A perfect little game

I know that some of you like point and click games as much as I do, and A Grain of Truth is a perfect little gem of a game by the same people who made the earlier Trader of Stories game. 

The controls are straightforward, and if you click on the eye at the top it shows all the hot spots on each screen so you don't have to pixel-hunt.

Travel is easy by use of the map where you can immediately access any location that you've visited.

The pleasant music is set by default to "off" so you don't deafen everyone around you when you first go to the game; if only all websites were that considerate!

The puzzles are tricky but not impossible and I was never left wondering what to do for very long. Except at the very end!

It's definitely worth a look.

(Edited to add: it won't work in Internet Explorer so it's time to upgrade to Firefox or Chrome!)

Video Games Are Good For You

When you react to reality as if it was a computer game it can save your life, according to New Scientist.

I've often thought that the old point-and-click adventure games taught me to be methodical; not to give up; and to believe that problems are solvable (if not always by me). But the single most important thing I've taken away from computer games is to respond to setbacks with "that's interesting". When something doesn't go as I expect, that's useful information. I think that's probably how scientists are supposed to react, too!

What's the most important lesson that computer games have taught you?

Word Puzzle

Here's a word puzzle to help you destress. Or maybe it will stress you! Who knows?

The Trader of Stories

I've just found a sweet little point and click adventure game called The Trader Of Stories. It has beautiful images, pleasant music, and fairly easy puzzles. It's a relaxing way to spend an hour or two.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

Addictive word game

I've found this addictive new word game called KaBauble. You get tiles consisting of four letters to arrange on a grid, then you use the letters to spell out words. It's a bit like a cross between Tetris, Scrabble and Word Search, except that you can change direction as you spell out a word.

It's worth a look.

(Oh, and I cheated by taking a picture early in the day before the real competition came into the game. I ended up seventeenth!)

Here is one I made earlier

I've found a word game for when you need to procrastinate. It works by word association and you can make your own levels, so I did. My level is here.

It's much easier making a level than it is playing one!

Lost in an alternate reality

I've been drawn into a murky world of intrigue in an old London that has been stolen away from our own. I am playing as a charming and watchful individual of mysterious and indistinct gender. I have seduced a painter and his model, I am trying to find a card game that may cost me my soul, and I need someone to help me with the nightmares.

I blame Sylvia myself. (She tweeted about it and I couldn't resist.) If you enjoy language or steampunk or interactive stories you might like it. You need a Twitter account to log in and it's worth setting one up just for this game.

I can't stop now, I need to catch a tabby cat in the alleys of the city. I'll be in Echo Bazaar if you need me!

Poetry

I was looking for fun things for writers to do when they want to procrastinate relax from their labours and I found the Madlib site for generating poetry.

I had a go at it and it produced this:

slow park's slow park 
rhythmically i have never walked, majestically beyond
any flower, your door has their pink:
in your most slimy skater are things which spread me,
or which i cannot procrastinate because they are too quick

- fairyhedgehog & e.e. cummings

(I tidied up a few verb endings etc.)

What gets to me is that this is no worse than any poetry I could  write. Except for the title. I could do better than that.

For me, writing poetry is a whole other thing, not even slightly related to writing prose and I wouldn't know where to begin. If you write poetry, how do you do it?

Nice little word game

Eight Letters in Search of a Word

I've seen games like this before, where you have to find anagrams and make words from a selection of letters, but I thought this was nicely done. I like being able to use the keyboard to input words.