Apple through their line of iPod devices. Of course this is still not the same. You still had to purchase music, thought not as expensive as before.
I too own an iPod player–specifically an iPod Nano. I use it to listen to podcasts and music during my long runs. That’s not quite the same radio experience though where everyone in the room can hear the type of music they enjoy from various artists they like without first purchasing the music.
Just last year, I realized what had replaced the radio in my life–Internet radio, specifically through services like Pandora.com. What makes this experience similar to a radio is the emergence of tablet computers. I know you can do this through laptops, but that seems overkill. With tablet computers, you can play the type of music you like simply by having an account with Pandora.com and entering the name of the artist or song you like. From there, Pandora does the rest. You can even fine tune it to the point where you click the thumbs up or thumbs down button in Pandora to help it determine your music preferences.
I started using my tablet computer like a radio last year just after Thanksgiving. We used to tune into a radio station which played Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving, all the way to Christmas. They played it 24×7. A few months earlier my wife bought me a tablet computer, and I decided to use Pandora.com to play the music she liked to hear. From that point on, we were hooked.
Today and on most weekends, I use my tablet computer to play a certain kind of music that everyone in the family likes. I leave it on during lunch while everyone enjoys their meal. The beauty of using the tablet computer as a radio is its battery life. My tablet can run for over 8 hours without a recharge! It is certainly better than a laptop computer.
Bottom line is that the traditional radio is obsolete, especially for playing music in the house. In my house, the radio has transformed into Internet radio on a tablet computer.
Halloween 2011: Early Haunting on the Training Floor
Halloween Potluck 2011
Halloween came early at the Koryo Family Taekwondo Center.
Halloween isn’t until Monday, 31 Oct 2011. However, kids of all ages had the haunting of their lives a few days early–Friday, 28 Oct 2011, at the Koryo Family Taekwondo Center Halloween Potluck party.
We had creatures of all size, shape, age, and looks. Here are some, just to name a few:
- Link (from the Legend of Zelda)
- Yellow Angry Bird
- Zombie boy
- Spiderman
- Luigi
- Vampire woman
- Spider queen
- Cleopatra
- Anakin Skywalker
- Yellow KittyContinue reading
Play games online, earn prizes
UPDATE: On May 31, 2012, Club Bing will close. No more games and prizes. If you’ve been playing, you had better redeem your points quickly.
Every so often I learn something from my kids who are in their 20s. They are very active online. My older one mentioned that she was able to acquire some X-Box accessories by playing games online. I thought…”who in their right mind would give prizes for free?”; then she showed me.
She went to a site called clubbing.com. “Clubbing.com” sounds like site about going to clubs, until the page showed up. It turned out to be “Club Bing”. It is a site designed to promote Microsoft’s search engine!
On the site they list various games that causes the search engine to be exercised. It makes sense. As you play, you end up seeing various search results, including their ads.
When you play and complete a game, you are awarded tickets, virtual tickets which you can redeem for prizes. Note that completing one game may result in around 20 tickets.
Prizes range in ticket counts from hundreds to tens of thousands. My daughter said that when clubbing.com started, there were no limits on how many tickets you could earn per day. Today they limit winnings to 500 tickets per day.
Go figure. Some folks may be gaming the system. Anyway, have fun out there, and maybe you can win prizes in the process.
Free Old Tech Games
I found these games on the net while I was stumbling around. They bring back memories.
Space Invaders
Space Invaders made by Neave Games
Asteroids
Pac-Man