I’ve been playing, reading and enjoying The Night Circus for about two weeks now. It’s a free browser-based game which is used to promote a fantasy book also called “The Night Circus” written by new author Erin Morgenstern. I came across the game in something of a cross referral from Betterblog, the blog of Failbetter Games, the company which brought you Echo Bazaar.

And my verdict after playing through four performances of the mystical Night Circus is: Play the Night Circus. Let yourself be drawn into a world of black and white, with mysteries wherever one’s eye wanders. The browser-based game where your basic game mechanic is to read a short piece of content and decide how you want to react to the things you’ve been presented is mostly reused from Failbetter Games’ previous game Echo Bazaar. There are two things you have to keep in mind though. The Night Circus is neither ad-based nor is it a freemium game. Since it was created to act as a viral marketing campaign for Morgenstern’s book it doesn’t need to be. I am aware of the fact that the game itself is a giant self-contained ad. Curiously though I’m not opposed to that. I can even say it worked for me. I am definitely going to buy the book as the game has managed to stir my interest for this monochrome universe of magic tricks and artistry. I have reasons why I am not reading the novel right this moment, though I sometimes wish I would be.

I haven’t seen a viral marketing effort this catered to readers and gamers alike and I’d be very interested in figures or percentages of how many people bought the book because they’ve been immersed in the online game. I think it’s a great marketing strategy that doesn’t use the obnoxious in-your-face approach that I so despise about most advertisement. I am someone who tries to gather information before I buy something, I even gather information before I get interested in things. I don’t go out there and see stuff I have to buy immediately (snacks aside ;)) but a person who learns new stuff from watching, I’d even say observing. Not someone who will buy whatever you shove into his face. Or at least I’d like to believe that. How could I state that objectively in my self-bias?

I’ve just finished playing through Borderlands with a friend in the co-op mode which Borderlands is semi-famous for. Some might argue that Borderlands was mainly intended as a cooperative experience and the fact that it has a single player mode is simply a side effect of stripping out the other players from the “main mode”. I honestly think there is something to this based on my own experience with the single player mode and the multiple sessions I’ve played with said friend. While playing the single player mode (my first playthrough) I nearly always felt the game being too easy for my taste. That being said you could assume that I am a hardcore gamer whose only pride resides in winning over my opponents - might they be computers or fellow gamers - over and over again. The shocking truth is: I am not. Quite the contrary: I am a person playing games mainly because I expect interesting story arcs. I am that kind of person that game developers might fear because I’m not that interested in playing the game as I am in seeing the story unfold.

Now if I say that I felt Borderlands being easy in single player mode I didn’t mean “I own the game so hard it almost hurts” but as in “I effortlessly walk through most sections”. I can’t say if I felt that way because the class I chose to play (a character called “Mordekai” which is a sniper) is not as balanced as he could be or simply because the scaling mechanism which works quite well in multi player sessions as evidenced by several repeated and cruel deaths experienced by us during those sessions. Still, even with two people it wasn’t terribly difficult. The game throws new great stuff (read: weapons, shields, etc.) at you like there’s no tomorrow. Incidently there isn’t as the vault - which is your goal - can only be accessed every 200 years. Anyway, you never feel underpowered which is a pleasent feeling to be honest, though the seemingly lacking difficulty could be attributed to the fact that enemy level’s are linked to the areas they are assigned to. You need to progress through the story to confront stronger foes.

Moreover you have to be aware that both me and my friend have a little completionist streak. We tried very hard and successfully to complete all side-quests fearing we might lose some of the backstory if we didn’t. Though that was justified by the fact that the already thin plot desperately needs more backstory. The outcome of all this completionism though was us being overleveled for every new area we ventured to and the quest system ranking every quest “trivial” due to that.

I recognize there being a tough edge of not forcing people to grind in order to progress easily and seriously overpowering completionist but I didn’t feel like Borderlands hit the sweet spot concerning that.

I will look into that issue further when we hit the DLCs which came with the Steam offer and as we might start a second playthrough. I’ve also read on the Borderlands wikia that there’s something avid players call “playthrough 2.5” which does in fact scale every enemy’s level. Now this sounds interesting.

I recently had a stab at Cut the Rope on the iPad (using the iPad of a co-worker). The game’s concept is strikingly simple: Feed candy to an adorable green monster. Of course it’s not that easy: There are some strings attached (see what I did there?). The candy is bound to special points with ropes which are cut by you by swiping your finger across them. You also should collect all three stars which are scattered across the levels to increase your score and unlock more levels. The important thing here is that it can be difficult achieving this goal, since only the piece of candy is able to collect them, meaning you have to maneuver the candy to the stars first and then into the mouth of little om-nom (yes, that is really his name as far as I got it). I like the concept since it shows complexity in the later levels though it doesn’t seem hard at first. Definitely had a great time testing this mobile game.

Chester Wisniewski posted on the Sophos blog:

DigiNotar has published an article in Dutch explaining that 99.99% of browser warnings concerning its certificates can be ignored. This is terrible advice. While it will be difficult for DigiNotar customers to replace their certificates with new ones, this is the only solution.

The suggestion by DigiNotar is incredibly stupid for a company who should aim to improve security and user awareness on the Internet in contrast to what is happening right now. It is amazingly ignorant to encourage users to ignore browser warnings for certificates because this does in the long term account for some of the “click to go away” mentality of our modern computer world where an incredible amount of people simply clicks “ok” on modal dialogs simply for them to go away instead of even trying to read and understand their content. This is mostly because these warnings want attention and the users are in most cases not willing to fall out of their workflows in order to process information that might be vital to their security.

I’ve been asked to write down what can be done to improve the look of JDownloader on OS X in its forums, since I’ve criticized that its current integration is pretty bad.

In order to have the most up to date version in terms of OS X integration (read: pseudo-native skin) I’m using the Nightly build for this task.

Addon: Improved Mac OS X Dock

• This should be renamed “OS X Dock Integration”
• There should be an option which of the addon’s two features (namely a progress bar for the current download and a badge for downloaded items) you want to use. Just put it under “Settings/Addons/OS X Integration”. Use checkboxes or switches to enable and disable.
• Fix the dock badge. I have no idea what it is supposed to count but it’s wrong.
  Example: I had 20 packages with 307 links pending, 1 link was downloading, none finished. Still, the badge read “2”.

Addon: Growl Notification

• The text for the notification “All downloads finished” is misleading and should read “Downloading stopped”, since this is what actually triggers the notification. Try it yourself with hitting the “Stop” button.
• There needs to be a separate notification “All downloads finished” that really triggers when this condition is reached.
  Example: The last download was successful and there are no more pending items in the queue.

User Interface: Menubar

• “Settings” is to be renamed to “Preferences”.
• “Settings” has to sit right below “About JDownloader” in the menubar, but has to be separated by on of those horizontal lines that are used to group items.
• There ought to be a menu entry “Minimize JDownloader” in a menu with the header “Window”.
• The “?” menu should be renamed “Help”.
• All menus (menubar and contextmenus that is!) have to lose their icons. This is contrary to OS X standards. Though I’m no so sure about the list of hosts. Still, there’d be an option to keep the icons in the list of Settings Preferences instead of having them in the menubar.
• In case you want to keep the items currently listed in “File” (without “Settings”, that is…) it would be beneficial renaming that into “System” or something similar since there are no real file-related tasks in there. One would assume that you’d load a DLC Container under “File” but this is instead done under “Links”, which is confusing.
• The “?” menu contains an entry “About JDownloader”, which is unnecessary due to it already being in the column that reads “JDownloader” in the menubar.

User Interface: Keyboard

• “Minimize JDownloader” has to have the hotkey “CMD” + “M”
• “Addons” currently has “F4” set as its hotkey. OS X HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) state that the F-keys are not to be used for important or even popular tasks within apps. (This being a result of their double-usage for media/brightness/etc. control)
• “Settings” should have the hotkey “CMD” + “,” assigned, this is a OS X standard and is used across pretty much every app you find.
• “Support” is mapped to “F1”; see OS X HIG.
• “About JDownloader” is mapped to “CMD” + “F1”; see OS X HIG. I also suggest its deletion as said above.

User Interface: Tabs

• Currently tabs are drawn to look like OS X tabs, but they are clearly not due to the fact of them having a “close” button drawn on the “Settings” and “Logs” tab. It’d be the cheapest option to remove the close buttons on those tabs to make them look native. Though this might not be the best idea, since I can already hear people complaining about the “Logs” tab, since I assume this consumes at least some CPU resources which is a fact that is destined to annoy someone. (There’s more behaviour that makes those buttons stick out: They don’t change their font-color on OS X Lion and the font is not aligned with the two left ones; it’s slightly above where it should be.)
• The tabs also have icons on them which are not appropriate in OS X.

I’m actually quite sure that further improvements can be made and those are not the only things that can be done to improve JDownloader’s look and feel on OS X. Feel free to contact me (English or German) on the JDownloader forum via PM (username: ghostlyrics), to contribute to this thread or mail me.

Intended activity for today: writing gamescom preview for FFN.
Actual activity today: watching Anime with a friend.
So much fail.

But yes, Howl’s Moving Castle was fun. I’ll admit that much, but I’d rather not discuss what I saw as many, many errors in the movie’s internal logic.

…well. Not all hope is lost. I got around to do about 8 paragraphs (that equals 8 games) today, but I’m nowhere finished or even in viewing distance to finish.

So I’m still recovering from a little over a week without internet, catching up with Google Reader and doing some organizational stuff I’ve been postponing. (like the university related posts, but they’re coming. promise.)

Also I’ve just finished Secret Files: Tunguska today. A while ago I played its sequel on the NDS and absolutely loved the writing and its humor. So when I saw that both SF1 and SF2 were only about 5€ on Steam I just had to get them. Weighting a little over 8hrs for 5€ I can safely put my doubts aside and assume I’ve made a good purchase.

Just a very short update here: Ubisoft is going to upgrade its Facebook game that belongs to the Assassin’s Creed universe according to this post in their forum. On an unrelated note I’ve just finished reading the Trauma Center: New Blood LP.

Yes, another post about this game. I felt like I did not give this game enough credit by just pointing out its flaws. I acknowledge there being several things that I like. Though I can only describe a few points which I have seen during my limited time playing.

• From I usability point of view I almost love the encyclopidia they stuffed into the game. It is very nicely done. Its buttons are mapped in a very nice and understandable way and they have a system which is very similar to the concept of hyperlinks on the Internet to look up things that are mentioned in a particular piece of information that you are reading. Though this system might be overlooked - as I admit, I did before shinji showed me - it is cleverly done and helps players interested in history to keep up with persons and terms they are reading but are not familiar yet. This whole point is a bit overshadowed by the fact that I found it very misleading that in one part of the encyclopedia the button mapping certainly changes in a few aspects as if that part was either legacy or tucked on later. The mapping there is not logical and not consistent with the rest of this part of the game.

• A major point of complaint of mine concerning this game’s predecessor (Dynasty Warriors 6) was that you had a lot of characters to choose from but they all had fixed weapon classes which you did not know if you either just came along or didn’t pay attention to during the campaign. So DW7 changed that. You are still not able to recognise a character’s fighting style from the character menu, but all characters are able to wield all weapons (except for the whip as far as I remember - this one is gender-specific). Now you might argue that this robs the characters of their individual styles. It does not, since every character has a range of expertship with every weapon measured in stars. (worst: 0 stars, best: 3). So you might have a character that has a quick and agile style and prefers weapons that match that style. Or you might have your typical heavily armored club/greatsword guy. Yay for stereotypes. Nevermind that.

However there is one point I do not understand: How is it that the character I played has to learn his main fighting style by spending points on it to get the the highest level (mind you, to reach the highest skill level - not to learn all moves) while she has other weapon classes already maxed out? And moreover: why would I prefer another style as my main fighting style than the one I’m already as good as it gets at?

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Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) pt.2 is part 2 of Dynasty Warriors 7 (commentary):

1. Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3)
2. Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) pt.2

You see, this term I’m supposed to take a course on usability at university which I do. Thing is, ever since my first - and so far only - visit to the lectures and the group works I’ve started seing usability problems or general lack of good design everywhere. The last occurrence a game insulted me multiple time was Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) which I played over at shinji’s place. I’ll lay out some points which I found extremely annoying:

• DW7 is playable in local multiplayer with a split-screen option - which is good. However, the fact that after defeating an enemy general an enormous message window with some completely irrelevant, not context-specific death-dialogue of this general is displayed and makes it hard for both players (though worse for the 2nd player) to see what’s happening around them since it steals a lot of real-screen estate.
• The control mechanic for mounting your horse/elephant (I love the war-elefant)/ whatever is flawed. Your mount will wait for you where you leave it but if you come back, you have to pause slightly in order to not run into your mount an make it evade you, which means you’re not able to mount it. It requires you approaching carefully in order to not trigger the evasive action. I experienced that as a cancellation of the game’s overall very fluent approach in character control.
• There is the option to jump and double-jump, but you should better get accustomed to the fact you’ll only be using this for jumping down from something, since I’ve had multiple occurrences when my character was clearly able to jump much higher than that wooden barricade in front of her and the ground behind it was accessible (so you can’t blame me for wanting to jump out of the level) but there seems to be an invisible extension of about another meter in height pasted onto these blasted barricades. Must be evil magic or karma or something like that.
• Also you have a kind of passive stat for your whole player account that just messures how much DW7 you’ve been playing in order to brag about that on the Internet or grab a trophy. (Seriously, that is the whole point of the “fame” stat.)
• In Conquest Mode (I can’t quite remember but I think it was called that.) you are to choose a character which you’ll play and whose abilities you’ll master while playing through a huge amount of pre-set missions. There is a catch, however: While you are going to level up that character, the roster of people to choose from is immense and it is very painful if you suddenly want to use another character only to find out he/she is by far not skilled enough to withstand the challenges you find in higher levels. So back for some grinding if you want to choose another person.
• To add insult to injury (alas my last argument) while playing cooperative the second character will not be scaled/leveled (not even temporarily) to fit the current character of the first player which makes the whole idea totally unbalanced. You basically have the choice of either sticking with your one great character or sacrifice yourself since you already know how to play the game and offer your trained character to your friend who just came over.

Of course the last point is moot if you choose to train a variety of fighters (or even just two) but the point is: What good brings a gigantic roster if I have to level each person individually and can’t scale him if a friend wants to join me?

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Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) is part 1 of Dynasty Warriors 7 (commentary):

1. Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3)
2. Dynasty Warriors 7 (PS3) pt.2